Twenty-five must be the age of simplicity. Instead of going nuts for what people deemed a milestone birthday, I spent the night with my two closest friends and my older brother. Beer was had, as were wings. Stories were told, memories were shared, waitresses were ogled, movies were watched etc. Now I’m sipping a rum and coke in bed, writing this, listening to the less famous Phil Anselmo-fronted metal band. I’m 25 years old. This is neat.

I never envisioned myself as a 25 year old when I was younger. I never dreamed about what I’d be doing at 25, I just always imagined I’d figure it out and at some point and the ball would roll and I’d be doing whatever was expected of someone at that age. That didn’t happen. Sometimes I’m upset at myself for being unable to achieve some kind of stability over the years, but I’m also really proud of all the life experience I’ve gained for not going that traditional route. Lets see..in the last 24 years I:

-Pursued an ideal career in an industry I was interested in. It ended up not working in my favor, but I had so much fun doing it. Some of my past co-workers ended up being really important people in my life. Onto the next one.

-Found love for the first time. Lost love for the first time. Heartbreak for the first time. Drama for the first time. Losing dignity for the first time. Acting pathetic and stupid for the first time. Forgetting for the first time. Detaching for the first time. Moving on.. for the first time. It was joy, and pain. Sunshine, and rain…everything Rob Base ever rapped about. It was a nice time, it was a bad time. It was something that I wont forget. In the months that followed, I learned a lot about myself and about women and relationships.

-Met people. In the last 5 years I’ve met an interesting bunch of people. Some have become great friends, some I’ve accidentally lost contact with, some I’ve cut out of my life forever. I’ll probably repeat this process for the rest of my life.

-Continued my education! I feel like I’m on the right track. This past year has been quite a drag for a number of reasons, but school has kept me occupied enough to not worry about any negativity. I feel balanced, finally. I know what I want to do for a living. I know what I want to study. I know which universities I’m considering for my transfer. I’m really excited about this.

-Became metal as fuck. No explanation necessary.

That’s about it. This blog will probably disappear or be updated scarcely from now on. I started another site that is taking up my time and creativity. I’ve run out of things to say regarding my personal life anyway. So, I’m off to thank some people. Here is a picture of me as the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus Cat.

Something that has stuck with me for a long time is the phrase “Stay the course.” I don’t know if it’s an actual saying, and I don’t care to Google it at the moment but I’ll never forget where I saw it. It was thumb-tracked to a cork board in my cousin’s bedroom. He was a college student at the time. Our uncle wrote “Stay the course” with a green sharpie on a piece of paper and placed it there. Its really the only thing my uncle has done that I’ve given a shit about. I purposely refrain from his once-a-year phone calls for reasons I’d rather not mention but that’s beside the point.

I never really could stay the course as a young person, but I stopped being a young’n a few years back. Recently, something clicked with me while I was doing some people watching at school. I realized how my poor decision making has kinda kept me in mediocrity over these last few years. A few hours of self-pity did me some good that day. I’ll be 25 in a few weeks. I think it’s time to stop fucking around and get things done. This is really the last shot I have at getting out of the funk that I put myself in. I’m ready to get on with my life. I’ve finally got the drive and the motivation to handle my biz.

All I need to do is stay the course and I’m golden.

A couple weeks ago I was listening to Joe De Rosa and Patrice O’neal argue on the Opie & Anthony Radio Program when they got into the story of when Patrice said Alfred Hitchcock was a phony and The Birds stunk. Of course, they all had a good laugh at the absurdity of Patrice’s “opinion.” He went on to say that anyone who took that serious was an idiot and that there are people who have these ridiculous opinions that no one should be able to have. I had one of those moments recently when I said Nolan Ryan was overrated. My good friend “Hollywood” pointed out that I was “trying to be different” guy and he was right. What an asshole I was. This got me to thinking about the dumb as fuck opinions some people have. Here are a few opinions that you just cannot have.

Lebron James is better than Kobe Bryant. - Stop. Even if I don’t count the first three championships this argument would still be invalid. We’re at 2-0, folks. Stop being so anti-rape and watch the games. Kobe is the all around better player. He has the rings, marketing dollars and out of court settlements to prove it.

There are men tougher than Johnny Coyle and Patrick Doherty – You can’t give out your phone number and address on television without being bad as shit. Ohhhh how I wish Youtube existed back in the early 1990′s. There would probably be an endless line of Micks at this dude’s front door looking for a proper, gentlemanly fight. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no way you can use the phrase the proof is in the puddin’ without having caught a few bodies in your day.

“Blunt Ashes” is an all-around good song – Chris Webber made beats when every time he was on the 15-day DL and this beat was the one Nas liked? I’m sure there were hundreds, Nasir. The very first thing to come out of Nas’ mouth on this track is him asking if Langston Hughes and Alex Haley smoked weed before they told their stories. That bug eyed emoticon is very necessary.

Violence solves nothing! – It solves a lot of things! Take the video above, for instance. Two men decided to fight for some money. One of them said “I’m the best… jackass” The other said, “No, I’m the best… papi!” They took their differences in the ring, and in the end one of these men truly was the best. Now, that’s a problem solved, no?

]]> http://crackcesshollywood.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/there-are-some-opinions-you-cant-have/feed/ 0 Farhaad PatriceONeal__ Kobe Bryant and Lebron James in this funny photo http://crackcesshollywood.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/accessories-i-need-to-retire-fitteds-edition/ http://crackcesshollywood.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/accessories-i-need-to-retire-fitteds-edition/#comments Tue, 11 May 2010 08:03:16 +0000 Farhaad http://crackcesshollywood.wordpress.com/?p=690 ]]>

That’s easily one of the worst promo shots I’ve ever seen, but I’m not here to talk about flared nostrils and awkward angles. I gotta tell y’all about the fitteds in my collection that have to be burned, thrown away, given to Goodwill etc. I’m ashamed of all of the New Eras in this post. Even worse than some of the shirts in my last “_____ I need to retire” entry. Ohhh lets doooo it!!

Purchased: Bowls L.A.
Price: $40.00
Info: What a hideous piece of shit. Most people like to pretend they have money by buying fancy things and treating hoes to fast food dinners or whatever. Not me. I buy a silk New Era with a giant Yen symbol with a pattern of the various currencies of the world. What better way to let people know you’re ballin’ on an international scale? On the hat there’s yen, pesos, euros..whatever you call the money in Columbia. I had the balls to wear that in public more than once. I even wore a pair of denim shorts with that thing. *Shudder*

Preferred Method of Destruction: Doused in vodka and set ablaze.

Purchased: Lids
Price: $32.99
Info: I bought this in 2006. I thought it would be really cool to wear a neat orange and black outfit on Halloween that year. That was the sole reason for wasting 30 + dollars that day. Forget that I have absolutely no allegiance to the Astros. Think about why I bought that hat. How stupid could I have been? I can count on one hand how many times (other than Halloween 06) I wore that hat. I’ll just tell you: Halloween 07, Halloween 09.

Preferred Method of Destruction: Steak knife. Over and over and over.

Purchased: Lids
Price: $32.99
Info: This one is so bad I needed two angles. I cant believe this hat was even released. I can’t believe I’ve seen other people wear it! I wouldn’t consider this the worst Dodgers hat of all time, but it’s really high on that list. The color scheme is ridiculous, and the design is just unspeakably bad. That hat is the kind of thing that would ruin my first impression of someone. I wore it out on a date once. I guess that’s some manly shit, so I can’t hate on that.

Preferred Method of Destruction: Sent to the gas chambers in a hat holocaust.

Purchased: Pro Image
Price: $32.99
Info: This hat doesn’t look so bad, but there’s something about it that just screams “YOUNG BLACK YOUTH,” and that, I am not. There’s not much to it. I just have to stop wearing it by default.

Preferred Method of Destruction: Thrown in that smelly Asian restaurant dumpster.

Purchased: Fanzz
Price: $34.99
Info: This is another hat that looks pretty good but also has to go. See, the Lakers just swept the Jazz to advance to the Western Conference finals and on top of that, my ex-girlfriend chose it for me while we were in Salt Lake. I’m more likely to catch a beating than reminisce about old relationship shit while I wear it so it’s gotta go. I dont know about you, but I’m too grown to catch a bad one over a team I don’t even root for.

Preferred Method of Destruction: Tossed in front of people exiting The Staples Center after a Lakers game.

That’s it for this edition of ____ I Need to Retire. Maybe the next one will be about these awful bedsheets I have. No Homo.

]]> http://crackcesshollywood.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/accessories-i-need-to-retire-fitteds-edition/feed/ 0 Farhaad papoose_2 IMG_5537 IMG_5538 IMG_5539 IMG_5540 IMG_5541 IMG_5542 http://crackcesshollywood.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/these-are-my-friends-part-1/ http://crackcesshollywood.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/these-are-my-friends-part-1/#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:46:50 +0000 Farhaad http://crackcesshollywood.wordpress.com/?p=681 ]]>

You can catch more of this disturbed soul on Twitter.

The other day I was looking for a shirt to wear to some function. I forgot the occasion, but it wasn’t anything fancy. As I was going through my closet I realized I had a whole lot of bullshit ass tee shirts. I tried to come up with excuses as to why I owned some of these “gems” but couldn’t really come up with a valid one. “I was young, and easily influenced” didn’t quite convince me, so I took an L with grace. That day I vowed to never wear the following shirts again.

Price: Free
Purchased @: Karma Loop
Year: 2007

Sigh. I’m not too upset at myself for owning this because I got it for free. See, the fellows from Karma Loop were kind enough to send me a free Soulful Commadoe shirt after I ordered a product that was out of stock. Did they have to send me a shirt with that bad of a logo, though? I would have taken a 5% off coupon and been just as happy, I think. I wore this one a lot, unfortunately. I don’t even know why. Its a terrible looking shirt, and that screen printing job is straight ass.

Price: $30.00
Purchased @: Bowls L.A.
Year: 2008

I had no idea that was Jennifer Connelly until a few months ago. I actually spent hard earned money on this one. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. I want to say it had to do with the color scheme. I had to match with my kicks, you know? Heh..heh.. Apparently I was oblivious to bad screen printing jobs just two short years ago.

Price: $30.00
Purchased @: Nike Town
Year: 2008

As a sneaker snob, I felt it was necessary to wear shirts that made references to shoes just in case you missed the heat that I was wearing on my feet (didn’t mean to rhyme, do it all the time. x2). The funny thing about this shirt is that if I wore it, I knew I could only wear high top dunks if I still wanted to look “cool” to all the streetwear fags on Fairfax. Joke is on them, though. I once checked the mail while wearing this shirt with a pair of Jordans. Blow me, you fuckin’ nerds.

Price: $25.00
Purchased @: Upper Playground
Year: 2007

Wearing this would be allowable if I were still high school kid, however, I am a 24 year old man. Its nice to rock something that reps where you’re from every now and again but this is just bad. Its not even offensive, its just plain corny. Every time I put this waste of money on, I wonder if this poor girl regrets her decision to get her barrio tattooed on her ass. Then I wonder what strip club she works at.

Price: $34.00
Purchased @: Active Ride Shop
Year: 2007

I love, love, love this shirt but it needs to be put away in a box forever. The reason why this one is being retired is because old White people have ruined it for me. You have no idea how many times I’ve had White people come up to me and preach some anti-rap shit. At first, I defended the shirt and myself. I had to let these Ofays know they were taking the shit out of context. Eventually this shit became like the war on drugs. I didn’t see an end to it, so I made the decision to put it away forever. I have more than 1 Biggie shirt anyway.

I can’t believe this song is 12 years old already. What I can believe, though,  is that this is the only LL Cool J song that will ever be on my iTunes playlist. I even bought the shit, so you RIAA squares can fuck off.

We’re in a different time now, so having 4 talented MCs*  on the same track is a forgotten concept. Fortunately for me, I was kid once and songs like this one happened all the time. I wish there was a video version with Canibus, but sans Master P cause he straight ruined that “remix.” Anyway, my favorite verse is DMX’s because when everyone is just rhyming for the sake of hip-hop and sounding dope, DMX wrote 16 bars about violently robbing you of your possessions.^

* – I never liked LL Cool J so I never get to his verse when I listen to the track. Frankly, I think he peaked before 91, thus making him completely irrelevant by the time this one came out. Luckily for Todd, Def Jam was STACKED with popular musicians and producers who could lend a helping hand. That lame excuse for a beef didn’t hurt either.

^ – Earl does this on Jayo Felony’s “Whatcha Gonna Do” as well.

*Enter misogynistic propaganda here*

My obsession with Ric Flair is ridiculous. It has pretty much become a daily routine for me to search for Natch’s videos on youtube. Today I stumbled upon what might be the greatest find ever.

I have but two questions:

Why the fuck did it take 30 years for this to happen?

Who is willing to buy me one and send it to me so I can have it framed?