The Hum We Have

NEW HUM!!!!!!

#HOPE

The Return Of "The New Shit Radar" (June 2020)

Also the return of the ellipsis...

No one missed The New Shit Radar since the last time we did this in March 2016. We're not sure why it disappeared, but whatever. It's back.

The newest news. The hottest jams. Let's go...

Useful links...
BLM Chapters: https://blacklivesmatter.com/chapters/
Bail Funds: https://bailfunds.github.io/
Justice For Breonna: https://justiceforbreonna.org/
Democracy Now! on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/democracynow

Hatchie Did A Collab With Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
They covered JAMC for a 7-inch out on July 20th. [Edit: It actually came out June 5th, and the vinyl is out June 20th.] Proceeds benefit The Movement for Black Lives and The Loveland Foundation.


Year Of The Knife and Mindforce Both Already Sold Out Their Dope AF Racial Injustice Themed T-Shirts
YOTK's is here and Mindforce is here, benefiting Reclaim the Block and the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, and Minnesota Freedom Fund respectively.

We Saw Some Dude In A Geld Shirt Yesterday
New track alert, and new album on July 3rd...


New Tkay Maidza Video For "Shook"
If George Takei and Tkay Maidza had a kid, it would probably not be named Tkay Takei. New video tho...


Twice Eyes Shares New Track "It's On"
Mikey J's new track is now on Soundcloud.

Ritual Clearing's Debut Self-Titled Demo Tape Is Straight Fire
And they're from New Haven!


We Unironically Enjoy A Song By The Weeknd
That new hit. We forgot the name.

A New Obnox Record Is Basically An Event
Double album for double the fun.


Chris Cech's New Record Is Called "Sloth"
For some reason, we thought the band was called Sloth, but it's actually the name of the LP.


Deftones Might Released Eros Later This Year
Deftones tour with Poppy and Gojira got cancelled along with literally every other tour in 2020, but in the downtime they've been working on the next record and considering an EP release of their incomplete 2008 record Eros. An Eros-era song called "Smile" made its live debut in November of last year, increasing the possibility of its completion and release. We hate the NME but they reported on it so here it is: https://www.nme.com/news/music/deftones-update-fans-on-status-of-previously-shelved-eros-album-2688643

Dirty Projectors Drop New Video For "Inner World"
Future MTVZ content is here...


New Ringo Deathstarr Is Finally On Bandcamp, Vinyl
RDS's new record is one of their very best to date.


ThatBIRDDid Posts A New Run The Jewels Video For "Yankee And The Brave (Ep 4)"
It took us until only about 6 weeks ago to finally catch They Live, and we've heard references to it about twice a week ever since. So that's either a bizarre coincidence, or we were already existing in a world with multiple weekly They Live tributes without realizing it.


Disheveled Cuss LP Gets A Bandcamp Release
No word on vinyl yet, but it's a thoroughly great record.


After Hours Top 10 Most Played -- Week Of June 16th
Some cross-branding cross-marketing here, but After Hours FM just celebrated its first birthday with some new Mixcloud streams.

We'll start posting the After Hours Top 10 along with new editions of the New Shit Radar...

WXCI AFTER HOURS TOP 10 (Week of 6/13/20)

This week	ARTIST Title	Links
1	MINDFORCE Hope Dies In The City	bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/ track/hope-dies-in-the-city
2	RINGO DEATHSTARR Once Upon A Freak	ringodeathstarr.bandcamp.com/ track/once-upon-a-freak
3	VANITY Anticlimax	vanitynyc.bandcamp.com/ track/anticlimax
4	CCR HEADCLEANER Half A Tooth	ccrheadcleaner.bandcamp.com/ track/half-a-tooth-extra-pound-edit
5	CORIKY Too Many Husbands	coriky.bandcamp.com/ track/too-many-husbands
6	NO AGE Turned To String	noage.bandcamp.com/ track/turned-to-string
7	THREE KNEE DEEP Mosherz Anthem	bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/ track/mosherz-anthem
8	DISHEVELED CUSS She Don't Want	disheveledcuss.bandcamp.com/ track/she-dont-want
9	FU MANCHU Takin' It To The Streets	fumanchuband.bandcamp.com/ track/takin-it-to-the-streets
10	NOTCHES Sober Souls	notchesrocks.bandcamp.com/ track/sober-souls
11	NUDIE MAG Pet	bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/ track/pet

2019 Movies

More fun on Letterboxd. Follow us on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/babymamadrama/.
We forgot that was what our name was.

We haven't posted a "favorite movies of the year" since the launch of our blogspot era. 2019 might be our new best personal record for new movies we saw within the release of their calendar year, although we have decided to count everything since Quar into this equation.

It was also an interesting year since the consensus on its best films felt stronger than almost any other point in the past decade, or at least since around 2007-2011 era. We've been considering the possibility that lack of any consensus might indicate a weaker year. That said, it's the first time in a while when our personal favorites -- especially the top 5 -- almost identically matched those of the most popular film reviewers.

Top Movies From 2019
1. The Lighthouse
2. Uncut Gems
3. Parasite
4. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
5. Knives Out
6. Leaving Neverland
7. The Irishman
8. The Beach Bum
9. What Did Jack Do? (David Lynch short)
10. One Cut of the Dead

Bubbling under...
Narrowsburg
Knock Down the House
Us
Honey Boy (Shia Labeouf autobiography)
The Vast Of Night

So bad it's good...
Or "for fans of bad movies..."
The Fanatic (Directed by Fred Durst, starring John Travolta)
The Dirt (Motley Crue biopic)
Lords of Chaos (Mayhem/Burzum biopic)
Verotika (Directed by Glenn Danzig)

Worst...
Or "don't see these because they're bad..."
1. Cats
2. Daniel Isn't Real
3. The Death of Dick Long
4. Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile
5. Booksmart
6. Come To Daddy
7. Color Out Of Space

Note: #2, 6 and 7 are all suspense/horror/thrillers produced by Elijah Wood and other affiliates who worked on Mandy, our pick for 2018's "Movie of the year." (Nic Cage stars in both Mandy and Color Out Of Shape.) We incorrectly assumed a few of their related projects might have been good; sadly, no hidden uncut gems were found.

Other stuff we remember seeing...
...In approximate order of how much we enjoyed it...
Fighting with My Family (The Paige movie)
Placenta (30 second movie. We saw it at Slamdance, and now it's on YouTube somewhere.)
The Rat (short)
Greener Grass
The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley (The Elizabeth Holmes doc)
Good Boys
Slave To The Grind (Grindcore doc)
Shoplifters
Heavy Trip
Fyre
Fyre Fraud (Fyre was a little better because it was the one with the dick sucking story.)
David Crosby: Remember My Name
The Amazing Jonathan Documentary
Hail Satan?
The Dead Don't Die
Squirrel (short)
The Lodge
VHYes
Who Let The Dogs Out (Documentary about the origin of the song "Who Let The Dogs Out." It's on Hulu now and it's kinda dumb.)

Other stuff we don't remember seeing...
Yeah we don't remember or else it would be here lol.

Fuck The Boys In Blue

Our viewcounts have declined a lot in the past 5 years, which is fine. This likely happened because we post less often than we used to, and we also now travel down the lane of long-posting more than we probably should. But the point of this blog's existence was never really about racking up views and transforming our words into social capital. It's usually intended to collect our media recommendations. It bothers us that big blogs and magazines stay away from the stuff we like. We're constantly trying to fill what we perceive as a void. But at least we're trying. Simple enough.

For the moment, this might be the only place we have left where we feel truly comfortable processing and organizing our thoughts on what's been happening. It seems like the large majority of people who want their thoughts to be made public prefer long-posting on Facebook, or long Twitter threads, or a series of Instagram posts, or some combination of these.

If those methods work for someone, they should go for it. Any method that works should be utilized. You never know -- the experience might even generate some unexpectedly cathartic or therapeutic outcome. You never know -- a handful of those instances might also somehow constitute actual activism.

We feel for those who might be overcome with helplessness. There's many of us who cannot physically make themselves present at protests or who are financially incapable of donating to bail funds or other helpful non-profits. And not all of these people feel comfortable flooding their socials when it might not be in their right to do so. There are ways to express solidarity outside of big-money social media, handing content over to billion dollar companies who own every word, photo, and video.

We assume this goes without saying, but the use of this moment in history to generate social capital is a truly disgusting and cancel-able offense. Sadly, there are some people who are clearly seeking credit and validation for the way they're processing. Virtue signalling or posting for points should not be tolerated by anyone, and this includes the use of threatening language against ones' own communities as a means to force a break of perceived silent indifference. Not everyone who's uncomfortable with flooding their news feeds are expressing that they don't care. Not everyone who donates wants to pressure their followers into matching the amount.

If the intended outcome of activism is social change and/or political revolution, then the people who need to hear these ideas the most are the deniers -- people who many of us probably don't encounter very often on social media because they've already been unfriended or muted or blocked ages ago.

Not everyone is made for face-to-face confrontation. And just the same, it's often scary as fuck hitting the "post" button on Facebook after preparing a long-post for an audience comprised of literally every person you've ever met in your life. For some, it's a perfect recipe for anxiety, especially when posting serious subject matter.

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There is one thing everyone can do. And it's not that hard.

The one thing we can do is expand our education through listening.

That said, nothing we're writing about here is intended to educate anyone. We're no experts, and this is only getting posted here for our own benefit to help us sort and organize the generous handfuls of enormous truths swimming around in our heads.

Here are some of those:

#1: Capitalism is unsustainable.

#2: Capitalism and white supremacy are best friends.

They are structured as one co-existing entity. In Cornel West's recent CNN interview, he plainly explains how black communities have seen over 200 years of the US's economic and legal systems' pattern working against their desire to generate decent lives for themselves. And nothing has improved or changed.

#3: Rioting and looting are a direct response to a broken system.


#4 Megastores are designed to kill small businesses one by one. No one will substantially suffer from their inevitable downfall.

#5: The crime machine is purposely arranged to reward cops for meeting quotas of low-level summons and misdemeanors, keeping them away from the pursuit of violent or serious crimes.

#6: Cops are the highest paid profession for those who do not attend college. In many instances, they ended up as cops because their path was limited.

#7: At least 90% of cops meet all or most of the following criteria:
- They eventually grow egos large enough to classify as sociopaths.
- They are former high school bullies who spent some of their teenage years passively despising and in some cases taunting or causing physical harm to non-white people and LGBTQ people.
- They're raised to be mean-spirited in large part due to their asshole racist parents.
- They are not thinkers. They are not artists. And they have no empathy for those types of people.
- They're not world travelers and have no desire to understand the world outside of their bubble.
- They live very close to the town where they grew up.
- In their spare time, they watch competitive sports and drink cheap beer.

We have cops in our extended families, and other people we know have cops in their family and friend groups -- ones who obviously don't match every point in this exact criteria. But we're considering how big the United States actually is. We're considering how many small towns are out there, and how much racism and white supremacy actually exists. Many cops in all those towns and cities actually do fit. There are millions of them.

#8 Less than 10% of cops chose their profession due to their own good will. They want to serve as an example and continue living their lives "the right way." This comprises the "good cops." At some point, all of the good cops will still undergo the following circumstances:
- They understand the point of their professional is to establish fear.
- They use their position as a loophole to break laws. And for many of them, this pattern turns into an addiction.
- At some point, their training teaches methods used to assess "reasonable suspicion," subjectively re-enforcing any racist or classist bias, a pattern that frequently leads to a disproportionate targeting of black men. Cops who are women or black are not trained any differently.
- At some point, they will bear witness to a pattern of corruption that awakens them to the crime machine.

Once they realize they're a part of it, they will make a decision:
- Some of them might quit or strongly consider quitting for a very long time. These are the only truly good cops.
- The shitty cops keeping this machine moving will resent any "good cops" attempting to work against the corruption. This method never works.
- Most will stay quiet, enable the corruption, and retire at age 65 with a hefty pension while maintaining their "good guy" status.

Take the cops in Minneapolis for example: Every single cop who worked with George Floyd's murderers knew the truth years in advance. And they're likely not the only cops in Minneapolis who are disgusting pieces of shit.

#9 The lyrics to "Prison Song" by System Of A Down only describe the shifts between the crack epidemic of 1984 and 9/11/2001.

"Nearly two million Americans are incarcerated in the prison system of the US... The percentage of Americans in the prison system has doubled since 1985... Drug money is used to rig elections and train brutal corporate sponsored dictators around the world... Minor drug offenders fill your prisons... Our taxes [are] paying for wars against the new non-rich... All research and successful drug policy shows that treatment should be increased and law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences."

Since 9/11/01, communities of color -- already heavily patrolled by police -- became the primary victims of stop-and-frisk.

#10 Nothing changed after Rodney King. Nothing changed after Eric Garner.

#11 The pro-cop right is prepared with guns, and they'll be commended by the cops for staying in their corner. The piece of shit with the hunting bow in Salt Lake City was immediately released, and so was the piece of shit in Minneapolis who had every intention of killing protesters with his massive freight truck. If this escalates further, it will lead to civil war.

#12 Billionaire business owners collectively earned themselves an additional $480 billion since the start of the coronavirus pandemic while 20% of the working class lost their jobs.

#13 Corporate media has no incentive to report any news story with unbiased language. Their primarily MO as of June 2020 is to distract the country and tear them apart with the end goal of further strengthen capitalism and white supremacy.

#14 Our leaders are publicly questioning and challenging the people's right to peacefully organize. They'll continue extending curfews and giving police a free pass to assault citizens until the people's will subsides.

#15 The aftermath of 2020 is far more likely to result in an updated patriot act than a green new deal.

#16 After the next stock market crash kills yet another 20% of US jobs, some implementation of UBI will eventually keep the masses content and stupid while the 200 people who literally own the entire planet continue accumulating more power.

#17 The new American Dream is living off the grid.

[Edit: Gonna stop there]

Kinda hoping no one reads this lmao