Childish Gambino and the Countdown

(UPDATE 1/9/15 @ 7:30 AM)

About six months ago, I saw an especially lame, badly designed Amazon.com ad on AccuWeather.com. It was an ad for an album by an artist I had never heard of.

Oh great, Donald Glover. The guy from the TV show "Community." Let's see, he's named "Childish Gambino" and the name of the album is "because the internet." That's what I need, another lame actor trying music. Probably a comedy album, I thought. Ugh.

For the next couple months the ad followed me around everywhere I went on the web (Amazon, and many ad providers, read your cookies and try to present you with "relevant" ads). This was a FAIL in my opinion. Why would I like this album?? Eventually, the ad went away and it fell out of my memory.

Fast forward a couple months more, I'm surfing Amazon's $5 albums (they put out new albums every month and I sometimes bolster my music collection, or try out new artists). And there the album was again. It was labeled "Rap & Hip Hop."

I took the chance and hit the "Preview All" button, and found one of my favorite artists of all-time.



See, Amazon had it right all along. Donald Glover's stage name for his alter-ego rapper's latest album wasn't far from the experimental and brilliant "Yeezus" by Kanye West (yes, I listen to rap). Amazon matched me with it because it knew I would love it, based on the other hip-hop albums I had purchased over the years. And once again, Amazon's algorithms sparked a sale. Actually, several.

Childish Gambino is brilliant and transcends the entire rap genre in a way that few have. He's less of a gangsta rapper and more of a spoken-word poet who uses experimental music - music he wants to invent, not something he thinks he should invent, to get air play - to describe stories of life. When you explore his four albums, especially the later one, you'll be taken on a brilliant, heart breaking experience of a child growing into a man in Atlanta (OK, being from the South, I'll admit that is part of the allure). He's also a brilliant comedian, as proven on "Community," and for people who don't "understand" rap music: The comedy of the rhymes is part of the attraction of the genre.

And finally, he seems to enjoy Hawaiian shirts, though they, I suspect, are part of a statement that he's not a typical ghetto rapper, he's well-off, educated, preppy, and not afraid to go against the hard-core rappers out there.

He's also a bit of an enigma. Despite the name of his last album "because the internet" and a crapload of references to technology in his lyrics, he literally disappeared off the web on the one-year anniversary of the album dropping (12/10/2014). He zeroed out all of his Social Media accounts and his website, and had not been heard from again online... until yesterday when he put up a simple countdown clock on a random URL via one tweet that was live for only minutes.

The countdown ends tonight.

UPDATE: The countdown gave way to a new video premiere for his recently released song "Sober." I agree with what NPR said about the video:

As with much of Childish Gambino's work, it's both comical and kick-ass. Just when you think it's all a joke, he busts out some genuinely cool moves. And when "Sober" starts to feel a little too cheesy, like some steamy seduction we've heard a million times, it erupts into a gnarled, dark grind. Is this guy for real? Is it all a put-on? Not knowing is part of the joy in watching it all unfold.

Y2.015K

Once again it's New Year's Eve. But this time, it's the future. 2015 is the year that Marty McFly travelled through time to see in "Back to the Future Part II" in 1989.

Then, I was 15 years old and couldn't imagine how the world would look in "two-thousand and fifteen." Even now, I couldn't tell you what things will look like in 2041 (perhaps future Jesse would be kind enough to leave a comment on this blog to tell me).

There's a great article here by leading futurists as to what BTTFII got correct, and what it didn't. The truth is, things don't change that much. Kristi's Dad and I were discussing this at lunch today. We still drive the same cars and fly in the same planes as we did in 1985, and we probably will in 2041.

What changes is the nuances, and they change so gradually we don't notice. The biggest change in the last 25 years has been cell phones, but they're small enough that you don't really miss them if you look at a movie from that prior era.

In 1985, there weren't ads plastered all over the windows of fast food restaurants, toll booths, gas pumps, even the concrete poles that keep you from driving into a Wal-Mart. But now there are. It happened gradually, and we didn't even notice.

15 years ago tonight, I was proposing to my first wife, and worrying about what havoc Y2K might wreak (other than my Windows 3.1 clock saying "Jan. 1, 100" there were few issues). I certainly couldn't imagine then that, 10 years later, I'd be divorced on New Year's Eve. And that night, I couldn't fathom that I'd be happily married three years in, by 2015.

White Thanksgiving 2014 & Past

Yes folks, it's that time of year. We're at Kristi's parents' house for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. This year the Thanksgiving Snowstorm caused us to change our plans and drive Thursday morning. It was a beautiful drive though.

I've also ported a couple early AccuWeather Thanksgiving blogs over; you can now read all my Thanksgiving blogs and Black Friday blogs, since 2005 here.

Post by Jesse Ferrell.

Once again I've stuck to Black Friday shopping primarily online. It's just not worth the hassle to do it in the stores anymore. The amount of money people spend in the brick-and-mortar stores appears to be increasing each year, though that surprises me, as I know so many people who have turned to their computers instead.

I've also been busy taking pictures with my new Smartwatch which Kristi got me as an early Christmas present; here's what else happened:

[NEWSPAPER]

I've always enjoyed publishing weather news to the masses, even when it was on paper my audience was only Mom & Dad. I've started to scan these "newspapers" into my blog. These entries will have "[NEWSPAPER]" appended after their titles. This is the first "newspaper" that I wrote in 1985 (at age 11), reporting on the Cold Outbreak of 1985 in the foothills of North Carolina (that's right, the extreme weather spurred me to start publishing). Little did I know, ten years later I would write my first weather report (complete with photos) on the Internet, for the world to see.

This first "front page" was done on a Commodore 64 dot matrix printer. The "Emergency Edition" (which was issued later in the day) was printed on an ancient typewriter (yes, one you had to jam the keys down on) -- ironically I must have found this quicker than loading the word processing program (from cassette tape) on to the computer and composing it there.

- CLICK TO READ ALL "NEWSPAPER" ENTRIES

ABBREVIATIONS, NAMES & PLACES:

• D.E.R./ DOWN_ERE_RES.: "Down 'Ere Restaurant," a fictitious business that I ran when I was 10 years old.
• Shanberg & Pink Island were designations for certain areas of the 50-acre forest where I lived as a child.
• WWX & WWXY (Channel 5) were a fictitious radio and television station to which I "broadcast" local news & weather (to cassette tape).
• Frank (Ferrell) was my father
• Sally (Ferrell) was my mother
• The Site / The Shop refers to the workshop building behind the house.

All Hallow's Eve (and whatnot)

It's trick-or-treating night again! Yes that's right kids, Halloween! While I'm waiting for the line to start at my door and my wife and stepdaughter are getting ready to go out and seek candy, I thought it would be pertinent to mention blogs I've done in the past about Halloween.

 I've been working on (slowly) moving over my off-topic blog entries from my AccuWeather blog to this one. When I started blogging for AccuWeather in 2005, I tried to insert my personal accounts into the blog occasionally, to show that I wasn't just a weather geek.

As blogging became more mature and I ran out of time, I got out of the habit of doing personal blogging (especially after Facebook). You can click here to read my blog entries from years past, including 2005, 2006, and 2010.

Hopefully later tonight I'll get a chance to watch my favorite Halloween TV episode (The Curse Of Frank Black, "Millenium" Season 2 1996, check it out if you get a chance.)

Post by Jesse Ferrell.

This is weird…

I just accidentally found out that Windows 7 / Windows Live has a blogging tool. It’s essentially a desktop version of sites like Blogger. Not sure why I’d need that, but O.K.

It’s called Windows Live Writer. Here’s a test of a YouTube video:

Y U slime my flowers slugs

And then a test picture:

No caption option there, I guess. But I can do emotions, apparently, and Bing® maps:

INTERESTING…

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in 6th Grade

It's back to school time, and Kristi and I have captured it on our cell phones.

Post by Jesse Ferrell.

For our town, Fall means traffic gets worse and checkout lines get longer here in State College, PA. Why? Well, 45,000 students and 15,000 faculty will be returning to Penn State this week, doubling the population of the city. The local Wal-Mart has filled their entire Garden, Clearance and Seasonal sections with cheap furniture and shower caddies to infinity and beyond.

Post by Jesse Ferrell.

Secondarily, it means we had to attend a 5-hour Middle School orientation. Kristi and Genevieve attended the first two hours Monday; all three of us went Wednesday night. This is Genevieve's first year in middle school, so I endured the hot rooms,* throngs of sweaty kids, germ-infested tiny chairs and hallways.

Here's what I have learned this week:

1. "Locker Swag" is a thing, and it has its own section at Target. The first job was to figure out not only the lock combination, but the chandeliers, wall paper, and carpet.

Post by Jesse Ferrell.

2. School is all computers & internet now. Compared to 30-odd years ago when I was in class, the public school system is fairly modern these days. State College is known as one of the best districts in the state, which helps. They do a lot of cross-pollination (Math is used in Art and Art in Science, etc., something that wasn't considered when I was a kid). All the teachers and students are issued laptops and use Google Docs for assignments (no more "I forgot my homework" excuses). G's homeroom teacher asked us to text her cellphone if we need her, then gave us a magnet business card with her email address and website.

Of course, with great technology though, comes great... technical problems. The Vice Principal's introductory Skype-like video resulted in a Windows Media Player mid-way through; the video of last year's choir was sullied by a "Your Mac has Updates to Install" icon in the upper right. Honestly, I was expecting digital lockers.

Post by Jesse Ferrell.

3. Middle School is not uncomfortable as it used to be. This school actually does have central air conditioning (albeit unable to combat hundreds of people), which is a miracle. G's Elementary School did not, and I remember many days falling asleep in a brutally hot and humid classroom... it's 2014, kids shouldn't have that problem anymore. I also remember being extremely thirsty, and trips to the water fountain were not allowed in-between breaks. At this school, they were careful to point out that kids are free to bring a water bottle to class. Glorious.

4. Halloween is gone. The most interesting thing I learned is that Halloween is no longer a holiday (at least in this school district) -- they were very explicit about that... there is to be no dressing up. I'm guessing this is a result of the overly-politically-correct U.S. public school system. However, they are encouraged to dress up as their favorite President for President's Day.

5. I'd like to punch whoever made the "6-day" rotation. This is a schedule of classes for kids, repeating every 6 days. Which means every day the kids are doing something different on every day. If this were implemented in the workplace, heads would roll. Talk about confusing!

After the grueling three hours, there was a reward: Dairy Queen for all of us.

Post by Jesse Ferrell.

Kristi also helped her cousin move into a dorm at Penn State. Kristi and I mused that kids are lucky these days, being able to document school life like this. When we were kids, if you brought a camera to school, you were a weirdo (although worth noting: that did not stop me a couple times). Now, kids upload a constant stream of videos and photos from these events to document their entire iives. I think if I were starting college now, I'd wear a Narrative Clip camera:

Narrative from Narrative on Vimeo.