WE ARE YOUR FEK

Where on earth did this $20,000 amount come from in this story? The direct payout to the roughly 750,000 Americans is going to be $2,000. Get your facts straight people!

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:53:51 -0500

Where on earth did this $20,000 amount come from in this story? The direct payout to the roughly 750,000 Americans is going to be $2,000. Get your facts straight people! :

Commenters! They happen. A little background: Yesterday I wrote about the lone holdout for the 49-state settlement with the five major mortgage lenders: Scott Pruitt, Attorney General of Oklahoma. You may remember him from that time he tried to sue the Obama administration over their healthcare policies. Pruitt didn’t want to participate with the rest of the states out of principle; he thinks the government is over-extending their powers by going after banks for predatory practices. He says the amount Oklahoma would’ve received is equal to that which he would’ve received in the settlement, something nobody but he can actually verify. Scott Pruitt screwed the people of Oklahoma in a political maneuver in favor of banks.

But some commenters still don’t completely understand that he would do this! After all, he’s an elected official. He must be clean! Not so much:

You’re correct about the direct payout will be $2,000. I was referencing the estimated amount of writedown relief: $20,000 per person.

Even so, let’s focus on that $2,000 figure for a moment.

Oklahoma wrangled only $18.6M from the five banks. Let’s take the entirety of that $18.6M and put it into a wildly exaggerated theoretical—that it will all go directly to homeowners who were either robosigned on or a victim of predatory lending practices.

$18.6M divided evenly by $2,000 would give 9,300 homeowners $2,000 of relief, which, again, is an insulting amount given the circumstance, but the amount no less.

In 2011, in Oklahoma, 12,016 houses had foreclosure filings on them (that statistic—provided by RealityTrac, like all the others—only covers 33 out of Oklahoma’s 77 counties). In 2010, in Oklahoma City and Tulsa alone, there were 14,394 foreclosures. Let’s get really cynical, and take half of those foreclosures from the last two years, and say they weren’t serviced by the five major lenders named in the settlement, or they’re Fannie/Freddie loans, or they’re people who were just totally irresponsible and don’t deserve any government assistance at all because their lenders were totally frank and honest with them about their loans’ respective prospects. That would still leave 3,905 deserving homeowners (or former homeowners) without their measly $2,000 that Scott Pruitt has now stiffed them on.

Did Oklahoma A.G. Scott Pruitt, Mortgage Settlement Holdout, Sell Out His State for Wall Street?

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:20:17 -0500

Did Oklahoma A.G. Scott Pruitt, Mortgage Settlement Holdout, Sell Out His State for Wall Street? :

Basically, yes. The entire state of Oklahoma—especially those who got eaten alive by predatory banking loans—just got totally fucked by their banker friend attorney general, the only one out of all 50 attorneys general who didn’t agree to the national settlement.

National Settlement: $28 Billion
National Settlement Split Evenly Among 49 States: $57.1M per state.
Oklahoma Settlement: $18.5M.

Oklahoma: Sucks to be you.

Photo

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:06:10 -0500

_ ___ is a self-important blog that ostensibly allows young writers to indulge themselves but is actually the inadvertent and hilarious “slut-shaming” of forthcoming MFA aspirants’ bad writing that they’ll no doubt want erased from the internet by the time they decide they need to get rejected from Iowa to move on with their lives.

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:10:15 -0500

_____ _______ is a self-important blog that ostensibly allows young writers to indulge themselves but is actually the inadvertent and hilarious “slut-shaming” of forthcoming MFA aspirants’ bad writing that they’ll no doubt want erased from the internet by the time they decide they need to get rejected from Iowa to move on with their lives.

Whoops: Yahoo VP Forgets to Remove Laid Off Bloggers from Non-BCC’d Bagel Brunch Invite, Sassed in Return

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:58:57 -0500

Whoops: Yahoo VP Forgets to Remove Laid Off Bloggers from Non-BCC’d Bagel Brunch Invite, Sassed in Return :

The real lesson, besides ALWAYS DOUBLE-CHECK THE BCC ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS is “Chris Lehmann: Fantastic email-writer.” I’ve always wanted to do something like this. I’ve just never been given the right opportunity.

New York Times Crossword Guru Will Shortz Needs to Get to Know More Rappers

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:05:42 -0500

New York Times Crossword Guru Will Shortz Needs to Get to Know More Rappers:

Ah, yes: The Monday New York Times crossword puzzle, routinely mocked by those more seasoned crossword freaks as the province of entry-level puzzle-doers and amateur intellects. In today’s puzzle, however, those who regularly frequent the blank box page may observe an interesting redundancy, and on a technical level, an inaccuracy. Involving rappers.

Voicemail from Iggy Pop - Dec. 29, 2011 So, my profile of Iggy...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:59:00 -0500

Voicemail from Iggy Pop - Dec. 29, 2011

So, my profile of Iggy Pop for the Winter issue of Sneeze is finally up.

I’m not a huge fan of Q & A’s and I generally hate overly stylized writing where a writer’s voice overwhelms the material. At the same time, I wasn’t about to break ground with whatever I got about Iggy Pop. As such, we went with a piece that takes this weird, experimental form that’s an odd variation of an as-told-to (a very early draft was actually written from the perspective of heroin, which, not that you need convincing, but was exactly as incoherent as it sounds).

Sneeze is a labor of love. It just breaks even, enough to make it. The actual print product is a really beautiful thing unlike any other magazine you’ve seen before. I don’t mean to be too precious with this, but: it’s a poster-sized print, full-color, with a bunch of different paper presses, meant to be hung up and played with and all the things nobody really gets to do with magazines as often these days. If you’re in L.A., New York, or Vancouver, stop by one of our boxes (they take credit cards!) and nab one. The boxes in New York are near Bond and Lafayette, Lafayette and Prince, and outside the New Museum and The Standard (north side). More locations here.

Last thing, I swear: This is handily one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. Not necessarily because I think it’s really so great, or because I uncovered something about Iggy Pop the world’s never known, or because Kenneth Cappello is handily the most talented photographer I’ve ever worked on a piece with. But: if you can’t tell from the recording, Iggy Pop was one of the most gracious, intelligent, and worldly people I’ve ever spoken with, and to allow a crew of hoods like us—from a skate culture magazine he’s never heard of—into his life for an afternoon just because we were persistent about bothering him, and to be as open as he was? Everything about the experience was the exception to the rule as far as these things go.

10 Questions with Chris Mohney, Editor-in-Chief of Tumblr’s New Editorial Project

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:52:07 -0500

10 Questions with Chris Mohney, Editor-in-Chief of Tumblr’s New Editorial Project:

NYO: One of our co-workers who covers intersections of media and tech noted the response to criticism that this isn’t corporate boosterism as “[expletive] [expletive for ‘stupid’].” How is it not?

Chris Mohney: That’s a fair question.

Pot, kettle, black.

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:36:10 -0500

Pot, kettle, black.

“This cocky hedge fund guy came in with his girlfriend.” The man started harassing Mr. Green, who then accepted a challenge to play with his phone. “He bet me $200 a game. I won $800. The first mistake he made is when he walked into my club, and didn’t see the big painting of me hanging there.”

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:24:11 -0500

“This cocky hedge fund guy came in with his girlfriend.” The man started harassing Mr. Green, who then accepted a challenge to play with his phone. “He bet me $200 a game. I won $800. The first mistake he made is when he walked into my club, and didn’t see the big painting of me hanging there.”:

Harlem-based pro ping pong player Wally Green (is the man).

Happy Facebook I.P.O. Day, Eduardo Saverin.

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:26:18 -0500

Happy Facebook I.P.O. Day, Eduardo Saverin.

“I don’t really like putting a price-tag on the stuff I do. That’s just like not the point,” Zuckerberg says.

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:58:10 -0500

“I don’t really like putting a price-tag on the stuff I do. That’s just like not the point,” Zuckerberg says.

The UNLV (20-3) men's basketball team, which has reached the 20-win plateau before the month of February for the first time since 1987, on Monday moved up one spot in the Associated Press poll to No. 11 and two spots in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll to No. 13. The No. 11 ranking is the highest for the Runnin' Rebels in either poll since sitting No. 10 in the coaches' poll on Feb. 8, 1993.

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:58:59 -0500

The UNLV (20-3) men's basketball team, which has reached the 20-win plateau before the month of February for the first time since 1987, on Monday moved up one spot in the Associated Press poll to No. 11 and two spots in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll to No. 13. The No. 11 ranking is the highest for the Runnin' Rebels in either poll since sitting No. 10 in the coaches' poll on Feb. 8, 1993.

Lana Del Rey Smashes Pitchfork in the Face with Her Face a Day After Site Pans Her Album

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:21:07 -0500

Lana Del Rey Smashes Pitchfork in the Face with Her Face a Day After Site Pans Her Album

One wonders if Pitchfork couldn’t rescind their entire history with Ms. Del Rey’s rise. Either way, you can expect Pitchfork to say very little on the matter. Why would they? The conclusion to this saga demonstrates— inadvertently or not—Pitchfork in the role of tastemaker. Just like Google with their top secret algorithms, whether the site has an awareness of this role while writing reviews or not, they stand to gain nothing by giving up their secrets. One of the great secrets of rock and roll, after all, involves preserving one’s mystique, even if you’re playing nothing but up-and-coming music acts and the people who buy into them.

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:41:34 -0500

One wonders if Pitchfork couldn’t rescind their entire history with Ms. Del Rey’s rise. Either way, you can expect Pitchfork to say very little on the matter. Why would they? The conclusion to this saga demonstrates— inadvertently or not—Pitchfork in the role of tastemaker. Just like Google with their top secret algorithms, whether the site has an awareness of this role while writing reviews or not, they stand to gain nothing by giving up their secrets. One of the great secrets of rock and roll, after all, involves preserving one’s mystique, even if you’re playing nothing but up-and-coming music acts and the people who buy into them.:

Also: Why did Pitchfork scrub the original final passage of their Lana Del Rey review?

D’Angelo - Untitled (How Does It Feel): Live from Paris,...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:37:00 -0500

D’Angelo - Untitled (How Does It Feel): Live from Paris, January 2012

Holy shit. I’ve been waiting for D’Angelo to come back since, I mean, shit, since I bought Voodoo in 9th Grade, January, 2000, the day it came out; I even copped the CD single of “Left & Right” in December the month before. This is incredible. Seeing this guy perform again is incredible. He still has it. This is crazy exciting, as is the prospect of him and Questlove finishing what’s basically the Chinese Democracy of R & B, except, that’s not even an appropriate comparison, because that was a shit album it took way too long to make, and the story of D’Angelo in a weird way oddly merits this huge break in time where he will return and murk all the young things doing R & B right now, including but not limited to Drake, Frank Ocean, etc, etc. This. Is. Great.

2:25. That’s what D’Angelo coming back sounds like. Yes.

http://www.observer.com/term/please-just-open-it-for-nates-sake-you-are-crushing-his-will-to-live/

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:06:04 -0500

http://www.observer.com/term/please-just-open-it-for-nates-sake-you-are-crushing-his-will-to-live/

I’m normally pretty “anti-” as far as doing...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:41:00 -0500

I’m normally pretty “anti-” as far as doing anything at a concert with an iPhone that doesn’t involve keeping it in your pocket. But last night, at the Antony & The Johnsons show at Radio City Music Hall, this was a moment I had to steal, and for the record, it does feel a little bit like theft. Mostly, more than anything else, because there’s no way this will ever do justice to the experience of actually being there. The venue’s incredible. The acoustics there are amazing. If you’re ever in New York and looking for something neat to do, just go inside Radio City Music Hall, walk up to the front row, and look out. It’s something else.

Last night’s thing was a MoMA-presented one-night-only production—sets, lighting, a 40-piece orchestra playing compositions of Antony’s songs written by Nico Mulhy—the whole thing. Not that you didn’t know you were in for something different walking in, but there’s Bjork and Matthew Barney standing in the same rainy line as you to serve as a helpful reminder. The set was beautiful. The lighting was kind of beyond.

There was a little too much to get into here without doing it justice, suffice to say it’s one of the better shows I’ve ever seen. But, here’s this, one of the best moments of the night, something that arrived as a really odd moment of levity and over the course of five or so minutes formed this…brutally raw swell of emotion.

Antony Hegarty, performing a cover of “Crazy In Love” at Radio City Music Hall with a 40-piece orchestra.

Photo

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:19:32 -0500

We’ve reached out to David Pogue for comment with those questions. He did not respond, though he did forward our request to New York Times technology editor Damon Darlin, who responded by assuring us over email that “you’ll never get anyone to talk to you if you approach it like that.” On Mr. Darlin’s insistence, we rephrased the question, and have yet to hear back. For the moment, it doesn’t look likely.

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:09:00 -0500

We’ve reached out to David Pogue for comment with those questions. He did not respond, though he did forward our request to New York Times technology editor Damon Darlin, who responded by assuring us over email that “you’ll never get anyone to talk to you if you approach it like that.” On Mr. Darlin’s insistence, we rephrased the question, and have yet to hear back. For the moment, it doesn’t look likely.