funky49's trip to Oregon to open for mc chris

funky49's trip to Oregon to open for mc chris

This writeup is dedicated to James and Maddie

Monday Afternoon 4p EDT - TAMPA, FL

It hit me as I left Krebstar’s car and walked into the airport. I’m flying far away to perform at a show! How crazy! It makes that big drive from Tampa to Port St. Lucie seem… smaller. This is kinda a big deal. Free wireless at Tampa International rocks! Security seemed to have a small issue with my harmonica. Harmonica-whaa?

Monday Evening 6p-ish MDT - SALT LAKE CITY, UT

On the plane ride here I found I am missing my blue iPod Mini, damnit! I was wanting to play backing tracks off it during the show.. and of course use it for in-flight! Oh well. At the airport, ate Ahi tuna tacos with a side of mashed black beans and salsa. Yummy! Drank the local pils(ner), good but needs more flavor. They have a local beer called the Polygamy Porter! No free wifi sucks! Got to the departure gate for Eugene and found a 50-seater Puddlejumper waiting for me! I gotta hang up with Alienbobz and hang up the phone. On th way here I took pics of mountains. SLC seems surrounded by them.

Monday Night 11p-ish PDT - EUGENE, OR

Yeah, puddlejumpers are small. I did read that I should visit Hayward Field. I landed in Eugene and took a cab to the Downtown Motel. Checked in and got a call from Nursehella. It sounded like she started some partying. I use GoogleMaps to navigate to where she is at… Double True! Yay GoogleMaps on a Treo700! Somehow Nursehella found an asian-named bar near the bus terminal in downtown Eugene, props to her! It's called the Samurai Duck. We talk and drink. She's wearing an Atari Teenage Riot shirt... I thought only I knew about those guys? I'm very impressed that when I say something in Italian, Nursehella knew what I said! Apparently she's half-Italian. One of her philosophies is that "Girls should always get what they want". I get a feeling Nurse always gets what she wants!! I make a mental note to always try to make fun of Nurse because nobody else will/does. From there, Nurse and I walked to a gas station and my motel. I think along the way I sing some lines from "I'm a Surgeon" hehe. I got to see Nurse do the most unladylike thing... drop an ice cream bar on the ground and continue to eat it! :) dNam from the Stunt Junkies called and met us at the motel. We chill, take some pictures. They took Nurse away to party while I crashed. EVER GRATEFUL THANKS TO THE STUNT JUNKIES. I needed sleep like bad.

Seriously: Someone needs to talk to Nursehella about when you travel to foreign cities, be sure to have a place to stay... and if that place falls through, find another one before sopping it up at a bar. I wasn't happy with her doing that, but what am I gonna do, yell at her? I had communicated with Karl if it was aiiight for her to crash at my motel for the night. Maybe I'm dumb, but I'm protective of people and don't want to see harm come to them. What if I didn't make it out to the bar and just crashed? What if something bad happened to her? That would have been really shitty. Nursehella, please take care of yourself yo!

Tuesday Morning 9am-ish PDT - EUGENE, OR

Woke, showered, watch some All in the Family and Sanford & Son before I figured, hey, I need to get a-rollin on touring this fine city… er town. Had some apple juice, protein bar and a bran muffin. Maybe it as best that the motel's wifi was out because it just kept from from goofing off on the web and more inclined to hit the town. I walked to the bus station and took a bus (FREE!) to the University of Oregon area and walked to Hayworth Field. It's under (re)construction and I can't run a lap damnit!#%! I speak with a local student to get info on where to hit next. It's too early to visit Tracktown Pizza. I bused to High Street and 10th and walked to Fifth Street Market. Neat shops, beautiful girl behind one of the counters, GREAT PAD THAI at a spot called Lucky Noodle Café. Katie? at one of the shops had recommended the spot to me. There I had a really good local brew called Twilight Ale. The IPA was not as good, most IPAs are too bitter/hoppy for me? Saw the Nike store (almost bought an iPod Nano! BLUE! with the shoe sensor) Walked to a park (Skinner Butte), saw the river and lots of trees. Leaves from one tree were the size of my face… no bigger! Saw people climbing a short rock face, took some pics and headed back to the motel. So pretty, such a nice place to chill. I wanted to see the Pacific Ocean but is 1 to 1.5 hours away. I wanted to hit up a local vineyard for some wine tasting but it 20 minutes away via car. I walked around and enjoyed the free bus. Public transportation rocks. I also noticed recycling containers. GO EUGENE! These things reminded me of Berlin, Germany. Just before getting back to my motel, I stopped at a cat care place to pet some cats (they only had 3). People are nice here. Maybe because I'm nice to everyone and they're ready to reflect that.

At the motel I met up with Nursehella, she hung with the Stunt Junkies last night and crashed there. I had switched to a room with two double beds (what I originally requested) so Nurse crashed in one bed and I sacked out in the other. The junkies called when they were close so I went to the bathroom and let Nurse have a few more Zs before waking her with some Gnarles Barkley. I… I… I I I know how to transform… transform… transform.. I’m a transformer! No wait, it was Just a Thought. The Junkies hung out for a bit and then Rappy rolled up. OH SCHNAPZ it's Rappy McRapperson!

Tuesday Afternoon 3p PDT - EUGENE, OR

We walked to the venue… its back door could see my motel! Met up with Dr. Strangelove – the openers were chillin for mic check when mc chris came around the corner and into view. We kinda all got quiet and someone said ‘hi chris’. I call Beefy to find he's at a Taco bell nearby, cool he was close. I did a mic check to my solo cut of Samurai L Jackson. The bass DROPPED. I stood above where some subwoofers were under the stage. Booooom. I liked that! Yay Wowhall!! Outside there was a podcast with everyone, bought 40s of Old English 800 and was questioned by the Eugene cops. HA! After buying the 40s and walking back to the Wowhall with Mocha (some homeless? hippie? girl), we walked in front of a parked police car with a brown paper bag full of malt liquor goodness. The police car idled in a location while we stopped to talk. The cops were there for a few minutes so I pulled out my water and drank some. Pulled out my protein bar and started to eat it. No alcohol being illegally consumed here, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for, move along now, move along. I guess the cops got antsy because they pulled up next to us (going the wrong way on a one way street) and asked us who we were and what was going on. Uhh, apparently the wrong person befriended me because the cops knew who Mocha was! I stooped down and spoke to the cops through the car window. I know my rights. The 40s were safely not being consumed in the brown paper bag. They were not going into the hands of a minor (oh shit! Was Mocha a minor? She said she was 22!), blah blah. The Eugene cops were just doing their job and I was just as friendly to them as I am with anyone else. I even gave them a funky49 business card each! See, cops are like dogs. They can smell fear. I tried not to emit any and so they drove off. Mocha commented they were deceptively nice to me. Was it the way I presented myself? Did they go 'easy' on me? Across the street, TG asked “Everything okay funky?” after the cops departed. Yeah, but they did sketch me out a bit so pictures were taken with the 40s and they were given to tg and Mocha respectively.

Spoke with other smelly homeless hippie people, finished the protein bar and drank water. I give away tshirts but I feel embarassed, who wants my crappy tshirts? so I delegate their distribution to Mocha. They are gone in 60 seconds... like the movie. One guy puts on my shirt and gets his photo taken with Rappy. I started to get really nervous before the show. I walked back to my motel room where Hella was getting dolled up. It's truly tougher being a girl. She seemed pretty chill to me. I pooped and called my man Redvoid. He helped me get my game face on. I had a really short cry and got back to the venue. I explored the Wowhall (they recycle!) a bit and delegated my digital camera to Hex. I picked an uber-friendly, tall guy, good choice right? :) He got some really good pics. I saw him extend his arms up and over the crowd to get some of the shots. THANKS HEX! I try also to sit and meditate and practice breathing. Palms out, pull down ring finger with thumb, make a fist, focus on the belly and nose. I'm too nervous to meditate. Also right before the show I saw someone sitting in the middle of the venue playing with his DS. I sit down next to him and asked to play; we played Tetris and John-311 beat me pretty handedly! Oh shit, no time to pout... it's time for the show to start!

Tuesday Evening 7p PDT - EUGENE, OR

As soon as Dr. Strangelove touched the mic, he was a friend of the audience. He is very comfortable in front of the crowd, like mCRT. MC Gigahertz was a late add to the bill, so props to Strangelove to have his time cut so Giga could do his thing. Before Giga went on I started punching him in the shoulder telling him to tear it up! Giga reminded me of Sir-Up in that off stage they are a chill, normal person but when they are on stage, a transformation occurs in which they take on the role of entertainer ready to rip it up. I made sure to tell him I like how he referenced chi in one of his songs and told of a story from the last show I was at… opening for the Killer Robots with EPP. There Scagnetti’s compliance with Wreckshin’s request to DO A BARREL ROLL cleared the front of the stage area. I'd also like to officially apologize to Giga... when he referred to Strangelove as "Mister Strangelove", it was me that shouted out "IT'S DOCTOR STRANGELOVE! HE DIDN'T SPEND 9 YEARS IN EVIL MEDICAL SCHOOL TO BE CALLED MISTER!!!". Sorry man! I'm obnoxious! Rappy and The Bomb were up next with their poo-oriented and ironic rhymes. Nice bass gentlemen! They played off of each other nicely. My fav Stunt Junkies song was “This is Cybertron”. dNam jumped down INTO the audience and somehow came up to me; I obliged by singing the hook for'em! Props to them for involving something Transformers related to the show, good intuition. Beefy is very professional and comfortable on the mic. I think he needs some dancey oriented songs tho! He comes across naturally. Perhaps he could be a radio dj! I don't really get the community college song. Nursehella seemed to be a natural on the mic talking too. I bet after the sausagefest on stage, the crowd was ready for a chick with high stockings! Yo, she is gangly, tall and pale! I think she needs to be on G4. I was too nervous to speak to the crowd and stuff like that, plus I didn't want to burn into another performer's time. I really appreciate when someone else does the “laptop jockey” duties. Oh, you want to know how I did?

I created an intro for my set with the help of Redvoid and DJ Jay-Hock. I recorded them doing various introductions and saying my name. That was sequenced with snatches from the opening themes to Star Blazers (the only Japanimation that I looove!), Buck Rogers (the 1976 version natch!), Transformers, a breakbeat stolen from "Cocaine Sex" and sirens from Public Enemy & Star Trek which led into "This is... funky49". Any nervousness I had goes away as soon as I took the steps to the stage. I had the mp3s in a playlist in Windows Media Player... with shuffle on. After the intro/"This is" was done it shuffled to the last song in my playlist, "Positive". OOPS! So I’m expecting to do a monologue intro for “Never Going Back to Dialup” after “This is” when I hear the one bar intro of “Positive”. I identified the song and started the first verse with the ONE BAR OF INTRO. I’m proud of myself for that. Pulling things off when things go unexpected. Yay! I stop the song during it's outro and explain to the audience the screw up I just did... and then I do the into for Dialup. Not too many dialupers out there and got some cheers from the broadbanders. The crowd seemed to enjoy the Prodigy-Poison live performance remix of Dialup. Yo, props to the jumping kid on stage right; I got some of your energy. I think if they knew the (new) hook, they’d sing it. Things were nice and slowed down for Samurai L Jackson, again the crowd gave some cheers when they learned it was inspired by Afro Samurai. Damn, when do Redvoid and I get to tear that one up together on stage??? The bass was nicey-nice, straight from the NX-NT sampler in Reason with some log/drum loaded. Boom in the Room yo! The bad news is I flubbed multiple lines in RPG and my voice cracked a few times during the set. People gave cheers again when they heard the next song goes out to the RPGers out there.. more cheers at the dropping of the LEEROY JENKINS sample (that I asked permission for!). Again, a song where Redvoid drops awesome verses on the non-solo cut.. Lastly is the medley where I remember to give shout outs to MC Router, Gabriel of Nerdcore News and the Emergency Pizza Party. More cheers when I ask “Who likes Nintendo?” and “This is Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!”. Punch Out is still sooo much better with the EPP peeps. The last song of the medley is Trekkie Pride with MC Router. Damn, when am I going to be able to drop that joint live with Router? It needs a bline like I need to win the lotto. After my performance I fall into the bench somewhere near Beefy after Giga & Beefy gives some props. I like the fact that I make the music that I want to make, how I want it to sound... and a few people are able to get into it... as if they understood a small part of me. That's neat!

mc chris tore it up. You know how he does. After the show, I go to pack up my backpack. I left it on stage. Most of the crowd herded to the mc chris merch table or exit the venue to appear at the theater. Some peeps are wondering where exactly the theater is for the Transformers. I’m fecking BEAT. The crowds are really light at the openers merch table. I head towards the motel to drop off my backpack when I bump into HondaJohn, aka John-311 who was my ride to the theater. We eat some yummy, delicious, much needed Taco Bell. Get our seats and goof off with TetrisDS and Pictochat on our DSlites. Someone else in the theater had their DS fired up so that was fun, Pictochatting with someone in the same room we had no clue where they were. John311 likes to draw penises and says that is what Pictochat is about. I draw a big black cock & balls. We watch the Transformers movie, which ROCKED when I was awake. It had some cheese moments that I was able to accept and eventually get into. It was hot in the theater, assholes stopped the ac. Blackout was awesome, I loved his EMP weapon.

After the movie I’m crazy beat down tired. I say goodbye to mc chris and as many other performers as I can get in front of. Nursehella was shooting some video of her fan club. Ha! John311 drops me off at the motel, I brush my teeth and fall asleep. I wake to let in MC Gigahertz, Alienbobz, TG, TG's lady... who I named Lady Jane. Later Nursehella shows up to pick up her stuff; she likes Chanel if she is on your Christmas list. Someone kindly answers the door to let her in and grab her gear. I swear I took a picture of myself wearing her glasses but can't find it... oh shit! I think I have pix on the internal memory of the camera I borrowed! Beefy has an IBM Thinkpad also.

To anyone onstage (working a laptop, etc) while someone is rapping: Never look bored! Either be into the performance or stand in the b-boy stance and look impressed and/or tough. Consider that part of your performance, you’re part of the show too. Looking bored is distracted does not help the audience enjoy your friend on stage. HEAR ME NOW AND BELIEVE ME LATER!

During the show last night, TWO nice people asked to have our pictures taken together! So nice! So thank you sooo much James and Maddie! I need to mention youze in a rhyme in the future! This writeup is dedicated to you.

Wednesday Morning – EUGENE, OR

Happy Fourth of July! Sleeeeeeeeeeep. Awake. I give Scrubs-like goofy waves to people as we awake. TG, Lady Jane, Alienbobz & Giga have crashed with me. We didn't cuddle in a big pile if thats what you were hoping. We get to the airport in Alienbobz HONDA Element (yay!) take pics with the crew, I get checked in, security and food. Lunch is... Smoked turkey & gouda sammich with a side of pesto, kettle cooked Green Onion & Yogurt chip and water. YUMMY. Laptop for typing notes and catching up with myself. Puddlejump from Eugene, OR to Denver, CO.

Wednesday Afternoon - DENVER, CO

Oregon is Green. Colorado is brown. Denver airport seems boring and TOO LONG. Well the B concourse anyway. I walked from one end to the other. If you’ve never been to Tampa’s airport, you are in for a treat. I tried a local brew, Fat Time, but it sucked. I had some chicken nachos and Dos Equis. Mmm, love me some Dos Equis. I continued my hike to my gate. Before food, I was tempted to buy a DS game, Star Trek Battle Tactics or something? If this shitty airport had free wireless internet access like EUGENE and TAMPA then I would have read up on the game and prolly bought it, due to my horrible spending habits for this entire trip. But no. Ignorance has made me… not poorer. I don’t play the DS at home, only when I travel. Which reminds me, I played some mean MarioKart with Dingus, mc chris’ merch man and some other fans. It was sweeeeeet!!! Going from the Puddlejumper to the Airbus A320 was a nice step up. Nobody sat next to me, bonus! I read, DS and sleep. The dude in front of me played PSP for a looong time, I almost asked to swap handhelds for the flight. I saw fireworks from the air, very cool stuff!

Thursday Morning 12:30am - TAMPA, FL

Arrival! MerchGirlRed kindly picks me up and presents me with a few, super-exclusive funky49 tshirts celebrating the trip with a sweet design she came up with. She's awesome!

Thursday Morning - TAMPA, FL

Not too jetlagged. My plane got in at 12:30am, I'm at work at 9:15am. After some coffee in mid-morning, I was able to survive. Weee! Normal studio night with Redvoid. Guest, Rasheed, is in attendance.

Friday Morning - TAMPA, FL

Yeah, I'm lagging behind like dialup bitches playing a FPS.

Epilogue

To mc chris: Thanks so much, I've never been taken to the movies by a guy before! Thanks to Nurse for letting me dump my backing tracks to her mp3 player as a redundant source for audio playback. HondaJohn311, thanks for taking me to and from the movie theater! To sexy-Hexy, thanks for taking the pix! Thanks to the Wow hall! Thanks to the dirty, homeless, smelly, vagrant bum (who I named Johnny Siddartha) for rhyming Beastie Boys with me. I need to send the Wowhall a copy of our picture together so he can look at it while wearing the funky49 tshirt I gave him. It’s the “World’s Clumsiest Rapper” design that MerchGirlRed and I came up with. Peep the microphone and busted knee on the horizontal rapper! Regard how quickly Johnny Siddartha got the tshirt from pristine to stained and dirty! To Cara, the cute blonde who was working the front door of Wowhall - did you playfully bump into me while I was playing DS with a buncha guys? I was too involved in the game to look up, I'm such a dork! Thank you to the city of Eugene! You have much to be proud of!

picture gallery of the trip!
ADD:
I let my mom read my blog (I guess for the first time) and this is what she had to say:

Hi Babe!

I just finished reading your travel log. Now I know why the Lord woke me up in the middle of the night on Tuesday/Wednesday to pray for your protection. You drive me crazy! I understood most of what I was reading but what are 40s?

Love,

Momma Bear