The Gorillaz: Plastic Beach

Welcome to the world of the plastic beach...

Check out the tracks and Mark Beaumont's review for BBC Music.

Healthcare reform

GET SOMETHING DONE, ALREADY.

Massive Attack: Heligoland

The album features features guest appearances from TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, Martina Topley-Bird, Hope Sandoval, Damon Albarn and more. A review on BBC News calls it "beguiling … rich, textured and seductive," while Pitchfork complained that the album's contents are lackluster. "Drowsy," in a word.

I'm going to agree with the BBC that Heligoland is yet another powerful statement from these British veterans. Although they are forever destined to be judged by breakout album Blue Lines (1991), more than 20 years of discography is a force to be reckoned with. They set trip-hop's standards and impressively, continue to be a presence. It isn't that Massive Attack has "arrived." They've been here.

My only complaint is the decision to not include the EP’s version of the track “Psyche” on the album. Both versions of the track feature haunting vocals by Martina Topley Bird, but the rhythmic interpretation by Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid is decidedly more effective.

EP: “Psyche (Flash Treatment)”

Album: "Psyche"

I'm going to let you in on a secret...

Entourage has the most sick (in a good way) mixes to accompany each season of the poignant dramedy (Season 7 is set to premiere in the summer of 2010). Whoever handles the tune decisions, bravo/props/kudos/much love. MIX IT UP, I LOVE THIS STUFF.

I've trekked through most of Entourage's music (Seasons 1-5 torrent downloads available online) without being disappointed. Some of my favorites so far:

• I've Been Thinking - Handsome Boy Modeling School feat. Cat Power
• Play the Drum - Zeph and Azeem
• All eyez on me - Tupac
• Staring at the Sun - TV on the Radio
• Mary Jane - Rick James
• Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
• Mas Que Nada - Sergio Mendes
• When I Be On the Mic - Rakim
• Honey (Spatone 1 Dub) - Tosca

I'm not ashamed to admit it cos shit's the bomb.

Walk for Lupus Now 2010

As many of you know, I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus in August 2009. I was a healthy person for the most part until this last year and a half when noticeable changes started to happen. The lupus-related things I've been going through have not been easy, and talking about them is hard. Some days are better than others. Some days it's hard to imagine keeping this up every day for the rest of my life. Basically, my body is "allergic to itself" and my immune system attacks normal, healthy parts of the body. My SLE has been flaring since this summer and I'm still trying to get it under control with various medications and treatments. I try to be optimistic and remind myself to keep looking for the good things in life and not be weighed down by the way things have turned out so far. Thank you to everyone who has been supportive. I'm so lucky to have family and friends who love me unconditionally. I dream of the day when a cure for lupus is tangible. Until then, I'll keep looking for the silver lining...

Support me in the Walk for Lupus Now 2010.

"Don't hold back in mourning your old self and abilities. Reassure yourself that it's normal to be sad about it and okay to admit it. Only when you allow the emotionally protective walls you’ve spent years constructing fall to the ground, can you begin to take steps toward healing. And only then can the rebuilding begin." -Sara Gorman

Excerpt from Henry Miller's "Time Of the Assassins"

"Conditioned to ecstasy, the poet is like a gorgeous unknown bird mired in the ashes of thought. If he succeeds in freeing himself, it is to make a sacrificial flight to the sun. His dreams of a regenerate world are but the reverberations of his own fevered pulse beats. He imagines the world will follow him, but in the blue he finds himself alone. Alone but surrounded by his creations; sustained, therefore, to meet the supreme sacrifice. The impossible has been achieved; the duologue of author with Author is consummated. And now forever through the ages the song expands, warming all hearts, penetrating all minds. At the periphery the world is dying away; at the center it glows like a live coal. In the great solar heart of the universe the golden birds are gathered in unison. There it is forever dawn, forever peace, harmony and communion. Man does not look to the sun in vain; he demands light and warmth not for the corpse which he will one day discard but for his inner being. His greatest desire is to burn with ecstasy, to commerge his little flame with the central fire of the universe. If he accords the angels wings so that they may come to him with messages of peace, harmony and radiance from worlds beyond, it is only to nourish his own dreams of flight, to sustain his own belief that he will one day reach beyond himself, and on wings of gold.

One creation matches another; in essence they are all alike. The brotherhood of man consists not in thinking alike, nor in acting alike, but in aspiring to praise creation. The song of creation springs from the ruins of earthly endeavor. The outer man dies away in order to reveal the golden bird which is winging its way toward divinity."

Is there any love?

I'm infinitely frustrated at our clusterfuck politics and the hard-headed hypocrites who are ring leading such a shit-show. How can you support helping Haiti deal with disaster aftermath but not Americans desperately in need of health care? Where is human compassion when people in THIS country need our help?

Republican politicians and advocates are twisting facts and figures, creating a media-fueled political circus to distract us from the issues at heart. Stop succumbing to all the Fox News BULLSHIT. It's manipulation masked by pretentious rhetoric, borne of dick-headed rich people on power trips. They're political attention whores spouting ignorant mumbo-jumbo designed to get in your brain and sway your vote. And the most frustrating part is that it's working.

Everyone acts so selfishly all the time, and it makes my heart hurt.

http://defoxamerica.com

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn

The burning ember of my cigarette stares in relentlessly mockery of my half-assed attempts to drop the habit. I've lied to myself for years, placated by seemingly adequate health and the comfort that comes from knowing my peers also smoke. It's not unheard of for collegiate life to beget lackadaisical morals, but the good times are, in layman's terms, too legit to quit. Despite these facilitating factors, I understand it would be incorrect to put blame on anyone but myself for keeping up such a detrimental hobby.

The end of the aughts should have marked the last of my rendezvous with big tobacco. But when the time came, the old did not go out and the new did not arrive as expected. Mostly because I made zero effort. The hedonist in me rages at the thought of never again knowing the succulent taste of a long-awaited drag, and can't fully grasp long-term consequences anymore than, say, a prisoner serving multiple life sentences for a crime committed long ago. This is my crime of passion. Is it really all that bad?

The answer is yes. YES. I've heard and seen enough to know better, and I'm not trying to ignore or dispute well-known facts about smoking. I recognize the harm when I wheeze and cough climbing a flight of stairs, and when I wake up after a night out and my throat refuses to function except to expel an inordinate amount of excess phlegm. Hack, cough, wheeze, repeat. Not a cute display, to say the least.

Irony of ironies, my father is a pulmonologist. Otherwise known as doctor specializing in the treatment of lungs and the aftereffects felt by years of smoking. I remember him teaching us to wrinkle our noses at the sight of a cigarette, to give each smoker we encountered a look of disgust. In fact, the first time I ever tried one wasn't until I was nineteen... and I must say, it was DELICIOUS. Unfortunately delicious.

And here I am, almost six years later, still puffing away. I hate the habit, yet just can't put it down for good. What's it going to take for me to finally get it together?

To be continued...

Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers

http://wutangvsthebeatles.bandcamp.com

Smoke & Mirrors

Who knows what tomorrow will bring

Maybe sunshine or maybe the rain

But as for me, I'll wait and see

And maybe it'll bring my love to me, oh...