Yes, I'm a bit too old for Nike SB Dunks, but these just caught my eye immediately as somewhat of a collector's item. That's definitely the old man in me talking. Even so, Nike's clearly been trying to up the standards of their designs as of late, and this hi-top offering is no different. The shoe features a sea-green leather exterior that will reveal a rusty underside with regular wear and tear from skating, ass-kicking or whatever strenuous activity you put these through. Not to mention, they've got a special logo on the tongue to commemorate Lady Liberty herself. The Statue of Liberty Dunks drop in February, just in time for the weather to start clearing up. Check out a better view after the jump.
It's a new year, but the same problems we faced in 2010 are the same ones that'll rear their ugly heads in new and innovative ways. One such issue is that of relationship woes. Relationships are easy to get into, but hard to deal with and much harder to sustain when people don't see eye-to-eye. Even worse is when one partner switches up their standards or backslides into a dangerous romantic state, leaving the other confused and in a one-sided relationship.
That said, I think this year needs to be one of well-defined, yet achievable standards. My future girlfriend, it's time for you to get acquainted to what I want. Often, in this highly matrifocal society, women are afforded the driver's seat in relationships. In my circles, far too many times has the onus been on the man to be patient, accommodating, caring, and understanding, without receiving the same in return, or receiving it half-assedly. It's time to let my needs be known. Future girlfriend, here are my list of (non-sexual) demandsrequests hopes for you and us:
- You don't have to be interested in the same things as me, but being able to converse on a number of different levels is imperative. Whether it's about rhesus monkeys overtaking the Congolese population, why Sarah Palin needs a muzzle, or whether Julian Assange is a bastion of free speech or a terrorist, have something to talk about other than yourself. If you're good-looking sans personality, it's about as attractive as Hannibal Lecter's plastic surgery patients.
- We need to be honest with one another, not in the sense that we should trade journals and have three-a-day 'honesty' hours. I mean more so in the sense that if something is amiss, you bring it to my attention, rather than waiting for me to ask you.
- Comfort me when I'm down, and I'll do the same. Make me smile and I promise I'll give you a reason to smile every day. Do the opposite, and the romantic pot you piss in will be yanked from right under you. Point. Blank. Period. Relationships are about reciprocation, in feelings and ideology.
- Everyone has emotional baggage. That's just the way romance works. The point of getting into a new relationship is to alleviate the wrongs that your previous partner did and leave the baggage behind, all while making newer, happy memories. If your baggage is too much for you to handle, you should trust me as your significant other to fix what he did.
- Speaking of exes, if you have a recent ex, please please please please, either cut him off or establish your own boundary for acceptable contact. Your ex is your ex for a reason. If he's still in your life (and you still visualize the two of you together), that leaves the door open for a gang of misunderstandings and arguments for us. I wouldn't say I'm the jealous type, but my Spider senses tingle when I see you keeping him around.
- I don't care about your monetary, employment or educational status as long as you're constantly and gainfully working toward something. I know I can get into ruts of slacker-dom, as do many of my peers. At the same time, there's no excuse to be completely stagnant. Have a plan or an idea or... SOMETHING!
- Infidelity is punishable by getting cut off completely. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. You want to get all 60's on me and experience 'free love'? Get on Craigslist's casual encounters and leave me out of your menagerie of sexual exploits. At this age, monogamy is the name of the game. Two players, and we all win... Any more than that is a crowd and a headache.
- Last, but not least, if it doesn't feel right, let's take a step back. We shouldn't invest in something we're not sure about. There's nothing more backwards than jumping headfirst without surveying the landing, though I'm guilty of it as much as the next. Moderation at the beginning is a virtue. If we're not on the same page, let's hold our heads until the dust settles.
To all you budding feminists reading this saying 'Who does he think he is?' and 'No woman is there to be your personal footstool!', consider this: If you were to begin a relationship and a man were to eschew any of these edicts, would you still want to be with him? Better yet, if a man were to do all these and more, would there be any issue? This letter isn't a list of exhaustive demands I have for you, future girlfriend. The list is simply retorts to problems I've faced in relationships and hopefully a viewing window into what I think should be tenets of a healthy relationship. Misunderstandings are natural in romance; that goes without saying. Yet, the little amount and discordant manner of dialogue between the sexes illustrates how little we're willing to understand one another. So, to my future girlfriend, let's build on a foundation of understanding, not hot air and sparks. It'll be well worth the effort on both sides.
Another Tuesday, another Show Tufli track to whet your ears with. Since I started listening, the Harlem native is 2/2 in my ears. The beat for 'Don't Let Me Go' is heavily sampling Consequence's 'Disperse', yet the effect is nowhere near lost in this relaxing riff. As with the rest of Tufli's tracks, this one has a lot of introspection and fanciful wordplay. I really want to know where he's trying to go with this Tufli Tuesday initiative, because it's promising. Hearing another NYC rapper making moves is refreshing, and I'll be looking out next week again...
The day that light sabers become a standard in combat, is the day I will be first in line waiting to unleash the Dark Side of the Force on an unwitting adversary. Such is the premise of this short movie, 3 Minutes. I won't divulge exactly what goes on in the 3 minutes, aside from it is action-packed and involves the use of light sabers in an industrial park. The Ross Ching-directed short film was shot using a Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon 7D, which explains the crazy picture quality for a non-professional movie. Honestly, talk won't suffice for this bad boy. Check it out and decide whether you can handle 3 minutes...
Yes, yes people!! The 'Future' is coming, complete with laser vision, dehydrated food and transforming vehicles!! Okay... So the first two are nowhere near fruition, but the last one is shown in the above video. The Uno Transformer made its debut at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, and features the capacity to transform from a triple-wheeled unicycle to a sleek two-wheeled motorcycle. The Uno uses a gyroscope to balance itself and does its transformation while accelerating for maximum stability and speed for its small frame. It's completely electric-powered, meaning you won't have to break your bank, and lets out zero-emissions, meaning it's 'green' by default. The only thing that the Uno's design sacrifices is horsepower, clocking in at a top speed of 35 MPH. You won't blow by the Ducatti's and Kawasaki's, but you'll definitely look cool doing it. Check out the BPG Uno III in action.
If you like very brash, cacophonous music, then please skip down to the next post. If you, on the other hand, enjoy very earthy, soulful music, then Outasight is the artist for you. OU, since his 'Never Say Never' recording has been doing shows and steadily building his fan base. Today he let loose this track, for no apparent reason, and I was immediately cast into a state of almost-catatonic relaxation and calm. It goes without saying that 6th Sense is behind the boards. The track, like many of Richard Andrews' works is an ode to the twenty-something crowd, filled with the trivialities and struggles of growing up sans a silver spoon. Dig the vibes...
It's been a while since the term 'get medieval on that ass' has been usable without drawing stares, weird retorts or general confusion. This April, though, I'm going to break that one out, just because HBO is trying to do the same with its new series, 'Game of Thrones'. The show revolves around the fictional (or stylized?) region of Westeros, where the summers can last decades and the winters can last a lifetime, and the struggle of numerous noble families to acquire the Iron Throne. It's early, but I can definitely tell that HBO has another hit on their hands. The scenery looks just as dark, rustic and bubonic plague-infested as it can given out paltry knowledge of medieval society. Then again, who's looking for that with all of the sex and violence coming from the trailer? Either way, it's time to start boning up on your swordsmanship and jousting...
Over the past few weeks, I've had trouble ignoring the phenomenon that is Lil' B the Based God. The Bay Area native has a choke hold on the internet's fickle throat, and with his #based moniker he's made Twitter his personal stomping ground in little more than a year. That said, his music has always gone over my head, either due to my own doubting his musical ability or general ire towards his 'so ridiculous, it's genius' modus operandi. You can't deny the man's work ethic or his overall intelligence. Lately I've been seeing Lil' B tweets popping up on my timeline, and instead of questioning them, I found myself nodding in agreement. Maybe I'll never be a Lil' B fan. Maybe #based music is little more than a fad. Whatever the case, he has my ears, and after this feature with MTV's VICE, he might have a lot more in 2011. Check out exactly what #based music is, and the inspiration for his seemingly random song titles...
It's been a minute since I've posted any clothing, sneakers or apparel in general. I think I came to a realization about fashion, or clothing brands more specifically: If a clothing brand doesn't have a motif, a theme or a general feel to its apparel, then it's less likely to catch on. The most successful brands that my generation is drawn to like SUPREME (not my favorite, but influential nonetheless), Polo, Orisue, Levis among others, all have branched out into becoming 'lifestyle' brands that encompass a way of living or thinking. LRG, in their Spring collection does just that, exemplifying an earthy approach to fashion and life. Set in the woods, shores and skies of Washington and San Juan, and featuring a buttery-smooth song in backdrop, this preview from the good folks at LRG is a testament to their brand: simple, refined and one with its surroundings, no matter if it's the forest or the concrete jungle. Check it out...
Show Tufli's 'Tufli Tuesdays' have been a mainstay on the blog circuit for the past few months, but none of the releases have whet my interest. I suppose with a new year, there are a few artists that can catch fire, especially with consistency. I can't say I dig the biting of Kanye's GOOD Friday initiative, but this release is a step in the right direction from the Harlem native. 'Fli On My Own' is a song about it's namesake - being 'Fli on your own. Sometimes in the shuffle of trying to make our dreams come true, we get caught up in what other people think. Show's here to remind us that standing alone is the only way to go. Check out this week's Tufli Tuesday. I'll be checking next week to see what he brings to the table...
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic by most any measure—T.S. Eliot called it a masterpiece, and Ernest Hemingway pronounced it the source of "all modern American literature." Yet, for decades, it has been disappearing from grade school curricula across the country, relegated to optional reading lists, or banned outright, appearing again and again on lists of the nation's most challenged books, and all for its repeated use of a single, singularly offensive word: "nigger."
Twain himself defined a "classic" as "a book which people praise and don't read." Rather than see Twain's most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the "n" word (as well as the "in" word, "Injun") by replacing it with the word "slave".
The term 'to whitewash', as defined by Dictionary.com, means:
That second meaning is sacrosanct (look that up while you're at it) with trying to censor, make invisible or control the viewing of something. Whitewashing something literally means that whatever you had before is covered by plain white... Whatever was under it, no matter how ugly (or beautiful; depends on the beholder) is gone. Whitewashing is why the media butchers facts, why politicians are all liars and why by 2020 the Iraq War might not be in history books anymore. Whitewashing is what is happening to you, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, when the publishers of one of your new editions take the word 'nigger' out of your pages in lieu of 'slave'.
The word 'nigger' is synonymous with Southern culture from the early 1800s onward. It was as American as apple pie and baseball even past the Civil Rights Movement era. Though the negative stigma attached to its use has lessened the ease of its use, no doubt there are some people who still say 'nigger' as a term of hate towards Black people. That said, 'nigger', while hateful, is a part of Southern history, which is encapsulated in you, Huck Finn. Why are they trying to take some of your thunder away?
I'll tell you why: It's because people are uncomfortable with the ugly, hateful, detestable history of our country, and would rather whitewash over it with rosy rhetoric than paint the picture as it really was. It's because most people can't stomach the way 'nigger' was casually used in the South as not just a hateful word, but a general term for Black people. It's because people would rather gloss over the way things really were, to portray things the way they want them to be.
Somewhere in Anytown, Middle America, there is a 6th grade literature class going through a tour of classic American books, of which you are a part, Huck Finn. They're going to open your pages and take in the story, but instead of getting the truth - the real, gritty truth - they'll get the sugarcoated abridged version. They'll get the version in which Huck and Nigger Jim are equals in society's eyes, not the one where Huck first sees Jim as a 'nigger' before all else. Do people really want that? Do they want you to lose your effect. One of the reasons you were such a profound book is because of the candid portrayal of the racial attitudes that pervaded the U.S. at that time. Why would they want to rob you of that privilege? Why would they want to dilute you for the sake of safety? By taking 'nigger' out of your pages, the only bad vibe going away is the awkward moment when a white student has to say it around mixed racial company (I would've been able to live without that in my classroom). Censoring you, in essence is erasing the racist ideology that this country was built on, giving an imperfect and incomplete perspective on it. You, as a classic piece of literature, deserve more than that...
Can we stop using Kanye's 'Power' as the theme song for every movie, TV show and sports segment?
Have you ever wondered what you could do if you were the 'maximum' you? Maximum, as in using all of your potential and all of your abilities at your best. Optimization has been a goal of behavioral engineering for years. Technologically, of course, we're years from such a feat, but Hollywood has done the legwork for us. 'Limitless' is the story of a formerly coke-addicted writer coming across an experimental drug that maximizes the user's potential. Within a few days, Bradley Cooper's (who's becoming a favorite actor of mine) character finishes a book, predicts stocks, learns a language and becomes a more charismatic version of himself. Trouble comes afoot when he discovers that his 'miracle pill' is part of a greater plan. The movie looks like it's going to be interesting, if not because Robert DeNiro is in it, then because of the idea that there is a 'pill' to improve oneself. Somewhere in some underground laboratory, there's a team of scientists hitting their heads on a wall because Hollywood stole their idea. I guarantee their version wouldn't have been as entertaining, though...
When one's friendship stops taking precedence in lieu of business, other relationships or simple personal preference, maybe it's time to take a step back and realize what caused the friendship to hit the rocks in the first place. That's when what used to be the best of friends can turn not into enemies, but strangers. They know and love one another, but won't talk for fear of alienating one another even further. They'd rather split amicably than risk destroying the friendship. Phonte and 9th Wonder, it's a blessing in disguise that you guys were able to thrive alone for a while before reconciling.
Both of you had some growing to do, obviously, before you could come to this point. I'm not sure about the personal growth that you underwent, but professionally you both have carved out nice little niches for yourself. 9th, you've become one of the most heralded producers of the past decade, and Phonte, you've been as consistent an MC as we've seen in the game. I love that you both were quick to denounce any rumors of new Little Brother work, because your friendship rekindling doesn't mean you're automatically going to click musically. In fact, I wouldn't expect you guys to work on anything at all. While it's excruciating as a music fan, as an overall admirer of healthy friendships, it's heartwarming. Your reconciliation is oddly inspiring me to reach out to some old friends. You said it best, Phonte... Maybe 2 plates of food and a long conversation is all people need to resolve their differences.
There's something about certain entrepreneurs that makes me smile, but at the same time makes me want to hurl. They're so enthralling because at times, they can show us exactly why we're (we as in non-millionaires) exactly how to get to a similar position: cutthroat business strategies, schmoozing with the right people and almost shameless promotion. The same thing that enthralls us, however, is the same thing that gives rise to ridiculous ego-stroking, a sad vanity complex and a holier-than-thou spin on everything. Such is your plight, oh great Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Yes, I enjoy the fact that now all the brainwashed adoring fans of Sofia can get 24 hours of all Oprah, all the time, but does the world really need that?
Oprah, there's no doubt in my mind that your network will be a day-long ode to new-age self improvement fads, Dr. Phil philosophy ideologies and makeovers. Most troubling about the idea of you having your own network is how excruciatingly preachy it will be. The thing I dislike about you, Oprah, isn't that you try to help people and be a modern-day guru. I could care less about that. The fact still remains that a heft amount of what you preach, you couldn't know less about. How a person sit there for hours and listen to you talk about parenting, when the only kids you have are your 'daughters' in South Africa? How can anyone take your advice on relationships and marriage, when you've been living with a business partner posing as a romantic partner? Even Dr. Phil... There's something problematic when people flock to a person's teachings simply because you say that person is a consummate professional. That's like trusting the mystery meat in the cafeteria, just because the lunch people are serving it.
Your network is going to be so predictable, too. I can just picture constant re-runs of your syndicated show, along with Lifetime-quality, man-bashing movies, and shows starring Rosie O'Donnell and Wynona Rider all aimed at stay-at-home moms, self-hating men, and people too brainwashed caught up by your genius influence to change the channel. Your network doesn't look like it's going to be pushing any boundaries or giving the viewer anything ground-breaking. It looks safe, just like any segments you've done with people you used to revile (see: Ludacris and Jay-Z). Rather than do something new with your network, you're further diluting your image in my mind, from someone with a voice that matters to someone with just a voice. Kudos to you for being the first black woman to run a television network, Oprah, but I pray no one calls their cable provider to get OWN. It'll be a $12 addition to their bill they might as well have saved, though it would've probably gone to your 'book club' at the end of the day...
I know I'm not the only frequent NYC Subway rider who wonders exactly what the tracks, tunnels and rails look like outside of the train. These guys, street historian Steven Duncan and videographer Andrew Wonder, got to see just that in their expedition in the belly of the beast known as the Subway. Armed with a Canon 5d Mark II camera, an LED flashlight and a ridiculous knowledge of the inner workings of a rapid transit system, Duncan visits numerous train stations (abandoned and functioning), and runs amok in the tunnels, all while dodging trains, transit workers and cops, and the deadly third rail. Duncan sees everything from decade-old graffiti to a bunch of tunnel-dwelling citizens, some of whom had lived in the Subway tunnels since the 80s.
The most interesting part of the documentary is Duncan talking about some of the penalties for getting caught trespassing, and seeing him maneuver around the Subway tracks and restricted areas, even while people are in plain view. He even shows the viewer New York City's first sewer at Canal Street on the trip, going in a manhole. My question is, how in the world does one become an urban historian, or know about some of these places, without having nearly died a few times? I'm guessing he's done this before, as Duncan alludes to being in Paris and getting caught trying to climb the Cathedral at Notre Dame. Although, this really piques my interest, it's a bit too crazy for me, especially when you think about the smell. Either way, Duncan's journey is visually stunning for those of us curious about the workings of the city's underworld. Too bad he didn't catch any of the sewer dwelling alligators... or the mole people. I'd actually pay to see those...
PS: All you Brooklyn people are going to love the end.
Another year, another edition of Skillz' annual year-in-review rap. Of course it's a little late, but with the amount of hangovers, I'm sure a few of you guys didn't miss much. I'm not going to lie. 2010 made me worried about a lot. There were a lot of high-profile deaths and a lot of hi-jinx in Hollywood that made me wonder 'where are we going?' But that's neither here nor there. It's a new year and time for a new chronological start. Hopefully everyone is in good spirits. We know Skillz is. Check out his 2010 Rap-Up and have a good Sunday, people!
I never thought I'd see the day... Well actually, yes I did. Prophesying an 'I, Robot'-esque scenario aside, this is pretty cool. At Dalu Robot Restaurant, a hot pot joint in China, you'll never have to tip your waiter or worry about him spitting in your food. The restaurant owner also doubles as the proprietor of a robotics firm, so he decided to mix the two. The robot waiters drive around the restaurant on tracks and use radar and magnets to maneuver. I'm not going to lie. It's a bit creepy at first, and isn't as comprehensive, as you still have to take the food off the trays. Still, it's a fun change for those of us looking for some tech in their eating experience...
