genius? or moron...

I can't quite tell.

More to come...

aL's Top Ten Greatest Hip Hop Albums

So...the Bored Housewife recently posted about Hip Hop and how it doesn't provoke thought.

I offered some suggestions in her comment box which she seemed grateful for, but she got me thinking.

I used to be an avid listener of Hip Hop...so i started recollecting all my favorite hip hop groups. So I am gonna list my Top Ten Hip Hop albums.

Please note that this list was created from very poor memory and I feel as if I left some thing out, so some of these are subject to change. Regardless, here they are:

The Top Ten Greatest Hip-Hop albums ever made!

1. Bizzare Ride to the Pharcyde- the Pharcyde

2. Sex Styles- Kool Keith

3. The Low End Theory- Tribe Called Quest

4. Aceyalone- The Book of Human Language

5. Sex and Violence- KRS-One

6. Cyrpress Hill- Cypress Hill

7. Eazyduzit- Eazy-E

8. Grip It! On that Other Level- Geto Boys

9. Enter the 36 Chambers- Wu-Tang Clan

10. Doggystyle- Snoop Doggy Dog

11. Phrenology- The Roots

Ten?... eleven?... who cares?






So after I wrote down the list and before I actually posted...i was searching for proper images...this turned into a whole ordeal as I discovered something...interesting.

I did an image search on photobucket and found that if you type in the word
"Ghetto", most of the photos that come up are of teenage white girls crossing their arms in rapper poses and oversized hats tilted to the side.

pretty damn ghetto...or white trash...or Britney Spears...all the same shit to me.

Anyyways I found that this discovery says some strange things about culture..and how terminology is never a static thing. The more pictures are taken of white girls pretending to be ghetto, the more the word ghetto loses its original meaning.

Also this could be due to the fact that maybe in the Ghetto...the real ghetto... digital cameras and photobucket are not heavily integrated into that particular
societal realm.



Ok, granted...I myself am I white boy...and I just listed my favorite Hip Hop albums. What is the difference? Well, i'm not sure, I am obviously a confused mutherfucker and have been for many years. Cultural identity has always been a conundrum for me
as the contradictions have always overlapped, conflicted, and contorted my ideas of who I am.

To put it bluntly..I am American.

That sounds ugly...but I like to say it.

I am also Texan.

Sounds uglier...but I don't care what some people say about it...

I am also Mexican...which most people have trouble believing... but again..
I don't really care.

So as a confused teenager, listening to Rap music, while all my friends were listening to Green Day, I identified more with the street music that dealt with
conflict...real conflict...not like...damn...my gf broke up with me so Im gonna write this sad song...

Eventually, I did realize that this connection was false...and there are very few similarities between the way I grew up and the street life portrayed in Hip Hop.
I also realized that most of the time Rappers were just really good at talking shit and making it sound good.

Well I went off on this whole other subject that I never really meant to get into so I am just gonna leave it at that...

for the past week or so...

I seemed to forget about Is "is" is?... but actually I was way too
busy and just couldn't find the strength to conjure up anything good.
So I will see what I can do for you today...



facial hair is a strange thing as you can tranform the way the rest of the world thinks of you by the way you groom
yourself...i sometimes think about my own facial hair especially after i have not shaved for a while... i think about things i can do to it...to freak people out...to make myself more presentable...to make myself look younger or older...to make myself seem like a lower/ higher member of society...

all these things can be done with clippers, scissors, and someone that knows how to use them...

recently my clippers stopped working...then they started working again but they started pulling the hairs I was trying to remove and that really hurt...that amount of pain is not worth enduring for the sake of looking good...so maybe I could end up growing until I look like the guy in the picture above...

then i can pretty much count on getting absolutely NO attention from the opposite sex...

instead I have been trimming using scissors. Its a tedious process that I completely despise...

what should i do?

I'm ...what!?!?!

Saturday night {percival} called me narcissistic.
i said...i don't know what your talking about.

he/she/it has full access to my photobucket account.
Full access means all the photos, unaltered...

If I can only figure out a way to erase that robot's memory.

I am an object...

...to be used for your pleasure.

It is in our nature to desire what we cannot possess. We seek each other
although we know its impossible...

Yesterday somebody else gave me a free bag of weed.

I took these pictures knowing what they would become. These images will be the material with which you will construct your fantasy.
This is______.(fill in the blank)

suggestions:

hot
naughty
kinky
sexy
stupid

Watch the wheels turn and hear the buttons click. We live in an age of technology. We communicate through wires and lit-up screens. but what happened to each other

What would your

boyfriend
husband
girlfriend
mother
priest
dog
fox

think?
What would my girlfriend think?

I would like to be appreciated for my intelligence, but instead...

I sit here.
You sit there.
but here we are together

pushpins

tagged, i'm it again...

Ok... if I tagg myself again, I don't have to tag anyone else. (...thanks cynical girl)
So here goes, Ten more wierdo things about arnheim Lieber.

1. When we were at the disk golf course, i had a choice between using public facilities and the woods...
of course, I chose to pee in the woods (it's been a while since I've gotten to do such a thing)

2. The street I live on (pictured above) is called Taaffe Place, pronounced like Taffy.

3. I now have two pairs of headphones, one pair for when I'm wearing a hat, and another for no hat.

4. I have a strange fascination with girls that are referred to as "ghetto". When I see them on the train I turn down
the volume on my walkman so i can overhear what they are saying. The whole thing from how they dress, the things they talk about, their broken use of the english language, the way they talk really loud and they just go on and say whatever the fuck they want. Something about it is very interesting how they have this street toughness and still maintain their girly-ness. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just went up to them and started talking to them. (i've actually tried this experiment)

5. Today I took some pictures of before and after my shower. It was a weird feeling, objectifying myself like that. Then, entertaining the possibility of posting these images of myself. It was creeping me out...but there was also something very hott about it...

6. I have an unusual luck when it comes to getting things for free...I'm good at it! I never seem to have enough money and i'm not very materialistic although I like owning things...it just happens! People give me free stuff all the time! There's something extremely satifying about getting things and paying no money for it. The less effort it takes, the more satifying the experience. For instance, yesterday, some guy I don't even know, gave me some of that green tobacco stuff that makes your eyes turn red and give you the munchies...for free! No money exchanged our hands! He gave it to me, he didn't say... "hey we can smoke this together", he handed it to me and walked away! It was good shit too! I think had an innner orgasm after that.

7. My room is a mess, my finances...a mess, I am one of the most unorganized and disorderly people I know and I never seem to be fully on top of anything...but there are two things I never let go out of control: my bulk email folder and my voicemail box. I clear that shit out like I'm deathly allergic to old, useless messages...

8. Once i made a drawing...and we can argue whether its a drawing or not...that was done on a brown paper bag from
Crown Fried Chicken. I wrote on it, something like..."I realize I am nothing more than an indulgent beast as I sit here, drink coffee, smoke a bowl, take a shit, and read at the same time..." then when you open the flap at the bottom I wrote..."while listening to an electronic remix of Pink Floyd"

9. I took the drawing described in #8 and showed it to a group of friends. The conversation/ argument was videotaped...as one girl's face turned red with anger, and another guy was like like "What the fuck is this?!?!" I actually defended the drawing pretty well. I don't know what happened to the footage, but I do know someone took the footage and edited it and used it for a class. I never saw the edited video of it...but I still have the drawing!

10. Other girly bands I like: Cat Power, Mazzy Star, Portishead, Esthero, Morcheeba, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, and of course...Bjork. (this list goes on...)

Ok thats it! I am free from the shackles of listing, tagging, and all that other good stuff!

Stay tuned for more non-sensical, inspirational, heartbreaking, intensely amotivational, purple signifiers of eternal rot and doom...

tagged, i'm it..

This should be easy, cuz Im a fucking freak!

1. I am wearing a dead guy's shirt...his name was Bill...an ex-employee to my cousin ...and i thinks its cool...
really cool...it has green flower patterns, its made out of polyester, it has a butterfly collar
and it smells kinda funny and I can't tell if its the shirt, or my own body odor.
sidenote: of course I had the shirt throughly cleaned before i wore it

2. I have a seriously irritating nervous habit. My facial hair provides hours of entertainment to my own idle fingers.
Hairs get plucked and pulled and eventually a bald spot will form in an area where i find the most elongated, insubbordinate hair growth. When it gets really obvious...time to shave!

3. Sinead O'Connor is awesome! ...and I don't care what you say, I worship her. In fact my taste in music is a fucked up combination of redneck mentality and an angry herd of bull-dyke lesbians. Rock on Patsy Cline!

4.When I lived in Texas, I was drunk at a co-workers party at a second floor apartment. I decided it would be really fun to pee off the balcony. The best part was the main witness to this crude and vile act...a jehovahs witness!
Hell Yeah! I am beaming with pride after I tell that story.

5. In the past ten days, I came in contact with four ex-girlfriends....two from Texas, the other two, very recent from NYC.
Four in a little over a week! That shit's scary!

6. I find clipping toenails to be an enjoyable activity. I will spend 30-45 minutes grooming those suckers. I wait at least a month or two before the next clipping so i have substantial lenth to cut.

7. I fucking hate spider man..Everybody likes that fucker...I think the incredible hulk could kick his sccrawney little ass!

8. One time when I was little, I "ran away" although I didn't run away at all... I hung out in the attic all day and spied on my family...I heard them talk about me, and the incident that caused my "getting the fuck out of here because you all suck!"
It was actually a pretty smart thing to do because I knew the perfect time to comeback home when my Mom said, "Im worried about him, I just want him to come home." The problem was I missed out on all the newly gained freedom you get when you really run away. I learned about that when I really ran away at 16. That shit was fun!

9. I find the smell of homeless people comforting...the stankier, the better... in the subway, its like being at a ranch and smelling horse shit. You are sure you're at the right place.

10. I sleep with my clothes on. If my pockets are stuffed with extra stuff I might empty them out, but this does not always happen.

took a jab

Yesterday I read my horoscope in the New York Press and it struck me
as an odd coincidence.

It read:

"Here's to your glamour and flair, Libra. Whatever you do, from the noble to the ignoble, you do with style. This is why you end up manifesting a world more superficial than substancial; the people around you are so dazzled by your methods that they don't notice the (lack of) content beneath. Although they may not care, I know you do. If you haven't exactly been living up to your own private standards, this week is a good time to remedy that. Most of those around you may not be any more or less impressed when your actions and intentions shift from selfish to altruistic, but I guarantee, it'll make a difference to you. And your shine? That can only get brighter as you feel better."

Ouch!
Lucky for me I think horoscopes are full of crap.
I think the person that wrote this might almost be as good a bullshitter as I am!
..and that last line, I'm not sure I get it.

Beside reading dumb ass horoscopes I also amuse myself by finding weird shit on the internet such as this.

Is "is" isn't?

So i was out of town last week, and instead of leaving Is "is" is? abandoned for seven days, I assigned the task of writing current posts to a dear friend of mine. He/she/it is a robot that goes by the title of {percival}. Well-read on the subjects of philosophy, dog-walking, city parks & recreation, and hover car parallel parking techniques, he/she/it's writing style is quite different than mine. I hope you enjoyed the brief stay of my guest as I will be incharge of posting as usual, once again.

I was hoping to give a thorough overview of things I did while I was visiting Texas, but my memory fades. So hereis an abbreviated list.

Things I did:

-The Chicken Dance (I said "Dad, I will go out there and do the chicken dance if you buy me another beer!")

-Played Disk-golf (not frisbee golf, you will be shunned by the disk community if you refer to the sport that way. Also, you can drink beer, smoke joints, and play disk golf at the same time.)

-Pondered nostalgia (what is it?)

Things I saw:(where)

-a really good band Called El Sexto Sol (the Mixx)

-a really bad band, the band was so bad I wouldn't bother to learn their name (Casbeers)

-drunken old people dancing (college night at NIOSA)

Places I went besides my hometown:

-Lavernia, Texas (used to be a black settlement with ties to the underground railroad)

-Bulverde, Texas (one of the things i like about Texas are towns with names like Bulverde)

-Austin, Texas (Round trip direct flights from JFK $200! Yeee haw!)

Ok, ok. Enough of that.
I kept the female constituency waiting long enough. I left off just when things were about to get freaky in here
much to the delight of my few women readers. It was cute how they got all giddy, so I would hate to let them down.

Well first I'm gonna start off a little slow with a picture of my hands.

I have been told I have sexy hands...hands that can write, type, and draw with a maladjusted precision.
Hands that are also good at massaging, touching, squeezing, rubbing, exploring, finding that right spot, then slowing down,
then wrapping themselves around a curving female form.

This is what they look like when I streeeeetccch.....uhhhhhah! That feels good!



Oh shit, you know what else? I'm adding a band to the List of Bands too fucking good to be on the Grammies a band I saw several months ago and I must've forgotten how badass they are the Transformers.










I got em scrolling, skimming then scrolling!








This is too much fun, really!














Ok here it is the most revealing pic ever on Is "is" is?!
Another body part of arnheim Lieber's that has been classified as sexy.





My shoulder. (the left one)

without title

People everywhere are touching keyboards all day long.
Blogs are a great excuse to touch keyboards.
Email is a pretty good excuse to touch keyboards.

Where are we?
you and I?

somewhere in this virtual existence
all of us
touching keyboards
together

alone...


Are we closer now?
Do you feel more connected to humans?

{percival}