Danny Lamas

That’s how it’s done folks. #Adele

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:56:01 -0500

That’s how it’s done folks. #Adele

Very sad news about Whitney Houston. I Wanna Dance With Somebody...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:28:18 -0500

Very sad news about Whitney Houston. I Wanna Dance With Somebody will play long and hard on repeat tonight. #IWillAlwaysLoveYou

"It would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by..."

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:37:41 -0500

“It would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear.”

- Aung San Suu Kyi

minimalmac: Seems like a good strategy. (via Erik Mallinson)

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:06:59 -0500

minimalmac:

Seems like a good strategy.

(via Erik Mallinson)

"Great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed."

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:45:38 -0500

“Great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed.”

- Vincent van Gogh

Total Pop Mayhem (The NYE Mixtape)

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:45:26 -0500

Cuban expression artist “El Sexto” Danilo...

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:00:03 -0500

Cuban expression artist “El Sexto” Danilo Maldonado’s beautiful tribute to the late human rights activist Laura Pollán. #Libertad #Cuba

via Capitol Hill Cubans

Here Come the Year-End Mashups!

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:47:00 -0500

It really is the most wonderful time of the year: Christmas season in full-swing, and an onslaught of awesome mashups are released into the wild. This month the music industry is looking back and rounding up the year’s best, but gone are the days where we looked solely to VH1, MTV, TRL, Billboard magazine, and your local Clear Channel monopoly to reminisce about the artists who ruled the charts. In the emerging social music experience developing online through YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and apps like Spotify and Turntable.fm, the most exciting byproduct has been the explosion of the mashup genre.

Take a look at Mashup-Germany’s latest - an incredible mashup featuring 29 of this year’s hottest songs - just released. Many others will follow suit this month. But if you’re looking for the best, look no further than reigning mad scientist DJ Earworm. His annual “United State of Pop” usually drops right around Christmas and crushes his peers, putting everyone’s seemingly remarkable attempts to shame.

USPOP is not simply a mashup. Anyone with a good ear for music can pick up on the recurring chord progressions common in many pop songs. With some skill, ingenuity and a good muse, many will create beautiful symphonies out of multiple club beats and synthesizers. What makes Earworm’s annual monstrosity so unique is that he really creates an entirely new song: impressively fluid lyrics and instrumentation that connect the year’s songs with a common theme for the grand purpose of pure pop mayhem (see video after the jump):

Earworm is up against one hell of a cocktail to mix this year: his self-imposed rule restricts the mashup to the Top 25 Billboard Hits of 2011 according to the just-released Year-End Hot 100 chart. That means chart-topper Adele will croon, SkyBlu & Redfoo will shuffle, and the shenanigans of Cee-Lo, Nicki Minaj, and Pitbull will battle with the empowerment anthems of Gaga, P!nk, and Katy for a go at the background beat. With all the potential, I can only imagine what this year’s rising stars 3LAU and Kap Slap could cook up if they throw their hats into the ring and give the year-end treatment a go too.

My two favorite Top 40 songs of the year just missed the cut on Billboard, so Earworm will have to make due without Till The World Ends (#27) and The Edge of Glory (#29), which I thought were shoe-ins that would be heavily featured. Check out my earlier predictions, which ended up being pretty close!

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase."

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:52:07 -0500

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

- MLK Jr.

Sailors & Sweethearts (The Winter Remix)

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:52:50 -0500

Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Chart Predictions

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:57:22 -0500

Check out my picks for the Top 25 Songs of 2011 based on the Hot 100 over at Billboard. I looked at how much time these songs spent in the top 10 during the year, and mixed in a little bit of my personal preferences too; we’ll see how close I got when the year-end charts drop in a few weeks! The Billboard Top 25 is also the cocktail used in the “United State of Pop” mash-up that DJ Earworm releases around Christmas every year. Looks like he’ll have his work cut out for him again:

Photo via Idolator

25. The Time (Dirty Bit) - Black Eyed Peas
24. How To Love - Lil’ Wayne
23. F***in Perfect - P!nk
22. The Lazy Song - Bruno Mars
21. We R Who We R - Ke$ha
20. What’s My Name - Rihanna feat. Drake
19. Tonight I’m Lovin’ You - Enrique Iglesias
18. The Edge of Glory - Lady Gaga
17. Last Friday Night - Katy Perry
16. Someone Like You - Adele
15. Pumped Up Kicks - Foster The People
14. Just Can’t Get Enough - Black Eyed Peas
13. Super Bass - Nicki Minaj
12. Till The World Ends - Britney Spears
11. S&M - Rihanna
10. F*** You - Cee Lo
09. Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera
08. On The Floor - J.Lo feat. Pitbull
07. Give Me Everything - Pitbull
06. Grenade - Bruno Mars
05. ET - Katy Perry feat. Kanye
04. Firework - Katy Perry
03. Born This Way - Lady Gaga
02. Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO
01. Rolling In The Deep - Adele

Wishing The Legend of Zelda a happy 25th anniversary on the eve...

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:44:08 -0500

Wishing The Legend of Zelda a happy 25th anniversary on the eve of the release of Skyward Sword - which is giving me all sorts of goosebumps with glowing best-in-series reviews.. Thank you for shaping my imagination as a kid, stimulating my brain with endless puzzles and quests, inspiring me with your epic soundtrack, and cultivating my inner nerd.

"We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden."

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:57:04 -0400

“We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

- Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

Please come out and support the fundraiser my friends and I are...

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:11:00 -0400

Please come out and support the fundraiser my friends and I are hosting in New York City this November! We’re raising money for the Food Bank of NYC and the event will feature DJ Afro from the Grammy-winning Los Amigos Invisibles, and DJ Turmix! Visit our website and see all the details below.

childrensjoyfund:

Children’s Joy Fund is Back(Pack) in Action! Join us November 16, 2011, 7:00pm at the Chelsea Room!

Children’s Joy Fund is proud to renew our commitment to improving the lives of children in our home state by hosting our second annual fundraiser. This year we are supporting the Food Bank for NYC’s Open Market BackPack Program and Liberty Cafe, a soup kitchen in East New York that feeds nearly 400 people a day. Performing at our latin-flavored club night will be DJ Turmix, and DJ Afro of the Latin Grammy-Award-winning band, Los Amigos Invisibles!

The NY Times reports that 1,006,390 New York children live in FOOD INSECURE HOUSEHOLDS
[VIEW STATS] -More stats in the posts below-

In New York City, one of the richest cities in the world, food poverty is around every corner. Throughout the five boroughs, approximately 1.3 million people — mainly women, children, seniors, the working poor and people with disabilities — rely on soup kitchens and food pantries. Approximately 3 million New Yorkers experience difficulty affording food for themselves and their families, an increase of 60 percent since 2003 (foodbankNYC)

For our 2011 project, we have set our sights on supplying a year’s worth of healthy and nutritious food to children in New York City. The growing rate of hunger among children throughout the boroughs is alarming. With a struggling economy and limited options for families, kids across New York need our help right now to fight hunger and malnutrition.

Purchase your ticket for the Children’s Joy Fund Benefit at Chelsea Room on November 16th or donate above!

2005 Stanford Commencement Speech. Godspeed to the stars, Steve...

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:26:29 -0400

2005 Stanford Commencement Speech. Godspeed to the stars, Steve Jobs

Apple finds a use for some of those first-generation iPads

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:59:55 -0400

Apple finds a use for some of those first-generation iPads:

Cheaper, refurbished older models of tablets such as the iPad have a pretty extraordinary potential to do good around the world. Apple has just donated tons of them for use in Teach for America classrooms.

I think this could be huge for the growing democracy movement in Cuba. Spreading eBooks, films, and digital media to promote human rights on the island through tablet computers would be a creative and subversive way of giving Cubans an immense increase in access to information, with or without internet connectivity.

New Jason Mraz, and it’s really good!! I smell a big. fat....

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:38:40 -0400

New Jason Mraz, and it’s really good!! I smell a big. fat. hit.

Cubans have faith that change will come

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:36:03 -0400

Cubans have faith that change will come:

Cubans have faith that change will come

by Danny Lamas

Posted on Fri, Sep. 16, 2011

Re Frank Calzon’s Sept. 8 Other Views article Ping-Pong diplomacy changes little in Cuba and Joe Cardona’s Sept 10 piece, Jim Cason’s work in Cuba offered ‘refreshing approach’: Like Calzon, I remain puzzled as to why many today continue to refer to the passion and commitment of Cuban Americans to human rights and justice as a “hardline anti-Castro” view. These sentiments are not without obvious reasons. I know from personal experience on the island.

In the fall of 2008, I had the unique opportunity to visit Havana after the devastating back-to-back hurricanes, Gustav and Ike. I listened to first-person accounts of the disastrous conditions on the island in the wake of these storms, all of which explicitly called the Cuban government out for misinformation campaigns intended to shroud its lack of action. The heavily hit provinces of Pinar del Rio and Holguin had seen no substantial assistance, despite reports of foreign aid from South America, the United States and nations around the world.

Worst of all, the Cuban government was selling donated humanitarian assistance to already poverty-stricken Cubans, specifically in provinces where the damage was most catastrophic. Throughout my week in Cuba, the recurring theme was very clear: The government cares more about sustaining itself than taking care of its people when they are most in need.

This is but one example of why the exile community in America speaks out so strongly in favor of policies that restrict the level of monetary resources the Cuban government has to stay in power. Would you want to subsidize a corrupt government that takes its cues from the Mafia’s playbook when it receives humanitarian assistance for natural disasters?

Today the regime continues to harass and detain the people calling for economic and political reforms. Nevertheless, as Cardona points out in quoting diplomat Jim Cason, Cubans are humble, spirited and courageous. All of the people with whom I spoke on the island reminded me that, despite the ongoing repression and lack of concern for the people by their government, there was still enormous faith and hope that change will happen sooner or later, and they want to be a part of it.

Now is the critical moment for the Cuban people and their international network of solidarity to draw attention to the flagrant disregard for human rights in Cuba and demand change. “Softer” methods simply seem a lot less prudent when the government continues to show its true colors.

There is nothing that you can do on the iPhone or iPad that I...

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:45:39 -0400

There is nothing that you can do on the iPhone or iPad that I can’t do. - Stevie Wonder

Stevie sings Steve Jobs’ praises for iOS accessibility

(via TNW Apple)

Inspiration from the geniuses at Pixar Animation Studios.

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:22:00 -0400

Inspiration from the geniuses at Pixar Animation Studios.