The size is actually not that off, but the dimensions are— of course, anybody born after 1990— the oldest of whom should be already reaching 25 this year— won’t know the difference.
Aries Spears is most famous for his work on Madtv. One of my favorite sketches with him is “DMX & Mama X” (you kind of need to know about DMX to truly appreciate this):
And from his stand-up show, on hip hop. Fast forward to 1:28 to see him perform as LL Cool J, Snoop, DMX, and Jay-Z:
If I could pick a celebrity body to have, it would have to be Rihanna‘s after watching her performances from the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. (I also really like her as an artist.) I stopped watching this annoying awards show and MTV in general a long time ago (what ever happened to the music part of Music Television?), but my TiVo picked the rerun up because Russell Brand hosted. He’s hilarious and here’s Rihanna’s performance of “Disturbia” for the show’s opening:
And finally, more Rihanna, this time with T.I., performing “Live your Life” (follow T.I.’s performance “Whatever You Like,” starts at 2:16: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtESW0q2YMY. (Apparently, this performance’s embedding was disabled by request and MTV took down all copies of it on their site. Weird. Don’t know why.)
One of my favorite pieces from my old repertoire. Trying to get back into the practice rooms to get back into shape. A short clip, performed by Olga Steeb:
So, I haven’t had a substantive post here since last August, but I’m back now (hopefully). There’s lots of reasons I’ve been away– first off, I had a bout of pancreatitis last summer, which despite over a week in the hospital, was followed by repeat instances of pancreatitis (or some similar illness) for months after, resulting in a few more hospitalizations. After getting over my GI problems (sort of), I’ve been suffering from constant migraines, threw out my back (I have no idea how, but I could barely walk for days), and just had a car accident. It’s been a long nine to ten months and I’m trying to dig myself out of this hole. As my Facebook status reads, I am recovering from life. And with that comes a return to blogging, including my continuing coverage of IdeaFarm (the truck is back, alive and well parked on the corner of Castro and El Camino in Mountain View) and other random stuff, like my teenage infatuation with the Twilight series as well as my continuing love affair with Depeche Mode (I’m re-watching 101 as I write).
David Banner before he was David Banner together with Kamikaze. Some of the best rap to come out of the Deep South. This track from their Grey Skies album is my favorite:
Today, I saw Dan Dunn perform on Ellen. Apparently, he’s been doing this for years, but his newfound fame cam when his daughter posted a video of one of his “painting performances” to YouTube.
I’m back in the Bay after a stressful trip home for the holidays, about which I may or may not write more here, but one thing’s for sure: after listening to it while driving around with my brother of all people, I have become obsessed with this song:
The entire Timbaland album is pretty good; I really like that he’s working in a bunch of different styles, with a bunch of different artists, from Justin Timberlake to Fall Out Boy to Elton John to OneRepublic.
And if you’re curious about the girl singing the hooks in “The Way I Are,” it’s Keri Hilson who has, until now, mainly been a songwriter as part of The Clutch, a strong group of songwriters responsible for a series of hit songs, including Mary J. Blige’s “Take Me As I Am,” but in 2006, signed onto Timbaland’s new label and will be releasing her debut album soon.