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Documentary Recomendation: The King of Kong
This documentary isn’t new by any means, and there’s a chance that you may have already seen it. But if you haven’t, I would highly suggest The King of Kong: A fistful of quarters. I’m not gonna even write a review of it. I’m gonna post this description and trailer and hopefully you’ll check it out. If you do, please come back here and let me know what you think in the comments section of this post.The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters follows a middle school science teacher as he battles a hot sauce mogul for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic Donkey Kong.
Word is Blog
the downside of giving up on yourself
Several years ago I used to live in Cincinnati, OH. At the time I was working as a computer programmer and was just starting to get my feet wet in the local hip-hop scene. There were some one-of-a-kind characters in the hip-hop scene then, and while most of them never made it out of the Cincinnati hip-hop scene, they contributed in a big way to what made the scene special at that time. There was a weekly hip-hop night at Topcats that was the spot that pretty much the entire scene congregated to back then, and battling was how you earned your stripes and respect, so I was there pretty much every Wednesday night. I didn’t battle as often as other cats but I definitely did my part to hold it down.
Well, one of the cats that was the most popular was a cat named Unseen. Unseen was from Dayton but moved to Cincy right around the time i moved there and was a part of the crew that hosted the night, the Animal Crackers. He would host the battles and battle pretty frequently, especially when new heads would come there from out of town and think they could run thru everybody; it was customary for one of the regulars to show them what time it was. At any rate, Unseen was a great host and a pretty dope rapper that pretty much everybody loved. He was a sweetheart that as far as I could tell was probably incapable of having enemies.
Unfortunately, Unseen was a troubled kid. His problems with drugs and depression were well known among those that knew him, but he always seemed to manage it and keep his head up. There would be periods where you saw him all the time for several months, and then he would kind of disappear for a couple months. But he was such an honest and good-hearted dude that you would always be happy to see him again.
Well, in 2006 while I was on the road I got word that in Unseen had died.
Quote of the week: Confucius
By three methods we may learn wisdom:
First, by reflection, which is noblest;
Second, by imitation, which is easiest;
and third by experience, which is the bitterest. – Confucius
Word is blog
One year sober today
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, then you know I recently stopped drinking alcohol. It was a pretty big part of my life as a touring artist, as well as my social life at home, so to many people my decision to quit came as a surprise. Some people didn’t and still don’t believe that I don’t drink anymore. I don’t get offended, I just take it as an example of how much i had become associated with it. Other people have found inspiration in my decision to quit, which has been encouraging.Well today, May 15th, is my official one year clean and sober date.
Please request “So Alive” on CD101 FM Columbus
If you live in the Columbus area, the radio station CD101 FM (now CD102.5) is probably pretty familiar to you. In an era of Radio One and Clear Channel radio monopolies, they remain one of the last truly independent radio stations in Columbus. Their format is alternative rock, but they also host specialty shows that range from the progressive Independent Playground, to the Sunday night Reggae show, and they also play hip-hop from time to time. CD101 FM has always been extremely supportive of the local music scene in Columbus, inviting artists on air (I’ve been several times), to throwing huge events and always booking local bands to open, to giving local artists radio play.
Basically they’re a shining example of what radio used to be like everywhere, and can still be.
Philly Is Dope
Admittedly, I’m a midwesterner at heart, so I’ve never been a fan of the fast paced, impersonal, nickle-and-dime-you-to-death feeling I get when I visit most east coast cities. New York being the most blatant example of that; I can only take a couple days there before I start feeling overwhelmed and wanna go home.But Philly is different.
I’ve always liked Philly. I might even go as far as to saying I’ve never had a bad show in Philly. In fact, when I really think about my history in Philly I realize that it’s been full of epic moments since I’ve been coming here.
the truth vs a good story
I’ve always had a weird relationship with the press. For the early part of my career, from 1999-2003 when I was first putting out Greenhouse material on Weightless Recordings, they would either ignore us completely or clown us in the local weekly papers. Then once Soul Position came out things improved, but its always been weird. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, you take it with a grain of salt and you move on. Along the way I stopped giving a fuck and realized that while the press can to some extent make a star out of somebody that shouldn’t be, they also can’t really do much for artists that are bi-products of a more grassroots approach–which I am. I’m not sure if that realization means I gave up on their importance, or that I gave up on my potential to be a critics favorite, but I do know that things definitely changed for me.But specifically, here’s my problem with press:
Blueprint, MTV, and “Selling Out”
The AdventureI started working on Adventures in Counter-Culture 5 years ago. At the time I started working on it I was fed up with everything around me; television and its stereotypical and harmful images, commercial radio, the stagnation of the music (even in the hip-hop scene that I’m a part of), and society in general. To me, there had become too many rules, too much routine, too much recycling of ideas and concepts. So as far as I was concerned I didn’t want to be a part of of that anymore, even if it meant that I had to challenge even the things that I’m known best for as an artist.
That’s what counter-culture is.
So as I took on this task of trying to destroy everything I knew musically and socially, I immediately realized that there would be risk involved, but I made the journey primarily for me so I didn’t care. I had to do it for myself. Make the music that I wanted to make, become the person I wanted to be, free of expectations and rules, so that I would know that I’m not just another artist playing it safe like everybody else, making the same boring record over and over again just because it makes them money.
When this entire scene that I’m a part of began to pop off in the early 2000s, it was because the music was different and progressive. It expanded and inspired many. Unfortunately, there came a point where it began to recycle itself and became stagnant, depending on the same ideas, styles, and concepts to stay successful, but not growing. That’s what I’m fighting against. I realize that everybody may not be with me on that, or even understand my desire to distance my music from what I consider to be formulaic and boring, but there’s no turning back for me.
Power
I celebrated my 9th month of sobriety last week, and had an interesting thought about power.The thought was that we all have power, and much more power than we think we do.
We can effect change around us, whether that be positive change or negative change.
When I was drinking, I had periods of time when me and my buddies would be out 3-4 nights in a row. There would be a certain kind of momentum about what we were doing where the more often we went out the more “normal” it would seem, so we kept it going. Eventually sitting at home on a regular weeknight seemed strange, and going out became the priority.
I can’t feel my face
So I had a dentist appointment today. While going to the dentist in itself isn’t anything special, this was special to me because for the first time in my life I was getting a filling. It’s wild to think that I’ve went my entire life without ever having a cavity or needing a filling, but I guess my lucky streak came to an end this week.Since I didn’t know what to expect I showed up pretty early at the dentist office, so I could ask some questions and mentally prepare myself for the unknown. That’s when they let me know they would be using a local anesthetic to numb my mouth right in the area they would be putting the filling in.
So anyways, as I’m sitting there I start to slowly feel the entire left side of my face, jaw, and even parts of my nose go numb.
Behind the camera: Cory Ring
As my curiosity about the field of film & video increases, I find myself crossing paths with people are are really good at what they do. I love to chop it up with people about their craft, especially those far more advanced with me, soI thought it could be cool to feature these conversations about Film & Video here on printmatic.net and call it Behind the Camera.
Well this first feature is on film student Cory Ring. I found Cory through his fan-made video he made for a song of mine called “6 a.m” (from the Sign Language EP – buy it if you haven’t yet) and “Big Time” from the Latimore Platz Smokey Part Two EP. There are a lot of fan-made videos out there, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that this might be the best one I’ve ever seen, and that it’s a huge compliment that my music was able to inspire such a creation. Once I saw it I knew I had to interview Cory.
Check out the video:
Read the full interview with Cory here after the jump:
Big ass head
Check out this photo.
Maciej Jewtuszko got big ass head don’t he? Looks like they photoshopped it.
Dude is a professional fighter and can no doubt kick my ass, I’m just sayin though…
Word is blog
Words I Like: Agonizing
Agonize is a cool word. But you gotta use it sparingly.
“I was really agonizing about whether I wanted peanut butter & jelly or a turkey sandwich for lunch. It was a tough choice, ’cause I really like turkey…but I already had it on Monday..ugggh, so agonizing!”
People might start to resent you for unjustly breaking out agonize like that. It’s almost like the kids who used to pull the fire alarm in middle school all the time; it got your attention, but once you realized it was fake you were kinda pissed.
I’m not sure if you can even drop agonize until after you’re done agonizing. You can’t really say “I’m agonizing over my fantasy football picks.” You gotta say “I was agonizing over my fantasy picks last week but and I totally kicked yalls ass anyways. I’m the man! Whoooohooo!!”
I like the word painstaking.
White Light Black Rain
I’m pretty late with this but last week I discovered the beauty of renting DVDs from the public library. I’ve had friends tell me about it, but I was always too preoccupied with the books to pay any attention to the movies. Well, last week that ended as I rented a handful of documentaries.I’ve been reading a bunch about documentaries, but more from a technical perspective–I would like to actually make a documentary one day, so reading about the science and method behind their creation is fascinating to me. But I digress.
This blog isn’t about me making documentaries, this blog is about the documentary White Light Black Rain.
A Perfect New Year
If you had to guess off the top of your head, how many days of your life would you classify as perfect?
If you’re like most people it would be a very short list. I would bet most people would list their wedding day or the birth of a child as the only perfect days they’ve ever experienced. It’s not that we don’t try, Lord knows we do, it’s just that perfection is extremely difficult to achieve. Look no further than how seldom a Major League Baseball pitcher pitches a perfect game, or how rare it is for an NFL team to have a perfect season and win the Superbowl.
Perfection is hard to achieve.
Yet, as hard as perfection is to achieve, there’s one day every year that a lot of us think we can pull it off–New Years. And subsequently there’s one day of the year that I hear the most people express their disappointment with–New Years.
