The Continuing Saga of Sam and Vanessa, Part IV

By his count, Sam hadn't slept in four days, but then again, he wasn't really sure. Four days ago had been a lazy Sunday, and he had gotten up for about 20 minutes early in the morning to eat a bowl of Frosted Flakes and then had gone back to sleep for like five more hours, which was almost a quarter of a day. Whatever the case, he hadn't slept since Sunday, which was four days ago. Maybe that was a better way to put it.

By his count, Sam hadn't slept since Sunday, but then again, who the hell counts things like that? There has to be a number in there somewhere when you say something like "By his count." You couldn't say, "By his count, Sam's last car was green," could you? No. You could say, "By his count, Sam had driven the green car roughly forty thousand miles before it broke down," which would be a better sentence to boot on account of the extra exposition it allowed.

Sam was exhausted and confused. The plot seemed to be moving nowhere, and all because of semantics.

The Continuing Saga of Sam and Vanessa, Part III

Sam smiled at Vanessa. They were finally home.

"We're finally home," he said, unaware that a narrative voice had already explained the situation. He couldn't have been talking to Vanessa; she had her headphones on. Sam had been stating the exposition of the story for some time now, in a vain effort to add some profundity to a journey that had turned out to be quite hackneyed. Vanessa was growing quite tired of him.

As Sam's weary legs brought him to the threshold of the apartment building, he stopped himself. What, really, was home?

"What, really, is home?" Sam asked Vanessa. His act had even begun to grow thin with the narrator.

"What do you mean?" asked Vanessa, lifting her headphones up for a brief moment.

"I mean, we have been gone for seven months now, and this just doesn't feel right."

"You're right," said Vanessa. "That's because you live across the street."

Home, sweet home.

The Continuing Saga of Sam and Vanessa, Part II

"Vanessa!" said Sam, in that way that only Sam could say it - that is, from Sam to Vanessa. "Vanessa!"

"Yes, dear?" The tears welled up in her eyes. Her eyes felt like gigantic wells, wells from which Sam had freed the trapped child of her childhood. "Yes?"

"Vanessa," Sam said again, though not as loudly, since he already had her attention. "Vanessa." Vanessa couldn't help but laugh at how Sam was prone to repeating things. Even at times like these, he had those little idiosyncracies. The kind of idiosyncracies that just made you react in some manner. "Vanessa." He did it again.

"Oh, Sam," said Vanessa, "You didn't have to say it. I'm the one that's Vanessa."

Sam curled the right side of his mouth up in a vain attempt to smile. Vanessa smiled along with him. Perhaps the stroke wasn't as bad as the doctor had said it was. Perhaps they had a fighting chance.

The Continuing Saga of Sam and Vanessa

I am writing a serial novel, to an extent. It's kind of a new concept. I'll be writing dramatic scenes that you, the reader, will be charged with putting in a cohesive and sensible order. Go for it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam stared blankly at Vanessa. Her gaze seemed to pierce right into his very insides. Yet once it arrived inside of him, it just bounced around for a while and died. For Sam was empty inside.

"Maybe it's all the drugs," said Vanessa.

"Go fix me a milkshake," said Sam. His voice quivered as his eyes narrowed to return her glare. "A milkshake with drugs."

And just like that, the tables had turned.

We are done mixing the album, yes we are, yes we are

High holy hell. Let me tell you what we finished doing the last night at 2am: mixing the album.

That's not a very interesting story. But guess what's next? Mastering.

Hmmm...

After that? Packaging.

Yawn.

Then? Selling, getting rich, and shooting videos with hordes of scantily clad women.

Boing!

Actually our one, "shake ya ass" song, which was entitled "Shake Ya Ass (Girl, You Know How To Do It Appropriately, Now Let Me See Some of Them Expertly Choreographed Dance Moves, Especially the One Where You Hump the Floor Suggestively)" did not make it onto the album. We're going to have to make do with our avant-garde, unbelievably fast nerd-hop for now.

Which brings me to another thing. I listen to our music, and then I listen to other hip-hop music, and I find that the main distinction between us and everyone else is that we play our music at like 200 bpm faster than anyone on the planet. As it is, the album is around 30 minutes long; it could easily have been 40 minutes long and slower.

For those of you who give a flying swear word, here are the tracks that are going on the album, in no particular order:

Out of Control
Break the Monotone
Gut Feeling
Lives of Bliss
We're All Thugs
Man Down
You Might Wanna

Yes, I know, that leaves out Robin Hood Democracy and Monster, both of which never made it out of the basics session. Not to worry. These seven songs are so good that you will lose control of your bodily functions. In fact, I highly recommend that the first time you listen to these songs, you do so in the bathtub. Or on a tarp.

If you're missing any favorite tracks, please consider the high potential of the second album, tentatively entitled "Carve Me Up a Grammy, Bitch":

Robin Hood Democracy
Monster
Namsing?
Suicide Waltz
You Can't Go Home Again
I Am (maybe)
Reflexive Identity Theft (maybe)
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay
La Marseillaise

Some of these are lies.

We're basically waiting for our album artist, Rachel Maguire, to finish the art, and then we'll be ready to rock and/or roll. Check her stuff out here. She is fantastic.

One more thing: when the album is out, please blog about us. Link to our myspace account and our website (soon to be redesigned), tell your friends, make them buy what we made. It sounds delicious.

adios
Abe

nonsense

A poem about my friend, Charles Wood:

How much wood could a woodchuck, Chuck, if a woodchuck could, Chuck Wood?
As much wood as a wood, Chuck, could, if a woodchuck could, Chuck Wood.

bye
abe

Bruins. Devotion. Something. Something else. Bruins.

Just picked up tickets for a Bruins game that I won at work. This year's motto, as printed on the tickets, is:

"Devotion... it's called Bruins."

Is that even grammatically correct? Does it even mean anything at all?

"Boy, Stan really worked hard on the Thompson account."
"He sure did. That was a whole lot of Bruins he showed."
"Here's to Stan."
[cracks open a beer]
"To Stan."
"To Stan."
"How is Cindy?"
"Oh, all right. We had a big talk about commitment yesterday. Commitment and...
"And what?"
"I forget the word."
"Bruins?
"Yeah, Bruins. Commitment and Bruins."
"Fuck."
"Fuck is right, man."

Bruins.

detox/retox

I always get really down on the days after shows. Something about the confluence of a week of stress leading up to the show, the emotional toll of reciting lyrics that despite their grounding in nonsensical blabberings are actually, cryptically, often quite meaningful to me, and the physical toll of performance always renders me perfectly useless the next day. To wit:

1. Today I woke up at 10.
2. Instead of finishing editing essays for the application essay company I moonlight with, I emailed my boss and took myself off the the project. To be perfectly honest, I should have done it a long time ago, but tried to power through it plus the workweek plus band stuff.
3. Instead of working on tracks for the solo album I wrote three random verses to Kanye's "Golddigger" that I will probably never want to recite to any track but "Golddigger," and any track I make would sound like a "Golddigger" rip-off, so they're completely useless. Good, but useless.
4. Made an oven pizza at 11 am.
5. Did not go to the gym,
6. Nor shower.

On the bright side, 18 days without coffee and substances. Being not jacked up on caffeine is starting to feel like my regular state of being.

But I could use a beer or eight right now.

This entry ceased to be entertaining a long time ago.

New Song - Going To I'm Going To

I like posting lyrics on this thing every once in a while.

Ricky wrote a sick keyboard line a few weeks ago and I have been trying to mold it into a song ever since. I think I got it. Three sort of altered choruses, three well-crafted verses. Now all Rick and I have to do is sell it to the band. Should be like passing pork in Congress.

I'm immensely proud of these lyrics. Lots of fun wordplay within a semi-serious topic. Look for baseball references; sports cliches; names of indie bands next to slightly altered names of bon jovi b-side singles; children's story references; some good religious imagery; political stuff; mike tyson's punch-out references; some halfway decent internal rhyming; some actual words that other people use in rap songs; and whatever else you can find.

These verses are all 16's with a half-line tagged to the top. So if you're at home trying to figure out how the hell they're recited, which might prove somewhat difficult, at least give yourself a shot by starting on 1 with the second line of each verse.

This song is going to kill.

paz.
abe

p.s. The chorus is to be sung, in three part harmony, poorly by me, competently by Evan and Rick.



I don’t know where
I don’t know where
I don’t know the place I’m going
To and I am going to explode if I don’t get to where I’m
Going I don’t know where I am
Going to I’m going to I’m going to my destination

- - - - ready set swing miss!
abraham keep your weight on your back foot
jump at the offspeed pitch and go ka-put
mighty casey up with the game on the line
at the bat, at the last inning of time
you could be, willing of mind
but your spirit is soft
or have the, shot in your sights
but your sights were off
a millimeter to spare and it's a game of inches
from, starting at fullback to riding the benches
riding the fences, siding with henchmen not leaders
shirtless and drunk, picking fights in the bleachers
99 degrees in the shade hot hot heat
bitching bout the rich folks and how they got box seats
knock kneed with a pigeon toe to boot
some people play the field, some belong in the booth
nobody wants the truth, it gets so absurd
talking bout "man i would have gone pro for sure"

You don’t know where
you don’t know where
you don’t know where I am going
to and I am never gonna tell you where I’m going to
end up I might end up nowhere
nowhere can be somewhere and that somewhere is a destination

he’s a fraud in those emperor’s
clothes so I choose to expose his ruse
in a four chord blues cause his flows are used
do you, quote the news or do you know your views
you could turn on the light or simply blow the fuse
abused in the back, man his soul is bruised
what's the world come to man i'm so confused
and you could roll on dubs or just roll them twos
snakes eyes, any way you roll you lose
put your finger on the trigger man and squeeze it twice
or take it on the chin in memory of Jesus Christ
you could read your rights, and dot your i's and t's
on the cross in the breeze with condoleeza rice
you can go out like a martyr be on top of the world
or you can try a little harder make your world understand
I might stumble to the finish but at least I saw the clock when it
Struck my time to shine and now we just

I don’t care where
I don’t care where
I don’t care where I am going
To as long as you are going to be there to hold my hand
No fuck it I can do it on my own if you don’t want to come
I’ll go alone you’re always welcome but I need to go right now

get em up now
wave your hands if you just don’t give a fuck
pot smoking ideologue he’s a sitting duck
yin to the yang man we all need the villain’s touch
safety off hair trigger, keeping all real and such
smoke a dutch smoke a parliament smoke congress
smoke constituencies up in smoke promise
pull a rabbit out of the hat it’s an illusion
smoke screen vote green add to confusion
separate the light from the top of the headpiece
you can, get on the bus, man, it’s practically empty
ride it to the front or do your time as a sentry
drive your daughter to the prom in a dress too skimpy
too limp to stand with a cracked backbone
too far removed to take a cab back home
take out another loan and never press select
when an uppercut would snap his neck

I don’t care where
I don’t care where
I don’t care where I am going

Buy our shirts, bitches!

Indef-Art shirts now available. White with black printing. Logo tees. Nice looking. Classy. Available in S, M, L, XL.

Navigate to our myspace page to buy one of those badboys. They are so much the beautiful!

done
f.a.

Things that are good in ones may not be good in sixes

Example: Long Island Iced Tea

The Anti-Battle Rap

battles in the annals now are wack fucking tournaments
rappers should be writers not smack talking journalists
stop the bleeding of the country, ad hoc tourniquet
scribes writing fables next to a turntablist
the message is the blessing and it's not who's the ablest
keep us on the A list and strike back at those who label us
writing battle rhymes is an extraneous ingredient
sitting next to sybillance and civil disobedience
you feeling it? these beats are so the people can be free again
not so you can lip off as a battle rap comedian
not so you can stand on stage and feign to shut it down
because a man's a man no matter how often you cut him down
the strength is at the roots and at the roots you cannot spray
or spit lyrical venom, fuck it, you choose the cliche
for tyrants rule for 50 years and then thier glory fades
but poets live forever, and forever is today

a brief word on morally unassailable liberal attacks

Let me preface this by saying that I am not in favor of the war. Not at all.

That said, it strikes me as quite stupid that liberal protestors - or any anti-war protestors, for that matter - continue to use the "would you send YOUR son or daughter to Iraq?" tactic to point out the allegedly innate hypocrisy of government officials waging a war against a foreign country. All a politician has to do to fend off such an inane attack is say, "My son/daughter is an adult and capable of making their own decisions. Whether or not they choose to participate in the war effort is their own decision." That's it.

In fact, the most astute thing Dan Quayle probably ever said was similar to this. He was on TV stumping for anti-abortion laws and was asked what he would do if his daughter, then over 18 years of age, was confronted with an unwanted pregnancy. He said something to the effect that he would counsel her to have the child, but that she was an adult and it would ultimately be her decision.

Even when Michael Moore did this, it was kind of stupid. Parents don't sign their children up to go to war. What he should have addressed (and bless his soul - the man needs days of screen time to address the complexity of the situation, but people don't want complexity) was why the military finds most of its recruits primarily among the poor and underprivileged populations of America.

Then he should have asked various congresspeople to sign their children up to be poor.

Air Bud

Do you think that the producers of the Air Bud movies pick the sports that Air Bud plays based on his relative skill in the sport or whether or not they can make a dog-related pun out of the title (i.e., Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch)?

There are lots of highly-paid people making these decisions. It would be interesting to know what goes into their thought processes.

I think that given the recent surge of interest in poker, high-stakes gambling, and the like, Air Bud's handlers would be smart to make a movie about Air Bud counting cards at a casino or something. Some sort of Rainman-esque thing.

The title? You guessed it. Air Bud Craps All Over the Casino Floor.

That is all.

Eloquence

from a cnn.com article about the couple (a prison security guard and her felon husband) who escaped from jail a few days ago:

"
Cab driver Mike Wagers, 33, said he didn't realize he had picked up the fugitives until he was alerted to TV reports later that evening.

He said his suspicions weren't aroused by anything the couple said, except that they didn't try to aggressively recruit him after telling him they were Amway salespeople.

"You know, Amway people are all about Amway, and when they didn't -- when they didn't try any conversation further about it, that's when I pretty much thought, well, they're not with Amway," Wagers said.
"

Thanks, Amway. Now get started on the Struggle Against Violent Extremism like we asked you to a week ago.

National Insecurity

Security guards at North Station are working for the terrorists. I'm serious. It's not on purpose; rather, it's more like how the pot smokers in those terrible anti-drug commercials are working for the terrorists, except true. Story:

Sunday morning, 8:30ish. I am sitting in beautiful North Station waiting to take the commuter rail out to Phil's house, where I will eventually nail two tracks destined for my solo album. Around 70 people at the station. No trains on the platforms. I am hung over.

As I sit on a bench in the lobby trying to choke down a dry Dunkin' Donuts bagel bu drowning it in iced coffee, I spot one security guard with a puzzled look on his face talking into his walkie-talkie to another security guard. Let me note here that his badge looked like one of those Junior Police Officer badges that they used to give away in elementary school. Here are the snippets of walkie-talkie conversation to which I am privy:

"We have an unattended bag on the platform..."

"...don't know what is inside."

"...suspicious..."

"Bring it inside."

!

And they do. They bring the goddamned unattended bag inside the station and set it roughly 3 feet in front of my face. More conversation snippets:

"Do you know what it is?"

"...I don't know."

"Open it."

!!

Yes, "Open it." And they do. Right in front of me. There are clothes in it. In accordance with homeland security training techniques, the highly trained security officers POKE THE CLOTHES WITH THEIR WALKIE-TALKIES. I feel safe.

Do I have to comment any more on how ridiculous this is? Moving a potentially hazardous bag from an empty train platform into a lobby? I don't. So I won't.

It's not that I'm scared of terrorists, but if I were one, and I read this, I would die laughing.

Now THAT'S homeland security.

And THAT (above) is a bad punchline.

"Weekend at Bernie's," the beginnings.

Transcript of the meeting in which "Weekend at Bernie's" was conceptualized:

Executive One: Know what's funny?
Executive Two: What?
Executive One: Corpses.
Executive Two: I'm listening...
Executive One: Oh... well, that's all I was saying, that corpses were funny.
Executive Two: We are prepared to offer you $50 million for your idea.
Executive One: But I don't even have a script...
Executive Two: $60 million
Executive One: ...
Executive Two: Production starts next week.

Recording in NH

I am so ridiculously lazy with this blog. I am so sorry [tear]. So sorry [tear]. So.

So, given the lack of recent blog updates, there is really no reason why anyone that reads this should know that we were up in New Hampshire recording our album on Sunday and Monday. But we were. We really, really were. And it sounds amazing. In fact, it sounds so amazing, even without Evan having finished his guitar overdubs, that I am somewhat intimidated to do vocals over it. What if I can't reach the standard that Phil and Ben (our producers) and the rest of the band has set? What if I suck?

Of course, I know I'm going to nail the vocals. But I'm still a bit nervous.

Recording was nervewracking. Brandon got bit on the face by a radioactive bug the night before we were supposed to leave, rendering him nearly blind and half-dead. We had to cancel our gig in Tewksbury on Saturday to make sure that we were adequately prepared and that Brandon was at least three-quarters alive for tracking on Sunday morning. That worked.

We spent a long time getting sounds, putting mics next to instruments, and generally exploring the studio space before we got to tracking our first song, which was Monster. Monster took 3 hours to get right. Three hours. By the time we were done I was already deep into my second cup of voice-saving organic tea, which was hilariously named "Throat Coat." And no, the joke was not one of Paul Revere riding his horse through Boston yelling "The Throat Coats are coming!" It was much diriter and had no historical backdrop.

Evan is going to Ben's rehearsal space on Sunday to record his guitar, and then it's all up to me to put the finishing touches on the album. Then we will sell it and become famous and I will hire someone with a similar writing style to update the blog on a daily basis. Superb.

I will attempt to post more often from now on.

paz
abe

p.s. Vote: What's a better album title?
A) The Grand Applause
B) Break the Monotone

better to remain quiet and be thought a fool...

...at least for some people. Overheard at Herrell's, Sunday afternoon:

Guy to pretty girl who is eating a salad: I used to work at a four star restaurant putting salads together. I'm trying to identify exactly what kind of lettuce that is...

Girl: It's spinach.

I can't make this kind of stuff up.

Misuse of the blog will not be tolerated

Not the man to mess with, am I.

abe, your book sucks

see above

Calling Uncle True - piece o' prose

Why don't we post anymore? So many loyal readers constantly disappointed. I'm sorry. It's tough. We're busy. Ohmilordy, we're busy. More shows on the horizon, pub for Middle East is in full effect.

I have been brainstorming my children's book lately. Want to read it? Shut up, it's not done. It's all a bunch of rough notes. The main character is named Owen. I want to name my first son Owen but am afraid that if i write this book I'll never be able to name my kid the same name. I am so cracked out on odd sleep patterns. I love non sequiturs.

"Do you think you know you're right? Or do you know you think you're right?" The man's question seemed to make sense, but Owen felt confused.
"I don't know," he responded.
"So then you think." said the man, whose logic seemed to Owen to be patently absurd.
"I really don't know," Owen said again.
"Then it's settled." said the man. "Detroit it is."
"Detroit?" asked Owen. "There's a Detroit where I come from."
"I wouldn't be surprised," said the man, who seemed completely unfazed by Owen's reiteration of the fact that he came from another dimension. "Detroit is a good name for a place. In fact, I named my cat Detroit."
"But your cat isn't a place," Owen said.
"Sure it is," the man said, with the matter-of-fact delivery that made his statements seem almost more ludicrous than they already were. "Wherever the cat is, that's a place. Which brings me back to what I wanted to tell you at the beginning: it's confusing to name your cat the same name as a place, but not nearly as confusing as naming your cat the same name as another cat."
Owen was growing ever more comfortable with being confused.

paz
FA

tracks: weird shit at Herrell's of Allston Rap-Rock Citay.

Daddy Yankee, I would offer a close friend to have your children. Not someone I liked in a romantic way myself, but someone cool nonetheless.

"Esta noche haremos el amor bailando"

"Tonight we're going to bang dancing"

How can this guy be so goddamned good? I don't know. But cop the album. The spanish word for cop is "policiar."

paz
abe

Don't that thing there got that mail what for you don't have to use stamps?

That title makes no sense.

Sorry for the not-blogging delay. I have too much to do. Story of my life. A boring one, but that's what it is.

Quickly: we're working on a theme song for the pilot to my friend Rob Fried's sitcom, "Serious Business." Once we're done, it will be serious business, because we'll be seriously hooked up with some seriously funny people with serious connex in the H-wood. For serious.

The song will be nothing like you have ever heard IA play, mainly because it will be new. But it will also be somewhat different from our normal fare - something lighter, in a duck sauce, something that goes well with a fine white wine.

God damn, keeping the mo' up for this band is a tough thing. And mo' is all we need right now. Mo mo'. Moo.

I have nothing to say. I shall return with topics of interest shortly. Sorry for the no-writing thing. It will be remedied.

paz
FA

observation

Know what the problem is with those socks that wick away moisture to keep your feet dry? They wick the moisture right into your shoes and in 5 days your shoes smell like a football locker room.

Riddle me the answer to that, modern science.

FA

Why I do it.

So I can be like Edan.

It's been a long time/ I shouldn't have left you/ etc.

Long time, no blog. Who reads this? Some people, I think. Whatever the case, I will write again, for writing's sake. Here goes something:

Overdraught was a decent night. The place got double booked and our man Rudy from LoveLifeLess pulled some strings and bashed some heads so we could play at the time we were supposed to play at. Capital. We played a pretty good show, minus a few minor snafus, but given the circumstances - Pat's first gig, we hadn't rehearsed in 2 weeks, Brandon had just gotten off of a plane - it was a good time. People dug the Green Eggs and Ham posters, as I knew they would. Sneetches will come out at out next big show.

I was thoroughly impressed by Colony Underground. The MCs were dope, even without their band, they had a loyal and vocal following, and they were nice guys. I talked a bit with Barry, Colony's bassist (and Audible Mainframe's former bassist - small world) and he was a great guy too. I definitely want to build with these guys.

Schedule for the next few weeks: get organized for recording with the band, write new songs, get some gigs, fix the press kit, gah gah gah gah so much to do faint hit head on floor die. Somewhere in between there I'll be prepping tracks for the solo album. I have reserved some studio time for myself on July 8-9 but I'm thinking I won't be done in time. One of these weekends I'm going to have to do a self-imposed lock-in and just finish some of these tracks. Should be interesting to see how this thing comes out.

The big mo is a little slow right now, but we'll get it back up by fall. Once we get our shit together, watch out. Until then, try not to be around when it hits the fan.

paz
abe

track - mine
book - An Unfortunate Series of Events, by Lemony Snicket. Pure brilliance.

Big Plans

Oh yes, The Indefinite Article has some big plans on their agenda this summer. We are currently in the process of planning out the production and release of our first REAL record. This is going to be heuge folks. We're talking world class studio's and international distribution all done independently by our hardass-workin-mother-fuckin selves!! No doubt. Expect a medium length EP type record with the best of our new and old material. Pat has jumped right in and gotten his feet wet in the indef-art system. It really is becoming a machine. We may even have a REAL manager on the ranks as well. Keep yourselves updated and look out for the record release party somewhere in boston...(middle east? paradise?)...in the early months of fall. For now, come to all of our shows!!!! We have some great gigs coming up with some really hip acts. Hope to see e'ryone soon and thanks for the support.

Evan, Indefinite

Weekly Dig Dug Dog

Any publicity is good publicity.

Pat, Mafuckas!

Indef-Art has a new bassist. Fans, welcome Pat Christman to the band. He has no nickname yet, but we’ll get him one as soon as we can. Blake actually took the name “Tains” to Audible Mainframe. I guess that’s kind of cool. When he blow up he’ll be able to say that he got his stage name from us. In all seriousness, we wish the best to Blake and his new band. You’ll probably see us playing shows with them in the near future.

Now to introduce Pat. Pat is a chill dude, owns like 67 bass guitars, and has written tons of beats and arrangements that could be easily transplanted over to the band. Lives in Somerville, has a car, shows up early (early!) to rehearsals, and is already virtually locked in with the rhythm section. The IA welcomes his presence. Now all we have to go is photoshop his face over Blake’s on the website. That goddamned bios page took me so long to do. If Blake’s departure leaves any sour taste in my mouth at all, it will become apparent when I’m sitting in the computer lab trying to figure which effects I used to make those cool-ass silhouettes.

Pat will play his first Indef-Art gig on May 20th at Overdraught. It’s going to be a good time. On a related note, this summer is going to kick ass. We have some great shows lined up (especially the July 1 show with 2mex and ele.mental) and are planning on ramping the summer up to a fall CD release party that will feature not only Indef-Art’s EP but my own solo EP as well. As it is shaping up, my EP is going to be the oddest piece of hip-hop you have ever owned. And the IA disc is just going to be hot. Look forward to Boston MCs, You Might Wanna, and Monster, remixes of the demo, and last but not least, (if I have my way), Shotgun.

That’s all for now. Keep reading. Knowledge is power.

The Shawshank Office Redemption

One of my bosses walked into the office today and cheerily announced that T passes were available through this job. How exciting! They take the money directly from our paychecks and buy our passes before taxes, saving us a bit of money and the trouble of running around during non-business hours and trying to find a place that sells the monthly passes. She then announced (in an equally cheerful tone) that we probably shouldn’t plan on applying to buy passes for June because we might not be working here by then. If this wasn’t a backhanded way of putting pressure on me to fill out my forms quicker and with more accuracy, I don’t know what was. Trouble is, my direct boss is swamped under like 8,000 projects and hasn’t gotten back to me all afternoon, so I have nothing to do. As such, my combined directives from above amount to the following: do nothing, but do it with speed and accuracy. I can do that. Just wait for a minute while I grab a cup of coffee.

Right now I feel like the fat guy in the Shawshank Redemption. Remember him? The one who on his first night in the jail cell started blabbering and crying that he didn’t belong, so Hadley took him out of his cell and cracked his skull, killing him? I feel like I’m that fat guy, about to start screaming and crying that I don’t belong in an office, that what in God’s name did I do to deserve this, that how could I be here with all of these people, and office-Hadley will stride out and kill me, not with a baton, but with boring projects. And Anton will be office-Andy Dufresne. He will cost office-Red a whole pack of cigarettes, which would probably be like company tickets to Sox games against Tampa Bay or something.

The only good thing about this job is that my brain is permanently in the “off” position for most of the day, so when I get home I am really motivated to write, compose, and obsess over my music. Sometimes I’m tired when I get home, but coffee can cure that. But perhaps a lower-paying job with more tasks that require a functioning brain would be good, and I think now that the random “your job is not secure” message has come from up above, I’m going to start looking in earnest again.

Another thing going on here at work is that people don’t realize the skill level and intensity level of the band. I tell people, “I have a hip-hop band,” and they respond with one of those “Sure you do” looks. “Poor kid,” they must think, “Working here with me and thinking he’s going to be a musician. Cute.” I will not begin to describe how irritating that is. I’m going to start saying obnoxiously cocky things to people who make these comments, like “I’m probably the best rapper you have ever met,” or “My band is so good that you will wet your pants if you hear us live.” I’ll update the blog when I do.

Anyway, a note on dreams: if I don’t make it in music I’m just going to opt out of society, go somewhere warm and sunny, and write. I have come to the conclusion that it is a lot easier to opt out of society than people think it is, and that I'm going to completely do it one day.

That’s all.
paz
FA

white boy dispatch funk

A funny thing happened at the Middle East show on Thursday night. A funny, sad thing. I met an unbearably ignorant person. Some people are capable of passing off abject stupidity as one of the hilarious flaws of the world. I recognize the funny things that ignorant people say and do, but the very thought of people living in bubbles of closed-mindedness depresses me to no end. The story:

It’s after the show. Indef-Art’s best show ever, if the crowd response was any indication. Ordinary K dug it. Kastro (aka Slim Pickens) dug it. 33Hz didn’t talk to anyone, so we couldn’t tell whether or not they dug it. We’re all still basking in the afterglow of a performance and crowd turnout that should vastly improve our standing in the Boston music scene. We go outside to cool off, smoke cigarettes (not me), and talk to a kid named Ian who has contacted us about replacing Blake as our bassist. What follows are snippets of our conversation mingled with my running inner commentary.

Evan: We would love to have you in to rehearse. Just learn the songs on the website and we’ll go through those and see how we vibe.

Ian: Do I have to learn “Love Hip-Hop?”

Me: [Thinking Ian is joking]. Not really. It’s like 2 notes.

Ian: …because that song is wack.

[Okay, right off the bat, fuck you, kid. Thanks for coming out. I wrote that song. But, we’re going to see where he takes this.]

Me: [diplomatic] It’s not our best song…

Ian: I mean, it’s your band, so I’ll play it, but I won’t like it.

[Thanks. Good to see you won’t be taking complete control of the group. That’s a relief. This isn’t ignorance yet, just a complete lack of tact. Just wait…]

blah blah blah…

Ian: Yeah, you guys are all right, but I can’t stand it when you go into that white boy funk where you sound like “Dispatch.”

Me: We are white.

[So are you. Also, fuck you.]

Ian: Hip-hop is something that is really close to my heart, and I have a really fixed idea about what it should be. I’ll give you a CD of my old band that had a black MC and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

[Okay, here we go. First of all, the statement that any music is “really close to my heart” is trite to the point that it’s almost a self-parody. Of course it is. So continue. Oh, and you have a CD of your old band to give us to tell us how to improve our band? Your old band that doesn’t exist anymore, hence your desire to join our band? We should be like them? Right now I’m imagining that they were so good that they just had to break up.

Up to now this is all just poor interview skills. This kid couldn’t get a job at McDonald’s if an interview were involved: “Yeah, I mean it’s your restaurant, and I’ll make the Big Macs if you want, but I won’t like it.”]

Time passes… Our jaws drop lower and lower toward the sidewalk.

Ian: Yeah, so I was talking to your old bassist, and I agreed with him that you guys don’t have a lot of credibility because you don’t have a black MC.

[Thump. There it is.

Quick review on the race-based comments that came from Ian: we play “white boy funk;” his old, good band had a black MC, in stark contrast to our band, which he inexplicably still seems to want to join; our band lacks credibility because I fail to possess the skill to change my skin color.

Let me tell you why this is not only ignorance, but out-and-out racism.

The word that my argument is resting on is the word “credibility.” What are we talking about here? Are we talking about skills? Is that it? In the case of what Ian said, we are not. He said that a black MC has more credibility. We’re going to give Ian a little bit of credit and assume that he doesn’t think that every black MC in the world has more skills than me. If this were the case, I would have quit long ago and no one would be coming to my shows.

So if not, skills, what is “credibility?” My interpretation is that “credibility,” in Ian’s mind, is based on his perception of the persona of the black hip-hop male as a tougher, more street-wise, hyper-masculine caricature whose roots in the American imagination reach back to the time of slavery. I had a linemate in junior hockey that spent 3 months in jail for beating someone with a tire iron. Another teammate of mine served a season-long suspension for spearing someone in the face. Would these tough guys raised in the cornfields of southern Ontatio have “credibility” as MCs in Ian’s mind? I think not. They lack the one value upon which our prospective bassist was basing his judgment. Would a black prep schooler (say, Pappa Doc from 8 Mile)? I think so. To blindly assign “credibility” due to race in any profession is a racist agenda. To do so in hip-hop is damaging to the genre.

The very notion of “credibility” in hip-hop music hides behind a thin veil of racism that cuts in all directions. Expectations that black rappers have “credibility” simply perpetuate the harmful stereotype of the black male as an aggressive, tough, street-educated threat to white America. Someone who grants instant credibility to black rappers takes away their right to create their persona from the ground up and harms hip-hop to no end.

Since I started with Indef-Art, the band has run up against more than a few people who vocally and adamantly oppose our approach to hip-hop. More often than not, these people are white people who claim that our music is not “true,” or “real,” or whatever the term du jour is for status quo underground music. I am going to call these people “self-hating white people.” Self-hating white people are all around. More likely than not, they are attracted to historically black forms of music simply because it is good, yet fail to get past their own prejudices and feelings of guilt about “stealing” art forms when they try to play the music. Instead they resort to engaging in competitions to be less white than the next white artist who is attempting to play historically black music. Ian’s scathing comment that we played “white boy funk” contained the implicit statement that he could play funk that was less white than ours. Such a comment is ridiculous. All white people play “white boy funk.” That’s all we can play. Unless we’re talking about a white female, of course, who would play “white girl funk.”

Now, I identify as a self-hating white person in many respects. I feel immense guilt that I have openly racist relatives and friends from back home and that more likely than not my ancestors were involved in the oppression of not only black Americans, but all non-white races. As such, I am a self-hating white person.

But where I diverge from Ian is that I will not apologize for my music and steadfastly refuse to subject it to a sliding scale of whiteness. My music is white because I am white. I cannot change that. I am also intelligent, Harvard educated, and a goddamned good MC, and I do not anticipate having to apologize for any of those things at any time during my musical career. My band is similarly unapologetic. Those who don’t like it just can’t keep up. Those who can’t keep up get dusted.

FA

no discipline

Now i'm just posting everything. But that's what interests me: everything. At some point I'll get back to a more streamlined approach, but until I get some actual assigments here at work, the filter is off.

This is awesome. Read:

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

rhyme sketch

This isn't lined up to be in any particular song yet, but I'm sure it will make it in somewhere. Just posting for posting's sake.

You're the garden variety
I'm the rabbit in the cabbage patch
Eating with the big dogs while you're hanging with the average cats
Stranger fiction after facts
Laugh when you start acting bad
Put you in a glass jar
Recreate your habitat

Something like that.

Also, this line will probably be inserted at some point:

I only come in single serves
They sell you in a Value Pack.

Also, I like this line:

My band is like "what"
Yours is like "pardon me"
Your style is something bite-sized
Mine is really hard to eat

Where will all of these semi-brilliant brainstorms go? Let's put it to a vote:

A: In a song.
B: Not in a song.

Vote now, America, or forever hold your peace.

no track. at work.

out
FA

p.s. I have submitted for the next issue of Nutria Magazine (www.nutriamag.com) and should get a piece or two published. Go to their site and sign up for a subscription. It's a quality read. Also look for my review of El Pus in an upcoming issue of Skope Magazine (if they ever send me the goddamned CD).

Brilliant Minds

Read this story. Apparently some MIT kids got on the docket of an academic conference with a paper that the made from a program that randomly strings words together. Here is the paper generator.

I have nothing more to say about this. It is brilliant. I could spend some time and write a scathing indictment of the academic community, but those have been done.

Working on some songs right now. They won't be done by the time the Middle East show rolls around (come to that mess! click here to get tix on Ticketmaster), but they will be good.

Much thanks to Benny B, The Will Champlin Band, and Slanted House for getting us linked up. They are all linked from our website, so give them a visit. All talented folk. Hopefully others will follow suit and get us linked soon. I'll be doing a mini-revision of the website soon, so keep visiting.

no track. silence.

outski
F.A.

short story

Dear All:

What follows is a rough draft of a short story I am attempting to write. Your readership is appreciated, your comments are welcome.

I always thought that my life would make a good movie. Not the entire thing, of course, just some of the more exciting parts. It’s not like I was ever in a car chase, or had ever been in a really big fistfight or something like that. I hadn’t even fought in any wars. By the time I was out of college the first war in Iraq was already over, and I really wasn’t ever much of the volunteering type. But I always thought I would have made a good character in a film about a young punk kid who was drafted into service and then did something really rebellious, like lipped off to his commanding officer on the first day of basic training or something. Or maybe I would have participated in the senseless slaughter of a small subsistence farming village, not in Iraq, but in some little town in Syria or something where the government had sent troops but no one really knew about it. Then I would be haunted by the memory of what I did for the rest of my life, even though I was just a scared kid when I did it.

Whatever the case, I always saw myself as a good movie character, and now in my older age I still do. Sometimes, when I’m all dressed in my suit and tie and overcoat and walking to the bus stop on the way to work and I have my headphones on to a really rocking song I can just see myself in the middle of some great flick. Especially like when it’s raining and I have my newspaper under my jacket, I can just see myself walking up the steps of the bus in slow motion while some guitar is wailing in the background and just unloading bullets on everyone on the bus, and in slow motion the bullets bust through the headline of some presidential scandal or war or something that was on the paper I was carrying, and the people at the film are at once awed and horrified by the actions of this modern-day hero, because in the film I’m just a normal guy who had to stand up for something. I would imagine that a bunch of people get up and leave during the festival showing and that creates the publicity that makes the movie take off. Or there are those sunny days when I go to the back of the bus, open the window, take a deep breath and imagine that it’s the end of some instant classic where the character that I’m playing is getting on a bus to God-knows-where only to get away from the lady that had torn up his heart for the length of the feature. He still loves her and he always will, but he’s happy to be going because that’s what he has to do and that’s what people are supposed to do in these sorts of situations. My girlfriend now is a nice chick and doesn’t deserve that kind of stuff, but I can still imagine how liberating it might feel.

I remember reading once in a column on the internet that Tom Hanks’ performance in Turner and Hooch was his best work. To be able to pull off a movie – and pull it off as well as Tom Hanks does – where a dog is your supporting actor is a pretty damn tough thing to do. I have a dog. It’s a part golden retriever, part-pug. Ugly as sin, but I like it. Some sleeping golden bitch must’ve been jumped by a sneaky pug and not even have woken up and the little-dick bastard still knocked her up. I call him Turner, even though that was Tom Hanks’ name in the movie. I think it’s a clever turn-around, but most people don’t get it.

Believe it or not, my favorite movie scene of all time is from Turner and Hooch, when Tom Hanks is being held up inside of his car and the villain is holding a gun to his head and ordering him to drive and Tom just puts on his seatbelt and guns the car right into a pole, killing the shit out of the guy with the gun. Hooch was tied up or something while this was going on. The best thing about this scene is what a good idea it is. What kind of kidnapper remembers to put his seatbelt on, and if he’s got a gun to your head, what chance do you really have of getting out alive if you do what he says? Common wisdom dictates that you shouldn’t even get in the car in the first place. That was Tom’s first mistake. Then most of those guys probably just kill you after they’re done doing whatever it is they do to you, so you might as well go out with something kick-ass like that. Anyway, I have a variation on that scene where the guy is holding the gun to my head and I’m just driving along all calm and stuff and I say, “Do you swim?” and the crook is all like, “What? Just keep driving.” I keep my eyes on the road and calmly repeat the question. “Do you swim?” By now he is getting really agitated and he is jabbing the gun against my temple, not noticing that I have put my seatbelt on and that I am slowly increasing the speed of the car. “What the fuck!” he yells at me. “Stop asking stupid fucking questions and drive!” But by then I’m right where I want to be. I yank the steering wheel to the right and careen into a tree right on the edge of a cliff. The crook slams through the windshield, rolls off the hood of the car, and completely falls off the cliff and into a raging river below. I get out of the car, bloodied and bruised but able to walk, just in time to see his body surface below. “I asked you if you swam, motherfucker,” I say as I turn around and start walking back to the road. I have always thought that that would be a good movie scene, but maybe it’s so close to Tom Hanks’ story that someone would notice.

My friend Blain is a story editor for a reality television show on cable. Let me rephrase that. The show isn’t on air yet. It’s a pilot show where these three rich brothers walk around and hit on girls. There doesn’t seem to be much more to it, but the producers for the channel that Blain works at seem to think it’s really going to do well. In my opinion, the only thing that separates the three brothers in the show from regular people is the fact that they have money. But I guess that’s enough.

Anyway, I went in to work with Blain one day to help him edit down some tapes that he had gotten back. It was depressing. Five takes of a scene in a diner. The waiter took their order five goddamned times. And it was still as interesting as watching one dog sniff another one’s ass; that is to say, maybe I’ll watch it go on if I’m outside on a sunny day, but there’s no way I’m sitting through commercials to see what happens next. Four hours of these douchebags walking around and talking about things. What were they talking about? Getting tail, mostly, because that’s the point of the show. But other than that, nothing. No politics, no education, no books. In hindsight, it may have been even more depressing to have to watch those guys make attempts at intellectual conversation. Still, it would have been nice to seem them at least pay respect to the fact that higher pursuits exist.

That’s the problem with reality television. It’s too real. It’s boring. Know why I would never allow someone to make a reality show out of my life? Because I would be running the risk of realizing that my life is as boring as everyone else’s. What if my life to a soundtrack is nothing more than random music played over some meaningless mundanity, and not even mundanity for art’s sake but just plain-Jane mundanity? Everyone who submits themselves to being filmed in reality television runs the risk of discovering their inherent normalcy, and that’s as scary as anything, because once you get packed into a snowball, you can’t go back to being a snowflake.

I would rather have someone write my story. Let someone take some artistic license with it. None of this who-stole-my-peanut-butter? drivel. Even the Tom Hanks story would suck on reality television. I would wake up from the crash, either with a broken nose from the steering wheel or two searing eyefuls of chemicals from the airbag, dripping blood and sniveling like a little girl (let’s just assume that the cameraman lives), crawl out of my mangled car, probably puke at the sight of the dead crook, curl up on the ground, and wait for the police to come. Then I would have to put up with at least a cursory homicide investigation, even though no jury would ever convict me. Afterward I would have to live with the thought that I killed a man, even if it was in self-defense. It’s a far cry from ripping off a snappy tagline and cutting to a swank restaurant scene with a beautiful lady. That’s why I want to be in a movie. It’s easy. Pain is painted on, reality is suspended, three-minute training montages get me ready for the big fight, and everything turns out well in the end, with no regrets. Now that’s life.

back to plug a song

Lo Que Paso, Paso - by Daddy Yankee

This guy is amazing. Blowing up Latin America right now. The piano line is the sickness. Get it.

paz
Padre Abram

thursday is a day

Yo

It's the Father, logging in from the mundane at my new job at [company name classified]. Life at [company name classified] is somewhat boring right now. I'm filing things and learning how to do the same hour-long task that I will be doing all summer long. Sounds fun, doesn't it? No. I have no idea why you would think that.

[company name classified] is a decent place to work. We have this cool coffee machine that makes a cup of coffee in like 20 seconds. I can't even describe how it works. And since I have no rational explanation for how it works, I have concluded that it works by magic. Yes, somehow [company name classified] has harnessed the power of magic and put it to coffee making to somehow increase productivity. Also, I'm typing on the IBM version of an Apple IIC right now. I cannot imagine anything but magic keeping this thing in running condition.

I signed a confidentiality agreement with [company name classified] and I'm freaked out by news reports of bloggers getting fired for writing about work, so I will always refer to [company name classified] as [company name classified].

Press, buzz, and push will all be in effect for the Middle East show starting tonight. Watch for the flyers with Blake's tains on them around your hood. In a related story that as of yet has no ending, Blake's membership in the band is in limbo right now. We're waiting for a decision from him and window-shopping for other bassists right now. Here's hoping that he sticks around.

Never raise a fist but for in solidarity,
Send my message forth with conviction and with clarity.
paz
F. Abraham

post penn state

Aaaaaah, back to the grind and insanity that is my existence in Boston. What a great getaway it was to escape into the rural Pennsylvania countryside. As Rick has already filled you in on the majority of what went on, I need not explain that it was eventful. I think that it was more hectic for some of the members than others. For me, it was somewhat relaxing and refreshing to get out of Boston. Brandon and Rick however, were like fish out of water. Quick example; Mark, who was so kind to let us crash at his hunting retreat, was trying to build a fire. He asks Brandon and Ian to help out and gather wood. Ian, being from a rural area like me, knew exactly what to do, as if it wasn't common sense. Brandon on the other hand, frantically trying to rip branches off trees and god knows what else, becomes very frustrated. Then, seeing Ian pick something off the ground (which was a dry stick), starts ripping vines or some shit off the ground and complaining. It would seem as though our good friend Bifida had never stood on anything but concrete in his entire life. Rick was another matter. He was simply scared shitless and crawled under a table (sounds impossible, I know) and cried for 3 hours. Mr. Plantains just rolled around in the dirt for a while. To his credit, however, he did shower after the first day. What the other guys (Rick, Blake, Ian) missed out on while they were busy being shitty and hungover at a dirty frat house was Mark's mom's 25 course breakfast of home cooked, country heaven. We had ENORMOUS omlettes, peppercorn bacon, whole grain toast, pot after pot of coffee and OJ, chocolate mouse cake and blueberry pie. OH MY GOD. Let me tell you, it was the greatest thing ever. Then, on the way back, most likely a result of the enormous breakfast, we stopped at a rest stop in Conneticut and blew it up with a group poop. So that is my condensed version of the trip considering that Rick already covered most f it. Anyway, we are gonna rock the face off of Ground Zero on Friday and get everyone out to the Middle East for our big debut there. Thanks a bunch to all the guys at Acacia for having us out and hopefully we can stop through on a tour next fall. Oh yeah, PSU girls are SOOOO HOT. I especially liked the part when these two bangin honeys got on stage, arm around either side of me and we all sang The General. Not really a hip-hop moment, but a moment nonetheless. Okay, I'm done. See you guys at the ME.

-King of all Louis'

track: some dude playing guitar down the hall from the studio office

Our Weekend at Penn. St

about 12:30 on sunday night, what a long strange trip it's been.

Day 1

We started with a bang by Evan missing every exit on the way down there. Bifita is blaring metal into my skull. Blake is in the other car with evan, abe, and Ian, working on his debating skills and drilling people on what they should like, petitioning to rename the United States "Blakes World". Scenerio #1) Person 1: Hey man, what do you think about that up and coming band "The Indefinite article" cause i think they're exhilerating! Person 2: MMMM, Yes, me too, exhilerating! By the time we reached New York, Brandons brain turned back on (after about a 2 hour cortex zone-out session) and he continued to burn CD's. Mark was in the back talking like meat-wad from aqua teen hunger force for about an hour. We stopped in at a rest stop for food and bathroom usage. I brought my big gay blue cooler in with me and Even wanted a bite of my sloppy roast beef sandwich, he was quickly denied. Tains wandered off to do who knows what, and where after mowing down a double cheeseburger from McDonalds, Ian did his usual routine, walked around like Iccabod Crain for a while, then smoked a family of 4 out of a house and home, Brandon ate something rediculous, i think it was a hotdog wrapped in some kind of pretzel casing with cheeze Whiz on it, Mark sat back and watched the Barnum & Indefinite article circus perform, followed by me releasing the wrath of hell, and my internal organs in the great town of shits-ville New York. Back on the road, evan missed an exit or 2, and before we knew it, arrived at Mark's house, which he called "his camp", which i didn't clearly understand until I walked into the house and had flashbacks of the movie pet cemetery 8. We drank 2 cases of Yueng Ling, played pool, made a camp fire, told ghost and alien stories cause the camp was scary as hell, but so sweet at the same time. Blake furiously continued his poor, yet fiery attempts of trying to make us realize that if we believe and agree with everything that he says it will be a perfect universe, and then the party showed up. 2 of marks friends, 1 male, 1 female, and by the way, you couldn't see a trace of paint on their car because it was completely covered in mud, and they wanted to take us "muddin'". So Blake, (already muddy), Mark, and Ian went with male and female and drove through a river. Sounds like some good ole' "muddin'" to me. Evan, Abe, brandon and I stayed back at the cemetery and played pool. The crew came back, and we were all done, so we decided to go to sleep. If you thought the night was over, you're an idiot. Blake stole my bed, i went ape shit and stole evan's bed, evan tackled me, punching me in the ribs, one shot to the jaw, i retreated to the couch, but i would not go quietly into the night. I diligently bombarded evan and blake, bringing to the forefront how much of a little bitch evan is, and how small animals were dropping dead outside from the stench blake had brewing, and i threw in that Brandons a mongoloid, and also how Abe couldn't understand anything that we were talking about because it wasn't written in a book. Finally, there was quiet.

WOOHAA, Day 2, (this could take a while)

I woke up with a dis-located hip and all i could think about was how hard the Boroque line in monster was gonna be, especially if my brainstem was severed. The boys followed suit, and it was like a pack of sloths trying to get from Montevideo to Mexico City. blake showered? (Random) We hit the road to Penn St. around 11:30-12:00ish. We arrived to the frat house and the most stereotypical frat guys emerged from the house. Good guys, they had the pledges of the frat set us up with anything we wanted, beer, food, badussy, a small child for Ian and his matted down hair and pedophile aviator sunglasses, a pair of scissors and a wheelbarrow of assorted candy for Blake, a brain for Brandon, a book with no words in it for Abe to try and figure out what the plot of the story was, and a bottle of advil for me to attempt to chip away at the cadillac sized hangover i had.......in a pair tree. This place was MASSIVE. It's the largest fraternity on the East coast. Cactus Ballbag and the neutered cock-spaniels opened for us and I wanted to castrate my own junk. It may as well have been a "WHAM" cover band. It was finally time for us to do our thing, the thing we came to do that has taken us this much time and effort to do, play kickass rock-hop. We started into the set, finished the set, and still had 4 hrs to play. The crowd, about 800-1000 strong was not an easy one to amuse, It was like they all had severe ADD, (much like someone i know Brandon). We started into the hip-hop set, opened with G'z and Hustla's by Snoop and played for a little over an hour. It got better because the majority of the crowd who were listening were diggin' what we were dishin'. Set break. 2.5 hrs left to play. The crowd was ready, we started into Reflexive Identity Theft and about a minute into the song, we lost all power to the PA system, some drunk turd tripped over the mixing board power cord. We got over it, replayed R.I.T. and continued the set start to finished, good set. 1.5 hrs. left to play, and we have but 1 rehearsed song left to play and it's the humpty dance. This was basically when all hell broke loose. People started requesting pearl Jam, Sublime, Yanni, John Tesh, the grateful dead, and so on and so forth. We then had to do the only thing that we knew how to do to keep this show going, and that was to bring up DJ Double A to the stage. He said he could freestyle, so the band layed down a groove, and DJ Double A began naming every single person in the world that he knew of, and didn't even say 2 words that came close to rhyming with eachother. He walked around the stage and requested more guitar and held the mic up to the guitar as if there was sound blaring out of the neck of the guitar. I finally took the mic from him after about 7 minutes of pure nonsensical buffoonery and did the only rehearsed rap that i knew. I know I know, you guys reading this are like, "man, that rap is getting so old, and he actually thinks he's good at rapping" but look at it this way, it was 100 times better than DJ. double dickhead. People started swarming the stage and requesting shit that we didn't know, so we wen't ahead and played humpty and I loved every second of it. The show ended, we got paid, packed our gear and went to a Diner near by. Evan was really Jonesin a hot open faced roast beef with gravy and potatos, i rocked the turkey sandwich, brandon got everything AND a french onion soup, and i forget the rest, who cares, really. We went back to the frat, evan, abe brandon and Mark dipped out and blake, Ian and I went out partying. We met up with my friend Matt Delaney from home who lived nearby and I sang Karaoke (Sweet Home Alabama) to a butt load of parents who were attending "parents night" at the fraternity. While i was inside lulling the fine young frat and sorority kids and their fossil-like parents as Ian put it, Blake was throwing the Mack down on one of the pledges mothers. This lady was insane, and funny at the same time, she was telling Blake how she blew 7 grams of the cocaine on the way to this thing, and the woman was straight up lookin' a wreck. She said that her daughter and Blake would be perfect for eachother, and then she told us that her daughter has been in the hospital for three years with severe manic depression. Blake, this girl sounds perfect for you, all you have to do is keep her alive by not letting her slice a main artery. The mother started geeking because she thought her son saw her throwing the mack on our stallion Blake here, and we left. NEXT. Rolled to another party where there was this cat who looked like Wesselley Willis just roaming around the house. Yes, he looked like a 250 pound paranoid schizophrenic African American. All it took was a half an hour, and some kid, who was apparently Wesselley's best friend, as he called him, beat the paranoia and living piss out of him. SOME KID THOUGHT BLAKE, (OF ALL PEOPLE), WAS A NARC, hah, the kid sketched out and left. We got interrogated by the PO-PO because someone was throwing beer bottles at houses and we told them we had no clue who it was. The special ed who was throwing bottles was right next to me the whole time he was doing it. so we went back to the diner for a cheesesteak, a real cheesesteak, and then went back the car that was parked in the frat's back yard and tried to get some shut eye. We nearly froze to death. When i thought I was about to go into shock, i hustled out of my car on a stealth mission to get inside the frat. I climbed in through a window that happened to be open and opened the back door for Ian and Blake. I took three comforters and 4 pillows off of some dudes bed and we slept on 3 executive style couches, leather and shit, comfy. As usual, i got down to my boxers cause i cant sleep with pants on for some reason, and I slept like a baby on that saturday night/sunday morning. To the owner of the pillow and comforter that Blake slept in, if you read this, im sorry.

Day 3

I played a little piano on the baby grand that they had in the room we slept in when i got up, and afterwords we went and raided subway. We drove home, we luckily took the long way home, because we stopped at a roy rogers/gas station that had a bus load of hasidic jews. words cant really describe how badly off put my day was after that. We all B-Lined it back to beantown and relieved 7 upset stomachs.

April 10, 2005
Richard Rhythms

P.S. What in God Muffins does Marklar mean. Code for car Mark, Brandon and Rick or some shit like that? Evan, please enter a popularity contest.

pre penn state

We are about to embark on the longest road trip this band has yet to endure. Penn State is quite aways from Boston and things are already looking a little wierd. The rental agency fucked me over and neglected to rent me a car due to the fact that my credit card is attached to a checking account. Even though the limit is more than enough. So.....FUCK Enterprise Rent-A-Car and that stupid bitch at the counter. Anyway, so I am driving down with my shitty peice and won't be able to get it fixed until next week. Yeah so.....nothing really funny or interesting to say, just venting about Rent-A-Shit. Wish us luck. If I post something on Monday that means we made it back alive and in one peice.

Track: Go To Sleep (Little Man Being Erased); Radiohead

Mattresses are somewhat related to Boston hip-hop

For various reasons, cheif of which was some gross miscommunication between me and my divorced and bickering parents, I needed a mattress, so I went shopping for one at a mattress shop near my house in Allston. When I realized that I was dangerously close to being ripped off because of my abject ignorance about coils, turns per coil, and various degrees of tempur-pedicness, I did my research. Then I went back to the same mattress shop, and my salesman was one of the frontmen from Lifted (I forget his name because I forget everyone's name). It was at once cool and weird. Also his hand was all swollen because he had broken it the night before. If it was in a fight, he totally kicked the other guy's ass because the rest of his was unscathed. We are supposed to be colleagues on the Boston hip-hop scene (although they are way more established than we are), and there we were talking warranties, deliveries, and weight-to-movement ratios. Just goes to show that the mundane crosses paths with the fantastic every now and again.

Lifted is a sweet band. I should get a discount on a mattress because I think that.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Track: No track. I'm in a computer lab.

out
Father A.

Shut your face, Johnny Damon

What follows is a real-life quote I found in the Boston Metro today and my real-life reaction to it:

"It's an unfortunate thing, but the Pope was very awesome for the world."
- Johnny Damon, speaking with reporters on the passing of Pope John Paul II

[stunned silence]

[continued stunned silence]

I'm going to add that I saw a sound byte of former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda lauding the Pope as "a tough guy" because he traveled to over 150 countries.

[silence]

And apparently fought his way through them.

Okay, enough with the pauses-for-effect and time for analysis (ignoring the long and research-heavy topic of whether Catholicism during the late Pope's reign was or was not "very awesome for the world"). Shallow version: baseball players should not be allowed to comment on things other than baseball. Deep version:

Apparently something has convinced Johnny Damon that his voice is necessary - or worse, requisite - in the public forum. Something has also convinced him that his life and career - both barely half over - are worth being recorded in an autobiography. And last, something has made Johnny Damon believe that being an "idiot" should be a sought-after form of human existence. I think that my position on these three issues is quite clear.

Even famous intellectuals are not asked to weigh in on all subjects. When they do, their expertise is often brought into question. So why should Johnny Damon now become the arbiter of all that is awesome, to whatever degree, for the world? He shouldn't.

Here's the greater point: just because people are listening doesn't mean one has to speak. If I ever become famous enough so as to have the opportunity to speak my voice and be widely heard, I hope that I will exercise the self-restraint necessary to maintain at least a facade of respectability.

This post has nothing to do with hip-hop.

track playing: George Clinton, Aint Nuthin' But A Jam, Y'all

All Loud on The Midwstern Front

So here I am, partially moved into my new place in Allston (which is conveniently located within a 5 minute walk to the rehearsal facilities), waiting for my job at the publishing company to start on the 11th. Between then we have a show at the All-Asia and another one at Penn State. Penn State. Which is far. Also, we have been encouraged to learn cover songs by the people who are hiring us out to play for FIVE HOURS. Five hours. Which is (are?) long. And they have suggested that we learn the following songs. My comments follow each suggestion:

TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT - no.
NUMA NUMA  - OZONE - also no.
JAY-Z – CAN I GET A FUCK YOU - yes, very soon, if you keep this up.
GAME – THIS IS HOW WE DO - the possibilities for this one are endless, but i'm going to leave it alone, for fear of being shot in the leg once i achieve success.
FAINT – LINKIN PARK (OR ANY SONG) - no.
INCUBUS - see above.
311 - okay, this might work. we kind of sound like them. but i can't sing. so evan or rick are gonna have to learn this.
GREENDAY - ouch.
ROLLING STONES - i would love to. but i don't think we could do them justice.
OUTKAST - these are one of those band that i rank up there with the beatles and michael jackson. you just can't cover them.
SUBLIME - i just threw up in my mouth
ANY ACOUSTIC RAP SONGS - reasonable.
3-6 MAFIA – ASS N TITTIES - i will hurt anyone who requests this.
KAFFI - i think they means "raffi." i wil gladly sing "wheels on the bus."
BEATLES - see "outkast"
OASIS - see "sublime"
WEEZER - rivers cuomo is a great name.
DMB - if anyone even mentions these guys to me i'll beat them with a mic stand.
PEARL JAM - see "dmb"
BETTER THAN EZRA – 'GOOD', 'DESPERATELY WANTING' - shoot me.
STP – 'INTERSTATE LOVE SONG' - shoot them.

I feel like we may have been mistaken for a cover band. A cover band is something that we are not. It's still going to be a great time, and Rick will most likely play a 45-minute solo set of Elton John songs (he really can. It's absolutely amazing). We will be covering some Snoop Dogg tunes and "The Humpty Dance." I would also go for "Just a Friend" by Biz Markie. If someone requests "Ice Ice Baby" I will be scheduling return trips to Pennsylvania to face assault charges.

I'm going to start a little tradition here on the blog. Every time a blogger signs off we're going to post the name and artist of the track we're listening to. Just so you know, if you care. Or even if you don't care. I'm writing in a lot of sentence fragments today.

Track: La Paga, by Juanes.

out
Father Abraham

Western Front

Alright...for the first time I'm putting an entry in this thing. The show at the Western Front was fuckin dope. We played very well and we had the crowed bumpin! It was pretty sick that we ended up bringing in about as many people during our set than the other 3 had combined. Everyone else that played were nasty, I was real into it. The Western Front is a nice fuckin venue, and it's certainly good that the owner and bartender were really into us and put us down in the "good book". Hopefully some more shows will surface from that...

Anyways, like always there were a some rediculous events that took place getting to the gig. For example...Rick, lost as usual, with my dumb ass in the front seat pretending that I know my way around Cambridge, ended up somehow finding the venue but decided turn and proceed down a one way street...not realizing until oncoming traffic was in our face. I wouldn't say that this was anywhere close to as rediculous as anything that happend during the Stratton adventure, but that one will definately go down as a classic for me.

Alright I'm done with this retarded shit, I'm going to sleep

-Brandon

Ladies Love I.A.

Somehow the Indefinite Article has become Magneto to ladies in the past few days. Who would have known?

Case 1 (semi-disturbing): In between songs during our set at the Midway on Tuesday, a girl in the front row (the front row being, in this case, the bar, which is roughly 20 feet away from the stage) approaches me, touches me lightly on the arm, and says "you're adorable." Cuddly/warm feelings abound in my heart, because being called "adorable" makes me feel like I'm five years old. Yet, a rebuff is in order, so after the show we dutifully sign the demo discs we gave to the approaching party and her friend, and rebuffing is accomplished. Target missed, faithful fan moves on to Ricky Rhtyhms. Here's the reenactment, "Rescue 911" style:

4 actors who look nothing like F.A., Louis, Brandon, Tains, and Hedi stand outside the Midway cafe. A stout sweatervested man walks out of the bar looking as if he has seen the face of God.

F.A.: What happened?
Ricky Rhythms: I don't want to talk about it.

No one really knows what happened in the bar while we we outside. If I had to make an educated guess, I would say that Rick killed her and the remaining bar patrons for sport.

Case 2 (also semi-disturbing, but in a different way): Our guitarist, Evan, is currently having an online lovechat with this woman . Conversation started when she left a comment on Evan's picture saying "I want you." Now they are back-and-forthing on our myspace message account, which was previously reserved for professional discourse between musicians. Yes, she is hot, but I still have an icky feeling about this. And yes, Evan, we are all jealous because you have been chatting online with hot babes all day. And we all know you're training to become a cage fighter, too.

And that's the news. Come out on Thursday. We both need you and want you.

Adios
F. Abraham

hmm....my first blog

So yeah, I felt that Father Abraham's incessant ramblings needed to be interjected. I'm writing this blog pre Midway Cafe gig. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on, when sound check is, when we play and for how long. Our genius booking agent has left us in the dark on this one. So Hedi the Irab is gonna get it. Yes, that's a new ethnicity, irish arab...IRAB. Psyche, whatever, no one really cares. As long as we show up and rock out. So in case you guys haven't heard, we are playing at Western Front on thursday which is a big deal. EVERYONE COME TO WESTERN FRONT ON THURS MARCH 31st!!!! Otherwise we got the gig in PENN STATE next weekend. Not looking forward to the drive but am looking forward to the girls and the money. IndefArt is gonna get it's first little taste of being on the road together, if you don't count Red Fox. We'll see if they survive. I have doubts.

Cheers everyone,

Louis

Glitches ficksed

Took care of some of the site's glitches today. All the pages now have titles, the links rollover button is rolling over like it was supposed to be doing all along, and I even added the full text and photograph from our review in The Harvard Crimson.

Shows are sneaking up on us with the quickness right now. Starting on Tuesday we have four in thirteen days and as of now we feel eminently unprepared to rock either steady, hard, or out. We're trying to fit in rehearsals wherever we can, but often it seems like that means not at all.

I have no funny jokes today. No mediocre jokes, either. No one in the band has asked me how to log in to this account so I guess I'll be the primary author of the blog until the others take interest.

Get out to the Indef-Art/Expo/Shambhala/ele.mental show at the Western Front on Thursday the 31st. We're on with some really talented people. It will definitely prove to be a good time.

afuera
F. Abraham

State Pen

So now we're apparently headed to Penn State for a frat show on April 9th. I don't know what to think... wait, I do. I think it's far. If the band's post-show misbehavior has any direct correlation to the length of the trip it takes, then someone is going to wake up next to Joe Paterno's wife on the morning of the 10th.

Speaking of the 10th, that reminds me: I need a job. Actually, everything reminds me that I need a job. Fledgling hip-hop groups (no matter how good) and as-yet-published illustrated humor book (no matter how promising) do little to supplement the income. My money train needs some more coal, which is actually money, because it's a money train, even though we don't call regular trains coal trains. And neither do soul trains use human souls to achieve locomotion. But you get the point.

That's all for now. Rick is trying to close the deal on a show on April 23rd in Tewksbury where we would open for a metal band called Dogfight. That's where Jay-Z started out, in Tewskbury.

F. Abraham

Done...

...and done.

Indef-Art v2.0 site launch 3/21

Be on the lookout for the new indef-art.com sometime in the next 24 hours. I just have to smooth out a few little glitches and then I can upload everything. This one is going to look better and load faster than the other site and should have a better time with browser compatability and all that fun stuff. Still no script for the shows so I'm dipping into the html for every update, which is a bitch. The guy who is supposed to be writing the script for me is ridiculously smart at computers and probably just isn't doing it because it's so mundane-yet-time-consuming that he can't force himself to sit down and do the thing. I feel like I'm asking a gourment chef to make me a bowl of Jell-o with the fruit suspended in it.

It just occured to me that somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 people know this blog exists. Also, they are unlikely to be checking for new posts. Most people who see this post will navigate to it from the new site, which would render its newsworthiness irrelevant. What can I say? I'm learning on the job.

Also, I just discovered Indef-Art's bizarro conceptual twins: a punk/hip-hop band called El Pus. A bunch of dirty south gangsters that play this weird hybrid punk rock thing. They just dropped an album with Virgin and released a music video of a song called "Suburb Thuggin.'" It's crazy and makes white people look like huge tools. Good thing our band makes no pretense of toughness, coolness, sex appeal, or anything like that.

Behavior becoming of a great rock band, part 1 of infinity

Rough sketch of a great movie scene:

Officer: Do you know how fast you were going?
Chris Farley: Well, this baby has a set of nitro boosters in the back, and I reckon that we can rev this baby up to 170, 180 no problem, so
Officer: Seven.
CF: Seven?
Officer: Seven. And usually when I tell people to pull over they pull over to the shoulder...

[paradigm shift]

Me: Do you know how many people we played for in Vermont?
Brandon P: I bet the place was packed...
Me: Five
BP: Five?
Me: Five.

[back to reality]
Five. Five people. And we probably sounded better than we ever had before. And five people heard us. And three of them were Thomas, our superfan, Hedi, our booking agent, and Josh, our sound guy. Score a big win for indef-art.

The turnout was part a consequence of the ridiculous snowstorm we drove through and part a consequnce of how ridiculously lost all of us got on the way there. I'm not going to point fingers because Brandon, Blake, Ricky Rhythms, Evan, Hedi, Josh, and Thomas all have a pretty good idea of where they went wrong. My performance, as always, was sterling. Special thanks to the guys that drove us into Bondville from wherever it is we were. You were our knights in a red pickup truck.

Crazy crap happens in the land of Ben and Jerry:
- Have you ever been lost and flagged someone over to ask them for directions only to have them panic because they thought you were out to kill or rob, so they tell you, "I have to go, there are cats in the car," and speed off into a blizzard?

- Have you ever freestyled so hard that some random guy collapsed in the snow?

- Have you ever had your friend step out of a car and vomit at a gas station at 3:00 in the afternoon?

- Have you ever walked into a McDonald's restroom and had to tell the manager that some guys was passed out in one of his stalls, also at 3:00 in the afternoon?

- Have you ever fallen in love?

That last one didn't happen, as far as I know. If it did, things are going to be kind of awkward in rehearsal the next few days.

Show are coming. We are a good band. Have faith in that, if nothing else.

Pedazo
F.Abraham

Blake's picture will no longer accompany Indef-Art's attempts at prose

I just switched the band's blog over from our homely, self-created version to this slicked-up, citified stuff. Hopefully this will encourage our daily readership to jump from 0 per day to more than 0 per day, which would represent an infinity percent increase in readership. I would like that.

Also, if I posted more, there would be more to read. But I'm pretty busy these days.

That's all for now. I'm working on the website as hard as I can. Just give it time.

F.A.