Just something im working on

if anything you can laugh at my professional voice and marketing speak

“Moments cannot be manufactured and once passed cannot be recreated. The DD172 space is an artistic epicenter where every passing instant becomes one of consequence and Creative Control is the lens that brings those glaring moments into focus. Creative Control, the brainchild of Directors Coodie and Chike and media mogul Dame Dash is an online media network bringing you original web series and music shot by the artists themselves.

The series Sessions at DD172 will be an exhibition of talent caught candidly as they pass through the space curated by Dame Dash. Spotlighting artists like Mos Def, The Black Keys, Zoe Kravitz, and commencing with the release of the Black Roc Project, Creative Control will view the cross section of talent of all genres from every angle. See the full project as it launches Nov 27th on www.creativecontrol.tv”

That being said, its a very cool project that promises to build a new platform for music and media. Should be a good time.

Check out some of the teaser vids below and more on the vimeo page

Lemme explain

A guy with a foot fetish would give his pinky toe to handle feet all day but the Korean pedicurist does it all day and more than likely heads home and drops a few tears in her kimchee after having to sand down bunions to make her bread.

but some things are a perfect match

I hate people. So I was sent paint balling.

To shoot the lookbook for the Holiday ‘09 season 10 Deep crew went deep into the woods to practice the barbaric act of simulating wartime situations with two teams set out to make each others faces look like a preschoolers arts and crafts project.
In between shots the crew went rouge in the forest with paint filled air rifles like the love child of John Rambo and Jackson Pollack.

My aggressions are usually set in the written word so an chance to unload a clip of baby nursery redecorating grade ammunition into the back of a co-worker was cathartic.

So im guessing i picked the right job

but I just applied for the position of Quality assurance tester at the vagina factory. Cross your fingers!

more pics after the jump

Not just a any Jesus Piece, an all a black, wooden, stunt worthy joint with my name on the back WHAT! Plus when i got it it smelled like bacon, but what I thought to be added value ended up being just odd coincidence.

Story is that they chose 10 people to give this Lumber Lord to and my name must have popped up during their intense selection process of throwing darts at the phone book. I really don’t even know who else has one aside from my man Joe La Puma, Chris aka CtotheJL and my man Marcus Troy (who has two cause that boy need Jesus!). I would say that I appreciate being in such good company, but i think that other Blackout Bible man holders might be Buster Douglas and the dancing old man from the six flags commercials so i reserve my accolades.

No truly, thanks to the peoples at Good Wood.

Jay Electronica is the reason i hate rap

Sounds pretty unreasonable doesn’t it? Well let me break it down with empirical evidence

Exhibit A
“Exhibit A (Transformations)” produced by Just Blaze

Exhibit B (Sorry, to my knowledge this is the only format this song exists in)

Exhibit C
“Exhibit C” produced by Just Blaze

Jay Electronica’s additions to big book of rap are the silver bullet next to the cannon fodder of rap. The platinum plate of filet mignon next to the plastic tray of Lunchables. The race to the itunes once word that another melding of his commanding voice and a Just Blaze track has strutted its way onto the net is akin to the goosebumps I felt tuning into the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show at 3am in the morn and hearing Crooklyn Dodgers 2 for the first time. The visceral thrill of hearing something so beautifully poetic yet utterly violent, something that makes you wonder whether a smile is audible while still making you nod like a narcoleptic heroin addict.

So why praytell does he make me hate rap?

Cause other rap ain’t this good, and it makes no attempts to be.

Shouts to Jay Electronica for being a good and humble dude and to FWMJ for the introduction amongst other things.

From any general description of jail i doesn’t seem that bad, i always said that if i were homeless that i would just throw a brick through someones window and hit “Club Fed” for some rest and relaxation. Three hots and a cot, some yard time, learn how to fashion a shiv out of a tootbrush, earn a trade, play some ball.

then i saw this

The reason that people want to stay out of the bing. The reason why you can’t be tough in the cuffs. It’s like watching Steven King’s “It” in 3D while sitting in the front row at a clown college.

That dude is real! He exists!

and this dude?

This dude is scary, scarier than walking on on your grandmothers gynological exam
Scarier than having an inner ear infection in an Iraqi minefield
Scarier than having to wave the starter flag at motorcycle rally for riders with downs syndrome.

The truth is always scarier than fiction.

I will never do anything illegal ever again. At least not until I can afford a good lawyer, then im above the law.

I got my hands on a certain hip hop stars album a tad early some time ago, one I will not name out of my tendency to not want to incriminate myself, one of my hobbies is keeping my head off of the chopping block. Anyways to my expectations and dismay, the album was sub par at best at least not up to the the standards he’s set up with his claims (isn’t that the case for anyone? if you’re self proclaimed the best you can do nothing but disappoint). Give for a song or five I could not see any of the album in its entirety getting much burn on the iPod and would only be left on the hard drive to fulfill some OCD need to have every album in existence cataloged and memorized like some savant music librarian.

As the album started to make is way into the hands of the masses opinions began to supplant actual review. The amateur music critics began to chime in with their inarticulate album reviews and the corner bodega and train station platform became more informative than opening an issue of Rolling Stone when it came to getting idea of album content. Being who I am I could not wait to pass a sweeping, premature, uninformed judgement on an album after hearing it on tinny, bass deficient laptop speakers, the result sounding like the electro-warble of anima-tronic christmas decorations chiming “silent night” from the inside of a gas station bathroom.

I reviewed the subject matter and handed in my synopsis. “This is lame” short, succinct, to the point, yet not without it’s charm being that I was able to summarize a work only using three one syllable words. This story would skew more interesting had there been a maelstrom of ill response. But there wasn’t. Some agreed. Some did not, but what struck me was that the most common response from those that didn’t agree was that I didn’t like it because I’m a hater.

I would be hard pressed to find a more annoying term in the American lexicon. A sweeping term popularized in the early part of the decade use to explain away any form of criticism. Admittedly some criticisms are unwarranted, the byproduct of peoples low self esteem coupled with the natural want of humans to see others fall on their face which explains the popularity of TMZ or the the amount of hits on YouTube vids of people getting kicked In the nuts. We love the fail. However as someone who crafts quips with extreme precision, I take offense to the generality. You’re grouping me in the same bitter cage as someone like a Perez Hilton, or some 13 year old with a slight grasp of the english language and access to the internet.

Real criticism is constructive, poignant, and backed by facts and evidence. If you tell me im wack, you gotta be able to tell me why im wack and how to improve on my wackness to make me unwack. Thats criticism.

You call me a hater for voicing my opinion you’ve just ended all opportunities for discourse. Everyone’s opinion is valid. You don’t have to agree. Just listen

People who call others Haters more than likely spell the word “The” as “Da”, use numbers in place of letters and add Z’s to all of their words producing statements like “Dis is 4 Da Haterz”

Response would be ill advised use of my PHD (Player Haters Degree)

In an effort to start this post off on the right foot i won’t use the pretentious opener “I was having some work done on my home” that i previously planned. Keeping it one hunnid, I was attempting to simultaneously open a bag of Doritos and send a text message which resulted in me dropping and shattering my relatively new iPhone 3g. Too busy (read. lazy) to actually leave my home, I paid a kid some extra dough to actually come to my home and fix it for me. (Eff sending it to Apple, the hood takes care of its own). I explained to him that we really had to expedite the home refurbishing session as i had to make it to my homeboy’s album release party. “Oh you know Cudi’s album came out today too” he shot back with some air of superiority as whoever i was planning on visiting couldn’t hold a urine soaked candle to the crowned prince of teenage angst. “Thats who’s party im going to” I said holding back the condescending smirk like a stutterer trying to make his way flawlessly to the end of a sentence. The audible gasp is what told me that Cudi’s name was one to be reckoned with.

I really started on a chilly night in NYC back in 2007. I had been working with Fool’s Gold Records on putting a holiday party for 10 Deep so i went to support a CMJ Showcase that they were holding in the city. On the showcase roster were Kid Sister who already had a single buzzing and some dude named Kid Cudi who i was one hundred percent sure I had not heard of nor would I care about. To save my ears the hassle of hearing some new electronic cannon fodder and having to politely give a nebulous review of his new signee when asked by A-trak, I decided to show up fashionably late for the event. “How was your new artist? oh, i rolled in late and i didn’t even get a chance to hear him, whoops!”

As I strolled in too late to be considered fashionable, Im greeted by Nick Catchdubs, “We’re starting late, but you’re just in time to hear Cudi!”

Fuck!
Plan Foiled.

It seemed like the crowd, who had really just showed up ready to rave to the electro/disco stylings of DJs A-trak and Mehdi who were headlining the showcase, was in the same state of abject apathy as I was with the prospect of staring at some future has-been as he starts the stopwatch on his 15 minutes of fame.
Given a brief introduction, i see ushered on to the stage a nervous looking young black kid, his slight frame looking more like emaciated in a pair of slim jeans and a brown hoodie with the words “Plain Pat What Up” plastered on in the kind of typewriter scrawl that you see in ransom notes given to the wealthy parents of teenage debutantes.

Presented with the daunting task of performing in front of a group of E-rolling party monsters who’s disinterest was evident through heckles and drunken conversation, Cudi adeptly swayed through his abbreviated performance. By the end of his tenure on the stage the formerly belligerent crowd was mouthing their own erroneous renditions of the lyrics to “Day n’ Nite” along with Cudi as their hyperactive bandleader.

As Cudi exited the stage I swam through the sea of inebriated hipsters to make my way toward Cudi’s entorage of Plain Pat and Ferris Bueller as they exchanged congratulatory hi-fives and swigs from the vodka bottle perched at the edge of the table. “What up with this Cudi kid?” i asked Ferris replied with “You better get down now, this kid’s gonna be huge”. I glad i took his advice.

Congratulations to Kid Cudi on the release of his opus Man on the Moon:End of Day its crazy to have seen someone go from struggle to success and humbling to have helped with the process.

Some people love a challenge, i truly don’t. Make my life as easy as possible. The less thinking i have to do, the more room i can save in my mental hard drive for the essentials, like cartoons, violence and pornography. Thinking however is a very underrated activity, not many people do it and those that do it don’t do it well enough, so the challenges brought to us are met with the most base of responses. We load the sick with drugs, we blow up our enemies and we tap on the walls in interstate rest stops when we feel a stir in our loins (i mean, not me, but other people that are not me). We basically are cavemen with more access to technology.

Maybe its just me, i don’t think with my gut and i’m probably not that quick on the draw. I have the reflexes of a drug addled senior citizen and I get caught like a deer in headlights when a car is barreling at me. My brain may be my fastest muscle but while you’re throwing your first punch my mind is still processing a witty followup to the remark that caused those enclosed digits to fly at me in the first place.

The predispostion to relegate myself to thinking does help at some points. Like my proposition to ending crime around the world by setting up bear traps in preschools (pre-emptive strike, get em while they’re young) or conceptualizing campaigns with the guys at 10. Deep.

One would think that our brainstorming sessions involved a a round table, projectors and a laser pointer but really just give us some music some pizza and some Country Time lemonade and we’ve planned out our processes from now til’ the end of the year and produced shoots like this upcoming fall 09 shoot. It may not be scientific, or organized or in some people’s eyes it might not even be any good

but its the thought that counts.

i kinda wish i had a laser pointer tho.

more behind the scenes action after the jump

When I was a kid I only gave myself 2 options for future possibility of occupation. Transformer and Spiderman. Growing up I shelved those goals for more feasible variation. Knowing that my aspirations to become a transforming robot were a tad far fetched, I decided to design killer mechs ala Macross and my specification to being Spider Man was widened to any mutant power that I could attain by standing in front of the microwave for long periods of time.
As I got older, my intake of knowledge grew as did my imagination. All of my reading consisted of things with little to no educational value but i read avidly and i watched A LOT of television meaning i spent my entire adolescence building source material for answering very stupid questions.

One such question arose while watching an actor on a press junket for a superhero movie. “If you had one super power, what would it be?”

That question and all of its components make me want to lobotomize myself with an ice cream scoop. People act as if there were only 2 possible answers. “I want to be invisible so i can check out girls” they say with a sly wink to the female journalist subliminally securing that handjob behind the trailer. Or you go the Ralph Tresvant, Sensitivty route wishing you could fly, poetically waxing about the majesty of seeing the world from elevated heights and the allegory to freedom. You’re not gonna get an Oscar nod for being in ‘Plastic Man’ the movie so save the slam poetry for Amateur night at the Apollo.

So what if i was asked that question? In the effort to protect the reader from the acute outburst of sheer nerdery, I would say that Longshot one of the X-men and one of my favorite characters of all time had powers that resonated with me.

Sans the fictional historical recap of his life, Longshot was endowed with the power to effect probabilities, shifting the permutations of possible outcomes of situations effectively shifting them to his favor. In essence, he had good luck. That ability was more ground level than the ability to shoot lasers out of your eyes, either I had a great grasp of reality as a child or I just set the bar for myself really low.

In my quest to be the luckiest man on earth i learned that the word luck like the word irony was almost never used in the proper context.

You’re lucky when you hit the lotto
You’re lucky that explosion only burned off your eyebrows
you’re lucky that you drew that ace

The ninja is not lucky he drew his sword first (That’s reflexes and skill)
The basketball player is not lucky he made the shot (that’s practice)
you’re not lucky that that girl is not pregnant (That’s years of perfecting the pull out method)

Your faith doesn’t keep you from failing and your prayers don’t get you paid. It’s all about the work you put in that creates the serendipitous situations that you encounter.

You make your own luck.

After i learned that i went back to trying to trying to be spider man. Im microwaving a tarantula as we speak.