The days are getting longer. Some snow actually melted, and a patch of grass showed up over the weekend. Hooray!
The grass is back!
My week’s off to a patchwork start. Some cool stuff in the works that will end up appearing under my byline in a week or two. Something else that I’ve been pushing for years (yes, years!!) will making an appearance later in 2015, too.
What I’m learning about most of the stuff in my life is that taking a longer view is required. That’s hard because it’s not in my nature and hasn’t always been my experience to wait on things.
And let me close with a bit of a non sequitur.
Nearly every Monday afternoon when I’m working at home during the winter months, I try to catch DJ Ben and his WMPG show, Hip Hop is Alive. Often, I crank up the volume and do a session downstairs on my bike trainer. I’m late to the game on hip hop and rap and I learn something new every week listening to a DJ who truly cares about the kind of show he delivers every week, from 3 to 5. The genre is also deeper than I was led to believe by the anti-rap element and PMRC-types like Tipper Gore, and others, back when I was doing my post-punk thing in the 1990s.
Yesterday, he had Brzowski, a Portland-based hip-hop artist, along with Bruce King, talking about the connections between late 1990s/early 2000s punk/skate/hardcore and hip hop culture. The show was incredible. King also dropped some knowledge about his experience behind bars, and the prison-industrial complex.
It’s rare these days to tune into anything that’s deep, literate, and far-reaching in scope. Monday’s two-hour slot was amazing, and I don’t use that word lightly.
I’m anxious to catch Brzowski live at some point when he plays again in Portland. I’m also intrigued by some of the content I briefed of King’s on his website, Incarca.
Patchworks, hip hop, non sequitur…sometimes, the longer review requires imaginative reworking of our expectations.
When I first read your post yesterday, I skimmed it and didn’t think much about it, but this morning while shoveling and scooping the recent wet, heavy snow I thought about it some more and thought about our ability (as human beings) to disdain the longer view. It often requires sacrifice and perseverance; there’s not an app for that, I guess, although I suppose some “gaming” programs might teach it.
Your post was provocative in its patchwork.