"Same girl..."

What's that song on the radio?

Mismo carro. Same car.

Same air freshener.

Same tone. Misma piel.

Same eyes, same accent. A lot of guys wonder where their stacks went.

Same hair in a bun. Mismo estilo de pelo.

Mismo tamano. Same build.

Different walk.

Twenty years junior. Mi edad.

I see her everywhere. It's so strange. What does she make of it?

And back to the muzick...

Grip of records from Time Captain and the Yard Sale.

Came up on a Jack McDuff album on Sugar Hill that I'm real happy with. We've been taking long walks on the beach, running through meadows and shit like that. Made some rough-draft beats on the gemini, made some habichuelas, might have to go back and listen and thicken them both with the SP. I want to fuck with acapellas and making full tracks.

Also had a session with Re:Buffed that was pretty fun. His style is almost entirely instrumental. Spun a lot of 80's funk-disco-hiphop and 2000's southern rap. Hard to make out some of the mixes, a little crunchyness, but I think it's getting a lot better in the selections, the mixes, and timing. Of course the best stuff probably didn't make it to tape. But the tapes are decent, listenable, yet still out of it. I'm ready to tape over some old shit. Got some record storage going that, while clearing up my floor, has confused the fuck out of me as to where certain records are. No help there. Mellowed out pretty early and watched some broadcast TV drama and grubbed some CFC. Does that to you.

We talked about the future of music. Basically coming from two schools- Rock school and Hiphop/Electronic school. Basically the latter has/is/will become hybridized into one genre, and what does that mean, stuff like that. We talked about playing shitty parties in the context of how Screw music (and other styles that are more based on how you play and listen and compose the records than the instrumentation or aesthetic of it) probably started playing shitty parties, being ahead of the times, etc. and sticking it out until it caught on, eventually to mainstream.

Music from the Rock school is more aesthetic. It's if you have distortion on your guitars or a flute and shit like that. Really nothing to do with the song structures, even content. There aren't many different ways of spinning that stuff, or hearing it. It's just there and you nod your head or you don't. It's good or bad on that basis. Hiphop/electronic school is totally about how you hear it and within it the different schools of what is essentially DJ'ing. Only a part of hiphop school is interested in what different snares sound like or the nuances of old synths, taking it to that level of detail, aesthetic, and history. Rock and hip hop both started as crossovers of different musics but hip hop is the one that seems to be the rollercoaster going up and down and in loops and shit, running circles and wrapping different tentacles around rock. For good or bad, the better part of pop music has more to do with hiphop than rock.

So all of that said, it's a decision to keep making tapes, from mostly old records, playing only records you like, staying away from Serrato and laptop mixing and I guess making pop music as it exists today. Basically just hanging out doing your thing until you start playing parties to people that dig your style or catch up with some of your backlogged tapes. I feel like the more I play, the more I revisit the question of where I play, and the more I figure out what that looks like. We talked about playing some shitty parties in the past, and about getting better friends in the present, and therefore playing better parties in the future.

"I could do without ever going past that block again."

Survival Test

Current music: "Survival Test" - Jaylib, Champion Sound, 2004.

Seems we are worth exactly $27,800,800.00

That is their debt. But THEY owe US, on top of reparations.

WE are supposed to be paying THEIR debt.

WE are NOT paying THEIR debt.

Pase adelante, provarlo. Take a minute, digest.

Put that big O in your pocket and sit on your hands and learn how to respect us when you're starving because we have had enough of paying for you to fuck us.

A whole lot of pimps are going to be out of work in a minute. That includes you, pimps of the non-profit post-industrial complex. You don't have a base.

Even if we have to build a parallel legitimate legislative body, El Pueblo si podemos servirnos!
This is it getting worse before it gets better. Mama said there'd be days like these.

Un comunique con Ruger.

WKrTiQ- Cuantos cucarachas se necesitan para comenzar un pueblo?

RGR- A grip. What are you getting at?

WKrTiQ- Espera. Cual es el mejor color de Kool-Ai?

RGR- Cafe' con latas es un cafe' aromatico pero no viene por 12 pack. It also stains your hands like blood after you scrub it off.

WKrTiQ- Very allusionary. Y donde estabas por la noche?

RGR- Stocking on my face, sticking up Price You Ass, stocking the shelves at the crib, shivering on a sugar high.

WKrTiQ- Se venden arroz por precios muy baratos, verdad?

RGR- Like Maricon-con!

WKrTiQ- Chevere, como tu mama, no?

RGR- It's crunchy out here, son.

WKrTiQ- STr8 Manton. Good bread, kid.

RGR- Pues, que buen pan! Putnam-Vietnam. Decimos sin aburguesimiento. I shit on them, upside down, sideways, inside-out, from below and the left, nah mean?

RGR- Aumenta esto, fucking payasos. Ancillary shit.

WKrTiQ- Blame it on the flying bluntresses, I and I know!

RGR- Brother speaks the truth and they be scratching at it with their fingernails, tryna get it offa there.

WKrTiQ- Dirty rotten SCOUR'ers- with Brillo pads!

RGR- You like saying that.

WKrTiQ- It's because I don't like seeing it.

RGR- I hear you on that man, los enviare un fuckin' pescado negrito por un sobre postal.

WKrTiQ- Self addressed, stamped, with a round-trip bus-pass ticket to...

RGR- Yo, speaking of, I got until Wednesday- I'm about to be out man, but thanks for the time.

WKrTiQ- Gracias por venir, vivido y aprendido.

RGR- No JUSTICE?

WKrTiQ- Nooooooooooooooo peace.

Al dente, motherfucker

Being out of work is a full time job- with additional night hours since what does it matter what time you get up in the morning?

I posted some photos in GovernmentSpace. If there are deep inconsistencies between the world pictured there and the one I describe, let me know and I will try to slow things down for you here. And I apologize if I left un-obscured any fingerprints, license plates, or faces below the eyes, above the eyebrows, or below the belt. Let me know and I will take those down, thank you very much.

I am eating a bowl of plain nachos I scored at Price Rice. What a great store. In the neighborhood. People I know work there. People I know shop there- even the ones with jobs. Where else can you eat so poorly for so cheap? Bell peppers the size of your head, kid! Too bad they close at like 9. Also went to Unhoaly Foods this week, which is extra good when you don't have a job. Because it's not like they could fire you if you got caught burying the tofu salami... in your pocket. I spent like 9$ and change- I didn't even buy any food- and I chardged it, too. But now even though I am big shot I cannot give my receipt away because it has my tarjeta on it. Watch out for that one, young bantam booster.

I think tomorrow night I am spinning some records. Don't hold your breath for the club info secret password drink tickets and VIP. Wojocratic is 100% straight out the tenement. On this one. Might have my boy, Recently Buffed, come through. He got paper bubblejet stickers made up from his latest project, Recently Buffed: "Off a vacant building," featuring the Mayor's Own "Alcalde? Al dente!" Graffiti Task Force. He would like to remind you that 5% of all organic buffer butter profits goes directly toward your next buff- or Buff Chace- of your choice.

Barf.

Which reminds me; I've got storyboards.

stop robbin' the hood

your boy made the news last night... i mean, i'm not the point- i just made the point.

one of more than twenty, of more than four hundred.

orange is the fire.

I don't know why you say goodbye; I say hello

Big news on the world travel tip- Returned from one month in Guatemala (entonces, puedes hablarme en espanol) and one week at the US Social Forum in Atlanta, Georgia. I've been back in the 6th ward for a couple of weeks now, and still I'm talking up and reflecting on my experiences. Along the way I came up on some technology that will allow me to post here with much greater frequency. Yes it's the truth; behold! Wireless internet.

So I'm writing to say hello if you're out there. Now that you know more or less where I've been, we can move on to talk about where we are going.

What I'm feeling lately (we'll do 5)

1. 90.3 WRIU on Sundays I think 2:30-5pm you have your Cape Verdean Afro BEAT! DJ Loverman spinning the hottest Funana' and honestly I don't have the other genres down yet, except that I'm feeling it! I've been tuning it to this spot for a while and my girl knows that she can get me to drive anywhere on Sundays provided we are within range of the WRIU transmitter. Usually I don't/don't like to drive- actually, a lot of folks seem to think I don't
have a car. You can catch me on the bus, or walking ridiculous lonely distances- just take that for what it is.

2. Strong Arm Steady got a new record coming out. You can find the sampler for free on their myspace. Unapologetic and necessary, but I'll be looking for them to take the lyrics up another notch on the full album. I'm still crushing the Blacksmith record, and as always, the Jeanius. The Blacksmith combo is number two to arroz con gandules in my household.

3. Mary's, formerly Mi Casa #2 Restaurant, in the 6th ward. Especially while it is too damn hot to cook! I've been taken care of consistently well, and for three bills! I've heard of other white boys learning spanish to get at mujeres, but en serio, primeramente, aprendelo para lograr la comida!

4. Ahmad Jamal. I got the Swahililand break, made famous in the Dilla production of "Stakes Is High" by De La Soul, entirely stuck in my head. My boy J's got the record, and put it on a tape he gave me at one time- of course nowhere to be found now. Ahmad's got this touch where he doesn't overplay like a lot of jazz cats, especially cool since he did a lot of trio work. His playing lets the rhythm section come through, and they don't typically abuse the invitation.

5. In Guatemala you had some street marimba players for sure, but more it was just bad reggaeton and ranchera. Also the 60's/70's AM Gold style was popularized there and thus you have radio stations catering to the generation of spanish-language Young Rascals and that kind of thing. I imagine it is similar event in Guatemalan history as how nasty 50's food tastes and processed ingredients have creeped their way into Cuban cuisine. Ahh, globalization and U.S. influence in Latino America...

Ranchera is just horrible to me, but strangely comforting with the tubas and ritmos borrachos banging out the speakers that are strapped to luggage racks in the back of speeding camionetas, usually on dangerous-ass mountain passes and in like circumstances in Guats. Best part of ranchera is the stupid,, ridiculous drum fills. It sounds like when somebody's middle-age drunk uncle gets on the kit at a block party and tries to rock like he claims he did in high school. Trying too hard! Drinking too hard! But so too is his audience, therefore unable or unwilling to pick up on it.

More later, now I am going on some important business to most likely officially quit my job.