This Is... Reggae? A Long-Winded Analysis of UK Hip Hop

A while ago, one of my friends burned for me, among many other albums, a compilation of UK hip hop. Being a fan of both hip hop and music from the UK, needless to say I was excited to listen to it. When I did, I was… well, not disappointed, but very very surprised. The music wasn't at all what I expected. It didn't sound like hip hop to me. It sounded like… dancehall.

This little incident of mine is just one example of the ways in which hip hop and dancehall are connected not only to each other, but also to many other types of music, as was illustrated fabulously in Wayne Marshall's piece on reggaeton. It is also an example of how perceptions of music are formed by people who are outsiders to certain genres. Since I'm in no way a part of any hip hop scene, especially UK hip hop, this experience was eye-opening for me, since, despite how insignificant it may seem, it really challenged my perceptions of music and genre.

As Marshall illustrated, reggaeton came into being as a result of influences from hip hop, reggae, and dancehall, among many other musical forms. The example of reggaeton is just one illustration of how hip hop and dancehall are related to each other. The exact relationship between these two forms isn't a completely clear one, and theories about this relationship have been controversial at times. One of the most commonly posed theories is that New York hip hop was essentially an American variation of the Jamaican dancehall tradition, where DJs would spin versions of records that would be toasted over. The similarities in form between dancehall and New York hip hop are noticeable, and it is easy to see why this theory has been raised, especially since DJ Kool Herc, one of the pioneers of hip hop, was originally from Jamaica. However, Herc himself has denied the "hip hop comes from toasting" theory, saying "Jamaican toasting? Naw, naw. No connection there." Obviously, hip hop and dancehall have a complicated relationship with each other.

Before I go further, I'll link a couple songs from this compilation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXiM3whh15I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdTCtYuDpgc

As one MC descibes the music of the compilation: "This is a UK thing, it's hip hop and it's reggae and we do reggae - and those Americans don't know about that." While you might think it would be my gut reaction to get defensive about a statement like this, that MC is totally right. I'm American, and I didn't understand that UK thing when I listened to it. While I was aware of the connections between reggae, dancehall, and hip hop when I listened to this compilation, I was still baffled by the idea that songs so easily classifiable as dancehall or reggae, with their distinct rhythms, could also be considered hip hop. It was a direct acknowledgement of the connections between these forms, and it took me by surprise.

Part of the reason these songs didn't sound like what I expect hip hop to sound like is that they don't have rhythms I associate with hip hop. Marshall illustrated very well how certain rhythms are associated with certain genres, but that there is lots of hybridity between those genres, and some artists consider reggaeton, for example, to be a type of hip hop, even though it has its own rhythm. So even though these songs have rhythms associated with dancehall and reggae respectively, they are still lumped in with hip hop, since often times the only thing separating these genres are the rhythms. But that's not everything. Language also plays a very important role.

This raises a somewhat harsh, but important question: if all of these forms are interconnected, who am I to determine what category a piece of music falls into? How does my perspective as an American influence the way I hear music? And how does language play a role in this?

This, I think, is where the vocals come into play. I'm gonna throw out this theory I have for all of you to read. It's not one that I stand by 100%, since I'm still kind of working it out in my head, and some of it is just speculation, but I'd like to see what you think of it. It has to do with how my perspective as an American informs the way I hear music from other countries.

In regard to the way I, and Americans in general, hear music from Jamaica and the UK, vernacular language is one of the most important factors in how Americans interpret music. As I noted in my last post about white reggae bands (which caused some controversy when I posted it on my own blog), in the music of the Police there is a strong association between Jamaican patois and the sound of reggae that isn't actually there a lot of the time. I think in general, a lot of American people have a strong association in their minds between Jamaican patois and reggae/dancehall. In the minds of many, the lines that separate reggae and dancehall are very blurry, and while that's in some ways legitimate, since there's obviously lots of hybridity, it's also problematic in some ways, and, surprise surprise, there aren't any easy answers. I mean, on one hand it's problematic to use only use the word "reggae" in reference to roots reggae ("Be warned that a white person saying they like “reggae” really means “reggae from 1965-1983." Under no circumstances should you ever bring a white person to a dancehall reggae concert, it will frighten them." – Stuff White People Like), it's also problematic to use "reggae" as a blanket term for all Jamaican music. I've heard people describe everything from the Skatalites to Sean Paul as reggae, denying that they were listening to ska/dancehall and insisting that ska didn't exist until the 90s/Sean Paul's vocals are in patois, so it's totally reggae. That last point about Sean Paul is kind of what brings it all back to the UK hip hop compilation. In the ears of the listener, a lot of times what makes something "reggae" or "dancehall" is the vocals, since people associate Jamaican patois with music that they clearly identify as Jamaican. Sting did this in the Police. The person who insisted that Sean Paul plays reggae in the same way Bob Marley does wasn't familiar with the term dancehall, so rather than describing Sean Paul as hip hop or rap, he used the word reggae, since it referred to Jamaican music for him. Even though the song he was listening to didn't have a reggae rhythm, he heard Jamaican patois and classified the music as reggae. When I listened to the UK hip hop compilation, I knew about other kinds of Jamaican music, so when I heard the vocal presence of Jamaican immigrants, I immediately thought dancehall, since I knew it didn't have a reggae rhythm, but I still had the initial reaction of thinking of it in terms of Jamaican music, because of what I heard in the vocals. The fact that it was described as UK hip hop, but that I labeled it differently, shows not only that hip hop, dancehall, and reggae are related in many complicated ways, but also that listeners have strong preconceptions about what music "should" sound like, and that someone from America is likely to perceive music in a very different way than someone from the UK.

Samurai Spirit: Orientalist Images of Japan in Contemporary Film

In her piece "Black Bodies/Yellow Masks," Deborah Elizabeth Whaley identifies four different Orientalist images that are commonly found in popular culture:

"(1) the sexualized, yet virginal Japanese geisha; (2) the South Asian Indo-chic; (3) the Chinese kung fu warrior; and (4) the use of Asian languages as an iconographic fashion statement detached from specificity of meaning and etymological usage."

While these images are important to recognize in popular culture, I also think that Whaley's list comes dangerously close to equating Japan with femininity and China with masculinity. That's why I want to concentrate on #3 in this post, specifically because "the Chinese kung fu warrior" definitely has a Japanese counterpart: the Samurai.

Many people have noted the Orientalist aestheics in the music and imagery of the Wu-Tang Clan. When looking at Whaley's list, it's obvious that the primary image used by the Wu-Tang Clan is #3. This is one reason why I'm using the image of the samurai as a parallel to the "kung fu warrior." The RZA, a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, has composed the score for two movies that I must admit I'm fond of, but that I also must admit show very orientalist images of samurai: Afro Samurai and Ghost Dog. These movies are also good reference points for discussing the same relationships between African American culture and Asian culture that Whaley discussed in her piece.

For this post, I'm going to specifically focus on Ghost Dog, since I've seen it way more times. This movie features Forrest Whitaker (one of a few famous alums of my high school), as a hit man whose entire personal philosophy is based on Hagakure, an 18th century book by Yamamoto Tsunetomo that outlines the code of the samurai. The one thing I will say in the film's defense is that it's based on an actual book, and it would've been way easier for the writers to just make stuff up. Still, the fact that the movie derives almost all of its imagery from this book is problematic. While Whaley is very positive about the use of Asian imagery in African American art, and while the issue is undoubtedly a very complex one, images like these can still be used to produce an essentiallized image of Asia.

It's nothing new for images of samurai to be used in Orientalist ways. Much like the belly dancing discussed in Susaina Maira's piece entitled "Belly Dancing: Arab-Face, Orientalist Feminism, and U.S. Empire," representations of a "samurai code" can be a way to profess an interest in Japan while avoiding discussions of contemporary issues that Japanese people actually face. I spent last semester in Japan, and the only time I was ever involved in a discussion that had anything to do with samurai philosophy was in an art history course, and even then it was only as a small part of one class. But there are still American songs, films, and people that base all their knowledge of Japan on romanticized ideas of the samurai.

I'm reminded of a scene in a movie I just watched called "Kamome Shokudo," which is about three Japanese women who work in a Japanese restaurant in Finland. In the movie, there is a young male Finnish character named Tommi who starts coming to the restaurant because, like many young white males including myself, he has an interest in Japanese culture. In almost every scene that this character is in, he is wearing a shirt that has some representation of Japanese culture, most of which are from contemporary Japanese popular culture (this description might sound eerily familiar for people who know me). Most of the time, the women who work in the restaurant either make some friendly comment about his shirt or don't make a comment about it at all. The only scene in which any of the women have a noticeably different reaction to one of his shirts is when he is wearing one that has the kanji for "samurai spirit" on it. In the beginning of the movie, he wears a shirt with a Japanese cartoon character, and one of the women in the restaurant is able to relate to it. But the woman who comments on the "samurai spirit" shirt is portrayed as being unable to relate to it. I think these scenes are pretty good representations for a number of reasons. Tommi's character is not really portrayed as being Orientalist, and his shirts display a wide range of Japanese cultural artifacts. But the only shirt he wears that is portrayed as being Orientalist is the one that conveys a dated, romanticized notion that doesn't have as much relevance in contemporary Japanese society. This also ties in to #4 on Whaley's list: " the use of Asian languages as an iconographic fashion statement detached from specificity of meaning and etymological usage."

One more thing that I'll comment on is the fact that Chinese and Japanese cultures can be (sometimes inadvertently) portrayed as interchangeable in popular culture. I'm not going to get into this in too much detail, but I do find it interesting that the RZA, a producer who derives much of his aesthetics from Chinese popular culture, did the score for two movies that derive much of their imagery from Japanese culture. This is just one reason why I think that the image of the samurai can be viewed as a counterpart to "the Chinese kung fu warrior."

Lego Blur, Lego Bowie, and Legofication

It's time for me to reference Coilhouse again. Specifically, a blog post they did a while back in which they coined a term I fell in love with: "Legofication." According to Coilhouse, legofication refers to the way in which pop songs have started being stacked up against each other in mash-ups, just like legos. It refers to the fact that right now it is common for pop songs to not be viewed as complete wholes, but as pieces that can be put together to make something cooler. I love this idea so much that I'd like to apply it to not just pop music, but pop culture in general.


Originally, I was planning to write a lengthy post about the postmodern aspects of music games like Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and Rock Band, but then I realized that I didn't have enough time/will-power/intellect to do that, and that it would be way too boring/pretentious. So instead I'm doing a much simpler version of that original idea by specifically focusing on one of the newest music games, Lego Rock Band. I think it's entirely appropriate that a game so heavily constructed around legofication uses legos themselves as part of these pop culture building blocks.

In the Coilhouse piece about legofication, they mention how songs are basically starting to be used as building blocks for mash-ups. I'd like to extend this idea, arguing that in the case of Lego Rock Band pop culture icons are being used as building blocks. While Legos themselves are literally building blocks, the entire lego franchise can definitely be viewed as a pop culture icon as well. This pop culture icon is one building block in the construction of Lego Rock Band; so are the images of Blur, David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Queen. (I have to say I'm impressed with the Lego rendering of Bowie, since they actually gave him two different eye colors.) Bands and singers that are obviously viewed as entire wholes are again being used as building blocks in a larger pop-culture artifact, in a slightly different way from how Coilhouse discusses this idea. These pop-culture entities are rendered using the style of another pop culture entity, and then put inside a third pop culture entity, namely the Rock Band series. It's one thing to make Lego renderings of famous musicians. It's another thing to put images of famous musicians in a video game. And it's another thing to put Legos inside a video game. These have all been done before. But Lego Rock Band is simply taking Legofication to entirely new levels (although this does remind me of the Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones series).

One question I've been wondering is whether or not anyone actually expects Lego Rock Band to be good. While people might be excited about their favorite musicians appearing together in a video game, too much legofication might not be a good thing. I'm reminded of The Good, The Bad, and The Queen, a supergroup featuring Damon Albarn of Blur, Paul Simonon of the Clash, the guitarist from The Verve (I don't remember his name), and Tony Allen, Fela Kuti's drummer. To top off this list of talent, their album was produced by Dangermouse. And it was really disappointing. Sure the album is fairly good, but considering all the names that went into it, it could've been way better. Now, I don't have high hopes for Lego Rock Band, and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way as me. The only point that I'm trying to make is that in a lot of cases, Legofication could possibly lead to huge disappointment.

Another question that people have raised about Lego Rock Band is whether or not you'll be able to have Blur play songs by Queen, or whether David Bowie will be able to sing Iggy Pop songs. People have raised this question because there was a lot of controversy over the appearances of Johnny Cash and Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5. In that game, both musicians were able to play songs by other artists, and lots of people had intense reactions to that, since they felt it was disrespectful to the musicians. Now, personally, I think having Kurt Cobain play songs by other artists sounds awesome. But I'm not here to argue about whether or not the inclusion of that feature was a good thing. The point that I do want to make, that comes from the post I was originally planning on writing, is that this feature is one of the most postmodern aspects of these games. One defining element of postmodernism as a movement is pastiche, which throws different cultural artifacts together and either strips them of their meaning or gives them new meaning. (If you think about it, legofication is really just another way of describing pastiche.) Having Johnny Cash playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is without a doubt a form of pastiche that dramatically changes the meanings of the cultural artifacts involved. Which is why people got so upset over this.

We can see postmodernism, pastiche, and legofication in DJ Hero as well, a music game that revolves around mash-ups. Again, in this example we essentially have two pastiches put together: the game involves musicians being represented in a video game, and these musicians play songs made up of other songs. In this case, pop songs that have already been legofied are put into another pop culture artifact for further legofication.

Now, I'm not arguing whether or not these games are good. I personally enjoyed Guitar Hero II, and I've also enjoyed playing Rock Band at parties, but I was really disappointed by Guitar Hero III, and I haven't had much interest in these types of games otherwise, although I've read a lot about them on video game and music blogs. But from my experience with these types of games, they are perfect examples of the legofication of popular culture.

Asian Appropriation Alert: The Weapon

Found out from Angry Asian Man that up-and-coming Shia LeBouf-esque Disney channel star David Henrie will be playing an Asian guy in a movie of comic book The Weapon. To quote Angry Asian Man:

"I am not familiar with The Weapon, but from what I've read about it, Tommy Zhou is indeed an Asian character. David Henrie, who I had never even heard of before reading this news item, is not an Asian person. Hooray for Hollywood, you've done it again. That's racist!"

I also have to add that this is another case of something like Keanu Reeves in Cowboy Bebop or that guy from Across the Universe in 21. Even if we're not talking about representation, how could someone who's been compared to Shia LeBouf (is that how you spell his name? I really don't care) truly be the best actor for this part, regardless of race? Especially when the character is written to be a specific race?

Anyway, I'm still amazed by how often this is happening. And it seems like this movie is gonna suck anyway.

Belated Album Review: Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band (Also, why I don't like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)

No, this isn't a really really belated review of a Beatles album that I spelled the name of wrong. The album I'm reviewing was released a few months ago this year. It was produced by the Easy Star All Stars, who are known for other reggae cover albums, such as Dub Side of the Moon and Radiodread. I haven't listened to Dub Side of the Moon (a reggae version of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon) very much, but I own Radiodread (a reggae version of Radiohead's OK Computer), and to be honest I don't like it very much. The Toots & The Maytals cover of "Let Down" is absolutely incredible, better than the original in my opinion, but the rest of the album kind of falls flat, especially by comparison. To be fair, this is partly a matter of personal taste for me; I love old-school reggae that doesn't have lots of production, and most of the album, notably excluding "Let Down," is really production heavy. But I also think that there are other issues as well; for one thing, Radiohead's music doesn't always work as reggae. It was a noble effort for the All Stars to tackle the 3/4 time "Subterrainian Homesick Alien" using a genre that is almost always in 4/4 time, but the end result shows why reggae is almost always 4/4. It's kind of boring (well, so is the original song), and it just kind of sounds like, well, a reggae band trying to play a Radiohead song, rather than a reggae band making a Radiohead song completely their own. 

Anyway, tribute albums usually suck, so while I didn't particularly like Radiodread, I wasn't disappointed by it, since I didn't expect to like it in the first place. For that reason, I was pleasantly surprised by Lonely Hearts Dub Band. 

Now, just for a little background information, I don't like the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles. I think it's one of the most overrated albums of all time, mainly because it's all over the fucking place musically. It's a concept album with no concept. The band starts out by introducing themselves as an imaginary band, which is a pretty cool idea, but then they just drop acid around track 3 and forget about the concept entirely. By the middle of the album they start introducing a magical kite and bastardizing Indian music and we have absolutely no idea what the fuck is going on. I've heard tons of hippie assholes tell me that the album's so cohesive, which is bullshit. We have a sitar song next to an old-timey woodwind ensemble one. How the fuck is that cohesive? I've also seriously heard people say "man, Sgt. Pepper is so great! It's got all the classics on it, like Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane." (Those songs are from Magical Mystery Tour, which is my favorite Beatles album, because it's cohesive and has all the classics on it.) And don't even give me that bullshit about how it's better when you're stoned, because all music is better when you're stoned. Why do you think dub music has an audience? Using that argument is like saying "Don't say McDonald's tastes bad, it's better when you're hungry." Of course Sgt. Pepper sounds incredible stoned, but an album that's actually good will sound even better! Sgt. Pepper is also proof that people don't necessarily make better music when they're on drugs. Frank Zappa did way cooler shit in the 60s, and he never smoked weed in his life. If Frank Zappa had done drugs, he probably wouldn't have recorded Uncle Meat and would have wrote something shitty like "Good Morning Good Morning" instead.

Anyway, I don't like the Sgt. Pepper album. If you want to read more about why it sucks, read this fantastic piece by Jim DeRogatis. Also, just to clarify, some bands, particularly They Might Be Giants, have made exquisite albums that have absolutely no musical consistency. They're a band who knows how to pull that off. The Beatles never were. That's why no one ever listens to the white album all the way through, and if you say that you don't skip "Revolution 9" you're a pretentious asshole.

Anyway, the fact that I don't like Sgt. Pepper probably made me like the reggae version of it way more, even though I love OK Computer and didn't really like its reggae version, which is strange, but also kind of makes sense. Since I love OK Computer, I didn't really want anyone messing with its songs (except of course for Toots & The Maytals. They can mess with any song they want as far as I'm concerned. Everything they touch turns to gold). On the flipside, I don't like Sgt. Pepper, so I like the fact that someone is actually making it's songs good. Now to be fair, the original album does have a lot of good songs on it... oh, wait, I checked the track listing, and it actually only has one really good song on it: "A Day In The Life," which, despite how I feel about the album, is my favorite Beatles song ("Eleanor Rigby" and "Happiness is a Warm Gun" round out my top 3. I guess I like all the morbid, depressing Beatles songs). But still, not all of the songs on the album are bad. Sure, "Within You Without You" goes on for way too long and is just George trying to recreate "Norwegian Wood" and "Love You To," the Beatles were on way too much acid when they wrote "For The Benefit of Mr. Kite," and "Good Morning Good Morning" just sounds like a cartoon exploding, but all of the other songs on the album are solid and just suffer from this lack of consistency. But the great thing is that Lonely Hearts Dub Band solves this easily. It's impossible for a reggae album to suffer from a lack of consistency. The only thing a reggae album can suffer from is too much consistency.

LHDB really shines because it makes the entire album consistent and really allows the actual songs to shine, rather than get covered up by bizarre, self-indulgent production. The other thing that's great about it is that it has fucking amazing guest artists on it. The track listing reads like a list of reggae all stars. We have The Mighty Diamonds, Max Romeo, Ranking Roger, Steel Pulse, U-Roy... shit, everyone on this album is fucking incredible. So now it's time for the song by song review process! (BTW, you can listen to the whole album on youtube, so I'll be providing links to each song.)

The first song essentially serves the same purpose as it does on the original album: just an introduction. It's not particularly exciting, but then again, this song never was the high point of the original album either (that might be another reason why the original suffers: it has a weak opener). The next track, Luciano covering "With A Little Help From My Friends," is a million times better than anything Ringo has ever done, including drumming for the Beatles (ok, I admit that was a little too harsh). The original version of this song just kind of lumbers along and has no passion in it, but Luciano's version manages to be both upbeat and mellow, and has terrific vocals.

Next we have "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," which I will henceforth be abbreviating as "LSD." I've thought for a while that LSD would make a great reggae cover; I always imagined it starting out with just a sick descending bassline and some phenomenal reggae singer doing the first verse over it, and then you'd hear a pickup of high-pitched snare drums before the chorus, which would be upbeat and full of sound. This version pretty much starts exactly how I imagined it, but I think the drums come in way to early. Still, it's pretty cool. Frankie Paul is great, especially when he changes the lyrics a little to include a reference to the Ethiopian flag (cellophane flowers of red gold and green...). Still, I think the song should speed up a little more at the chorus. But that minor complaint doesn't keep this from being an awesome cover.

"Getting Better" by the Mighty Diamonds is truly phenomenal - old school reggae style performed by old-school reggae greats. It incorporates the jagged guitar line and tight harmonies from the original Beatles song perfectly. "Fixing a Hole" is the "Let Down" of this album. Originally an average song, it's saved by an insanely talented singer, in this case Max Romeo. It's also odd how some of the lyrics to this song resemble the lyrics of Max Romeo's own songs. Basically, this is another nearly perfect one.

Next, we have "She's Leaving Home," the one which I was most nervous about. How are they gonna take a harp song in 3/4 time and make it reggae? Kristy Rock's answer? Go the completely opposite direction: make it upbeat in 4/4 time with prominent horns. No depressing song has ever made me want to dance this much. This is one of the highlights of the album, just because of how daring the arrangers were. In fact, the original was one of the most daring ones on the album, so in a way the reggae cover is appropriate.

I was also worried about "For The Benefit of Mr. Kite," but this one has Ranking Roger on it, and he can do no wrong. Mostly your typical reggae fare, but it's Ranking Roger, and the parts where he toasts are awesome. Plus the fact that they were able to make this bizarre, strange song typical is impressive.

Next... what the fuck... it's Matisyahu. Doing "Within You Without You." I never thought I could hate anything so much. It's about as bad as I expected it to be, and it's appropriate that they gave the most pretentious song to the most pretentious singer. But this kind of interrupts all the good vibes that the album had before. I don't like the strings, I don't like the sitar, I don't like the song, I don't like the fact that it's 5 minutes long, I don't like Matisyahu. This one's skippable. In fact, this one is inconsistent with the rest of the album, which is what I hated about the original.

The other thing which makes this song suffer as a reggae song is that, as Jim DeRogatis points out, the original version has no rhythm. One of the defining features of reggae is its rhythm. To take a song with no rhythm and turn it into reggae is really challenging, and I wouldn't expect anyone to pull that off. Especially Matisyahu.

Ah, the next one makes me feel better! "When I'm 64" is such a cheery song, perfect for reggae. Somehow, the original was too cheesy, but this cover just makes me happy! It's got a sick beat, a sick bassline, a sick melody, and that trombone just takes me back to my high school skanking days. I didn't even expect this one to work so well as reggae, but I think this is a case of the cover being better than the original. My only complaint is that Sugar Minott had a great opportunity with the line "doing the garden, digging the weeds," and he didn't do anything with it. Still, I really wish I had had the idea to turn this song into reggae when I was in a ska band.

"Lovely Rita" is another song that was made to be turned into reggae. It's upbeat, it's happy, it's in 4/4 time. But I think Bunny Rugs could have done a better job with this one. It should be a little faster, the drums should be a little bit more high pitched, the vocals should be a little less airy... but the fact that he invites Rita to get high with him is pretty awesome, and so is the trombone solo, although I wish that part were longer. The song picks up when he starts toasting. 

Next we have "Good Morning Good Morning," which I would say is the worst song on the original album (although there are some other really bad ones). If anyone could save it, it's Steel Pulse, a fucking incredible reggae band. And they do save it. Steel Pulse are another band that are just always solid. Seriously, just listen to that song, or watch any video of them live. If you're looking to get into any reggae other than Bob Marley's Legend album, Handsworth Revolution by Steel Pulse is a really good place to start (I'd also recommend the Trojan box set Originals and the soundtrack to The Harder They Come). Anyway, this song rocks. Steel Pulse rocks. 

The next one's a reprise of the first track? Who cares?

Actually, it's pretty sick. Give it a listen.

Finally, we have "A Day In The Life." As I said before, this one is my favorite Beatles song. You might think that because of this I wouldn't want it to be covered, but in fact this is another one that I've always thought would work great as reggae. To be honest, this version doesn't work as well as I expected. But this one's really just a matter of personal taste. As I said before, I'm more of a fan of older reggae, and this one's a bit more dubby. I always imagined the reggae version of this song (which I always imagined being called "A Dub In The Life") consisting of a main part that sounds more like the bridge of this version, and more of a ska rhythm on the bridge. But this one's still good. I just didn't like it as much partly because of personal taste, and partly because I love the original (which I guess also falls under the category of personal taste). Still good though.

Anyway, LHDB is a solid, solid album with lots of high points and only a few low points which really aren't very low. This is in contrast to the original, which is so all over the place that all of the points on the album are too far away for us to see their location. No offense to all the hippies out there, but I like this one better than the original. And I don't think that's really an insult to the Beatles. I think it's a complement to their songwriting abilities that their songs can so easily be played in other genres. As I kind of implied before, Sgt. Pepper is really an album that got bogged down by self-indulgent production. Most of its songs are good; it's just that on the original album we're not really allowed to actually listen to the songs. All we can listen to is the bizarre, random shit that was put on top of them. LHDB allows us to listen to what was going on underneath the sitars, woodwinds, echoes, and animal noises. It makes the album consistent, which compensates for its biggest weakness.

And in case anyone replies by saying that I can't understand the impact the album had when it came out (which you really aren't allowed to say unless you were there at the time), I've already prepared my response: Sgt. Pepper doesn't sound good now. It sounds like a relic of a time when people thought that bombarding our senses with absolutely no subtlety was a good idea. A classic album should be timeless. Sgt. Pepper isn't. It just sounds like it was made by a bunch of hippies with too much money.

(BTW thank you for reading the whole thing if you made it this far. I'm aware that this post was way too long).

Moments of Unoriginality: AV Q&A

I don't know how many of you read the Onion AV club, or how many of you read it as religiously as I do. For those who don't, this is what could be considered the "legitimate" end of the Onion's news empire. It's kind of like what we do here: a lot of pop-culture commentary, reviews, and general snark/sass/sarcasm. It's pretty damn good stuff, well worth following if you don't already. And now here's my angle beyond the plug: they have a number of features beyond reviews, like long-lasting series delving into a particular genre and inventories of, say, spectacular awkward moments in film. But there's one feature in particular that delights me, and that's the Q&A, when the staff answers a question about their own personal pop-cultural tastes. I've found that I end up answering the question myself as I read the responses, so I developed a (highly derivative) idea to test out, namely that I'll try and post my own answers to whatever question they have for the week. Or is that too unoriginal? Does anyone really care what I think about some random cultural question of the day? Does it matter? So, pending any change of heart, I present the first installment of what could become a series of shameless knock-offs of other established websites. And so it figures that the question for our first installment would be kind of a dud. A reader wonders, what hitherto unformed artistic collaborations would you (not I) like to see/hear? And now I waffle. My problem is that from a film standpoint, there aren't many special things I'd like to see that combine other things I like. Sure, I'd like to see Danny Boyle tackle something new, or to see Sean Connery act one last time in something a little more legit than "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," but I don't really think in terms of "I'd like to see Director X take on Screenplay Y with Actor Z." I don't believe in remakes generally, and like to keep my fiction and my movies mentally separated (case in point, the Harry Potter universes from the books and the movie), which means that I don't read something and immediately wish it was a movie. I guess the closest thing I have to a Dream Collaboration in mind for a movie would be to have, in the next Batman movie installment, Christopher Walken play the Penguin. I think that would be fucking incredible, and hopefully make the next film as good as the last one. Oh, and I've always thought that Asian Dub Foundation should score some kind of action-thriller type thing. Just an idle wish. And again, musically I don't have that much to say off the top of my head about collaborations. A lot of the music I like is by dead guys or not especially suited for covers/collaborations, like jazz and funk. I also don't know enough about hip-hop to really speak authoritatively about collaborations there, but I will say that if DJ Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist did anything (really) with Devin the Dude I would be eternally appreciative (or for a J5 reunion actually; I just tried to draft an all-star rap group and it turned into a compendium of rappers I like guesting on "Quality Control"). Actually, I have a few ideas now: Little Jackie could do a cover of "Son of a Preacher Man." Hopefully it would be awesome; I've got high hopes for those kids and want to see them do something new. But does it really count to just cover something else that's soulful? This experiment is going nowhere, so I'll comment later if I have anything remotely constructive to say. In the mean time, I encourage y'all to join in the larger discussion, and hopefully we can pull some good out of what hopefully doesn't turn into a failed exercise.

The Past and Future of LOLcats

For some reason, LOLcats have been in the news lately. Well, at least they've been in the news that I read. Maybe that can tell you something about how informed I am.

First of all, the world's first LOLcat was recently discovered.

I found out about it from Language Log (although I don't know what it was doing there). This picture is from 1905 and predates our current versions of LOLcats by about 100 years.

Also, an off broadway musical is being made about LOLcats. What that could possibly involve I don't know. All I can say is

Golden Years

You've heard it said a million times before: The Simpsons isn't funny anymore. You've heard people say why the new episodes suck: there's no character development, the plots are ridiculous, the jokes are too broad, whatever. I'm the first one to acknowledge that the new episodes suck. In fact, I can't completely say that, since I stopped watching the show years ago, when it was already so past its prime that I couldn't take it anymore. But that's not why I'm here. I'm not gonna talk about why the new episodes suck. Instead, I'm gonna talk about what made the old episodes so incredible.

First off, let's make one thing absolutely clear: The Simpsons wasn't funny at first. The animation was too rough, the characters hadn't really become themselves yet, and most of the jokes revolved around Bart, who just spat out catch phrases. Lots of people like to pinpoint where they thought the show got good. Some people say the end of the first season, others say it was the middle of the third season, but I say it was the middle of the second season; specifically, the episode "Bart the Daredevil." Basically, I recently started watching the series from the end of season 1, and "Bart the Daredevil" was the first episode that I genuinely found funny. It also happens to be Matt Groening's favorite episode. And many critics have noticed that this episode highlights why the series was so good at this point. Critic Jerry Kleinman has noted that this episode shows how The Simpsons stood apart from other cartoons and sitcoms: instead of just having a wacky plot, it also had real character development. This episode showed strong relationships between Bart, Homer, and Lisa that made the episode have real meaning. But the great thing about it was that it wasn't cheesy. To balance it out, we had truly funny jokes, such as the famous one where Homer falls down the gorge. One of my favorite exchanges between Simpsons characters occurs in this episode. Bart tells Otto his plan to jump Springfield Gorge, and Otto says, "As the only adult around, I feel I should say something: cool!"

The strong character development shown in this episode was what made the golden age of the Simpsons so golden. The first season wasn't very good because the characters still had a long way to go in terms of development, and the later seasons have been terrible because there hasn't been any character development. If you think about it, the Simpsons characters are really complex, and their relationships are much darker than they seem. Homer is an abusive alcoholic who tries desperately to be a good person; Marge is a stifled housewife who had to marry someone way below her standards because of a pregnancy; Bart is a victim of horrible child abuse who acts out as a way to get attention; Lisa is a gifted child who's gifts are ignored by everyone except a few people, such as Mr. Bergstrom and Bleeding Gums Murphy, both of whom essentially abandon her. Heavy shit.

Yet, the great thing about the golden era Simpsons was that it never got weighed down by all this character development. It was also really, really funny. That's also why, to me, "Bart the Daredevil" marked the start of the golden age. It had lots of character development, but it was also hilarious. Some of the episodes before it in the second season, such as "Bart Gets An F," were nothing but character development, and they suffered because of it. This episode simply wasn't funny, and its character development simply wasn't enough to carry the entire episode. It ended up being cheesy. Still, this episode still shows that the Simpsons was, at one time, more than just a collection of ridiculous jokes. Bart, who was probably initially the most joke-centric character, still had a real, human side to him.

By the sixth season, it was easy to see the direction the series was taking. At this point, there was a bit less character development. The plots had less to do with interactions among the family, and were more filled with jokes. The first sign of this trend actually occurred at the beginning of the fifth season, with the episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet." This was really the first episode in the entire series where the story made absolutely no sense within the context of the show. The plot revolved around a series of flashbacks showing Homer's former fame as the leader of a barbershop quartet, which eventually led to him winning a Grammy. It was the first time that a complete change to the backstory of a character was made and absolutely no explanation was given, which is a trademark of the later Simpsons episodes. Still, the episode was funny, and it was a complete anomaly at the time. No other episode anywhere near this one made as little sense. This episode was an indication of where the show would eventually go, but it was no sign of a decline in quality, at least not for a while. 

In fact, by the sixth season the show had improved in many ways. One of my absolute favorite episodes, "Bart's Girlfriend," is from this season, and it features everything that made the show so good: strong character development and insanely funny, rapid fire jokes. So actually just two things that made the show so good. Although this episode did have a spectacular guest appearance as well. Basically, by this point the show was starting to get a little bit more ridiculous, and while it had already jumped the shark with "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," it wasn't consistently jumping the shark yet. The sometimes insane humor of this episode (Groundskeeper Willy flashing everybody, Bart getting covered in glue) never went too overboard, and it was balanced out by strong character development in Bart, and even in the one-time character Jessica. This episode also strengthened the bond between Bart and Lisa, which helped to make both characters more 3-dimensional. Another great episode from this time was "Round Springfield," an episode so sad that even the most jaded viewer can be brought to tears.

Although, by the sixth season there were signs that the show was going to decline. One symptom of the show being nothing more than a ridiculous series of over the top jokes were all the episodes where the Simpsons went to a different country. Every one that I can think of is nothing more than a collection of gimmicky stereotype jokes that aren't very funny, and the first episode like this, "Bart vs. Australia," occurred in the sixth season. This episode isn't as bad as some of the later ones, like where they go to Brazil or England, but it is probably one of the worst ones of the sixth season. It contains some good moments, but forgoes real story and intelligent humor for silly gimmicks. I wouldn't say the episode crosses the line into being offensive, but I would say that it was the start of a bad trend.

The show had some ups and downs in the sixth season, but it really picked up in the seventh. Some of the most daring, critically acclaimed episodes, such as "Bart Sells His Soul" and "Lisa the Vegetarian," were part of this season. This season also marked a turning point for the show, particularly evidenced by two episodes: "22 Short Films About Springfield" and "Homerpalooza." When the writers did "22 Short Films," they had an idea of taking its concept and making an entirely new show out of it; they wanted to make a separate show about minor characters in Springfield. If they had simply carried this idea into the regular series instead, it could have saved the show. Some of the best episodes from later on, such as "In Marge We Trust," and even ones from earlier, such as "The Otto Show," were ones that focused on minor characters. Instead, many of the later episodes focused on the Simpson family and either avoided character development altogether, or developed the characters in ridiculous ways that didn't fit their personalities. The minor characters are the ones that carry the show, and it could have helped to focus on them more.

Instead, the path of "Homerpalooza" was largely taken: gimmicky episodes with ridiculous premises and lots of guest stars. Critic John Bonne wrote ages ago that "Homerpalooza" was an "indignity" and said that it simply pandered to guest stars. I really wouldn't go that far; as with "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," "Homerpalooza" was an indication of things to come, but it hadn't gotten that bad yet. It was really funny and actually intelligent, a great satire of rock music in general. His point about episodes becoming more like this was correct though; later episodes avoided using any real characters at all and simply used lots of guest stars.

However, one issue that I disagree with most people on is the idea that the Simpsons got bad because the plots became ridiculous. Let's get one thing straight: the plots of The Simpsons were always ridiculous. Let's turn for a second to another season seven episode: "Bart on the Road." The plot of this episode is completely ridiculous: Bart gets a fake ID, rents a car, and goes on a road trip, getting stranded in Tennessee, eventually getting back to Springfield via Hong Kong. But critic Dave Foster pinpoints exactly what set this episode apart from similar later ones. He writes, that if this episode were written now, "we'd simply see Bart happen upon a license and skip town without anyone noticing, but here they do give the setup a great deal of consideration both on and off screen." It's not that the plots became more ridiculous; it's that the way they were told became more ridiculous. "Bart on the Road" was at least somewhat believable; it was ridiculous, but at least everything was explained.

Let's move on to the 8th season. This one is in fact my favorite, largely because this was when I started watching the Simpsons. It contains some of the best episodes in the series, such as the incredibly powerful "A Milhouse Divided," where Milhouse's parents get divorced, and possibly the darkest and most realistic episode of the show, "Homer's Enemy." Bonne called this episode "painful to watch," largely because he thinks Homer is a complete jerk in the episode. On the contrary, I think that the episode is wonderfully written, and that Homer tries to be a nice guy the whole time, particularly when he invites Frank Grimes over to his house for dinner. The great thing about the 8th season as well was that it really pushed the limits of animation. In "You Only Move Twice" and "The Simpsons Spinoff Showcase" the animators created entirely new set pieces that work perfectly. And then of course there's the episode where Homer eats the insanity peppers. This is, in my opinion, the best episode of the entire series. The animation is beautiful, the jokes are hilarious, the character development is strong, and the guest voice is perfect and not overused. I've watched this episode probably over 20 times, and it's always a pleasure to watch. Simply perfect.

Then there's the 9th season, which many see as the beginning of the show's rapid decline in quality, particularly with the episode "The Principal and the Pauper." Again, I see this episode as an indication of things to come, but not an indication that the show was getting bad. Despite all the gaping plotholes in this episode, it's still funny, and after it we had so many terrific episodes: the one where Homer becomes sanitation commissioner, the one where Homer goes to "The Island," and the absolutely outstanding one where Homer joins the navy. Maybe "The Principal and the Pauper" wasn't a very good episode, but it wasn't the start of the show's decline.

In my opinion, that episode was the absolutely painful "The Parent Rap," which featured the unfunny, unimaginative character Judge Constance Harm. You can tell from her name that the writers were running out of ideas by this point. There were so many things bad about this episode. For one, the writers forced the character development of Bart and Homer. By this time, there had already been tons of "Bart and Homer bonding" episodes. There didn't need to be any more. By this point, the writers really should have been focusing on already existing minor characters, rather than developing old ones and creating entirely new ones. After this episode there were a few good ones, such as the one where Homer becomes a pothead, or where he goes to rock and roll camp, but even these weren't as good as the old ones, and they were anomalies by this time.

The Simpsons used to be so good because it carried a nice balance of humor and character development. Recently it's just been too much humor, and not even good humor. I know I'm not the first one to say that the show's been declining in quality, but it's seriously time to end this show. They had a chance to quit while they were ahead, or to change the direction of the show, and now they're too late. Basically just watch every episode from "Bart the Daredevil" until whichever one comes before "The Parent Rap" and you'll see the best of what was once a brilliant show.

Asian Appropriation Alert: King of Fighters

I heard about this one from Angry Asian Man. Basically there's nothing I can say about it that he didn't say, or that I haven't already said before. This movie looks bad because it's problematic, implausible, and based on a video game. Just another case of casting being unfair. If we were to argue, as it has been done before, that an actor's race shouldn't factor into casting (which is completely true in many, many cases), we really shouldn't be seeing so many movies with casting like this.

What the fuck? Astro-Rap

So who else has heard about this already? Who else had heard that former astronaut Buzz Aldrin (btw, calling someone a "former astronaut" makes them sound way less cool) is trying to start a rap career? And that Snoop Dogg, Talib Kweli, and Soulja Boy are helping him? Because it's pretty much the funniest thing ever. And no, I'm not making this up at all. It's completely true.

First of all, that beat sounds like it's from the early 90s, at the latest. Then it just gets way funnier when Buzz actually starts rapping. I mean talking. Because that's all he's doing is talking. This just sounds like my grandpa talking. Because that's all it really is. Just someone's grandpa talking. The way he bobs back and forth is so hilarious too. I kind of feel bad making fun of him, but I had no idea it was possible for an astronaut to be so incredibly uncool. Then you have all these women (and apparently one dude) singing "To go flying into outer spa-ace!" We're not even half a minute into the video and I'm already on the floor with laughter. 

The video with Snoop and Talib Kweli on the site I linked to is great too. It's just so funny how in on the joke Snoop and Talib are. Then there are all the wonderful quotes.

"I have only two passions: space exploration and hip hop." - Buzz Aldrin (Although I feel like this could also be a quote from George Clinton)

"People think of hip hop and they think of beefs. We have east coast west coast beef, down south up top beefs, but, it doesn't compare to the beef between earth walkers and moon walkers, which I think is a way more dangerous beef." - Talib Kweli (Although I feel like this could also be a quote from Michael Jackson)

"Buzz Aldrin is so gangsta." - Talib Kweli

And seriously, the main hooky line sounds so much better when Snoop Dogg says it. Also, Buzz said that his intention in doing this rap was to get kids interested in space. Are there any kids anywhere who aren't interested in space? Every kid wants to be an astronaut when they grow up. This will probably turn them against it. "Astronauts can't rap and aren't cool. I don't want to be an astronaut when I grow up."

In all honesty though, it does appear that Buzz is in on the joke. At least, I really, really hope he is.

Pokemon and Japan

Pokemon comes from Japan. You know that already, especially if you're around my age. Shit, if you're around my age then Pokemon was probably the first thing you had ever heard of from Japan. Pokemon has become synonymous with Japanese popular culture, and many people are aware that something as unique as the Pokemon series could only have come out of Japan. But many people don't realize how deeply the Pokemon series reflects Japanese culture. After playing Pokemon for about 10 years and living in Japan for about 4 months, I've seen lots of similarities between the world of Pokemon and the country of Japan that would never have occurred to me otherwise. And that's what I'm gonna be talking about.

First of all, there's a really really obvious way in which Pokemon directly reflects Japan: each region of Pokemon is based on a region of Japan. Kanto, from Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow, is not surprisingly based on the Kanto region of Japan, which is where Tokyo is. It's amazing how correctly the developers of Pokemon got the geography of the virtual Kanto to match the geography of the real Kanto. For example, try and guess which city in Pokemon is based on Tokyo. Come on, keep guessing. Are you ready? Well, if you said Saffron City then you're correct. There are really obvious ways in which the cities resemble each other: they're big, they're modern, they're hubs for travelers. But any game developer could create a city with all these features and have it not resemble Tokyo at all. What the developers of Pokemon did to really make Saffron City a virtual representation of Tokyo was that they gave it a greater metropolitan area. Tokyo is surrounded by Yokohama, Chiba, Kawasaki, and Saitama; Saffron City is surrounded by Vermilion City, Celadon City, Cerulean City, and Lavender Town. When I went to the top of the Tokyo TV Tower, all I could see for miles was city. This wasn't just Tokyo; it was all the cities that surrounded Tokyo as well. The Tokyo metropolitan area is so big that if it were considered one city (which it essentially is), it would be the biggest city in the world. With the limited technology that the first generation Pokemon games had, the developers did their best to make Saffron City mirror Tokyo in this way. In fact, I'm pretty sure Vermilion City (Kanto's port) is supposed to mirror Yokohama (Kanto's port). Plus, isn't it crazy that Vermilion City's gym leader is obviously supposed to be an American who came to Vermilion City since it's a port? I think so.

Johto, which is west of Kanto, and which was explored in Gold and Silver, is based on the Kansai region, which is west of Kanto, and which is where Osaka and Kyoto are. In Gold and Silver, Goldenrod City is supposed to be Osaka, and Ecruteak City is supposed to be Kyoto. As with Saffron City and Tokyo, it's crazy how deeply and accurately Ecruteak City mirrors Kyoto. Both are known as old, traditional cities with rich history, but the way in which Ecruteak City mirrors Kyoto goes way beyond that; many of the buildings in Ecruteak City are essentially real buildings that exist in Kyoto. The best example is the Tin Tower in Ecruteak City, where the main character of Gold and Silver finds the legendary golden bird Pokemon Ho-oh after climbing to the top. I'm almost certain that the Tin Tower is based on Kinkakujin, the golden temple in Kyoto. I mean, at the top of the golden temple is a statue of a golden bird.

Plus, in Kyoto there is also a silver temple. There isn't one in Ecruteak City, but there is another tower that burned down. And I mean, come on. Kyoto has a gold temple and a silver temple. The games that feature Kyoto, I mean Ecruteak City, are Pokemon Gold and Silver. Coincidence? I don't think so. Plus, Osaka and Kyoto have the same relative geographical locations as Goldenrod City and Ecruteak City. And I'm pretty sure Violet City, another, smaller old city, is supposed to be Nara, another, smaller old city which also has the same geographical position.

Hoenn, from Ruby and Sapphire, is supposed to be Kyushu, the island to the southwest of Japan's central island, Honshu. Basically, if you turned a map of Kyushu on its side, you'd have a map of Hoenn.

I don't really know much about Kyushu, so I can't really comment on how similar it is to Hoenn. But I do know that Kyushu's two biggest cities, Fukuoka and Nagasaki, correspond to Hoenn's two largest cities, Rustboro and Slateport, respectively. And Hoenn definitely has much more of a southern island vibe to it than any other main region in the series; most of its routes have water in them, most of the cities are coastal, and the climate is mostly warm. Plus, Kyushu is essentially a volcanic island, and so is Hoenn; at Hoenn's center is Mount Chimney, which I think is supposed to be Mount Aso. The areas around the volcano in the game obviously had a lot of thought put into their design. As they're far from the coast and have skies filled with ash, they have very low populations, and the people have to adapt to a harsh environment.

Sinnoh, the region from Diamond and Pearl, is Hokkaido. I mean, just look at a map of both.

You even have Jubilife City, Sinnoh's biggest city, in the exact same geographical position as Sapporo, Hokkaido's biggest city. Plus, Hokkaido is the northernmost island of Japan and has the coldest climate, as does Sinnoh, which is the only region in Pokemon that has snow in it. 

So that's just one way in which Pokemon actually mirrors Japan. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a Pokemon region yet based on Aichi, which is where I've been staying. But the developers have to get to it eventually. I mean, they've already used four regions of Japan as locations.

But there are other ways in which the Pokemon series really reflects Japanese culture. I'm currently almost done replaying Pokemon Sapphire, and I've noticed a few things in the game that are so similar to Japan. I didn't notice them when I played the game for the first time, but after being in Japan they're obvious to me. One instance where this occurred was in Rustboro City, one of the first locations visited in Hoenn. While you're there, you save a worker for the Devon Corporation, and as a way of saying thank you he takes you to meet the company president. When I first played the game I didn't think anything of this, but now I realize that this plot point is deeply rooted in Japanese society. In Japan, when you meet the president of a company, it's a BIG DEAL, way bigger than in America. For example, I've met my college president twice already, and almost every student at the school has. He comes to every event and tries to be very approachable. I've even seen people openly criticize him to his face, partly because no one is really afraid to. He doesn't have an air of mystery to him or anything. Shit, everyone at the school knows that he's openly gay, and him and his life partner serve breakfast to everyone on Halloween. To be fair, I go to a really small hippie college, and I know that this isn't representative of everywhere in America, but I also know other people at different colleges who've gone to their school president's house for dinner. Basically, the fact is that something like this is far from out of the ordinary in America, and at the very least most American students have seen their college president before. 

Now that that long tangent is over, I'll talk about how it's different in Japan. I have met my Japanese college president once, but it was an entirely different story. All of the foreign students were told a week in advance that we had to wear fancy clothes on a certain day to meet the college president. When we did, we went up to his office on the top floor of the central building, taking a secret elevator that only certain (not all) administrative people are allowed to use. All of the other elevators in the building don't go up that far. The school president's office was one of the nicest offices I've ever been in. If you sold all of the furniture and decorations that were in his office, it would probably be more money than my school has ever had in its history. Then we had to introduce ourselves in formal Japanese. Basically, meeting the college president in Japan was an honor and a privilege, as opposed to in America, where my college president has served me breakfast in women's clothing. Not that I don't have respect for my college president, but I'm not forced to have respect for him like I am in Japan. I doubt that more than 10% of the student body at my Japanese school has ever seen the college president in person. And certainly very few of them, if any, are ever allowed to go to his office. Even the staff members who took us there were clearly nervous.

So basically, the plot point of Sapphire where you meet the company president would have much more significance to a Japanese audience. In fact, the scene of the game where you meet the president was so similar to the experience I had. In the game, you go up a secret elevator that is only for company employees to the president's top floor office, which is more nicely decorated than anywhere else in the game.

There's another plot point early in Sapphire that reminded me of Japan as well. At one point, you go to an island city where everyone is following a random fashion trend. The way it works is that everyone on the island keeps quoting one phrase that consists of two randomly generated words. So every time you play the game the phrase will be two different words, and they'll rarely make sense. When I first played the game, my only thought was something along the lines of "Wow, they really could have programmed this part better." But now I realize that that's so close to how Japanese fashion is. I can't tell you how many times someone has come up to me and asked me what the two words on their shirt meant, only to be surprised when I told them it didn't mean anything. Basically, that part of the game couldn't have been programmed better, and I only realize that now.

There are a few other aspects of the games that are based on Japanese society, such as Team Rocket, an organized crime syndicate that runs a casino (the Yakuza, who run nearly every pachinko parlor), and Poke-marts, which are located everywhere, are open 24 hours, and sell everything you could possibly need (Japanese convenience stores). But the crazy thing is that the core gameplay element of the Pokemon series is actually also based on something real in Japan. During the summer, lots of Japanese kids like to capture these giant wild beetles with crazy horns and pincers and have them fight each other. Sound familiar? If not, I'll provide you with some visual aides. 

Doesn't help? Well maybe this one will.

So basically, if you go to Japan you can stage a real life battle between Pinsir and Heracross. I've even heard that this culture of fighting bugs was the initial inspiration for the entire Pokemon series. 

So there you have it. The world of Pokemon is essentially Japan. That's one reason why every location in the games is so detailed. They're based on real world locations. I hope you've learned something from this post, and that next time you play a Pokemon game (like the remakes of Gold and Silver for the DS, which I'm pumped about), you think about this a little. At the very least, you probably learned from this post what a complete nerd I am. 

Asian Appropriation Alert: Prince of Persia

I recently stumbled upon this on Kotaku:

I don't know where to begin saying what's wrong with this. First of all, it's a movie based on a video game. The movies of Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, and Resident Evil have all shown us what happens when you try to make a movie out of a video game. But to make it even worse, we have Jake Gyllenhaal starring as the eponymous Prince of Persia. We're told in the fucking title that the main character is Middle-Eastern, and we have a white guy playing him.

Now you may be thinking, "this is unrelated to Asian movies, so why are you talking about it here?" Well, first of all, Persia was on the Eurasian continent, in southeast Asia, so I'm not entirely off, geographically speaking. And even if I was, I said in my last post on the subject that despite the title, I'll be talking about incidents involving other races as well. I've just named this series "Asian Appropriation Alert" because most of the examples I see today involve Asian characters, and because it has a nice ring to it. Anyway:

I was criticized on Racialicious for going too far with my argument about the movie based on Hachiko. But I think this is an even more extreme example. With Hachiko, the filmmakers were taking a Japanese story and putting it in an entirely different location. You could argue that there was an artistic reason for this. I think other movies have done the same thing for artistic reasons, although in the case of the Hachiko I don't really see art playing a part. The Prince of Persia movie is an entirely different story, and anyone can tell that just from its title. The movie is called Prince of PERSIA, and it's set in PERSIA, and it's about said Prince of PERSIA. Is Jake Gyllenhaal Persian? Hell no. This is just another example of a movie where a character's race is specifically stated, in the fucking title of the movie, and that character is played by a white person. Even if you think I'm being to sensitive, or whatever, you still have to admit that this makes the movie NOT MAKE SENSE. Movies like these don't only strike a blow against equality, they strike a blow against plausibility.

Personally, I'd rather watch this movie instead:

Fanedits

This may be old news to some, but I just watched The Phantom Edit and Attack of the Phantom for the first time recently. For those that don't know, basically a rather talented fellow took the first two Star Wars Prequels and made them less shitty through some clever editing. The first movie, Attack of the Phantom, is a large improvement, but still comes out as an average sci-fi film. Must of the edits involve a noble attempt to turn Jake Loyd's Anakin Skywalker into a compelling character, and a large reduction in "comical" aspects of the film (Jar-Jar is still present, although much reduced. In fact, you actually don't mind him as much when he's not in your face all of the time.) It turns out that when alot of redundant dialogue is cut, Qui-Gon becomes a bigger bad-ass, Obi-Won becomes competent, Anakin becomes appealing, and the funny parts become funny. It's a marked improvement. Attack of the Phantom, on the other hand, goes from a shitty movie to a good one, albeit one with embarrasingly stilted acting at times (because blue screen acting sucks, as a general rule. Acting is reacting, and it's hard to react to nothing.) Thanks to the Phantom Editor's alterations, Anakin goes from whiny brat to a tragic character that, while still a total creepster thanks to Hayden Christensen's leering, the audience can at least identify with. The love story actually works, ironically because almost all the scenes involving "romantic" dialogue have been excised. Less is more, and all that. Best of all is the commentary track where the Phantom Editor explains all of his decisions. It's intelligent, fascinating, and really makes you appreciate how important the editor is. Most of the fan edits that followed were basically people making Star Wars "they way they want it," but The Phantom Edit and Attack of the Phantom are all about applying George Lucas' original principles to his own films. Check them out. I can't really link to them because an overweight man in a stormtrooper costume will likely come on behalf of lucasArts to kill me, but you're all savvy internet peoples. Just be sure to try and find the DVD (4 gig) versions, as those have the commentary, which I feel is pretty important.

Cool Thing of the Week: Zombie Squad and Disaster Preparedness

Awhile ago, some bright folks who were interested in disaster readiness decided to start a website about preparation. Looking for a theme, they asked the question - "What is the worst case disaster scenario?" The answer, of course, is a zombie apocalypse. Thus began Zombie Squad, a tongue-in-cheek website dedicated to promoting preparedness and self-sufficiency. A good portion of the population seems to have this fantasy of post-apocalyptic living in a small farm way out in the mountains, but that's really unlikely (any catastrophic event that causes society to collapse will most likely kill you outright, and if it doesn't, it will probably destroy all your carefully laid preperations anyway.) There are your required discussions on "which caliber is best for the PAW (post apocalyptic world)?" as if anyone knows what that's actually going to be like. Finally, you get a few people who don't realize that the zombies are a metaphor, and try to start topics like "what weapon is best for killing zombies - shovel or katana?" If you take the time to look around, you'll discover a ton of information on nearly everything disaster related. Some of the most fascinating threads are in the "Personal Experiences" section, including some from survivors of Katrina. There's sections devoted to topics as widespread as firearms to personal gardening. A quick aside on preparedness in general before I continue: Talking about disaster preparedness makes most people think of bearded men in surplus camoflage eating canned beans in an underground concrete bunker. That's not being prepared, that's being paranoid. What's the point of focusing so much on saving your life that you forget to live it? Also, being prepared isn't just for when the bombs fall - it's for all sorts of unexciting (yet far more likely) scenarios. Off the top of your head - if your power went off tonight, would you be able to create light? Heat? Food? What if it stayed off for a week? I live in Washington, D.C., which has had in the past year several subway malfunctions and a deadly crash - on a train which I would have been on if I hadn't decided to bike to school that day. It made me think - if I had been on that train, and not disabled in the initial crash, would I have been able to help anyone? I'm an EMT, and while I could have done some basic triage and airway management and probably have improvised some splints or bandages thanks to my Wilderness First Responder training, I would have been alot more effective with some Kerlix rolls and a SAM splint. What if it had happened underground? I didn't carry any kind of light. Now, I keep a some basic first aid supplies, enough to stop major bleeding, wrap a sprained ankle, and splint a broken bone, as well as a flashlight, some Cliff bars, a swiss army knife, and two liters of water. It all fits in the back pocket of the backpack that has all my Arabic stuff in it, and doesn't weigh much at all. I'm going to be adding a bicycle patch kit and tools soon. Some people think it's funny that I carry all that around but to be honest, I don't really notice it anymore, and having first-hand experience treating people who thought "it would never happen to them," I'd rather err on the side of caution. I mean, I'd rather be trying to stop a bleeding gash on my leg with a proper sterile dressing and bandage, as opposed to a torn up shirt. Anyway, ZS is not only a great resource for prepping, but it's a fascinating example of internet community. The site's members range from veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to liberal arts majors from England, and they all get along because of two rules - No Politics, no Religion. There is no opportunity on the site to discuss either of those two topics, and it's quite impressive how much people from different backgrounds get along when you simply ignore those issues. It's an online community that approaches a serious topic with humor and intelligence. It promotes volunteer work and raises money for charities. It's about zombies. So check it out.

I know it's a little late, but...

Here's my own way of remembering the king of pop. Rest in peace, Michael Jackson. More in-depth posts from me coming up soon, I promise.

Web Clips for 7/2/09

Please don't use Facebook like this.

Very creative use of a CD holder. If bagels are your thing, that is.

Jake, you might find this interesting, though it's a little dumb.

One of those Onion stories that's more sad and biting than it is funny.

Yet Another Sandbox Title: A Review of Prototype

Ugh, I thought I'd never write a review here, it's not like there isn't enough already out there, and no one comes here for reviews, so anything I write about games I tend to try to stay away from just reviewing them, but everything I started writing about this game just turned into a review - or something close enough to a review that it might as well be a review anyway. Anyway:

Ok, Prototype is an "open world" game, which means an inevitable comparison to the Grand Theft Auto series. So here it is: Prototype is like GTA, except you're an unstoppable killing machine, and the zombie apocalypse is involved.

Sound interesting? Triple-A titles tend to do that. Oh yea, this is a big title:

I'm a huge GTA fan and a huge open world fan. I love open world games because they're stress-free. If you don't want to worry about a story, you don't have to. You can just drive around, doing jack shit, playing around with guns and explosions without any motivation to do anything. It's great, and I spend hours doing just that. It's actually rare that I finish the storyline of any given sandbox title.

My latest sandbox game that I'd been sinking countless hours into was GTA 4. Though, it kept pissing me off. You see, I kept longing for the days of GTA 3 and Vice City, where jumping off of the tallest building wouldn't kill you, the cops couldn't take three shotgun blasts to the chest and still shoot, there were tanks, helicopters with missiles, rampage mini-games, and the main character actually wore their seat belt.

I was also sick of the wonky controls. Too often I would try to climb up to a ledge, but instead would vault over it and fall 50 feet to my death. Cuz that's what I wanted. Or I'd be firing an RPG on top of a building, but the game decided that I wasn't actually aiming at the FBI agent below, but the ledge at my feet, and I'd have to watch myself get blown to bits in slow motion. This happened in the earlier games as well, but it wouldn't kill you, so you could do the health cheat afterwards and go back to killing. Sure, the graphics in GTA 4 are better, but hey, the developers name is Rockstar, not Glam Rockstar.

Um, anyway, imagine my delight when I found a game where the main character not only is completely unaffected by gravity, but is also mostly unaffected by explosions. Though he could probably lose the overly-angsty hoody and popped collar.

You are Alex Mercer, a guy who wakes up in a morgue having lost his memory, but gained ridiculous super-powers. Which I would say is a pretty decent trade off. He goes on a hunt to try to uncover why he is the way he is, and kill the people responsible not only for doing this to him, but also for releasing a virus on Manhattan that turns the city into zombies. Or something like that. The story's actually not too bad if you're into the whole "governments are evil" thing. It's told fairly well, cutscenes aren't painful, and voice acting is decent. It's not Deus Ex good, but maybe it's Deus Ex 2.

Though, like Painkiller, It's not really the story that's important. What's important is that you can tear an innocent civilian in two with your bear hands, and absorb their body for health. Your power is basically you can alter yourself at a genetic level, and turn your arms into claws, a giant blade, Hulk fists, a whip thingy, and a giant shield. You can sprout spikes from the ground, shoot tendrils from your palms, and morph into anyone you absorb. There's an absolutely huge list of powers and moves you can buy with experience points (called "evolution points" in the game, which is pretty lame) that you obtain for doing pretty much anything.

In this way it's almost like an RPG, you can choose what powers you'd like to upgrade and taylor them to your playstyle. It's actually what kept me playing the game, because I knew if I finished just one more level I'd get acces to a new ability.

Actually, I'm sick of telling you what the game is about, go read (or skim) the Wikipedia, and Metacritic entries for the game. Good? Ok, moving on.

First, huge props to the devs for the PC version. I was very pleased. There was no apparent DRM of any kind, except for a CD check. The install was simple and went on without a hitch, there was automatic gamepad support, as well as keyboard support, which I know sounds weird, but it's outrageous how many games I play on the PC where, during a tutorial, the game will say something like "Press [Left Trigger] to aim." and I have to open up controls to see what they're talking about. But none of that here. The game also ran exceptionally well on my middle-of-the-road system (and man, it pains me to say that, since just two years ago it was top-of-the-line. Damn you moore's law). I was able to crank up all the shinies (even vsync and AA) and run it at my native resolution of 1680x1050. The game ran smooth and never crashed, which is saying a lot for a 1.0 release. It's really great to see a game that is actually a final product, and not a buggy POS that needs 3 or so patches before it's even remotely playable (here's looking at you, S.T.A.L.K.E.R). The graphics themselves are not really that great, They look almost last-gen with higher res textures, which is unusual for a big title. The game still looks damn good, though. And again, it's not about the graphics as much as it is about killing people. Plus a lot of effort was put into the animations. Everything is very fluid and killing people is very, very satisfying. Most people say that you really should use a gamepad for this game. I used both, and found that I actually liked the keyboard and mouse better. It all comes down to personal preference, but if you're worried about it then I can say it was definitely a better experience with the keyboard and mouse, as the difficult combos and such are simply easier when there's more buttons. Ok, so moving on to that actual game. It starts off really great, once you get past the tutorial levels. But as the story progresses and things move on, the game actually gets significantly worse, for a variety of reasons: 1.) The more powers, abilities, and attacks you gain. The more difficult it becomes to control your character, so what used to be a simple jump or climb, is now a quadruple flip into a glide attack that destroys a city block. It makes simple things like grabbing people (which becomes more and more important) very troublesome. There were many times where I'd try to pick up a gun next to me, but instead would blow up a tank across the street with ground spikes, sending the entire military after me. 2.) The difficulty curve, while somewhat linear, is kinda cheap. So you took out 50 soldiers in the last level? How about 100? You thought 7 tanks and 3 helicopters was easy? Well how about 14 tanks and 6 helicopters? It makes things much more chaotic than they need to be, and combined with reason #1, becomes extremely frustrating and predictable. 3.) The boss battles suffer from the same problem as the difficulty curve, but also, they're FUCKING RIDICULOUS! But not in a good way. Not in the epic way. I remember one of the major boss battles (spoiler) where you fight a main character, Elizabeth Greene, who is literally a giant puffy vagina on a stick. I timed it, and it took me 45 FUCKING minutes to beat her, and I didn't die once. That's just too long. She had so much heath that it just becomes annoying. Here is a 2 part video of a guy doing it in 15ish minutes (which is still a long-ass time for a boss battle), though he has upgrades which you don't have in that portion of that game yet, and has obviously fought her before: Notice she has 4 HUGE HEALTH BARS! WHY ON GODS GREEN EARTH WOULD YOU DO THAT! She spits rocks at you, shoots heat-seeking green energy thingys, sends hunters at you (which are sort of like the zombie equivalent of tanks) as well as a ton of other attacks, and zombies, and the military is also fighting you with everything they have. It's as if the developers realized that they'd made your character too powerful, and tried to compensate. The last boss battle is also stupidly difficult, though a little less absurd. 4.) The missions are rerepepetititivtivee as fuck. Here's the objectives for one of the missions near the end of the game: 1~ Destroy a helicopter before it leaves the area. 2~ Destroy two helicopters before they leave the area. 3~ Destroy three helicopters before they leave the area. 4~ ok, I'm not telling you this one. See if you can guess. That's right, FOUR HELICOPTERS! YAY! AWESOME GAYME DEZINE GUYZZZ! 5.) Free-roam gets less and less appealing as you progress through the game. There is a zombie infection slowly spreading through the city, and while it IS cool to free-roam around a zombie apocalypse for a while, it is a novelty that quickly wears off and I ended up yearning for the ability to explore just plain-old Manhattan. The game makes up for it with the ability to, once you've finished the story, start a new game with all of your existing powers retained. which is cool, but at the beginning you lack the ability to hijack choppers and tanks, which again makes free-roaming not as fun as it could be. 6.) The targeting system is abysmal, and again gets more annoying the more enemies there are and the more chaotic the missions get. So often I'd try to aim at the giant boss charging at me, but the targeting system would decide that it was more important to focus my wrath upon the taxi behind me. All in all though, a whole lot is forgivable when you go back to the fact that you can run through cars and crowds of people with a giant bio-blade. Free-roaming is still a real blast. And not all of the missions are a total bust. Did I mention the bio-blade?

The stealth aspect is actually really well done. It's pretty simple, the devs weren't really out to try anything new and wonky, but what's there is solid and it works. basically one of your powers is the ability to morph into other characters. So to infiltrate a base, you'll consume and morph into a general, then just walk in. It's pretty cool, and you can escape the military this way in free-roam. There's also the affectionately named "patsy" ability, where you accuse others of being you in disguise, and get to watch the other soldiers hesitate, then open fire. It's great. So, overall, this isn't a game that's going to stand the test of time. It's not going to win any awards, and it's not really deep or insightful. But hell, it's a damn fun game, and really, isn't that what we're going for here? I mean c'mon, there's over 20 animations just for eating people. As well as hundreds of other ways to reign destruction and terror upon a city already dealing with a zombie infection. If the missions annoy you, just blow off steam by attacking a military base and watch as the puny soldiers cower at the might of your bio-blade. I've certainly got more than my money's worth, and I'll continue to blow shit up for at least the near future. In fact, I think I've found my new go-to sandbox title.