I am surrounded by Mad Scientists!

Obviously, Jerry's a mad scientist. So happens to be my near-future Father-In-Law.

By day, Mr. Capron earns his keep as an Engineer. By night he's tinkering away on his many "mad" ideas like Conversant Car technology, Plankton-based energy creation, or his legendary recumbent bicycle.

He recently submitted his Conversant Car idea to the California Summer of Change '08 initiative. CHECK IT OUT HERE. If interested, vote for his video (it's video 159). I've also included the videos below for your viewing pleasure.

Mad respect for his brilliant usage of Hot Wheels cars. That alone is worthy of the view!

I had the fortune to go to the second LA show of Kanye West's Glow In The Dark Tour with my longtime friends Mista Hippo and Bruce Banner of Get Down. Overall, it was an ambitious show whose ambition overshadowed the intimate interaction with fans that makes a good show fantastic.

With the exception of Rihanna, the line up was rock solid. Lupe Fiasco, N.E.R.D. and Kanye West represent the modern face of hip hop/pop artistry. All three of them are commited to pushing the current perceptions of Hip Hop music by infusing it with their own personalities and interests without the machismo or political motives that scare the Mainstream. In many ways, they're the Native Tongue (De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest's musical clique) of the 21st century (even if Lupe Fiasco doesn't know who Tribe is!). As artists, they've had varying degrees of success.

Lupe is the new kid. He's a strong lyricist with a decent flow whose success has been marginal with his first 2 albums. N.E.R.D. are the granddaddies. As music Producers, the Neptunes, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo had a heavy hand in shaping hip-hop and pop music since 2000. N.E.R.D. has been their eclectic place to explore their musical roots. Kanye is the phenom. He's managed to reinterpret elements of underground hip-hop into smashing mainstream successes.

Where does Rihanna fit into this picture? She doesn't. The only connection she has is her extreme mainstream success (Rihanna's "Umbrella" rivaled West's "Stronger" as the big pop song of 2007). She's a Pop singer with a great voice and strong presence whose presence probably assured that this concert was a Sell Out... but also looked severly out of place.

The crowd was a bit weird. There were a TON of 13-15 year old teenaged girls running around. While waiting in line there was no way to decipher who was performing.

Once inside, Lupe was already performing. He carried a decent show but you could sense that the scale of the concert didn't lend itself well to the density of Lupe's rhymes and music. It was impossible to understand what he was rhyming but the energy of the performance was cool. Lupe and his people were dressed predominantly in black. I think this was all agreed to from the get go since the stages became more colorful with each act.

N.E.R.D. was amazing. Their energy and vibe was fun and charming. They managed to stay relax and cool while they performed a mix of classic tracks and a couple of things from their upcoming album. To bring up the dosage of color, they had a snazzy monitor backdrop that displayed psychadelic colors and textures that complemented the various songs performed. They finished off their performance with a little White Stripes riff that seguewayed into "She Wants To Move". While performing they final track, cameras on stage behind Pharrell were filming ladies in the crowd dancing and showcasing them in realtime on the display monitor and screens next to the stage. Tons of fun.

Rihanna tried to go Tron with her performance. Everyone on stage wore flourescent colors that glowed under the blacklight. They looked pretty cool between songs with the black lights on, but as soon as the song started, the spotlights would go on and the effect was completely destroyed. It didn't help that the costumes looked awful under real lighting. It was like a bad mix of 80's day-glo sports bras and cheap X-men movie pleather Halloween costumes. I understand that people come to see their favorite performers, but it'd have been nice if they performed at least a part of the song under blacklight to appreciate the glow effect of the costumes and set. The singing was nice, but the dancing choreography was forgettable. There was no chemistry between the dancers and Rihanna. Most of all it felt completely out of place next to the other performers.

Kanye's set was pretty crazy. It was some lunar terrain with a huge display backdrop and two smaller screens: 1 behind Kanye and 1 below him that became his spaceship when needed. The entire performance was just Kanye and the set. Nobody else. Lupe appeared briefly for "Touch The Sky". Beyond that it was Kanye peforming alongside screens, smokes, and lights for 90 minutes.

It was ambitious. Kanye left himself "naked" as a performer (he still had his clothes on!) with nobody to distract you from what he was doing. It's hard enough to be perfect rhyming 1 song... and here Kanye has himself memorizing and rhyming 15-20. Crazy. And he held his own. He was energetic the whole way through. He even did a little acting. But the whole time I was thinking, "What the HELL is Kanye thinking?!". This is performance torture. A performance, like a good song, needs to breathe. But as a rap performer, on stage by himself performing song, after song, after song... Kanye is putting way too much on his shoulders. It was kind of stressful watching the whole thing because I couldn't help but think of how exhausting the whole thing was. I sure hope Kanye is giving himself his much deserved rest: eating right, meditating, sleeping. Because any form of exertion is going to result in a physical and emotional breakdown. No one is crazy enough to do this to themselves. Even Michael Jackson, regarded by most as one of the greatest performers of all time, gave himself support in his performances. He didn't just do it all himself. And the times when Jackson had bits that were solo, it was usually a dance number.

Watching Kanye was like watching Michael Jordan run back and forth between baskets doing dunk after crazy dunk. Yeah, it's impressive... some of it was really cool... but after a while you get tired watching it and start wondering why are you even there. The peformance was solid, but the set was so tight that there was no interaction with the audience without the occasional, "What's up LA!". It was just song, song, 1 minute of story, song, song and more song. It'd have been nice if West would have stepped away from the narrative created for the concert and engaged the audience. As an audience we're not there to just watch, we want to connect with the performer. It needs to be as much about us as it is about them. But with Glow In The Dark, I walked away feeling like Kanye wants to prove to me that he's superhuman. But he's not. He's human. He's an amazingly ambitious and talented human being. But I'm worried that if he keeps taking this route he's going to destroy himself... just burst. They say in space the stars that shine brightest have significantly shorter lives.

Either way, it was a show worth seeing. I'm sure there'll be nothing like it.

DKNY is collaborating with Paul Pope to produce an affordable line of Fall Men's Wear for 2008.

As a HUGE Paul Pope fan, I'm super excited about this oft-kilter collaboration. Paul Pope's renderings scream sex and style.

We would like to welcome the adorable Hana and Archibald into the world!

About 3 weeks ago, Gobi (the Tequila-man himself!) and Akashi gave life to their adorable daughter Hana.

And just earlier this week, Nicolas (Senor Muttpop Europe) and Charlotte gave life to their handsome son Archibald.

Congratulations!!! I feel like I'm surrounded by babies. :-)

2 Games in 2 Days. 1 in Los Angeles. 1 in Oakland. Both games were nail biters until the very last second. And, man, what a helluva time!

My buddy Mista Hippo has the hook-up to Laker games. And being the swell guy that he is, he invited me and some of our other basketball lovin' friends to watch the 1st game at the Los Angeles Staples Center this past Sunday.

These weren't just any seats...we had the grand privilege to sit in the first row directly behind the Laker bench. For a second there I felt like Hollywood royalty!

It was fascinating seeing the players discuss bits of the game during timeouts. At one point, Derek Fisher was expressing his awe of Monta Ellis quick move to the basket to Kobe Bryant. Turiaf got some tips on how to avoid a foul from Kurt Rambis, Kobe Bryant, and the ref who made the call (after Fisher brought the ref over). I was also surprised to see what a fierce competitor Jordan Farmar was. After being pulled out of the game as a result of a few uneffective bouts of offensive execution, Farmar was furious at himself for his performance. The dude was cussing to himself for at least 5 minutes... I almost wanted wanted to step in and tell him he shouldn't be so hard on himself!

Even though it was an amazing game, there were two bad bits about it. First off, the Lakers lost (Stephen Jackson just HAD to take away Kobe's thunder with 2 huge shots in the closing seconds!) and second, the view sucked. It was nice being close... but since those Laker players and coaches are so darned tall, when I was seated, I could only see the players in the game from the waist up. It was impossible to see the court floor which takes a lot away from appreciating the strategies of the game.

All in all, it was a great experience... and the pains of defeat stung a little less since the Lakers won the second game in Oakland (in overtime no less!). Thanks Mista Hippo!

Jordan Rubin and his "Perfect Weight America" is the reason for my lack of entries. With my wedding being only 4 months away, me and the girlfriend decided that it would be worthwhile to change our eating and fitness for the healthier. I've been flirting with the idea for months now (after reading bits of Dr. Oz's "You: On a Diet" I started slowly changing my snacking and eating habits)... and figured it be fun to embrace a healthier approach to eating and fitness.

Rubin's focus is simple and intuitive: the more natural, the better. Naturally fed meats. Organic fruits and vegetables. Food based supplements. The general train of thought is that our bodies are built to digest foods in their most natural forms. So it's been goodbye to processed foods... and hello fruits, vegetables, fish, and chicken! Rubin's book does promote a lot of products from his "Garden of Life" nutritional supplement company, but once I got past that annoyance, I learned there was a lot to be learned from his approach to eating.

It's been a week since I've started and I'm surprised to discover that I've been feeling great without the breads, rice, and starchy snacks. But what's been driving me CRAZY is all of the time it takes to prepare meals. I LOVE cooking. But I feel like all my free time is spent cooking, cleaning, and buying groceries.

I now have a better handle on things... so I'll be back to blogging. As for now, though, wish me and the fiance luck on getting healthy! :-)