Find Away – Rocky Business
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Just a quick song/video to tide people over for a few more days until my brief ‘vacation’ is over. Check these guys out. Really dope sound and nice video (shouts to @_TONE).
ROCKY BUSINESS “FIND AWAY” from TONE on Vimeo.
Chris
The Game
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I had the sudden urge to shoot some hoops last night. Was really unexpected and took me by surprise. Nonetheless, I went out there and got into it. You have no idea how much I enjoyed it. I realized that I really have missed this game a lot.
I played for my high school team for freshman and sophomore year and words can’t describe the way I felt after I suited up and got onto that court. Extraordinary, to say the least. But for some reason I lost a lot of that passion as school started and I entered my junior year. I had sat on my ass for most of the summer doing nothing, designing a little bit, playing video games, eating nothing but crap. I had gained a TON of weight. I could still run with them but it wasn’t the same. The coaches urged me to tryout, nagging and nagging me to come out to conditioning to get me back into shape. But I refused. Yes, I am stubborn. If it isn’t something I want to do, chances are I WON’T do it; of course there are many exceptions to that rule. But I’m not going to go into that. That’s a topic for a whole other post. Being a starter for the team sophomore year, it was kind of a given that I would play the following year. As I told people that I wasn’t going to play many were shocked and surprised. I assured everyone that I was just going to skip junior year and come back and play senior year. I told them that I was going to be too busy this year to play and all that jazz. Uh huh. I still went and watched many of the games and each one was somewhat painful for me. Thoughts racing through my head. That could be me. But it never really hit me that I was missing out on a lot.
Starting senior year this year, I had gained even MORE weight and was at my heaviest weight ever. And this time, I can say with great certainty that I would not have made it on the team. As I sit here now, I regret that decision I made junior year. I gave up something that I had enjoyed for many, many years for what? Nothing really. Laziness perhaps? No, not that.
And now I will try and explain something that most people wouldn’t ever speak about. The real reason.
I have always underestimated what I can do. Always thought of the worst possible scenario and placed myself in it, living out a nightmare in real time. I have always doubted myself. That is known by me and me only because the outward façade that I put up lends itself toward me being overconfident and maybe even conceited. It is one of those things that we, as humans, do naturally to make ourselves feel better. Set up a false persona, so if things go wrong, that false persona is the only thing that could possibly be damaged. Not the real you.
When you first enter high school, you have those first-day-of-school nervous jitters but they get flushed out quickly as you cling to that small group of friends that have carried over from middle school. Moving on into sophomore year, you still have that group. But towards the end of sophomore year and into junior year, I witnessed a change. People were no longer “clinging” to that old sense of security. They had moved on, and were starting to take charge and prepare themselves for being the big dogs on campus. People that they weren’t entirely “cool” with got thrown out the door and walls were built among the different cliques.
The sense of anxiety that I got from this ‘wall-building’ was intense. It drove me to not play on the team in some respects. I was scared. I truly was. I was scared of making a mistake. I was scared of not living up to both my own and my peers’ expectations. My parents (Dad especially) would always say to me, “Oh you’re afraid.” Naturally, I denied what they said completely using the customary “I’m too busy” as an excuse. Yes, it was my junior year and I was taking several AP courses, but school is a breeze for me. Who was I kidding, I really wasn’t busy or anywhere near it. I hate to admit it, but they were right, to a certain extent.
Being judged by other people is a large part of life. You can’t avoid it because people are naturally judgmental. The thing that you can control is how you take this judgment. I took it all wrong. Instead of facing what they thought and proving them right/wrong (doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things), I cowered in the corner and basically quit something that I was so passionate about. This is a recurring problem for me, I’ve found. So often, I run away from my problems rather than facing them head on. What really kills me is that I had TWO chances. I made the decision not to play junior year, but then I made that same mistake again about senior year. That is what really gets me…
As I shot the ball in the hoop over and over again last night, I really got into this peaceful state of mind, one that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. It’s incredible how such a simple game, a game where you throw a ball into a ring up in the air 10 feet, can affect you in so many ways. By playing ball I keep in shape physically, keep my mind sharp mentally, have that feel good feeling psychologically, and push myself to get better and better with that competitive spirituality that surrounds me. An overall positive in anyone’s life, especially mine.
This is just one of the many things that I reflect on and think to myself, “Why? Why would I let this go?” I have learned that not only should you do what you love to do and do what you feel good doing, but don’t let what anyone thinks, says, or does hinder you from doing that. Don’t let any other person shape how you live your life or take away from your happiness. It is your life to do with it what you please and in my humble opinion, happiness is one of those things I’d like to experience a lot of the time, if not all of the time.
A final few words: Do you and be you.
Chris
Brevity
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I read what happened to Chris Henry earlier today and honestly I’m shocked and devastated at the same time. No, I did not know him personally. No, I do not follow the Bengals at all. But, all of that talent at the ripe young age of 26 just being thrown away hits me hard. Several times I have been on the verge of harming myself, which could have and probably would have, made my future nonexistent or preventing it from being as good as it should. But something stopped me. I was allowed to make that decision. Chris Henry didn’t get to make it. Someone else made it. In this case, it was his fiancee for not pulling over. I’m not blaming her in any way because who knows whose fault it really was. To me, that really doesn’t matter.
In addition, it really got me thinking about society as a whole today, especially in the United States. Violence can be seen daily, lives taken for no reason at all. This was an accident and shows that things can happen to anyone at anytime no matter who you are, from a hard working student to a professional football player. As it is, we have enough deaths each year from ‘accidents’, but on top of that we have straight up murders, rapes, and other acts against humanity. Why?
In any case, cliche as it is, live everyday like it’s your last, because it might just be…
Truth Power Trust Wisdom Fellowship,
Chris
*I am aware that I ramble in this post.
Downtime
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The lengthy hiatus from the blog is now over, hopefully. Had a few issues with WordPress and caught a mild case of the cold weather lazies, the ones that make you want to get all nice and warm and just kick back and relax and/or sleep. In my case, the latter was the most prominent. Staying up until all hours of the night just ‘living life’ and then sleeping in until 2 or 3 the next day. Not the greatest use of time, I’ll admit that, but it really has given me a new appreciation for how and how not to use my time. Productivity and efficiency is key. Two things that can’t be done as a half awake zombie that is me during the school week. However, time was not 100% wasted. I’ve been really thinking about next seasons releases and have made a few big decisions. I’m not going to shed light on them just yet, but be on the lookout.
I picked up a new Macbook Pro (17 inch, as was necessary) over the Thanksgiving/Black Friday holiday and it looks to be a great investment thus far. Hope everyone had a nice productive, holiday break.
Christmas is just around the corner. Crazy. The 10$ Tee sale is still going on and I encourage you all to hop on that.
New releases are in the work and I will start shedding light into what future drops will hold soon.
Take it easy and stay warm,
Chris
It’s coming… www.thelegitimacy.com
December Sale
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