Ladies and Gentlemen: Chris Murphy

It's been a while, but Fat Dub and I have successfully finished our AP tests. I'm not going to speak for Will here, because frankly I have no clue what his schedule is, but my school year is all but over. This means more blogging for all of you (in truth, it really doesn't. I said the same thing last year, and I posted next to nothing at all). After my last post, the Penn Relays one, I got an email from Chris Murphy, the man I quoted calling me a "slow, white teenager." First, some background information.

The Sobel's and the Murphy's have been friends for a while (BFFE's if you will). Chris has a daughter, Line, who is best friends with my sister Sizzie. If you don't know Line, she is one of the more annoying human beings on the face of the planet Earth. Besides the non-stop talking or the unrelenting desire to be perfect at everything she does, there is just something about Line that bothers me. (If you couldn't tell, I thoroughly enjoy annoying her. And no, her name is not actually Line.) Chris also has a man-child son named Kevin, and a wife, Connie. If you ever end up making a trip over to the Murphys house, you will sooner die than leave without eating. Literally. Chris will hold you down and Connie will force feed you (They've done it to me before. The food was actually pretty good). And probably the most important thing you will learn about Chris is that he is a lawyer.

Anyway, I suppose Chris took some offense to me quoting him on the blog, judging by the fact that he took time out of his work day to email me about it, and subsequently attempting to clear his name. Yes, I use attempting for a specific reason. I put in my two cents where I deemed necessary, in italics.


Ben -- Please feel free to post this one your blog: (This is a clear sign that he is emailing me exclusively for the blog. I know all you really want is publicity, Chris. So I'm giving it to you. Partly because I'm a nice guy, but mostly because I have very little to write about.)
While I am somewhat honored to have been mentioned in your recent blog post on the Penn Relays, I must protest your "loose" journalistic ethics (The quotation marks were painfully unnecessary.) In particular, you attribute to me a certain quotation that I cannot ever recall stating. Now, given that I have known you since before you even knew how to write with a fat crayon, I feel somewhat well positioned to offer two specific criticisms to speed you on your way to journalistic fame and fortune. First, as a result of our relationship, you know that certain people close to both of us (e.g., your mother) often like to attribute quirky or irreverent comments to me. While I have consistently denied ever having made the attributed comments, I must admit that I find it interesting and humorous that anyone could think I might actually have made the comments in question. Knowing of my consistent denials, I would have expected you to have the journalistic "cojones" to have approached me for confirmation before publishing your wildly inaccurate quote. Second and regarding the quotation itself, I do not deny calling you slow, but I fail to see why you feel the need to play the race card (well played); I would have been only slightly less appalled had you replaced "white" with "Lithuanian" or "kielbasa-loving." (It's funny he mentioned kielbasa-loving. While it is true that I do love a good dish of kielbasa and sauerkraut, I actually gave some of my kielbasa to Chris when he came over. He was eating it when he asked me about track, and that's when the quote in question was stated by the defendant. I can speak lawyer too, chachi.) You are rapidly approaching the age at which you must come to grips with your own limitations and looking for excuses for your glaring lack of pace will only delay the inevitable day of reckoning (Your attempt to make me experience a premature epiphany of my track ability has failed, for I have already realized it a long, long time ago). Having said that, I must admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed your pieces in the Panther Press and your tongue-in-cheek view of life at SHHS. One final thought about my appearance in your blog -- it proves the maxim attributed to Derek Bok, former president of Harvard: "I think the measure of your success to a certain extent will be the amount of things written about you that aren't true." (Chris, I have no idea how you hunted this quote down. It impresses me, except, unfortunately, it really isn't applicable, because the "wildly inaccurate quote" you claim to have never said actually did come out of your mouth.)

A few days after this email, Jeffrey J. and I actually went to the Phillies game, courtesy of Chris Murphy. He was there of course, and we got to enjoy the game in the box. It was Dollar Dog Night, but in a suite you don't pay for any food, so the promotion was null. I had some other nice food, and got to take home pretty much all the desserts. All in all, Jeffrey J. and I thoroughly enjoyed our evening, and Chris continued to deny his "white teenager" quote. I was willing to let bygones be bygones, but Chris just wouldn't let it go. I felt obligated to put it on here, and I've finally gotten arond to it. So you're welcome, Chris.

I'm not including a video. I'm sure the three people (Grandmom, Grandpop, and that one viewer in Santa Clarita, California) that have actually finished this post are crying.

Always Serving,

Sobel Soup

A Tribute To The Greatest

Yeah, I just started off with a video, a video only with music and a picture. Just a warning, if you didn't like the song above, don't bother reading anymore of the post. (Cool, so it's just me now? Nice)

The afore mentioned song (sorry I just read all the lawyer talk on the last post, really not my best) is the first track off Nas's debut album, Illmatic. Now you may be wondering why in the world I would be talking about Illmatic (I really overuse the imposing on the audience a question meme, don't I? (See what I did there?)). Well first, I'm bringing culture to this blog (yeah, Illmatic counts as a cultured reference) and second, as the title of this post implies, it is quite simply the greatest hip-hop album ever made.

First, the production of the album is simply outstanding. Nas put together an absolute murderers row of producers for Illmatic. I would go so far as to say that the producers used on Illmatic include 4 of the 10 best producers of all time (In my rankings DJ Premier comes in at #2, Large Professor at #4, Q-Tip at #7 and Pete Rock at #10). And these guys weren't just screwing around in the studio, Q-Tip said, "We were all in there, pumping out some of the best beats of our careers." The beats are a clinic in minimalism, just heavy drums and bass with little useless glitter that characterizes what pass for good beats today. I would go so far as to say that Illmatic is the best produced hip-hop album of all time. With only the RZA's (The best producer of all time) masterpieces of Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers and Liquid Swords coming close.

Nas's flow on Illmatic is simply astounding. One only needs to hear NY State of Mind's first few bars to get that. Often, Nas's pure flow and skill as a rapper is overlooked, but on Illmatic it takes the album to the next level. His flow is the best it's ever been, one only needs to look at the first bars of NY State of Mind to see how smooth he is, even over the most complex of rhymes.

But Illmatic isn't just a hip-hop album. It's a work of art. When it comes to the best poets of the 20th Century some might point to the Eliots, Yeatses, Nerudas, and Ginsbergs (Yeah, Spanish and Beat Poetry, I told you I was cultured) of the world, but I say nay. Nasir Jones is the greatest poet of the 20th Century and I point to Illmatic as the reason why. The complexity, technical precision, and topics of his rhymes are something that hasn't been seen in hip-hop before or since Illmatic.

On Illmatic, Nas focuses on the streets he grew up on in Queensbridge, New York. He spins tales of a neighborhood party, visiting his best friend in jail, his childhood, drug use, and most of all-the drug trade. Nas tells it how he sees it, he expresses the cold truth of the streets. Unlike the Notorious BIG's more successful debut album, that also came out in 1994 (1994 was the best year in the history of hip-hop), Ready to Die, Illmatic is not about the money and riches and women that the artist possesses. Illmatic is an album about the cold hard truth-it's a terrible life out there with no way out (it's basically just The Wire of hip-hop). "The World Is Yours" is probably the best example of this. I won't go into deep literary analysis, just know the world is something, but it's definitely not yours.

Nas's rhyming on the album is also amazing. His complex rhyme schemes had never been seen before in hip-hop. Nas brought internal rhyme schemes to the forefront of his work, the album's closer "It Ain't Hard to Tell" probably has the most complex rhyme schemes in the history of hip-hop. Nas took the lessons of his predecessors like Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, and Rakim (3 of the best Golden Age rappers) to heart, and builds upon their incredible flow and rhyming.

So heres one more track off the album, "One Time For Your Mind"

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As you probably know, one of my favorite shows, Lost is ending Sunday (hey that's today!). Years after it has ended, Lost will be remembered as being the most ridiculous show of all time (such bold statements on this post! (exclamation points!)) and for good reason. But despite the time traveling, immortals, smoke monsters, fight v. good and evil, constants, polar bears, bad nicknames, complete disregard for that fact that it takes skill to accurately shoot a gun, hatches, incidents, caves filled with magic light, 3 toed statues, magical lighthouses that somehow go unnoticed for 5 seasons, talking to ghosts, flashbacks, flash forwards, Kate, sideways universes, losing being able to speak english, useless temples, random skeletons, and Jack's tattoos episode (yeah most of those came form the last season, just shows you how poor a job they've done) I love and will always love this show. The Pilot episode, the best hour of television I've ever seen, is up on hulu right now. Go watch it.

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Oh and congrats to Ben for winning student council vice-president. Yay!

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Animal Collective's "Street Flash"

(Will?)

Nikola Tesla: Real American Hero

I want to tell you all about one of my personal heroes: Nikola F. Tesla. And yes, that F stands for Fricking Awesome (that was originally a different word, guess which one!). Essentially, there are only two things you need to know about Niky T. First, Nikola Tesla is far and away the smartest person in human history, smarter than any of Galileo, Newton, Ptolemy, or Einstein (the rest of the top-5). And second, he was completely insane. I mean like the raving lunatic that walks down the sidewalk yelling about the apocalypse (otherwise known as Michelle Bachman (double parentheses for divisive political jokes, yay!)) crazy. So insane that this video would make perfect sense to him.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "If Nikola Tesla is so awesome and smart why haven't I heard of him/only heard of him as the character that David Bowie plays in The Prestige?" Why Will, that is an excellent hypothetical question. Let me answer you're question with another question, did you know that Thomas Edison was a giant glory hogging douche? The reason that you've never heard of Tesla is because Edison used his great wealth and status to screw over Tesla's legacy. Now rather than actually explain the Edison-Tesla feud I'm going to refer you to this drunk history (once you get to the part where Edison starts electrocuting animals its no longer even remotely correct). So Edison has unfairly buried Tesla in history, even though Tesla was the man. Not only did invent alternating current (the current we still use today), but he also invented the radio (not Marconi) and had a thousand other cool idea. Tesla was able to use the earth as a conductor and once lit 200 lightbulbs from 26 miles away without using wires, the nerds at MIT were just freaking out because they were able to do 7 feet. Not only that but Tesla was able to artificially create lightning and he invented a death ray. Let me repeat that, the man invented a DEATH RAY THAT COULD KILL ANYONE WITHIN 200 MILES OF IT. J. Edgar Hoover was so freaked out by this information that her confiscated all of Tesla's papers and property when he died and they have been concealed as top secret ever since (I'm not saying that the government has a death ray, I'm just saying North Korea better not come within 200 miles of us). Tesla did some really insane stuff. His Wardenclyffe Tower may or may not have caused the Tunguska Event. And one time, while he was working on magnetic resonance, he discovered the resonant frequency of the Earth and caused an earthquake so powerful that it almost obliterated the 5th Avenue New York building that housed his Frankenstein Castle of a laboratory. Stuff was flying off the walls, the drywall was breaking apart, the cops were coming after him, and Tesla had to smash his device with a sledge hammer to keep it from demolishing an entire city block. Unluckily, we haven't been able to recreate most of Tesla's inventions and experiments because he hardly wrote anything down, I mean the man could memorize entire books and did advanced calculus in his head, he didn't have to worry about writing stuff down. So basically science wise, he was the best.

His insanity is equally well documented. He was prone to nervous breakdowns, claimed to receive weird visions in the middle of the night, spoke to pigeons, and occasionally thought he was receiving electromagnetic signals from extraterrestrials on Mars. He was also obsessive-compulsive and hated round objects, human hair, jewelry, and anything that wasn't divisible by three. Additionally, Tesla was disgusted by the thought of sexual intercourse and remained celibate his entire life. So now when someone says Nikola Tesla you can say, "total baller."

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Recently, I've been listening to quite a bit of Wu-Tang Clan. In particular, the unrivaled Ghostface Killah. My new found Ghostface love has gotten me into an argument with my good friend Jeremy. While we both agree that GZA is the best rapper in the Clan and that RZA is the most important member, we got into a disagreement as to who was better-Ghostface or Method Man. Jeremy points to Meth's superior flow and rhyming ability in claiming, while I point out Ghost's greater lyricism and body of work. To me, Meth has more natural ability, but that doesn't make him better. Vince Carter is more naturally talented than Kobe, but does that make him a better basketball player? No. Ghost has a far superior catalog of music than Meth. Meth's best album is his first Tical. Ghost has three albums that are better than Tical- Ironman, Supreme Clientele, and Fishscale. In addition, Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... is essentially a Ghostface album, he appears on every song. Ghost is not only the better lyricist than Meth, he is the best lyricist of a generation. He rhymes about everything from the drug trade, to the hard fought lives of his elderly neighbors. When Ghost raps, he's not just making free association boasts, he's telling a story. And the man's obviously read his fair share of Joyce, Ghost's trademark is his stream of consciousness rhymes. Most telling is the evaluation of other members of Wu. When RZA was asked to name his starting five, he placed Ghostface at number two behind only GZA, Meth was not on the list. If you need any more proof of Ghostface Killah's mastery of the rap genre simply listen to the third verse of this song (2:40 mark). Yeah, he's pretty much the best.

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So just to continue me dropping music knowledge on all your heads, heres my favorite song from one of my favorite groups right now, Dirty Projectors

The guitar playing, homeless looking, llama herder? He went to Yale

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So as you (who am I kidding no one is still reading this) probably know Ben and I are juniors at Strath Haven. Spring semester is really important, and AP testing season is fast among us. Which is really not good, I need to relearn how to speak Spanish and 1000 years worth of European history by Friday. The Spring is definitely an incredibly packed time for juniors, and although some would say that is equally true for seniors, I call BS. I point out that they are already in to college and thus basically have little to nothing to worry about. Saying that the end of senior year is a stressful time is a total cop out, give a real reason, don't just dick around about it.

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Even more music for you. Blitzen Trapper performing a stripped down version of Black River Killer

In 12 years he'll be 11 and a half,

Will