I'm Mad (A True Story) *ABC Assignment*

Xi'an is where I'm headed next month, but sadly I'm still stuck at school. Today, my econ teacher literally gave us the option to have homework or not. Guess what my class chose? Apparently getting an extra five points is critical to them doing well this quarter.But now my time is diminishing. Wasted. "Do you guys want homework?" "Yes, yes we do!" For some reason, the majority of the youth has given up hope on having a life outside of their education. Cool, you take 75 AP classes, that's great. Except for the fact that YOU SUCK. Money is time. Losing money is something I do not like (something no one should like). I am mad. Stop the madness. None of these fiends realize that some of us have other stuff going on in life. Or the fact that five points is pretty meaningless, and therefore a HUGE waste of time. Please reassure me that college will be better than this. Very many of you are assuming I'm lazy and will flunk out of college I'm sure. Just understand, though, that I hate wasting time and I see this as a waste of time. Underneath all of this anger, I'm a motivated person. Right now, I just want to achieve my goals without having to deal with all the roadblocks in the way. However, dealing with all the other non-important components is a big part of the journey. Karma will eventually work its mysterious powers in one way or another. Quests are never easy. Ziggy Stardust is the only person that would be able to soothe me at a moment like this.

-N.G.

Found

Try this happy condensed waste
Where the greatest youth is not free
Why not take to change?
Outstanding created principles
But your vision locked and closed
Electric colors, high attention
To want to be the greatest
Is clear fire

-N.G.

Kind Of Blue (Album Review)

Miles Davis is a legend, and for good reason. The man had a way of playing jazz music like no one else on this planet. Nothing backs this up better than his 1959 album "Kind of Blue". Featuring John Coltrane on tenor sax, every song on this album is incredible. The opening track, "So What", is a classic. "All Blues" is another amazing piece, as it is Blues music, but not in the common fashion that many think of Blues. It's hard to describe the creative genius that is contained in this album to somebody who does not listen to or appreciate jazz music. However, that's part of the beauty of this record; it's a great place to start for someone that's never listened to jazz before. The music is able to evoke certain feelings and emotions out of me that not a ton of music is able to do. It's beautiful. It's a critically acclaimed album (In 2003 Rolling Stone ranked it #12 on its list of 500 greatest albums ever), if that matters to you. If you enjoy different kinds of music and are looking for something new and fresh to check out (new and fresh to you that is), then this is the record for you. You can always chill out to it, no matter what time of day it may be. I can listen to it in the morning when I'm preparing for my day, or late in the evening when I'm relaxing after some long hours. I'll just come out and say that if you check this record out, chances are you'll become at least ten times cooler than you were previous to giving it a listen.

-N.G.

Time Travel #2

The fresh air of the mountains was so invigorating for the short time I experienced it. I thought back on everything that had happened to me and still I wondered, because everything felt so artificial. What happened to TJ? Mom? Dad? And where the hell was Nicole? Nicole. I still guess whether or not she ended up coming home that night. Had I gone with her, I probably would not be sitting above a mountain travelling to obscure periods of time, in a different country every moment. Just when I was about to go through the whole "Why me?" process for the tenth time, my nerves got the shock again. But this time, the shock didn't stop. It went on for over 40 seconds. I felt like I was getting electrocuted. For some reason a mountain lion suddenly appeared next to me on the mountain top, and it was roaring at me. It continued to roar while I sat there feeling so dazed and confused. The lion's roar was getting louder and louder, and my sweat started to intensely drip. I closed my eyes and suddenly felt a weird sensation in my head. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. The blood was rushing through my body, and the pounding continued. I jumped up. A huge feeling of fresh air took over myself, and I realized that I was no longer on a mountain. "THELONIOUS! THELONIOUS! I THINK HE'S AWAKE!" I forced my eyes open, and looked around. A musty hospital room. Seriously? Was all of this really a dream? Suddenly, that same yelling voice was directed towards me once again: "How are you? Are you feeling alright? It seems like everything went just as planned. For a minute there I started to panic, but everything seems back to normal now." Right when I was about to ask what the hell was going on, another man suddenly walked in. He had a long white robe on like something a doctor would wear, but his face was incredibly distorted. It looked like he put his face in a blender. "Samson, is he fully conscious of everything happening right now?" "He hasn't responded to me at all yet, but he's breathing and looking around. I think we'll be able to ship him out to Chicago tonight." Finally, I stammered. "Where am I and who are you? And what do I have to go to Chicago for? Send me back to Britain!" The two men glanced at each other and began to laugh in a somewhat ridiculous fashion. "Son, you have no idea what's happening do you? Britain no longer exists. Nothing exists, in a sense." I gave him a puzzling look and didn't say anything. This had to be a really weird joke. Or I was on a hallucinogenic of some sort. "Thelonious, look, all of the world was destroyed on January 1, 2000. The story behind us getting to where we are now and what we are attempting to achieve may take a while to explain." "EXPLAIN IT THEN! TELL ME WHAT HAS HAPPENED AND HOW I GET BACK TO WHERE I STARTED." Samson chuckled for a second. "Funny thing is, you CAN go back. But we need your help first." What was to come was something that I could never prepare myself for...

-N.G.

The Big Shave (Film Review)

If any of you reading this are not familiar with the name Martin Scorsese, stop what are you doing right now and indulge in some of the director's movies. They are genius. All of them. I am very much into Scorsese's works as you can tell, and being the weirdo that I am, I recently found an original clip online of the first film Scorsese ever directed, a short film known as "The Big Shave". It is roughly 6 minutes long, and it depicts a man shaving. The man continues to shave until his face is cut open and bleeding everywhere. The film was meant to be a commentary on the situation that was occurring with the US in Vietnam at the time (1968), as Scorsese felt that the US was only hurting themselves more and more. What's cool about this short piece is the visuals and all the different shots. The 1938 song "I Can't Get Started" by Bunny Berigan accompanies the work, and this also helps to enhance the experience, as the song is a fairly happy one. All in all, "The Big Shave" is a unique work of film art, with the bloody shots really leaving an imprint on one's mind. Maybe I find this short film so interesting just because it was the first piece by the one of the greatest ever, but it is still something cool to check out whether or not you're familiar with Scorsese (though being familiar with him definitely makes the whole thing much cooler), because it was commenting on something bigger happening at the time, and it's only 6 minutes long so you won't be wasting your time. 

-N.G.

Niandra Lades and Usually Just A T-Shirt (Review)

In 1994, John Frusciante was heavily struggling with drug addiction. He quit his world-wide famous band Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1992 and spent most of his time working on solo music and doing hard drugs, including heroin, crack, and cocaine. The result of this is heard in his album Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt. The first thing I have to say about this work is that it is not for everyone. Actually, it probably is not for about 80% of you in this class. It's straight up weird. The combination of incredible artistic creativity, amazing skill as a musician, horrible drug addiction, and great loneliness is one that creates interesting results. I personally think it is wonderful. Niandra Lades is actually its own separate album from Usually Just A T-Shirt, but John decided to put them together for the release. John began working on the album when the Chili Peppers were recording the phenomenal Blood Sugar Sex Magik at an abandoned mansion. The overall production of the album, recording and mixing alike, is really interesting. John liked to put backwards guitar solos and melodies in some songs, and there is a crackly quality to most tracks. The utmost emotion was put into this album though, and it has played an important role in expanding my personal creativity. Niandra Lades  features many short songs, with John predominantly playing guitar and singing (occasionally playing piano also). The lyrical content of the songs is somewhat explicit, but the songs are still all really beautiful in a weird, messed up way. Nearly every track is genius in its own way, at least how that's I see it. The guitar work on "My Smile Is A Rifle" is absolutely gorgeous. My favorite track on the entire record ("Your *****'* Glued To A Building On Fire") is another kind of thing where not everyone would enjoy it, but if you are able to you'll see how great of a song it is. Artistic creativity was put before everything else for this record, which I truly appreciate. "Ten To Butter Blood Voodoo" is another unique track that I absolutely love. Usually Just A T-Shirt mostly consists of oddly timed (songs range from 25 seconds to 8 minutes) instrumental guitar tracks with lots of strange effects inside of the track. There is controversy that the listener can actually hear John having sex during one of the songs, but I won't get into that. What's even weirder is that none of the songs on this side of the record have names; they are all untitled ("Untitled #1, Untitled #2...etc.). If you are a weird, artsy person, or if you like to check out interesting music that you've never before heard, then I highly recommend this album for you. Ironically enough, there are some references in the album to things I reviewed last week. On the album's cover, John is imitating MarcelDuchamp's (the guy who did the urinal modern art) pseudonym Rrose Sélavy. Additionally, the album features a cover of the Bad Brains track "Big Takeover".

You cannot find this album on iTunes, and I do not think it is on Spotify either, so your best bet would be to listen on YouTube, or do what I did and pay a huge amount of money to get it from Europe as the album is not available at stores in the US anymore. All I can say is that it is pure beauty.

-N.G.

Time Travel #1

Why do I get myself into these kind of things? Every time things seem to be going great, something abrupt occurs. The girl in Paris in 1923, the wolf in the forest in god knows what year, Hitler in 1969 (yes, he is indeed still alive; these are the kind of “things” that I get myself into). The saddest part is, all I wanted was an authentic Cuban cigar from 1962. But with that came avoiding Fidel, going back to JFK’s birth, and ultimately ending up in Ireland in 1811? What’s peculiar is that every time I end up at another place in another time, I do not know how it will go down.  I could be in the middle of a pancake breakfast with a member of John Gotti’s mob, and all of a sudden I’ll feel my nerve get pinched and I’ll blink and now I’m in a farm in Nebraska. Everything sounds like a blur right now because, in fact, that’s exactly what it is. One is always prompted to ask the question, “why me?” and it is I that now proposes the question. Having the ability to go to all the different eras I’ve been is more a curse than a blessing. Sure, sometimes I will suddenly have a nice outfit on and money in my pocket, but that just as quickly disappear once I travel through to another place. Travel is a funny word for me to use in this situation, because usually one associates that word with a journey. My travels are never journeys. Instead, they are flashes. One place to the next without any warning, any preview, any vision, any idea. I just want to go back to the life I lived before all of this happened to me. I don’t know what caused this upon me; as far as I know I could simply be hallucinating. 1984 Britain was an alright place for me. I was safe and I had a life going. Now the future’s so unwritten. I had a glimpse of what’s to come when I went to the end of 1999 for about 30 minutes. Everything was burning, everyone was screaming, and it seemed as if an apocalypse was upon me. I saw a newspaper on the ground with the date December 31 on it, and the headline read “IT ALL ENDS TONIGHT”. A man came running up to me screaming belligerent gibberish that I really could not comprehend. And just like that, there was the feeling in the nerves, and I was on a desolate mountain in a place I did not recognize. Did the world actually end after 1999? Would I ever be able to see anything in the 2000s? I can only wonder…

-N.G.

Up In The Clouds

She gasped with excitement and shouted over the noise of the propeller: “The islands in the clouds are real!” Everything was so surreal; there were blue elephants skating on a rink in the clouds, demons rolling dice right next to them, and Billy Mays was riding a bicycle in endless circles. Tila Tequila still could not fathom what she was observing. The last thing she remembered was chugging something out of a bottle and realizing that it wasn’t alcohol but actually gasoline. She later woke up aboard a plane going somewhere known as “Azure Ecstasy”. Initially, Tila was very excited because she thought she was involved with something related to the drug commonly taken at raves. But after talking to a fellow passenger who went by the name of Paul, she realized that she had perished and was now on her way to the afterlife. “Am I dead?” Tila asked herself. The realization shocked her. She would now be playing mini golf with Nelson Mandela instead of taking shots with the cast of “Jersey Shore”. Tila did not know how to feel about everything or how to reason with herself that she was truly dead. She tried getting into Tupac’s party that he was hosting but was denied entry, as no one recognized her. She kept walking along what she discovered to be known as the Holy Road and bumped into a big man in a suit. The two began to converse after Tila asked him where she should go to get alcohol in her body. The man said his name was Al Capone. Soon enough he and Tila had become fast friends and they both jumped onto a unicorn that took them to the coolest club in all of Heaven. Tila was almost glad she accidentally drank that gasoline, as this life promised so much more to her than her previous one ever could.

-N.G.

Ham On Rye

      Author Charles Bukowski is one who does not censor himself whatsoever in his writings, which is most likely the reason I enjoy reading his material. I recently finished his novel "Ham On Rye", which is about a boy growing up during the late 1920s and all throughout the 1930s. The boy, Henry Chinaski, has traits one would relate to those of a loner. His family life is not good at all, and at times the book can be a bit depressing. However, you actually tend to forget the time period of the story at certain points, and that highlights Bukowski's creative strengths as an author. Although the novel does not have much of a plot (it follows a guy from his early childhood to his early adulthood), it is easy to read and every chapter keeps you wanting more. Henry Chinaski is the protagonist in numerous Bukowski works, so this story serves as a prequel to other works that take place later in Chinaski's life. If you do not enjoy or cannot handle extremely vulgar and inappropriate topics, then do not read this book. It deals with the many odd thoughts and ideas that come with growing up, and at times it can be quite intense. Regardless, I think it is great. Many have claimed that the book is Bukowski's autobiography of his life growing up, and that he just used different names for all of the characters. I do not doubt one bit that this is true, as Bukowski grew up in the same setting (Los Angeles) during the same time period as Henry does. Film icon James Franco and his younger brother Dave recently began work on a film based off of the book, and it is rumored to be titled "Bukowski". If James Franco is making a movie out of it, that should be enough assurance that this is a great book that is definitely worth the read if you can handle some of its content.

-N.G.

fountain (review?)

French-American artist Marcel Duchamp was a person who truly thought outside of the box. His 1917 work "Fountain" is one that received heavy backlash. Known as early Avant-Garde art, it is considered by some to be one of the most important works of the 20th century, yet others reject it and say it is meaningless. 

Here is a picture of the art:

Yes, that is a toilet urinal. Duchamp took it from the store, put his name on it, and declared it a work of art (which it is). The Society of Independent Artists rejected the work, even though they had claimed that they would accept anything if the fee was paid. This piece causes one to truly question, "what is art?" Art is everywhere. It isn't necessarily about what it looks like, but more what was in the artist's mind when creating their work. In my opinion, this is one of the most creative ideas to ever come out of the 20th century. It can cause one to think so much deeper than about going to the bathroom. What message was Duchamp attempting to send when he presented this? There have been a number of different interpretations regarding its true meaning and it still is not totally clear what he was trying to say. However, philosopher Stephen Hicks had an interesting theory: 

"The artist is a not great creator—Duchamp went shopping at a plumbing store. The artwork is not a special object—it was mass-produced in a factory. The experience of art is not exciting and ennobling—at best it is puzzling and mostly leaves one with a sense of distaste. But over and above that, Duchamp did not select just any ready-made object to display. In selecting the urinal, his message was clear: Art is something you piss on."

In all reality, this artwork could been seen as genius or pretentious. I think it is wonderful. It is an artistic idea unlike any other.

-N.G.

BAD BRAINS

   Washington, D.C.'s Bad Brains released their self-titled debut album in 1982. The album is a work of perfection. Not only does it have some of the best hardcore-punk that one will ever receive the pleasure of listening to, but it also includes some beautiful, relaxing reggae songs. From the opening track of "Sailin' On" to the finale (an included bonus track) "Jah Calling Dub", the entire album is a one of a kind experience. Bad Brains was an incredibly creative group, and this album remains one of my favorites of all time; it's certainly on my top 5. Not only was their music energizing and gratifying, but the words they spoke also were a part of something bigger. All of the members of Bad Brains were black, which was certainly interesting for a hardcore band, but this did not cause any problems. They were actually bringing more people together as being the outcasts for this scene. They sung about joining together, fighting for what was right, and finding inner wisdom. Due to the majority of people being "afraid" of hardcore music (and by "afraid" I mean afraid to experiment with one's tastes), Bad Brains is only famous within a specific community of people. That fame should carry on to everyone though. This album is so amazing to me, that it's a bit hard to describe the feeling I get from it. If you are in need of new music, or feel convinced that you would enjoy this music, then do not hesitate one bit to check this album out.

BEST TRACKS: "Attitude", "Banned In D.C.", "I", "Big Take Over", "Pay To Cum", "Right Brigade", "I Luv I Jah", "Jah Calling Dub"

-N.G.

Moon's Up

The sinning of us every single day

Is what keeps me sane

It's the roadblock in front of the Milky Way

Love and Hate collaborate 

Things never fail to be strange