DJ Undacut’s Live Journal 11-01-10

By: DJ Undacut
Edited by: Dublin




10:26AM
-the lady downstairs woke me up again. God her voice is loud. It blows through the building like a siren or something. It’s a Monday. Why doesn’t she have a job?

10:41AM
-there’s only a few grains of coffee left but they’re a strong group of grains and they’ll do the trick. How do people wake up without coffee? I can’t talk without it. I can’t think. If I don’t have coffee then I smoke weed. If I don’t have weed then I go back to bed.

11:03AM
-that lady is still singing. She is awful. She gets close to the note but doesn’t quite make it and it strains all around and makes my head hurt. I have to get out of here. Somebody said the World Series is going on today and that the Giants are playing. Maybe I’ll go to a bar and watch it. I have to get away from this voice blowing through the building.

12:11PM
-I have to get out of here. She just won’t stop. When is her voice going to give out? I don’t usually go to bars and watch sports but today it’s going to be necessary. I don’t have much money. Instead of going and spending my twenty dollars on three drinks I’m going to buy a bottle and stash it in my back pack. That’s word.

2:30PM
-I’m at the bar but something weird happened at the store. I went to a Longs or CBS or whatever they call it now. I was waiting in a line with a bottle of Sauza ($17. That’s a bomb ass deal) and this woman starts walking around and calling out into the store. I didn’t notice at first but there was something about her tone that made me look over. She was saying: “Laney! Laney! Where are you?!”
This guy in line looked too and then we both looked away and waited for the retarded guy at the counter to ring us up.
“Laney! Laney!”
She’s still yelling it and now there’s a panic in her voice so me and the guy in line and the retarded guy at the counter are all looking around wishing Laney would come out because the woman’s voice is making us all nervous and jumpy.
“Laney! Laney! Please!”
The way she says please really got to me. She was desperate. I wanted to help but I’m kind of high and I think the weed was making me more panicked then I should have been. I wanted to get out of there. The guy in front of me pays and he gets out of there but I’m stuck waiting for the retarded guy to ring me up.
“Laney! Laney! Where are you! Please Laney! Where are you?!”
I finally get out of there and I’m walking in the direction of the bar and I see an old guy near the mechanical horse ride at the front of the store. He’s kind of homeless looking and I’m suspicious. Did he take Laney? Does he have her in a truck somewhere? Then I notice he’s looking at me. He’s looking at me real hard and I realize he’s maybe thinking the same thing as me: did that guy kidnap the little girl? I guess I sort of do look like a kidnapper. Maybe I’m just high.

5:07PM
-I had a few drinks in the bathroom and now I’m having a beer and now the game is starting. There’s a few old guys in here. The bartender’s name is Renee. She’s Chinese and she won’t stop talking about how much she likes dancing at clubs and how little she cares for baseball. I don’t really like baseball all that much either but I don’t bore the hell out of people talking about it when they’re trying to get their buzz on.

6:27PM
-the little long haired guy who pitches for the Giants is pretty good. He winds up all crazy and then throws it in for a strike. The Texas guys can’t help but swing at it. It’s crazy. The Texas pitcher (editor’s note: his name is Cliff Lee) throws pretty good too.

7:52PM
-I just saw George Bush sitting in the stands. Actually both Bushes are in the stands. It’s so weird. W caused so much destruction and hell in the world and there he is just sitting in the stands enjoying a baseball game. Part of me wishes some hitter would lose the grip on his bat and throw it on the stands and nail that guy. But that would mess the game up and damn, the game is going good. Edgar Rantiria just hit a three run homer and the Giants are probably going to win the World Series.

8:34PM
-The old guys are screaming. They are crying. They are hugging. Even Renee is excited. I’m glad I’m here. They say it’s historical. We’re living history. That’s pretty cool.

9:17PM
-I felt like offering all the excited people a drink so I took the bottle out of my back pack and tried to pour some shots but then Renee started yelling and a guy started getting all in my face so I took the bottle and bounced. I’m writing this as I walk home.

10:25PM
-I was about to pass out but then I remembered the lady who woke me up this morning so I put a record on and started bumping it really loud. I hope it wakes her up and annoys her like she annoyed me. But I have a feeling she’s still up. The Giants won the World Series.

The Soul of a Dentist

By Dublin


Who wants to put their hands all in a mouth and tear away at the teeth and cut away at the bone and scrape the gums and battle the tongue and all the other God awful practices that fill a dentist’s day? What mental or spiritual scar causes a man or woman to dedicate their lives to the mouth, the place where foods of all kinds, and substances, and liquids, and other people’s body parts are placed and washed around? They’re disgusting. Human mouths are disgusting. Dirtier than dog mouths they say.

It should be noted that while I write this my mouth is aching after a session with one of these sick bastards. One half of my mouth is aching and the other half is numb and the whole thing has the sour bitter taste of the stuff they use to numb you up before they stick the big needle in your gum and begin to tear away at you. All they did was give me a filling but Jesus, as I lay there with bright light blinding me and the rhythm of the drill rattling through my bones I couldn’t help but reflect back on all the interactions I’ve had through my life with these sadists.

I write sadists. Is it too harsh? I don’t believe so. Every time these people come into work they don’t perform acts of medicine: they are performing acts of medieval torture. My first memory of having someone’s gloved fingers in my mouth was in elementary school when I was sent off to a dentist in our town that had his wife serve as his assistant. They were Japanese and very nice and would always give me a toothbrush at the end which inspired me to think I might live up to the high standards of my older sister who never had a cavity until her twenties or something. But it was not to be. After only a few days I would lose interest in my new toothbrush and it sat neglected on the shelf above our sink and I would return to the office of the dentist and his wife and they would have to go about repairing the damage that my youthful neglect had inflicted on my poor mouth.

During one of these sessions the dentist explained to me that he and his wife were Seventh Day Adventists and that their church met on Saturdays and that I really should think about coming down sometime. Being eleven I thought going to church on a Saturday was about the stupidest thing I had ever heard but they wouldn’t let it go. “You really should. I think you would like the other kids there,” they said and I couldn’t agree or disagree because their hands and their instruments were crammed into my mouth and I couldn’t shake my head because my skull was crammed into the pocket of the dental chair so all I could do was nod slightly which only egged them on. “Oh good. Oh good. We sing a lot you know? And there are kids your age who have a great time. You must come. Your really must come.” I was so pissed at being solicited while at their mercy I could have screamed if I wasn’t being gagged and scraped and everything else.

That experience turned me off for the next ten years. I didn’t see another dentist until I was on my own in the East Bay and a piece of one of my teeth came off while I was eating Chinese food. I thought that was a fairly clear sign that it was time to see someone. I pulled up dentists in my area on the internet and just went with who ever was closest to where I worked. It turned out to be a lady doctor from Iran who had been taught dentistry in Tehran. This lady informed me that my corroding tooth was the result of not seeing anyone for ten years (really? What a surprise!) and that she would need to remove the tooth and put a bridge into my mouth. I said go ahead and next thing I knew she was shaving and burning that tooth away along with the two teeth next to it and making my life a living hell.

This woman had no trace of sensitivity or gentleness in her. She banged and ripped away at my mouth like she was sculpting some sort of ugly corporate art piece. Mechanics have a softer touch on a broken down jalopy. And it never ended. She made a mold of my mouth to get the bridge made and a week later I would show up for her to install it. She would force it into the gap, smashing it down onto my teeth, trying to make it fit until she gave up and said: “Oh shoot. This is not the right size. They must have got the measurements wrong.” Three times this happened, leading to the point where it was ridiculous and everyone just wanted it to be over including the doctor and her Iranian receptionist who’s smile got smaller and more tight lipped every time I showed up in the lobby.

By the last session we barely spoke or greeted each other. I just sat down and she began to wail away at me, coldly, angrily. We all knew I would never be back. She was the worst dentist Persia had ever spit out. I would have found someone new long before that but when you’re in the middle of that kind of procedure it really is hard to change horses mid stream. So I lay there in the chair and I took the abuse she dished out and I never raised my hand in pain even as tears stood ready at the edges of my eyes. As politically incorrect as it may be I couldn’t help but envision us in a cave somewhere and I was the captured infidel and she was the righteous holy warrior carrying out jihad on my mouth. All the current events and tensions between our cultures at that time (it was 2002) were being acted out on a tiny scale in that bright corner of her dental office.

Today I went to a new dentist and he turned out to be Croatian which was comforting because my Dad’s side of the family hails from there but it sadly made no difference. He still tore into me and treated my mouth like his playground where he played out his sick sadistic fantasies. The fact that we could be distant cousins didn’t change his attitude. He still had the sickness. He still had the soul of a dentist.

Kirk & Spock Drop Acid

D.W.F.R by Robert Fong







Let’s start this one off with a little clarification. The name is FONG, not f**king HONG.

There has been a lot of talk on the Internet about my last name changing in these posts and for the record it wasn’t Dublin’s fault although he should have caught it. It was my fault. I spelled my own f**king name wrong. F**k it.

Moving on: I hate Trekkie's and trekkers and all the other God d**n nerds that populate the early morning forums on Saturday mornings talking about how hot the green girl is and how new Spock is way better than old Spock and blah blah blah. They are a bunch of creepy asexual freaks. I’m not saying I’m a f**king Star Wars fan that’s hanging from George Lucas’s n*ts either. I mean “Phantom Menace”?? C’mon! Not one of the Star Trek movies have sucked that f**king bad, s**t. But today we’re going to talk about the one that came close: Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

We all know the seventies was a really f**ked up time. After the free love and all the drugs and the love of the sixties the next decade came down and rained angel dust, bad trips, and Jones Town. That’s how Star Trek: T.M.P. feels after the TV show. The TV show was off the chain: Uhura looking good, Scotty was getting drunk and fighting Klingons, McCoy was staring bug eyed at Nurse Chapel, Spock was getting high off spores and laughing with flowers in his hair, and Captain Kirk…..s**t Captain Kirk was the f**king man.

But now we find them in the seventies and nobody’s happy. It might be because they are wearing the ugliest f**king uniforms you have ever seen besides those f**king horrendous things they were wearing in the first couple seasons of the Next Generation (dude, nothing says 1989 like Captain Picard saying “engage” in his tight ass little uniform. Ugggghh.) Beyond the uniforms, everybody is so f**king serious. Even Kirk, who used to be down to have a laugh on the bridge after kicking some serious a** is acting all weird and discombobulated. Plus, Bill Shattner’s hair had become brown and curly and he has a look on his face like he knows he isn’t fooling a single f**king person (dude wore a piece since the first season in 1966 but at least it looked like his real hair. This s**t looks like a f**king trible on his dome).

McCoy, usually my favorite character, doesn’t have s**t to do but stand around and stare around with those bugged out eyes. And Spock is on some weird Vulcan spirit quest where he bonds with the one enemy the crew faces in the movie: a big a** f**king robot spaceship named Vrger. Can we all say lame together really loud? God d**n!! Whoever wrote the movie was hanging from 2001: A Space Odyssey’s n*ts way too hard. All the shots are slowwwwwwwwww. Kirk takes a shuttle to the Enterprise in the beginning and it takes literally twenty f**king minutes! They could have called the movie Star Trek: Kirk Takes a Shuttle Ride. I’m not kidding. It’s probably the most exciting part of the whole film.

Fans of the show must have been pissed. I mean I wasn’t alive at the time (my mom birthed me in 1988) but I can imagine they came to the theater super juiced to see the Star Trek crew on the big screen doing big things and instead they get this long a** shuttle ride. They must have freaked out! They must have gone f**king ape sh*t! The writers and the producers must have been herded back to their little nerd cave and told to get off the pot, start drinking snake wine, and come up with some real f**king gangsta sh*t.

Luckily for them they did. It’s called Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn and it’s one of the baddest motherf**king space adventures ever filmed. Bob Fong is out. That’s Bob FONG. Not HONG you f**king nerds.

Robert Fong is currently rooting for the Yankees in the play off's and is also working on a one man show entitled "Fong Shway: Confessions of Cinimaphile". No dates have been set for the shows premier at the this time.

DJ Unda-Cut's On-Line Journal

(Note from Dublin: DJ Unda-Cut is a performer, producer, vinyl enthusiast, and a longtime friend of mine. I'm very excited to have him on Dublin's World and allowing us to publish his personal journal which holds his thoughts and most intimate feelings. I hope to have his entries become a regular series on this blog)

11:24AM
-Got up. There's fog outside. Is summer over? It lasted three days.

12:14PM
- Got high. Sun came out. I guess summer isn't over! Got a little higher. This weed sucks. Need to stop buying it from that one dude and start going back to the shop to get that black widow and the other sh*t that is called funky ghost or something.

1:55PM
-worked on beat. Still needs work. It sounds good but sometimes I think I should give up and start over. Then I get high and I listen to it and I think it's good again. Right now I'm pretty high and it sounds okay.

2:31PM
-listened to that Kanye album that came out a while back that I never listened to and I don't like it. He sings and it's super wack. That ain't hip-hop! Except that one joint. That one about being a monster? That's hella tight. It's playing right now.

3:54PM
-called that chick that gave me a number at my Sunday gig. She didn't pick up so she must be working. When she calls back I'm gonna tell her about this Sunday. Hopefully she can come. She’s kind of a hippie but I like that. She likes what I play. I play that good hip-hop.

4:01PM
-Dublin came over. I played that beat for him. He says he likes it but I don’t think he really does. I showed him my journal and he said I should publish it on his blog. I don’t see why but I guess I will. Why would anybody want to read this? He said no one will but he said he needs content because he can’t think of anything to write about.

6:14PM
-Dublin left and I ate a sandwich. Turned the TV on and a show about the Dark Ages was on. To live in the Dark Ages: wouldn’t that be some sh*t? All these knights trying to kill you. Loose women wandering the countryside. Then you have the plague and all that mess. Damn.

8:46PM
-went to a bar. No real reason to go, didn’t even want a drink, but I figured it would give me something to write about in this journal. Had a drink. What else am I supposed to do? Sat around.

8:52PM
-I think I’m going to call that girl. She must be off of work by now. I forget what she did for a living. I don’t really remember anything she said now that I think about it. I’m not ready to call yet. I’m going to have another drink.

9:07PM
-had two drinks instead of one. I think I’m almost ready. What was her name? I can’t really remember. I feel like she said it. I think she said it but I just didn’t understand. She had a funny way of talking.

9:11PM
-what was her name? Stephanie? Bethany? Hefany? God d**n it. I’m having another drink and then I’m calling her.

9:14PM
-Maybe Britney? That can’t be right. It definitely started with a B. Maybe it was Bethany. I don’t know. I’ll have one more drink and maybe it will come. A shot. Just something real quick.

9:19
-now I’m going to call. Bamby? Breezy? Baranaby?

9:24PM
-her name is Rachel. She doesn’t remember my name because she doesn’t remember meeting me, or giving me her number, or anything else about the night because she was super drunk. I told her to come on Sunday but she got weird and that was pretty much it. We hung up. I’m having another couple of drinks.

11:42
-I’m pretty drunk and I’m getting high. Listening to that beat. It’s a good beat. I’m going to listen to it until I fall asleep and then maybe I’ll work on it some more tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.

MULTIPLE CHOICE #1

Q: If Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck were at the same abstinence only event, both got sloppy drunk, and ended up having unprotected sex at the hotel, who would Palin end up giving birth to nine months later?

A) Hitler’s Clone
B) Dick Cheney
C) Bad Jesus (the opposite of good Jesus)


Leave a comment or e-mail answers to dublin@jazzmafia.com

Little Trouble in Big China: The Painted Veil

Little Trouble in Big China: The Painted Veil
- D.W.F.R. by Robert Fong


F**king f**k. That’s what I said when I opened my mailbox and found out that those dip sh*ts at Netflix had sent me the wrong f**king movie again. This has been a common occurrence for me. I set up my queue and get all excited to get T2 but instead I get MC2, which is “Miss Congeniality 2” not “Terminator 2”, f**king f**k sticks. Any way, this time I had made it a point to queue up “The Natural” starring Robert Redford so I could do a review of a baseball film to go along with Dublin’s baseball entry (by the way, who has ever heard of a man getting way into baseball when they are thirty years old? That is some bulls**t). So when I open my mailbox and pull out the epic romance “The Painted Veil” instead of “The Natural” I was more than pissed, I was irate. I cursed Netflix, Hollywood, Ed Norton, the postman, everybody I could think of.

But there I was, me and “The Painted Veil” in my apartment together, eyeing each other. I’m going to be honest; the last thing I want to do on a Friday night is watch a f**king romance. It’s either a good old shoot ‘em up with some guts like “Hardboiled” with Chow Yung-Fat or it’s a porno that doesn’t hold back. There is no room for f**king romance. Especially when you are self proclaimed single like I am. What does “self proclaimed single mean”? It means I do what I want. I eat chicken nuggets for breakfast, and I smoke spliffs, and I watch “Hardboiled” and pornos and don’t give a f**king f**k what you think.

Back to the situation. There I was, looking down at the DVD of “The Painted Veil”, cursing, but having nothing to do, so I thought, alright, I need to do a D.W.F.R. (Dublin’s World Film Review) so why not do it on a film I f**king hate anyway. I pop it in, I take a puff off my one hitter, and let the jeering begin.

So, unlike a classic like “Raging Bull” you probably need a break down of the plot for this one. Let’s see: Naomi Watts and Ed Norton are traveling to a town in China where a cholera epidemic had kicked up and he’s a doctor that studies this cholera s**t so he’s going down to help the villagers if he can. She’s his wife and they are very unhappy because, well, she f**ked Liev Schrieber not that long ago and Ed is super duper p**sed about it. What’s interesting about it, he’s so p**sed it’s almost like he’s dragging her along to this village hoping they both end up dead cause he hates himself and he hates her cheating a** too.

Basically what the movie is doing; it’s beginning with an ending. We are seeing these people at the bitter end of their relationship; they know it, everybody in the movie knows it, and we know it. But what sucked me in is that this is just the beginning, even after the cheating and the lies and the threats and all that. These people are married, they are way deep in the middle of f**king nowhere and they don’t really even know each other. The rest of the movie is them finding out the truth about each other and I got to say I was moved. Its no “Hardboiled” or “An*l Pumps Part 7” but it’s well acted, well written, and breathtakingly filmed (I know my friend Darren and my friend Pete are calling me a f*g for using the word “breathtaking” but they can both eat bowl of d**k up).

Ed Norton is good at playing these period types. He’s kind of a p**sy in this movie but that’s okay because nobody can be “American History X” over and over again. Naomi Watts is pretty good too, although I would have liked seeing her go down on anther chick like she did in “Mulholland Drive”. All in all, it’s a good f**king film. But still, f**k Netflix for always f**king up what I order. Is it too much to ask??

Robert Fong is currently working on his thesis at San Francisco State University entitled “Doves and Blood: The Homo-Erotic Films of John Woo”.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game: Pitching vs Rapping

I’ve always been pretty comfortable with the fact that I’ve never been much of a sports guy. I did play sports here and there as a kid; a little soccer, basketball, some peewee football, but I was never into it. I wanted to be anti-sports cool, not the cool where you make the big play and get the cheerleader but the cool where you smoke cigarettes and do drugs and get the girl with the hair that’s dyed funny. Sports were stupid and weak and were a distraction for people to think about something besides how God awful their lives were.

Well, as of 2010 that has changed. Your boy is slowly but surely flipping back to his childhood and rediscovering a lost joy. It’s not sports in general but baseball in particular. I don’t think there’s anything to be said about it except that I have started a passionate and heartfelt affair with America’s past time and am in the process of falling head over heels in love.
Earlier this year I was sitting in the bleachers at the Oakland Coliseum watching the A’s beat the Giants and something just happened. Everything clicked. I had an epiphany. I had a realization. This game called baseball is the greatest game ever invented! The different levels of drama. The pacing. The possibility. The hope. The big plays. The little plays and everything in between.

I collected baseball cards and was into the Giants for a period when they had Will Clark but I still wasn’t really all that into it. I was just doing it because that’s what you did when you were nine years old. There was never anything for me to really latch on to. Hip-hop it wasn’t. Then, sitting there in the coliseum that night, it all made sense. I’ve been completely on it’s jock since; listening to the radio, going to games, downloading baseball apps, reading the paper, all over it. It was like noticing for the first time that the girl one cubicle over at the job you’ve been working for over twenty years is actually incredibly attractive and intelligent; you just hadn’t taken the time to really get to know her.

My favorite is the pitching. Baseball is a two man game, pitcher verse batter, that’s where it all goes down. Good sluggers are great, it’s fun when they knock balls out to McCovey cove, but pitchers are artists. The pitcher leads the team and they are the stars. And I love how no matter how good a pitcher may be or how much skill and practice they have under their belt, they have to be in the game mentally or it’s all over.

I watched Tim Lincecum pretty much fall apart on Friday night at AT&T Park and then I watched Barry Zito have a melt down the following evening. Don’t get me wrong; I love the Giants and I was upset they were getting served by the Diamond Backs (a bunch of bums) but I could appreciate the fact that here you had two great pitchers that just couldn’t seem to get their minds in the game and that was fascinating to me. Tim has won two Cy Young’s back to back but it doesn’t mean a damn thing if he can’t calm himself and get into the rhythm of his pitching and I love that about the game.
I think pitching may be similar to rapping in a way, specifically freestyling. I can’t be sure but I imagine that pitchers have good nights when they think about what their doing but don’t over think it. I’ve found that this is a good approach to freestyling. You think about what you’re going to say next but not too much, you have to let go and have faith in your skills so that everything flows off the tongue in a fluid stream and you sink into the pocket of the beat. I see that in pitchers. If you watch closely you can see when they start to over think what their doing and then it all goes to hell and the crowd is booing as they walk from the mound to the dugout (which is what happened to Barry Zito Saturday afternoon).
-Dublin, 08-31-10, Richmond CA

"You F**K My Wife?"

You F**k my Wife?
D.W.F.R. with Robert Hong
(Raging Bull)








What the f**k is D.W.F.R.?? Well, it stands for Dublin’s World Film Review. I know. Really f**king stupid.
OK, enough with the introductions. I’m Bob Hong and I have been asked by Dublin to submit a film review about any film I wish. He asked that it be current but I haven’t seen any “current” movies and could really give two s**ts about them either. So my review, or essay, or whatever the f**k you want to call it is about the nineteen eighty film “Raging Bull” by Martin Scorsese.
“Goodfellas” is great, blah blah blah. “Taxi Driver” this, “Taxi Driver” that, you talking to me?” blah blah blah. “The Departed”? Please b**ch. I’ve got news for you pu**y’s out there: “Raging Bull” is the greatest Martin Scorsese ever made. S**t. It’s the best Bobby D. and Joey Pesky movie ever made too.

Let’s get into it: the editing. Really sit down and watch how this masterpiece was cut. The little details with the slow motion and the close ups? Holy s**t. They all work to project Jake LaMotta’s paranoia to the breaking point. The little things! Frank Vincent drives away and throws a cigarette out of the car in slow motion and Jake watches him, sure that the man is f**king his wife. Everybody seems to be f**king Jake’s wife. In his head at least.

The black and white. Has a film ever been filmed so gorgeously? In my opinion black and white kicks the s**t out of color every time and this film is exhibit A. It was made in 1980 but I swear to God I feel like I’m watching people in 1945 interacting and saying things like “Your gonna over cook it!” or “Go f**k your Mother!”. It makes the little hairs on the back of my head shoot up.

The sound. Holy f**k it is brilliant. When two guys are in the ring duking it out you don’t just hear the punching and a bulls**t soundtrack that tells you how to feel. You hear glass smashing! You hear tympani bashing! You hear the sounds of elephants charging and a lion growling! This is movie sound at its best and most f**king amazing.

S**t, people say that Marty peaked a while back and is just making crap from here on out. Two things I would say: 1) "The Aviator" really wasn’t that bad, in fact it was pretty good, and 2) if this man had never made another film besides “Raging Bull” he would still be high up on the pedestal that he sits, maybe even higher since then he wouldn’t have made “Shutter Island” and I wouldn’t have wasted two hours. Hey Dublin! Is that current enough for you?!!!!

Robert Hong is a film student at the Academy for the Arts and is currently running the film projector at the Red Vick.

Shotgun Wedding Quintet - Topic Freestyle (NSFW)- 7.20.10

I'm pretty much in the zone here. Topic lists are funny. The stranger the topic the better, in my opinion.

East Coast Tour PART 2

We drove to the border. People were nervous.
We talked about felonies and DUI's on the way. Half the people in our van had records.
We sat in a building in between America and Canada for 20 minutes.
There was tension as we waited for our passports to clear.
Cherith wouldn't sit down.
He took a picture.
Joe Bagale told everyone to be quiet. Some people grumbled. I was a tar demon and you could see the shit coming out of my skin. I thought the Canadians could see it and they wouldn't let me through.
The passports cleared. Everything was good.
We drove through the Canadian countryside and the air was clear.
We got to Montreal and our van went to the hotel. The rooms were nice. They were little apartments with bedrooms and kitchens. I washed up and changed my shirt.

Adam played with Crystal. He played with Joe Bagale. At 9 o'clock on the dot he was supposed to play with Shotgun.
It was ten minutes to Shotgun's show time and he hadn't showed up. I started to worry.
It was 5 minutes till show time and there was debate as whether to go on without him. The stage manager said we must go on. I cursed the stage manager.
It was show time and Adam hadn't showed up. I started to sweat. I walked out on stage and looked out a 6,000 people and spoke into the mic. I rapped accapela. That ended and I was out of tricks.
The band had to play so Tommy Folen played bass instead of Adam. He didn't know the songs. He played like he did. He was a man but it wouldn't last long.
It was 15 minutes in and Adam wasn't there. I called the strings up and Evan Francis counted it in and we began to play. I could have kissed Evan. He was feeding me confidence. We went through a song. It wasn't bad but I was still sweating.
Adam showed up with Jon and they set up they're gear. The shows had been scheduled for failure. They hadn't had time to get to the stage when we played but that was behind us now and we needed to work.
I wiped my brow and the show went on. The crowd called out for Joe Cohen. The called out for Evan and Sheldon and Mikey. They called out for Adam and Anthony. They called out for Shaina, and Cherith, and Alex. They called out for Pat with his SF hat on his head.
They called out for us and I felt it. I could feel that they felt it. They got it. I knew we had something special and the people in Montreal got it. I looked out at those 6,000 people and I felt it.
I played the show like I would have played any show and they responded. I rapped and the band played and we were accepted for what we were & embraced for our difference.

We walked the streets of Montreal. We were a living cloud of bliss. Everyone we met was nice. Everyone was smart. These Quebecians knew how life worked and they had mastered it. They had socialized health care. They had low cost of living. They paid $600 for three bedroom apartments. I wasn't jealous, just in awe.
We went to a club and it was jazz/hip-hop jam with Kommunity. They rapped and sang and kept it real. We sat in and they loved it and spoke with us and accepted us. There was no bullshit. There wasn't ego or beef. We were no longer in America.

It was the next morning, the day of Brass Bows & Beats on the main stage. I ate breakfast at a little spot near the hotel. I sat with Jon Monahan, Eric Garland, Matt Lucas, Steve, and Seneca. We ate and we felt good. Matt Lucas explained that the air conditioner in the restaurant was very advanced and that it was built with a cutting edge duct system. Eric said it was the most boring thing he had ever heard.
Me and Sen went back to the Hotel and watched the World Cup. Brazil scared me. They were too good and I couldn't root for them.
The night's show crept up on us. We were playing Brass Bows & Beats on the main stage. Sound men speaking French and smoking American Spirits scurried around in all directions.
The sun was going down and there was a chance of rain.
The 43 piece orchestra played "Darkness & Light" and I watched it on one of the monitors. Aima was the mother of the whole crowd. She nurtured all 60,000 people with her voice. Karyn Paige was an animated pixie. She was sent from another land to show the people of Earth how to get down.
The band went into "Sweet Memory" and I walked out on to the stage and looked out at the crowd and thought: "I had a dream about this once."
The show went on and I lost track of where I was and who I was. Matt Nelson shot gunned beers backstage. Big droplets of rain began to fall from the sky at the end of the set. The rain started to fall during the second set and many of the 60,000 left but we played on.

After we were done we traipsed through the streets like an occupying army. Most of us ended up at Metropolis where the band Coyote Bill blew our minds from the stage. The drummer Benji played jazz and funk licks with a metal touch and the room was alive. We all sat in one by one: me, Adam, Joe, Matt, Uriah, on and on.
Someone handed out acid and a few people got dosed. I got drunk. I got drunk and I wandered the streets until I ended up in the penthouse at the hotel with Aima, Karyn, Joe, Rita, and Crystal. We lounged with wine and camaraderie until we got a call and were told the party was downstairs. We went ten flights down and entered a room of smoke and sweat and glow in the dark juggling. There was something menacing about it. Rita was playing her flute and just like the pied piper she led everybody back up to the penthouse where the sun was coming up. I stood on the balcony in the rain and was overjoyed. It was a warm rain and it was perfect. Those that were on acid remembered they were on acid and talked about it on the balcony. Those that were drunk joined us on the balcony and I started to worry about the balcony breaking off the building and falling into the Canadian street below. I was ready for it if it did.
It held strong so I went downstairs and went to bed.

East Coast Tour PART 1

I chose to write a record of the Jazz Mafia East Coast Tour 2010 like a pretentious Hemingway wannabe because that’s exactly what I am. Kind of being sarcastic kind of not. Any who, I wrote it in a style that I thought was funny and that I thought fit so if you don’t like it go f%$k yourself. This is Dublin’s World.

PART 1

The Oakland airport is small. It feels like your some where in the mid-west when your flight is delayed.
The drinking began right then.
Joe Cohen was there and we had some food and some laughs.
Aima was there. She had waited at the airport Chilies for hours.
Wayne was there. So were Anthony and Alex Kelley, and Evan, and Mikey, and Neil.
We were all mostly buzzed at the airport Chilies and the trip hadn’t begun.
I hugged my brother Eric Garland and my brother Pat.
I saw Jon near the bathroom.
We were laughing and the Chilies wait staff hated us.
They called for our flight and Matt Lucas was detained for a bit because he looks slightly Arab.

I slept during the plane ride. I can sleep anywhere. Fell asleep during a conversation once.
All there at JFK. The whole Jazz Mafia in New York City.
We were picked up in vans. The cemeteries were gigantic. The traffic was thick.
Went across the Williamsburg Bridge. I could see Manhattan.
Drove into the village. Beautiful day. The women were out.
Journeyed around. Paraded through parks. Walked into bars.
Took the vans to the club. People drive like there is no tomorrow. People jay walk like there is no today.
The girls are beautiful. Some of them had decided to not wear braes and I supported the movement with a respectful nod.

We load in to the club and we are like an army. We eat everything in sight. We drink all the liquor they will give us.
The sound men are professional. If they are intimidated by the 45 piece Orchestra they don't show it.
We started the show. They had Adam on a riser high above the crowd. The crowd began to cry out in anticipation at the top of Darkness and Light and we were in New York playing music like men and women that had a purpose.
A drunken anthropology professor said I was channeling Sinatra. I acted like it was no big deal but I was touched. We ended the show with Ease the Pain and it felt good.

After the show I found myself at a bar. Joe Cohen was there and he was buying drinks. There was a band playing and the drinks wouldn't stop being poured even after I had crossed the line.
The crowd was thick.
There were two dwarfs in the crowd.
I nodded at them and Joe did too.
We were drunk and then we were in the van and then it was morning in New Jersey. I walked out of the room in the same clothes I had worn the day before with the hair of a pagan. The whole Jazz Mafia laughed.
Chris McGee called me a tar demon or something. He said he could see the shit coming out of my skin.
"Not shit but you know what I mean," he said.

The Big Apple; Memories and the Present

Going, going, back to, back to, New York, New York.

This very week I'm headed to the East Coast with the entire Jazz Mafia Orchestra to perform Brass Bows and Beats at a series of shows starting in New York City and then up to Canada, back to parts of NY, and then back to Canada. I have to admit that it is pretty darn exciting. I hope to write the entire trip down (mostly just the drama) and then post it here on Dublin's World. Finally! Something to frigging blog about!

Last time I was New York City it was 1996 and I was 16 years old. I was wearing a tastefully made hemp necklace. I was sort of in my organic super underground hip-hop phase at that point and going to NYC for me was like going to Mecca for a Muslim in the thralls of jihad. I stayed with my sister who at that time was a street reporter for the Times and was extremely stressed out. We did the basic tourist stops; Statue of Liberty, old theatres, parts of Brooklyn, Harlem, Manhattan, and the Park. I asked to go to the Empire State Building but my sister said that was in Chicago. Like I said, she was very stressed out in her job.

There were many highlights to the trip, one of them being getting my hair cut at an old barbershop in Brooklyn where the barber had never cut straight hair before. He spent an hour and a half giving me a fade. Afterwards he took about twenty photographs of my head to record the moment. I remember one of the other barbers asking my sister if OJ had messed it up for all black men. She said she wasn't sure what he meant and he said: "I'm saying: can a brother get with a white girl no more?"

Towards the end of my stay my sister got word that there was a free concert in Harlem that day. She said it was a hip-hop show and we made our way over there by Subway where we found thousands of people gathered in central Harlem. The show was called Hood Stomp and it was basically my greatest dreams come true. The performers that day were the following:
Goodie Mob
Fat Joe
Channel Live
KRS One
The Fugees
Notorious B.I.G with Puff Daddy
Wu Tang Clan
& Nas.
The show was put on by Sista Soulja and was the greatest thing I had seen up to that point in my life. I saw Biggie wander from one side of the stage to the other performing "Party and Bullshit". I saw KRS perform "The Bridge is Over" in New York City with thousands of people screaming along. My sister left to go work and then I was the only white person there except for the cops which was a brand new experience for me at that point. I hit a blunt that a guy had next to me and watched Channel Live perform "Spark Mad Izm" and I started to wonder if I in fact was dreaming.

Wu Tang came on, said a few words, and then someone was shooting in the crowd and everyone was running. That was a brand new experience as well. It was like the scenes in Braveheart where thousands of people just run at each other and it's complete and utter chaos. I had never felt adrenalin like that. I saw old women on the street being ran over by countless feet. I saw cops running. I saw police barricades destroyed by throngs of people and shredded wood fly up into the air.

I ran for blocks (this is before I started smoking) and finally realized that there was no one around me. I went and caught the train back to my sister's. On the train I saw a Puerto Rican kid about my age and I said: "Were you at the show man? That was unbelievable! Everyone was running!! Were you there!! Holy shit! I can't believe it! I can't believe it!"
He looked at me and shook his head. He was amused. I'm from Graton people. Graton California. We don't have gun fights and free shows that feature every East Coast hip-hop star in Graton.

Anyway; I will only be in New York City for 24 hours this time and I don't think there is a chance in hell of this trip ever being as memorable or life changing as my 1996 trip. I am very happy to be going back to New York with the wisdom and mature perspective that I have gained in the last 15 years. Plus I'm over twenty one now. Please stand by for updates in the coming days.

Brass Bows and Beats take Reno with Q-Bert & Lyrics Born: by Sam Clemens

Had a great time in Reno last weekend. Instead of giving my own take on it I would like to pass Dublin's World over to Sam Clemens who has written a feature on the whole experience. For those not familiar with Sam he has written for the Contra Costa Business News as well as writing a lot of the theater reviews for the Lincoln Elementary Gazette. I'll be honest, I think he's a prick. But I figured I would allow him to publish his stuff on my blog since it has to do with Jazz Mafia and Brass Bows and Beats.
So without further ado: here's Sam:
-Dublin

It was cloudy with a chance of magnificence Saturday morning April 8th as I, Sam Clemens, award winning and respected journalist, rode from the Bay Area to Reno with San Francisco's Jazz Mafia to report on the performance of Brass Bows & Beats, a hip-hop symphony by Adam Theis. I was smashed into what was dubbed the "East Bay Van", the fifteen passenger behemoth carrying all the Jazz Mafia members that dwell in Oakland, Berkeley, and El Cerrito. Arnell was driving with gusto and confidence. The other passengers were respectful as we made our way along the three hour journey to Nevada. Unfortunately I sat next to the rapper Dublin who made off color and ill advised comments all the way up (I am aware that this is his blog but I feel it is my journalistic duty to identify the man for what he is: an immature lout).
The vans arrived at The Grand Sierra at half past one o'clock at which point members of the Jazz Mafia broke up into their respective clicks. I was ditched in the parking lot but managed to find Joe Cohen and Dublin "decompressing" at the casino bar. They traded stories from the road that I don't care to repeat here while I helped myself to a lunch combination of whisky and beer.

It was then two o'clock and time for load in and sound check. I walked into the Grand Sierra theatre, mouth agape and brow grizzled as I found before me the largest stage in the world!! (and I'm not just saying that. Check the Guinness book of World records my good readers).
Adam Theis led the strings in a long and intense sectional while the vocalists practiced their stage blocking and the horn players sat in sweaty anticipation. Ben Yonas then stepped to the sound board and a line check began. Chaos reigned as mics fed back with loud banshee screams and people began to lose their composure. Drummer Pat Kortie stood up from his drum stool and loudly proclaimed: "I can't hear a f*#king thing in the f@#king monitors you motherf@*kers!!!" You could taste the stress on your tongue and feel the pressure closing in on you. There was a real danger of the stage swallowing the entire collective in one giant bite if people didn't get a hold of themselves.

After another four hours of sound checking the Jazz Mafia Orchestra broke for dinner and I made my way around the hotel, peering in at them in their different stages of dishevelment.
Drummer Eric Garland (yes, there are two drummers in Brass Bows and Beats. And a damn percussionist named Matt Lucas for crying out loud) could be found in his room going over the charts for the collectives' collaboration with DJ Q-Bert entitled "Q-Bert's Medley". Mr. Garland was stretched out on the bed while his room-mate, Mr. Kortie wandered around the room in a state of lull. Both seemed stoic and prepared for their performance as was Mr. Theis who breezed about the hotel in his calm before the storm.
Miss Aima the Dreamer and "Cake" Paige watched over the youngest member of Jazz Mafia, little one year old Orson, before passing him off to Mr. Lyrics Born.
Aspect McCarthy manned the bar backstage and served up tequila and whisky to those that needed their liquid courage before playing the largest stage in the world.

At 8 pm DJ Q-Bert manned his turntables and wowed the entering crowd with his legendary skills. A half hour later the Jazz Mafia Orchestra took the stage and performed Brass Bows and Beats in its entirety. Joe Begale sang with the soul and conviction of an angel returned to Earth to guard over all that is good and funky. Chris McGee followed suit, blowing the crowd back with his diamond encrusted lungs. Crystal Hall took forceful control and expertly lent her talent to the vocal proceedings as well.
All was good in the world until Dublin took the stage and strutted around like the pretentious prima Donna that he is. Luckily he only did one song before retiring to the backstage to wet his whistle. The show continued with DJ Q-Bert and LL Aspect McCarthy throwing scratches into the mix and laying down a layer of hip-hop goodness. Rappers Aima the Dreamer and Seneca Schachter put all they had into their rhymes as Mr. Schachter launched himself across the threshold from stage right to stage left. Breathtaking. Lyrics Born joined the ensemble as well and placed his trademark rhymes into the 50 piece orchestration flawlessly.

I was awed and moved to tears by the entire two and half hour performance until Dublin AGAIN took the stage and strutted around like peacock. I tried to boo from the press area but was over powered by the tremendous cry from the audience that seemed won over by the rapper's over done mannerisms and long winded rants.
The show came to a close and all members took to the casino where they indulged in alcohol and gambling. I followed Ben Yonas of Yonas Media around and witnessed him take over the craps game and win just enough money to pay for the gas that the vans needed to get home with.
I retired to my room while the collective made their way to the Grand Sierra bowling alley where they celebrated their triumphant performance with a series of strikes and gutters. On the elevator up I was accosted yet again by the beastly Dublin, who, in his blind inebriation, mistook me for an attractive woman and tried to lay hands on me. I fought him off and escaped to my room where I posted myself at the locked door until dawn, afraid for my safety.

This is award winning journalist Sam Clemens signing off.
Good luck and God bless the United States of America along with Puerto Rico and any other US territories.

Karyn Paige drops Game on: TREME

The beautiful and talented Miss Karyn "Game" Paige has honored me by dropping her first bloggy blog on Dublin's World. This will hopefully be the first in a series of posts about the new David Simon show Treme. KP, take it away:

Treme: Episode One

Karyn’s first rule for getting into any new series: Always get past Episode One before you make any lasting decisions on whether you’re going to stay with it or not. In the case of “Treme”, I am at fault for compromising my own rule.

“Treme”, pronounced treh-MAY, is the newest series by David Simon, creator and principal writer for the critically-acclaimed and socially-respected HBO series, “The Wire.” Without knowing anything else about the show, I was already intrigued by what “Treme” would have to offer based on “The Wire’s” reputation. Once I discovered that it was a series depicting a community of musicians in New Orleans three months after Hurricane Katrina, I was that much closer to being sold on the series sight-unseen.

The premise of this series also hits very close to home for me, personally. My father and his entire side of my family were all born and raised in New Orleans. They all evacuated during Katrina, and many of them have since returned to rebuild their lives there. Also, I am a singer and surround myself with musicians who strive to tap into the soul and jazz that was born and raised in New Orleans. Needless to say, I can identify with the subject matter of “Treme” on many levels.
“
There are so many familiarities between “Treme” and “The Wire” that it is eerily comfortable to watch. As usual, HBO has cast its characters for the series from a very small, but very worthy, pool of actors. If you tune into the show you will recognize Wendell Pierce, who played Bunk, as a trombone player, and Clarke Peters, who played Lester Freamon, in the role of someone who returns to a ravaged Treme to rebuild his dysfunctional life. You will also see Khandi Alexander from “The Corner,” Simon’s precursor to “The Wire,” as Pierce’s elegantly haggard bar-owning ex-wife.

Episode One opens with one of Simon’s ambiguous prologue, leaving you almost dizzy with fragmented images that you won’t be sure what to do with, but you don’t mind that so much. As the episode unfolds, the viewer is introduced to characters filled with intricate complexity; the kind that leave you uncertain if you should love them, hate them, or keep them at arms’ length. One perfect example of this is Steve Zahn’s character, Davis McAlary. He plays an aging DJ who is a has-been guitarist who never was. His character is smarmy at best, but as you continue to let the episode unfold he constantly rides the fence of social redemption. Characters such as this are just one reason why David Simon is so good at what he does. He makes you want to care about what will happen to even the most pathetic of men.

Expect to immerse yourself in another signature Simon trait; deceivingly dense dialogue that stretches your ear. There is little coddling and condescension for the viewer’s convenience here. The actors deliver their lines so conversationally it is as if they are being caught on candid camera and you are the voyeur. The script is filled with authentic colloquialisms like true dat, shawty, bruh, so-and-so and dem, etc., that never feel forced. As someone who grew up hearing that vernacular on a regular basis, it comes across very true to life. One of my favorite lines comes from the well-cast John Goodman, who claims to be “as cool as a cucumber up an Archbishop’s ass” even though he is obviously getting hot under the collar as he speaks.

There has been some criticism by internet bloggers that “Treme” does not really have an interesting enough premise to hold up as a series. The naysayers feel that a series about Katrina is too somber, and that all New Orleans has to offer is jazz and food, but that isn’t enough to keep the show going either. David Simon cleverly addresses that in the aforementioned John Goodman scene, when a British reporter tells Goodman that jazz is “passe’,” and New Orleans cuisine is “provincial,” and like America is “too fat and too rich.” Goodman responds by throwing the reporter’s microphone into a canal. Naysayers, this is your cue to change the channel. Every show on television isn’t for everybody. Lord knows I don’t watch “Grey’s Anatomy.”

You will find little telegraphing and overt explanation of the havoc that Katrina wreaked on New Orleans in the script. The characters all have the underlying backstory of being survivors, and when they talk about the past, it comes across as very polite yet in-the-loop conversation. Imagine dialogue like, “How are you? How’s your house? How much water do y’all have?” There is an understanding of what everyone has just gone through, and Simon does not give it all away in the first episode. Like New Orleans cuisine, it’s got to marinate and simmer before it is ready to be served.

The final scene of Episode One takes place at a funeral procession in which Pierce’s character has been hired to play in the brass band. They play a slow ragtime march, displaying the tradition of generations and the inevitability of death and remembrance for its verious reasons. In this case it is the death of an evacuee, but it plays as a familiar scene for this community rich and elderly in culture. It is bittersweet and haunting, yet more of what Simon is best at creating.

In case you were wondering, “Treme” has already banked 20 episodes, so there is no need to worry that the show will not make it to the second season. With that in mind, take a chance on Episode One. You will want to stay for Episode Two. True dat, bruh.

xoxo,

KP

The Tea Party Movement: White People gone Wild?

Despite endless discussions about the tea party movement in newspapers, talk shows, blogs, magazines, radio etc, no one has been able to clearly describe the unified ideology behind it all. Not even the members themselves seem to agree. Some say they joined their local Tea Party to "fight taxes" or "fight health care" or "fight socialism" or fight whatever. Everyone in the Tea Parties seems to at least be united in their anger and rage, a vile disgust with where they see America headed. As I look at images of their rallies and interviews I've noticed something else that unites them; they're all Caucasian.
Sure, I'm generalizing. There's got to be a person of color somewhere in that ugly mess but it seems like they're harder to find then a sensible truth in a Sarah Palin speech. Not that I think it's really their whiteness that unites them. It’s the fantasy they share, the “American White Fantasy” that unites them the belief that this is a "white" country, that an American, a true American is tall; blue eyed, blond haired, straight laced, just like, like, Tim McVeigh. I'm getting way off track and losing my point.
The "White Fantasy" is a real thing. You see it in Norman Rockwell artwork and in the sitcoms of the nineteen fifties. You see it in almost all movies until the early sixties. There was truth to it in the sense that white men had most of the power but the idea that this was ever really a "white" country was never true. Never ever. And I'm not just talking about the Native tribes, I'm talking about the Chinese, the Latin folks, the Africans and everybody in between that rambled in (not always by choice obviously) and made America the wild, ugly, bloody, mixed up, tragic, beautiful, place that it is and continues to be.
The "White Fantasy" still lives on in the minds of a many people even as it slowly dissolves from the real world. The election of a black president really put some holes in it and I think that pissed some people off. I doubt anybody likes their vision of the world being challenged. It makes a person start to question everything and that can be frustrating. Some people may react with renewed interest in the world, while others do what humans do best: they adapt. Still, others react with the basest of human instincts: rage. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the Tea Party movement.

Frack the Fracking Frackers: Thoughts on Battlestar Gallactica and TV shows in general.

Around 1999 something happened to TV shows. The hour long drama was suddenly deeper, darker, better written, better acted, better all the way around then it had ever been before. HBO led the way and then came F/X. Not far behind was Showtime, and then finally AMC dropped a few of its own too.
The Sci-Fi Channel (or as some say: the channel for men and women who have an inability to meet other men and women) had to get in the fray and in they got with a re-imagining of the classic 70's show Battlestar Gallactica. Like many other people I thought "why?", "lame", "out of ideas huh?", "stupid", and finally: "who cares". A few years passed and I lived my oblivious life until I started to hear positive comments about Battlestar from reliable sources including Tim Goodman, the TV writer for the SF Chron and whose opinion I revere. It took me a few more years before I actually put it in the cue, and when it showed up in my mailbox I threw it on and waited to be dazzled.
At first I thought: "This isn't going to do it for me. Except for Eddie Olmos this cast is a bunch of TV actors fresh off the bus from LA who just act so much like, like, TV actors!" But I stuck with it and the writing stepped it up and the actors followed along and stepped up their game as well. Season one made way for Season 2 and 3 and the story twisted and turned in all kinds of directions that packed devastating emotional punches. Like all the other sci fi nerds I became invested, and still am as I finish the last season.
Not to say there aren't flaws. The over use of the Battlestar curse word "frak" was a bit much. Like all shows there were episodes where I got a sense that the writers were treading water as they waited for next week when there would be a real dramatic kick of some kind. I always forgave them for this because when that kick did come, dude, it packed a wallop. There were also times when it seemed a little contrived but very rarely. And even when it was it never reached the levels of contrivance and bullshit that “other shows” did.
When I mention “other shows” I'm talking about the ones that I attempted to enter and just couldn't stay with when I realized I was wasting my time. These "other shows" tried to be in the upper echelon of hour long dramas that Battlestar Gallactica proudly stands in but just couldn't muster the substance or the inspiration. These shows include Rescue Me (started out great and then just became annoying for some reason), The Shield (would have stuck with it but then suddenly realized I just don't give a shit about any of the characters), Breaking Bad (Brian Cranston is the man but thugs just don't talk like that. I'm sorry. The drug dealers on that show all talk like they paint their faces and go to Insane Clown Posse shows on the weekend), and most of all Brotherhood on Showtime.
Brotherhood really irritated me because it had such potential. A show about politics and the dying Irish mob? Yes! But sadly no. Brotherhood sucks ass. Its biggest flaw is that every character, and I mean every single one, acts like a complete and total douche. There is no motivation or reason for anyone to act like they do and when the writers try to create a motivation you can see it from four miles away and it just lands completely false. How could they do that to the Irish!
Some of my dear friends (coincidentally, most of them are in the band Supertaster) have recently entered the world of The Wire. So has my Mother who has just finished the fourth season which, in my opinion, is the best. There has been a lot of talk about The Wire being the greatest TV show ever created and I humored that thought for a few years before coming to a different conclusion.
There is a reason that TV shows became astonishingly good after 1999. '99 was the year The Sopranos pilot aired on HBO. The Sopranos changed everything and started everything that I've discussed above. People realize this and acknowledge The Sopranos but don't necessarily put it as number one. That spot is usually reserved for The Wire because when it all is said and done it comes down to The Wire and The Sopranos. There was a time when I would have gone with The Wire but then I re-watched the entire Sopranos series and now know where my heart really lies. The Wire is real; it’s characters, writing, and acting are all exceptional and move you like no other. But the Sopranos is LIFE.
When the show was originally on everyone was caught up in the killing and mob aspect of it. Viewers were bloodthirsty; judging episodes by the amount of murders and not by their nuances and artistic merit. Most people missed the point. David Chase (the creator of the show) used the Mafia setting to touch on the overall strangeness of life; the beauty and horror of relationships between family and friends, the odd details of being a human on Earth. Above the violence, the sex, the humor (the show is very very funny), the lifestyles, the hits, the death, the show is STRANGE. Strange like life.
So that’s where I stand. The Wire may very well be the best overall show ever made, but for me, in my opinion, The Sopranos stands supreme. And then, just a few notches below both of them, sits Battlestar Gallactica.
-Dublin 04-06-10

Dubb Bloggy Blog and the Blog Pound

Ok, let's get it going. Here we go. Onward & upward. Let's fill this space with tantalizing tidbits and random thoughts that spin on and on and sometimes go somewhere & other times just burn out. It's all good.
I want Dublin’s World to be dedicated to thoughts on music, film, food, life, and the literary. Whatever, I’m not going to set limits.
I want to have contributions from all that feel they have something to say, be it negative, positive but NEVER lukewarm. Feel me?
At some point I would like to conduct interviews with people that I find interesting, but I have no idea when that’ll happen.
-Dublin