That Cribs episode with Redman back in 2001?

It was real:

It’s rare, but sometimes less is more in hip-hop. That’s always been the case for Redman, who appears literally covered in dirt on his second and third album covers, and who has spun a career out of rhymes about “grimy shit” and dressing “bummy for low profile.”

All of which made him the least likely subject imaginable when Cribs premiered on MTV in 2000. Next to the shameless bourgeois excess of his rap contemporaries like Jermaine Dupri and Master P, both of whom made appearances on the show, Red’s duplex in the farthest reaches of Staten Island — “De La Casa,” as he calls it — was a momentous outlier. Though the clip first aired in 2001, it remains burned into the collective pop culture consciousness, along with its images of his gold plaques covered in soiled laundry.

Yet there’s been speculation over the years that the whole thing was faked. So we decided to settle matters once and for all, and called everyone involved. The verdict: it was real. And as the show’s creators, and Red himself, and his cousin, explain below, it took hip-hop’s proudest “stankin’ ass” to show everybody that a sense of humor trumps a platinum bidet any day, and that even in the land of gilded ballers, there’s still room for a funny dude who keeps his cash inside a shoebox to be king.

Amidst all the other episodes of douchebaggery and opulence, this episode was refreshing and now it’s a classic.

If you haven’t see the clip, shame on you.

Lindsey Green has a theory:

Here’s the theory: In Green’s post, “Where Don Draper Ends, D.B. Cooper Begins,” she supposes that Don Draper is about to pull his most daring identity theft yet—he’s going to turn into a real, historical figure.

“D.B. Cooper” is the pseudonym of a man who permanently skipped town in November of 1971 by skyjacking a Boeing 727 in the most Don Draperian way a man could skyjack an airplane. Clad in a suit and tie, Cooper handed a note to a flight attendant. She presumed it was his phone number until he whispered over to her, “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.”

Very intriguing.

All I know is there are a ton of open-ended subplots and there’s no way they’ll all be tied up in last two episodes.

Knowing what what I know about Matthew Weiner, I can only assume this is all by design.

via parislemon

Image taken from Slate (via kottke)

R.L. Stine on cell phones “ruining” movies (via parislemon):

You know, cell phones have ruined everything. They’ve ruined every plot, seriously. You used to have this plot where the girl is getting these frightening phone calls and she’s trying to figure out who’s calling her. You can’t do that story anymore [because the name is] right there on the phone.

This is bullshit.

The Departed is a great example where the entire plot exists because of cellphones.

Talk about tension.

In case you forgot, the second Death Star was built by contractors.

I’ve been working on a new book since last July. Back in October I wrote, “I’ve been told that becoming a parent lights a fire under your ass like nothing else, so we’ll see what happens.” Ha.

I made a promise to Owen before he was born that I would not use him as an excuse to fail at The Thing I needed to do.

Oh sure, I would use him as an excuse for plenty of other things I didn’t want to do, like answer emails or attend various social functions, but I would not use him as an excuse to give up on The Thing.

Writers are constantly looking for excuses not to write, but there’s nothing more pathetic than a man who blames his family for not being able to write.

—Austin Kleon, On writing post-fatherhood

I’ve also made a promise to myself that if and when I have a child I won’t use him/her for an excuse not to design, or screen print or make whatever is I’m making. It’s a cop out.

If you really want something, you find a way to get it.

At least I do.

Art schools are at the forefront of the sustained attack on humanities that Marina Warner has written so brilliantly about. One of the slogans of those occupying Central Saint Martins is simply this: “We’re an art school not a business.” Languages, humanities, social sciences and particularly arts are subject to huge losses in funding and are expected to do just this: become businesses. This is the only model that our politicians understand. Hence we keep being told that the creative industries do employ lots of people. Every film made here requires carpenters and electricians and so on. The argument that art or culture is valuable only when it is monetised is a dangerous one. A false dichotomy between science and art has been set up – first by Labour with the Browne review, and now amplified by the Tories. So Stem subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are seen to be financially viable. Which of our ministers has a degree in maths or science I wonder?

—Suzanne Moore, The Guardian

This week Michael and Bryan discuss the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, the Spa-Francorchamps, Mike’s Siri Timer gripe, Apple Watch drop tests, Bryan’s mid-life crisis, and the dismantling of cable television.

Listen Now

—overheard

via Twitter

Secret raised a total of $35 million dollars, but they’re shutting down.

The question isn’t whether we needed an app that let you anonymously post short messages, but whether said app is worth one-hundred-million-fucking-dollars.

Over at the New York Times, Logan Hill on last Sunday’s episode of Mad Men:

“That’s what the money is for” has got to be the “Mad Men” line I think of most often (especially on bad work days as a freelancer). And it’s the line I thought about at the end of the episode, as Don tried to rally the troops and everyone ignored his half-hearted speech about how this is “the beginning of something” and “not the end.” That beautifully shot scene, with the roar of the office drowning out the now-irrelevant executives — the five of them lined up, off-center, with Roger in a royal-blue double-breasted jacket, looking like an extra in basically any Wes Anderson movie — was a reminder that their employees’ fear and devotion didn’t derive from their genius. It came from the fact that they were signing their employees’ checks. That authority? That was what the money was for. They sold it.

This isn’t a beginning. This is the end.

We’ve known this for a while. The show is not going to end on a high note. The ‘good old days’ are over. I just wish the show would stop meandering into dozens of subplots. Add to that the fact that the action-packed episodes of Mad Men have been getting fewer and farther between. I’m tired of watching Don nap on his office couch.

It needs to justify its existence no more than any other watch — mechanical or electronic — ever made. Of course you don’t need it. No one, not one person on the face of the earth, needs any $400 watch, Apple Watch or otherwise.

The right question is simply “Do you want one?”

It’s about desire, not necessity. Convenience, fun, and style are not needs. They’re wants. And people will gladly pay for what they want. The iPad faced similar misguided criticism. How many times did you hear or read someone say of the iPad, “Why would anyone who already has a phone and a laptop need an iPad?” That was the wrong question, because almost no one needed an iPad. The right question was “Why would someone who has a phone and laptop also want an iPad?”

—John Gruber

The emotional and style aspects of the Apple Watch are the things many tech nerds and engineers just don’t get.