Today is the day that many internet sites are blacking out in protest of the proposed bills that exist in the house and senate, SOPA and PIPA.  If I actually knew how to change my home page to black it out I would, but since I don’t I’ll take this opportunity to post a few links for you all to check out.  For many reasons these bills are bad, but don’t believe that just because I say it is. I would like you to please read some of these summaries on exactly what SOPA & PIPA  are and why they are incredibly fucked up pieces of legislation that should never pass and will completely ruin the innovative spirit that has gotten us to this point:

About SOPA & PIPA (by google)

Will Take Us Back to the Dark Ages, (via Mashable.com)

Why SOPA is Dangerous (via mashable.com)

Inform yourself. Empower yourself.

Word is blog

Eyedea: One Year Later, Before and After

the downside of giving up on yourself

One year sober today

Blueprint, MTV, and “Selling Out”

Power

Words I Like: Agonizing

The Adventures of Blueprint: Episode 2 – What happened to the radio?

The Adventures of Blueprint: Episode 1 – “The story of Radio-Inactive”

A Perfect New Year

I’ve got a lot of plans for 2012, and I’m in the lab really heavy hoping to bring a bunch of new music to you.  As usual, this is where you will hear about everything first.

Thanks for the support.

So with no further ado, here are my fucking new years resolutions: (dont front you know you’ve got some too)

RESOLUTION #1 – To use my Phone as more than a texting and rhyme writing device

Apparently these things can do a lot more than text, tell time, and store my lethal raps.  I had actually forgotten because that’s all I use my phone for.  The instances where I actually call people are very rare, and if I had to guess I would say that I only talk to people on the phone no more than once per day. Two phone conversations in one day would probably freak me out, and holidays where you have to talk more than that can potentially make my head explode.  But fuck that, in 2012 I’m gonna take it back to the essence, and actually use my phone for verbal communication.  I’m not gonna stop texting people, but I am gonna actually call people and try to talk to them more, with my mouth, and my voice.  It sounds weird even writing it, but I’m gonna do it!

RESOLUTION #2 – Get Swole

Yes, I’m gonna hit the weights this winter and come back looking like Dr. Dre, or Timbaland, or Carrot Top.  Whoever is swole, I’m gonna look like them, but like me, but swole up.  I know what you’re thinking.  Print, you’re already a fucking adonis, why do you need to get more swole for?  Well, because you can never be too swole, dummy!  Plus, chicks like it when a dude is all swole up, in some tight jeans and an affliction t-shirt, so Imma bring that to the table this year.

RESOLUTION #3 – Learn how to fight

When it comes to fighting I’m what they call “a natural”, feel me?  Nobody ever taught me to throw a punch or the proper technique for kicking a man in his nuts.  Nobody ever taught me how to run when I was out numbered, or when to hit a man in the head with a barstool and when to use a beer pitcher, but I realized the other day that while I have been in mad scuffles in my life, that my lack of formal training could lead me to getting my ass whooped one day.  And while I realize that taking the path of peace and understanding makes way more sense for a man my age, I’ve decided that it would be way more interesting to actually learn how to fight.  So in 2012 I will begin my journey to master all areas of combat (striking, wrestling, knife fighting, submission grappling), and hopefully become a complete mixed martial artist of high respect by the end of calendar year 2012.  Wish me luck.

RESOLUTION #4 – Have a child.

I know what you’re thinking.  “It’s easy to knock somebody up Print, anybody can do that!” But what you don’t understand is that I’m going to actually have the child, myself.  Me. In 2012 I’m gonna find out how to get pregnant and carry that little fucker for nine months, or as long as I can physically take it.   To tell the truth I dont even want to have a child, and it sounds really painful, and not fun.  In fact, the entire thought of something that weighs 8 pounds coming out of my body makes me wanna throw up. However, I need to do this so that when I talk to women I can really feel what they’re saying to me.  Very often I get told that I hear them, but I don’t feeeeeel them, nahmeen?  I hate how they always throw that whole “child birth” thing in my face whenever I complain about a sprained ankle or a splinter in my finger.  I’ve had enough, and realize that the only way I can feel their pain is to actually give birth, so I can talk shit too.  Then maybe I won’t feel so shallow and look so stupid when a woman complains about cramps or childbirth and I say “word. i feel you”, when I actually don’t feel them at all, and the thought of feeling them makes me nauseous.  No more excuses.  I’m gonna make it happen in 2012.

Wish me luck.

Happy New Year!!!

note: my only real New Years Resolution is to release as much music as possible and spend more time with my family and friends, but this was way more fun to write.

For the past few weeks I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about simplifying my life; evaluating my relationship with my material possessions, how they effect my mood, my so-called happiness, and my ability to adapt to change.  Then I stumbled upon this video by Adam Baker, who runs a blog that I really like called Man vs Debt, that touches on the exact thing I was feeling inside, and puts it into words perfectly.  Please take a few minutes and watch this video.  It’s very inspiring.

http://youtu.be/9XRPbFIN4lk

Let me know what you think in the comments section and if you can relate to what he’s talking about.

Word is Blog

“When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.  That is fairly well understood, at least in the arts.  Mark Twain’s experience comes to mind, in which after he mastered the analytic knowledge to pilot the Mississippi he discovered the river had lost its beauty. Something is always killed, but what’s less noticed in the arts is something is always created too.”

Join the forum discussion on this post

But lately I’ve started to admire him for another reason, that has nothing to do with his personality.  The fact of the matter is that 50 cent is a pretty damn smart dude, and his personality is just a function of that intelligence.

I consider myself a pretty good strategist. Not necessarily in it’s application to things around me, but in my understanding of strategy.  I’m a big fan of books like The Art of War and The 48 Laws of Power.  Fortunately, I don’t necessarily need to be too strategic in what I do, I’m more of an artist, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t admire those who are.  Some people think strategy is all about being diabolical or cutthroat.  And while there is definitely a shallow and hurtful side of being strategic, there is also a side of it that’s pretty damn slick and not hurtful.  50 manages this about as well as anybody in the public eye, particularly at his level where he doesn’t have anybody speaking for him like an athlete or politician.

Now, here’s what I saw today that made me think that and write this.  It’s a series of moves that I initially dismissed as poor planning or shortsightedness on his part, but when I take a step back it’s actually the opposite.  It’s the work of a grand strategist.

First, 50 released a movie last week called Things Fall Apart.  For those that don’t know the title comes from a book by China Achebe.  It’s a classic book.  The title Things Fall Apart was also used by The Roots on one of their best albums.  Now, when I saw that he had a movie coming out called Things Fall Apart, I immediately thought he was making a movie adaptation of the Chinua Achebe book; a book that hasn’t been made into a movie yet, but anybody who’s read it would be excited about.  I soon found out that it wasn’t based on the book, it was an original screenplay that 50 wrote about a college athlete who…blah blah blah.  What it’s actually about doesn’t matter as much as the fact that it’s not in reference to the book.

So what’s so smart about that?  Well, first of all, everybody whose read the book and sees his name associated with it will instantly read more.  I can attest to this because he fooled me.  I was disappointed at first.  Then it made me think about reading the book again.  Then I was salty that 50 took the title.  But what’s more important than all my feelings is the fact that it made me internalize the fact that 50 cent has a new movie out.  Smart.  Whether his new movie is good or bad (probably bad), I know its out.  What I thought was simply an oversight on his behalf, and not being informed, was really a smart play on his behalf.  He got me.

Then you add another layer to that because there are a lot of people who are fans of the Roots, but don’t know that the title Things Fall Apart is from a classic book.  All these people probably did the exact same thing I did.  They wondered why 50 is using The Roots album title.  Then thought about how much they loved The Roots.  Then got confused.  Then upset.  Then internalized the fact that 50 cent has a new movie out.  Smart.  The definition of strategy.

Now, this is the part that is the most impressive that I’m sure he will never admit to.  He released a mixtape today that he’s been pumping up on twitter for the past couple weeks called The Big Ten.  I downloaded it, which in itself proves that he’s onto something, because I heard about it trying to get info on his movie.  And here’s what’s slick about his mixtape:

#1 – the tracklisting is completely fucked up.

#2 – the sound quality is shitty

#3 – there’s an annoying “mixtapes.org” drop over all the songs that sounds really out of place.

Now, the average person might think these are just random things, but at this point I’m starting to put things together, so each of these things really jumps out to me.  Why would the tracklisting, and sound quality be shitty when you got it directly from an artist? Why would there be an annoying drop on there from a site that didn’t even have exclusive right to the mixtape?

Because every one of those seemingly little things are going to make people talk about it more, and 50 knows that in this era of disposable music and releases that people rave about one minute and forget about the next, extending your 15-minutes of fame is pretty important, even if you have to resort to confusion to do it.  Chaos is attention, and 50 is a master of it.

Now, the obvious problem in all this is that if the tape sucks then nobody is gonna care enough to ask questions.  But I’m guessing that 50 didn’t put it out make any artistic mark, he put it out just so people would talk about 50 cent, and I think he’s going to be successful at that.  The fact that I’m writing this is proof of that.

I’m the most curious about what happens when the talk finally gets to the music, because ultimately all the strategy in the world doesn’t work if your music sucks.

Now, please understand, I’m not writing this to suggest you go buy his record or even download his mixtape.  I like 50 but haven’t bought any of his music since his debut album.  I’m writing it more to try to point out and maybe open some discussion about his use strategy and see what you all thought about it.  It’s entirely possible that I may be reading too much into it, but I think suggesting so would be to imply that he go where he’s at by being in the right place at the right time, and not because he is a pretty calculated dude.

So here’s my question:

Word is Blog

I think it would help build community and inspire us all, two things that are always needed.  I’ve never been one for beat battles myself, because I always felt like the beats had to fit a certain type of sound or style for a producer to be successful in that format, and also because they don’t really build community.  So I would like to try something different.  I’ve got a lot of cats in mind already, and you probably already know who you are.   If I don’t know who you are and you’re interested in participating in this please e-mail me at info(at)printmatic.net and send me the links to your work.

Thanks in advance.

I just woke up and realized that it’s been one year since Eyedea passed.  It really hit me today that my dude is gone.  Not that I didn’t feel it before but I would be lying if i said there wasn’t a decent amount of denial going on.  It’s just hard to believe that somebody who did so much and was such a big part of my hip-hop experience is gone, and that I won’t see him again.   The past year I’ve been so many places and talked to so many people who he has touched with his music.  He touched people in the way that you wish you could touch people as an artist.

I was at a show recently and a cat asked me to tell him the story of how me and Eyedea met, how we became friends, and the story behind the song “Before and After”.  He said he’s always wanted to know because we never really spoke about it in public.

Last year I wanted to write something but his passing was too fresh and hurt too much so I never did.  I kept putting it off and didn’t want to be throwing our personal stuff out there in the public realm.  But now I realize that sharing stories about people we love and have lost is part of celebrating their lives, and part of the healing process; and because I never allowed myself to take part in that I had never allowed myself the opportunity to mourn and heal.

So here it goes.

Back in 1997 I lived in Cincinnati, OH.  I had just moved there for work, and Illogic had just moved down there to go to school.   Cincinnati back then had a pretty fresh scene.  A lot of artists were starting their movements and would eventually have careers in hip-hop that are still going on today.  There was the 5 Dees, who put out a lot of 12″ inches and were known nationally, touring Europe a bunch.  There was Mr. Dibbs who changed turntablism putting out the first “edit” tapes that influenced everybody who picked up a turntable after that (the cover of his first tape was even shown inside DJ Shadows album, which gave a big nod to the influence that Dibbs had), there was me, Illogic, and my crew Greenhouse, and there was Dose One, Why?, and Odd Nosdom, who eventually became Anticon.  Dose, Why?, and Nosdom were all be seniors at UC, and Illogic was a freshman there. They became friends and made lots of music back then.

Every now and then I would pick up Illogic from their house so we could go record what was to be his debut album Unforeseen Shadows, so we were all cool.  I would hear the music they were working on and they would hear the stuff we were working on via Illogic.  To put it mildly, Dose, Why, and Nosdom were making music that was completely left of center, and at that time, when you look at how conventional underground rap was–they were really out there.  I was a fan of Dose’s because of the tape he put out with J Rawls on the beats and after seeing him kill shit in the local scene. This was before I was even putting out music.  Those dudes eventually formed Anticon with a bunch of other like-minded guys like Jel, Sole, Pedestrian, and Alias.  The first record they put out was a record called Music for the Advancement of Hip-hop in 1998 and they started getting a lot of buzz.

Illogic would always tell me about this cat named Eyedea, who was on that record.  At the time I was like “oh man, is it more weird shit?” kind of dismissing it, but then he eventually played Eyedea’s verse and I was like “oh shit, this is dope”.  I remember being really impressed by how technical his rhyme was.  The only thing I had ever heard like it was an Aceyalone verse, and I was huge Aceyalone fan.

Later that year, I was at the first Scribble Jam I had been to.  It was much smaller in those days and the battle was held in a spot called Ripley’s in the UC campus area (that’s since been torn down and is now a Chipotle).  There were two kids that didn’t end up winning but were destroying everybody prior to meeting eachother.  I had no idea who they were at the time but it was Slug and Eyedea.  The brackets were setup weird so they ended up facing eachother in the semi-finals, and instead of going for the throat like they did everybody else they just had fun.  At the time I didn’t know they were homies, but later found out.  Slug ended up beating Eyedea, and then he eventually lost to Adeem in the finals.  That’s when Eyedea was really on my radar, because he was serving dudes like a veteran and looked like a veteran, but I later found out he was only 16-17 years old.

Later that year, me and my crew started releasing our first music and doing shows around Ohio in Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati.  One of the first big shows we got asked to play was opening for Atmosphere in Columbus, so we rocked it.  After seeing the battle I had learned more about them and their Overcast album that was getting some serious buzz now, so I was down.  Illogic had already knew what was up with them because of his affiliation with the Anticon kids.  The Columbus show was in a weird upstairs club in downtown that’s no longer open but it was packed, and that’s when we all met for the first real time.  Back then it was Slug, Eyedea, and DJ Abilities.  They were all really good dudes and we became friends immediately.  A little while later they had a show in Cleveland and asked us if we wanted to open up there so we went up there and rocked at the Euclid Tavern with them, and then another show back in Cincinnati that spring as well.

Those were the first dudes I ever saw in underground hip-hop that were “stars”.  I knew dudes who were dope and were respected, but these were the first dudes I saw that were doing shit like signing autographs, selling merch, crowdsurfing and shit like that–back in 1998.  People loved them, and it was inspiring, especially back then because to me rap was just something I did to express myself and vent–not really something I thought could ever really be your job or that people would get behind you and allow to become your job.  But they changed that.

During this time we would see eachother in other midwest cities and always kick it.  That’s when me and Eyedea realized we had the same kind of trouble-making instinct. It wasn’t trouble-making in terms of being destructive or disrespecting people, or even drinking or smoking weed, because neither of us did any of that at the time.  Our thing was battling.  We loved to find whoever thought they were the best and serve those fools.  No matter what city we were in, before or after we played, we were probably in the biggest freestyle cypher we could find, letting cats know what it was.

Everybody had their thing, but me and Eydea’s thing was battling.  Sometimes we didn’t even have to be performing or a part of the event; if we saw eachother at an event we would hug and go scurry off to find battles.  It was like a secret world that he and I only knew about.  We didn’t care where we were at; Chicago, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, New York–that’s what we did.  It was unspoken that we were both out for the gusto so we would go look for new places and unfamiliar faces to sharpen our skills.  Out of town cities were even better because most of the rappers there didn’t know our scene, so they had no idea what they were up against.  We would smash a couple fools, go back to whatever we were doing before hand, then laugh about it later.

Later that year we were all at the Rocksteady anniversary in New York.  Greenhouse & Illogic were in town doing some recording with our friends The Atoms Family.  I didn’t even know Eyedea was there (this was before everybody had a cell phone), but once I saw him at the jam we were out!  Eyedea mentioned to me that the previous night he lost in the finals of an organized battle to some cat named Many Styles who was really dope.  I was like “oh word? fuck that dude. lets go do this shit!” We said peace to all the people we knew and went looking for trouble, as usual.  It didn’t take long for us to find it.

This was my first time in New York, so I had no idea that the place is filled with rappers, and while most of the legends of hip-hop come from new york, there’s a TON of shitty rappers there who think they’re the shit just because they’re from New York.  This reality annoyed the fuck out of me, so I had a real chip on my shoulder that day.  But there were cyphers everywhere, thousands of people in attendance, so we got right to it.

I started it off, found the biggest cypher I could find then set it off.  There was probably about 20-30 kids there to start, which was pretty huge.  A kid who sucked went after me, then Eyedea came in after him and he tried to cut Eyedea off.  Eyedea just laughed about it but I wasn’t having it that day, so I went at the kid and serverd him.  Tension starts building, more people start coming into the cypher, which is probably at about 50-60 kids.  Me and this kid go one round and I destroy him, so his homie steps up, and I serve him too.  People going crazy, more and more people showing up watching this whole thing.  Another new rapper stepped up and Eyedea came back in and ate him up too.  Business as usual for us, only difference is there were 10x the number of rappers that we usually would see.  This was taking a lot longer than usual.  One after another they kept stepping up and we would serve them, letting them know that being from New York didn’t mean shit–we weren’t from there and we came to serve them.  It was great. The shit that he and I loved to do.  Then out the corner of my eye, while Eyedea’s serving one of the last people left, I see this cat start pushing his way through the crowd, and the way the crowd parted I could tell he was the man.  It was Many Styles, the guy who Eyedea had lost to the previous night.  He saw what we were doing and wasn’t going for it–probably because he was just like us.  I looked at Eydea and was like “let me get ‘em” and he gave me the nod, even though I’m sure he wanted a rematch.  Many Styles was dope.  I can’t front.  He had a bugged out style that reminded me of some crazy project blowed shit; start and stop, fast and slow, really unorthodox shit going on, but all new york at the same time.  My style of battling was real aggressive and direct, so i already knew it was gonna be a challenge.

When he went first I was a little intimidated and he definitely won the first round, but the second round I got him, and the 3rd round I destroyed him because I started to catch the nuances of his style and use them against him; cracking jokes on his “stop and think” style of rap.  Then I ended it by saying “calling yourself Many Styles? fool, you don’t have ANY STYLES!!” and the people went nuts.  We ended it there.  He and I hugged and gave respect to one another.

Me and Mikey felt like we had achieved the biggest thing you could achieve in hip-hop–being midwest kids, and hanging with New Yorkers.  As dudes who grew up on New York hip-hop it validated us in a way to know that we could battle them on their turf and not get embarrassed. After all we just wanted to be like them anyways, so everything we were doing was just what we “thought” we should be doing based on the blueprint they had layed down on their records.

We loved performing and writing songs, but nothing gave us more joy than to battle and freestyle. I had his back and he had mine in such a real way.  If you beat him in a battle then I was gonna try to get revenge, and if somebody beat me then he was gonna come get you.  That was our thing.  Some rappers would talk about wack emcee this and battle that but very few of them really did it.  We actually did that shit non-stop.  We would tell rappers they sucked to their face, and make them prove they didn’t.

The following year he went on to win the Scribble Jam battle, the RockSteady battle, and the biggest them all, the Blaze battle on HBO.  Some people were surprised at a young kid from Minneapolis doing so well, but I knew he was going to win as soon as he entered those battle–not just because he was my dude and I loved him, but because he and I had been doing that shit on the streets for the past couple years, running around battling people at anytime or anyplace, and he was the best I had ever met.  I was good back then too, but he was only 18 and could hang with anybody anywhere, so it felt good to see my homie do so well.  When he won the Blaze Battle it was like we all won the Blaze battle because we were so proud of him.  I loved hearing him tell stories about it and do impressions of all the cats he battled.

So when Eyedea and Abilities started working on their first album First Born, me and Mikey started talking about doing a song together, and how even though their album wouldn’t have any songs about battling on it (he didn’t want people to know him only as a battler) we should do one about battling as the bonus song that captures what we actually did.  So the next time I was in Minneapolis, we recorded the song that’s known now as “Before and After”.

Rest in Peace Eyedea.  You are missed.

I realized the other day that while the people who hang around with me know that my taste in music is extremely varied, the people who listen to my music may not, so I always thought it would be cool to actually write about artist or songs that influenced and inspired me.

The first artist I would like to talk about is Bjork.

I think I first heard of Bjork back when I was still working as a Computer Programmer and one of my coworkers told me to check out her music.  I had just starting to dig heavily into old records and other genres of music at the time , but I wasn’t really ready for Bjork, so I didn’t follow-up.

Then one day there was a documentary on PBS about her, so I video taped it, thinking it might be cool to record to get some quotes for my own albums.  This was the point that I recognized that Bjork was everything that being a real artist is about; passionate about her music, writing songs for herself, extremely progressive musically & visually, and a real visionary who doesn’t make records for the status quo.  As an artist, you can either make records for what music is, or what you want music to be; and bjork makes music for what it should be.  This means that she can at times be hard to pin down: electronic, classical, ballads, ambient, futuristic, and apocalyptic–Bjork manages to be all these things at the once.

After watching the documentary, and seeing her process for creating her music I immediately bought her album Post.  The first song that really grabbed me was “Possibly Maybe”, and at the time I think it was mostly because I recognized DJ Shadow sampled it on his debut album Endtroducing.  But once that bit of novelty wore off I was able to appreciate the song for what it was, and was it was to me was amazing.  The remix is even crazier.

After that I bought all of her albums and created my own best of bjork mix, that to this day I still listen to.  I’m always amazed that records she put out 15 years ago still sound futuristic and progressive today.

Bjorks music has influenced me in the best way that artists should influence people: by challenging them. I wasn’t a fan of electronic music but thru her music I began to appreciate it. The same for dance, or any of the other styles of music her albums encompass.  And what’s fresh about her is that she just does it without any pretension.  It’s obvious by listening to her music that she sees music with a much wider scope than most people do, but she never makes you feel like she’s trying or reaching–she’s just doing whatever she wants to do and the results are usually pretty damn good.

Word is Blog

photo credit Irok Torres

This picture was taken from our show Friday night in Miami Beach, Florida.  It’s me with the Keytar and my bass player Bobby Silver on stage doing our thing.  The thing that you don’t see in this picture is my DJ, Rare Groove.  He’s actually there but can’t be seen because of this big black curtain behind us that’s covering him, which is where things get interesting. 

That black curtain is called a Fire Curtain.  Most really big venues have them installed so that in the event of a fire on stage a button is pressed and this huge curtain drops, cutting off the fire so that it doesn’t spread and burn the whole building down.  The curtain is at least 40-50 feet wide and at the base of it is a giant metal rod that helps it fall faster from the ceiling where it’s held. It’s huge and impossible for the average person to lift or move by themselves once it’s on the ground.

I had no knowledge of what this was before our show last night in Miami when this thing fell from the ceiling during the middle of our set.  I guess everybody in the crowd could see it slowly falling down behind us during our performance of “so alive”, but we couldn’t, and didn’t know what was going on until it bumped us in our shoulders.  Even then we were all stunned, and didn’t know the scope of what happened until we looked up and saw this massive, unmovable curtain hanging above us.  It cut off the stage and crashed my keyboard stand, landing on Bob’s bass amp.  At first I thought it was my DJ or somebody at the venue tapping me telling me my stage time was up, but once we saw what it was we just kept doing our thing, while the crowd looked on in disbelief I’m sure.  I popped up from behind the curtain with my keytar, finished my solo and the crowd went wild.

All-in-all it was pretty epic, so epic that we decided to end our set at that song, figuring nothing could really top that moment.  But looking back, and being told by the crew on the tour, we came to see that we are lucky to be alive right now.

We were soon told that the way the Fire Curtain is supposed to work the opposite of what we saw; it’s actually not supposed to fall slowly–it’s supposed to drop really fast and hard.  If that would’ve happened, Bob and I could’ve been seriously injured or even killed because of the huge metal rod that’s inside the curtain.  Under normal circumstances the weight of the rod, combined with the height of the curtain in the ceiling, would’ve sent it falling down at a rate of speed that would would be dangerous for anything laying in it’s path.  But because this one was apparently going bad over time, the “clutch” as it was described to us, was slowly giving out, which caused it to slowly fall.  Had it been working the way it was supposed to or completely given out, I might not be here right now typing this.  Thank God that it went down the way it did.

At the time I wasn’t really tripping about it, more bugged because I didn’t get to finish my set the way I had planned, but looking back I’m just glad to be alive and in good health.

The show itself was great.  It was so good to see so many of the kids that came out to see me play at my February show at The Catalyst come see me last night at the Fillmore.  That alone made me feel really welcomed and at home in a city that’s pretty far from home.  The people here have been nothing less than kind and genuine to me, and for that I have to say thank you.

Hope to see you all again very soon Miami.

Word is blog.