Yeah -- just the other day at UCLA, the heart of paid, paid, paid kids from California. Not everyone who goes to that school is paid, but a high percentage is and they were the ones filling up the quad for the concert.
Not exactly the die-hard or even extra enthusiastic crowd -- hardly any Black people in the crowd, too.
The show was amazing. I had never seen The Roots in concert before, and damn! Do they put on a high powered show! They are all truly musically gifted, talented and know how to express their ideas with great ease.
I was particularly impressed by the medley of 70s and 80s music (they did a hella dope rendition of Jacko's Smooth Criminal) that they worked in near the end of their set. But the so-called crowd only "got down" when white boy anthems were played(i.e. a Nirvana song and a Metallica cut, I think). This I know irked the fuck out of The Roots, as they refused to give an encore.
Yeah, they did not drop one song or even hint at returning to the stage. When was the last time you saw? Probably never. I mean chump-ass, no-name bar bands do an encore. I chalked it up to their displeasure at the crowd.
I bet The Roots figured: it's a college, they'll be down as fuck for our music and what we represent. Yet, it was an odd example of how these white people who think they are hip act to a more-than-hip African American music experience.
Sure there are those whites, Asians, and Latinos who are definitely down, but not a crowd of over 500 at a bastion a faux-liberalism, uber-rich joint like UCLA. True, it is a public school in the uneven California secondary education system, but the cost to go to that school - just to live in LA as a student must be fucking draining on the wallet.
So when these guys are doing something to save cats some money, the WRONG group of students show up.
Man, what's next white people showing up at the UCLA Black Wednesday events?
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
The Pontiff Rises Again - with a new face & name
[Dig that ancient tome, daddy-o? Where'd ya get that?]
So the Vacitican has selected its latest leader - Cardinal Ratzinger, henceforth named Benedict the 16th; who is 78, so I don't think we'll be seeing him at St. Peters for more than 5 years.
Funny thing about the selection of the new pontiff; it reminds me of the "new" incarnations of "The Doctor" in that BBC drama Dr. Who, how each time the series gets renewed their is a new actor playing The Doctor (the show just came back in the UK, with a NEW guy playng the much-loved Time Lord).
Cardinal Ratzinger, er I mean Beeny XVI, has been head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - formerly known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition - since 1981. Office of the Inquisition, yeah the needed to change that name alright. But the fact that it was still around well into the 20th Century is the main reason why Catholicsm and its insitutions are problemic to me.
Benny XVI, when part of the HOI, was stridently against liberation theology, which had gained ground among priests in Latin America and elsewhere as a means of involving the Church in social activism and human rights issues.
He has described homosexuality as a "tendency" towards an "intrinsic moral evil". During the US election campaign, he called for pro-choice politicians to be denied Communion.
Benny XVI praises the media, 'cause he knows he's got to (ab)use it to further his agenda and not be labled a crackpot. Truth be told though, any strict adherence to a religion that originated in the so-called Holy Land makes you a crack pot in my book.
You're Surprised That I Was Behind This?! Come on, now!
Ah ha!!! Caught redhanded, Mr. Murdoch! And please don't claim a "Bernie Ebbers" and say you had no idea that your underlyings and lackeys where doing dirt, like the Nixon campaign with CREEP!
Have you heard of the organization called Don't Count Us Out? No? That's too bad. You should, just so you can understand how minorities are still used as pawns to get more money for the upper .01%!!!!
Don't Count Us Out (DCUO) describes itself in all of its press releases as a group of grassroots, labor and media industry representatives raising public awareness about the under-counting of minority consumers by Nielsen and its Local People Meters (LPM) system.
Don't Count Us Out is actually a front for News Corp. It seems that the Fox Channels (cable & broadcast, I wager) have been getting lower ratings now that Nielsen (that questionable TV Viewer Ratings company) quit using the paper ballots to determine who is watching what on TV and at what times.
The LPM system is supposedly more accurate, but it smacks of something out of an Orwell novel in the first place.
The outrageous thing about DCUO is that it's supposed to fight for the underpaid, the underprivillaged, the underrepresented -- i.e. Niggas and Wetbacks, whoever do we SEE any additional programing aimed at the two largest minorities in this country? Demographics that actually watch too much fucking TV?!?!
No, we don't.
Yet, News Corp., through its puppet organization wants to include those people in their cut-throat fight for more and more ratings where loud-mouthed pundits like Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity can continue to spew bile across the public airways and champion evangellical religious views and morals.
DCUO reminds me of the shit-ass tactics that the CIA and the DoD used throughout the Cold War to forward the nasty "Consumer Over All Else" agenda that the US wanted to inculcate in the rest of the Western Hemisphere and Southeast Asia.
The Occidental Companies that run the countries never get tired of ass-fucking whoever, however, whenever to grab more marketshare and more cash.
Have you heard of the organization called Don't Count Us Out? No? That's too bad. You should, just so you can understand how minorities are still used as pawns to get more money for the upper .01%!!!!
Don't Count Us Out (DCUO) describes itself in all of its press releases as a group of grassroots, labor and media industry representatives raising public awareness about the under-counting of minority consumers by Nielsen and its Local People Meters (LPM) system.
Don't Count Us Out is actually a front for News Corp. It seems that the Fox Channels (cable & broadcast, I wager) have been getting lower ratings now that Nielsen (that questionable TV Viewer Ratings company) quit using the paper ballots to determine who is watching what on TV and at what times.
The LPM system is supposedly more accurate, but it smacks of something out of an Orwell novel in the first place.
The outrageous thing about DCUO is that it's supposed to fight for the underpaid, the underprivillaged, the underrepresented -- i.e. Niggas and Wetbacks, whoever do we SEE any additional programing aimed at the two largest minorities in this country? Demographics that actually watch too much fucking TV?!?!
No, we don't.
Yet, News Corp., through its puppet organization wants to include those people in their cut-throat fight for more and more ratings where loud-mouthed pundits like Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity can continue to spew bile across the public airways and champion evangellical religious views and morals.
DCUO reminds me of the shit-ass tactics that the CIA and the DoD used throughout the Cold War to forward the nasty "Consumer Over All Else" agenda that the US wanted to inculcate in the rest of the Western Hemisphere and Southeast Asia.
The Occidental Companies that run the countries never get tired of ass-fucking whoever, however, whenever to grab more marketshare and more cash.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
LeBron "King" James - Looking to Abdicate?
So the Cavs failed to make the playoff, and I'm so entirely sure the northeast Ohio phenon LeBron James is MAD AS FUCKING HELL.
If I'm him, I'm demanding a trade and getting the fuck out of Cleveland. Many of you would be saying, "oh, they'll be better next year."
Uh... no they won't. Cleveland, as a city, disrespects black people like none other. And Cleveland, as a sports franchise, are perennial fuck-ups. They have NO tradition of winning in football, baseball or basketball. Sure, sure they won the World series about 60 years ago, and they won a few AFL football championships -- but that was all before African-American stars were on those teams and could make a difference.
As it currently is, as has always been since I've been around, Cleveland sports team would much rather see their black athletes do bad -- off the field -- than watch the team excel. Check your history, it's all there in the cheap fishwrap called The Cleveland Plain Dealer; over the years Cleveland has failed (either intentionally or accidentally) to celebrate its favorite sons who are African-American. Shit, one of the Levert brothers is about to go to jail for battling a cop (although he's on the hook for that one, 'cause he said to a questioning cop "do you know who I am?" Which opens the floodgates for cops and other low-paid white functionaries to tear down a successful Black man in this country).
Cleveland REFUSES to put up the money to acquire two star players that would lift any of the teams (Browns, Indians, Cavs) to playoff contention.
When the Cavs new owners fired Paul Silas in the middle of the season, they obivously didn't have a plan on how the rest of the season was going to work out, and they sure as shit didn't
If I'm him, I'm demanding a trade and getting the fuck out of Cleveland. Many of you would be saying, "oh, they'll be better next year."
Uh... no they won't. Cleveland, as a city, disrespects black people like none other. And Cleveland, as a sports franchise, are perennial fuck-ups. They have NO tradition of winning in football, baseball or basketball. Sure, sure they won the World series about 60 years ago, and they won a few AFL football championships -- but that was all before African-American stars were on those teams and could make a difference.
As it currently is, as has always been since I've been around, Cleveland sports team would much rather see their black athletes do bad -- off the field -- than watch the team excel. Check your history, it's all there in the cheap fishwrap called The Cleveland Plain Dealer; over the years Cleveland has failed (either intentionally or accidentally) to celebrate its favorite sons who are African-American. Shit, one of the Levert brothers is about to go to jail for battling a cop (although he's on the hook for that one, 'cause he said to a questioning cop "do you know who I am?" Which opens the floodgates for cops and other low-paid white functionaries to tear down a successful Black man in this country).
Cleveland REFUSES to put up the money to acquire two star players that would lift any of the teams (Browns, Indians, Cavs) to playoff contention.
When the Cavs new owners fired Paul Silas in the middle of the season, they obivously didn't have a plan on how the rest of the season was going to work out, and they sure as shit didn't
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Hip-Hip -- The Dirty South is Champ?
Funny thing I noticed in the NYTimes today... an article on hip-hop from Houston. The article shined the spotlight on Mike Jones, who's coming out with a new WB-financed album later this summer.
Music from the South has been hella popular the past half-decade, but I think it gets short shrift in NYC and the City of the Angels.
And Houston is a bombastic music mecca boasting the South-by-Southwest Music Festival in March of every year; where fucking fabulous acts blow up the spot, ripping the speakers on the stage.
So it's no real surprise that Houston music, particularly its hip-hop, is getting pub -- now in the New York Times.
I remember a few years ago I heard something about Houston-based hip-hop (which hasn't really been blowin' up the national scene since the Geto Boys did so in the late 80s and early 90s when Scarface and Bushwick Bill were spittin' lyrics) about what was called "screw music", essentially beat tracks slowed down. The purveyor of this style of music (available on that old, favorite staple - the mixtape) was this cat name DJ Screw, who got drunk off of some weird cough syrup concoction -- the Flying Homer in real life! Life imitating art, or art imitating life? -- but the NPR story mentioned that DJ Screw had passed away.
There's a blog -- Houston So Real that chronicles the Houston hip-hop scene. Check it out.
Music from the South has been hella popular the past half-decade, but I think it gets short shrift in NYC and the City of the Angels.
And Houston is a bombastic music mecca boasting the South-by-Southwest Music Festival in March of every year; where fucking fabulous acts blow up the spot, ripping the speakers on the stage.
So it's no real surprise that Houston music, particularly its hip-hop, is getting pub -- now in the New York Times.
I remember a few years ago I heard something about Houston-based hip-hop (which hasn't really been blowin' up the national scene since the Geto Boys did so in the late 80s and early 90s when Scarface and Bushwick Bill were spittin' lyrics) about what was called "screw music", essentially beat tracks slowed down. The purveyor of this style of music (available on that old, favorite staple - the mixtape) was this cat name DJ Screw, who got drunk off of some weird cough syrup concoction -- the Flying Homer in real life! Life imitating art, or art imitating life? -- but the NPR story mentioned that DJ Screw had passed away.
There's a blog -- Houston So Real that chronicles the Houston hip-hop scene. Check it out.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Yeah, I'm Out! Peace! See Ya, In 7th Heaven!
The most recent Pontiff has bid us all farewell and ado... in my earlier days, I would have said "good ridance!" Now, I have to sit back with my arms crossed and contemplate -- what's next and does the world care?
Europe is no longer the craddle of Catholicism, and the USA never embraced the stringent form of Christianity -- but in the Third World!?!?! Shit, that's were ALL the Catholics are kicking it now. Central & South America and Africa are chock full of Papists. So my questions, does the world care has multiple contexts.
There has been some speculation for the past couple of years that when Pope John Paul II did shrug of his mortal coil that the next pope would be selected from the Third World... most likely South America (as the World would NEVER stand for an African pope -- even those whites who aren't Catholic would vomit, and the "presitge" of Catholicism would be shit on and rubbed in the dirt -- at least in their minds.
In this fascinating book I just started reading called Guns, Germs and Steel, the author proffers the fact that Catholicism has ravaged what is now the 3rd World ever since it was introduced there. So it wouldn't be that bad if the Church was controlled by the descendants of the heathens it strove so hard to eridacate, then convert (in that order!!!).
What's is trully going to be interesting is all the media scrutiny the selection of the next Pontiff is going to bring. I heard on NPR that The Vacitican was going to sweep all the debate chambers for bugs and other kind of surveillance devices. We also get to see a lot of the inner workings of the oldest organization on the Earth. Just look at the ceremony/ritual going on now -- there is going to a Nine-Day mourning period. And then some portion of the that, the body of John Paul II is going to be on display for all sorts of daws to peck at. Then the heady speculation on who is the new Pontiff going to be...
The next few months will have an interesting impact on the globe... so, you can see why I'm sitting back with my arms crossed, observing.
Europe is no longer the craddle of Catholicism, and the USA never embraced the stringent form of Christianity -- but in the Third World!?!?! Shit, that's were ALL the Catholics are kicking it now. Central & South America and Africa are chock full of Papists. So my questions, does the world care has multiple contexts.
There has been some speculation for the past couple of years that when Pope John Paul II did shrug of his mortal coil that the next pope would be selected from the Third World... most likely South America (as the World would NEVER stand for an African pope -- even those whites who aren't Catholic would vomit, and the "presitge" of Catholicism would be shit on and rubbed in the dirt -- at least in their minds.
In this fascinating book I just started reading called Guns, Germs and Steel, the author proffers the fact that Catholicism has ravaged what is now the 3rd World ever since it was introduced there. So it wouldn't be that bad if the Church was controlled by the descendants of the heathens it strove so hard to eridacate, then convert (in that order!!!).
What's is trully going to be interesting is all the media scrutiny the selection of the next Pontiff is going to bring. I heard on NPR that The Vacitican was going to sweep all the debate chambers for bugs and other kind of surveillance devices. We also get to see a lot of the inner workings of the oldest organization on the Earth. Just look at the ceremony/ritual going on now -- there is going to a Nine-Day mourning period. And then some portion of the that, the body of John Paul II is going to be on display for all sorts of daws to peck at. Then the heady speculation on who is the new Pontiff going to be...
The next few months will have an interesting impact on the globe... so, you can see why I'm sitting back with my arms crossed, observing.
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