Alive and Kickin'

Yesterday was a blur... I was working with about 1.5 hrs of sleep and everything was just hazy. I need to learn how not to procastinate because that sleep deprivation thing is not what's up.

Several days ago marked the end of the Short Write On competition where 1Ls and part time 2Ls write a ten page paper in hopes of being selected for one of the school's journals. After they submit them, the papers need to be read and graded. I got 30 papers to read... 30... 10pgs long... all about the same thing. Every single paper had the EXACT same structure "In case name the court held..." I wanted to cry. Reading the papers wasn't the hard part. The topic was actually interesting and most of the authors were good writers. No... the hard part is trying to grade blue booking skills. The blue book is like the MLA of law... it tells you the proper (read: nitpicky) way to cite to legal sources... and it gets tedious... like "is that comma italicized?" tedious.

At any rate I put off the grading task and wound up staying up all night Monday to get it done.

My weekend was cool (before that). Friday night we went to a beat making competition. It was Kev Brown, Marco Polo, Best Kept Secret and Anomaly (B's mentor).... all i can say is "wow".

It's no secret that I have issue with Kev Brown... not Kev himself... but everyone's insistence that if i like Pete Rock I must love Kev... and how Kev sounds just like Pete Rock. I don't want to hear nobody sound like Pete Rock. Talent to me isn't being able to emulate someone else, it's being able to do your own shit. Everyone has influences, but show me what makes you special. Friday night I (temporarily) became a Kev Brown fan. The beats I heard on Friday were his. I heard what made him different and I loved what i heard. Unfortunately, as soon as I acknowledged that publicly there was a Dilla-esq beat... followed by a Pete Rock-esq beat. Nevertheless I know what he's capable of and I will no longer threaten to kill people behind the comparisons.

Next was Marco Polo.... got damn. I don't have some long drawn out story about him so this little "blurb" probably isn't going to do him justice, but that cat is talented as hell. I'll definitely be checking for him in the future.

So next was Best Kept Secret (BKS)and well... i mean for me they were the weak link that night. Don't get me wrong, the dudes are talented but I don't know it just seemed like they were the least developed of the contestants... could be me though.

Finally... Anomaly. I've heard this dudes name for the last two years. As i said, he's B's mentor so B speaks rather highly of him. I didn't know what to expect because somehow I had managed to never hear anything by dude... well at least very little. In my true (and completely unbiased) opinion, dude is extremely talented. While all the contestants had really hard hitting beats, I think what set him apart was the "extra" shit that came with his beats... like there were 'treats' sprinkled throughout... it's hard to explain, and I'm sure I missed alot with the music blaring in the club.

Saturday was a chill day and my weekend ended with a trip to the new Nationals stadium. I'm still in awe at the fact that it's like a real life ball park. If i look past the long lines and some of the poorly planned designs I can say with 100% certainty that I had a blast. Our seats cost about $80 for 2 and they were excellent. It's crazy what they've done with that area of the city... the whole city really... Can't wait to make it to another game.