The musings of a madman...

(so you telling me they been IN America the whole time… and they wanna LEAVE?!) So apparently some people are a bit salty about Obama having won the election and CITIZENS (not the people in charge, mind you) have taken to petitioning The White House to peacefully grant their states secession. Honestly, comparatively few people are actually taking this seriously. Many people signing the petitions don’t even live IN the states petitioning to secede in the first place. As I understand and as of when I type this, 19 states have such petitions in place with Louisiana and Texas being the largest to do so and naturally having the largest number of participants. Granted, neither has the 25,000 signatures needed to warrant a response from The White House yet, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out. In the meantime, I came up with an idea. Start off by granting ONE state their request. For this to work, it will have to be a Border State – I am thinking Texas

            On my next birthday, I will be 34, so it stands to reason that my life has left me with plenty of access to hip hop music in my time.  One thing that artists USED to try and actually pull off well was concept albums.  No, I do not mean an album upon which the artist finds a reasonably central theme well and sticks close to that across the entirety of the album.  With that in mind,  Ready to Die, Only Built For Cuban Lynx  and the like are off of the table.  They were classically presented albums that stuck to their formulas well, but “Concept Albums” they were not.             On the other hand, Prince Paul’s TWO concept albums  A Prince Among Thieves  and  Politics of the Business , Kool Keith’s entire career and minor outlying and TERRIBLY slept-on Sporty Thievz  Street Cinema  should all personify what it is I am getting after.  It’s not to say that artists from the little-known on up to megastars haven’t TRIED, just that many fail to pull it off.  Let me lay it

4: Fashion Sensibilities      Two things can be guaranteed to be taken into consideration when it comes to regional applications and those are fashion and local team fanship.  When it boils down to it, through the presented history hip hop in popular culture, it was no huge deal – one could argue that it was expected – to see their favorite rappers donning the jersey of their favorite player or hat of their favorite team, or even both! One of the “standard” hip hop uniforms from the earliest days included the simple jeans and t-shirt with a pair of sneakers.  Sneakers would become one of the EARLIEST connected fashion items tying hip hop and basketball together.  As a child born in the late 70s and raised in the 80s, I distinctly recall seeing and desiring to own the player-specific Converse sneakers worn by Dr. J and Magic Johnson, badgering my parents for a new pair of the Chuck Taylors that seemingly every other player wore and To this day, I still go out of my way to o

            In 2008, I was not connected to any of the social networks that I am currently plugged into other than this blog.  Then, MySpace still (kind of) mattered and I still used it.  I had not yet started to use FaceBook and at the time REFUSED to use Twitter.  I am inclined to think, at times, that my life was actually better for it.             See, in 2008 I remember exactly how Election Day went for me.  I woke up, went to work, then home for a moment then to the gym.  I had already voted early and therefore missed the crowds at the polls.  I stayed in the gym for longer than usual because they’d started reporting from the districts with their counts up really early, and that included several of the so-called “battleground” states with heavier Electoral College counts.  It was no later than 9pm that it was becoming obvious who had won the election and the tenor around the gym – say in about 90% or more of the people actually there – was positive.  There were tho

3: “Just Like Us”      So now we’ve seen an understandable correlation born of the similar creations of basketball and hip hop.  We’ve discussed why the participants should want to involve themselves with one another, if only from more often than not coming up from similar backgrounds themselves.  Now it is time we discuss what good reason they may have to continue and cultivate the personal-cum-business relationship(s).      As with any connected entities, their mutual involvement will eventually espouse emulation.  One could argue that Biggie saw this coming (or had already witnessed) when, on his first album, he mentioned “either you slinging crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot” with the at-the-time unspoken third option naturally being music.  It was ironic, because he was passively speaking out that third option by participating in it for his own out of those very same neighborhoods.  Either way, generations coming up behind the ones who made it out of the neigh

I know what you're thinking "shut the hell up, Phillip, you don't bake!" ... and you would be right in that observation.  I usually don't, but I was up yesterday morning watching the Food Network and I had a couple of dollars to buy myself something, so I went down to the grocery store and made some plans. Start with a flat of crack cocaine King's Hawaiian rolls And dice them up Then a container of grocery store Croissants Dice them up too, put them in the same bowl and toss them together to mix Rub the pan you will use with butter, put all the diced bread in it and set it aside Genuine Swiss white chocolate bar Once you hit it with the knife, it will start breaking up nicely, get it as fine as possible Put it in a bowl, add semi-sweet chocolate chips (or chocolate/peanut butter if you're me) and toss to mix (sorry, forgot to photograph them "tossed," the white chocolate is underneath) Spread them on top of and

2: Acknowledgement and Acceptance      With a mind fully focused on the facts that basketball remains a sport that requires VERY little to get into as far as resources, and hip hop a musical medium that (at the time) required little in the way of classical musical training, it seems only natural that kids from lower-rent areas would be into either, or even both of the two simultaneously.  The connection between participants of the two is more than natural.      What could not be assumed was that either would be accepted as continuingly viable forms of entertainment or even recreational activities.  For what they were and the relative obscurity from whence they came, they would surely be a hard sell to say the least. With that in mind, it is (or was) only fair that both would initially cultivate and grow in areas with less-than-affluent populations and grow from there up, sometimes (or often) moving those less-than-affluent on to greener pastures for their troubles.  One c

            2012, an election year… As it is an election year, it was ALSO an Olympics year.  Of late, as in the last 4 weeks we have witnessed a few Presidential/Vice-Presidential debates.  To be totally honest, the debates were the most contentious and therefore entertaining that I have seen in my voting life.  At 33 years of age, this will have been the 4 th election I have been able to legally vote in (and I have voted in each, for the record) and that fact got me to thinking.             The Electoral College renders votes in some states more valuable than others, and that has caused some people to simply decide not to bother with voting at all.  Strangely, as I mentioned on another site last week, those “I ain’t gonna vote” votes have a newfound value to the people who want you to vote for Romney simply because he isn’t black Obama.             Ever the revolutionary, I daydreamed a means of making the whole voting contest as entertaining as these were – more ente

This will be my shortest one of these ever, but it really was just as easy as I will make it out to be. 1 - go to Grocery store with daughter, buy boneless/skinless chicken breasts, bread crumbs (regular OR panko, I used both), and parmesan. (pictured: cute baby and none of the ingredients) 2 - cut chicken into strips and dip into all-purpose flour, set aside 3 - set out an eggwash (mine consists of 2 beaten eggs and one dash each apple cider vinegar and olive oil and some seasonings), and a 3-to-1 mixture of seasoned bread crumbs and parmesan. (additional option: add some crushed sunflower kernels and/or cashews - use the mini chopper to dust them up nicely) 4 - dip floured chicken in egg wash, then roll in bred crumb mixture, then place onto a foiled/sprayed cookie sheet 5 - pre-heated 375° oven for 45 minutes or until the fattest part of your thickest one is 165° with the meat thermometer Enjoy! I warn that these will be crispy the first time you have them,

1: Humble Beginnings      We all know the story of basketball’s beginnings. Dr. Naismith was commissioned with the creation of an indoor activity to keep kids in his YMCA busy on rainy days or in the harsh New England winters in Springfield, MA.  In a dearth of seed money or other outside resources, a peach basket was nailed to a wall ten feet in the air and the objective was to throw the ball (then a soccer ball – specifically-designed basketballs  wouldn't  come until later) into the basket within the constraints of a set of rules he had written out prior to nailing the baskets up. Compared to what “basket-ball” – as a then-skeptical Dr. Naismith called the game in his diaries – would become, it really doesn’t seem feasible that beginnings get more humble than that.  From his brainchild, the activity became sport played in YMCAs throughout the US, spreading through the rest of North America as well and eventually into high schools and colleges en route to taking hold