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'crack pipes' thesis...
does anyone know how to get a hold of this? sage says that it is written by a gentleman by the name of tah.
Thu Jan 16, 2003 6:27 pm
Sage Francis
Self Fighteous
Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 21790
since no one on this board was able to help your next best bet is to hit up
and ask for Tah (who is the one who wrote it.) he is a moderator or something there.
Fri Jan 17, 2003 10:09 am
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 18
Location: Dallas, Tx.
But if you're not already registered at HHI then you're out of luck because they're not accepting new registrations...
Fri Jan 17, 2003 10:15 am
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 907
Location: Austin, Tx
alright, someone find out and put it here....we demand...please?
Sat Jan 18, 2003 12:56 am
Sage Francis
Self Fighteous
Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 21790
here it is. written by Tah
this is the thesis Tah wrote based on the song and performance of Crack Pipes:
Complete Listening:
Post-rap, Poetry, and Performance
Section One: Introduction
Towards a Methodology of Complete Listening
Isnt the truth of the voice to be hallucinated? Isnt the entire space of the voice an infinite one?
To open an account of the significance of performance poetry it is important to define the way in which performed poetry- both the poems and the manner and context in which they are performed- is and should be studied. A recent book of essays that takes up that very question is Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word, edited by Charles Bernstein, a volume that makes significant strides towards recognizing the importance of aural and oral poetry to the creation and dissemination of poetry in the late twentieth century and into the twenty-first. In acknowledging the ocularcentricity of high modernism and the return to orality in the poetry of the 1950s, the poetry of Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation, Close Listening makes possible new methods of investigation into the current state of poetry, and at the same time fills a critical void left by a continuing focus in the academy on the visual text of poetry. As Bernstein puts it in his introduction, while the performance of poetry is as old as poetry itself, critical attention to modern and contemporary poetry performance has been negligible, despite the crucial importance of performance to the practice of poetry of this century Indeed, it is exactly this critical oversight that Close Listening makes the move to redress. Again Bernstein puts it succinctly: [Close Listening] opens many new avenues for the critical discussion of the sound and performance of poetry[... and examines] how twentieth-century poetry has been practiced as a performance art.
The methodology that Bernstein proposes for this new study of performed poetry is one of close listening, which he describes in the introduction to Close Listening as a process that may contradict readings of poems that are based exclusively on the printed text and that ignore the poets own performances, the total sound of the work, and the relation of sound to semantics. Maria Damon, in her contribution to the collection, Was that Different, Dissident or Dissonant? Poetry (n) the Public Spear: Slams, Open Readings, and Dissident Traditions, asserts that close listening implies that the three adjectives that make up the primary title of her article can be held in the mind, along with all semantic/sonic resonant possibilities[...] concurrently. So close listening is a practice that echoes the methodology of close reading (as is implied by its very name) in its specific examination of language (we will return to this connection at length shortly). Close listening, as opposed to what might be called standard listening, or perhaps more to the point passive listening, is a listening method that Bernstein suggests makes sense in the context of aural poetry, a term less limiting in Bernsteins construction than oral poetry:
I am interested in a broader range of performance than is suggested by orality; in fact, some of the most interesting poetry-reading styles- from Jackson Mac Low to Stein to T.S. Eliot- defy orality in very specific ways: Eliot through his eerily depersonalized vocal style (emanating from the mouth more than the diaphragm); Stein with her all-over, modulating or cubist resonances; and Mac Low with his immaculate enunciation of constructed word patterns. Orality can be understood as a stylistic or even ideological marker of a reading style; in contrast, the audiotext might more usefully be understood as aural- what the ear hears. By aurality I mean to emphasize the sounding of the writing, and to make a sharp contrast with orality and its emphasis on breath, voice, and speech -an emphasis that tends to valorize speech over writing, voice over sound, listening over hearing, and indeed, orality over aurality. Aurality precedes orality, just as language precedes speech. Aurality is connected to the body- what the mouth and tongue and vocal chords enact- not the presence of the poet[...] The poetry reading enacts the poem not the poet; it materializes the text not the author; it performs the work not the one who composed it. In short, the significant fact of the poetry reading is less the presence of the poet than the presence of the poem.
The distinction in the above passage between the aural and oral is important: the oral poem is connected to the presence of the author, while the aural poem is disconnected, a free-floating performed poem. Bernstein states that orality can be under but that he is interested in a broader range of performance than is suggested by orality. The contradiction inherent in these two statements should be immediately clear: if orality is the style, the performative element, of a performance-act, then it should not be possible to study performed poetry without taking it into account. Indeed, what Bernstein is in fact interested in is not performed poetry but rather the performed poem. This may seem like a non-distinction, but it is not: the move to bracket the significance of orality in Close Listening allows Bernstein and the other essayists in the collection to largely ignore the field of performance studies in their analyses; it also makes possible Bernsteins statement that the poetry reading enacts the poem not the poet; it materializes the text not the author; it performs the work not the one who composed it. This can only be true in a study of aural poetry that defines aural poetry as separate in an examinable sense from oral poetry.
In this paper I reject the notion that performed poetry could be anything other than inherently both aural and oral. Indeed, I believe that the move to separate the two in Close Listening speaks very significantly to the weaknesses in a methodology of close listening, and illustrates the way in which, despite Bernsteins own definition of close listening as being encompassing of the total sound of a performance, the process is in fact quite limiting. It boggles the mind to think that the introduction to a volume of essays about performed poetry would make the claim that the significant fact of the poetry reading is less the presence of the poet than the presence of the poem. Certainly, the presence of the poem itself is significant, and the audiotext exists as its own object separate from the author, but, and this is the crux of the matter, only if it is recorded. That is to say, the audiotext of a given poem, if it is not recorded, exists only in the intersubjective network (we will define this term closely in a moment) between the poet and audience; it is a temporal object, that is dependent on the poet and audience as well as all the other factors that make up that network of subjectivity.
The concept of a creative network between performer and audience is not a new one. It stems from the idea that the audience at a performance is privileged in witnessing something truly unique; as Albert B. Lord wrote of slavic oral poets in his book The Singer of Tales, in a very real sense every performance is a separate song; for every performance is unique, and every performance bears the signature of its poet singer. He continues in the included notes, again specifically about Slavic oral poets, but in a way that is strikingly relevant to this discussion:
I emphasize the creative or dynamic role of the individual performer throughout[...] in order to counteract the impression in some quarters that the oral poet is merely a transmitter; that all originality is closed to him[...] I believe that[...] at the moment of performance the singer, or narrator, produces something unique.
Lordþs distinction illuminates an important characteristic of performed poetry: namely, that the poet-performer is not merely a transmitter; that, despite any pre-composition, each performance, simply in the act of presentation itself, becomes a unique event that cannot be (without recording) re-created. Thus poet-performers create in the course of performance, rather than simply transmitting a pre-composed text to a passive audience, and because of this the audience is privileged in that it is witnessing something that no person or group of people that are not present at the moment of performance can or will ever experience. This originality is due to the dual operation of improvisation, or intentional variation, and what Joel Rubin calls microvariation, or inevitable small variations that occur over the course of performance.
In Lord then we have the first half of the equation: that the poet-performer is creating a dynamic audiotext, to return to Bernsteins term, rather than simply reciting a static object that is pre-composed. The second half of the equation, then, is the audience. But how does a performed poem go from being simply a constantly shifting and temporal text being presented to an audience to a work in the creation of which the audience not only participates but is essential to? Nick Piombino gives some helpful direction in his essay on the aural ellipsis: The listener tends to fill in or weave into any elliptical speech act certain elements of his or her internal experience. This new formulation, at that point existing only within, as Jakobsen and Pomorska term it, the subjectivism of the listener, functions momentarily as a transitional object or area of potential space between the listener and the speaker. It is that idea of weaving ones own experience into a performed poem that I find particularly useful, and that I believe is an essential part of the intersubjective network between the poet-performer and audience. To give a brief example from my own experience: at the anticon 10th anniversary show on January 19th, 2002, at Slims in San Francisco, Sage Francis performed a poem called Mullet. One of the lines in the poem is: Chuck D told me to keep a sober mind / And even though his sidekick liked the flavor of base... Upon hearing that line, I referenced my own experiences of listening to Public Enemy to recognize something about the line that would not be clear to someone that was not familiar with their music: namely, that the word base, and the particular way that Sage Francis performed it, referenced not just Flava Flavs crack cocaine habit, but also the Public Enemy song Cant Truss It, which begins with Chuck D rapping, using the same inflection that Sage Francis used: Bass, in your face. Thus I interwove my own experienÛce into the understanding of the performed poem.
So now we have seen the way in which a performed poem is created simultaneously by the poet-performer and the audience. We must return now to the concept of the intersubjective network that I mentioned in passing earlier, as it contains the elements of audience and poet-performer. I am borrowing the term from Peter Middleton:
Audience and poet collaborate in the performance of the poem. The audience is not simply a collection of autonomous individuals whose auditions of the poem are entirely independent. During performance the audience is formed by the event, and creates an intersubjective network, which can then become an element in the poem itself. Intersubjectivity is only partially available as an instrument for the poet to play, and is an ever-changing, turbulent process that can overwhelm or ignore the poet, yet it is far from passive. Both the author poet and the listening audience are performances. The audience effectively stages its own reception, allowing the poet to script its semantic adventures as participant witnesses. All this takes place beyond an individual will and largely beyond a simple recording process.
I would modify Middletons account of the role of that intersubjective network, however. Rather than an instrument for anyone to play or an element the network is, I believe, the very framework that sustains the existence of the performed poem. To speak more clearly, the intersubjective network quite literally creates the poem as a performance, as we have seen earlier in specific examinations of the role of the poet-performer and the audience. This concept is echoed in Maria Damons essay, when she states that the audiences attentive apparatus flicker[s...] with such lucid intensity as to create a kinetic web of energy that is its own possibility, its own becoming-poetry. Indeed, I would argue that all performed poetry is in a state of becoming, since, as previously stated, it is a temporal phenomenon- there is no singular text of a performed poem that exists prior to a given performance, since each performance is its own object, its own text.
To elucidate this point, to be sure it is fully understood, allow me the luxury of an overly simple metaphor. Imagine a father playing catch with his daughter (we have to challenge our ideas wherever we can), a situation in which the father stands as the symbol of the poet, the daughter the audience, and the ball the poem itself. Now, if one was only interested in the poem proper, one could remove the ball from the context of the game and dissect it to their hearts content. However, if the focus of query is rather the act of playing catch, it would be ridiculous to make the claim that either the father or the daughter was not entirely central to any meaningful investigation of that act. Similarly, to understand performance poetry, one simply cannot operate on the assumption that the presence of the poet or the audience is insignificant. One necessitates the other, if the poem in question is a performance. A poet without an audience is not performing; an audience without a performer are witnessing nothing. To extend our father-daughter metaphor to further examine Bernsteins assertion, if the mother happens to also be in the yard with a video camera, and records the game, then that recording becomes its own object, its own text, at which point it could be examined as an entity separate from the two players. To repeat once more for emphasis, a performed poem simply does not exist outside that intersubjective network, unless it is recorded.
To recap: close listening is a methodology of listening that excludes the performance itself from the study of performance poetry. In this discussion the emphasis will rather be on the inextricability of the performed poem from its performance context, which is defined by the intersubjective network between the poet-performer and the audience, and the contextual framework in which the performance exists. In repositioning the study of performed poetry within the context of the performance-space I hope to reclaim the sociohistorical context of performed poetry, and specifically that of the performance space as redefined in the 1950s by the Beat Generation poets, and how that has influenced the performance-space of Slam poetry and post-rap. More specifically, in discarding the process of close listening I intend to do away with the connections inherent in it to the New Critical practice of decontextualized close(d) reading. Bernstein asserts in the introduction to Close Listening that it is the total sound of a given work that close listening as a process investigates. However, in this discourse we have explored the way in which that is not the case; rather than a total examination of the performance of a poem, a close listening of a poem yields that privileged New Critical text that is miraculously able to exist for the sake of analysis outside its inherent contextual space. The written text, the oral text, the audience, the social circumstance, the poet, even the historical moment are sloughed off in pursuit of that purely aural poem, and the resulting study is total only in that it is entirely detached from all non-aural elements.
In this analysis of performed poetry, then, we will be doing not close(d) listening but rather complete listening, in an effort to include and examine as many of those forgotten contexts, first and foremost being the performative elements of performance poetry. And, since all performance poetry is in a state of becoming, in that it is being created in the intersubjective network between the poet-performer and the audience, it makes sense that the methodology we should choose in attempting to examine, to define that poetry- that is, to attempt to force it into a more static category than becoming- would be a dynamic, unfinished one as well. I do not mean to suggest that with unfinished that complete listening as a practice is incomplete, but rather, like the poetry it explores, that it is not completable. Certainly, in our postmodern times, few readers would accept any other assertion as true: it would be a meta-narrative of the worst formalist sort to contend that any analysis of a poem, performed or otherwise, could honestly be complete, or all-encompassing; thus we are always working towards a complete listening, without ever arriving there. Complete listening is a practice, a path, a journey; it is not a formula to be rigidly applied, nor a destination to be achieved.
Roland Barthes takes a moment to do something akin to a complete listening in his fascinating book The Pleasure of the Text, that may help point out a starting place here. It is worth quoting in its entirety:
One evening, half asleep on a banquette in a bar, just for fun I tried to enumerate all the languages within earshot: music, conversations, the sounds of chairs, glasses, a whole stereophony of which a square in Tangiers (as described by Severo Sarduy) is the exemplary site. That too spoke within me, and this so-called interior speech was very like the noise of the square, like that amassing of minor voices coming to me from the outside: I myself was a public square, a sook; through me passed words, tiny syntagms, bits of formulae, and no sentence formed, as though that were the law of such a language. This speech, at once very cultural and very savage, was above all lexical, sporadic; it set up in me, through its apparent flow, a definitive discontinuity: this non-sentence was in no way something that could not have acceded to the sentence, that might have been before the sentence; it was: what is eternally, splendidly, outside the sentence.
It is this stereophony that Barthes recognizes that is both the compelling lure and the inherent impossibility of complete listening. To embark upon the path towards complete listening is to acknowledge the seductiveness of totality, of wholeness. However, the very heteroglot siren that is so alluring contains in her song the hopelessness of such a goal; as Barthes saw when he made the effort just for fun, even when the stereophony was speaking from within him, no sentence would form. And that is the law of this language: to attempt a complete listening it is necessary to concede that no listening is ever complete. The discourse of complete listening is the discourse of the non-sentence, of becoming-poetry. To put this in Derridian terms, there will always be another frame to be removed; one could deconstruct a context to eternity, but no all-encompassing truth, no completeness, can be reached. Thus the epigraph of this section: Isnt the truth of the voice to be hallucinated? Isnt the entire space of the voice an infinite one?
With complete listening we will recognize the infinite space of the voice (or more precisely, of the performance-as-voice), but we will try to avoid hallucinating the truth of that voice. Rather, we will attempt through this analysis to construct a single truth, that contains in itself the fundamental fact that it could not be the only truth. The goal will be to make that single truth as all-inclusive of certain elements of the performance as possible; I emphasize certain because I do not wish to make the erroneous and presumptuous claim that the performative facets that I will isolate and examine constitute either all or even the most important components of the performance-event. Quite the opposite, I want to remain clear that the pieces I will dissect and focus on are only those that I find useful.
Section Two:
Close(d) Listening in Practice: Sage Franciss Crack Pipes
When it is written you lose the sound or noise and therefore you lose part of the meaning.
So where do we begin with our complete listening, if the (admittedly unachievable) goal is to enumerate all the languages within earshot? Simply put, and rather ironically, with a close(d) listening of a performance: just as complete listening as a methodology begins at but departs from the practice of close(d) listening, so too will this complete listening take off from that point. However, the listening being undertaken in this section will be an expanded version of the practice of close(d) listening, one that does take into account the presence of the poet, and the significance of that presence and that poet, in an attempt to produce an analysis that will be more directly relevant in a complete listening. The performance we will examine will be from April 6th, 2002, at The Bottom of the Hill, in San Francisco. The show was the Bay Area stop of the Personal Journeys tour, featuring Grand Buffet, Edan the Humble Magnificent, and headlined by Sage Francis. The show as a whole will be discussed as the context that surrounds the specific performance-act that will be the focus of our close listening. The performance-act we will be examining is Crack Pipes, by Sage Francis, which came towards the end of the evening. I will begin with my transcription of the lyrics as they were presented at the show:
1 Id give a twenty-one gunshot salute
with the toy rifle that you bought me, but it wont shoot.
And all is well because theres been one too many shots,
the sterile robots want to talk to me about detox.
5 Stop the presses, theres been an update delivered via one-thirty AM phone call,
when an only half-informative source talks discreetly.
Meet me
at the family room, on the side of the intensive-care unit.
10 Ill carry a tune, the siren so loud cant hear my music.
Keep free
of negative thoughts, everythingll be fine, we all assumed
That it would go back to the way things were
that it would go back to normal soon.
15 Saw the moon in a way Id never seen it before
when I looked up that night
into the sky
wondering why
looking for answers
20 I guess I aint asked right
Im guessing most of yall out there know exactly what thats like
(whats that like?)
now tell me, whats that like?
Its like a whirlwind of emotions,
25 that occurs when moms and dads fight,
its like when a girl grins,
an emotion occurs that holds your arm and grabs tight.
Hurl him into the ocean
one of those cold-sweat heat-flash types,
30 but extreme fluctuations and temperature changes
have been known to crack pipes.
Crack pipes.
Crack pipes.
Meet me
35 halfway and Ill go the extra length
just to help your strength,
Meet me
at the AA meeting
needing to take more than twelve steps,
40 Bring me to your hiding place,
so I can face your vice-grip,
Ill chisel every single monkey off your back
with this ice-pick.
Come meet up with me
45 on the sidelines when the game is over,
just to say hello,
then afterwards, outside
to let me know
that you enjoyed the show.
50 Go to grandmas house for Sunday dinner
sit at the head of the table
take away the fatal flaw
you made the day before
I see you bleed.
55 Meet me
on Christmas eve,
we can fight but make up before you leave,
make visits with the rest of those
who rest in pieces of my dreams.
60 Meet me
at the fork in the road
where the lost souls get indecisive.
Meet me
65 at the crossroads
so I can have someone to walk into the light with.
Since what is under our lens here is a performance-act, that existed in the real-time of the performance space, I believe the most useful method of unpacking the poem is to follow it chronologically, so to speak, as the audience would have heard it at the performance itself. This practice will help this analysis to avoid straying from the fact that the poem under scrutiny was not written as a visual poem. With that framework in mind, it is the music that the audience encounters first. Produced by Sixtoo of anticon, the Sebutones and the 1200 Hobos, the music consists of a slow looped sample of a single guitar that contrasts with dense and fast drums to create a very lushly ±intense sound. That theme of contrast is central to the narrative of the lyrics as well, an example of form mirroring content in the third (sonic) dimension of performance-poetry. In fact, the contrast and tension between self and other, and the search for identity within that dichotomy, is the thread that ties the song together as a cohesive whole.
The first section of the first verse paragraph of the song sets the narrative stage for the tension that motivates the song, with the story of the death of the speakers father. The first two lines, Id give a twenty-one gunshot salute / with the toy rifle that you bought me, but it wont shoot foreshadow the death that will occur while establishing the father/son relationship through the typically male American symbol of the rifle, a la Davy Crockett and the frontier myth. The end of the second line, but it wont shoot, reveals both a disfunction in the relationship between the two- the son, despite his best intentions to eulogize his father with the traditional military burial ceremony, is unable to due to the broken gun he was given- as well as a physical impotence symbolized by the phallic gun, that calls into question the possibility of any kinship at all. The third line opens with a negation of the significance of the dysfunctional rifle, assuring the audience that all is well, before ironically shifting the scene to the hospital (hardly a place where one could make the claim that all is well) with the phrase because theres been one too many shots, modified by the fourth line, the sterile robots want to talk to me about detox, where the fluorescent-light sterility of the hospital comes across clearly. This fourth line was delivered followed by an ironic laugh from Sage Francis, referring I assume to his public stance as drug and alcohol free. In that context, the disconnect between Sage Francis-as-author anthe sterile robots that want to talk to [him] about detox, is even more evident, as detox clinics are not the standard prescription for sober individuals. The hospital shots replace the salute as the means for extending the life of the father, but this time physically rather than symbolically, and instead of the ritual twenty-one shots there are only one too many. The fifth line introduces a second break in the narrative flow with the abrupt Stop the presses, that leads into a further modification with theres been an update delivered via one-thirty AM phone call, developing the theme of communication in referencing newspapers and telephones. The sixth line returns to the use of oppositions, contrasting against and undermining the effectiveness of communication in the fifth line by being onÍly half-informative, which is made doubly ironic by the fact that it is a family member that is that not-entirely illuminating source, illustrated by the location of the person on the phone at the family room (l. 8).
At this point in the song a crash cymbal comes in and the density of the drums doubles (though the tempo remains the same). The only phrase in the lyrics that could be considered a refrain, Meet me, is introduced at the same time, with a stronger emphasis than the lines before it. Though it is ambiguous to whom the command is addressed, the following lines imply that it is a family member, and the narrative flow would suggest that it is the same one that was the only half-informative source on the phone. The eighth line makes explicit the implicit hospital references of lines three and four, but this is a hospital where the side of the intensive-care unit is also the family room, an ironic juxtaposition that reinforces the picture of this family as a dysfunctional one. The urgency of the music echoes Sage Franciss intensified delivery, and the hard emphasis on Meet me is repeated with Immediately, adding to that sense of pressure, as well as inviting the listener to hear Immediately as connected to either the Meet me or the following line. In the tenth line the immediate need to carry a tune is made disrupted by the siren [that is] so loud the speaker cant hear [his] music. This recalls the dysfunctional rifle; again, the speaker wants to do something, to actively help or at least participate, but his efforts continue to be thwarted indirectly by his father: first by the gift of the broken rifle, and second by the siren of the ambulance carrying the father to the hospital that prevents the narrator from carrying a tune. The Keep free that follows is again heavily stressed, and contrasts ironically with the speakers own position as inextricably intertwined with his dying father, as though one could avoid negative thoughts in the hospital-room space where a family member is passing away.
From that position inside the family room the narrative moves outside, and back from the plural of the family to the singular of the speaker. Lines 15-17 also introduce the theme of a changed world: Saw the moon in a way Id never seen it before / when I looked up that night / into the sky. The reference to the moon is the first of several nature images that inflect the second half of the first verse paragraph, and that contrast with the sterile hospital environment of the first half. The changed world, as embodied here by the moon, is in direct opposition to the assumption that the world would go back to the way things were. However, the speaker only sees the moon because he looks into the sky / wondering why / looking for answers, and the changed world isnt the answer he was looking for, as evinced by line 20: I guess I aint asked right. Indeed, what the narrator is seeking is a return to normalcy, and the clearly different moon explicitly conveys that the world is a changed place, the opposite of the desired response. This leads into the next section of the narrative, which dramatizes the emotional upheaval and loss of identity produced by this different world.
The next segment of the verse paragraph replays in various modes and scenarios the searching for an emotional foothold, and so a selfhood, in a changed world. Lines 24-25 represent the abstracted children of moms and dads, unsure of their collective place in a conflict that in many ways offers them no position. Lines 26-27 describes the confusing stomach-butterflies (displaced here to an emotion that grabs your arm) of male-female relationships, narrowed from the pronoun-less previous lines to the second-person you that recalls that audience-performer dynamic, and is the voice of most of the narrative. Lines 28-29 then switch to the third person him, creating a more gender-specific moment, but one that moves from the detail of the emotionally-charged situation to the more removed physical effects of that circumstance, the cold-sweat[s] and heat-flash[es] of emotional upheaval. The extent to which the lack of emotional grounding here reflects a more fundamental lack of identity is echoed in the pronoun shifts in these six lines, moving from the identity-less children, to the second-person you, to the third-person him. Thus the whirlwind of emotions quite literally leads into a whirlwind of subjectivities, unable to come to rest in any one place, as any one self.
Line 28 returns to the nature imagery of the moon with the ocean, but here it is not a symbol of a changed world so much as it is a cure for the symptoms caused by the emotions engendered by that changedness, implied by the suggestion to hurl him into the ocean. However, the natural world as a method of therapy comes with its own drawbacks and dangers: the extreme fluctuations and temperature changes / have been known to crack pipes. The image of a cracked pipe deserves to be deconstructed here, since it is the title of the song, and is repeated three times (with different emphases each time) in the song itself. A pipe is in this song both a conduit of the sort that would be cracked by a freeze in the winter, as well as device for smoking, of which a crack pipe is a particular(ly significant) type. A cracked pipe of the first sort no longer carries something from one place to another; that is, it no longer serves as a channel of communication. It is also, in a directly literal way, symbolic of a broken home. A cracked pipe of the second sort recalls the toy rifle that wouldnt shoot of line 2: it is a metonym of American manhood that no longer functions, and like the gun, notably phallic, again calling into question the very possibility of the father-son relationship. These are the issues being raised in lines 31-32, when the emphasis is more directly on the word pipes than crack pipes as a phrase, as it is in line 33. The death of the father that has been narrated in the first verse paragraph is related to these cracked pipes. His death breaks the home in that the family unit is no longer whole, and breaks down the communication in the family as well (as evinced by the move away from the plural we of the family after line 14), although it is certainly possible that the lack of communication was present in the family prior to the death. The fathers passing also destroys the place of the father in the family, as symbolized by the broken smoking-pipe of American fatherly lore (a la Ward Cleaver).
At this point the lyrics take a drastic turn: the crack pipes of line 33 clearly references crack cocaine in a way that the other two uses of the phrase do not; the emphasis in the line hangs more heavily on the first word: Crack pipes. But why the move from symbols of the American family, the pipes of the fathers and single family homes, to crack pipes, in many ways the antithesis of that middle class American dream? The easy answer is that opposition itself: the song is clearly concerned with contrast, and this is just another example. But obviously, there is more to it than that: if the image of the crack pipe wasnt central, it wouldnt bear repeating right before the only break in the song any more than it would deserve to be the title of the song. Ironically, the move here to the concrete symbol of the crack pipe from the more abstracted images of the ambiguous pipes of the previous two lines actually serves to generalize the narrative of the song. The broken home of the dysfunctional family specific to the narrative of the song becomes a symbol of a dysfunctional society, and the cracked pipe as representation of fractured communication becomes the crack pipe that is emblematic of the split in American society between the urban poor and the suburban wealthy. It is no accident that the trope of the crack pipe and its significance as relevant to the division of wealth in America is hugely important to the genesis of rap music in the early-1990s, and that the appropriation of the music by suburban whites remains one of the most hotly contested issues both by critics and the artists themselves. At this moment in the performance, Sage Francis added as an aside, Crack, its whats for dinner, recalling the beef commercials of the mid-1990s, displacing the image of crack cocaine into the space of Suburbia and complicating the issue further. Thus the poem has moved from confusing the speaking subject of the narrative to calling into question the very societal framework that creates that subject, displacing the self/other dichotomy into a nebulous site that, like the speaker, no longer has any clear delineations or identity.
So the Meet me of the first verse paragraph, a specific conversational moment that marked an interaction between the speaker and his family, loses its subject in the second verse paragraph to be left free-floating, addressing a vague other that has no clear identity. This subjectless command is the emotional fallout of the whirlwind of selfhoods that the poem subjected its listener to in the preceding lines, and relates to the loss of the father. The sense is that the speaker wants to be addressing his dead father, and in his inability to do so can only lash out at the collective you with a series of scenarios that are rife with his own confusion. There is a gesture towards a feasible wholeness in lines 34-36, with the speaking voice offering to go the extra length if the addressee will meet him halfway. However, any possibility of a true completion is lost in the following phrase, when the definitive end of the Alcoholics Anonymous program is not enough, and the anonymous participants are left needing to take more than twelve steps (l. 39). The anonymity of the subject spills over into line 40, symbolized by the hiding place, where rather than coming face-to-face with the other the speaker can only face [their] vice-grip, avoiding even the mutual recognition of a hand shake. Therein lies the irony of this move by Sage Francis: the refrain insists on a meeting, but each situation that unfolds in the second verse paragraph is both anonymous and entirely devoid of any true interaction. Even when the speaker offers to chisel every single monkey off your back, the method is to use an ice-pick, (ll. 42-43) again avoiding even the slightest direct human contact.
The poem continues to play with the identity of both the speaker and the addressee, with the speaker positioning himself first as an athlete, creating expectation again that the person being addressed is the father, then as a performer, complicating that anticipation. Come meet up with me / on the sidelines when the game is over / just to say hello, (ll. 44-46) insists the speaking voice, returning to something like the classic American father-son relationship. However, afterwards, the invitation is to meet outside / to let me know / that you enjoyed the show, (ll. 47-49) implying that the speaker is in fact Sage Francis himself, which makes the person(s) being addressed the audience itself. This interpretation is supported by the fact that Sage Francis modified the poem from the recorded audiotext, substituting outside for backstage, a reference to the fact that The Bottom of the Hill has no backstage area. Keeping up with the whirlwind of subjectivities, however, the poem immediately moves back to the family space of grandmas house, (l. 50) where the place at the head of the table (l. 51) is presumably reserved, again, for the father-figure. After the Christmas dinner however, by lines 58-59, the father is advised to make visits with the rest of those / who rest in pieces of my dreams, calling into question the very existence of the addressee as more than a figment of the speakers imagination.
Lines 60-66 serve both as a conclusion to the narrative and a completion to the confusion and conflation of self and other. The speaker once again entreats the other to Meet me, though its now at the fork in the road / where the lost souls get indecisive (ll. 60-62), recalling the death narrative of the poem. Line 62 invites the listener to hear the lost soul as being the departed father. However, that reading is complicated by the echo of the fork in the road in the crossroads of line 65 where the speaker is the one that needs someone to walk into the light with. (l. 66) Thatsomeone, and so the the alienation of self promised by the crack pipes at the end of the first verse paragraph is accomplished through the rhetorical trick of the self literally becoming the other. In the end, the Meet me refrain is a more literal invitation from the self to the other than it first appeared, with the two meeting finally in the last line of the poem.
Clearly, one of the parallels to the theme of self and other that runs through Crack Pipes is the interplay between the performer and the audience. It is the classic tension of performance poetry, as John Glassco notes in A Real Good Noise: The Poet as Performer, the listener wants to feel that he is getting closer to a poem by hearing it from the poet himself; the desire is to hear a certain autobiographical truth in a given poem due to the presence of the poet. The problem there, of course, is that assumption privileges performed poetry as possessing of an intangible truth in a way that visual poetry, or poetry of the page, quite literally could not- an indirectly formalist claim. Sage Francis thematizes this issue in lines 21-23 of Crack Pipes, by locating the speaking voice in three different positions within the performer-audience dynamic- namely, performer-as-instructor (or, the traditional role of the performer, imparting information), audience-as-recipient (the actively questioning participant of performance poetry, seeking knowledge), and perfomer-as-recipient. In line 21, the speaking voice is that of the performer: Im guessing most of yall out there know exactly what thats like, a line that sounds almost like an aside made in the course of performance by the poet to the audience. Line 22 immediately responds to the performer from the perspective of the audience, recalling the traditional call-and-response that is long a part of hip hop performances, asking the question that the performer assumes doesnt need to be asked, whats that like?, and so fulfilling the role of the active listener, seeking knowledge. However, all of this complicates the performer-audience dynamic, since both voices, though recognizably intended to represent different elements of that duality, come literally from the same throat, reducing the necessary plurality of the performer-audience interaction to a singular. The interaction played out in these lines also problematizes the position of Sage Francis himself, and the contrast (contradiction) between his external public self and his internal private self since, as the performance-voice of this selection exposes, he is both performing his public persona and questioning (quite literally) that construction. The relationship between performer and audience is further complicated by line 23, which returns to the loudly projected voice of line 21 after the more quietly expressive voice of line 22 (which Ive chosen to represent in my transcription by placing the line in parentheses), implying that the speaking voice is located once again in the body of the performer. However, now that voice is asking the same question that the audience asked, but addressing it to the audience- essentially flipping the performer-audience dynamic on its head by situating the speaker-performer as the seeker, or recipient of knowledge, and in this case, putting the audience in the position of responding to the question being asked; that is, Sage Francis puts the words that follow lines 21-23 in the collective mouth of his audience, forcing a reevaluation and consequently a true recognition of the relationship between performer and audience.
So Crack Pipes both thematizes the relationship between the self and the other, and the performer and the audience, making it a natural choice for an examination of the nature of those relationships within the space of performed poetry. And now that we have completed a close listening, we must begin the process of (re)contextualizing these two performances, of making this a more complete listening. In his introduction to Performance Practice: Ethnomusicological Perspectives, Gerard Behague references the work of Milton Singer: [Milton Singer] further defines the actual patterning of a cultural performance as consisting of a definitely limited time span or, at least, a beginning and an end, an organized program of activity, a set of performers, an audience and a place or occasion of performance. With this set of parameters as a preliminary signpost, we can begin to dissect the context of these performances.
First, was there was a definitely limited time span? There was a specified beginning, that much is clear: doors open at 8:30 P.M., show begins at 10:00 P.M.; however, there was no announced ending time, either in the literature distributed in the weeks prior to the show, or at the concert itself. But despite that, both the performers and audience members came into the event expecting to go home at the end, and presumably The Bottom of the Hill cannot stay open past a certain hour. This is where performance shows itself to be a cultural event: were a person hypothetically able to arrive at a performance like this stop of the Personal Journeys tour show without any prior knowledge of the practice of going to American concert performances, they would likely be confused as to when the show was going to end. But regardless, there was an understanding that the show would end at a given time, probably not before midnight, probably not after 2 A.M., give or take. There was, as well, an organized program of activity: the billing listed Sage Francis with DJ MF Shalem B, Edan, and then Grand Buffet. Again, the culture of concert-going comes into play here: the headliner, though listed first, would be expected to perform last. In addition to those on the billing, three performers took the stage: Mr. Lif (a recent Boston transplant to the San Francisco) joined Edan for a song, and Sole and Alias of the Bay Areas anticon collective each performed three songs in the space between Grand Buffets set and Edans. Since Sages album was released on anticons label, the appearance of Sole and Alias was not entirely a surprise, though their inclusion in the show for what amounted to an entire set was.
So we arrive at Sage Francis as a performer. His biography as a public figure is impressive, and his experience comes across in the form of a commanding stage presence. He is a champion battle emcee (Scribble Jam 2000), the lead singer of a live hip hop-plus band (Art.Official.Intelligence), has released a pair of legendary 12s with Joey Beats as Non-Prophets (Drop Bass, All Word No Play), and is now four installments deep into his self-released Sick Of Waiting series (Sick Of Waiting, Still Sick Urine Trouble, Sick Of Waiting Tables, and Sick Of Waging War). In addition to all of his work as an emcee, he is an award-winning Slam poet, and has been a member of the Providence Slam team the last four years running. On stage, he appears equally comfortable rapping over beats and delivering a poem a capella. At The Bottom of the Hill on April 6th, he switched personas midway through the set, leaving the stage to return as Xaul Xan, his middle-American alter-ego, complete with mullet wig and Starter jacket. By moving in and out of these difference modes and selves on stage, Sage Francis is able to thematize in himself as a performer the same issues that Crack Pipes as a performance piece plays with: he is at once a poet and an emcee, himself and someone else, and when he leaves the stage empty except for DJ MF Shalem B playing a remixed version of Mullet that consists entirely of Sage beat-boxing, he is able to be both performer and audience. That is to say, if Crack Pipes as a song works as an exploration of the identities of and relationships between the self and the other, it only does so because Sage Francis is the one on stage performing it.
And so finally, the last element in this rough recreation of the intersubjective network that created this performance of Crack Pipes is the audience. There was a limit placed on the crowd by the place of performance itself: The Bottom of the Hill, being a bar as well as a concert venue, enforces a 21-and-over rule. The audience in attendance was a near-sold-out crowd of about 150 people at its peak, that reflected the various groups drawn to post-rap music. The traditional (expected) hip hop throng was of course in effect: b-boys in adidas and wind pants, thugs in Timberlands and jewelry, graffitti writers and underground heads with backpacks full of spray paint and tapes, and conscious neo-soul five-percenter kids that split their wardrobe between Malcolm X paraphernalia and Public Enemy t-shirts. The college radio scenesters blended with the San Francisco electronica sheik, a melange of converse all-stars and sweaters by the bar, there for the sound of the moment or Sage Franciss connection to anticon, and through them, to Tigerbeat6. There was the crew of tragically hip art-house locals wearing slick black, milling about in the back, apparently unsure whether or not to stay by the bar, but clearly not a part of the throng at the front by the stage. The rest of the audience was made up of confused girlfriends and older men. The assembly was as a whole primarily white, though certainly not exclusively, primarily middle class and educated, with what seemed to be about a fifty-fifty split between those well-versed in the language of hip hop, and the boom-bap illiterate with other musical interests. There were more men than women, and from the looks on peoples faces when the show began, about three-quarters of the crowd had heard post-rap music before, with maybe half of the lot knowing the performers well.
The Texts
Thus we have constructed a skeletal context around the performance itself. However, the relationship of the visual text and the audiotext of Crack Pipes to that performance remains to be examined. There are a number of assumptions that will have to be dealt with if this analysis is to be meaningful in a significant sense. First, there is that issue raised by Walter J. Ong in his book Orality and Literacy: namely, that we live in a world of secondary orality because of the very existence of literacy; or more simply, that no purely oral culture can exist because all cultures are at the very least aware of literacy. The second concern is that already brought up by Sage Francis, the claim that no written (visual) text of the performance poem Mullet existed, and that in fact no visual text of that poem could exist. It is an intriguing question: there is little doubt that many, if not most performed poems are composed originally as written texts, but what of poetry that is composed on the tongue? Can poetry written in performance, or even for performance, be transcribed? Which of course leads to the corollary question, can poetry that is set to music be transcribed in a meaningful way? Additionally to all of this, there is the question of the role that the pre-composed visual text plays in the performance-act itself. I will attempt to address all of these issues in this section, and in doing so tie the strings together on this experiment in complete listening enough to postulate a conclusion to it.
Johanna Drucker takes up the second of the matters of transcription from a rather obverse angle, but one that may be useful here in elucidating the significance of Sage Franciss claim, in her essay Visual Performance of the Poetic Text. Instead of asking the question of how a poet-performer physically performs a visual text, Drucker examines the way in which a visual text can contain performative elements. Drucker begins her section on Visual Performance in Poetic Work:
The idea of performance in poetry is conventionally associated with a real-time event in which a live or recorded reading provides effective dimensions to a poetic work through the immediate experiences that constitute an event. But a visual performance of a poetic work on a page or a canvas, as a projection or sculpture, installation or score, also has the qualities of an enactment, of a staged and realized event in which the material means are an integral feature of the work. Performance in this sense includes all of the elements that make the work an instantiation of a text, make it specific, unique, and dramatic because of the visual character through which the work comes into being. The specific quality of presence in such a work depends upon visual means- typefaces, format, spatial distribution of the elements on the page or through the book, physical form, or space. These visual means perform the work as a poem that cant be translated into any other form.
There is no doubt that the type of performance I am primarily concerned with in this study is the sort that Drucker speaks of in the first sentence: the real-time act; the performance-as-event. However, the assertion that a visual performance of a poetic work on a page... also has the qualities of an enactment, of a staged and realized event is nevertheless extremely important, in that it would seem to challenge Sage Franciss claim that a visual text of Mullet could not exist; rather, Druckers account of visual performance seems to imply that the fact that no visual text currently exists does not mean that such a text could not. It is this discord between the two statements that we will now take up.
To find the point at which Druckers construction of the visual performance diverges from the term performance as we are using it in complete listening, one needs only to return to Bernsteins understanding of the poetry reading as it underpins close reading: The poetry reading enacts the poem not the poet; it materializes the text not the author. Drucker echoes Bernsteins statement almost directly: the visual performance of a work, rather than being about the presence of the author/reader, is about the presence of the poem, and further: visual performance of a poetic work has no necessary temporal, spatial, or social relation to the author or artist. Written work is always at a remove from the writer, cast into an autonomous form, not dependent on the presence of the author as a performance. However, section one of this study argues that a performance poem does not exist separate from its performance-space; it is inherently not more than a performance-act. That is to say, accepting Druckers assertion that the visual, written text is always at a remove from the writer, any visual performance of a written text cannot, despite any inherent performative elements, be a true transcription of the performed poem, since in the paradigm of complete listening the presence of the poet-performer is fundamental. Drucker comes close to making this distinction in calling the written texts autonomous, but the specific nuance is important to recognize here, to help avoid falling into the trap of close(d) listening (or reading).
Are we forced then to accept Sage Franciss statement that no visual text of Mullet could exist? In a word, no: if all performed poetry is, as we have seen with both Maria Damon and Roland Barthes, becoming-poetry, then it is perfectly acceptable to claim that the visual text of a poem is just one stage in that process of becoming, or simply one element in the performance-poem that exists permanently in the state of becoming. That is, the written text has a place in the co-creative intersubjective network between the audience and poet, and so necessarily exists, even if that existence consists of nothing more than a title written on a program, or CD case, or even just the possibility that someone could write the poem down.Bluntly put, all poems have a visual aspect in a world of secondary orality, no matter how partial or even unformed that aspect might be. All verbal production retains the influence of literacy because, in a society of secondary orality, words at the very least can be (and I would argue, most often are) imagined as their visual symbols, rather than as sonic fragments of communication. So, even when Sage Francis reads (!) a poem that he insists has no visual representation, the fact that the sounds he makes have visual markers that can be put to them necessitates the existence, if only in the realm of possibility, of a visual text of the performed poem.¸
So even poetries that purport to not have a visual text do in fact have one in a world of secondary orality; but how does all this relate back to Johanna Druckers article? The question to ask is whether these visual texts that exist as part of the process of becoming are transcriptions of the performed poem, or whether they exist as visual performances that are a separate object from the performance-act itself. I would submit that there can be no true transcription onto the page of a performance, since again, in a practice of complete listening, the presence of the poet is paramount, and the poet cannot be transcribed as part of the visual performance. Thus any transcription of a performance, whether it is meant as a re-performance or a proper transcription, is in fact only partial.
This leads us to the last issue raised in the opening paragraph of this section: it is clear that visual texts are not proper transcriptions of performance-poetry, but it is just as clear that they do play some role in the performance-event, and any listening that did not take that fact into account would not be complete. However, the significance of the written text is not fixed: it varies significantly from performance to performance, and is dependent on a number of factors, including the availability of the written text, the audiences familiarity with that text, as well as the performers own use of and adherence to the text, among others. For example, when Allen Ginsberg gives a reading of Howl in 1959 the written text is not as big a factor as it would be in a 1989 reading, at which time the audience would (presumably) be much more familiar with the visual text, and would thus have different expectations of Ginsbergs performance. The text has an interesting function in this complete listening: no visual text of Crack Pipes has ever been released in any format, so the only text that the audience could have referred back to would have been the recorded audiotext. However, the performance in question, on April 6th, 2002, was ten days before Sage Franciss Personal Journals LP was released. That is to say, only the smallest fraction of the audience could have had prior knowledge of the song as Sage was performing it; only the people that had heard the bootlegged version of the album that had been leaked on the internet about three weeks before, and those that had heard promotional copies. Which is to say, to have had known the song as Sage Francis performed it, one would need either a high-speed connection to the internet (or know someone that had one) through which to download the music, or a connection in the independent music scene. Thus it seems safe to say that the majority of the audience in attendance on the sixth was hearing the lyrics to Crack Pipes for the first time. The music had been released as a part of Sixtoos 2001 instrumental opus The Secrets That Houses Keep, a 10 record that had a limited pressing, suggesting again that most of the crowd probably was not familiar with the music when they heard it that night either.
So in a rather odd way, both the audiotext and visual text refuse to take part in the intersubjective network of this performance. What is remarkable is the very ethereality that this lends the performance: it gives it the aura of an originary moment, where everyone could only approach the co-creation of the poem as if it were a true, original instant of creation. What it also does is allow the song to refuse to accept an definition; being in that moment neither an audio-recording nor a written text, it was able to exist only as a performance, only in that temporal performance space. And, in refusing a definition, what the performance does is rejects an identity, a static self. Which is to say, just as Sage Francis as a performer and Crack Pipes as a performance thematized the issue of identity, the dissolution of previously available texts from the intersubjective network of its creation enables the very context of its coming into to being to do so as well.
Section 3: (Re)contextualization One
Creating New Terms: Rap Music as Critical Metanarrative
I hope that no one will any longer be able to think of music or poetry in the late twentieth century without assigning rappers a primary place, both out of an awareness of the urgency of their message, as well as on account of the tremendous poetic power and variety of their expression.
In the immortal words of Oliver Wendall Holmes: A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimensions.
To begin to reclaim some of the contextual information and significance lost in the process of close(d) listening, the first step is to situate Sage Franciss performance within the cultural landscape of rap music, such as it is, by making the move to define his place (and the place of the sub-genre that he is working in) within that setting.
The title of this section is an interpolation of the title of the introduction to Russell Potters fascinating book Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism, Coming to Terms: Rap Music as Radical Postmodernism. In the introduction Potter makes the substantial claim that all black artistic movements can be read as postmodern, as a result of their dual presence in the historical now, as inflected by 400 years of slavery and post-slavery, and the future-present of the upwardly and temporally mobile American Ideal. As an account of this postmodernism of American blackness Potter succeeds with Spectacular Vernaculars and then some; however, he fails, I believe, to give proper consideration to the postmodern duality inherent in the dominant (white) American position relative to the world; what Cornell West calls the product of... First World reflections on the decentering of Europe. That is, if black Americans exist in a dual postmodern space that is at times antithetical to the (again, white) American Ideal, white Americans are also themselves in the dual reality of American and decentered, or displaced, European. Potter does take up the issue of white American-ness, but comes to the opposite conclusion that I have: The central trope of white is, I think, the luxury not to think doubly, to see the world through the one-eyed vistas of privilege, rather than having to account for ones own identity within and against a fundamentally multiple culture. In glossing this other (primary? at least predominant) postmodernism of white America(n-ness) as the dialectics of Western modernism, Potter manages to avoid making the almost conventional move to insist that there are multiple postmodernisms, despite emphasizing that such a move is one that needs to be made. Instead, Potter brackets the other American postmodernism(s) in favor of focusing on a construction that combines Theresa Eberts ludic and resistance postmodernisms into a new postmodernism of blackness; it is this playfully transgressive radical postmodernism that Potter reads rap music into.
I do not question the validity of Potters reading of rap music as reflective of the dual nature of black American society. But then if this is coming to terms with rap music as a postmodern object, why the need, as I have suggested with the title of this section, to create new terms? Or, and this is asking for the same answer, if not the same question, how is rap music a critical metanarrative? To begin to answer these questions we have to examine the assumptions that undergird Potters move from rap music to a postmodernism of blackness. Actually, it is one assumption in particular: the one that gives authority to the statement that hip-hop culture is a particular feature of African-American culture in general; the same assumption codes rap music as Black Noise (Tricia Roses book with this title makes the connection explicit as well in its subtitle: Rap Music and black Culture in Contemporary America) or a black cultural form. The understanding is clear: rap music is black music, and hip hop culture is black culture, and so of course it is an art form that falls under the jurisdiction of cultural studies, or specifically African-American cultural studies. This understanding is exactly the critical metanarrative of rap music: the critical discourse that surrounds the music holds that it is precisely and singularly the cultural production of black America.
I wish to challenge this supposition made by Potter and other critics, not on its sociohistorical grounds, but rather its relevance to the present situation of rap music; or perhaps more to the point I will be challenging the idea that rap music is ubiquitously synonymous to the music being produced by rappers and hip hop artists in the current cultural climate of American rap music. I should state
Sun Jan 19, 2003 2:47 pm
Joined: 07 Nov 2002
Posts: 122
hey sage- how does it feel to have your thoughts super broken down into a term paper format?
Sun Jan 19, 2003 6:23 pm
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 427
Why does it get cut off? "I should state..." State what?
Sun Jan 19, 2003 6:54 pm
Joined: 06 Dec 2002
Posts: 599
damn man
that person is gay, if someone digs your music just dig it dont fucking pick it apart to something worthless i lost interest five minutes into the damn thing.. thats nuts how someone could do that to a 2 minute song it takes longer to read that whole thing then it does to listen to the song god damn
Sun Jan 19, 2003 10:03 pm
Sage Francis
Self Fighteous
Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 21790
sorry about it getting cut off. I guess the whole thing couldn't fit in one post. if you want the rest let me know. but the part about Crack Pipes is all there.
When I first read this I felt...a bunch of things. Ultimately, I am beyond flattered that someone would think this much about anything I have ever said or done.
Sun Jan 19, 2003 10:04 pm
Joined: 08 Oct 2002
Posts: 350
I wonder how accurate his interpretation of the song is compared to what you were intending to convey. Where there parts where you were like "I didn't meen it like that" or were there things that he missed?
How many sections are there?
Mon Jan 20, 2003 1:42 am
Joined: 25 Aug 2002
Posts: 9309
thanks sage...
that is great that you posted this for me and all the rest of us. i definitely got the part i wanted.
i'd be super flattered as well.
thanks again.
Fri Jan 24, 2003 10:32 am
The Dead Poet
Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 724
Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Sage, is it possible you could e-mail it to me...
Fri Jan 24, 2003 12:21 pm
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 907
Location: Austin, Tx
Fri Jan 24, 2003 8:13 pm
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text:
OAKLAND -- The October surprise at the Oakland Army Base wasn't that the city and developers finally reached a $1 billion deal to transform it into a warehousing and logistics center.
It was that most of the businesses already there, including the backbone of Oakland's film industry, were given no more than three months to pack their bags.
One day after the Army Base deal was signed last week, Oakland officials sent out eviction notices to about 40 businesses at the base, including the 32 companies that comprise the film center.
The orders present a hardship for many of the companies whose work requires heavy equipment and lots of space.
Urban Recycling Solutions, a firm that collects construction debris, was given 30 days to find a new home for its mounds of crushed materials that rise several stories above the neighboring warehouses.
"We have to have a transition period," the company's Tom Chasm said. "They're essentially putting us out of business so the developers can make hundreds of millions of dollars."
The Army Base is one of the Bay Area's largest public-private partnerships with $242 million in state funds already earmarked. The proposed rail improvements and warehouse developments are anticipated to create about 5,000 jobs and help revitalize the adjacent Port of Oakland.
Up until last year, the City Council had mandated that the project also include a new home for the film center, whose companies have provided props and supplies to locally-shot blockbusters including Moneyball and The Pursuit of Happyness.
The mandate was removed after the city and developers considered it too burdensome. But the development team and the film center still traded proposals for a new film center on the base.
And even last month, the businesses said Oakland officials told them they wouldn't have to move until June at the earliest.
"No one communicated there was a chance of us only having 90 days," said Tim Ranahan of Ranahan Production Services. "We were supposed to be in the loop on everything."
Assistant City Administrator Fred Blackwell said developers initially planned to relocate the businesses on nearby land owned by the port. But with the Port's portion of the Army Base project not moving ahead in unison with the city's, there was no space available to house the businesses.
To preserve the big state grant, lead developer Phil Tagami has to start construction on the city land by December 2013, which means the existing buildings must be demolished starting no later than May.
Blackwell said the companies at the base likely would be allowed to stay beyond their eviction dates, which were based on the terms of their leases.
"We're not going to be unreasonable," he said. "I think we will be able to work with folks on an orderly process."
The film center, which consists of three big warehouses, formed eight years ago at the base. It constitutes the Bay Area's largest collection of production service firms, providing a one-stop shop for filmmakers shooting in San Francisco and the East Bay.
The center's importance to Oakland's film prospects spurred council members to originally order that it stay at the base. "This is an industry, not individual businesses, and so there is a synergy around them being located in proximity to each other," Councilmember Desley Brooks said during Tuesday's council meeting.
The center said it has already gotten feelers from San Francisco and Richmond, although there is no guarantee it will find enough space to keep the businesses together.
City officials visited the center on Friday to consider alternative locations outside the Army Base. Possibilities in Oakland include the American Steel Studios, which is home to Burning Man artists and the nearby Pacific Pipe Company Building.
The Army Base location was ideal because it allowed for a quick trip to shooting locations in San Francisco, said Sean House, a prop maker, who heads Outhouse Productions.
His section of the warehouse was filled with bizarre creations, including a fabricated snow plow, giant warthogs and a devilish four-eyed Pug that was used in a Weird Al Yankovic video.
"This would be a lot to move in three months," he said.
Contact Matthew Artz at 510-208-6435.

subset: commoncrawl


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OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. - Lawrence Realty was recently recognized for its new Lawrence Realty Tahoe App. The company received a nomination for the Most Innovative Marketing Technique at the prestigious 17th Annual Luxury Real Estate Fall Conference held earlier this month in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"Luxury Real Estate is a network of the most prominent global luxury brokers," said CEO Larry Lawrence of Lawrence Realty, a family owned and operated real estate company headquartered in Olympic Valley. "To be recognized for our progressive marketing strategies among the Who's Who in this esteemed industry is a tremendous honor for our firm as we pride ourselves on exceeding client expectations."
Lawrence Realty has served the local market for nearly 40 years. The company's new iPhone app, Lawrence Realty, is free of charge at the Apple App Store and is designed for iPhone 4, 4S and 5 users, and is also accessible via the iPad.
What differentiates the Lawrence Realty Tahoe App from other applications is that it was created by a local real estate office, not a franchised company, specifically to give a candid view of the local market. There is just one step to get to all things Tahoe; users will not have to shuffle through multiple layers and screens to reach the hundreds of properties for sale in the Tahoe mountain region. The app is instant.
The Lawrence Realty App, designed by Tahoe City-based Sandbox Studio, provides the complete MLS listings for the Squaw Valley, Martis Camp, North Lake Tahoe and Truckee regions, along with a user-friendly map that plots surrounding homes - all of which is updated daily. Users can customize their own search, view property photos and descriptions, consider exclusive listings, highlight recently listed properties, keep track of their favorites and share data with friends and families.
Lawrence Realty, located steps away from Squaw Valley ski resort, sells primary and vacation homes, condominiums and land. Larry Lawrence began selling real estate in 1974 and started his real estate business, Lawrence Realty, in 1985. Chiara, his daughter, joined the business in 1998 and Ron Gajar, Chiara's husband, became a part of the Lawrence Realty team in early 2005. Chiara, Ron and Larry are members of the Squaw Valley Property Owner's Association, as well as founding members of the Squaw Valley Institute, a nonprofit organization created to highlight arts and culture through educational programming. In addition, Larry and his wife Vikki are golf members and owners at Martis Camp and continue to enjoy the array of activities as a couple and with the larger family.
Luxury Real Estate is a global collection of the finest luxury real estate brokers in the world. This group of more than 70,000 professionals in more than 85 countries collectively sells in excess of $190 billion of real estate annually, with an average sale price of $2.5 million. Members typically sell homes for record prices.
For more information about Lawrence Realty, the Lawrence Realty App, as well as market statistics for Squaw Valley, Martis Camp and the North Lake Tahoe and Truckee areas, visit www.lawrencerealtysquawvalley.com.


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chief election official announced his support for a five-bill legislative
package in the upcoming legislative session Friday including a measure to help insure
military votes are counted on time for the 2014 election cycle.
Secretary of State Jim Bennett said the bill, to be sponsored by Sen. Bryan
Taylor (R- Prattville) and Rep. Ron Johnson (R-Sylacauga), moves the election
calendar back to allow absentee election managers enough time to process
ballots of military personnel and overseas workers. The State of Alabama is
currently involved in litigation with the US Department of Justice over
military and overseas ballots.
"This is our number one objective for the legislative session opening Tuesday,"
Bennett said. "We can do no less than to assure our soldiers have their votes
Bennett is also supporting bills to:
Alabama to join a compact of states checking for registration duplications.
the purchase a voter address record of someone who has been a victim of
domestic violence showing their new address.
that identification in the absentee ballot process to be transmitted with the
ballot application rather than with the ballot itself. Some voters are
mistakenly placing their IDs including actual driver's licenses into security
envelopes that cannot be opened without the ID first being seen.
-Allow voter
registrars to investigate written reports a voter may have moved or died as
submitted by poll workers. The bill is also supported by the Alabama Probate
Judge's Association.


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University of Alabama puts the 'wow' in its Week of Welcome event for new students
Carnival-style event introduces new students
Published: Monday, August 19, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, August 18, 2013 at 9:58 p.m.
At least 3,000 students gathered at Coleman Coliseum on Sunday night to ride bumper cars, test out a zip line and eat free food being given away by Tuscaloosa restaurants.
The carnival-style event was part of the kickoff for the "week of welcome," meant to introduce freshmen and transfer students to the University of Alabama, said Taylor Johnson, an event programmer with University Programs, a student-run program organization that was the event's lead sponsor.
As part of the event, Moe's Barbecue, McAlister's, Yogurt Mountain, Baumhower's and other area restaurants handed out free food and desserts. Student organizations had booths lining Coleman Coliseum, ready to inform students about what the university has to offer.
"This is to welcome new freshmen and transfer students and give a first glimpse of what we are all about," said event programmer Melanie Williams-Hill.
"It's great, because everything is absolutely free," Johnson said.
UA freshman Nathan Cerice of Birmingham said he's always been an Alabama fan and knew he wanted to go to UA. He attended a pep rally at the WOW event after he found out about it from the resident assistant at his dorm.
"I'm excited about being here," Cerice said. "It's pretty cool."
At the event, students could also do face painting, have makeup makeovers, paint ceramic elephants and get free foot massages or back massages.
"This is awesome," said Deandreia Trunnell, a sophomore from Trussville who transferred from Jefferson State this semester. "I'm ready to start classes this week."
Although the event was targeted toward freshmen and transfer students, it was open to all students.
"There's always been an event for new students, but we never had it this big," said Michael Goetsch, a junior from Huntsville. "It's a pretty cool way to get freshmen involved."
Molly Buff, a senior, agreed.
"Having school-approved bumper cars and a zip line is pretty awesome," Buff said.
Classes at UA start Wednesday.
Reach Lydia Seabol Avant at 205-722-0222 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Reach the newsroom at email@example.com or
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


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I am really frustrated because I have hurtmy leg and did not run this past Fri-Sun to see if it would feel better today and to see if it was muscle related.– tried to run this am – had to walk half. I hurt it when I did my first race on June 9thor at least that is when it started to hurt. I have run my normal 5 days ever since then but the pain has gradually gotten worse and last Thursday it really hurt. I do not think it is muscle related and am not sure what to do. I can walk on it fine but when running I can really feel the pain dand if I jump on my left leg it hurts. It is my lower leg on the side – not shin splints. Any advice?
Need a lot more info! Maybe go to a doctor or PT.
Ok I don't know if this will help at all, as i'm not expert, but when I first started running back in January I really injured myself, and it sounds similar to what your experiencing. The pain radiated up the inside of my shin bone but it wasn't in the muscle. I could only induce the pain if I pressed on the bone itself. I was first worried I just had a shin splint, but then grew terrified I had actual fractures the bone. The pain was awful for about 5 days after the run (hot/cold treatment didn't help). After those 5 days or so the pain became absent while I was walking but would flare up the second I started to run. It put me out of running for almost two months (then I had an unrelated surgery, so I haven't run for almost three months). In any case I went to my Doctor and explained the pain and he had a look over. He prescribed me to go get lab work done (ultrasound) as he felt it wasn't a fracture but could have been inflamed veins (what ever that is). I never went for the ultrasound because by the time i'd recovered enough from surgery the pain had resolved itself.
Just from what you've described and my little knowledge on the subject, it does sound sort of like what I was suffering from, so I'd go get it checked by your doctor. Take care of yourself, and congrats on your first race, even though you came away from it hurting.
As BOSNPM said, your post doesn't really provide enough info. BUT...based on what little you said, it most sounds like a stress fracture (same with yours Cervidae). So getting it checked by a doctor is a good idea.
ACTIVE is the leader in online event registrations from 5k running races and marathons to softball leagues and local events. ACTIVE also makes it easy to learn and prepare for all the things you love to do with expert resources, training plans and fitness calculators.


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We should take a step back from the looming "fiscal cliff" to give ourselves a bit of perspective on the spring tide of political hokum swamping Washington. The hope of mending America's parlous financial condition isn't in tax increases. "Tax the rich" may be effective political theatre when haranguing the ignorant, but as a palliative for debt like ours, to borrow a phrase, "the math just doesn't work." The theoretical extra income from returning tax rates on high earners to the Clinton-era 39.5 percent is a rounding error, not a solution. To get out of this mess, we must. Stop. Spending. Money.
We don't live in a free market economy, and haven't for some time. In a free market, workers don't get paid not to work for 99 weeks - or forever, if the president gets his way. That's cost us $535 billion since 2008.
In a free market, the size of one's house depends on what one can afford, not on the upper limit of a taxpayer-backed mortgage. That's made us liable for trillions of dollars, should real estate go south again.
In a free market, production decisions are made on the basis of profitability, not on the availability of government subsidies. In a free market, one is entitled to the gains from one's labors, but has no claim to others' gains. But we don't live there anymore. We are obsessed with "fairness" - meaning one can't be very wealthy, no matter how hard one works. And we live in a country whose government is a major player in the economy.
Government intrusion creates ever-growing distortions; calculations of marketability and return are replaced by rent-seeking, subsidy farming and maneuvering for political favor. America's nineteenth century saw these in battles over tariffs; today, direct government payments are where the action is. Following are a few among thousands of examples.
General Electric cleared $2.94 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, but paid zero federal income tax. As one of the Obama administration's pet companies, GE also received $5.38 billion in federal subsidies that year. Perhaps it regarded its $65 million in lobbying expenses a good investment, but as a taxpayer forced to "invest" in the company without receiving dividends, I'm not so sure.
Anyone following current events can identify another problem with government picking corporate winners: failure. When investors decide to put their own money on the line, they have an interest in success; they will work to achieve it. When taxpayers "invested" in Solyndra, Abound Solar, and Fiskar Automotive, was there due diligence? Financial scrutiny? Analysis of the business plan? Not according to those who wrote the checks, several of whom noted an unhealthy interest from the White House in funding these projects as quickly as possible. You know the results.
As a taxpayer, you "invested" $220,000 in improvements to a Michigan boutique brewery. The money came from the Department of Housing and Urban Development through a block grant. How do you plan to follow the results of your investment, to see if it was profitable?
You will soon "invest" $4.9 billion in a high-speed rail project proposed by a Nevada company with ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: a line from Las Vegas to Victorville - 81 miles short of Los Angeles. The Washington Post called this a "gravy train," but pork or not, profitable or not, you're funding it. You have no choice.
Of the $7.2 billion you "invested" to provide high-speed internet access to rural America in 2009, $100 million came to Colorado's "Eagle Net," which spent it competing against private providers. If these small companies were profitable, they paid taxes to subsidize their competition, so they may not be around long.
Then there's corruption. Perhaps not Teapot-Dome style nonsequential small-denomination unmarked bills in a suitcase, but that doesn't mean there's no funny business. One may dismiss as coincidence generous "speaking fees" for legislators, or their post-political-office high-paying positions in private industry or academe, but consider this: the Washington Post reports that in 2011, $3.9 billion in subsidies and loan guarantees from the Department of Energy alone went to companies with ties to five Obama administration staffers and advisors. In this America, it's who you know, not what.
Is this what we want? A sluggish, distorted economy, shot through with inefficiencies and subject to the whiplash of political fashion? If not, there's a solution: stop paying for it. Welfare, featherbedding, rule-jiggering, cronyism - corporate or individual, it's all got to go. Contact your senators and congressman. Tell them you're tired of paying other people's bills, be they Jeffrey Immelt or Sandra Fluke or Hamid Karzai. Tell them to stop spending, and the fiscal cliff will evaporate. Who knows? They may be so desperate that they'll listen.
Just kidding...
Summit County resident Morgan Liddick pens a Tuesday column. Email him at email@example.com.


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Home Prices Rising in More Markets
The recovery in real-estate values is accelerating, as more and more markets post gains in median home sale prices.
The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that the U.S. median home price rose 10% to $178,900 between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the fourth quarter of 2012. That's the biggest yearly gain in the median price since the fourth quarter of 2005.
Of the 152 metro areas examined by the NAR, 133 posted yearly gains in median home price, while prices fell in 19 markets. In the third quarter of 2012, 120 markets showed yearly gains, while a year ago, in the fourth quarter of 2011, just 29 markets nationwide had posted annual median price gains.
"Home sales are on a sustained uptrend," said Lawrence Yun, the trade group's chief economist. "Home sales are being fueled by a pent-up demand and job creation, along with still favorable affordability conditions and rents rising at faster rates. Our population has been growing faster than overall housing stock, so supply and demand dynamics are very much at play."
Housing markets in Western states and markets that were coming off of a low bottom after steep home price declines saw the biggest gains. Phoenix, which fits both of those descriptions, led the gainers, with prices rising 33.9%, followed by Detroit (31.3%), San Francisco (28.3%), Cape Coral, Fla. (25.8%) and San Jose (24.8%).
Of the handful of markets where prices still falling, the upstate New York town of Kingston was the worst (-7.9%), followed by Kankakee, Ill. (-7.0%), Erie, Penn. (-6.1%), Binghamton, N.Y., (-5.7%) and Rockford, Ill. (-4.8%).
Overall, median prices in the West region rose the most–by 20.1%–followed by the Midwest (9.2%), the South (9.1%) and the Northeast (0.7%).


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TAHOE, Calif. — Fourteen disabled veterans set out May 28 from San Francisco to cross America by bicycle, hand cycle and recumbent, learning about the country for which they stood tall to defend. Meeting Americans of all walks of life in 14 states and the District of Columbia, the team is undertaking a life-changing challenge traveling through cities large and small.
Presented by State Farm, the 2012 Sea to Shining Sea ride from World T.E.A.M. Sports brings together veterans from all branches of military service for the nearly 4,000 mile cross-country ride. These wounded warriors participated in wars and conflicts from Vietnam to Bosnia to the Gulf War to Afghanistan and Iraq. Through their service, many of these veterans received injuries ranging from amputations to blindness to Post Traumatic Stress. Others experienced life-threatening illnesses such as cancer.
With strong corporate and private support, the team will cycle together across deserts, mountains, grasslands, cities and woodlands as they see America at 10 miles an hour. Like their forefathers who crossed the continent before the transcontinental railroad, automobiles and airplanes, these veterans will experience America minute by minute, mile by mile. They departed San Francisco on Memorial Day morning and will arrive in St. Louis in time for the city's Independence Day celebration, reaching the east coast of Virginia by July 28. The team will bond together, as will the thousands of Americans following the ride's progress online at http://s2ssbikeride.org/.
The 2012 Sea to Shining Sea ride is supported through generous sponsorships by State Farm, American Portfolios, MWV, Dominion, the Semper Fi Foundation, the USO, BNY Mellon, General Electric, GM Fleet and Commercial, Brown Shoe Company and Famous Footwear, Energizer Holdings, Altria, EnerSys, Occidental Petroleum, Magaschoni Apparel, Penske Truck Rental, Vedder Price, AR Capital, Recycle for People, the El Pomar Foundation and George Puskar.
For more information about the Sea to Shining Sea ride or to track the riders' progress visit http://s2ssbikeride.org/. To tweet your message of support for the riders, use #S2SSbike.
About World T.E.A.M. Sports
For more than 20 years, the nonprofit World T.E.A.M. Sports has used athletics to challenge disabled and non-disabled men, women and children to accomplish goals they never thought possible. Whether mountain climbing, biking or white water rafting, four things always happen: 1. Disabled participants build self-confidence and physical fitness; 2. The disabled provide a role model for other disabled citizens, encouraging them to take up athletic activities; 3. The disabled provide a moving inspiration to other participants and to spectators when they see disabled individuals can reach goals and meet challenges beyond anyone's imagination; 4. The disabled and non-disabled participants become a team, working together to overcome those challenges. Among the successful events is the annual Face of America bicycle ride in Maryland and the Adventure TEAM Challenge in Colorado. World T.E.A.M. Sports changes lives.


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Alice Spearman, who has served on the Oakland school board since 2005, lost re-election last month to her challenger, James Harris. She soon filed a motion to declare Harris ineligible for her seat, saying the Oakland resident lived in the San Leandro school district and, thus, couldn't represent OUSD on the school board.
This week, Alameda Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo made a tentative ruling, denying Spearman's motion. Here is the text of the ruling, made Tuesday:
"This Tentative Ruling is issued by Judge Evelio Grillo Petitioner's motion for an order declaring Real Party in Interest James Harris ineligible for, and enjoining him from assuming, the office of School District Director is DENIED. The Oakland City Charter expressly defines the boundaries of the School District's seven "School Directors' Districts": "The elected School Directors' Districts shall have the same boundaries as the seven [City] Council Districts." It also specifies that "District School Directors ... shall be required to have the same qualifications [as members of the Council]." Real Party in Interest Harris undisputedly lives within Council District Seven. He is therefore qualified to be elected to the corresponding School Director's District.


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"23.976/25fps fix" option is in #VIDEO SETTINGS#, which is displayed on the renderer not in the PMS program itself.
Unless you're talking about adding/removing delay - say like making sounds occur 700ms earlier throughout the movie. You can probably do this already if you can get comfortable using the Expert Settings:
[code]filename == name_of_movie.iso :: -delay 0.7[code]


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Women's Nike Oh Yes I Did Tee Shirt
Confirm your greatness and show your confidence with the Nike "Oh Yes I Did" Women's Tee Shirt. Stylish, but also comfortable enough for trips to the gym or just hanging out, this tee is the perfect addition to your casual wardrobe.
Made of soft, durable cotton, this tee features a screen print of the sassy slogan,"Oh Yes I Did" on the front chest. A slim fit and crew neck show off your shape, while the rib crew neck keeps you comfortable all day long.


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Hi all, I've just signed up to this site today in hope of gaining some inspiration to continue on my struggle to become a regular runner.
I've always been quite a sporty person but when it comes to running I cant seem to get into a rhythm. I can run for very short lengths of time then have to walk again to gather my breath.
Does anyone have some tips on how I can overcome this first barrier?
Hi Paula,
You have come to the right place. You will find lots of support here. I have a question for you- are you committed to running a certain distance/are you committed to giving running a serious (and honest try)? It can be difficult, but if you thrive off of challenges this may be for you! A few thoughts/suggestions 1) I would recommend the C25K program (or some other plan). You can download it on a smartphone and it takes all the thinking out of it for you. I started the program 3 times before finally completeing it. Injuries stopped me twice, but each time I came back it was a little easier. 2) Feel free to repeat weeks, or days. 3)learn to be content at any pace. As long as you are moving faster than a couch you are doing great. What I mean is, running can be lots of things, including my personally best -slogging (slow jogging). You don't have to be fast. 4) Walk breaks are acceptable, schedule them and use them, even when you don't think you need them at first. Your body, heart and lungs, have to get use to this. 5) the Pace/rhythm will come eventually. Oddly enough it took me till I built up to the "20 minute run" to find an rhtythm (it lasted from about minute 12-15) but it felt different and I knew there was something to look forward to. 6) strech well after your run. 7) find something positive after every run - (I ran longer, farther, stretched better or my personal favorite - damn that shower felt great). and lastly 8) find a place, here or a different thread and keep in touch and keep reaching out.
Good luck and happy running!
Started C25K 3/29/11 for the third time - Graduated 7/1/11 - some of us take longer
Completed Races
Webster Co. Woodchopping Festival 5K (5/28/11) 38:03 "Holy crap! Did he just say 38 something? I was hopinig for 45 minutes"
Never underestimate yourself!
That Dam Race 5K 7/23/11 44:46 - a challenging route & a hot day- but I will do better next year!
"Run for the Ta-Ta's 5K 10/29/11 39:54 in the snow!
Woodchoppers 5K 5/26/12 36:08 My 5 year old was 5 minutes behind me. Way to go Liat!
Fly By 10k 6/16/12 1:24:12
And the dream race...
"Flying Pig Half Marathon" Cincinnati, OH (May 2013)
Hi Paula,
I'm in the same situation as you (though it looks like our weight categories differ significantly lol). I've had a much harder time cardiovascularly with running than with anything else.
I've just been keeping with it, hoping that soon it'll pay off. I guess I can say that my max running time of 30 seconds has increased to 3 minutes, so technically that's a big increase, though it can seem so puny sometimes.
Also, I've been told that fast walking is still a very good workout, and I have noticed that I make up a lot of lost ground when I walk faster than people who can technically run faster than I do. I just have to keep reminding myself of those facts when I want so badly to be able to run the whole thing.
I look forward to seeing more experienced runners' replies to this thread!
Determined to lose 100 pounds in a healthy way, thinking long-term. Run/walking 5ks as a part of the process. Follow my progress at The Little Blue Dress.
10/27/12 - Celia Hays Elem. Spooktacular 5k - Rockwall, TX - 49:49:93 - my first 5k!
12/1/12 - NFHS Jingle Bell Run 5k - Garland, TX - 45:23:00
2/6/13 - Dash for the Beads 5k - Dallas, TX - 44:34:00 - holy crap, the hills!
3/2/13 - Jones Elem. Jag Jog 5k - Rockwall, TX - 45:27:14 - this was not my day
4/6/13 - The Color Run 5k - Dallas, TX - just for fun
8/3/13 - Melon Dash 5k - McKinney, TX
11/9/13 - Urban Dare - Ft. Worth, TX
Actually interval training (running for say 30 sec followed by walking for 2 minutes) is more effective for fat loss and conditioning. I would start by jogging for 30 seconds and walking for 1 - 2 minutes repeating for 20 minutes in total. Gradually try to extend the jogging segment but stay at twenty minutes total. When you can job the full 20 minutes a whole new worl of training possibilities will open up for you. Like all exercise do this everyother day.
Many people will disagree with the effectiveness of interval training for fat loss. It takes a warm body to metabolize fat. It might take as much as 15- 20 minutes of slow running before a person begins burning fat. This is an issue of the persons condition and ability to burn fat. Women have a slight advantage over men in this department. The important thing for the OP is to keep the heart rate elevated long enough to burn fat. The important thing for a beginning runner to think about: run really slow, for as long as possible. Try and keep your heart rate elevated for as long as possible with a combination of running and walking.
ACTIVE is the leader in online event registrations from 5k running races and marathons to softball leagues and local events. ACTIVE also makes it easy to learn and prepare for all the things you love to do with expert resources, training plans and fitness calculators.