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like a ma mucka

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like a ma fucka …

***

i was having a horrible day the day zach came by to film us.

i was sick of mixing the record.

sick of writing my exams.

sick of everyone.

sick of everything.

***

i got over it.

but … it’s in the track if you look closely.

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like a ma fucka

have you seen green?

pearl

ding dong

dig dog dug

smoke stack lightnin’

backbeat the word is on the street

the fire in your heart

neither here nor there

***

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i’m on a hip hop jag right now that is borderline certifiable …

sarah ezra was the first person to turn me on to hip hop. i was probably 24, 25. working at barnes and noble. did i have an interest in developing an interest in hip hop at the time? maybe … i don’t remember. but i do know it was all pavement and guided by voices and liz phair and shit in my car back then. i was white. country white. suburbs white. food plan at the college cafeteria white. shit … i was one of the mindless honkeys who let the government tell me that rap music was violent and let half-baked liberals tell me it was misogynistic. ‘why they always talking about shooting each other? why they always disrespecting women?’ shit like that … fucking honkey shit.

so i don’t remember if i had a natural curiosity towards hip hop or not, but i do remember a profound interest in the cute half-ethiopian half-spanish chick that worked up in the cafe. and she liked hip hop. so, yeah, sure … i’m down with hip hop. turn me on, baby.

she was pretty boojie, sarah. she was from a pretty white-ish background. she wasn’t fucking around and getting hard core or nothing like that. and i ain’t in any position to get with some ghetto chick, you know. i’m soft. a ghetto chick would eat me alive. so sarah dug the hip hop that it was easy to get white kids into back then. tribe called quest’s ‘low end theory’ (‘they don’t even cuss on it, and the bass player, ron carter, played with miles davis!’). de la soul’s ‘stakes is high.’ black star. shit like that. good shit, don’t get me wrong, great shit … classic shit, in fact … but pretty … approachable shit. for a suburban country honkey.

but even after she moved in and i could have, you know, avoided hip hop if i really didn’t like it, i had come to learn that the shit was brilliant. i remember driving home from work one night back to the apartment with the windows rolled down singing along to busta rhyme’s rap at the end of tribe’s ‘what’s the scenario?’ where he’s just going fucking insane (‘change you little drawers, cause your pants is sagging!’) and thinking, ‘shit! this is hip hop …i get it. fuck.’ we used to rock hip hop all the time back then. and pavement. and guided by voices. and liz phair. good memories …

ever since then, i go in and out. every two, three years i drift back in for a spell. got into tupac for a bit. some of that outkast stuff. 50 cent. a little eminem. n.w.a. public enemy. the typical shit you run into …

but recently …

fuck.

i don’t even remember what or why or who or … i don’t know what got me downloading rap albums a few months ago, but it has lead to a fucking obsession. straight up. out of my fucking nuts crazy for the fucking hip hop right now. i’m watching documentaries and shit. buying t-shirts online. wearing ice. buying rims. a growth moment …

paco turned me on to ice cube. dr. weinstein, my exam committee member, and my old student collin both turned me onto nas. some jay z popped up. then i started hitting message boards and finding eric b. and rakim and raekwon and fucking biggie.

fucking biggie. biggie’s the shit that i can’t get past right now. and even though there are some jams on ‘life after death,’ i am completely hooked on ‘ready to die’ (particularly the tracks easy mo bee produced … warning, gimme the loot, ready to die, the what – and method man’s shit on the what is fucking hilarious … ‘i spit on your grave and grab my charles dickens … bitch!’). puffy kinda irritates me, though. according to one of the five documentaries i’ve watched recently, he kinda irritated biggie too (‘he got me doing all this R&B bullshit, man …’).

there’s something about biggie, though, in all this shit for me. his voice, maybe. the jamaican thing, maybe. dunno … i just really feel that dude. fucking biggie …

i’m out of my mind, though. seriously. i’m researching the tupac and biggie killings. i don’t know who to believe. the LAPD is clearly involved. beyond that … i doesn’t seem like biggie had anything to do with tupac getting shot until you hear tupac speak … then you wonder. fucking shame, though. those cats were the shit. smart motherfuckers. artists. poets. storytellers. bad fucking men …

here’s a great clip from this interview done with tupac while he was in prison. he talks about america being the world’s biggest gang and how it’s not as easy as just saying, ‘stop the violence’ to save the inner-city youth and how prison is, ‘not the spot!’ pretty fucking amazing who we’re locking up around here …

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we lost a good one this week, folks …

the great rodeo-dan went to the big dog park in the sky.

i met rodin during a crazy time in my life. living in phoenix, long distance relationship, no idea what the fuck i was doing …

when i used to come visit jessica, who was living at the malibu beach rv park with big kev and emily and rodin, shit was always kinda crazy. big kev and emily were volatile. jessica and i were volatile. but no one was volatile with rodin.

rodin was this big, fluffy, sweet lover that was always there to ease the tension. when in doubt it was, ‘i’m taking rodin to the beach. i’m taking rodin for a hike. i’m playing fetch with rodin.’ old guy didn’t know how much work he was actually doing …

some favorite moments:

when we used to go hiking out behind the rv park, rodin would go down to the creek. we’d stand up on the hill and hurl sticks into the creek. rodin would go fucking nuts.

when big kev would go out of town, jess and i would watch rodin. between rodin and nesta, i realized how great it is to have a good dog around.

rodin had great tricks. big kev could put a treat on rodin’s nose and he would sit there and wait with the treat balancing perfectly on his nose. when he heard the ‘ok!’ he would flip the treat off and eat it in less than a second. amazing. (he also never barked unless told to ‘speak.’)

here he is in a halloween hula:

this photo was taken the day mookie showed up and dogs officially entered my life. i specifically remember having a really good time with rodeo at the beach that day and thinking, ‘i need to get a dog.’ canine coincidences …

it’s always a sad day when a good dog goes on. but rodin had a good long life and maintained his dopey sweetness till the end. that’s all we can ask for.

i’ll miss you, rodeo.

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stunned sunday … long week.

everything i’ve begun in the last few months/weeks crested this week. i want to put my arms up in the roller coaster and scream for the duration of the descent.

not a lot of joy in the midst … plenty of destructive venting. acts of quiet desperation. lots of productive toil. but no real … joy. i miss joy. does anyone have her number? she was a classy broad …

little bummed that i missed mardi gras in BR for the second straight year …

last year, played two gigs with a pinched nerve in my neck in complete and total agony.

this year, at the end of everything, played two gigs friday night, got home at 5, woke up at 1. standing in the rain drinking with a mass of people was not in the soul’s cards. wanted to go hiking in mississippi. needed to clear the head …

and now the head is clear(ish), and there’s always new orleans, and i think i’m going to love this ryan adams discography that conor hipped me to last night over roasted goat shoulder and music and beer sampling and talk.

***

and riley still loves me, even when he’s drunk …

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and listening to paco talk about hip hop (or anything else, for that matter) reminds me that, yes, there is life and it is here and here are we and, well, welcome home old friend. i miss you sometimes …

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***

these two guys (aaron roux and his dad) made the second gig on friday night worth it (denise summed up the atmosphere of the place perfectly: ‘alright, this is the way this is gonna go: we’re gonna see nudity. we’re gonna see chicks making out. and we’re gonna see a fight.’ she was not far off … )

anyway, aaron is in the middle of riding his bike across the country (handcycing, that is, as in biking with his arms), and his dad follows behind in the chuck wagon fixing tires, cooking meals, whatever needs to be done. they were staying at the magnolia and followed us over to the second gig. great fucking guys.

when aaron makes it, he’ll be the first quadriplegic to ride a bike across the us.

you can follow along here.

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i’ve stumbled upon a new component of my loose and ambiguous fitness regiment.

twenty minutes of soul train line dancing every morning.

been at it for a few days now.

starting to feel the funk deeper into the day …

picking up some rad new moves, too.

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had some synchronicity this morning.

was listening to jay z’s black album when i read about baron davis getting traded to the cavs.

made me thing of the ‘we believe’ warriors days, and when stephen jackson had to brush b-diddy’s shoulders off cause he was going unconscious against the utah jazz in game 3 of the 2007 playoffs.

stay till the end …

lagniappe:

barry bonds, the most hated man in professional sports, used to come to bat to ‘brush your shoulders off.’ i read somewhere at the time that it was a jay z song, but i wasn’t familiar with it. i just remember that funny little synth melody it starts up with and the overall attitude of it.

when i actually heard the song recently, i was instantly teleported back to 24 willie mays plaza, mid 2000s, beer in hand, sun setting over the bay, about to see the greatest hitter to ever play the game to dig into the box. good memories. (and you gotta love the balls of him picking that song, too. most guys are picking AC/DC tracks and shit … barry come out swinging and swaggin’ with jay z. he was a bad, bad, bad man … )

FREE BARRY!

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