Purple Reign – Purple Rain

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July 29, 2013
Soccer, Sports
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Claude Monet - "Morning on the Seine in the Rain"

Claude Monet – “Morning on the Seine in the Rain”

After having finally shown up late to a game, I knew better than to rely solely on my desire to play soccer in order to get myself out of bed on a Sunday morning, take a bus and three different trains and reach a somewhat remote location in time. It was an awakening of sorts, one in which I realized I had paid specifically for the privilege of playing a game I enjoy with a bunch of strangers who chose to name their team after a Prince album and song. Never again, I decided, would I arrive unprepared, whether mentally, physically or otherwise. For the final two regular season games, I would set personal precedents for promptness and diligence on the pitch which I could realize as a standard for my play going into the playoffs. This would be the turning point.  Read More

The Newsroom – Season 2, Episodes 1 and 2

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July 26, 2013
Pop Culture, Television
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The Newsroom

The Newsroom is back, and with it my undeniable compliance to watch it. I would not say that I like this show; I think that it carries a “holier-than-thou” attitude that is fairly unattractive. How easy is it to always look like the good guys reporting the news when the news you are reporting happened three years ago and your reports are written by Aaron Sorkin? Read More

“You better write about this in your…blog.” – A Phish-in-water story

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July 25, 2013
Music, Pop Culture
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phish-jones-beach-instagram

On the night of July 12, 2013, four of my friends (I’m not typically one to name names, but for the purposes of this piece and clarity, it seems necessary: Laura, Tommy, Mike and Ray) and I met in Brooklyn, packed into Ray’s black Hyundai and departed the five boroughs. Our destination lay on the South Shore of Long Island, around forty miles and an hour outside of the city. We were to meet another one of my friends, Conor, at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh for what was to be a concert event of the summer, for all the right and wrong reasons. Phish, the legendary genre-disregarding jam band which has been pounding the musical pavement for thirty years, was to perform that night, and if every other Phish show was any indication, it was going to be a night to remember. And so it was.  Read More

Diving Into the Ragga Rabbit Hole

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July 24, 2013
Hip-Hop, Music, Pop Culture
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Genres of music are being broken down into very specific, micro classifications due to the tags that taste makers, music bloggers, and critics fabricate to identify a certain styling that has yet to be labeled. At times, it can be difficult to keep up with but, at the same time, they are very fun to explore. Each week, I will explore a different sub-genre and try to explain the stains left on my shirt after climbing out of each tedious rabbit hole of musical stylings.

Shabba Ranks, one of Ragga’s biggest toasters

“Mercy”, “Crown”, “Blocka”, “Send It Up”, “I’m In It”,“Feds Watching” – besides all being songs that revolve around the nucleus known as Kanye West, they all contain an element of dancehall reggae, specifically Ragga music. While it may seem like a new phenomenon to a younger generation, this infusion of Ragga into Hip-Hop is nothing new. KRS-One, Black Moon, Smif-N-Wessun, Heltah Skeltah, and other East Coast acts of the early ’90s were using the vocal flows of Ragga deejays to formulate boom-bap. Now, Ragga samples are being pumped into trap music and Kanye’s acid house/industrial grind nightmares in a way that seems to clash with the syrupy, pounding production that utilizes it. The closest Ragga comes to a full reincarnation in the current landscape is through artists like Waka Flocka Flame, A$AP Ferg, and Trinidad Jame$ whose high energy, rapid fire delivery, and call and response choruses punctuate their most famous songs. But, what is Ragga and does its stylings have any long time staying power?  Read More

FIGJAM Takes It Home

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July 24, 2013
Sports
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I don’t think golfers are athletes. I don’t think it’s even an argument.

“Oh, but Matt, you try and do it, then you’ll think they’re athletes.” Well, I can’t develop software or bowl as well as professionals that do those things can, but that doesn’t make them athletes. The way I see it, I can’t garner a golfer’s athleticism from their playing golf. The sport of golf doesn’t prove golfers’ athleticism; therefore, they are not athletes. Watch basketball. You’ll see athleticism. Even watch soccer, same thing, etcetera, etcetera for many other sports. And so, for the remainder of this entry, I will be referring to these men as golfers or golfletes. Certainly not athletes.

Four to six times a year, golf is important. It is at the forefront of weekend television. This past weekend was one of those times. The British Open (I’m certainly not just going to call it “The Open,” as if it’s the only Open tournament in the world) was played over the last four days, and boy, was it a good one.  Read More

An Index Of The Worst Players to Appear For the Yankees This Season

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July 23, 2013
Baseball, Sports
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The Yankees have used 45 different players this season. Many of them are awful, like Jayson Nix and Chris Stewart. But at least those guys are career backups who are good enough defensively to justify a spot on the roster. The guys listed below are the worst of the worst. They’re just awful, awful baseball players. “Baseball players” might be too generous. They are average citizens in baseball uniforms, masquerading as baseball players. I would welcome them with open arms to my intramural softball team, but they have no right being anywhere near a Major League Baseball field.  Read More

Purple Reign – The Beautiful Ones

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July 23, 2013
Soccer, Sports
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Umberto Boccioni - "Dynamism of a Soccer Player"

Umberto Boccioni – “Dynamism of a Soccer Player”

Every player in the history of any sport, from the top-level professionals who become legends to the street amateurs who play the game once and never again, have a best game. It is simply the way anything requiring skill has to go. For those who play once and only once, their best day is also their worst day, and they can live with the fact that this paradox is inherent to the limited sample set they offer. For the rest, with each game comes an opportunity to raise the personal bar just a little higher. These are the days we remember long after the act of playing the game has ceased. We look back on them and are able to say, “Ah, yes, I remember that day well. When you have a game like that, you tend not to forget.”

Unfortunately, this was not one of those “best games,” and unfortunately, we remember games like this one as well, perhaps with even sharper memorial precision.  Read More

Into the Fray: SEC Media Days and the Beginning of College Football

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July 22, 2013
Sports
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July 16th kicked off SEC Media Days, a three day spectacle brimming with press conferences, Mike Slive’s “State of the League” address, player interviews and Chick-fil-a swag. This is the time when grievances are aired out by Steve Spurrier while Nick Saban fights off the frenzied Alabama media contingent who follow him like the White House press corps follows President Obama. It’s a production that’s taken on a tremendous amount of publicity due to the Southeastern Conference’s status as “king of the mountain top” for seven years straight. There will be other media days for other athletic confederacies, but this one is the premiere event that signifies the beginning of college football and the end to every fan’s rationality and sanity for the next 176 days.  Read More

Diving Into the Ratchet Rabbit Hole

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July 17, 2013
Music
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Genres of music are being broken down into very specific, micro classifications due to the tags that taste makers, music bloggers, and critics fabricate to identify a certain styling that has yet to be labeled. At times, it can be difficult to keep up with but, at the same time, they are very fun to explore. Each week, I will explore a different sub-genre and try to explain the stains left on my shirt after climbing out of each tedious rabbit hole of musical stylings.

DJ Mustard, at the vanguard of ratchet

 The murmuring drone of a keyboard starts the track then the barely decipherable watermark drops quickly, “Mustard on the beat, hoe”. What followed was America’s introduction to ratchet music. This was the new sound of Los Angeles: stripped down, bare bones, minimalist, direct approach to rap that received national attention with Tyga’s ubiquitous “Rack City”. It also didn’t hurt that the song became ushered in the arrival of Chris Paul with the Clippers. Even though some in Shreveport claim that they fabricated the sub-genre long before Blake Griffin started time traveling, Los Angeles has successfully appropriated the name for it’s current obsession.

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