There Goes The Neighborhood

I'm driving home Friday. Just stopped at the post office. It's sunny. What some people would describe as being "nice out." (I prefer the rain.) I'm traveling up H Street. Driver's side window wide open. Body Count's first release is playing on the stereo.

There, across the street, standing on the corner is a cop. He has something aimed my way. I immediately think I'm going to be killed by either a state copy or someone from the Humboldt County Sheriff's department who has gone off his rocker from dealing with one too many pot heads. He's going to open fire with his service weapon and pump eight shots through my windshield, opening up my head and chest in a bright red spray festooned with bone and brain matter.

Ironically, "Cop Killer" is blasting on my stereo at this point.

It's a speed trap. Up ahead there are police on both sides of the road pulling people over and ruining weekends. I have to stop right next to a cop ticketing a speeder, so I crank up the stereo a little louder, sing along with the song and wait for the light to change. It's one of those moments that don't happen too often in life.

I saw Ice-T's Body Count at the first Lollapalooza tour. It was pretty standard, but good enough to get me to pick up the first release (on casette no less). The thing is a pretty uneven affair with about every other song kind of sucking. At some points it sounds like rap trying to be metal (with Ice-T singing about things he thinks metal is all about like voodoo and killing one's mother). At others it is actually fairly competent (like "Cop Killer"). There's no argument that it is heavy.

That said, I never bothered buying any of the band's other releases.

Ice-T plays a cop now, the irony of which I'm sure is not lost on him. Me? I put the tape away when I got home figuring it would be another year or two before I feel the urge to listen to it again. At least I wasn't shot that day, but that would have been the ultimate irony don't you think?