in some ways, i can't bring myself to write a eulogy, so the long and the short of it is this: morpheus suffered a stroke brought on by a blood clot which traveled down to his legs...resulting in the loss of movement thereof. in addition, he had a heart murmur that we didn't even know about. a week before this happened, beth and i noticed him limping around the house. he seemed to favor one of his front paws over the other, so we figured there was a splinter in his paw (we have wood floors in our apartment and they're not in the best of shape).

the night it happened, we had just come back from a friend's going away party. he was in his favorite hangout spot - the bathroom window deep set behind our toilet. beth checked in on him and he didn't sound like himself. she picked him up, put him down on the floor, and he dragged himself away by his front paws due to the loss of his hind legs. beth called the animal hospital, i washed out his carrier, and we got him situated to go.

he yowled for the entire car ride over. i thought that he just didn't like being cooped up. turns out he was in a lot of pain. we would learn that his time was short. any procedure to buy him some more time would have cost more than we could pay and would be too painful for morph to go through. so as much as it hurt, we put him to sleep. this was early saturday morning, december 17, 2005. he was only 11 years, 7 months old.

weeks afterwards, we still look for him when we come home from work. there are days i still think that i have to feed the cat when i get home. beth still gets distraught, sometimes wondering if there was some sign she could've recognized sooner, if she did the right thing by putting him to sleep. beth has had a number of cats in her life when she lived at home, but morpheus was her cat. he was her baby in a sense. she picked him out while she lived up in albany, coaxing him from under a dresser with a cat toy, and carried him home in a cardboard box. he was a tiny kitty, all ears and a scrawny body. beth was a mother to him.

as for me, morpheus and i had our own thing. sometimes antagonistic, but there was love there. prior to morph, i didn't like cats. when he was a kitty, i had a particular disdain for him. but somehow or another, he won me over. completely and totally stole my heart. when it came time to put him to sleep, i wanted to be anywhere else but that room. it was easily one of the most depressing moments of 2005.

morphy faked me out, in a way. as often as i used to tell him that he was a full-grown cat still acting like a kitten, he wouldn't hear of it. in his mind, he was all kitten, no matter how old he was. he retained a youthful energy right up until his last hours with us. even with the slight limp, he was still the morph we knew. in the end, i have to believe that we did the right thing. i think he would've been miserable being poked and prodded and having to get an IV and treatments and all. if he couldn't be maniacal morph anymore, if that side of him couldn't be tapped into at will, it would've been devastated. far be it from me to try to gaze into the mind of a cat, but i can only imagine that it would've upset him something terrible had we taken a different route.

at least beth and i can say that his youthful, energetic years outweighed his last few hours of pain. at least we can say that we gave him a nice home with a lotta love - more than he could stand at times (as the picture below clearly shows). morpheus was the cat that changed my attitude about cats completely. for that, he will always hold a special place in my heart. it will be quite some time before we get another cat. there may be other cats, but there will never be another morpheus.

okay, so i did write a eulogy. good thing, too - it's been bottled up for weeks. i loved that silly cat. he will be greatly missed.

the number is 206-202-2298. yes, it's a long distance call (if you're not located in Seattle, WA, anyway). hope to incorporate more listener feedback into the show as we enter 2006.

finally got around to listening to the HoodHype podcast, which centers around music from independent and unsigned rap artists. hosted by a brother named Major. i was curious to see if it was as gully as the website made it appear. you should go there just to hear the promo that was played on Adam Curry's show, Daily Source Code, a very popular podcast. "big shout out to Adam Curry. ONE!"

apparently, Adam Curry has street cred. who knew?

i think the show is based in Michigan. they play some Michigan heads, some Kentucky cats, some Texas heads, whoever they're feelin', really. in terms of the rap, the show feels more Southern in flavor. they've got heads leaving freestyles on the voice mail, they read listeners' email feedback, the site looks good, the podcast is of a great quality...gotta say, they have their bases covered. even though i can take or leave the music sometimes, the show itself is unapologetically aimed for the street, and i respect that. it's the niche market approach, but the crazy thing is that it sounds like they're reaching people outside of heads on the street as well. Major read an email from some cat out in Amish country diggin' the show.

still, i listen to some of what they play and i wonder to myself...is this the face of rap music that i would want people to be familiar with? but that's the hip-hop elitist/idealist in me rising up as always. show #7 features an interview with Buckshot (for all the Black Moon fans out there).

supposedly, HoodHype is rated among the top 20 podcasts over at podcasts.yahoo.com. they only have nine shows - how is that possible? who's handling their promotion? if i have any hopes of being the Gilles Peterson of podcasting (a boy can dream), clearly i have to step up my game - and quick. doing everything myself has never been the answer, but it's the only card i have to play most of the time. the more unbearable the 9:30-5:30 gig gets, the more crucial it becomes that the passions in my life turn into a way of life.

one of these days, i'm gonna figure all this out...

Mood:  sad

morpheus j. nutter. domestic short hair. june 1994-december 2005.

pint-sized court jester. feline antagonist. a full-grown cat with a kitten's spirit right up until the end.

we're gonna miss you.

this show is being posted about a week after i started recording it, so the weather's a bit different now. but the main draw is the music and it's straight up gems this time around. hope you enjoy it. download at your leisure...

hamburglers - mcknowledge
nnnj - goop scoop
jneiro jarel - do yo thang
media mentioned: world traveller adventures dvd (available at amazon.com)
promo: c64 takeaway podcast
watkin tudor jones - super evil
danger doom - mince meat
platinum pied pipers - deep inside (feat. sa-ra creative partners)
podcast mentioned: [insert clever name]
website mentioned: hiptingle
dj frodo & mr. fitz - silver cycles

the african dope label has been one of the best discoveries for me so far on the podsafe music network. the fact that songs off the new danger doom are in there as well doesn't hurt, either...

the website SeeingBlack.com posted their best of 2005 lists for music and film: Mark Anthony Neal handles the tunes while sister Esther Iverem tackles the flicks.

that reminds me...i need to get my scribe on and get biZ on my own best of list...

when things happen in threes, one must pay close attention.

i have a friend named Will. he recently told me about his current job, which is driving him nuts. he fears that it's turning him into an asshole (his words) and he can see the change within himself. at the time, he was ready to turn in his pink slip, but last i heard he's still there.

i have a friend named Jordan. we used to dj together for a weekly party about two years back. he recently told me of wrestling with his current job. he noticed that the stress was making him violent and prone to loud outbursts. he's taking time off to travel before the opportunity escapes him. good for him. i don't blame him one bit.

and then there's me. my job is purely functional. it's not so much a career as it is a psychological, spiritual, and physical holding cell, a detainment center where bright, young prospects with promise go to wither away and die in 35-hour work week increments.

this morning, i head to the train station, relieved that i made it in time. i sit down behind two guys that i suspected would be trouble and i should always go with my first instincts. one of them starts blasting music out of their media players. the conductor tells them twice to turn it down. one of them mutters something about putting on their headphones. it's quiet for a minute, then turns up again. a woman in her late '30s/early '40s sitting in front of me reading her paper says, "excuse me...can you turn that down, please? thank you." one of them must have shot her a look, because she says, "excuse me, do you have a problem?"

"do you have a problem?" the everything-to-prove delinquent predictably asks.

"yes, your music," she says, not backing down one bit. (why should she? the guy's a punk.)

"don't worry about my music...worry about your paper." then he says to his partner in ass-backwardsness (or possibly to no one out loud), "getting an attitude with me...i was raised with respect."

are you fucking kidding me? you were given a simple task, yet you couldn't do it because your ego had to pimp strut. news flash: YOU'RE NOT A GANGSTA. do you own any assets? no. can you buy an election? no. can you screw thousands out of their 401k plans and still not go to jail. NO. and until you can, you will never be a fucking gangster. perhaps Dave of De La Soul said it best in "Itsoweezee":

"see, dem Cubans don't care what y'all niggas do
Columbians ain't never ran wit your crew
why you actin' all spicy and sheisty
the only Italians you knew was Icees..."

drop dead, you future piece of state property. read a book.

that's how the day started. then problems from the moment i entered the office. one right after the other. somewhere around lunchtime, i mentally checked out, never to return. the body will come here, but the mind is millions of miles away. i went outside for lunch in hopes that the freezing temperatures would numb me. i printed out Dr. Neal's article on Richard Pryor, sat in a isolated spot, and began to read. once i was done, i just started crying. mostly for him, but partly for myself. Beth told me that i need to get in touch with my inner hustler and do what's necessary in order to get to wherever it is that i'm supposed to be. i still have no clue where that is.

she suggested that i watch some Richard Pryor videos tonight. he was put on this earth to make us laugh, but i'm afraid that if i start watching even his funniest material, i'll only end up crying. and i don't want to do such a disservice to a man who was the greatest comedian on earth.

maybe it's the day that i'm having. maybe it's some sort of chemical imbalance. i imagine there's a part of me that just doesn't want to deal with the fact that he's gone. but the day that Richard Pryor died, i felt like i lost a surrogate father. i still do. that feeling won't go away any time soon. despite his contradictions, despite all the inner demons he wrestled with, i will always adore and look up to this man.

Dr. Neal gets deep on us with this article, one that i'm sure will spark discussion and debate between those of the Civil Rights generation and post-Civil Rights/hip-hop brethren and beyond.

i'm having a rough one today, but i think i'd still be emotional even if i wasn't. this article almost had me in tears.

the opening statement from an article i read a day before Stanley "Tookie" Williams was killed said it best: "Asking a man who has been dubbed "The Terminator" for clemency from a death sentence is like inviting Bin Laden over for lunch to eat pork chops during Ramadan -- it's not likely to happen." my sentiments exactly.

honestly, if you thought that this situation was going to turn out any other way, you're either have an extrememly positive outlook on life or you take a certain amount of pleasure in kidding yourself. hopefully, the youth who rallied for Tookie, such as those within this article, won't become completely and totally disillusioned with their own efforts to make a change. for their sakes, i hope they hang in there...

never thought i'd enjoy doing karaoke, but who knew? a good friend of mine threw herself a birthday party this past weekend. it's the second year in a row she's done a karaoke party, and possibly the third time she's done it total. my wife's the songbird out of us two, so she loves that kind of thing. i've got to hand it to this West Side spot we were at, though: their catalog's mad deep. got a kick out of Beth doing "Anarchy In The U.K." by the Sex Pistols. yes, i actually did a few myself, in this order...

Digital Underground - The Humpty Dance
Happy Mondays - Kinky Afro (with my wifey singing backup)
The Time - Jungle Love

Radiohead's "Optimistic" will have to wait until next year - plenty of time for me to get my falsetto on.