Couple few days down on the sick as shit tip.  Nothing i’m trying to live again.  I think the last time I was this sick, I lived on 4th ave on the east side of Oly.  My roomies told me that I might have asked for my mom a couple times.  Dizzy, tripped out, jumply tummy.  Yeah, I think Ali saved me with some good healthy goodies.  Same shit over the last few days.  Unlike that last time, i’m not going to push it out of my system with a bunch of Bushmills, just a chill night in for this round.  I learned a couple things this week.  Never take for granted how easy it is to chew and swallow your food, this cleanched rough pained throat was a tough one.  Who would have thought pasta would go down so damn rugged.  Ginger Lemon Honey!  After the flu tummy parts turned into just body ache and throat hurt, I went to the tea drink that Dylan showed me a long time ago.  He had just got back from Indonesia and I had a sore throat, he mad me the stove top warm brew; quartered lemons, huge long slices of ginger, and when its just under a boil, turn off and add tons of honey. Sweet, spicey tea.  The ginger burns the baddies camping out around your throat.  Whatever, I feel normal again.  Yeah, me.

We all have those ex’s that stick in the craw of your memory for a long long time.  This isn’t about her.  It’s about her Mothers cat, my favorite cat ever.  His name is Foo, or like I wrote in the title Fu?  Either way, I have had a couple cats, they were pretty dope cats.  Knee was cool.  He caught FIP, and died in like 7 hours after his first hurting meows.  Martian was cool…. He was very cool.  Drugged him up to keep him cool for a long move from Olympia to Champaign.  He was never the same, and ran away just about 5 days after we got to Champaign.  My friend thought he was one of those cats that would stay around, and let him out.  I came home from work to the news that my cat was missing.  And he was.  So I don’t get super close to cats, haven’t had one since.  My dog Poppy fills the void of whatever i’m needing, and he does a damn nice job.  So i’m looking around Penny Melino’s photos, wondering if she has a pic of my favorite cat from the past, and she did.  I ripped it, and well… the photo with this writing is Foo.  I don’t remember names of places so well, especially from way back, I think we were in Hartfied, Va… well, really out in the darkness of the country off of a river that eventually fed into the Chesapeake.  Very nice country, soft shell crab sandwich’s, fishing alone on the dock catching croakers, (fish that croak… imagine not knowing that, and being kinda freaked out about how loud this fish your taking off the hook is), very pretty part of the country, though all I could think of sometimes was Slavery.  On that topic, it was kinda nice going to visit plantations in my brothers 1967 Chevelle/Malibu SS Black, Chromed out, come on now, Hot! The look on some of the faces of the good white folk was priceless.  “what is that boy doing in that sweet as tits car?”  Yeah, I never heard that, but ramblings like that are often in my head, not always on race… sometimes its about puppys, clouds, or tits.  Back to the cat.  Penny had another cat? and well… I don’t remember anything about that cat, color, size, now that I thing about it, it might have even been a dog.  That is just how cool Foo was.  The cat would play fetch with ball of tin foil… you toss, he hunted down and brought it back.  He is sleek, pretty, and well.. I only like cool shite, so, yeah, he was cool.  That would be Foo’s biggest thing with me, coolness.  If Charles Shultz would have maybe never had a beagle, and met Foo instead… I think you know what i’m drawing up here, there might be now Snoopy, no Joe Cool, Just Foo.  Its funny to me that i’m thinking about Foo right now, I have had the flu for three days, my only awesome loving Grandmother ( Mama Susie ) passed away a couple days ago, and I just got out of seeing The Hangover, good movie for stupid laughs for sure.  I have a funeral to attend, Family to see and cry with, my brothers John and Keith, and my nephew Eric are all locked up, and the pain they will feel once the letters reach them to tell them the news….  yeah shit is fucked up.  Kinda the worst week I have had in a while.  And a cat named Foo is on my mind, bringing a smile to my face.  Looking into the randomness of the mind is a funny thing, or in the case of my mind, maybe a totally crazy thing.  Either way you slice it, Foo rocks.  All will be fine.  The healing, the brothers will be out soon, the crying will feel good, and who knows, maybe i’ll see Foo again.

I”m tired as hell from getting, well… you know, throw a days work on top of that, and i’m really tired.  I”m riding down the alley to hit the back door to my place, and I see this kid, African American kid just spinning in circles.  I’m thinking, he’s just a bit silly, because why would he just be spinning all by himself, then he stops mid spin, and jumps, grabbing his little boy crotch.  Puzzled? yeah, me to.  I turn into my driveway, and start heading up the back stairs, and I hear it.  I hear “This is Thriller…  Thriller night”, this kid is working on not only his Mike Jack dance moves, but he is singing Thriller!  I’m out of his line of sight, so I just sit and listen to him for a couple minutes, he knew all the words, and well… This is the same kid who asked me why I talked “country” last week.  I didn’t figure him to be into Jackson, and we probably wasn’t until his folks started bumping it again, like every has been.  So check it, Jackson is timeless.  That said, i’m about done talking about this fella for a bit.  go team.

Black on Both Sides was always a pretty dope lp in my eyes, all kinds of good positve vibe with plenty of street.  And just because Mos took on the topic of water supply issues and the future of the planet with less of it, people tried to put him in some hippy box.   His Rock Roll song is still a banger that hits the subject of African Americans and rock and roll.  “Elvis Presley ain’t got no soul, Bo Diddley is rock and roll” dope.  The whole album was a must for me, I would mix Miss Fat Booty into everything, such amazing floating production,  MR. Niggah…. Nuff said, that song should be mandetory listening for all you white folks with black friends who you might call…… “not really black”, there are some pointed lines in there that need to be heard.  This would be a good time to bring up the fact that the two 12″‘s I have of Urban Thermo Dynamic, his fist group…. horrid name, but really nice cuts…  “MY KUNG FU”….

So here we go with THE ECSTATIC, his most recent album.  DOPE!  There is the same Mos flow, the same Mos Singin’,  But the beats come through a bit more rugged, not thuggish and played out, but Boomin’.  And are you fucking kidding me, the cut Auditorium features Slick Rick, and production by Madlib (the beat was on a previously released Beat Konducta album).  I love when a rapper loves a beat so much that they still kill over it, even if its been out before, as long as the beat is a bit obscure, not some Puffy Combs bitter shit.  I have been rocking this new record a bunch lately, only a loaner copy of King Tubby Meets Uptown Rockers has been beating this record for me.  And When Mos raps in Spanish on the song No Hay Nada Mas, it doesn’t sound canned and blotched up like a second language can sound sometimes…  It’s really pretty, then that song flow into a super nice Pistola.  I got my lp copy at Permanent on Chicago Ave, good stuff, good people.  Broke down and Itunes’d it first, so the earbuds have been in overtime.  I’m not trying to get into reviewing records, but I was just so damn supprised by the niceness of this record, that I had to let a little something out.  I was only supprised because there have been a couple singles over the past couple years that I wasn’t feeling much, and  The New Danger, and True Magic…. uhm, not for me.  But this new joint, Peep it!