Mediaboss Marketing

"Say what?," a column that offers an insider's view of Montclair and goes behind the scenes of its politics, this week talks about the odd couple of Nia Gill and Montclair Councilman Roger Terry; how we kept Wellmont Theatre rave attendees warm; The Jackson 5's fundraiser; and Tom Moloughney's electric-car meet next month.

TIMES FILE PHOTO

We're waiting to see if state Sen. Nia Gill and Montclair At-Large Councilman Roger Terry will be perfect together on the same ticket in the June primary. Gill is running for deceased Congressman Donald Payne Sr.'s 10th District seat, while Terry would be 'bracketed' with her as an Essex County Sheriff candidate.

STAFF PHOTO BY ADAM ANIK

Skimpy neon-colored attire was the dress code for Thursday's rave event at the Wellmont Theatre.

Who'd a thunk it: Roger Terry and Nia Gill on the same ticket.

Well, it's not official yet. We guess we'll have to wait until Monday to see if Montclair At-Large Councilman Terry really wants to run for sheriff in Essex County, riding alongside Gill.

This week Terry paid a visit to the Essex County Clerk's Office in Newark, where he picked up petitions to run as sheriff in the June Primary Election. Terry, a former Montclair deputy police chief, has until 4 p.m. Monday to turn in petitions with 100 valid signatures to County Clerk Chris Durkin.

Sources said that Terry is teaming up with Gill, a Montclair resident and Democratic state senator for the 34th District, to be "bracketed' with her on the ballot in June. Gill, who is running for the late Congressman Donald Payne's 10th District seat, presumably, believes she has a better shot of getting votes if she has more than one candidate on her line on the ballot.

Much as we like Terry, who opted not to run for re-election on the Township Council, he and Gill have a Herculean task ahead. In the primary, they would be pitted against two candidates who have the imprimatur of the Essex "Dem" organization. We're talking about Newark Councilman Donald Payne Jr., who is running for his deceased dad's congressional seat, and incumbent Sheriff Armando Fontoura.

See more here:
Say what? Roger and Nia, clothing the Wellmont rave refugees, and the Jackson 5

In October 1992, nearly 1,000 music fans were arrested at a rave in Milwaukee's Third Ward, sparking a controversy about electronic dance music and its purported influence on young people. In those days, DJs spun records imported from Europe as crowds in warehouses danced until sunrise, glow sticks raised.

After the raid, promotional word about raves spread quietly. Flyers led to a hotline number, then a recorded message, then a secret meeting spot, where you'd get a map to a far-flung barn or campsite. The stealth gave the movement a thrilling quality. But as the media hyped the dangers designer drugs and fire hazards musical trends changed, sending EDM deep into the underground

Twenty years later, you can still attend a "rave" in Wisconsin, but it will be easy to find. A promoter will tweet about it, and it will take place at a public venue like the Alliant Energy Center, where on April 13, the electronic artist Bassnectar will crank out party bangers and inventive remixes of tunes by dance-pop darling Ellie Goulding and gypsy punks Gogol Bordello.

Many of the genre's visual elements are the same as they were in the 1990s, but they're bigger and brighter, with laser lights, fog and projected images that make mouths gape as thousands of bodies writhe to the rhythms of dubstep, electro house and other varieties of EDM. If you go to the Bassnectar show, look for a crowd writhing ecstatically in a stew of bleeps and bloops, waving their hands amid a miasma of confetti.

Dance till dawn

EDM's popularity is booming. After performing mash-ups at UW-Madison's student union five years ago, Girl Talk now fills the Alliant Energy Center's 6,000-capacity Exhibition Hall. Bassnectar will likely do the same. He played the tiny King Club in 2007 and the Majestic Theatre in 2009.

Some fans who've experienced both rave scenes swear they're similar. Matt Fanale, a local music fan who DJs under the name Eurotic, says a new generation of concertgoers wants to dress in neon and dance till dawn. To him, this is evidence that music trends come in 20-year cycles, and that the motivation to party is the same as it ever was.

"At rock shows, you're singing and screaming along, but you're not necessarily dancing," he says. "With a DJ, you don't have to watch what's onstage. You can pay more attention to the other people who are there and feel a real connection to them for a few hours."

Fanale suspects that the sluggish economy has fueled attendance at live electronic shows. "With the world as depressing as it has been lately, people want to lose themselves with thousands of others. It's more fun to be happy than angry," he says.

The paradoxically isolating nature of social media also plays a role, according to DJ Nick Nice, who helped launch the Midwest rave scene in the early 1990s after spinning records at Queen, a Paris club where David Guetta curated the music. "Facebook is such a solitary experience. It's basic human nature to want to be social, and listening to music with thousands of other people reminds you that you're not alone, even when the world seems to be falling apart," he says.

See the rest here:
A new wave of rave: Electronic dance music gets the party started, 2012-style

30-03-2012 13:38 Subscribe! Follow Us On Twitter Become a Real Fan You can follow Joshua on Twitter @theJovenshire Sega is cutting some titles and restructuring their company a bit. They will also be concentrating more on the digital content as well.

Read the original here:
Sega is Cutting Games and Losing Money - Video

30-03-2012 14:36 Twenty-Five Year-Old Houston Texans running back Arian Foster talks to the WSJ's Lee Hawkins about his new five-year $43.5 million contract, a new endorsement deal with Under Armour, and the fact that, until recently, he earned more money off-the-field than he did running touchdowns.

Read more from the original source:
NFL Star Arian Foster On Raking In Endorsements - Video

anna mehler paperny From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published Friday, Mar. 30, 2012 10:29PM EDT Last updated Friday, Mar. 30, 2012 10:39PM EDT

Pity the penny: In the past 15 years its lost its copper, its usage and its cost-effectiveness the butt of jokes and bane of neat freaks well before its end became official in Thursdays federal budget.

Despite its lowly monetary status, the penny is a high-maintenance bit of metal. It is by far the most expensive Canadian coin to produce, relative to its value. At a cost of a little over 1.6 cents per penny, its the only piece of currency in the country that now costs more than its value to make.

While the news of the pennys phase-out came as a surprise even to the Royal Canadian Mint, the analysts and coin-crafters in charge of Canadas money say theyve known for years its days were numbered.

Penny evolution

The pennies immortalized in overused sayings were primarily of the copper variety. But Canadas modern one-cent piece bears little resemblance to that traditional composition.

Originally 95.5-per-cent copper in 1908, the penny went from 98-per-cent copper in 1996 to 98.4-per-cent zinc and 1.6-per-cent copper plating in 1997. Its now 94-per-cent steel, 1.5-per-cent nickel and 4.5-per-cent copper plating or copper-plated zinc. With the price of copper rising, it just doesnt make financial sense to use the metal on such small-fry currency.

Apart from drastic changes in its makeup, however, the pennys surface design on the tails side has barely changed since 1937, when G.E. Kruger-Gray made the twig-and-maple-leaf thats on todays coins (if youre really bored, take a close look at those leaves: His initials are in teensy font on the right).

A familiar face

Susanna Blunt remembers seeing the first penny she designed, in a fistful of change while grocery shopping in the fall of 2003.

Continued here:
Penny's demise signals an empire in decline, some say