I should have written this down the morning after it happened, but i didn’t. I did my best to remember the conversation as accurately as possible. It’s all paraphrased, but you should be able to get a good picture of the night. Keep in mind – none of this is exaggerated. It really did happen this way.

A few weeks ago, after my usual Sunday partying, I went to a diner with some friends of mine. Afterwards, it was too late for a lady to be walking alone, so one of the other guys and I walked with another friend to a hotel where she was staying. When we got to the hotel, the three of us stood outside, continuing our conversation for a while. While we were talking, a random guy walked up to us with his hand out in a gesture of greeting.

Random Guy: Hi. How you doing?

The three of us stared at the guy for a moment. We were standing outside in the middle of the night and a guy none of us had ever seen before was standing there, greeting us like we were at a cocktail party. I looked him over. From his age and dress, I figured he was a drunk college student or recent grad. I warily shook his hand but I stayed silent, waiting to find out why he was approaching us. The other guy, my friend, shook his hand and gave him a funny look.

My Friend: Have you been drinking or are you really that friendly?
RG: No, I just moved back into town and I’m trying to meet some people.
MF: Ohhh, you’re back in town?
RG: Yeah, I just moved back.
MF: Yeah, I remember last time I saw you was at that party. That was a wild night! You were real drunk!
RG: Uhhhhh . . .
MF: You probably don’t even remember. Don’t worry – I won’t tell anyone about that night. You were so drunk!
RG: Uhhhh . . .
MF: So you’re back now?
RG: Yeah, I just moved back here. I have a place on 19th and Arch. So where you guys coming from?
MF: We were just hanging out with the guys. You just missed Rob and Dave. Mike moved out of town not long ago, yeah, he’s gone. I’ll tell all the guys you’re back.

Here, my friend used the names of the other people we had just been hanging out with. I changed the names cuz yall don’t need to know them. The girl and I were just standing there this whole time with no idea what to say. We were fighting hard not to laugh cuz we didn’t want to ruin the conversation. Random Guy was really confused. He had no idea who my friend was but my friend’s tone was so matter-of-fact that he wasn’t sure.

MF: Man, I remember that party! That was a crazy night! You left with that girl. I know you’re probably embarrassed. That’s just between us. It’s good to see you though.
RG: Yeah, I moved to Wisconsin for a while, now I’m back – right on 19th and Arch.

(I don’t remember if it was Wisconsin he was back from, but it was one of those middle of nowhere states)

RG: So what are you guys up to? Are there any parties going on now?

At this point, my friend and I discussed several parties taking place at a combination of real and made-up clubs in the area, giving him “directions” to each one.

RG: You guys wanna go party some more?
MF: No, I’m gonna go smoke some crack. You ever done crack?
RG: No, I just smoke weed?
MF: Weed? Nah, that’s too weak. Is it laced weed?
RG: No, just plain weed.
MF: You gotta lace it. PCP, heroin, cocaine, crack, that’s real drugs
RG: I’m right on 19th and Arch. you guys wanna hang out?
MF: You got crack?
RG: I’m trying to invite you guys to my place to smoke some weed.
MF: Nah, I’m gonna head home and smoke some crack.

Random guy walks off.

I’m gonna needlessly give people extra assurances of any facts I pass on to them.

“Is it raining?”

“Yeah, I was just outside and it’s pouring.”

“Okay.”

“No, I’m positive, it’s definitely raining.”

“Alright.”

“I swear to you! Look at me! I’m wet! WET!”

“. . .”

“It is raining.”

I’m gonna do it! I’m gonna start a podcast. It’s gonna be all about sharing songs I like with other folks. Of course some of my own material will get slipped in there as well. The genre will be all over the place – like my musical tastes. I’ve been toying with the idea of a name thats related to the expected variety of genres. Hmmmm . . .

Stay tuned for more info.

Recently, I was at a mass interview/discussion with some other artists. Here are some of the questions we were asked along with my answers

Where did your name come from and what does it mean?
When I was younger I had dreams of being a grafitti artist. I wanted to put up these meaningful symbol-filled murals and stuff. The first step, of course, was coming up with a tag. I made 2. The first was already my generic internet tag. I came up a way to write it that I thought looked good. The second was Ahd. I liked the word “odd” as a name, but I couldn’t write it in a way I found apealling, so I went with an alternate spelling. “Ahd” was the short version and “Ahd Child” was the full version. The way it’s written in my logo is the same way I wrote it back then. When I started making music, I went by my internet tag first, but many people didn’t seem to know how to pronounce it, so I switched to Ahd Child (which isn’t a whole lot better in that regard, but oh well).

How and why did you start writing/poetry/music?
It seems like a lot of other people (at least in hip hop) were inspired to start rhyming by one particular person. I had no plans of writing poetry or music. I started writing poems in high school because one day I had an idea for a poem. Years later, after I hadn’t been writing for a while, I got an idea for a verse. I got home, finished writing it and recorded it using an instrumental from a CD single (remember those) and a free program I had downloaded. From that point on I started writing and recording songs for fun. As time went by, I got better and began to make my own music. Eventually I realized that this was something I could take seriously.

Why do you share your work (on stage, in writing, etc.)?
When I first started making songs, it was for fun. I’d share them with friends to hopefully get good reactions, and that was it. I just wanted people to hear this cool thing I made. Nowadays, of course that’s still part of the reason I share – it feels good when people complement your work – but it’s not the only reason. In every song I make, I try to communicate some idea or emotion. I try to make people see things in a way they haven’t before. I share my music because it is what I have to say to people – it contains my words to the world. It still feels good when someone says “I like your song” but it feels better when I hear things like “you really made me think.”

Less than one minute ago, I made a decision. It wasn’t a big decision, no, it was a very small one. I decided to blog. No, I didn’t decide to blog more often, despite my sparse postings for the last few months. I decided that I would write a single post immediately. What makes this decision significant is the motivation behind it – or the lack of motivation. I had no topic in mind to write on, no question, I just decided to blog.

OK, it’s not actually that significant, but pretending it was helped me get the ball rolling. I got a whole paragraph out of that. So now, I’m in my second paragraph of an insignificant post. At this point I’m wondering how I can salvage significance. Maybe I should turn this into a confession of my lack of motivation when it comes to blogging lately – but nah, that seems like the cheap way out. I feel like there is some super creative and maybe even witty solution that will bring me the satisfaction of a job well done and that will bring you, who have somehow wondered into my written world, the satisfaction of a read worth the past 5 minutes of your life.

Maybe I should take this opportunity to apologize. I’m sorry I wasted your time. Phew! Now if, despite my efforts, you decide you didn’t like this post when you get to the end, you’ll think “well he did say he was wasting my time and he did apologize.” But, if you somehow arrive at the conclusion that this collection of words added value to your life, you’ll think even higher of me because of my self-debasement and modesty.

Ahh, I’ve gone and messed things up. How can I expect you to objectively arrive at either conclusion now? I just walked you down a path towards a fork in the road and arrogantly assured you “you’ll go that way or the other way.” Now, to spite me, most people would abandon the path and run through the woods, forging their own way, because nowadays we are so obsessed with “straying off the beaten path” that we will do it even if everyone else is doing it.

Well, now that I have covered every possible outcome and made sure that I’ll be right no matter what happens, I think it’s time to end this thing.

Sometime last year, a friend of mine turned me on to XKCD. In my travels around the intertubes interweb internet, I come across many web comics made for geeks and gamers. XKCD is my favorite of the bunch – it’s consistently funny, and unlike with the gamer comics, even if I haven’t been up on the geek news for the past few weeks, I usually still get the humor. Even if you don’t score very high on geek quizzes, you should get at least some of the humor. (You are reading a blag, so I’ll assume you’re part of one of the internet-ready generations)

So, umm, yeah . . . I bring up XKCD because today’s comic is particularly applicable to my life. Many people who have heard my music collection played on shuffle don’t know what to make of it. Years ago (when my collection was less diverse than it is now) it wasn’t uncommon to hear dancehall reggae followed by The Muppets or show tunes (anyone else like The Pajama Game?) followed by Akinyele (You know you still love Put It In Your Mouth).

Many years ago (does that make me sound old) I encountered a friend of mine as I was walking down a hallway. I jokingly put up my fists. In the next instant, he disappeared. One more instant, and his foot was about an inch from my face. Once my brain was able to process what had happened, I realized that he had somehow dropped to the ground, stood on his head and thrown a kick. That was my very first encounter with Capoeira – it was brief, but I never forgot it. My friend told me about it and invited me to classes. He regularly encouraged me to check out the classes, but I was busy and constantly broke at the time. About five years later, I finally got around to taking a class. (It was six years before I went to the particular class he had told me about).

In the years between first hearing about Capoeira and taking a class, I had learned a little more about it and even seen some demonstrations. I started the class already having some familiarity with the basic movement, jenga, and with some basic kicking knowledge gained from other martial arts I’ve dabbled in. I felt pretty good about myself throughout the class – it seemed like I was picking things up pretty quickly. That feeling changed when I got into my first rhoda. The rhoda is the circle where you actually do Capoeira. Some call it a dance and some call it a game. That first time in the circle, with feet rapidly flying toward my face, it didn’t feel like either. It felt like “run for your life!” Now, whenever I see a newcomer step into his first rhoda and freeze up, I chuckle to myself as I remember my first time. I also think about the pain they’ll be feeling the next day – Capoeira has a way of introducing you to muscles that you didn’t know you had.

Due to life’s inevitable complications, I started and stopped several times. My last stretch was very definitely my most intense. I was taking classes multiple times a week, and I even started taking some classes teaching a different style of Capoeira with the hope that the diversity of styles would help improve my overall abilities. The effects of the intensity were definitely beginning to show . . . right up until I stopped. For three years.

For three years, I’ve been promising myself that I would get back to Capoeira one day, but time kept passing and it kept not happening. Well, about a month ago, I finally made it back. The first few classes were physically and mentally painful. The physical part was because I was out of shape. As for the mental part – I knew that I wouldn’t come back and instantly be at the same level that I was at when I stopped, but it was disappointing to see how far I had actually fallen. Still, despite my disappointment, I knew that I would get there, so I’ve been working hard. The hard work is paying off – even now I am doing much better than a month ago. I wanted to write about this now so that later, when I’m better than I was before I stopped, I can read this and smile.

If you’re interested in trying Capoeira, I found this directory through Google, though I’m not sure how accurate and up-to-date it is. You might be better off typing “capoeira” and your city or state name into a search box. If you’re looking for Philly area classes, hit me up or look here.