My Generation

My generation is skateboards, breakdancing, emcees, djs, jewelers, glass blowers, graf artists, Phish kids, Dead heads, hippies, Hip Hop, drugs, sex, street, homeless, traveling, music festivals, concerts, urban, ghetto, gully, gutter, underground, raw life.
I came up on Nirvana, Blind Melon, Pearl Jam, and Sublime in a small town where nothing happens - Easton, MA. I did "high" school in Braintree at Thayer Academy. Over there I caught up with the people whose parents didn't buy them Jeep Grand Cherokees. My people were on some flannels and hippie music - The Allman Brothers, Phish, and GD.
In college we were about J-Live's The Best Part, Tribe's Midnight Marauders, The Root's Do You Want More?!?, Defenders of the Underworld, Handsome Boy Modeling School, and Eminem. We scoured Napster all day, playing with butterfly knives, and frequenting house parties in Allston.
Emerson was some hip, gay, ugly, weird, artistic, freaky kids from all over chillin' in the Bean on street corners and in clubs, bars, Allston, Brighton, Cambridge, BC, BU, and everywhere else on the Boston-metro scene. It was a different world to me. Strange kids, new music, new movies, crazy parties, altered goals and mind states. I got caught up in the city, struggled with school vs. play and bounced after a couple.
That was when life got real. I hit the music festival scene, did the Phil Lesh and Phish thing. I realized Phish was the GD for my generation. The scene had never died, just got glossed over by materialism, baby boomers, and a disgruntled public and media. Let's hope that doesn't go down with Hip Hop. And I think it won't, cause Hip Hop was everywhere on the road: in the parking lot, in the fashion, in the vernacular, in the music, in the mindset. Phish tour was Hip Hop. Let me tell you, Phish was something else, it really showed you how much creative and fresh stuff was happening everywhere, with a scary, dirty, dangerous, dark side always looming in the background.
On the road, and before, I met my homeys. The cats who hold me down for whatever, the people whom I love. My people on the music scene, who make art, who make jewelry, who write graf, who spin records, who sell gems, who see shows, keep it creative, and support the continuing maturity of my generation.