Wrecking Rob Ford and Lovin' It

Now that I have your attention thanks to Rob Ford!!!!  I'm not sure what's worse, Rob Ford smoking crack, or me cracking up at the debacle of this politician.  Rob Ford has just surpassed the recently famous Tom Ford, who became more famous over the summer when featured in Jay-Z lyrics.  Yes, Rob Ford was the butt of all jokes on Saturday Night Live this past weekend, and will most likely be featured again this coming weekend.  How can you not be drawn to such pathetic behavior?  Don't get me wrong - I feel bad for the elderly woman there.  Thankfully she sprung back up on her feet and if you look closely, she even got a slap across Rob Ford's face.

Here is the original footage before "Wrecking Ball" was added.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOCKrXNzEJ0

Holiday Spirit? Too Soon

I plan on cashing in on the holiday craze.  I am currently seeking financial backing to create purple and orange Halloween lights that with a click of a button turn into red and green Christmas lights.  Heck, why stop there?  Keep those lights up all year round and with another click they turn pink and yellow for Easter and give off a slight hologram of eggs.  But wait there's more.  Moving through the seasons, you get your red, white and blue for Memorial Day, 4th of July and if you're truly patriotic keep them on for Veteran's Day.  Just think of the time you can save with these amazing lights.  October 31st is all done and November 1st you're smiling as your neighbor is ruining a sacred weekend cleaning up the last holiday mess only to be pulling Christmas lights out of storage.  You'll be able to watch your favorite sporting event while your neighbor is cursing at the tangled lights he quickly put away last year, telling himself next year will be the one promises he gets more organized.  Of course, you'll take commercial breaks to enjoy the show he puts on for the whole neighborhood.

Yes, I plan on cashing in on America's inability to allow a lapse between holidays.  I'm 40 years old, so I can actually recollect a time when Halloween would end and Charlie Brown's Christmas Special wouldn't come on television until the week before Christmas.  I'm pretty sure it's now for sale as a two set DVD or Blu Ray with The Great Pumpkin.  What's happened to us?  Why are we so impatient?  Is it that we are so busy looking down at our technology, so busy on our iPhones, iPads, PS3, X-Box Live and other screens, that the moment we look up, we expect the next holiday to be ready to go?  It's times like these that I search for a small cabin in the woods, get some Jiffy Pop and throw in  a VCR tape of Back to the Future.  Sure, I'll have to adjust the screen where the tape gets all fuzzy, and yes, I'll have to actually get up to put that tape into the VCR instead of having a remote with On Demand.  I need a world that is willing to slow down and grow old with me, not one that is racing non-stop to a finish line that is actually the start to another race, that will turn into a marathon followed by a Warrior Dash, ending in a triathlon.  If you're looking for me, I'll be the guy untangling Christmas lights this coming weekend, but I'll have a smile on my face soaking in the holiday spirit.

My Journalism students = comment on this entry as part of your grade

Let's Get It Started My Students

Alright Journalism students, it's time to start our blogs.

Guidelines are simple: every week you must blog about a topic.  If you have that ailment known as Writer's Block, I will give you a prompt to help you get started.

PART I:
For your first blog, I would like you to give me a summary of everything you have soaked up that we have discussed in class.  What have your learned about Journalism?  Give me some jargon (special wording journalists should know), tell me the important aspects to a story, what makes a strong lead, and so much more you can hopefully tell me.

PART II:  Get your blog going.  Here's mine:
 The autobiography Decoded by Jay - Z is one of my favorite reads of all time.  Jay - Z takes you behind the scenes of his childhood and into the start up of his hip hop fame all the while placing images and lyrics with footnotes throughout the book.  What I love most is what Jay-Z says about writing and the power of adding layers to your work.  To me, this is the beauty and power of strong lyrics.  It's when the artist says one thing, but there can be three different meanings going on, so listeners can hear the lyrics on different levels.  To me, this is art.

Here are some great quotes from Jay-Z's autobiography:

Decoded Quotes

Decoded by Jay-Z

“We change people through conversation, not through censorship.”

“A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.” 

“Identity is a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but to try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow.” 

“I believe you can speak things into existence.” 

“Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.”

“Hip-hop has always been controversial, and for good reason. When you watch a children's show and they've got a muppet rapping about the alphabet, it's cool, but it's not really hip-hop. The music is meant to be provocative - which doesn't mean it's necessarily obnoxious, but it is (mostly) confrontational, and more than that, it's dense with multiple meanings. Great rap should have all kinds of unresolved layers that you don't necessarily figure out the first time you listen to it. Instead it plants dissonance in your head. You can enjoy a song that knocks in the club or has witty punch lines the first time you hear it. But great rap retains mystery. It leaves shit rattling around in your head that won't make sense till the fifth or sixth time through. It challenges you.

Which is the other reason hip-hop is controversial: People don't bother trying to get it. The problem isn't in the rap or the rapper or the culture. The problem is that so many people don't even know how to listen to the music.”

“This is why we shouldn't be afraid. There are two possibilities: One is that there's more to life than the physical life, that our souls "will find an even higher place to dwell" when this life is over. If that's true, there's no reason to fear failure or death. The other possibility is that this life is all there is. And if that's true, then we have to really live it - we have to take it for everything it has and "die enormous" instead of "living dormant," as I said way back on "Can I Live." Either way, fear is a waste of time.”

“Hip-hop is a perfect mix between poetry and boxing.” 

“[T]he truth is you don't need some external demon to take control of you to turn you into a raging, money-obsessed sociopath, you only need to let loose the demons you already have inside of you.” 

“I couldn't even think about wanting to be something else; I wouldn't let myself visualize another life. But I wrote because I couldn't stop. It was a release, a mental exercise, a way of keeping sane.”