Why is Snooki trying to sell me headphones?

Journeys on the outskirts of the celebrity C-list: A product like the mRobo Ultra Bass dancing audio player is pretty marginal by any standard, so it was somewhat odd to head over to Tosy’s booth at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) only to find hundreds of people massed, mostly being polite about having to stand for 45 minutes while gruff private security with Secret Service-type earpieces barked at them from time to time (one of the press photographers on hand referred to them as “jabronis,” which seemed rather apt). Of course, even in the consumer electronics world there is a very good chance that many of those present weren’t aware of the company, which is notable for being the first Vietnamese robotics company and the makers of a ping-pong playing humanoid robot. But that’s OK. That’s not why I was there. I was there for the Bieb.

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From the vaults: Tutti Frutti

This piece originally appeared in Deek Magazine on September 23, 2005.

Little Richard was born Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5, 1932 in Macon, Georgia. The Deep South (like most of America) was a wild place in those days. Richard’s father was a preacher and a bootlegger, selling hooch and salvation as an adherent of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church — a sect of Christianity founded by a farmer named William Miller, who once wrote a book with the unwieldy title, Evidences from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ about the Year 1843.

Richard spent his youth on the dirt street where hustlers of all types would hang out in the hot, dusty Georgia afternoons, singing to snare marks and move goods. There were old men with vegetable carts, ward heelers making the rounds, soap box preachers selling religion… people hustled whatever they had to get by.

Condo at the End of the World

A new breed of survivalist is wealthy, educated, and plans to ride out 2012 in style

Somewhere in the old Cincinnati-Dayton Defense Area that spans Southwest Ohio and Southeast Indiana sits a $1.5 million “man cave.” I made my way to the site on a warm fall morning with Google Maps and GPS coordinates supplied by my real estate advisers, Matthew and Leigh Ann Fulkerson of 20th Century Castles, LLC. Built in a decommissioned Nike missile site, the residence boasts a kitchen, four bedrooms, two baths, an exercise room, indoor swimming pool, jacuzzi, and an elevator for lowering the owner’s classic automobiles below the surface. On clear days, the doors that once exposed anti-ballistic missile for launch can be opened to let sunshine penetrate the otherwise dimly lit basement.

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I am the South Side Sound Machine

Aside from publishing (Barbary Shore Publishing Company) and writing for The Verge, I also record tunes under the name South Side Sound Machine these days.

When my band Big Hurry was looking for a name, I asked my friend Lenny Bronowicz if he had any ideas. He made a list, and among the suggestions was South Side Sound Machine.

“I love it, Lenny,” I said. “But I don’t think the other guys will go for it.”

“Why?” He asked, indignant. “Is it because of the Miami Sound Machine? Why can’t more than one city have a sound machine?”

Big Hurry: Sink or Swim EP

Kevin Mitnick is a liar. In fact, he wrote the book on lying (well, a book on lying, called The Art of Deception). I’m not trying to call his character into question, but the fact should be noted. In his younger days, Mitnick’s obsession with exploring telephone and computer systems allowed him to maintain a very casual relationship with the truth, one that found him impersonating cops and telephone company employees alike. His hacking was always more than just knowing his way around an operating system and exploiting security vulnerabilities — he could think on his feet and weave fictions out of thin air, which made him a natural “social engineer.” He probably spent as much time on the phone talking telephone companies and state agencies out of sensitive information as he did behind the keyboard, exploiting vulnerabilities in software.

While we can’t be certain of the extent of his exploits, an approximate list could include: breaking into computer systems owned by Sun Microsystems, DEC, NEC, Motorola, and Nokia; getting his hands on documents relating to Pacific Bell’s SAS (Switch Access Services, which could be used to wiretap phone lines); and of course a number of crimes related to his being a fugitive (including identity theft). Mitnick has always maintained that he never profited from his crimes — and there is no proof that he ever did. So how did he become “the most dangerous hacker in America?”

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South Side Sound Machine: World Security Bureau (early mix)

South Side Sound Machine: LA Fitness (Jane Fonda mix)

South Side Sound Machine: Michael Jackson Vocoder

The children of the Marx Brothers and Rambo

It’s 8am-ish (2pm-ish in Paris) and thirty-six degrees. I’m looking forward to a new episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia tonight. That show’s good for the soul. The characters have little use for consensus reality, so they’ve gone ahead and formed their own consensus (created a new reality). Sure, their delusion is only a symptom of a bigger problem, but who cares? Most great artists are “great” because they’re nuts. It’s a cliche, but it’s true. Unless you consider the folks behind Reverend Jim great artists (except for Jimbo Belushi, of course — he’s top notch; really, really great).

But yeah, the Sunny gang… Every episode brings a new world, one that they suck everyone else into. And when they create new realities, new perceptions, it’s not the result of academia or heavy-handed anything, artsy-fartsy avante-garde bullshit, it’s the result of enthusiasm, lots and lots of enthusiasm, and naivete, bordering on the criminally stupid. They’re creating spectacles! Situations that can’t be analyzed away because they’re counter-intuitive, utterly goofy, and they defy analyses.

We could learn a thing or two from the gang. Because while the escapades they engage in turn the world upside-down, the characters responsible remain unchanged, pure. They’re the heirs of the Marx Brothers, raised in the age of Rambo.