NY-Z... An Absolut Jay-Z Mini Docu

Toynebee Tiles

This morning I spent over an hour reading about Toynbee Tiles, the strange street markings like the one above (all bearing a variation on the phrase TOYNBEE IDEA IN KUBRICKS 2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER) which are plastered all over Philadelphia. I always assumed there was a interesting story behind them — but little did I know it would be this strange.

From all accounts, the origin and meaning of the tiles is still a mystery, despite the fact that sightings go back twenty years. No one knows who is placing them — although there are some delightful theories — or how to interpret the strange message. Also, they’re all over the world, not just Philadelphia.

Most interpreters operate under the assumption that the Toynbee in the title is Arnold Toynbee, the famous meta-historian, and the reference to Kubrick comes from an episode of the colonization of Jupiter depicted in 2010: Odyssey Two (which was not directed by Kubrick). At this point, it should be clear that whoever is pasting these things onto the ground does not have a terribly firm idea of what he is talking about.

The identity of the artist is the most intriguing aspect of the mystery. First of all, it seems likely that there are two separate artists, since there are “old school” tiles and “new school” ones. The prime suspect is a man named James Morasco, who was featured in an 1983 Phildelphia Inquirer article which mentioned the colonization of Jupiter, Toynbee, and Stanley Kubrick. The article is miserably short, and no one knows much else about James Morasco. We do know, however, that whoever is pasting the tiles holds a grudge against Knight Ridder (who owned the Inquirer) — since he pasted a huge tile into the street at 16th and Chestnut detailing his feelings. (It’s no longer there; Chestnut was repaved not long ago).

Also, is there any reference to Arnold Toynbee, famous historian who once said, " The vast literature, the magnificent, opulence, the majestic sciences, the great realized should, the soul touching music, the awe inspiring gods. It is already becoming clearer that a chapter which has a western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in history the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way.... Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder."









Thanks to www.resurrectdead.com

Plastic Bag

Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani directs Werner Herzog as a talking plastic bag searching for its maker “through the environmentally barren remains of America” in the aptly-titled short film Plastic Bag.

Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world.

Shit Im Into Right Now 3.18.10

First and foremost,



New HotChip



Meek Millz, Young Chris, Freeway, Black Thought




If You havent yet, you should soon




Interview with Legendary NYC graff photographer John Naar

265 Gallons of Blood to be dumped at the door of Thai Government Headquarters

Protesters in Bangkok made a promise to Government Officials today to collect blood from tens of thousands and splash it onto the Thai Gov Headquarters as a sacrifce to demand new elections.

Around 100,00 "Red Shirts" said they would collect "1 million cubic centimeters" (which i think is about 265 gallons) of protester blood.

A protester leader said it would test their conscience.
The Red Cross said it was wasteful and unhygienic.
The Government said they are willing to listen.

I say I wish Americans were this thorough.

PingPIng Worlds Smallest Man Dies at 21

Pingping, who was 29 inches tall, was filming a television programme in Italy when he developed chest problems.
The Chinese-born man, who became a record-holder in March 2008, was taken to hospital in Rome for treatment but passed away on Saturday. It is understood he died of heart complications.
He was a tiny man with a giant heart.

We Will Miss You PingPing.

I've Lost My Head

While excavating in Weymouth, England for the 2012 Olympics workers discovered a mass grave with over 50 corpses.

They all were decapitated.

After testings oficials revealed the men's teeth proves they were Vikings and executed with sharp blows to the head around 1000 years ago.

"Many of the executed men suffered multiple wounds, inflicted by a sharp-bladed weapon, to the skull, jaw and upper spine, all thought to relate to the process of decapitation. Some men show evidence of other wounds, including a cut to the pelvis, blows to the chest and stomach, and defensive injuries to the hands" , the Dorset County Council said.

Sounds like a party.

Aliens and Bending Time

The Integratron is the creation of George Van Tassel, and is based on the design of Moses’ Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials. This one-of-a-kind building is a 38-foot high, 55-foot diameter, non-metallic structure originally designed by Van Tassel as a rejuvenation and time machine. Today, it is the only all-wood, acoustically perfect sound chamber in the U.S.

I visited this yesterday.

My friend is filming shorts for a Web Based lifestyle magazine. I offered to film for him because I love lunatics and could always use a soul cleansing. Here's a bit of history.




George van Tassel was a former aircraft mechanic and flight inspector who moved out to California's Mojave Desert to operate an airport and inn. During his time there, he supposedly began meditating under Giant Rock, which the Native Americans of the area held to be sacred. In August 1953, Van Tassel claimed that he had been contacted both telepathically and later in person by Venusians(Aliens), who gave him a technique to rejuvenate human cell tissues. Van Tassel, acting on these instructions, began constructing the Integratron in 1954. Construction costs were paid for by an annual series of successful UFO conventions, the Giant Rock Spacecraft Conventions, which continued for nearly 25 years. Van Tassel was clearly inspired by earlier 1950s contactee George Adamski. Construction of the Integratron was supposedly complete in 1959, but Van Tassel continued to make minor modifications until his sudden death in 1978.
The Integratron, despite being built without nails, survived a magnitude-7.3 earthquake in 1992.




Now they allow scientific studies of the structure and promote the unusual practice known as a "sound bath." During a sound bath, groups of people are exposed to harmonic sound frequencies produced by quartz bowls; this is said to have a deep calming effect.

This is what we would do.




I only slept for 2 1/2 hours the night before but as soon as the cleanse started I was out. I cant say anything strange happened, besides the sound was really intense and when i awoken, it was more of like a hypnotic wake up rather then a regular sleep.

Didnt see any aliens, talked to some freaks, climbed on a giant rock, seen some wild desert dogs. Overall, it was a very odd experience.

We Are Only Enemies My Friend

So I have a new small release coming out in the next couple months entitled, "We Are Only Enemies My Friend". Its being released by our good friends over at Calico Grounds. If you have not heard of them, they are a independent publishing company putting out really great stuff from a few young amazing writers. Fans of great literature, check them out.
"We Are Only Enemies My Friend", is a small collection of poetry, photography, and art that has accumulated during my time(mostly) here in Los Angeles. It will be a limited release, which I believe may only be 100. When I find out an exact release date I will let you know, as well as if CG makes pre-orders available. They will most likely be around 5 bucks.

Ray Cappo Interviewed By FIGHT Magazine

Taken from an article in FIGHT magazine, Ray Cappo lead singer of legendary hardcore band Youth Of Today talks Jiu Jitsu.. From his discovery in NYC, to 10th planet Hollywood, to now. Also talks Yoga and dieting. Great dude.

“I have a little platform where I can speak, just like in the band days,” Ray Cappo says. “The only difference is if no one likes you, they don’t whip bottles at your head.”

Cappo, longtime frontman for the influential hardcore punk bands Youth of Today and Shelter, is talking about his current profession, that of a yoga instructor. But the former straight edge evangelist and Krishna Consciousness devotee hones his heel hooks just as fervently as his sun salutations.

“For me, [jiu-jitsu] is therapy,” he says. “It’s just a mental release of all the anxiety in the mind.” While he earned his purple belt from Jean Jacques Machado in 2003, Cappo shed the gi and shifted his training to Eddie Bravo’s 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu in Los Angeles. Today, when not leading a class, a workshop, or exploring the bounds of human nutrition, the 44-year-old father and husband trains at Ronin Athletics near his New York City home. “I feel like I’m on a lifetime path with jiu-jitsu, and I’m still passionate about it,” he says.

Earning a black belt in some form of martial arts had been in Cappo’s bucket list for years, especially after he saw Royce Gracie’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu dominate the early UFCs. But back in 1996, the then-30-year-old Cappo thought himself too old to start that quest—until he heard motivational speaker Tony Robbins say otherwise. “He said, ‘Well it takes 10 years to get good at anything’…So I thought, What’s the difference if you’re 17 or 27? Or 21 to 31, or 40 to 50? It’s only 10 years.”

That same year, Cappo had a chance run-in with fellow New York hardcore veteran Harley Flanagan. “One day, I saw Harley wearing a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu T-shirt or something and I said, ‘Oh you know about jiu-jitsu?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah. I study with Renzo. You wanna come?’” Cappo got his first taste of the art on Gracie’s mats alongside two newly minted purple belts named Matt and Nick Serra.

But with Shelter and his other band, Better Than a Thousand, touring constantly, Cappo had to resign himself to training in bursts while on breaks from tour. “I was passionate about jiu-jitsu, but I traveled a lot. So I would train frantically when I was home and then I’d go away on tour for four months,” he says. To keep sharp on tour, Cappo would recruit roadies, band mates, and anyone else with a semblance of jiu-jitsu skill to roll on patches of grass whenever they had the chance.

After moving to the Los Angeles area in 1999, Cappo earned a blue belt under Renato Magno and then received his purple belt from Jean Jacques Machado in 2003. While at Machado’s academy, Cappo befriended Eddie Bravo, who also trained under Machado. When Bravo opened his own academy, Cappo—who, like Bravo, had grown tired of training in a gi—became a regular at his school.

It was an odd combination: one of the forefathers of straight edge hardcore training with a jiu-jitsu instructor who was unapologetically devoted to the joys of cannabis. Cappo’s abstinence from drugs and alcohol and his strict vegetarian diet made him the butt of playful jokes inside the academy. “I always felt secure in who I was, and I’m still very secure in that,” he says. “As far as Eddie goes, I felt like he had something pretty valuable, so I thought, I’m just a student and I’ll take what I want and don’t take the other stuff. And I think they respected me—if you put in so many mat hours, they have a type of respect for you as a cultured fighter.”

And once you get through Bravo’s veneer, Cappo says, it’s easy to realize he’s a wonderful instructor. “People think Eddie comes across as this party guy, and people say he’s arrogant, [but] he’s totally not. Everything he has, he gives away freely. The same with Jean-Jacques. They’re just not motivated by ego,” Cappo says.


As a seasoned yoga practitioner, Cappo possessed a degree of flexibility that was a natural fit for Bravo’s rubber guard system. By that point, Cappo had developed a peculiar open guard and a penchant for leg locks, bicep crushes, and a host of other relatively obscure submissions. Cappo trained six days a week, dipping his toes into the waters of MMA on the sixth day. “All week in jiu-jitsu I’d never get hurt, but that one day in MMA was just so brutal. I remember thinking, ‘Man, this is a short career life. How long can people do this to their body?’ But I will say it’s completely exhilarating and completely useful.” In 2003, he went so far as to take a training excursion to study Muay Thai in Thailand.




Today, after moving to upstate New York in 2008 and eventually returning to Manhattan in January of 2009, Cappo makes a living as a yoga instructor, teaching classes and leading workshops that focus on both the spiritual and physical aspects of the Vedic practice.

While performing yoga asanas and incorporating the practice’s deep breathing has far-reaching benefits, Cappo says it’s helped keep his body primed for grappling. “Even times where I haven’t trained for a long time where I was still practicing yoga, it just keeps you open, so it never hurts to come back. I mean, you have to refresh your moves and go through all that, but for the most part, yoga keeps you really open and protects you from injuries. And because you’re doing a lot of deep breathing, it keeps your endurance really powerful.”

Beyond his yoga practice, cleansing diets and juice fasts are key to Cappo’s lifestyle. “Cleansing is when you start putting really clean foods in the body, and the really clean foods, that’s the foundation of what you are. It’s like what your cells are made out of,” he says. “So if you’re healthy, you have to be healthy down to every bite you put into your mouth.”

The juice fasts have improved his stamina. In 2009, Cappo hiked the Grand Canyon with full backpacks while on a juice fast. At another point in the year, he went 21 consecutive days while drinking only fresh-squeezed juices. Eighteen days in, he says his body fat had nearly vanished and his endurance was at an all-time high. “You know how when jiu-jitsu class ends, and everybody’s completely wiped out, and there’s only two guys left on the mat? I remember being the last guy on the mat (on that eighteenth day), being like, ‘Anyone else wanna roll?’ My friend said, ‘Man, you’ve got a lot of energy today.’ And I said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I haven’t eaten in 18 days.” In 2010, he says he’d like to complete the New York City Marathon while in the midst of a juice fast.

This dietary regimen is, obviously, vastly different from the protein-heavy norm of combat sports nutrition. But Cappo defends it as a back-to-nature approach, where food comes from the earth, not laboratories. “I think Americans are hung up on this protein myth,” he says. “The fact is, before all these stupid protein powders were made—do you think we’re the only athletes in world history? Do you think we created fitness, that we’re on the cutting edge of fitness? We’re not.”

Cappo believes that the strict diet and the daily yoga are components to longevity and he hopes that his approach will help enable his body to continue the rigors of hard training into old age. And while the pursuit of a black belt has taken longer than the 10 years Tony Robbins ascribed, Cappo says age shouldn’t deter anyone. “I’m about to be 44. I encourage people just to start, just to do it,” Cappo says. “Because what’s the difference if you’re 44 or 54?”

WONDROUS, WONDROUS, My Brother!

This could be the best movie of 2010, hands down. A young, intelligent, but naive Arab kid, gets thrown into a French prison where he devises a plan to move up the rankings and become a mafia Kingpin. Jacques Audiard uses a flurry of no name actors and creates a brilliant classic that can be compared to if Millers Crossing and Midnight Express had baby and left it in the slums of Paris. Go see this.