Best Death Scene EVER

FUCKING. AWESOME!

RIP MCA

Rest In Peace, Adam Yauch. Fuck cancer. It's ruining the lives of some of my favorite people ever, including those closest to me. Please don't just re-listen to the Beastie Boys today because he has passed. Keep their music constantly in your rotation. Embrace people's lives while they are still here and celebrate their art at all times.

RIP BIG

The greatest rapper of all time died on March 9th.

RIP Heavyweights

RIP Joe Frazier & Heavy D

Garan, Santa Sofia, RIP Mama Bruno

Garan by Cookie Snake

I toured Italy with the violist from a band called Rachel’s. He put together “FW”, a four-piece: viola, bass, drums, and a scratch DJ. (Dominic Johnson, Jason Wood, and DJ Pablo.) One show was in the southern, Calabrian mountain town of Santa Sofia D'epiro. Music there curved predominantly Rastafarian. The promoter put us in a marble floor home overlooking the tightly rolled, spliff-filtered, stained glass canopy of the Sila plateau. His family’s restaurant cooked gnocchi, and at dusk he lead us through Santa Sofia‘s main street to the amphitheater like the Pied Piper, signaling everyone to follow. En route, there were espressos, and the mountain air gnawed fresco faces into ganglia and skin. We arrived at the club satiated and arranged. The town was there and out. Old, young, molded, unmolded. Every window open. Every scent binary and sent. Nuns were there and dancing. A hallucinated beetle-monster the size of a schoolbus with mollusk, whale teeth rose out of hillside shrubs and consumed the scene. In its jaws, it aerated, animated, and saw its own life. Someone in the audience pressed record on a portable recording device, and we began to play the song above. (Dedicated to Mama Bruno, who taught me Italian, Italian soap operas, and life. RIP.)

RIP Steve Jobs

A great speech from 2005. This guy a true game changer, he will be missed.

RIP Hightower

Rest In Power to the late, great Bubba Smith. Great NFL defensive end and hilarious tall guy actor, most known for Police Academy.

RIP Gil Scott-Heron

RIP Kurt Cobain

17 years ago, I was 13 years old and living in New Jersey. Seattle seemed almost way too far away to even fathom that one day I would be living here. I knew only a handful of things about this city I have come to love: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, & The Supersonics. I remember hearing the news that Kurt Cobain committed suicide and it ultimately brought a state of sadness mixed with confusion. I had listened to In Utero constantly and loved everything about their MTV Unplugged performance. These guys seemed on top of the world and controlling/changing the state of music. It wasn't until much later in life that I learned all the pains, struggles, and seemingly endless bullshit he had been put through. It's a blessing to live in a city that embraces it's own, and if it wasn't for Seattle, I probably would have never grown into the man I am today. I do wish I could have breathed this city while Kurt was alive, and I do wonder what this city would be like now if he had never passed. Unfortunately, neither of those can happen for me. Instead, we can celebrate the man that helped mold our young minds and make us who we are today. Rest In Peace.

RIP Baatin

One fine day in an HMV in Philly I run into Baatin and got to chop it up with him for a minute. By far one of the nicest and realest rappers I've ever met. He's been through his shares of ups and downs, but always seemed to push through, stay positive, and keep a good spiritual health. There's no details on his death as of yet and when I hear I'll update this. For now, Raise It UP.