Thursday, July 31, 2003

 
“Man every word I say should be a hip hop quotable.”


That’s my baby!


So we finally went in for a sonogram last week. So far, they think it’s a girl, but they’re not %100 sure, so we’ll probably have to go back in for another one to find out about the gender. But damn, it was a trip! It really hit home that there was a living human being growing inside Nook’s stomach. It was moving and everything!

We’ve also started playing music for the baby thru the headphones recently, too. Some JB’s, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimmy Castor, James Brown, Meters… this kid is gonna be raised on the funk.

Anyways, I got hit with the gout again! I swear, I've been having cases like every other month man. I think I gotta cut down on the drinking. I've drank (not gotten drunk) like 5 days straight (wednesday thru sunday).

Dammit, it might be time to amputate.




So what else has been going on in my corner of the universe:

• Did anyone hear that loud ass thunder last night? I swear to God, that shit shook my house and had car alarms going off all over the neighborhood.
  
  The funny part was that there was no rain at all. I was even so freaked for a quick minute that I seriously thought the apocalypse was coming.
  
  
• Like I said before, I’ve saved just about every letter and note I’ve received since grade school. I’ve been a little scanner happy as of late, so I decided to scan some of these letters to share with Maritess. She though they were hella funny, so I thought I’d share with everyone else too.
  
  21 Questions (1,2) (Damn, some people got questions up the ying yang)
  
  Pre teen crisis
  
  Secret passwords
  
  What the fuck? Did you say it, or not???
  
  Love letter from my ex girlfriend (1, 2, 3) (I got these ladies sprung)
  
  My love letter response (1, 2) (God I was such a fuckin asshole)
  
  Love Maritess (Damn, is it me or is it a little shocking we knew about some of this stuff in sixth grade?)
  
  
• Thank God it's not mine
  
  
• Then Maritess scans some old school pictures that she has and sends them to me. (1, 2, 3)
  
  
  Haha... seeing all this old shit makes me laugh.
  
  
  
• Hey, if you’re not doing anything tonight (Thursday), come check us out at Mission Rock for the E40 and Heltah Skeltah show. I’ll be in the reggae room.
  
  
  ONE NIGHT STAND
  
  Featuring:
  
  Jive Recordings artist E-40 performing "One Night Stand" and "Gasoline", all new tracks off of the new album, "Breakin' News", in stores soon!!!
  
  Rock & Ruck (Heltah Skeltah/Boot Camp Clik) - Witness their FIRST reunion as HELTAH SKELTAH
  
  $350 MC Freestyle Battle hosted by Radioactive
  
  3 ROOMS of Hip Hop, R&B, Reggae and Dancehall by:
  DJ NeoGeo (Canned Beats, The Formula)
  DJ Pone (Canned Beats, '89 Skratch Gangstaz)
  Snayk Eyez ('89 Skratch Gangstaz)
  DJ Spair (Oakland Faders)
  Boogie Brown (The Formula)
  DJ Calalo (The Formula)
  DJ Bri (Xtreme Audio)
  Impereal (Turntable Technicians/NYC)
  DJ Riddm (Funky Riddms Records)
  DJ Exo
  Ren The Vinyl Archaeologist (True-Skool)
  and many more!
  
  Kelly's Mission Rock, 817 China Basin St., San Francisco
  This IS an 18 AND OVER event!
  9pm - 3am, Doors open at 9:00pm.
  Drink specials all night long!
  
  Very limited $15 presales, $20 after that. Free guestlist before 10:30pm. Email first and last name to guestlist@obscureproductions.com. Guestlist is due by 2pm on day of event - No exceptions! Arrive early to ensure entrance.
  
  
  
• Speaking of DJing, I had a couple of “DJ firsts” last week:
  
  On Thursday, I DJed over at a show at Kimo’s for my homie Eric (Theoretic). This was my first time doing cuts live for an emcee. (Big ups to Elaine, Spoon, Tim, Duece Ace and Doc for coming thru and supporting that night!)
  
  Then on Saturday, I finally got the chance to open up for Triple Threat at Milk (woohoo!). Apollo had been saying that I would be able to open up for them for a while, but I’ve always carried the ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ type of attitude, just so I wouldn’t get my hopes up. But I'm just happy that it actually came true. I've been waiting for this opportuniy for a while.
  
  It was pretty exciting since I’ve always looked up to these guys and have always wanted to play at that venue. Plus, my original 15 minutes (which was how long I was supposed to be on for) turned into an hour and fifteen minutes. Afterwards, I had to head down to work the door, which was crazy. The club was already crazy packed, and there was still a line outside. But despite the hot ass club and the crazy line, it turned out to be a pretty successful night. The music was dope and people seemed like they really had fun. I even saw a lot of faces I haven’t seen in a minute: Veronica, Jazlyn, Patricia, Katherine, and a bunch of other folks I don’t remember.
  
  
• Last week I’m at the Rasputin’s in San Lorenzo and what do I see?
  
  Some buff ass, shirtless guy waxing his Mercedes in the middle of the parking lot.
  
  What the fuck? C’mon dude… you’re trying just little too hard. Damn I wish I had my camera...
  
  
• Oh, another what the fuck moment:
  
  Chillin at the San Jose flea market and hearing a 50 Cent ‘In Da Club’ Mexican remix, complete with mariachi horns and everything. (You just had to be there)
  
  
• Check out our pictures from the Merced Fair.
  
  
• My little cousin Ferdinand (or Tupacsilog as I like to call him, cause he’s gangsta) is back in town for a couple weeks. So I’ve been trying to take him out, just so he wouldn’t be out with his wannabe thug friends, doing God knows what.
  
  I took him with me to Hayward yesterday to pick up records and to eat some Vietnamese sandwiches.
  
  I turn to him and ask, “Have you ever had Vietnamese sandwiches before?”
  
  And he answers back, “I didn’t know Vietnamese people had their own food.”
  
  What the fuck??? Do you think that everyone in the world eats Filipino food too? Or hamburgers and fries?
  
  
• While we’re on the subject of eating, I finally ate at Hooters down at the wharf last week.
  
  Anyways, the food was surprisingly cheaper than I had thought it was gonna be, and the wings were cool. I saw quite a few people there that I hadn’t expected: Albert (did you know that guys has a sister???), Bufftek, Gabe, Catinum, the old school homie Rommel Alonzo, and a few other cats. Walking outside, there was still a big ass crowd in line. But moreover, it seemed like the Bad Abbot’s crowd has migrated down the block to Hooters.
  
  But only in America will you find a place like Hooters, located directly next door to your wholesome, family fun spot, In & Out Burgers.
  
  Interesting…
  
  
• So how your cousin’s piano lessons going?
  
  
• Oh yeah, before I forget. Happy birthday to my newest reader: my cousin Marcel.
  
  High fives mayn. Now get back to work!
  

In other news:

• The mob project comes to SF. (Crazy ass yuppies)
  
  
• Uh oh, there’s trouble brewing in the homeland.
  
  
• Watched Bad Boys 2 a couple weeks ago, and the shit was dope. A bunch of action shots and pretty funny (although it kinda got a little too unbelievable when they went to Cuba… but I won’t give the movie away if you haven’t watched it yet).
  
  
• Speaking of Cuba, some of these folks are trying to cross the border in style. (Peace to Marcel for the link)
  
  
• Back to Bad Boys the movie, I even saw them getting wreckless in my dream car in the movie.
  
  
• While we’re on the subject of Cadillacs, has anyone seen 50’s P.I.M.P. video?
  
  Did anyone catch Snoop’s own Cadillac ‘Snoop Deville’???
  
  Or dude’s sprewell medallion???
  
  That shit is bananas. Damn, if that’s not flossy, then I don’t know what is.
  
  
• Realization of the week #1: Sometimes the biggest talkers are the biggest fakers
  
  
• So I’m watching Maury Povich last week and the topic is fat ass kids. He’s interviewing this 250 lb 5 year old girl and says to her:
  
  Maury “I hear that you can speak French.”
  Gordita “Yeah.”
  Maury “So what can you say?”
  Gordita She smiles and says “French fries. French toast.”
  
  That shit was classic. But I guess you just had to watch it. Homegirl had more chins than chinatown.
  
  
• Now who the hell thought of these?
  
  Or maybe I should be asking, who the hell is gonna buy these? They look like left over aviator goggles from Miller's Outpost for dogs.
  
  
• This is for all my retro television lovers.
  
  
• But I bet you didn’t know that Alf was molested. (Now that's some shit that VH1 won't mention)
  
  
• The BLF strikes San Francisco again.
  
  Now that’s some ruckus that I wouldn’t mind getting down with.
  

Well, ladies and gentlemen, until next time...

Thank you, come again…

Ben spoke on it at 12:10 AM

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

 
”I met this girl when I was ten years old,
And what I loved most was that she had so much soul...”

You know, I’ve kept just about every card/letter I’ve ever received in like the last 10 years in a shoe box in my closet: every Christmas card, birthday card, love notes from middle school (“Do you like me? Circle Yes or No” or “Rate these girls in our class and how much you like them”… LOL!), ‘how’ve you been?’ letters, ‘I’m sorry’ letters, letters written from class, letters from jail, letters from people I considered myself very close to at one point in time but have lost contact since, letters writing about hard times, letters about good times… just a box full of letters from people I haven’t heard from in years and letters from people I still keep in touch with.

Reading them reminded me about the person I was, and the person I’ve grown to be today. It reminded me about past relationships with friends (and girlfriends), different experiences we’ve shared, and different views/attitudes we had. No matter how much I think that I haven’t changed and that I’m still the ‘same old Ben’ I was back then, I’m really not. I’ve changed. I’ve experienced, learned (hopefully), and grown.

New experiences always bring new perspectives and can change to the way you think about anything. It’s absolutely ignorant and most of all foolish for anyone to say that they’ve learned/experienced as much as they ever will and act as if they know all that there is to know, at this young of an age. Especially since there is so much more in the world to see and experience.

I don’t know… With the coming of the baby, I guess I’ve found myself thinking and reflecting more. I start to wonder what I would be like as a father. Or what kind of future my child has ahead of him/herself. Then I wonder if I’d be able to raise my child well enough to make the right decisions for him/herself when faced with the difficulties of growing up. There’s gonna be a time for me to let go of my child’s hand, and let them learn for themselves, from their own mistakes.


OK, enough serious talk. Serious talk makes me cringe.


Anyways, as always I’ve been lazy as hell with this thing. I even forgot I had this for a quick minute, until people were asking if I’ve updated.

So let’s see, what’s been going on…

• I’ve been more inspired (DJ wise) as of late.
  
  Me and Jae caught Short and Derrick D over at Milk last week at a Future Primitive show doing it big on 4 turntables (High fives to Derrick D for getting us in for freezy).
  
  Then, the week after, me, Jae and Short drove down to San Jose where Rhett was doing a show at the Agenda. Damn, Rhett is smooth as hell. Watching him mix literally left me dumbfounded. His set had me amazed and inspired as hell.
  
  Afterward, we had the chance to hang out with him at his hotel, smoke trees and grab something to eat. I kept it cool as hell cause I didn’t wanna come off as a groupie, but chillin with him was like chillin with an NBA player (I know, weak metaphor… but you get the point). But seriously, dude is like one of my idols and influences. We didn’t get home til 5am, but I was still excited to jump on the tables and try a lot of the tricks I saw him do that night.
  
  
• Speaking of DJing, three booyakashots to Neil for getting us on the bill for the Ludacris gig. I command you to go:
  

*LUDACRIS (Def Jam Recordings) live performance!!!
*Rock (Heltah Skeltah/ Boot Camp Clik) live performance!
*$350 MC Freestyle battle hosted by Radioactive (Spearhead/ legendary Beatboxer, MC, and Graf artist)

@ Kelly's Mission Rock
817 China Basin St
San Francisco, CA 94107

Thursday, July 31st
18+ event
9pm-3am

3 rooms of Hip Hop, RnB, Reggae and Dancehall by:

Group Uv Nutz with Thailan, Tenzen and DJ Dazer, NeoGeo, Impereal, Ren the Vynil Archaeologist, DJ Pone, Dj Bri, DJ Spair, Riddim, Boogie Brown, Snayk Eyez, DJ Calalo, Boss Hog DJ Exo and many more!!

$15 presales, $20 at the door.




And while we’re pluggin shows, check out:




Triple Threat presents the 2nd installment of....
FLAVA OF THE MONTH - Reggae Dancehall Edition

Saturday, July 26, 2003 (& every 4th Saturay)

Two of biggest sounds in the Bay meet for the 1st time!

featuring the Bay Area's Champion Sound
JAH WARRIOR SHELTER HIFI: Jahyzer, I-Vier, Irie Dole

alongside residents: TRIPLE THREAT DJ’s: Apollo, Vinroc, Shortkut

event will be recorde live for mixtape series!

@ Milk Dj Bar /Lounge
1840 Haight @ Stanyan, SF
21 + w/ID
doors 10pm
ladies FREE before 11pm

• I think one downfall of Nook being pregnant is that she gets hella tired hella early. It would be nice to go out to the clubs with her or hangout late together, but I know she’d be butt tired by midnight. Plus I’m an insomniac, I’m still up by “Saved by the Bell”.
  
  Like this last weekend, after Nook’s meeting of the Ya Ya Sisterhood (jk you old ladies), we winded up not going to the D2S party, but I was still itching to go out. So I hit up Jason’s house dolo while she stayed home and slept.
  
  Damn, Jason is the type to hang out with an extremely diverse crowd: dredlocked kids, skater kids, retro/mod kids, thug kids, around the way kids… but it’s like they all have this common bond of binge drinking, weed smoking and drug experimenting.
  
  
• Yo, you don’t have to go to Bad Abbot’s, Stabbing Shadow Lounge, or Rawhide to see a fight. The shit goes down at lesbian clubs too!
  
  Ai asked me to spin with her last week at N’Touch, and at around 1, things came to an abrupt halt when a couple of girls started scrapping (Tara blames it on our damn ‘devil music’, but I say it was Black Sheep fault). Unfortunately, I didn’t have my glasses on so I couldn’t quite tell what exactly was going on, but there definitely was a whole lot of screaming and shouting going on.
  
  Ai seemed like she was kinda trippin’ off the fight since she says it rarely happens at those kinds of clubs, but after seeing a random limo driver and his friend get beat down, a car drive into two parked cars and take off in front of a big ass crowd after a party (while people hooted and cheered), and seeing and hearing about endless brawls and fights at clubs you regularly frequent, you sadly get a little immune to the situation.
  
  Shit is just crazy nowadays…
  
  
• Yo, crack is no joke… but that’s all we’ll say about that…
  
  
• Strangely, while watching “Finding Nemo”, I found myself wondering what I’d be like as a father like 10 years from now.
  
  I know, I know.
  

Anyways, in other random news:

• THE BAY IS CRAZY PT. 2
  
  It’s kinda scary when things happen so close to the house, that you just don’t feel safe anymore.
  
  And what are the chances that this could happen to anyone?
  
  Sad… just sad.
  
  
• Man, the commercialization of hip hop is crazy.
  
  And speaking of hip hop and beer, who thinks that Bud Light commercial with Sean Paul singing a reworked version of “Gimme the Light” (“Just Gimme Bud Light”) is corny as shit?
  
  
• It’s here. (Cue majestic Roman trumpets)
  
  
• I think we’ve narrowed down names for the baby. But we still have to give it careful thought, or someone could get shot.
  
  
• Even more scarier, Nook says that she has a history of twins in the family.
  
  
• Aaah… high school pranks.
  
  Reminds me of the times we spray painted our school name and taunting messages all over the walls of rival high schools.
  
  
• Balding people: you are the next victim.
  
  
• Would you like a penis with that drink? (Click the link to the picture!)
  
  
• Thank God Nook bought that body pillow. I was getting tired of her asking me to lay with her for a little bit so that she could go to sleep. I was just about ready to shell out for one of these.
  
  
• Speaking of buying shit, is anyone looking to buy a new exhaust?
  
  
• TRY THIS:
  
  Go to google and type in “weapons of mass destruction”
  
  Then, instead of clicking ‘google search’, click on ‘I’m feeling lucky’ and read what comes up.
  
  Somebody at google got jokes.
  
  Enjoy…
  

Thank you, come again…





Ben spoke on it at 5:08 AM

archives