Teh Dreamz

Where the fuck was I when this happened? More importantly, why didn’t anyone tell me?

Perhaps a preface is in order. A reading from the book of Hov: “Of course I love you… I love all y’all.” –Book 6, The Blueprint; Chapter 4, “Girls, Girls, Girls.” I’ve been youTube-ing a bunch of The-Dream’s work and it’s like he took this to heart and wrote two albums where he basically says the same thing in as many different ways as possible. I can get behind that.

Did you see the remix, too?!? I fucking love magazines–specifically, Esquire–and of course they make Ludacris magazine look like Esquire. And then Luda lays not only the best verse on the song but also does the intro. Sure, DJ Khaled sounds like an idiot, but that’s his thing. I also understand that, approximately, the first four lines of Rick Ross’ verse are known in Spain as “basura,” but, at the end of the day, Mr. Ross is a signed rapper and I’m just a dude who wants to buy The-Dream’s new album. That said, I respect Mr. Ross for getting paid to place sentences in logical order and make them rhyme.

Oh, the things I’ll write.

(P.S. Slightly related, the clue for 35-Down in the crossword puzzle a week ago last Wednesday was “two-cup item” and the answer was “Bra.” I laughed out loud and scared the shit out of like three or four people sitting next to me on the Subway. Worth it.)

Dichotomy of Awesome

As I type this very sentence, I’m in the middle of my fifth full listen to of the Blueprint 3. Let me tell you why I think this thing is good.

For all his talk about “the Sinatra of my day/ Old Blue Eyes my nigga/ I did it my way,” I think Jay-Z may have finally delivered on his promises. Well, I don’t think it’s a perfect album but it definitely comes close; it’s a throw back to when albums were vinyl and when Side A could be a different experience from Side B.

Songs one through eight have a completely different feel from the last seven songs (which, coincidentally, is about as evenly you can split a 15 song album two ways). The production on the first eight songs, although done by mostly the same crew as the latter half, feels more modern and kind of like what every rapper is trying to do these days. The guests on the first half are all well established performers (Drake is a newcomer but he’s kind of a big deal already with two singles everywhere while Luke Steele is kind of a big deal in a different country). On the other hand, all the new kids (J. Cole, Kid Cudi, Mr. Hudson) are on the second half and the production feels like it’s more in the background—the lyrics carry all the weight on Side B.

And that’s actually where the separation becomes most clear: the first half deals with Why It’s Awesome to be Jay-Z and the second half is about Why Everyone Else Can’t be Jay-Z. The second song on the album (“Thank You”) is pretty much diametrically opposed to the second to last song on the album (“So Ambitious”—and if it’s not “So Ambitious,” then it’s probably “Hate”). Where he’s willing to thank the fans for support, he’s also willing to rub his success in his greatest detractors’ noses. The first song (“What We Talkin’ About”) is kind of a summary of Young Hova’s life while the last song (“Young Forever”) is an envisioning of what “Young” Hova wants to be remembered “Forever” for. That is, the first song is an explanation of why he’s on top, why it’s good to be Hova, while the final song is an example of an amalgamation of his best days that all these other crab-ass rappers can’t even dream of having. Death to y’all!!!

But I digress. I’ve touched on the production but I really need to flesh out my thoughts a little here. When you have an artist as prolific as Jay-Z, you tend to expect a little bit of taste, perhaps class, in the music supporting his rhymes. He is not a musician, but rather a lyricist; however, as one of the best—if not the best—living rappers, and with his obvious love of music, it’s pretty clear that he can choose a good beat and, as such, a good producer. Let me give you my favorite case in point from this album: Timbaland, quite possibly a top five rap producer member for…all time, has two tracks on this album and each is on different sides. “We Off That” is typical Timbaland in top form, a club banger and plain old solid song reminiscent of his earlier work on “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” Yet, his other song “Venus vs. Mars” oddly does not feature his voice in the background, generally seen as his trademark (N.B. his voice in the intro of “We Off That” when he hilariously responds to Jay-Hova with a solid “I gotcha Hov”). As noted in the previous post, Jay-Z even coaxes a thoroughly enjoyable performance out of Swizz Beatz on “On to the Next One” and, for the first time, The Neptunes are not in top form Side B’s “So Ambitious.” It truly pains me to say it—since I’ve been enamored with Neptune production for at least seven years now—, but I just don’t like this song. What I mean is, even in his ability to choose immaculate beats, he can bring both spectrums out of a producer—their best or their worst. Let me ramble further: “Hate” is produced by Kanye West (who not only produced the majority of the album but provided two guest spots and even Executive Produced the entire fucking album) and is the least enjoyable song on the album for me. I have to say, two of the least enjoyable songs united in their relegation to Side B is no subtle hint to me—Side A=Jay-Z dwelling on his grandeur, Side B=Hov wallowing in his angry place.

Yet, you should not misinterpret this statement: I respect both sides of this album and aspire to such greatness and quality of thought. The unity comes from the overall theme: Jay-Z has developed from the misguided and sloppy “Returning Hov” into a “Grandpa Hov.”

Again, don’t get too excited—let me explain myself. Everything pre-Black Album was mostly coke- and word-hustling. He had crafted a niche for himself no one could argue about: he was “Rags-to-Riches Jay-Z,” “Crime-Do-Pay Hov,” “Walking-Rhyme-Dictionary, One-Take Shawn Carter.” Then he hit The Black Album, a monumental album where he was faced with a simple question: What happens when there’s no competition, you’ve franchised and, as far as money goes, you probably could have retired like four albums ago? This is, quite frankly, an amazing question to ask oneself when all your stories are about illegal life and you’ve been clean for probably ten years (I have no information to back that statement up). So he sat down and gave a listen to his own song and realized that “Gangsters don’t die; they get chubby and move to Miami.” Sure, he didn’t say it on that song and Scarface said it first, but the point is that he decided to retire.

When he realized that he loved music too much to retire, he came back with Kingdom Come. And then everyone hated him; he went from an awesome album to a collection of songs about why he was back to reclaim his place in rap…because he was old. Fairly reductionist, but his message was that he didn’t have to sink to anyone’s level because he was above them because he was older. And that’s the problem with this album—he had to come back because he’s above them. No one cares about how old the man is, or how he lives like a trust-fund septuagenarian in his chauffeur-driven Maybach. We just want an angry, directed Shawn Carter who 1) knows how to rap and 2) knows more about rap than us.

So then he came back with American Gangster and everyone was thoroughly shocked: After that last piece of crap, he did this? He did an amazing set of songs that were thematic, cinematic and on point. The only thing that was missing was that he hadn’t really crafted a new persona—this was the resurfacing of “Crime-Do-Pay Hov” while he collected himself and gathered his minions.

And then there was Auto-Tune, Barack Obama and beef in general. Hov realized he had to address, even if minimally, the things that just plain old piss him off. Not that Obama pissed him off, just that he inspired him, gave him what appears to be a reason to just slay all you kids and your goddamned Auto-Tune. You kids and your sub par rapping skills. You kids and your doubting. You kids and your social-ladder climbing.

And thus, on Blueprint 3, Jay-Z debuted his curmudgeonly “Grandfather of Modern Rap” persona. And then slayed all you stupid fucking kids with a real fucking album. Enjoy the singles, shitheads.

[Edit: As I finish this, I also finish my sixth full listen to the Blueprint 3. Dedication.]

On to the Next One

Holy Shit! Swizz Beatz didn’t fuck up a track!!!!

On Repeat

I’ve been listening the shit out of The Afghan Whigs‘ 1965. As I told my Dad, it’s just a plain old beautiful, filthy, epic album that reeks of the city they recorded it in (New Orleans) and the year they named it after. It may just be the year that Dulli (vocalist, rhythm guitarist, lyricist, producer, etc) was born but I see it more of their way of tipping their hats off to the heyday of people like The Beatles (sampled on “Omerta”), Marvin Gaye (name checked and sampled on “John the Baptist”), The Supremes, Otis Redding or Freda Payne.

They broke up like three years after making it due to “geographic distance between members” but I’m pretty sure they listened back over this album and collectively murmured, “Oh shit. This is the best we’ll ever do.” I mean, they made an alternative rock album inspired by soul music. There are horns featured prominently throughout. It sounds crazy, but there’s even a saxophone solo on “John the Baptist.” Just a classic album and a lost art.

And thus, only their legend remains alive to this day; those kids sure could wow critics and get shat on in the sales dept.

Esoteric Example 1

I listened in on a Skype call between my mother and sister the other day and was profoundly bored by and astonished at how they could talk each other in circles about things to do in France. I think they went into it pretending that my sister neither has the same tour book my mother has nor the Internet. All told I had an hour and 20 minutes with them—they lost me around the 20 minute mark. While I was playing a game of Connect the Dots with Wikipedia I discovered something called the “Supreme Alphabet” and then got my mind blowed clear in half.

Apparently, GZA invented the Five Percent Nation’s ABC’s on his last album (you know, compared to the children’s rhyme we all learned: ABCDEFG/ HIJKLMNOP/ QRSTUV/ WXY and Z/ Now I know my ABCs). I’ve found only one link so far that comes close how I’d transcribe the chorus on GZA’s “Alphabets.” Luckily, I found it right after I transcribed it myself.

Allah, Be or Born, See, Divine, Equality,
Father then after that, it’s the G-O-D
He or Her, I/Islam, then Justice
King or Kingdom, Love Hell or Right, We still exist.
Master, Now-End, Cipher, Power, the Queen
Rule or Ruler, Self or Savior, Truth or Square the same
Universe, Victory, Wisdom, Unknown
Why, Zig-Zag-Zig, and now I’m back home

I mean, I knew he was good, but I had no idea he was that good.

Esoteric

You know those people who try to start their own nicknames or how they usually end up with a different nickname because no one wants to call them by the nickname they created for themselves? Call me the DZA.

I bought Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… about a month ago but didn’t really sit down to listen to it until about a week ago. I went in expecting just another bullshit rap album full of inconsistencies and shitty production. Apparently I forgot Raekwon is a member of the infamous Wu-Tang Clan, a group, apparently, that is not something to be fucked with. In the words of Ghostface Killah, “RZA bake the track and it’s militant/ Then I react like a convict and start killin’ shit.”

More than a year after discovering The Hold Steady, I’ve found, with the help of The Chef’s solo album debut, the kind of lyrical interplay that I’ve been searching for for quite some time. Maybe even for a year.

Try this on for size: The chorus on “Wu-Gambinos” becomes part of the chorus for “Groundbreaking” on the new GZA album. “Guillotine” features the same movie sample as “Shadowboxin” off of the GZA’s seminal Liquid Swords. “Can it be so Simple” sounds like “Can it be so Simple (remix)”—surprising, right? Ghostface’s shoe fantasy at the end of “Kilo” sounds like the beginning of “Glaciers of Ice” (BOOM!). I mean, that’s all I’ve got right now, but I’m sure the list will continue to build.

I might have revealed my prejudices here: the only Wu-Tang albums I own are Ghostface Killa’s Fishscale, WTC’s Enter the Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers), the aforementioned Raekwon album, GZA’s Liquid Swords and ProTools. The production is amazing on all and, I know this is quite possibly heretical, but I think the GZA’s newest album is better. GZA remains consistently brilliant—I mean, they call him “The Genius” for a reason, right?—and yet “Labels” and “0% Finance” deal with the same concept (commercial product names used in original meanings for awesome storytelling) and both even contain just about the same concept with Saturn and Mercury. But that’s why I love it—he’s referencing himself. He has a diss track for 50 Cent then he turns around and samples himself while the other greatest rappers alive steal from everyone else (case in point: Jay-Z. Google “swagger jacking” or look at the lyrics of UGK’s “Touched” and Jay-Hova’s “99 Problems”).

But I digress; the main issue here is that the production started at good-to-excellent (namely, “C.R.E.A.M,” “Criminology,” what-have-you) to plain excellent (what up “Kilo,” “Life is a Movie,” fucking…anything with RZA behind the knobs, whichever producers the Wu can afford {DOOM, Master Teacher, anyone they mufuggin want, etc.}). And they all know their shit is amazing; not only do they name-check the production on each album, they also name-check “C.R.E.A.M.” in at least one song. I’m pretty sure, on 2 out of 2 GZA albums I own, cream is mentioned at least once.

Rap is this generation’s literature and its R&B. Groups used to be the product of the collected brilliance of the singers, songwriters, producers, (house) bands, executives, and so on. I’ve been listening to a lot of The Supremes lately, too, and on some of their songs there are three singers, three songwriters and two producers. Back then the stories were usually brief stories of love or love lost and now the stories are those of violence and a love of violence. The music fits the generation—violent movies outsell romantic movies¹ and the kids these days, they don’t date. They love hook-ups, this here newfangled technology and losing virginity in elementary school (Yes, someone has done that. He was seven and the girl was eight. Oh, the ghetto). R&B was then and the Wu and their associates are now (or sometime circa 1995).

Well, I guess the real moral of this story is that albums that have joined my wish list include the following: RZA’s Bobby Digital in Stereo, Cappadonna’s The Pillage, Killah Priest’s Heavy Mental, Ghostface Killah’s Ironman and Supreme Clientele, Method Man’s Tical and ‘Ol Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers.

1. In the same year “Come See About Me” was Number 1, Dr. Strangelove lost the Oscar for Best Picture to My Fair Lady, while in 2004 (yes, 40 years later) the Best Picture award went to a boxing movie called Million Dollar Baby.

Cupid is thousands of years old, i.e., dead

Man, I hate Friday the 13th. You might too if you’d broken your jaw on it in fifth grade.

Anyway, I think “Happy Valentine’s Day” by Outkast is probably the perfect Valentine’s Day song.  It’s beautiful and yet it’s completely subversive. It’s the kind of song that ends up being sampled and played in the background of all your favorite morning shows while they promise you that “Coming up next, we’re going to show you how to cook the perfect Valentine’s Day meal!” even though the song is about how romance is dead and that the day itself has become kitsch.

The narrator is “Cupid Valentino, the modern day cupid.” His name alone is easily Italian (appropriate considering the location of Olympus) and, by association, sleazy, and definitely hitman-ish. So, according to my stereotyping, we have a narrator who is perfect for this modern era, this era of one-night stands and “hook-ups,” which I put in quotations as if they weren’t real. Cool.

Of course, the Cupid-among-us idea has become the focus of multiple modern television fiascos including the CW’s Valentine and NBC’s upcoming Cupid. Just like in Valentine, “Cupid grabs the pistol./ He shoots straight for your heart/ and he won’t miss you.” I get the sense that, since we can’t find “romance” or “love” defined in any real sense these days, it’s nice to imagine that someone can create real and wholesome love with a simple trigger pull.

But that doesn’t solve the real issue at hand; the chorus deals with how the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and Groundhogs are more prevalent in popular culture than love. That is to say, Valentine’s Day–a day that’s supposed to celebrate the glory of love and romance–is easily classified as another Hallmark Card day, just another day when you can create all of the emotion associated with that day by purchasing a piece of paper.

Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the verse where Andre switches it up and raps. This might even be the most important part of the song. We have a narrator who’s clearly in love with his “sweet little darlin’” but he can’t tell her. I don’t think that’s a symptom of attempted thug life, just an attempt to not sound crazy. Unadulterated love like in Classic and Disney movies doesn’t exist anymore unless you’re looking for a restraining order. What I mean is, love at first sight and the sweeping romance associated with it seems to have been dead since the early 1940s. Going on a date to get to know someone is generally faux pas, perhaps with the one exception of being in high school or maybe younger. Romance is hanging out with the girl, making out with her, hanging out with her again at a later date until the both of you finally realize, “Hey, maybe we should…I don’t know…be dating?”

Back to the issue at hand though–the song ends with an altered verse, changing the lyrics from “Happy Valentine’s Day” to “Fuck that Valentine’s Day.” This is obviously the part that Good Morning America isn’t sampling but also the part where the subversion is easily most blatant. And now I’m reinforcing blatancy with bluntness and blatancy on my own part. Sigh. The point remains though; as Mr. Valentino works his way through his issues with his own holiday, he comes to realize that his own holiday is dying. R.I.P., romance. You were fun while you were alive.

So that’s why I went down to DUMBO yesterday and picked up a bottle red from some small town in France.  Well, actually, she’s not from there, they just let her use their name because she’s so good. She was $15 and I don’t have to share her with anyone else. As soon as I get off work tomorrow, she and I are gonna spend the night watching movies. Best Valentine’s Day date I think I’ve ever had.

Good, Evil, Brain Cells and Mufasa

A couple of days ago I went out and bought the Book of Allusions-or, as most people know it, The Bible. I’m still not converting, I just figured it was time I finally started catching and understanding the allusions that seem to run abound (N.B. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner; “Cattle & The Creeping Things” by The Hold Steady; The Quick and the Dead; Revelations by Audioslave, etc.). In fact, I’m not even out of Genesis yet and I’ve already found something that makes me all the more convinced that I should remain a Buddhist.

I actually had to call my college roommate to make sure I bought the right Bible-I wanted the most scholarly copy available-so I own a copy called the NRSV. Hopefully that explains why the quote below doesn’t quite match up with what the snake says in your copy of the PQRST.

Right before Eve commits the Original Sin, the snake says, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Thus, according to both your version of LMNOP and my version of the NRSV, the greatest mistake humans ever made in the past five thousand years was finally deciding to understand the difference between good and evil. Also, we made a terrible mistake deciding to become more like God, but that straight up doesn’t make any sense because we’ve become less God-like since then. Or so you think-follow me on this one.

Right after the Original Sin is made, Adam, Eve and their descendants live for fewer and fewer years with each generation. That is, as time goes on, instead of “coming to know their wives” around age 145, all the kids start making kids at an earlier age. Life expectancy decreased as time went on, but if we look at what has been happening in the past hundred years or so, there has been a sharp increase in life expectancies (nearly) worldwide. This would suggest, within the definitions provided by your copy of the ABCDE, that the world we live in-contrary to what your television pastor says-is actually the most Godly world that has existed in quite some time; perhaps the Godliest since the cavemen.

If this is indeed the Godliest time to be alive, then how do good and evil fit into that world? I feel like that knowledge has become pretty much essential to our existence and to our progress. What’s bad? Cancer. Aids. Syphilis. Polio. Advice. Freedomland. Terrorism. What’s good? A healthy diet. Clean (and Running) Water. Books. Advice. Music. Laughter. Amoxicillin. The Departed. Patriotism. Even with in my definitions of good and evil, there’s a gray area that continues to define life. One person’s patriotism may be another person’s terrorism but at the end of the day, we have the ability to make conscious decisions as to who we want to be.

I will admit, although we seem to be making some kind of progress, I don’t ever want to become immortal and I never want to go to heaven. If heaven is some kind of huge playground where there’s no good or evil (and thus, no decisions), how am I supposed to enjoy myself? Heaven sounds like a bland, brainless existence where Reality TV is always on, meals are always soggy Oatmeal and my shirts are always bathed in drool. If I wanted that, I’d already have quit my job and attempted to rack up some sweet bed sores.

I get the impression that the closest I will ever get to my own personal heaven (nirvana, etc.) on this earth is music, quite possibly from a little-heard-of genre called the blues. The blues are the most primal, instinctual and basic building blocks of every good genre of music, if not every modern genre (take that, classical lovers). There are pretty much three narratives you can write-x loves y, x loves y but y does not love x back, or x loves inanimate object c (perhaps the most creative mode since it allows for metaphors, etc.)-and all three were pioneered and perfected by blues and copied and rearranged by every other genre. Except maybe classical because it has no lyrics and country because it shouldn’t have lyrics and is just whiny singing accompanied by music stolen from folk which is stolen from blues. Rock at least assimilated (N.B. Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, et al). Sometimes there’s nothing left to do but to dig down to that place where you feel like nothing but an absolute and complete piece of shit to understand the times when the world is yours. You can have your Hakuna Matata moment off at the oasis, it’s just…you have to get over the fact that you didn’t kill Mufasa. But country music did.

If we’re supposed to live without that, to live without a moral compass or without even a simple understanding of basic ethics, then I have no idea how to live my life. An Oscar-winning movie once said, “Death is easy. Life is hard.” With that in mind, if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll live another 50 years and the last thing I want to do is live it perfectly. I already know I can’t-why else would I decorate my room with books?-but I know I have to listen to myself more.

So maybe someday 75 years in the future I’ll be able to look back and say two things: “Holy shit! I’m still alive? I’m 97! I can’t feel anything below my waist!” and “Thank [Universal Being? Basic Physics? Jimmy Neutron?] I read the NSRV (instead of the HIJK) and embraced my life and, in my later years, started to take a bunch of drugs that have kept me alive, but now that I’ve seen my great-grandkids and spoiled the shit out of my sister’s kids, I can probably die fulfilled. I’ve lived a good life. I’ll be back soon, hopefully not as a grasshopper. Anything but a grasshopper-I don’t want to get squashed on a windshield in Idaho when I’m a day old.”

Until I can say those things, thank you, all of sophomore year in college; the 20 or so girls I’ve dated or attempted to date, but mostly the brain cells I’ve lost after you all uttered, “Let’s just be friends;” night I told my parents I’d had drinks before I was of age; pornography, video games and White Russians. Thank you for helping me understand the pure, unadulterated awesome of things like watching my sister make or be near art, headphones, chatting with my grandmother, literature, Gibson SGs, making jokes with my Mom and having cynic sessions with my Dad. Thank you, thank you, thank you for helping me understand what it means to be alive and why I want to continue to be alive.

But in the meantime, Evil, a favor-can you just kill me at age 97 with a simple, quick, Grade 6 Cerebral Aneurysm? Alzheimer’s is kind of number one on my “Scariest Ways to Die” list because it leaves me with no memory of how good it was to be alive.

Resolutions.

They say you actually end up doing things when you tell other people about them. So, for the first time since ever, I’ve made some resolutions:

• I vow to stop connecting dots that need not be connected.
• I will learn more scales than just C Major Pentatonic.
• I resolve to continue hanging out with way more girls than guys.
• I will stop telling my life story to every girl I meet; the past is not my future and it’s only good for a learning experience.
• I resolve never to tell any more people about my tattoo plans or whether or not I actually have one. That’s for me to know and to stop telling everyone about. Because my mom’ll murder me with a knife for using needles on my skin. Oh, irony.

A Complete List of Things to Do on Vacation

1. Hang out with the Dick Clique

1.a. Drink Shiner.

1.b. Drink at another round of high school reunions at the only bar in town that anyone goes to.

1.b.i. Say hi to everyone you hoped you’d never see again.

1.b.ii. Remember why you haven’t talked to most of these girls since high school or–on rare occasion–sometimes regret not keeping up with some of them.

2. Play guitar every night from 7 to 10 PM

3. Reminisce about all the different kinds of horns you haven’t heard since leaving the City of a Million Car Horns.

4. Never wake up a minute before 12:15PM.

5. Watch all five Harry Potter movies in chronological order. Repeat.

6. Wish everyone a “Happy Ramadan,” particularly after they wish you a “Merry Christmas.”

7. Participate in American consumerism and overconsumption in order to prevent a recession. And to get gifts for your family.

8. Practice my Brooklyn accent by repeating everything my Grandma says (“I’m ole!!!” “I cowled Mahgret yestahday.” “I tawlked to Johnathan. He gets me Netflix.”).

9. Drive to downtown Houston and do something.

10. Make my sister uncomfortable by being overly affectionate.

11. Cook dinner for my family.