#he has the word Pimp in his email and thinks it’s cool

[gales-big-naturals]

Tired as fuck at work and my least favourite customer came in while my coworker was on break so I had to deal with him. He didn’t tell me he wanted two of something so I had to restart the transaction and our till goes insane if you cancel a purchase and then immediately start another one that’s too similar so I had to deal with him for like 5 whole minutes. Also every other customer has found the most long winded way ti tell me what kind of weed they want.

Actually gonna commit a murder if I have to interact with 1 more customer

[jenniferisacommonname]

Voiceactors in my Head

One of my many contradictory feature sets is a silent, circumventing stubbornness paired with a pathological fear of confrontation. I will get what I want, and I will not stand my ground if verbally pressed on it. I concede points like it’s an Olympic sport. But as long as everyone's still smiling—gently, snidely, or otherwise—then I can go on forever. Case in point, I once trolled a stranger on the internet for over a year. (Don’t worry; by the end of the story you’ll be on my side again. And if you’re not, well, I mostly agree with you.)

It all started with a CD which was, at the time, exclusively available through the record label’s website. This was back in 2005, when online retailers still ran on frontier justice and only fools uttered the words “free shipping.” Needless to say, I did not have an existing account.

But we do what we must. So I bent the knee, and delivered my modern-day rogation of name, email, and PII governed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in order to receive my one CD—then I defiantly wasted that effort by never patronizing their establishment again. I mean, the album was fine, and I’m sure they had other struggling artists whose work I would have enjoyed, but apparently I’m against creative expression and the American small business owner or something.

Anyway, five years of blissful non-interaction go by. Then one day in 2010, I get a mass email from the founder of this little indie record label. It was—or at least it aspired to be—a classic “starting a new chapter” kind of announcement, letting everyone know that he had sold his (incredibly!) successful company, and was using the proceeds to start a charity that would bring music lessons to inner city children.

And, hey, I thought, that’s cool. Music is great for kids. Except… the tone of the email was weird. It was more than just casual; it was chummy. The concept of a YouTuber didn’t exist back then, but here was its primordial ancestor, testing the beachhead with its nascent flipper-legs of peppy chic.

“Yo, J-dawg, how's it hanging? Remember back in [mail-merged year] when you bought [whatever]? What a great album, am I right?! Anyway, it's been so long since we rapped, I thought I'd update you on my sitch…”

Obviously, I’m paraphrasing, but that’s how the voiceactor in my head performed it. And it just rubbed me so hard the wrong way. I mean, look, I get it—we live in a promotional society, and there's no avoiding that. I’ve done my fair share of book pimping, and if you have a legitimate fan base the intrusion can even be a welcome one. So, fine. Tell me about your thing—once—and maybe I'll buy it. But don't act like we're friends, like I have some kind of obligation to you beyond this basic consumer relationship that we've established.

So my gut reaction was a hard pass, pleading children’s eyes be damned. But the email didn’t include a link to unsubscribe. This spammer was so brazen, he had sent the message from his personal email account, as if threats like “more updates to come!” belonged in anything but a ransom note font. If I wanted my name off the list, I would have to actually write him back, creating exactly the kind of low-stakes, one-on-one confrontation that we all know is worse than torture.

How would I even phrase it, knowing that his overture was from the heart and my rejection would travel right back along that path? “Listen, amigo, I know you probably spent an hour composing this raw, honest self-reflection on your priorities, but it’s garbage, and I never want to hear from you again. Please keep in mind that while you have failed to inspire me, you’ve also failed the children. Because you’re a failure.”

The actual words wouldn’t matter; I was sure that’s what he’d hear. In fact, I would argue that a polite rejection is often worse, because it leaves no option for the rejectee to write off the loss as a dodged bullet. They really were a nice person, and you’ll probably never find anyone so humble again, you loser.

So instead, I got out my favorite piece of social armor: the ironic “yes, and.” In improv theater, if a scene partner implies that you’re the best of friends, you don’t argue with them. You commit to the bit. So I did.

“Oh my God, Steve, it's so good to hear from you!” I wrote (except I used his real name, of course.) “I can’t believe you still remember our special album. Makes me weepy just thinking about what it meant to us. Anyway, here’s what’s been going on in my life...” Then without warning, I dumped several years’ worth of emotional trauma on him—about severe autism, and how hard day-to-day life was, and how each treatment brought hope and frustration in equal measure while somehow never easing my crippling fear of the future. It was a therapy session on steroids, directed at a stranger under the guise of bitter sarcasm. My flippant sign-off left no doubts about my true feelings: “Anyway, as I’m sure you can imagine, we are flat broke with medical bills, bruh! So I'm gonna need you to take us off your list. But in the meantime, here are some autism charities that you could donate to on our behalf, since we're such good friends.”

To be clear, open snark isn’t remotely in the spirit of “yes, and.” But it felt better in that moment than honest rejection, and I figured he’d take the hint.

Instead, the guy wrote back.

“Wow, what an amazing story!” he said. “Crazy world we live in. I'll go ahead and take you off the list, but I do hope you'll think of us in the future.”

Ugh. He had met my bad behavior with empathy, and I felt moderately ashamed. Then again, you couldn’t argue with results, and at least I knew this ordeal was behind me.

Except he didn't take me off the list. A couple of weeks later, I get another fake-personal email, which I must again paraphrase, though I remember with furious precision the way it made me feel. “Heyyyy Jenn-ster, it's me again! I know how much you've always loved music, so I know you're gonna want to hear about this...”

BITCH. YOU. DON’T. KNOW. ME.

“Steve, what happened?!” I wrote back. “You used to be such a good listener! I think the money's changed you, man.” And I asked once again to be taken off the list.

This time, he ignored me. No reply, and the spam kept coming.

So I just decided that this was going to be our thing. Every time he sent me an email full of stuff I didn't care about, I was going to send him an email full of stuff he didn't care about. Except I kept pushing it a little farther each time, like, “Ooh, potty training's not going so great, let me tell you all about it...” And at the end of every email I'd always remind him, “Hey, anytime you want to stop getting updates on my son's bowel movements, all you have to do is take me off your list.” Sometimes I bolded it; once I super-sized it into a 40-point font. But he never did.

This went on for over a year.

But I won.

It’s a trite saying, but sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. The last email I ever got from this guy was short, which was unusual for him, and it said something like, “Great news! We've just graduated our first class of students—check out these pics!” (Why am I paraphrasing so much, when email is forever and I could just go back and give you direct quotes? Stop asking questions and roll with me for a minute.) Anyway, embedded in the email, like already loaded and filling the screen HTML-style, was this giant picture of… I don’t know, a kid kissing a trumpet or something. It was probably super cute, to be honest—but I was on a mission.

“Great news!” I wrote back, trying as always to mimic the exact structure of whatever he had sent me. “My son just had a colonoscopy—check out these pics!” And I pasted the actual medical photos of my child’s rectal passage into the email, pre-loaded and filling the screen, so he’d be forced to view them against his will, just as I’d been forced to endure his endless marketing crap.

Sure enough, he never emailed me again.

Pretty good story, right? And that closer—I mean how can you top sending medical photos to a complete stranger just to gross them out? Unfortunately (or fortunately; I’ll leave it up to you,) this one has a weirdly philosophical denouement. If you like your narratives sassy and single-layered, I suggest you duck out now.

Around 2015, I was trawling my past for wild stories that could be condensed into a tight three minutes for open mic night, and ‘that time I emailed colonoscopy pics to a spammer’ was an obvious contender. Once I had the basic structure written down, more or less exactly as I remembered it, I went digging through those ancient emails to finalize the details.

And what I found was… not what I remembered. The story I told above clearly had some emotional embellishments (see: paraphrasing), but it was fundamentally true in circumstance, I thought. And, yes, I really did send this guy two pictures of my son’s colonoscopy, though they were just thumbnail attachments, not embedded. But the text of my actual emails to him barely came off as snarky at all, and I never once told him in clear terms to take me off his list. There are a few lame hints at irony that you can pick out if you really squint, but by and large I was just… writing him back. Like we were friends.

Which is a good thing, because his emails to me were even less accurate in my memory than mine had been. He hadn’t cut me off; he’d replied to every single email I’d sent, in a way that made it clear that he’d watched every video and read every article. He was cordial, empathetic, and seemed genuinely interested in my kids. It was a therapy session on steroids, all right—minus the steroids.

BITCH.

YOU. KNOW. ME.

And in return for all this kindness, I had sent him horrific medical photos for no reason. To which he had replied (and this time I’m not paraphrasing,) “Thanks for the update on your son. I appreciate it. Keep up the good work. All the best to you both.” The updates from him had indeed ceased after that, but from what I can tell it was just a coincidental winding down of that particular enterprise, not a removal of my name from any specific list.

Eventually, I ended up emailing him again, this time as a penitential mea culpa to ease my own conscience. I explained the situation, and apologized for my unfair judgment of years past, plus of course the unsolicited sigmoid landscapes. He thought the whole thing was hilarious, and admitted that he’d never once picked up on my poorly-conveyed bitterness.

More important than the personal amends, though, was the lesson I had to swallow about how emotions don’t just cloud memories—sometimes they invent them out of whole cloth. I swear, I swear I remember a photo of a kid graduating from his charitable music lessons, but I can find absolutely no evidence of it anywhere. My brain made it up to retroactively justify my behavior: yes, I sent a photo, but only because he sent a photo first. It’s not even a remotely good justification, but I guess it took the edge off just enough to keep seeing myself as a good person.

It was an important lesson professionally, too. History is nothing but a mashup of inherently self-serving memories, and multiple perspectives can only draw a narrative closer to objective truth by half-steps, never to fully reach its destination. Even hard evidence is fallible, because my emails as written did not accurately represent how I felt when I wrote them, which is an important part of the story in its own way. Misinterpretations and flawed perspectives are inevitable, but they’re also necessary, and stripping them out as a historian is just as wrong as taking them at face value. A story is both what the participants think it is, and what we know it isn’t—especially when those two conflict—and every non-fiction piece I write is just somebody else’s therapy session on steroids.

[yayodancing]

(Archives) Beautiful Lou Interview

Beautiful Lou is a producer, who also happens to occasionally rap, residing in San Antonio, Texas, who can always be reached at his #rare Tumblr. - http://beautifullou.tumblr.com/ 

His career may appear young, but his signature trademark of dark almost hymn-like gothic vocal samples combined with a slowed down BPM that is always screaming to be Screwed (pause?). Having produced for Lil B (Cocaine and the Illusions of Grandeur remix), Main Attrakionz (primarily Squadda, having produced on his I Smoke Because I Don't Care About Death album as well as the more recent Black Kings), and many talented lesser known emcees (Western Tink and Yachtsmen certainly come to mind first), Lou's profile has raised greatly since I met him a year ago.

I recently asked Lou for an interview, and he happily obliged; hopefully I can showcase the man behind the music as well as the producer and rapper in the light he deserves. Admittedly nervous about conducting my very first interview, I called up Lou on his phone and got ready to break that cherry (||). 

Firstly, thanks for fucking with me, bro. You have no idea how much I appreciate your support; we're coming up in this game now together, and that seems so appropriate. But before we get to anything, because of how refined your music is, I really need to ask; how long have you been producing? Rapping?

Three to four years, but like a lot of the shit you're hearing now is pretty old. When I was in Dallas, I was more active making new beats, but when I moved to San Antonio, I couldn't really get anyone to rap on my shit. I liked the lyricists, but they weren't really feeling my shit, I guess that wasn't they were looking for. So, when I moved to San Antonio, I started fucking with the Internet real heavy - that lead me to Lil B, Squadda B. I was really about trying to keep it Texas, y'know, local; that's just the sound that I wanted to help promote, the artists around here. But when I checked with these people online, they had a style that really brought something to rap. They're kinda doing things on an avant-garde level, but they still keep it street.

Now that's kinda leading me to getting attention around here, with Lil B popping off, Squadda B getting attention from the blogs, which is crazy because I did production on SNYL from I Smoke Because I Don't Care About Death. Your style is very different from any producer I'm hearing out there; it obviously shares some sonic qualities with the emerging Based genre of production, specifically the lo-fi, scratchy effect, but it differs so greatly from producers like Clams Casino or Keyboard Kid. All those melancholic droning-samples, the dirty 808s, the funky bass reminiscent of Pimp C's trademark Southern comfort; it's all so welcoming, so breathtaking. 

Who're some of your inspirations, past and present?

It's weird because I didn't even hear of Clams or Keyboard Kid before working with Lil B; but present, now I'm just listening to like a lot of the shit they're putting out, anyone that's working with Lil B. It's cool to be able see people that're in my same lane, really just soaking it up, seeing the type of sound we're created. Past? Really, the first CD that I bought with my own money was OutKast - Aquemini. That shit pretty much defines the type of sound that I'm trying to do. It just has a lotta screwed elements to it, especially on Aquemini; it just feels like Texas. Because we've been doing that down here, the pitched the horror music and stuff, y'know; it's a crunchy sound. Especially synths, and those types of instruments, they sound real good to me; it just creates a certain broken digital sound. But definitely Screw and Pimp C, just that sound that'll stick with you. 

I know you're very #based, but your production bleeds with such sorrow - you seem like such a positive, upbeat guy from what I've heard from you and the times we've exchanged messages over the net. Even now on the phone, your tone is still bright, uplifting; does this music come from a certain place in your soul? Are you letting the song cry, word to Hova? 

I guess I'm just trying to hit the emotion with that song - you know, those screwed vocals are just so sad, they hit that emotion with you. Like that first time I heard, even though it wasn't a pitched down vocal, you know that RZA song, Tearz? From 36 Chambers? The first time I heard that shit, it just hit me so emotionally; I just didn't know music could hit that chord with you. Just the way he pitched up chopped those vocals, pitched them up. Just something about that really stuck with me; those voices. Like that song I just gave to Lil B, the Illusions of Grandeur (Remix), there's just this sample there - and to me, his voice just makes the beat. It's just so dark and lonely. 

So, Lou, you finally released your EP recently, something I've been waiting on personally for quite awhile. The EP isn't completely full of Lou raps - which kinda saddened me. The other tracks are exceptional, especially Squadda B's Black Kings and Lil B's Cocaine, two songs I was already a big fan of going into. But do you ever think you'll take up the mic more? I fucking love your flow man.. maybe it's that Southern drawl you have, but I don't think anyone sounds as good on your production as you.

 I dunno man, the producer thing popped off more; like I'm getting a lot of request for beats, and sometimes they'll request a feature too, because they've heard me do these freestyles. I mean, if I could - to be honest man, I dunno anyone around here who really has a proper studio, or even a mic or anything. In Dallas it was a lot easier, but here in San Antonio, there's not that many people doing it. But, once I get some more money saved up, I'm gonna try to get more studio time and everything. I think the direction I really wanna take is doing more freestyles, because I really like performing; that's what I wanna do more of, and of course I'm gonna do more songs. Plus, the video aspect has really popped off; you know, people just like watching that type of shit, the freestyle videos. 

Yeah, I remember you dancing around in the video from the Letedra Bal4head, with you dancing around in the rain, that was just entertaining as hell. 

[Lou laughs] Yeah, you know, I just had a lot more time back then, but now I'm so busy. I had so much more time back then when I first moved to San Antonio, no one was was really paying attention to me. But now, I'm just trying to get everything together; but I intend on doing more videos here when I get the time. 

Where do you get most of your samples from? A lot of the samples are just so bleak, but I can't tell if they're taken directly from other musical outlets or not. At times I can't tell if you screwed the original sample to a crawl or if you happened to record a choir of dying angels. I mean that in the most complimentary way, too; a choir of dying angels is pretty epic.

I used to do soul beats, but now, I just sample a lot of New Wave, a lot of 80s artist from the French scene; those voices, those instruments, they're really the type of thing I'm looking for. Like I used to be a really big fan of Prince, so that's the time period I really look for. I go to a lot of different places to get like 25 cent CD's, you can find a lot of shit. I do like vinyl, but it's just a lot easier with CD's, plus they were more popular during that time frame I was looking for, and you know, no one's really mining that period. Plus a lot of the homeboys know the type of music that I like to sample, so they find stuff and bring it to me.

You've worked with some fantastic talents, and all of you continue to keep pushing out great music on a seemingly daily basis. Who're you working with now? Who do you really want to work with that you haven't had the opportunity to yet?

Well, right now I'm working with Western Tink; he came down here for SXSW. We did some songs, shot some videos. I really like him, think he's got a lot of potential, so I want to push him. He's really got a good sound, a good ear; I mean, some people don't like he raps, they think he's too basic, but he really get a good point across. Squadda B and the whole Green Ova crew, they've shown me a lot of love, so I'm really just trying to fuck with me. Pretty much Lil B too, man; I'm grateful that he's been working with me. That's pretty much it; I mean, I got Sed the Dean from Ohio, and Sam Rubik outta Brooklyn. They both pretty much hit me everyday, and I like their shit, I'll put it out.

And I'm really trying to fuck with Soulja Boy, man; I like that you write a lot about Soulja Boy, dog. There's just something about him; just the way he writes a hook, they're just so catchy. Even when he's just fucking around, he can't help but write a good chorus. I was really hoping the Lil B connection would help me, he said he'd send some stuff his way, but I don't really have an email for him.

But yeah, I really want to work with a lot of local talent; I like looking at the local scene, like K-Dog productions, it's got a lot of potential. It reminds me a little bit of the Dallas scene from like 07, 08. It's just the scene moves so quick; y'know, it's not like the scene has really moved, I dunno if you listen to much Dallas music - 

I used to listen to Tum Tum's album a lot when Caprice Muzik was popping, but that's really as far as I go.

Yeah, I used to stay like right down the street from T-Town Music where Tum Tum was signed. I used to play beats for him - a lot of my older shit, my early shit. It was pretty wild, I hung out with him, a lotta local dudes; it was just fun being a part of that when that was starting to blow up. Like Mr. Pookie, Mr. Lucci, that was from around the way, around Simpson Grove, just being able to see them on TV, it really influenced me, anything that I really did.

Random as hell, but I need to hear Beautiful Lou laced Brick Squad with some beats, man. 

Shit man, a big reason I even got into your blog was how much you were writing about Gucci. Like, he's one of my biggest influences, especially with the Burrprint [3D]; and he'd be like, the number one dude I want on one of my beats, dog. Like, even though I don't think it's his style, I think he can really come out of left-field. Like shit he does, like Anti-Social, all the singing and shit, I love that shit, man. But yeah, if I could get one rapper on my beat, it'd be Gucci. 

Yeah man, Gucci's my favorite rappers, I've been listening to him and writing about him for way too long, taking it way too seriously.

Yeah man, but there is a lot of layers, and no one else really appreciates that shit. Like, that's why we're fucking with you and the other blogs, because no one writes about that type of shit, I don't think anyone else sees it. Like, growing up around those lyrics, I was always wondering "how come no one's into this shit?" Like everyone is all bigging up deep lyrics, conscious music, that shit, and I'm not trying to be too harsh on it - but no one's really paying attention to what we're doing. Just talking about money and riding around smoking weed in a creative way, just having a good time over crazy beats and shit. To me, Gucci like epitomizes that shit - I could go on about that for days.

I think that's the type of thing I wanna hear on my beats, you know, even though my shit is dark and ethereal shit, I just want people to talk about money, and just talking shit on my beats, just because it's such a great contrast to the beat. Like, all that shit, I listen to that shit all day. 

With Lil B blowing up and being all over MTV, opening the doors even further for original, somewhat ambient producers/rappers like you, I've gotta ask; do you have dreams of ever going mainstream?

Shit, I'm glad just being local - even though I'm on the blogs, on the Internet, that's cool too. Like, I dunno if you read what I wrote, but I wrote that I used to just read rap magazines all day, just reading XXL and the Source at grocery stores when I was a kid. Like, the blogs are like the new magazine to me. I mean, I'm not gonna say that's good enough for me, but it still really trips me out. That's really all I got into it for at the first, just dreaming about you know, one day making it in the magazines. Even though it's really hard to make money outta music right now, it's just important to me to be talked about, to be a part of hip-hop history. Like you guys are really archiving it, putting it into context for everyone. Just getting recognized is all I need - I mean, I could make some money, I've been getting offers and everything - but just being talked about is enough.