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Somedayz
Aug 25, 2010 music, video Leave a comment
Big K.R.I.T.
East of Eden
Aug 24, 2010 books 2 Comments
This is a letter from Steinbeck to his friend and editor Pascal “Pat” Covici at the beginning of the book:
Dear Pat,
You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said,
“Why don’t you make something for me?”
I asked you what you wanted and you said, “A box.”
“What For?”
“To put things in.”
“What things?”
“Whatever you have.” You said.
Well here’s your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts—the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.
And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.
And still the box is not full.
John
I am about 100 pages in and can see why it is so highly, highly regarded.
Chip the Ripper
Aug 21, 2010 video Leave a comment
Apparently, in my under-the-radar bag today…
We did an interview with Chip years ago. Helluva nice guy. His mixtape with Mick Boogie stays in rotation…
I will say this again: people don’t pay enough attention to the Cleveland scene.
Big K.R.I.T. & Yelawolf
Aug 21, 2010 music, video Leave a comment
As much as I can hate on the interwebs and how it’s destroyed the quality of music by flooding the industry with quantity, there are occasionally artists that I hear from small towns (Meridian, Mississippi?) and far away places that I never would of likely run into if it wasn’t for the interweb.
Big K.R.I.T.
I came across this dudes mixtape a few months ago. Good to see he is picking up of some recognition. He’s part of that next generation of rappers who are talented, but won’t go anyway. (Not their fault. The game’s done changed…) But don’t mistake the fact he will never sell out the Garden in four minutes deter you from listening, if you are a hip-hop head. K.R.I.T. does a lot of his own production too.
Here’s a remix of Hometown Hero with Yelawolf:
Yelawolf
First time I saw dude was in Pill’s video for Trap Goin’ Ham. The girls at work were swooning, I did some research and turns out the Alabama representative is a rapper. Definitely wasn’t feeling the first few times I listened to his mixtapes and he’s an acquired taste, but he has grown on me.
Books etc.
Aug 20, 2010 books, travel 3 Comments
I have said it before and I will say it again.
I judge books by their cover.
I know this isn’t pretty but it is true. What can I say? It has been that way for a long time. I often end up picking a book by the feel and texture of the cover and/or on the book jacket design. (Now before you go getting all high and mighty, don’t try to tell me you are above getting trapped by visual consumerism. Please. I’m guessing you bought something you have on right the fuck now based on how it looks over the quality of the product. Just saying…)
Admittedly, this modus operandi has steered me clear of a few sure shots and classics, but it also probably has something to do with the fact why my top 5 favorite books contain no classics. (I have read some of the classics, they just didn’t make it to one of the coveted Top 5 Favorite Chris Malo Books list.)
But here in Paris? Wow… I brought a few books with me but they were all the short story/reader/compendium type. No novels. I pass bookstores on the regular, but the books are all in French. So I Googled bookstores in Paris that sell books in English and turned the list of 11 into a map.
A few days ago I went to Galignani, across from the Louvre. It’s the oldest English bookstore on the continent. I went to the back where the books in English are and was blown away. First, as I said, I am someone who judge books by their cover. It was obvious that the covers used on the European editions of books differ- and are FAR superior- to their US counterparts. Damn near every book had covers that were beautiful. Either the photography or the graphics, but the design was just drop dead phenomenal. And it wasn’t just titles from one publishing house either. (Although Penguin titles seemed to extra stand out…) Across the board they were all markedly light years better than almost anything in the states.
And although they had a large selection of books it wasn’t like being in a Borders or B&N. It was a decent size for a bookstore in Paris with an English selection, but definitely not expansive. Yet, the selection they did have was outstanding. I easily could of walked out with 50 books. Instead I walked out with one. What blew my mind was when I went to the V’s. Before my eyes, not one, not two, but six titles by William T. Vollmann? I have yet to see a store back home that carries one, let alone six. The books of his I have I have all had to order online. But here…
I picked The Atlas because it seemed appropriate.
(They also had a selection of Nick Tosches, which is rare to see…)
The following day I dragged Jill out to hit more bookstores. I had picked up a copy of East of Eden in Galignani, but thought I might be able to find it used at one of the other places. Turns out I was wrong. We went to Village Voice Bookshop (new only; smallish selection), San Francisco Book Co. (used only; good selection, not for anyone that requires order), The Abbey (new & used; see: San Francisco Book Co.) and Shakespeare & Co. (new only; lots of history, lots of books, tourist trap) and none had it. So today I went back to Galignani and in between posting, finishing the third season of The Wire I have had my nose in it…
During one leg of our roadtrip, the conversation obviously turned to books, literature and authors. (See end of post for my often discussed/mentioned top 5.) Great convos for sure. Again, I commented that even as a recovering dope fiend, I still fear running out. If I find something I like I want to buy several of whatever it is, in case the original runs out or breaks. One of the things I love about reading and books is that the list of books to get to is endless. I can never run out. And for someone like me… It gives me a little bit of security.
Strange fact time?
Bookstores and libraries make me have to take a shit. No lie. Ask my family or any of my exes. If you are in a bookstore and want to find me, scan the place quick, then head for the men’s stalls.
My top 5 books (in no order & subject to change at any time):
- And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave
- The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
- Big Machine by Viktor LaValle
- Horace Afoot by Frederick Reuss
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
We will always have Bonneville
So I am not as great keeping the blog updated while away as I would have expected/hoped/liked.
One reason is that there is a ton of relaxing downtime and I don’t want to A.) change that, and B.)be someone that posts/blogs/tweets annoying shit like “sitting at coffee shop drinking café crème” or “Slept in, went to store and got stuff for breakfast, made breakfast, went to cafe, read, fucked around online, went to the oldest bookstore on the continent across from the Louvre, then went to Colette. Came home, made dinner, went to cafe to read book I bought, came home and watched a few episodes of The Wire.”
But, I did recently get back from a 10 day road trip with friends through the south of France and had an amazing time. Plus, once my mom gives me shit saying she checks and is willing to read my blog -when the woman hasn’t read one issue of my magazine because of “the language Christopher. The language…”- it is time to do a little recap.
Having said all that, I am going to spare everyone the play by play of the trip. You will have to wait for the book. (And I know people have Billy has a short attention span for long blogposts.) I will try to keep it to a summary and highlights.
So the rough idea is two of our friends got married 8 months ago, they planned a trip to France, wanted to crash with us in Paris, and we wanted to or were invited to crash their roadtrip. Their style of travel meshes pretty well with ours: have a rough idea and figure it out as you go. The original idea was to make it to Barcelona, Spain, but it would of required a breakneck pace and I don’t think that suited anyone. So instead a car was rented for 10 days and Marseilles became the furthest south destination. Between here (Paris) and there (Marseilles) we stopped in Lyon, Anemasse/Geneva and Chamonix/Mont Blanc in that order.
On our way to Lyon we found the most amazing boulangerie in the world (in Bonneville), that made the best pizza in the world.
Stopped at a street fair and continued on to Lyon, where we stayed in the palacial Hotel Helder. Rooms were not pricey, which explains why they apparently didn’t have any disinfectant, odor eater, sanitizer or cleaning services in their budget. One of those things you thug your way through at the time knowing you will look back and laugh. Or at least 3 of the 4 of us will.
Had an amazing lunch the following day.
That night for dinner I ate cow cheek and pig intestine. Willingly. And they were both pretty good.
From there to Anemasse, which is right over the border from Geneva, Switzerland. That city is fucking balleriffic. On one corner there was a Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Phillpe Patek. I counted 5 Ferraris, 1 Maybach and 1 Lambo.
From there we headed to Chamonix. Crazy. Situated in the French Alps and at the base of Mont Blanc, it was like waking up on a movie set. The only thing comparable as the scenery in New Zealand. It was crajee.
First thing we did when we got there was book whitewater river rafting and headed up to the ice cave. It is a man made cave, drilled into a glacier. It was insane.
Spent a few days there and among other things, broke my 15 consecutive year string of not owning a pair of Nikes. But how could I pass these up?
One day we took 2 gondolas up to the top for the view. Amazing.
The weather held up until the day we left, and our scheduled whitewater rafting trip. Luckily, once you are in a wetsuit, with booties, and a helmet and a life preserver, rafting down a river of glacier water, a little drizzle doesn’t really matter.
Next and last was Marseilles. We drove in and like most of the cities we encountered problems with directions. Then again, you figure 4 people driving in a foreign country who can’t speak the language or read the signs and don;t have maps but have taken pics of google directions on their digi cameras to try and read/navigate off of, are certainly in for some mis-steps.
As a result, our initial impressions of Marseilles is that of driving into Beruit. Shit was fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked up. We knew it was the heroin capitol of Europe, but goddamn. Judging by looks, it was as if graffiti was not only legal but encouraged. (In service trains with burners = yes!)
We weren’t even sure if we would stay. The room we booked the night before looked to be the nicest of the trip, but it was initially looking dismal. We eventually found our hotel and despite the reception area being straight out of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (complete with dudes nodded out and drooling, woman with buttcheeks that hung out of her shorts, and the dude with a stuffed animal stuck down the front of but sticking out of his pants) the hotel was really nice. And our initial impression of the city did a 180.
We dined the first night at a phenomenally amazing restaurant who had a chef that, well, deserves his own blogpost.
The next day we hit the beach. We went from the mountains of the French Alps one day to the beaches of the French Riviera the next. Baller.
Then we headed home, but not before going out of our way to stop at the same boulangerie in Bonneville. They didn’t have the same pizza, but they had pizza bread that was the second best pizza we ever ate.
There is a ton of stuff I didn’t post, some of the details, but I wanted to drop some of the highlights. We put 1600 kilometers/klicks on the rental car. Ernest and Kelly were great road dogs and we had a blast and tons of laughs and shit to remember. It had to come to an end, but we will always have Bonneville.
Top 5 trip highlights (not in any order):
- Jean-Luc
- pizza bread/vanilla eclairs from the Bonneville boulangerie
- The ice cave in Chamonix
- The beach in Marseilles
- Whitewater rafting in Chamonix
Jean-Luc
Aug 19, 2010 travel Leave a comment
So when we got to Marseilles, we were all a little worn out and spent from the ride and felt like we deserved a nice meal. We had had some good ones, but no out of this world experience that we were all looking for.
After Ernest’s pick/pig suckling fiasco back in Paris, he was looking for redemption. He got it when he picked Le Cafe des Arts. We ended up eating there two nights in a row.
The first night as we sauntered down th street looking for a place to eat, we were at first invited in by a man in a white jacket who turned out to be the chef. As we placed our order, we were situated near the open grill area where we could actually see him preparing the food. He was clearly an intriguing sort of character, so we just started throwing all these things out there about him and his life. And I actually started jotting things down.
First things first, we guessed his name was Jean-Luc.
Here’s the rest:
- has wife
- 2 mistresses
- one older (spanish/italian)
- one younger (blonde, french)
- 3 sons
- 1 gay, mongrel brother
- Porshe Cayenne SUV
- Restaurant loft
- big cock
- talks on cell while cooking
- leopard print glasses
- CK briefs/g-string underwear
- CK loafers
- spotless white cooking jacket
- gambling debts (ponies)
- dogs:
toy yorkie and/or rhodesian ridgebacks (whose ridge compliments his ponytail) - into archery. big time. expensive bows.
- mixes drinks
- smokes $45 cadrones
- drinks red wine & johnny walker blue
- could eff your girl and not only would you not be mad, but you would understand
- owns small but nice boat with sail
- country home with white stallions
- gardens/grows his own herbs
- owns a pagan approved Harley-Davidson
- one son is an addict
- painting
it’s his true passion… but couldn’t make living from. Turned to cooking as an artisian expression - his food tastes like fire
- raised on a farm
- no culinary school. art school?
- no tshirt. bare breasted.
- one true love is his older mistress… but he has loved them all.
- retires to Italy
- dies in his mid 80′s in excellent shape and health
- Jean-Luc chops his own firewood
- did all the paintings in the restaurant
- Jean-Luc allows photos (but not with his glasses on)
- has one illegitimate daughter
- plays spanish guitar
- collects old books
- collects religious art
- addict son has afrikan girlfriend
- has a woman in Corsica he takes his boat to see
- makes son wash his Porsche daily
- grinds his own ice
- wife has same leopard print glasses
- stomps his own grapes for wine
The man.
The myth.
The legend.
Ross + Badu
Aug 9, 2010 music, video Leave a comment
Slightly late on this one, but I have a good excuse.
