I just know it

I’m going to be really upset with Past Dolapo for not buying new soap before leaving the country for Nigeria. I’ll really want a proper shower and be upset that he was okay with using up all the soap and then leaving. What an asshole.

Before I get back, I’m going to be upset with him for not bringing: an extra camera battery, more pants, a pair of shorts, more socks, some traditional yoruba garb, a bigger suitcase to bring things back in. Rookie mistakes really.

Hi mom and dad

But wait, there’s more

One of my favorite samples is now playing on iTunes. Kanye West - The Glory samples Laura Nyro - Save The Country, among other things, I love both of these songs.

Kushal has been trying to convince me to buy an apartment in Brooklyn for the past few weeks. He sends me links to amazing places. I’m not really sure what his endgame is here. It’s kind of hard to up and change boroughs. Owning is so permanent too.

What I really need is some sort of internship. I’d live under the supervision of an established Brooklynite. They would teach me the ways of the borough. What to do when it rains (which it always does). How to deal with girls without regularly pedicured nails. How to get around without reliable subways or taxis. How to deal with the large number of… minorities.

Will I be able to come back to Manhattan and hang out? Or will I be like this guy?

A random hip-hop post where I ultimately decide that I don’t yet like Wale as much as I want to.

It’s been a good couple of weeks in terms of backpacker/alternative/”hipster” rap releases. I’m not listening to any of them right now though, instead overdosing on the latest Cut/Copy album. It was on at Barrio Chino last night and has been on repeat since.

Back on topic.

First up, Kidz in the Hall, the rapper/producer duo that met while at school (UPenn), with The In Crowd. Yay for ivy-league grads/rappers! Yay for rap album release parties sponsored by wineries! The pairing (teehee) works well and Double-O (the producer one) is versatile enough to carry a whole album. Naledge (the rapper one) is… Naledge is technically good. His flow’s generally interesting, and he’ll drop a clever rhyme from time to time. Where this falls apart: Naledge is not all that likable, in fact he can be kind of annoying. Not because he’s not good, he just doesn’t seem to have much of a personality. It’s like he tries to be parts of Pusha T or Kanye, but comes off a little corny. The album is saved by the production, hordes of guest appearances (including the aforementioned Pusha), and the occasional gem from Naledge.

[Driving down the block] bass kickin man, sorta like Fred A-do. And I’m looking blessed, like I said A-choo. I’m so damn clean, polo rugby and Jordan 16s. While I’m [Driving down the block] wifey feeling intimate. Park up at the lake and turn the car into a cigarette.

Watch a video

Second. The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale. “What it is what it is come check the noise. it’s the new black version of the beastie boys.” They get points for the inspiration even though they weren’t alive during that era. You’d think rapping about bikes and clothes would get old, but the album is only 30 minutes long and we’ve heard most of the tracks before. The production is really minimalist… and I’ve had to stop myself a few times from dancing on the subway.

So I’m sitting on the couch holding the remote. Flipping channels, I’m a rebel eating a bowl of them fruity pebbles, fruity pebbles, fruity pebbles. How gangsta is that. Not gangsta at all. Are you judging me dog? Please, you shop at the mall. Me, I shop at boutiques, limited quantity sneaks…

I hate the terms “hipster-hop” and “hipster-hop” but Yay hipsters!
Watch a video
Watch another one, since this is such a brilliant idea for a beat.

Finally. Wale - The Mixtape about Nothing (Free for download here). An entire mixtape inspired by Seinfeld, including a guest appearance by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. On paper, I should really like Wale - clever multi-syllabic rhymes, obscure references, Nigerian! He’s ridiculous though, to the point where it takes multiple listens to catch everything he’s rapping about. On The Chicago Falcon Remix, Mark Ronson interrupts the track to ask him to slow it down and explain what’s going on:

Counting my bread. My account like a brunch at a synagogue. Get it y’all, that’s a whole lot of bagels… I get seinfeld with these rhyme skills, I’m Larry David. Give me my paper. It’s a cosmo like Jerry Sein’s neighor. My co-stanzas stand like Phantoms or Maybachs. You won’t get a lane if you came wack. I hate rap like Kramer hates blacks…

There’s just too much going on there, and the problem is that it can be boring. It’s like:

Yeah, I’m crazy. Hopping off the wall like Vega. They vaguely, decipher my language. Out of my mind, come and chase me. Picture off of grammar like I’m managing Frasier. Cheers. Psycho. Maestro. Orchestrate the life with the right flow. Write flows down and they might go nice. A low life’s plight. I give off my light like an interracial couple with a child. Or fucking Paramount. I hope they understand that. Light overheads means i’m right where their head is. Pause. Epiphany.

is that what he’s saying on that song? Maybe? Crazy. It’s hard to make that actually sound good. I kinda want him to stop trying to do so much and just work on his flow or something. Take a lesson from Lil’ Wayne who can spit absolute nonsense and still make it sound good. The mixtape is still pretty good though, and with Ronson producing his debut that should probably be good as well. Yay Seinfeld!
Watch a video

I tend to shake people’s hands a lot, I don’t know why. Sometimes I like to hug people, but only sometimes. The Yoruba custom when greeting elders is to kneel or prostrate. I’ve never been able to get used to this, it’s something that makes me anxious whenever I’m going to be in a group of Nigerian people. I can’t really bring myself to do either. As a sort of compromise, I tend to lower my head slightly and just shake hands. The same kind of compromising head-lowering that I use during unexpected prayers. It doesn’t really work. Besides having freakishly long hair at the time (see left, my cousin, right, with the more common haircut for people our age), things like this made me stand out during my trip to Nigeria in 2006. I had a pretty unnerving dream about this last night, one where I woke up sweaty with my heart racing. This reminded me of another dream I had earlier this week.

I’m standing outside with someone I can’t identify. Somehow part of my blood has been replaced with some sort of flower essence. This happens instantly and as far as I can tell, for no reason. Moments later I hear a horrible buzzing. Tens of bees swarm my face in what I understand to be an attempt to pollinate me. I’m freaking out, mouth clenched shut, eyes closed. They’re trying to crawl into my mouth, up my nose, into my ears. Their numbers are increasing. I’m being raped by bees and there’s not much I can do about it. I don’t want to be stung so I don’t try to kill them. Why isn’t my friend helping me out? The buzzing sound grows louder… and then I wake up. At this point, wide awake, I decide that what happens next is that I magically extract all my blood and live happily ever after. Crikey.

Samples we love from movies we love #78

Nas feat Jay-Z - Black Republican (Prague Philharmonic - Marcia Religiosa).

Recalled while rewatching The Godfather II earlier today. Black Republican, from Nas’ Hip-Hop is Dead, noteworthy for being the first post-feud Nas/Jay-Z collaboration.

Bonus! Things you should do #95

I know, I know, I don’t need to remind you… it’s already on your calendar, etc etc, but Zombie Strippers comes out today. Guaranteed to be trash. Take one for the team, tell us how bad it really is.

My typical reaction to mashups these days is usually to curse danger mouse’s name for making them so mainstream. As of late, they’ve been rather… uninspiring, predictable. With that said, I’m really liking this Fela Kuti + Jay Z mashup track more than I was expecting to.

Susan got me a Diana+ camera for christmas last year during our road trip. The Diana is a plastic medium-format camera that was originally introduced in the 60s and has seen a recent resurgence among photo geeks (and wannabes like myself). It’s an-all plastic “cheap” film camera with all manner of manufacturing defects that result in photos that are blurry, vignetted (blurring around the edges), and rather low contrast. Basically, dreamy lo-fi photos. It’s a medium-format camera (120 film) so you get rather large negatives (12 5.2 by 5.2 centimeter) which are appropriate for printing large photos. It’s manual in a toy-like way. It has three aperture settings (f11, f13, f19), two shutter speeds (1/60 and bulb), and a focus dial that adjusts from 1meter to inf. Since the viewfinder does not interact with the lens mechanism in anyway — you’re basically looking through a hole — none of these settings can be previewed before a shot. Taking photos with it forces you to consider how your settings are going to affect the outcome, which you should be doing anyway, but with a modern camera you at least have a light meter. So, it has a bit of a steep learning curve, or perhaps “shoot and see” while taking pictures.

I shot two black and white and two color rolls on the trip. The black and whites are still at the lab but I was eager so I picked up the color rolls since they were ready. You can see that in a few of them the film wasn’t advanced the same amount for each picture. I think the lab should have been able to correct for this, but they were probably using a machine.

New Orleans

Red streaks and vignetting. I’m still learning to advance the film to the correct position.

These guys were nice and let me take their picture.

Mississippi

It’s tricky to frame the photos correctly since the viewfinder doesn’t interact with the lens in anyway. I was hanging out of the window while taking this shot, and though the car appears in the frame, I like this one.

Austin

Could be the opening of an exploitation movie. This is present day Austin though, on top of Mount Bonnell looking over Lake Austin.

This would be an annoying exposure on any camera but I decided to try it anyway. We’re inside where it’s rather dark and the outside (brightly lit) is in the center of the frame. In theory I should have exposed longer but there would be a giant glowing bright spot in the center.

Christmas evening with the fam. The mood here is very strange but I dig what’s going on with the lighting.

We may know Diane Neal as tough gal ADA Casey Novak on Law & Order: SVU, but there are plenty of things we don’t know about her real life. What are her hobbies? What kind of ice cream does she like? Does she like her margaritas with or without salt? Does she even like margaritas? We can’t trust imdb for answers to questions like these so we have to resort to other sources. According to wikipedia, http://dianeneal.hostbus.com/ is “the biggest and BEST Diane Neal website on the ‘net!” I bet they can provide us with the vital information we seek - the site is both “Diane Neal Tested” and “Mother (Colleen) Approved! (Hi Diane’s Mom!)”

I just learned that Diane believes Dick Cheney is dead. Did you know that? Neither did I! But here it is on the site, actual emails from Diane herself!

PS Dick Cheney is actually dead. Marcus and I think they’ve been “weekend at Bernieing” him for years. Whenever he’s shown he usually never speaks and is wearing a giant baseball hat and sunglasses. Coincidence? I think not.

First of all, I’m glad most of you agree about Cheney. And yes, I’m suggesting that’s he’s been dead for quite a while now. I think 4 years, Marcus thinks 2. Roughly. The only problem with our theory is the “shooting his friend in the face” episode. Perhaps it was a ruse by the Bush administration to throw off the public from his obvious corpsishness? We can only speculate. But I wouldn’t put it past them.

It all makes so much sense!

The Q&A section is my favorite though, especially this question from Katie. She passionately asks the question that we’ve all been wondering.

I read once that you liked the dog whisperer. That was quite possibly the oddest thing
I’d heard that day, and it stuck in my mind. Whenever do you have time to sit and watch the dog whisperer?! Who HAS TIME to watch the dog whisperer?! Do you MAKE time for the dog whisperer?

I TiVo the dog whisperer. Marcus and I love him AND we just got his book. As I’m typing this RIGHT NOW my dog, Ted, is sitting on my lap and consistently nudging the keyboard for attention. This is one of the many reasons that I NEED Caesar Milan. Also, Annie Potts who was on our show a few time (she’s kick ass, by the way) is good buddies with Caesar and would humor me with crazy stories about him. It makes me feel slightly connected to him. Weird, I know.

Yes, who has the time?! Katie doesn’t! I know I don’t! How can Diane Neal of all people?! Thank goodness for TiVo. And thank you Diane for properly capitalizing TiVo.

Yes, I’ve been watching Law & Order. Writer’s strike be damned, they have “a stockpile of scripts” saved up and ready to go. I hope you’re ready too because it’s either L&O or the new American Gladiators.

• Creepy, desolate, old house.
• Being left alone in said creepy, desolate house.
• Creepy disabled/orphaned children.
• Masks or burlap sacks on said children.
• Creepy old woman.
• Creepy contacting the dead scene.
• It’s never daytime.
• Caves. I hate caves.
• Random loud things falling. Who keeps a collection of pipes in a closet??
• Watching the movie in a theater where one can’t take a breather every 30 minutes.

The Orphanage is full of cliches, yet engrossing at the same time. Lesser movies make me groan when these things happen, but I was in suspense the entire time. It doesn’t do anything groundbreaking, but it’s refreshing to see a horror movie these days that isn’t just torture porn.

This is the part where I throw in a plug for The Devil’s Backbone, that movie does not get enough love.

Random reference to another movie: The Wizard of Gore!

Day 3 of susanz and dolapo head south and things are going awry. Most pressing is that we seem to have forgotten some camera equipment in our hotel room in Durham. Wait. Some?? Okay, a 24-70 f/2.8L, a 10-22 f/3.5-4.5, and a speedlite 430ex. We’re not sure that we’ve forgotten them at this point - 1.5 hours from the hotel - and I’m convinced that it must be in the trunk.

That location, the trunk!, had become my default for anything that we couldn’t find within 2 minutes of looking in the car. It had to be in the trunk right? With my bike taking up a significant amount of space in the back, it was pretty tricky to poke around back there without getting your sleeves (or purse) all greasy. In my defense there were all sorts of curious things in the trunk, including 13 bags of Senegalese dried shrimp I was transporting across the country for my dad. Dried shrimp that had the amazing property of filling any space with that smell. Oh, that smell.

Anyway, at this point the mood is light, spirits are high. We’d just purchased this hat after all! The hat represents everything this trip is about. Taking in the local flavor. Making random decisions along the way. Buying hats! Not to mention that we’d just decided to skip Charlotte, NC all together and spend some extra time in the smoky mountains (A decision that would later lead to a scary, but awesome hike). Something responsible kicks in and I swerve on to the shoulder to double check that the camera bag is actually in the trunk. It isn’t. Shit!

We had been staying at a dodgy roadside inn in Durham and were convinced the cleaning staff would just take the equipment. I usually have a little more faith in people, but there was a drug deal taking place outside our window the previous night. Okay, I can’t actually confirm that it was drugs, but there was a strange man in a car for the better half of 2 hours who was periodically visited by people in other cars. Strange cars. He certainly wasn’t selling puppies — at least I didn’t hear any puppies, but it’s very possible that they were sleeping.

Why didn’t I triple-check the hotel room before leaving? Was I afraid of touching those bed sheets again? Perhaps the feeling of urgency to get on the road to Asheville? I hate forgetting things.

Searching for a solution we do the only sane thing I can think of - find a convenience store and buy some sugar babies. Fueled by 32 grams of sugar we manage to schedule a fedex pickup and delivery to our hotel in Atlanta. We’re at this point feeling relieved and ready to get on with the journey. 20% of the mood change is of course due to the sugar babies. They’re delicious. I can’t stress this enough. The other 80% belong to Candy - the clerk at the convenience store.

Candy was unexplainably sassy for the middle of the morning on a random weekday. Clearly she was hopped up on something. Perhaps something purchased from our dodgy inn buddy from last night? Or maybe just life? In addition to letting us take a lot of pictures with her, she let us in on all the hottest party spots in both Durham and Asheville. I wasn’t really sure what kind of party I was looking for so I couldn’t answer that question, but she dropped some names anyway.

My only regret on this trip* is not getting a chance to check out these parties. Perhaps in the future, with more time.

*Um, only regret other than spending an hour taking “olde time” photos in New Orleans. Bah, who am I kidding, those photos were awesome!