The Miscellany News

I remember Cas playing me that cassette with the Lauryn Hill freestyle back in the day. It was pretty amazing. That also reminds me of the time Black Thought allowed some Poughkeepsie hecklers at a live show on the Vassar quad to come onstage and display their skills, which were almost comically lacking. Mr. Thought then followed up with a scorching (what I assume to be) freestyle that I wish I had a tape of to this day. I'm no rap aficionado, but I believe he harnessed the power of the cosmos and converted it into dark virtuoso energy which was hurled at the pretenders, flaying the flesh from their bones, leaving only tottering husks of wet, red, man-meat that soon collapsed into steaming piles of offal. Biohazard crews were alerted for the cleanup. Maybe it doesn't sound that good on tape, who knows.

I went to the zoo yesterday, fell in love with the monkeys all over again. Technically, gibbons and gorillas. Two gibbons which co-habitated with a tapir embarked on a dangerous venture to scoop bugs from the tapir's ear for snacking, one leaning from a nearby log to preform the extraction while the other appeared to hold his fur to keep him from falling. Elsewhere, two young gorillas wrestled, occasionally sprinting to the windows and drumming on the glass to the crowd's delight.

In other ventures of spectatorship, I found myself transfixed for a good twenty minutes the other day, watching a squeegee man on ninth avenue from the window of my workplace. The waiting for red lights to pounce, the angry drivers, his struggles with suddely activated wiper blades, his occasional victories... it was suddenly 1983 all over again.

And on a similar tip of iniquity/inequity, why is my local Starbucks indistinguishable from a methadone clinic at 9am on a weekday? These last two paragraphs have me skating dangerously close to the edge of 'ivory tower asshole'. Oh, I think I found my new band name!

My 25 Favorite Hip-Hop Albums

The excellent blog Straight Bangin' is using the internets for good. They've asked bloggers and anyone with some passion for the hip hop to submit their personal lists of the 25 greatest hip hop albums of all time. My chum and fellow internets celebrity, Rafi clued me in to the excellent communal effort and after much deliberation and nostalgic waxings, this is what I came up with:

BUHLOONE MIND STATE – De La Soul

Those first three De La albums have an amazing batting average. As I recall, this album was not terribly popular and I remember hearing that De La felt profoundly disappointed by how few units got moved. I hope they've made some peace with this album as I think it comes very close to being a perfect listen. No weak moments. Total balance. This is not an album to shuffle. Much better when listened to in its entirety. I heard 3 Feet again recently. Ridiculous album. Prince Paul: Greatest producer ever? C'mon. He's at least in the discussion...

THE PREDATOR – Ice Cube

This rap album got me into rap. Though I loved PE, the Fat Boys and Grandmaster Flash as a youth, I didn't really recognize it as a genre until this album hit me in the brain. "When Will They Shoot" is pure powerful. Still rock it. Still holds up.

RAISING HELL – Run DMC

I have this on vinyl. My dad gave this to me along with Tougher than Leather and Licensed to Ill - which for some reason he'd picked up and added to his massive LP collection. More lyrical and musical than most rock albums of the same era. "They even bother my poor father cause he's. down. with. me." This is a rap band at its peak.

FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET – Public Enemy

Memorized it. Chuck and Flav are the Woodward and Bernstein of the late eighties rap scene. Epic scope. Truly insightful. Ambitious aesthetic.

ONLY BUILT FOR CUBAN LINKS – Raekwon

Best WU album.

THE LOW END THEORY – A Tribe Called Quest

Tip was well ahead of his time. "What is a poet? All balls no cock." I always took Phife for granted as just a punchline provider. Then Tip went solo. Phife, I just wanted to say I'm sorry. Please get Tribe back together.

THE INFAMOUS – Mobb Deep

I've been listening to the Prodigy solo album over the last couple of weeks. It's good.

LIQUID SWORDS – Gza

"Signal's so deep picked up by radios in tunnels."

ILLMATIC – Nas

Important to me. Important to you. "The type of n**** who be pissin' in your elevator."

MIDNIGHT MARAUDERS – A Tribe Called Quest

"Tip, settle down, what's the reason for the laughter?"
"I really can't say. I guess I laughed to keep from crying. So much going on. People killing. People dying."

ENTER THE 36 CHAMBERS – Wu-Tang
READY TO DIE – Notorious B.I.G
THE BLACK ALBUM – Jay-Z

"99 Problems" is up there on the greatest rap songs of all time list.

AMERIKKKA’S MOST WANTED – Ice Cube
SEX PACKETS – Digital Underground
BLACK ON BOTH SIDES – Mos Def

The song "New World Water" is for all those people who say rappers only rap about the same few subjects.

SUPREME CLIENTELE - Ghostface
VOLUME 3: LIFE AND TIMES OF S. CARTER – Jay-Z

"Go read a book you illiterate sonovabitch" - from Big Pimpin.'
That line always makes me laugh.

THE MARSHALL MATHERS LP – Eminem

"Kill you" is the definition of crisp.

THE SCORE – Fugees

A friend of a friend once gave me a live Fugees freestyle ripped from the radio entitled "Battle of the Sexes," where Lauryn challenges Wyclef and Pras to a battle. They had angered the "Nina Simone defecating on your microphone" songstress by disrespecting the women in the audience. Wyclef does a clearly well-rehearsed rearrangement of lines that Lauryn Hill then utterly obliterates with a REAL straight off the dome freestyle. Of course I lost this cassette and have been unable to find this freestyle. Does anyone have it? The sweetest moment is when Lauryn cracks herself up with the line "... you want my titties in your mouth..." I wish I could remember more of it.

CHECK YOUR HEAD – Beastie Boys

Not ashamed to admit that I used to lip sync and mosh at parties with two other guys to So Watcha Want. One time, one guy got so into it, he threw the other guy through a wall. Everyone was fine through the healing power of The Beastie Boys.

NIGGA PLEASE – Ol’ Dirty Bastard

John Candy. Kurt Cobain. Big Baby Jesus. Deaths that didn't really make sense to me. Personally meaningful pop culture icons whose presence I took for granted on this Earth. I just assumed they'd live forever. I miss Dirty.

MADVILLAINY – MF Doom/MadLib
BIZARRE RIDE II THE PHARCYDE – The Pharcyde

Saw Fat Lip in concert a couple months ago. He asked for a volunteer from the audience to rap two of the parts from Passing Me By. Thought thoroughly hard about doing it. Thoroughly chickened out.

RESURRECTION – Common Sense

Some mind-blowing metaphors going on here. At least at the time, they were sufficiently mind-blowing. The band that made Common Sense become Common should be ashamed of themselves. His music has suffered since the namechange. But this record still kills.

HONORABLE MENTION - BIG & BEAUTIFUL - The Fat Boys

Don't hate on the The Fat Boys.

Go get these albums if you trust my tastes. Or if you don't - and who can blame you (John Candy?) - then wait for Straight Bangin' to publish the consummate list darn soon.

iTunes

Why does iTunes only occasionally let you download liner notes for albums?

I hate when I click on the photo in the little iTunes menu bar and all I get is a moderately bigger version of that photo.

That would be a great place for some production credits, some thank yous, whatever the hell else I want to know about the musician I'm rocking.

Harumph.

FIRST!

Chances are if you're reading this on a computer, you're familiar with FIRST posting.

But if you're not, First posters are the people who try with all their might to be the first people to comment on a new blog posting. They symbolize their pioneering ways by not just posting the first comment but by having that first comment be literally "FIRST."

In related news, I just made a new movie. It's called: "FIRST!"

You can find it HERE .

It makes fun of first posters.

Josh Weisbrot shot it. I am in it.

I tried to explain First posting to my parents and was met with a healthy, awkward silence.