A quick lesson, campers! I tend to call places by their native names. Particularly when it comes to city names. Afterall, there aren’t too many people who rename Seattle or Houston into Settleburg or Houstovski… if you catch my drift.

Americans are taught that the capitol of Romania is Bucharest. Well, not really. It’s close, though! I’m sure you have the mental capability of making small changes. You’ll end up pronouncing it correctly and the locals will like you better. Step up to the plate!

Bucureşti. “boo-koo-RESHT.”

That’s it! The first part sounds a little like the French word “beaucoup” while the last part sounds like the English word “rest” but with a “shh” sound (that’s what the ş with a tail signifies).

Say it once more. Bucureşti. “boo-koo-RESHT.” Yeehaw; you’re now a professional and can brag to all your friends in Bostonia or Santa Franny.

During recent Feats of Strength, I had the ShareRiff of Noddingham pinned to the floor and forced him to admit mindphasedly his fleeting interest in underground music of Romania. Aşa!

With the falling of the Iron Curtain, new voices with a very heavy American influence took center stage in Romania. One of the more interesting aspects was the widespread popularity of rap music across all of Eastern Europe.

Young people everywhere seemed to empathize with the underlying themes of the ‘economically disadvantaged’ present throughout much of the hip-hop genre. Poverty, crime, corruption, a disgusted rage against the sense of hopelessness: it all resonated.

The natural consequence was imitation, the sincerest form of flattery. Kids in ugly communist-built neighborhoods fantasized about being coming a rap superstar and living large in an escapist reaction to their surroundings.

Not unlike the streets of America, where each year a new hip-hop king climbs to the top of the pile for a couple years before being replaced by someone new… while the record companies make all the money.

Rising like a phoenix from the ashes of Pantelimon, one of the least desirable neighborhoods in Bucureşti (itself the already dilapidated, crime-ridden capital of Romania) came the voice of three homies in 1993 who brought originality and legitimacy to hip-hop street scene in the guise of the Bucureşti UnderGround Mafia.

BUG Mafia clearly studied both the rapmasters of the East Coast, like Run DMC and Public Enemy, as well as the hip-hop giants of the West Coast, including NWA and Ice-T. They learned from the best of the original kings of the street. Forget fake acts like Eninem or flavors of the month like Chingy! BUG Mafia based their initial hip-hop efforts on the old school innovators who built up the craft.

However, they did put their own unique stamp on it as you might expect. The soundscape and lyrical contents are definitely Romanian, yet still accessible to the American hip-hop fan. Basically, if you like rap, BUG Mafia has got the goods for you, dawg.

Topics run the gamut of standard street themes about poverty, women, crime, and police as well as the political highmindedness of their musical forebearers discussing the sickening corruption and national pride (an interesting twist which is opposite of its American heritage).

The beats are phat and they know how to keep rhythm. They’ve got a host of accompanying sound effects, from police sirens and human vocal noise to bells and whistles. The bass can rattle your subwoofer and make them girlies kula shake.

Ready to sample a few tracks? It’s hard to take any group who has been producing records for nearly 15 years and boil it all down to a few highlights, but that is the task we’re faced with y’all. Imperfect as the selections may be, wrap your ears around “Romania” a song with strong undercurrents of national pride and financial independence through the underground economy which was their first mega-hit and took them from relatively obscurity into superstardom.

After that, peep more recent jams like “Garda” about corrupt police and the black market for drugs, “Ridica-Ma La Cer” about the difficulties of life in their neighborhood and the self-confidence/ambition it takes to rise above which also features a female R&B chorus relief, or my personal favorite “Exces Pervers” (take a guess).

BUG Mafia – Romania [mp3]
BUG Mafia – Garda [mp3]
BUG Mafia – Ridica-Ma La Cer [mp3]
BUG Mafia – Exces Pervers [mp3]

(Congratulations! You are now an elite member of an international conspiracy of music pirates, which the Recording Industry Association of America screeches about publicly while lining the pockets of politicians to prevent free competition.)

(Heh. Okay, relax. “Of the people who’ve so far been attacked by the music industry since 2003, not one has been found guilty of anything…” On the other hand, buying a physical CD legally could get you into trouble!)

BUG Mafia eventually went on to MTV fame and promoted new acts like cross-genre Paraziţii (literally, “The Parasites” – a sort of hip-hop meets acoustic guitar combination with highly politicized, intelligent lyrics and government-banned videos who remains one of the most popular groups in all of Romania) which in turn spawned independent spin-offs by artists like Cheloo.

Sample of Parazitii [mp3]
Sample of Cheloo [mp3]

Of course, there are other underground and former-underground groups. Even somewhat anonymous underground music, such as some folks at a advertising design firm who put together a parody of Manele music with lyrics about what it’s like to slave away for peanuts working on projects for silly clients who know nothing about design.

Manele Advertising Parody [mp3]

What’s that? You’re Romanian and know another underground musical scene worth detailing? Kewl! Email me or post a response to this!

Meanwhile, back in the States… there is an anti-intellectual cretin bordering on criminally insane, by the name of John Gibson, who has been fanning the flames of ignorance and facism by claiming (in yet another book marketed during what should obstensibly be interpreted as a Faux News broadcast) that “Christmas is under attack.” (Yes, he literally has the audacity to compare a meaningless social trend toward inclusivity as being tantamount to actual physical violence on a grandiose scale such as the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center or the actions by the Nazi regime during World War II.)

This dolt literally believes that the Christmas holiday had something to do with Jesus, although educated people across the Western world already know that Christmas is the modern variation of Saturnalia and was co-opted by the then-obscure cult of Christianity in its attempt to appear familiar to prospective converts.

This televangelist appears regularly on his broadcast pulpit to indoctrinate his well-meaning, unsophisiticated audience with lies about the holiday Anti-Christ. Apparently, Satan has been secretly influencing folks to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” in recent decades. Supposedly, this is a direct benefit to conspiring non-Christians (i.e., evil Jews, devilish “Secularists” and untoward Muslims) and thereby undermines the (non-existant) link between Christ and Christmas.

You see, for most Americans, Christmas is more about holiday cheer, happy family moments, and a fat man in a red suit who brings presents to little kids. John Grinch Gibson believes in no such thing. He would like to confuse people into regurgitating falsehoods about the birth of Christ (which, incidentally, did not occur on nor near the Christmas holiday). Why? He’s a religious demagogue, of course.

There’s nothing offensive about saying “Happy Holidays!” By the same token, there’s no real reason to get offended by folks saying “Merry Christmas!’ either, since the connotation is obviously Santa for the majority and not Spanish Inquisition as some broadcasters foment. But there’s no need for TV personalities (please, let’s dispense with euphemisms like “journalist”) to get their feathers ruffled in pounding the podium for unity around any one particular winter holiday greeting (which is, of course, merely a thinly-veiled book advertisement which runs several times daily across multiple shopping shows on Fox).

Now that reason has been established and the Airing of Grievances is concluded, I would like to switch gears and wish you all a very Merry Festivus! The holiday for the rest of us!

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all…

…and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted Gregorian calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only “AMERICA” in the western hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee.

(By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.)

I know you’re not silly enough to pay hundreds of dollars for something as basic as Microsoft Office, when there is a free office suite available which is actually better. Go ahead and download the latest version of OpenOffice.org which was recently released.

Hint: After installation, open up any application — such as Writer, the replacement for MS Word — and go to Tools | Options. You’ll see the list of options and the first category “OpenOffice.org” is already expanded. Select “Java” (the last item). You’ll see a checkbox open is checked for “Use Java runtime environment.” Uncheck that. Your office suite will now load and run much faster. (A few relatively obscure features are temporarily disabled by doing this, but odds are 99% of you will never miss them.)

1 + 1 = 2