Sweating like Patrick Rafter

So as tomorrow is September 1st, many people with a complete lack of understanding about solstices and seasonal cycles, consider the summer over for all intensive purposes. Well, I guess the labor day weekend is many people’s official end to summer, but you catch my meandering drift. And while this is cause for alarm for some people, tearing of clothes and gnashing of teeth for others, I kind of look at it with a casually arrogant indifference. Summer’s that drunk girl you were making out with at the bar who was just a little to sloppy, and as she is dancing/stumbling/walking out the door and begging you to follow her, you realize you will be just fine without, plus she bit your lip and you can taste a little blood. Good riddance.


I don’t know what it is about summer that leaves me so nonplussed about its departure. Well, actually, there are 3 things now that I think about it.

1) I love fall. College football, track jacket weather, Halloween, homecoming dances, wait, I mean HC dances suck. Either way, the end of summer signals the beginning of fall, my favorite season, so its all good. Once you got to college and realized summer break was secondary in debaucherous fun to the actual school year, fall suddenly became so beautiful siren that meant it was time to start stumbling around Uptown and passing out in bushes, without fear of parental disapproval or knowledge. Now, post college, its still beautiful emotional crescendo. People running, arms flailing, headlong into the best month of the year, tanned and full of irrational exuberance. Thats how I like to imagine fall.


2) Summer weather gets to be a bit of a bitch when you have to do adult stuff like go to work, run errands, and, you know, be generally presentable and not look like the obnoxious missed behaved kid at the birthday party, all sweaty and disheveled cause they'd been running around constantly. However, once the temperature rises above 80 and you toss in a splash of humidity, I become horrifically unable to seemingly regulate my own body temperature and sweat through all my clothing with the greatest of ease. So its particularly fantastic when I arrive in the office already looking like a hot mess and then get to sit and try not to roast in my own juices. Thus, the arrival of cooler weather is more than welcome. I anxiously look forward to being able to sit in a bar and talk to a girl without looking like an obese judge from a Civil War themed film, dabbing my sweating brow with a handkerchief, trying not to say "I do declare the weather in South Carolina these days is mighty stifling." Its just not a good look for me. Save my few trips to the beach and trying to run through the neighborhood kid's sprinkler, I have more use for a cooler temperature anyways.


3) The final beef I have with summer...the expectations. I think this is where the let down of summer lies. Everyone enters summer with their grandiose plans. They want to go to 4 museums, the beach 3 times a week, go on 6 different roadtrips to 3 different continents, have no less than 5 summer flings, and get the perfect tan, all while drinking to excess. Thus as late August rolls around, they wildly panic because their list is only 25% complete and thus either a)feel the need to scramble to accomplish tons of things in a short time, or b) most likely sulk as they feel the summer wasn't a complete success. Now this isn't everyone, but I've heard similar sentiments from enough of my friends that I feel it is a fairly common diagnosis. Summer is much like prom, if you just go into it looking to have fun, it probably will be. But if you expect it to play out like a John Hughes film, you may be disappointed. Fall on the other hand is an open book. Playing with house money, going out on Saturday night after an awesome Friday.


I really don't have anything against summer, I love summer. Not Summer from 500 Days of Summer though. That movie was awesome but what a completely heartless ice queen bitch she was. Ive had relationships end that didn't make me as angry as her whole character. Wait what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Fall. Its awesome and its coming, hurrah!


So I'm still reserving judgment on Drake. Part of me says he is incredibly overrated, his flow is slow, and there are a bunch of other rappers far more deserving of the accolades and hype he gets. However, I do think he is a clever lyricist, and above all, the dude can ride a beat. The new hotness, Ready for You, is no exception. I fancy myself a bit of a beat connoisseur. Not only in the fact that I judge a rap song by its beat more than its lyrical content, but to the obsessive extent where I excitedly explain to people my favorite 5-7 second snippets where the 808 kicked in, or where they faded the synth line just a little. So this new jam really has it all, cause the beat builds so perfectly and Drake does what he does and lets himself stay within the beat and compliment it. For that I give him props and look forward to spinning this all, thats right, fall bitchez. Enjoy. Oh yeah, who the hell is DJ Alex? Frankie J seems to love him, but he really needs to stop creeping on my new Youtube jams.


"I could produce for your future, I could co-direct your past..."


JW