Fawkes News

Wooo! A  (longish) List:

• Intentional Communities: This is what is now the name for the large group of communities including 60s hippy style communes, religious retreats, “eco-villages”, and even co-ops such as pika. I recently wrote a large-ish (12 page) paper about the evolution of these in recent American history for 21H.102 and read a lot about them. I think the notions of communalism are powerful and interesting. I hope to explore these living situations in my life. I am touching it a little with pika this summer, but it would be interesting to do something in my adult life. Perhaps try a year or two at one of the more radically communal 60s era communes such as Twin Oaks. I also am intrigued by the notion of “co-housing developments” which are basically like traditional neighborhoods but built and designed for communal structures to be an integral part of peoples lives (be it from sharing laundry facilities and recreational space to having meals as a large group in a communal building). For more info on these things see such sources as http://www.ic.org/ and http://www.cohousing.org/ among others.
• Freeganism: Living a lifestyle based on anti-consumerism by using the (unnecessarily) disposed. I went “dumpster diving” with a group of pikan friends mid-last-week down in Harvard Square (at their suggestion) and was forced to really face the wastefulness of modern society. There were a lot of perfectly good things in even the 3 dumpsters we came across. While I am personally more squeamish about dumpstered (albeit found in sealed packages) food then some people I know, I was still intrigued by even the consumer goods that are needlessly discarded. I came away from the night with a nice heavy glass coffee table top that, once I wipe it down with some bleach and make it some legs, I expect to be a nice addition to my room next year. pika gained a sturdy, metal three-tiered plate stand that, once we ran it through our sterilizer a couple times, was a perfectly nice addition to our dining room. Here is an interesting NYT article about more radical practice of “Freeganism”: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Squatters-t.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
• Couch Surfing: Hospitality networks were also a topic of my history paper, with www.couchsurfing.org in the spotlight for its size and success. I have a number of friends who have both surfed and hosted all with positive experiences to share. I think that the “movement” here opens up tremendous opportunities both for meeting people and open-ended travel, both of which I think would be valuable experiences in today’s multi-national world
• Digital Nomadism: Basically a lifestyle that exploits the fact that in the “modern, wired world” ones ability to be productive in many professions (especially for “information workers”) has very little to do with where you are when you do it. Rather than more traditional office models, or still-traditional “home office” models, these people have chosen to work from wherever they are and deliberately change that: from coffee shops, to hotels, to other people’s living rooms, to (temporarily or permanently operated) spaces around the world designed for people like them. There was an interesting Washington Post article a while back that introduced me to the term: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/25/AR2009072500878.html There are also certainly more recent resources on the notion. I think it, and the greater notion of “location independence” has a certain allure

I am sure there are others … but that is all I can think of right this second. So … now to sleep, then to work at my 9-5 in one location. I may want to explore these things… but with limited exceptions … I ain’t there yer

~Donald

So… I am writing a 12 page paper about communes right now … I don’t have the time or energy to also blog. … so have a quasi-non-sensical paper about Reconstruction (the other paper for this class so far this year):

The Inevitable Failure of Reconstruction
by Donald Guy

Reconstruction is a poorly defined term. Approximately, it refers to the period of American History from roughly 1865 until 1877. It was a period which saw a lot of changes, a large cast of prominent figures, and a neigh uncountable number of noteworthy events, but above all, it was a period of poorly defined terms. It was a period when such diverse terms as “property”, “freedom”, “United States of America”, and even “person”, whose definitions had long been considered immutable, found their definitions challenged, changing, and above all, unclear. Due to these ambiguities, as well as the numerous and conflicting opinions held by the important peoples of the day, it is hard, if not impossible, to concretely define what exactly the goals of Reconstruction were and whether they were accomplished. In a sense, the real goal was simply to figure out what exactly terms like those listed above would mean in the future. By the very nature of this goal, the passage of history inevitably partially accomplished it. It did not, however, accomplish it completely, nor could it really have been expected to. In, thus, being an incomplete revolution, as well as because of the violence and injustice that marked the period, this author deems it a failure.
Reconstruction, the period, followed in the wake of the American Civil War. Reconstruction, the movement, was born of necessity to take up and continue resolving the essential issues over which that war was fought: namely, local autonomy and the rights of the individual. Coming out of the bloody conflict, the most concrete questions over which the war was fought were resolved: with the military surrender and subsequent political dissolution of the Confederate States of America, secession became distinctly not a right of a state; with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery was officially over in the US. What remained, after that war, was a country with a recently-decimated, newly-augmented population of free individuals, newly reunited in theory but with no clear path to move forward, in practice. In this relative chaos, two general schools of thought inevitably emerged: one which advocated a speedy return to the status quo antebellum and another which looked to build a “perfect” society from the ruins of the post-war nation. Along the way, the proponents of each view also needed to deal with the gritty details of putting a ruined nation back together, restoring its economy, and figuring out the particulars of the post-war government, starting with reunification of the states.
Shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson ascended to the oval office and Presidential Reconstruction began with a distinct leaning toward the speedy restoration of the status quo, particularly in the south. Johnson attempted to quickly restore statehood to the former Confederacy before congress came to session. This action and the governments set up to run the restored states were met with outcries from prominent northerners. Fredrick Douglass, for example proclaimed that “These pretended governments, which were never submitted to the people, and from participation in which four millions of the loyal people were excluded by Presidential order, should now be treated according to their true character, as shams and impositions.”¹ And they largely were treated as such; when congress did come to session, it refused to seat the newly-elected southern delegates, many of whom were former Confederate officials.
It quickly became an issue what was now going to be the definition of “a state”, and at what point such a state could hope to regain representation in Congress. Many, like Johnson, advocated for a rapid reintegration, claiming that it was improper (indeed, unconstitutional) to make any decisions for the nation until it was done. Sounding vaguely similar to Douglass, Johnson claims (in vetoing the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill) that “There could be no objection urged that the States most interested had not been permitted to be heard… Great burdens are now to be borne by all the country, and we may best demand that they shall be borne without murmur when they are voted by a majority of representatives of all the people.”² Others, however, saw the fact of the southern states’ disenfranchisement as a ripe opportunity to force reform on them while they could not prevent it. Over persistent presidential vetoes, a number of laws were enacted attempting chiefly to reform southern society (and American society at large). Chief among them was the Civil Rights act, which laid the foundation for the Fourteenth Amendment.
Disenfranchisement was, however, the least of the south’s problems. In addition to being war-torn and reeling from defeat, the former confederate states and their citizens found themselves in quite a pickle, economically. To put it simply, the south was poor. To put it more subtlety, the entire notion of value in the south had been undermined: land values had plummeted, slaves were now free and no longer considered assets, confederate paper money printed and invested in as an expedient during the war was rendered legally worthless, and in this situation those who had previously been able to afford slaves, hence did not have labor management as an issue, were now expected to follow a “free labor” paradigm and pay their workers, just as many of their life savings had evaporated into thin air. The only thing of which value was certain was crops and, in the wake of destroyed harvests followed by bad harvests, the raising of crops became itself a source of debt. To pay this debt, southerners needed loans, but the only assets against which they could get liens were futures on valuable crops–namely cotton. This created a huge drive to cotton farming, lowering the self-sufficiency of the region in abandoning food farming, while flooding the cotton marker and, along with fresh supplies competition Egyptian Cotton, undermining the market value. Meanwhile this growing dependency on cotton, along with the loss of slaves to emancipation led to a huge labor crisis as new arrangements needed to be made. Southern blacks, having not insubstantial bargaining power despite the laws in place to undermine their freedom, demanded more autonomy in the fields confounding southern planters who had grown up with the notion that their (now-former) slaves were subservient and that they could always control them. Indeed, what was occurring was largely that the southern people were, against their will, being made to reassess who was and was not “a person.”
Meanwhile, the freedmen themselves were also having to deal with their newly found “personhood.” Even where growing up in slavery had not embedded any notions of a man or woman’s limitations, he or she was still suddenly moved from being property, to being entitled to own property (at least once the 14th Amendment assured his or he right to not be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”). This fact was even more confused (especially in the earlier years) by the enactment of Black Codes that severely limited his or her rights and created various stations of ersatz slavery and in later years of Reconstruction by the fear of violent repercussions to being too opinionated or too vocal in their personhood. In the midst of this, each freedperson had to find a new place for himself in the social order (often being legally compelled to do so or face prosecution under “vagrancy” statutes). While most freedpeople wished little more than to own their own land and be a self-sufficient farmer, land which should have plentiful, was denied them (or in worst cases, granted and later revoked). From the planters’ need for labor and the freedmen’s need for work and desire for autonomy, the sharecropping system was developed. Though probably an improvement on most ex-slaves’ former station, this system along with persistent discrimination did little to help disambiguate the notion of what it meant to be “free.”
While all these social and economic confusions were going on in the south, there was a great degree of disagreement about it and its merits in the north and in Washington. Many northerners who strongly supported the freepeople’s plight (and many who followed a generally progressive mindset) saw a distinct need for the economic revitalization of the south in short order for the country to survive in some semblance of its former self. In this way, they admitted into their programs more than a little traditional thinking and goals, seeing the black work force as still that best suited for the cotton fields. Even the Freedman’s Bureau, ostensibly set-up to protect the interest of the freedpeople and generally pretty successful in doing so had a number of agents who spent a lot of their time arranging contract work for black’s and occasionally even forcing them into such contracts against their will. In the north, like the south the “freedom” and the “personhood” afforded to freedmen was a large issue. One specific issue that sparked a lot of interest from the northern community (Radical Republicans in particular) was black suffrage. After extended debate and political considerations on both sides of the aisle, universal male suffrage was eventually granted in the 15th Amendment. This did not really result, automatically, in the ability to vote (simply the right), sadly. As it turns out, while during Radical Reconstruction congress managed to pass several laws over presidential vetoes, they did not always have the power to enforce them.
Methods of enforcement of new social orders in the south was, from the beginning one of the biggest issues and one of the most futile pursuits of the period. It is the opinion of the author that Reconstruction was never capable of sufficiently defining the new nation because so many of the old opinions were so ingrained that there was never really hope of replacing them in a few years. In fact, the only effective way with any hope of truly changing the social order would have been to educate several generations in the new facts of the new social order before allowing the region returning to self-determinism. It is sometime stated that perhaps the most positive legacy of Reconstruction politics, and almost certainly the most positive legacy of the Freedman’s Bureau were the public educational systems and universities it managed to set-up for freedpeople’s children. Unfortunately, these never could have been sufficient. These schools mostly, if not only, taught black students. In order to effectively transform the region would have required teaching children of each race to think kindly upon their counterparts of the other. (possibly even in integrated schools). Unfortunately, such a system was never to come to pass. Some of the few public schools that did exist before the war (such as those in North Carolina or Tennessee) were actually dissolved to avoid the possibility of being “required to educate the negros in like manner”³ after emancipation. In general, the notion of keeping the southern states disenfranchised for a long time until they were deemed socially acceptable and ready to be readmitted was considered. On January 26, 1867 in a long speech given on the floor of the House of Representatives, George Washington Julian of Indiana suggested basically that, saying:

The withdrawal of federal intervention and the unchecked operation of local supremacy would as fatally hedge up the way of justice and equality as the rebel ascendency which now prevails. Why? Simply because no theory of government, no forms of administration, can be trusted, unless adequately supported by public opinion. The power of the great landed aristocracy in these regions, if unrestrained by power from without, would inevitably assert itself. Its political chemistry, obeying its own laws, would very soon crystallize itself into the same forms of treason and lawlessness which to-day hold their undisturbed empire over the existing loyal element. What these regions need, above all things, is not an easy and quick return to their forfeited rights in the Union, but government, the strong arm of power, outstretched from the central authority here in Washington, making it safe for the freedmen of the South, safe for her loyal white men, safe for emigrants from the Old World and from the Northern States to go and dwell there ; safe for Northern capital and labor, Northern energy and enterprise, and Northern ideas to set up their habitation in peace, and thus found a Christian civilization and a living democracy amid the ruins of the past. That, sir, is what the country demands and the rebel power needs. To talk about suddenly building up independent States where the material for such structures is fatally wanting, is nonsense. States must grow, and to that end their growth must be fostered and protected. The political and social regeneration of the country made desolate by treason is the prime necessity of the hour, and is preliminary to any reconstruction of States. Years of careful pupilage under the authority of the nation may be found necessary, and Congress alone must decide when and upon what conditions the tie rudely broken by treason shall be restored.⁴

Somewhat unfortunately, in my view, G.W. Julian’s strategy of longer martial rule was not adopted and though martial rule was temporarily put in place, relatively straightforward requirements for readmission to the union were put in place about the same time. Within a few years, all the former confederate states had successfully rejoined the union and returned to self-determination with the exception that under the 14th amendment, Confederate officials and veterans were not allowed to serve in political office (though to what extent this was followed is questionable at best). Along with this came the practical disenfranchisement of black voters through both the implementation of poll taxes and other measures as well as violence. As history would go on to show, racism was still deeply ingrained in the American mind and the southern mind, in particular. The mere fact of the need of the further Civil Rights movements of the late 1960s to the present are more than enough evidence to show that, in establishing who was truly “a person” with equal protection of the law, Reconstruction was a failure.
Reconstruction was a turbulent time. With the end of slavery and reorganization of labor the notions of ownership and freedom became much less clear than they had ever been before. Despite the inroads made by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, who is truly a full member of society in America has remained in doubt up through the present (e.g. the Gay Marriage debate). The Economic Panic of 1873 heralding in the Long Depression represented a failure to reestablish the economic well-being. While the country was reunited in name, the north and south are still culturally different, and while through the age of world wars and globalization a national identity has coalesced, the country remains far from unified with north and south being significantly (though far from the most significantly) split on opinions of national politics and other issues. In short, in failing to clearly define these things, Reconstruction was a failure, but realistically it had to be. Redefinition of a nation, of a culture takes generations. That redefinition remains ongoing to this day.

¹Fredrick Douglass, “Reconstruction”, https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/21H/sp10/21H.102/courseMaterial/topics/topic2/readings/Reconstruction_documents/Reconstruction_documents.pdf (accessed February 16, 2010)

²Andrew Johnson, “Veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill”, Andrew Johnson, His Life and Speeches by Lillian Foster, New York: Richardson & Co., 1866, http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1940 (accessed February 16, 2010)

³Gov. Jonathon Worth, quoted from: A Brief History of Reconstruction by Eric Foner, p.96 , New York: Harper Perennial. 1990.

⁴George Washington Julian, “Regeneration before Reconstruction”, Speeches on political questions [1850-1868]
pp. 352-3, Cambridge: Riverside. 1872. http://books.google.com/books?id=0CBYAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA352&ots=02NNbtb0Kl&pg=PA352#v=onepage (Accessed Feb. 16, 2010)

This week was kinda hellish. I actually started this as part of my freewriting last weekend. (It borrows some of its imagery from the prose thereof). I finished it this morning while avoiding sleeping and to submit to Rune by the deadline of today (the 12th). I can’t decide if the poem is actually any good.

MIT

There’s a fire hose:
You drink it.

Well, you try to drink it.

You playfully examine it
For a few moments, then
You wrap your lips around the nozzle,
And pump up the pressure:

It blows you back
And pins you to a wall.

The spray stings your eyes,
But if it brings tears to them,
They are washed away by the flow,
Before you, or anyone else,
Can be sure they were there.

Your limbs ache,
You think that if only
You could rest them,
You could hold them stronger
But the time for rest rarely comes.

Some people, washed in despair
Or simply sanity, step out of the way
Never to look back and never to regret.

Some collapse or simply drown.

Others stand the force.
The mass of the waters accelerates,
But still they stand strong.
Wavering at times,
But never giving up.

And one day the flow slows
To a stream, to a trickle, to a drip
Then it stops.

You stand there:
Sudden and Sullen,
Dripping and Deflated,
Percolated, but Proud,
Wet, but Wise.

And you reach out,
Brass Rat rusted to your knuckle:
You grab a beaker and into it
You wring the waters of knowledge
From the clothes of your experience.

You take this drought and distill it.
You bottle it, you market it, or you give it away,
But, with luck, it takes the world by storm.

From the fire hose flow rises the rarefied results
Filtered through your hands,
Tested in your trials, Fortified in your failures,
Vivified in your victories.

You look back with mixed emotions:
Wondering if it was all really worth it.
Your prospective my grow,
It may never be clear,
But the fire hose flows on…

~D.B. Guy (March 6-12, 2010)

If you actually care about this issue (unlikely if you read this blog), there is substantially more discussion by me and people on the other side of the issue here: http://www.rhymetorrents.org/Home/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6314

The time that I reasonably should have spent writing a blog entry was used instead catching up on things in a rather obscure area of my interest, specifically, in the ongoing controversy about self-proclaimed “Post-Punk Laptop Rapper” MC Lars and comments he has made about the subgenre known as “Nerdcore” hip hop. Since I spent a lot (really too much) time weighing in on the mclars.com forums about my opinion on the issue, I am going to here just attempt to give context and then quote my response on those forums.

For the context:
I imagine many of you have heard of neither MC Lars, nor nerdcore. I am a huge fan of the former and sometimes a fan of the latter. The short version is that MC Lars is a Stanford grad in English with a deep love of hip hop who decided to be a professional rapper for awhile. He is an altogether cool guy and I highly recommend his three most recent solo albums (the Laptop EP, the Graduate, and This Gigantic Robot Kills) and collaborative LPs ( “The Digital Gangster LP” with YTCracker and “Single & Famous” with K. Flay). Nerdcore hip hop is a subgenre of hip-hop coined by MC Frontalot and generally focused on nerd and geek culture. It’s definition is unclear and debated. It’s major practitioners are MC Frontalot, YTCracker, and a lot of small time rappers who hang around internet forums like Rhymetorrents.org. Because he is a friend and collaborator of many nerdcore artists and has made appearances at events like Nerdapalooza, MC Lars is often folded into nerdcore. This isn’t really wrong, per se, but MC Lars has never considered himself nerdcore and doesn’t like having the label applied to himself.

The major controversy began in a blog post last July where MC Lars declared that “Nerdcore is Dead“. While this title was largely in deference to Nas’s 2006 album “Hip Hop is Dead”, this went way over the head of most of the nerdcore community (myself included truthfully) and he caught major flack for both the fanciful assertion and the actual content of the entry. There was a lot of flaming on both sides (nothing compared to the old school hip hop feuds, no one got shot), but eventually MC Lars apologized for the misunderstanding and things quieted down.

That was until the San Jose Metro published an article about Lars’s 10th anniversary show that contained the rather inflammatory remark by Lars that

“Nerdcore shouldn’t be kids’ understanding of hip-hop. It’s cool as an anthropological extension of how hip-hop has evolved,” says Lars. “The whole political component of the African American experience in the Bronx in the ’70s, and the financial disparity under Reagan in the ’80s, is kind of what hip-hop trades on as its old-school genesis. I think nerdcore’s really racist, because it takes that underdog thing of an underclass judged by their race, and uses it as this big, ridiculous metaphor to be like ‘the nerds are being persecuted.’ That turns hip-hop into this weird minstrel show to me.”

This put the community back up in arms. MC Lars stayed largely quiet about the issue, addressing it mostly in a UStream webcam session of RealTalk with MC Lars on February 13th. A couple weeks later, last Wednesday, he released a track with Random named “Nerdcore Died” announced here. It’s worth a listen: MP3.

In general this is the context I was catching up on and what I was commenting on, drawing from in my long forum post of this evening that I will reproduce below. In particular I am responding to a comment by mCRT phrased as both an open letter on his site, some comment on RhymeTorrenst, a commenton the MC Lars forum, and a diss track. I am directly responding to the latter two. I responded thusly

The post:
—-
For some reason I wish to reply to mCRT (and by extension some of the other critics), despite the fact that I really have better things to do.

The point on what is an appropriate way to start a dialogue is a valid one, but if you look at the RealTalk session from the 13th it’s pretty clear that launching a media attack is not what the racism comment was about. As for the original “Nerdcore is Dead” comment, it was a blog entry and was very clearly not meant as a personal attack on anyone. It also I think falls closer to the definition of an appropriate way to start a dialogue. It was an open letter more than anything elese. It was, and Lars’s comments have consistently been, about not limiting yourself to a stereotype of a genre.

That’s what Lars’s verses on this song are about too. The first is about the blog post and the following discussion. The main point is really found in this quote from the blog entry:

Look at these artists and then look at some of the lesser known peeps in the scene and you’ll see why some transcend and some are doomed to obscurity. My point is this: if you want to make music, make amazing music and don’t try to be in a scene. Don’t limit yourself. [...] Kids who are ONLY listening to MC Frontalot and mc chris sound like lo-fi versions the Lonely Island guys…. and if that’s what you’re going for, more power to you… but true music fans would rather listen to artists who make great albums and move us emotionally than listen to a novelty act looking for their fifteen minutes in a genre that has come and gone.

As for “picking a fight”, as for “how complaining about bullying is somehow racist”… it’s possible that I am missing a reference to a specific quote, but if not, then you are grossly conflating reflections on a class struggle with reflections on a personal struggle.. Modern discussions of race are full of controversy and often miss the point. The African-American population was systematically oppressed for a long time, as were the Chinese, as were the Irish (for a shorter) time, as are many immigrants and people of various sorts still today.

These people were and are born into a culture that is built to prevent them from succeeding and are faced with a titan unfairness. The modern trope of the nerd is strictly one of personality, indeed one usually built out of privilege. Does it lead to personal struggle? absolutely. Is that fact lamentable? absolutely. I, personally, went through bullying in elementary school, but I still ended up at MIT and have access to bright future so long as I don’t personally do anything to screw it up. This is the exact opposite of the situation of an oppressed class whose members only can hope to succeed through substantial personal fighting of these opinions and, realistically, the luck of finding progressively-minded people in power along the way. People getting picked on for not being into the same things is regrettable, but at the core it is not the same as a pervasive prejudice. While I agree that to some extent Lars has had some less than ideal phrasing at times, I think this is fundamentally what he is saying.
From the 13th video:

Nerdcore though, in my opinion, can, doesn’t always, but sometimes has this tendency to take on this mantle of the oppressed African American, you know, the oppressed group of people who were the same people who in the bronx started DJing and having parties cause their whole neighborhood was destroyed by the Bronx Expressway that was built in the middle of their neighborhood [...] Nerdcore takes on the asthetic of the opressed person and uses it to express the politics of “how hard it is to be a nerd.” [...] What I meant to say maybe was nerdcore is classist, not racist… someone from the suburbs writing a rap song about how they are gangsta because they steal quarters out of the vending machine and they are so gangsta because they beat super mario in ten minutes for me that’s kinda weird.

or more succinctly (at 12:33, excerpted for clarity) :

Only listening to one genre of music that is closely identified with a certain culture is classist in the sense that you don’t understand, you don’t listen to the whole political history [...] and it’s racist [...] when people use this [originally] African-American aesthetic to express something that makes a mockery of it.

Now for your rap:
I learned how to deal with bullies … SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK I JUST SAID THAT WAS RACIST?!
I think I adressed this above. In short: nothing. It’s only classist if you think this entitles you to feel on-level with some sort of civil rights movement. I don’t think you do, so this has largely devolved into a squabble over nothing

MC Lars you’re full of empty bars … I resent the bars you’re launching at my friends … It’s not dialogue unless you do it to our face… I HOPE YOU NEVER SELL ANOTHER RECORD NOT FUCKING EVER
That seems unreasonably vindictive. I appreciate that its in the context of a form (the diss-track) that is designed to be unreasonable. But, what I really take issue with is the notion that “Nerdcore Died” is a diss track. It’s really mostly just a restatement of the blog entry that started this whole thing. It’s a call to not be limited. The only negative vibe to it is basically saying “try harder”, not “you suck.” there is a big difference. To shell out to the article that started this whole recent racism debacle:

Instead of the typical hip-hop (and nerdcore) assertion that “I’m the best,” Lars’ attitude is “we could all be better,” and he is constantly pushing his listeners, his generation, to embrace that possibility for evolution.”

… We’ll go into this more after the next verse

Do you remember last year … when you encouraged me… I WANT THAT LARS BACK. I want the Lars that was supportive, that had love for the green, I want the Lars that wasn’t bitter and could run with the scene, I want the Lars that gave a hand instead of a slap, I want the Lars that wasn’t shoving knives in our backs … FUCK YOU LARS, WE REALLY DON’T NEED YOU
Dude. What universe are you living in? Lars has made a consistent effort to be a help to individuals. He has not, that I’ve seen, put anyone down, only challenge them to be better. The existence of http://mclars.com/books.html and http://mclars.com/gear.html are persistent examples of this. He is trying to make people better. In fact, both MC Lars and Random have more encouraging words than not in Nerdcore Died. Consider these verses, excerpted, emphasis added:

Random:
I know a lot of rappers or people who claim
To be deep in the game, but are secretly lame
And when I hear their records, I start laughing it up
and I want to tell them “Please stop rapping. You suck”
But I don’t, cause who am I to crush the dream
cause I love hip hop, I got love for the scene
[... here he complains about low production values, I personally am not sure how I feel on this issue]
I make good music that folks want to listen to,
But don’t get it mixed up, Random ain’t dissin’ you
[It's] not that I’m too big to hang out or get with you.
[...] Think of who you listen to,
imitate than innovate. Become original, than I’ll get with you

MC Lars:
I’ve got love for the kids with their laptops,
Up in the lab, making crunkcore rap-rock
Writing rhymes with the straight flow, nonstop
[...] putting styles in a headlock
[...]
Look all I want to see is amazing art.
Invest your heart! Play your part!
Prefect your craft and straight do you
If you don’t do you than whose going to?
Just push it, push it, make it awesome
[...]

Random:
[...]
Success is a journey, not a destination
I’ve never been down with this type-cast nonesense

Consistently it’s about continuing to push the art and rejecting your limits. I distinctly feel like by falling into the trap of the dis-track and cursing heavy asthetic, you have caught the “imitate”, but you are missing the “innovate”. And you’re missing the point. MC Lars doesn’t seem to hate you or anyone in the genre. He just is asking for you to keep pushing yourself.

As for your “spoken word” section. It’s a straw man argument. MC Lars is not the one in the above track dissing low production values. He encourages the DIY mentality, but he wants results. He has made some comments on the subject that come across a little hypocritical, but the central point is still there. Don’t be satisfied with a shitty sound. Sure, it’s a step on the journey, but keep going. Approach it with some humility and don’t overestimate yourself. Don’t send him a demo that’s a waste of his time.

I think I adressed the racism thing. While I don’t like country music, you are hurting your credibility on the “fucking your sister” bit… but to go on to my next point … there is nothing wrong with parody. But that’s just it really, the problem is in taking yourself too seriously. MC Lars’s entire point in this is “don’t convince yourself you are hardcore when you are not.” Parody’s are light-hearted by definition. That’s not what I perceive Lars to be taking issue with.

Let’s look at your rap here as art. It has pretty good production values. It has a vocal tone very reminiscent of Eminem in some places and of MC Frontalot in others. But it is cast in the light of a dis track that makes it hard to appreciate as … well, art. If you are really so antagonistic that you want to see MC Lars doomed to failure over this, than it seems like you have some issues on understanding what’s up. If it was parody (like Monzy’s “Drama in the PhD”), I would appreciate it more. But it isn’t. and yet it doesn’t come off quite as from the heart. The effect is ultimately inauthentic and that undercuts the artistic value, for me at least. But you got talent there. Like MC Lars apparently already told you, keep trying, but don’t limit yourself.

There’s more to say, but that’s all I have time for. And probably more than anyone actually cares to read.

tl;dr MC Lars has good morals. Some nerdcore is classist because it lacks historical consciousness. Don’t limit yourself. Be authentic.

Back to real life,
~Donald Guy
—–

So that is what I spent most of my evening on. If there are any of you in the readership of this blog who find that remotely interesting. I am glad. I do.

I think that this discussion is important to the future direction of underground hip-hop, and it brings up a lot of important societal issues in general.

Now actually back to real life,
~Donald