Quick Recap of Graff event

Field notes Converted to Blog Notes.

Hip hop did not die…it just moved to Berlin.

Break dancers really like making gestures about ejaculating

Now I understand why there is an all womens graff jam

Rap in german just sounds unpleasant

Seeing the graff battle and seeing people timed while doing a throw-up reminds me of that scene in I’m Gonna Get you Sucka where they time people thieving from a car.

Funny how security people are always brown no matter what country you’re in

NY caps are most popular 2nd is Chicago White Sox…surprising. Go New Era. and Globalization.

Everyone still loves DA Bulls.

I have never thought that the smell of spray paint could be overpowered…I was wrong…smelled good.

Seeing a little graff kid walk up to a “legend” and asking him to tag his black book was really precious.

Nightmares

A Friend is coming to town, so I won’t be blogging til Sunday when they leave. So here is a bulk of posts.

It is 6 in the morning and I just woke up in a cold sweat. I just had my first nightmare in I cannot remember how long. For the past few months I have been telling a “friend” that I have been craving a nightmare. Craving the rush of adrenaline, craving the excitement that comes from being scared.But after having one. I can only say that I was so so wrong.

Granted, the nightmare I had envisioned involved monsters or killers…think vampires or Texas chainsaw Massacre (the original), while what just happened had neither.  What my nightmare did have was police.

I have always been frightened of the police. Maybe it is cause I am black. Or maybe it is because their authority and license to do as they please scares the crap out of me. My complete fear of them could also have to do with the fact that a chicago police officer tried to hit me when I was skating at the tender age of 15.

I fear getting arrested. I fear going to jail…mostly because I am not built for jail. Jail would be a death sentence for me. But not because of a shanking. Rather cause of the repeated rape and inevitable HIV transmission. Sigh.

Police scare me so much that they make me feel like I am doing something wrong even when I am not…but I guess that is the point. They scare us so much so we monitor our behavior so they don’t have to. Oh self-discipline.

Christ, I really hope that dreams don’t mean anything. Really hope that this was just random neurons firing and not a look into my near future…

The Stench of Cool: Hipsters in the Summer

My B for taking a few days off. In a word,Hospital. Thankfully not me, but someone I love very much. 

Anyway I have been driving back and forth from my place in Bucktown and the hospital all week, and like a very irresponsible driver I spend a lot of time blaring bangers and looking at the cool kids on the sidewalk and flashing by me on their fixies (I am not being completely demeaning here-i actually envy all of the young idle rich and their shiny bikes, for reals).

Anywho I noticed something, (male) Hipster fashion aint really meant for the summer (sans the graphic T). Fall yes. Spring yes. Summer fuck no. Why? Flannel, Plaid, cardigans, jeans, cords, beanies, hoodies, facial hair.

Needless to say these articles of clothing don’t breathe. Really they just hold their breath, which has got me wondering-is what makes this stuff cool in the summer the amount of perspiration that comes of these choices?  

Why do you think so many “hipsters” try to carry fall fashion into the summer?  Is it to emphasize their street cred? To show that they really are struggling artists and cannot afford a summer line? Is it to protest the market that tells us we need new clothes for every season and every year? Is it because they all are just cold hearted and need the layers? Is it because we not only want to look homeless but also want to smell homeless?

I don’t know. I know I am guilty of this. I rock my green beanie regardless of weather conditions. I rock jeans that don’t breathe every day rain or shine. and I like so many of my other comrades in tattoo covered arms I sweat profusely as a result.

So maybe I should start with myself. Why do I do this? Well, 

I don’t like shopping in chicago-way too hectic

I am living out of college boxes and have yet to find everything

Finally, I hate shorts, don’t like brushing my hair, and don’t like everyone seeing my tattoos. 

Anyway point of this post is this:

Hipsters smell in the summer. 

Well I guess the AIDS is in our Chicken Nuggets…it is a METAPHOR pt. 2

Well this news actually broke a week or so ago, but at the time I had other things to write about so I passed on talking about it, and instead I just used this gem as dinner party conversation. But now, a week later, I am way too distracted by bikes like this to write anything new so here it is:

On April 14th the hipster uniform supplier American Apparel, whose catalog also functions as a stroke book for emerging post-pubescent alt. boys, announced that they will be putting RFID tags in their clothes. You can read the full story HERE, but the gist of it is that these little (half the size of a grain of sand) tags are going to be on American Apparel clothing.

The reason American Apparel execs are happy about it is because they will ” increase sales and customer service by having real-time visibility into product at nearby stores, enhancing the intra-store transfer process to balance stock. Furthermore, the retailer will be able to respond more efficiently to market behavior by using RFID to record and report on purchases, not only within one location, but across a region of stores.”

Meaning, they will know when something is out of stock, track what is getting sold and where, track their goods over the supply chain because unlike a barcode which is the same for every product, these bad boys are specific to individual products.

Reasons Surveillance obsessed neurotic people like me are worried:

What this also means is that there is now the distinct possibility of being tracked through our personal possessions.

What!? Why?

“When RFID chips are embedded in your ID cards, your clothes, your possessions, you are effectively broadcasting who you are to anyone within range.” Since the products each have an individualized RFID tag the store will log exactly which products you purchased, at what store, and at what time of the day it was purchased.

While there is talk about how the chips don’t have the strength to send signal long distances it is disconcerting that American Apparel will now have it logged that Teddy F bought the purple V-neck crew shirt from the Chicago store on Milwaukee on march 12th 2008 at 3:30 pm.

Over time American Apparel would then collect detailed info regarding your purchase history and then use it to pitch products…bring on the junk mail and personalized advertisements that invade your privacy. God forbid you buy your goods with a debit card or credit card.

Worse however is that RFID tags (drum roll please) could also lead to tracking once you leave the store . Yep, Tracking Don’t Stop. While companies say that tracking stops at check out, they only rewrite part of the code at checkout…meaning you are walking around with a beacon once you leave. While “they” say the signal is not strong enough to track you in the street, it is really weird to think that your consumer identity, personal info like address and telephone number, and financial records are going to be stored in your garment. This is weird cause all it would take is some e-savvy criminal to scan your product after you bought it and then retrieve your personal info, banking info, and patterns of behavior (where you shop).

Basically this opens up the possibility for a new level of stalking and identity theft.

So thanks American Apparel, at least now when you are assaulting me with adverts on your latest polka dot hoodies and making me vulnerable to identity theft/stalking I know your stores will always be fully stocked.

Fuck You Itunes. Enough is Enough

For Four Years I have paid for nearly all of my music either by way of going to Reckless Records in Chicago or by visiting the ITunes store. I felt pretty good about myself cause I do think that the music you enjoy should be paid for most times. Obviously there were sacrifices. Like I could not get every piece of music I wanted, but on the other hand I put a lot of thought into my purchases and was not such a music floozy. Plus I liked the feeling of having the material cd and being able to look at album art and liner notes. I tunes was nice because it was convenient, and I am sucker for Itunes sessions.

.99 cents seemed like a legit price, and even when I later learned that bands were not seeing as much of that as I was previously told I kept buying cause I thought at least they are getting something. Anyway yesterday I had a change of heart. I realized that what I thought was a healthy relationship with itunes was in fact them exploiting me, abusing me, and ramming their proverbial capitalist cock in orifices that are much too small and not made for that sort of thing. Ok I am getting ahead myself. Let me go back a few.

Yesterday I jumped on a bandwagon. I invested in a program that would allow me to be like every other scene kid and make mash-ups and remixes. Anyway when I finally got the program all installed and did a lot of reading on how to use the damn thing I was unpleasantly surprised to learn that I could not import, let alone, remix any of the god damn music I PAID FOR. I am not planning to resell this stuff. At the very most I was planning on making my friends suffer through my presumably trite and shitastic remixes when they came over to my place to play Wii.

Fuming I told my friend, and he told me itunes plus (in the itunes store) let you change the songs so that you could use them in the program. Well I went there only to learn that it cost another god damn .33 cents to change them. Another .33 cents for a song I already paid for. This is when I realized I had had enough.

So in short, FUCK YOU Itunes. Not only are you a super invasive program that asks for so much personal information that I am sure you are actually a government agency, but now you are asking me to repay for things I ALREADY paid for. I am done with you. I will still buy records but not from your exploiting ass. I am out.

Sidenote…when your power goes out in your apartment and you have to toss a bunch of stuff that was in your fridge, cant watch tv, use a computer, or have any idea of what time it is, you question how people lived 100 years ago.

Chicago…the 1st City

Missing Chicago much these days. So this post is a dedication to some Chicago Musical Groups I fancy…

Cool Kids

Kid Sister

Flosstradamus

The first time is always awkward

This could be a decision I regret, or it could be the beginning of a beautiful, yet awfully pretentious, habit. I don’t know. All I know is that unisom is not kicking in, I have a book full of random thoughts after three months of summer, and internet for the moment. So here I am E-world, and I am blogging like the rest of the millions of people who think that what they have to say is remotely important. Ok, enough of the self-aware slightly self-conscious introduction and onto tonight’s pontification…
So the other day I am driving in my car and in a moment of upper-middle class misfortune my ipod runs out of battery. Unwilling to go a moment without some kind of sound other than the AC and the cacophony of honking horns that are the soundtrack of Chicago rush hour I turned to the radio.
It has been a while since I have listened to the radio but like riding a bike I fell right back into it. In a matter of minutes I was surfing channels and perfecting my commercial avoidance techniques like a seasoned pro, and rather unexpectedly I found myself actually enjoying the radio experience.
So there I am, tapping my thumbs and bobbing my head to the latest and greatest top 40 when it hits me like a ton of platinum stunnah shades: the choruses in top 40 rap are made up of all the things I heard from various adult figures growing up.
The radio plays “walk it out” “party like a rock star” from UNK and the Shop boys but what I really hear is my little league coach telling me to walk it out after I just got nailed in the leg by a ball hit by some steroid junky kid or my ridiculous friend from middle school telling me we are going to party like rock stars at his b-day bash at laser quest.
Now, perhaps my overweight coach and oily faced friend of mine were ahead of their time. Maybe. Or maybe we are stuck in some kind of alternate universe where that which is uncool is so excessively unhip that it becomes cool again. Perhaps the lyrics in these songs are the grapes of life in that they can be left out the “cool” cellar for long periods of time, undergo fermentation, and then once again be valuable.
I do not know for sure. All I know is that we are living in some kind of paradox when UNK is spouting the same line as a little league coach, the paragon of uncool.
So hey what to do about this?
Excellent question. As I see it you have two options. Option 1.) listen closely to the things your mom tells you to do and then write a song using a phrase of hers as the chorus. For example: “Can’t go out To’nite.” and make a million bucks
Option 2.) Stop buying, or even stealing this music, and send these guys the message that you the listener will not tolerate this level of plagiarism and utter disregard for standards of cool.

Remember, everything that is shiny ain’t platinum.