Man Living In Anarchistic State Toward Internal Excellence

May 3, 2012

I wanna say a little somethin' that's long overdue... I've basically been meaning to write this post for a year. I was driving across country when I got the horrible news of Adam Yauch's death. The night before I was in Chicago and my friend Andrew Comeau was showing me the vinyl copy of Check Your Head he had just acquired. We smoked a bone and listened to both sides before we headed out to get some dinner. I didn't know it at the time but that was the last time I would listen to my favorite band while they were still an active entity. The next day Comeau gave me a text while I was somewhere in Indiana with the bad news. The tears came on quickly and did not stop.
Since I was very young I have always had a strong connection to the music, style and culture of the Beastie Boys. I first heard "fight for your right" when I was about six years old and I have been hooked ever since. In middle school my friends Jeff Strykowski and Nate Bayko(R.I.P.) and I used to walk around our town and recite Beasties lyrics. We were dope. Nate rapped Mike D's parts, I was Adrock and Jeff kicked MCA's rhymes. I remember being so hyped that there were people out there that loved the Beastie Boys as much as I did. I realize now that virtually everyone feels this way (especially now after Yauch has passed there are many who would claim the B-Boys as the Beatles of our pop-culture saturated generation) but my connection to the Beasties was and always has been a guiding light in my life. I once punched a Marine in the face because he said they were no good. I wrote a song about it. I'm not proud and I'm sure MCA would view that action as heinous, but I am proud of my unwavering pride as a loyal fan. But I am more than a Beastie Boys fan. I was and always will be B.E.A.S.T.I.E. The Beastie Boys showed me at a very young age that the coolest thing you can ever be is yourself. Their embracing of all the eclectic musical and cultural surroundings of their environment in New York City, the World and beyond was and is a source of constant inspiration. While I sought to be a part of the Seattle punk scene it was the Beastie Boys that made me unabashedly endorse my hip hop roots. The Beasties and their music kill tunnel vision dead and I want to thank them for that. R.I.P. Yauch, your music, grace, class, style, finesse and debonair have kept me going. I'm dead fucking last, as well as down for life. It's called gratitude, and that's right.