What always made David Hasselhoff an easy comic, if potentially tragic, target was his seeming obliviousness to his own ridiculousness. He seemed completely unaware that his bombastic baritone wouldn’t make a song like “Do the Limbo Dance” anything but pure, painful hilarity. (And I beg you to view this amazon.com page of over 1,000 “reviews” of his greatest hits record.) Making fun of Hasselhoff is almost like making fun of airplane food at this point, a rich but over-mined humour gold mine. But the time has come: Hasselhoff is aware. Tonight Comedy Central is airing a roast of the Hoff. Here’s the promo video. The ending is somewhat jaw-dropping.

Update: I just watched it—well, the first 20 minutes of it, which was all I could take. Sadly, it added up to less than the sum of its parts. You’d think a jury including Pamela Anderson, Hulk Hogan, Gilbert Godfrey and Jerry Springer would’ve been more entertaining. But no. Besides a few funny moments, it was pretty painful, indeed more for the roasters than the actual roastee himself. It must be those magical Hasselhoff critic deflection powers at work. He just sat there in his lifeguard chair, beaming. Turns out there’s only four jokes you can make about the Hoff—poor acting, poor singing, alcoholism and cheeseburgers. Gets old fast. Also, Seth MacFarlane is kinda smarmy.

Sorry for the overblown titles. I’ve just been listening to way too much prog & metal and reading way too much economic theory, lately, to not let that happen. Anyway, I’ll knock it off; promise.

I’d like to say I hate chillwave but there’s not really enough there to hate. It’d be like hating eggplant or tile grout. It’s just so insubstantial. I guess the part that bothers me is the hype around it, the hollowness and nothingness of this supposed new great hope. It makes the so-called slackers of 90s look like driven go-getters. Enough negativity, though. This guy from New Jersey, Julian Lynch, gets unfairly delegated to the chillwave ghetto, when his stuff is actually inventive, exciting and chill. It’s dusty, organic and old-timey Appalachian-sounding, but obviously informed by modern music like drone and stoner rock—also very accomplished, cohesive and, dare I say, timeless. His new record, Mare, is streaming online. So that’s cool. And I’ve posted it here, so you don’t even have find it yourself.

In relatedness, Berlin-based writer, equinologist and street art observer, Susanna Forrest, just started a blog that combines the urban and the equine in amazing ways. She’s also releasing a hip-hop album this year with lyrics based on Black Beauty. I might have made that last thing up.

With all the hullabaloo about Google finally releasing their Street View for Germany (after three years of privacy rule back-and-forth), I started looking around at other comparable online maps. Lo and behold, I found Microsoft’s aerial views superior to Google’s. Thanks to the shifted angle shots from Bing, you can see not just the x+y-dimension but a good slice of the z-axis as well (sides of buildings, etc.). I never thought I’d say this, but well done, Microsoft.

Of course, Google is probably about to unleash the spy drones and fix the problem.

What’s with the corrupt 11-year-olds this week? First, a breathtakingly foul-mouthed and poorly-raised little emo girl gets an entire internet community to converge on her life, prompting an unfortunately hilarious video outburst from her moustachioed dad (simultaneously coining the internet memes “cyberpolice”, “back-traced” and “You dun goofed up”).

Now, an 11-year-old boy just got busted (apparently his third arrest) for selling heroin down the street along my local subway line, the U8, which I guess they should just go ahead and call The Dragon (as in “riding the”, get it?). In his defense, he was just re-selling a classic German invention. Still, I’ve got a few Bad Parent of the Year awards to hand out, so step up, parents.

Congrats to Spain for winning the World Cup and congrats to me for making it through one of the most boring, low-scoring-est and foul-heavy games of the whole tournament. Such an anti-climax, somehow. At least in 2006, we got a masterful, career-closing kung-fu headbutt of justice. As much as I love football or soccer or roundball or whatever you wanna call it, watching quite a few (too many?) matches the past few weeks—especially this last one—I constantly recalled this classic Simpsons bit, back from when the Simpsons were funny.

Fast kicking! Low scoring! Ties!

If José González is any kind of football fan, even with Sweden not even qualifying for this year’s World Cup (in the admittedly über-competetive European division), he’s got the luxury of rooting for formidable Argentina, homeland of his parents. I mention this only because culturally Swedish/ethnically-other people I find fascinating. González’s girlfriend, Little Dragon singer Yukimo Nagano, happens to be another. Which is all perhaps unimportant. But when I heard that González had reunited his band, Junip, and was playing Krautrock-influenced jams with them, I rushed out to see what kind of catastrophe they had concocted. Somehow, it wasn’t terrible. In fact it worked, it worked beautifully. Somehow, an Argentinian-Swede folksinger performing motorik grooverock makes perfect sense. Conveniently enough, they’re in town tonight, playing at the Summer Slang festival at Festsaal Kreuzberg. We’ll see how they are live, because on record they’re pretty damn good.

Junip - At the Doors

Unless you’re living under an U.S.-sized rock, you know that the Greatest Show on Earth, the Football World Cup starts (”kicks off”) today in South Africa. And even the Americans are supposed to have their best team ever this year—though we’ll see how that pans out in the Brit v. Yank match tomorrow. Here, a few good World Cup links I’ve stumbled across.

Is North Korea’s World Cup team any good? (FP)

Where to Watch World Cup Soccer Streaming Live (Lifehacker)

The World Cup and Economics 2010 (75-page pdf from Goldman Sachs)

Four countries have won 14 of the last 18 World Cups (WSJ)

Michael Scott Moore, provocateur: the word “soccer” coined by the British

New York Times and New Republic blogs: Goal and GoalPost

Once upon a time there was a guy named William F. Buckley. He was sharp, opinionated, well-spoken and avowedly conservative. But he was a delightful sparring partner and obviously considered his positions—even if you disagreed with every last one of them (though he was for legalizing marijuana — can you imagine a conservative taking a libertarian stance like that today? I can’t even imagine Ron Paul doing that). Buckley didn’t spout boilerplate inanities like Messrs. Beck and Limbaugh do today. He argued with reason, not volume. So when I’m told that pundits like Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post or David Frum represent that intellectual tradition of Buckley’s, I’m eager to see what they have to say. But I’m left wanting. I’m not asking for quantum mechanics here; I just want a reasoned argument. The only arguably conservative commenter I would even consider putting in that category might be David Brooks of the New York Times, but even he’s an Obama backer now. You just can’t get any decent competition these days. So, David Frum recently had this to say about the flotilla attack at Gaza.

The point of the flotilla was to end Israeli inspection of Gaza cargoes, so that Hamas could resume importing weapons.

Really? On what planet is this sort of statement even halfway true? Or wait: are these so-called activists and aid workers secretly trying to help get weapons to Hamas under the guise of providing food and construction materials? Tricky war-mongering lefties! Hamas gets all the weapons they need through secret channels from Egypt and elsewhere. Getting weapons is not really a problem for the Palestinians. Getting food is, regardless of whether Krauthammer feels like recognizing it as a humanitarian crisis or not. Like the White Stripes sing, the truth doesn’t make a noise.

Update: I swear I didn’t borrow this idea from The Economist’s cover story.

The Beatles did it. Johnny Cash did it. But Marvin Gaye? Singing in German? Seriously? Seriously.

Decades ago it was common practice for record labels to have their top artists record foreign language versions of their hits. A new record from Hip-O Select, Motown Around the World, collects French, German and Spanish versions of songs by The Temptations, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder and (yes) Marvin Gaye singing “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” as “Wie Schön Das Ist”… And his German pronunciation is surprisingly good. If you don’t believe me, check out the Half-Hearted Dude’s Curious Germany Vol.3.

In March, Viggo Mortensen spoke at the occasion of Dennis Hopper getting his star on Hollywood Boulevard. In honor of Hopper’s fearlessness and honesty, he dedicated this poem by William Stafford, a fellow Kansan, whom he called “perhaps the finest and most honest poet that state has produced.” I thought it was pretty good, too.

For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid
There is a country to cross you
will find in the corner of your eye, in the quick slip of your foot–
air far down, a snap that might have caught. And maybe for you, for
me, a high, passing voice that finds its way by being afraid. That
country is there, for us, carried as it is crossed. What you
fear will not go away: it will take you into yourself and bless you
and keep you. That’s the world, and we all live there.

Chalk it up to small victories, but I just learned that I passed the exam for Microeconomics I at Humboldt University. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal if I hadn’t been so concerned about not passing it, but I was concerned about not passing it. Quite a lot, actually. Sure, it’s Bachelor level and, sure, it’s freshman level and, sure, I didn’t make the best grade in the entire 200-year history of the storied HU (which just got a new prez yesterday)—but it was a challenge all the same and considering the amount of time I invested in learning this stuff at the cost of giving up post-work free time and missing myriad social events and other fun things (that’s called an opportunity cost, by the way), it’s gratifying. My long term aim is to bounce off these classes into the Econ Masters program, so we’ll see how that goes. Now, back to regular blogging and worrying about the results of that Macro exam…

There won’t be much happening here for the duration of March, as I’ll be focused on studying for some exams. Meanwhile, please feed the fish.

Seems to have the U.S. at the top, the first time in 80 years. Of course, it won’t count psychologically if Canada beats the U.S. in hockey tonight. And look at Germany up there.

Very Basement Tapes Dylan, this recording, not least the lyrics. I love it.

Zookeeper - Snow in Berlin

There’s a cold German in a bar in Berlin
With the blueprints of an architect still searching through
His pockets for a dream-maker or a chance-taker
Or the will he should have written by now
But he’s been thinking bout them ships sinking
For his whole half-lived private school life
At home silver spoons gleaming
In his eyes a vision dark as midnight in Berlin
Where we stand fearing it’s all a bit much
As great incubators ventilate to compensate
Our every step and repay each breath
And he sees building rising, sees mice climbing
Thinks of how the fall has come and gone
And all its color and calm
Now lay surrendered to Salvation Army vendors
Life insurance witch doctors
All these poor men in rich men’s clothes
And the snow in Berlin covering everything in white dress
Making us all look like such creatures tonight
And that wall is going up and coming down again
And we’ll celebrate like it’s the first time
Not just in our minds
As that snow piles up and he begins to look so mysterious
Like, “Oh, my God, I can see him now
That ghost writer saying, ‘Hello, Spider
You’re in my web now and I will see that you’re never at ease’”
And his eyes screaming for a soul to see him
Pull him out and free him from that pitiful rabbit suit
Just drops down right in the street and lies there
Getting lighter and lighter til it’s static in every view
And the snow in berlin covering everything in white dress
Making us all look like such creatures tonight
Just the snow in Berlin covering everything in white dress
Making us all look like such creatures tonight
Making us look like creation’s lucky bride
Making us look like such beautiful things stood up tonight

Some things are better unimproved, un-messed-with. Case in point: zombies. I prefer the old style, slow, lurching, shuffling kind. Sure, the new running zombies are scarier because they can catch up with you—whereas you can just walk away from a slow one—but, as Brent McKnight rightfully says, the slower ones are arguably scarier because they’ll eventually get you.

The core argument of fast zombie proponents is inherently flawed. Proponents of fast zombies confuse zombie movies with action movies, while in reality zombie movies are more akin to suspense movies. Sure, a fast reanimated body is more likely to jump out of a shadowy bush, and a foot race across a parking lot will provide a quick burst of adrenaline, but a swarm of rotting zombies, gradually moving towards you over a field, creates tension and suspense. Every time you look at them they are closer, creeping towards you and your loved ones. The effect harkens back to Hitchcock’s maxim that you don’t just show the bomb go off, true tension lies in watching the timer tick down.

Update: This just in—the original vampires were zombies. Take that, Twilight.

The United States is—so says Klaus F. Zimmerman, convincingly.

In case you wondered why the ice started to melt…

First solo exhibition in Berlin by London-based Swedish artist and photographer Sara Young.

Friday, February 19, 19:00-23:00 Uhr @ Galerie ZeitZone

Adalbertstr. 79 [map]

Just a few weeks ago (it seems a lot longer) we—the quintet of my sister Rebecca, her soon-to-be husband Jorge, their college friend Katie, Yuhang and I—found ourselves driving along the coast of Santa Cruz, California in search of nothing, which is to say without serious responsibilities apart from eventually getting to the beach and enjoying the time in between to do nothing but whatever we felt like doing, one of those rare and lovely pockets of time without ambition. Tasks, many tasks would return the following week in the pre-wedding rush (not to mention torrents of historically heavy rains), but for the sunny now we had time to burn. Driving along aimless and spaced pleasantly out, we were listening to the records we’d just acquired from Rasputin Music in Berkeley. This one came on and I think Jorge was the first, but soon we were all car-dancing, bobbing our heads, waving our arms around, grooving, a rave in a rental. I’m sure it looked hilarious to passers-by, which only made it better. Nothing like spontaneous group ridiculousness.

LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum (Onanistic Dub)

SLAB Magazine critiques one of the more obvious design flaws of the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz, one that’s been super evident this frosty winter.

Metal floor panels in a plaza? Excuse the parlance, but what in shit-fuckery were Murphy/Jahn Architects thinking? Here’s a little hint from your friends at SLAB, free of charge: metal is slippery when wet. That’s sound advice, write it down. Even in summer you have to watch how you go here with a pair of tread-worn sneakers on your feet, but in winter, after almost two months of snow and freezing weather, this is trecherous madness.

I’m also happy to learn that the Sony Center’s contour emulates Mount Fuji, which I’d not noticed but does make sense if you tilt your head to the side.

Since it’s technically still last year, by Chinese standards (by a hair), I will allow myself a few seconds to lovingly, obsessively and nerdishly list my favourite ten tracks from the past 365 days… It was a good year for music. I promise that all these tunes will quicken your heart and stiffen your ear hairs.

01. Moth - Burial & Four Tet
02. Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z & Alicia Keys
03. I’m Confused - Handsome Furs
04. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
05. Ostia - Zu
06. White Liar - Miranda Lambert
07. Oh My God - Ida Maria
08. The Gnashing - Baroness
09. Animal - Miike Snow
10. Crystalised - The xx