WitnessThinks…It’s Time To Move.

…and discovered that ignorance has opened a retail location in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport.

And while rushing to work…

… I was reminded I was in Philadelphia again.

So I’ve been neglecting my musical internets.
Again.

But this time, it has nothing to do with my intermittent tendency to disappear from the planet and drink cheap beer with my friends. Actually, life has been turbulent over the last few months; work, school, rent, relationships and music have been fighting for attention and I’m way too clumsy to juggle all of them proficiently. So, I decided to let the wind die down before I started walking again.

The wind never died. But it did change direction.

1. I’m moving to Minnesota at the end of May/early June. Likely to Minneapolis or St. Paul. This will be exciting, if only because there is no such thing as underground Hip Hop in MPLS. At all. Never has been. It’s unheard of. I will be a trailblazer. I’ll also be attending school and building mad igloos for warmth.

2. I fell in love with a girl who lives there. She makes delicious chocolate chip pancakes, possesses other-worldly air hockey skills and makes the sunrise brighter. I never thought someone a thousand miles away would feel like home. She’s my heart. I wanna build her an igloo.

3. I’m hitting the road for an extensive national tour with Input and Reason the Citizen in September. Hopefully this will make up for the canceled February tour to the West Coast. We’ll likely be playing a very similar route to the one we originally laid out, with more shows. Sorry for the delay in updates. More are on the way.

4. I’ve got three releases in the works right now. One you’ll hear relatively soon. The other two I’ll announce more about as the year wears on.

5. My move doesn’t mean I won’t be playing any East Coast shows anymore. I’ll still make it out every other month or so to french kiss the coast line and play a weekend or more of gigs.

So, that should serve as a status report. I’m sorry I haven’t returned very many emails, myspace messages or IMs lately. I’ll try to get back to you all within the week. Oh and if you’re from Minnesota and you have any recommendations for me, whether it be restaurants or record stores, if you’re an emcee and want to link up for a show or if you want to be my “In Real Life” friend, shoot me a message. I’d end with “I’m all ears”, but that’s kind of gross in a literal sense and impossible on the internet.

-w

Iron Chef is my jump off.

And I was pleased to find this compilation of the intros from the different seasons, if only because it reminds me that my life would be vastly improved if I achieved an erection every time I bit into a bell pepper. (1:58)

Does anyone know why Chairman Kaga (above) is the only one on the show not dubbed?
Or why they felt the need to write a completely fictional premise for the show?
Or why I actually believed that an eccentric millionaire in Japan decided to build a “kitchen stadium” in his “castle” so that the world’s best chefs could battle to the death?

Way to have the definitive old man face that I want when I grow up.
Even your Ash Wednesday marking looks like its going to slide off of that well worn saddle skin.

No. I’m not proud of it.

My vegetarian friends express the disappointment of a parent who found out their kid has been stealing money from the donation basket at church when I tell them the news. A stern “You’re better than that” expression stretches across their faces and I can hear the gavels of judgment echo from their heads.

But, fuck y’all.

The reason I went back to meat again is because my consumption of carbs, white breads and other items brought my blood level to the point that I almost contracted Type II diabetes. Does that mean that I was a lazy vegetarian? Probably, but considering that I didn’t really have the time to learn more than 10 or 12 recipes, my options were as limited as my wallet. When my doctor–who was at first thrilled to find out I went vegetarian–told me that it was imperative that I stop, I decided it was time to back off.

I genuinely did prefer vegetarian dishes. I haven’t been able to look at meat the same way and while it was only a short period of time till I got used to removing the fat off of a chicken breast again; it still feels strange. If anything, I can say it made me a better cook. The dishes I make these days aren’t centered solely around meat and with some meals, I actually prefer the meatless variations I concocted. And I sure as hell don’t buy any processed shit.

I’ll probably return to it someday.
When I’m healthier, richer and not so immersed in every other facet of my life.
I’m sorry, barnyard friends.

I work part time at a law firm on Girard Avenue in Philadelphia. Girard is a bit notorious for being a strange cross section of society; hipsters, college students, heroin addicts, the homeless, business owners and those seeking their daily methadone fix are all forced to coexist. The demographic changes within a single city block and changes yet again with the next. And while that might sound like a fairly standard city scenario, I can assure you that Girard is not the proper backdrop for this mixture. As a result, I’m often treated to some pretty bizzare scenes that I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t experience in another section of the city.

For example:

* A week ago, a homeless man approached me in the parking lot and offered to sell me a fifty piece, stainless steel silverware set for 10 dollars. At 9am. Seriously. I didn’t even have my foot out of my car yet. Pretty sweet deal considering that it would have included the Radio Flyer wagon he was carrying it in, though. I respect his hustle.

* Today I watched another homeless man attempt to steal a wheelchair from the nearby hospital. While security was interrogating him (read: senselessly screaming in his face) he responded fervently and repeatedly that he needed it for transportation. I began to wonder what kind of advantage he would gain in terms of speed on the unpaved backroads of North Philadelphia until my train of thought was derailed by the sight of a man erecting a full scale tepee in his backyard. Again. Hustle. Respect.

I’m going to try to get some pictures for the next installment.

Once upon a time, there was an myriad of internets that focused on a rapidly growing independent hip hop scene. Message boards rife with “backpacker” and “herb” accusations, video documentation of that year’s Scribble Jam (back when your only other option was buying the VHS tape) and mp3 selections from small print 12″s were now available to otherwise clueless corners of the globe. While there had been pages with similar content in the past, these focused exclusively on obscure, awkward alternative hip hop artists and made heroes out of broke emcees who would later become as popular as the opinion based sites preemptively made them out to be.

Some of these websites were actually responsible for launching careers and while the late Hiphophunks.com was not one of them; it crossed my mind recently. It was designed to read like young girl’s idol magazine (ie: Tigerbeat) and featured hilariously shallow interviews with a mob of serious minded emcees. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet Archive, you can check out this interview with Sage Francis as it originally appeared and if you toy around with some of the links, you might find your way to other points of interest.

I remember a friend sent in some of my music for consideration and I received an email regarding an interview but the site went down shortly after. Another dream shattered.

(Edit: You can access the entire interview selection here. It serves not only as a source of entertainment, but as a perfect list of “What the fuck ever happened to that guy” rappers.)

I’m a huge fan of Haruki Murakami.
And this is one of my favorite short stories by him.
Featured in “The Elephant Vanishes”

On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo’s fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she’s not that good-looking. She doesn’t stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn’t young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a “girl,” properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She’s the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you’re drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I’ll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can’t recall the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It’s weird.

“Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% girl,” I tell someone.

“Yeah?” he says. “Good-looking?”

“Not really.”

“Your favorite type, then?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember anything about her - the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah. Strange.”

“So anyhow,” he says, already bored, “what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?”

“Nah. Just passed her on the street.”

She’s walking east to west, and I west to east. It’s a really nice April morning.

Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and - what I’d really like to do - explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock built when peace filled the world.

After talking, we’d have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

“Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?”

Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.

“Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?”

No, this is just as ridiculous. I’m not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who’s going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. “Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me.”

No, she wouldn’t believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you’re not the 100% boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I’d probably go to pieces. I’d never recover from the shock. I’m thirty-two, and that’s what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can’t bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So: She’s written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she’s ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She’s lost in the crowd.

Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started “Once upon a time” and ended “A sad story, don’t you think?”

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you’re the 100% perfect girl for me.”

“And you,” she said to him, “are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I’d pictured you in every detail. It’s like a dream.”

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, “Let’s test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and there. What do you think?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.”

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season’s terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence’s piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fourteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don’t you think?

Yes, that’s it, that is what I should have said to her.

I was reluctant to share my thoughts about the Inauguration on this blog.
Not because I have some shocking perspective on things, but mostly because news coverage has been so (deservingly) heavy over the last few days that personal reflection on the matter has been almost impossible.

I’ve had the news on since 9 am and as I type this, Dick Cheney is being pushed out of the White House in a wheelchair. This image, in addition to various others that I’ve seen in the final hours of the George W. Bush presidency have been a bittersweet reparation for the anxieties of the last eight years. And yet, I feel something that I can only describe as the symptoms of a political Stockholm Syndrome. The cold hours spent on foot in front of political monuments in D.C. with a sign in my hand, the protest shows, the canvassing, the anger, the embarrassment and the feeling that the majority of country didn’t seem to agree with my system of fundamental beliefs– somehow became welcome and almost comfortable. That’s pretty fucked up.

As for Obama, there’s nothing that I can say that hasn’t been said a thousand times by a thousand different talking heads over a thousand different news media outlets. America grew up a little bit. People wanted “change”. (Though we can’t seem agree on its definition.) The impact this has had on the civil rights movement has made for some of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever seen in my life. The evening of his election was the first time I ever felt at home in this country. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen this “American Dream” that I was told so much about in my school years. And though I feel genuinely hopeful about the next four years–I’m still panged with anxieties about the uncertain. But it’s an uncertainty I find far more comfortable than that of the last eight years.

That constitution states that even without oath, we will have a new president at 12 PM.
So here’s my last post in a G. Dub world.
Good riddance.

Been busy recording my Japan-only release, the “EverAfter” LP and hating on winter.
(Yes, that will mark the end of the “Ever” series.)
(Yes, the new songs on it will see release in the US at some point.)

Now for another of installment of “Here are fliers with my name on them”.