Tag: hip hop hippie

Accomplishments Of Age 42

  • held a kick ass zoom party for my 42nd birthday with friends from all over the world performing and showing art, since I never had a 40th party
  • did several paintings including this new one from September 2021
  • performed a few songs live at the Armory with Parama and Steve
  • helped elect a new president
  • high school reunion on zoom
  • many zooms events for Jam’n Java and Soulkore open mics
  • hosted 2 more zoom open mic art parties, all successful
  • found a record bookcase in the trash and collected records to fill it
  • designed 22 major arcana tarot cards
this was one of the tarot cards
  • worked on designing web site Wicked Cliche Art and Books, including page for creative friends
  • learned web site marketing techniques to get the site seen
  • picked out and framed 25 old drawings and 25 old photos for a 2 part art show with 2 successful in person shows
these were a few of the photos in the show
  • did some political activism, mostly fighting for accessibility in the local art community (Sign a petition to help save Out Of the Blue Gallery)
  • wrote “I Write the System” (autobiography)
  • wrote and illustrated “Be The Best You” (children’s book)
  • started major rewrite on the godchild (memoir trilogy)
  • designed a cover for my book
  • learned about amazon advertising and other ways to get my book seen
  • had stickers and business cards made
  • hand-made hundreds of stickers including a couple I put on a utility box over racist graffiti
  • sent out over 100 press kit announcements
  • did several paintings
  • designed and sold t-shirts and other merch
  • bought art from a few friends
  • created a home gallery
  • did major cleaning
  • put several pieces of furniture together
  • edited “I Write the System” 17 times
  • wrote query letters to about 75 publishers
  • got a bite on my book from a publisher but would have taken months to years so I decided to self publish again
  • found, created, and cooked new recipes
  • lost 50 pounds
  • visited with koda
  • went swimming
  • walked in the woods
  • went to Robin’s Farm Park to take photos
  • went to the graffiti spot a few times
  • created new digital art
  • sold a couple pictures and some stickers
  • participated in a spirituality group
  • practiced meditation
  • broke up with a sort of toxic boyfriend
  • better learned how I want to be treated
  • talked to a friend about maybe wanting to know them better
  • wrote a few songs and poems, including a poem about “The Godchild”
  • spoke up about mistreatment in a number of health care and housing situations
  • had my apartment inspected and rejected several times and dealt with the fear of having to move, which would have been a huge downgrade most likely if not homeless
  • visited my parents a few times
  • made many new friends
  • saw a few good movies and shows including “Ma Rainy’s Black Bottom”, “Kid90”, “Disclosure”, “Legend of Korra”, “Summer Of Soul”, “His Dark Materials”, “Cobra Kai”, “13th”, “Da 5 Bloods”, and now trying “Sweet Tooth”
  • tried all kinds of new delivery places I loved
  • learned to start wearing masks or face shields when i went places despite the anxiety attacks
  • got vaccinated
  • dealt with severe mental health symptoms and all kinds of extreme stress, daily triggers, and so on, and I am still here
  • started learning keyboard and got a little better at bass
  • published two books

The Loss Of Another Top Favorite Musician- Gift Of Gab

I wanted to post about Gift Of Gab, who died the other day. He was in the underground hip hop group Blackalicious, whose music helped spark my interest in hip hop, which is now my favorite genre of the last 20 years. I’ve always used Blackalicious music to convert my friends who think hip hop sucks into thinking it might be something they could actually appreciate if they knew where to find more real talent like it. You can’t listen to Gift Of Gab and say “Anyone could do that.” He was brilliant, and it was a sad day for me that even led to tears as I thought about how shitty it was that he was so underappreciated and that most of the world had no idea what a brilliant artist we lost. I didn’t see anyone except my friends from the Hip Hop Vinyl Spinners group even say anything about him that day. It’s sad, and he was young. It’s a major loss. I found him to be a Top 5 rapper. Without a doubt, one of the best… so I’m gonna share this photo of my Blackalicious record on my turntable and recommend a few songs to check out. RIP Gift Of Gab!

This first one is especially cool and one of their most well known, partly because Daniel Radcliff rapped it on Jimmy Fallon once, but Daniel Radcliff picked the song to impress.

This one samples the song “Me and My Arrow” from the animated film “The Point“, sung by Harry Nilsson.

and this is just one more I like…

I hope you took the time to watch these. Goodbye to one of my biggest influences.

The music will live forever.