The Holiday season is now in full swing, and you know what that means to me. My enemy is in full attack mode. No, not the long lines in Wal-Mart, not Black Friday or that ubiquitous crap Christmas Music (somebody play the Death Row Christmas album for once), but holiday-related mass text messages. Its no secret that disingenuous social contact and holidays are two things that I equate with the likes of rabies and bed bugs, so it would make sense that the SARS-like combination impersonal mass text messaging and holiday cheer around this time of year is subject to croak me one day. The "triflin trifecta" of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years never fails to provide you with proof of who really shouldn’t have your phone number.

First off, anybody that takes one specific day to acknowledge or do something is a little queer in my book. There’s 365 days in a year, and if you’re only thankful, giving or adhering to a "resolution" on one of the days, you need help. It’s kind of like being a spread eagle homewrecking ho all week, then going to church on Sunday. I don’t celebrate any of the above because I’m evil most of the time, but when I want to give thanks, give a gift or set a goal, I’m not looking at the calendar. That said, I hate holidays. I also think you should learn to contact folks directly when you think of them. Yeah it takes time, but it was never a problem before text messaging, and its part of why genuine social protocol has gone down the toilet these days. Having somebody’s phone number is a privilege , a sign of respect, don’t ass-u-me they have unlimited texting in their phone plan. And they shouldn’t have to sign up for it because you want to save time when doling out arbitrary greetings. The days of a phone being personal are long gone. Save the mass greetings for e-mail. All that said, I’m sick of getting texts like these…

- Happy Turkey Day all!!!!

I only eat turkey on odd numbered Mondays in July.

- Merry Christmas everybody!!

I don’t celebrate Christmas, and when I did I celebrated Kwanzaa. Must you alienate?

- May you all prosper and reach your goals and resolutions in 2010!!

Where was this good will in June of 2009 when I needed it? Why do I have to wait until January 1st to get a $0.15 cent good luck charm from you? Better yet, if you want to start going to the gym to lose weight, why not go in March? Fuck waiting for New Years.

Last year around this time, I informed everybody of my frustration with these God damn mass text messages. They’re like trite mass emails, but they cost money. OK, some of you have unlimited text messaging on your phones and can afford to waste a text to send a smiley face, an "LOL" or a "k" (may as well write the complete "OK" phrase and make it worth the money) to somebody, so this doesn’t apply to you. After being charged 15 cents to send and receive texts and getting a $24 and $14 bill for texts alone in December 2008 and December 2007, respectively, I was forced to get a 400 free text a month plan to save some money back in April, and thus far its been OK. But low and behold, between work -which I need texting for and which is why I cant take it completely off my plan- and people wasting my texts with an indirect "Happy Turkey Day!", I’m closing in on my 400 free texts and the cycle is 17 days away.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not that evil.  If you want to wish me a happy holiday then say "Yo Jay, Happy Holidays man" in the text. That’s fine and I appreciate the thought. Or pick up the God damn phone and call me. If you’re so hi tech, you must have a lot of minutes on your iphone or Googlaphone or whatever the fuck you call it. E-Mail me, it’s free! But this mass text message shit gotta stop, and I’m not even bullshittin. Especially in this economy.  Between Thanksgiving and New Years, I can watch my (what I figured would be enough) 400 texts dwindle down the drain for disingenuous gestures that mean absolutely nothing, many times from people who got my number from some other rap personality without my permission. (Side note: if you ask me for my number and I look at you funny, I’m sizing you up to see if you’re the type to send mass texts. If I give you my e-mail instead, you know what time it is.) Half of these jokers are in the music business, so lets also factor in event invite texts to some janky open mic showcase in New Mexico. When I call them back to find out who the fuck they are and/or invoice them for my 15 cents (yes, I do this all the time), they don’t pick up the god damn phone!  If all you do is text, what the fuck do you have a phone for? I anticipate going over my 400 text limit by about 47 texts in December, and I get charged the standard $0.15 a text when I pass 400, so lets do some arithmetic…

47 Text Messages @ $0.15 cents each =  $7.05

About half of these texts are from people whose numbers aren’t saved in my phone, so I have to call them back to see who it is and cuss them out. 90% go to that robot voicemail message in which the bitch only tells you "222-403-0712 is not available", because the culprit is scared to put a personal greeting on the God damn outgoing message. 90% of these texts are during peak hours, so I get charged for approximately 22 one minute calls before 9PM trying to get reimbursed my 15 cents. I have 600 anytime and free nights and weekends on my plan. I usually use about 587 minutes in the winter months (I like to leave a lil room so I don’t get charged $1.25 per minute for going over 600). Therefore, I run a risk of going over my anytime minutes by about 5 minutes.

5 minutes @ $1.25 per minute = $6.25

Taxes and fees for the aforementioned activity are about $1.75

$7.05 + $6.25 + $1.75 = $15.05

That’s $15.05 spent for no God damn reason at all. Simply for having a cel phone and being a victim of pointless text dreck. They just pile up like L blocks in a game of Tetris when Christmas rolls around.  If I up my plan, that’s another $10 a month…$120 for the year. $140 including taxes and surcharges.  I can hear y’all talkin’ sh*t about me right now.

"Yo man J-Zone is mad cheap, he’s pitchin a bitch over $15."

OK,  I’m cheap, so fuckin what? But that ain’t the God damn point. If you walked into White Castle and the cashier asked you for $15.05, but you didn’t ask to buy any food, would you just give it to him/her simply because you were in there? What about if you go to CVS and you want $15.05 worth of vitamins? Every human being should have vitamins, but your $15.05 went towards some impersonal text messages that you received against your will. Will you get those vitamins without the $15.05? Let that marinate for a second…and in the meantime here is a list of things I can do with $15.05…

- Get a shape-up (or a full haircut if I see my man Cool Ass Kev in Mt. Vernon) or get it box twisted…and have some bread left over for a new toothbrush…the good kind with the bristles that reach deep in the gums and massage them.

- Fill half my tank with Mobil 87 Regular gas (or 30% of it if I want to go big time and use 93 Super).

- Buy 2 frozen tuna steaks, a Mid East Feast, Trader Ming’s chicken spring rolls and a Clif Bar at Trader Joes. If the tuna steaks are relatively light, I can feed a parking meter too.

- A 6 pack of Adidas Moisture Wicking Athletic Crew Socks at Marshalls.

- The Fat Boys’ Disorderlies and Dolemite’s Avenging Disco Godfather on DVD (including shipping) at amazon.com

- 34 US postage stamps and still have $0.09 left.

Hopefully sending this message out early enough in the holiday season thwarts some of this text message crap and I can save some money and save you the impending headache of me bossing up on you when my bill arrives…a real surcharge from $ir Charge…because I swear on a stack of James Brown 45’s I’m not even kidding, I’m dead ass serious. If you strike on all 3 holidays, that’s $0.45.  It may sound like I’m taking this too serious, but I’m not, this shit adds up. I have to trick out my phone as a defense against activity I don’t want. Technology is making people less and less likable by the day. E-mail me (it’s free!!!!), get at me personally or remove me off your text list because your tab is running.

Ho Ho Ho
J-Zone aka $ir Charge

Dante, DJ Emz and myself got into a little debate a few weeks back about who would be the best fit for this accolade. Think about it…rappers that are so bad, they‘re actually pretty damn good overall. Me being the poster child for unpopular opinion, I always felt that the downfall in the quality of rap music in recent years isn’t as much due to banal lyrics as it is to the fact that so many artists don’t have a coochie hair of personality. To be honest, I’d rather hear a hilarious/unique artist with a questionable amount of skill than another lyrical lyricist spit 413 ill bars about "swag", sellin coke or a food name for some clothing that I’m too old to understand -i.e ‘yo fam I got them Rocky Road and sweet potato Nike dunks on son!’- over whatever Jay-Z instrumental is popular at the time. Or somebody using Kraft Macaroni & Cheese as a metaphor for the United States’ foreign policy in some enigmatic attempt to be clever or lyrical. Fuckouttahere. And if/when the said lyrical lyricist decides to drop an album the week after his 717th mixtape hits the streets, the subject matter never extends outside of the same Smack DVD hood/lyrical boasts he had on mixtapes 1-717. The freestyles over the Just Blaze instrumentals that anybody can sound good on got everyone excited, but the beats on the album will inherently suck, which will then be defended with an “I’m all about the lyrics” retort. After a few promo shows at the Remote Lounge NYC and an article in XXL, the said rapper will then fade into “bolivion” (sic, Mike Tyson tribute). How many hip-hop quotable rappers have fallen by the wayside because they chose to use the same confrontational tone they battled people in to rap about some Illuminati symbol on a dollar bill or their newly adopted vegan lifestyle? Only Willie D can get away with that shit. Or better yet, how many thought because they were such amazing lyricists that their beat selection was merely an afterthought? Oops.

I don’t give a fuck what anybody says, the thing that’s missing in rap today is really entertaining “bad rappers”. Dudes with laughable lyrics and styles that you knew they were dead ass serious about when they hit the studio, but somehow the recording engineer held back a bout of broken blood vessel laughter. Guys that you accused of ruining good beats, but in reality there’s nobody else that could’ve done a better job on them. Don’t get it twisted, bad rappers are in no short supply in 2009, hell fuckin no. But most of them just aren’t funny or entertaining. It’s not just about being a good MC, but making an album whose CD issue transcends drink coaster usage and whose MP3s avoid getting dragged into the recycle bin for a change. To voice unpopular opinion once again, I’ve always felt a sub-par rapper that can make enjoyable albums and songs holds more weight than another dime a dozen cypher destroyer/battle rapper/mixtape legend "lyricist" that can’t put together a cohesive piece of music that you can listen to more than once. People in New York always clowned Too $hort for being non-lyrical, but when one of these lyrical wizards has 18 albums in their catalog or makes a song as enjoyable as "Paula & Janet" or "Blowjob Betty" , somebody send me a God damn e-mail. Don’t get me wrong though, when a dude had exceptional skill and still managed to make a cohesive album (Chuck D, Ice Cube, LL, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Scarface, Suga Free), it was a double bonus. After talking to a few other avid rap fans I respect, I broke down my four personal favorite “bad” rappers of all time.

MALACHI THE NUTCRACKER (from GROUP HOME)

This will inherently be the one I catch the most heat over, but I’m not surprised. Hip-hop has no sense of humor, and when people couldn’t see the genius of Malachi The Nutcracker, I knew we were in trouble. I used to hear textbook dreck like this from hip-hop purists when the Group Home album came out 14 years ago, and still do today…

“DJ Premier wasted the greatest beats he ever made on the Group Home album. Lil Dap is cool, but Malachi is atrocious, Premier should’ve given those beats to Biggie or somebody.”

Or something to that effect. Fuckouttahere, that Malachi dude was entertaining. His young teenaged voice, his “see Spot run” simplicity, his threats of random and senseless violence against old people and his nonsensical sociopath rhetoric coagulated to make the perfect spouse for Primo’s gutter jazz thump. Whether it was intentional or not (I seriously doubt it was), Malachi injected humor into a Gangstarr Foundation that albeit great, never produced any funny records. Regardless of how many Malachi detractors pop up when discussing this album -usually in regards to its production brilliance and it being the apex of Primo’s career, but it going in vain because of the rhymes- he was a known tough cookie, so I seriously doubt anybody ever said anything to his face. This guy was flat out entertaining. Lines like these don’t grow on trees…

“I’m outta sight on the mic do what you like/ I beat your moms in the head with a metal pipe” (Was it in the Billiard Room? Did he use Colonel Mustard? Sounds like a Clue confession to me. Mothers are overrated anyway.)

“When I take flight (like who kid?) like Mike!!!!” (Best Jordan reference ever)

“Ya know how I rock, I rock, non stop/ jump on stage, you jump…on my jock!” (It’s just that simple…literally)

However, the prime example of Malachi’s good badness would surely be his verses on “Up Against The Wall”. I don’t even think you can freestyle rhyme gymnastics on this level (he comes in at 1:05)

“You stupid muthafuckaaaa my rhyme is fat!!!!!!!!”

When I said (and still say) that Group Home’s Livin Proof album is better than both Jeru albums, I’m met with accusations of not knowing music. Fuck that, this is the home of unpopular opinions, and I’m letting all that shit ride in here. Malachi didn’t do too much after this album, but wherever he is, he’s got a fan in me. His actual rap skill left a lot to be desired, but he was ahead of his time with the senseless violence and his through the roof passion in the face of his overt simplicity. I know there’s a lot of MC’s who on paper would fit in the same category as Malachi, but they’re just not dope. Maybe it was just how Malachi did it, and style points are very hip-hop. I don’t give a fuck what anybody says, I want a Malachi solo album.

DISCO RICK

Disco Rick was Miami’s misogynist answer to Run from Run-DMC. He yelled with mass amounts of echo, but that’s where the comparisons stop. Disco Rick made his mark rapping about getting dome from everybody from Nancy Reagan to girls he knew named Margaret, Sharon, Karen, Jackie, Tyra, Lana, Dede, Sherry, Mona, Lisa, Laverne, Shana, Keisha, Marie, Laura, Janice, Barbara, Maria and Tina.

Here’s the song in question ("Suck That Dick")

Rick had a softer side though, fellatio wasn‘t always his forte. He also rapped getting stopped by the fuzz in the deep south, trampy looking broads in the flea market that needed to dress with more class and why mothers who abandoned their kids in trash cans deserved a thrashing. The latter concept (on a song appropriately titled “Babies In The Trash Cans”) found Rick actually on the way to providing a serious and viable concept song on an album full of misogyny, but about 55 seconds in, the line “we got to educate the hoes” just foiled the plan. Rick’s skill level being applied to a concept like that is the moment of good badness that actually makes him more enjoyable to listen to than anybody I’ve heard in recent memory…

TIM DOG

Tim Dog was widely recognized as being in the doldrums when it comes to rap skill in the early 90‘s. But that fact makes him even more incredible to me, because his first album (Penicillin On Wax) is only topped by Ice Cube’s Amerikkka’s Most Wanted and Public Enemy’s Fear Of A Black Planet as the greatest rap album of all time in my opinion (I can hear myself getting roasted in cyberspace for this one). I always felt that Tim’s full album performance on Penicillin On Wax is the most entertaining by any rapper in the history of hip-hop. It’s insane to think that a guy who rhymes “(Why you dissin Eazy) cause the boy ain’t shit/ chew him with tobacco and spit him in shit” on his album is a God damn genius. But when it comes to pure entertainment, it didn’t get any better than Tim Dog in 1991. I can actually go out on a limb and say that if he actually had superior rap skill, the album wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable. With the album artwork depicting Tim Dog in very early 90’s NYC ’hide your Starter jacket’ mode and the inner sleeve showing a posse photo with some very angry and big bat wielding gentlemen with ski masks on, the image is not one of lyrical dexterity, but brute force.

Tim is actually at his best (and funniest) when he’s really attempting to be on a Kool Keith/ Big Daddy Kane hybrid level of lyricism.

“So whether ya think that I’m just a myth/to riff/the gift/the if/the fifth/the shift/the spliff is in control I hold a bowl/and make an ache and take a fake/ WHEEEEEWWW, and I’m still too great…Fuck Compton!”

Huh? Wow. It gets even better when Tim uses his imagination to go hardcore.

“Imma step to a wack MC/and if he try to get beef with me/ I’mma wax his ass, I’mma tax his ass, I’mma fax his ass and cold lax his ass”

You get the message that Tim is pissed off and the said ass is in trouble, but I always wondered how you can fax somebody’s ass. I guess the wack MC was a label mate, because he could just meet the dude in the label office, beat him down and put him on a fax machine and press send. But how he’d lax his ass, I don’t wanna know, as I’m assuming lax means laxative, or diarrhea. This album is probably the funniest hip-hop album ever made, but I think Tim Dog did it with a straight face, which makes it even funnier. Then there was the prime example of Tim‘s good badness, “Dog’s Gonna Getcha”. It’s essentially a three minute foray into threats, screams, grunts and non-lyricism, but it sounds better than most of The Source’s picks for hip hop quotable in the last 15 years. Here’s the whole song, a simple quote can’t do it justice…

The song is so lyrically bad (meaning bad) that I actually have it in my personal top 20 greatest rap songs of all time, and I’m not even bullshitting. I’m as serious as cancer, that song is God damn unbelievable, just not lyrically skilled…if you know where I’m coming from. Example: KRS-One’s “MC’s Act Like They Don’t Know” was OK, it was lyrically skilled, but it was nowhere near as good as “Dogs Gonna Getcha” when it comes to listening pleasure, not even fuckin close. Tim does actually have some decent rhymes on the album, but the majority is that rare display of unskilled hardness and humor that you just don’t see anymore. He may not have had much rap skill, but Tim Dog is more entertaining than one of those dudes who got a major label deal when skills were kinda-sorta in style that couldn’t produce an enjoyable album. Every rap fan should at least have a burn of Penicillin On Wax, it’s a five star hip-hop classic in the true sense of the word.

PROJECT PAT

When it comes to bouncing ball phonetics and Speak n Spell southern drawl, nobody is coming close to Pat. Every word is seemingly broken into syllables and sounds, and the actual rhymes are mind-blowingly countrified. But what really puts Pat over the top is the fact that he not only admits, but brags about feasting on the hog. Pork is high in saturated fat and cholesterol, but putting Pat up on the health benefits of Quinoa is useless…

“Buyin you/ taco bell/ but a pimp/ eatin steak/ corn bread, collard greens, chitaleeeeeens (chitterlings) on my plate.”

Or when he explains to a girl why his gas tank is empty, he has a worthy excuse.

“That’s just the meter broke/ u dontknawcha talkin bout/ anyway them new Jordan’s finna come out.”

Its safe to say that Pat isn’t the Pharoahe Monch of Memphis, but the absence of lyrical gymnastics in his style is what makes him as appealing as he is.

The pinnacle of P. Pat’s good badness would be the “Nature Of The Threat” level of depth he displays on “Gorilla Pimp”

"(I’mma call yo mama up), bitch that’s a no no!"

Tim Dog, Malachi The Nutcracker, Project Pat and Disco Rick…You can say what you want about their skill level (or lack thereof), but one thing is for sure. They’ll be remembered more than your latest 893 bar mixtape spitter who made one crap album. They also prove that having skills doesn’t necessarily equate with making great songs and albums, and being a sub par rapper by purist standards doesn’t prevent someone from making incredible music. Fuck all this talk about skills skills and more skills, somebody make a God damn entertaining album for once.

Once again, I’m on the road to being roasted anyway, so either shake your head and fail to see the genius in good/bad MC’s, or list your own personal favorites. Don’t forget, this is the home of unpopular opinion, not a rap message board!

For her birthday, I bought her some Vaseline from Wal-Mart.

Senior citizens. They drive you up the wall when they pull out a special pair of glasses to read coupons and hold up the lines in the supermarket. Or if for some reason they’re still allowed on the road (gotta get that outlawed), they’ll drive 27 MPH in the left lane of a 65 zone and fuck up your day. But have you ever tried living with one for over a decade? Since my Grandfather passed away 12 years ago, I’ve been living with/looking after my Grandmother, Evil E (aka Greazy E). If I were to compare our relationship to anything in mainstream culture, it would be Fred & Lamont Sanford on the 70’s TV show Sanford and Son. In just about every episode, Fred’s dislike for everyone not named Fred, hypochondriac complaints and far-fetched schemes to make or save money got he and Lamont into hot water. Lamont often threatened to move out on Fred to live the more bachelor/Jack Tripper-like lifestyle suitable for a young adult, but for all of the aggravation, he always stuck around. Day to day affairs for us aren’t much different (or any less deserving of a reality show pilot). A good chunk of my 20’s were spent doing damage control for Evil E’s Fred Sanford-like body of work. Whether it was the time she pulled out a book of 47 -yes, 47- expired coupons in the supermarket and demanded that they be accepted or the time she called and cussed out the cable company because she was tired of seeing commercials during Knick games, her long running penchant for putting her foot deep in somebody’s ass has never lost steam with age. In fact, her arthritis only intensified her ability to bust ass, because now she uses that cane for everything except walking and still keeps a taped up Louisville Slugger bat in her room in case “somebody comes up in here with that crap”. But her favorite target is the one she can hit at close range, and that would be me. If I’m not getting lambasted because Wal-Mart didn’t have something that she sent me for, I’m getting sent to 6 different stores in two different counties for 6 different items to save $1.17.  She (and senior citizens in general) have also mastered the art of the buzz kill. She usually waits until I’m eating to tell me how to get “a nice smooth bowel movement” and waits until I go to her part of the house for something to start farting all day and saying out loud “ooooh, listen to the gas”. When she gets pissed off, she may come after me without her false teeth in her mouth, and its comparable to being chased by Ms. Pac-Man after she ate an energy pellet. I even secretly recorded an argument we had over the grass strip in our driveway about 7 years ago, and it eventually found its way to one of my albums as a skit. Hear us in action.

“Grandma (Skit)” (Audio Link)

Speaking of which, we may be the only grandmother and grandson combination in hip-hop. She’s appeared on three of my album covers, and it doesn’t get any rougher than these…

But for all of our daily gripes, she’s also taught me things that I never learned during my 6 year stint on the NYC nightlife scene (click here for that debacle) . She also gave me money to record my first demo tape when I was 16 years old and dead broke…and she still puts up with my shit today.  Old folks give you an outlook on life that you just can’t get from any other group of people, and they’re just way too hard in general from what they’ve managed to survive. They may move a bit slower as they age, but they never lose their knuckle game and mental toughness. Cutting a senior citizen in line at the Key Food supermarket can get you thrashed around my way, I’ve seen it happen. Old folks even pimp better, literally. (Now retired) OG San Francisco pimp Fillmore Slim (aka The Pope Of Pimping) stole the show in the movie American Pimp…and he was way into his 70’s at the time. His old school approach put him above and beyond every pimp in that movie. My grandfather (RIP) bought his first Cadillac at age 60, and one time he stepped to a gang of rowdy South Jamaica Queens knuckleheads in the 1980’s…all by himself. That’s what you call Polident pimpin, the game don’t stop!

Therefore, I decided to do an appreciation post for my Grandmother (who turned 86 a few weeks ago) and Grandparents/senior citizens worldwide. They’re OG’s in the game, and if they didn‘t know what the fuck life was all about, they wouldn‘t have lived so long. What’s the secret to a long and prosperous life? Ask an OG Polident pimp, and check out this video interview my Grandmother and I filmed for her birthday (courtesy of Grime Life TV)

Evil E Interview from jzone on Vimeo .

And for those of you with living Grandparents, call em up today and give em some OG love while they’re still here.

Evil E…40 years later still worth fighting over.

The second guy from the right is the only one that never got married, I can guarantee that. Look how sharp he is compared to the other dudes.

To answer a point made in a response to Part 1 of this feature…Does the audio quality of a cassette suck? Yeah it does, but CD’s and records skip and digital albums don’t have liner notes, pick your poison. That being said, here’s a video clip of a quick run through some of my tape collection. I did this earlier this year for photographer/video blogger Richard Ross (aka Rich Direction). This one is strictly for tape diehards, so if that means you, enjoy…if not, I’ll be back in a few days with a more universal thought. Peace.

Real G’s Rock Tapes from richdirection on Vimeo .

A few times a year, I’ll accidentally fall into a simple night of fun in NYC. But more often than not, NYC nightlife is a royal pain in my ass. Maybe I’m just getting old, there’s no alternate explanation. Or if there is one, maybe it would be that my 10 years of performing, DJing, politicking and networking watching people blow smoke up each others asses in the music industry has caused my tolerance for small talk/unnecessary socializing to wane. It’s safe to say that I’ve become that cantankerous dude that people always predicted I would become, who nowadays rarely leaves the house after 7PM.  After 6 years of “field study” (and about 8,227 miles on my car), I can honestly say that its unnecessary to mill around in any given NYC social “scene” for more than 15 minutes unless you call that scene home. I will also say that its a Haley’s Comet occurrence that anything worthwhile happens after midnight except for the occasional drunk girl fight. So these days, a night of event hopping is over for me by 12:01 AM if I don’t already have Halle Berry riding shotgun. All of the scenarios below are from one particular weekend about 2 1/2 years ago, but I’m not making generalizations. Not ALL people in any particular social setting fit these descriptions, but…ah fuck all that, I’m generalizing my ass off because its true 90% of the time.

• STOP #1: HOME (JAMAICA, QUEENS)

As a kid, I knew I would always come back to my grandparents’ home to live and build my studio. It’s only right, this is the place where I first discovered music. I got my wish, and I like living over here. Jamaica/ Locust Manor, Queens is a Black working class family enclave, closer to Long Island than any other area of NYC in appearance, distance and the fact that there’s no subways at all. There’s no demand for a Whole Foods yet either, so I doubt there will be a wave of gentrification anytime soon. At 4AM, I like the sound of my brand new sprinkler system coming on (except for the time it flooded my basement), it beats the fuck out of hearing some atrocious Debbie Deb/ Kanye mash-up coming out of some loft window. I don’t mind shoveling snow for the old folks on my block, but old folks are just about the only people worth talking to over here for any length of time. A good percentage of the few late 20’s/early 30’s folks left over here are only good for about 15 minutes of conversation before we veer into rap gossip (the new Smack DVD or the whereabouts of Bang ‘Em Smurf ),  Superhead’s latest dick sucking adventure or some atrocious Tyler Perry movie that unfortunately left the cutting room floor.

“Yo Jay, you be on the creep man, where you been at?  I ain‘t seen your hi-yellow ass in a minute.”

I explain that I was in Europe doing gigs, and after an “Aight aight”, the discussion changes immediately. Why? Because if you aren’t on BET or in the Source, nobody around here gives a fuck. If you can’t brag about it in the barbershop, it has zero significance. Nobody over here is the least bit curious about me attempting to drive in Australia with the wheel on the opposite side of the car, it’s just not on the radar. When you admit that you’ve eaten sushi or banged a girl in Europe, all you get is “you on that other shit, you nasty son!!!” On a rare note, we’ll actually move into politics, but once we get into “Obama’s gonna fix all this shit for us, we finally got a brother in there” territory, I realize that this conversation has peaked and I try to get to steppin, but we’re interrupted by a girl with a fat ass walking by.

“Yo shortay! Yo ma, lemme holla at you real quick!! Yo Jay, holla at that, you gay son?”

I’ve never known a girl worth a bag of Funyons that would respond to “Yo Ma, Yo Shorty!”, so I don’t say shit. Then, my man will inform me that the crew is rollin down to the strip club tonight. He passes me a flyer with a pic of a Patra looking chick with a delicious ass in mid-Bogle move. Looks good, but I decline.

“Yo son, you gotta be gay! You ain’t hollerin at these chicks out here, you ain’t fuckin with the strip club? Nigga, what the fuck DO you do?!”

I then explain that I’m not gay, but I don’t see the point in giving a stripper my loot for some janky ass lapdance. Strip clubs are an economically dumb way of catching blue balls, and I never understood the appeal of going to one, ask Pac-Man Jones. I’ll jerk off free of charge, then throw my dollars at Trader Joe’s for some of those tuna steaks.  I’ll only throw dollars at a stripper if I can get them back at the end of the night.

“You my dude Jay, but you’re on that other shit!”, he’ll say. I give him a pound and try to see where I’ll head next in my socially motivated game of Around The World. I make a few phone calls and get some invites…

• STOP #2: SOME LOFT PARTY IN WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN

This is a 15 mile drive for me, this shit better be worth it. As I drive through “East Williamsburg” -its Bushwick, Dickhead, stop being so Post-Giuliani- and further destroy my axle with the potholes that the 5 million bike riders over there can easily avoid, I can’t help but think aloud: ‘People pay $5000 a month to co-habitate in these beat up ass ex-factories with 22 other people?’  Anyway, I arrive at this loft party and do the best I can to mingle. There’s a Metrosexually tinged thrift shop fashion sense in here -like people are dressing to out shock each other- and the DJ just threw on a God awful mash-up of a Lil Wayne song and some 80’s pop tune.  I then stop and reminisce about the one time I did a show over here and got booed for coming out on stage to a Big Tymer$ song, but here we are a few years later.  Sure enough, there are people walking around in extra medium “Trap or Die” t-shirts and wearing sunglasses indoors at midnight. I gotta take a piss, so I run to the bathroom and I really don’t like what I see when I get there. Obviously all 300 of the people that live in this loft share one bathroom, so I guess it would make sense that the toilet bowl has a mysterious tan ring around it. I’ve been to quite a few of these loft parties, and this tan ring around the bowl shit is a common theme. There’s also some hair in the sink, this is totally my kind of party dude! Extending your college frat house years in to your 30’s must really be fulfilling, especially when you can likely afford a house to yourself in Long Island or New Jersey somewhere. But hey, who am I to judge!? I step out into the party and make small talk with some broad with a flat and wide ass drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and sporting a t-shirt that has a defunct breakfast cereal on it.  She tells me she’s a vegan that only goes organic. Go figure.  She asks where I live, so after explaining where  Jamaica, Queens is -usually in relation to JFK Airport, the only Queens landmark any current “New Yorker” seems to know besides the Beer Garden in Astoria- she responds with “Daaamn, how do you live without the subway?!” I then respond with “Daaamn, how do you live with alternate side parking and late night track construction?!” After I explain to her that there is in fact life beyond the Broadway Junction stop on the L train line and point out that Westchester County is not “upstate”, she finishes telling me about her new dog and how she’s fascinated by the fact that she’s now an “official NYC girl” (shut up bitch, if you don’t know who David Dinkins was, you’re not a New Yorker).  Then, a dude in a pair of $400 Flight Club retro Nikes comes up and jumps in the conversation.  I notice that he has a “Crack Is Back” shirt on.

I ask him about the original “Crack Is Wack” anti-drug mural uptown that the shirt tried to put a negative spin on. He didn’t know what I was referring to, because he just moved here from Utah and finished his graphic arts study at Pratt University. Ah, I get it now, he’s going for irony. Little emo-indie rock fan boy becomes Young Jeezy all of a sudden, that’s so creative!! Get the fuckouttahere.

I asked him if he’s ever had a crackhead relative show up at a family function -I have, and it’s nothing to celebrate on a t-shirt- and he said , “nah, but the shirt is fresh”.  I know “crack” is slang term that‘s widely used in entertainment, like “dope” (that beat is “crack”, etc.), but it’s obvious that listening to too many Clipse songs has caused this little guy to talk out of his ass. I see a decent looking chick, but she’s sloppy drunk and screaming the words to “Stronger” in my face. I’d rather rob the bitch than bone her at this point, and its obvious that I’m the pink poodle in the party -as was the case the last 15 times I came over here out of sheer boredom- so after a whopping 26 minutes, I’m ready to leave.  Maybe if I never quit drinking, I could stretch it to 2 hours, but nowadays…no dice. Next destination…

• STOP #3: SOME HOUSE PARTY IN PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN

My ex-girl was invited to a party thrown by her yuppie co-worker. I stopped by to pick her up, but it would be rude to just come and go, right? So I stay, not knowing that doing so would be one of the final nails in the coffin of our relationship. My ex (who was Asian) can’t see that this party full of snobby yuppies have made her designated photographer, but won’t offer her any drinks and won’t talk to her beyond giving orders. I mention this and she gets mad. To end the arguing, I allow myself to get dragged into small talk with her co-worker and her Alex P. Keaton tool of a boyfriend. I didn’t expect the conversation to last long. I can’t remember how, but doo-rags came up, like what are their purpose.  I used to joke with my friend about how being seen as the “non-threatening” Black dude will cause questions like this to fall out of the sky when somebody whose never been around any Black folks decides that they no longer have to hide their purse and they get a little too cozy. Somebody from my neighborhood would’ve punched them in the mouth for that shit, but I know the game. Don’t forget, I went to school with folks like this for awhile. We played on the football team together, and they didn’t want me playing any “Public Enemy jungle music” in the locker room. But now that Brooklyn is the hip spot, here they fuckin come, embracing a neighborhood that they ridiculed as a ghetto pre-2000 and now they pass judgment on anybody that doesn’t live there in 2009.

“We live near where they filmed the Cosby Show!”

I know that already, cunt mouth.  I answered their question about “doo-rags”. Then -like I did in the seventh grade when the little Paris Hilton looking bitch would start touching my flat top- I asked them, ‘How do you make your hair lie down straight like that without a hot comb?’ They didn’t know how to react, and neither did my ex, who then left with me and chewed me out in the car for being “inappropriate”. We broke up shortly after, but I really can’t blame her for not understanding. This isn’t much of a problem in Japan. Willful ignorance is truly American. Park Slope/Carroll Gardens is worth about 10 minutes of my time unless I‘m getting paid or laid somehow. Next stop…

• STOP #4: HIP HOP EVENT IN THE WEST VILLAGE

This is a short stay, despite the fact that it took 37 minutes of block circling to find a damn parking space. Parking woes eliminate the Village as an option for me 95% of the time. Actually, I meant to go to APT (a lounge on the west side) because they have some real dope parties there sometimes, but parking over there is next to impossible. Anyway, I’m at this hip-hop showcase instead, because what? THERE’S NOTHING ELSE TO DO!! As soon as I let it be known that I’m no longer actively hustling my way through the music industry septic tank, conversation ends right there.  Again, the fact that I’m not getting completely hammered anymore leaves nothing else for me to talk about. I’d rather hear you talk about what brand of dental floss you use -most of these halitosis ass freestyle cypher ass rappers could use some floss- than who you have as a guest on your new mixtape. Most of these events are an indoor version of the front of Virgin Megastore in it’s street CD hustler’s haven heyday.  And no, I don’t have free beats for your “mixtape” (like the fact that it’s not an official album makes it OK to ask for free beats). 12 minutes, tops.

• STOP #5: “GROWN & SEXY” EVENT, UPTOWN

Mid-90’s Bad Boy era hip-hop and R&B blasting inside, plenty of fine chicks with fat asses lined up outside. Should be a decent night, right? No. First, the dickhead bouncer, who is a dead giveaway for Kay Slay, starts to beef…

“No sneakers and no Tims, bruh. White on white Air Force Ones or shoes only.”

What?! Negro please. For a $30 door cover, I wear what the fuck I want. Like a pair of white on white AF1’s are a surefire sign that I won’t go in there and start grabbing asses and throwing bottles. I had a pair of shoes in the car, so I got them and came back to bite the bullet on that bullshit door charge like an idiot, because what? THERE’S NOTHING ELSE TO DO!! It was my homie’s 30th b-day, so that’s a dollar for each year, I look at it that way. Of course 70% of the women in there are straight out of a Diddy video, but if you ain’t buying drinks and looking hustler fresh, you’ll be with your hand tonight.  After some hipster broad commented on how my afro is “so cool” earlier, I’m told by a cute Nia Long looking chick in here that I need a haircut, “badly”. I explain to her that I got sick of spending $20 every two weeks for a ceaser and brushing my hair for 4 hours everyday to attain 360 waves because I’ve got better shit to do. Then, the jokes on my Ralph Lauren Chaps shirt start.  So I shop at Marshall’s, kiss my ass. There’s plenty of people in here with some real Polo on, but they have no health insurance. Gotta love “Grown N Sexy” living, it reeks of maturity.  After about 30 minutes of evil return stares from chicks I made eye contact with that know I have no money and think I look bummy,  I’m again ready to leave. Everybody is checking their iphones every three minutes, like they just got a stock tip from Mortimer and Randolph themselves, and I’ve had enough. It’s now 3AM, and I’ve spent the last 6 hours fighting to find parking spots, fighting through Houston Street traffic and fighting to stay interested and make conversation in different scenes of NYC. I’ve also dinged up my axle on Atlantic Ave. on the way home and put 67.2 useless miles on my ride (which is the place I spent most of my time in just getting to these God damn functions). I even drove by the local strip club the dude from my neighborhood told me about earlier. Of course, a brawl broke out and it got shut down early. Now that’s class!

There you have it. That’s for all of my fellow New Yorkers that fit in everywhere, but don’t fit in anywhere. For a city that prides itself on diversity and variety, NYC is the most cliquish, deceptively segregated and lonely city in America.  I’ve actually come to utilize nights like this for laughter purposes, and although every part of NYC has some alright people there, every “scene” itself is pathetic. I’ve gotten a few cheap and trampy one night stands out of this “field study”, but I wish I had stayed home 90% of the time. This is why nowadays you can find me hangin with the elderly folks in my neighborhood. Hearing their secrets to a successful marriage are pimpishly hilarious -”young brother, you gots to lay that pipe to the broad, no matter how bad the arthritis is kickin in!”-  and their opinions hold more weight than some NYC transient (who has never been north of Union Square, East of Bushwick or South of Prospect Park) telling me that racism doesn’t exist here because we’re a Blue state. Or some Sex & The City ass broad claiming “Bed-Stuy Brooklyn” all loud and doesn’t know where Boys & Girls High School is. My new spot is the Jamaica Central Library, there’s no cover charge for that place. Not to mention, if you stay late you can meet some bookworm women. They begin to appeal to you immensely after years of pointless mingling in NYC. Books > mingling.

J-Zone still owns and operates a cassette walkman. He also tried to have a tape player installed in his car, but he was laughed out of the dealership (seriously).

While sweatin to the oldies at Planet Fitness (a notoriously bootleg gym chain) not too long ago, some ragtag living room couch of a broad who was on the treadmill (and deservedly so) busted out laughing as I walked past her. I assumed I knew why, but sometimes I like to think that there’s really nothing wrong with using a cassette walkman in 2009. I guess there is, because the bitch shouts “you just get outta prison or something?!” I didn’t know what she meant at first, but when I got home later that night it hit me. If you went to jail in 1993 and just came home, you might not know that the Discman came and went and the ipod has made its way to the top as the standard portable medium of playing music. Look, I got off dial up internet in 2006, got a cel phone that was more than $14 in 2009 and have a vicious enemy in the form of mass text messages. I’ve always instinctively resisted every single technological advancement upon its introduction to popular culture, but eventually I’m backed into a corner and forced to get with the times. But the jury is in, and I don’t think I can ever make the switch to the ipod. For one, the look of it. When I think of ipods, I think of broads doing low-impact cardio on the elliptical machine at the gym, and that blood pressure taker looking Inspector Gadget arm sleeve holder that it sits in. They’re slim, frail and dainty. You can’t listen to Mob Style or Pretty Tone Capone on an ipod, it just doesn’t make sense, that‘s an oxymoron. I also can’t ride with the prospect of buying albums digitally and not getting any liner notes. Album art and liner notes/credits are just as a much part of the consumption of music as the music itself, and I just can’t get used to getting an album and being sent an 800×800 jpeg of the cover art. There’s nothing like buying a great album, then reading the liner notes and seeing Masta Ace playfully diss Mr. Cee for giving Big Daddy Kane the beat that was supposed to be his. Or seeing who produced track #5. Or looking at never seen before photos. Or reading Red Hot Lover Tone dissing all the people he’s supposed to be giving shout outs to. Or reading the credits for Public Enemy’s Fear Of A Black Planet and discovering new artists you’ve never heard of by the categories they were placed in for the acknowledgements. Or seeing shout outs to people who weren’t famous, but friends of the artist. These dudes had names like Big Ray Roll, Big Dog and Psycho Pimp, and you wonder where they are today. How about reading Kool Keith’s opinions on who the best producers in rap were at the time (of course he listed himself as #1). I got a shoutout out in one of the Eastern Conference Records’ albums back in the day, with "you should have signed with us" after my name in parenthesis, prompting folks to e-mail me to see if it was a snub, and if it was, would I come out and dis them on record. Imagine buying De La Soul Is Dead on iTunes…how can you enjoy the whole thing without seeing the cartoon artwork? I recently bought a CD re-issue of Kool & The Gang’s Live At PJ’s just for the bonus liner notes, because I already have the album. As fans, these are things we used to look forward to reading when listening to the music, but as for people coming up now, I guess you can’t miss what you’ve never been exposed to.

Does anybody remember this?…The closest thing we had to iTunes back then was the short-lived custom tape maker at Sam Goody record chain (if you actually remember that, you’re an OG). There would be a book of selected songs from current and popular artists, and you could order whichever songs you wanted and make a custom tape. I think the songs were $1.99 each. I’d bullshit around the Galleria Mall in White Plains for an hour while they prepared it, and come back to Sam Goody and my tape was ready. The first time I did it, I got Freshco & Miz’ "We Don’t Play" and Uptown’s "Dope On Plastic" and "It’s My Turn" on a custom tape, but only because those songs were never released on an album. Needless to say, the Sam Goody Custom tape machine only lived one year (1990) before it was given the axe, partly because most albums back then were decent enough all the way through to warrant the $10 price tag.

Speaking of which, the number of shitty albums released on tape was far less than the number of shitty albums available on itunes, especially with rap. People bitch and moan about having to fast forward through the tapes, but when tapes were in their prime, most albums didn’t have much in the way of fast forward material. Albums were -and sometimes still are- about peaks and valleys, you’d want to hear every nook and cranny of what an artist was doing. Besides, shit like "LOL Smiley Face" never came out on tape.

Tapes also hold a high level of significance in the landscape of hip-hop history, and that’s beyond capturing defunct radio shows and park jams. Cassettes took over as the primary medium for bonus cuts, like the “12 b-side did for vinyl. Albums like Stetsasonic’s Blood, Sweat & No Tears , Nas’ It Was Written , Digital Underground’s Sex Packets and Lord Finesse’s Return Of The Funky Man were all creatively marketed with tape only bonus cuts, which gave you an incentive to hunt down the album in each format. There were even albums that only came out on cassette (the elusive Baritone Tip Love Livin Foul album from ‘91 and numerous regional gangsta rap albums) or cassette with a limited dose of wax, but no CD (half of the Warlock/ Idlers Records catalog or AZ’s Streetwise and my debut album, Music For Tu Madre , before the reissues). If nothing else, I miss buying tapes and seeing the order forms for merchandise from the group and record label inside of the fold out liner notes. The cassette inserts of the Luke Records (2 Live Crew, Poison Clan, etc.) albums were always my favorite…

Luke was a visionary for racial harmony, as he’s got the junior high school cafeteria manager-looking middle aged brother standing side by side with the young trampy-looking white chick. These are epiphanies that you just can’t unleash in the milquetoast world of iTunes. Needless to say, I ordered a We Want Some Pussy t-shirt before I lost my virginity, but I don’t think the kid growing up in the world of iTunes can experience the same rite of passage and that’s a God damn shame. Raekwon had a purple tape, myself and Masta Ace had gold tapes, Illegal had a red tape, but I’ve never seen an MP3 with a color.

I’ll play Devil’s Advocate for the digital world when I speak from the view of the artist. Who really buys music in physical media form in 2009? A small number of folks, but pressing up music in any physical form is risky. There are enough copies of a few of my releases in my basement and in my distributor’s warehouse to re-open a Crazy Eddie chain. But then again, my first two albums are near impossible to find, and I get requests to re-press them. I put them on iTunes because it’s risk free and saves me the hassle of getting stuck with CD overstock, but sometimes I wish it wasn’t that way. It makes me seem like a hypocrite because I’m plugging these releases on iTunes, but I don’t even have an account there. It’s a catch 22 between things financially making sense and catering to the few fans like myself that still appreciate tapes, CD’s and LP’s as part of the full music buying experience. That said, for all looking for my first two albums, my Experienced EP or my Chief Chinchilla (Live @ The Liqua Sto ) album, if I ever re-issue them in physical form it will be on tape only. Call it the era I grew up in, call it stubbornness, but cassettes will always reign supreme in my book.

And don’t even talk about DVDs vs. VHS tapes. I didn’t see O-Dog passing around a DVD of the liquor store robbery in Menace II Society. Dig where I’m coming from? If that isn’t enough to convince you, here are some photos of my collection that explain why I refuse to switch…

Random Tapes: Some of my favorite flicks old and new, a bunch of obscure TV shows I taped on VHS over the years (Harry-O, McCloud, Surfside 6, Banacek, What’s Happening Now!!, Head Of The Class, 227, Amen, The Whiteshadow, etc.), the NYC Public HS B-Ball Championship Game (2001) and a bunch of other random shit.

Music Videos: Yo! MTV Raps Spring 1990 tape (gotta preserve that one), Sleeping Bag/ Fresh Records video comp, UBC "UB Style" video (EMI promo), Hendrix @ Berkeley

Radio show tape box: Stretch & Bobbito, Sunset & Mayhem (WNYU-FM), Martin Moor, Doo-Wop Mixtapes, Across 110th St. (Columbia University funk show back in the day), Do Or Die "Po Pimp" cassingle (Chi-Town love on that one).

More bugged movies, Ice-T’s OG Home Video (he did videos for the whole fuckin album, that’s hard), PE Fight The Power Tour Video.

Left: Kool & The Gang- Music Is The Message 8-track tape (it’s only right!) Right: Me and my pops jammin on drums and organ in the basement when I was 6 years old. Oldest tape I got and the first music I ever made…in the first grade! (no, I’m not digitizing that one).

Jeah. Sorry about the Flash, my camera was $120. If you need a title of a joint, let me know.

13 years of doing my own number series. Shits is hard. What do you think is on ohhh…Tape #14?

Like everything else that was popular 20-25 years ago, I’m thinking that there will also be a small resurgence in tapes at some point. They may wanna Do The Right Thing it all the way out and go get a ghetto blaster to be super-retro, but maybe tapes are too much of a hassle and somebody will make a an ipod that sits inside of a ghetto blaster frame, who knows.  Just like I’m sure some fools will have the audacity to bring back Africa medallions, just to let them pass as a fad again after 6 months. But only real OG’s never stopped rolling with tapes and never will. I always tell people, hip-hop is a generational thing. You’ll always relate to the era you came up in above all, and some habits die hard. So until Disco Rick & The Dogs’ entire catalog is uploaded to itunes in the year 2047, I’ll keep being mistaken for an ex-convict.

Stay tuned for a future tape related entry that will include video footage of the collection…yeah, I’m getting hi-tech now.

Father Dom debut tape…NOT ON iTUNES!

I got auto-reverse on this bitch too…

When I signed up for Twitter on August 10th, I felt like I boned a distant cousin.  I was skeptical from the jump. The other day, I got an e-mail from a homie I hadn’t spoken to in awhile. I open the e-mail and what do I see? No “what’s good?”, no “how’s life?”, no “how’s your grandmother?”…just “I’m on Twitter, follow me son”. I hop on and I see…

“RT- I’m eating a taco for lunch, OMG, LMAO, ROTFL, SMH”.

Are you serious? I sincerely hope that after you tweet that, you finish that taco and get some rare incurable form of food poisoning.  If you’re “tweeting” to “promote” or do “business”, you’d better throw in a few hundred meaningless “tweets” a day to stay on top of the feed or you won’t even be seen. I hate the fact that I was cornered into Twitter for the sake of "promotion", but it seemed like I had no choice. I felt like I was marched into an emo-rock show to run the merch table at gun point.  I could barely upload a profile pic, post anything, follow anybody…it would freeze/ time out EVERY SINGLE TIME. So in an angry fit of rage on a seasonable fall day in Queens, I’m ready to smash my account. The same way Sal smashed Radio Raheem’s boom box on a hot summer day in Brooklyn. I mean, my account is still active, but I barely bother. I’ve given up on that garbage outside of the random alert post whenever an article goes up on here. Figuratively,  I’ve already smashed the notion that I could hop onto the Tweetmobile. That aside, here are some of the more reasons -both ignorant and sensible- why I don’t like Twitter…

• THE NAME

It just sounds bad. Twitter sounds more like a verb describing what you to do to your balls with a remote in the other hand while you’re watching Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball than yet another social networking site. Not to mention, an individual post is called…a “tweet”?  Ummm, yeah. Thus, my user name is jzonedonttweet. Why? Because grown men don’t…“tweet”…we post shit we think you should know…or at least that’s what we should be doing.

• THE LOGO

Seems shallow but…that fuckin little bird. I hate him. I wanna put him on the Foreman grill and douse him with some of Masta Ace’s Hennessy based BBQ sauce -ask around, Ace is the Black Dom Deloise. The little “Tweet” Tweety bird gets on my nerves every time I see him. He symbolizes the meaningless chirping and clucking that people do on there. Make that little bitch ass bird into a baby mink stole or something.

• THE FURTHER DETERIORATION OF HUMAN INTERACTION, INTELLIGENCE AND SOCIAL SKILL

The purpose of Twitter is to keep your thoughts short and sweet. Thus, you get 140 characters to say what is 9 times out of 10 something arbitrary. We also get a whole bunch of “LOL”, “LMFAO”, “OMG”, “SMH”, “ROTFL”,  etc. just to fit this odorless brain fart into the allotted 140 spaces. I’m just wondering how long it will be before people actually start talking in acronyms like that. You know, like they’ll actually say  "ROTFL,SMH,OMG,LMFAO!" with a straight face instead of actually rollin on the floor laughin their fuckin ass off and shakin their head, like ‘Oh My God’! I got news folks, the day has already come. My homie told me about a young lady that did this to him out on the night scene once, and I thought he was fibbing. No. I stopped by an event recently to say what’s up to somebody, and low and behold I see a cute 20 something year old broad worth a 10 minute collision. I wasn’t expecting much intellect from the tramp when she was telling me a story, but when she said “It was hilarious, I was ROTFL” and didn’t show a dust mite of laughter on her face, it caused my halfway stiff hard-on to rescind it’s letter of intent. Sounds drastic right? Wrong. Even for a one night thrill, a broad like that ain’t worth the rubber. Yes, I’ve gotten that shallow and impatient in my old age. I guarantee you that dumb bitch is on Twitter all day.

Watching Kelly Bundy be an airhead bimbo on Married With Children 20 years ago, who could’ve foreshadowed that people would fall right into that IQ range with the advent of the internet, a place that has the potential to do just the opposite with the wealth of information that‘s out there. If I wanna smash a robot, I’ve got Rosie from the Jetsons on speed dial. Internet language is catapulting people to Lenny from Of Mice & Men levels of dumbness, and its atrocious. GTFOHWTB,YC…That means get the fuck outta here with that bullshit, you’re corny.

• HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

The predecessor to Twitter (besides Facebook) was myspace. Yeah, in 2004 it was all the craze. But I had a website then, and didn’t see the point. Shit, I thought myspace was a dating site at first to be honest, so when dudes at shows would say “I added you on myspace”, I would back up 50 feet in 0.5 seconds.  I even dissed it on a song, and swore I wouldn’t cave in. I eventually found out it was an all-in-one promotional tool, and there were 4 fake J-Zone pages up there, some of which still exist. (Note: Why somebody would want to impersonate bum ass me has me befuddled, be Pharrell or somebody big time that women dig so you can entertain an unsuspecting college bitch). Anyway, I caved in, and myspace wound up being very useful, especially since my website wasn‘t user friendly and was a pain in the ass to update. But of course over time, people turned myspace into a SPAM-infested “look at me” congregation, where they would post 25 status updates a day just to stay at the top of the feed or e-mail established artists and ask for free services. (Note: What if I go into McDonald’s and ask for a free Filet-O-Fish “for the love of hip-hop”? Fuckouttahere).  Fools would also respond to a mood update about being in a car accident with “Check out my new album on itunes now!!“ and sit up there and comment on Tila Tequila’s pictures and tell her how beautiful she was. C’mon, like that bitch was really gonna fly to the middle of Kansas to give your modem loving ass some pussy. She had 10,212 comments on each photo, all from grown ass men that would hurl compliments at her like they were en route to getting some ass.  It was a puke-inducing sight. Needless to say, all of the above killed what was once a very useful site for artists and entertainers.  Like anything else, Twitter replaced it, but we’re in 2009, which means overkill will push it to joke status, and it already has.  It will soon be replaced by Twatter, a cousin of Twitter that only allows 20 characters. Don’t worry, you can still put ROTFL,SMH,OMG,LMFAO! as your status update, there‘s just enough character spaces (damn, but you can’t even add spaces after the commas).

• FINAL THOUGHTS

I’ve learned to accept that promotion is my Achille’s Heel. If it’s really all about overkill and not what you’re actually doing, maybe just doing what you enjoy and letting it be discovered by whoever does is alright.  You won‘t make a fuckin dime that way, but at least you know where you stand and don‘t get frustrated by 30 different people telling you a Twitter account will help you. Sometimes, you to say to yourself, “at what point do I stop trying to out-hustle the out-hustlers and just enjoy what I do, success or fail”?  Trying to convince people that they should look at what you do amongst all the other crap they’re bombarded with takes the fun out of what you do in the first place.  I still can’t figure out how to put a hit counter on this God damn thing,  but it never even crossed my mind until people asked me about “hits”.  I just like to argue and talk a lot of shit because I’m getting older and more evil every day, and if I couldn‘t assail everything that annoys me -and celebrate my unpopular opinions- in word form I might walk into a 7-11 and blow the whole place up for a Klondike Bar. I don’t know what’s worse, being irrelevant or seeing no limits in attempts to stay relevant.  Do I need to link an update to “I just caught this crazy STD fuckin some bitch from The Biggest Loser” for it to be seen?

That said, here I am. I joined  a site that I swore over my dead body I’d never join. Mainly to "promote" these articles and the random beat or DJ gig I do, but does it really matter at this point? Everybody’s on Twitter, everybody is following everybody, who really gives a fuck? Truthfully, I’m considering getting on some 227 shit, where I’m only reachable when you pass by my front stoop and catch me chillin there. If Tweeting all day is what it takes to stay relevant in 2009, then the random music I do and this blog will stay a hobby/occasional source of $$  that friends and whoever stumbles across them can check out. Sounds like a cop out, but fuck it, I’m out of patience and am finished with "promoting" to pay my bills.  I’m outta here, I gotta go find a fuuuuuuuckin job in a recession after being my own boss for 10 years.  Twitter me a job application.

I’m already expecting it. This is 2009. I cannot have an OPINION about somebody that makes more money than me. That would make me a "hater".  Lower tax bracket folks with no clout having “opinions” about those in the stratosphere of superstardom went out of style with men wearing men’s clothes. That said, here’s my two cents on that guy that got sick of going to college.

Stop acting surprised. We’re the ones who created Kanye in all of his Eddie Cain of The 5 Heartbeats temper tantrum glory in the first place, but I’ve always had an unpopular opinion in that people have it backwards. How many times have you heard this statement?

“Kanye West is a jack ass with a big ego who happens to be talented”.

I hear it daily, but my outlook on Kanye is actually the polar opposite. Kanye West is a master puppeteer of the people, a talented genius on the marketing front that may have as much musical talent as the guy rapping in the credit report.com commercial. On second thought, the credit report.com dude wins. This commercial has way more funk than that "Love Lockdown" feces that Kanye made, that’s for damn sure.

We all know Kanye is a classless hemorrhoid, but he’s 3% talent and 97% publicity, so that’s what he’s supposed to be. But before you all get disgusted and pout in disbelief at his latest stunt, realize that every Facebook post, every TMZ article and every MTV report is responsible for him being the brat of a celebrity that he is. WE created that award-show crashing arrogant guy, and he took it to new heights. Look, it’s 2009 people, and its all about publicity. THAT is what generates revenue. All over the internet, people are saying "he went too far this time". Huh? No, he didn’t. If that was anybody else, then yes, that’s disrespectful and going too far. But he’s Kanye being Kanye, that’s what he does, and he does it extremely well. Nothing is "too far" for him, thus when the rumor surfaced that he claimed he was the new King Of Pop after MJ passed, everybody believed it without confirmation. Why? Because he’ll eventually say it, and when he does, people will keep him in the spotlight simply by paying attention to him. He stated "George Bush doesn’t care about Black people" on TV. He’s right, but it was stated conveniently right before his album dropped and he never elaborated on that statement in depth again. The statement was true, and I’m not saying he didn’t mean it, but a good chunk of that was to boost the buzz for Late Registration. It worked like a fuckin charm, you went out and bought that so-so ass album to see what he was about, right? Point blank, with his latest outburst at the MTV VMA’s, he made the show all about him without even performing. Although he apologized, he already accomplished what he set out to do. I didn’t watch the VMA’s, all I know about it is Kanye bumrushing Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. When asked what’s the first thing you’ll remember about this award show in years to come, it will no doubt be Kanye showing his ass. Mission accomplished, that’s the mark of successful promotion in 2009. Do ANYTHING to stay in the news, nothing is sacred. That’s the Twitter-obsessed, facebook checking every 2 minutes, short term memory, ego-maniacal, gossip loving culture that we’ve created ourselves, accept it and stop being surprised. He’s just taking full advantage of it. Kanye has a bright future as a publicist should he ever come in for a crash landing and abandon making those karaoke ass albums. And speaking of which, when he decides that he’ll go the country western route for his next album, you’ll all rush to itunes to support that trash, so stop acting like you’re fed up with his behavior.

A friend of mine said Kanye is soft for bumrushing the acceptance speech an 18 year old girl who he knew wouldn’t check his ass. True, but look at him. Do you expect stand-up manliness from that guy?  Kanye may be a classless hemorrhoid, but he’s no dummy. He’s an incredible walking PR firm, and that in itself is a talent that takes an extraordinary level of effort to perfect, like it or not.

Look, Tila Tequila’s no talent trampy ass took supposedly serious alleged abuse allegations to Twitter with an “It’s On!” statement. Rappers punch each other in the mouth conveniently right before their albums come out. A dull moment can kill your career in 2009, so good and bad publicity are one in the same.  I’m waiting for someone to admit to having a threesome with Susan Boyle and a gibbon right before their movie hits theaters…boost those box office sales. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, as long as people are watching. In fact, I’ll go as far as saying that Kanye is a marketing genius. He’s realized how stupid WE are, and he’s used that public stupidity and frivolity as a springboard for a 24-7/365 media campaign that keeps him in plain sight and us eagerly awaiting his next meltdown. He has no choice, how long are people going to stay interested in that Sweet-N-Low music he makes? I’d rather see another Kanye outburst than another Kanye album. If the media stopped caring and being shocked at his brazen outbursts, he would humble and crumble in a Superhead blowjob orgasm minute. He’s laughing at us all, because he’s at the top of the Google searches on a daily basis, and we put him there. Even I got trapped by penning this article, that makes me guilty too. I honestly don’t think he really has an ego problem at all, I actually think he’s a very sharp dude that stays one step ahead of a star struck, gossip reading, Spot Book literacy level American Public that speaks in acronyms -LMFAO,SMH,ROTFL,FML- because he KNOWS people will eat this shit up every time. He’s on top of the world, and he won’t relinquish that position until people start ignoring him. Our undivided attention is his cardiovascular system.

But I’ll also take an unpopular stance on the other side of the issue. Kanye West is not a musical genius, not even close. Never has been, I always felt he was overrated. When he outsold 50 Cent (after 50 challenged him on first week sales) on their shared release date a few years back, I went into a three week long depression, I cut my cel phone off, lost 4 pounds and everything. I wanted 50 to smash him so badly, I bought 50’s album. In fact, I bought it a few times…on CD, vinyl…I tried to buy it on tape, VHS, reel to reel, Betamax and 8-track too, but the lady at Rock & Soul record store looked at me like I was nuts. At that point, Kanye was David and 50 was Goliath, but look what a few years can do. Kanye has taken over as the man you love to hate, the master puppeteer of shameless PR, but I’ve always felt his music was average at best and bird shit at worst. He dropped a witty verse and a catchy beat (usually for another artist) every now and then, I’ll give him that. But come on, with the buzz he had in 2005, people were acting like he topped Amerikkka’s Most Wanted or Tim Dog’s Penicillin On Wax album or something.

He also helped catapult two of the most vomit-inducing trends to the forefront of pop culture.

1. Bad 1980’s Metro fashion straight out of a Spiegel catalog. Go to Union Square in NYC to take a look at what he’s helped promote, you just might lose your lunch.

2. That disease of Auto-tune in full album form (and live renditions of it like this shitty Gong Show worthy “performance” ) and the whole "I’m above rap because I sing now" shtick.

When he makes an ode to “Golddiggers” that can come within 5,000 feet of this classic song, call me…

Even early on, when I didn’t believe the hype upon his initial rise to stardom, I’d hear this all the time…

“But College Dropout and Late Registration were amazing man, admit it, or you’re just hating.”

Unpopular Opinion: No, they weren’t. They weren’t bad, and they had some good ideas on them, but I never got what all the hype was about. After all of that buzz about him being the next big thing, I gave both albums a full listen and found myself reaching for that MC Hammer gangsta rap comeback CD I kept in my car to get giggles out of people. Gangsta Hammer > Kanye. The beat for "Pumps In A Bump" > the beat for "Through The Wire", have you ever heard "Pumps In A Bump" in a boomin system!? Jeeezuussss!!! Obviously his first two albums were better than the comatose musical territory he would explore in recent years, but I never saw what the fuss was with that guy, call me a "hater" if it makes you feel better. It seemed like it was just timing above anything. In 2004, people were tired of blinged out thuggery and soulless indie rap with amateur drum programming. The yuppie/hipster movement was beginning to migrate towards rap, but the next face of the movement couldn’t be 50 Cent. He was too threatening.  50 was successful with an intriguing life story, but he was still too rough around the edges for the folks in Beverly Hills. Rap didn’t have a harmless guy that you could invite to dinner and not have to hide the silverware, but he’d still have the balls to call out George Bush on TV. In sitcom comparison, 50 Cent was Good Times, but Kanye was The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. Likable to every demographic with a story anybody could relate to. He was the Carlton Banks of rap with a slight edge. He didn’t shoot and kill anybody on record, he had some wit, he wasn’t afraid to be the middle class brother and he helped push sampling back to the forefront of production. He filled the void of non-threatening and sample-based rap that a certain demographic had been longing for since Death Row took over the rap game in 1993, and I won’t take those achievements away from him. He also made few dope beats for other artists, but is he this musical prodigy that he and everybody else chooses to believe he is? No.  He was a change of pace that came about at the right time. That said, Kanye West’s biggest talents are timing and having an uncanny ability to have complete control over a star-obsessed, TMZ addicted world.  Just my opinion, who gives a shit.

That said, stop making a fuss about this guy, leave him alone. As for his public displays of idiocy, you can do either of two things. Accept them as part of his shtick and respect his publicity stunt genius or just ignore him completely. If you do the former, accept all outbursts with a grain of salt, laugh at them and realize a guy with sub-par musical talent is running the music world by saying "I’m the best" enough times that you’re actually starting to believe it. I think its hilarious, all bullshit aside. However, if you do the latter, he’ll suddenly become a humble guy that may just offer to mow the lawns of the first 22 people that buy his next album.

What were y’all doing watching the VMA’s anyway? Award shows blow, read a book instead.

Does anybody remember when rap and rock weren’t friends?

Look, I’m all for progression. And for the record, I like rock music. I’m an avid Hendrix fan, hell I did a Hendrix tribute a few years back my damn self. Rock records make up a good chunk of the greatest breakbeats ever spun and samples are brief snippets of bands in action themselves, but for some reason I could never get into the whole rap/rock  "unplugged" thing. The more I watch the video for Schoolly D’s “No More Rock N Roll”,  the more I see how important and pivotal it is, as it marks the last days of the rock vs. rap era. This is definitely one of my top picks for best music video of all time (sorry Hype Williams, you failed).

SCHOOLLY D: NO MORE ROCK N ROLL VIDEO (here’s the link…sorry, the embedding code was disabled)

HERE IS THE DIRTY VERSION IN MP3 FORM IF YOU NEED SOMETHING TO FOLLOW UP "AMERICAN BOY" IN YOUR NEXT YUPPIE PARTY PLAYLIST.

This video/song symbolizes the waning moments of the 1980’s as I remember them. Everybody is currently on the 80’s retro bandwagon, but nobody seems to realize that there’s nothing 80’s about the current indie rock/hip-hop culture integration. Rick Rubin’s major contributions and Run-DMC/Aerosmith and Public Enemy/Anthrax collaborations aside, rap and rock pretty much hated each other during the 80’s. Rock musicians didn’t respect hip-hop, because it was so young and street, and nobody played an instrument. Even Run-DMC had beef with all of the 80’s R&B bands they opened for at shows, so it gave them a chip on their shoulder that would create the edge that they were loved for (which makes it ironic that they were responsible for the first rock/rap collaboration). In schools with any type of mix in the student body, metal heads and hip-hop kids were jumping each other in the hallways all day. Bon Jovi fans despised boom-boxes, high top fades and gold chains like EPMD fans hated spiked pink hair. Getting along was for the fuckin seagulls. The funny thing is, rap and rock have a lot in common, maybe that’s why the hate was so deep. Rap was influenced by all musical genres, but nobody wanted to respect it, and Rap respected nobody else. It was a beautiful thing, and it gave rap the mean streak that made it so appealing.

In the way of unpopular opinion, I never liked any of the rock/rap group collaborations except for Ice-T’s Body Count (who were hard as hell). The barbaric bravado and senseless disrespect that painted the portrait of the late 80’s culture clash gave that era an edge that’s missing from this MTV2 sanctioned indie-rock-meets-rap let’s join forces for the sake of moving units mumbo jumbo. I can vividly remember fast forwarding through rock band/MC collaborations on every rap album I ever bought, and just about every rock album I bought too. I guess its like saying I like popcorn shrimp and I like oatmeal, but I don‘t want popcorn shrimp in my oatmeal. Same goes with jazz and rap. That US3 stuff from the early 90’s sounded like it was made for museums and department stores that wanted to be cutting edge. I guess they figured playing that stuff as background music in the bathroom while you took an emergency dump was being risque. No thanks, I’ll just listen to Herbie Hancock instead.

Needless to say, I never got into the Judgement Night Soundtrack. I’m a sucker for an amp blowing guitar shredding rock sample over some Hank Shocklee-programmed breakbeats, but they’re still…beats. Then there were the one live instrument line-ups like Stetsasonic (live drummer), Miri Ben-Ali (the hip-hop violinist), Madkap (with the trumpet), all of which were dope. The all live/no sample funk of Ant Banks is amazing (and very underrated) to me.  Shit, even "No More Rock N Roll" is nothing but a three piece live band, with Andy "Funky Drummer" Kravitz wrecking shop at the end. Nonetheless, all of these collaborations still sounded like beats with different edges…but still beats nonetheless. But 9 times out of 10, hearing rappers over full rock and jazz bands in unison just sounded like puke to me unless it was at a Roots show.

When Schoolly came out with this, he represented the last of the macho MC’s that refused to make friends. The dude just didn’t care at all…

“Yo man…Yo, Yo! Fuck Cinderella, fuck Bon Jovi and muthafuck Prince man…this is RAP!!!”

This dude went at Prince, the purple 4 foot 3 king of pointless lawsuits himself! Nobody in 2009 has the cojones to challenge a star of that caliber. Everybody’s too busy getting along and dressing to gender confusion. The “you don’t like us, we don’t like y’all either, fuck y’all, and we‘ll sample your shit too” attitude is what made rap so endearing to begin with. The “No More Rock N Roll” video oozes with entertainment value, as a one-sided Rap over Rock ringside drubbing leaves a band of heavy metal bandits defeated and mistreated. It was a notch on the belt for hip-hop and a slap in the face to anti-rap MTV viewers when the video aired on Yo! MTV Raps. I loved that show, but MTV didn’t play rap in the early 80’s, so what’s with all this peace and unity shit between rock and rap these days? Things will change and progress over 20 years and that’s a given, but it also seems like rap has become such a joke, that everybody who happens to do it doesn’t want to even admit what they make is indeed rap/hip-hop. It’s "Rockhop" or "Rocketry" or "Alternative". Creating something that isn’t a genre mash-up is no longer cool, it has to be labeled as an eclectic hybrid of some sort. All of a sudden, everybody is a damn rock star because people with money just don’t buy rap these days.  At the rate things are “progressing”, emo-rock and rap will soon be best friends while frowning upon songs like "No More Rock N Roll", and that would be a God damn shame. The song represents an attitude and an era where you said "I like rap muthafucka. R-A-P."

The first verse of the song has absolutely nothing to do with Schoolly’s dislike for rock n roll. Nothing at all. However, other songs of his like "We Don’t Rock, We Rap" and "I Don’t Like Rock N Roll" manage to stay on topic (damn, he really didn’t like rock music). Here’s the video for the latter.

However, the second verse of "No More Rock N Roll" sees Schoolly get into the concept a bit…

“You long haired freaks, get back on your bus/ me and Code Money, we’re coming to rush/ Rock & Rollers, we’re taking over/ stand on stage I’ll pimp and stroll ya/ You’re faggots, get outta my face/ I punch ya out, what a disgrace/ My name Schoolly D, on the microphone…”

Schoolly was so hard, he only needed 7 bars to get the point across and he didn’t even have to end his verse on a rhyme. Giving you less…now that’s what I call Reganomics. It doesn’t get more 80’s than that!

MC Ren hilariously -albeit ignorantly- compared rappers who performed alongside live bands to homosexuality on 1992‘s “Kizz My Black Azz”…

“I’m tired of rappers with live instruments on the stage…people don’t go to rap shows so they can see a band, it’s like a man trying to fuck a man”.

Gotta love Ren, when I first heard that line I pulled a muscle laughing. His philosophical rants on rap becoming too open-minded -as hilariously exaggerated as they were- were highly entertaining and reminiscent of an era I loved that’s no more. This was an era when hip-hop was a rogue form of music that hadn’t gained much respect industry-wide, and wasn’t about to make friends with anybody to gain it. The achievements of rappers didn’t mean shit in the worlds of pop, rock and R&B, so rappers showed leaders and stars in those genres zero respect. None. Zilch. Schoolly threw stones at Prince, like "muthafuck him". Period.  "No More Rock N Roll" was the politically incorrect late 80’s refusal to kowtow…at its finest. The Grammy’s fronted on rap for years, thus it was hungry, rebellious and cantankerous, with a Grand Canyon sized chip on it’s shoulder. Those factors made it all the more fun to listen to, plus your mama didn’t like it. Obviously, barriers broke down over time and 10 years later, Limp Bizkit was on top of the world.  It wasn’t my cup of tea, but hey, it got DJ Premier a nice check and DJ Lethal made some dope beats back in the day.

So, with all of my unpopular and sure to be hated opinions stated, I therefore conclude that “No More Rock N Roll” is not only one of the best music videos of all time, but one of the top 20 most important rap songs of all time. If nothing else, it’s solely because you’ll never hear anything this bold, flagrant, closed-minded and edgy ever again. In 2009, everybody wants to compromise with, befriend and snuggle under the covers with political correctness. Schoolly D was a hardcore rap pioneer that truly didn’t give a shit about any of the above, and his type of archaic machismo is unfairly frowned upon in today’s male purse driven society.

THIS IS RAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There’s no crappier thing to see on TV than Chris Brown in a baby blue sweater and bow tie, looking like Papa Smurf getting ready to sell bean pies. If that wasn’t bad enough, he couldn’t face Larry King without his “Mama” and attorney in tow. He beat on a girl with no help, so why call up Moe & Curly like a punk when the pressure and cameras are on his ass? Watching this fiasco conjured up a lot of random thoughts, questions and points in my brain. Like why doesn’t Chris Brown shop at Burlington Coat Factory? He could snag a better outfit than that shit he had on for half the price he probably paid. Here are some of the others…

• SYRUP ON SHIT DOESN’T MAKE IT PANCAKES

It’s obvious that women see something in these clean cut, pretty boy, R&B, second-rate late 90’s made for BET movie role clown ass idiots. 95% of these “educated brother from the bank” lookin, modeling for the front of a razor bump cream container dudes do shit like this all the time any God damn way, but chicks fall for the look and the image hook, line and sinker every time. Ever since cornrows and the “thug look” went out of style, women all of a sudden only want their men “mature, clean cut and gettin their grown folk on”. Even the young girls. Herein lies the problem. Anybody can wear pastel colored sweaters, get some Luster’s Pink Oil Moisturizer and brush some waves into their hair, it’s not hard. Whatever it takes to get some ass, you can count on us as men to do it. I heard an older woman call Chris Brown "a fine young man" before all this shit went down, and it led me to wonder what drew her to that conclusion. Is it because he’s clean cut and makes R&B? That’s all the more reason to suspect his ass if you ask me. You can put hot sauce on bird shit, but it doesn’t make it catfish.

• NEVER TRUST AN R&B SINGER

People listen, and listen good. R&B singers have rappers beat in the triflin department by a country mile. NEVER trust an R&B singer begging for some tail on a song, he’s got issues. There are two things that us as men never, ever, ever, ever, ever REALLY want to do…

1. Dance (unless you’re a professional dancer)
2. Sing sappy and saccharine R&B songs about how much we need you.

No, no, no, no, no. Even if a guy can dance well and beg and plead for a woman’s heart like a chump with songs like this (God I hate that played out snare drum sound) , he’d much rather have her in a funny position with her draws hanging from a ceiling fan. To a certain extent, all men are dogs, fuck it. Arf.  But 90% of the time, a silky smooth R&B singer is far worse than that dude working at the car wash that wanted her number but she told him to hop off a cliff.

True story: The most triflin womanizing dude I ever met was a falsetto singin devout Christian with an S-Curl flattop, a mama’s boy that had the “smooth and mature” Shawn on The Wayans Brothers shit pown pat. Grown ass career women would pay this guy’s car note, because he was as smooth as a medicine cabinet full of Soul Train Scrambleboard products. One day, 3 of his broads showed up at the studio at the same time, cold busted him. Man, he went ape shit like some pimp from a Donald Goines book, it was hilarious. I heard more "bitch" and "ho" come out of his mouth in 15 minutes than me, Too $hort and Suga Free have combined to utter over the course of the 42 albums between us. R&B dudes are straight goons playing the smooth role 90% of the time, period!

That’s why I respect 50 Cent, because at least his songs for the ladies explicitly say ‘Your head game is spectacular, and when I’m done I’m gonna bang your cousin too.’ All this Rico Suave wanna-be Babyface shit gotta go, it makes me feel like I’m watching one of those made-for-BET Shamar Moore movies. This is exactly why the only R&B singers I can recall respecting in recent memory were Jodeci and Aaron Hall. They advertised a Cutlass, and what you got was a Cutlass. R. Kelly was real too, but he had a thing for sniffing young girls’ bicycle seats and that didn’t sit too well with me…that‘s a whole other article.

Anyway, LL Cool J made “I Need Love” in 1987, and women ate that shit up like steak & eggs. Look, LL is (in my opinion) one of the top 3 greatest MC’s to ever live, but be real. After he brought the pimp couch on stage, pulled some young broad up there and sang that sappy “When I’m alone in my room sometimes I stare at the walls” shit, he went back stage and bent some tramp over a sink in his dressing room. Get all that Jet Magazine, Sportin Waves pomade Donny Simpson smooth shit outta here. I want to see an R&B singer put out a ballad called “I Wanna Nut All Over Your New Blouse (Call Your Sister Up)”. I want to see a female singer make a song about robbing her cheating boyfriend with a sawed off shot gun instead of being heartbroken. Then, maybe I‘d respect modern R&B more.

• TEXTBOOK REMORSE

In case you don’t know, "I wish that night never happened" translates in Bullshitese as "Please don’t allow this Rihanna beating to fuck up my ring tone downloads". Ol Papa Smurf would’ve done better to disappear for a year, then try to budge a comeback. Entertainers fuck up and get in trouble everyday, but the public has a short memory anyway. Celebrities in the hot seat devise the same exact patch-up operation every time …get “mama” to come along and start crying, join some activist group, do some half ass charity work, lecture kids to not do the same shit they did (and would continue to do if they hadn’t gotten busted) or find Jesus. Fuckouttahere. When Michael Vick got snatched for dog fighting, he went and cooperated with PETA, and that broke my fuckin heart into a million pieces. PETA or no PETA, the dude is a great quarterback and got a second chance REGARDLESS, so don’t blow smoke up my ass by taking a PETA test to cleanse your image. That shit is see-thru, you know damn well Mike doesn’t know or care who the fuck PETA is.  My well documented dislike for PETA aside, I’m tired of entertainers fuckin up, then apologizing half-heartedly or folding like a fuckin beach chair when the pressure is on. Why apologize at all? You did it right? You saw the Rihanna photos, does that look like a freak accident? Can SOMEBODY avoid the textbook route for once and have little to no remorse, like "yeah muthafucka, I got pissed off and did the shit, it was a bad decision but I’ve moved on, your point?"  Nobody had any remorse until they got busted, so you can’t sit up here and tell me Pac-Man Jones, Michael Vick, (Oregon football player) LeGarrette Blount, Chris Brown and any other star that fucked up were all 100% freak accidents. That choreographed public reform cop out shit needs to be banished.  People up here talking about the kids…yeah, whatever, they’re not as stupid as you think. They can see through half assed face-saving attempts orchestrated by lawyers, angry activist groups and publicists. If I’m 15 years old and I see one of my "idols" fuck up royally, only to come on TV with "Mama" (and lawyer) and apologize, find Jesus or do PSA’s about drunk driving then be let off the hook…it’s telling me that money + fame + a blowing little smoke up the ass=immunity in America. Realistically, it does.

• CELEBRITIES GET WAY TOO MUCH SYMPATHY

If your next door neighbor who works at Target got caught up doing hard drugs, beat his girl to a pulp or got sent to the slammer, he’d get no sympathy at all from the world at large. He could’ve pulled a baby out of a burning building at some point in his life, but it wouldn’t make a difference, he’s still scum to the average person. But if you’re a famous entertainer, all of a sudden you become a martyr or a victim of the ills of society. In America, a song people like or a great touchdown pass makes the fact that you fucked up null and void. You’ll get sympathy and support in Facebook statuses worldwide, and an 8XL t-shirt with your picture hot ironed onto it. Case in point, I just heard someone say "Max B, keep your chin up homie" after he got 75 years in prison for a laundry list of charges, including murder, kidnapping and armed robbery. What? Fuckouttahere. I’ll save my sympathy for a 14 year old kid I know who has brain cancer or Jose Luis Olivares -the man who drowned saving his wife and kid at Rockaway Beach this summer- not some celebrity who fucks up 21 times and just happens to crap out on the 22nd. This country is a joke, partly because we put people on a pedistal even moreso after they fuck up, and in reality they’re no better than the dudes that mow our lawns.

• LEAVE "MAMA" and RELIGION OUT OF IT

There’s two things the public have a weakness for…“Mama” and religion. Entertainers all fuck up, then call “Mama” or go bothering Jesus when their image goes splat. Because they know “Mama” by their side is always a tear jerker and everybody is frightened to death about not going to heaven. Let "Mama" go back to watching Oprah and let Jesus go back to helping the needy and watching Barnaby Jones re-runs. When you fuck up, be a man and own up to it by yourself jack ass, or for once, have the balls to say “yeah I did what I did muthafucka, and I’ll do the shit again if you ask me to.”  Everybody makes mistakes, but a good amount of these celebrity mistakes are ongoing and would’ve continued had these fools never been caught, so fuck all that remorse. Not saying to go on TV and brag about these mistakes, but I’m tired of reading the same damn script everytime, like I’m supposed to believe all that crap.