I’m just sayin’… it’s not me makin’ shit up. There’s a new Brandeis University study on the matter.

At No. 3 on the Washington Posts’ list of eight animated YouTube (irony intended) classics, Dock Ellis has probably received better mainstream props in the afterlife than he got while walking on Earth.

I’m kinda buying this Snoop Dogg track, even if it’s not half as wild as the Dre material Bruce Williams played for me back in 2007. Avant-garde hip-hop, that right thur.

I won’t be surprised if Dre tweaks Detox until it’s time to load the piece onto a plane bound for the pressing plant.

Maybe I have been out of LA too much this spring — thereby missing the mandatory Kool-Aid infusion sessions — but I can totally get how the Lakers might not win the whole thing. Boston is in scary good shape.

It’s a mistake to judge the Lakers’ overall power from their performance against the Suns. Phoenix proved throughout the regular season that it matches up as poorly with L.A. as it does any team in the NBA. Beyond that…

Regular readers of this blog must be bored by how I go on about An LSD No-No and the animated documentary that came from my 2008 interview with Dock Ellis. One March afternoon six months before the legendary pitcher’s death, Neille Ilel and I drove out to Apple Valley and got Dock as candid as he comes. The piece that resulted from our more than two hours of interiews became five minutes of unforgettable radio, heard by hardly anyone. Opening Day Weekend.

At the time I took the credit spoken by the show’s host just after the piece aired. The project felt just that ephemeral. Reaction was minimal, except among friends and eventually locals who had heard it and, yes, loved the thing.

Then the piece began to circulate among documentary collectors, baseball fanatics, acid heads, plain old lovers of freaky history and folks who Neille and I told. Last year a T-shirt company outta NYC called No Mas put up money to have the story drawn and animated by a genius artist named James Blagden. No Mas rigged things so  Dock Ellis & the LSD No-No would blow up as big as possible. It was the number three viral video for one week in November.

A late entry at Sundance, the film that I officially co-produced earned an Honorable Mention. Since then, Dock’s got two Webby nominations and Santa Cruz Film Festival Audience Award to his credit.

The No Mas production screens twice at the Los Angeles Film Festival this month. Be on the look out for it, even if you’ve seen the online video. Youtube doesn’t do justice to the film’s sound. And seeing that short in a full house is a time of movie magic. I shit you not.

I haven’t been able to post a lot this month. Things don’t look so promising for the immediate future of volume blogging, either. The itinerary’s insane.

So, settle for me in essence.

A bit of news before I split, on Saturday the story I found and developed for L.A. public radio won the Santa Cruz Film Festival’s Audience Award. The victory goes a way towards helping me get over the Sundance and Webby decisions. Anyways, get ready for the Los Angeles joint.

Until that part of June, I’ll be back up north, tracking down gigs.

See ya at the movies!

Not the anti-gay marriage California proposition pushed through by the Mormons. That abomination was worse than not great. Prop. 8 functioned to highlight just about everything that can be evil about religion when one of its institutions pours money into a political arena.

No, I’m talking about 8: The Mormon Proposition, a documentary that screened before a full house last night at the Santa Cruz Film Festival. Written, produced and directed by Reed Cowan — a hypenate who really could have used one-less hyphen in this situation — the film is profoundly informative. 8’s artfulness, on the other hand, is uneven and up for general debate.

I write this post from the perspective of someone who was out in the doorways of Los Angeles, canvassing for the DNC in the fall of 2008. (I went all out; registered as a Democrat and everything.) And back then I fully blamed the anti-hate organizers for not having people in the streets of, say, Ladera Heights. I was out in Ladera Heights. The Mormons seemed to have their people out. But I didn’t see so many anti-Prop. 8 fighters. We DNC people told householders what we could. The fight wasn’t fully ours though

After seeing Cowan’s film, I wonder what could have been done to combat the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Mormons are two percent of California’s population, yet they gave 71 percent of the $22 million donated to the campaign…

A bender of the musical sort. I’ve been playing King Tee, Xzibit, and other Likwit reps throughout the day. Hi, Mom.

History’s gonna be kind to Tha Liks’s body o’ work, especially for this track from the trio’s last album. Say what ya wanna about Dre — but be careful not to get sued — but he’s wrong for depriving the world of a Bishop Lamont album. He just pulverizes E-Swift’s beat. My favorite line in his verse goes, “I’m an anomaly G and I solemnly swear to be free.”I’m an anamoly G and I solemnly swear to be free.” Ya dig?

I’m in a different city. Just like one of my main mens and spiritual fathers.

Here’s some solid “new” Hendrix for your listening pleasure. Valleys of Neptune has been playing while I toil away my Sunday with edits of video and audio. The tape transcription that’s looming is something I can’t help but save for later in the day when I switch from coffee to beer. Tonight there’s a party, on my behalf, I think. So, that’s the carrot our universe is dangling before me.

The past nine days have been so thoroughly bananas that I absolutely refuse to blog about it. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that I’ve spent so little time previously in the Pacific Northwest. Probably I’d have had a heart attack by now. Shit, a couple of days ago in Portland I got sick and drunk off methol cigs and malt liquor with my sister and her bunch. And that was before I went out for a night that didn’t end until 5:30 in da moanin’.

Which is not to say that I haven’t been working like a demon. That radio piece about marketing certain sorts of, um, ethnic films keeps getting closer to realization. It’s driven so far by smart analysis from Trey Ellis.and Barry Jenkins. (Peace to Wyatt Cenac for linking me with the latter, BTW.) There’s this other kid in the chamber, and I’m bustin’ my ass to get his voice on tape.

Then I gotta write my part. But that shit I pretty much got down now. My difficulties lay elsewhere.

And I got volumes of weed journalism about to pop. The reporting is done on the Washington State follow to my first Oregon joint. But, as mentioned early, I gotta transcribe that bad boy. And Super Nigga just don’t feel like that shit right now. Finally, I’ve put together a third version of the Sacramento dispensary video. Each take has improved significantly on its predecessor. Thing is, I’m struggling to get the thing online without devastating compression. But when I crack the code, check here to find what’s up.

Let me wrap this post up though. My shit needs to be straight before I head down to Santa Cruz to support the short that seems over-hyped in my small corner of the universe, but is in underdog in overall actuality. Reality for me is a motherfucker. My life’s a blast and undeniably interesting, but it sure as shootin’ ain’t easy. To quote Tha Liks, I rock loaded, never get promoted. But — again, thanks Catastrophe— no excuses: I still get the loosest.

At the end of the day it hardly matters to me if the world thinks the No Mas crew found Dock, developed the video’s narrative, etc. A true artist never looks back. And you are now readin’ the truest nigga ever to get down in this particular milieu.

Or did I just go against an axiom in those last two graphs?

Oh shit. I just remembered that I gotta get to L.A. by Saturday, to volunteer at the the South Pasadena Fun Fair. I hope the No Cussing Kid doesn’t show up at my booth. That kid needs to get told, you know? It’s not for me to say anything though. Ya know?

I came across the Langston Hughes poem “Genius Child” on my computer drive this morning.

And it was clear that this work is about another sort of person. Clearly, I am too loved.