www.outercityliving.com

www.esquire.com/features/guy-ritchie-interview-1109?click=pp

photo from: IMDb.com

His marriage to Madonna behind him, and the potential blockbuster Sherlock Holmes coming in December, the director has a lot on his mind. But he can explain it all with three simple truths.

By Tom Chiarella

Noon on a Friday. Few patrons dot the Punch Bowl, the pub Guy Ritchie co-owns in the Mayfair district of London. Maybe six. Of these, only two

seem to notice when Ritchie enters wearing a gray suit, tailored, the kind that grips him a little, nothing in his pockets. There’s no television and no

music, but they mind their own business. Ritchie’s got a deep stare, shot from under his brow like a lamplit warning: Stay off. Stay right off. And

people generally heed this direction. He’s a director, after all.

He looks a little jumpy, pained even, standing there in the dusty columns of light wedging through the windows. He seems drawn against black and

white. Ritchie doesn’t talk, not much; he simply animates enough to concede to his assistant that he’s a bit hungover and that he wants to grab

some breakfast. We leave and he says nothing on the street, just humps along toward a place he knows. He says nothing for perhaps fifteen paces.

But that’s it. From then on, Guy Ritchie does not shut up.

Understand this: Guy Ritchie talks too much. He rarely talks about himself, or his own movies, or his famous ex-wife. He doesn’t want to tell you

what he already knows or what he just read. He’s not much interested in discussing what he’s already done. Mostly, he wants to tell you what he’s

thinking. He maunders, protracts, divagates through his ideas. There’s a path, to be sure. Something like: architecture fighting rationalism pain beer

relativism marmalade. Only with Ritchie, there’s far less punctuation than that. Guy Ritchie repeats himself. He curses, cross-references too rapidly,

gives answers that don’t appear to be answers. Sometimes even he seems to sense the double-talk in it.

The cultural due diligence on Guy Ritchie is that he’s a brawling, drinking, self-absorbed forty-one-year-old testosterone spigot, former

celebri-spouse of Madonna, auteur of amped-up, marginally successful independent movies like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch,

which feature packs of Ritchie types doing fairly disconnected set pieces as British lowlifes while engaged in one heist or another.

Maybe so, but these days he’s just closing the book on the first installment of a potential franchise, a new Sherlock Holmes film, starring Robert

Downey Jr. and Jude Law. The question coming in is, why take a man whose movies are fast, loose, and slightly incomprehensible and hand him the

keys to a 122-year-old story, the execution of which has previously hinged on the subtle collation of detail, on stories centered around the most

eminently rational mind in the history of popular literature? You gotta ask: Why Ritchie?

Two pots of tea. Toast and marmalade. Cereal for him. “Damned nice room, this,” he says of the restaurant, Richoux, a tearoom not three blocks

from the pub.

“Is this place old?” I ask. He pinches one eye shut, drops his jaw. “Dunno. Maybe a hundred years. Maybe less. Not so old in a thousand-year-old

city.” I allow that I liked his bar, which is 250 years old — liked the fact that there was no television that I could see.

“Yeah, we pulled those out straightaway,” he says. Bars matter to him, his own chief among them. “Arguably the best times I’ve experienced in my

life have been when I engaged in some form of discourse set over the course of time in a boozing environment. Brits do it very well. But what comes

with all this great bollocks that we talk in a boozer? Things like TVs, jukeboxes. TV is below the mind. It’s subthought. Are you familiar with the

saying ‘Proportionate to the blessing, proportionate to the curse’? Here, have some marmalade.”

Ritchie reaches over and fixes my tea. He even stirs it. He’s sitting there open-collared, clean-shaven, overtly polite, one might even say beautifully

mannered, doling out the lumps of sugar without a tick of self-consciousness.

The hour progresses with discussion of the upcoming Holmes. I’ve seen some footage. Since when, I ask, did Holmes become a rib-breaking,

street-fighting ass kicker?

“Holmes was a gentleman, but he was also a street guy who could scruff it up a bit. I thought the story had lost that part of its essence,” Ritchie

says. “I like street life, but I like grand things, too. Being able to move within those two worlds appealed to me. Besides, he was the West’s first

martial artist.”

I note that it almost seems as if Downey’s eye-rolling, somewhat callous Sherlock Holmes suffers from some form of Asperger’s. “He’s plagued by his

acute functions and dysfunctions. He’s very awkward socially,” Ritchie says. “Of course, one of the blessings of autism is that it elevates your

observation to a point beyond the prosaic.”

At one point as the conversation caroms around, I tell him that I scouted his pub the night before, relating how the bartenders asked me to take off

my hat, how a small drunken crowd defended me, yelling at the bartenders, warning them not to treat me like a Gypsy.

“That was you with the hat then?” Ritchie says.

“You heard about that?”

“They told me this morning,” he says. “They said you were quite good about it.”

“My mistake,” I tell him. “It’s a good rule. I appreciate rules.”

“Sure,” he says. “It’s fundamental.” Ritchie annunciates every syllable of that word. I know by now that it suits every prejudice in his heart to

consider the fundamental codes of behavior. In less than an hour, we’ve established that everything breaks down along the division of the relative

and the absolute, that he’s been fighting one way or the other since he was seven, that he has tended bar, laid bricks, dug sewer lines when he was

younger, that he likes Michael Mann films and thinks Public Enemies may be Johnny Depp’s best movie yet, that he admires a man who leaves his

work area clean, and that he prefers breadth of knowledge to depth.

When his assistant slips in to say Guy has an appointment that she forgot about, he looks her in the eyes — could be he’s blinking out some silent

code — then says to me, “Thing is, I have to do some training.”

I stash my pad and recorder and reach for my hat. “It’s fine,” I say. “You gave me plenty to work with.”

“Brazilian jujitsu,” he says. “I’m obsessed by it. It’s the only sport I play. Only one I watch even. Shame though. I was enjoying the conversation.”

I’m half thinking: I’d like to see him fight. And half thinking: I’d like to get into some of that “bollocks in the boozer” with him. “You should take me

with you,” I say. “We get along. I think I’m a relatively good companion.”

“Yeah, me too,” he says, easy as that. “So let’s fucking drag it out a bit.”

Ritchie has a room on the first floor of his home lined with blue mats designated for jujitsu training. During warm-up, he drops for forty push-ups on

his fingertips, stands for twenty-five pull-ups, then drops for forty more push-ups, this time on his knuckles. He’s having a private lesson that day

with Roger Gracie, the current world champion.

Brazilian jujitsu is quick, low, and vaguely insect. The sport is primarily about gaining an advantage in body position and working to force submission

by grabbing, twisting, choking. Gracie crouches at one end of the room, quietly offering suggestions as Ritchie grapples with his regular training

partner. Ritchie fights from his knees. He fights when on his back. He never, it seems, stops fighting. (He studied karate for fourteen years before

this.) He’s a brown belt here, though he’s told me that doesn’t make him much of anything in the world of jujitsu. Fingers are smashed, shoulders

nudged toward separation, knees, feet, toes thrust at testicles. Ritchie picks up a deep-red welt on his cheekbone.

Afterward, he joins me on his deck. He sits shirtless in the sun, his skin a pale tissue of nicks and bruises, and pours water over his head. He is

slumped in his chair, having just been lumped up for an hour, but his head seems utterly loose on his neck and his shoulders remain square; he seems

completely comfortable with the blood just beneath his skin, like some twenty-four-year-old. “I attribute any ability that I have in this to karate,

because they were just so fucking mean. They were ruthless if you went down and rolled around. If you showed any pain, they wouldn’t talk to you.

Some macho shit, that.”

You get to a point in life when you don’t want to hurt. I am sitting in the sun in central London, drinking iced tea from a bottle, porkpie hat wobbled

to one side on my head. Although the folding chair is a little hard on the ass, I’m about as far from pain as I can imagine. Somehow Ritchie —

bruised, sweating, still breathing loudly — does not make me feel small for pressing him on the issue of why he embraces it.

“In karate, you find out how conceptual pain is. You go through layer after layer,” he says. “I used to watch people go down, ribs cracked, unable to

take a fucking breath, and they’d get right up. They’d get up ten times. I realized the boundary, the place where pain lies, is not where I thought it

was.”

He hits hard on the water then. “Listen, I’ve got three best lines,” he says. “And the first one comes straight from karate.”

“What do you mean, lines?” I ask. “Like rules?”

“Just lines, really. Things that were taught to me. I live with them, I suppose.”

He drinks more water, then gives me a little once-over to show there’s value in this for him, some investment. “I’ll tell you the first two,” he says.

“But I’m not telling you the last one.”

“Why not?” I ask. It seems a fair question. He offered them up.

“It won’t compute,” he says. “The world isn’t ready for it.”

This vaguely pisses me off. “What if I tricked you?” I say. “What if I got you drinking?”

He doesn’t mull that for long. “Going on a bit of a boozer might do the trick. But I’m only giving you one now. And I’m never giving you the third.” He’s

dead serious. “All right then?” I concur. “Okay. The first one is this: You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable,” he says. “That’s what karate

taught me. The fear of being uncomfortable is worse than the discomfort itself.”

I’m old enough that I don’t have to ask questions about that one. “I get it,” I tell him. “When you say discomfort, you’re referring to what I think of

as pain.”

Then he says the line again, as if to balance everything, mistaking repetition for clarification. “The illusion of pain,” he clarifies, “is something you

have to get comfortable with.”

“Is that why there’s so much fighting in your films?” I ask.

He purses his lip. “Not really. I just like watching people fight.” Then he throws his head back like a dog in the sun.

Guy Ritchie talks the way he drives around London — ever forward, bold and sloppy in his turns, heeding no warnings, disregarding signs, speeding

for the greater good, rarely taking the same route through familiar places. It’s the next day. A quick chat has been dragged out once again. Every

once in a while he slows, points to a spot, and tells a story. We’re returning from his gym in Ladbroke Grove, minutes out of a two-hour practice

session. Ritchie’s in his street clothes, still sweating.

I’m talking movies, silly me. I’m asking about Snatch, admitting that the accents kill me. The only person I really could understand clearly was Brad

Pitt’s character, the Gypsy who speaks a kind of purposeful gibberish. Him I understood. Ritchie loves it and goes on about Gypsies, banging the

steering wheel a bit. “The great thing about Gypsies is they keep you smart,” he says. “They will steal, you can bet on it. But they know things.

They teach you lessons. About steam engines, about coursing dogs, folk music. They give great currency to language. Savvy,” he says. “Broad.” It

is one of the buzzwords of the conversation. I’m with him. I like broad, too.

Earlier, at his house, his son Rocco dropped by for a look at a UFC fight that Ritchie had recorded for him. This is one of Madonna’s boys, the older of

their two kids. He’s nine, a polite enough kid, who biked over from his mom’s place, bodyguard biking alongside. Rocco shakes my hand loosely, then

starts up his Xbox. Ritchie chases him off it promptly. He speaks deliberately about rules and about limits, using the diction of a father. Ultimate

fighting on the flat-screen unifies father and son in a chorus of observations, groans, and guttural aacks. The kid watches his lead, listens to his

father. Rocco notices his father on the recording, sitting ringside at the bout. “Watch this here,” Ritchie says. “This one geezer’s using all karate and

no one knows how to deal with it. That’s why I’m so G-ed on the guy.” Then he speaks to Rocco — “You see that? In and out, very fast. Look at

that!” — who grunts out his assent softly, half smiling in the secondary light of his dad’s attentions. The fight cracks to a close, they watch the

coup de grâce several times, then Rocco kisses his dad on the lips unself-consciously, shakes my hand once more, and says goodbye. Outside,

Ritchie stands on the street and watches him depart, eyebrows raised. “Look,” he says, softly narrating the sight of his own son wobbling away on

his banana-seated bike. “Look at him!” he says, urgent in this reminder to himself. “Jump the curb. Jump the curb. Good boy.”

Then Ritchie leaves me there in his house, all by my lonesome for twenty minutes, while he runs an errand. And I do what any writer would: I snoop.

I wander his kitchen, look in drawers full of batteries, in cabinets packed with expensive pastas. I take a picture of the contents of his refrigerator.

(Heavy on the fluids, light on the dairy, many plastic boxes of grilled vegetables.) On the kitchen table he’s left legal documents with his ex-wife’s

name on them, and his mail is open on the counter. I do not read them. I pluck his guitar, read through his calendar, click through the playlists on his

iPod. I poke my head in each adjoining room before I think, I should give him a pointer here. So I grab a Post-it, write NEVER TRUST A WRITER! in

large block letters, and stick it to a container of Greek salad in the refrigerator.

“You’re too trusting,” I tell him in the car. “You shouldn’t have left me alone like that. A writer can do anything in twenty minutes.”

“There’s nothing to steal,” Ritchie laughs. “That’s another thing Gypsies taught me. They’re the reason why I don’t believe in keeping anything

valuable in the house. Like I said, they keep you smart.”

Of course, I hadn’t considered stealing. I was after discoveries. Some sign of his ex-wife’s lingering presence, for instance. There was none on his

iPod, though I can’t name a single Madonna hit after “Borderline,” so how would I really know? I decide to take a shot now, as we burn through the

city, at asking after her. Ritchie sighs. “She’s a manifester, if there ever was one,” he says. “First-rate manifester. Madonna makes things happen.

Put Madonna up against any twenty-three-year-old, she’ll outwork them, outdance them, outperform them. The woman is broad.”

“Broad,” I say, repeating the word of the day.

“And, of course, here you go: I still love her,” he says. He takes a breath, drives through a red light. If no one is ahead of him, Guy Ritchie does not

typically stop. “But she’s retarded, too.”

It’s rocky getting a divorce, innit? I say.

“You can’t tell someone when they’re getting divorced that their pain is an illusion,” he says. “I’m fucking telling you, I feel it, I’ve been through that.

You have, too. No one can say you don’t feel that.” He drives on, talking more. “That’s the illusion of the illusion. The biggest fundamental is, you

need a little ignorance.” We glance along the top of Hyde Park and out of the blue Ritchie says: “My second line is less simple than the first. It hangs

some people up.”

“Tell me,” I say.

“The first line is, You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable, right?” I’ve come to appreciate the backtracking, the repetition, the constant

looking over his shoulder with a “you with me?” glance. It’s all part of the conversation by now. I tell him I got it.

“Here’s the second line: It’s okay to have beliefs, just don’t believe in them.”

“Oh,” I say, glancing out the window. “I get that. That could be my line.”

“You get it?” Ritchie says. “Tell me an example.” I appreciate the challenge, and I’m unafraid of his reaction, even if I have it wrong.

“Well, belief starts out pretty sweet,” I say. “But eventually beliefs must be defended.”

“Right!” Ritchie says. “It’s just a path to the absolute.”

“To fanaticism.”

“Exactly!”

We ride on like this, bouncing between the joy and the terror of the relative and the absolute, marking time on the way to his bar.

Later, we engage in “some form of discourse set over the course of time in a boozing environment,” as he put it back at Richoux yesterday morning.

When we arrive at the Punch Bowl, Ritchie — still sweating, wearing a spread-collar dress shirt opened to the fourth button over his unshowered

hide — orders something I can’t quite make out. I figure I’m okay following his lead. It’s a pint, some kind of vaguely sweet, cold beer, which I drink

quickly, then order another. The waiter makes a face when I do. “All fruited up like that?” I look to Ritchie.

“That’s quite a gay shandy,” he says. “Which most people get ridiculed for. But I figured it’s good after a scrap.” So I switch to lager, while Ritchie

stays with the lemonade beer.

Somewhere at the start, I drop my recorder on the table and let it run. Although everything is all clear and right that afternoon in the Punch Bowl, I

have to listen to the recorder on the flight home before I remember the way I saw things then. The 255-minute recording of that afternoon is a

mishmash of sound, a hash of voices, a barnyard of clinking glasses. The conversation proceeds subject to subject — the importance of fishing, the

history of Mayfair, Vladimir Putin, the populace of the pub, his ex-wife. We get hot on a subject now and then. His friends drop down for a drink.

Stories are told. At one point, on a dare, Ritchie sings every word of every verse of an Irish folk song called “The Rocky Road to Dublin.” The crowd

grows. When tourists approach for a photograph, Ritchie puts on his stay-off stare, goes cold.

“Madonna, when she came in here, it was old-school London,” Ritchie says. “No one bothered her. ‘Hello, darling. How are you, darling? What can we

get you?’ It was fundamental, old-school. It didn’t matter who she was. She was my wife.”

Near the end of the recording, we engage in a brief and besotted back-and-forth centered on another of his prosaic observations. We have been

talking for three hours and forty-seven minutes, when Guy Ritchie asserts that marmalade is better than jam, deducing his own creative aesthetic

from a close reading of the breakfast spread. I have no memory of this exchange, not now or on the plane ride home. So here is the transcript:

Guy Ritchie: It’s bitter and sweet, right? What you got here is contraction and expansion. Absolute and relative. Don’t get me jam! No fucking jam.

See, I don’t like raspberry jam, because it’s too tart. I do like strawberry jam, but it’s a bit too sweet. What you got with marmalade is fucking bitter

and sweet.

Tom Chiarella: And may I add soft and fucking chunky, too. There’s a little report on those rinds, you know?

GR: You got your thick cut and you have your thin cut. Now, do you like thin-cut or thick-cut marmalade?

TC: Fuck. I don’t know. Where do you fall?

GR: What I like is a nice thin-cut marmalade. With a bit of rinds, ’cause I like a bit of bitter. I’ve had every fucking marmalade known to man and I

like a thin-cut marmalade.

TC: You’re the king of marmalade.

GR: Now, the marmalade at Richoux, that’s an accessible marmalade. And my sensibility is accessible. My nature is, I like accessible shit. The first

two accessible movies I made, Lock, Stock and Snatch, they are accessible. The next two aren’t accessible. First there’s Swept Away, which, well,

everyone gets confused on, because of Madonna. And the next one is just conceptual. That one — that’s just pure esoteric marmalade.

TC: You mean Revolver.

GR: Right. Here’s what you can tell a lot by a person’s marmalade. My palate is really a fine shred, it’s accessible. I’m not saying I won’t test you.

Because all marmalade tests you.

TC: Apricot jam is accessible.

GR: Well, true. But with marmalade, within its esotericism is a bit of accessibility. So you see, what I want to create is an accessible bit of

esotericism. And well, that’s marmalade, innit?

The guy is an acute observer. A thinker. He teases a metaphor brilliantly, embraces the imperfect tangle of his own formulations, wills his subject

into the shadow of larger conversations. He admits his gaffes, gets a laugh now and again, and when he splits things in two — into that schema of

the absolute and the relative, distant and proximate, extraordinary and mundane — it does not throw things into the predictable light of

black-and-white opposition. It only propels the mutually shared cipherings of a midday conversation. It gives us something to think about. Broadly.

Soon after that on the tape, I ask Guy Ritchie to tell me that third line, the third fundamental. He agrees, as he said he might once we drank

enough. I lean in, because I want to hear. He warns me, he tells me this might blow things up for me. I laugh. We both do. There is some fumbling as

he picks up the recorder and directs me to turn it off.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/guy-ritchie-interview-1109?click=pp#ixzz0TJE3wd0o

By Steve Spalding August 25th, 2009

http://howtosplitanatom.com/

Stupidity can look a whole lot like creativity. In fact, one of the risks of being incredibly creative is that you will spend the vast majority of your life being unbelievably stupid. To understand why, let’s look at the cycle of stupidity and how it works.

All stupidity starts with a thought, an idea, something you feel will make the world better and effect the people you deem worthy of your consideration. Whether it’s a startup, a work of art, a novel or a political philosophy, stupidity, despite popular belief, is a function of thought.

The greater the number of thoughts you have (creative people think a lot), the greater your chance that some of them will be ridiculously ham fisted.

The big caveat is that no matter how silly a thought is, that doesn’t make it stupid in and of itself. Creative people need to allow themselves to have “stupid” thoughts. If they don’t, they would never come up with anything interesting.

Where the cycle really starts to take on a life of its own is when ego starts to come into play. Ego says that your thoughts are right and no matter what information is out there to prove you wrong, that does not take away from the fact that your thoughts are right. Worse than that, the more likely it is that you might be wrong the more forcefully your ego will make you crusade to prove that you’re right.

Psychologists call this confirmation bias. It’s the tendency to accept only things that confirm your hypothesis as true and deny everything else as being either inaccurate or skewed.

Creativity requires a certain amount of ego. Creative people often have monumental egos and we love them for it. If you are doing anything interesting, people will disagree with you. The more interesting the thing you are trying is, the more likely people are to disagree. If you cant stick to your guns and trust your vision, you can’t hope to do anything when faced with dissent.

A much bigger problem is when ego goes chronic it turns into stubbornness. Unlike ego which seeks to maintain your vision when faced with dissent (much of which could be false), stubbornness is continuing to do something in the face of increasingly clear proof that it isn’t working. It’s spending $5 million in investment capital to prove that you can’t make money on your business model, not changing a word of it and asking for $5 million more to keep trying or sticking with a political philosophy because it’s your political philosophy, even if the facts don’t match up on a particular issue.

This is where creativity and stupidity start to come into their own. Strongly creative people realize they need to change and adapt, that while they are “right” in a broad sense, they might not have all the details straight. When people are being stupid, it’s usually because they can’t see that any part of their idea could be flawed. In fact, they are more willing to run their idea into the ground than to change the handful of details that might save it. They start to love the idea of being correct more than they love their idea.

This inexorably leads back to thought, now seen less through the lens of making the world better or effecting the people you care about, and more through the stubborn refusal to be wrong regardless of the outcome.

Staying on the right side of creativity and stupidity is a matter of balance. Face it, we spend a lot of time being stupid. If you are trying a bunch of different ideas on for size, you might spend more time than most on the wrong side of the line. The point is to recognize when your crossing over and do your best to keep some perspective. To balance vision with the ability to be wrong. To understand when you need to and stick to your guns and when it’s time to change.

To be willing to be a little stupid but not to let it get in the way of changing the world.

Pioneering deejay, and co-founder of The Juice Crew, John “Mr. Magic” Rivas has died from a heart attack at age 53. He was most known for his hip-hop show “Rap Attack”, with his partner, DJ Marley Marl, but was responsible for bringing hip-hop to the forefront on the radio. He had been playing rap records on community radio, and was recognized by NY radio station WBLS because of the large following he had.

“Magic was definitely the go-to person to put rap on radio for the first time and making everybody in New York City love rap’” said Marl.

Kool DJ Red Alert said that Magic was always considered a friend rather than a competitor. “We were always about the rap shows. Him on BLS, me on KISS.”  Also, over the years, rappers have noted that Magic was the reason for them getting into the game. Notorious B.I.G. being the most notable.

“Hanging pictures on my wall/ every Saturday, rap attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl”—”Juicy”

From 85-89, Mr. Magic released more than 5 full volumes of Mr. Magic’s Rap Attack on Profile Records. He also is the host on Wildstyle Radio in the game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

WBLS officials said they were in talks to put Mr. Magic back on the air at the time of his death.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vch-Z9ccHTk

Professionally known as KUTIMAN, Ophir Kutiel is a producer, musician, composer, and animator from Israel. He has studied the piano since age 6, and drums since age 14. Kutiel also studied Jazz at Rimon Music College in Tel Aviv at the age of 18.

“KUTIMAN” is primarilly known throughout the states for creating ThruYou, an online video music project mixed of videos from YouTube, and the Israeli artist’s project has been hailed as “a pioneer of a new, less regulated form of media,” by open source advocate Lawrence Lessig.  “If you come to the Net armed with the idea that the old system of copyright is going to work just fine here, this more than anything is going to get you to recognize: you need some new ideas.”

Kutiel explained how the idea came about for the project in an interview with Poland based internet radio program RADIOWROCLOVE.COM:

“At first I took some drummers – before I had the idea about ThruYou I took some drummers from YouTube and I played on top of them – just for fun, you know. And then one day, just before I plugged my guitar to play on top of the drummer from YouTube, I thought to myself, you know – maybe I can find a bass and guitar and other players on YouTube to play with this drummer.

It took me two months, but it was really intense. I barely eat, I just worked on a computer and went to sleep…day and night, and night and day…didn’t see any friends, no family…not even the sun.”

The video for YouTube was subsequently viewed more than a million times in less than a week.

But, this is not the “famed” artist’s only work.

While working at a local convenience store in Tel Aviv, Kutiel tuned into a college radio station that was playing music that was much different than the classical jazz he had been used to playing. Soon after, Sabbo, another Israeli artist and current music partner, introduced him to afrobeat and funk, including the sounds of James Brown and Fela Kuti. His obsession with Fela Kuti and the fact that his last name was similar led him to create the stage-name of Kutiman. He traveled to Jamaica to research reggae and afrobeat and work with Stephen and Damien Marley.

He was signed to Melting Pot Music in 2006, and has worked with a number of artists on both music composition, as well as animation for video.

Still, ThruYou has been an achievement that has opened new doors of creativity for the musician.

“All the feedback from other people really inspired me to keep on doing things, you know, like with a lot of people, and kind of social things. I have a lot of ideas, but I haven’t started making anything just yet.”

For more info on KUTIMAN, please check out the following:

thru-you.com/

mpmsite.com/index.php?area=news&view=detail&id=542

www.djouls.com/index.php/kutiman-kutiman

www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/the-future-begins-thru-yo_b_174483.html

www.lessig.org/blog/2009/03/remix_buy_the_remix.html

www.diptnyc.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/sofia1.jpg?w=450&h=228

Born in Puerto Rico, 25 year old artist, Sofia Maldonado has already left a lasting impression around the world.

“It’s not graffiti: I never use a can. Always a brush.”

As a way to bring beauty to life, the anarcho-muralist (as some have dubbed her) has found her way to painting countless murals across the island. “On weekends in high school I would go around Puerto Rico and paint female characters and organic forms on random walls. I like the textures of buildings as they deteriorate. I did a mural 177 feet long in Old San Juan, and an abandoned pool in the rain forest in Rio Grande that we turned into a skateboard park.”

While Sofia received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Escuela de Artes Plasticas in San Juan, as well as a Master of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, she received recognition as a mural painter in her own country by creating her own visual language through bright colors and flowing brush strokes that simulate nature and the elements of her surroundings. A mix being said to include skateboarding, graffiti, the chaotic landscape of the Caribbean, and the Latina aesthetic, Maldonado also blends fashion trends and street culture with musical inspiration such as  reggaeton and punk. Most recently, she set foot to Cuba.

“I love the skateboarding scene—it’s a really refreshing, anarchist sport. For the Havana Biennial, I painted a park and gave away 40 skateboards. I’ve painted some rooftop ramps here since I’ve moved to New York, but they don’t last too long before they’re painted over. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of permission, to paint in the streets here.”

Sofia has also taught various workshops on murals, and has exhibited in New York, Puerto Rico and Europe. She was recently included in the “S” Files” Biennial at El Museo del Barrio in New York, NY and continues to work and reside in Brooklyn.

for more info and art by Sofia Maldonado go to:

sofiarte.blogspot.com
skatemypatria.blogspot.com

SUMMER.

It’s the only word other than JULY that can set the stage for this one. I don’t know. Looking back, when I hear the word(s) I can still feel that heat. Can still feel that unbearable brightness that the  sun brings when you’re forced to stare it down and say, “Get out of my way, you fuck! I gotta get to the crib!!!”

I was about to turn 17, had a job as a cashier at the local A&P and again, it was summer. All my boys had planned to meet up at our unofficial “clubhouse”, which was a pay phone (866-8584) I frequented for years to come, on the corner of 57th & Park  to get in a day of  mindless spending in NYC’s “west village” section. Up until this time, trips to the city had been rare. Unless somebody had a car at night so that we could hit the west side to harass the transvestite hookers, or if we had decided to hit up clubs now turned group homes for students, we would settle for “downing” bottles of Crazy Horse at the park on the Blvd. with the city in full view.

“I gotta work at 1″ was all I said before we started up 57th St. towards Bergenline Ave., which was where $1.00 “immy”(immigrant) vans would frequent most for cheap rides into Manhattan.

“Yo, you’re never gonna make it. Why don’t you just be responsible and stay?” one of my crew says. “You always gotta pull shit like this.”

” Nah, I got 2 hours. I’ll come back by myself”, knowing the slim possibility of me making it on time, nevermind even returning for  my $4.15/hr. on this fine day.

So, we make it to B-LINE. No bus in sight.

My stomach turns.

“Bro, I gotta take a shit. I’mma go in the restaurant”, I say to no one in particular.

“Yo, we’re not waiting for you,” my boy Mario says. “If the bus comes, we’re out.”

“Stop being a dick,” I say. “I’ll be quick.”

A sharp “NO” was the response from all those involved.

“Fuck it. I’m cool. I’ll wait till we get to the city.”

About 6 minutes later, a van is seen on the horizon. About 6 minutes after that, the same van is pulling over curbside to gather the group for what seems to be the start of the perfect day, but I am very uncomfortable.

Upon my head entering the cool confines of the vehicle, my right leg drops back earthward, and it is at this point that I realize, “I’m not gonna make it”.

“I’m out,” I say as I turn hurriedly away from my friends, and what had started out to be a day in the quest of the future of my manhood. “I’ll see you guys later,” were my last words.

As I crossed back over Bergenline Ave. heading in the general direction of home, my body went on full alert. This wasn’t the first “s(h)ituation” I had been in, and once again, it was a predicament that forced me towards the comfortable confines of my OWN home.

11:13am

EASTERN SKY

The sun is at my forehead, as 5-7 is situated in a direct alignment with the furious star.

The cramps are getting worse. My hands are massaging both sides of  which my intestines lay, as I try and ease this terrible discomfort I’m feeling.

A light jog. Maybe not.

I’m finding out quickly that the more movement I make, the less my sphincter is inclined to hold back.

“I HAVE to make it”, I whisper to myself as the tears well up in my eyes.

I am now approaching the supermarket where I worked. Due to my refusal to listen to the advice of good friends, combined with the fact that my body (not brain)was now in full control of “it’s” actions, I crossed the parking lot in full view of the market for my supervisors and boss to see me. This was going to be a rough day and I hadn’t supposed I was going to work. There is no way they would have expected me in, had they seen my condition.

Sweat.

Covered in sweat, yet now cradled in the beauty of shade. If not only for 1 block, it gave hope that the next block and a half would be a cinch.

And I’ve made it!

My building. The projects.

Throw in a building that’s made out of layers of  brick, block and concrete, and you’ve just tripled the heat index.

Elevator’s not happening. The amount of time it takes to come down from five, I can basically kiss my ass goodbye.

It’s only the third floor. I’ve run these steps countless times in love and in laughter. Now, I’m mindless. Almost barbaric.

I’m at the front door stumbling to place the key between my thumb and forefinger and frantically knocking for someone to get me where I belong. I didn’t have a prayer.

I carefully directed the key inside the lock, turned the door knob and pushed my way through the doorway into the safety of my home.

Now…

I must have spread my legs a little too wide when I crossed the threshold.

Gravity takes over, pulling her pursuit towards the kitchen floor. It felt as if everything below 5 feet was non-existent.

I spring for the bathroom.

Through the kitchen, into the living room where new, plush carpet lay  throughout the apartment in a pale beige comparison to which I lost the load.

Down the hallway, past 2 bedrooms and a large closet—

And finally the bathroom.

The holy grail!!!

By this time I am engulfed in pain as well as caked in feces from the waist down, but as I sit on the toilet crying on the verge of puking, I thank the Almighty for giving me the opportunity of dealing with this in private.

“WHAT THA FUCK???!!!!!”, my mother’s voice travels through the apartment, as I am pulled from my shame and forced to announce my condition to the woman who gave birth to me.

“I had an accident! I’m sick, Ma!”

“What the hell is this all over the floor? The carpet?!!” she inquires in disbelief, yet realizing the unthinkable was existent at that moment.

“I told you! I had an accident! I don’t feel good!”, still crying on the toilet.

And all I heard was, “Well, I’m not cleanin’ it up!!!!” and the beauty of the front door slamming shut.

I continued to cry…

Last night, a friend came through to a studio of another friend where we do an internet radio show(FJSRADIO.COM).  Starting off with a magnum of Grey Goose, and what seemed to be the equivalent to an acre of the greenest green, the invited proceeds with a story.

“So, this guy makes Chris look like a productive member of society! I swear to God, kid! This guy actually makes you look like a choir boy. 100 times worse!!!”

“Look up TUCKERMAXX.COM”, he says, passing the 3rd stick of “ick” to the studio owner.  I carefully read through the first story, classically titled “The Sushi Pants Story”. I have found God. If not a deity to show that peace is a way towards fulfillment, to show that I am not alone living with the fact that going to Hell is a huge possibility.

The following stories are true. Same goes to say that they are mine. I had been toying with the idea of pointing this site in the direction of exploiting myself in order to get a laugh, tears, puke and/or any sign of recognition. That is until I read the aforementioned story on that website that was “sent from Heaven” in order to help me clean out the demons that be.

Thank you, TUCKERMAXX.

CHEERS,

ME

———————————————————————————————-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_d6Km3QJFc

Just over 18 years from the  release of their debut album “TEN”, and with just under 200,000 sold in less than a week with their new release, “BACKSPACER”,  Pearl Jam has hit the ground running and is now poised atop the Billboard 200.

It’s the group’s fourth chart-topper (and first since 1996) with an estimated 189,000 sold.

Teaming up with TARGET, the band also released a limited-edition t-shirt featuring Tom Tomorrow’s “astronaut playing drums” , which is taken from the “BACKSPACER” cover art. Proceeds from the t-shirt will go to the FEEDING AMERICA charity.

www.cosmopolitan.com

Acquaintance-stalking is when a person who’s neither a stranger nor an ex-lover becomes obsessed with you — and it can sometimes lead to physical harm. So if the behavior of someone you sort-of know is creeping you out, don’t hesitate to take action.

men.style.com

The designer with a conscience on how to make the right impression with your clothes

1.
Clothing is maybe the single greatest form of self-expression. Whether you’re fashion-impaired or fashion-inspired, I urge everyone to take a few extra minutes every day to contemplate the message you’re sending to the world.

2.
If you wear a fragrance, make sure it doesn’t arrive before you do and linger when you’re gone.

3.
Few people get dressed up today. Mix dressy with casual or rugged with refined. And one item should be more tailored. For example, if you’re wearing a T-shirt, wear cleaner jeans. Wear a blazer with the jeans or a casual top with slacks.

4.
Beyond any other accessory, shoes will have a very significant impact on how you look—they make the whole outfit come together. There’s that old adage that before you judge somebody you should walk a mile in their shoes. Then if you don’t like them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes. What you wear below the ankles is critical.

5.
Establish a uniform, then layer in something new to make it fresh each day. I always have my white shirt, my jeans, and my boots. Then I mix up the rest. Some days I wear a graphic tee with a white shirt and a vest. The next, I might wear a white shirt, a V-neck sweater, and a pin-striped blazer. But the must-haves for every wardrobe are a white shirt and a comfortable blazer.

6.
When all else fails, wear black.

7.
Vests are the accessory of the season. They look great as an element of sportswear or with a suit—as long as they’re not matching. It’s about breaking up the suit and then wearing the pieces as separates. The jacket, with or without the vest, can be worn with jeans. The pants can be worn with sneakers, T-shirts, and hooded sweaters.

8.
Patterns, like stripes, need to be very subtle. The message overall should be that you’re not wearing a matched wardrobe (or on parole). Contemplate wearing a jacket that doesn’t match your pants and a shirt that matches neither. Your belt and shoes don’t have to match either, but there needs to be a sense that everything works together.

9.
You’ve done a good job if people see you and say, “You look great,” as opposed to “Where did you buy your shoes, and how much did you pay for the jacket?” Your clothing choices should help present you.

10.
No matter how long it takes you to get dressed, it shouldn’t look like it took more than 10 minutes.

Photograph by Kevin O’Brien