the bodacious excursions of adriel luis ::. ::. ::.

While the Earth Crumbles: a love poem to the victims of China's earthquake

2008-05-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

It's getting difficult to tell
these Asian disasters
apart from one another.

Sri Lanka still seems only two clicks away
And I don't want to blame CNN
Because Wes Anderson's brow can only stay
in a sympathetic swell for so many special segments
And with tsunamis, and storms, and cyclones,
Who really has the time to hold their finger to the wind
through it all?
Who really has enough buckets to pass around
benefits to organize
or checks to write?
And despite the fact that I feel my heart drop
to death tolls risen
With this election,
and these bills
and those gas prices
and my worries that are a bit too personal to pin as petty
Lately
I haven't quite had time for tragedy.

So maybe it's because this time it was China
and I'm Chinese
Or that it was an earthquake
and I'm Californian
But even with my guilty attempts to ignore the world for
just a little bit while I piece mine together
I'm left sitting here
Shaken.

There's no pretty language for it.
The earthquake in China makes me very sad.

I feel a bit ethnocentric
Because it shouldn't matter whether it happened in China
or Afghanistan, or Iran or Idaho
and I don't know what I can do
to place myself outside of this situation more than I already am
half a world away
But I can't help but notice as
I watch that screen
That it wouldn't have been that much of a stretch
for it to be me on a stretcher.

I never thought I'd say this
But amidst the dust
and rubble
and blood
We do all kind of look the same.

But I don't know if I could have that threshold for pain,
to watch my country crumble on my family
Limbs limp and pale,
impaled, while still instilled in the rest of the world
is this notion of a nation that
slaughters its daughters,
imprisons its sons,
murders its neighbors,
and blankets terror in the heart of Americans,
like me,
horrified of Chinese,
like me,
China,
I don't fear you,
But I'm scared
if I ever wanted to come home
that you wouldn't take me back.

Especially, not like this,
with your front door collapsed,
Half a million of your own vanished,
I've felt banished my entire life
and I know your buildings are hazardous
and people are sleeping on the streets
and maybe I'm being American
and maybe I'm being naive
but amidst pending war
and rice crises
and Olympics politics
right now
all I want to do
is come home to you.

In Beichuan,
when the ground began to quiver,
A woman knelt over her three month old baby
to create a flesh shield for the debris.
Five days later,
amidst broken brick
and shattered glass
on the floor
the mother was found dead,
knelt over her infant
eyes shut
sleeping
without a scratch.
While the city fell the shambles,
her mother managed to leave her cellphone
in her daughter's pocket
that read,
"My dear baby
If you survive
Please remember,
I love you."

So this is about the victims of tragedy--
not quite for them
Because I don't have much more than my genetics to draw a connection
And since 50,000 is only a dent in the population
I don't know how much good a dedication from one of your forgotten children
can do
But know that even an ocean and several generations away,
China,
Please remember,
I love you.

blu - muto

2008-05-17T22:23:00.001-07:00

OH MY GOD THIS IS THE TRIPPIEST AND DOPEST THING EVER AND THAT IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION.

it's too hot to care though.

2008-05-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

hi. i'm in the studio right now with phatrick. i was lying on the couch and at some point i realized that my underwear is on inside out. but it's 103 degrees in the bay, and it's already 3pm, so it's probably too late to rectify this matter.

just thought i'd let you know. have a great day.

My interview on two.one.five.

2008-05-14T08:07:00.001-07:00

Last week my homie Catzie (some of you know her and her bossy ways from supaspokenword duo Yellow Rage) interviewed me for Philly-based magazine two.one.five.. I'm not the best interviewee in my opinion, as I often go off on tangents and every answer ends up being either about OutKast or robots. Oh well.

Read it here.

the days in between.

2008-05-13T23:43:00.000-07:00

it was a little more than a year ago when i quit my job. as much as i loved working at youth speaks, i had to go. it was necessary for me, in order to make reality of the daydreams that cartwheeled in my head from 10 to 6, monday through friday. during the months leading up to my departure, my fantasies became rambunctious and i could hardly concentrate with all my excitement of this pending freedom. what would i do with all my time? surely, i'd write more. i'd record my album. i'd finish another book. i'd book more gigs. i'd volunteer at youth organizations. i'd learn mandarin. i'd travel to all the other continents. i'd spend more time with my family. i'd pick up painting. i'd get a girlfriend. i'd exercise more. i'd watch more great films. i'd start taking singing lessons. and amidst all that, maybe, just for some extra change, i'll work at a quiet cafe to pass the time.

the great thing about not clocking in and out of a job everyday is that (for the most part) you can set your itinerary for the day, and on the good ones you'll feel ridiculously ridiculously accomplished. but on the days when you don't get shit done, you feel like stale ass.

i wouldn't say that i was unproductive today, but i supposed that it's inevitable to feel shitty if it's a gorgeous hot sunny day in oakland and you spend your entire day cooped up in your dark ass apartment deciphering HTML code. i spent my entire day planning out how to transfer ill-literacy from blogger to wordpress. most people have no idea what that means, and won't notice when it happens. as for me, i've been sucked into the black abyss of geekdom and i'm probably still in it, being that i'm blogging about the shit.

what i'm trying to say is that time and energy is what you make of it. it's becoming increasingly apparent to me that everything that i wish i'd done that i haven't done is directly linked to my apathy in certain situations. many of us have dreams, and based on what i've observed, those that haven't been achieved are usually caused by our passive (and even assertive) allowance for distractions to get in the way.

before i quit my job, i was convinced that once i graduate college i'll have all the time in the world to create art. before that, it was switching out of the engineer major. before that it was high school.

some like to call it workaholicism, but mostly i think it's the human yearning to know that each breath hasn't been taken in vain. i spend too much time organizing and managing ill-literacy projects, as opposed to writing songs and poems and anthems for the art itself. it's the hustle of the independent artist--we're forced to spend more time promoting our songs than singing them.

so no, i wouldn't say that i was unproductive today. in fact, i got a very big check on my to-do list. but i'm starving to create.

i feel so violated..

2008-05-13T00:32:00.001-07:00

who the hell added USA TODAY to my buddy list??

asian girl beatboxing.

2008-05-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

i just felt...obligated to let you know that this is happening among our people.

source: disgrasian

n.e.r.d. - everyone nose remix (ft. crs & pusha-t)

2008-05-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

So I've been bumping (music) and grinding (work) in the studio and I'm really really really excited to show you guys what I've been working on for both iLL-Literacy and Pretty Buoyant Society, but my gut is telling me that I have to be a bit more exclusive with it, but rest assured you'll be the first to know. In the meantime, I'm fighting my urges by sharing everyone else's music. Haaaaaaaa.

link.

gnarls barkley - going on

2008-05-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

a little late...this came out a few days ago. but still fantastic.

pre-studio inspiration

2008-05-09T11:37:00.000-07:00

me and phatty are grinding in the studio today for pretty buoyant. our morning rituals included consuming these:

&
n.e.r.d. - spazz

life is a videogame.

2008-05-08T11:41:00.001-07:00

!!!!!!!!

RoboLove v1.0 a.k.a. Inter-Mechanical Relationships Are Beautiful

2008-05-08T00:57:00.000-07:00

ATTN: Robot,
I think I love you.

[simulate feel]
[simulate touch]
What slick thick metallic function
just brushed with my sensors[?]
[simulate censors]
Explicitly flustered,
Robo-breezie blow past
My mechanic mind's rusted.

[simulate logic]
[simulate confusion]
Assimilate into you
Ten zillion moons couldn't faze the
phases I steady go through
Like I'm off when I'm on
And my D/C's my A/C
And you see me go crazy
Malfunction down junctions
Heart thumping while thoughts of you
Spin round my cerebral circumference.

To say it in safe mode:
Girl, I just wanna be a part of your network.
[reboot]
Baby, you look like you could use an upgrade.
Let me install my software.
[reboot]
You + Me = 2 (and that's <3)

[Confirmed]
Robot,
I think I love you.
With all my energy and the wires that it runs through
With my whole system and the robo-heart that it pumps to
Tell me, which outlet can I turn to to possibly plug you
To how we could coordinate like clockwork
Words, I'm at loss for
Could my antenna send messages to our cyber-ancestors
To vouch that our robomance could inspire future beta versions[?]

[Simulate imperfection]
Yes, this might be a limited trial.
I don't have all my kinks worked out.
But Robot,
If we unite our fiber-opts
Strike it while the iron's hot
How can metal touch metal and not fire off sparks[?]

See baby,
We’ve got robot limbs
And robot fingers
Let some of this lovin' oil our hinges
Let's send off some blasts, and I don't mean no virus
We've got our jetpacks ready, we could be the flyness
Queen machine,
Let's puff robo-blunts
I want to be in the presence of your highness[?]

Because my, it's lonely being a robot.
So cold in this steel exterior.
How nice it would be boot up each day next to you.

spoken word isn't real poetry

2008-05-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

Oh, how typical of me to write about this. But it seems the question of what is and isn't real art has been coming up lately (you already know how I feel about real hip-hop). Anyway, here's a comment I just responded to from a fan who asked what I felt about his college professor saying that spoken word isn't real poetry. Maybe I'll expand on this one day, when I stop feeling like dryheaving every time I think about professors like that:

Much love Swan! Sorry for the late comment! Anyway, on to the whole "spoken word isn't poetry" thing: The thing about what people consider "real" poetry is that, in the literary world it has become quite elite. Poetry books don't usually sell very well, and oftentimes the only people who buy/read poetry books are other poets. As a result, the only people who are available to critique these books and poems are people who study and write poetry themselves. When this happens, the demographic of the audience is filtered to English majors and MFA's that they think they know what REAL poetry is, and feel entitled to being able to judge it because they've spent years and years studying all the little facets and rules of what "good" poetry is. Then comes spoken word, a medium that takes similar basics but generally focuses more on conveying the message in way that an audience can get instantly and on the spot, and less on the "rules" and formatting. And most of these poets haven't received the "proper" education that "real" poets get. Even youth are doing it...and they're getting larger audiences, selling more books, and receiving broader acclaim than "real" poets. Meanwhile, most "real" poets can't pursue poetry full time because their books aren't selling, so they keep on studying poetry until they can become poetry professors in order to teach people what "real" poetry is, while using the money they make to write another poetry book that only their students and colleagues will buy. I'm not explaining it this way to invalidate academic poetry. I read and appreciate plenty of it. But when it comes to art in general, I feel like the essential thing to remember is that if there's anything to justify its "realness," it's the genuineness of the expression from which it comes. If someone writes a sestina that follows the rules of format perfectly and is perfect under all the academic standards, the dude who wrote it doesn't mean it, I feel like that definitely makes it less "real" than the 9th grader who poured her heart out all over her first freewrite. Yadigg?
-Adriel

After posting this I felt like an asshole for posting a comment that took up half his profile:(

New Santogold track that isn't on the album that came out on Tuesday

2008-05-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

I must say, even though this week I copped the new Roots, Portishead, and Estelle albums, the one that I was anticipating with the most fervor and the one that I've been pumping in my car, computer, taking to my homies' houses, and singing in my head when I don't have it on me is Santogold's new jawn. Have you heard it?? You must.

And you know what's even hotter? She just released yet another track for FREE! And you know what else? I haven't even heard it yet and I'm already officially endorsing it. That's how hot she is.

link.

Oh shit! I just found my new favorite blog ever!

2008-05-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

Scroll down and read their spiel on Kylie Minogue and you'll see why their writing is right up my eggroll.

disgrasian.com

Last night's episode of the Pretty Buoyant Show

2008-05-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

Daaaamn....hella rusty after 3 months away!

link.

Cool Asian: Chris Chu of The Morning Benders

2008-05-02T10:55:00.000-07:00

I've been a fan of The Morning Benders for a hot second now, but it was more along the lines of having one song in my iTunes that I'd play viciously on repeat without ever looking more into the band. So when their "Boarded Doors" video dropped today I was surprised to learn that the lead singer is Chinese, and they're from Oakland! And this video has him selling womens' shoes, which brings back painful memories of my winter '01 job (that's right, folks...Macy's women's shoes, Stoneridge Mall. Slip of the Tongue was really a reference to a pair of Rocket Dogs). Lastly, in this video Chris is mighty popular with the older white ladies. I think this speaks for itself:

My Conclusion: If you shave Chris' head, you basically have me.

Here's another video where Chris is a disgruntled worker:

Radiohead - All I Need

2008-05-02T03:07:00.000-07:00

Wait, before you click "play," don't expect this to be a cover of the Method Man & Mary J. song, or else you'll be utterly disappointed. This video is hella tight though.

French Revolution

2008-05-02T01:04:00.000-07:00

In 2005 iLL-Literacy went on its first "on the road" show (a.k.a. first show that was further away than Santa Cruz). That show was in Paris.

That '05 summer, Ruby and I got together to send out press kits. We had just recruited Nico six months back, and the new "not a student organization anymore" version of ill-literacy.com had just launched. By the end of the day we had emailed out around 200 press kits to college campuses to all 50 states. Yes, even North Dakota (I see you ND!).

As the sun set over the Berkeley horizon, our eyes burned from staring at our computer screens all day long.

"Anywhere else?" I asked Ruby.

"Well," she sighed. And when she sighs "Well" she says it in a high muppet-sounding voice and shrugs her shoulders up. "Well, I'd reeeeeeally like to go back to Pariiiiiiiiiiis."

"Ah, then Paris it shall be," yes I talk like a muppet too. We googled up Paris schools and came across the American University of Paris homepage. Slithering the mouse pointer through links, we found the database of student organizations hidden deep in the nethers of the website. Voila. Spoken Word Club. We sent them a press kit, but it was more like a "La la la we'll just see what happens, whatevaaaaa" kind of attempt.

One September morning I was woken at 5:30am by a phone number with 14 digits. A month after that the riots in France broke out. And a month after that, we were on a plane to the city of love.

Decades of civil unrest in Paris ghettos. One day while some youth were running away from the police to avoid getting roughed up like they often were, two attempted to hide in a power substation and were electrocuted to death. Riots to respond to poverty. Riots to respond to racism. The walls of Paris were burning and we were about to enter its city gates.

When we arrived we were greeted by Sophia and Joe, two Americans that were studying at AUP, and the founders of the Spoken Word Club. As we chiseled away at our disbelief that we were about to do our first gig in Paris, the decayed brick walls whizzed by our metro windows. In Paris, the suburbs aren't exactly Pleasantville. These suburbs were still containing heartburn from the riots that had swelled in their stomachs just weeks before.

"Are people in Paris worried about the riots?" I asked, really meaning "Should we be watching out for flying trashcans?" Sophia and Joe brushed their hands like they were dismissing a bad dish.

"They don't really come to the city city...they're mostly just messing up their own neighborhoods."

I can't pretend to understand what would drive youth to riot. By the time I was old enough to toss a stone through a window, America had already learned from the Rodney King outcry. Complacency was injected into the curriculum of my upbringing. And now we live through stolen elections, footage of beheadings on the news, and massacre in the streets of Chicago and raise barely a finger to click over to the next news blog.

At the time that I had left for Paris, I was so angry and frustrated. A girl had broken my heart, really badly. Gas prices were high and there were rumors of a pending draft. I felt suffocated. How funny that I chose to escape into a city was literally tearing itself apart.

I've learned that it's arrogant for us Americans to think that we have all this numbness to ourselves. But maybe it takes more to get us mad. Because after 9/11 there weren't any huge Muslim revolts in the Bronx streets even while everyone in a headwrap suddenly became a target. What were the conditions that made Paris, the city of love, so much more unbearable than Bush? Or Jena? Or Sean Bell? What happened in France that made children overturn cars and set fires to their homes?

Is it just that bad in France, or are we just that numb in America? What happened since '92 when all it took was a video of cops kicking a guy around to set Los Angeles ablaze? Sixteen years later, 50 shots, and we read the news report in between email and Myspace.

Coming home to all this crazy news going on makes me want to leave again, further away than I was before. But no one can just run away forever. We've got to change.

Anyway, just things that I thought about when I watched this:

Justice - "Stress"

PS: A lot of people have been commenting about this video and saying that it promotes violence. Personally, this is a realistic depiction of the suburbs in France, and doubles as a metaphor for the current abrasiveness of extreme Christianity. Ug, genius.

Dahlak - I Know Some of These Negroes is Hoping Obama Don't Get Elected

2008-05-01T12:08:00.001-07:00

HAD to share this with y'all who don't click on the "news" button above.

A video montage of Puff Daddy + Superstar's hook on repeat for 6 minutes straight.

2008-05-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

1. My cameo is at around 0:45.

2. In this video Puff Daddy's son says, "Don't forget about us." I'm confident that if Puff Daddy ever does forget about his son, he'll eventually come around and be like "My name is Puff Daddy...oh yeah...I'm a daddy."

3. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh. If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camera's here, and the microphones, and they wanna know, oh, oh, oh.

Coachella Day 2 & 3: Portishead, Prince, and other acts that are worth risking a bladder infection for

2008-04-30T03:20:00.000-07:00

I was going to sleep instead of start writing at this ungodly hour but I kept thinking about this conversation I was having with press folks who were basically talking about how posting an article about Coachella on Thursday would be so un-newsworthy. So bliggity-blao.

I suppose no other moment describes the intensity of my Coachella experience as well as Saturday night when I was trying to decide whether to take my bathroom break during Animal Collective, Portishead, or Prince--or to just hold it for four hours. After reflecting on my day and realizing that I had downed two quarts of water and hadn't peed for over five hours already, I decided to take my break during Portishead, since their name most closely resembled Port-o-potty. As I stood inside the grimy outhouse, staring into the makeshift toilet bowl filled with everything that comes out of humans besides music, I decided that the next time I'm at Coachella, I'd like to be a performer. Mostly for the thrill of rocking Coachella, but also because I'm sure all the artists get gold-plated toilets lined with roses, as opposed to the herd of nasty poop rooms that the 20,000 of us civilians were forced to share. And even if the artists have to use outhouses too, at least they're using the same one as Prince.

Anyway, there's probably not much that resembles heaven as much as Prince coming on stage along with Morris Day and the Time, Sheila E, and Ledesi. And YO. Check out his cover of Radiohead's "Creep." Had I been in possession of panties, they could have very possibly been tossed on stage.

DISCLAIMER: I have no qualms with my previous statements about sharing a restroom and tossing panties at Prince. He's Prince, dammit.

Anyway, I don't know how all the journalists do it. By Sunday afternoon I was basically scavenging for any performances that weren't electronic so I could just sleep on the grass.

More borderline paparazzi-ish pictures of people I dig:

St. Vincent

Rilo Kiley

Hot Chip

Animal Collective

The Cool Kids

My Morning Jacket

Sia

Simian Mobile Disco

Chromeo

Justice

And now to end it with an irrelevant Chinese restaurant sign that's doing way too much:

Confessions of a Douchebag

2008-04-29T13:04:00.001-07:00

Photos taken during "costume day" at Bestival, Isle of Wight, Summer 07
Ohhhhhhh snizzap, me and my fat fingers. It appears that I got a bit too real in my previous post about M.I.A. which won me this gem of a comment. Now I don't usually respond to anonymous negative opinions because that's about a step above having an argument on GChat, but I do feel like this particular situation gives me a good opportunity to follow up on subject matter that some of my writing has revolved around lately.

So my M.I.A. post as well as something I wrote on thickwitness the other day have both centered on the subject of white people. It's true, I do write about white people sometimes. I live in the United States, and there are a lot of you here. Usually I try to make sure that I provide context and background information as to where I'm coming from, and I feel like I've done a pretty good job not sounding like a dumbass. But over all, lets clear some air about this: Do I dislike white people? Not at all. Do I appreciate my white fans? Of course I do. But if I ever get on stage and see a crowd full of white people pushing Asian folks out of the way to get to the front, will I cause a ruckus? Indubitably.

I don't think there's anything wrong with white people digging M.I.A., or anyone else for that matter. I don't really reflect much about Stuff White People Like, and I wouldn't act like my opinion on that matters anyway. However, I do think there's a problem when white people view someone like M.I.A. as the dish of the day, and meanwhile a large proportion of White America still can't tell the difference between a Sri Lankan and an Iraqi. I think that it's a disgusting display of privilege when hipsters from Orange County can dance to the type of music that they were mocking and ridiculing South Asian kids for up until Urban Outfitters said it was cool. White American culture likes to hold up the red light on cultural tidbits until it finds a way to commodify, market, and claim them as their own. As a result, we live in a world where Gwen Stefani can rock mendhis while Pakistani Americans are harassed amidst post-9/11 rage. We exist in an age where white folks are getting star shine off having band names like The Muslims and Black Kids, while actual Muslims are locked in American detainment camps as suspected terrorists and actual black kids still find nooses where they sit. These labels and cultural artifacts and music that are today's fads are things that people throughout the world have endured relentless turmoil just for the right to exercise. So I find it incredibly twisted when I'm standing in a crowd waiting for M.I.A. and I see a huge white dude shove two Indian girls out of the way so he can see better.

What I saw at Saturday's show was a rude awakening that we haven't progressed much since the days when black folks in Birmingham had to sit in the back to watch Ray Charles play. Nowadays, you don't need a "Whites Only" sign when the white people are physically tossing the colored folks aside. Yes, people are trying to have a good time, but at whose expense? At whose exploitation? I've lived through enough Jet Li movie premieres to know that just because people are clapping to your movies and dancing to your music doesn't mean that they're embracing your culture. After the show, how many of these people are actually taking heed to the message in M.I.A.'s music that details the harsh sociopolitical atmosphere of these countries that are, like, sooo eccentric? While you wave around your glowsticks and self-entitlement, the people described in the music are still rebuilding their tsunami-stricken homes, and your diverse iTunes selection isn't doing anything for them.

Anyway, aside from that whole thing I'd like to point out that this is my blog with my personal thoughts and opinions, and until I sell this to the Fox Network I'm going to continue speaking from my own perspective, unabashed. In the meantime, if you're looking for a blog that you can read without risk of being offended, I can kindly redirect you to this.

Dealt with it.

An open letter to M.I.A.ATTN: Why I didn't stay for your Coachella show

2008-04-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Maya,
First of all, I want to commend you for being so dope. "Bamboo Banga" has the best build-up that I've heard in decades. Next I want to apologize for leaving your show at Coachella last night. Rest assured that it had nothing to do with you, your music, or your electric pink sunglasses.

Coachella is a three-day music festival where people are encouraged to camp outdoors, walk around barefoot, dance in front of mist machines, and paint their faces. So I don't know why I was surprised that the festival is 90% white people, but I was. Surely, I have no problem with that...I think I would've been even more freaked out if I came across a hillside of 15,000 Cambodians pushing up their lighters to Jack Johnson anyway. So call it denial, or just lack of experience seeing you live, Ms. M.I.A., but as I briskly walked over to your tent 20 minutes early, a deep part of me expected your show to be some melanin vacuum...that your presence would be a big Coachella lint roll and sweep up all the dark people and toss us into your tent. However, even from several hundred feet away, the glowsticks and blonde dreads told me that this was a dream deferred.

When I arrived at the stage you had yet to come out, but the frat bros and sises were already pumped, in their RVCA t-shirts and 9-inch platform shoes. I found a nice nook at the left side of the tent, close enough to the outside to get some air if I needed, but close enough to the stage to hopefully catch your distant face every once in awhile between the bobbing heads. Suddenly, the lights turned down and from all corners you could hear a steady and ghoulish "Whoooooooooooooo!" echo. Then, as if on queue, the white people started moshing.

Yes, moshing. And I know it was just the white people because as soon as the elbows started flying, I along with the eight other colored folks sprinkled throughout the audience were immediately struck with a "What the fuck is happening here..." face. So apparently, with no music playing, or lights flashing, or person on the stage saying "Okay white people, it's time to mosh!" at that moment it seemed that without any form of stimulus, there was an internal alarm that set off within the 5,000 people around me to start shouldering each other in the face and inch their way towards the stage. Within 30 seconds, my scrawny 5'6" ass was caught in an anglo tidalwave of chest hair and yellow halters, landing me all the way to seven rows from the stage. My first instinct was "Sweeeeeet...I'm hella close!" However, I looked around and noticed that I was surrounded by at least three pairs of fraternal armpits at the perfect height alignment to my face. To my right a young girl whose eyes were bloodshot redder than the highlights on her bangs was swaying dizzily, looking like she could vomit her garlic fries in my direction at any moment. I looked towards the stage, and you still were not there. I looked around, and realized that it would only take the first 10 seconds of "Paper Planes" to get me drenched in sweat originating from at least seven European countries. At that moment I decided that leaving an M.I.A. show smelling like a white guy would be too ironic for my comfort, so I dashed the curry out of there and watched Animal Collective instead (still just as many white people but too strung out on narcotics to push people around).

I promise that I will be as close to the front as possible at your San Francisco show in May, and though I might still be lying to myself I still have faith that the show will draw out a little more "third world flava" than a festival in the desert that offers, among other foods, burgerritos.

Sincerely,
Adriel Luis

Coachella Day Uno: Santogold is hella boss.

2008-04-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

Despite only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before and still missing my 6am flight, I got to Coachella yesterday in one piece, and good thing I did because oh shit Santogold is the shitttt! See for yourself, and check out her badass straight-faced dancers:

Best show of the night. But Spank Rock was sick...not sick as in "Yo broski, Spank Rock was SICK!" Sick as in "Spank Rock won't be performing tonight because he's in the hospital." :(

On arriving:

Not the car we drove, I swear.

Not this one either.

More photos of people whose faces/bodies you can't see:

Diplo

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings

Black Lips
"Thank you for not going to watch Jack Johnson."

Fatboy Slim
By this point I was exhausted and dizzy from drunk fratboys spazzing out all around me.

Today: Portishead, St. Vincent and MGMT. And I have to choose between Mark Ronson, MIA and Animal Collective. Holler.

Oh, and PRINCE!!!!!!!!! Are you ready?? I know these ladies are:

Dear Adrizzle.com,

2008-04-24T22:48:00.000-07:00

I leave for Coachella in 8 hours, and then when I get back after the weekend I will start writing again.

What? Hey! Shhh. Read this.

That's right, I cheated on you.

Great music videos to watch on 4.20

2008-04-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

because it's sunday, and love is in the air.

My Other Peoples' Shows Tour

2008-04-20T02:23:00.001-07:00

Oooh oh oh snap. Just got home from my month away. I was really hoping, planning, dreaming, intending to be all up on my blog-o-sphere and reflecting on every city and all that, but when it comes down to it...after days and days driving and flying and checking into hotels and doing shows, the last thing you really want to do is relive it cyber-stylee.

So the tour reflection will come when it needs to.

IN THE MEANTIME!!! iLL-Lit's taking somewhat of a break, and besides spot dates here and there I'm left to do my own rampage. I've decided that this spring/summer I'm going on an extensive research project. I shall watch as many shows as I can that are somewhat reminiscent of how I daydream iLL-Literacy shows to be one day. I've been stacking up on tickets, and yes, tomorrow is my first day home, and I'm already starting. As Nico says: perched at the edge of sanity.

4/20: Jay-Z & Mary J. Blige @ Oakland

I've watched Fade to Black so many times the DVD's all scratched up, and to my great sorrow the first part to skip is when Mary J comes out to do "Can't Knock the Hustle." I guess that's what happens when you keep rewinding over and over again. Tomorrow I finally see Hova live. Last year Ruby and I caught Mary and it was hottttt fiyahhhh. Jay and Mary J on 420. What.

4/25-27: Prince & Portishead @ Coachella

Okay, so this is where I seek redemption for idiodically not going to see The Symbol even though he was doing his run in London pretty much the ENTIRE time that I was out there, on account of me "not being that into him yet." Yeah I know, I know...you have the right to kick me in the shins when you see me. So next weekend the homie Jose and I will be making our way to Coachella to check Mr. Purple Rain out, and I'm sooooooo glad he was added onto the bill, since before that the main headliner was Jack Johnson's ukulele ass.

And oh shit! Portishead! Give me a reason to NOT be juiced.

Other Coachella acts that I'm so excited to see, my eyes might explode: Aphex Twin, M.I.A., Metric, Animal Collective, Mark Ronson, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Stars, Cafe Tacvba, Justice, Sia, Spank Rock, Santogold, Vampire Weekend, Little Brother, St. Vincent, and Fatboy Slim.

Stuuuuupiddddddd.

5/4: Janelle Monàe @ San Francisco

One of my life's great regrets is missing Janelle Monàe when she came out to Oakland a few months ago. I had actually strongly considered missing one of my shows so I could catch her, but alas. And then Ruby's punk ass saw Jane in Atlanta and came back like "OH MY GOD THE SHOW WAS THE BEST THING EVERRRRRR." Much to my excitement, I learned that she's coming to San Francisco May 4, but THEN what's wack is that she's playing at a private conference that costs bookoo money to get into. Incognito here we come.

5/5 & 6: Geologic & Kiwi @ SF & Berkeley

I love watching Blue Scholars' live shows because they keep getting better and better and better each time I see them. This spring Geo from BluScho is touring with Kiwi, and that is going to be plain and simply ridiculous. They're doing a handful of shows in the Bay in May, and yezzir, I do plan to catch them all.

5/21: M.I.A. @ San Francisco

Even though I'm going to catch her in Coachella, the question of the day is, can I really get enough of "Bamboo Banga?"

6/6: Glow in the Dark Tour @ San Jose

OHHHHHHH SHITTTTTT!!!!!!!!! Continuing my Kanye geekdom, I've been following his blog and updates of the Glow in the Dark Tour, but struggling to not peek at any of the YouTube clips of the shows. Kanye, NERD, Lupe Fiasco, and Rihanna. And they have holograms and JIM HENSON CREATURES. I must admit, I'm more excited about this than my birthday (what a spaz that Adriel is).

6/8: Erykah Badu & the Roots @ Oakland

Okay, so the Kanye show's going to have lasers and virtual reality shit and hella headliners, but I just might be more stoked about this show simply because Erykah is the shit. I've seen the Roots a handful of times and they always deliver, but it's Ms. Badu that I've been jonesing to see since I got into her in '01. And with New Amerykah being so hotttt, gee golly I can't stand it.

ohshiti'msoexcitedokayi'mgoingtosleepnowsoicanhaveenergytoseehovatomorrow!

I come home tomorrow.

2008-04-18T20:49:00.001-07:00

Why the Hyatt sucks.

2008-04-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

Dear avid Adrizzle.com readers,
Deepest apologies that as of late my blogs have been BS and/or double posts from iLL-Literacy.com. I promise that as soon as I get off tour on 4/19, and when I'm around my incense sticks, headwraps, and earthtone walls, I shall immediately fall into neo-righteous-emo-dom and write more wordy and reflective entries for you to snap your fingers to.

Until then, there is this:

Mos Def explains why I don't want to battle you after my show.

2008-04-07T15:43:00.000-07:00

Old Kids on the Block

2008-04-05T11:47:00.001-07:00

Kanye West cares about Asian people

2008-04-04T16:10:00.000-07:00

GRADUATION ALBUM LISTENING EXPERIENCE PT. 6 - FLASHING LIGHTS from kwest on Vimeo

Okay, first of all I should just admit at this point that I'm a huge ass Kanye fan, in case you haven't noticed. I'm EXTREMELY juiced about seeing the Glow in the Dark tour in June, and boom boom that's that.

Secondly, I also have to say that when Kanye started showing a high interest in "Japanese" art I was a bit skeptical. Especially when it comes to hip-hop, we've seen how people have tokenized Asian culture (i.e. R. Kelly's "Thoia Thoing," that whole Bollywood sampling phase, Wu-Tang Clan, the list goes on) while at the same time Asian and Asian American people remain in the margins of hip-hop culture. So when Kanye started rocking Bape and Takashi Murakami stuff, I was like "Oh here we go again." But after some more speculation, I really have to give it up to Kanye because even if he's not into the culture, he does a pretty good job of exploring past the surface kung-fu chopstick stuff. From the "Stronger" video that's influenced by Akira to his focused tour in Hong Kong, it's good to see that someone's slowly shifting the focus somewhere outside of hip-hop's bubble.

Thirdly, I would argue that beyond just clothes and pop culture stuff, he's extended a reasonable amount of effort towards putting Asian and Asian American artists on, instead of just taking the culture and running with it. When he was still underground in Chicago, he offered my friends, the Filipino American crew the Pacifics a beat (for much less than a million dollars). When Jin dropped his first album the dopest track on it was produced by Kanye, he's constantly giving props to Murakami, and now he's doing stuff with Teriyaki Boyz.

Anyway, I never like to sound like I'm hella jocking (even people I jock like Kanye) just in case something ever happens and we end up having rap beef or something, but I think it's important to note when people are going about it in a positive way, because lord knows I'm the first to go off if I feel like my culture's being exploited.

Agree or disagree? In the meantime, enjoy that video above for my favorite song from Graduation, "Flashing Lights" where he uses a bunch of Wong Kar Wai clips. Holla!

i finally meet miss.lee!

2008-04-03T21:22:00.000-07:00

just so you know, i'm your biggest fan.

Me @ SF Int'l Asian Am Film Festival [Part. 2]

2008-04-03T21:01:00.001-07:00

Man o man...life on the road, y'all. In between flights, driving, shows, and avoiding the racist parts of each state, I haven't had much time to write/blog. But yo check it, I just reviewed Blood Brothers for Theme Magazine!

link.

Kanye West & Chris Martin - Homecoming

2008-04-01T10:49:00.001-07:00

extra terrestrial

2008-03-29T00:24:00.000-07:00

i think i listen to music for all the wrong reasons.

sure, i love voices, and chords, and progressions and the story lines that string along my favorite albums. but when i get lost in music--truly hypnotized--is when i imagine. it is in these moments that i allow my mind to capture fantasy in highly-contrasted black and white snapshots. i daydream in future, but more often than not in a future where i can reminisce on a past that mirrors that of the musicians that i so intently idolize. george clinton talking shit to the audience during parliament's earth tour. outkast recording aquemini in the dungeon. tripping out as a member of the beatles at the brink of abbey road. moments that i'm sure have been bronzed and romanticized and mythed-up far beyond the humanness of these particular stories, wiped clean of the monotony that probably filled the empty moments, but even still. to be a real musician/performer/artist is a forum of existence that i continue to envy, no matter how many times i've been called one, or even how many times i call myself one.

these musicians that i see in magazines and hear on the radio and line up to buy tickets to see, they live in a world different from where i see myself. i don't quite know how to articulate it, because it's not necessarily about validating their work over mine, or about grappling a certain amount of fame or fanbase. instead, it's my way of recognizing the gap that i always felt between the distant music that i grew up buying and listening to and loving (but something that derived outside of myself nonetheless), and the poetry that has always been a part of me. no matter how much i might like a song or album that i record one day, i don't know if i'll ever be able to separate from myself enough to spark one and vibe to it the way i do to a coltrane joint.

right now as ill-literacy we are amidst our first real tour...and it's taken a considerable amount of effort to make it real in my head. the 4-show runs we've been doing, those i've found excuses to view as amateur, coincidental shows that happen to take place in close enough time proximities to keep me away from home for a week or two. this time, we're actually on a 12-show tour. and even after the inklings to downplay what it is...to argue that, say, kanye's glow in the dark tour brings them to philly stadiums while we're in a doylestown student union...or them to nyc while we're in binghamton...or them in los angeles while we're in riverside...i am starting to realize that my inability to consider myself in the universe of all these other musicians is more of an insistence. for what, i surely don't know, because in my heart there is not much more that i want than to create for myself such a legacy.

in the next year i want to do things that musicians do. i want to play at south by southwest, and hit grammy parties, and play european festivals, and see my shit in stores. and it's shallow as hell. because some of the most talented, inspirational musicians i know have not even dabbed into any of those. many of the people in these scenes may be doing music and art for all the wrong reasons, and i must admit that during my most starry-eyed moments i question if i might be in that boat too. but these things that i want aren't a part of a business plan or marketing strategy...they're things that i want to do because i'd love those experiences in my life. i feel like we could change the way people think and listen to things. and i think it would all be pretty fun.

in this spectrum of purists and sellouts, pop and underground, those who do it for the love and those who do it for the money, i don't see things as black and white as i did when i was a snotty-nosed backpacker in high school and content with nothing more than recording a half a track on my trial download of acid pro. today the face of independent music and art looks incredibly different, and so does my longing to be a part of it. i guess the more real it gets, the more difficult it is to accept it when it comes. all this, testified in how i brush off each magazine article about us as a fluke, as a mere anomaly.

i'm waiting for something to happen to break that facade, and to finally allow myself to claim a space in the community of creators. in the end, the most effective thing i can do is to take care of what needs to occur inside my belief in myself.

this is gonna be an interesting month.

Virgin to Virginia Pt. 2

2008-03-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, life on le road (that's French for "the" road). We're going to try really hard to document this tour...we'll be posting most of the videos in the iLL-Lit blog but I'll be on here often enough to talk smack about everything else. Holla!

Me @ SF Int'l Asian Am Film Festival [Part. 1]

2008-03-25T12:45:00.001-07:00

THEME Magazine hollered at me to be a guest correspondent for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival! My first blog is about the music videos screening. Lotttts of video goodies. Yee!

link.

Big Boi ft. Andre3000 & Raekwon - Royal Flush

2008-03-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

I am so on Atlanta's jock right now.

Link.

Via Nah Right.

A really great blog post.

2008-03-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite blogs of this day and age is the Wondaland Arts Society site, home of one of my favorite musicians of this day and age, Janelle Monae (hereafter and forever referred to as Jane).

So I have nothing to do with this post and I'm basically being a big cheese right now, but the following blog/announcement is absolutely great:

According to the National Wonda Service, another tornado is scheduled to hit downtown Atlanta with energy and fury far greater than that of last weeks devastating storms. It is projected that the voracity of the storm will undoubtedly terms leave Atlanta mesmerized. The National Wonda Service suggests that you take shelter in a sturdy structure such as Smith's Olde Bar approximately 2-3 inches from the stage. That should be just enough to keep you out of harms way and still allow you to enjoy nature's beauty.

link.

Gerlaldine Ferraro says that racism ended at the close of the Third Age

2008-03-20T15:38:00.000-07:00

In an interview where anti-reverse-racism-activist Geraldine Ferraro clears confusion that she might in fact be a black liberation pastor, and also criticizes Obama's March 18 speech on race where he mentions his white grandmother uttering racist remarks.

"I could not believe that," said Ferraro. "That's my mother's generation."

...

Well, I had my political analyst do some research to see just how far back that actually means. We found this:

(Photograph obtained shortly after the Million Hobbit March.)

Disclaimer: The above entry and any other disses to the mothers of individuals--political and non-political--do not necessarily reflect the views of Adriel Luis. But they probably do.

Racially, this is like iLL-Literacy x 4

2008-03-20T00:36:00.000-07:00

My favorite part is the announcer's voice. I imagine that's how I'd talk if I was raised in Hong Kong.

Stapled Shut

2008-03-19T14:21:00.001-07:00

You know those mornings when you wake up to the gray dreary sky and the six year old you have to drive to school is crying snot and tears because he woke up to your face instead of his mom's, and when you finally get him into your car you get pulled over by the holice only to find out that your registration sticker was jacked from your license plate, and then when you get the kid to school you realize that he left his lunchbox at home so you have to drive back home to get it?

Days like this require pervasive action in the feelgoodmusic-getting. My sure-shot remedy? The Staple Singers. You can't really listen to Mavis' voice without curling your lips and putting sunglasses on. For those of you having days along my frequency, chiggitycheer up! For those of you already having great days, a little more sunshine never hurts.

New sins fo yo ass

2008-03-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

Vatican Lists Seven Social Sins, Including Drug Abuse
By Flavia Krause-Jackson

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Vatican has put together a list of seven ``social'' sins that includes excessive wealth, drug abuse, littering, genetic tampering and creating poverty.

Echoing the concept of the seven cardinal vices -- set to paper by Pope Gregory I in the sixth century -- the new list adds a social dimension, Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, said in an interview yesterday with the Vatican's official newspaper l'Osservatore Romano.

``You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord's name in vain or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by wrecking the environment, carrying out morally debatable experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos,'' said Girotti, who is responsible for the body that oversees confessions.

Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out on social issues throughout his three-year papacy. He backs a current political initiative to outlaw abortions after 90 days and encouraged Catholics to abstain from a 2005 referendum on easing restrictive laws on fertility treatments, which failed to achieve the 50 percent participation level to make the vote to change the law binding.

The seven social sins are:

1. ``Bioethical' violations such as birth control

2. ``Morally dubious'' experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty

The original deadly sins:

1. Pride

2. Envy

3. Gluttony

4. Lust

5. Anger

6. Greed

7. Sloth

***************************

Unfortunately, it seems that Moses might've already broken #3.

Adriel Trivia: Del is my favorite MC

2008-03-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

This is Why I Barack

2008-03-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

Posted on iLL-Literacy.com too!

A reaction by Adriel Luis

Over the last couple of years, iLL-Literacy has picked up somewhat of a reputation of being the "Ghostbusters of racism." From our arrival in Paris in 2005 just weeks after the outbreak of riots among disenfranchised Muslim youth, to our frequent visits to Auburn, Alabama that has witnessed a string of lets-show-up-in-blackface frat parties, to our collaboration with Virginia Tech's Asian American Student Union just one week after the campus' tragic event--our presence in communities throughout the world oftentimes materialize in the wake of complex questions dealing with race, gender, class, sexuality, and the ever-expanding palette of societal isms. All this, along with trying to be "spoken word rock stars," has been key in defining my group's art, image, and internal dynamic...and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Upon every given arrival in every given destination, we are aware that we really bring nothing more to the table than our words, and our existence. We visit universities and high schools and music festivals and even dingy poetry bars all based on a common hunger for addressing pertinent social issues, but also to do dope ass shows. When we began our "professional" career as geeky post-teens fondling our ambitions of slipping past the amateur stage, far from our minds was the concept of existing as an example of a new perception of American race. We would walk into restaurants in the deep South, completely oblivious to the bug-eyed stares that belonged to people who had never toyed with the idea of seeing Blacks and Asians at the same table. Our naivety had to quickly give way to proactiveness in extricating ourselves from our comfortable Bay Area racial bubble, and realize that just being who we are--our combination of races, skin colors, experiences--is an inescapably important platform for dialogue.

In February iLL-Literacy officially endorsed Barack Obama as President of the United States. It was not only the first time we've ever publicly supported a national politician, it was honestly the first time any of us had any strong opinions about politics besides "Fuck (fill in the blank with whatever horrible thing is/was going on at the time)." Not to say that we aren't political--anyone who has been to our shows knows that they're basically free-for-alls of opinions, gripes, and random shout-outs to Jay-Z. But all that was different politics. Those were our politics, which seemed clearly cut from their politics. The unjust deportation of Southeast Asian American immigrants? Our politics. The murder of Tookie Williams? Our politics. The implementation of slanted media to instigate Black and Asian conflict among the lower classes? Definitely our politics. Some distant election to decide among some candidates that all have the same vault of words and soundbites? Their politics.

Honestly, of the four members of iLL-Literacy I was the last one to give in to the idea of endorsing Barack. Not because I didn't like the guy, but because my experience of having the majority of my life run by a Bush had jaded me. I couldn't wrap myself around the idea of not not liking a president. Despite the fact that I lived in Chicago in 2004 when local enthusiasm for the then-senator candidate had taken hold. What finally convinced me, in fact, was that even in the midst of my cynicism, bitterness, and outright desire to hate whatever came out of a politician's mouth, I began feeling what Barack was saying. To the point where I'd react to his speeches aloud--with grunts of approval at first, then mouthing "wow" after certain statements, to finally having to pause and rewind speeches with my hands over my face. For the first time ever, I felt like the vernacular of a candidate was conforming to my personal vision.

I cannot stress enough how important Barack's March 18 speech is to me. By extension, I cannot stress enough how important Barack's speech is to iLL-Literacy's goal as an active entity in the grassroots arts effort. Even as spoken word heads who are known for traveling the world like we're some bootleg United Colors of Benetton ad, race is always a sensitive issue. It is always something that needs to be addressed with the utmost care and precision. It is a balance between respecting the carefully-constructed foundation laid by those of the past, and unleashing our rage as members of a generation that has grown up in an unspeakably awkward political atmosphere. As iLL-Literacy, we know how it is to walk the line between addressing how our unique racial architecture has composed our experience, and falling into it as a gimmick. We never want our races to be the reason someone supports us, but at the same time we respect the fact that it has often sparked the curiosity necessary for someone to take time to explore us.

I am glad that Barack is addressing the statements of Rev. Wright, even though I'm well aware that many people in my circle--including myself--don't see anything wrong with the pastor plain and simply saying some real ass shit. To hear Barack use this incident as a teaching moment to address race and class gives me hope. And I know that especially in these trying times, we've become so sensitive that any slip-up or imperfection can hurl us back into disillusionment (and rightfully so). During moments like these it may appear that hope is empty, or even worse yet, an indication that I've bought into some elaborate political scheme that will keep us in the same cesspool of self-destruction regardless of who our next president is. But in doing what I do, I have to believe in that hope. It's the same hope that I vie for at my shows when I spot that one Asian kid in a crowd that's looking at me like I'm the first thing on a microphone to ever relate to him. This hope might be baron, or all in my head, or blind, but it's the hope that has kept iLL-Lit going--from the jam-packed New York auditoriums of embracing fans one day, to the crowd of six bored-looking people in an echoey Ohio lecture hall the next day. Regardless of the setting, we speak because someone might be listening. And we support Barack, because for the first time in too long, he gives us a reason to listen.

Obama '08

NIN launches interactive music video campaign

2008-03-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

Dude, Trent Reznor is a genius. He also orchestrated Saul William's last album and its fully-digital release. This new campaign for Nine Inch Nails' new album, and they're inviting fans to create their own videos for the songs to be shared by NIN themselves. Yeah, pretty smart.

WU-TANG FOREVER!

2008-03-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

8-12 Million Bees Unleashed By Truck Crash (Link)

Obama first and only candidate to publicly support Tibet's freedom

2008-03-16T23:39:00.000-07:00

Link here.

Cool Asians: Teriyaki Boyz

2008-03-16T17:02:00.000-07:00

People are always complaining about the lack of cool Asian people in the public eye. Thus, a new section of this blog, appropriately called, "Cool Asians."

First installment: Teriyaki Boyz ft. Pharrell & Busta - Zock On!

Chinatown Doos: NYC

2008-03-13T19:57:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I was convinced that I would be living in New York City by the time I turned 25. With that fateful moment inching closer and closer, I've found that ambition slipping in and out of existence. My frequent trips to the City have, however, shown me that I can build a bit of a nest here, even if I never settle in.

For the past year or so my NY excursions have been stapled by visits to my super-homie Karen's apartment. Karen lives in Chinatown, worked for MTV Chi, and has a bottomless stash of lychee jellies in her fridge, making her technically the most Chinese person I know.

Over the course of time we've developed a ritual of sorts, in which I get dropped off by the Chinatown bus from some random city, drag my luggage up Karen's four flights of stairs, and veg out in front of Planet Earth on mute, with Panda Bear in the speakers and plenty of green in our system. Yes, the NYC experience to the awesomth-degree.

This past trip we decided to venture out a little bit--and by little bit, I mean little bit--and do a Chinatown day-o-fun. This included such fundamental adventures as Asian grocery shopping, wearing Korean face maskual moisturizers, kicking it on Karen's rooftop in the frigid cold, and eating everything in sight.

These be the random pictures from our day-o-fun.

You have no idea how moist our faces were afterward.

These pants are intense.

"You see that building right there? I have no idea what it is."

If you unwrap the foil you'll find stale chocolate inside.

The view from the apartment.

It's very immature of me to laugh at this and then post it on my blog.

If iLL-Literacy was a fastfood restaurant, this is what it would be.

Yum.

Yum!

More rooftop pix because rooftops are soooo cool:

food. Like I said, we completely and utterly gorged ourselves, stuffing our happy little faces with dim sum from the spot with the big RUN DMC-style DIM SUM sign. Then bomb ass fish balls and noodles at Sheng Wang (not related to my friend Sheng Wang). Then, because we wouldn't be complete fatasses if we didn't, we made a combo-dessert out of the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory and the Egg Custard King Cafe (yes, there is an Egg Custard King, and I visit his palace frequently).

And of course, deepfried MSG to top it all off:

Yes. Throughout all the times I've been in NYC, I've partied in Brooklyn, spazzed out to Daft Punk at Coney Island, hung out with Victoria's Secret models in Chelsea, and rocked shows off-Broadway. And yet, my favorite thing to do in the City is chill at Karen's pad. Chinatown doos.

Thank you, come again.

Link: Phatrick & Adriel's heavily UNupdated CHINATOWN DOOS blog.

Lil Wayne: F*ck the Police (and vice-versa)

2008-03-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

Here's an ad featuring Lil Wayne, for Strapped Condoms, probably not the only condom company that has more Myspace friends than me.

Now, I think I speak across most sexuality margins when I say that it's a pretty interesting marketing strategy to make a condom ad where you're being bent over by a cop.

What disturbs me even more than that, however, is the prospect of a hip-hop condom industry. I was already quite perplexed when I came across Jimmie Hatz (do NOT skip the flash intro).

Dru Hill gets back together for 5 minutes

2008-03-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

Well, on the bright side the last thing we need is a Thong Song 2008.

outer.city.limits

2008-03-06T01:04:00.001-08:00

Live via: Philadelphia, PA

The crew has been laying low this trip. This is Day 4 (bleeding into Day 5) of the trip and we've set up a tradition for ourselves of spending every possible moment in the hotel. Yes, it just may have occurred that after three years on and off the road, iLL-Literacy is tired.

Definitely not tired of doing shows or seeing each other or interacting with fans, don't get me wrong. This isn't the precursor to a New Kids On The Block-esque meltdown that ends with Dahlak setting the carpet on fire. It's more of a response to our trip a couple of months ago that entailed a ridiculous amount of driving, a side trip to canada, and staying out late each night (for various reasons including but not limited to bars, frat parties *don't ask*, and being lost in the middle of nowhere). With it came ten straight days of getting back to our beds so exhausted that our limp bodies dangled from the sheets well into the next afternoon.

This trip we've played it safe. Less wide-eyed and gawking at new towns. We booked our hotels in the outskirts of the cities and much closer to the airports. Pretty much isolating ourselves from the world, curtains draped and rooms pitch black even though it's past noon. We scurry from hotel to hotel like war bunkers, only catching whiffs of the outside air when completely necessary--airport...hotel...show....hotel...grocery store...hotel. It's been our way of mustering energy during this awkward mini-tour, in hopes to be bursting with adrenaline and ready to take on the country (literally) when we're on the road all of April.

For the past few days I've been using the news as my window to the world. I read TIME (a.k.a. Propaganda Shit Magazine) for the first time since high school. At the airports and hotel rooms we've all been plastered to CNN (a.k.a. Propaganda Shit Channel But At Least Not As Bad As Fox News). Tuesday was nail-biting/exhausting. What was supposed to be a 5-hour transit ended up taking 10 because of storms, flight delays, and reroutes. While we hopped from airport to airport, we watched the election results with deep anticipation, and later disappointment.

That night placed us in this Philly hotel room, huddled together at midnight munching on sandwiches and fries, Nico and I tossing back shots of Appleton Estate and cursing at Hillary on the television.

"Why won't she just give up!" moans Nico. I reply with some mumbo-jumbo about delegates and caucuses and other terminology that I'm pretty sure I was unfamiliar with just a month ago (not that I know anything about it now).

In the end, it's all this waiting that's draining. Waiting for the next show. Waiting to see what's going to happen with the election. Waiting to see what the next metamorphosis will be with this ever-fickle group named iLL-Literacy. Just six months ago we swore we wanted to be on Broadway and now we're basking in our recent experimentation as a funk band. All this uncertainty makes life interesting and worth living, but it definitely takes a lot out of you.

No complaints though, just gripes. Tomorrow we split off, kissing different corners of the country. Ruby to Atlanta, Dahlak to St. Louis, Nico to Providence and me to NYC. Then no more traveling until the very very end of the month. Then CRAZINESS!!!!!!!!!! We'll be ready.

Dear Texas,

2008-03-04T20:20:00.000-08:00

you. are. killing. me.

these two videos make adriel happy.

2008-03-01T11:07:00.001-08:00

housebroken.

2008-02-25T03:16:00.001-08:00

Everybody has their own way of coming home.

I just returned from 10 days on the road--mere nothingness to those who spend months on end traveling from venue to venue, but for iLL-Lit it's one of the longest periods we've spent journeying together. The only other times we saw each other consistently for this long was in New York and Paris. This time we trekked--up and down NY state, then across the continent to Seattle with a touch down in Vancouver. Now, after 19 hours driving, 3 rental cars, 4 hotels, 3 flights, 2 countries, and 1 week before we leave home again, we're extremely tired.

The ride back is always quiet. Everybody has their own way of coming home. Dahlak usually flies into Sacramento, so we see him off at whatever airport we're leaving from. We try to book our flights around the same time but it always ends up feeling like a "Real World" moment, with him disappearing into the terminal while we head towards our gate. Nico keeps his iPod on while we wait for our luggage. Random comments but hardly conversation, at this point we've checked out of the social world and into our own heads. Ruby smiles and exhales with eyes half shut. "I'm going to hug my bed when I get home," she says tiredly. We hop into the respective car of our respective buddy (this time it was Josh) and get dropped off one by one, slinging our bodies and palms at each other in exhausted farewell gestures.

These times I feel like the odd one. After a week and a half of virtually no personal space, cooped in vehicles, rooms, planes, social settings with human beings for such a long period of time the rest of the crew is usually ready to retreat into their shells at least for the next couple of days. Before I hit my front door, I'm already texting people to see what's crackin that night.

I don't know where I get these nomadic impulses that, even after being gone for so long, only keep me in my apartment for 20 or so minutes before my fidgety feet lead me elsewhere. It doesn't matter if I'm fucked up by the timezone, or if my body thinks it's 6:38am, or if I'm dehydrated from being in the sky for so long with nothing but salted peanuts. I never experience the romantic sensation of walking into my house, putting my suitcase down, and plopping into my bed. I'm too restless for that. I always end up at some ungodly hour typing away at my computer or toking at Jose's apartment or burrowing myself in an epic phone conversation with someone at some other timezone. Tonight I got home, checked the mail, tossed my luggage in my trunk and made the 45 minute drive to my parents' house with the new Erykah Badu on knock. Even got lost on purpose so I could finish out the album.

Maybe it's withdrawal. The same morose feeling that would overwhelm me in college when stumbling into an empty apartment after an organization gathering. It's a seclusion that's welcomed, embraced by many and that I've always believed in principally. Execution, on the other hand, is different.

Of course, I do have moments where I crave confinement. But perhaps it's an obsessive extroversion, but after these trips, it feels like I want nothing more than to talk, touch, hold, gaze, taste, take in people. I don't think it's a crime. Just the way I rest my roots in this crazy beautiful life.

Ps: The new Erykah is the truth. Get it Tuesday.

show me what you go, ill mama

2008-02-22T02:42:00.000-08:00

Live via: Seattle, WA

In the thick of it, yo! Dahlak's watching Martin in the other room, and as exhausted as I am, I'm still insomnicked out. This past weekend's shows at ECAASU in Cornell and at NYC were hotttnessss! I'm really going to have to take some time to process this. I feel a nice and thick journal entry coming soon, as soon as I get a chance to breathe. We had a show at Tacoma today, but it was without the band. Felt a bit naked without music, I've gotten so used to having noise to bridge our poems, begin and end our sets. When I wake up we chill by the water and then do a quick set at the Theatre off Jackson in Seattle.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. I'm posting because I wanted to show you this picture I took impersonating Tom from Myspace, back in 2006.

The whole Tom thing seemed kind of funny at the time. But now that I've rediscovered the picture, all I can really ask myself is, why do I look like I lost my arms in the war??

Well, I also wanted to show you this video, it's of our show at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco. Enjoy!

An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton

2008-02-20T13:13:00.001-08:00

Today's post is brought to you by Youth Outlook and WireTap as a part of the official Youth Media Blog-A-Thon. Ooooh yeah, holla!

Peep the last 20 or so seconds of the video:

Dear Senator Clinton,

Hello, I hope you are well. My name is Adriel and I am a person who has been thinking about you lately. No, not in that way, surely I am not grooming myself to be your Chinese male Monica. And no, not because I am part of the "Asian" contingent who apparently voted for you 3 to 1 over Obama--a statistic that, I must admit, I'm quite impressed by. It seems that the 70+ ethnicities that your ancestors grouped together as "Asian"--most of which have been at war with each other, colonized each other, disputed over democracy and communism--have finally found eternal harmony in agreeing to support you, 3 to 1 (and I bet that 1 didn't vote for you just because he/she couldn't speak English). Damned immigrants (luckily, you have THAT taken care of).

(I hope you're reading the sarcasm in all the right places)

(Also, I've realized that so far 75% of the statements in this letter have been side notes)

(That's 3 to 1, Hillary!)

Alas, my recent attention to you doesn't really have anything to do with my Asian-ness, but rather, my Spoken Wordedness. You see, I am a spoken word artist. And as much as I hate to mix business and politics, I couldn't help but be intensely hurt by your February 14th speech about how ineffective speeches are, in which you explained that words don't make change, and that "words are cheap." Now trust me, I'm not new to getting my heart smashed by a woman on Valentine's Day. But in the past these offenders have been girls I had a crush on in pre-calculus, or the cute waitress at P.F. Chang's. But a potential President of the United States? Oh Hillary, you's cold blooooded!

Now given that I'm an independent, unsigned, quite undiscovered artist, which puts me a few notches lower than the blue-collared pool of upstanding citizens whose votes are apparently much more important than mine, that doesn't mean you have to completely shit* on the very asset I base my career on. I'm sure your precious working class voters wouldn't be very flattered if you delivered a speech about how steel or oil or agriculture are cheap (in the same way that your grandparents wouldn't appreciate someone telling them that cotton and tobacco are cheap). Then why, oh Hillary why, would you say that words--the words I craft upon daily to make my living--are empty and don't "produce results?"

Obviously, you haven't read The Secret.

Not to worry, neither have I. But Hillary, what's NOT a secret is that most of us are exhausted by a president who has made a tradition of ignoring the voices of millions throughout the world who speak against his selfish ways. Perhaps your years in Washington have jaded you. Perhaps the "experience" that you have used as the fumes to run your campaign on have shown you that in today's world of policy words go ignored, unanswered, and ineffective. Still, as a poet, I can only shudder at the thought of a president who makes a campaign strategy of denouncing the power of words.

But of course, you didn't make that statement to attack me, or any other poets, or singers, or authors, or teachers. You made that statement to attack Obama (just days after he beat your husband to the Spoken Word Grammy, may I add). And of course, how could you not be infuriated, flabbergasted, offended that a BLACK MAN, of all people, has figured out a way to use the language of your people better than you? How could you not attack, denounce, devalue the vital asset of language once you've realized that a MINORITY has found grounds to improve on it? Gee, if only you had been president back in the day, your immigration policy would've nipped that little problem in the bud (at least Barack's dad wouldn't have been able to get a driver's license to pick mama Obama up on their first date).

Sigh Imagine.

Unfortunately for you, Hillary, words do make a difference, and words do make change. Luckily, right after watching your speech I was able to take the disheveled pieces of my heart to band rehearsal, where our keyboardist Nikki was so overwhelmed by the music and words that she broke down on the floor in tears, speaking in tongues while the rest of us could do nothing but hold on to her and each other in silence. See, Hillary, sometimes one needs to concede to the fact that what another person has to say may be more important for the moment, and it might be a good idea to take the time to listen instead of belittling language as a whole just so that you can feel like you came out on top.

In conclusion, please understand that this is not as much a letter to defend Obama as it is a letter to defend words. From the crowds of people who raised their fists together this past weekend at the iLL-Literacy shows to the high schoolers at my workshops who use poetry to break years of silence with their parents, I must insist that words, Senator, do make change--and a world of change, at that. And with that in mind I will continue to listen to your speeches, watch your debates, and read your articles, doing my best to be open to be moved. In the meantime, I suggest that if you're truly convinced that words are as unimportant as you've announced to the nation that they are, you consider reevaluating not the words themselves, but rather the mouth that they come from.

Word to your mother,
Adriel Luis

*I'd apologize for the foul language, but I'm sure that wouldn't change anything.

The Songs I Fell in Love with in 2007 (Part 2 of 2)

2008-02-14T01:03:00.000-08:00

So it's been over a month since my last posting of the Songs I Fell in Love with in 2007, and back then I ambitiously put Part 1 of ? thinking that I was seriously going to have time to create some complex miniseries. This past month life has definitely taken hold, and for better or worse it's resulted in me listening to less music.

Well, maybe not listening to less music, but definitely not avidly excavating for new songs everyday like I did for the past couple of months. I've settled pretty nicely with my Parliament, Rotary Connection, Janelle Monae and OutKast--for some reasons it's all I feel I need right now. There's a plethora of new music that I'm very late in the game for--I haven't given listen to a single track off the new Lupe yet. I even skipped over a new Jay-Z song that came out a couple of days ago (fareeeeeal?) but I know I'll get to them at some point.

For now, lets step back into the past. Maybe I need to finish this thing up--get some closure--before moving on. So, it's an early night. Lets get this done.

St. Vincent - Paris is Burning

I never really liked musicals growing up. I thought the singing from out of context ruined good stories. And then I saw Rent live on stage and from that point on I started getting extremely interested in Broadway musicals, until I saw Rent: The Movie and decided that I actually don't like most musicals, especially if they've been turned into crappy movies.

BUT one thing I've always loved about musicals are the theatrics of the songs, the expression in the delivery of lyrics. So when I first heard St. Vincent's "Paris is Burning" I was overwhelmed at how convincingly it brought me back to 2005 when iLL-Lit arrived in Paris amidst the riots, and at the same time made me recall A Tale of Two Cities. Yeah, only a geek would be in his mid-twenties and think of 10th grade literature when he listens to music. But yeah, roll both of those together and add some psycho synths and you have one of the funnest songs of the year.

MIA - Bamboo Banga

MIA makes me happy because she makes Asians look cool, and anybody that makes Asians look cool is all right with me. It took me awhile to get into MIA, and I have to admit that I do like Kala more than her first album.

This song in particular gets the award for the best buildup of the year. By the time the sample kicks in, you can pretty much expect your face to be exploded.

3xKrazy - Keep It On the Real

A couple of days after I came back from London in September, I had dinner at Golden Lotus with a bunch of Bay folks. Twas in celebration of being back Home, seeing people I hadn't seen in over a month, and a meal that would actually fill me up that wasn't sausages and potatoes. We were all eating for about half an hour before Mr. Ise Lyfe came in, fashionably late by looking like he was in a hurry. "I can't stay for long," he said, "But I wanted to give you this. Revolution." He handed me an envelope and disappeared into the Black of the night. Inside the envelope were two things: A CD, and a phone card to Asia. The CD was 3xKrazy's Stackin Chips. That night while driving home, I listened the full version six-minute version of "Keep It On the Real" for the first time in as long as I can remember. It reminded me of why I loved Bay Area music so much back in the day. It reminded me of a particular species of music that people just don't make anymore.

When the song's half over, it's really just begun. Peep it for one of the most soulful moments in Bay rap, ever.

Janelle Monáe - Sincerely, Jane.

Oh Jane, how my insides melt, especially when you hit that note at 1:29. There's not much more that I can say that won't make me sound like a total goober. Just know that after her Metropolis: Suite I came out, iLL-Lit listened to this song at least 50 times throughout the entire SoCal tour.

*Sigh*

TV On the Radio - Modern Romance

Tonight after dinner I left Ruby's house realizing that I was done with all the work I had assigned myself for the day, and I didn't have anything else to do. Then I remembered that such occasions usually resulted with me at Jose's apartment by the lake to puffpuff and listen to old vinyl. But alas, Jose is back in Pomona, and I'm back to writing blogs at home at 11pm.

Let this one be a testament then. TV On the Radio's cover of a Yeah Yeah Yeahs, as presented to me one foggy evening before heading over to the Ruby Room dive bar that I've come to love. Supa trippy music, for a supa trippy world.

Bjork - All Is Full of Love (Video Version)

This was a big year for Bjork. Besides her coming out as a giant bong with feet, she also dropped the incredibly underappreciated LP Volta. I liked the album a lot, but I'm going to have to continue with the underappreciation and go with the old "All is Full of Love" as the one I fell in love with this year.

Maybe it's the weird compu-percussion, or the electro-harps, or some other combination of words that can be bound together with a hyphen, but this is a great song to get lost in. And when I went to go see her earlier last year, all the barefoot hippie folk were definitely not worried about being lost.

Blog down memory lane:
05.20.07: Put a Bjork in it

Elton John - Tiny Dancer

In March Dahlak and I watched Almost Famous. In the movie there's a scene where one of the bandmates ditches the group and goes to a high school kid's party and ends up spazzing out and jumping off a roof and having to get carried back onto the tour bus in a towel. Anyway, it's awkward on the bus, that is, until the guitarist starts singing Elton John's "Tiny Dancer," and by the end of the song the whole bus is chanting merrily together down the highway. It's a pretty corny scene, but it strikes the nice chord. It made both Dahlak and I fall in love with "Tiny Dancer." We play it every. single. roadtrip. Ruby watched "Almost Famous" with us too, but it didn't have the same effect on her, and she doesn't think much of "Tiny Dancer." She shakes her head and looks away when I play it in the morning in the hotel rooms. Dahlak stays in bed smiling, muttering, "This is great. Great." Nico walks in with his coffee, stops to figure out what song it is, and puts on his headphones to listen to Lil Wayne.

Rotary Connection - Magical World

And yes, with all the songs I loved, I had to save this one for last--snuck into my life late into the year when I decided that I wanted to get into Minnie Riperton for our LA roadtrip. Since then this has been pretty much my life anthem. Yes. One day we will all wrap our minds up in a yellow submarine.

Here is where my conclusion would go, if I wasn't tired of writing for this post.

The Flashing Lights Video

2008-02-13T12:46:00.000-08:00

Yeah, this is pretty much a "must post" in the blogosphere. Dude. It's pretty intense, no?

president odrama

2008-02-06T01:58:00.000-08:00

I didn't even bother to find out who won the Superbowl until today. I've never really done well with witnessing competitions. I get too nervous. I remember even being at the edge of my seat as a 6-year-old when there was that vote to decide with the rabbit would finally get a bowl of Trix. In the end he did, and he was happy.

Nico, Phatrick, and I were glued to the radio today with considerably more anticipation than a cereal commercial. Heading down to Santa Cruz, with the understanding that on the way back up we might discover who the next president would be. And then I remembered another reason I don't engage in things like this: the team I root for never wins.

Not to be all pessimistic about Obama losing the California primary, but it took me quite awhile to get to the point of caring, and for better or worse I care very much now. Like most uber-cool progressive folks around me, I've remained skeptical throughout--even sometimes adapted the whole "it doesn't matter who wins they're all just puppets for the MAN" stance. But this past weekend I found myself stuck to YouTube for the democratic debates, and realizing that I was on the verge of history. And though I recognize the verges of history that we are in with the potential of a first black or woman president, and the massive turnout of youth voters, and a considerable change of policy, I mean a different verge. If Obama becomes our president it'll be the first time in my "political" life that I won't strongly dislike our president. I don't know if I'm ready for that. In a world that's become so angry with its leaders, what will we do with someone who seems so...cool?

When Bush first stepped into office, I wasn't even old enough to really care, or understand the type of social impact it would have. Four years later I was spending spending the summer in Chicago around the same time that a local alderman named Barack was running for senator of Illinois. The level of grassroots support, hope in the words of people of color in Chicago, stuck with me in a way that has made it difficult to front like I'm not hella feeling Obama.

Over the past couple of weeks everyone in iLL-Lit started revealing to each other that, despite all the criticisms we have about the whole thing, we all want the dude to be president. Watching the debate I found myself relating to little idioms that shouldn't mean much but do--he's left-handed, his name isn't easily pronounceable, he listens to Jay-Z. Little irrelevancies indeed, especially when determining qualification for a presidency, but this is the first time I've felt like I have something in common with a candidate.

Living in the Bay where Obama's presence is felt in every corner, I've had to revisit the fact that I really do live in a bubble. Because I was sure that California was going to lean toward that way. To think that so many of us thought that Cali was a given has put me in a weird place. How many of my other political views that I think represent the masses really differ from public opinion? Because I was sure at least Cali was down with Obama.

We'll have to see what happens next. The day has been long, and my thoughts are convoluted.

Trying not to get jaded,
Driz

my first blog ever

2008-01-31T00:53:00.000-08:00

so on a random (and completely narcissistic note) i was reading through my old blog entries, and one thing led to another and i ended up on my livejournal that i was keeping loooooong before i started blogging on adrizzle.com (looooooong before i started growing hair on my upper lip, for that matter. just kidding. i hope). anyway, i haven't even read it yet, and i'm going to take a complete risk and post the ishhhh, just because that's the kind of mood i'm in today. i did gander at some of my other old entries that i wrote just days after this one though, so i can assure you that if you're looking for some indication that my blogging language has in the past 5 or so years matured exponentially, or that i was some crazy prodigy back in the day, i apologize in advance for your disappointment (my livejournal was named "adrizzle's livejizzle" and i'm sure i haven't matured much since then).

i also would like to take the time to avoid responsibility for any aZn talk, teeniebopperness, or futurebabymamadrama by saying that anything embarrassing or incriminating wasn't typed by me. it was my evil aZn twin.

so here it is, folks: adriel's first blog ever.

TITLE: what??? adrool has a journal now???
December 28, 2002 1:45am

[Current mood: Lazy]
[Current song: John Coltrane - Lazy Bird (cuz it's a chill song and adriel's on chill mode)]

blbhablahbalbhalbhalbhalbhalbhalbh

well i guess it's about time i got a journal...it's been something that i've been thinking about having for awhile, but i just never got around to doing it. i mean, a lot goes through my head at any given point, and usually if i'm not too lazy i write it down but it's poetry...but it doesn't always come out expressing exactly how i feel. so yeah...i guess this is good. i got the code thingie from my cousin jodie. jodie's awesome. and i think it's dope that we're kinda getting closer, cuz i've never really been that close with most of my cousins, even though most of us are within 5 years of each other. but she just graduated from USF and my major's easy (yay) so i guess timing's just made it cool for us to talk more. i think that's really cool.

it's still kinda weird that i'm posting my feelings and stuff up now...cuz people that know me know that i usually keep to myself. i'm not that shy or anything, but when it comes to how i feel, it's often hard for me to even tell my closest friends. i guess this is sort of a way for me to express myself without feeling like i'm wasting anyone's time, since you can read it if you want, or click that little "x" on the top right corner if you don't :)

soooooo anyway, if there's ever a day to start this whole journal thing, i guess it would be today...(or yesterday, since it's like 1 am now). but yeah, i was working at macy's for the past week and a half of my vacation but i bounced cuz i realized i wasn't spending as much time with my folkers as i wanted to. so there i was on a friday, HELLA KICKING IT AT HOME BORED. you know what i did all day??? i organized my mp3's!! NO JOKE. yeah i know, mucho nerdy, but hey, i was bored. i deleted all the joints that i don't like and organized them in all these stupid folders and stuff (i knwo i'm a geek). i remember once i was talking to j9 about this haha...and then i fixed their names so that it would all be organized like this:

Artist - Title (i.e. Nelly - Air Force Ones)

I used that example to see if i could irritate people cuz i think that song's the epitome of what's wrong with music today. i swerrr dude, i stopped listening to the radio like in 10th grade but i switch it on every so often to hear what new crap is in rotation and i heard that song and i was like "oh dear."

so anyway, i put my mp3's in all these nice little folders and organized them. i didn't realize that i had so many types of music...i have my r&b, hip-hop, rock, and jazz, and then i realized i also had a pretty dope collection of classical, disco, funk, and spoken werrd...see, adriel's eccentric!

so anyway, thank God i did other stuff today too...had lunch with the fam, went to burlington with the sister to buy some threads cuz you know adriel loves his burlington since that's increasingly becoming the only place i buy clothes. then i went to stoneridge to pick up my last paycheck. and damn. i mean, i GUESS $200 for a week's work isn't that bad, but i was pretty disappointed. i mean, most of it was hourly, since it's $8/hour, but i looked at the commission, and all i got out of that was $45!!! i used to get more than that off ONE SALE when i sold cell phones!! and i hella worked my anus off at macy's too, especially since it was Christmas time and people were having me run up and down the store getting their kicks and stuff but i guess that's a whole other subject that i'll have to get into when i'm not in chill mode like i am now.

so anyway, i'm all on my computer and it's 9 at nite and i'm still organizing my mp3's like a square, and since i was on "online freak mode" at the point, i had been online for like 7 hours already, and alisa comes on. so i finally convince her to go with me to get some ice cream. isa's pure dopeness. she stays at martinez, which i thought was 20 minutes away but i timed it and it's more like 40. but it's cool tho cuz she's dope and worth the drive a million times over :) well by the time i got to her place it was already 11 and all the ice cream places were closed so we hit up albertsons and bought cartons and chilled in my car...but it was kinda cold and it was late so we both barely ate any before we started getting stomach aches...but hey...ice cream's good.

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT PISSES ME OFF?? ok, pretend youre driving on the freeway, and there's a car one lane over a little ahead of you, and it's all up in your grill swerving into you lane. i hate it when people do that, and when they realize that they've kinda gone into your lane, they signal, to try to make it SEEM like they did it on purpose. i know what you're doing! i do that too!! so anyway, yeah, it's not like isa did it, but this dude did when i was driving back home.

so yeah, here i am again, in front of my computer like i have been for most of the day. but oh well. i'm talking to j9 now, who is also rather awesome. i visited her last nite and we watched gangs of new york.

JaeSweetz79 (1:42:33 AM): i was supposed to go to davis today
JaeSweetz79 (1:42:36 AM): to get my other glasses
JaeSweetz79 (1:42:38 AM): but i got lazy
JaeSweetz79 (1:42:42 AM): so im still rocking the tape

see? that's referring to the fact that she was talking to me on the phone giving me directions to the house and her glasses broke, and so, like a true soldier, she taped them up, and we went to the mall and dude at site for sore eyes spent 45 minutes only to end up taping them back up, making us almost late for the movie. at least he used new tape.

Slip-of-the-Tongue-O-Rama

2008-01-27T19:41:00.000-08:00

My love-hate relationship with Slip of the Tongue is that, when the director Karen Lum first approached me about the project, I couldn't find time to record a new version to replace my squeaky-ass babbling 19-year-old voice. The performance from the recording hadn't even broken me into the next round at the slam I where I had debuted it that night, and I was already excluding the poem from my show sets at the time. So when it got turned into a film it was like someone dropped a single of me singing in the shower.

But the film itself was done really well, and a lot of people have gotten something nice from it so all's goooood. It's just sometimes I get paranoid that that poem's going to be my one-hit wonder. Like my "Who Let the Dogs Out." But even though I cringe when I hear my voice in that film, and Karen's seen the thing so many times she goes into convulsions every time she sees a bus stop, we're both ridiculously thankful for the impact it's made on folks.

Anyway, yesterday was Karen's birthday and conveniently the Stanford student was in Stanford during our Stanford show! Whoooodathunkittt? I got her a pretty gangsta cake from Oakland Chinatown. And in celebration of the Karen Lum a.k.a. "Hey you're the girl at the bus stop in that ethnic makeup poem!", here for you is a Slip-of-the-Tongue-O-Rama fo yo ass.

The lilpnoywizkid Version:

The James Arceo and Jaz Lovesick Version:

Adriel's "I'm Not 19 Years Old Anymore" Version:

[Download]

And of course, The Original.

Bonus: The I Never Liked The Original Recording But It's The One That Was Used And Now People Want The MP3 But I Don't Want Them To Have It But Oh God Here It Is Just Take It Version.

feed.

of montreal covers m.i.a. - jimmy

2008-01-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

wow...this is pretty gosh-darned amazing.

the original

the cover

Burgundy Bruises (Rough Draft)

2008-01-25T02:24:00.001-08:00

From the iLL-News section:

Those of you who have been to an iLL-Literacy show know that we always start by telling you that we're gonna take you on a journey. In the past few years together, we've certainly been on one, and we thank everyone who's been along for the ride.

For us, one of our great challenges is creating poetry and music that work together in just the right way that gives that special tingly feeling you get when you hear a dope ass poem, but also the longevity of your favorite song. It's not something that you really come across often, but when you do, it's magical.

Us being the picky people we are, have been through a lot of different sounds, and it's one of the reasons we still haven't dropped an album after this point...we've only wanted to give you something that WE would bump too!

The thing about journeys, though, is that it's not always just about the destination. It's about what happens during the ride, and sometimes taking wrong turns, getting lost, and finding your way back again.

With that in mind, we're going to be throwing up tracks that are still in the works, but something that we'd like you to hear. Most of the time it'll be incomplete, levels jacked up, sometimes we'll like it sometimes we won't, but it's part of the journey.

Our first track is Adriel and Ruby's "Burgundy Bruises," produced by Charlie Darker. Still working on the hook and bridge, but we laid down some rough cuts of the verses, and thought you might like to hear them. Enjoy!

Colin Monroe - I Want Those Flashing Lights (Kanye Cover)

2008-01-24T17:53:00.001-08:00

feelin it all

2008-01-23T14:29:00.001-08:00

new feist

a space not my own

2008-01-23T02:58:00.000-08:00

so the big news this week is the ill-lit myspace music feature. in all realness, it's probably the widest exposure we've gotten so far. a tiny 120x85 pixel picture of us on a webpage and all of a sudden we are rocketed into CYBER-STARDOM. in a single instant, the page that was getting around 75 hits a day starts getting 25,000. friend count doubles, interview requests roll in, kids from all over the world start messaging "cHecK oUt mY bEatZ!!!" and all from a tiny picture and a link on a webpage.

the truth is, i'm pretty thrilled...it seems so self-indulgent, so materialistic and vain. but after hibernating for most of december cranking out this new website, i suppose something like this is really all someone could ask for, right?

at the same time...maybe it's the buzz wearing off, or the eyelids getting sleepy, or the 8 days of fasting so far, but at this moment i'm called back into reality. the insecurity starts seeping in. and then it occurs to me that maybe i'm standing smack dab in the middle of my 15 minutes of fame.

but i guess i felt the same way when we were on our way to paris, and when "slip of the tongue" blew up, and at the common show. in fact, i feel that way just about every time something big pops off. at times it's a rude awakening that keeps me from fully indulging, from allowing myself to be swept into the euphoria of being hailed for the work that i've put so much of myself into. at other times, it has helped me stay grounded, and most importantly, to understand that, as great as something like a myspace feature is, it's definitely not what i hope this alllllllllllllll amounts to.

this past december, on a hotel room patio in pomona, california, ill-literacy sparked one up and watched the rain fall on the trees outside. it was our last 2007 show with all four of us, and we hadn't just opened for lauryn hill, or performed off-broadway, or taken the london tube home, or been bombarded by hundreds of fans at an after party. we had just gotten back from a gig at the pomona college cafe, to a modest crowd of 50 or so, and we all agreed that it was probably our favorite show of the year. we had connected with the audience. they were with us the whole time, all 50 of them. and that was all we needed.

"you know," sighed dahlak, "even if we stop getting gigs, and this shit never gets any bigger, i'll just be thankful for all this. we get flown out to have people listen to us speak. what more can we ask for?"

we toasted our heinekens and sat back on the lawnchairs, content in the moment but all with dreams in the backs of our heads to one day become as legendary as the sam cooke crooning from the laptop speakers.

so back to the whole myspace thing, i'm extremely thankful for the opportunity to have my work exposed to so many people...i think it's really dope, and in the past couple of days i've met some true fans that i'm so appreciative of. but i don't want to get too comfortable with all this, and if anything, i'm writing this for you to hold me accountable. for this situation, or whatever else comes masked in the face of fame, that has swept many off their feet before.

i've written a few times about summer '06, and how ruby and i would spend day after day with fade to black and tupac resurrection on repeat. the memory of that holds such significance in my head because it's truly the period in time when the concept of fame had me--owned me. we were just really a year into the game, and we were tossing around dreams of rocking madison square garden, toasting with slick rick, our lines memorized by people who don't even speak english. it's the powerful force that fueled much of the motivation that got us through the next year, and almost tore the crew apart this past june when the pressure of conforming to a format got too thick. fame--you don't have to be famous to be a victim of it.

prior to this week, during random nights i would find myself suddenly obsessed with how many myspace friends we had, or how many hits my website was getting, or how many gigs we had booked, or how much money i had in my bank account. i've never liked numbers, and it's not just because i suck at math. really, numbers can be evil and make you forget everything that you value. i'd sit and lament in front of the computer screen, mostly frustrated with myself for being so superficial (so mortal?). and then i'd ask myself--if it's really about the "how much" and "how many"--then really. how many? how many hits, or bookings, or dollars until i'm satisfied? i asked myself that question again today, as i watched the plays on our page shoot up by the minute. and the fact is, things that don't matter will never be enough.

so what's the moral of the story?

i'm starting to realize that all these things that i find myself longing for from time to time, it's just because i'm used to longing for it. sure, it's stuff that i want, but it's not anything worth ignoring everything else for. the moments that i really love, i experience on a regular basis, and i'm glad i'm catching on early enough to appreciate them while they're still happening; going to see plays with ill-lit, finding random audio clips and videos of people covering my poems, high school teachers handing me letters from their students. things like that can't ever be quantified, and won't ever be able to outshine the stuff that can be. fans like rebecca lee--i know you're reading this. for real, your support for us is dope and i want you to know that we mention you in our conversations and then we sit back and appreciate you. and all you folks who read up on me, and on us, and maybe never drop a comment, i appreciate you.

actually, yeah. basically, if you've read through everything above and you're still here with me, you're pretty freaking fresh. if you've been following these blogs, thanks for reading...you keep me honest. if you're new to these...hi. welcome to the part of the ill-literacy site that gets emo every once in awhile. i'll continue keeping y'all updated, for as long as at least some of you care to know.

ill-love,
adriel

Sam Cooke - Fool's Paradise

new N.E.R.D.

2008-01-22T00:30:00.000-08:00

wow.

N.E.R.D. - Everyone Nose

thanks jon reyes.

iLLspace

2008-01-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

sorry for the lack o real updates lately, been on the grind.

peep the afro-beat/hyphy-ness!

fast like a nascar

2008-01-20T17:26:00.000-08:00

DAY 6 OF THE LEMONADE FAST!!!! after much deliberation i have decided that i will not be extending for 10 days, being that after the fast i still have to spend about a week or so before i can get back into a normal diet, and the following events are sure to bring good eats that i'd much rather be grubbing at, instead of sitting there pitifully with a glass of cucumber juice:

1. chinese new year
2. little brotha's 18th birthday
3. mommy's 50th birthday

i do feel proud of myself of having at least enough self control to go this long, and today i rewarded myself by going on the message boards that have been oh so helpful to me throughout my fast, and being completely and utterly immature:

custard tarts, here i come.

sorry, indiana...

2008-01-20T11:09:00.001-08:00

Dr. Dog - Alaska

2008-01-17T10:17:00.000-08:00

i really dig this.

so fresh and so clean

2008-01-15T20:55:00.000-08:00

Today I started my master cleanse. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it's the diet that Beyonce did to lose 20 lbs for Dream Girls. I'm not trying to lose 20 lbs, or become a Dream Girl, but I figured it's about time to get rid of the gunk from all those Whoppers I scarfed down almost every single day throughout high school.

Day 1 isn't as bad as I was worried it would be. Guzzling a quart of saltwater at the beginning of every day is definitely not going to help make me a morning person, but the lemonade is actually quite delicious, though having that as my sole diet isn't as hearty as, say, a baby back rib diet.

The current plan is to stick with it for 7 days, leading me back into eating on the full moon. BUT if I'm doing well and don't look like E.T. at that point, I might go the extra mile for the 10-day recommended minimum. My only worry about that is that it'll lead me back to eating at our Stanford show, and I think it would be quite unbecoming of me to faint in the middle of a poem.

So why do it????? Here are some convincing stories:
Pooed out a 1974 Penny!!!
Passed a 20" tapeworm this morning

and the record industry comes a-tumbling

2008-01-15T11:55:00.001-08:00

word.

Posted by Miss Jack Davey of J*Davey

sensual seduction remix ft. lil kim

2008-01-13T14:32:00.000-08:00

They say that there are an infinite number of alternate universes out there, which means that anything that could ever happen has happened at least once, in some universe.

That means that in some alternate reality out there, Snoop and Lil Kim have formed a super duo not unlike a rap version of Sonny & Cher, where they combine Snoop's dynamic stage performances (Baby Boy, Father Hood, Doggy Fizzle Televizzle) and Lil Kim's highly acclaimed cinematic accolades (You Got Served, She's All That, the "Get Money" video), and explore the full musical masterpiece potential together.

In our own reality, we have the remix to "Sensual Seduction." Enjoi.

i found panties on the street, and you shall never challenge my oakland-ness again.

2008-01-10T02:46:00.000-08:00

I live in West Oakland. It's not necessarily the part of Oakland where people get shot up everyday, or where the Panthers centralized, or where Too $hort blows his whistle, but it's still Oakland. But sometimes, to my dismay, I'll get the twisted-face reaction, like, "Oh. West Oakland? Well, you don't live in the real Oakland then. You don't live in Awwwwkland."

I never try to over-gangsterize my life. Even if I did live in East Oakland and had to fall asleep to gunshots every night and be prepared to duck and cover at any point while walking to the store, it's not something that I'd glorify anyway. But lets make things clear. I do live in Oakland. We've been through this before. (This is a link to a blog from a long time ago so only click it if you want to get distracted. Wait. Stop reading this sidenote and let me finish my point)

All I'm saying is that I feel like I've paid my Oakland dues. If I lived in a squeaky-clean street secluded from the whole experience that comes with being an Oaklandite, then fine, I'd lay off it. But the truth is, crackheads exist in my neighborhood, and they are a part of my life. It's not like I hella interact with them on a daily basis and ask them "What's crackin" or anything, but there have been several occasions where I've found my car with the passenger side window shattered, seats smelling of King Cobra, and my CDs stolen, but only the burnt ones. The point is, I live in Oakland, dammit.

Which brings me to my next concrete example of why my apartment's Oakland-ness should never be called into question: Yesterday while walking to my car I found a pair of panties lying on the street.

The panties (from a grayscale perspective)

Even as a poet, it's difficult to describe the level of appalled-ness (appall?) on my face when I found a pair of blue women's underwear soaking in the rain, right next to my left rear wheel. Sure, I've found more extreme and disgusting things on this street--dead rats, used diapers, human feces (not inside of diapers)--but in this particular situation, it wasn't the panties themselves that were flabbergasting. Rather, it's the question as to why and how they ended up on the street, next to my car.

Now, I have to admit that it may be discriminatory on my end, but anytime I ever find something random/disgusting/mysterious on the street by my house, my automatic thought is, A crackhead did it. But when I expressed this to Ruby, she was shocked and shot back, "Adriel! Crackheads are people too!"

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the crack epidemic is a laughing matter. But a crackhead's panties lying on the street in the rain? Kinda funny.

Over the past day, I've racked my brain for the possible situations in which someone besides a crackhead might find it necessary to strip off their underwear in the middle of the street, in the rain, and toss it on the floor. And try as I might, the most reasonable explanation I can come up with is a scene where someone screams, "I'M SO HIGH ON CRACK, I CAN'T WEAR THESE ANYMORE!!!!!"

Trust me, if I could reason it in a way where I could be proud of finding a pair of wet panties in front of my doorstep, I'd be all about it.

From left to right: Car, Panties.

The Songs I Fell in Love with in 2007 (Part 1 of ?)

2008-01-04T15:47:00.000-08:00

That's the thing about love. It acts as a fickle agent in my life. One that for the longest time hasn't found a way to quite correspond with my own convoluted way of dealing with things. Blame it on the gemini. Blame it on the artist. Either way, I've learned that music is the perfect muse for someone like me, who yearns for the beautiful disastrous. Songs capture emotions into commitment-free short snippets, yet the good ones stay with you for a lifetime. They remain through your wavering preferences, and even if you abandon them for years on end, they will sound exactly the same as they did for you when you last left them. At the same time, a song that has been played hundreds of times will still find ways to surprise you, just like the perfect lover. There's always that snare, guitar solo, punchline, that you never noticed before. Once you notice it, it becomes the highlight of the song, the reason you love it, even if you already loved it dearly before. In an ideal relationship, the ever-changing reasons for being in love hardly matter, as long as it's still love.

In December while all the magazines, websites, blogs, and stuff were listing the best songs of 2007, I wanted to make a list of the songs I fell in love with throughout the year, but I couldn't do it yet. Because that's the way love is...it tends to sneak up on you. What if I fell in love with a song on December 31?

Four days later, this is my list (well, at least part of it for now). Those of you who've been with me for the ride might recognize some of these. Some of them I'm still in my honeymoon period with. I can't stop listening to them. I go to sleep fantasizing of what it must've been like to be in a smoky Detroit studio in the 60's, tapping away at keyboards and dealing with microphone feedback. Some of the songs, I don't feel as much anymore, yet the memory of that love remains strong. It'll come back around, it always does.

Parliament - P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)

Perhaps my greatest frustration throughout 2007 was my intense yearning to create music, with seemingly no means of doing it. When I first started doing poetry, most of my favorite spoken word artists were just beginning to transition out of it, into the realms of music. Just getting into it, I felt a bit abandoned. This artform that I was swooning over was apparently no longer doing it for all of my heroes. This year I felt it more than ever. If it was ever my time to jump overboard, 2007 would've been the year. I wanted to make the audience move, and dance, and shout lyrics back--and reciting poetry a cappella in front of a mic stand wasn't cutting it for me anymore.

In October I was on my way to pick up the rest of iLL-Lit for our Southern Cali tour, and I stopped by Amoeba Records in Berkeley on a whim. I decided that this weekend, I was going to get into George Clinton and Minnie Riperton (more on that later). I picked up two Parliament albums; The Motor Booty Affair and Mothership Connection. Leaving our hotel in Merced, I popped Mothership Connection into the stereo, and on our way to Santa Barbara, and that first track changed our lives.

Clinton is a genius. And all along, I was picking my brain for a way to make spoken word work on a track, but in a way that was danceable, fun, innovative, and not overly preachy. Whenever I told people about my mission, I arrogantly explained it as "something that hasn't been done before." Wrong was I. Clinton is a genius. Need proof of the influence he's had on me since then? Check out iLL-Literacy's new intro about 1:30 into this.

Blog down memory lane:
07.04.07: wannabe a music man

Mark Ronson - Oh My God (Ft. Lily Allen)

So for real, I've been rooting for Amy Winehouse since I copped her first album wayyyyyyy back in 03. And I know it's perhaps a bit discriminatory, but I had to join the bandwagon and go on a comparison spree with fellow Brit pop sensation Lily Allen (though they are really of two separate genres, have totally different types of music, and are essentially very different from each other), and as much as I fought it, Lily Allen takes the cake in 08.

My first memory of Lily Allen is me standing in front of the new releases rack at Best Buy, on the phone with my friend Helene.

A: So I'm really digging the cover of this CD by this girl Lily Allen. Should I get it?

H: Ehhhhh she's okay.

A few months later I found myself on a plane to London, specifically on a mission to be drinking whatever water Lily, Amy, Mark Ronson, the Arctic Monkeys, Dizzy Razcal, and all the other artists that I was majorly digging that spring were drinking. Ironically, the person who sent me this song: Helene.

Blog down memory lane:
06.17.07: lilyyyyyyyyyyyyyy (allen show in brooklyn)

Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (Paste Black Remix)

2006 was my year of trippy spaced out electronica muzik. 2007 was the year for that music, except hella spazzed out. Probably also fueling my eventual trip to Europe was all those crazy discotequeish-have-a-seizure songs coming out of France. I really resisted this music for awhile actually, being that I couldn't imagine myself listening to it without wearing a mesh muscle shirt and a pink faux hawk, but I finally figured out how to pump it while still staying thug. Plus, the video for this song kicks ass.

UGK - International Players Anthem (Ft. Outkast)

Um, besides the fact that Andre and Big Boi kill it?

This was my favorite song to introduce to people all throughout the spring. I specifically remember the looks on the faces of Jose and Dahlak when I first played Andre's verse. It was a mix of "whaaaaaat theeeee fuuuuuuuuuuck" and "ohhhhhhh myyyyyyy godddddd." I don't know if this is my favorite Andre verse of 07, but this along with "Walk it Out," "Throw Some D's," "Art of Storytellin' 4," "What a Job," and "30 Something" have definitely thrown homie back on as my favorite emcee.

Not to dismiss the spectacularness of UGK, of course. Pimp in peace, Mr. C.

M.I.A. - Paper Planes

My first memory of this: at the Bay Area fundraiser barbecue for the APIA Spoken Word Summit. Jason Bayani taking a swig from his brewskie and saying, "Ahhhhh...this song is so GREAT." Yesshh. This might be my feelgood song of the year. I still haven't decided if my favorite aspect of this song is the beginning buildup, the effect on her voice, or the gunshots. Lets just say it's one of my favorite songs of 2007. Kapish? Kapish. Kapish? Kapish.

Janis Joplin - Summertime (Ft. Jimi Hendrix)

The Summer of Love was in 1967, and I happened to catch it 40 years late, but I still caught it nonetheless. Shortly before leaving for New York in June, I was at a used bookstore in Oakland and grabbed a copy of Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix. This was also around the time that Rolling Stone, the magazine that I tend to pick up at airports, was celebrating their big 40 year anniversary as well, with plenty of good hippie fun. I became incredibly obsessed with Jimi, and along the lines also got deep into Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, and the Beatles.

One afternoon in the Harlem apartment we were staying in, I read about how Jimi was living in Harlem and decided to fly to London with just $50 in his pocket, and it completely shifted the course of his life. Soonafter, I booked my flight to London. Did it completely shift the course of my life? Yeah.

So this song isn't a Hendrix song, but he kills it in the solo of this live version. And not to bag on Winehouse again, but Janis makes Amy sound like a white girl.

Blog down memory lane:
07.08.07: back in the bay: experienced
07.09.07: at the risk of morbidity
08.29.07: on the london debut

The Beatles - I Want You (She's So Heavy)

07 was the year that I finally started really understanding the Beatles. My, I've changed from my college sophomore self, who refused to listen to John Lennon because I was convinced he had an Asian fetish. Sorry 2003 Adriel, but John SHREDS. Plus it's rather comforting to know that even the Beatles could relate to the despair of love. I thought I was the only one that wants you, that wants you so ba-a-a-ad.

This song was Jose's way of returning my "whaaaaaat theeeeeeee fuuuuuuuuuuck" moment. No better way to hear it than on an original vinyl print of Abbey Road.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving to San Jose with Phatrick and he skipped past in the middle of the song, and I was pissed for the rest of the ride.

DO NOT STOP THE SONG BEFORE IT IS FINISHED. The ending is the best part. It is the best song ending. In the world.

Kanye West - Good Morning (Intro)

I must admit, I got the bootleg to Graduation hella early and have been bumping it for a good portion of the year. People are always quite intrigued that my favorite track is the first track of the album. It's this first track curse I guess, that's like "what...you didn't like the rest of the album?" I think also because the song is named "Intro." I myself used to skip the first track of albums, now they're extremely necessary to me, especially the first time I hear an album in its entirety.

But all of that doesn't quite pertain to Graduation because in the bootleg it was towards the end of the album, giving it a similar irony as "Good Morning" in Reflection Eternal's Train of Thought(which is my favorite track from that album).

I've always been a pretty unapologetic Kanye fan, throughout his ups and downs. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that I was living in Chicago the summer before College Dropout was released. I had devoured all the mixtapes...Get Well Soon, Kon the Louis Vuitton Don, High School Dropout...yeah. Jockin. Graduation got me through a lot of my trip in England. Over there, Kanye, Jay-Z, and Rihanna are pretty much the only American celebrities that the tabloids don't crazy bash on.

Memories of "Good Morning" while sitting in a sunny hostel lounge in London. Gotta Love It.

Blog Down Memory Lane:
01.19.07: self versus self verses

to be continued...gonna go watch juno. again.

if i kick a baby in the face,

2008-01-02T11:49:00.000-08:00

gangsta rap made me do it.

2 of 366

2008-01-02T03:00:00.000-08:00

yesterday we started a new blog called 366, where every day of the year someone from ill-lit will post a new shindig. today (jan 2) was my turn. click here to peep.

dahlak's on tomorrow.

am i legend

2008-01-02T02:24:00.001-08:00

i always thought minnie riperton's voice was extremely sexy. my first memory of her is from a burger king commercial for the croissanwich with bacon, egg, and cheese, that aired when i was in the 10th grade. i remember feeling all hot and flustered while minnie's voice crooned the lyrics to "lovin' you" in the background of the provocative camera angles of the steamy breakfast sandwich. especially the part where she goes, "and everytime that we...mmmm," i recall feeling very tingly, and every hungry.

a couple of months ago i resolved to finally pick up a minnie riperton record so i could see what all the hype was about. i ended up choosing a CD called Minnie Riperton: Her Chess Years. Included in this is a sample of her earlier pre-fame work, most of which is with Rotary Connection, the band she sang in before pursuing a solo career.

rotary connection has taken the cake as my favorite 60's/70's band, and possibly my favorite band of all time. the sound in songs like "magical world" and "let them talk" demonstrate how ahead of their time they were--and how they were absolute geniuses in the harmony of voice and instrument.

even though minnie is now cited as one of soul music's greatest legends, her band rotary connection never got "big" outside of their midwest region. aggressively experimental, thus inherently uncommercial, commercial success just wasn't something that resulted from their wonderful musical formula. even still, rotary connection has been sampled by a slew of the greats, including eric b and rakim, jay-z, souls of mischief, and nuyorican soul. that string sample on tribe's "bonita applebaum" and fugees' "killing me softly?" that's from rotary connection's "memory band."

i've been craving fame so much lately, but when it comes down to it, it's really that i long to be legendary. to sit on the shelves of nostalgia, have anthologies and black & white photo journals. for my work to blare from the speakers of cars parked starry nights forty years from now, and still exist to wake up some sleeping giant inside the listener. i think i'm really starting to realize that. in this age of numbers. and counting. of myspace friends, and website hits, and song downloads, and record sales. but all that is fame. legends don't need to exist within the confines of fame. it's not how many people know the legend, it's how long into the ages the legend stays alive.

last night at my parents' house while rummaging through my old magazines i found a 1998 issue of the source featuring outkast. almost 10 years ago, when aquemini was released. so correction about rotary connection--outkast is my favorite band of all time, if i can call them a band. and in the 9th grade when i picked up aquemini, i only listened to the singles. i skipped past "liberation" and "spottieottiedopaliscious," two songs that have at some point completely altered my life. but not in the 9th grade, when i was just beginning to pry myself from my puff daddy craze, grabbing at outkast because i dug the harmonica solo in "rosa parks" and raekwon was on one of the tracks and back then being interested in anything having anything to do with wu-tang was considered way way cool. i wonder if i would've been into outkast earlier, if i had listened to ATLiens (which i did buy, but didn't get to listen to because my dad threw it away when he saw a drawing of a nude woman showering in slime on the cd printing). but once again, it doesn't really matter when i discovered them, because the music itself is timeless. to think that album is almost a decade old, or that i've been following a group of artists for that long, blows my mind.

the article in the source focuses much on what people still focus on with outkast--rumors of them breaking up, questions of how they maintain while being so different from each other. andre says that people should just listen to the music. and if they like it, they like it. word.

so what does it take to be a legend? how deeply do you have to burrow into the consciousness of someone? how addicted to they have to be to your music, or voice, or movements, or philosophy? perhaps fame vs. legend is the ultimate quantity vs. quality cliche. or maybe it's not. maybe the dream is to have your cake and eat it too. to not only be brilliant, but to be recognized for it. like hendrix, and the beatles, and outkast. or maybe it can be just as magical as rotary connection, a mere footnote in today's standards yet such a definitive entity in my recent experience on this earth. because when i hear their songs, it doesn't matter how famous they were back then, or how large their concert crowds were, or how many records they sold in their first weeks. it's simply the fact that they've given me songs that i want to hear every single day, sometimes on repeat, and burning deep in me is a thirst to one day make something sound so magnificent.

i begin this new year wanting to keep less tabs. to stop quantifying my concepts of success, fulfillment, and legend. to simply do what feels magical, and have faith it will find its way into those who will take it. like me and dahlak and rotary connection, and how after learning of their humble regional fanbase, dahlak smiled and said, "and now look! it's in our lives."

i'm thankful for being in yours.

love, driz

so radiohead might've had a bigger start to the new year than ill-literacy

2008-01-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

even though we both released hour-long movies today. i've posted radiohead's video, you know, as an olive branch. you see that, thom? cross promotion. i expect to see cuckoo for cucamonga on your page pronto!

well, i decided that one website is easier to update than two, so as you faithful adrizzle.com readers may notice, my blog has been engulfed by ill-literacy.com. it's much better this way. besides, i'm sure you were all sick of watching that same self hatred video from 2004.

anyway, i'm quite excited about this new year. lots of good good teengs in the mix. are you ready? i promise i'll do what i can to ease you into this transition away from teh flying microphones and such.

the first step: no more annoying frames on this website!

(the newbies have no idea what i'm talking about)

welcome to 08 baby!

there are some things that exist just to make the world funny.

2007-12-30T01:59:00.001-08:00

the cd was the diplomats album.

flo-rida

2007-12-30T01:24:00.000-08:00

it's been a crazy holiday season. getting all the ingredients ready to make cake in 08.

but i felt like i needed to inform you that there is now a rapper by the name of flo-rida. i haven't heard his music or anything yet. i just wanted you to know that recently, somewhere (probably in florida), somebody who flows (raps) and who also considers himself a rider, was thinking about the word "florida" and realized that if he added a hyphen in the middle of the word, he could be a flo-rida (a rida of words).

that is all.

anticipating.

2007-12-25T01:45:00.001-08:00

for the past month or so i've been trying to write declarations each morning to kick of my days. most of them have been private or just shared with my close close folks. i wanted to share this one with all of you though. word.

christmas morning is so saturated. with anticipation, expectation, and of course the residues of memory. perhaps "residues of memory" is a redundant term. I remember when I remember anticipating christmas. I'm not sure if I remember anticipating christmas, per say. I am in the realization that some things do die with childhood. and it's not necessarily a bad thing. we look at youth as something so beautiful, and it is. but there are beauties that are left better off left to youthfulness. they say that one isn't able to understand abstract concepts until around the age of 9. being a poet, My world kind of revolves around these abstract concepts. being a poet is an abstract concept in itself. I still check Myself sometimes, try to understand how I fit into this skin living outside the grasps of a 9-5, cashing odd checks from schools I've never heard of, obsessing over the internet fame of those who may only dream of trickling past the borders of a web browser. Me, I create My world. I wear that like a badge. I tell it to people and at times it may sound like boasting but really, I'm just trying to convince myself that what I do is valid. We live in a society where "creating worlds" isn't understood as a job. though We were created in the image of the Creator. We clock in to Our office buildings, storefronts, cubicles, to maintain, not to create.

for the first time ever, I'm beginning this year as a creator. not mid-semester, or in the middle of a fiscal year, simply by the obstacles that I set Myself. by the strength of god I release any sort of longing or withdrawal from institution. it's a scary thing to begin a year without a syllabus to await, or a boss to answer to. extremely liberating, but also incredibly scary. since quitting My job, there have been many "fuck it" nights. as in, nights where I would normally feel like I need to sleep early because I have to wake up for work or for class, or for something higher to answer to, but then I realize that there is nothing and no one I am accountable to but Myself, ultimately. at the same time, it's sometimes difficult to differentiate the difference between not having a reason to wake up on time, and not having a reason to wake up at all.

not necessarily out of sadness, or emptiness, or purposelessness. just the fact that it's an incredibly abstract concept to grasp that one could ever be in a situation where one must make a commitment to oneself, and that that commitment is more powerful than what could ever exist with any other. when You're following Your dreams, there is no report card, or employee evaluation, or progress report, or fear of getting fired. it's really just about waking up each morning with the hope that whatever awaits you in the next 16 hours or so just might be better than whatever Your wildest imagination was able to muster up in the past 8.

and so this christmas I find Myself, reflecting, simply because there's not much that I remember about last christmas. at this very moment I don't even remember any presents I got, or what I did that day a year ago, or even what I gave to other people. come to think of it, there isn't much that i remember about my past 24 christmases either. ironic for a day that is so ingrained in my head as the most anticipated day of the year. what is it about this day that allows us to count down, create music mixes, reflect for hours about creating perfect gifts, gather with our tribes, form endless nostalgias for, if in the end we're just going to forget most of it 365 days later?

My brother and parents left for church an hour ago, and I feel pretty crappy about opting not to go, so I could finish watching superbad instead. I completely admire and respect my brother for sticking with his guns and going to the christmas eve service. I've been thinking about this, and how I also used to make it a point to go to church christmas eve no matter what. I've been thinking about whether this is an indication that I love, appreciate, acknowledge, relate to god less. but really, what I need to understand that it's never been about christmas. christmas is just a day. and days are simply terms to name periods of time, such as hours, and minutes, and seconds, and other units used to snag moments that are easily forgotten anyway.

I suppose it's not really christmas that I always anticipated, or that I miss. rather, it's a day that has been culturally recognized as a time where We are allowed to stop everything that We're doing to think about what We love. We have every excuse to not check our email, or answer phone calls, or return texts, or pay bills, or run errands, because all We're obligated to do is chill and reflect on what We love about Our lives. and what I love about My life is simply everything that has amounted to create who I am at this very instant. sitting in a suburb livingroom with a penn state hoodie and sweatpants, pikachu slippers and heater on full blast. I love the rotary connection playing from My speakers, and I love that this year I found a band to be obsessed with. I love the fact that I've lost track of how many moments this year I stopped to muse on the fact that I was in a state of complete bliss, even if that bliss lasted for only a split second. I love that we spent at least half of our family party talking and listening to music, rather than entering the house, plopping on the couch, and plugging into the television like a bunch of robots. I love that there is movement in My veins and in the branches of the luis family tree. I love that there is progress in the love movements that I have chosen to be involved in. and I love the fact that the universe has assigned Me the task of documenting all of this in poems, songs, and random journal entries.

the other day while shopping I overheard a greeter at the store stop herself mid-speech. it went something like, "thanks for shopping here! merry chri--i mean...have a good day."

I completely understand the political correctness of her self-editing. I understand cultural and religious sensitivity. I understand all of this. at the same time, I understand celebration and nurturing of the existence of Self. and Self involves Creator. it involves understanding the difference between editing oneself by uplifting others, and editing oneself by wilting inside. so for the sake of my own Existence, I must celebrate and nurture the existence of myself as a lover of the creator, and the fact that there are days where i feel the need to refer to Him as Christ, and there are other days where i need to refer to Her as Universe, and yet others where no Name exists for me to turn to and so I look into Myself for the nameless answers.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I need to understand that I'll never be able to anticipate christmas the way I did when I was a kid, making felt pine trees and styrofoam snowballs and cotton snowmen, camping out in the living room for santa, anticipating the most divine of presents (which back then were limited to "ninja turtles 2" on nintendo). I need to focus less on anticipating this one day of the year, and appreciate the fact that I've found more in each day than i ever have before. and I need to build that momentum. long gone are the nights where I couldn't sleep because I was so juiced about the christmas morning after. rather, let each day be so ripe of contentment that My eyes collapse shut each night from joy's overcapacity.

I am honored to share this life with You, friends. thank You for existing in this time period with Me. thank You for being My reason for being.

love, adriel

yeah...

2007-12-24T11:34:00.001-08:00

i'm totally over this website's design. aren't you?

iLL-Literacy: The Movie (Trailer)

2007-12-23T18:02:00.000-08:00

premieres january 1.

dj phatsick

2007-12-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

today chinaka and i visited and brought reading materials to fellow pretty buoyant dj phatrick (yes, even dj's get sick), who checked himself into the ER this morning for stomach problems, which i'm sure has nothing to do with our night-o-debauchery on wednesday. he's thinking it might be appendicitis, but regardless of what it is we're all pulling for that tiger get through it.

i brought phatty my in-the-car-for-while-on-the-go muses which included the GQ: Man of the Year issue, stephen colbert's I Am America and So Can You, and a children's menu from olive garden. chinaka brought a plethora of the finest childen's books, but only at the the highest standards deserved of the glorious Chinaka Hodge, such as toni morrison's the book of mean people (see how i capitalized Chinaka's name and not even toni morrison's? godly she is).

from me and chinaka's conversation on the way to the hospital.

chinaka: so what happened?

adriel: he says it might be appendicitis, but he's had it for 3 days already. i was with him the night it started hurting...i don't remember him jumping around after eating...but he was SPINNING.

har. har. har. in the car.

but yo...check out the ditter! all flossy allover print, courtesy of the alameda county hospital, son. EAT THAT, STUSSY!

phatrick as kanye west. me as stephen colbert.

kanye west and stephen colbert as my gonads.

and peep his identification band. phatty found a japanese dude working at the hospital to ask why his race is "o," and guess what it stands for??????? that's right. oriental.

thank roo, come again.

rolland in the dough

2007-12-22T20:43:00.000-08:00

i don't usually blog about my worldly possessions, but these new rolland berry supercourts have got me more juiced than a carrot in a berkeley co-op! each pair is made from different fabric scraps from 60's and 70's vintage cloth, which means that each is one of a kind. haaaaaayyyyyyy.

the bottom line: they shit on your bapes.

they were a bit bourgie compared to me normal $40-per-pair shoe budget, but i figured, i'm down to pay extra to know that my shoes were stitched together by a rich white dude rather than a kid in malaysia.

mightymighty

2007-12-22T20:20:00.000-08:00

so i've been a bit of a flakybaky the last couple of days...been flaking on going out, didn't even go to dahlak's show on thursday (i know, i know). i get like this when i'm really really hypnotized by a project. my latest one? the ill-literacy movie. more on that later.

i DID go to the j*davey/platinum pied pipers/trackademicks show last night at the mighty in SF, which was ridiculoso. dem good. jack davey continues to be the shit.

speaking of trackademicks, his new remix tape is hottttttt fiyah. you should cop it.

nico's other crew

2007-12-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

ruby interviews the getback. now aren't we just one big incestuous family??

m.i.a. - paper planes

2007-12-17T19:08:00.000-08:00

possibly the song of the year.

in case you plan on stalking me this week,

2007-12-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

me and dahlak are taking the long way back from LA so i might be a bit hard to track down for the next couple of days. BUT:

wednesday

thursday

friday

saturday

come play.

right up your ali

2007-12-15T13:11:00.000-08:00

Phatrick and I kicked it with the dope timeless brilliant Ali Wong on the Pretty Buoyant Show this past Thursday. Important topics covered, such as Bay Area Asian pop from the 90's and Chinese ladies that collect cans.

Listen here, snitches!

pretty buoyant society: schizophrenic love (rough draft)

2007-12-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

okay, so i was really going to be all super incognito about the pretty buoyant society project but phatrick is adamant about playing it tonight on the pretty buoyant show.

bay area cats tune in to 94.1FM at 7 for some goodness. but i DID promise y'all that you'd be the first to hear it, so here goes...levels all random, vocals in the home studio, no second verse yet, far from finished but still very very fun, if i do say so myself.

so here you go, my friends. a taste. indulge while you can, i'll probably pull it down in a couple of days.....

let me know what you think!

hey! hey!

2007-12-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

so i've been pretty top secret about my music project with dj phatrick, pretty buoyant society. i'm quite shy about it, but i must say we're stirring up some hot hot hotnessss and rest assured that you, faithful blogreaders, shall be the first to taste.

for now, i'll let you know that the first single is called "schizophrenic love," and it's fun as hell.

this is us at a recording session. it doesn't reveal much, but you get to see ruby diligently adlib the shiznit out of the hook.

a day in the life of a bachelor pad: a phlog

2007-12-12T03:01:00.000-08:00

The Beatles - I Want You (She's So Heavy)

I've lived with women my entire life. Well, there was first semester of sophomore year when me and three other dudes from my dorm building thought it would be a bro-fully good idea to crowd into an apartment together. But that was short-lived, as I moved out after four months, on the basis that I didn't enjoy waking up in the mornings with testicles drawn on my forehead and mini post-it notes arranged all over my chest.

Since then, most of my roommates have been women, and it's suited me rather well (a.k.a. no coming home to questionable "crime scenes" in the bathroom complete with soggy Maxim magazines). Even still, part of me wonders if I'm missing out on something--some aspect of being a young single man of the male species, having never partaken in frats or rugby or lifting triangular weights with waxed mustaches or whatever else manly-men do while I'm off writing poems and having conversations with trees.

And that's where Jose's apartment comes in. Jose Vadi. Those of you who find the name familiar might recognize him from this tasty tidbit:*

That was from a FreeVibe ad back in '04. A lot has changed since then. Let's just say Jose's the Cheech to my Chong (pff, of course I'd be Chong). The Harold to my Kumar (or maybe I'd be Harold. I guess ethnically, I'd be Harold and Jose would be Cheech, but there's no movie starring the two of them together). This is the guy who once spontaneously hopped a roadtrip with me to Portland with a bag of green shoes and strong ambition to get over our respective summer breakups with our respective ex-girlfriends. Last year he left for six months to work at a left-wing thinktank in DC, which eventually brought him to investigate government involvement in perpetuating (the country) Columbia's drug trafficking industry. Now Jose's back in Oakland with his fellow Berkeley alums Camilo and Jimmy, where on a regular basis they indulge in their extensive vinyl collection and trips to the Purple Heart Cafe. So like I said, a lot has changed.

Jose and his roommates are in no way the frat-bro-overflowing-with-mutant-testosterone types**. At first glance they're residues of the punk movement, often found kicking back as a trio of black hoodies and plaid button-ups (long before plaid became the new Urban Outfitter fetish). When everyone's home, you don't find shoes lined up at the front door--you find skateboards. Beaten up and aged, they're sprawled against whatever furniture happens to be nearby, overseen by a shrine of "decased" decks lined up across a makeshift mantle in the living room. But don't get the punk nature mixed up with the emo-core cats you pass by at Hot Topic. My countless chill sessions with Jose have trained me in the true essence of punkness--care-freely revolting against anything and everything, even if it's itself. That's why at any given moment the musical selection could switch abruptly from The Clash to Clipse. Or you'll come across moments like Friday night, when I played the new Lil Kim remix to Britney Spears' "Gimme More" (cleverly named "Kimmie More") to Camilo, who upon hearing it I expected to immediately spew out a mouthful of Hefe, but instead sat reflectively and commented, "I'm not sure how I feel about this song, but so far, I likes."

Needless to say, Jose doesn't live in the Animal House, but still, their apartment is a bachelor pad for the ages. Located dead in between Oakland's Chinatown and Lake Merrit, the outer walls of the building are a tacky salmon tint that's so vintage it was probably vintage in the vintage days. Camilo's view from his bedroom window is a McDonald's drive-thru, which provides an ironically comforting aura of buzzing neon lights in the evenings. Immediately upon stepping into the elevator you're flooded with the sweet aroma of alcohol and cigarette butts, often empty 40 bottles propped against the corner. Passing by the apartments down the hall you can sometimes get a whiff of up to seven species of dro seeping underneath the doors. Once inside, it's an of course moment. The walls, floor, and every other surface is laced predictably with the unpredictable.

Since he moved back to Cali this past summer, Jose's apartment has been a staple in my periodic moments of Bay life in between touring. I spend only slightly less time there than I do at my own spot (I know that's not saying much since I'm hardly ever home, but basically I'm over often enough to have knocked out to Dazed and Confused more than once). Jose is one of the smartest, most interesting people I know, and thus I find myself sparking with him often. I'm not sure what we ever really talk about, but whatever it is, we never run out of things to say about it. Everyone needs their getaway sometimes. Luckily, mine's just down the street. Maybe it's something in the air, but lately I've found a fascination in being home that can't be experienced anywhere else, and I'd like to share that with you.

So I present to you: Jozee's Houzee, a.k.a. A Day In the Life of a Bachelor Pad

The Living Room: This is where you'll find us 95% of the time, when we're not in the kitchen making quesadillas. It has everything you need in your evening. Even with the hundreds of cable channels, the television is consistently playing VH1 Soul, Cartoon Network, and old Elizabeth Taylor flicks. Never with volume on. All ears are devoted to the record player to the side of the room that hardly ever turns off. The latest on rotation have been Animals, and late-era Beatles (mostly Abbey Road with some White Album sprinkled in). And yes, that's the Apollonia 6 lined up against the wall.

The Kitchen: Whenever I decide to cut down on dairy, I get pulled back in by Jose's diet. All that has ever come out of that kitchen are pizzas and mac&cheese. As a result, on the healthier days we'll make the trek to the taco truck on International.***

Jose's Room: When Jose was living at his co-op in Berkeley, his walls were sky blue, and on good days it felt like we were hanging out on a cloud. In his Oakland apartment he's gone for the straight white, but they're far from baron. Whatever lack of color is made up for by random posters and paper discoveries. And the peach leather couch they found on the street a couple of weeks ago.

The Living Room Again: The other day Jose pointed me to a wall of notes the roommates have left for each other during moments of debauchery. There's a particular feeling of completeness during the rare moments when all three of them are home...it's like all the Planeteers coming together. There's plenty of shittalking. Furniture gets rearranged. And then they all leave at the same time.

Jose's moving back to LA for a few months to hang out with his grandpa. I'm going through a similar conundrum as I did when he left for DC, scrambling to figure out what I'm going to do during those countless hours I would usually find myself hanging out at his place. Perhaps more opportunities to find my other Oakland staples. Or maybe I just need to replace my record player so I can spin vinyl at my own place.

*From an earlier text conversation:

Adriel: i just figured out how to download your drug-free commercial. i NEED your permission to youtube.

Jose: omg. shit...

Adriel: it will complete the blog. it's like the 7th dragonball. NO PRESSURE NO PRESSURE!!!

Jose: fine. u owe me some unhealthy food and/your drinks. what u doing? we gettin fucked up

Adriel: i'm in bed. how lame am i?

Jose: fuck that, get drunk. or come over around noon for brunch. camilos making french toast.

Adriel: oh shit french toasting. perhaps. i shall call tomorrow.

Jose: u have to put the text convo in the blog.

**To this Camilo would say:
"Why can't we be the frat-bro-overflowing-with-mutant-testosterone types??

***Taco truck blog coming soon.

this dogg pound song is very good.

2007-12-12T00:03:00.000-08:00

YUCK! the beat on this is disgusting. you need this in your life.

tha dogg pound - they don't want it