Mac Premo, Number Two, He Doesn't Have the Pants, 2008, mixed-media assemblage with animation, 19 ½" x 18 ½" x 9 ½"
1. A photo of Mr. Premo's work was in the Paris Review I was reading last night in apt. 680, in between taking tasteful erotic photographs of myself to send to Lil B, baking a pie, and peeking out of my blinds to see when Lil B's going to come walking up the stairs to my door. It's the spring 2011 edition, and Édouard Levé's piece is great. It's really really good, you guys (“I do not consider myself handsome just because a woman thinks so. I prefer desire to pleasure. My death will change nothing”) and not just because it's titled, beautifully, When I Look at a Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue.
Even though the only (visual) art worth my time is Kruger's stuff and Baldessari and oh Pettibone I suppose and THAT FUCKING RAMMELLZEE ROOM AT MOCA (an experience from which I still have not recovered), I like Mac Premo's work, and I like the fact that “Mac Premo” sounds like the name of the producer of Jeru's next album (he's Premier's cousin).
2.Hindi is how you say “NO”in Tagalog. Now we all know what to scream at our televisions during Pacquiao's walk to the ring while accompanied by a corrections officer.
The fuck/whyyyyyy/NO/hindi.
If I were in charge, things would be different; Rawss would not exist of course, but let's say I was feeling generous and allowed him both to continue living and to escort a boxer into the ring prior to a huge televised match. I would insist that Rawss escort the other guy--not Pacquiao. Ricky Rose Hey should definitely be walking next to “Sugar” Shane just based on pure similiarity, as they have both co-opted the names of historically successful individuals in order to enhance their own myths/reputations. This is a lazy, sorry move, the kind that bitchy dudes make. Boxing is so lame, I've addressed that fact and provided supporting evidence on this blog before - unless we're talking about the boxer Zab Judah, which is a really fucking dope name for a human.
3. Does anyone recognize that sweatsuited side-leg?
If I were going to the show and could somehow get backstage without using sex, I would look him square in the face and say, First of all: nice warm-ups on that promo flyer. They weren't Champion, but still. Very nice.
Then I'd get down to business. Hey, remember when you or one of your colleagues blacked-out Budden's eye socket? I blogged about it like crazy that week, as did everyone else with a computer and an opinion! I was so happy it happened! Thank you! I heard Joe said you asked for an apology, and he obliged - “only because he was outnumbered”! What a fuckin dummy! Why'd you have to make up with him, though? There's not enough beef in 2011 rap. And how did you and Randy Spelling meet?*
* Rae's working with Randy Spelling, a thing that has been added to 2011's Mysteries List. “How did Rae link with Spelling's kid” is now in there, right at the top, along with “Why does everyone like The Weeknd,” “Who keeps downloading Rawss' shit and making him successful,” and “How come the first sip of iced coffee is always the best.”
Rae also has a rapper in his stable named “Polite,” a person from whom I am telling you right now I will never buy or download product.
4.“Tattoo Artist Who Owns Mike Tyson’s Face Sues The Hangover Studio for Copyright Infringement” (Gawker). Click the link and you'll find a story about some loser who has trademarked the sorta-ethnic-but-not-sure-which-part-of-Samoa-it's-from "tribal" design on Tyson's face. That loser is suing the losers who made The Hangover, an unfunny major-studio production that everyone loved because everyone's an idiot.
Tribal anything on your flesh is ridiculous; I come from a coastal city in Southern California so I am a certified expert in this matter. (I also know about chain wallets, putting huge tires on your white Chevy truck, and yelling at your girlfriend in public). But in a post about pugilism you know Tyson's gonna show up so I had to include this story. These days everyone loves soft, repentant Mike - playing with his birds, taking his kids to the park. Dullsville Mike, in other words. The Mike who gets glorified in apt. 680 is the Mike who said, “I don't try to intimidate anybody before a fight. That's nonsense. I intimidate people by hitting them.” Mike Tyson, Brooklyn-bred unsubtle face-hitter ALL DAY.
5. Yes yes of course the Lakers need to come stronger in this next series, I don't wanna talk about it but yes they really need to perform as more of a cohesive unit, 110%, fewer mistakes, hard in the paint, Pau needs to show up, lalalalaaaa yeah yeah. I don't want to talk about Nowitski or Butler or Terry. I don't wanna discuss what we are going to do about my Moscato addiction, or when I will stop stripping and settle down, etc. I just want to talk about how great Chappelle's Show reruns are, always coming on at just the right time. I was still pouty this week because every skinny white girl in the world except me was doing some bikini-clad cooking in Lil B's audience in the desert a little while ago but they were doing it wrong, 94% of white girls do it wrong. Then good ol' Comedy Central comes through in the clutch, showing some TV perfection from 2004.
Random Tribute: DMX's jabs and left hook between 1:11 and 1:18. DMX was terrific in his prime and I loved him; people think I'm kidding when I say that because how could I like DMX, that's crazy!, since I like little girls in glasses and I'm polite and soft-spoken, but I'm not kidding. That voice, dragged through gravel! That cadence! I'm not-a. nice. person/I mean, I'd smack the shit out you twice dog, and that's before I start cursin. (I also really like the name Spider Loc and people think I'm kidding about that too. Um, I'm not kidding. They all think it's a game. They think it's a fuckinnnn gaaaaame.) To put the performance below in context and remind you of the levels of perfection: this ep also had Negrodamus, the Niggar Family, and WacArnold's. Fucking perfection, I said.
Directly-related additional Random Tributes: 1. that “UH OH” just erupting outta DMX when “What's My Name” starts. The smile, the genuine excitement. So sweet. 2. Swizz Beatz in '98/9 and '03/4: the party-starter. Those beats/z he crafted made me want to be a boy and throw a punch, kinda; I settled for car-dancing ferociously whenever somebody put It's Dark and Hell is Hot in the car's CD changer. Grand Champ was, um, grand when it emanated from the stereos of Japanese compacts as well. GITITONTHEFLOOR, git it git it on the floor! Who didn't want to get it on the floor when DMX yelled it over those drums? Alas, he has softened with age, which is typical of producers. It's 2011 and things aren't the same. Now he's got the terrible beats of an old and feeble man, and let's not forget the Shep Fairey tattoo. OH SWIZZY.
Judgement Day - “Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (Training Song).”
(*you rack your brain for lyrics about ladies and half the songs are actually about cars.)
Georgia May Jagger proves that if you are 5’7” (model stats; it means she's actually 5’5 1/2”) and blonde-highlighted, life is perfect. Lounge-y. Sunshiny. (like old OutKast instrumentals). If it weren't for SWINE, that is.
Meet
me
on
the
fresh
train.
I love it all, this whole spread. And I have versions of everything here in my closet, except for that button-up Dior up there, which I wish I had because I would certainly wear it, shoulder ties and all.It's cop catnip, though.Cops love me. My style of dress. My good posture. My skinny body, I guess. Thus, How can I continue to dress like this while keeping cops away is the most important topic in my life right now. I need help with it, like understanding Talib getting a distribution assist from Duck Down (???!?) and how to get Doomsy on as a keynote speaker at the next TED conference. Cops, they love me and I do not care for it (unless he's a cool cop, the ones that only exist in movies, a realllll loose cannon with a fucking sweet car and a King Kong-sized ego like detective Alonzo Harris--call me!--or one who gets caught up like Brasco--CALL ME--or even Mr. Orange 'cause he kind of had a good heart plus he was a great storyteller).
There has to be some answer here. I would like to continue to be a dress-up babydoll, but I do not want to be visually patted-down by police officers every day when I get my coffee. (I live in the Rampart division and I work downtown, so what do you expect--the Starbucks at 2nd and Central is particularly thick with them) This is not my most organized set of sentences but basically what I mean to say is that just because that lady in line behind you is wearing some nice white linen shorts and an oxford shirt doesn't mean she doesn't prowl the Internet daily for new Curren$y stuff and old Dilla stuff. You and your stereotypes, I swear.
“Spottieottie” instro. Ha, see, 'cause they're from Georgia.
“It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions” - Robert Bly.
Name: Average White Band, Put It Where You Want It (RCA, 1975). AWB's debut album, it was originally was called Show Your Hand in a jacket bearing different artwork. I approve of the re-release because the newer album cover is something I can easily copy and try to get all cute with. Alas, skinny white girl torso on album cover will never be as terrific as foxy Nubian queen on album cover, as best exemplified by the catalogue of the mighty Ohio Players.
Is this title acceptable? Yes. That title, it speaks to me, because motherfucking putting it where I want it is what I do every day (Keith taught me how). I live according to album titles. There's always one that sums it up. Yesterday I was cranky so it was Ain't That a Bitch that spoke to me.
And the band name, yeah. It speaks to me. They have members named Alan Gorrie and Malcolm Duncan, and a Hamish, so, yes, of course they were Scottish. An Alastair or a Ewan would've been a bit much. When I was doing a little Internet research on these men I got fooled into thinking you can look up something called “Scottish funk,” but that was a Wikipedia smokescreen. What you can do is click on the word Scottish and the word funk, but you cannot click on the phrase Scottish funk because this genre of music does not exist. Like the members of this group, I am descended from people who excel in the sheepherding and bagpipe arts rather than the art of funk, and yet look at me and AWB! Overcoming our very DNA.
Produced by:AWB and Robin Turner (who only produced AWB).
Entered my life: June 2009. I know the date because I wrote about it in my record journal, a real thing that exists in apt. 15 under my mattress next to my copy of Foxy Indie Rappers who Find Thin, Sarcastic Girls Unbearably Hot. There's a big 4 on the cover sticker but I don't remember it being that cheap, especially since I got it at Rockaway and that place tends to overcharge in my very humble opinion. I think of Joey Crack every time I walk in the door, though. Do the Rock-a-way. That's the only time I think of Joey Crack, thankfully, because he's awful and I hate him. Boys in my life always try to convince me to give him a chance, like they do with Joe Budden (who has been strangely quiet lately, what gives), but this is an ineffective technique and nobody can move me when it comes to my opinions about individuals who are handed microphones and record contracts and then fail to create wonderful results with such opportunities. I’m mad at bad rappers like I was Kool Keith in ’99.
Difficulty of finding, vinyl-wise (1-10 scale): 6.8. All the record-digging boys in my part of the world love the '90s production work of DJ Pooh and they love early-'90s Ice Cube* so there's a lot of competition out there for breaks used during that era. It's hard, you guys, leading this life for which I was chosen. I found the dang record, though, and didn't have to resort to any gaffling to get it neither. Do you remember Kundera, how he wrote about the fleeting nature of our experiences given that we each have but one life, and that which occurs in life probably does so only once and never again. This perfectly describes my trips to the record store and my resulting internal debates about whether to purchase that record or to defer until later, risk it and just hope I see it again in the bins. Such is the unbearable lightness of digging.
Breaks contained:
a) Prince Paul - “Steady Slobbin',”BDP's“House N---as,”annnnnd*“Steady Mobbin”! Not the “Have you ever seen such a sight in your liiiiiii-iiiife” on the hook – that's from Parliament. AWB gave the song its bones, its whole frame upon which The Boogiemen hung a bunch of Doughboy one-liners. And if you didn't know Ice Cube got drama hoes! is the line that's fun to shout out, but that part where he describes how girls will always defer to the best sound system when it comes to a suitor is truly the highlight (Ice Cube had more amps; get in, bitch). The Boogiemen included DJ Pooh and Bobcat, 2 men with silly names who produced LL'sBigger and Deffer as part of the LA Posse. I'm here to remind the kids of this as the annoying person always bringing up past glories of Los Angeles luminaries. Anyway, I love Cube's old sing-song-y flow, him having fun, riding the beat. I also love that he and I have shared the same opinion of law enforcement officers for many years now. This blog is meant to be playtime, entertainmentville, dorkout fun, but once in a while real life has to be mentioned -
LAPD's main concern on Tuesday seemed to be driving by and “checking” on a too-skinny pale-skinned social worker to make sure she was “ok” talking to her client, a tall black man who clearly wanted to rob or rape her on the sidewalk in front of his apartment at 1 PM. “Just making sure everything was all right here.” These are the perils of dressing like a librarian at work and having highlights in your hair, I guess. Uniformed annoying types think they need to roll up and show out.
(Didn't really say any of that. Wanted to. Story of my life.)
(Do a search for “Steady Mobbin” and that Weezy/Gucci song is the first 20 results. That's an OK song, despite Kane's usual tinny video-game-sounding production work, because of the rappers who make up for the beat (“Toni Braxton sniper rifle make you never breathe again" - Gucci; “I am the hip-hop Socialist” - Wayne) but I'm still disappointed. Why are my expectations are so high? I should know better, because remember what hating ass Google had to say when I did an innocent search for “curren$y audio dope lyrics”?
b) Boogie Down Productions - “Ya Know the Rules” (AWB was obviously being listened to during the production of Edutainment); The LOX - “The Heist (pt. 1).”
Reason for this post on today of all days: Who knows. Perhaps I saw Friday on TBS. Or I thought about funk-proficient persons of Scottish descent such as my mother.
Sartorial accompaniment: Bodysuit, tank, thigh-high socks, all from the color palette of a wheat field underneath a dreary sky on a cold day or that piece I saw by noted Neo-expressionist Joe Boudreau. My aesthetic is “Flashdanceextra applies for Ohio Players record cover modeling job.” Messy hair to finish off the look, as a way of signifying to the world that I am so busy with nerdery I don't have time for basic grooming.
This outfit was hastily put together and is not my cutest, but I was not interested in looking cute today; I was interested in being soft to the touch and physically unconfined during my commitment to cold-day apt. 15 lounging today. I also wanted to remind myself that I don't care about clothes and that I just throw stuff on despite my recent foolish purchase of expensive stripper/librarian heels. I don't know what got into me for a minute there but I'm BACK, baby. Plus I think it's fair that you only hold me to the same fashion standard as Sean P, nothing higher (“Dress sloppy, but my rap is dapper/Watch Rosewood, go outside and slap a cracker”).
I will probably not ever stand just straight up and down. Something’s always sticking out on the side or in the front or the back. Oh and nobody can fuck with me and my Hilary Rhoda eyebrows.
Suitable activities while listening: Normally in this section I would describe some lovely activity involving a bookstore or record store. But I will not be wearing this outside!, IS YOU CRAZY. I do not have post titles called Today in Street Harassment and I'd like to keep it that way, although I certainly have lots to contribute here, a place that gives me hope despite the unfortunate fact that such a site must exist. So it's just clean the apartment today, make lunch, roll some new nerdery* around in my brain and enjoy how good it feels, then put in my daily contribution toward my Gladwellian 10,000 hours of underlining beautiful passages in McSweeneys (check back in with me in 2020 and I'll have mastered this and maybe even be able to perform it professionally!).
*Today's nerdery, important thoughts, topics for likely further discussion: Human beings are fearless without the amygdala. “Shoot in the direction of your heart” is true about injecting junk into your body as well as injecting music into your body. If you are going to put out your album in LA in 1992, have DJ Pooh be involved somehow, someway. He's the king. And if you are good at presenting yourself in a way that plays up the differences between your own woman's body and the bodies of men, go 'head and run with it. Play the hand you were dealt. In Texas the saying goes Dance with the one that brung ya, an old expression of loyalty usually applied to football and which is one of the few things Texas-related that I love (others: UGK, Rap-a-Lot everything, Screw, Joe Tex, the lyrical content of “Midnight Moonlight”).
Life lessons, important messages contained:
Nothing too coy or complicated here - just song titles tellin me to put it where I want it and to reach out for affection, and to let the funk guide me in all of these activities. Important messages, definitely, but nothing that I didn't already learn from Eddie Hazel on that first Funkadelic record. “Back in '67” stands out though, since that was a good year for driving around listening to pop music on your car radio, one of the great pleasures in life (“Daydream Believer,” “Tell It Like It Is,” “Cold Sweat,” and 2 Detroit-raised-minister's-daughter beauties in “Baby I Love You” and “I Never Loved a Man the Way that I Love You,” OH ARETHA GIRL I KNOW OF WHAT YOU SPEAK and those song titles are the simplest and most accurate statements in musicdom since the Skull Snaps' “My Hang-Up is You”).
My whole body relaxes when this starts. I adore the past. I adore Big Boi too ("Who gives a damn about the past?/I live for today, plan for the future, pack a lunch and haul ass"). So I convince myself Not now with the nostalgia, young lady; remember to stay busy with the future! Then I go back and listen to “Devil’s Pie” and I think to myself Aw damn, I love the past. That echo effect at “watch your back,” (02:23) oh lorrrrd.
Best YouTube comment:
There's nothing entertaining underneath the AWB video, so I looked at the comments for “Steady Mobbin” - a series of people posting LOLs re: outdated rap song references (PacTel vs. SkyPager, white Ewings, “U Can't Touch This”).
Other notable things about today:
- Owning a Buick Regal will not get you laid on a first date, according to highly delusional individuals who don't realize it's their non-car-related shortcomings that are preventing them from getting laid on a first date. Yes dear, it's your car. That's why she won't. I can poke holes in this theory with the simple mention of a rap song by ass connoisseurs Three 6 (Act like you know me, cause I'm super serious with this evil/Act like you know me, in my Regal, chrome desert eagle), Andre (I got the Peter Bong and plus that Mary Jane/I'm rolling reefer out of a Regal, how could I refrain), my side piece WAKA (Let me hop back on the set with this brand new single/Million dollar n---as still ridin in a Regal), and Curren$y, who happens to be a Grand National Regal speeder. (As a woman and therefore someone in the position of being able to either give or withhold ass, I can tell you that Curren$y gets a lot of ass. He looks like a little guy in his videos which you'd think would cut down on the quantity he is offered but he gets an adequate supply. He's comfortable.)
- There's a story here and I wish someone would tell it:
“Rome, Italy: A Somalian refugee trims his moustache on a terrace at the former Somali embassy. About 200 refugees live crammed eight, nine or 10 to a room in the building, which is still the property of the Somali government but which was abandoned as an embassy in the 1990s.” (Tony Gentile/Reuters)
Also ready to be delved into and expressed in beautiful narrative fashion: the whole calling card industry for people in LA with family far away - affordable rates for Guatemala, the Philippines, the signs out in front of liquor stores say. I know there's some joy and heartache inside every time I drive past those places. And people who've actually met in real life after one of them placed a Missed Connections ad - somebody get on that.
- “There's records that I hate (but) when I see a woman dancing I think, ‘It's not that bad.’” That NPR story about songs being tested in Atlanta strip clubs combines like 37 of my favorite things in one beautiful thing. Plus they mention my future employer Magic City!
- In the current world of testosterone-fueled things, there’s Blake Griffin dunks and Lex Luger’s beats. All straight dudes have opinions about these things. Griffin goes hard in the paint, they say, which is that thing that Waka did with Luger's assistance. Griffin's boss Donald Sterling goes hard in the areas of housing discrimination and being an awful human, which isn't as entertaining as going hard in shit-talking from courtside, but it's still something I feel the need to bring up from time to time because the world seems to forget even though everyone in LA knows what kind of person he is. Anyway, would someone care to listen to this Juicy J/Luger mixtape for me and let me know how it is. J's been on the radar recently and I like it. There's that song my beloved alluring noted Neo-expressionist or perhaps Impressionist Waka is on, and then there was that time I heard 50's “Mean Mug” and I got kind of indignant and reminded everybody that Three 6 already had a song by that name because I'm an annoying know-it-all, and now there's this mixtape. Tennessee rap is always a go-to, my brain's pleasure center really responds to its whole feeling and message. Tennessee music in general has pretty much been a go-to my whole life, and it all started with my dad playing a bunch of Nitty Gritty on road trips. Wish that I was on olllld Rocky Top, down in the Ten-A-Key hillllls.
- One Kanye West has a very thin, pale stylist named Cassius Clay (HIS NAME IS CASSIUS CLAY) who until recently worked at Opening Ceremony, a store known to you all as that place that sold me my beloved Alexander Wang bag during my brief Label Princess phase (winter 2010). People having the same name as certain other people who have reached iconic status makes me uncomfortable, like when parents yell at their kids in front of you at the store, when Marty tries to get all Chuck Berry steezy on stage at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, and when rappers who should stick to Alexander Wang and Lagerfeld raps try to brag about having sex with girls in their verses. CRINGE.
- Amnesty International's art installations (Making the Invisible Visible) highlight the cases of the wrongfully imprisoned. That's the face of Troy Davis below, a 42-year-old man who has been on death row for 19 years in Georgia. There are doubts about his conviction and no physical evidence links him to the crime (murder of a police officer), and most witnesses in the case have "changed or retracted their testimony, some citing police coercion." Shocking.
"The posters are displayed on fence railings. Front on, you see nothing but bars. Troy’s haunting face only becomes visible from an angle." Is it bad that I bypass the seriousness of this display and go straight to Ohshit is that Large Pro?
“You take out the issue of white women and replace it with the issue of religion. That's my story!” - Muhammad Ali, after seeing The Great White Hope
There are so many victims of time and circumstance in my country's history, but it really seems like young pugilists from certain racial and socioeconomic groups seem to constitute an inappropriately large amount of this group.
Mr. Jack Johnson of Galveston had fist-related acumen, was of African descent, and enjoyed the fleshly delights of the prized white female. Since it was the early 1900s, this meant that things would not turn out well for him. Back then, my people held some truths to be self-evident, including that all men are created equal, except if it's a black man who makes white men look bad by ripping the heavyweight championship out of their hands, and then that same black man pours lemon juice into their facial cuts by having sex with white ladies.
But over the years, there's been a swelling of good intentions among good people who've noted the injustice in sending Johnson to prison on some Mann Act charges. We all want Johnson to receive a presidential pardon--last year, I was amazed to find out that John McCain was a major supporter in this movement. We're still waiting; it's in Obama's hands now. And I'm proud to say that almost all the skinny bearded young white men who live in my neighborhood have heard of Johnson, thanks to that Mos supergroup and the popularity of his likeness on t-shirts. The one above is the best I've seen yet (even though that collar is so high and weird--but maybe it's just this particular photo), and part of the profits from its sale goes to PBS for the funding and production of wonderful things like the annoyingly prolific Ken Burns' documentary Unforgivable Blackness.
“Swishas and Dosha.” Because I had to post a Texas song, because that chorus, oh that glorious chorus!, and because of Bun's punch your mouth and knock out the taste part.
Me and the weird old bearded dude who owns that record store in your town are having a music trivia nerd-off. He offers that today's the day Donny Hathaway killed himself in '79. I counter with the fact that on this day in 1968, Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three performed at Folsom for some super-geeked inmates. Guess what? I WIN THIS ROUND. Almost exactly like the Geto Boys, I CAN'T BE STOPPED.
On heavy, heavvvy rotation in my childhood home, At Folsom Prison was my first foray into the terrible romantic beauty of the Up North Trip in lyric form. Here's to being raised on stories set to melody about prison and coke, then growing up, amassing a bikini collection, getting a master's, and being obsessed with stories set to melody about prison and coke (Happy birthday again, Rae!).
Bonus nerdage: Rick James, Timothy Leary, and Eldridge Cleaver? All former inmates at Folsom. And, coincidentally, all probably CRAZY, dirty-talkin, chemical-assisted, hair-pullin partners in bed. (Sorry Mom.)
“Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.”
“Cocaine Blues.” Wait, didn't I already mention Rick James in this post?
It finally hit me today that the tiny Hero of Hollygrove is going away on some weapons charge! Mixtapes and the coke market, prepare to feel the pain.
I literally got sad sitting here in apt. 302 in response to hearing about Wayne's performance at the New Orleans Arena days before he gets sentenced, which is ridiculous proof that the Internet's constant information flow about everybody's life causes me to feel like I'm best friends with every rapper. This sadness is obviously related to my newly-found allegiance to the Saints as the Greatest Football Team In the History of Televisions Watched in Apt. 302, and my affection for the city of New Orleans in general going way back to when I was a kid (Dr. John & the Meters, plus that Randy Newman song about the flood. Thanks, Mom). It's also related to the fact that I can't deny my feelings that Wayne is sincere in everything he does. I'm naïve, I can't help it, but I feel like there's no pretense with him. So when he screams, "I'm nothing without you" to the hometown crowd, it's this combination of sweet and sad mixed with his uncut gratitude that makes me shed a little tear. A primal response to male vulnerability, that's all it is; suddenly, boom, I'm reminded that I'm not so evolved after all. I change shapes just to hide in this place but I’m still, I’m still an animal!/Nobody knows it but me.
Additional sadness:
Wayne leaving that awful Drake to pinch-hit for him during his absence (ugh), and Wayne missingour mighty Lakers making their impression felt this season by cutting a destructive path through the jungle infested with inferior NBA teams. Dr. Carter, while you're locked up I'll be sending you updates on division standings and Ron-Ron's latest batch of crazy. Also: naked pics of myself. For now, I left a half a hundred in your commissary. Stay strong, buddy.
An obvious choice, but orchestral ear candy trumps obscurity every time. And the fact remains that '98 trumps '09 every time. Go Clef!
...
*You're a bad person, Mark Ronson, for making me like your remixes even though you're a derivative wanker who probably has bad teeth. Anyway: Miike Snow, plus horns.
1.“AY MA. I lost my phone number. Can I have yours?”
“NYPD acting extra unconstitutional (more so than normal), arresting people for cruising*” -Slate.
*cruising = not a crime
People hollering at other people in the cluuuub will not be tolerated by the NYPD, but only if those people doing the hollering happen to be dudes and the objects of their holleration attempts happen to be undercover straight male NYPD cops. Ask a cop for copulation and you might get arrested despite it being not against the law to ask a cop for a lil copulation - see, being hit on by strange men whom they wish would just walk away is a frightening and gross experience for officers of the law.
“Aww, that must be just awful! Random dude at the bar saying he wants to see/touch your intimate areas in between Patron shots?! I can't imagine,” said EVERY girl in every city at every bar, EVER. One day, perhaps I'll grow to like law enforcement - like if they stop me from getting raped or robbed or assaulted in some way. Until then, fuck em. (I would throw in a Sorry, Mom at this point, but Mom agrees with me here)
2.“No,” I say, “NO. No no no,” in response to this, the first still from the new A-Team movie. [TotalFilm]
The A is for atrocious.
As I am the most predictable person on the Internet, I shall now go ahead and walk these dogs and represent Wu. Specifically, here's how casting for the film would've gone in a perfect world.
4 members of a former commando outfit and current group of mercenaries.
Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, the group's leader whose plans tend to be unorthodox but effective. RZA. Mainly because I heard Hannibal also insisted on getting 50% of all profitsyielded in the Team's various missions despite the tragic fact that there's no I in team. So, you know, I just nailed that casting choice.
Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck/Face, the group's smooth-talking con-man. Meth. (It said “smooth-talking,” did you not see it in the description?). Damn, I nailed that one too.
Capt. Murdock, the team's pilot who has been declared insane and lives in a psych facility. C'mon. Don't play dumb. Stickin pins in your head like a fuckin nurse. Also, BLAOW.
Sgt. B.A. “Bad Attitude” Baracus, the team's strong man and mechanic. None of the Four Horsemen of the Wu above really has a bad attitude, so I'll just say Rae on account of those shiny golden links.
3. It's this dude's birthday. 10/24/73. I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about him now. And all the roads we have to walk along are winding, and all the lights that lead us there are blinding. Sigh. There are many things that I would like to say to him, but I don't know howww.
Jaylib feat. Talib - “Raw Shit.” I like it, I loves it, here we go. Every time I see Drake's dumb Canadian face I want to cry and punch something 'cause I feel like I hate him and his A&R handlers and his whole clueless persona, and songs like this are exactly why. Dear musical year twenty-oh-three: come back. Save the situation.
In between stories about Bow Wow (ugh) and Kid Cudi (UGH) and M.O.P. working with Premier (yaaaaay), HipHopDX just posted"The Right to Remain Silent,"an article by law student and my new hero Chris Thomas that breaks down what happens after an arrest in general, and to make it extra fancy, what happened after Prodigy's arrest in particular. The article is a little east-coast-centric, with unsurprising/depressing stats about the ethnic makeup of the adolescent population over on Riker's, but it's interesting throughout, well-written (if I do say so), and makes a complicated matter easy to understand. And the author's apparent concern for kids knowing and asserting their rights during the arrest/question/detain process makes me feel all warm and happy and full of hope.
“Now, honestly, if you were: 16; in handcuffs; ignorant of your rights; and deprived of your freedom; would you remember the Miranda warning? Probably not. Most juveniles don’t.”
Basically, if you get arrested for, say, stabbing somebody in the face with their nosebone, the author suggests that you shut your mouth until your lawyer arrives. Shut your mouth. It's a memorable, succinct way of saying what the ACLU has been trying to convey for years.
“There are (certain) tactics you want to look out for (when being questioned). These include:
- (The police dept.) sending a Black/Latino/Asian/White detective to speak to you (If you are Black/Latino/Asian/White). This is a calculated move designed to gain your trust.
- Sending a young DA to prosecute you. The ADA in Mobb Deep member Prodigy’s case, for example, was younger than he was. This was most likely a tactical move by the DA’s office. If Prodigy’s cool, how bout we send our cool ADA to make it look like we’re cool too?
- Talking to you on the ride to the police station. This is important. The Miranda warning generally doesn’t apply here and anything you say here is up for grabs to be used against you. Fight the urge to chit-chat. That cop doesn’t want to be your friend.”
This particular blogger, criminal justice nerd, ACLU groupie, and avid non-fan of blue-uniformed individuals needs more pieces like this on sites that report on, dissect, and praise hip-hop in order to be content. HipHopDX, I love and appreciate your fine work. And I love that your corny "pictures of girls you would like to see naked" section is called "Beauty & Brains" instead of just "Eye Candy" like they do over atXXL. It's that "brains" part that makes all the difference. But you knew that.
I'm basically the Sasha Grey of the blogosphere (pretentious, Oscar Wilde fan, skinny) but this venture does not pay well. I do it for the love. In my spare time, then, I earn a living as a social scientist with a concentration in prison-industrial-complex superhaterism because I'm a patriot. I live in a wonderful yet infuriating country called America, where almost half of the prison population is made up of black males; however, I am now about to complete the only prison-related blog post you'll see in '09 that does not include a picture of Prodigy, Gucci Mane, or Chi-Ali. Please save your applause 'til the end.
Joel Dvorskin, a university professor and criminal justice expert, wanted to find out what social science reveals about preventing and reducing violent crime, and the specifics on how the prison system is a massive failure.He then did some research, and that was a sad time-waster for him since he could've just listened to some PRT or Dead Prez. Feeling all pleased about hisself, he would now like to announce that U.S. prisons provide instruction for inmates on how to commit crimes more successfully, and how to behave in an aggressive manner in order to get their needs met and dominate within the social hierarchy. Prisons, he says, are too punitive and fail to rehabilitate. Harsh punishment backfires. And you should probably provide some job skills training if you want prisoners to be less violent upon release and stop returning to the place with all the cages.
"No fucking way," I said, sitting in the back of my 8th-grade US Gov't class after having written 19 essays on this topic. Then I gave him a Mumia petition to sign and went back to being miserable and annoying as a middle-class Caucasoid girl from a loving, 2-parent household.
Dvorskin has a book coming out called Applying Social Science to Reduce Violent Offending, which I genuinely would like to read despite the hater-ish tone of this post, since my copy of No More Prisons has been in some box in my parents' garage since '99 and going to look for it would really cut into my lounging-around time. Dvorskin's book examines why prisons are failing and what needs to change, from a psychologically informed perspective. Its main point is that we need to stop locking up every other black man and spend resources on violent lawbreakers rather than worrying so much about 20 sacks.
My hollerback book, Incarcerating Poor and/or Brown People Keeps America's Financial Wheels Turning So Stop Being Naive, Joel Dvorskin, has no release date as of yet.
And because of this fucking downer of a story, things have gotten far too serious on HeightFiveSeven today. I need 2 of the most cheerful songs ever written about being on lockdown in order to feel better:
"WE LOVE ROLL CALL, Y'ALL! Boogie Down Productions, Rob Base, Dana Dane, Marley Marl, OlaTunji, Chuck D, Ray Charles, EPMD, EU, Alberta Hunter, Run DMC, Stetsasonic, Sugar Bear, John Coltrane, Big Daddy Kane..."
The ice cube scene. The d-bag in the Bird jersey. Clemens vs. Gooden. Michael JOR-DANN. (and the epic ironic comedy of a dude named Giancarlo Esposito throwin shade at all the Eyetalians in Bed-Stuy) Left hand Hate KO'd by Love. D, motherfucker, D.
Oh, and fuck you, fuck your fuckin' pizza, and fuck Frank Sinatra.
Extra cheese is $2 at Sal's Famous.
LOL, John Turturro:
"Spike Lee: There were crack houses in the neighborhood (we were filming in). The NYPD was not thought of that highly in most black communities, especially Bedford-Stuyvesant, so we got [Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam's security force] the Fruit of Islam to watch the set.
Ernest Dickerson, cinematographer: It became the safest block in Brooklyn!
Richard Edson [Vito]: I tried to get through to the Fruit of Islam guys. It was kind of a challenge because I knew they had very strong racial feelings. So every morning, I would say hello and try to engage them. I don't think they ever even acknowledged me. I finally gave up after about four weeks.
Giancarlo Esposito [Buggin Out]: Those guys were hard-core. They just didn't like or hang out with white people.
Turturro [Pino]: They talked to me all the time. They called me Brother John. I guess Richard is not as black as I am."
and because it's been a few days without a President Dreamboat reference:
"Lee: There was a benefit for Barack Obama on Martha's Vineyard when he was running for the Senate. I didn't really know who he was. He came over and said, "You're responsible for me and my wife getting together." Then he told me how they saw "Do the Right Thing" on their first date, and then went to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream and talked about it.
Roger Guenveur Smith [Smiley]: We're actually responsible for a whole new era in American political achievement.
Lee: I think [Barack] is a very smart man, because if he had taken Michelle to see "Driving Miss Daisy," things would have turned out a whole lot different."
Caramel complected/body like heaven (ummm no). Your favorite nerdy bikini-clad sarcasm peddler.
Tomboyish tendencies in a girly package.
Music nerd making my way in the world. The more emotion I put into it/the harder I rock.
I bow at the altar of Phil Spector, Rick Rubin, and Large Pro.
I find that I can amuse myself to no end. I got front & back, and side to side. I am a real person and NOT viral marketing for Stones Throw. I also have a government job so please don't tell too many people I'm in my bathing suit on the Internet.
Nothin else to tell, really.
The fuck/whyyyyyy/NO/hindi.
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