I had the album(s) finished like four or five times this year.
Each time I thought it was done something weird and new would happen and then another 3 or 4 songs would turn up like that. It was hard going for a while. A lot of the things that maybe only me and 2 or 3 other shut-ins were doing 4 or 5 years ago are big news and big business today. The way some people are talking these days you'd think no one ever sung a rock song over a rap beat before.
Anyways, the old tricks were getting dusty. And we are easily bored. We are always out for ACTION. We needed new tricks and we got it in a smash. Some we earned the hard, old fashioned way, on the road. Others were simply downloaded from laptops of very good friends.
Whatever it takes, however way it gotta go down.
Fuck the past! We got this banging tight right now, yo. I'm talking about the RECORDS RIGHT NOW -- to be clear -- it's about the records right now, maaaannnn...
As dreamgirl from RTX might put it: We are stretching it out because we throw down, so jam up on that.
Still, missing the flight to Berlin in March might not have been the best look for me. You know there's some account executive still pissed about THAT one. All those super slick Euro-corporate types didn't get to see me do the shake and bake at the cell phone show. OH NO!!! What can I say? I got caught in that terrible Toronto traffic, so I got to the airport 45 minutes before takeoff and that KLM bitch would NOT let me on the plane.
That cost me like 1500 Euros!!! I could have kept an African family in rice, cassava and kente cloth for YEARS on that kind of dough. And lets say maybe that money wouldn't have gone to charity. Lets say there's a chance maybe it would have gone to at least a couple of nights of FUN FOR ME and some super-sexy Roisin Murphy-type on the infamous strip. You wouldn't begrudge me THAT would you?
I wrote you those pretty songs...
Indeed, we were not happy. For weeks I was giving people a serious Brampton Look, like lets get it on. Even in Parkdale, yo. No one was spared, not even the kindly librarians at my local branch. Looking back, I was in a sorry state. Let me take this opportunity now, in front of the entire internet world and Google to apologize. Madam, I'm sorry. You are certainly not whatever I called you.
Oh you know I had it in for KLM. But when we finally made it across again in April we flew KLM and the flight attendent wymenz were HOT yo. All shimmy and strut in scandalous baby blue things. Of course it could have been the booze. The whole flight there, I was boozing it up nice listening to Amy Winehouse 'Love Is A Losing Game.'
It was going to be me and Amy 2gether forever if that tin can went down.
So we hit Europe for the tour. By that point I was beyond being an Obama Partisan. No I was FANATICAL for the dude. And hell yeah I was rolling around the European capitals, quite drunk, giving up tremendous dap while saying 'swag it out, yo...' to every b-boy I saw.
So maybe four or five times then.
But back to Obama. I was saying he was going to win, like May 2007 and well-respected members of the Toronto journalistic elite can back me up on that. However, I was also on record predicting that the Patriots would STOMP the Giants on Super Bowl Sunday and look where that got me.
I knew the sportswriting thing wouldn't work out.
But you know I really hope Obama does good for us. We really need good things right now. The hope for tomorrows, straight up. We need the smart people getting that win for us. The dumb ones had their day, didn't they?
Yeah, so that was me onstage in Munich, absolutely crazed, giving a shout out to 'all the motherfucking political fucking prisoners that couldn't be here tonight.' I don't know why. I felt a certain dread in the air, so we went with the flow. A sweet girl named Olga force fed me Jack Daniels and I showed her some revolutionary art in my hotel room.
Those walls were thin. Morning came too quick. Blasted by the sun, I told her to get me a coffee. As I packed, the manager of that fleabag tried to exact payment from me.
Money? Me? A lone gunman whose only friend is Bob Dylan?
Me? Pay? Why, I'm not even American sir. Frankly, I'm appalled and Canadian, sir. No. You. CAN'T. SEE. MY. PASSPORT. UNDER. ANY. CIRCUMST....
Why sir, to be precise I'm an international avant-garde rock and roll poetry star in the middle of a very sold out tour of various European hipster electro dens and Bavarian social clubs! Yes sir, I said hipster! Very hip sir, stylish hair and funky dye jobs galore! He asked me for papers and I handed him a business card, told him it was my manager and assured him she would 'take care of things.'
The card? Some psychic gypsy gave it to me in Athens. She said it would save my neck someday...
...and someday came faster than I ever thought it would. There was a lot of that in 2K8. Grim providence. That desolation disco at the end of the line. These grand new beginnings and one more lonesome coin in the big neon slot machine.
On the run before I could say goodbye to Olga, choking down a coffee at the train station listening to Parliament-Funkadelic sitting in a starbucks thinking it's turning out to be my world like that. You know? Fuck dude, on the bullet train -- "the fastest train we have" -- speeding back to Berlin and what up yo they better have Staropramen at Tape Club because if someone hands me a Becks I'll take hostages...
Two days later we were home. Customs went through EVERYTHING. Damn those clothes stank.
Well, did you hear that Obama won? Dream bigger than Chris Wallace, my friend(z). If you don't want to take it from me, take it from our hero the GREAT MF AXL ROSE! (You damn right he came through for us!!! Use Your Illusion III and IV is next, I say!!)
These things can happen for you. And when it happens, don't say I didn't warn you.
And in quiet reflection, I'll admit some things didn't work so well. Some of those songs I posted, were in retrospect, half-baked. PERHAPS. IF YOU INSIST. Some things, however, worked out beyond my wildest dreams. Some girls hung out and stuck around. Some girls left town. Or was it me who split? Either way, I'll never forget this year, because tomorrow, Freshy Fresh and Shock Rocker hit these internet streets for real and things are just not going to be the same around here.
You're going to be in the movie, right? I can see it now, French girls, Hollywood, Young Jeezy up in there SOMEWHERE, Steely Dan soundtrack, the whole NINE, yo...