ROCKY
Rocky (pictured above) is the best canine pal of Don Ford, who manages at the San Francisco Amoeba Music store. The happy dog's full name is Rocky Balboa. "But we just call him Rocky," says Don of the Boston Terrier who will be turning four in December. "We got Rocky in January because my Pug puppy was killed at the vet when he went in for a booster shot and he went into shock," recalled Don sadly. "The Pug's name was Brutus. It was all a sudden shock. So after a few months of grieving we decided it was time for a new puppy. So we picked Mr. Rocky Balboa. He has been amazing and so special. He is sweet, funny, and he farts sometimes," laughed Don adding that the energetic Mr Balboa, "Is aways there with a lick or a jump up to your waist. He goes nuts to go for field trips in the car. And he loves to run at Fort Funston.
MELINA Pictured left is Melina (AKA Donut, AKA Doglet) who is the best friend of Kara who works in the marketing offices of the Amoeba Music Hollywood store. "I like to call her a Chihuahua/fruit bat mix, but there are many theories about her origin," says Kara who crossed paths with Melina after she was brought into the Amoeba Hollywood store by her owner - a store regular - who had tragically lost his home and could not find a new one that would allow pets. But luckily, from frequenting Amoeba, this former owner knew just how much the staff there loved animals, especially dogs, so he left Melina with Amoebite Kim to find the little pooch a safe and loving new home. Kara babysat Melina just once and instantly knew that she would be the one would adopt the little cutie and provide her with that loving new home. "So she now lives in Santa Monica," says Kara. There the dog keeps a good guard over her front yard while laying in the sun every morning with her toys. Kara noted that Melina pulls her weight too. "She works a few days a week in the marketing office - taking calls, booking in-stores and playing fetch in the hallway when she needs to stretch her legs. Her hobbies include: gazing longingly at people trying to eat in the break room, getting visits from her many friends around the store, barking at skateboards and burrowing under blankets." Melina also enjoys trips to the dog park, driving up the coast to look for birds to chase (which she never catches), looking cute, and any food you'd maybe like to part with. "I was amazingly lucky to have this special dog cross my path!!"
Recently I had the opportunity of meeting up with prolific longtime artist of many genres Bill Laswell who, unlike the average artist, just keeps tirelessly making/recording new music and avoiding repetition along the way. "I couldn't imagine being in some rock band that only makes ten records their whole life. And then plays them over and over and over and over. I just don't know how they can do it," the New York City based artist told me when I caught up with him in his Hells Kitchen area apartment. Laswell, who estimates he has about two thousand releases credited or directly related to him (under various names, collaborations, and acclaimed lineups including Praxis, Material, & Tabla Beat Science), epitomizes the term prolific artist. The trippy video below is "Animal Behavior" by Praxis featuring Laswell along with Buckethead, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Brain, and Nextman Flip.
While recently digging in my hip-hop archives (circa 2000) I came up the offbeat advertising picture (left) of Rudy Giuliani from the long defunct, short-lived but most-promising Russell Simmons' website 360hiphop.com. The image, which was used as one of the advertising shots by the website whose offices were on 10th Avenue in New York City, was a deliberately unflattering one of Giuliani. Released in 2000 it was long before Rudy would even think of running for president and when he was still mayor of New York City. It was mid 2000 when it would still be over a year until 9/11 when Guilianni - long despised by many New Yorkers who perceived his clean-up tactics as facist-like - would redeem himself with the leadership qualities he displayed in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. 
If there were one moment in hip-hop that changed the direction of the genre forever it would have to be in late '92 when the advance promo single from Dr Dre's first major post-NWA project "The Chronic" surfaced. Just weeks in advance of the December 1992 release of that classic rap album, which went on to sell over four million copies and fully crossover gangsta rap into pop music territory, white label copies of "Nuthin But A 'G' Thang" featuring the then little known young Long Beach City (LBC) rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg (heard only before this on the Dre produced "Deep Cover" soundtrack/single) got serviced to DJ's across the country. I was one of them and I will never forget the reaction the record got both on the radio and in clubs at the time. One night back then I was DJi'ng at the Kennel Club (now the Independent on Divisidaro in SF) and people who normally didn't care for rap were banging on the DJ booth window demanding to know "Who/what the fuck was that?" Music fans went crazy for that addictive combo of Dre's dope production (fully utilizing the Leon Haywood "I Wanna Do Something Freaky To You" sample) and of course Snoop's hypnotic laidback rap drawl (check out how young he looks in the video above!) that suddenly made street/gangsta themes digestible to all.
Of course the album that spawned "G Thang" and which took its name from some sticky icky Cali weed "The Chronic" would truly crystallize this turning point in hip-hop - taking both West Coast and gangsta hip-hop to commercial heights undreamed before this point. To many this point represented the downfall of hip-hop since we have never fully recovered from its influence on popular rap. To me as a fan of both "gangsta' and 'conscious" or of both "rap" and "hip-hop" its success is bittersweet. I love good music no matter what its lyrical content might be but I long for variety within popular hip-hop and I especailly miss the popularity of more positive hip-hop groups like Brand Nubian and A Tribe Called Quest and Gang Starr.