When Lawn Ornaments Attack
I gotta start with this because it’s crazy. Across the street from the local Firehouse is a house that has more Christmas lights and decorations up than the law should allow. From lights all over the roof and lining the house to lit up statues and figures in the front lawn, it’s a giant ball of light. It’s like I’m living a block away from the sun’s understudy. Though I will admit I’m more than slightly impressed with the setup, and I’m sure the electric company is thrilled with all the extra business these people are giving them, I gotta say there’s a certain point in time when someone just has to say stop. If an electric glowing lawn ornament of the Baby Jesus ends up setting your house ablaze it might be time to check to see if your homeowner’s insurance covers poetic irony because that’s really all you’ll be able to chalk it up to. I’m pretty sure when The Bible mentioned a blinding light they didn’t mean for it to be coming from a suburban couple’s hacienda.
Back in the normally lit world the past few days have been some of the most eventful in a while. On Thursday I finally had my interview with Subliminal. He called from his studio in Tel-Aviv, Israel and we spoke for an hour. It was great. I learned a lot from him about the politics of the Middle East and how Hip-Hop found its way there. The length of my Q&A session with him clocks in at over 3,000 words so I’m looking to create quite the feature story out of it. This is one I expect to sell to a major magazine, I’m not sure which magazine, but the stories he told me are too good to not be published in a big way.
After the interview I hit up karate class, which is almost always a good time. There’s still something primal in me that likes to hit things and in a sick kind of way see how much of the hitting I can take. I guess it’s just the Tyler Durden in me. All I know is after we do a drill called "Iron Shirt" everyone ends up with red forearms but it feels great.
Thursday also marked my debut in the NY Daily News! That’s right, I was quoted in David Hinckley’s column "Some Readers Are Hip-Hopping Mad," and I have to say that my quote was the best. When I was emailing Hinckley back and forth about his article that rightfully challenged the idea that Hip-Hop was the cause of things like the Ron Artest incident, I never imagined it would end up in print. He did reply to my email, though, saying "I agree with everything you say, and couldn’t have said it as well." Little did I know he really meant it! Not only was my quote in there, but he also listed ReactMag.com next to my name! It felt great to get some props from such an established and well respected veteran of the game. Big ups to David Hinckley! RESPECT!
Friday night I went into the city. Not only was Nervous System playing at The Bowery Poetry Club but my friends and I had decided to make a night of it. So many people came through, some of whom we hadn’t seen in over a year, and it was all love. I sometimes forget how much I love my friends, but all of us getting together like that reminded me, and everyone else, that we are family, heck, we have the pictures to prove it! No matter what happens we all have eachother’s backs and we always will. We’ve been through so much together it’s unreal. It was decided the next day that we have to get together more often because we all shared that same feeling.
Another interesting thing about Friday night was that it involved a little bit of friend integration, that ultimate of tricky tasks where a new person is introduced to already established friends. Thankfully everyone got along well. Fantasy Football rivalries were also renewed on Friday as numerous team owners were at the bar ripping on eachother.
The fun of Friday night was followed by the sheer terror of Saturday afternoon (we’re not even going to get into the fact that someone called me at 9AM knowing I hadn’t gotten in till 4AM that morning. Ah friends, lol!). On Saturday I tried to install the software for my new digital camera so I could upload the pics I had taken the night before. The software, however, made my computer sick, so sick I almost had to throw my computer out. It literally wouldn’t even go to Windows, it just kept repeating an error message about 1% not going into 2%. Thankfully the support guy on the phone at Nikon recommended that I just leave the computer alone for a few hours and although it sounded completely nuts he was right and the computer fixed itself. As soon as I could get back into Windows I burned every important file I have onto a CD. Later that night I went out to dinner with a homegirl of mine, which helped to take my mind off of my computer madness.
Final Thought - I’m exhausted, but after reading all that can ya blame me?
Back in the normally lit world the past few days have been some of the most eventful in a while. On Thursday I finally had my interview with Subliminal. He called from his studio in Tel-Aviv, Israel and we spoke for an hour. It was great. I learned a lot from him about the politics of the Middle East and how Hip-Hop found its way there. The length of my Q&A session with him clocks in at over 3,000 words so I’m looking to create quite the feature story out of it. This is one I expect to sell to a major magazine, I’m not sure which magazine, but the stories he told me are too good to not be published in a big way.
After the interview I hit up karate class, which is almost always a good time. There’s still something primal in me that likes to hit things and in a sick kind of way see how much of the hitting I can take. I guess it’s just the Tyler Durden in me. All I know is after we do a drill called "Iron Shirt" everyone ends up with red forearms but it feels great.
Thursday also marked my debut in the NY Daily News! That’s right, I was quoted in David Hinckley’s column "Some Readers Are Hip-Hopping Mad," and I have to say that my quote was the best. When I was emailing Hinckley back and forth about his article that rightfully challenged the idea that Hip-Hop was the cause of things like the Ron Artest incident, I never imagined it would end up in print. He did reply to my email, though, saying "I agree with everything you say, and couldn’t have said it as well." Little did I know he really meant it! Not only was my quote in there, but he also listed ReactMag.com next to my name! It felt great to get some props from such an established and well respected veteran of the game. Big ups to David Hinckley! RESPECT!
Friday night I went into the city. Not only was Nervous System playing at The Bowery Poetry Club but my friends and I had decided to make a night of it. So many people came through, some of whom we hadn’t seen in over a year, and it was all love. I sometimes forget how much I love my friends, but all of us getting together like that reminded me, and everyone else, that we are family, heck, we have the pictures to prove it! No matter what happens we all have eachother’s backs and we always will. We’ve been through so much together it’s unreal. It was decided the next day that we have to get together more often because we all shared that same feeling.
Another interesting thing about Friday night was that it involved a little bit of friend integration, that ultimate of tricky tasks where a new person is introduced to already established friends. Thankfully everyone got along well. Fantasy Football rivalries were also renewed on Friday as numerous team owners were at the bar ripping on eachother.
The fun of Friday night was followed by the sheer terror of Saturday afternoon (we’re not even going to get into the fact that someone called me at 9AM knowing I hadn’t gotten in till 4AM that morning. Ah friends, lol!). On Saturday I tried to install the software for my new digital camera so I could upload the pics I had taken the night before. The software, however, made my computer sick, so sick I almost had to throw my computer out. It literally wouldn’t even go to Windows, it just kept repeating an error message about 1% not going into 2%. Thankfully the support guy on the phone at Nikon recommended that I just leave the computer alone for a few hours and although it sounded completely nuts he was right and the computer fixed itself. As soon as I could get back into Windows I burned every important file I have onto a CD. Later that night I went out to dinner with a homegirl of mine, which helped to take my mind off of my computer madness.
Final Thought - I’m exhausted, but after reading all that can ya blame me?
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