Das Racist - Mixtapes

Das Racist is the most exciting thing in Hip-Hop right now. I like it so much, I literally cannot listen to other music. I'm addicted to them the way I imagine Alcoholics are addicted to booze. But there is no Das Racist Anonymous and I'm pretty sure there are no detrimental side effects, aside from freestyling in my car when I should be watching the road, so I'm going to share my favorite stuff with you.

I've only dug into the free mixtapes so far, "Shut Up, Dude" and "Sit Down, Man." They also have a for-profit album titled "Relax" but I want to stretch this "so-excited-I-can't-believe-how-good-what-I'm-listening-to-is" feeling out for as long as I can, so I'm putting off listening to it until the month of October. Last time I liked two albums this this much was last year with the one-two punch of "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" and "Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager." I'm not going to try to come up with a definitive statement about who they are or what they are trying to say that's not already in their name. But they are from Queens and met at Wesleyan, if you care about stuff like that.

They don't have any songs I would consider less than excellent (with the possible exception of the original mixes of "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" and "One Dollar Can" but those are joke songs). Their music is dance-able, insightful and hilarious all at the same time while having an abundance of those lines that make you go "Oh shit," stop the track and rewind 10 seconds. Every day I have a new favorite song, but these are the front-runners right now.

Shut Up, Dude

Who's That? Broooown!



Nutmeg


Shorty Said


Sit Down, Man

rapping 2 U

This is actually my favorite song, maybe ever. Since a first heard it, not a day has gone by where I've listened to it less than 6 times.


you can sell anything (prod by Diplo)

This has one of my favorite lines from anything ever:
"Label's like, 'Maybe we can cake off the weirdos'
Ok - plug your nose, here goes
Caveman porn star riding on a unicorn
Undercover cop, and I'm wearing a uniform
Plus I wrote all of my rhymes in cuneiform
Hella years ago, B.C., you better be informed"

rooftop


Mixtapes available for download here

Funkmaster Flex Really Likes "Otis"

Funkmaster Flex really likes the new Jay & 'Ye track Otis(sorry about the link, couldn't find an embeddable version). How much does he like it? He likes it so much that it takes him 19 minutes to premier a 3 1/2 minute song. He continually stops to drop bombs, rewinds to listen to the parts he likes("HAHA! He said he was gonna call the Paparazzi on HIMSELF!!") and talks shit- "If you new rappers go home and reasses your choices and your career! You rappers only breathe at certain times of the year, this is not one of them!"

 The choice quote is of course- "New York city you listen to me, if you're near a convenience store, any type of 24 hour store, go in the store right now in and put your hand in the cash register for no reason. That money is your money! As of right now!"

And you know what, it's completely awesome, both for it's ridculousness and because it is 100% sincere. This guy fucking loves this song And why wouldn't he? It's a hot track from two of the hottest rappers... ever. No hyperbole. The great thing is, he isn't pretending to be too cool to have a reaction, which I feel is rare. Funkmaster Flex is not only watching the throne, he is completely transfixed by it's shininess.

Though, of course, if you want the height of rap ridiculousness in 2011 look no further than this:

My Bio

I just moved across the country for work. My new boss wanted to send out an email welcoming me to the team, so she asked me for a short bio. I sent her the following:

"Like many men who went on to change the world, Christopher spent the first 12 years of his life being raised by wolves. After mastering the art of the kill, his lupine parents packed him up and sent him away to Space School on the moon. It was there he first developed his passion for lasers and achieved Master Carpenter Status. He attended College University State where he Triple Majored in Government, Business and Being Radical with a minor in keg stands. Christopher is fluent in 17 fictional languages; including Elvish, Klingon and pig-latin; and can multiply any two numbers in his head if allowed the use of a calculator. His favorite color is rainbow and he has counted to infinity twice. His hobbies include Dinosaurs, Satellite Telemetry and Sculpy and he hopes to one day get advanced degrees in the “Three Rs” Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic. Chris Wieman is 6’1”, blonde-haired, blue eyed and bemused. His best friend is Bigfoot, his sister is a chupacabra and his childhood pet is Babe: Pig in the City. He spent a year in college speaking only in rhyme but he thinks he could do it again, given the time."

I also sent her a more heavily edited version. It's unclear which she will use.

The Hunger Games (If I Wrote it)

Earlier today my friend posted this on Twitter: "Just because the intended audience is YA is no excuse for crappy, lazy writing. Shameful, Suzanne Collins!! #hungergames #pretentiousreader"

I have never read a word of the Hunger Games, but I am aware of the books. My aunt, who is a teacher, was raving about them last time I saw her. Anyway, after reading my friends Tweet this scene popped into my head fully formed. It has no bearing on the premise of the books.

If I wrote hunger games (lazily, crappily and shamefully):

(A guy and girl are seated playing a game of Scrabble. The guy plays "Hamburger")

Guy: 17! And double word score makes it 34. Pretty good!

Girl: Fuck, that word is crazy long. How did you pull that off?

Guy: It helped that you played Ham last turn.

Girl: Right, but that's an acronym: Hard As a Motherfucker. You have to imagine the periods. What you built off my word is not in the spirit of what I played.

Guy: Are you serious right now? I'm pretty sure the Scrabble dictionary wasn't written by Wocka Flocka Flame.

Girl: (smirks) fiiiine

(Girl plays "Burrito")

Girl: Blegh, only 9 points.

Guy: Valiant effort though. I'm starting to notice a theme to our games.

Girl: Me losing?

Guy: No, they always end up revolving around food. First Candy Land, now this.

Girl: Two things do not make a trend.

Guy: Have you also forgotten that I am Takeru Kobayashi, the world's most famous competitive eater?

Girl: Oh my god you're right, it's almost like we're playing some sort of ... Hunger Games!

(Both the guy and girl slowly turn and stare directly into the camera)

Guy: Oh shit! Look at this! I wasn't even thinking but look at what I just played.

(They slowly turn to look at the board. Camera zooms in to a tight shot of his last play- "Symbolism")

Girl: 19 points. Bingo...

(Cue the sound effect they played during "Lost" right before commercial breaks)
.......................

Hollywood, just post in the comments if you are interested in the rest of my script.


I also started thinking about other Hunger Games:

The Game of Cinnamon Life

Apples to Apple Pie

Scrapple

Hide and Seek out the nearest McDonalds

CraniYUM

Candy Land


*With apologies to Nate Cosby, whom I stole the (If I Wrote It) idea from

Green Lantern

Note: This is my first post in a while. If it's a little rusty (read: shitty), please keep that in mind.

I knew from the first trailer that Green Lantern was going to be, from my completely subjective nerd perspective, either the best or the worst thing I'd ever seen. I'd heard all the negative hype but then again I liked Daredevil, so I knew I was the target demographic. Walking into the movie I was (extremely) cautiously optimistic.

Walking out I was underwhelmed, to the point of disappointment. The movie wasn't terrible, it just wasn't very good. In fact it was so very much not very good as to be bad. The performances were decent, and I walked into the theater already sold on the premise and in love with the characters, but I think what did not work boiled down to a couple things:

1. Pacing

The movie seemed designed to specifically undercut any tension or excitement that was building throughout the movie. An action scene would start to ramp up, placing our characters in real danger and then... they fly away and talk about stuff for 5-10 minutes. The all-too short training montage occurs giving us a sense of what the GL corps is about and then... Hal Jordan quits and whines about it for another half hour. Even the final action sequence goes: introduction of the final villain with a fight, fly to the outskirts of the city to watch him and talk about fighting some more, slow-paced scene showing how menaing the villain is, the fight. Why not cut out the fat in the middle? We know Parallax is scary, you spent the entire movie trying to show us that. Every time the movie felt like it was going somewhere, it just stopped dead in its tracks. And don't get me started about starting the movie with 7 minutes of pure exposition.

Despite the movie being two hours long I didn't feel like I got to spend significant time with any characters or that very much got done. I wanted to see more of the Green Lantern Corps. I wanted events to feel like they logically followed one another. I wanted people to do awesome things with their rings to really show the potential of the premise.

None of those things happened. God willing, this makes a ton of money so we can see a sequel that is better-written.

2. Shallow character development

Ryan Reynolds version of Hal Jordan is a bizarre mix of Hal from the comics, who is a self-absorbed brash asshole, and Kyle Rayner, who is more insecure in the Spider-Man "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" Mode. What we get is an "Immature adult, Insecure asshole, so if you fall on the concrete, that's yo ass fault" (Kanye West- See Me Now), whose personality seems totally incongruous. Are you all the asshole who charges in with no regard for others or the guy who is paralyzed by the fear of commitment? Can you be both?

I'm not sure if anyone changed from the beginning to the ending of this movie in any way that made sense. And I'm not sure that I cared about any of the character that I met. Also, given all the time they spent designing the Green Lanterns on OA, I would have liked to spend more time with them. I love Kilowog in the comics. In the movies I can muster apathy at best, mild distaste at worst.

Sinestro, on the other hand was fucking awesome. I want an entire movie about Sinestro. In fact I'm pretty sure thats what Green Lantern 2 would be. Please make this movie. Hector Hammond was also fairly well-done but not given any room to grow beyond his one dimension. It was also unclear if he was supposed to be creepy the entire time, or if his physical transformation was intended to transform his personality as well as his appearance. I believe they were going for the latter, but I didn't feel I got to know his character well enough pre- giant forehead to be sure.

3. Dialogue

Painful. So painful. Geoff Johnsian even. I half expected Kilowog to go "Face it, you're just too Green, Lantern" during the training session.

And the scene where Hal Jordan makes an appeal to the guardians to help earth- GAH! And then (spoiler alert), when they reject him and he begs them to at least let him go and defend his planet- something that they were in no way preventing him from doing prior to his arrival on OA... Come on guys.

4. Show, don't tell

So much talking. So little doing. I don't even know how to expound on this. (The joke is that I'm doing it too)


What did work:

1. Sinestro

I said this earlier, but if this movie was 90% less Hal whining and 180% more Sinestro being badass and a total dick, I would go to see it 3 times in theaters. Also, that scene during the credits? So many nerd-boners.

2. Final Action set piece

(spoilers on)

Most of the final action scene was pretty much crap. In fact, I thought most of the action pieces in this movie were lackluster and boring. But the end, where he was throwing Parallax into the sun (A scene that makes no sense given that this entity is powerful enough to consume entire planet-sized civilizations), was just beautiful. And the image of two jets tied to a belt, pulling him away from Parallax in space struck that perfect balance between silly and awesome. I think my affection for it grows largely out of my unadulterated love for the movie "Sunshine," but it was the first thing in the movie that made me that little kid in me sit up and take notice. Watching Parallax succumb to the Sun's gravitational pull really felt like a win

(spoilers off)

I'll grant you that OA was somewhat cool, but after seeing Asgard done so well in Thor, it really just looked lackluster in comparison.

3. Potential

I honestly believe that there are amazing Green Lantern movies waiting to be made, even if this isn't that movie. If a terrible and racist franchise about cars that transform into giant alien robots and are friends with Even Stevens can be a billion dollar enterprise, surely we can glean some success from intergalactic space cops with alien wishing rings? Green Lantern is one of my favorite characters of all time and there is so much rich history to be mined for future films. This film wasn't good, and that's too bad. But most films that make obscene amounts of money are mediocre at best, so I feel that the lack of quality can almost be viewed as an asset.

If this movie makes tons of money, which I hope to god it does (but looks like it won't), then hopefully we'll start to see studios taking risks on more obscure weirder characters. How amazing would a well-made Blue Beetle/Booster Gold movie be? Or a Thunderbolts movie? Or a 4th world movie?

Actually, leave that last one alone. I couldn't bear to see it fucked up.

My point being, if they could build up enough goodwill with this movie's success, they might be able to bring other relative unknowns to the big screen. As a comics fan, I think that would be awesome.