Justin's Birthday
Was last night. We all pitched and got him a sick Vestax turntable and Justin seriously cried. It was so great to see his face. He's still a pussy.
kidding, kidding... Rachel organized the whole fête, which was really impressive. Organizing, feeding, and moving around 15 people, especially slackjobs like us, takes skill. Plus the Vestax is a sick turntable, cause it's portable. Justin can plug into any of our stereos and DJ. He can listen to records on the Metro too.
Rachel made these sick baked potatoes with salsa and sour cream and beans and stuff. I ate some Schwarz's Smoked Meat at 1 or 2 am... so goood.
For the party we hung out at Rachel's Plateau apartment, and then the herd moved to Jupiter Room, across the street from Schwarz's. Some rappers from Toronto were performing ... this white kid I met at the afterparty, Lucas. The crowd wasn't feeling him so much. There was this other dude, Kamal, who the audience did feel.
MCing is going up on stage with just a Mic, just standing in front of a crowd. You have to keep their attention, or it's sooooo embarassing. Scary. Made me think about attention, like, the first guy that got up there and talked about bitches and guns must have gotten attention. Can't sit up there and talk about boring, positive shit. It's just boring, our attention is naturally drawn to Sex and Violence.
Race dynamics in Rap are interesting too. Or should I say, racism. White kids just don't get respect. I don't give them respect, they have to work for it. I'm telling you, the next thing is Sri Lankan gangsta rappers from Jaffna. Those kids are gangsta for real.
these are some Lanka soldiers in a captured Tamil Tiger bunker.
Rap is still a part of Black Culture. Kamal had the advantage of being black. Plus he was just good and confident and communicated with the audience. I still think this backpacker shit is a little dull, cause I like Jay-Z and Nelly and DMX and Mobb Deep (MP3 links)... but was interesting.
Gave me some ideas.
I never fully understand what rappers are saying, and I'd like to... It'd be cool if you could read along with the lyrics as they say them. You could pipe the Mic channel through a laptop and run Speech Recognition. Dragon Naturally Speaking (etc) can convert speech to text... and you could project the text on a screen.
So people could read along, it'd be sick. You'd have to enunciate and talk slower than 160 wpm, and turn the monitor down, but I think it's possible. Speech-to-Text has been around since the 80s, methinks.
anyways, Mat (www.barefeetonbraille.com) finished his MCATS, so he exists again. Bitch-ass 8 hour exam to get in to Med School. "Oh, he's going to be a doctor." I still remember that JAP girl saying that. She was talking to Rich, leaned over, smiled, and touched his leg. Fuck that. Med School seems interesting though. Mat's going to be pimping hard.
Here's a picture of Mat eating a pogo on the steps of the Plateau police station at 3 in the am. From a long time ago. We made a mess on the steps and the Cops chased us away.
I didn't even take any pictures of Justin, but is OK, told the kid I'm proud of him. Justin works hard, he's Assistant Director of McGill Residences and he does all this Brain Research and shit. Yeah yeah. But fuck all that shit. He's my friend.
Justin was telling me Michel Foucault talked about the stuff I posted last, like the cultural norms that people use to categorize (and judge) others, like jobs and degrees. I should actually read Foucault some time, heard lot 'bout him.
A huge power failure swept through parts of the Northeast, Midwest and Canada today, shutting down trains, subways and airports from New York City to Detroit, forcing people into the streets.