Robert Moses<>SHAT

I just re-read The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro. The Power Broker has to be the best book on urban planning I have ever read. Yeah, the book is long--1344 pages--but it sure gives great insight into how modern New York was built.

Robert Moses has to be one of the most interesting characters in American history. He did whatever he wanted; he got whatever he wanted. One of his projects--the Cross Bronx Expressway--turned the South Bronx into an urban cesspool--I guess the area had some middle class inhabitants before the expressway was built, but they left for the suburbs. Eventually, this area, which became filled with drugs and violence during the latter part of the 70's, gave birth to hip hop. Mr. Moses is without a doubt one of the cultivators of hip hop.

Ebenezer Howard
I remember reading about him in a book--with a name I can't recall--a couple years ago. I guess he became obsessed with Walt Whitman--and was encouraged to better the human race. Around 1890, Mr. Howard read the book Looking Backward--and Town and Country was birthed. Mr. Howard, certainly, was a cultivator of headaches and death caused by mini vans.
I really want to write some more tonight. I want to talk about cool shit, but I really don't know what's cool these days.

Sleep: The group that everyone should listen to when they are high/sober
I found this CD today and loaded it into my iTunes. I must say that this little remembrance of days gone by still packs the jams. I must of listened to Sleep from 4 to 5 pm everyday for almost three years--sophomore through senior. I remember people used to give me shit for listening to Sleep; they compared them to the other dime-a-dozen stoner rock bands that polluted suburban Chicago basements back then. Listening to Sleep is not about getting stoned; it's on parallel with the greatest Coltrane or Miles Davis albums: by the end, you are consumed with the sweats.

I really do not think a person has to be stoned to enjoy sleep, which is something you can't say about most of Sleep's peers from the mid 90's. If you are interested in music theory--and bullshit like that--you will enjoy Sleep.

Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls: probably one of the best throwback songs I have heard in awhile. If Beautiful Girls was a conventional throwback, it would be the powder blue Chargers home jersey or the two tone hat that the Blue Jays used to wear.

The Blue Jays are one of the many teams that has screwed up its identity--now the Atlanta Hawks can be added to the list. Back in the early/mid 90's--when the Blue Jays were a solid team--the two tone hat and jersey set was worn by quite a few kids at my elementary school--and so was the Oakland Raider starter jacket. Most of these kids were ignorant to who played third base for the Jays--Kelly Gruber--or who managed the team--Cito Gaston; these kids liked the image. Today, I cannot see anyone going out of their way--too bad Holiday Plus went under--to purchase a polyester black Blue Jays hat. I willadmit that the graphite hat which the team wore at home until this season was kind of unique. Still, I miss the days when it was alright for a Minnesota kid to wear an A's or White Sox shirt to school. Unless you are a hipster, you are more than likely to wear the colors of your home team these days. In the early/mid 90's, you wore the Quebec Nordiques blue road jersey because you liked the colors--and that was an acceptable response. If you respond in the same manner in 2007, people are bound to think of you as a twat--team/city loyalty is at its highest. How could this be?