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[herofix]

I think the first use of the 'cat breath' comment was Ralph Wiggum on The Simpsons.  It just seems to have struck a chord with people.  I think.

Can we get Cioran (sp?) to weigh in on this fake Hasidic rapper thing by the way?  I just don't know what to think until that guy breaks it down for me.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I think the first use of the 'cat breath' comment was Ralph Wiggum on The Simpsons.  It just seems to have struck a chord with people.  I think.

It's as fine a non sequitur as you'll ever find.
http://www.snpp.net/episodes/1F17.html

[AugustWest]

I love it when the drapery is pulled aside of a mystery.

No soap, radio!

[Ben-San]

Ain't about the guy being Jewish, Ben, that bugs me insofar as the hipster posturing thing.

Because only hipsters do that. Certainly you wouldn't find mainstream hip-hop artists claiming to be hard and street while making money hand over fist from people who buy their records because of that pose. Or country singers. Or folk singers. Or hair-metal bands.

Has nothing to do with what slightly different invisible bearded man your parents told you will have you tormented by monsters after you die if you touch your pee-pee and everything to do with how intellectually insulting the Fake Outsider - Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer schtick is.

This would be more convincing if you had managed to get through one post replying to a rant about cultural appropriation and dominant-vs-minority culture relationships without being a complete asshole about how self-righteous an atheist you can be and how self-evidently stupid anyone who isn't an atheist is just because the dominant and minority cultures involved have strongly associated religions. Or are you claiming you would be so self-righteously smarmy about how superior your own subculture is if the minority culture I was ranting from the viewpoint of was non-religious - racial or nonreligious ethnic?

(Subnote: There is no such thing as a nonreligious ethnic subculture, or was not until very, very recently. My grandparents were from Poland, but because they subscribed to a religion other than Roman Catholicism they were not considered a part of the Polish-American culture when they arrived in America.)

[wombat]

Because only hipsters do that. Certainly you wouldn't find mainstream hip-hop artists claiming to be hard and street while making money hand over fist from people who buy their records because of that pose. Or country singers. Or folk singers. Or hair-metal bands.

Exactly, I mean, how is this Hasidic rapper any different from say, Bob Dylan? Although, I guess that's a bad example because if he's even a little bit Hasidic he's more authentic than Bob Dylan spending his life wandering around pretending to be an old timey American folksinger.

[pmcd9]

Man, the douche nozzles are wide open and spraying all over this thread.

[herofix]

The Douche Nozzles are a totally fake band that only a hipster would like.  I can't believe you listen to them.  Stop trying so hard.

[wombat]

Sure, the Douche Nozzles pretend they are so authentic and real, when we know that they all grew up as drinking fountains and water pistols and were never any kind of nozzle or douche dispenser at all. But what does it matter as long as you like their music?

[herofix]

I'll admit that I liked their post twat-core phase, but their 'progression' towards hippy hardcore showed them up to be no better than a third-rate dead Welsh cat freestyle.  Err...err.......actually.

[littlefallsmets]

Well, I mean, at least I'm consistent there, wombat.

I don't think I've ever hidden the fact that I consider Bob Dylan basically the phoniest entertainer... you know, who some people actually take seriously, discounting hotel hieresses who record pop tracks and people from Disney Channel shows and such... of all the entertainers alive in my lifetime. And then probably Bruce Springsteen, the poor man's Bruce Springsteen, second, and Billy Joel, the metrosexual man's Bruce Springsteen third and John Cougar Mallowmar Charlestonchew Zagnut Dipthong Shapoopie Melloncamp, the massive head injury man's Bruce Springsteen fourth.

I'm probably a dick about a few things but God help me, I'm consistent.

[theinevitable]

Yeah, dude was a caveman who got unfrozen but... in the intervening fifteen years, he got a law degree, got married, had some kids and clearly mastered all the subtleties of the modern world... but whenever it suits him to win a case or to get his cappuchino returned because there wasn't enough foam, he'll start talking about how he doesn't UNDERSTAND our modern world and he doesn't UNDERSTAND how the little men put on shows in the television box and...

It's bullshit. He's playing off people's stereotypes and ignorance to maintain a convenient pose that allows him to not actually have to try.

Yeah, that's pretty horrible.
"I don't get any of that stuff you kids listen to, I'm just a guy from a small town who grew up listening to his dad's Pink Floyd albums. God help me, I try, but I just can't understand this modern stuff for the life of me. What do you call it? Shoegaze-core?"

(sorry.)

[miles]

Turns out Robert De Niro was never an early 20th century Mafia boss.

I'm really not interested in authenticity in art. Isn't it more about whether someone is skilled in his craft? I don't like Bob Dylan because his personality or whatever schtick he's donning strikes a chord with me, I like him because he's a talented songwriter and has made some great records. I also like some of the narratives he's produced. I really don't care whether they are based on personal experience or entirely made up. You call him phony, I ask so what?

I don't know anything about Hasidic rapper exhibit A, but I can say that I would enjoy him he if was talented. Whether he uses his background as a novelty, and whether it attracts people to like him ironically, is really of no consequence to me. And on the subject of rap, I think Eminem has become so successful because he's been able to successfully appropriate elements of mainstream rap, namely misogyny, violence, and violent sexuality. He's made race a nonissue. The Beastie Boys are most popular originally among frat boys and now probably among the same PBR-swizzling audience who liked the Jewish guy. They are certainly mainstream but my friends who listen to a lot of mainstream gangster rap don't tend to listen to the Beastie Boys. Eminem and the Beastie Boys also happen to be talented at what they do. Rap is a bit of a different animal. I imagine that no one would blink an eye at a talented Hasidic jazz musician, but I could be wrong.

[wombat]

Speaking as someone who has played Renaissance music on painstaking copies of original instruments, sung Balkan folk songs in the original languages, danced allegedly ancient dance traditions with bells on my legs and waving hankies... you know the thing about authenticity is that it's really boring, right? Or so I conclude from the very small number of people who did these things with me and the only slightly larger number of people who came to watch us do them.

There's a good reason that performers borrow stuff and make it into something different.
 
 

[littlefallsmets]

I hope that was for the intentional funny, but even unintentional, me laughs.

CAN'D for catching that.

By the by, I'd never call myself an atheist. A hopeful agnostic, maybe.

I have nothing against the individual personal quest toward a higher reality. I don't see much evidence for it but I'd love to find some.

However, organized religion, oh yes. A crutch that we've convinced ourselves we need when all along we could walk and run. The shackles on mankind since before we left the caves that limit a potential that would otherwise only be limited by our mayfly lifespans. Basic source of most of the pain and injustice in the world. Would that I would with a wave of my hand, I'd blast the concept to rags and atoms. Worst force in all of human history.

But the idea of a higher power, the individual unfettered search for it without it turning into some asshole's fuck*ng pyramid scheme, I have nothing against it at all.

Not much evidence toward it but I like the idea.

[AugustWest]

I gotta hand it to you LFM, you're consistent.