You Need To Recognize

The ODB AKA "Dirt McGirt" AKA "Big Baby Jesus" AKA "Ol' Dirty Chinese Restaurant" has been pumping through the Boggs family hi-fi for the past 45 minutes and I could not be happier. It has been like re-discovering a thoroughly demented old friend...

A few off-the-cuff ODB-related memories:

- In 10th and (most of) 11th grade, I was the only player on the basketball team that did not have a drivers license, thus I had to hitch a ride home everyday after practice. I can remember riding home in Matt Dowdel's Carolina blue ghetto glider just like it was yesterday. "Return to the 36 Chambers" was still hot at the time - at least to the North Gaston HS basketball team - and we used to blast "Baby C'mon" at gloriously deafening volumes. As the clueless white kid that listened lame white kid music, the outrageously visceral, profane, and hilarious rap stylings of Ol' Dirty make quite the impression.

- No Old West dorm party was complete without a little ODB. "Baby I Got Your Money" soundtracks many of the hazy late night memories from 2001 and 2002.

- Once while listening to ODB in the car with Kelly, she unexpectedly sang along with "Recognize" by substituting my initials - ETB - for ODB. "Mr. Courageous ETB. You need to recognize he's a P-I-M-P. You need to recognize. You need to recognize." This is why I love my wife.

- The day Ol' Dirty died. "During the initial autopsy of the 35-year-old rapper, a doubled plastic bag containing cocaine was discovered in his stomach." Ugh.