beating a dead horse...

so i check out for a four day weekend of food, family, fun, and hallucinogens, only to come back to the real world and see that media is still turning up the heat on Obama. now here the role of the genetic dissenter becomes a precarious perch; for if public opinion eventually turns against Obama, then I'm forced to support him by definition of my role. some might say that makes me a hypocrite, but that's not exactly the truth. I'm always against whatever most people are for. so lets practice. what if i had to defend Obama against his major criticisms?...

they say

"He thinks he’s playing with Monopoly money

Economists and business leaders from across the ideological spectrum were urging the new president on last winter when he signed onto more than a trillion in stimulus spending and bank and auto bailouts during his first weeks in office. Many, though far from all, of these same people now agree that these actions helped avert an even worse financial catastrophe.

Along the way, however, it is clear Obama underestimated the political consequences that flow from the perception that he is a profligate spender. He also misjudged the anger in middle America about bailouts with weak and sporadic public explanations of why he believed they were necessary."

i say:

"it is monopoly money. the u.s. dollar hasn't been worth cat shit since the greenback was killed and the federal reserve was created. don't believe me? go watch this movie:

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

after that, you'll understand that all money is really debt. so by spending it, Obama is really creating less debt. yeah, that's the ticket. spend it before it goes bad..."

they say:

"He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe

That line belonged to George H.W. Bush, excoriating Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988. But it highlights a continuing reality: In presidential politics the safe ground has always been to be an American exceptionalist.

Politicians of both parties have embraced the idea that this country — because of its power and/or the hand of Providence — should be a singular force in the world. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the world.

On this score, the reviews of Obama’s recent Asia trip were harsh.

His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan was symbolic. But his lots-of-velvet, not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications.

On the left, the budding storyline is that Obama has retreated from human rights in the name of cynical realism. On the right, it is that he is more interested in being President of the World than President of the United States, a critique that will be heard more in December as he stops in Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize and then in Copenhagen for an international summit on curbing greenhouse gases."

i say

"America is another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe. didn't you people learn alphabetical order in grade school? wtf? oh I'm sorry, did i miss the shuttle to the time machine that took everyone else back to ww1? the whole concept of superpowers is so 1980 anyway. the world grows smaller by the minute, there isn't any room for national egos anymore. get over it. of course he wants to be president of the world. who wouldn't? sounds like a sweet fucking gig to me..."

they say:

"Too much Leonard Nimoy

People used to make fun of Bill Clinton’s misty-eyed, raspy-voiced claims that, “I feel your pain.”

The reality, however, is that Clinton’s dozen years as governor before becoming president really did leave him with a vivid sense of the concrete human dimensions of policy. He did not view programs as abstractions — he viewed them in terms of actual people he knew by name.

Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles.

Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post have likened him to Star Trek’s Mr. Spock."

i say:

"i always thought Spock would have made a great captain. period. sure, kirk slept with green women and fought klingons, but only after asking Spock's advice first. think about that."

they say:

"President Pelosi

No figure in Barack Obama’s Washington, including Obama, has had more success in advancing his will than the speaker of the House, despite public approval ratings that hover in the range of Dick Cheney’s. With a mix of tough party discipline and shrewd vote-counting, she passed a version of the stimulus bill largely written by congressional Democrats, passed climate legislation, and passed her chamber’s version of health care reform. She and anti-war liberals in her caucus are clearly affecting the White House’s Afghanistan calculations.

The great hazard for Obama is if Republicans or journalists conclude — as some already have — that Pelosi’s achievements are more impressive than Obama’s or come at his expense."

i say:
"damn...they kind of have a point...."

i told you so....

looks like the "new" has worn off of Americas favorite house negro. and yeah, i know that's harsh; but I'm still a little buzzed from lunch, and sick and tired of holding my tongue. i never wanted to be a crab in the bucket; a fireman, a scientist, maybe. but not a crab in the bucket. still, here i am. for over a year now Ive watched the media handle the Obama administration with kid gloves and said nothing. Ive watched old white men and women walk around patting themselves on the back, proud that they have elected a black president. "my boy Obama gonna fix it..." one old lady told me. bull shit.

what problems can a PR campaign fix? none besides obscurity, and as far as i can see, that's all this administration has turned out to be. me, I'm a child of hip hop, and as my brother chuck told me so long ago, i will never believe the hype. all these years when Ive said fuck the man, i didn't mean the white man. i meant whatever fucker had his boot on the back of my neck. white, black, Asian, i don't give a fuck what you look like. i mean, is every nigga with dreads for the cause? is every nigga with golds for the fall? naw, so don't get caught up in appearance. Andre told me that.

slowly folks seem to be catching on a little, getting a whiff of the bullshit. slowly, they realize that this "unprecedented" event is really just the same old show on a new stage, plus pyrotechnics. it makes me a little happy and a little sad at the same time. i did want to believe in change. but change itself isn't always a solution. you can change the tires on a car everyday. but if the road you drive down is littered with nails, plus the engine is a step from throwing a rod any minute, you still wont get anywhere. that's pretty much how i see America right now. everyone's convinced we need a tune up or an oil change, a few brave souls admit we need a new car. truth is, this road has been going in the wrong direction since day one. so holler at me when y'all finished hitting the snooze button, and get ready to vote with bullets.

The White House's unprecedented use of 'unprecedented'

Carol E. Lee Carol E. Lee – Wed Nov 25, 12:54 am ET

The Obama White House is addicted to the “unprecedented.”

Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action."

What has followed is declaration after declaration of “unprecedented” milestones. Some of them are legitimate firsts, like the president’s online town hall at the White House in May.

But others the president wins merely on a technicality, and several clearly already have precedents.

The White House’s announcement of its unprecedented — “a first by an American president visiting China” — town hall meeting with students in Beijing, for instance, drew a collective eye roll in certain circles back home, namely among former aides to President George W. Bush, who had already been grumbling about Obama’s carefree application of “unprecedented.”

“I think I attended a town hall with President Bush in China,” former Bush adviser Karen Hughes quipped with a laugh, recalling a 2002 Bush speech in Beijing at which he took questions from the audience. “I thought: Were they asleep? Or were they dreaming? I remember standing and watching President Bush engage in a town hall that I believe was televised.”

President Bill Clinton also took questions from Chinese students at an event during a trip to the country in 1998, then did a radio call-in show in Shanghai the next day.

The White House’s characterization of Obama’s Beijing town hall mirrored the description staff gave Obama’s address to students on the first day of school, which the Education Department called “historic.” Yet President George H.W. Bush delivered an address to students, as did President Ronald Reagan. Maybe it was the streaming online video of Obama’s speech to students that was unprecedented?

Either way, for a president whose approach to exaggerated critiques of his administration is to “call ‘em out” and who has made an issue of forcing corporate America to expose the fine print, one wonders whether his use of “unprecedented” would pass his own litmus test.

Indeed some of his efforts are unprecedented. Obama noted, for example, that world leaders took “unprecedented steps” on nuclear nonproliferation at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council that he was the first U.S. president ever to chair.

But at times Obama’s use of “unprecedented” is questionable.

Obama has said he “took office amid unprecedented economic turmoil” and that the situation demanded “unprecedented international cooperation” and resulted in his signing of the “unprecedented" Recovery Act. Yet it seems the Great Depression and the New Deal might be considered precedents for the current economic crisis and the $787 billion stimulus plan.

And Obama’s promise of “an unprecedented effort to root out waste and inefficiency” sounded a lot like promises of past presidents.

“I believe the Congress and the American people approve my goals of economy and efficiency,” President Lyndon B. Johnson told Congress in 1965. “I believe they are as opposed to waste as I am. We can and will eliminate it.”

On bipartisanship, Obama raised a few eyebrows when during his first press conference he cited “putting three Republicans in my Cabinet” as “something that is unprecedented.”

“He is right — assuming he's talking specifically about selecting three Republicans (and not Democrats in a Republican administration) simultaneously and during the first term (not over the course of a presidency),” the National Journal pointed out. The magazine noted that Johnson, Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt had three Republicans serving in their Democratic administrations. Republicans Gerald Ford and Dwight Eisenhower had three Democrats serving in theirs.

The White House stands by its claims.

“During his first year in office, President Obama has taken historic and, in some cases, unprecedented actions to fulfill his campaign promise to change business as usual in Washington and confront the wide-ranging challenges facing America,” said deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

“Cynics may say they’ve heard it all before, but the progress we’ve made on health care reform, energy reform and transparent government demonstrates these changes — in the view of the American people — can’t happen soon enough,” he said.

And when it comes to the Chinese town hall, White House officials say the ex-Bush aides have it all wrong — saying it was the first full-blown “town hall” by a U.S. president in China (because Clinton and Bush took questions after a speech). It was also the first U.S. presidential event streamed to an Internet audience in China and the first with questions from the Internet. And it garnered the biggest viewership, with 55 million online hits alone — making its audience unprecedented, oneofficial said.

The desire to be seen as treading on an unbeaten path is a part of the Obama brand. His candidacy was built on the notion that his rise to the presidency followed no footprints. He wasn’t a Clinton or a John McCain. He had a uniqueness that made him an unprecedented, if not unlikely, candidate.

That theme, which is driven by his personal narrative, has carried over into the White House. And in the context of the something-to-prove drive of a young president with scant executive experience, the Obama White House has used “unprecedented” as a rhetorical means through which he has asserted himself.

It’s also a reflection of the president personally.

“It says how very unique he feels he is,” said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked in the Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. Hess described Obama as “a man who sees himself as unprecedented in every way … given his background — his mother, his father, where he grew up, how he became president of the United States.”

“Of course, biblically, there’s nothing new under the sun, and for most everything he’s done as president there is some precedent for somewhere,” he added. “What he does is variations on a theme.”

Still, Hess said, the word doesn’t have “great political currency.”

“I don’t think he gets special credit for being unprecedented, but he thinks that way,” he said. “I think that tells us more about him than really anything else about how he runs the White House.”

Andrew Jackson was the first president to use the word “unprecedented,” in 1831, according to a search of the archives of The American Presidency Project. For more than 100 years afterward, presidents used the word “unprecedented” in 72 speeches and mostly reserved it for major addresses.

But since FDR talked of meeting “the unprecedented task before us” during his first inaugural address in 1933, presidents have used the word on almost 2,000 occasions to describe everything from the death of Elvis Presley (Carter) to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (Reagan).

Obama has relied on “unprecedented” in more than 90 instances, using the word at least 129 times in everything from major addresses to small speeches, statements, memorandums and proclamations. (Bush, by contrast, used the word 262 times over eight years.)

Obama has used “unprecedented” to describe his efforts on science research, his plan for the auto industry and his administration’s ethics, transparency and accountability guidelines.

He has promised an “unprecedented commitment” to education, to developing clean energy and “to preserving America's treasured landscapes,” which, Obama has noted, have seen “unprecedented droughts” and “unprecedented wildfires” in the face of climate change.

There has been “unprecedented consensus” on health care reform under Obama’s watch, as well as “the unprecedented intervention of the federal government to stabilize the financial markets” and an “unprecedented” bank review.

His administration has also taken “unprecedented action to stem the spread of foreclosures,” Obama said, including the creation of “an unprecedented fund, in partnership with the Federal Reserve,” to get credit flowing.

“I wonder if they believe that everything is really unprecedented, or is it just their talking point,” said former Bush spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who is among those smarting over Obama’s use of unprecedented. “This rhetoric is more understandable during a campaign, but I’m not sure it’s going to get them far while governing when the facts don’t always agree.”

It arguably started during the campaign, when Obama’s team was clocking one unprecedented milestone after another: his trip to Europe, his Internet connectedness, his fundraising strategy, his rallies, his crowds. Obama’s election was historic. His inauguration broke attendance records that reportedly required “unprecedented” security.

And sure, once in office, the administration faced a massive economic crisis. And, yes, the Obama team brought the White House onto Facebook and Twitter.

But by applying the “unprecedented” label to a so many scenarios in government — from transparency to efforts to reduce the environmental impact of mountaintop coal mining — the Obama administration risks outsize expectations and overhype.

“It comes close to a certain arrogance,” Hughes said, “as if this president has done things that no other president has ever done before — except that they have done them before.”

Obama even treads on unprecedented territory in ways he’s not trying to highlight. At this point in his presidency he’s spent more time on the golf course, for instance, than his immediate predecessor. He’s also attended more fundraisers. And sometimes he surprises people with his characterization of himself as "America's first Pacific president," as he did in Tokyo last week.

Just saw a mini firetruck fulla people roll down the street. No shit. Like small world mini. Fit for baby midgets. Full of adults.

And I'm tripping?

"Captain tripps here. Nice to met You."

Has a much better ring to it then

"Hi, I'm tripping balls. How'd you get here"

Don't you agree? I'm lost uptown building churches out of thin air. Safe to say the hallucinogen experiments have been recommissioned.

Damn. Just bought another pair of fly dunks. I need help ya'll. I'm a sneaker addict. I don't need'em all the time. Just when I'm sad, or bored, or excited, angry, lonely, high, frustrated, happy, nervous......

Okay, I do have a problem.

http://matthewafrica.podomatic.com/

on a bad day, this cat is holding me down right now yo. in that bad meaning good kind of way. sub statement: who the fuck is producing the new big boi album? I've heard two cuts, and both of them shits is banging...


http://matthewafrica.podomatic.com/

this just in...

I just weighed myself, and if the scale is right I'm at about 210lbs. That means that in the last 4 to 5 months I've dropped almost 40 pounds. My secret? A steady diet of angst and hallucinogens, and teeth that break and abscess on a whim. Not the best diet plan, but you can't argue with results.

Oh, and get off the sugar. That shits like crack...

women revolution and tennis shoes....

so i finally slept a little last night. if you call waking up every two hours over the course of eight sleeping. enough rest that I'm not numb, just pissed. so today I'm listening to skip coon. Molotov cocktails for lunch anyone?

Of course, now I'm sleepy as fuck. Now that its almost daylight, and people inhabit the world again. Now I want to go to sleep. But I have to be up and functional in about two hours. Fuck this sado need for that which I can't have. I'm as tired of that as everything else. Plus this sunrise has no warmth in it. I don't trust it. They're fooling me again...

The sky is turning colors. I guess the sun will rise today. Who could've guessed?

This night will never end

My thumbs won't stop typing, they've a mind of their own, just like the rest of my body. Of guilt and boredome I can't determine which is harsher master. Both drive me to the brink. And how do you deal with feeling guilty about being bored? Somewhere right now someone is dieing, being raped, getting used to a wheelchair. all I can do is bitch about not being able to sleep and feel sorry for myself. That's some ol bullshit. I want to do something meaningful. But my intentions are meaningless when my body won't obey they simplest of commands. Go to fucking sleep. But the words continue to pour out of my thumbs, and Right now I doubt everything. I would scream, but when your a tree alone in the forest, why even bother to fall? Doesn't it take the same effort not to? Is the effort of uprooting my life not the same as that of pretending to care about things? I'm not sure anymore, even about the sunrise...

Over the years, it gets harder and harder to pretend that you care. Or just harder to let it show. I laugh or cry at the drop of a hat, but I wonder if anything really reaches my heart anymore at all. How can I be so jaded already? It all feels so forced sometimes. So unreal. I don't even trust my own senses half the time. No one has been able to prove to me that I'm not making all this up in my head. Reality I mean. Maybe that's why I write so freely. Your all theoretical to me, figments of my imagination. But I'm driving the car with blinders on, and sometimes the effort of interacting seems more than I can handle. If my dream car got better than 7 to the gall I'd drive off into the sunset. But it doesn't , so I won't. But what do I do with 20 hours a day and all these hallucinogens? All I can do is write. And stare at the ceiling. And keep telling myself that quiting would mean I really am crazy...

Its one of those nights. From where I stand now it seems I might never rest. again, how does anyone stand themselves long enough to go to sleep? What's the fucking secret? I've worked 10 hours today on 4 hours of sleep. I should be ready to pass out. My eyes burn, but I dare not shut them. When I do, all I see are things I haven't done, things I should have done differently. It is so unlike me to be consumed by regret. Yet here I am being eaten alive. I can't shake the feeling that I'm wasting my life, that I have to do something right now. But what can you do @230 on a mon., when all the sane people are asleep? 2 hits or an 8 piece dinner? Niether. tonight ill just stare at the ceiling I think, and try to list reasons why I shouldn't quit my job. Because that would be fucking crazy, and more and more I fear I may be. Why else won't my body do what I tell it to? Go to sleep, love, be happy. No such luck.

May god bless all insomniacs
The tortured souls
Who won't allow themselves peace

May they one day
Rise above the endless hours of wake fullness
And bear witness to truth

May they have not torched this earth before that day comes
May they have not torched their souls
May they retain a semblance of rationality, so that they may share

notes on insomnia...

"i never sleep/
'cause sleep is the cousin of death/"
-nasir jones

so, i spent most of yesterday eating, smoking, and watching nightmare on elm street parts 1-4. midway through part three, i realized that i had probably watched these films when i was well under ten years old; and while they aren't very scary right now, they were then. scared me shitless. i wonder if that's when i decided sleep was a bad thing...

What, if any, is a normal bedtime? I've no concept of that What so ever. For me its always based on What time I need to be where the next day, or what's going on that night. Thankfully, these days I usually force in 3 or 4 hours a night, as opposed to the old days when I only tried to fall asleep 4 nights out of 7. Looking back, the insomnia was really the start of everything. It puts u out of the loop, makes you an outsider; during the day u feel too tired, at night your too awake. I'd probably be a well adjusted fat doctor somewhere right now if I had ever learned to sleep properly. But I didn't, so I got used to feeling half dead to the world, and being the only one conscious. A friend advised me today that I should stop this blog, said I was putting my business out there. And its true,I do worry sometimes about the judgments people make based on my writing. But What else do I do when my brain won't be quite, and no one will answer the phone? besides, those who would think ill of me have been asleep since 10, and have therefore never even glimpsed this world I live in. You can only drink or smoke yourself to sleep for so long, the insomnia wins in the end. For me, Drinking worked for like 10 months, smoking, like 10 years. But here we are again. So I'm writing. It helps; releases tension. It may be what keeps me from finally going apeshit tomorrow, or the next day. Who can say?

I'd compare it to meditation, and while, yes, it is an ass backward way to go about it, its all I got. And if your bored enough to shit here and read it, then try to judge me for it, instead of trying to straighten out your own fucked up life(which I assume it probably is or you wouldn't be judging), then that's exactly what you deserve. Frankly, I don't think I give a fuck. We all deal with life on our own terms. "comfortably numb" seems like it should be an oxymoron, but no more than "goodbye". and at least its an accurate description 90% of the time. case in point: i opened up for killah priest this Friday. should have been a dream come true. i remember sitting in the dorm room and bumping heavy mental loud enough to make the neighbors complain, in awe. in between my eye sockets is where i build my skyrockets.....shit like that. seemed to me then that surely he must know some secret, have some clue. but when i met him all i saw was another man trying to figure shit out, same as me. who drank a little too much before the show and forgot a few lyrics. just like me. by the end i found myself sitting in the vip/bathroom, just wanting to be left alone for a minute, ready to punch the next dick who stepped on my new sb dunks. but i wasn't angry, sad, disappointed, or anything like that. just numb. just over it. how i would have loved to be able to go home and pass out when it was all over, its almost three in the morning, but I'm so far in my head that i don't know how i feel. not sleepy, hungry, or excited. just numb. it s not all bad though. there's that other 10% to account for; so shortly after i got the best text message ever, in terms of origin and context, and for an hour or two i cared about the world. later, she'd have the nerve to say that I'm too nice, that i make her feel bad when i do things for her. buts shes the one running around wielding the philosopher's stone all willy nilly like. how should you react when someone transforms stone to flesh again?

"Sleep.
Those little slices of death.
How I loathe them. "
-Edgar allan poe

will the real bryce larkin please stand up?

I've just discovered that bryce larkin is not who we all thought he was. apparently, he's really a secret agent of some sort, who's dead but not. seems im not a real person at all. its confusing. read more:

"Bryce Larkin was a recurring character on the spy comedy series Chuck, on NBC. Bryce is the ex-college roommate and fraternity brother^[1] of the series' main character, Chuck Bartowski and was formerly partnered and once romantically involved with Chuck's CIA handler Sarah Walker. Bryce was responsible for sending Chuck the Intersect, beginning the events of the series.

Most of what has been revealed about Bryce's background has been in dialog, with some details provided in flashbacks. "Chuck Versus the Intersect" established that Bryce was originally from Connecticut. He attended Stanford University, where he met Chuck Bartowski on his first day of class in 1999. As shown in "Chuck Versus the Alma Mater," Chuck and Bryce quickly became friends because of their mutual interest in computers and video games. While in Stanford they wrote their own version of the classic computer game Zork in C++. The same episode also established that Bryce was friends with Jill Roberts, who would later begin dating Chuck. Bryce and Chuck enjoyed games of Gotcha! in the school library.

Bryce was recruited into the CIA by Professor Flemming in 2002. The following year, Bryce learned that Flemming intended to recruit Chuck as well for the Omaha Project. As shown in "Chuck Versus the Alma Mater," Bryce sacrificed his close friendship with Chuck to protect his friend from the government, which he told Flemming would destroy him. He conspired with the professor to frame Chuck for cheating on his exams, so when Flemming called Chuck in, instead of interviewing him as intended he expelled Chuck and told him Bryce turned him in. "Chuck Versus the Ring" would reveal that Bryce arranged Chuck's expulsion at the request of Orion, Chuck's father, to keep him away from the government. Jill Roberts also told Chuck that she was leaving him for Bryce. For four years Chuck believed Bryce had betrayed him. Jill later claimed she was never in a relationship with Bryce, and only said she was at the orders of Fulcrum ^[2].

"Chuck Versus the Break-Up" established that Bryce was first partnered with Sarah before 2005 (the episode begins with a flashback to a mission they had together on that date). At some point, their professional relationship spilled over into an intimate one and they became lovers. However, as established in "Chuck Versus the Nemesis," Bryce was later contacted by a CIA splinter group called Fulcrum to steal the Intersect. He decided to destroy it instead, on an apparent rogue mission before Fulcrum could gain access to it; he did not even trust Sarah with knowledge of his plan. Bryce is first introduced in the series in "Chuck Versus the Intersect" by Chuck as having become an accountant. As Chuck recounts his history to an unwilling audience at his birthday party, Bryce is shown stealing the Intersect and sending it to Chuck using their custom Zork game as a code, before he is shot by Casey. It was revealed in "Chuck Versus the Ring" that Bryce's mission to destroy the Intersect was arranged and assisted by Stephen Bartowski.

Personality

Bryce Larkin is presented in the series as all the things Chuck is not: confident, athletic, brave under fire, and an excellent spy. Bryce is a skilled martial artist, and a fight scene in the Buy More in "Chuck Versus the Nemesis" proves that he and Sarah's abilities strongly complement each other. Further commendation of Bryce's abilities comes in "Chuck Versus the Nemesis" when Casey calls him dangerous, and later tells Chuck, "When you have a chance to shoot Bryce Larkin, you shoot to kill." In "Chuck Versus the Intersect" a party-goer who knew Bryce at Stanford embarrassed Chuck with all of Bryce's accomplishments while there. On several occasions Chuck has commented how short he falls in comparison with Bryce.

In "Chuck Versus the Intersect" Bryce is already acquainted with Casey, and their dialog together throughout "Chuck Versus the Nemesis" suggests that the two have an antagonistic past. Bryce is still in love with Sarah and has continued to attempt pursuing their relationship. He was hurt in "Chuck Versus the Breakup" when he realized that Sarah had moved on and had feelings for Chuck and his warning to Chuck that Sarah's feelings put her in danger led Chuck to letting her down. Bryce highly values his friendship with Chuck. He also highly regards Chuck's innocence, honesty and integrity, and he was willing to destroy that relationship to protect him from losing those traits.^[1] In "Chuck Versus the Nemesis" he tells him that Chuck is the only friend he really has, which takes steps towards repairing their damaged friendship. The two share many of the same interests, including computers, programming and video games. Both speak Klingon, which they successfully used as a code during a mission."

well...i do speak klingon.

from deeper than soil..

this is a repost from a fresh little blog i just discovered:
http://deeperthansoil.blogspot.com
i know its old, but me and my crew get name dropped, plus some of the pics were taken in my studio, so i think that warrants a reread:

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Lyrikill : That Dude.

BACKSTORY Here is another underground hip-hop head I had the pleasure of meeting, One night after open mic at Club NV. So i get word from Slangston Hughes of (Tygah Woods) that the host of The Soundclash would like to to do a open mic.. I'm all for it of course but then i hear him spit and im like woah... When is Your Mixtape dropping..We spit and he invites me to be on his album although i couldn't make it too the studio (something i regret still to this day) but I did get a change to interview him here is what he said.. Lyrikill

DTS:As an artist and a fan of your i would like to know how you can up with your name.

Lyrikill: It was a name I came up with when I was an 8th grader calling myself C-sta (short for Chucksta lol)...I did an album over some instrumentals called Lyrikill, the Ultimate MC...it was my first time really focusing on using an elevated level of vocal, punchlines, similies, metaphors etc...after that, I never went back to C-sta it was all Lyrikill

DTS: So tell me about Heart & Sole. What inspired you to do this album?

K:I believe life is all a balance--ying/yang, left/right , good/bad, etc so my balance in life is heart/sole...heart being what is real and matters like spirituality, family, righteousness etc and sole being what doesn't really matter but occupies a spot nonetheless, like material goods, pornography, drugs etc

I wanted to bring together the two elements with no judgment on ether side, just accepting that I am heart & sole, nothing more or less
DTS: what are you currently listening to?

K:Alotta 90s hip-hop, I been on the new Rae because it has a 90s vibe but I've been on Jeru Wrath of the Math, Pete Rock Soul Survivor and Self Scientific The Self Science lately



DTS: As a artist how do you feel currently about the state of Hip-Hop?

K: It's beautiful that the Internet is putting the power back in the hands of the artists...there's always a plethora of wack rap, but overall, the digital age will allow artists to eventally deliver music straight to the fans and not have to make bs songs to please some label that has an entire staff with zero knowledge of hip-hop culture.

DTS:Give me your 8 Super Group.

Myself,
Truth Universal
Nesby Phips
Skipp Coon
Elespee
D.O.N.
Impulss and any one member of Tygah Woods...I wanna hear that album

DTS:Any producer in the world who would you work with?

K:DJ Khalil...I met the other 2 of my top 3 this week--Premo and Jake One, so that was pretty dope


DTS:Cool. This has been bugging me for a minute and who better to answer but you, Do you think kids have a creative outlet as far as music goes?

K:I working to bring that to inner city children as the options are very limited right now

DTS:That sounds great keep me posted about it, Can you tell me about The Soundclash?

K: Soundclash was an idea to bring a monthly event that would be a beat battle, artist showcase and networking mixer to New Orleans...we started it last Oct and it was been successful and instrumental in a revival in local hip-hop. It goes down every 2nd Saturday of the month at Maison Musique 508 Frenchmen

DTS: ok i know this is mad random but give me your Top 5 Films?
Vanilla Sky, The Departed, Coming to America, Napoleon Dynamite, New Jack City

DTS: Yeah New Jack City is Classic. You have any favorite spots in New Orleans

K: I'd just say Frenchmen Street, it's the area I normally hang in, lots of places yo est, drink and hear live music...fav club Howlin Wolf for shows, Lil Dizzys or Praline Connection on the eats, I don't do coffee shops but RIP True Brew, and Trolley Stop is the late night food spot

DTS:Can you tell me about your current projects or concepts for any future albums?

K: My current project is a 9 track ode to golden era hip-hop and sneakers entitled Heart & Sole...I am currently 7 tracks into Heart & Sole 2, both projects are produced entirely by Prospek of Guerilla Publishing Company...I have a mixtape with Statik Selektah called "Down Bottom Up Top" and another full-length project, The Canvas, which will drop in 2010.


DTS: What advice can you give to young emcee's?

K:Take your craft seriously and find yourself first...Your music will improve greatly once you find yourself and write from within instead of emulating what u see on tv or hear on radio

Thanks family
Much Love

nice to see you, it was a 3 month trip to get here...

wow. what a weekend.

i once again find myself back in the "real world", where the answer to every question is 59.95 or 27.25. my own personal answers are becoming harder and harder to decode though, and being answered in riddles is almost as bad as not being answered at all. in the previous four days Ive had a wisdom tooth pulled out, none too gracefully at that, lost myself for a day in a Tylenol 3 coma, screamed at a clerk in magnolia discount for accusing me of stealing vitamin water when i had four hundred dollars in my pocket, saw two of my musical idols in concert on the same night [rakim Allah and Saul Williams!!!], flirted then made out with disaster and loved it, ate a bunch of shrooms and ran around mid city trying to buy sneakers, got drunk enough on Frenchman to go home and be in bed by one o'clock, and all in time to do absolutely nothing but sulk on Sunday. Ive also discovered that at least five people actually read about these so called adventures in my life, which i find both flattering and disturbing at the same time. i mean, i guess yeah i want people to read, or i wouldn't write, only writing is no more a choice for me than making music. its just another thing that i have to do to feel right, like making sure my socks match and my shoes and underwear are coordinated. i know its fucking crazy, but its all i got sometimes. looking back on everything with an audience in mind though, this all seems like a bunch of crazy shit, and i see that Ive done a piss poor job of explaining the motivations behind the hallucinogen experiments.

first of all, let me say that the world at large hasn't made sense to me in a long time. a real long time. i believe it was 1988. let me also say, that i have in fact tried several other methods of discovery over the years, and none of them made any sense to me either. Catholicism, black nationalism, rastafarianism, quantum physics, Santeria, philosophy......they all left something out, all had something missing. in the end, its a unified field theory that I'm after, in a spiritual and and subatomic particle sense. what an ego i must secretly have, to think i can achieve what some of the greatest minds of the ages have not. but surely, regardless of any past failures, such is the only real question worth answering, because if your not pondering the true nature of reality then what are you doing? the flaw in Einstein's quest, and most of the rest, at least in my mind, was his failure to include a divine element in his theories; the fear of mixing spirituality and science. that and the fact that none of them did enough dope. but after ten years and an estimated 10,920 blunts, marijuana has become as mundane as everything else in the world.

i needed something new, but Ive never been stupid. you don't need to stick your hand in boiling water to know its hot, and i didn't need to try crack, or coke, or heroin, or anything like that to know they would yield no answers, only the illusion of escape. i was trying to confront. and so, one warm summer night in June i dove head first into the world of hallucinogens. the rest, as they say, is history. and yes, i have found answers, the hard part is bringing them back onto the other side, and then making sense of them once again once your here. some are more straightforward than others. time is relative, space infinite, matter an illusion; but i have no idea what part buying Cadillacs and orange sneakers play in the unified theory. I'm still working on that. and to folks with only a passing familiarity with my situation, folks who haven't seen me on a daily basis in the last ten years, who don't do dope, who don't ask themselves these kinds of questions, I'm sure it all still sounds fucking crazy. so fine, maybe i am, but i think that means I'm lucky. to quote bukowski, "some people never go crazy. what truly horrible lives they must lead."

and for the record, if one day i should wake up and decide that i don't care to feign interest in this world anymore, if i decide that i want to climb a fuckin' tree and stay there for the rest of my days, it wont be the shrooms, mescaline, weed, LSD, acid, or anything else like that, which pushes me over the edge. it'll be 40 hours a week of mindless work, filled with people who see me only as a way to fulfill their needs. it will be paying for water that should be free and renting land that no one really owns. and feeling like I'm the only person with enough sense to be outraged by it all.

Haunted by ghost of relationship past, yesterday I called up an ex. I mean, a friend. Kind of an ex. Its complicated, but I'm sure you can imagine the nature of the conversation. How was I, what went wrong, what should I do now? A bunch of whiny shit like that. Of course her response was that maybe I need to leave new Orleans. Seems to be a common sentiment that I can't understand. But that was her happiness, not mine. Is there even any other place to live? I'd never leave uptown if I could help it. She also questioned the psychological effects of three months of tripping, which I'd never really stopped to consider. And that was before I told her I spent the morning running around mid city trying to buy sneakers on shrooms. Am I becoming unhinged? I don't think so. I feel more well adjusted now then ever. But the more you walk in light, the harder it is to tolerate shadow.

That's crazy. The worlds is my temple. My every step in the grace of god

Why have I denied myself even faith to console me?

I'm sitting in front of church now, but I can't think of a single reason to walk in.....

After you left I ate and bunch of shrooms curled myself in the fetal position and tried to unthink everything. But it didn't work. Why is it so hard to relate to people when that's the thing we all want most. I thought the shrooms would give me an answer. But all they say is for me to go buy you orange sneakers and put flowers in them. Sorry about this, but I'm dramatic too. And I don't know what to do. So what size sneakers do you wear? You believe people when tHey tell u your shitty. Why won't you believe me when I say your beautiful? What size sneakers do you wear. I see unlimited potential in you. That is the true nature of all reality. So again. What size sneakers do you wear?

Curse this world I have built for myself. Why write a play and cast yourself the fool? I've just eaten 3.5 grams of shrooms in hopes of finding out. I must know. The night started out great, peaked at around one o'clock, then went down in smoke. I wish I could explain further, but names and circumstances must be omitted to protect the innocent, and stupid(me). (This in a blog where I talk about my adventures on hallucinogens. My discretion knows no bounds.) I must also ask again why I am compelled to write this in the first place. Do I secretly hope that she will read this, and know how much I wanted her to stay? How sorry I am, how much of a moron I feel like? Surely that's flattering myself though. Nobody reads this shit, save for me forty years from now, still trying to figure out where I went wrong. More likely I write this cause everyone but future me is asleep. Or busy being with other people.

My keypad has begun dancing on me. My screen bubbles. Ill know something in a little while. That much is certain.

I once again find myself seeking solace with my old friends food and drink. Cliche, but a bottle of grand meaux never made me feel socially akward. Just made me try to throw up and shit @ the same time. Much better feeling. I keep thinking that surely these feeling must be near the end. I mean, u can't logically go into your thirties and still not know how to interact with people, right? I put up a good front, laugh and joke, get me drunk I'm the life of the party. But sober? First chance I get I'm off in the cut, smoking a blunt watching life pass me by. Wtf is that? Worst part is I've convinced myself that's what's I deserve, and since the dude abides, that's what I get. Rebel without a clue. I once wrote that I wasn't an outcast, but a walked away. That's not entirley true though. I'm really a never was there at all.

It seems the life of a gentleman philosopher is by necessity to be filled with unfulfilled desires and unrequited love. Perhaps by definition. If he was happy would he Even bother to ask himself the big questions? If he were satisfied why would he continue to push his boundaries. I would think not, but then I might cease to exist. For if the possibility of happiness does not, given its scarcity in reality, why try at all? This inherent human desire for connectivity is maddening at best; its many levels of manifestation a labyrinth of overlapping and supporting structures, which even now have him writing to a theoretical audience w/ a clarity he can't realize face to face. And even this artificial connection is comforting, so deep is the need. But we must not lose sight that it is artificial. web page to text msg. Theoretical. So Yeah, Smash your 2nd phone. Or if you've become so isolated, use it to signal for help.

technically, my weekend rampage began on Wednesday night, after the show at house of blues. i was nervous as a hoe in church and hadn't done any stimulants before. but once people began to show up, and we got going, it melted away, and the fact that i was on stage in leather pants and gorilla gloves with two giant gold ropes around my neck seemed to make perfect sense. and naturally, i couldn't wait to get drunk afterward. that led to dive bars and stiff drinks and a bad Thursday morning chaser. that of course meant long day at work, which of course meant more drinking and smoking after. by Friday I'm smoked out so......lets trip? i guess....its all hazy from there. warehouse parties and boxes of chicken, moons that eat cars, Frenchmen and men on stilts, weddings in cemeteries, wrestling on the floor of your favorite local neighborhood bar. yeah, we tear it up on the weekends.

but now its monday and the weekend is dead.

here in the real world i must yet again question the validity of the hallucinagen experiments. or maybe its the other way around. perhaps i should question the real world? and another voice tells me that in a world of emergent information and symbiotic relationships, there are no real answers so i should just shut the fuck up.

Well....another weekend tripping balls on Frenchman. And what have I learned this time? That you have mental peace when your mind is in a mental graveyard, that heaven looks like a Chinese laundry, that its a bad idea to sue your own father, and That telescopes should be called monoculars, and not much else. I think it may be time to call a halt to the hallucinogen experiments.

Seems like big boi was right. Friday nights is tight, and Saturday just makes it old. I mean, how many times can you meet someone and say, "hi I'm tripping balls, nice to meet you?" Even my running gags got limits. At one point in the night I was approached by a fairly attractive female fan, and that's all I could say. Or was that the guy in the devil horns next to me?