Al Gore, our Prodigal Son Returns

The San Jose Mercury News ran a front page story calling Al Gore a "Valley Guy" yesterday. The guy owns a ton of Google stock, is on the Apple board, and is good mates with the Valley VC plutocracy. His CurrenTV network is based is San Francisco, and employs some 200 people. His daughter Sarah is a med student at UCSF. And now him and Tipper have purchased a condo in San Francisco. How soon till he puts flowers in his hair and starts starts living off a diet of sourdough bread and burritos from the Mission and complaining about MUNI?

This is a man whom Republicans chastised in the mid-90s because he was "addicted" to his email. He played an incredibly active role in federal government funding and promotion of the Internet in the 1990s, and it was through some of his initiatives that schools today are wired (who even uses the term 'wired' anyways? It's a given that something is connected to the Internet). He saw the future, and insisted that government play a proactive role in helping our society prepare for it, something that is incomprehensible in today's White House environment. His dedication to the environment is deep and lifelong, and his influence in these matters continues to pick up steam. "Inconvenient Truth" has moved Global Warming into mainstream American dialogue, and as he has long been an advocate of promoting clean-tech industries, word has it that Silicon Valley's name may change to "Energy Valley" in the not-so-distant future given the deluge of clean-tech activity in the region. The man is also a father-figure for Web 2.0. CurrentTV uses user-generated content, and pre-dates YouTube or MySpace. How much more emblematic of Silicon Valley vision or trends can you get? Even his politics are becoming more left.

I think this is fantastic for everyone. The Bay Area loves it's forward-thinking, geeky luminaries, and we provide the perfect ground for Al Gore to push his current ideas, and we won't make fun of him when he dreams of new ones. Question remains, does someone need an H1B when they're from Tennessee?

I wonder how many people in the past have told him "Al, people in San Francisco will understand you. You'll be happier there!"In light of the recent Gavin Newsom sex scandal, would it be too outlandish to drop a "Draft Al for Mayor" campaign?

Dubstep- the Millenial Sound

If there was one consolation for facing a Republican Administration, it was that there would be some great music coming out. Tough times usually equal tough grooves and beats, and after a few years of pop music, trance, and vocal house, maybe it was time for something new, harder, and darker. Somehow this never really took off, and much of this decade's soundscape has lacked the tone which can characterise an era marked by doom. Post-dance-disco-electro punk may sound OK, but it's not nearly the groundbreaking, emotional record of a time period. Despite a few holdouts, hip hop is overexposed, overrated, creatively over with, and totally disconnected from reality. House and trance are staid, breakbeat is phenomenal music, but it's been popular for a long-ass time, and doesn't really capture the moment.

But I was listening to a Dubstep set on Sirius today, and I think I just found one that does. This music make me feel like I just smoked an ounce of chronic and just found out the FBI is at my door. It's as if the world is ending, and all you can do is sit inside and stare at blank walls. It's almost the perfect soundtrack to having a leader who is hell-bent on killing his citizens in wars they don't support. A global climate situation that's making us contemplate apocalyptic scenarios. Seven years into this decade, we finally have a sound that represents the era.
Interestingly, for over 20 years dance music has been linked almost synonymously with E. Yeah, drum and bass wasn't your ideal rolling environment, but it was still fun. And nobody really takes IDM seriously anyways. But Dubstep actually accomplishes this- it's totally divorced from ecstacy. To take E while listening to Dubstep would be to subject oneself to a self-inflicted journey to bad-tripland. If you hated somebody, give them a pill and make them listed to this. You might be watching them being carted off in a stretcher several hours later.