Two Niggas In A Escalade...

So this past Tuesday night, I'm making spaghetti and watching Curb Your Enthusiasm when it's interrupted with one of those annoying test screens by the cable company. At least I thought it was a test. In reality, it turned out to be an official All Points Bulletin notifying me and every person watching TV that a white woman and her daughter were abducted by 2 black men in a Cadillac Escalade here in Philly. The report was made by the woman, who said she was locked in the trunk.

The next day, I and my coworkers discussed the alleged kidnapping along with some of the other crazy news stories that only happen in Philly. The whole "2 niggas in a Escalade" story didn't seem too kosher from the jump. And how are you making phone calls if you're kidnapped? Wouldn't a kidnapper have enough sense to take ur phone off you if he was gonna lock you in the trunk? Not to mention that they found the woman's real car somewhere downtown, parked nice and neat.

Well, turns out this heffa snuck off and went to Disneyworld like she wouldn't get caught. White people...

Stop Me

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Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but hopefully it's in the vein of that first single we gave yall featuring Adele (and blogger deleted) or the joint he dropped way back in '07 off Mark Ronson's Version. Disfruta.

At the Coffeeshop

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I picked this up at the beginning of the year and have been enjoying it. It's part of a double CD but to be honest I think I only picked up the second one so that's the one I'm throwing out to yall. This one is all instrumentals tho so if you want lyrics, get on your boards and get to web surfin. To prepare you, it's definitely in the demographic of white ppl who listen to NPR and hang out at coffee shops all day, which, in this case, is a good thing. You know what to do. Disfruta.

Hilarious sidebar: So right now, i'm actually blogging around the corner from the crib at a coffee shop on my laptop b/c my home computer has swine flu mixed with full blown AIDS. While uploading the album cover, a mustachioed white guy with dark plastic-frame specs (read: typical NPR/coffee shopper) looks at my screen, smiles, and says randomly, "That's a great album."

Point proven. Click it and get it.

Love and Calculus

Y'all know I'm a nerd at heart, so reading this out the NY Times was a definite treat. I would normally just leave the hyperlink in hopes you would click it, but I'm blockquoting the entire jawn right here. Disfruta.

Loves Me, Loves Me Not (Do the Math)
BY STEVEN STROGATZ

“In the spring,” wrote Tennyson, “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” And so in keeping with the spirit of the season, this week’s column looks at love affairs — mathematically. The analysis is offered tongue in cheek, but it does touch on a serious point: that the laws of nature are written as differential equations. It also helps explain why, in the words of another poet, “the course of true love never did run smooth.”

To illustrate the approach, suppose Romeo is in love with Juliet, but in our version of the story, Juliet is a fickle lover. The more Romeo loves her, the more she wants to run away and hide. But when he takes the hint and backs off, she begins to find him strangely attractive. He, on the other hand, tends to echo her: he warms up when she loves him and cools down when she hates him.

What happens to our star-crossed lovers? How does their love ebb and flow over time? That’s where the math comes in. By writing equations that summarize how Romeo and Juliet respond to each other’s affections and then solving those equations with calculus, we can predict the course of their affair. The resulting forecast for this couple is, tragically, a never-ending cycle of love and hate. At least they manage to achieve simultaneous love a quarter of the time.

The model can be made more realistic in various ways. For instance, Romeo might react to his own feelings as well as to Juliet’s. He might be the type of guy who is so worried about throwing himself at her that he slows himself down as his love for her grows. Or he might be the other type, one who loves feeling in love so much that he loves her all the more for it.

Add to those possibilities the two ways Romeo could react to Juliet’s affections — either increasing or decreasing his own — and you see that there are four personality types, each corresponding to a different romantic style.

My students and those in Peter Christopher’s class at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have suggested such descriptive names as Hermit and Malevolent Misanthrope for the particular kind of Romeo who damps out his own love and also recoils from Juliet’s. Whereas the sort of Romeo who gets pumped by his own ardor but turned off by Juliet’s has been called a Narcissistic Nerd, Better Latent Than Never, and a Flirting Fink. (Feel free to post your own suggested names for these two types and the other two possibilities.)

Although these examples are whimsical, the equations that arise in them are of the far-reaching kind known as differential equations. They represent the most powerful tool humanity has ever created for making sense of the material world. Sir Isaac Newton used them to solve the ancient mystery of planetary motion. In so doing, he unified the heavens and the earth, showing that the same laws of motion applied to both.

In the 300 years since Newton, mankind has come to realize that the laws of physics are always expressed in the language of differential equations. This is true for the equations governing the flow of heat, air and water; for the laws of electricity and magnetism; even for the unfamiliar and often counterintuitive atomic realm where quantum mechanics reigns.

In all cases, the business of theoretical physics boils down to finding the right differential equations and solving them. When Newton discovered this key to the secrets of the universe, he felt it was so precious that he published it only as an anagram in Latin. Loosely translated, it reads: “It is useful to solve differential equations.”

The silly idea that love affairs might progress in a similar way occurred to me when I was in love for the first time, trying to understand my girlfriend’s baffling behavior. It was a summer romance at the end of my sophomore year in college. I was a lot like the first Romeo above, and she was even more like the first Juliet. The cycling of our relationship was driving me crazy until I realized that we were both acting mechanically, following simple rules of push and pull. But by the end of the summer my equations started to break down, and I was even more mystified than ever. As it turned out, the explanation was simple. There was an important variable that I’d left out of the equations — her old boyfriend wanted her back.

In mathematics we call this a three-body problem. It’s notoriously intractable, especially in the astronomical context where it first arose. After Newton solved the differential equations for the two-body problem (thus explaining why the planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun), he turned his attention to the three-body problem for the sun, earth and moon. He couldn’t solve it, and neither could anyone else. It later turned out that the three-body problem contains the seeds of chaos, rendering its behavior unpredictable in the long run.

Newton knew nothing about chaotic dynamics, but he did tell his friend Edmund Halley that the three-body problem had “made his head ache, and kept him awake so often, that he would think of it no more.”

I’m with you there, Sir Isaac.

Clave

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Otherside

I'm definitely a closeted Red Hot Chili Peppers fan.

Mortal Kombat

A few weeks ago, your boys Chris and Dave of The Paxtons made a trip up I-95 to holler at the Ubiq homeys. After chilling with the crew and meeting random niggas at Rittenhouse, I had the opportunity to catch these niggas doing what they do best: rapping.

Back in the day, "freestyle" meant "freestyle"--unwritten unplanned improvised rapping. Nowadays, freestyle means "I wrote this on my blackberry 2 weeks ago," which isn't bad, but it makes it even better when you see a nigga really go in. Slowly but surely, The Paxtons are winning over fan after fan, but it's good to see that these niggas are true emcees and can hang amongst the best. Press play and catch Dave freestyling for 6 and a half minutes straight. (The unedited version is even longer.) You'll enjoy it, te prometo.

The Paxtons Love the '90s... You Should Too.

The Paxtons - "Just Tonight" ft. Ra the MC, AP, and TeLuv

Fresh off the high of "Smoke's" success, The Paxtons are back with their second single off WORK, "Just Tonight". Featuring DMV heavyweights Ra the MC and AP alongside vocals from Te'Luv, "Just Tonight" samples the CLASSIC summertime banger "My Boo," but mixes it with a lil Chicago to DC flavor for good measure. I'll be real, I played this in my class a couple months ago and my kids were JAMMIN, and this ain't even the hottest jawn off the album. (No shots, but let's just say I'm preparing you for what's to come--press [||]). Get to clickin'!

Ubiq (Philly) and Atmos (NYC/Tokyo) present WORK by The Paxtons, June 30, 2009.

It's a movement folks. Move right or get left. Disfruta.

From Young Dro to that homegrown...

So I'm on the trolley this morning reading the free Metro newspaper somebody left behind and on the front page is this. Evidently, the cops happened upon a row home in South Philly that was housing over $10,000 worth of that good green. How you ask? Well, let me tell you.

Some idiots were tryna break into the house through a second-story window when a neighbor snitched called the police to report a burglary in process. The cops show up, catch the weed fiends and discover that the house is packing more green than the Libyan flag.

Kanye moment: DO YOU PPPL NOTICE HOW I STRING THESE POSTS TOGETHER? FREEWAY'S FROM PHILLY-> YOUNG DRO VIDEO -> DRO FOUND IN SOUTH PHILLY! "CIRCULAR REASONING!" TRUST ME I DON'T PLAN THESE THINGS THEY JUST HAPPEN! !!LOL!

ok i'm done. and for the record, i don't consider calling the police "snitching." That is, unless you were sposed to be the 4th burglar but you punked out and called the Po-Po's instead.

Blowfish Sushi

I mean really, how can you not like Young Dro? Dro was on his white boy swag way before it had a name, but his last album was hugely slept on in spite of that "Shoulder Lean" single. "Its like Im skating on ice like Christie Yamaguchi/ Sit up in the Chevy eating blowfish sushi". If you can't appreciate lines like that, you're a lame. Simply stated.

Circular Reasoning

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In my opinion, Freeway is one of the top 5 most underrated rappers. His albums are always solid. I'm sure my 3 year residency in Philadelphia (and my 4 years at Wash U with C-City--Flipside!) have something to do with this, but bar for bar, Free be spitting. (nada.)

Still, I'm not a fan at all of album sequels. Ever since Blueprint 2, everybody wants to rename their new album as the sequel to the last. I understand the marketing technique and everything, but c'mon. I'd at least respect it if you took the same theme and reworked it like Ready to Die to Life After Death, Busta's discography, or even Illmatic to Stillmatic, but Carter I, II, III, IV, V? ¿Coño, dónde está la creatividad? la originalidad? Are we that starved for ideas?

*Steps off soapbox* Ok, I'm done. Get to clickin. Disfruta.

Don't Call It A Comeback

Still very busy. Took some time to get these for those who haven't picked em up yet. Click the album covers. Disfruta.

*edit* Busta and Red&Meth links are fixed. shoutouts to B for the heads up.
*edit #2* Em link is fixed. link is annoying but it works.












I was sitting in his mother's office Monday tryna get my life together.

Mood Swings

make of it what you will.

As it sometimes does, life has gotten in the way of blogging right now. No worries, we haven't gone anywhere, and trust, when life slows down we'll be up and at 'em like normal, but for the time being, things is hectic. (Lotsa commas in that sentence. Hope it made sense.)

In the meantime in between time, I would like to direct your attention to that right side panel. Holler at the archives, an RNLC mixtape, The Paxtons photoblog, our homies... it's close to infinite options over there.

And I'm out.

Can't Stop These Rainy Days

I still can't figure out why these guys aren't more famous right now... Anyways, Spring is being real stubborn right now with all this rain, so a song like this seems doubly appropriate on this first Monday of May.

I'ma Be OK

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I been diggin Chrisette since she was only singing Nas and Jay-Z hooks. Now it's album #2. Disfruta

Pocket Protector Status

Plug