I was supposed to give a keynote speech at the 5PAN Conference at Smith College this past Saturday, and so my plan was, you know, drive up Saturday morning, drive back to Boston Saturday evening, and help the conference save on costs by not spending a night there. Right, that makes sense, but then Friday morning, I was checking the Internets, and saw that there was an ill snowstorm on the way. I called Carmen, one of the conference organizers, to see what the plan would be. After much jibba jabba, we decided I would drive up that night before the worst of the storm hit.

I didn’t learn to drive until I was 20, and I still don’t consider myself a good driver. (You can get anywhere in a 17 year-old’s world by subway or bus, so learning to drive wasn’t a big thing for me.) It’s not that I’m a bad driver, it’s more that I’m a reluctant driver. I hate driving for more than 20 minutes or so. I especially hate driving in the snow for 2 hours. So I tried to get out of town as early as I could so I wouldn’t have to deal with that whole snow situation.

Anyway, I made it to Northampton in one piece and proceeded to drink like four bourbons from the hotel bar before sleeping because I was so high-strung from the journey. This left me no time to work on my keynote speech that was less than 12 hours away.

But when I woke up the next morning, something just grabbed me and what had been like an idea drought, all the sudden became like, I had a million things I wanted to say, and I had trouble figuring out how to fit it all in. So I just showed up and talked to the crowd and the results were…so-so. I’m much more comfortable as a performer, rather than as a speaker. So you know, hopefully people could get with it simply because I was being honest and trying to share, even if it was lacking in entertainment value.

But on a personal note, it was dope to see something like the 5PAN Conference – which brings together API activists from the Five College Consortium (UMass-Amherst, Amherst College, Smith College, Mt. Holyoke, and Hampshire) even existing, let alone holding a regional conference and actually talking about legitimately important issues and not, you know, about bullshit. I always have a soft spot for doing things in that area, because when I was at UMass, I think I didn’t involve myself enough in what was going on in my community there. So now I’d kinda like to make up for it I guess.

Anyway, got two Beats Rhymes and Rice shows in Southern Cali this weekend: Pomona College and UCLA. See yall there.