The Hi-Lives

I have not forgotten, therefore I give you…The Hi-Lives

Excuse the quality but damn we were having fun with it.

Chop Suey

This damn video was always on when I would be up real late for whatever reason…kinda chasing me I guess. And I remember saying “this is kinda dope” and got the cd and thought it was good music. Turns out me and my boy Da’marr both liked it so we jammed it…ain’t nothing like pulling up blasting SOAD being two young brothas on the Westside of Dayton, Ohio…and then five minutes later, back to the screwed & chopped music (man we were SO FAR AHEAD of that trend and I normally don’t say this but it was old to us by the time it caught on mainstream and I remember getting laughed at for liking it) or whatever else we were listening to. Anyway, dig it.

System of A Down – Chop Suey

(Sorry, they won’t allow the embed and I’m not nerdy enough to figure it out right now)

The Passion & The Reason

“Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in midseas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; and let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.”

Kahlil Gibran

Old School Goody: Kinetik – Euphoria

I think its important that we always understand why we do things in life or we should stop doing them. I don’t COMPLETELY understand but I got bits and pieces understood which is how I have reason behind my passion. I used to live on passion alone and reason was second, if it even was in the picture. I’d do anything my heart sought for without consulting my reasoning mind which is how I landed in a sea of alcoholism, confusion, and despair.

I know, “you were in college, people drink”…pardon my French but that’s bullshit. That bullshit statement is why people do stupid shit in the name of alcohol, trying to pin it on the time of life they’re in. You don’t hear people saying “oh let’s do coke we got money and live in the suburbs!!!”…well maybe they do, but still the shit ain’t right. Me cashing out pint after pint after pint of E&J Brandy daily was not excusable by the pursuit of higher education. If I was going out, I drank a pint a night usually straight because I was too cheap to buy chaser…almost 11 shots of brandy and I would be drinking other stuff too and this “going out” was at least twice a week (its hard to remember how much I drank when I was just at home but I always had a fifth of something and some beer). I drank so much E&J at one point I had the shakes when I wasn’t inebriated and the only cure……..more E&J. And if you ain’t had withdrawal from alcohol it is no joke (see July 2006)…I didn’t have convulsions and all that but I had the shakes like Muhammad Ali.

Anyway, the life we lead will always lead us and that’s why I gotta call on Jesus. And I ain’t all the way together as my cursing would assume or the semi-womanizing flair I may have had (uhh if you read this and it piss you off about something I did to you, my fault…my love used to be life now my life is love) or the occasional drunken episode I have. But through some battles with self, brotha knows he can’t keep on like he had been keeping on.

I ain’t telling nobody to quit drinking because that may not be an issue for you and if it ain’t: keep it as such. But as for me, I know that some things in my life that I have/had passion for have/had no reason attached so they must cease in me. I challenge you to really think about the reasons you do the things you do or the things you hope to do. It will either make you not wanna do it, really wanna do it, or change the way you wanna do it. I like to have a good time but I had to figure out a different way to do it…that’s when I picked up the pen, looped and chopped up some soul, and went to work. ADK baby. Shout out to Big Rome and the Fam. And for some reason alcohol just ain’t that big of a part in me anymore which is weird becasue me and Ernest and Julio Gallo were like BROTHERS at one point…now we hardly speak, and when we do I try to keep it light. So if you see me out and offer to buy me a drink (HA!) I might not take it but don’t be offended…I like Sprite with grenadine.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

The Scientist.

Just for you Boogie…well and for everyone else too. This video always used to be on real late at night whenever I saw it and I would never catch who it was by and didn’t know anybody who woulda known it at the time cuz I was in high school surrounded by eggheads listenin to DJ Clue mixtapes…and I didn’t know who they were because I was screwed & chopped to death. But my homeboy Errik Hood (an ivory key on the piano of my life, what up EHOOD) told me who it was by.

Teen Town

Jaco Pastorius, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Alex Acuna, and Manolo Badrena. “Teen Town” from the 1977 Weather Report album Heavy Weather, my favorite jazz group album. Dig it.

O-H-I-O

Gotta hold it down for the state I’m “from”. Had a gym teacher in Texas that we swore was an ex-Ohio Player.