Character Development: 10/01/2004

28.10.04

Scary Costumes

Check out these super scary costumes.

I think I'll go as the electronic touch screen voting machines.

I think that's the scariest.

27.10.04

Best Bloodys Ever

Hey Ezra, remember when I didn't like bloody marys. Well now things have changed.
How much have they changed? Let me offer this comparison.

The Deputy is to Bloodys as The Dude is to White Russians

Savvy?
So every week or two I treat myself to a bloody with my lunch at Chuy's. I got this buddy Adrian who is a bartender there who just happens to make the best bloodys ever. I have a mexi-cobb salad and a bloody and some chips and salsa and that serves as a really first-rate attitude adjustment. I usually hit Chuy's when I need my attitude calibrated.
Today was especially nice. The place is packed. Its raining so the people who are waiting for a table are absolutely filling the waiting areas. I walk into the bar. There's not a place to sit it would seem. There is one spot but this girl is standing in front of it. Almost immediately Adrian sees me and asks the girl who turns out to be a server to move so "this Gentleman" can have a seat. The guy takes care of me. She moves and I sit down next to the woman she was talking to. From context clues I deduce that the woman is her mom. I say hey to Adrian and order my bloody. When the woman sitting next to me sees what he is making she says to me "Is that a bloody mary he's making." I reply "why yes, Adrian makes the best bloody's ever." She is so intrigued that she orders one herself. A pleasant conversation ensues.
We talk of shoes and ships and ceiling wax and cabbages and kings and she mentions Las Vegas so we shoot the shit on that tip. She is actually just waiting for to-go food and soon that comes. So she turns to me and expresses how nice it was talking to me. And just out of the blue she says "and what a handsome fellow." I bashfully point to myself and then swing my head first left and then right looking for someone else that she might be addressing. I say thank you and we part ways and my spirit soars. I love compliments, I give enough of them, its always nice to receive.
Then after I finish my salad Adrian starts to take it away and he says, "Do you want another salad, seconds maybe?" This takes me totally off guard cause he usually asks if I want another bloody and he interjects this little change of course so cleverly it leads to quite a belly laugh. Funny stuff I tell ya.
Then when I get outside the rain has gone away.

So between the vodka and the compliments and the unexpected laughter I give today's lunch a big
Not Too Shabby.

Thieves

I think the Republicans are going to STEAL the election again.
That's my prediction.
Between the electronic voting machines, tales of voter registration foul play, and their general record of pandemic falsehoods I think it is entirely possible that those fucking fascist neo-cons are going to flat out steal the election and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. If I had a time machine I might use it right now. I might go back in time and make sure that some of this mess we are in never takes place.
I was watching Diary of a Political Tourist on HBO last night. Its a great documentary and I suggest you check it out if you get a chance. So the girl making the doc ,Alexandra Pelosi, is at this White House BBQ. She is talking to all these senators and reps and other capitol hill rats. This is taking place last summer by the way. There's this quick edit sequence with different republicans talking about who they think is going to win the election next year. They all think W is a shoe-in but this one senator (and I'm not sure who it was) says to her ~

"Its all over but the counting, and leave the counting to us."

His smug expression, that seems to be unhinged and honest under the influence of a few White House margaritas, is really disturbing. He seems to know something that we don't.

fucking fascist neo-cons

25.10.04

We Validate Your Existence,...sucka

On Friday night I saw for the first time, The Beastie Boys, live in concert.
They fucking rocked.
I couldn't believe how great the show was.
I could go on and on about it but you might be going to "The Pageant Tour" in your town or you may have already seen it. The most important reason that I'm not going to describe it is because to me it was transcendent, it was ethereal, it was the culmination of my b-boy existence. I would like to tell ya'll a little about what the Beastie Boys mean to me.

I was listening to rap music from the very beginning. I had cassettes of The Fat Boys, UTFO, LL Cool J, and Run DMC way back in the day. In 1985 I was a nine year old kid in Lubbock Texas who just happened to LOVE hip-hop music. Ask me now what my favorite kind of music is and I will still say without hesitation "I listen mostly to Hip-hop." See what's bumpin' in my ride at any given time and you will most likely find hip-hop. Ask me what kind of music I want to do at krunkaoke and you will see the bouncing ball following the lyrics to a hip-hop track.

Now I just happen to be a white boy. I prefer to be called beige but we don't always get to choose things like that. It also just so happens that hip-hop music has its roots and soul in the black community. I never saw a problem with that but some other people did (like my dad). So when I got my hands on a cassette tape called "License to Ill" it totally validated my existence. I was all "holy shit, these dudes are white and they made a super successful hip hop album that bumps and rocks and everybody loves except teachers," I was blown away. I listened to that recording so much and I took it in and out of my jam-box to switch sides so often that I wore all the lettering off the thing so it became just this beige cassette. I remember it felt like donkey's ages before they released another album even though it was only two and a half years.

Then "Paul's Boutique" came out in '88. I was all, "what the fuck is this, what's with these disco samples." But like a year later all these fools were including disco samples in their tracks and I saw how not only were the Beastie Boys my favorite group of all time but also innovators who would effect the rest of the industry with their artistry. I didn't really "get" Paul's Boutique until later (like when I started smoking dope) but it was great to know that the Beastie's were gonna keep on keeping on.

Then in '91 "Check Your Head" came out and I was all "what's up with these tracks that sound like punk music." and then again my mind was expanded and I realized that hip-hop was bigger than I thought it was and I also realized that artists don't have to stick to their respective genre's at fucking all. Also around this time I learned about the B-Boys early stuff that was straight punk aka Cookie Puss. 'Check Your Head' was the soundtrack to my life for my early high school years.

My senior year of High School saw the release of "Ill Communication." By this time some people who had enjoyed the Beastie's first album and who no longer listened to hip-hop had left them in the past. I loved the way that Sabotage had such a funny video and I loved the instrumental and I loved MCA's new found spiritualism.
"I stopped smoking cheeba, that was part of the key"
-MCA Ill Communication
Once again I was in love with a New Beastie's album but I was sure that this would be their last.

Then "Hello Nasty" helped me through some tough times in college when my girlfriend was studying overseas. I was all "Hello Nasty where you been, Its time you brought the grimy beats out the dungeon." They came to San Antonio on that tour but because of financial problems I was unable to attend. I thought, well that's it, I missed my last chance to see them. I cursed myself for being such a fool.

Then earlier this very year I heard "To the 5 Boroughs" for the first time and once again I was totally blown the fuck away. I just couldn't believe that they sounded so fresh, again. And on top of that they returned to the roots and made a purely hip-hop album. When I found out they were coming to town I knew that I had to be there. It just so happened that a ticket agency that does things with my work needed some graphic help and I knew just the bribe that would get the job done. Free Tickets Fools.

I feel like I could die happy now. I have to set a new goal. I hope this short synopsis of how the Beastie Boys have validated my existence has given you an inkling of how much I love the Beastie Boys.
If not then
hey Fuck You.

to AD Rock, MCA, and Mike D
thank you

21.10.04

Mark

I was over at Anti's joint today. Well not at his actual locale but rather at his webspace and I was checking out some older stuff that he has featured on the side bar and I came across this piece on his pops . That shit sounds pretty rude and it made me think of the rudeness that my own dad has perpetrated on me.

My dad is a pretty dodgy dude, a shady character if you will. First off, he was a bookie for many years. To ya'll in Vegas and Louisiana I would like to point out that bookmaking is totally against the law here in Texas. Well dodgy I tells ya. Furthermore his front business and his current occupation is that of used car dealer. More general shadiness innit? On top of that he wears dark aviator shades pretty much at all times making him the sketchiest character in most any given scenario. Although he has never done anything like ruining my credit, ala Sir Anti's plight, he has been a generally neglectful father figure and an all around crappy dad. Don't worry, I have let him know about these feelings in no uncertain terms and more than not I am over the whole ordeal. I realize that its pretty candy ass to spend one's whole adult life going around blaming parents for one's own pathetic mental problems and overall shortcomings. I don't think that's what Anti's doing and I'm not doing that here either but the experience is pretty interesting and so I'm gonna tell ya'll a little bit about it.

My pop's left my mom when I was ten. He moved out and moved in with his girlfriend who was a perfume counter girl at Dillards. The description of 'perfume counter girl' should give you all the context clues you need but just in case you have never been inside any major department store I will fill in on the gruesome details. Platinum fried hair with some crazy 80's hairspray configuration, fake nails, too much make-up, fake attitude and expensive but slutty outfits were her main accoutrement. I remember that me and my sister had to go over to "their" house one Halloween to carve pumpkins. That was my worst Halloween like fucking ever.

That same year he brought her to his side of the families' Christmas celebration. That was some serious bullshit. They weren't even divorced yet and I wasn't the only one who thought that was totally inappropriate. The worst part was when my dad dropped us off back at my mom's parents house where we were now living, my mom peeked out the window and saw her in the car and by the time my sister and I got to the door my mom had come unglued. When I say 'come unglued' I mean hysterical screaming and crying. And when Holly and I saw her losing it we lost it as well and my grandparents had to clean up the mess. Worst Christmas ever.

The IRS was after my dad around this time. You see he had an obviously unverifiable source of income i.e. book making. So when they went to garnish his wages to pay for his back taxes they were unable to get to his funds cause he was self employed and all and so they went after my mom's paycheck. She was an ICU nurse. The fucking IRS, even though they were already divorced, garnished my mom's wages and left the three of us with a paltry 250 bucks a month on which to live. 250 dollars a month for a family of three, cha right, maybe in 1937. That went on for almost a year and then one day she started getting her wages again. It seems that our congressman Phil Graham had placed a congressional freeze on that account based on a letter he received from my mom. Thanks Phil Graham. So that was pretty shitty.

Through Junior High I drifted slowly away from my dad. I would only see him once a week. He would pick us up on Fridays and we would go do something fun. That was cool and all but the truth of the matter is that proper parenting requires more of an effort than just taking the kids to a movie once a week. He never picked us up from school or took us to the dentist or guided us in any appreciable way. We would rarely stay with him cause he always had a different girlfriend until he met my stepmom. They were married for about six months when my sister Ashley was born. I would like to take this opportunity to remind everybody that the human gestation period is actually nine months, so that situation was a bit fishy or once again quite dodgy. So at that point he had a new little family and his status as dad was pretty much downgraded to dude. Mostly as a dad he was just kind of MIA.

My stepdad moved us to Arlington from Lubbock when I was about to go into high school. I always wanted to attend high school with my old pals back in Lubbock so for my senior year I went back there and lived with my grandparents. That fall there was this period of time, like seven weeks, where I didn't hear from my dad once. I couldn't understand it. There we were living in the same town again after two years and he lets all this fucking time go by without so much as a phone call. To me that was the last straw. I wrote him this brutal letter that said things like "you are such a crappy dad" and "how come you haven't called me" and "please do not try to contact me ever again, I am dead to you," some pretty harsh stuff. I dropped it in the mail and about a week later my stepmom showed up at my grandparents house. She was all "you guys have to talk" and "I want you to come over for dinner" and she said something about "hard-headed people." I'm really glad she did that. We are hard headed people and who knows what would have happened if she hadn't made us talk.

I didn't really ever get a chance to tell my dad my true feelings until my college graduation night. He didn't help me at fucking all with college. Not only no financial help but also I recall very little general encouragement. I'm not even sure if he even knew what my major was. Anyways after the big all-family dinner which was too weird cause I hadn't seen my mom and pops in the same place in like 12 years, we went out for some drinks, just me and him. I remember this massive vodka martini in my hand and as I got hammered I began to lay it down. He looked so resigned to it all and in truth it seemed like he was genuinely remorseful. That was hella cathartic. Since then things have been cool. I was finally able to put that shit in the past and make friends with this guy called Mark.

I'm not sorry about any of that. Those experiences have made me the man I am today and I don't think I would trade them except for Cliff Huxtable as a dad. I do think I have some abandonment issues stemming from that time but C'est La Vie, we all got scars. Scars make skin interesting.

20.10.04

Gag me, Please

I am so sick of politics
I think I'm gonna gag
I just hope
that whatever happens
it is The Best for America.

amen

NaNoWriMo

I just signed up for National Novel Writing Month.

You should too.

Daunting, no?

Slack

Sup Suckas?

First off, I gotta apologize for my super slack attitude as of late especially when it comes to this space. Getting a computer set up at my abode for some serious free time blogging has been a much bigger issue than I thought it would be. And plans have changed again.

You see the Irishman is leaving town. He found a job in American Samoa, something in coconut sales, and he is leaving in two weeks. He bought a similar system earlier this year and since it ain't a laptop he's gotta flog it off. He's fitted his machine with a wicked soundcard and it has the a/d converter box and some sweet speakers and he's gonna sell me the whole outfit for a terribly reasonable price. So, I had to send back my new Dell system. I didn't have to but it made the most fiscal sense. I'm saving about 900 dollars. Maybe now I can afford a cable modem at the crib.

The hard part is that the computer that I have needed and wanted and yea even salivated over was in my clutches right here in my office. But in order to save the aforementioned 900 bones I have to do two things. The first is that I had to send back the computer that I just ordered, I did that this morning. That was hard. The second thing I have to do is wait another two weeks. They say that the good things come to those who wait. I hope those fools are correct.

My Mom prayed for patience, and you know what she got,... she got me. So I know better than to do something foolish like pray for patience, but I'll be damned if the spirit isn't blessing me with patience through little things like this. Anyways, as penitence for not blogging all this time while waiting for "my computer" I'm going to try to hit it hard until I finally get the damn thing.

I know ya'll miss my beats and rhymes
so maybe I can find it within my dying mind
to recompense the audience
and bring it hence
and swing for the fence
with sommore of that gentle lyrical evidence.

15.10.04

Ancient Flying Machines

I love shit like this,

true or not

it's fun to imagine.

Ten Days Of Hip Hop

I be hip hop and "We live hip hop
We be three albums deep but we don't wanna go pop
too many candy rappers seem to be in the top
too much candy is no good so now I'm closin' the shop"

Yo, Check It
I's here in none uvah than my ome town Austin Texas
and We's don't get alot of Hip Hop shows coming fru town
well, not enough of em, innit?
But check it. Dis week starting yesterday til sunday after next
You can check out loads of Hip Hop superstars right ere in Oztin.
Busta Ryhmes played last night
De La Soul plays Sunday
Next Thursday you can check out DJ Krush
who I highly recommend
Then next Friday Is The Beastie Boys, who I believe are bringing Talib Kwaili with them
Sorted
and then to cap it off on Sunday Night
None ofer than my main man Del the Funky Homosapien
wicked rude
and I think he's bringing Acyalone and Abstract Rude with him.
LUSH
All in Austin. You besta believe.

In other bloggy news, I HAVE ORDERED A COMPUTER. It should be here next week. If I am diligent in getting my high speed hook up sorted out then in less than a weeks time I will be blogging from the comfort of my lair. Hold your breath my lovelies.

7.10.04

ROcktober

The money is in the bank
Well its clearing n shit, cause it was an out of town check
I think I have a cpu picked out
I'll be clearing a space in my apartment this weekend
no more blogging at work

Man whenever I get home in the evenings
and I have a puff and maybe a sip of brew
and my mind has a chance to relax
its always
BAM
great blogging ideas
like a mad flow of em
and soon they shall all come to pass

In other news
ROcktober is treating me well
very well indeed

peace love and independent thought
mr

Character Development