friday video premiere

Every Friday, we're highlighting a specific video (or two, or three) for your end of week enjoyment.

This Friday's video is Justice's "Stress"



I was kind of surprised to see this video released so soon on the heels of their last single, "DVNO". I was also surprised because the "Stress" video may be the most violent video since the Prodigy's "Smack My B***h Up [warning--this video is extremely not safe for work--NSFW--and you actually have to sign into youtube and verify that you are over 18 in order to watch it (but, I mean, youngsters can just lie about their age, can't they? it seems a bit pointless to ask one to verify age)]"...which was subsequently banned from US airways from being shown before midnight (and, perhaps not surprisingly, the Justice video was shot in the same first-person style as the Prodigy clip)



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Before we enter a discourse on the video's meaning, we'd like to remind you (just in case you've been living under a rock) that Justice in one of the planet's hottest bands at the moment. The duo were originally known for their mash-up of Simian's "We Are Your Friends"--which won the award for MTV Europe's 2007 Video of the Year...which Kanye West notoriously rushed the stage for. We covered Kanye's subsequent hiring of So_Me (part of the Ed Banger crew of which Justice are signed to) to direct the "Good Life" video (if you can't beat them, join them, right?).

I called Justice's "D.A.N.C.E." the song of the year last year, and the band keeps rolling on. I thoroughly enjoyed their interview with pitchfork, even if it was awkward thanks to the interviewer (and, for the record, it's Justice, not Eusteece). They're playing all of the big music festivals. Their music was played in an Escalade commercial that debuted during the Super Bowl. Life just doesn't get any better, does it?

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Yes, the jackets in the video are pretty BA (they remind me of this Flying Coffin hat), but this is a minor point. With this, "Stress", the band take on the racial tensions in Paris. My only question is: does the music video perpetuate stereotypes of African and Caribbean Frenchmen being violent and part of destructive, angry mobs?

Clearly, the video is not a sarcastic and snarky one--it's not tongue-in-cheek, and it's not funny. Does it further the discussion and make this issue more visible to indie kids worldwide, or does it wrongly vilify disenchanted youth?

Because, honestly, I feel that the band are tapping into a primal urge to destroy out of frustration. When one has no control over his situation--he acts out against his captors (in this case, Paris at large) and tries to literally (and figuratively) destroy it as much as possible to even the playing field.

And, in the above interview, the band play off any sort of musical ties to Christianity. Xavier de Rosnay (the non-mustachioed member of Justice) says that though he is Christian, he sees the cross as a symbol of people coming together--and of the music itself being a marriage of many types of music.

But, one has to wonder if the hooligans wearing jackets adorned with the cross is an attack on the wars of Christianity (or religion at large). Remember, most major religions preach peace, but many times, they have waged wars in order to spread their own version of the gospel (the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition come to mind). Are the band saying that the messages of religion sometimes get skewed and that the followers sometimes lose sight of what they claim to hold true? Or are the band simply using the cross as their brand symbol--wholly devoid of any biblical meaning? Are the boys in the video waging their own crusade against an unholy world which has somehow gone astray? Is Justice trying to distance themselves from the idea that they are a Christitan band?

The video lends itself greatly to interpretation--it makes the viewer step back and ask questions on many levels. Obviously, the first level is the religious one. Second is the international order (the hooligans are primarily minorities--is this symbolic of poorer nations lashing out against stronger ones). The third level of analysis is a national one--racial tension and injustice within national borders. And, lastly, is the individual level--"Do I have the urge to do this myself?".."Does wanting to do this make me a bad person, or does it mean that these urges are perfectly natural?" (you know, "we have seen the monster, and he is us")

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You've got to laugh at a band who can laugh at themselves--at 4:50 in the "Stress" video, the band kick in the stereo that is playing their original hit "D.A.N.C.E."--showing that they don't take themselves all that seriously (and that they have a dark side and are not all rainbows, flowers and sunshine).

Who says (electro) rock is dumb?

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And one last thing--I'm kind of tired of hearing that Justice are the next Daft Punk. They sound a lot more like the Chemical Brothers than anyone else (I mean, they're more industrial than Daft Punk and are clearly less house than the Daft Punk boys).

God Bless the Internet...And Nike Soccer Commercials PART II

I hope you all enjoyed Part I of this series, where I think we saw some of Nike's general strategies--that is, using high-tech vs low-tech, going street ball in both play and style, and featuring Ronaldinho all the time.

So for Part II, I'll focus on a specific ad that Nike whipped out before the 2002 World Cup. This was a massively potent ad that transcended not only the soccer world, but also retail in general.

I'm talking about Nike's "Secret Tournament," where Cantona is reduced to his (now common and comfortable) cameo role and reminds me of (a) himself and his usual ballistic Frenchness; (b) Pierluigi Collina's evil brother; and (c) Tom Colicchio from Top Chef.

Here goes:



First and foremost, I'm struck looking back at this video of how it serves as yet another example (alongside the freestyling one I showed in Part I) of Nike using the same ad techniques in soccer and basketball.

Didn't anyone else immediately think of the recent ad for the Nike 25s? Dig this:



Ok, so there's no tournament. But it's essentially the same: Nike takes all their big guns and has them in some sweet venue where we will never get to play, wearing sweet expensive gear that we will never get to wear, and, most importantly, has them playing against each other.

Anyway, moving on.

I'm snooping around and I can't find the original "Secret Tournament" official website. It's really a bummer, because part of what made this whole ad so amazing was the way in which Nike made the Tournament feel like a real tournament that was going on in real time.

They spliced that three minute video into smaller ones, releasing the final commercial showing the "gran finale" last--so you didn't know who was going to win. It felt in some ways like the NCAA tourney.

The "Secret Tournament" website helped deepen the drama, it became sort of like the cbssportsline.com NCAA Tourney site.

There were also big ads in every soccer magazine and fold out posters that just about every kid I knew who played soccer had up on their locker or in their bedroom. Who wouldn't want a poster of most of the best players in the world?
And everyone had a favorite team based on who their favorite club or country was. Here's a list of the teams, courtesy some bbc site:

Triple Espresso
* Francesco Totti (Italy)
* Thierry Henry (France)
* Hidetoshi Nakata (Japan)

The Untouchables
* Patrick Viera (France)
* Paul Scholes (England)
* Ruud Van Nistelrooy (Holland)

Cerberus
* Sylvain Wiltord (France)
* Lillian Thuram (France)
* Edgar Davids (Holland)

Toros Locos
* Saviola (Argentina)
* Luis Enrique (Spain)
* Freddy Ljungberg (Sweden)

Os Tornados
* Luis Figo (Portugal)
* Ronaldo (Brazil)
* Roberto Carlos (Brazil)

Funk Seoul Brothers
* Denilson (Brazil)
* Ki Hyeon Seol (Korea Republic)
* Ronaldinho (Brazil)

Equipo del Fuego
* Hernan Crespo (Argentina)
* Claudio Lopez (Argentina)
* Gaizka Mendieta (Spain)

Tutto Bene
* Tomas Rosicky (Czech Republic)
* Fabio Cannavaro (Italy)
* Rio Ferdinand (England)

You can see that some of the teams (especially near the bottom) were never going to win. I mean, it was kind of predictable that Henry's "Triple Espresso" was going to square off against "Os Tornados," just because those teams had the most high profile stars. Well, high profile except for Nakata, who doesn't seem to fit in. If someone were to ask, "Which one of these three is not like the other?" he'd be the answer.

Also remember that this is 2002, before Ronaldinho wowed the world with these goals against England, and before his move to Barcelona--but even still, he should have replaced Nakata.

In any case, besides the sheer players, there were other important facets that made this commercial so epic.

There was, for example, the premiere of the Nike Vapors cleats. You get a nice look at them when Henry steps on Totti's back to score the Tournament-winning goal. The first Vapors (which apparently have their own Wikipedia page!) weighed 7.0 grams. It was ridiculous how light they were. They helped usher in Nike's weird new lightweight, plastic shoes that were invented to rival the supple (but heavy) kangaroo leather that Adidas used.

I remember first trying on the Vapors and freaking out because it didn't feel like I had a boot on. And I guess that's a good thing if you're a speedster, but for someone with a history of surgeries and no history of speed, they just weren't for me.

Another factor in the commercial was the song. When I found a 45 of the redone "A Little Less Conversation" at the record store the other day I flipped out. Hitting #1 in 20 countries, it was a classic one hit wonder. Here:



Now we could argue about whether or not it would have been as big a hit if it wasn't featured on the Nike commercial (and, later, in Ocean's Eleven). But I have no doubt that its success was completely linked to the commercial. So as I said, the commercial even transcended the realm of retail.

Then again, Nike soccer commercials are expected to have good music, at least ever since the famous one with the Brazilian soccer team from 1998:



Who watches this commercial and doesn't find themselves spending all day singing "Mas Que Nada," going "OOOOOOOO Oariá raiô, Obá Obá Obá"?

Ok but we're getting away from ourselves here. The point is that this "Secret Tournament" commercial managed to transcend the world of advertising. How many times did my friends and I find some place and go, "Man, that would be a sweet place to film a Nike commercial." We literally used to search for cages in Chicago during the summer. No joke.

In the end, there was a "rematch" between "Triple Espresso" and "Os Tornados." Here it is:



We see Cantona's up to his old antics, and I think it's hilarious that it is first to 100. Plus you have to love how Figo turns into Boris from Goldeneye at the end.



These commercials were epic. They made it so it wasn't only about buying the new cleats, or that weird shiny ball with the scorpion on it, or those sleeveless training tops--it was about challenging other groups of three at the beach and the ensuing camaraderie; it was about trying new tricks on the field and defending your honor; and it was about sneaking onto the Northwestern University Varsity field for crazy skillful small-sided games where the white kids played the Haitians, or the Jamaicans played the Sophomores, or my high school played your high school.

Sure these kinds of things would have happened without Nike. But Nike glamorized it all, they upped the stakes.

Hopefully, they made soccer more appealing to the masses. Who knows. Maybe we'll be hailing these commercials' impact years from now, when the US wins its first World Cup with a team full of the country's best athletes--6'6," 4.4 40--athletes who turned down football and basketball for soccer.

Yeah, I know. It's just a commercial. But we can dream, right?

Benson, cont'd

We didn't really have time to write up something beyond just a quick notifier about Cedric Benson's arrest while boating last weekend.

Turns out it was good, because even though Jhuff did put a quick post out on Monday, new information has come out.

To recap, Jhuff and I were immediately suspicious when we heard that Benson was arrested for being drunk while boating in Lake Travis, near Austin, Texas. I don't know how many JJ readers have gone boating, but all our experiences have involved (at least) a six pack. I mean, get real.

But when Benson put out a statement saying that he was treated improperly by officers, I reacted the way I react when any athlete starts protesting their "unjust" treatment when they get caught up in the law. That is, I basically rolled my eyes and wrote Benson off.

I did find some solace in this great Rosenblog post. ("Police pepper-sprayed Benson, a move that seems a little over the top. Police apparently didn't know that the quickest way to get Benson to the ground is simply first contact.")

But this morning I read this piece about one of Benson's friends speaking out on his side. She was on the boat. The Chicago Tibune writes:

There were about 15 people on the boat, including Benson's mother, Jackie, who had spent much of the evening swimming in a part of the lake known as Devil's Cove. Just when the group had decided to head back to shore around 9:30 p.m. and go out to dinner, a patrol boat stopped to conduct a random check.

According to Cartwright, she had consumed one beer and Benson had two drinks.

"I know Cedric and I don't think he was drunk," Cartwright said.

The arrival of LCRA police perturbed Benson because of the frequency of the checks on his 30-foot boat, Cartwright said.

When Benson's boat passed the safety inspection, Cartwright said she and her fiance were surprised the officer then required a sobriety test for Benson.

"We were all like, 'Why?' " she said.

Apparently, Cartwright and her fiance had gone boating with Benson six times previously, and they were pulled over each time. Is it because they've always been raucous? I'm sorry, but I just don't see how crazily drunk Benson could have gotten with his own mother on the boat, before dinner. Besides, even though Benson isn't exactly loved in the Bears locker room, he doesn't have a reputation for drunken tomfoolery, as far as I know.

So the plot thickens.

Considering I know absolutely nothing about this region of Texas, I'm hesitant to pin this on racial profiling or anything conspiratorial.

I would say, though, that we should be equally hesitant to pin all the blame on Benson, because it all just seems so fishy.


Photo from here.

God Bless the Internet...And Nike Soccer Commercials PART I

This is a post I've been wanting to put together for some time now--best Nike soccer commercial recap--and, thanks to finals, I finally have the spare time I needed.

Let's start from the beginning. This video of Good vs. Evil must have come from the 1994 World Cup, when Nike really announced their presence on a soccer market long ruled by Adidas, Umbro, and Puma. It's funny to see how young Maldini looks, how Patrick Kluivert has such a big role (considering he's fallen so far), and how Nike still relies mostly on the same teams: Manchester, Brazil, and Arsenal, for example.



Also notice how they feature Cantona's typically transcendent style. Dig this video of his classic goal--especially the celebration, where he just kind of stands there and goes, "Yeah, I know. I'm the shyte. What do you want? I'll kill you."



So we see that, even in the early 90s, Nike found a way to weave the players' natural playing personalities along with some crazy high-tech stuff into their commercial (also see how the famous defender Maldini tackles in to save the day, definitely a good thing considering Jorge Campos was, as usual, terribly out of position and sure to be embarrassed).

As Nike progressed through the 90s, they kept their commercials high-tech, and started integrating more moves and tricks. See for example, the Die Hard meets Matrix meets Ocean's Twelve commercial which Nike called "The Mission":



You can see the addition of more freestyle tricks here. Whereas that first video just had Ronaldo doing a rainbow, this has someone (is it Dwight Yorke or Andy Cole, I can't tell) doing a rainbow then skipping a tackle then bicycling. Also see Figo's nasty little Meg, some great lifts by Davids, and just generally more skill all around.

But sometimes Nike went completely low-tech in their videos, as they did when they decided to lean completely on the street-style of soccer.



Oh wait, my bad, that's their freestyle basketball commercial. It's an honest mistake though, because look at how similar the freestyle soccer commercial is (it was probably filmed in the same friggin room):



This might well have been the commercial that inspired Nike to start relying so heavily on the freestyle aspect of soccer not only in their commercials, but also on their website and in their clothing styles.

On their website, they began inviting people to send in videos of their moves, and had people vote on which person's moves were the best. And because all these people knew that they had to wear Nike gear and use a Nike ball to get on their site, it was amazing ground-up advertising. I hope all you business majors are taking notes.

Regarding style, all of a sudden Nike soccer clothes started featuring training styles that looked less like jerseys and more like street-wear. Compare the the clothes/jerseys you see the players from that first video wearing with the capris and baggy shirts that Davids and co. wear. I mean, the clothes in the bball and soccer videos are, really, not so dissimilar.

A lot of this street-soccer stuff came from Nike's bball experience, but a lot of it also came from their sponsoring Brazilians, who come from a world where the "street-soccer stuff" as I've called it is completely normal. And it holds a certain earthy, grassroots appeal--no doubt part of What White People Like about "The Idea of Soccer."

And this also coincided with Nike's obsession with the happy-go-lucky, goofy, (ugly,) and relaxed style of Ronaldinho, who was sold to Barcelona (a Nike team) from PSG before the 2003-2004 season. Ronaldinho became the MJ of Nike soccer, taking over from Ronaldo and eventually getting an entire clothing line--R10--to himself.

Dig how Nike features Ronaldinho in this NikeFreestyle (not just Nike) commercial:



He's just one of the guys, chillin out, having fun. That weird stick figure is kind of creepy, it's true, but it could also represent any one of us there with him--it's sort of like an abstract invitation to join in.

I'll conclude part I here, but just to prove how much of an impact Nike had on soccer, I'll leave you all with what is probably the best YouTube video of freestyle soccer tricks (and has a tight song in the background). Obviously street soccer existed before Nike and would have progressed without it, but there can be no doubt that Nike increased the sex appeal of it all--I doubt there would be thousands of YouTube soccer freestyle videos today without Nike.

So maybe we can blame Nike for all the kids who have nasty moves but no real fitness or field awareness.

Anyway, my favorite part starts at 32 seconds, I hope you enjoy:

bwi--not the airport.

(Joshua Masayoshi Huff)

bsto and I were interested in Cedric Benson getting arrested for allegedly boating under the influence and resisting arrest.

I understand the resisting arrest charge--but boating while intoxicated? I am vehemently against operating heavy machinery while inebriated, however, I know what goes on at places like Martha's Vineyard and at private beaches and lakes across the country:

Drunken boating.

Not to be ridiculous, but why is Benson singled out? Are there a lot of drunk boating arrests yearly, or is this something that one gets charged with? We firmly feel that further investigation into just why Mr. Benson was arrested needs to be done

friday video premiere

Every Friday, we're highlighting a specific video (or two, or three) for your end of week enjoyment.


This week's Friday Video Premiere is the Kidz in the Hall's "Driving Down the Block"



Yeah, they still reference hip-hop greats like A Tribe Called Quest ("my 'Low End Theory' tape in/playin' number six/ 'Show Business' is my s..."), but this is quite a departure from their first hit single, "Wheelz Fall Off ('06 'Til)"



You've got to say that the influence of fellow Chi-Town crew the Cool Kids had a lot to do with the sound of "Driving Down the Block"...but "Driving Down the Block" had me wondering if the song was a snipe at this sort of slowed down (almost "twisted and screwed") that the Cool Kids and Clipse have been popularizing as of late.

Cool Kids "I (Mikey) Rock"



Cool Kids "Black Mags"





The Cool Kids often talk about their gear and swag ("I got this 89-90, Pistons champ flat/ bill black starter cap with the hologram tags"..."Seat, handlebar grips, is the same as my Nike"..." Aw you judging me dog/Please, you shop at the mall/Me I shop at boutiques, limited quantity sneaks/Where do these quantities be? Maybe they all on my feet"). On "Driving Down the Block", Kidz in the Hall rap: "I'm so damn clean/Polo rugby/ Jordan 16s"

I don't know if there's beef, but I know this for sure: if you're from Chicago, you make sure everybody knows it.

Oh, wait: the Cool Kids rock that 89-90 Pistons champ flat bill black starter cap with the hologram tags. Do they not know of the epic battles that the Bulls had with the Pistons in the '80s?

Holocaust Remembrance Week III--"Holocaust"?

Where we're running a series of posts in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which this year is on Friday, May 2.

Earlier today I was approached by a JJ reader who wanted me to flesh out some of the things I had said on Monday's Holocaust post, especially regarding the Holocaust's position alongside other historical genocides.

Look. This is an exceedingly touchy subject. Obviously the entire Holocaust is, but what makes this so sensitive is that there are survivors alive today who I fear would feel disrespected by my conclusion. Now that we're some 60 years beyond the Holocaust, it's just too easy to be casual and flippant when comparing the Holocaust to other genocides.

This is why I said that nobody should ever say that any genocide is worse than another. It elevates the status of one people's lives above that of another country. I don't care how a people are massacred. Whether millions are killed by gas or by machete is irrelevant to me--a human life is a human life. And when they are wasted according to some bogus racial ideology it makes their deaths more iniquitous than, perhaps, a carjacking murder, but no Tutsi's death is/was better or worse than a Jew's.

And for that matter, I'm not so interested in how many are murdered. I have trouble imagining any collection of corpses larger than maybe 300. It becomes hazy to me. So whether it's one million or six million, why does it matter? Is the Rwandan genocide really 5 million bodies less appalling than the Holocaust?

Let's be perfectly straightforward here. The definition of the word "Holocaust" (despite how I and most people use it) does not necessarily include the death of 6 million Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany.

A "Holocaust" is a massive conflagration that results in utter destruction.

Really, then, it's a symbolic word--not unlike using the phrase "ethnic cleansing" to refer to the deaths in Bosnia in the 1990s.

And to a certain extent, one could argue that it is unfair to bestow the term Holocaust only on to the Jewish genocide. Well, I don't know about that. While I don't believe that the Holocaust can be elevated above other genocides, I do think that it can be distinguished from them. Indeed, each and every one of history's genocide's has distinct and unique characteristics.

I alluded a bit to what separates the Holocaust from other 20th century genocides on Monday. But here's what doesn't separate the Holocaust: the fact that a ridiculous amount of people were murdered in cold blood and the murder was officially sanctioned and carried out by the highest powers in government.

Also, that the idea of a "Jewish plague" (so well explained by Hitler in his Mein Kampf, right) was pervasive in the very foundation of Nazi Germany is not unique. The main justification for most of the other 20th century genocides, as far as I understand them, also involved "cleaning" a country of its "parasites."

I think what does separate the Nazi version, however, is that it occurred in such a large and Western state. This is what's so shocking about the Holocaust. While many people have (partly correct) notions of Africa and Southeast Asia as less educated and therefore closer to barbarism, this was Germany! Home of some of the world's greatest philosophers and artists and musicians and thinkers.

And the Holocaust also received a large amount of scrutiny after the fact thanks to the testimonies of perpetrators at the Nuremberg Trials and the Eichmann Trial, and thanks to the testimonies of survivors like Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel who wrote about their experiences.

I have yet to read testimonies of the other 20th century genocides that appear on the New York Times bestseller list.

But again, this is not to say that the Holocaust is at all "worse" than other genocides.

Here's what I'll conclude. Because of its scope and enormity, because of its pseudo-intellectual basis, because of its highly structured execution, the Holocaust is probably the most impressive genocide of the 20th century. But isn't killing one million Tutsis in 100 days "impressive"???

Ugh, this makes me sick.

It all comes down to my original point: that any discussion of genocide comparison is grotesque and inappropriate. I tried, really. The victims' deaths deserve to be honored and studied so that we and future generations don't allow their deaths to have been in vain--we must learn so we can prevent it from happening again.
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Today's Holocaust art is a poem, much different from the painting I posted yesterday.

The poem is "Babi Yar" by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (who I saw read once here in DC, and he was so animated and passionate and emotional when he read, it was truly beautiful...even if I could hardly understand the words through his thick Russian accent). It is about the massacre there, which I referred to in yesterday's discussion of the Einsatzgruppen.

Translated by Benjamin Okopnik, 10/96

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.

I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o'er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself. *1*
The Philistines betrayed me - and now judge.
I'm in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I'm persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.

I see myself a boy in Belostok *2*
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.

I'm thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of "Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!"
My mother's being beaten by a clerk.

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The antisemites have proclaimed themselves
The "Union of the Russian People!"

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I'm in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other's eyes.
How little one can see, or even sense!
Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,
But much is still allowed - very gently
In darkened rooms each other to embrace.

-"They come!"

-"No, fear not - those are sounds
Of spring itself. She's coming soon.
Quickly, your lips!"

-"They break the door!"

-"No, river ice is breaking..."

Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,
The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.
Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,
I feel my hair changing shade to gray.

And I myself, like one long soundless scream
Above the thousands of thousands interred,
I'm every old man executed here,
As I am every child murdered here.

No fiber of my body will forget this.
May "Internationale" thunder and ring *3*
When, for all time, is buried and forgotten
The last of antisemites on this earth.

There is no Jewish blood that's blood of mine,
But, hated with a passion that's corrosive
Am I by antisemites like a Jew.
And that is why I call myself a Russian!

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NOTES
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1 - Alfred Dreyfus was a French officer, unfairly dismissed from service in 1894 due to trumped-up charges prompted by anti- Semitism.

2 - Belostok: the site of the first and most violent pogroms, the Russian version of KristallNacht.

3 - "Internationale": The Soviet national anthem.



Photos by bbc and amazon.