putting the j in jjosh

2 tracks have been on my mind this week, so I thought I’d spin them like a college DJ, one after the other. Sidebar, I was packing up my old photo albums the other day and came across my college DJ FCC license…expired, but still official looking. Sidebar 2, I had a dream last night about running into someone who had the same (Bates) Jr. High yearbook I had, but that I didn’t know…weird…

Anyway, track 1 is one of my favorite tracks of all time. JG and i were talking about it earlier in the week, ‘cuz summer’s running out, and recently the sun has been on maximum good vibes. It’s an unreleased track from a Ghostface Killah album (he couldn’t clear the sample or something) and it is spectacular. Makes you feel good to be alive.

The second track is San Diego Zoo by Barbara someone-or-other, a track I was really into in college. It’s in my head because we’re heading to San Diego tonight for 5 days on a shoot. The great thing about this track is that I put it on a mix tape for my sister when she was living in Bolivia, and she subsequently digitized the tapes I made her into mp3’s. Laborious, I imagine, but I am so thankful as I know I’d never track down all these tracks…enjoy…

Hey nerds, get a job.

Or actually don’t, instead keep making stuff like this.

[via Waxy]

Hey remember when Hype Williams was all over MTV and his signature wide-angle style was every every everywhere? Maybe you don’t. For me, it coincided with sophmore year at college — a time of more TV watching than ever before, or since. His style got tiring pretty quickly, and the artists who he did videos for could sometimes be pretty weak (Puffy), but when he started out, the Hype style was mind-blowing. Especially when matched with rappers who were actually pretty weird, like Busta or Missy. I came across this video the other day and remembered how it made my eyes explode when I first saw it. Crank it up, it’s Monday!!!!

sometimes Pandora can surprise me…

At some point I came across the blog Goulash (where did I come across it?) and started reading it because I love that word. I feel the same about the word "aardavrk", is there a blog called Aardvark? there should be. Goulash is pretty dam funny, and though he doesn’t post much, when he does it usually makes me laugh out loud. His most recent is worth checking out, here’s an excerpt:

There are a lot of these overused phrases, but there are 2 that I hear all of the time that contribute absolutely nothing to a conversation. They are "it is what it is" and "I know, right?" Let’s tackle these one at a time.

"It is what it is." Isn’t that obvious? If it isn’t what it is, I’m barricading my front door and hiding in the closet because I no longer have any idea what in the hell is going on.

"I know, right?" This one is trickier. I usually hear this when a person is agreeing with me, but it still confuses me because it ends with a question. I can just see some terrible mystery movie where the femme fatale has given the brain surgeon an amnesia drug. He’s looking at his scalpel right before the surgery starts, certain it looks familiar, and he whimpers, "I know…. right?" And then he bursts into tears. In most conversations, yes, you know and you’re right that you know.

Good stuff, right? Check out the whole post, it gets funnier…

I’ve been reading (courtsey kottke) this amazing New Yorker profile on Ricky Jay, the master sleight-of-hand conjurer and expert on the history of magic and cons. It’s fantastic. In the blog post, kottke then links to one of Jay’s tricks, and it’s right up my street — clever, old-timey, shmancy patter…good stuff…watch the cards…

Two things:

1. They have these great bagels where I’m working right now. In fact, these are the only bagels I’ve tasted while in NYC (admittedly a scant 2 years) that rival the bagels of our corner joint, Bagel World. Bagel World’s bagels are astounding. We pretty much only get them when we’ve got company staying, or are heading out on a road trip, or are taking them to M Devito. I can’t even describe how good they are.

But anytime I’m trying another bagel, I use Bagel World’s as my baseline. And no-one’s come close. Until I started working at this place Postworks in Soho. Their bagels are really good too. And they’re there every morning. I had to basically take a vow of chastity as far as eating them because lemme tell you, a bagel in the morning equals energy sugar crash at about 11am. But the point is, they’re good enough that I wanted to have one of those bagels and one of Bagel World’s right next to each other to do an A/B test to see which were better.

Now that the show I’m working on is beginning to heat up a little (our first deadline is Wednesday), I’ve been coming in early to get a headstart on the day (I owe that tip to JG from back at TVI). I burn out if I stay late, but coming in early is awesome. Nobody’s there, you can crank music if you want, you get the satisfaction of getting so much done before people even arrive.

Last week I came in really early, like arrived at 7:30am (ok, so it’s early to me, you farmers!), and there was a guy in the elevator with all these bags of delivery food. I figured they were for some meeting or something.

"That’s a lot of food…" I say.

"Yeah," he says in some kind of heavy accent, "and they’re all bagels!"

"Oh, you’re delivering the bagels that come every morning?"

"Yeah."

"Oh wow, I love those bagels." At this point the elevator has hit my floor (six). "Where are they from?"

"Oh you know hmwhafre plaza?" He says something totally unintelligble. The elevator doors open. I step out but hold them open.

"Where?"

"From the bagel place in hmwharfair plaza…"

At this point The elevator screams that it wants to move, and I can’t tell the guy that I STILL CAN’T UNDERSTAND HIM, so I go. I swear it sounded like "Warfare Plaza". I gotta find that place.

2. on the way in to work I listened to the Bonnie Prince Billy song "You Want that Picture", which I’ve always enjoyed as a really great duet and storysong. But this time I really heard the lyrics. So amazing. The chorus:

well it’s true that I cried
but then I went outside
and I stood very still in the night
and I looked at the sky
and knew someday I’d die
and then everything would be all right

it’s all right
and everything comes down to this
that everything there ever was
or will be
is all there is

Bonnie Prince Billy – You Want That Picture

Oh also remind me to tell you some time about Maxine & I seeing BPB at the Apollo and meeting him backstage afterwards and giving him a copy of our Musicwood DVD…

This banner was taken at a site a couple of blocks from our house. Down by the Gowanus canal there’s this huge site that’s been bought by Whole Foods, and during the real estate boom/non-recession, it seemed like ther perfect place for a Whole Foods. But now the economy is bleak, and they’ve discovered that the ground there is so toxic from all the crap and sludge that pollutes the canal, that it’s gonna take a zillion dollars to get it all cleaned up.

Someone broke into the site and painted this massive command onto the remains of a wall. Pretty nice. I wonder if it was the same folks who did the "open your eyes"/"fuck wall st" that’s painted on the old factory across the street from it (and was joshgranger.com banner two months ago). I saw this and wanted a picture of it so bad that I broke in there myself to get it.

Fun facts about the Gowanus Canal:

– it featured in the film Half Nelson

– there is bacteria growing in there that is found nowhere else on earth (thanks KT!)

– when a whale accidentally swam up into the canal, that whale died

When we are lucky, we get to start our Monday off with a slice of pure unadulterated joy…thanks Avalanches…thanks Fluxtumblr…there are some wonderful moments in this vid… so jubilant…