Friends don't let friends....*

I've been dying for something to write about lately and all of a sudden I am buzzed and I thought, duh, why don't I write about why exactly I am buzzed?

Kind of a long story. Since I have a University of Iowa email address, I occasionally get emails from them telling me about research studies that are being conducted. So about a month ago, I got an email from the National Advanced Driving Simulator** calling for people within the ages of 21-35 who drink moderately to participate in a research study about drinking and driving. I thought to myself, "Self***, you are between the ages of 21 and 35 and you drink alcohol in a moderate fashion, you should sign up for this study and see if you get in."

Crazy thing. I emailed back, signed up, and got a call back. I answered all the health/drinking screening questions and lo**** and behold, I was an acceptable candidate for this study. I set up an appointment for an in-person screening and went, did the urine test, a driving sign recognition test, they took height, weight, resting heart rate, asked me some questions about my driving habits and my drinking habits, and then we spent some time on this driving simulator. This is really what the study is all about, and they wanted me to get used to the simulator.

The sim itself is pretty cool, it is made up of four screens, 3 high-def HP computer monitors and one crappier computer monitor with no logo on it. 3 of the screens are on top where a car windshield would be, and the 4th crappy one is where your dashboard instruments would be, and that is what is displayed on it. The 3 high-def screens display the actual simulation environment where the subject is driving. I must say, for a simulator, it's pretty realistic. Obviously the graphics are not real life, you are driving a simulator, but the way your brain interprets the 3 computer screens is crazy, it actually feels like you are driving. When cars pass you, you hear their motor get loud and then recede into the distance, thanks to effective mimicking of the Doppler Effect (nice .gif) by the simulation program. Plus they recreate the environment pretty well. The subject (for this study) drives along a rural country road at 55 MPH, and there are hills, nice cloud formations, the occasional Ford Taurus or USPS truck passes, and one or two lovely country farmhouses. Real great programming.

So the study consists of the subject coming in, driving the sim for 10 minutes to get used to it, then "dosing." The dosing consists of putting on a nose plug and drinking two tall cups of Hawaiian Punch in 10 minutes. The trick is that they may or may not have put a certain amount of Everclear***** into the cups. You're not supposed to know so as not to affect the results of the study. Ha. Give it three minutes and you know whether or not you've consumed their awful liquor. Plus the nose plug is horribly painful to wear, especially on a schnoz like this one.

After you've consumed the drinks, you sit for about an hour to and constantly take breathalyzer tests until you've reached a certain BAC. Once you hit their projected BAC (you aren't supposed to know how much you've taken in for a particular session), you get to drive the sim. And not just drive it, you are put through a divided attention test. The sim looks like the windshield of a real car, and that includes both rear view mirrors. Right next to each mirror there is a little box, and occasionally through your drive there appears an orange arrow. If the arrow is pointing left or right (corresponding to the side it's box is on), you are supposed to press a button on the steering wheel. It an arrow appears that is pointing up, you are supposed to press nothing, just keep driving as normal. Quick recap, you are driving along a rural country two-lane highway, cars occasionally pass, you are supposed to keep a steady pace of 55 MPH, as well as stay in your lane, and whenever an orange arrow appears that is pointing left or right you are supposed to hit your corresponding button. And I did mention that you are buzzed out of your brain correct?

And then after you drive the sim, you wait. And wait. And wait. Since you are picked up at your residence by one of the researchers in the study, for legal reasons, you can only leave when you are dropped off by one of the researchers as well. And they don't let you leave until your BAC is back down to a level of 0.03, which takes approximately 140 hours. Exaggeration, for my first dosing visit it took me about 3-4 hours to get my BAC down to an appropriate level to leave. So really what they're paying you for is the waiting time.

Did I mention this is a compensated study? If a person successfully completes all four dosing visits, along with the initial screening visit, they are paid 365 doll hairs. That's right, three hundred and fifty donuts******! So as Colleen and I are both participating in this study, we will end up with over $700. I have nothing else to say but cha-ching.

So to those who read my blog yet do not approve of drinking, let me implore you that this is in the interest of science and the results will be put to good use by NADS and the University of Iowa. And we get paid, which is a HUGE bonus. Colleen and I are actually funding our Celebratory 2nd Anniversary Trip to Chicago through doing this study together. So not only is this study good and safe for the study of drunk driving, it is essentially funding love and romance. Who can honestly say no to that?

-Jon

*This blog has been written and edited completely while under the influence of alcohol over the course of 3 weeks. Please keep this in mind while noticing any *'s and spelling/grammar errors.

**The first guy you see on the home page is Omar. He has the most intense facial hair I think I've ever seen. Looks like Fred Flintstone.

***I did not actually think these exact words. Referring to the phrase in bold, when people say this in real life, I feel more rage in my body than I do about most things.

****NOT "low"

*****Everclear, NOT Everclear. One time Colleen and I saw Art Alexakis perform a solo acoustic show at Coe College. It was surprisingly good. Not Martin Sexton good (shameless plug) but he was good.

******Here's the thing, this is a reference from the 1979 movie The Jerk starring Steve Martin. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a video of the scene from which this line comes so here is another funny scene. I love how he jumps when he exclaims about the arrival of the new phone book.

?uestlove.

Another blog courtesy of "drinking" and "driving." Pitchfork recently interviewed ?uestlove and as always, it is an entertaining and incredibly informative read. The guy is an absolute music genius, one of the few of our generation whose music references I take very seriously and view as must-adds to my music collection. He's got this intense knowledge of music; today's various music scenes as well as a deep intimacy with soul music of the '60s and '70s. It blows me away.

This blog is inspired by two interviews with ?uest that I read today. One is from 2003, and one is from yesterday (8/19/11). The guy is this mad scientist/chameleon/jack-of-all-trades of music. I certainly would not want to restrict him to a hip hop box because he clearly knows the world outside of it, even though his band (The Roots) is a hip hop group. He makes music references like all he does all day long is listen to music. It's amazing. I want that job. I want the music research job, where you listen to records all day long, read liner notes all day long, figure out who played drums on what record while producing another record, how music connects, how musicians align, continually grow the big picture view of this giant web of music of the last 100 years. It's obvious by how he talks that ?uestlove has this kind of over-arching, encyclopedic knowledge of music.

But what I love the absolute most about ?uestlove is when he talks about D'Angelo. ?uestlove was integral in the creation and production of D's landmark album Voodoo and all I've ever wanted is for a musician to put out something as good as Voodoo in the last ten years. I think some have come close, possibly even matched it, but so, so few. This album is just out of control good. I am talking a kind of good that percolates. Good that sneaks up on you. Good that shows up after the fifteenth listen and gets better every single time. I still hear stuff on this album that I haven't caught before. I've never heard anything as layered as this.

But this isn't the time to actually write about Voodoo in a review sort of way.* What I want to highlight here is how important ?uestlove is to the current music scene. The first interview is eight years old now. ?uestlove and the interviewer chat about the then-current state of black music and how sociopolitical aspects of the day play into black music, but the good stuff comes when they start to chat about working with D'Angelo during the recording of Voodoo. It's such a cool concept; Voodoo was made on the principle that music is art and should be made with the utmost respect to those pioneers who have come before and the unknown visionaries that are to come and always with respect to the art itself. All of these incredibly musical people came together and made this mind-blowing album. It wasn't about money or gaining fans, it was about releasing a product, this work of art that could change how someone listened to music. "If creating music were a political party, then we were sort of being socialists." Why can't more artists think this way?

What I love is how he reinforces this ideal. He mentions going into the studio to record with John Mayer around the time of the interview (?uestlove played drums on "Clarity" off of the Heavier Things album in 2003). And ?uest actually says it was the most fun he'd had playing since recording Voodoo. He said he went in to record the one tune and they ended up jamming out like six new songs. That's incredible. It makes me so excited to know that these two musical brains have collaborated in the past and they are both still making music today, albeit not together. It is a giant relief to me, and it's one of those moments I have so infrequently nowadays when I think "Oh yeah, John Mayer used to be make amazing music and still has the potential to put out a completely life-altering record." Here's to hoping.

Also equally as interesting in this interview is how he profiles the breakdown of D'Angelo. How releasing "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" as a single off of Voodoo contributed to a very sexualized public persona that D'Angelo found hard to overcome. How the tour to support Voodoo quickly unwound because of all of this public hype. It's a sad story, but one that is pretty common in genius artistic circles, as ?uestlove puts it, "...they sabotage their shit."

Fast forward to August '11. In this interview with Pitchfork, ?uestlove speaks a lot more about The Roots and where they are, what it's like to be a house band of a late night host, etc. He does delve into the Soulquarian era a bit at the end, but overall this whole interview shows less his involvement with D'Angelo and more his ground-level view of rap over the last 20 years and how it has changed. This guy has been an integral part of hip-hop for over two decades now, and he has been in various circles as that time has gone by. This is a really interesting read for anyone who likes music, and especially anybody who likes hip hop.

I'm happy we still have ?uestlove around. I desperately hope he continues to coax D'Angelo out of semi-retirement, but at the very least, I hope he keeps collaborating. That is where I think he comes up with the greatest stuff. He has this uncanny ability to pull real music out of artists; he is our generation's Quincy Jones and D'Angelo is his Michael Jackson. I just hope they eventually reconnect and make their Bad.

-Jon

*Not sure I ever will, only because it's hard to write about something that good. All it seriously would be is me repeating over and over how awesome the whole freakin' album is. Each track, "Wow this one is amazing." Doesn't make for the best read. What I should do is accumulate every time I've mentioned it in passing in another post and you'd have basically my every thought about the insanity and genius that is that album.

Les' talk t'som peple.

What I love about culture is that there is always something new to discover and enjoy. A few months ago, Norm MacDonald debuted his Comedy Central effort, Sports Show with Norm MacDonald, and unfortunately, it aired for nine superb episodes before some monkey at Comedy Central didn't see it making the same ratings as second season Tosh.0 episodes, and it got canceled to be replaced by what? Reruns of Tosh.0. Shame on you, Comedy Central.

That's a tangent though. This is about Norm, or rather, what Norm exposed us to. On one of his early episodes, he introduced his "nephew" Kyle and a remote segment he did at a UFC event. It was one of the funniest non-Conan remotes I'd ever seen. Thankfully, it must have gotten a great response, because Kyle was back a few episodes later to do another one.

Kyle's segments are basically him at a sporting event, interviewing athletes or spectators. His interview style is incredible though, it's as though the character he's playing is a person with high-functioning Asperger's syndrome. His speech patterns are so forced, he intentionally slurs his words and doesn't ask fully-formed questions or even speaks with fully-formed sentences, leaving the interviewee struggling to guess what Kyle is saying or asking them. He is completely socially inept, often hugging people unnecessarily or mumbling his words and then really enunciating when asked to repeat himself. He makes everyone feel awkward and uncomfortable during the exchanges, and wow is it funny stuff. Take a look.

His intro to the segment is one of the funniest things I've seen in my life. I found it so funny, in fact, that I went on YouTube to try to find the Kyle remotes once I found out Norm had been canceled. My only luck was that first UFC segment, but on a whim, I clicked on one of the suggested videos on the right sidebar, which I very rarely do. I don't trust YouTube's suggestions, but I'm glad I took the risk this time. What I actually found was a video that Tosh had shown as one of his viewer videos of the week. I remember liking it but not until I watched it again that I realized the main funny guy in it is Kyle! So I watched some more videos uploaded from the YouTube user GoodNeighborStuff.

Turns out Kyle is part of Good Neighbor, a comedy group out of L.A. that does random sketch comedy. Granted, lots of their stuff is weird, a prime example being the end of the following "Toast" video and all of the transitions from Kyle's interview segments. I get that they add to the low-budget, randomness aspect of the segments but I could do without them. But ultimately, Kyle is really the breakout star of this group. Even in the group's actual sketches he plays a watered down version of his bad interviewer character and it is hilarious. For example:

This whole sketch gets very kooky. Colleen pointed out that it veers mildly into the realm of performance art/slam poetry, which neither of us are crazy about. The best part is Kyle's struggle to toast to his friends. I'm not sure if I'm laughing more at the outdated phrases he uses like "mofo" and "pimp" or the tone he uses; it's so earnest in wanting to sound cool and aloof and it comes off completely opposite.

Here are the other videos I found of Kyle and his bad interviewer character. Really funny stuff. I hope he can find another place to showcase this character, because I seriously cannot get enough of it.

Favorite moment: 0:30

Favorite moment: 1:20

Favorite moment: 1:06

Favorite moment: 1:36. I can't stop laughing at the face face he makes at the end of that little blip.

-Jon