Today is Keith Matthew Thornton's birthday. No one seems sure about how he old is (Keith is famously mysterious.) Wikipedia says he's 48. But who knows? Today might be his 50th! In any case, he is one of rap's true originals, and from his work with the Ultramagnetic MCs to Dr. Octagon to his solo records, has amassed a catalogue to rank with the all-time greats. Surely he's somewhere nice, celebrating in style—and will probably be in a mask and cape and interesting underwear before the day is through.

I know nothing about N.A.S.A.-"a music collaboration project assembled by Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Spiegel, brother of film director Spike Jonze) and DJ Zegon (Ze Gonzales, professional skateboarder)-but this video features the contributions of Kool Keith and Tom Waits, which makes it pretty essential. Enjoy.

The things you learn from Twitter. I signed on to Twitter two weeks ago. (Because you're supposed to now?) And so far it seems mostly like a way for me to write stuff in public which I will feel stupid about ten minutes after writing. I don't really know whether to go the "Hey, read this important news article" route, or the "I like green Tabasco sauce better than red Tabasco sauce" route. (Judging from the importance of the information in this post so far, I should probably stick with Tabasco.) But you do learn interesting stuff from Twitter. It is, if nothing else, a very fast-flowing stream of [...]

Kool Keith is looking fly in his new video, boasting about sponsorship deals with Tampax and Coca-Cola. In related news, Anthony Bragalia shares interesting thoughts at The UFO Iconoclast(s) website about "How The Roswell Crash Happened."