interesting.

last summer was a lot of fun.
i had a pretty steady clique.
this summer will probably be different.
also, something that i've been thinking about a lot. a sort of "psa." there are very few people that i consider to be "real" today. a lot of people like to act big. i'm no gangsta-gangsta or anything even of that nature, but if i ever say something behind your back, believe that i would say the same shit to your face. i won't say something about you i'm afraid to tell you in person for whatever reason (unless you're like scarface or something). that's just how i was raised. so if you can read that and contemplate whether or not you would do the same, you're probably a punk, and you need to grow some.
thanks.

all night long

procrastination - for ballas only.

i should really start an insomniac's club at UCLA. i'd have like 3 other club-mates, but it'd give me something to do on nights like this.

k time to sleep or something, it's too bright outside

deep fried frenz

today me mat and michael went back to the festival for reggae day. we had two objectives: see stephen marley and eat lots of food. we did see stephen marley, and we ate a funnel cake, but everything was way too expensive, and we didn't eat as much food as we anticipated. when funnel cakes are 8 bucks, you don't even want to ask how much real food is. at least the funnel cake was very tasty and filling. i didn't even eat half of it and i was done, but now i feel sick. then again, the sickness could also be attributed to the terrible air quality. if you thought jam day had a lot of smoke, you forgot what reggae music was about.

on the way to the festival, we were surprised to see there were way more people on the field than there were for jam day. i know stephen marley is pretty big, but i didn't know he'd draw that much more of a crowd than the roots. of course we heard a bunch of bob marley covers (but we didn't hear "jamming"). but the real highlight of the show was definitely CAPLETON. at first we were a bit confused when stephen marley was coming on at 5 considering the festival ends at 7. either he was gonna have a 2 hour set, or some other guy was the real headliner. so we hear the name capleton floating around, but don't know who the hell he is. after rummaging through some records (finding a "phoney phranchise" vinyl for $1) and going to all the stores, we hear stephen's set end, and head over to see who this capleton guy is, and how he could possibly be bigger than stephen marley. so after sitting in anticipation for about 30 minutes, capleton comes out looking like a cross between eddie murphy in delirious, afrika bambaataa, and elephant man. already, we could tell this was gonna be worth the wait. so he starts performing, and we realize he knows about 3 words in the english language: rastafari, peace, and UCLA (which was by far his favorite). for the next hour or so, capleton proceeded to put on the most energetic performance in the history of the world. he jumped around the entire time, came up with at least 15 different dances, and shouted at everyone in languages that nobody understood. it was amazing. if this man were to create an aerobics workout, no doubt you would lose at least 20 pounds, learn how to speak/understand Jamaican dialect, and start putting sticks in your mouth every day.

after the whole festival, we ate and stuff. later we watched pirates of the caribbean. during that whole time, i got absolutely no work done, and now i'm even more behind than i thought i could be. but it's cool, andrew lee is here and maybe when he's bored i'll have him do some of my work for me. he can give it the berkeley effort.

i suppose that's enough for today, sleep sounds nice.

bass check one two

even though they didn't perform "essaywhuman," the roots' performance was great. they performed a few too many new songs, and black thought teased me with his "distortion to static" laugh in the middle, but it was definitely a dope act. considering my favorite CDs are organix, do you want more??!?!??!, illadelph halflife, and things fall apart, there are a few songs i was hoping to hear that did not get played, but oh well.

the day overall was really fun. there was so much weed though, and that ish makes my head hurt. i still find it interesting to see how many people smoke. i think i may be kinda naive when it comes to it, but i never imagined that many people would be potheads. and considering today was only jam day, tomorrow might possibly be worse. not only will i see people walking around with blunts on their ears, maybe they'll just roll up a blanket and light that junk on fire. i'm expecting to see something ridiculous, but only tomorrow will tell.

now to the acts:

we showed up when tribal jazz was on, and they were pretty good. neil's relatives (people from senegal) were pretty entertaining, and the members were talented in my opinion – which isn't really the best opinion i'm sure. still, the drummer aka eric scerri was really cool, and i definitely enjoyed their set... even with their 15 minute songs.

the second stage had some decent acts. i thought the brett canters trio or whatever it was called was pretty good, sounded like songs that could be fun to play in guitar hero. the elevaters were pretty wack to me, though. everyone was all excited to see them perform, but their entire show sounded like 4 or 5 average musicians just jamming in a garage. but what more can you expect from a "progressive-jazz-hip-hop-grunge-fusion band" or whatever the hell the guy called them.

goapele was alright, her voice was piercing to my ears though. and i don't understand why she'd play "93 'til infinity" when she definitely was not on that song. she could've easily just played "make your move" and made everyone happy, but no. she was cool though, no complaints.

NOW, on to the second most anticipated act: immortal technique.

people love immortal tech because he's real. he doesn't beat around the bushes and won't give you any bs. he talks about politics and expresses his anti-government attitude everywhere. he promotes unity amongst the people and supports pretty much a true democracy in which the people hold all the power – and he sucks at being a rapper.

i don't know how people can like immortal technique as a rapper. he's angry at EVERYONE for absolutely no reason. he talks about "f*ck george bush, f*ck the industry, f*ck the people who don't realize how great of a rapper i am. i'm the best, other people just don't know it yet." c'mon now, grow up. i'm sure this guy reads a lot of internet forums to gather his conspiracy-based material, but that doesn't mean anything he says is important. he talks about all this ish that pisses him of, but what really comes about when all you do is complain to people who aren't as passionate about it as you are? michael put it best: "immortal technique needs a hug"

if you really think IT is a good rapper, you need to expand a little bit. just because you use big words and talk about controversial topics does not make you good. i can name mainstream rappers that are more talented than he is, and that says something. "uff the cops, uff undercover cops, i'll blow up your car, blah blah blah." that's all i hear him saying every time he performs. hardcore hip hop is definitely in danger if this guy's to be one of the movement leaders. then again, hip hop is also in a pretty bad state when kanye west is praised as the MC of the year – but i'll save that for another post.

wow, that was long. now it's time to sleep. i'll leave off with the songs i wanted to hear the roots perform, but did not get included. these are all great, listen to them. now.

• distortion to static
• i remain calm
• do you want more?!!??!
• essaywhuman?!!!??!
• false media
• baby
• episodes
• clones
• what they do
• no alibi
• one shine
• pass the popcorn
• the anti-circle
• rock you
• p*ssy galore
• dynamite!
• 100% dundee
• the next movement
  

that is all, goodnight!

i should be awake

after a long night of skating, a fire alarm, random phonecalls, and more garbage, we're finally heading out to jazzreggaefest. hopefully the roots perform good old songs and stuff, because i do not own "rising down." also, i hope immortal tech doesn't ramble on and on about how upset he is about something completely unimportant to me – oh wait...

over the past few days everyone's been getting pretty hyped for this event. so many people are gonna be gone before they even come. i mean, seriously, it's a jazz-REGGAE festival, so many kids associate reggae with one thing and we all know what that is: dreads. hopefully the presence of the "dreads" isn't too strong, the smell of it makes me nauseous.

since we're on the topic of music (kinda), i've been looking at so many concerts to go to. it's like i caught whatever disease michael has. i wanna see about 3 concerts in the next month and a half, and then radiohead in august, holla. unfortunately there's no MF DOOM or daft punk or muse concerts in that time, but we'll just cross our fingers and hope.

ahhhh well, time to go smell dreads, laugh at drunk people, and listen to music in very gloomy weather, hoorah!

backwards

5pm – time to sleep.

grand opening

well i'm about to head out to h&m for the shoppes grand opening. even though i can only win a max of 100 bucks, which won't happen anyway, i guess i'm a little excited. there's a special place in my heart for campouts. lots of bonding, shenanigans, and little sleep. hopefully we can get some truants removed from line, haha.

this should be a really fun weekend.

finally

well i finally made a blog (even though this was completely out of boredom, and will probably last for less than a week, i still did it). it's already 4 am, and i'm just sitting at the computer wasting time. i should really go to sleep. then again, that's exactly what i was saying to myself an hour and a half ago, and what am i doing now.

switching topics: i miss my computer. my hard drive unexpectedly stopped spinning last week, and now it's completely dead. everything is gone. no pictures, no music, no files (have to do all that stupid research again, ugh). apple really let me down here. i don't even want to think about it anymore, but it's kind of hard not to when i'm sitting here on stephen's computer pretty much taunting myself.

in other news - i hate kanye west. if you're reading this, you probably already knew that. but yeah, he's reallllllly terrible.

that's enough for tonight