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Sunday, December 26, 2004
In New York, my friends from church all happen to be Ivy League graduates. Other than the fact that their foreheads protrude with enlarged frontal lobes and they like to talk about books, they are pretty normal. I guess normal people talk about books, too. But I don't really read which makes it hard to keep up with the conversation, particularly when it centers solely on the latest books everyone's read for pleasure. I think the last book that I read for pleasure was Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat. So, suffice to say, I had very little to contribute. It's only when it comes to mature things like scatalogy that I become a very key player. (Like, for instance, why our digestive systems will transform nearly everthing we eat into feces except for corn, which I think always manages to stay the same shape and consistency as it did going down.) I have decided, then, to enrich my reading by, well, actually reading. On my holiday book list, I'll be reading first The Great Code, The Bible and Literature, by Northrop Frye. Some of you who read the the post "Rap As We Know It" on the other page will notice that I quoted him twice. I do this because that's what almost every college student living in Ontario does when they have nothing to say for themselves: They quote Frye. Quoting someone smarter than you not only vindicates an otherwise vacant opinion, it also feigns a semblance of being well-read. In the case of Frye, people will quote him even if it has nothing to do with the argument at hand. This, I find especially handy. It is also like wielding a golden axe when talking to University of Toronto students, who adore and worship him because he was, for some reason, affiliated with their school. "Watch where you SWING that thing!" they all cry, astonished. So, anyway, I'll let you know how it goes. After two weeks, I'm still on page six of the introduction, which uses such meaty words like 'Hegelian preface', which I will now try and weasel into conversation at any opportunity afforded me. Second, I will read several Reader's Digest magazines. Reader's Digest is great because you read everything abridged. Reader's Digest feels that 'abridged' means War and Peace could sit comfortably between fifteen pages. A formidable idea because, instead of watching an entire, boring movie, it's like you're only watching the trailer. For instance, Dr. Zhivago. That movie is boring. It involves snow. Did I have to watch the whole movie to know this? No. All I needed to do was watch a trailer. To hurry the boring process further, when it comes to the Reader's Digest, I read the abridged story with my patented speed-reading skills, which is, essentially, to skip whole paragraphs that contain a word I don't know, while refusing to digest unnecessary literary tools, such as plot, characters, and all adjectives. Readers' Digest is also great for their features like "Points to Ponder" and random bits of trivia. For instance, on the subject of healthy foods, I can confidently contribute, "Broccoli is healthier than brussel sprouts." Some people, namely, skinny girls, will be very impressed with my astute perspective and ask me how I came upon this knowledge. But "Reader's Digest," for some reason, doesn't impress them. This almost denotes a general impression that Reader's Digest may not be a very respectable publication to bolster up your literary arsenal, but you learn to say that you read it in Time. Third, I'll be reading comics, just to make sure I remember why the English language was invented: So that one can interrupt ridiculously long, heavy narratives with such brilliant improvisations as "BISH", "KAPOW", "BOOM", and "WHACK". Lastly, I will exhaust myself in studying several pages from the series "Where's Waldo?" The pictures are in a book, and therefore constitutes reading. My step-niece and step-nephew insist on accompanying me during these scholastic forays; I prefer doing it myself, though, since they Thursday, December 23, 2004
It just occurred to me today that smelly socks and the faint scent of rice cooking is almost identical. I was sitting at the kitchen table in New York, making dinner, and, as my apartment has little to no counter space, my rice cooker was faithfully doing its work on the floor. I was on my computer when I started catching whiffs of something I thought wouldn't impress the ladies.By the time I figured out that the 'smell' was coming from the rice cooking, I had changed my socks three times. I think a good motto to live by is: Change your socks if something smells like food and no one around you is eating. But, in some ways, it's okay to smell like food, if you smell like dessert. Or fruit, too. If someone smells like apples, that's fine. Durian, not really. Sauerkraut smells pretty good on a hot dog; but coming from your armpits, not as cool. So, this got me to thinking. You're at someone's house, and they start cooking. You smell some kind of food coming from the kitchen, so you walk in and say, "Hey, smells good. What are you making?" And they tell you they're making some kind of meat. You're like, "Nice." Let's say you're at another friend's house, and you remark, "It smells great in here, man. Like some kind of meat. What are you making?" And he's like sprawled out on his couch, saying, "I'm not making anything, man. I don't even have a kitchen. Why?" Does this make the smell good or bad? I'm talking about a pervasive smell. It smells like ground beef all around you. And then you eye his socks, which are either really gross or designed with irrationally patterned blobs of greyish browns. But ten seconds ago, you were pretty much committing yourself to the idea that it was food you were smelling and that you might even like to eat it. Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Some people ask me if I'm rapping in New York. I suppose that would make sense. To rap in New York. The answer is no. And there are a few reasons why. And I'm writing really short sentences because I'm debating whether or not I should even bring this up.There are all the standard reasons: I'm busy with the cello, I don't have those types of connections here, I don't care to run around looking for those contacts, rap gigs are largely unreliable and given to falling through last minute, and I've already rapped in Harlem, battled a fourteen-year-old girl, and lost. The last reason is probably not so standard. I was asked to come speak, screen the music video, and rap at an after-school program. Let me first start off by saying that I have few problems with children under the age of six. I actually think they're really funny. I like how they think there's never any reason not to dance. I like the way they bounce up and down and throw their arms around in a fashion that just says, "I don't care how dumb I look because the dumber I look, the happier I am and, subsequently, the cuter it is." It's too bad that we, as males over twenty, cannot benefit from this kind of assurance. Anyway, when it comes to not getting our way, I assume that there's no real difference between adults and children, with the exception that, though we too feel like exploding into fits of yells and screams sometimes, rolling around on our backs while kicking at nothing in particular has, for some reason, been weaned out of our repertoire. So I think little kids are just short adults, but given more to volatile reactions when something doesn't go their way, like, for instance, there not being any candy in the room at that very moment. And, sometimes, they're just given to volatile reactions. Actually, I have problems with little children. For one thing, they don't like my music video. If I ever make another music video, assembling a panel of five-year-olds for final review is a must. They loved the part in the video where the camera swirls around me. That happens about three seconds in. Afterwards, there was nothing but distracted chatter and (arrhythmic) dancing. The great thing about kids, and perhaps the most dangerous thing, is that they simply don't operate under any social protocol whatsoever. Over the years, their accumulated candor tells me that my hair is cool, the size of my nose is not, and my music video is boring. "THIS IS BORING!" yelled one of them. Like, I mean, I'm not usually at a loss for words, but I'm most often at a loss when I'm dealing with kids. If you think about it, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but somehow, the unsolicited and candid appraisal of a five-year-old is probably the most honest anyone's going to get. Next, was the freestyle session. I'll admit it, it was shaky at the beginning. I hadn't rapped in a few months, and so I wanted to start it a little slow so I could build it up. To warm up, if you will. In trying to get a word from one of the kids to freestyle off of, I passed the mic to a seven-year-old boy near the front. With the mic on full-blast, the kid screamed, "YOU'RE WACK!!" Thank goodness my beat CD was still going, because for a few seconds, I sure wasn't. I just kind of looked at him with this hurt look that said, "B-b-but.. I.. haven't even started yet!" This stuff happens in clubs all the time. In fact, I always liked it when that happened because then I could insult the guy and get the crowd into it. But this guy is seven and really fat. It's not right. You can't do it. You'd feel like a jerk or something. To close the set, they asked me if I could battle someone. Before I could say, "NO WAY, NEVER IN YOUR LIFE," this fourteen-year-old girl dressed in pink comes up to the front and takes a mic. She was so skinny I almost thought the mic stand was one of her legs. So the crowd's chanting for us to battle and we toss a coin and I go first. I'm thinking that she's nothing, right? I'm thinking let's not make her cry. Normally, when you battle, you don't hold anything back and you'd say stuff about how her clothes looked stupid, she needs more make-up, she'll never get a boyfriend, things like that. Before I get a barrage of hate-mail, I did not say this and I would never say it to a girl nine years younger than me with an audience of five-year-olds looking on. I'm just saying that this is the kind of thing you do at a battle, and, incidentally, what she hit me with. Like, at the end of my verse, I just said: "Okay, so I can tell my round is coming to an end.. So let's forget about this battle and just be friends..!" You know, something Sesame Street since everyone in the audience is under ten. She comes back with something vicious. I'm astonished. All those five year olds are bopping their heads and cheering their heads off. And she's saying stuff about how I'm like 34 and I don't have a girlfriend and I'm still at school living with my mom. And I'm like, "Hello? I'm 23." Anyway, I looked at the event coordinator, "Yo, you didn't tell me to BRING IT, man. Give me another round." And he's like, "Sorry, Ace. We don't have any more time. Okay! So, let's cheer for the winner! Who thinks Adrian won?" "..." "Who thinks Taquisha won?" Complete pandemonium. I think there was even confetti involved. The event coordinator looks at me and goes, "Oh, don't feel bad, man. The kids kind of know her already, that's why they're cheering." To add insult to injury, upon beating the 8W, who, excluding this event, has probably only lost a battle once in his whole career, Taquisha hops off stage and starts skipping rope with her friends. You know what I mean? Like she doesn't even care. She disposes of me in a battle, which she treated as an annoying little detour before she could start combing the hair on her Barbie doll. So, uh, who wants to buy my CD? 
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