Dart Adams presents FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

I decided that it's about time I addressed some of the questions I get emailed to myself or asked in Gchats, iChats or Facebook chats over the past 28 months of blogging on Poisonous Paragraphs (32 in total including my run on AllHipHop.com). Here are just 10 frequently asked questions (of about 50) that I've recieved over the years that I finally decided to address. I'll probably be doing a few of these throughout the Summer as well to clear up many of the rising questions people have about myself and my blog. Enough of this bullshit, let's get on to the questions.


1. How did you get your name/What inspired your name/Why did you name your blog "Poisonous Paragraphs"?

My old emcee names were Invincible Swordsman, Dart Champion and occasionally Millions Knives (pictured below). Invincible Swordsman was a character in the Jademan Kung Fu comic book "The Force Of Buddha's Palm", Millions Knives is a hugely popular anime character from the "Trigun" graphic novels and anime series. Darts are fuckin' HUGE in Europe. When I went to get an email address on Hotmail all of those names were taken (even the numbers afterwards). I input "poisonousdart75" and it took it. In order to avoid confusion every site I joined from 2003 on was as Poisonous Dart (even though it's a generic ass name).

When I stopped writing on AllHipHop.com I figured that I couldn't write as Poisonous Dart anymore. Since my name started with Poisonous then and I wrote so much I had to break my long ass posts down the smaller paragraphs so the users in The Reason would actually read them (no pictures, just text!). It made sense to name my blog "Poisonous Paragraphs" after the famous classic Inspectah Deck verse.

I finally dropped the "Poisonous" off of my name and used my real life last name Adams. My name was inspired partly by my favorite cartoon character as a kid, Jesse Dart, the legendary comic book artist/creator from Holyoke, MA Art Adams as well as former producer turned A&R/manager Dart La AKA Dart Parker.


2.Why do you use so many damn pictures on your blog?

I used them beacause I felt the reason people were turned off by my blog was that I had too many words and nothing visual to draw you in. I didn't learn how to upload pictures to my blog until I started using Firefox instead of Safari when I used Blogger and all of these options appeared and/or actually worked. That was March/April 2007. I just got folder full of images and went to work.

I usually try to have one picture per paragraph. That adds up after a while. I didn't realize how many computers had trouble viewing my site because of it because I was using a brand new superfast G5 Mac Tower when I started the site. I added the pictures from many of my favorite albums to show new visitors/readers that my taste encompasses Hip Hop from every region and all over the world as well.


3. Why haven't you ever written about your graf career or your Rap career in detail?

The main reason I haven't is because my graf "career" was filled with disappointment because I wasn't especially as good at it as I'd hoped I'd be. I sucked picking colors, I was only really good at picking locations, hand styles and throwups. I could talk about legendary graf artist 'til I was blue in the face and the history of the artform going back to 1968/9 but I was just not good at it in my opinion. Any stories I write would be about me being disappointed that my artistic talents didn't evolve the way I hoped they would.

As far as emceeing goes, my whole philosophy on emceeing and why I got into it was to murder the game lyrically. By the time I became of age to actually get in the game it wasn't about lyrics anymore and on the underground even though it was I wasn't willing to leave guaranteed money when my same friends and associates who were underground kings that got mobbed overseas weren't getting paid by their labels and did shows @ the Middle East or Western Front nonstop.

I'd rather work constantly at something I was good at and never have to worry about money like they did. Eventually, it tuned 2001 and 9/11 happened. By 2002 it was a wrap for any viable Rap career for myself. I'll probably tackle that aspect of my life in another medium rather than this blog. Maybe in a book. Who knows, I might feel different about it in the future.


4. You claim to have a library of VHS tapes going back to the early 90's and a huge magazine collection, why haven't you uploaded any of your videos or scanned any of the magazines as of yet?

I've been so busy with writing that I never got around to it but I've talked to my brother and a couple of my Twitter peoples (What up, Frank Lanzkie!) and I've decided to begin digitizing and uploading a lot of the footage I recorded on VHS from 1991-2008 to either my YouTube profile/channel or to Poisonous Paragraphs. I got shit that'll make all of your heads explode on the real. As far as the magazines go, I should really invest in a scanner. I have a gang of old Hip Hop & graf mags from 1997-2004 still fresh in Adidas shoe boxes.

5. Is Poisonous Paragraphs really a team blog/Why haven't you shown your face yet?

Nope. Poisonous Paragraphs is completely written, conceived and planned by myself. No help. I don't use any contributors and I don't post any content provided by other parties. This pisses a lot of people off but I say if it's my blog then it should be ALL me. Every other blog on the planet can use content from the big sites but I do what I want when I want.

As far as showing my face, that'll happen when I'm forced to have to be seen. If I had a job or steady income from writing or whatever I definitely would've been seen by now. I honestly don't know the answer to that question but some local people that have supported me for years should finally get to see what the hell I look like. The whole anonymity angle seeped over from my unremarklable graf career writing as STRYKE/SAGE/SOBER between 1992-2002 and my short lived ghostwriting stint. I loved the whole Da Ghetto Communicator from The Source/Ghostface Killah/MF Doom aspect where you could only be judged by your body of work and nothing else. Just like graf.


6. Why do you introduce new features and then suddenly stop doing them (i.e. Revenge Of The 80's, Lost In Translation, Journey Into Mystery & That's Kinda Racist)?

I have an idea to do something and then I don't want to get pigeonholed so I switch it up and do something else. I don't wan't anyone to read my blog and dare tell me there's something I don't or can't do. I don't believe in being narrowcast or painted into a corner. I'm a writer. I can write about whatever the hell I feel like writing about when I wake up in the morning. That's why I created all of the different features in the first place. I also have had trouble finding online pics or footage to aid many blog subjects. I have the materials myself and I guess I'll upload them so I can do 'em.

I stopped doing my "That's Kinda Racist" blogs because I used them as a coping mechanism during Barack Obama's presidential campaign when I was hearing and seeing some stuff that depressed and disappointed the fuck outta me. I felt that I had to address the situation somehow so I did a self parody of my own "What's New In Dart's iPod" posts in relation to recent happenings that could be construed as racist to open up dialogue with my readers about race. It began taking on a life of it's own so I shut it down after the election. A special edition will appear in the future, trust me on that (a few almost did recently).


7. What is the significance of the "Civil War" Marvel images you always used in relationship to the Hip Hop blogging world?

In Marvel Comics, they had an event where heroes had to choose a side. They could either register themselves, reveal their identities and work with the government. The others decided to stay underground and keep their identities hidden. They wew constantly at odds with one another afterwards resulting in the Civil War. In the Hip Hop blogosphere, we have the sites that get a ton of traffic that industry types often frequent and you have the content/writing based blogs that are considered middle to lower tier. I simply used that parallel in relation to the Hip Hop blogosphere.

I continued with the analogy in detail with my series "The Marvel Guide To The Bloggerverse" where I made the bigger blogs all Initiative and the smaller ones part of the Anti Registration movement/The Resistance. Very few people caught my elaborate analogy but they did a great job of letting it go over everyone's heads. I've done quite a few posts that were elaborate analogies or tounge in cheek sarcasm that people still haven't caught yet. *Shrugs*


8. Do you ever run out of ideas of what to write about/get writer's block?

I have a clipboard where I have planned out a series of projects and posts throughout the Summer as well as a list of 100 blogs/posts I didn't do or have pushed back indefinitely for lack of resources about each subject can't currently be found online as of yet. I get up in the morning with a gang of ideas and write them down. Part of the reason I started my Twitter account was to prove that I just don't seem to run out of shit to write about. The longest bout of writer's block I've ever had was four days long and I wrote four blogs to make up for it in an 18 hour span following it.

9. Why don't you ever do any interviews on your blog/Why won't you do interviews yourself?

I write enough and I'm not interesting in transcribing a bunch of questions and answers without being paid for it. I don't think I'm that interesting of an interview subject (Cuz I'm ME *facepalm*) but I've caved in and allowed my boy Travis Glave, my girl M. Dot and a couple of other heads have requested interviews with me on Twitter lately. The whole "mystery of Dart Adams" aspect does get a little tiresome after so many years of online writing/blogging.


10. You always seem ready to quit in order to take a job that keeps falling through, how long can you continue blogging without pay before you finally give it up?

I honestly don't know the answer to that question. I will admit that my blogging is a means to an end. I fully started this blog in the hopes that it would lead to a job/jobs and bigger things. All of those opportunities have fallen through for various reasons and I can't tell the future. I can promise that for the amount of time I'm blogging no one will match my output and/or production. When I didn't get in that Vibe list I spazzed out a little because I felt like I was busting my ass for nothing. A gang of people let me know that wasn't the case and I thank each of them for that, especially my numerous blogging brethren and sisteren that made the list and didn't make it.

Have any questions that you have about this blog or myself answered? Ask them in the comments section and I'll answer them in the next edition of "Dart Adams presents FAQ" in June.

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