the week that all my heroes died
Hell. What a dark and sad week it has been. Last night, Jam Master Jay was shot dead. Jam Master Jay from Run DMC was a galactic pioneer on the decks and was my introduction to the world of Hip Hop just as Paul Wellstone was my introduction to Minnesota Liberal politics. I remember like steel the summer between seventh and eighth grade, when my friend Joel and I took a silly job cleaning the foul lockers of the school we were attending. For Eight hours a day we moved like machines down the dark deserted hallways of our school on little swiveling office chairs, moving from locker to locker, scraping off the dried gum that a fourth grader had left behind as his educational totem or cleaning out the well worn trapper keepers left by the careless seniors. It was a thankless task. But our one saving grace that summer was a boom box that was never more than ten feet away. On constant rotation: Run DMC’s Tougher Than Leather and Ice-T’s Power. When those tapes were rocking, it didn’t even seem like we were working. At times, i think we imagined we were cleaning the subway cars in NYC and Run DMC was putting on a show in the park across the street. Jam Master Jay had plugged his turntables into a light post nearby and was cutting up a breakbeat by a washed up hair rocker band that everyone had forgotten about.