just as long as you are there, so c'mon

Proof that genius lies in the difference between having a great idea occur to you and putting that idea into practice: mobile clubbing (via It's all in your mind). I can't be the only one who's ever walked down a busy street with my headphones on and thought "Wouldn't it be cool if I burst into dancing now and everybody else burst into dancing too?" Of course, with mobile clubbing you're not all dancing to the same tune - but that only makes the patterns of movement and general vibe that develops a fascinating thing to see. I'll have to try and make the next one of these.

friendly fire

It seems that the new Beastie Boys album looks more and more likely to be a whole new level of le suck - and I say this is someone who was still a fan, albeit one with reservations, up to and including 'Intergalactic'. Today the number of cringe-inducing lyrics known to be found on To The 5 Boroughs has grown again, with the revelation of this little gem:

"Walking down the block, you say, 'Yo, D!
'When you coming out with the new CD that spreads love in society?'"

As Gear! on ILM so rightly says, "If the line that follows up is "I pull out my piece and take that motherfucker down/turn that big hippie smile into a motherfucking frown", all is forgiven." But I think we'd be a little optimistic to expect that.

Part of me feels that the Beastie Boys' current lyrical crimes require deep and searching examination, that I should explain just why they are so bad and annoying even though I may agree with many of the sentiments or positions expressed (though I suspect not all). After all, if you don't qualify these things, you risk some right-wing fucko linking to you and citing your argument to show how stupid all those anti-war types are.

But another part of me firmly believes that some things should be treated as self-evident, and this is one of them. It should be easy to see why lines like "We've got a President we didn't elect / The Kyoto treaty he decided to neglect" or "George W’s got nothing on me / We’ve got to take the power from he" are not "bad regardless of whether or not you oppose Bush" but in fact "much, much worse and more upsetting if you do oppose Bush."

Of course, I'm probably going to appear to contradict myself when I write that post about the !!! album... Let me get some confusion out of the way by stating for the record that the problem with many recent Beastie Boys' lyrics is not that they are "simplistic" or "one-sided". (A lot of things in this world are more simple and one-sided than people would have you believe.) The problem is that they are bad lyrics, the kind composed by rubbish old men desperate to prove they are still 'down'.