Prose Combat

Clic le pic.

Steve Bender, of the Evergreen Point Benders, used to pick me up in his red Acura in the mornings, shuttling me and a couple other pimply Crusaders to Eastside Catholic High School. At 16 years old, not only had Steve's parents gifted him this hot ride, they'd tricked it out with a multi-cd changer and a couple subwoofers that really didn't have any business living anywhere near the Bellevue Square. I don't mean for this to be a slam on Steve. He was a nice guy and a good basketball player. Really my main gripe is that, as low guy on some social totem pole, I was relegated to the crushingly small back space jokingly passed off as "passenger area" by some Japanese car designer. Squished uncomfortably between the leather protrusions referred to as seats and the invisible yet violently real garage door of bass sound emanating from the stereo system, my real main gripe is that Steve had a deep love of NWA, Easy-E and all things Late 80s West Coast Gangster Rap at a time when my virgin ears were used to the inescapable in-car soundtracks of my father's Loggins & Messina and Fleetwood Mac. This unfortunate sonic confrontation made all the more unfortunate thanks to a burgeoning personal sense that my own evolving musical affinities were far superior, and pointedly not in the direction of West Coast Gangster Rap. Or really, any rap at all. This is an affliction that haunts me still, a stain on an otherwise ecumenical musical laissez-faire attitude I half-pride myself on. Luckily, MC Solaar came into my life just a couple orbits later, rescuing me from a sordid hate-affair with hip hop which might have festered for years to come. On the 20th Anniversary of this wildly influential album, respect. Respect, respect, respect.

And just to add some loosely tied-in surfy visuals in honor of the context, here's this: