The Twelve Days of Gheorghe-mas, Day Four

On the fourth day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Four-gone Conclusions
Three Saluki Tallies
Two Recurring Features
And a Doofus Dancing (hee, hee)
(It didn't really flow or rhyme without that hee, hee part.)

Good intentions. They pave the road to Hell, so people say.

The long and winding road that is my life to date is littered with broken-down clunkers that are my well-intended, abandoned vehicles. I know we’re all subject to grand plans that never got off the ground, or even great beginnings that were aborted mid-flight, but I feel like I may have undertaken more than my fair share of half-baked endeavors that never saw fruition.

And there have been some great ones over the years. Some were sound business plans left on the table due to lack of capital, confidence, or any clue how to execute them. From the cliché-but-cool ideas for a new bar to the specific IT business strategies that someone else since figured out and got rich with, they all woulda coulda shoulda worked. But none were employed.

Others were artistic enterprises deserted in embryonic stages. Gheorghe: the Internet Magazine comes to mind. We had another website called Sportive where we waxed haughty about sports issues. (We later saw that same M.O. put to greater use at Jerry’s Wheelhouse.) There was a collaborative novel between Dave, Rob, and myself that got about three chapters in before indifference took over. Even an online crime story whose chapters were written in round-robin manner by an array of self-professed pseudo-literati . . . that vanished just as it was getting good.

The screenplays Dave and I co-wrote also fell victim to the same lack of follow-through. From 1998-2000, we did manage to crank out three semi-complete scripts, with one of them even making it into a Hollywood studio, so there’s at least a sense of accomplishment. That sense is heightened all the more by my checkered history of never making it that far down the road on so many other projects, but another feeling – what more we could have done – creeps in from time to time as well. Our first script got reviewed by the studio people, with enough complimentary feedback to spur us on; then bad luck eliminated that connection, and we really never pursued it the way successful writers do. Our final collaboration made it into Project Greenlight’s Top 250, pared down from five or six thousand entries. And what did I do? I failed to submit the follow-up paperwork to keep us in the mix. (I only confessed this fact to Dave a few years ago.)

I loved that last screenplay, too. I wince every time a preview for a film about the Outer Banks appears on my television, assuming someday someone will swipe our idea and run with it to big success instead of us. Fortunately, works like Nights in Rodanthe have little to do with our plot, but someday, it’s gonna burn me up.

Some of my good intentions haven’t been moneymaking plots, they’ve just been ideas for fun. Party themes long forgotten, my 1991 home brewery in Coby’s basement (“W.C. Beer -- canned beer taste in a bottle”), and the road trips. Ah, the road trips.

For spring break in 1990 I had mapped out the “Bad Brewery Tour,” a massive road trip to the Midwest in our fratre’s Camaro that would hit the Schlitz, Pabst, Shaefer, and other low-prestige breweries. We were very excited. Then I went to Jamaica because my girlfriend’s parents were paying for it. No complaints, obviously, but another planned-out, memorable would-be adventure aborted.

In the spring of 1993, after I’d finished up my studies the previous December, I had big plans to drive across the country with W&M friends Flynn & Erney. On motorcycles. We had the hogs already. Our route was calculated, and our lodging – relying mostly on friends & family couch space – was all figured out. All that was left was mending fences with a few ex-girlfriends in key locations so that we could maximize our limited budget. And then I didn’t graduate in December. And then Ern got a job. And that was that. I never did call my old love in New Mexico, the linchpin to the west.

Now, let’s be honest – the motorcycle trip would have surely killed us. Three drunks in their early twenties on Harleys (actually, the cycle I was borrowing from my dad was a Honda, always cool) riding from bar to bar all across the USA . . . yeah. No chance we make it back. I guess the laws that save lives can sometimes also include the law of inertia.

Somehow, going against the grain of this lifelong pattern, I have been a part of Gheorghe: The Blog, which hasn’t derailed . . . yet. Slow, inauspicious origins have begat some serious momentum in recent years, relatively speaking. The odds that we would be laughingly reminiscing about this silly blog idea by now were very strong.

We’ve even managed to maintain a few recurring features along the way. Our collective ADHD killed enough of them to make the label “yet another recurring feature destined to stop recurring” warranted on most every new idea. As evidenced by Rob’s Day Two post, however – hell, even by virtue of last year’s 12 Days of Gheorghe-mas segment and its resurrection thus far this year – it seems like we can actually follow through on some of our plans. It’s not a success story deserving of an NPR segment or anything, but hey – those who know us wouldn’t have expected even this.

Which is why I must now mimic Dave and Rob’s college exploits and plunge one final harpoon into my own great white whale. (Doubly punny, nice.) There was one recurring feature this year that I helped engineer and propel forward toward completion. And there was one recurring feature that I let go dormant right before its finale. An indefensible backslide toward my storied bad habits, the fact that this feature has sat there one post away from its conclusion for eight months is just preposterous. I am sorry.

We all realize by now how much the 12 Days of Gheorghe-mas resemble Alcoholics Anonymous’s 12 Steps to Recovery – and how much G:TB resembles AA. (“AARP,” Mark cracks wise.) Well, one of the 12 steps involves making amends, and I am here today, soberly and somberly (both of those are fleeting descriptors), to make amends.

Yep. I’m finishing the Cauc Hop.

Remember the Cauc Hop? Take a few minutes to jog your memory if need be. But it’s time, people. Game on . . .

The Cauc Hop: The Final

3rd Bass (4) vs. Beastie Boys (2)

So, back in the semifinals . . . yes, back when the other March Madness was coming to a close . . . the Beasties took care of the upstart 14-seed Slug while 3rd Bass shocked Cauc Hoppers all over by knocking Eminem off his pedestal. It set up a final showdown that’s taken months of preparation and promotion to finally bring about. Here we go.

* * *

You didn’t think Serch and Pete Nice were going to take this lying down, did you? The familiar opening sample of Blood, Sweat & Tears’s “Spinning Wheel” comes blaring on the speakers, and the crowd gives a look like, “Oh, man – the gloves are off already.” It’s “Sons of 3rd Bass,” their lyrical beat-down of the three bad brothers you know so well that led off The Cactus Album. It’s on.

As Dan Dierdorf would say (all blowhardy), “These two teams simply do not like each other.” Well, at the very least 3rd Bass doesn’t dig on the Beasties. The B-Boys made no secret of the fact that MC Serch had tried in vain to make himself one of their crew. Add to that the Beasties’ bail-out from DefJam Records, which was 3B’s label at the time, and there was certainly enough fodder for these neigh-borough rapsters to get on the mic and take some shots. And let’s face it – time’s been a lot kinder to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego than to Serch, Richie Rich, and especially the Prime Minister P-Nice, aka Peter Nash. Gotta be something of a chip on their shoulders.

Soon enough the derelicts of dialect are laying down lyrics with typical hip-hop bravado:

Swarm to the lyrics cause Serch is your father
Screaming "Hey Ladies," why bother?
Broke out ‘cause the swindler took your ducat
No talent on the tune, you might as well SUCK IT

…and standard 3rd Bass disapproval at commercialism (often reserved for Hammer or Vanilla):

Taste the flav' of the original
Orphaned trio, abandoned by lyrical
Through us, the echelon exposed with the roll with no soul
Counterfeit style, born sworn and sold
Out with high voice distorted
If a Beast' to wish play fetus, I'd have him ABORTED
Ludicrous whining, meaning when the others
Stand by ‘em, while they take the fall
The Beast' now lives in the Capitol

And so 3rd Bass draws first blood.

Adam Yauch, Adam Horovitz, and Clarence sit back and shrug it off. Time has indeed been kind to this trio, giving them wisdom and comfort instead of hard luck and failed ambitions. Of course, they’ve cashed in and rested on laurels like nobody else in the business. That extreme youthful exuberance and visionary jackassery on display in their first few albums have, for better or for worse, given way to a mellow cool, but also works of little risk and, in turn, little reward. Their post-1990 street cred has gone relatively unchallenged . . . until right now, when another wallop-packing hip-hop trio from the five boroughs – who hasn’t graduated to rap royalty over the years – takes the barbs of their 1989 song and applies them exactly 20 years later.

Pete Nice won’t leave well enough alone.

A record label, a King to 4th letter
Passin’ phases, non-legitimate trendsetters
Pop figures, who figured they'd get paid
Exploitin’ art the black man made

Starting to ruffle some feathers. 3rd Bass made its bones taking an old school slant, acknowledging elders, having a multiracial roster, and busting other acts’ chops for selling out and “turning hip-hop into hit-pop.” It’s always been a little difficult to fully reconcile that in some small way they were doing the very things they mocked, but they got away with it. Taking on by-now institutions like the Beastie Boys, however, might be pulling the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger.

For now, though, Mike and the Adams and are kicking around with a funky instrumental. They’re taking the Buddhist high road and not engaging their feisty adversaries. Apparently they don’t understand how the Cauc Hop and rap battles work.

Pete Nice swings his cane for the fences . . . hitting a ball signed by Ducky Medwick after the ’34 Fall Classic . . . and it caroms off Yauch’s noggin. Nothin’. The Prime Minister chews on his cigar and spews the “Sons of 3rd Bass” end-lyric bitterness:

You know about that silver spoon havin’, buckshot acne showin’, L.A. weak-ass sellout, non-legitimate, tip-doggin’, Jethro pseudo intellectual, dust-smokin’, pretty boy playwright posin’, folks wiggin’, whinin’ annoyin’ Def Jam reject devil, white bread no money havin’ slum village people cloning step children!

Okay. Ad Rock’s getting pissed. Suckers they be saying they can take out Adam Horovitz. People have been naysaying the Beastie Boys since they were churning out worthless hardcore noise. They were frat boy idiots stealing from Zeppelin. Then goofballs swiping from Sly Stone. Then retreads ripping themselves off. They were Russell Simmons’ and Rick Rubin’s puppets. Then they owed it all to the Dust Brothers. Then Mix Master Mike. They were a flash in the pan. Then experimental idiots. Then washed-up and out of ideas. Enough, already.

You say fuck that, yo holmes, fuck this
I’m the King Ad Whammy and you’re Dick Butkus

Mike D, back from the dead, takes control:

Now Ad-Rock, and M.C.A.
Let's rock this joint in the old school way
Well I'm on, 'til the crack of dawn
Mowing down M.C.'s like I'm mowing a lawn
But I can stand my ground, and I am down
To wax an M.C. who acts like a clown
But for now, I'd like to ask you how
You like the feel of the bass in your face in the crowd

DJ Richie Rich sends up some furious cuts to take back the momentum. It’s go-time for Serch & the Prime Minister of Sinister to win it, and so as with an atomic elbow, they let one drop. The piano loop starts . . .

Kick ‘em in the grill, Pete!

Mike D . . . gets the Gas Face
MCA . . . also gets the Gas Face
Ad Rock . . . shut up, stop whinin’, you get the Gas Face!

Oh, lord. Did they just give the B-Boys the Gas Face?? 3rd Bass is just about to pull off this stunning Cauc Hop upset, but the Beasties seem like they’re sleepwalking. They’re just too far removed from their heyday, and too well off to care. Or maybe they know something?

I said where'd you get your information from, huh?
You think that you can front when revelation comes
Yeah . . . You can't front on that

But Richie signals to Serch and goes for the death blow, as we hear the jack-in-the-box kiddie intro. Yep . . . it’s . . . “Pop Goes the Weasel.” The insinuation that the Beasties are on par with Vanilla Ice is too much.

Stop vexin on the skills, ya ain't originate
The thin ice you skate upon will break and set ya straight
Ate up on the plate, now who's diesel
Not the weasel
Not the weasel
Pop goes the weasel

Then it goes quiet. The crowd’s not sure what just happened. The B-Boys just got sent packing. Or . . .

Look . . . lookin' . . . look-look-look-look-lookin' at my Gucci, it's about that time.
What’s the time?

* * *

You see, I spent much of my sophomore year in college doing just what I was talking about earlier – making plans I’d never fulfill, and it wasn’t just limited to enrolling in classes I’d never attend. On more than one occasion I’d have long conversations about doing constructive things, going to faraway places and achieving something meaningful. Or just trying to get out of the fraternity house that day. Always, though, life got in the way. It’s like John Lennon (who didn’t live long enough to see hip-hop flourish, but who would have loved it) told us: “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.”

And as I recall two decades later, life that year primarily consisted of tearing my fingers to shreds on Mickey’s Big Mouth pull-tops with Rob & Dave and listening to Paul’s Boutique on repeat. Repeatedly on repeat. We thought it was the best thing we’d heard. Tattooing those sounds onto my brain, so that now I can’t possibly hear David Bromberg’s “Sharon” or Sly & the Family Stone’s “Loose Booty” (check ‘em out) normally. Listening until certain words inevitably trigger Pavlovian responses. When my daughters have to learn about Ponce de Leon, they’re going to wonder why the hell “constantly on, the fountain of youth, not Robotron” follows every mention of him. “I’ve got money” evokes “like Charles Dickens,” which in turn evokes much puzzlement. And so on. There’s no cleansing my brain at this point.

Licensed to Ill, same deal. I still hope the beginning of every playing of “When the Levee Breaks” is actually “Rhymin’ and Stealin’.” It never is. The other night a few friends were at my place having a few drinks around the coffee table in very grown-up fashion. Somewhere in the mix I threw LTI on the hi-fi. A girl just a few years younger than I got up and did an unprovoked, emphatic, and lyrically complete run-through of “Paul Revere” that drowned out the Beasties. Ridiculous, and it’s likely bound for YouTube, but she didn’t care.

Then there’s “Sabotage.” For a rare change, enough said. And it goes on. “Intergalactic,” “Sure Shot,” “So What’cha Want,” and dozens more. The wasted days in Rob & Dave’s room drinking malt liquor and trying to contemplate the Beasties’ unnatural obsession with eggs and fish – as well as deep ponderings like whether the girl who sings on “Shadrach” was Caucasian or African-American . . . well, we never followed through on any grand plan we concocted that year, ever, at all; but looking back, if we were actually on the road to hell, it certainly wasn’t because of our good intentions.

* * *

Don't touch the mic, baby, don't come near it. The Boys launch into “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun,” a masterpiece if only for pairing Mountain’s and Pink Floyd’s guitar work. MCA’s gruff holler, unaffected by the salivary gland cancer, shakes the stage, Mike D is needling the 3rd Bassmen, and Ad Rock’s in a full-out howl.

I am like Clockwork Orange going off on the town
I've got homeboys bonanza to beat your ass down
Well I'm mad at my desk and I'll be writing all curse words
Expressing my aggressions through my schizophrenic verse words
You're a headless chicken chasin' a sucker freebasin’
Looking for a fist to put your face in

Knockout punch. As Serch shuffles off the stage, he turns back to hear “...the best in men's clothing. Call Paul's Boutique, ask for Janice and the number is (718) 498-1043. That's Paul's Boutique and they're in Brooklyn.”


Make no mistake, MC Serch, the Prime Minister Pete Nice, and DJ Richie Rich gave it a valiant run. They’re white boy rappers who have always garnered respect instead of ridicule, and for a few short years they were tip-top in hip-hop. But these were the Beastie Boys, not Cheech and Chong.

Later that night, the Boys called P-Nice on his graveyard shift at Carvel and played Cooky Puss for him.
Your 2009 Cauc Hop Champions: Beastie Boys


You can sleep again, fair friends.