A view from the Peking deck

​By divine intervention or monkey's paw or just some genius marketing department work (bias fully acknowledged), the VIP area of yesterday's 4Knots Festival was the entire Peking ship, a four-mast barque with a steel hull the size of a football field. There weren't bathrooms on the boat, though, so breaking the seal was a dangerous proposition: the toilets were two Port-a-Potties aligned stage left; braving the line required commitment. Fortunately, some of you managed to fill the time by striking up conversations with attractive strangers. One of you even had such a nice flirtation that you posted a Missed Connection this morning at 8 about it. It's really cute!

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​We've talked before about Our Show, Elliot Aronow's live-action, TV Party-reviving talk show conducted first in the basement of Santos Party House and then later on YouTube, where edited clips eventually trickle out. Earlier this year, SOTC pals Das Racist appeared on the show, doing a tore-up, deconstructed cover of the Beastie Boys's "Sabotage." They also sat down for an interview, the clip of which Aronow sends along today. The subject? Racist questions. You will not be surprised to learn that the three dudes in Das Racist have answers. Topics include the group taking credit for MGMT's "Kids," whether Lady Gaga is a member of the illuminati, Roger Ebert's black wife, and the five elements of hip-hop (street fashion, street fashion, street fashion, street fashion, and the movie The Fifth Element). You can watch it right here:

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Perhaps you recall local rap group Das Racist's disastrous-cum-triumphant stand at Cameo Gallery back in early February, when the duo "performed" the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique by alternately rapping along to the CD and antagonizing the crowd by just sort of lying supine on the stage, not doing very much at all? Depending on where you sat, it was either pretty effective performance art or a complete disaster (even the media was split, ahem)--but as we said then, and say again now, the idea that something had occurred that was anything but what was supposed to have occurred was crazy. And, in a clever little gesture to the haters, Das Racist stopped by Elliot Aronow's live-action public-access TV Party-revival Our Show recently--perhaps you remember the clip from an earlier show that circulated last week with comedian Max Silvestri "interviewing" Ted Leo?--to do the Beasties' "Sabotage." Well, we might add. Like, really well.

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