Actual Harlem Residents: "That's not the Harlem Shake!"

I didn't see this coming. I honestly didn't think this meme would stick around long enough to garner this much coverage, especially since I haven't heard of anyone dying or getting injured by making a Harlem shake video. (I just checked to make sure I remembered correctly, and confirmed that at least one death was attributed to planking.) I've never been to Harlem, but like I said last week, this isn't the Harlem shake. I guess I didn't expect people to get offended by the phenomenon though.

The videos take their name from the song, not the name of the dance, so it's not as if people were intentionally doing the dance wrong.In fact, I'm inclined to believe that few, if any, of the people in these videos are aware that a dance with the same name exists. How many white people do you know who know the names of dances? If any of them know the cat daddy, I'll bet they know it from that Kate Upton video. How about the Jerk, c-walk, or A-town stomp? Heel-toe, chickenhead, or nina pop? You're gonna stand there, uploading dance videos to the internet, not knowing how to two-step, Roger Rabbit, cabbage patch, pop and/or lock, or how to get your eagle on?

I'm joking, but only kinda. American society has a habit of co-opting black culture without grasping the cultural relevance. An article just this week in the New York Times uses the Harlem shake phenomenon and "Thrift Shop" as a jumping off point for a discussion on the legitimacy of these hip hop-influenced trends. Elvis Presley is probably the best-known example of a white person making a fortune off black culture, but he's far from alone. It happened before Elvis, and it's going to keep on happening. I'm not saying it's good, or even acceptable, I'm saying it's the way things are. 

What I'm trying to say, only better sounding.

And sometimes, although only sometimes, it's actually a good thing. Even though nearly every white rapper ever is terrible, the Beastie Boys, Eminem, and Action Bronson are legitimately talented artists. More importantly, they treat the culture with reverence. They're not cultural tourists who are "slumming it" for adventure or trying to make a quick buck. Hell, Soulja Boy catches more flak for misappropriating black culture more than any of those guys, and rightfully so. Look back, and you'll see that even MC Hammer took a gang of disrespect from more legitimate rappers, even white ones.

 

To a much lesser degree, this goes the other direction as well. For years, rappers have incorporated high-end, traditionally "white" brands into their style, with varying results. Gucci, Louis Vutton, and Polo gear have been favorites in rap just as long as Benzes, Bimmers, and Bentleys. Ironically, the reaction from these brands has often been negative as well, like when a rep from Cristal basically said that the company would prefer that rappers drink something else. Is that racist? Is it more accurately classist? Does drinking Ace of Spades make you not racist? As far as I'm concerned, if you pay that much for champagne, you're at least guilty of bad judgement.

With America's rising numbers of Latinos, I'm curious to see what new ways black culture gets put through the mainstream filter. If that means a resurgence of Reggaeton, you'll long for the days of derivative Harlem Shake videos, that is unless people start making videos using the Azealia Banks version, then I'd call it a draw. Here's a video with actual Harlem shaking, although I bet you expected the G-Dep video that originally put the dance on the map. I considered that, but this song is far better.

So That's Where the Line Is

Apparently even pornographers have a line they won't cross, and you're looking at it. Well, kinda. Vivid Video has halted distribution of a sex tape starring Mindy McCready, in light of her recent suicide. Obviously, continuing to sell it now would be in bad taste, although based on the handful of VHS tapes I've seen by Vivid, I wouldn't say that their definition of good taste necessarily matches mine. Hell, just look at the cover. Yes, that is a sticker advertising the fact that this person was on Celebrity Rehab. 

Before I say anything else, let me say that suicide is a serious topic, and I certainly don't want to make light of it in any way. I've attempted suicide before, and I've struggled with suicidal thoughts off and on for as long as I can remember. I wanted to write about this last year when Junior Seau died, but I felt like I couldn't quite get the wording right. In this particular case, McCready sought help, and in fact left a treatment facility prematurely out of concern for her privacy. Not to sound like Dr. Drew here, (because fuck him) but mental health is not given the attention it deserves in our culture. But, I digress. Also, I listen to very little country music, for numerous reasons, but primarily because it fucking sucks. So this story wouldn't normally be on my radar, but between the aforementioned mental health issues, her sex tape and her a possibly illegal affair with Roger Clemens, this is right in my wheelhouse.

I've only actually seen the free preview for this video, but the sexual content seems pretty standard. (By the way, some of the other videos on that site look like they warrant a bit of research.) The interview part seems fucking weird though, with some guy asking her about famous dudes in bed, and at one point (not seen in this clip) she apparently calls Oprah a racist. (Makes me wonder if they threw that in because they know the demographic for a country singer's sextape.) I feel like Vivid should get a little respect for this, considering the undoubtedly increased demand for the video. I'm sure someone will put it on a torrent site, if they haven't already, so it's a matter of time before this makes the rounds on the interwebz. 

One thing we can say for certain is that Vivid is at least more respectful than Roger Clemens, who downplayed any involvement with her whatsoever, saying that she was "nice" the "few" times he met her. If his wife is like every woman person in a relationship I've ever known, I'm sure her blood boils every time she hears the name Mindy McCready. Come on, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Guys, have you ever cheated and gotten caught? Or maybe not cheated but been accused of it? (I'm not saying that because I think he didn't do it, I'm saying that because sometimes that legitimately happens.) Anyway, you know if her name ever comes up around your woman, you'll try real hard to play it off, often ineffectively. I think that's what happened here. Well, that and the fact that baseball players are some of the least educated professional athletes, and Clemens specifically doesn't seem all that bright. 

Since we're talking about a country artist, I want to point out that not all country music is terrible. I leave you with A Boy Named Sue.

Brace Yourself

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:

Damn Weezy!

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.

That Escalated Quickly

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:

Happy Valentine's Day

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."

The Police (And Not The Band)

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.

Contradictions Are Soooo Hip Hop

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. 

Fuck It! We'll Do It Live!

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.