Westsidewill - Wild Off The Air

Let’s call this a Christmas Miracle…

Back in the day, when Boomer and I were just kids - say Junior High or High School, an a capella group came to our school to rock out. Needless to say they probably didn’t get the biggest response out of us, but they were pretty talented. I think the reason they came to our school was one of the guys in the group had a sister who was in our school, so they got this gig of who they knew (which is how it always is in music right?)

Anyway, it was a running joke between Boomer and I that sometimes during our mic check we would goof off and try to do some a capella stuff on the mics like these guys. It was funny, but we thought we were probably the only 2 people in the world (besides the groups friends and family) who were still referencing these guys. Boy were we wrong.

I woke up today, at 5am before the gym like always, and put on cnn.com trying to see what’s up in the world. There was a little story titled “You Tube Superstars Land Record Deal” which was later changed to talented you tube singers land deal…or something. Anyway this video/story was about the same group that we saw many moons ago in Junior high or early in High School.

The group’s name? Straight No Chaser, who is now signed to Atlantic Records. Now if any of you all YouTube it at all you know who these guys are, they are famous for a little holiday music medley (That is based around the 12 days of Christmas).

Why post this? Because, I think Boomer and I would like to some credit for keeping these guys memory alive with our awesome mic checks…and jokes about this group. Anywhooo, they are really talented, at least one of em has to be from our hometown of Naperville, and one of em’ is on the local ABC 7 news here in Chicago.

Enjoy the video…and Happy Holidays!

It’s been a bit since I’ve gotten my blog on, and I know that I can’t keep the public waiting that long, they’ll go crazy!!!

Anywhoo - What’s new with me? Listen to the show and find out (www.WestSideWill.com/ArtistShowcase) … or I can just tell you right here.

Let’s track some crazy news stories

-I’ve started a Pre-New Years resolution today, I’m going to workout at least 6 days a week, eat right, stop drinking diet soda, and try to stop drinking a ton. It’s one of those things where I feel like I kind of go over-board with all that junk, diet soda, junk food, boozin etc.

The good news is that I have my younger brother on board, the bad news? We have to workout every day at 5 am… neat.

That’s crazy right? Not as crazy as…

-Bear Grylls Injured in Antarctic!!!

Pshhhhhh…good, because he sucks compared to the Survivorman guy. He has to carry all of his camera equipment, and Bear Grylls just has to chill, let his buddies film him, then spend the night in a hotel.

-Famous Athletes Who Went To Jail

This is a kind of neat look at the crazy people who can become professional athletes - I’m pissed off that Lawrence Phillips didn’t make that list…

And what a great note to end the crazy news stories of the weekend on?

Oh yeah…I just want to say that I hope Florida gets a chance to run up the score on Oklahoma in the National title game, nothing pissed me off more this weekend than seeing Bob Stoops put 60 on a Missouri team (when 14 came in the last 10mins or so) when he was already up 40 or something.

Go Gators!

The Nooge

Today I’m going to write about some videos and songs to check out, and check them out quick because they are YouTube links, and I’m not 100% sure that the youtubers own the rights to the music!

1) Kardinal Offishall Ft. Keri Hilson “Numba 1″

I’m thinking they just misspelled “number”, typos happen ALL the time! In fact we have a lot of pretty funny typos that show up submission forms. Here is a hint, if you try writing words in a “cool” way if you don’t pull out a dictionary you may be shocked at what your words actually turn in in. And we’ll leave it at that.

And…I’d do Keri Hilson…and about 99% of the chicks in this video

2) Joe Buddens Feat. The Game “The Future”

A really cool song by underrated Joe Buddens. Sure Joe has had beef with just about every rapper out there (including The Game), and he has a winning record in those beef’s, he isn’t undefeated, but he tries hard. He’s like the Stevie Forbes (boxing reference) of the rap world. You gotta beat Buddens before you can show up in the top 10. Listen to this song while you can…because I’m thinking the poster of this video may not have the rights to post the track…I don’t know this…but…

3) Jadakiss feat. Ne-Yo “By My Side”

I hate Ne-Yo…I’m a huge Jadakiss fan. He’s top 5 dead or alive, it’s a Universal music track so I can’t find anyone who has this video up to embed (Universal has their videos on lock on YouTube…nice to see they can at least control the releases a little bit). You can check the video:

Jadakiss “By My Side”

4) Tami Chynn “Frozen”

I don’t like this song too much, I’m not a huge Tami Chynn or Akon fan, but I just thought I would post it because I think this video deserves the award for most delayed video of all time. I believe it was filmed roughly 8 months ago, and they just released it this week. In fact this video is just weird, so I guess that was a swing and a miss for Gil Green.

And I think you’ll notice that this song sounds a little bit like a Lady Gaga Track minus some of the electro stuff…that’s because Red One seems to make his female singers make tracks that are all the same.

Best line of the song? Akon “She said she’s gettin hot in this hair”…so Akon is gonna take her back to his place so she can take her hair off? I’m not sure I want any chick who has to take her hair off…

I’m thinking that photo is from before this video was filmed…so like 10 years ago.

Frozen ft. Akon - OFFICIAL VIDEO

5) Cobra Starship “Kiss My Sass”

I don’t mind Cobra Starship, my only thoughts on this video is that the lead singer can stand to go a size bigger on his pants…I guess if you gotta hit the high notes

COBRA STARSHIP - Kiss My Sass

That’s all I got, I figure they are some good songs you can check out, and some song that deserves some respect because the video has been on ice for close to a year. Again, I don’t always recommend the tracks I write about, I just like to point them out so we all know they are out there.

If you have any let me know,

The Nooge

Here are some videos that you may or may not know about, but these artists are worth checking:

Black Milk “Give the Drummer Sum”

I’m a Black Milk fan, and a chocolate milk fan but I digress, he has a solid ablum here. This isn’t his best song but he’s making an effort to sound different. Maybe it isn’t the greatest rap song to try to use live instruments, but it’s good and good for him making the effort.

Soulja Boy Tell’em “Turn My Swag On”

My Unofficial pick for most annoying song of the year! Let’s check it out

If you can make, “Hop out my Beeeeeeed” sound more annoying I’d like to hear it.

DJ Khaled Feat. Kanye West & T-Pain “Go Hard”

DJ Khaled tried his best to be more annoying than Soulja Boy…but can anyone really take that crown? I know Khaled wants it because he’s the best and “We the best” is super annoying. And can someone tell Kanye to give T-Pain his vocoder back?

The Streets “The Escapist”

Just a cool song. He has a weird flow, that’s for sure, just a slow deliberate style, and he’s kind of monotone. But I guess if you mix that much that shouldn’t be mixed together it makes sense. Like a hot dog.

*Kinda like Forrest Gump right?

Anyway…that’s about what I have for you today. It’s all rap, I know.

I was lazy.

I wanted to post a Lady Gaga video here, not because I think her music is any good, but because I think she’s pretty darn hot.

Yep…

The Nooge

Well I decided to do it today, for the first time in awhile…I swear!

I’ve been trying to quit for awhile now…but today, I broke down and there is some good news!

I used to google “The Nooge” and have my myspace page come up 2nd or 3rd, well good news people, I’m #1 now! Yeah #1 used to be an obituary, so that’s good that I passed him…I guess.

Other fun search results:

#5 Urban Dictonary Defines “The Nooge”, there are actually 5 results here are a selection of those results:

1. Nooge

a person that has set themself apart with ridiculously shady behavior.

a geek.

Mark Wright couldn’t be more of a nooge if he tried.

4. Nooge

derived from the Portugese word for “ugly”

Source: Urban Dictionary
….

I have to tell you 4 seems like a load of crap to me…maybe I’m partial…to me?

Also I found that some guy posts on that site and calls himself the Nooge, I guess he is defending all of “The Nooge”s out there.

What about the Image Results?

A big ol’ picture of me!

And then…a bunch of images that aren’t me, like Alicia Sacramone (who…is hot…and I’m glad we are googled together), a Dog, Josh Beckett, and some weird old lady with a gun.

Here is what I learned today, Google isn’t as “smart” as it thinks it is, although I also learned I’m the coolest Nooge in the world.

I suggest everyone google’s themselves, see what happens, and let me know.

The Nooge

Some people would take the time to do REAL research and figure what what Halloween really is, but that’s not how we roll at WestSideWill Radio.

No sir. Here we do all sorts of wacky stuff that we shouldn’t that some how, some way, seems to workout for us in the end. So, with that in mind, I present to you, “Why Halloween Is Useful” an Essay by The Nooge

What is Halloween? That’s a simple question to answer, it’s a crazy holiday where you dress up like something, to get candy. But that isn’t REALLY what Halloween is, Halloween is the time of year when the world just seems to work better…safety really does come first.

I just want to say that perhaps it should be OK all year round, I mean, if you get sick, what there are 20 to 30 nurses within a square block?

Bet you 100 bucks if nurses dressed like that we’d ALL be fighting for free health care…

Some people may say Halloween is a “DANGEROUS” time of year…dude are you kidding there are TONS of cops around!

Ohhhh, what about all the parties, I mean things get really out of hand. And who is going to control rowdy bars or put out fires? The fire martial:

Ummmmm…I totally lost my train of thought here, I don’t even know where I was going but…

What if we needed magic…what would we do then. Bam - Chick wizards all over the damn place!

Ohhhh, I see, we need someone to eat or drink some crazy colored foods or liquids and chase a rabbit…we are in trouble right?!?! Paris saves us…AGAIN

Look…I can go on, and on, and on, and on about this stuff, but all I’m really trying to say is that Halloween should be every day!

I kid! Halloween is fun times! Get out there and have fun you crazzzzzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyyy kids!

The Nooge

Am I green? No. In fact I don’t think I ever really cared if I was “Green”. For those of you who are a little bit slow and wonder what I mean by “Green”, being green is:

#

- Taking steps to reduce one’s negative effect on the environment.

…So no I am not a “green” person, but it has recently been brought to my attention, by Matt D., that it’s pretty stupid to not want to go a little green. And he’s right, it’s not that I didn’t want to go “green” it’s just that I had no idea how, so I decided to look into it.

You know what I found, you don’t have to take crazy hippie steps to “go green”. In fact all you have to do is take a step in the right direction. And I know I can at least take baby steps at this point to reduce my impact on the environment. For those of you who know me well you know I’m not a hippie, and this normally isn’t the sort of cause that I’d get behind but I’d like to think I’m changing a little bit.

I like driving for cheap, I like saving money, heck I like the fact people can still go outside and sunbathe (really, can you imagine if you couldn’t go outside in the summer and go to the beach and holler at babes??!?!?!?!) This is the exact type of cause that I SHOULD get behind, so I decided that I’m going to do little things to reduce my impact on this planet.

How you ask? Well I checked out my guy Matt’s new website (to be fair Matt D. is kinda like a hippie…that dude is about this stuff, so I checked out his site to be a good guy and to be fair it did change my mind about what I could do to reduce my impact on the environment) and I found some cool stuff I could buy that would save me cash and save the Earth. And honesty, I wouldn’t “go green” at this point if it cost me more in the long run…that isn’t the type of cause that I could get behind…but it saves cash so it’s cool.

Aight, so I hit up www.greenstoreandmore.com (Matt D’s new gig) and decided to do some shopping. Here is what I found, a multi-use batter recharger, that I can use for my Xbox 360, not only will save the Earth, but save me tons of cash at the same time. Dude, if you got a 360 and don’t recharge your stuff you know what I’m talking about, those sticks run through batteries like John Mayer through chicks. And before you say, “well just get one of those USB packs for your 360.” I’m going to say, I want a rechargable pack that I can use for EVERYTHING. The point of trying to go green is to make a small move that saves cash and hopefully makes an impact. I think I found it. The Link: Charge it up son!!! …

And I also found this neat hat:

It’s made of hemp…and it’s recycled…I have no idea what that means, but if it means saving the Earth and looking stylish I’m in.

Look, I’m not asking you to go out and buy crazy stuff and spend money none of us have on crap you don’t want. All I’m saying is don’t fight going green just because it sounds like crazy hippie talk, it really is not a bad idea and can save you a lot of money in the long run. The site is for sure worth checking out, if for no other reason than to just get ideas about what you can do to go green. Oh yeah, it will also keep this going on for generations:

That’s something worth fighting for…

The Nooge

PS: The Home Studio Blogs continue tomorrow!

Wooooo, we had fun a few weeks ago when I wrote a blog with some of the great international videos that were out at this time, and boy was it fun.

The good news is that I’ve come off that international video kick and am going to focus on songs/videos out now that are neato in the US!

Let’s talk about it:

1) Lady GaGa feat Akon - Just dance

This is an OK song…and I had to post the original version (above) BUT the hot track is the one with Kardinal Offishall (below)

It’s a hot track…and I’m a Kardinal fan.

2) Britney Spears “Womanizer”

I don’t really need to say much…the video isn’t good, and is it just me or does she have the ol’ porn star “I’m here, doing whatever on video…but I don’t care” look in her eyes? (Not that I would know what that looks like…but I mean that’s what Dave was saying…)

3) Cassie ft. Lil’ Wayne “Official Girl”

It has been rumored that Cassie can’t really sing without the Auto Tune…It has also been rumored that I think she’s hot and don’t really care if she can sing (I wouldn’t buy the album anyway…she isn’t popular for her powerful vocals). Anywhooo, I’m just saying, mainstream music isn’t always about talent…Truth time…I don’t really care for this song at all, I just think Cassie is good looking…I’m a shallow blogger, but a deep person!

4) Morningwood “Sugarbaby”

It’s a video…about a puppet. I don’t like puppets, but I don’t not like puppets, I’m a fan of puppets in a music video…

5) Mr. Oizo “Flat Beat”

Because I love puppets in videos…

Enjoy the music videos! They were a random mix of goodness knows what!!!

Check out the Top 10 Show tomorrow at 8pm central time at www.westsidewill.com/radio

The Nooge

With everyone who is anyone throwing their name, their money, and their popularity behind one candidate or another I figured, I the Nooge would tell you who I endorse at this point….

No one.

I don’t know who I’m voting for yet, and it almost seems weird to everyone. ‘You mean you don’t have a side? You mean you don’t have any views on anything? You would still consider Obama/McCain?’

Clearly, I have political views, but I’m more open minded than 99% of the people out there who tell you they are open minded. Let’s be real here, if you were open minded you would make an informed opinion without saying one candidate or the other would “Destroy the economy” or something crazy like that. That’s how idiots talk. It kind of reminds me of during the last election when I was in college and this girl was sitting next to me talking about how she voted for John Kerry and if Bush was re-elected “September 11th would happen every year.” I said, “That’s right.” She clearly thought I was agreeing with her, but I was just proving how dumb she really was. (September 11th has happened every year since Bush has been elected…right after the 10th).

I don’t know who to vote for yet because I think both candidates would make fine presidents, they have seen the mistakes and success of all the other administrations that have come before them and they can learn from all of that. It’s silly to sit here and say that one would be better than the other, while one would keep the world from being destroyed while the other would destroy the world.

If that’s the type of argument you make, maybe you need to take a step back and look at what you have become? I think both candidates are brilliant men who happen to know that there is an economic crisis that may or may not be on it’s way to being cleared up by the time they take office. (As an aside, I have a B.S. in Economics and I happen to think that this new 2 part recovery plan should work IF the banks are given the money with the “wink-wink” loan. The “wink-wink” part being, we’ll be cool if you lose this money, but give it out to people to spend OK…and don’t give it to your ass clown CEO either. I understand that was an extreme over simplification of it all, but that’s the quick version. Why tell you I have a B.S. in Economics? Because I think it’s fair that you know where my opinions were based, I do have SOME knowledge of how things work here, now if I was a coms major you could’ve taken what I said and thrown it in the trash…)

So why am I writing this? I’m writing this to tell you not to be bullied by the “cool kids”, race, or any other factor out there that someone will try to put on you. Picking a president is on you, you can vote how you’d like.

Remember if you are trying to decide on a President and you can find NO FAULTS in the candidate you are voting for, then perhaps you shouldn’t be voting. No candidate is, or ever will be, perfect - it’s up to you to decide whose flaws do and do not matter.

So when election day comes vote for what YOU THINK!

I don’t think people like Charlie Sheen’s dad should be someone you take advice from anyway (although Emilio turned out OK). Really, have you seen the people who have come out in support of both candidates? It really makes me feel like I shouldn’t vote for either guy because they both have such ass clowns backing them. Or how bout a guy who prints Vote or Die T-Shirts and thinks that Dylan and Da Band were going to be great musical acts. Look, if you couldn’t see that Dylan was gonna go crazy, then Puff I don’t think you should be qualified to pick a President (or in the very least if you have a candidate don’t talk, because it will turn other voters off to your guy).

Vote…Or don’t listen to Puff…

The Nooge

Hi, I’m the Nooge and I’m a Cubs fan. That’s how I should start all of my posts from now on, being a Cubs fan pretty much describes how I am.

It’s a weird thing being a Cubs fan - and somehow I think that Cubs fans would make the best soldiers - no matter how good things look on the outside we are pretty sure something bad is going to happen so it’s time to be ready.

Actually I don’t fit into that exact mold, I love the Cubs and for some reason I always happen to think something good is going to happen. It’s weird, you would think that being a Cubs fan my whole life that I would somehow start to think, like most Cubs fans, that there is going to be a bad ending to this whole shebang.

As many of you probably know, my Chicago Cubs lost to the LA Dodgers tonight (who happened to be on a pretty bad losing streak of their own, they haven’t won a playoff series since 1988.) If you are too young to have been around in 1988 that streak may seem pretty darn bad, but for those of you who were alive before 1988 you probably ask what the heck the Dodgers are complaining about.

Sometimes my mind starts to wander and think, “Wouldn’t it be weird to be a fan of the Yankee’s, what keeps them coming back?” And I honestly cannot answer that. They buy world series rings and titles, which from the outside looking in makes their titles seem cheap no matter how much they pay. I’m sure Yankee fans will disagree with that statement, but I’m just giving them the opinion of someone on the outside looking in on them.

There is something about going in with a team that is good, don’t get me wrong the Cubs are right up there with salary, but not too good that it would be weird if you don’t make the playoffs. It makes you feel like you earned the playoffs together as a team with the players. That is what brings people back to Wrigley field to cheer on their team, they want to be apart of something special. Fans come to Wrigley because we all know that someday, sometime if we stick around or stay alive long enough that we will all be apart of something that no one else alive has been apart of, a world series title.

That my friends, is what keeps everyone coming back as Cubs fans even if we lose. It’s our team, and we all lost together, but next year could be the year when we are all apart of something that no one else can claim.

So on that note, I present to you some of my favorite cubs fans:

Marissa Miller loves the Cubs…So does the Nooge…Awesome. (And by loves the Cubs I mean she sang during the 7th inning stretch, so it has to be love…

Jenn Sterger (The FSU fan who Brent Musburger launched to stardom with this diddy): It starts with just a hat….

I had this image sent to me by everyone’s favorite intern, we’ll call him HJ, and it’s of some random porn chick who is a Cubs fan. Hey everyone has to work right?

What does this post have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing, we can’t win baseball games but we can get hot fans to wear our gear (in fact I’m pretty sure there are millions of non-celebrity hot Cubs fans too, so I guess that’s reason 1b) to come back as a Cubs fan)…Take that Dodgers!!!

The Nooge