You'd Know What A Drag It Is To See You

So I'm still getting used to the fact that I'm going to New York City in a little bit. It's a very strange fact to get used to, for some reason. Last night I began looking online for record stores to visit. I'll probably try to hit a couple of different ones in search of bootlegs and deleted albums that haven't trickled down South. Speaking of which, I find it odd that I suddenly can't find a copy of Elvis Costello's "Blood and Chocolate" album in a proper cd store. Since Keith is the only loyal reader that I'm sure of, and he's heard me bitch about this before I'm repeating myself, but the first ten years or so of Elvis Costello's brilliant career (those being the actually brilliant years of his career) has transfered ownership, so I'm concerned that new issues are coming of his first 11 albums, replacing the bloody brilliant Rhino 2 disc editions, with liner notes written by Declan himself. At this point, Blood and Chocolate is the only one I'm missing from that run. I did find a cheap used copy of the two disc version of his Spike album at Schoolkids today, so I'm fairly content. I'm just a touch worried that all the copies of Blood and Chocolate have joined copies of the ninth volume of Transmet in limbo....

Tomorrow night is Sage Francis and Buck 65 at the Cradle. I've decided to bring copies of cds by both artists to try and get signed. Expect a write-up a day or two after the show, you non-corpeal, fantastic bastards.

Right now I'm slowly reading Philip Roth's novel "Sabbath's Theater" for the infernal book club, having finished Nabokov's Pnin earlier this week. Pnin was very funny, and I think I worked out what it was all about, but it's on a different strata from Lolita and Pale Fire. I think I'm probably going back to Nabokov after the Roth novel, either Ada or The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. I'm not sure which. And the big re-read of the entire Harry Potter cycle still looms before book 7 comes out in July. I'll probably try and wait to start around my birthday.

Sorry this entry is so dull, but I felt obliged to post something, and I'm not pissed off at much of anything at the moment...

I am NOT a Demographic...

So I was just listening to All Things Considered, waiting for a story about used CD stores, but first I have to listen to a piece on the lastest devious, insidious brainchild from the mental terrorists of Madison Avenue. Now, the bastards, not content with all of the evil they already unleash on television, radio, print, the internet, any public space they can find and within any other medium that exists, have begun hiring "Brand Ambassadors", collaborating, whoring bastards who travel around college campuses and other such places attempting to build word of mouth for corporations not content with the mindfucking already accomplished.

I couldn't listen to the whole report. It was much too much. So I retreated to my computer, put Bruce Springsteen's "Badlands" on, and googled (is the verb google insidious advertising? Probably. But google is only slightly evil)"Used cds", and decided that the story is probably about new laws demanding fingerprints of sellers of used cds to stores, in a classic heavy-handed attempt to deter the transfer of stolen goods. Which probably won't do more than hurt legit sellers of used cds, since who the hell wants to go through that while trying to make 20 bucks selling their old Zep cds. But I digress.

I found that story and concept so abhorrant, but then I got to thinking about the show I went to Sunday night, which was completely underwritten by whichever car company makes the Scion (you can see how effective that bit of "branding was) and the bag I gladly took and used today. Am I just another hypocrite? Almost certainly. But, in my defense, I would point out that at the show, there was only one mention of the car company, a rather off-hand and arguably slightly derogatory thank you from (I think) Dready Kruger. And the bag is quite nice, and the logo on it is quite small. I doubt anyone who saw me carrying it today noticed it. (Of course, the Carolina Hurricanes t-shirt I wore and am still wearing is another bit of advertising, when you think about it at all, but I think we can all agree that sports teams get the same pass as bands or movies we like and wish to use our shirts to communicate our appreciation for to others).


(Of course, anyone who wants to advertise on Obviously 5 Readers is welcome. Hell, I don't care if you sell child porn and dangerous drugs to puppies and Panda bears, a blogger has GOT to get paid...)

Y'all Don't Even Know: The GZA at Cat's Cradle

This was an interesting deal. You get to see the Wu-Tang Clan's GZA for free, but you have to arrive early to make sure you get into the show. So, Keith and I get show up at the Cradle at 8:00, an hour and a half before the doors are set to open. We're pretty close to being the first ones who finally get in- early enough to claim our own Scion bags, which are pretty nice for free swag, and come stuffed with a magazine devoted to the sponsoring vehicle, the most horrible t-shirt you ever saw, and a cd sampler that even has a few hip-hop acts I've actually heard of. But that's secondary- we're there to see the Genius of one of the more influential hip hop acts of the last fifteen years.

The first couple of hours feature no live music, just an Atlanta based DJ (disturbingly wearing a LA Dodgers cap) playing the same basic list of classic hip hop cuts that you hear at pretty much every show between sets. Which was fine. I was part of the group crowded around the television near the bar, watching the Cavs/Pistons game.

The first act was a live band called either "The Fyre Department" (the name that appeared in the promotional material) or "The Fire Department", (the name that appears on their myspace page, but the "y" spelling also is on the page). Wikipeida's entry for the Fyre Department is a spin-off of some sort from D12. So, I don't know. The myspace page informs me that they played on the Talib Kwali/MF Doom cut "Fly That Knot" (actually, Talib mentions them in the begining of the track, so it turns out that I had unwittingly heard of them). For what is apparently a studio group, they are a pretty good live act. Unsurprisingly for a studio band, they don't have a front man. They played some hip hop/rock jams, at one point breaking into a pretty good instrumental version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Their presence made more sense when it turned out the they were the GZA's backing group.

The GZA as a solo act is an interesting proposition. Clearly, most of the crowd at most of his shows is primarily interested and familiar with the work he did with the Wu-Tang Clan, but only one Wu-Tang track features him by himself (that I'm aware of anyway). So, he couldn't really stick to his solo material and still please the crowd, which forced him to take on other rappers' parts in songs. Which he was more than up to.

He opened with "Reunited", off of the Wu-Tang forever disc, probably to get the crowd to scream "It's Wu, Motherfucka. Wu-Tang Motherfucka". The next track was "Bring Da Ruckus" off of the Enter the 36 Chambers disc. He came out with his bottle of Champagne (Or, as he described it for the literary motherfuckers, "Sham-Pag-Nee") and with Dready Kruger (who I had heard on the Wu-Tange Meets Indie Culture album) as his hype man. I was pleased when, bantering with the crowd, he echoed a conversation Keith and I had on the way to the show, saying "This is the most undergroudn shit you gonna hear. This is Wu-Tang".

Mixed in with some presumably solo stuff I was unfamiliar with, he rocked some classics tracks like "Liquid Swords", "Triumph" (which just might be my favorite Wu-Tang track), "C.R.E.A.M." and then, as "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" (an ODB track) he brought out his special guest and made the show unforgettable. "Y'all don't even know" he said, as he introduced the legend himself, Big Daddy Kane". Kane, who lives in Durham, came out, and if you don't understand how cool that is, you never will.

The show ended on a markedly strange note, with a series of wagers that the GZA offered the crowd, betting that no one could produce a copy of the "Grandmasters" album he did with Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs, and then offering cash to anyone who could produce a picture of the ODB (someone did, but I didn't see GZA make good on his offer). He announced a new Wu-Tang album, 8 Diagrams and began shaking hands with the front row. I managed to make it to the front and offered up my pen and my trusty notebook for the Genius to sign. He did, and wonder of wonders, I got my pen back (despite the asshoel who tried to grab it from GZA's hand).

Was it the best show I saw this past moth? Probably not. GZA didn't connect with the crowd like Brother Ali did, and he's simply in a different league than KRS-One, but the moments he was sharing the stage with the Big Daddy was undeniably special, and he worked harder than probably was strictly neccessary for a crowd that didn't pay a dime to get in.

This Month's eMusic Downloads (May)

Albert King, Born Under A Bad Sign- A Legendary Blues album

Big Star- Nobody Can Dance- A live album by one of my favorite neglected legendary acts.

KRS-One & Marley Marl- Hip-Hop Lives- Not much explanation needed, I think, if you read the blog at all.

RUN-D.M.C- Live at Montreux 2001- I'm very curious about this. I'm skeptical of how good it might be though.

Ice-T- Gangsta Rap- His latest album. It's been a good while since he put out something important or good, but I figured he deserved a chance.

Sage Francis- Sick of Waiting Tables- I'm seeing him in a few days. I would have downloaded the other mix tape type stuff, but I might buy some at the show. Unless Buck 65 has a bunch of stuff I need.

The Pixies- Velouria, Gigantic- A couple of individual songs to round out the downloads

GZA review coming soon, either tonight or tomorrow.

There will be no sodomy in iTunes

I was just playing around on iTunes, and it was suggested I might enjoy the second album by The Pogues, "Rum, S****y and the Lash". I understand asterisking (which I don't believe is a proper word) words like "fuck" or even "bitch", but sodomy? I can't be the only person who finds that strange...

Send Lawyers, Guns and Money....

Affirmation, baby. That's comment number two (thank you "Ken"), and once again, one from someone who I don't get a chance to harass about the blog on a regular basis. The masterplan continues to unfold.

I'm about to watch the final two episodes of this season's 24. I'm fully expecting to be utterly diasappointed. I missed them on Monday night because the power company still doesn't have it's atom-dancing act together and we suffered from blackouts here.

I have to man the office of the North Carolina State University Friends of the Library tomorrow afternoon, which I'm not happy about. I like my job well enough, organizing donated books, but I dislike sitting in an empty office answering occasional phone calls, ('cause the library doesn't have quite as many friends as one would hope for.)

For the members of my Infernal Book Club, I'm slowly reading Nabokov's Pnin, which is good. I'm also still working my way through the Billy Martin biography, but keep being slowed down by the fact that it isn't very great. One would expect more from a biography of one of the more interesting figures in baseball history. Actually, I'm kind of suprised there hasn't been a biopic about Martin. The problem, I guess, is that Martin's story completely fails to fit the formula for sports films, and has a most unhappy ending. Martin was an underdog of sorts, which is good for the formula, but was a violent, surly, paranoid
alcoholic, which is less great for the Hoosiers type mold.

I picked up a copy of Allan Moore's first volume of his run on Swamp Thing. The introduction Moore wrote is so good in and of itself that I found myself desperately wanting to con my way into a grad school ahead of schedule and start writing a thesis on Moore and his work.

The post title today is a reference to the great song by the wholy underappreciated and dearly missed Warren Zevon. Today, while I was watching The 40 Year Old Virgin on HBO I was struck by the admittedly strange need to change my cell phone's ring tone. It had been a NCSU fight song since I got this phone, and I grew a touch weary of it. There is no connection that I can think of between the film and the ring tone change, unless I subconciously think that Zevon will get me laid. While my ideal woman would obviously respect Zevon, it seems unlikely. I don't know. I saw Hot Fuzz the other day, and there was the trailer for Judd Apatow's new movie, I think it's called Knocked Up, and it looks like it might be really funny, like Virgin. We can only hope so. This summer is a wasteland of sequels and adaptations. (I say this, even though I know perfectly well I'll be seeing Pirates 3 and the Simpsons and Ocean's 13)

In other music news, on Sunday night it looks like I might see a show by the GZA at the historic Cat's Cradle. It's a very strange situation- the show doesn't have tickets for sale (some car company is picking up the bill- Scion, I think, Which is a model of some sort of vehicle, and a very strange car name in your narrator's humble opinion.) Anyway, no tickets, but you have to go online and RSVP at a website. Now, this does not guarantee you anything, apprently. You still have to show up early and take your chances. I'd rather just buy a damn ticket and know I'm getting in. Assuming I get it, expect a review of the show on Monday or Tuesday.

That's Telekinesis, Homes

Sopranos was intense last night. This season has been remarkable, and it looks like the showdown between Phil and Tony that we've been waiting for since Johnny Sack got pinched is finally about to start. This season it seems like each episode has kind of closed out one character- Janice and Bacala in the first episode, Johnny Sack in one, Paulie Walnuts in one, Christopher and Junior, respectively, and clearly last nights was A.J.'s. It still seems strange that they have so much to wrap up in two episodes, but who am I to doubt Chase at this point?

For all of you enthusiastic, ethereal bastards in the infernal book club, I've picked up the Bill Martin biography again. But you don't care.

None of you care. If you did, you would be reading this, but since you are not reading this...

Tonight is the season finale of 24. 2 hours long. I'm going to watch, mainly because I watched the first 22 hours of the show, and it's probably too late to start now. Tomorrow night is the last House of the season. Which is for the best, because the show needs to regroup after a vaguely mediocre third season. I'll finally be free on Monday and Tuesday nights, but it's not like I have anything better to do.

Which is vaguely depressing.

Those Wacky Freemasons

I didn't mention this before, mainly because the only reader I'm sure about was with me at the time, but the other day I went to Borders on a quest to waste some money. It turned out that they were having a deal where if I bought 3 DVDs, they would give me one for free. So, I bought Goodfellas, Casino and JFK and got Scorsese's Dylan documentary, No Direction Home for free.

Anyway, while I was watching Stone's insane, kinetic masterpiece for the second time in as manyd ays, I was slinking around Amazon and I looked at the page for the book "On The Trail of the Assassins", written by Jim Garrison- Kevin Costner's character, and one of two books that got "based on" credits for the screenplay. And this "review" of the book is too magnificent to pass up. The author is one Richard A. Salzer (Amazon assures me it's his "REAL NAME")

"The most important line in the book is the one
about how the FBI used the Masonic Lodge to
meet in 1960...laying the groundwork for JFK's
eventual removal by the 'Shadow Government...
Ask yourselves, Mr. and Mrs. America, is it
just a coinsidence that LBJ, Hoover, Major of
Dallas Cabell, the former Gen. Cabell, et, al
were Masons? I think not. Then they brought in
the Zionists, et, al and finished the job! "

I've heard the conspiracy theory that this was a Freemason job, but I was unaware of the insidisous Zionist conenction to murder. Or should I say COUP? (No, I shouldn't) I wouldn't be surpirsed if the shooters were supplied directly from the Mossad...

And who actually writes "Ask yourselves, Mr. and Mrs. America"? I mean, unless you are writing advertisements for 30s radio dramas....

(I love ending sentences with... leading you to connect the sinister dots yourself...)

I just don't know what to think

So, the Braves get hammered by the Sox in the first game today- real ugly, Matsuzaka handled the team easily and Boston wins 13-4. So I'm pretty bummed. Then, in the second game, Smoltz pitches a gem, and the Braves score 14 runs while the Red Sox don't score at all. Talk about good news, bad news, yeah?


Anyway. I finished Thomas Pyncon's V. a few minutes ago. And I'm still confused. The book, as I've mentioned, is really good, and maybe one day it will all click, but I'm afraid I would have to re-read it to really begin to approach the book's mysteries, and I'm not sure when I'll get around to doing that. It's not the easiest read, and it's not the shortest book. Right now I'm torn between Nabokov's Pnin and Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth. It's pretty much a coin flip in my mind between the two, at the moment. When I have made my final decision, I will let all of you noble bastards in the infernal book club know.

And I went ahead and made a reservation for three nights in a hotel in New York City. I can still wriggle out of it, but it's begining to look a lot like Manhattan for your humble narrator. And my plans for the city are begining to take shape more clearly in my head. I think I'll probably try and see Spamalot the night I arrive, and a Yankees game my second night there. One day I'll probably devote to Central Park. And I'll definitely try and find a good cd store that sells some of the bootlegs I'm dying to own copies of (most importantly, a complete Basement Tapes compilation).

Stop the Planet of the Apes I Want to Get Off

Oh. My. Gods. I was just flipping through the chanels, and on MSNBC I was subjected to something called a "News Pop", a little infographic on the bottom of the screen, above the crawl, informing me that "Al Gore won the 2000 popular vote but lost the election. That's it. I give up. My discomfort with the news/entertainment matrix has just slid into outright disdain. I hate everything. And everything keeps begging for me to do so. You all deserve whatever is coming.

So, tonight the Braves, fresh from being embarrased by the Nationals, of all teams, have to go into Fenway park to play the sickeningly good Red Sox. I'm not particularily optimistic. However, I do have to admit that I'm intrigued if Saturday's matchup is Dice-K against John Smolz (assuming Smoltz is healthy after that tagging injury.) Granted, the Sox' huge lead in the AL East owes something to how godawful the division has suddenly become, but the Sox are probably the best team in the game right now, whatever division you might put them in. Unless they get hit with a real plague of injuries, it's hard to see them not playing in the Series (and winning, in all likelihood). Unless they remember that they are the Sox.

So I've pretty much decided to visit the Big Apple in June. Yankees v. Diamondbacks- I really hope that the Unit pitches, cause I'd love to see his return to the Bronx. Anyone reading this who wants to join me is welcome. (Yeah, like anyone is reading this...Or wants to spend that much uninterrupted time with me).

I'm into the closing stretch of Pynchon's V. I still am not entirely sure what it means, but it's an amazing achievement, particularily for a first novel. If you have the free time and an agile mind, you should probably read it soon. I'm not positive what I'll read next. I have put the Billy Martin biography on the back burner, and I'll probably get back into that, but I'm not sure what novel is next. Maybe Nabokov's Pnin.

I feel bad for the NBA. First, it fucks up the only interesting series going on due to David Stern's raging narcissism and lack of imagination, and what do we have to look forward to? Spurs/Jazz in the Western finals and Pistons/Cavs, probably, in the East. Wake me up when it's over. The best outcome in the West would have been Warriors/Suns, and the East is so bad that I doubt a really intriguing matchup was possible.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars- Literary Front

So, I'm killing time and half-watching the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School", and there's a scene where Dangerfield is in his first English class, and the teacher starts class by reading the last part of Joyce's Ulysses, the "Yes I said yes I will yes" bit. And I wondered. I wondered if the movie was being made today- and this is ostensibly a relatively low-brow production, Vonnegut cameo aside- would the filmmakers and studio be that willing to trust that a decent portion of the audience would get the jokes here? The teacher says "I think Joyce is pretty hot too", and later, Dangerfield says of Joyce, "she's one of my favorite writers". You have to know that the novel she's reading was written by a man named James Joyce, or at least that there was a novelist named James Joyce, to get the joke, and I'm not sure if a-Hollywood trusts the audience enough at this point to make the joke, or B-that Hollywood is essentially right, that a lot of people wouldn't really get the joke. And I don't know if this pessimism is my basic pessimism, or if its justified, or if it's snobbery on my part. Probably all of the above. I know that even most college students don't read what we might call "the canon" for fun, only when they're assigned. And even then a lot don't. I don't know.

I'm half convinced that text messaging will eventually mark the end of modern English, and that in a hundred years people trying to read Dickens or Shakespeare will be like students today trying to read Sir Gawain or Chaucer. Hell, if someone hasn't already written an epistolary novel in text messages, I'm sure it's going to be published any day now.

I'm not concerned that reading itself is dying out, but that the books that people read are going to collapse into ever increasing banality. I know that this is the intellectual snob's eternal refrain. When the third book was written, the academics were bitching that it was nowhere near as good as the first, and that the form was dying. But when I was at Barnes and Nobel yesterday, they didn't have any poetry by Wallace Stevens, but a bunch of books of "poetry" called "Heart songs" written by some kid with some sad story behind him. I remember the Onion satire along those lines, but I swear to God I had no idea that it was based on something real, and that apparently become more important than WALLACE STEVENS. You just KNOW Oprah is somehow involved in this.

Okay, I know I'm something of a snob, especially about books and music, but I do read things like Stephen King and Harry Potter that sell millions of copies, I'm not as far gone as Harold Bloom in this respect. I don't know. Whatever. Nevermind.

Let's Go Steal Some Gasoline

The picture is the Israeli artwork for the Stones' Tumbling Dice single. All of you can be my partners in crime.

As part of my wholly undeserved but entirely appreciated assortment of graduation gifts, I was given a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, which is about as great as it gets. And I rocked that thing too, the card was good for $100.00 and I managed to work it so that the final total, after taxes and the 10% discount, was a nickle. Because all of you are interested in everything that I do, my final selections were as follows:


The Road- Cormac McCarthy. I found a paperback copy without Oprah's "monstrous seal" upon it. Which was definitely a prerequisite for buying it.

Three Novels- Samuel Beckett. The three novels are Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable. One of the great accomplishments of the twentieth century that I, embarrasingly, haven't read.

God is Not Great- Christopher Hitchens. I'm about halfway through it, and the writing is as good as one expects from the great contrarian, even if some of his targets are little more than fish in barrels.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets- J.K. Rowling. My least favorite Harry Potter book, but the one I was missing in hardback.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II- Alan Moore. I really needed a copy. Hopefully there's no chance of another terrible movie being made from this franchise.

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth- Grant Morrison. My five (or six, depending on how you count the two sequential Loeb arcs) favorite Batman stories:
1. The Dark Knight Returns- Frank Miller
2. Year One- Frank Miller
3. The Killing Joke- Alan Moore
4. The Long Halloween and Dark Victory- Jeph Loeb
5. Arkham Asylum- Grant Morrison


I include links to Amazon so all of you can join my infernal book club. Don't worry, it's all part of the masterplan.
All in all, a good haul. I also hit Borders, looking for the last two volumes of Transmetropolitan, which have been surprisingly difficult to find lately. I found book 10, but I'm still missing 9. I also bought the collection of Alan Moore's uncollected DC stories, which includes his amazing Superman stories, For The Man Who Has Everything and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, as well as the Killing Joke (which I already had). More or less essential.

House was pretty good last night, although I'm having a harder time caring about whether or not Forman leaves than I probably should. My sister wasn't surprised that I was taken with a story about a young punk who plays chess... I will say that back when I played chess competively (and managed to just keep my head above water by taking out the kids who didn't belong there and pulling off rare upsets of kids much, much better at the game than I will ever be) that smashing another kid's head in with a clock was a temptation that I only barely managed to resist.

The post's title is from a song by A3 called "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlife" (A Dylan reference I couldn't pass up, and a pretty decent song). A3 is mainly known for "Woke Up This Morning", the theme to the Sopranos.

The Anatomy of Boredom

I already miss Christopher Moltisanti.

I'm half-watching 24, which I'm begining to believe might not actually be a very good show. I amused myself by reading the iTunes review of the audiobook for the new Christopher Hitchens book, God Is Not Great. I love the negative reviews that consist of nothing but poorly worded attempts to refute Hitchens' atheism. I actually still haven't read the book, but I intend to very soon. I love Hitchens, I love evangelical atheism, it's win-win, baby.

Words cannot express my loathing for this Diet Pepsi commerical that tries to be ironic/retro/cool by referencing Beverly Hills 90210. Irony -or rather, shallow irony or faux irony-is usually a poor subsitute for humor, and in this case this faux-hipsterism is unbelievably irrititating. Argh. I just want to hurt someone on Madison Avenue very badly.

I'm toying with the idea of using the money that people were far too nice in giving me for graduating only three years behind schedule and going to New York for three or four days in June. But I'm worried that the idea is appealing largely as a result of my incredible boredom. I've got to start looking for a proper job, just to save my bloody mind.

Sorry this post was so self-indulgent, but that's how boring tonight's 24 is. And this is supposed to be part of the climax for the entire season.

Update: Argh! The Braves lost again while the Mets won. This drops us into a close second place, if I'm not mistaken. Who knew that Washington had a pitcher who could take a no-hit bid this deep? And is it just me, or has there been an unsual number of near no-hitters this season? After that long stretch without one that lasted from Johnson's perfect game (5/18/04, against the Braves, which I had the misfortune of watching on television) until Anibal Sanchez's no-no last year (9/6/06), it seems like there has been a deluge of nearly no-hit games so far (along with Mark Buehrle's actual no hitter). And Smoltz had to leave the game early after hurting his hand tagging out a runner. If we lose Smoltz for a stretch of time, we're in a little trouble, especially with how well the damned Mets are playing.

Top 5 Things I would do in New York:
1. Go see a Yankees game before they build a new Yankee Stadium
2. See Spamalot on Broadway, despite the extravagant ticket cost
3. See the Brill Building
4. Pilgrimage to former site of CBGB's.
5. Central Park- the Obelisk and the reservoir and the zoo.

You Better Act Like You Know- KRS-One at the Cat's Cradle

Saturday afternoon I finally graduated from NC State University after seven long years. What better place to celebrate on Saturday night than taking in the wisdom of the Teacher?

For the show, I wore my new "NC State Graduate 2007" t-shirt that my sister gave me for graduation. I wore it mostly out of irony (although I don't really know what's ironic about it) and partly because I like wearing the red NCSU colors into the Chapel Hill area. And the people there were into the shirt, I'm happy to report. One girl even took my picture (which has me worried about how much of my soul she stole with the device).

The first opening act was a South Carolina MC named Dan Johns. You have to imagine that opening for an act as legendary as KRS-One is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it offers up more exposure than you are likely to get otherwise, and being on the same bill as an icon offers up a sort of affirmation of your work in and of itself. On the other hand, you're perfectly aware that the crowd is only vaguely interested you at best, and would probably rather use the time you're on stage to drink, smoke on the back patio, and wait for the act they are actually there to see. Dan Johns rose to the occasion. His songs were fine, (he's the first MC I know of to name-check Antwaan Randle El) but his freestyling was the real attraction. It was the first time in the admitedly limited number of live hip hop shows I've been to that I had witnessed the time-tested technique of having the crowd hold up items to freestyle about, and it worked. My favorite rhyme was "hearse" with "Why are you holding up a purse?" but that might be just me.

The second act, local icons The Away Team, was less successful in negotiating the thin line of opening for someone like KRS. The Away Team is part of the local stable of rappers the Hall of Justus/Justus League, which also features Little Brother and Cesar Comanche. Unfortunately, the crowd simply wasn't into the Away Team, and their set was surpsingly short. (Full disclosure: after Dan John's set, I snuck out back to smoke a cigarette, and missed the very begining of their set. Who schedules acts that closely together? Part of it might have been how late the show actually began- nearly an hour after the scheduled onset. Also, during their set I had a chance to briefly speak to Dan John and buy his album, so I might not be the best source on their show, but Keith agreed that it was disappointing.)

The third performer was unnanounced before the show, the poet Amir Sulaiman. Sulaiman is a spoken word/slam style poet, reminiscent of Saul Williams, the Watts Prophets and the Last Poets. He recited three or four poems, which were damn good, if not groundbreaking. His new album, Like A Thief In The Night, comes out tomorrow. I will say that in addition to being a fine poet, Sulaiman is also a canny businessman. At the merch table after the show, I went to buy his new album and he somehow talked me into buying one of his older albums at the same time. I mentioned to him that I wrote poetry as well, and next thing I knew, he was giving me a copy of his Dead Man Walking album instead of change. Not that I mind, I just think it's kind of funny.

Then came the main attraction. One of the single most influential MCs to ever rock a mic, the Blastmaster himself, the Teacher. KRS-One. I don't think I've ever seen a crowd so into a performer, and KRS-One worked the crowd as hard as he could. His set was based around the classic BDP and KRS-One solo tracks the crowd was there to see and hear- The Bridge Is Over, Black Cop, Sound of Da Police, a version of You Must Learn rapped over a classical music track. This is fine- when you see the Stones, you want to hear the tracks that made them the biggest rock band in the world, and when you see KRS-One, you want to hear why he's routinely mentioned in the same breath as Rakim as the greatest to ever rhyme over a beat.

KRS was also pushing his new album, Hip Hop Lives, a collaboration withe Marley Marl, as hard as he could. His crew blanketed the crowd with posters for the new album, which drops May 22, and played up the history he had with Marley Marl and the Juice Crew, the role they played in the rise of Boogie Down Productions. The highlight of the evening, besides the sheer visceral pleasure in being part of a crowd so enthusiastic that it verged on becoming a mosh pit near the stage, came when KRS pulled out a sharpie. He signed a copy of his book, Ruminations, he signed posters, and he signed the front of my notebook. As he left the stage early Sunday morning, he made a pointedly reminded the crowd that it was now Mother's day, and spoke out forcefully on the neccessity for respect for women, particularily within the hip hop community. He labeled himself a feminist, and I couldn't help but wonder just how many MCs would have done the same thing.

KRS-One is an icon, one of the greatest ever, and among the three or four most influential ever. He certainly has the perogative to go out and give a lackluster show, to play only the recent tracks, to give the crowd what he wants more than what it wants. But he knows better than that. He knows that he got where he is now by rocking the crowds, and that to continue to accomplish the things he still wants done, he should continue. I doubt his new album, (the tracks he played off of it sounded pretty good) will be as revolutionary as Criminal Minded, or as landmark as By Any Means Neccessary, but I'll still buy it, and not just out of nostalgia for a past I wasn't actually part of.

The Word of Chipper

I've never trusted interleague play in Major League Baseball. It simply ain't natural. But now, I know it's wrong. Because our favorite prophet/messiah/MVP Third Baseman Chipper Jones has pointed out how wrong it is that the Braves have to play our "rival" BoSox while the Phillies get the Blue Jays and the Mets get the Yankees.

Loyal Chipperians, you have heard the words of your prophet. We must now take up arms against the abomination.

Amen.

Props to Signal to Noise for providing a platform to the one true prophet.

Cricket Uninteresting Again

According to the latest reports, the Pakistan cricket coach wasn't murdered at the World Cup, but died of natural causes.

The period between 3/18/2007 and 5/14/2007 will be forever remembered at the brief period of time when the "sport" of cricket was interesting.

Whitechapel Calling

It's been so long since I've picked up a copy of Alan Moore's "From Hell" that it feels like I'm about to read it for the first time. In preperation for the new reading of the massive, blood-soaked tome I have procured a copy of the Johnny Depp film, which is a wonderful bit of cinema even if it is only connected to the comic book by title and general subject matter. I have also directed my thoughts back to London in 1888, and applied the fruits of my academic training towards solving the vexing and lingering homicides that changed the way the world thought about its madmen.

My New Suspects (based on an extensive literary training):
Charles Dickens:
What better place to start one's examination of the most iconic Victorian crime wave than with the most iconic of Victiorian authors? Unfortunately, Dickens died in 1870, ruling him out as Saucy Jack. Besides, given Dickens' penchant for including casts of dozens, even hundreds of characters, there's no way he would have stopped at five victims.





Robert Louis Stevenson: While the murders were occuring, a stage production of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" was playing in London. What better way to pump up interest in your strange psychological drama about the dark side within every man than by going out and knifing some prostitutes? It worked when Orson Welles did it to promote "Citizen Kane", and it might have worked for Stevenson.





Bram Stoker: Ah, but if we take a closer look at the stage production of "Jekyll", we notice that it was being produced at the legendary Lyceum theater in London. And what author is more associated with that theater than Bram Stoker, whose friendship with the Lyceum's biggest star, Henry Irving is legendary. What if, as a favor to his friend, Stoker decided to create a little buzz for the show? The plot thickens when one considers the famous "Dear Boss" letter of 9/25/1888, the letter which produced the name "Jack the Ripper" and includes the tantalizing sentence, "I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle". What author is more associated with blood than the creator of Dracula?


Oscar Wilde: However, the Jack killings might be a touch too theatrical for Stoker. It might be more appropriate to look at the greatest of the theatrical minds of the late nineteenth century, the divine Oscar. Unfortunately, Oscar did not have a new play out around that time, so we might have to reluctantly abandon our theory that the killings were a marketing technique (not unlike the Aqua Teen Hunger Force terrorist attack in Boston of 1/31/07). This leaves us with the potential that Oscar was doing early research for his own study of human degredation, "The Picture of Dorian Gray", which he would publish two years later. Or, the murders might have simply been an example of Wilde's aesthics run a little amok. In his preface to "Dorian Gray", he wrote, "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.". If one replaces the word "book" with "ritualistic murder and postmortem mutiliation of ladies of ill-repute", a damning confession comes to light.


Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Nah. It's well known within literary circles that Tennyson loved the hos. Way too much to start killing them.













Aw hell, who am I kidding. We all know it was a Freemason plot, in conjunction with renegade Catholic sects, the Royal family, the Guild of Calamitous Intent and the Illuminati. Actually, according to the new official story, the Ripper looked a lot like this guy:













(I made up way less of the details than you probably think.)

Believe The Truth: Brother Ali at the Cradle.

While Akon is busy humiliating himself and giving another black eye to a culture and art form he claims to represent, I sought communion with the truth itself, hip-hop the way it is supposed to be. Brothers and sisters, I went to see Brother Ali at the Cat's Cradle. I left the club with my head spinning with even more words than usual, desperate to do justice to the magic I had witnessed.

First, a quick word about Psalm One, who opened for Ali.

Female MCs are still something of a novelty, and there are a couple of ways to think about them. One point of view runs like this- in a coed terrorist cell, you always kill the women first. A woman, the thinking goes, had to work ten times as hard as any of the men there in order to prove herself to the rest of the group. (Allright, I stole that from Garth Ennis' "Preacher")

The other way of thinking is the dancing bear. The point is not that the bear dances well, it is enough that a bear can dance at all.

Psalm One is not a dancing bear. She is an assasin on the the mic, and better than nine out of any ten male mcs you might randomly line up. It's hard for a man to make it in this business? I'd be willing to wager nearly anthing that it was a lot harder for Psalm One. Believe that.

One highlight of her set was Ali coming out to wipe off her sweat, the kind of little moment that suggests that maybe Rhymesayers is different from other labels, and that their MCs are having all kinds of fun on the tour.

Ali took the stage, and right away he took complete control over the crowd. Most rappers talk about how "real" they are with the same amount of hyperbole that they use to describe their purported wealth, their sexual prowess, how hard they really are. Not Ali. Although he is perfectly capable of the bragadocio that hip-hop borrowed from the Blues and we all know and love, he is also one of the realest cats in the game. After performing "Room With a View", the potent opening track from the "Shadows on the Sun" album, Ali made a point of telling the audience that the discarded souls who populate the song are real people that he knows, examples of a society that doesn't care about anyone who isn't rich or pretty enough.

Like another Minnesotan musical marvel, Ali leaves blood on his tracks. He raps about his divorce, moving between the poles of venom and reflection while he moves forward. His shameless gushing about how proud he is of his son Faheem should be embarrasing or maudlin, but instead is genuinely moving. (At the end of the show, Ali played a track, "Original Prince" that his boy recorded. And honestly? There are rappers who get a lot of airtime are put to shame by a six year old.) Ali hasn't yet put out an album as brilliant as Dylan's 1974 personal masterpiece, but give the man time, he ain't quite thirty yet.

At one point, the crowd spontaneously broke into an "Ali" chant, and while the obviously flattered MC posed and strutted, I couldn't help but think of that other Ali. Brother Ali would be the first to tell you that he ain't pretty like the Greatest Of All Time (who would have been one hell of an MC himself), but he can dominate like the man himself.

Ali avoided the biggest trap I was afraid he would fall into. While he hit most of the high points of his new album (The Undisputed Truth, in stores now), Ali didn't neglect his amazing breakout album, 2003's Shadows on the Sun or 2004's Champion EP. (Talking about the gap between releases, Ali pointed out that in the time it took to put out his new music, Jay-Z managed to retire, return and put out a new album). For me, the highlight of the show was the transcendent "Rainwater", off of the Champion EP. I had been waiting to hear the man perform what I firmly believe to be his greatest accomplishment since last year, when I saw Ali open for Rakim. At that show, the turntables apparently both wobbled and fell down, so the audience was treated to Ali rhyming over beats layed down by a brilliant beatboxer named (if I'm not mistaken) DJ Snuggles. That impromptu throwback was a real treat, the kind of show that you remember for the rest of your life. But it did leave me waiting to get the full Ali experience. He took the crowd through the highlights of Shadows on the Sun- "Room With A View", his half of the duet with Slug, "Blah Blah Blah", the domestic abuse saga of "Dorian", "Star Quality", "Forrest Whitiker", a triumphant performance of "Champion" that was nothing less than a victory lap. He took the audience to church, to a house party, to a political rally, and into the depths of his soul. In other words, he did everything that hip-hop music is supposed to do, which might be the highest compliment that I can think of.

Brother Ali brought the truth with him to Carrboro, and I was blessed to witness it.

Everybody Drops The Dime

This week your humble reporter is dispatching live from the beatfiul terror that is the city of Dis, located with a beatiful view in the sixth circle of the Inferno. And how have you been my blue-eyed sons?

The World Wide Leader has managed to irritate me twice in one day, first with the new graphic on the side of the screen during Sportscenter, then by not showing me Stump the Schwab reruns at 1:00 PM. I have few small pleasures, but the great pleasure of being home at 1:00 in the afternoon is watching Schwab. This will not stand. None shall pass.

And the coverage of Clemens' return has displeased me. I want more focus on the wisdom, if that's the word, on paying a million dollars a start to a 45 year old man who can go five or six innings a start. Anyone who thinks that the bastards of the Bronx just wrote the check that, when cashed, will buy them a seat in October is sorely mistaken, methinks. If the Rocket had returned to the Dirty Water of Boston as a third or fourth starter, I could believe that the playoffs were beckoning brother Roger, but that team in Gotham is too flawed for even the return of the best pitcher of our era to redeem. You heard it hear first.

The Sopranos, now. And boyos, the claret is begining to flow. Brother Christopher has finally snapped, and that's nothing but good news for the audience. My concerns for the last season have been proven mercifully unjustified. David Chase deserved not my skepticism.

As an example of how good I am at outsmarting myself, I managed to spend 70 dollars on Free Comic Day. Apparently, Alan Moore and Transmet trades weren't covered under the Free Comic heading. Ah well, I needed to pick Transmet up again. It's nothing less than a sin on my part to have lapsed from the true faith of Spider. Yes, we will build Jerusalem on America's granite and steel lands...

Brother Ali is tomorrow night. The truth is here, ladies and germs, and although I would dispute it, I eagerly await it. If only I had some idea for my plans for the rest of the day.

Mother's day is coming up my lads and lasses, do you remember that? Because she is unaware of the existance of my signal fires that I light on the interweb, I'll let you all know what I have procured for my mother dearest, and I highly recommend all three of you beg borrow and steal to obtain the same item- the new Van Morrison collection of his movie songs. Van Morrison is an authentic Irish Seraph disguised as the most heartbreaking voice in rock n roll and we are all lucky to have been graced with his genius. Consider this.

I have spent the day watching Boogie Nights for the first time in a couple of years, at least, and reading Transmetropolitan. I can already tell that I'm going to lose my mind, and soon, without something to do. Employment never seemed so lovely. I can go ahead and warn you imaginary, magnificent bastards that the posts are going to begin coming faster and thicker, trying to save my mind by poisoning yours. I still have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow and it is bothering me more and more with every passing moment.

It's probably wrong of me to continually edit posts instead of posting new ones, but that just how I roll. I now know what I'm doing tomorrow before the Brother Ali concert. Expect a full write up of the show if you like. Hell, expect whatever you want. But there's a chance you'll actually get the write-up.

Oh, and anyone who gets the specific allusion that the title of this post is making, then I both salute you and worry about you. I know that you won't get the answer from the first page of google results...

Keith has told me that you can get the answer through google. It's completely unfair if you use rudimentary knowledge of how search engines work against me.

Braves play San Diego tonight. Chuck James is pitching, and we're tied with the Mets for our first place birthright.

While All of Y'all Were Seeing Spidey III

I was finally seeing Grindhouse. And it ruled.

I liked the Tarantino half better than Rodriguez's half, although both were good. The trailers were brilliant, especially the Thanksgiving slasher one and Machete (which Rodriguez is now making). Seeing Rico Diaz from Six Feet Under killing zombies was a treat.

There were exactly three people in the movie theater (including myself) which was about two more than I strictly expected. And I have to admit that seeing "Grindhouse" in a multiplex in Cary, NC is fundamentally wrong. Still, it was one of the most joyous cinematic experiences of my recent life. I can't remember the last film that made me feel so goddamned happy to be alive. It's everything that Snakes on a Plane almost was, but moreso, and better and somehow less gimicky.

I still wish Quentin would grow up a little bit, and make more movies and make more movies that are more like Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. He has every right in the world to make the movies that he wants to, and I enjoy watching them, but it's so frustrating to watch someone with so much talent who also has the access and ability to make movies fritter away on what will ultimately be seen as essentially frivolous. The only other American director I can think of who has the kind of all-encompassing love for all kinds of movies AND the talent to make whatever kind of film that he wants to is Scorsese, who makes movies constantly, and makes movies that are both great AND fun. There was a time when Tarantino seemed like the next coming of Marty, instead of an amalgamation of Godard and Roger Corman.



In the sequel, David and Nate will avenge Rico's death...

Days of the Locusts

Feedback. Awesome. I appreciate anyone reading, especially anyone who I haven't personally spent the last several weeks badgering about reading this thing.

So. I took my last exam this morning. It was boring, and I wound up writing two essays about all of my grievances with Coppola's version of Dracula. Somewhere between a bang and a whimper, I guess. Tomorrow I have to go to the campus one more time, to take part in a sort of exit interview for English majors. I'm only going because a professor I respect asked me twice to come.

This is strange, but bear with me. Does anyone else have the problems I have with donut stores? I almost never eat donuts, but this morning I went to the Dunkin Donuts across from the English building just to eat something before the exam. And I discovered just how bad I really am at ordering dounts. I asked for a chocolate, cream-filled donut, and I guess I didn't pronounce the comma correctly, because I got a powdered donut filled with chocolate cream. Earlier this year, the only other time I went to the store I asked for a chocolate donut, meaning a regular donut with chocolate icing and I got this weird donut that was chocolate, but all the way throught? Like not iced, but just chocolate. For someone who thinks they are pretty good with the English language, it's actually kind of humiliating to not be able to order a damned donut. Anyway, I go to pay for the donut, which came to 90 cents. I have out a dollar bill, and the clerk asks me "Do you have anything that gives you a discount?" He doesn't bother to illucidate just what sorts of talismans or symbols might be capable of gaining such a discount, so I just kind of hem and mutter negative-sounding things, and try to get to him to accept my dollar so I can leave with some shards of my sense of self-worth, but he repeats the question before he finally takes the dollar and gives me my dime. Do other human beings have these kinds of things happening to them too, or is just something about me?

Right.

Whoa.

My PE grade was finally posted. I passed. I knew I was going to, but I still wanted, needed the proof. I am going to graduate in eleven days. A terrible mistake has been made.

While I was killing time before the 1:30 AM or so posting of the grade, I went to amazon to see how the season 2 of Venture Brothers was doing. And people need to be ashamed of themselves. Ahead of the funniest show on television (yeah, I said it. What are you gonna do about it?) are, among other things:
-The Girls Next Door Season 2
-Something called "Shirley Valentine"
-A Tyrone Power box set
-Dancing With The Stars: Cardio Dance
-Dinosaurs-The complete third and fourth season (I don't care what Keith says, that show was god-awful, and ripped off the Simpsons in ways that Seth McFarlane could only dream of)
-The Full Screen version of Happy Feet
-The Will and Grace Seasons 1-5 Bundle
-Will and Grace- Season Six
-Beverly Hills 90210-The Second Season
-About three different editions of Night at the Museum
-A self help video called "The Secret"

Who the hell is buying these things? Just when I think I don't understand people at all, something like this happens and I discover that I really don't understand people. Who is going out of their way to purchase the Full Screen editions of movies? It's amazon- they lead you to the Proper edition automatically. For example, I just searched for The Departed, and the full screen version was the fourth result, behind the two disc version, the one disc version and the soundtrack. You have to go out of your way on amazon to purchase the full screen version. I realize that this is probably even more the fault of the studios and Hollywood for not educating people about how they are getting screwed over.... you know what, nevermind.

Warriors lost, and I missed the game (just as well, I want to see the Mavs lose that fourth game and get bounced) and the Braves lost even though Chipper went yard twice (He's hitting them out at a really impressive pace). The Mark Redman retread experiment isn't working. Clearly, Roger McDowell is not Leo Mazzone, and doesn't have the magic to turn any third rate pitcher into a 4 or 5 starter.

Mention this post to me and I'll buy you lunch

(Offer does not apply to Keith)

It occured to me that it's kind of strange that I spent the day I had two exams listening to Aesop Rock's new single over and over again. Strange, because there seems something odd about listening to a song called "None Shall Pass" on exam day. I dont' know. (Shit, that comedy bit crashed and burned). The song is good. Damn good. Go to Adult Swim's website and download the Def Jux sampler it's on.

Only one exam standing between me and the world. Film and Lit tomorrow morning at nine. Crazy, man.

Halfway into House tonight, and it's another boring episode. That's like three out of the last four. Okay, House trying to kill the dog is funny. And any dog that eats original Elvis Sun vinyl needs to die. But the episode still sucks overall. Don't care about Foreman's guilt or whatever. Just do not care. And I LIKE Foreman's character.

Hell, I'm so thinking about bailing on this episode. I won't though. Because I'm a coward. I do want to watch at least part of the Warriors game tonight. 9:41- disgusted by House's new cane. Turned television off. Be back next week, but if I didn't love this show...

Missed 24 last night, but bought it from iTunes. Will probably watch tomorrow.

There's that credit card commerical starring Shawn(?) White on again. Does anyone else even remember him, or anything else about the Winter Olympics? Outside of Bode Miller, maybe. Maybe.

Can the show "Bones" possibly be as godawful as the commercials make it look? It seems unlikely. Of course, I'll never know.

Hell, it's Tuesday again.

Top Five Books I Promise To read This Summer
1- New Harry Potter book...Deathly Hallows or something
2-V- Thomas Pynchon
3-Sabbath's Theater- Philip Roth
4-The Confidence Man- Herman Melville
5- Ada- Vladimir Nabokov.