My Apologies

I've been terrible getting back to my favorite bloggers. For those of you who read this blog, I'm sorry. For those of you who don't, oh well. The truth is, I don't know if I'll be getting any actual reading time for any blogs. I haven't read a single page off a book in months, and now even reading short blog stories is becoming a chore.

For those of you interested, here's what's been going on.

December was a great month for D4AM, it was the month I started making plans in advance for my little chunk of internet. I started getting just enough emails per week to not have to really research anything and just skip ahead to writing. January followed through with some pretty cool opportunities. To start things off, I got emails from Sony's record labels. Then Atlantic Records came through. Come march I was receiving 4-8 emails per day. I'd say the ratio of quality music is every one in three emails. I'm still getting around to submissions made early April.

Early motherfucking April, motherfuckers.

Month old emails are waiting for my go-ahead, and there's tons more piling up. I'm getting emails from artists personally asking for help and exposure, as well as from their managers and representatives. I've made friends, I've pissed a few people off, and I've gained enough attention to start racking in over a dozen emails per day now.

It seems after I wrote that one screenplay, everything was looking so good that everyone and their mothers wanted in on it. I do enjoy time off, though, so I've been creating a system. The future of D4AM is more than D4, I'm getting a team of writers together to tackle on all the emails and turn D4AM into an e-zine. For now all I offer is exposure, but I look forward to offering pay in the not-so-distant future.

Until that future arrives I'm gonna be swamped. I've got a couple of writers on my side and quite frankly, that's not enough. No promises for when I get around to your blogs, or even if I'll comment when I read them (like I've been doing lately.) For this all, I apologize.

I'm not used to apologizing for being awesome.

Click to enlarge

Edit: You guys, I'm not leaving, I'm explaining my absence!
Second Edit: And thanks for the support!

The "Good" Hip Hop Artist

I was organizing my D4AM contacts list onto this nice understandable format, when I found some emails I could have sworn I'd deleted by some random unnamed lyricist who I may or may not have written about here. At the end of that there post, he went on a 3 comment tangent, supposedly not realizing that comments were moderated, and made a complete fool of himself in the process.

I sent him an apology email. It's lengthy, so I won't be posting it. My main points were "Your lyrics are good, your rhyming style is white" and ""This is a pretty self centered album, bro."

I also ended the email with:

Now on to a different note, you left three comments on the page. I monitor the comments myself, and I allowed them. In the comments you make your points, but you repeat a lot. I know it's hard to control oneself when upset, but it doesn't paint you in a positive light. If you want me to delete some, or if you want to re-write your point so that future readers can see that, that's fine with me. I'll even link to it at the bottom of the post. Otherwise, if you're truly unhappy with the post, I can delete it for you. Not many people would do this, but again I wasn't trying to insult you and I feel you're insulted. I'll take the post down if it means you'll be happier.

Source

I was about as nice about it as a puppy happily awaiting bacon. But I didn't receive no fucking bacon. I received chocolate covered razor blades. I was not a happy puppy.

To say that it sounds like I studied a thesaurus and then to compare me to Vanilla Ice, it is contradictory. You have a cheesy white one hit wonder and then you have me, an intricate lyricist. Then to go on to say that I'm pretty much saying nothing? C'mon! There are plenty of Hip-Hop references that more than likely went over your head. I study, breathe and live Hip-Hop. I have a nice little following and there is blatant story telling during the LP, Maybe some of it will resignate years from now (lol), I don't know. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but you contradicted yourself a tad bit. Asher Roth is decent but Eminem is corny and if those are your only two WHITE Hip-Hop references besides Vanilla Ice and Beastie Boys, That's sad. There are a ton of other underground white rappers with undeniable skill. 
If you could please delete the last two comments from me on your page I would appreciate it. I understand you are not a Hip-Hop blog and that is fine but it is offensive at certain parts of your write up.

Resignate isn't a word, you illiterate chunk of wanna-be white trash. Your syntax feels like the surviving remains of Shakespeare's unwanted abortion. Using two well known white rappers for reference is not near as sad as thinking that those are the only ones I know of. At least you say please. And no, definitely not a hip hop blog. Before I got to respond, he sent another email. I'm just gonna highlight some of the best stuff here.

Also when you say a lot of the lyrics are me speaking of myself, that is false. I am speaking in first person but through another alias. If you listen to it, it tells the story of a homeless man who is misunderstood. I metaphorically call myself a shark or a cryptic type creature because I feel that Homeless people, like sharks get a bad reputation and are misunderstood. For instance, most of them are docile but because of a few attacks both on the shark end and the homeless end, the media and what is unknown about these people and creatures are misunderstood. That was a huge reason for the album. Most of the album besides a few things are spoken through a different persona.

The word 'homeless' shouldn't be capitalized. I might capitalize genres, but only because I'd rather not italicize them. The lack of basic syntax has just lead [Unnamed Rapper] here to tell me that the media is as misunderstood as the homeless and sharks, with a terrible segue into it. I'm not even touching comma use. And could you be more of a dick? His anger secretes so much negative fluid; I'm afraid he might still be angrily humping your thoughts in my direction.

The comment he didn't ask me to delete mentioned that in order to properly understand the album, you had to download it and read the booklet it came with. The basis to this being that the booklet would explain everything he failed to in his rhymes. What a great concept; a lyric based album that can't properly explain itself.

Finally [Unnamed Rapper], if you ever read this and take offense, hit me up. Let's rap this out. I don't have a studio, I don't have beats, and I am definitely not a rapper. I insist, however, I can rap circles around you. Bring it.

Getting Poetic

Maybe the yawn induced lack of resent has its reasons. Maybe, like, if the word like, like, weren't so like, like, liking likes would be easier. Maybe if words met at some point, the lonely speaker would incite a reason. But it doesn't, it rarely did. Maybe if early truths had been acknowledged this sick shit wouldn't drag. Maybe if I could say shit without feeling bad. Maybe if lacrimation weren't so obnoxiously poetic, so dauntingly over done over details that were supposedly upsetting. Maybe if Kanye had talent to display, or if he felt human in any single fucking way. Maybe if nice were just nice and not weak. Maybe if talents weren't overshadowed. Maybe if passion were stronger than cheap realizations, or if getting poetic didn't feel like building entire civilizations. Maybe the mistakes were fate.

Maybe I made a mistake.

Passion

I hate writing the word fuck. I could say it all day every day, in every paragraph and even multiple times per sentence if I had to, but writing it just feels so wrong and dirty. Fuck is just such a raw word, it's carried almost entirely by the emotion put behind it. It's the word that comes out when you're not even thinking of words anymore. When you stub your toe you yell "fuck," when you absolutely despise someone you don't wish them a very slow Chinese water torture, you tell them to go fuck themselves, and when you listen to that perfect song for the first time in 15 years, it's only most likely you'll let out a long sigh of melancholic "fuuuck."

Sometimes there's no word to substitute it. Which is why yesterday, as I finished writing my first ever screenplay, I mentioned to nobody but myself how much I fucking love writing. I'm not even that great. I'm not that bad, but I could be better. I won't be winning an award. I left imperfections because they felt organic. All I can think of after this point is how much I fucking love writing. Not passionately love, it's so much more. Not even blindly, madly, deeply, as cliche and near perfect as it would be. Fucking love is the only way it feels right to say it. Maybe because the wound it's left me is still so fresh. Maybe it's because I just saw a peak of my imaginative side without restrictions. No longer thinking I need visual aid, or to satisfy someone, or to impress anybody. I felt a whole world come to life through my fingertips for the first time, and it was like a lifetime's work of writing about all the passion artists put into music in one tiny little digital report. I won't stop doing that, I can't. I've already felt what a lifetime's work of it feels like. Even if it remains a hobby for the rest of my life, stopping would be a dagger to my fucking heart. But I feel the ceaseless need to write more. To write for me, and for others who see things like I do. Maybe not always screenplays, but fuck, I am definitely doing that again.

Maybe I'll try one of these book writing challenges. Maybe I'll poke around and find an artist to write a webcomic with me. I have to try as many mediums as possible to see which one feels like the most lifetimes of amazing work, so I can live my life a million times over through passion.