http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2pNVAzIhF4

OR, WHERE CHALI CAME IN BEARING A BAG OF MACKERELS
When Chali 2na (“Charlie Tuna”, Charles Stewart to some — news 2 me — not the fictional animated corporate pitchman, but a very real larger than life rapper, writer activist and band leader) spits, on his 2000 Interscope release “Quality Control” in track #2, “The Influence” “easily, 2na be, cleverly” (swelling his treasury), I naturally, Weissily, stupidly, wish- and wistfully heard “easily, tunily, CUBBERLEY” blah blah blah (as opposed to bee bee bah).

I was promoting all kinds of acts at the defunct high school theatre and multi-purpose room. Ozomatli, Chali 2na’s other vehicle had just played the theatre. The auditorium, where Cake, blink 182 and Broun Fellinis all played, did host some hip hop. I caught at a Japanese cultural event Shing02 playing a matinee under the name Terra Cotta Troops. I booked, because of my relationship with Bay Area Action stalwart Heru Hall, recently profiled in The Palo Alto Weekly, something called Black Male Renaissance Project (BMRP) of East Palo Alto, including an act called Whichicallit and Dem. (That was the kind of show wherein anybody that was part of the draw was also on the guest list; if you knew who was playing or at least could claim you knew someone who knew someone who knew (or was related, by birth, surrogate or by “it takes a village) someone, you were in, saving the five dollars, and you got a free poster, which cost me about two dollars a pop — it featured (euphemism for “I stole it”) the famous Miles Davis photo, that Joey Piziali recently helped me remember, because I asked him about the stencil art, near his mural, on Cali (not Chali) Ave, here. (Actually, “here” here right this minute — 12:58 on Monday, January 23, 2012 — means that same Cubberley — I am writing this on a public computer, at the temporary Palo Alto library, in the old high school auditorium, where John Neumann and Andy Zenoff and I once went to a high school dance, and yes, I am within fifty feet of the stage that the above-stated rappers and rockers, well, rocked.

I found in a pile, in a box, in a storage locker, not the jewel case just the disc, the Jurassic 5 bomb, my one and one-ly, and played that bit for the first time in a few years. And then, of course, found the video and lyrics for the first time.

I thought of this in reference to my study of John Steinbeck’s “Tortilla Flat” — Tortilla Phlat I call it above, yo — and the fellowship of the subculture of men in this case and their pursuit of not the Holy Grail but what’s inside, as Stew would say, or The Beatles’ “Revolver”, the wine.

I just came back from making a 45 minute presentation with my group: Penka, Eli, Milena and me. We rocked it! Jurassic 5 claims, in track #1, that they can rock it without a rehearsal, but we actually rehearsed — this was our firstiest hit. My girlfriend — that’s no lady — bought me a Foster’s 40 for the 49ers game but I punted it in deference to my gig. It was an interesting group: we come from four different continents and speak between us seven languages, and it took some doing to learn, indeed, to rif off each other and build and not compete. That Penka is a concert pianist, and Milena sings in a cover band — and writes her own stuff, she says — and I, of course, sang once — twice even, with the Foothill Chorus, made me want to work up a few songs –like a group sing of Sublime’s “What I Got” but we will have to wait for a command encore or something. But there was definitely and undeniably a group dynamic that we worked on and worked up. And it worked! In my mind and our minds, regardless if The State could feel us truly. Truly, easily, tunily, Foothilly, rock-abilly, Bah dah dah dah dee dee dee dee and all that.

But don’t take my word on it, C 4 your shelf:

http://www.amazon.com/Quality-Control-Jurassic-5/dp/B00004THKW