The Bones Brigade made me human.

There's usually a time in everyone's life in which they feel like an outsider. Even if just for a minute, We all feel like we're not up to par with the status quo, either because we don't want to be or because we were thrown into the middle of something and are forced to adapt.


When I a kid-I began to see skateboarding-what is was then and much even, if not all, of what it is now, in tiny increments. It started off small, my friend across the street had a board and a small launch ramp. He told me about this group of professional skaters called the Bones Brigade, and showed me an issue of Thrasher Magazine, which had pictures and articles about certain BB skaters, like Lance Mountain, Mike Mcgill, and Tommy Guerrero. He had a heap of Thrasher back issues. We used to stay up late and read thrashers, drink cokes, and play nintendo games to the wee hours. I soon got a board and joined him on the ramp. We'd bring our boards everywhere. We would ride up to the corner store and get the new issues of Thrasher and Transworld Skateboarding whenever we could. We'd make our parents take us, at first to the bike shop that also sold boards and skate paraphernalia, and before long we were making them drive across town to skate parks-My dad even built me ramps that we could skate on in the drive way. We'd go to the video store and rent Future Primitive, The Search for Animal Chin, and The Bones Brigade Video Show nearly every weekend, watch them 2, sometimes 3 times, and it never got old. I'd go through issues of Transworld and Thrasher and cut out logos and art that I thought was cool, I'd hang stuff on my walls, I'd do anything just to have skateboarding all around me, as much as I could. 

Knowing that not everyone at my school was in to skateboarding made it seem dangerous, and even though it should've made me feel like an outsider, it didn't, It made me feel complete. It made me human.

I was 10.

My obsession, which was anything but mild, soon gave way. When you're a kid, sometimes you just see the world a mile a minute...and certain things fade into obscurity and get smaller and smaller in the rearview. I was also growing tall and becoming awkward and clumsy, that obviously didn't help either. By the time I was 12, Hip Hop and basketball had taken over-Skateboarding was in my periphery.

About a month ago, I caught wind of the trailer for Stacy Peralta's Bones Brigade doc. I've been intermittently going through the online press for the feature with, (obviously) child-like excitement. It didn't bring back memories until today. I had an epiphany about this time in my life that I was probably too young to realize when it actually happened. Skateboarding was just fun. That's all. It didn't matter how much I did it, how little I did it, how bad or good I was at it. It was about getting on the board, being with my friends, and just being a kid. There wasn't any pressure. I didn't feel shitty after skating because I wasn't competing. I bugged out hard when I began thinking about this earlier today and literally almost started crying. I loved it then but I didn't understand why. 22 years later...I get it.

Everyone lives and regrets not doing something or not being somewhere or not saying something at the right time. I don't think there's anything I regret more than giving up skateboarding. Not because I could've been the next Tony Hawk, or Lance Mountain, or Mike Mcgill-but because I may never get to go to that place again.

The place where you can grind on coping and come back down for the first time. and you feel like you've just came down from space.  Or the place where you can cross a busy suburban street in the dead of rush hour just to try and ollie onto a picnic table. A place where everything was......

Right.

-Marty.

Breaking up is hard to do.

Hello, Chucksters. 

I am not here to make excuses, or shed any kind of indignant neuroses I have about status, or lack thereof - as a writer within the past year, but speak from an introspective space, simply because, as selfish as it sounds, I think I need it. 

I last posted within the confines of All Grey Chucks on August 29, 2011. One of hottest, dumbest, and uneven summers was finally coming to an end. I was tapped out financially, emotionally, and artistically, a funk in which, nearly a year later, I’m finally starting to come out of. Last year at this time, I was working a dead-end job, and struggling with some personal issues, and overall just not enjoying life. I guess it’s kismet in a way that post was about a claustrophobic, jerky, and neurotic movie called Slacker, and it’s encompassing redux; it somehow mirrored how I felt. That was one of the easier posts I’ve ever written, simply because watching the original print of Slacker while researching put my head at a level playing field with everything going on around me. 

As a writer, you start to believe in the art. You also start to think everything is profound, and that puts pressure on you. All of the sudden I felt like brushing my teeth had to have some kind of resonance. It’s sometimes not the easiest thing to deal with. To say that it freaked me out a little is probably about par for the course. 

People ask me about my writing a lot, and I’m glad to talk about it, simply because I never thought it’d touch the lives of as many people as it did-and for that, I’m forever grateful. I started onlyhiphopblog to have some fun and share my knowledge of what, in my opinion, is the halcyon period of a particular genre. The response was much more than I had ever foreseen. 

Did onlyhiphopblog get bigger than real life? Yes and No. I don’t have millions of readers and don’t make any money off of it...but I did make a lot of new friends, not only in the blogging community, but in the Hip-hop community as well. I got into music festivals for free, and got a chance to do something a lot of people don’t get to do; express myself creatively.I am a writer, and. It’s something I’ll always be and I’m happy to do it, with or without any platitudes or financial gain. At the end of the day it goes back to two core ideals: Art and expression. 

I’ve done a lot of thinking re: my future as a writer, I’ve thought about phasing out onlyhiphopblog and just incorporating everything in to AGC; I’ve thought of re-vamping onlyhiphopblog with a new name, I’ve also thought of just trudging on like I have been, committing to it, and making it a point to update these as much as I can. All I can say this that I’ve chosen door number 3. I can’t predict the future, so I can’t say whether or not these blogs will again fall by the wayside. My goal is to have a new post on each one every month or so. I also want to beef up my social networking presence, If we’re friends on Facebook you may get a request to like a page in the near future. 

For now, onlyhiphopblog will continue to report on/spread knowledge in reference to Hip-Hop and Rap of the golden age and beyond, and All Grey Chucks will continue to have a much looser definition, and report on anything music, sports, food, life, and culture. 

To all my friends and family here in Austin, Ohio, Michigan, and everywhere...those that have supported me in these endeavors, continue to support, and believe in art, substance, and nostalgia...I love ALL of you. a lot. 

Thanks isn’t enough. 

Onward and Upward, 

-Marty. 

Slacker 2011, and what it means to us.

At the advent of my sophomore year of high school, I vividly remember my world cultures teacher screening Dazed and Confused for the class. In retrospect, I don't think we were baffled so much as ready to blank out mindlessly to something that didn't involve any kind of traditional sequence of education; the first two weeks of the standard high school year can prove draining to a 16 year old who just had the first real summer of their young adult life. As I was coming down, getting to sift through Dazed was sort of a cleansing of the palette. In retrospect, I think the instructor knew what he was doing, and kind of used that movie to segue into his style of teaching.

The director of that film, Richard Linklater, made his debut in 1991 with the now legendary cult favorite Slacker, a scrappy, grainy swan song that portrays Austin as an artistic blank canvas, with characters that in one way or another are all confined within the walls of some kind of personal or social purgatory. While watching you almost can't help but feel isolated; a continuous pan of sometimes awkward, sometimes angry, and often funny interactions with conspiracy theorists, trust-fund flunkies, and old man anarchists that would rather just talk a criminal trying to rob his house down than call the police. It comes to a literally dizzying decrescendo, much as dazed did, it's the perfect endpoint for a film that was trying to capture a time and place as a cultural aesthetic. If dazed perfectly exemplified late 70's middle class suburban kids' closeted desires, Slacker works simultaneously as the antithesis of those same desires, as if the dreams of those characters were left unfulfilled-all of the sudden, it's the 90's and people are dissident, lethargic, and complacent, but still somehow spirited and unrelenting. This might be the most captivating aspect of the film, that it kind of expresses a positive, uplifting message in a really backhanded, convoluted way.

In lieu of Slacker's 20th anniversary, some of the finest filmmakers in Austin got together and came up with a remake treatment that boasts 24 different directors-each assigned to a key scene of the film, in an attempt to see how it would translate to 2011's Austin. Not the blank artistic landscape it was in '91, It seems that we're all intrigued at how this time-capsule of a project will pan out, myself included. It's been a long, rough, hot summer, Austinites. I think we could all use a little palette cleansing. The new school year is starting. It might not be time to blank out, but to see how art can transcend time-Even if just for a couple of hours.

Slacker 2011 premiers wednesday at the Paramount Theatre here in Austin.

Beats, Rhymes, and Life.

About 2 months ago, I noticed my facebook news feed bombarded with people doing the "30 day song challenge". Since it had to do with music/songwriting, It caught my eye. It's pretty basic, within the course of 3o days, you pick out a song every day based on whatever criteria the "challenge" calls for, i.e; your favorite song, a song you hate, a song by your favorite band, etc. many of the criterion were basic, subjective, or juvenile at first but began to get a tad bit more complex as the days went on. (For the record, I still haven't done it, the rules are contained in a facebook fan page you can "like" if you so desire) One of the day's criteria is to name a song that reminds you of your childhood. I immediately came to this:

If we go back in time, the best place to stop the Mental delorean would be the summer of 1991. I kept seeing videos for "Check the Rhime" and, if I recall correctly, "Buggin Out" on Yo! MTV Raps. My musical tastes were just starting to develop, and I had for one reason or another embraced hip hop as my go-to genre. When I heard the song embedded therein, the warm, ephemeral horn refrain, the echo-y snare, the rhymes, ...It changed my life. I hadn't heard anything like it up to then, and I'm not yet convinced there's ever going to be another piece of music that'll make me feel the way I did the first time I heard this song. I wanted to go to linden boulevard and rock starter jerseys w/ tip and phife. Record company people were shady. The marriage between old and new was somehow subtle and understated while creating a sense of urgency at the same time; The Low End Theory as a whole seemed to beckon a "This is our time" call. I always knew this but I don't really think I knew how to say what I've just said until now. The timing couldn't be better. Michael Rappaport's doc Beats, Rhymes, and Life hits the streets in just a few short days, as it's set to premiere here in Austin on July 29th.

When I take my seat around midnight next friday morning, It'll all come full-circle. Not just my love for Tribe, but my love for Hip-Hop, not as genre but as an artform. For definition, not just of the music we love but of the childhood/adolescence/adulthood of the dude writing this blog post; It's a heavy-handed statement to say that tribe made me who I am, but as I look at the screen next week it'll be every bit as reaffirming.

-Marty.

The NHL's biggest problem may be that it has no problems at all.

Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals aired this past friday night on NBC. As I got home, with about 12 minutes to go in the Second period, I was surprised that, A) Roberto Luongo was still playing net for the Canucks, and B) the score was still 0-0. If you're friends with me on facebook or follow me on twitter, you know that I've recently jumped on the Vancouver Canucks bandwagon. My usual NHL standby, the Detroit Red Wings, broke my heart yet again by making an early exit from the postseason, and after watching the Canucks dismantle the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Finals, (who have played foil to the wings the last two years) I started paying attention.

Looking at a team like the Canucks, it's kind of hard not to like them; they're an exciting team to watch. Their Marquee stars are twin brothers who look like bearded cyborgs that were manufactured to play the game of hockey. (Think "Strange Brew" meets "Universal Solider") Their keeper is one of the best in the league, even taking in to consideration his transgressions in the Blackhawks series, not to mention games 3 and 4 of the Cup finals. They have cool looking blue and green uniforms. They have a loyal, dedicated fanbase that travels with them. Not since Pavel Bure slapped on the #16 jersey has there been this much excitement in this western canadian metropolis that's known for semi-legal weed, failed NBA franchises, and ferry boats.


They also have the perfect foil in the Boston Bruins, who play as rough and tumble as the working class city that bears the emblem on the center of their chests. Timmy Thomas is a renaissance man between the pipes, Zdeno Chara is an electrifying defenseman, and Mark Recchi is one of the best veteran faces in the league. They represent Boston as hard-nosed ambassadors to an already hard-nosed game; even if Ben Affleck and Matt Damon aren't sitting rinkside.


Outside of the series itself, the game of hockey has several selling points. Pageantry, tradition, action, athleticism, and drama. like any other sport, there's tons to talk about in the locker room and at the press conference post game. We've seen Aaron Rome nearly end Nathan Horton's career in game 3, followed by the implosion of Roberto Luongo in said game AND game 4. Also, no blog post about the cup finals would be complete without the mention of Timmy Thomas and his "Stick Work".

The problem is...This is IT. the end all, be all, as it may, hockey is a sport in it's most continent form. It's free from outside distraction for the most part. The players, even the stars, aren't "juicing" or trying in any way to enhance their performance, outside of being in the best physical condition possible. The "old fashioned" "Babe Ruth did it on steak and potatoes" way, if you want to get somewhat technical. There aren't reality shows based on the lives of them nor their vapid, one dimensional wives. They're a bunch of dudes that have beards and talk with northern accents. They're from places like Halifax, Kamloops, and Brampton. You have to go to websites like Deadspin to dig up dirt on some of these guys, and even those stories are few and far between, and even still, THOSE stories aren't really that shocking.

The way I've decided to approach sports journalism is simple; I want to draw paralells between professional/amateur athletics and society. How it reflects on us as a people and how it plays in to something bigger. Everyone is fixated on the other side of the story so much that it's pushed a sport like hockey into a niche, almost boutique audience. The funny thing is, the sport didn't really do much to alienate it's fanbase; Outside of a labor dispute that postponed the 2004-2005 season, the league and the players didn't really ask for this de facto pop culture re-alignment. The paradigm just shifted.

We all want something we can sink our teeth into, and, for the most part, the only thing palpable here is the action itself. That's enough for me, but it's just not enough to draw most americans in. If we can't pick up the newspaper and see what charges they've been brought up on, or how much their wives spend on dog food on a reality show, then we can't see investing our time. We want something Nebulous and all-engrossing, so we can feel like we connect with them. In a strange way, I kind of understand, and sympathize with this disposition. I just don't think it's all that's out there.

So, SHOULD you watch NHL hockey?

I'll let you answer that question.

-Marty.

Did you miss me?

Issac thinks you did. He stands accused.

Seriously, though, what's been going on, people? I've been spinning lots of records, drinking a lot of Real Ale, eating a lot of pizza, and, you know, other stuff. Oh, I forgot, #Hashtagging on twitter like it's MY JOB.

The Atlanta Hawks are up on the Magic, 3-1, Chris Paul is doing his best to single-handedly dismantle the Lakers, (with a little help from Trevor Ariza) and the Knicks are flopping like a trout trying to swin against the current. While at work last week, I caught snippets of game 1 of the Bulls-Pacers series, to which I exclaimed "the Pacers made the playoffs?" I was dumbfounded. I immediately consulted the resident NBA expert in my world, a one Coby Lee Gleason. His retort to my query "How did the pacers make the playoffs?" went something like this:

"Marty, c'mon. they play in the eastern conference."

Fair enough, Cobster. I guess Derrick Rose has to fillet some lowly Eastern Conference team on the way to the next round. Hopefully they'll meet the Heat, D Rose will somehow get into a fight w/ Dwayne Wade, and Lebron and Chris Bosh will hold each other post-game in the locker room while this song plays:




Maybe they'll find some type of solace in being surrounded by Keyboards. In other Miami Heat-related news, I don't see the fire in Lebron's eyes anymore. Maybe it's that he's trying to gel w/ other superstars, or maybe he's still bitter about the media taking a huge dump on his face (see prior AGC post). The NBA playoffs are always an uncompromising saga of super stardom, Phil Jackson's buddism, Kobe's knees, crazy tattoos, and the highest level of basketball you can possibly see ANYWHERE. Even though the Lakers are trying to shake off the NOLA Hornets, you can bet somebody in their camp somewhere is busting kneecaps to get Dwight Howard in a Lakers uni come 2011-12. and you thought WWE wrestling was a soap opera. Look at what happened w/ 'Melo.

Ok, ok, I haven't only been cracking-out on playoff NBA B-ball, I've also been spinning tons of records. A few weeks back, I was digging at one of my favorite spots in town, Breakaway Records up on north loop. The help was spinning some raw soul-funk type stuff. I noticed the tune was the sample the Geto Boys' used in "My Mind is Playin' Tricks on Me" ...turns out it was an Issac Hayes cut dubbed "Hung up on my Baby", but it also turns out that brooklynites the EL Michels Affair did a whole album of Issac Hayes covers that is straight up RAW. Then, the help put on the next El Michels record, dubbed "Enter the 37th Chamber" in which they re-translated a bunch of Wu-Tang beats with live instruments. I was sold. I've bought every El Michels record I could get my hands on, and have considered paying upwards to $40 on ebay for Sounding Out the City, which is full of EMA original cuts, on LP. This track is the crown jewel on said LP:





Great stuff. The lo-fi production and horns make this sound like it was made in the late 60's.

In short, get off your ass, get outside and enjoy the sunshine when you can, when you come back inside, watch some NBA playoff bball whilst spining El Michels Affair records. I can't really give anything else my endorsement right now, in fear of a pending lawsuit. Dear Andrea B, I'm glad you've passed the bar. I might need to enlist your services. (Jokes.)

Keep it real, ATX and beyond.

-Marv.

Turn down the HEAT....

Does anyone ever remember a time when the media reported in a clear, concise, and unbiased manner? When ESPN set up shop in Bristol in the late 70's, were the producers a bunch of fresh out-the-joint college kids who were still a little wet behind the ears, naive to the ways of the world and unaffected by any kind of influence?

Probably not. I wasn't really around, in any kind of journalistic capacity anyway, back then, but I find it a little hard to believe, that, if John Madden walked into the Raiders' locker room after a tough loss, and found Ken Stabler and Fred Biletnikoff letting the waterworks fly, a media frenzy would ensue. Had that happened, it would've been '72-'73. Those cats probably went to the bar and pounded cold Pabst Blue Ribbon after a tough loss.

In the 70's, and even the 80's....Sports media wasn't as polished and didn't really resemble tradtional news. Uncharted territory began to be overcome by the pirate ship that is the new guard in sports media. Back in the 90's, a time I like to pleasantly refer to as the "When Stuart Scott had two good eyes" era, We began to see professional/college sports covered a little differently. Once the modern age was ushered in by higher ratings, Scandal began to erupt. It shook the very foundation on which the sports we loved were at their core. Mark Mcgwire happened. Jose Canseco happened. Barry Bonds happened. The veil was lifted and we began to see professional athletes for who they were. Mortals who fail, and make mistakes. Mistakes=ratings. ratings=ad revenue. Ad revenue=profits. (insert earlier post about Cam Newton here).

So here we sit, with The Miami Heat suffering a crippling loss in the waning seconds of Sunday's matchup vs. Derrick Rose and the once again on top of things Chicago Bulls. Ol' "new guard media" has been anything but kind to the 2010-11 Miami Heat. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as if positive highlights in reference to Miami's season have been few and far between.

So, let's be objective, for just one second. I'm no expert, far from it. What I do know, is that Miami's record this year is 43-20. They're WELL over .500 and will surely make the playoffs. They lose some close games, everyone at ESPN is up their asses with contempt. When head coach Erik Spoelstra took to the mic at the post game PC he looked like a beleaguered coach that was at the helm of a team who had won 15 games all season, not the coach of a team that's in 3rd place in the Eastern conference. Soon after facing the media, he admitted, he saw some guys crying in the locker room.

Enter "Crygate"; an eruption of discussion about when, and even if it's ok to show emotion in the realm of pro sports. Why guys do it, why guys don't do it, etc. It seems that there was some pretty healthy debate going on, as ESPN would start to run B-roll of Terrell Owens crying after Tony Romo blew another cowboys' post season.

So why were some of Miami's players crying on Sunday? was it because they got crapped on by the spurs last week, then lost a barn-burner to the Bulls? No. it's because the likes of ESPN has built this team up, only to tear them down. They weren't crying because they had some tough losses, they were crying because the media has spared them no expense.

Maybe, just maybe, there was a time when the powers that be weren't trying to sell a product, weren't trying to garner attention or ratings, a time when simpler people played a simpler game and the programmers in Bristol weren't in the business of soul sucking for the means of selling car insurance and tickets to the movie Battle: Los Angeles. We'll never, ever live in that world again, this much I know. But, when you see humans, being human for once, think for 30 seconds about where it came from. You might be surprised at the lack of complexity.

-Marty.