Not too much longer

Guys,

I'm going at it alone out in Hernando County, with my partner gone to Philly on vacation all week. Plus, I'm back and forth to Tampa for this Bowl Game and I got some other enterprise stories due by early next week.

So I'm swamped.

But gimme about another week of this ghost-town blog thing and and then i'll be back.

What's been good?

What's the deal fam? Been outta pocket for a minute now. But I'm back on the block like Quincy Jones.

Got some ish in store for you this week, including my 30 minute convo with a real live gold digger at Applebees, my family's cruise that went by a couple names, like Breakin' All The Rules, Thomas' and Family: What Now Niggas?, and Holla at Ya Fam.; I also got a Music Dude and Movie Dude post in the holster and my long planned TiVo post.

Keep checkin back.

And yo -- Allen Iverson for President in 2008 (look at those ridiculous numbers). And Kerry Washington is on that ticket, too (i'd be so on time for that).

Music Dude presents: Twistinado's return

Magic came back. Jordan came back. Sugar Ray came back. Ali came back. Jay-Z came back. Rakin came back. Travolta came back. Prince came back. Bobby Brown came back. Hubie Brown came back. Marion Barry came back. FDR came came back. my old boss Van came back. "Chill" never left, but "fresh" came back. tight jeans came back.

...and Twistinado is coming back, too. Not for long. This is a one-n-done thing. One verse, probably one of my patented 64-bar specialties...and then I'm out like shout.

Why? That's what some of my niggas may be asking. Why one last verse, Twist? Well, quite simply, it's because of a dream (a dream, Vince? you on that again?). But there's a longer story here and I'm gonna tell it.

Note: some of you, especially post-2000 Twist aquaintances won't care about the novel-blog contents below. But for my niggas, read on...

As most of you know, I was an ill emcee back in the day. I started rhymin when I was 10, got good by the time I was 12 and was an outright maniac by the time i was about 15 0r 16, reaching a pennacle in my late teens.

This is no joke. If you don't, then somebody shouldve told you.

I had my two compadres: Tony, aka Fella Mics; and Ab, aka Prince of Persia. We were fire. We never had any dreams of becoming rap stars. That was silly. We just did it because we loved the music and love the artistry of being an emcee. And we were dope at it.

Tony and I used to rhyme on window seals at school. Or skip classes and rhyme in the lockerroom. We battled seniors when were 12 and we blugeoned them.

Ab and I used to buy fifths of SoCo and rhyme on the Humboldt bridge at night. We rhymed on local mixtapes.

I rhymed on my cousins LP.

That track, "Statistics", was the last time I ever wrote a rhyme. My cousin Digga was puttin together an album and he wanted me to do a solo track. I told him I wasnt really feelin it, since I was trying to distance myself from the music (like I'm about to do in 2006) and just wasn't really writing like that anymore. It was the Spring of 2000, a couple months before I moved to DC. My nigga Tony was at Howard. My nigga ab was in NYC at Bethel. I just wasn't on it like that anymore. But I aquiesced after I heard the beat Digga produced. So I took the instrumental home and banged out two verses in a couple days...

Note: all this garbage about how niggas walk up in studios and bang out verses in 15 minutes without writing anything down is 1) baloney and 2) somewhat true and part of the reason all these wack hop verses sound so elementary and preschoolish. no thought is put into em.

But when I walked into the studio that Saturday afternoon, with my ryhmebook and my 22 oz. heinekhen, I told Digga that after I spit this, I was retiring. I know, I know, I know..."retiring? nigga, you ain't some nationally recorded artist." You're right, but that's just how emcees think. In your self-absorbed world, you're the baddest mofo ever. so an announcement like, "I'm retiring" is just a pompous way to say, "these are the last verses I'll ever write or spit again."

Digga looked at me and said, "You trippin dude. But I'm glad I got em on my album. make sure u go out in a blaze baby."

He knew I wasnt tryin to make a career out of it, although I'm sure I couldve, and he also knew I was trying to get my head on straight as I left for DC and hiphop can murk things up...thats for my 2006 "I'm Threw With the Hop" blog, though.

Anyways, I dumbed out on the track. My last words on my last verse of my emcee days was,

Outta ten times I rhyme
Nine'll be divine
The other supernatural
Actual miraculous
Lyrically smashin six,
cabbages disastrous
thoughts bless
innocent targets in progress.

I'm sorry, but that's a Source hiphop quotable.

That was June 2000 and didnt write not a blessed word in a notebook since. I didnt even freestyle. which was crazy, because that's what me and my crew did. whenever we gt together, it was freestyle time. On our way to Toronto? pop in the instrumental start the cypher. In they ard at Howard Homecoming? freestyle time. -10 degrees outside in Buff? Kop $13 Elvin Jones, one swig and pass, start the cypher.

But no more for me. I can remember me and my DC crew being at Republic Gardens for a party my girl Nabila threw. Her brother and my boys started freestyling and my man Chuck came up to me like, "Yo, Twist...I know u gona bless the cypher!" No go.

My nigga Tone wrote an absolutely ridiculous verse back in 2002...a joint that wouldve usually sent me back to the lab to write something so we could them together, but I was done. He was dissapointed, but I was done.

Which brings me to now...recently...let's say, over the past two years...I started listening to more hiphop. My reaquaintance with my first love was because of two things, my lax stance on keeping my mind free of the taint and my lax standards for the music. I quit ryhmin in 2000, but I quit listenin to hiphop all together in 2001, partly because I thought it was influencing the way I thought too much, partly because I was beginning to expand my personal jazz collection and partly because after 2000 (Ghostface's "Spremem Clientele", Slum Village's "Fantastic", Dead Prez' "Let's Get Free" Wyclef's joint and the DeLa joint...oh an Refelction Eternal...they all dropped in 2G) hiphop got so wack that I wished it were a person so I could beat it to near death and piss on its wounds. I was still expecting hop to be 1993-4, 1998 and 2000. But it wasnt...in a real bad way.

four years later and I'm a jazz man. that's my sustenance. if i cant get it from jazz, then i dig in my crates and do the knowledge on some curtis mayfield. or I go get to know radiohead. or i go give spacek a pound. or say wuddup to Musiq or Badu. Hiphop is like the clown of the bunch to me. And as that clown, it makes me laugh. it entertains me and sometimes it actually nourishes me, like this last Kweli piece, which me and Vino banged like a cheap whore in Miami.

I say all this to say, that I found myself freestyling under my breath this past year or so. Always wack rhymes that I felt ashamed coming from the mouth of a dude that once wrote,

Niggas bitin this get tooth decay
or mononucleosis
I wrote this,
niggas quote this
ferocious
anecodote via cerebellum
swellin your dome as i explore like Magellan

(I was 15 when I wrote that by the way and the flipped that verse over the "Mass Appeal" beat on Digga's "Diggin For Gold" mixtape)

Anyways, recently I started thinking to myself..."can I still do it?"

Remember that episode of Martin where he takes off his ring and heads to the club to show Tommy and Cole that he could still pull a chick if he wanted to?

Well I had this dream where some young-buck wack nigga was challenging me on some ol', "Yo, this old nigga can't touch me. he probably rhyme like Melly-Mel or some s***. You don't want it nigga."

And he got to me. Usually, in those dreams I'd just let the young kid big his britches and go on about my biz. But my boys were here this time, like "Yo Twist, slay that kid. I know you not ganna let this wack nigga son you like that!"

What's this degenerate
little kid
gettin big
in his britches fo
didnt know that twist is visceral
spittin this
gettin his
since befo
this misfit get his first pubical
you know the ritual
this is gist the usual
dome top, chrome pop
technique
respect V
even though the said is not mutual.

I SWEAR THIS CAME IS A DREAM. and i remembered it. i have no idea what came after that. but the crazy thing is that i remember that right there and everything after that ryhming and being ridiculous. and i woke up thinking "yo, u spit a hot verse in your sleep. which is off the top of your dome."

So I decided, I needed one more verse to take with me to my hiphop grave.

So this is the plan. I'm gonna select some hot beat that's out right now. Go back to the lab, pen one last criminal, nasty, despicable, unfathomably dope verse and then post it on the blog when I post my novel-blog on why I'm divorcing the hop for the final time.

stay tuned...

Wednesday's with Mary

You all remember my landlord right. This was her intoduction to the blog. This gave you a little more insight into her steez. This is her too. And this is yet another example of her love of leaving me notes.

Well, my dear landlord, whom I'm very fond of despite her old-lady steez, just got some terrible news.

Her sister, Stella, the woman that lives around the corner from. The one whose pool I have full access too...she died last weekend. Sucks, right? Stella had no legs for the past 10 years and Mary took care of her...yep, all 75-years of Mary...still on the caregiver tip.

I called to tell Mary that the water company told me we had a water leak and she dropped that news on me. horrible. they had the funeral Monday and theyre taking the body back to Ohio to bury it. Mary can;t make the trip because her doctor told her that her heart problems were too severe for her to weather a plane ride.

So, apparently, dear old Mary is on her way out soon, too. And it figures, because you can hear a numbness in the tone of her voice. Yeah, you could tell she was sad, but, for some old gal like Mary, she contemplates death every day, probably. not a stretch to think she dwells on it. That's what her life has become. As active as she tries to stay, she can't escape that inevitability.

"Vince, this stupid doctor told me I can;t do anything all day besides get up to go to the bathroom. Can you believe that, Honey? With all the things I have to do? All I do all day is sit in this stupid chair and think about all the things that aren't getting done. "

"Is there some running around I can do for you Mary? I can always handle something for you while I'm reporting."

"Oh thank you so much, Dear. But, no. I'm just gonna sit here and waste away like the doctor wants me to."

She's a game ol' chick, but old-age and the natural process can take its toll on even the most vibrant and self-sufficient seniors. I mean, I don;t even wanna get on what's happened to my grandma in the past 18 months. It's enough to make a 26-year-old get a little teary eyed.

Anyways...I know some of you have commented on how you feel like you know my landlord based on the previous posts. So, I just wanted to hit you with a little update.

She's trucking along, weathering the storm for who knows how much longer.

Since I've been gone...

It's been a minute and, although I'm not the most conscientious blogger, I try not to go this long. Not only is this my personal pulpit and forum, but I also realize it's midafternoon reading material for a lot of my people...so I apologize.

With that said, the Fam Cruise begins tomorrow. We hit Jamaica and the Caymans. I'll be gone for a full week, kickin it w/ Pops and Moms, my sibs Lyd, P and A-Eazy (Chrish is still out of commission). My lil cuzzes Reese, Mel-Mel, Max and Clauds and my uncle Ronnie and Aunt...Sherril (?). It will be eventful and I promise, promise, promise to have the novel-blog of all novel-blogs upon my return.

Recently, though, I went to Miami to catch the Bills v Dolphins game with my hometown Buff crew. Niggas have all grown up. Most are married, many have kids. Some now live in NYC, others in Oakland, other in Houston, others in ATL, others in Detroit, others in Charlotte...some stayed in Buff. There were about 13 of us and outside of one ridiculous and forgettable incident, niggas had a blast. A blast for us entails drinking and making derogatory comments about each other. And I'd have it no other way.

So props to Vino, Nasty, Sleazy, Zigg, Uncle JT, Uncle Tone, Shaady and that dude he brought from Houston, G, Terrance, Scoobs, Wardlaw.

Jathan, Ab, Redd, Frank, Dubb, San, Rek -- yall gotta get down with us next year. we missed yall kats.

Meanwhile, Miami was absolutely astounding to me. I loved it. Aesthetically, its nuts. The weather was nuts. The Cuban women were nuts. The entertainment options was nuts. Don't know if I'm necessarily the kat that could live there. But it's a yearly trip from now on.