Athlete of the Decade

We really weren't going to chime in.

Honest.

Weren't planning on it at all.

When the news broke over Thanksgiving weekend during the Texas-Texas A&M game we thought to ourselves, "Selves...this is fishy. How did Tiger wind up bruised and unconscious from hitting a tree in reverse? Dude had to be going like 40 out of his driveway!" It looked like a fish, smelled like a fish, talked like a fish and swam like a fish...by god, it probably wasn't a Llama. Maybe there was more to this story. Maybe he was really, really, really pissed off. Or in super trouble with someone. Or maybe his take out was ready and he and the wife hadn't eaten in three weeks. Either way, the story just didn't make any sense.

Then came the reality of it all. Tiger liked to bang porn stars. And call girls. And waitresses. And...well...pretty much anything with a working vagina within reach. The guy's life started to sound like a scene from Grand Theft Auto. It was that thought of Tiger, running through the streets of his exclusive Florida neighborhood, jumping into cars and slamming into trees, taking home hookers and then beating them with a 9-iron, that led us here at One Day In Culture to envision EA Sport's Tiger Woods 2011 in which a hole in one means a free trip to virtual hotel where Jamie Jungers is sitting on the bed, still pretending to not be an over-priced hooker. (Patent is pending on that one, so don't get any ideas EA Sports before talking to our lawyer.)



(Damn you David Letterman writers...I swear to God I came up with that first.)

And we know what's next with you Tiger, or can I please call you Mr. Woods. We know the steroid scandal is right around the corner. We know that your Canadian doctor, Dr. Anthony Galea, was arrested and charged today with importing and selling an illegal performance enhancing drug known as Actovegin (and no, that's not just the nickname for a vegan who likes to workout) which is a growth hormone extracted from Calf's blood. And we know what's next. We just learned it from reading Andre Agassi's new tell-all book Open or How I Learned To Make A Mockery Of The Sport That Made Me Famous By Writing A Book To Become More Famous. It'll come out in the coming weeks that you've been using Calf's blood to hit your drives further, to pump your fists higher, and to bang more prostitutes. And, the kicker is, the PGA is going to have known all about it. Hell, they've probably never even tested you for performance enhancing drugs. After all, you are Tiger...we mean, Mr. Woods...the guy who single handily saved the sport of Golf from the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and this drunken gambling-addicted fat guy to the right whom we've now forgotten all about. We mean, who would want to watch those three wander around a course, teeing balls and wacking off? (Wait...switch that.) Your scandal, Tiger, we mean, Mr. Woods, is going to get much worse before you can fade away to your own personal island like Johnny Depp. TMZ will find you, no matter where you are.

But we aren't mad about all of that. Not really. You can be as scandalous and drug crazed as Jose Canseco for all we care. You can shoot yourself in the leg like Plaxico, smoke crack like Darryl Strawberry, fix yourself some gambling odds like all those NBA referees, lie and cheat on your wife like Lance Armstrong...shit...even get yourself out of a double homicide like O.J. WE SIMPLY DON'T CARE!

But today, of all days, just two weeks before the end of what could be easily argued as the worst ten years in American history, you've been dubbed by the Associated Press as the Athlete of the Decade. You, Mr. Woods, who have taken so much for granted, looked at world-wide fame and success, a beautiful wife, two lovely children, more money than you could ever spend and pissed and shit all over it all. You, Mr. Woods, who will never have to know what it feels like to lose your home, your job, your savings. You, Mr. Woods, who would have never had to face a Christmas alone, a Thanksgiving out in the cold, or the harsh reality that the new year may not bring a better day. You, Mr. Woods, who have in your possession what the other 99.9 percent of the world's population can only hope and dream of, have been named Athlete of the Decade. Well, fuck you.

It's none of our business, none of us, with what you do with your life Mr. Woods. We all make horrible mistakes that have impactful consequences on ourselves and everyone around us. But you have allowed yourself to become the emblem of what's wrong with America. Greed, excess, adultery, steroids, guns, dog fighting, drunk driving, drug-abuse, gambling...it's enough to make anyone struggling through the worst year in American history want to end it all. And here we're just talking about you athletes. You spoiled, rich, morality-lacking overgrown children. We haven't even begun to discuss Goldman Sachs, Enron, Wall-Mart, Hollywood, our agriculture system or the Federal Government. But we've named you, Mr. Woods, fucking Athlete of the Decade. Congratulations.

Speaking from the perspective of someone who will never live your blessed life, who has lost his job this year, is still single at 30 years old with a Master's who is bartending because he was never really very good at sports but always pretty decent at writing, but there aren't any goddamned jobs out there for writers because people would rather watch you play a game than read a book...well shit man. Give me your houses, your money, your wife. Give me the blessedness that is the Tiger Woods corporation and watch a man appreciate everything he has been given. Watch a man donate to charity. Watch a man stay out of the strip clubs and come home to his family. Watch a man who has so very little right now show you what living a charmed life in this day and age really means. That it should be embraced and cherished, not taken for granted. If you don't appreciate it, Mr. Athlete of the Decade, there are plenty of other people who will. Read more!

Ignorance May Be Bliss...

Ok, so maybe this isn't American culture, but we at One Day In Culture feel that when facts come to light, no matter how far away it is, we should at least be spreading the information.

Please watch the below video:



For more information please visit The Human Society International

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Eat This Video

We admit that most of the staff here at One Day In Culture grew up loving the Thanksgiving traditions at our homes. All the hours of Turkey basting, cranberry sauce slicing, pie making and stuffing stuffing were simply the prelude to the tryptophan inducing coma on the other side of the feast. Our editor-in-chief has fond memories of fighting over who was going to eat the last of his Uncle's oyster dressing. Research Editor Tina S. was just reminding us how her best memories of childhood developed around her trips to her Grandmother's house in Boca Raton where members of her family would gather to eat, drink and be merry. "It was never in that order," she explained between forkfulls of microwaved lasagna. "Our record number of bottles of wine consumed is well over 12..."

There has been a lot of talk this year about tradition. The tried and true American ritual of family members gathering around the table to eat a 22lb turkey is under attack, perhaps this year more than ever before. The PETA ad at the top of the page is just one of the many ways animal activists and vegan enthusiasts are out to stop YOUR family tradition. Novelists like Johnathan Safran Foer and high-profile celebrities (Natalie Portman and Alec Baldwin) have joined the PETA's cause to help spread the idea that a Vegan (or at least Vegitarian) Thanksgiving holiday is a holiday worth having. The fact that NBC rejected paid advertising in order to stop animal activists from telling their Macy's Day Parade viewers the truth regarding how your 25lb Thanksgiving turkey makes its way to your table is emblematic of a very larger state of American denial. It also explains why this year in particular, PETA and other animal rights organizations are challenging tradition in an unprecedented way. They can sense cracks in our American fundamentals and are striking while the iron is hot.

But you know what? Those activists are right.

It is now well documented that there were no turkey dinners when the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth (a quick Wikipedia check will teach that) and we should all be well beyond the notion that what transpired after the white man first arrived was harmless and that the tradition we continue to observe on the last Thursday of November is steeped in morality. It should also be noted that the gluttonous over-consumption of American poultry in this country goes way beyond the tradition of your Thanksgiving Thursday. But think about how much turkey is consumed on Thanksgiving and what Thanksgiving itself was originally supposed to be. Our holiday began as a day of giving thanks, of praising God and his bountiful blessings. The holiday was also a way to bolster American unity in the aftermath of the Civil War. What was torn apart was brought back together at the dinner table, but where the central figure of the Turkey came from, no one seems to know.

Every year the National Turkey Association presents the president with two turkeys to pardon, in a show of some sort of solidarity with the animal kingdom. The NTA will choose a two "healthy" turkeys to parade out before the media, the President will smile, pardon them, and then those turkeys will be boxed back up and shipped off to Disneyland. Meanwhile, those turkeys not pardoned will wind up on our dinner tables. Yet, its what happens before that turkey gets to our table that animal rights groups are concerned with.

We could go into excruciating detail as to the horrors within factory farms. We could explain how your 30lb Butterball is drugged, bred, and genetically mutated to grow to be so fat, that many of them can't walk properly, if at all. Because of their obesity, modern-day turkeys can't reproduce by themselves. Or how their beaks are cut off without anesthetic to stop them from pecking one another. Or how every year, 3 Million turkeys are killed in the United States, most of which will never see their first year on Earth (most factory farmed turkeys are killed by the time they are 6 months old)...or any number of other horrific facts that surround our factory farmed 35lb turkeys. But those types of stats aren't necessary because you watched the PETA video at the beginning of this piece (You did, didn't you?). The little girl told you everything you needed to know regarding the Thanksgiving Turkey industry. However, millions of people watching NBC this Thanksgiving morning won't. They'll go on believing that the turkey sitting as the centerpiece to the entire meal either lived a life of dignity, or isn't a being worth living in dignity at all. They'll go on turning a blind eye to the horrors of America's current agricultural system, which is exactly what the factory farming industry needs them to do in order to survive. And, if we as a omnivorous culture can't begin to accept the realities of where are food comes from, is there really any reason to be giving thanks?

We here at ODC don't wish to damn your holiday tradition or condemn anyone into eating Tofurkey. Remember, those holiday traditions, regardless of how fabricated, are bred within us all. We enjoy stuffing our faces just as much as the next American...shit, one of our staffers just baked a pumpkin pie while we were typing. Rather, what we hope to do is begin a call to help actively change your traditions from those of ignorance and abundance to ones of compassion and caring. The first step to changing the global epidemic of factory farming is to educate yourself and those you love to the harsh realities you support when you buy a 40lb turkey for $.69 per pound at the grocery store. That turkey was once a living, breathing animal. It is a life, no matter how cheap the pound.

For more information on where your Thanksgiving turkey comes from, visit PETA here. Read more!

The 37th Annual AMAs

Every year, the American Music Awards reminds us here at One Day In Culture of some essential facts regarding American popular music that we seem to forget sometime between January and November:

A) Great performers (Jay-Z, Eminem, and especially Whitney Houston) get better with age
B) Awful performers (Adam (F)Lambert, Rhianna, Lady Gaga, and the Black Eyed Peas) will always pick the most horrible clothes - or at least their overpaid stylists will...
C) We can never remember how many children Jermaine Jackson has. However, I will now never forget Jermagesty, or Jumanji, or Jereimiahwasabullfrog...
D) And, at the AMAs, it never fails that the worst of the worst (Taylor Swift we're talking to you) will be highly rewarded. At least we have those Teen-Career-Ending 20's to look forward to (Taylor Swift's vagina, this time we're talking to you).

That being said (a big shout out to Larry David and the Curb crew for that intro), the 37th annual American Music Awards should be considered a success if for no other reason than it made this progressive-metrosexual-journalist blush on at least three separate occasions. This year's AMA's was the highest rated show since 2002, showcased not one, not two, but three legendary-comeback performances (Janet, J-Lo, and Whitney. Rhianna, we're sorry but you don't count), and a host of shameless appearances that may just set the civil rights movements of both African Americans and homosexuals back a few dozen years. Yes, most importantly, the 2009 AMA's were a highly entertaining mix of the usual attention-deprived celebrities and disheartened divas that we've come to know and love.

There is just too much to talk about for one unemployed blogger sitting at his kitchen table drinking coffee on a Monday afternoon, so we're going to have to narrow an analysis down to the bare boned essentials. By bare-boned, we do not mean Lady Gaga's ridiculous outfit, but instead mean our own little AMA awards, the ODC Golden Donkeys, given to those memorable moments that never completely leave one's brain. And now, Mr. Seacrest, the envelope please!

The Anti-Genre-Busting Award:
This award goes to Mr. American Idol, Adam Flambert, who told Entertainment Weekly's Whitney Pastorek during rehersals for Sunday night's show: "Genres are old news. Genres are a thing of the past. I don’t believe in genres." I'm sorry to say that you, Mr. Flambert are a hypocrite. Not only did his performance Sunday night — complete with mock-fellatio, pelvic thrusts, and make-out-sessions — reinforce every gay stereotype held by the religious right, it was simply a horrific display by a media-fueled wannabe whose talent has been reduced to makeup, hair gel, and homoeroticism. Perhaps the only good thing to come out of this performance was the discovery of Flambert's irrelevance. We'll see you on ABC's Dancing With the Stars. Oh, and your song? It sucks.

Runners Up: Country Music Performers Pretending to be Pop-Stars (Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban, congrats) and the Black Eyed Peas for continually referring to themselves as Hip-Hop. You're not.

The Don't-Call-It-A-Comeback Award: This is a two-way tie between Whitney Houston and Jennifer Lopez. Sure, neither of these women displayed the full-breath of talent the good lord gave them on Sunday night, but both divas made statements with their performances that included tears from some of the ODC staffers during Houston's performance and at least one areal hand pump when J-Lo asked, "Ya miss me?"

We here at ODC can't understand the backlash J-Lo's "Louboutins." She's J-Lo, why wouldn't she sing a song giving props to her favorite shoes? And what in the hell does everyone expect from America's dance-machine? The hook, "I'm throwin' on my Louboutins" will be stuck in our heads for the next month-and-a-half, she rocked her dance solo after her 40-year-old butt hit the ground, and made her way from her boxer introduction to a corset covered exit over the course of 4 minutes. It was exciting, fresh, and completely J-Lo. Quit over-expecting.

And Whitney...what can we say? We were in tears by the end of her song "I Didn't Know My Own Strength." A friend of ours said during the performance, "I just don't particularly like that she sang this song as her comeback song." We ask, "What would an international diva of Houston's proportions who lost her career to crack sing instead? 'I Will Always Love You?'" The moment was a perfect addition to television history and for that, we applaud.

Runner Up: Michael Jackson's diamond-studded glove.

The What-The-Fuck? Award: This one is gonna go to Alicia Keys, whose ally-rape choreography during her performance of "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart" made me cringe. Yes Alicia, I know its hard to sleep with a broken heart, but try sleeping after you witness a black man dressed up like a hobo jump down off of a brick wall and attack Alicia Keys. NO ALICIA! Didn't your mom ever tell you that an alley is no place for a woman to perform?

Runners Up: Jermaine Jackson's children's names...I mean seriously, WTF? And Perez Hilton, who's ability to sing the words to "Empire State" while making me want to slap his face with Lady Gaga's balls is unprecidented. PS, whoever gave Mr. Hilton a microphone should be slapped with the rest of Gaga's manhood.

And finally, the I'm Not Buying Your BS Award goes to: Taylor Swift...your doe eyed shock at winning multiple times may be fooling 90% of the viewing audience, but not me. Deep down inside of you is a Lindsay Lohan, I just know it.


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Snubbing The Shield

I don't want to admit that I watch a ton of television. Growing up, that was everything we railed against as the defining moment in life when you really had lost that lovin' feeling, the point in your life's career that you had decided there just wasn't that much more to life than staring at the pixelated screen in front of your coffee table. Gone were the days of getting drunk, smoking pot and playing guitar until dawn. Gone were the walks through the neighborhood with the dog. Trips to Europe, skydiving, whitewater rafting, snowboarding, reading, writing, living, loving, life...it was gone once the television watching became a pastime. However, I have become a watcher of television.

I must say that, looking back, we were misguided. Watching television was more of an active denouncement of our parents' habits than a fear of losing touch with life itself. Hell, thinking back on all the countless hours I spent stoned out of my mind, watching quality television would have been an improvement to trying to see moving spirals in my Alice in Wonderland poster while hopped up on LSD. A good episode of The Wire tops those memoires emensely.

This brings me to today's anouncemnet of the 2009 Emmy Awards. Television has come a long way from nights spent with mom and dad watching Dynasty and Dallas. Now we have shows like Weeds and Entourage to look forward to on weekday nights. It's Always Sunny in Philly has caused me to pee a little on numerous occasions, while Rescue Me always has me dreading the end of our 60 minutes together. True Blood, Nurse Jackie, Mad Men, The Office, 30 Rock, Breaking Bad, Big Love, Damages, Six Feet Under, Eastbound and Down, Generation Kill...the list of beautiful and gut-wrenching television goes on and on.

With all the amazing television out on a seemingly endless selection of channels, I would imagine it would be hard to narrow the field down when considering shows and actors that deserve Emmy nominations. That being said, today's list of nominees was glaringly missing a final curtain call for one of the most provacative, daring, and undeniably groundbreaking pieces of programming in television history.

Season 1 of FX's The Shield premiered on March 12, 2002 and immediately changed the landscape of what basic cable could bring viewers. Sure, HBO had been breaking the mold in regards to pushing the boundaries, and Six Feet Under had just wrapped its first full season, but it wasn't until The Shield brought its gritty brand of documentary-style handheld recording, language, and graphic depictions of inner-city crime and police corruption to FX that producers, writers, and networks began to reconceptualize creative content.

Furthermore, creator/writer Shawn Ryan, series star Michael Chiklis and co-star Walton Goggins (the two men whose character relations provided the arc for the entire series) got better with age - something very few programs (I'm talking to YOU Grey's Anatomy) can hope to achieve.

The Shield ended the series this past year with its 7th Season, a beautiful and heart-breaking collection of one-hour episodes that culminated with the murder/suicide of Shane Vendrell's family (Walton Goggins) and Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) forsaking everything around him to keep himself out of prision. The finale was executed perfectly, with Chiklis all but guaranteeing himself a Emmy nod with his overwhelming — and completely silent — performance as the realization that his character would forever be strapped to a desk, ostracized from the police force and his wife and children as a direct result of his decisions. It was easily the most mesmerizing ten minutes of television I had ever seen. The final season of The Shield was recognized by the American Film Institue as one of the 10 best TV programs of the year along with Breaking Bad, In Treatment, John Adams, Lost, Life, Mad Men, The Office, Recount and The Wire.

Of these television shows, The Shield is the most deserved of the recognition and priase, yet is one of the most overlooked programs in television history. Rent it. Buy it. Do whatever you can to wtiness the evolution of television, the birth of Michael Chiklis the bonified dramatic star, the rebirth of Glenn Close (who, unfortunately, time had forgotten), the remarkable acting chops of Anthony Anderson as the unflinchingly cold and calculated Antwon Mitchell, the hauningly intense work of Forrest Whitaker (the role grants him tremendous respect), and the dozens of other amazingly well-written and exceptionally acted characters who piece the 7 season story together. I, for one, was sad to see it go and even sadder that one of the best series in television history was but a small and passable blip on the Academy of Television Arts and Science's radar.

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Trying To Stay Day-to-Day Has Its Challenges...

There are hundreds of excuses as to why I haven't been able to keep up my pledge to post daily here at One Day In Culture. I could say it's because I'm lazy, but that honestly seems like the cowardly way out...because...as all who know me know...I'm not the lazy type. I could blame it on women, which would be an excuse to write home and tell my Dad about...but things have been pretty slow in that neck of the woods and would ultimately be a lie.

Music? Nope. The recording industry has been complete shit for the past few months. When Maxwell is the best thing that comes out in a given week you know the music business is having itself quite a dry spell. (To Maxwell: No offense. But R&B just ain't what it used to be.)

Books? Nahhh...I dropped out of Book Club months ago and school doesn't start till August.
Sports? Well I did go to a baseball game on the 4th...
Movies? Not unless you count going to see Ice Age 2 in 3D as a movie, which you shouldn't.

No, I believe I can blame only one person for the recent lack in my productivity — Jimmy Fallon.

Damn you Jimmy Fallon with your blend of quirk-dry humor and impeccable hairline. You've made late night television a fun place to be again. Slow-jamming the news with a genius idea for a house band — The Roots. Playing "Lick it for Ten" where you've had everyone from Drew Barrymore to random audience members lick something completely random for $10. Every band you have on the show, Jimmy, sounds like they're owed a Grammy...including Asher Roth, whose "Be By Myself" — backed by The Roots — was one of the best live performances I've ever seen on television. You're reality television show, "7th Floor West," is hilarious, as was Beer Pong with Betty White. And Kudos to you for having Anne Hathaway on your show to play guitar...even though she was awful, she was scorching hot doing it.

I stay awak at nights thinking about how much fun it would be to host your television show. Will Farrell doing skits with you, playing Wii Tiger Woods against the real Tiger Woods, having audience members come up to play Rush Limbaugh Kareoke....It's all just so unbelieveably brilliant, unpretentious and fun. And did I mention The Roots? It is way past the time in music history when the rest of the world was introduced to not only the best band in Hip-Hop, but perhaps all of music. Their performance of "I Got Over," was indescribeable. In case you missed it:



See Jimmy! See why I stay awake watching your show? See why I'm up until 1am every night regardless of two weeks of reruns and can't get up before 10am? I blame you Jimmy Fallon, for giving us all a reason to ditch sleep in an effort to belly laugh till dawn. I want your life Jimmy Fallon...and you're remarkable hairline. Read more!

The Ink Is On My Checks, My Rolex Is The Freshest...

After we watch, let us discuss:



I have a friend here in Denver who expresses his displeasure with something by decrying, "Oh my God, that just gave me a rash." And, if something like the thought of having to go to the mall to do some shopping on a Sunday afternoon gives him a rash, what we just witnessed gives me a form of diaper dermatitis, only, I don't have a diaper, and I've just crapped my pants.

Unbeknownst to most of the working world, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt (known in the teen-land as Speidi...now I think I might vomit) arose from the bowls of reality television in 2006 on a show I never saw called The Hills. Mrs. Montag-Pratt, unfortunately, was born in Crested Butte, Colorado in 1986. And what might even be more unfortunate than that she didn't stay where the good Lord made her. Mr. Pratt, on the other hand, was born under a bridge, a horrible experiment brought about when casting agent Matthew Steiner aspired to create a new breed of action hero by splicing the DNA found in "Marky" Mark Wahlburg's dead skin with the public hair of Ray Romano. What Mr. Steiner intended to create was a much more jovial action star, one who was free from the haunting burden behind many of Mr. Wahlburg's characters. What Mr. Steiner created, by adding too many Romano short and curlys, was a complete and utter douche bag. When these two degenerate strains on the gene pool found each other on one of TV's most idiotic moments, it was love at first spite — regardless of the detriment to society.

"Speidi" encapsulates yet another level of American cultural horror. I would assume, although I have yet to ask, that most high school students are fairly associated with this dynamic duo. The premiere of season 4 of The Hills took in 2.1 million viewers aged 12-34 and on June 2, MTV aired a very successful episode titled, "Speidi's Wedding Unveiled." The couple is tabloid royalty, and they're damned proud of it.

In an ongoing effort to enhance American culture while debunking the instant celebrity status to unabashed and untalented young men and women born with no moral compass, here is a list of 10 people (5 Montags and 5 Pratts) that would actually prove to be a benefit if the American public had ever heard of them. Print this out and spread it around, we may only hope to enlighten...

• Guy Montag — The main character in Ray Bradbury's classice 1953 novel, Fahrenheit 451, Montag makes his living honorably as a fireman burning books for the government until he begins to understand his role as a thought suppressor. If American teenagers knew this Montag, that might mean that A) they were reading and B) they could understand Bradbury's commentary on the destruction of American society through television and violence.
  
• Charles Pratt — An American entreprenuer and philanthropist, Pratt founded the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1887. Among the first to understand the need for petrolium replacements for whale oil, he also was a leader in academic education and today the Pratt Institute is one of the leading arts colleges in the United States offering classes in architecture, fashion, illustration, interior design, digital arts and creatve writing.
• Louis A. Montag — In 1945, this Georgian began Atlanta's first independant financial advisory firm.
  
• Philip W. Pratt — In 1872, Pratt invented and patented the first automatic sprinkler system for fire prevention. Students everywhere who didn't study for their math exams rejoiced.
• Dr. Mildred Montag — From 1943-1948, this Montag served Adelphi College as the first director of the School of Nursing. She was a visionary nurse educator whose innovative research and teaching led to a wholesale expansion of the nursing profession and brought countless benefits to the health and well-being of generations to come.
  
• Charlie Pratt — An self-taught American Indian contemporary bronze sculptor of Cheyenne and Arapahoe descent.
• Bob Montag — As a player for the Atlanta Crackers in 1954, Montag hit what he claimed was the longest home run in baseball history. It landed in a coal car passing on the railroad tracks beyond the right field fence at Ponce de Leon park. A few days later, the train had gone to Nashville, Tennessee and back. The conductor asked Montag to autograph the ball, which by that time had traveled more than 500 miles.
• William Henry Pratt — You know him by his stage name, Boris Karloff. His role as The Monster in the 1931 film, Frankenstein, made Karloff (not Pratt) a household name. Karloff was also a charter member of the Screen Actors' Guild.
• Jacob Sammuel Pratt, III — Egged on by a dare in 1993, this Kentucky native once fit three Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers into his mouth at the same time, then chewed and swallowed without a beverage.
• Sara Beth Montag — The most flexible girl in her high school, Sara Beth Montag sang her favorite song, Rhianna's Disturbia, in front of a crowd of 72 during last year's Houston, Texas Livestock Show and Rodeo. She won a 3rd Place trophy and a $25 gift certificate to Gabby's Ribs and BBQ's Telephone Road location.
  

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Just Trust Me

So I wasn't the first person to hear about Boulder-band 3Oh!3. By the time I arrived in the bubble town just northwest of Denver, the duo of Nathaniel Motte and Sean Foreman had been around for a few months and the buzz, albeit small, was growing. My friend dragged me to their first show at RailJam in the parking lot across the street from Half Fast Subs on Boulder's campus ghetto, the Hill. I'd imagine there were 50 or so people in the parking lot, but when 3Oh!3 came roaring out on stage in their wolf t-shirts dancing to their almost ridiculous music, the size of the audience didn't matter. Those kids exploded and I knew 3Oh!3 were going to be huge.

Now look at them. An MTV Spring Break appearance. A live performance on Jimmy Kimmel. The cover of Alternative Press (AP) not once, but twice in the past 6 months. Their single, "Don't Trust Me," is still killing it on the charts and has been remixed by Kid Cudi of "Day n' Night" fame. Word on the street (ok, so Twitter, but same thing) is that they've just recorded in the studio with Lil John. Yes, THAT Lil John. And no, the song has nothing to do with lollipops.

For those of you who know my past employment history (and we're only going back two years folks, so keep up) you've probably heard the story. In 2007 as an intern at a local magazine, I had pitched an article about 3Oh!3 to my editors, who, initially, loved the story idea. Two white boys from Boulder who are poised to be the next big thing in hip-hop/electronic music. I told my editor that I had exclusive access. I had met these dudes before (briefly, and they still couldn't pick me out of a line up) and they were from my Boulder hood. I had friends who knew friends who knew these dudes. I had dated a girl whose brother used to hang with them in High School. Sure they'd talk to me...

I was told to proceed with the story, and I did, in effect land one heck of a interview. We met in a park close to both of their houses in Boulder, Motte showing up early and Foreman rolling in a little late on his girlfriend's pink scooter. We spent the afternoon in the rain, talking shop, just a few months prior to Photofinish Records lighting their already massive fuse. I wrote what I thought to be a very good article. The editor who assigned it to me loved it. It was rewritten three times and ready to go. We had artwork. We had a publishing date in Januaray. Then a new editor strolled in December and said they story was too young. "Not our demographic," he said to us and killed the story completely.

I have always wanted to publish my 2007 article. I think it should be read by anyone who has any interest in the band and their persona. I tried in vain to pitch it to numerous publications, but unfortunately, by the time the article was blown out of the water, everyone and Helen Keller knew about these two white boys from Boulder, Colorado. "We've already got a 3Oh!3 article in the works," was my response from everyone.

So, here it is, for any 3Oh!3 fan out there who wants another article on their beloved band. But please understand, this was written in 2007, not yesterday, so if it seems a tad dated, you'll know why.

Holler 'Till You Pass Out - The Article

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Redefining an Area Code - 3Oh!3 and the Creation of a Cult Phenomenon

A gangly, pale-faced twenty-something paces with anticipation backstage at Denver’s Fillmore Auditorium. Between plunging his hands in and out of his pockets, 3Oh!3’s Nathaniel Motte adjusts, and then readjusts, the white cotton towel that’s wrapped around his neck. In between fidgets, he has neurotically unscrewed the caps of around twenty bottles of water, making sure each is ready for the instant he or his bandmate might need to chug some refreshment. Sean Foreman, the other half of Boulder’s emerging rap sensation, stands silently against a dimly lit hallway, watching tonight’s opener, a wanna-be female rapper named Lanz, finish up her less-than-memorable set.

3Oh!3 appear a bit nervous. The Fillmore, when sold out, fills to a standing capacity of 3,600 people, and is a daunting venue for many a national touring act. Forget, for a moment, the crystalline chandeliers that hang over the hardwood floors, making the venue itself look almost palatial. Disregard the photo-booth near the bar that is flashing visages of hip-hop legends TuPac and the Notorious BIG. Nevermind that ninety percent of the crowd is there to see Snoop Doggy Dog, tonight’s headliner. Keep in mind however, that this is the first time Motte and Foreman have ever played the Fillmore, and that their usual crowd of tattooed twenty-somethings, who normally come out in supportive droves, are nowhere to be seen. Peppered throughout the urban crowd are tiny collections of teenagers who occasionally hold up 3Oh!3’s mock gang sign (which is created by pressing together the index fingers and thumbs of both hands, creating an “O”, and then splaying one’s remaining three fingers out on both hands), but tonight those packs are far and few between.


 This isn’t the usual 3Oh!3 crowd. There are too many questioning faces and perplexed looks. Most of the Snoop obsessed audience has no idea what they’re about to experience. However, for those handful of kids who paid $35 to support their favorite local band, the opening notes of “Dance With Me” stir them into a frenzy. By the third song, 3Oh!3’s watershed anthem “Chokechain”, a mosh pit opens up on the left hand side of the stage. A moon-faced kid catches an elbow to his face and is sent sprawling. By the time security breaks up the action, Motte and Foreman look settled in and at almost at home.

BIGGER THAN BOULDER

We’ve planned to meet at Beach Park in Boulder, on the rainy Labor Day before 3Oh!3’s Fillmore performance. Motte explains that Foreman is running a bit late, but assures me that he should be here in the next few minutes. As Motte and I make small talk, Foreman rolls up on a scooter, quickly honking the horn acknowledging that he, in fact, sees us. Motte encourages him to drive up over the curb and into the park, and for a brief moment, it looks as if he may be considering it. Instead, Foreman flips a u-turn, and properly parks across the street. The look on my face must say it all: I’m a bit disappointed that he doesn’t rev that four-stroke engine, hop the curb, and start doing doughnuts. “He’d get in trouble,” Motte says in response. “It’s his girlfriend’s.”


 Over the past year, Foreman’s face has seen numerous styles of facial hair, but today he’s fully bearded, looking like the love child of Jeanine Garofalo and Grizzly Adams. Around his neck he’s wearing a compass that Motte quickly questions. “It’s so I don’t get lost,” says Foreman, which is perplexing because he’s lived in Boulder all his life. I’m about to ask what he means when Foreman holds it up just long enough for me to realize that the compass itself is broken. Like the origin of the band and it’s members, the medallion is completely tongue in cheek.


 Nathaniel Motte and Sean Foreman are obvious friends. The duo first caught wind of each other as high schoolers in Boulder where they both honed their skills in the area’s underground hip-hop scene. They didn’t actually meet until 4 years ago, when a fortunate union of fate and science found them both in a physics class at CU. They started collaborating immediately, writing songs in Foreman’s cat fur infested basement where Motte would set up his turntables and Foreman would freestyle over the eclectic beats. The two began to work together more often, coming up with “Say Dem Up” and “Neatfreak 47”, two staples of their current live act. “Nat produces all of the beats and I write the lyrics,” explains Foreman, “but it’s organic. If I don’t like something I’ll let Nat know, although, I’m usually wrong.”


 Since those basement days, the band’s genre bending sound has evolved into an almost unclassifiable fusion of rap, punk, and electronica. The music spills from a single turntable Motte sets up just offstage as the duo performs choreographed dance moves, taking up quite a bit of the sprawling Fillmore stage. Motte shakes so violently that at times he looks like an epileptic head banging at a Metallica concert. Foreman, on the other side of the stage, stops, drops to the ground, and begins to breakdance. Their energy is so infectious that by “Holler Till You Pass Out”, the band’s last song, there is a noticeable bounce to the crowd that wasn’t there before. Motte, noticing the change, jumps from the stage and stands up on the security fence, holding his microphone out to an audience that eagerly raps along. Half-an-hour ago Motte and Foreman looked intimidated by their surroundings, novices in the presence of hip-hop stardom, but as Motte hovers over the crowd they have just won over, 3Oh!3 look like rock stars.

BREAKING BIG

The Denver music scene today is reminiscent of Austin, Texas in the mid 90’s; a period that saw the emergence of the ever influential Spoon and the long overdue national recognition of the Butthole Surfers. As the self-proclaimed “Music Capital of the World” began to dry up in the early part of 2001, a result of .com millionaires buying up music venues and turning them into low overhead college bars, industry executives began looking elsewhere for new talent. Local Denver acts such as Born In The Flood, Nathan and Stephen, The Flobots, and The life there is... are beginning to turn corporate heads, but none as fast as 3Oh!3. The frenzy that surrounds their local shows is impossible to ignore. Since they first appeared in 2006, they’ve sold out the Fox Theater in Boulder the last three times they’ve headlined, and the duo now draw an average of six to seven hundred people at each venue they play. “At this point, there really is no telling how far they’ll go. They control their own destiny,” says Mike Barsch of Soda Jerk Productions, who has booked 10 shows for the band. “Personally, I think they put on one hell of a concert.”
 “It’s flattering,” says Foreman of the immediate success the band has seen. “It started as a basement creation, a sort of Frankenstein-ian monster. We never had any aspirations when we made those first couple of tracks together.”


“People give us a lot of static for having a younger fan base,” says Motte. “But these are the kids that show up and buy two t-shirts and a CD, then rip them apart going nuts, sweating, and dancing up in the front. It’s great to be supported by an audience like that, regardless of what anyone says.”


The impact the band has had on the Colorado scene has been staggering. Sarah Finger, booking agent for The Fox recalls the band’s first gig in 2006 when, an hour before the concert the theater had only sold 6 tickets. “We were all a little worried,” says Finger. But as door time crept closer, the ticket office found themselves swarmed with kids, and suddenly more than three-hundred tickets were gone. “That big of a walk-up doesn’t happen very often,” explains Finger. “I think my mouth was wide open in astonishment the whole night.”


 The typical 3Oh!3 crowd is a difficult one to categorize, something the band is very proud of. A majority of the audience is the emo “scene kid”, clad in skin tight jeans, and hair mussed in such a way to make it look as if it didn’t take some serious time to style. Then there’s a handful of people just like me, the Boulder music aficionado, the college graduate, the guy who has never outgrown his love of hip-hop or the underground local music scene. We rally together, the scenester and myself, to pay homage to two minds who are creating a style of music that has never been heard before. Together, we bounce to Motte’s beats, and scream rap Foreman’s lyrics, trying desperately to hold onto a band we know is too important to keep secret for long.
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Beat It

A new acquaintance, R, asked me this morning if I had heard about the passing of Michael Jackson. Of course I had. It was bigger than Iran. But then R asked me if I was sad about the whole thing. If I was having emotional feelings toward a man I had never met. For a second, I pondered. How did I feel about the passing of the King of Pop?

"Honestly," I replied. "I didn't really think about it."

That wasn't entirely true, so first, let me apologize to R for being so short. I did think about MJ's passing. I actually thought about it a lot. But not in the way one would imagine. In all honesty, the first thing I thought about when I heard of Jackson's passing...was...my mother.

I thought back to 1982. I thought about Albuquerque, New Mexico and our little house on the hill. I thought about a power outage while watching Entertainment Tonight on our 13inch screen while eating macaroni and cheese that we cooked with our gas stove. I remember mom cranking up a battery powered tape player and popping Thriller in. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" blared. We danced throughout the candlelit house, oblivious to the storm that had taken down our power lines. It is one of my fondest memories. So, R, if you asked me again if I had emotional feelings toward the King of Pop's death yesterday I suppose you could say yes. But they are not feelings of remorse or devastation. I wasn't excited about the next Michael Jackson album, nor, had he been a transformative part of my youth (a la Kurt Cobain). But he was a memory, many memories actually, of my love for my mother.

I feel for MJ. I do. I feel for many stars of both the stage and screen who for them, the burden of fame became just too much to bear. From Chris Farley and Jim Morrison, to yes, even Lindsay Lohan, the bitch that is American popular culture has no attention span. Like the burst of a handful of Pop Rocks, American fame is fleeting. It uses those in the limelight without remorse. And then, when Robert Downey, Jr. turns to the needle, or Brittany is so fucking high she's showing her vagina to the force-fed gluttonous paparazzi, we laugh. We ridicule. We despise.

The Michael Jackson I knew growing up had long-since become an American joke. A horribly in-debt, pill-popping, plastic-surgery-addled, boy-loving, son-dangling, washed-up ex musician whose last hit, 1991's "Black or White," has become a metaphor for his freakish appearance. I can't feel sorry for the passing of a man who gave so much to the world, only to have his very essence ridiculed on every news outlet. From CNN and NBC to schoolyard jokes and Saturday Night Live, the man formerly known as the King of Pop had become a side-show. He most assuredly knew what a farce his life had become. I cannot feel sorry for that man.

Instead, I believe in my heart that the Michael Jackson we knew and loved, the Michael Jackson who had our heads bopping at a year old to, "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough," is still alive. When "Billie Jean" rocks at your 4th of July party, when "Rock With You" spins at your local bar, when "The Girl Is Mine," makes you fondly remember that first kiss in elementary school, Michael Jackson is alive and well in our hearts and in our minds.

This is the first in a (hopefully) daily effort to bring you an honest approach to Pop Culture news. The flash of E! News, the dirt-stained lapels of TMZ, the potty-mouthed hypocritical Perez Hilton...it all disgusts me. Yesterday, the passing of a legend reminded me of why I do what I do. Why I think my voice matters. It's because, once, long ago, art meant something. It wasn't manufactured and disposable. It was what connected our memories of the passing years and carries, for me, much more than the price of admission. Read more!