You’re a fan of Patti Smith, huh. I have a shitload of bootlegs of hers. I may have to convert them to mp3 (I’m old school, or, er, OLD; they’re all on cassette and vinyl) and share.

I’m a big Hip Hop fan. Most of what I listen to these days is either old school or underground, though.

I am a musical enigma wrapped in a mystery (and, occasionally, leather and fishnets) who is into everything: goth (back in the day, I used to be very involved in the goth/fetish community), industrial (like, Throbbing Gristle/Caberet Voltaire/Laibach type stuff, not NIN, although I also love EBM). Deep down, I’m punk to the core (ever see the film Afropunk? I was ‘that one black dude’ in the pit.)

I’m also heavily involved in the Toronto rave scene (Timmy, if you’re reading this, another blog for you to bookmark:P). Hell, pretty much into every genre (including hardcore country–Johnny Cash is another iconic figure of worship)except hip hop (apart from PE and Afrika Bambaata–and that’s largely because when I was a kid PE had a huge convergence with both thrash metal and European electronic music. There’s be no Prodigy, no Meat Beat Manifesto, no UK hardcore–hell, no rave scene PERIOD–without PE and the Zulu Nation.)

But I digress. Music gets me a-babblin’, almost as much as foreign policy wonkery.

by matttbastard
No surprises here: Hatewatch reports that a well-known white supremacist has attempted to exploit Justin Barker, the white teenager who was beaten allegedly by the so-called Jena 6. According to Hatewatch, Richard Barrett of the Nationa…

You’re right about progressive blogger silence on race though. It seems the only time many of them mention race issues is to fend off criticism with cries of “I can’t be racist; I’m a progressive” or to remind everyone that “Republicans hate black people, therefore you should vote for my candidate.” I noticed that Piny and Jill linked to a couple of my posts on Jena at Feministe and there were all of about ten comments between the two posts. And then there’s your blog and Alas. Mention race and it’s often crickets (I’ve been a bad blog friend, I know. I should comment more over there.). So yeah, you hit that nail straight on the nail.

Donna – I was just flipping through my Riverside Shakespeare trying to figure out where that poem is from. I was embarrassed not to recognize it right off the back. I’ll definitely check out the Ian Bostridge rendition.

Mattbastard – No prob.

Funny, tho, about Bowie. I thought the same thing when I saw you posted the video by The Jam.

- mb

Ha ha.