I keep on forgetting to post

This is to document my shame. I'll talk about something soon.

Until then, here's a nice mashup.

Get busy living or get busy dying

This is a pretty listless post. It seems as though I'm suffering some general anomie lately, which is probably spurred by some recent letdowns in the romance department. I can't really come up with anything substantive to say, but I've been listening to Fyfe Dangerfield's "She Needs Me" [HM] a lot lately.

The Tour of Lawrence was pretty awesome and has inspired me to start getting into bicycling again. Also, I should also have a new pair of running kicks this weekend which I'm pumped about. Anyway, check out this awesome action shot I took while volunteering during the Cat 4 criterium race on Sunday.



Needless to say, I had one of the best spots for watching the races and the rains held off just long enough for the final Pro 1/2 crit to wind up without much incident. Here's another cool shot after the rains started during the Pro 1/2 crit race.



All I can say is get busy living and watch the Tour de France. Yesterday's Stage 3 race was intense.

The graceful-code

"I don't wanna run no more, but I know that if I stop, I'll be another [blogga] headed to heaven hangin wit Pac." -Scarface

I learned late that the best way to suffer was in silence. Celebration, too, should be done with a bit of moderation: as God's Son (not pictured) says, "You gotta slide on a vacation; inside information keeps large [bloggers] erasin and their wives basin." Being too happy brings the world down just as surely as being too sad.

Scarface's stoicism comes from "knowin' all the scams, all the tricks to the trade": he's cognizant of the necessary steps to drag his customers down and drag his brothers up. He gets his. He sticks to the G Code, plays "by the rules," and "don't fuck around with new [bloggers], cause new [bloggers] is fools." (That we are, Scarface, but we're learning. We have our own Code: don't give legal advice, don't wear black before six, &c.) We, like him, don't photograph our friends (we don't want them to be outed as XO posters or ATL commenters) because we know that "on a picture you a victim, bottom line [blogger] fucked." And here, as he did, we seek to "only connect the real, stayin' down with the truth."

I like k-os (which stands for "knowledge of self," apparently) because he, like Scarface, The_Ryan and I, knows to keep himself under control whether times is good or times is bad. But all four of us want a better world; we want to date Natalie Portman, for starters. And our respective Natalie-Portman failures stick with us. But we can learn from them without getting whiny. As k-os preaches, "Call it baggage, I use it all to advantage." And elsewhere (below), he acknowledges his pretense at normality: he "tells lies to the people from the stage, pretending it's all good when inside it's fire and rage." But once digested and internalized, his relationship with his world becomes a mirror from which wisdom comes.

I am trying to break my bank account

To say I'm tired would be both an understatement and a lie because I'm twired. Recovering from an erratic Wednesday morning that had me driving an hour in the wrong direction, I spent my last five bucks cash on four cups of coffee at a hipster coffeeshop-slash-bar this evening. I've managed to fall out of favor with my checking account until Friday's payday hits, but I can only imagine this is practice for Life After Law School. At least it was coffee I spent the money on.

I've been jamming a ton of covers and remixes lately (most likely a byproduct of over-indulging over at Hype Machine) and I just can't stop hitting up JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound's cover [HM] of Wilco's "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" (it even comes with a video that I've embedded at the end of this post). Leading an upbeat jazzy ensemble, JC Brooks' vocals do no disservice to Wilco's rather low-key original [HM]. Also making the rounds is Eli "Paperboy" Reed and The True Loves' cover [HM] of Motörhead's "Ace of Spades," which, like the previously mentioned Wilco cover, adds an upbeat spiciness otherwise lacking in the original [HM]. Of course, I'm not disparaging the original versions by any means, but sometimes a good cover just does it for me, especially right now as we're past the halfway point of 2010.

I can't believe that it's July-eve already. June and the other five months weren't bad, but I'm ready for some changes and new directions for the second half of the year. Must be why I'm on a remixes and covers kick lately. Enjoy the video.

I'm great, Shatner's great

Look to the left of these words. Do you see it? This here Wagon is it. Plenty to dish out, but as much as there is on my plate these days, I can't overwhelm you or myself with these posts. So here's a picture of the Wagon after a night out on the town.

Recalling memories from undergrad and past summer flings, William Shatner's comprehensible track "Common People" [US] lays the foundation for a night of brief retrospection for this steward of the Wagon. I've got a Romeo y Julieta Reserve Maduro Toro with my name on it and the down time may just be right to enjoy it like the common person I am tonight. Then again, who knows what these summer nights have in store; plans change just as quickly as Kansas weather.

Speaking of Kansas weather, the Tour of Lawrence is coming up this weekend and it looks promising weather-wise right now. As a course marshal for Sunday's criterium races, I'll be honing my street-corner skills for my post-law school future on the busiest and fastest corner of the race which is sure to be nothing short of exciting. Plus, I get a whistle and a walkie-talkie, and that may be just enough to keep me out of the realm of commonness if not teetering on the brink of the uncommon.

Word.

Experimenting

"You flash your trash to turn me on" - Stars

Yesterday, I borrowed my former bishop's flaking baseball mitt and got some diamond time under the Pennsylvania sun. I wasn't really hung over, but I hadn't really slept, and besides X000 calories from what was likely the best chicken, the best dip and the worst whoopie pie I have ever had, I didn't have much to go on. But I got on-base every time I was coaxed from the dugout, and my fielding wasn't catastrophic (though my dives surely were). This was the first time I'd played since high school, and I was proud of myself.

This blog's authors are nerds. But we are brave, strong men, and we force ourselves regularly out of our comfort zones (and beyond the bounds of accepted good taste).

A lot of pretty questionable noise comes up in our respective Hypem feeds. (We've just added them to this site, by the way.) When I spilled the Spanish version of JoJo's Too Little Too Late, my compatriot jumped, as he had for Jai Ho and all of the other horrible pop I've sent him. And, as I do with tapas, I try whatever he serves me in return -- White Trash Heroes, for example, by some dudes I'd never heard of called Archers of Loaf.

We, risk-averse sons-of-bitches though we be, encourage you to try new things and return to old ones. Despite my svelte bod and fragile complexion, I've discovered over the last year a fondness for pickup games of full-contact football, especially on the line. And The_Ryan started collecting cigars or something. He recommends these.

These summer nights

You don’t say good luck
You say don’t give up
It’s the fire, inside you
Let it burn

The Roots - "The Fire"

The Roots - "The Fire (Remix) [feat. B.o.B. & John Legend]"

To address my colleague's concerns, we're doing whatever the hell we want with this blog and an occasional swear word is going to drop like my jaw does when I come across a sick beat. There's no way around it, but hopefully we'll keep the context sensible. It's gonna be slow-rolling, hill-jumping, slaloming descent into hyped up madness.

I'm just going to go ahead and say this: music is awesome. I can't imagine a day without it, even on days when I have absolutely no desire to hear a sound. Anyway, I don't need to spend much space or time trying to tell you all how awesome Hype Machine is. I'm just going to leave this right here and let you figure it out for yourselves because discovering things for yourself is satisfying and rewarding: Hype Machine. I hope we'll be able to share some of the awesome music we come across as we journey into sound. We'll be tinkering with some sort of mediaplayer widget that we can use for the music we share, so stay tuned. It'll work... eventually.

In any event, the Wagon is rocking after getting kicked out of a couple of apartment complex pools last night. Fat Tire cans on hand, we managed to drag out our second violation of pool hours for a good two hours underneath a full moon. My moon tan is coming along quite nicely now and summer living is good despite a veritable tidal wave of work looming on the horizon. I say bring it on. I've got furious beats and time on my side.

Go see Knight & Day

"Some teach, some preach, sayin' they seen God." - Common Sense

I saw some good things today. I was going to post about Ghana v USA, but it's over and we're disappointed. Ghana deserved to win. Our dudes in the middle of the field (halfway back--what are they called?) didn't really anticipate anything, and those other dudes, the ones in the red and yellow, knew their shit (TRS, are we cussin' on this blog?) despite fouling on my Fulham boy D.

Anyway, I had some beers and a Ramos Fizz and passed out at around five, which is par for the course, after walking home ('cause drink driving is for squares). I woke up at nine and saw Knight & Day with my friend Mike. We see two, sometimes three movies a week in theaters. It was REAL GOOD.

Interruption: I've just learned that darker things are darker because they're reflecting less light, not the other way around. Isn't that something?

I liked Knight & Day because it was fun, like Robin Hood should have been, and the camera didn't bounce around like an asshole, and I was excited. I hope it makes tons of money, because The_Ryan and I sure aren't going to.

Word.

"Inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet." - Clarence Darrow

The Bantwagon is here, rolling on four ramshackle wheels made of chipped polyurethane discs, two cracked dowel-rod axels, and hitting speed as we wildly hop suburban curbs before crashing into your mom's favorite rosebush in the front yard. This isn't revolutionary and it isn't new, but it's all heart and tough as day old jelly donuts to boot.

Who knows what the future has in store for this little corner of these multidimensional intertubes; I sure as hell don't, but I like it.

Word.