Alannah Myles, Out To Dinner

Waiter: Have you decided on your entrée?
Alannah: I'll have the black velvet, if you please?
Waiter: Fine choice. We serve that with a little boy's smile.
Alannah: Sounds great.
Waiter: And how would you like your black velvet prepared this evening?
Alannah: Slow ... Southern-style.
Waiter: Any additional sides with that?
Alannah: Hmmm. What do you think about the new religion?
Waiter: It's one of my personal favorites. It will surely bring you to your knees.
Alannah: Great, I'll do that, too. I heard it's excellent. My friends love this place!
Waiter: Well, we thank you for dining with us. I'll be right back with your Molasses Sunset.
Alannah: Cheers.

True Halloween Story 1: Acid Reflux

The Author on Halloween, circa 2006

I probably fell in love with Halloween in high school, when the real partying started. I didn’t have much of a sweet tooth as a kid, so I wasn’t that crazy about candy. I don’t think I even ate candy until I started smoking weed. And when you are real young, candy is about the hypest thing that is going to happen, except for maybe putting your hand in some peeled grapes at the haunted house in the auditorium. Up until high school, the most fucked up thing I had ever done on Halloween was watch my friend Jonny attempt to stab a neighbor’s garden hose with a Swiss Army knife.

In the tenth grade, I ate acid on Halloween. It was a school night. Some of my friends and I had failed to come up with much. I think a couple of us had hats on and that was about as good as it was gonna get. Not baseball caps, but, like, hats. Shit old people and cab drivers wear. Those kind of hats.

We were on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, taking it all in, lurking where we always did. The stone wall in front of the Methodist church was essentially the closest thing we had to turf, and we were always skating in front of it or sitting on it. Franklin Street was amazing on Halloween back then, this was 1994. People still dressed up and knew how to have fun without fucking it up it for everyone else. Family types and wasted party people all crushed together in costumed bliss, their differences hidden behind masks and wigs, or spilled out via slutty nurse and librarian outfits.

We linked up with some other guys, one of whom drove a Cutlass Supreme with bass. My best friends, uh, we’ll call them Sam and Dave, are tripping, too. Someone decides we should go trick or treating, because hey, clearly there is nothing suspect about 8 teenage boys not wearing costumes and pounding on your door after dark, some of them with pupils the size of olives. I mean, it’s Halloween. So it’s totally all good.

All I remember about the car ride is, seriously, just limbs EVERYWHERE. A total fever dream of bro-arms and bro-legs, with insane laughter phasing in and out of Eazy E on blast. The image burned in my mind is like an overly warm photograph, bathed in an orange glow and smothered in tangible low end frequencies and blunt smoke. We park in a mellow but affluent Chapel Hill suburb and begin our short reign of terror.

MAYBE one of us had a mask on, but otherwise it was Russel sweatshirts, baggy pants, and a hat or three. I don’t recall us having much luck, maybe a mini Butterfinger or 2 at best, or maybe just criticism and contempt at our lack of costumes. And at how old we were, I think at least one of us was 17. Our plan would have burned out quickly, but we didn’t have much choice, because shit got real very fast.

We go to a nice house and are angrily turned down. I don’t even know if we are all together at that point, but there is definitely a group of us leaving. We are on a brick walkway heading toward the street, and there is a door in the fence that you have to go through first, constructed out of wood slats and thin metal fasteners, you know what I’m talking about, like with one of those little latch things you have to undo to open them and it’s always annoying. My friend Dave is in the front and is built like a side of beef. He is full of drug strength, and who knows what his mind was zoning in on in that moment. But wherever he was, it was not a place that recognized there was an obstacle right in front of him.

Sometimes actions are carried out with a certain “commitment” that allows them to defy laws of nature, such as an old lady lifting a car off her smooshed grandchild or regular people walking over burning hot coals with gonorrhea on them. I still see it like it happened in slow motion, a common sensation for memories such as these. Obviously the acid made it that more incredible, and yet, these types of things seem to happen ONLY when you’re tripping.

When Dave hit that door it was like it was made out of twigs. It shattered like kicking over a house of cards. Bits of wood were in the air like fireworks, and seemed to disintegrate into sawdust, while tiny shards of metal clanged, and springs shot out of eyesight like a smashed cartoon clock. Dave never once slowed down or had a misstep, instead he turned to look at me as he burst through the door with a curious look on his face, brushing at the splinters that were landing on him as if they were lint or a mosquito, not really sure what was happening but observing it all in the way that a god regards a puny mortal.

The door never stood a chance, and everyone was amazed and slightly perplexed at this new development, Dave most of all. What in the fuck had just happened?! Did Dave really just WALK THROUGH A GATE like it wasn’t even there? But we barely had a chance to coat ourselves with chatter and laughter before all hell broke loose.

A man had been walking his dog directly in front of the house as Dave and the rest of us made our explosive exit. He grabbed one of us, probably Dave, and shouted at the man who had turned us away, “Jerry! Call the police!” We no doubt seemed like destructive bastards who must have done it on purpose, the reek of alcohol and marijuana only confirming that we were trouble. Everybody immediately bolts in different directions, and whoever had been in the vigilante’s death grip is long gone.

Dave, Sam, and myself all jet off together like we know where we’re going. We’ve been getting stoned after school in this neighborhood for a while now, several people in our crew live right by the house we are fleeing from. We run down the street toward a cul de sac where our friend Baylor lives and proceed to hide in the bushes. It’s really dark where we are, and if you have ever taken LSD before you know that an unexpected adrenaline rush can really stir things up. But we seem to be holding it together as best we can, crouching and panting, whispering “holy fuck!” over and over.

We have no idea where the car is. No idea where the other guys are. We are the only ones who dropped acid. And Dave has literally just destroyed property. We have graduated from “shenanigans” to “crime” in a matter of seconds. There is nothing we can do but wait.

I remember looking at the moon through the trees and rubbing at my ankle because I had stepped on a soccer ball as we ran through a yard and had twisted it slightly. The street lamps have the cul de sac oozing with a pale lemon haze, the roads still wet from an earlier rain. We wait and we wait. Finally a car pulls slowly down, its brake lights leaving red trails six feet behind it. It parks across from us, and stops, its engine idling.

There is not much deliberation before we realize it’s our homeys coming to rescue us, so we come sprinting out of the woods. We all hit the car and grab a different door. Dave and I are on the passenger side, him at shotgun, and Sam is behind the driver. All our doors are flung open at the same time, and each of us swings our inner ass cheeks directly at a seat.

And immediately come to a screeching fucking halt. Because we are all making unblinking eye contact with a middle-aged Asian man, in his car by himself. There is a moment, like in an 80’s comedy, where everything pauses and there is complete silence. Like, a whole beat of dead calm. Freeze frame. And then suddenly everyone snaps out of it and there is that communal scream of “Ahhhhhhh!!”

None of us will ever forget the look on that poor man’s face. Eyes popping out of his head in sheer terror, pupils as large and inky as ours, his mouth hanging open like it was broken. I’m sure we looked just as scared, or at least extremely surprised. But before the brutal carjacking he was imagining began, he heard the sound of three car doors slamming simultaneously, followed by the heavy, galloping of 6 sneakers slapping against the pavement.

I would like to re-visit my earlier point that THESE THINGS ONLY HAPPEN WHEN YOU ARE TRIPPING. It’s like a spiritual force, I don’t know how it works, but I believe in it like karma.

We run back to the exact same spot we were earlier, the whole thing with the Asian man lasting no more than ten or fifteen seconds. We feel trapped, but we can’t stop laughing about what just happened. The car that we almost jumped in is still sitting there, possibly with a heart attack victim inside it. Stalemate.

After a while we feel the distant rumble of some twelves. The Cutlass rings the cul de sac, looking more American-made and majestic than ever, and we dash out of the yard, rip open doors, and pile in. Everyone accounted for. “What the fuck?! We were looking for you guys!” echoes out of the front seat like it’s coming from a speaker. We take off to the tune of “Gimme That Nut” and someone hits a bowl.

EPILOGUE

We eventually make it back to Franklin Street. Our friend Aemon is wearing pajama pants and rabbit ears and is drunker than anyone I have ever seen. He is going back and forth between rolling in the grass like he is having a seizure and basically doing the exact same thing while hopping up and down through the crowd. It is a source of entertainment for much of the night before we realize that he is going to hurt himself, so people take turns trying to restrain him but he’s like a drunk bar of soap and impossible to hold.

I end up on the steps of the church with a super pretty girl I was always into. I’m laying on my back, and she throws a small pinch of glitter into the breeze and as it blows away it looks amazing. I tell her that and she says she likes making tripping people happy. I am staring up at her, with a swirling night sky behind her like a giant ocean. Her smile is beautiful and she looks like an angel. We kissed for, like, a second and that was it. I don’t know where she ended up that night. But in the morning, her father would tell her all about this group of asshole punks that vandalized their front gate and then ran off.

Photo by Sam Roberts

True Hollywood Story 2: Drew Barrymore Smackdown

This is my number one story. I hate to shoot my load so early in my career, but note, I didn’t say this was my ‘best’ story. I think I have better ones. It is not my best, nor my favorite. But when you break a story down by categories, such as: how long have you been telling it, how exciting of a story is it, and how positive is the reaction to it, I would have to say that this one would average out to the top slot. I have a good amount of compelling evidence that it is true, but for the most part, you’re just gonna have to believe me. It shouldn’t be too hard. Cause, hey. I grew up in Hollywood. So it’s not that crazy that I got beat up by Drew Barrymore. I think Justin Long has a similar story.

I was born in LA and lived there until I was 9. You could see the start of the Hollywood sign out my kitchen window. I remember looking at it right before I got under the table during my first earthquake.

I went to a private school in Laurel Canyon from preschool till the end of 3rd grade, which was the summer of 1988. We had frequent earthquake drills. That’s how I knew to get under a table and duck and cover when there was an earthquake.



A lot of famous people’s kids went there. There are things I did that I don’t even remember, like going to a birthday party for one of Frank Zappa’s kids. I guess it was Diva because she was born the same year as me.

But there are lots of things I do remember. Kurt ‘Jack Burton’ Russell’s son went there and had some kind of weird Peter Pan fetish (the character, not the peanut butter), he was always dressed up in a Peter Pan costume and running around being strange and pretending he could fly and whatnot. The iconic Bobby Womack’s son went there. This one time I kicked him in the head on the playground when we were fighting by swinging on a bar at him. It was dope, like some real swashbuckling type shit. He came over to play once and he got dropped off by a limo. He brought his copy of The Legend Of Zelda over and I was freaked out because he had given all his saved games names like ‘HOT SEX’ and ‘SEXY LOVE’. I didn’t really understand how those words made me feel, it just seemed like he was so advanced. This was, like, first or second grade.

I played Ding Dong Ditch with the nephew of Andy Williams. That was one of the best days of my life back then. I never got to do shit like that in MY neighborhood, my parents kept me on a short leash.

My homegirl’s dad directed that movie with the chick and the wolf and John Cusack on a train and of course we all saw it and talked about it at school. My best friend’s dad had done the lighting on The Goonies, which was already my favorite movie. My other friend’s dad produced Re-Animator and other wacky horror movies like From Beyond and went on to be one of the writers of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. One time I saw him playing The Legend Of Zelda at, like, 3 in the morning. I never could sleep at slumber parties and I was just wandering around and there he was, fucking up my homeboy’s game. Grown ups are weird.





I knew a girl named Tammy Glupczynski and years later I saw her on a young people’s episode of that game show Card Sharks. You know how there is always that older girl that just thinks you are super cute for some reason and makes you feel gross because you are too young to realize that’s a good thing? She used to chase me around the playground during recess. If I knew what I knew now, I totally would have tongued her down and then thrown a dirt clod at her. She was pretty. I tried to find her on Facebook and I think I did. She is still hot and just got married, based on the few pictures I was allowed to see. Not sure if it’s the first time or not, but anyway.

I went to auditions for a Disney Channel commercial and some show that never got made. Wasn’t called back. I think I’m in the background for some cheesy music video to an even cheesier version of ‘Everyday People’, though I don’t know why I remember that being the song. They filmed it at my school in front of the handball court. Gil ‘Buck Rogers’ Gerard used to come kick it at the school because he was friends with the drama teacher, Bobbie Chance aka Bobbie Shaw, who used to be in movies like Beach Blanket Bingo and things of that nature. What a perfect porn star name she had. Gil Gerard was on that show Sidekicks with that tiny ass Filipino kid that would jump kick all over your ass and it was one of my favorites cause I loved martial arts and that little dude, he was in Red Sonja and an episode of MacGyver and eventually in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

Breckin ‘Robot Chicken or Travis Birkenstock, take your pick’ Meyer also went to my school. We used to play a game called Buns Up together. It’s horrible that I had to write that last sentence, but it’s the truth. Buns Up is what people refer to in North Carolina as Spread. Ok, that sentence also sucked. Buns Up/Spread (and sometimes just Wall Ball) is one of those games where there are lots of kids throwing a tennis ball against a wall. You try to catch it, you fuck up and drop it, you gotta run and touch the wall before someone else hits it with the ball ... and if you don’t make it and it happens enough times, you gotta put your hands on the wall with your ass out and someone can bean you with the ball. I must have grown up with a bunch of private school softies, because I never saw anyone ever get really hit hard, people would either throw it at you super weak or throw it really fast at the wall, but making sure they missed. (I mean, there were fights and shit at school, I guess people just kept it sportsmanlike.) Anyway, me and ol’ Brizzeckin Mizzeyer would be all over the handball court during after school, getting our Buns Up on. Sometimes with a baseball glove. It would be mad fun when there were a bunch of people. This is not to be confused with 3 Flies Up which is totally different but does involve a lot of people and a ball.



I got other stories like the time I was at one of my friends’ private birthday parties at a 1950’s themed diner in Hollywood and there was a phone in our giant booth and the only number that worked was 911 and we started doing all these prank calls (my best one was “Hi, I’m in China. Can you tell me how to get to Knott’s Berry Farm?”) and we just kept on doing them and I dropped a fried zucchini under the table and while I was under there grabbing it I saw these 2 pairs of tough ass boots and slacks roll up and when I came back up cops were standing there and I was totally busted! But I should really move on.

When Drew Barrymore accosted me, I was play fighting with some of my friends during after school. It was 1985 or 1986, which means I would have been in first grade, and she would have been in the fifth. She was born in 1975, and I was born in 1979 - I was young for my grade because I was smart, technically I could have been in kindergarten. By this time she was already smoking cigarettes and maybe drinking, too. I mean, Wikipedia says she didn’t start drinking till 11, but what do they know. Maybe they read Little Girl Lost.





So me and Craig Ishihara and some other dude are pretending to fight with one another on the dirt field down by the front gate. Drew rolls up with her posse of vigilantes. Like, seriously. They are in triangle formation, with Drew, their leader, in the front. Behind her is a giant brunette on one side, and a less-memorable henchwoman on the other. They begin to yell at us on some tough love shit like they are the Guardian Angels and are going to reprimand us for fighting and my homeys run away while I hold my ground. I distinctly remember thinking to myself that I ain’t running from no girl. Praise Allah that I thought that or this story would be over.

So Drew senses my indignation because she takes it upon herself to teach me a lesson. She is fearless, and reeks of Riunite and Marlboros. Haha, just kidding, I don’t remember what she smelled like, I didn’t start sniffing girls until the mid 2000’s. Anyway, there was a little hill that her gang had come down on the way to the field. This hill ends with a low, wooden wall thing, like some kind of support system for the dirt. I don’t know shit about landscaping, but there it was. This hill is now behind me and Drew gives me a shove that sends me toppling over as the backs of my legs hit the wall. She then jumps on me, grabs me by the hair, and bashes my head on the ground. She yells “Jerk!” at me like she really means it.

At this point I am flummoxed. This girl has just laid me out and her friends are egging her on. My friends have totally bailed on me and are not offering any kind of retaliation. I mean, where are the dirt clods, the rocks, the pine cones? How come nobody has run and grabbed a whiffle ball bat or some other primitive playground weapon? I am learning quickly that girls can be a lot tougher than I gave them credit for. And that your friends are usually pussies. So I did what any other like-minded American in the same situation would have done. I ran away and I told on her.

Oh man, it felt good, what with the pointing and the “She called me a jerk!”-ing. I may have even thrown in some tears for effect. I remember looking down that hill at her and seeing the fear in her eyes as she realized that she was going to be in trouble with an after school counselor. Boy, you KNOW them after school counselors don’t play! She might have to sit on a bench for 5 minutes! BY HERSELF!!

And, um, that was pretty much it.

It was only after the fact that I found out who I had been assaulted by. One of the counselors told my mom when she picked me up that day. I was pumped that I had been in a row with a celebrity but I had no idea who she was. My mom tried to explain to me the movies that she had been in like Firestarter and such but I had to settle with “Oh yeah, it’s that girl from E.T.” since that was the only one of her movies I had seen.

Over the years that would follow, I told this story over and over, and often people wouldn’t believe me. When I came across one of my old yearbooks that had both her and me in it, it made its way into my collection of prized possessions that traveled with me everywhere I moved, like my first issue of Uncanny X-Men and the gun that my dad gave me. If I told someone the story and they tried to call bullshit on me, I would just show them the yearbook. In my twenties, I (apparently) would use it to try and get laid, since it was a thing I would show girls late-night when they were in my bedroom. I laugh to think that I did that, but I can see myself doing it in my head in so many different situations. It’s possible that I would start the Drew talk at the bar and elude to the yearbook back at my house. It’s like a repressed memory, I need to be wrapped tightly in a blanket and beaten to know for sure. But one of my ex-girlfriends that I am still super close with always reminisces jokingly about me taking her home and busting out my ‘Drew Barrymore Yearbook’.

I always thought that this would be a good story to tell one day on a talk show after I became a famous rapper/actor/director/model and returned to Hollywood. I figured Letterman would be the best since we all know he is obsessed with her and was arrested stealing dog turds from her yard back in 1997. But Letterman’s old now and now and Jimmy Fallon wouldn’t believe me even with the yearbook. So fuck it.

Seriously, I feel like I lost my virginity that day. My famous-actress-playground-fight virginity. How many of you are still holding on to THAT one, huh?? Yeah. I thought so.

True Hollywood Story 1: The Dick Towel Saga

It was 2009 and I was living in the guest room at my parent’s house. My girlfriend could drink more than me and I didn’t have a job. I got a call or an email or some shit from my buddy Mike Westbrook aka Baby Man. Baby Man is/was the non-bearded half of epic dance rap sensationalists Kerbloki. He had moved to NY to make music for high-end car commercials and things of that nature and I had moved in with my parents because I had just got back from “touring” (aka smoking weed in Europe with Subtitle) for 6 weeks. I was 30 years old.

Mike was calling with a proposition. For the sake of brevity, I will assume that most of you know the show ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’. There is an episode where ‘the Gang’ invents products for a merchandising convention and then maybe they sell them at the bar or whatever. This episode essentially centers around the creation of the Dick Towel.



The Dick Towel has 3 ‘illustrated’ panels on it, side by side down the length of it. The one in the center is a drawing of ass cheeks and legs, the idea being that you tie your towel around your waist like a guy in a disposable razor commercial and the butt and legs pictured on the back are yours, i.e., you don’t have a towel on because look, there you are, with your dimply ass hanging out. Now, on either side of the butt/legs combo is a full male frontal. On one side you have a dick hung like a loaf of provolone. On the other side you got more balls than dick, referred to on the show as ‘the tiny bird’. So you get to pick which one you want to present as you cover up with the towel, whichever one you don’t want goes behind the other in the classic locker room wrap job. You now look cartoonishly naked as you sport the Dick Towel.

They had a Youtube video that was a commercial for it and a website ... pretty much they were selling Dick Towels. Or at least they wanted to. In real life, not on the show. I think they wanted it to be a fad for a bit so they could bring in some extra cash flow and help promote the show and maybe compete with the Snuggie on some ironic level, who knows. But they wanted a theme song. And someone who worked for the show knew Mike. And knew his music. And asked him to make one. Score.

So now you got the skeleton of the story. Mike and I start working on the song. Mike sends me a beat. I think we agree that both of us will rap but that I will just go ahead and write all the lyrics. I write in the style of some back and forth tag team action and bang out 2 verses and a hook. I keep it funny but lyrical, and basically kill it like I always do. I record a demo, rapping in 2 different voices: one that is basically my standard nasal delivery, and one that is more of a husky, gruff sounding guy, like Akinyele or Party Arty, so that there is an obvious difference between the MCs and Mike can tell one part from the other. I send it to him and cross my fingers.

He digs it. We start receiving positive feedback (apparently) and essentially begin stroking each other off about how awesome we are as we speculate on all the possibilities that could come from this project. Like, how are they gonna represent the track? Are they gonna shoot a video? Will we get to be in it? Will we get to be on the show?!?! Maybe play ourselves as a hip hop act that Mac hires to write a song for him?! Maybe we can act like dumb white rappers in the spirit of ANY SHOW that has a white rapper character on it?!? I seriously think at one point that Mike said they told him that they were gonna do a video for it and the guys on the show were gonna lip sync to it. Fuck, all I knew is that I was pumped and we began working on a finished version of the song.

We are doing this all via email because Mike was still in New York. And I am recording myself rapping in my parents' garage because I don’t want them to hear me in the house yelling “You want dick? Well, we got dick! We got so much dick it will make you sick!” at the top of my lungs. Even though my parents don’t care about cuss words and sex talk and whatnot, they don’t really understand my ‘career’ at all, and plus, anyone (especially an MC) who has ever recorded vocals with either a shared-wall neighbor or a friend in the other room knows that it sounds crazy when the other person can’t hear any of the musical context and just hears you shouting random lyrics into the void about your ex-girlfriend and drugs and how good your abs look in the right lighting.

Mike works on his mix and I start tightening up the lyrics and delivery. Mike decides that he is not going to rap, and that I should just do both parts, but still punching in on myself like I am two people, even though he also suggests that I don’t do two different voices. I get it down tight and bring my girlfriend in on the action because I need to have a lady for a couple of the lines, such as “It feels so good having a dick for a day.” The whole process takes a little time, and we keep getting assured from our contact at the show that everything is moving forward. I feel like there was even a “The guys love it!” in regards to the dudes on the show, but I can’t remember, I’ve been drunk every day since 2007.

As we are nearing the end of our process, Mike hits me up with a disheartening call. Yeti Beats, a producer who works quite a bit with none other than Kool Keith (practically a hero to me and arguably a major influence on my style), has got wind of the project and expressed interest in him and Keith doing the song. I would like to mention here that Mike and I are doing this shit strictly Sonny Bono and that there is no way I can believe that someone like Kool Keith, let alone Yeti, is going to do it for free. But they have celebrity status (even if it’s fringe celebrity status) and we are worried that after all this hard work, we are about to get snaked.

In another strange twist of fate, I would be opening for Kool Keith at a well-known music venue in the not-so-distant future.

We try to stay positive but our fears are confirmed when we are told that we are off the project. We have been working on the song for almost a month at this point.

Fast forward to about a month later. Kool Keith has finished his song and they have even shot an official video for it. Despite the fact that Kool Keith is a really awesome rapper in his weird and special way, I am doubtful that he can actually take a specific topic and write a relevant song about it, rather, I anticipate tons of awkward references, slang, and goofiness that will only be able to be embraced by Kool Keith fans. I know that what Mike and I did HAS to be better. But Hollywood is fucking Hollywood and that’s the way the cocaine crumbles.

Then I find out that the Kool Keith Dick Towel video is going to drop the day after I perform with him.

At the gig, I made attempts to talk to Keith. The conversations were boring. I was hoping for some great stories to tell about hanging with him, but it was mostly uneventful. There was one awesome moment that seemed like what you would hope for when talking to him: I am backstage with Keith’s crew and have been offered some of the Grey Goose that was in their rider. Keith is standing next to me and repeatedly offers me orange juice to mix it with, but no matter how hard I look, I don’t see any. If you are familiar with his catalog you will know that he has a lot of weird food lyrics, and definitely talks about juice and milk a lot. I get kinda hype that he keeps talking about mythical orange juice! But then later I find it, it was just on the floor in a paper bag by my foot. I guess he knew it was there. Other than that, he talked to me about satellite radio. He wanted to know if people down here were into it. I told him one of my favorite songs of his, and he didn’t remember the lyrics, even as I prompted him by rapping it. At the end of the night, he had a groupie make him a drink and then immediately passed out. I had more fun talking to his sidekick, Mark, who you may have seen on that show with Ice T and the butt he married.

Regardless, I did not have the sack to confront him about the Dick Towel scandal. I did, however, become buddies with his manager. He got hype on my style and we even texted a few times on some business level shit. I sent him some music. I never heard back. Anyway, I did ask him about the Dick Towel song and video and explained how the whole thing had gone down. He had no idea what I was talking about. Not a clue. Never heard a thing. Maybe he had never even heard of the show but I am just saying that because it makes for a better story, I can’t remember, I’ve been stoned every day since 1994.

Keith plays a sloppy, uninspired set. Knowing that I did a better job, and was told that by many people in attendance, is no victory. As a fan I wanted to see him kill it, despite any bad blood about my missed opportunity.

The next day I watch the video. It isn’t good. It’s mildly entertaining and goofy but nothing special. The song is the weak tripe Kool Keith can churn out like nobody else. He probably wrote it in five minutes at the airport. The only thing that I really dug about it is that he rhymes ‘Dick Towel’ with ‘Colin Powell’ which I think is hilarious and kinda genius.

But the weirdest part is this. I go to Los Angeles a few weeks later and hang with my friend Andy who has moved out there from NC. One of his roommates works as a personal assistant to some of the stars of ‘It’s Always Sunny’. In fact, this guy may have been one of the first people ever, if not THE FIRST, to wear a ‘Green Man’ suit like the one featured on the show at a sporting event. This guy borrowed the actual suit from the show and wore it at a Dodgers game or something and was dancing in the stands in it and was on TV and the jumbotron and shit, I think he was even on the local news. He ended up getting escorted out. So Andy tells this guy my sob story and assures me that his buddy is going to ask them about it. When Andy gets back to me, he tells me that, according to his friend, nobody has any idea what I am talking about. I had sent Andy the song and everything. He almost has a tinge of sounding skeptical about what I am telling him even happening. Says his friend swears that everyone he asked was not familiar with our song at all. Rad. A perfect epilogue to my story about how something cool almost happened to me.

BENTLEY MODE FALL TOUR

me n shirlette ammons are doing big things in our new group (i being hype man, DJ, and sidekick rapper for the superstar herself) Bentley Mode. we already played some shows. maybe i'll write about em. we bout to play some more. maybe i'll write about em. who knows. tomorrow = brooklyn

avalanche of boulders

in 2006, me and my producer friend T. Jerk teamed up for a project that we would end up calling "20 Minute Records" where he would come over with beats that he had made in 20 minutes and i would have 20 minutes to write/freestyle and record the lyrics. we did 10 or so songs like this ... but this was always my favorite. i love the old school samples for the beat, and i just had to run with Ghostface-style vocals for this. wish i got to rap like this more often. you can download it for free HERE.

creep