OK so, before I bring you guys your regularly scheduled edition of the shuffle, I have to get a bit nostalgic: today marks one year of rock the dub being alive in the blog world. I know that's not a big feat to most, but hell, it's big for me. It started out as being a hub for my writings and branched out, into Interviews, scathing Reviews, a spot for me to bust out recaps of my favorite shows, hell, even a place for my imagined mixtapes (or Dub Sessions as I affectionately call them) to be seen by the masses. I've helped usher in THUGSTEP, and introduced the world to many new artists and tracks. And I ain't stopping. I ain't stopping my weekly Friday playlists (peep the first one!), I damn sure ain't stopping my shuffles (peep the first one! it sucked!)... I will keep it moving. Why? At the end of the day, I know there might only be a handful of you guys reading, but I know someone is. And if you are going to be getting the info anyways, why not let it be from me?
It's funny, I started these Saturday shuffles b/c I was not on the PC enough to post up news first, so I figured "why not amass all the news I dig, and give it in one big pill?"... seems to be working, from the positive notes I continue to receive about my work. So I thank all of you who take the time out of your schedules to check me out. And I hope you continue to use rock the dub as a source for news, whether it's important, impotent, or just down right ignant.
Speaking of which, let's get on with the week that was...
01/While I normally don't get too religious/political, both on my blog and in my everyday life, I had to comment on a few things Dubya has going on that are kind of wild. First off, he gave a (long overdue) apology to people living and dealing with the atrocities over at Walter Reed, one of the leading Army medical centers. Word has it that they had mold and rats up in that place, which, no matter how great the staff and their work is, is just not healthy, especially if it was in the spots where the most severely injured cats were laid up in. Ever heard of staff infections? The shit guys catch whilst in the hospital?! These cats are risking life, losing limbs, and just overall dealing with the shittiest conditions over in Iraq-land, and our leading hospital is on that nonsense, for no good reason. Fix up. Secondly, and this is something I just got handed to me in the rock the dub War Room, the US is prepared to bomb first on Iran from 4AM to 4PM on Good Friday. Say whaaaa? This news is coming from some random Russian sources, so who knows if it is 100% valid (I only say that because, until I hear Charles Gibson say it, it just ain't news), but is it really that hard to visualize? Our men, out in the Gulf, locked and loaded to stomp on Iranian soldiers... families... babies... and we still haven't finished taking a dumb in Iraqia. I just don't get it. We might need to fall back and let those niggas sort their own shit out, while we take care of the shit going on over here - like Katrinaland, and just helping us poor people get up.
02/Speaking of goings-on in Iran, I have never agreed with Bill O'Reilly in my short time on this earth, but when he says that Rosie O'Donnell is both nutty and needs to be fired, I say "Go Bill!" His main beef is her comments saying that shit like the recent kidnappings of British soldiers is a plot between Britain and the US to further our country's thirst for Iranian blood, and I think she needs to stfu with shit like that. There's already enough bloodshed, we don't need you spreading half truths on TV and on your blog. I mean, when did Rosie become so bitter and, well, un-funny? She wasn't the best comedian, but she was always laughing. Now I always hear about her badmouthing so-and-so, or giving some heated, serious diatribe about someone being called gay or her convoluted thoughts international affairs. We don't need you spreading lies or falsehoods, Ro. Keep fighting the good fight, and dive into a muff or 3. It will do you right, girl.
03/This week, I had the opportunity of hearing one of the oddest ideas ever to hit the restaurant business: the Girls Gone Wild (you've been up at 3AM and seen these retarded commercials, right?) founder is planning on opening a string of restaurants soon, primarily in vacation/Spring Break hotspots (SHOCKER!). The catch: no titties, no sex. It's essentially going to be Hooters, but not really. Or, "sexy without being sexual". Why doesn't he make is exploitative videos in the same vein? And how exactly is he going to link the two? When I hear "Girls Gone Wild", I think of drunken college chicks taking their clothes off in RVs. And club shots of breats and butts being flashed. Is that something I really want to associate with eating?
04/There are some stories that make you go "hmmmmmm...", some that make you go "awwwwww...", and others that just make you feel ashamed for being a part of the human race. This story falls into the category of the latter: a man was upset that his former girlfriend was seeing someone while at school. So, she comes home on vacation, and what does he do? Instead of having a deep convo with her, or just leaving her alone, he dismembered her, then discared of her remains (allegedly) on two grills, on the balcony of his residence. While there was a foul ass odor for two days while he was griling all night (for a wedding, he told his neighbors), no one felt the need to truly confront him about this, aside from calling the cops. The thing is, they said her remains are not being found. I find it hard to believe that, in two days, he grilled her shit to pieces that could not be identified. It just doesn't seem to be possible, not on some grills. I don't think he burned her all up, and her body has to be somewhere else. Nasty bastard. OH and the kicker: dude was BLACK! This isn't your normal black people crime, but niggas said the same shit about the Beltway sniper...
05/Apple has finally stopped double charging peeps and set up its "Complete My Album" service on iTunes. This is good news, as it should help bolster sales of entire albums (although I haven't heard an album in a while that was worth its price in USD front to back), but I am trying to get my head around the fact that this service has been up for years now, is the leading legal download service out there, and yet its taken so long for this to be completed. I mean, is it hard to have created a program where if you purchase a track, when looking back over the album, or just the catalogues, if you come across the tune you bought the other day, it says something like "OWNED" or something in it? Netflix lets me know what's In Queue when I do a search and happen upon something I already listed, why couldn't iTunes get that going? Anyways, kudos to Apple for that, and a big middle finger to the artists/record labels who are still miffed @ digital downloads. If you bastards made product that wouldn't cause me to pick out the hot tracks and throw away the nonsense, maybe more $$$ would be spent on CDs. A-duh!
06/It looks like Anna Nicole Smith died the same way her son died: OD'd on a deadly combo of drugs, including shit to combat her sleeping meds, anxiety/depression meds, and her infection on her ass. It's a tough pill to swallow (no pun intended), but maybe this news might calm some of the asinine comments about her and her death. I highly doubt it, though. RIP to her fam, and hopefully her daughter grows up bright and knowing the good side of her moms.
07/Not "NEWS" news, but there are a few new trailers out for a few pop culture standouts: The Sopranos' trailer for the Final 9 is out, and it looks like it will be a mother before this season ends. Also, the trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV is out, and while it looks amazing, the lack of real content and backstory pissed a LOT of internet video game lovers off. What I gleamed from this short piece was that it takes place either in New York City or a NYC-esque city, and the dude you control is some Middle Eastern/Eastern European kind of guy, who seems to have been through a lot of violence and shit. My initial impression is that dude is a terrorist or something of that nature, but who knows. He has an accent.
08/For a bit of a breather, he is a mishmash of Black Entertainment news for ya: Lil' Wayne is hard at work on Tha Carter 3, not only getting a new management staff, but working with Kanye West on some heat (why does that make me feel all good inside?!?!)... speaking of Weezy, Mannie Fresh has said that he squashed beef with Wayne, which was not really a big beef, considering the fact that Weezy ended up losing out on Mannie's beats, and he was also given a desk job @ Def Jam, overseeing the albums of their Southern artists, which is a big look for both ends... a big LOL goes out to Suge Knight for getting evicted (karma's a bitch, no?), as well as being involved in a lawsuit over the 2Face project (aka old Pac vocals matched up with new Scarface vocals). Take that fat bastard to court!... Good luck to Styles P over at Koch. At least he should get what he's owed per album... Eddie Griffin, while promoting the new, shitty racing movie he is in, crashed a $1.5 Million Ferrari Enzo - but why do some people think it's a publicity stunt, and not a general act of dumb nigga-ness? I must admit, the crash just looked kind of staged, although rather weakly... DJ Drama spoke out about his ordeal and the state of the mixtape game. I commend him for keeping his name out there, and hey, since he and Cannon got arrested a few months ago , there's been a slew of free mixtapes out there, some pretty good, too. The record labels need to fess up and acknowledge their part in this (giving the DJs the tracks to promote, turning a blind eye to the enormous mixtape scene, signing loads of mixtape-hot artists, etc.), and start ponying up the funds to these tastemakers...
09/There's a few dope interviews out this week that you guys should check out: Young, Black & Fabulous interviewed both Kelly Rowland and Joe about various topics, including their new work... Mass Appeal sat down with Disco Fever's Sal Abbatiello, one of the early Hip-Hop staples... hell, I even posted up my interview with DJ Jus Ske (and I also have an interview Gridlok up over at DOA, with jeryl on the additional question flavor). Happy reading!
10/I am about to hit the sack in about 2.5 seconds, so let me see how quickly I can throw the remainder of these brief news points out to you guys: Taboo, aka the Black Eyed Pea that no-one knows, got popped for DUI... MTV is going to be unveiling the final season of Punk'd during a marathon on April 7th - then unleashing those 8 episodes on a weekly basis starting April 10th. I somehow don't believe this is it, but Ashton Kutcher still has a production deal with MTV no matter how this unfolds... Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite will be featuring 120GB of space, HDMI ports and hi-definition video cables (all shit they said they weren't planning on offering to the consumer in this month's EGM) for about $480 at the end of April. And I still won't be buying one... Yahoo, trying to beat Gmail on the free-email tip, is unveiling unlimited storage for all of your email needs come May of 2007. I have barely touched my 2+GB on Gmail, and don't think I'm going to... Did you guys know that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Kool Keith made a track together? More info here... Finally, it's taken years for this to happen, but in the near future both Mario (of Super Mario Bros. fame) and Sonic the Hedgehog will be sharing duties in an Olympics-themed video game...
02/Speaking of goings-on in Iran, I have never agreed with Bill O'Reilly in my short time on this earth, but when he says that Rosie O'Donnell is both nutty and needs to be fired, I say "Go Bill!" His main beef is her comments saying that shit like the recent kidnappings of British soldiers is a plot between Britain and the US to further our country's thirst for Iranian blood, and I think she needs to stfu with shit like that. There's already enough bloodshed, we don't need you spreading half truths on TV and on your blog. I mean, when did Rosie become so bitter and, well, un-funny? She wasn't the best comedian, but she was always laughing. Now I always hear about her badmouthing so-and-so, or giving some heated, serious diatribe about someone being called gay or her convoluted thoughts international affairs. We don't need you spreading lies or falsehoods, Ro. Keep fighting the good fight, and dive into a muff or 3. It will do you right, girl.
03/This week, I had the opportunity of hearing one of the oddest ideas ever to hit the restaurant business: the Girls Gone Wild (you've been up at 3AM and seen these retarded commercials, right?) founder is planning on opening a string of restaurants soon, primarily in vacation/Spring Break hotspots (SHOCKER!). The catch: no titties, no sex. It's essentially going to be Hooters, but not really. Or, "sexy without being sexual". Why doesn't he make is exploitative videos in the same vein? And how exactly is he going to link the two? When I hear "Girls Gone Wild", I think of drunken college chicks taking their clothes off in RVs. And club shots of breats and butts being flashed. Is that something I really want to associate with eating?
04/There are some stories that make you go "hmmmmmm...", some that make you go "awwwwww...", and others that just make you feel ashamed for being a part of the human race. This story falls into the category of the latter: a man was upset that his former girlfriend was seeing someone while at school. So, she comes home on vacation, and what does he do? Instead of having a deep convo with her, or just leaving her alone, he dismembered her, then discared of her remains (allegedly) on two grills, on the balcony of his residence. While there was a foul ass odor for two days while he was griling all night (for a wedding, he told his neighbors), no one felt the need to truly confront him about this, aside from calling the cops. The thing is, they said her remains are not being found. I find it hard to believe that, in two days, he grilled her shit to pieces that could not be identified. It just doesn't seem to be possible, not on some grills. I don't think he burned her all up, and her body has to be somewhere else. Nasty bastard. OH and the kicker: dude was BLACK! This isn't your normal black people crime, but niggas said the same shit about the Beltway sniper...
05/Apple has finally stopped double charging peeps and set up its "Complete My Album" service on iTunes. This is good news, as it should help bolster sales of entire albums (although I haven't heard an album in a while that was worth its price in USD front to back), but I am trying to get my head around the fact that this service has been up for years now, is the leading legal download service out there, and yet its taken so long for this to be completed. I mean, is it hard to have created a program where if you purchase a track, when looking back over the album, or just the catalogues, if you come across the tune you bought the other day, it says something like "OWNED" or something in it? Netflix lets me know what's In Queue when I do a search and happen upon something I already listed, why couldn't iTunes get that going? Anyways, kudos to Apple for that, and a big middle finger to the artists/record labels who are still miffed @ digital downloads. If you bastards made product that wouldn't cause me to pick out the hot tracks and throw away the nonsense, maybe more $$$ would be spent on CDs. A-duh!
06/It looks like Anna Nicole Smith died the same way her son died: OD'd on a deadly combo of drugs, including shit to combat her sleeping meds, anxiety/depression meds, and her infection on her ass. It's a tough pill to swallow (no pun intended), but maybe this news might calm some of the asinine comments about her and her death. I highly doubt it, though. RIP to her fam, and hopefully her daughter grows up bright and knowing the good side of her moms.
07/Not "NEWS" news, but there are a few new trailers out for a few pop culture standouts: The Sopranos' trailer for the Final 9 is out, and it looks like it will be a mother before this season ends. Also, the trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV is out, and while it looks amazing, the lack of real content and backstory pissed a LOT of internet video game lovers off. What I gleamed from this short piece was that it takes place either in New York City or a NYC-esque city, and the dude you control is some Middle Eastern/Eastern European kind of guy, who seems to have been through a lot of violence and shit. My initial impression is that dude is a terrorist or something of that nature, but who knows. He has an accent.
08/For a bit of a breather, he is a mishmash of Black Entertainment news for ya: Lil' Wayne is hard at work on Tha Carter 3, not only getting a new management staff, but working with Kanye West on some heat (why does that make me feel all good inside?!?!)... speaking of Weezy, Mannie Fresh has said that he squashed beef with Wayne, which was not really a big beef, considering the fact that Weezy ended up losing out on Mannie's beats, and he was also given a desk job @ Def Jam, overseeing the albums of their Southern artists, which is a big look for both ends... a big LOL goes out to Suge Knight for getting evicted (karma's a bitch, no?), as well as being involved in a lawsuit over the 2Face project (aka old Pac vocals matched up with new Scarface vocals). Take that fat bastard to court!... Good luck to Styles P over at Koch. At least he should get what he's owed per album... Eddie Griffin, while promoting the new, shitty racing movie he is in, crashed a $1.5 Million Ferrari Enzo - but why do some people think it's a publicity stunt, and not a general act of dumb nigga-ness? I must admit, the crash just looked kind of staged, although rather weakly... DJ Drama spoke out about his ordeal and the state of the mixtape game. I commend him for keeping his name out there, and hey, since he and Cannon got arrested a few months ago , there's been a slew of free mixtapes out there, some pretty good, too. The record labels need to fess up and acknowledge their part in this (giving the DJs the tracks to promote, turning a blind eye to the enormous mixtape scene, signing loads of mixtape-hot artists, etc.), and start ponying up the funds to these tastemakers...
09/There's a few dope interviews out this week that you guys should check out: Young, Black & Fabulous interviewed both Kelly Rowland and Joe about various topics, including their new work... Mass Appeal sat down with Disco Fever's Sal Abbatiello, one of the early Hip-Hop staples... hell, I even posted up my interview with DJ Jus Ske (and I also have an interview Gridlok up over at DOA, with jeryl on the additional question flavor). Happy reading!
10/I am about to hit the sack in about 2.5 seconds, so let me see how quickly I can throw the remainder of these brief news points out to you guys: Taboo, aka the Black Eyed Pea that no-one knows, got popped for DUI... MTV is going to be unveiling the final season of Punk'd during a marathon on April 7th - then unleashing those 8 episodes on a weekly basis starting April 10th. I somehow don't believe this is it, but Ashton Kutcher still has a production deal with MTV no matter how this unfolds... Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite will be featuring 120GB of space, HDMI ports and hi-definition video cables (all shit they said they weren't planning on offering to the consumer in this month's EGM) for about $480 at the end of April. And I still won't be buying one... Yahoo, trying to beat Gmail on the free-email tip, is unveiling unlimited storage for all of your email needs come May of 2007. I have barely touched my 2+GB on Gmail, and don't think I'm going to... Did you guys know that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Kool Keith made a track together? More info here... Finally, it's taken years for this to happen, but in the near future both Mario (of Super Mario Bros. fame) and Sonic the Hedgehog will be sharing duties in an Olympics-themed video game...
So, that's the anniversary post. Hope you guys love it.
I have a few vids to link, just because I've found some funny/crazy stuff on your internets:
South Park's "Nagger" bit:
(hopefully Viacom doesn't take this one down)
"When Getting Hyphy Goes Wrong"...
(classic)
I had to post up some Kimbo Slice: Kimbo Vs. The Bouncer:
(hopefully Viacom doesn't take this one down)
"When Getting Hyphy Goes Wrong"...
(classic)
I had to post up some Kimbo Slice: Kimbo Vs. The Bouncer:
(dude is THE MAN)
Redman's "Put It Down" video:
(gotta keep it Jersey on you cats)
The true price of the Iraqi War:
Here's to one year down... many more to go. Until next time...
