The Life and Times of Big Baby Jesus

Today, on Russell "Rusty" Jones's birthday, we must sadly mourn his sudden and unexpected death last week from what appears to be heart failure. Rather than focus on his myriad gunshots/arrests/gonorrheaoutbreaks/paroles/incarcarations/baby'smommas/bulletproofvests, etc. I think the thing that stands out most in my mind was that amazing article in The Source about him in prison, which I can't find anywhere on the internet. I'm guessing it ran in 2002, before The Trials & Tribulations of Russell Jones came out, a sad commentary on a sadder man, where the writer described Ol' Dirty in a state of physical and mental decay, on suicide watch, toothless and muttering, not even knowing what material would be on The Trials & Tribulations (which was universally panned.) But I can't find it, so this, my second favorite news item, will have to do:

Ol' Dirty Bastard Saves Child

Ol' Dirty's second most noble deed came shortly after that one, at the 1998 Grammys, where he interrupted Shawn Colvin's speech to bum rush the stage and give his opinion on the fact that Puffy had just won album of the year. His speech echoed the sentiments of many:

"Please calm down. I went and bought me an outfit today that cost me a lot of money, because I figured that Wu-Tang was gonna win. I don't know how you all see it, but when it comes to the children, Wu-Tang is for the children. We teach the children. Puffy is good, but Wu-Tang is the best. I want you all to know that this is ODB, and I love you all, peace."

Sorry if you already read this on Arkansas Rockers. I can't imagine there's much overlap in readership. Two people max. is my estimate. I've been wanting to write an extensive summary of life in Little Rock, which I feel like I've barely posted about at all, but it gets muddled in my head and, like any outsider perspective, could potentially be seen by natives as a massive display of ignorance, a tourist's view. I'm a bit sensitive about that. I was thinking I could make a link to the 4-page thread on ArkansasRockers.com's message board about The Localist/Vinos conspiracy, and provide an appendix with necessary vocab words and personalities like "The Localist," "The Mansion," "T.J. Deeter," "Vinos," "Davey, " etc. but I can't imagine anybody up in the Northeast would actually go through the trouble. If one were so inclined to undertake such an anthropological study, out of sheer voyeuristic obsession with what we can all agree upon is my thrilling existence, where even such mundane facts as where one might eat pizza in Little Rock, Arkansas are small cultural gems of higher knowledge, than they should just call me and we'll work something out.