Vagabond

I would guess Sasha Baron Cohen does better with Jewish audiences.

Yeah you know what, I agree...I guess it just feels like a finale cause there's actually been mad plot and development and stuff here...at the same time, I feel like Carey's doing a hero-with-a-thousand-faces arc and that feels like it's winding up. Anyone else get the feeling that

Defintely feels finale-ish right now to me. But I guess it's selling good so maybe not. I love how not-decompressed the storytelling is here

That was intense...this series must be ending in 3 or 4 issues at this rate, huh?

Pumped for this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYplvwBvGA4

Edit: Although at this point every Sasha Baron-Cohen movie has been "WACKY CHARACTER ENDS UP IN NEW YORK CITY, HOW WILL HE MISUNDERSTAND AMERICA AND AT THE SAME TIME BE STEREOTYPED BY AMERICANS?"

I'm completely pro-labor, but can I just say that in Boston, we have issues with like, the police union, it's so powerful that cops make mid six digits, retire basically on that with a pension, and can't be fired no matter what they do (ie killing minorities). And the MBTA (subway) union is part (though not all) of the reason our subway is going bankrupt. Bus drivers start on 50,000$ salaries and retire early...everyone I know, and this is poor people from the hood, can't stand how much they make cause it makes the fares more expensive. I mean fuck management, management is worse, but in the public sector, unions can be a bit of a bad lot.

Guess so. I'm not really on the internet that much during the school year, with classes/work/recording, you know? Still can't buy my own beer here, thank you america...

The way I see it dirty south hip hop is just blues evolved---it's made in the same part of the country by the same demographic, for the same demographic, same focus on repeated rhythms, simple rhyme schemes, expressive language, nasal vocal tones, rural accents, I could go on about this for days. but it's really a separate music from like, what eminem, j cole, joe buddenz, what they do. The foundation texts of new york rap are like, Illmatic, Enter the Wu Tang, Ready To Die, Paid In Full. In the south it's The Geto Boyz, the 8Ball and MJG albums, Soul Food, Super Tight. East coast they're doing samples. South they're playing live instruments to make beats.

That "Shalom Haters" video is Shi 360 trying to get club play. That's one of the only ways to make money these days cause albums don't sell. Merch, concerts, club play. Israelis in general tho make less ironic art than americans or brits.

Well Tomer Yosef's known in that I know who he is but I'm in that field, you know? The whole israeli-world-funk-fusion thing does good at world music festivals but it's not doing serious numbers. And the record label he was on folded, which can't be good for him, exposure wise.

Honestly I have so much rap material, stuff I wrote when I was 16 I'm not really thinking about. I definitely have more of a blues influence than most rappers, like the hook I wrote for that singer is kind of a riff on "The coo koo bird" by Clarence Ashley. But I can't sing for shit and I can rap, so I'm way more into writing stuff I can perform and record myself.

I'm not a huge hip hop fan, honestly, I listen to more RnB and Sephardic/middle eastern music than I do rap...rappers, especially in the northeast US, are very caught up on rhyming and not so much on making songs. The rap I listen to is closer to funk than say, jay-z. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D-SmBAY7c0

oy. it's been a weird fuckin couple of years. i moved out of my parents place into an apartment in allston (the student area in boston). smoked a lot, hooked up with drunk chicks, felt guilty that i wasn't paying the rent...cousin in jerusalem killed herself, got mad depressed, serious accident in the family, next apartment turned into a crackhouse (long story...), moved back home. started doing music criticism, taught myself to rap. haven't gone out on a weekend in like 3 months. thinking about a new york move. plus side, i can grow a beard now. yall can peep my art over at http://www.facebook.com/maxelsteinkmusic.

it's not that I miss high school but at the same time it felt like there were more possibilities back then. now I've realized that A. I'm not rich. B. everything costs money. C. I'm not gonna make that kind of money. it is what it is.

What's good guys. It's spring break and I don't have classes or work so I got a lot of time on my hands. Probably should have made plans for this. Anyway, I'm a rapper now. I'm the first jewish kid in boston with a dirty south flow, shoutsout Z-ro, free Lil Boosie, RIP Pimp C. Check this video I dropped (700 hits!)

"DR K -- Halloween"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-SlFSJ0_KQ

My boy allister directed it, hes an up and coming artist from south texas, he got that indie swag. The vision here was wong kar wai meets east coast USA. its grimy. it's recession music. it's got some political undertones. it's a niggun for the skreets. it's slow and offbeat. if you like it, there's a whole album you can cop for FREE at

http://drkmovement.bandcamp.com/album/pay-to-the-order-of-dr-k

shout out rachel lesser for the album art. shes on the comeup. we're all on the comeup except we're all broke. that's america.

this isnt just for hip hop heads...there's blues influence, traditional influence, and skraight up songwriting. this is the first project of hopefully many. I've told myself if I'm not seeing money from this after 5 projects i'm done. i'm also on a journalismhustle but that's probably not your thing.

salud.

Its SPRING BREEAAAAK so I'm at my parents place reading comics. I do not especially recommend DMZ, it starts heavy recycling plotlines for about 30 issues. The one offs are a lot more engaging. Epilogue is bleh. Some good moments tho.

The Unwritten is skraight fire, cosign that.

Fables is not skraight fire. What's with comics dudes and recycling plotlines?

hey guys... can't really sleep, don't feel like watching tv. what's good?

things are different now, better in some ways i guess i'm taking night classes at harvard extension, got fed up with high school. probably a mistake but whatever, i totally get why i did it. fucked around with weed for a bit, got bored, tried to write the great american novel, definitely a mistake there. lot of rejection on all fronts. got into hip hop, got a new record collection. turning 18 in 69 days, gonna get certified to teach english, thinking i should spend a long time out of the country, bad memories and nonstop winters, fuck that.

i'm doing some stuff with music, i think i'm gonna start tryna get a band together after i figure out what i'm doing next year, gotta make cream, start young and i'll have a long time before i'm a failure. you can hear some of my stuff here

http://www.myspace.com/maxelsteink

that isn't me singing, but i wrote all the material, the harmonica is me, and the guitar is mostly me. just some demos.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Max-Elstein-K/107831282576767

Wow whisky sneaks up on you I was sipping a mug of it thinking "goddammit! I can't drink this fast enough to get drunk!" and then I finished and SHIt it it hit me I can't stand straight

Gonna finish 2 short stories tonight then sleep it off then mail some stuff off and start my career I feel really good you people have a good night

Man that would be a nice break, good luck.

I wrote a short story today, 2200 words or so, doing another one or part of tonight, sending stuff off this weekend and you know, it's out of my hands at that point for a bit.

Me trying oh-so-hard to be the bluesiest white kid ever

ACOUSTIC SHOEGAZE

Look at me I'm a sensitive singer songwriter

PUNK'S NOT DEAD

I fucking love that guitar, I got it like the 6th I think, it's an Epiphone dreadnought, 50 bucks used with a gigbag, great bright sound, low action, only tuned it once or twice since I bought it playing around an hour a day. I could play live with it, honestly. Craigslist is great.

Thanks Jessie, that's exactly what I needed to know.

Guess I'll be at the printing place all weekend.

I've got 6 or so good 2000-6000 word stories now and I'll probably have 10-15 more by July, what's the best way to submit them to lit mags? Unsolicited manuscripts?

Hey everyone.

I finished my novel around 8:30 last night, 25,000 words or so which is like a hundred pages. Gonna edit it a lot and then try to get a collection of stories published over the summer, I know a few people who know publishers so if I can get them to take a look I got a chance.

I haven't hung out much in like 2-3 weeks and I'm failing 1 or 2 classes but I can fix that shit now, right now I just feel great.

Just dropping by to say that I guess.

There's a history of bipolar disorder on my mom's side of my family so I gotta stay away from heavy psychedelics. Otherwise I'd probably try acid. Although yeah, I heard it can really really fuck you up permanently.

I think I'm going to drop away for a few months again. It's been fun, gang.

Exactly! There aren't any smart reasons! Thank you, Chief!

And thank you, Christian, for bringing class war into this! Are you joking about the opium thing? Can you even get opium in this century?

I've never smoked a cigarette, don't really plan to, they're a waste of money.

I drink occasionally but I'm 5'7 and like 120 pounds so my tolerance is not great (really sleepy after 3 beers). A lot of kids drink a lot on weekends, like 8-12 drinks, and they drive drunk too, it's pretty unpleasant. Not my scene.

This is just about teenage kicks, you know? I haven't smoked, my friends do. I gotta know what I'm missing.

And I'm not really worried about it affecting my creative output. The best I can really do is 1000-2000 words a day, and I usually write late at night anyway. This isn't going to be an every day thing. Is 1000-2000 words a day enough to be pro, incidentally? I usually do 3-4 short stories of 2000-4000 words a month, shooting for a 25,000 word thing by March.

I am joking about the writing thing, yeah. I mean, most writing doesn't have much to do with drugs. Only major writers I can think of are Hunter S Thompson and Tom Wolfe and honestly I'm shooting higher than that. I saw this documentary on Bukowski and he was just going on and on on booze and suddenly I realized his writing was kind of shit.

It's not so much copying a crowd. My crowd is mostly musician types, not big stoners. The guy I'm blazing with is a major stoner, for high school at least, he buys a lot and owns his own vape. I just think I should be doing more stuff, fun stuff.

I read something like 4 books a week from when I was 8-15. Like, real books, history and modernist writers and stuff. I don't really have an inspiration problem, and honestly, the only thing this has to do with writing is that I've never been high, and I should probably be able to write that. It's just about having a good time, you know?

I never said I'd never smoke, but I don't really plan to do hard stuff. I'm not a druggie, I don't plan to be. I just wanna smoke occasionally.

Yeah I know doing weed won't make me a good writer but I bet you all the good writers since say the 50s have indulged. So if I don't, that kind of fucks my chances.

Yeah, I'm partly smoking to "fit in with a certain crowd". So what? I think the whole point of being 16 is that I don't have to do everything for the perfect reasons. I also bike down highways without a helmet and get into fistfights and every once in a while I shoplift books from Barnes and Noble. You've gotta do fun stuff some time or you end up weird, you know?

I tried you know, doing stuff for the "right reasons". I got straight A's and I was bored as fuck and I didn't have the time or ability to write. You try to be a well-adjusted youth and shit and suddenly a year of your life's gone by. I'd rather be 18 publishing my first novel and bumming around Andalusia thinking "good thing I smoked and had nameless sex and got some good writing done" than "good thing I almost got into Harvard but couldn't have afforded it anyway".

I'd rather be just some guy who lights up every now and then and chills and only really cares about writing than someone who was worried about doing stuff for the right reasons. I don't want a great paying job anyway, so why should I care?

Wait, wanting to have a good time and not be a loser are bad reasons for smoking?

What's the good reason? A spiritual journey? Everyone smokes, it's something I missed out on, and I regret that, so I'm fixing it.

Alright at least where I am, people who never smoke are straight edge kids, or preps. All the people I like to hang out with smoke, I think I'm too high strung anyway, and it's just kind of weird to not smoke, you know? Like, I wanna be a professional writer, and writers who never smoke are probably weird people who write science fiction stories with themselves as the protagonist. In comparison, Leonard Cohen probably lights up once every week or two.

And like, Joe Strummer liked his weed. Dylan likes his weed. Pat Boone hates weed. It's just you know, the cultural thing I guess. I don't wanna be the guy who never smokes. That guy's a creep.

I don't think this counts as experimenting with drugs. Everyone does weed. A lot of my friends started in like, 8th grade. I should have started last year but I was weird and isolated. And you know, getting high with your friends is just a good time. I don't party (although this is completely by choice, high school parties are the shittiest thing ever), I should be having chemical-induced good teenage times. It's not like I'll get busted for smoking inside anyway.

I really don't trust pharmacutical drugs and it's more a matter of typical high school bullshit than anything else. You know, this is the equivalent of having 5 pints at the pub on a Friday night (that's what UK people do, right)?

Besides, I don't want to be someone who never smokes. Like my dad, I bet he didn't smoke at all through high school, and probably like twice in college.

Unrelated, I'm looking for a steel string acoustic guitar. Think it's better to check craigslist every day until something good shows up, or to get a new one? I'm looking for fairly decent quality, better than a learning guitar, probably not tour level.