#54 - biggie x3.

this past saturday night, i headed into union square with some peeps to catch the 7:30 showing of notorious, which had just opened on friday night. i was never this huge notorious b.i.g. fan. when he was around, from 94-97, i was in college & putting behind my high school love of rap, which had been largely dominated by n.w.a. (& a host of gangsta rap, both crappy & not), public enemy & a laundry list of d nices & redhead kingpins & das efxes. i had become unhappy with rap's direction, was starting to come in contact with grunge/phish & was reading a lot of feminist texts. as a result, i ignored rap for the most part & didn't really know much about biggie or non-digital underground tupac or for that matter, who nas or jay-z or a lot of other dudes were for until at least few years after i should have.

that aside, after recently running through seven seasons of the shield, i'm definitely intrigued by the fact that the l.a.p.d.'s now-defunct rampart division (which the shield draws inspiration from) is allegedly tied to both gang activity & beyond that, the tupac & notorious b.i.g killings...& there's the fact that biggie was from brooklyn, which has been my home for the last 6+ years...so i decided weeks back that i needed to see this movie in the theaters when it came out.

it was pretty aight. three out of five stars or thumbs or something. those who i went with who had more knowledge of biggie than i reviewed it as, "i'd pretty much heard & seen all that stuff before, but it was still pretty good."...so there's that. jamal woolard, who plays biggie, is pretty good...& there's one running joke about diddy always dancing, which was somewhat comical...

#54 - biggie x3.

snack: regal cinema small popcorn with butter
drink: regal cinema small cherry coca-cola

...before the film, i'd grabbed a small popcorn & a small cherry coca-cola, an indulgence which ran me $10.25. the ticket was $14, so all told, i paid $24.25 for the film experience. i like to tell this story about one of my college film professors, who once briefly theorized that if the price of going to see a film in the theater was closer pricewise to seeing a broadway show or the opera, people would be pickier & choose wiser & think of going to the movie as more of a cultural experience. so much for that theory.

after purchasing my popcorn, i couldn't help but bring it on over to the butter pump, conveniently placed on the other side of the lobby behind a line of people queuing up to enter the theater next to it. i gave my small popcorn two pumps & headed into the theater. what can you say about movie theater popcorn really? it's usually pretty standard & the difference comes in how much butter there is on there. on this occasion, i didn't really give it a hearty enough shakeup after the butter pumping, so at one point, when i was a few inches down into the bag, i reached in to grab a handful & ended up with hands slimier than patrick swayze in ghost. thank god for tiny scratchy movie theater napkins. in the end, i only finished half the bag...i get sick of popcorn pretty quickly, i suppose.

as for the cherry coca-cola, i sucked that thing down. i've loved cherry coca-cola ever since they resurrected it years back. it always makes me think of fifties soda parlors for some reason & i like fifties soda parlors...they're the kinds of places where jerks are preferred!...so i sucked that cherry coke down & of course, had to pee for the last forty-five minutes of the movie. i was ok though. every time i'm in a position like that, i think back to elementary school, when my class went on a whale watch & we had an hour bus ride to the boat. i had to pee even before we left but didn't go for some reason & by the time i finally reached the bathroom on the boat, i had devolved into some sort of pre-teen over-expanded bladder haze. i figure if i made it then, i can make it now.

...today i followed up & watched the biggie & tupac movie from 2002, so i could get a bigger picture of the east coast/west coast craziness & the murders & fill in the stuff that wasn't covered in notorious, which was more the story of biggie's life than his death. biggie & tupac is from nick broomfield, who also did monster in a box & kurt and courtney. all i can say is that he interviews suge knight a few times & that guy does not seem like the smartest & most rational guy. to be honest, i'm surprised he hasn't had nick broomfield killed yet, but that's only because from what you see in the film, he seems to be pretty good at getting away with it. in conclusion, suge knight...please do not have me killed. if you do so, i will agree to not mock the fact that your record label is now owned by canadians. thanks.