By tayyib smith  |  Send to Friend

I recently became an über-fan of Dallas Penn's insightful comedic observations on pop culture. If you are not familiar, I highly recommend you follow this gentlemen as closely as possible in the coming months. He's not only one of my favorite bloggers, but a suitable alternative to the ubiquitous Perez Hilton for that mid-day hump hour when you are surfing for casual entertainment and peculiar memes while pretending to be working. Check him out, if you would.


What is you're  profession, how do you make a living?
I pay the bills as a construction project manager. I sit in the trailers and sign off payment requisitions. At night I put on the cape of an internets celebrity. I run around NYC while writing weblogs and shooting video logs about the things I experience.

For someone who hasn't visited dallaspenn.com yet, what's your steez?
If you like hip-hop music -- not just rap but hip-hop -- and all the things that are encompassed by that artistic movement, you will enjoy the discussions at DP.com. The graphic art, the dance, the way people interact with one another and view the world is my holistic view of hip-hop. I also talk a lot about sneakers, comic books, action
figures and politics -- rather, politricks.

The key to my success is …
I live to make people laugh. My ultimate professional title would be trickster. I want to make you laugh and occasionally cry, but mostly laugh with the knowledge that since we are still breathing we have a chance to make our world better.

What are you're hobbies?
Can people watching be considered a hobby?  If it could then that is my favorite pastime. I also collect just about anything artistic. Right now I am an avid sneaker collector, but I have too much crap in my crib to let any one thing be my single hobby.

What is the best experience you've had in recent memory?
Someone walked up to me and yelled "Internets!" which is the call term I use in my web videos. He didn't introduce himself he just walked up to me said "Internets!", shook my hand and then walked away. It was hilarious and, sadly enough, I didn't have my camera with me. It energized me though to get back to the lab and create some posts for my website.

If you could apologize for a past misdeed, wrong doing, sin, or error right here for the world to see what would it be and to whom?
When I was a teenager I sold drugs to the guy who was my little league coach. He was a better man than the one I encountered on Northern Blvd., that night, but unfortunately for him I wasn't a better man. I am now and I'm sorry, Les.

What was your most recent epiphany?
There is no money in being an internets celebrity. Even if I got a million dollars, it wouldn't be enough. Remember the $6 Million Dollar man? They fucked up the money so bad that the only thing we could do for Steve Austin now with $6 million dollars would be to give him some extra sensory hearing. We couldn't even afford X-Ray vision. On the flipside, I do get invited to parties, though, and I have a shitload of crappy MySpace rappers giving me their CDs to review. I'm clearly a trillionaire when it comes to crappy MySpace rapper CDs.

What music would you recommend today?
Everything and anything. If it makes you nod your head or move your ass then I think it is valuable.

Which social networks do you frequent, how often, and how do you feel it adds value to your life?
Don't you dare forget BlackPlanet. That was my joint early in my internets career. My favorite college professor taught me about some shit called parallel diffusion which is typically used for  physical science intonations as opposed to social science. He made the reference to man harnessing the use of fire in different areas of Africa at the same time. His idea was that people come to the same conclusion at the same time in different places on the globe. There is this hum that we don't even realize we are vibrating to but it moves us to think and act similarly. I consider the internets to be inter-connected networks. The internets allows me to connect with those people that are vibrating under the same universal frequency that I am feeling and we could be trippin' on the same shit anywhere in the world.

What are your top-three favorite brands/artists and why?
I fux with Polo Ralph Lauren all day everyday since 1986 and I got the clothing to prove it. That shit is just built to last. I own hundreds of Nike shoes. I don't believe they use child labor, I think they use Chinese dissident prison labor because the details are too effin' sharp. Children could never be that good. Marvel Comics is the all time boss for comic books. "X-Men" #137 and "Daredevil" #181 took my childhood from me and I wouldn't change a damn thing.

Which artist, musicians, writers, philosophers or icons have been most influential in shaping your aesthetics?
Chuck D, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Jack Handey, Chester Himes, Frank Miller, John Byrne, Chris Claremont, Chris Farley, Howard Stern, Dwight Gooden, Mike Tyson, Daryl Strawberry, KanYe West, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, but mostly, my mom and dad.

What is your earliest music memory from childhood?
My parents would have house parties and Stevie Wonder would be playing
and that would be the music they would replay the following afternoon.

If you had to give up, one: Web, Phone or TV, which would it be?
That's too easy since I don't own a television right now. My last television was hell'a old and it pissed me off watching programs on a fucked up screen so I trashed the set and canceled my cable service. I haven't looked back. Literally and figuratively.

What's on your playlist right now: top 5?
I have been rocking that Death album since they caught that article in The Fader. Any joint SlaughterHouse puts out I am fuxing with. That new DOOM album is mangoes. In the last thirty days I have spun that DOOM joint ridiculously. Lou Bond's 'To The Establishment' is my theme song and Kanye West's '808s & Heartbreak' pushed Dilla's 'Donuts' from the top 5 spot.

If you could make someone in popular culture disappear, who would it be?
I have extreme disdain for the two-headed pop culture manimal, Jayonce. I think that our world would still be crappy without them and the themes they espouse and I imagine that if they weren't around the pop culture machine would just find someone to replace them, but I could do without the rags-to-riches fantasy of drug peddlers turned performers and the new millennium Venus Hottentot. But those are just my issues I suppose.

Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv76wr0WPxo&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghy9pm36EzY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMwit5Yek4Y
http://www.youtube.com/user/BLUCHEEZ
http://dallaspenn.com/weblog/?p=3349
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx_TSp21dWI&feature=channel