Sunday, August 31, 2008

It's Been a Long Time (also reason #1 why TWNR)


I'm not sure how legit this is, seeing as all I did was google Rakim and dick around a few sites with the most recent postings (I'm relentless), but it's worth a post in my humble little fledgling blog.

There have been approximately 4 gazillion rumours about Rakim signing deals, or recording albums, or passing stools in the last decade, but it's worth the false hope and endless bullshit to persevere until something actually happens.

More Silly Sunday Sh*t


Whenever you start to feel a bit sorry for yourself, and find yourself stuck in a rut where you're blaming the world for not changing to accommodate your plans, take solace from the fact that you have absolutely no interest in owning a pair of manties.

On the other hand, if you are interested in owning a pair of manties, then go nuts. You crazy bastard.

"Once you have them on, it will be "hard" to take them off."


That's what we call a good value proposition.

Silly Sunday Sh*t



This is pretty line-ball, but I'm having one of those Sundays where dumb shit seems cool.

I don't know that any of these 'true origins' of nursery rhymes are that shocking or surprising, pretty much everything had a sinister connotation back when the plague and executions were commonplace.

However, anything that contains the sentence "The whole thing refers to a torrid gay sex scandal involving King Charles I" is at the very least mildly amusing.


I'm down with RVP


Ahead of The Biz's EPL Wrap X-Arsenal, I thought I'd squeeze this one in.

3-0 over Newcastle at The Emirates is more like it. I'm glad that they got a hiccup out of the way early with the Fulham loss last week. The past few seasons they've killed it for about 14 rounds then had a minor brain melt, then killed it for another 10 rounds and had a series of brain melts to finish the season.

Only time will tell what they're gonna throw up in 08-09, it looks like more of the same though (as much as I hate to admit it in front of The Biz). That is, beautiful flowing football by a bunch of Fancy Dans who don't really seem to care about winning or losing. Arsene Wenger definitely gives off that laidback, existentialist French philosophy master vibe - he's the kind of guy who looks like he'd pull a 3 way in a warm vodka-filled apple barrel with a Czech model chick and one of the younger members of his squad (members), just to prove the value of a good hard day's work to his young charge.

The Gunners really need a first rate c**t in the midfield, the kind of Roy Keane type that punches himself in the throat in the dressing room after a draw, and punctures someone's lungs after a loss.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Reason # 12 why TWNR



Ok, so I mentioned in my virgin blog post that one of the reasons the world needs rappers is the L The Head Toucha lyric, "I can't cry but it feels like heaven when it rains."

Well here's the album it's from. It's just one of those massively underrated and completely ignored albums that captures a vibe perfectly. See, I don't think there's any right way to do music. I think there are infinite ways to do it, and as long as it's done well then it's aces with me. This guy encapsulates whatever feeling it is that he's going for completely. Every time I listen to it, it's like twisting the cap off a jar of fresh.

The Coolest Motherfucker of All Time?


Miles Davis is just one of those people that you ought to reacquaint yourself with every so often. Whether you prefer Kind Of Blue or you fall more under the Bitches Brew side of the ledger, he's a musical force that needs to be grappled with at some point.

This is a nice article about the man and his genius. I saw a documentary a while ago about the making of Bitches Brew and his set at The Isle of Wight festival in 1970.

I've got to confess, for me the earlier stuff with Coltrane is the best. I like the ideal of Bitches Brew but I've never been able to make myself enjoy listening to it as much as 'So What?' and all the classic material.

Can I appreciate the creative pull that took Miles Davis toward Bitches Brew, thus enjoying that album for non-aural reasons, and meanwhile prefer the sound of the earlier stuff?

I think so. I don't know.

Be Careful Where You Piss in The Bay Area

This really resonates with me, because when I've had a few I am frequently (and I mean frequently) guilty of urinating in public. Granted I don't usually have a firearm or bullet-proof vest on my person, but if the coppers here in MEL really busted your balls for doing this then I'd have a rap sheet longer than Amy Winehouse's face.

"Officers discovered that he was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and booked him on suspicion of being a felon in possession of body armor. He was also booked on suspicion of possessing a firearm, carrying a concealed firearm, resisting arrest and public urination."

Sometimes it's better to just suffer the lower abdominal discomfort and wait until after you've stuck up the liquor store to relieve yourself, I guess.

Reason # 382 why TWNR


Obviously, I'm using the term 'rapper' loosely here.

Having someone hack your Myspace account and then try to extort two and a half grand out of you is the kind of thing that would only happen to someone like Souja Boy. And only Soulja Boy would handle the situation like this:

"I sent him a text message back," says Soulja Boy in a clip below, " I said fuck you, bitch. Do what you do. This motherfucker got to be fucked up."

Special mention needs to be made of one of the comments left below the YouTube clip, where someone makes the curiously appropriate and hilarious assertion that Soulja Boy is like the Rainman of Rapping.

"Gotta leave the table, leave the table, I gotta leave the table aaaagggghhhhh!"

Friday, August 29, 2008

Reason #58 why TWNR

This kinda makes me pine for the days before everyone knew about DMX's crack habit and mistreatment of animals. You know, the 'Bunz in Belly,' 'Up In Here' DMX?

But it's still pretty cool.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

This Is Freedom, Motherfuckers

I Heart Guinness


For the life of me, I can't figure out why this ad got banned.

For the record, most Friday nights I drink my own body weight in the black creature.

Photos That Transcend


Every single one of these are amazing, but this famous shot of the Afghan girl is just timeless. Photographic Mona Lisa.

More Don't-Sweat-The-Small-Stuff Gold from TED

Seriously, you need these in your life. Make the time.

There Is No God

That's the only conceivable explanation for this.



I've got nothing else to say. I think I just shit myself.

Word to El Niño, who put me onto this, and whose name I will be cursing when I wake up drenched in sweat and screaming tonight.

Let The Goodfellas Be


This guy is a former contender for the Heavyweight boxing title of Australia, operator of a company called Arbitrations & Mediations, and he beat a fucking murder rap after capping out Benji. When are dudes just gonna let him be to sink into Melbourne folklore? Who cares if he's organising fundraisers for his alleged criminal buddies?

More Brazilian Street Art


I love this stuff. If anybody has the capacity to make this happen in MEL then please do so and let me know.

Reason #314 why TWNR

Lil' Bow Wow (I will NEVER remove the Lil') has challenged The Game to Madden NFL, with 100K on the line.

I wasn't gonna post this, because who really gives a fuck. But hey, it's a slow day.

"The Game has accepted the match-off, and the pair will go head-to-head in New York next week (begs25Aug08), and will be streamed on KonsoleKingz.com."

Blah.


Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Scottish, Not Stirred


There are so many reasons to post about Sean Connery, but I'll use his 78th birthday and book launch as my excuse.

Interesting Digga trivia:

My dad grew up in the same tenement building as Sean Connery. It was in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, and I can tell you from first hand experience - they breed them tough out there, boy. Obviously Connery's a lot older than my pops, but one of my uncles was close to him in age and used to see him around the neighbourhood.

Connery's the only real Bond (that's not an opinion), and you've gotta love the fact that he won't move back to Scotland until it gains full independence.

My man.

Wind Turbines Make Bat Lungs Explode

There's no witty commentary that can add anything to this. Just read it.

"While searching for bat carcasses under wind turbines, we noticed that many of the carcasses had no external injuries or no visible cause of death," says Erin Baerwald of the University of Calgary in Canada.

As my man El Niño would say, sometimes reality is enough.

I'm a Sucker for Civil Disobedience, However Innocuous

This is from Slashdot.

"Nate Lawson, a researcher at RootLabs, has found a way to clone the wireless transponders used by the Bay Area FasTrak road toll system. This means you can copy the ID of another driver onto your own device and, as a result, travel for free while others foot the bill. Lawson also raises the interesting point of using the FasTrak system to create false alibis, by overwriting one's own ID onto another driver's device before committing a crime. Luckily, Lawson wasn't sued before he could reveal his research, unlike those pesky MIT students."

More Latin American Beauty (No, not that kind)


Here's a bunch of fantastic photos from pre-Castro era Cuba. Shout to Tek for sending it through.

Brilliant Brazilian Street Art



Here's a nice break from the shit I've been talking about.

Megalomaniac Girls in a Material World?

Does anybody really believe that Zimbabwe's three decade tyrant Robert Mugabe is actually gonna let this slide through? Whenever election time comes around people get optimistic just because Mugabe keeps a low profile (silently encouraging the optimism from his detractors), but the same thing happens time and time again. It's a simple enough tactic: if his opponents don't prevail through their preferred democratic means, he doesn't have to do anything. If they do prevail, he tells them to go fuck themselves and he strong arms it.

I hope the MDC national chairman Lovemore Moyo is allowed to assume the parliament speaker position that he won democratically, but the fact that Mugabe's created a climate in which the phrase 'allowed to assume' makes sense is less than encouraging.

Another world leader keepin' it gangsta is my man Vladimir Putin. It's hard to imagine that the whole occupation of Georgia thing is not just him pulling the strings on Russia's foreign policy from behind the scenes. Well, not that far behind the scenes. I mean, he's still the Prime Minister.

"Journalists fired questions about the reported looting and kidnappings by South Ossetian and North Caucasus paramilitaries. Kremlin press attaché Sasha Mechevsky retorted that many homes were burned by Georgians themselves."

Sure. That makes sense.

A New Fangle Buckle on The Bible Belt?

In the interest of keeping true to my roots (if my mother saw my post about the Irish Roman Catholic EU cock-block, she would've had something to say about it), I thought I'd throw this up.

Those crazy American Protestant fundamentalists (in Florida, at least) are getting evolution theory rammed down their throats, and they ain't having it.

"Some (students) come armed with “Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution,” a document circulated on the Internet that highlights supposed weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Others scrawl their opposition on homework assignments. Many just tune out."

Yup. They only tune out in biology class. Those brainwashed hicks KILL IT in every other area of the curriculum, son!

Damn..... more sad news

It's turning out to be quite a sobering Wednesday.

Former NBA All Star Kevin Duckworth has passed on.

I remember watching this guy in the great Blazers teams of the early Nineties. He was the most improbable finesse man, but watching him post and pivot and release that pretty little one handed shot-put style hook from the low block was a thing of beauty.

Rest In Peace.

Sad News

R.I.P. to Andre Young Jnr. (Dr. Dre's son).

I've always felt for anyone who is the son or daughter of someone so iconic. Cause of death is unknown, he was only 20 years old.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

More evidence to back up the blog title

Remember when Hollywood used to try and parody Rap music and it ended up sounding so far off the mark that it was kinda like your wacky uncle's attempt to rap when he first caught wind that you listened to 'that yo yo, hand waving music' ?

Well it ain't like that no mo' baby cakes. This shit is really funny and eerily accurate, even down to the Chopped & Screwed vocal at the end. I don't know what that says about the state of Rap music, but it's probably not a good sign.

I definitely wanna buy a Bust A Nut candy bar and wash it down with a tall, cool glass of Booty Sweat though.



EPL Wrap INCLUDING Arsenal !!!

Arsenal lost. To Fulham. Get over it.

Chelsea pushed through a 1-0 victory over Wigan after smacking Portsmouth last week. Deco looks pretty good, but they still should've gone on with it after his 5th minute goal.

Man U beat Portsmouth, but they won ugly. Darren Fletcher? Come on, get real.

Newcastle win 1-0 over Bolton thanks to Michael 'Pugsley' Owen popping up to score one of those goals that he scores just often enough to keep getting big money contracts at huge clubs.

Liverpool get out of jail thanks to Steven Gerrard for the 1, 458, 943rd time. They were down 1-0 to Middlesborough. Kuyt equalised, then Gerrard scored in the 92nd minute, or something ridiculous like that. But hey, it's what he does.

Stoke beats Aston Villa (who actually don't suck anymore, despite this result). See it as a hugely positive sign for Stoke rather than shit cookies for Villa.

Sunderland 2-1 Tottenham. Yuk yuk yuk. Roy Keane's doing masterfully in charge of the Black Cats, Tottenham have got absolutely nothing and are dicking around, relegating their best player to the reserves, lest his presence 'unsettles' the first team while Man U chase his signature. Outstanding. They'll be a settled bunch of losers.

Everton beat newly promoted yo-yo team West Brom 2-1. Until Tim Cahill's back, who cares?

Blackburn 1-1 Hull. Great result for Hull, I guess. Don't really know, don't really give a shit. As above, with Brett Emerton replacing Tim Cahill.

Man City smack West Ham 3-0. Poor West Ham, they really do have delusions of mid table consistency.

So there you have it. In theory, my one and only EPL wrap. From next week on, The Biz (and insanity) prevails...

Politics and Bullshit

I don't know how I feel about this. It's not that I care about Rap music getting treated like the ugly girl at the dance (I'm used to that), it's just that there doesn't seem to be any progression in political attitudes (or, to be more precise, the attitudes of politicians) towards Rap music. It's like Bob Dole and C. Delores Tucker never left the building. Give me something new, you know?

Degrading to women? Obsessed with material wealth? Needlessly aggressive? Promoting violence and drug abuse?

All valid points, I suppose, if you're only scanning convenient political flavours of the month in a tip-of-the-iceberg type of way. It might just be half a convincing argument if Rap music was the only purveyor of these things on the American social landscape.

And why is Obama left holding the bag? Why isn't John McCain getting slammed by questions about the painfully monotonous nature of Appalachian Traditional Music or whatever the fuck style of music his strata of American society is generically tied to?

All Obama has to do is yell, "Man, fuck Don Imus!" every time they ask him these ridiculous questions. Everyone will understand.
Either that or he just has to bust out a freestyle, on topic, about Slick Willy's womanising ways.

Whatever.

In the interest of being positive, I choose to finish this post with an example of what Rap music is all about for me.

Not Much I Can Say About This

But given The Biz's affinity for The Wee Ones, it would have been remiss of me not to post this.

Enjoy.


Castro Not Surprising Anyone With Views on Taekwondo Incident


This photo is pretty great. It sums up the Olympic experience for me, from the network television 'coverage' point of view. I'm the hapless referee, just hoping to see the event that I tuned in to see, and Channel 7 Australia is the surly Cuban martial artist who obviously doesn't have a sports psychologist on staff. One minute I'm tuning in to watch the anticipated Mens basketball quarter final between USA and Australia, and then BANG! Channel 7 kick me in the head with about 14 hours of pure, uncut, excruciating women's softball.

It's gonna be a sad, sad day when El Comandante finally kicks the oxygen habit, because no one else is gonna come out with shit like this.

"Cuba has never bought an athlete or judge," Castro wrote, adding that Cubans need to begin preparing now for London in 2012. "There will be European chauvinism, judge corruption, buying of brawn and brains ... and a strong dose of racism," he predicted."

I hope he's giving baby bro Raul a few master classes in paranoia, so that the transition isn't too harsh.

More proof......

.... of why The World Needs Rappers.


Monday, August 25, 2008

Tomorrow - Weekly EPL Wrap, INCLUDING Arsenal!!!


Ok, last one for today. Just a heads up to let you know that The Biz will be doing a weekly EPL (English Premier League) wrap up starting from next week, but he will not be covering any Arsenal games. The reasons for this are myriad and complex, but to simplify, it's because I love The Gunners and he hates them. So there'll be no coverage of them at all (hey, it's my fucking blog).

I'll do the EPL wrap tomorrow after Man U beat Portsmouth, and for the one and only time it will include coverage of the Arsenal game.

Well, it would've if they didn't lose, anyway.

More importantly, Celtic beat Falkirk 3-0 in the SPL (Scottish Premier League) and they're traveling nicely in defence of their title. Next is the first Old Firm match* of the season. Up The Hoops!

*Biz won't be allowed to cover that, either

It's the Internet's fault, dude

I was gonna post the link to a story with the following headline:

10 People With Unbelievable Medical Conditions

And the following introductory sentences:

"UK ’s Sarah Carmen, 24, is a 200-a-day orgasm girl who gets good, good, GOOD vibrations from almost anything. She suffers from Permanent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS), which increases blood flow to the sex organs. “Sometimes I have so much sex..."

But the link went down, so I'll have to do a 180 and talk a little bit about this (which, curiously, I found through the same source).

It's a shame when any son or daughter has to witness the decline of their mother or father. I'm not going to go on a rant about Thatcher's politics and how much I hate them (not just now, anyway), I'll just end this substitution post by saying that it's also a shame that Bobby Sands didn't live long enough for his son to nurse him through old age.

Uncle Chop Chop & The Biz


This really doesn't have anything to do with anything, but it gives me a chance to talk about an incident at one of my favourite local pubs a few months back.

I was drinking pints with El Niño and The Biz (both of whom will be contributing in various ways to The World Needs Rappers - in fact El Niño put me on to the article) amongst other characters, when in walks Mr. Read. Now, it's well known in these parts (inner east Melbourne, Australia, if you don't mind) that Chopper is a regular at this pub (which will remain nameless). He saunters in, largely ignoring everyone in the establishment - except The Biz.

Chopper gave The Biz a long, menacing, disdainful look before deciding that he wouldn't bring The Eighties back, hack The Biz's head off with a pen knife and set it down on the bar next to his beer.

We haven't seen him in there since.

Sly Fox, Soft Cocks

This is just a crap-lock, right here. I don't know what pisses me off more:

a) The weedy Fox News reporter
b) The fact that he is referred to as an 'intrepid Fox News reporter' by the person who posted the clip on YouTube, even though they probably had a left wing agenda, or
c)The fact that the best these 'activists' could come up with was a middle finger and a chant

The weedy reporter gets points for asking them the key question, "Do you not believe in freedom?"

Seriously, if you're not gonna grow a pair and at least beat him to the ground with his own microphone, go back to Linguistics class and then take a nap on the south lawn before your Anthropology tutorial starts.


Reverse Reformation?

Line up for midnight mass, dust off the Renaissance era torture devices, Ireland's getting all Inquisition on our ass. You remember that big-deal European Union vote on whatever the fuck it was that took place in Lisbon a couple of months back? No? I didn't really pay attention either, but I remember thinking that it wasn't quite the continental love-in that most of the EU events which garner attention seem to be. Sarkozy was pissed off, other European heads-of-state were mad that they were gonna have to vote all over again, but the stout little Sons and Daughters of Erin stood firm (as they always have in the face of pressure from the continent).

Well now we know why Ireland voted 'No' to the Lisbon Treaty:

"The Catholic Church, he said, was "generally positive towards the European project and its founding ideals", but this was "a qualified support".

"He" is the Catholic primate, Cardinal Seán Brady, and he busted out this swipe at secularism whilst addressing the Humbert Summer School in Killala, Co Mayo (shout out to Belmullet!)

My favourite part of his obscure rant was this:

"The experience of many Christians within the EU is that this lowest common denominator invariably coincides with the secular and relativist tradition within Europe - that which denies moral absolutes with an objective basis - rather than the religious view."

I was in Ireland late last year and I have to say, I couldn't hear the cries from the pulpit for the robust purring of The Celtic Tiger.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Understanding the genius of these cats.....


If you've ever felt like laughing out loud during one of the 48 arbitrary meetings a day that you have to attend at work, or found lying in the park and thinking about things to be a wildly more rewarding way to spend your Sunday afternoon than blowing your savings on yet another pair of sunglasses and novelty footwear, do not despair. You are not alone.

Fight All Forms of Censorship

This is a recurrent theme for me, and yet another reason why the world needs rappers (Oh yeah, don't get me started on censorship). However, every now and then it's nice to be reminded that it's not all about posturing and contrarianism, manifested in the form of resentment and anger that rappers can't explicitly talk about their dick or firearm.

This is the real frontline of the fight against censorship.

"Fakoly has been threatened, banned and exiled from his home country of Ivory Coast, and in December of last year he was declared "persona non grata" in Senegal after criticising Senegal's president and calling for democracy. He now lives in exile in Mali. Korpe views Fakoly's unstintingly stark expression of views as essential to the health of musical expression worldwide."

Word. Although sometimes, you just wanna hear rappers talking about their dick or firearm. And no one should be able to rob you of that right.

If you don't wanna sweat the small stuff, watch this

This thing runs almost 20 minutes, but if you can find a quiet place to watch it at least once a week (I recommend on a Saturday afternoon when you're atrociously hungover), it'll keep you from walking into work, or a library, or a grocery store with a semi-automatic weapon..... for a while.

I don't really know how to describe it, but it'll take your mind off shit like this.

Good looking out, Tek.


WHY THE WORLD NEEDS RAPPERS

"The only rapper who wants to fist fight the president"
- Ice Cube It Takes A Nation off the new album Raw Footage

The above quote pretty much sums it up. I've been bumping Raw Footage all weekend. You're not gonna hear Miley Cyrus distancing herself from the other Pop Tarts by saying, "I'm the only one who wants to whup George Dubya's ass." I've got no evidence to back it up, but I'm pretty sure Billy Ray's a republican.

But I digress. The world needs rappers because the FBI was so shook by Fuck Tha Police that they sent a cease and desist letter to NWA and their record label (apparently the letter is now on display in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio, which isn't really that cool - shouldn't it be engraved on a plaque on Crenshaw or something?).

The world needs rappers because of Lil' Wayne's magnificently liberated nonsensical flow, and because of L The Head Toucha's lyric "I can't cry but it feels like heaven when it rains."

There's a bunch of other reasons that I can't think of right now, but I'll keep posting them (and expanding on the above mentioned ones) as they come to mind.

This is freedom, motherfuckers.