Hit Me...

Truth be told, I don't need a Blackjack. But I own a Blackjack. It's sexy like the lady to the left doing the Diane Parkinson. I use it like my brain though, only at 11% capacity. I never stream any fucking videos. I own an iPod, so I don't use the audio player, as It kills the battery anyhow. I rarely use the camera, even though it does take decent photos, admitted. Hardly have I a need to read emails on the go. Check it a few times a day, and say fuck it. In instances requiring immediacy, people are more likely to call me. For shit that ain't time-sensitive, a text message is convenient as fuck. Now you can text-google Google, so you really don't even need the Internet on a phone. Granted, sometimes that shit does come in handy, but more times than not, it's another extraneous feature that you pay for, but do not use enough to justify the expense. Sometimes I miss the days of pagers. Muthafuckas had a pager code. Mine's was "711", cause I'm such a propitious guy. Hit someone up on the hip, put in the landline and chill... and when dude can get back to you is exactly when he'll get back with you. No rush. Usually you had to get to the phone first, and the person that beeped you usually understood that. Texting is like alphanumeric pagers, merely on the phone. In my fucking opinion that is the best mode of conversation nowadays. Sometimes I don't be wanting to pick up my phone when people call, but the expectation is that if someone is calling then you must answer. No matter locale nor situation. Fuck that. Most of the time I be screening calls. If I didn't I'd be like Russell Simmons except for the fact I ain't gone be talking about money all day. Merely cosmopolitan epicurean philosophy, which I love, but prefer in person. I could honestly do with the Nokia 3360, but alas... Vanity... why hast thou smitten me so?

Mackalactick Mixology...

That’s my good friend M-Double-A-L doing a Thizz Face way back in 1998 with some ladies from the D at the very irie Caribana. Maal’s mad cool folks. With him and my homie Danny, we broke ourselves of the Cleveland curse of never going on vacation by renting a car and driving to the T.O. in a rather impromptu fashion. It was on that trip that I discovered the beauty of travel. Nonetheless, I have known Maal since 1994. He was a founding member of Cleveland’s Primate Foundation, most easily described as a Shaker Heights version of Wu-Tang. Maal had the home studio and was creating some raw shit as half of the Kinkaboo Crew along with BLG. The years have passed by, and as most folks quit the music, Maal keeps cranking out the hits and pursuing the crown. He, like me, said “fuck Cleveland” and moved out to San Diego, where life is much better now. Maal’s superpower is being able to solicit anything to anyone. I remember he once got us into some Hiero afterparty out in Oberlin, Ohio, where they weren’t letting anyone in, by claiming we were some other rap group that had opened up for dem Hiero boys. If given the chance, I bet Maal could sell Mein Kampf in Israel, or Baltimore Ravens jerseys in Cleveland, or freedom to a Frenchman, or better yet, some Mexican brown in the Bulldog. Also, man is quite the culture merchant and writer as he is half of the rawest music blog on the net, Turbo City. So, I tell Maal I’m doing a new feature on my blog concerning people’s original drinks. He tells me he’s got some drinks for me. So my homie sends me three recipes. Word. I’ve included Maal’s opine on some of these drinks since I’m scared to fuck with them…

Ghetto Heaven
1 part Christian Brothers brandy
1 part Olde English Malt Liquor

Chad: “Save for that Ghetto Heaven, these drinks sound great.”
Maal: “The pallet is palpable to taste playa! Drink responsibly.”

Sour Mash Splash
1 part Jack Daniels whiskey
1 part apple juice
1 part tonic water
1 part grenadine
Mix and pour over ice.

Gorilla Milk (Maal's version)
1 part Bailey's Irish cream
1 part Bacardi 151 rum
A little bit of Kahlua on the top
Mix and pour over ice.

“That Gorilla Milk will make you black out. One time me and [my brother] had about two tall glasses each of Gorilla Milk and we don’t remember leaving the bar. It was crazy!”

これらの日本の女性が付いている甘い性を作るこれらの黒...

What up y'all? A long time ago, after me and Chris Adams got back from Tokyo, this Japanese web site, MYNIPPON, which doesn't really seem too Japanese any longer, contacted me cause they seent my pictures I had up on Imagestation and they wanted to know if they could use them for their site. Sure. So I later saw that they used a few in an article talking about sexy Japanese lady legs and another one on fat Japanese broads. After that, I hadn't checked that shit for years. Now, I just read this book about being a private detective, and the first thing to do when trying to find out data on a muthafucka is to, of course, Google that muthafucka. So, to test this technique, I Googled myself. Up came a story of how I fucked over a woman, work related web shit, some Black Bacchus shit... but then I noticed a link to MYNIPPON. The little sample of text said, "Photo Courtesy: Chad Bilyeu; Finally, before considering marriage, always make sure that he has a job, and that he will be able to continue working for a ...", I'm like, "What the fuck?" So I went to the link and found some hilarious shit. An article written by a Black dude named Maxwell Barrington discussing how brothers can get on with Japanese broads was not the kicker. The kicker was that they used a picture I took of Chris Adams as the paradigm of what a Japanese queen and an African king can be. Man, that broad was just sumbitch over in Shibuya who just got out the Shibuya 109 and ain't speak ne'er iota of English. Dude's article was fucking hilarious so I actually read the whole shit. Went to scroll down, and BOOM! It's a picture of me in the fucking Gas Panic, where they don't serve water and if you ain't drinking you get kicked the fuck out the club, with some Japanese girl I, again, ain't know, with this zany-ass fucking face. Man. This shit is wild. So there you go. Me and Chris and our Japanese wives. So Japanese girls, go ahead and visualize what it could be... こんばんは。私が早く起きないので。 私は日本の女性愛する。余りにセクシー。余りにセクシー。私を性的にそこに取ることを許可しなさい。私は深い性、黄色い体が付いているsweaty 長く作り、たいと思う。私の精液ロードは巨大である。専門は何であるか。私で女の子を得なさい。ありがとう。That's for my Japanese queens, not for y'all...

Ryde 4 My Nigga...

Circa July 2001…

I woke up to a pulsating synthesizer. Nepro Sub-Bass to be exact. The 80Hz blasting out of my Technics speakers was making my windows rattle so loud you'da thunk supermuthafuckas with superpowers was fighting right out in the parking lot. I raise myself off of the Triton’s keys and lean back in my shitty little Kmart folding chair. The bass decays out of existence and with its departure comes the realization that I just slept on my fucking beat machine all night. I wiped the drool first from my overgrown beard and then off of the touch screen of the Triton. My back was killing me from being in that position for six hours. I looked around because I wasn't quite registering reality yet and saw that my fifth of Bombay Sapphire was sitting on the floor by a glass with last night’s stale drink in it. I downed the stale drink and then took a slug straight out the Bombay bottle. I got a horrible case of heartburn from the double dose and felt like I had one those aliens from Alien trying to bust out my chest. I thought of her again, as thinking of her was my curse at that time. I think she left about two months ago and that was probably the last time I was privy to happiness. Sometimes I’d find notes with her writing on it, an old comb with her hair or a pair of her panties behind the bed. All memory of her existence in my world was fading fast. I didn’t go out anymore, I just went to work and on trips to get food and liquor. Often the homies would try and coerce me into hitting up the University of Maryland golf course for some swings on the driving range and some wings in the clubhouse, but nah. I’m fine wallowing in my own filthy apartment, jacking off and crying over the memory of the beautiful woman that used to love me. Making beats served as the only thing, due to the intense technicality of the Triton, that kept my mind off of her. I took another slug and wondered what time it was.

After a much needed shower, I came back to my bedroom and took another slug of the Bombay. It was an intensely humid July afternoon. I thought I knew humidity as a native Clevelander, but Cleveland ain’t got shit on this air that can be cut with a Swiss Army knife down here in the DC errea. The humidity was of no consequence to me, I was in my apartment with the air conditioning on ‘Kelvin’. For all of Kings Square’s faults such as rats, roaches, frequent break-ins to one’s car and mysteriously vanishing mail, the air conditioning did work well. It worked so well it could’ve sold easily in Dante's Hell with nothing more than word of mouth serving as the only advertising. It was at its best when the young ladies came over and would complain, “It’s cold in here.” I’d be like, “Yeah. I can see that.” Air drying with a towel around my waist like a kilt I went over to the Triton. I had been working on a beat the night prior, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I hit the button to pull up the sequencer, saw there was a beat I entitled ‘Cosmic Bus Stop’. I pressed the ‘play’ button. What blasted was a chaotic, futuristic number that had been built around a loop I pulled straight from the movie ‘Repo Man’. Since it was straight from the film, you could hear a door slam that really shouldn’t have been in the loop, but since this is Hip-Hop, things like that are of little importance. This was before I refined my chopping technique, so it’s a straight loop. Nothing fancy. The drum beat was a tad simple, but the hand claps came in nicely and the beat reflected my mood at the time; very dark, very sinister, seemingly without an ounce of hope. The lead synths stabbed their way out of the mix. The bass came in on the 4 as if it was lost in its own world. I let the beat play with all of the tracks enabled and freestyled as I finished preening. I blazed the other half of last night’s L and went to my kitchen to get some cereal.

Frosted Flakes was what my diet mainly consisted off. In Landover, Maryland, one’s choices are very limited. Up the street was Popeye’s and McDonald’s, but I do my best to never eat fast food, so I never really fucked with that bullshit. I’m usually too lazy to cook, so my routine was to go to the shitty Korean grocery up the block and get four boxes of Frosted Flakes and two gallons of soy milk and call it sustenance for the day. I sat on my tan couch in the living room, eating that which is g-r-r-reat and let Ash catch Pokemon in the horizon that was my 19” television. That new beat was playing in the background and I was digging it. I heard a tap at the door. I ignored it thinking that I’d have to cuss out the Jehovah’s Witnesses like I did the prior weekend. The tapping kept going. I wondered who in the fuck it could be. None of my friends would show up unannounced; we were all raised with the understanding that you’ve got to call before you come and not just pop over out the blue. I was going to just go back into my room and work out another beat, cause quite frankly, I wasn’t in the mood for humans. Something in me clicked though, and I must have had said “Fuck it” because I went to the door and looked through the peephole, but saw no one. I yanked open the door and looked to my right where the staircase was, and I saw three kids, one of which, Muhammad, I already knew. Muhammad was a nice enough teenager. He helped me move in the couch I was just resting my laurels on. I think he fucked up his back when he did it, but was too proud to say anything about it. He was about 13 years old and looked like a young Akon, albeit chubbier with way wider nostrils and a one-inch unkempt afro.

“What’s up Muhammad?” “Nuttin.” “No really. What’s the deal?” “We wanna make a song.” “What are you talking about?” “We wanna rap over that beat you’re playing.” “I ain’t playing no beat. That’s the radio.” “Nu-uh. That ain’t the radio. My cousin got a beat machine. I can tell you making a beat cause the jont just keep looping and looping. We been outside your window for the last hour freestyling to it. It’s jive tight, Joe.” Here’s where I had a problem. Landover is full of hungry muthafuckas. I’ve got a lot of technology in my house; so much so that I moved my shit in at night. No one in the neighborhood except for my downstairs neighbor, Wes, really knew that I had this shit. I could see letting these kids into my crib and them telling they wild-ass relatives about all the equipment I’ve got, and me coming home one late evening from Mason to find all of it gone. But for some reason I got like the Grinch right before he carved that roast beast. My heart grew three sizes at that moment, and I thought about these three young brothers and the area that they live in and the fact there wasn’t shit for Black kids to do around there but watch BET, drink, get high, fight and fuck at way too early an age. Plus I had renter’s insurance if worse came to worst. So, I said, “Fuck it. Come on in.”

I let them in and led them straight back to my bedroom where I housed the studio. The beat was still playing loudly and the three kids came in and immediately started to bob their heads and freestyle. I cut the beat off, reached down, grabbed my Bombay and took another slug. After wiping the excess gin from my beard with the back of my hand I sat on the granite that passed as my folding chair and I asked the three, “So what’s y’all’s group’s name?” Muhammad, obviously the oldest at 13, tells me, “Dem Lowlife Boyz.” “Alright,” I say, wowed by the originality of the group’s moniker, “What’s y’all’s rap names?” Muhammad again speaks on behalf of all Dem Lowlife Boyz, “I’m Lil’ Mo, this nigga,” as he touches the shortest one that resembles the little kid off of the Fresh Prince on the shoulder, “is Lil’ Rico. And this nigga,” as he points to the kid that is obviously in between the ages of Muhammad himself and Lil’ Rico, “that’s Lil’ Mike.” “OK. I got it.” Looking at the youngest two, I ask them “How old are y’all?” Lil’ Mike, who has the aura of a bad-ass kid, says, “I’m eleven and Lil’ Rico is nine.” Word. Lil' Rico looked like a young Sam Cassell, slightly more handsome though. Not quite sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but fully aware that I need to keep some sort of tranquility in the studio environment, I ask Dem Lowlife Boys how they intend to make this track. “Do y’all gotta hook? Did you write your lyrics?” Muhammad is like, “We ain’t write nothing. We was gonna freestyle.” I’m never a fan of even the best MCs I know talking about they’re about to waste my time by freestyling on the mic while I’m engineering, so I was especially skeptical of these pre-pubescent muthafuckas expecting that they was finna freestyle over this fresh-ass beat. Muhammad adds, “We good at freestyling. We be freestyling all the time. Lil’ Mike’s got to freestyle. He can’t read.” I turn my head dubious as hell towards Lil’ Mike and I’m like, “You can’t read?” Lil’ Mike is like, “I don’t be fucking with that reading shit. I write my lyrics in my head like Jay-Z.” Great. The future of America right here in my room and they’re fucking semi-literate. Fuck it. I boot up the computer, prime a Pro Tools session and make Dem Lowlife Boyz do a mic check so I could get the levels right. Everything seemed to be in order, so we laid the track down.

To their benefit, I would have to say that I was impressed with their performance. Considering that they were coming off the top of the dome, they sounded a lot better than most people my age who try to freestyle. Each Lil’ Lowlife Boy did their part in one take and they actually did have a hook, albeit they didn't rhyme all the time and they did lose the beat at the end of the song. Each had their own freestyle crutch too. Lil’ Mo couldn't rap for more than 6 bars without having to start over with that bullshit New York rappers love to do; “Yo, yo, yo, yo…” Lil Rico, niggas just don’t known him, but Lil’ Mike, niggas indeed do know him. When they were all done, I took another slug of Bombay and started laughing. Lil’ Mo is like, “What’s funny?” So I’m like, “Nothing. Y’all was alright. It’s just, why in the fuck is y’all so violent? I mean, ain’t none of y’all smacked a nigga out and left him in a ditch with their grandma, nor has any of y’all strapped an R22 grenade across anybody’s chest. Why do y’all rap about that shit?” Lil’ Rico looks at me like I’m the lame in this room and says, “Man… that’s what the streets is trying to hear.” Maybe he’s right. No matter, how many cuts have you heard in which the illiterate one catches the most wreck? I made them leave since they wanted to do tracks all night. Fuck that. I ain't the babysitter. After kicking them out the front door, I smiled, went and ironed, shaved, showered, took another slug and hit up the homies to see what was up for the evening.

In retrospect, I’m glad I did the track with the kids. At the time it really didn’t matter to me at all, but I think I did a good thing that day. I made them a copy and they were fucking ecstatic. Dem Lowlife Boyz were ghetto celebrities around Kings Square that summer. I would come home after work and here them playing their shit with a bunch of their peers and everyone was feeling it. I have no idea what became of Dem Lowlife Boys. I had heard that Lil’ Mo had a kid, Lil’ Mike had gotten shot and Lil’ Rico was victim of some kidnapping shit. Whatever happened to them, I hope that they are safe now and have realized that life can be so much more than what they knew over in Landover…

Dem Lowlife Boyz-Ryde 4 My Nigga

Promulgations, Instructions & Shoutouts...

First off, for anyone who has yet to notice, I've gotten a second wind of sorts for this forum. It started back in November when I saw my muse and she got me back in the correct mindstate, exactly where I needed to be. I re-evaluated my life and now I see that in order to do what I want to do, I've gotta get out there and make it happen. This may seem ambiguous to a lot of folks, but this is moreso a message to me than to everyone else. My Pop told me that once you hit thirty, time starts to accelerate and that you should really do your best to fulfill your dreams because it is so much harder in your 40s. I think that's valid advice.

So, I plan to branch off and really make this into the journal of Black Bacchus. I got it correct a few times before, but often I'd be on some political bullshit that I really don't care to discuss anymore. The world is fucked, and I am aware of that, I'd just rather that not be the focus of my forum. Epicurean philosophy will be our thesis. Honest reenactments of life will be the method. I find that the things we do in everyday life is far more interesting than anything one will read about the fucking bullshit stars in US Weekly. Plus, I'm a character and attract them as well. I've got stories that'll blow your mind. Hopefully we can get to them. The links to the right of these writings will be where folks can investigate the shit I'm on. I don't want that to be the highlight of the site though, cause it isn't. So if you like to come here, and trust my taste, fuck with those links...

Finally, something that I have wanted to do for years... Shoutouts. Thanks to: the whole of my family; too numerous to name individually. You guys are the realest, and whereas we may butt heads on occasion, I love you all and your growth is my growth. Hopefully that exists on a vice versa basis. Chuck Dukie, my best fucking friend. We've been rolling thick since third grade main. Do you and let the world know your name; they need it in their life. M-Double A-L, for being a forward thinking, hustling muthafucka. I respect that to the fullest. I once heard that if you can make it out of Cleveland, you can make it anywhere. Killa K and Danny, y'all like some of the last of my 216 homies. A lot of people I either don't see or don't care to see. We gone do that Netherlands for three months; save that loot. B-Roc, the realest fucker I ever met at CSU and another one of my Cleveland homies that have stayed in touch since I relocated to DC. The music is dope man, rally up those troops and do it. I'll be home soon to bang out some beats with you. Alibe and Jamiel for doing the damn thang. I'm proud of both y'all brothers and need to check y'all soon. Y'all doing big thangs. And extra special thanks for being the first folks to really big me up with this forum shit. Harrison, for being the most business-minded dude I know. A lot of people talk shit about your failed ventures. Fuck them. They ain't got the balls to do what you do. When you make it, I'll be there with a huge snifter of Henny XO. Sam, for always waxing creative to inspire a yungplure to do his thing. Pigeon Shit is the shit. Don't stop that man, the world needs to know your name. Hawaiian Orange, eh? Michee-Mee, for being the most intelligent lady I talk to on the regular. God Bless your daughter. She's gonna be a bright one. That I know. JB Morgan, we've been through it. The Intangibles album was the dopest shit no one ever heard. We got big things planned, let's make it happen. Bahia? Also, thanks for being cool and nonjudgmental after a brother almost lost his mind and honor. Ms. Pau, for being my muse whether you knew that or not. I'll never forget that time in November. Shit was like a fairytale, main. We'll link again, don't worry. I do love being with you. Alexis, I don't know you that well, and truly don't think that you'll read this, but thanks for letting me know that what I'm trying to do can be done. Amari, my fucking brother. Always a pleasure to kick it with you. I don't know many people that I consistently get along with, but you're that muthafucka. New York just ain't New York if we ain't rolling. Upper Echelon, eh? Liz, Liz, Katie, Bianca and Melissa, for helping me out mentally in those Georgetown years when I couldn't find a plebian no where. I love all y'all and every time I'm in y'all's city I love the welcome I get from y'all. Lindsey, for being one of the realest no-shit taking broads I know and showing me nothing but respect and love. Men, be assertive. Elyde, for being my spiritual adviser, whether you realize it or not. Your spirit is incredible, girl. Don't change for nothing. Dago soon. Chris Adams for being the funniest fuck I know and for showing me that there ain't no need to bitch, just make it happen. You've been through more than me, so I can't complain. Rob Bacon for being the same guy you've always been even when you could've changed your stylee. Tasha, for teaching a fuck forgiveness and patience amongst other shit that I can't get into right now. You're a beautiful person. Don't forget about yourself. Amahl, you know how I feel. You should be fucking famous, dude. Let's do it. Fuck Minneapolis. Frenchie, for being a fucking diva and a real nigga. I want to hear the debut album. Fuck it, I want to make a beat for that album. Getting kicked of the Idol was the best thing that could have happened to you and through your example I have learned to play the hands of life as they come. Mehir, for holding me down that year I was extremely depressed and for leading by example with the international balling. Remember man, stepping stone. Margot and Danielle, for making my time in Italy wonderful and for being strong Black women when I needed to be surrounded by them. And lastly, but not leastly, DJ Muhfuckn Reemycks for being a real fucker and general gangsta. We gone do this fucking book!!! Fuck LA!!! If I ain't say your name, it's either because I forgot, or we just don't hang that much no more... but there's no love lost...

Godspeed...

One day in 1995, I can’t remember the exact date, I was chilling in my dorm room at Cleveland State University with my roommate and homie, B-Roc. I think I had just gotten some pussy the night before and had just stolen whatever was the new music of the week from the Camelot Music in Tower City and I was really feeling good about myself and about life in general. I look over our Holiday-Inn sized dorm room (because Viking Hall at one point was a Holiday Inn) to B-Roc and tell him, “Man, I don’t think I’m ever going to leave college.” He looks at me like the fucking idiot that I sound like and says, “How you gone do that?” I’m like, “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just major in everything.” Careful what you wish for. Fast forward circa twelve years later. I’m still doing my undergraduate thing.

This is a little more convoluted than most would think, so it takes a bit of explaining on my part. I initially went to college in 1993. Cleveland State was the only school that I applied to, and I ended up getting in with little problem even though I graduated with a 1.9996 grade-point average. My pops agreed to pay my tuition as long as I didn’t fuck up, at which point he would not pay for anymore of my schooling. Pops got to save a little cash in one year’s time as I managed to get kicked out after my first three quarters. I then spent the next ten months high as a Pro-Ked dangling from a utility line; simply put, I wasn’t coming down whatsoever. During this fuck-off period I attended Cuyahoga Community College, (aka Tri-C, Tri-High, Tri-Harder, 13th Grade, you get the drift…) but only for the loan money. I used to roll L’s in the back of this English class I was taking. There was some dude that always asked for me to blaze with him, to which I always said “naw, man.” In retrospect, I wish I had of put one up with him. My humble apologies to that dude for being a prick in those days. I returned to Cleveland State University in 1995 on a mission to make it happen. From then on I was on some dean’s list shit, straight killing the grades. By this time though, I was sick of Cleveland and was plotting my departure. What I did was apply for the National Student Exchange Program and ended up getting to go to Howard University for one year. What an honor. The same university that nurtured the unrefined intellects of Thurgood Marshall, Ed Bradley and Zora Neale Hurston would now shape the young Chaddie B. into a proactive member of society. Sike. I got 3 credits the whole year, and the only reason I passed that one class was because the lady I loved at the time was in it. After the conclusion of the school year I was to return to Cleveland but I said, “Fuck that.” I chose to live out of a van with my lady at the time until we were able to get an apartment after three months of living homeless fabulous. I ended up getting a gig at George Mason University at the library, and later in the Audio/Video department. What I learned was that if you work at a university, tuition is free. Word. So I commenced to taking classes part-time while working full-time. My lady at the time left me, so I fell into a self-prescribed one-year drunken stupor. Three classes from graduating I got a job at Georgetown University, so I ended up transferring to the better school and getting bumped back to 75 credits on top of that. So, 39 credit hours later, here I am with two more classes to take until the end of my 13-year undergraduate degree. What is funny to me is that with the exception of my first year, this thing was done on my jacks. (for the gringos… Jack Jones=on my own over in London town) Everyone assumes that I’m some spoiled fucker that doesn’t work. Nah. Just a dude that saw no point in rushing through the college experience. I was already making a salary and accumulating work experience, why change it? Anyhow, in the manner that I did college I became a well-traveled dude visiting a few different countries along the way. I wouldn’t change a fucking iota of the story. This history really isn’t necessary for my subsequent story, but at least now people can place my progress and know exactly why it has taken me so long to finish college.

This story pertains to my time at George Mason University; more precisely, the story deals with the manner in which I left that university. Like I said, when I first got hired there I worked in the Johnson Center Library. It was the media library, so if one wanted to watch a flick that was required for class they’d come here. Specifically I was in charge of periodicals but I worked at the circulation desk quite often. The work was easy enough, it consisted of putting newspapers on dowel rods and a magnetic strip in the magazines to thwart folks from stealing People and Essence. I was quite the fan of Mason. Very cosmopolitan sort of place. It was here that I met my first Persian and Chinese homies. People were fairly down-to-earth and for the most part, cool as cool can be in the small-talk arena that is the student center of any particular college. I always do my job’s required duties well, but I have a problem with being late. This has been the case since I was a young buck, and it has seemed to have become routine in my old age. Such is life. No one else to blame, fuck it, blame it on my mother. I was in danger of losing my job at the library, and it would have been quite the hurdle to leap since I was in no state to be losing my only source of income. My immediate supervisor Cynthia, who was extremely cool, didn’t really give two shits, but the lesbian that was the head of the Johnson Center Library wanted my head, take your pick which one, on a platter. So what I did was apply for another job on the campus, the aforementioned Audio/Video managerial position, and due to my past computer and studio expertise I was able to create a misleading enough ruse and the fucking fools hired me.

Often times people ask me what I do. I instinctively say, “I’m a manager at A/V.” Most people don’t get this, so they leave me in the very peculiar position of having to explain a job that is not easy to define. The position exists due to the lack of common sense, per capita, on the college campus. What does the A/V department truly do? Utilizing my Ockham’s Razor, I will succinctly say that A/V installs equipment, monitors said equipment and troubleshoots said equipment wherever and whenever it is needed within the collegiate learning environment. Now, wanna know what we really do? Turn shit on, turn shit off, and lock shit up. Occasionally we sit, chill, surf the Internet and wait for five minutes to the class change. We wrap up a shitload of cords too. It’s quite the paradigm. These folks, intelligencia that they are, for whatever reason are able to write verbose dissertations and books on topics that only about 18 people are either interested in or actually bright enough to comprehend, but they cannot, for the lives of themselves, figure out how to turn on an LCD projector. This is where I come in. I’m probably somewhere in the Johnson Center trying to get with some young tender, when I get a call through the walkie-talkie, or the short leash, that I faithfully wear on my belt while on GMU’s dime. “Chad. Are you on line?” “Yeah. This is Chad. Go ahead.” “There's a professor in the Science & Tech building 1, room 309, who can’t get the projector on.” “Alright. I’m en route.” At this point I finish up my conversation and walk over to the Science & Technology Building 1, room 309, whilst bird-watching and admiring the flowers along the way. I get to the classroom, poke my head in and say, “Did you request any assistance?” “Yes. Thanks for coming so quickly. I can’t seem to get the projector on.” At this point, I, amidst an ongoing class, walk to the teaching podium, assess the situation and within 30 seconds, the time it takes to press the “projector on” button and wait for the LCD projector to warm up, there is a digital image that mirrors the computer’s monitor projected on a screen hanging from the wall. The professor, slightly relieved, slightly embarrassed, asks, “What did you do?” I try to look as humble and non-accusatory as possible and say, “I pushed the “projector on” button.” I used to think this work was the most inane, useless thing that I could possibly be doing with my life, but one day I realized that I am dead like Harvey Keitel’s character in Pulp Fiction, the Wolf. It is up to me, oh ye of expedient pragmatic thought, to create harmony where these professors and students know only chaos. I have read there are various forms of intellect. Whereas they are cognitive masters in their fields, I am more so a calm, methodological young brother that can assess a scene within nanoseconds and have results a few seconds after that. They pay me to save the asses of those that nut up in the clutch. I’m like Jordan, I just apply the acumen towards technology and not something that betters society as a whole, like basketball. Not a bad life. Thank God I grew up with video games.

However, things are never what they appear cracked up to be, and I quickly realized that I had made a huge mistake in coming to work in A/V. This was mainly due to the presence of my punk-ass supervisor, a dude named Todd. Todd was exactly what an A/V technician should look like. Quite the dork. You could smell him coming from miles off like the rain. He was about 5’6” and extremely pale and pasty with an eighthead and a receding hairline. He looked like the Leader from the Hulk, only of Irish descent. Dude was just plain unattractive. His clothes were all from circa 1988-1991 and if not for him, I would have forgotten what Bugle Boys looked like. His walk looked as if had to shit immediately and his voice was like Miss Piggy’s eunuch brother. Not that the physical form is of that much importance, but dude was a fucking ass so noticing his faults was real easy to do and I never really felt bad about cracking on him. He was constantly up the ass of the director of our department, an older lesbian lady that really seemed to be mad that she was a lesbian. Todd was known amongst the staff as the middle manager that sat on his ass all day and played Everquest while we did all the work. Not that this was a bad thing. If I had to go do some extra troubleshooting just so his dork-ass would stay in his cubbyhole worried about the spell-casting ability of his 78th level cleric, that was fine by me. The dork even had a headpiece like a broke-ass Bobby Brown so that he could talk to the other ogres, wizards, warriors, druids and gnomes in real-fucking-time. And to top it all off… his wife was ugly too. Now I don’t want folks to think that I get a kick out of calling folks ugly. I ain’t all that, not by a long shot, and truly personality will make you ignore the repulsion of a ugly muthafucka’s face, but when the muthafucka is ugly and an asshole, it’s almost too easy. His wife was so ugly that I almost gagged on my own bile imagining what their offspring would look like. Unfortunately I worked there long enough to have seen their son, and just like mother, just like father, the kid was ugly as fuck. The kid actually looked Piglet from Winnie the Pooh with a bad case of eczema on his face. I can remember the day he brought in his son, and all I could think is “Damn little man. Your dad loves Dungeons and Dragons more than you.” Once his wife and son left, he went right back into his office and fired up the head set and took a long pull of some role-playing rock and got a semi-stiffie at the exact moment he touched his mouse.

Needless to say, me and Todd did not get along whatsoever. He was a kiss-ass and a rule-follower and I was an asshole and a rule-breaker and the two are straight Jew and Palestinian. We had this very small office that everyone would sort of just sit in and do absolutely nothing but surf the net and watch bit torrents and shit like that. I wasn’t with it. The co-workers were cool though. One guy, Andy was a former Asian gangster, but he got booed up with a lovely lady so she made him cut all of that To Be Number One shit out. His fiancé’s brother, Tommy Ta, wannabe Asian gangster, worked there too. Tommy was funny as hell and we both shared a love for rice rockets. The homie Mike was the best. He sort of looked like Frankenstein, but could do anything that needed to be done with a computer. He had a ridiculous commute to Mason, something like an hour and a half. Consider the fact that he was coming from deep Virginia and not the DC side of things and you can see why I’d never envy him for that. The only other black guy in the office was a former soccer and lacrosse player named Tomi, so maybe he wasn’t really the only other black guy that worked there, but he was a cool guy nonetheless. The guy I remember the most was a Chinese fellow with glasses named Hai. Hai was a total dork but wore it well. I remember he used to like this one Chinese thanger, so we’d always try and coerce him to go and kick some game, but he’d always be like, “No way dude. She’s way outta my league.” Hai was great. We gave him the nickname “How Hai” and it had nothing to do with the collie herb, seen? Still, hanging around the office got very droll. I figured that since I had the walkie-talkie, if I was needed, they could simply just call me on it. I also figured that since me and the pale rider Todd ain’t get along too well, it would be in the interest of the department for me to not have my big-ass in the office all day. So I’d head over to the Johnson Center where I would read magazines at the bookstore, pontificate about life with my homie and head of Mason security, Big Mike, and get free lunch and occasionally flirt with the donkey-assed manager of the food court, Kendre. This lasted for quite sometime with no problems, but while I was chilling on GMU’s dime Todd and the other bosses in the A/V department had another plan for me. I come in one day ten minutes late and I get told by Todd that they are going to move me into the recently vacated position of assistant A/V manager. Fine. Whatever that means. What was meant was this: our department was divided into two factions, the computer side where I had been working for over a year, which of course, dealt with all things PC, and the A/V side that dealt with the loan of everything else. Shit like televisions, slide projectors, boomboxes, those sort of things. What they did was move me to a four-day, Monday through Thursday schedule, which was lovely, but I was forced to be in the other office, and this severely limited my freedom to roam the campus and try and get laid on GMU’s dime. What was good was that I no longer had to deal with pasty-ass Todd. In addition, the dude that was in charge of this new office I was moving to was a former colleague of mine from over at the Johnson Center library. I can’t use his name since it’s too idiosyncratic, so we’ll just call him “John”. John seemed to be a nice enough fellow when I was working at the library. He was in charge of putting media items on course reserve. John was a big music head and got me hip to a lot of stuff ranging from Deep Purple to Charles Mingus. I thought that we’d get along just fine since he seemed cool enough from the last job.

John was quite the character. When he worked at the Johnson Center Library his hair was in the form of very, very fine fucking mullet that went all the way down to the crack of his ass. His fiancé also worked in the library with him. I always thought she was the more gregarious of the two as John was alright, but something, exactly what I couldn’t tell you, wasn’t quite right about the dude. At some point after he got the new job as the Audio/Visual manager, his fiancé left him and he cut his mullet off. John was one of those guys that probably wouldn’t be fat if weren’t for his gut. His gut was the proverbial hanging-past my-cock sort of stomach that surpasses cute and cuddly and enters the realm of “where’s your dick at?” He may have actually looked more normal with the mullet. The way this office operated was as such. I would get there shortly after noon everyday. John was supposed to have been there since 8am, even though I was later informed by the students that worked with him in the morning that he was consistently dilatory himself. John and I would be in this rather small 25’x 20’ room with a student workforce of two or three people. There were four dudes I can distinctly remember. The first student was Monte. Monte was your average “dood” dude. He always seemed to be in a good mood and wore surf wear even though he didn’t surf or ever even lived near a beach. Everyone was “dood” to him. Monte was a genuinely good guy who despite the fact that he seemed gay, actually wasn’t. His roommate also worked at A/V, a fellow named Eddie. Eddie was half-caucazoid and half-Korean and was the naturally quiet type. You know, those sort of folks that don’t really get a kick out of hearing themselves speak. He was a bright dude though and when he spoke he was either fairly poignant or funny, both of which made the workday go a helluva lot faster. Eddie had the loudest guffaw of a laugh which annoyed the classes neighboring our office, and great taste in indie rock. The youngest dude in the office was a fellow named Bryan, or B.Mass as he preferred to be called. B.Mass was the resident computer expert. If you work in A/V it isn’t really necessary to know how to build computers, deal with routers or any sort of codes like HTML, JAVA, or a C++. If you can depress a power button and wind up a cord, for the most part, you’ll be cool. B.Mass could do all of that real computer shit. He was an expert downloader back in 2000, so we would get all of the hot new shit from him. Everyday he’d come in like, “I got the new Redman.” Very good folks, I can never remember him being in a pissy mood whatsoever. Finally we have Ali. Ali was straight from Turkey, Muslim as fuck, and probably one of the best people I have ever met in life. Though he was Muslim as fuck, he would drink a few brewskis every now and then. Ali was totally selfless and would always offer to share whatever food he had with us. Probably due to his being a student he ate a lot of hot dogs, a food that I try my best not to consume too often. Ali would be like, “Hey guys? I got hot dogs.” We’d be like, “No thanks, Ali. We’re cool.” Ali would look at us like he was offering up filet mignon and would be like, “C’mon guys. Who wants mayo, who wants mustard?” I guess I didn’t respect the swaying power of those packets of condiments. So, from 12pm to 5pm the cast of characters in this tiny office that was littered with televisions, overhead and slide projectors, VCRs and DVD players, all on portable carts, would be John, myself and up to three of the aforementioned crew. It was one of the most extreme cases of overstaffing that I have ever witnessed. Sometimes there weren’t enough chairs for the staff that was present. John would usually stay stationary for upwards of three hours at a time. I didn’t even have my own computer in the office, so I usually read and wrote a lot of rhymes, as at that point in time I truly thought I was gonna be a rapper, or MC, for all you Hip-Hop purists out there.

The dayshift proved to be very weird. John was a very perverted fucker that was the most inappropriate supervisor that I have ever had the displeasure of working for. He’d often get on this sexually explicit joke-tip, and most of those jokes were based in the realm of homosexuality, which has been deemed against God’s law by the Christians who have been to Heaven and back. The brunt of these jokes was always Monte, maybe because he acted gay on occasion. John would look at Monte and be like, “I’ll fuck you hard in the ass and you’ll love it.” Monte was a real good sport about the shit though, as he could have filed a sexual harassment case and fucked up John’s whole life and would have had us to back him up. One day after sitting in an uncomfortable chair for about an hour and doing my best to drown out John’s ramblings, I hear him say, “When I’m naked I look like a cherub.” I screw up my face and tell him that no one is trying to hear that bullshit and that it’s completely inappropriate for the workplace. Disgusted, I got up and left. The shit was so unnerving hearing such ill-mannered filth, and I’m probably the farthest thing from a wowser that most will ever meet. This unease ended daily at 5pm. I would always take lunch at about 4, and if God was on my side on that particular day, John would be gone when I came back. After 5pm, everything was good. We’d hook up the Playstation, throw in a movie, or sometimes rotate the office sentry so that we could all have a good time wandering around. There was a pretty little lady named Alicia that would come by and grace us with her presence. Now Alicia was all of that. Smart, funny, played basketball (not for the school, for fun) and dressed extremely nice. I had a feeling she was fascinated with a yungplure, but I never won that race. One time me and her were to go to New York for the weekend. It would have been Alicia’s first time in the Big Apple. She backed out at the last minute cause I hadn’t reserved a hotel room. I tried to let her know that it wouldn’t be a thing to get one, but mislead by the reputation of America’s most bubbling city, she got scared and thought that we were gonna be sleeping out of a car. She disappeared suddenly, and I haven’t seen the girl in years. I wonder what in the shit she’s doing? Anyhow, the hours from 5pm to 10pm were when I was in charge. I’d move over to John’s desk and fire up his computer and the whole gang would have a great time. We saw a lot of great films as Netflix had just started up, and had a lot of great philosophical debates with the aforementioned cast. Oh yeah, we played a lot of cards too. Spades, Tonk, Gin Rummy and on occasion shot some dice.

Like with all jobs, most days seem the same. Same colleagues, same customers, same problems, same 10-hour shift. I would kind of zone out in the day until 5pm, when I became the “Nighttime A/V Manager” and from there on, the remaining five hours always went far better. One day, John reveals to me his Excel chart that documented when I was late. “On April 23rd you were 6 minutes late. On May 4th you took an 4 extra minutes for your lunch break." I could see that he had been recruited by Todd and the dike bitch to finish this clandestine mission of ousting me from my job. I had been warned a week earlier to stop hanging in the Johnson Center and arriving late, so I had shipped up my act and was being on my best behavior. One day I get back from lunch and John is on his way out. We give a routine “Have a good evening” like Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf would and I head inside and take my place at John’s desk. Today I was working with Monte and Eddie, and the two of them were quiet reading, so I decided to futz around pon John’s computer. I tried to insert my Zip disc and discovered that the drive was full. This was something never happened before. John never left anything behind ever. Truth be told, I’m a nosy muthafucka. If you leave out your paystub, I’m gonna look at it and know how many days of leave you've got left. That’s just how I am. I probably won’t do anything with the data gathered, but shit, if you wanna leave it out, I’ma check it out. So being the inquiring mind that I am, I’m trying to know what the fuck is on this disc. The office is unusually quiet as I am perusing via Windows Explorer the contents of this pervert’s disc. At first I only found the regular shit one would expect on somebody’s disc. Keep in mind that this is 2002, so there were only a few mp3s and some essays on various musical artists that John had written. I read one on Fela Kuti that was actually very good and should've been published. Being a prying bastard was getting a little boring as it seemed that there wasn’t anything of real interest on the disc. I clicked open a few random folders. I was doing it in a half-witted state of mind, so I wouldn’t have remembered the directory path I took to get where I got. All of the sudden there was a lone unnamed folder that was buried within the folder that his writings were contained in, I clicked on it. Another folder with no name, clicked on that. Another folder. No name. I gave it a click and all of the sudden I get a gang of thumbnail pictures, about 50 pictures. Upon closer examination, I saw what the pictures actually were, some white man with a humongous beer belly wearing women’s lingerie in assorted poses. All of the pictures were taken from the neck down. I put two and two together and thought to myself, “Holy shit.” I guess I was so taken back by what I had just seen that I didn’t realize I had verbalized what I was thinking. Monte, always inquisitive, asks, “’Holy shit’ what dude?” I’m like “Nothing.” Eddie pulls his nose out of his book and is like, “No way man. You can’t just say ‘holy shit’ and not share it with the team.” The two start to come over. I realize that there’s nothing that can be done, so I just let them come over and be as sadomasochistic with their eyes as I was. Eddie sees the pictures first and reacts immediately. “Oh fuck. Tell me that’s not John. Oh my God.” Monte finally realizes what is going on and says, “No way dude. No way.” Both are in disbelief and are asking me shit like, “That’s a joke, right? You put those on there right?” “Hell naw I ain’t put that shit on there! That’s John, man.” Eddie looks like he just ate a beet, shakes his head and is like, “Fucking sick dude. That is so fucking sick. He’s squeezing his man tits together. Arrrrrgggh!!!!” Monte looks disturbed because I think that he just realized that John’s jokes were grounded in reality and not mere good old American frat-boy homophobia. “So John’s a closet fag, huh?” Eddie says, and Monte asks me if he could get at the computer. I get up and he starts to opening up the histories of the various Internet browsers and the caches of Limewire and Bearshare. Monte discovers that for the past 3 weeks, at least, John had been frequenting any and every gay chat site he could find. Monte even found some sites where he had created a profile. Dude was on the prowl looking for illicit gay lovers on George Mason's computer on George Mason’s dime. Eddie, with a fist on his chin says to me, “Chad. Is John still riding your ass about being late? No pun intended.” I’m like, “Yeah, he is.” Eddie strikes back quickly, “Why don’t you copy those pictures and blackmail him?” I sat and thought for a minute cause that shit sounded like an excellent idea. But then I considered a hypothetical situation; what if someone became so nosy that they wanted to look on my Zip disc? What would they find? A gang of pictures of some white man with a humongous beer belly wearing women’s lingerie in assorted poses. Fuck that. How in the hell would I have explained that? “Nah man, I ain’t gay. Those are some pictures of my boss that I was going to use to blackmail him with.” Nah. No men in Fredericks of Hollywood gear on my disc. Fuck that. I tell Monte and Eddie this logic and they see my point in full. What we did was merely leave the disc alone and vowed not to tell Ali or B.Mass about this sick-ass shit.

The next day I was an hour late. I didn’t plan on it, but that’s what happened. I used to hang around Mason fairly late on occasion, the night before I got pretty drunk, then had to drive back to my crib in Landover, Maryland, a 45-minute trip. No excuse, a muthafucka is just late. I figured this would be the beginning of the end so I walked into the office with a very obdurate attitude. If these fucks were trying to fire me, then let’s get it on, muthafucka. At the front desk was Eddie, who immediately flashes all of his teeth and says nothing. Ali was at work too, but he hadn’t had lunch yet as I smelled no microwaved hot dogs smothered in mayo and mustard. John is sitting at his desk and before I can say anything or put my bag down, he asks to speak with me outside. We go outside and he lights up a cigarette. “Chad.” He says, “I hate to have to do this, but I can’t stand for you to be late anymore. It’s affecting the department.” At this point I lost it. I initially thought of the fact that he comes in an hour late everyday, but has the luxury of having no one monitoring his arrival save for the subordinate students. Then I remembered… this is the same guy that’s probably got a thong and a push-up bra on up under his faded jeans and moo-moo. The same dude that’s on Yahoo looking for someone to pitch or catch, as I wasn’t sure which way he liked it. “I have no choice but to write you up for this.” This statement brought me back to reality with vengeance in my mind, body and soul. “Actually, John, you ain’t writing me up for shit.” He looks like a slavemaster that heard “My name is Kunta Kinte” and says, “Excuse me? Who are you talking to?” Without an iota of grin on my face I say to John, “Did you find your Zip disc this morning?” He starts to look a little uneasy and confused and says, “Yeah, why?” “Why? Because I found it last night.” Now he’s petrified. He knows I know. “And what I found on it is of a particular nature both against the Bible and the Employee Handbook of George Mason University.” John looks blank and with the acting acumen of a gay porn star he tells me “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” This was getting tiresome, so it was time to bring in the closer. “Listen man. You know God-damned well what I’m talking about and you should also know by now that I got a copy of the muthafuckas. So go on ahead and write me up and see what transpires. I’d hate to have to go to your boss with this PowerPoint presentation that I’ve got.” After that, he said nothing, just stood there and got red as Chief Wahoo and stormed off into the direction of the Johnson Center. I watched him go and went back into the office. I come in and Eddie, still smiling big, asks “So, is everything cool?” I smile back as big as him and let him know, “Yeah Eddie. Everything is fucking bliss.” We start laughing so loud that the professor from the classroom next door comes over and asks very politely that we keep it down. Yes sir. So, so sorry. Ali yells out to us, “Guys. Seriously. I’ve got way too many hot dogs. Who wants one?” Still smiling I say, “Ali, I’ll take one of those hot dogs. You got mustard?” Ali nods his head and is like, “I got mayo too.”

From that moment on, John never spoke to me unless I spoke to him. Most of the homoerotic jokes ceased, and whenever they would come up, Monte would quell John with a stern nature that he hadn’t ever used before. I was living the life. Two hour lunches, a half an hour late here, forty minutes late there. Whatever. I had tricked the man into thinking that I had a digital copy of his amateur porn shots, so he was under my control. I still thought that my best move would be to get another job. There was no way that I could have kept the pseudo-blackmail up forever. I started to play the field and got a position as an A/V manager at Georgetown University. I was to start in three weeks. They asked me if I had quit at Mason as of yet, no, but don’t worry. I will. One day amongst a full house in the A/V office I ask John for two weeks off. I blame the need for leave on a family emergency, and he grants it. Of course he grants it. If he didn’t I would have marched to the office of the dike bitch that hates me and I would have plopped down a Zip disc on her desk that would have spelled doom for John. Or so he thought. I believe this was on a Wednesday, so Thursday was my last day for the workweek. That Thursday evening I pack everything that I had in the office into my Cleveland State University duffel bag and tape a letter to John’s monitor. I can’t remember precisely what the letter said, but it was the stock two-week notice that you’ve gotta give your job when you bone out. “Thanks for the opportunity.” “My time here was rewarding,” and other bullshit like, “I have learned so much and truly grown as a human being since I’ve been in this position.” Alladat malarkey. What I do remember was that the complimentary closing of the letter was “Godspeed.” On my way out, the fellow that I knew at the information desk in the Johnson Center, Todd Diamond (not my former supervisor, this guy was cool-they merely shared names), with whom I would frequently philosophize with, sees me with this big bag and is like, “What’d you do? Quit?” “Yeah. I just did.” That following Monday I was in Cleveland enjoying a two-week vacation on my former employer’s dime, telling my mother what I just told y’all…

Godspeed,

Black Bacchus…