God i hate this city’s infestation of idiot hipsters.
They all talk about taking the city back with art. Building a real people’s art culture in the city. But they havent got the gumption to start anything. they havent got the intelligence to realise that what they are doing right now with their small exclusive galleries filled with their friends and fellow alumni’s selfishly motivated impenitrable subjective human-less story-less pointless art about how weird it is to see a hammer hanging from the ceiling isnt speaking to anyone that needs to hear it.
Galleries are the bane of art in this city. Galleries are the.very reason there will never be a peoples art culture in this city. A handfull of modestly wealthy pretenders come to look at art to realise or feel something profound and if the art seems a good enough investment the art gets bought.
The people who havent the wealth nor the education nor the articulation to understand this art let alone the intrest to come veiw it are the people that need its realization its feeling and its profundity the most. These pretenders these idiots these kids i went to school with think its a fault of these uncaring uneducated people that they dont understand or dont want to understand. These people are crying for something to fill their heads with. But its you that makes shit art that says nothing to them. Its your fault you dont MAKE them understand with your art. Its your inarticulation that keeps them from becoming interested. Worst of all its your foolish pride and your lack of understanding that keeps you so steadfast in your shity galleries with your shitty friends and your shitty art as if your comfort in “self discovery” is more important than the people outside your doors starving for a whole hell of a lot more than just food.
Your art, your loves, your friends, your aspirations, your life means nothing to them. And its your fault.
This is the failure of this city. This is the failure of your expected city of artists.
This is a youtube episode from an independant internet news group known as The Young Turks.
As to the nature of this The Young Turks episode I feel it is pertinent that I express my views as to what i find to be a hyper-sensitive and all together racially/culturally damaging movement towards absolute political correctness (PC).
It seems to me that this is a reactionary display of growing and well articulated white guilt initiated by an ignorance to cultural differences and the dynamics of cultural difference pushed foreword to become a foolish responsibility toward becoming “racial police” to protect races from racism that whites have little to no understanding of.
What i feel political correctness does is attempt to homogenize culture, and race into what is ideally a society with no race consciousness. It seeks to eliminate the offenses of a certain action words or stereotypes, but inadvertently bars the display of any cultural difference between one race and another in order to avoid revealing conflict between the two.
Its almost an act of gentrification of culture, of race itself. Taking the culture from a given race and replacing its native identity and function with that of a more comfortable one, a more politically correct one. I say gentrification because if a person of color cannot be popularly portrayed with any sense of their mannerisms and lingual norms (exaggerated or otherwise accurate) without assuming someone somewhere is going to be offended by it *where the reaction is to say it must be*suppressed. Suppressed but more quietly replaced (as nature as well as social existence abhors a vacuum). But replaced by what? The norm… which especially in politically correctness is White culture.
Thus much like a neighborhood that was once poor and black that slowly grows white and wealthy. Where in, inadvertently,*the whites push the native blacks out of the neighborhood; this is gentrification. slowly the proliferation of white cultures prescribed political correctness will push out the native culture of blackness, of afro-centrism, of black power from the black culture and reduce its black people with black culture to black people with white culture and it will truly solve none of the real ignorance of race and of different cultures (via PC culture.)
I think the popularity of the politically correct movement has been said before “White americans have no concept of racism as a reality. As they never experienced a minoritization of them selves or their race en masse.” Instead they learn about racism through text books, and media pundits (such as The Young Turks). The white american perception of racial consciousness is that historic racism still persists (which it does) and they are thusly still guilty of the crimes of their great great great grandfathers because they look at race historically rather than practically or modernly. Essentially they get hung up collectively on the history of slavery, Jim Crowe, and historical white class privilege. Which is true in a sense, but it is not the cause, nor the continuance of racism in America ignorance of different races, and different cultures is, and ignorance of the pain and reality of contemporary racism is.
White americans assume an action against what they suppose is historical racism, based on language, and law rather than what is based on lack of exposure to race, fear of race and ignorance of race. They resort to an activity which they think will mask the reality of racism, and thus eventually eliminate the functions of racism.
However, this action is motivated by confusion and deep down a persistent expectation that white culture is the normal culture which then more mistakenly is assumed to be the correct culture, why? because it is the culture that subscribes most to (and invented) politically correct culture. Politically correct culture of course reveals this mentality in its own name. It reveals that those that perscribe to it assume it is the most correct manner with which to deal with racial dialectics.
White culture is professional culture, white culture is media culture, white culture is consumer culture. If you do not subscribe to these cultures you are invariably incorrect, and this is definitely applied (especially in the professional, and politically correct cultures) to different races labeling them thusly incorrect, or at least undesirable.
The danger of it is that whites know about racism through the “educations” of PC culture and language, which seeks to eliminate the conflict between racial dialectics and homogenize culture. But then, once eliminating the conflict what still resides is that whites still hold the power in this country, and thus their expectations of propriety reflect, or are without a doubt focused mostly on White cultural propriety.
People portraying people of different races stereotypically IS damaging, it is backwards to a degree… but what really motivates modern racism, what really IS modern racism is the unspoken expectation (inadvertently reassured by the popular politically correct movement) that White culture is the proper culture. and that is by far where the majority of racial discrimination lies in contemporary racism. It exists within the side effects of PC’s proliferation that the idea of a proper, professional, family friendly, and politically correct culture does, and should exist, what more that it is the only Correct institution with which to approach cultural and racial dialectics.
So basically my long winded hard to understand post begs to ask the question of those of you whom are offended by these videos or at the very least feel uneasy about the controversy brought on by them in this discussion.
“if these commercials portray different races stereotypically and inaccurately what then is the correct way to portray different races? But more so; Why could you specifically assume any knowledge of correct and incorrect portrayals of race, especially if you are not a member of the race in question?”
I remember when I was in the first grade kids had Marlboro backpacks and those stupid duffel bags. Yay 1991!
Also, the comic is taking a break for a week. There won’t be a new comic next Monday. Not that it makes much of a difference. Kind of the norm around here. Don’t worry, we’ll be back with more comics after the break.
Yes, I know, missed last week. Was in Disneyland and forgot to have something already prepared for you guys… other than the script to go with Doors At 8. Anyways, let’s get into the next part of our little lesson, dudes.
Okay, you got your radical surf guitar, its set up to catch some sweet sound waves, excellent, now what? Well, you need an amp to go with it, of course. So let’s look at some amps, shall we?
First thing’s first, while you can basically make any rig work with the right set up; for a truely GOOD surf sound, you need an all-tube amp with some personality. And by that I mean, don’t waste your time on a Marshall like every other asshole (sounds generic and shitty) or a Peavy (sounds like a Marshall that got thrown down a flight of stairs… several times). I’m not saying you can’t pair a Vox head unit with a Marshall cab, just don’t break out the Marshall head unit cuz its full of fail and disappointment.
Speaking of Vox, have you checked out the AC series lately? Like the AC30? Well you should, cuz these amps have the right personality. Super bright, chimey cleans, and with the right amount of gain and tweaking, you can get a real dirty garage rock grit sound without sounding like you’re just cranking distortion like a punk rocker or a metalhead. If you’re wondering just how well Vox goes with surf music, take a look at the Shadows:
Pretty rad, huh? But maybe that’s not the direction you wanna go. Maybe you want something with a bit more bite, or you just wanna match your Fender guitar “properly”. Well good news, Fender has been making tube amps since they first started, how convenient! But be wary, surf consumers, Fender offers a LOT of variety that’s geared towards all sorts of genres. So basically if it has the words “blues” in it, there’s a good chance you should NOT be going with that amp. Unless that’s really the sound you’re going for, because you’re trying to stand out from other surf musicians.
1976 Silverfaced Twin Reverb. Silverfaced (70's) Fender amps can be had for under a thousand if you look hard. Or you can buy a brand new Re-Issue blackfaced (60's) series
In any case, the biggest, baddest, most iconic surf amp is of course the Fender Twin Reverb. Mondo huge and wicked heavy (all tube amps of reasonable size are beserk heavy, but the Twin Reverb is just a fucking tank), the Twin Reverb will belt out some harsh sounds and give you a real sweet surfer sound. This is definitely an amp to keep your eyes out for. But maybe you don’t want to go as big as the Twin. There’s also the Princeton Reverb and the ever-so lovely Deluxe Reverb, both really fantastic and smaller in size but not in quality amps.
There are a ton more amps to look at, but all the amps I named have one major factor in common and it is seriously THE most important feature your amp needs for a GOOD surf sound: REVERB! Reverb is that springy, “wet” echoey sound you easily recognize when you blast most surf music. Yes, very early Dick Dale didn’t use reverb, but soon as that came out, it can be heard on just about every recording he did. Dick Dale is one of the pioneers and considered the father of the surf sound. He’s called the “king of surf” for a reason.
Granted, you can go out and just BUY a reverb pedal, but seriously? A cheap digital reverb versus a REAL spring reverb? Sounds like garbage by comparison. When trying out amps, make sure it comes with a real reverb, not a digital effect reverb.
But as for pedals go, a good fuzz pedal (Big Muff) is a nice addition, or even a
A new Big Muff is relatively cheap, well under $100 at a Guitar Center
vibrato pedal. Some amps like the Vox already come with a vibrato channel, but if your amp of choice doesn’t, maybe a vibrato pedal would be a good pairing for your set up. What vibrato does is basically create a different kind of echo, a more warped specifically channeled and with control of how fast it ricochets the echo.
So let’s review! What you need for a good “surf sound”:
-Solid body electric guitar with single coils
– All-tube amp
-Spring Reverb
-A variation of fuzz, vibrato, and maybe even a bit of delay
Of course you need to combine these things with actual surf style guitar for the full effect, but that was obviously the plan if you’re reading this as a how-to guide to go for the sound to match the style. And that concludes our two-part surf lesson.
Heidegger tells us that in fact that we as humans have no real autonomy… that we are historical and social creatures with personalities based on experience, nurture, and environment. Psychology tells us that our decisions are determined by our (subconscious and conscious) memory and environment. Cause and effect tells us that our environment is determined by previous states and events of and within that same environment. This environment being manipulate-able makes us manipulate-able. And who but those most powerful and influential humans are the ones with the greatest position upon which to manipulate the rest of us.
Yet it might be that we are not left at the whims of powerful men; we are not left at the whims of powerless insignificance. However it is with the same metaphysics, the same concepts, the same empty promises that allow for evils, that we may also find our salvations. But the question then becomes how does one put distance to that which has made them what they are?
Following Heidegger’s existentialisms we find ourselves in a self-less situation; the magnanimity of the Universe tells us that we are insignificant in comparison, that we are an accumulation of atoms without objective purpose. It tells us that we human beings, we living things, can only grasp out at abstracts to find purpose, to find identity, to find existence, and that these abstracts we ourselves invent.
However, the Universe also tells us that as we are purposeless, it provides no objective purpose for its own existence. It only provides only objective truth as to how it does or does not exist. We truly have even ground in that respect, limitations of physical and mathematical laws aside, the Universe certainly never stopped us from thinking about… even inventing purpose for ourselves, or even a purpose for the Universe itself.
So we do invent. We invent autonomy; we invent the brotherhood of man, humanity, justice, truth, responsibility, progress. We invent our self conception.
But as we stated these inventions become the very tools that keep us in line for the interests of those most powerful and influential humans. It is with the idea of humanity that the Nazis were allowed to commit horrendous acts of inhumanity. Manipulation of our idea of humanity allows for a twisting of what we define as human, what we define as justice, as responsibility, progress, so on and so forth.
How are we to step away from this manipulation is simple. Ignore it. Ignore the stations of value that are twisted into our definitions of culture, faith, and civilization.
When we negate the values of dominant culture we subvert the powers that assert them.
When we negate the values of dominant faiths (secular, and sacred) we subvert the powers that praise them.
When we negate the values of those who dominate our civilization we subvert the functions they rely on.
When we negate the values of dominant definitions of humanity we subvert the functions of inhumane interests.
When we negate the stations of our existence we were born into without our own choice we subvert the manipulations that define us without our own choice.
When we define ourselves on our own experiences, we gain true autonomy as is abstractly possible.
We are not left at the whims of powerful men; we are not left at the whims of powerless insignificance.
& 
The Dirty Punx Collective 