1/ From October 1995 to September 1996, Tupac went on an unbelievable run of creativity including:
• 2 albums
• 3 feature films
• Songs for 6 posthumous LPs
• 12 music videos
The story of his work ethic during this period is awe-inspiring.
Thread 👇👇
2/ The 11-month period of this creative explosion starts on the day Tupac is released from prison and ends on the day he dies.
The output is so prolific over this span that @SnoopDogg says Tupac "had to know" the end was coming.
3/ The story begins on October 12th, 1995.
After serving 9 months in prison, Tupac is bailed out by Death Row Record's Suge Knight for $1.4 million.
He immediately flies from NY to LA.
What does he do to celebrate his release? No clubs.
Just goes straight to the studio.
4/ Producer Dave Aron says Tupac arrived at the studio "on a mission" and "wanted to get a lot done in a short amount of time."
That night he records two songs that end up on the All Eyez On Me album ("Ambitionz Az A Ridah", "I Ain't Mad At Cha").
5/ This work pace continues non-stop until his death.
Rapper Young Noble describes working with Tupac: "We’d get up and [go to Tupac's movie set] at 6-7am, and then go to the damn studio after that. We’d get to the studio at 5-6pm, and not leave... until 3-4am.”
6/ Actor Tim Roth, who starred in Gridlock'd with Tupac, had this to say:
"[In the trailer during filming] I’d kick back and have a beer and [Tupac would] be sitting there writing...He worked at it. His success was not a fluke. He was a poet."
7/ In August 1996 (one month before his death), Tupac records Don Killuminati.
The project takes only 1 week: the lyrics are written and recorded in three days and mixing takes four days.
It's probably Tupac's darkest album and the theme of death permeates throughout.
8/ Snoop Dogg's description gives me the most chills.
He remembers how Tupac would finish a song, never listen to it & start the next one:
“To me it was like, why is he working so fast and so hard and trying to finish these records up? He had to know [he would die soon]”
9/ For Snoop Dogg, the biggest sign that Tupac DID know was the fact that he recorded the music video for "I Ain't Mad At Cha" one week before his death.
In the video, Tupac is shot and killed outside of a club.
10/ On September 7th, 1996, Tupac is riding in a car with Suge Knight on the Las Vegas strip following a Mike Tyson boxing match.
The car is targeted in a drive-by shooting and Tupac dies 6 days later from the attack on September 13th, 1996.
11/ Tupac is only 25 years old when he dies.
A generational creative talent...actor, rapper, poet, singer, writer and cultural icon.
Even with his life cut short, Tupac's stepbrother (Mopreme Shakur) says "he did everything he said he was gonna do."
The invention of bánh mì is a combination of climate, trade and urban layout of Saigon in late-19th century designed by French colonist.
When the French captured the area in 1859, most economic activity in the region took place along the Saigon river.
The population built makeshift homes tightly bundled by the river banks. Outgrowth from this eventually lead to narrow alleyways between many buildings that is trademark of the city (the Khmer named the region Prey Nokor then French renamed it Saigon and then it was renamed to Ho Chi Minh City in 1976 after end of Vietnam War).
Over decades, the French created European street grids and built wide Paris-type boulevards in the city to funnel commerce to larger markets (also make the city easier to administer).
It was at these markets that French baguettes were introduced and traded.
Bánh mì bread is known for being flaky and crispy on the outside while fluffier on inside (so god damn good).
Two features of Saigon helped create this texture:
▫️Climate: The heat and humidity in Southeast Asia leads dough to ferment faster, which creates air pockets in bread (light and fluffy).
▫️Ingredient: Wide availability of rice meant locals added rice flour to wheat flour imports (which were quite expensive). Rice flour is more resistant to moisture and creates a drier, crispier crust.
Fast forward to the 1930s: the French-designed street layout is largely complete. Now, the city centre has wide boulevards intersected by countless narrow alleyways.
The design was ideal for street vendor carts. These businesses were inspired by shophosue of colonial architecture to sell all types of goods as chaotic traffic rushed by.
Vietnam has some of the most slapping rice and soup dishes, but many people on the move in the mornings wanted something more portable and edible by hand.
Bánh mì was traditionally upper class fare but it met the need for on-the-go food.
Just fill the bread with some Vietnamese ingredients (braised pork, pickled vegetable, Vietnamese coriander, chilies) along with French goodies (pate).
Pair it with cà phê sữa đá (aka coffee with condensed milk aka caffeinated crack) and you’re laughing.
Haven’t lived in Saigon for 10+ years but ate a banh mi every other day when I did.
While there, I also sold a comedy script to Fox (pitch: “The Fugitive meets Harold & Kumar set in Southeast Asia”).
reminder that no “asian guy and stripper” story will ever top Enron Lou Pai’s “asian guy and stripper” story
Totally forgot Lou Pai got the stripper pregnant.
If this story was transplanted to 2020s, Pai would probably have been a whale on OnlyFans and gotten got…anyways, I wrote about the economics of OF here: readtrung.com/p/onlyfans-sti…
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) trained an AI slideshow maker called “Decker” on 900 templates and apparently gotten so popular that “some of its consultants are fretting about job security.”
Sorry, called “Deckster”. That excerpt was from this BI piece that also looked at McKinsey and Deloitte AI uses: businessinsider.com/consulting-ai-…
The Mckinsey chatbot is used by 70% of firm but same anonymous job board said it’s "functional enough" and best for "very low stakes issues." x.com/bearlyai/statu…
Here’s a r/consulting thread based on Computer World last year. Deckster was launched internally March 2024…some think it’s BS…some think it helps with cold start (B- quality): reddit.com/r/consulting/s…