Ali Speaks

I’m sitting here, now watching the Democrats hold an impromptu press conference to the Republicans’ equally abysmal presser, and the only thought I can formulate after watching the two parties speak is:

what a bunch of fucking children.

I’m being completely nonpartisan here. They’re both milk bottle-wielding, pacifier-weaning, finger painters. Pelosi and Boehner alike.

The reality is that all the children in the House, regardless of how hard or easy life was growing up, are doing so well for themselves financially nowadays, that they can’t comprehend the paycheck-to-paycheck life. This is a decision that is important to them merely because it’s both an opportunity for them to smear each other on a large stage, as well as a nice photo-op for themselves. Quite honestly, I can’t sit here and tell you that I’d be sure that despite my upbringing, if I was in their shoes, making loads of money and given the opportunity to make such a big decision, I’d care that much either. Such is life.

And before you get caught in the fray of this embarrassingly childish partisan food fight, remember that it’s members of both the party you cling to, and the party you plug your ears and stick your tongue out at that are making this a perfectly understandable high school locker room “don’t you talk to my man!” finger snap cat fight.

I understand there’s been a lull in the posting as of late, though I do have some pretty interesting reads in the pipeline.

But I have to ask you something: why read what I have to say, when you can hear what I have to say?

My best friend and I have a new weekly podcast cleverly titled The Ali & Stephen Show. The podcast is essentially a radio show where we sit around and talk about a litany of subjects, ranging from early ’90s sitcoms to women. Sprinkle in some music, dirty words, and political campaign-ruining anecdotes, and you have The Ali & Stephen Show.

Click the following link to be taken straight to the podcast via iTunes:

If you’d rather download the show as .MP3 to throw on your portable music player, simply go to our official, safe-for-work website:

Be sure to go to the “About the show” section of the site, and send us your love/hate mail.

Who doesn’t love the Olympics?

Well, I’m sure there are a lot of people who don’t really care for them, but I’ve surprisingly been caught in the fray of nations battling one another for athletic dominance in several largely unappreciated sports that most people are largely unexposed to.

As you might expect, my allegiances are split between both my place of birth, [the Islamic Republic of] Iran, and the country I grew up in, the United States of America. Growing up, the joy I felt for the medal-earning achievements of Iran have usually eclipsed my feelings towards the United States’ efforts, mostly because the Persians send a fraction of the amount of athletes, and also because they tend to dominate only a handful of overly masculine sports (weightlifting, wrestling, judo) in a real way.

But this year things are a bit different. In light of the world’s strongest man, Hossein Rezazadeh, not being able to attend, and this throwback to the US-Soviet rivalry with the Chinese, I’ve been almost obsessive about the American effort. Like most, I’m finding myself watching the obscurest of sports to the typical ESPN’er (badminton, fencing, shooting, etc.) in hopes of seeing as many American victories as possible.

And of course, there’s always this reason to watch (don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming): UCLA has sent 38 athletes and coaches to the Beijing Olympics. Also, “UCLA was one of the nation’s most successful universities at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, ranking No. 1 among all universities in number of different medalists (19) and number of Olympians (57 representing the United States and 13 foreign countries). Of the 19 medals UCLA took home in 2004, eight were gold, eight were bronze and three were silver. If UCLA were a country, it would have placed 14th overall in the medal count.” I think that justifies my Olympic fever—you can’t stop the UCLA bum rush.

But apparently some others have a worse case of Olympic fever than me:

In 2004, Coventry became Zimbabwe’s first individual gold medalist. Her triumphs were such a source of national pride that Kirsty quickly became a popular name for newborn girls, and there were even reports of a couple children being named “Backstroke” and “Individual Medley” in honor of her medal-winning events.

Men’s 4×100m Free Relay Jones, anyone?

Tomorrow afternoon is my graduation. Tomorrow night I retreat to good old Baltimore, Maryland for a sorely-needed break. And in a week, I begin my life of work in the corporate world as an adult.

Today, my journey begins.

Oh, I’d be remiss not to mention that my “journey” has nothing to do with all that sappy emotional commencement speech sort of stuff—it’s my quest to obtain the world record for fastest time to complete Super Mario Bros. 1.

Just yesterday I watched the film The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a remarkable tale of an unremarkably average nice guy, and his quest to obtain the world record for highest score in the seminal arcade classic, Donkey Kong. As I was watching this (and I highly recommend you watch it too), it got me to thinking about my childhood, which was consumed with playing video games, and hanging out at my best friend Stephen’s house, playing video games. Which games did I dominate? At my peak, I was unstoppable at Madden 96, Streets of Rage 1, Super Hang-On, Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition, among others. But arguably, I believe that my most impressive feat was being able to beat Super Mario Bros. 1 in about six minutes. My brother and I would trade off doing our time trials when I was a kid, and in my later years, I found myself blazing through the emulated version of the game at Stephen and my recording studio to prove to the friends of mine who weren’t around when I was younger, how amazing I am at rescuing Princess Toadstool with a heightened level of precision, efficiency, and urgency.

This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to read this press release from Twin Galaxies, the governing body that overseas high scores internationally, and also for the Guiness Book of World Records:

I am pleased to announce that after many attempts, gamer Scott Kessler, who hails from North Carolina in the USA, has established a new fastest minimalist completion world record on the legendary NES classic title “Super Mario Brothers” with a completion time of five minutes and seventeen seconds (5:17). This is three (3) seconds faster than the previous world record and is near perfect in execution.

I believe that with the right amount of effort, a controller, and some pipe cleaner (LOL) I’ll beat Scott Kessler who hails from North Carolina in the USA’s record in no time. I will update you folks on my progress.

Let’s get it.

My whole trek to Europe has gone largely unmentioned on my blog since I’ve returned, and maybe one day when I don’t have much to do, I’ll create some sort of visual retrospective post. But in the meantime, I wanted to show you folks what kind of full-blooded American I am, even when overseas. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! …

Growing up, I was always that kid who knew how to draw. It was a fun little pastime that I finally gave up after my animation class freshman year (I made my whole cartoon the night before the final and it thoroughly blew). Since, my artwork has been relegated to my notebooks, strictly for the entertainment of myself and the people sitting next to me in class. In ways, I feel like those people who could’ve been incredible singers, but they ended up getting addicted to crack, wasting away their god-given talent.

Well, I’m back.

I’ve decided to give art a second chance. Although I didn’t create the dirty windshield piece above, I created pieces that I feel are emotional, meaningful, and exemplary of my skill with drawing with a laptop’s touchpad. Enjoy.

Let the hating commence.

Okay, I’ve learned my lesson. After a resounding and collective “your poetry sucks,” I’ve decided to pass on the haiku-ing for awhile. I still have the problem of trying to find a new pastime in the summer, in between working and doing the music thing. The criterion really is just something that’ll make me a better person, I suppose. My options are as follows:

Screenwriting
Likelihood I’ll stick with it: 65%
A quarter ago, I took a screenwriting class at school, both to learn something cool and new, and to also take advantage of my school’s amazing film school. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I actually enjoyed creative writing for once, or at least in the context of writing for the “silver screen” (check me out with the nauseatingly-overused Hollywood lingo). I’ve since written 3/4 of a screenplay, and enlisted the help of a former Hollywood big-wig to edit it, and email me on a weekly basis to tell me how close I am to making it remotely enjoyable.

Exercise
Likelihood I’ll stick with it: 80%
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve radically changed my diet. With the help of one of my best friends, who is also a cage fighter, I’ve managed to create a healthy lifestyle for myself for the first time since the scheduled meals and early bedtimes of my grade school years. My workout regimen, designed by a professional MMA fighter, is just as you would assume—horrendously painful, but all for the better. Outside of the 2-3 times a week that I cheat on my diet, I’ve been surprisingly faithful to this whole thing. I think I’ll be flipping monster truck tires and pulling airplanes with my teeth in no time.

Reading
Likelihood I’ll stick with it: 25%
Despite getting a degree in English from a top-notch university, there still are a lot of classic books that I haven’t read, that I’ve always meant to. There’s also a couple of books I read once before, but always wanted to go back and re-read now that I’m smart. Here’s my reading list:

Ulysses by James Joyce
Dubliners by James Joyce
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Professor’s House by Willa Cather

Removing the splinter in my palm
Likelihood I’ll stick with it: 100%
This thing has to go. It’s not painful, it’s insignificant, and it’s tiny—all the more reason to get rid of it.

You know, as an English major, a person who purportedly writes well, and an avid reader, it might be rather surprising to know that I’ve never really cared for poetry. Recently, however, I’ve began to explore poetry as a new medium for expressing my feelings. Here is my first crack at poetry. It’s kind of fruity, but I think they’re pretty deep. Constructive criticism only, please.

Now dim the lights, pour yourself a glass of wine, and enjoy. Feel free to read them aloud to friends or at the local beatnik café.

I remember walking through Holland,
snow falling on my shoulders, on my shoes.
I sipped on Coca-Cola,
as my cohorts sipped on exotic booze.
I was happy.

The weather changed, and so did the scenery.
At a stop en route to Berlin, she got off the train.
I watched her sleep like a psychopath.
I will never be the same a-gain.
I was sad.

After the incident on the train,
I was sure I would never find love,—but
it was in Paris where I found “her”—
she was the waitress at Pizza Hut.

She took a “pizza my heart,”
along with my dirty plates.
I tried not to be a typical American,
the kind that the French hate.

But just when in love I fell,
I knew it wouldn’t be,
“I don’t speak English well,”
she said, as she looked at me.

They call Paris the “City of Love,”
or not, I just made it up.
Not being able to frolic in front of the Eiffel Tower with Pizza Hut girl,
makes me want to throw up.

Fin.

I suppose one good thing that’s come out of this whole meltdown of major label music has been that no up-and-comer has a budget anymore. Record labels are still signing one-and-done meaningless rap acts (see: Souljah Boy) at a staggering pace. By and large, if you’re a newcomer to the major label fold, you need to be bringing in your own cred and pull to the table. No more banking on the record label throwing a lot of money at you and expecting scans at Tower Records in return. This has left artists to their own devices when it comes to promoting themselves. And while music videos at one point seemed like the costliest of promotional devices, thanks to the advent of YouTube (and other similar sites), a Handicam, and any sort of movie editing software, weed carriers have become the Hype Williams’ of the hood.

Rap music, always the inventive genre, has created an offshoot of the independent music video called “hood videos.” These are gems that look videos like Nas’ “Hate Me Now” and Diddy’s “Victory” in the face and say: “So the fuck what?” Hood videos have wit, they have a refreshing sense of authenticity, and they also have no budget. Best of all, they’re riddled with clichés they picked up from watching actual, budgeted rap videos. Let’s examine.

Overuse of the green screen: Wiz Khalifa - Say Yeah

Saying Wiz Khalifa’s video for “Say Yeah” overused the green screen is as understated as saying The Game kind of seems to like Biggie and Pac. Forget the fact that this song sampled Alice Deejay’s godawful pop-trance classic “Better Off Alone”—the video does the song justice by managing to be just as horrible on mute. In this video, our hero Wiz takes a trip throughout various different territories in the world (including India—I swear you’d think he was actually there!), and heartwarmingly instructs us to “throw our money and say yeah.” As bad as this video is, you got to give it up to Wiz and Warner Bros. Records, cause they probably saved themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars shooting the entire video in front of a green screen somewhere in Pistolvania, rather than actually hit up every locale. Good business move, but I personally would’ve loved to see Wiz Khalifa in Saudi Arabia with a half-assed Arabic name like that.

We get it, your homie’s locked up: Gruff, Took Da Boss - Harlem World Anthem

I hold an affinity for Harlem, as it has one of the best nicknames for a hood in hip-hop (”The Danger Zone”). But recently, the Danger Zone suffered the loss of one “Dune” to it’s endless prison system. In this textbook example of a hood video, we have all the typical stuff, including the rapping inside the car, homies in the background, and rapping in front of the mural of an important, deceased rapper. But damn. These guys overdo one of the best clichés in hip-hop videos—the “Free (homie’s name)” shirt. I don’t know who Dune is, or what he did to get locked up in Harlem in the first place, but wherever he is, he can never claim that the homies forgot about him when he was gone. They’re pushing the “FREE DUNE!!” thing harder than the “Free Pimp C!” movement. On a side note, you’d think if there was a true “Harlem World Anthem,” you’d have some more notable people from Harlem on the cut. G. Dep, anyone?

A goddamn mess: Greg P feat. Da Black Don - Show My Bread

Really, I don’t even know where to start. This is a complete and got damn mess. It’s also been the source of many laughs for me for a couple years now. It’s really got me through the tough times. Looking at the video and listening to this song, really must make Da Black Don reexamine his line “You will never make it, is what you haters told me.” Ugh.

A goddamn classic: Uncle Murda - Bullet Bullet

Sometimes hood videos go horribly wrong, as you saw with “Show My Bread.” But sometimes they get it so right, as is the case with “Bullet Bullet.” This video features just enough of all the clichés we expect and love from hood videos, as well as some humor (how many times have you seen someone rap next to a dead body on a couch?). Above all, and unlike all the other videos posted, the actual song is ill too (though the opening lines to “Harlem World Anthem” are classic). This is how it should be done.

FREE DUNE!!