Diatribes by Joah

Are Dr. Dre, Justin Timberlake and Andre 3000 Sacrificing the Gift?

This is gonna be a super quick, but important rant. One of the quotes that I live by is by Steve Prefontaine. If you don’t know who he is, look him up on Wikipedia then watch Without Limits on Netflix or something. When the first Nike shoe is based on your foot and your life is turned into a movie titled Without Limits, you’re pretty much the perfect idol for me. OK, so he said, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

What I think he meant is that once you find your true calling, your true passion and purpose – for Pre it was running  - then you have you do everything to do your best. Every time, all the time. The guy was famous for refusing to run below race pace in practices! Not the game, not the actual race, but practice! Allen Iverson left the NBA just a few years ago, but he already has less impact on modern day sports than Pre because he lacked this mentality. Anyway, back to my point.

I am a HUGE music fan. Got it from my older brothers, dad (read my Father’s Day post for more on him), and good friends over the years, I guess.  Regardless, the best way for me to demonstrate my music fandomness is to tell you that I go to Waterloo Records – one of the best locally-owned record shops in America – every Tuesday when I’m home in Austin to buy at least one new CD. Yeah, I still buy actual CDs. Don’t get me wrong, I love iTunes and Spotify. I’ve probably spent a good $5,000 on iTunes since college on music alone. My iPhone is Bluetooth-enabled in my car so I can start playing my iTunes playlists the second I put the key in. Still, I buy a ton of CDs. Something like 250 in the last two years. Also, I recently counted and it turns out I’ve seen over 400 different performances/shows/concerts since I moved back to Austin in January 2009. That’s something like two shows every week.

When I find a new band or artist I love, I go hard for them. Whether it’s bands like Letting Up or 10YR in Austin or groups like Electric Wire Hustle and rapper David Dallas in New Zealand, I will rep hard for them. But I can’t stand when an artist feels entitled to give anything less than their best.

Like Dr. Dre and Detox. Like Justin Timberlake. Like Andre 3000. Hell, at least D’Angelo has cleaned up his act (pun intended) and appears to be working on a new album now. One of the greatest ever, Sade, went on a full-scale tour last year, which I got to see in Miami. Bless her heart.

Dre, Justin and 3000 are absolutely killing me right now. Artists who make excuses for not acknowledging and sharing their greatest gifts kill me! Dre is using his headphones. Justin is using his acting. 3000 is using his fashion collection…and Gillette commercials. Excuses, excuses, excuses.

All three of you are sacrificing your gifts.

Have you already done enough to make someone like me happy? Sure.

Dr. Dre gave us The Chronic album and Snoop and Eminem and 50 Cent.

Justin Timberlake gave us Cry Me a River and SexyBack and his “D*ck in a Box” on SNL.

Andre 3000 gave us some of the best verses ever heard in hip-hop and paved the way for rappers like Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne to express themselves through fashion.

I get it. But you’re not dead, so you’re not done. You shouldn’t be done. If you’re just taking a break, like one of those Sade seven-year breaks, then that’s cool. Just say it! Don’t keep us hanging around…everytime Dr. Dre says, “watch out for Detox!” I want to throw a tomato at him!

2Pac

Aaliyah

Big Pun

Donna Summer

Easy E

Heavy D

G.U.R.U.

Jay Dilla

Jam Master Jay

Left Eye

Luther Vandross

MCA

Michael Jackson

Notorious B.I.G.

ODB

Pimp C

Whitney Houston

They all died for different reasons and under different circumstances. Their reputations were all different in their final years. But, upon their deaths, the same reaction occurred: universal acclaim and gratitude for the fact that they gave something special while they were here on Earth.

I’m not saying these three musicians – Dr. Dre, Justin Timberlake, and Andre 3000 – haven’t given us their gifts significantly already. I’m not saying we wouldn’t celebrate their lives and musical contributions if they died prematurely or suddenly.

I’m just saying that I keep asking myself…do Dr. Dre, Justin Timberlake, and Andre 3000 take life and their gifts for granted – not to mention their fans – so much that they aren’t busy doing their best to share them with the world?

Are they intentionally letting the years go by, drawing closer to their deaths, without sharing their musical talents because they think they’ve done enough?

If they do, I beg them to watch Without Limits. I beg them to take heed to Pre’s words.

I beg them to take advantage of, and not sacrifice, their gift. Sorry, making headphones, acting and fashion design, are talents you may have, but the world already knows what your best gift is. Making music!

That’s the gift we’ll all be prepared to celebrate when you leave this Earth, too. Until then, share it with us before you end up in music history Heaven with the rest of the people on that list above; possibly dead before your final act could be performed as was the case with Michael Jackson, with millions of fans wondering what else you had left in the tank as was the case with Tupac and Biggie, with so much talent left to show as was the case with Aaliyah and Jay Dilla.

I can tell you this; no one ever wondered if Steve Prefontaine had anything left in the tank nor did anyone wonder what other talents he had to share...every distance runner, every Nike-sponsored athlete and every U.S. Olympian knows exactly what Pre had.

He gave it his all, every time, all the time. It's disappointing to look at some of my favorite musicians and wonder if that's something they can say for themselves, despite their God-given and awe-inspiring talents.

One of America's most beautiful neighborhoods to run

I've run in so many beautiful places in American cities.  I've run Town Lake in Austin, over the Golden Gate Bridge, on the sands of Manhattan Beach, the West Side Highway in New York, the Hollywood Hills in L.A., the Cleveland Park neighborhood of D.C., Charleston, S.C.'s Rainbow Row, up steep hills in Salt Lake City, along snow-filled yards in St. Paul - Minneapolis and past Army barracks at Fort Knox, Kentucky. These, and too many others, have been runs that I savor not only because they offer good training grounds for road races, but also because of the beautiful and varied scenery they provide. I've been to Memphis half a dozen times, but this week, before my Real Role Models book signing  at Davis-Kidd, I went for a run in the city's Evergreen Historic District alongside Overton Park and fell in love.

Having spent part of my childhood in Greenville, S.C., I've long been a fan of those Southern-styled homes that don brick exteriors, large grassy yards and comfy porches, but I think Memphis takes the cake as far as I'm concerned.

Tree-lined streets

with names like Stonewall and Avalon;

where vinyl does not exist,

and privacy is measured by nature, not acreage.

 

"Getting a trim" is a landscaping reference.

Class is measured not counted.

Trees grown heavenward;

and you call each other neighbors, because you live in a neighborhood.

Usain Bolt...greatest sprinter of all-time?

Move over Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson...this Jamaican has more than made his case after winning his second world title in Berlin (after winning three golds in Beijing), this time blazing through the 200 meter dash in a mind-blowing 19.19 ticks...just days after winning the 100m in 9.58 seconds. Who cares if this guy isn't from the US and if the sport's biggest events don't take place in the States...this guy's speed is CRAZY!

That feeling I get before a big race

I've been a runner, a distance runner to be specific, for nearly 15 years. Amazingly, I've never won a race in my life. Not in middle school, when I started running, not in high school, when I failed to reach my potential in two different states (I did run a 4:28 mile once though), and not after college since I've gotten even more serious about my running.

It's a weird thing to say, but I guess I'm just not cut out for winning at this running thing. But I'm committed to running as best I can and I've won in so many other areas of my life that I'm okay with that.

My best running stories don't even involve races and my best race stories certainly don't involve winning. My first day of track practice was running seven miles. I had never run more than a mile before then. My second day of track practice, back in seventh grade, was running 800 meters (half a mile or two laps around the Berea High School track) and I did that in 2 minutes and eight seconds.

Somehow that early promise didn't pan out and, instead, I've become one of those runners who is good enough to be considered a serious runner - I ran 10 miles with a running club of hundreds of people last week and finished first (but it wasn't a race) in under 70 minutes - but not yet a serious enough runner to enter a half marathon and expect to finish anywhere near the Kenyans or college runners.

Still, I continue to race because every few months or so I get antsy to do something competitive. In the last few years I've run the Cooper River Bridge Run 10k in Charleston, South Carolina, the North Face Endurance Challenge Half Marathon in Bellingham, Washington, and I finished the Under Armour Baltimore Marathon in 3 hours and 14 minutes back in October. I missed qualifying for the Boston Marathon, on my first try, by four minutes.

I guess I'm telling you all this because I want you to have some context about what I feel like in the days leading up to a race. It's not the sort of feeling an Olympian gets before his/her races because I know I won't win, but it's not at all like your run-of-the-mill runner who entered himself into his first 5k either because I expect to run a fast time and place amongst the top set of finishers who don't run for a living. In the North Face race, I finished in the top 20 out of more than 140 runners and in Baltimore I was in the top five percent of finishers out of thousands of runners.

So when I wake up tomorrow at 5:45 to make the short walk from my new apartment by Town Lake here in Austin to Congress Avenue for the start of the Austin half marathon, I will be somewhere in between distance-great Steve Prefontaine and your average treadmill runner in terms of ambition.

I'm not so serious about my running as to not eat bacon cheeseburgers and Little Debbies on occasion, but I'm serious enough to run in 30-degree weather and buy $120 Asics lightweight trainers every couple of months. My goal tomorrow is to average six minute miles for the 13.1 mile course around and through Downtown Austin. I did the last seven miles of the full marathon course in 42 minutes two Saturdays ago so it's a lofty, but very feasible goal.

So long as I don't feel like (or taking a) shit tomorrow.

Usually my race strategy involves being hypersensitive about my body for the 10 days leading up to the race - "my calf is tighter than normal, I should take it easy today" - and eating a lot of protein in mornings (I just had bacon) and carbs at night (I had Romeo's last night). I don't like drinking water much, but I try to cut down on the juice somewhat in the day or two before the race and start drinking water more often. I usually eat a granola bar the night before I go to bed and eat a banana in the morning. During the race I'll probably have another banana and a couple of energy gels, one ever 30 minutes and an extra one with two miles to go.

I know I won't win tomorrow, but I hope to do well. I've been running for nearly 15 years because winning isn't everything, but being committed to doing well is. Wish me luck.