Smells Like Bronze

Shoez only a priest could love

2007-02-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

Apparently these bitches didn't get the message. It clearly states, on the label, and several times during the music, WU TANG CLAN AINT NUTHIN TA FUCK WIT.

But these bitches did anyway. Introducing the next line of comfortable black vernacular pilfering ... Killah Footwear. That's right... Killah Footwear. Somebody owes Tony some royalties on this. Pretty Tony better get his dough!

[Because it's a JPG I couldn't use a clipping path on this image for some reason, if anyone knows how, I'd appreciate the 411. ]

Says dem:

Killah, a division of Sixty USA, is intended for a young, eclectic and extravagant female consumer. This innovative collection is dedicated to young women looking for femininity, fun and color in shoes.

Killah Shoes are a wild style of shoe designed specifically for the young women. Killah Shoes is a division of Sixty USA, and they shoes do possess a certain retro feel. Killah shoes are designed for fun. They have wild colors and unique shapes that catch they eye of each and every onlooker. Whatever outfit you have, there is a Killah shoe to match. The Styles vary all across the board. They range from crazy flashback sneakers to wild and pastel colored sandals. Wear these shoes out to the club or for a stroll on the beach.

Killah also makes some of the newest trends in shoe fashions. They have the newly popular wedge shoe, which of course, is decorated with vibrant colors. Killah also has the ultimate comfort shoe: the ballerina slipper. These shoes are designed for unmatched comfort, with accompanying style. These slippers can be worn to work or in which to putter around the house. They are very versatile for businesswomen or stay at home moms. Although, Killah does not design shoes for men or children, they shine in the women’s shoe department. Since women are Killah's specialty, they know women's shoes.

CROCKET!!!!!!

2006-12-15T12:49:00.000-08:00

It's Friday. I'm feeling like Rico. It's time for ....

Miami Vice's Jan Hammer and Al Di Meola rocking like black Panthers!!!! Rocking!!!! Rocking!!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR!!!!!

Back to studying.

Jay-Z says

2006-11-15T22:08:00.000-08:00

"30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is the new 20 ... 30 is "

That's coming from a 40-year-old.

Props to Das King Yasin, who moderates here.

It's November, keep it clean

2006-11-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have already fallen out of my blogging habit, so here's a quickie, in honor of the elections and Ohio, Yellow Springs native Chappelle, and all my occasional crack smokers.

I took this a couple years ago on the road.
Sniff-Sniff.

Also Bruno Zaire vs The Jazz show tentatively set for Nov. 22, at the Dinkytowner in Minneapolis featuring Frosted Squirrel.

How wack is this picture? Part II

2006-10-30T11:21:00.001-08:00

Yes, Actually, they are Damian Jr Gong Marley's backup dancers.

If there were any serious disconnects between image and reality at this concert last night, it was the set by Damien Jr Gong Marley. Son of the great, great, reggae legend Bob, not married to Princess Lauryn Hill (that's other brother. Right on, Rohan!). It's not that the music wasn't great. (hater alert) Or interesting. (hater alert) Or stylish. (officially hating now) But was it reggae? Was that the point? Was it reggae-soul? Was it reggae-gold? What is reggae-soul, something the soul crown can get into? Was it nu-reggae? Or electro-reggae? Eddie Grant reggae, smoothed out on the R&B tip? Certainly, there was some roots reggae, then jazz reggae with that Joshua Redman like solo (smooth brother, smooth, *note click and watch do not press enter).

There was a reggae-looking dude on stage waving a flag back and forth for the entire show. (Ire mon). There was an old-rasta head/Burning Spear look-a-like who came on stage and big upped Marley during a well timed-set intermission. Respect. But, I am curious about Jr Gong's reggae. Like I said, twasn't a bad show, but I am not sure this was the organically berthed Blue Mountain coffee I was looking for or the Dunkin Donuts variety, which I am also told is good ...

Jr Gong's reggae has lots of synths. Lot's of funky drumming. Lot's of slick baselines, and whirling funkadelic key-notes, released from a very big soundsystem by a sagacious looking rasta keyboard player who not only looks like he's getting jiggy behind the Kurzweil, but gives anyone standing on the carefully arranged stage a dirty look if they don't. Oh, and Jr Gong has backup dancers. They sing too, and that's not only Rasta, that's also Gangsta. Gangsta-Rasta!

My mind has been cooped up in some non-social/corporate shit for awhile, so I thoughts to me-self, maybe this is just how out-of-step I've become. Maybe, I missed the whole nu-reggae boat, I'm thinking Stone Love, and this is the year 2006. I want rockin' dub, sound system science, and people are talking to me about Radiodred. I am at the Tony Starks show and people want to give me free tickets to The Streets.

I digress... Truth is, I am not a hater because it's fun to hate, which it is, but also it is right to hate. Without hating, we would lost in a world of post-modern modalities, and neither George "Honkeylips" Bush or Osama would be right, or wrong.

Jr Gong had some interestings songs, whatever music he plays is an interesting place for reggae to go, retred Americanization filtered back to us in Jamaican patois, a process increasingly recognized as globalization. It's all good, really. Where would Taco Bell and Tupac be without it. If you don't agree, please go see Jr Gong for yourself and get an edumacation. And when you go, please pay special attention to the fine backupdancerswhocansing, from here on out called BWCS.

From the back of the prison-like-gynasium/auditorium the BWCS looked goog. Fine. Big women, like how women are supposed to look like Jamaica. No, these weren't the svelt, Afrodivas of Bob Marley's touring days, the Three I's. No, these were real, Jamaican women.
Healthy Bigg 'uns. Rubenesque. Stout. I was pround of my man Jr. Takes after ol' dad, but flips it on some modern dancehall shit. Ire, man. Gangsta!

But then we moved up. Closer, so I could get a better picture with my camera phone. From the second level, things were different. The BWCS were still big, but just not as fine. In fact, maybe they were a little too big. Big enough maybe for gospel choir, and as I say that let me tell you Mo'Nique is a one, fine, woman. Big enough for that. Big enough to be Jamaican, and who doesn't love Jamaican women. I'd say the BWCS were big enough to hit high notes just right. In that operatic sense. You can't really imagine an opera diva hitting those piercing, transcendent notes, not to mention wearing one of those funky vikings helmets, standing onstage without having a little extra love to her. Tthat's all right. Can't hate on that.
But the problem was they also sounded like opera singers at some point. I've heard reggae with harp before, but I don't know about a reggae aria.

These women could certainly move — they were under the watchful eye of the Rasta piano-player/overseer. And move they did. Gyrating about their hour-glass frames in stilletto boots, like wooden Russian dolls glued to spinning tops. And just when the music picked up into a churning, cinematic, reggae-soul crescendo, complete with snare drum pops and stuccatto word-power, the BWCS began to perq out like Beyonce in the ring the alarm video. As Paris Hilton says, That's hot. In fact it's Rasta-gangsta. Ire-Rasta-Gangsta. Kinda like my cool photo from the show. Scratch and sniff.

The Snoop show was dope, too. But I can't post on that right now. Too $hort was onstage, being OG and hyphy. JT BiggaFinger, Sam Quin and others were hyphy as well.

How wack is this picture? Part I

2006-10-30T10:59:00.001-08:00

You're at a concert. A fun concert. You're having a good time. A really good time. Someone waves a lighter in the air. Another person waves their cellphone. A second. a third. The onstage celebrity tells you it's alright. If you don't have a lighter, go ahead and wave that cellphone in the air. This is where the temptation steps in the picture. You've got the cellie aloft. It's got a camera function on it, a Zoom G, other funny letters behind it. The setting is good, the time is right. Why not preserve the moment for all time? Save that image of the concert for all posterity. Snap a picture on your camera phone. I assure you... three years, maybe three months, quite frankly three minutes afterwards, you'll be asking yourself, How wack is this picture? and, Why did I think this was a good idea?

Went to the Snoop Dogg show last night in San Francisco. Not only did I find myself asking myself this about my photo (which, of course, I took in order to test this theory), but also of every other nerd after me who rose their digital hood pass in their air, with one of two "silly" things in mind: 1) Whatever I get from this photomaker will be really good?; 2) I am a member of the digital age.

This photo above, perfect example. This photo will not go in any photo album of my concert adventures with Snoop Dogg. This photo will not win me a job with Annie Leibovitz and end up in Lens magazine. There is no Glenn Friedman in my future. If I show this to my child 15 years from now, they will laugh at me, and they probably should.

Note, there are a few forms. The back of a man in a white tee, isnt he drinking. Oh, here we go, this one is cool because there's a lot of purple. And look at those stage lights! Check that posterization! Not a photographer, or a tech snob, but I gotta say this looks like one of those (usually more) interesting throwaway prints you get from Walgreens: the "the camera was between"-frames-when-you-took-this shots. Or the over/underexposed, ghost shots. You might tack it up on the wall or cut it into some bad art, but it's making its way to the trash very soon. This picture is what my friend Yasboogie calls Chico gar-Bage and those who take them and think they are contributing to digital life are his backup singers.

Actually they are Damien "Jr Gong" Marley's backup singers ...

Project Trojans

2006-10-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

Lots of buzz today about the Project Trojans gang in Northern California. On Wednesday, there was a huge raid in North Richmond, 200 sheriffs-cops- FBI-ATF-AZT characters running around with M-16s, busting down doors, etc., like in The Wire, COPS, et al.

Newspapers reporting 15 arrested in Richmond. Simultaneous sweeps in Sacramento involving 400 officers netted 10. So far only 6 have been charged in Federal court.

FBI describes the PJTs as "a violent criminal street gang that has controlled North Richmond through violence, fear, and intimidation to maintain dominance of highly profitable narcotics sales to residents in North Richmond and surrounding Bay Area communities."

News articles described the use of flash bang grenades on targets, Baghdad-like securing of entire city blocks. The investigation apparently utilized wiretaps over a period of several months.

"Amerika! Fuck ya!" I don't know what it's like to live in NR, but it sounded pretty shitty on Tuesday.

Do the math. Over 600 police used to round up at best 25 people. Seizures were in the range of 3 to 92 grams of drugs. No more than 30 weapons seized between the two cities. Photos in the local papers showed a homeless man among those being rounded up. Charges included "loitering in a drug-dealing area, bothering a police dog or parole violations." It's the third such massive raid in Richmond this year, the city with the highest per capita homicide rate in CA, I believe. An earlier raid netted 6 suspects. The Project Trojans are said to include 2,000 in their number. Law enforcement says their members have committed 90 percent of the murders in North Richmond over the last 10-20 years.

They say these inner city kids are shitty at math, but something about 30-40 arrests for all this GI Joe seems pretty pathetic to me.

End of the day, the Norteños, punk rocking MS 13 and Mexican Mafia control way more territory and death in California. But I guess since they don't star in the best TV show in the world, they don't get the government going Baghdad on they ass.

Taking down suspects in homes, you know there were more than a few babies, mommas, and babies mommas temporarily deafened/blinded by the deployment.

I started this post thinking there was an infamous dead Bay Area rapper associated with the PJTs, but I am mistaken. More from Richmond soon.

Anyways, this is the type of shit I smell up.