I just found a fantastic website called NASA's Imagine the Universe. Earlier today I was having a conversation with someone about what happens to time inside a black hole. Looking into it more I stumbled across this site:
Not only are there theories and ideas on the properties of black holes, but questions about the search for dark matter and dark energy, traveling at the speed of light, and the physics of stars and galaxies. So I'm going to spend some time soaking some of this up tonight.
Meanwhile, I'll be watching the end of this brilliant piece of cinematic excellence:
Perhaps soon I'll get into this movie with more detail. But for now I will simply say this has to be one of the most hilarious, smart, and well made Black American movies I have ever seen. Scott Sanders, the director, is like Spike Lee with a sense of humor. And Michael Jai White is nothing short of outstanding and outstandingly funny. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend checking it out.
A friend of mine (let's call him Marley) just bought his very first motorcycle ever, a 2005 Kawasaki ZX-6R. It looks something like this:
For all intents and purposes, this is one of the most powerful and capable models in the middleweight class of supersport motorcycles. It's so capable, in fact, that Keith Code's California Superbike School used a fleet of these (or its predecessors) as their instruction bikes from its inception in the late 1970s until 2009. It's the kind of motorcycle that can get away from a rider really quickly if not operated with respect for its ability.
I can't help but feel concern. Here's why.
Consider some numbers for a moment. This bike produces 105 hp at the rear wheel and weighs 430 lbs with a full tank of gas. In the same year, the base model Toyota Corolla (the best selling passenger car name plate in the world) made 130 hp and weighed 2,670 lbs. It turns out that when you do the math, the Corolla has 97 horses for every 2000 lbs of weight it has to move, or 97hp/1 ton. The ZX-6R has 488 ponies for every 2000 lbs, or 488hp/ 1 ton. To give you an idea of how incredibly insane that is, the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport (which is the 3rd fastest production car one can buy) offers up 474 hp/ 1 ton.
It's not my desire to infringe on anyone's freedom to do or buy whatever they like. I'm all about people choosing their own way. However, I can't help but feel an amount of frustration when people like Marley aren't given full disclosure of this type of information before making this kind of decision. I mean, this cat's a smart guy. He's not an idiot. I'm sure if he would have known that he was purchasing a machine with this type of performance capability, he would have probably considered other options. And yes, he took the motorcycle safety course and that's a wonderful first step. NO, HE DOESN'T HAVE A JACKET OR GLOVES YET. And, most likely, no one properly measured him for a correctly fitting helmet.
But someone did sell him what basically amounts to a bicycle that can do 160+ mph. Priorities much?
Odds are, Marley will be fine. The bike is going to scare him at least once in the first week. He's going to be super-pissed when he drops that thing in the driveway after forgetting to put the kickstand down. That fairing is going to cost a grip! But other than that he'll probably not have any major incidents.
Nevertheless, we as motorcyclist have to be better than this. We must create a comfortable and safe learning environment for our beginner riders. We cannot simply throw them to the wolves of speed and horsepower to fend for themselves. There's nothing out there for them but pain (physical and monetary) and eventual disinterest. The experiences they have in the first steps of their two-wheeled journey will have lasting effects on the rest of their motorcycling lives. We have to make sure those experiences are as informed, as aware, and as inspiring as they can be.
I first saw Jean Grae at the House of Blues in New Orleans in 2006. My homie Mark and I drove down from Baton Rouge for the show, which turned out to be one of the best ever; The Soul Rebels, Jean Grae, and The Roots. Yea, it was super-live.
We got there early and made our way to the front row, where we stayed for practically the entire night. The Rebels came on first and, of course, they were rockin'. However, they only got a 30 minute set. I felt they were robbed. They really didn't even get warmed up.
Jean came out next. Now, before we went down I had looked into some of Jean's stuff and thought it was pretty dope. She found good production and wrote with definition and specificity. Her work was solid, through and through. However, my skepticism kept my expectations of her live performance low. Big mistake.
Jean Grae is a master of ceremonies in the most fundamental sense, and she rhymes as if she's daring the next emcee to be better. Mark and I witnessed as she absolutely cemented herself on the edge of the stage and proceeded to stake her claim on the entire room. She got everyone moving, and most of us didn't even know who she was. Her rhymes are incredibly precise and ricochet through a crowd like a bull whip in the Grand Canyon. By the end of her set, we were all believers.
She's dumb nice wit' it.
Here's a quick freestyle she did at The Duck Down 15 year anniversary back in July.
I was six years old when LL's album Bigger and Deffer (B.A.D.) came out. My parents bought the tape for me. (This was before parental advisory labels!) The only tape deck in our house at the time was the boombox in my brother's room. I remember going in there when he was away and playing this song over and over. I think I was really into watching reruns of Dragnet on Nick at Nite at the time, so I guess the beat reminded me of some kind of hip hop crime drama. There were other tracks on that album that were dope as well, like "Bristol Hotel", "Kandy", and "My Rhyme Ain't Done." However, it was always hard for me to get past "I'm Bad" because I spent so much time trying to learn it.
The Soul Rebels in London covering "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley
When I first moved to Baton Rouge for graduate school in 2004, I started hanging out with my now dear friend Mark who was a member of my class. He'd traveled down to Louisiana a few months before we all arrived to look for apartments and scope the scene. During his trip he spent a night in New Orleans, where he stumbled upon a spectacular group of musicians that ignited an audience like no other.
So a couple of months into the semester, Mark says to me, "These guys are gonna be in town this weekend. We have to go see them." Generally I tend to be overly skeptical about new musical experiences, but I couldn't think of anything else I had to do that weekend so I was happy to humor them.
We arrived at Chelsea's Cafe (the old location, for all you Baton Rougers) on a Saturday night about 10pm. As we walked in, I noticed a few cats in the parking lot that were having a spirited conversation about SEC football; not an uncommon occurrence in Louisiana. Mark says as we pass them, “I think that’s them right there.” “Really?” I thought. “You mean they aren’t holed up in pretentious isolation behind some VIP screen? Hmmm…”
After we entered the café and milled around for an hour or so, sure enough some of the guys from the parking lot began taking their places on a postage stamp-sized stage. One guy began setting up a bass drum with a cymbal mounted on top. Another adjusted the angle of his snare drum that rested on a stand just in front of his position. The two trumpet players were assembling their horns, the trombone and sax players were tuning theirs, and the sousaphone player took the time to affix a microphone to his bell. It was maybe 10 or 15 minutes between the time they began setting up until the beginning of their set, and boy did they come out swinging.
The Soul Rebels are able to balance the tradition of New Orleans’ unique texture of jazz with an awareness of contemporary musical progression, cooking up one of the most inspired, soulful, and energetic sonic experiences anyone could ever witness. Their music boils up from an ocean of impulses and sensations, bathing the crowd with funkiness. I’ve been checking The Rebels for about seven years now in a variety of venues. Not once have I observed an audience who could resist cutting a rug to these cats. Their sound is refreshingly relentless; the journey isn’t over until the night ends.
Mark and I were gettin’ down to these cats all night long; so were some other friends of ours that came to the show. We shouted, sweated, and clapped for two hours straight. (The Rebels don’t stop playing ever.) At the end of it all, I knew that I needed to be in the place every single time these guys came to town no matter where I may be. Missing a Rebels show is sacrilege.
It's rare when I meet someone who practices a brand of collaborative diplomacy that is useful to the development of theatrical art. Mind you, I wholeheartedly identify with good intentions, and this thought is not to insult or expose any of the wonderful artists with whom I work regularly. If any of them lack collaborative diplomacy, most likely it isn't their fault.
I feel the real fault lies with our society. We live in a world that doesn't view specificity and precision as worthwhile practices. Our daily conversations are bloated with upward inflections at the ends of statements, the words "like" and "kinda" and "just-a" softening our declarations, and a passive aggression that pollutes verbal undercurrent as vocal fry.
These habits in communication breed sloppy, misshapen thoughts and ideas that prove more effective in handicapping conversation rather than improving it.
Since theatre is a collaborative art (though some would have us believe otherwise), this disconnect in communication is often the death knell of collective progression in the work. Until actors, directors, and designers are consistently able to translate their artistic impulses into precise and workable information for the rest of their company, the quality of theatre in America is in great peril.
