Sinister: Superstar in your own porno movie, I wanted just a minor part...

[FourJacksAndAJill]

Frats...sororities...Greeks, just another subculture of the mainstream
with organization, dues and housing facilities.  Yet America is filled
with movies about the misfit frat (you know, consisting of members that
would never be in the other frats) somehow rising up and dominating the
other more typically preppy insidious frats.  That this usually never
happens in real life is the first earthshaking revelation of mine.
 
In a way it's a microcosm of real life.  Some choose to hang with people
who need to be impressed by you in order to accept you, no matter how
much/little money you might have.  It's all about isolating yourself into
smaller and smaller subsets as you grow up.  Which route you choose
depends.  

In college I associated with one frat in particular though...they were the
"anti-frat," i.e. yes technically they were a fraternity but they were the
"misfit frat" like in the movies, only with more drugs and musicians and
long hair and that kind of stuff.  Not really sure what the point
was--just seemed to re-affirm in some weird way the "conformity of
non-conformists" if you catch my drift.  But they were happy in their
weirdness and anti-establishmentarianism.
 
One could argue that the indie scene and its various subgroups are a kind
of frat/sorority.  You got your look, your uniform.  You got your dues
(i.e.Tigermilk, all the right/newest albums, tickets to shows, etc.).  You
got your initiation rites (past as riot grrl/punk boy, listening to a
mixtape, making the mixtape, making your own zine, having a band, knowing
someone in a band, dj-ing, knowing someone who dj's, knowledge of obscure
bands if only by name, etc.).  You got your snobbery (say against people
who, when asked what kind of music they listen to, say "I like everything
really!"  when they mean everything on VH-1).  It's just a different
consumer culture we celebrate, that of the little guy/girl trying to make
it (thrift stores, indie labels, your friend's band, etc.) rather than the
monster truck corporation ruling the world (band playing the local
Enormodome, J. Crew, Drakkar Noir, etc.). 
 
Not that I'm arguing that.  I'm just sayin', someone could say that.:)

In other news, has anyone experienced the radio format of Jammin'
Oldies/Gold?  Here in Philly one of our modern-rock stations (which in
itself seems to be a dying format, oh well), 95.7, just switched to this
format.  It's great, '60s/'70s/'80s soul and R&B music.  Unfortunately at
the moment there is only a robot running the station (no human DJ's), so
while that does mean more rock and less talk, there has also been a little
too much "Night Fever" for my taste.  Ditto with Donna Summer.  I only
heard "I'm Coming Out" once so far darn it!  (Apparently the old DJ's were
told 15 minutes before the format change that their jobs were null and
void...that kinda sucks for them, but radio format changes always seem to
be like that.  Whoosh it's gone)  But in principle it's the best thing
since...the Philly sound, really, and you have to wonder why it went out
of style.  The oldies stations do their part in playing that stuff but
sometimes you just want nonstop soul and upbeat R&B, back when it was
exciting and not the flaccid "R&B" we know today.  A friend of mine
pointed out that the popularity of this format across the nation might
wake people up to the fact that there has been very little good R&B for
the past fifteen years...
 
Keep on doin' it,
 
Xavier
 
BXK                             		M o t h e r ,   M a y 
bkim0 at dept.english.upenn.edu     		    I   S l e e p
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~bkim0            W i t h   D a n g e r ?
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