Critics Know The Way But Can't Drive The Car

I was talking to someone today who mentioned our whole education system is set up to teach us how to crticise. "Look at this thing that someone else created. Now talk about it." So it's no wonder that folks feel so free in passing their opinion on stuff that other people do or say. It's inculcated at an early age.

We're taught how to critique but rarely encouraged to create, let alone taught how to be creative. Creative people, the ones who make us all go, "Wow, look at that, isn't that amazing," have the ability to ignore the myriad critical opinions that get thrown at them like so much loose change at a busker. They just remain calm, disregard the ceaseless jabbering and half-a$$ed analysis, and push through their vision.

I love those guys.

Mind Fuck Movies

The vast majority of knowledge you have squirreled away in your head was put there by an untrustworthy third-party source, probably someone with an agenda to promulgate and an axe to grind.

You need to read the rest, it's pretty entertaining.

Reason # 23 Why TWNR: Parody

Adios, Starbury

The Knicks finally came to an accord with overpaid, overrated C list "star" Stephon Marbury.

There were immediate indications that Marbury will end up in Boston, as has long been anticipated, although he first must clear waivers. That will likely happen Friday if Marbury's release is made official Wednesday.

If Boston are stupid enough, "a salud," but he's no longer our problem.

Stephon, it's been a hell of a ride. Don't let the luxury tax hit you on the way out.

Even Web Geeks Agree That The World Needs Rappers

How We Translate Sounds (Language) Into Meaning

Have you ever wondered, perhaps whilst outrageously blazed or doped up, how the combination and sequences of sounds that we call language actually make sense to us?

In addition to the words themselves, the person speaking them is a crucial component in understanding what is being said. Van Berkum also saw an N400 effect occurring very rapidly when the content of a statement being spoken did not match with the voice of the speaker (e.g. "I have a large tattoo on my back" in an upper-class accent or "I like olives" in a young child's voice). These findings suggest that the brain very quickly classifies someone based on what their voice sounds like and also makes use of social stereotypes to interpret the meaning of what is being said. Van Berkum speculates that "the linguistic brain seems much more 'messy' and opportunistic than originally believed, taking any partial cue that seems to bear on interpretation into account as soon as it can."


Wow. Really gets you thinking, huh? Really gets you thinking, "Why can't little kids like olives?"

A Bunch of Reasons Why TWNR To Get A F*&kin' Clue

This is from The Kid. Well it's actually from XXL, but The Kid hyped me to it so in my mind, the authorship is his. I don't know why they didn't interview rappers like Chuck D or Immortal Technique, who would actually have something intelligent to say when asked if the recession has affected them.

My favourite (sarcastic):

Tru Life: Oh nah, that shit [recession] ain’t touched me not a bit. It ain’t a game man. I just bought 4 or 5 brand new black cars and only because I felt like the haters thought I was doing bad or something. Now it looks like a funeral when I pull up. They just saw me being humble, I’m a real humble dude. You know I live by my needs, I don’t really live outside of my needs. I’m not the nigga running around with the fancy car living in the projects. Like, I went and bought my house before I bought anything. I’m doing pretty well. Never had an album out in my life. But I’m doing real good by the graces of Allah. It’s all Allah’s will. I respect that, that’s why I give back all the time. I help out all the time. They talk about me doing all the foul shit but never talk about you might catch me in the Bowery, in the homeless shelter washing dishes or something my nig. That’s the kind of dude Tru life is. I just wanted to show niggas I ain’t starving.

My favourite (sincere):

Buckshot: There is no such thing as a recession, the recession is an illusion. And people like Buckshot and Steve Jobs and Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and all of these other people that deal with corporate business, we all know that it’s an illusion, it’s a scare tactic and it’s meant to do what it’s been doing to people.”
“Stop buying what you have no interest in. That means if you and your whole neighborhood supports and buys Timbs, don’t do that unless you own stock in Timberland. If you buy Louis Vuitton then buy stocks in Louis Vuitton, so when you wearing Louis Vuitton at least you made $15 or $500 or $5000.”

Can Harvey Milk Do This?

They Better Have Ghostface In A Cameo

The Biz loves Robert Downey Jnr. (honorary rapper nominee?) in Iron Man, so this list of things you might not know about what they've got in store for Iron Man 2 is for him. Shine on, you crazy diamond (is that right, or am I mixing my quotes?).

I'm hearing Mickey Rourke, which would be grand....

When "Ordinary" Men Attack

First off, I didn't know that 'ordinary people' murdering their families was becoming a pandemic. But, that aside, this article is great for the 'what the fuck' factor.

Known as "family annihilators", these people, most always men, have a profound need for control that drives them to destroy their family when they can no longer provide for them financially or when the family has been divided by divorce. (With men who commit murder-suicides there tends to be a catalyst such as a financial or personal defeat that they view as catastrophic, while women who kill loved ones are more likely to have a history of mental-health conditions like postpartum psychosis, as in the case of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five young children in 2001.)

I don't know if you would describe a man who sees a 'financial or personal defeat' as cause to kill his kids as 'ordinary,' or even 'seemingly ordinary.'

Truffle Pig

All Property Is Theft? Keep Your F*&king Hands Off Me, etcetera and so forth

Are personal rights and property rights mutually exclusive? Does anyone even care? I'm not sure if I do, but this looked interesting earlier today. So let's see if it holds up.

Property owners should have discretion over their property, but their property rights end where your right to life begins. If they do not want to assume responsibility for and protect you on your way to and from work, they should not be permitted to take away your ability to defend yourself during those times.

Whoa, how'd we get to the right to bear arms? I guess everything does in the USA.

The article is kinda all over the place, and a little bit stupid. So in hindsight, I'm not sure if it does hold up.

I Miss Zac Randolph

White Australia Policy: Still In Effect

This makes me sick. Casual violence, racially motivated or otherwise, is apparently now so ingrained and socially tolerable to the police that they are advising International students from India who are studying in Australia to stop communicating in their native language.

Inspector Scott Mahony, of Brimbank police, said it was crucial to stop Indian students becoming victims and address their mistrust of police.

"They need to make sure they walk through a well-lit route, even if it might be longer, and they are not openly displaying signs of wealth with iPods and phones, and not talking loudly in their native language," Inspector Mahony said.

That's fucked up. Be loud, be proud. Maybe looking at the social root cause of the casual violence, rather than applying some bullshit band-aid that encourages folks to deny who they are, would be a better approach.

Play Like Richard Pryor, Set Your Balls On Fire

Easy Mo Nuts?

I spent a large portion of today listening to It's A Big Daddy Thing (Big Daddy Kane's excellent second album, and also his most successful), which led me to look into the production lineup, which led me to tweet about wishing I had those producers at my disposal (if you ain't up on www.twitter.com, get with the program). One of the beat makers was Easy Mo Bee. This led to my man Tek putting me onto this.

Mo Bee gets out to L.A. and checks into his hotel room, for like days. When time for his appointment with Iovine, Mo Bee is a no show. Frustrated and really wanting to invest in dude, Iovine calls another producer legend of his, Dr. Dre to see if he could convince Mo to take the meeting and sign over to Interscope. Story goes, Dre AND Iovine drive over to Mo Bee's hotel, knock on his door, and all they get is an eyeball peeping through the peep hole and all types of whispering coming from the other side of the door. Well, after like 10 minutes of this nonsense, with Dre and Iovine knocking on the hotel door and waiting, Mo Bee eyeballing them and whispering unintelligible ish from inside, Dre was like "fuck this, Jimmy, you ain't paying me that much dough to be fucking around with crazy n****s like this" and bounced.

The man is responsible for some of the most definitive tracks of the 90s though, so maybe read this to remind yourself of that, before shaking your head and calling him a whack job.

Just As I Suspected...

Your boss, despite outward appearances, doesn't know shit.

Social psychologists know that one way to be viewed as a leader in any group is simply to act like one. Speak up, speak well and offer lots of ideas, and before long, people will begin doing what you say. This works well when leaders know what they're talking about, but what if they don't? If someone acts like a boss but thinks like a boob, is that still enough to stay on top?

Umm yes, actually. A bunch of smart dudes devised some tests where groups of people were told they'd win some cash if they could organise a non profit environmental organisation better than their competitors.

The work sessions were videotaped, and a group of independent observers performed the same evaluations, as did Anderson and Kilduff. All three sets of judges reached the same conclusions. Consistently, the group members who spoke up the most were rated the highest for such qualities as "general intelligence" and "dependable and self-disciplined." The ones who didn't speak as much tended to score higher for less desirable traits, including "conventional and uncreative."

You gotta dominate the dojo, as The Kid would say.

Incidentally, I posted the pic of Gervais before I saw the pic of 'American Gervais' in the article. Swear to God.

Even With Computers

Consumer Alert: I Need This Jersey!!!

You see this jersey? It's a New York Knicks St. Patrick's Day special edition release. And I want it. Badly. Not the Nate Robinson one necessarily (I was gonna post the clip of the dunk comp but it was so boring and shit that I couldn't be bothered), and definitely not the Starbury one. David Lee would be ideal. But I'll take pretty much any one I can get my hands on.

If you see or hear anything, get at me.

Venezuela Hearts Chavez?

I guess I kind of knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that the big vote in Venezuela was coming up - but holy shit, I just blinked and it happened. He is now The Emperor.

With 94 per cent of the vote counted, 54 per cent had voted in favour of the constitutional amendment, National Electoral Council chief Tibisay Lucena announced.

"Today we opened wide the gates of the future. Venezuela will not return to its past of indignity," Mr Chavez proclaimed after singing the national anthem from the balcony of his Miraflores palace.

Jesus. Don't get me wrong, I love El Presidente in all his crazy, red-bastard glory. But how does despotism jive with socialism?

Fast Times at Digg-mont High

Busy weekend.

Continued to kick ass in my duties as THE boyfriend (I keep my Valentine's Day game up to par - not that I'm into that kind of thing, "it's just a crap, commercialised hallmark date" etc.), and then hit the studio all day Sunday and recorded some tracks that will be getting a bit more of a push than my lame 'post it and forget about it' efforts of late.

Tek came through and filmed me in the booth, and some of the collaborative process between me and J, so that content will start to surface sooner or later too.

Celtic 0-0 Rangers, so The Hoops are still on top of the ladder. But only by 2 points. One more Old Firm Derby this season, and I think it's gonna be decisive.

Eat Your Heart Out, Balls of Fury

Twitter Is About To Officially Cross Over

If you were still in denial about Twitter joining the holy trinity of MySpace, YouTube and Facebook, you need to smarten up.

It's a potluck of pithy self-expression simmering with whimsy, narcissism, voyeurism, hucksterism, tedium and sometimes useful information.

Word. The article discusses the challenges that Twitter faces in monetizing itself (advertising etc.)

Somebody get The Biz.

Handsome Steve's House of Refreshment

I'm a little hesitant to post about this, because it's a bar that I love that's hard to get to and quirky as hell, but won't work if we all flock there at once.

So what is Handsome Steve's House of Refreshment all about? Well, let's start off with what it's not about:

Now there are cafes anywhere you can squeeze one in. There’s even franchised chains. They’re even on fucking wheels. And they’re all shit. The people that work these places are like cardboard boxes on legs. Do they speak? Where’s the personality of the owner? Is there a warehouse somewhere they can buy the identical fitout? None of them come close to the timeless beauty of the Wog Bar.
Coffee, Beer, Snack. T.V. What more do you need? Not a low fat muffin in sight.

Awesome. I'll just leave it at that, actually.

The Good Ol' Days of NBA

Human Emotions

Year One trailer: Jack Black and Michael Cera

Art Imitating Life?

Don't really need to add anything to this. Hilarity for all concerned.

Never Give An Irishman A Good Cause For Revenge

My Favourite Place To Shop. Not That I'm Into That Kind Of Thing

Every time I've been in Barcelona I've spent a lot of money in the various Zara stores there. It's awesome. Here's a nice article about how stores like that in Spain are still making a killing during the Global Financial Christ-ness.

Give This Guy A Cookie

Valentine's Day For Dummies

Bolivia's Secret Shame

No, I'm not talking about the fact that lefty good guy president Evo Morales admits he drinks beer mixed with cola - I mean the fact that Boliva is lithium rich and these Jetson-esque energy efficient cars are powered by (yup) lithium.

Evo Morales has already nationalized the oil and gas industries of Bolivia, in theory making the profits benefit all Bolivians equally. Perhaps he has wants to change the idea that Bolivia is “a donkey sitting on a gold mine of natural resources,” because he is also a fan of the idea to make Bolivia a major exporter of lithium. In fact, according to an article published recently on www.hybridcars.com he would like Bolivia to be the world’s leading producer of lithium. But the article also reports that Morales has rejected offers from at least 4 auto companies to buy from Bolivia, including Toyota and Mitsubishi, saying that they simply want to take the lithium away for little compensation.

So what does this mean? They're gonna horde the lithium, build shit loads of these cars, and become the smugest nation in the world. That's what it means.

Seriously though, Bolivia has a few more pressing issues than energy efficient cars, no? Such as, o I don't know, a large, powerful and influential portion of the country trying to secede.

If You Could Go Ahead And Read This, That'd Be Grreeaaat

I can't believe it's been 10 years since Office Space came out.

I celebrate their entire catalog.

Week In Review

So it's been almost a week since my last post, which is pretty damn weak for someone who aspires to be called a 'blogger' (yeah right) but what a week it's been.

First of all, a large portion of Australia is on fire (and not in a sexy Kings Of Leon kind of way) after the longest hot dry spell this happy-go-lucky rapper can remember. Around 200 people dead, entire towns simply burned off the map. It's horrible.

Also, I saw Role Models which my man Dave recommended so highly that I couldn't possibly enjoy it as much as he said I would (I didn't, by the way). And then I ran into Kulaia, a phenomenal R&B/Soul/Gospel singer who I worked with on the first J Wess album, and she asked me to come along and do a workshop for at risk youths. So I'm gonna be teaching little gangstas how to rap.

Reason # 486 Why TWNR

What's This I Hear About You Having Trouble With Your TPS Reports?

Aggressive Sales, Or Out-and-Out A$$hole?

It's up to you to decide, after you read this classified listing where a, er, rather unmotivated seller is trying to unload some cinder blocks.

Highlights include:

Now listen, we're all busy people here. You want the blocks? Come get the f*&king blocks and give me one dollar for every block you take.

And:

You don't have to tell me what you're building, I don't give a f*&k.

I tell ya, this smooth operator could sell ice to eskimos.

When Life Throws Us All Lemons, Make Funny Music

German musician Johannes Kreidler made a soundtrack of the global economic crisis composed by running financial graphs through SongSmith. It gets political in a few spots, but is bleakly funny.

When o when will I stop shamelessly jacking stuff from slashdot?

Reason #1 Why TWN Larry Bird

Some of the greater Sports Illustrated covers. But you've already seen the best one.

Buy Stocks In Cigars

The Art of Creating Creatures

Keating, Like Fine Wine

I've already sang this man's praises, and he's pretty close to being named an honorary rapper here at TWNR just so I can insert him as 'Reason # 3 Why TWNR,' but for now we can all enjoy his incitement to global financial revolution.

"What we need is a completely new global political and economic settlement," Mr Keating told the ABC's Lateline program on Monday.

"Get rid of the old G7. We've got to get rid of the old IMF. We've got to bring the surplus countries into the political framework."

No doubt he'll be derided as the bellicose loon that both sides of the political street like to characterise him as these days, but you know he's making more sense than anyone else about this right now.

Everybody Stay Calm

My man Tek sent this through. If you didn't know already, things are fast going down the toilet so it's time to get delusional.

"But a delusion that lasts for decades is not a delusion. It's an institution."

That's pretty good, now how about this?

"...unfortunately, it's part of the human condition to believe and invest in things that are demonstrably not true."

If that's not enough to get you to read the whole f*#kin' thing, try this:

"Let's consider seven other massive reservoirs of potential popular dread. Any one of these could erupt, shattering the fragile social compact we maintain with one another in order to believe things contrary to fact."

Good times.

You'll Never Get A Husband With That Attitude, Toots

Some folks are getting their panties in a bunch about some airline advertising.

Some of Spirit's ads invite customers to enjoy its DD's (deep discounts) and "MILF" specials - double entendres that also refer to large breasts and a crude acronym popularized in the 1999 movie American Pie that describes an attractive mother.

Come on, you know they all want it. Mile High Club and all that, eh? eh? EH?