DJ Greyboy breaks down his thoughts on Music, Samples and Vinyl. Fast forward to 1:59 if you don’t want to hear about BMX. The young DJ’s out there need to listen to this:
If you are anything like me, you have a tough time watching crap American movies. I can’t even remember the last one I sat down and watched.
Recently, I saw Johnny Mad Dog. Its pretty dope and it’s filmed in that manner that makes it look like a documentary although it isn’t. Without ruining it, it is about Child Soldiers in Liberia. These kids are heavy and make the droogs in A Clockwork Orange look like a bunch of accountants on a work retreat.
Johnny Mad Dog is the leader of a crew that terrorizes, plunders and pillages towns all the while doing drugs, drinking booze and dressing in crazy gear (which I am guessing is the height of fashion for the Child Soldier set).
Peep it. It is the best movie I have seen all year.
May 1st is a big day and the official start to the summer on The G Manifesto Calendar with The Kentucky Derby and Floyd Mayweather VS Sugar Shane Mosley.
Here is how you always can win at the Racetrack:
Your Running Partner must be short, like jockey short.
Find your mark in the crowd. The good thing is, The Racetrack has never had a shortage of suckers looking for “inside tips” and “sure things” as long as you have a little Street Sense (And I don’t mean 2007 Derby winner Street Sense, either).
Approach the mark, Custom Suited Down (very important) and introduce yourself all Charismatic-like (And I don’t mean 1999 Derby winner Charismatic, either) . “My name is Michael Mason”, shake the mark’s hand. “What horses are you betting on?”
(Actually, use an alias or an AKA, and just so its straight, my AK was my AKA since before I learned my ABC’s and the courts sent me to AA and NA, and now it’s all A-OK, Ok?)
The mark usually says something like, “Not sure yet, have you got any picks?”
Say, “No, I wish.” Then look around and say, “Wait, do you see that guy over there?”, while pointing to your running partner/“Jockey” who is busy writing down figures on a of paper.
The mark will usually say something like, “Yeah, I see him. Who is he?”
Reply, “That is XXXX XXXXXX, the famous jockey. He works with Bob Baffert.” (Always insert the name of a famous trainer.)
Then get the mark thinking: “I wonder what he is working on?”
The mark will say, “Me too”.
“If only there was a way we could meet him…Screw it, let’s go talk with him.”
“Good idea”.
To the jockey, “Hi, Michael Mason, we were wondering what you were working on.”
“Um, I was just figuring out how much money I could make today”, the jockey says.
The mark will usually take it from there, “How do you know you will win?”
Then the jockey will lower his voice Real Quiet and say, “I know I am going to win because I am racing. You two gentleman look like you can be trusted, but it must be strictly confidential. Ok? My boss is going to make a killing, and he let me have a piece of the action”. (And I don’t mean 1998 Derby winner Real Quiet, either).
Then say, “You wouldn’t mind sharing a little info would you?”
Jockey says, “I can’t do that. No way. I always keep my word to the boss. If I leak the info, it will affect the odds. And my boss always puts his bets in at the last minute.”
The mark is usually hooked with Greed at this time and will usually spew something like, “Damn. I thought you might have a tip for us.”
Then say, “How about this, if you won’t tell us the horses, can you make bets for us when you do?”
The jockey will consider this for a little bit, and say, “Sure, but I still can’t tell you the name of the horses.”
Say, “That’s ok, I just want to hit a big bet, and here is $8,000.”
The mark will inevitably say, “Here is my $7,500.”
Jockey says, “Ok, I will meet you in The Turf Club after the sixth.”
Leave with the mark, and enthusiastically get a “celebratory” cocktail. Hell, even buy it. And go for gin. (And I don’t mean 1994 Kentucky Derby winner Go for Gin, either).
Give the mark the slip.
There you go, that’s how you always win at The Kentucky Derby. Old-school hustler style.
Sans armes, Ni haine, Ni violence
See you there.
If you like to go a more conventional route and bet on The Kentucky Derby, listen to NW DC’s Andy Beyer:
“In the Kentucky Derby, more than any other race, pace is often a crucial determinant. When the pace is moderate — if, say, the first half-mile is run in 47 seconds or thereabouts — the early leaders often seize a tactical advantage. But every time the first half-mile of the Derby has been run in 45.4 seconds or faster, the pace has taken a destructive toll on all of the early pacesetters. After a 45.38 half-mile in 2005, the leaders collapsed, and the horses running 18-6-11-19 at the four-furlong mark wound up finishing 1-2-3-4, with Giacomo winning at 50 to 1. In 2001, when the pace was 44.86, the three early leaders wound up finishing 13th, 14th and 16th in the field of 17 as Monarchos and other stretch-runners dominated the race.
In a field in which it is hard to muster an ironclad conviction, Ice Box offers the best betting value. Based on the assumption that all the speed horses in the Derby will collapse, my play will be an exacta box of Ice Box and Lookin At Lucky.”
I was there to see Ice Box win at The Florida Derby. Impressive horse.
If you want to go by the “name system” and want a long shot, go with Paddy O’Prado and Jockey Kent Desormeaux.
I haven’t really been keeping up with these as I have been busy swooping fly girls in Cartagena, and despite the description of the Heistman in the Hollywood heist, “The man, described as well dressed and with slicked-back hair”, and “smooth manner and debonair appearance” my ski mask has remained in my dresser drawer as of late.
Daring Heist at Poker Tournament in Germany
A heavily armed group stormed a poker tournament in a German luxury hotel Saturday afternoon and made off with a jackpot, a police spokesman said.
Several participants at the tournament in Berlin’s Grand Hyatt hotel were slightly injured when they panicked and fled following the daring afternoon heist, Carsten Mueller said.
German Poker Tournament Robbers Still on the Run
Mueller said four robbers in disguises forced employees to hand over money, and then managed to escape. Mueller declined to give details, including how much money the men got away with.
The jackpot for the tournament stood at euro1 million ($1.36 million), according to a European Poker Tour Web site. The EPT confirmed the heist on the event’s blog in an official statement, saying there had been ”an armed robbery executed by six men.” It was unclear why the number differed from the police count.
Four Seasons Robbery: Billionaire In Town For Oscars Robbed In Hotel
A well-dressed man who talked his way into a Florida sugar baron’s hotel room and stole tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry is believed to be the same person who pulled similar scams on a Mexican soccer team, a salsa band and an Israeli basketball team when they visited Los Angeles, police said Tuesday.
The man, described as well dressed and with slicked-back hair, posed as a Four Seasons hotel employee when he struck up a conversation in an elevator on Friday with Jose Pepe Fanjul and his wife, Emilia, according to police. Later that night, he showed up at the couple’s room and told them he needed to fix a problem with an air vent. After he left, they discovered more than $45,000 in jewels missing.
“I haven’t seen any pictures yet but I’ve had many calls and I’ve had a description, and his appearance and M.O. sounds very much like a man we’re calling Ricco Suave,” said police Lt. Paul Vernon.
Authorities gave him that nickname because of his smooth manner and debonair appearance, he said.
In a Hollywood-style heist, thieves cut a hole in the roof of a warehouse, rappelled inside and scored one of the biggest hauls of its kind — not diamonds, gold bullion or Old World art, but about $75 million in antidepressants and other prescription drugs.
The pills — stolen from the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. in quantities big enough to fill a tractor-trailer — are believed to be destined for the black market, perhaps overseas.
“This is like the Brink’s pill heist,” said Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business professor who studies the health care industry. “This one will enter the folklore.”
The thieves apparently scaled the brick exterior of the warehouse in an industrial park in Enfield, a town about midway between Hartford and Springfield, Mass., during a blustery rainstorm before daybreak Sunday. After lowering themselves to the floor, they disabled the alarms and spent at least an hour loading pallets of drugs into a vehicle at the loading dock, authorities said.
“Just by the way it occurred, it appears that there were several individuals involved and that it was a very well planned-out and orchestrated operation,” Enfield Police Chief Carl Sferrazza said. “It’s not your run-of-the-mill home burglary, that’s for sure.”
Experts described it as one of the biggest pharmaceutical heists in history.
For 20 years, investigators have been chasing down hundreds of leads. They’ve interviewed countless witnesses all over the world, and still the central questions remain: where is the art and who did it?
What happened on March 18th, 1990 at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum? A a new portrait is now emerging about the famous heist, with some tantalizing details.
Investigators say at precisely 1:24 a.m., two men disguised as policemen knocked on the side door of the museum, saying they were called to look into a disturbance. The night watchman let them in.
Once inside, the thieves handcuffed both of the guards on duty, tied them up with duct tape and then, with free reign of the museum, they went to work.
But the question remains, who is behind the biggest art heist in history? Over the years there have been wild theories. Was it a fugitive mob boss? An eccentric art collector? Or just the work of local criminals?
“There are so many good suspects, it’s like an Agatha Christie novel where everybody’s sitting in the living room and everyone has a particular motive as to why they committed the crime,” says Kelly.
On the case for eight years, Kelly says DNA testing is now in play, but he won’t reveal details.
The Boston Globe reports that investigators may be analyzing the duct tape used to silence the guards. If there’s sweat on the tape, there’s a possibility of a DNA match, and the break investigators have been hoping for all these years.
The FBI has taken out ads, placing billboards on the highway, offering a $5 million reward for any information that leads to the safe return of the artwork.
There are two crimes in the matter: the actual theft of the artwork, for which the statute of limitations ran out in 1995.
And then, there’s the second crime: possession of stolen art. There is no statute of limitations on that, which is why the U.S. Attorney’s Office is now offering immunity. Prosecutors say if someone comes forward with the art, all will be forgiven.
I have said it before, and I will say it again: I have never been one to play a “big shot”, it’s just the styles I got, that keep my Game hot.
And I am a pretty humble cat. I readily admit where my Game has flaws. I have said before that my Tech Game is slack. And I have mentioned previously that my IPhone, Twitter and Facebook Game are sub-par. And I have admitted that my Text Message Game is a glaringly faulty.
Here is another area where I haven’t done as well as I thought I could have: Swooping Fly West Coast Hipster Girls.
Now, don’t get it twisted, I have swooped tons of these girls. Probably more than whomever the hell the top hipster guy is. Still, my resume is a little spotty, unlike say my track record VS Exotic Dancers or wealthy daughters of Eastern European Oligarchs or wealthy hijas of Latin Society. In those areas, my win-loss record is the stuff of legends. Kind of similar, to Rocky Marciano.
Anyways, being a patron of the arts, I went to this Hipster/Wimpster Art gig a few weeks back.
Instead of going with my usual Custom Suit wearing, Zippo Clacking, Thick Bankrolling self (which I diagnosed as one of my issues with swooping these girls) I decided to switch up speeds like Bruce Lee driving the Fuji in the movie.
As I got dressed for the gig, I threw on some plaid pants that I had Custom Made (think Drugstore Cowboy, not Fuzzy Zoeller), an argyle type sweater I picked up in Milan, and an Italian Leather Jacket I grabbed in London.
Keep in mind, I have no idea if this is how a hipster “male” dresses, but they were the only things in my wardrobe that were pseudo “hipster like”.
Fast forward to the Art gig.
I viddy a couple of young fly hipster girls smoking some grits and I use it as an opportunity to ask for a light even though I have two Dunhill lighters in my pocket.
They ask me what I do for a living.
I respond, “I am a solopreneur.”
They ask me where I live.
I say, “In those new condos in XXXXXXX, by that ‘Starchitect‘ named XXXXX XXXXXX.”
They ask where I got my plaid pants.
I don’t tell them I got them Custom made and simply respond, “Vintage”.
The two girls are digging my steez. Although, when one hipster girl pointed to a Wimpster guy and said, “I hate that guy, I ‘de-Friended’ him” and I responded, “You should twitter that”, they kind of looked at me funny.
Regardless, I invite the flyer of the two West Coast Hipster Girls over to the makeshift bar sponsored by some weird Vodka company at the art gig as the other West Coast Hipster girl starting talking to some Wimpster guy.
Things were going smooth.
I almost blew the whole heist though, when I pulled out a huge 4 G Bankroll out of my pocket to pay for the weird Acai Vodka and sodas.
The fly hipster girl looked at me strange, but in a heads up play, I quickly asked her, “Is this Vodka Artisanal?” “Or is it an organic farm to table free-range Vodka?” and got her off the subject of my cashroll.
After some more small talk, kissing her, more drinks, meeting a bunch of Wimpsters, a venue change and at one point, I even made myself cringe when I said, “I really have become a Locavore, of sorts…lately”. I finally maneuvered myself back to the fly hipster girls crib.
Cartagena data sheets coming soon. Till then, I will be getting mad shoulder rubs, drinking Aguila, shooting Aguardiente, putting together export deals, banging out salsa, grinding arepas con queso, all the while dressed in the lightest of fabrics.
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
Then I remembered Poppin’ My Collar which sampled Willie Hutch’s “The Theme From The Mack”:
I had never seen the video before. But I saw some solid lessons there.
I know many people are having a tough time stacking chips in the Down Economy, and these little hustlers at the beginning of the video really show The Art of Selling.
They use a great opener, get right down to biz, offer a solution, compliment the buyer, Then Close Hard.
I really love that closing line; “So, are you gonna help us brothers out, Or What?”
Its a real universal closing line that you can almost use in any situation:
Roissy talks about how he recognized a guy in his neighborhood flipping some Artist Game with two fly girls:
I’ve never seen him painting outdoors on a weekday morning either, and until now I’d never seen him in the company of women. This new painter’s schtick he had devised was clearly working. There he was, three random colors on a tiny canvas, a cheap art store easel on the sidewalk corner, and two hot blondes eating out of his palm. He was probably smacking himself for not coming up with this idea sooner.
Go ahead and try it. Buy an easel and a canvas board. Set up shop on a corner in the daytime, ideally during the morning or evening pedestrian commute. Dangle a paintbrush from your hand effeminately whilst cocking your head like you’re deciding how best to capture the majesty of the street corner. Wait for girls to approach you (which automatically signals their lower status relative to yours, as girls are programmed to never approach men), and run your normal game as usual.
I actually stumbled upon “Artist Game” years ago.
My running partner at the time and I were super bored, super lifted off chronic and it was a super weird overcast day in the most beautiful beach town in Southern California.
We threw on some floppy hats and scarves (think Salvador Dali in the height of fashion), grabbed some paints and two easels and walked down to the beach.
An iconic mural featuring caricatures of more than 100 people – and several fleet-footed horses – who have shaped racing history is now on display at the Del Mar Racetrack.
The renowned racing artist Pierre “Peb” Bellocq installed the mural this week after spending nearly two years on the project.
The 30-foot-long, 6-foot-tall piece depicts legendary crooner Bing Crosby, who founded the racetrack in 1937 at the fairgrounds along with Jimmy Durante and Pat O’Brien, who are also pictured.
About half the people in the mural are living, and some will attend a dedication ceremony July 25.
The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, a private company that has a state contract to operate the annual horse races, commissioned the project to celebrate 70 years of racing. The racetrack was founded in 1937 but it closed for three years during World War II. The 70th season begins July 22.
“We went back and looked at all our history and photographs and looked through our media guides to see who made a mark at Del Mar over the years,” said Joe Harper, president and general manager of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club since 1978.
“We have photographs of all these people scattered around, and now you can see them together,” he said.
The acrylic mural, in the Clubhouse/Turf Club entryway, features many of the glamorous Hollywood stars who frequented the track in its early days, such as Ava Gardner, Betty Grable and Barbara Stanwyck. Others are the actor Robert Taylor and comedian W.C. Fields, both racing fans.
Among the living people depicted are horse trainer Bob Baffert and horse owner Jenny Craig, known for her weight-loss centers, who is pictured next to her late husband, Sid.
Harper himself is depicted wearing sunglasses in the center of the mural above his mother, horse owner Cecilia deMille Harper.
There are also notable horses, including Seabiscuit, who won a match race with Ligaroti in 1938. Dare and Go, who in 1996 beat Cigar – then considered the best horse in the country – is pictured smoking a cigar with a satisfied look on his face.
Every so often, art breaks out of its confines to become an event. People who would never normally go to a gallery do so; they feel part of it when they would otherwise feel excluded. The last time this happened was when Olafur Eliasson put a giant sun and a mirrored ceiling in Tate Modern and teenagers rolled around on the ground making shapes they could see reflected in the roof.
And it’s happening now at Banksy versus Bristol Museum, the exhibition the elusive graffiti artist suddenly unveiled last week, in which he has his “remixed” the museum’s own collection by putting more than 100 of his own artworks among it – by far the largest Banksy show to date, of work mostly never shown in the UK before.
On Saturday, the first day the show was open to the public, the queue snaked down the street and the waiting time was more than an hour. In it were children, grannies, trendy types. Everyone was taking pictures with their mobile phones (Banksy doesn’t believe in copyright). The museum’s guards were proudly pointing out the new additions to their displays. People were inspecting the fossils to find the teeny-weeny woman pushing a pram hidden among them; they were on their hands and knees to look at the mouse with a back-pack who had clambered into a natural history case.
The visitors’ main focus was a large room lined with Banksy images. Here one can assess the work en masse. Lots of the art here is silly, lots of it obvious. The massive picture of a House of Commons populated by apes, for instance, is crass, schoolboy stuff.
Banksy Versus Bristol Museum
But the work here is also humorous and inventive. There’s a devastating picture of starving African children, one of whom has a T-shirt saying: “I hate Mondays”. There’s a hilarious image of two shoddily drawn stick men, prettily mounted, with one of them asking, “Does anyone actually take this art seriously?” The other replies, “Never underestimate the power of a big gold frame.”
Banksy is the master of the surprising juxtaposition. In another room, full of his animated sculptures, there’s what looks like a living, breathing cheetah, but when you see it from the back, you notice, with a chill, that it’s been made into a fur coat.
In the best piece of the exhibition, in among the stuffed animals, there is a lamb that has been muzzled. What does it mean? A lamb conjures innocence, the Lamb of God. Is this a piece about censorship, the distortion of the spiritual, the end of innocence? It’s very moving, reminiscent of Damien Hirst’s toying with religious iconography but, pleasingly, so much simpler. When Banksy has the nerve not to be didactic and leave his pieces open to interpretation, he becomes sophisticated.
It is to be hoped that the artist will move further in this direction. But in the meantime, Banksy Versus Bristol Museum succeeds triumphantly in its aim: it’s a museum show that is as cheeky and renegade – and communicates as directly with its viewers – as a piece of illegal graffiti.
I’ve attended some odd parties over the years – there was the one for Stannah Stairlifts, the Innocent Smoothies bash where I got driven around a Shepherd’s Bush car park in a giant banana, and the Walker’s Crisps event where everyone on the electoral roll named either Cheese or Onion was invited. But I’ve rarely been to one where neither the guests nor the hosts knew what they were doing there. “What is this all about?” I asked Ivan Massow on Monday night, at the launch of his new film spoof, Banksy’s Coming for Dinner. “No idea,” he shrugged wearily.
What is clear is that Banksy – the pseudo-anonymous graffiti artist – still provokes the same snorts of delight he drew at university, when the boys would huddle around his prints and marvel at the irreverence of it all. As party talk turned to the artist’s exhibition at the Bristol City Art Gallery, one guest described him as “a true genius”, another as “one of our greatest living artists”.
But it’s all old hat. Banksy’s poke-fun-at-museums impudence was done 100 years ago by Marcel Duchamp. His stencil technique (always good for easy effects, as every child knows) was perfected in 1968 by Ernest Pignon-Ernest and Blek le Rat, and his political opinions are plonkingly conventional. A House of Commons populated by apes? Sharp stuff.
To his credit, Banksy had excelled at keeping his origins a secret. The exposé last year that suggested he wasn’t the son of a painter and decorator, but educated at the £9,240-a-year Bristol Cathedral School, could have damaged the brand. As it was, being outed as an old friend of Samantha Cameron’s must have undone a decade of careful pixellation.
