Jrnl Entry No. 4.19.2001 “Rufus Blaq”

Sunday April 15, 2001 coming home from Hezikiah Walker’s church in East New York Brooklyn, I got off the A train at Nostrand Ave. I got off the train in pursuit of this female that was giving me a little eye contact on the train. She was completely not my type but at this point in time with no girlfriend, no sex, no nothing, I figured I’d lift myself up and go for it regardless of the fact. See, she got on the train with three kids. She was thick/fat with some big ole tidies. She started saying to the kids as she noticed me glancing at her, “y’all ready to go home and see mommy huh?” I took it as she was giving me the hint that these weren’t her kids, which if that was what she was doing, it was a good hint. At this point in my life, I don’t care how horny I am or how fine you look, if you got more than one kid, you gets no holla from me.

But anyway, I get off the train and follow her, but I decided not to talk to her. I’ve never been around Nostrand Ave and Fulton before and I noticed that it was like the old 125^th st in Harlem that my friends and I used to visit from Ohio. So I goes looking around for a little bit. After about 10 minutes of walking around I stopped at a store before I was getting ready to catch the train to go home. As I get in line at the store, I see this guy who looked familiar to me. I hesitated a little, and then I shouted out “Rufus.” It was Rufus Moore AKA Rufus Blaq.

Now this kid from Youngstown, Ohio I met years ago when he and his dance crew “Eazy Access” used to perform at local talents shows in Warren. They could never compete because they were like professionals and everybody loved them. And when my fraternity used to throw parties on the college campus in Youngstown, he and his crew would always be there. I’d always big-up (sat whats up to) Rufus and the crew and they’d do the same in return. Rufus was also cool with Derrick “Dink” Trimble (R.I.P.), my frat brother. They kind of resembled each other and Rufus would say that Dink was his brother.

Now I remember at one party Rufus was coming in with his crew and they stopped to talk with me and some of my Frat brothers. Rufus said that he was about to move to Atlanta “to become famous.” Those were his exact words. I didn’t exactly know what he had planned on doing because I only knew him as a dancer. So I kind of thought he was gonna try to become a dancer/choreographer for videos and tour shows. So anyway, he disappeared and the crew told us that he moved to Atlanta. About a year later, I saw him at this after hours hang out spot in Youngstown on Market Street. He got on the microphone on top of the bar and he free-styled a nice rhyme for the crowd. He told me that he had written a song for Erick Sermon on some sound track. I think he also told me at that time that he had a record deal with Giant Records. I was like “cool.”

He went away again and about a year later, I seen him on a video with Pudgy The Fat Bastard and Young Zee doing a remix for the group “SOLO” and their song “I Got Heaven Right Here On Earth.” I thought to myself that his album should be following shortly. I had also heard a DJ CLUE mixtape with this LOX song on it, and the last verse, this cat sounded like Rufus. I could never talk to anyone who knew him and what he was doing so I couldn’t verify that it was him. He had made it into the Hip Hop record business. I was happy, never one to hate on anyone for accomplishing something. In fact I was also glad because I knew him and could probably talk to him about the music business since I had been interest in it also.

His album never came out on Giant Records. I thought he was coming out on So So Def Records because there was an ad in the source with all the So So Def artist listed, and one of the artist on there was Mr. Black. That was the name I heard Rufus call himself on the intro of the “I Got Heaven Right Here On Earth” song video, and since he had moved to Atlanta, it made perfect sense. About a year later, I saw him in Warren at this talent show after party at the Regency Hotel. I wanted to talk to him and get his number and ask him some questions about the business but it was in a loud party so we chatted about whatever. By this time I had discovered that the So So Def artist was not him and I asked him how is that gonna work in the business with both of them having the same name. He told me whoever comes out first or whoever rocks the hardest will be Mr. Black. I also asked him about the LOX song and I recited this lyric of his, “Is you doin the stickin or is you gettin’ stuck / Is you doin’ the fuckin’ or is you gettin’ fucked.” He told me that it was him. He gave me his number in Columbus, Ohio where he was staying at the time. I tried to call him a couple of times. I think I talked to him once.

About two years later after that, I gets a call on my voice-mail service at my moms house and it’s him tellin’ me that he was gonna be on the Vibe Show that night with Salt & Pepa. I don’t know if he was just happy and called everyone he knew or was I special somehow? So I watched and taped the show and he was on there with Salt & Pepa and he had a verse on their new song “Are You Ready”. A couple weeks later, I seen the video and he was in it. About three/four months after that I heard a song on the radio by Salt & Pepa called “Gitty Up´ and he was on it at the beginning of the song. I knew it was him. I knew his voice. And then I saw the video for it and he was in it. He was on, and I all I wondered to myself was HOW? How did he do this, get with the leading super star ladies in rap, legends, Salt & Pepa?

After about a year after that Salt & Pepa debut of his, he had a single out called “Out of Sight.” I saw the video for it. I liked the song. It had a catchy hook to it. It wasn’t exactly hard core Hip Hop like I hoped it to be but hey, that is the way the music industry was moving in that time, away from hard core which didn’t sell that well, to the mainstream trying to sell platinum. At initial listen, I didn’t like the album. For one it had like three remake beats on it, and I hate remake beats especially the kind that they were using at that time. The greatest of all time remake beat, ever in Hip Hop was The Isley Brothers “Between The Sheets.” For two, he wasn’t flexin’ skill like I knew he could because I’d seen him rap before. And what was on his album was not what I expected from him. I just listened to the album the other day, which was called “Credentials”. All except for those remake songs, I liked it. He had a few hard core beats on there but he wasn’t flippin the skill like I’d known him to do. Maybe his producer Chad Elliot was against it.

So now, I ran into Rufus in the store and he gave me his numbers. Prior to running into him in the store I had asked for his number from one of my frat brother’s producers Pace Maker. He wouldn’t give me Rufus’s number, which I understood. He told me that he had to check with Rufus first. It’s been a year and he still hasn’t been able to check with Rufus about me getting his number. Technically, he didn’t know if I knew Rufus or not, and it seems as if he was not trying to find out either.

Now I’ve spoken with Pace Maker on many occasions about Hip Hop, about my beats, about his beats, and about my Frat Brother Stephen “The Fat Rapper” Collins’ Hip Hop career. I met Pace once in the studio in Ohio when they were recording one of The Phat Rapper’s songs. I thought him to be a cool cat and I liked him. We (him, me and Stephen) went out to eat after we left the studio that one night. I sent Pace some of my beats to get some critique on them and he did the same. He didn’t like but two or three of the thirty song snippets I sent him. I liked about six of the fifteen/twenty snippets he sent me. I think he is a talented producer, who if I had an album coming out, I’d rock to one of his tracks. I’ve written lyrics to two snippets on the tape he sent me. Outside of Stephen not letting me produce a song for him, and Pace not wanting me to produce a song for Stephen neither, I thought we had a pretty cool connection; until I ran into Rufus that is.

Rufus told me that Pace was in New York recording a song that he produced for Angie Stone through Rufus’s hook-up. Now if this is true, Pace came to New York and didn’t try in no kind of way to get in touch with me so that I could kick it with him and Rufus. And just before I bumped into Rufus, I had e-mailed Pace to talk to him since I hadn’t e-mailed him in a while. He said he hadn’t talked to Rufus in a while, that Rufus was a busy man and he still hadn’t asked Rufus if he could give me his numbers or give Rufus mine. So finding out he came to town and didn’t even try to holla at me tells me that we do not have a cool connection. It also led me to think that Pace is trying to keep me away from Rufus because he knows Rufus is well connected in the music industry and wants to keep all the hook ups for himself as a producer and not let me get any hook ups through Rufus. So until I find out different, I ain’t fuckin with Pace no more. And I ain’t tellin him that I finally got in touch with Rufus. My last test to find if Pace was really here is to ask Rufus Manager was he here. She’s straight up and will straight tell me. I asked both her and her boyfriend who was also Rufus manager and they confirmed that Pace had indeed been to town; a snake fake mutha fucka who doesn’t want you around because that may lessen an opportunity for him in the future; crab in a barrel ass nigga.

So, I gets in touch with Rufus and what is Rufus doing at this time? He’s writing R&B songs for this production company to submit to labels, mainly J Records, which has a little (well A LOT) to do with Clive Davis after he got let go from Arista Records. I called Rufus about three or four days after I had his number and left a message on his voice mails telling him how lonely I was and needed some friends, some women, etc. He calls me later that night around 11 P.M. while I was working on a Hip Hop track and he tells me to come to this studio.

I get there at 245 Canal St b/n Centre and Layfayette. He plays me this song he wrote called “Blowin’ It.” It was a nice song and he had a rap verse on it. He played a few more songs for me and they sounded nice also. Rufus told me that’s all he does is write songs by day, record them by night in the studio. He tells me about the production company, Ark Angel Productions and the camp there of rappers and singers that he’s bringin’ in. He listened to a few of my beats and said that I could produce a few songs for his artist, “Stack”. He heard a lot of weak stuff though because at this time I was tired with music and wasn’t making much and I wasn’t carrying around beat tapes anymore. Like the previous year, I wouldn’t leave the house without a tape in my hand.

Rufus said that I could be a part of the family because I was his friend who showed him love way before he was an artist on any label or signed to any production company and because he has mad love for my Frat Bro. Derrick “Dink” Trimble (R.I.P.). Being in the frat will help in the short or long term. If I hadn’t joined the frat, Dink wouldn’t be my frat bro. I wouldn’t have been able to talk and poly with Rufus before the parties started. He never would have looked up to me, which I think he did because I was an Alpha and a college student; thus, he probably wouldn’t have been and wouldn’t be accepting me as someone trying to be his friend, and trying to slowly get him to get me into this music game with him.

Rufus was like the best dancer in the group I recall. Kehl was also the man, and Ferino did weird shit on the dance floor. I liked them all because they were little somebodies. Like I said before, I’d always try to be cool and surround myself with people who had a quality about themselves. Rufus and Eazy Access had that quality. Rufus has, as far as I can tell, accepted me as his friend and into his music family. I’m goin’ over to his apartment today after work.

Rufus has projects goin’ for Angie Stone’s new album; Blaque’s new album; Salt’s new album; and Olivia, who’s signed to J Records, her debut album. He had the girl who sang the hook on the QB “Ooochi Wally” song, in the studio, and they banged out a nice song together. He writes these R&B songs with that hype-ness and energy that he used to put into his freestyle rhymes that I expected to be on his “Credentials” album. He’s definitely goin’ places with this music and will be plenty paid through a publishing deal very soon if not sooner. I told him the music money doesn’t matter to me. I don’t want your money, and I won’t pressure you to put me on in this music game. I love being around the music and I’m thankful just to be able to come to the studio and watch niggaz work on new songs. I told him that I was happy for him and will never hate or be jealous of him because of what he has that I don’t have. Rufus is a very down to earth artist and I hope our friendship can grow stronger and more personal and musically as well. Whether he knows it or not, I admire him for jumping from Youngstown, Ohio down to Atlanta, back up to New York and actually made it somewhere in this music maze. He’s already done what I’ve set out to do by leaving Warren, Ohio to be here in New York. I also, just as I always have, admire his talent. I’m not religious so I can’t say that it was divine intervention that I bumped into him and I think he’s a good friend to have. He’ s currently being faithful to his girlfriend of three years, Aiesha, not to say he ever cheated on her because I don’t know that. They just had a daughter, and Aiesha is still bangin’ as far as looks and body go. He believes in God and just wants a happy life with is family and music. Through my wishes, may he be blessed with all he’s been working for all these years and more because I want every black man to succeed in whatever it is he wants to succeed in, and I would hope that every black man would want the same for me.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A FRIEND OR ASSOCIATE THAT MADE IT INTO SHOW BIZ?

Jrnl Entry No. 4.6.2001

I remember following in the footsteps of my older cousin Romeo Wrangle. I decided in the 11^th grade that I wanted to be a mathematician. He was attending University of Akron at that time majoring in the subject. It sounded like a good subject that would provide me with a nice job and well-being in life. In order to major in math, I was told I had to take physics so I signed up for the class as my first step toward the journey of becoming a mathematician. When I got to physics class, I had taken algebra, geometry, and was at the time taking algebra II.

In physics class we had to do these conversions of like inches to meters, miles to kilometers, etc. I had never seen or heard of such math and I was completely not getting it at all. I had nowhere to turn for help, the teacher who I had before as a science teacher was not a very enthusiastic person. He was dry I guess you could say. I tried asking him for help, but he was no help. I came into class early a couple of times and he explained it to me, but I just couldn’t grasp it. I had decided that I would drop the class. I remember one day crying in my room after struggling with the homework, thinking to myself that I would not be anything in life because I couldn’t pass this course. I didn’t know of anything else to be but what Romeo was gonna be. I guess you can say Romeo was my big brother, idle, etc. He got good grades in school; he had nice looking girlfriends; he had friends in school and was an average cool kid. Personally I could say that if it hadn’t been for his influence, I don’t know where I’d be today. No, I actually can’t say that because I wasn’t on to a bad road before we really started hanging out a lot. I think that he was just that person I needed in my life to look up to. And looking at his image and what he was doing in life helped me stay up and focused as far as my life went.

While I had alright clothing to wear and the latest named brand tennis shoes, one thing we could never afford which I wanted so bad was a brand new car. I also wanted to live in a house and not in the projects. But my mom could never afford any of this.

I had friends, the Lindseys, who lived in a nice home; had a brand new car, nice clothes, and their other friends had the same. Come to think about it, I don’t know how I fit in with them; and I guess I didn’t considering how I used to beg Long to come and pick me up to go to basketball games with him and his brother Aderale and sister Alice. No, I don’t think it was that I didn’t fit it because I wasn’t a total scrub or nothing like that, but it was just they had so many other friends that I was just a pebble in the stone yard.

See Long and them grew up from birth until about age seven or eight or nine, in the Highland Holmes. When their dad, Mr. Frank died, they moved to the northwest side of town. They were the first kids I remember playing with and being friends with. My mom and I moved to California when I was five years old the summer before my birthday. By time I came back to town to stay three years later, they had moved to their new neighborhood. It wasn’t until ninth grade that I got back in contact with them. Long who had flunked a grade was in the tenth grade, 16, and was driving a brand new red black and grey Chevy Blazer with a spoiler kit on it and a booming sound system, and this car/truck shot his and his brother and sister’s popularity through the roof.

These were the people I wanted to be around for one, because they were so popular and for two, because they were my first friends. So I forced my way into the crew. I’d go over their house from time to time and chill. In the summer when I got my Honda Elite 80 scooter back out because I had my license then, everybody was on my nuts wanting to ride it so I guess that gained me some acceptance into the crew. I didn’t let them ride much though. The crew was Adrock, Hardy, Long, Aderale, Sachel Harville, Wicky Dejean; they all probably rode my scooter once each. One crew member, the oldest of the bunch was Leon Bonnard. He was living with the Lindsey’s for some reason or another. He wasn’t so accepting of me coming around. He didn’t know why I came around. I guess he seen me as the little bug-a-boo trying to hang with the most popular black kids on the west side of town, and he even said as much to me a few times. But one thing about me was that if people cracked jokes on me or said insulting things, it never really bothered me much. I guess I was always in tune with myself and people cracking on me or like Leon, who would ask me sometimes when I came over, “why you come over here?” I don’t know if he was playing or not but he didn’t bother me. One thing in my mind I had over him and all the other kids who hung around the Lindsey’s was that I knew Mr. Frank. I’d seen Mr. Frank in the flesh; he and Mrs. Janine together as husband and wife and family, ate dinner with them, went to the Hot Dog Shoppe together with them. And I was a friend of the Lindsey’s before Leon ever knew who the Lindsey’s were and before the Lindsey’s knew who he was. I remember Aderale coming outside with whepps all on his arms because Mr. Frank had whipped his ass the night before. Now none of their other friends could share this story with Aderale and Long and Alice. So Leon, while you were right about me wanting to be down because y’all was the most popular and all the girls liked y’all; you really had no clue why I stayed coming around. And reminiscing back on the times, Leon and I actually became good friends as well and I used to visit him at his dad’s house when he moved back to Ohio from an out of state stint. But on to the subject at hand; Romeo lived in a house, his mom worked at General Motors and his dad and she owned a little soul food restaurant called Rosa and Parks.

Wicky Dejean who I knew through church, when he was sixteen, his father bought him a brand new Buick Riviera. He wore nice clothes and they lived in a nice home. I tried to make friends with him also at one point in time but that didn’t really happen. I just always wanted to be around these type of people. My friends I had grew up with in the projects like Jay Claude, they had went on to sell drugs and were smoking weed, etc. Those weren’t my things. So being around these type of people I guess fueled my drive to have a decent life. I was heavy off into Hip Hop at the time also; BDP, PUBLIC ENEMY, BIG DADDY KANE, ERIC B & RAKIM, BIZ, MARLEY MARL, NWA, STEADY B, MC LYTE, KOOL G. RAP & POLO, SALT & PEPA, QUEEN LATIFAH, SWEET TEE, DOUG E FRESH, JAZ, 3 X DOPE. These were all like my favorite groups at the time and I was dabbling into writing rhymes myself.

By time I got to 12^th grade, I made up my mind that I was going to New York to live to get some of the Hip Hop experience and to become a rapper while attending college. As I told before, my guidance-counselor talked me out of that. I went to college on an academic scholarship that he got me. I can thank Romeo for that also because I followed in his footsteps of making the honor roll from like the middle of ninth grade to the end of the eleventh. My senior year, forget about it, my grades dropped but not below a 2.5 average. I went to college and pledged Alpha Phi Alpha following in Romeo’s footsteps once again. He had pledged two years before me at University of Akron.

After my freshman year in college I visited N.Y. and decided from that moment on that I wanted to live in NYC. From my visits there, I discovered that it would be hard to find a woman there (I’d speak to young ladies there and they’d just laugh in my face) so while in college I started searching for my love whom I could take to New York with me when I graduated. I told myself at that time that I wanted a woman who wanted something out of life. My eleventh grade history teacher Mr. Snyder hipped us on to the fact that by the time we grew up, we wouldn’t be able to purchase a house (he was right, at least to date for myself) because they simply would be too damn expensive to afford by time we graduated college. He said we were gonna have to live in apartments or it was gonna take two to live comfortably in a nice house, have a nice car and 2.5 kids.

So in college my search began for my love. All I wanted was O.K. looks and someone willing to work toward a better life which was what I was doing. Here is what I ran into. The only girl I ever really liked in college was Lynette Treason, she was beautiful (still is to this day with husband and children) but she had a boyfriend. I ran into Rebecca, a white girl whom I’d messed with my senior year in high school. She provided me with great sex and finance during my college years. Rebecca, when I think about it, if I loved her, we would have made a great team. She’s a lawyer and I’m an accountant. She’s bringing home 50 to 70K in Ohio, so in New York that would be about 80 to 90K. I’m, of course, an underpaid black man making 36K when I should be making 45 to 50K. But I didn’t love her and I don’t love her so that is that. I ran into Lauren who had three kids, a bangin’ body, and good pussy that I could bust nuts in because she had her tubes tied. These were my two girlfriends for like two or three years.

My mom and grand mom never told me to be prejudice against women with kids, which is why I didn’t run the hell away from Lauren when she told me over the phone that she had three kids when I was – years old and she was –. I had never heard of that before. I grew to like Lauren a lot; it was never really love, it was lust/love. She started attending school while we were going together in an effort to try and better her life, but she couldn’t do it. I was stuck with Lauren thinking how I would be able to move her and her kids to New York with me when I graduated college. I had no answer. We eventually broke up due to other factors, but we ended up messing around off and on until last year. We even discussed marriage, but three kids, a man and a woman in New York City on like 50K wasn’t happening, and other factors also brought the situation to a head.

There was also this other girl I loved at first sight who attended Kent State University named Jackie. I’d see her when I’d be there at Alpha parties. She talked to me shyly and distant every time I seen her. I even got her number and I think talked to her once on the phone, but never nothing else. There was also Mirabelle who I loved at first sight, but she never gave me the time of day because I wasn’t a drug dealer and had no money. I see her from time to time now in Warren. She still looks good to me but she was messing around with my friend Flynn last time I checked.

The summer before my last quarter of college and being broken up with Rebecca and Lauren, I ran into Elizabeth. I liked Elizabeth and spent the whole summer with her. She was depressed from going through a divorce and being a single mom I guess since she had grown up with her mom and dad and brother in a nice home on the outskirts of our little city. We had a pretty boring summer together and our relationship ended in the fall.

I hooked up with Rhonda who was free because her boyfriend was in jail. I really liked Rhonda, but she wasn’t too enthusiastic about us since we both lived with our parents and she couldn’t figure out how we would spend quality time together so I broke it off with her, our little thing. I then got hooked up with Victoria and she was cool in the beginning. She got pregnant after three months of us messing around and during her pregnancy I discovered little personality differences between us so we broke up. I had graduated from college by this time.

Dumb ass me, wait until I graduate from college to get a girl pregnant who was not my wife and who decided on keeping the baby, and I didn’t pressure her about her decision, I just went along with it. We broke up, we got back together, and then we broke up again. If she would have been a little bit more understanding about her social and financial situation, and been willing to move to New York with me, we probably would still be together. She made it clear to me that New York was out of the question, especially with a child. Her social and financial situation was that she didn’t have a college degree, a job or money, but yet she wasn’t trying to make this better by doing a simple thing like taking a little job to make her situation better. Her pride wouldn’t let her take a job other than an office job. And in our town in Ohio, if you were black and knew nobody, even if you had a degree, you wouldn’t obtain an office job. Hell, I couldn’t even get one after I graduated college. But that, in a nut shell sums up us.

After her, I hooked up with Sausha. Sausha was also free because the father of her three children was in jail. She wanted to attend college to make a better life for herself but the obstacles of the kids and not being prepared academically for college kept leaving her short. I liked Sausha because she was easy going. She was in a worse situation than Victoria, but she would take a job from time to time to make her situation a little better, to get her kids some school clothes, etc. I thought about moving Sausha to NYC with me, but the three kids, and her not having any skill to obtain a good paying job, and also her burning desire to get through college held that from happening. We broke up finally last year. She claimed she couldn’t handle the long distance relationship and that she wanted to stay in Warren because it would be easier for her to go to school, etc. I probably would have brought her to NYC if she wouldn’t have decided not to come the last time I asked her.

So really to my luck, I don’t have three of someone else’s kids to worry about feeding, which when I think about it, those were ridiculous ideas, which would have ended in disaster. So through my searches, all I found was women who had kids and women who didn’t want to or couldn’t push to achieve their goals to come along with me to NYC because wasn’t no stopping me getting here. I was comin’ no matter what. So now I’m here, and just like I figured, it is virtually impossible to find a woman here or at least what I am looking for. After those four or five women in my past, I’m looking for a career job woman, with one kid or less, with car, own apartment, good looks, knows how to dress, good sex, and good companionship. I probably won’t find all that, but right now, I ain’t acceptin’ no less. I’ve accepted less all my life as far as the women I’ve been involved with. I got all of the above that I am looking for in a woman and I am lookin’ for someone of equal or better stature.

I’ve met a couple of friends here who I complain to that I ain’t got nobody and they say they can hook me up with some pussy. But see, pussy was my main downfall in the past. I was with Lauren two years steady for pussy. I was with Rebecca three years for some pussy. Don’t get me wrong, while I liked each of these women to some degree other than sex, the bottom line of what they really had to offer me was pussy. I don’t even want to fuck a woman unless she has some of the criteria mentioned up above that I am looking for.

And that is why I’m livin’ like I’m livin’. See cause if I mess with a girl that I really don’t like and we’re fucking and messing around and dating, I’ll start being with her and getting used to her. Like my friend Burton says, you get comfortable with it and stay in the situation blocking yourself from finding what you really want. I’ve done that for seven years of my life. It’s time out for that shit. And I’ve always knew the kind of woman I wanted. I’d see them all the time while I was on frat trips in DC, Atlanta, and even just hanging out in Cleveland. I’d even talk to them. But I’d always use the excuse of a long distance phone bill for not asking for their number. Or they would tell me they weren’t interested or that they had boyfriends. Or even at some points, I’d be so comfortable with Lauren, Rebecca and Sausha that I’d just not talk to them at all, saying to myself, “I’m making my thang work with them so I ain’t gonna bother with this and break they heart.”

My drive to do better and surround myself around those who had more than I had has gotten me everything I wanted: a college education, a new car, nice clothes. It has gotten me everything but a better woman and a house of my own. Well the drive for a better woman is on now. I have a female room-mate who I could probably have sex with and be going out with since she complains that she is so miserable. She is sexy, wears thong underwear, not that cute in the face but that’s o.k. I won’t make an advance or touch her or even think about her like that because she doesn’t have the criteria I’m lookin’ for. This hard bargaining has me womanless and pussyless. But in the end, it’s got to pay off. I’m strivin’ for better. The story of my life. 2019 IT HAS NOT GOTTEN BETTER!

HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE MAIN LIFE EVENTS (PARENTS, MONEY, FRIENDS, GIRLFRIENDS, HEROES, IDLES, MENTORS, DREAMS) THAT GOT YOU TO THIS POINT IN YOUR LIFE?