resistance to persistence

I gotta testify, come up in the spot looking extra fly……For the day i die, I’ma touch the sky

Tonight’s gonna be a fun time. I surprised J with a pair of tickets to the Kanye West concert tonight. This will be the 3rd time I’ve seen him. Her first. When the tour was announced, I decided she might like to see him, so I ordered a set of tickets when they went on sale but never told J about it. Then shortly after that, he was on Saturday Night Live. She watched his performance and said “If he ever comes on tour here again, I want to go see him”. Perfect! She didn’t know about the tour at all, nor did she know I had got tickets. I kept it secret until just a few days ago when I gave her the tickets. She was jumping up and down! She liked College Dropout a lot, but loves Late Registration. The CD is constantly in the car stereo.

We’ve got great seats tonight, near the front of the stage. I’m looking forward to seeing J excited when he comes on. And yesterday just happened to be our 1.5 year wedding anniversary (heck, I’ll take credit for any kind of anniversary that I can). It should be a blast tonight. Maybe I’ll even get some photos.

Ol’ Dirty Bastard

ODB passed away over the weekend. A great rapper, with some funny lyrics. Not your normal rhymes. Today would have been his 36th birthday.

The day started off good, got terrible and took a slight upturn.

Last week we were talking about going to the Kanye West concert with Dilated Peoples. I checked it out and it’s about $45 a ticket. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go since I’m trying to save $$ lately and the last concerts weren’t great value for the dollar. So yesterday I got a call from V to see if we were going to purchase tickets for the show. I was delaying the decision cause I was still hung up on the price.

This morning I went to get the car washed up. I always like getting the car cleaned up on a sunny weekend day. Except today. Once I got home I found I’ve got a large scratch on the front passenger door. Looking at it, I can tell someone opened their door against ours and then as they were getting in, it slid up and down leaving some serious scratches. Damn it! Even more car repairs. After last weekend’s busted front grill ($900 to replace!), this is probably going to cost about $300 as well. This car is definitely taking its toll. So that’s the cloud of the day.

So I came inside. severely defeated. The radio was on, which was really rare for J to have it turned on…especially to the rap station, Flow93.5. I listen to it, but Jenn always complains when I listen to too much rap in the car. As I was stewing about how much money this was going to cost I thought to myself that I really shouldn’t go to the concert.Then I heard on the radio…”be the 9th caller and you’ll win tickets to see Kanye West and Dilated Peoples on the radio”. I ran for the phone…it was the best way I was gonna go to this concert. I dialed and dialed and dialed and dialed. Finally I got through and recognized the voice on the line as Kass P, the host of the show. I won! I was the 9th caller. I played it up a little bit since I knew it was going to be on the radio. Then I had to give the tagline…Kass asked me “who gives you free tickets?” I froze. I couldn’t remember the name of the station. “93.5! Flow!” I got it backwards so I had to do it again.”Flow 93.5!” I sat on hold listening to the radio while they did some editing to chop out the mistakes I said. I grabbed my cellphone and called V. Luckily he was driving in his car and J was on the road as well by this time too, so I called her to listen. After the next song ended my winning call aired on the phone. After a lot of me yelling, “Nice! Sweet!” Kass came back on the phone and took down my address and stuff. So this friday, I’ll be checking out the Kanye concert. A little bit of not-quite silver lining to my cloud.

Now if only I could see the Method Man concert as well…but I’ll be in Whistler at the time, so that’s not a bad tradeoff.

I’ve been listening to Kanye’s College Dropout and I can’t get enough…every song is great. He’s got a lot of really intelligent rhymes with a ton of catchy beats. A lot of people haven’t heard of him, but if they knew how many tracks he’s worked on for production, it’s pretty surprising. Some highlights: Jay-Z (Bonnie & Clyde), Talib Kweli(Get By), Ludacris(Stand Up), Britney Spears(Me Against the Music). It’s a huge list. Will Kanye surpass N.E.R.D to be the hot one to get on your tracks? I think so. Check the website for sample tracks.
I saw an interview with him and he’s not waiting around for the success of this album to die out…he’s already working on this next album. Beats and rhymes from one guy..a musical powerhouse. Check it out.

Favorite rhyme - “Mayonnaise coloured Benz, I push miracle whips.” - Last Call 3:32

While looking for links for the last post, Snoop’s site has a link to AskSnoop.com complete with Tha Shizzolator. In case you wanna surf the internet and read in street-speak, put your favorite website address into the Shizzolator. Lots of people hitting the site, so it takes a while.

Here’s what the last post looks like Snoopified:

“Tomorrow night, downtown T.Dot.” The Snoop Doggfather is coming town, know what I’m sayin’? I don’t think ticket sales are going that well, know what I’m sayin’? Either I wuz dreaming, or da radio from my alarmclock be like da tickets wuz now selling 2 fo’ 1. Too bad I paid full price ($64) fo’ mine n’ shit. It’ll be gravy n’ shit. Snoop’s an institution, know what I’m sayin’? Who else can invent they own language ‘n has that shiznit spread pop culture.” Can’t wait see da shizzow n’ shit. Fo shizzle ma nizzle, know what I’m sayin’?”

Who knew I could talk with such street cred.

Tomorrow night, downtown T.Dot. The Snoop Doggfather is coming to town. I don’t think ticket sales are going that well. Either I was dreaming, or the radio from my alarmclock said the tickets were now selling 2 for 1. Too bad I paid full price ($64) for mine. It’ll be good. Snoop’s an institution. Who else can invent their own language and have it spread to pop culture. Can’t wait to see the shizzow. Fo shizzle ma nizzle.

Church!

Last night I went to the Ludacris concert at The Docks. Ludacris is a fav of mine, but The Docks isn’t a very good venue for a live concert. Also, very pricey @ $45 for an hour of watching Ludacris. Still a fun time and definitely even more of a fan now. I wish I had a camera with me but it probably would have been taken. There was a serious frisking at the doors and you couldn’t hide much if you wanted to. Pick up his latest album, Chicken and Beer.