#124: Doing It In the Park
Doing It After Dark...Oh Yeah...
MUSIC THING:
Rock Creek Park - The Blackbyrds
The Blackbyrds are an R&B/funk/jazz act from Washington D.C. The group was originally the brainchild of jazz trumpet legend Donald Byrd. Byrd taught at Howard University and he decided to turn the best of the musician students into a band.
Rock Creek Park is the second single off their 1975 album City Life. The song topped out #93 on the Billboard Hot 100 but has been sampled by everyone from N.W.A to Massive Attack to Nas. I want to buy a condo and live in this bassline.
FUN FACT: The female vocalist who comes in with the "do it!" part? Merry Clayton, who was featured in the 2013 MUST-WATCH documentary about backup singers, 20 Feet from Stardom. You’ve definitely heard her before, most likely on the Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter."
I’m gonna start spotlighting songs I love that I think you’ll love to in this section.
As a bonus: Rock Creek Park has been added to the following playlists:
Cool Men’s Boutique: Apple Music/Spotify
Cool Dive Bar: Apple Music/Spotify
MARKETING THING:
If you haven’t watched Showtime’s Desus & Mero yet, it’s time to change that. Now in it’s second season, it’s quickly become one of the only late-night talk shows worth a damn.
Given how hard it is to market a good media product — you’d think good stuff would sell itself, but what do I know — I’m a huge nerd about learning the process of how good shows are made. Imagine my surprise to stumble upon an ViacomCBS interview with Jax Media CEO Tony Hernandez. Jax Media is the company that produces Desus & Mero, along with the Emmy-nominated Black Lady Sketch Show, the late Broad City, Chris Rock’s recent Netflix special and a lot more. The interview is about how they pivoted D+M to the virtual space and is a good read for anyone else trying to figure out how to make good stuff in this new world. Also, how rare is it to see a huge multi-natty give up the sauce like this?
The Challenge of Producing a Co-hosted show in the Quarantine Era (Viacom/CBS)
CULTURE THING:
(Donald Trump and Roger Stone in 1999, during Trump's absolutely ridiculous run for president on the Reform Party ticket. Y’all remember that, right? I think it’s weird we never hear more about it now, right? Daniel Hulshizer/AP Images)
I’m at the age where the stuff that my friends and I were doing is now being looked at nostalgically by a younger generation. We’re at the age where we finally get to see how all the weird stuff we were creating was recieved.
In a lot of cases, it’s super depressing.
Reliving a very specific subculture from the period that roughly spans from 2009 to 2014 — the era of indie pop, ironically oversize eyeglasses, and late-wave finger mustaches — is what countless millennials and Gen Z kids are doing right now, online and in their bedrooms. “Bop or flop?” posits a TikTok trend asking users to rate “coming-of-age indie pop bangers” from those years. Girls are recreating outfits inspired by hyper-stylized image macros of flower crowns and band T-shirts they loved in middle school. Others are digging back into their angst-ridden social media posts from their adolescent and teen years. “If you were on Tumblr in 2013-2014 you should qualify for a senior discount,” reads one self-deprecating video from the genre, as though the era were several generations ago and not less than a decade.
In other cases, it’s really charming and exciting. This piece on nostalgia for the Tumblr Era is the latter.
Stuck in 2020, pretending it’s 2014 (Vox)
While we’re on the subject of Tumblr, this piece just reminded me about a really fun Tumblr we all used to work on called Peak Blackness, which, thankfully, is still up as of me typing this. Look at this masthead!
Wait.
Am I the Pras of this masthead?
Speaking of Pras…
I SIT 90 DEGREES UNDERNEATH PALM TREES!
HOW TO HELP BLACK LIVES IN 30 MINS OR LESS:
When it comes to taking the steps needed to create a racially equal America, I’ve heard from many well-intentioned non-Black people over the last two months that one of the most daunting things for them is trying to figure out what they can personally do make things better.
Some folks see these massive issues as a significant problem that cannot be defeated, so they struggle to figure out what one person can do, which leads to them not doing much other than posting to IG. Some of that is not wanting to seem like you’re doing too much, some of that is fear your intentions will be misunderstood.
What if I told you that for only 30 minutes a week, you can help black lives no matter where you are or how much money you make? Here’s how:
Carve out 30 minutes in your calendar this week. Call it “Being A Better Person Time” or “Set a Good Example for my Kid” Time, whatever works.
Click a link and make a call or donate or sign a petition. Just do one thing in that 30 min window.
This weekend, share the above link with your three closest friends and say, “Hey, I’m (calling/donating/signing a petition). I’m worried about how things will be for future generations, so I’m doing something about it. If you’re interested, here’s the link!” If you have a group chat, drop it into your group chat!
Repeat the following week for as long as you can. Do it while you online shop, do it while you’re on an annoying call, hell, you can do it while you poop, I genuinely don’t care! Whatever it takes! It is the absolute least that you can do, but you’ll get a sense of accomplishment and the knowledge that you at least did SOMETHING to help. You have a vision of who you want to be, right? That ideal version of yourself that does the right thing when given a chance and leads by example? This is that chance. You can do it!
BONUS: You won’t have to lie to your kids or grandkids about being on the right side of history! You can be all like, “Children/Grandchildren, we don’t tolerate that racist shit in this house. If anyone says otherwise, send them to me.” and you’ll sound all tough and cool, and your kids or grandkids will respect and love you and not want to be racists…guess what? That means less racist people in the future!!!
Look at that. It turns out you had a bigger impact than you thought the whole time!
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
I’ve been consulting on programming for the good folks at Chicago Ideas for a few months now and I’m really excited about what the team has been working on.
Recently, we hosted a conversation between Jia Tolentino and Shea Serrano that you should watch here.
TOMORROW we’re doing a virtual chat with Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle, of Comedy Central’s South Side and IFC’s Sherman’s Showcase for FREE. Save your spot here. Don’t miss it!
PAID OFFICE HOURS SUBSCRIBER UPDATE:
Thanks to all of you who have reached out asking for a private Slack/Discord channel. Happy to announce that I’ve created one and will be inviting all of you via e-mail. Free subscribers won’t have access to this channel and I’ll be dropping exclusive links there as well as fun PDFs and videos. I can’t thank you enough for your support over the last 18 months.
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Office Hours is written and created by Ernest Wilkins.
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