Silver Jacket

Category: Television

  • Diamonds are Harder than Iron(y)

    KanyeThe latest Kanye West video, for his song "Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)," has played pretty heavily on TV of late, and it confused me, until now. You see, the song is truly a tribute to himself and his record label, Roc-A-Fella Records. The chorus goes "diamonds are forever" because the Rocafella associates rep their label by putting their hands together to form a diamond-shaped gap in the middle. (Thus the lyrics "Throw your diamonds in the sky if you feel the vibe," echoing Big Poppa‘s "Throw your hands in the air if you’s a true player.") Why diamonds? Conspicuous Consumption Rules Everything Around Them.

    Now why would a self-congratulatory song about a label that glorifies the diamond trade have "From Sierra Leone" in the title? Seems an afterthought to me, as there is no mention of conflict diamonds at all in the lyrics. And why would the video dramatically portray children slaving away in African diamond mines, possibly indicting members of the Roca fam for their fashion choices? Seems an arrestingly self-ravaging afterthought, actually. Has irony reached a new apogee?

    It’s as though Kanye produced the song, then heard about the diamond situation in Africa, and suddenly felt bad about the whole affair. Not bad enough to change the song, mind you, just bad enough to wrap what he had in a public service message and put it out there. I never bothered to research my suspicion, but yesterday Kelefa Sanneh confirmed it in the Times:

    After he had recorded "Diamonds," he learned about the conditions of diamond workers in Sierra Leone and elsewhere. He went back and retitled the track "Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)," and flew to Prague to shoot an apocalyptic video (with conflict diamonds a central, if mysterious, plot point).

    But to Kanye’s half-hearted credit:

    Then the images in the video didn’t match the lyrics, so Mr. West recorded a new version of the track, with a verse from Jay-Z; now the popular remix doesn’t match the music in the video. A few days ago, Mr. West said he still wasn’t sure which version would wind up on the album.

  • The Man Who Takes the Science out of Scientology

    Cruise_lauerFor years I’ve had a recurring dream in which, outlandish as it sounds, Matt Lauer and Tom Cruise debate the finer points of neuropharmacology on national television. Crazy stuff, fodder for a Spielberg movie, I know. But today my odd dreams retroactively became premonitions.

    Okay, there are a few differences. Replace "finer points" with "coarser points." Replace Cruise in a flight suit with Cruise in a creepy stupor, sporting bags under his eyes and a cult-addled stare. And replace Lauer dressed as a court jester with Lauer as my new Hero. [Also, remove the weird sex stuff.] There you have what transpired this morning on "Today."

    Scientologists notoriously hate psychiatry. Lauer breaches the topic and eggs Cruise on, revealing Cruise to be pedantic, myopic, and apparently illiterate. I’m still not sure how a man who says "you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, okay?  That’s what I’ve done" in the same conversation as "there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance" can figure out which tube is for food and which tube is for air.

  • Hot in Herre. No, Seriously, I’m on Fire.

    DdiWell there is now a game out called "Dance Dance Immolation!" You put on a fireproof silver jacket, dance around like a spazz, and get flames shot at you. Sounds familiar:

    If only I had the fireproof facemask then (January 1997) that I have now. But at least I didn’t have any facial hair to singe off.

    [P.S. If you are pop-culture-deficient, a band named The Prodigy made a b&w music video in 1996 where a strange man dances around in a big tunnel and screams in a British accent, "I’m the firestarter! Twisted firestarter!" You can watch it here. My friends Ken and Glen and I decided that was a bad message to send to the kids, so we created "Twisted Firefighter" for their public access TV show, "The Ken and Glen Show." The more you know, kiddies…]

  • Watching TV Makes You Better at Watching TV

    Cathtub2Steven Johnson wrote recently in the New York Times Magazine that "Watching TV Makes You Smarter." Oh, how I would love to believe that. Even if it’s true, Johnson makes the claim only about recent television programming, not what I watched during my long school vacations. Zero mention of Punky Brewster, MacGyver, or Yo! MTV Raps.

    You see, I used to watch up to 12 hours of television a day. I often wonder how much more I could achieve with my mind if I had spent that time reading or, heck, watching paint dry. I sometimes console myself by saying that it didn’t rot my brain–there are many types of literacy, and watching so much TV just made me learn to think in a particular way. Maybe not a way useful to the classroom, but a way that will make me wildly suited to some fabulously constructive endeavor someday. For a while I was very interested in going to grad school for media studies. Finally, a way to turn my years of experience with TV into an asset!

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  • Wookin’ Pa Nub

    TivoShould Apple buy TiVo?