Word.

Last Fall was my first trip to Europe, to attend a conference and visit my friend Cees in Holland. One Saturday morning we were watching TV and there was a documentary on about American "urban culture." One of the interviewees was Ice-T, the "father of gangsta rap." He says his little spiels posing in front of a lowrider car with a blonde on each arm, the camera slowly pulling back throughout revealing more and more models. At the end one of them nearly faints.

One of his topics was the term "keeping it real." He explained it something like this: "Keeping it real is like, when I was a teenager and these older kids said to me 'Hey man wanna try some weed?' and I'’m like 'Naw I don't want no[bleeped]weed' and they say 'Well if you won't smoke weed then you're a [bleeped]' so I say 'Well if I'm a [bleeped] then why don't you make me smoke it? I'm keeping it real!'"

Later we go to the supermarket (which had a staggering selection of custard.) At the checkout I start taking things out of the cart and Cees says "You must not do much of the shopping back home, you take the heavy things out first so they get put in the bottom of the bag." So I say, "You wanna make me put the heavy stuff on first? I'm keeping it real in the checkout line!"

I suppose you had to be there....