I'm not sure what to make of this...


... BUT I LOVE IT!!!

Perhaps, just perhaps, Walter E. Smithe actually bought the naming rights to Wrigley Field. Most likely not. When I first saw it, I completely believed. My first clue I might be getting duped was the supposed plan to add a permanent dome to the top of the Friendly Confines. When I read that "the Smithe brothers plan to use Walter E. Smithe Field 365 days a year," I was slightly more skeptical.

Unfortunately, the "Press Conference" videos pretty much give away the farm as far as reality is concerned. I'm not sure whether Wrigley and the Cubs are at all involved in this spectacular advertising campaign, but the Smithe ad team really hit a home run. I particularly enjoyed the "Wrigley Field Extreme Makeover" video, which sends a Walter E. Smithe interior decorating team in to improve Wrigley's look.

Looking back at the supposed press release, I probably should've picked up on the joke when I read that Wrigley will become a "true multi-purpose facility," featuring dog shows and rodeos. Still, this is a good laugh and a great idea on the part of Walter E. Smithe. At the end of the day, though, a funnier joke is the Cubs' Opening Day pitching rotation, as detailed by Jay Mariotti in the Chicago Sun Times.

The Bad Kid Keeps Rollin'

My readership knows my feelings on the life and music of James "J Dilla" Yancey, and so you know I mean no disrespect whatsoever when I tell you that the late beatmaster's labelmate and friend Madlib continues to thrive in his absence. If you like good hip hop beats - and hopefully you can imagine what I mean by that - you need to buy Beat Konducta, Vols. 1-2.

Much like Dilla's album Donuts, the 35-track Konducta disc is a veritable smorgasbord of one-to-two minute beats, without any major vocal presence (samples excepted). Also like Donuts, it keeps you jumping top to bottom. The first half of the CD-release has been out on vinyl for a while, but the second half is brand bangin' new.

I've said it before: the formula is simple, it's all in the execution. And the digging. What makes a guy like Madlib so special is the process that goes into finding just the right samples for his brand of beats. While he's had the good fortune to be allowed - invited, actually - to remix the Blue Note catalog, most of his records are filled with sounds found deep in the Motown stacks. I'm sure Madlib would tell you himself - sometimes you gotta dig for days to find that perfect five-second cut.

For the uninitiated, Stones Throw wants you to hear their shit, and they're willing to give a little away for free. The second episode of their new podcast series is a twenty-plus-minute mixup (thanks to J Rocc of the Beat Junkies, who seems to be the resident remixer) of tracks from Madlib's new release. It's a fairly representative sample, a good preview of the Bad Kid's new disc, and it features a couple of nice cameos.

That's my musical contribution for the day. I'd also like to shout out the best NCAA tournament of all time (seriously, how many overtime games and buzzer-beaters can one set of 64 games have?). Finally, I'd like to shamelessly suggest that you - that's you, dear K-bor - go ahead and click on the link for my NBA blog and, whether you like the NBA or not, click on some of the ads you see there. I'd consider it a personal favor, and you'll essentially be keeping me fed in the mac-n-cheese/frozen taquitos style I've become accustomed to. (I told you it would be shameless.) If enough people click on my ads, maybe I'll even be able to afford one of those Krispy Kreme Burgers.

Back on Top

Well, K-bors, it's been nearly two weeks since we last spoke, but I'm BACK... tell a friend. It's recently been brought to my attention that the City of Chicago has decided to re-assert its position at the pinnacle of the USA's architectural pantheon, thanks to the Fordham Company and Santiago Calatrava.

Calatrava's Fordham Spire - that would be the tremendously tall, shockingly shiny, corkscrew-looking beauty that's been digitally inserted into the photo of the Chicago skyline below - will be 124-stories (that's 2,000 ft, or 609.6 meters for all you Europeans) of residential delight. With any luck, I'll be freaking loaded by the time they finish it and I can live there.

I was pleasantly reminded by the news of this project's approval that Chicago is, in fact, the greatest city in the world. Now, I'm not sure why so many people have failed to realize this, but I think that failure is a big part of what makes Chicago so wonderful. You're sleepin' on us, USA.

It's no coincidence that three of the four tallest buildings in the country (the Sears Tower, the Aon Center and the John Hancock Center) live in my city. By the time the Fordham Spire is completed, that figure could be at seven of eight (as long as the slow-pokes building the Freedom Tower in NY continue their snail's pace). The Tall Tower, the Waterview Tower and the Trump International Hotel & Tower are already under construction. So if you thought your city was cool, just realize that when it comes to phalli, we OWN you.

... and you thought the Butter Burger sounded fattening!

Not much time today, folks, but I had to drop this (donut) gem on you before I flee the country:

Meet the Krispy-Kreme-Bacon-Cheeseburger!

I apologize in advance for not posting over the course of the next week-and-a-half or so, but I'll be drinking free booze on the beaches of Mexico. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Regarding Barry...

I feel like I need to say something on the Barry Bonds issue. Perhaps I'm overestimating my contribution to the blogsphere, but I try to hit the big sports issues whenever I can. So here's my general take...

As as you probably know, Game of Shadows - a book by SF Chronicle writers Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams - supposedly proves, once and for all, that Barry used steroids. I'm familiar with these writers, having read their piece on the BALCO investigation and heard them interviewed on San Francisco sports radio on multiple occasions. My opinion of them is low, to say the least, particularly regarding Fainaru-Wada, who is one of the most self-important jerk-offs I've ever heard speak.

He pretends to be a champion of truth, who is only interested in the story because he believes the public deserves to know what actually happened. That bullshit stance is belied by his self-promotion for the Pulitzer (an award he most certainly did NOT deserve). He claims that money is not a goal. Then why compile years of hearsay into a book and pretend it's fact?

Now, I have not read the book. I have looked at the excerpts (I laugh at the suggestion, in the excerpts, that gaining 15 pounds in muscle over an offseason is impossible without steroids) and I have read a lot of media coverage dealing with the book. To the best of my understanding, the following is a list of information contained in this book that could be considered "new," or "proof" of anything:



Yes, that was the list. As far as I can tell, there is nothing new. It's simply a history of accusations and unsubstantiated claims.

Now, I am no moron. Or at least, I am not the biggest moron on Earth. If you ask my opinion, I believe that Bonds probably used some sort of performance-enhancing drug, whether deliberately or not. And if he did, in fact, take these drugs unknowingly (as he maintains) I believe his lack of knowledge was a direct product of his lack of desire to know. However, I understand that this is simply my opinion. An informed opinion, but an opinion nonetheless.

Fainaru-Wada and Williams would have this opinion taken as fact, simply because enough people share it. They continue to cite "hundreds of sources," none of which are named. They continue to base much of their theory on the statements of an ex-mistress of Bonds who (a) went on Geraldo and said that she had never witnessed Barry doing steroids; and (b) has tried to extort money from Bonds in the past. They continue to attribute much of their knowledge to "sealed and unsealed documents" that nobody except them has ever seen. I'm sorry, but this is simply not proof of anything.

What angers me most about the situation is the preposterous double-standard that is in effect here. For years, everybody stood by as fan and media darlings gained ridiculous amounts of muscle mass and bombed homers like never before: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Ken Caminiti, Rafael Palmeiro, the list goes on and on and on and on. If you believe Jose Canseco's book (and that's looking more and more like the closest thing to truth that has come out of the recent steroid hullabaloo) a ridiculous percentage of major leaguers were using throughout the 90's.

Then Barry - always an enemy of the media and standoffish towards fans - starts mashing, and suddenly the baseball world is up-in-arms over the "steroid problem." Well, I hate to support Bonds' paranoid ranting, but it sure seems like he's a target. THE target. Because as far as I'm concerned, McGwire and Sosa are the clearest steroid abusers around, and nobody is digging into their past.

Hardly anything was made of Sosa's sudden inability to speak English. People said they felt bad for poor McGwire when he broke down in front of congress. Why? And why go digging to prove Barry guilty when all these other guys get a free pass? The only star to test positive is Rafi Palmeiro, and even he is getting off easier than Bonds.

So that's what I think. This book does nothing to change my opinion on Bonds. Show me a positive test, or leave it alone. And, for the record, if Bud Selig decides to suspend Barry in response to the publication of this book, it is the biggest fraud perpetrated by anyone in baseball since the Black Sox Scandal.

Pete Rock is great, but Firefox is a bastard asshole.

So I spent approximately 45 minutes writing a post about the Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth album Mecca and the Soul Brother. It's a great old school hip-hop album, and I had a lot to say about it, but Firefox crashed on me before I had saved it.

In any event, I have neither the time nor the cyberstamina to repeat my efforts, and frankly I'm in a miserable mood now. It doesn't help that Google makes a really sweet plug-in allowing you to post to blogger from Microsoft Word, because they only make it for PC users. Arg. Computers are stupid, stupid machines.

also, if nobody else will say it, I will.... RIP Kirby...

Meet Maya...

I don't want you to get the idea that I'm starving for content, but I've decided to do a solid for my pal Maya and give her fledgling business some free pub...

I KNOW!! So cute you can hardly stomach it. Maya Liparini's Pet Portrait business - in addition to being the sole moneymaking venture of my friend and K-bor - is one of the simple pleasures in life. Whether you're in her target market (read: wealthy, quirky, or completely obsessed pet owner) or, like me, just an animal fan with an appreciation for her appropriate and understated silliness, you should check out her site (mayaliparini.com). Past the pet paintings, there are the assorted collected works of a really very talented artist, and an opportunity to dig deeper and truly understand the origins of Maya's unique vocation. When not embroiled in drinking contests with her cat, she actually does a great job of bringing the spirits of animals alive in their portraits. As a testament to this, and as today's farewell, I leave you with my personal favorite from the Liparini Pet Catalog....

R.I.P. Dilla


Those of you who read these musings with any regularity will remember my Stones Throw Records posting from slightly over a month ago, and perhaps my particular affinity for producers Jay Dee (aka J Dilla) and Madlib.

At the time I wrote about Stones' Throw, I had no idea that Dilla was virtually on his death bed. Nobody did. According to the preponderance of press on the subject, Jay hid the extent of his illness from virtually everyone. Even now, many major media outlets are attributing his death simply to Lupus, when in fact it seems that his protracted health failure was considerably more complicated. The Detroit Free Press (easily the best newspaper moniker in this country) published a truly spectacular retrospective on the beatmaster that left this writer with tears in his eyes and a heavy heart.

I've had this post in mind for two weeks now. Not to overdramatize my personal involvement, but it's incredibly difficult to attempt to sum up or honor the life of a personal musical hero. Contrary to what you may be thinking, that is not an overstatement. Jay Dee is not only one of my favorite beatmakers (probably #1 on my Top Ten list) but also a revolutionary producer for hip-hop, in general.

As a producer for a variety of mainstream hip-hop groups throughout the '90s (A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Pharcyde, etc.) Jay managed to push his raw, pounding brand of beats on the pop-hop crowd. Looking back, his tracks on Tribe's Beats, Rhymes and Life (one of the first hip-hop albums I purchased) are a big part of what changed me from casual observer of hip-hop to an interested fan.

Though Dilla has probably received more media coverage in death than he did over the course of his life (a sad testament to the state of hip-hop music today) perhaps more impressive is the response from the underground community. Looking for some underground hip-hop sites? Go ahead and type 'RIP Dilla' into your favorite search engine. After you browse through fifty pages of search results filled with various messages of love and tribute, you'll start coming to foreign-language hip-hop pages offering Jay Dee memorial pieces to the worldwide underground.

The web is also exploding with commemorative pieces of multimedia, from the brief Much Music tribute video to a slew of Dilla-based beat mixes like these two from hiphopmusic.com's DJ Emskee. Not to mention the overwhelming number of brief, heartfelt thank you's from artists he worked with (like this one from the myspace blog of Stones Throw MC Oh No, younger brother of Madlib.)

I'd like to think that the measure of an artist (especially a producer who works with so many different artists) is the response from his peers, and if this is the case, Jay is one of the greatest of all time. Not only was he a pioneer for what I take to be the truest and best brand of hip-hop (his hard-hitting break beats are always paired with soulful, well-thought-out samples), but he seems to have left a profound mark on every artist he ever worked with, and most every eardrum he pounded.

Listening to Donuts (the Dilla album released on his 32nd birthday, three days before he died) is a bittersweet experience. It's a 31-track album that runs a mere 44 minutes, with the longest track (Don't Cry) weighing in at 1:59. Much of the LP was pieced together from a hospital bed, and it truly sounds as though Jay - aware of his impending passing - was trying to record as many beats as possible. It's as though he had a cache of hot tracks in his brain, just waiting to be conjured into existence, and he used his last few months to quickly document the contents of the mind of a hip-hop genius.

As I write this, I'm jamming to J. Rocc's "Thank you Jay Dee" podcast, a very well-done hour-long tribute compiled largely from Dilla's own production work. In the coming months, we'll see several posthumous releases (solo and collaborative) and the next few years will probably feature countless remixes and mashups built on top of Jay's foundations. Other great producers will come along. But nobody - not Madlib, not Kanye, not your favorite producer today and not tomorrow's star beatmaker - will fill the void left by the departure of a true, revolutionary hip-hop genius.

for more general info on Jay Dee aka J Dilla check out this solid wikipedia entry about him, or his artist page at myspace. Here's his complete discography.

Rest In Peace, and enjoy the Big Record Store in the Sky...