Appraisal

The reason that I'm sitting here at 8 am, by myself in a cafe, typing this shit (on a Wednesday morning that I have off from work no less) is due to the fact that some dip-shit is in my apartment doing an appraisal. Which leads me to the paranoid feeling that in the near future either my rent will be raised, or the place will be sold: the end result of both will cause me to move yet again. When I moved into my current apartment, my motto was "this will be the last time". So, lets briefly, vaguely, and indiscriminately run through my moving/living situation over the last 7 years since I initially moved to San Francisco. Yet another ME! post, so read it or fuck off and scroll to the bottom and just get the free track (its a real good one today).

1. After couch surfing for a few weeks, I found a rich young adult with a great place on Craigslist, that paid 2/3s of the rent on a shared unit in which I got more space than him(?). Although he was on par with some of the shittier drunks I've met, it was honestly rarely a problem since we didn't hang much, and he had money (drunks without money suck, duh). Everything was fine until some pill popping alcoholic piece of night trash from Long Beach moved up to go to SF State, asked to sleep at ours for a few weeks till she found a place, and ended up staying for five months. With every last dollar I could muster, I saved up to take a trip to Japan for two weeks, and upon my return I found that my roommate had gone on a bender, taken our "guest" to Vegas, married her, bought a house, and was moving out in two weeks.
2. Having just enough to cover next month's rent I hit up Craigslist like a fiend, and found a shithole with a roommate somewhat in my age range who did not need a deposit. Parts of my room went down at a 30 degree angle, but I took it out of desperation. Upon moving in I discovered that I'd be living with an unfixed pitbull that was afraid of everything and everyone (she probably needed glasses, but they don't make those for dogs. Actually, I stand corrected), and a roommate that did coke every other night and dated a stripper, that he lambasted for her career choice and alleged infidelity (although he brought home random bar skanks, and genuinely nice girls home on the regular behind her back). My friends hated coming over, and after 3 months I bounced,
3. To end up with some kid fresh into City College whose Dad had just jetted from his house to move in with some model. It was the kid's first time living alone, and anything seemed better to me than where I was before, until I got my bank statement a month later with 6 checks (totalling only $140) on it that I didn't write, made out to said kid, with my signature forged. He said he needed money to buy weed. So left that arrangement, and took a bunch of the nice furniture that he had at Daddy's place as a consolation prize.
4. Moved in to a crazy nice but sketchy place with a guy that grew weed (a lot of weed) inside, and a graphic designer. Best place ever: cheap rent, super huge, immaculate detailing, jacuzzi tub, free laundry, but everything I owned always smelled like weed, and everyone always thought I was high (and I kinda was as I was getting free pot).
5. Moved after a year and a half (longest place other than my childhood home that I've ever lived in) to get a place with my then girlfriend.
6. Moved everything into the unit upstairs after about half a year due to the downstairs neighbor being adverse to any music at anytime of day ever. I used to get blamed for my then upstairs neighbors' music all the time, in conjunction with my own, and she had the landlord's number on speed dial (I felt worse for him than anybody actually) and had a therapist girlfriend who used to like to confront me about how "I was restricting the freedom from flowing in their apartment". After the move up things from a neighborly perspective improved, but these were times of extreme mental anguish and paranoia.
7. After another 6 months moved again, across town, as the gf wanted a larger place with a yard.
8. After another 3 months gf and I parted ways. I spent two of the shittiest months of my life living with her while looking for a new place and then moving into the place which I'm in now, which I like.

I know that nobody cares. Still, I recounted all of it just to simply state that I don't want my rent raised, or my place sold. I am very broken in regards to the moving thing, and although it is a basically a constant ritual in my life, I'd like to break the cycle for a moment to save my back and my bank. I guess I could have have written about Phreek, and classic underground disco, like a proper disco blog, but seriously just google Phreek, P & P, and Patrick Adams and you'll find a wealth of more relevant info on other pages which'll be waaaaaaay better than some half ass plagiarism by me.

Phreek - I'm A Big Freak (R-U-1-2)

I'm Outta Here

Its getting to be time to leave when:
1. A stranger starts a conversation with you by saying "Don't you love this bar? I mean everyone here is so cool, right?", but they are not being sarcastic.
2. You need to exit the freeway in a couple miles, so you put on your blinker and the guy to your right speeds up specifically to block you, so you can't get over. So you chill for a mile and wait for another gap, put on your blinker, and the same guy speeds up again to make sure you can't get over. And now he's mad dogging you and staring through you with the intensity of the devil, and you just missed your exit (btw, I'd been driving in the same lane for 20+ minutes so I didn't cut the dude off earlier or anything).
3. You're at a party in a hotel room with 20 people smoking indoors with no windows open.
4. It takes 30 min. at a minimum to get anywhere you are planning to go to.
5. Your favorite mom and pop owned stores and restaurants from your childhood are now the GAP and Verizon, and you drove 30 minutes in traffic just to find that out.
6. Certain males and females about town (at night, and specifically downtown), rock a touch of fake blood across the throat or under the eye for the sake of fashion (or maybe Halloween nostalgia?). You also have to hang out and conversate with them.
7. Your childhood bedroom, now looks like the posted photo.
8. Your mom gives you a pamplet titled "Best Sex In The World: A Guide", and tells you to check it out...and you do.

I Heart Los Angeles!
Mitch Hedburg - Soda Pop

Look At Your Life

Drive, Eat, Drink, Drive, Wait, Drive, Wait, Smoke, Wait, Drive, Drink, Drive, Sleep. Then skin the shit out of your forearm skating a 4 inch curb in front of your parents house (so it looks like you took a cheesegrater to it), and think about the fact that you are a 28 year old man. Then write up a pointless blog post. Then sulk.
D.O.C. - The Grand Finale
Heaven 17 - Let's All Make A Bomb

Blog Vs. Vacation

Blog thought that he'd be getting some concentration and content, seeing as I'm on vacation and still in touch with computers, but his thinking is wishful at best. I need to be forced in front of a computer for a long period of time in order to really make this thing happen, and the only angst I'm feeling to get those psycho-lexical juices flowing has to deal with my family (which I'd prefer not to write about, but probably will. The apex of angst should hit this Friday, so we'll see how things play out).

Anyways, here are some endearing tunes by Jonathan Richman, who was previously the front man of the Modern Lovers (and is now still very relevant and poetic in his own solo right). I went on a date once at a Jonathan Richman show, and I thought that I dug the girl, cuz the show was good and she was smiling. But I was fucking fooled by the show, as I was just having a good time because of it, and not her, and it took a full hour after the show to shake that daze outta my brain and realize that she was a 'tard.
Jonathan Richman - A Higher Power
Jonathan Richman - Velvet Underground

Destroyer of Evil

I don't have much time for a post today, since I have my office holiday party (which they are doing at work, and during lunchtime this year, instead of at a restaurant or club or someplace that normal work places go to. I guess the T.E.T.s [tough economic times] strike again) to attend in a couple minutes. I'm expecting it to be a tad weird, as they will be serving us booze this year, for lunch, and then an hour later, we are expected to return to our desks, and actually do real work. I wouldn't say that I am planning on getting slammed at lunch today, but based on my past experience with open bars and awkward situations, I wouldn't be surprised when I'm on my third drink in twenty minutes (and I'm probably not the only one). Based on an office rumor I overheard, last year's holiday party was alcohol-free, due to the fact that someone threw up and embarassed themselves two years prior. Apparently the guard has changed, and this year, the fun committee or whomever plans these things, decided that it is again fine for us to drink liquor amongst other co-workers, but lets just limit it to lunch time, and then we can schedule legitimate business meetings directly following.

The tracks for today are from 80s Bronx electro producer Hashim, which in Arabic means "destroyer of evil" or "one who attracts women". In later forms of Arabic I can also be translated into the equivalent of the English word "sexy".
Hashim - Chateau Vie Remix (Castle Life)
Hashim - Al-Naafiysh Remix (The Soul)

Productive Waste of Time

It’s the pre-holiday week, and work has reached the grandeur of all-time fucking pointlessness. I’ve shown up on time, and I’m now alone in my cubicle staring at my calendar for today, which only lists one meeting of the Green Committee, now marked as cancelled. I did bust my ass to accomplish a couple things and meet some deadlines (which ended up being irrelevant in the long run) and now I am here trapped in purgatory, waiting desperately for the holiday break to begin. On days like this I seriously have no need to show up. I could just paste my cell phone number on my computer screen, and have two boxes for people to put paperwork, one which says “Done”, and another which says “You need me to actually do something with this, right?” The fact that I’ve trekked an hour in the rain to get to work today, solely to get paid to bitch about that aformentioned process on my blog (while listening to Italo and Eric Burdon jams on my Juster Hi-Fi Speaker System), and then write about taking cold showers, borders on the ridiculous.

So, what’s the deal with taking cold showers in the morning (cue Seinfeld bass line)? Seriously though, this is my topic for the day and I’m gonna take it there and back with some ferocious intensity. I think that something is fucked up with my hand (which is the water temperature tester for the shower) where it is incapable of helping my brain make the right decision not to enter. There have been a shitload of instances lately (and it’s much more apparent since it’s been colder out) where I’ve been entering the shower prematurely, and then have to linger shivering and anticipating the point at which the water will shift from cold to scalding (which can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes +). The worst part of the whole ordeal is that moment when you’ve entered and gotten half of your body or any part of your hair wet. At that point you are not allowed to turn back; you are officially the shower’s bitch, and it’s up to him to decide how much torture you are going to have to deal with before your flesh starts to bake from the radical temperature change. I mean I guess, you could technically, get out of the shower all dripping and stand there like a wet dog awaiting a more accessible atmosphere. Fuck that. That might even be a more miserable situation, and if you grab a towel to dry yourself off before re-entering the water, you are a pussy, plain and simple. One technique, which you can impart while trapped in the shower awaiting resolute temperatures (which doesn’t completely work), is to pee on your legs. Your pee will be lukewarm to warm at best, and may improve your situation around this area for 15 to 30 seconds (If you are a man, I wouldn’t suggest peeing up for the heat benefits, as there is something about taking your own pee in the chest or face area that just comes off as incorrect, even when its rinsed directly by water). Some people would consider that gross, but I think it’s safe to assume that all of you have peed in the shower at some point. If you get out of the shower to pee and then get back in, your priorities are seriously out of wack; it all goes to the same fucking place, and the process that applies to water washing your pee out of the toilet, works here as well. It would only get really gross if you use your shower as both a toilet and a shower regularly (as opposed to using a toilet at all), or if you have a large build up of hair in the drain, which is constantly getting filtered by the butt end of your human waste. Anyways, eventually the water does change temperature, and for about 10-20 seconds, it’s great. Then it passes the point of perfection, and within a split second jumps into the danger zone, where you have to either get out of the water stream (which is also cold) or adjust the temperature knob. My adjustments are usually jerked and unrefined, which accounts for the overcompensation in temperature, and suddenly I’m back where I started, with cold or lukewarm. At this point I am usually pretty fucking fed up, which allots me the mental/physical capacity to really take control of my situation; by concentrating on the exact degree specifications on the temp knob, I can pinpoint the precise spot for epic showering over the next couple minutes. Since we are on the topic of showering, wouldn’t it be nice if they streamlined the shower process across the board, so it’s more intuitive and constant. There have been multiple times where I have been at a hotel or a friend’s house, and spent 5 to 10 minutes just figuring how to get the thing not be at either extreme: piping or frosty. It’s almost an embarrassing experience, where you feel so fucking dumb that you can’t figure out an appliance that has only two knobs tops (and sometimes the bath/shower flip switch thing) which you’ve used almost every day for the entirety of your life.

I’m posting up some Italo business from Electric Mind for today. The B side of the 12”, is really the Dub Version of the A side, even though they name the B side something completely different, which I don’t get. Like, is it cool to be misled for 5 seconds, thinking you got a dub copy of an alternate track, but then you put the record on and it’s totally obvious that it’s the same?
Electric Mind – Pick Me Up (Can We Go)
Electric Mind – ZWEI (Dub Version) aka Pick Me Up (Dub Version)

The Fountain

Thanks to the wonders of science and research, I can finally take something that has haunted me my entire adult life and (possibly) turn it into a positive. I look young, to the point where the average doorman, assumes that I am A) not 21+ and B) not in possession of a legitimate ID, and therefore he or she must put me and my ID under the most scrutinous of tests. Staring, flexing, flicking, and black-light torture is subjected upon my poor ID, and I concurrently get asked every question under the sun, “what’s your birthday”, “what’s your sign, “what’s your driver’s license number”, etc… and then the follow ups to that process are baby face remarks, laughing, and utter disbelief. For the record I am not retarded or physically deformed, so I don’t look like the midgets from Time Bandits or anything. I used to get jealous of my friends who looked 30 when we were 18, but after some contemplation, my lot in my life ain't too bad. Conversely, I actually prefer to just continue to put up with all the shit and remain somewhat precocious looking than to be like Robin Williams in JACK. Apparently Danish scientists have found that people who look young for their age actually live longer. According to the following article it has something to do with these pieces of DNA called telomeres, which I am not going to explain, because you should know how to fucking read and follow links. Thanks to science, I can now confidently look forward to outliving most of my peers in solitude, and I now have some scientifically-bitchy condescension that I can insecurely recant to door-people during my nightly interview process.
ZZ Hill - I Created a Monster
ZZ Hill - That Ain't The Way You Make Love

The Emancipation Of Mimi

I woke up with a ton of ideas today that seemed very well formed initially, and I attempted to work them out in my head in that “snooze” period, which lasts exactly ten minutes (between when I push the snooze button on the alarm and go back to bed, and then when I wake up to the alarm again). I scrambled to an unopened envelope and wrote down “Fetish Skate Video” and “Mariah Carey” on the back thinking I’d be able to remember all the minute details. I am now at work, and they seem not only extremely hazy in comparison to the earlier dream format, but also less interesting/funny and waaaay more retarded. I’ll attempt to develop them anyway, as I am not looking to really do anything with my bloggings, other than get my fingers moving.

The first retarded idea dealt with the very homophobic world of skateboarding. Being openly gay and a into skateboarding is a definite no-no amongst most skaters (the majority of whom are probably in their teenage years, and very influenced by a number of things outside of their own mental capacity to make reasonable decisions). This is often a product of some working class, ignorant, macho, derelict, Pabst-blue-ribbon, flannel shirt type of vibe that a bunch of skaters tend to subscribe to. They say that statistically 1 out of every 10 men is gay; I’m sure that within skate culture the ratio is much lower, as it is not an activity that really speaks to a large variety of people outside of heterosexual males, and additionally its probably very intimidating for those who are outside of that category that it does interest (but within that category, it is at least racially very open; not so much across gender and sexual orientation). Regardless, it is fun to do, and all people like fun. So I was thinking maybe we need a gay skate video, with some pros (there must be a few who are secretly gay) coming out of the closet. It’d be a big Fuck You to skate culture. Sadly it’d probably end their careers, as I remember hearing rumors at skate spots from time to time about which pros are “confirmed gay” followed with some negative sentiments, and I figured that maybe the Gay Pride Skate Video would not work on its target audience. Instead, why not just go a couple steps beyond attempting to educate a few kids of the ignorance of homophobia (besides the vid would probably just become a target that they could use to reinforce what they already believe, unfortunately), and instead just blow a few minds by coming out with a hardcore fetish themed skate video, that will show some ripping: not only in the street, but in the club and the bedroom. It’ll be a place where skaters land and turn tricks, often in the same line. It’d showcase leather fetishes, circle jerks, cruising, all types of shit that skaters would generally be turned off of, but kids would totally buy it, thinking that they are gonna be really hardcore, for having a video with events and topics well beyond their sexual comprehension (Kind of like how it was cool to watch Faces of Death when you were 15, even though it is in no way enjoyable). Shit. In re-reading this BS, I don’t even know if I should put this out there, but if I don’t, I would have wasted a whole 30 minutes writing all of it up. If anything, it’s the homage to my thoughts on the astral plateau, which I cannot deny.

The second idea was “Mariah Carey” and beyond the name that’s all I can remember, which sucks because I’m pretty sure that I had a brilliant concept that would have put the fetish skate video idea into the trash can. I do remember having that song Touch My Body stuck in my head when I woke up (which was actually in a skate video). I also know that Mariah has an amazing Sanrio collection.
Fatback - Keep Your Fingers Out The Jam
Fatback - Want To Dance
Fatback - Get Ready for the Night

Huntsville

No sleep. Dark circles. Coffee. Work. Suck. Blues. I’m feeling real country today, because I’m wearing a denim shirt with pearl buttons and listening to Jim Ford. I’m just connecting on that mental plain, which is odd, as I have little country experience, outside of going to summer camp in Maine for 3 months when I was 9 and being involved in the Boy Scouts during my adolescence (not that being in a Boy Scout troop in Studio City is country, but we did go on a lot of trips to country type places, which will no doubt be blogged about at some point). Country is stereotypically floods, farms, animal shit, Wallmart, sheriffs, church, whiskey, beans, sagebrush, snus, wranglers, fires, smells, and a bunch of other shit that I really have no real experience with. Nowadays, country is IPods, online purchases, Nickelback, meth, and mini-malls.

More coffee. More Suck. Based on what I’ve already wrote, I should probably put up some country shit to draw a parallel between the content and the medium. But One Mans Problem is sometimes deliberately a letdown in multiple departments, and my denim shirt is just not enough incentive for me to tie things together. Screw it. I’ll do the obvious, and in doing so I will actually blow everyone’s mind with my self-proclaimed and pointless reverse-reverse logic. I’m having problems keeping my eyes open at the moment, and in re-reading what I have written up to this point, I realize that it’s time to stop writing and close this moment in blog history, so as to avoid falling asleep with my face on the keyboard with the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz key depressed. So here is the obvious: two dollar bin jams from Christopher Cross. Whether or not this qualifies as country or yacht rock is up to you to decide (fuck it, this is denim shirt music).
Christopher Cross – Ride Like the Wind
Christopher Cross - Sailing

Why Bother

Busy again, so go read Loose Shus' article on the cycle of suck. Essential reading, for the readers.

For the Downloaders:
Juicy Bananas - Badman
The Plugz - Reel Ten

Open Letter To Blog

Dearest Blog,
I am very sorry that lately I have not had sufficient time to contribute to you. My schedule at work has shifted so that I am actually busy, instead of just desperately seeking out ways to kill time while appearing assiduous. The odd thing is that I actually resent my superiors for putting a few large projects on my table with firm deadlines, as if my job is supposed to be comprised solely of me surfing the net and aimlessly wandering the building with a couple papers in hand as if I have "something to do". I understand that you have seen little sunshine and are not eating as regularly as you would prefer. I just wanted to let you know that this is not deliberate, and I still love you.

Faithfully Yours,

Hobo

P.S. I know that I could potentially feed, bathe, and play with you after work, but that would cut into my schedule of booze and skateboarding, and additionally go against the very nature of your conception (i.e. killing time while trapped at work). So hang in there, make sure to eat the stale corn nuts I'll occasionally toss down (and it'd be tactful not to forget to ration those), and please sweep all of your excrement into the corner of your coop.
Tha Dogg Pound - I Don't Like To Dream About Getting Paid
Tha Dogg Pound - One By One

Prog Fusion

There is this older dude at work (who is a jazz fusion bass player in a pretty heavy group in the bay area), that I’ve been trading music with. The guy has a story about the spiritual/cultural relevance of every band/artist he “turns me on to”, which usually starts with “This guy’s a heavy doper, but…” or “He put the rest of his talent into his arm if you know what I mean”. Dude holds the torch to Bitches Brew Era Miles Davis, Tony Williams, and John McLaughlin/Mahavishnu Orchestra; that’s his shit right there, and I’ve probably heard the same four stories about the three aforementioned guys ten times each. All of these stories last between 15 – 20 minutes, and while initially interesting, it’s a long time to spend in a hallway en-route to the copy machine, especially when you know all the details already. I’ve always thought it was somewhat rude to point out to an elder (like dad or grandpa) that I’ve already heard a story multiple times. Even at my relatively young age, my memory is already very fleeting, and I often make the mistake of recounting tales I find interesting or humorous multiple times to the same person, occasionally in the period of a week. I am likely destined to become an old shit with four stories locked and loaded that I can and will recount at any moment. Whether or not they relate to previous conversation will be completely irrelevant, and additionally I’ll likely pepper them up with lies to make my relatively mundane existence, and the events/culture of my generation, seem breathtaking and electric (like how the 60s and 70s seems to those of us born in the 80s). Of course it will be quite obvious that my tales are faulty upon the third or fourth listening, when I’m no longer the awkward guy that took a piss next to Ice T in an alley behind the Roosevelt Hotel (a very significant moment in my life), but now I’m telling children that I played bass on a West Coast tour for Body Count. To ensure a boring and awkward time for everyone in my company, the diarrhea mouth will likely flow, and while everyone else tactfully searches for outs, I’ll probably be fantasizing mid-thought about how enthralled everyone is with my Shakespearian fabrications.

This post goes out the dudes with intense music knowledge about shit that most people could care less about, and the long (although sometimes tangent and arduous) stories that accompany that knowledge.
Stanley Clarke - Concherto For Jazz/Rock Orchestra (Short Version)
Neil Larson - Futurama
Larry Young -The Moontrane

Tear It Up

My body is not as resilient as it used to be. 4 hours of serious skateboarding with a bunch of dudes who are 7 years younger than me has left me humbled, with my legs throbbing in pain (days later in fact). I could have been the token older guy and just benched myself in the corner at every spot smoking cigarettes and talking shit, but I felt the need to show these fucks that the slightly older generation still grips it and rips it (that’s just how I live my life). These dudes had video cameras and were intent on documentation, which brought out the mental beast: I could prove that I still rip and have the evidence laid down permanently on a gigabyte somewhere. I felt driven to show that the inkling of skate skills which are cryogenically frozen inside me could be reheated and released to course through my veins again. Well, if anything I’ve proved that I am not able to kick it in that environment anymore, the shredding to comfortably walking ratio is outnumbered by at least 20 times; not a particularly even trade. So I have to kick myself off of any dosage of heavy shredding and simply accept shred-light, which I guess is like making the change from regular Cola to Diet. Not quite as tasty and satisfying when it’s all gulped down, but absolutely necessary to ward off the devils that require its consumption.
Cameo - Please You
Bernard Fevre - Dangerous Mixture
X=R7 - XR7

Gormandize

What the hell is going on with people’s dietary choices. This little asian girl (a very FOBby one at that) told me that she was feeling sick today since all she ate yesterday was sugar. I laughed thinking that she just over indulged a bit, but then she explained that she had two donuts for breakfast, a pastry for lunch, and then had cake for dinner for someone’s birthday. That was all that she fucking ate yesterday. As shitty as that sounds, it caused me to ponder whether it is worse to ingest sweets all day long, or to omit from eating completely, and just drink beer and liquor continuously. One path gives you acne and headaches, and the other makes you into an irrational weirdo with nothing to vomit, that passes out and then wakes up with acne and headaches. Unfortunately I tend to favor the latter path every so often, and although it seems much worse on paper, it just sort of happens sometimes without much of a plan (it still seems better to me, even when I have my fingers rammed down my throat hanging over the toilet for five minutes, with nothing coming out of my mouth. For the record I’ve gotten better about not making that mistake). I think the sugar route tends to be more premeditated, but I guess it can also be coincidental (that only sugary products are available for consumption in a given day). People don't realize that sugar is a fucking drug, slanged out on a massive scale by huge corporations to the youngest of children, and the oldest of adults. Its effects, though not as jarring, last longer than something like nitrous or even salvia, and when used unremittingly, may be responsible for conditions like diabetes mellitus and for thousands of dollars to be wasted on oral maintenance. Take heed, sugar destroys lives.
Eazy - Project Funk
Eazy - Project Funk (Instrumental)

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

If I wanted to write a longer, sharper post today, I’d have to get some more coffee right now, and honestly I’d prefer to be a zombie for the rest of the day. I did the two cups thing yesterday, and my digestive system was not too pleased with my choice; I’ve already had one cup today, and then I had a bunch of dried fruit, so I really have to make sure that I make the proper dietary choices for the rest of the day to avoid a liquid surprise later (fiber and coffee is a deadly combo. I wonder why people don’t read my blog?). Anyway, I’m putting up some Gil Scott Heron tracks today from the album 1980 which he did with collaborator Brian Jackson. I took a little trip over to Wikipedia to see if I could dig up any ridiculous trash about Heron (which there was plenty), since he is hypocritically living the life that he prophesized and warned against in his earlier albums. I’d heard from friends that his recent show in SF was among the more negatively awe-inspiring they’d been to. The picture posted above, is of Heron at the aforementioned show in San Francisco, where he looks very similar to the Toad from the Wind in the Willows (see pic below. Also note, that in the pic, Mr. Toad is accompanied by a police officer: possibly for a cocaine-related charge or parole violation).

Gil Scott Heron - 1980
Gil Scott Heron - Push Comes To Shove
Gil Scott Heron - Alien (Hold On To Your Dreams)
Gil Scott Heron - Willing