Destitute Illusion
As I look out my window right now all I see is white. The snow is coming down hard, again, and the wind is whipping it around in every direction. I made the mistake of going outside earlier and got pummeled by snow and hail. These aren’t little flakes, mind you, these are some industrial strength ass-kickin flakes that tell you exactly where to go. They’re about as tough as last week’s turkeys!
Getting pummeled is a bit of theme of late. I’ve written what I think is a tremendous article but, much like the last article I wrote that I felt was tremendous, my pitches are being ignored. I find it both weird and depressing that my artist interviews, which I consider to be good, but far less interesting than my more involved pieces, get picked up a lot more regularly than the articles I’m really passionate about and feel are important. Is it a reflection on society and readers that editors, for one reason or another, would rather have an artist interview than something in depth? I understand we’re a celebrity obsessed culture but there’s so much more to life and I really want to bring the other aspects of what Hip-Hop can do, and how important it can be, to light. Are people uninterested in positive changes? Do we now only get front page headlines when gun shots ring out because that’s what people want to hear about us? It just sometimes seems that newspapers only want run stories that coincide what they want to pigeonhole Hip-Hop as rather than showing the whole picture. Yeah, 50 and Game are doing idiotic things right now, but that’s really not Hip-Hop. Meanwhile in Jersey a Hip-Hop dance troop performed for a few hundred kids in an attempt to show them there are alternatives to being in the street. That’s very Hip-Hop, but good luck finding a mention of it anywhere near the stories about shootings and court cases.
The current issue of Newsweek has an article about the US Government doing an investigation into the business of Hip-Hop due to all the recent violence, money laundering and extortion cases that have been popping up. On the one had there’s a very "stay out of our business" feeling that is going to be prevalent, but on the other hand, a very large part of me is not-so-secretly saying "go for it." If the US Government wants to spend a chunk of money to try and sort out our problems and expose whatever needs to be exposed to make us a more legitimate and cleaner industry, go for it. For the past decade we’ve been hit with more violence than ever and it’s tiring. If someone intervenes and saves some lives I see nothing wrong with it.
Not everything in life is so depressing, however, as yesterday I accomplished something I’m very proud of. That’s right, yesterday, for the first time ever, I repaired two pairs of my jeans! Very few people can imagine me sewing but it was either that or buy new jeans and I really wasn’t feelin spending the money. Besides, I hadn’t worn one pair in so long they’re basically like a new to me at this point. Oh, and if anyone’s wondering, I didn’t even prick myself and bleed, though I can close once.
As mentioned, the sewing of the jeans took the place of any shopping I was going to do over the weekend. I did get around to cleaning my desk, though. I think I’m about 2/3 of the way done with that task. I don’t know why, but I occasionally go on really big "gotta clean" kicks and last weekend was definitely one of them.
I’m trying to take it easy this week since last week was so crazy. I’m spending the majority of the week pitching, rather than writing. My current goal is to get two to three of the articles I’m currently pitching placed in national publications. I feel it’s a fairly reasonable goal, but who knows.
Final Thought: AOL 9.0 Security Edition sucks ass. It’s got a spyware detector that doesn’t work and a weird problem where every time I try to sign on, with the exception of the first time after I turn on the computer, it takes an unbelievably long amount of time to load. Does anyone else have this problem, or maybe a possible cure for it?
Getting pummeled is a bit of theme of late. I’ve written what I think is a tremendous article but, much like the last article I wrote that I felt was tremendous, my pitches are being ignored. I find it both weird and depressing that my artist interviews, which I consider to be good, but far less interesting than my more involved pieces, get picked up a lot more regularly than the articles I’m really passionate about and feel are important. Is it a reflection on society and readers that editors, for one reason or another, would rather have an artist interview than something in depth? I understand we’re a celebrity obsessed culture but there’s so much more to life and I really want to bring the other aspects of what Hip-Hop can do, and how important it can be, to light. Are people uninterested in positive changes? Do we now only get front page headlines when gun shots ring out because that’s what people want to hear about us? It just sometimes seems that newspapers only want run stories that coincide what they want to pigeonhole Hip-Hop as rather than showing the whole picture. Yeah, 50 and Game are doing idiotic things right now, but that’s really not Hip-Hop. Meanwhile in Jersey a Hip-Hop dance troop performed for a few hundred kids in an attempt to show them there are alternatives to being in the street. That’s very Hip-Hop, but good luck finding a mention of it anywhere near the stories about shootings and court cases.
The current issue of Newsweek has an article about the US Government doing an investigation into the business of Hip-Hop due to all the recent violence, money laundering and extortion cases that have been popping up. On the one had there’s a very "stay out of our business" feeling that is going to be prevalent, but on the other hand, a very large part of me is not-so-secretly saying "go for it." If the US Government wants to spend a chunk of money to try and sort out our problems and expose whatever needs to be exposed to make us a more legitimate and cleaner industry, go for it. For the past decade we’ve been hit with more violence than ever and it’s tiring. If someone intervenes and saves some lives I see nothing wrong with it.
Not everything in life is so depressing, however, as yesterday I accomplished something I’m very proud of. That’s right, yesterday, for the first time ever, I repaired two pairs of my jeans! Very few people can imagine me sewing but it was either that or buy new jeans and I really wasn’t feelin spending the money. Besides, I hadn’t worn one pair in so long they’re basically like a new to me at this point. Oh, and if anyone’s wondering, I didn’t even prick myself and bleed, though I can close once.
As mentioned, the sewing of the jeans took the place of any shopping I was going to do over the weekend. I did get around to cleaning my desk, though. I think I’m about 2/3 of the way done with that task. I don’t know why, but I occasionally go on really big "gotta clean" kicks and last weekend was definitely one of them.
I’m trying to take it easy this week since last week was so crazy. I’m spending the majority of the week pitching, rather than writing. My current goal is to get two to three of the articles I’m currently pitching placed in national publications. I feel it’s a fairly reasonable goal, but who knows.
Final Thought: AOL 9.0 Security Edition sucks ass. It’s got a spyware detector that doesn’t work and a weird problem where every time I try to sign on, with the exception of the first time after I turn on the computer, it takes an unbelievably long amount of time to load. Does anyone else have this problem, or maybe a possible cure for it?
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