This 10th day of December, 2007, marks my first official blog ever. What the heck do I say? How does one “start” their blog? I really don’t know since I do not read many blogs and certainly do not remember ever reading a person’s first post to their blog. I don’t even know proper blog terminology. Is this a “blog entry” or a “post?” Am I “blogging” as I type? Not knowing all the details of what a blog is “supposed to look like,” I will just do what feels right: thus, I will provide some personal background, a little on my encouragement to start this and my vision for this blog.
I am an old white guy. Ok, 39 years old, with 40 looming in early 2008. I am an attorney, a partner, at a small law firm in SacTown, Cali, I have a beautiful wife (Kitty Kat) and two PERFECT children. I realize “SacTown, Cali” doesn’t sound like lawyer speak but I have an interesting mix. I was raised down in sunny SoCal. Though I lived in an all white (except for Gary Coleman, more on that at a later date) neighborhood, I went to school “east of the Shaw.” That means east of Crenshaw Boulevard. Most white people, in LA, only know about Crenshaw Blvd., as an exit they pass on the freeway as they drive to Dodger Stadium, Staple’s Center, etc…. Going to a school where I was the minority gives me a good insight into people of all different nationalties and backgrounds. I could play Nerf football on the blacktop playground with my Jewish friends or play basketball on our blacktop basketball Court, with my black friends, as Run DMV’s “Hard Time’s” jammed away on somebody’s box. Speaking of which, I know more about rap music than most people that were raised in Compton; feel free to test me with any rap trivia you please. I am especially strong on LA rappers like NWA, LA Dream Team, Rodney O, Ice T, King T, Toddy Tee, Mixmaster Spade, etc…. Shoot, I used to go to the Rodium Swap Meet to buy all of the latest mix tapes back in the mid-late 80’s to stay current on the latest trends as record stores weren’t selling much rap back then.
I moved to NoCal for college, joined the white guy frat (Delta Tappa Kegga, or something like that), did the college thing, but again had friends of all backgrounds. My roommate the first semester of college was a white-white guy from Mendocino County who sold pot out of our dorm room. He drove a cool car (old GTO) but I was never a pot guy so found him hard to live with. Some day we will talk about his having live taranechelas and scropions living in empty Jack Daniels bottles in our dorm room. My roommate the second semester was an African-American from Seattle who played on the college football team who I had befriended my semester of college. We will call him “DJ.” I like to say that DJ was so cool and smooth he even ironed his underwear! No really, he did. This is a great example how white people and black people do stuff differently (yes I will stereotype and generalize in my blog so if you don’t like that please click away now). DJ ironed EVERYTHING before he wore it. I ironed NOTHING. I wore a dress shirt to certain frat meetings and even then would be all wrinkeled and desheveled. DJ was smooth with ironed clothes, trimmed eye brows, etc…. I just talked to DJ last week, 20 years after we were roommates, and he is still smooth as silk; he now forty-something with a new 28 year old bride… who I am sure is beautiful! He is now a cop down in ‘Frisco. I still talk to a lot of my college friends so will talk about them as time goes on.
I met many of DJ’s friends including one of his frat brothers I recently reconnected with, we will call him TopMack. The TopMack has a very cool blog that is one of two reasons I am writing this blog today. His blog is likely offensive to most of you so click over to his blog but caviat emptor!!! Again, only click here if you are thick skinned when it comes to swearing, drug use and a whole host of other things… http://www.topmacknigga.blogspot.com/ One of their other frat bros will also get mention from time to time is Slick Vinny. He had the coolest slammed Hyuandai back in ’87; red, huge gold wheels, and a woofer box that took up the entire hatchback area. I gotz to give credit to Slick Vinny for turning me on to the Rodium Swap meet down in LA.
Ok, so as I was saying I will be mixing my writing with white guy lawyer, and hopefully, correct grammar… along with some “ghetto” slang picked up from years of going to school with a primary African-American population and/or thousands of hours of listening to hardcore gangster rap… still my favorite type of music. Of ya, and the second influence to get me to start this blog today is my man Frisbee Boy. Actually, that’s not a cool enough name for him, let’s call him D-Smooth. Frisbee Boy is his AKA, but we will go with D-Smooth as his primary name here. D-Smooth is a CPA, partner at his firm, very conservative in speak in client meetings; just like you would want your tax professional to be. My referrals to him always love him very his professional ethic and work product. I enjoy shooting the breeze with D-Smooth about our beloved SacTown King’s, cars, mutual clients, etc…. Even at 40-something years old he can play a mean game of basketball, football, etc… plus he hits the golf ball a mile; albeit down other fairways. D-Smooth has been looking to buy a car, for some time, so we have been trading emails about it. He appreciated my comments and on a couple of occasions suggested a blog. Though not a car professional I certainly pay attention to people’s automotive choice. I myself, even with wife, 2 young kids, etc… drive a 2 door, stick shift, small back seat… Infiniti G-35. I love it, my kids love it and it’s a good pre-middle age crisis car. At a later time we can talk about what I will be buying for my 45th birthday; Porsche, Maserati or what about that “low end” Aston Martin? We have 5+ years to worry about that so no rush. As I type all this I realize this is a lot more fun than doing legal work. Yes, I really am a successful attorney, making more G’s than YOU (probably), but sometimes these non-paying exercises are just good for the mind. Sort of like my going to the gym every morning. There are some FREAKS there at 5:00 AM when I pull up. I will tell you all about Book Guy, Yeller, Line Cutter Lady, Door Nazi, etc… in future blogs. It’s the little things that get me in the morning… like the guy who blows his nose into his towel and then “cleans” his stationary bike with it afterwards. Is that really very sanitary? I mentioned cars up above and must say that the most knowledgable car guy I know, and guy that really got me into cars, is my man D-latz. D-latz is kicking up in the Pac-Northwest now after spending the last 20 years down in LaLa. D-latz had the nickname of “Boobs” in our frat back in college and I am sure we will find time to talk about his loves; cars and boobs at a later date. There will be others I will talk about in the future and just want to give a quick snapshot of people I will be talking about in the future: ok, yes, I have a beautiful wife who we will call Cat. I got new kids, “Mike D.” (named after the famous Beastie Boy of that same name?) and MP, my little daughter. They are 4 and 3 years old, respectively, as I type this. I have a few old skool pat’ners I will be talking about: my cousins, Drew and Little Sether; my oldest buddy, Footloose Friedman out in corn country; my college buddies like P’luma and Rocker Rubes; my Watts connection, the Pittz Brothers; my momz, one of the only Dems in the great state of Utah; my oldest 92 year old g’ma, Susie and her 93 year old boyfriend Big L (they just got back from a week long Mexican cruise with connecting rooms); and many many other peeps you will be hearing about. I mentioned I have been trading emails with D-Smooth who encouraged me to blog. So let me paste a recent email I sent him about cars. Before I do that let me tell you a little about D-Smooth to give you some background and what kind of car he should be buying. As stated above D-Smooth is a CPA with a local firm. He has a wife and two young kids. He likes a nice car currently driving a 2000 Saab 9-5 Aero. He wants a nice car, likely a stick shift, probably a 4 door, but doesn’t want to spend $75g’s to get it. Plus, certain cars could be problematical for him; for example, one of his officer partners drives a fancy Lexus so D-Smooth can’t show up in a low range Lexus as he will look like the junior partner so that’s no good. Plus, he is wise with the dollar as most CPA’s are so can’t be too flashy. You know when I met him back about ’96 or ’97 he was rolling around in an old Ford Probe. For at least the first 3 or 4 years I knew him he said he was going to buy a new car soon but he kept driving that Probe until the wheels fell off. Props to him for driving that piece so long. He then took over the Saab lease payments from some dumb ass that was dropping six-fot’y a month on that car. Got a wad of cash to take over the payments so was a free car for a while. Damn CPA’s are smart with the buck! Anyway, here is what I recently told D-Smooth:
“Let’s start with the most important thing… I am not an Audi fan. I realize I am jaded by how bad those cars were when we were in high school. Not just the exploding gas tanks but also the fact that they were just souped up V-dubs. Other than the Audi Quatro of the mid-80’s I think they made some crap cars back then. I can’t get those cars out of mind. Fast forward to now I think they make a good car but I still don’t think they are long term reliable cars. You are likely to drive the car for 7-8 years and thus I recommend you do what the Vapors said… “I think I am turning Japanese… I really think so….” I think it was the Vapors that sang that. Since it’s not rap my knowledge may be off. I would go Infiniti, Acura or Lexus. I like the sporty Lexus… the 250? It’s similar priced to the G35 I think. I am just not an Audi guy. My little cousin is turning his A6 in soon after a 3 year lease. He had a G35 before that. I would send him an email about his likes/dislikes but he left for Africa last night for 3 weeks. In case he dials up he probably doesn’t want my email about cars. I would seriously look at long term reliability reports.”
Other than discussed above, what else will you be seeing in my blogs? Lively discussion of the most trivial of trivia related to things like UCLA basketball (i.e. what number did Nigel Miguel wear while at UCLA?), stock talk (you know, my advice on which companies to invest in or not invest in), talk about women (will keep that on the positive tip of course) and more to come when I think of it.
I am really not sure what else to tell you on this initial post, or is it “blog” and I really should get working cuz I do have bills. Man, is it not easy to spend money? I make more money than I ever thought I would and spend even more than that. Maybe that will be the subject of a future blog. For now, as we used to say, peace and audi 5000g. -SacTownGuy OUT
