jazz keyboard great jimmy smith is dead

flagrant has a confrontation with a “dog-faced secretary with snacks laid out inappropriately on the desk before 9:00am.”

Google reinvents maps. after you’re done typing in your address, type in things like “hollywood motels 90029”

Just A Girl has a cool new layout

ms. iverson isnt having the best day. send her some good vibes.

the instapundit admits that he’s been ignoring the story about the right-wing plant who has been asking softball questions during the white house press conferences and who has recently stepped down from his post after liberal bloggers exposed him for being the fraud that he is (and for being tied to gay conservative military websites). the question is, why do you think insta isn’t celebrating the power of the blogosphere for identifying this phony and causing a congressperson to ask Bushie for an investigation? it’s only linkworthy when the focus is on CBS and dan rather? or is this simply honor among tools? developing…

anti keeps it really real.

xtraxyx celebrates the year of the cock

terra posts a cute pic of herself eating a cupcake. more cupcake pics, blogosphere!

a Google employee was fired for blogging about work? poor sap shoulda bought my book, which i understand is on sale for $19 plus $5 s/h, and it’s autographed if you get it from me. just send an email and i will send you an invoice.

bunny mc‘s appearance on mtv is aired and she makes fun of it on her blog.

raymi‘s best header yet. understated, if you can believe it.

the rabbit names dirty clowns. My fave? Scrumpler Guffawsky.

dave navarro reminds us that he’s the king of la bloggers. unconvinced? when was the last time you typed, “Not too long ago I shot some pictures of my friend, Suicide Girl, Voltaire.” or got 76 comments. or announced that your side band will be opening for ozzy?

stereogum shows us that britney, and her hubby, are doing their best to get the look of madpony kristin.

was considering putting me in the Black Webmaster Hall of Fame but there was great controversy on their editorial board because some were arguing that i dont have the html and php and blahblahblah skillz that theyd like to see for such an honor.

somehow the conversation got shifted to creativity.

someone on the conference call asked me how i get my Soul to the creative Place.

i said thats none of her business but there is a Place and it does take a little searching around to find it and sometimes you have to do some questionable things to get there but it’s like breaking through any sort of zone, comfort zone, 3-4 zone, prevent defense, virgin zone, its gonna take something different to get there otherwise its not a zone at all.

they were all huh?

i said you have to concentrate. sandy koufax said that pitching is relaxation and concentration, and so is creatitivity. id say that its relaxation and so much concentration that youre not even concentrating any more, youre just being the conduit, the pipeline, the highway, the route. your assignment is simply to get the fuck out of the way.

they asked, do you have to take drugs to get to your Place.

i said, no. i do my best stuff in the early mornings before anyone has come into the office. the xbi doesnt mind if you pop pills or smoke or drink, all they want you to do is think fast and not do anything stupid so if drugs can get you into that mindset then go for it, but if youre a doper and you fuck up you will get your ass kicked by about a dozen marines who dont play that shit. no i dont need drugs to get to my place, i just need to zone out. or zone-in as dr leary might say.

the mornings are good for me because symbolically the daytime is the blank slate that one sometimes needs to allow for Anything to happen.

i was getting blank stares through the speakerphone. these people were tech heads and i wasnt. but i was sure that even in science and engineering there was room for creatitivity and imagination and making a possibility out of an impossibility, and i asked them, isnt that so? they said yeah, sorta. and i was all, what about the dude who cloned Dolly? that was science and imagination all in one but it started with an idea then it took root with a theory based on that first idea and the rest was just mechanics. the same goes for art of any sort. picasso says i want to do cubism and once he figures out the framework and the subject matter the rest is just fill in the blanks. color by numbers.

someone said, why should we consider you for the hall of fame? i said you shouldnt. i dont want to be in any hall of fame. hall of fames are for old people and even though im 111 and old at heart im young in mind and thats where i will be for a long long time, if you put me in the hall of fame then i have nowhere to go.

and thats how i got my nomination for the black webmaster hall of fame.

reverse psychology even works on smart people.

especially once you dazzle them with bullshit.

amy + steve + stereogum