The musings of a madman...

As an “extroverted introvert,” life relegated to being trapped in the house without it being an option I exercised to be there is not my thing. Sometimes, being “out” is not much more than being in the car and burning of ten bucks worth of gas while I ride around with the bambino and take pictures and such. At times, my travels take us – that is Katie and I – with the baby to our normally necessary locales like Wal Mart, the grocery store and/or to the malls/shopping centers… and to the task at hand... Today, on lunch, I went to a grocery store on my lunch break for a salad, and there was a woman who I would presume was a single mother because part of my introverted extroversion involves being a judgmental asshole. She had 3 sons, none older than 4 by my first guess (because this is a school day and it was only 11:40am) and ALL poorly behaved. When I say that, I am being nice when I say “poorly behaved,” because I really wanted to shake the shit out of all ...

I am growing increasingly weary with the "... if Pac and Big were still alive..." argument presented WHENEVER hip hop history is the topic of discussion. I will address Biggie first, since that answer is most easily arrived to... Big was young and naive, coming DIRECTLY from the PJ's to rap stardom. No business acumen (no, no one who NEVER had a drivers license - even after getting rich - sells as much crack as he claimed to), and no point of reference other than "get money now," Biggie would have been nickel and dimed into the poor house if he DREAMED of NOT being on Bad Boy Records. The FACT that he had recently before death signed a chunk of his masters to Puffy against a loan of only $200k suggests this to me. Why, in a world where Michael Jackson took himself from "rich" to "wealthy" by owning the master tapes and all the rights that comes with that ownership anyone would do such a thing suggests a juvenile understanding of the long ter...

As I look back on the 80’s, I realize that my entire generation was lied to as it related to drugs… They told us in school to be aware of and avoid drug dealers, who would offer kids drugs (at no charge, mind you) and shoot you for not accepting their offer. Once these idiot drug-“gifters” (“dealers” sell, “gifters” give shit away) realized that the D.A.R.E. program had properly empowered and educated (non-profit organization standard buzzwords) kids, they changed their story. Now we could no longer accept candy or anything from strangers and should have our parents inspect our Haloween candy, because NOW drug dealers were making a new kind of drugs for kids and putting it in candy to give (<-- again, that word is my problem here) to kids. Now, not to let you in on more than you need to know about me but I know enough about the peddling of illicit goods to know that you don’t make a DIME on anything you give away. That is why I NEVER got involved with weedhead women when ...

As the NBA lockout continues, and with an infant standing between me and full nights’ sleep for what is now 7 weeks, I might be growing a bit ornery… Add to that the fact that VERY LITTLE good music has come out over the course of this summer and I am borderline psychopath. So far this summer, we have gotten albums from Jay-Z & Kanye Zest and another from Lil’ Wayne. It is hard to have been a fan of hip hop in general for as long as I have without having some admiration for Jay-Z’s work, and I have gone on record explaining that I do not dislike Lil’ Wayne, especially Tha Carter III. While most people pin Tha Carters I and II as his arrival as the most improved rapper in hip hop history, I count part III as his magnum opus. Try as he might, there will just not be anything better than that from him. HOWEVER I am deeply disappointed in what has been presented on both of these albums. I burned a copy of Watch the Throne that I downloaded at a cost of about $0.58....

Explanation of the title will come at the end... Do you know a compulsive liar? I mean, just plain pathological with it… Everything that is done is played up to be something just a bit more. He has one chick tell him that she likes his car, it becomes “I drive that car because it gets me ass regularly.” He becomes a slave nerd to any one trend of the moment, and in conversation he is a lifelong connoisseur (and yes, I spelled that right) and tastemaker on it. PATHOLOGICAL, I swear! The one thing a pathological liar has going for them is that they are at best too oblivious or at worst too stupid to be concerned that the people he is telling the lies to were THERE when what he is lying about took place and know the truth. A lot like Rick Ross (whatup, Joe!) Which brings me to a situation from this past weekend… Some friends went to see Tariq Nasheed speak in Charlotte. To those who don’t know who he is, I suggest you click his name and acquaint yourselves with...

I’ve been told I am a “hater,” and that I am incapable of conducting a discussion of hip hop music without falling off into some profanity-laced diatribe filled with nothing particularly constructive. Apart from genuinely not knowing what a “hater” actually is, as employed, I cannot disagree with this assessment of my own presented opinions of the current state of hip hop. What I am going to do today is offer all the positive reinforcement as it relates to the current state of hip hop, and I will not do so with the “aching pussy” approach of “underground ‘hip-hop’ vs. mainstream ‘rap’,” as that is a divisive tactic employed by a generally annoying minority fringe group of hip hop "fans" that I just refuse to employ. In discussions with some good friends this week, it was noted that until about 2003-2004ish – perhaps 05 at the latest, I could be counted on to buy 30-50 newly released CDs in a year, 80-85% of which of the hip hop genre. I was in a bit of a renaissance a...

Officially, summer started on June 21st, and as I look back over my summer to this point, I would have to rethink what might have been some VERY safe bets at that time… If you’d told me that there would be a third person in my house with my last name, I would have laughed at you and taken that bet. If you’d suggested to me that by August 15th, that someone would have pissed, vomited, drooled, or inadvertently gotten baby shit on me and I didn’t beat them viciously; then I might beat YOU viciously. If you’d suggested that I would actually ACT on one of the cars I randomly looked at on Craigslist all the time, I would have asked you where the money was coming from. Furthermore, only a small number of those reading this could have ever guessed what it MIGHT have been. What you might have bet on is that, as a known road-rager, I am nigh impossible to take out of a mood with anything other than time. If I would have told YOU that half a grin from that short person named in #1 is usua...

To pass that rare collection of spare minutes I have at work, I can usually be found patrolling the news on MSN/MSNBC, and one that I happened upon was about some uncontacted tribes in the Western Amazon that are beginning to go missing for various reasons… Peruvian drug lords killing them in the drug trade. Fishing/hunting enterprise raping their resources. Contact with modernized (vaccinated) human beings, who are ALL probably silently carrying disease that they're immune to, but to which these people have no immunity. And in response to that last one, I jokingly hit a friend of mine with a message “Lets go to South America and chill with one of those uncontacted tribes, so they can all die of a disease we probably happen to carry, but have immunity to,” to which he accurately responded “This is why going to the past will not work ever. It will kill off everyone and create a paradox.” Cue my “lightbulb” moment. I could go back in time, a generally healthy cat thr...

Sometimes the strangest of conversations come from the most unexpected of places… Last Saturday or Sunday, I was home with The Katie and The Ava, at the computer and going through my RSS feeds for the Tumblr blogs that I follow. The question was presented to one of the people that I follow “would you smoke crack ONE time for $250,000” The guy offered an answer that I imagined as I read it would have been spoken with a chorus of “uuhhhhh, ummm…” and so-forth, but was basically encapsulated in the very politically-correct “I seen what that shit does to people and families, so no I wouldn’t.” Respectable enough answer, I will grant that, but I couldn’t say all the way that I trusted it. My curiosity, however, was ALL THE WAY piqued as it related to the subject. So “up” were my ears on this one, that I waited 2-3 days and posted it on FaceBook, Twitter and on the forum to see what those who know me and know of me thought on the subject. To say the least, I found the answers interes...

Fatherhood has done some strange things to me. F'rinstance, I was THINKING about making a chicken salad all week, and the other night (perhaps last night... fuck if I remember anything these days) I fell asleep on the couch watching the food channel, and they made a chicken salad that appealed to my sensibilities. Well, at least partially... They added some things I did not like, and the dream I thought I was having turned me another direction. Anyway... Today, I made up my mind that I was making chicken salad on Monday after work. Speaking with an asshole friend of mine, I was pretty much challenged to go ahead and do it, so I grabbed the last pieces I needed to do it and went in. Start with chicken: what you see here is a combination of white and dark meat, since I deal with what is in the house most times... Season the chicken as you choose, dash some Italian dressing in with it, foil the pan and put it in the oven at 350° until done (about an hour). Go to the store while that i...