The Bonnarro lineup is officially out today, and it's a good year for rap fans. It's funny, because for years I avoided this festival specifically for the amount of jam bands, but surprisingly few found their way to the list this year. With my wife currently pregnant, I assumed this was a non-starter, but this falls at a perfect time for one of these "baby-moons" that have suddenly become socially acceptable, so I'm thinking I might do it.
If nothing else, I'll finally get to see Wu Tang in concert. I'm not sure if I've told the story before, but I had tickets to see them in 1997, with Rage Against the Machine, in St. Louis. The night before, they performed in Chicago, and basically self-destructed as a group. The group was at their peak, and you know what happens once you peak: you go downhill. They dropped off the tour entirely, and although I did get to see Rage, I still haven't seen the Wu in concert, and unfortunately never will see them with ODB, barring his resurrection in hologram form. (Coincidentally, I had tickets to see Smashing Pumpkins when their tour was rescheduled due to the death of their keyboardist, and subsequent arrest of their drummer on heroin charges. The next year, I missed Korn at Lollapalooza when their bassist came down with spinal meningitis.) I can't complain though, because I did get to see all three years of the Smokin' Grooves tour. Even though the first was better than the second, which was better than the third, every one was great. I'll leave you with an example of what the Fugees were like before they all lost their fucking minds:
Wow! If you haven't heard already, the biggest news out of All Star weekend was Lil' Wayne's rant at Birdman's birthday party. Weed, codeine, promethazine, cocaine, alcohol and molly are a hell of a drug, but more importantly, so is ego.
You probably remember some, if not all , of Wayne's many run-ins at sporting events. Back in 2011, he fired off a series of angry tweets when LeBron and Wade wouldn't come over and talk to him during a game. (Seriously, a game they were playing in.) He arrived at a Thunder game during last season's playoffs expecting free VIP treatment, only to find they expected him to actually buy a ticket. Last month, he squabbled with a cameraman at the Super Bowl celebrity game, and earlier this month he either left or was kicked out of a Miami Heat game for feuding with fans. He claims he was kicked out, but the organization claims he chose to leave on his own. He also claims that he's been banned by the entire NBA due to this incident. In all these situations, Weezy's offered aggressive, negative responses, while the offending parties have offered apologies for the misunderstandings. This leads me to believe that Mr. F. Baby is probably just a huge douche.
I'm hesitant to draw this conclusion. Really, I am. I'm hesitant to draw this conclusion because fame (or maybe the media, or the Illuminati, or whatever you want to call it) has seemingly driven some very successful black entertainers to (accused) insanity. Look at what happened to Dave Chappelle, and how people reacted. Remember when they found Martin wandering through traffic half-naked? Richard Pryor ended up so strung out on freebase (that's some old school shit right there) that he famously caught himself on fire. The list goes on. Obviously, it's not like black celebrities are the only people this happens to, because Lindsay Lohan is practically sprinting toward the morgue at this point, and although she's behind Courtney Love, she has a decent lead on Britney Spears. Chris Rock, on the other hand, seems to be completely stable, both mentally and financially. (Although maybe they let him off the hook because he let white people get away with saying ni**a.) All that being said, I feel like this is more ego than drugs.
You fucked his wife? Damn bruh, you had to go there? I'm not disputing the validity of that statement, because it's certainly possible. He is famous, and she is married to an NBA player. On Mike and Mike this morning, Ryen Rusillo mentioned how he sees the same groupies at all of the big sporting events he covers, but obviously, this isn't a new phenomenon. "All About U" came out nearly 20 years ago, and it was happening long before that. Magic Johnson talked about this network of groupies in his first book, describing how they would know what hotels the players stayed in, and even what rooms, and that was years before the internet existed. And it's not like Bosh would expect his wife to be a virgin when he married her. Some guys might be into that, but I'm not one of them, nor do I know any who are. Still, this was over the top.
We all know that Bosh can't really do anything about this but stay cool. Endorsement deals for NBA players are precious, and delicate. We've seen one player after another tarnish their image to the point of losing endorsements, from Kobe's rape to LeBron's decision, and I'm sure Bosh would like to keep his pristine image. He can't even get a divorce, at least not immediately, lest he call more attention to this whole fiasco.
Come to think of it, I don't want to call any more attention to this nonsense myself. I still want to talk about how Macklemore changed the lyrics to "Wings" for the NBA suits, but that's later in the week. Until tomorrow, here's The Carter Documentary in it's entirety. Skip ahead to the interviews if you want more proof of Wayne's douchebaggery.
After a slow start, this week picked up momentum quickly. Lil' Wayne got into trouble for an Emmett Till reference, and then Officer Rawse condoned date rape via molly. (Here's something to think about: can you find a copy of "All About the Benjamins" where the line "stack chips like Hebrews" isn't censored? Did you even know that was the lyric? More on that another time.) Chris Dorner died, but not before the LAPD got in a few rounds of live target practice around the city. Tim Dog passed away, though sadly more people will probably remember him more for running scams than for "Fuck Compton". Oh, and something like 5000 Harlem Shake videos are being uploaded to YouTube every day, although I've yet to see a white person accurately perform the actual Harlem shake even once. But hey, it's Friday, and even if you didn't just get paid, here's a video for your weekend:
Yes, Valentine's Day is a huge scam. Flowers that would have cost 15 bucks on Monday will run you at least 50 today. I always assumed that the day was entirely a creation of greeting card companies, but it turns out that it has roots in the Catholic church, which is a considerably more nefarious organization. The only flowers I'm buying today are green and they come in a ziploc bag. I was going to make some other snarky comments, but I saw this on Pitchfork and realized I could never come up with something this concise:
"Love is free. Instead of buying something, share the video with someone you love."
You already knew that the LAPD was going to kill Chris Dorner, but did anybody guess it would all end Waco-style? You can read Dorner's manifesto online, although I'm not sure that any of those can be trusted. I've seen at least two different versions, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were all fakes. One thing we can be certain of is that he was never going to get a chance to testify in a courtroom.
I do not necessarily hate all police, but I don't trust any police officer. Ever. And I'm white. I absolutely hate dealing with police, because if you're talking to the police, they probably suspect you of something. Let's be real here, we need a police force, but I'm not sure that most of the cops we have now should be a part of it. I'm 35, so I grew up when NWA was saying "Fuck the Police" and I watched (on TV news) the LA riots. People my age and older will tell you that the Rodney King incident was a real turning point in this country, in terms of how people viewed the police. Suddenly, white people didn't trust the police so much. I was 13 and a Public Enemy fan, so I already didn't trust them. (I went to my first concert without parental supervision in 1991, to see PE, with opening act C+C Music Factory, I kid you not. Their respective "hits" at the time were "911 Is A Joke" and "Everybody Dance Now".) But if the Rodney King incident was a step forward in terms of police accountability, September 11 was at least two steps backward in terms of personal liberty. Suddenly, people who were concerned about the boundaries of law enforcement were "with the terrorists". An argument regularly heard from Bill O'Riley and his ilk was "If you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about?", which is practically the mantra of a police state. Although George Dubya and his administration, specifically Cheney and Ashcroft, get much of the blame for the current state of affairs, (as they should) Barry deserves nearly as much, if not arguably more, considering that the government now kills more people with drones than a junior high Call of Duty player. (I wonder if they bone the victims' mothers as well.)
Really, why should the average person trust the police? People who sell drugs on the corner go to jail, and politicians can say "I'm tough on crime". People who launder the money that the corner hustler's boss' boss makes, well we can't jail them because that might destabilize the world's economy. I wish I was making this all up, but if you've been paying attention, you know that all of this happened in the last six months. Also, with respect to drug laws, why is marijuana illegal? What about gambling? Prostitution? How about the increasing number of incidents where suspects committed suicide with their hands cuffed behind their backs? This video seems to circulate the internet a couple times a year, and this guy is a law professor, albeit one who sounds a bit like Saul Goodman.
To put this in perspective, I'd certainly rather live in America and deal with our fucked up system of justice than live in Russia, China, or even worse, North Korea. And, as much as I favor abolishing all drug laws, I don't want to live in Somalia, which is the closest thing to a pure libertarian system in the world. (I believe it may more accurately represent an example of Anarchy, I'm not sure. Either way, basically no laws or government, and I'd rather watch a Vice documentary about it than even think about going there myself.)
What I really hope is that this will lead to a thorough investigation of the LAPD, and hopefully of all police units. The only way that happens is if more police come forward, and not just former police, but currently employed officers as well. We all know that won't happen. The "Blue Wall" is just too solid to ever effectively control law enforcement. In 2000, a NY district court even ruled that a police department was within it's rights to discriminate against an applicant because he was too smart. So basically, things will probably never get better, but they could be way worse.
Pictured above is a screenshot from HipHopWired. (A pillar of journalism, obviously.) The first story concerns the investigation into a murder of a boy who was killed for his sneakers. Not a single pair, mind you, but his entire collection of sneakers. The boy's body was found bound and gagged in his home after a group of teens apparently robbed and murdered him. The story posted shortly before that describes (more accurately, it advertises) an ESPN documentary about MJ and the history of Air Jordans. I'm not certain that this is actual textbook irony, but I am certain that it's mad disrespectful. I'm sad for this kid but a little more sad for the future.
Well folks, it's been quite some time. Kinda my style to just disappear for months at a time, but that all ends today. I've actually been away for a legitimate purpose this time, I'm going to be a father. As someone who has long taken pride in the fact that I could die at any time and not leave behind any unfulfilled responsibilities, this is a definite game-change for me. I don't know how this is going to change me, but fuck it. (Haha, butt fuck it, hahaha.)
Anyway, we'll see what happens. I'm going to be updating here daily, at least during the week, and you can expect an occasional weekend rant. Overall, the topics will stay the same - shit I'm in to, including:
Music, especially Hip Hop and Indie, but also the music industry and it's tomfoolery.
Sports, particularly during playoffs and concerning teams or players I root for or against.
Drugs, mostly weed or psychedelics, or when legislation is concerned.
Politics, specifically when I think both sides of the argument are wrong, and when other important stories are under-reported as a result. Case in point: Neither more nor fewer guns or gun laws are the solution to any pressing problem in this country, yet every media outlet would have you believe otherwise.
Movies. I've got this idea in my head that one day I'm going to make a movie, and I've had it since the first time I saw "Clerks". If it ever happens, it'll be quite an experience, I'm sure. The way I see it, if a hack like Tucker Max can get a terrible movie made out of what I can only assume are well-embellished versions of things he did, I'm certain I can make a watchable movie out of my actual college career.
Technology, especially when it has social or political implications.
Cool shit. I like electronic gadgets. I like sneakers, to a certain point. (Sneaker culture has gotten fucking weird over the last decade.) I like cars a hell of a lot, but I don't drive anything with a loud muffler, neon lights, or anything else that would cause a police officer to notice me. I like all of these things but I like not being a Kanye-level douche even more, so my taste is fairly subdued.
So that's what you can expect from this blog. I've missed the opportunity to comment on several high-profile stories, so maybe I'll do a rundown tomorrow, unless something else interesting happens. Until then, I leave you with a good reason to never trust a church official.
