Last week has been pretty interesting. I got the flu. BAD! It’s been a while since I was THAT sick… And it wasn’t pretty. I had a high fever and felt miserable. It kinda threw me off, cos I had so much planned… And most of it went down the drain. Grammy weekend was cool. I met great people, heard a lot of interesting news and made new friends and forged new business opportunities.

The other day we recorded a new jawn in the studio with Ock and Tank. Ock is a 30 year old, 6′4″, ex-football player with an equally impressive voice. He has a laid back swagger with funny lyrics and dope punch lines. He is a star. Undeniable. We drove around in his white S550 listening to beats the day after the Grammy’s and he wanted me to hear this song he wrote, called ‘Sex Pistol’. It kinda reminds me of Wayne’s ‘Lollipop’. He spit his lyrics a cappella, cos he didn’t have a track to it yet. Funny as hell…. Marcus – Andre’s manager – heard one of Reverse’s tracks and thought it would be perfect for ‘Sex Pistol’. It was. Tank came into the studio and wrote a hook to it in less than two minutes. CRAZY! We’re clearing the track for use now.

This week, my Belgian guys are in town. Have to show them a good time and get some work done.

Play time is over! Time to make that paper.

Remember I was telling you about Marty, Denosh and Timor (see post below)? Well, Dutch entertainment magazine RTL Boulevard has picked up the story. Which, as usual, they twisted and cut to make it super sexy… Check out the video here. Sorry, no English subs. I’m at Matry’s this weekend – he’ll be happy to hear his name on Dutch TV. ( ;

My Beat Brokers logo is done. I’m still trying to get used to it. It wasn’t completely how I envisioned it, but for the money I’ve paid it was MORE than worth it. Now I feel official. Speaking of official and Beat Brokers. My guys from Belgium are in the studio right now with some big names… I hope to post a snippet next week. Check out my logo below. This is between you and me, but I wanted it to look similar to Warner Brothers’ jawn. Keep it to yourself… ( ;

I’ve also wrapped up a new MySpace and logo design for Canadian upcoming star Trish. Check out her page @ http://www.myspace.com/trishonline. I’d love to hear what you think of it. I decided not to do an entire DIV overlay, to give her more flexibility when posting new stuff. Here’s her logo, by the way:

Be back soon. Gotta get back to the money. In the meantime, hit me on Twitter.

Thank you for the emails and comments. The inspiration was gone for a minute, but then I just got caught up in Beat Brokers and New Frontier. Man, for someone who doesn’t have a job, I’ve been very busy. Graphic design stuff has take off, and I’ve been designing MySpace pages for various artists and movie directors. I hope to get started on two more projects soon, one for an actor and one for a skateboarding company. Peep my portfolio on Flickr. I’m working on a tight design for it, that will be found under the New Frontier page.

What else…Beat Brokers is taking off. I’m working with 5 incredible producer(s) (teams). One form London, one from Brussels and three from Amsterdam. I have the fullest confidence these guys are the future of European music in the US. We are gonna hit them so hard with that fresh, new sound. I’ve recently hooked up with Andre Merritt’s manager and we’re planning a trip for Andre to Europe. Yes, THE Andre Merritt. Google him and you know he’s the business. Oh, the new logo for Beat Brokers is almost done, too.

My friend Karim, who’s managing the runner-up ot the Dutch franchise ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ was here. I hooked them up to the major players of dance in LA. Happy to report, Timor got signed to BLOC Agency and I’m sure he has a very bright future ahead of him.

That’s it for now. I hope to share more with you soon. Till then, hit me up on Twitter.

Gotta get back to the money. Haha!

Hey…

I haven’t got any inspiration to write lately. Stepping back for a while. Will be back though. Soon.

Something has changed. With just 18 days until the Presidential election, the balance has shifted. During the third and last Presidential debate in New York last Wednesday, one of the candidates has finally connected with the avarage American citizen. That candidate being John McCain, unfortunately. Senator McCain’s debate strategy was very agressive, some say passionate, but hit the nail on the head when he addressed one individual, Joe Wurzelbacher – who is now world wide known as Joe the Plumber. Instantly I got a flash back to ‘Swing Vote‘, a Presidential election themed movie with Kevin Kostner in the lead. In the remaining time of that debate both candidates were fighting to get that man, who represented millions male voters like him. I have to admit McCain won that debate on points with jabs like: “I’m not President Bush. If you wanted to run against Bush, you should have ran 4 years ago.” Barack made a good comeback, but unfortunately started playing McCains game, addressing Joe too. Bad move.

Prior to the debate both candidate’s campaigns were like drug commercials – (I’m paraphrasing) “Tylanol works in the places you need it to. It won’t raise your blood pressure unlike other pain killers, like Advil.” But in stead of “Ask your physician if Tylanol is right for you.” these commercial end with “this message is approved by (name of the Presidential candidate here).” Their campaigns and the debates felt like immature “does not”, “does too” tug of war but with a lot of three and four syllable words. It was like watching them repeating the same things over and over again. Move on, fix America.

Barack’s campaign changed the day after the debate. His message was directed to the people. I got 3 emails – one from Barack, one from his campaign manager and one from his running mate – all saying Barack won the debate and asking for my (financial) support espescially in the last phase of the election. TV commercials are showing Barack talking amongst small groups of mixed people. His message was more directs, addressing an individual without talking directly into the camera. It could be because he simply entered the last phase of marketing, but the sudden change of direction was due to or thanks to Joe the plumber. Perhaps his campaign manager had prepared multiple scenarios and this one was the way to go now.

America needed to connect with their candidate. Not because he’s charismatic, or black, or because he’s experienced and “has the scars to prove it”. Because he knows what’s hurting America and can convince the people he can fix it. And fast, too. Barack made a comeback with this very inspiring quote on his page – BarackObama.com: “I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington… I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

Joe Wurzelbacher is still playing the leading role in the final stage of this election – just like in ‘Swing Vote’ – but also in all news items and satire shows. In mere minutes after the debate t-shirts with “Joe the Plumber” were online and yours for just $19,99. That’s America for ya. Joe, unfortunately is allegedly not a licensed plumber and hasn’t payed certain taxes in the past, and is now the bad guy on TV. Makes you wonder who’s influencing the media at this stage of the race. And THAT is America, too…

But to leave you with a campaign strategy I connect with…

Everyone I met so far plays golf. Justin Timberlake was playing golf almost every single day in Vegas. From what I hear, he’s really good, too. Golf’s a very common past time here. I wanted to play golf for a long time, but it’s too damn expensive in Holland. There are four public courses in my new neighborhood. And on top of that I saw an ad for reasonably affordable golf clubs during the Columbus Day clearance sale. What else could I do? I picked them up and took some swings out a club just around the corner from the house. 70 balls for $7,75. I did a pretty good job, only using my 9 iron. The swing isn’t that different from a baseball swing I’m used to. Here are some pictures I took with my BlackBerry while teeing off. There’s something about playing golf with palm trees around you… WOW!

The driving range

My balls

Little girls play golf here, too

I got back to L.A. on Monday afternoon. Before boarding the plane i received an email with an invitation to Ashanti’s birthday party at Area for tonight. Akon was supposed to perform there, too. And since we go back a while this would be the perfect opportunity to network and spread the Beat Brokers gospel. Kami, who moved to L.A. a couple of days ago invited me to go a dinner at Citizen Smith with one of her friends. It still surprises me that this town doesn’t appear to have a working class, cos when I asked what her friend does for a living, she said dancer/singer/actress. I love it…

Anywho, prior to the dinner Kami and I went to the dollar store. I “acted” a fool and pretended like my OCD was way worst than it actually is, only taking left-hand turns in odd isles. I was inspired by our Rain Man room in Vegas, I guess. Genius performance by Dustin Hoffman. Kami needed some cleaning products for her new apartment, so we went out and got them.

Dinner was okay. Both ladies enjoyed a cocktail and Jalapeno macaroni and cheese and I had linguini al fredo with a side of grilled veggies. The restaurant, that’s close to the famous Capitol Records building, was pretty busy and a live jazz trio was there to spice it up. I didn’t know Monday is half off at Citizen Smith, guess that’s why it was so busy. A tall gentleman, who appeared to look very familiar to me, interrupted our dinner and discussion about how to beat a woman player at poker – it was Universal Motown recording artist Tank, who was having dinner with his lady friend. He conveniently parked his Audi R8 in front of the joint, to make me envious. I admit I was a little. He introduced himself and said hello to the ladies and took off to his table. We boxed up our left overs, and left without having desert.

Before going to Area, I dropped Kami off at her crib so she could change and walk her pitbull Samba. Area looked so ghetto. Expensive automobiles where parked along the curb, with their drivers playing their music individually as loud as they could. The people who were standing in line for the club – well, there were actually 7 lines. It was a mess. My friends at the label put me on Tina Douglas’ list (Ashanti’s Momager), but the door girl didn’t even listen to what anyone was saying. Guys who wanted to come in with their male guest were shut down hard. “Too many guys up in the club, we need girls”. There was one white dude with a woolen hat and a diamond chain, who looked like an accomplished metrosexual actor/rapper/dancer/club promoter (everything is slash in L.A.) was on his phone and blackberry, nonchalantly ignoring people calling out his name. Apparently this dude had THE power to get you into the club. I asked one girl politely to check the list for my name, but she refused over and over again. After 15 minutes Kami and I left the club and head back home. Fuck THAT!

1 1 T.I. GRAND HUSTLE/ATLANTIC 169,694 -71%
PAPER TRAIL
– 2 RISE AGAINST DGC/INTERSCOPE 68,299 –
APPEAL TO REASON
5 3 METALLICA WARNER BROS. 66,613 -25%
DEATH MAGNETIC
2 4 JENNIFER HUDSON ARISTA/RMG 61,207 -73%
JENNIFER HUDSON
– 5 OASIS REPRISE 52,963 –
DIG OUT YOUR SOUL
– 6 BOB DYLAN COLUMBIA 48,203 –
TELL TALE SIGNS-BOOTLEG SERIES 8
7 7 KID ROCK ATLANTIC 47,743 -16%
ROCK N ROLL JESUS
6 8 NE-YO DEF JAM/IDJMG 47,166 -35%
YEAR OF THE GENTLEMAN
– 9 TIM MCGRAW CURB 42,112 –
GREATEST HITS, VOL. 3
4 10 JAMES TAYLOR HEAR MUSIC/CONCORD 41,439 -55%
COVERS

Source: HitsDailyDouble.com

Taken with the iPhone and BlackBerry 8310 Curve. For more of my pictures, please click here.

Watching football with friends on HUGE plasmas in Hi Def is the best way to spend your Sunday. We’re at Shawn’s office – the guy who got us the table last night – with $150,000 of electronics in this room: 5 plasmas, LCDs, surround sound. And lazy boys all around. Awesome. I’ll put up a picture later. I had to change my flight, obviously. Chicago lost to Atlanta in the last 11 seconds, Dallas lost to Arizona in OT and now San Diago is kicking New England’s ass in the 1st quarter. I miss playing football.

Click here to view the control room.