LOL @ mortality.

i swear, ever since i got health insurance a couple of months ago my body has been falling apart. last sunday i woke up near-blind in my left eye. since i couldn’t book an appointment with the eye doctor until friday, i spent a good part of my week freaking out, wondering if something had flown into my eye while i was wandering through the woods sneaking into the radiohead show, and constantly replaying random scenes from ray in my head. finally, i got to see an ophthalmologist, and it looks like i have a fucking cataract.

for those of you who, like myself up until last week, don’t know what a cataract is, here’s a diagram for your personal edification:

basically, it means that my eye got jacked up and everything looks like an orgy of blurriness. when the doctor first realized i had a cataract, he gave me this “should i turn him in as a medical phenomenon and get loads of moola” look, which i discovered was due to the fact that cataracts don’t normally happen until someone’s in their 70’s or beyond. so, how did i get mine? oh, lovers of western medicine, you’re gonna love this one:

so growing up i’ve had a mild case of eczema, a skin condition common among colored folks who, instead of living in the tropical conditions that they were meant to be in, are surrounded by dry ass american air and SUV smog. yeah, basically i was a crusty kid. when i was really really young, i would get this especially around my eyelids, so the doctors would prescribe these ointments that were loaded with steroids that would help mutate my skin back into hydrated bliss for the rest of the day. each time i went to a new doctor, they would look at the ointment i was using and say, “actually, you shouldn’t be using that around your eyes because it has steroids. here, use these, they have less steroids.” as a result, for a considerable portion of my life i’ve been basically smearing roids all up in my eyes, every single morning and night. i’m surprised i don’t have a pair of mike tysons in my sockets.

anyway, steroids cause cataracts, and now adriel has a cataract. WIGGITY WACK! when i get sick i don’t even take tylenol…these ointments were the only western medication i regularly took, and now look at me (no, really please do…cuz i can’t at this moment…)

so now i have to get surgery, where they’re going to remove my lens cortex and replace it with a fake one. they let me choose from 2 flavors:

1. the lens that’s covered by insurance: based on technology from the 1940’s, and i’ll have to choose whether i want to be near-sighted or far-sighted from now on, for the rest of my life.

2. the lens that’s not covered by insurance: i get to see both near and far. yay! but i have to cough up 2 G’s for it. ironically, i was planning on using that money to buy a projector.

i think it’s messed up that they make you decide on your eyesight quality like as if you’re deciding between cloth or leather seats. i’m choosing option 2, mostly because i feel that it would be so much harder to pick up girls at the club if i’m wearing glasses that makes one eye look way bigger than the other. no one’s trying to dance with invader zim.

additionally, i’m kind of suspicious of them knocking me out for surgery (well i hope they knock me out because being conscious for that shit would be kinda not fun). what if they implant a camera in my eye and the government uses me to spy on all my friends?? i’d feel pretty bad about that.

well, at least the guy on the brochure for old people is happy.

on the bright side, i’m one blink closer to being a real life cyborg, which is what i’ve always wanted to be–i heard there’s a future in it. i’ll keep you updated and try not to gross you out. in the meantime, here’s a celebration song, since as far as i know, robot eyes won’t alter your hearing.

[download]

this past year a lot of electro-inspired hip-hop has risen to the surface, and although i’ve been digging a lot of it, it’s still hard to find emcees who are able to pull it off without it sounding kitschy and who are able to maintain being dope lyricists despite/in spite of them doing dance music. so yeah, i know i hipped you to xv and kid cudi and b.o.b. and izza kizza but these past couple of days i’ve been bumping this cat from brooklyn theophilus london (pronounced the-awful-less), and i do dare to say that his mixtape jam! blows all of them out the water. didn’t skip a single track. peep:

[Theophilus London - Leader of the New School]

[Theophilus London - Rest of Em]

and i wasn’t really a fan of solange’s “sand castles” song but theo’s remix mutates it into some stupidcrazydopeassshit:

[Theophilus London ft. Solange - Sand Castles (Drum Machine Remix)]

You likee? Free mixtape here:

story #1: move

in 2005, wide-eyed and impressionable, i moved out of my college town to get reacquainted with the bay.  i landed a place in berkeley–a small apartment on MLK & hearst that, through loopholes and faulty beauracracy, i was able to nab for less than $300 a month.  lucky, yes, but it didn’t take me long to realize that all the sexy brown folk were actually in oakland.  a particular spot was a loft in the west part of town that hosted 33 degrees of love & sound–a monthly fellowship of gorgeous people up and down the bay who squeezed themselves within the walls to sweat to house music until 5 in the morning.  i marked my calendar every month for this party, and in my ever-evolving love affair with oakland, these gatherings were my our dates.

i started finding excuses to come to the loft earlier on the days of the parties…and then on the days that there weren’t parties.  eventually, i was sneaking out of berkeley several times a week just to be in oakland, be around oakland people, exist for pockets of time as an oaklandien.  one day i got an IM from mai-lei (one of the inhabitants of the place i mucho jocked) informing me that khalil (the other inhabitant of the place i mucho jocked) was moving into the vacant spot next door, and that, in the event that i was looking to modify locale, there was an available room in wonderland.  and so when i got back from a new york gig, i landed at the airport, took the train back to berkeley, and immediately began moving my shit.

not to say that i’d move to a different city just because it has a bunch of sexy brown folk but–i did.

story #2: move

a) you see that blue thing on the balcony?  that’s where the turntables used to be.

b) you see that pretty hand covering that pretty face?  both of those belong to kamilah, who’s here while in town from ny.  why is she here?  because this is the kind of cool place that has/had turntables on the balcony.

c) you see those squiggly lines on the turntable thing?  that’s me trying to color the box in and my finger on the mousepad getting lazy.

eventually 33 degrees got so big that it had to shut down because the neighbors didn’t appreciate 300 people visiting the block every month.  but when i come home i still get the jones for those nights i would walk in and the air would be thick with the heat blooming from dozens of bodies swaying in unison, mai-lei spinning on the balcony above the entrance.  sometimes, on a rare night she’ll climb up to the tables to practice before a gig.  i wouldn’t necessarily call it having a personal dj, i will say that when one of your favorite dj’s is also your roommate, it’s a very good thing.

on friday, still in her pajamas and both of us with nothing to do for the day, she smiled and chirped, “lets move the tables downstairs.” i replied something along the lines of “oh shit hell yes!” and it was so.  we even went to ikea to get some spankin’ new shelves to toss up her records.  and now, HARK!  the only thing that could possibly be cooler to have in the middle of your living room than a set of turntables is a dinosaur.

oh, and what could make this even more exciting??  mai’s record collection!!!  after spending the weekend flipping through all her music, she plucked out the gems and is donating the rest to the vinyl gods.  what remains are rarities, forgottens, and irreplaceables, most of which probably don’t exist as mp3s and may remain forever on wax.  okay, you know that scene in beauty and the beast where the beast shows belle the library and she’s all spinning and shit, like “books!  books!” it’s like that (except don’t compare me to belle…the name “adriel” gets me enough comparisons with female disney characters…asses).

so yay, mai’s on the tables all the time now!  here are two favorites that she introduced me to tonight:

[stanley clarke - i wanna play for you]

[roy ayers - take all the time you need]

story #3: move

today was the 2nd to last oakland recording session for pretty buoyant society, my music project with  phatrick.  this weekend he moves to los angeles forever.  okay, maybe not forever, but a long ass time, dammit!  for the past 8 months when i’m not on the road, i’ve been spending my mondays, wednesdays, and fridays recording at his spot, and in between those are filled with random missions for chicken pho and indian food (i know, hella aZiAn…makes me want to grow bangs and dye them).  his exit from the bay has loomed over all our heads and none of us have really wanted to look up.  today it kind of hit me that, yo, i spend like 60% of my time in the bay with this fool!  what do i do to fill up all this time when he leaves??  should i get a wii or something?  shit.

well, the remainder of this week entails me–along with the rest of the bay–trying to savor the last short moments with el phatty boom before he migrates south.  not like it’s that far or anything, but for someone who’s too lazy to go to the cornerstore to get toilet paper, this is kind of a big deal.  PLUS he’s the other dj who manages to get me off my ass at parties, so it looks like my boogie opportunities shall be diminished as well.  looks like this thursday and friday i shall be dancing until my knees bleed.

story #4: move

i’m a bit disappointed that i didn’t end up going to denver for the democratic national convention.  in all my years in the activist and spoken word circles, i’ve never been one bit interested in electoral politics, so i’m still getting use to the fact that i’ve been glued to cnn.com interpreting the poll analyses between obama and that bag of monkeyshit he’s running against.  plus michelle was the keynote speaker tonight, and she’s even more gangsta than barack!  at the reluctance of coming off like a government zombie i’ve been holding back on writing about how optimistic my outlook on life has been since the prospect of president obama has come into view.  but so many facets of my life have been convinced to risk considering that all these things that we hope will happen, will actually happen.  there has been so much good art sprouting from the mere possibility…songs, visuals, movements.  what was the last american event that brought about so much joyful political art?

[young jeezy ft. nas - my president is black]

check out these dope wood blocks i got at the berkeley flea market from goldiloks! soooo dope!

on friday i decided that my other peoples’ shows tour would reach a point of complete stupiddumbridiculousness if I caught radiohead live at golden gate park that night.  they were headlining for the outside lands festival, but was i about to pay $85 to kick it in the woods 45 minutes from my house?  HELLLLLLNO!  Luckily, my homie rachelle is always down for adventures, and we embarked into the city with intentions to sneak in.  we hiked deep into the park where we found a colony of other cheapos like ourselves who opted to set up shop right outside the entrance and just listen while they passed around magical pastries and conversated with their dogs.  so no we didn’t exactly get to see radiohead, but we did get to feel all indigenous while climbing the steep hills and shit.

a great quote of the night: man…i want radiohead’s job…

another great quote of the night: these dogs…are stressing me out.

rachelle just moved back to the bay after 5 years in nyc, and we’ve been ernie-and-berting it for the past couple of months.  every encounter has resulted in us slurping down unnecessary amounts of hefeweizen and sharing our gripes about how being single is simultaneously the best and wackest thing ever.  go figure that my drinking buddy is a sarcastic girl from hayward who writes poetry about bees and vampires.

ever since I got back from new york earlier this month i’ve been all about walking and public transportation, which is almost impossible in the bay area.  we learned this during the 2 hours that it took for us to get back to oakland, which is only thirteen miles away, which means that had we been a bit more gangster and/or robotic, we could’ve gotten home faster walking.

no complaints though!  radiohead was fresh, despite not being able to see it, or hear a lot of it.  i want to see them live for real one day, but i wanna be on the front row.  which means i’d have to start camping out in front of the stage like right now.  but for now, watch this nude video:

You know how much I love music from Atlanta. For the most part it’s been the hip-hop and soul that’s captured my attention…and then there was Dog Bite! He has an innovative way of using his voice that’s reminiscent of Panda Bear and Sigur Ros–often referred to by Adriel Luis as “indigenous white people music.” Dog Bite displays his own style well though, and I just listened to his EP two and a half times in a row.

Here are some of my favorites:
Camera Eyes

The Owls

Download his free EP The Owls and Eyes here.

i’ve been getting a lot of new music lately and it’s great and all, but i need to be honest with myself and the fact that right now all i actually want to listen to is nneka’s album which is just insane. sooooooooo good, i’m totally swinging from her jockstrap right now.

i’ll give you this freebee, and then make sure you get the rest of her album here.

[nneka - deadly connection]

previously: don’t sleep: nneka

I’m not a huge Star Wars fan (sorry, it’s just not that exciting if you already visit outer space two or three times a year) but I am a huge BAY AREA fan! This is pretty dope.

It seldom happens, but it’s good to see when homophobia in hip-hop is addressed. I really like how Jay Smooth breaks it down in this vlog…and he has a bunch of other dope 3-dimensional discussions about hip-hop taboos at illdoctrine.com. Cheeek it!

whenever folks come out to the bay to visit they’re shocked at how “legal” herb is out here…people openly smoking joints while strolling down telegraph, bongs set up on shelves like mini vases, the “magic truffle man” at delores park. so when some dude ran out of gambling money and pulled out some purple instead, he must’ve forgotten that,

1. fresno is not the bay
2. even if it was, pulling out over an ounce of weed in a casino and distributing it among strangers isn’t the smartest thing to do

and now, collie buddz’s mary jane.

Via Fader