Bloggers Infighting GO!!
I'm so flattered to be the subject of so much blogging. If you haven't seen or heard any of it, you probably don't really care, which is a good place to be, but if you do care but just aren't in the know (I'm the topic of many of these blogs, and I didn't even know about them) then I will try to lead you down the threads I've found.
People are a-buzz about the Downtown Living issue of EU. There are people from The Landing that are up in arms because i said The Landing was the least interesting thing going on downtown these days.
The quote:
"The Downtown of today is a far cry from the ghost town that celebrated the opening of The Jacksonville Landing in the early 90s. In fact, The Landing is probably the least interesting thing happening at our urban core these days, although it always makes for a nice photograph. Now there are galleries, artists co-ops, some of the best dining in the greater metropolitan area, great night clubs, and even a friendly community."
I know. Harsh right. Theres one typo and the landing actually opened in the late 80s. I didn't really focus enough time on that "dis" to really make sure it came across right. So people are saying the writing is bad, EU isn't journalism, etc etc. The funny thing is that four pages later Kellie Abrahamson talks, in detail, about the great shops in The Landing:
"Take the Water Taxi over to the Landing and grab a quick bite to eat at one of their many restaurants and eateries. The Landing has a wide variety of restaurants, each with very different flavors, atmospheres and prices. Once you’ve eaten your fill, do a little shopping. Pick up unique gifts at Edgewater Treasures or an “I Love Jacksonville” T-shirt at Destination Jacksonville. Be sure to pop on over to The Toy Factory and let the kids check out some of the hottest toys in town."
Pretty berating, right? So The Landing is ostensibly pulling EU from its halls. That actually isn't much of a loss for our paper, in my mind, because I want our paper to appeal to locals and local people don't spend much time at The Landing. That's not because it isn't interesting. Its just because most of us have seen it and done it. I still go there all the time. Fortunately the people that have been blowing my phone up and blogging their bloody little fingers off about me don't have the first clue what I look like.
It is sort of fun to be written about, so I will share some of the highlights. Check out this thread at MetJax. Metjax is a blog about downtown by downtown merchants, residents, and other interested parties. Here's some of the highlights:
Pearlstone says:
"The Landing is probably the least interesting thing happening at our urban core these days..."
Well if that isn't a dis I don't know what is.
Doesn't matter anyway because Toney Sleiman just instructed all of them to be removed off the Landing property and not to be allowed back on.
If they feel we are the least interesting thing then they don't need to be utilizing our property free of charge to solicit their materials.
Downtown Parks Said:
I think you are taking this way too hard, personally. The fact of the matter is, downtown is more than just the landing, yet EVERYONE thinks thats all there is to it.
I dont think they were saying the landing isnt interesting, just that there are other things going on. The landing gets covereage all the time.
If its true Toney removed the EU, then he lost some credibilty in my book. Since when do large scale developers care about small scale magazines?
The IT Steve said:
the point was - what is going on at the landing that people can see? I have no doubt that Sleiman has good things planned, but until he turns dirt on these, people won't buy it.
Meanwhile places like the Burrito Gallery and Boomtown are doing very well, and didn't exist two years ago (boomtown did, but not in downtown).
Trust me, the landing gets it's due. Ask anyone from Mandarin what they know downtown, and the landing will be one of them. The next step is to get people to thing of Bay Street, Hemming Plaza, Laura St, the Cathedral District, LaVilla and Brooklyn. Downtown must be more than the Landing.
Duval Democrat said:
thats your first mistake, confusing the EU with journalism, or anything printed in this area really.
Then Pearlstone said this, which is hysterical to me because what better promotion did Downtown get last week than the cover of the EU?
"That's why it is incumbent upon each and every one of us to promote our city, especially our urban core, as a whole and to the very best of our abilities ... that way our enthusiasm is the impression the visitors are left with. Something they can truly 'FEEL'.
We do have an AMAZING amount of influence how the outside world thinks of us and I say it's hightime we use it!!!
Are you ready? I am!!!!"
So there is a lot of drama on those three pages of threads, feel free to check them out yourself if you can bear the catty infighting of people at their computers discussing an outside world. But if that isn't enough to fulfill your need for local gossip and you still feel like your personal opinion hasn't been conveyed, but you're teetering on the edge wondering if you should log on and insert your opinions, maybe this will push you over.
Another local blog, probably more popular with general audiences, is Urban Jacksonville. Go to urbanjacksonville.info and read the 30 posts about this same issue. Again, I've pulled some of my favorites out for you to read right here.

fawnleibowitz said:
The way i feel about downtown in general is kind of the way I feel about really good unknown bands I like: I really want people to like them, but not too many people, if that makes sense. It’s like, I want downtown to become vibrant and appreciated, but I don’t want all the bandwagoners just latching onto and making it lame. I like that when I go to TSI it’s full of cool kids while Mark’s is full of Yuppie douches who’re dressed like they just came from Sunday school. Coincidentally, its the latter people who I feel are the bandwagoners who are going to make downtown as lame as the rest of Jacksonville is. So, i mean, i want progress, but I would like downtown to keep what is, i think, it’s edge and coolness, if that makes sense.
Adam Beaugh said:
i checked out EU over lunch today, and overall it’s pretty good. My main problem is with the guy who writes the movie reviews. They are so poorly written that it’s almost fun to read. Maybe he’s 16, which would explain it. the wording, sentence structure, and stream of thought are horrible. i don’t want to be mean, but it’s just in my nature.
Nick said:
EU’s redesign is nice, but the writing is often atrocious. There doesn’t seem to be much of an editorial presence at the mag.
Vicup state said:
Excellent coverage and publicity for DT. To Tony, Joey, Terry, Stephen, et al….Thanks for bringing Sexy Back !
UTurn said:
So, if we’re supposed to be going to all these cool bars and restaurants at The Landing and Downtown and Springfield and hanging out at the coffee shops and the record stores while we’re purchasing furnishings at Urban Outfitters for our new $300,000 downtown loft and taking part in all the art gallery galas and taking in all the indie bands playing in the various venues - when is anybody supposed to actually work?
And then Travis really brought it home with this hit:
I’ll make a fortune in recycling Pabst cans. You can be my helper. We’ll give each other horrid haircuts and listen to bands with impossibly long names that tend to sound like a marching band farting in an elevator.
We’ll have business cards with so many buzzwords on them that the pure synergystic light will melt the face off of mere mortals.
At the end of a day of hard work, we’ll both retire to our floor on the strandoplex and web 2.0 the shit out of each other.

If there are more threads out there about EU or the Downtown issue, please let me know. This has been solidly entertaining me for days and days. If I could get people talking about EU like this all the time, our paper would be filled with only the advertisers i want in it and I could afford to hire the writers I want to hire that will provide real local representation in the media the way no other paper does. So blog on, and let me know where you blog about it. I want to read it. I want to laugh and get mad and use lots of exclamation points in my posts!!!

Atlanta Pranks Boston

I have spent many a night in front of my television trying desperately not to fall asleep so that I could watch Adult Swim on Cartoon Network for just a little longer. It's during these nights of laughing myself to sleep, that I often wish I worked at Adult Swim. I want to be one of the people that makes the chat-room-like spots that run between the shows. They are this hysterical dialogue with the viewer, making your single-sided television experience slightly more intractive.. or at least seemingly so. I get the sense that I have friends on Williams Street in Atlanta sending me funny texts at inopportune moments. These friends just haven't met me yet.

Although I've often wanted to be one of them, right now I wouldn't. If you didn't see the news yesterday about Adult Swim's guerilla advertising campaign for the new season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, They sent out almost forty light-boards that has a flashing Mooninite (an Atari-looking character that speaks in a refined thug slang) flipping his middle finger.

Authorities in Boston saw flashing boxes with wires and batteries on them on local bridges and buildings around town and naturally assumed a terrorist attack was underway.
CNN reported it thus:
"The devices displayed a 'Mooninite' -- an outer-space delinquent who makes frequent appearances on the cartoon -- greeting passersby with an upraised middle finger. But the discovery of nine of the light boards around Boston and its suburbs sent bomb squads scrambling throughout the day, snarling traffic and mass transit in one of the largest U.S. cities."

In an age where we are numb to the forced advertising impressions of television and we avoid or ignore most solicitations because we are so thoroughly inundated, reaching us is especially difficult. Advertisers are learning (as displayed by the recent drop in dollars from major television advertising in expensive and ineffective television campaigns) that get the attention of your target customer, you have to be creative, innovative, and relevant. Adult Swim employing a guerilla advertising campaign is both innovative and brilliant for a medium (TV) that is usually so sycophantic in its approach to promotion, made the most relevant impact a campaign in this new era can make.
How can the blame for the panic be blamed on Turner Networks when the panic has been nursed and cultivated by the administration on television everyday? Well they can be blamed because they got outside of "the box" which in this case was a television set. Bush and Fox News can terrorize us across the ariwaves, because we know not to listen to any of the propoganda that comes to us through ellectronic media. Thats why television advertising doesn't work for all things. When you are a bizarre channel that only operates late at night, you want to do what you can to cost-effectively get the attention of your target consumers, but you can't just advertise on your own network, because that's preaching to the choir, you have to do something that gets people talking about your product.
Had I seen a flashing Mooninite flicking me off on one of the bridges, you better believe i would talk about that all night to everyone I saw or spoke to on the phone. That's good advertising, Adult Swim, and frankly, all this news coverage ain't half bad either, but the bottom line: Adult Swim didn't do anything illegal.

CNN:
Boston's Attorney General Martha Coakley:
"It had a very sinister appearance," Coakley told reporters. "It had a battery behind it, and wires."
"I just think this is outrageous, what they've done ... It's all about corporate greed."

Corporate Greed? Our president bought his way into a professional baseball franchise by negotiating a deal with city government in Texas wherein the city claimed private property and used taxpayer dollars to build a stadium so that he could own his own baseball team with no money down. Adult Swim trying to get some people to watch their show is corporate greed? Wal-Mart walks into towns and they substantially increase that towns health risk by driving the employers that live in the community and pay for their employee's health benefits out of business, then hiring those people to work half of their old schedule with less pay and no benefits. But don't arrest them, they have the lowest prices everyday. When the Mays family can sell off Clear Channel to private companies (that the Mays family also owns) so that they are able to simultaneously broker a deal that pays the stockholders off handsomely (including the Mays family, who are the primary stockholders anyway) and also enables the Mays company that purchases Clear Channel to be private instead of publicly traded, so that a large portion of their restrictions are removed and they can essentially do what they want with the electronic media; That's what I call Corporate Greed. Not a Mooninite flicking me off. That makes me laugh.

"The first device reported was at the Sullivan Square commuter rail station, near the suburb of Somerville, Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon, four other devices were reported -- near the Longfellow and Boston University bridges over the Charles, at New England Medical Center and near the intersection of Stuart and Columbus avenues in the city itself, and four more turned up over the course of the day."
So everybody was scrambling around in a panic and ordering hundreds of thousands of dollars of response services, but between Wednesday morning and the arrest on Thursday morning, no one walked up to one and said "Hey this is just a Lite Brite, guys, no big deal."

CNN:
Rep. Ed Markey, a Boston-area congressman, said, "Whoever thought this up needs to find another job."

"Scaring an entire region, tying up the T and major roadways, and forcing first responders to spend 12 hours chasing down trinkets instead of terrorists is marketing run amok," Markey, a Democrat, said in a written statement. "It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt."

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis called it "unconscionable" that the marketing campaign was executed in a post 9/11 era. "It's a foolish prank on the part of Turner Broadcasting," he said. "In the environment nowadays ... we really have to look at the motivation of the company here and why this happened."

Sorry, Adult Swim, that you have to get punished for your innovation, but look at it like this: You've created folklore here. There is a Big Brother tale in this. Your advertising campaign may be the thing that puts this panic and hysteria into perspective for some of us. Your art has transcended the screen, in that sense, and proven what the Mooninites have always known. Mooninites are "Advanced beyond all that you can possibly comprehend with 100% of your brain." (that link takes you to a Mooninite game on the Adult Swim website. Go and show your love.) Our hearts go out to those people, filled with corporate greed, that were stuck in traffic on their way to work because of the panic our president instills in all people, that they must be scared and independently wealthy to be of any use to this adminsitration. But my heart especially goes out to those poor souls that are going to jail for their great ideas. I hope Turner sends his best attorneys.

Is Disney Still Racist?

I can't possibly believe that I am the only one to notice this, so does anyone else see the Disney Pixar film Cars as racist? My brother-in-law thought I was being ridiculous. We were enjoying Christmas with the entire family at my parents' home when the subject came up and almost ruined Christmas. Not because he and I were getting heated, but it was one of those situations when everyone else thinks you are getting heated so they try to distract you from your conversation, which ultimately makes you mad at them.
I understand his hesitance to agree with me, I remember when everyone was talking about Lion King as though it was racist because the bad guys were voiced by Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin, but that argument was ridiculously inconsistent since James Earl Jones was the patriarch of the hero family and the British Jeremy Irons was the main villain. Obviously Disney does not gain anything by being racist any more than they gain something by sneaking phallic symbols into the poster art of Little Mermaid, but there is something unsettling about the new Disney films. I'm sure that my claims are equally as preposterous as those to most people, but I have made some observations that I believe to be case in point.
It strikes me as occurring only since any actual Disney family has left the company, and most likely it is not intentional, but when you are telling fables through talking animals and machines, you are recounting an ancient tradition of storytelling. You are bringing a truth of some kind to life for the listener of the story by getting away from all of the preconceptions we have about humans (sex, sexual preference, race, etc..) by telling a story through characters that you understand are not real. The important thing to remember when telling a symbolic story is that everything in your story is then assigned a subtext.
In the Disney animated film Tarzan, we are given the understanding that monkeys are the good guys. Oh, and elephants. Umm, okay, monkey's, elephants, and SOMETIMES humans. But Cheetah's are definitely bad. Why is that? No one can really answer that, but we can refer back to other Disney films to see how they handled it in the past. I remember in The Jungle Book that the panther was good, but the tiger was bad. And the snake was bad, but the bear was good. So it isn't about carnivores vs. herbivores that good and evil is decided, but rather based on the character of the individual, regardless of their genus or species.
However in Tarzan we are not provided a character assignment for the Cheetah. He doesn't talk or sing or anything. It's like he's an animal! But isn't everyone in the story animals? We are not given a reason for the Cheetahs' lack of personification, but we do understand that if and when the Cheetah dies, he deserves it. He was mean. He was a killer. But what is the subtext in that? It is acceptable for someone we fear to die? Death is a just reward for those we deem evil? Not only is that an arbitrary morality, but it is a death sentence? Isn't the message there that it is up to you, the individual, to decide if someone is good or bad? If that is the case, then I guess the killers at Columbine were justified. Those popular kids were mean to them, so, like the Cheetah, they had to die.
I realize I'm being ridiculous by saying that Tarzan is responsible for Columbine, but my point is that subtext is important in fables. The message must be consistent. Obviously there is plenty of racism in old Disney cartoons (see Song of the South) and I'm not suggesting that the good-old-days of Disney were morally superior, but certainly the consistency of their message remained aware of how to tell the story. The subtext must be handled deliberately and carefully.
So what is my big problem with Cars? Children age three to seven are not old enough to understand stereotypes, but an animated film targeted at their age sure can educate them about it. Especially a film targeted at "NASCAR dads" and people with a more rural mentality has the ability to get right in there and endorse a terrible ideology. My seven year old daughter didn't know that Mexicans like low-riders. She didn't know black girls have big asses. She didn't know white people with southern accents live in trailer parks. She didn't know that minorities belong together or that white people are always the heroes, but I think she might be getting the idea after seeing Cars.
Again, I'm painting with some broad strokes, I'm not suggesting that there be a government agency governing the use of stereotypes, or even that Disney be more aware of the political correctness fascism, I just want to see more parents outraged. Are the smart parents not watching this film with their children? I watched it at the San Marco Theatre and was sitting directly behind a young, well-dressed black couple with their children. They sat that entire movie, as tedious as the plot line was, and didn't even cringe. I was behind them with my head in my hands. On one hand, I know that this gives me a great opportunity to talk to my kids about stereotyping and racism, but on the other hand, I thought I would have more support in my argument. Especially from my sister and brother-in-law who are the only other "liberals" in my family.
To me, casting Cheech Marin as the low-rider that is dating Jennifer Lewis, the black girl with huge tailfins, is already horribly stereotypical. Adding Larry the Cable Guy to anything is just furthering its racist undertones, and then amidst all of these stereotyped characters that are race-identifiable even before you learn who does the actual voicing, there is Owen Wilson, the whitest of white men, and Bonnie Hunt, the ultimate natural blonde from Cheaper by the Dozen, as the romantic leads and the heroes of the story, makes it a study in why Disney must think that white society is the best and everyone else should remain in their boxes.
The only film I can remember feeling as strongly about the racial implications is A Time to Kill with Samuel Jackson. Don't even get me started about Grisham's need to send a white hero in to save a dim-witted but honest black man. My brother-in-law chalks it up to my white guilt, and I won't say he's completely wrong about that, but apparently there isn't enough white guilt going around to stop young children from learning how to stereotype. And if you discuss stereotyping with someone and they pull the old "stereotypes are rooted in truth" bit; remind them that that is exactly why they are so wrong. There is a big difference between mocking a stereotype to disarm it and reinforcing a stereotype so that it lives on.
Regardless of all of these semantics, Cars was just a plain old-fashioned bad movie. If you are in the mood for a good Pixar Disney flick, see The Incredibles again.

My sister and I could be called "new urban parents" I suppose. Whether you are a parent or not, anyone can find this funny. It's from a new website called babble.com and it made me laugh out loud at my monitor, which was a little awkward for everyone around me, but if it makes you do the same thing, it'll all be worth it.

Bratz Dolls: Brides of Christ in Pleather Minis

Did anybody else just completely freak out in the midst of reading that article in The New Yorker about Bratz dolls? The whole thing is just apocalyptically depressing. I mean, Barbie was bad enough: the giant rack, the blond hair, the twiggy hips and legs. And now she's supposed to be the model of feminist empowerment? Because, see, Barbie actually holds down a job, or appears to want one.
The Bratz dolls, by contrast, are "party girls." Their chosen activities, as set out in the various sold-separately Bratzanalia, includes trips to Vegas and all-night mall parties. They dress in that fashion that was once, long ago, called "trampy," but that we must now learn to call "sassy" and "super-cute!" They wear short skirts and tight T-shirts with inspirational slogans like "My Heart Belongs to Shopping" and "So Many Boys, So Little Time." It would all be kind of cute (in a Jonbenet Ramsey sort of way) if the target audience for Bratz wasn't, like, six-year-old girls.
Honestly, I wouldn't even give a shit about this half-witted huckster mysogyny, except that I've got a baby girl now and at some point, presumably, she's going to start running with a posse of other little girls who all play with these dolls. And so I'm going to have to come off like this big, crusty curmudgeon when I tell her, No, she can't have a Bratz doll, even though Ashley and Sadie and Madison have one! Because, honestly, you can't explain concepts like self-commodification to six-year-olds. They just want the damn product. And the more you withhold it from them, the more precious it becomes in their gimlet eyes, and the harder they're going to push for it.
Fuck.
So I'm sitting there stewing about all this last night and feeding Josie her bottle and staring into her innocent, not-yet-self-commodified little eyes and anticipating the day she will toddle home and calmly announce that she's disowning me if I don't buy her the Yasmin Bratz doll, and the whole prospect is giving me Daddy's First Ulcer.
And that's when it hits me.
Rather than fighting against the current, why not bodysurf the new wave of under-age sexualization/consumerization?
That's why (just as soon as I scratch together the scratch), I'll be introducing a new doll to compete with Bratz: Baby's First Slut!
That's right, parents! She's the Baby who goes all the way! All her parts move. Yes they do. All of them. A few even secrete! Sometimes, Baby's First Slut wears outfits, but not when she's feeling naughty! Some of the other dolls don't like Baby's First Slut, but that's only because all the boys love her. She knows how to make them happy. So happy that they buy Baby's First Slut lots and lots of sassy outfits.
This is where we get into the really big money: Accessories! Baby's First Slut is all about the product:
Baby's First Bling!
Baby's First Escalade!
Baby's First Ice!
Baby's First Cristal!
In the interest of being culturally sensitive – as well as making sure we nail down all our market sectors – we'd need some multi-ethnic Slut equivalents:
Baby's First Concubine!
Baby's First Courtesan!
Baby's First Puta!
Baby's First Ho!
And we'd need to make sure that we gave the girls exciting narrative elements to work towards. That's why we'd publish a whole set of books (with necessary spinoff product, obviously) to stake out the following exciting adventures:
Baby's First Internet Porn Video!
Baby's First STD!
Baby's First Unwanted Pregnancy!
Baby's First Abortion!
Baby's First Substance Abuse Crisis! (Baby's First Rehab sold separately.)
Baby's First Suicide Attempt!
We wouldn't want to turn things dark too quickly, though, because we need to score some celebrity endorsements early on in the process.
If we position ourselves correctly, we'll get credit from the lefty moonbats (like myself) who are always moaning about the bad messages that dolls send, while also drawing the masses of little girls who just want to emulate the false versions of female empowerment and happiness peddled by the various Power Sluts of our age. I don't want to toot my own horn here, but this is basically a blank check for a gajillion dollars just waiting for you to sign.
Who's with me?"

If you know the name of the author of this piece, please let me know so that I can give them credit. My sister found the article on babble.com but I could not find it when i went to the site. Nonetheless, the entire site was funny as hell.
-Jon

Living in the buckle of the Bible belt can be frustrating, even for devoted Christians. In some cases the difficulty comes from the image that is created when some of the more fundamentalist believers cast a shadow of intolerance around their specific moral agenda that seems at times to outweigh the love and grace aspect of the faith, and other times, liberal churches or followers are so tolerant that there doesn’t even seem to be a morality or an absolute to their belief. Those believers frustrate the attempts the stricter believers are making to make certain their culture knows where the God of the Bible stands on issues.
I was discussing some of the interesting things that have been happening in our pop culture recently with some friends of mine that are devoted, Bible-believing Christians (as well as some of the most intelligent people I know), around a bonfire at one of their 30th birthdays. We discussed the recent resurgence of morality-inspired albums and artistic projects that are reminiscent of the anti-war, secular humanism of the Vietnam era. Artists that were appreciated on a strictly artistic level throughout the Clinton and Bush I eras of Pax Americana, such as the Flaming Lips, Beastie Boys, and Cursive, that have recently released albums propagating a moral and political agenda.
On one hand, these artists have worked hard for many years to build a reputation as artists and as personalities, so there is some level of justification to them using that influence to endorse philosophies they believe deeply in. After all, every one of us around that bonfire had been fairly ignorant about the situation in Tibet until the Beastie Boys brought it to our attention. But they didn’t do it by tainting their music with a specific agenda, rather through external activism, without alienating any of their audience. With To the Five Burroughs, the Beastie Boys compromised their art as well as the integrity they had before their listeners when they forced out a less-than-inspired album wrought with political messages and released during an election year. Similarly The Flaming Lips have released At War with the Mystics, a politically charged album about the people taking the power back.
Probably most blatant, when it comes to indicting religion, is the new Cursive album Happy Hollow. On this musically brilliant album, the lyrical content addresses war or religion in every single song. While Tim Kasher distanced himself from the listener more on Happy Hollow than on any prior release, he also made harsh indictments on the church and their responsibility for so much emotional trouble and fabricated guilt and frustration in the world. Alongside this message is the anti-war theme.
I had the good fortune to get an opportunity to interview Cursive’s bass player, Matt Maginn, last week and I asked about these things. Read that interview to see his responses to some of these questions, but that is not really what I am addressing in this particular blog. In this blog I am addressing the place of pop culture in our personal philosophies. Books have been written and pundits have been outspoken about the illegitimacy of celebrities using their soap box to provide opinions that are neither expert nor qualified to be as influential as they are, as though they should be discredited for their opinions because they are artists. Personally I would rather hear what an artist that I admire thinks about something than listen to a pundit who is hardly more qualified and often seems to have put even less thought into the issue.
I don’t prefer the voice of the artists because I am more likely to sway to their ideals, in fact I doubt anyone likely to sway their ideals based on their fan status has ideals worth a shit anyway, but I enjoy a new perspective that forces me to rethink my own political and religious ideas. If believers are sincere in their convictions, if they really believe that the God of the Bible is an absolute and has established an absolute moral reality, there is no reason to be afraid of contrary voices. Truth is truth. So if Dan Brown releases The DaVinci Code and everyone wants to read it; let them. If it makes people question why they believe what they believe, won’t that deepen their faith and invoke a recommitment of sorts? If they are dealing in truth, won’t they come back to the true conclusions regardless of what the message was that inspired them to think on it again?
When I listened to Cursive’s Happy Hollow, I was upset by the distraction from the amazing music by the agenda that is showcased on the album. But the more I listened to the record, the more I realized the value of that distraction. Unlike The DaVinci Code, which presented “facts” contrary to a believers’ upbringing for cerebral and intellectual consideration, this was presented in the intimate moment of getting absorbed emotionally in the story of a song. Cursive’s Bad Sects off of Happy Hollow is a perfect example of this dichotomy. When I first heard it I wondered why Cursive wanted to throw their hat into the political discourse of gays in the church, and especially in the priesthood, but as I grew fonder of the song I started to experience it differently. Unlike Dan Brown’s poorly constructed mystery novel, Bad Sects pulled me into the story of one priests’ struggle to find a balance between his faith and his flesh.
“I know this is wrong because I’m told this is wrong.”
How often does our faith or our political position commit us to an idea that we have not thoroughly thought through on our own? We’ve taken ideas provided to us by a person or organization we trust, be it our church, our peer group, our candidates, or our favorite celebrities, and toted the party line because we are told how it makes sense. We are told this is wrong, but have we really taken it to court? Have we delved into why we think it is wrong and whom we are affecting with that decision?
Cursive didn’t change my mind about anything I believed spiritually, politically, or morally, but I realized the intimate depth of thought that can be brought on through a song. Through art that moves me. It is emotionally interactive. The depth of that impact can be threatening to someone that is weak-willed or has a poor foundation for their philosophies anyway, but for the thinking person, these re-evaluations are a good thing. They keep us honest.
As we stood around the bonfire drinking our cocktails and making toasts, we also discussed the resurgence of the concept that religion is bad for our culture. The new children’s movie Happy Feet presents the idea that religion handicaps society. Green Day, in their American Idiot album, suggests that religion is the thing that starts wars and fights. This is a popular concept lately. But in their idiot savant brilliance, the writers of South Park have once again displayed their courage and unbiased frankness in a recent two-part episode wherein Cartman, impatiently awaiting the release of the Nintendo Wii, travels to the future. In the future he finds a world in the violent throes of war, even though in this future no one believes in God. The basis for their violent struggle is the inability to agree on a name for their atheist culture. The message: even if there were no religion, people would find things to fight about. How true.
All in all I would prefer a culture that trusts its participants to make their own informed decisions based on many presented options, rather than a culture that legislates morality and doesn’t allow for discourse. Ultimately this is the American way: to allow for individuality and to trust our citizens to pursue honesty, personally and interpersonally.

Life in the South's biggest small town is as exciting and rewarding as you want it to be, you just have to know what you're looking for and know where to find it. That is where EU Jacksonville wants to take you. We are not a Folio Weekly. We don't care who you vote for and it isn't up to us to inform you about corrupt city officials. The Folio Weekly does that and I for one am very glad we have a paper in town like that. But when it comes to entertainment, we want to provide more complete, comprehensive, and local coverage of what is really going on.
This blog is as close as you'll ever see to an editorial from me in EU Jacksonville, because I try to dillute my opinions among the vast and virtual space of the worldwide web, anonymously and drenched in cowardice. Here in the halls of the EU Jacksonville, my only goal is to let you in on the little secrets. You see there are amazingly creative things going on all over town and they are being put together by these innovative minds that we cultivate right here in the River City.
Jacksonville has a rich culture, but let me let you in on a little secret about the art and music scene. In every town, and even nationally, there are the people that are trying to hustle money out of the general public for their own gain. These people shake hands with other hustlers and schmoozers and they all pat each other on the back before and after shows at some beaches bar. There are the people that barely make above minimum wage working for local radio stations and they leverage their air time to try to make some money on the side. There are the myriad "Promoters" in town that put out flashy fliers and get some schlock bands from Orange Park to perform and the whole thing is sponsored by Duff Beer. Then there's the "managers" which are these green kids that happen to like their local metal core band so much they are willing to run their myspace and book their shows, and they call up all of the media outlets and try to blow their band up to help them make it big. The goal with these scheisters is always the same. Get money. Gain power and influence. This is the faux scene. The real artists are always hiding underground.
So think of the city as a swimming pool and all of the musicians and painters and performers as the aquatic life that is indiginous to our pool. The ones hustling to get somewhere are thrashing about, worried more about propulsion than creation or inspiration, and because of that, they rise in the pool and are more visible to everyone for their height and often will make it to the top, where they assume success is, and eventually they will get plucked out by fishermen, birds, or other predators that feed on their energy but have no use for their uninspired creations. They worked hard on success but never thought to look into their inspiration and the artists that preceded them. These people are not true artists, they just like the life of rock and roll or they enjoy a lofty status as an esoteric artist, but they have nothing to give the world that the world will later cherish.
On the bottom of that pool, on the other hand, are the artists. Bunkered down with the rest of the real people at the bottom of the aquarium, they are emmersed with the dregs of the pool, because they live in that reality, and their true and honest inspiration is something they pursue, not for fame or fortune, although this consumerist nation gets us all and of course the artists would like to be able to live off of their art and still eat, but this is not what compells them to keep on. They see success as the ability to be honest through their creativity and have their peers revel in their creation.
In the national scene there is a similar hierarchy. There are your Paris Hiltons and whoever that guy from Sugar Ray is, and then there are the real artists. Sometimes they are able to bring their honesty to the surface without compromising, such as artists as the Flaming Lips, but more often than not, the best artists you will never know about. Not enough people are excavating them from their individual pools. It is easier for national media to take people that are thrashing and report on them. So the best artists in every town probably never make it to the forefront of even their local scene, much less a national visibility. Unless their community is so supportive of them that the national scene is forced to pay attention.
At EU Jacksonville we hope to excavate these talents and show them to you. We hope you are not compelled by what the national scene thinks or what the local media tries to tell you you are supposed to like. My objective is to bring the most innovative and compelling artists in this city and parade them before you alongside every entertaining event happening in the coming week so that you can be aware of your community.
Although technically the "U" in EU Jacksonville doesn't stand for anything, it is a silly way to say "you" as in "Entertaining U, Jacksonville." I prefer to think of the "U" as standing for Understanding. To really get to know this city, you have to know more than Jaguars and Limp Bizkit. You have to really get to know the artists and entertainers that this city has nurtured in secret. See what we have to offer that you can't find anywhere else in the country. You have to know about the San Marco Theatre's midnight movies, the underground music venue in Springfield that isn't even a real club, musicians like Bob Maynard and The Yusge, and record stores such as Moon Colony Razorblade. You won't see an ad in Folio Weekly for TSI. You won't find anything about Moon Colony Razorblade in the Florida Times Union (but that's mostly because you don't read the Times Union) and you won't find these advertisements here either. These things are underground, and they enjoy it there. They cannot afford to advertise, perhaps, but more likely they are not interested in it. They are interested in a community that wanst to understand them. The real people don't have publicists to organize an interview. The true artists and the performers worth seeing are spending their time creating and concepting, not hiring promoters and managers. To understand this community, you have to understand the creative people that are under and behind it.
So here we are. Entertaining and Understanding Jacksonville. Our goal is to provide a weekly guide to everything going on in this town. We want to be the most comprehensive guide to entertainment in the town, and we say that we don't just want to remind you that Toby Kieth is playing at the coliseum or that the Gator Bowl is this weekend, we also want to be the ones that let you know about a garage rock showcase at Jack Rabbits or a festival featuring eight hardcore bands at a little dive bar in Murray Hill. Whatever people are working hard to bring to life in this town, we intend to showcase it for you: the local. We will feature the true underground in Jacksonville's invisible culture so that you can be proud of it.
I'm not supposing that an Emperor X performance at TSI is more relevant or better for you than a musical presented by the FCCJ Artist Series, I am simply suggesting that you can find out about the musical anywhere; we want to give you the option. You are free to enjoy the same things that hundreds or even thousands of your peers enjoy, but if you are one of those few that are looking for something different, exciting, or original, we want you to find what you are looking for as well. Vote for whoever you want when elections roll around, we aren't here to demonize any political party or even give you our opinion of people or events. We are here to find and report on those things that are Entertaining U in Jacksonville. We are Entertaining and Understanding Jacksonville and then passing the things we learn on to you so that you can be entertained and in turn understand that Jacksonville does have a culture of its own.
So instead of moping about how much this city sucks, try to find something that will spark your interest. Lord knows the underground needs more audience participation, and you are sitting around wishing there was something to entertain you. No matter what you are into, hip-hop, local films, rock bands, local theater, jazz, writing workshops, break dancing, or anything, we have it here. It's going on somewhere and you are missing it if you are not staying in touch. Our new goal is to help you stay in touch as much as possible. So check us out. We are about to be making big changes in line with many big changes we've made over the past five years, all to be a better source of information for you. Let us know more about what you'd like to see and we will respond. Let us know what entertainment is slipping through our fingers and we will tighten our grip. Entertaining U is a team effort. We have to know what entertainers are doing in town and we have to know every little thing you are interested in being entertained by. Get on the team and tell others about this publication. Make us your source and we will do our best to make sure you learn about what you want to know about.
-Jon Bosworth
Managing Editor
EU Jacksonville