This blog post combines beards and tattoos.

Also: my pal/coworker Kalon was talking to me today about how he thinks 'Hit Em Up' is a really good dis song. I, however, think Tupac is the most overrated figure in the history of rap music. So here are a few dis songs that I think are better (YouTube and SendSpace links, I dunno how long they'll last):

Canibus - 2nd Round Knockout (amateur YouTube slideshow video)
Common - The Bitch In You
(amateur YouTube slideshow video)
Jay-Z - Takeover (mix from Jay/Nas beef mixtape, with extended live intro and cutting between live (MTV Unplugged, w/the Roots) and vinyl versions)
Nas - Ether (great amateur YouTube video)
Everlast - Whitey's Revenge (mp3 link)
Evidence - Search 4 Bobby Fisher (mp3 link--yeah, they're both Eminem disses, and no, I don't think Em's dis songs are that great--not even close to his best work)

This is, of course, the tip of the iceberg. I've left out Shan/KRS, UTFO/Shante, LL/Moe Dee, Cube/NWA, Dre/Eazy, El-P/Sole and quite a few others (though a lot of the others didn't produce any good songs).  ¶ 4:54 PM 1 comments

  Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

(transcript from an Iowa campaign stop, quoted in the New York Times)  ¶ 2:17 PM 1 comments

  Five brief reviews:

Books:

The End of Faith, Sam Harris. Preaching to the converted. A jeremiad. Even language is suffused with this shit, and Sam Harris is madder than I am about it. Great for people who think Richard Dawkins is too moderate.

The Dramatist, Ken Bruen. Irish noir. Somewhere between James Crumley and Michael Connelly. My new crime fiction obsession.

Albums:

Security, Antibalas. Produced by some guy from Tortoise, which doesn't mean a lot to me. Much broader, musically, than some of their past stuff. Kinda like Nu Tones versus the older Nomo albums. Amayo only sings on two songs. Very good, and highly recommended.

Freedom Serenade, Malone & Barnes And Spontaneous Simplicity. Kinda slick and smooth, I wasn't real crazy about this at first. With each listen, though, it's growing on me. M&B&SS were part of the same scene that the Blackbyrds and Oneness of Juju came from. That's Oneness of Juju, the second-generation, funk-lite, r&b kinda group, not Juju, the Afrocentric, somewhat soul-/free-jazz incarnation, and that distinction is an important one.

Videogame:

Trauma Center: Under the Knife (Nintendo DS). Harder than I was expecting. And the cutscenes move slo-o-owly. I wouldn't think that someone who reads that slowly could ever make it through medical school. That said, the DS is still the platform with the most interesting and ambitious games, and I don't expect that to change until fall, if ever.  ¶ 12:16 PM 0 comments

  "The King of Lies moves and reads like a book on fire.... An amazing new talent."--a blurb from Pat Conroy, on the cover of Southern-lawyer-turned-novelist John Hart's debut novel, which comes heavily endorsed by the Wall Street Journal.

I was thinking that Pat Conroy was the guy who whored himself to the cruise industry, as mentioned in David Foster Wallace's 'Shipping Out,' but, in fact, that was the late Frank Conroy, a much more respectable writer (he taught at Iowa for years, and his Stop-Time is quite good). Pat Conroy wrote The Prince of Tides. Prince of Tides, King of Lies, Queen of the Damned... fans of books-turned-into-movies, formulaic titles and naked greed, take note.  ¶ 10:11 AM 0 comments