Vibes

I went to my first jam band festival, Gathering of the Vibes, over the weekend. Here are some notes I was able to mentally recover.

- I woke up at 7:00 a.m. Friday morning to catch an early train to Bridgeport, Connecticut, the site of the festival. I was upset to be up so early, but then I realized I was heading to hippie festival for a day of drinking, live music and other sorts of good vibes and not like my roommates who were up at 7 to go to work.

- Even though I had never heard of any of the bands playing in Friday's line-up except for George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic and the fact that I am not really into jamband music; I was dying to go to Vibes for the following reasons:

1. I am a fake hippie.

2. My friend Aaron is a seasoned veteran in the music festival game. There is nothing in the world Aaron loves more than Phish. I hope to one day find something I love half as much as Aaron loves Phish. I was hoping that by going to Vibes I would find some divine light.

3. Aaron's girlfriend once told me, "Music festivals are the last place on earth where people act as they should." I needed to understand this for myself.

4. One of my favorite professors attended the Summer of Love back in '67. In my mind Vibes is as close as I would get to any Summer of Love/Woodstock atmosphere, minus the urge for social/political change and plus the addition of chemically-evolved drugs.

- I made it to the venue, bought my ticket and left society. After walking around for 10 minutes I realized this is the closest I ever wanted to becoming homeless. I joined my friends (who were much, much, much harder than I and were camping there for all four days, for their fourth straight year) in their campsite and began to enjoy myself.

- I walked around trying to take in a population that was 60 percent donning Deadhead tees and tie-dyed shirts/40 percent not wearing a shirt.

- I think it was just the atmosphere that brought it of me, but my frisbee game has never been so on point as it was at Vibes.

- There are a lot of zombies at Vibes who just walk around as close to legally dead as you can be. My friend assured me that the night would be much more intense.

- I sat inside a tent deeply contemplating life for quite a while. I was then trying to justify shattering my budget to attend this ludicrous jamband festival I really had no place being at. I then said to myself, "Well, you're only in college once."

- Some five minutes later I realized I graduated college over a year ago and I was sad.

- Some time later I fell asleep on a chair, walked inside a tent and resumed my nap on a cot. I woke up drenched in sweat, wildly dehydrated, pretty sure I was going to pass out and die. The most frustrating part of this whole experience was realizing it was only 2:30 in the afternoon.

**I found this picture on Facebook four days later**

- I drank bottle after bottle of water and tried to reassure myself that everything was going to be alright. There was also a Bob Marley song playing in the background that confirmed this message.

- Eventually I decided I was capable of moving and leaving the only people I knew at the festival (some would argue that everyone knows everybody there). I tried to go to my own happy place so I sat on the rocks near the disgusting beach of the Long Island Sound and I listened to Rick Ross on my Zune and thought about Natalie Sitto.

- I ran into one guy running around frantically asking everyone who was Ponch's sidekick on "CHiPs" as if his life depended on the answer. I was born three years after "CHiPs" went off the air, but I thought long and hard about it and answered "Erik Estrada," a name I only know because Hov has been doing this since CHiPs was out, baggin' up at the Ramada watching Erik Estrada, with a table full of powder. It turns out Estrada was Ponch and I did not have the right answer. His search continued.

- Later on I was ready for round 2. I danced my ass off to a bunch of goofy jam bands and had a great time. George Clinton and P-Funk were dope (no pun intended). At one point George brought out his 'granddaughter' who rapped for about 15 minutes on how much she loved weed.

- Then the mayor of Bridgeport introduced Bridgeport's own Deep Banana Blackout. Everyone loved them, but I don't think I got their message.

- Then Moe. came on. My friend Aaron was adamant about me seeing Moe. so I expected a lot, but unfortunately I did not find them any different than Deep Banana Blackout.

- If you stand out at Vibes it means you are messed up to a point of no return. One guy who was that messed up almost got in a fight with another man. The two were face to face about to start throwing blows, but then after a bunch of screaming and death threats the two, hugged eachother and each said, "I love you." Only at Vibes.

- There were people there from all ages from 1-80. I made a mental note to thank my mother for never bringing me to a jamband festival when I was a child. Still, God bless parents who let their six year olds run along with the crazies.

- The whole time I was wearing a goofy hat slanted to the left a la R. Kelly in the "Fiesta Remix" video. I'm not sure how many people at Vibes picked that up.

- Eventually I re-passed out in the front seat of my friends Ford Ranger. There is really nothing like falling asleep to the sweet sound of hissing nitrous tanks, the occasional pop of a balloon and the good ol' nitrous-induced fight.

- I woke up the next morning at 7:15. Promptly gathered by belongings and hopped out of the car to find the exit and get the fuck back home. The morning scene at vibes looked like Omaha Beach on D-Day, except instead of lifeless bodies laying among blown-off limbs, they laid among thousands of deflated balloons. Those who were still moving looked like they had been through war and a good amount of them probably had been.

- When my friend made it back after his four-day exodus, he told me somebody died there. I was not surprised. I was surprised to learn that the person was murdered, having all four limbs broke and their face burned off.

-This is my new favorite picture ever.

Qs and Z-Bos and lists

A few nights ago I remember spending that period of semi-consciousness between masturbation and sleep researching the Z-Bo/Q-Rich trade that sent Q-Rich back to the Clippers. I'm not sure why this crossed my mind at that particular time, but I remember falling asleep very worried that Alex Acker would not come off the #3 (I don't even know who the fuck Alex Acker is but he is listed on the Clips roster wearing the #3).

I never thought about Q returning to LA again until today when Q-Rich was traded for the third time! this summer for my boy Bassy and some white dudes (I'm not sure who Craig Smith is, but he sounds white).

This is why I like Q-Rich so much:

0. The retard-alien head-bop celebration

1. He played at DePaul with Paul McPherson

2. He is a local Chicago dude

3. His dad drove the L Train even after Q-Rich made the NBA

4. Both his brothers were shot and killed within a two-year span (I'm not sure why this is a reason I like Q, but I find it interesting)

5. He was engaged to Brandy

6. At some point he stopped being engaged to Brandy

7. I once witnessed this exchange:

Q-Rich to his son: "Show Uncle D. Miles what you do after you score"

Q-Rich's son: does retard-alien head-bop

D-Miles and Brandy: faces light up with sincere pride

8. He is a Jordan Brand athlete

This is why I like Sebastian Telfair:

1. He's Steph's cousin

2. He's from Coney Island

3. The movie "Through the Fire"

4. He got caught trying to carry a gun on an airplane in a pillow

5. He was bringing his own pillow with him

6. It was later rumored that he was carrying the gun because he was afraid of his own teammate Zach Randolph

7. This SLAM cover

I'm really happy that somehow this summer Q-Rich, Bassy and Z-Bo were all involved in trades for each other. And I really hope Q-Rich is traded three more times before the season starts and I hope at least one of the teams involved is an Arena Football League team.

By the way next time you see Tarny congratulate him on obtaining his WA license plate (below) that just so happens to be blessed with ZBO and the amount of strippers Z-Bo tried to rape while in Portland. Congrats Tar, we're all so proud of you.

Other things I am interested in:

- For no reason at all I am way too happy about Demar Derozan playing for the Raptors. Maybe it's because it was my dream to grow up in the CPT, get paid a lot of money and bang a lot of girls while playing for USC and then play in a really trill market.

- This Melo wallpaper is too sick. Click to enlarge below.

- I love that whatever Griffin not named Blake the Suns drafted in the second round is now wearing #32.

- I was really, really, really, really hoping Ron Artest would have chose #8 when he signed to the Lakers.

- Still not sure why my boy Channing Frye is gonna rock #8 for the Suns. 44 is retired for Westphal, but 45 is open and I coulda swore 8 was retired for DJ Strawberry.

PR Engineering

Monday and Tuesday

For the life of an unemployed recent college grad who decided it would be smart to move to the world's eighth most expensive city during our nation's worst economic crisis to date, Monday was about as good as it gets.

Like any other day I woke up before nine, just to give myself a feeling that something might get done before 11. Even though I really had nothing to do besides apply for jobs, it makes me feel slightly better about myself to not sleep in past 10 a.m.

At around noon I decided I'd had enough or perusing Craigslist and waiting for Deadspin to update so I decided to hit the streets.

I explored the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. Shop, which was quite fascinating. Then made it Premium Goods, which is a just silly streetwear store, but I finally got an answer as to who designed the "Brooklyn" logo that's on 9 million tees and hats in the city. The answer, or so I was told: Vinnie's Styles.

Then I journeyed through Red Hook to Ikea carrying a 24-inch steel rod from Lowes in my backpack Zelda style in case anyone wanted war. The steel rod was for a ceiling fan that my roommates and I bought a month ago, which we may or may not ever get around to actually installing.

I also stumbled upon this store selling this nasty jersey:

After a long trek I finally made it to the promised land and bought two $0.50 hot dogs. While consuming the dogs I listened to an amazing Fresh Air show with Charles Siebert, where he discussed his book The Wauchula Woods Accord. The book is about a chimpanzee retirement center where famous chimps who are trained for movies and television hang out after their carreers end. Listening to Siebert and Terry Gross discuss "humanzees" while eating two hot dogs was probably the highlight of my week and arguably month.

After touring Ikea I bought two more hot dogs and an icecream cone, then caught the free Ikea water taxi out of my way to Manhattan. But the ride was rather enjoyable.

Yesterday I did absolutely nothing besides draft half this blog and play two hours of basketball in the park. But my team did win twice and I threw one of the sickest passes in my life, so I felt like I kinda accomplished something.

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Basketball things:

In case you actually have a job and/or life and have not been following NBA summer league way too closely here is what you need to know:

Brandon Jennings second game stats: 23 points, 8 assists, 5 steals.

Brandon Jennings third game stats: 13 points, 14 assists, 7 steals.

The Bucks are 3-0.

There is also this new Jennings highlight real of old footage.

Not that you should give a fuck but Chase Budinger dropped 25 in his second game. Fuck him.

Former Duck Maarty "Six a's short of Raaaaaaaandy" Leunen is on the Rockets roster even if his last name is spelt wrong on his jersey.

Even though T-Mac is now helping Darfur can we still hate him? Of course because T-Mac is still a bitch who never made the second round of the playoffs. /hate

Too much

This new banner weirds me out and makes me feel uncomfortable. I hope it does not stay up for very long.

Blog marked up

Normally when I post a bunch of pictures the general reaction of my friends is "that was pretty gay," except in a more hateful tone. The only person who has ever said anything nice about my photos was the man who helped me find P-Mac, Marquitos, who told me they were "Buenas fotos." But for all I know that could have been Argentine sarcasm that I did not pick up.

Below are some photos, some are mine, some are not.

This is a photo from Hewes stop at the JM line. It was pouring rain and I was soaking wet, which made a 5-hour bus ride to Boston that much worse, but I liked this picture.

This photo was stolen from the open casting call for Phoenix-MC Willy Northpole's "Body Marked Up" music video. I thought for a minute on how I could describe such an incredible tattoo, but the comment below the picture on MySpace said it best, "Damb dat shit is fukn tite..." Indeed.


I've said this about others before, but Willy Northpole is the greatest human ever. Aside from DMX on rollerskates, Willy is the only person who can make me homesick. Even though my current city may have had a little to do with hip-hop and the local guys ain't too bad either, but they don't strike that same chord that Willy does. When Willy says "Arizona stand the fuck up" and rhymes about putting a du-rag on a cactus, it just means so much.

Since Fake Rick Reilly and Brandon Jennings are Twitter casualties, Willy Northpole is currently my favorite tweeter, with 140-character gems like:

YO NIGGAS HAVE YOU EVER HAD SEX WITH A GIRL AND SHE START CRYING THINKING ABOUT SOMETHN AINT THAT THE WORSE SHIT i just keep going lol

I LET ALOT CHICKS GO THAT a fuck nigga would probably marry.. with me shit just gotta be right fuck looks i mean she has to be cute but ...

SO IF YOU HAD THE NUMBER CHICK IN THE ASS WAIST, FINE BREADED UP OPRAH STATUS BUT SHE HAD ONE TITTY LOL ill hold that titty with pride!lol

No I have not listened to all of Willy's new cd and I probably never will, it's just that good.

This is a photo I took off my roof of some weird clouds.

This is an old photo from SLAM that makes me hate LeBron James.

This is where I spent the 4th of July. Rhode Island is the truth.


Some nice views.


I don't really drink hard liquor, but it was essential to the picture.


Flipside views


This photo makes me love Melo, but hate myself for having all this time on my hands and still not watching every episode of The Wire.

Pray IV Rain

So yeah, maybe my most recent post wasn't my best work. It's tough put out decent posts when I sit around far too much wanting the world to end in a cool 2012 kind of way*. I figure a good Apocalypse would solve a lot of my problems, which really aren't even that big of problems by any means.

I don't have any terminal illness, the weather has been nice and I don't live in the nearby housing projects. I suppose I really can't complain. But it's still tough not having any conceivable cause to wake up in the morning.

At least I have Phoenix's finest, Willy Northpole's Twitter to enlighten me with tweets such as:

FOR SOME REASON WEN I BUST i want to chick to leave even if im in her house....lol

31 minutes ago from web

ILL CHAT WIT A STRIPPER that has normal convo but the ones that flirt too hard can kill themselves..

about 23 hours ago from web

Also this video of Pacman Jones, Jermaine Dupri and Nelly in da club from the Las Vegas NBA All-Star weekend might be the greatest thing ever. Props to the dude doing the no-look-over-the-shoulder-make-it-rain-move. Very impressive.

Today while on my never-ending quest to find any sort of employment I stumbled upon the store selling the Steve McNair probowl jersey. This time I felt the motivation to walk in and I learned they had seven! authentic McNair probowl jerseys. Do I think that the inappropriate WPM commenter/McNair-killer Sahel Kazemi's father owns the Brooklyn sporting goods shop and wanted to increase the value of his McNair probowl jersey caché so he had his daughter kill McNair and then kill herself as to not make his NFL jersey business boom look cheesy which could have potentially hurt his sales? Absolutely.

Was that the longest run-on sentence ever? Absolutely.

Finally since no WPM post is complete with out a token Brandon Jennings note. I think we should all get behind the Milwaukee Bucks' marketing department's plan to put Jennings on the 10-dollar bill instead of Alexander Hamilton, who was never even friends with Joe Budden.

Some questions: Also why was Jennings not given proper credit for claiming he's better than Rubio and every American is better than Rubio, who was too scared to play in the NBA (OK he just really hates Minnesota)? Is Brandon Jennings the most patriotic person ever? Is it too early to rename the fourth of July "Brandon Jennings Day?" Should we cut the 50 stars on the flag down to 3 (this was Tarny's idea)?

*I would also be cool with aliens taking over the world if it means I don't have to worry about getting a job and working for the rest of my life.

What up dun?!

For the 520th time I apologize for the inconsistency in my updating of this blog. There has not been too much excitement since the draft day/sad day 2009. I now just hang out a lot more and some times I'll take long walks to Queensbridge to sit on a bench that Ron Artest or Nasir Jones may have sat on. Then I'll spend an hour or so wondering what number Ron Ron will wear for the Lakers.

That was yesterday.

Then today goofy pictures of Tru Warier rocking #37 came out. I can't find an official source, but Wikipedia claims Ron is wearing #37 in honor of Michael Jackson, whose album "Thriller" was No. 1 on the charts for 37 straight weeks.

That might confirm that it really is Ron Artest who sings this amazing Michael Jackson tribute song. The only reason I personally think Ron made this song is because no other human on earth would be capable of producing something like this.

And just to educate those who do not know:

Ron wore #15 at St. Johns and with the Chicago Bulls. After being traded to Indiana, Ron switched from #15 to #23 to honor Michael Jordan, then to #91 to honor Dennis Rodman. Before he left Indiana Ron's plan was to switch his number every year to honor a Bull from their championship run this included rocking #25 for Steve Kerr and #9 for Ron Harper. Ron's plan was to honor a rival team within the Pacers' conference.

Then he wore #93 in Sacramento only because it correlated with his then shoe-endorser K1X's campaign "93 to infinity." Ron was the only player signed to the German-based sportswear company and their campaign was based off the classic Souls of Mischief one-hit wonder.

Then Ron switched to #96 in Houston only because the #96 kinda looks like "qb."

Other important shit I've not written about:

- Not having much to do I have been checking the Milwaukee Bucks official site every to find out when I can think about spending money I don't have on a Brandon Jennings jersey I would never wear. It's still not for sale, but today they started showing ads confirming he will wear #3. And that was the highlight of today.

- No there is not a filthier backcourt than Brandon and Salim Stoudamire.

- I love that Brian Cook's agent is sending out his wedding photo to Jeff Pearlman.

- I meant to only keep that silly J.R. Smith WPM banner while Denver was in the playoffs, but I got lazy and I can't think of any other banner I like more than that one. Sadly WPM's current banner is in jail, probably working on his 45-foot three-pointer in the prison yard.

- Speaking of people going to jail... Here is a picture of Cambridge Steve's final days a free man in Harlem.

- Cambridge Steve is not actually in jail, nor has he even been in jail, despite the fact that he probably wants to go to jail just to hang out with his favorite rapper (hold you head up Prodigy). He actually moved back to Cambridge, something Jesse Jackson forgot to mention when he was giving his sad speech about Michael Jackson in front of the Apollo Theater.