Hip Hop Hooray

What is RivkyLand?

My birth certificate says Rebecca, but growing up I was always called Rivky, a diminutive of Rivka, the Hebrew version of Rebecca. While I have at times tried to make the switch to the more elegant and professional Rebecca, Rivky has always stuck, and I've gone through my adult life confused and confusing others as to what I should be called.
The funny thing is that I've never felt more at home with the two-name connundrum than I do in my current job as the Assistant Production Coordinator on a new TV poker show called "Hip Hop Hold'Em." The idea of me, one of the whitest people you will ever meet, feeling at home in Hip Hop is ridiculous, but in hip hop - and this includes much of our crew - no one goes by their given name.

In the dungeon we call a production office, sorting through paychecks for crew, we are continually perplexed:
"Who are Duane Smith, Joel Washington, and Daschell Montgomery? Anyone, anyone?"
I am the most aware of names, and also the one who makes the call sheets, so I know the answer. "That's Stacks, Teba, and Dox!"

On Hip Hop HoldEm everyone knows me as Rivky and I've heard a few people say, "Who's Rebecca?"
So I fit right in. (I am so street.)

A side note on strange monochres:. You can imagine the fun we have with the (B-list) celebrity guests' names. The best one was International "P". We took guesses on what the P stands for, before googling him. My guess was pancake, as in International House Of.
But I was wrong. The "P" means "Pussylover".

It could just as easily have been pancake.
______________________________________________

My Real Life Rap Video

The other night I got a ride home with Al and Che. Al's a PA who works most of the time as a high-end driver for low-end celebrities. Che holds the same title as me on the show, but he's way more experienced and knowledgeable than I am. His mother named him after Che Guevara, and sometimes he even wears a Che t-shirt, but he's African-American, not South American.

I went out to meet Al and found him standing beside his car, a silver Ford Taurus, parked askew, all fours doors open, and music (Hip Hop, of course) blaring. Che took shotgun, and I hopped in the backseat, next to a bag full of soul food (pork chops and fried chicken) that Che had salvaged from a crew meal that never got eaten. Al rolled down the windows so everyone could hear the music, and we started on our way downtown, the bass vibrating so hard on my back I felt like I was sitting in a massage chair. Driving like that, I realized I was now in one of those cars I always want to scream at (but don't) to turn down their bleepin music. I didn't tell Al either.

A minute later, I stopped smelling the pork chops and started smelling something else. Sniff, sniff. Is that what I think it is, I thought? Al passed something lit and cigarette-like to Che, who took a drag on it. They wouldn't actually be smoking a joint in the car, while driving, would they? Maybe it was just some kind of funny-smelling tobacco, or cloves?

"You don't mind the drugs, do you?" Che asked.

So it was what I thought it was. "Not as long as we don't get pulled over," I said.

Because in my head I had been considering what my own liability would be in the unlikely (please, unlikely) situation that we would get pulled over. If I wasn't in possession and hadn't partaken, was I still legally responsible? Is there such a thing as aiding and abetting marijuana use?

"We won't get pulled over," Al reassured me, rolling up the windows and turning the music down.
And we didn't. I felt relieved after they finished the joint (and also a little annoyed they hadn't offered me a drag)...until I realized that Al was now driving stoned. But when I remembered that he must usually be driving stoned, I relaxed a little. I have a feeling he wouldn't be a much better driver sober, anyway.

After we dropped Che off, I took shotgun and Al explained to me his speaker setup and preferences. Had I noticed that the bass was way up (I had!) and that the vocals were pretty low? Sometimes after driving for hours with the music blasting, he would get out of the car and feel the same deafness you feel after going to a club. Did I know what he meant? I did. And I was oh so happy to get out of the car.

But I was also happy to have taken the ride. For all their pot-smoking, music-blasting, stoned-driving ways, they're such sweet guys!