I stated before that the new OutKast double album is great. In case you didn't know it's actually two solo albums - one from Andre 3000, one from Big Boi. Andre's disc is called "The Love Below" and is largely about relationships and/or fucking; Big Boi's is called "Speakerboxxx" and is much like a Beastie Boy's album in that the music largely appears to be about itself.

Andre's disc is pretty progressive - most of his songs feature less rapping that singing, and actual instruments, most of which he played himself. It's also pretty funny. Big Boi's disc is more traditional, but it's definitely better than everything else in rap right now. For one, he doesn't talk about money or cars. For another, even though Ludacris is from Atlanta, and therefore it's mandatory that he be on an album from a fellow Atlanta rapper, it's only for a very bearable fifteen seconds. Then there's the track "War" which features some nicely inflammatory statements about the media and the Afghanistan/Iraq wars, and even mentions Daniel Pearl. I'm impressed that OutKast punctuates their "The Whole World" statement further on this album - I'm very positive that nearly everything watching the video for "The Whole World" missed the point that terrorism exists because everyone hates the US. Oh well. And finally, there's a track on Big Boi's disc called "Bamboo," which is his son's name, in case you didn't know.

Anyways it's a bass loop with Big Boi and his son Bamboo in a recording booth talking. This is different from when Eminem uses sound bites of his daughter on his songs, and it's obvious that he's just editing her voice in since he knows his songs are grossly inappropriate for her at six, seven years of age (the best song on his most recent album, "The Eminem Show," is the last one, "My Dad's Gone Crazy," in which she supplies the hook, but the closing line for the song, and the album, is "...I don't blame you, I wouldn't let Haille listen to me neither").

All that said, this is a transcription of what Big Boi and his son say to each other. I don't know how old Bamboo is but it's pretty obvious he's under five. If parts of this transcription are off, I apologize - I'm writing it as I listen. Anyway, just read.

Big Boi: Ready to set this bitch off?

Bamboo: Yeah.

Big Boi: All right. Step up, get close to the mic. Gotta speak into the microphone. Say some shit.

Bamboo: Huh?

Big Boi: Say something!

Bamboo: Okay.

Big Boi: Well, I thought you were gonna rap?

Bamboo: Ah, wha what?

Big Boi: Wait, wait, you ain't even let them know what your name is first player.

Bamboo: (Unintelligible)

Big Boi: What's your name?

Bamboo: Bamboo.

Big Boi: What's your name?

Bamboo: Bamboo.

Big Boi: Naw, you gotta speak into the mic, you freezing up like "Oooh now."

Bamboo: BAMBOO!

Big Boi: That's right, let them know. And what you come in here in the booth to do?

Bamboo: Rap.

Big Boi: You came to do what?

Bamboo: Come in do rap.

Big Boi: That's right, rap. What you gonna rap?

Bamboo: In the whole world.

Big Boi: All right, that's your jam. All right, ready?

Bamboo: Yeah.

Big Boi: Sing it!

Bamboo: And the whole world...na na na na na, get down, ba ba, ba ba ba badum. And the whole world...nuz a bad a da get down ba da ba, ba ba ba ba.

Big Boi: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, and what else you got to say?

Bamboo: Uh Michael Jackson

Big Boi: Michael Jackson? Not on my record, anything on no damn Michael Jackson. Ready? Say it in the mic.

Bamboo: I saw ya'll mothafucka *

Big Boi: HAHAHA, naw, he ain't say that, say that! That's right, let's do it baby. Ahhh gimme five boy! You in the booth! Yeah!

Okay so that's it. I don't know what to say. It's pretty funny. That kid is going to be fucked up. In any case, go buy the album.

* The "I saw ya'll" part is unclear but the "mothafucka" part is definitely not. 
¶ 12:38 PM

  I spent this last weekend in Austin since some friends were there, including Tony and the regular Austin crew. Saturday night myself, Logan, Ryan, and Tony went to this party that was pretty lame, but there was a marine there who just returned from Baghdad, and Tony asked him how it was, and his one-word answer was, "Bad." This marine was roughly six-foot-five and very buff, with one of the deepest voices I've ever heard. And he was there with his absolutely flaming boyfriend. It takes all kinds I suppose.

We also saw Robert Rodriguez's new film, "Once Upon A Time In Mexico," a movie which features far too many people who are not Johnny Depp talking and not nearly enough of Johnny Depp talking or Antonio Banderas shooting people. Don't get me wrong, this movie has an egregious body count, but after previous Rodriguez films, especially in the same series, I just wasn't expecting something with a plot that twisted so much I became bored with keeping up. On the whole it's all right, and certainly has its moments. Just wasn't what I was expecting I suppose.

In other news I got a perfect on Mark with Dudley. Third best in the nation at Third Strike? HAH! My ass.

The new OutKast album is really good. They are geniuses. Or insane. And with further listening, I can say that the best song on "Thirteenth Step" is the last track, "Gravity." Very hypnotic and relaxing. I'm glad that I found out that A Perfect Circle is playing here in San Antonio - after the floor tickets were all sold out. That makes me happy. If I'm going to go see a show, I'm not going to get an actual seat. So I guess I'm not going. Cry.

It'd be nice if Wesley Clark had actual stances on anything right now, but at least he has electability and conservatives/right-wing pundits can't use the normal anti-Democrat arguments - unpatriotic, hates America and freedom and God, etc. I can't wait to see Bill O'Reilly or someone at a debate try to pull those cards on Clark. Hard to play that shit on someone with a Purple Heart. Man, Clark/Bush would be a fantastic debate.

"I took bullets for the U.S."

"Um, yeah well... I went AWOL on national guard duty."

It's gonna be awzum.

Once again, I'd like to hear his actual position on anything, but he can't possibly be worse than what we have, even if his position is to fashion newborn infants' limbs into a throne he can sit atop. The main problem any Democratic candidate who is trying to ride anti-war sentiment (i.e. all of them) is going to have is that, while many people were against the war and this administration, the war DID happen (or, is happening, take your pick). So this country now owes it to Iraq to actually do something worthwhile/not self-motivated. But no one has a plan for that. Dean's platform so far is "Bush sucks," and while that's an admirable platform, it's not going to help the middle east any. On its own, at least. Part of the problem is that this administration has now basically hamstrung anyone who WOULD do the right thing, since it doesn't really exist anymore. The right thing might have been to not totally demolish two ailing countries in the first place. But we did exactly that. So it's kind of like...if you break something really expensive that you don't have the means to fix, what do you do, apologize? Doesn't quite cut it.

Also I'm a little concerned that Dean's doing so well, since it might be just because the other Democratic candidates suck so bad. I mean...does anyone want Kerry or Lieberman in office? And if they do, where can I get a permit to maim them? Luckily it doesn't look like that's too many people.

I think at one point, even if it was maybe only for a week, I liked Lieberman. Or at least I defended him on some of his stances. I'm glad I got over that, in much the same way that I got over the terrible flu that I caught from the Austin party last New Year's. We all liked Vanilla Ice at some point. We can all be forgiven our trespasses.

A Dean/Clark ticket would be interesting. So far the only policies are right-to-choose and gays in the military, and leniency on same-sex unions, and not much else yet. But that's already an impressive improvement from the greed + kill everything policy.

I've been watching a lot of CSPAN lately. Rick Santorum is some good stuff, let me tell you. 
¶ 2:33 AM

  I'm sitting in front of my computer eating a Chick-fil-A chargrilled wrap after returning from an appointment with my stylist (shut up). I have far less hair now and I spell good. We talked about Thai food, my recent firing, and her recent break with her boyfriend, which she's pretty upset about. On my firing, while I have no money, I can say I'm happier. I hated that job. In the roughly two weeks since I got fired I haven't had anything to drink on my own at all. When I was working it was nearly every night. For her part, she's working up to going to med school, but most mornings she's too depressed to get out of bed. We talked about that, something with which I can empathize completely. She said she'll wake up and just go back to sleep, but that doesn't work either because then she just has dreams. Couple days ago I had a dream that I was late for work and was going to get fired as a result. I awoke in a sweating panic, then thought, "...waaait a minute..." and promptly returned to bed. It was pleasant. I am pretty sure I'd ask this girl out were she not eight feet tall. Anyway she cuts my hair and gives me a massage for a reasonable fee so it's all good.

On the way home I picked up the new album from A Perfect Circle. APC had some lineup changes prior to this album, with Paz leaving for Billy Corgan's group Zwan and replaced by Marilyn Manson bassist Jeordie White, and former Smashing Pumkin's guitarist James Iha joining the original members Keenan, Howerdel, and Freese. While Paz was hot and all, both changes are positive I feel. I'm on record as stating that I think Marilyn Manson is a talented group, and White (formerly Twiggy) certainly helped. That Iha is good goes without saying.

This album has a bit more sonic clarity than Mer De Noms. Whether it's because of the new members or just a different production approach I don't know. Tool has always done something to me, with the music and Keenan's vocals, that strikes very deeply. It's just galvanizing, even if I didn't know what the hell they meant half the time (did you know that "46 and 2" is about evolution? I didn't)...just the aural quality is so transcendent for me, somehow very emotionally powerful. APC didn't really do that for me on Mer De Noms apart from "The Hollow" and "Orestes." As for this new disc, Thirteenth Step, I can't really say right now. Nothing has quite grabbed me, except "Pet." But it's certainly good. Tool is still the standard though (unless the Reznor-Keenan supergroup Tapeworm ever becomes a reality).

If you opened your ketchup, please put it in the fucking fridge. Not the pantry. Thanks.

Also, I received some correspondence from BankOne today, with the only marking on the envelope being "Please Do Not Discard." Anyway I did, after ripping it into three pieces of similar size. Sad day for bulk mail fans everywhere. 
¶ 2:29 PM

  What's up. I haven't posted in a while for reasons I'm not getting into here. Some fun stuff happened to me though!

I got fired! This is a first. This was in late August, I forget the exact date. Tuesday, last week in August. I'd look but I'm lazy. My friend John almost got fired at the same time also. Yeah, it was stupid. So anyway at this point I'm unemployed. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I think this cloud has a silver lining. I really need to get back in school. Fuck that if I'm going to play this stupid game with jobs forever. I'm thinking about teaching currently. We'll see. I still need to get another job though, which sucks, but hey, whatever job it is couldn't be worse than the last one.

A couple weekends ago, right after I got fired, I figured hey! Since I'm free this weekend (what with having gotten fired and all) why not go up to Dallas and stay with my friend Tony, who is having a party of sorts? So I went. I drove to Austin and met up with Mark and his brother Adam, and we left from there. On the way Mark and Adam I talked about Howard Dean, who I know little about (my knowledge of the upcoming election amounts to that I'm not voting for Kerry or Bush, and that's it so far), my unexpected freedom from working, and Pokemon Pinball, which I played most of the way in the car. At Tony's place, much merriment was had with games, food, and drink. There are many photos of this splendid occasion here. Tony is a hoss and his generosity knows no bounds, exhibited not only by providing a place for many, many, many people to hang out, but also by buying me a blueberry waffle at the Waffle House at five in the morning on Saturday. Tony had even provided a bottle of Crown for me, sealed in the box (which someone promptly stole before anyone could open it; the night's only casualty), then later gave me free reign on his Grey Goose. He would later buy me tostada nachos at TGI Friday's Saturday night, so I'm pretty sure I owe him oral sex at this point.

Anyone interested in a brief video of Friday night's event may feel free to contact me via AIM.

Saturday was spent at my friend Logan's in Dallas, while Tony, Mark, Adam, and various other people went to some combination anime convention/J-pop concert (band name: "Move"). I would have gone but there was a fee of something like forty bucks to get in, and I won't exactly be getting a fuckton of paychecks for the time being. So Logan and Adam Deats and another Dallasite Stephen just sat around at Logan's place while John Minco was passed out in Logan's bed from not having slept in two days. We sat on Logan's backyard patio and had basically the dorkiest converstions you can think of while drinking Gatorade and eating pizza. I was going to hyperlink to Gatorade's site but they have some crappy Flash animation shit and popups and whatnot so fuck them. Among other things we talked about which Final Fantasy games were the best/worst, Castlevania in general, and the state of fighting games today. If you were there and aren't really a part of the gaming community, as it were, you would probably have mistaken us for aliens and desperately splashed water from Logan's pool onto our bodies, with hopes that our alien skin would be unfamiliar with liquid and burst into flame. The highlight of the day was entire conversations composed entirely of quotes from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (which Mark still has, by the way).

Sunday Mark and Adam and Adam Deats and I drove back to Mark's and had dinner and whatnot and then watched Six-String Samurai, a movie that I introduced to Mark by giving him a copy. Adam Deats had not seen it, and I have this to say to Adam: fuck you. We then watched Jet Li's "Hero" which was really good and beautiful and visually moving and awe-inspiring and all that but I really don't like how it ended even if it had to end that way for historical purposes. But yeah it was good.

That was about it, I drove back on Monday. And since then I have done a fuckload of nothing. I do have a link for you though! It is the best link ever. Might I recommend the remixes for Megaman 2? They are wonderful. I'm listening to them right now. 
¶ 5:45 AM