The Best of Times

It finally happened. Kinda.

Today I read a very creative and witty article by a writer for my former college newspaper, the FSView & Florida Flambeau. In his piece, The Great War: Logos, Uniforms, and Fear, FSView sports editor Perry Kostidakis comments and parodies the divide in Florida State fans, alumni, and students over the newly revealed Seminole logo.

The whole article is great and it's obvious Kostidakis had fun writing it. But one part stood out.

Midway through the article, Kostidakis references Dr. Seuss's Butter Battle Book.

 He screams, “Here’s the end of that terrible town! Full of ’Noles who like logos that frown!”

And, suddenly, at the very instant we heard a klupp-klupp of feet on the wall and a older man climbs up! The boys in HIS back room have made him one too! In his fist was another IgnitionTradition!

“I’ll blow you,” he yelled, “into pork and wee beans! I’ll tomahawk chop all of you small teens!”

“Grandpa!” I shouted. “Be careful! Oh, gee! Who’s going to drop it? Will you…? Or will he…?

“Be patient,” said Grandpa. “We’ll see. We will see…”

Genius.

After I read the article, I contacted Kostidakis on twitter to tell him I enjoyed his article and that I appreciated his reference of one of my favorite books. He was kind enough to reply.

@JordiScrubbings you are my hero for recognizing it

— Perry Kostidakis (@perrykos) April 13, 2014

Granted, "hero" was tongue-in-cheek, and only contained to the fact that I recognized his reference. I doubt Kostidakis has read any of my work, and I doubly doubt he has perused the FSView archives to find my ancient articles. I also can't say I have read much of his work either, so I can't tell whether this was a rare showing of creativity, or whether he thinks out of the box often. A quick Google search shows his YouTube page does show originality and his article about his mother is extremely powerful.

But it is his "hero" comment that reminded me of this - one of my final articles for the FSView. Originally written on 6/19/2003.

The Best of Times

One phrase I have heard time and time again is that my college years would be the best years of my life. Well, now that they are over, I guess it’s all downhill from here.

Soon my time at the FSView & Florida Flambeau will end. Currently, I have no idea what the future will bring. But seeing that the best years of my life are past, will it really matter? No matter where I go and no matter what I do, all I have to look forward to is 60 or so years of looking back at past glory. Looking back at a time when I was at the top of my game.

A time when I was a writer and then editor at the FSView & Florida Flambeau.

“He was the greatest,” many said. “Witty and creative. Truly a pleasure to read.”

Others, of course, disagreed, proving the old adage “you can’t please all the people all the time.” They called me “pathetic,” said I needed therapy and even labeled me extremely unethical. But their jeers were often drowned out by lengthy applause and accolades.

Barring a response from any of the employers I have so far contacted, I plan to be living in a cardboard box behind Wal-Mart by the middle of August. Hopefully I can find a box big enough to fit me, my college diploma and a few copies of Home and Garden Magazine (for the homemaker in us all).

Life will surely continue down the slippery slope towards obscurity in 2004. By mid-year, liquor store employees across the capital city will know me by name and bartenders will have “the usual” set in front of “Mike’s seat” moments before I walk in.

As the years move on, so too will I, wondering the empty roads, telling anyone who will listen about my days at Florida State. I will be a shell of my once proud and accomplished self. Hair down to my ankles, clothes made stiff by grime, I will drift across the nation. Washing dishes in Topeka so that I can travel to Seattle. Panhandling in New York to get to Los Angeles.

I might even make as far north as Alaska and live in the wilderness like Ted Kaczynski or Eric Rudolph.

But wherever I go, I know I will hear the whispers.

“Isn’t that Mike Lortz?” they will ask each other. “I heard he was once a great and powerful writer. A writer that could slay armies single handedly and have lightning bolts shoot out of his eyes. Yet he doesn’t look eight feet tall.”

Then, one day, many, many years from now, I will make my way to the town that made me so briefly famous – Tallahassee. There, a young FSView & Florida Flambeau writer will approach me and ask how he or she can make the jump from a good writer to a great one in order to win the coveted “Mike Lortz Writer of the Year Award.”

“Is it true you were hired by the legendary Chris Townsend and worked alongside the great Khuong Phan?” he or she will ask.

“Ah yes,” I will recall. “But don’t forget I spent most of my time under the watchful eye of Joe Friedman. Those were my glory days. My college years. The best years of my life.”

“Wow, Mr. Lortz, you truly are a legend. I want to be just like you.”

Kids are the new chimps

A few days ago, I wrote about how many creative grown-ups are looking at kids for inspiration. The popular consensus is that kids are more creative than adults, so why not dip into their well for something different?

In the 70s and 80s, the powers that be in television used chimps for comic value, as they were something different. There is still few things better than watching a chimp act like an adult human. They provided a new angle at our own actions. They allowed us to laugh at ourselves and our own situations acted out by something that normally would not fit the role. They were familiar, so we could relate, but unique.

Nowadays, the "in" thing to do is use kids voices over adult actions. It is funny. The folks at Kid Snippets have created a hilarious YouTube channel of adults acting out kid-narrated scenarios. Again, it provides the ability for us to look at familiar scenarios as see how another entity would act in these roles. Or in the case of the kid narration, what kids would say in these roles. The awkwardness provides the humor and a sense of "differentness".

Here is a funny one called "Salesman". Note the randomness and stream of consciousness.

Kids. They're the new chimps.

Ancient AfroSquad video from back in the day

While digging in the underbelly of the Internet, way below the Prime Meridian, far below where Optimus Prime dare go, I found an ancient video. I dusted it off, gave it two blows to the nose, and checked the scrolls. It was a sign by the AfroSquad forefathers, who couldn't decide among the four of them who the daddy was. So they dropped this piece of funktasticalness on the world. It's so funky it makes your grandmother swap out her gym socks.

Check, check, check it out.



Seven years ago, the founders of the AfroSquad posted this. Hard to believe youtube has been around that long. Yet The Man still prevails.

AfroSquad for life.

George Clinton and the Funky Seminoles

Last week, Father of the Funk, the great George Clinton was spotted at a Florida State Seminoles basketball game. GC was getting funky and getting in rhythm with the rest of the Seminole faithful, doing the Tomahawk Chop.



From the reports, George Clinton is friends with FSU basketball coach Leonard Hamilton. After the game, George Clinton took to his twitter to retweet many fans who tweeted their excitement at having the music legend at the game. There aren't many celebrities in Tallahassee, but Clinton has called it home for over ten years. Great to see him interacting with one of the local universities.

This is the first I have heard of George Clinton being at a Tallahassee sporting event. I wonder if he goes to FAMU games at all. Either way, I hope he goes to more. It would be great to have the funk helping out the Seminoles.


On the subject of George Clinton and his musical legacy, here is an interesting article about Afrofuturism - the use of sci-fi in black culture from Sun Ra to Parliament-Funkadelic to modern artists. Interesting read.

Gotta have that funk.

Commenting on Jedi Compentency

I've been meaning to comment on this link for a while. Way back in September, I discovered this great blog on the least competent Jedi in the Star Wars galaxy. Granted, it only talks about the "publicly known" Jedi, but it does mention some Extended Universe Jedi. It is an interesting list.

The 9 Least Competent Jedi

Everyone associated with Anakin Skywalker is listed at the top of the list. Except Anakin himself. Which is kinda weird. It is almost as if he is exempt from the list.

Yet he is quite incompetent himself. After all, he went to the dark side. He slaughtered Tuskin Raiders. He murdered a bunch of kids.

But here I have to add to the incompetency of the Jedi Council. How did Yoda let Anakin get away with murdering Tuskin Raiders? He felt the disturbance in the Force. He knew it happened. Why was Anakin never asked about this by the council? Even worse, Anakin admitted his actions to a member of the Senate. Padme knew what he did and never told anyone. Not even Obi-Wan. Was she afraid they would suspend Anakin? That's what should have happened. Unless Padme  had little concern for the Sand People.

JUSTICE FOR THE SAND PEOPLE!

Here is an entire bulletin board conversation about the topic of Anakin and the Sand People. Interesting read.

So put me in the camp of those who think Yoda had a touch of incompetence.

The analysis of Luke Skywalker is also quite interesting. The rescue of Han Solo was unnecessarily complicated. Perhaps Luke doubted his ability to go in to Jabba's palace, kick ass, and rescue Han. Perhaps Leia was the only one who knew the code to unfreeze the carbonite - possible but unlikely considering it came from Lando's Cloud City. Chewbacca probably wanted in so bad, he wouldn't let the mission go forth without being a part. Interesting how he his confidence in Luke's plan has grown since the Death Star rescue plan in A New Hope - where Chewie was also a prisoner.

The strongest being on your team, and your plan (Twice!) is to put him in shackles. Makes perfect sense.

Sure, Luke wouldn't want to involve the entire Rebel Alliance in rescuing a former smuggler who really had little achievements outside of the Battle of Yavin at that point, but think about how his father would have faced Jabba. It would have been much different. Granted, Luke was never as strong as Anakin in the movies. Anakin was much more polished and stronger with the Force.

Maybe Luke wasn't much of a leader yet. Maybe everyone piled in their ideas and did what they wanted to do. Then when he realized no one else's plan worked, Luke walked into Jabba's palace and rescued everyone. Although the placement of the droids before Leia and Chewbacca does sort of counter that theory. Unless Artoo did in fact play "the wrong message".

Although, what if Jabba had traded the carbonite slab for the droids? Droids would have been much easier to rescue. They could have easily snuck themselves out. Not that hard. C-3P0 and R2-D2 had been in worse predicaments.

So Luke is not as good a planner as we thought, Yoda isn't a smart as we thought, and Qui-Gon's faults are pretty obvious.

Maybe the Jedi are indeed incompetent.

My new labor of love

It's been awfully quiet here lately. Tragically quiet. One might think I am trying to commit blog suicide. I swear I am not.

The reason this blog has been so barren of late is because I started a new online endeavor. I bought a new site domain and everything. And since February 1st, I've posted over 40 times there.

So I've been writing. A lot. And doing quite a bit of math and statistical analysis there as well. The type of stuff that just doesn't jive over here.

So far, Tampa Bay Baseball Market has been a success. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback by some really smart people. People are digging my deep-dive into the wonderful and wacky world of the Tampa Bay Rays attendance. Of course there are some who think I will find some magic panacea for why plagues the Rays attendance. There are not going to be happy.

There is no magic bullet theory.

What plagues Rays attendance is a lot of little things - from location of the park to who they are playing to day of the week to traffic to many other things. The whole thing is a paradox folded in a conundrum squashed in a dilemma. It's not easy and it is requiring a lot of work.

Hence I haven't been here filling these pages with witty banter.

In other news, I am starting to write query letters to get my first fiction book out published. I need to get that done. The book has been sitting semi-complete for too long. And I think people will enjoy it.

Add that to the list of things I am doing. Along with school (finance kicked my butt!), looking for a job, and other creative endeavors. I need to get comedy on that list as well. I miss going to the Tampa Improv for open mics. I miss writing creatively, shooting for humor on occasion.

I miss writing here.

Never fear, dear long time reader, I will have more posts soon. This month will not set the record for fewest posts. Even if it is a link dump of stuff I find interesting, you will get something here.

I promise.

The Origins of Jordi Scrubbings and his Afro

Ever wonder how I came up with the name Jordi Scrubbings?

Ever wonder why I wear an afro?

Buddy of the Blog Clark Brooks wondered that as well. And Clark did something about it. He invited me on to his podcast, The Ridiculously Inconsistent Podcast, which oddly enough has been ridiculously consistent since it began in January. But that's Clark's irony, right there. Who else would say his podcast and blog for that matter are inconsistent, yet post on both regularly?

Seems he should celebrate his consistency, not his inconsistency. Well, at least he is ridiculous. That is true.

I am not so sure about the trickle. Clark is a bit older than I am, but his trickling is a personal issue I am not sure I want to talk to him about.

But back to the podcast!

Clark had me on his podcast (did I mention that already?). It was the first podcast I have been on in a while and it was the first I have ever been on in person. Clark has a radio-like set-up and it's quite snazzy. And he is sponsored! Which means he may or may not be making money on the deal.

Too bad I don't have an appearance fee.

But anyway, I was on Clark's podcast. We talked the origin of the name "Jordi Scrubbings", why I wear an afro, my recent lack of comedy, my worst comedy performance ever, my new blog, my current blog, baseball, and how years ago I got really sick after a night of drinking.

It was a great time.

You can find the podcast on itunes by clicking the underlined letters, under the name

An interview with triple or quadruple threat Michael Lortz aka “that kid with the Afro wig”

Did I mention Clark is older than me? I think that's why he thinks he can call me "kid".

Hopefully, maybe, one day, if the planets align correctly, and the sun shines right, perhaps Clark will have me back.

Reactions to The Lego Movie

I've been told I think too much. That I dissect things I like into little itty bitty pieces. So of course, it stands to reason I would take apart and dissect 2014's biggest movie so far, The Lego Movie.

Because Legos are supposed to be taken apart into itty bitty pieces.

I went into the theater thinking The Lego Movie was going to be a mindless kids' movie with great animation and offbeat humor. I had seen the Star Wars Lego videos and found them cute and comical, but nothing overly spectacular.

But The Lego Movie is far different. Far more dystopian. It reminded me a lot of a "Brave New World" and somewhat of Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We", the forebearer of Huxley's novel and Orwell's "1984".

It is a movie about finding that niche between complete anarchy and utter obedience, that "Hairball Orbiting" discussed by Gordon MacKenzie.

It is a movie about Fun and Play.

Unfortunately, the 24-hour news cycle has completely milked the fun out of the movie, with both "sides" of the political spectrum claiming the movie espouses their world views. It's almost comical.

Here is John Sexton of Breitbart saying it promotes an idea "one would expect the late Occupy movement to embrace." and he is "not surprised Michael Moore is a fan".

Here is John Heyward of Breitbart saying the movie is actually about capitalism.

The joke is on the lefty fools who didn't see the movie, because it's evidently a devastating slam at socialism, particularly the Obama model of government-business cronyism.

and

The expressions warn by doctrinaire liberal parents who took their kids to see "The LEGO Movie" thinking it would deliver a wheezy Michael Moore Marxist screed against free enterprise and voluntary commerce must be priceless; they should have planted hidden cameras in the theater to capture audience reactions.  Or maybe those doctrinaire liberal parents are too far gone to think about what they're seeing, the way Mollie Hemingway did, their critical faculties short-circuited by the sight of a villain named "President Business" who looks like a Republican.

There is Molly Hemmingway of The Federalist, who gets closer to the mark when she opines that The Lego Movie is a subversive pro-liberty film.

This is not an anarchist cri de coeur, with the film also rejecting the absence of rules and government itself. In one pivotal scene, Emmet explains how rules help build teamwork, efficiency and the ability to meet objectives.

See MacKenzie's ideas on knowing the rules before you can play! Hemmingway also continues:

Even though the film is a 100-minute commercial for a business, it’s also an ad for personal responsibility, individual choice, meaningful work, natural constraints, the dignity of the individual and the fight against a government that desires control of the lives of citizens. Its message about heroism being based in creativity, hard work, and resourcefulness — not superpowers — is deeply unifying.

Then there is the conservative flagship station, Fox News, which wondered why leftist Hollywood would make yet another anti-capitalist movie that would try to teach kids how horrible and evil businesses are and attempt to brainwash them at their tender ages.



Gotta love the Fox News spin machine.

What most of these politicos miss is the key element of the Lego Foundation:

The LEGO Foundation has a goal of creating impact by inspiring and developing children and youth to become active citizens – and to empower them to create a better future for themselves – through fun, creativity and high quality learning.

Fun, Creativity, and High Quality Learning.

The Lego Foundation even gives out prizes for people who promote that mantra. If you thought a movie about Legos was going to be made and that wasn't going to be the message, you were wrong.

That's their thing.

From this Fast Company article in October, 2013:

A growing body of research shows that testing-focused education systems are stifling children’s creativity and critical thinking skills--the exact skills many CEOs say will be critical for success in the workforce in the years to come (see our related story “Why Solving The Creativity Crisis Means Looking To 3-Year-Olds”), not to mention the skills needed to solve looming societal challenges such as extreme poverty and climate change.

Grob-Zakhary believes the Lego Foundation can help preserve these skills by paving a path for more structured “hands-on play”--whether that is with a Lego brick, an Erector set, or a robotics kit--to be incorporated directly into school curriculums.

"Systems are stifling creativity" - the ability to play should be fostered. That's the manta of The Lego Movie.

Playing and creativity is not the 9-5 office job inputting data or digging the same ditch. Of course a Lego movie is going to attack that. Creativity and play is Miles Davis jamming, it's art, it's a group of college dropouts wandering the country playing gigs in coffee houses and rock bars trying to get their band signed. It's the reason open mics were established. To some, hippies are a burden on society, to others, they are living life on their terms without the burden of society.

But that's the classical dilemma. Conservative-minded parents want the college dropout to finish school, get a 9-to-5, and play life safe, but the dropout wants to create.

Then there is this interview with the Lego Foundation CEO on Forbes.com:

Play allows us to test our capabilities,  as all forms of learning should.  It stimulates children’s learning abilities by fostering creativity, building critical thinking, sparking intellectual curiosity, and facilitating learning by doing. Learning by doing deepens our engagement and understanding significantly, and strengthens the most important pathways our brains use to learn and develop.

When the rules are strict and mandated, there is no reason to develop. When the TV dinner is packaged, there is no reason to hunt. No development of that brain function. That is the element we find the hero in in the beginning of the Lego Movie.

While Hemmingway claims a key scene is when the protagonist insists the characters follow some rules and channel their creativity under some guidance, there is an earlier scene I think is more powerful. When needing to build an escape vehicle, Batman, a pink unicorn, a spaceman, and several other characters combine their ideas and cooperate to build a plane that moves the heroes out of immediate trouble. They do this by themselves, without instructions, and without a leader. They just find the pieces they need (Batman: "I only work with black, and sometimes dark gray"), work together, and create.

In 1921, the Russian State Committee for Publishing found Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We" so anti-establishment that it was quickly banned. According to LiquidHip.com, the book dramatizes the struggle between freedom and security, nature and artifice, spirit and order.

In 1988, 65 years after it was written, "We" was finally published in the Soviet Union.

If it was written today, "We" would probably be taken apart piece by piece like The Lego Movie.

Thoughts on Kendrick Lamar

Amidst all the hype and hoopla around his Grammy snubs and highly acclaimed cameo verse on Big Sean's song "Control", rapper Kendrick Lamar has been the talk of the hip-hop world for the last year, if not longer. Being in Afghanistan, I missed out the "longer" part, but since I've been back, Kendrick has been the world's biggest new rapper.

With more than a little curiosity, I bought the much-praised "good kid, mAAd city" album.

The first time I listened, I thought it was good. But I was surprised for a Compton/LA MC, how little "Compton" Kendrick Lamar was.

The second time I listened, "good kid, mAAd city" became great.

The second time I listened, I realized how "Compton" Kendrick Lamar really is. His Compton is buried in the nuances of his lines. Here is a dude who grew up in Compton, but didn't subscribe to the gangsta lifestyle of the early 90s rappers. He is not telling us to "fuck the police" as an anthem for rebellion. As a matter of fact, he is not rebelling at all. He is trying to survive.

From the track "mAAd city":

Ain't no peace treaty, just pieces BG's up to pre-approve / Bodies on top of bodies, IVs on top of IVs

"BG", or baby gangsta, is the "Lil Ass Gee" Ice Cube warned LA about in 1994 on the Lethal Injection album. They are the youngsters who grew up in the shadows of the gang wars of LA where the Bloods and Crips duked it out for street domination. But that's not Kendrick Lamar. He is the kid who wrote what he saw and tried to stay alive. In this regard, Kendrick Lamar is similar to Somalia-born rapper K'Naan, who, in his song "Dreamer" said,

And "The boys from the hood are always hard" / Let alone in Mogadishu it's a mastered art / If you bring the world hoods to a seminar / We from the only place worse than Kandahar

Which of course references Easy-E's "Boyz in the Hood", a Compton classic, making the whole conversation full circle.

Writing what he saw while others fought also aligns Kendrick with Chuck D's great hip-hop saying that "rap is the black CNN".  Instead of the protester image of NWA or Ice Cube, Kendrick is the storyteller, the narrator, and the bard. He is the Nas/"Illmatic" of the post-gangsta Compton.

But while telling the tale of his "new" Compton, a plain tilled by the plows of old school OGs and featuring the blossoms of the BG/Lil Ass Gee generation, Kendrick reaches out to one of those same OGs, the legendary MC Eiht. Some would look at the Jay-Z cameo or the cameo and executive producer title of Dr. Dre as the legends signing off on Kendrick, but Jigga and Dre follow dollars like Toucan Sam follows Froot Loops, sometimes at the expense of hip-hop.

When MC Eiht opens his verse of "mAAd city" with the line "Wake yo punk ass up", I said "with the 93 shot" out of instinct. It was "Streiht Up Menace" from the Menace to Society soundtrack 20 years later.

A fucked up childhood, is why the way I am / It's got me in the state where I don't give a damn, hmm / Somebody help me, but nah they don't hear me though / I guess I'll be another victim of the ghetto

While MC Eiht resumes the gangsta veteran in "mAAd city" , Kendrick plays the survivor of the streets, "aka Compton's Human Sacrifice", an acknowledgment to MC Eiht's "Compton's Most Wanted".

Maybe that's why the Grammy voters gave their awards to Macklemore and passed over Kendrick Lamar. Not because "the Grammys hate rap", although past snubs can build that argument, but because "good kid, mAAd city" transcended the music in a way that was tough to digest unless you knew the backstory. Unless you knew how South Central LA was affected by the Bloods and Crips, unless you knew about truce between the gangs, unless you knew why LA rioted after Rodney King, and unless you knew how those events molded and shaped Los Angeles rap music. Unless you listened to Ice-T, NWA, Ice Cube, MC Eiht, and their peers. That backstory was Kendrick Lamar's life. It's where Kendrick Lamar came from and what he wrote about. When Ice Cube left Compton for Hollywood, he left kids like Kendrick Lamar behind.

Music, especially hip-hop, is a sum of its culture. Whether Grandmaster Flash in "The Message", Nas on "Illmatic", any Public Enemy album, early Ice Cube, the political stylings of Boots Riley, or the urban poetry of Kendrick Lamar. That's why so many rappers miss the point rhyming about cash, gold, or drugs.

That's why I am buying the hype. Kendrick Lamar's album is that good. But it had no choice but to be that good. It is poetry from an American war zone. Not quite Somalia or Afghanistan, but a first world struggle for survival. A struggle for control. Prophetic then that Kendrick's next big statement was in a verse on a song called "Control".

After the Grammy uproar and his transcendence from the underground to the mainstream, Kendrick Lamar now has control of the rap game. But the "rock star" life and its fortune means sacrificing other areas of control. Fame claims its victims as well. See the backstory on another '90s icon from a few states north of California, Mr. Kurt Cobain.

[Update: I was listening to the song "Sing About Me: I'm Dying of Thirst" with it's religious speech in the end and it reminded me of one of my favorite West Coast gangsta rap cultural laments. On the 1993 song "Lord Have Mercy", Da Lench Mob rapped:

Lord have mercy, the devil he cursed me / I heard you had the cup of life, and I'm thirsty / My niggas keep fightin for a street, the white man own / So many died, before they got full grown

Kendrick Lamar's "I'm Dying of Thirst" uses the same religious metaphor 20 years later. Coincidentally, both songs are also bookmarked by the voice of older woman commenting on the youth. In Kendrick's song, she tries to convert them to the ways of God, and in Da Lench Mob's track, the woman offers only an ass kicking. Hopefully the view in the more recent song is representative of a real change in attitude of those surrounding the plight of modern day Compton.]

A Sad Farewell to Mello Bondz

I've often used this website as a way to say goodbye to people I know who have passed on. People who I have met, spent time with, and smiled with. Some I have known since Day 1, others only for a moment or two. But all I feel deserve more than just a "RIP" on Facebook or Twitter, where acknowledgements are quickly buried by other news of the day.

So it is with a sad heart that I am writing here about the passing of Tampa Bay area musician/rapper Melvin Curry, aka "Mello Bondz".

I didn't know Mello all that well, especially in regards to other friends who knew him for many years, but my experiences with Mello were always pleasant and he always seemed to be in a good mood.

The first time I met Mello was during his affiliation with All-Stars Wrestling of Florida, a small independent wrestling organization. He wrote and performed the ASWFL theme song as a favor for longtime friend, music cohort, and ASWFL owner Nick Major. Not knowing Mello, I joked with him, saying he looked a lot like Cee-Lo Green.

Around the same time, about 2009-2010, I met with Bill McArdle of XtraMedium Productions in Largo, Florida. Bill showed me some of his music video work, and sure enough, there was Mello Bondz in the video "I Dropped It".



Mello also contributed songs to some of Bill's media projects, and they had a longtime partnership. A few years later, I again crossed paths with Mello Bondz. In January 2012, I attended Nick Major's "Unity Jam" concert in Ybor City. Nick had returned to music and contacted Mello to host the showcase of some of the best in Tampa-area hip-hop. This time, I knew who Mello was and we spoke briefly about our mutual friends and a bit about his musical work. During the show, Mello gave a shout out to his son, Ajay King, who passed away a few weeks before the concert. Mello and his son appeared in this video together in 2007.

 

 Sad to hear Mello Bondz is gone. He leaves behind a lengthy list of music and if his Facebook is any indication, an even longer list of friends.