One of the illest songs to come out of this campaign.

Not only is NAS remixing Barack Obama's victory speech, he's thrown the immortal Tupac.
Download it here.

By the by, what do you think about the cover of NAS' album?

H/T To dnA over at Too Sense.

Hat tip to Rochester Turning

If only...

Is music important to you? I went to two full days of music and dancing at Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival in Croton Point Park last weekend about which I will write later. The chatter, the buzz, at Clearwater was about another festival, Make Music New York this Thursday June 21, 2007 and you can go for free. All day, all over NY on almost every street corner, park, band shell and café, musicians will welcome the solstice, the first day of summer with countless concerts.

You can get the idea of the program by looking at the website of
Make Music New York but to understand the enormity of the project, click on the schedule which is hosted by Time Out New York . There is, it seems to me, no limit to Thursday’s music. You don’t like folk? How about hip-hop? Opera? Reggae?

Tuvan Throat Singing will be at the Rubin Museum 150 West 17th Street from 12-1; Have you never heard it? Go! Never heard of Tuva (I hadn't)? Try wiki. Alash, the throat singers, will be around NY other times for the next week or so. Their schedule is here They’ll be at a “donations accepted” concert at Judson Memorial Church next Thursday, June 28th.

Don't be reading this. Henry Rollins is on IFC right now. His regular show starts 11 PM EST tonight. But before that IFC is airing a show he did in Israel. Both funny, crazy and an interesting American Jewish Punker view of Israel. If you are online right now, STOP and turn on IFC, NOW!!! Rollins rocks and he tells it like it is with both naivete and cynicism in a bizarre but mesmerizing mix. Watch it...now!

Imus was doing what he is paid to do. He was doing his job. He was doing what made him successful. He was fulfilling the role society offered him.

I don't defend what he does or even say he shouldn't get his comuppance. But I do feel that it is wrong that Imus is being dropped like a hot potato for insensitive, rude comments while Bill O'Reilly can tell American Jews to move to Israel if they don't like a Christian America and Ann Coulter can advocate terrorism and violence and largely get away with it.

Imus is a royal asshole. But that was what he was getting paid to be. Ann Coulter is getting paid to advocate violence. Bill O'Reilly is getting paid to advocate pogroms. They are each getting paid far more than I get paid to be a scientist.

This is what society values, if salaries are any indication. Assholes, terrorist advocates and anti-Semites. In the grand scheme of what is wrong in today's media, Don Imus ranks pretty minor in the long list of disgusting statements. He, at least, wasn't advocating violence.

A grad school friend of mine commented on the sexual assault charges against Mike Tyson: "We pay people to beat eachother up, then we are surprised when they are violent."

Okay, here I am plugging the efforts of a relative. Okay, a distant relative. Really distant. My great-grandfather was the brother of the great-grandfather of a man named Henry Garfinkel, better known to the world as Henry Rollins, one time lead singer of Black Flag. Yes, THAT Henry Rollins. But even if Henry Rollins wasn't a distant cousin of mine, I'd eagerly plug his show. My wife and I caught about a half dozen episodes of the Henry Rollins Show on IFC last year and we loved it. RABIDLY biting satire combined with some pretty interesting interviews and some musical guests who ranged from a bit too avant guarde for my tastes to damned good rock. Of course my favorite musical guest was his last episode of the season where his own Henry Rollins Band was the musical "guest."

Henry Rollins isn't just a punker. He is a very angry, pretty smart man. He sometimes seems a little out of his league when he is interviewing people, but this is scarcely noticeable most of the time. His monologues can be mesmerizing, like with his shaggy dog story of his trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway with intestinal disorders and axe-wielding train attendents. His bitter hatred of Bush would be dear to the hearts of many here, though those who want to see all of us get along happily and merrily petting eachother's puppies despite the disgusting and disturbing Republican attempts to demolish our democracy in a frenzy of pseudo-patriotic war-profiteering over the bodies of our dead soldiers may be disappointed by the harsh, ass-kicking sarcasm of Henry Rollins' wit. But for those who are horrified and even a bit terrified by the direct assault the Halliburton Republicans are making on our democracy will LOVE Henry Rollins' commentary.

Currently I am still in the data collection period of deciding on who I support in 2008. To date I have mainly focused on Obama and Edwards, both of whom look good in Iowa polls and have considerable smarts and charm. Hillary looks good in the same polls and has smarts, but as one of her constituents, I can tell you she doesn't have much charm. I am unlikely to support Hillary in the primaries. Richardson is the latest one to come to my attention. I will write more about this in the future, but simply put, Richardson has the best resume. Absolutely excellent experience right down to nominations for Nobel Peace Prize. And, let's face it, Governors not Senators win the general election. He is trailing in the polls and, from what I hear, he lacks charm. But he is the one who could come up from behind.

So, for those who want to see more of our candidates, I try to highlight events that give you such opportunities. I think one of the best ways to see what a candidate has is the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Sadly I seldom get the chance to see Jon Stewart because my wife and I generally don't stay up that late. But it is always worth ratching.

Grab your mojitos and Cosmos! We are going to be live-chatting and blogging the Oscars tonight, starting at 8pm EST at Hollywoodistas.com, the place where you will get to witness my plunge into celebriwhoriness.

Since we're all supposed to be cheering loudly for the newest dynastic contender to the Presidency, our very own Hillary, we might as well have fun with it. Dynasty: classic eighties television, and now, your political reality. Clap harder.

Or should we describe these as Cujo in the making?

Answer after the jump.