Life is Too $hort





A really good friend of mine and awesome photographer, Peter Graham, just finished the album packaging for another good friend of mine, Too $hort.

Here are some of his best shots...

Dear Santa...




I have been a very good girl this year, and not because I'm 8 months pregnant with my first son! Okay, maybe that has something to do with my good behavior, but nonetheless, I have been doing my part on the internet to be less judgmental, more positive in my critiques, and altogether more zen when my crazy anger streaks rear their ugly head. I'm donating my surplus baby shower gifts to needy moms (the ones without receipts, that is), attempt to recycle everything in sight, cut down immensely on Myspace-hating (I will quit someday, but some people make it sooo easy!), and cut out many of the toxic people in my life that only invite more drama.

Santa, I know this piece of jewelry is pretty frivolous, but it matches my grill so perfectly, an equally gorgeous/trivial piece. So far I have a great house, a handsome fiance, an awesome job, a supportive family, and an income that has allowed me to pay off my bills and still shop for myself, this is the only thing that I want that has absolutely no purpose.

So while I know that I should be spending all my money on diapers and Southwest Reward Miles to the Bay, its nice to still wish for something just...for...me.


Did I mention my birthday is this Saturday?

Love,
Da Truf

Tommorrow night (FRI) in Eagle Rock

I'm dreaming of an UGG Christmas




It's my first holiday season in Los Angeles, and boy do they do things differently around here! I admit, it's a rather pleasant 70 degrees with a breeze in late November, and I know how freezing wet it is back home in the Bay during this time of year, so it's nice. But the annoying and amusing thing is watching all the Uggs come out of hiding.

Well, actually, they're never really hidden out here. Broads be wearing Uggs and miniskirts in the dead of summer as well, but now, people really think they have a reason to rock them! Little girls, big girls, fat girls, skinny girls, frumpy girls, slutty girls, OC moms, and West Hollywood queers...

I just want to know why women insist on wearing them with hot pants or minis when it really is cold outside. Do they think that covering up mid-calf is less trashy? Do they want to remain "hoochie but casual"? It's almost like wearing a scarf with a tube top: pointless!

Much like crocs in NY in the summer, Uggs in LA may be comfy-looking and a regional phenomenon to boot (pun intended), I vow never to be that sloppy-looking and ill-reasoned about my fashion footwear choices. But hey, to each their own.

Sorry for the disappearance...





...but I was busy in the Bay getting engaged =)




Updates, updates, updates next week.

Enjoy your turkey and Thanksgankin' celebrations.

You GO, Pinay!

When "Keepin' It Real" goes WRONG

Woman Dies As Car Rams Crowd
Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2007 by Richard Winton and Jean-Paul Renaud

(Ghettoest parts indicated in bold)

A brawl among about 30 women near a busy South Los Angeles intersection turned deadly Monday when a woman plowed her car into the crowd, killing a woman who was eight months pregnant, authorities said.

Los Angeles police said that at least two other women were hurt, one critically, when they were rammed by a gold convertible near the corner of West Slauson and South Western avenues. The victim in critical condition is expected to lose her leg, authorities said. Police officials said the motorist sped off after driving into the crowd, but that she later showed up with her mother at the 77th Street station and was being questioned there by homicide detectives Monday night.

The brawl was part of a planned showdown between two groups of women in their early 20s, according to LAPD Cmdr. Pat Gannon. The cause of the dispute was unclear, he said.

The fight began shortly after 2:30 p.m. at a Big Lots discount store parking lot, where witnesses saw women shouting at one another and fighting, Gannon said. The brawl then spilled onto the street and across Western to a nearby 76 gas station.

At the gas station, the driver of the convertible got into her car and drove into a group of women, pinning one of them against another car, Gannon said. Meanwhile, a crowd of dozens gathered.

"It was totally an intentional act to kill the woman. It was the driver's way of settling the dispute. It was a horrific act," said LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck.

He added that the showdown "was not a spontaneous dispute. This was a planned fight."

He said the confrontation unfolded at one of the area's busiest intersections -- a corner dotted with chain stores -- and played out in front of 200 to 300 onlookers. Gannon said the brawl, believed to involve women only, was "very unusual."

"We have seen women around gangs before, but we haven't seen anything like this event before," he said.

One witness, who asked not to be identified, said the driver hit the pregnant woman with her car, dragged her nearly 10 feet until she fell off, then backed up and ran over her again.

The witness said the driver was involved in the dispute. She said that the driver screamed and threatened the other women before getting into her car. According to police, however, the driver said after turning herself in that she drove into the victims accidentally.

The witness said the brawl was over a man, and that word was widespread in the neighborhood before the incident that there would be a confrontation Monday afternoon.

Larry Berry, 22, a neighborhood resident who showed up at the scene after the fatal confrontation and who identified himself as a friend of the woman who was killed, described the victim as "a very giggly person. She can irritate you and aggravate you, but it's all out of love. She was just bubbly." He said the victim had been a cheerleader at Dorsey High School and that when they were in high school they went together to their prom and homecoming celebrations.

Berry, standing within view of where the victim's body was covered by a white sheet, said he didn't know what triggered the confrontation.

My commentary:

My first initial thought was, "who invited the prego to a showdown on Slauson?! WTF?!" I was immediately disturbed at the gravity of the event, being that I am in similar condition, and suffer from a quick temper as well, but this is just too much. No matter how serious the conflict is, the prego lady that got ran over should not have been involved. And if her homegirls were there, why wouldn't they tell her to chill out, and they'd take care of it? Even if she was a bystander, she should have been miles away, signing up for WIC and decorating her nursery in South Central. Over a dude, too?! This just pisses me off. And then to top it off, homeboy they quoted didn't have the nicest things to say about the woman, even after he seent her get ran over. People, we need to get it together!

Confirming what I always knew...



ABC News: Marijuana: Not as Disruptive as Thought?

(They might as well exchange that question mark for a period.)

American Gangster: Snoozefest 2000





Two words for this movie: BO. RING.

I wish I had three hours of my life back.

Who gives a flying fuck about Richie Roberts and his goddamn custody battle?

T.I., one of the main reasons us ladies went and saw it, was in it for 6 minutes.
Boo.

The documentary on BET was way more interesting.

WTF was Jay-Z thinking? Did he even catch a sneak preview? What a waste.

Anybody who said it was good, was comparing it to the box office's slim pickings, or was so afraid of being racist that they gave it good ratings. Case in point: Crash.

Don't believe the hype. Go watch "Darjeeling Limited" instead.

(For a play by play, check out Bambu's Rants)

Thizz In Peace


Andre "Mac Dre" Hicks (July 5, 1970- November 1, 2004)


Exactly three years ago, one of the Bay's most prolific rapper's lives ended, and almost simultaneously, my journalism career began: Andre "Mac Dre" Hicks . I was in my magazine journalism class fall semester pitching the final story for a class, and decided I wanted to do it on Bay Area Rap. The question I raised was: Why do Bay Area rappers' lives get cut short before they reach their maximum potential? Mind you, the semester started in September, and the story was pitched in early October 2004, with Tupac Shakur and the RBL Posse in mind. I also recently finished an expose on the crew Broke Niggaz Thievin' out of Hunters Point, in which 4 out of the 6 members were murdered.

One month later, my girl Amy called me and said, "I think your story just got interesting", as news of Dre's murder in Kansas City reached the Bay Area. I felt sick to my stomach at my coincidental foreshadowing. It was Dre's murder that spawned the beginning of the Thizz Nation, and later, the Hyphy Movement. That became my catapult to my career in music journalism.

Since his death, I've thought of him often, spoke of him often, and have interviewed the people closest to him. In the months after his passing I interviewed San Quinn and the Done Deal fam when they were still under one roof. Quinn told me that Dre was the type of dude to look you right into your eyes when he talked to you, out of respect. It was my first time meeting my soon-to-be big brother Quinn, and I can tell how hurt he was at the news of Dre's murder.



I've spoken to Yukmouth, who told me that he's the one who blessed Dre with the alias, Thizzelle Washington, on his album, United Ghettoes Vol. 1. Even with Yuk being one of the most controversial rappers beefin' with other artists, such as $hort and Game, Yuk stayed true to his cuddy and was one of the major promoters of Thizz and Hyphy outside of the Bay.

Mistah F.A.B., Dre's protege and biggest representative, broke down the Thizz Movement for me in the article, Intellectual Thizzcourse, from the January 2006 issue of Ruckus. Along with his homie Stretch, they broke down how people acted after Dre's passing, whether or not people were just riding the wave and exploiting his legacy, and how they planned on moving forward after their devastating loss.



Mistah F.A.B.

...exploitation comes when people outside of our camp continuously tryna capitalize off Mac Dre shirts or, "I got these Mac Dre sunflower seeds." Tributes to Mac Dre mixtapes is just an easy way to say "Lemme capitalize off his name right quick. As far as inside the camp, we have to build our own identities, as artists. A year has passed, the artists that will try to be involved, we don't want another Mac Dre. We don't want nobody who know all his steps or his lyrics.

Stretch

When someone passes, there's no set date of when you have to stop memorializing that person. So when my album come out a year later, does that mean I shouldn't say something about the person who has such an influence on me, just 'cause my album didn't come out a week after he passed? Each individual always gonna have their own feelings and their own memories about Dre. You can't tell nobody how to memorialize somebody.

In the same issue, I interviewed someone considered his biggest rival, E-40, about their relationship before his passing and whether or not they really had beef.

E-40

Me and Dre been over that, we been past that. I'm not saying this because Dre is dead, RIP right now. And I'm glad that me and Dre got even closer before he passed away. We was definitely tryna do like an album together, you know, be on each other's songs. He finally caught his niche. He found something he could really just talk about and just really tear da shit up. And that boy just start spittin' to the fullest like he was when he was a youngsta, before he went in. So I got major love for him, and that's real talk.

In the years since he's passed, I've done the Thizzle Dance with Kansas City rapper, Tech N9ne, onstage in Denmark, where he told me how much love Dre had in his hometown. Every Tech N9ne show I've seen since then, he's played a little of Dre's music in homage to his homie.






I've smoked Backwoods with Dubee Sugawolf, who said that Dre wasn't even originally from the Crestside of Vallejo, but had so much love for the Crest that he slept in cars and was homeless to rep the 'hood since his moms put him out for hangin' with the O.G. Crestsiders.

Mac Mall told me last year that his love for Dre was so strong that when they beefed before his death, he was in such a deep depression that he quit music altogether for two years and staked out in Tupac's condo in Vegas, smokin' his brains out, not knowing whether it was day or night. When they finally did reconcile, Mall was humbled and ready more than ever to rep being one of the last true "Mac" aliases to come out of the Crestside.






I've even interviewed the man who was supposedly responsible for retaliating for his murder, Mac Minister.




And because of all this, I know in my heart that had he been alive, I would have been able to interview one of the most creative, original, and versatile rappers of our time, Andre "Mac Dre" Hicks. We could have shared a Backwood and spoke on life, music, and our biggest love, the Bay Area. But because of his passing, he put us back on the map after 10 years of recession that Pac's death in '96 caused. So this one's for you, Dre, we all still rep you to the fullest.