The Brilliance!

My musical attention span is like .2 seconds and for as much time I spend sitting in front of a computer screen I need new music regularly. iPods are great but I can’t refresh mine fast enough. Funny thing is my solution predates ipods to when I had the same issue with my super-hyped mini disc player. One day I came across the Gilles Peterson show and have rarely missed a weekly show in 3 years. His show connects the dots playing tracks from soulful hip-hop, broken beat to obscure jazz greats. His show is a lesson in music. I basically learn as much as I listen. But the BBC doesn’t stop there. If your are like me and feel like your missing out on the whole NYC mixtape radio listen to Tim Westwood. Once you get used to his humor its actually very entertaining and hilarious. Make your way on to 1xtra too. All the hip-hop
shows are money. Don’t pass up the Garage section either, its where you can here what the UK kids are up to…I’ll do a proper Grime/UK hip hop post later. The clutch thing about the BBC radio shows is that they are new every week and the fact that the music is presented, not just played, it makes a difference. Listen, you’ll get the gist.

Don’t you love it when companies do this? Take a pretty classic logo and turn it into…a…into a… a what? A lens flare gradient orb that is off-center. That’s what. This is pretty bad…I hope they don’t slap this on my credit card when it expires…I’ll have to cover it up with a Verizon logo sticker. Or wait…no…scrap that…anyways, this is just not good. Who approved this? What ad agency did this? You should be kind of ashamed…it’s sort of embarassing. But hey…when the boss says “Make it pop! Make it more hip!”, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? Wah waah. I think it’s actually a Venn diagram?!

So a couple nights ago I had the pleasure of eating at none other than your favorite brand’s, favorite brand, Ralph Lauren. Chicago is home to the not only the biggest Polo store in the world but the empires only restaurant serving up “city-club cusine”...I dig the word play and man was it fresh… Good thing I changed before headed out too…a bright Lacoste dosen’t really cut it for the blue-scale Polo clientele…you know the old Polo dudes don’t venture outside that navy polo…The coolest thing for me was the interior that mimics the actual store so it feels like your eating in Ralph’s living room. Smaller set up than I was expecting but real comfortable. The walls were packed with side profiles of rich guys and nature scenes with pointing dogs to set the tone. Of course we were there to eat and the caesar salad, lemon-garlic butter shrimp & wild rice I ordered didn’t disappoint at all. The staff was rocking crispy Polo button-ups and ties, it was a nice white table cloth set up. The service was impeccable, all around it was nice to experience the Ralph Lauren extension from goods to food without a hiccup. Ever wonder what aNYthing’s resturant would be like?

A post from all three of us today - what more could you ask for!!? Anyways, this post is basically dedicated to all the sites you find on Google that are just archived images of old things you can’t get your hands on anymore. Or could, but it would take some searching. Take for example this archive of covers of the Danish punk zine ‘Trust’. I mean, this kind of stuff never gets old to me. So classic, I love it! This is one of my favorites - Steve Pyatt’s Voodoo Venue - a big collection of old music items he’s collected over the years…This dude has some cool stuff - Johnny Thunders autographed posters, photos of Sid Vicious, the D.O.A. beer mugs (Let’s wreck the party!), Buzzcocks stuff, and my absolute favorite - his collection of old punk rock 45’s…I am loving the Drones cover and the N.O.T.A. covers, and the rest are all awesome too of course…Then I found this small but good old collection of punk rock xerox flyers from 77…Circle Jerks, Bad Brains, Fear…And last we’ve got these super old skate stickers...Is this NOT the coolest thing you’ve seen all day? All week? All month? All year?!??! Wowzas! Send me links to cool archives of stuff like this and I’ll send you an e-card from Yahoo or something! chuck@nopattern.com. Another good link below…

What can you honestly say? Just amazing, simply amazing. Mr. Warren Buffet is basically throwing in the towel on amassing fortune, and giving all his cash to world. And when I say ‘the world’ it rings pretty true. His gift, as sized right now, is worth roughly $37 billion dollars. But since he is steadily giving it away it will most likely end up far higher than that number. It wouldn’t be outlandish to think that number could look more like $55 billion when all is said and done. So yeah, when I say ‘the world’ it indeed rings true…an amount that large will, without question, have global impact. I’ve always been a bit inspired by his ability to not ‘care’ about the things that wealth the size of his can bring. Hats off to you Warren Buffet, it’s almost hard to put into words how generous, humble, and level-headed you are for this donation to the world. I certainly wish you the best of luck in achieving everything you hope to with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Wow.

OMA of Seattle Public Library, Prada epicenters and CCTV fame are like the Rocafella of architecture. Both entities are definitely at the top of their fields and represent whats really going on. Just like this hip-hop analogy I am trying to string together the two heads have split. Rem Koolhaas (Jay-z) and Joshua Ramus (Dame) are now making money on their own. I had to tell the back story because that’s how Star Architects get down. You better believe outlandish rumors float around these guys in the architecture world just like Britney and US weekly. Anyways, as authorship of ill projects gets hashed out this Museum Plaza project attempts to get built. Skyscrapers in Middle America are generally nothing to write home about. The Museum Plaza for Lousiville, KY is in the works and is bubbling in the press. Not only because of the soap opera drama but because the design is off the charts. You gotta check out this animation called “how it will be built” under video clips. It tells the whole story. Reminds me of why I got into architecture. Before you know it these guys are gonna be directing Hip Hop videos “like Whaaaaaaaat?”.

So I cruised thru the Gucci shop on my lunch break cause I heard something crazy was going on and it was indeed true. I definitely wasn’t rockin’ Gucci as an 80’s baby but I am well aware of those bootleg Gucci shirts you would see in the hood. To my knowledge, I have never seen a real vintage one, so I am assuming they were yesteryears version of ‘AIR’ shoes I see next to the bodega. Anyway truth be told, Gucci is now making real versions of their heavily bootlegged tees. Of course, they are $200 something. Yes $200 bucks for a t-shirt..and no I didnt buy it. I am not rich, but I am immune to sticker shock these days. Hence why I still think the idea is awesome…in their design meeting some lowly intern is like, ‘what if we make our Canal Street version Gucci Tee…give something back to the hood…’ and them being like, ‘Okay!?’ The sad thing is, the $10 fakes are better. Graphic wise, design proportion, and actually cotton t-shirt wise too. The expensive ones are too refined, there’s nothin’ hood about them…but let’s not discourage any intern that wants to send me some Gucci for free. That’s just dumb.

Remember when you were a kid and it was a big accomplishment to get past the first 10-15 steps in the directions to build your very own ExTrEmE Lego masterpiece? I remember when I was younger (and as I got older too, I had younger siblings) walking around the house and stepping on a Lego that was inconspicuously hidden on the floor somewhere. And I remember some parents would sort their kids’ Legos out by color too, which was always weird to me…We probably all have some fond memories with Legos…or Build-A-Blocks if you were poor, or Lincoln Logs if you were a budding little backwoods goober…ha…(don’t get me wrong, I had and loved Lincoln Logs…jokes, jokes…) But seriously though - Legos have always been about encouraging creativity and building and unique ideas…but this top 10 list of the strangest Lego creations of all-time takes it to a new level. I mean - come on - a “Lego Difference Engine”?! “One of the most imaginative Lego creations ever. Made by Andy Carroll, this difference engine is able to solve mathematical problems (2nd/3rd-order polynomials) and calculate the answers to 3 or 4 digits.” Could you imagine giving that to a kid on the 4th Christmas of his life or for his 6th birthday or something? ‘Look here little Bobby, this only has 8,000 pieces and requires someone 45+ to create it! Have fun!’ But seriously - how crazy is that?? And this - a Lego air conditioner!? That is probably the funniest one to me… Of course, you can’t go wrong flossin’ around town in your brand new Lego Volvo XC90…do you know how many snap-on-hair-babes you could pick up in that baby?! Anyways, check this list out and take yourself back to yesteryear when you were 9 years old and attempting to build your first Han Solo-Frozen-In-Carbonite-Lego.

My sister put me onto this site…and while it’s not something I would personally use often, it has huge, huge potential and I love it’s direction. Few things: (1) Yes, it’s similar in theory to an eBay as it lets user list their own products, sell it, and the host takes a cut. (2) It’s different from eBay in that its truly a ‘shopping’ experience, an on-line store, very easy for the buyer to navigate and drop things in their basket…eBay is all bidding based for the most part and not focused on a specific product category like Etsy. (3) Companies like Etsy.com have taken the Web 2.0 thing to the retail space, and have done so very well. Quick run-down…it’s a artsy-crafty based site where knitters, artisans, creative-types, etc can sell their product to the public through a well presented, well categorized, and highly searchable site…Etsy.com. What makes these guys different from anyone else doing it (see old virginthreads.com) is the amazing presentation and search capability. Just the ‘Search By Color’ thing blew me away…so nice. I’m into it. And they are funded by the Del.icio.us and Flickr crew. So tell your girl to start knitting faster so you can start slangin’ those crazy looking mittens she always makes. 2 for $5s, I got ‘em for cheap!!

J/P OMG LOL!!11! So real simple, Google just paid News Corp. $900 Million to serve as the MySpace.com search engine. What?!?! If that doesn’t blow you away…I don’t know man. MySpace was just bought for $580 Million not even what, a year ago? Now just to be the search engine Murdoch got almost a billion? Honestly a bit mind numbing. Good investment right? So yeah…Google will start providing this service by the end of 2006. This whole ‘new web’…so crazy. Most industries take decades to recover. Don’t forget that the whole ‘dot bomb’ was only like 7 years ago. Ha…seriously, that is nuts.