Get up, get, get, get down. Afro Punk is rockin’ your town! If you are gonna come up from your parent’s basement for one show, this is that shiite!
MARTIN LUTHER!
THE DRUGSTORE COWBOYS!
K’NAAN!
CODY CHESTNUTT!
SAUL WILLIAMS!
One Night Only
March 14th – 8pm
Club EXODUS
302 6th Street
Austin, TX
CHOCOLATE SNOWFLAKE taketh and she giveth away. What she gaveth to me were a pair of tickets to see Public Enemy at B.B.King’s over the weekend. She knows I’m an old school fool and she accompanied me to the E.P.M.D. reunion a few months back. And she knows there is two groups that I go batshit for – Wu-Tang and Public Enemy. Listening to them brings out the ancient backpacker inside of me that believed Hip-Hop was a force for change. Turns out that the only change that Hip-Hop was good for was putting change in the pockets of the old white men and the Tall Israelis.
Twenty years ago, If you had told me that we would be in a worse place collectively as a nation I wouldn’t have believed you. Does the residue of crack cocaine in our lungs make us impotent politically and socially? I’ve never seen so many leaders and artists and thinkers all so easily corruptible. I have given up on waiting for someone to speak to me and tell me how GOD wants me to live justly. I just let GOD tell me. GOD told me to have a good time at the concert.
Public Enemy still brings that heat boys and girls. They are still as inspiring to me as they were twenty years ago. The bass still hits you in the chest like a bump of that raw Peruvian. The horns still blare out thunder like a war siren. CHUCK D is still a prophet of rage, instead of using the microphone for profit. CHUCK D is not here selling you silly rags of clothing to put on your back. You will never, ever see CHUCK D’s name on the list for rap music’s top lyricists but no one can fuck with the english language the way he does it. No other rapper has that amount of knowledge of self and the infrastructure of supremacy. P.E. hasn’t lost a step and that’s a good thing since our world is filled with even more villains and cowards than it was twenty years ago.
I’m not going to review the show song by song by lyric. It was tremendous. X-Clan opened or P.E. and they were better than I remember. P.E. also has a band backing them up and these dudes are gritty. If they are performing in your neck of the woods go see them. This is the most hardbody Hip-Hop group on the planet. Instead of feeling like you don’t own enough jewelry or that your car isn’t the freshest, Public Enemy leave you feeling empowered that you can change this corrupt society with your participation. Right after the show was over I wanted to go and start a non-profit organization today or open up my own charter school. Knowledge is powerful like that. I implore you good folks to go get some.
Peace.
My homey from Angry Citizen took some great pics from the show like the one that heads this post. Click the link here and see for yourself.
CHOCOLATE SNOWFLAKE and I were going through a little turbulence the last few weeks because shit gets like that sometimes. My sneaker collection annoys her so I don’t speak on it with her, but then when I talk about it with other people (y’all) it becomes a problem and now I’m not communicating.
WTF?!? is Not Communicating? I fucking spend as much time as possible writing. When I’m not writing I’m talking and that includes everywhere. I talk in my sleep, I talk in the shower and I have conversations when I’m shitting (which annoys me because I enjoy the ‘me’ time shitting is supposed to provide). I’ve given up trying to understand women. As long as I have some money to spend on her I suppose she will be satisfied because when it comes to communicating I’m all talked out. Here’s the type of shit that you have to get into if you want to keep your smart girlfriend…
C.S. invited me to this funky sushi spot just east of Gramercy Park called East. The attraction is this conveyor belt that winds through the restaurant with color coded plates of sushi and shellfish. The spot is actually inexpensive, but C.S. and I managed to create a hefty bill from the special shit we ordered. Fresh oysters, and tasty eel pieces as well as several glasses of plum wine. We left there full and twisted and went to this dive in lower Manhattan’s TriBeCa to attend the Hip-Hop karaoke party.
I thought that Hip-Hop karaoke would be more enjoyable, but it wasn’t. The highlight of the night for me was the surprise appearance of O.C. during the B.I.G. tribute. After O.C. left the stage C.S. and I left the club.
On Saturday night my folks met C.S.’s parents for the first time. We’ve dated for 2.5 years and I’ve already met her folks and she’s already met mine, but this was the first family summit. C.S.’s peeps are the classic, traditional, Huxtable type, grade A material family. My side is more wild for the night, do what you like stylee. We all convened at a restaurant on City Island called Sammy’s. This is where the fancy negroes go to eat shellfish. Fuck a Red Lobster. Back in the days City Island was where all the two-bit, five and dime hustlers went to trick off paper. Seafood restaurants line the the island’s single main street like a gauntlet. Despite the proliferation of casual dining experiences in the city, City Island retains it’s caché because if you don’t have a whip you can’t easily get there. I balled out by picking up the check for table.
These two nights were made possible by the timely paperwork issued to BILLY SUNDAY from the evil empire of Hip-Hop known as XXL magazine. If not for that digit, C.S. and I would have been eating that new double Filet-O-Fish from McDonald’s.
I gotta stay on my grizzly to see where I can score some more cheddar to fatten my bank account.
Don’t ever think that size doesn’t matter to women.
Editor’s note: There’s been a nice buzz going for the new FRANK MILLER film ‘300’ based on his graphic novel of the same title. The story is a fictionalized account of the battle or Thermopylae. The legend of story is that a small number of Spartan warriors were able to withstnd an onslaught of Persian troops long enough for Greek reinforcements to join the war and push back the Persian invaders. The story is used at academies like West Point to illustrate to cadets the strategies needed when fighting ground advances. Since this is a film that deals with the heat of battle I enlisted the help of everyone’s favorite guest blogger who knows a thing or two about the art of war, COMBAT JACK, to review the film and tell us if it is brings the fire…
Back in the late 1970’s, early 1980’s, other than effin’ with a fledgling new music genre now known as Hip Hop and trying to get wet with some young Brooklyn female thoroughbreds, I discovered the Michael Jordan of comics, the legendary artist/writer FRANK MILLER. Dude was a then new jack who took over one of Marvel Comics’ then worst titles DAREDEVIL (which was on the verged of being canceled) and flipped it so that thousands of kids like me who didn’t even mess with MATT MURDOCK, had us lining up like base heads for our monthly fix. After his run on Daredevil, Miller revolutionized the art form known then as comic books by revamping the history of DC Comics iconic character BATMAN, single handedly creating the media platform now known as the GRAPHIC NOVEL (which is a cooler and more mature sounding term for comic books). As a true Miller fan, I’ve since picked up and read everything that he dropped over the years (RONIN, SIN CITY, 300, MARTHA WASHINGTON, etc). Anyways, when fam Dallas Penn let me know that he had tickets for the premiere mid-nite showing of 300 in Brooklyn last week, it was a no-brainer for Combat Jack to lace up his boots and hop in a cab.
Now out of all of Frank Miller’s work, 300, like Ronin, were what I would consider to be dude’s experimental pieces. Not whack, but different in the sense that I could give a rat’s ass about anything related to Greek history, especially in comics. Now Greek with a nice supple Latina from the Bronx, much more interesting. Anyway’s 300, the movie, is closely based on Miller’s graphic novel which tells the tale of the historic Greek Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerald Butler) leads his miniscule army of 300 Spartan soldiers to fight the ginormous Persian army (like 1,000,000 + dudes, giant rhinos, ninjas, elephants and plain fucked up and deformed giants) led by its 8 foot gaylord “god” king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro). The flick lets you know off the bat how mannish the Spartan clique is, being that their culture straight breeds warriors and if a male newborn seems a bit frail in the pants, their asses literally get chucked off a cliff to their death onto a dead baby reject pile. Anyways, the very gay Xerxes, intent on making Persia the world’s only superpower and Greece his lil’ bitch, has given the Greeks an ultimatum, “get down or lay down!” Before taking action, Leonidas decides to get council from the Ephors, leperous like mystics who keep young scantily clad hard nippled female Oracles around to determine the future of Greece, as well as the Greek council, consisting of the lesser hard body dudes, steered by slimo politician Theron (Dominic West who plays “McNulty of “The Wire” fame), both who advise the king that going against Persia is like going against an army with a handgun. Unwilling to be subserviant to any man and not wanting to get a stiffy up his batty hole from Xerxes, Leonidas gathers up 300 of his best soldiers to see exactly what the other side is made of.
Straight up, if you smoke weed, smoke before you see this and if you drink, then guzzle up because the effin special effects on this beast is way off the effin’ charts. Taking a cue from Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s “Sin City”, director Zack Snyder stays true to Miller’s original work, creating a blend of live action shot against virtual backgrounds painted in muted sepia toned colors which constantly remind the viewer that this piece is based on a graphic novel. The music comes correct in that, for a period piece, what we get is a blend of classic orchestral and hard core heavy metal score. Even though 300 is based on history, the characters, and there’s a lot of effin characters, are definitely out of some comic book shit. The Spartans are all chiseled and oiled up like a Chippendale’s line up (nullus), the chicks are mad anatomically correct, all perky taa taa’d and apple bottomed, the brothers (and there’s a few jigs in the piece) are all blue black, bald headed and baritone voiced and the deformed are just plain fucked up!!!
Now for the best part. The battle scenes are just GLORIOUS!!! Using normal time to slow motion and back to speed segments, the fight scenes are just plain brutal. Understand that this is an epic battle that took place when dudes had all types of swords, staves, spears, arrows, axes, shields and other types of medieval weaponry. What that all means is that dudes get cut. Dudes get stabbed. Dudes get hacked. Dudes get dismembered. Dudes get pin cushioned by showers of effin’ enemy arrows. Dudes get beheaded. Dudes get impaled. Man, dudes get fucked the fuck up!!! With that, like in Miller’s work, there’s no shortage of blood gushing and seeing all types of innards. You see and hear clavicles getting crunched. Getting stabbed in the eye? No effin problem! Speared through the throat? Coming right up! Want to lose the leg or the arm? Sure, why not. The cool shit about all of this though, is that contrary to how this all sounds, there’s nothing gratuitous about the full tray of carnage served with this feast. The blood comes off looking like how it’d look like drawn on paper or in a video game, once again muted and cgi’d but in a cool way and not fake looking. Plus the fact that cats are rage fighting it out FOR DAYS, face to face, up close and mad personal, the level of violence inflicted on fellow man is understandable. I also have to mention that the fight choreography on these scenes are just plain beautiful! The Greeks come off with a stiff and rigid style (nullus) when fighting in “Phalanx” formation, but flip to fluid and graceful when they disperse and break formation. Some of the scenes even reminded me of some of the early kung-fu, Shogun Assassin flicks I used to check back in the day on 42nd Street, when New York City was New York City.
I’ve since seen 300 twice, so I’d be remiss not to mention some of the cons. There’s a strong homoerotic undercurrent and even though Combat Jack is man enough not to be homophobic, I sometimes felt like it was way obvious that the TI’s in Hollywood wanted to lock in their gay constituency. Second, the brothers (Blacks), like everything in Hollywood today, just keep getting dissed the fuck up. Niggas straight up get no types of respect in this piece. Thirdly, although the more dramatic moments of this piece create a convincingly loving relationship between Leonidas and his kick ass and lovely Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), the director could have saved some of the related drama scenes for his momma.
Overall, this is an over the top classic action piece flavored with strong themes of honor, glory and love. Think of it as a less epic blockbuster like GLADIATOR or LORD OF THE RINGS on acid (in a good way). If you’re into this type of shit, or if you’re looking for something different (this shit is definitely different) 300 is a mos def joint to catch. I will be looking out for this one on DVD. Out of a possible 5 lit blunt rating, 300 gets a firm 4 blunts!
Oh, and yeah Dallas…
Frank Miller > John Byrne
image jacked chain snatcher style from rockthedub.com
There is going to be a lot of reminiscing going on today for the tenth anniversary of the death of CHRISTOPHER ‘Notorious B.I.G.’ WALLACE. In my honest opinion, fans of Notorious should celebrate his bornday more than the day that his essence was removed from the cipher. Hip-Hop must come from under this culture embracing and glorifying death. Maybe that is the problem with American culture as a whole. Color me guilty, I just went to see the movie ‘300’ last nite. It was visually beautiful but it describes the story of the glorious death of 300 Spartan soldiers. What’s my point???
Here’s a little video to watch after you pour some of your good alcohol out on the ground…