2 Recordings at 2am from my Car Studio

I just bought a recording mic!!!

Enjoy these free MP3s!!

∞Beginning Blessings.zip (3.1mb)
   § 01_Just Beginning (prod. by DJ Premier)
   § 02_What A Blessing (prod. by DJ Premier)

Download ^that while you read this, it's only 2 song files.

I grab the microphoneme, hold it tight.

I recently got a mic to record higher quality audios for my audience. Though not a typical sound booth, it turns out that a CAR, while in park, has naturally good acoustics. The vibes are contained without dissipation, that's why music sounds great in the car.

Not my car, but the scene set-up looked something like this, but at 2am.

The beats are not mine, they are instrumentals from the 2012 album KOLEXXXION by Bumpy Knuckles and DJ Premier, so I'm not gonna charge money for Premo's production.

The first track is an opening verse, my first real audio release to the world, so it's just the beginning! The verse is legit though (no bias), starting with the first 2-4 bars til the end... PEEP, DON'T SLEEP.

And the 2nd recording... It really inspired this whole thing. After I got home from session on Monday, I had this rhyme come to my head, went like this:

I miss that old feeling of having a first kiss.

Thinking back to moments of bliss, I reminisce

About girls once really cool with... now we're through with.

We vibed together like music and our love was deep-rooted.

I cared for them all...

I wrote the whole thing, then recorded it immediately, along with a few other tracks Monday night. Finished my recording session in the early AM hours.

Disclaimer though, I haven't had that many girlfriends (I count 3 real ones), but that's from the heart! I'm not with them now, but when I was, I really cared a lot for them. They were my world, joy and inspiration at the time. I hope I was a decent bf; if I had yelp reviews, I think they'd be mainly positive. And the last 6-7 bars are for my current gf, Mi Amore. I made her a song about 9 months into our relationship, and she still inspires me to write. Peace love.


Now that you've downloaded the songs, I recommend you listen to it in the car, or on headphones, because this music isn't meant to be played on a laptop/computer or while multi-tasking. At least don't judge it til you give it a good listen.


 This is the journal entry I wrote right after writing "What a Blessing":

2/23/15
I just made one of the best verse I ever made. Brand new from pure inspiration. What a blessing. And it's almost a letter to my exes, but in a positive way, not a usual misogynistic hip hop way, which turns off a lot of people. I make a note to refer to all the women as queens and nothing less. I will share in the mp3 shortly.

Enjoy!

Re-vised material from 2010 and new 2014 @4:00am

I thought it was whatever so I never shared it. It's not bad though, but it's still whatever. I just revised it and made it a little better. Have it for free. Wrote this early 2010, in my 4th year at college.



Spare Me the Hype

Break beats, break stereotypes.
I'm not a passive child,
Developed my rapping style
so i don't get smoked
like a joint or a roach, or a black and mild.
i like boo's, shoes, and acting wild.
it's been a long and lasting while
since an Asian brother like me,
got the chance to get free. I can't mask my smile.
so like the Nile, I flow and give life.
i bring peace/piece like a paper or a pipe.
and, i like melons when they ripe.
but Bite? not quite. stay polite with insights
hide when you within sight.
I'm the son, I been bright.
First came matter, and then light.
Don't get shocked like Dendrites*

 Ooooh thunderous! I like that one now. I remember exactly where I was, and what was going on, the day/moment I wrote the original.

 Also written just earlier that year. I was asked to write a short bio for myself:

Tom T. Nguyen
is not good at writing biographies for himself. He has been a difficult person since the womb. He is not easy to put up with, or understand. He grew up in in the Garden Grove School District when it was bad, and believes that this is what makes him a little bit cool and "Mexican-washed." After moving to the Fountain Valley School District, he became a dork, and has remained that way since. This has allowed him to do well in school and be awkward around girls. In 2003, he thought learning to dance would make him cool, but it didn't. Sometimes he will devilishly advocate, and this causes arguments.  He grew up atheist, but lately he has been feeling spiritual. He is now good friends with God.

Hell yeah! I find that sh!t hilarious, and it's actually very true. It's not a bad sum-up of me, in the style that I would do it, back in 2010. I guess that "style that I would do it" changes constantly. Something I would write in 8th grade would be different from what I would write now, right now. So the message is to write! Just write! Always be writing. I have so much written. "Write anything you don't want forgotten." At least keep a journal, but personal recording sake!




Also wrote this this morning:

10/17, Friday morning, 4:00-4:30am

I think I'm gonna be Wolverine for Halloween.
It's my second year in New Orleans.
Gettin that green, got myself into the scene.
I know my royal lineage so I found myself a queen.
It's easy to be lazy, and nothing's what it seems.
What you need to do is find a winning team.
And then work hard and never give up on your dream.
That's how you rise about the average, if you know what I mean.

I'm backed by statistics, play with linguistics
When I'm feeling uplifted, Young, Fresh and Gifted.
Wicked slickness, get wit this and bear witness.
Love the bare wetness. Don't compare weakness,
Just peep this. Make the main point, my thesis.
If we ALL work TOGETHER, it's harder to defeat us.

So let's not be cheaters, let's be high achievers.
I expand like the Uni-verse, stay balanced like Libras.

That is all for now. Have a great day!

Blood Moon Eclipse

Written Wednesday night 10/8:

Lucky I caught this.

So stepping out my door at 6:19am this morning, I saw the moon. I said "Oh shit! The eclipse!" And I hurried my backpack and bookbag and all my workstuff into my car, then tried to take a picture of the moon on my phone. The picture turned out looking like straight bullpoo, cuz you can't take pictures of celestial bodies with a phone. I was running kinda late too, so I RAN back into my house, pulled out the Nikon, ran back out, put it on zoom and higher exposure, and snapped a few shots!

This first shot came out right!

I had not expected to catch this so-called "impossible lunar eclipse," because I read it was only visible from the East Coast, at 6:25am EST, and only for 9 minutes. So not fitting the viewing criteria in both space and time, I had settled into thinking I was not going to see this eclipse. Apparently it's the 2nd, in a series of 4 consecutive, and an impossible occurrence of the Sun rising and Moon setting at the same time in a less than 180° view of the sky, only possible because the atmosphere refracts light and yada yada.. But I saw it anyway, and it lasted for a while too. Throughout my entire commute to work, the moon was eclipsed, made for distracted driving on the overpass, and even when I got to the school, I was still able to snap some pictures of it.

The 2nd picture:

2nd shot came out tricky.

3rd shot, using the powerlines as reference, shows how fast the moon was setting/moving/
relative to Earth rotating (compared to 1st shot)

They say these celestial events coincide with shifts on earth. I don't think causation is provable, but with many new advances in technology and progressive changes in society, human civilization is at a pivotal and extreme point. We are also shifting from an industrial-based political-economy to an information-based political-economy (that's a topic for another day). Also there are at least 2-3 major wars/political conflicts going on right now... Turning my awareness toward celestial bodies in the heavens brings about calmness in the present, excitement for the future, as well as connectedness to the ancients, in a world that's really crazy these days.

Worst come to worst, look up.

Seeing Saturn in a Telescope O_O

Something trippy. I don't look through nice telescopes often, so when I went to the Gretna Observatory last night, which is open for public viewing on Monday/Wednesday nights after dark, I was BAHLOWN away by the real image of Saturn!

It's crazy! You can just look out there in the darkness, point the telescope at the right spot, and there it is. A bright, ringed planet. Real image in real time. Not some video playback.

This image was the closest I could find, to compare to what I actually saw.

And another crazy thing is that it appears to be MOVING. And rather QUICKLY! After you fix the telescope to get it in view, it moves across the scope in less than a minute, looks like it's flying.

At first glace, the planet looks like a "flying star," so I asked the 2 astronomers I was with: "is it really moving that fast? Why is it moving so fast?" Instead of answering my question, they told me to think about it. Then I understood it was because Earth was also rotating. It's a higher level of thought, to grasp that, every perspective is a relative perspective; it's understandable how past astronomers could have gotten it wrong, thinking geocentrically. But from Earth, the planet Saturn is still beautiful.

You can see Saturn in the sky with your naked eyes, but you'd need a slightly attuned eye to distinguish it from a star. Planets are actually visible in the sky often throughout the year, especially Venus, Jupiter, and Mars, but most people just think they're stars. This thing is also in the sky throughout the year, but often obscured from view, by light pollution and atmosphere.

We live in this shit, and it's in the sky every night.

I also saw Mars in real time, which was cool to see, thinking we have some SUV-sized rovers up there, taking pictures and collecting samples. One day might have people out there. Pretty far out. A mission to Mars is pretty crazy.... exciting to think about. New frontiers.


The local astronomer guy also pointed the telescope at some globular clusters. He called some "deep space objects." Not like the planets nearby, further out, but still a part of the Milky Way. In fact, I learned that there are a lot of globular clusters (big clumps of stars, gravitationally attached) going around our galactic center, what many believe to be a SMBH (Super Massive Black Hole).

M11, or Messier 11

Pretty crazy that you can just look out and see this shit. I am fascinated by space.

9/20 SPILL Rhymes for the Day

Wrote these today.


9/20
Look around, that's using eyesight.
Look back, that's using hindsight.
Look ahead, that's called foresight.
Look within, that's gaining insight.




Check this out, you got quarters and dimes.
Make up 2 equations, can you solve it on time?
It's easy and it's challenging, you gotta use your mind.
That's how you climb. - It's called an incline.

Rise over run, you should rise and become
A positively-minded person, not one that's dumb.
Yo that wouldn't be right. - So just do right.
If you ask me, then I'll tell you that I do write.

 - But I kick flows, free style of poetry.
I'm the one who knows. Guess that's why y'all blowing me
When You Act Outta Line, and try to avoid ya problems.
That's no real solution, you should really try to solve 'em.

---
The original problem was:
If you have a total of 100 quarters and dimes, with a value of $14.05, how many quarters do you have?

Linear systems, solve 2 equations at once.


Video with music coming soon,  I'm about to update it. But gonna go to session first, get my rock on. Peace!

Are 2014 Midterm Elections... Important?

Election time again, so you know what that means.... Plenty of depressing commercials and smear campaigns about people we don't really know.



These campaign dollars are starting to take over YouTube. Mostly attack ads. It must mean the 2014 Mid-term Elections are coming up!!!

There's one big problem though. First, I consider myself to be pretty engaged in civic matters... I mean... I majored in History, minored in Civic Engagement. Compelled to do my civic duty. I even drive a Civic. That's a cool palindrome, I just realized.

So I figured, for someone like me, who is engaged and interested in local, statewide, national, and international matters, frequently scouring the news, it is still a struggle to be informed. Being a voter is pretty easy, but being an informed voter, and knowledgeable about what/who I'm voting for, that's another challenge.

"But if it's just midterm elections, then it doesn't matter as much," says maybe 85% of people. 

That's not a real statistic, nor is it a real quote, but you get the idea. Most people ignore midterm elections... Why? Idunno, cuz it's democracy and we have freedom to vote, or not. Maybe because there's no charismatic President. But I was just talking to this college guy about his political science class, while tutoring math, and it REALLY IS important, because we're electing SENATORS to hold seats for 6 years???!

Do you know how many U.S. Senators there are?
Not many people do, apparently. What goes on in this "Senate" anyway?
There are 100 Senators, because there are 2 per state, therefore 2x = 100 must be true, and confirms that there are 50 states. 100 Senators making important decisions for the rest of us, for 6 years of their lives at a time. So who ARE these people? How do we vote the shitty ones out, and how do we know which ones to vote in? Even more important, House Representatives who draft bills, propositions, and respond more directly to constituents (us), they are also campaigning, but do I know anyone running? NO. How can I vote for the right one that won't mess us up for 2-6 years (2 for house reps, 6 for senators)? Who knows?

Also, what Propositions are up for a vote in your area? Does anyone know??? It's such a struggle to be informed, but why? I thought we lived in an INFORMATION age? Nah, I guess people would rather play with their flappy bird.


If that's difficult for me, I can't imagine what voting would be like for someone who's not politically engaged.

Anyways, most midterm elections tend to go overlooked. But we are in a pretty critical place right now. I hope this was a little informative.

I've been writing seriously since 2005

This year, 2014, marks 9 years since I started taking writing more seriously... Fall '05 senior year of high school... And 6 years since I started performing in spoken word/jazz club settings, back in '08 college years.

It's been a good run. I do want to punctuate the 10th year, 2015, with something new. We'll see as the current year unfolds. Almost everywhere I go, audiences have received me warmly and I have been encouraged to write more and perform more. That means the world to me. I owe a lot to those who supported me, from my UCLA friends who saw me when I was first starting to perform, to all the great artists and people I've met along the way at different venues. I'm still creating new work, but not all of it is made for publication. I share some old and new Original Compositions on here: www.powerknowledge.org

I am just beginning to explore the Spoken Word scene in New Orleans, they have a pretty dynamic slam team here, I hear. And I'm here for another year, so I'll be sure to see more before returning back to where I started. LA/OC, California!

Anyway, I just came across this new spoken word video, The World is Coming to an End, thought it was pretty relevant for us this year. Not that I believe the world is coming to an end, but it is kinda crazy these days. It's going somewhere it's never been before. And this guy illuminates some of that craziness.

Happy Autumn season, enjoy the fall equinox and don't get zapped by a solar ray!