Hangin' with poets

I've been finding myself surrounded by poets more and more lately. Didn't really see that coming, but they're swell folks as long as you don't mind berets, bongos and Gauloise cigarettes. Haha, I kid. You would never know they're poets by looking at them!

Anyway, I know absolutely nothing about formal poetry. Really the only poetry I know jack shit about is in hip-hop form. I know most poetry purists probably consider it artless, but I can't help but love shit like this:

"Get Down" by Nas

New York streets where killers walk like Pistol Pete
And Pappy Mason, gave the young boys admiration
Prince from Queens and Fritz from Harlem
Street legends, the drugs kept the hood from starvin
Pushin cars, Nicky Barnes was the 70's
But there's a long list of high-profile celebrities
Worldwide on the thorough side of things
Livest kings, some died, one guy, one time
One day grabs me, as I'm about to blast heat
40-side of Vernon, I turned well he asked me
"Whatchu up to, the cops gon' bust you"
I was a teen drunk off brew, stumbled I wondered
If God sent him, cause two squad cars entered the block
And looked at us, I ain't flinch when they watched
I took it upstairs, the bathroom mirror, brushed my hair
Starin at a young disciple, I almost gave my life to what the dice do
Yeah man, throwin them bones
Hopin my ace get his case thrown
His girl ain't wait for him, she in the world straight hoein
While he lookin at centerfolds of pretty girls
Showin they little cooch, gangstas don't die he's livin proof
The D.A. who tried him was lyin
A white dude, killed his mother durin the case
Hung jury, now the D.A. is bein replaced
Pre-trial hearin is over, it's real for the soldier
Walks in the courtroom, the look in his eyes is wild
Triple-homicide, I sit in the back aisle
I wanna crack a smile when I see him
Throw up a fist for black power, cause all we want is his freedom
He grabbed a court officer's gun and started squeezin
Then he grabbed the judge, screams out -- nobody leavin everybody

Some niggaz fuck they enemies in they ass when they catch 'em
Weird-ass niggaz are dangerous, so don't test 'em
They make you, disappear, this a year that I won't forget
Sold CD's double platinum, met mo' execs
Southern niggaz, independent label, real killers
Know the business, ran Tennessee for years, now they chillin
They had the coke game somethin crazy
Sold music out the trunk of they car, that shit amazed me
Put me onto heron blunts, sherm or somethin
Took a puff, what the fuck, I turned to punch them
Southern niggaz ain't slow, nigga tried to play me
I left from around them dudes, they cool but they crazy
Now I'm back around the old school that raised me
New York gangstas, we loungin, out in L.A. see
A dude wrote my dawg from Pelican Bay
The letter say, "Nas I got your back - the fools don't play"
I rolled with some Crips down to a Crenshaw funeral
Never saw so many men slaughtered and I knew the ho responsible
The nigga still alive in a hospital
Midnight they crept in his room and shot the doctor too
See my cousin's in the game, thuggin and things
He plugged me with a dame who was half-Mexicano
Gave the ass up, I'ma mack daddy Soprano
She passed me the indigo, but the imbecile
Shoulda never tippy-toed, thought my eyes were closed
Openin the hotel room do', to let her goons in
But I moved in a manner, on some Jet Li shit
I let the hammers blow, wet three kids
See honey thought I had somethin to do, with all the drama
Cause I was with a crew, that had her people killed
Called up my cousin, told him I ain't fuckin witchu
He responded cool, but told me out here this how motherfuckers

Get down, get down!

Gang of Four, Live in 1981

I know I was all of three years old at the time, but this song just rocks in every way.

We are the angry mob

We are the angry mob
we read the papers everyday
we like who we like, we hate who we hate
but we're oh so easily swayed

Mims is hot like Mims

- If you're like me, you're bewildered/disturbed by the inane lyrics of "This is Why I'm Hot" by Mims. I think this review, complete with flow charts and venn diagrams, explains its unappeal very well.

- I don't know if this is hokey pseudoscience or not, but I found it interesting. It's one of those little interpretative images that change depending on who sees it.

Can I buy a vowel?

The vowel-challenged website RCRD LBL is up and running. It's a little indie label collaboration with free and legal MP3s to download. Whoo. Check out this remix of "D.A.N.C.E." featuring Mos Def and Spank Rock.

Gold-diggers and Beethoven stretchers

The Freakanomics Blog has a nice little post on the economics of "gold diggers" (the types Kanye rapped about, not cranky bearded prospectors). It's a great little response to a craigslist poster asking for unspecific advice on how to snag a man who makes $500,000 or more per year.

Fun with music: A couple of Norwegians have taken Beethoven's 9th Symphony and stretched it into a looooong and slooooooow 24-hour-long orchestral piece. You can listen to it online and apparently it will actually be performed live eventually.

On a related note, another software wizard compressed every Beatles album into a trippy one-hour MP3. Instead of speeding up the recordings (which would make McCartney and Lennon sound like Alvin, Simon and Theodore they used software that with a little logarithmic magic can cut out the unimportant bits of audio data and allow users to change tempos without affecting pitch. (This has been around for a few years and the program Acid is particularly useful for this kind of basement trickery.)

Also, I'm starting a new tab for any money/economics related posts called "c.r.e.a.m." Fellow Wu-Tang fans will understand.

Nightmare fuel

You didn't really think that creepy fat guy who managed all the boy bands in the mid-90s was just an interested music fan, did you? It turns out that Lou Pearlman's story is even worse than we thought:

One person recalls him spreading his legs while wearing a white terrycloth robe and matching underwear, then uttering the not-quite-Mae-Westian come-on "You're a smart boy. Figure it out."

I don't can't decide whether this is hilarious or creepy. I'm gonna go with both.

The New York Onion

Is it me, or does this article about Colorado's official state song read like a story from The Onion?

Everybody Really Is a Critic... And It's Usually Awesome

I stumbled upon a cool little music site, today, called rateyourmusic.com. The site lets you review singles and albums by just about everybody and his cousin. It's not the prettiest site or chock full of features, but for music geeks it's a good place to look for other, uh, music geek opinions.

Sorry, I Can't Hear You.... My iPod Made Me Deaf

I love playing shuffle mode on my iPod, but the huge volume fluctuations from track to track are really bad sometimes. Here's a nice little article on how to fix your mp3 library.

The Appropriately Named DJ Drama

A little story has popped up recently about the recent arrest of DJ Drama, a hip-hop DJ who recently released a mixtape. Anyone who knows the music will tell you that mixtapes are extremely common because the record labels themselves give their tacit permission to use their tracks. Think of it as a sort of low-budget marketing strategy that benefits everybody: fans can get the latest music in a low-cost format and artists get buzz before their next albums come out. Here's Ars Technica's brief summary:

The RIAA isn't pleased with "Gangsta Grillz," which are rap compilations that usually contain unlicensed music. The albums are widely seen as promotional tools by the rappers who willingly participate, but formal permission to use the tracks is not obtained from the record labels who own the rights to them. The mixtape scene has thrived for years without arrests, so the sudden bust of a high-profile figure came as something of a shock.

Buddha in a Box

A couple of china-based musicians have invented a handheld music player that only plays back loops of Buddhist chanting and music. It even has a headphone jack for meditating on the subway... I think.