nate sullivan

One trend I’ve noticed in this election cycle is EPIC-NESS. Collectively, we as a society seem to have lost the ability to care about something for more than two weeks at a time unless it is the most important thing ever. Naturally, since cable and the internet (plus a whole crew of candidates and consultants) need to talk about the election for something like two and a half years, that means describing the campaign in increasingly dramatic turns. It’s almost impossible not to get sucked into this, but the latest participant is Rick Santorum, who apparently got on stage and regaled the audience with comparisons to the years immediately prior to World War II. 

“Your country needs you. It’s not as clear a challenge. Obviously, World War II was pretty obvious. At some point, they knew. But remember, the Greatest Generation, for a year and a half, sat on the sidelines while Europe was under darkness, where our closest ally, Britain, was being bombed and leveled, while Japan was spreading its cancer all throughout Southeast Asia. America sat from 1940, when France fell, to December of ’41, and did almost nothing.”

…

“It’s going to be harder for this generation to figure this out. There’s no cataclysmic event. It’s going to be hard. You understand it — you’re here. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t get it. But what about the rest of America, do they understand what’s happening? Is anybody telling them what’s happening? Is anybody reminding us who we are, what made us great, and what these assaults are all about — to clear the way?”

This is a pretty weird analogy, partially because it’s so indirect (are you comparing today to the rise of Hitler or not?), and partially because it’s so random. Today is a fascinating, interesting period of time for the world, but it seems completely and totally different in almost every way from the 1940s. 

As a young person (and for the record, I remain “a young person” for the next thirty four days), I’ve come to realize that sorting through World War II references in search of accurate comparisons and analogies is surprisingly difficult, thanks to an overwhelming hoard of movies, books, video games, HBO mini-series, board games, and crossover comic books (Nazi dinosaurs!) that have polluted my collective knowledge of what was a really complex military, political, economic, and cultural event for the entire world. At some point, even lightly educated people like myself and whatever the 30 year old equivalent of Rick Santorum is need to step back and consider what we’re basing our sweeping generalizations on.

That’s why I made this chart.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. And remember — not all Wikipedia articles are created equal.

Well, so much for my deathcore cover of “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy”. IT’S ALREADY BEEN DONE BY A FISH.

To me, this sounds more like the U.S. is badly regulated than over-regulated. Both are bad, but the solution is different, and unfortunately, fixing that former is a lot more work than just eliminating the EPA or something. 

One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers on Jeremy Lin and race :

But why can’t we admit that the fascination with Lin and the reason people are following his story is, almost entirely, a result of his race? Black men can run faster and jump higher than white men, asian men, hispanic men, etc. 

Part of what makes Jeremy Lin exceptional is his race. If the NBA was filled with Chinese-Americans, this would be a far smaller story. It would also be a far smaller story if Jeremy Lin was a black player from Harvard. We expect black players to excel because experience has taught us that they do excel in the NBA.

I don’t know if this reader is a serious basketball fan like myself, but he sure doesn’t sound like it for a couple reasons.

(1) Good basketball players require a certain level of athleticism, but that’s not ultimately what separates them from the pack of potential draftees. Just ask the Celtics, who have been trying to get more athletic for twenty years, only to end up with Jerome Moiso, Kedrick Brown, Gerald Green, and other incredible athletes who were terrible, worthless NBA players. The idea that serious NBA observers think any one racial group is inherently too unathletic to include potentially great basketball players is, frankly, insulting to the game of basketball. 

(2) Jeremy Lin being a great, successful player has nothing to do with him being as athletically gifted as LeBron, or even his new teammate JR Smith, and everything to do with often understated qualities of athleticism that impact the game. Lin’s balance, vision, strength (for his size), and well as his extremely quick first step are all athletic qualities scouts struggle to accurately measure. This happens in other sports; Victor Cruz and Wes Welker are two exceptional wide receivers who change speeds and direction really well and are simply good at getting open.

There are plenty of black basketball players who are overlooked because they too have these strengths (as opposed to raw speed, height, length, or jumping ability), and when they succeed, serious NBA fans are usually excited. In fact, you see this all the time with undersized, non-prototypical power forwards like David West, Paul Milsap, DeJuan Blair, Jared Dudley, Ryan Gomes, and — before he went insane — Glen Davis. But it also happens with guards; Gilbert Arenas, Michael Redd, Mo Williams and others played at bigger programs than Lin, are all black, and were all second round, non-guaranteed picks no one had pegged for stardom.

(3) “We expect black players to excel because experience has taught us that they do excel in the NBA.” This is a ridiculous statement; what we really expect is for the NBA to have a lot of black players, because experience has shown us that it always does. Assuming that black players will actually excel in the NBA, given the league’s demographics, is to assume that 75% of the league will excel, which is patently absurd. The majority of good NBA players are black. The majority of the guys who suck in the NBA are… wait for it… black.

Mostly though, I’m annoyed that people insist on projecting their reasons for caring about someone or something onto everyone else, and demanding that we “admit” this is how everyone thinks. In reality, Lin is getting attention from the sports world largely because he was undrafted, he plays in New York, and he’s killing it on the floor at a level that is literally unheard of in the history of professional basketball (at least for someone’s first couple of games). He’s getting attention from people who don’t care about basketball largely because he’s Asian, and also because he plays in New York. 

Campaign ads are really dumb. That being said, I would have had so much fun filming this, political implications aside. The guy with the gun (is that supposed to be Romney?) really seems to be enjoying himself. 

Yeah? If teenagers are so hard to please, maybe teenagers should GET A JOB. 

Here come the recruiter emails again!

“Hi Nate, would you like to come make bombs and bomb-related accessories for the DC area’s 7th largest soul-sucking defense contractor??? I bet you would! Can I interest you in two weeks of vacation we’ll carefully track by the hour, and ceaseless, crushing peer pressure to wear nicer clothes and stop asking so many damn questions?”

Pass.

This is a top-tier “BANG” call from Mike Breen. I would pay… probably way too much money to have him call me hitting a game winning shot in pretty much any forum.

Derek Thompson, The Atlantic.

I’ve been married since I was 23, I moved out of my parents house at 22, and buying a house or having a kid would be incredibly irresponsible because we don’t have any money. Leave me alone.

Rough day at the dish. Despite access to Adobe Illustrator and an unlimited library of stock photos, on some days, all I can come up with are nonsensical statements about things that didn’t happen to people who don’t exist.

Washington Post : “Rich people are buying expensive things.”

Run, Rondo! RUUUUUUNNNN!!!!

The Washington Post is making targeted buyout offers to reduce parts of its staff.

Almost all Post columnists are protected from this buyout, but overall I count 21 shoe-leather reporters and line editors who could depart — people who report, write and shape stories about the national economy and business; health, science and the environment; lifestyles; sports; and local news.

Why does the Post even have columnists anymore? Isn’t “opinion” the one thing the internet has unquestionably taken care of? I think David Carr makes some pretty good points in “Page One” (here, if you haven’t heard of it), but I don’t want to hear about how the internet is nothing without real journalism if “real journalism” is then turned into an endless stream of George Will and E.J. Dionne columns. 

BAHAHAHAHAHA, Kobe Bryant is irrelevant. Seriously, what a chucker. He must be incredibly frustrating to play with.

And of course, Linsanity is completely ridiculous. I’m loving every bit of it, and frankly, I’m thrilled he’s not white, because I don’t have to listen to analysts call him “scrappy”, or internet hipsters tell me it’s the only reason people are excited about him. 

Rick Santorum at CPAC on this birth control kerfuffle:

… And he hammered Mr. Obama for policies that he said had undermined the country’s future and the liberty of its citizens. As an example, Mr. Santorum cited the president’s recent decision requiring that health insurance plans offered by religious-affiliated hospitals, universities and charities provide female employees with access to free birth control.

“It’s not about contraception,” Mr. Santorum said. “It’s about economic liberty. It’s about freedom of speech. It’s about freedom of liberty. It’s about government control of your lives, and it’s got to stop.”

Freedom of speech? Government control of your life? Freedom of liberty? What the hell is he talking about? This is completely about contraception. And are we really fighting about birth control in 2012? Is Eisenhower going to weigh in on this tonight in between “The Red Skelton Hour” and “Ozzie and Harriet?”

This is just embarassing for everyone. We can assassinate American citizens overseas at Presidential authority, or detain someone indefinitely without charging them, or bomb the bejeezus out of a soverign country as a “police action” without Congressional approval, but mandating that all employee-provided health insurance cover birth control (not abortions — BIRTH CONTROL) is an attack on “freedom of liberty”? I know you have to allow for a certain amount of craziness during the primaries, but at some point the conscious decision to focus on utter nonsense like this at the expense of the twenty billion debate-worthy issues that exist becomes something I have to hold against these candidates.

I am so intimidated by this band. They completely destroy my obvious “complicated music I can’t play is inherently bad” defense mechanism by being awesome and playing impossibly difficult music. I think if I had to count this song out while trying to play it, I’d have a stroke. This is only supposed to happen with metal bands I feel comfortable laughing at. Watching this band and then playing my stuff is like watching football on Sunday and then going outside and playing catch with my wife.

“WHEEEE, I’M CALVIN JOHNSON!!!”

</pulls hamstring>

barwen:

jacquesofalltrades:

ilovecharts:

-howintensive

Yep, sounds about right.

Nate, care to weigh in on the accuracy? 

Data collected from here.

Good news, everyone! The band is back is in my basement, hard at work trying to figure out what our next amazing project will be. Since we put out the album, I’ve spent a lot of time traveling the world, and in the process, have become enamored with a wide variety of richly textured musical flavors from Europe and Asia. Feathers and Arwen aren’t quite as “enlightened” as I am now, so they’re a bit resistant (a.k.a., “ignorant”), but fortunately we record at my house. That means that after they go home, I’m free to get incredibly high on obscure, designer drugs and rearrange our ideas any way I’d like. 

So here’s a preview. I can’t vouch for Bird-Boy and/or the Diva on this, but I’m pretty sure this is the future of the band. 

-Nate

Got our first song since the album going! Also Nate finally came back from gallivanting abroad finding himself or searching for buried treasure* or some such nonsense. Hooray!

-Arwen

*Or doing work stuff. But I choose to believe the other options. 

Elementary and Eat Wonky team up!

Somehow, we’re on the Eat Wonky playlist. We’re honored, yet sorta confused. How did this happen? Who knows. But next time you order a Wonky Dog, keep an ear out for that rockin’ Elementary tune in the background.

http://eatwonky.com/

Elementary’s album “Trial & Error” is out on iTunes and Amazon.

We’re super-proud of these 13 tunes (and super-ready to get them finally out to you)! It’s cheap, and awesome, so check it out.

iTunes link = http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/trial-error/id472793114?ls=1

Amazon link = http://www.amazon.com/Trial-Error/dp/B005VAQCEC/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318515733&sr=301-1

• Andrew: Elementary "A series of Tubas"
• then just have it be an album of Tuba music.
• MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

Happy Thursday.

You’ve got to make it to the end. Justice is absolutely served. 

The Elementary version of the hit Lady Gaga song Bad Romance is now a free download!!! Click the picture to go get it over at our website FOR FREE!

Elementary… the shaved bear of pop music. Make of that what you will.

-Nate

braiker:

This is apparently what a shaved bear looks like.

(Pro-tip: if you’re going to do a Google image search for “shaved bear” make sure safe search is on.)

Okay, so the first single didn’t publish properly. Fortunately, Arwen let me know by throwing a brick at me and calling me “bitch” several times. THANKS, BUDDY.

Anyways, HERE’s our new single. Jeez.

-Nate

Enjoy the record.

• nate

This guy should probably get a job.

-Nate

This is not an animated picture - Weird!

The first half is okay, but the second half of this is hysterical!

~Steve

dadsaretheoriginalhipster:

Your dad rode a skateboard before you did and he has a picture in Thrasher to prove it. When your dad was younger, skateboarding was so underground that he had to build his own boards. The cops didn’t know what to do with this new shit kicking menace to the middle class, so they made skateboarding illegal. So hipster, next time you’re rolling down the bike lane of some hipster neighborhood in SF, Portland or New York, remember this…

Your dad was so fucking gnar and awesome that the things he did for fun were made illegal in public places.

My dad has some pretty cool stories about doing this with his cousin, who ended up running a surf shop for like, 20 years. I think the best part is that he doesn’t even think the stories are cool; it’s just like “Yeah, we used to build our own skateboards. We were dumb, but it was pretty fun. There wasn’t a lot to do back then.”

-Nate

Feathers regrets nothing.