Day 124: Much Love & Respect, MCA

"Now my name is M.C.A./ I've got a license to kill/I think you know what time it is/It's time to get ill." - "Paul Revere"

What's gonna set you free? What'd you think, did you miss your calling? Look inside and you'll see. - "Gratitude" 

Damn it, I'm sad today. Really sad. Adam Yauch is gone. Damn it. MCA is gone. 


Label me a white boy, hip-hop wannabe if you will, but I could give a crap what you think. I love hip-hop. I especially love old school hip-hop. 80s old school hip-hop. I've written essays on Public Enemy for music magazines kind of love for old school hip-hop. I consider A Tribe Called Quest magicians. KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions, god damn right. Big Daddy Kane, cold blooded stud. Eric B & Rakim, oh hell yeah. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphopricy, so so smooth. Uncle L, going back to Cali, indeed. Onyx, let the damn boys be boys. 


But for me, the top of the crop has and always will be the glorious Beastie Boys, equal parts magnificent hip-hop trailblazers and punk true-ists. Equal parts mad scientific geniuses and nuts and bolts mechanics. True musicians and visionaries. As much as Dylan has meant to me, the Beastie Boys have arguably meant the same. I watched them grow. We are roughly the same age. Our lives have run parallel. We changed, we grew, we transformed, we become husbands and fathers. We weathered the times. But no more. Damn it.  


I was so looking forward to the next Beastie Boys' record. I was so looking forward to seeing them again. I was so looking forward to witnessing where they would take their unique spin on the world and weave their creativity in the coming years. And now that's changed. Damn you, death. 

People who know me well know my love for music, and they know my devotion to certain artists. The Beastie Boys are one of those artists. I've been in the Beastie Boys camp since day 1. "Licensed To 'Ill" intrigued me from the get go. And although I didn't foresee myself becoming a lifelong fan by any means from what I heard initially, the B-Boys won me over and kept winning me over and over. And I was happy and proud to try and win anyone else over on their behalf that I could, from my girlfriend Stephanie in college who would tease me by mocking "you gonna fight for you right to party, tonight?" on through to my wife, who thought I was an idiot for liking "those guys." Guess who became fans in the end? 

The B-Boys may have started out as Def Jam's frat brother-ish, smash-and-destroy, bad-rapping knucklehead rejects, but they did what a lot of kids do: change. They may have made fools of themselves touring with Madonna in the early days, but they did in fact change. They may have forever cemented themselves as gross, loudmouthed, untalented dipshits with the "Fight For Your Right" . . " video in the minds of people who don't take music all that seriously, but for those of us who do, The Beastie Boys not only changed, they became important. They became vital. They became masters of their craft. They became "Paul's Boutique," about as game-changing a record as there has ever been, certainly one of the most, if not the most, revolutionary hip-hop records ever.  

I only saw the Beastie Boys live once. It wasn't enough. I was expecting more. So much more. The Beastie Boys nation truly is a nation, and when you're in the middle of it participating in the magic, you feel a part of it. It's a nation of black and white and brown and yellow kids and adults who appreciate quirky diversity. Who appreciate smart exploration. Who appreciate lyrics that ooze intelligent coolness. A Beastie Boys' record is an adventure that you can relive and relive and relive gladly and wholeheartedly. A Beastie Boys' song is an sonic wonder containing layers and layers of funky, passionate textures. A Beastie Boys' instrumental is like chomping on a delicious jazzy apple that tastes a million kinds of tastes. A Beastie Boys punk song is an unending wave of demented wasps biting you in the ass with unrelenting fury, laughing as you hop in agony all the while. An hour with the Beastie Boys' music is like taking a 1,000 voyages into strange, exotic, intoxicating lands--like being drunk for the first time all over again. 


I so admired Adam Yauch. I admired the transformations he made as a man. I admired where he let his beliefs take him. I admired his charitable work and his Buddhist faith. I admired how he expanded his horizons into film making and turned out important, vital visual work. Most of all, I admired that he wasn't timid about looking back at his early years and saying, "Yeah, I did some stupid stuff I don't condone now, but that was then, and this is now." That's the beauty of growing up. The change. The growth. The newness. Always the newness. 

This year is really starting to suck as far as losing musical friends goes, but there's much to celebrate in these deaths. There's much to hold up and say "thank you" for. I truly am saddened at Adam Yauch's passing, as odd as that might seem to some people considering he's a man I never met or exchanged one word with. Yet, if it's possible for a "beastie boy" to be important to another man's life, Adam Yauch was to mine. 

I Give Thanks For This World As A Place To Learn
And For This Human Body That I Know I've Earned
And My Deepest Thanks To All Sentient Beings
For Without Them There Would Be No Place To Learn What I'm Seeing


"Bodhisattva Vow"