Questions surround "The Answer"

The 2009-2010 season has turned into a complete trainwreck for Allen Iverson. Injuries and age seem to have eroded his skills to the point where he is a shell of his former greatness. Recently leaving the 76ers to be with his ailing daughter, other news contributing to the decision to call it a season and, possibly, career, has surfaced.

If this is how it's gonna go down for A.I., then sadness doesn't even begin to explain what I feel. This is pretty much the pre-eminent basketball idol of my teenage years. Each day, I feel disproportionately further from the peak of my love affair with Iverson: proudly wearing his jersey in the hostile environment of the Staples Center during Game 1 of the 2001 NBA Finals, where he dropped 48 on the home team for a stunning overtime win.

RIP B.I.G.

The senseless killing of Christopher Wallace remains a permanent locus point in the still incomplete circle of life of Hip-Hop. Let's remember the good times. I got Juicy, Big Poppa, One More Chance (remix), Hypnotize and a bonus for the streets: his Fulton Avenue freestyle battle that became Guaranteed Raw.

R.I.P. Biggie Smalls

(Red Band) Trailer - Hot Tub Time Machine

By now, I should know better. John Cusack movies always end up involving him pining for some ex-wife/ex-girlfriend/ex-lax/whatever. I think back to when I paid 12 bucks to watch 1408 in the theatre because I was excited by the prospect of seeing a movie where John Cusack didn't play Lloyd Dobbler or a bitchmade facsimile. I got burned in that one, too. What the fuck, Stephen King?! What. The. Fuck.

That said, there is too much good going on around John Cusack for me to not wanna watch Hot Tub Time Machine. Cue the red band trailer.

Tone-Lōc - Lōc-ed After Dark

Being such a young artform, Hip-Hop has a tendency to forget those who paved the road. Slowly we are coming back to commemorate the first and second waves of Hip-Hop's pioneers but it seems like the mid-to-late 80s artists from the Golden Era are largely forgotten.



Tone-Lōc is one of those guys. A lot of folks don't remember Tone and many of those who do conveniently choose to forget about him. Hindsight should eventually reveal this album to be one of the classics of it's era. Tone had the voice and a smooth delivery but it doesn't stop there.



Lōc-ed After Dark (1988) featured the first hip-hop productions of the legendary Dust Brothers. Though still a far shout from the masterful sound collage they would accomplish on The Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique" tracks like "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina" show the seeds being planted. "Cheeba Cheeba" (which uses the now oft-used sample of Edwin Starr's great "Easin' In") was one of the first rap songs advocating marijuana use. And while I can't be sure how far the history of ghostwriting goes, this was one of the first instances in my history with Hip-Hop where I found the use of ghostwriters; in this case, Young MC (another talented westcoast MC forgotten by time).


A quick peek at Wikipedia revealed that Lōc-ed After Dark's great album cover is a remake of Donald Byrd's album cover for A New Perspective. Another fancy tidbit for the 80s babies who've been trying to forget the decade through wanton alcohol and drug experimentation: the first video below this diatribe, the clip for "Wild Thing", is a take on Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love". I also added the video for "Funky Cold Medina"