12ozProphet

If you didn’t cop Modern Warfare 2 at one of the many small video game shops that broke the date and sold it early, don’t worry - it’s everywhere on Tuesday. And they’re resetting all multiplayer stats on Tuesday, so you won’t be too far behind… OR WILL YOU? Everyone will know the maps better than you! Throw a panic and find a copy, soldier!

Mr. Magic, aka “Oh my God, I think I’m having a RAP ATTACK!” has died from a heart attack. R.I.P. to a true great.

The Nas quote I used in the headline is from this infinitely quotable gem, Halftime. Check out some vintage radio interviews from Mr Magic’s WBLS show, The Rap Attack, here, here, and here.

The Flavor Bin, the podcast that I do with Colby Parker Jr., has some special guests this week, as well as a leaner weigh-in at 25 minutes… Director Evan Bernard talks about DVD commentaries, the Vignelli NYC subway map, with us and tells us what it’s like to have your name checked in a Beastie Boys song. We also talk to Gerhard from the Chinatown Soccer Club and Dj db about his new book project.

“Put it in the Flavor Bin!”

Just finished uploading the first ‘Flavor Bin’, a podcast I’m doing with my friend Colby Parker Jr. Check it out over here if you’re into this sort of thing. We talk about some movies, some hip-hop, some sneakers, and the Intellivision videogame system from the 80s… If we like it, “WE THROW IT IN THE FLAVOR BIN.”

So click on ‘subscribe’, sit back, and take it in while you ride the train home or something. Watch out for that “TH-TH-TH-THROWBACK!” clip in there…

Took the F train out to Brooklyn to hit up to the Superstar DJ Record Fair, not really to buy anything, but just to get a little contact buzz off the whole thing… I already have too many records! Beautiful day, and a lot of enthusiastic people just out copping and hunting.

Rich from Etheria, DB from Breakbeat Science

Saw my man Rich from Etheria Records, one of my favorite record stores over on Avenue A for a decade, sadly now closed. Also saw Breakbeat Science man-about-town DB, and we had a nice chat about variations on international copies of the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers (he’s a huge collector of their stuff), and a project that’s been consuming his time for the last few years: a book about stickers, called Stuck-up Piece of Crap: A Selected History of Stickers, coming out next year on Rizzoli. It’s shaping up to be pretty definitive: he says he’s scanned over 5000 stickers and has several pieces written for it (including one by me about hip-hop stickers). Looking forward to seeing the finished project!

I’d love to tell you how I found that one great record that I’ve been wanting since I lost it at a party, but buying one would have lead to another one, and so on… So I headed back home (purposefully) empty-handed, with difficulty.

In these final weeks of summer, brace yourselves for buying dranks, being on boats, and shortys blaming it on the al-al-al-cohol… There is an AUTO-TUNE app for the iPhone. The common man can now wild out with the best of them. Use at your own risk.

BAPE kills it with these Eames side chairs with the signature camo on them… Dope. In 1999, I certainly didn’t have the clout to make actual chairs, but I did want an Eames chair with camo, so did what I could - I made a T-shirt design. Tony and I did the shirt with our SwishNYC line way back then. No hate, just sayin’.

Church Street, just below Canal. While heading over to the Westside Coffee Shop for some chicken, rice and beans (the only spot in the area after Brisas Del Caribé got turned into a fake Starbucks), I noticed the block was particularly NOT hot. Seems the little shops across from the post office are shuttered and abandoned - no fake Jordans or Bape this week. Sorry, tourists.

Vastly underrated at the time of its release, John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ was torn apart by the critics and tanked. Although it’s a remake, it’s vintage Carpenter - eerie, inexplicably well-cast with sincere performances from often-overlooked character actors, gross blood-and-guts “practical” effects (i.e. “before computers”), strangely simple and flimsy under too much scrutiny - it’s fucking awesome and gets better every time I watch it, which I did last night at 1AM as I spotted it on cable. It’s available in HD now on Blu Ray and I might just have to pull the trigger.

Went to a Q Department video screening for director Jaron Albertin(don’t ask, it was too hot of a night to really enjoy the work being projected) and spent some time talking with Arnaud from Alife, and José Parlá, who was in a great mood as usual, probably because he’s living that fly life and was about to head to London for the week.

José told me he’s going to be working on some more pottery over there, and we also talked about the pottery he’s worked on in the south of Japan - my man is doing his thing! Sorry about the poor-quality photo, but those dudes make such big moves, it’s hard to focus.

Spotted this on the internet and I gotta say it’s sorta progressive for Jay-Z… The cover for Blueprint III. Hot, although as you can see it sorta feels a little like something else. Yeah, it’s a little reminiscent of the Secret Machines cover, but that’s OK, Jay - the all-white instruments are always a good look. Still, I’m so old-school that I immediately think of this when I see that abstracted “3” in there. The mighty E-Mu Systems Emulator 3. Don’t tell my girl, but I have one sitting in our basement storage, taking up about a 5th of the space with it’s big-ass ATA flight case. It’s got a 4 megabyte hard-drive, no lie. Back in the day that was a lot! When you trimmed samples, you had to trim both the right and left sides separately, and you had to remember the sample number you were trimming at and match it, otherwise there would be a ‘pop’ at the end of the sample when you played it back. Why keep it, now that the iPhone can likely do more? Well, it’s got these wicked-smooth filters that are analog, when nearly everything else uses digital filters. And I also have the sound collection that was used by Harold Budd using an E-3 on the White Arcades album, which I like a lot. But whatever I’m saying here, know that the thing has been in my basement for years - so maybe I’m just being clingy.