Archive for June, 2014

20
Jun
14

As Of 5pm Today, I Am Unemployed

By SlickTiger 7 Comments
Categories: Being Slick and Killer Posts
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

funny_homeless_signs05How insane is that. For the first time since my professional career began back in 2006, come 5pm this afternoon, I will officially be unemployed with absolutely nothing lined up for the future.

The thought that on Monday, when all you guys are getting up, getting dressed and hitting your cubicles, I’ll just be lying in bed staring at the ceiling fills me in equal parts with terror and fathomless joy.

So what gives? Why the sudden decision to pull out of the race and just park off by the side-lines for awhile? Did I win the lottery? Inherit a fortune of a distant great-aunt? Finally lose my goddamned mind?

It’s part of a bigger plan boys and girls, that’s all I can say at this point. All these weeks and months your Tiger pal has been hatching plans, making schemes, throwing the rule book out the window, risking everything.

The year’s not even half done and already I know I will never, never forget 2014 because sometimes you just know as things are happening to you, right there in the moment, that in one way or another you’ll be feeling the aftershocks for the rest of your life.

It gives you new eyes, you see the world differently. The important things swim back into focus – your family, your friends, the people you love, the place you live in all it’s disparate beauty, it’s endearing dysfunctionality.

A road you thought you knew so well, like the face of an old friend, reveals a dimple you’d never noticed before. A bus stop spilling over with people in the rain is suddenly so much more than the steel and plastic its built from. You see deeper, right into the heart of the city you call home and instead of the indifference you thought was there before, there is only acceptance, solace and an inescapable feeling of aching nostalgia.

I thought TS Eliot was a wanker when I read his poetry in university. I just didn’t get it, I didn’t understand what the hell he was trying to say. We studied Four Quartets and 90% of it went straight over my head.

But that last 10% stuck and I’m glad it did because the older I get, the more I get it.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

I don’t know what the future holds for me. Honestly. I’m not writing this to be cryptic, I’m not trying to lead you guys on, I’m not deliberately trying to be vague. I’m just expressing what it’s like to face down this giant beast of uncertainty armed with nothing but the unwavering belief that somehow, somehow, everything is going to be ok.

I’m trying not to jinx this. But all I can say is that very soon I’ll know if this is going to work or if it’s going to fail dismally. When the time is right and the planets are aligned I’ll spill the beans.

If this works, everything changes.

If it doesn’t, I lick my wounds and figure out what the fuck to do with my life.

There is no fate but what we make Winking smile

-ST

11
Jun
14

Soul Music

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Killer Posts and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

maxresdefault2I can’t escape this feeling that somewhere out there there is a band or a person writing and playing music right now that is so fucking good that if I could just find it, if I could just hear one song, it would stay with me for life.

It’s a problem with me. I look out over the cityscape sometimes or I look at pictures of sleepy suburbs or big skyscrapers or even log cabins in the woods, totally isolated and termite-ridden.

I look at those pictures and I wonder if someone somewhere inside one of those buildings or houses or on one of those streets is playing a song that could change my life.

So I dig and dig and dig. I try to find new bands or old bands with new albums and I try to listen to it all and my reward for this obsessive digging is, ironically, a diminishing appreciation and enjoyment of music.

You start to hear the same things a lot. The same chord structures, the same vocal melodies and borrowed sentiments. It’s so bad that in some instances I’ll get an album, listen to 30 seconds of the first track and know, just fucking know, that I will never listen to that album again.

I mean I give it a go because the best albums are the ones you hate at first and then, five listens later you fucking love, but by and large the music I listen to bores the living shit out of me.

 

 

The other thing that happens is that the more you listen, the stranger your tastes become to the point where music that melts your face off just gets a confused look out of the people you play it for or they straight up turn it off.

So now that I’ve got that disclaimer out the way, I’m going to throw two songs out there for you kind folks and see what happens (probably nothing).

The first one is off the new Warpaint album (self-titled) that was released in January.

I fucking love what this band is doing. They are a great example of how women are killing it when it comes to creating original and inspiring music at the moment  and you can take that to the fucking bank.

This track is called “Biggy”:

 

 

There’s a place out there, it has tents and a log cabin and a gigantic fire pit and it’s surrounded by mountain peaks and forests and it’s called Orange Kloof Tented Camp.

That song reminds me of that place like I’m standing right there again in the midst of the total chaos I created, watching my degenerate friends stagger reeling drunk around the place, falling into the fire, spilling things and smashing glasses, laughing, all the time laughing.

Then there’s this one from Timber Timbre called “This Low Commotion” off their new album Hot Dreams.

 

 

Love that fucking song, holy shit. Makes me want to get in a big black Cadillac, drive out into the boiling desert heat and keep driving until there is nothing but road and sky and dust… and quiet…

So yeah. That’s the shit that speaks to me at the moment, right deep down.

Good times.

-ST

10
Jun
14

Realistic Mario Videos Started Well, But Then…

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Radass Videos and Satire, Irony And Vitriol
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Realistic MarioI’m living out one of my childhood dreams at the moment and it’s rad. You guys remember Super Mario 3? With the raccoon suit? I LOVED that game when I was a kid but only ever played it on friend’s consoles.

I got pretty far in the game but never finished it because the Golden China console my buddies had at the time was so glitchy if you even nudged it slightly the game literally disintegrated.

I bought a Wii U almost a year ago, during which time I’ve played exactly three games on it – The Cave (average), Super Mario 3D World (brilliant) and yep, you guessed it, Super Mario 3.

They’ve faithfully ported that old classic onto the Wii, you can buy it from the Nintendo eStore for a paltry R60, and yes, it’s just as radass as you remember it.

It’s also pretty interesting to see how many things they introduced in Mario 3 that have stayed with the series ever since. It was a big game changer for the franchise at the time so that’s what I tell J-Rab – I’m not schloomfing on my ass playing crusty old TV games, I’m conducting “historical research” goddamnit!

Playing Mario obsessively also jogged this memory from the Dark Time Of No Blogging I recently went through of a radass video Civilian sent me called “Realistic Mario”, check it out:

 

 

Hahahaha! LOLZ yo! Having watched and enjoyed that one I dug a little deeper and found some more.

Like this one simply titled “Realistic Mario: Underwater”.

Anyone guess where this is going?

 

 

Huh. Quite funny. The fish eating them is a nice touch.

Then there’s “Realistic Mario: Yoshi” in which shit goes fucking bananas:

 

 

I liked the wet chewing noises. Classy.

And just in case you were even considering lunch, here’s “Realistic Mario: Koopa Shells”:

 

 

Not gonna lie, I think making the Koopa shells do that every time you jumped on them would actually be pretty rad. Satisfying…

But no, that shit is fucked up and wrong – how the hell would you kick the shells into other Koopas if they just caved in like that?!

Tiger out.

-ST

09
Jun
14

Escape Monday: Light Painting Taken To A Whole New Level

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Escape Monday
Tags: , , , ,

Stay HungryOn the internet, you have two options when it comes to how you handle things. You can suspend disbelief and take things as they are or you can view everything through a lens of infinite doubt.

I suspend disbelief because I enjoy wonder, I like to experience it and not pull it apart through tedious over-analysis. I used to believe in magic as a kid, I guess you could say nothing’s changed.

The work of Finnish photographer Janne Parviainen is an example of a kind of magic. Janne uses long exposure times with a multitude of LED lights to “paint” the beautiful and haunting images you’re about to see.

Of course, the trolls out there will say that these shots could have been digitally manipulated, but the interview I read with Janne convinced me that they aren’t. He’s also a really cool guy and when I asked him if I could use his images on my site he replied almost immediately saying he’d love to.

I asked him to tell me which images are his favourite so I could feature them, so here they are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I threw in a few of my favourites, check it:

 

 

 

 

 

Other level sheeit right there!

If you want to see more of his works, here’s his site.

Happy Monday Party People. If you’re in Cape Town, stay the hell inside and get to work on that Ark yo!

-ST

06
Jun
14

Friday LOLZ: Animal Edition

By SlickTiger 2 Comments
Categories: Friday Lolz
Tags: , , , , , ,

tumblr_n1dmzyaiGX1r6pudbo1_1280What today needs is some crazy internet animals that think they are people. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the reason the internet was invented way back in 2007 – to show everyone how flippin RAD animals are.

Animals have existed for well over 90 years in various forms namely flying, crawling, swimming and running. Their primary function is to provide LOLZ for mankind over the internet and taste delicious.

Animals were first discovered in their natural habitat, pet stores, where they begin their lives as tiny replicas of their fully-grown selves and spend a lot of time chewing (except fish, but they can’t be really classified as animals as they belong to the reptile family).

Animals can be very well-trained. This animal is very well-trained not to jump on the bed when his owner is home. This is what happens when his owner ISN’T home.

Clever animal…

 

 

Animals also have great skills when it comes to DJ-ing as this helps them create close packs of like-minded animal friends in the wild for hunting and partying purposes.

Here are examples of great musical skills with animals:

 

 

Moar:

 

 

That particular animal featured in the last video (The Gote) also has impressive skills when it comes to balancing on flexible steel sheets.

Don’t believe me?

How about now?

 

 

Birds, which are animals that no one really knows what they are, are also extremely important to the interwebs ecosystem when it comes to generating LOLZ.

Here is an example of a Lesser Spotted Smooth Operator proving this point:

 

 

You know what’s also rad? Taking LSD:

 

 

Have a killer weekend Party People.

See ya’ll next week for more insane ramblings Winking smile

-ST

05
Jun
14

The Tiger Watches The Entire Nirvana Hall Of Fame Induction, Misses The Comfort In Being Sad

By SlickTiger 2 Comments
Categories: Killer Posts and Radass Videos
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

LovebuzzI’d heard that Nirvana were recently inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall Of Fame, which is a great way to preserve their legacy, but at the same time I couldn’t help but think that Kurt was probably rolling in his grave.

Then I actually watched the half-hour induction ceremony last night and was glad I did because a lot of cool things were said about the band and I learned a few things I didn’t know before.

The band performed four songs at the end with surviving members Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear and an array of female vocalists filling in for Kurt, which I think he would have liked.

To be honest though, only Annie Clark from St Vincent actually pulled it off. Her cover of “Lithium” was pretty good and I liked her unassuming manner. Joan Jett did an ok rendition of “Teen Spirit”, Kim Gordan from Sonic Youth fucking butchered “Aneurism” (on purpose I think) and Lorde turned “All Apologies” into a funeral dirge.

The highlights for me were the intro video (Kurt looks like SUCH a badass singing “Love Buzz”) Michael Stipe’s moving induction which I think he fucking nailed right on the head, Dave and Krist’s acceptance speeches, Kurt’s mom’s short but beautiful speech, the fact that Courtney was definitely trollied (surprise surprise) and Krist’s hat, which I think Kurt would have killed himself laughing at.

Here it is:

 

 

Interesting that Krist says “Nirvana didn’t come to the mainstream, the mainstream came to Nirvana”, because it sure as fuck did and when it did it left Kurt feeling used, hollowed out, like he’d somehow lost his integrity, like he’d become exactly what he fucking despised.

He imploded, crushed by the brutal irony of what his life had become. Kurt turned that “nuclear rage and fury” that Stipe referred to back on himself and ate that bitter shotgun shell that ended it all, that severed his ties to the sell-out corporate rock world forever.

How ironic that that same world has now inducted his band into their Hall Of Fame.

Wherever he is, you can rest assured that he watched that ceremony with a huge shit-eating grin on his face because I think the thing about him that I always found the most alluring is that he knew, he fucking knew, that in the end it’s all just one big joke.

“Rather be dead than cool” he once famously said.

Amen brother.

-ST

03
Jun
14

The Tiger Weighs In On Net Neutrality

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Killer Posts, Radass Videos and Satire, Irony And Vitriol
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

NetNeutralityLast week (or was it the week before…?) I posted that video about SOLAR FRIKKIN’ ROADWAYS, a pretty genius idea that an engineering couple came up with to replace roads with solar panels.

I wrote about their mission to provide the world with huge amounts of clean energy whilst addressing a whole other stack of environmental issues and ended the post saying I was going to donate $10 to their cause.

At that stage they had raised a total of about $260k of their $1m target and had 11 days left. A week later they were over the $1.5m mark and have extended the donation period by another 20 days – all because of me!

Hahaha, what an asshole. No, it wasn’t all because of me, but I felt proud to have played a part in it because I did donate that $10 in the end and it felt good to get off my lazy ass for a change and actually try and affect change in the world.

 

 

Last night I found out about another pretty hectic cause that definitely could use some support and that’s the whole debate about Net Neutrality (or the proposed lack thereof) that’s been raging for over a year now.

I’ve seen it mentioned all over the internet and was dimly aware that it was a Very Bad Thing but never really took the time to dig a little deeper and find out what it’s actually about.

That was before I watched the video below which, though it’s a bit of a longy, is DEFINITELY worth watching if you a) Love the internet and b) You don’t like the idea of paying through your ass in order to surf the sites you love at a speed that won’t make you want to tear your eyes out.

Here, check it:

 

 

Yes, ol’ John Oliver gets a little much, but all-in-all I was really glad I watched this video because I realised why I haven’t really cared about this issue – it’s been handled in a painfully boring way so that the fucks we all give stay at an all-time low.

But if you actually stop and think about what this means for our experience of the internet going forward it’s pretty shocking.

I did some more digging to find out how South Africa specifically will be effected because we’re so far away from the epicentre of the internet (ie. the States, Europe and Asia) and found a great article here called “Net Neutrality in Africa” that goes into some detail about how this issue could effect SA.

The long and the short of it is that Africa has never really experienced Net Neutrality in its purest form. Up until 2009, the only internet cable coming into SA was the SAT3 cable which was choked so heavily by local telcos that internet speeds were a total joke compared to other parts of the world.

 

 

With the introduction of the Seacom undersea cable, internet speeds started to increase whilst bandwidth prices started to decrease significantly (except for mobile bandwidth, which is still ludicrously expensive).

HOWEVER, though most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) brought “unlimited” data bundle offerings to the table at seemingly competitive prices, these bundles were “shaped”. In other words, the internet speeds were being throttled during certain times or after users had downloaded a certain amount of data.

So, in essence, South Africans are no strangers to what it’s like to have our internet slowed down by the powers that be, but still, what the cable companies in America are proposing is a thousand times worse.

 

 

It might take some time for the effects to be felt in SA, but when it does happen, the most likely scenario is that local ISPs will start to offer packages where users will pay for their line rental, pay for their monthly bandwidth and then pay extra for high speed access to sites like YouTube, Facebook, etc.

If I understand the issue correctly, it will also mean that smaller sites like your pal Slicky-T will have to one day cough to have their sites loaded onto the high-speed tier or the sites will load like shit and never be able to compete with the big dogs.

Bottom line, I’m hitting up fcc/gov.comments the minute work stops trying to bugger me in the arse and I’m taking a stand.

So tell your friends. Maybe it makes a difference, maybe it doesn’t, but there’s only one way to find out…

-ST

02
Jun
14

Escape Monday: With Alt-J Music Videos

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Radass Videos
Tags: , , , , ,

SomethinggoodHipsters will hate this post because seriously dude? Alt-J music videos? Dude, these were posted like, two years ago, everyone’s seen these already.

But if you haven’t seen these videos already, and you have a twisted, dark side like your Tiger pal, then these might strike a chord in you. Either that or they will put you off these tracks FOREVER.

“Breezeblocks” I found especially twisted. I always thought of the track as all upbeat and quirky, a love song about how hard it is to let go. Having watched the video and read the lyrics though, I realised I’d got the entire song completely wrong.

“She may contain the urge to run away / But hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks”. I can’t hear that line now without getting the chills.

Here’s why:

 

 

Then there’s the video for “Something Good” which is just this incredibly shot, tragic, beautiful piece of art that you could watch a thousand times and not get tired of.

In both instances, the contrast between the melodic harmonies of the music and the violent imagery in the videos adds something else to the songs, something that lingers and comes back when you’re lying in the dark, waiting for sleep to come.

 

 

There’s something about Alt-J that I keep coming back to over and over again. Something new in their music that you hear when you play it that you might have missed before.

These songs have followed me for well over a year now and I know they will follow me for many years to come and that they will come to perfectly describe a time in my life like no other band will.

That is the power of music. That is why I dig for bands like this and never stop.

-ST