Frontalot in New York City at the Knitting Factory

Frontalot will be making a stop in grand ol’ New York City to perform at the Knitting Factory as a part of his Secrets From the Future Tour with Schaeffer the Darklord. So, if you’re reading this blog and you’re in the larger New York Metro Area on Nov. 11, which is a Sunday, do come check him out. And say hello to Team Nerdcore Rising because we’ll be there shooting people, with cameras. Of course, there are other dates and other cities and more Frontastic musical joy to be had but for that info, we direct you to the site of the man himself, Frontalot.

Also, bassist Brandon Patton (aka Blak Lotus) had this little tidbit to share about their current touring experience:

Our tour van has had it’s side view mirrors stolen THREE times, someone just broke in through the back window to steal a $40 hand truck, and then we just fixed that, and somebody crashed into it while it was parked!

Nevertheless, we shall rock your nerdy pants off [in New York]. And then, somehow (we haven’t figured this out yet) we shall drive across country for the rest of our tour.

Blak Lotus

A $40 hand truck!! Well, if they stole that they probably needed it more than Frontalot et al does. Consider it an early holiday gift to a stranger that had some very pressing object-moving needs.

Sweet. Go see the band live. You’ll be hooked forever. And when the time comes, Frontalot will summons you and his other faithful nerdcore-fandroids to conquer the universe- For now, he’s just slowly conquering it one solo rap at a time.

Frontalot Tour Dates!

Don’t Front like you don’t wanna see Front. Here’s some tour dates for Frontalot with Schaffer the Darklord. For more detailed tour info visit: www.frontalot.com. We?ll bring you period reports from the band on the road?

  • Thurs. Nov. 8th – The Living Room in Providence, RI
  • Fri. Nov. 9th – Harper’s Ferry in Allston, MA
  • Sun. Nov. 11th – The Knitting Factory in NYC
  • Tues. Nov. 13th – The Basement in Columbus, OH
  • Wed. Nov. 14th (STD’s bday!) – Reggie’s Live in Chicago, IL
  • Thur. Nov. 15th – Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis, MN
  • Sun. Nov. 18th – The Marquis Theater in Denver, CO
  • Tues. Nov. 20th – Burt’s Tiki Club in Salt Lake City, UT
  • Wed. Nov. 21st – The Knitting Factory in Los Angeles, CA
  • Fri. Nov. 23rd – Hawthorne Theatre in Portland, OR
  • Sun. Nov. 25th – Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco, CA

“Lars” Gives Hope to Nerds Everywhere – our first NERD MOVIE REVIEW!

Hey folks! David Spiecher here – one of the innumerable helping hands in the Nerdcore Rising circle (okay, we’re not innumerable, I would say there’s between 3 and 33 of us or something… my counting is not so good). Ehem, anyways, we here at Nerdcore Rising had an itch to talk about other nerd movies so whenever we see one currently in the theatres or in one of those loser-with-no-plans-on-a-Friday-NetFlix-nights, we’re going to "review" it. I just saw "Lars & The Real Girl" so I’m gonna give you my esteemed opinions below. Hope you enjoy…
love,
DSpike!

NerdMovie Review: Lars&the Real Girl

As I walked into "Lars and the Real Girl," I thought, "How can they keep this up for 106 minutes?" But,when I walked out, I thought, "This could be the prescription for nerds everywhere!" The premise here is that Lars, played by Ryan Gosling, has finally found the perfect companion – a girl named Bianca. She’s beautiful – no scratch that, she’s HOT. She’s smart. She helps others. Bianca’s only flaw-she’s not a real girl.

When I say she’s not a real girl, I don’t mean she’s a plastic airhead like Laura Conrad on "The Hills"- I mean she’s actually made out of plastic!! (note: some argue that "LC" is too, but for our purposes here, let’s assume she’s a real human being at the mercy of terribly written "reality" – oops, sorry if you were under the impression that "The Hills" was a reality show.)

A plastic girl, maybe, but one thing Bianca is not, is an imaginary girl – which, let’s be honest, is typically the girlfriend of choice for nerds. Chances are if you scored 1500 on your SATs, you’ve also scored with a beautiful girl whose only flaw is that she doesn’t exist. So I say to you nerds: rather than invent an imaginary girlfriend, why not just buy a plastic one.

Lars introduces Bianca to his family and friends as a girl he met on the Internet. In Lars’ defense, they did "meet" on the Internet. There’s a paper trail confirming that he and Bianca "interacted" there. On the other hand, you my dear nerd, could not produce one shred of evidence that you and what’s-her-name had a summer fling at Space Camp.

Plastic Girlfriend 1 – Imaginary Girlfriend 0.

At the urging of the family doctor (Patricia Clarkson), Lars’ family and friends go along with it. She’s invited to dinners, social events and even has regular visits to the doctor. Those around Lars embrace Bianca because they know he’s delusional. In contrast, Imaginary Girlfriend isn’t invited to anything and is never embraced because those around you know you’re a total weirdo.

Lars’ brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and his wife (Emily Mortimer) not only treat Bianca like a real girl, but they treat Lars like a guy who has a girlfriend. Unlike your brother (Football Captain) and his wife (Prom Queen) who totally ignore your "girlfriend" and treat you like a guy who’s never touched a boob he didn’t accidentally bump into.

Plastic Girlfriend 2 – Imaginary Girlfriend 0.

The *sweet* story in the film is that the community rallies around the idea of Bianca to help Lars. As someone who clearly has lost his way – a spiritually nomadic geek, if you will – it’s almost as if Bianca is a tool to "fix" him.

The sad story in the average nerd’s life is that the community wants you to get help – as long as you get it somewhere else. A nerd’s relationship with "that girl from the ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Niagara Falls region" makes him seem like a tool that needs fixing.

Plastic Girlfriend 3 – Imaginary Girlfriend 0.

"Lars and the Real Girl" is literally a model for nerd-love everywhere. Chances are, most nerds are closer to this Lars than the great MC Lars of "Nerdcore Rising" fame – his lyrics probably land him girls that live and breathe.

But, short of being a witty lyricist who gets girls-in-the-flesh, your choice may some day come down to plastic vs. imaginary. I say, choose plastic. Hey, these things are not just anatomically correct these days – you can get one so life-like it will not only have sex with you, but will even stick around to listen to your theory on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ affect on Mid-East politics. And that, my friends, is pretty awesome.

My Affair with Technology: Technophile Lust and the iPhone

Last week Negin referenced the story of how I almost skipped my best friend’s wedding in order to buy the iPhone. This sounds like a joke but it’s actually embarrassingly true:

I think this is a question every young man faces at least once in his life: Should I skip my best friend’s wedding in order to wait in line for an expensive piece of consumer electronics?

I have answered variations on this question in the past: Do I skip my first love’s wedding to go to a free Death Cab show? Yes. Do I skip holidays with family in an attempt to bone exes and convince "friends with boyfriends" to become "friends with benefits?" Every Thanksgiving since I moved to New York. Do I feel guilty about it? Sorta kinda. When faced with a moral quandary, I have almost always done the wrong (i.e. socially unacceptable) thing.

It all started Monday June 11th 2007. All the neophiles, gadget freaks and Mac obsessives are frothing at the mouth. It’s the Apple World Wide Developers Conference and the question on everyone’s mind is "When are we getting our iPhones?"

The keynote speech by Steve Jobs (the closest thing to an address from the Pope for the Mac faithful) is slow and uneventful. We get One More Thing. Apple’s browser is now available for the PC. We snore. And then we get One Last Thing: The iPhone will be available June 29th at 6pm. The other iPhone news (lack of flash, lack of java, confirmation that 3rd generation wireless web will NOT be here) is disappointing and underwhelming but we have finally gotten the date this we will get this sexy little expected disappointment in our hot little hands.

I sit and ponder this after having skipped lunch to watch live blog coverage of the event. As I am dutifully downloading Safari for my work computer, it occurs to me that I will be on an island off the coast of Seattle at my friend’s rehearsal dinner when the iPhone launches . There isn’t cell phone reception there, much less cell phone stores.

I immediately IM a close friend about my predicament. What should I do? Should I arrive late, missing the dinner but securing the phone? Or should I finally stand up for a friend and deny my intense, burning technophile lust?

My friend points out that I have spent the last hour and a half complaining about how Apple has become more of marketing machine than a tech company, the way the Intel transition has made obvious how painfully slow their development is, and the many failings of the phone outlined above. I type "But come on, it’s the iPHONE!!!"

I proceed to IM another friend who usually supports me in my desire to purchase the newest and shiniest electronics. He says "Could your wedding date wait in line and buy one for you? " The thought has occurred to me, but I feel like it would be wrong to ask my date to take a ferry to the wedding late in order to be the first to have a toy I don’t need and can’t afford.

As the last two weeks passed more and more (mostly bad) details appeared. Then we learned the battery life and screen were better than originally announced. Some reports surface that the onscreen keyboard sucks and you can’t use songs as ringtones. Than we learn the data plans were incredibly cheap.

Somewhere in the middle of this, I decided I just didn’t care. My Treo is genius. I can write blog entries on it, check my email, and take phone calls. I’ve dropped it a thousand times and it keeps on ticking. And most of all, it doesn’t make me feel guilty for being a bad friend.

The second the wedding’s over though, I was going to skip out on the reception and find an internet connection, even if I had to swim to the mainland. How else would I read the first user reviews that are rolling in?

My resolve to not buy it lasted a whole two weeks. I’m like a junky and Apple was more than happy to give me my unhealthy fix… and my unhealthy fix of www.nerdcorerising.com, 24 hours a day. With it, I can request the greatest geek jerk-off documentary of all time while hanging out in any zip code, just by putting in my zip code… come on, I’m on team Nerdcore Rising! If I’m not plugging the film I’m not doing my duty.

Meet the Nerdcore Blogging Team

Hi, my names Mike D but I’m known by the Nerdcore Rising crew as DJDawgson.

Ok, not really. I’m just a behind-the-scenes tech support guy that stands in the long shadows cast by musical maestro MC Frontalot and power producer Negin Farsad.

I am every nerd. I am there at Thanksgiving when you try to explain to your grandparents what a systems engineer does ("you fix computers") I am there when your weekly phone call home becomes tech support instead of parental love. And I’m especially there when you bring a girl home (finally) only to hear her make an excuse and flee because she finds that life-size Halo diorama you’ve constructed in your bedroom. I’m there, in the closet, hiding…. er, I mean, I’m there in spirit. As in, I feel your pain, not that I’ve installed spy cameras throughout your house that stream video to a pay voyeur site called awkward-nerdhookups.com. Though I might be onto something.

For the next few months, I’ll be reporting from the front lines of nerd culture, as Negin and others on the Nerdcore Rising team keep us up-to-date with regular entires on the labor of love that is Nerdcore Rising.

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