Monday, August 29, 2005

Doodoo doo doo doo Ich Liebe Es!

Being a typical american in a european country, where do I decide to go eat?

Ah yes, the allure of the golden arches in a foreign land, drew me in like a moth to a flame.

Now before you go all flip wilson about my total and utter lack of culture, let me make two points in my defense.

#1 Nearly everything in germany has some sort of pork or beef byproduct incorporated into to it. Seeing as I don't dine on swine or chow on cow, this leaves me menually challenged at most places.

#2 Secondly and most importantly, you can order a McBier (that's beer is a shiesty cardboard Mikky-deez cup and no, you can't super size it). Let me tell you, I think those folks straight jacked my recipe for Honkey Mcghee cause that is EXACTLY what the McBier tasted like. After my child-sized cup, I felt as if I were punched right in the Medulla Oblongata with a roll of euros.

Next stop... Zurich.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Essential Tracks circa 25-aug-2005

In no particular order...

Gorillaz --"Dirty Harry"-- from Demon Days--good times

Gorillaz --"Dare"-- from Demon Days -- follow-up to feel good inc

Unity --I Love You [Ben Watt Blackness of Night Mix]-- from Buzzin Fly Volume Two--this track is spot on, wish I could find on it wax.

Nookie--Better Love -- from Buzzin Fly Volume Two -- reminds me of a rip off of an older track that you can't find anymore (remix of electric barbarella I think)

Old Crow Medicine Show--"Hard to tell" -- from OCMS New skool/old skool bluegrass

Umphrey's McGee -- "In the kitchen"-- from Anchor Drops--heard it on the flight over, has potential

Johnny Cash -- "City of New Orleans" -- harder to find than you think

Deep Dish --"Dreams" ft. stevie nicks -- from George is on -- Yet another yummy remix of fleetwoodmactypestuff

Psy Craft Feat. DJ Guy Salama--“Alegria”-- from Bpm Fm Trance On Air --hottest jams from the israeli dance scene.

No matter where you go, there you are

I am in munich with a room full of people speaking german. I am drink a bottle of Adelholzener. I am not sure if it is alcoholic. I have been up for 26 hours straight. I really don't care.

Turns out my fear of german cabs was totally unfounded in all aspects less a financial sense. The cabs are mercedes and quite clean. They drive fast, but I guess that's what you'd expect in the land of the autobahn. They cost a lot. I think my cab ride from the airport ended up costing close to $100. Yikes! Stupid ole euro conversion.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Adventures in NY cabs

After returning from new york last night, I have decided to become a red sox fan. Not because I like Boston or even baseball for that matter, but for the sheer hatred of New York Cabs.

Example #1
After exiting Penn Station, I was greeted by a cab liason. He instructed me that he had a cab waiting just down the block (thus avoiding the long cab line) that would get me to my hotel for $12.50. Silly me, fell hook line and sinker and paid him as he loaded my bag into the cab. A block later I was in the cab realizing the liason had no affilition with the cabbie and I was out the money. When I explained the situation to the cabbie, he tried to kick me out of the cab.

Example #2
After realizing there are two Park avenues (north vs south) and that I was at the wrong one a few minutes before my meeting, I dared try the cab experience again (this time keeping a sharp eye out for any so called liasons). I found one on my own, only to discover it was his second day on the job, and probably third in the country. When he started asking me for directions, I knew my bad cab luck was still hanging around my neck. Thankfully, we found the place.

Example #3
In true cabbie fashion, the third gentlemen educated me to the versatility to the F word. Did you ever watch the smurfs? If so, remember how every third word was smurf, smurfing, smurfer, muthasmurfer, smurf you, you muthasmurfing smurf? Well, it was like that, except for the fact that he wasn't dropping smurf bombs, rather the F-word.

Example #4
Cabbie number four was busy talking on his cell phone the entire time. Me managed to run several people off the road, scared native new yorkers out of the cross walks, re-ended another cab, then drove off before I could grab my bag out of his open trunk. For once, rush hour was a blessing and I caught up on foot to grab the bag, but failed to shut the trunk. A block later, NYPD pulled the cabbie over for driving with his trunk open. At least there was some form of instant karma.

Now I am off to Germany and shudder to think what the cabbies there will be like.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Movin on up!

So the whole moving process is proving to be an adventure in stupidity in and of itself.

Exhibit A, a letter we recently received from a company call budget movers.

Okay, the name alone is questionable but the letterhead pretty much guarantees that they are going to either drop your isht or run off with it.

Exhibit B, a movers kit purchased from costco.


While the kit is seems rather innocuous, its contribution to the stupidity of society comes from a footnoted disclaimer hidden in the top right corner of the box.



"Truck not included." No kidding, sherlock. I was under the impression that the box which fit in the back of the imprezza also contained an 18 wheeler. I would give them points for the inclusion of a period. Then again, the glaring omission of a verb doesn't exactly necessitate the requirement for proper punctuation.

In totally unrelated news, I finally fell under Chester Cheetah's pizzalicious spell.

It was only a matter of time.

Finally, I will be on blog hiatus for the next two weeks as I will be in Europe in search of new and interesting 40s for next year's summer party.

Ciao.

Friday, August 19, 2005

1992 rap ownz joo!

Being the sucker for sleep, I implored shannon to lay the smackdown on the snooze button a few extra times this morning, thus I missed my daily installment of Huggy Lowdown on the ride into work.

Instead, I was treated to DJ Rico's morning megamix which consisted largely of tasty funk fueled old school jams from the black michael jackson, Beverly and Maze, and half a dozen other artists you wouldn't necessarily recognize by name, but by their hooks which have peppered all aspects of hip hop production. Rico slipped the much neglected Digital Underground gem, "same song" in the mix and I noticed several interesting things.

Well, two interesting things...

1. The song featured a cameo from Tupac Shakur (he was briefly a backup dancer for DU). I could probably write an entire post on the irony of Tupac getting his start in Hip Hop as a back-up dance for an east coast based rap group. Tupac later went on to become a major
player in the whole east coast/west coast beef which ultimately resulted in his death and the subsequent death of perhaps the greatest mc of all times Christopher Wallace AKA Biggie Smalls AKA the Notorious BIG AKA the black frank white.

2. What really jumped out was the mention of jimmy hats. Aw man, what a throw back! You never hear rappers talk about jimmy hats any more, but back in the early 1990s everyone from Ice Cube "Giving up the Nappy Dugout" to BBD "Do me" was rapping the praises and
importance of the J-to the-I-to the-M-to the-M-to the Y.

There are several points I wish to make here. First, rapping about jimmy hats is funny, hence blogging about rapping about jimmy hats is a jovial way to kick off the weekend.

Furthermore, if one were so inclined to do a content analysis of all chart rated rap music today as compared to 1992 the proportion of jimmy hat dedicated lyrics has dried up (which is equally as bad for jimmy hats as for their related lyrics).

While a rather cheeky observation on the surface, it actually has some rather interesting implications as seen through the social consciousness of rap music. It's just not there anymore, or atleast nowhere near the magnitude as it was in the early 90s and that is a sad thing.

Not that I need a strong social message with my music. If fact, forsome time, I was quite a fan of Akinyele 's "Put it in your mouth" but that's a whole nother story. The decline in social views is a symptom of a more disturbing underlying cause, the commercialization of the music.

1992 rap minus large number of labels minus artist diversity minus actual artists plus MTV = crap like Nelly/songs about rims to thefourth power of bling.

According to a friend of mine from grad school, it is all part of the natural life cycle of music and indicates the progression of the genre as a whole towards acceptance in the artistic community.

According to me, it's crap. Bring back the Lords of the Underground! Give me my Poor Righteous Teachers and Special Eds! Can Wu-Tang survive without ODB? Where is that money Queen Latifah jam UNITY? What is Big Daddy Kane up to these days and does his masterful thesis, "Pimpin ain't easy" still hold true?

All ghosts of a bygone era, but hey I hear A tribe called qwest is getting back together so I will take what I can get at this point. Until then, I will seek comfort in my cassette singles of Das EFX andEPMD (even if I don't have a place to play them).

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Three reasons to love Battle of Reality TV Network Stars

1. The premier episode featured "the swan" beating a midget with a stick

2. Showbiz dad Duncan Nutter AKA Dunk Nutt

3. Previews offer a teaser of what is to come in future episodes... dodge ball, mechanical bulls, and mexican belt fighting

that is all.

* on a side note if anyone can verfiy or better yet produce photographic evidence of a rumored eskimo tradition of pushing the elderly out to sea on an iceberg, please send it my way.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

So long germantown...

As my good friend snoop dog would say...We got a contrizzle on our townhizzle, fo' shizzle my nizzle.

Data suggests it is a really nice area.

One friend even remarked, wow, you must be living in a nice area, your trashman is white.

Personal experience begs to differ.

Consider last year's visit from Ghetto Santa (instead of sliding down the chimney and leaving gifts, he breaks the sliding glass door and steals all of your PS2 games).

Or the whole "snowball" incident where I chased down local hoodlums throwing snowballs at cars only to catch the fat one and subject him a good bout of psychological torture (I would have much rather numchucked him, but my chux were at home). He finally gave up the info on his friends and where he lived as a sort of a plea bargain to avoid being turn over to the police which were "en route" as we spoke.

Not to mention the minor issues with gangs, carjacking or rape.

Somehow the neighborhood pool, walking trail, and local dutch market don't really offset that titanically tumultuous trio --special shout-out to my alliteration posse! Can I get a what-what!

Time to get the F' outta dodge.

So long germantown. I'll miss you and your low rent crime ridden populous.

Siiiiiiiiiike!

take that germantown.

busted!

Sunday, August 14, 2005

WWJD?

What Would Johnny Do?


"I did not vote for Mr. Bush, let's leave it at that." –Johnny Cash

Time for a tribute to a man's man, a man's man in black, Mr. Johnny Cash with a series of interesting trivia tidbits compiled from da net.

After years of berserk drug-guzzling, Johnny Cash cleaned up his act, only to be unseated from 'the wagon' by a bizarre series of events in the early 1980s. Johnny Cash was attacked on his game farm by a belligerent ostrich named Waldo. The incident resulted in the hospitalization of Cash with five broken ribs [and a gash in his stomach nearly disemboweling the Man in Black]. He was put onto pain killers to survive the critical injuries and quickly became an addict again. While recovering, Cash stole cards of Valium and stashed them under his bandages, where they leaked directly into his wounds. Hospital staff were at a loss to explain the singer's comatose appearance until he came to long enough to point to his bandages and avert a near-fatal overdose. He checked himself into the Betty Ford Clinic, successfully quit pain killers, and made friends with Ozzy Osbourne while at the Clinic.

Cash and "American Recordings" posted a thank you to the Nashville country music industry in Billboard Magazine after winning the Grammy for best country record for "Unchained" in the form of the infamous photo of Johnny angrily giving the middle finger to the camera taken back in 1969 during his San Quentin prison performance. Cash did this because he was enraged by Nashville having pretty much left behind him and other aging "country" artists who had defined the genre to make room for the more pop-oriented new country artists, like Garth Brooks.

Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, and Johnny are the only 3 musicians to have been inducted both to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Cash's career was at an all-time low in the 1980s and he realized his record label of nearly 30 years, Columbia, was growing to indifferent to Cash and marketing him, and to kill the relationship with the label before they did, Cash recorded "Chicken in Black." An intentionally awful song about Johnny's brain being transplanted to a chicken, it ironically turned out to be a larger commercial success than any of his other recent material. However, it wasn't long after "Chicken in Black" that Columbia and Cash parted ways.

One day in 1963, Johnny Cash visited a national wildlife refuge in California. Cash enjoyed himself thoroughly, until, he later claimed, some oil from his camper ignited the surrounding grass. The resulting fire destroyed 500 acres of parkland. In court, Cash was asked whether he himself had started the blaze. "No," he replied. "My truck did, and it's dead now so you can't question it." Cash was subsequently fined $125,000.

In his song "Man in Black" he explained that he wore predominately black clothing to honor and remind others of the suffering of the world's poor and oppressed.

Friday, August 12, 2005

And it's not even photoshopped!

Limited edition prints of the Nabob's masterpiece, "Weezy in the Weeds" available soon.

Mixed Messages

Don't you just love it when people say one thing and then do something that totally flies in the face of their previous statement?

So, I was driving home from work last friday (or perhaps the friday before that) listening to WKYS raising the roof like a car packed with AKAs from Wyoming when the DJ touts the radio station's latest and greatest promotion, free gas fridays. He further explains that there had been several accidents caused by people rushing in for the petrol gratis and implored listeners to please take their time and drive carefully.

The aforemention statement of warning was then followed by "oh yeah and we are giving away free Popeye's for the next ten minutes."

Are you kidding me?

As if giving away free gas in the city wasn't enough to cause accidents and potential riots, they decided to kick it up a notch with a limited supply of fried chicken. I nearly did a 180 on 495 when I heard that myself. I have friends that will straight murder your a$$ for some of the sweet sweet cajun battered delight. Quite frankly I am surprised the city is still standing.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Curses!

So... I went to Borders/Barnes and Noble/whatever that big book store is in Reston Town Center at lunch and looked for a good twenty minutes for that damn book. Of course, they didn't have one of those self-help kiosks when I am looking for a book called "Why do men have nipples?"

When I finally mustered the courage to ask the crotchety old librarian looking lady behind the counter (acknowledging the strong likelihood that I may get slapped or at least garner a questionable look), she simply replied "the nipple book is on back order." (in my mind as I write this, I can't help but think that it would have been exponentially more funny/disturbing if she further abbreviated to 'the nipple is on back order,' but I digress).

Apparently the book is quite popular. Second only to Harry Potter on Amazon's best sellers of the last 10 minutes.

HMMMM, maybe someone should write a book "why does harry potter have nipples?" Maybe that's what the ole bird JK has in store for next year.

Simple logic suggests that book would REALLY be a top seller. I bet Michael Jackson would buy a couple thousand copies alone.

El topicos Galoreos!

Somebody's going to the bookstore at lunch time!

I'll have blog fodder for weeks!~

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Electrical outlet evil UTZ jezebel

A new indie rock band?

Has Ben finally gone off the deep end?

Am I dreaming and/or did someone spike my coffee with peyote?

No, No, and possibly, but unlikely.

Some of you may have been confused by the first publishing of the previous post and with good reason. For some inexplicable reason when I went to cut and paste this morning's literary masterpiece from MS word, it selectively omitted a paragraph or two and mis-mashed my links for good measure.

The result? Utter confusion and probably a stock market crash on Mars (you know that whole butterfly effect/chaos theory mumbo jumbo).

Sorry bout that!

Technology! you rascally old so and so!

What’s the deal pickles? Is everything kosher?

Ah yes, the fine words of wisdom from one Huggy Low down, the D.C. Metropolitan area’s favorite celebrity snitch and until 8:07 this morning -- my latest guilty pleasure of the moment.

Every morning around 6:50 Donnie Simpson (no relation to homer—he’s a morning radio personality on WPGC) receives a check in from Mr. Low Down. The typical HLD conversation goes something like “Donnie?...Donnie?......Donnie?...hehe…you not gonna believe this” Followed by some relevant celebrity gossip and closed with calling Bobby Brown a “bama.” I think BB has held the bama of the week crown for the past month and a half.

This morning, however, there was a changing of the guard. After listening to Huggy Lowdown blame mayor Williams for the lack of an electrical outlet at Haines point, I pulled into 7-11 for the breakfast of champions, diet pepsi and a met-rx protien bar. Enroute to the counter, the evil Utz Jezebel Temptress threw my diet the mother of all curveballs, cheesey pizza cheese puffs.

Are you kidding me? Cheesey poofs and pizza goodness in a single package? Say hello to my new vice (in theory as I didn’t actually make the purchase as I fear my expectations will far exceed the experience must less justify the obscene amount of cardio required to offset what I assume to be crunchy-pizza-cheese-alicious bliss). Damn you Salie Utz! Damn you straight to hell!

Monday, August 08, 2005

All I want for Christmas is...

A polydactyl cat. Unlike most kitties, this feline freak has at least one, if not two extra claws per paw. Affectionately know as mitten kittens, these four legged fiends can use their genetic defect as an opposable thumb (thus enabling them to do chin-ups, thumb wrestle, and hitchhike). They also have the strongest pimp hand amongst domesticated felines.

The one exception is a new breed of cat on the street. Mix one part wild african cheetah with your run of the mill domestic kitty and saw hello to the savanna cat. Weighing in at a robust 35 pounds and consuming a steady diet of raw meet, your average house cat, this ain't. Plus it's a great way to spend four to ten thousand dollars. Where do I sign up?

Friday, August 05, 2005

Dirty damn email lies!

So apparently Ms. Monroe did not have six toes.

A google search told me so.

F*ckity, F*ck, F*ck, F*ck. That's twice that I have been wrong. Damn you! email forwards and the false sense of truth you instill by being written in actual words.

But Darryl Hannah is definitely missing a finger (or atleast part of one). Rumor has it, the chubby Baldwin brother bit it off when he got high one night at Tommy Lee's house.

So, I just got back from NYC (thus the lack-0-updates this week) and much to my chagrin, I failed to see any crazy homeless people. I thought for sure that I spotted a raving lunatic, but it was only a business lady yelling at someone on her well hidden bluetooth wireless earpiece.

I'm telling ya, those wireless folks are ruining it for the true crazies.

In other random news, I watched an episode of kill reality last night. Man what a cast of hooligans. I mean how F'd up does that group have to be to make Staci J (formerly the crazy-ass black lady from the apprentice and girlfriend of Paul Mooney) seem like the normal one?

*sigh* I hate you, reality tv.

Monday, August 01, 2005

Well number six has come and gone

Sweet pappy molassy, where do I begin?

First and foremost, Danny Glover put it best when he so eloquently stated “I am getting too old for this sh!t.” Honestly, I am still wiped out from the party, but that’s just how damn good the event was.

When I said people were there to party like Vikings, I meant it. People were definitely rocking a broom Helga style Viking helmet with horns until the wee hours of the morning. Hopefully someone got a picture of that. If not, I am sure there are more than enough pictures of me breaking no less than 4 laws and several morality codes wearing the WWII spiked helmet standing on the back of the go-kart (driven by Shannon), drinking a 40 of Olde English Malt Liquor…which brings me to my next topic, Go Kart Antics.

Yes, I could easily write a four-part miniseries about what sort of deviance resulted from the volatile mixture of a go-kart, malt liquor, and several unsavory individuals. In many ways the precedence for the party was set early on as G-man played chicken with some inbred yahoo from down the street. Thank sweet Jesus for Garvey’s stone cold stare because quite honestly the go-kart he was driving wasn’t a fair match for the mad max style camaro (this car had no hood, or front end to speak of, much less tags or registration) that cleetus was rockin. Mind you, this all happened at the very beginning of the party.

Later on my offroad go-cart adventure ended rather abruptly thanks to my neighbor’s thorn bush. That damn bush scratched the bejesus outta me. Basically I look like Roy after is tussle with the white tiger (minus the whole gimp left side of the face thing).


But wait, there’s more…in the spirit of the whole famous last words, Troy said “clear out of the driveway, I want to try something.” Thankfully, they weren’t his last words, but after his “stunt” I thought it a good idea to pack the kart away for the day.


So, you are probably thinking, gee what a responsible guy, probably the right call to put the go kart away. Well wrong. A few hours later we were back at it again, at least until John Q Law stepped in. Just as Dylan headed down the street a state trooper pulled his cruiser out of the driveway three houses down and give Mr. King a 5 minute speech about how many things were wrong with this picture (no helmet, no lights, unregistered vehicle). Thankfully he let him off with a verbal warning. Apparently he used up all of his citations on cleetus and his camaro earlier in the day.

Matt Ries took his first Beer Bong. And got to ring the beer bong bell to celebrate.

The crabs were good. We almost went through the entire bushel, less the last three magical crabs. I swear, there were three crabs left and I saw people go back and eat more crabs, when I checked the bushel, there were still three crabs. Later I saw people eating crabs again, but when I looked, there were still three in the bushel. Either it was A) magic, B) people were mistakenly eating crab shells, or C) the Donkey Punch lager severely messed up my perceptions.

Josh Gross won the Monster Drive long drive contest by being the first person to give it a shot and subsequently losing the ball. By default he was awarded the title winner of the longest drive contest. Subsequent to being awarded the winner, the ball mysteriously reappeared, but only for a short while (or until the next sucker took a swing and lost it in the jungle of my parents’ backyard.


So was that the end of golf? Nope. Send in the substitute golf ball otherwise known as fireworks. Now I didn’t witness this event with my own eyes (probably for the best) but apparently during the late night firework show, someone thought it would be more entertaining to take swings at the firework fountains while still ablaze. Ha! Take that Maryland and your non-projectile firework laws!


Rob and Courtney were held prisoner in my old room. They locked themselves in and could not get out and remained undiscovered until late Sunday.

Last but not least I found a beer can on the ceiling, not the roof, but the ceiling. Crazy old anti-gravity miller lite (now that’s a light beer!)



SO will there be a number 7? I don’t know. I may pull a Jay-z and quit while at the top of my game. Then again if Lance can do 7, why not me too? I guess we will have to wait and see…