It’s a beautiful morning in Memphis. I got 4 hours of sleep and feel great. Actually it is rainy and cold but I do feel great today and refuse to let things get me down. Let the randomness begin.

Playlist: Big D Radio – Morning Mix

• Everything I Do I Do It For You – Brandy – Never Say Never

  It’s kind of a toss up between this version and the Bryan Adams original (From Robin Hood) in my mind. I think I kind of lean towards Brandy’s version because she’s got more soul than the Canadian. We’ve already established that Never Say Never is the greatest Brandy album of them all.

• Crash Into Me – Dave Matthews Band – Starwood Amphitheatre 7/20/2005

  This one appeared in one of last week’s random mixes but I never get tired of this song. There’s no such thing as Too Much DMB.

• Drop The Pressure – Mylo – Destroy Rock & Roll

  Another welcome repeat. I’ve got 6 or 7 versions of this song and they’re all set as 5 Star favorites so it’s a pretty good bet that at least one of them is going to make an appearence in the morning mix at any given time. This is the original and in some ways the best.

• Take On Me – Aha

  The morning mix threw in a little 80’s flashback here. Shout out to Mariah. Okay so picture me, an overweight black man, gettting ready for work when Aha comes one. Picture said black man doing the Carlton. (You laughed. I know you did.) I didn’t actually do the Carlton but I thought about it and that’s just as bad. This is the perfect song for it too.

• Scenario – A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory

  Lots of great lines in this one. Busta Bust steals the show of course but I like Brown and Tip’s verses as well. Phife has the best line of the whole track though. “Bo knows this, and Bo knows that, but Bo don’t know jack cuz Bo can’t rap”. Classic.

• Surf Wax America – Weezer – Weezer

  One of my favorite tracks off of the best Weezer album so far, Weezer.

• Bartender – Dave Matthews Band – Smirnoff Music Centre 9/3/2005

  This is an underrated and until recently neglected song in my DMB music collection. I wasn’t really feeling it at first but it has grown on me over the years. This particular show is of interest because I was supposed to be there in attendance. But as we all know Katrina hit and that changed my plans. I decided to stay home at the last minute due to fears of getting stranded without access to fuel. The interstate was a mess or would have been on the way back since people were flooding out of Texas heading this way. Besides I don’t think my wallet could have handled the jacked up gas prices if I were lucky enough to find a place to fill up down there. So I decided to stay here. $60 bucks down the drain. Luckily DMB allows people to tape their shows so I was able to pick it up and listen after the fact.

• Is It Good To You – Heavy D & The Boyz – Peaceful Journey
  Heavy D and his boyz seem to be the butt of folks jokes in some circles because they didn’t act hard or gangsta but I liked them. Heavy D was a pioneer. He was a showman. The last of a dying breed of rapper/entertainers. Hev danced at his shows and in his videos. Can you imagine 50 Cent doing choreography? Heavy D did the shiny, rubberized jumpsuits thing (in the Now That We’ve Found Love video) years before Puffy did it in Mo Money, Mo Problems (and other videos). He was like the male version of Missy Elliot for a little while. This album came out just before the whole “gangsta rap” flavor of hip-hop went mainstream. Personally I miss that bygone era sometimes. This song and album are good representations of that timeframe. I’ve got nothin’ but love for a fellow overweight lover like myself (even though at the time I was an underweight lover).
• Love Song For A Savior – Jars Of Clay – Furthermore: From the Studio, From the Stage

  This song reminds me of college. Jars of Clay was pretty popular at good, ‘ole Carson-Newman (go figure with it being a Christian school and all). It was hard to walk through the dorm and not hear JoC emanating from at least one room at any given time. This song is written to Christ but it works as a general love song to your boo as well. I’ve heard it played at weddings, wedding showers, wedding receptions, you name it. I’ve even thought about slipping it into a mix tape (I mean CD) for my significant other a few times over the years. I think I like the original album version of this track better but this one is nice too.

• Gotta Get Thru This (Acoustic) – Daniel Bedingfield – Gotta Get Thru This

  Add this one to the list of Daryl’s theme songs from the last couple of years. I especially like this accoustic version. When I finally get off my butt and take those guitar lessons I’ve been putting off for a while this is one of the first songs I’m going to learn. My ex-girlfriend really like this song/album. It was cool when we discovered that we both liked it. I listened to it a lot while working graveyard shift. It helped me feel less lonely and more connected to her.

** Bonus Track **

Nightshift – The Commodores – Nightshift

This came on just as I was transitioning to the WOKI – 94.1 playlist this morning. Had to let it ride. Who doesn’t like the Commodores? Perfect theme song for my days working the nightshift. Too bad I didn’t add it to the collection until a few months ago. Haven’t worked nightshift since last summer.

Okiboy.net is live… sort of. It’s nothing but a shell of it’s future self right now but it’s up and running. Finally I (Okiboy) have a web-presence all my own.

I’ve had a site of some sort up on the web since 1995 but never before in the history of Okiboy has that site been my very own without any association or dependency on another entity or institution. Back in the day (at Fisk University) I had a site up on the university server. It was my very own but the address had .fisk.edu/ in front of it. Not exactly what I’d call independent. Then came the free services. First the dreaded Geocities. I shutter thinking about those days. For once I’ll say thank you Yahoo! for buying them out and deleting my so called site in the process. I nearly shed a tear at the time but then I remembered how much my site sucked and moved on. Next after a few years hiatus came okiboy.onestop.net. It’s still up. Definitely a step up from Geocities. I photoshoped the splash menu page myself. That was back in the 01 to 02 timeframe. Link mapped splash pages were all the rage back then. I was even planning on incorporating fancy rollover graphics later on but never got around to it. Notice I mispelled Sprit Realm. It’s supposed to be Spirit Realm and link to my testimony and stuff about developing a faith in Christ. I say supposed because as you’ll notice with most of the links on the page, it doesn’t point to an existing page. I had big plans for the site but never quite got around to completing the job. The resume link works as does the link pointing to this very blog. Which brings us here, Don’t Cry Over Spilt Water. Formerly know as the Okiblog. Blogspot and Blogger have been good to me (when they were up). I will never hate on free services seeing as I’ve been using one in some form or fashion for almost 10 years now. I just felt it was time to step my game up and do things “for real”. I described it in a comment on Negro Please as that moment in life where you move from sitting at the kiddie table to sitting at the grown folks table. It’s a great feeling.

I’ll keep posting here for the time being until I’m ready for the official go live of okiboy.net. This is an exciting time in the life of Okiboy (I mean ME.. Gotta stop referring to myself I mean my online, alter-ego in the third person.). I have some sad news to report on this momentous occasion though. I know all 2.5 of you loyal readers just scrambled right over to okiboy.net in an effort to be the first to lay eyes on the site. It’s difficult to disappoint the fans but I have to tell you that someone has beaten you to the punch. My friend, Mr. Clopin of Design Sushi fame, was the very first human being to lay eyes on the wonder that is Okiboy.net. I figured since he so graciously <sarcasm>(and without giving any consideration to the fact that if I signed up he’d get $97 credited to his account)</sarcasm> referred me to my awesome hosting service, Dreamhost, it was the least I could do bestowing this tremendous honor upon him. In addition to that historic honor I have also promised him an autographed copy of my index page so he can frame it, put it up on a wall, and have a story to tell his grandchildren. Congratulations Mr. Clopin, aka Stansell, aka Jason.

Time for bed. All this newfangled php, ftp, xhtml, scripts, plugins, WC3 standard stuff has tuckered me out. Whatever happened to the good old days where you sat down with a text editor, copied the html code your friend next to you slapped on his site and prayed it looked okay when you uploaded it to yours? WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) my butt. Back in the day it was WYSMBWYGIYDSSUWTI (WhatYou See May Be What You Get If You Didn’t Screw Something Up While Typing It). Holla!

Now playing: L.A. Symphony – Money Song – Disappear Here

Death and Taxes: … – Very intersting. This guy put a lot of work into this. Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger, more detailed view. I’m thinking of ordering a print of this and getting it framed.

Researchers uncover cause of asthma – This is really encouraging news. As an asthma sufferer it offers me hope that perhaps one day a cure for this disease may be possible. I say that more for my future children than for me. I look forward to the day where I’m able to get married and have kids. That being said I worry about passing this illness on to them. There are many examples of people from all walks of life living, working, and excelling in spite of asthma (myself included). I just don’t want my kids to go through a lot of the things I had to go through growing up with the disease. The many prolonged hospital stays, shots, IVs, pneumonia, blood tests, breathing treatments, etc. A lot of that had to do with the time I’m sure. My quality of life improved greatly as we moved into the 90’s and now in the 2000’s. I’m sure kids living with asthma have it a bit easier nowadays. Looks like Dr. Umetsu and his researchers are onto something promising.

Playlist: Big D Radio – Morning Mix

• Please Don’t Go – Boyz II Men
  Old school right here. I discovered long ago (thanks to my Mom making me do chores) that Boyz II Men’s first album, Cooleyhighharmony, is the perfect background music for doing house work. This was years before I really got into Dance/Electronic is which also great house cleaning music. With the Boyz II Men you can sing along to all the harmoneous melodies pretending that your voice sounds as good as the group. It’s also fun to lower your voice to Barry White level for the parts where Michael “Bass” Mcrary speaks. This entire album makes the time pass more quickly.

• Jump – Madonna
• Meant to Live – Switchfoot
• Stop Draggin’ My Car Around – Weird Al Yankovic
• Destiny – Zero 7
• Mary Had a Little Boy (vs Milky & 2NF) – Snap! –
  As stated before I love this track. I wouldn’t mind the iPod playing this song over and over on shuffle.
• Mind’s Eye – dc Talk –
  Classic song from the epic Jesus Freak album.
• Bye Bye Bye – ‘Nsync
  I’m not ashamed. I liked the boy bands. There I said it. What!? ‘Nsync, BSB, even O-Town. 98 Degrees not so much. Okay I’m a little ashamed but not much. Dudes could dance and kind of sing. Justin representin’ for Memphis (Germantown actually). Come on don’t hate. Y’all know you liked them.
• Champagne Supernova – Oasis
  When they’re not at each others throats these guys make some good music. Their new album was a nice surprise last year.
• Should I Go – Brandy
  This is the only track I own off the Afrodesiac album. I listened to the rest of the tracks and wasn’t really feeling them. This one is nice though. Love the Coldplay sample.
• Cold Sweat – James Brown
  What else can be said about the Godfather? JB is the man. Actually he was the man. Now JB is crazy but his music is still great. The only thing crazy about his tracks is the insane basslines, horn sections, and percussion. Those cats laid down some funky breaks. The best line of this song is when Mr. Brown says “Pardon me while I do the boogaloo!” I love that. It cracks me up everytime because he’s dead serious. Being funky ain’t no joke. The best section of the song is at the end of the extended bridge where JB does his best impersonation of the Count (from Sesame Street) and counts down to the return of the chorus. Each number is followed by his signature uhhh. (Take that Master P.) After leaving the bridge things kind of fall apart though. I wish he’d take his own advice from another song by doing a hit it and quit it. Instead we’re treated to minute and a half of JB making weird falsetto screeching noises. I could do without that but 1:30 out of a 7:32 song doesn’t ruin the song for me.

March Madness is upon on us. It’s not football but it will do for now. I’m pulling for Duke because my college roommate, Aaron, brainwashed me back in the day and the effects haven’t worn off yet and Memphis because I’m a Memphis resident and it never hurts to be a homer sometimes. I’m also pulling for Texas because that’s my home state and the Horns have got a darn good team. I’m also pulling for all the underdogs or so called Mid-Majors. According to the experts I watched on ESPN yesterday Memphis would fall into this category because they consider Conference USA a mid-major conference now that Louisville and Cincinnati jumped ship. Hmmm….. and where are those teams this year? The NIT? Or worse at home crying in their beer for not making the big dance. Whereas mid-major Memphis has been in the top 5 since December I believe. Memphis must be the best mid-major team ever. Memphis a mid-major. Give me a break. Ask UAB, whom I witnessed get their tails kicked royally last Saturday in the C-USA Tournament championship, if Memphis is a mid-major.

I’m not a huge college basketball fan but I love the tournament. I’ve got 4 brackets going. Would have had 5 but I ran out of time this morning and didn’t get my church bracket set before the cut off time. I had Noon in my head but forgot that that was Noon eastern not central. Oh well. 4 is enough I think. This will be the most I’ve ever done. Glad it’s all online now. My head would explode if I had to do it all on paper still like the old days. Gotta love the Internet.

I smell some upsets brewing. Pacific was tied with Boston College at halftime. BC better be careful. They built a lead after the half but are only up by 2 with 4:30 left. Crash and burn baby. Go Pacific. Bust those brackets. I picked them to beat BC in one of my brackets.

Woo hoo! Thanks to the new smart playlist configuration scheme I found online (courtesy of the ilounge forums) a month ago, I’m getting to listen to a lot more of my music collection each day. The iPod/iTunes woeful shuffling abilities have been well publicized. It’s pretty much the only gripe I have with the device and program. The iPod and iTunes have a knack for playing the same songs over and over when you set them to shuffle (which is the primary way I listen to stuff). The shuffle algorythm is screwy I guess. You’d think the smart folks at Apple would be able to put their heads together and fix the dang thing by now. We’re on the 5th Generation iPod and version 6.x in iTunes for pete’s sake. Anyhow, to compensate for my beloved device’s one flaw I’ve implemented a stop gap measure that has basically rejuvinated my music listening experience (much like the iPod itself did for me a couple of years ago). I won’t go into the ins and outs of the system. You can click on the link above if you’re interested. This new “discovery” actually makes me feel rather silly. You know how you discover something new or a feature you didn’t know existed and to you it’s the biggest revelation ever? Then you dig a little more online and discover that it’s old news uncovered long ago. Kind of like Columbus discovering the New World even though the Native Americans had been here for hundreds of years. I also feel silly because it’s so simple I should have figured this out on my own months ago. I was literally laying in bed trying to go to sleep early last month when I thought “I could do some cool things with iTunes if I could just link playlists together”. I had had that thought before but never really persued it. Turns out iTunes had that ability all along and I had just been overlooking it.

With my new playlist framework in hand I proceeded to create playlists like mad. Building off the basic framework layed out in the document linked above I proceeded to put my unique Okiboy stamp on it. I put that stank on it! I’ve basically set up my own personal radio station(s). The main over arching playlist is Big D Radio – WOKI 91.4. It’s like your local area mega power station. I’ve got it set up to play a wide variety of stuff. It’s like a Top 40, Old School, Hip-Hop, Rock, Alternative, Dance, Electronic station all rolled into one. The formulation perfectly matches my eclectic musical tasts. Below that I’m now creating sub stations (or maybe it would be better to think of them as shows broadcast within the frame work of the larger station). They’re tied to the main playlist so they can pull music from my entire library but are weighted to play more of a certain genre or type of music. So I can have say a primarily hip-hop oriented show (playlist) that throws the occassional Dave Matthews Band or Boards of Canada track in for variety. It’s cool because that’s how things operate in my head a lot of the time. All my friends will testify to the fact that I’m pretty random. We can be bopping along talking about one thing and I’ll make some off the wall connection to something completely off subject based on what was said. When that happens I blurt it out and everyone looks at me like I’m from another planet. This paragraph is probably a good example of that. Let’s move on.

I will be creating substations tied into the master playlist to match my mood or the genre of music I feel like listening to at the time. Most of the time I don’t feel like listening to just one particular thing so WOKI 91.4 is perfect because it touches on everything. But every once in a while you just want to listen to a certain type of thing. Examples: It’s Friday night, you’re in your car after work, it’s time for some club bangers. Big D Radio – Hip-Hop. Or it’s the weekend and you need to do some serious house cleaning. Big D Radio – Dance/Electronic. Etc, etc. The possibilities are endless I’ve just got to sit down and set them up. So far the only sub playlist I’ve set up is Big D Radio – Morning Mix (which I’ve mentioned before).

I like this new way of doing smart playlists because while I get to hear stuff I really, really like and listen to over and over I’m also able to hear stuff that I haven’t heard in a while. There’s always a pleasant surprise lurking around the corner. That’s exciting.

Playlist: Big D Radio – WOKI 91.4

Pleasant Surpises from Just Today

• Ours – Sugar Ray
  I don’t care what you say Sugar Ray was cool for a hot minute.

• Jerk It Out – The Caesars
  Yeah the iPod commercial song.
• Everytime (Valentin Remix) – Britney Spears
  Umm…. no comment.
• Sugar (Gimme Some) – Trick Daddy
  Whenever I hear this song I think about an interview John Meyer did with Trick Daddy on his short lived show, John Meyer Has A TV Show. I think it was on Vh-1. Cracks me up just thinking about it. It was like they were both speaking a different language. They both realized that and worked it to great comedic effect.
• Asarja (GdG Mix) – Micro De govia & Ronski Speed – The Lost World (George Acosta)
  George Acosta puts together some of the best Trance mixes around. I “discovered” him at Best Buy several years ago. They played one of the tracks off his latest mix CD at the time over the PA. The track was really tight so I made sure to pay attention to the artist and album name when it was announced. Made a bee line over to the Dance section and bought the CD on the spot. Lost World is his latest.

The iPod went with a more mellow vibe for the most part this morning. That was okay though because it matched up my mood pretty well. Plus the songs playing coincided with what I was doing at the time. Mellow as I woke up and trudged to the bathroom. A little more upbeat while in the shower (so I could get my shower dance on). The pace slowed back down a bit as I went downstairs to get some breakfast (the 12 minutes I allot myself for breakfast I try to use to focus and reflect on my day). Then as breakfast was wrapping up and I was heading out the door it kicked into high gear and stayed there all the way to the office. The iPod is on fire this week.

Playlist: Big D Radio – Morning Mix

• Split Screen Sadness – John Mayer
• The Love You Save – Jackson 5
• Shade – Silverchair
• Don’t Be A Dropout – James Brown
• Love Is Blind – Smart E’s
• Somersault (Dangermouse Remix) – Zero 7
• Tristesse Globale – Röyksopp
• Goodbye / Butterflyz – Alicia Keys – Unplugged
• Late – Ben Folds
• Inner Freak Style – Frankie Bones
• Our Love Is Loud – David Crowder Band
• Damaged – Plumb
• Growing Up – Daniel Bedingfield – Second First Impression
  This has become one of my theme songs of late.
• Goodnight and Go – Imogen Heap
  I had never heard of Imogen until I bought the Chronicles of Narnia soundtrack back in December. She had a track on there that people on iTunes were raving about. I checked it out to see what all the fuss was about and liked it. I picked up I Megaphone and Speak For Yourself immediately and haven’t looked back since. A bunch of her tracks populate my favorites playlist now.

The iPod was slammin’ this morning. Here’s a peek at what it chose to play this morning on the way to work.

Playlist: Big D Radio – Morning Mix

• Head Against The Sky (Non-Album Track) – Eisley
  Rockin’ Eisley track that kind of goes against the grain of what they normally play. I usually put Eisley on as my go to sleep music because of their soothing, ethereal, fairy dust-like vibe. This track is none of that and I like it.
• Crash (Live 7.20.04) – Dave Matthews Band
  It’s Dave. Need I say more? One of my favorite DMB songs ever. Plus it’s live which makes it 10 times better.
• Drop The Pressure – Mylo
  Mylo is hot and so is this track. Been bumpin’ this song a ton since I got it off of iTunes a few weeks ago.
• Angel In Disguise – Brandy
  I always forget how tight the bass line is on this song until I hear it again. In my opinion, Never Say Never is the best album Brandy has put out to date. Every track is nice (and there are a lot of tracks on there). I wore this CD out back in the day but I think the proof of its staying power is in the fact that I can still put it on and be enthralled all over again. Classic.
• G Funk Intro – Snoop Doggy Dogg
  Phat G funk bass line on this one. This song is indelibly linked in my mind to me and my boys (Jason, Jason, and Scott) rolling around the streets of Okinawa in Scott’s old school Integra. Snoop and Tupac were forever blasting from the 12′s in the trunk. I’ve got the tinnitus to prove it. What ever happened to the Lady of Rage? She had a nice flow especially on this track. Kind of reminded me of MC Lyte. Plus she would have kicked Da Brat’s a**. Too bad she never really got her chance to blow up.
• Two Princes – Spin Doctors
  This brings back memories from high school. I remember I checked out this CD from the library several times. Too bad I didn’t have a clue how to rip CDs back then. Of course with the family computer we had it probably would have taken 5 or 6 hours to rip.
• Get By – Talib Kweli
  This is the jam! I’ve been putting together a pre-game warm up playlist in my head since soccer started back up. Gonna knock that out tonight after work before I head to the fields. This will be at the top of the list. If you want to get pumped put this track on.
• Doctor Pressure (Clean Radio Edit) – Mylo vs. Miami Sound Machine
  Can’t get enough Mylo at the moment. I nearly flipped my lid when I came across this combination of new school and old school (Always loved Miami Sound Machine). Bananas!!!
• As The Deer – Adore
  Being a slower, more reflective song this kind of went against the upbeat flow of the mix but anytime is a good time to praise the Lord (as an old gospel song my Mom used to play says) so I ain’t mad. This came on as I was pulling into the parking lot here at work. I’m glad it did because it helped me calm down and focus on where my source of strength to make it through this day comes from. Good looking out iPod.

one with the earth,
originally uploaded by javajive.

Amazing. Random chance or purposeful design? You decide.