"Only Under Hip-Hop Supervision"

My brother Luke was killed 9 years ago yesterday. I didn't really feel like posting about it, because any sort of grief I'm going through these days...it's really hard to share for some reason...but then again I know isolation is not the answer...so a story:

2003, maybe 2004, washed-out pale-gray cracked 2-lane highway in Baja, Mexico you can only drive on during the day because a) it's not safe at night because, I don't know, we're just told it's not, and b) the speed and swerving of the semi trucks going the other way...are all the drivers drunk?...in the dark...just no...

We're coming back from a surf trip, nothing but salt water and campfires for days, my hair starting to dreadlock, everything filthy, so filthy that the military checkpoint teenagers with machine guns who stop us to search the car start poking around our tent and say what's that and we say hot sauce and they make a face and wave us through.

Anyway. Beastie Boys on I guess a first-generation (or close to it?) i-POD...God, it's been a long time since I had my brother with me...

There's this line before the song starts that talks about scratching a record and don't try this at home, only "under hip-hop supervision," except Luke thought it was only "ON the Hip-Hop Super Vision" like an actual thing you could buy at the store. We must of argued for an hour about it.No cell service so we couldn't Google it. (Did they even have Google back then? I can't remember. Or wireless? God, it's been a long time...) Luke even bought me play-turntables for Christmas that year and elaborately redid the box to brand the toy the "Hip-Hop Super Vision," just to proove his point.

I don't know why this converation sticks with me, but it does. I even use it on my kids sometimes...like they'll want to do something like smell my glass-contained candles and I'll be like, "uh-uh, not without me, only under hip-hop supervision."

My brother does live on in a million ways...

[Click the image above to listen...]

XOXO