“The Running Journal” (7.21.10)

For those unfamiliar, this is the informal weekly recap of all the things that stuck out to me the last week.  Here we go.

Why Change A Good Thing?

A lot of times, I believe that people have the tendency to try to fix something that wasn’t necessarily broken. I think it happened with the Detroit Pistons with trading Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson. I believe it’s happening right now with the advertisements for 3D-TV (because HD-TV is awesome, seriously). Then, of course, there’s the FreeCreditReport.com band search.

I personally like the first band. I don’t mean the first band in the competition, I mean the original band that I can quote songs from, because they made new commercials every few weeks. They were consistent, and consistently funny and clever, so it wasn’t a problem for me to sometimes want to quote them.

Remember that last line. I’m coming back to that.

I just think the first band deserves their spot, and every other band that I’ve seen so far looks lame. I don’t see why they can’t let the other band just do their thing. Sometimes, it’s better enough to just leave well alone.

The Beginning…

I don’t really know how to start this one, so I’ll just say it. Inception was one of the best movies I’ve seen in the last few years, and arguably, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time. That last statement is pending until I see it again and/or buy the DVD the day of release. It takes a lot to break into the “Epic Movie” category that I have set up, which includes “Coming to America” and “The Dark Knight” and a couple of other movies as well. If Christopher Nolan keeps delivering like this, it’s reasonable to see him becoming one of the “Legendary” movie producers of our generation.

His movies are so deep, thoughtful, and thought-provoking at times, to the point it just screams “Quotable!” without actually getting on Twitter and saying “Quote me.”

Remember that last line. I’m coming back to that, too.

I’m excited to see what’s next for Nolan. He’s going to win my money for the next two movies he releases based on his name alone.  Truthfully.

Archive of Ether…

Ok, another tape came out of Mel Gibson over the last week, bringing the total up to six damaging tapes against him. As BAD as the other tapes were (I only listened through two of them, admittedly), this one seems to be the worst. If you don’t know, there’s a custody battle for Mel Gibson and Oksana ‘s daughter, and on this sixth tape, it seems like Mel admits to hitting both her and his daughter, stating “No one will believe you, so f**k you.”

Oh boy.

I seriously didn’t think it could get any worse. This is the only thing that could knock Justin Bieber off the trending topics of Twitter for two weeks. This story’s beginning to spiral FURTHER south than most people thought possible. I don’t think there’s no coming back now for Mel, and it’s completely his fault.

Wow, man. Just…wow.

Quotables…

First and foremost, I’m a fan. I don’t care if you don’t believe me, but I can show you a twitpic of both album covers in my cd wallet in my car, because I thoroughly enjoy the man’s music. It would be unlike me however to hold my tongue on a topic because I was scared of what people might say, or even because of who that person is. So I’m not going to. I believe people should be held accountable for their actions. It’s only fair.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’d know I have this love/hate relationship with a lot of different hip-hop artists. Well, last night, one of these artists decided to initiate a barrage of his quotes after DJ Busy quoted an old NBA Live song with his lyrics in it (“Catch my I’m ballin, catch me like Spalding”). Of course, then my timeline filled with all these different people quoting songs from his first two CDs that he’s dropped.

This wouldn’t be an issue, but it’s the same quotes that were initiated about a week ago with the same results. And also, the week before that.

Ok, so here’s my thing about that. I’m not going to go the route of saying he’s urging his fans to quote him in order to make his head bigger, because I can’t back that up completely.Truthfully, I think quoting your favorite artist is dope…but I think it’s even doper if the artists act like they appreciated it. You have other artists that retweet comments and show love to a higher percentage of fans than this particular person, and because of the fact they actually seem to appreciate it, the fans show more love. It’s like a cycle.

I feel that if you want to be a leader of a movement, or a trendsetter, or whatever other superlative, you have to learn to give respect when it’s due. You also have to learn to be consistent with whatever service it is you give to the entertainment industry, whether it’s movies, credit commercials, or music-filled albums of the same caliber as your previous work, and not a rock alternative with one good song on it.

I’m just tired of people stringing other people along. You can’t hold a fan responsible for not being loyal if you’re not loyal with the release of your music, whether it’s free or not. The album might be out of your hands, but how many times have we seen other artists make a couple of songs just to keep their fans anxious for more? If Lupe can make a mixtape in a day, then I know this is a possibility. Just something to prove that he actually does care about his fans.

Then maybe more fans would get on board with pressuring his record company…

That’s just my opinion on it.

That’s it for this week.

K1ng Eljay