The French Prince of Bel-Air

High school is a time when you gain some invaluable education, being mentally stimulated and challenged by your teachers and peers.  You tackle difficult math problems and write eloquent essays... or, you know, perform rap songs translated into French.  Either or.

The majority of how you spent your high school career.

In Grade 10 French class we had to perform a song in groups.  I seem to recall that most groups did songs that were French, but me and my group were visionaries.  We translated and performed the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  I assume it was the greatest thing my teacher had ever seen, because in my mind, it brought tears to her eyes.  Although thinking about it now, maybe she was weeping for the death of the French language.  But probably it was out of pride.

I mentioned the performance to a coworker when he was talking about Fresh Prince, prompting him to ask for me to perform it.  Don't get me wrong, I remember that we did this, but it's not like I kept the lyrics all those years.  Well he went and told the bakers that I would be singing Fresh Prince in French, so all of a sudden that became fact apparently.  So on a one week time span (actually, I translated most of it at work while it was slow so technically I got paid for penning these lyrics), I put together quite possibly the best song ever:

En ouest Philadelphie je suis né et vivais
Dans le cours, pendant le jour, c'est où j'étais
Relaxant avec les gars, jouons basketball
La meilleure place de le faire c'est en dehors de l'école
Quand deux ou trois gars, des vraies espèces de seins
Faisaient des ennuis pour mes vousins
J'étais en une seule baggare et ma mère a eu peur
M'a dit "Tu vas à Bel-Air pour vivre avec ma soeur"

Jour après jour, "Mom, no, please!"
Mais elle a déjà mis tous mes choses dans une valise
Elle me donne un bisou, et puis mon guichet
Alors je commence mon iPod; ma musique est frais
Première classe, c'est plus que chouette
Je bois mon jus d'orange dans une glasse un peu comme un roi
Est-ce-que c'est comment les gens de Bel-Air vivent?
Hmmm, peut-être ça marchera
Mais attendez, j'ai pensais qu'ils sont tous bourgeois
Est-ce que c'est le propre type de place pour moi?
Je ne sais pas
Je verrais quand j'arrive
Comme Prince de Bel-Air!

J'ai sifflé pour un taxi et quand c'est arrivé
La plaque disait FRAIS et y'avait même des dées
Si rien d'autre je dirais le voiture est rare
Mais ce n'est pas important, à Bel-Air dans mon char
Je suis arrivé là à sept ou huit heures
J'ai demandé "La famille Banks, c'est le leur?"
Je surveille mon royaume, la meilleure sur Terre
Assis sur mon throne, le Prince de Bel-Air.

If you try to rap alongside the video in the link above, just know that I added a couple lines from the full version of the song to the end of verse 2.  The timing should still work as long as you don't take the pause that Will Smith does in the third verse before getting to the Banks' mansion (presumably this is to convey time passing while riding in the taxi -- who ever insinuated that Will Smith's lyrics aren't clever?!)

Congratulations are in order

You know what's awesome? (Not the new format for composing blog posts... It's just floating there all weird...)  Dicovering that you really enjoy something that you thought you only kinda liked.  A coworker of mine does slam poetry, and I'm not real knowledgeable about the medium.  Don't get me wrong, I do like spoken word, I just don't have a large sample size of it, and so it remained something I only liked, and on the rare occasion, loved.

So he mentioned he'd be performing, and I said I'd come.  And then, I missed it.  Sorry!

When I showed up to my next shift, another coworker asked me how the show had been.  I told her, I didn't make it, but Alberto said that his roommate is performing the following week.  So we made plans to go see Erin perform.  Incidentally, if you're ever in the mood to watch some poetry, check out Cafe Deux Soleils on the Drive on a Monday night.  


The show we went to was her semi-final round of the Vancouver Poetry Slam tournament to get to earn a place on the Vancouver team.  And everybody was awesome.  No hyperbole; I'm not just trying to be poetic to fit in, it was great.  Erin advanced to the finals too (she's kinda awesome that way) so guess where I was tonight.  


If you guessed at Deux Soleils, well you'd be wrong, but only because the finals were held at the Rio Theatre.  Top 4 of 8 finalists make the team, and by mid-way through the show, I think I was as nervous as some of the poets.  Once again, just absolutely phenomenal performances all around.


Then came the moment of truth: She made it!  Serious props to all 8 poets, but specifically Erin.


Anyway, over the past 8 days, I've come to realize that I really enjoy slam poetry, and that Vancouver has a pretty awesome poetry scene.  And what's that you say?  It's currently the Vancouver International Poetry Festival week?!  Well then get out for some of their events, you may discover you have the same affinity as me.  Or hell, just go do something different this week, just to see, deal?


(I take back what I said about the new layout.  By the time I finished writing this, I was used to it.  Not that it makes a difference to you since only I see it.  Or anyone else who writes a blog I suppose... The end.)

Jumping through hoops to prove my worth to the worthless

It's been quite awhile since I've written a blog entry, but I totally have a reason, I swear!  Today was my last day of classes for this term, which naturally means I've spent the past two days frantically pulling together a term paper for my English class.  While you sit there shaking your head, tsk-tsk-ing (totally a word; I'm going to use it in my next term paper) at me for putting it off until the last minute, again, I have a reason.  The world was busy pulling an elaborate April Fools Day joke on me: all of a sudden the calendar said it was April, but I knew that couldn't be true because then I'd only have 4 days to do my paper, and I totally have tons of time to do it..... Oh..... Fuck.

I wish it was only 2:15 when I got to bed.

Anyway, I got it done (only had to stay up until 4:15), and I'm officially done my schoolwork for the term.  Sure, there are exams over the next couple weeks, but those are far less stressful than having a deadline rapidly bear down on you.  I really need to refocus on writing on here frequently, so that's how I'm going to spend a large chunk of my break.  You know, once I've actually gotten some sleep.  I've been dragging myself into DAVIDsTEA to get "something really caffeinated please" over the past couple days.  This paper's deadline marks roughly the 1 year anniversary of when I stopped drinking coffee; all my caffeine comes from the copious amounts of tea I drink now.

This is my way of life now.

Outside of watching the Canucks games, I haven't done anything objectively or subjectively fun in the past several days because of schoolwork, so now that I'm free I'm going to treat myself.  A coworker of mine performs slam poetry, so I'm going to go see a slam event tonight (Alberto, if I fall asleep while you're performing, it's because of the lack of sleep last night, not because you suck.  Unless of course you do in fact put me to sleep, in which case I claim no responsibility.).  And then on Saturday my friends are going to be performing at the Pit in UBC.  If you're reading this, you should come; it's free!  Of course, at least 95% of the people reading this will already be going anyway, so it's not as if I really needed to say that...  But Blogger informs me that I have readership in Russia and Germany, so I will direct this to them:

Come see Man Chat! on Saturday.  The concert is free, so it'll be quite affordable for you to travel here, stay for Easter if you'd like; I'll have an egg hunt with you.

Man Chat! just released a single and are going to be releasing an EP in the summer.  Yes, I'm shamelessly plugging them, but when you've known 80% of the band since you were 5 (the fifth guy isn't so bad either), then they get shamelessly plugged.  It helps when the music is actually good.  This entry's title is taken from a lyric from the single, but depending on your level of cynicism toward writing papers for post-secondary, it's oddly fitting for an end of term post too...

That's all for now.

More shameless plugs!