---WEDNESDAY August 2, 2000---

THE STORY: I covered the Up in Smoke concert featuring Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg/Eminem last week (read about that here…and yes, yes I know; Shaquile O'Neal no longer plays for The Magic. My bad. But I did get seven pot references in the paper via that article, and one mention of Ecstasy. My boss later asked me, "How do you know what Ecstasy looks like." I told him I saw it on television. That answer works for everything.). I brought my tape recorder to the stadium to detail my adventure at the show: all access at the Ice Palace, five feet from Snoop Dogg. But, though fun, there were no cohesively relatable adventures to be had. Just moments:

TRIPPIN I was so close to the stage that Dr. Dre made eye contact with me several times as he talked about whipping people's asses or doing something sexually violent. That coupled with Pirates of the Caribbean-style stimuli (a giant talking skull, a bouncing hooptie, false storefronts, chrome bedazzled three-wheeled bicycles) and the tea, had me frozen. When Dr. Dre commanded "Everyone put your hands in the air!" I couldn't really move and feared that, since he was looking right at me, Dr. Dre was going to stop the concert and scold me, make an example out of me for not obeying: it seemed completely feasible in the context of the show. So, I moved around several times to different spots where I thought he might not notice my non-participation.

From behind, a shadow fell across my shoulders and I looked up to find a vendor's HUGE tray of cotton candy passing overhead like The Mothership. It gave me a sense of my own mortality: I felt very small.

The phrase: 'Cotton Candy venders at a $60 Snoop Dogg show,' is ripe with conflicting messages.

PERKS: In my pre-emptive defense: my review of the show would not have turned out as well had I not watched from the first few rows. But I'm not sure I was supposed to be there. If you act friendly and dumb, like you don't know where you're suppose to be; a press pass can get you anywhere.

Security came up to me:

"Where are you suppose to be?"

"Oh, I'm just writing this for the newspaper." Big smiles. "Wanderin' around, checking it out…"

Often they tell you, "You have to be in your seat." And make you show your ticket. Some tell you to just keep moving. A few find your seeming stupidity endearing. One straight-laced, old, white lady Security guard looked out for me, found me an empty seat in the third row. I asked her if she'd been busting kids for weed. She said no. "I smell it," she said, "but I haven't seen it."

"It smells good doesn't it?" I asked her without a smile or hint of irony. She reflexively said yes, but then seemed embarrassed to have admitted it..

But it was true: the air was wet with pot smoke even outside in the curved halls of the Ice Palace, but I didn't see one joint, save what was smoked onstage.

At intervals, I'd walk around and change positions in the stadium; not only to get away from Dr. Dre, but also to find a new thicket of nubile, 16-year-old girls in tube tops and belly button rings. I'd walk into the center of their heard, pretending I didn't notice them, drop my head and begin taking notes in my long white tablet, which is actually labeled in big, blue, easy-to-read letters: REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK. Within seconds, young hoochie-maidens descended on me with inquiries and expressions of desire: "Do you work at the paper? I want to be in the paper. Where's the photographer?" I know it's a cheap, cheap thrill; but it's a thrill nonetheless. And I'll take em wherever I can get em.

LEGALIZE IT: The mass of 10,000 people, a good mainstream WASSUP bunch, seemed to passionately support weed. With such public, mainstream celebration of weed, I wondered why it's still illegal until I remembered that me and the other 18-to-26-year-olds at the show, don't vote. And the rest of the concert attendees were too young.

EPIPHONIC: During the Eminem/Dre/Xzibit collaboration, "What's the Difference Between Me and You?" Xzibit stood atop a speaker column imploring the crowd to join in as he rapped,

"What's the difference between me and you?/A mansion, a large bank account/and three vehicles"

(or something like that).

The $60 ticket price ($90 a piece for floor seats) helped to further define the difference of which Xzibit rapped, but the crowd sang along anyway like, 'sing along to how much richer I am than you.' Fucking awesome psychological shit going down.

THEA-TRICKS UP, HO'S DOWN: Four giant stadium video screens lined the sides of the stage, playing little Snoop & Dre movies during intermissions. One featured a woman giving a guy head on a couch, when suddenly there's a car in the drive, "Oh shit! My man's home!" The woman exclaims. The guy pulls his pants up and runs out the back door just as the husband comes in the front. His cheating wife runs to greet him as the shot goes slo-mo and she kisses her man deep on the mouth as the entire stadium crowd drawls, "Ooooooooh...!. The camera pans to the guy who just ran out the back door, now chilling in a limousine. He looks to the camera and reminds the audience, "You can't make a ho a housewife."

In another scene, Dre is chilling in the bathtub with some naked women after having shot some motherfuckers. Snoop is in the other room smoking a blunt while girls braid his afro (after having helped shoot said motherfuckers). Dre wants to talk to Snoop about hooking up with more weed, so he calls him on his cell phone, FROM THE NEXT ROOM. That is true pimp shit.

HEY IT'S ME!: A camera crew searched the audience for girls with their tops off to project on the giant screens. I caught a glimpse of myself on the monitors as they panned the crowd during "California Love," and was frozen. I realized I'd never be able to perform in a stadium because I would be so entranced and distracted by my own giant, looming visage that I'd lose the lyrics. I couldn't not watch myself on the big screens.

DO IT FOR THE KIDS:Eminem is one of the most talented MCs of all time. Even if his subject matter is base; he is overwhelmingly clever and articulate on whatever level he's on. He's probably allowed to get away with saying more fucked up shit because he's white: people don't take, what they perceive to be his, dorky-ass, wanna-be-black shit seriously. But even the race card has a rough time distracting from his talent. I'm on his side.

But I wouldn't want my children listening to him any more than I'd want them listening to a Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy record.

Coming out of the concert I saw some 13-year-old white kids with crooked visors and bleached-out hair, digging in the bushes for the weed and pipes they'd stashed there before the concert.

I walked past them and, still buzzing, stopped a father and his two children to ask them about the show. The father looked like the homosexually repressed Army dad in American Beauty, with his gray hair buzzed on top and shaved bald around the sides. He was there picking up his 14-year-old-daughter and 11-year-old son.

He made a point during the interview to make sure I knew he hadn't been to the concert himself. "I wasn't in there." The father said, motioning with his thumb, disgustedly, back at the arena.

When asked if he'd ever listened to his kids' music, he answered, in a slight Southern accent, "Yes."

"What do you think of it?" I asked him.

"I think it promotes violence." He answered.

"Why do you still let them listen to it?"

Their father answered, "Freedom of speech."

Huh?

As a reporter, I am now suppose to make this guy reconcile the urgent question posed him (a question currently on many of our readers' minds) with his fucking retard answer. It was my job to get a sensible (quotable) response while avoiding embarrassing him in front of his kids and being beaten for it.

"How do you reconcile that? Don't you think the violence in Eminem's music could negatively effect your children?" I asked him.

"They're smart enough to think for themselves." He answered.

NWA rapping about raping women and shooting cops, the shit I loved at 13-years-old, didn't warp me, but that can't be the case for all children. I'm sure some kids take the negativity seriously. So I tried to dig further.

"Would you let them vote?"

"Scuse me?" He asked.

"Vote. Are your kids smart enough to vote in the upcoming presidential elections?"

"They're not old enough…"

"Would you let them decide who you will vote for."

(Kids yell in unison, "YEAH! We wanna VOTE!")

"That's ridiculous. No, I wouldn't let them…"

"This can be off the record if you want…I won't put it in the paper…"

"I don't know what you're…(rolling his sleeves)…"

The 11-year-old boy pipes in: "I liked the part when Eminem threw out the towels!"

HIP HOP QUOTABLE: Later, walking back to my car, I came upon a white kid with dyed blonde hair and baggy clothes sitting on the curb, talking on his cell phone and looking a lot like Eminem. After I passed him, I looked back and saw two dreadlocked black guys looking down at him on the curb; as they passed, they mockingly commanded out loud in unison, "Slim Shady please stand up!" I laughed very hard and had a conversation with them walking back to my truck: they asked me if I worked for the paper (I had a press pass around my neck like a dweeb) and made me promise I would get their joke published. This is as close as I came.

--- SUNDAY ---

Maureen and I, FunKruze, played at The New World Brewery, even though I swore I'd never play there again given the bad sound and crowd apathy of our past shows there.

But once again I conceded: this time for the anniversary celebration of the Beatdown DJs, who are my favorite in Tampa. Red Tide also played. To my mind, FunKruze fits better with hip-hop than the boring Tampa indie-rock bands. Whatever the case; Tampa generally cares not about FunKruze, but the few times we've played with Red Tide, their crowd smiles and nods their heads and seems to appreciate the beats.

Unlike other new World shows where the speakers cracked and wheezed and we couldn't hear dick, we were provided monitors and the sound was loud this time. So, despite a sickness I felt coming on, it was uncharacteristically comfortable performing at New World. Still, no one listened or cared. A few out-of-towners complimented us (It's always the out-of-towners from bigger cities coming up and saying, "If you guys came and played in _____ people would love it!" This has happened enough to give me faith that our problem is Tampa, or that we will all be stronger for our time struggling here).

We didn't get paid, I didn't feel like drinking (which usually makes up for the lack of pay) and it definitely didn't further our cause any at all to play the show. But we practiced some new songs, HORSE GIRL made it out and loved the music (though I can't take her subjective opinion too seriously), and Maureen hugged me hard as I was packing up, and told me she had a good time. So, it was worth it, I suppose.

Sorry this wasn't too interesting. The next entry will be about my roommate bringing home a hooker: that will be much much funnier and more interesting. I promise.