Monday, July 28, 2008

Rock The Bells was off the hook!!!

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Incredible show at Merriweather Post Pavillion!!!!

-Rakim showed why he' s still in the game. A lyrical assassin.
-Ghostface and Raekwon were hot. There were definitely a lotta Wu-Tang lovers in the house.
-De La Soul took me back with joints I rocked to 20 yrs ago.
-Method Man and Redman had mad energy and were wildin' out. Cats were all out with the folks diving and crowd surfing.
-Pharcyde was cool. I aint know a lot of their songs though, just the main ones.
-Mos Def was aiiiight. He's a lot better with Talib.
-Tribe Called Quest ripped it. The thought Q-Tip was gonna have a seizure for as much as he was movin.
-However, Nas killed it!!! His set was unbelievable. I haven't seen a crowd that hype in a long time. I was either reciting lyrics, bobbin' my head or pumpin' my fist the entire time. Hell, it was most often a combo of all three.

Some will ask why I only saw those cats. Well, we got there at 3pm or so and I knew the show was gonna last til like 11pm, so I passed on a few of the other cats that started off the festival at noon. Lucky I aint fall asleep after we ate the huge breakfast after church around 1pm. I had to keep my eyes open... LOL.

Anyway, right now my ears are ringing like crazy from standing in the pit dead in front of the stage though. I loved it though and wouldn't trade the experience for nothin'. I might think differently at my 10am meeting in the office when I'm saying "huh?" to every question asked of me... but whatever. It's all good.

Took so many vids & pics that my camera battery died... sorry I only got a few shots of Nas & Tribe... no vids of them at all... guess I need an extra battery huh? It did last me like 6 hours though, so I can't be too salty.

Here's a few vids and the pic gallery... I'll add more later... goin' to bed now...

Rock The Bells Pics

Vid snippets

De La Soul w/Q-Tip



Pharcyde



Mos Def



Method Man & Redman









Peace & Love...

G. Mo

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

You Got Questions. G.Mo Got Answers

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Aiiiight, it took me a while but I'm back. I went through all the questions asked of me and provided answers... some detailed, some short. Here ya go...

Virtuous said...
When y'all starting on y'all mini G.Mos?
Sometime in the next 2 yrs, God willing. We’re enjoying life as a married couple and want to travel and hangout a lil’ bit more before settling down. Having the nieces ere’ now and then is a form of birth control in itself I tell ya… lol. I love them much, but it gives us a lot of insight to having 3 children all one year apart.

T.C. said...
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm as a man how do you communicate effectively with your wife? what recommendations can or would you give women in how to communicate with a man?
Hmmmm… interesting question. I’m sure my wife is waiting to hear the answer also. I consider myself a good communicator but I have my faults as well. To me, the most important thing with regards to this is just be honest. Regardless of gender, you’ve got to be honest with your partner. That is essential. Whether good or bad, it’s important to let your partner know how you’re feeling. You can head off a lot of potential road blocks, by just being up front from the giddy up. Of course, men tend to listen more effectively when there’s skin being shown or touched and less effectively when the game is on.

*Ms.B* said...
What motivates you??? I love being creative. I’m inspired by designing things and seeing them come to fruition. That could be as simple as plotting a surprise or gift for my wife, my mom or close family member to spending countless hours working on a project that I have the utmost confidence in. That could be a website, a musical project or a number of various multimedia type of things. Since I was a kid I’ve always been into electronics and I loved to see others smile even on my worst days. So I’m motivated to do things to make others happy. I enjoy incorporating creative ideas and and coming up with the perfect masterpiece.

How do you feel about the Celtics win lol? C’mon now, you gotta ask? I’m ecstatic!!! I bought a rack of souvenirs including a hat, a Paul Pierce MVP bobblehead doll, a set of rock and shot glasses and a rack of t-shirts. I think I have a different Celtics NBA champs t-shirt for each day of the week.

If you could have one super power, what will it be and why? Hmmmm… I don’t know. Never thought about that one. I guess I would be invisible. That way I could torture Redskins fans for entire football seasons and break-up sure TD passes, trip up the RB’s and put crushing hits on the QB. DC stands for Dallas Cowboys baby!!! No Redskin love here.

Did you ever imagine doing the job that you do now? Of course I did. Seriously. I'm been doing audio-visual since I was 10... first started when my parents (gospel music) travelled around and performed when I was a kid.. I watched my Pops set-up for concerts and sometimes I’d help assist with the mics and sound set-up before the performances. I took that info and learned a lot from it. By the age of 15 I was pretty much running the entire audio-visual set-up from a sizeable church congregation. In my free time I'd build speakerboxes and design car sound systems for cats who wanted boomin’ systems. I started installing car stereos and the systems I'd design as a side gig to make extra $$$. Went to school at Howard and got my BA in Radio Production. During my college years I worked at Radio One and interned at PBS. After graduating I ran audio-visual set-ups for a number of hotels in the DC area. A freelance opportunity came up and I toured with Jay-Z on the Sprite Liquid mix Tour in 2002 and learned a lot from the sound engineers there. For the next 5 years after that I worked at the nation’s largest newspaper looking over their 65 conference room facility, but they got cheap on me and with my qualifications and experience I had to bounce. I now run the entire Audio-Visual Operations for an institution of higher learning. I’ve been doing this for more than 25+ years now, so it's in me. I love what I do and I enjoy teaching and working with these young cats and all this new technology that I didn't have back in the days

Being newly married how do you and the Mrs. deal with the company trips and meeting that you have to attend out of town? It’s not that hard at all. Bills must be paid ya know?. We’ve both done our share of travelling this year. It feels weird at first, but we cope. Neither one of us travel for longer periods of 7 days, so we survive. We call one another and text each day when we’re out of town.

What ingredients do you think are added to make Mumbo Sauce? Now that, I wish I knew. If I had to guess I’d say duck sauce, hot sauce, sugar, honey and ketchup.

Where do you see your self 5 years from now career wise and family wise? Career wise, I like where I am. If a better opportunity arises, then we’ll pray on it and make the best decision. Family wise, I’d expect to hear some “Daddy” and “Mommy” calls and pitter patter of little feet.

What’s your favorite kool-aid flavor? Ummmm… I like grape Kool-Aid mixed with ginger ale. Hell, I pretty much add ginger ale to every juice or drink I like anyway. But those two are my favorite.

BklynAKA said...
If you had to give up sugar for a week....could you do it? Nope….

What is your biggest regret in life? Can’t really say that I have one off the top of my head that I would classify as the biggest. *contemplates for a few minutes*. Okay. I suppose that it would be the years I spent mad at God. From losing my best friend to suicide in ’95, a bad marriage and subsequent divorce in ’00, being electrocuted in ’02, I was a very angry person. I blamed God for making my life miserable for so many years. I stopped going to church and pretty much abandoned my spiritual side altogether. I feel so blessed to be where I am today and thankful for God’s grace. I’ve been through so much and am still here smiling and standing strong. I attribute a lot of finding my way back to church and reviving my spirituality. I see life in a more positive light now and really enjoy sharing my experiences with others as a way to show that God is indeed real.

One person you have lost that you would love to have an hour of time with? Grandpa. My mom’s dad. He passed when I was 16, but I never felt like I really got to know him. He was a joy to be around as a child. But I miss never having an adult conversation with him. It even hit home harder after he passing in finding out he was a champion gold glove amateur boxer in NY back in the days. I would’ve loved to hear the stories. Now all I have are lots of pics and newspaper clippings about him and his skillfulness in the ring.

Favorite athlete? Tony Dorsett was my favorite as a kid and I still light up and get excited when I see replays of him running 99 yards for a touchdown.

What was your wedding song? Well, I’m not sure if you mean ceremony intro song or first dance song, so I’ll give you both. Yolanda Adams’ I’m Gonna Be Ready was the song my wife came down the aisle to. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack was song selected for our first dance.

BK said...
When are YOU making me A DESSERT? *preferrably one of those infamous cakes* you can't say when I make you curry either.. ? Ummm… I dunno. I suppose whenever you make me some JERK chicken. LOL

What was your immediate reaction to the win by your boys? I was actin’ a fool. Talkin’ trash to ere’body and having a good ole time. I waited a long time to act up like I did.

Where were you when you watched the game (room or bar)? ESPN Zone at New York New York Hotel in Las Vegas

When will we get another update on the nieces? Coming real soon. They’re all doing extremely well. They had back to back to back birthdays in April, May & June so I’ll have some pics from those events. I took a lot of pics… a lot!


Blu Jewel said...
how has married life been thus far? It’s been a fun and exciting experience. I’m noticing some ‘slight’ gain in weight from the wife’s cooking. Okay, I’m lying about the slight part. *pats tummy*

how are your beautiful nieces? Wonderful. As I answered above, I’ll have an entry just focusing on them in the next few weeks. I got a lot of pics to go through and edit.

FREEDOM said...
What made you say to yourself that your wife was the one for you? How did you know? Wow. That’s a real long story. I’ll just say that I truly felt that she was the one after I saw her reading to my nieces on Christmas Day. We had only been dating a few months and I saw how happy she was and they were as she captivated them with a simple story. She had only met my nieces a few times before that day and that holiday was one that she shared with me and my family. I was watching the Lakers-Heat basketball game and was really into it. When I turned and looked behind me I saw them all smiling. I then said to myself “she’s going to make a wonderful mother”.

Being a woman what are no-nos that women should avoid when it comes to men dating and to marriage? Uh oh… I’m not sure where to go with this one. Only thing I tell both my male and female friends is just to be honest. Be honest with yourself and be honest with your partner. Not saying that honestly alone with keep situations from occurring. But it’s a lot easier to communicate when you let your guards down and talk straight up. Trust me on this. I had mine up for years and had an invisible battering ram up in dealing with women. Somehow one woman got through it.

What do guys think about their friend dating someone that they have had sex with? Do guys care? Do you think anything serious could develop from that? Honestly, it doesn’t bother me. The past is the past. There’s only one woman that matters now and that’s my wife. If any of my partners hook-up with any of my ex’s, God bless them. Do I believe that anything serious could develop? Sure. Sometimes we find someone we’re destined to be with in the strangest places. You never know who you’re gonna end up falling in love with.

One more, is it ever acceptable for a girl to date a best friend of someone she has slept with? You said “someone she slept with”. There are a lot of factors and variables there. Male or female? In this day and age, you never know. How much time are we talking in between? Was it a serious relationship‘slept with’ or a one night stand ‘slept with’? Regardless, I don’t make the rules and don’t subscribe to the code of the street so to speak. Grown folks should handle grown folks business. If you’re honestly feeling a person, then what someone else thinks shouldn’t matter. Dating someone after they sexed a friend is a lot more complex that sexing someone after they dated a friend. I do believe however that you should be able to discuss the matter openly with your friend about how you feel. Not everyone will look at it this way however.

Proactiff said...
I see you wear a wedding band. Do you (men) look for the same tell-tale signs in women passerbys? Honestly, I’ve never really paid attention to whether a woman was wearing a ring or not. I’m not saying that to show that it was a form of disrespect to women who were married. I’m saying it to say that I truly never paid it any mind. Some guys will look for a ring when they meet a woman or glance to see if she’s married. It’s all jewelry to me, so I never cared. Some women wear rings on their ring finger and aren’t even married. I’d let women tell me what their relationship status was and never assumed. As for me. I wear mine with pride. I’ve discovered that women do take notice. But more than anything I get compliments on the ring itself.

Anonymous emailer said...
The man that always has tickets for something. How do you get the hook-up? How long have you been a scalper? Now you know I'm not about to give up trade secrets on how and where I get my stuff from. Also, I'm not a scalper. Scalping is illegal. There's nothing illegal about ticket hustling. I've been doing this since '94 when Chris Webber and Juwan Howard were with the Washington Bullets. I had purchased season tickets before C-Webb was traded from Golden St and enjoyed going to games. After he was acquired, I decided to try and sell some of my extra tickets in the Washington Post. I was stunned by the amount of calls I received the first day the ad was in the paper. I marked up some of the higher profile games and sold the boring teams at cost in a package deal. Within a week, I had sold half of my season tickets with ease. I then started looking into other tickets and began buying concert seats and Redskins tickets from a source that I still use today... the season ticket holder. I'd put ads in the paper as a desperate fan needing tickets and would get hundreds of calls. Then I'd spend anywhere from $5000-$10,000 per summer on football tickets using one of my credit cards. Once I verified that the tickets were legit, I'd draw up a contract with the seller and we'd do the deal. I'd make that back generally in the first month of the football season by marking up the tickets to at least double my cost. I'd pay the money back to my credit card and throw the rest in a savings account. That money just flipped into more money many times over.

Over the course of a 14 yr span I've just build up more ticket connects and an abundance of clientele who come to me for their ticket needs. I was making cake before the internet existed. Now using eBay, craigslist and StubHub, blogs and message boards makes it easy for me to advertise my inventory of event seats. I still on occasion stand outside the venue to sell tickets, but more often than not I hand them over to some of the younger guys on consignment and then go get my money after the event is over. The largest single sale I've ever had was during Michael Jordan's last season with the Chicago Bulls. I sold 2 lower level $90 seats at Capital Center for $1000 a piece. The buyer was an older white gentleman who hadn't been to an NBA game since Larry Bird and he wanted to take his wife to see MJ before he retired. He responded to my ad in the paper and we met at a location in the mall about an hour away from my house. Definitely a win-win for all parties involved. So, I've just stayed in the game ever since and it's gone from a side hustle to a part-time job. I even got my wife scouting the net for upcoming shows and stuff now.

Anonymous emailer said...
You said something before about cutting your own hair, how long have you been doing that? What clippers do you use? I've been cutting my own hair since I was in the 10th grade. I started with a family set of clippers purchased at Zayre. Those things were awful, but those clippers were still better than going to the barbershop where it seemed that no one could cut my hair as I had requested. So I decided to try it myself. Started wrapping a rubber band around my head evenly, cut it bald to that line and fade it. Gotta remember that this was '88. I was rockin' a fresh taper back then. I messed up a few times, but I'd say that within a year I had it down pat. I can barely count on both hands the number of times I've been to the barbershop since I was 16. I know what I'm doing. I can cut it without a mirror if I had to. I know how certain areas of my head feels with and without hair and just even it out.

As far as clippers, I used the Oster Fast Feed and for liners I used the Andis T-Outliner. That combo has saved me a ton of money for 20 years. I've used nothing but those two models since I can remember. When I was in the Navy I made a killing cutting hair the day before inspections. Dudes would wake me up after midnight for cuts and I'd hit em for $50 on occasion. LOL. I taught my baby brother how to cut his own and he followed in my footsteps. He doesn't go to the barbershop now either. In fact, I think he cuts his own better than I do mine.

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Well folks, that's it. I don't know if I'll ever do another open question session like this. Y'all got me writing chapters in books on here, good gracious. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it.

Peace-N-Love...

G. Mo