99 cents in change

This broad gave me back 99 cents in change today.........



..... I couldn't believe it.



My lunch came to $7.01



I paid with a $20



.... and this hoe gave me $12.99 in change.



twelve NINETY-NINE!!!



I was sitting there watching her count that shit out, and it NEVER takes

anyone that long to count out change...



... have you have had someone count out 99 cents in change??  It felt like

it took up 1/4 of my lunch hour!



I have so many coins in my pocket I feel like I'm walking around with a

limp!  All I could do is laugh about it though.  I didn't have a penny, and

she didn't have one either, so I guess she did what she had to do.



-c



CD of the moment: The Beatles - "Revolver"

The birth of white hip-hop

the release of 8 Mile was a sad day in hip-hop history.



Right now, all the people in my office who saw the movie and had never

thought about hip-hop before Friday, other than to talk about how unmusical

it was ... are all at this very moment discussing this film and saying "NOW

i get it! this music is more than just dirty talk over annoying beats...

it's word combat... it's ART"



On top of that, you have all of the people who have been listening to Eminem

for the last two years coming up to ME and saying, "They just don't get it

do they."  My response, "and who exactly is THEY?"

THEY look the same as you to me!  But, oh, I understand, you GOT IT a long

time ago and now they're late.  I get it, that's why YOU are down with the

brothas right?



I can't help but think that this is how it happened with Elvis.



well... maybe it's not sad, maybe it's better. After all, Elvis took the

music he played to a wider audience than any black artist had ever done.  So

maybe it's good for hip-hop since more than half of the hip-hop being

released is garbage anyway.  Maybe, just maybe, it will finally blow up,

become mainstream, and force others to try something original and different.



But with the oscar buzz and everything surrounding 8 mile, I can't help but

believe that this is somehow the birth of the white hip-hop era.  Similar to

when every label in the country released their Backstreet Boys clones,

expect the same in the future.  The Eminem clones will be rolling onto your

radio quicker than you can say Affy Tapple.



Remember this date, because Curtis said so first.



-c



CD of the moment: Sountrack to the movie Calle 54

New Haven, CT

Burnt my tongue on some hot chocolate yesterday morning.  Not a good way to

start a Monday.



I spent the weekend being wined and dined by a lighting company.  At the

last minute the two guys in our office couldn't go, so me and this other guy

went in their place.



A lighting company, Elliptipar (I figure I owe them a little plug), flew us

out to New Haven, CT, fed us filet mignon so soft you could cut it with a

butter knife, then let us drink all we wanted before retiring to get up at

7am.  It is really interesting because when you are at their factory, you

can't go anywhere.  So you're stuck listening to all these men in bad suits

try to brainwash you into feeling that their products are the best.  Of

course they do it all in the name of 'lighting education', but by giving

people hats to wear, pens and business card holders with the company's name

on it, the attempt is to subliminally scar your brain with this company's

name.



The funniest part is to watch how at the beginning they asked everyone to

say the company slogan together, "There is no equal".  After a less than

stellar response from the audience, they made us say it again, and again. 

By the end of the day, MF's were shouting that shit, "THERE IS NO EQUAL!" 

.... hilarious shit.



New Haven is where Yale is located and so when they took us to eat we went

to all of these Ivy Leage private club type places to eat.  Almost all of

the waitstaff was black or mexican, there were all these paintings of old

white guys on the walls, and rooms where men were gathered drinking scotch. 

Walking around the campus, it really FELT like it was an Ivy league school. 

Everything just wreaked of old money.  It was like, noone here needed

financial aid.  I'm sure that's not the case, but that's what it felt like.



Anyway, so there were these images of people I had never heard of these guys

painted adorning all of the walls in this club.  I wonder at what point in

life do you deem it appropriate to sit for hours on end to have your own

image painted.  Is this something that others decide and pay to have done

for you?  Or do you reach a point where you say to yourself, "I should have

my portrait done"  I realize it speaks to some old English tradition, but it

was weird to be in a place where people still do that sort of thing.



Now that I think of it, I have had my portrait done.  My grandfather had all

of his grandchildren drawn by a street artist in New Orleans.... but I don't

think that really counts.  Everytime I go down to my grandparents I see this

image of myself at the age of 12 with a part cut into my head.  I think

that's how my grandfather still sees me sometimes.



After all the lighting brainwashing, I shot down to New York for a day to

catch up with some people, some new architecture, and we basically walked

Manhattan in a day.  More on New York later.



-c



CD of the moment: Red Hot & Riot

election day wrap-up

Shit!  The Democrats done fucked up now.



With the Republicans controlling the White House, The House, and the Senate,

you KNOW we’re going to war now, a COUPLE of times….



Shit is about to be all jacked up now.  Bush’s judicial appointments will

surely be approved, thus greatly shifting the Supreme Court to be

conservative which means, abortion will eventually be highly restricted,

social security will be privatized, drug dealers will eventually be charged

as terrorists, and a whole host of shit that will be swiftly thrown through

the Congress in the next two years.



I think the Democratic Party really fucked up by compromising on Bush’s war

bill.  By falling in line with the spineless Tom Daschle, the democratic

party crumbled.  They showed the inability to stand united against Bush

right before the elections and were made to be seen as weak w/ very little

coalition.  As a group they have no direction, no one knows where they stand

on anything, they didn’t offer any type of platform except for ‘Don’t vote

Republican.’  What kind of platform is that??



Blacks sure as hell aren’t organized, neither Republicans OR Democrats even

bothered courting us!  The Democrats (at least in Chicago) all focused on

the Latino community throughout their campaign.  Well there was the one TV

moment that all candidates have, standing uncomfortably on stage at some

podunk black church, terribly underdressed (cuz you know black folks where

their good shit to church), clapping off beat as a 800 lb black woman

bellows how good God is.



The state of Illinois voted an all democratic ticket, from Senators to

Attorney Generals and Governors, but other then the Senator, the rest of

them are all idiots, and pawns of the Chicago political machine.  Pretty

faces that can speak pretty well, but with no handle on issues at all, so

their campaigns become personal attacks.  They’re unable to talk about what

they’re going to do, because they don’t know, not even when they’re asked

directly.



But if you look at the large picture, the Democrats did a whole slew of shit

that has just come back to bite them in their ass.  First, the rumors that

Wellstone in MN was killed by the Republican New World Order because he was

very outspoken, then the dead man ply to used sympathy for this guy to get

votes for Mondale.  Then you have all of the personal character attacks on

Bush.  We all know he’s an idiot, you don’t have to SAY it!!  So then

blaming him for 9/11 and saying that he knew all about it and used it for

political gain, as well as placing the Enron collapse on his shoulders, and

lastly, by exposing to the whole world that this ‘war on terror’ is really

all about oil and getting all of the Bush family friends and Republican

Party contributors much more wealthy.  All it did was rally the whole

Republican base, piss them off and make them more determined to get rid of

the Republicans.



The Democrats fucked up, and I gotta give it to him, I don’t know how he did

it, but Bush has some people around him who are some brilliant mother

fuckers.  Because now Bush is king of the world and no one can do anything

about it.



-c



CD of the moment: Curtis Mayfield - "Curtis Live!"

mumblings 11.4.2

Well, the weekend was rather uneventful.  I decided to self-inflict

craziness into my life, so I went to the mall, Ikea and Target on a Sunday. 

These are the worst days to do this kind of shit, but there was great people

watching involved.



I bought a real tight suit from Kenneth Cole on sale over the summer, but

there are absolutely no ties that match this MF.  I am so pitiful, that I

carried this suit around having MF's try to match up ties with it, and when

they failed miserably, I would leave and tell them I was going to 'keep

looking'.  I somehow thought it might be a good way to meet some women, but

it's all men w/ bad cologne or middle aged grey haired women working in the

mens department.  So that plan didn't work out to well.



Ikea is fun because it's really a whole bunch of shit you don't need, but if

you had would make life around you easier and bit more fun.  I escaped by

only spending $20 on some cardboard magazine organizers in all these funky

colors and some candles.



I'm going to New Haven, CT at the last minute this weekend for a lighting

conference.  So if anyone knows something that's going on in and around Yale

let me know.  I'm thinking it might be worth staying an extra day and

heading into NYC for the day to see that new museum by Williams & Tsien or

simply spend the day meandering through the East Village, but it might be

too cold for that shit.  The new MOCA in Queens could be a stop.  I've never

been to Queens before, but I think there is probably a reason for that.



At work, we've been told by our client to take 8 million dollars out of the

building we've designed.  I don't know if he expects us to pull it out of

our ass or what, but that is the task at hand.  I think my manager got a

little upset at me.  When she suggested that we use Stucco instead of Brick

masonry on the building, I couldn't hide my disgust and my whole face

scrunched up like I had smelled the ODB'S breath or something.  Oh well.



-c



CD of the moment: Morcheeba - "Charango"