Good evening my lovely friends. I haven’t been up to blogging much over the past – oh – 8 months or so.

It’s been a steady fall, I’ve featured at Eggroll Cafe in Lowell and at the Asian American Center at Northeastern. And I’ve got a few more coming up, with info below. Many of these require tickets for entry, but you all are smart internets users, so if you’re interested in one of these shows, use the google to find your way in. You can also try hollering at me, but I don’t know much about anything ever anyway. So without further Bob McAdoo:

Saturday, November 6
Asian Americans in New England Research Initiative
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
A lot of old and new friends are presenting at this conference, and I’ll be performing during a plenary in the afternoon. In additional highlight to me is that there’s a photo exhibit by The Terrible Child of Asian American poets up at UConn in which I am included, but I have never seen. Other faces in that exhibit are fellow verse/us heads Bao Phi and Kelly Tsai, as well as the great Regie Cabico and many others. So I’ll get a chance to peep that for the first time.

Thursday, November 11
Beats, Rhymes & Rice
Boston College, Boston, MA
I think it’s me and Vudoo Soul back together again. We go way back. Dude sang at my wedding. He stumbled up drizz to my apartment the day he got his record deal. We saw Prince in concert together. More memories to be created this night.

Friday, November 12
“Got Shorts?” program at Boston Asian American Film Festival
Paramount Theater, Boston, MA
I star in a short film about a spoken word poet who is much less talented than he thinks he is. So it’s basically about me in real life. It’s called the Humberville Poetry Slam and will be playing as part of the Boston Asian American Film Festival “Got Shorts?” program this night. I’m going to be participating in a Q&A session immediately following the program.

Friday, November 19
verse/us
Loyola University, New Orleans, LA
Loyola brought me, Bao and Kelly there last year for a verse/us show, and I guess we rocked it because they want to bring us back once again! Never one to pass up a trip to one of the greatest cities in the country, we’ll be doing it up N’awlins-style one mo gin.

A couple more are in the works. So keep your eyes peeled, and we’ll see you on the other side of this!

I been watching and rewatching this video over and over since it dropped. I forgot I had a blog and that you could embed Youtube videos on it and stuff. So …yeah..the homie Bambu doesn’t have a single weakness as an emcee:

Life, Love, and Basketball
(a sestina)

For a lifetime, this has been his team.
Seventeen championships – four of which he has seen – they are without peer.
An obsession for him: no matter where he has lived,
he dreamed imaginary ballgames, along with careers and families. Now the title
of “father” is a reality. There is no more time to dream: the effect
of being tethered to a spot on earth with his children. No, not Boston -

which is implacable – but actual concrete and soil. Where Boston
is just an idea, his children are real and teeming
with possibility. For his Celtics, he feels something to the same effect,
as every challenge flashes then slowly disappears.
Many doubt the Celtics are entitled
to this playoff run, just as he doubts he has earned the life he lives.

But then, this doubt is the reason he lives.
He questions his own memory – maybe because he’s from Boston.
The Celtics fan – once almost entitled
to success, if not in life, then of his team -
as a father now dances over midnights, peers
at each coming day, thinking of ways to make them perfect.

This June night, his hometown squad can affect
tomorrow. There are no religious icons here to believe
in, pray to – just a glowing television and yelps that pierce
the quiet hours before bed. Three miles from Downtown Boston,
this fan draws energy from the Celtics, and self-esteem
from his children fighting the intermittent tidal

waves of sleep and sleeplessness. No father is entitled
to a full night’s rest anyway. So why not let a game affect
him? The clock climbs over itself and his head teems
with more doubts. The playoffs don’t relieve
a father of his duties, but at least tonight in Boston,
the rules for fans usurp those for fathers – so it appears.

This man constantly departs. Reappears.
Sings children to sleep, screams silence at games, writes poems with no titles.
It has never been so good to be in Boston -
a lovely ugly setting, where home sometimes exists. It is perfect.
There may be other cities more enjoyable to live,
but his children are here in this city – and so is his team.

The City of Boston hopes Captain Paul Pierce
can help steer this magnificent team to another title -
if for no other effect than to remind us we’re alive.

Onward with the nerd lists about subjects I have no credentials to talk about. For some reason, like I think the world wants to hear what I have to say about “Confessions of a Shopaholic” (surprisingly awesome) – so it’s time for another list of personal favorites that will appeal to 3 and a half people in the world.

One of the more time-consuming – but enjoyable – themes for me to write about is favorite lyrics from a specific artist. And this time I chose to go with my favorite lyricist: Posdnuos of De La Soul. But there aren’t really Posdnuos songs, there are De La Soul songs. So I’m ignoring the lyrical contributions of Dave aka Dove aka Trugoy – the other emcee in that group, because in all honesty, I’ve spent a lot more time thinking about and breaking down Pos’s rhymes. That’s not to say Trugoy’s verses are any less potent, just that Posdnuos delivers his bizness from a place in his heart that appeals to me.

Aside: I once Tweeted something to him and he responded, and that is the highlight of my Twitter using career.

As I was putting this list together, I realized that early De La does not appeal as much to me lyrically as their later stuff. I know for many, the golden era of De La Soul was the Buhloone Mindstate/Stakes is High run, but for me, it extends to the seriously under-appreciated “Art Official Intelligence” and in many respects all the way to “Grind Date” I think as one of the few rap groups to actively aim to grow their emcee personae as they grew older as people, the lines they dropped int heir mid-20s, late-20s and into their 30s got heavier and more meaningful. And the heavy representation of AOI on this list probably has a lot to do with the fact that at the time, Pos was roughly the age I am now and going through similar things in life.

Anyway though, what follows is my ten favorite lines from Posdnuos, with some selection criteria, like they all come from songs that have appeared on De La Soul albums, I’m not including guest verses on other artists albums, not even Prince Paul stuff. Also, even though content, delivery and flow, voice, and sounds and aesthetics all play into what makes me love a line, I’m trying to not include much or any of the actual rhyme sounds, and only leaving it at the specific heart of the line that has caught my attention over and over. If you want to catch any of these lines in context, go listen to the entire song to catch the whole thing.

And…

10. “While you others represent, I present my rep” from Supa Emcees
This was the mid-90s, so seemed like all of hip hop was about representing, whether it was a set, a hood, a city, whatever. Pos subtly laid down the gauntlet by saying the only claim anyone has to the title of “emcee” is their skills, and until that’s proven, your other credentials can be taken off the wall. Moreover, Pos is real good at this, unpacking a word to its different parts and incorporating them all together, for example “it ain’t my fault your ass is on the asphalt” and so on.

9. “My aim’s to freeze you dead center in your tracks with your hands high” from Declaration
This is a favorite at live shows cuz Pos always does the whole thing the same way, and incorporates a coordinated arm movement from the entire crowd. So yeah, that’s fun. But listen to the lyrics son! For someone who always comes across humble and maintains he’s a good but not great rapper, he lets out a little bit of the other side in this song, showing why he truly believes he is better than you. The whole thing is about how he will easily and gladly out-rhyme you, and what?

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GURU, 1966-2010.

They say I held you
for nine months; but no – I think
it’s you who held me.

This is kinda controversial. Not to anyone else – just to me. It’s hard to pick my favorite spoken word pieces of the last decade because the thing that makes me love them is so personal. It might be the presentation, the wordplay, the structuring – or it could be a lot harder to pin down, like the mood I was in when I first heard it, the way it seemed to complete an incomplete thought I was having, or maybe it became more powerful the more I thought back to it.

Also, I know I did twelve and not the customary ten, but there’s no way I can possibly take any of these off. It was hard enough narrowing it down this far. I’ve included the approximate year I first heard the poem and my favorite line from each piece, but these are coming straight from memory – so don’t quote me on them.

12. “Listen Asshole” – Yellow Rage (2000)
It feels like a lifetime ago. When I first moved to DC right after college, I knew close to nobody – and I had no aspirations to take on spoken word as anything more than just something I did at bars every now and then, since I lived right off Black Broadway and there was no shortage of open mics a couple blocks from my apartment. But pretty soon I found myself part of a duo called re: verse, and we were one of three main API spoken word groups out that way. The other two were Feedback (who I’ll talk about later) from New York and Yellow Rage from Philly.

I don’t really know how we all connected, but folks from all three cities met up in 215 to do a little East Coast retreat and this was the first time I hear them do this ridiculous piece. It was like, yo, who’s gonna stop us now?

Favorite Line: I’m gonna fight with alla my might against motherfuckers who think I’m a white…girl. Watch my finger unfurrrrl…”

11. “Remembrance” – Taiyo Na (2000)
On to the aforementioned Feedback Poets. Taiyo was the baby of the bunch – so I was shocked when I saw this like 17 year old kid spit this amazing piece at the Asian American Writer’s Workshop open mic called (re)collection. It was the most succinct and touching rendition of a Japanese American history and future through its literature and music, done in a way that I guess I haven’t seen anyone else even attempt. Mas Yamagata backed him up on the bass.

Favorite Line: This ain’t just some Biz Mark shit; these lips are rocking a lost taiko

10. “The Last Words of a Roach, Underfoot” – El Guante (2009)
Dark Horse entry here. Everyone else on this list is someone I probably first met like – well – a long time ago. But I didn’t have the pleasure of sharing a stage with El Guante until this past year, and I have to say man I was astounded. This piece from the point of view of a cockroach made me feel like I should be writing a lot more.

In the hands of a lesser writer, this concept could have been corny. But he went in on it; honestly, it’s transcendent.

Favorite Line: You say…that life can be something greater than survival, but what could be greater than survival?

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I’m listing the best live performances I’ve seen in the Zeroes. It struck me while writing this: I have not seen many live shows aside from my friends’ performances. Ah well.

By the way, i’m not including like theater or sporting events or dance shows and the like. You know what I’m saying? This is for “concert” or things that are basically like concerts.

10. Koba, 2006
East Meets Words, Cambridge, MA
If I remember correctly, Koba was the first rapper to do a feature set at this open mic series. And it was crazy because he actually rocked it! A bookstore!

More than that, it made me feel like – wait, we can do anything we want here?

9. Brown Star, 2009
East Meets Words, Cambridge, MA
What I like about these brothers is that they don’t come from a slam-influenced world – they both come from theater. Thus, they are not bound by the same theoretical limits many of us (I mean folks roughly my age I guess) impose on ourselves by accident. They had pieces that went like 10 or 15 minutes long, but the great thing about that was it never felt stagnant. No matter how long the pieces were, they were always moving, nothing was accidental or unplanned – it was all paced out perfectly.

Even more, I love seeing performers I haven’t seen before do amazing work. It makes me feel like spoken word is not dying.

8. Beau Sia, 2007
Boston University, Boston, MA
Beau is pretty much always great, but on this evening at BU he was more sharp than I had ever seen him. There was some college student performers that night who were at various levels of proficiency when it came to writing, but Beau took that all in and spit it back out with fire. He’s like a monster that swallows mediocre poetry and returns it as amazing isht.

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I was gonna try to come up with 10, but it’s too hard. My memory is mad spotty – plus I don’t really pay that much attention to commercials unless they’re dope. So top seven it is.

By the way, I don’t watch much TV except sports, so…uh…take that for what it’s worth.

7. Cog
Honda, 2003

What??

6. Pony
Ally Bank, 2009
This brown-haired girl gives awesome facial expressions – at :03 when she is overjoyed at getting a toy pony, and even more delicious is the glare as she cocks her head to side to let him know he needs to stop messing around.

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