the things we think but do not say

When I was a youngster in high school, sitting idly in my religious education classes, I’d often look like I was attentively listening to my teacher. My head would be learning to one side, resting casually on my left hand, while making notes with my right.

What was not immediately apparent was that I had a length of ear phone, snaking its way through the sleeve of my school uniform, exiting by my wrist. I’d place the ear bud into my left ear and when my head ‘rested casually’ like it did so many times, I’d be connecting to a banging hip hop tapes rocking on my walkman in my pocket. And what tape rocked my R.E. classes the most you ask? Why, Gang Starr’s ‘Step in the arena’ of course. I must have wore that thing out by the time I left secondary school, from the number of times I rocked it, rewound it, then rocked it, rewound it once more, then finally rocked it all over again.

Gang Starr is made up of two legends in hip hop; producer, DJ Premier and the MC, Guru. This was their second album and it laid the groundwork for their next lp, Daily Operation. But it was this album that I first heard and it will always be my favourite as it has just so many damn good classics. “Who’s gonna take the weight”, with it wailing horn sample, “check the technique’, “Love sick” and “Take a rest”.

It was on a personal hip hop pilgrimage to New York that I visited Premo’s recording studio, ‘D&D Studios’. It was an early Sunday afternoon and I was kindly taken on a tour of one of New York’s most legendary recording set ups, where hundreds of hall of fame classics where cut, and where all of Gang Starr’s lps were created, as well as Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die. Take a look at some poorly taken photos of this trip here.

If you never got it this album, go get it now.
If you already have this album, go get it again.

Maddox has been a constant on the internet, some where between a persistent rash that can’t be gotten rid of, no matter how strong the antibiotics, and a very bright shining star of foresight and wisdom. Somewhere between these two extremes, lies Maddox’s genius. He’s often obnoxious, offensive and appalling, but damn if he isn’t right on, most of the time. Heck, even his hate mail is hilarious.

A classic post that was written back in 2002, titled “I am better than your kids” was the what brought him to my attention. I’ve been a fan ever since.

But it’s a recent post “If these words were people, I would embrace their genocide” that nicely sums up a lot of things about the blogsphere or whatever you’d like to call it. Highlights include;

On blog layouts:
” I didn’t buy a 19″ monitor to have 50% of its screen real-estate pissed away on firing white pixels, you assholes.”

On blogs:
“The word ‘blog’ is literally shorthand for ‘boring:’”

On blogging:
“If minds had anuses, blogging would be what your mind would do when it had to take a dump.”

Priceless.

After a few months of this blogging malarky, I’m realising that I can only get so far without some help. HTML help, CSS help, or anything set of capitals help, that might help with make this blog not look so crap.

See how all my catergories run across the top of the screen and just crash into the rest of the page? Well that’s all due to my woeful lack of understanding. I’m begging you! My readers are begging you! And now back to me begging you again.

Can someone please get in touch with me who might be willing to help me? I’m sure it’s not hard. Ideally, you’d be based in Chicago, but after all that begging, I can hardly be that choosy.

Ever notice how small the world is these days?

You progress through life, you meet a lot of people and they in turn meet more people. Eventually, you meet someone that knows someone that you know! Even if you didn’t know it, you’ve probably got more than a few friends in common. Remember that game, the six degrees of Kevin Bacon? It’s just like that.

But the strange realisation that I’ve had recently is the crazy thought that knowing ‘a friend of a friend’ is not enough anymore. In fact it’s passé. “He’s a link of a link” is the new black.

Reading someone’s blog, linking from it to another blog… reading that blog and then meeting that person and then going “whoa, I know you… in a really weird way” is soon to become the norm. What would it take for an ex of yours to one day end up in a post in a random blog that you read everyday… smaller and smaller with each day I think.

So here are a few friends of mine that I’d like to introduce to you. Maybe you’ve already been reading them for a while. Maybe you’ve even meet them. Their blogs are interesting, informative and inspiring. Just like their authors really.

It’s a small internet after all.

Erich Domingo, Danny Stillion , Rajat Paharia, Sara Cantor, Craig Berman, Jason Feifer.

From the very beginning, I knew I was in a bad relationship. I knew what I was getting involved with when I started dating her, but did I ever think that it would ever get this bad?

But after two long years on August 22nd, I’m going to break up with Sprint.

Long before we started going out, I heard tons of stories about what kind of girl she was. “She goes out with anybody”, “She give good ‘reception’ even in remote places”, “She’s a cheap date”, “She not a very good listener”…

Despite all this, I knew I had to have her. I’d tried the others, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T (I knew long her before she got married to that Cingular dude), but she was the only one that gave me any play. I think the other’s heard of my reputation, something about my credit score or something.

So when I finally asked her out I got a shock. She wanted a solid commitment for two years! Two years?! That’s crazy I thought… but she’s so hot I thought! So I did it.

Two years later, here I am. Sick to death of her.

At first everything went great, I was happy, she was happy. We were great together. She treated me nice, I felt popular, I got invited out to dinners, I went out to clubs and met my friends. My social life suddenly opened right up.

But just like anything that starts out beautiful, it eventually becomes ugly.

I started to notice that she wasn’t listening to me as much. Felt like she wasn’t paying attention to when I paid the bills and stuff. I felt like I was talking to a brick wall sometimes.

But I carried on. Carried on through the dropped calls, the bad reception, the ‘headaches’, the poor volume, the huge bills… and everyone noticed that I’d changed too. “You sound like you’re talking into a hose pipe duct taped to a tin can”.

But on August 22nd, on our two year anniversary, I’m going to break up with her. I know it’s harsh. On our anniversary and all. But she’s a tough. And they’ll be another sucker to take my place.