California Dreamin'

Not too long ago, I landed at ORF in Virginia after leaving the LAX in Los Angeles and asked myself: "Why the hell did I leave?"

Why did I just leave 74 degree sunny weather for this shit? Sure the weather is nice. You know what else is nice? The Santa Monica Pier on Sunday night.

Bumping "The Documentary" at 3 in the morning at the spot where Biggie was shot.

Meeting a beautiful Portuguese tourist on the beach, sharing a brief, drunken kiss, and thinking about her from time to time for the next six years.

Cruising down Sunset Blvd. (not knowing what time it is) for the sake of boredom.

Or standing at the top of the hill at night and looking down at the glittering city when there are no stars in the sky above you and feeling as though the earth and sky have inverted.

You and two friends beginning the night bored and waking up in some girls' house in Malibu and not knowing how or why; and not caring.

Harassing celebrities at the grocery store.

Waking up with a goal, but then procrastinating the whole day, doing absolutely nothing... and waking up the next morning with the same dream.

You and a group of 5 going to see the Lakers play with shitty seats, but by the second quarter you're in the 3rd row.

What about noticing that the woman sitting next to you on the Red Line looks an awful lot like someone you saw in a porno the other night; and seeing her nod in affirmation when she notices that you're looking.

Looking at the horizon at dusk and realizing the rest of the country is already sleep and you're still up; the last ones to see the sun.

Knowing that earthquakes, wild fires, mudslides, riots, gangs, pollution, insane housing costs, celebrity circuses, and traffic are not that big of a deal after all. Or at least they're not as big a set of problems as people who don't live there imagine. Shockingly, real life happens here in all its messy glory every single day.

In a city full of celebrities and weirdos, no one really cares what you do there. You could be a homeless bum or a $20 million-a-movie actor and you wouldn't stand out; not too much. You're completely free. The only thing that matters is what you want to do. So make it interesting. Make it memorable.

Everybody won't, but anybody can be an "overnight success story" here.

I haven't been to every single city, but I've been to quite a few places (most major cities in U.S. and a couple foreign countries). I'm still confident in saying L.A. is the best city in the world.

Maybe I'm favor leaning... or just California Dreamin'

Giving Off Bad Vibes

"Best rapper alive." -- Jay-Z

"Best rapper I alive...since the best rapper retired." -- Lil Wayne

Well now the retiree has since returned, so is he still the best rapper alive? What about the best rapper ever? Vibe magazine has recently thrown together a tournament in hopes of putting this everlasting question to rest. (And yes, I do mean it was thrown together.)

Whoever was in charge of choosing the competitors and the seeds should be shot...or at least fired.
The purpose of having ranking seeds is so the best competitors don't go up against each other early on. But its obvious Vibe just paired up some rappers who are linked together by style, location, characteristics, or beef.

Take a look,
Bracket 1, Round 1 Matchup: #3 Snoop Dogg vs. #30 The D.O.C.
#7 50 Cent vs. #26 Rick Ross

Bracket 2, Round 1 Matchup: #4 Scarface vs. #29 Pimp C

Bracket 3 Round 1 Matchup: #5 Big Punisher vs. #28 Fat Joe
#2 Ice Cube vs. #31 MC Ren
#8 Eazy E vs. #25 Spice-1

Bracket 4, Round 1 Matchup: #13 Twista vs. #20 Bizzy Bone

This is supposed to be a competition to crown the best rapper ever. Clearly some of these people should not even be in the running. I mean don't get me wrong, newcomer #32 Kid Cudi, is a hot new artist with some hella good new tracks, but let's be real; his first album hasn't even been released!

Not to mention, Lupe Fiasco, Cassidy, and Royce Da 5'9" are not even in the damn competition! No Obie Trice, no Papoose, no Eric Sermon, no Styles P. But instead we have Bow Wow, Will Smith, and Lil Kim. And where the hell is Joel Ortiz? Come on Vibe!

For crying out loud, Joe Budden has a 32 seed and MC Hammer has a 17. I feel your pain son.

Consider all of the criteria when choosing who the best rapper: lyrics, delivery, style, album sales, resiliency, versatility, etc. I wonder what Vibe editors used.

Let the great debate begin.
And the best rapper is...