These Are A Few Too Much of My Favorite Things Syndrome

If I have to attend one more holiday party, I may burst.

I might have a touch of "These Are A Few Too Much of My Favorite Things" syndrome...which can lead in only one direction, likely GOUT.

I will though anoint thee with an invite to attend the Bay Area's Xmess party to end all X-mess parties...

I'll be kicking down some holiday mixes for the gathering, and if ya ask nice, will give ya a disc to keep as a stocking stuffer...

Greetings and Happy Holidays,

On Sunday, December 23rd, at San Francisco's Make Out Room, GIBBSMO is proud to present The Parker Brothers Christmas Spectacle. Please join us for a night of rocking holiday classics performed by the Parker Brothers and including their very special guests: Beth Lisick, Chuck Prophet, Stephanie Finch, Kelley Stoltz, Mark Eitzel, CVS, Tom Armstrong, Ralph Carney, Marc Capelle, Brian and Sandra Mello, Eric Moffat, Phil Crumar, Tippy Canoe and Spiral Stairs ( formerly of Pavement).

Also featured will be the hilarious (and bawdy!) comedic stylings of Johnny Megget and Chris Portfolio, as well as classic holiday reading by Pete Simonelli.

There will be someone bi-polar dressed as Santa, a snow machine, decorations, a tree, elves, drink specials and some other festive crap. The only thing missing will be your drunk uncle, and trust me, I will be channeling him all night.

A portion of proceeds will benefit the SF Food Bank and there will be a raffle featuring fabulous prizes from DEMA, Open Mind Music, Cha Cha Cha, Savers, RubyDolls, Event Magic, Lil Tuffy and anything else I can clean out of my garage and slap gift wrap on.

Tickets are available in advance thru the Make Out Room's website at: www.makeoutroom.com, or you can risk getting them at the door.

Santa and Gary the Magical Jewish Unicorn informed me it's probably going to sell out... or maybe not. But still, better safe than sorry suckers...

Uh, This is a dressy event, so act like you are appearing in court.

Thanks everybody.

Happy Holidays and I hope to see you all there!

Cheers,

GIBBSMO & friends...

What: Parker Brothers Christmas Spectacle

Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF CA, 94134

When: December 23rd, ( that's two days before Christmas, and one day before you are calling in sick to work.

Why: To benefit the SF Food Bank and to spread holiday cheer.

Watch: Doors at 8pm. Show begins at 8:30

Cost: $10 with 2 cans of food. $15 without.

Please forward this notice only to people who like to get their Santa on.

www.gibbsmo.com

I will be there, and hopefully still standing...

I've found myself in bars a lot lately, and nothing unusual there I suppose.

This past week, I was at two different tiki bars on opposite sides of the bay Thursday & Friday night.

Thursday's find was a delightful oasis I spotted on a basically bland stretch of Oakland residential surface streets...

Check out the Kona Club if ya find yerself near the intersection of Piedmont & Pleasant Valley Ave. I guess it's been there for exactly two years, but no one tells me these things...



It's apparently the product of the vivid imagination's of Crazy Al Evans & Bamboo Ben, two dudes who obviously made this joint a labor of love. They took a ratty run down english pub and painstakingly transformed it into a tiki heaven. The place is kept tropically cozy, even clean & tidy. The staff I met is friendly, drinks are exceptional, and exceptionally cheap when one compares what I spent at the Tonga Room the next night.

Yes that very same Tonga room in the Fairmont Hotel where a cheery cheesy cover band comes out on a party barge in the middle of a man made indoor lagoon . It rains every 15 minutes, and last call is at midnight, even on a Friday night go figger...

Then, needing extra libation, I was swept up into a cab, and ended my evening traversing the streets of the mission district between the 500 club, Kilowatt & Benders, finally shutting the dawn down at home with a cold bottle of Fernet and some roommates...

The next night, high in the east bay hills, far from the tropical concoctions, I entered the red wine zone. At a house party I was privy to a lot of very fine red wine drinking. Some Italian stuff was popular at first, but then a double magnums of 1996 Chateau St. Jean Reserve Cabernet was opened. That was a nice 3 liter black cherry and cassis burst, but then several bottles of mid 1990's "Cinq Cepages" went down rather quick as well.

For those not anal about grape juice, those 1996 Cinq Cepages were rated wine of the year by the Wine Spectator upon release, and are actually made of a blend of five red Bordeaux grapes, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot and Petite Verdot. I suppose a couple bottles these days are going for about $300-500 and all the wine we drank down on Saturday night would collectively be worth about at least a couple grand easy, if you could find any of this stuff at all...

Then again back when I lived in Sonoma in the mid 1990's, I was getting a lot of Chateau St. Jean product out the uh, "back door" for as low as $50 a case...

But those were the uh, good ol daze, and still money don't matter to me... Since I ain't ever had much. I'm all about da music...

And that's what I'm livin for this week again I suppose...

I gotta end this posting nonsense so I can get back to planning my holiday getway to L.A and then Las Vegas where I can see the one and only Cheap Trick playing on Dec 27th.

Cheap Trick - The Magical Mystery Tour

Tomorrow night, I'm apparently headed to see the legendary retired pimp & soul meister named Darondo at the Rickshaw...

Compared to contemporaries like Sly Stone & Al Green, Darondo walked away from the biz decades ago, and was only recently rediscovered for reissue by Ubiquity label. So they put together the album "Let My People Go", and brit DJ Gilles Peterson also got in on the action for his "Digs America" series.


Apparently Darondo had moved to Sacramento and is making a one night sorta appearance back in SF after decades away from the scene. So we hope it goes down boffo, should be funky, soulfully slick if not downright awesome...

Darondo - Sure Know How To Love Me


Darondo - Let My People Go


I hope he's aged as well as the wine I had on Saturday...

Anyhow...

Hope to see some folks down at the holiday party on Sunday at the Makeout Room


If not, we'll see ya in the coming months next year I assume...

Here's some additional happy holiday tuneage to close out this post fer the needy amongst us...




Ian Anderson ( of Jethro Tull) - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Bootsy Collins - Sleigh Ride

Southern Culture On The Skids - Merry Christmas Baby

James Brown - Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year


Daniel Johnston - Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

See Ya'll...

Recycled X Mess

This weekend I'm sharing with y'all a rarely seen video clip I edited that helped get a band dropped by their major label.

Just one of the many things I've done for people...

Hey, X Mess is almost upon us, and I've sort of really been slacking this year on delivering up the Yuletide goods to my blog trollers.

So I'll also recycle some X-mas hits from years gone by... so y'all can stuff yer digital stocking before it's too late.



There's a few classic holiday music tracks I've had laying about that I should share with my devoted clickers out there...

so scroll down to get 'em...

In the meantime...

all you info hounds might want to peruse the latest random holiday season news you can lose...

In a situation that further polarizes the sides negotiating aspects of greenhouse gas reduction, the United State's flat refusals to negotiate in Bali are a major setback in fusing global cooperation.

Tell Burger King They Can't Have It Their Way Anymore...

Workers who labor in the field's picking the produce we eat in our "fast food" make a pittance compared to other industries. In fact their pay is among the lowest in the US, rivaling 3rd world salaries. A farmworker must harvest 2 tons of tomatoes to earn just $50 a day.

Recently a campaign by OxFam has negotiated better conditions and pay and assurances from big chains like McDonald's that they will support a code of labor conduct.

Burger King has refused to join the other large scale fast food chains including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Apparently, despite ads that long claimed you can have it your way, they must mean everyone but their workers.

Visit the link provided below if you would like to support the efforts & get Burger King committed to increasing wages and enforcing better working conditions & raise the rates they'll pay the workers who pick their produce.

Tell Burger King to improve
farmworker wages.

In the entertainment sector:

Al Gore must be mighty proud that his invention the "internet" will be used to deliver Jackass 2.5 directly to an avid user base...for free.

That's right folks: MTV's Jackass franchise set free!

Michael Jackson reported to be booking a stint of gigs for next year in London England.

Bomb - Hate Fed Love back for more

This band's major label debut just showed up on iTunes after 15 years in the "out of print" category.

So in honor of this event, here is a long lost video I edited with Charles Cohen & the band's singer Michael Dean to introduce them to their new overseers at Reprise.

I'll let their former manager who posted it tell the story:

"In 1992 BOMB tricked Warner Bros into giving them an advance without having the band sign a record contract. BOMB hired Bill Laswell to produce their album "Hate Fed Love". The album was released but... Warner Bros didn't have a clue what to do with the band. Hence, BOMB produced this video to orient the corporation to their unusual world. The band was promptly dropped."



Oh ... here's those killer Christmasy cuts I promised y'all:

The groove meister out of Oakland lays down some subtle seasonal cheer here:

Jimmy McGriff - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town



Yes, this is a popular cut from an out of print collection no trailer should be without:
Commander Cody - Daddy's Drinking Up Our Christmas

Ans while we're going that way, why not bring in the Rev...

Reverend Horton Heat - We Three Kings

One of my fave New Orleans treatments of a Christmas classic from
New Birth Brass Band:

New Birth Brass Band - Jingle Bells

And when in doubt, why not turn to a nice dead jewish boy like Marc Bolan who can always bring in some Christmas cheer..

T Rex - Christmas Bop

I Like Ike

Had a great little dinner at the loud little Luka's Taproom in Oakland, frothy decent imported ales, a variety of fine fresh vegetables, and fish...

Got home kinda late...and began plugging in a new TV...

The old one died awhile back and we were doing our best to get by without it...

That sorta lasted a month...

But now a beastly 32 inch HD thingamajob sits were the ye olde box was...

After the set was finished looking for channels, I saw Ike Turner's face on the tube...

Which generally is never good for him...

And this time, it was final...

Newscaster said he was dead at 76...

I know he's been a media pariah for years...

But his contributions to rock n roll should go a lot further than being a mere footnote as a wife beater.

First off, let's be clear, he was a mean drug addict, but unlike O.J or your current first lady, he didn't kill anyone...

He made his amends, with the law, and at least with god... and now he's gone.

He was also one of the greatest, most driven showmen to ever wield an axe onstage or a studio.

Nuff said.

Here's the track that put him on the map... or sorta should have, since it sold a healthy half million copies in 1951. Some say it's the first real rock n roll record, made at Sam Phillips Sun Studios in Memphis.

In fact, Ike never was credited with this tune properly, just like a lot of stuff in his life.

Here he is ripping it up, at 19 years old, creating that fuzztone guitar sound long before Link Wray got his rumble on...supposedly because his amplifier had a hole poked in it by a cymbal stand.

Here's Ike Turner with Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats - Rocket 88

He soon had his own unit rolling up and down the highways, and a legend was in the making. By the latter 1950's Ike Turner & His Rhythm Kings were a serious force to be reckoned with...

He was well established as a bandleader before that certain young gal from Nutbush Tennessee joined the act and became his "8th or 9th" wife. His songwriting and studio efforts are well known and he also helped other artists as an A&R man including B.B King, and many others. Check out some of his early 1950's instrumentals and production work with the Kings of Rhythm to annoit thyself with his pre-Tina legacy.

Here's an instrumental track from some 1969 sessions.

Ike Turner & His Rhythm Kings - Getting Nasty


He went totally Hyperbolic at some point, and his persona changed...

After Tina left him, Ike really spiraled out of control, becoming a tragic figure. By 1989, he was sent to prison for 17 months.

But let's never forget that Ike was someone long before he became her backing musician...

Here's a comeback track Ike did some ten years after getting out of the joint, with a fellow reformed rocker named Billy Rogers a few years back...

i's a classic revision of a tune he did way back in the day...





Ike Turner & Billy Rogers - I'm Blue

Ike continued to record, tour and perform until his death.

In fact in 2007, he was finally honored with a Grammy, for best blues album... his farewell release "Risin' with the Blues"

More on Ike Turner at his official website



http://www.IkeTurner.com



Whatever you do... get some more Ike in your collection, ya really can't go wrong...

I doi sugggest perusing eMusic , the eclectic all DRM free MP3 indie based download website that has plenty of material from this legendary cat ( at prices less than half of I-tunes & others)...

and if yer a new member, heck the first few dozen are always free to keep... with no cancellation fee or penalty if ya wanna quit a good thang...

Ike Turner 1958-1959 Ike Turner 1958-1959

Yuletown Chocolate Aubergine Mad Apple Throwdown

I'm busy... or at least I should be...

Yet somehow I still have time to discover the truth about eggplant, and participate in viral marketing experiments.

Today I've been editing an educational video for a project currently...lotsa windows open, capture card running hot, audio sweeteners, and clip sequences in the dozens all lined up for trimming & razoring as I build the menus etc...

But in the interest of procrastination, and adding more muck to the ol' internet, I thought I'd take a quick break...

So along with an eggplant parmigiana sandwich snack, I'll get some yik yak out to ya kids in a minute... After I gulp this tasty hot sandwich, I'll let y'all gander at some random rants & content du jour...

First up,

I hope you are familiar with the delightful concept of "eggplant parmigiana", aka known as Eggplant Parmesan...

They call it in Italy "Melanzane", which means "Mad Apple"

One of the most popular varieties being "Listada de Gandia"...



They call it something else altogether in England and France, the pretentious Aubergine, but since those are annoying faded empires, why sorta escaped me...

and when I looked into it I found it had something to do with the Sanskrit word for farting...

seriously...

Here's a pretentious sorta little song from a PDX songsmith that also uses the word Aubergine as a title, but as far as I can tell the word is not uttered in the song itself

...but maybe he farts before the bridge...

Kind Of Like Spitting - Aubergine ( acoustic)

[demo of a track from the 2005 Hush Records release "In The Red"]

So let's just move on...

The first eggplants, for whatever reason they were so named, were known as being small, white & round, and have been cultivated for centuries. They likely first appeared in India, then China where they are documented in the 5th Century B.C and eventually they are found hitting European shores after the Moors conquered Spain.

It soon spread all over, and some people... they believe it is the food of the gods... or perhaps resembles GOD, or is messenger of god or something.

Any eggplant parmesan though, whether it looks like god or not... is still usually pretty good.

Parma is a city in northern Italy of course, and they make a famous decent salty dried cheese there of course as well... and they are also known for a salty cured ham.

The style there was to mix Veal cutlets with bread crumbs cooked in butter (not oil!)

...and this originating recipe was supposedly born in the town of Parma In Italy.

Therefore it could be assumed that the "Parma" way in the kitchen is now apparently synonymous with breading & lightly frying.

Others swear the dish is really Sicilian, and that the name is a distortion of a term for describing the people of Palermo aka Palermitani.

Anyhow... since no one really knows, let's assume this:

Veal wasn't always around, hence Chicken & even Eggplant ended up getting the fried & baked treatment. Making for a rich, greasy, slightly crispy savory sensation of a preparation that still has many fans some 700 years after the first fights over it's origin.


Italians somehow get credited with dishes like Chicken or Veal Parmigiane aka Parmesan...where the German's might call that a "schnitzel"... or when in Kentucky... well you know "Kentucky Fried"...

Yer basic Italian eggplant style is to take a dull toxic loaded eggplant and doctor it surprisingly well, so the poisonous nightshade flava is masked by olive oil, cheese, breading, salt or whatnot. The roots of the dish vary, and according to some they never originally used the cheese, or tomatoes, but these corruptions and bastardizations get added...and they are staying as far as I can tell.


Me, I really don't really care about much of that bickering...

Let's call 'em all improvements ok!?

What's done is done...and it tastes great and is NOT less filling.

So just enjoy:


Eggplant Parmesan or whatever ya wanna call it, is still a very popular hot sandwich throughout South Boston, or anywhere ya find Americanized Italian deli cooking...

The dish would usually be left over, and sandwiches are made with the leftovers...

This recipe below for the Eggplants was actually credited to Frank Sinatra in a celebrity cook book once, so I thought I'd share it in case yer getting hungry, or curious...

Eggplant Parmigiane ala Sinatra

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut crosswise in 1/2-inch thick slices
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup (1-1/2 ounces) grated Parmesan cheese
1 (6 ounce) package mozzarella cheese
Tomato sauce (recipe below)

Instructions
Prepare tomato sauce (recipe below) and set aside. Combine flour and salt. Dip eggplant in egg, then in seasoned flour. Saute eggplant slices in hot oil in large skillet for 3 minutes on each side, adding more oil if necessary. Drain slices well on paper towel.

Place 1/2 of eggplant in single layer in 10 x 6 x 2-inch baking dish, cutting slices to fit. Sprinkle with 1/2 of Parmesan cheese, 1/2 sauce and 1/2 mozzarella cheese. Cut remaining mozzarella into triangles. Repeat layers.

Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until hot.

Tomato Sauce:
Ingredients
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped celery
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 (14-1/2 ounce) can tomatoes, cut up
1/3 cup tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
1 bay leaf

Instructions
Saute the onion, celery, and garlic in oil in a large skillet until tender. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper, parsley, oregano and bay leaf. Simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes or until desired consistency. Remove bay leaf and set aside. Proceed with eggplant as above.Yield: 6 servings


Credits
Recipe from: The Sinatra Celebrity Cookbook edited by Barbara & Frank Sinatra (Scientific American), whose proceeds originally benefited the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center at Eisenhower Medical Center, Rancho Mirage, California

click da pic to look for a new or used copy on Amazon





Now I would just eat some of that there, then wait.

That's right, just like Lasagna , save some & put the rest back in the fridge for a day or two...

When ya return you've got some good eating there buddy boys & gals...

Slap those leftover breaded eggplant slices in da middle of an Italian or whatever Hoagie Rolls ya got, slather with a lil' more sauce & cheese, heat open faced for 5 and then close & toast for another 5 or so minutes until the bread is kinda crispy & voila!!!

wrap it with foil... take to the game, or mow it down while driving...

Sit in a corner by yourself... whatever, just don't share a single bite...it's yours dammit!!!!

Just frickin enjoy it ya hear!!!

Anyhow...



I was out of town over the weekend... went down for my monthly Los Angeles sojurn...

Been down there so many times, I have bars I go to more than ones here, and after a few Allagash Wheat beers I got my hotel mixed up and tried to check into the Bonaventure instead of the Biltmore...

Like it makes a difference anyway...

I also left my hat at some Wolfgang Puck restaurant, and somehow didn't even have time to find parking so I could try the new Acai' berry yogurt in Japantown.

I eventually wandered out towards the ice skating rink in Pershing Square and watched a gawd awful No Doubt cover band destroy some Orange County classics while the bizarre scene of wary & wobbling Mexicans on ice drifted by...

I did manage to score some Debbie Harry vinyl remixes from her new release "Necessary Evil" from a couple disinterested looking corporate radio station promo lackeys...

Maybe if somebody wants me too, I'll preview a mix from that 12" thang at some point fer y'all...

But since I haven't had time to listen to Debbie's new 12", here's some rare Xmas treat, from a flexidisc that came with Britain's Flexipop magazine recorded back in 1981.

It features yer fave hip hop pioneer Fab Five Freddie getting down in that Rapture mode along with Debbie & Chris and the other Blondie boys at the time.
>
Blondie with Fab Five Freddie - Yuletown Throwdown

I just bought some small batch Beta chocolate online...

but I have to go pick it up in person at a pier near the waterfront in SF...

I don't have any idea what it will taste like either...

It's just another one of these fabulous dot com scams I love...

This one apparently foisted on me by the founder of Wired Magazine...



here you check it out...

Don't bother ordering it if ya don't live nearby though...

The rest of y'all can just get on the wait list I suppose...

These guys are using Chocolate from Ghana, and despite the high price, I'm not sure about whether they participate in any "fair trade" business practices. Louis Rosetto of Wired purports to be a free market libertarian and I doubt he'd be bothered by accusations of exploitive buyers.

Lately it seems Cocoa growing has become the new diamonds...

Growers claim markets are price fixing them out of the loop, while a DeBeers like consopiracy of middle men keep them from reaping profits on their valuable crops.

Canada recently announced they will investigate the "price fixing" claims of growers who feel that they are being unfairly kept out of the money loop...

In the interest of finding a suitable compromise of music to transition from where this post started and will end, I present to you music that's sorta got that sweet holiday spirit, is a bit twisted and is still worth it's weight in bandwidth...

Tom Waits - Chocolate Jesus

From his Anti Records release:
Mule Variations

Speaking of Chocolate,
I know y'all were loving that Chocolate Rain...

heck that guy guy has pulled in over 12 million You Tubers with that video...and network TV exposure on Jimmy Kimmel.

So our viral marketing pals over at Dr. Pepper jumped aboard his tip with their new flava "Cherry Chocolate Rain", and the rest is marketing mayhem history...

Here's the big budget video of the sequel to Chocolate Rain and of course the mp3 for all you downloadin deviants out there....



Tay Zonday - Cherry Chocolate Rain

Anyhow... It's beer thirty...
enough video editing for today...

Don't forget to write...

Big Pimpin'

While the mainstream entertainment media is a twitter that Tom Petty can extend the life of his career a bit longer with a half time appearance at the upcoming Super Bowl, the grim reaper is never far away in show biz.

Last week, we lost Las Vegas based denizen Kevin DuBrow of Quiet Riot... and this weekend the Grim Reaper went after Houston's Pimp C.

The Reaper recently took out Houston rapper Pimp C, age 37, at The Mondrian hotel in LA this weekend.

After serving almost 8 years in a stint in Texas prison, Pimp C had rejoined UGK ( Underground Kings) and had just performed with Too $hort at The House of Blues. Other projects included recently receiving acclaim & awards for "International Players Anthem" with Outkast's Andre Benjamin, and his best known tune was likely as a guest on Jay Z's "Big Pimpin".

Jay Z with pimp C - Big Pimpin'

Here he is from 2006's Pimpalation, with Knockin Doors Down...

Pimp C - Knockin Doors Down

The hotel where when the doors were knocked down and they found out that Pimp C had kicked the gilded pimp bucket, is no shady lil' low rent motel. The Mondrian's proximity to the nightlife on the Sunset Strip and adjoining Sky Bar, make it popular with players, glitterati and wannabees alike. Generally the people going in & out of there seem to have no concern about paying bills, and his label Jive, Too $hort or the club were likely dropping some dough on Pimp C's room.

The publicity comes at a bad time for the hotel's owners Morgans Hotel Group, which owns several struggling , yet high profile party spots like the Hard Rock in Vegas, Royalton in NYC, and Delano in South Beach.

Here I am enjoying the uh, unique, atmosphere at the Delano... and a tanq & tonic.

Anyhow, the publically traded hotel group's CEO, Ed Scheetz recently resigned after a 23 year old "girlfriend" was found OD'd on cocaine & oxycontin in his Vegas condo. Amongst the last known communications from Scheetz gal pal , Michelle Lynn Hatchel, was a text message to a friend stating that ""I can't believe how much coke he does, all the time, all day long," ...

Scheetz looked increasingly gaunt in photos when compared to the chunky real estate exec of the 1990s, as seen below.

The 40 something exec had been a player in the New York City real estate scene in the 1990's before signing up with Morgans. Scheetz rose in the finance world due to his "straight laced" style, but after keepin the story out of the media for weeks, lost his phat CEO gig due to this drug death scandal. He left with a phat severance package worth millions, while Hatchell's family in Colorado couldn't even get a police report for weeks. Here is Scheetz in a recent pic with SF's party boy mayor Gavin Newsom, before both had to take account of their "personal issues" this year.


In other dumb & sad sorta non-news...

I just read that rapper Spice 1, a "straight mutha f*ckin East Bay Killer" is in critical condition after being shot early Monday morning. At least 2 bullets penetrated his chest, and the gangsta rapper who has been in the game for almost 2 decades is in bad shape.

While I ain't too familiar with all of the Spice 1 ouvere, I admit I was never overly impressed with his beats, flow, lyrics or even now, his current fate.

He was part of the prolific early 90's Bay Area rap scene, and grabbed airplay all over the country at one point, appearing alongside E-40, Tupac and other well known & not so well known Bay Rappers.

Spice 1 tended to aggrandize his violent lifestyle, spitting out a series of thuggish, mysogynist, murderous and hostile epithets in his albums.

Here's some couplets from his track "Dumpin 'Em in Ditches"

I do a 1-8-7 with this motherf*ckin glock
Shot you in the body
Had to break the gat off in his ass at the party, nigga
Crazy as f*ck, I thought you knew me
Quick to put the bullets up in the motherf*ckin uzi, bitch
A og nigga, so I gotta g-o and creep slow
And get this nigga while hes steppin out his car door
Bust, bang, I let my nugs hang, chewed out my mustang
And let this motherf*ckin gat sang
A bloody glock and a pocket full of rock
Got my shit on cock cause my slang dont stop

Too $hort supposedly got him signed to Jive records after Spice's his indie debut " Let It Be Known" made some buzz for itself in 1991.


He was a fan of generic rap cliches, never shyed from referring to anyone as "nigga" and bragged about his street skills, including his ability to cook his own rock cocaine for sale, rake the dough, and murder his rivals. His 1992 Jive debut went gold, as did the two followups, all playing into the gangsta rap trend that took the world by storm.

His guns, his thuggin' abilities & delivered at times with a homophobic fervor were all subjects of his "songs". Somehow a shooting fits right into the career, and if the guy lives to rap again, I'm sure it will become part of the schtick.

Here's his 1995 song "born II Die"


It used to be that only the inner city was a dangerous place around here...


But Spice 1 was shot in his suburban driveway in Hayward, a relatively quiet area near a public park & school. Spice 1( aka Robert L. Green, Jr) was apparently passed out in his car for whatever reason around 12:30 am when a suspected latino dressed in dark clothing opened fire. Spice 1 was hit in the chest & chin according to reports, and was in critical condition last I heard.

This is not typically the heated turf districts of the "murder dubs" in Oakland, or the low rent housing projects. Despite high property values, the educational background & intellectual capacity in these parts is fairly low.

Earlier this year I wrote about 19 year old Jonquel Brooks, a Hayward teen who although was enrolled in college, still managed to shoot & kill someone during an argument over a Playstation video game.


Sadly Hayward, a once simple working class suburb has become increasingly dangerous, as a bold shoot out at the commuter BART train stop in broad daylight showed last year. Murders are now double over last years tally, white flight has long been in effect, and latinos are outnumbering african-in the turf wars.

That may mean only 7, compared to nearby Oakland's 114 so far this year... but this a former farm town, where up until the late 1970's the Hunt's Catsup factory was the biggest employer. Once the tomato & other produce farms were gone to development, Hayward became a victim of it's own suburban sprawl.

It's a town with seemingly no direction or purpose, it's main assets are proximity to the freeways. Filled with mostly tacky, less than pretty looking housing, it's now becoming part of the turf wars and ranks 141st in the nation on the most dangerous cities list. Nearby Oakland, where I'm writing from today is 4th, but Hayward with a population of almost 150,000 seems to be catching a contact high. Moronic gangs are claiming "turf" in once rural areas. The fact that "Castro Valley", "south Hayward" or "North Hayward" gangs would ever exist would have elicited abject laughter just a couple decades or so ago. Now a simple search of google with the terms "nigga" and "hayward" combined comes up with over 26,000 hits, many are myspace pages & memorial shout outs for deceased drive by victims, and other gang related boasts...

With Spice 1's braggadoccio fueled murder music to keep the flames fanned, hopefully for the sake of all the blood thirsty playaz, a real honest & pointless gang war between drug gangs can make Hayward the hellhole it's been morphing into for years.

In the meantimwe, while the "street soldiers" get all armed & dangerous, let's enjoy some Spice 1 tracks while he recuperates...

Grave Plott (feat Spice 1) - Street Life
Spice 1 - Crazy