funkkkkk

just a bunch of good sounding shit i put together

it starts off a little weird but give it a chance

Joe Cruz

 As far as I can remember, the only thing I was really able to do with chalk was draw flowers and stick figures. Actually-- no that's a lie, there was the occasional tic tac toe game, or a hopscotch grid if I was feeling super energetic, but nothing serious; I was more of a let's play tag and jump double dutch kind of kid. I imagine if I'd had a look at Joe Cruz's art work at a young age, well who knows you might have been looking at a modern day Floda Kahlo, maybe a Paflo Picasso.... a Vincent Van Flogh? Ok, I should of stopped at the first one, but anyway, back to the post. Yo I'm in love with these; by adding color to these photographs he totally changes the mood and dynamic of them. Based out of a London, Cruz not only shows that you don't need anything fancy to make good art, but just some kind of medium, a good idea and creativity. If you read my blog these may remind you a little of John Baldessari who I wrote about a couple months ago (post here) and in a way they're both similar. Seriously though these are just a FEW of Cruz's work, check out some of his other work on his website.

"Under what circumstances is it ok to take another human life?"

                    

This Is Vanity - Short Film from Oliver Goodrum on Vimeo.

This short film follows a mother and her teenage daughter who is intellectually disabled. The girl suffers from bullying and her mom unfortunately becomes a victim to the bullies as well when she makes an effort to protect her child. I've taken a great liking to short films and watch them all the time now, this is definitely the best one I've seen. I took a couple screenshots during the video at times where I liked the lighting of the shots, just cause that's the type of shit I do. If you decide to watch, I'd suggest full screen for optimal experience. Hope you enjoy it.

small epiphanies and fasting

So I spontaneously decided to go on a one week SMF (Social Media Fast) yesterday, this is probably one of the best things I've done for myself since that time I decided to drastically cut down on my soda intake. The internet is nothing short of one of the greatest inventions of mankind, but like they say; too much of any good thing is bad. I've come to realize that a lot of my problems and small day to day issues stem from spending too much time on the computer. There was a time where I would literally spend hours on Tumblr and Facebook, but I stepped back and asked myself, "All of this to what avail?" Since I knew I would be pursuing a career in which social media will be very prominent, I'd tell myself things like "Well at least I'm not doing all of this in vain, this is the career path I'm going to choose anyway, right?" The thing is, if I'm spending so much time focusing on stuff that will be more useful to me in a few years when I'll actually be able to translate that time spent using these sites into money; why am I keeping myself from focusing on what's more important in my life right now?

Life is about prioritization, it's about setting goals to keep to, and making the right decisions to achieve those goals. Everything you do now will translate into something later. Newton's third law of Motion states that "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." That said, if there are no actions being made consequently there will be no reactions, and in the long run no progress. Sitting on my ass in front of a computer for 12+ hours of the day is not what's going to get me to where I want to be no matter how smart I am. I've realized I need to read and write more, to listen and observe, to think and reflect, to actively use my brain in a way that makes me better and smarter everyday... and not just in a way that builds a follower count that probably won't matter in a couple years.  I'm also doing this cutting back as a way to start disciplining myself so that once I start school it won't be as big of a distraction anymore. So far it's been pretty easy except for the two dreams I had in a span of 24 hours where I was on Twitter and kept feeling bad for messing up my fast even though in reality I was fast asleep...

weird pretty things i wish i owned

Massimo Giorgetti (founder of MSGM) collaborated with the creative minds behind Toilet Paper magazine, artists Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Fferrari, to produce some eye catching stuff.

THEM VISUALS DOE

This is cool, like the song is nothing special but I was so drawn in by the editing that I watched the whole thing. It also definitely just further inspired me to get into video editing and videography.

                        

Treasure

I'm not a big fan of mainstream music. In fact, I make a conscious effort to not keep up with who's on the Top 100 and stuff like that. Occasionally, when I decide to turn on the radio, I'm reminded of why I keep my distance. Simply put, hearing the same song multiple times while flipping through stations gets really annoying. So I don't really know about a lot of the mainstream music that comes out until someone recommends stuff to me, or I see it online or something. About two or three years ago when Bruno Mars came on to the scene with his hits Grenade and Just the Way You Are; I wasn't ecstatic about the guy. To be honest, I soon got pretty sick of hearing them.

Fast forward a little to the release of Unorthodox Jukebox, Mars' second studio album, and I still didn't really know much about him. Luckily, my sister kind of likes pop music enough to listen and filter out the good, the bad and the "wtf is this". Without her, I wouldn't have given some of his work a chance. I'm pretty happy she'd blast songs on our iTunes despite my reluctancy. That being said, here's a video of his that I stumbled upon recently. It's about two months old (I know, I'm late) and unless you've seen it I suggest you press play and try to be as unbiased as possible, no matter what genre of music you're interested in. It's just very smooth and energetic; I also like the old school effect he put on the video; it reminds me of Michael Jackson's "Rock With You". Enjoy : )

                        

Happy Birthday Bill Cosby!

Bill Cosby is no doubt one of the coolest guys to ever grace American television, not only was he smart and funny, but super talented as well. Last summer I remember spending hours at a time watching back to back episodes of The Cosby Show. One thing I always really liked about him was his ability to prove that before the time of reality television, the "sex sells" approach or just bad TV in general, that you could still hold an audience and entertain them without having to err too far from a simple depiction of what everyday life was like. On top of this, before he even took on the role of Cliff Huxtable for the successful eight years ('84-'92) that The Cosby Show aired, he had another show called The Bill Cosby Show. This situational comedy ran for two seasons and with it he became the first African-American to star in his own name-given comedy series. He was also the first African-American to costar on a television drama series (I Spy) which was even earlier in his career. Last but not least that I'll mention of Cosby's creations is Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids which he not only created, but produced, hosted and voiced over as well. When doing a little research on the show I learned the objective behind the episodes was always something educational and he wrote his dissertation on it, which he titled  "An Integration of the Visual Media Via 'Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids' Into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning", he received his doctorate from Amherst.

Ok, so enough with the facts, here's the weird part. Yesterday I was thinking about doing a blogpost on Bill Cosby and Mr. Rogers, and started working on one. Then, earlier today I was on the Opening Ceremony blog and learned that it was Giorgio Armani's birthday. So I'm like oh that's cool, I should do a post about a successful celebrity whose birthday it is on my blog in the future. Out of curiosity, I go to look up "july 12th celebrity birthday" and guess whose birthday it is. BILL FUCKING COSBY. I kid you not, the first three or four posts that came up on Google were random blogs and websites sharing their own appreciation for his 76th and I was just like wow the chances of this happening were literally 1 in 365 (.002%). It was pretty cool, so this was basically confirmation for me that him and I are somehow telepathically connected, hence this blog post title! In all seriousness though, Happy Birthday to a great inspiration of mine, hopefully I'll get to meet him one day. (P.S. Below is this button I made for P1N5 a couple months ago.)

"Also I don't care about like fashion and shit"

If you somewhat keep up with my blog or even fuck with me in real life then you know I'm not a normal teenager. So of course the first interview I did with an artist for this blog definitely couldn't just be some normal shit, or any normal artist for that matter. That said, meet Donny Oh. I discovered this kid on Twitter, he came up in my "Who to Follow" suggestions mad long ago, which is basically Twitter's way of tailoring your followings based on users you follow already. Anyway, he's a really chill guy from Brooklyn who tweets about everyday shit, his opinions on music and life, and the occasional epiphany or rant. Also he's mad smart (he got accepted into Carnegie Mellon and graduated from high school at 17). So basically we got a modern day triple threat on our hands. From listening to some of the other stuff he's dropped over the past few months, I could see that he had a great deal of promise. I remember putting my best friend on to his music back at school and her being like "yeah, he's got flow". I also find it really cool that other accredited music blogs picked up on his shit, so I wanted to post something in honor of his first EP dropping, and also that way in the future I can say I was a day one fan, is that even a term? Probably not. Clearly great stuff lies ahead for this kid, in his own words, he's "not another Internet fuckboy swag rapper talking about molly margielas and money". I asked Donny a couple questions and that he answer them in 140 characters or less, so it's a twintterview, get it... lololololol, aight read on.

1. Why'd you start rapping? 
I felt like I had potential to be good at it; and I love music, and why not create something that I love?
2. The meaning behind "Stuffed Shells"

I posted a picture of some stuffed shells that were good as fuck on Instagram and Nate (friend of his) said that should be the title. It sounds cool too.

3. Next year at this time you'll be… 

Hopefully chillen gearing up to drop another EP and perform at Afropunk, time will tell tho

4. Rappers you'd collaborate with?

Earl Sweatshirt, Eli, YannO, Capital Steez,
MF DOOM, Tyler, the Creator, Chester Watson

5. Best/favorite social network + why

Tumblr - idk, you can basically post anything and
there are cool pictures and attractive females on there.

6. Yeezus, The Gifted, Born Sinner, or Holy Grail?

Watching Movies With the Sound Off

7. Best possible outcome of this tape.
People say whoa this kid is good as fuck wow let me show this to my friends and niggas play my music on the way to school and stuff.

8. Why are you different than other teenage rappers?

I can actually rap, and I'm creative. Also I don't care about like fashion and shit nor do I hang out in SoHo.

9.  Is hip hop dead/did it ever die?

Nah hip hop isn't dead it's just not on the radio.

10. Advice to ur future self

Don't rock leather pants and pop molly and don't get anyone pregnant. And save money and stay true to yourself.

11. Last words about your first EP

This shit hot as fuck bruh

Here's a video for one of the tracks off the EP, listen, share, and download his new shit here.

                   

Donny's Soundcloud, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter.

The Ten Throwback Thursday Commandments

1. Thou shalt not #tbt selfies. It's one of the lowkey rules. With a few exceptions, it's kind of basic to post a selfie, if it's Thursday I want to see some serious nostalgia inducing photos, get creative.
2. Thou shalt not post pictures taken less than one month prior to #tbt date. You posted that same picture on Facebook, and a bunch of your Facebook friends follow you on Instagram so you're not looking at that many likes anyway. Also what's the point of posting a "throwback" where you look the same...?
3. Thou shalt not throw it back too far. No sonograms please, that died with the #tbt pics of sperm, and the "took this five minutes ago #tbt" pics, it's not funny anymore.
4. Thou shalt not #tbt on Tuesday, or any other day. Yes, people do this. I mean we all know the "t" stands for Thursday and Transformation Tuesday is it's own other time Instagram sets aside for us to be narcissistic, you know who you are, just stahhp.
5. Thou shalt not OD on #tbt pics. That means no sitting in front of family albums just for the sake of posting every cute picture you see of your(thy)self in the span of like twenty fucking minutes, doesn't matter care how cute you were.
6. Thou shalt not over do it with the throwback summer pics. Seriously, just because you looked good does not mean we, your followers, are trying to see your half naked body every other week.
7. Thou shalt not post #tbt pictures between the hours of 12am and 3am on Thursday. It sort of screams, "I've been waiting for this all week... got my filters/captions ready and everything" Please don't be that guy.
8. Thou shalt not post "#tbt" pictures between the hours of 12am and 3am on Friday. Even though people are still up and in the "it's still Thursday night" mindset.... you, my friend, are a cheater. P.S. Thursday comes every week. So if you missed your chance just wait it out a little, or at least have the decency to hashtag it "#flashbackfriday" instead!
9. Thou shalt not #tbt pictures of old flings and boyfriends/girlfriends with lame captions. If you miss them that much text them, call them, refriend them on Facebook, etc.
10. Thou shalt not over-filter #tbt photos. If you used to have a really bad haircut, we wanna see, if you used to look like godzilla, we won't judge, that much.

Took me a while to think of some of that stuff, but on that note, here are some of my Throwback Thursday highlights. (P.S. if you click the picture you can see it at a greater resolution) 
Thanks for readinggggg.

look i know girls love jay z

Honestly when artists due shit like this it just so blatantly proves that for them it's not just about the money and the awards, but like genuinely connecting with their fans. Also creds to my friend Shamit for posting this on Facebook and letting me put it up here, he shared with me that this took place at Pace gallery in Chelsea earlier today. #NEWRULES #NEWRULES If you haven't yet you should definitely download Holy Grail... or buy it, whichever.

the pale african #instagramspotlight

so this chick is some model i follow on instagram named adesuwa aighewi. she dons the handle "pale_african" (which is cool cause she's a mixture of nigerian, chinese and thai descendants), and she brightens up my feed with pictures of her and her twenty something year old cool ass friends doing what kidults do for fun. she also sometimes posts pictures of her on site at photo shoots and stuff. when i googled her name, i also learned that she's the chick from Childish Gambino's "Heartbeat" video, here's the link if you haven't seen it. (P.S. she's also his ex girlfriend) also learn more about this model and check out some of her legit work here since i only posted stuff off of her instagram above, she's mad cute tho fuck with herrrr,

Sebastião Salgado's "Genesis"

“In Genesis, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen.”-  Sebastião Salgado

The photos you're about to see can no doubt speak for themselves, but for the sake of my not feeling like I just copied and pasted a bunch of pictures on to this blog post, I'll just say a little something. At times, in life, I think it's easy to lose track of the clear ways in which nature so beautifully displays God's handiwork simply because we've become so accustomed to a modern way of living where that stuff just doesn't make it to our conscious "things to give a f*ck" about list. We'd rather look at text messages or an email before watching a sunrise or sunset, or spend time posting pictures of our "outfit of the day" on Instagram than give the beautiful flowers on the corner of our block a chance to make an Instagram debut. Seriously though, when's the last time you sat in a park for a while and just observed, or listened to what was around you? Personally, I think the closest I get to nature is probably the mosquitoes that attack me when I open my window, or when I get caught in the rain and am left damning the weather gods simply because I didn't check the weather.

Sebastião Salgado decided to spend eight years of his life traveling to 32 countries to document amazing places that, in his words, look just as they did since the time of Genesis. His objective? To photograph locations that remain as untouched by the modern man as possible, and the animals and primitive peoples that inhabit these rarely visited places. I was sitting in Barnes and Noble flipping through the pages literally blown away that such beauty exists. Honestly, I began to feel really small and insignificant-- in the end you're just one person, in a neighborhood, in a city, in a state, in a country, in a continent, and there are people out there who don't even know what wifi is! Anyway, I hope in looking at these photos they might inspire you as much as they inspired me, feel free to read more about the project here. I also encourage you to take a trip to Barnes and Noble and look at these on a larger scale, there are hundreds of pages that will just amaze you as well as pages of Salgado's own words on what traveling to such places was like, and some of the things he learned and experienced.