Here I will post some panels from Benn Ray (a Baltimore writer / shopowner/publisher)'s new zine Straight Talk Express.

























All taken from Benn Ray's zine "Straight Talk Express".

WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF

Columbia Pictures is getting serious about scaring up a new installment of its blockbuster "Ghostbusters" franchise.

The studio has set "The Office" co-exec producers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky to write a script for a film designed to bring back together the original cast of Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson.

THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA.

thanks be to michael byrne for the linkage.

now the whole version! wtf is this a commercial for?

words really cannot describe this....

it falls off after the dr who part but the dr who part blows my mind

I have two photos (Dan Deacon and the Oxes) in Big Shot magazine this month. In the Whartscape article. Check me out on newstands near you! The Baltimore Citypaper also used one of my photos from the Unruly Anniversary Party... and I'm told that another photo of mine is on some RIP K-Swift shirt apparently? If you see one for sale, buy it for me and I will pay you back. Size medium.

I also covered two afterparties, one for Rock the Bells (featuring Spank Rock, Amanda Blank, Diplo, Blaqstarr, Sy Young, and others)...



  



And one for Virgin Fest...



     

Dave Nada killed it of course... watch out for this guy, he is about to be huge. Celebrity DJs Vito from the Rapture and Kele from Bloc Party were also spinning, as were Emily Rabbit and Will Eastman.... I'm very happy that Dave is making a living doing DJing and producing... he is one of the dudes from MEDIC! And he is the best dude also.

Tonight I am taking photos of this band Scary River at my studio...

Look at me! i'm the guy with the camera.

i'm in the two scenes pictured, and i am also in episode 7 for a second, during the Carcetti speech about the homeless killer, then walking by during the resteraunt scene. they cut my scene out of episode 10.

check out more of my The Wire related photos...

I was in New York for a few days. It was nice seeing some of you guys, sorry I couldn't see more. I came in late on Weds, didnt go to bed until like 4pm thursday, wandered the city, got into adventures, did some working at a coffee shop, then met up with Evan and napped, hung out with him and Michele, then met up with my friend at his swanky hotel, relaxed the next day, saw Radiohead, went over to hang with Evan and Yvonne and Jacob for a minute, then dipped out at 3am to take pictures at Virgin Fest...



It was a nice time, they had a pretty cool setup. They interviewed Soulwax and a few other artists as well. Click here for the set, which is just a few of my favorites. I will link to the Dell site if and when they get posted there, too.

After Virgin, I shot the afterparty, which will go up later, and then relaxed most of Sunday. I needed it.

Speaking of photos going up later...



  

A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of shooting and attending the 15th Anniversary Party for Unruly Records, My Crew Be Unruly at Paradox in Baltimore. Scottie B, K-Swift (one of her last performances), Diplo, Blaqstarr, DJ Class, Stretch Armstrong, DJ Sega, Say Whut, Dave Nada, Tittsworth, Mz Streamz, and many more DJs and MCs were there to make it a ridiculously amazing party... Check out the set here.

Plz buy me drinks. And food. And tell me what is happening in your fair city!

Also, I got a new phone so I do NOT have your number. Either text me with a text and a message "this is so and so" or post your number in the rec room or email me your number.

I will be in Brooklyn weds night, having a dinner meeting. I will be at the All Points West Festival Friday and -maybe- saturday. In between I will be working from "home" during the day a bit but otherwise free. This will be my first experiment with working from home but actually being in another city. If it goes well I plan to take many more trips like this.

  

  

  





This sunday I went to Rock the Bells, a big travelling hip-hop festival. It was awesome... I got to see so many of my favorite artists... Nas, Ghostface, Raekwon, A Tribe Called Quest, as well as check out some artists from the old school I had never gotten to see like Mos Def, Dead Prez and Tha Pharcyde. I would say that Nas was the highlight of the night for me... that and seeing my friend Blaqstarr come out on stage during Mos Def's set! That was amazing.

Check the set out here.

  

  



  

Last weekend was Whartscape in Baltimore. It's a music and arts festival held by the collective arts group WHAM CITY every year in Baltimore... it kicked off an insane weekend that also included Artscape, the Unruly Records 15th year anniversary, and some other events too. For me, the Whartscape highlights were Future Islands, which I can only describe as an avant dance band with Meatloaf as singer, Celebration, Dan Deacon, an illegal lecture by Mark Hosler from Negativland, and the Oxes reunion. Click here for the whole set.

here are some stills from his last play, MURDER AT THE EARTHQUAKE HOTEL:



   

It was very funny! I usually am not into plays but it didn't take itself too seriously so it was a good time. Brad was also quite good in it!

henry rollins:





the misfits:



danzig:



tool:



marilyn manson:



skid row:



jay reatard:

  



  



Last night, I saw Jay Reatard, Vincent Black Shadow, and Ratsize at Sonar... I loved VBS and Ratsize, VBS was kind of stoner-y and Ratsize was kind of 80s hardcore-y. Never seen either before. Jay Reatard was fun, but I didn't really see why people are so excited about them/him. Fun pop-punk-esque fast rock. Full set here.

I am going to post on this post whenever I do a photo shoot, with some color commentary of the shoot if I feel up to it.

Click on the responses for the first few...

The new Nas video. Not worksafe. I'm looking forward to the new album, but I'm unsure about this track. Pretty ballsy album titleand lead single though... Nas is consistantly one of the best and most thought provoking MCs out there... I recommend anyone who hasn't listened to him, check him out.

And now... a Nas video retrospective... vaguely from the newer stuff to the older.

Hip Hop Is Dead:



Can't Forget About You:



Bridging The Gap:



I Can:



Made You Look:



Thief's Theme:



One Mic:



Street Dreams:



If I Ruled The World:



Halftime:

I will also probably post on here when I play a new board game of someone else's.

Today I stopped into Canton Games and got:

Bohnanza

I was introduced to this game last time I was in New Orleans by Jenny and Kyle - it was SO MUCH FUN. This is a bean farming game, but bear with me... basically, every turn you have to draw cards, and plant at least one bean. The more beans you can get in a field that are the same type, the more money you get when you harvest. BUT you only have two fields in which to plant them, and you cant plant two different kinds in one field. So, this means you are constantly trading with other people to avoid having to harvest early... its a LOT, a LOT of fun.

Acquire

Ben's favorite game, recently republished after a decade long span out of print. The classic game of building and merging hotel chains to maximize your profit... one of the original 3M bookshelf series. This game is a LOT more fun than it sounds... you basically put down tiles and when you get two tiles that touch, you can create a hotel chain. Each turn everyone can choose to buy shares in any of the chains that are on the board. As more tiles come on the board, the chains get bigger, and thus more expensive to buy... the winner at the end has the most money - but not always the most shares, since there are huge bonuses for owning the most in a chain, but there is no extra bonus for having 10 more shares than someone versus having 1 more... so the game becomes all about trying to have 1 more of whatever chains you think are going to be the biggest than anyone else... a good time.

Next I want to get Last Night on Earth and maybe Power Grid.

This morning on the way to work, I listened to a podcast that talked about this game, Last Night on Earth. It sounds great!

It's a game for 2-6 players, where some players play humans, and some play zombies... and no player ever gets left out, since there are always more humans or (of course more zombies) to bring into the game. And, best of all, the game (which is modular and thus changes every time) isn't simply "kill all the zombies", there are objectives which are based on classic zombie movies...

This game seems alot cooler and more in depth than the other Zombie games I have seen on the market... INTRIGUED.