Before I get down to the films, I’d like to talk about The Grammy’s a little bit. Namely, I’d like to talk about Kanye West.

Back when the album was released, I was impressed by the hooks, I still wake up some mornings singing “Drug dealing just to get by, stack the money till it gets sky high / We wasn’t supposed to make it past 25, joke’s on you we still alive / Throw your hands up in the sky, and say we don’t care what people say”. I kept listening to the album to feel better about it, I thought the first few tracks were great and loved the storytelling on the last song, but something kept bothering me the more I listened to it. I didn’t figure out what it was until I saw Kanye on Charlie Rose.

Aside from being an awfully awkward interview, Kanye West seemed a little crazy to me. Maybe it’s just me being a part of the crowd that hasn’t come so close to death that I don’t even know what it’s like to put my trust in Jesus. But then again, I think of that crazy guy in the tow truck in Harold and Kumar that asks the guys, “Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?” They respond, “Yeah.” “Yeah, He’s great.”

With all the publicity concerning “Jesus Walks” and Kanye constantly saying that “he was just a vessel” for the music, that “God was speaking through him”, it was just… weird, I guess. Why? Because there’s never been such thing as mainstream Christian hip-hop? Even still, this song was just one track of (roughly, including skits) twenty.

How did this happen, and how does a rap album go from being simply a “rap” album to something that can win Grammys. Listening to it, a few things came to mind:

1) Too many skits. I know that’s a requirement for rap albums nowadays, but it just interrupts the flow of the, ahem, music. That’s what’s supposed to go on records, right?

2) I couldn’t buy into the whole “College Dropout” theme. The “positive vibe” of the album felt so contrived and confused at times that it came out muddled, I could never tell whether or not the skits about getting degrees were tongue-in-cheek or not, but the song about spending all this money on an education you didn’t even know you wanted was odd. I’m not saying the majority of the tracks were weak, but the messages were all over the map. It left me a little winded.

3) Kanye isn’t a spectacular rapper. He can rap, but he’s no Jay-Z. He can produce though, and if anything, that’s where the album excels.

That’s all I have to say about that. Do you think he deserved it? Honestly, I can’t concern myself with the Grammys all that much, mainstream music and major labels have come a considerably far way, but a lot of it just seems like business. It’s good to see the nods to Modest Mouse, Wilco, even Green Day winning is nice to see. But just as disappointing to see Motorhead and Los Lonely Boys. I hate that LLB song. But such is life.

It should really be more like the last year in film over a week. I’ve been putting together tons of words on films from last year for the past month, and I can’t seem to reign my words in so that I can make a short, succinct round-up of films that were notable for me last year. So, instead, I’m going to be posting film reviews all week long. I have about 10 of them, and I’ll be counting them off in roughly order of preference, starting later today.

This book was a fast read of interweaving stories from Chicago circa the late 19th Century. The focus is primarily on two people, Daniel Burnham, the head architect of the World’s Columbian Exposition; and H. H. Holmes, a serial killer who lived in a castle he built near the fair.

My overall impression is that the Holmes parts were incomplete and though the two events, the killings and the World’s Fair happened simultaneously, the fair played less of a part in the murders than I’m sure all (including Larson) would have wanted. I had hoped for a historical coincidence that tied the two even closer together, like Holmes was really Burnham’s twin or something. Historical fact be damned, that would make a fine novel even more compelling. Or a great soap opera.

Regardless, the impact of the fair is indelible and remarkable and even edged my interest more so than the gory details about Holmes’s murders, which are surprisingly sparse. Reading about psychopaths is like watching a train wreck, which unfortunately is an all-too-common event these days. However, when reading about The World’s Fair, we’re talking about one of the most influential modern events in world history. The landmark buildings, revolutionary inventions, and corresponding influence of everything stemming from the fair is absolutely astounding. To be able to put into context things like the death of modern American architecture, the sinking of the Titanic, the introduction of the world’s first zipper and most importantly, the name of the best working man’s beer in the world, Pabst Blue Ribbon, is to understand the grand scope of the exposition.

By and by, the inclusion of Holmes and his crimes was a necessity. Saying nothing of the juxtaposition of evil and good during the Gilded Age (the chapters pretty regularly alternated from one subject to the other), it was a welcome break from the endless droll of Olmstead’s (the landscape designer) and other’s complaints about the fair.

Recommended, but especially for those with a hankering to learn when the first stick of Juicy Fruit was introduced to the world. Other facts may also come to light.

My big problem with rolling out a new design is that once I roll it out, everything always seems half-done for a long, long time. I’m working hard at getting it all done, but there’s a big list of things that i’m missing. I realize (brandon) that the etc. page is all out of whack, but it’s also true that that page has been outdated since october of 2003. The new links page is an ever-expanding list of bookmarks I’ve been keeping and sites I visit fairly regularly, unless they haven’t been updated in a long, in which case I have them there as a placeholder until that said person gets back on the wagon and starts updating their site again. If you find other things that you’d like to see updated, or find problems, please leave me a comment about it. I’ve got a lot of projects I’m working on, so thanks for understanding.

In the same vein, if someone could point me to a .php tutorial for image galleries that actually works (that shitty one at hotscripts does not), i’d be forever indebted to you. Or at least for a little while.

There should be an update Circus of the Stars page coming soon as well as a return of the search function, which has been gone for a while. I know you all want to see where you’ve been mentioned on this website. Soon. I swear.

» ben took some screenshots. i made a gallery. quite possibly the best gallery, ever: check it.

» here’s the state of the union transcript. unfortunately, the white house press release has all the applause points marked in parentheses, which is why i wanted to read the SOTU instead of watching it on tv. the one i linked to thankfully, does not have it. UPDATE: this is 2003’s, and funnily enough, it took me a read half-way through to realize it. here’s this year’s.

» remember garbage pail kids?

» asscraft is out, gonzales is in, and apparently, so is torture.

In addition, he has faced criticism for a Justice Department memo on prisoners in Afghanistan that defined torture only as “extreme acts” that inflicted pain “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.”

did anyone see ted kennedy make his statements during the hearings the other day? he killed.

» i’ve been enjoying cspan online feeds like a good little nerd. there’s also lots of good frontline vids from pbs available here.

» that’s it from the spl. tomorrow is a new day.

The beats on this record are solid gold and the flow kills. I was lamenting the lack of fresh production and solid conscious rhyming in 2004, and that’s all because I missed De La Soul’s The Grind Date. If anyone new to the game claims that all of hip-hop’s citizens (dictionary definition: A person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation) have betrayed hip-hop through “selling out” hasn’t listened to this album. I’m not trying to say that hip-hop has always been about consciousness or giving Black America its own voice, but if you want to talk about advancing an art form in a positive manner, then hear this.

The samples are live and while some tracks rely heavily on motown hooks others synthesize new school sampling and synths making this a heavy contender for some of the most innovative beats in hip-hop. Am I over stating this at all? De La Soul is expanding and growing as real and responsible artists of hip-hop, an amazing feat after 15 years. And they give me hope for much more: If the soul keeps rocking the streets will keep rocking / If the streets keep rocking the soul will keep rocking / If the streets stop rocking the soul will keep rocking / If the soul keeps rocking the streets will keep rocking.

The production is top-notch and the guest appearances spit fire, especially Common on “Days Of Our Lives”: Responsibility of my man’s felony fell on me / Celebrity status, make ‘em think I got celery / Hell and I do sometimes, still the sunshine ain’t even all day / The life of a baller, ain’t even all play / I stack ‘em, so the chips fall where they must / I ain’t far from a Benz, or dude on the bus. That sample that sounds like my Mac hissing errors at me is hooks, man.

And Ghostface? You heard?: For you like Loo Goo Kim, or Moo Loo Inn / Hula hoop all bitches crew full with brand new Keds / Cutmaster kill ‘em, make sure we cut classics / Buck bastards in broad day and tuck caskets / Next to Uday and Qusay, how can the group shoot the PA / And just lay whooptay whooptay? Can you imagine even saying that shit let alone rapping it? And remember Uday and Qusay? A rap like that makes them relevant just like that. Even Dave goes non-stop on this : I circumcise the track, you just a dick - overlapped and hooded
/ Skin repeated like Stutterin John.

I will from now on start referring people to this album first and foremost when they say they want some new hip-hop that doesn’t have Pharrell clicking his tongue or Snoop lazily phoning his bitch-slaps in.

“If the meek shall inherit the earth and not the weak, let me inherit the street, fuck it. You know what I mean?”