And I thought I was gettin’ the hang of this thing. For starters, the second mic wasn’t working. It was working technically, but I couldn’t get the sound to come through on the computer so Young Randall and me had to share a mic, which caused a few pauses as well as some mic shuffling. The second problem was that I tried to be a little cute with the intro. I used Chris Jericho’s theme music at the opening and thought that I turned it off. I talked over it low for a little while, but figured that it was already off. Jericho’s theme music turned into Edge’s old theme music which actually sounds like porn in the beginning and poor Young Randall was nearly drowned out by Rob Zombie until I figured out my error. We also had to close the show quickly because we went over the time again, and there was a phone call and a child woke up during the show. But, I edited to the best of my abilities. And hey, at least we got an e-mail this week.

On to what we talked about.

- Eugene wins the Angle Invitational
- Shelton loses to the Masterlock?
- Matt Hardy deja vu all over again
- Cena loses to Carlito but rocks the mic
- 45 seconds of Cena’s next single
- HBK’s awesome promo on Hogan
- Great American Bash run down
- LOD rehashed?
- Christian loses his cool
- The backstory of Jillian Hall
- JBL beats the Taker and Randy O returns
- Eddie’s secret is revealed
- Early look at Summerslam
- Big D sends us an e-mail

You can listen to the show by clicking here.

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Reason 25 To Stop Playing Baseball: We had a double header and I wanted to load the second game with my two best pitchers because we were playing a team that I always want to beat. I thought we could win the first game by throwing my fourth and fifth best pitchers, but that came back to bite me in the ass. We lost 10-8, but it really wasn’t as much about the pitching as it was our defense didn’t play well and we didn’t hit with runners on, which is our M.O. (we might’ve left the bags juiced 3 times). My starting pitcher had a couple bad innings where I thought he might completely falter and I didn’t want to bring in my second pitcher until at least the 7th. So I decided that I would warm up just in case I had to pitch for an inning or so. I haven’t done much other than throw batting practice for the last two years, mostly because I have a bad shoulder (the plate doesn’t rotate on the socket well, it rubs). I decided that I could probably go hard for at least one inning and then call it a day. I warmed up and threw hard enough to where I could feel the shoulder pain, but there’s something about getting on the mound that just gives me an adreneline rush like you wouldn’t believe. Fortunately for me, we didn’t need me, even though I would’ve loved to go out there for an inning. The reason I say fortunately is because the very next day, I noticed that my back was sore as was my neck. I was trying to remember where I could’ve tweaked it, and then remembered my 20 pitch warm-up and figured that had to be it.

I told my cousin Nak that when I was younger, I’d go 7 or 8 innings and feel it in my entire body the next day. But it was a good pain. The type of pain that you knew was because of something you did that was positive. It wasn’t an injury pain. It was an accomplishment pain. And after only throwing 20 pitches in a non-game situation, I felt that pain the next day. However, I don’t think it’s an accomplishment pain anymore. More like a “I’m getting too old to do this” type pain. I can’t imagine what I would’ve felt like had I got on the mound and really let it go. Oh well. Only 6 more regular season games to go before playoffs as my playing career comes to an end. It’s a weird feeling. But I don’t think I’ll miss it as much as everyone thinks I will. It’s like a great conclusion to a good book. While you’d love to read more of it, you know that it couldn’t end any better. This is starting to feel that way. I have a great team of mostly young guys who play baseball the right way and have character and are the kind of guys I’d invite to dinner. It hasn’t always been that way. Actually, it’s almost never been that way. But thankfully for me, this is the team that I’m glad I’m going out with. And we can shock some teams in the playoffs. I think we will actually.

GG

If you listened to our second episode, you are a trooper. The sound quality was so bad that I could barely hear it and I pumped my sound volume up as high as it could go. Hopefully, the sound on this one is much better. Filipino Heat and I introduced a new guest host named Aiken316 and he had a great time. But of course, because of the infancy in our show, there was another problem.

Right around the 3/4th mark of the show, for some reason, the audio stopped recording. So you will never hear the last quarter of our show, and to me, it was a pretty fun segment, but oh well. I tried to fix it up at the end, but of course it sounds even more amatuerish than we already do.

Here’s what we covered:

- Carlito vs. Shelton - where do we go from here?
- Angle vs. Stryker yet again
- Cena vs. all the RAW heels
- Matt Hardy - how does WWE forward this angle?
- Hogan vs. HBK - biggest box office match of the year?
- Melina, Torrie, and Candice
- Christian - is his character on Smackdown going anywhere?
- Rey vs. Super Crazy - did Eddie’s commentary hurt the match?
- Is Batista’s character what he should be doing
- Eddie vs. Chris Benoit - classic match
- Great American Bash preview
- TNA on Spike TV
- Samoa Joe (this gets cut off)

I then wrapped up the show right as I was talking about Joe being booked in TNA like the next big thing and unforutnately the last 10 minutes or so of the show was lost. It was fun as we covered Dave and Earl Hepner being fired from WWE (well not fun for them of course), as well as Ivory being fired. We chatted about the Chris Benoit vs. William Regal match on Velocity that was the best WWE TV match in some time. And then we wrapped up the second episode of Hogan Knows Best. We’ll get better at this, I promise you. But it’s still fun. And I’m having a ball doing it. And at least the sound was good. Hopefully.

I have made it an MP3 file so you don’t need iTunes or Winamp to hear the show, even though it’s a much bigger file. Since I haven’t made these accessible for RSS yet, I decided to make it easier to download here. But it’s probably not going to be like that once I get the RSS up and running.

Here you go: Wrestlecast Show III

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This review was first published on Epinions.com.

This album was supposed to be Bad Boy’s celebration. With their stable of artists, lead by the popular and talented Notorious B. I. G., Puff Daddy was going to make some hits, have his fun in the sun as a rapper, and utilize this album to also show off his roster of talents like The Lox, Mase, and Black Rob. And Biggie was all for it. Biggie didn’t mind Puffy’s masquerade because in the end, it was all about the money. He wanted Puff to go get that money if he could, even if it was an untalented rapper playing off of huge beats and leaning on his roster for help. The way it turned out in the end wasn’t exactly how Puffy wanted it to happen, but it was still a very successful album.

I remember seeing ads for the album in Source magazine months before it dropped which was July 22, 1997. The album was scheduled to be titled, Hell Up In Harlem. And then March 9, 1997 happened. It basically changed the landscape of the music industry. Tupac Shakur’s death months earlier shook up the world. But when Biggie died, people were scared out of their minds. Was it receipt? Was the East/West coast thing for real? While I’m not sure about the first question (maybe we’ll find out soon enough?), the second question gets a “yep”. It was for real. The two biggest rappers in the game are killed in cold blooded murder. Just crazy even thinking about it some 8 years later. Puffy’s whole life was going to be different. Though you’d hear rumors that Big and Puff weren’t as close as Puffy would proclaim, Puffy not only lost his number one artist, he also lost someone he’d call his best friend. While much of the album was already done, including a video for his first single, Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down, he’d go back in the booth to record a few tracks like Pain and huge single, I’ll Be Missing You before the record would get released. And the original title was scrapped. Enter, No Way Out.

The album for the most part stays true to it’s original roots. It was created to be a fun album that would “make ya dance”. But it does have a personal tone to it, which is expected. There are a couple spoken interludes where Puffy speaks out to Big. As for the music, the album is sample heavy as was expected with the type of music that Puff was famous for, but Puff did a few things that helped make this album good. First off, he deemed it a Puff Daddy And The Family album which meant that he was not doing this all by himself. Imagine an entire album of just Puff. Not good. But it wasn’t like that. Not only was Biggie showcased on the album, Puff decided to showcase his entire roster of rappers. At least those not named Craig Mack. But I’m not sure if Mack was even on the roster at this point. The first track of actual music starts the album out with a bang. Victory samples the famous Bill Conti instrumental track (titled Alone In The Ring, not that you’d know it from the name) from Rocky and Biggie and to an extent, Puff obliterate the track. Busta Rhymes adds his hysterics to the chorus and what you have is an exceptional opening song and probably my favorite song to work out to.

While Victory gets the album off to a bangin’ start, it’s not the best song on the album. That honor would to go It’s All About The Benjamins which is supposedly a remix, though I’ve never heard an original copy of this song. I even heard it was originally a Lox song that Puffy wanted for his album, but I’ve never been able to find confirming information on that. Benjamins utilizes two of the three Lox members (Jada and Sheek) as well as Biggie and Lil’ Kim. Surprisingly, all the verses are hot and Kim and Big end the song in hot fashion. Just shows you how important Big’s writing skills were in Kim’s MC career. Puffy adds the first verse talking about, “gettin’ Grants like Horace,” and his verse is blended with Sheek’s verse which is kind of cool. Overall, just a great song. What You Gonna Do is a hard to believe story about how hard Puffy is. However, his delivery isn’t bad and the beat is awesome.

Sampling in rap music has been there from the get. The problem that most people have with sampling is when it’s obvious. Most people outside of rap fans probably couldn’t tell where 95% of the samples in rap music come from. But that 5% of samples that are so reminiscent of the original song usually drives music fans crazy. Something about stealing art. Most of the criticism about this album, other than Puff’s rap skills comes from the fact that the samples on many of these songs are just so obvious that it’s almost uncreative. Been Around The World samples David Bowie’s Let’s Dance and also takes lyrically from Lisa Stansfield’s All Around The World. It’s a silly song where Puffy and Mase talk nonsense and Biggie sings on the chorus. Yes, I said sing. Puffy even calls himself the “macaroni with the cheese”. It’s your first song where Puff takes himself seriously as a rapper, and it’s not good. The remix would be a better song overall. Don’t You Stop What You’re Doing is another obvious sample which samples Don’t Stop The Music by Yarbrough & Peoples. It’s annoying, but because of the sample, is very catchy. If you can forgive all the horrible ad libs and weak lyrics, it’s listenable. Which means it’s really not all that listenable. However, Do You Know works because of a killer sample to the theme from the Diana Ross movie Mahagony. While Puff’s verses are much better, his flow is awful at times and his voice is weak. Whenever I think about flow and just vocal power, I think of KRS-One. The man raps like he’s reading from a book. You can just about understand every lyric in every one of his songs. That’s not the case here.

Young G’s features Puff, Biggie, and a young Jay-Z in a trio that had Big not died, I’m sure we would’ve heard more from. I believe Puffy and Biggie had an idea of a posse group with those three and maybe Kim as well. Because of Big and Jay, the song is actually decent with Jay’s rhyming more reminiscent of his slower style from his Reasonable Doubt and Volume 1 days. It’s also here where you can hear the difference between Biggie and Jay-Z. Biggie’s voice just explodes and makes you take notice while Jay’s more lazy vocals sound second rate, though that was Jay’s style for his second album. Is This The End features Twista who sounds exactly the same in 1997 as he does today. Puffy tries to speed up his pace while rhyming and it literally sounds like his mouth is full of spit. I’m sure it took him several takes just to make it sound that good. The song takes a few lines from New Edition’s song of the same name as well.

Senorita gives Puff a chance to try to rap in Spanglish, which is awful and should’ve never made it on wax. But even radio picked it up. It wasn’t nearly as creative as Wyclef Jean’s Guantanamera, which came out in a similar time and put the track to shame. I Love You Baby introduced the world to Black Rob before Whoa did. Puff gets depressed in Pain which is pretty unlistenable, but includes some audio from Biggie at the end, which is a means to basically pick Puff up from his bootstraps.

Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down and I’ll Be Missing You were huge hits for the record and I’d be lying if I said that Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down wasn’t my song for the summer. Even though it was highly unoriginal, it was a great showcase for he and Mase. And while it could be construed as taking advantage of Big’s death, there’s no denying how well produced I’ll Be Missing You was with the sampling of Police’s Every Breath You Take. It was just a huge song.

If I was on a road trip, I’d throw this record on and let it go until it was over. I love it in that aspect. But if you really wanted to analyze a record with your headphones on, it’s still good, but not as good as when you don’t pay attention to some of the bad things about it. It’s a 3.5 star record and while I’ll give it a 3 star rating, you could give it 4 stars and I wouldn’t even bat an eye.

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Episode two of our new show was a little silly, but still fun. It was four guys in a room with two microphones and sillyness ensued. I hosted the show and talked way too much, but Filipino Heat, Young Randall, and Mystery Cow brought brevity to the show. We were trying to finish up toward the end as we were hungry so the last segment comes off rushed, but if you really knew Filipino Heat he wouldn’t rather have it any other way.

During the show we covered:

Matt Hardy and his return to WWE
John Cena vs. Chris Jericho
Matt Stryker
Carlito and Shelton Benjamin
Where is Sting?
The infamous Muhammed Hassan “terrorist” angle
Low brow WWE
JBL vs. Batista
Hogan Knows Best

Again, it’s only downloadable in an ITunes format so it might not work with all media players. Download Wrestlecast Show 2.

I’m a fan of new technology even though I am not one who is easy to try new technology. However, when I found out that you could record a “radio show” in the context of your own living room (well technically office), I decided that I was going to do it. Using Garage Band and a microphone, I crafted a show called Wrestlecast which is about wrestling of course. What else could you really expect from me? I really hope to be able to put it in RSS feeds and then it could actually be called a Podcast which is a much cooler name than living room radio show.

I am going to be doing the show with Young Randall, Filipino Heat, and every great once in a while, Mystery Cow. But this first episode of the show was just me and my microphone. And wow, was it tougher than I thought. It was the “test” episode and literally consists of me talking for like an hour about wrestling. The information is about a week old as I finally figured out how to put in online.

We’ve taped a second episode and after I cut it up, I’ll put it up as well. But for now, you can download the Test Episode.

You will need to have Apple’s ITunes, or any other player that plays the .m4a format. I think Real Player might play it.

Go to Apple’s ITunes Site to download the program.

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Here was the quote:

“If I make music now, it will only be to provide information to my own children. If other people benefit from it, then so be it.”

And here were your answers:

H-Jizzle said: Snoop Dogg

The Demon Of Speed said: Michael Jackson

The Evil Fluffer said: Wyclef

Elvis said: I did.

Chicks Dig Big D said: Bono from U2

Lil’ Sis said: I second the motion with Michael Jackson.

All pretty good guesses and the Fluffer even cheated and tried to give you all clues, but the person who said, “If I make music now, it will only be to provide information to my own children. If other people benefit from it, then so be it.” is not Fat Joe, but none other than ……..

Another installment of your favorite game, ”Who Said This?”. I have found a quote from someone famous and you have to guess who said it.

The quote:

“If I make music now, it will only be to provide information to my own children. If other people benefit from it, then so be it.”

Use the comment link below for answers.

It seems like today’s R&B singers can’t hold a candle to those of yesteryear. Or maybe I’m just reacting negatively to the death of Luther Vandross. Vandross seemed to hold the music in such high esteem and let his talent shine through. Though for the most part, I don’t listen to many of the modern artists, there are a few that deserve to be mentioned. Anthony Hamilton is one of those artists. So is John Legend. Legend’s debut album, Get Lifted is the best album I’ve heard since it came out in late December. Here’s a review of the album.

It was first published on Epinions.com.

Very few artists are marketed perfectly. At times they are over marketed and when they aren’t proven to be “the next big thing”, they are tagged as a failure and slowly are driven right out of the picture. But there are some who are brought along perfectly. Alicia Keys comes to mind. When Alicia Keys hit the scene with her signature calling, Falling, it was a patient plan. Clive Davis and company knew they had the goods. Keys was attractive, could play the piano, had a great voice, and was New York. The fellas were attracted to her, but also wanted to hang out with her. She had that type of appeal. I read about her in Vibe magazine and the article focused on her musicianship and also that she was raised by a single mother. She came off as both street smart and well, just smart. And then when you heard her sing, you just called all your friends and told them who to look out for.

While John Legend’s rise wasn’t the same, I think there are a few parallels that you can draw from. Legend himself is also a musician rather than just a singer. He has helped Kanye West produce some really good songs. When I say help, I don’t mean he goes with West digging in crates or anything, but West utilizes Legend on piano, and in singing hooks for some of his past works. The similarity between he and Keys is that they were marketed not as Top 40 darlings, but as singers/musicians with talent. John Legend didn’t need to be dressed up in suits, or dressed down in baggy jeans and fake chains. He simply came out and said, I can sing, I can play. And he wasn’t rushed.

Used To Love You was the jumpoff. While it isn’t the best song on his debut, it immediately was accepted by radio. I didn’t initially bite because I figured any song that utilized “holla, holla, holla” couldn’t be any good. But it showed off his voice and was a fun enough song to make you interested in what else he had in store. And with sarcastic opening lines that seem somewhat biographical, you just had to like it.

Baby, it’s me… maybe I bore you
No, no it’s my fault cause I can’t afford you
Maybe baby Puffy, Jay-Z
Could all be better for you
Cause all I could do was love you

And while Legend has more not so serious love songs, mostly dealing with cheating like the sassy She Don’t Have To Know, the gem of this set is the everyday people relationship song, Ordinary People. I’ve had people tell me that they feel that song because of what they’ve been going through in their relationship and when I ask them exactly what they’re going through, it’s always different. It hits on so many levels. Most relationships I’ve seen don’t deal with cheating spouses. They deal with real life communication gaps, and this song expertly deals with it. Throw in his beautiful singing, and the slow and dramatic piano playing, and you might have the song of the year as far as I’m concerned.

He changes his voice a little to sound like some old 10 pack a day bar singer for Stay With You which makes you think of your grandparents when he talks about “being lovers for a lifetime”. There’s an “old soul” feeling from Legend that you get. You feel that he’s lived a little.

But it’s not all love and slow jams. He does still have a little fun. Take out the Kanye West rap and Number One would’ve had a chance to be a successful single. While it’s so silly from a lyrical standpoint as he tells his girl that he must love her a lot because of all the things he does to hide his mistress from her, Legend’s charm is irresistible. That is until Kanye messes it up. I have no problem with Kanye trying to be funny, but what he basically does here is have a one on one chat with his pillypacker. I’m not joking. There’s charming and silly, and then there’s straight dumb. While I’ll give West a mulligan for his performance, it bothers me that he ruined the song.

Legend’s next trick might be worthy of purchasing the album alone. I Can Change makes Snoop Dogg almost a functional rapper again. Snoop Dogg blesses the song with some of his best words in a very long time. But I don’t think Sam Cooke really said, “change gon’ come nephew”. But we’ll forgive him.

Even Legend’s lesser songs make you feel good like Refuge (When It’s Cold Outside) and the tuba influenced Alright. If I can be negative about this album, and more so Legend, it’s that his material may not be all that mature, but the dude is young, and as you can tell with Ordinary People, he can be grown folk when he needs to be.

Though this album was released right at the tail end of 2004, I think it’s one of the best albums I’ve heard all year, and would be my choice for album of the half year 2005.