The Unknown Lyric

Alright ya’ll, I’m fresh off the road and I must say, living in south Florida is a beautiful thing. It takes about three hours to drive down from Broward county to Key West, but once you get off the mainland…The scenery is absolutely awesome, with a little less discipline I definitely would’ve crashed because my attention did NOT want to be on the road.

The band’s first gig was at a bar on Great Pine Key, and the room’s natural acoustics were the best I’ve heard in a minute. The first night was pretty peace, after the gig we just crashed at the hotel. The next morning though, I got up early, went out to the balcony (awesome view, awesome weather, perfect breeze, I could go on forever…) and spent like an hour and a half just writing (Jay-z’s the Black Album # 13 was my inspiration). After the rest of the party FINALLY woke up, we ventured about 20 minutes south into Key West. As soon as we got there, we all knew the reason God had put us on this Earth and assembled us together: So we could all go to Key West and rent scooters! It was so simple, but it made so much since. SO, we parked, ate breakfast (The keys have like, THE best food! God, I’m such a tourist!), and then set out to rent five scooters. We found a spot that rented scooters $20 for two hours, and of course, because it sounded too good to be true, it was. We each would have to put up a $500 security deposit that would be frozen for a week! A WEEK! How are you gonna hold $500 of someone else’s money a week after they’ve turned in whatever merchandise they’ve rented??? Maybe it’s just me….

So after finding out that we had miscalculated our respective divine purposes, we set out (on foot) down Duval St.: tourist trap USA. It was kinda cool, nothing serious, but still enjoyable. I actually indulged in my legal responsibility to drink (can you believe they have Long Island Ice Tea slushees?), and had the wind died down a little I would’ve actually gone Parasailing (you can’t beat that for $35!!!) I paced myself in Key West so that I’d be completely sober for their gig, and I was. They sounded great, and the backyard that they played in was just like being on the beach, absolutely beautiful. That gig ended at like 10, and after we packed up everything, I fell back into stride with my moderated inebriation. Technically, it was more like WE fell back into stride with varying aggression towards our own respective vice(s). And that’s all the incriminating info you guys get. Just know that we all enjoyed ourselves, nobody got up with a hangover, and nobody woke up next to somebody they couldn’t remember meeting or anything like that. My integrity is still intact thank you very much.

Despite the late night, I still woke up early (relatively) the next morning and held my balcony vigil of the panoramic pseudo-paradise. I even tried my hand in some tennis for the first time, and of course, you can’t go to a place like the Keys and not break out the Frisbee. We hit the road, stopped shortly thereafter for some more great food (great food…really), then booked it straight north bound to Deerfield Beach, where I dropped Colin off, and then went to church to catch the end of my jazz class, which actually went pretty well too!

Aight, if ya’ll ain't tired of reading, I’m tired of writing, I think I’ve made up for my no-post-period so, for now…
Holla back!

I find it hard to believe that I've been so complacent and lazy in my past near-decade residence in south Florida and that I have yet to venture into the Florida Keys. I've been all through North Miami, North Miami Beach, Coral Gables, and on up north through Orlando, but never quite that far south. Well, that's all about to change, this weekend I'll be accompanying Way of the Groove into Key West to record two of their live gigs. The band's keyboard player, whose been in D.C. for the past couple of months, will be coming back down just for these two engagements so it should be pretty live. I'm really looking forward to this whole weekend, not only have I not been to the Keys, but I haven't been able to catch the band for a while either, it's two for the price of one.

....Speaking of price, I am almost finally once again completely financially secure, I was looking forward to receiving two paychecks from school tomorrow but unfortunately I have to wait until the last of the month. It's only another four days, but after four months, every minute of instability is hectic. On another good note, I just got an offer to work 9 days straight catering for Jewish Passover. If I take it, I can pay off my balance to the school, and then use the money I'm earning at school to pay off my student loan. But I can only take it if I can make up all the work that I'll miss, otherwise, I'll have to take my classes all over again next semester and that's definitely not worth the bread.

Aight that's that for now, my peeps cousin from England is coming down on Sunday for two weeks so that means I've got to hit the club scene at least for a minute to show her the American Jump-off.

Alright I am going back to school (for real) officially tomorrow. Last week was supposed to be our first week back from spring break, but I actually only had three class sessions held in all that entire week. And the week before that, we really didn't have any classes either, so all in all, I've had like three weeks of spring break. It's been good overall though, I've been doing a lot of catering work on the side for the past two weeks, and I've been officially hired for Village Marketplace (which STILL isn't open, but they'll at least have me on the payroll now). But now it's back to the grindstone full throttle, I really only have two classes that really make me sweat, so I should be alright for the rest of the semester. One is a lot of research, and in the other one, we're organizing a concert for the school, so at least its fun.

I'm going to be working extra hard this week, because I plan to go to the Keys (for the first time) with the band next weekend, and the Flecktones concert is the week after that, so I can't have any work tying me up over the weekends. Basically, I'm still just loving life and music. I'm blessed and just not trying to take that for granted anytime soon. Oh, be on the lookout, I started writing again too!

Holla,

I was never that ill with metaphors
But ever since I met a force
Named God, I moved with no remorse
Of my actions from thence forth
Of course
The source of scorching light rays of truth
like my mic blaze for the youth
Is tight
but that's enough for now aight?

Holla back

Okay, so spring break is almost over, and I've been doin pretty good.... Keeping up a tight practicing schedule, been writing almost everyday, even if its only a little bit, but most of it I'm not liking anyway. It's bugged, like now, I'm listening to the remix to Respiration (Black Star) talk about inspiration!....But if I was to walk away from the computer right now and try to write....It just wouldn't happen. It's all good though, I'm dedicated and disciplined so stay on the lookout. Been reflecting on last week's concert and I'm still impressed. Aceyalone & Abstract Rude definitely had the best show, and I talked to Ace for a minute afterwards, definitely one of the most sincere cats. Murs put on a hot show too, he came off to me as the most "real", more like he was having a conversation than putting on a show, I'll definitely be going back to check out his catalogue. In fact, I might even check him out in two weeks or so, he's supposed to be coming back on the 26th. But now my man MF DOOM definitely lit it up. He was just in his own little world, that cat is seriously crazy I believe, but he can rock a mic, and the songs he did with Madlib.......Ridiculous!

So I've pulled a lot of motivation and momentum from this passing week, and I'm looking forward to see how this will all translate, I want to start sitting in with Way of the Groove on violin (and on the mic again too! Especially on the mic!). N-E-ways ya'll, I'm going to go indulge in my useless exercise of trying to write this song (again, and again....) I hope this posts, I never did get to post the last entry, hopefully that will post this time, which probably means that this one won't until I write the next one.....You, Wallace! Help a brother out man, what am I doing wrong?

Hello hello hello world, first and foremost my apologies to anyone (there's probably not more than three people checking this anyway....) who has been checking in while I haven't. After the first couple of weeks of school, I just went into tunnel vision mode, and although its socially retro-active, it paid off academically. I have learned so much in this first half of the semester, I don't what to do with it, or how to apply it all.

I'm on spring break this coming week, and it kicked off on a whole other level for me. Yesterday, none of my teachers showed up, so I had the day off and I went to see one of my professors and her quartet play at UM. I've seen her play several times before, but that was the first time I had seen her with her 1/4tet, and it was absolutely amazing.

After that, I went home and just caught up on some CDs and messed around with some drum machines. Then I find out there's this big Winter Music Conference in Miami for the next week and all this Hip-hop/ electronics acts are going to be around the town. So that night, I went BACK into Miami to this club called the I.O. Lounge. I got to see my boyz Aceyalone and Abstract Rude, Murs (all west coast acts), and the super villain himself, MF Doom (KMD in full effect!!!). It was live!!!! Nuff said. Maybe I'll give details later, but I just wanted to drop a quick line, let the world know I'm still here (I did almost die last month, but that's a completely different story. Appreciate every day ya'll!!!).

I'm off to my spring break schedule, nothing but practice, writing, free-styling, and beat-making. Ya'll ain't ready, but its coming anyway!!!!

Holla

# posted by Tyler @ 7:00 PM