From: djfatboy1@home.com (Fatboy Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.music.hip-hop
Subject: (Part ONE) Random Discombobulated Mental Shit--The 2001 Edition
--------

Not really random, since it's actually linear story and shit, but hey,
maybe I can fuck with it. I figure I should write it down while it's
still fresh, considering this is one of the few new years I didn't
spend with my face jammed into a camera.. So for the purposes of
keeping a written record of last night and possibly entertaining some
of you suckers, here we go:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, on the drive up, the conversation between Pete and Jen had slowly
faded from the gentle babbling to a mild humming noise as the
daydreaming part of my brain went into overdrive. I think they put a
tape in, an audiobook by Stephen King, after a little bit. But I was
on I-5, and the drive between Eugene and Salem on I-5 makes it
mandatory that you daydream for a minimum of 15 minutes, regardless.
Which is why, I guess, you see a pileup pretty often on the news.
Daydreaming in a hunk of steel hurtling across concrete at 70 miles an
hour isn't exactly safe.

So I get to the part in my daydream where the blond girl starts
humming my balls while the dark haired girl is going nuts, and that's
when I realize that this new years..I need to get laid. Bad. I usually
don't think much of the casual sex shit, but dammit, it's been too
long, and I DESERVE some fuckin. 2000 kicked my ass, and the least
2001 can do to make it up is let me dig up in some gills. Even if it's
only like 5 minutes. I mean, it's NEW YEARS. It's like the only time
even the good guys can do some dog shit and no one really cares.
Shallow and nasty as it may be, but you can only crust up so many
socks and wad up so many kleenex before you start to a) get bored with
it and b) worry about yourself. BUT...tricky shit is, I couldn't
pursue it really, because that desperation scent hangs thick, and is
amplified by the three tons of cologne motherfuckers usually douse
themselves with when they really need to hit it. And thinking about it
is only bringing that weird musky desperation smell up through my
pores ever so slightly. And since I'm kinda low key in the first
place, I resigned myself to the fact I probably wasn't gonna get some
THIS year, either..but I'd keep my eyes open. At the least, I'd
capture a pretty good mental image when yet another sock got starched
up later that night.

This trip into the inner pathetic was interrupted by Stephen King's
nasal voice calmly going on about a burnt cigarette butt being put out
in some Mexican gestapo's eye. And so, the daydreaming period had
ended; I tuned back into Jen and Pete's conversation, and it was all
business as usual. Smart ass cracks, Raiders talk, and making sure
baby John's one year old ass was being kept entertained. We stopped at
Jen's house, and dropped off John, who seemed pretty happy to see us
leave. Maybe he knew the cascade of "no" "don't" "Put that down" and
"quit faking you little actor, look at you." would finally stop
raining down on his soft blond hair that barely covered his round
slightly oversized baby head. He toddled to his grandma, grinning and
gurgling as chunks of cracker slowly tumbled down his Buzz Lightyear
nightshirt, and all of us kinda grinned with relief knowing we didn't
have to clean that shit up. Or maybe it was just me, I dunno..

So we hit the preliminary spot, where crew gathers before we roll 3 or
4 cars deep like we normally do. Pete pulls out the bottle of Cuervo I
had given him and Jen for Christmas. Tony and Chikkies, the only other
two at the pad besides us, grinned. Their eyes got that drunk twinkle,
and I started to question the wisdom in buying some fuckin te-kill-ya
for this particular group of knuckleheads. The rest of crew started
showing up about 10 minutes later, just as tony and Chikkies had
finished off the fifth, watery eyes slowly rolling, trying to track
the conversation as it ricocheted around the room. The Cuervo was
chased with 40 oz. Mickeys, and Jen was busy working on a huge white
bottle of Malibu rum. All this while the room was filling with people,
newport smoke, and the hazy stank of mary jane. The pipe never stopped
moving around the room, and the watery eyes were gradually rimming red
and bloodshot, half lidded and sleepy. I kept myself busy by clowning
on various people and fucking with Bald Bull on the punch out game
playing on the busted ass old school nintendo.

It was 6:45.

at 7:15, Jerrod, the cat usually responsible for getting the least
drunk, but most pissy, starts prodding people. "Where's the fuckin
party at, hunh?" His cellphone rang at him, and he got his answer
before any of the mildly drunk people in the ever crowding room
(Crystal, Doug, another Jennifer, a Jason and a Steve, I think) could
even start thinking to answer him. "That was Amy"

"Amy WADS?"

Amy Wads was Amy Wadkins. AKA Amy Poopskins. AKA Poopybutt. She was a
big girl. Wore too much makeup. She had gotten that name because Sean,
holder of the the Foamy Homie awards for 98 and 99 (given to drunkest
motherfucker in crew, named as such because Sean got so toasted he
drank the 40 down to the foam one night, and it clung to his lips and
chin like some perverted Santa beard as he ranted at Doug to "give me
that fucking BOTTLE, you FAG!" right before he fell down, mumbling
"Fuck you, pay me." Like Henry Hill in Goodfellas) had, in one of his
more drunk moments had a late night fling with Ms. Wadkins, and in his
drunken fumbling attempt to find the clitoris, jammed a thumb right up
her butthole. Ms. Wadkins, to Sean's amazement, wasn't disapproving,
and told Sean to keep it there. Sean proceeded to continue humping
Poopybutt with his thumb in her ass. How the story got out, I don't
quite remember.

"yeah, Amy Wads. Her and cousin Wads (her younger cousin Lara, who was
kinda cute and pretty quiet) are comin over here, pickin up Bean, and
then we pick up Quiz and he takes us to the party."

Jen rolled her eyes. "Quiz's party?"

I shrugged. "it's new years. Anything can happen"

She rolled her eyes again and hit the pipe. I could understand. Quiz
was about as bright as a retard who had spent his formative years
eating lead based paint chips and washing it down with Elmers. Quiz
was pushing 30, and had just finally come up on recording equipment.
He had once been a really fuckin dope rapper, someone I actually hoped
I could work with way back when I first started messin with hip hop.
But cube said it best: "Used to be down, now he's just cracked out."

Quiz seemed to be snapping out of it. Him and his partner Ric were
trying to come up on the hip hop thing, finally. Unfortunately, for
all their "we got a Digital eight track" this and "Yup, that's a Boss
TR808" that, they were spending most of their money pressing up cd's
with no track listing and tracks featuring instrumentals of mediocre
g-rap from 1997. Not even their own beats. Imagine my laughter when
out of nowhere, three weeks earlier, I hear Quiz on my phone talkin
bout "I got a record label, dog! You wanna get down on this or what?"
as if a record label was somethin extra he picked up as he was yanking
that Pioneer Supertuner and Kicker Speakerbox out some yuppies Ford
Mustang.

But the rest of crew didn't seem to care that this was Quiz and Ric's
party. All they heard was party, and to tell the truth, that was all I
heard, too..Quiz is easy to take care of, you just nod your head a lot
and move on. Besides--Party...parties have girls..."Sex, spud! Casual
Sex!" (5 points to the faithful reader who's actually STILL reading
and can tell what movie that line is from) the opportunity was there,
and even though I had already dismissed the idea, first in the car,
and later at the pad as I realized that the girls filing into the
crackerbox of a shack we were waiting in were the same girls from the
same hood I had always kicked it with and had seen hook up with other
crew members too many times. Casual Sex or no, some shit I didn't
wanna deal with. Plus disappointment ALWAYS comes when you hit a party
looking solely for females, because 9 times out of 10, it's a fucking
sausagefest of dudes doin the same damn thing, looking for the party
with the girls for the casual sex and scaring the girls off because
we're all fucking creepy jerkoffs who smell like desperation. And I
wasn't about to fuck with any of THAT.

at 8:15, Wadkins zoomed up the alley. Bean hopped out the car, and we
all gave pounds and "wassups" as Bean was quickly handed a forty,
which he just as quickly took to the dome. Bean was, as always, duckin
warrants. Old Dirty has nothin on this kid. But just like Old Dirty,
seeing Bean was a feat in itself, and seeing him in a decent mood was
even rarer, and he was ready to fuckin kick back and chill. it was New
Year's, man. Scott got out of the car afterwards, and we knew it was
on. Scott had, for 2000, taken the title of Foamy Homie from Sean in
grand fashion. Details are hazy, but dude went cross-eyed, screamed a
lot, tried to fight a couple girls and got beat up by his mom last new
years. And unlike Sean, Scott seemed perversely PROUD of this honor.
Luckily, we mostly only kick it with Scott on major holidays, so we
only see the amusing, stupidly hilarious side of this nastiness.

"yo, Fatboy..you got any new beats?"

"Yeah, Got a new song, actually"

"Whaaaat?"

"Yeah, me and Fee."

"The canadian kid?"

"Uh huh."

"So put that shit in already."

Jen, Pete, Tony, Scott pile in. I push play. We follow Amy's
taillights all the way out to the ass end of the suburbs. There's a
strobelite going in the window as we pull up to the destination. We
pile out of the 98 and start towards the sidewalk. I look to the side,
and in the silhouette cast by the streetlights sickly glare, I see
about 15 of us trooping down the sidewalk behind us, Led by Quiz. We
slow down and mix in with the group, idle chatter buzzing up, making
the group of shadows moving down the street look something like a
swarm of giant bees. The garage door was cracked open, and the door to
the garage opened. A fat face poked out, glasses resting on a pudgy WC
fields-like nose.

"Oh shit, it's Quiz ya'll! What up! And he brought.."

the fat kids eyes widened perceptibly behind his glasses.

"Damn. He brought a crew with him."

To be continued,
Fatboy

From: djfatboy1@home.com (Fatboy Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.music.hip-hop
Subject: (Part TWO) Random Discombobulated Mental Shit: 2001 Edition
--------

Picking up where I left off...

Quiz cheerfully goes "YEAH, it's OCK!" and bounded in like the worlds
biggest, dumbest puppy dog. I winced, because Quiz ain't OCK. But it
was New Years, it was his party, and OCK knew Quiz wasn't OCK, and his
stupid cracked ass was mostly harmless anyway. It was gonna be a minor
annoyance, I figured, but what the fuck. I was chilling with my
friends, it was New Years, and..

..and as soon as I stepped into the door, I saw, standing in the light
brown carpet that all cheap rental houses seem to have covering their
floors, two microphone stands. Their wires traced back to a fat little
mixing board, and on the other end of those wires, sat two Shure
microphones. I tracked the wires back to the mixing board, and
followed the wires from the board up to the top of the table where it
looked like two Technics and a mixer sat. and then MY eyes did the
drunk twinkle that Tony's and Chikkies had done when that bottle of
Cuervo hit their kitchen counter with that glassy smacking noise, and
I'm sure the same thought crossed my brain as I looked at the decks as
it did theirs when they saw the liquor: I'm fucking THAT shit up with
the quickness.

And then Ric's head popped up from behind the table, grinning, and the
sparkle in my eyes dimmed.

If you've ever seen "Bangin in Little Rock," you've probably already
seen Ric. He wasn't IN the suburban gang member HBO documentary, but
one kid that was in there looked, talked, acted and apparently thought
in the EXACT same manner as Ric did. I think the kid in the flick
named himself "Treig" or some shit. Anyway, Ric was basically Trieg
from that documentary--mixed with Al Bundy. He had his high school
basketball number tatted on his arm. Which would be
understandable...if he'd actually started. Or stayed on past his
junior year. Anyway, Ric seems to make everything a competition. Funny
thing is, Ric tried to do the DJ'ing thing way back in his sophomore
year, and couldn't do it then, either. Probably because he was trying
to rock shit with those plastic ass belt drive Gemini BD-10's that
skip the needle if you fart within 10 feet of them. He offered to sell
me his mixer, the tables and the two crates of records he had for 200.
I said yeah, trashed the turntables and laughed my ass off at how
cheap I'd gotten some of those fuckin classics and the discontinued
breaks and beats albums I'd hooked up. He, of course, had no idea what
he'd had, and by the time this party would end, I found out that even
7 years later, he STILL had no idea what he had and how to work it.

So, anyway, after a bit, Ric finally turns on his shit and starts
fucking with it. A little crowd congregates in there, and Ric loops up
the beginning to Computer Love. Quiz starts in with a freestyle, and
it's pretty dope gangster shit. I'm thinkin, "maybe I'm understimating
Quiz?" until I listen closer...it ain't a freestyle. This is a live
performance of a song from their album. and that's the beat. a
untouched loop of Computer Love. Quiz is amped like he just did the
grammies. "Yo, you seen my cd? Mayhem's on it."

I'd heard that story. Mayhem had gone over there with a tape of my
beats, after being told by Quiz that he could use their equipment and
record his rap over my beat. So Mayhem went over there, and they ran
my beat through, and recorded his lyrics, and sent him on his way,
sayin "We'll have that shit mixed and ready for you tomorrow, dog!"
May shows up the next day, and his lyrics are on...over some Ray Luv
instrumental from the b-side of one of his twelve inches. They then
put that on the album.

"nah, I ain't seen that cd. Lemme check it out, man."

He tosses me a CD. "Quiz: Game Tested" is on the bottom part of the
cover, a collage of pictures of Quiz and his boys, some of em members
of my crew, mostly posed in hardrock gangsta poses, shotguns and uzi's
in hand, rags flaggin and flyin. I flip over the back to check the
tracklisting..no tracklisting.

"Yo, Quiz, there's no tracklisting on this motherfucker, man!"

"Oh, I know, man, that's cuz, like, yunno, some of these beats aint'
like, they ain't ours and shit, yunno, so to make sure that we don't
get like, sued or nothin, we just decided not to put nothin on the cd,
that's my idea and shit, I figure if they don't know what's on it,
they can't fuck with us" He finished, with a giggle that was supposed
to convey the thought "aint I a sneaky motherfucker?" but came across
more like "Yes! the Lobotomy scars are going away!"

"But, how are you supposed to know what the hell you're listening to?"

He looked at me blankly for a minute, then whipped his head around to
the small crowd, and locked on Pete. "PETE! Man, you gotta hear this,
get Bean over here, too..This is that dope shit, man, check it out..
Yo RIC, Put this shit on."

Ric obliged, and the instrumental to some cats named "Homicide" off
Ruthless Records started spinning, and Quiz starts in "yeah! This is
my OCK song!" and I see pete wince, but keep up his front that he's
interested. I just wince and shake my head, retreating to the rear of
the party, where the girls seem to have congregated, watching the TV
and passing around the pipe again. Crocodile Hunter is on TV, and
inbetween hits of the weed, they look at the TV, fascinated by the
idiot australian who jumps on fucking CROCODILES and wrestles em. And
he's sober when he does it. Jen is, of course, at the center of this
weed session, with her funky hippie pipe and her little jar of weed. A
couple girls get up to go to the garage to smoke their cigarettes, and
I gotta wonder why cigarette smoke is evil and banishable to cold
garages, but motherfuckers are allowed to smoke dank ass bammer weed
in livingrooms like it's nothin.

I walk past Wadkins, who kinda looks up and smiles, but doesn't say
hi. I feel kinda bad about this, because last time we were up, Pete
found out about the Poopy story and, pretty sloshed by that point,
started singing a parody of "oooh" by De La about ms Poopybutt. I had
joined in at one point, because how--if you're a world class smart ass
asshole like me--do you NOT make fun of something so absurd as drunken
fucking with a thumb shoved up a fat girls ass? But Pete had gotten
less clever, and more bluntly mean. And loud. And Amy had left that
particular get together early that night. But Lara looks up, and keeps
looking. Smiles. I do a little double take, and girl is checking me
out thoroughly. I smile back and make my way over to Jen. She voices
her displeasure nicely.

"This is fucking wack. Quiz is stupid. And those girls are snobby
bitches. When are we leaving."

"Shit, give it some time." I say, thinking about Lara, the turntables,
and crystal, the curly headed blond girl who I saw across the living
room, laughing as she talked with one of Jen's "snobby girls." Jen is
continuing on, and I'm doing that "uh-huh, yeah" thing that guys do
when girls talk sometimes, usually during football and basketball
games. I glance back at Lara who has hurriedly looked away from me,
trying not to get caught staring but getting busted anyway. She leans
over to Poopybutt, whispering, and I know THAT shit on sight. and then
Jen's voice drops TOTALLY away, because it dawns on me...

Blond girl...dark haired girl...

Do dreams come true? Do you believe in miracles? Was my 70 mile an
hour daydream part premonition? Crystal had been rubbin up against me
earlier that night before we had all left, just for a little bit
before her and doug left to hook up some sacks. And I glanced back at
her, and caught HER lookin at me, slick little grin on her face. She
lifted an eyebrow, smile widening. I blinked, and turned back to Jen,
who was finishing up.

"and...are you even listening you fat motherfucker?"

"uh, yeah. Quiz sucks fat cock, that was the general gist, right?."

Jen blinked slowly, and smiled "Yep. That's about it." She replied,
pleased.

And then this grating, nasty noise comes crawling out the speaker, and
I hop up off the chair and move back to the main room with the
quickness, wondering what the hell is going on (and noticing Lara's
gaze following me across the room) when I see Ric, one headphone
cupped to his ear, behind the turntables. I slide next to Pete, and
lean in.

"What the fuck is that?"

"It looks like he's mashing a frisbee into a pile of dirt up there."

"Damn."

He affected a melodramatic tone."Yes Fat. Go. Go and rescue that
setup." So I move behind the tables, and a murmur races through the
room. I look up, wondering if someone's talking shit, and the number
of people just doubled. and their looking at me. Ric notices, and one
of em leans over and asks the question.

"Yo, you gonna let Fatboy hook it up?"

"Yeah, man, I was plannin on it." he says, and looks at me, thin smile
on his face. "I want him to teach me some shit. But I wanna keep going
for a bit."

"Cool. You should let Fatboy hook it up, tho."

"I will man."

I butt in, trying to chill shit out. "It ain't no big thing, man.."
and I suppress my gag reflex to get the words out: "Ric's doin his
thing, man, he's workin it and shit."

So Ric goes back to his breaks, and continues the tortured, arrythmic
murder of his wax. I go to the garage, and the crowd kinda disperses a
little. I open the door, and the world's biggest cloud of newport
smoke billows into the room. I can actually HEAR lungs crystallizing
as I step down onto the cracked concrete floor. Whatever cologne,
fabric softener, deodorant, whatever pleasant smells had been sticking
to the cotton blend of my adidas hoodie got immediately destroyed by
the bitter, acrid stank of ashtray. Oh goodie. But I see Crystal in
the corner, in a group. I walk over to the group, consisting of the
other Jennifer, Jason, Jerrod, Tony and Scott, and bullshit for a few
minutes before my eyes start tearing up and I have to cut off the
convo and bounce back into the living room. but not before me and
Crystal do the small talk thing, and she manages to make sure to be
pressed up against me for the majority of the time I'm out there. Her
half-lidded eyes smile up at me, and I can tell my image is doubling
up in her head, swimming around. But Jerrod is looking at me weird,
and I STILL can't remember if Crystal is hooked up with his ass or
not. I hear a muffled "Yo, where's FATS!" in the other room, and
leave, givin pounds and whatnot. I move through the growing crowd and
assume position behind the tables.

"Yo, Ric" Bean says, slinking up out of nowhere.

"BEAN! What's up man, you getting down on our record label?"

"Hey..you should let Fatboy hook it up."

Ric stops, looks to me, shrugs, and grins. "Alright, man, here you go,
show me what's up."

I grab the ear goggles and step behind the fader. The crowd presses
in.

To be continued..
Fatboy

From: djfatboy1@home.com (Fatboy Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.music.hip-hop
Subject: (Part THREE) Random Discombobulated Mental Shit--2001 Edition
--------

I look down at the system Ric's got set up. Little Boss sampler,
awright..the shit's set up on a bunch of milk crates or something just
as stable, meaning it's wobbly as a motherfucker. But Ric and his
tortured wikky wikky routines were swaying the table like the Andrea
Gail and his needles weren't skipping..which reminded me.

I glance at the needles on the tonearm. Nothing on em. No Stanton
symbol, no Ortofon, no Shure, no nothin. just plain gold lookin
cartridge. One of em is actually TAPED to the headpiece with a couple
raggedy looking chunks of beige masking tape. I look over at Ric.

"Yo, can I even scratch with these? I don't wanna fuck your shit up."

"Nah, homie, it's cool, go to work!"

I hit the start button on the 12 and and look over the mixer.

"What's this blue thing, man? What kind of mixer is that?"

"Yoooo!" he said with a sly grin "I can't let you in on all that, man,
just know I hooked it up fat, for real. I can't be lettin DJ's know
the shit I got, they'll be bitin and shit."

"Awright man, you say this shit is dope then?"

"Hell yeah it is!" and stepped back again, proud of not only his work,
but the fact he got one up on fuckin smart-assed Fatboy

I peek over the back pretending to check the cords, and look at the
back of the thing. Gemini PMX 60. He just spray painted the top of the
thing blue. I check the fader's movement, and just like most good
gemini's the fader moves like it's innards are coated with oatmeal.
I'm about to ask Ric about the "special modifications" he's made to
this mystery mixer when I lay a side on the platter. And notice he's
not rockin Technics, but those knockoff Gemini technics. At least he's
got some nice crates. I throw on the instrumental to "So Watcha Sayin"
by EPMD and try a little transform. The needle does a Carl Lewis. I
look up at Ric, astonished. He was fucking doing pushups on the damn
platter, and it wasn't jumping, he kinda grins at me "Yo, it'll move
around on you a lil.."

So I turn the deck sideways, like I got it on my Technics. Rick jumps
up off the wall in protest. "What are you doing?"

"I'm moving em sideways. They don't skip as much that way."

"Maaaan, we don't do that east coast shit out here."

I open my mouth to rebut this absolutely RETARDED statement, to tell
ric it ain't 1993 anymore, and what the fuck difference does a
turntables placement have to do with what COAST you're on, and while
you're at it, why don't you look at all the pioneering scratch kings
from the west and tell me how they got their fuckin tables set up you
half ass cokehead loser. But I just kinda blink, grin, and get back to
work. it IS his party. I toss off a pretty good combo, lay back for a
lil, and hit em with a flurry of flares, transforms and scribbles. The
crowd is shaking their ass, nodding their heads, pleased. I go to
change the beat, throw on "Peter Piper" oldy moldy, yes, but hey, when
has it ever NOT rocked a party, huh?

Apparently it doesn't rock Ric, because he finally moves over to the
tables after my little 2 minute shot of making him look like a fuckin
epileptic quadriplegic on the wheels and says "Alright, let me get on,
dukes. I woulda let you rock longer, but you're rockin too much east
coast, man.."

"But I was about to put on the new jam."

"Awright, but we'll do that laters. Don't worry man, we'll play your
new song."

I shrug, and step from behind the wheels. Ric puts on "Down for My
G's" by Nastyboy Klick and starts bobbin his head and growlin yeah
every few seconds like the unibrowed DJ from the buddy lee
commercials. Bean intercepts me as I make my way back to the living
room.

"Yo! What happened?"

"He said I was playing too much east coast."

"...."

"Hey, It's his party."

"But, uhm, we like hip hop, right? I mean, that's what I'd been told.
Peter Piper, yunno?"

Bean's eyes were kinda wandering, and weren't focusing in well.
Nevertheless, I could kinda tell what he was trying to say, what the
alcohol soaked sponge of a brain was trying to wring out onto his
tongue. "Hey, he don't wanna hear classics, that's on him."

"No OCK song?"

"He said later."

"That's fucking BULLSHIT. He's frontin, ain't he."

"Hey, I dunno man, maybe he just wants to rock his equipment."

"No, he's pissed because he fuckin sucks and you just shit all over
him, and OCK is the fuckin dopest and his shit is wack, that's all."

"Don't trip, man, he'll let me back on in a bit.."

But Bean wasn't havin it. His backpack full of 40's and spray paint
hit the ground with a thud as he widened his stance, ready to go into
rant mode. "But LISTEN to this fuckin FAGGOT shit he's playin now.
This is better than OCK? Better than fuckin Fatboy cuttin it up over
classic Run DMC?"

"Bean. I'll be on in a minute, man. Hit the garage, I think Pete's out
there, he was lookin for you."

"Awright man, awright. But this is fucking bullshit."

I laugh and walk back to the living room, where the girls all had red
rimmed, glassy stares. Watching Jackass now. What a new years. The
females were getting restless, grumbling amongst themselves about how
wack the shit was. And I could relate. A bunch of wannabe record
moguls, jumping around like cracked out rabbits screaming into a
microphone over played out beats, and trying to hide the weed from the
rest of the partygoers, while they're segregated off to a cramped ass
living room, watching a couple skate punks prod their dicks with
electric sticks. Plus a second little squad of females had rolled up,
looked at the first squad, and made tracks to the back bedroom, noses
turned up. It was getting catty up in that place. Stuck between a
bongwater soap opera and hatersville over by the equipment, I stalled
and considered my options.

OCK tape in hand, I made my way back to hatersville, and popped open
the tape deck.

To be Concluded,
Fatboy

From: djfatboy1@home.com (Fatboy Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.music.hip-hop
Subject: (Part FOUR) Random Discombobulated Mental Shit--2001 Edition
--------

I hit the tape deck, pop it open. I pause to listen, and notice the CD
they've been playing happens to be decent for once: Devin the Dude is
playin. I decide to let the song run out. Ric and Quiz's little squad
is holed up in the kitchen, as Ric gives a tutorial on how to roll a
blunt. He's being real loud about it, as he goes through step by step.
I can feel the air shift as about 20 eyes roll back in their heads and
20 sighs escape into the air.

So I'm crouched down, alone in the room, behind the equipment, tape in
hand, waiting for the cd to end, feeling like I'm smuggling fucking
contraband across the border instead of putting a tape 2/3rds of the
party wants to hear into the tape deck, and while I wait, I slip off
into la-la land, thoughts of hittin skins dancing in my warped,
fragile little mind. the face changing on the girl, from the blond to
the brunette, to the brunette with the blond peeking out from behind
her, until it's like a full minute later and I don't even notice that
the cd's been skipping over the same 15 second part for the whole
time. A-ha. Ric can't bitch if I stop his cd from skippin, right? I
hit stop and load the contraband into the tape deck.

"What the fuck? What's goin on? Who stopped the music?" floats in from
the kitchen, as if the weed smoke drifting out of the room was helping
it along. I'm jamming the rewind button, hoping that if I get the song
started before Ric stumbles over, he won't be able to say nothin. But
it's one of those auto rewind deals that stops every time a drumbeat
drops out, and it's taking roughly three years to rewind. I poke my
head up just enough, and the top of my head and my eyeballs are
visible behind the fader. Ric locks onto em.

"Hey, what are you doin, man, we're listening to that!"

"Uh..it's skipping, I figured I'd put my shit in."

"nah, man, we were listening to that, man, we'll put your tape in
later man, I told you."

"Hey, I just figured, yunno, it was skipping, and no one was
apparently paying any attention--"

"Yo, if it's skipping, you just come tell me, I'll fix it."

"Uh..Okay. But I'm gonna put my--"

"Nah, we're gonna listen to that song. We're gonna--"

Quiz bounded into the room again. "Yo, Ric, I wanna rap, put that beat
on!"

Ric seemed frustrated. I was behind the tables, and the room had
filled again as soon as a few saw me back there. He looked at me, then
looked back at Quiz and said, "Yo, how bout he puts a beat on?"

Quiz nodded furiously, and Ric's forehead furrowed. I woulda smiled,
but that woulda pissed him off, probably, and I didn't really wanna
waste time DJ'ing for Quiz when I just wanted to play my fucking tape
that everyone's hounding me to play and dammit, it's JUST THAT DOPE.
But Quiz is already one-twoing and yep yepping (yep, yep
yepping..damn.) and bouncing back and forth, so I throw on another
break beat, I think it was Scenario, and see if Quiz can work with it.
Ric is obviously displeased...why, I dunno, I pulled it out of his
fuckin crate, but I guess he's got appearances to keep up or
something, lest the Wessyde gods descend, spit on his rag and kick him
out of their car club.

Quiz goes for it, and spits some kind of rhyme about his set. Which
isn't a set. Let me go into the history of West Side Mafia for you.
Okay, I'll wait for the snickering to stop.

Awright, West Side was started when Ric and a couple of his friends
watched colors and decided they were West Side Piru's. But they met
some black people from Portland who were actually bloods, and didn't
like that. Told them so by beating their funny lookin asses severely.
So they went back to salem and found out that there was a crip gang
from Fresno, apparently, that had moved up, and they liked white guys,
so they became blues. But to avoid the stigma of "Transformer" they
made a inbetween gang called "New Family Mafia" so that the bloods
could hang with (read: Turn into) the crips without getting beat up
or whatever. Then they all turned blue and called themselves West Side
Mafia. They mostly smoke crank and jacked cars, although they talk
endlessly about the sets they fuck up. They actually fucked around and
got one of their friends, a friend of mine since 2nd Grade, killed
because he'd hang around with them, and one of their stupider members
retaliated, and is doing life now. So it's back to jackin cars,
tweekin, and proclaiming how west side down they are.

While Quiz is rappin, the girls have taken control. They've grabbed
their men, and started in with the angry whispering into ears. There
was a Vote, and Pete was put in charge of delivering the verdict to
me.

So anyway, Quiz finishes his song, which isn't even his, he bit the
structure and phrases from an old Bloods and Crips record, and steps
back, pleased with himself. I put the "So Whatcha Sayin" instrumental
back on, and pick up the mic.

And blaze the SHIT out of it.

Drop two verses. Room fills instantly. Cats bobbin their head. Crew is
going apeshit, because they haven't heard these before, and I'm
scratching and tweaking the fader while I rhyme, something I never
tried before. I don't think I did it that well, but it was Crew, and
they were drunk, so it came off anyway. They're shoutin and whoopin at
the punchlines. I kill the beat, and Pete steps up to drop the
verdict.

"We're leaving. This place is fucking wack."

I shrug. "awright."

A chorus of boos comes up, Bean leading. "Fuck that, Fatboy's goin
off!"

Pete's buzz, which is more of an angry buzzing in his head since he
hadn't eaten all day, takes over. "Look, not just 3 minutes ago you
motherfuckers all came up whining to me bout "let's go, it's wack." so
I tell fatboy to hurry up, and ya'll get pissed?"

"Hey, if he says lets go," I interject, "Let's go." And with that, I
drop the mic, leave the turntables in the "eastcoast" direction I had
em in, the "eastcoast" sides still spinnin silently on the table, and
head out the door. 20 people follow. Someone asks where we're going.
Someone else answers "tina's place." which is cool, the girls will be
in a better mood, and since the rooms in this house are all occupied
anyway with stuck up byatches, there'll be more room to kick it at
Tina's. Besides, it'll just be crew only, and that had it's own cozy,
drunken, stankin funky charm to it.

We pile in, and halfway there, I realize that no one told the brunette
or Poopybutt. Well, poopybutt I could care less, but the earlier
daydream still had some weird hold over me, and I KNOW brunette was
jockin, even though we probably only traded like 3 words at the party.
Hell, that lent to element of lust, if anything. No speaky, just fucky
fucky. muhahahaaa--cough. We pulled up in Tina's empty driveway, and
piled out the car, waiting for everyone else to make the trip
crosstown.

10 minutes later, I start to wonder if the ball's gonna drop and I'm
gonna be with 3 other people in an empty, oilstained driveway. A set
of headlights pull up to the curb, and bean, Chikkies, Jared, and
Crystal pile out. Oh yeah...I'd forgotten about Crystal. She stumbles
out, and I'm starting to think maybe I should forget, period. Girl
isn't looking much better as the night goes on..but even that isn't as
much of a worry as getting in this house before the millenium closes.
For some odd reason, the idea of being outside in a oilstained
driveway when the clock ticks over disgusts me. We're all making
smalltalk, going on about how insanely fucking WACK that party was,
and talking shit about how those fools were frontin, and blah blah
blah bludify and whatever. Another carload, and there it is. Tina, the
Other Jennifer, her man and Fame. FAME.

Fame had just finally gotten out of jail for the holidays. He was up
for stupid shit. Warrants. It's always stupid shit. But he was back,
and shit was good, because Fame made sure to keep stupid motherfuckers
in line. Fame was kinda gruff, but tonight he was grinnin like an
idiot. Being surrounded by a grip of your friends on the holidays
after being behind thick glass and concrete blocks will do that to
you. He had a camera and was having us pose and shit for like, 5 more
minutes. Someone on the block had a new Lincoln. He said "yo, ya'll
pose in front of THAT!" I was about to pipe up about the fakeness of
posing in front of a car that wasn't any of ours, but fuck it, who
really gives a shit, huh? I remind myself not to be such an anal fuck,
and rock my b-boy pose, grin on my face. Jared, a lil drunk, jumps up
on the hood. We all recoil instantly, expecting the alarm to blare at
us like 30 castrated sheep--but nothing. The light blinking on the
dash just keeps on blinking. We start laughing, and Jared jumps up and
down on the thing. No alarm. We're cracking up at this point, except
for Scott, who is past Foamy at this point and is just kinda chuckling
and trying to stay upright. Fame gets his pics, and we head inside.

Wait a second...

"Yo, Tina? Where's Wadkins?"

"Hunh?"

"Did Wad and her cousin know we were leaving?"

"I dont' think so. They're still there, I think."

"Oh."

1 down. Ah well, fuck it. I was probably ego trippin anyways.

10 minutes to go. Tina's fridge is decimated in that short amount of
time. I sit down next to Crystal and start in with the small talk.
It's starting to go well, until I hear Fame bellow "FATBOY!" from the
garage. I get up. She starts to join me, tries to push herself off the
couch, and plops back down, laughing. I tell her I'll be right back
anyway, and she giggles an agreement.

I hit the garage, and everyone's packed in, Fame trying to get more
pics. I find a pair of boxing gloves and slip em on, and we proceed to
mixing and matching crew members to fame's content. The girls are
mixing drinks in the kitchen, some of em peeking into the garage to
watch a few fragments of the idiocy going on, and to lovingly shake
their heads at how the men they've decided to spend their time with
can be so mind-numbingly stupid at times. They laugh and move on,
bitching about "those stuck up bitches" at the other party, and we
shake our heads about how trivial and chickenhead the girls can spend
their time being, worrying about the stupidest shit when there's
obviously more important shit to be wasting time and brain cells
worrying about.

Like the Oakland Raiders, for instance.

I move into the living room, sick of the flashbulbs going off, and
turn on the radio, because the TV gets nothing but the PAX channel.
The DJ is playing some wack techno, and cuts in..

"TWO MINUTES!"

"That's not right!" The other Jennifer shouts from the kitchen. "I
checked it on my watch and the microwave is set to time it!"

And my mind, which didn't like the idea of the clock changing while I
was out on the driveway, REALLY doesn't like the idea of my millenium
being rung in by the whiny, strung out beep of some 1985 Sanyo
microwave.

"One and a Half MINUTES!"

They file out of the garage and mill around the living room. Pete is
fiddling with the seal of his Crown Royal, a New Year's Tradition.
Murmuring going on.

"Thirty SECONDS!"

The Other Jennifer is STILL protesting this. "No, that's WRONG! It's 2
minutes!"

The countdown from 10 starts. I'm in the doorway. Looking out at the
sky. Grinnin. God Knows Why, 2000 was a fucking bitch to me, I hated
her, and I was really happy to see her go as the seconds ticked down.
Begone, you fuckin fuck, you.

"Three. Two ONE! YAAAAAHHH!"

And Bean shot out the front door like a rocket, about 5 others
following after him, whooping in the street. Fireworks echoed
distantly through the air. the crash of 40 bottles joined it as they
smashed their shit in the middle of the street. I watched and joked
around with em for a bit, laughing at Bean letting his drunken
pissiness out onto the world. I turned around, expecting to see the
usual grabbing and groping and kissing you see at New Years..but
everyone had just kinda gravitated back to the garage. So I went back
there too. On my way to it, I hear the Sanyo go "Beeeeeep!" as the
Other jennifer and her man have their belated whoop of joy and start
with the groping. Shit, it may have been a microwave beep and not a
ball drop, but at least they were into it.

I step in, and Fame and Jared are talking shit. There's a second pair
of gloves on, and the macho in the brew has taken over the boys'
brains. It's not long before the conversation descends (yes. Actually
descends) into "I can kick anyone's ass in this room." Ahh..2001, I
guess it's time to bring out High School's Greatest Hits.

"Fuck you..whatever." Jared protested.

"Okay, maybe not everyone's, but I can kick YOURS." Fame grinned.

"Fool, you're drunk. You'd get dropped."

"Awright, put on the gloves then."

"Fuck you, you're drunk, I'd fucking kill you."

"Awright, we'll draw names out of a hat. Have a New years Tournament"

"Nah. Hey, fight Fatboy, he's got the gloves on."

I look down at the gloves still on my hand, and look up. Uh-Oh.
Luckily, Fame has decided not to pursue that angle.

"No, fuck that, we're drawing names, and no one gets out of this
garage until there's a winner."

This is my cue to do my patented slide to the back of the room,
unnoticed. I don't mind boxing, I'd done it before, but these
motherfuckers are pretty damn drunk, and I'm sober as a stone, and
faster than them when THEY'RE sober, so fuck, I don't wanna send any
friends to the hospital. Besides, man, you don't box up crew anyway.
At least that's how I look at it.

Jen catches me. Jen's the only one who catches me, probably because
she does the sneaky thing so well her damn self. "Hey, Me and Pete are
gonna go back to my mom's house, she's got a hot tub, we all can crash
there before we go back to our house.

I'm about to protest, but Bean whooshes by me, yelling into the
garage. "I'll FIGHT! I'll FIGHT ALL YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!" He's vying
with Scott for Foamy Homie 2001 award. He grabs the gloves I've
sneaked off of my hands and set on the washer and dryer and charges
into Fame's Face. Pete walks up.

"Yo, Fatboy, Jen's mom's pad got a Hot Tub, lets crash th--"

"yeah, I heard, I dunno man--" I start to protest, and look back. Bean
and Fame are goin at it. Bean throws a wild haymaker. Fame deftly
steps to the side and peppers Beans chin with a nice 3 shot combo, and
drops the hammer. Bean reels, spins and stumbles backwards into a
shelf, knocking over some paint cans as he hits face first into the
concrete. He pops up, wobbly.

"Yo, FUCK THAT!" And rushes at Fame.

And runs right into another four shot combo. I can see it in slo mo,
as the glove pushes the skin on his skull into places it wasn't
supposed to go, Bean's eyes getting half lidded as they roll back in
his head and and then just as instantly roll back into place, not at
all unlike those cartoons where the eyes turn into slot machines. His
head recoils and snaps back just in time to meet the business end of
Fame's fist yet again. And Fame finishes it with a right hook. Bean
falls flat on his ass with an unceremonious thud. And Fame hasn't even
broke a sweat yet.

"Yeah." I say. "Let's go." After giving pounds and props to everyone,
wishing em all happy new years, I'm halfway across the living room,
and spot Crystal on the couch. CRYSTAL! Oh shit..I can get LAID
tonight, I know it, hold up a min, maybe I'll just drop Pete and Jen
off, and I'll roll back here, and me and her can hook up that guest
room in the back, and fuck Jared, Fame will have beat his ass silly by
then, if he hasn't passed out and--

"blyyyee Fth-ThghFh--Fthaatboy." she croaks up at me blearily. Her
eyes are maybe a quarter of the way open, and lifting her tiny chin
from her chest seems to be a herculean effort.

Nope. Not hitting that tonight either. Great.

"Bye Crystal."

"hunh?" she murmurs.

"I said Happy New Year."

"Hatthy Noo Ee--" The response trailed off. I gave it a good 2 minutes
until she vomited her liver up. That was being generous.

I shut the door behind me, got into the 98, started the engine, and
with Pete and Jen lovingly babbling to each other, drove towards the
boondocks towards Jen's mom's house, towards a bed without two girls
in it, as if dreams came true anyway, towards a hot tub and the noises
you hear in the country at night, a warm bed to crash in, and the
knowledge a FAT breakfast was gonna be laid out when I fell out of bed
the next afternoon, with my friends and their baby son to eat it with
and discuss the utter stupidities we'd laugh at the next morning..I
couldn't complain. I grinned, turned up the EPMD, and sang along.

The End.
Fatboy