whatitdo

Anti-Semite Watch: #3

2011-09-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

I've been a way for quite some time. With a brief exception of a posting a few photos celebrating America's victory over the No Football enemy, it has been over a year since I have chimed in about rap music, Milwaukee, movies, or everything else in life. And this is not to say amazing things haven't occurred in those four categories. But, dear readers, it is shameful, tragic, and heartbreaking to return to this website to report that once again the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism has reared its ugly head.
You must be thinking, looking at the news today that surely the Egyptians and Jordanians storming the Israeli embassies forcing the evacuation of Israeli diplomats is strictly a protest against Israel and such behavior should never be confused with anti-Semitism. But I'm not even speaking of that. No, this incident occurred in America the Great. The land of the free.

LOCATION: South 4th Bar & Café
Brooklyn, NY

Date: Sept 2. 11:54 pm

Description of Incident:

I met up with my friend Devin to have a drink. While I haven't had the pleasure of knowing Devin for too long, one can usually assume based on the quality of one's character that their friends will be of similar ilk. Devin and I drank a beer, watched some sports highlights, and soon his friends began to arrive. At first they seemed like a good bunch of people. I spoke with all of them, and they seemed no different than anyone else our age. At one point, they even ordered food and offered to share some of it with me. I was delighted. And not just because I was able to partake in their nachos, but because by sharing their food it made me feel accepted. It made me feel like I was one of the groups.

How wrong I was.

One of Devin's friends had a friend in from out of town. Becky seemed like a nice enough girl. She was from Chicago and we started talking all about the midwest and our times living in Chicago. She then told me where she was from. She named a suburb I was vaguely familiar with. I then asked her if that was near Des Plains, a western suburb. She said, no actually it's a southern suburb. I apologized and said, "I don't know why I thought it was near Des Plains. I guess I'm really only familiar with the north shore suburbs."

Her response, "Well that figures."
I was shocked.

I asked, "what, what figures? Why does that figure?”
She just laughed. And tried to act cute, hoping her sudden charm would erase my memory of our exchange. But I persisted, I wanted her to say it.
"No for real, why does that figure."
She only laughed more.
I told her that I knew the northern suburbs cause they were the ones closest to Milwaukee, and all the times I'd drive down to Chicago, I would see the exit signs for these burbs on the interstate.
After all, what other possible reason would a person ever have to think I would be more familiar with the north shore of Chicago than any other suburban area? But alas, it was to no use.
She laughed again and it wasn't cute at all.

As August Bebel once said, "Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools." I would add ugly to that.

VERY IMPORTANT

2011-07-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

WE DID IT!!!!
FOOTBALL IS BACK!!!!!

Fat Joe

2010-08-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

Fat Joe used to be something different. Coming out of the Bronx in the early 90's Fat Joe's first two albums didn't sound all that different from Big L's Lifestyles of the Poor and Infamous. Not that Joe was on that level lyrically. No way, but his songs were similar in content and organization. A lot of boom-bap beats, songs about roughing dudes up with your hands, a lot of my rap skills are comparable to various types of illegal weapons, and a few punchlines sprinkled in here and there for good measure. Don't get me wrong, Fat Joe was no Big L, not even close. But, his early albums still managed to capture a similar vibe.

To go back and look at some of the videos from the start of his career, particularly "Flow Joe" is an exercise in early-90's rap archeology. Watching this video is unearthing a lost world of a pre-jiggy-with-it era where everybody stood on a freezing rooftop somewhere in the outer boroughs bobbing their heads to the beat. Fat Joe is in the middle of his huge entourage, pointing out his boys and telling us all 93 is going to be the year of the fat man.

In the years since, the snowy rooftop became a Miami mansion. His goon squad morphed into a harem of women, and his wardrobe transitioned from stylish yet functional winter wear to an absurd puffy and feathery blue hooded vest. And instead of mean mugging the camera, for Fat Joe's coup de grace in We Thuggin, he leaps, fully clothed in said puffy and feathery blue hooded vest, into a gigantic pool.

Clearly, times have changed. Fat Joe aimed a whole slew of songs at the ladies and unfortunately, a bit of his thuggish and ruggish side went unnoticed. I'm speaking only about his music, not his character. It's long been established Fat Joe is a dude that ran and probably still rolls with some real life killers. Killers as in people who have actually killed people. He's not a dude to be fucked with. After 50 went at him back in 2005, he claimed, in a XXL cover issue no less, that no rapper has more street credibility than Fat Joe. A claim I thought was a little outlandish until I noticed no one dared question him. He's one of the few rappers to be questioned in a murder investigation, actually, two murder investigations. Complex just put together a nice series on Fat Joe's top ten physical altercations, and some of them are amazing. Aside from busting numerous dudes over the head, Joey Crack managed to get into it with Roy Jones Jr, who stepped to Joe after hearing Joey drop his name in the New York Remix.

According to Fat Joe, he told Roy Jones, "I know you can swing on me. You're the champion of the world. But you're not going to leave this club." And Jones didn't swing, the champion of the world held back from knocking out a very large rapper. Says something right there about the weight dude carries.

But back to the music. The same way Joe kept his name in the street, unfettered by all his radio hits and lady oriented joints, he has kept his music there for anyone who cares enough to dig a little bit deeper into his albums. You listen to some of the deeper cuts and realize, Fat Joe now is the same Fat Joe Da Gangsta from his first albums, he's not the dude that made What's Love. In a lot of ways, What's Love and all his radio singles gave Joey a chance to keep making his harder tracks, to keep being himself.

And in doing so, he's kept up a tremendous work ethic, this being his tenth solo album. And on the subject of his work ethic, Fat Joe has consistently improved his own rapping abilities. Starting off with a more shouting to the crowd style, you can tell his work with Big Pun forced him to step his own rap game up quite a bit. Instead of just a few punchlines, his rhymes got a bit deeper, and his flow more varied.

This of course brings us to his new album, The Darkside. It's nothing short of fantastic. For starters, it's short, 13 tracks clocking in shy of 45 minutes. Even better, it's not filled to capacity with guest appearances. There's a few rappers that drop by, but they all contribute to the song, you never get the feeling Fat Joe is rapping on someone else's track. The production is tight, and more importantly, it fits with the vibe of the album. Even with a bunch of different producers, the overall feel music conveys the same feel throughout the whole album. And Fat Joe kills it. He sounds hungry to make a filler-less album and he does. He comes hard (pause) every song, never gets lazy, and never lets the beats do more work to carry the song than his vocals. Alright, let's get to it.

Unkut - Ten Fat Joe Songs You Missed

intro

check the last line

kilo - feat the clipse and cam'ron

slow down - feat. young jeezy

pure fire

The Sad State of The Anti-Defamation League

2010-08-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Mr. Foxman took a righteous beating in an exchange with Peter Beinhart in the New York Review of Books. Beinhart took Foxman to task over the failure of the American Jewish left to speak out against Israeli aggression. But at the heart of his piece was a frustration with the current state of the ADL as a whole.

To see the ADL, one of the primer organizations in the world to target bigotry, oppression, and discrimination all people lose some of its street cred is devastating. The ADL has always been so much more than a New York based Diaspora outfit aimed at Jewish self-protection. It's goals have always been much higher, it's reach has always stretched so much further. But it's main goal, it's charter is has never been too complicated. Stop all hate. Stop all discrimination. Stop all intolerance.

Granted, they've stepped up to Nazi's and the Klan, two opponents a Jewish group should wisely put first. But they didn't shy away from Father Charles Coughlin or Henry Ford at a time when their words, hate, and intolerance seemed a lot more American than the acceptance the ADL demanded. And when the rest of America wanted to speak out, but worried their names would be on McCarthy's list and waved in front of congress, the ADL was there, screaming from the mountaintops.

And now, the ADL has its sights on intelligent design and creationism, arguing in court teaching such nonsense is a clear infringement on the separation of Church And State. In Arizona, the ADL has fought what it argues is an unconstitutional and racist set of laws and taken on the Minutemen, even though we all know type to walk the desert with guns aimed at Mexicans would probably be happy to point em at the Jews too.

But then, in 2007, Abraham Foxman, the then and current head of the ADL did something funny. The Armenians, long seeking recognition of the genocide committed against them in WWI, finally managed to get a bill to Congress asking for just that. Only that. Foxman came out against it, saying the ADL had no place getting somewhere between Congress, the Armenians, and the Turks. He said the Turks and the Aremians need to seriously revisit their history and likened the ADL's intrusion into the issue as an "unwelcome diversion." And though this may be the case, it was the wrong stance for the organization--an organization devoted to protecting civil rights and ending intolerance--to take.

Things continue to spin off course with all sorts or Israel related tomfoolery. Foxman guided the ADL into embracing the views of the country's right wing and has shown a complete lack of empathy to the plight of the Palestinians.

Which brings us to today. Foxman, for some reason no one, decided to throw his hat into the ring and tell the world what the ADL thinks about putting a mosque up at ground zero. Out of nowhere, Foxman has ignored everything the ADL stands for and opposed the building of the mosque. The gist of his stance is in the following quote:

"In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain--unnecessarily--and that is not right."

And the thing is, Foxman is absolutely correct about this. Building an Islamic Center will in fact cause a great deal of pain to victims families. Foxman correctly added survivors (and their family members) have a right to irrational emotions. And I agree with Foxman, and I feel for the families. I feel for the irrationality, and I fully believe they are entitled to wild emotions and illogical grief.

The problem is, the ADL is not their advocate. As Marc Tracy put it, the ADL "is not to advocate for survivors’ rights; it is to advocate (as its mission statement says) for “democratic ideals” and “civil rights.” With this decision, Foxman allowed his personal beliefs to steer the ADL in the opposite direction of its charter and chip away at the ADL’s legacy of promoting tolerance.

Is the desire to build a mosque at Ground Zero a provocation? Is accepting the proposal proof of just how open-minded and all inclusive America is? Is there no current place for the ADL in this debate?

But Foxman can’t keep the ADL out. And in process, the organization has changed. Once a groundbreaking institution aimed at tackling hatred world-wide, we now have a Jewish group with a singular goal: protect the Jews.

It’s hearbreaking. Because the very existence of the ADL kept a long-standing tradition of left-wing Jewish activism. It's very existence proved a central tenant to modern Judaism was the restless pursuit of human rights for all people. It showed the passion of the Jewish people to learn from their own history oppression and help end it for all other people. It is not enough to end anti-Semitism, all hatred must be eliminated. And it is this idea that every Jew with half a mind for history must keep alive. And no matter what the ADL does, by ignoring this idea, we are not protected and the ADL will fail on all counts. To ignore it is to fail to protect us as a people. It is to turn a blind eye to our history and show a lack of vision for our future.

Movie Review: Harry Brown

2010-07-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

Harry Brown: Loved it, but not as much as Andy.

And speaking of Andy, I couldn't help notice a few similarities and a couple major differences between him and Harry Brown. Let's take a look:

1. Both Harry Brown and Andy are cursed with the plague of our times; asthma. But believe it or not, Harry Brown is not as good as keeping track of his inhaler as Andy. I take personal pride in this as I always touch Andy's pockets to make sure he has it on him before he exerts himself. Pause

2. Both men have their breaking points.
For Harry Brown, it's when a bunch of local no-good drug dealers kill his friend.
For Andy, it was when a bunch of non-local skinheads acted the fool during a showing of American History X.

3. Dislike of white condiments
In the morning, Harry Brown puts jam and jam alone on his toast. This habit stays, as throughout the film we never see him use sour cream, mayo, or cream cheese on anything.
Andy goes so far as to put butter on a bagel, as he considers cream cheese to be a white condiment. (instead of a spread)

4. Reliance on skills learned a long time ago
Harry Brown, once a member of the British Army, relies on his old skills and training to get back into the mind frame to murder people.
Andy studied French as a young child and helped me with some vocabulary words when I lived in Montreal.

5. Use of bags
Harry Brown puts a lot of guns he steals into bag and carries the bag around with him.
Andy has never been seen carrying a bag.

As you can see, these two are a lot more alike than one may think. Although Andy neither uses bags or commits murder, they so share many similarities.

Sean Price

2010-07-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. Perhaps I should just post a clip and not write about anything?

Country Rap Tunes

2010-06-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, the summer. As if there needed to be a seasonal excuse to listen to some down home style great rap music. No excuse, no yearly time is best, but, there is something about the heat, about driving around with open windows blasting country-fried rap tunes on a a hot as hell day that just makes it all feel so right. It's just great listening weather.

Now the uninitiated ask, what are Country Rap Tunes? Short answer: basically any song the late, great Pimp C would declare to be a Country Rap Tune. Short description: southern, usually more organic sounding beats, leaning more towards live instrumentation, sometimes an organ, sometimes a sung hook, sometimes none of this applies. Except the southern part, but that only applies 95 percent of the time. For those of you finding your way here from www.borntobenervous.blogspot.com, I'll describe the music putting forth the same down home, back porch type good vibes--although with a slightly different aesthetic--that's you'd get from listening to King Harvest or Rockin' Chair or anything else off The Band's second album.
Let's not get it twisted, it doesn't mean country singers rapping, or rappers singing country. That's not it at all. Big K.R.I.T. lays it out pretty well on the first track, and it should give you a general idea of the musical and lyrical themes that follow.

Please enjoy

1. Country Shit - Big K.R.I.T.
2. Straight Cadillac Pimping - 8Ball MJG
3. Still Throwing D's - Rich Boy feat. Ray Cash
4. Lacville '79 - Devin The Dude
5. Bump And Grill - UGK feat. N.O. Joe
6. How Does It Feel To Ya - Coo Coo Cal
7. From The South - Z-Ro
8. Money And The Power - Scarface
9. Burbons And Lacs - Master P
10. County Bounce - Freddie Gibbs
11. N Luv Wit My Money - Paul Wall and Chamillionaire
12. Be Easy - T.I.
13. The Pimp And The Bun - UGK feat. Ronald Isely
14. Rick Ross Horns - E-40 feat Mary James
15. Backyard Mississippi - Goodie Mob feat. 8Ball
16. Seven Tre - Jackie Chain
17. Smoke On - ESG
18. Ball N' Parlay - Big Pokey feat Lil Keke, Mr. 3-2, and Big Moe
19. Ballers - Gucci Mane feat. Shawnna

Download Here

Kept it to the length of one cd.

40 Years Ago Today

2010-06-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

Oil leaks, flotillas, North vs. South Korea getting ready to roll, Al and Tipper Gore calling it quits, guess which one directly relates to Ice-T?

Here's a clue: "you think I give a fuck about some silly bitch named Gore? Yo PMRC, here we go: WAR"

In 1989, Ice-T released his third album, "The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech." On it, he railed against Tipper Gore, then head of the PMRC, whose sole contribution to America was the Parental Advisory Sticker, which I sincerely thank her for. Without it, I would not have been able to figure out which cd's had swear words and were therefore worthy of being in my collection*. It's actually amazing to look back and think I bought this album, and many, many more with the sticker on them at such a young age. I had to be 11 when I bought this and the Soundtrack to Juice, both great, and both with a few messages an 11 year old boy needed to hear. I remember MC Pooh's Sex Money And Murder off the Juice Soundtrack, the chorus, "sex from your bitch, money from the crack, murder is a hobby that I had since way back," it just kinda sticks in that eleven-year old brain.

But I digress, Ice-T's Iceberg/Freedom of speech. On it, Ice-T not only continues his to rhyme with vivid detail about drug dealing, pimping, bizarre sexual situations, how good he is at rapping, but he also adds censorship to the list of myriad topics. And he makes a classic album out of it. Unlike Luke, who more or less stumbled into his own 1st Amendment related controversy and played it out for album sales, Ice-T was angry. And listening to this album again, not only can you hear his outrage, but lurking deep in some of the songs lays a brooding sense of doom. There is a sincerity to his rage that shows his fear for the future of American self-expression. Have no illusions about the character or Ice-T in the rap world, he is not that guy on this album, he takes a step sideways, still playing the role of the gangster on some songs, but throughout the whole album, he remains an artist deeply fearful of the governments willingness and ability to censor his output.

The opening track, a spoken word piece by Jello Biaffra, sets the tone for the album by imagining a near-futuristic society under totalitarian rule with no self-expression. It's a little extreme, but this is an album full of extremes. On a skit called Black N' Decker, Ice-T and crew imagine what it would sound like to drill a hole through somebody's head, beating Wu-Tang to the punch ont he whole, spoken skits about how to torture a dude by five years. On the sex exploits songs, Ice-T seems to be more offensive than anything he's done before, Girls LGBNAF sounds like it's about holding hands compared to his story about what he and this girl did on a broken sky lift.

In many ways, he's pushing it as far as it can go, but it never comes off as too offensive. There's been a lot of rappers with a hell of a lot of charisma, but no one, no one, had charisma like Ice-T back then. On one song, he tell Columbus Georgia that "they aint a nothing but a fucking piece of shit on the damn map" with such anger you can't help turning down the stereo, but later, on "My Word Is Bond" he and his buddies are rapping and bragging about money and respect with such tenderness, you want to be in the room with them. Ice-T never looses his humor, telling us:

The other day I spent a million on a def gold chain
It weighted thirty nine pounds, my name plate the same
I put it on, it was too heavy
So I hired me this brother to wear for me
One night, we was out chillin, he and I minus crew
I was held at gun point by a thug's .22
But when I told him that I was the L.A. player Ice-T
The brother robbed somebody else and brought the money to me
You might think I'm lyin' but man, you're wrong
As I told you before, my word is bond.

And finally, if you don't follow Ice-T on twitter you should. Two great incidents:
1) Aimme Mann tweeted something to the effect of "Christ, there is no reason in the world anyone should ever have cast Ice T in a television show." Ice-T replied, "Hey @aimeemann stop worry bout my acting bitch, and worry about your WACK ass music. In the mean time...Eat a hot bowl of dicks!" Then, just to let us know, Ice T tweeted to all his followers he hit her with a "HEAD SHOT!"

2) After hearing the news about the Gores Ice-T tweeted "Tipper Gore. Hahahahahaha! Kick rocks bitch!!" Then a few tweets later compared disgraced career to that of Charlton Heston and former and now deceased LA police cheif (who presided over CRASH, operation Hammer, and the LA Riots Daryl Gates.

*I'm curious, I always thought the design of the sticker to convey exactly the meaning of the sticker. Let's let justinthomaskay get into that one.

Gucci's Home

2010-05-12T18:26:00.001-07:00

Gucci got released from the Fulton County Jail after getting six months shaved off his sentence for good behavior. Let's not forget Gucci is one of the few rappers that has actually killed a man and was lucky enough to have the charges dropped. He also punched the shit out of a woman who bum rushed him on stage in 2007, but nothing ever came of that. His latest bid was for probation violation, specifically failure to keep up with his required community service hours. The logic of going to jail for that, when you've already gotten away with killing a man befuddles me.

Whatever, who cares. He's out, which means instead of releasing two mixtapes every ten days like he did behind bars, we can expect at least 16 a month.

Here's what it looked like the last time Gucci got out of jail. Scroll ahead two minutes.

GUCCI MANE WELCOME HOME CONCERT!!! from Urban News Network on Vimeo.

Keeping it real in Greece

2010-05-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Me in Athens

Never mind rampant government spending, never mind the creation of more than a million public sector jobs, never mind salary increases of more than 60 percent for government jobs across the board, never mind widespread tax evasion, never mind building of the fucking Olympics with money you didn't have.

The Greeks don't care their government joined the Euro, saw the low interest rate and realized they could gorge themselves the buffet of free (but borrowed) money. The Greeks didn't care when this money went for public works projects, massive government waste, and their own pay raises.

But what do they care about? What are they mad about? ZEEEE GERMANS

Why be mad at Germany? Two reasons:

1) Because they didn't respond quickly enough when the country's economy first started deteriorating which somehow makes the economic crisis Germany's fault.
2) Because they are Nazis.

This is too good to be true. You can't make it up.
Here's the quote from Spiros Ginis:

"We lost a lot of people fighting the Nazis," This is why we are disappointed that at the beginning the Germans refused to give us money"
But, Spiros Ginis the greatest Greek (pause) since Spyros Skouras continues, "We are proud because we did not create two world wars with more than 50 millions deaths."

Damn Spiros, you hurting em! That quote alone is worthy of a 140 billion Euro bailout. Make the check out to Mr. Ginis.

Other photos from my trip to Greece

In Mykonos:

Me on the isle of Crete:

U.N.L.V. feat B.G. - Pocket Full Of Furl

2010-05-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

Quick thoughts:
1. BG is 15 years old and rapping about heroin addiction.
2. To all my dudes at the Langdon or Statesider right now listening to Herbie Hancock's Headhunters in your little dorm room, you need to pop this one in right after Watermelon Man.

Sean Price

2010-04-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

“I’m in a whole different space bitch andromeda/battlestar galactic get the ratchet i will llama ya”

See also One
One box of baking soda, one package of coke
One pyrex pot and that's all she wrote
One episode of The Wire now you know about dope?

Last Night's Treme

2010-04-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

"Great as David Simon’s series have all been, Treme underlines his weakness for painting those outside the show’s generously considered inner circle with too broad and too contemptuous a brush. And make no mistake: As viewers, we’re very much on the outside here. There are times when I worry I’m simply not cool enough to hang out with Treme. It gets mad when I neglect it, but it isn’t happy with my interest, either. Because no matter how hard you try, you’re never gonna be New Orleans enough for it. (The New Yorker’s Nancy Franklin puts it more succinctly: “The series virtually prohibits you from loving it, while asking you to value it.”)
--Scott Tobias

And for cliff notes on every single moment of every episode, go to this great blog.

Guru

2010-04-22T17:16:00.001-07:00

Let's go back sometime between 2003 and 2004, a friend of mine had a job at Comedy Central and through a connection there, he got a shot to interview with Dave Chappelle to be a writer's assistant on the "Chappelle's Show."

After spending an appropriate amount of time discussing just how cool the prospect of working on the show was, just how great of a break through it would be for him, and just how amazing it was to be presented with such a great opportunity, we turned towards interview. What would it be like? What would Dave Chappelle ask? What would you say to Dave Chappelle? How can you stop being a fan and be a man who needs a job?

And this eventually went into, "what if he asks me what kind of music I listen to? I mean, I'll say hip-hop, cause that's true, that's what I listen to, but..." Of course the real question was what do you tell Dave Chappelle, as a suburban white kid whose been listening to hip-hop since day one to prove that you are exactly that, a suburban white kid who grew up listening to all styles of hip-hop since you first started listening to music.

And of course, being the over thinking, intellectually lazy white-guilt laced liberal young adults we were (and still are) we felt it was important not to be able to pick a favorite album or artist that fell somewhere in between mainstream popularity and bowels of the hip-hop underground. Something not too obvious but not too obscure. It was easy not to pick something too popular, Juveniles 400 Degrees wasn't gonna make the cut, but the obscure thing was an issue. It was clear that Tim Dog's Penicillin On Wax was just screaming out, "I'M PICKING THIS BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO KNOW VERY CLEARLY THAT I HAVE KNOW A LOT ABOUT THE RAP MUSIC BECAUSE I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO IT FOREVER," but what about his former group The Ultramagnetic MC's Critical Beatdown? Did that say the same thing?

And it hit us (me to be honest) "Moment of Truth." Here was an album perfect for our purposes. Not the biggest seller of all time, and not an I-know-more-about-underground-hip-hop-than-you album either. It's not just a serious contender for best hip-hop album of all time, but a hip-hop litmus test. To own this album said a lot about you and your tastes. (good) And to NOT own it said even more. (moron) It's too bad we never got to test the theory, the interview never happened, my friend went on to find success elsewhere writing screenplays, Chappele went off the air, and Guru died two days ago.

Let's go back to Spring, 1998, when Moment of Truth, the album that proves you know what the fuck you're talking about came out. Back when people still bought cds, there was that special feeling of unwrapping it, putting it in, hearing the first song, and just knowing the whole goddamn album was gonna be spectacular. Similar to feeling you get at 17 years old blasting The Militia till you eardrums bleed while making a right off Green Tree to speed down Jean Nicolet.

Now let's go back to a time when talking and proving just how good a certain rap song was a lot more difficult. In the last ten years, the world at large has accepted hip-hop and gained a lot of knowledge. For all the shit rap you hear, the average dude does know more these days about what makes a good beat, and how a good flow sounds. Back then, it wasn't so easy.

But with Gang Starr things were different. You could talk about them in a far more intellectual way with any level of rap fan. To a casual hip-hop ear, the intricacies of the beat on Above The Clouds. To a hardcore dude, a debate on whether or not The Militia could be considered a posse track. (I've actually witnessed this very debate) And everyone in between can spend years dissecting Guru's flow on DWCK.

Now I'm going back to 2000. Gang Starr came to Madison, Wisconsin and killed it at the Orpheum. It was an odd thing, a one-off show in the middle of nowhere for them, but they came, and set it the fuck off. To this day, it was the single best rap related event I have ever attended. Premier put in work, actually performing duties on the turntables most at that time left for the DAT. Guru never lost his breath, always stayed right on top of the beat, and only had Premier's occasional help as his hypeman. The two of them put on a show, running through their whole catalog with crazy energy without subjecting the crowd to such live hip-hop fuckery as the first-verse only performances of every song you want to hear, nor did we sit through constant instructions on what to do with our hands and what type of noises to make.

Guru wasn't just one half of Gang Starr, and perhaps in his death, he can finally be acknowledged as the brilliant rapper he was in his own right. Noz wrote "...(Guru is) the greatest case against the modern, dogmatic definition of lyrical lyricism. Because Guru’s strength lied not in hot punchlines or clever multi-syllable rhymes but purely in his ability to instill wisdom." I'd go further. Guru's strength as a rapper went far beyond his pure ability to instill wisdom. He was able to instill said wisdom while being displaying amazing feats of "lyrical lyricism." And while his strength didn't start and end with hot punchlines or multi-syllable rhymes, he did both well, instilling wisdom at the same time. Come on, Guru's rhymes were "rhymes were whipped with swift execution/one verse could coerce your girl to prostitution."

And if you look at typical rap song story lines, Guru took them and made them his own. In Take 2 and Pass, he did the unthinkable and wrote an ode to marijuana and getting high with his friends but avoided making it a pot-head style tribute. With "The Militia" he gave us a posse track (or not) that didn't suck, and is still one of the greatest club-bangers to this day. And even as a club-banger, it's still different. Ex Girl To The Next is perhaps the greatest rap song about love, and loving the wrong the girl. "Full Clip" is also the greatest new song to be featured on a greatest compilation by any artist of any genre. And as track one on their greatest hits double album, it also functions as one of the better hip-hop statements of purpose. This is who we are, this is what we do, I'm two magazines fully loaded to your one, plus I ain't gonna quit spitting till you're done.

In the next few days I'll get more in depth on certain specific moments, songs, and what not of Guru's career, I mean I haven't even touched on Jazzmatazz, and kept my Gang Starr talk relating mostly to Moment of Truth just because of the terrible anecdote at the beginning. That being said, if you ever have a chance to work for Dave Chappelle, tell him it's your favorite album.

McDonald's Story

2010-04-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

In the last month, McDonald's either came out with or stepped their advertising up for the double fillet-o-fish. And motherfuckers have been going ham. A few weeks ago, a man in New Jersey climbed through the to-go window, slapped the shit out of the dude behind the counter and walked out with his sandwich. In the words of a better blogger than me, "this case should be immediately dismissed, on the grounds that he was actually able to grab his sandwich and walk out with it."

Only two weeks later, in Brooklyn, a similar incident occurred. This time, the man was not lucky enough to escape with his sandwich. I too have a fillet-o-fish inspired tale to tell:

Saturday night, the same night a man in Bushwick was arrested for climbing into a McDonald's to steal his fillet-o-fish, only a short world away in Bed-Stuy, Annie and I went through the drive-through around 4.30 am. After waiting a long, long time, the woman in the car behind us got out and started screaming at the drive through window calling the woman behind the counter "dyke." Not "a dyke" but just "dyke." Dyke! It's an amazing word. Even better heard in the pitch-blackness of Brooklyn at 4.45 am in line at McDonald's.

Apparently the angry lady, after being forced to wait a ridiculously long time to even place her order, finally arrived at the speaker and when finally given a chance to order her food, "dyke" told her McDonald's was closed and was no longer serving food. So after screaming for five minutes, the angry lady got back in the car, and her entourage pulled off.

I was pissed the show was over, but only two short minutes later, the car comes speeding back around and pulls up alongside the car at the to-go window. Angry lady rolls down her window and starts screaming. The taunting and threats continued.
She rolled down her window and the screaming, the taunting, the threats continued. Physical violence of the most heinous sort was guaranteed. And then angry lady screamed, "get out from behind that window, let's do this dyke. Let's do this. I WANT YOU. I WANT YOU." This I had never heard. "I want you." It was truly terrifying.

Eventually, she rolled up her window and the started to drive off when a cop car comes flying in and pulls over the wrong car leaving McDonald's. We pull forward, pay for our two items--three if two fillet-o-fish for three bucks counts as one thing or two--and are about to leave when the woman behind the counter, "dyke," asks us if we would like any fries.

And why not. At this point, after witnessing what we just saw, and now getting free fries, we thought it was our lucky day, or night, or whatever it is at 4.55 am when you are at the drive through at McDonald's.

So she reaches down, and pulls out to big ass to-go bags, just bursting apart unable to handle the load of all that is inside. And we're thinking that free fries are great, but at a certain point it’s just wasteful, this is far beyond the critical mass of free fries anyone would desire. But we thank her, pull away, and open the bag. And inside there were not fries, but every single item McDonald's has on the goddamn menu! I mean nuggets, select strips, big macs, McChickens, even a goddamn Angus burger! I tore it apart, thinking it was a magic bag, perhaps somewhere in here there was an old McRib they found laying around, or Baruch Hashem, a McDlt.

I opened the second bag to find more of the same, but also a cornucopia of dipping sauces, an item you would overlook when handing out free food, but this dyke behind the counter wasn't just generous, she was truly kind.

Realizing we had more food than anyone could or should handle, we went to a bar that stays open all night long and handed out the food. What this guy at the corner of the bar did to the Angus Burger, holy shit, in the words of my mother, "I wouldn't do to a dog."

Milwaukee-----Doing It Big Again

2010-04-13T10:05:00.001-07:00

In 2008, a man had an idea. Former Milwaukee County workers were getting absurd pension checks and not paying taxes. Garbage men who topped out at 60,000 thousand a year were collecting six-figure checks. Something odd was happening. David Umhoefer looked a little deeper. When all was said and done, the county had paid out over 60 million in bogus pension money, the system was changed, people prosecuted, and David Umhoefer walked away with a Pulitzer Prize.

While the Milwaukee is no stranger to big-time intellectual awards, it's always a welcome surprise. And again, just yesterday at 2pm, the city got another welcome surprise, Raquel Rutledge racked up another Pulitzer for the Journal Sentinel.

In Wisconsin, the state allows parents to leave their children, 4 or 5 years old, at day car centers or kindergarten. Kindergartens must be accredited organizations, while increasingly, these day-cars have become more of a fly-by-night organization. Rutledge looked into a complex web of deceit allowing parents to open up dodgy day care centers, bill the state, and operate with little to no oversight. In some cases, the children they billed for didn't even attend the day care. A years worth of investigation shamed the State into changing their policies.

Oh but there's more. Not only did we win the award this year, but Journal reporter Dan Egan was a finalist in the explanatory reporting category for "his path-breaking coverage of how invasive aquatic creatures have disrupted the ecosystem of the Great Lakes and other bodies of water, illuminating the science and politics of an important national issue."

2 Pulitzers for local reporting in three years. This is unprecedented. This is unheard. This is beyond expectations. In a time when print newspapers fail left and right, Milwaukee has set a new bar for American journalism.

"Cashing In On Kids"

"Pension Twists Cost County Millions"

"Great Lakes, Great Peril"

Also worth checking out are the two winners for investigative reporting:

"Deadly Choices At Memorial" by Sheri Fink
This is one of the most riveting and disturbing things you will read. The article asks serious questions about medical ethics while also giving a blow by blow, white-knuckled, minute by minute account of what it was like to be trapped in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

And from The Philadelphia Daily News, "Tainted Justice"
These articles read like one of the best police dramas you have ever seen. Corrupt cops, snitches, tainted evidence, FBI probes, hundreds of false convictions, it goes on and on. Crazy stuff.

10 punchlines

2010-03-11T13:48:00.000-08:00

Old Jews Telling Jokes aka The Web Site Where Middle Aged Jews Tell Moderately Funny Jokes That Any Jew Has A Different Version Of Before just cut together a video of the top ten jokes of 2009. Not being a huge visitor to the site, I assumed they only posted a new joke every month, thus making their top ten a top ten out of twelve and the voting process not so tough. Anyway, ever the good blogger, I watched them all and recorded the punchline to each joke, so you, my loyal audience won't have to sit through it all.

Also, I think in most cases, the punchlines in a row are far superior to the jokes.
And how fun it is to see the punchline and imagine what on earth the joke is about. I think in most cases it's very obvious.

And without further delay:

1. I'm having trouble opening the jar!
2. What, you're gonna come empty handed?
3. Remember a couple years ago, you ran for president of the temple, and you were 15 votes shy?
4. Cause you're a schmuck!
5. There's no fuck in broccoli!
-that's what I told you!
6. Your Honor, she also stole a can of peas. (this one is KILLA)
7. He's full of shit, he never did any of those things.
8. I can save your wife, but the Rabbi, he's a goner.
9. Was it before the Dropkin fart or after?
10. And then for some reason he took out his lunch, so I took out mine.

13 Years

2010-03-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

The east coast overdoser

Making loot knockin boots on the regular
Pass the microphone I'm the perfect competitor
Jewels and all that
Your clothes is all that
Chump stepping to me is where you took your fall at

Jackie Chain - Mack A Bitch

2010-03-08T12:52:00.000-08:00

Jackie flashes a piece around the 53 second mark.

McDonald's New Sweet Chili Sauce VS. Shutter Island

2010-03-02T16:22:00.001-08:00

What is better? Let's discuss.

Anticipation:
Shutter Island
I've been seeing previews for Shutter Island for almost a year now, and nearly every preview is completely different. The powers that be clearly had a tough time figuring out not only how to market the film, but what type of film to market. Is it a horror film, a mystery by the guy who wrote Mystic River, a psychological thriller? Who knows? But I had to wait a year to find out.

Sauce
None. I passed a McDonald's with a huge banner proclaiming the new sauce's official arrival. Shocking. Nearly every fast food item, especially ones at McDonald's are released with a huge fanfair. Commercials, parades, film tie-ins, they flood us with the release date to get our tongues salivating and our minds imagining the various tingling sensations these new culinary inventions will create. And yet, to create a new sauce, and just ship it to stores with little advance warning to the public, shocking behavior.
And even more shocking when one considers we are talking about a sauce here, a condiment. McDonald's may come up with new sandwiches every now and again, but the arrival of a new sauce is a once in a lifetime event, at least once in a decade.* Our whole lives McDonald's always offered hot mustard, BBQ, and sweet and sour, and now all of a sudden, there is a new sauce for nuggets and they just casually put it out there. I don't understand it. Unless of course, they want the sauce to be able to speak for itself.

Winner: Sweet Chili Sauce

Quantity:
Shutter Island: About two and half hours
Sweet Chili Sauce: Enough for five nuggets.

Winner: Sweet Chili Sauce (by far)

First Impressions:
Shutter Island: When Leo pulls up in the boat, it seemed a little overdone with the music. I thought the score was brilliant, but seriously, so loud and dramatic to show the opening of a gate? Interesting choice.
Sweet Chili Sauce: Thicker than I expected. Sweeter than I thought. Perhaps this is too similar to the sweet and sour sauce, which I refuse to use.

Winner: Shutter Island

Second Impressions:
Shutter Island: Umm, wait, when is this going to...what is happening? Why am I bored? Why are you trying to hard?
Sweet Chili Sauce: This is a little bit spicier than I first thought, even though I have a high tolerance for spice and by no means am saying I can't handle anything 3,000 times this spicy, I'm still a little impressed at how the heat lingers.

Winner: Sweet Chili Sauce

Finish
Shutter Island: Ben Kingsley basically explains the plot of the entire film to Leo and the audience.
Sweet Chili Sauce: Good enough to use generously with each nugget while still doing quantitative analysis to keep enough ready for each nugget. I left about half a nugget's worth (pause) in the container.

Winner: Sweet Chili Sauce

Presence of Reality
Shutter Island: Throughout the film, it is very hard to determine what is really happening, what is going on in the mind, and what is just lunacy.
Sweet Chili Sauce: Actually exists while you consume it.

Winner: Sweet Chili Sauce

Regional Orgins:
Shutter Island: Boston
Sweet Chili Sauce: Asia (the entire continent)

Winner: Umm, I'm no racist: Sweet Chili Sauce

Results:
McDonald's new Sweet Chili Sauce doesn't last three hours, is easy to understand, is slightly spicy and comes from Asia, it is clearly better than Shutter Island. I don't think we've ever had such a blowout here at 414son.blogspot.com

Anti-Semite Watch #2

2010-02-24T09:19:00.000-08:00

When anti-Semitism strikes, the world usually reacts with disgust. There are cries of "in this day and age" and "that can't possibly happen in this day and age," and so on and so forth. And while I do take comfort in the collective disapproval of hatred, there is another far more disturbing reality to the way the world reacts: they forget. It seems for all the disgust and shock the world expresses when anti-Semitism strikes, it is constantly looked at as an isolated innocent, to be deplored, and then sadly, ignored. And this is truly disgusting, for if it were not for the short term memory of the world at large, perhaps we could wipe out this scourge once and for all.

And so, it is both disturbing and hurtful I must enter another post in this series. I long hoped Anti-Semite Watch would be another one of my many dropped series, such as Biggie Week and America Week which never lasted a full week. This series of posts I would only write when confronted with the ugliness head on, and I prayed the incident at the Comet Cafe would be the last time this sickness of the mind reared its ugly head around me. I was wrong. But again, I should have known. 2000 years of hatred does not stop after you rally the world over the wrongs of a comment in a coffee shop.

Date: Feb 20, 2010 4:55 AM
Location: Travis Kiewel's Apartment Greepoint, Brooklyn

Description:
After attending a surprise birthday party for an old friend, I went across town to meet up with some other friends at a different party. On the way in, I spotted a few friends leaving. I stopped them, and Travis told me they were headed to a bar and I should meet them after leaving the party. I thought nothing of one of the girls in his group. She was in a group of my friends, her morality was never called into question.

My girlfriend and I spent a short time at the party and then headed to the bar to meet our friends. As it was close to closing time and they wouldn't let us in, Travis suggested we all have a beer at his apartment before calling it a night. Again, not knowing of the horrendous incident that would shortly occur, I immediately agreed. Travis' apartment was only a few short blocks away, and we stopped at a bodega to buy a few beers. We all pitched in a few dollars, but as these things usually are, some people wind up throwing down a dollar or two more. It is the way it is. The girl whose name shall not be mentioned did not contribute any money, but did at one point, while I handed over a five, shoot me a look. I did not know this at the time, but the look contained a judgement, a judgementt of the Jew and his frugality. I find this unacceptable for someone to call me cheap for paying for something they are going to consume when they have not paid anything for it. Perhaps I was mistaken by this look, or perhaps the look was an anti-Semitic trick, a trick to get me mad and make me think she's mad at me for paying so little when she's not paying anything thus only bringing the Jew and his cheapness to the surface. I never said anti-Semites were not intelligent. They have tricked the public and they can trick the Jews.

After arriving at Travis' apartment, we all had a very good time. Friends talking with friends. We enjoyed camaraderie and had meaningful, heartfelt conversations with one another. The girl whose name will not be mentioned was from Germany, and told us stories of Berlin. I for one love Berlin, and listened intently. When she left, she asked where she could find a cab, and I said we should call her one so she would not have to wait outside, or walk alone, as a woman, in a so so area. Again, I showed nothing but kindness to this woman.

She called the cab, and when she left, she grabbed her bag, put on her coat, and walked to the door, only one more second and this would have never happened, but she turned around. I still was not expecting it. But the anti-Semite can not resist! They must always spew their evil poison.

"You know who you look like?"
"No, who?" And at this point, I, the fool, am still not expecting filth from her mouth!
"Like the Jew we have on tv in Germany. A Rabbi Shmuley."
"WHAT? I LOOK NOTHING LIKE HIM?"
"You know this man?"
"Yes I know this man."

And she was out the fucking door. For one, I don't look like Rabbi Shmuley. We both have beards and eyes, but the similarities end there.
And I find it hard to believe, any person hailing from Berlin, a city with the fastest growing Jewish population anywhere in Europe, would see me as the second Jew they've ever seen, after Rabbi Shmuley.

Some interesting facts:
1. There was a laptop computer on the premise that was in use. While others were talking, Jeff and I showed each other both new Internet clips new rap songs, cause that's what we do. We are dorks for sure, and let a person make fun of us for that, for who we are, not what we are. But the point being, with a computer, Rabbi Shmuley's likeness can be looked up immediately, yet she choose to make this comment on the way out the door! If I were to tell someone they looked like someone questionable, and there was a computer on premise, I would point out the ease of looking up the person's face to see for yourself.
2. I mentioned I liked Berlin. Perhaps this was a motivating factor. In Berlin, many residents are concerned with the influx of Turkish immigrants, but their hostilities have also been focused on recent Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In fact, one could argue, their new found, xenophobic hatred of the Jews SHOWS A VERY SHORT TERM MEMORY ON THEIR PART. Hearing my love for Berlin, she decided to let me know I was not welcome there.
I have other theories on what inspired this terrible outburst, perhaps she was upset my girlfriend is not Jewish and feared race mixing on our part, or perhaps she had read so much Nazi propaganda on the sexual deviance of the Jewish male and on seeing I had a girlfriend, especially one far more beautiful than her, realized she would only read about these things.

The theories are countless but of course, none of them justify the action. There are many reasons why people do unreasonable things, but there are no excuses.

Allan Dershowitz Vs Pino Pallendino: Who is better?

2010-02-09T09:28:00.000-08:00

1. Interesting Ethnic Background

Alan Dershowitz was born to Orthodox Jewish parents in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Pino Palladino was born to Italian parents living in Wales. While Dershowitz can knock back a few at the Greenpoint Tavern and chide sincerely about how shitty the neighborhood has become since the kids moved in, Pino Palladino's confusing ethnic origin, along with his height (something like 7 feet) makes his ethnicity more interesting than a Jew from New York.
Winner: Pino Palladino

2. Amazing Early Accomplishments
After passing the bar, Dershowitz clerked for the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, moving on to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, then joining Harvard Law School as a full professor when he was only 28.
Pino picked up the bass at 17 and by 26 was playing with David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Phil Collins and Don Henley.
Winner: Alan Dershowitz

3. Ongoing Philosophy:
Dershowitz has always believed the American legal system needs to work for everyone, and if it fails for one person, the whole system itself is in jeopardy.
As a session musician, Pino has played across the musical spectrum, but no matter what style of music, his own leanings are firmly rooted in the R&B tradition.
Winner: Tie

4. Big Name Associations:
Regardless of his hard fought cases and dedication to preserving the first amendment, Dershowitz will most likely always be remembered for his role in the O.J. Simpson trial.
Palladino's strong R&B leanings made him an unlikely recruit in the neo-soul movement where he became a strong proponent of a behind the beat sound and went on to play on Voodoo and Mama's Gun.
Winner: Pino Palladino

5. Questionable Actions:
Dershowitz has long been a highly vocal advocate for Israel believing many attacks on the country are misguided and unjust. While his stance is noble both for his refusal to call his opponents anti-Semites and defending Israel from a more logical, legal perspective instead of purely emotional arguments, sometimes his tactics are not.
When a group of professors from Harvard and MIT signed a petition to divest from Israel and American companies that support Israel, Dershowitz challenged the authors to a debate. When they refused, he stages his own debate in front of 200 students, taping the petition to a chair and "debating" it. He called everyone who authored it "ignoramuses with PhD's." Even though many in the audience agreed with Dershowitz's arguments, his publicity stunt had questioned whether or not his emotions had prevailed and taken control of his arguments.
At some point around 2005, Pino joined John Mayer and Steve Jordan to form the John Mayer trio causing some to question many things about Pino Palladino.
Winner: I think regardless of how we feel about Zionism, we can agree Israel is better than John Mayer. Dershowitz wins this one.

Overall winner: A tie. Pino Palladino and Alan Dershowitz are of the same quality.

2010-02-08T22:08:00.001-08:00

Saints Superbowl Victory Celebration from Cottage Films on Vimeo.

Pino Palladino

2010-02-08T14:58:00.000-08:00

Played bass for The Who last night. Pino Palladino was mentioned in my last blog entry, something to the effect of laying it down on one of D'angelo's songs. Pino Palladino, twice in one week no homo.

Rare D'Angelo

2010-02-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

Being a real big into the best of the decade lists, I've scoured the internets, reading nearly every best albums of the 2000's I could find. I was shocked, flabbergasted to discover most of these lists completely left out Voodoo. The fuck out of here. Leaving that off a list, and I'm not just talking lists of ten, but sometimes lists of fifty, is so shocking and offensive, it calls into question humanity of the writer.

Voodoo came out in January of 2000, just making it into this decade. And perhaps, a poor recollection of release dates could explain it's absence. However, we do have fucking wikipedia. And Kid A is at the top of almost every list and that shit came our around the same time. And I know because my roommates and I would fight about which one to listen to while playing Mario Kart.

D'Angelo's Voodoo is a masterpiece. It's a subject I've explored both frequently on this blog and to anyone that will listen to me pontificate on it nearly anywhere. I feel very strongly it's greatest album of the decade, if not one of the finer works of art made in my lifetime.

I'm not gonna get into it, I am (and here is the point of this post) going to share a few unreleased D'Angelo tracks I hope will make everyone happy and joyful no homo.

Let's get on to the main event.

Sardines - Live
This is crazy to hear a Go Go cover performed outside of DC.
Here's the original. I know it's not a go-go post but any chance I get.

It goes right into Left and Right
Left and Right p. I
Left and Right P. II

And on to the other, the gem of it all I can't find. I've tried to download numerous versions but can only find it on youtube and various websites. D'Angelo covering Roy Ayers' Everybody Loves the Sunshine, which has got to be one of the most beautiful songs ever written. What is it about songs with the sun, this, Waterloo Sunset that makes them so damn great.

The next two clips are in the link at the bottom.
These joints have D'angelo and crew warming up and fucking around in the studio. This joint, Joe Texan has bassist Pino Palladino going off.

Covering Gang Starr's Ex to the Next

Also on the zip file for your downloading pleasure are:
Another Gang Starr cover
Two more joints from the Voodoo studio sessions. (cover of funky drummer and an instrumental.)
A cover of Earth Wind And Fire's Fair But So Uncool
A song off the Baby Boy soundtrack "Talk Shit 2 Ya" which is fucking bananas.

Great Jews Playing Great Jews #1: Ron Silver As Alan Dershowitz

2010-01-27T22:26:00.000-08:00

I'd like to introduce another feature to this blog, a critical anaylis of Jewish portrayals of other Jews on film. For the purposes of this first entry, I will call this series Great Jew Playing Great Jews because both Ron Silver and Alan Dershowitz are in fact, two great Jews.

Film: Reversal of Fortune - 1990

Brief Synopsis:
Jeremy Irons won an Oscar for his riveting portrayal of Clas Von Bulow, a disastrously eccentric, uber-rich European socialite on trial for the attempted murder of his wife. Steadily proclaiming his innocence he hires Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz (played by Ron Silver) wastes no time assembling a team and filing for his appeal, ultimately winning the case.

Silver As Dershowitz:

Silver, who I've always thought was a cool looking guy, manages to dork himself out to the point where his resemblance to Dershowitz is almost uncanny. In a cameo, where Dershowitz plays a judge, Silver looks more like the real Dershowitz than Dershowitz himself.

While the film does not go out of its way to paint Dershowitz as what Grammy Hall would call a real Jew, there are certain broad brush strokes. In one scene, the writer's desire to convey Dershowtiz's ethnicity shows no restraint. Dershowitz and his son sit in their tv room, eating Chinese food out of the container, watching a basketball game, all while discussing legal ethics. At one point, the Celtics score, and father and son give each other a huge high-five while never putting down the Chinese food cartons.

One of these themes, poor table manners, is repeated throughout the film. When Dershowitz and Von Bulow fist meet, von Bulow, after telling Dershowitz "he has long admired the intellectual cunning of the Jewish race," suggests they go out and get a "proper" lunch. As they sit down at a fancy restaurant, before the menu is even presented, Dershowitz goes in and tears apart a hunk of bread, buttering it in a most uncouth way. And while there are many reasons behind Silver's portrayal of Dershowitz's eating style (he's always thinking, he doesn't have time to sit down and have a "proper" mean) in the end, he is a Jew eating in an ugly way.

This terrible stereotype, the Jew and his ugly table manners, is not new. It has been passed down for years and years. It served as one of the primary justifications behind the Ivy Leagues' creation of a Jewish Quota policy, basically, a severe restriction on Jewish admission that was not fully lifted until the 1970's. Here is a quote form a Harvard alum attending the Harvard Yale football game:
"Naturally, after twenty-five years, one expects to find many changes but to find that one's University had become so Hebrewized was a fea[r]ful shock. There were Jews to the right of me, Jews to the left of me, in fact they were so obviously everywhere that instead of leaving the Yard with pleasant memories of the past I left with a feeling of utter disgust of the present and grave doubts about the future of my Alma Mater."

On the flip side, in Von Bulow and that Harvard asshole's world, eating is a far more elaborate affair.. Nearly every flashback centers around a dinner or lunch, and always with a number of people. The day he met his wife, at a dinner party in Austria, the day he fell in love with her when a tiger crawled towards her at a dinner party outdoors somewhere fancy, the day she fell into the coma his children and others are gathered around the table for breakfast. Perhaps this is because Von Bulow and those in his world never had or will have to work for anything, everything in the world is there for the taking, and all there is to do, one of the only ways to actually pass the time is to eat.

Moments of High Jewish Intellectual Debate:
1. When one of Dershowitz's students expresses her objections to the case and Von Bulow's innocence, a monologue begins. "Allow me to exercise my first amendment rights," Dershowitz begins, and then launches into why he feels Von Bulow, has been taken advantage of by our legal system. And he's right, even though Von Bulow is very rich, his wife's family hired a private prosecutor and conducted their own investigation. Dershowitz is "pissed off, if we allow this, then the rich will stop going to the police, they wills top being part of our legal system, they will use their own. The only people left in our legal system will be those too poor to buy them a proper defense."

2. Von Bulow is a very bizarre man hated by most people. This is a problem and causes our characters to bring up an interesting puzzle. What if Hitler never died and needed a defense. Is the right of every man to a legal defense so great it supersedes the horrific nature of one's actions? What would Dershowitz do, kill him or take the case. His son answers instantly, "no question, you'd take the case." Ron Silver as Dershowitz responds with a witty retort, "of course I'd take the case, then I'd kill him!" Where are we, the Catskills?

Loud Jewish Vulgarity:
Never to be one to care about letting swears fly in public (but never in front of children) Dershowitz is no stranger to the more than occasional "fuck" or "shit." At one point, while having a drink with Von Bulow at a fancy club, Dershowtiz screams, "I don't fucking care, I don't give a fucking shit..." and on and on. The rest of the club looks in horror while Von Bulow to his credit smiles, quietly admiring his lawyer's ability to say fuck and not give a fuck in a stuffy room.

2. After fighting with a lawyer on his team, she accuses him of bringing their romantic history and personally debating her, not debating the legal strategy. They have a fight and he finally tells her, "you're on this team because you have talent and you're supposed to be looking up such and such a thing, so come on, CUT THE BULLSHIT."

Ongoing Pursuit of Civil Rights And Social Justice:
When we first meet Dershowitz, he is fighting to save the lives of death-row inmates in Texas. When he tells Von Bulow tells Dershowitz he's innocent, he tells him "I'm defending two black kids in Texas facing the death penalty for something they didn't do, they're innocent." Later, he tells the judge in the case, if he puts these kids in the chair, he's next.

Reference to Tough Upbringing:
At one point, Dershowitz meets with a rather sketchy character. A friend objects citing the meeting is "arrogant, unprofessional, and dangerous." Dershowitz responds, come on, I can manage, I'm from the streets of Brooklyn.

Occasional Use of Yiddish:
Dershowitz beleives the DA "schmeared" his client.

I'm done, I'm sick of typing the word Dershowitz.

That's about all of this I can take.

Timothy Geithner, They Don't Like You

2010-01-27T09:31:00.000-08:00

Today, Tim Geithner, one time President of the New York Fed and current Secretary of the Treasury was the first piece of meat to thrown to a wolf pack of lawmakers sent out by the taxpayers eager to gnaw away on anyone responsible for having anything to do with anything bailout related.

If only they sold tickets to shit like this, we'd have our bailout paid for in no time.

Geithner has the dubious position of being scapegoat #1. From what I've read, it sounded less like a run of the mill congressional hearing and more like a shitty, mid 90's courtroom drama that you catch three am after waking up on the couch and can't pull yourself away from. And it has some of the quintessential elements of the genre too, an attack on the defendants personal character, a group of people ganging up on him (pause), testimony that goes off into the hinterlands of irrelevance before using it to make a point, and the poor, mistreated defendant finally reaching his boiling point and responding to questions with shockingly bitter yet underplayed insults.

The heart of the issue wasn't the bailout, but rather the method and manner in which the money was shelled out. Basically, the first 85 billion dollars AIG got went right into the hands of investment banks caught up in all of AIG's tomfoolery. But the more offensive way to look at this is to consider why an equally evil entity like Goldman Sachs deserves to be paid 100 cents on the dollar on every AIG related contract.

It's infuriating. It's offensive, it's shameful, but Geithner argued completely necessary. For starters, Geithner felt he had no authority to demand banks take anything less that the full amount owed. And when Dennis Kucinich asked him if the NY Fed gave Goldman Sachs a "better deal than it would have expected from AIG or any other market player," Geinther told him point blank,

"Under the law of the land, we did not have the ability. So we faced a very simple choice: Let AIG default or prevent it. There was no way, financial, legal, or otherwise we could have imposed haircuts, selectively default on any of those institutions without the risk of a downgrade and default." Or, once the New York Fed sat down and started asking for those affected for a deal, AIG's ratings could downgrade, and the ripples would spread far and fast and there would be no point of this bailout in the first place.

Kucinich of course disagrees.

His other argument basically runs along the lines of, "I didn't have time." Geithner believed, rightly or wrongly, the financial apocalypse was going to happen on November 10th. The bailout had to go through or it would be curtains. From his statement, here's a brief rundown Geithner's AIG doomsday scenario:

"...We saw not just an escalating run on banks, but also a broad withdrawal of funds from money market
funds. These funds, always thought of as one of the safest investments for Americans, had begun
trading at a discount. The run on these funds, in turn, severely disrupted the commercial paper
market, which was a vital source of funding for many brick and mortar businesses.

The panic spread. Major institutions such as Washington Mutual and Wachovia experienced
debilitating deposit withdrawals, eventually collapsed, and were acquired by competitors. These
pressures spilled over to virtually all credit markets. Markets for instruments backed by
consumer loans, such as auto loans, credit card receivables, and home-equity lines of credit
collapsed, and in response banks tightened standards and sharply curtailed the issuance of new
loans.

Air’s failure would be catastrophic. AIG was much larger than Lehman, it was spread across more countries than Lehman, and while it posed many of the same basic risks as Lehman, they were actually greater because of Air’s role as an insurance company. AIG was one of the largest life and health insurers in the United States. AIG was also one of the
largest property and casualty insurers in the United States, providing insurance to 180,000 small
businesses and other corporate entities, which employ about 100 million people. History suggests that the withdrawal of a major underwriter from a particular market can have large, long-lasting effects on the households and businesses that rely on basic insurance protection.

This damage would have rapidly spread beyond Wall Street. Borrowing costs for businesses
would have increased dramatically, the value of pension funds would have fallen even more
sharply, and job losses would have skyrocketed. We were witnessing these effects in the wake
of Lehman’s failure. Without assistance, the AIG parent holding company would have been forced to file for
bankruptcy protection like Lehman Brothers, resulting in default on over $100 billion of debt, as
well as trillions of dollars of derivatives. Such a filing would have caused insurance regulators
in the United States and around the world to take over Air’s insurance subsidiaries, potentially
disrupting households’ and businesses’ access to basic insurance. And since many of the
insurance products that AIG sold were a form of long-term savings, the seizure by local
regulators of Air’s insurance subsidiaries could have delayed Americans’ access to their
savings, potentially triggering a run on other institutions.

---
So he had to do it because he had no legal authority and no time. In regards to not having time to bargain, I believe Geithner gets the benefit of the doubt. We were in the midst of a massive financial meltdown with worldwide consequences never before seen. I believe Geithner was terribly frightened of what could realistically happen, and I'll accept he honestly believed we were headed for the economic Rapture. So yes, if you believed we were headed that way, and quickly, I'll allow you the time defense.

What I can't accept is the first excuse, because the only logical conclusion to draw from it is that our Treasury Secretary is an enormous pussy. A huge fucking pussy this guy. Rather than forcing Goldman Sachs to accept less than 100 percent, he hides behind his excuse that he had no authority, "legal or otherwise" to do so. Buddy, you are the Secretary of the Treasure, of the United States of Fucking America! Are you fucking kidding me? If you didn't have the time to negotiate with them, then you should have never negotiated. The conversation shouldn't have lasted longer than three minutes.

Geithner: Here's what I want you to do.
Goldman: Nah, we won't settle for less than everything we are owed.
Geithner: You'll take what I give you or.
Goldman: Or else what?
Geithner: Excuse me?
Goldman: It sounded like you were about to threaten me.
Geithner: Fucker, I don't need to threaten you. You will fucking take what we give you and be happy at that. I'm about to be the motherfucking Treasury Secretary and when I get that position, I will force every single regulatory committee to look into every single transaction you make. I will drown you in a see of paper. I will have the IRS look into everything, every bonus you've ever handed out, every per diem never filed for, everything. I will be in that ass forever and ever.
Goldman: You don't have any legal authority.
Geithner: Fuck legal authority. I will own you. I don't need to. I will make sure that the American people know if AIG fails and we fall back into the stone ages, the one thing people will know is you were the bad guy. I will do everything I can to change the story. I will rewrite what went down. There will be no Madoff, no Lehman, even AIG won't be the bad guys anymore. Instead, the story will be simple, Goldman Sachs could have stepped up and saved the American economy, but they chose instead to ruin it.
Goldman: Well I don't...
Geithner: Fuck you, you're taking 40% and you'll be happy with it. Or else you don't even wanna know the hell that will reign on you.

That's what should have happened. This is a circumstance where might would have made right.
-----

Unfortunately all the blame game and hoopla it generates distracts from probably the most important issue in moving forward, mainly, what systems of regulation are going to be put into place to prevent a situation like this from ever happening again? So far, our government has done nothing, and instead of trying to enact a system of vital and urgently needed reforms, the only bipartisan energy being spent is to crucify those responsible for the bailout. I don't see how this serves us as taxpayers. I'd much rather have both sides come together to prevent the type of hysterical greediness responsible for this calamity rather than blaming those who spent their efforts on our rescue. And Geithner, whose job is very much in question, even spoke out at the end of his hearing, off the cuff and off his script, imploring the Obama administration, the same Obama administration that appointed him, to get their act together:

"If are outraged by A.I.G. — and you should be — if you are outraged by what happened with A.I.G., then you should be deeply committed to financial reform. The United States of America should never have let institutions like A.I.G. take on a level of risk that threatened the stability of the financial system.”

Meanwhile, the hearing continues, blocked emails and more will be discussed.

---
check this video out.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/27/tim-geithner-testimony-ai_n_438271.html

The Road vs. Book of Eli

2010-01-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

Which Post-Apocalyptic world would I live in?

1. Color of the world

THE ROAD
Grey, very grey. There's is no sun, or the sun doesn't come out, or it wants to come out but hasn't since the world turned grey. There still is a very big difference between day and nighttime, so there has gotta be a sun somewhere underneath the dark grey cover of clouds.

BOOK OF ELI
It's kinda grey, but also tends to be blueish and greenish and sometimes yellow. And there is a sun, if I recall, even a sun that you can see setting at some point, unless I'm remembering the fantastic sunset I saw after the film as being in the film. Either way, it's a much brighter grey, and you can see where you are going.

2. Topography
THE ROAD
The dirty grey world of The Road finds the man and the boy (pause) walking through the woods, then the forest, then a city, then the woods, then into a house in the woods, then back into the woods, then on top of a highway that comes out of the woods and leads back into the woods, then through the woods where trees explode, then through the woods with trees on fire, then through a city with broken windows and bows and arrows and then back into the woods and to the beach. And while it is nice to see a post-apocalyptic world having trees and shit* the lack of topographical variety is upsetting.

THE BOOK OF ELI
Oy, this post-apocalyptic dessert society is making me thirsty! There's so much dust in the air! You want to talk about "lack of topographical variety" (no homo) all there is a desert. Granted the movie takes place somewhere in the southwest because he does make it san fran on very little gas towards the end, but come on, I lived in Albuquerque, and two years ago, that place was damn near post-apocalyptic and that shit wasn't even close to as dusty as Gary Oldman's town. What is it with the the apocalypse and dust. I understand if you have a cataclysmic event, a nuclear holocaust, a huge war, a meteor crash, it kicks up a little dust air. But come on, Mila Kunis was born after the destruction, and she's at least 25, so you're telling me 25 years later, there's still that much dust in the air? I can't even imagine what it must have been like when the shit went down. You've survived the end of the earth, and now you can't breathe. Ain't that a bitch?
Actually, the opening scene, Denzel kills an animal in the forest. And in the end, you do see the pacific, so I guess there is some variety, but not much.

3. How the world ended.
The Road
Don't Know

Book of Eli
Don't know, but there was some type of war, then wars plural after and Denzel once talks about as the sun falling out of the sky.

4. Things you get to have otherwise known as possessions.
The Road
A gun, three bullets, a shopping cart, and not much else other than misery, hunger, and fear.

The Book of Eli
It's like Denzel had a shopping spree before "the sun fell out of the sky." He has a mini sword that is extremely sharp, two guns, a kuffia (you don't think people still wanna rock a little fashion and protest the mistreatment of Palestinians in the post-apocalyptic future?) and a goddamn ipod. Also, a bow and arrow, and a huge green jacket with many pockets to put these items in.

5. Diversity
The Road
In the world of The Road, we see two black men throughout the course of the film. One is Micheal K Williams, the other is the guy that shoots Viggo with the arrow. Viggo kills him and leaves Michael K on the side of the ocean with nothing, so it's very possible he winds up dying too. The implications are huge. Having killed two black men, we can only assume there are very few left, and the diversity of the world is in danger.

Book Of Eli
Nothing to worry about here, many blacks, Asians, even one of Gary Oldman's main henchmen is an Arab. And when Denzel kills people, he kill people of all races, thus preserving the future melting pot and making this a far less racist film.

6. Music
The Road
Apparently, shortly after the end of the world, there was a lot of chanting and banging coming from the hillside. Now, every time you walk around a tree Nick Cave is humming in the air.

Book of Eli
Al Green's "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" seems to be the only song on Denzel's ipod.

7. The Kindness of Strangers
The Road
Not so kind! If you see another person it means they are going to kill you and eat you. Or chop off parts of you to eat while keeping you alive. Or chop off parts of you to eat while keeping you alive and raping you. There are very few people who show humanity's more generous side up until the end, and even that's a little questionable. It's a world where a father would kill his own son in an act of mercy before letting the bad men get to him, I wouldn't count on the kindness of strangers.

Book Of Eli
Yes, there are killers, and bad men, and evil-doers out there, but there's some good in the world. Gary Oldman is not a nice fellow, but he did build a town and rations out water and tries to keep a little bit of order. And even though they go to that house where the old man and lady eat people, it doesn't seem like they kill and eat the good guys, and I think there is an important distinction to be made there, you only eat people who tried and failed to kill you.

8. Hope
The Road
Not so much here. One family with a dog and some kids try and help the boy, but like I said, they could have eaten him after all.

Book of Eli
Yeah, a little too much hope. If you haven't seen it I won't even begin to tell you about all the hope in the air.

Conclusion:
Hmmmm, nice people from all ethnic backgrounds, ipods, Tom Waits as your local mechanic, and and a high diversification of topography, I"m going with the the world of the book of eli. Even if I have to brave the dust.

*When I was 12, Mike Jacobs said, "you know, some people think there's not enough trees in this world, but that's a bunch of bullshit."

Game of Games

2010-01-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

New Orleans Classic

Words from Deadspin:
"Then it happened. In the most crucial moment of the Vikings' season, with a path to victory laid out before him, Favre had one more chance to be the hero ... and threw it away. When running for five yards might have given his team a chance at victory, he decided to throw for ten and denied them even the opportunity. As we'd seen him do before, he tried to do a little too much, take the big risk, make the dangerous throw. All the qualities that the blowhards of the world praise him for, turned out to be his downfall. Again.

It's not often that someone gets to see their nemesis fail in exactly the manner they long dreamed of. The fact that he got the Vikings as far as he did only makes the sadistic glee even sweeter. For those who were desperate to see Favre screw everything up, his season could not have had a more perfect ending..."

LIKE A KID OUT THERE HAVING FUN

Get Well Soon Waka Flocka Flame

2010-01-22T13:31:00.000-08:00

Waka got shot three days ago when he opted not to relinqush his chain at gunpoint. Telling a dude with a gun you're not giving up your chain and getting shot for it=definition of gully.

Waka 101:
Signed to Gucci's So Icey Entertainment.
Wants his music to get people buck and make girls dance.

And it goes off when he performs.

Teddy Pendergrass

2010-01-14T14:49:00.000-08:00

2 Pieces of Trivia:

The guy in Die Hard who played the asshole, cocky, coke-head, bearded prick that tried make moves on Holly Genaro and told Hans Gruber, "this guy running around the building, Hans, bubbe, I can give him to you," is also the guy that directed PCU. A shocking bit of trivia I know.

Equally amazing: Harold Melvin was never actually the lead singer in Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes. Teddy Pendergrass was the drummer in the Bluenotes backing band and eventually replaced John Atkins as the lead singer. So when Teddy Pendergrass became the singer, he replaced the old lead singer that was not even Harold Melvin.

Knowing this tidbit, Snoop's baffling interlude on Doggystyle is made all the more confusing, after exclaiming that he'll "treat a bitch like 7-Up I never have I never," (only theory that has held water over all these years is that he really does not like 7-up) he proudly tells his friends that he will "tell a bitch like this 'Bitch, you without me is like Harry Melvin without Bluenotes You'll never go platinum.'" Clearly, we all know this is highly inaccurate, as Pendergrass was key to the Bluenotes platinum sales. And after his departure for a solo career, the Bluenotes would never again match the success they enjoyed in their Pendergrass heyday.

There's not much to say about Pendergrass that hasn't been said or written in the last few days. I think most conversations can start and end with his voice. His voice and the way he used it. Pendergrass didn't just have a powerful baritone, but he could make it a smooth and as gruff as he wanted. One obit I read mentioned there really "hasn't been a real raw, gospel-influenced, deep-voiced adult black male star since Teddy's peak.” I never really thought about that, but I guess there's a point to it. Since Teddy Pendergrass most R&B singers with any level of longevity tend to sing in much higher voices. Is the baritone a thing of the past?

But his baritone, man, he could whisper in it, and he could shout, and shout loudly, without ever loosing the momentum of the song. Most of his songs reward the listener's patience, after a few vocal theatrics in the very beginning Teddy waits till the end to start shouting, pleading, begging, and pleasing. (no homo) It's unfortunate many of his songs end with a fadeout, as that's when he really gets going.
Also, Love TKO is one of the greatest songs of all time.
So here's a few songs.

1. I Miss You. Pendergrass really came with it and let the world know with If You Don't Know Me By Now, I Miss You is the first song on that album, and it's equally good. The only difference is I Miss You features a five minute long answering machine message, which is mos def worth the listen.

2. Turn Off The Lights
Around the 4.40 mark he just goes off. And the bit about the hot oils is always shocking.

And the greatest smoothed out slow jam of all time

Epic

2010-01-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

Jay Electronica - Exhibit C

They call me Jay Electronica
Fuck that
Call me Jay elecHannukah
Jay ElectYarmulke
Jay ElectRamadaan Muhammad Asaiaamica RasoulAllah Supana Watallah through your monitor.
My Uzi still weigh a ton check the barameter
I'm hotter than the muthafuckin sun check the thermometer.

Download

Cause it's not all Gucci and Lil' Boosie all the time.

The Best Albums Of 2009 According To Me

2009-12-15T09:40:00.001-08:00

So now there is no confusion:

10. The Bronx - Marachi El Bronx
Not just a cute idea. It's actually good.

9. Blakroc - Blakroc
In college one time, I went to see a lecture all about this crazy new thing that was happening, white people, doing hip-hop, but with rock elements involved. The discussion went on and on and on and someone said, wait, doesn't it make sense, these white kids grew up listening to rap and rock, so why wouldn't the music they make sound like some type of combination between to the two. And everyone in the audience was like, "yeah, but WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO SHITTY?"
At that point, a professor said, "what we're getting now is the output created by kids who grew up listening to Metallica* and Slayer with N.W.A. being their only true hip-hop reference point, one day we will hopefully hear music from kids who listen to the Kinks, the Stones, and Gangstarr and Mos Def."
This is the start of that new regime, it's not rap rock, cause that means it sucks, it's kinda exactly what you would expect from a band like The Black Keys making a hip-hop and the sound is mainly gritty and focused. I read somewhere Dan Auerbach rapped a verse on one song and removed it cause he thought it made it sound too Fred Dursty. And that's not just cool, it's a defining point to the sound of this album, that every song they approached repeating their mantra, "let's not make a shitty rap/rock joint."

8. White Rabbits - It's Frightening
There's a lot of people in this band. Do you like percussion?

7. Cam'ron - Crime Pays
At first I was not feeling it, but classic case of how when you wait forever for something, it's never as good as you want it to be. Going back, this is a great album. Cam'ron's flow is still top notch. And he uses his top notch flow, doesn't let it sit on the bench. He spits the way he did when people first started to take notice. The beef with 50, the three year disappearing act, it's all in the past. Cookies-N-Apple Juice, Get it In Ohio are both bangers. Cooking Up has one of Cam'ron's greatest verses of all time. It's probably the best verse showcasing equally all three aspects of Cam'ron's swagger, his playfull threats(Sledgehammers, Smash his melon, and I'm the black Gallagher), insane boasts(Telescopes, Binoculars, the Feds hate my vernacular, From selling coke, I'm poppa doc, Yeah that means I'm spectacularr), and general weirdness (Red slippers, Red robe, Red kitchen, Red stove, Red pots, One in the head cocked, When the Feds probe, Red stools, Red emph, Red floors, Y'all fakers, Red couch, Red crystal, Red pepper and salt shakers, The red room, Red curtains, and some are switched, Show some respect, What you expect - that's a hundred inch,)

6. 50 Cent - War Angel
This summer, to promote a block party, 50 dropped this mixtape and called it his "greatest body of work" yet. it is. On it, 50 returns to his pre-Get Rich or Die Trying days, and gets back to his Ghetto Quran, How to Rob days. 50 sounds like he cares for the first time in a long time, he sounds like he's out to prove he still can be a damn good rapper if and when he wants to, and this mixtape is the first time he's wanted to in a log time. Pause. Also, it sports the best twitter reference heard so far in rap "aint nothing to it cock shoot it and get rid of that, leave you bleeding from your fitted cap It's nuttin to it, cock it, bang it and get rid of that Hit his fitted cap, he won't get a chance to Twitter that." Also, at the end, when he implores all those coming to his BBQ to get their "outfit money up," classic.
6b. Gucci Mane - Writing On Da Wall
Gucci released a shitton of mixtapes this year, including three on the same damn day. This one is by far the best and most filler-free. I've wrote about it on this site sometime around when it came out.

5. Raewkon - Only Built For Cuban Linx II
Oh man, to be young when the Wu was on top of it all. To be in high school and actually await the release of Wu Tang Forever. It makes you fell.......old. Old as hell. But it also meant in between 36 Chambers and Forever, if you were a fan, you copped ever single solo release the day it dropped. And it meant you had better be ready to defend your favorite emcee. Who was the dopest? What was the best solo release in the first round? These by the way are two very different questions. I remember a passionate argument outside of D-Wing in favor of Liquid Swords as the best but I was willing to concede Meth kinda kills it on Shadowboxing going head to toe with Gza. But the biggest, longest running debate of all time concerning the Wu-Tang Clan still is whether Only Built For Cuban Linx vs. Liquid Swords. What's better. I always went with Liquid Swords. For some reason, Cuban Linx, as great as it was, was a bit tough for me to get into and really absorb. Whatever. I still loved it. It still was the second best (or third if we wanna throw Tical in the mix) solo album making it very fucking great.
Since high school, Wu Tang kept keeping on for a while before imploding and slipping into a near nostalgia act. Method Man has made some very consistent and consistently under-promoted albums, Ghostface became the second favorite rapper of all those whose first favorite rap group is the Clipse, and Raewkon, in the words of Noz, "became the dude that released Only Built For Cuban Linx 15 years ago."
Which is a great assessment of Rae's solo work. You gotta hand it to dude, he could have called Immobilairty or Lex Diamond Only Built II and sold a shit load more copies, but he didn't, he didn't tarnish his own reputation, or the reputation of his classic first album. He stuck with his guns, made us wait for rap's Chinese Democracy and it turned out to be more than worthwhile. It holds up to it's own legend, and it's 15 year in the making status. It's a little long and bloated, but the fact remains, if I want to listen to Only Built, I'm just as likely to pull out I or II, and that is the mark of a quality sequel.

4. Mos Def - The Ecstatic
If this were a decade end list, there could be a discussion of the fall and rise of Mos Def. How he left the last millennium with a certifiable classic and then lost it through a combination of wack experimentation, coasting, and general not trying. I was psyched when The New Danger came out, and I'll bet it deserves a second change, but with the exception of his version of The Takeover, there's very little that remains memorable. And there's even less I'm going to listen to when I want to listen to Mos Def. His next album which he released with no linear notes, no cover arts, and minus a few songs, should have contained no music. Granted, it was a contractual obligation fulfillment record, but still, a little respect for the fans please?
He seemed more into acting and even if his performances were good, his role choices seemed lazy and uninspired. But his turn in Be Kind Rewind showed Mos Def returning to an older, younger version of himself unafraid to reach out and take artistic risks, but the kind on Black on Both Sides, not New Danger type risks. Risks that made sense. Risky choices, but ones he knew he could pull off. After all, no matter how good his Big Black Johnson rock band (or whatever they were called) was ever going to be, would it ever have been good enough to actually listen to? To actually enjoy?
This takes us to 2009. Mos releases his Ecstatic, and I'm sure a lot of people were skeptical. I read a few good things about it, and it wasn't that I didn't believe it, I just didn't care. Mos Def did something to me (pause) with his debut. I was young, impressionable, naive as to just how much impact hip-hop, and good hip-hop could sway over me (dare I say "change my life") and the failure of Mos Def's sophomore and junior efforts to captivate me in the way his debut had done actually steered me away from his brand of hip-hop, but this is a much deeper conversation, and a much longer post. So enough.
Point is, The Ecstatic isn't just great as a return to form, nor just a benchmark of an artistic turnaround, it's stands on it's own as a remarkable album with some truly great and timeless music. For any genre. Musically, the sound is all over the map, although there are a few beats with a more Middle-Eastern theme. But it's not a Mos-raps-over-world-mus album. The music is really, really good, I'd say everything is at least on par with Umi Says as far as the non-rap songs go. But, Mos combines it a lot, raps and sings later on the same songs. And his verses are spectacular. There's a few downsides, a joint he does in Spanish that I don't see any point of unless to say , "yo I bought a Rosetta stone at the mall and now I can sing in Spanish and it sounds kinda cool."
There's also an album stealing guest verse from Slick Rick may be the most entertaining thing I've heard all year, this fact should not get lost in the overall Mos Def conversation. Rick the Ruler kills it.

Order ends here, these all tie:

3. Built to Spill - There Is No Enemyjavascript:void(0)
Man, oh man. Way too fucking good. it's like it's 1999 and indie rock is cool, so you really need to go to your one friend's house who has a cd burner and copy this one asap. Liking this album is as simple as liking an album with great lyrics and quality musicianship. Also, did I mention there are some guitar solos that are neither indulgent nor meanderin

2. UGK - UGK 4 Life
Everything about this made me worried. I mean, just thinking about the final album from a legendary group released after their more infamous and outspoken member dies from syrup overdose, it's heavy shit. It had all the markings of too much hype, too little effort, and too much big label involvement/cash-in. But apparently, Bun-B saw the whole thing over from start to finish. He intended it to be a UGK album, not a Bun-B solo album with occasional verses from Pimp C. And he managed to pull it off. The beats throughout the whole album sound like vintage Pimp C productions, soulful churning organs, funk guitar riffs, a real down home, organic sound runs through the whole project.
Pimp C's verses never loose their nasal quality nor their outlandish sexual boasts. Bun's bass heavy booming, multi-syllable rapping is on point too, and it's a real united effort. In many ways, it's heartbreaking to hear how good these two were when they were together at their best. Neither Bun or Pimp's solo efforts ever matched up to anything they did as a group. Bun tends to get lost while Pimp gets way to angry, or sounds like he's trying too hard. But together, these guys were the greatest rap duo of all time. A perfect endnote to an amazing career discography.

1. Maxwell - BLACKsummers'night
I think I've said all I need to say about this in an earlier post. In short, it's more about emotions than physical desire (pause), the music is extremely tight, and the production doesn't stand in the way. What would normally plague an R&B album does not, and Maxwell has made one of those rare pieces of art which transcends his own genre.

Why The New R. Kelly Album Is A Failure

2009-12-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

With his legal troubles finally behind him, R. Kelly's Untitled should be the sound a renewed man, a man ready to face the world again for the first time, a man with nothing holding him back, a man who broken free, a man emancipated. it's too bad Untitled contains no celebration, no sense of relief, not even an acknowledgement of awe at the amazing turn of justice of he received or the penalty he faced.. Instead, R. Kelly takes us on a trip........I'm not even going to do this. There's no point in a review in the classic sense, I've thought about this extensively, and I believe I've discovered the central reason why this album is terrible.

In the history of R. Kelly, his songs have explored sex though metaphors that can be charitably described outlandish, but highly entertaining. In many cases, the more absurd the metaphor (outer space and planetary travel) the more R. Kelly throws himself behind it as if to say, "oh you don't think space travel is an acceptable comparison to sexual intercourse, well please allow me to try and change your mind." In a sense, R. Kelly is only as good as his metaphors, or rather, R. Kelly is only as good as the strength of his own perception of his metaphors.

When Double Up came out, I was blown away. I thought R. Kelly had exhausted all metaphors, after comparing sex to his jeep, the ignition of his jeep, so on and so forth over the years, I thought he was done. But on Double Up, he took us into space, he took us to The Zoo, he told us about his Sweet Tooth, etc. I mean come on, the guy took us into space!

And that's when I should have been concerned, cause after you go up into space, put a flag in the moon and become the first couple to make love on planet Neptune, what can you do? It's a long way down from there.

So what does R. Kelly do? What does R. Kelly choose use as his fill in the blank, making love to you is gonna be like__________________? Oh, how about, I want to have sex with you so bad it's like I want to make you pregnant.

I mean, is that even a metaphor, does that even makes sense? Is it even something that he actually wants to do? And I always thought the goal of sex was not to get the girl pregnant, but then again, I've gone about plenty of things in life in entierly the wrong way.

This is not to say it fails because of its inherent simplicity, R. Kelly does simple very well. Some of his greatest songs involve taking a relatively simple concept and expoloring it, beating it to death all the way till the end of the song. Take "A Woman's Threat," when the song starts off, the listener empathizes with the man., but as the song progresses, and we hear more and more about what is going to happen, it gets sadder and sadder, and by the time someone's gonna wear your clothes, and someone's gonna fit your shoes, and someone's gonna get your kids, and someone's gonna open your door, empathy ends, and anger beings. We loose track of who is who in the song, and we feel the woman's threat being visited upon us, not some third party in the song. R. Kelly, through an excessive use of details, has successfully argued just how dangerous this woman's threat can be, and how we listeners need to change our ways so it does not happen.

Eighty percent of R. Kelly's great songs can be divided up into these categories, simple ideas beaten to death, and sexual double or single entdres. This album fails on both of those counts, the metaphors are pointless, tired, and humorless. And the concepts are decent, yet not explored to fruition. With "Sex in the Kitchen" R. Kelly used the kitchen as his metaphor but beat it to death by challenging himself to think of any and every method of food preparation that could remotely be compared to sex. On Untitled's "Banging on the Headboard" only invokes the title during the chorus and the adlibs on what seems like a twenty minute fade out. On a previous album we could have R. Kelly compare the noises of headboards against the walls to the noises his lover creates, the texture of the board to the texture of the woman's body, I really can't come up with too many more examples, as after all, I'm no R. Kelly.

There are some moments of misplaced passionate screaming, the pleading in "Go Low," the yodeling, yes yodeling in "Echo," but these prove to be the exceptions. The saddest thing about Untitled is the sense R. Kelly no longer believes in himself, let's hope he throw away the auto-tuner, goes on a vacation and writes down everything he sees from the security line at the airport to the towels by the pool to room service and turns them into sexual metaphors.

Gucci Mane

2009-12-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

GUCCIMERICA
CAUSING MASS HYSTERIA
STOOPID YELLOW DIAMOND LOOK LIKE I GOT MALARIA

Yesterday, Gucci dropped his big label, big time, look at me grinding for the last two years in anticipation of releasing this album type of album. Let's hope it's good. In celebration of this magnificent event, I we should all look back at the final track on Gucci's 2007 Back to the Traphouse, Ballers.

At this point it should be pointed out this post is more or less a celebration of one of the greatest verses by a female emcee of all time.

So the basic premise of this song is the girl will only date ballers. Shawty got a fetish for boys that go and get it, and if you are lame or square, don't even think about calling her. With a premise like this, the natural worry is the female mc would prove how cool she is by bragging about her sexual prowess and powers and say rather disgusting things upsetting Sam in the process. I don't know when the art of female emceeing embraced sexual braggadocio and I don't really care, I'm sure there's some kid at Berkley writing his college thesis on, always with the goal in the back of his head Lil' Kim will actually care, or Remy Ma will change up her raps. Please. And then there's the whole post-feminist, girls gone wild argument about taking control of your sexuality by more or less acting like a for lack of better terms, a lady with low moral values.

But hey, we're talking about a song, not feminism. And thank everything holy for that. I believe I was saying, most female rappers would start to spit some crazy sex talk, proving how dope they are and the what not. Not Shawna. With only one reference to her own anatomy in two verses, she manages to more or describe herself as the coolest girl of all time, or at least since Jenny Lewis in The Wizard.

In Shawna's world, there's little she wants to do expect hang out, kick it with her girls, talk shit to some dudes, sell drugs, and get high. She hangs out with the boys, but she still is a lady, and you would be remiss to forget that. And in the meantime, she's just gonna chill and drink and smoke,
"I'm way fucked up, I'm way tore back,
but I don't' give a fuck, I got it like that."

And there's hope in the world, cause Shawna's not doing this alone. She actually hangs out with other women a lot like her, and she's proud of her crew, and proud of their life. Listen to her dedicate her verses:
"I wrote the first three for the bitches in the hood
My air-1 bitches smoking on the good
Sitting on the porch, sipping on the yak
Or posted in the parking lot sitting in the Lac"

Gucci's verse sandwiched between isn't bad either. it's a little all over the place, and everytime he comes and tries to holla at Shawna he gets a little confused. "Shawnna's so fine, Gucci Mane I'm good, She's so pretty, I'm so hood...I'm so Southern, You're so Northern, we so crack rock, they so corny, the way I kick a brick it's like I'm doing a performance." I'm mean, I'm no one to judge what to say to a lady, I think he should have complimented her a second longer before telling other people how cooking a brick is comparable to one of his live performances, which, are not too exciting and a rather dangerous place for a woman.

Alright, we all know Shawna is mad cool, did you know she's also Buddy Guy's daughter?

LISTEN

DOWNLOAD
Ballers

PIMP C

2009-12-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

Pimp C passed away two years ago on Dec 4th. I missed it by a few days but I still wanted to briefly acknowledge this date. UGK has always been very very close to my heart. One of my favorite groups, hip-hop or otherwise, they are a rare group whose music does more than just sound good. I don't know how else to say it, but they have a feel, a vibe they convey through their music that just makes listening to them feel right. Music From Big Pink or John Wesley Harding style. Not the most mind-blowing music, but there's a feel to it, there's something about the sound that draws you in to the music. Is it the down home quality to it, the honesty involved, the intense level of artistic sincerity that makes you believe these guys are recording the exact type of music they want to be listening too? I don't know, but it worked, and it's timeless.

I've posted a lot of UGK and Pimp C related material up here, and I'm not going to turn this point into a well thought out argument in favor of UGK being outstanding. I will however leave the following clip (divided into two separate clips) of the infamous Pimp C Atlanta radio interview.
He did this shortly before he died, and if you aren't sold by the music, I hope you can enjoy the unfiltered spirit of the great Pimp C as he let's the people of Atlanta know he's not sorry for anything he said, but he'll explain what he said, and what he meant, if you gotta problem with him, he's gonna come see you Jack.

(topics include but are not limited to: Is Atlanta part of the south, does a different time zone from Texas make a place not part of the south, is Atlanta the gay capital of the world, under what circumstances is it ok to be gay, the finer points of fixing a tire with your family in the car, and why 17.5 is too low of a price for a kilo of cocaine.)

part two

Three 6 MAFIA - Smoking on Da Dro feat Alice in Wonderland

2009-12-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

I'm amazed this is so amazing.

And as far as Alice is concerned, did Walt Disney know "when she get high her favorite food is dick and Now-n-Laters?"
Somebody needs to thaw his ass out and let him know.

Because it has been over a year

2009-12-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

Since I last posted this clip. I will post it again.

One of the greatest live performances on TV ever. A marker of things to come. A statement of purpose.

The day after this was on, was Rosh Hashanah and I saw Neil Klein at synagogue and we had a memorable three sentence conversation.
"Did you see Chris Rock show last night?"
"Dude, D'Angelo!"
"Who know he did it like these days."
'Yeah I just thought he sat behind the piano."
And then, out of nowhere, Andy Silverman's voice boomed "HE DOESN'T JUST SIT BEHIND THE PIANO ANYMORE BUDDY!"
Cause that's how he talks.

Back By Popular Demand (Popeye's) Video

2009-12-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

The Clipse feat Cam'ron - Back By Popular Demand (Popeyes's)

Since Nirvana, all music has kinda sucked. I got back into listening to new bands when The Strokes came out with Last Night because it's such a cool song and they look super cool in the video. My favorite bands of all time are The Strokes, Radiohead, Animal Collective, and Journey. I'm also trying real hard to get into this band Panda Bear. Or Grizzly Bear, who can keep track anymore.

I'm not really too much into rap music. I like a lot of songs Nate Dogg sings on and I was excited to buy Get Rich or Die Trying. But hip-hop music is hard for me to get into because I like music where people play instruments and they really don't do that in rap. After a while, it all sounds the same. But, this group The Clipse, they are the exception.

I like The Clipse so much because they are really clever with the way they rhyme words. They don't just talk about selling drugs, but they come up with some new ways to brag about their former lives in the street. It's really interesting to me to hear stories about what goes on in that type of world. They are kinda like urban poets these guys. And they dress really well too. I'm really excited to go see them play live because I know that with my tight pants and neon fitted hat, there will be a lot of other white people that will be dressed just like me. I want to fit in and not be scared to be at a rap show. I hear sometimes things can get dangerous.

BUT SERIOUSLY FOLKS, this song is truly incredible. Cam's verse, which I was kinda iffy on at first is a classic and ranks somewhere low on his top ten. It has all of Cam'ron's skills put together, monosyllabic words rhymed with the same, returning to a previously dropped rhyme scheme, bookending rhymes with even more rhymes, and it's even catchy, which kinda blows my mind. I mean Ulysses is brilliant, but it's certainly not readable, even if it does involve a Jew walking around all day thinking, "Dublin? Ehhh."
And not to get lost is Pusha's verse, he starts with "you are now listening to the all-time phenomenal/Used to bag work in VA at Econo Lo," and continues his entire verse never changing his cadence or rhyme pattern. And it doesn't sound forced or gimmicky. Banger of the year folks.

And here's a treat. Cam KILLING it.

HOW DO I STOP THESE RUSSIANS FROM LEAVING SPAM IN THE COMMENT SECTION?

2009-11-17T12:27:00.001-08:00

On Steely Dan

2009-11-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

This weekend, Steely Dan played both Friday and Saturday nights, each night playing an entire album in its entirety, I went Saturday to see The Royal Scam performed to perfection. What is it like to see Steely Dan on a cold, midwestern Saturday? What is it like to venture to a theater to see a band whose enjoyment has brought you nothing but solitary happiness and public shame? What is it like to be part of something that no one else, not even your nearest and dearest, understands, or better, even wants to understand? (no Shindell)

It's fantastic. That's what it is. After parking my car and making my way out of the rather confusing lot at Grand Avenue, I walked the few blocks to the venue. Alone, with the wind and sleet blowing at my face, I wondered if this solo journey was really something I wanted to do. What was I proving? My feelings for this band are obvious, must I trudge through to this show all alone? As I approached the front of the Riverside, I stood around and waited, looking for anyone selling any tickets. After waiting a bit, I ran into one of my parents' friends, he too was alone. His solitude made me feel better about my own. We had a drink and waited for showtime to approach, hoping the closer it got, the more tickets might become available.

Ten minutes before the start of the show, I gave up hope and purchased a ticket from the box office. And even though I I felt my heritage boiling up in my blood for paying retail, I also felt safety, comfort in the fact I held a ticket. My entrance to a land of sonic perfection and live studio mastery was solidified. I was seeing the show.

I walked in and took my seat. Second floor, and where I was the attendance thined out a bit, everyone had a little bit of space. I had three seats to the right to myself. There was a guy four seats to my left. One guy in the row in front of me alone with three empty seats to his right. A woman in front of him, a man in the row across from her. We are all alone.

And I began to notice a trend. Many people came alone. Looking around, I saw a lot of us. And from all walks of life. Everyone around me seemed the same. They were neither loosers nor loners, they didn't have an air of loneliness about them, they had friends in real life outside of the Riverside Theater, yet regardless of what walk of life they came from, they couldn't convince any of their friends to go see Steely Dan with them, and thus, out of love for music played with unparalleled technical prowess, came alone to see one of their favorite bands. (no run-on)

And these people did come from all walks of life. The guy in front of me was an aging frat boy. New to town, transferred to Milwaukee from Virgina. And in between commenting on the unusual placement of a trombone solo in Hey 19 asked me where the best places were to meet girls, because according to him, in Virgina, it couldn't be any easier. And while I spoke volumes on Hey 19, I couldn't help with the girls, after all, I stopped going out ever since I decided to move to Virgina.

The guy to my left had most defiantly been at the show the night before why would I even ask such an obvious question. He told me just how good Home At Last was, after all, it is the hidden jewel on Aja. Also, and in a hint of a spectacle to come, spoke volumes of the drum solo on Aja, it apparently was transplendent. I knew even though Steely Dan was playing The Royal Scam, Aja the song with its transplendent drum solow would also be played after the completion of the album.

And the show began. The opening notes of Kid Charlemagne pounded and they were off to the goddamn races. The aging frat boy lept to his seat and with his left hand, played an air piano while with his right played and AIR FENDER RHODES. Yes that is correct, he played two different air keyboards, with two different hands, at the same exact time. Do you realize in real life, there were two people playing these instruments. Fagen played the real fender rhodes while some other dude in the band played the normal piano. Two people, yet one man, one giant dancing man was able to simultaneously and perfectly emulate both of these instruments.

Kid Charlemagne, in addition to two different keyboards, also features one of Steely Dan's greatest cynical lyric, a fuck you to song writing, we'll tell the damn story the way we wanna tell it. After Stanley Owsley III successfully synthesizes LSD, after all his low rent friends are dead, the world turns, the hippies join the human race and turn their backs on him. And now he's cleaning up this mess, he's gotta get out of town, and Fagen sings, "is there gas in the car, yes there's gas in the car," asking, answering, and telling us the only thing that is going through this guy's mind. Asking or answering a question about gas in a car any other way would be pretentious. Although one could argue the simplicity of this lyric, the accuracy of its simplicity, is pretentious enough. And if hearing this lyric live wasn't pretentious, the rollicking, barn-burning solo was as pretentious as it gets, I mean we're talking Thomas Pynchon reference.

After just killing it, they moved on. Right into Caves of Altamira. And after that, Don't Take Me Alive. It was worth noting, the aging frat boy sang, howled the part about "I crossed my old man back in Oregon" so loudly, I thought his story about being from Virgina was a lie. And again, let's look at a lyric or two, "agents of the law, luckless pedestrian..." Luckless pedestrian, this is what the man holed up in the bank or wherever is calling the hostages. Luckless pedestrian, amazing.

The pounding of the piano on Sign in Stranger, also imitated with perfection by the aging frat boy, although the woman in front of him joined the action as well. If I was not mistaken, she also used her right foot to simulate the foot pedals of the piano. Which at the time was the most amazing thing I had ever seen until Aja the song was played, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The Fez, a truly great Steely Dan song, was not spectacular. The song has almost no lyrics, just an amazing keyboard vamp and Fagen chanting a mantra to a woman, begging her to let him wear a condom, was sung by the background singers while Fagen left stage. Gimme a break. Just because you were cocaineb's house band doesn't mean you have an excuse to run offstage and relive 81 before the song is over.

Doesn't matter, cause whatever he did backstage fired his ass up to deliver an engaging version of Green Earrings and Haitian Divorce. Haitian Divorce featuring dueling guitar solos between Walter Becker and Larry Carlton. And a word on solo. These were not replicated versions of the guitar solos on the album. Steely Dan does not record a guitar solo in the studio and then play the same said solo every time they play said song. No. When Larry Carlton and Walter Becker traded guitar solos, they traded new, guitar solos. They engaged in the act of soloing. And not forever, no noodling, no hippy shit here. Their solos were within context of the song. And off appropriate length. Holla at your boy.

In Royal Scam the song, Fagen went off, screaming about the glory of the royal scam, really letting us know about what it must have been like to be a Puerto Rican hounded down to the bottom of a bad town. Also, in some interview, when asked what the Royal Scam is about, Becker replied, "it's about four minutes long!" A genius with the music, a genius with the comedy.

So they finished the album, and Fagen stood up and shoved his arms in either direction giving props to his band. Moving on to a collection of hits and deep cuts, when they busted out Aja the song, shit went a little crazy. Up till this point, I had seen many people throughout the audience playing a variety of air instruments. Drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, trumpet, trombone, even air background vocals, which I never knew possible.

A minute into the song, Fagen stood up, and busted out the weird-short-keyboard-thing-you-blow-into-and-only-hold-with-one-hand. I think it's called the melodica. And wouldn't you know, people actually did an air melodica. And I can say on the finger end, they matched it up quite well, not so sure on whether or not they emitted the proper amount of air (pause) as I didn't' hold a piece of paper up to their mouths.

So if seeing dudes do the air melodica wasn't enough, when it came time for Steve Gadd's decade defining drum solo (and while it's a solo, he's not the only dude playing, he's just soloing with other dudes still playing) everyone who had been so diligently doing their variety of air instruments, sat down. Why would people sit down for such a thing? Oh, only because you need to sit down to more properly and accurately duplicate the drum solo. If you think these were one handed air drum solos, you are wrong. If you think these are two handed, yet footless drum solos, you are still horribly wrong. If the drummer uses his feet, the fans will duplicate his solo with their feet. The wizardry onstage was matched only by the accuracy in the audience. It was an astounding thing to see. And I'm a better man for it too.

The only other major thing of note is the amount of fucked up adults, walking around in a trance. I saw security perpetually going up to people who were passed out with their heads down in their seats. Security repeatedly went up to these guys, making sure they were ok and bringing them water on some Neil Klein shit. In the words of Felicia at the end of season three, "it was worse than pathetic yo."

I think I've described the event in detail. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section and my response will be prompt.

Essay Contest: Who Wants To Go To Steely Dan With Me?

2009-11-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

Steely Dan apparently can't stay out of the midwest. They will perform Aja tonight and The Royal Scam on Saturday, which is the night I will attend. If you wish to attend said event with me, please submit an essay as to why you deserve to go. The winner will receive a ten (10) dollar bill to go towards the price of their ticket. Also, R. Kelly is playing on Sunday, and the same contest applies.

Mike G

2009-11-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

The newest photographer on the "scene."

Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzic

2009-11-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

I've been away from the blog for a while. Instead of documenting my cross country trip, meal by meal, I must discuss a new mixtape I've heard by Freddie Gibbs.

I had not heard of this guy, or anything by him. He's great. I've tried writing about how great he is for the last thirty minutes, deleting what I wrote over and over again cause it's so good I can't find a way to explain it's virtues. The best thing I can say is it blindsided me. Came out of nowhere and hit me and left me blindsided. I mean blindsided like when I bought Sweetheart of the Rodeo four years ago and could not believe there was music that good out there that I didn't know about for so long. This is new, so I have less of an excuse, but the same feeling of discovery.

Details: Freddie Gibbs is from Gary. And if Gibbs is a good representative of his city's sound, then there is a strong sonic similarity between Gary and Houston. Screwed hooks, soulfully sung choruses that aren't distracting at all, trunk rattling bass, down-south organ vamps, a flow that switches from syrupy slow to double time and then back again, and amazing lyrics that have you rewinding before the verse is even over on some "did dude really just say that" type disbelief. At times Gibbs sounds like a one man, Midwestern U.G.K. He doesn't have Pimp C's nasal or Bun B's baritone, but the feel you get, the vibe he puts across is the same as halfway through Ridin' Dirty.

And he's not just a great rapper, he knows how to craft a song. Too many rappers seem to be one or the other, they either rap their ass off, but have no idea bow to build a great song, or vice versa. Gibbs does it both. For exhibit A, I submit the chorus of County Bounce. He doesn't just spit his verse and let the chorus take him to the verse two, he divides up the chorus, splicing the hook in half, rapping four short lines in between, which instantly stays in your head because it just sounds so cool.

Alright, Freddie Gibbs, Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION

2009-10-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Slim Thug Feels the Recession

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

And he can rap too.
Get Your Hands Up feat. E.S.G.
Bitch I'm Back (unreleased Dr. Dre version)
Diamonds Remix feat. Young Jeezy

The ongoing tragedy of Shyne

2009-10-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

"is it fair, is it equal, is it just, is it right?"

Damn. Moses Michael Levy, aka Jamal Barrow aka Shyne Po, was all set to be released from prison yesterday. The internet was going nuts. "What were people tweetin?" Well, Fabulous declared it a "hood holiday, Wale just pointing out the beatuy of the day, so on and so forth. But then, at the 11th hour, the government pulled some evil, sadistic bullshit on him.

Something wasn't right. When a guy like Shyne Po--a dude whose been given the short end of the legal stick (pause) for the last ten years-- gets out, you know he's out. But all day, he was "about" to be released. What do they just let people out whenever they get around to it? Didn't make any sense.

At the end of the day, center of the world time, the story broke, Shyne got let out, just to be handed over to Federal immigration officials. And he's going to be deported to Belize by the end of the week. It's just not right. They been fucking with him for the last ten years. A ridiculously overblown prison sentence after a trial decided by public opinion, an absurd ruling stripping him of all proceeds from his second album based on New York's Son of Sam law, many, many promised release dates the government continually pushed back, a two and half year probation period effectually ruining any chance of continuing his career as a musician, and now this. He's seen the legal system in a way no white man ever would, and the way we'd all like to think no black man has since 1970.

This is bullshit. Everything about it is bullshit. Racist, extreme, and just unfair bullshit. The poor guy's been locked up for ten years, ten years, he went in at the height of his career, and now right when he gets his first breath of fresh air, we kick him out of the country to send him back to Belize, his birth country but far from his home,

Go here and email the governor of NY, tell him this is bullshit. According to Shyne's family, they've reached out to Patterson, and he's trying to pull strings, but it's a federal matter and his hands are tied. I don't know how Slick Rick's case was any different, but apparently it was.

And to think I was all set to roll out the red carpet, posting all types of crazy Shyne joints. What a shame.

On Favre.

2009-10-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

Very briefly:

I am shocked and awed by what I heard on the airwaves earlier today. It's one thing to want Favre to do alright, but it's another thing entirely to root for him and his team against your own team. In fact, this action effectively makes you not a fan. I heard a woman (clearly overweight) say "I don't care, after all he's done for us, it will be alright if they beat us tonight." First of all, you are not us. Us does not include fat women who want to loose. Us are winners. Us stays winning. But most importantly, us wants to win. Always. Come on, let's get a little backbone here. This is Wisconsin, we're generous, caring, lovely people, but come on, we're not talking Minnesota nice.

So here it is 34-27 Packers with Favre playing the full game, or 41 to 3 Packers, with Favre suffering various injuries after his second snap.

Let me end with a word for word quote form a different caller.
"I'm hoping our line, and I don't care who Charlie, I'm hoping one of em' gets a nice clean hit on Favre and breaks whatever bones in his body he can."
"Oh come on, don't say that."
"Why? I said, 'clean hit.'"

A short mix of soul songs that are druggy

2009-10-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

Download here

This whole thing started when I discovered track three of this mix, Sweet Thang, on a cd I've had for years. It was deep in the CD and it was one of those great joints you've never heard and then suddenly randomly hear and think "oh shit, I could have been listening to that for years now." What a song. Great guitar work.

Track 1: Till you get enough
Drug related moment: DUDE, the horns don't even come in till two minutes in the song. Holy shit. And they kinda pierce at your ear, it's not smooth man, it ATTACKS YOU.
Track 2: Jealous Guy
Drug Related Moment: Fuck, that electric piano is melting in my brain. And it sounds like he's singing in a small room, that's so big. Or a big room, but it's really small and intimate.
Track 3: Sweet Thang
Drug Related Moment: Whooooooa. The organ and the guitar. It's like a blues slide thing, but it's not a blues song. Holy shit. Holy shit, these singers in the background singing "sweet thang" they sound like an angel. No, three angels, but like one angel who sings so nice it's like the voice of three angels.
Track 4: I Get Lifted
Drug related moment: He gets lifted bro!!
Track 5: Be Thankful For What You Got
Drug Related Moment: Dude I am fucking thankful for this song man. Thankful as hell. It's soooo smooth. It's not even like a knife in butter, it's like those clocks on the walls at grade school, remember? Remember how the second hand just tuuurrrrns. It just keeps on turning with time, never stopping. So damn smooth. Wait, what is that, a fucking vibraphone? Oh man, it's like echoing in my whole body every time he hits it with the mallet. it's a mallet right?
Track 6: Angel Dust
Drug Related Moment: These women, they are like the angels from earlier. Is that why it's called angel dust, cause it's like angel women are singing the chorus. Ohhh, there's a flute! (no homo)
Track 7: Ain't There Something Money Can't Buy
Drug Related Moment: Green Power! Money Money Money! These guys are hilarious. And the live vibe, you know, I kinda feel like I'm there when they played it. Nooo, it's more like they're here. Dude, wouldn't that be awesome, I'd be like "dude step away from that upright bass and play some Mario Kart with us." But you know these guys are super serious about there music so it would just be like a private concert scenario.
Track 8: Stone Junkie
Drug Related Moment: They way the audience laughs when Curtis starts singing is so cool, cause you know they are all like "Oh man Curtis is about to make some great music right now," and sometimes all you can do is laugh. But listen to the way he sings the chorus, oh its so beautiful. And this guy plays the guitar so well, and he can play it so soft. How do you play something so quietly?
Track 9: Summer Madness
Drug Related Moment: Are you fucking kidding me? When the keyboard gets going, you know the part, when it gets super intense, it's like a bunch of colors, like different layers of different colors just washing over you. I wish there was better percussion so I could play my tambora along with.
Track 10: It's Gonna Be Alright
Drug Related Moment: This shit is wack. Who put it on my mix?

Chicago Looses Again.

2009-10-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

The Chicago Reader can bite it. I don't know what about being a good liberal forces you to come out against a little bit of international recognition. I understand it's a lot of money, and yeah, the money is better spent elsewhere, but, hey, every time money is spent it's always money better spent elsewhere. So that argument doesn't get anywhere with me.

The benefits of hosting the Olympics far outweigh any political argument against such a thing. This isn't an issue or politics or principal, it's an issue of hometown pride, or in my case, regional pride. And let's get to that, regional pride. The Olympics was not a Chicago only thing.

The great city of Milwaukee was ready to roll out the red carpet, spruce up our city, build a high speed rail from here to Madison and down to Chicago, build new affordable housing, make nice old existing housing, do a bunch of shit at the lakefront. Our great, heroic mayor said today Olympics or no Olympics, we're gonna go ahead and do this anyway. See in Milwaukee, we stay winning, it doesn't matter what they do down south.

And speaking of loosing, let's take a look at some of these photos.

What is she gonna do with her three day weekend?

Look at him, it's like this is the first disappointment of his life. Does he not follow the Cubs?

Go to the store and buy this album

2009-09-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

I know I've been slipping. I know there hasn't been too much I've put up here lately that's worth reading, downloading, or discussing with your peers. But it's time for PSA. Go to the store and buy the new M.O.P. album today. This shit came out last week and to date has only sold 2,100 copies.

Combat Jack wrote a piece the other day on his blog about how we all need to go to the store and buy this album. His description of M.O.P:s:

"M.O.P. is ugly Hip Hop. Grimey St. Marks Ave., Brownsville, piss scented broke down elevators, chicks with bullet scars and the scent of Kush permeating the last car of the 3 Train to New Lots. Cocaine smoked in the Newport rap. Head nod, scruntch face muzik. Strap up, load the car, them dudes across the way owe me money music."

But wait, let's compare M.O.P to other artists sharing the same release date:

"...And “Foundation”, their most recent LP is one of their best ever.In their first week, “Foundation” sold 2,100 copies. Kid Cudi, “Man On The Moon”? 100k + copies. No shots to Cudi, that “Day and Nite” and “Make Her Say” is fires, but have you heard the album? Eli Porter raps better. And I’m being nice. This is what we wanna do Hop Hop? This is where we wanna go? We really ready to shit on and trade in pure, unadulterated dope Hip Hop for happy go lucky sing song nonsensical fantasy raps? If we is, please let me off this bus right fucking now, I’ll walk to my stop. I’m done. No mas."

So there you have it. I can't really talk about how important it is to preserve the type of hip hop M.O.P. gives us. They throwback to an era where rap music wasn't auto-tuned fashion music with a screwed Biggie hook. But I think Combat Jack gets the point across a lot better than I ever could.

It's safe to say M.O.P. is as real as it gets. No one ever will put Lil' Fame or Billy Danze in top five mc status, but their music is timeless, and by timeless, I mean a throwback to 97, which will always be a timeless era. In a lot of ways, these dudes are the AC/DC of rap music. They do what they do, and they aren't changing for the times. They are gonna shout their lyrics as loud as they can, track after track, getting you buck, they aren't ever gonna experient and try and change their shit up, just like AC/DC will never throw a sax solo or tour with a fucking keyboard player. Fuck that, they keep it hard. (pause)

Also, it's worth pointing out M.O.P doesn't play. They are just as hardbody in real life as their music suggests. (pause) Oh you don't believe me? Check this clip out of M.O.P. strolling the streets of Brownsville, with a baseball bat in tow, looking for folk bootlegging their album.

Great Bands From Milwaukee#1: Decibully

2009-09-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

Whoa, what do you know, these guys are playing in New York tonight. After three years of not touring, one baby, and two marriages, it was decided to start touring again. Pay special attention to the drummer, a Canadian, who in the immortal words of the immortal Jessica Hoffman is "the glue that holds that band together." Just don't give him cheese and crackers.

Best New Website Ever Alert:

2009-09-21T14:33:00.001-07:00

DUDE NICE INTERNET

Basically, it's about people who are bad at the internet. And the bad internet they create.

I wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Review of Books

2009-09-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

If you read five sentences, that will probably be three more than the editor does.

To the editor:

In Howard French’s “Kagame’s Hidden War in the Congo” it doesn’t take long for his book review to turn into an all out attack on Rwandan President Paul Kagame, his policies, and the historical record.
At least he doesn’t waste any time, and by the second paragraph, firmly asserts the “main force driving this conflict(in Eastern Congo)” is Rwanda, and its “largely Tutsi Army.” Rwanda always stated its military presence is necessary on its western border with DRC in order to deal with genocidal Hutu militias living in Eastern Congo. French minimizes this argument writing “the extent of the Hutu threat to Rwanda is much debated…” and it only gets worse from there.
He chooses to ignore the legitimate threat of genocidal militias living a stone’s throw across the border from Western Rwanda, arguing Rwanda has its eyes on Congo’s valuable natural resources and is willing to wage war to plunder them. To be fair, Eastern Congo is lined with natural resources, far more than densely populated Rwanda could ever dream to possess. Yet, at the same time, Rwanda, a country slightly larger than Macedonia, exports enough food to feed nearly all of Eastern Congo, an area French himself called the size of Pennsylvania.
And while it is one thing for French to argue Kagame aims to plunder the DRC for Rwanda’s economic advancement, it’s quite another to entirely dismiss the threat of Hutu militias. French repeatedly downplays their threat, at one point even writing the “threat the Hutu group poses to Rwanda's own security is "vastly exaggerated," noting that its fighters "are no match" for Rwandan and Rwanda-backed forces…a sophisticated military arsenal, consisting of armored personnel carriers, tanks, and helicopters."
There’s no arguing that. It’s true that a bunch of genocidal guerillas in loosely formed militias hiding in the jungles of Eastern DRC would prove no match for the Rwandan military, but it’s not the Rwandan military these forces target. Instead of attacking one of Africa’s most highly trained armies, these militias cowardly target civilian populations right across the border. But to hear French tell it, Kagame’s troops on the border are there to engage these miltias and prevent them from toppeling his government.
The truth is, groups such as the FDLR pose a clear and present threat to both Rwanda and her citizens, especially those living on the Congolese border. It is necessary for Rwanda to maintain a strong presence in the region to protect its citizens. Having interviewed members of these militias, their philosophies are simple and can be summarized in two major points: 1) kill Tutsis and 2) overthrow the Rwandan government. And this isn’t a secret, this is there manifesto. These groups were pushed into the Congo when Kagame put down the genocide, and their hatred has not difussed over the years.
French therefore thinks Kagame should simply ignore these groups with a desire to overthrow his government and slaughter his civlians because they “are no match” for his army. Do we live in a world where the only threats deemed serious enough are the ones that can be backed up with force immediately? Just because Kagame’s enemies in Congo do not possess the same military might as Rwanda, should Kagame give them time to amass the weapons they need before engaging them? This is lunacy, one sided, and offensive.
And French doesn’t stop at minimizing these Hutu militias’ threats, he argues Kagame is the real perpetrator of the violence. He goes back to 1994 and has problems with the way Kagame put down the genocide, perhaps French doesn’t like the fact he pushed militias out of Rwanda into the Congo, perhaps French would have preferred Kagame to slaughter them on Rwandan soil.
French rightly disapproves of Kagame’s reluctance to try Tutsi civilians that murdered Hutus on genocide charges, and repeatedly cites incidents of mass murder of Hutus at the hands of Kagame’s troops. And while Tutsi genocide charges have been slow in Rwanda, Kagame has shown little tolerance for anyone in his own army acting out in a similar fashion. His army has strict guidelines of conduct, and those who have committed violence against innocent Hutus have been punished. What Kagame hasn’t done is broadcast this to the world. He made the mistake of assuming the world would assume he would be fair and just, unfourtantly for him, this is Africa, and even a fairly elected leader who in just 15 years has created a country from war-ravaged ashes must be overseen by international bodies.
And Kagame disagrees. Naturally, he has a distaste for the U.N. which did nothing, not little, but nothing to stop the genocide in 1994. And now they want to tell him how to run his country. He believes Africans are talented enough, and smart enough to rule their own nations. Furthermore, he has proven he can. To suggest he needs help is to still live with a colonial mentality at best, and racist at worst.
Additionally, French’s claims of Kagame’s violence at times seem overblown at times. He cites an incident in 1995 in which Tutsi troops lined up 150,000 Hutu refugees and opened fire. It doesn’t take a great deal of math to determine this statistic highly unlikely. A year earlier, the world turned it’s back and allowed the genocide to claim the lives of nearly one million people, and now a year later, with the world watching, with the shame of our indifference to the plight of Rwanda, it would have been next to impossible for Kagame’s military to slaughter 150,000 people. It would have been noticed to say the least.
Finally, French’s historical detour into the Burundi genocide of 1972 is not just out of place, it is offensive. French briefly highlights the tragic events of 1972 when Hutu uprisings led the Tutsi army to respond with mass slaughter resulting in a death toll between 150,000 to 300,000 thousand, depending on which side’s statistic you choose to believe. Countless more fled Burundi, many into neighboring Rwanda where over the years they developed their own brand of Hutu extremism.
And while this is a necessary chapter in understanding the complex and strained historical relationship between the different ethnic groups in the region, French stops just short of using this as an excuse for the Hutu Power movement and the genocide it produced.
He makes a special note to write how most view the Rwanda genocide as a “morality play” where Hutus were the bad guy killers and the Tutsis were the victims. He argues this simplistic version of the genocide needs to be rethought. And while the morality play may be a bit simplistic, there is a difference between understanding the genocide in the scope of history, and simply rewriting history itself.
The world watched and did nothing to stop black people from slaughtering black people in 1994. Since then, with nearly six million lives claimed in the Congo, the world isn’t even watching. We’ve stopped paying attention. And the few that are choose to waste their time attacking Rwanda, the most stable country in the region, rewriting her history, and painting it’s leader as a violent warlord. Rwanda is a solution, a key to stability in the region. Let’s not waste our time attacking the solution.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Still Acting the Fool

2009-09-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

...President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a fiery anti-Israeli speech in honor of the annual Jerusalem Day ceremonies, calling the Holocaust “a lie,” among his harshest statements on the topic, and impugning the West again for its criticisms of Iran’s disputed June 12 presidential election.

The rest and a slide show here.

What an asshole. Imagine if Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech and said, "oh yeah, the Nakba, never happened. I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

Is stealing an election and causing the largest unrest your country has seen in three decades not enough for one man? When will this guy just shut up and let and let grown ups do their jobs?

The Choices of Life

2009-09-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

TONIGHT:

OR

Steely Dan Countdown to Gayness #4: Black Cow

2009-09-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

19 years old, what did I know of Steely Dan? Sure I knew some songs. Actually I knew a few, a lot of these songs I knew I didnt' even know were Steely Dan songs. But fuck, Steely Dan? Hell no, that's some Audi driving, suburb living, 3 kid having, sushi eating, CPA having yuppy shit. And I don't get down like that. What am I soft? (pause) I got this new Blackstarr cd my discman. You don't know it? It's great, these two dudes from New York, one you might know from Soundbombing Two. Yeah, the Rawkus joint.

That was me. Then one day, while working for the summer on this movie Harball, I was walking down Maxwell Street, back when it was Maxwell Street, before UIC came in and destroyed 80 years of history, and some store was blasting, just blasting "Be Thankfull for What You've Got." I had never heard it before in my life and walked into the store to buy it, and everything else whoever recorded it also recorded. The guy didn't have it. What he did sell me though was a mix he made for five dollars with that song on it, and it was the greatest goddamn thing I've ever bought in my life.

What's important though is the first song, track one, side one, was Black Cow by Steely Dan. Yeah that's right. Everything else was some old soul shit you've never heard of, never will, and wouldn't know about it even if I explained it to you. And with all that, he still put Black Cow on the his tape. Damn.

Steely Dan Countdown to Gayness #3: Chain Lightning

2009-09-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest. With Katy Lied, Fagen and Becker fully made the move to studio musicians. In many ways Katy Lied is a more polished version of Pretzel Logic, a lot of the same ideas, just with more time, shine, gloss, and money thrown into the mix. Such perfectionists, Becker and Fagen refused to listen to the final version of the album, claiming something went wrong in the mastering process and ruined the sound. They even included an apology to the listeners on the back of the album.

Who cares. Take this track, Chain Lightning. It's only three minutes long, but it packs a lot of song into those three minutes. Two verses, no chorus, a great, lazy guitar solo, all punctuated by the electric piano which then vamps off on it's own at the very end leaving you begging for more. It's a study in economy. It gives everything you need even though you want it to keep on going.

Lyrically, there's a lot of debate over this joint. Apparently, on an earlier version of the song, between the verses, Fagen whispers, "thirty years later," and this convinced a lot of people on the Internet the song is about fascism. General idea is they need to be part of the brotherhood, blah blah blah, and thirty years later they go back to where they heard their fallen leader speak. So there's that, the other theory is the song is about plain old heroin addiction.

In general, all Steely Dan songs have two interpretations, something lofty that doesn't really make too much sense and is equivalent to when your high school English teacher told you that Bigger Thomas cut the woman's head off in Native Son because to cut someones head off is to decapitate them and the word decapitate is kinda like "no to capitalism" and Wright was a big communist so when he cuts off her head he's actually committing a a pro-Communist act. And then you think, or he cut her head off because he cut her head off. After all, he was a an unstable guy with viloent tendencies in terrible circumstances in a racist Chicago and had just killed this poor liberal woman and had to dispose of her body and she wouldn't fit in the furnace, which is kinda like the other meaning behind most of Steely Dan's songs, b) drug addiction.

Film Review: Inglourious Basterds

2009-09-03T08:26:00.000-07:00

1. The opening scene is one of the better, Hitchcockian moments of suspense. Tension filled, smart, and smartly paced. It ranks among Tarantino's best moments. Too bad I read the whole damn thing in Vanity Fair three months ago thus ruining the suspense, the tension filled moments, and it's smart pacing. Still, a great scene.

2. Sam Levine's line to the Nazi's when they are about to be killed was a welcome treat. Granted, one of my biggest faults with the film was not enough Sam Levine, but that's one of my biggest faults with life in general. One time, many years ago, I met a man who claimed to know Sam Levine and even produced his phone number as proof. I called him and left him a message on his voicemail extolling the comedic merits of a joke* he made in episode three of Freeks and Geeks. He myspaced me and said, "hey, thanks for being a good fan and appreciating the slight comedic undertones of that joke as well as the easier to spot on the surface humor." Same Levine, what a guy. Don't' just put him in a movie for one joke. As Smokey Robinson famously said, "a taste of honey is worse than none at all." Pause.

3. The scene in the bar with the cut to the guy in the back of the bar who also wants to know about the British guy's odd German accent is one of the greatest scenes I can recall seeing in many years. Fantastic.

All this being said, when it comes to movies about Jews running around the woods killing Nazis, Defiance is still best in genre, if not of all time.

*The joke:
While Lindsay decides to have keg party while her parents are out of town, the geeks decide to replace the keg with one containing non-alcoholic beer. While Bill and Sam move the keg, Sam Levine aka Neil Schieber is sent in to distract Lindsay, who is very busy preparing for the party. Neil walks up to her in the kitchen, tries to help her open up a bag of chips, and then asks her what music she plans on playing later at the party.
"I don't know, Foghat, Zeppelin, maybe a little Sabbath."
His reply, "Friday night, an excellent night for a little Sabbath."
And there's a bunch of physical comic business that follows this joke to really drive it home.

Steely Dan Countdown to Gayness #2: The Boston Rag

2009-09-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

After using the phrase sonic perfection one too many times yesterday, I thought I'd go back, back a bit to when sonic perfection was ignored, or rather, not as important as a guitar rock oriented song. Countdown to Ecstasy was probably their most rock bandy type album. Easily played on the road, lots of guitar solos, no horns, backup vocals, etc.

There's a good deal of debate concerning what this song is actually about, I've read detailed arguments placing The Boston Rag as a classic example of an anti-war song. I've also read an impassioned piece claiming this song is a a send up of a culture of anti-war songs, and a send up of the counterculture, basically arguing people would rather get high than do what they need to do to help end the war. Kinda like Pete Townsends' summary of Woodstock being nothing more than kids getting high in the mud because they want to get high in the mud and kicking Abby Hoffman off the stage. I've also heard the song is a portrait of the former editor of a Boston newspaper, a cautionary tale to not let babies out of their cribs, a tribute to the Colonial Flag, and so on.

At the end of the day, it's best to take the song for what it's worth, the story of an epic bender being told to you by someone on an epic bender. Donald Fagen said about the song "the best thing about the Boston Rag is that it's set in New York." I think this gives credence to my theory.

Two major things to listen for:
1) The guitar solo, not the best Steely Dan guitar work by a long shot. But there is something about it that gets me every time.
2) At the end of the song when they are all yelling to bring back the Boston rag, Fagen yells out, "you gotta bring it on home." If yesterday's entry spoke of their "coolest" moment, I would defiantly label this moment their most rock n roll.

Steely Dan: A Countdown to Gayness #1

2009-09-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

This friday night I will be seeing Steely Dan at the Chicago Theater. A gorgeous venue with unheralded acoustic might, a building constructed with sonic perfection in mind, what better place to see a band who shunned touring a long time ago to devote their careers to achieving nothing less than absolute sonic perfection. Hey, Steely Dan=Sonic perfection.

Steely Dan has been playing four shows in select cities, each night a new album cover to to cover. Aja, The Royal Scam, and Gaucho. The final night is a night of requests, and they've been diving in deep, polishing off some dusty ones and playing some deep cuts with their trademark sonic perfection.

I've decided to shun the album shows. Aja would be dope, but too much of a greatest hits, Gaucho, a dream come true, but I don't need to hear side two of that album, and Royal Scam, sometimes it makes me a little nauseous. That being said, I'd kill to hear The Fez, Time Out of Mind off side tow of Guacho, and a roaring version of Deacon Blues could do me some good. No homo.

Each day before the show, I'd like to talk a little bit about this band, this Steely Dan, why I love them so much, why I don't care what people say about me anymore, and I'd like to highlight a track or two.

So without further ado, here is a short history of Steely Dan.

Met at Bard College. They bonded of a mutual love of jazz, sarcasm, and general assholeishness and a mutual disdain of hippy shit. Formed a band, a rock band with guitar players and a drummer and you know, a band. They made two albums. Can't By a Thrill was their first. Classic. They moved to LA and cut Countdown to Ecstasy. Another classic, and their most rock album to date. They disbanded the band, became a duo, and from here on out, hired session men to come in and play.
By the time they got to Aja, they rarely even played on their own songs. Rather, they hired the best session players, the most technically skilled guys out there to come in and play the music they had constructed in their own heads, but were without the prowess to play themselves. After that came Gaucho, then a twenty year hiatus and a few new albums, which aren't that bad.

Today I will discuss out loud and to whomever may listen the merits of Haitian Divorce.

There's a lot to discuss with this song. The main thing that constantly stands out and impresses me every time is the cinematic quality of the images. Once you can get past the sarcasm, there's a great story being told in this song, and it's the details, the production design that really makes the scenes pop out at you.

So boy meets girl, they fall in love, love fades, she goes to Haiti, doesn't like her all inclusive, goes to the ghetto, meets a local and carrys on with him, comes back to America, finds love with her husband again, has a baby, but the baby is born with kinky hair and so now she gets divorced.

The good parts:
1) the description of the end of the relationship "soon everyone knew the thing was dead." I love this. We don't hear why, and it's not important. And we don't hear that they think it's dead, rather everyone else does, and if everyone else thinks their relationship is over, it's over. And as evidence, "he shouts, she bites, they wrangle through the night." We don't need to hear any reasons why, he doesn't put the cap back on the toothpaste, she wants to move to Nyack, he wants to focus more on his job etc... it's not important. We are immediately transported into the bowels of their marriage by being shown an emotion. And we can relate to this emotion because we can relate to shouting and biting and fearing everyone else thinks our relationship is dead more so than we can relate to whatever specific examples Steely Dan were to give us as to why their relationship is ending.

2. The way Fagen sings the line, "she feels alright, she get it one tonight" and his yeah half whispered after that is dare I say, almost as cool as Steely Dan could ever get?

3. The idea of the nice hotel not being enough, she gets the driver to take her where the music play.

4. Charlie sitting in a greasy chair with lotion and kinky hair. This image is perfect. And to end this scene, she smiles at him, and the smile says it all. "Now we dolly back, now we fade to black." Always been a proponent for camera directions in song lyrics. But it ends this moment perfectly. We don't need to have it all spelled out for us. she looks at him and smiles, he looks back, dolly, fade to black. It says it all.

5. The guitar solo is actually played by two people, Dean Parks played the notes and Walter Becker altered them on the talk box.

6. The cover art to the song's album, "The Royal Scam" was described by Donald Fagen in 1999 as being "the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can't Buy A Thrill)." Yes, this is Steely Dan at their most bitter and cynical.

In short, this is the best song about a marriage ending because the wife has sex with a Haitian dude.

Back from Costa Rica

2009-09-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

But being without my computer and no way to put my photos up, my stories of the trip will have to wait. But don't worry, there are more things to talk about such as my mayor being the best dude ever, Favre being the worst, and a new series to be unleashed the week before any Steely Dan concert titled "A Countdown to Gayness."

Ladies and Gentlemen:

2009-08-13T12:29:00.002-07:00

The Doors

These guys are great! Who knew? As a straight forward, blues-based rock n' roll band, The Doors are up there with anyone else. As a droned out, psychedelic organ drenched soundtrack to Jim Morrison's verbal masturbation, it's borderline painful. It's interesting to hear how talented the band was when they are allowed to be a band. Robby Krieger may be the most underrated guitar-god in rock. And Jim Morrison, clearly the most overrated frontman of all time, and probably the biggest certifiable asshole to ever record a song, well, he did have a voice. It's a shame he did everything he could to ruin the quality and quantity of the songs he used that voice on.

Two of the best:

Peace Frog

Soul Kitchen

Ladies and Gentlemen

2009-08-13T12:29:00.001-07:00

HOLY SHIT!

2009-08-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

1) This is a movie I should have made.
2) This movie was made for me.
3) This movie may be the only film in the world that is better than Defiance.

On a quarter million jobs being an improvement

2009-08-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

The news of the Labor Department's latest figures on July's job loss has the White House and everyone else who has any political stake in the matter jumping up and down and laughing at the Republicans. "See," they shout, "Obama's stimulus package works so well, because in July, we only lost a quarter of a million jobs. Let's put another billion into cash for clunkers."

I'm not saying going from an 9.5% unemployment rate to 9.4% isn't an improvement. But if my son was a d student and brought home a c, it wouldn't be time to buy him a new video game. It would be time to talk about how to improve his slightly improved study habits. Just because you are used to d's doesn't make c's any more acceptable. And loosing a quarter of a million jobs in one month is not acceptable. I understand it's an improvement, but it is misleading and downright insulting to tout this moderate reduction in job losses as an accomplishment. But what worries me more is using it as rock-solid evidence confirming Obama's economic polices were handed to him at Mount Sinai. We are in scary times. Even with this dip, the White House is still predicting unemployment will eventually reach 10 percent in the coming months. So the same people who are telling us to celebrate are also telling us things are going to get worse.

“The trend lines are positive,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “We are going from massive job losses to just big job losses on our way to a stable job market, I think by next spring.”
That's an actual quote. Things are great. We are loosing a shitload of jobs, and it's horrible, but man you should have seen how bad it was a few months ago! You think this is a shitload of jobs, this is nothing.

This type of language to measure job loss is just plain stupid. It doesn't make any sense. And what makes it even worse is most of the jobs lost aren't coming back. Most manufacturers when hit with big orders via stimulus money don't hire back laid off workers, they just spring for overtime for their current staff.

If we want to measure any type of improvement, we need to look at not only job loss, but how many new jobs are created, but I'm guessing, in July, that number was well below a quarter million.

Curtis Mayfield -- Hard Times

Ahh Puerto Rico...OHHHHHHH Ahh Puerto Rico...OHHHHH

2009-08-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

THE BEST SONG EVER

How proud will this make the proudest people ever in the history of the entire world ever of all time? Should we expect lots of people blowing whistles, cars with flags plastered on them blasting reggaeton, and general tomfoolery?

The Crime of the Century

2009-08-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

This is not about the death penalty. I'm sure regardless of how we feel about capital punishment, we can all agree this guy deserves it.

Grandparents Lose Thousands To Fake Grandson
By George Mallet
PLYMOUTH—The scared voice on the phone sounded just like Bob and Carol Grimes 24 year old grandson, Nick.

“Grandpa I’m in big trouble,” the caller said. He went on to say he had been drinking and was involved in an accident in Canada. He said he was locked up and could avoid a felony charge if his grandparents would wire him $4,200.

“The fact that he was in such trouble and in jail in Canada,” said Carol Grimes. “I just couldn’t even fathom.”

The Grimes didn’t waste any time. They went to their Plymouth bank and got the cash the man they thought was their grandson requested. Then they went to Wal-Mart to get an International Money Transfer or Money Gram. Soon, the money was on the way to Canada.

REST HERE

As far as I'm concerned, this is up there with murdering a child and impersonating a doctor.

Shyne Po

2009-08-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

Shyne - Bad Boys

"Once upon a time, not long ago
When gangstas rocked waves sold dope and sniffed blow
There was a young G by the name of Shyne Po
Puttin' it down, cuttin' it up and cookin' it now"

Well, unfortunately, that time was about ten years ago, give or take a few months. Set to carry B.I.G's throne, an incident in a club and his loyalty got him sent up north for ten years. But today, his parole board ruled he will indeed be released October 6. The judge also ruled against the D.A.'s request for a strict, five year parole carrying with it strict regulations on out of state travel that would in effect, make performing outside the state of New York impossible. Luckily the defense prevailed, the judge granted Shyne a two-and-a-half year parole term. Still long, but it doesn't carry as many restrictions and will make Shyne professional life as a musician a lot easier.

While it's not winning the lottery by a long shot, it's nice to see dude catch a break after being hit by every statute the State of New York could throw at him. Sentenced to ten years and denied an early release, a civil suit was filed against him, freezing all the proceeds he made from his second album, Godfather Buried Alive, under the Son of Sam law. The basic premise of the law argues a criminal cannot profit from his own crimes, which is a great idea. We don't want the son of sam writing a book and collecting the money. But in Shyne's case, freezing his assets from before the club shooting, and the argument his second album glorifies the crime that put him in jail at the expense of the victims, is ridiculous and just flat out, extremely unfair.

Expect me to roll out a ticker tape parade in the days before October 6th. I'm keeping this post to an update, not a glorification of Shyne's abilities. (pause)

But, here are a few facts you didn't know about Shyne.

1. Born in Belize city, his father is right now get this, PRIME MINISTER OF BELIZE.
2. He's a Jew. Descended from Jewish Ethiopians on his mother's side. In prison he become Orthodox.
3. ISN'T THAT ENOUGH?

Shyne - Bad Boys

An Inside Look at a Syrian-Jewish Enclave: Solidarity Forver, or 'Medieval Minds in Armani Desgins'?

2009-08-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

From the Daily Forward. Don't know if anyone is actually keeping up with the New Jersey nonsense, but this is an interesting article on the current history and conflict within the Syrian-Jewish community which sits at the heart of the scandal. And yes, the Rabbi is preaching a "no snitching" doctrine to his congregants. Amazing

At the Deal Synagogue on the final Saturday afternoon of July, congregants were treated to the spectacle of a revered rabbi of the Syrian community disavowing his son.
Like virtually everyone connected to Deal’s Syrian community, the leader declined to speak for the record. But he confided, “Without using the word ‘disown,’ he said his son was no longer welcome in his home.”

According to two sources, the senior Dwek delivered a blistering speech at the gathering, in which he denounced the actions of a Jew being an informant against fellow Jews and requested the community’s prayers for him in a time of suffering. And then, as if to underline the point, the elder Dwek taught a class together with Nachum, the man caught in his son’s sting.

Reached by phone, Dwek declined to comment. “This is something I don’t wish to talk about now,” he said graciously, adding, “God bless you” when a reporter said he understood.
Deal, N.J., is a quiet and bucolic seashore summer community for the prosperous, largely Brooklyn-based Syrian-Jewish community of about 75,000. But that tranquility has been buried in a din of rumor and gossip since money laundering charges were lodged against the three Syrian rabbis, who are out on bail. There is a deep historical irony to these arrests: Solomon Dwek took down the rabbis from the two main rival families whose leadership struggle divided the community some 15 years ago. And in damaging these pillars of the community, some say, Dwek may have strengthened the ultra-Orthodox “black hat” stream that has been a rising force, at least among the rank and file.

The rest HERE
--------------

(and from the comments sections)
‘Medieval Minds in Armani Designs’. I wonder if the readers of Forward has ever been provided with informations about how Medieval can be those people living in Williamsburg or Borough Park. Or is this historical anathema reserved for those tchamtchakim, guilty to vote Likud and too not understand yiddish and socialism?

DAMNNNNNN

Best use of pause on live tv?

2009-08-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

I GOT CLIPS ON CLIPS

What A Clip!

2009-07-31T15:39:00.001-07:00

Have we all seen this? Stoned on Judge Judy?

DAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNNNNN!

2009-07-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

Twitter catches a big L.

Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer may have had the best quip of the day. Asked about the success of Twitter and other social networking sites, Stringer said:

"A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE DOING VERY WELL AT MAKING VERY LITTLE MONEY. IT'S NOT A CLUB I'M LOOKING TO JOIN."

SNAP!

Google brings a little swagger to Sun Valley -- LA Times

Wisconsin: Still better than Minnesota

2009-07-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

Favre staying retired
By Greg A. Bedard of the Journal Sentinel
July 28, 2009 4:14 p.m.

Green Bay - Brett Favre told Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress he will remain retired in a recent phone conversation, Childress told the Minneapolis Star Tribune this afternoon.
A source has since confirmed the report to the Journal Sentinel.

Favre cited the mental and physical grind that comes with playing a full National Football League season.
“I just think it was a rare opportunity to explore a Hall of Fame quarterback who had background in the NFC and in this division,” Childress told the Star Tribune. “He knows our system inside out … This doesn’t change anything about how I feel about our football team.”
...

Two things we all have seen.

2009-07-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

But you know, just in case.

Two of the newest greatest clips of all time.

Watch My Show Again

2009-07-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

Tonight.
New time.
9pm eastern and pacific.
8pm CENTRAL.
NBC

Album Review #21: Maxwell - BLACKsummer's Night

2009-07-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

Blacksummer's Night=The best album recorded in recent human memory.

There's not much I can say about this one. Totally blindsided. Read a few reviews and bought it, and after a few thousand non-stop listens, it only gets better, deeper, weirder, more complex, just perfect. it's an amazing piece of r&b. And the band is crack. The music doesn't have the smoothed out bedroom quality cheese that ruined so much mid-90's r&b. That's not to say it's not smooth, not to say it doesn't bump a slow jam, or slow jam a song, it's just an amazing piece of art. And at less than 40 minutes, you owe it to yourself. Listen, buy it, read about it, love it.

Help Somebody
Pretty Wings

Watch My Show

2009-07-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

The New York Times gave us a so-so review (is it journalism, is it entertainmnet, etc.) but they still agree there is a good sixty minutes piece underneath it all, The Washington Post loves it. Still, this piece, about the controversy we caused is far more interesting. And this is the incident that started it all.

ENJOY

10 PM Eastern Time
9 PM Central and Pacific
NBC

Jackie Chain

2009-07-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

So this guy is half-Chinese, half-redneck, and all amazing. pause If his myspace bio is true, one month after his dad kicked him out of the house at 16, he was living in a mansion with a pool. From hustling.

This is a hotel room freestyle that doesn't really get going till about halfway through. He ends it though with the greatest, "I smoke better weed than you" rhyme I've ever heard with "that take one hit and go bye-bye shit, Dave Chappelle Half-Baked Mr. Nice Guy shit."

And hearing the cap of the beer hit the floor at the end, real rap right here.

Also

Jackie Chain - Rick James Shit

Are babies the best props?

2009-07-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

Jay-Z VS The Game

2009-07-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

The Smoking Sections has done a nice history of Jay-Z vs. The Game in their own words. I guess the beef cooked up this past weekend. Jay finally used his name and instead of dancing around it, and Game went in hard. (pause)

Link is here

The page has links to download all the songs in question. Pay special attention to the Game's 200 and 300 bars and running tracks. The first one, over the Deep Cover beat deserves a post of its own. It's way back, before his first album even came out, when he was pledging his love for G-Unit and slaughtering everyone in his way, including Joe Budden:
(2 Lincoln continentals sittin back to back/Leaving Jersey City/ naw nigga Hackensack/ Where's that? somewhere where the crackers at/Real far from where the roaches and rats is at"

and Memphis Bleek: "But it was all a dream like I seen Memph Bleek in Marcy/ I ain't say you won't see Bleek in Marcy/I said my man said he won't see Bleek in Marcy "

The final bit is emotional flooring. It is one of the most heartfelt, tear-jerking, praise for the dead forefathers of this rap shit verses I've ever heard:

"Tryin to measure the fallin legends but the shoe won't fit
Niggaz might think I'm ridin dick
Cuz I'M AT the cemetery puttin creases in my G-Unit's
Tryin to talk to Jesus Christ into lettin me dig 'em up
So they could stand side by side again and live it up
This might be the last time you hear me biggin 'em up
With suicidal thoughts bangin me and my bitch in the truck
My conscience tellin me if I put the clip in the buck
It might be loud enough to wake B.I.G and them up
What if that was P. Diddy sittin in the truck
And 2Pac was in jail the day he recorded "Hit Em Up"
I wouldn't be outside 40/40 bumpin 'Jigga What'
Wouldn't be signed to Dr. Dre I wonder is its luck
They got me on MTV with Banks, Fifth, and Buck
I ain't tryin to be L.A.'s king he carry a pimp cup"

Damn. But I digress. Anyway. His new verse at Jay is vicious. And Jay's Blueprint 3 freestyle is about as honest as a rapper will ever get.

Now that I've talked about how you should go to another website and also copied and pasted all relevant links, please do one or the other. Enjoy

Album Review #7: Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

2009-07-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

Wilco The Album: BOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRIIIINNG!!!!!!!!!!

This album lacks the country rock of AM, the cool vibe of Being There, the concept of Mermaid Ave #1 and 2, the pop of Summerteeth, the experimentation of Yankee Foxtrot, the weirdness of Ghost Is Born, or the guitar jams of Sky Blue Sky.

What does it have? A cutesy title and a cutesy first song. A cool cover shot in Milwaukee. That's it. The feeling you get when you listen, "this album doesn't suck, but when I want to listen to Wilco I will never choose to listen to this Wilco."

Consequences of the irrational nature the woman #1

2009-07-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

Consequences of the irrational nature the woman #1

I'm worried this is going to be an ongoing series.

------
From the jsonline:

According to the department:

The woman was driving a red Ford Focus shortly before noon northbound on the highway as she argued with her husband. Near Mayfair Road, she lost control of the car, crashing into a black sport utility vehicle on its left side and then a motorcycle on the car's right.

The impact caused the motorcycle to explode and sent the motorcyclist off a bridge and onto Underwood Parkway. The 54-year-old West Milwaukee motorcyclist was declared dead at Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa.
-----

After reading the police complaint, I will summarize and add a bit more.
The man and the woman are having troubles, yet she agrees to run errands with him. The woman can't stop yelling, and as the man goes to turn up the radio so as to avoid listening to her nonsense, she jerks the wheel, crashing into an suv. She overcompensated, crashed into a bike, setting it on fire, and sending the driver off the bridge!

Man.

Who knew when I walked into the party five years ago and a dude I went to high school with who became a pimp told me that pimping ain't easy "cause you dealing with women, and women have very explosive personalities."

Here is a link to the complaint.
video link is here

Robert McNamara

2009-07-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

It would be hard to find a man who lived a life more interesting, let alone one with a greater impact on the world at large than Robert McNamara. Regardless of how you see McNamara, as the efficiency expert who brought Ford back to the top, the war-criminal who firebombed Tokyo, the hero who single handedly saved the world from nuclear annihilation, the man who put 58195 names on the wall in Washington, or the haunted old man who years later shouted from every rooftop he had been wrong, "terribly wrong" about "his" war.

McNamara had beliefs, and right or wrong, he's the quintessential example of a man not motivated by any type of personal gain, rather, the confidence of his own convictions. He believed his path was right, and that following that path was the best way to bring about best results.

And even though his admissions of errors and his guilt-ridden end of days do little to bring back the kids who died in the jungle half a world away, it still means something. Would Rumsfeld stand up at the end of his life and say, "I was wrong?" Never. Forget Rumseld, how many people have stood up and said, "my life was wrong, what I am going to be remembered for was a mistake. And don't pity me, I sent thousands of boys to their death because I was wrong." McNamara made mistakes, but I hope we can all look up and try and mirror his ability to be honest with the world, and himself.

“War is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.”

obit here

Getting back to the basics of this blog

2009-07-02T11:35:00.000-07:00

In New York City, Fewer Murders on Rainy Days

On Aug. 26, 2006, something unusual happened in New York City.

It was a Saturday in the heart of summer, the kind of day that averages more than two homicides. Yet the police reported no killings.

One other thing happened that day: it rained.

In fact, an analysis by The New York Times of rainfall and homicides for the last six years shows that when it rains substantially in the summertime, there are fewer homicides.

When there was no precipitation, there was an average 17 homicides every 10 days. But when there was an inch or more of rain, the average dropped to 14.

That does not surprise Vernon J. Geberth a former Bronx homicide squad commanding officer. He said when there was a downpour, the police would sometimes joke, “The best cop in the world is on duty tonight.”

The gap is even wider when looking just at Saturdays in the summer. Those days typically post the highest number of homicides in the course of a year. When there was no rain, the average number of homicides for the 10 Saturdays in summer jumped to 24. For those few Saturdays doused with at least an inch of rain, the rate was 18.

The rest here.

The best new blog in America

2009-06-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

WWW.WEAREALLMIKEG.BLOGSPOT.COM

Change of opinion #1: The beach/ocean

2009-06-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

Apparently, this was published in an earlier, mistake-ridden version. Anyway, I'VE NEVER BEEN A BIG

fan of the beach for five reasons:

1. Too sandy
2. Too salty
3. There are fish in the water
4. There are sharks in the water
5. There are other things in the water that can touch your feet.

But you can't spend your whole life with your toes touching the water, sometimes, you have to just jump in!

And this Saturday, in Malibu, I jumped in and it was so cold. But I swam in the water for so long that my body began to adjust to the temperature of the water and I soon became comfortable. And when you are comfortable with the temperature of the water, you can swim like a fish!

I used my friend's boogie board and "caught a wave" as they say, and man, it was an exhilarating experience. One "breaker" was so big I "boogied" all the way to shore. It was crazy. I was on the board and I wiped my eyes, opened them, and I was still moving! Imagine opening up your eyes, and you are gliding as one with the water. Just one wave, and already I want to know all this Pacific Ocean has to offer. After that there was a mild disagreement between Sam and I as to whether or not the fin in the water I saw was a shark. We decided to play it safe, but there was still more fun to be had. To sit on the beach and read, or converse with your friends can be just as enjoyable as swimming in the swimming water. After that, we went and drank a few beers and ate a delicious dinner of fish, oysters, and other marvelous creatures this Ocean has to offer.

How did I miss this?

2009-06-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

It's a cat wearing a blue schmatte and playing the keyboards!!!!! How is this not funny?

Helen Hunt, The Keyboard Cat, and the most dangerous drug of the 1980's (pcp) yields untold laughs.

New Best Song Ever: Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell

2009-06-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

This song is about a combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell.

Here's the remix by this guy Wallpaper that may be better, but it's hard to beat the best song ever.

Das Racist -- Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell Remix by Wallpaper

Phish (No Hippy)

2009-06-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

I like them. I'm not afraid to say it very quietly.
The adventures of Nick, his lady, and I follow in photos.

Right now we're all just hoping to hear Tweezer. No homo.

"Hey Nick, did you catch the show last night?"
"Yeah, I prefered the second set. You know they started You Enjoy Myself but never finished it."
"Don't worry buddy, they'll finish it tonight, they do that kinda stuff."
"I hope so, I love the vocal jam at the end. No hippy."
"Man this water cooler is great, who brought it here?"
"Well, perhaps this is the work of Guelah Papyrus."

"No way, the 12 minute version they played at the UIC Pavillion in 2000, hands down the best version of Meat. Pause."
"Oh you were at that show? Trey killed it during My Soul."

"Bummer they didn't play Tweezer man, you want some of my Country Time Lemonade? This can of Lemonade really shows people the type of guy I am, it defines me, kinda like your awesome Nikes dude."

"Whoa fireworks. They better note this in the Pharmer's Almanac."

Halley's Comet

An Open Letter To Magicians

2009-06-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

Dear Magicians,

Recently, I saw a magic trick that blew my mind. I won't get into particulars, but it involved props, ashes in my closed hand, trickery, surprise and a very audible "how did you do that!" Basically, he lit a cigarette and the ashes appeared in my hand. My closed hand. I opened my hand and the ashes were there, inside my fist, and I don't remember for sure, but I think they were still a little warm.

Now this was quite a trick. (Magicians, I know you prefer the term effect, but in the interest of everyone else who may be reading this, I'm just gonna stick to layman's terms.) While I can't do any magic, I'd like to think of myself as a bit of a fan, a connoisseur if you will. I can't do any tricks, but I can recognize a good one. And the one I saw was not a learn it overnight on the internet kind of trick. It was the type of trick it takes a while to master. The type of trick that takes a master to master. A trick you need to practice over and over to get right. But what's more, it's the type of trick that would never be the first and only trick in a magician's repertoire. If you can make warm ashes appear in a closed fist (pause) then you have a whole stable of tricks and you've known these tricks for quite some time.

And therein lays the problem. I love magic. I thought that if there was anyone who my friends knew loved magic, it was me. I picture my friends at a David Copperfield show sitting in amazement and the whole time thinking, "man, Adam should be here, he would really love this more than us because he is the one that we know who really loves magic more than other people we know." When I confronted my friend, who I've known for ten plus years, as to why he never showed me magic before, he made two points:

1) I didn't know you liked magic.
2) You never asked.

Believe it or not, I find the first point more absurd. I had a magician at my twenty-fourth birthday party, and even if my friend wasn't there (but certainly invited) it's been a few years and it's a relatively well known thing that I had a magician perform at my birthday party. Furthermore, said magician who I had at my birthday party (who now is making billions of dollars selling tricks in Vegas, selling em, he doesn't even have to do them!) got his start doing magic opening up for the band Cake. Why is this significant? Only because the first thing me and my magician friend who didn't know I liked magic did ever was go see Cake play in Chicago. Please, let's not dwell on that point though, it will only get us off track.

The fact that I never asked to see magic is just lunacy. I put that on par with not telling a phenomenal story because your friend "never asked." I really don't want to get into this never asked business. I want to address both of these points head on by solving them so there can never be any more arguments.

So to any of my undercover magician friends, let's make the following things clear:

1) I love magic. I will shout it from the highest mountaintops. Magic is amazing, it keeps me guessing because I don't know what's gonna happen nor how it will happen. That's only one of the myriad reasons why I love magic.
2) I'M RIGHT NOW OFFICIALLY ASKING YOU TO SHOW ME ALL THE MAGIC YOU KNOW AT WHATEVER TIME OR PLACE YOU DEEM IT APPROPRIATE TO SHOW ME.

I hope this puts any confusion to rest.

Love,
Adam

When a thing you should know is so clear to see that you can't see what the eye can clearly see

2009-06-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

and three other things in this month's XXL worth talking about:

Sometimes things are so clear yet "one can't see what is so clear for the eye to clearly see" or however Josh said that quote back in 2005. Once, Annie was telling me how cleaver it is that Arby's is called Arby's because you know, roast beef, rb, Arby's...I had never thought of that before, and yeah, I felt stupid.
The latest thing so clear to the eye that the eye can't see what is so clearly able to see is that OJ Da Juiceman turns out to be a very, very, funny guy. How could I not know this? How could a guy smart enough to name himself OJ Da Juiceman not be a funny guy? I don't know, I guess I just never had heard his comedy, but I should have put it all together. A man with that name, a rapper whose made a trademark ad-lib out of the word "aye," a man who shouts said trademark ad-lib with a insanely high pitch frequency and does so frequently, how could this guy not be the funniest dude ever?

In the new XXL, there's a four way (pause) interview between OJ, Gucci Mane, Soulja Boy, and Shawty Lo. Everything Oj says is nothing short of comic genius. When XXL asks them all how they came to work together and are they friends etc, he responds with the following comedy:

"Atlanta cats, we keep it two, 100. We don't play soccer--save that for the folks over in Brazil, know what I'm talking about? But it's a good look we came together to make the hip-hop better than what it is because it ain't nothing without us, ya feel mae? Juiceman said that. All we got is that. The music me and Gooch make, you know its just a good vibe. The music that me and Shawty make, it's a stupid vibe, and the music that me and Soulja make, it's a wonderful vibe. And if anybody say different, I wish they would, you feel me? And this here's Atlanta, ya feel me? We swagged up all the way to the max. Swag 200 for the 100. For the fool that ain't keeping it 100, you know we 100 anyway. So I say 200--100 for us and for the folks that ain't 100. Da Juiceman aye!"

Let's take a look. The first, obvious bit of hilarity is the soccer thing. I have absolutely no idea what it means, and I think he knows how absurd and funny it is, as he asks us if we know what he's talking about to further the ridiculousness of it all. In effect, he's saying the most absurd thing of all time, and then asking if you understand it, thus rubbing the absurdity and comedy of it all directly into our faces. And if we want to go even deeper into this soccer line, let's note that in Atlanta, they don't play soccer, which is far more humours than the actual playing of soccer. Don't believe me, right now say out loud, "I'm from Atalanta, we play soccer." Now say "I'm from Atlanta, we don't play soccer." See, I'm right about this. So much more side-splitting.
To continue with the rest of quote we move into the different vibes section. I don't think it warrants a comment. Next up, the difference between keeping it 100 and 200 and the explanation of why they keep it 200, which is spectacular. He's swagging to 200 for all of us who are unable to keep it 100, and that's love right there. For real. No homo. Finally, and my favorite part of the whole thing, is after the single greatest soliloquy of 2009, he ends it by shouting his name, and barking aye. In the issue, in parenthesis, it is written "(everyone laughs.)" And this is good to know, not only do we find OJ funny, but even those capable of being and keeping it 200 find him hilarious.
Moving on.
Later in the interview, OJ responds to a rather tough question about the nature of the recession and it's effects on working artists. His response:
Re: The recession "I don't even know what that is! (group laughter) I say floatation man, We floatin' over here like a muthafucka in water!"
Gucci: What the hell is that?
OJ: Inflation! Inflation!
(more laughter)

And it's good to know OJ's not the only in the group. Gucci's got jokes too. XXL get's into a few questions about Atlanta rap artists and their various beefs with one another.

XXL: Do you think Atlanta rap can come together as a united community?
Gucci: I was beefing with my jewelry man.
XXL: You're beefing with your jewelry man?
Gucci: Yeah, he's stupid as hell.
XXL: Okay
Gucci: He keep making stupid diamonds. I told him don't be doing it, but he keep doing it. He retarded man.
XXL: Your jewelry man keeps making stupid diamonds?
Gucci: Yeah, I wanna go to war about that shit.
XXL changes the subject.
Does it get any funnier? Not unless OJ Da Juiceman is saying it.

2) XXL does a small feature on the new Kindle, the book ipod thing. And out of everyone related to hip-hop, out of everyone and anyone there is that raps or does something related to rap music that they could get to review the Kindle, who do they choose, but Tony Yayo. One thing they point out about Yayo though, "he reads while traveling." One thing Yayo thinks about the Kindle is it should come in different colors, "...that'd be cool. A girl might want a pink one, a guy might want a black one or whatever." Also, in all four categories, design, price, usability, and better than a book, he gives it a 5/5. Amazing.

3) Cam'ron, perhaps knowing OJ is close to taking his crown as the funniest guy in hip-hop at the moment has a great quote in the issue as well. "It's like when the space shuttle took off, it ain't land on Plymouth Rock. So therefore, you can't have carpet. I'm Jason Bourne right now, I'm just tryin' to remember everything that's going on." Yep!

Make Da Trap Say Aye -- Gucci feat OJ Da Juiceman and Cam'ron

Shirt Off -- Gucci feat OJ Da Juiceman

What a sham(e)

2009-06-15T07:21:00.001-07:00

Rodney Winfield

2009-06-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

It started with Josh getting drunk, seeing a commercial for Def Comedy Jam VHS tapes, and doing what any good man should, and laying down his credit card and ordering em all. Then I came over one night with the intention of "just to watch the one Bernie Mac routine with his face painted on his pants" and I wound up leaving with three of the tapes, which I still have. But it really started much earlier, in middle school and high school at ungodly hours of the night when HBO would rerun episodes in loop and you were sleeping over at a friends house and watching as many episodes hoping they would play one more.

It's hard to call a classic routine classic, when looking back, every third routine was a classic and is imprinted in our collective memory, (And by our collective memory I mean the memories of Andy Josh and I, and the Andy, Josh, and I's all over various North Shore's of their respective cities) but this one, man, this one is a stone-cold classic. I used to have this tape in my room junior year of college, and everyone, any of my friends, my roommates friends, people my roommates were studying with, I'd force them into my room to watch this routine. When we had parties, oy, all I could do all night is usher people in and out so they could see the clip.

Anyway, sadly, I just read on the Internet, Rodney Winfield passed away in February at 76. I hope his death will bring him more recognition and will unearth more material to show the world his genius.

You're boy back in the building

2009-06-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

Jay-Z D.O.A. (Death of the Auto-Tune)

"Get back to rap you T-Paining too much!"

A lively debate

2009-06-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

Is taste more important than source, is the word "organic" more important than the food itself, is quality food prohibitively expensive, do we fetishize ingredients and their origins instead of focusing on taste?

Catch Up#1: Gucci Mane

2009-06-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

I'm back in America the Great. There still are many Rwanda stories and Norse tales to post for everyone's reading pleasure. That's all gonna have to go on the back burner for a bit, as there's quite a bit of hip-hop related catching up to do.

Gucci Mane - Writing on the Wall (the above cover does not correspond to the songs or mixtape discussed in this post, but I needed a Gucci photo, and why not just use the best)

I'm not gonna waste my time compressing and posting the full mixtape, but I've selected three songs for your downloading pleasure.

1. Hurry
This song is special for two reasons:
a) it features the best version of Gucci's trademark repetitive "Gucci" chant. I'm not counting, but I think he yells "Gucci Gucci Gucci Gucci Gucci Gucci Gucci Gucci Gucci" about 14 times.

b) This song serves as our introduction to our host, DJ Holiday. He starts off by yelling out his name in numerous tones, then after 45 seconds of the song, he stops the song to yell his name some more, ask how his light is looking on him, ponder as to whether or not this is what the top feels like, then starts the song again, and don't worry, if you weren't ready for the song to start again, he blasts the airhorns (pause) a few times to let you know.

This guy quickly turns out to be more annoying than DJ Drama and DJ Khalid combined, which would make this mixtape immediately unlisten-to-able if it weren't such an impressive feat.

"#1 emergency, Gucci Mane get currency, somebody call an ambulance I think my flow been burglary" (sic)

2. Game
A nostalgic look back at Gucci's early life, at school, at home, and in the trap.

3. First Day Out
A trip through Gucci's first day out in the free world.
"I'm starting off my day with a blunt of purp/no pancakes just a cup of syrup."

Gucci Mane - Three songs off Writing on the Wall

Lil Wayne: Back on some 07 shit

2009-06-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

There once was time when Weezy was known more for releasing mind-blowing music, not half-assed music at a mind-blowing pace. After a while, there was too much music, Wayne had done too many drugs, he released too many "rock" songs, had been arrested too many times, had done (one) too many Katie Couric interviews, there was worry as to whether Weezy had outpaced himself, if his addiction to drugs and recording had permanently affected his creativity, if quality would ever be more important than quality, if there was ever going to be quality again or if the flood of lower mediocre songs permanently damaged wherever his brilliance originates.

Enough of this writing, it's time to listen to Fix My Hat, a new(ish) Weezy joint that finds our protagonist rapping at a level which could rival most of his 07 output.

Also, this song features the greatest use of "pause" I've heard so far.

Fix My Hat - Lil' Wayne

"Tear drop tunes got you bitches boo hooing
weezy f. baby ga-ga goo-gooing"

Alex Forbes

2009-05-30T14:11:00.001-07:00

is not a world champion air guitarist. He is very close to being one, and certainly is higher ranked than anyone reading this, except for Forbes himself. Tonight he goes to Philly for a very serious event, if he wins, he will be only a few steps away from being the best air guitarist in the world. You may think, oh air guitar, who cares, but being the best air guitar player in the world still means there is something you do better than anyone else in the entire world. It's amazing and an honor to be able to call someone with such superior ablity in his field my friend.

So if you're in Philly tonight, I'm guessing the plan is to be mean to everyone you see, go see Forbes, then be mean again, maybe stop at Pat's on the way home.

What a punchline, no?

2009-05-30T01:39:00.001-07:00

A photo and a song

2009-05-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

song