In the beginning it was Kurt Cobain and Warren G over and over and over, hanging out at my friend Joey's house, when I first put pen to paper for no considerable reason.
It was the album art to Dookie that somehow imparted a since forgotten understanding of what Green Day was trying to tell me,
the riff on Come Out and Play that made the lyric "You gotta keep em separated" sound so perfect,
the way Sweat(A La La Long) by Inner Circle somehow painted the perfect picture of my dream girl years before my first major crush, all the while completely oblivious to the implications of the hook, i'm laughing and shaking my head as I think about it now.
But somewhere along the way, probably in the midst of a dense cloud in the back seat of Victor's hooptie (if I had to pinpoint it), inspiration faded far far away and my primary reaction was competition, a challenge, a direct affront to my ego. I was a stinking low down amateur (unbeknownst to me) and my opponents weren't people in my social circle, but rather professionals at the apex of the pyramid during one of the most nastiest periods of lyricism the world has ever seen. Punk a$$ Puffy was in my ear like "Take that, take that" and ignorance allowed me to look stupid, actually beyond stupid, but which resulted in developing something I was proud of.
At some point I became humble again, who knows how long it will last.
Just the other day I felt beyond blessed, standing in line at the gas station, when I heard from the speakers overhead the exquisite Etta James, At Last...and reflecting on it now, the inspiration tasted so damn sweet.