It didn’t take long to find an artist that was in dire need of some coverage, and Mr. Get Money is precisely that man. His bio on his MySpace page reads …

A Yung Rapper Straight Outta Spartanburg Sc 21 Years Of Age Who’s Rap Name Is Know As Mr. Get Money For Those Who Know Him He Goes By Da Nick Name DJ He Decided To One Day Pick Up A Pin And Pad And Find A Beat On His Computer And Freesyle To It When He Figures That Its A Hit Or The Next Club Banger He Lets Da World Hear His Fantastic Lyrics He Also Has His Own Solo Song Called (Spartanburg Sc) Its A Pretty Hot Track Mainly In His Free Time He Likes To Have Fun Chill With Friends Text All Day And Talk On Da Phone All Night Yea This Guy Right Here Is Pretty Cool One Day You Should Decide To Send Him A Msg, Friend Request, Comment, Picture Comment, Or A Voice Comment AnyThing You Can Send Just To Keep In Touch With Him I Will Return Da Love Fa Show!

Aside from the obvious lack of spelling and grammatical skills, Mr. Get Money has more in his corner than many of his constituents. That is, the ability to KISS — ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’.

DJ’s lyrics don’t venture far outside the realm of your basic rhyme scheme. Furthermore, Mr. Get Money doesn’t seem to attach himself to some wicked vocabulary, drawing that line between hip-hop and rap. Simply put, he is a guns-and-money kind of rapper, reppin’ the Burg. Considering the current rap climate, Mr. Get Money could definitely find himself a place among the greats like Lil’ Wayne, T- Pain, etc, if he only had auto-tune.

In fact, DJ lists those as his influences saying, “Everybody That’s Hot Its Alot Of Them That I Could Name From Lil Wayne To T.I. From Young Jeezy To Kanye West And Others…”

If Mr. Get Money were to start performing live, build a reputation, save his funds for better equipment and begin sending his demo off to record companies, we may very well see Spartanburg’s own DJ/Mr. Get Money on MTVU in no time. If you find the time, please visit Mr. Get Money’s MySpace and listen to “Lay Ya Body Down” and “Spartanburg, SC.”

Oh and Spartanburg, don’t forget, you can follow ya boy on twitter @ www.twitter.com/MrGetMoney09.

Are you in a band or do you know a band that needs to be covered or has been covered unfairly let us know! Leave a comment!

Daniel Hagerman is a writer and blogger based in Spartanburg, S.C.

Tags: Listening Party, Local music

My very first thought when I read the headline Jenny Sanford: “Gay marriage wrecked my family” was “Great, our state’s news has finally become as absurd as The Onion’s content.” Of course the gays would get blamed by the right-wingers, somehow. I’d just woken up, and the coffee hadn’t hit yet, so it took me literally four or five seconds of mental processing to say, “No. Wait. That has to be a joke.”

And it was. But it was a joke that was eerily mirrored the kinds of absurd things that really do pass for news coverage in this state sometimes. And if someone relatively savvy like me (well, I think I am at least) can fall for this for a few seconds and be greeted by a parody of mainstream S.C. news coverage, the writers must be onto something.

I mean, how can anyone who follows the state’s news resist headlines like Sanford won’t resign, suggests in-school suspension or Payday lenders hire homeless?

So allow me to introduce theDiscust.com, a South Carolina-based online political parody magazine. Their motto? “Because in South Carolina, we expect more than just the truth.”

As you’ve probably gathered, it’s basically along the same lines as something like The Onion, although focused on South Carolina news and politics.

Here’s how the site’s creators explain the project …

There’s no doubt that South Carolina is not like other states. Everyone involved in this project calls South Carolina home, warts and all, and we (to varying degrees) are proud to be counted among her citizens. That being said, there’s a lot going on that is just not ridiculed to the degree we feel it should be. There was a vacuum of mockery, and we set about to fill it.

It should come as no surprise to residents, but after just a little bit of research and some fairly intense arguments with physicists, we have concluded that South Carolina has more fodder for mockery than the entire United States as a whole, including South Carolina. You may agree with the science crowd that such a thing is not possible, but you’ll have to trust us — we’ve done the math and unless the fine public school system here has let us down, it all adds up.

Even though I’d be exaggerating if I said every story I saw was riotously funny, I do think this is a cool project. Regional and local news parodies can actually be great fun, and can do a lot to keep both journalists and politicians humble. It can even work in the city level, as a publication like the Asheville Disclaimer proves.

So, here’s a shout out for theDiscust.com, and a sincere hope that they are able to grow the project — which appears to have started in May — into something we can make into a daily stop on our internet rounds.

Tags: humor, Local Politics, Media, News

I’ve been thinking a lot about all the stuff happening in Spartanburg these days. We have so much going on. If you missed Steve’s piece on ‘Critical Mass’ please give it a read — I really think he’s onto something. From the recently proposed Hub City Co-op sparking such immediate interest to Show Up for Spartanburg to the Upstate PRIDE march, the Charter school, just to name a few. These projects started off as ideas that one or two people started talking about and ended up flourishing into something more.

And I can’t help but think “How cool. Why don’t we do this more!?!?!” How cool when citizens step up and get stuff going in their communities!

So, in an effort to keep this momentum going as well as increase civic involvement, I’d like to challenge my fellow citizens to no longer sit on your ideas. Let’s see if we can make them work. Why not? Life is short. It doesn’t have to be a long-term plan. It may start as something small and grow into who knows what. It may not go anywhere. But, that’s OK too. (That happens to me all the time). Not everything will work but what if every once in a while we do hit success?

Spartanburg is currently home to a lot of great non-profits, below are a few that focus on sustainability issues (but we have SO many more great organizations out there too—support them!).

Partners For Active Living: Promoting active lifestyles, active environments and educating the Community

SPACE (Spartanburg Area Conservancy): Land conservation

Upstate Forever: Land Trust, Sustainable Communities, and Clean Air and Water.

Preservation Trust: Historic preservation of local properties

Hub City Farmers Market: Locally grown foods available to the community

These organizations were once someone’s ‘idea’. How did they make it happen? Maybe we can hear some of theirs and others stories as to how they came to fruition and learn a bit about how we might move forward.

So where can we go with this? I’m not sure where I can or will go with this One Citizen idea but, I think it is so very important to our community that we create a supportive environment for our citizens who bring ideas to the table. We need to cultivate our ‘out-side-of-the-box’ thinkers because these are the people that will ultimately change our community. I’m hoping by encouraging dialogue we’ll make the first step.

Would love to hear your thoughts here or via email at tdreamweaver@hotmail.com

Hope everyone has a safe, great 4th! I’ll be on vacation next week, so you’ll have to sustain yourselves in the meantime.

Tags: Community, Environmental, Sustain Spartanburg

It’s Thursday once again, and that means it’s time for me to pester you about telling all of us your weekend plans. That’s right, instead of playing the old-media game where the media outlet tries to seem all hip by recommending things you should do this weekend (never mind that they don’t know who you are, what you like, or anything that’s going on outside of the press releases they’ve gotten), over here at the Spark, we do the exact opposite. After all, you’re a savvy bunch, and if anything, you’ve probably got a much better idea of what to do this weekend than I, as the writer of this blog, do.

Of course, it’s lame to ask someone else to do something you aren’t willing to do first. So here I go …

Today: Hanging out at Bob’s Pretty Good Bookstore, helping him get his computer issues worked out. If you haven’t been, it’s kind of like what would happen if you took a standard used bookstore and said “You know what I hate? All this organization, that’s what!” Great books, though. Tonight, I’m staying in with the wife, as we’re finally getting around to watching season five of The Sopranos.

Friday: Lots of freelance stuff during the day, but after that, I’m heading up to Asheville to visit with friends. If I was staying in town, though, I’d be catching The Consumers at Sonny’s Brick Oven Pizza.

Saturday: It’s July 4, so the idea of making concrete plans is probably a bad one. If past history is any indicator, I’ll end up at someone’s house watching various explosions.

Sunday: Recovery from the 4th, I’d imagine.

Also, on Tuesday (not part of the weekend, granted), I’ll almost certainly be going to the Chris & Jeff Show over at Hub-Bub. I’m a sucker for improv comedy.

OK, I’ve done my part. Now, it’s your turn. Let’s hear about your weekend plans.

Tags: Community, event, holidays, Music

A simple question for today: Does Spartanburg need a website to promote the idea of “shopping locally” within the community?

As many of you know, there are a great many skilled craftspeople in the area, as well as wealth of talented artists. Currently, there are very few specifically local outlets for them to showcase their work within the community. Ideally, there would be a physical retail space for these folks to sell their wares to locals, and any tourists who happen to come through this rapidly revitalizing town. But, until someone creates such a space, the next best option — and the most workable one — is a website.

And that’s just one way a “shop local” site could work. Alternately, it could be a central site that promotes locally owned retail businesses, provides information about local farmers, or serves as a central information source for shoppers about common-sense ways to support the local economy.

It’s a broad topic, obviously, but it’s one of many discussions I’d like to see happen locally.

Personally, I think a retail-leaning site could work quite well, particularly if the site itself wasn’t really trying to make money so much as provide a means for the community to showcase their products. Online craft sales are a proven market — just look at Etsy.com — and Spartanburg certainly has the talent. The picture I’m running with this post, in fact, comes from a local button-maker, Pinstop, who has an Etsy storefront.

But that might not be the best way of supporting the idea of buying locally in general, and not being much of a shopper myself, I have to admit that while I like the idea, I’m not at all certain on the best way of supporting this part of the community.

Your thoughts?

Tags: Arts & Culture, business, Development, shopping

In yet another interesting downtown development, Spartanburg Community College announced yesterday that that they’ll be opening a downtown campus in the Evans Building on South Dean Street. This is a big deal for both SCC and for downtown in general, and the $5 to $6 million dollar renovations will, according to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal’s Gary Glancy, turn the structure “into a state-of-the-art, LEED-certified facility.”

All great news, right? Downtown will now boast two college campuses, and the Evans Building — formerly a high school and junior high — will once again be used for education. More students will be downtown, and as more businesses open to cater to their interests, we should see the city become more and more vibrant.

But then there’s a sticking point, something barely noticed by the SH-J’s Glancy, but which should be a major part of the conversation: What happens to the current tenants of the Evans Building?

Currently the county-owned building is occupied by government services such as Voter Registration, Social Services and Veterans Affairs. … Details about purchasing the building and relocating its occupants, along with what that will cost the county, are being worked out.

That’s right, Voter Registration, Social Services and Veterans Affairs, as well as several others, are being booted from the space — which has ample parking and is centrally located — to make room for college kids. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s something that should at least be taken into account before any parades are thrown in honor of the new campus.

And what about why this project is happening at all? Who actually benefits from this happening? It’s probably not the public services, after all. Why isn’t this a major part of the story? For instance, here’s something that seems innocuous until you think about it.

“That’s what it’s all about — cooperation between the city, the county, community college, the legislative delegation,” said George Dean Johnson Jr., chairman of Johnson Development Associates, Inc., whom Barnet called a driving force behind the proposed project.

Johnson was a driving force behind this? OK, fine, maybe his motives are purely altruistic. But how many of the now-displaced organizations that currently take up residence in the Evans Building will end up renting space from Johnson Development Associates, a major player in downtown real estate? How will the value of Johnson’s various downtown projects and properties be impacted indirectly by, say, the fact that a college now replaces a building that catered to the poor and the needy? Is anyone in the City or the County taking this into account to protect both parties from conflict of interest problems?

I’m not saying this is Johnson’s motivation, mind you, but asking these kinds of questions are what journalists are supposed to do. I think it’s a really strange oversight by Glancy and his editors not to mention this in an otherwise boosterish story, even in passing.

Or what about the offices that are now scrambling to find suitable spaces? How do their directors feel about this? How will it impact their available funds to relocate? How will services be impacted? Will some have to move out of downtown? Are the City and the County really helping them as much as they say they are?

We don’t know, because if Glancy asked those questions, they didn’t make it into the story. Instead, we just hear one side of it — big suprise — never mind that this development could be a total disaster for the public services in the Evans Building.

Tags: Community, Development, Local Politics, Sparkle City Headlines

Today’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal adds more fuel to the fire for discussion of downtown revitalization, noting that the Rock Water Tavern will be reopening as a sports bar.

Mark Stewart has purchased Rock Water Tavern, across the street from the Chapman Cultural Center at 100 Wood Row in the former Spice of Life building.

Although the restaurant will retain its name, the switch in ownership should bring some major changes to its offerings.

Stewart said it will operate as a sports bar and serve traditional pub fare, such as hot wings, burgers and other sandwiches. He also will have a full selection of liquors, wines and craft beers.

Given that the location couldn’t be better — it’s right across the street from the Chapman Center and the under-construction USC-Upstate business school campus — I expect it’ll be a popular place. The sports bar thing doesn’t really appeal to me, but at least it’ll be another downtown option for a lot of people. And it does have a really nice courtyard, which will be a nice option for after-event drinks at the Chapman Center.

Tags: Development, Food, News, Sparkle City Headlines