Gordon Gartrelle - A BLOG

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Art: Subodh Gupta

Our senior year my good guinea friend Dante was taking sculpture (I think) at Wes. For one of his projects he took real talk street items - trash cans, shopping carts, and a street bench - and made them look regal by painting, upholstering, and designing them. I loved the idea of taking this hood ass shit and making it fly, and not even hood-fly but just straight fly. A dude who's been doing similar stuff in India - albeit rather than street stuff it's day-to-day icons of average middle-class life in India - for some time now is Subodh Gupta. He's been called the Damien Hirst of India. Funny, in India they don't call Damien Hirst the Subodh Gupta of America. They call him "Bunty". (Nah, just playin - they call him Damien Hirst.) "His works were showcased at the prestigious 2005 Venice Biennale, an honour few Indians can boast of, the Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective trio of Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta being the exception. One of his paintings, Idol Thief, was sold for over US$ 185,000 at a Christie’s auction in Hong Kong in 2006. Another of his sculptures, Cheap Rice, carried a price tag of US $ 350,000 at an exhibition in Miami. His critically acclaimed Very Hungry God, a giant skull sculpted with stainless steel utensils, was bought by French billionaire Francois Pinault and is currently exhibited on a platform over the Grand Canal at the entrance of the Palazzo Grassi museum in Venice. Clearly, Subodh Gupta has hit big time." - Telegraph, India. He may be the first Indian artist to rise through the ranks of the art world via Western appreciation rather than having the Indian art world appreciate him and leveraging that into global appreciation. In fact, as a struggling artist Indians weren't buying his work and now he sells pieces for heck of guap.

Doot, 2003, Cast aluminum Ambassador car, toy cars and mirrors

Very Hungry God

U.F.O., 2003

Basket of Golden Cow Dung Cakes, 2003, Cast aluminum and bronze **

** Credit to Sara'o for sending me this piece on "Chalo! India: A New Era of Indian Art" at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Not only does it feature the work of Subodh Gupta, but also Atul Dodiya who I posted about on my first entry here. Peep the Atul Dodiya piece they highlight:

Also while I'm rambling about India, if any of you watch Indian movies (Sara'o?) try to peep Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! by Dibakar Banerjee. Ees good!

Coming soon: the works of Jitish Kallat, Bhupen Khakhar, Tyeb Mehta, Ravinder Reddy, Jamini Roy, and Rameshwar Broota.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Music: Old Money

Busy day at the office! Markets! Hiring! Stocks! Bonds! Offices! Orifices!

Why come everytime someone writes about Wesleyan bands they never let these doods shine. Andre, 1/3 of Old Money, used to spit around Wesleyan and his Wesleyan-specific version of Girls Girls Girls was one of the better things I'd heard in terms of rap at that school. They're good.

- Peep them on Myspace here.
- Download their Scareapeutic EP here via ZShare.
- Visit their blog here.

Fashion: Trovata

One of my favorite clothing brands, Trovata, is on sale at Gilt Groupe right now. A lot of the items have sold out but they still have some steals if you're looking for drastically reduced prices on very well tailored clothing... I would hope you are. And when I say "drastically" that's not an exaggeration. Take this coat I bought at full price months back. Right now it's Sold Out at a cool 4 FUCKING hundred dollars cheaper than what I paid. FUCK:

There's still some good stuff if you're a member and act quickly:

http://www.gilt.com/s/trovatamen

Also a great sale at OAK though I would hold out and see if shit goes even cheapah!

http://www.oaknyc.com/men/sale/

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Swizz Beatz <3 Jean-Michel Basquiat // Swizz Beatz f/ Lil Wayne - Up In The Club

Swizzy man! Swizz Beats, aka KASSEEM DEAN?, is my favorite rapper. He's also my favorite producer. He's also my favorite rapper/producer. He's also one of the best dressed rappers. He's held that coveted best rapper position since dropping "That Oprah," my 26th favorite song of 2008, back towards the end of this past summer - MICHAEL JORDAN, TIGER WOODS, I'M TRYNA GET THAT OPRAH... Though even last year dude was flying high on my radar with that "Money in the Bank" joint. Not to be confused with Lil Scrappy, I'm talking about the joint with a high pitched woman's voice going "SHE AINT GOT NO MONEY IN THE BANK!" On that same joint, I loved when dude spit: "She sitting at the bar and she's lookin' so sad, something 'bout, uh-uh I wanna ride in your jag, uh uh uh, I wanna ride to your house, I said 'easy chick, I fly to my house.'"An avid collector of art, Swizzy's ranted on how "that Benz is gonna lose the value. That Basquiat or Andy Warhol is gonna appreciate. You lose $30,000 when you driving out the parking lot. With art, you appreciating $30,000-plus just by hanging it up on your wall." That said, in addition to the Basquiats, Warhols, and Harings dude owns he whips a Lambo Murciealago, Maybach, and Benz SLR McLaren. Peep the art swag on MTV:

The personal highlight of That Oprah, for me, was when Swizzy spits "My new Basquiat, Hov know what that cost!" It conjures up images of Hov and Swizzy drinking champagne and discussing 80's NY neo-expressionism.

Swizz Beatz - Hov, I'm only telling you since I bid anonymously but I just copped "Irony of the Negro Policeman" from Sothebys.
Jay-Z - That's my favorite Basquiat. I feel that it's brilliance lies in the way it depicts one of the ways in which authority co-opts those who symbolize the objects of its abuse.
Swizz Beatz- Yeah. Don't tell anyone but it ran me a cool--
Jay-Z - Dude, I know what that cost.

I love the prominence Basquiat's come into in recent rap lines. Here's a guy who used to tag around NY, appeared as a DJ in the video for Blondie's "Rapture," apparently as a replacement for Grandmaster Flash, and played in a noise band (Gray) with Vincent Gallo, previously appreciated by an art world void of a lot of minority buyers now getting his posthumous shine on with millionaires of color. I guess that's what I was digging when I changed my Facebook quotes to Jay, Swizz, and Freeway spitting about dude. Freeway's "Paintings on the wall, Basquiat is her favorite, black Maybach, way triller than a spaceship." Indeed! or Jay's "I got Warhols on my hall's walls, I got Basquiats in the lobby of my spot."

Sidebar: Peep this interview with a strung out Basquiat and some squeezer art history professor who's heck of out of touch. If you ever have the opportunity to watch the whole thing, definitely do. This thing's like my favorite interview ever. Basquiat's high as fuck on dope and this art professor keeps on referring to his work as "primitive" and "infantile" on some Art-History-professors-always-call-minority-art-"primitive"-and-"infantile"-tip. Eventually Basquiat just starts stuffing his face with food and mumbling incoherently about his work...

Back to Swizzy though...

A couple of weeks back Jada and Lil Wayne, who along with Jackie Chain, Swizzy and Jay were probably my favorite rappers of 2008, dropped a jawn together. I joked about how my dream collabo in 2009 would be Lil Wayne, Jada, and Swizzy. Looks like I'm one step closer as Steve just posted a new Swizzy and Weezy collabo that's hitting the interwebzies hard. This is great. O

THIS IS GREAT.

Peep it Up in the Club via Zshare.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Google Image Search: Taj Mahal Tourism

I love Google image search. It's one of my favorite things to do, easily. It started with an appreciation of typing in Indian names like Anand and Vijay and laughing at Indians from India because they have no style and my parents left that country. Although later I grew to appreciate Indian style as anyone that could "pull off" neon colors and booger green earth tones is alright with me. Then there was the nudes phase which was more of a theoretical google search joke than a real one. Here's a fake conversation that could easily be a real conversation explaining:

Hima: Yo what are you doing?
Dap: Google Image Search, Cool Kids Nudes
Hima: Ah, I was searching for Jim Cramer CNBC nudes.
Dap: nice!

This most recent Google Image Search Quest is one of my favorites of all time. Bran helped out.

Here's a bunch of people at the Taj Mahal:

HELL YES:

Freida Pinto on Jay Leno

You may remember Freida Pinto from Girls I Want My Parents To Arrange My Marriage With or that joint Slumdog Millionaire, the movie I'm making a porno called CUMDOG MILLIONAIRE based on. Here she is on Leno. Now, in all honesty, I haven't seen it. I can't exactly watch or listen to this as I'm at work where I have no speakers. I'm going to try to peep it tonight and update this post with a count of how many different things Robin Williams and/or Jay Leno did and/or said that offend me and/or prompted me to yell

at my computer screen. Let me just preface my preemptive race-bating with the fact that I've always hated them - especially stupid Robin Williams. Sure, maybe none of them did or said anything racist and I'm a crazy. Although......... I'm probably right. It may not be overt. Just sayin'.

"I L H"

UPDATE: Ugh... Robin Williams, you suck. And Jay Leno, you're just not too smart but I don't hold it against you.

Wikipedia That....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_tossing

New Years Resolutions: Cuz I'll Only Give a Shit When There's (1 or) 2 New Numbers at the End of The Date, Assuming I Conform to the MM/DD/YY Format

Game plan for 2009 1st Quarter with plans of increased acceleration for Quarter 2:
Operation MIND BODY SOUL - YES I CAN.

1 - Increase devotion of Lord Shiva and read a lot of cool Shiva devotional poetry.

2 - Write more fiction. Write more poetry. Make sure both the fiction and poetry are good or decent at best. Preferably good.

3 - Go to the gym a minimum of 3 times a week, preferably 5 including a new regiment of swimming laps at the NY Sports Club of Hicksville with old Italian people. Befriend more old Italian people.

4 - Drink only once during M-F, preferably on Wednesday and not too late.

5 - Limit consumption of "trash food" to one cheeseburger a week, two slices of pizza a week - preferably one though I acknowledge I'm a big fan and must keep my expectations realistic. Also if I succeed in befriending the old Italian people naturally I imagine I'll end up eating pizza with them. Increase consumption of "health food" to a minimum of three salads a week, egg whites and whole wheat bread in the morning, and proteins. More tapas, less butter chicken.

6 - Read a minimum of two books a month - expand my horizons beyond authors of South Asia and South Asian descent with the caveat of expanding solely to authors of other Third World countries and descendants of other Third World countries.

7 - No beer or sodas - maybe a can of that San Pellegrino shit occasionally or that POM Lychee Pom Tea I dig and have convinced myself is healthy though it seems suspiciously sweet. Vodka/Sodas with a splash of Sprite if I deem such luxury appropriate.

8 - Drink alcohol like a human being, not an Eastern European.

9 - Weed edge 4 Life -- Vibe on whatever, homie. Let my mind wander.

10 - Buy art supplies and use the basement as a studio. Steal art books from Terence or whoever I know that may have them. Probably Terence. Steal art supplies from someone if possible. Start with the Amar Chitra Katha comic books / post card project and take it from there.

11 - Prepare to move out of Strong Island.

12 - Catalog Bollywood samples for new music project. Purchase a sampler in April upon moving. Use that sampler after buying it. Vibe.

13 - Make money money.

14 - Save money money.

15 - Learn Portuguese, though prolly not.

Craigslisting: $325 East Village

I Craigslist. Everyone does it. All the cool kids at least. Sometimes I respond to Missed Connections that have nothing to do with me for the heck of it. Sometimes I post rants on that one race of humans I passionately hate - YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Sometimes I just read rants and send links of the really funny, in a really terrible kind of way, racial rants to my friends who are really funny in a terrible-person kind of way - YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Sometimes I look at apartments months ahead of when I actually want to move out, send funny letters about who I am to people, and then don't show up when I say I will. I'll try to share more of my Craigslist exploits here. Like, sometimes I come across posts like this:

$325 EAST VILLAGE- Controlled and large 3 bed (East Village) (map)

Reply to: hous-976182933@craigslist.org [?] Date: 2009-01-01, 4:39AM EST

-Wow…I can’t believe I am doing this..But I am looking for someone to rent my rent controlled apartment. The monthly rent is extremely cheap and would be a dream for many people in this city. It is in the east village close to A and 3rd. I caught my wife in bed with our neighbor who is almost 20 years younger than her. She is refusing to move out and still seeing him when I am at work, on my bed…I need someone to move in and help me get her out. Man or woman. My plan is to act like we are a couple until she can’t take it anymore. I have done everything possible to try and get her out..But she is a scumbag….So we need to create some type of plan that would get her out..i would charge you very cheap and all you would have to do is act like we are dating. We might have to kiss if front her and make fake sounds when we are in the bedroom. Please respond with a detailed description of your plan to get her out and a little about your self. You could live there after she is out and unless we fall in love we don’t have to do anything else.

a at 3 google map yahoo map

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interestsPostingID: 976182933

Spoiler Alert + Breaking News

via Wooster Collective, of course.

via Gawker

Sunday, January 4, 2009

In Case You Haven't Seen This Yet...

Glory At Sea by Bard Alum Benh Zeitlen... Fucking. Beautiful.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Easily The Best Thing I Discovered in 2009 So Far Though It's Hella Much Older: Der Kommissar by Falco

From Wiki: Originally written by producer Robert Ponger for Reinhold Bilgeri, Bilgeri turned it down as he felt the song was too soft, so Falco reworked the song for himself instead. Falco wanted to release "Helden von heute" as the main side, but the record company wanted "Der Kommissar" ("the commissioner," or police captain) to be released, because they felt it had more potential. The record company decided upon a double A-side release and were redeemed when "Der Kommissar" reached number one in German-speaking countries in January 1982. After this big success, Falco's management decided to release "Der Kommissar" (as an A-side) in other countries as well.

In the US and UK, Falco's hit didn't fare as well, despite topping charts throughout Europe and Scandinavia during spring and summer 1982. In the summer of 1982 the British rock band After The Fire recorded an English version of the song, also called "Der Kommissar", and released it as a single, but the record floundered. Coming off a tour opening for Van Halen, After The Fire was working on material for a new album when in December 1982 the group announced onstage during a concert that they were breaking up. Both the After The Fire and Falco versions were rising the Canadian charts at the time, but neither had cracked the U.S. pop charts.

Around that time, American pop singer Laura Branigan began working on her second album, and recorded a new song written over the melody and arrangement of "Der Kommissar", called "Deep In The Dark", which was prepared for release, when the After The Fire version finally hit the U.S. charts on February 22, 1983, and started rising. Though the UK band's version barely nicked their home country's Top 50, in 1983 the song ultimately rose all the way to #5 in the U.S., where their music video was an MTV hit.

Amidst all this renewed attention to the composition, Falco's own version, which had done well in some U.S. markets but not charted nationally, was re-released, but the German-language record remained essentially a novelty hit there, charting concurrently with the After The Fire version but not rising above #78. (In Canada, Falco's version had peaked at #11 the same late-January week After The Fire's version peaked at #12.) After The Fire's record company, CBS, pleaded with the band to regroup, but to no avail. While UK promos for "Deep In The Dark" were pressed (the After The Fire version missed the UK top 40 and the Falco version didn't even chart there), Branigan's record company, Atlantic, officially released "Solitaire" in the U.S., where that song went to #7. (via Wiki)

Friday, January 2, 2009

Easily the Best Thing I Discovered in 2008

This is probably the third time I’m putting this up on Gordon but I absolutely love this video. Next to one-hitters that resemble cigarettes and make smoking dope in the streets much easier, this is definitely the best thing I discovered in 2008. Everything about it. Part of me wants to find the song being played and download it for personal listening but part of me thinks that would ruin the fun. I feel like the clear object of my affection should be the scantily-clad jawnie rocking a grass skirt and a beautiful stomach - but it’s not. Neither is it the girl on the left who seems unnecessary to me. Girl on the right though, oh man. Those moves at 15 seconds, the pause at 17 seconds, and whatever the fuck that is at 30-35 seconds - can’t top it. I bet you’re clearly the funny one in your group of friends. Yeah, girl in red might get more guys but they don’t really love her - trust me. And girl in white might be a good listener to you and girl in red but she wishes she were you lot. She’s a follower. You though; you’re the spontaneous one. If we ever meet, I’d love to take you out and buy you an American cheeseburger. Brazil should be proud to have such an attractive woman dancing in a random YouTube video that got over 450,000 views and probably had to have the comments section disabled because of all the perverted things people were typing into their computers….

Apliiq Launch Party - Today

This guan be dope, so come:

A Way of Life: Weed Edge

Maybe last summer, my dude Chris had been talking about this weed edge lifestyle a lot. I didn't pay no mind to it. I was all like, whatever man - I GETS BUSY, AINT NO NAME TO HOW I LIVES THIS. Okay. Flash forward to LAST NIGHT. Chris tells me I can e-mail any inquiry I have about weed edge to weed.edge@gmail.com. So I does that. And here's how it went:

On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 10:33 PM, Kumar Suri, Himanshu wrote: What is weed edge?

----- Original Message -----
From: WEED EDGE <weed.edge@gmail.com>
To: Kumar Suri, Himanshu
Sent: Tue Dec 30 22:58:24 2008
Subject: Re: Weed edge inquiry

weed edge is life, dog.
vibe on whatever, homie.
let your mind wander.

WE4L
weededge4life

spread the good herb

Now a solid 15% of me still thinks Chris is weed.edge@gmail.com because, like, how would weed.edge know that i was a Homie when he says, VIBE ON WHATEVER HOMIE... ? Think about that. And the only other mention of weed edge I can find on the interwebzies is an interview with Chris:

CB: Weed Edge. What’s that all about?
CC: It’s like straight edge, but with weed. Back in the summer of 2002, I realized that the only way I was going to have a real impact on my hometown of Newton, Mass. was to start a vigilant gang of weed enthusiasts that were willing to throw down against the New Wave dumb asses who were infecting the weed-based hardcore and doom metal scenes in my town and neighboring Boston venues. By 2004 we made Newton the outpost for pro-weed terror in venues like Cambridge’s Middle East and TT The Bears. So now it’s pretty well known that you either smoke weed there or you get fucking sliced.

Whatever the deal is, Chris mentioned as long as weed is number one on your list of shit you do to have a good time you could be weed edge. You don't have to only burn. You can drink and burn and do everything as long as it's tree you come home to at the end of the night. I'll subscribe to that pamphlet. For sure.

And don't forget kiddos, VIBE ON WHATEVER, HOMIE

To 2000 Grime

Happy New Years.
Thank you for reading my Web Log.

To a swate 2009!

Peep this here chune that's been stuck in me noggin the last couple days:

Big Bills is a collabo jawn by Flosstradomus featuring the homie Caroline from Chairlift, or as I call them C-Lift. This marks the first original production release by Chicago's dopest DJ duo Flosstradamus. Incidentally, when Jeremy and I first moved to NY from college we started a DJ duo called ALPHA BLACK LOTUS - you know, named after the most powerful Magic the Gathering card. Best name ever, I know. Our PR (Public Relations, not Puerto Rican) move was going to be talking trash about Flosstradamus and starting a feud. Then I started rapping with Victor more than DJing and instead opted to channel my hatred towards that freak rap duo of 20-something Carlton-types who rhyme about BMXs and sneakers. Anyway, head here to download BIG BILLS from Green Label Sound.

Sad. In the eyes of my coworkers, who think I went to Wellesley, the only redeeming thing about said school was that there were 2 NFL coaches amongst the alumni. And now we're down to one. A Gordon Gartrelle PEACEOUT DOG to 90s alumnus Eric Mangini, who had a great run coaching the NY Jets if you ask me. I blame Brett Favre. Here's me and the main man discussing Taliban Chic at a party:

But that was the old me. Peep the new new for 2000grime. A lot of people ask me, why the mustache H-Man? Well, because I must stash these balls in your mouth:

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