So, I decided to return to blogging, because, lets face it, you missed me.

And my life has gotten even more awesome.

And there are still so many stories that haven't been told.

And I am still a little lost, and a little confused, and pretty glamorous.

Speaking of glamorous - if there is one local musician from Dallas that you should know it is Chanise Condren.

I tried to get her to use the title of this post for her first blog post, but she says she doesn't deserve it.

When I told her I would use it for my return to the blogosphere her reply was:

"Go on right ahead.
Use it.
Love it.
Take advantage of it.
Whatever you want."

Which is really a metaphor for where I am in life right now, or something like that.

She also listens to great music like this:



In other news, met with the ladies behind the Dallas arts collective, Studio 109.

Amongst other things we talked about how important story is in art.

If you are not a 20 something, and you have no art degrees, how do you break into the fine-art world?

Or perhaps more importantly what is the purpose of the fine-art world?

Can one look at the gallery, museum, art school super complex as merely exisiting to convey "story" to different artists?

When I was making visual art for real, I would get gallery owners excited about my work just on the strength of my story - a young artist, who had the right scholarship with the right name, who had gotten the right grant, who had showed in the right places, who was taught by the right person, whose work sounded interesting.

Now, I think my work is decent but certainly I know other artists my age who are just as talented and some whose work I think is better, and I definitely know artists whose work I think is worse, but so much of commercial success in art has to do with story not work.

People connect with people based on story. Who we think someone is. Who we think they represent. And galleries, museums, art critics, schools all serve as cultural markers that help us construct a story for a person.

However, if this is true - then it suggests that there might be other ways to construct stories. Other markers that could gain significance, that could replace the traditional cultural constructs, and create a new meaning that might be just as valid and most importantly just as commercially successful.

If you are an artist reading this, think about what your story is?

How is that story created?

And most importantly what could that story be?

Then maybe you will end up like the guy pictured above.

originally posted in sweetphotomusic by the same author.

you've heard this chicago raised chap on the radio, you've seen his starlit combination with matthew santos, and you've probably read the endless blog articles on this cool cat. oh yeah, he walked out of a big party with some celebs with this thing called a grammy for today's featured song (he beat out some other less than well known urban acts: vikter duplaix, dwele, meshell ndegeocello, and alice smith). so he's kind of a big deal. he had a big 2006, but 2007, and now 2008, are sure to define his growth and the beginning of something huge.

we know he's talented. his rapping is pretty solid but it is his hooks and choruses that put him far above any of the other emerging rap youngins. i would not expect much less from someone that has been placed under the wing of production giants hova, pharrell and mr. west. the latter two have joined up with fiasco to create a powerhouse group known as "child rebel soldier" (crs) and have put out a song "Us Placers," also included at the end of the post.

the gang that he hangs out with will not let him be a one or two year wonder like chingy (really what has he done since '04/'05?) so don't expect him to fade into musical oblivion but i wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't move towards the production world. with his interesting, and prevalent islamic background as well as his skateboarding past, he brings a new sound revolution similar to that of run dmc with his rock collaborations with artists like patrick slump. as many bloggers and critics have said, the expectations for this "child" are incredible as there is nothing more than great expectations for his future work.