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Can you sign my book???

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Everything posted by Can you sign my book???

  1. Old Barrington Levy (good call!!!) Dennis Brown Buju Banton Junior Reed
  2. They dont have conditional licenses where you live????I know people with DWI 's who got off better than you...Oh and if you decided to fuck it and drive anyway, dont ever drive late at night, where you are the only one on the road....Thats imperitive, ive gotten pulled over for nothing....Late night....
  3. I really hate to be a nerd on this shit, but Madlib is not from boston (california), is one half of jaylib(the other half is the most underated Jaydee), is all of yesterdays new quintet, and did not produce mf dooms old stuff, their first collabo is on the madvillainy album...Madlib (along with the lootpack) got his start on one of the old Alkoholics albums, hence the Likwit Crew...And Mf Doom is from none other than STRONG ISLAND!!!!Sorry just a big fan...Dont know if you were just kidding around and making that shit up...
  4. I had a feeling the roc wouldnt work out, but the you dont know remix with jigga is bananas...The way they come in when the beat drops is mind boggling....I think they can be more mash out on g-unit than rocafella....anyways.....
  5. The New York Times today ran a fucking amazing story about Simon Curtis of the Irak Crew. In case you missed it, here' the article in it's entirety: The New York Times on Simon Curtis of the Irak Crew Unmerry Prankster By Steven Kurutz EVEN now, four years later, people who know Simon Curtis still can't believe the odd series of events that led him to spend the last year in jail. And although Mr. Curtis readily admits that he was living recklessly, drinking too much, taking drugs and spraying graffiti on the Lower East Side, he didn't exactly see a state prison in his future when he went to an art opening on the night of July 14, 2001. The show, titled "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," after a Flannery O'Connor story, was held at 31 Grand, a small, well-maintained gallery along a strip of paint-chipped warehouses in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was a group show, and a young friend of Mr. Curtis's, a darkly beautiful photographer named Michelle Cortez, was among the artists whose work was on exhibit. A good-size crowd had turned out, and a loose, partylike atmosphere prevailed. As the evening wound down, Mr. Curtis, then 31, found himself nearly alone inside the gallery and eyeing his favorite photo, a self-portrait of Ms. Cortez that showed her topless and wearing ripped stockings. He was feeling contented and mischievous and also a little drunk. It suddenly occurred to him that it would be funny to show up with the photo at Max Fish, a Lower East Side bar where Ms. Cortez had gone with friends. As a group of people stood outside smoking cigarettes in the sticky air, he reached up, plucked the photo from the wall and shuffled out. It was a spur-of-the-moment act, a juvenile prank, but one that had far-reaching consequences. From the theft would spring a high-speed getaway, an alleged kidnapping and an assault on a gallery owner. Later, there would follow criminal charges and a grand jury proceeding, a blunt intrusion of law and order into a carefree world. "I've run that night over in my head so many times," said Mr. Curtis, who is to be paroled this month. "I think about it way too much." Everything Comes Crashing Down Had Mr. Curtis chosen any other photo, he might have gotten away with the theft. But the self-portrait was hanging high on the wall, and he aroused the notice of Heather Stephens, an owner of the gallery. She had once worked in a record store, and was, as she put it, "used to chasing shoplifters." As Mr. Curtis was leaving the gallery, he turned and saw Ms. Stephens and Michael Delmonte, another partner in the gallery, frantically running after him. Outside, friends of Mr. Curtis's were waiting, unaware, in a silver Mercedes sport-utility vehicle. The driver was Sam Salganik, a 24-year-old sometime D.J., and the car belonged to his parents. Sitting beside him was Ryan McGinley, an ambitious 23-year-old photographer whose visceral snapshots of his friends tumbling their way through an extended adolescence were starting to attract attention in the art world. Mr. Curtis, trailed by the two gallery partners and a group of their friends, jumped into the S.U.V., and, as he later wrote in a letter from prison, the night devolved into "a scene out of 'Dawn of the Dead.' " With the gallery partners' friends banging on the windows, the S.U.V. drove off. But not before Ms. Stephens either was pulled or jumped into the back seat - there is a difference of opinion over this - and Mr. Delmonte either jumped or was scooped onto the hood. The next few minutes unfolded with a dreamlike unreality. According to testimony 11 days later before a grand jury, Ms. Stephens sat screaming in the back seat while Mr. Salganik barreled down Kent Avenue at upward of 50 miles an hour with Mr. Delmonte clinging to his hood. Finally, out of desperation, Mr. Delmonte punched the car's windshield, causing a section of it to spider-web. Mr. Salganik refused to comment on the events of that night, and Mr. McGinley did not return repeated telephone calls. But Mr. Curtis, in his letter, described what happened next: "Sammy exclaimed, 'That's it!,' jerked his car over to the side of the curb, stopped abruptly, jumped out of the car, pulled his shirt off, raised his fists in a fighting stance, and said, 'Now it's on!' " Speaking to the grand jury, a shaken Mr. Delmonte later described falling to the ground and being repeatedly punched by Mr. Salganik as he scurried, crablike, to the curb. Amid the chaos, Ms. Stephens recovered the photo, which was priced around $500, and dashed out of the S.U.V. Mr. Curtis and his friends sped away to Max Fish as the mood inside the car shifted from giddy euphoria to shock to a queasy feeling that something terrible had just happened. Graffiti Days and Rooftop Nights Simon Curtis is tall and affable, with a shy inwardness befitting a teenagehood spent alone in the bedroom drawing comics and pouring over heavy metal and punk records. Even now, at age 35, his face is both stubble-marked and fleshy, a disarming mix of man and boy. Friends often describe Mr. Curtis as "a genius," "a crazy guy" or both. "Simon is the most ahead-of-the-curve guy I've ever known," said Matt Sweeney, a musician and a founding member of the indie bands Chavez and Superwolf who has known Mr. Curtis since they were teenagers growing up in Maplewood, N.J. "He's a tastemaker." But Mr. Curtis could also be erratic and difficult. "He's the only person I ever hit," Mr. Sweeney said. "He did not have control of his emotions and would act out. But I ended up missing him, so we made up. That's been my relationship with him." Mr. Curtis moved to New York in 1991 to study photography at the School of Visual Arts, and in the years that followed, he fashioned an active, if somewhat unfocused, life in the city's cooler precincts. He roomed with a former member of Nirvana, created a fanzine called Manzine that spoofed macho culture, hung out with the cast of the Larry Clark film "Kids," appeared in a Sonic Youth video, spun records at clubs like the now-shuttered Moomba and started a clothing line, moving back in with his parents when he couldn't pay the rent. At the time of the fateful gallery opening, he was a member of the Irak crew, a group of graffiti writers and self-styled hooligans described by the downtown magazine Vice as "rude, illegal" and "always on the verge of losing their lives." Mr. Curtis was known for spraying an image of a wiggling sperm cell on walls around the city. "It's not easy staying hip," he said half-jokingly of his ability to keep pace with the downtown scene. "A lot of people give up or move to the suburbs. I always wanted to be where something was happening." In 1999, where something was happening was Mr. McGinley's walk-up apartment on Seventh Street near Avenue A. The interior was both sparsely furnished and in constant disarray, as if every day were the morning after a party. Which it often was. As a house ritual, Mr. McGinley used to snap Polaroids of his visitors, and a wall was plastered with snapshots, a tribute to the parade of revelers that had passed through. Along with Mr. Salganik and Mr. Curtis, the regulars included Ms. Cortez, who had attended the Parsons School of Design with Mr. McGinley; an Irak member and prodigious shoplifter called Earsnot; and Dash Snow, who grew up on East 13th Street and began doing graffiti in his teens. During the years Mr. Curtis spent apartment-hopping downtown, he figured out which buildings had rooftop access, and he and the Irak crew used to stage midnight graffiti runs or hold parties on the roof. These were halcyon days, what Dash Snow called "a golden period." No one had a full-time job. "Everybody knew everybody," Ms. Cortez recalled. "You'd think it was a small town." As for what drew everyone together, Dash Snow said, "Not to say substances, but that was a big part of it." (Dash Snow, who is 23, said he suffered complete liver failure last year and had stopped drinking and tagging because "I'm not trying to go to jail.") For the Irak crew, what would normally have qualified as a misspent youth became, by virtue of Mr. McGinley's camera and, later, his role as the photo editor of Vice, an iconic happening. He would become the youngest artist to be given a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, bolstering his status even further. "Hanging out with Ryan you feel like you're part of an infamous moment," Gavin McInnes, a founder of Vice, wrote in a New York-theme issue of the British magazine Dazed & Confused. "Like it's going to end up in our generation's version of Please Kill Me. Even when you're puking or getting swastikas drawn on your passed out face you're thinking, 'I'm making history.' " If such thinking inevitably led to that night at the gallery, it wasn't Mr. Curtis's first crazy stunt. He and the Irak crew once descended on a house party and covered the host's apartment in graffiti. Another time, he appeared near catatonic and high on angel dust on a cable-access television show called "The Kid America Adventure Hour." ("That was a bad one," Mr. Curtis said.) "I think Simon was definitely begging for trouble," said Mr. Sweeney, his friend from Maplewood. "I've worried about him in the past." Reality's Harsh Lens In the days and weeks after the theft, a certain individualism took hold among those involved. The next day, as Ms. Stephens recalls, Mr. McGinley phoned her and tried to distance himself from that night, saying, "I was only catching a ride." (Mr. McGinley was never charged with a crime.) A few nights later, Mr. Curtis and Mr. Salganik spun records at a Knitting Factory party, but they parked the damaged S.U.V. several blocks from the club, and with good reason; the police showed up at the Knitting Factory several days later looking for them. Apparently, Mr. Salganik was not cut out for the fugitive life. About a week and a half after the theft, he turned himself in to the police. When Mr. Curtis did not follow suit, and shaved off his long brown hair, Mr. Salganik phoned him repeatedly and called his elderly parents in Maplewood. Finally, Mr. Curtis went to the police, since, in his words: "It would be a good thing to do as a friend. After all, I did cause the whole thing." In late July, he spent an unpleasant day going through what he called "bullpen therapy" in central booking. He was released and subsequently missed a court date that had been set for September 2001 - "stupidly blew it off," as he put it, and spent the next two years ducking the charges. While Mr. Curtis was hanging out on the Lower East Side, partying and continuing to spray graffiti, Mr. Salganik faced charges that included assault, petty larceny and unlawful imprisonment. He was eventually sentenced to a "6/5 split," six months in Rikers Island and five years' probation. In a letter he sent to Vice magazine from prison, Mr. Salganik warned readers to "be careful of the company you keep," quoted the rapper 50 Cent and went on to muse on prison culture: "There must be like 400 Angel Nunez's in here" and "The only cigarettes you can get are Kools." Beyond Mr. Salganik's jailhouse deprivations, everyone caught up in the events of that night endured personal tribulations. Throughout the high-speed getaway, Mr. McGinley had been furiously snapping photos from the front seat of the S.U.V. Years later, Ms. Stephens was still searching the Internet for the pictures he took, dreading that she might come across them, even though she heard that Mr. McGinley had destroyed them. She began seeing a therapist, and her friendship with Mr. Delmonte ended, largely because whenever they got together, all they talked about was that night at the gallery. Ms. Stephens still finds it hard to relive the events of that evening. Sitting in her gallery one recent afternoon, she said somewhat defensively: "Have you ever been kidnapped? Have you ever been assaulted?" before growing quiet. She interrupted another conversation to confess: "I'm sorry. I'm having flashbacks about it right now." Ms. Cortez, upset that her friends had jeopardized her relationship with the gallery, distanced herself from the criminal proceedings. Some of the participants in the events of that night say she could have defused the situation, although Mr. Curtis's lawyer said having Ms. Cortez speak to the authorities would have made no difference. "To this day, I still get this coldness from Sam," Ms. Cortez said. "I'm not the bad guy here." In June 2003, almost two years after the theft, Mr. Curtis was finally picked up by the police, this time for spraying graffiti on Avenue A. The authorities soon discovered the prior charges against him, and because he had skipped his earlier court date, he was deemed a flight risk and was unable to post bail. He spent a hot summer in the Tombs, the Lower Manhattan detention complex, where, with his hair once again long, the other inmates called him Howard Stern. His friends occasionally visited. Mr. Curtis in turn befriended a gang member and had his hair braided by an inmate whom he repaid with Ramen noodles and a can of tuna. But his past life hovered literally within sight. "It was rough going up to the rooftop rec," he admitted, "because I had a bird's-eye view of my downtown stomping grounds." Because the violent nature of the theft had elevated the crime from larceny to robbery, and because Mr. Curtis had jumped bail, his lawyer advised him to plead guilty, to accept a one-to-three-year sentence and to hope for parole in a year. On July 22, 2004, three years after the night at the gallery, Mr. Curtis was processed at Rikers and eventually sent to the Cayuga Correctional Facility in Moravia, south of Syracuse. "The ride on the bus to Rikers," he said, "wasn't as romantic as they show in rap videos." Odd Bunkmates, Future Plans One recent Saturday, Mr. Curtis, dressed in black boots and a green prison jumpsuit, sat among a crowd of inmates and their families in the prison's visiting area and talked about the events of the preceding four years. For much of the time he wore a sheepish expression, as if he were slightly embarrassed that someone had driven so far to see him. The distance from the city - about 230 miles - has kept most of his friends from visiting, although last fall Dash Snow organized a "Free Simon" party at a Lower East Side bar to raise money to buy art supplies for Mr. Curtis. In prison, Mr. Curtis has bunked with a convicted murderer and been required to attend vocational classes despite his college degree, but otherwise he seems to have taken his sentence in stride. He spends his days reading and listening to Velvet Underground and Slayer tapes (CD's are not allowed) and he gets issues of Vice sent from the city. Every week, he phones his girlfriend, Meredith, who he met shortly before going to jail. Mr. Curtis's friends say that he has become more clearheaded and concerned about his future, partly because of a prison-run drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. "I've wasted a lot of time," he said, in a tone that was uncharacteristically serious. "I've slept on a lot of opportunities and been satisfied with living a certain lousy way. I'd see people get a degree of fame and be jealous, but not understand all the work that went into it." Mr. Curtis has been promised a job upon his release. A friend who started a clothing label is opening a store on Hester Street, and Mr. Curtis will do graphic design for the company. "Everybody has been getting serious, not partying so much anymore, trying to take things to the next level, " Mr. Curtis said of the changes among his friends over the past year. Of his own aspirations, Mr. Curtis was more modest. "I'm trying to get a plan together," he said ========================= This story is sad, because they were all friends of mine, but lost touch...I had no idea Simon had gone to prison...Prison and death are the result of the "high" llife....I lost 5 years of my life to living like that, and am finally getting on track....Dash got fuckin liver failure, that shit is insane....No one is invinsible, and this story is proof...Hey Simon, I hope you are doing well now man!!!!I stlll got love for yall...JEMS KFD *edited because you posted the story twice. I also made a few changes so it's more legible - PMB.
  6. I had been good friends with Sam, Simon, and Ryan, years ago when i too went to Parsons....I had lost contact with them before these events had took place...But had heard about that night, after it happened....I had no idea that Simon spent a year upstate for that shit...Although his actions that night were very much wrong, Simon was a very good person...Big heart, but it does not surprise me at all that this shit happened...This is an example of when the alcohol and drugs blind you from what is really meaningful in life....This is why the glorification of the hard drug life is troubling...Because going to jail is going to happen, or even death, if you live like that for too long...Constantly getting drunk and high is not cool...Shit, Dash had liver failure???That is sad...Not surprising though....Im just glad no one ended up dead...I hope things really have slowed down...After i left NYC, i carried a lot of the "I dont give a fuck attitude" back to where i grew up and lost 5 years of my life to alcohol and drugs...Ive finally ended up on the right track again...If Simon, or anyone who knows him reads this (i know simon used to come on here back in the day), I still got love for yall...I hope you are allright....JEMS KFD
  7. My favorite picture is of the one with MIZE gettin his dick sucked by that nasty black bitch...With that said, as a former friend and acquaintaince to some of those in those pictures, whos lost contact, i am a little scared to see such blantant bad drug use being glorified....It is far from cool, and a bit scary...Shit i used to party, but How can they go on so long just not giving a fuck like that....So much talent can be flushed down the toilet living your life like that....I guess if you dont have to work a day in your life, you can live like that...Thumbs down....
  8. Theres a video for that John Cena and Bumpy Knucks song...I was surprised, its actually one of the best videos ive seen in awhile...On some A-team shit, Bumpy is B.A., because he is the Mr. T of the rap game...
  9. Yo Gooch, was that the wall you called me about???Looks good, whats up with phetus doin that shit...Well. anyways peace.....---->Jemsuno
  10. I swear it angers me to see these pint sized soccer moms driving in H2 hummers...I think they get under 10 miles per gallon...This country also needs to invest serious money into rebuilding our railway system...Mass transit in my neck of the woods is near non existent....Its really as simple as, the demand for gasoline goes down, the price goes down...Humanity is fucked.......
  11. GOOCH, Yo, got your message, im definitely down for saturday if i dont have to slave this weekend...Ill call you later this week.....JEMS peace
  12. The last thing i was remotely interested in by DefJux was the Murs 3:16...I loved the first Co Flow album, but El-p got way too out there for my tastes...Shit i even liked that instrumental album that was on Rawkus, and as far as DefJux becoming like Rawkus, i dont know...First they'd have to get backed by a major...Or have they done that already???And I dont know how a record label could fuck up a Kool G Rap record....Random thoughts...And waddup Gooch...--->JEMS the unemployed bum...
  13. With the name dropping aside Games album was pretty good...Coincidentally 50's album comes out in two days!!!There is no such thing as bad publicity!!!
  14. Ralph Steadman is one of the greatest artists of all time too...While i was in school for illustration, I dont know how many people tried to bite or emmulate him...Hunter rip...
  15. They had a DITC reunion/Big L memorial not to long after he died, at tramps...I have a live Cd of it....It came in two series, one was with OC and someone, and Show and Ag on the other....Anyone a fan of Ditc should look out for it, but i havent seen it in years...I honestly feel that if Big L hadnt been cut down at that time, he would have went on to be one of the best ever, commercially speaking too...I have a freestyle with him and Jay-Z from like maybe even before Reasonable Doubt, and he was rapping circles around him...Everyone from Children of the Corn blew up, and they all suck compared to him....Anyways BIG L REST IN PEACE
  16. KEY...Did you ever see Jeff Mills spin???For the few years i was really into Detroit minimal stuff, he was the only guy i never got to see, and i wanted to see him the most...Heard he is amazing...Green Velvet was some dope shit, Felix da Housecat was hot too...Anyways...
  17. David Axelrod-Song of Innocence This is by far some of the best music ive heard in a long time...
  18. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to cynical...Shit man, just try to have fun with something, and not appoint some insane phylisophical importance, or non-importance to something...Shit, im 26 years old, and dont know what i would have if i didnt have hip-hop in my life....This music is an escape for me, just like graffiti is....The moment i sit down at the mpc, the outside world means nothing, just like when i was walking subway tunnels....Shit man, just have fun...And fuck the polictics of shit...Shit graffiti is a great thing, its the graffiti writers i cant stand....Makes no sense but fuck it...
  19. Dont refer to Gangstarr as some emo shit, or even put those thoughts into reality...Whoever said it....Some of the greatest rap albums and rappers owe their whole careers to dj premier....Anyway, a little off the subject...Resume...
  20. I got a pretty lame JERU story...I was sitting next to him at this place NOWBAR, that had the original indy 5000 party in manhattan, he was smokin an el, so I asked for a hit, and he said no.... Sick story...
  21. I remember when they first opened...Coolest fuckin guys around...I walk in with a sparypaint covered jacket, Jest and I start talkin graffiti...Next thing I know hes tryin to hook me up with illustration work...I was, and still am a nobody...But damn Jest and Tony are just regular guys, doing a great job in creating all kinds of things...Two guys who i respect big time in that god forsaken city...They really tried lookin out for an art student tryin to get his career on...Much respect....
  22. Considering Ear Snot went from being homeless and sleeping on trains, to this, I got the utmost respect...I mean NYC is a dog eat dog place, going from living off of stealing, to making clothing based on your crew, WHY NOT????Im gonna assume, Snot didnt even put up his own money to do this, someon probably begged him to do this....People are also forgetting that dudes like SEMZ, CINIK,REMO etc, were pretty much all city...A lot more people are down with IRAK then you know..SACE is one of the most dedicated writers ive ever met...I watched him litteraly hang off a 10 story building with nothing holding him up, to catch tags...SEMEN is one of the funniest most down to earth people ive ever met, or at least he used to be...I used to chill with them all the time, and Snots raking skills are mindblowing...Wed be standing outside a store, and hed literally take orders for what people wanted, and come outside with his pockets bulging....I could go on and on...As far as the celebrity status stuff, i kind of never liked all that bullshit, but people jocked the hell out of them...So fuck it...
  23. Ive had a basic G4 for like 4 years now, and dont have one complaint....The few problems ive had with it were fairly easily fixed...Even my mother ( a pc tech) says that Macs are far more user friendly...And that has been my experience too...
  24. With all that said, Im listening to David Bowie right now...
  25. I would say that Nas has had some hiccups in his career...Nastradamus...But It was Written, wasnt illmatic, but when you go back to it now....Its definitely dope...To me, its held the test of time...And Hell on Earth, has one of the best battle tracks of all time...Shit Drop a Gem on Em, got at Pac in a pretty crazy way...With all that said Jigga deserves respect for lockin the game for his time in it, and Nas can be quite contradictory...But Nas took it in the battle....They both have their weaknesses but Nas wack??No way...And man fuck Ludacris...
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