December 4, 2001

Well, we wanted to just give a little back story to this new brand called ArtOfficial Intelligence. We have so many goals and aspirations that we thought we should share a little bit with you all. ArtOfficial is a pretty diverse group as far as thought processes, roles, and ideas. There are four of us all together ( Matt, Donald, Dor, and Beaz) and we are really bonding and growing through this whole process. It started as an idea in Donald’s car around this time last year and now we are in the beginning stages of our clothing line. It’s been a long..long..process..from the creation of the name to the t-shirt printing. Things really came to life in June when we created our google group and start putting down ideas and having weekly conference calls. The most interesting part had to have been coming up with a name. We had to have came up with atleast 100 names, but none really capture the essence of what we were trying to do like ArtOfficial Intelligence. It was a fun process though even though it was a little stressful at times. We went from the name to the logos and from the logos to the t-shirt designs and from the t-shirt designs to the print vendors. So after reading countless blogs, watching hours of videos online, and talking on the phone wasting all our cell phone minutes….puts us here..waiting to get all of the printed material back from the different vendors to see what our product looks like finally. With only a week until Howard Homecoming and 2 weeks until A&T’s Homecoming almost ready to give the world a small taste of ArtOfficial Intelligence. Please believe..their is much much more on the way. WE HAVENT EVEN TURNED THE POWER ON YET..

December 4, 2001

December 4, 2001

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Ok, so unless you don’t own a computer, or you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, I’m sure you’ve seen Eryka Badu’s newest video for ‘Window Seat’. The video, which can be seen here has been sturring up so much controversy that it has since been removed from youtube and several other sites.

December 4, 2001

With all this snow recently I though it would be fitting to shoutout Mother Nature, Jack Frost, Frosty the Snowman, the Snow Miser, and any other ficitional snow reference thats out there. Thank you for messing up every instance we at AOI tried to have our photoshoot/lookbook. For reason these characters just do not want us to have our photoshoot and they want to pummle the DC area with this so called “crimpling” snow. So terms we have come accustumed to using recently in our many conversations are “reschedule, cancel, delay, move, plan ahead, possiblility, and etc..” So in light of all this snow the DC area is about to get I just want to say in my Boyz II Men voice “LET IT SNOW” because we will continue to grind through all the trials and tribulations come to us. O and let me not forget Shout out to Boone as well with the 80 degree weather and Super Bowl festivies going on in Miami.

December 4, 2001

 

While conversing with one of my female friends yesterday, she shared a story with me about her recent experiences with a guy. They talked and exchanged text messages for a couple of weeks and she was actually starting to like him. With a date coming up the next day, she decided to send him a “good morning” text[1]. Well, several hours passed with no response so now she starts to worry. “Should I text him again? Maybe he didn’t get it? Maybe he’s busy? Are we still going on our date tomorrow? What’s going on that is so important that he can’t even return a simple text!” Long story short, he replies later on that day and the date goes great. As I told her as reflected on the experience, chances are, he probably saw it and decided to ignore it. And guess what, it worked. Having been on both sides of this continuous battle, it got me thinking…

 What exactly is it about “the thrill of the chase” that makes it, well, thrilling? Maybe the continuous guessing games? Not so much. Or maybe the awkward moments of silence when a conversation arises about dating other people? I’ll have to go with no on that one too. Or maybe, just the feeling of bamboozlement when you find out they’ve been seeing someone else the entire time you’ve been fully invested? And no again. Unfortunately, we all hate it, yet for some reason, we do it all the time. It’s almost an innate reaction to initial signs of affection from another person. We feel that hiding our true feelings is necessary to keep ourselves from getting hurt. Necessary to protect whatever pride that we may have remaining from our last attempt at “love”. I’ll admit; it takes a lot to go out on a limb these days and confess your inner most feelings to another person. I’m not suggesting that is the solution. But to continue to play these games at this age just seems silly.

I don’t ever remember witnessing an episode where Tom ever caught Jerry and that show ran for over 30 years. So unless we plan on chasing a significant other for that long, I suggest that we push our pride aside and open up. What’s the worse that can happen?

 AOI- A Lifestyle Blog for a Lifestyle Brand

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[1] Our good old friends at Blackberry have decided to help out those little people on the losing end of this game by adding a feature to BlackBerry Messagner that allows you to see if your text has been delivered, and even read and ignored. Whether this is genius or idiotic, it depends on what side you’re on.

December 4, 2001

Once upon a time before the creation of the auto tune, and before Napster made it possible to download music for free, rapping was simply rapping. Artists had the freedom to speak their mind, album sales were great, record labels were happy, and good music was born. With the advancement in technology, came the regression of the art form. So in a world where good music is few and far between; it’s great to see two up and coming artists collaborate to create something so beautiful. Enjoy.

December 4, 2001

Since the majority of my ArtOfficial work, along with these blog entries are written while burning the midnight oil, I’m almost always charged up off of several Red Bulls. But more importantly than how many Red Bulls I manage to down in an hour is the music that I listen to while I’m in the zone. So as listened to Kanye West’s Graduation album, I was reminded of a line that made so much sense. On “Barry Bonds”, he says “They say I’m going crazy, and we seen this before, but I’m doing pretty good as far as geniuses go”. Then it hit me, the correlation between musical geniuses and those who were on the verge of insanity is startling. Allow me to explain.

No, the picture to the left hasn’t been digitally altered, that IS a real picture of Prince while at a performance. Pushing it to the limit wasn’t enough; Prince thought it would be fitting to rock pants that had cut outs for his um…butt cheeks. Although events such as these get blurred in his body of work, which is amazing I might add, this was a weird guy.

Michael Jackson will likely go down as the greatest music artist ever to record a song. But in the wake of his death, the “weird Mike” couldn’t be ignored. Enough has been written and recorded about this guy, I’ll let the picture explain.

Although his career is just getting started, Kanye West has had a great start. Off to the races after production work for Jaz-Z, he’s been producing everywhere ever since. But as time would show, it would only be but so long until the real Kanye came out. As if his past years of ill advised award show speeches weren’t enough, he decided to leave his own touch on the VMA’s. I’m sure you’ve seen it a million times but eh, I’ll put it up again anyway. *Kanye shrug. The video.

Ozzy Osbourne once bit the head off of a live bat at a concert. (No, seriously)

George Clinton- No back story, the picture tells all.

Andre 3000- From naming his son Seven, dressing 20 years too late, and even drawing comparisons to aliens on Outkast’s album, 3 Stacks is a very talented, and very weird artist.

Honorable Mention: Lady Gaga and Bilal

December 4, 2001

YES..we have some updates on the Official Release Party for AOI. DC is stamped as the official city and we hae narrowed the venues down to three. Those three venues are…1. Jin 2. Indulj 3. Hominy. We thought Saturday would be a perfect date since everyone will have had time to rest up from all their New Years Eve festivities and should be all hyped up for our event. We are getting our final design ideas drafted up for the release on Saturday, January 2nd with a mid day time slot. As of right now it looks like we will have 3 t-shirt collections available in mens and womens, so look out for some design sneak peeks very soon!!  We would like to Thank J&K productions for all of their help thus far. So be sure to stayed tuned for more updates and a lot of fun suprises as they become available. 

Side note: AOI pre-release exclusive tees are for SALE at www.artofficialshop.com Shipping fees are included. Get them before they are all gone since they will most likely not be re-printed.

Until next time..Powering Off!

December 4, 2001

Its Friday morning in Atlanta…

…the weather is incredible (for November) and the skies are clear. What better day than today to set the background for the introduction of AOI’s  official “Power Your Imagination” initiative (PYI).

PYI is an i

December 4, 2001