Cool song a highly creative video. Watching is encouraged.

take off, eh.

Even though life doesn’t exactly adhere to the calendar,  I can honestly say that 2008 did have a unique personality, different than any year I’ve experienced before. Here’s a look back at some of the new discoveries in my life that made a positive difference.

A. Podcasts

2008 was the year I really started subscribing and listening to podcasts. Podcasts are neat because they offer fresh content to your earbuds on a daily basis, at no cost to you! Plus, you have an archive of news or music that you consume as you please – not according to a broadcaster’s schedule.

During the peak of the campaign season, I found a handful of entertaining and informative political and news podcasts. Some of them are good enough that I still subscribe, including these:

• The Young Turks, hosted by Cenk Uygur, is a hilarious and smart show for the progressive audience. Cenk has a knack for highlighting the absurd and offensive antics of the right (or left, when appropriate) and presenting them in a  humorous way.
• Rachel Maddow is the single smartest pundit on TV. A brilliant addition to cable, but her podcast is a better way to consume the show.
• On The Media from WNYC – the smartest media  analysis show. Awesome segment this week covering Bush’s final press conference. Classic shit.
  

Beyond politics, I also found these podcasts to rule:

• Tiesto’s club life podcast offers up a fresh dose of trance each week. Tiesto is considered one of the top 3 trance DJs in the world, so you know that his music selection is strong. Only negative is sometimes he talks a bit too much. Perfect for the gym, or for the pre-party.
• More Apple nerdery than you can handle on The Talk Show with Gruber and Benjamin. Last new episode came out in October. But, it was great while it lasted.
• Real Late with Peter Roseberg comes from uber-station Hot 97 in NYC. Rosenberg is the quixotic DJ who finds – and plays – the real deal hip hop. Not the BS MTV/BET/KMEL stuff. And, he’s funny.
• Edge of Sports host Dave Zirin brings together the people from the sports world and politics. So, I guess it is kind of politics-y, but not really. Intellectual for the sports fan.

B. Other Stuff

I discovered some non-podcast things, too:

• Traveling lunges transformed my lower body workout routine from average to BLAU!
  
• Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz was easily the best book I read in ’08. A book unlike any other I’ve come across.
• Cambria. I had always imagined a town like this  – the quintessential central California beach town – exisred, but never knew that it actually did. In reality, far more magical than I could have hoped. A real treasure.
• The wonders of Yelp on the iPhone ensured I never got lost or ate at a third-rate, overpriced restaurant, no matter what city or neighborhood I was in.
• Keyshia Cole, Immortal Technique, Milosh, and Dining Rooms were the new artists I heard for the first time in 2008 that I played the most.
• Honey Crisp apples. Holy mackerel, where have these apples been all my life! They are sweet, they are crispy, they are perfect. Oh, and they’re organic at my local Whole Foods. Yum.

C. The Main Thing

The discovery of the greatest significance, though, was when I realized how much drinking was affecting my sleep. Since my college days, I had suffered from ‘transient insomnia’ and for many years just lived with it. Today, I have no such affliction. Why? Well, thanks to something I discovered during my first alcohol fast, last May: a crash course in the power of sugar. Prior to the fast, I was drinking easily two drinks a night before bed. Sometimes, more. And, almost without fail, after crashing, I’d wake in the middle of the night and then toss and turn, unable to return to deep sleep.

Once I began the fast, I regularly experienced nights of uninterupted sleep. It did not take long to figure out what was going on: the sugar content of the alcohol had been messing with sugar levels in my blood and, thus, my sleep. Wow. That revelation reinforced my motivation and efforts to cut way back on drinking.

The consequences of both of these changes (less alcohol, more sleep) are hard to overstate. I feel better, I look better, I spend less. And there is nothing that can replace, or make up for, a good night of sleep. Psychologically, emotionally, and physically, there is no subsitute for rest.

D. In Conclusion

There were other things, too. I finally listened to Getting Things Done, and instituted GTD principals at work and home. I paid off two huge loans, and discovered the joy of having money in my bank account. I didn’t discover, exactly, my drawing talent. But I did continue to develop it, and that has been a proud personal achievement, too.

All in all, not a static year. And that, above all, is what is important. Life, as they say, is a journey. I don’t want to be in the same place from year to year. To grow is to discover new things – some good, some bad – and evolve. And sometimes, a podcast is just the tool to do that.

Happy discoveries to you in 2009!

Just some tracks I’ve been listening to lately…

Listening to them inspired me to try to do some podcasting myself, and so here I have put together a brief ‘radio’ experiment of my own: Mutant Radio vol. 1. Check it out.

One of the theories I developed was the essential role that slang plays in rap music. That is, the use of and dissemination of slang terms (e.g. bling bling, dis, crunk, hyphy, etc) was a key to the veracity of an artist, and a self-sustaining tool of propogation. The fun part for me was that I was able to take this ostensibly pop culture phenomenon – which I had a deep interest in – and study it from an intellectual, academic standpoint.

These days I have less time to study and get more of my hip hop information in the form rap videos and magazines, which are essentially promotional vehicles and take little time to step out the bubble that they live in, to offer perspective in a larger context.

So I was surprised – and my own thoughts stimulated – the other day as I was reading a (recently discovered) hip hop blog, where they did just that:

When [a rapper says] he owns the cranberry sauce Nike Air Force I … laugh inside, and then I go looking for the sneakers, because how dope would those be? Part of rap music’s genius is to create your own ghetto fabulous reality where you bring value to the shit that is part of your environment. The Dips aren’t trying to wear tuxedos to cross over. They aren’t wearing Gucci or Prada either.

Some examples, for the uninitiated: Rappers have made ‘white tees’ fashionable a status symbol; One of the hottest car-culture trends right now is to take used (generally crappy American) cars from the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, and ‘pimp them’; 40-oz malt liquor was once considered the drink of choice (for those who don’t know, 40s originated because they were a cheaper way to get you drunk); Dickies (work clothes) are fashion statements. You get the idea.

The beauty of this gestalt is that any single individual – with healthy doses of ego and gumption – is capable of making their world ‘the place to be’, not one subservient to the fantasies of Hollywood and Madison Avenue. I suppose that this has always been possible in theory, but with hip hop it is the standard, not the punk exception.

Taking this further, what was once ghetto-fabulous is now co-opted by the mainstream, and even used as evidence of their own credibility. Rap music in Hollywood movies, cholo style in pop videos, rap stars as fashion mavens – each is more prevalent year by year. As a product of America, hip hop magnifies that most American trait – we value the newest, latest, most innovative ideas and products above all else. Unlike other cultures around the world, where tradition is so highly prized, American culture craves change, toasts the innovators, and in a perverse way we  celebrate the very subversion of our own values.

One of the things I enjoy most about music is the power some songs have to evoke emotions. Sunday morning, I got up (at a reasonable hour) and was feeling my usual blahs, a vague notion that going back to bed might be a good idea. All of the sudden, a line from an ancient Outkast/Goodie Mob song found its way from my deep dark subconscious into my frontal lobe: ‘Git Up Get Out’… it goes like this:

You need to git up git out and git somethin
Don’t let the days of your life pass by
You need to git up git out and git somethin
Don’t spend all your time tryin to get high
You need git up git out and git somethin
How will you make it if you never even try
You need to git up git out and git somethin
Cuz you and I got to do for you and I

So I found it online and downloaded and played it on loop for a good 20 minutes. For me, the song takes me back to my days at Cal. Mostly to one of the lazy summers I spent living in the Kappa Alpha house (along with Hoese, Aguirre, Adi, and about 15 other slackers) smoking phat cones, spinning wax on my 1200s and freestyling at all hours. (Yes, the good ol’ days). Anyhow, this song came out back then and served then, as it did for me on Sunday, as a magical inspiration.

With the song in my head and my heart, waking up, showering, and, yes, getting out and getting something became so much easier. Imagine that. Of course there are hundreds of songs that affect me in one way or another – sadness, excitement, remorse, hyperness, lament, or motivation, or whatever. That’s why I love music.

My latest stations (you can make many) started with a single song (red blooded woman). I’ve been totally amazed at all the great music that Pandora has sent my way with just a single clue. Of course, it made a few mistakes along the way. But still. New music that you like whenever you want it. For free. Here are some of the qualities it says I like:

electronica roots
trip hop roots
a female vocal
use of tonal harmonies
melodic part writing
busy synth hat
a tight kick sound
a slow moving bass line
synth heavy arrangements
a highly synthetic sonority
radio friendly stylings
prevalent use of groove
pop rock qualities
electronica influences
a subtle use of vocal counterpoint
a subtle use of vocal harmony
mild rhythmic syncopation
repetitive melodic phrasing
extensive vamping
a vocal-centric aesthetic
a clear focus on recording studio production
minor key tonality
groove based composition
a prominent harpsichord part
subtle use of strings

I am not sure what ‘extensive vamping’ means, but I like the sound of it. Bottom line: give it a try. You won’t regret it.