Post-Apocrypha

On Friday, I left work and headed directly to LaGuardia, so I could get home for pseudo-Christmas (Saturday) and get drunk for pseudo-Christmas Eve. Fortunately, my flight was delayed only 20 minutes, up to the point where the plane circled above O'Hare for an hour, and we made an unplanned stopover in Dayton to refuel. Despite an extended stay on the tarmac, we were not able to leave the plane. After some apparent difficulties (Pilot: "as you can see out the left, the fuel truck is right over there, [not refuelling us for some reason, those shitheads] -- it was pretty clear from his tone), we set out again for O'Hare, a mere four hours late. The reason: unseasonably warm weather. No, really, melting snow, light rain, and a fortuitous dewpoint had rendered Chicago and impenetrable gray mass.

I slept through the last leg of the trip, and when I awoke found we were maneuvering aimlessly across the taxiways of O'Hare. At least, I presumed it was O'Hare -- There were no landmarks to speak of. There was still snow on the ground, frozen in windblown drift and emitting streams of vapor, which mixed into the ambient fog. The ony visible objects were bright but hazy blue lights, and meaningless letters and numerals, which emerged inconsistently from the ground. We steered right and left among the roadways tangled roadways, with no sound but the steady thrum of the idling jets. The landscape, as far as could be determined, was achingly flat and endless, bordered in the far distance by glaring orange and yellow fuzzes of light. As this went on, I began to believe we had entered not an airport but a stange, endless, ensorcelled country, doomed to wander an eternity among snow and wind and fog, seeing just far enough to feel the vastness of the terrain.

Movin' On Up

I've been promoted, sort of. From Front-Office-Support-Understudy to Back-Office-Support-Understudy. This is an upgrade because it involves more databases and fewer quizzes about economic terms. Also more programming. Yesterday I successfully added a feature to one of the in-house programs, which ferries information between the market data feed and our trading platform. My mission: to add an error pop-ups when the program lost a connection. My mission after first contact with the code: to add the ability to detect a lost connection. Despite the resulting vast increase in scope, I was eventually successful.

A note on support: The people who make ORC (our trading platform) have certain flaws, but they have achieved one great triumph: naming the ORC administration tool "SAURON". Both of these are acronyms, of course.

A note on living: While today's shift to something more like useful work is heartening, I am still living my life at someone else's behest. This seems like an inherently unstable situation. Ideally, of course, someone would hand me a large some of money with the instructions, "Go do something you enjoy." Unreasonable though this is, it leaves open the options of research, start-up company, and music. Paul Graham is especially convincing on the startup front, and also has several essays on programming.

Also I bought a book on Erlang, a functional programming language which specializes in concurrent programming. The trend toward multicore processors makes this more important than ever -- unless specifically designed for it, a program can only run on one processor. Going to Borders convinces me I am unusual; there are plenty of books of C++ for Dummies, Beginning PHP, Java for Transorbital Lobotomy Patients, The Bipedal Lizard's Guide to SQL. My secret hope is to discover a book of Perl for Unscrupulous Lunatics or Javascript for the Dangerously Intelligent. Those books will get my money in an instant. I settled for Programming Erlang, with the knowledge that it was written by one of the language's designers (Joe Armstrong).

Also, if you are not familiar with FLCL/Furi Kuri/Fooly Cooly, well, you should be. It has been greatly enhancing my week. It is an anime about puberty, guitars, robots, and mostly about surrealism.

Unearthly

As I waited for the A-train, two men set up steel drums and began playing arrangements of Christmas carols. Slightly further down, there was a man playing a large, stringed, African instrument I do not no the name of. It was high-pitched and ringing, plucked in rapid arpeggios, and probably not tuned in a Western scale. He paused when the steel drummers began, and glanced over. Then he resumed, and began playing harmony, intentionally or not -- given the instruments, they have been bound to sync up on some perceived tempo and harmonic. The effect was poly-rhythmic, with orchestral level of harmony; all three instruments echoed off the tunnel walls as well. Hauntingly strange -- and all colliding over, for example, "Silent Night."

I had already seen the man with the African instrument yesterday. It's lovely on its own as well. I have a rule, actually, that if I have never seen an instrument before, I am required to give the musician money. Unique things should be rewarded.

Terror from the Deep

Remember that scene in Independence Day where the alien breaks loose in the lab and controls the dead scientist with his tentacles?

Your nightmares have arrived.

In Which the Chinese will Destroy Us All

I took this picture with the most ridiculously lousy camera I have ever seen, and I include my cell phone. It is 2-1/2" x 1-3/4" x 3/4" and it cost me $9.99. I did not expect much, but all the same I had to buy it, just to reconcile the concept of "10-dollar digital camera" with my reality. With a maximum resolution of 352x288 (and many of these pixels are dead), it is just over 30% as resolute as my free-with-contract phone.

On the other hand, Verizon charges $0.25 per picture I take off my phone.

And even more ridiculously, the thing is also a fully functional webcam, a function for which it is somewhat less embarassing, especially for 10 bucks.

To put some perspective on this, try to guess how long ago this shit would have been state-of-the-art spy hardware. "Agent Slaptyback, take this camera: it fits in the palm of your hand, doesn't use film, and can provide a live video feed once you've planted it."

And it's a keychain!

Insult to Injury

I was watching last Thursday's Daily Show on Hulu, which features a segment on the failing American auto industry. It was brought to me, per Hulu standards, by a single sponsor: Nissan.

No Manhattan is an Island

...Actually it's quite a nice island.

I live near the highest point of an island made of solid rock. This is a very strange notion. I discovered this evening that a mere quarter-mile east of me is quite a stunning overlook, consisting of massive, irregular pieces of jutting bedrock. The view is perhaps less stunning than the overlook, but it offers the Harlem River, high-rise across the way in the Bronx, and some very large bridges to the South -- all lit up bright as day, of course.

A quarter-mile can get you quite out of the way, relatively speaking. I haven't been that way before, as my block is bounded by Broadway and St. Nicholas, both major streets (Broadway, you might have guessed) that supply pretty much anything you can think of, and I have been preoccupied with exploring these for food and supplies. The side streets along the... side... of the island are quite deserted at 8 PM, and rather spooky, with empty playgrounds and basketball courts in the park just down the slope.

I imagine it is quite pleasant and pretty in the daytime (especially when it isn't winter), in much the same way as the lakefront in Chicago (though a bit steeper). It's surprisingly easy to gain a sense of stillness and isolation, even in such a busy area.

Tragedies

-That I cannot find a useful sports bar within walking distance of my apartment. Lacking anyone to see the Bears game with, I inquired with Google Maps. The suggested bar did not exist, although another may be "coming soon" to replace it. I then wandered randomly southeast, and chanced upon another supposed "sports bar" ... which was also closed. Highly mysterious.

-That I don't get a chance to wander about the neighborhood more often. The latter sports bar was along Harlem River Drive, which supplies a scenic overlook of the river and the Bronx. Manhattan is really quite pretty around the edges. I live at more or less the highest point on the island (also near the proudly-labeled "Highest Laundromat") . The structure of my work day (~7:30-5:30) prevents me from doing much during daylight during the week.

-That I don't own a camera. It's on my short list of things to acquire, after which this blog will become much more visual.

Non-Tragedy:
I have successfully acquired a couch from the furniture store down the street. Additionally, it folds down into a bed. Surprisingly, it is a better bed as a couch than as a bed. C'est la vie.

The Long Road Back to Civilization

Today I bought a toaster, and a bottle opener, and a pot in which to cook pasta. Perhaps tomorrow I will buy pasta. The unfurnished life presents challenges; On arrival, my parents and I were forced to open beer with a slot-jaw wrench, because they had gotten me a 155-piece tool set, but no bottle opener. I have been using the box cutter to make curtains, as mentioned Wednesday.

Perhaps someday soon I shall own a couch.

I go now to drink El Presidente, a Dominican beer in a Czech style (Pilsener). It is pretty good, actually.

Water Hazard

In the shower, the "C" knob should be understood to mean "Caliente." The "H" indicates "Hola, tengo agua fria." The can lead to confusion.

Strangely enough, this was the case in my last apartment as well. Credit for the "caliente" line goes to this fellow, who is on the run from the law in Nicaragua.

One Day in New York City, Baby...

-Actually, it's been five days, but Neutral Milk Hotel ("Ghost") is still stuck in my head. I arrived Friday afternoon with my parents, and proceded to haul various of my belongings up to the fourth floor of a pre-war building in Washington Heights, a neighborhood less than half a mile wide, due to the difficulty of building on the East and Hudson Rivers.

-Yes, I have an apartment. All by me onesies, as they say here -- actually, that may be London, I 'll get back to you. I have begun decorating, mainly by recasting dollar-store shower curtains as non-shower curtains (thrift is the new irony).

-And by God, there are a lot of dollar stores, but there's one in my neighborhood that actually means it. Anything without a label is 99 cents. So technically it is a 99-cent store, and is labeled as such.

-One of the distinguishing features of New York is that most things are bigger, and those which are not are comically small. There are 20 Manhattan blocks per mile, yet each contains at least one each of grocery, pharmacy, laundromat, 99-cent store, Chinese restaurant, deli, and liquor store. The average "supermarket" is under 12 feet wide.

-Also, the average liquor store does not sell beer, but is strictly "wine and liquors." The silver lining here is that the pharmacy will sell you beer. Aren't liquor laws wacky?

-As an aside, I do not recommend Leinenkugel's "Sunset Wheat". Normally I am enthused about beers involving wheat. However, this is because most such beers do not taste alarmingly of Fruity Pebbles. A little heavy on the "natural flavors" added, guys.

-I have seen the face of evil and it is IKEA. Specifically, the IKEA on Red Hook, which is a tremendously unhelpful series of labyrinths for anyone who does not intend to build a new house and fill it entirely with IKEA furniture. This would not be so bad, except that getting onto Red Hook is impossible via surface roads. It took us quite a while to learn this. The advantage of Red Hook is that the IKEA store actually has its own dock and cranes. Yes, on the ocean. Did I mention it's rather large? On the upside, I have gained, for very reasonable prices, two tables, two chairs, and a bookcase. Hooray sitting!

-Hooray free internet. I have yet to register for internet service or any utilities. Also, I sleep on an air mattress. Were it not for the obscenity that is my rent, I could be squatting.

-I tried to get a sofa-bed at IKEA, but the cheap one was sold out. Unlike every other sold-out item, it was not labeled as such (I repeat, face of evil).

COMING SOON: 10-hour workdays: Also the face of evil?

r.i.p. studs

Experiments in XML

Blogger has changed the operation of it's templates again. I am told I can use a plethora of "widgets" and a graphical interface. I am seeing how much of that I can bypass by parsing this new template and just working with text.

Also, I figured how to add goddamn titles to our posts.

Note to Self: Become Airship Privateer

You probably didn't know that the Goodyear blimp Resolute was a privateer during WWII. When I thought that the United States hadn't issued a letter of marque (which authorizes privateering or other hostile actions by civilian parties) since the War of 1812, well, my goal of being a pirate just didn't seem viable. But now that I know that there have been licensed American sky pirates, a world of possibilities has opened up.

Who wants in?

Now, you may ask, how on Earth would we get a letter of marque these days? You can vote for Ron Paul, that's how. Yes, Ron Paul, Republican congressman and noted coot, thinks the U.S. should encourage anti-terrorist privateering. Really, the only question is what to name our lighter-than-air death-dealing machine. I propose the USS Howard Taft. Or possibly Lighter Than Bombs.

(Paid for by the Alliance of Privateers and Sky Pirates for Ron Paul)

Did you know there was a new maciej-powered blog afoot?  Now you do.

Yes More Drama

In Defense of Auto-Tune

Anyone who keep at least half an ear turned towards the state of pop music today knows what Auto-Tune is. And even if someone can’t identify it by that name, chances are if you say, “you know, the T-Pain effect,” they’ll catch on quickly. Indeed, T-Pain has made truckloads of money off the simple vocal modulation software, turning his otherwise mundane voice into a hectic, delirious hook machine. By using this newfound voice to storm the Billboard charts, T-Pain brought Auto-Tune to the attention of many other hip-hop and pop artists. An interesting article published this summer in the New Yorker includes an interview with T-Pain, and details the history of the software, which dates back to 1997 and a Cher hit single. Now, as more and more high profile artists (e.g. Lil Wayne and Kanye West) begin to employ Auto-Tune, more and more music critics and fans are clamoring for its destruction, claiming that it’s been played out and is standing in the way of artistic expression. In my opinion, they couldn’t be more wrong.

It’s important to remember that this type of vocal modulation did not enter the hip-hop realm yesterday. Let us not forget the late Roger Troutman’s classic hook (recorded using Auto-Tune’s grandfather—the vococorder) on 2pac’s smash hit “California Love.” Has the phrase “city of Compton” even been pronounced as fantastically? Of course, vocal modulation in this instance was limited to the chorus, and perhaps a few more eyebrows would have been raised if Pac himself had started distorting his own voice. But let us not make the same mistake as those who refuse to admit that the genre has any relevance since the demise of Pac and Biggie. Like any healthy genre, it has evolved, tried new things, and become something that is both different and the same. I propose that the increasing use of Auto-Tune is simply another hip-hop experiment. It may remain, it may die out relatively quickly, but while it’s here, why not embrace its artistic potential?

Consider the following examples. Lil Wayne, long claiming to be the best rapper alive, only scored his first number one hit after running his rasp through Auto-Tune. So, there’s no doubt that this shit sells records. But, there’s more to Lil Wayne’s use of the technology than a simple money grab. I would argue that it allows him to put even more inflection into an already ridiculously expressive voice. Take his track “Rider,” recorded over a revamped version of Pac’s “Ambitionz Az A Ridah” beat. Created early-on in Wayne’s experimentation with the Auto-Tune effect, it lends his voice a positively tortured quality, which couldn’t be more appropriate considering he is rapping and singing about an almost uncontrollable love for a woman. “You only like her, I’m trying to wife her,” he plaintively croons. And at about 2:19 into the song, the effect crescendos as Wayne repeats the chorus: “I won’t deny her, shawty is a ridah…” It’s hard to imagine this song working at all without Auto-Tune, but it remains one of the most interesting and passionate pieces that Wayne has recorded.

To draw from slightly more recent material (in an effort to prove that Auto-Tune has not yet exhausted its possibilities), consider the song “My Life” off The Game’s new album LAX and featuring Lil Wayne. The song takes a serious tone, as Wayne’s chorus conveys both the exhaustion of a hustler’s life, as well as the survivor’s guilt that one may feel from seeing their friends fall to violence, drugs, and the legal system. Heady stuff. The additional emotional impetus that Auto-Tune affords Wayne cannot be discounted, especially on words like “grinding,” “tired,” “lawd,” and “eyes wide.” It’s impressive stuff, it continuously sends chills across my skin, and I’m glad it exists. I can’t say it would be possible without Auto-Tune.

Finally, consider Kanye West. Featured on the song “Put On,” the first single off Young Jeezy’s new album The Recession, Kanye employs the Auto-Tune effect in his verse. Now, while the effect has been used primarily in choruses, artists like Lil Wayne have not been afraid to rap entire songs using it. “Rider” is one example, “Lollipop” another (though the lyrics to that particular track are so ridiculously puerile that we won’t take it into serious consideration). The result of spitting an Auto-Tune verse is a rap that is remarkably melodic. I’ve always considered the naturally melodic nature of Wayne’s voice one of his greatest assets as an emcee. Now artists like Kanye, whose voice can be about as melodic as a dead fish at times, can record something like his “Put On” verse—a rap that I sometimes catch myself whistling as I’m riding in elevators. Touching on the loss of his mother and the lonely nature of superstardom, Yeezy’s verse is packed with emotion, and it’s all vamped up to a higher level with Auto-Tune. His voice itself seems like it’s crying as he laments the fact that he has little in his life to find solace in anymore. The amount of anguish conveyed is stunning. It blows me away every time.

I write this because of the recent news that has leaked out about Kanye’s upcoming album. Apparently, he plans to use a whole heap of Auto-Tune and sing a lot. If true, it would be a wild direction to take, but, considering what this guy has had on his mind lately, could be a fantastic artistic endeavor. And, if his Auto-Tune work on “Put On” is any indication, this could work out extremely well. Yet, as I was reading the comments below the news story, I was surprised by how many people were furious with this possibility, griping about how Kanye has sold out, fallen in line with the rest of the crowd, etc. Please, people, let’s not damn the man and the entire Auto-Tune effect just because you’re tired of T-Pain. Auto-Tune will not change who a person is nor alter their innate artistic genius, it will simply provide a new and colorful palate with which to express themselves. Even with Auto-Tune, Kanye will still be Kanye, just as Lil Wayne is still Lil Wayne. They will not become T-Pain. T-Pain is T-Pain.

There shall be rejoicing and dancing in the streets, for the evil one has finally left our fair city.

Read Roger Ebert's parting shot to Jay Mariotti.

I'm glad I read xkcd. (xkcd)

This post brought to you by the Annoy Carl Wheeler Foundation for Annoying Carl Wheeler. (Carl Wheeler)

The Commercial Rise and Artistic Fall of Dwayne Carter

It’s been two weeks since the official release of Lil Wayne’s official studio album Tha Carter III, and I’ve spent the last fortnight listening to the record, re-listening to the previous installments in Tha Carter series and wealth of Weezy mixtapes, and asking myself why Wayne is no longer the best rapper alive. I was a believer after listening to Tha Carter II—a devotee even. At that point (the album was released in 2005, but I never even heard it until the beginning of 2007) Wayne had yet to achieve the obscene level of stardom that he currently holds. In fact, I considered him extremely underrated. When I traced my steps backward and picked up the original Tha Carter, I was baffled as to how more people could not be talking about this kid from New Orleans. His dexterous yet playful verses left my mouth agape and my head shaking in a way that one generally only expects from rap saints like Pac and Biggie and living deities like Jay-Z.

Then the articles gradually started trickling in. XXL wrote a feature story. Wayne’s tattooed and grinning visage framed in trademark dreadlocks began appearing on a variety of magazine covers. His fame was growing by leaps and bounds, only aided by the immensely popular (and entirely free) Da Drought 3 mixtape, which became the hottest hip-hop topic of the summer. Weezy was finally getting the attention he deserved, I believed. Now all that was left was for him to release Tha Carter III at the end of the year and set the record straight once and for all. It would make-up for the previous, largely overlooked Carter installments and would make Wayne’s claims as Best Rapper Alive undeniable. Da Drought 3 was an excellent appetizer—the mixtape format allowing Wayne to be more playful, rapping over others’ beats and cracking jokes without really saying too much. There was entrancing wordplay that demonstrated a love for language, and a willingness to play with his voice that made his flows positively melodic, but little real substance when it came to coherent narratives—always a sticking point for Wayne, but one that he seemed to be improving on in his studio work. I awaited Tha Carter III in hopes of new tracks akin to “Tha Mobb” and “Fly In” from the Carter II—tracks with unparalleled flows that, coupled with Wayne’s newfound public following, would vault him into a higher pantheon of emcees.

Then the levees at the Young Money Studios broke. More than just a leak, the entirety of the Carter III flooded out into the streets months before its scheduled release date. Bootlegged copies of the album compiled by The Empire in a mixtape named The Drought Is Over 2 found their way onto every Wayne fan’s hard drive before the end of August. Wayne tried to play this off as no big deal, claiming he wouldn’t have used those tracks anyway—a position that we now see to be not entirely true based on his recent explosion at The Empire DJs on a radio program (numerous death threats and slurs were directed their way). I don’t think anyone could have predicted how this leak would throw Wayne’s career off kilter at the time; we were all just happy for the new tracks. Now, however, in the wake of a lackluster and underwhelming Tha Carter III, I wish the lid had been kept on the original project and Wayne was allowed to release The Drought Is Over 2 as his official Tha Carter III. All the greatness was there. There was even thematic coherence, as many of the songs dealt with a melancholic longing after lost love (perhaps signaling an emotional maturation on the part of Wayne, who had dealt primarily in M.O.B.s beforehand). Listen to tracks like “Something You Forgot,” “Scarface,” “I Know The Future,” and “La La La” for proof of this collection’s superb nature. Were Wayne allowed the time to clean things up a little more on the album, as I’m assuming he would have in the months remaining before the album’s original release date, he may have released a flawless product. As is, it’s pretty damn close, which is not something you can say of most things bootlegged. Yet, as a mixtape, it fell short of most major critics’ radar (save an article in Vibe magazine that listed most of the tracks as Weezy’s best of ‘07) and its effect on Wayne’s legacy and prestige was thusly diluted.
And the official Carter III was pushed back. Christmas 2007, initially, then January 2008. February, March, April, May followed with more rumors of release, but still nothing. In the meantime, Wayne used the extra time to further catapult his stardom by lending guest appearances to almost any artist in any genre you can think of.

And there was yet more leaking. Another whole Carter III’s worth of tracks was poached by The Empire and released on mixtapes like The Drought Is Over Part 4. While not quite as thematically focused as The Drought Is Over 2, it felt like another worthy Carter III had passed by in bootleg form. Tracks like “One Night Only,” “Trouble,” “When They Come For Me,” and “Burn This City” show Wayne in his top form. While one can’t be sure of Wayne original intentions for this material, it seems likely that he did not mean for it to wander off in the hands of rogue DJs. While nearly every track on The Drought Is Over Part 4 was impressive and album worthy (the Kanye West produced “Comfortable” with Babyface even made the jump to Tha Carter III), it should also be noted that Wayne’s flow no longer seem as tight; he began to sound lazy on some tracks and his thoughts became more disjointed—perhaps a side-effect of his chronic abuse of prescription cough syrup (and god knows whatever other drugs; you can look up the tour bus arrest reports to read about the illegal pharmacy Wayne had driving through the South).

A friend of mine thought that Wayne had become too obsessed with his own celebrity and it was effecting what he rapped about, which I suppose is the case for almost every musical artist—the best work comes when they’re still poor unknowns. Once you are a celebrity, what else do you have to rap/sing about but your own celebrity? In fact, Wayne seemed bent on crafting himself as something above homo sapiens, something he strove for through increased use of Auto-Tune (the vocal modulation device that T-Pain has built a career out of). Wayne’s voice already being one of the most unique in rap, he seemed to transcend the inherent cheesiness of the robotic vocals and became something positively ethereal. Listen to him croon painfully (in a good way) on the track “Rider” for proof of this. Still, his increased love for his new voice made me worried as he became more of a singer and less of a rapper. This is clearly evinced in the number one song in the country right now—“Lollipop”—a song so lyrically brain-dead that it’s almost painful, yet also strangely addictive. I’ve yet to switch the station when it comes on the radio, despite how amazingly overplayed it and its remix are.

When Tha Carter III release date of June 10th was finally set in stone, many fans were feeling more annoyance at the delays than eager anticipation for the product. After all the setbacks and gradual increase in his lazy rapping, I was relying on Tha Carter III to redeem Lil Wayne. If it wasn’t as good as the leaked material that came before, I would have to conclude that the peak of his artistic career had passed. Now, after listening to Tha Carter III several times, I would place Wayne’s best work in the time range of Tha Carter through The Drought Is Over 2 mixtape (though I suppose you could extend that through The Drought Is Over Part 4 and not really be wrong). Tha Carter III simply doesn’t pass muster. Wayne actually sounds tired on the album. Just listen to him sigh heavily on the intro to “Mr. Carter” (which is probably the best song on the album, and gave me false hope as the second track). He sounds positively exhausted, as if the effort needed to express himself coherently has simply become too much. One could argue that Jay-Z beats him on his own track, which is ironic considering that Hov’s verse is about passing the torch to Weezy.

In the same vein as Wayne’s apparent fatigue, he sounds out of breath on many of his verses, as if his rapping behind the beat isn’t just for effect, but that he’s actually having trouble keeping up. As opening tracks go, “3 Peat” seems tragically weak compared to what has come before—the epic “Tha Mobb” on Tha Carter II (Wayne’s best song, in my opinion) and the adroit “Walk In” from Tha Carter. The word lazy continues to be the most apt descriptor for this new style of rapping from Wayne. “A Milli” is fine, in my opinion. The trance beat grows on you, and the minimalist snares, bass and handclaps are perfect for freestyling. The only problem is that Wayne doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense on the track, which I am actually more forgiving of than many critics because I think it demonstrates Wayne’s love for individual words and being playful with language. There is no excuse, however, for “Got Money” with T-Pain. Wayne should be above such fluff.
The aforementioned “Comfortable” with Babyface is a standout, as is the other Kanye West produced track “Let The Beat Build.” West’s production seems to fit Wayne’s flow quite well, though the latter track shows the same signs of mental stumbling by Wayne that are apparent throughout Tha Carter III. Production is actually a major sticking point for me with Tha Carter III. Now, I don’t have a huge problem with Mannie Fresh, but he’s far from my favourite producer, and too much of his stuff sounds identical. So when Wayne broke from him for Tha Carter II, I think it might have been one of his best career moves. For that album he culled a wide variety of beats from a handful of mostly unknown southern producers. The end result was a fantastic sonic landscape for the rapper to navigate. Naturally, with Wayne’s increased fame, Tha Carter III would feature appropriately famous producers. The end result this time, however, is a mish-mash of cookie-cutter and just plain bad. “Dr. Carter” and “Phone Home”—two of the weakest tracks on the album—suffer from production missteps by Swizz Beatz and Cool and Dre. The former isn’t outwardly grating, but simply has no life to it, while the latter contains a hook so obnoxious that one has to wonder what Dre was hearing through those headphones. Similarly, “La La,” produced by the ever-insane David Banner, only leaves one wishing that the original “La La La” had made the album.
The rest of the album is made up of a handful of tracks that are merely good, falling short of great, and not even approaching epic. The message of “Tie My Hands” shows social maturation on the part of Wayne, but Robin Thicke is ultimately an R&B producer and his beats are almost always too laid back for a Hip-Hop album (though the jazzed-up “Shooter” from Tha Carter II came closer than most to a successful crossover). “Shoot Me Down” is positively chilling and largely a success. “Playing With Fire” isn’t quite as good, but Wayne’s comparison of himself to MLK is frighteningly passionate, and his third verse is a rerecording of one from The Drought Is Over 2 song “World Of Fantasy.” (It’s hard to blame him for this transfer of old material; it’s probably one of his best verses and it works really well with this beat.) Wayne is easily outshone on “You Ain’t Got Nuthin,” which demonstrates that his good friend Juelz Santana is perhaps the next to watch for the title of Best Rapper Alive, and the closing track “Don’t Get It” is a moderately entertaining high, rambling rant, though it’s somewhat misplaced here (one wishes he had just stuck to rapping on the track; it’s a nice beat). And then the album ends, and I think to myself, “That’s it? That’s what everyone waited years for? What happened?”

This is the realest review I’ve found yet of Tha Carter III (http://www.tinymixtapes.com/Lil-Wayne), and it purports that Wayne traded in his title of “Best Rapper Alive” for the moniker of “Biggest Rapper Alive.” That’s hard to argue with. At the very least, he had a change of heart since he recorded “Tha Mobb,” in which he rapped: “Crossover? Whatever. Mainstream? No!” Tracks like “Got Money” and “Lollipop” are about as mainstream as they come. Of course, now Wayne is richer than ever before, and it’s hard to criticize him for following the paper. Furthermore, compared to some of the stuff that’s put out these days, Tha Carter III is not actually a bad album. It’s just a disappointment compared to what has come before in Lil Wayne’s career. Now, I’m not going to say that Wayne can never regain his former greatness; stale artists find ways to reinvent themselves all the time. Personally, I would like to see him take some time off and step away from the mic for a little bit. As it is, he’s stretched himself too thin and diluted his material by oversaturating the market. Maybe he can spend some more time in his hometown of New Orleans, which he moved away from for a long time after Katrina destroyed his home. I think he still has more to say, but needs to take a rest for a little while. There have been rumours and indications from the man himself that he wants to become an R&B singer. If that’s the case, then I wish him all the best. Maybe he can breathe new life into that game, as well. Of course, on one of his own remixes to “A Millie” (pretty much every rapper in existence has one now—a testament to how nice the beat is) he says that he’s celebrating Tha Carter III’s impressive sales by starting work on Tha Carter 4. Whatever. I’m not going to protest that, either. In fact, no matter what he decides to do, I’ll probably follow Wayne’s career through its entirety. He’s certainly made things interesting thus far.

Obie Trice is the best rapper alive.

Wayne might be tied with him, but he's becoming so postmodern it's kinda hard to tell.

Now where was I? Oh right, the South: Spring break was a nine-day road trip from Atlanta to Chicago. How can that take nine days, you say, O imaginary reader who serves as a rhetorical device? Why, you go by way of North Carolina, Kentucky, and New Orleans.

Day 1:
I arrived Wednesday shortly after 11:00 PM. Zach (The Car Owner), Jason (The Pikey), Boz (The Comic Relief), and Jen (The Questionably Intrepid), are waiting at the airport. We drive north. Atlanta, I hardly knew ye.

Day 2:
We visit Ty Cobb's grave in booming Royston. A forty is puored. There is a reading from the book of Cobb ("You are driving me to Reno tonight", Cobb told his new biographer).

Later, we see Tallulah Gorge, largest conyon east of the Mississippi. There are waterfalls, gorgeous views, moonpies, and extravagant numbers of stairs. At the gorge floor, we venture into restricted areas, and sun ourselves up on the rocks of the river crossing. The crossing consists entirely of large, half-submerged rocks. Naturally, I venture halfway across, agile as a mountain goat. Before I can embarass myslef on the truly difficult portion, Jen falls in the river. She is recovered swiftly, but this necessitates a hasty retreat to the car (did I mention the stairs?).

Day2, Part2:
We attempt to drive the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. This is harder than finding a 500-mile-long tourist attraction sounds. Eventually, we find an entrance, a visitor's center, and an abrupt closure of the road. Due to possible avalanches, we are told. Not to be deterred, we set out the opposite direction along the parkway, and are rewarded with a series of spectacular vistas.

It was shortly thereafter this that we nearly died.

As we approached the first tunnel of the Parkway, a sign indicated "Turn Lights On". Zach, driving, felt confident the lights were on. As we entered the tunnel in high spirits, we turned up the music and began accelerating, we realized rapidly that 1) the lights were not on, 2) the tunnel had no lights of its own, 3) the tunnel was curving. Zach managed to break and swerve, barely crossing the midline of the road (this was clear from the skid marks). After this he turned the headlights on. Then we headed into a bright white light.

Four tunnels later, we discovered that this part of the Parkway also dead-ended, fortunately at another marvelous overlook. As we stood gazing at the setting sun, there descended from the mountain a bearded man with flowing hair, with a companion. And yea, verily, he showed us the true path (to the ridgeline). He called himself Fiddle Dave, and invited us to his concert in Asheville.

After declaring Fiddle Dave our new savior, kicking USGS property, and identifying the sight of a midget killing, we head for Kentucky, listening to World War Z all the way. This is all the more compellign since we abandon the main highway in favor of Carolina backroads, which show an incredible favor for switchbacks. On arrival in Lexington, we discover all rooms are occupied as a result of a high school basketball tournament. We drive another 20 minutes, find a room in Georgetown, and collapse exhausted.

TO BE CONTINUED (AND POSSIBLY EDITED)...

Never ever do business with Virgin Mobile.

Ever.

Dead Reckoning
Well, I'm not dead yet. CS is really becoming a bit of a death march. Our assignment: draw shadows on a heightfield based on some angle of the sun. Seems simple enough, right? Took three people 20 hours. I wrote the drawing functions, while Rob and Alex engaged in a lively debate on how the fuck the math was supposed to work. Also, it did not help that the professor did not write useful code, and in fact had to extend the project from Wednesday to Friday, after realizing Wednesday morning that he could not complete the assignment, because his code was fatally broken.

But yes, those are how shadows should look on Puget Sound with the sun shining from the northwest.

-Loot is a play about British people doing unconscionable things. As a result, it is entertaining. Also Zach (my former roommate) and Joel (my current roommate) played major roles.

-For spring break, I am travelling from Atlanta to Chicago by car. First stop: Ty Cobb's grave (Jason's idea. I'll consider spitting on it. Ty Cobb was a dick.)

-I have considered revising my aesthetic principles. Currently, I hypothesize that the two most important factors in art are beauty (truth-based) and comedy (falsehood-based). That is, comedy is funny because it is cleverly wrong, and beauty represents soemthing fundamentally true. I realized I've missed entire genres here, most majorly horror, which I will guess is based on the "uncanny valley" principle, or a balancing point between truth and falsehood. Furthermore I'll postulate that good horror-related art is that which disturbs us in some valuable way.

Anyway, you can see how it increases the complexity to have points of excellence in the middle as well as at the extremes.

-Finally, I have disposable income. Now if only I had time to spend it. At least tech support will never go out of style.

Kinetics
Time hurries on, leaves that are green etc. I'm starting to get a hang of this quarter, now that it's sixth week. Hoo boy. I probably shouldn't think about the year being half over, especially since it's been hard to go more than a day at a time (two programming classes and a new job will do that). At least the job pays well.

Writing sporadic. Artistic portion of the brain swings between feverish bouts of inspiration and stretches of "I haven't written anything in a while, have I?".

I'm taking one class next quarter. One: Game Construction. But first I have to get through the next 6 weeks while also managing to have fun and stay active socially. I really just want to relax and then pursue my own prjects of awesomeness at about 70% of this pace.

More Intersting, Less Whining
-I put my shiny glowing balls in a spotlight. Yes, really. That's the magic of Computer Graphics. We had to program a box full of bouncing balls. They had specular highlights, and I gave them inner light.

-The custom of going drinking immediately after turning in the Computer Graphics project is an excellent custom. Note: do not order pizza from the University Pub. However, ordering Cholie's through the (nigh-legendary) "Chole Hole" at The Falcon is encouraged.

-I went to the Cove (Hyde Park's Other Dive Bar (TM)) last week with Zach and Boz. Nice place, but they do check ID.

-Moment of excellence:
Zach: "Hey guys! Watch me kick this chunk of ice and nothing bad will happen!" *SPLAT*
Pat: "You forgot to set your plant foot. Way to go, Lawrence Tynes"

-Go Giants! I saw only the first 57 minutes of the Super Bowl due to a very poorly timed work shift. I caught up online, however. Eli Manning, significantly more unstoppable than usual. Really, the city of Boston was going to be insufferable for quite a while if the Pats went 19-0. Glad they put an end to that. And it was a pretty awesome game.

-Reading my brother's Facebook notes leads me to believe I should try to explain more of my philosophical underpinnings in entertaining fashion. Also that I should make more puns about apes.

-My gold shirt has made an appearance on stage. The character who wore it was named "Fluff". The play was "All in the Timing" by David Ives. Tragically, I was denied the honor of "Special Thanks" in a UT program. I am crushed.

-It is occasionally flattering to be hit on by a dude, but ultimately not terribly useful.

Maybe More Like a Fortnight

...Than a tenday.

-You haven't really lived until you've had cheap whiskey from a flask, while standing in a trash enclosure behind a Buddhist temple, in a snowstorm, while there's a service going on in the temple, with loud drums. I believe I almost converted on the way out.

-Despite the preceding statement, I turn out to be employable. I'm now doing Windows tech support for two of the local seminaries (out of four. No, I can't explain it.) through an outside company. Megan is my co-worker, and in fact recommended me for the job and did my training. My take on this is the phrase "Comedy Goldmine". Also, some advice: if you happen to have five servers, make sure that all of them restart after a power outage, especially the one that all the other need to function properly.

-Unfortunately, my major is still trying to kill me. At this stage, taking more than one CS class per quarter is becoming problematic, in that many of them assign a workload which does not really permit taking another serious class. Since I am in both Software Construction and Computer Graphics, death awaits me at every turn. On the other hand, I will be able to render a really sweet-looking 3D Scrabble board by the end of this (The project for Software Construction is producing a working multi-player, web-enabled Scrabble game).

-I am beginning to believe that one should either be totally aware of the consequences and plan accordingly, or be utterly incognizant and wing it for all one's worth. Situations with humans seem to be in the latter category, although there are mitigating factors.

-I seem to be falling for Joan Baez again, which is a shame as she's well out of my age range. Significantly younger women: if you believe you may be Joan Baez (or for that matter Joan Jett), you have my attention.

-I think there should be an investigation as to why "electrangle" is not currently a word.

I'm Late!
I'm almost a tenday late on my current tenday-posting policy. For shame. I have become almost as unreliable as the Sun-Times. I blame this lousy Smarch weather. Except for that bit where it was 60 degrees for three days.

-Productive relations between insomnia and poetry-writing continues. Have a couple new poems, but they still need cleanup; works of 4 AM tend towards surreal jumps and dense metaphor.

-Something useful? Okay. Bars/clubs I've been to this month:
Delilah's: 2771 N Lincoln Ave. This place is pretty fantastic. Two floors, cheap drinks, friendly bartenders, and an absurdly well-stocked bar that glows with an inner light. All the drinks are pretty reasonably priced, but they also have rotating specials basically everyday on beer and whiskey. $2 Maker's Mark, seriously. Quality and variety of DJs as well. Plus there's a guy who wanders around selling tamales in plastic bags. Downside: They have Malort.

Small Bar: 2049 W Division St. Also a fairly nice place. Chief advantages include a table that was formerly a door and a row of throne-like chairs in the back. Also an excellent beer selection. As you might have guessed, it is a fairly small bar. For those of you who are into football(soccer), it is also a soccer(football) bar.

Sonotheque: 1444 W Chicago Ave. The cover here is pricey (up to $12), but it is a good place to see a DJ you know you like. Seating in the form of leather couches and an array of TV/projector screens help the atmosphere. Tendency of crowd to dance appears sub-optimal, though I am usually part of the problem in these matters.

Molly Malone's: 7652 Madison St, Forest Park. If you happen to be in Forest Park, need to find a place whose kitchen is open late, and don't mind a considerably older demographic, this is your place. Comfortable pub/restaurant, and certainly better than the place down the street that was having karaoke night. If you're looking for hip, however, well, I have been there with my grandmother.

- You should probably see There Will Be Blood.

- Going-out-of-business sales are fun. Thanks to the closing of the Hyde Park Co-op, and more specifically their liquor store, Zach and I acquired 8 handles of pre-mixed drinks for $25. We now have a rainbow array of the cheapest 26-proof Margaritas, Mojitos, and Long Islands available to man. The margarita is basically kool-aid and tequila, but the other two aren't bad.

Just when I thought that Chicago's worst excuse for a newspaper couldn't possibly do anything else to disgrace themselves, they manage to disgust me to the point of no return. You'd think that the Sun Times would deal with the embarrassment of having to lay off a huge chunk of their newsroom quietly. Nope. Instead, the paper continues to brag on every single front page: "Still Only 50 Cents!" Nice, Sun Times, that's real stand-up of you. Maybe if you just went ahead and raised your prices like the other newspaper in town that you seem to despise so much, you wouldn't have had to disrupt and derail the careers of so many decent reporters and editors. Or perhaps you are concerned that no one would pay more than two quarters to read the drivel you print everyday and call news. Well, here's another idea: How about you can that Mariotti fellow? I'm sure he's eating up a lot of salary. And certainly the removal of a stale shock-jock sports writer can only improve what little integrity your pulp newspaper may still cling to.