COME TO THIS SHOW OR DIE!!!

!!!UC BERKELEY SLAM - Next Slam, TUES. OCT. 5th!!!
--CAL SLAM is back with a vengeance! One of the hottest slams in the Bay Area and home of the 2004 Collegiate National Champions is starting the year off with a bang!! Did you miss the first two slams, with our features SHANE KOYCZAN and NAZELAH JAMISON? STOP SLEEPING!!! Our next slam features 3 of the dopest youth poets in the scene - RAFAEL CASAL (HBO Def Poet), NICO CARY, and the one and only JOSH BEGLEY (Cal Slam Collegiate Champ 2004/Bay Area Youth Champ 2003). Still not satisfied? How about an open slam with a slew of new, creative, and fresh poets ready to tear the roof off of the Bear's Lair? PLUS a two-time National Slam Champ (JOSE VADI) as your host?And only $3?!?
-- RAFAEL CASAL is known across the Nation as one of the top youth poets. A Berkeley native, Raf blends brutally honest poetry with hip hop flows to create a style that leaves crowds giving standing ovations begging for more. He was on the 2003 Bay Area Youth Poetry Team (2nd in the nation) and coached this year's Bay Area Youth Team to FIRST PLACE. He is also on staff with Youth Speaks in San Francisco AND has been featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam - ALL AT THE AGE OF 19!!!
-- NICO CARY is the silent assasin of the youth spoken word scene. Beneath a shy persona lies a poetic genius who has a style all of his own, with a vocabulary that will leave you reaching for a dictionary. Nico is a UC Berkeley student that has been a Youth Speaks affiliate since his days at Berkeley High, and is still killing it across the Bay.
-- JOSH BEGLEY came out of nowhere in 2003 and stunned the whole scene when he was crowned the Bay Area Youth Slam Champ. He is also a member of the 2004 Cal Slam Team (National Champs!!) and is currently a member of the Jigsaw Collective (the 2004 cal slam team). He is currently working on the Jigsaw Collective's book, which will be published through First Word Press/City Lights Books in 2005.
--So come down to UC BERKELEY, buy some pizza and beer from Bear's Lair, shake your ass to our HOT live DJ, and get ready for what many have called the most diverse, unique, and intense slams in the Bay. See you OCTOBER 5th!!!!
Cal Slam
Hosted by: Jose Vadi
Bear's Lair Pub and Brew (on Bancroft below Telegraph)
EVERY 2nd/4th Tuesday
$3
7:30pm sign up, 8pm slam
ALL AGES
info: jose@youthspeaks.org
http://www.calpoetryslam.com

ps: This show is in conjuction with the Free Speech Movement poets and Poetry for the People, who will be performing as well. But, Cal Slam will be representing too, so you still gotta come cuz, well, you have to so there...

Cat Power music videos.

i recommend "Cross Bone Style"

thanks elyse.

Saul Williams "Act III Scene 3 (Shakespeare)" featuring Zack De La Rocha

be yourself. it's fun.

much love to everyone who came to the party last night. let's do it again sometime.

now, time to recover

...and study.

camilo has a blog.


el-p "Deep Space NineMM" & "Stepfather Factory"

The lead singer of Les Savy Fav got fined in Vegas for lewd conduct...the following is the story in his own words. If you don't know who Les Savy Fav are, buy any of their cd's (i recommend "Go Forth"), they're hoTT.

Ryan Schreiber reports:
It was all fun and games for Les Savy Fav last weekend at a private party in Las Vegas for VICE magazine and clothing designer Paul Frank until someone got their ass kicked out. The band had been tapped to play a private set for a mixed crowd of jetsetting drug fiends and hipster threadlords at Vegas' Pioneer Casino. But first! The evening was to start with class.

According to LSF frontman Tim Harrington, "We get there and it's like a cowboy bar. There's a mechanical bull, and they're setting up this mud wrestling pit, and there's like eight girls in bikinis and this big fat ox with a shaved head and like five rolls in the back of his neck. He's being like, 'Now ladies, remember, this isn't a standard competition. There will be no purse for the winner, and you'll all be paid equally. Beware that when you're out there you're not supposed to be naked, but if your tatas do fall out, I don't see so good, so just let's not say it would be a bad thing. Also, if you want to do any lesbo stuff, that would be great too.'"

The scene, it seems, was set for lewd conduct. But as casino security saw it, no real lewdness occurred until afterwards, when Les Savy Fav took the stage. Says bassist Syd Butler, "What happened was, Tim had a wireless mic that gave him pretty much free range over this entire redneck, cowboy scene, country bar. And he took off his clothes-- I think he was actually in like a bikini bathing suit and briefs-- and he got into the mudpit and these bouncer guys just lost their shit. They wouldn't get in because they didn't want to get dirty. They were just trying to get him out and it was sort of this big mess."

"All the sudden," says Harrington, "around me are like eight clones of the big giant guy-- little, like, mini, sub-bosses of the big boss. And they're all doing an 'out' type gesture and yelling in my ear, and I'm really boogieing down. I start pretending like I can't get out-- you know, it's slippery-- so that I can stay there a little longer 'cause the mud felt really good once it got covered on you. It wasn't mud so much as like a slick clay. It felt great. And I'm reaching for one of the guy's hands, trying to judge how much effort would it take to pull this person in but still have it come across as an accident. But I gave a little tug on this man-mountain and realized that I would probably have to wrap my entire body around his legs and start flopping around."

Fortunately, Tim was finally able to gain some ground against the relentless pit and hoist his mud-soaked self from its slippery grip. "The second I got my underpants," Tim regales us, "I run backstage and I see this guy and he's like, 'Come on, let's get you hosed off.' And I thought, 'Oh, this guy's being cool. He's like, working with me. He's gonna get me hosed off.' So I go out the back door with him, to the outside, and he gives me this hose and goes back in. And as I'm waiting for him to turn the hose on, I get a really bad feeling. And I decide: You know what? No way."

Indeed, the show wasn't over yet. "So I run back out onstage, covered in mud, dripping, and we start playing again, and there's a kid breathing into the corner of my wet and clay-filled underpants, making them puff up. And when we finished, I go and get hosed off, thinking nothing is going down. But then I realize there's a lot of those bouncers guys that I'd seen hanging outside, and no one I know, and that they're all hanging between me and the door."

And then the hammer finally fell: "All the sudden, out comes the big boss man with multi rolls-- neck man-- and he says, 'You are not coming back in this club. You are being 86'd from this casino. Do you know what that means? You will be taken to the front. You will be written up, photographed, and if you ever return to this casino again, you will be immediately arrested.' And I'm like, 'Oh, okay. That's fine.' And he says, 'Do you want to know why you're being 86'd?' And I was like, 'I mean, I don't care. I just want to get out of here.' He had to tell me why: 'Lewd, obscene behavior, covering the stage in mud, and ruining all the microphones. This is our stage and you destroyed it. You're going to be fined and you are going to be 86'd. Do you understand? You're never allowed back in this casino.'"

Security then handcuffed Harrington, and hauled him off to have him written up, photographed, and finally, ejected. "They basically arrested him on lewd behavior," says Butler, "which is the ultimate irony, I think. It was lewd behavior after six women were mud wrestling in thong underwear? Apparently, naked girls wrestling in mud, for money, is acceptable, but Tim in his underwear is a lewd and a mischievous act."

As for Tim, he understands that should he ever enter the casino again he'll be arrested on sight, but he's still tempted to challenge the venue's authority: "30 years from now, I want to start getting disguised and only going there."
Les Savy Fav are just wrapping up a brief U.S. tour, but if you're lucky (?) enough to live in Atlanta or Carrboro, there's still time to catch them before a two-month break. After that, the band have lined up six additional dates, to kick off on November 8th in Seattle and glide down the West Coast:

11-12 San Francisco, CA - Slim's
11-13 Los Angeles, CA - Knitting Factory
11-14 San Diego, CA - Casbah

fuck yeah!

stole this from Cristina's blog. many of you have probably heard about the Michelle Malkin event/protest last night, but i think this article is extremely important because it is written by a person attending the most prestigious public university in the nation - and he's a complete fucking idiot. Camilo made the good point that you could counter and reverse everything he's saying to justify profiling, say, white Anglo-Saxon Americans.

Racism is now hidden underneath graduation robes.
I guess they ran out of rope and hard to start getting more creative.

the aforementioned article makes me remember attending an all white school, but living and being raised in an all-brown city. being "bussed" to school (my dad drove me, and gave me a history lesson everyday, hence my major) every morning to the same cesspool of an education system. in those classrooms, i didn't learn about Wounded Knee or the HUGE railroad/steel mill/coal mine protests of the 1870s and 1880s (some of the biggest in American history), nor did i learn anything worth while except how to get into Berkeley.

but i did learn the word 'sand nigger' and 'towell head' and so many fucking anti-Arab jokes that i could make chapbooks out of them.

and i remember my friend, who was Siekh i believe, getting his ass kicked repeatedly after school in junior high and always getting picked on for wearing a turban. and nobody said anything about it.

this was pre-9/11

when we graduated, i remember the conversations of boys i used to skateboard with, and run away from the cops with, who were suddenly patriotic after a local Marines recruitment center opened up in Pomona (how convenient - an all-brown town with its own Death Squad recruitment center...the only one around until you hit Montclair, a predominately african-american city) and how they were gonna go down there, join the marines, and get trained and PAID to, quote, "Shoot down some sand niggers for G. Dubs"

i can only imagine what the kids at my old high school are learning now.


here is an article on Malkin's lecture that appears today in the Daily Cal.

the Latin Jazz All Stars last night at Yoshi's...


the best show i've seen since Prefuse73/RjD2 show back in April 2003


i missed Pops a lot hearing those clave beats and those rumba rhythms.


made me miss Puerto Rico and Cuba.

dope

another event to attend...culo:
UC BERKELEY POETRY SLAM @ the Bear's Lair
1st one of the season!
featuring your favorite Cannuck lyricist, SHANE KOYCZAN!!!!
Tuesday, September 7th
730 sign up, 8pm Slam
$3 all ages

...haha booking Shane was awesome. the following is his "representative's" response to my query:

"I am sitting with Shane right now, and the good news is, he'll feature. The bad news is he wants 2,000$ and three female escorts. He also requires a dressing room with a leather love swing and two skateboards with no wheels. If you can accomodate his needs, we'll be there."

Tennis Ball Torturers por vida, homes.

engine down "long time waiting"

who needs historic ruins anyway?

happy b-day to la koala.

xhartshapedbox: fuckmook?

please come to this event:
SECOND SUNDAYS:
Benefit feat. MICHAEL FRANTI OF SPEARHEAD & some Youth Speaks All Stars
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12th 8PM TICKETS ON SALE NOW AND GOING FAST
The Independent (formerly the Justice League)
628 Divisadero St. SF
$15, 21 & up w/ID
www.theindependentsf.com
info:::
Youth Speaks and The Living Word Project continue the Second Sunday tradition of literary performance excellence on September 12th @ The Independent (628 Divisadero St., SF). Our featured musician/spoken word artist for the night will be MICHAEL FRANTI of SPEARHEAD. SF local and cultural icon/activist, Michael Franti was part of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, a hip-hop duo praised for insightful raps and Public Enemy-influenced beats. He resurfaced in 1994 with Spearhead, a band more rooted in '70s funk. In addition to great live music, we are also proud to present an all-star line-up of YOUTH SPEAKS POETS: DAHLAK BRATHWAITE, RICKENA BATES, RAFAEL CASAL, TALIA TAYLOR, JOSE VADI, GEORGE WATSKY, and KIRYA TRABER (all of whom competed at this year’s Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam Finals @ Herbst Theater). Get ready to be amazed by some of the Bay Area’s youngest and brightest writers! And if YOU want to READ, our OPEN MIC sign-up begins at 7:30. Doors open at 7.


pitchfork actually gets something right.

albums of the moment:
Engine Down (self-titled)
Bjork "Medulla"
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez "A Manuel Dexterity - Soundtrack Volume One"
Bright Eyes "Lifted...."

bjork "where is the line"


jaylee slays