R.I.P. NATE DOGG

TOO MANY R.I.P. POSTS LATELY! It's confirmed that the King of the Hooks, Nathaniel "Nate Dogg" Hale passed away today, this is just way too depressing. As I mentioned last week in regards to DJs putting together their Biggie sets to mark the passing of the N-O-T-O-R-I-O/U-S-you-just-lay-down-slow, try to dig a little deeper than just playing "Regulate" this weekend. This will be my favourite Nate Dogg track that I'll be dropping. (And yes, technically it's not a Nate Dogg track, but the guy was that good he basically owned any track he was on.)



MARCH 23 EDIT: Here's a list of the Nate Dogg tracks I played last weekend, in reverse chronological order. So the first one listed is the last track I played at Bing Sundays, and the last one listed is the first track I played at Swagg @ Trademark on Thursday.

INDO SMOKE - MISTA GRIMM FEAT. WARREN G, NATE DOGG
BALLIN' OUT OF CONTROL - JERMAINE DUPRI FEAT. NATE DOGG
YOUR WOMAN HAS JUST BEEN SIGHTED - NATE DOGG
REGULATE - WARREN G FEAT. NATE DOGG
SKANDALOUZ - 2PAC FEAT. NATE DOGG
I GOT LOVE (REMIX) - NATE DOGG FEAT. FABOLOUS, KURUPT
CAN'T DENY IT - FABOLOUS FEAT. NATE DOGG
O.G. - DAZ DILLINGER FEAT. SNOOP DOGG, NATE DOGG
OH NO - MOS DEF FEAT. PHAROAHE MONCH, NATE DOGG
WHERE I WANNA BE - SHADE SHEIST FEAT. KURUPT, NATE DOGG
DEEEZ NUUUTS - DR DRE FEAT. DAZ DILLINGER, SNOOP DOGG, NATE DOGG
AIN'T NO FUN - SNOOP DOGG FEAT. NATE DOGG + THE ENTIRE WEST COAST
HAVE A PARTY - MOBB DEEP FEAT. 50 CENT, NATE DOGG
BIG PIMPIN' - THA DOGG POUND
WAKE UP - SHADE SHEIST FEAT. NATE DOGG
REAL SOON - D.P.G.C.

R.I.P. NOTORIOUS B.I.G.

Yo DJs, with today being the aniversary of Biggie's death, this is the weekend to pull out those Biggie sets we all love playing! And try to include more than "Hypnotize" and the new version of "Nasty Girl". Top marks to whoever drops this gem...

R.I.P. CLINTON GRYBAS

Three years ago on January 5 Clinton Grybas passed away, and it was one of the most shocking moments of my life that didn't involve a family member. I remember reading various news sites over my morning coffee (well, my "morning" coffee would be around 1pm) and seeing a headline like "TV star Grybas dies" and thinking to myself "oh there must be another Grybas on TV, couldn't be Clinton". Unfortunately, it was. Clinton was only 32, most basketball fans knew him from his work on the ABC and at the time of his death he was a rising star on Fox Sports as one of the main faces of their AFL coverage.

When I worked at Pro Basketball Today, if I ever needed any help in terms of game footage from NBL games, Clinton would always hook me up with game tapes from the ABC/NBL library (usually accompanied by a massive phone conversation about the world of hoops - he was one of the few basketball TV journalists who actually had a passion for the sport). Apart from that he was one of the nicest blokes you'd ever want to meet and catching up with him at NBL games was always fun times - like I said before, his passion for basketball was almost unmatched, hopefully he enjoyed our marathon basketball chats as much as I did. Still can't believe he isn't around. R.I.P. mate.

R.I.P. PAUL SWEENEY

This is a day late, was trying to get a hi-res scan of the above image but couldn't get it in time (click here for a larger image of the article though, it ran in Brisbane's The Courier Mail). I haven't paid respects to my uncle who died two days before my birthday two years ago, Paul Sweeney. He was more like a dad than my actual (douchebag) dad, and out of my dad and four uncles, I ended up more like him than anyone - even the part about being a happy bachelor, well into my mid-30s. He never got married and at the rate I'm going, I never will either!

My latest tattoo, that I got mid-last year, is also dedicated to Paul - his initials are M.P.S. (you can't see the "S" in this pic though) and the "054" part refers to my old basketball number and a number he used for different things in his life (that I had no idea about, one of those cool coincidences).


Anyway, I'm not sure what I want to say here, just that everything my uncle did was top class - from his career as a sportsman, where he played rugby for Queensland, led my old high school to their only cricket title for about 50 years, to his journalistic career with The Sunday Sun as the Sports Editor (if you didn't know, I'm also a journalist, and spent the majority of my career as a sports journo). I'll pour out some Guinness for you tonight Uncle Paul.

R.I.P. MIKE WRUBLEWSKI

Two R.I.P. posts in a row is never fun. R.I.P. Mike Wrublewski. And even though I butted heads with Mike W in the past (he tried to revoke my media pass after I wrote the "Sydney Kings: The Worst Team in Sports" article for Inside Sport - even though I didn't write that headline and the article was mainly criticising Mike for being too passionate about the team, which isn't the worst thing in the world). I always appreciated what he did not just for the Kings, but basketball in Australia.

R.I.P. DJ AM

This is sad.

MICHAEL MICHAEL

Wow, I knew Ron Artest was nuts but I didn't know he was THIS nuts. Listen to this ridiculous "tribute" track to Michael Jackson called Michael Michael, filled with n-bombs - and does Ron really say he's going to see MJ "next year"? What the hell?!