Watch Omar Epps, Kristy Swanson and Michael Rapaport as they leave home for the first time to head off to college. Facing issues on race, sexuality, and identity as they try and figure out their first semester. See what happens when they are faced with challenges and how every individual deals with them and what the guidance from an educator can do for young men and women when lost along the road to find themselves.
KAZMALOOP has interesting perspective on Vince Staples
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
This nihilist perspective has caught my interest, as I find myself somewhere between nihilism and pessimism. Everything around feels superficial or performative. No one wants to be honest while simultaneously no one can be. To truly be vulnerable is to show weakness, and if both our backs are against the wall the majority of people will exploit your weakness if it means they can be a step above you. No matter the relationship with the person. All relationships are power dynamics with an ever-shifting scale.
So what do you do when you think you have to be the toughest in the room if it means you’ll be at peace? You come into every room prepared for war, with a layer of armor so thick that not even you yourself can remove it. Ready to destroy anyone if they challenge or cross the line with you. Look at our music, look at our movies. Every character is a balancing act trying to appear sane amongst the insanity of the reality we participate in daily. No different from the people watching to escape their own reality.
There’s a cost to be free, it was I think Nietzsche is getting at. You can’t stare into the abyss and believe what you see as normal. The only way out is to know the abyss, without losing your sanity. To live in this duality, where what you know you are doing is wrong but it’s your means of survival. To be wrong and be alive at the cost of your sanity long enough to find peace.
If you’ve been tuning into the radio show, you may have picked up on some of the songs we played from Leon Thomas. Honestly I wish I could just play you the entire album “MUTT”, Leon’s sophomore album. It was a surprise to me to know that he was actually making music when I rediscovered Leon Thomas. When I saw Leon Thomas’ face I quickly realized that he was the actor on Nickelodeon that was always carrying a guitar. I believe he had played some performances on Victorious but I hadn’t heard anything as far as a personal album ever come during that time or anything after his period on Nickelodeon. Plus that was over 10 years ago at least. Leon has gone from a child actor to a full blown artist as well as a grown man. Even if he had made an album I don’t believe that it would be as soulful as MUTT is today. Artists need time to live and understand a bit of pain and love to make an album like MUTT.
This morning on February 20th, 2025 Thomas’ performance at NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert was released on Youtube. Showcasing what years of carrying around that guitar and life experience has culminated into.
WOW, Treasure in the Hills if definitely going into the library for me.
Set List
“VIBES DON’T LIE”
“YES IT IS”
“MUTT”
“Breaking Point”
“Treasure In The Hills”
If you like me and you hear an artist, love their music, and instantly want to know more about them, I found an interview with the Breakfast Club from a month ago where Leon Thomas sat down and spoke about his time on Broadway and Nickelodeon, his production and his history that most of us probably aren’t familiar with.
Jake Phelps was the face of thrasher and since his passing, it’s hard to think of thrasher and not think about Jake. I think the staff at Thrasher knows that, I mean Jake was a literal human encyclopedia when it came to Thrasher history. It’s nuts! There’s a clip somewhere of Rowan talking about calling Jake and asking him about a photo from an old magazine from the nineties and Jake, without hesitation, knew exactly what Rowan was talking about. There’s a few times that this has happened. Jake’s life was the mag!
Since then Thrasher has done a beautiful thing keeping his memory alive with the series, Still Watching. Where skateboarders talk about their favorite memories with Jake. What he meant to them and what it was like to be around him. The week it was with Greyson Fletcher, a skater that I wasn’t the must hype on when he first came across my screen but over the years and watching him skate and watching his interview, I’ve come to like the guy. He is completely different from what I thought he would be like, whatever my wack mind came up with at the time, but dude’s a ripper. Greyson Fletcher shares what Jake did for him on a trip to Brazil and how he helped him get a gnarly feature in magnified.
The Victory Light podcast continues its tear as they bring up MIKE for today’s episode and I died laughing. With hosts like Rainey and Mero you’re always going to have a couple of laughs but when MIKE felt the vibe it was like they just bro’d out and laughed at everything from MIKE’s first time in Japan, to MIKE touring in the UK. Laughter was today’s therapy for sure. Love the pod for bringing MIKE on. MIKE is a real one.
Tyshawn grew up skateboarding in the streets of New York and though he’s been in the Breakfast Club’s backyard for years, he’s still relatively unknown in major media spaces. He sits and talks about coming up in skateboarding and he’s watched things change since he’s been in the sport. From skateboarding being an outcast sport to being accepted, a lot of people still don’t understand how a person becomes a pro in skateboarding or how the business works and Tyshawn does his best to shed some light on his perspective of skateboarding.
I wish this was a bit longer but maybe Tyshawn will be back