Julien Smith: I think I would have figured it out by now but the fact that the sun comes up and it — what it does, it just goes right up into my window at around 7:00 in the morning, which is not when I like to get up because I’m a slacker. So, what I end up doing is sort of the sun comes in and it fuckin’ boils me because I have fuckin’ like blue sheets and like a red fuckin’ cover or whatever the fuck. So, it’s complicated, okay? Anyway, so it boils the shit out of me at approximately 7:00 a.m. and what ends up happening is I’m crawling slowly towards the other side of the bed trying to avoid this, but it doesn’t work because the other side of the bed is filled with let’s see, uh, clothes, books, CDs, and other paraphernalia that I have not yet been able to get rid of. I know this makes me a slob. It makes me a slacker. What other things can I come up with? There is a lot of them but that’s not with this show is about. This show is about gold and this show is about I don’t know even what this show is about, but for some reason people like it. Good for you guys. In Over Your Head #133. My name is Julien Smith. Let’s get it on.
I just came back from Banff. I’m a little behind the schedule here. We’re gonna try and rock this. We got some shit to do. Man, I’m got a packed fuckin’ day, man. Everybody wants some of my time today because I’m so fucking popular, so let’s just get this started.
[Genelec & Memphis Reigns – Scorpion Circles plays]
Genelec & Memphis Reigns, In Over Your Head #133. What’s up? Track is called Scorpion Circles. There is this big thing. When I started listening to hip-hop very heavily, it was because I started listening to what I guess could be deemed — no, no, no, it can be called spiritual hip-hop really, but it could be definitely categorized under deeply kind of like esoteric lyrics as much as possible and stuff that really kind of like I listen to it and I was like, “What the fuck?” I didn’t even know it existed. You know what I mean? It really blew my mind when I started listening to it. So, I got into things like Jedi Mind Tricks and I mean you have to understand that I got into things like this and I got into things like — just the music that sort of you listen to it and you wouldn’t necessarily need a dictionary but you would definitely sort of like — a certain amount of education is necessary like you listen to anything that has Five Percent references and if you don’t know what I’m saying by that maybe I should explain it.
Anyway, you listen to anything that has Five Percent references or anything that has any references to kind of like obscure religious practices then it becomes fascinating to listen to. I guess there’s sort of like — half of me is sort of an anthropologist and always has been so this is kind of like a way, a glimpse into a whole other world when you listen to things like this, you know? It blows my mind and good production helps a lot, too. What I meant by Five Percent is that everyone knows what the Nation of Islam is. Well, not Islam the religion, we are talking about the Nation of Islam and if you don’t know what that is then you should definitely look it up in Wikipedia. The Five Percent is kind of like a break-off from that and so a lot of very popular hip-hop artists are into the Five Percent like the Wu-Tang Clan. A lot of the Wu-Tang Clan is into the Five Percent and you’ll notice Five Percent references in a lot of hip-hop like when you hear the word God, like when you hear one person referring to another person as God, that comes from the Five Percent, The Nation of Gods and Earths. So, that is just one of many references that you’ll see all over the place, but the thing is, is that eventually it all ends up being an act. It is kind of what I end up discovering because — I mean these people maybe religious, sure, in their own way, but at the end they are still entertainers and they are still hip-hop artists, right? So I’m still looking for that perfect like rapper or whatever that I listen to and I’m like — this is so fuckin’ crazy. The closest I’ve come and I don’t know if anybody who listens to this will disagree with me and if you do just tell me. The closest that I’ve come is Killah Priest and I played a couple of his tracks, but some of his tracks, some of the best tracks are off limits for me because they’re — his first album is from a R.A.A. label and I’m not touching that. If you disagree with me, you can give me a call. It’s 206-338-5505. Oh yeah, Chris Brogan left me a voice mail. I didn’t play that.
Chris Brogan: Yo, yo, yo, Julien Smith. This is Chris Brogan entering the comment line response. Man, I’m so happy you got a comment line. I’m just responding to the fact that you said yo at the very beginning of your voicemail message. Isn’t that hilarious? Like you’ve been listening to your cell phone voicemail announcement, I thought, “Man, you never put anything totally weird in there. No one ever just kinda goes, uh, you know, “What? What’s that honey?” Click and then a beep. I don’t know. Why do we do what we do? In Over Your Head is the very best audio podcast out there for people who want to expand their mind and not just expand the straight and narrow. You kick ass in ways that Chuck Norris wishes he will. All right, man. I’m so excited that you got this cool comment line, 206-338-5505, In Over Your Head. Chris Brogan. Talk to you later.
Julien Smith: Chris Brogan started PodCamp, which we are doing one in Toronto in February of 2007. I think there’s a link on my web blog, at which point — it’s like this free conference where you guys can come, anybody can come and show up and present and sort of like share their experiences about podcasting or whatever. So, come on down to this fuckin’ thing. We are just gonna rule and it’s free. Goddammit! If there’s anything better than a free meal, it’s a free conference.
I got this camera delivered to me. It is my first digital camera. Here, this is the box. You can see the shaking? There we go. Those are the accessories. I think I was supposed to get a 16 meg memory card in here, but I didn’t. It doesn’t matter because I’m going to buy a new one anyway and this is gonna go in the trash, the 16 one that I would have, which I don’t. I’ve been taking pictures like crazy. So, Flickr account is getting quickly packed up and it’s just like it’s this whole sort of world of digital experience for me. I’ve never been a person that takes pictures so it’s kind of like fascinating and I’m getting obsessive and my roommates are getting annoyed with me, but I don’t care. Yeah, so anyway the whole thing is like fuckin’ great for me. I love it.
There’s one thing, I mean you pay for a camera, pardon me. You get a camera and, I mean, you pay a certain amount for it. You buy it off eBay or something like that. eBay is kinda like the pawnshop for the internet. It’s really weird because all around these three corners of every city including mine, there are these pawnshops in fact. You could walk in to any single one of them and you could probably get a good fuckin’ deal on it. In fact, I know this guy, my friend Jason who is incredible at like bargaining, right. All of my bargaining — and I’ve talked about bargaining on previous episodes, but how to fuckin’ like totally get the best deal as much as possible. I should actually get him on the show to do that, but yeah anyway the point is you could fuckin’ walk in there and like hustle those motherfuckers like crazy. It would work, you know what I mean? You’d fuckin’ walk out with a decent camera for like a hundred bucks or something. It wouldn’t have a warranty, 150 bucks, you know. This one I ended up paying 250 U.S. I want to thank C.C. Chapman who is a podcaster and just founded his own company, managing — sorry, wrong company, Crayon, for sending me this camera because in Canada we can’t get anything shipped to us motherfuckers, but now I am happy because I fuckin’ finally have it. So, thank you.
The thing is these fuckin’ pawnshops. I don’t know about you. It’s like the accessibility is so there and yet it’s like I cannot even fuckin’ walk into one. Sex shops, I can walk into sex shops. Does this make me a prude? Am I revealing myself as a prude? In a sex shop, I can walk into those but generally I’m just like — it’s not like I don’t have access to sex on the internet. I subscribe to all these fuckin’ like I don’t know Suicide Girl podcast and like all these other fucking things that are not like prudish thing. There are all these fuckin’ like cracked out piercing and tattooing and body modification blogs that have all the sex all over the place. So, it’s not like I pretend that it doesn’t exist. It’s just like sex shop is one example of it, but it is the pawnshop that really fuckin’ does it for me. It’s about the fact that every time I even look into one, it feels like every object is like coated in sin. It’s coated in some kind of like liquid disgusting filth that you can never clean off. You know what I mean? It’s like if you — I don’t know. If you raped your camera and you brought it to the pawnshop that is the same equivalent of what it would feel like. It would feel that disgusting. You would have to be in the shower for three hours. Crying and whimpering in the corner of the shower like with makeup running, this is what the camera would feel like if it was at the pawnshop because it’s so fuckin’ disgusting.
Guys, you got to listen to this album by Qwel, I think. I’ll look it up. My iTunes is here. It’s got an amazing, amazing, amazing title. The title is If It Ain’t Been in a Pawn Shop, Then It Can’t Play the Blues. Is that by Qwel? Yeah, it’s by Qwel, there we go. I used to play that. I played that a long time ago. I could play a couple of tracks like that now. Yeah, I could do that.
[Qwel – If It Ain’t Been in a Pawn Shop, Then It Can’t Play the Blues plays]
If It Ain’t Been in a Pawn Shop, Then It Can’t Play the Blues by Qwell. I haven’t played that in a very long time but it is a track I previously played because I got this fuckin’ like whole library of shit I never played. I was sitting with this girl — no, that’s not true. I was sitting on my computer by myself talking with this girl on the web and we ended up sending each other a bunch of tracks. She is this friend of mine from Texas. Her name is Madeline. So, was discovering all of these tracks that — I have to categorize my library like crazy. It’s a measure of survival by this point. It’s something that is necessary for me to live because I have so many tracks in my iTunes library that if I don’t I’ll never be able to find anything and as such I’ll never be able to play a fucking podcast with any music so constantly I’ll be looking for it. I happen to be very forgetful at the same time so that also happens to work out. That means that I’m rating tracks over and over and over again looking for stuff, new things, all the time. What ends up happening is that I lose track of all these old things that I played, loved, and then just sort of like left them, you know? So, I spend like kind of a whole evening just going through music. What is this track? I seemed to remember liking this and it was rated four stars. So, obviously I did. It is just like discovering one, two three, five, 10 amazing songs. I was like, “God, this is amazing music.” There is great stuff out there. I always would incite you to go ahead and send me music of any kind. It doesn’t matter if it’s hip-hop or not. I love music. I love listening to music. Send me an email inoveryourhead@gmail.com. It’s a great email address to send it to me to. You can check me out at inoveryourhead.net, which is where I do my shit from.
I was offered a job today and I’m thinking about taking it. It’s really weird because I don’t really need one, you know, like I’ve gotten to that point now where I’m like — I’m not like fuckin’ by any means wealthy. I’m not even kind of really well off, but I do enough so that I can live and like all this shit and the podcast helps with that. This thing that I was offered to do is to work with a group called Homeless Nation. I’ve blogged about them before, so if you read my blog — if you don’t, I would encourage you to please read my blog because I’ve got some good shit on there. It’s a Canadian non-profit that podcasts for the homeless. They essentially just put them in front of the camera or in front of a microphone, record their songs that they sing or that they make up for themselves, and record their stories. So, this is one aspect of what they do. I’m very proud of this by the way and I would encourage anybody to build up their brand like their personal brand enough so that anyone can do this. It is to get to a point where you never need to give anyone a CV ever, you know. You just go, “This is my blog, this is my podcast. I’m obviously qualified, look at this.” This is exactly what happens to me.
In fact, it’s tremendous. I love it to death because I’ve always hated that fucking little ritualistic dance. It’s like we’re fuckin’ dancing around each other and there’s this sort of power versus supplicant goddamn relationship whenever you go into a goddamn job interview where you walk in there. You are not literally on your knees, but you are sort of like, “Yes, master. I will do that,” when in fact you should be like, “Fuck you!” You know what I’m saying? It’s like, “God, oh, it’s so frustrating.” You know what I mean? People talk about the masses being brought down by fucking Big Brother or by corporations. No, they fucking sit down on their own, you know what I’m saying, because that is the only way that they think that they know that they have as an option to live. It’s all they’ve got, you know what I’m saying? Every single person believes that. I believe it. You know what I’m saying? I would go in there.
At one time, I walked into a job interview. This was like my moment of triumph. I have big stretched ears at the time. Now, it’s more common, but I walked into the job interview at the time like let’s say seven or eight years ago because I’m old guys. I’m not 17, okay, all right? I walked into this job interview and it was for like, whatever, a tech job because that’s what I did. The guy at the end of the interview was like, “Yeah, you’re very qualified, but you’ve got these big holes in your ears,” and so on. He was like, “You’re gonna have to take those out.” This is the moment. I sat there. I knew that I would have to deal with this at some point. I knew that I would have to deal with it. In a way, I had decided for myself and I would encourage you guys to do this in your own way. It doesn’t have to be with any visible body modification or anything, that’s how I happen to do it, but anybody should be able to do this. When I got my lobes, when I got them enlarged, I kind of decided to myself I do not want job from anyone that this upsets because I have no intention of getting into that structure. I wanna get out of that structure. So, the guy was like, “You know I would really like you to remove these stretched lobes.” It has happened at a couple of jobs, but this one I was right at the interview and I was like, “I fucking needed money,” but I told him no. I told him, “No, I will not do it.” Yeah, so that’s it. I ended up getting the job anyway, worked it for seven months, quit like I always do, but did great while I was there and then that’s it. I just moved on, you know what I mean? You have to use the man. You have to work the man because the man works you. The man works you to the fuckin’ bones, so you better work the man as much as you possibly fuckin’ can. This is In Over Your Head. Oh, shit! I’m missing the bus. I got to go man. Bye.
[Juggaknots – Clear Blue Skies]
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