Today marks 10 years since I released Alternate Ending. It was an interesting time for me because I was in college, so I was surrounded by venues where I could perform the music. It was also the only album I’ve ever made with no guests and the last album I made without contributions from The Rawhide Kid. I’ve said before that the album was completed in two separate chunks: five of the songs were written and recorded during my senior year of high school. I then took a hiatus from music during my freshmen year of college to focus on the transition and on radio. I finished the album during my sophomore year. Anyone more familiar with my work from Fear of Success to now will note the lack of professional mixing on this project. Hopefully you can look past that because I was proud of this project in 2009 and, to be honest, I’m proud of it still.

Uninteresting Facts about Alternate Ending

1. The cover photo was taken at my dad’s kitchen table. He has had that table since before I was born and it’s still there today, in the exact same spot.

 

2. The microphone laying on top of the keyboard on the cover was used to record a considerable amount of my early discography. Listen to the latest episode of Rootbeer & Rawhide Rate Rappers to hear me talk more about that bad boy. The microphone laying on the table next to my fresh Samsung slider was never used to record anything because it sounds absolutely horrible; but I thought having a more standard looking microphone in the shot might make me look like I knew what I was doing.

 

3. I’m holding a WAIH pen, which was the radio station from my college where I hosted a hip-hop show on Monday nights

 

4. Physical copies of the album came with a download code for The Rawhide Kid’s Disintegration album. I honestly forgot about this, but I have a couple left over and just opened one up. The link does not work.

 

5. The back/inside cover (which I do not believe existed online before this post) shows me with all of the equipment packed up, playing Nintendo DS while rocking my $15 A&W hoodie from Walmart.

 

6. Getting the Immortal Technique shout out for the end of “S.W.A.T.” was just about the most struggle-rapper thing I’ve ever done. He was doing a live chat and I put my little Radio Shack microphone (yep the one from the cover) up to my laptop speaker and started recording. I then spam messaged him, asking him to be on my radio show to the point where he had to address me. He did finally answer “yes” (though he never responded to my followup email) and then dropped that shout out. I’ve met him twice in person since then but figured I shouldn’t mention the live chat.

 

7. The “Desperado” sample was taken from the song by The Eagles. I sped it up hoping they wouldn’t notice. Turns out, they didn’t notice because no one knows who the hell I am.

 

8. Back when I did live shows, I would always try to switch up the setlist for my own sanity. However, “Hoopty” was a staple I played at almost every show because it always got such a great reaction. After every performance I’d offer a free CD to anyone who could name the video game sampled in the beat. The correct answer: Hang-On. It wasn’t even Hang-On itself that inspired me to use the sample, it was Shenmue, within which Hang-On is playable. And if I’m being honest, it wasn’t even Shenmue itself that inspired me, it was a ridiculous Shenmue parody movie I found online that had a scene where the main character, Ryo, played so much Hang-On he started dreaming about it.

 

9. “Hoopty” was not written like any other song in my catalog. This was the late 2000s, so we were still in the Houston era of hip-hop which featured a lot of “car” music. I thought it would be funny to make one of those songs about the 1989 Nissan Maxima I shared with my brother. So I made a mix CD with some of my favorite “car” songs, listened through it and kept a tally of how frequently certain words and phrases were said. I forgot the exact criteria I had, but if a certain word or phrase was said enough times throughout the mix CD then I had to work it into the lyrics of “Hoopty.”
    
   Trying to think of what songs were on this mix CD. I’ll update this as they come to me:
   • Chamillionaire – Ridin’
   • Mike Shinoda – In Stereo
   • Bun B – Draped Up
   • Too $hort – Freaky Tales
   • Young Buck – Shorty Wanna Ride

    
   UPDATE: I have not found the disc yet but I did find the checklist
   
    
   UPDATE 4/18/21: I found the CD. The tracklist is as follows:

   • Teriyaki Boyz – Tokyo Drift
   • Chamillionaire – Ridin’
   • Ludacris – Act a Fool
   • Dr. Dre – Still D.R.E.
   • G-Unit – Stunt 101
   • The Game – How We Do
   • Fort Minor – In Stereo
   • Will Smith – Just Cruisin’
   • Young Buck – Shorty Wanna Ride
   • Juelz Santana – There It Go
   • T.I. – 24s
   • Stat Quo – Hittin’ Switches
   • Paul Wall – Sittin’ Sidewayz
   • Obie Trice – 24s
   • Bun B – Draped Up

 

10. I refer to the car as “ometerless.” The Maxima had a liquid crystal display – or at least it was supposed to. It was completely broken so I couldn’t see how fast I was going or even how much gas was in the car. Hence “any moment you could run out of gas.” I tried to fill up regularly, but as I said earlier, I shared this car with my brother so I never knew how far he had driven. Once the car ran out of gas on me and I coasted with my flashers on until I got to a gas station.

 

11. “Can’t hear yourself speak cuz the fan belt squeaks” also has funny stories behind it. The car made such a loud screeching sound all the time. One year on December 23rd I got pulled over by the police for a noise violation. The officer told me that it is addressed within 48 hours the ticket would be thrown out. Good luck finding a garage open on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Same reason I had to “turn the engine off at the drive-thru” – as nobody could hear me over the sound of the car. In fact, I also had to open the door to order at every drive-thru because the driver front window didn’t roll down.

 

12. “Dat Duzit” was in the first batch of songs I recorded but the “Critical Analysis” skit didn’t get done until later. I pretty much had to do the skit because I had the line “or why my impressions of all the critics are British,” which didn’t make sense otherwise. Speaking of impressions, the “why are you being so mean” at the beginning of that song is a reference to “Big Weenie” by Eminem, however I have no idea why I did a Huckleberry Hound voice.

 

13. There is a line in “My Way Out” that goes “Triforce tatted on my hand and I’m the brave one.” I actually planned to have a Triforce tattoo before that song was released but I chickened out. I did get a Triforce tattoo a few years later in 2012.

 

14. “My Way Out” also remains the only song where I’ve done live instrumentation.

 

15. “Hell of a Time” was the last song recorded for the album. I saved it for last because I wanted that “album done” vibe. After performing it live, people started affectionately referring to it as “The Venusaur Song.” Apparently when you depict graphic domestic violence in a verse, just end it with a Pokémon reference and a whole college will forgive you.

 
If you listen to the podcast or read my write-ups on Fear of Success or Uprooted, you know I’ve been working on a sequel to Alternate Ending for some time. The project is called In/Stability and it’ll be done sooner than you think.