Gaius Hip-Hop Bassist

This fifty degree weather has been a godsend. Just to reiterate how awesome it feels to us north-folk, I slept with the windows open two nights in a row.

Now that's good sleepin' weather.

Though this warm streak is really messing up my seasonal affective disorder. I'm not saying I'm against it, but I think it should most definitely come around again, oh, sometime like the end of February when I'm really going to be down in the dumps.

...

I had my second band practice last night.

Now, while I've been a fan of some hip-hop music, though mostly I'm a little behind in what's good and what's not so good in this genre, I simply cannot understand why some people insist that in order to fully appreciate hip-hop, and even attempt rapping as a person with white skin, they must act and talk as if they were gangsta's from the hood.

I'm all for any one, of any descent, race, creed or color engaging in the creative act of making music, and turning some lyrical flows. There were some fellows hanging out in the practice space (my old living room), who happened to be white, who got up to rap at one point, and I'll admit some of it was decent, but it was the social interactions between them, when they were simply talking to each other in straight up ebonics... Not that any one should have to act and talk in a certain way based on the pigments in their skin...

Maybe I'm biased cuz I work with such a fellow, Whitee-e who talks and acts this way, and probably even raps, and plays some terrible tunes at work that I still have an ongoing war with...

But it was fun playing bass for them, trying to play some hip-hop bass lines, even though I'm not much of a bassist.

But I did feel mighty awkward when the impromptu rap session came to a close and one guy gave me the one arm bro hug, and the shake hands, finger snap thing.

...

Good lord almighty. I just know Bill Hicks is rolling in his grave right now, well, over a lot of things, but specifically about this.

I know I'm co-opting Roman culture, but that has got to stop.

Go back to sleep America...