Header
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
HUMANITY IS HALF-BAKED (PART II) posted on 1/29/2003 10:40:51 AM by agentCB
RAIDER NATION posted on 1/23/2003 03:54:13 PM by agentCB
HUMANITY IS HALF-BAKED (PART I) posted on 1/20/2003 09:00:34 PM by agentCB
STUDIO HIJINKS posted on 1/13/2003 11:42:38 AM by agentCB
OUT OF TOUCH posted on 1/07/2003 10:47:50 PM by agentCB
25th HOUR posted on 1/07/2003 08:45:01 AM by agentCB
FOOD FOR THOUGHT posted on 1/04/2003 01:03:17 PM by agentCB
NOT A GOOD DAY posted on 1/04/2003 12:42:39 PM by agentCB
BACK IN THE STUDIO posted on 1/02/2003 04:16:21 PM by agentCB
ok, last time i was talking about how men are the cause of lots of things that are jacked with this world right... let me rephrase...
the ABSENCE OF WOMEN in leadership roles is what's causing this vicious cycle of the conquerer and the conquered.
generally speaking, i feel that women should be just as present in leadership decisions for nations, countries etc. because they provide the "other half" of humanity. to me it looks like the world we live in has been dominated by men and thus history repeats itself. it looks like we as a species are stuck in a rut, a cycle of war and peace.
we can look at native people, indigenous people and see that women were often in leadership roles. i know the handful of you fuckers out there that watched shaka zulu saw males in leadership roles but don't forget, that shit was hollywood. click here to be schooled on african tribes.
doesn't it make sense? if the men are out hunting all day, who's staying home to run things? the women. by all means this is not an invitation for all women to go out there and say "yeh, women rule... let's kill all the male politicians" albeit it would be kinda cool to see that... however, my goal is to seek a balance in leadership with regards to gender.
i think we would be able to avoid war and get over differences between cultures. of course this would take generations, but without women in power, i don't think it would happen at all.
the way i see it is like this... we all have two arms right? why is it that we have the tendency to use one moreso than the other? why can't we use both hands? wouldn't that make us more productive and efficient?
to me, men and women are opposite sides of the same being. right now, our world is governed by one side only, and it's the side that knows how to fight first, ask questions later. with the way the world is today, we can't have that cowboy shit all the time.
the world is starting to wake up and challenge the colonizing ways of the US. we can only oppress people so long before they get fed up and rebel. we need to change our ways internally before the rest of the world gets together and does it for us.
that will not be pretty.
Thursday, January 23, 2003
a couple of us in the bay have been discussing the eminent danger looming ahead for most californians if the raiders happen to win the superbowl.
move over laker fans. raider nation is gonna fuck up california. i'm pretty sure there will be a statewide implosion come superbowl sunday if the raiders take the crown. cali will slip and fall into the ocean and any portion of land that is lucky not to collapse will surely be on fire.
i think there are more raider fans than there are niner fans in all of california. as the niners went bourgeois after winning 5 superbowls, the raiders became the team of the proletariat. as for myself of course i'm a niner fan first. i was a niner fan way before the gordon bierch (sp?) and white zinfandel era, so don't knock the hustle...
but all northern cali teams i got love for. sac has a ton of raider fans, i'm sure la has a bunch of raider fans, since they have no other team to root for since all the teams down there left town.
so i'm thinking in a few days we'll all be dead. go raiders.
on a lighter note, the warriors beat the lakers. earl boykins makes us shorter people proud. there is hope for the filipino americans to enter the nba still!!
i can't wait for that day to happen...
Monday, January 20, 2003
i was on the way down to a conference a few months back when i was talking with a colleague about why the world is so fucked up as it is. we concluded that us humans are basically on a path to destroying the earth and everything on it. that is of course, if nature doesn't strike upon us first with furious anger.
then, i was thinking, why did it get like this in the first place. of course there are many different angles on this issue and there is probably not one correct answer.
however, my colleague and i have speculated that no matter what the issue, and no matter what area of the world or culture involved, there is one issue that struck us as being a common theme between a lot of the problems with humanity.
before i get into what i think the main cause is, we should invest some time in figuring out the problems with the world.
war, religious battles, hunger, greed are among the few main ones we thought of on the way down. all the things that people have done throughout time, from feudalism and the caste system to the spanish inquisition, from the killing fields to tien an men square, the holocaust to somalia, to al qaeda and the kkk, the genocide of the native americans, slavery, spanish colonization of indigenous peoples . i'm thinkin that there is one common theme that is behind it all...
men.
now before all of you guys start trippin' hear me out... this is not a battle of the sexes kind of thing goin on here. this is more serious than that. i'm talking about the big picture, the future of humanity and of our ecosystem, the earth. to all the women, please quit cheering. i'm on no one's side here.
ok... so how do i explain this in a few more paragraphs...
take for example indigenous cultures. from what i know (and it's limited) and what i'm studying, i'm learning that most indigenous cultures were matriarchal socieites.
from the iroquois indians in the northeast of america, to the philippines. i'd like to think the rest of the other native cultures believed in a more balanced gender system, if not a matriarchal system. i can't say for sure but it's what i'm thinking so far.
native americans lived in this country for thousands of years before the pilgrims and columbus and his smallpox carrying ass "discovered" that the world wasn't flat. and i'm not saying they were without fighting, because we all know that's false, however, they knew when to quit. they were looking at the greater good for the whole group.
native american tribes were run by women. the chiefs you see on the old cowboy and indian tv shows weren't the real leaders. when europeans first came to america and started dealing with the natives, they could not accept the fact that women were in charge. so instead of talking to the women, they demanded to speak to men. thus the women chiefs had to appoint men as "chiefs" to talk to the white people.
filipino tribes were also matriarchal or at the very least egalitarian. it was more of a natural relationship, if the men were out getting food and hunting, the women were left behind... not just to cook and clean, but to help run shit. tribes fought, but always had a balance of leadership that looked out for the betterment of the entire group.
native lifestyles, albeit simplistic, were peaceful in comparison to all out war and fighting 24/7 (aka survival of the fittest.) granted we have a system of peace in place, however it's an oppressive system that's inadvertedly designed to keep people ignorant in hopes to keep order.
i've laid down a portion of my argument, more to come later...
end of part 1
Monday, January 13, 2003
i pulled a 12 hour shift in the studio on saturday. the rest of the group was in town to do some heavy and long overdue sessions. i started at 7:30am trying to finish the work i didn't finish the night before at 3am. we recorded three songs which lasted until around 7pm.
it was definitely a good and productive session. jamila was a little stuffed up so we'll probably redo one of her songs but the other 2, law and furious were down. protools once again saved the day and made editing easy as hell. i just learned how to process vocals so i don't have to compress live, but do it ahead of time so that i can save cpu processor power. bout half of ya'll out there probably didn't understand that but oh well.. ask me and i can give u a more detailed explanation if u so desire.
go raiders... niners... my boys didn't make it... rest up for next year ya'll...
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
rj was over in the studio tonight. we were looking for a beat that i had to finish for the studio. it took me frickin an hour or so to find the damn beat. wtf.
it just goes to show u how much i'm not doing my music shit. usually, i know exactly where the songs are, but this time i had to look through my entire collection of roland songs to just find it. i have 7 3.5 floppy disks. most disks have an average of 50 beats on them each. however, many have 60-70 songs each. one disk i have 94 songs on.
i shit you not. 94 beats on one disk. i didn't realize how many songs i had. so what is that all u mathematicians... about 550 beats?
mind you, all the beats aren't good. there are alot of shitty beats. the first three disks are pretty shitty. i had the uncomfortable opportunity to revisit my past in looking for the song for rj.
i told him it was like looking at pictures of ex-girlfriends. some beats you think "oh hey, i remember that one... " when u made it, what you were feeling at the time. other beats are like "what the hell is that..." i swear can laugh at least half the shit i've made.
the reason why is probably because i just don't make hiphop beats. i also try my hand at r&b, jazz and yes, even dance music. my favorite to make is jungle and progressive house beats. however, after a while my dance beats all start sounding the same...
i also like to experiment, which of course in the spirit of true hiphop, doesn't work all the time. nowadays, i've been using reason to make beats on the macs. much easier since it's already in the computer, etc...
going through my old beats always humbles me. in one aspect i can see the progress i've made and on the other hand, i have to revisit the crappy stuff that is part of my beatmaking process.
i'm just glad that i can honestly say "wow, that was wack... i make better shit now" because if not, then i wouldn't be getting anywhere with this music shit.
luv and i peeped a sneak preview of 25th hour last night. got free tix at a club where we went on saturday. i was excited to see this movie for some reason, maybe cuz spike lee was directing it.
after the movie, i wasn't that impressed...
but what i was however was thankful. thankful of what i have. even through all the dumb shit that's been going on lately, at least i ain't as fucked as ed norton's character monty.
i wasn't feelin' this one as much as i was feelin' bamboozled. it had it's good points, and an interesting bathroom soliloquy by ed norton on the diversity of new york city. however at one point, it started getting dry in the middle.
i thought it was a good concept to start out from, but some things felt detached to me, i didn't understand why they were in there... etc. etc...
CATCH ME I'M FALLING
i also peeped out catch me if u can starring titanic leo and cast away hanks. i thought this movie had more going for it than 25th hour but i wasn't feeling the ending.
since it's "inspired by a true story" (whatever that means, spielberg) then i guess one can't really argue about how it ends, but since this is america, what the hell... why not...
i didn't like how it ended because at the end it made me think "man, if he wasn't white...." granted homeboy had skills, but shit, that would never have happened to one of us folks. granted, i may have bitter eyesight, but hell, that's offset by my optimism. homeboy was a minor though, and the counselor in me wants to say "well, his parents... family.... blah blah..." but i think you can make that case for every "kid" out there in the system. yet i don't see miracles like what happened to livin' large leo (TM).
without giving away the ending, i can't really say what happens. i don't like to fuck shit up for people, like how someone told me thelma and louise drove off a cliff.
that pretty much killed my interest to see that movie.
oh u didn't see that one either? my bad...
Saturday, January 04, 2003
Here's men's fitness magazine's list of America's 10 fattest cities:
1. Houston
2. Chicago
3. Detroit
4. Philadelphia
5. St. Louis
6. Cleveland
7. Atlanta
8. Columbus, Ohio
9. Dallas
10. Charlotte, N.C.
And its list of the 10 fittest cities:
1. Honolulu
2. Seattle
3. San Francisco
4. Colorado Springs, Col.
5. San Diego
6. Portland, Ore.
7. Denver
8. Virginia Beach, Va.
9. Tucson, Ariz.
10. Sacramento, Calif.
here's the article where i got this from. i dunno what sac's doing up there, i seen some big people walking around this mug. i do see alot of people exercising too... hoop anyone?
beef from everywhere just happened to converge on this day. one thing at a time i can deal with, but more than one type of bullshit from people will just spark off the introvert in me.
keep fuckin with the introvert and he turns into slim shady. of course, that's after a whole lotta fuckin with i am proud to say. i can take the aggressions out on the court when i ball up tomorrow in vallejo.
Thursday, January 02, 2003
last weekend, i was back in the studio recording a few verses with furious styles. felt good to be back in the studio and working with protools.
that shit is soooo much easier to work with. recording was easy: no fuckin with my little roland's 8 tracks, i now have 24 tracks at my leisure. plus, being able to see the audio wave as a graphic makes punching in and out effortless.
NEW YEARS
new years was nice, had a few friends over the house, half of the usual cast of bandits were unavailable for new years so it wasn't as packed. it's been a tough 2002, let's see if 2003 fares any better.
