It’s peevish enough the extent to which commercial political media crushes so heavy on a politician’s perceived “flip flops,” roundly denouncing any slight shift in opinion and.or policy positioning as horribly offensive/hillariously mockable pussyfooting*.

But are reporters really going to start spending a lot of time drawing wildly unjustified conclusions from minute changes to political websites? As if slight revisions made to website copy offers stunning insight into a politician’s unprincipled soul; the magic of Google Cache herein utilized as the deus ex machina of dickish reporting.

* “Pussyfooting” pops up so commonly in polite writing, it clearly must have evolved from pussy as cat rather than pussy meaning vag, which totally makes the word a lot less useful.

I’m having a hard time figuring out whether or not these Brooke Shields VW ads are deliberately riffing off her well-publicized struggle with postpartum depression:

Women everywhere are having babies just to get a new Volkswagen minivan.

It’s a joke, yes, and, har har, potentially a funny were it presented by, I dunno, Lori Loughlin. But Brooke Shields had a very public struggle with a terrible disease, a debilitating depression centered around the overwhelming feeling that having a baby ruined her life.

I highly highly doubt these ads are intended to be taken in this way, but, then…why Brooke Shields?

I just can’t stop thinking about it: the horror of her condition, the sadness of the isolation, all brought to bear by the televised dramatization of Brooke Shields’ postpartum thoughts, as she stared aimlessly out the window, day in and day out, contemplating suicide and wrestling with immense self-loathing and a frightening indifference to her newborn child.

Man, I really shouldn’t have had a baby just to get a new Volkswagon.

Drawing attention to and normalizing postpartum depression was certainly a wonderful thing for Brooke Shields to do (as was making Tom Cruise look like a total dweebus). So good on Brooke for that.

But these ads just make me sad and somewhat panic-stricken. Which is totally not the mood I tend to be in before I buy cars.

(It probably would have been more effective for Shields to riff off of Suddenly Susan, thus leaving viewers feeling nostalgic and slightly annoyed, a much more consumeristic state of mind.)

The Bridge is New York City’s #1 spot for old school hip hop. Saturdays at 11:00 PM on NYC TV (Channel 25, Cablevision 22)

Continuing in our season-long tribute to the legendary Video Music Box, tomorrow’s episode of The Bridge dips into hip hop’s Golden Era, 1987 to 1990.

Featuring: exclusive vintage interviews with Heavy D & the Boyz (1987) and Al B Sure! (1987), live performances by Public Enemy (1989), Biz Markie (1989) and KRS-One (1988), and classic videos by Big Daddy Kane, EPMD, and Eric B & Rakim.

The Golden Era is the greatest era of hip hop, it’s golden, and by greatest and golden I mean in the sense of the aesthetic and/or intellectual. Because, to be frank, though the Golden Era is universally lauded as the best era of hip hop, it’s not necessarily everyone’s favorite era.

Which isn’t to say Golden Era hip hop isn’t stand-alone amazing, because it absolutely is. Rakim is fucking ill, KRS-One live on stage will light your house on fire and punch you in the face (tomorrow’s episode of The Bridge has the craziest live footage of KRS performing South Bronx and Criminal Minded. Insane.)

But the Golden Era isn’t exactly what I reach for on the iPod in a walk through Prospect Park or a ride on the subway. That would generally be some early 90s proto-street era stuff; Tribe and Nas, Gangstarr and Stakes is High.

It’s a bit like jazz: everyone can go around saying Miles Davis Bitches Brew is the greatest jazz album of the 60s and 70s, but when you’re reaching for a record on an early Sunday morning, you’re much more likely to land on…I dunno, Winchester Cathedral? Bitches Brew is just too g.d. good to listen to. It’s legendary, it’s unreal.

Hip Hop works the same way. Bring the Noise is easily the crowning cultural achievement of the 20th century, but, man, I can’t listen to it everyday. It’s too good, too legendary. I’m happy enough just knowing it’s out there.

Which isn’t to say people shouldn’t watch tomorrow’s episode, ooobviously. How else could you know it’s out there without a local television show broadcasting visual evidence??

sam·pling (sām’plĭng): the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song.

The Sunday Sample: A new series in which The Daily Squid digs through the YouTube crates in search of some of the hottest breaks of hip hop’s Golden Era.

Gang Starr – Just to Get a Rep

Who knew a pioneering French electro-music producer was behind one of the hardest-hitting street anthems of the early 90s (among many more)?

He did it just to get a baguette