Academik

So I’m sitting in an apartment building in Jakarta right now, thinking that I should be telling you more about why the podcast isn’t happening for the moment, although I have one more that is hopefully going to go up soon, and let you hear about my trip because hey, it’s kinda cool.

All of the trip details will be posted to Academik.org and to Sevenlamps (on the blogroll).  I’m spending the next 2 weeks here doing some Christian consulting in Jakarta who are interested in involving God in their businesses… sounds crazy right?  That’s what I thought until I did some more investigation from a Christian perspective.  49 out of 51 of Jesus’ miracles in the Bible were in the marketplace.  He chose all of his disciples from the marketplace.  The words for work and ministry are the same in Hebrew (or is it Aramaic?)… The ideas that we currently have of work and ministry being separate are unfounded biblically.

I’m not saying that work should be a time to thump the bible over someone’s head, but I am saying that the workplace gives us a great place to act out our values.  More and more we’re leaving our principles at the door when we live our lives.  My boss, Jeremy Toeman, and I just facilitated a discussion on social responsibility at the Web2.0 Conference and a few of the things I took away from the meeting were:

Social Responsibility has different meanings to different people; it’s some variation of all of them, including volunteering, a triple bottom line, and a commitment to the long-term.

We can’t give up on our principles just because they’re not practical.  Would you stop recycling if you had to drive to a drop-off? Do you leave lights on in your house because you are too rushed to turn them off?  Do you encourage friends to follow principles that are good for the environment?

There are so many ways we can make an impact, but often we feel like we’d be inconveniencing others or embarassing ourselves in doing so.  The truth is that when you stand up for what you believe in, you stand out… and no one ever liked you because you were like everyone else.

I sat on the #71 bus this morning in the last row, precariously perched between two older gentlemen who warmed me with the sides of their bodies pressed up against mine. I opened my book, Business Unlimited, by J. Gunnar Olson, and began reading its first pages. Olson is the Founder and Chairman of the International Christian Chamber of Commerce, an extraordinary man for the impact he’s had on the world around him.

I noticed in front of me that there was a woman reading passages of scripture from a handout and I instantly felt a connection with her. Here I was reading a book about Christian business ministry for the work I’m to do in May, and here she is reading the Gospels for a class or exam. I said a prayer for her as I do for many people on the bus while I ride quietly reading or listening to music in the morning. I used the departure of the man next to me as an excuse to sit across from the woman. As I sat down we made eye contact and smiled. She was well into her 30’s and this was not a flirtatious smile, but more an exchange of peacefulness.

We continued reading and I felt like I wanted to reach out and tell her something. Tell her I had prayed for her, and that I wished her a wonderful day. I wanted to share some joy with her to help her coast through her morning meetings. I wanted to be her Starbuck’s and her Happy Donut - that little treat we allow ourselves that helps us get going in the morning. Montgomery passed and I descended at 1st street - a mistake that has now serendipitously led to visits from two friends on their way to work - got off the bus and turned to look at the woman from outside.

I was safe from rebuke now, with a pane of glass between us and the final moments of our safe passage together now ticking down I unzipped my sweatshirt and proudly outed my chest like pigeon in a mating dance. “I {John Cusack holding a boombox over his head} YOU”

She smiled, laughed, and pointed at the one of a kind T-shirt a friend had recently given me. What a great way to start both of our mornings : )

When I was in Australia I spent a lot of time thinking about my future. I had a dream I followed. Then I received another dream, a better one that I’m working on now. There’s a lot of preparation involved, but there are so few movements in the lifetime of this heart that I can’t turn my back on them. Oftentimes we let head rule heart making bodies work like serfs to indentured banality. We hang our hopes on the day we’ll “be able to” do what we want, but why not right now?

We are never satisfied with the present because it seemingly doesn’t hold the mystery and hope of the future nor is it as good as the knowns of the past. It simply is itself, and so too often we waste it. This present.

This season of gifting reminds me once again about this gift that we’ve all been given.

Check out the latest podcast for a trip down memory lane with 9 of the best film scores, and 9 songs associated with those special moments in some of our favorite movies.  Post your comments here on which songs are from which movies and if you get the answer right, you’ll be able to continue your week with pride and satisfaction of being both a musical and cinematic renaissance (w)o)man.

Wale is one of the best new hip-hop artists on the scene. Mastered by Nick Catchdubs, his mixtape “100 miles and running,” is a great way to start your weekend, your morning, or your workout.

I will admit that the first time I listened to the album I was nonplussed. The beats could have used a little work: the melodies needed more depth and layering. I had heard his flow and running commentary on pop culture, D.C. hype, and self-promotion all before. But I had jumped to conclusions.

After listening to this mixtape, in its entirety cranked up in my headphones, I got hooked. All the things that I wasn’t smitten with suddenly became idiosyncrasies that worked perfectly for the song. The extra time to let the songs marinate in my head really helped me appreciate it. This isn’t some pop album that you’ll fall in love with for a minute and then leave behind - like a good woman it grows on you, you can’t help but love her even more after the 15^th listen. That says something.

Wale is the next best thing in hip-hop, no exaggeration. You give this guy access to the same resources as Kanye and Jay-z and he will turn out some amazing tracks. He’s a simmered down intensified version of a lot of the artists in the pop hop world, but he’s got the reality check of most backpack rappers like Common and Kweli. He admits that his cars are pieces of junk, but he rocks fly sneakers. He has wit to spare, flipping off jokes like Ludacris, “My climate is way higher than Lindsey Lohan’s nostrils on powder”, Wale raps on WALEDANCE. He knowingly pokes fun at the lame aspects of hip-hop. It’s a nice change.

He ridicules the stupid excessive trends that have come on, but at the same time salvages the original core of some trends that were worthwhile. For example he rips on the frequent use of lil’ and young in artists names, as well as the excessive breathing that rappers throw on the breaks in tracks. The hyperventilating that is supposed to convince us that talking fast is the hardest thing they have ever done. Isn’t that their day job? He lacks pretension and really, Wale’s just having fun – and that’s what makes him so easy to love (he’s not a businessman or a business, man). Something that seems lost since the early days of hip-hop (De La, Tribe, Pharcyde…).

The mixtape samples current hits and turns their beats into simple infectious background for Wale’s flows - twisting them just enough to make you wonder why the original artists didn’t think of it first. A few examples: Lily Allen’s “Smile”, Justice’s DANCE, The Gorillaz’ “Dirty Harry”, and Amy Winehouse’s ubiquitous “Rehab”. The Gorillaz is one of my favorite tracks - intro’d by an unassuming simple commentary on the eternal conquest for a Grammy and local representation for DC. Out of nowhere the beat hits and your hips assume a life of their own. DC Gorillaz (produced by Best Kept Secret) moves then from a straightforward sample of the original beat, to a chopped and screwed version.

Smile is slimly affected in comparison, but it fulfills a completely different purpose. Wale turns Smile into a conversation between Lily Allen and himself about her schadenfreude, cheating antics, and his desire for a lil Lily lovin’. He makes this sugary pop lollipop lighthearted and listenable. His two-person dialogue gives the story a more theatrical quality. Meanwhile most of his peers don’t seem like they have even listened to what the song is about when adding to a pop track, i.e. T.I. on “My Love”. Wale is paying attention to the subtleties of the pop realm, not putting down the genre.

You can feel this admiration for his reworking of pop hits because every website that recommends 100 Miles and Running provides a different sample song. No one agrees on just one hit from the album because too many of the songs stand out. Some of my favorites are tracks DC Gorillaz(2), ,Breakdown(3), Ice Cream Girl(4), WALEDANCE(12),Good Girls(13), Work(14), Smile(16), and Rehab(19).

Conclusion: If you are driving a car this summer, or going to a party, or working out, or just working, or trying to wake up, or trying not to go to sleep then you should have this mixtape – it’s free! It will liven up your life, make your friends appreciate you more, give you better luck with the opposite sex, and create envy for your vibe. Get this album before your friends do. Get on the front of this wave; it’s going to be huge. It’ll Wale on the nation.
- Quinn

You remember the first time that you heard Kanye West and you thought, woh, this is dope. I haven’t heard productions like this in a while. Where Chicago’s Kanye took old school samples and re-worked them to create his sound, D.C.’s Wale takes the latest and greatest producers/beats and flows over them on his latest mixtape, 100 miles and running. Enlisting one of the moment’s hottest producers/remixers, Nick Catchdubs, to mix the tracks, Wale rhymes over Justice’s DANCE, Gorillaz’ Dirty Harry, Camp Lo’s Luchini (my ringtone) and works with producers like Mark Ronson, Judah, and Best Kept Secret.

His rhymes range from played out bling to funny pop culture references to insightful lines on human behavior. My favorite so far is on WALEDANCE, “Acquire more bras than Zachary Morris, y’all all screech to me, you’ve unleashed the beast, and I’ll play you little brothas like Lisa, shit.” He doesn’t take himself too seriously which is nice considering how many huge egos there are in the game (Kanye, Diddy, Jay-Z, Nas).

Check out the mixtape here and his MySpace. Standouts are DC Gorillaz, Daytona Squared, and WALEDANCE, but listen and make your own decisions.

Placebo is one of those bands whose tracks i stumble upon from time to time and think to myself, really? placebo did this? cool.
Brian Molko’s vocals (try saying that three times fast) are some of the most easily recognizable across the entire rock/electro genre, the blending of instruments, effects, and synthesizers forms a melodic and macabre mix that many other groups have not mastered nearly as well. While their androgenous/glam image has not scored well with many American fans, their last tour in the UK sold out in one weekend, and David Bowie asked them to play his birthday party. That’s success in my book.

This week I stumbled across a mashup of Placebo’s cover of Kate Bush’s “Running Up the Hill” with New Order’s “Love Comes Quickly” along with a few snippets of the original Kate Bush song. This song has been on repeat for days now in ye olde iPod and was the inspiration for this week’s podcast.

Check it out here : http://mog.com/Mike_the_Knife/blog_post/88650

A colleague mentioned relationships in the US are different than in France. Apart from the myriad of obvious reasons this is true I asked him to explain. “Americans marry their best friends. Europeans marry their lovers.” I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I don’t know if I have an answer, but I’ve definitely got some ideas…

In America I was brought up to believe that men and women are essentially equal. Sure there are the general observations about women being more emotional than men, men being physically stronger than women, women having longer endurance than men, and perhaps even being able to take more pain than men (not taking into account Jack Bauer). But all of this is generally irrelevant because we don’t interact with general ideas of each other - we interact with people who come in all shapes, sizes, mentalities, abilities.

What equality really means is that every man and woman has the same possibility to become something. CEO, homemaker, entrepreneur, athlete, accountant, musician, artist. Whether they attain these positions or not is up to them. There are too many physiological differences between us to really be considered the same -I mean seriously, women have the ability to create life inside of them, birth them (squeezing a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lemon), and feed them using milk their bodies make! I have a penis. End of story.

But this idea of equality has changed our vision of gender roles and relationships… Simply by having the option to become anything we became something else. We have, in some ways, convinced ourselves that we are alike, regardless of our physical differences and our instincts. This re-interpreted vision of ourselves has had a direct impact on the way we view relationships.

The reason I bring this up is that I spoke with a woman who said she married her best friend (seemingly ideal) and eventually just got bored and they divorced after 8 years. This is something I’ve heard several times, but never really explored until now. I wonder if the ebb and flow within a natural relationship is necessary to retain interest? Perhaps somehow by marrying someone that you are so close to, sharing everything with - you actaully take away some mystery in the relationship and thus some of the interest and attraction as the years pass.

I say there are three things that must be present for a good relationship: physical attraction, mental attraction, and chemistry. People throw around that last one a lot, but I think it boils down to sexual tension and the way in which we parlay our physical attractions to each other. There should be a good amount of all three in a healthy relationship. By placing an extremely high priority on mental attraction (or how well we connect) and downplaying the physical / sexual side of the relationship, perhaps we upset the delicate balance of the relationship… I just don’t know.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this because my mind is certainly not made up.

If you have the chance to go see this performance of Arthur Miller’s most famous work, do it.  While tickets are a bit pricey at $30/piece, the acting of Keith Phillips as Willie Loman is reason enough to revisit this classic play.  At no point during the entire performance do you doubt Keith’s authenticity as the quintessential Willie Loman, a man blinded by superficial desires and the American dream.

The supporting cast of the Loman family (Biff, Happy, and Linda) does a good job of providing the framework for Willie’s downfall and failing mental state although I noticed a few hiccups by Linda.  If you’re open to the story it will make you re-think your life and what you’re really striving for.  If not, you’re in for some great acting and an evening’s worth of entertainment.  Either way - try and see it.

More information here