Nothing gives me chills like Douglas and Tyson
So my hip-hop binge has continued. Today I’m listening to “Can’t Forget About You” by Nas, featuring Chrisette Michelle. Enjoy.
Archive for 'Life'
Like Thousands Beside Me in the Queue
This is kind of a random post, it’s a video from Christy Moore’s “Live at the Point 2006.” The song is titled Ordinary Man, one of my favorites from the album, and I’ve been listening to it on repeat for a while now so I figured I’d share. Christy is amazing throughout his performance and his counterpart, Declan Sinnott, absolutely soars through the song. Enjoy!
Giving Up Social
On Fat Tuesday this year I was puzzling over what I should give up for Lent. I couldn’t decide and I couldn’t decide, until I heard Leo Laporte of TWiT joke that he should give up Twitter. So I thought why not? Heck I’ll take it a step further and cut out all social networking from my digital life for over a month. Well, at the time of this writing I’m within a week of Easter and I just wanted to share how it went.
When I started this whole experiment I assumed that giving up Facebook would be the hardest part. Cutting ties with all of the people I know in real life? That has to be worse than giving up people I’ve probably never met. That said, I have to say, keeping away from Twitter was as struggle! Everyone has a twitter page these days and that tends to be what they want to plug 9 out of 10 times. Do you want to hear what “so-and-so” is up to these days? You better be on Twitter!
Personally I’m shocked by this development. I never would have thought I’d be more secure with folks on Twitter than I would be with others, whom I know, on Facebook.
Hunger
Hunger is a English-made move about the Irish Republican-led “no-wash” and hunger strikes in Belfast’s Maze Prison. The main character is Bobby Sands, one of the most notable hunger-strikers, but the movie isn’t entirely about his crusade. To be honest, I bought this movie because I’m generally interested in such things and a friend recommended it to me, but boy was it depressing. I always knew that Bobby Sands died during the hunger strike and that the prisoners were treated poorly, but this brings all that to life. In fact, aside from one 20 minute interlude close to the middle of the movie, there are very few moments that won’t turn your stomach or put you on edge.
It’s hard to recommend Hunger unless you’re interested in the conflict in Northern Ireland in the early 80’s, and to be honest it’s probably one of those movies that I’ve seen once but won’t watch again. It’s not a pleasant movie to watch (for a reason), but it does make you appreciate what those men went through a whole lot more. I also appreciate that the movie is presented matter-of-factly, and tries its best to stay out of the way with rhetoric. When you watch Hunger you see a series of events and an occasional conversation, capped by white-on-black text explaining the situation both before and after the movie.
If you’re interested in Hunger please make sure you have a strong stomach going into it. The last half hour or so you’re basically watching someone starve to death, which isn’t at all pleasant. That being said if you want to know more about The Maze and prison treatment during “The Troubles” feel free to give it a look.
My Lenten Journal
The following posts aren’t current, but in fact were recorded during my break from social media during the season of Lent. These were recorded in a program called Mac Journal with the intent to provide a log of what went down while I was “offline.” Please note that because I’m basically copying and pasting from MacJournal some of the editing might be a little off. Enjoy…
Half-Human, Half-Vladimir Putin
It’s been a while since I’ve touched on music, so it’s time to break that trend. Today I received my Melatonin Magik hoodie in the mail so I figured I’d post a pic of that and link a new track from the album. If you haven’t been keeping up, Melatonin Magik is the latest album from (my personal favorite) rapper Canibus. I bought the hoodie a while back but was surprised to find a bonus sampler CD in the box signed by Canibus himself. One of my favorite tracks on the album comes straight from Melatonin Magik, and is called “Post Traumatic Warlab Stress.” A picture of the hoodie/signed CD and song are below.
Hoodie with signed Magik Sampler (click to enlarge):
Post-Traumatic Warlab Stress:
From Somers Town to Surrey Docks With a KMRIA
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – my taste in music is very odd. One moment I’ll be listening to Canibus, best rapper alive, and the next I’ll be listening to the irish folk stylings of The Pogues. I think the common theme in the music I enjoy is that it tells a story, which is obvious when it comes to folk music but less-so in hip-hop. Anyways, one of my favorite songs by The Pogues is actually a demo called “Transmetropolitan.” The link is below.
O Helga Natt
I always listen to this youtube video around Christmas time as it’s one of the most moving versions of “Oh Holy Night” I think I’ve ever heard. Performed by Jussi Bjorling, labeled by some as “The Perfect Tenor,” this song has got to be emotionally moving to anyone with a pulse. My favorite part is round-about 1:11 minutes in, where it really kicks off. Unfortunately the uploader has disabled embeds for the video. Anyways, hit the link below and enjoy, but most of all have a great holiday!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nrDfqoYzNo
The Bear
If it wasn’t for music I don’t know what I’d do sometimes. I recently caught an episode of Penny-Arcade: The Series, and there was this track featured by Alex Mauer simply called “The Bear.” The song was so provocative that it inspired me to purchase Alex’s full album on-the-spot. Truthfully, I didn’t know I was purchasing a physical album (I presumed it would be an MP3 download) but I’ve since received (and ripped) Alex’s ”9999,” and it was well-worth the purchase.
Unfortunately there is no online version of the song that I can find, so you’ll have to watch the episode of Penny Arcade linked above to see what I’m talking about. I’d recommend taking a look either way, since their show personifies my dream job. The song shows up at approximately 7:00 minutes.
