yet again hating and fearing technology

the iphone has a new feature where if you put it near music it will listen to it and tell you the name of the artist, song, etc. Robots will rule the planet soon and I'm so afraid.

Spot On

The Genderanalyzer is a website that tries to tell you if there's a man or a woman writing your favorite blogs. The Monstro, to nobody's surprise I'm sure, has an outstanding score.

You know what the Dutch like?

Regular readers of The Monstro know I sometimes like to invent random blog "strings" that share a theme that loosely ties them together. These last until I grow bored or simply dormant in my blogging and forget the theme of the latest string.

This time around I've titled my blog string "You know what the Dutch like?" Here I'll be posting information largely (entirely) unsupported by factual evidence about what Dutch people enjoy. Why the Dutch you say? Because everybody likes Dutch people except maybe Belgians and Luxemburgers.

You know what the Dutch like? Maritime trade empires. This is funny because apparently a shipping container company contributed to voting against Prop 8, and if there's one thing we know about the Dutch it's that they're pretty damn accepting of non-traditional sexual practices. One stroll down the Red Light District in Amsterdam will solidify this point. It will also make you question whether the pervasiveness of young, drunken British men in every major European city isn't just the latest ploy of Her Majesty to bring back the Empire.

So the Dutch like sea trade! Next up, buckle shoes.

To Anonymous

G's posting about female musicians has brought up a long-standing theory of mine that the smart-assed "anonymous" commenter has brought to light. I know many of you were initially astounded at the apparent stupidity of drawing a label of racism out of a post that was self-defining in its sexism, but I have long held the belief that females are indeed a separate race and not just a separate "sex." So much of the equality that has been granted to women is based on the commonly held belief that women are also human beings and therefore entitled to the same rights as human males. I have the belief that women are inferior musicians in the same way that chimpanzees are inferior carpenters (though their ability to paint with their feet is superlative.) So just as I wouldn't invite a chimp into my home to build a nice set of Japanese maple cabinets in my kitchen, I wouldn't hand a woman a guitar and expect her to write a compelling song that didn't have something to do with putting on lotion.

Prop 8 (CA Gay Marriage Ban) Blacklist

"Ooops - you're a homophobe."


Being a bigot has consequences.


http://antigayblacklist.com/

Of music, sexists, and misanthropes

I am not a sexist. A sexist believes that women are inherently inferior to men and the sexes should therefore be held to different standards and be treated differently by society. I do not believe this.

However, I am a misanthrope. And I do direct a disproportionate amount of my misanthropic feelings towards women. It's not my fault though.

You see, as someone who statistically has been exposed to more advertising in my lifetime by age 20 than my great-grandparents saw in their century on this earth, I hold a special disdain for marketing. And marketing is 99% about S-E-X, and lots of it. From the blatant images to the subtle themes to the throngs of young women pitching bullshit products and services at every public place imaginable who feel no shame flirting with me to get me to buy widget XYZ, I've just kinda lost it. You know, respect. Respect for expressions of feminine sensuality in any context other than private.

Harsh, I know. But harboring a general dislike of mankind is not for pussies.

Anyway, enough background: a couple years ago someone who shall go nameless accused me of being a sexist because I didn't have more than five songs sung by female bands/singers in my vast iTunes collection. I objected the charge, but I couldn't deny the evidence. Part of the problem is just circumstance: I don't listen to R&B or Pop, two genres that are at least equally represented by women. But part of it is that women by and large don't make music, they make womens' music. And frankly I just can't relate.

I can relate to guy music because, well, I'm a guy. And I can relate to good music that is gender neutral in theme and experience because it's, you know, good. But most of that seems to be made by men, with female acts often standing out as clearly under-talented "tokens." I love punk rock, but Avril Levigne is shit. I love hard/goth rock, but Evanescence sucks balls. I like grunge/alternative rock, but the very thought of Courtney Love offends every deity mankind has ever worshipped. I even like sporadic doses of good ole' '90s gansta rap, but Lil' Kim - well, you get the point.

But all of this may have changed. I have unknowingly been listening to exclusively female artists for a couple weeks now. I don't know how this happened - it just did. And I didn't even become aware of it until yesterday. What two things do Chairlift, Feist, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Paramore all have in common? They comprise the sum total of bands I've been listening to for the past three weeks, and they're all led by female singers.

There you have it: not a sexist. Score one for me.

"I'm a PC" says Girl Talk

Thanks to Stereogum for turning me on to this awesome commercial featuring electronic musician Girl Talk.

Losing some faith in humanity

I was sitting at my desk earlier today doing some research for volunteer opportunities for teens at our camp to do during the year. I googled "Oakland Soup Kitchen" and clicked to find results. I'm going to ask all the readers here to do the same and check out the first result. Good god, swell intentions gone bad faster thaN I could ever imagine, the humanity, oh god the humanity.

Damn that Dog is Ugly

My Friends, with the election over, let us turn our attention back to the original purpose of the internet, which is to share pictures of animals.

This Dog is apparently celebrated for its ugliness. So so sad.

Pet suggestions

Obama promised his daughters he was getting them a puppy during his speech on Tuesday night and I can't think of a more typical, lame White House pet especially for a president who ran on change.

Here is an article outlining some other pets that prior presidents have had in the White House, some highlights include:

A pygmy hippo that has sired most other pygmy hippos in the US
Gamecocks
Bobcat
Donkey
Goose
Gators used to scare guests
Opossums
Cows
Badgers
Tiger Cubs
a dog named "Satan"

So come on Obama, sack up, bring about the change you promised and move away from the dog/cat paradigm.

Serious Post: race as an issue hits me for the first time this campaign

OK, I can honestly say that I haven't thought about Barack's race this entire campaign, at least as a factor influencing my vote one way or the other. Sure, I've thought it from the perspective of how it might influence the election: how it was ridiculous for ignorant whites to vote against him because of his color and how it was frankly a little uncomfortable how so many blacks were supporting him out of stated racial interests. But the fact that Obama is black simply hasn't affected me personally these last two years that I've been supporting him.

Until last night. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Seeing the reactions of African Americans - from those in the crowds to journalists on TV to those who were volunteering with me on the campaign - I couldn't help but be moved, and moved deeply. This is a special moment, and it's more than just the best man winning; much more. This is to our society what landing on the moon was to technology; an historic achievement that America was able to bring about. Only the Soviets could've beaten us to the moon; the incredible and profound meaning represented in this election could only happen in America.

Every nation on the planet is founded in tribalism. They are land areas where one tribe is dominant, and are often even named after that tribe (England is the Angles, France the Francs, Hungary the Huns, etc.). In all of these nations (at least the democratic ones) they elect the most popular member of their tribe to their highest office, and tolerate the minority tribes in their midst. But America is not founded on a tribe. It is the only nation on earth founded on an Idea. And only in such a nation could a man not of the majority tribe win the highest office in the land, purely because that man best encapsulated and expressed that Idea.

This truly is the greatest country on earth.

Funny post: The McCain campaign's last gaffe

Compared to Barack Obama's, which was one of the most organized, drama and mistake-free campaigns in history, the McCain campaign was a mess. Mistake after mistake, gaffe after gaffe, miscalculation after miscalculation, McCain was often his own worst enemy (oh yeah, other than that Bush guy).

So it is fitting that the very last thing the McCain campaign did was botched. After he offered his moving and humble concession speech last night, he walked off the stage to some powerful, strong-sounding, military-honor-type instrumental music. For the feeling of the moment, it sure seemed like a good choice.

The problem is this: it was the theme music from the 1995 film Crimson Tide, starring Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington. For those of you who don't remember, here's a quick plot summary: a crazy old white submarine captain who is a gung-ho maverick makes a gut decision to start WWIII by launching nukes from his boat. But his judgment is completely wrong, and it takes a calm, collected, intelligent black man to knock him out of power and save the world.

Opps. But don't worry McCain campaign. You can't screw anything else up.

I'm calling this motherfucker

yo, 814 new mexico time, this shit is over, we have been all over the country, pounding the pavement, mak,ing the calls, tracking the turnout and this motherfucker is over, OBAMA MOTHERFUCKER, you organize from the ground up not the top down, suck it hillary suck it mccain suck it bullshit GOP 50 year domihnance, we are redrawing this electoral map and remaking how you run a campaign mark my fucking word, a year or two from now 21 books come out on how this shit happened and it is so glorious. I'm in the campaign office in New Mexico and the field organizers are crying, CRYING, this means shit to people, very very deeply and now we can hope for 4 years that Obama can be the kind of historic president he has the potential to be. I am proudn to be an AMerican tonigth and proud of the high turnout and proud of the 6 blue moon's I just downed, love to the monstro bros.

edit: Sam Johnson is wearing an ill fitting straw hat with a purple shirt and cowboy boots dancing all over the office, life is happening, this is happening, I hate uptight people obeama amfor yo motherfuckign mama I will fuck george stephanaopolous in his ass and there is no reason for that.

6 Months?!?

Check out this insanely geeky article and marvel at how hard music nerds will work to figure shit out.

What gets me about this issue is that the chord OBVIOUSLY contains a piano part. You can hear it in both the attack and the sustain. I can't pick all those notes out, so kudos to the doc, but still, it's not much of mystery as to how the band made that sound.

It's been a hard six months' night.

Why I'm Here

Hello from battleground state New Mexico where we're all still in the office stuffing packets and printing out data at 115am after getting in a little before 8am.

It has barely hit me that in less than 48 hours America will have a new President-elect. My entire voting and adult life has been dominated by George W. Bush and the alternate reality he has created at home and abroad. I CANNOT FUCKING WAIT. At this point I think we have all gotten used to and accepted the utter and absolute bullshit that government has pulled. We have been conditioned for the absurd, slowly turned onto dangerous Kool Aid. The thought that there is a very real possibility that McCain could actually be elected and continue a lot of this shit blows my mind, I honestly don't know what I'll do. I am not saying Obama is going to fix everything or even anything right away, but it's a fucking start and that is all for many to cling to at this point.

The scene here is beyond inspiring. The office is being run by a gang of about 5 20-somethings and an old hand and it occurred to me tonight as I was furiously stuffing walk packets for volunteers tomorrow that this is the dream of many of us, youth taking shit into their own hands and taking a stab at taking the country back.

The volunteers who come in to walk neighborhoods and make phone calls are beyond epic. Many are in their 70s and go out without flinching for 4-6 grueling hours to go door to door to reclaim something they once believed in in politics and government, come back exhausted and say "see you tomorrow" and thank us for OUR efforts. Sam Johnson, the degenerate Glider Bison blogger is fucking in charge of this office on election day, this is real shit, and it is happening all over the country, talking to people in colorado, florida, and virginia it is the same thing and it is real and it is happening.

This many people deployed all over the country is literally akin to a military operation with a brilliant team of generals in Chicago led by an incredibly talented and inspiration, yet still enigmatic figure. It's a ground war that always makes the difference on election day and in battleground states Obama's plans are off the hook and amazing, people are going to vote and in big numbers.

No one wants to count a chicken before it hatches but if things go as well as they could the political map in this country will be at least temporarily redrawn. Now I had the same optimism in 2004 and it came to a crashing halt on that terrible night in November as I sat at a small desk in DC and buried my head in my hands as the last counties in Ohio wouldn't yield the precious votes needed. That is not going to happen again, if it was that close in 2004 then with a better Democratic and a weaker Republican this can really happen.

A long time ago I wrote in my journal as a bright eyed 17 or 18 year old wishing for a new Kennedy for my generation to arrive, but over the last 8 years resigning myself to the fact that that was pure whimsy, but no more, hope is back, fear is on the retreat and

YOU NEVER BET AGAINST A KENYAN IN A RACE

let us pray, hope, work until this thing is called and then take a deep breath, sleep, and wake up to a new dawn.