Thursday, November 20, 2008

Hip Hop, English Style


"Dance Wiv Me" by Dizzee Rascal (2008)


Tuesday, November 11, 2008

"Fish"


by Daniel Johnston


Try aching every care in the world

She's only the most beautiful girl

The more I think it, the badder it gets

I was just swimming along when I was caught in her net


She's got me singing with a broken heart

I keep on messing with my mind torn apart

She's already forgotten, look at me left in the dust

I guess my art didn't help very much


Then the super love got me again

Got me dreaming I could almost win

I stopped to take a look around with a grin

So much turmoil in this crazy town


She's got me bloody from hitting the bricks

Is this the way the girlies get their kicks?

And now I see if it makes a difference

Everyone in love, hating her and each other


Always thinking it's near the end

Then I was hoping she'd be my friend

Will I forever only wish it again?

oh to be alive and free from sin!


Psycho love in the Twilight Zone

Drippy soap opera on the telephone

I get so close but I don't belong

Strain to identify with a radio song


Then I see her as if in a dream

It's so real I could almost scream

She's doing a ritual the same for any man,

just like a movie, it's so deadpan!


I hope for true love in the darkness

I had the chance at false romance

Maybe next time I'll look for something new

I'm so ashamed, so unglued


I've had enough and she'll never know

I feel like staying but my subconscious says 'go'

Shed a tear like blood on the floor

It's only love and nothing more


She's got me singing with a broken heart

I keep on messing with my mind torn apart

she's already forgotten, look at me left in the dust

I guess my art didn't help very much

Sunday, November 9, 2008

“I can see it (But I Can't Feel it)”



















by My Bloody Valentine

Don't know when
I will leave you again
Grab a reason
And I'm dragging you down

Come just to make you happy
Shot in the head I can see
I can see it
But I can't feel it

Friday, September 26, 2008

Paper Planes



I fly like paper, get high like planes
If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name
If you come around here, I make 'em all day
I get one down in a second if you wait

Sometimes I feel sitting on trains
Every stop I get to I'm clocking that game
Everyone's a winner now we're making that fame
Bonafide hustler making my name

All I wanna do is
And take your money

Pirate skulls and bones
Sticks and stones and weed and bombs
Running when we hit 'em
Lethal poison through their system

No one on the corner has swagger like us
Hit me on my Burner prepaid wireless
We pack and deliver like UPS trucks
Already going hell just pumping that gas

All I wanna do is
And take your money

M.I.A.
Third world democracy
Yeah, I got more records than the K.G.B.
So, uh, no funny business

Some some some I some I murder
Some I some I let go
Some some some I some I murder
Some I some I let go

Monday, September 22, 2008

"Knife Party"

by Chino Moreno

My knife
it's sharp and chrome
Come see
inside my bones

All of the fiends
are on the block
I'm the new king
Ill take the queen
cause in here
were all anemic
In here
anemic and sweet

Go get your knife
go get your knife
And come in

Go get your knife
go get your knife
And lay down

Go get your knife
go get your knife
Now kiss me

I can float here forever
In this room
we can't touch the floor
In here were all anemic
In here
anemic and sweet

Go get your knife
go get your knife
And come in

Go get your knife
go get your knife
And lay down

Go get your knife
go get your knife
Now kiss me

I could float here forever
anemic and sweet
I could float here forever
anemic and sweet

Go get your knife
go get your knife
And come in

Go get your knife
go get your knife
And lay down

Go get your knife
go get your knife
Get filthy

Go get your knife
go get your knife
And kiss me

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Lustprinzip


by Egotronic

Du kannst dumm in der Ecke stehen
ich will lieber tanzen gehn
wenn bunte Lichter blitzen
in einer Disko schwitzen

Alltag raus, Video rein
so kannst du ruhig glücklich sein
ich will beim vier-viertel stampfen
mich in Ekstase tanzen

Alltag raus, Video rein
so kannst du ruhig glücklich sein
und erklingt dann dieses Lied...

Ich sag dir komm wir gehn aus
du sagst nein wir bleiben zuhaus
bleib ruhig sitzen, ich steh auf
an dem Scheiss gehst du noch drauf
ich bau mir heut diese Welt
wiede-wie sie mir gefällt
und erklingt dann dieses Lied
regiert das Lustprinzip!

Alltag raus, Video rein
so kannst du ruhig glücklich sein
und erklingt dann dieses Lied
regiert das Lustprinzip!

Seh die Welt mit andern Augen
DJs am Mischpult schrauben
seh wie meine Hüfte kreist
wenn mein Gesicht entgleist
es gibt nichts was mich noch hält
Grüsse an den Rest der Welt
fehlt der Party dann die Power
gehts ab zur Afterhour

Du kannst dumm in der Ecke stehen

Alltag raus, Video rein
so kannst du ruhig glücklich sein
und erklingt dann dieses Lied...

Lustprinzip

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Recently Published Work

In SF Weekly print edition -- circulation 100,000

Parts Unknown

By David McClymonds

Parts Unknown

Ask any train hopper: Riding the rails can be true bliss. The feeling of pulling out of a yard after hiding in the corner of a boxcar for 14 hours makes the slow, dirty trip instantly worth it. And running out of water, getting shot at by rednecks, or losing a limb are risks many believe are worth the experience of seeing the countryside scene-by-scene from a rusty metal car. Riding freight trains is just about as American as apple pie, a middle finger to capitalism, and a true test of one’s liberties. Just ask Woody Guthrie, Jimmie Rodgers, or any of the others who have pennilessly traveled the country in search of something often unknown — “I'm a thousand miles away from home just waiting for a train,” Rodgers once sang. Although the mainstream often regards it as the domain of crazy hobos and illegal immigrants, director Sarah George proves otherwise. For five years, George rode alongside four self-sufficient souls who regularly hop trains, and her 2002 film, Catching Out, provides a picturesque look at the freedom and beauty of life on the rails.

Link

Fire, Water, Firewater

By David McClymonds

Fire, Water, Firewater

Fireworks may have originally been used to scare away evil spirits in China, but today Americans often see the pretty explosions in the sky as an excuse to get drunk and (hopefully) romantic with the person standing next to them. Some would even call it patriotic to down shots of Jack Daniels during Fourth of July fireworks. We think the best place to maintain that nationalistic buzz is from the deck of a ferryboat floating in the middle of the celebration. The Red and White Fleet's July 4th Fireworks Cruises allow people to experience one of the Bay Area's biggest and most extravagant fireworks shows from a special perspective. The ferries head out early to get a good spot near the action, drop anchor, and allow passengers time to take advantage of the full bar. The best part is the outdoor deck that allows for a panoramic view of the 30-minute show, plus a chance to hold your date tightly — whichever fellow seagoer you happen to choose.

Link

More to come soon.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Dan Rather Slams Corporate News at National Conference for Media Reform


Free Press

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather delivered a blistering critique of corporate news on Saturday night at the National Conference for Media Reform hosted by Free Press.

The following are Dan Rather's prepared remarks:

I am grateful to be here and I am, most of all, gratified by the energy I have seen tonight and at this conference. It will take this kind of energy — and more — to sustain what is good in our news media... to improve what is deficient... and to push back against the forces and the trends that imperil journalism and that — by immediate extension — imperil democracy itself.

The Framers of our Constitution enshrined freedom of the press in the very first Amendment, up at the top of the Bill of Rights, not because they were great fans of journalists — like many politicians, then and now, they were not — but rather because they knew, as Thomas Jefferson put it, that, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be."

And it is because of this Constitutionally-protected role that I still prefer to use the word "press" over the word "media." If nothing else, it serves as a subtle reminder that — along with newspapers — radio, television, and, now, the Internet, carry the same Constitutional rights, mandates, and responsibilities that the founders guaranteed for those who plied their trade solely in print.

So when you hear me talk about the press, please know that I am talking about all the ways that news can be transmitted. And when you hear me criticize and critique the press, please know that I do not exempt myself from these criticisms.

In our efforts to take back the American press for the American people, we are blessed this weekend with the gift of good timing. For anyone who may have been inclined to ask if there really is a problem with the news media, or wonder if the task of media reform is, indeed, an urgent one... recent days have brought an inescapable answer, from a most unlikely source.

A source who decided to tell everyone, quote, "what happened."

I know I can't be the first person this weekend to reference the recent book by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, but, having interviewed him this past week, I think there are some very important points to be made from the things he says in his book, and the questions his statements raise.

I'm sure all of you took special notice of what he had to say about the role of the press corps, in the run-up to the war in Iraq. In the government's selling of the war, he said they were — or, I should say, we were "complicit enablers" and "overly deferential."

These are interesting statements, especially considering their source. As one tries to wrap one's mind around them, the phrase "cognitive dissonance" comes to mind.

The first reaction, a visceral one, is: Whatever his motives for saying these things, he's right — and we didn't need Scott McClellan to tell us so.

But the second reaction is: Wait a minute... I do remember at least some reporters, and some news organizations, asking tough questions — asking them of the president, of those in his administration, of White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and — oh yes — of Scott McClellan himself, once he took over for Mr. Fleischer a few months after the invasion.

So how do we reconcile these competing reactions? Well, we need to pull back for what we in television call the wide shot.

If we look at the wide shot, we can see, in one corner of our screen, the White House briefing room filled with the White House press corps... and, filling the rest of the screen, the finite but disproportionately powerful universe that has become known as "mainstream media" — the newspapers and news programs, real and alleged, that employ these White House correspondents — the news organizations that are, in turn, owned by a shockingly few, much larger corporations, for which news is but a miniscule part of their overall business interests.

In the wake of 9/11 and in the run-up to Iraq, these news organizations made a decision — consciously or unconsciously, but unquestionably in a climate of fear — to accept the overall narrative frame given them by the White House, a narrative that went like this: Saddam Hussein, brutal dictator, harbored weapons of mass destruction and, because of his supposed links to al Qaeda, this could not be tolerated in a post-9/11 world.

In the news and on the news, one could, to be sure, find persons and views that did not agree with all or parts of this official narrative. Hans Blix, the former U.N. chief weapons inspector, comes to mind as an example. But the burden of proof, implicitly or explicitly, was put on these dissenting views and persons... the burden of proof was not put on an administration that was demonstrably moving towards a large-scale military action that would represent a break with American precedent and stated policy of how, when, and under what circumstances this nation goes to war.

So with this in mind, we look back to the corner of our screen where the White House Press Corps is asking their questions. I have been a White House correspondent myself, and I have worked with some of the best in the business. You have an incentive, when you are in that briefing room, to ask the good, tough questions: If nothing else, that is how you get in the paper, or on the air. There is more to it than that, and things have changed since I was a White House correspondent — something I want to talk about in a minute. But the correspondents — the really good ones — these correspondents ask their tough questions.

And these questions are met with what is now called, euphemistically and much too kindly, what is now called "message discipline."

Well, we used to have a better and more accurate term for "message discipline." We called it "stonewalling."

Now, cut back to your evening news, or your daily newspaper... where that White House Correspondent dutifully repeats the question he asked of the president or his press secretary, and dutifully relates the answer he was given — the same non-answer we've already heard dozens of times, which amounts to a pitch for the administration's point of view, whether or NOT the answer had anything to do with the actual question that was asked.

And then: "Thank you Jack. In other news today... ."

And we're off on a whole new story.

In our news media, in our press, those who wield power were, in the lead-up to Iraq, given the opportunity to present their views as a coherent whole, to connect the dots, as they saw the dots and the connections... no matter how much these views may have flown in the face of precedent, established practice — or, indeed, the facts (as we are reminded, yet again, by the just-released Senate report on the administration's use of pre-war intelligence). The powerful are given this opportunity still, in ways big and small, despite what you may hear about the "post-Katrina" press.

But when a tough question is asked and not answered, when reputable people come before the public and say, "wait a minute, something's not right here," the press has treated them like voices crying in the wilderness. These views, though they might be given air time, become lone dots — dots that journalists don't dare connect, even if the connections are obvious, even if people on the Internet and in the independent press are making these very same connections. The mainstream press doesn't connect these dots because someone might then accuse them of editorializing, or of being the, quote, "liberal media."

But connecting these dots — making disparate facts make sense — is a big part of the real work of journalism.

So how does this happen? Why does this happen?

Let me say, by way of answering, that quality news of integrity starts with an owner who has guts.

In a news organization with an owner who has guts, there is an incentive to ask the tough questions, and there is an incentive to pull together the facts — to connect the dots — in a way that makes coherent sense to the news audience.

I mentioned a moment ago that things have changed since I was a White House correspondent. Yes, presidential administrations have become more adept at holding "access" over the heads of reporters — ask too tough a question, or too many of them, so the implicit threat goes, and you're not going to get any more interviews with high-ranking members of the administration, let alone the president. But I was covering Presidents Johnson and Nixon — men not exactly known as pushovers. No, what has changed, even more than the nature of the presidency, is the character of news ownership. I only found out years after the fact, for example, about the pressure that the Nixon White House put on my then-bosses, during Watergate — pressure to cut down my pieces, to call me off the story, and so on... because, back then, my bosses took the heat, so I didn't have to. They did this so the story could get told, and so the public could be informed.

But it is rare, now, to find a major news organization owned by an individual, someone who can say, in effect, "The buck stops here." The more likely motto now is: "The news stops... with making bucks."

America's biggest, most important news organizations have, over the past 25 years, fallen prey to merger after merger, acquisition after acquisition... to the point where they are, now, tiny parts of immeasurably larger corporate entities — entities whose primary business often has nothing to do with news. Entities that may, at any given time, have literally hundreds of regulatory issues before multiple arms of the government concerning a vast array of business interests.

These are entities that, as publicly-held and traded corporations, have as their overall, reigning mandate: Provide a return on shareholder value. Increase profits. And not over time, not over the long haul, but quarterly.

One might ask just where the news fits into this model. And if you really need an answer, you can turn on your television, where you will see the following:

Political analysis reduced to in-studio shouting matches between partisans armed with little more than the day's talking points.

Precious time and resources wasted on so-called human-interest stories, celebrity fluff, sensationalist trials, and gossip.

A proliferation of "news you can use" that amounts to thinly-disguised press releases for the latest consumer products.

And, though this doesn't get said enough, local news, which is where most Americans get their news, that seems not to change no matter what town or what city you're in... so slavish is its adherence to the "happy talk" formula and the dictum that, "If it bleeds, it leads."

I could continue for hours, cataloging journalistic sins of which I know you are all too aware. But, as the time grows late, let me say that almost all of these failings come down to this: In the current model of corporate news ownership, the incentive to produce good and valuable news is simply not there.

Good news, quality news of integrity, requires resources and it requires talent. These things are expensive, these things eat away at the bottom line.

Years ago, in the eighties and the nineties, when the implications of these cost-trimming measures were becoming impossible to ignore, and the quality of the news was clearly threatened, I spoke out against this cutting of news operations to the bone and beyond. Even then, though, I couldn't have imagined that the cost-cutting imperatives would go as far as they have today — deep into the marrow of what was once considered a public trust.

But since the financial resources always seem to be available for entertainment, promotion, and — last but not least — for lobbying... perhaps there is an even more important reason why the incentive to produce quality news is absent, and that is: quality news of integrity, by its very nature, is sure to rock the boat now and then. Good, responsible news worthy of its Constitutional protections will, in that famous phrase, afflict the powerful and comfort the afflicted.

And that, when one feels the need to deliver shareholder value above all, means that good news... may not always mean good business — or so goes the fear, a fear that filters down into just about every big newsroom in this country.

Now, I have spent my entire life in for-profit news, and I happen to think that it does not have to be this way. I have worked for news owners who, while they may have regarded their news divisions as an occasional irritant, chose to turn that irritant into a pearl of public trust. But today, sadly, it seems that the conglomerates that have control over some of the biggest pieces of this public trust would just as soon spit that irritant out.

So what does this mean for us tonight, and what is to be done?

It means that we need to be on the alert for where, when, and how our news media bows to undue government influence. And you need to let news organizations know, in no uncertain terms, that you won't stand for it... that you, as news consumers, are capable of exerting pressure of your own.

It means that we need to continue to let our government know that, when it comes to media consolidation, enough is enough. Too few voices are dominating, homogenizing, and marginalizing the news. We need to demand that the American people get something in exchange for the use of airwaves that belong, after all, to the people.

It means that we need to ensure that the Internet, where free speech reigns and where journalism does not have to pass through a corporate filter... remains free.

We need to say, loud and clear, that we don't want big corporations enjoying preferred access to — or government acting as the gatekeeper for — this unique platform for independent journalism.

And it means that we need to hold the government to its mandate to protect the freedom of the press, including independent and non-commercial news media.

The stakes could not possibly be higher. Scott McClellan's book serves as a reminder, and the current election season, not to mention the gathering clouds of conflict with Iran, will both serve as tests of whether lessons have truly been learned from past experience. Ensuring that a free press remains free will require vigilance, and it will require work.

Please, take tonight's energy and inspiration home with you. Take it back to your desks and your workplaces, to your colleagues and your fellow citizens. magnify it, multiply it, and spread it. Make it viral. Make it something that cannot be ignored — not by the powers in Washington, not by the owners and executives of media companies. Write these people. Call them. Send them the message that you know your rights, you know that you are entitled to news media as diverse and varied as the American people... and that you deserve a press that provides the raw material of democracy, the good information that Americans need to be full participants in our government of, by, and for the people.

There is energy here, that can be equal to that task, but this energy must be maintained... if the press — if democracy — is to be preserved.

Thank you very much, and good night.


Monday, May 19, 2008


Arcade Fire, "No Cars Go"

I Luv It

By Young Jeezy


Ride till I die
Lord knows I stay high
and I love it,
and I love it


We count hundreds on the table, twentys on the floor
Fresh outta work and on the way with some more
And I love it (yeah!), and I love it
I got gangstas in the crowd, bad bitches at my show
Yeah its parked outside, and its sittin on fo's
And I love it (yeah!), and I love it

Once again it's on, I'm back in the mu'fuckin booth
These niggas still lying, I'm the mu'fuckin truth
I don't believe em, I need to see mu'fuckin proof
I ain't want the four door, I copped the mu'fuckin coupe
They tryin be me, I'm just tryin be G
And everything comes to da light you'll see
These niggas in the dark baby I just shine
I do it from the heart homie they just rhyme
Check your watch, nigga it's my time
Mind made up I was on my grind
So pay attention yea you on my time
In that case time waits for no man
Do it again I done that before man
M.O.E., you ain't part of the program
Or maybe you niggaz ain't listening
Open your eyes I'm a blessing in disguise

We count hundreds on the table, twentys on the floor
Fresh outta work and on the way with some more
And I love it (yeah!), and I love it
I got gangstas in the crowd, bad bitches at my show
Yeah its parked outside, and its sittin on fo's
And I love it (yeah!), and I love it

Yea I blew up, but they ain't like that
They switched up on me, and I ain't like that
Sold my first brick, yea, I came right back
Fast forward the tape, nigga look at me now
And I never turn back, so motherfuck that
Nike's on the ground got my head to the sky
Smoked all day, Lord knows I stay high
Stay on top, Lord knows I'm gon' try
And live for the moment, Lord knows I'm gon' die
And when I get to hell, Lord knows I'm gon' fry
Woke up this morning so I'm still alive
36 O's I sold them all for five

We count hundreds on the table, twentys on the floor
Fresh outta work and on the way with some more
And I love it (yeah!), and I love it
I got gangstas in the crowd, bad bitches at my show
Yeah its parked outside, and its sittin on fo's
And I love it (yeah!), and I love it

Been around the world, it's the same ol' caine
Been around the world, it's the same ol' thang
All the real niggaz either dead or in jail
And if you're looking for me homie, I'm in the A-T-L
You gotta play it how it go, you can't cheat on life
Ya better drink a Red Bull, you can't sleep on life
I ain't tryna do you, I'm tryin' do me
Last album did two, I'm just tryin' do three
Fresh out the pot yea the work was hard
Ride with the top down so I'm closer to God
My P.O. telling me I need a 9 to 5
But I already got a job, and that's stayin alive

We count hundreds on the table, twentys on the floor
Fresh outta work and on the way with some more
And I love it (yeah!), and I love it
I got gangstas in the crowd, bad bitches at my show
Yeah its parked outside, and its sittin on fo's
And I love it (yeah!), and I love it

Friday, March 21, 2008

"Waiting for a Train"

All around the water tank, waiting for a train
A thousand miles away from home, sleeping in the rain
I walked up to a brakeman just to give him a line of talk
He said "If you got money, boy, I'll see that you don't walk
I haven't got a nickel, not a penny can I show
"Get off, get off, you railroad bum" and slammed the boxcar door

He put me off in Texas, a state I dearly love
The wide open spaces all around me, the moon and the stars up above
Nobody seems to want me, or lend me a helping hand
I'm on my way from Frisco, going back to Dixieland
My pocket book is empty and my heart is full of pain
I'm a thousand miles away from home just waiting for a train

Originally by Jimmie Rogers

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Obama decries rash of divisive campaigning

Johanna Neuman, Los Angeles Times

Sunday, March 16, 2008

(03-16) 04:00 PDT Washington - --

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday lamented the rhetorical skirmishes that have recently turned the Democratic presidential campaign into a contest over race and gender.

"The forces of division have started to raise their ugly heads again," he said at a town hall meeting in a high school in Plainfield, Ind.

Obama did not mention by name his rival, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, or the recent string of barbs traded between the two campaigns. "I'm not here to cast blame or point fingers," he said.

In the last week alone, Obama distanced himself from his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for saying Clinton, being a woman of privilege in a country run by whites, could never understand blacks. During the same week, Clinton accepted the resignation from her finance committee of former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York after Ferraro said that she believed Obama would never had gotten this far in the presidential race if he had not been black.

"We've got a tragic history when it comes to race in this country," Obama said, noting "pent-up anger and mistrust and bitterness." But, he added, "I continue to believe that this country wants to move beyond these kinds of things."

Noting his own ethnic background - his mother was white and his father black - Obama said: "As somebody who was born into a diverse family, as somebody who has little pieces of America all in me, I will not allow us to lose this moment."

As the crowd came to its feet shouting, "Yes we can, yes we can," Obama said it is important to speak up against inflammatory words like those of his former pastor, but equally important to come together.

"It is within our power to join together, to truly make a United States of America," he said. "That's the only way that we're going to deliver on the big issues we're facing in this country. We cannot solve health care divided. We cannot create an economy that works for everybody divided. We cannot fight terrorism divided. We cannot care for our veterans divided. We have to come together."

Obama spoke in Indiana as he directed his political attention to states beyond the critical April 22 Pennsylvania primary. Indiana and North Carolina have primaries on May 6, two weeks after Pennsylvania's on April 22.

Friday, March 14, 2008


Dedicated to Brandon Biebel

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Monday, February 25, 2008

Gross Domestic Product

GDP = consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exportsimports)
or
GDP = C + I + G + (X-M)

Each of the variables C, I, G and XM (where GDP = C + I + G + (X-M) as above)

  • C is private consumption in the economy. This includes most personal expenditures of households such as food, rent, medical expenses and so on but does not include new housing.
  • I is defined as investments by business or households in capital. Examples of investment by a business include construction of a new mine, purchase of software, or purchase of machinery and equipment for a factory. Spending by households on new houses is also included in Investment. In contrast to its colloquial meaning, 'Investment' in GDP does not mean purchases of financial products. Buying financial products is classed as 'saving', as opposed to investment. The distinction is (in theory) clear: if money is converted into goods or services, it is investment; but, if you buy a bond or a share of stock, this transfer payment is excluded from the GDP sum. Although such purchases would be called investments in normal speech, from the total-economy point of view, this is simply swapping of deeds, and not part of real production or the GDP formula.
  • G is the sum of government expenditures on final goods and services. It includes salaries of public servants, purchase of weapons for the military, and any investment expenditure by a government. It does not include any transfer payments, such as social security or unemployment benefits.
  • X is gross exports. GDP captures the amount a country produces, including goods and services produced for other nations' consumption, therefore exports are added.
  • M is gross imports. Imports are subtracted since imported goods will be included in the terms G, I, or C, and must be deducted to avoid counting foreign supply as domestic.
taken from Wikipedia.com

Thursday, February 21, 2008

I wrote up an article for a local newspaper yesterday on a school's grand opening ceremony. Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom among other political hotshots were in attendance. I'm quickly learning how hard it is to shoot photos and take notes at the same time. Check out a picture I took.


I saw Eric Drooker do a multimedia lecture last night. It was inspiring. Apparently he has been living in San Francisco for some time now. I never knew. Check out some of his work below.


Wednesday, February 6, 2008

"Fuck You (An Ode To No One)"













by Billy Corgan

I'm never coming back
I'm never giving in
I'll never be the shine in your spit

I disconnect the act
I disconnect the dots
I disconnect the me in me

And you're mistaken
It's you that's faking
Living and breathing and dying too

This message is for anyone who dares to hear a fool

You can't bring me back
you can't bring me back
Cause I give it all back to you

Thru sacred alleys, the living wrecks
Wreak their havoc upon this world
The disenchanted, the romantics
The body and face and soul of you is gone down that deep black hole

Destroy the mind
destroy the body
but you cannot destroy the heart

Destroy the mind
destroy the body
but you cannot destroy the heart


And you, you make me
so I need to disconnect
And you make it so real
I don't need your love to disconnect

To runaround kids in get-go cars
With vaseline afterbirths and neon coughs
Galaxies full of nobodies
Giving us the farewell runarounds
I took a virgin mary axe to his sweet baby jane
lost my innocence to a no good girl
scratch my face with anvil hands
and coil my tongue around a bumblebee mouth

And I give it all back to you
And I give it all back to you
And I give it all back to you
for you

No way, I don't need it
I don't need your love to disconnect
And you make it, so real
I don't need your love to disconnect

No way to disconnect
And you make it so real
I don't need your love to disconnect
No way to disconnect

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

I'm Dead

by Taylor Whitehouse

David Roy McClymonds, a student and freelance writer for local music and skateboard magazines, has died.

The adventuresome, punk rock enthusiast collided with a bus yesterday while skateboarding down a large hill. He was 24 years old.

He was a journalism major at San Francisco State, and did freelance work for Paying and Pain, Low Card and Maximum Rock and Roll. The last of which is well-known to Bay Area punk rockers and musicians.

McClymonds traveled through Europe, and played in punk bands in Spain and Switzerland.
He was once a member of an infamous local band, Dreadknox, which was banned from half of the venues in Sacramento.

He spent a lot of time at rock shows in San Francisco, and moved from Sacramento to the Mission District three years ago.

“I am attracted to the fact that it is a very international city,” McClymonds said in an interview shortly before his death.

When asked why he attended fewer punk rock shows, he spoke of how his interests had shifted with age.

“I don’t have enough angst for punk shows anymore,” he said with a smile. “I expanded and started listening to a lot of other music, and got into other things.”
He also enjoyed cooking, culture and the arts.

His parents, Roy McClymonds and Kimberly Williams, moved to Redlands, Calif. shortly after David’s birth. The family moved to Sacramento when David was three.

McClymonds was born at a hospital in the middle of a corn field in Central Ill. And his grandmother always told him that he was a vegetarian because of this.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

"Needy Girl"

by Chromeo

Big Brother Gets Stonger

Denise Lavoie, Associated Press
Wednesday, January 23, 2008

As a foreign traveler, Punit Pawar is accustomed to the security when he flies into the United States, so he hardly took notice Tuesday when he was asked to put his 10 fingers on a digital scanner as part of an enhanced security system being rolled out at airports across the country.

"It didn't take much of my time, so it didn't bother me," said Pawar, a citizen of India and a student at Boston's Northeastern University. "I'm OK with it, if this is what they need to do for security."

Since 2004, nonresidents traveling internationally have been required to allow airport personnel to scan their two index fingers at airports as part of a program called United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT). But now, foreign travelers will be asked to scan all 10 fingers, an enhancement the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hopes will help officials more closely monitor watch lists of terrorist suspects, criminals and immigration law violators.

Boston's Logan International Airport, where two of the passenger planes involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks took off, became the third airport to use 10-finger scanners last week. Dulles International Airport, serving Washington, D.C., began using the devices in November; Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport began using the new system this month.

Seven other airports are scheduled to start using the new system by the end of February, including Chicago O'Hare, San Francisco, Houston, Miami, Detroit, Orlando and New York's Kennedy.

By the end of the year, the devices are expected to be running in all the nation's international airports, as well as seaports and border points.

Robert Mocny, director of the US-VISIT program, said the new device scans fingerprints from travelers and within a matter of seconds matches them against more than 3.2 million fingerprints of people in FBI and Department of Defense databases. Mocny said going from two fingerprints to 10 improves matching accuracy and reduces the number of false matches.

"By having this additional data, the machine will be able to say with more certainty that this is the person, this is a match," Mocny said after officials used the new scanners on international travelers arriving at Logan Tuesday.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

"I Have a Dream"


August 28, 1963

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!" And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring -- from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring -- from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring -- from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring -- from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring -- from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that.

Let freedom ring -- from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring -- from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring -- from every hill and molehill of Mississippi,
from every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual,

"Free at last, free at last.

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

Monday, January 21, 2008

Fort Miley

I recently acquired Canon Rebel XTi. I'm super stoked, having a lot to learn. Here's a recently-taken photo of Stephen at Fort Mason.

Scenes From a Marriage in Baghdad

Published: January 20, 2008

“I’m sure it was just a mortar,” said a soldier in the front seat.

She hoped he was right; mortars are notoriously inaccurate. But seconds after they climbed out of their vehicles for a 10-mile trek through fields and canals south of Baghdad, the radio crackled, “One K.I.A., three wounded.”

I was with the unit that had been hit, 20 yards or so from the blast. When the cloud of dust cleared, we could see that Sgt. Justin Wisniewski, a brash and funny 22-year-old from Michigan, had stepped on a homemade land mine. From behind dirtied goggles, I could see him lying dead near three bloodied soldiers and a large hole where the bomb had been buried.

A medic and a photographer ran toward them, and I followed, scribbling notes and trying to stay out of the way.

Several soldiers swore and said “I love you” to the wounded. The intensity of it all obscured the risk of another attack. Only after the medevac helicopters began to circle did we realize that the whole field could be mined.

A soldier screamed out a warning. And as we began to walk slowly in each other’s footsteps, leaving a safe distance between us, I started to think about Diana. I needed to contact her, to keep her out of the fields.

Safely on the road, I grabbed a tall soldier with a radio and asked for a favor. “There’s one of our reporters with another squad, and I need to get her out,” I told him.

Sergeant Wisniewski’s unit was heading back to the base, and another squad was preparing to take its place. Humvees and soldiers swirled around us.

“Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry to bother you with this. It’s just that the reporter isn’t just a colleague. She’s also my wife.”

His eyes widened, and he said he’d help. I felt awkward raising the issue. After all, Diana and I had willingly come to Iraq for The New York Times — I’m a reporter, she’s a videographer — and we had agreed to keep our relationship out of our work, especially around soldiers who already had enough to worry about. But I couldn’t help it.

Not that it did any good.

“Sorry,” the soldier said after checking. “They already started walking.”

There are a lot of things Diana and I didn’t know when we came to Iraq at the beginning of last year — that it’s harder to see your spouse at risk than yourself, or that you can grow apart even when you sit 10 feet from each other every day because the work is so consuming.

No one told us either that while the sorrows are deep, the moments of joy are electric. I remember near-narcotic laughter — at a prize-winning reporter reciting songs from “This Is Spinal Tap”; or a photographer cracking ridiculous jokes involving Glocks and cats. It’s a cliché of course, camaraderie in war, but it also rings true, even for husband and wife.

I say “even” because Diana and I went to Iraq unsure of whether this venture would work. We are not, it should be said, the first couple to cover a conflict. Shelley Mydans, a reporter for Life magazine, covered World War II with her husband, the photographer Carl Mydans, and later wrote a novel based on their 21 months in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Even in Iraq, where the foreign press corps is small, a handful of couples have come through.

But by and large, war correspondence is still a job done by the single, the divorced or those with spouses at home. And in Baghdad, the circumstances are, well, a bit odd. Reporters live communally in guarded compounds, eating together, going out for work and not for fun.

I had spent July and August of 2006 in Iraq without Diana — my first time in the Middle East and in war — and I observed a culture that was part barracks, part fraternity and part ivory tower. Being apart during those first two months in Iraq was difficult, but would traveling and working together be even harder?



BOOM.


During our first week in Baghdad, the explosions arrived with rush hour, waking us every morning. Saddam Hussein had just been executed, and we were already dealing with a few minor surprises. The airline had lost our bags, packed with the pictures, mementos and movies meant to keep us from feeling homesick. Our room was freezing at night and one of the 40 cats in the compound had decided to turn our pillows into a litter box.

BOOM.

Another explosion. January and February, we later learned, would be the worst two months for car bombs in Baghdad since the start of the war in 2003. All I knew then was that I felt responsible for dragging Diana to Iraq; I was determined to keep us calm.

“It’s just mortars,” I told her. In fact, I wasn’t sure about the cause, which Diana could immediately see. “Stop trying to protect me,” she snapped. “Just be honest.”

It was a small squabble we would have repeatedly. For us, the stress of war was as much professional as profound, the fear of failing as gripping at times as the fear of getting hurt. But whether we were facing bombs or deadlines, we were repeatedly slammed against the extremes of each other’s personalities. My complaint was that she became too angry, too frustrated with things she couldn’t control, whether a slow Internet connection or a script that didn’t quite work.

Diana complained that I would isolate myself in what she called “the bubble” and then offer her unsolicited, condescending suggestions. Her anger did not signal a request for solutions, she said, but rather support. “Stop trying to fix it,” she said.

Diana quickly learned to ignore me and threw herself into the work, editing video until sunrise, then heading out onto the streets with other reporters and photographers, who always treated us as individuals and professionals. But particularly early on, I worried that our relationship would curdle if something went wrong. After all, wouldn’t I be the obvious one to blame?

The gunfire started at dawn. We were on Haifa Street, one of Baghdad’s most violent neighborhoods, enduring what the military would describe as a very kinetic operation.

It was my first and worst day of urban combat. But sticking close to the squad and Bob Nickelsberg, a photographer who had been covering wars for decades, I felt oddly calm. Moving from building to building, I managed to trust in what I’d heard my colleagues tell themselves: Everything is O.K. until it’s not. In other words, be careful, but don’t worry too much because the future is out of your control.

Just after 9 a.m., a soldier was shot in the head a wall away from me, while searching a kitchen. Staff Sgt. Hector Leija was the 27-year-old squad leader I had planned to profile, a warm and honest Texan who had kept me safe for the first few hours. And there he was, lying on the floor, barely alive, as his men desperately tried to save him.

As medics rushed in and carried him away on a green stretcher, I remember feeling powerful undirected anger — the kind that would never be relieved by kicking a wall.

The photographer, a half-dozen soldiers and I spent the next several hours sitting in the living room of the abandoned apartment where Sergeant Leija was shot. Then just before noon, we were ordered farther back into the building to protect us from a planned American airstrike. No one seemed particularly worried. But I knew that Diana could hear the battle; Haifa Street is only a few miles from the Times compound. So I sent her the simplest of text messages: “I’m O.K.”

Diana, seeing the message, was relieved but concerned. As she told me later, my “bubble” tendencies meant that I would send a message only if I was in danger.

She spent the rest of the day trying to stay busy as I continued through high rises and hovels with Sergeant Leija’s unit. After dark, his heartbroken unit discovered that he had died. When I returned to the house a day later, I greeted everyone in the bureau with smiles, then retreated to our room where I told Diana what had happened. I knew that I had to get it out by bringing Diana in.

We talked about it all, and, as we would again and again, we recovered through work. We wrote and edited the article and the video, crying at times while trying to show what it meant to be a soldier on one day in a long and difficult war.

After that, I would still occasionally feel guilty for persuading Diana to live in Iraq, but I never again questioned our ability to handle it.

A $5 glass of wine in Amman, New York or Bangkok will never taste as good as it does after two months in Iraq. Food with flavor, a massage, a pool, a bikini, a family having fun, bad television, good music and views without blast walls — these are colossal pleasures after time spent in a war zone.

Like most Western reporters in Iraq, we took breaks between 8- to 10-week rotations. The vacations were necessary and sublime. But they were not all easy. It usually took two weeks to stop thinking that slamming doors were explosions. We also had a hard time letting go of our tension and hyper-awareness. Long lines and inefficient service made our tempers flare.

Repeatedly, we found that frustrations with each other, which we ignored in Iraq, would suddenly spill over into arguments while on break. We had our most dramatic fight over the summer in San Sebastián, Spain, about French fries that I had ordered and she did not want. It was a silly example of miscommunication that turned into a two-hour shouting match that spread from the restaurant to the boardwalk and back to our hotel room.

In my mind, Diana didn’t trust my ability to make good decisions without her input. In her mind, I was an inconsiderate boob who never listened.

It took a couple of days, but in a hotel room in Barcelona, over a leathery steak from room service, we laughed at the fight. It was the kind of thing, we agreed, that belonged in a romantic comedy with Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock. Or “The O.C.,” the television show we watched at 2 a.m. in Baghdad to unwind.

Khalid Hassan was a big lug of a guy, 23, a lover of trench coats and sappy romantic comedies like “The Lake House.” He had worked as a reporter and interpreter for The New York Times since 2003 and he was a lone constant in a compound of frequent change.

Khalid was the one who traveled with Diana to Arbaeen, the Shiite religious festival in the holy city of Karbala. He was the one who rushed to our bedroom late at night, huffing and puffing up the stairs, to tell us about breaking news.

When he was killed, we were crushed. The details were horrific: on July 13, gunmen in a black Mercedes opened fire on Khalid’s car, wounding him. Then they walked to his window and fired again. The killers were never found, the motives remained murky. As a secular Sunni who worked for an American company, Khalid could have been a target for a number of reasons.

Diana and I were in Spain when we heard, a few days from returning to Baghdad. Going back was the last thing we wanted to do, and yet we could not fathom staying away. We had made a commitment to our bosses, but Khalid’s death made clear that our loyalties had expanded. Diana and I were not just a couple anymore. The bureau had become a quasi family, from the Iraqi guards and drivers who guided us safely through the streets, to the domestic staff and administrators who kept the bureau functioning, to our colleagues — photographers, reporters, security advisers and translators in the newsroom.

Our bonds with Iraqis like Khalid, though, had built-in limits. We were visitors with a sophisticated infrastructure to keep us safe. Khalid went home every night to a neighborhood increasingly at war. Diana and I were together. Our Iraqi colleagues often lived alone, their families sent to Syria or Jordan to keep them safe. And Diana and I always had home to look forward to, while many Iraqis longed to be exiles.

Our cook, with characteristic dark humor, once asked if he could fit in our suitcase when we left. Then he came up with a better idea. When you get home, he said, you need to find someone who looks just like me and steal his passport.

Brooklyn. A long-awaited dinner with friends over sushi and beer.

“What’s it like over there?” “Are you O.K.?”

When we returned to New York earlier this month, we received many questions from friends and relatives, but most boiled down to these two. We’re still learning how to respond. Our emotions are still raw, and it may take years to know how the war has affected us.

I often think of the day that Sergeant Wisniewski died. Michael Kamber, a photographer, and I had been set on returning to the base with his unit. But when I found out that Diana had started to march, I knew I had to go. Part of it was an urge to get the rest of the story. But I also knew that if I kept walking with another platoon, I’d see Diana more quickly.

Mike and I walked back out with another squad, a few yards from where Sergeant Wisniewski had died. I stayed toward the back and when I finally met up with Diana, we abandoned all our rules about staying professional and not showing affection. When we reached the base, with the helicopter rotors still blowing behind us, I squeezed her arms. She’d had a tough time as well, at one point running to a house where a soldier had been shot. It felt unbelievably good just to touch her. We hugged. I gave her a kiss. A simple kiss, watched by a bunch of stone-faced soldiers.

I shouted to Diana over the helicopters: “You O.K.?”

She nodded. I saw love in her eyes.

We were together. We were all right.



Saturday, January 12, 2008

"Life On Mars"

By David Bowie

It's a God awful small affair
To the girl with the mousey hair,
But her mummy is yelling, "No!"
And her daddy has told her to go,
But her friend is no where to be seen.
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seats with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen,
But the film is sadd'ning bore
For she's lived it ten times or more.
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on

Sailors
Fighting in the dance hall.
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go.
It's the freakiest show.
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy.
Oh man!
Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show.
Is there life on Mars?

It's on America's tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow.
Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again.
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibeza to the Norfolk Broads.
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns,
But the film is a sadd'ning bore
'Cause I wrote it ten times or more.
It's about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on

Sailors
Fighting in the dance hall.
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go.
It's the freakiest show.
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy.
Oh man!
Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show.
Is there life on Mars?

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

New York City

Over the Thanksgiving break last November, Stephen and I went to New York City for a quick 3-day vacation. We had a lot of fun in the Big Apple and ran around like two young, wide-eyed tourists strung out on caffeine (oh wait, we were) doing what would take most middle-aged Midwesterners two weeks to do in three days.

In New York, we:

took a Subway tour through Queens, ate a piroshki lunch in Williamsburg, got a tour of Vice magazine/website/records headquarters, checked out KCDC skateshop, felt poor walking down Wall Street, looked for the missing Bible in the Federal Building, saw the New York Stock Exchange, saw the Statue of Liberty during our walk through Battery Park, drank a coffee with pretty girls in Greenwich Village, found the Department of Journalism at New York University, had a nice conversation with the Forbes Magazine front desk security guard, hung out in Union Square, watched the video premiere of “Heima” in Brooklyn while drinking free Pabsts, ate hip vegan pizza, saw Tech N9ne perform at the Knitting Factory, people-watched in Grand Central Station, got a personal tour of the New York Times' new headquarters in Times Square, took the tour of the United Nations headquarters, got lost on the subway, looked up from beside the Empire State Building, visited the New York Public Library, walked through a Jack Kerouac exhibit, listened to skate-punk while skating the infamous Autumn Bowl in Brooklyn, made a nice omelette-breakfast, got a personal Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism tour, strolled through Central Park, watched Kermit the Frog inflate at the unofficial Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade inflation party, wandered among dinosaur skeletons in the American Museum of Natural History, reminisced at the Brooklyn Banks, got lost in the projects, skated through Rockefeller Center, walked through Times Square after dark and ate “real New York pizza” at Ray's.

And a couple photos, compliments of Stephen: