What Happened to My Hip-Hop?

Reminiscences, Part the First

    One of the things I really loved about Def Jam records way back when was the 12" singles they released.  Every Def Jam artist had their singles packaged in the same manner.  After they dropped the original maroon sleeves (T La rock, L.L. Cool J's first couple records...) and went with the classic black look.  The tone arm was still on there and the lettering was more bold in it's silver/gray font on top of the darker sleeve.  That was a brand, it seemed every other indie label (yes kids, Def Jam was once an indie label, too) was mainly releasing picture sleeves with cats wearing airbrushed sweatshirts or somesuch other mid-80's nonsense that somehow seemed cool at the time.  You could walk into a record store in those days and see rows upon rows, upon racks, upon shelves of singles and albums for sale - it was all a bit much.  Loud-assed neon colors and graff-written logos thrust into your eyeballs.  But, you also instantly knew what Def Jam had on the shelves.  And for a long time (at least in music shelf-life terms) you knew it was some quality, real music.  I don't remember a Def Jam single with a picture sleeve until "You're Gonna Get Yours" from Public Enemy in 1987.  We all kind of stared for a minute - just looking at all these dudes and the Oldsmobile's like, "what the fuck is this all about, then?".  There was not a single reliable music press representing rap music back then where one could have read some well-written and informative article about just who these guys were.  You really only had short 1-2 hour shows on college radio if you wanted to hear hip hop that was new or stuff you didn't already own.  

    But we bought that Public Enemy single anyway, on the strength (boyeeee) of it's being from Def Jam.  Who were these guys? Who the fuck is the "Bomb Squad"? Well, history will tell you know all that you need to know, if you already don't.  They could be forgiven for not going with that classically elegant, minimalist design.  That shiny black rectangle of cardboard with it's circle of plastic inside, safely nestled in it's paper blanket.  Public Enemy was quickly forgiven, just seconds into "You're Gonna Get Yours" I realized things had just changed and for good in hip-hop.

    That shiny black sleeve with the gray tone arm and letters was something you sought out.  It was the music version of a UL tag that you see on electrical products, it was tried and tested - and made the cut.  There was a very good chance that Rick Rubin produced it, it could be L.L.'s new joint or maybe Slick Rick's latest - but you could be sure it was from New York and for a good while you could count on it being dope.  You would cut the plastic wrapping on the side where the sleeve opened, juuuuuust enough to slide the record out, but still have a serviceable dust cover for this new gem.  You would hold the vinyl disc in the heels of the palms of your hands to read the label and blow off any cat hair that the static electricity sucked onto the grooves like some goddamn tractor beam.  We always had cats.  Then, you would lay it (gently, now) onto the turntable and get yourself ready to be transported.  I do miss that.

   

I Hope You're Happy Now

    "I Hope You're Happy Now" is a song by Elvis Costello, a great song.  Now, understand please, as I grew up the two signal musical influences upon my life were The Beatles (the very first records I ever had and one of the very few things my parents agreed on) and hip-hop, which I have mentioned before entered my life in 1980 and really hasn't totally left yet.  So, being fully immersed in the world of rap for so long, I sadly missed a lot of the best music ever made while it was still new.  Yes, I am totally shitting on all of you come-lately apologists who incessantly whine how music in the 80's sucked.  Outside of my comfortable world of unlaced Adidas (which really weren't comfortable at all, but they DID piss off my Dad - which was kind of the point), there were albums from The Smiths, Joy Division/New Order, Bauhaus/Tone on Tail/Love & Rockets, et.al. - including some genuine fucking gold from Elvis Costello.  I was an inveterate and unapologetic reader of the music press, even though much of the music I loved was never covered within the pages.  I am just a reading junkie.  I'd read every issue of Rolling Stone as it came out and was aware of artists in many other genres because of this exposure.

    

    Elvis Costello always seemed to me a bit of an anamoly.  It didn't take a great intellect to see how record companies and their psychophants in the music press were fond of pigeonholing artists into nifty little boxes, and since there wasn't a title quite so apt as "alternative rock" way back then, he was lumped into the New Wave of groups appearing with alarming regularity from across the Atlantic.  This distinguished title was also applied to musical concerns as diverse as The Police and Frankie Goes to Holywood, as if that isn't a fucking Grand-Canyon-wide chasm to traverse insofar as talent and marketability was concerned.  I couldn't ever really parse how much of Elvis' image was artifice or just sincere strangeness, he seemed out of place and time in that respect.  The sharp suits and rockabilly haircut and those way-too-large eyeglasses seemed a conscious effort to distance himself from his perfectly over-coiffed and mascara-wielding contemporaries. That I could dig.  I had some friends that  had his tapes and records (yeah, that long ago) but they never seemed to play them and I don't recall seeing many or any of his videos until much later on MTV.  It struck me that some people just considered it "cool" to be able to say, "yeah, I listen to Elvis Costello" whilst they awaited their well-deserved plaudits from their oh-so-hip friends.  Every scene had these type of douchebags, even my own - so I could at least philosophically appreciate that maybe there was something that I may have been missing.  But, what were soon to be classic records from my hip hop life were being released seemingly every few weeks and I was really too busy failing at breakdancing and beatboxing to take on another project of that scope.  Besides I wasn't cool enough to fit in with those New Wave/New Romantic kids, hip hop was far more accepting where I was from.  

    So I came to the alternative music party quite late - around 1989, when hip hop had started what looked like an irreversible decline.  Studio gangsters and an Afro-Centric nature were the order of the day and I was pretty. Fucking far from either.  Thee was always true, great rap music to be found (and still is) but goddamn, you had to put in some work now to find it.  See my future screed, "What Happened to My Hip Hop", coming to an Internet near you, eventually.

    "I Hope You're Happy Now", if you're unfortunate enough to have never heard it, is a very catchy give-or-take three minutes of bile and spite directed towards an ex.  Sources eventually uncovered that the unlucky recipient was Elvis' first wife.  Be that as it may, it goes out to any of our collective exes, of either sex or orientation.  It just applies.  He's not really hoping that she is "Happy Now", pretty fucking far from it, actually - and that's a universally held notion that anyone who's had a broken heart could relate to.  He's hiding a tremendous amount of psychic pain and feelings of betrayal behind some incredibly biting bravado, that is crowned in the last verse with, "...I knew then what I know now/I never loved you anyhow?and I hope that you're happy now".  He also gets to throw some pointed jabs at the fellow she is now lavishing her affections upon, to a great and eviscerating effect.  Again, this all stems from the fact that he is obviously still quite hurt and begging her notice by putting his torment to music, despite his claims to be over it and stating with seeming sincerity, "...and I know that this will hurt you more than it hurts me...".  Nice try, Mr. Costello.

    Either way and at the end of the day - it's an incredible song written and sung by a true genius of the form.  Do yourself a favor, if you don't already have at the very least his Greatest Hits compilation in your collection - do go out and get it.  You're bound to find one or two (or 10) gems that no one else could have written or sung as well as he did.

    My only lingering thought concerning this classic song, as with most songs of it's ilk - those wonderfully catchy ditties that are fueled by a pain so sharp and omnipresent that only by putting words to music will it begin to be silenced and knowing that he's pretty much regularly toured for the nearly 30 years since it's release....is how does it feel to play it so often?  Does the pain still smart? Or does it eventually morph into a sort of gratitude, that something which at the time crushed you so completely and brought those feelings to light has connected with millions and has become truly a song for the ages?  I know what I believe, but I suppose it's different for all of us.

"Thank You, Bob Mould"

    Coming of age, so to speak, in the 1980's as I did placed many of us in the whirlwind of evolving social opinions and questioning of long-held beliefs.  This not unique to my generation, I understand, but it's my experience, so shut up and listen.  Write your own damn blog post about your life.  Growing up where I did, being the only white kid on the block gave me a pretty unique perspective on racism that most working-class white boys weren't privy to. This also led to a different class of interactions with with the police and other institutions as well; but the overall topic here is changes in society and how our own personal growth either precedes this or lags slowly behind...

    Homosexuality in the late 1970's and most all of the 80's was a topic that, beyond  a crude joke here and there or calling your friend a "fag" when you were clowning around - was just ignored.  Don't get me wrong, even as a young boy I knew "fag" was an insult and was pretty well hip to what it referred to.  This was not just in my little corner of the world, either - this was the prevailing attitude in most of suburban life.  Everyone I knew, top-to-bottom (no pun intended) simply ignored any elaboration upon the topic - we didn't know anyone who was homosexual (at least who would say so out loud or in private) and because I never really had much doubt about my own burgeoning sexuality, the subject just seemed kind of like just one more thing that did not concern me.  I was no active detractor or someone who gained self-esteem from calling out anyone that I had even guessed could be gay.  People in those bygone days still equated homosexuality with all sorts of ridiculous aberrant behaviors - mainly things like paedophelia and transvestisism , accusations we very well know now to be just the height of stupidity.  Most of my friends parents were grown up children of the 1950's and 60's, a time when homosexuality was still widely considered to be some form of mental defect.  unbelievable, I know - but nonetheless true.

    

    Hell, this was a time when you could still walk into a bookstore (big chain bookstores, people. Not some hole-in-the-wall) and see a section of joke books alphabetized by the race of the jokes they contained.  Being Bohemian, we of course had "1001 Polack Jokes".  But it seemed that no one was free from a specified form of ridicule - all races and creeds were represented on the shelf.  It was open season on insulting everyone, we just accepted it.  While I do sincerely believe that people are way too fucking sensitive now, (see the very public crucifixion of Paula Dean; Good God show me a Southerner from her era who hasn't said the same thing she did their whole life or more recently, Riley Cooper, the idiot receiver of the Philadelphia Eagles.  I bet he felt surrounded by like-minded people when he was shouting his ignorance at that Kenny Chesney concert) about language.  Myself, I was "whitey" or "cracker" to strangers in my neighborhood on a daily basis and I was "white nigger" as soon as I left that same area.  Life goes on, geez.

    So, although I was not above bandying about gay jokes or clowning the mannerisms of some very effeminate boys that I went to school with, it was done very quietly among close friends.  I was already too much of a target of ridicule and intimidation myself to ever be anything like that to another person.  

    But as I grew older and the late 80's loomed, I had seen and lived enough to understand that if Ronald Reagan (and by proxy, those who aligned themselves with him and his politics) was against something - that I should really at least re-examine my own thinking on it, he was dead fucking wrong about everything else, it seemed.  With the rise of the A.I.D.S. epidemic and the innundation of stories in the media about it's victims and how it was almost exclusively a problem for the gay community, there seemed to be the beginnings of an institutionalized ignorance concerned with marginalizing the concerns of a large number of people.  Even an extremely ignorant heterosexual (or at least trying to be, the girls weren't really cooperating at the time) teenager, it was easy to see that disregarding people over something that didn't really strike me as a lifestyle "choice" - I wasn't considering lofty topics like wondering if people were "born gay", but who would choose to be treated the way homosexuals were at that time?  Th embryonic idea that there was no other option for these people was beginning to dawn upon my (very) slowly expanding consciousness.

    This all crystallized in the middle of 1989, a year of tremendous upheaval and irreversible changes in my own life.  As is my wont, this epiphany was brought about  and delivered through music.  Rap music had been my life but it had seemed to be taking a turn for the worse - it was everywhere now - on Mtv and in the press, places I had always felt had ignored this music that had been my world for 10 years by now.  But, with precious few exceptions, I had lost nearly all enthusiasm for it.  What I had become interested in its place was what was soon become known as "alternative rock".

    After years of reveling music that related tales of life in rough circumstances and dangerous streets told with bravado and braggadocio, much like the world I was surrounded by, I became enthralled by vulnerable and confessional songs from bands like New Order, Depeche Mode, The Cure - my world had expanded as well as my realization of just how truly narrow my previous views had been, be they unspoken or not. 

    I was playing a new, to me, disc from Husker Du genius songwriter/guitar deity Bob Mould.  It was his first solo album, "Workbook", the disc itself wasn't really knocking me on my ass that way that some of his previous bands' work had recently done.  But that all changed when the album reached tack #4, a beautiful little song titled, "See A Little Light".  I may have been a bit more receptive to the songs theme on that day at that time because I was in love with a girl who was also my best friend (yeah, I know...) who seemed very (very) conflicted about her feelings for me.  As well as being absolutely surrounded by the impending explosion of my own parents marriage.  This song was optimistic about love in a way that I could relate to - even in the face of the other person being confused about whether or not to really give it a try.  I was instantly struck by the incredibly sensitive words and how he was pleading for a chance, almost as much as the very un-Husker Du-like sound.  Jangly guitars and gentle pleading replaced the wall of guitars and punk pacing of before, he was unmistakably unafraid to admit his vulnerability and say what he felt.  

    I thought to myself, "he must be in love with the exact same kind of woman that I am".

Soon after, I found out that this song wasn't written for a girl and it stopped me in my tracks.  Because of the culture around me and my own unspoken feelings I had never paused and really thought that a man could feel these things for another man.  I felt stupefied, as well I should have - coming out of ignorance really should be an epochal personal moment that coincides with talking to oneself and saying, "was I really THAT fucking stupid?".  Yes. Yes, you were.

This naked, afraid-but-still-going-to-try stab at love and that gorgeously dreamy optimism that only the full flush of that feeling can give to you - it's truly universal.  It always had been, but I was just figuring this out.  At that time I had only met a couple of gay men through friends and they were just flamboyantly on fire and completely over the top.  That kind of behavior has always struck me as insincere and wielded merely for the shock value of how uncomfortable it made the straights in the vicinity.  Please do understand, I am an equal opportunity curmudgeon - I despise with equal venom such flights of effrontery from heterosexual men as well - be it with shows of bravado, tales of their prowess, or public displays of douchebaggery towards women.  Interestingly, many of the fellows are possessed of a disproportionate distaste for homosexuals and will not hesitate to let you know this fact.  I have always thought that these men possibly doth protest too much.  But, I digress...

    So my deepest thanks and sincerely heartfelt gratitude to you, Mr. Bob Mould for enlarging my world and my brain - as well as my heart.  Because these things so rarely work out how we wish them to, I will say that the girl I was in love with at that time I heard this song became my girlfriend eventually and it became a very up and down relationship for many years to follow.  More down than up and ended quite badly, but the experience was very definitely for the best considering what was waiting a short time ahead of me.  Eventually we grew up and I consider her now to be among my truest and most valued old friends, despite all the terrible times we had.  I hope things worked out much better for Bob and the object of his affection, and even if it didn't...this beautiful little song is a worthy memorial to that eternal optimism that love fills us all with, regardless of whether our loves be a man or a woman.

 

These nasty-assed crawling bastards

I fucking hate bugs.  You think of any insect, regardless of how much they "help the environment" or assist in the control of the population of other disgusting creatures that seem to somehow seem to look like them, blahblahblah.  I'm still killing them on sight.  This applies with the greatest possible gusto to spiders, or any insect unlucky enough to even vaguely resemble the nasty little bastards.  Go ahead and argue with me that arachnids are neither insects or bugs or some such bullshit, I will not listen and do not even care.  Although I can kind of respect your point of view or your spurious "reasons", I'll even nod and say something quite full of shit like, "you know, I've never thought of it that way. Thanks for enlightening me upon this subject, friend".  But deep inside, I'm smashing 8 legs into something that could never be recognized as once having even been a spider.  Please do not confuse this sincere and righteous hatred for some kind of phobia - I am not afraid of them in any traditional psycho-babble way; I just believe they need to die.  In nearly all other arenas of life on this spinning blue marble called Earth, I am a remarkably non-violent and peaceful individual.  I've seen enough violence to have learned to honestly abhor it in nearly all modes.  But this predilection for pacifism really only extends to human beings or animals that do not completely disgust me on the most primal of levels, like the aforementioned 8-legged bastard children of Satan.  Even pictures or art that contain an image of these things can make me wince and reach for a tissue or or shoe to annihilate them with.  

People who consider them "useful", "cute", or worst of fucking all - keep them as 'pets'...Dear God in wherever-you-are, what the fuck is wrong with you people?  I've not seen the insect population decrease anywhere that I've seen these nasty bastards webs.  Show me some motherfucking science, hard numbers and shit.  Meh, nevermind...I still won't change.  They are easily on par with the people who think iguanas are pets.  They aren't pets, they are fucking freaky gyroscope-eyed undesirables who rightly live naturally where nothing else with a functioning brain would choose to inhabit.  Fortunately I live in the Inland Empire (there's a phrase I never imagined that I would ever utter) where these arachno-assholes are in good supply.  The creature, not the deluded people calling them pets and making habitats for them.  Almost daily I get to stomp, smash, and or end their useless ugly asses in a variety of tried & true and sometimes quite original ways.  

I was once bitten on the arch of my foot by a black widow and had a terrible reaction which forced me to spend some time on crutches when I was a wee lad of 10 years.  Now, mind you, at that tender age I was pretty scared of spiders, especially Black Widows.  But when there were any about that were more dangerous than a Daddy Long Legs, I still had my father around to take care of them.  After that time, I became the go-to guy in the house for arachnid extermination - I DID have 2 sisters and I know that, "it's a spider!!!" scream when I hear it.

It's understandable that human beings have a primal reaction and even fear of spiders of nearly any of their gross-assed varieties.  Surely our ancestors learned many lessons the hard way before they figured out that they really should just leave the nasty bastards alone or find ways to kill them that didn't endanger themselves or their loved ones.  Some of those accursed things have venomous bites that sting, itch, burn, bruise, swell, and even kill.  A few thousand years of that  kind of nonsense will instill a healthy fear in your life, if not a healthy respect to use caution around them.  I mean, we know by now that these motherfuckers aren't going away. So, even the smallest of them can have an effect on people that is vastly disproportionate to their size - this makes our first interactions with them quite often the "EEEEEEEK!!!" experiences that generally decrease in severity over time.  Most people aren't afraid of them, they just don't like being close to them....kind of like how I feel about people who have spiders as pets.  We become aware that they are a lot like communicable disease and periodic plagues...an unfortunate part of this vast and otherwise glorious world we inhabit.  Now, as an erstwhile peaceful man, I also feel completely karmically assuaged in the killing of so many and the waiting for more by knowing that no matter how many of these things end up as goo on the bottom of my sneakers, I've done absolutely nothing to diminish their disgusting population.  If they were somehow endangered or in any way useful to humanity I might (probably not) lose some sleep over my all-too-effective elimination of these fuzzy freaks of nature, hatched from the fevered dreams of the devil himself.  Don't give me the bullshit about controlling the insect population - that's some public relations bullshit doublespeak from the spider-loving lobby of those weirdos who keep them and name them.  Yeah, fuck them.