An introduction

About two years ago I set up this blog as a way to just give my thoughts on various topics.  Sometimes it was serious things that bothered me and other times it would just be a funny video or some cool music I wanted to share.   I don't advertise the blog, aside from my facebook/twitter accounts, relying instead of word of mouth and google searches.

One of the main questions I get about the blog, is what's up with the name?   Searching for Chet Baker?   There's very little Chet Baker on the site.

That's true, but there WAS a method to my madness. lol.   When I was going to set this up, I wanted some name that would be catchy I suppose.  Something that might stand out.  A bunch of blogs that I liked had weird or strange names, and so I wanted something that would be fairly short and memorable.

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[Comic Review] Watson + Holmes: Issue 3 (by Paradigm Studios)

When I first reviewed the new comic series "Watson + Holmes" put out by Paradigm Studios, I mentioned that I had a few problems with the series, namely that you had these legendary detectives fighting common street criminals.  I felt it was a waste of the intellect and skills.   After having read a review copy of issue number 3, I'm glad to see my problems with the first two issues have pretty much been done away with, as the storyline has progressed.  Initially I was concerned that an historical character such as Sherlock Holmes was being wasted on street level crime and just general thugs and whatnot.  However it is revealed that the higher up the chain we go, the more vicious and dangerous the people, and that they have a tenuous connection to the good Doctor Watson from his time in Afghanistan.

There's still, however, this sense of Sherlock being what, in my mind, is almost an idiot savant, although that could be my own biases at play there.  He's a clearly brilliant man with incredible deductive reasoning skills.  And yet he has this seeming lack of social skills where he's almost completely void of any sense of pop culture. In the first two issues there's a scene where he throws out a reference to the Harlem dance "Chicken Noodle Soup", and I commented that I felt that it would have been more appropriate to have referenced "The Harlem Shake" if you're going to mention a Harlem centric dance craze, considering how popular it is now, and that the Chicken Noodle Soup hasn't been popular for years.

Likewise, in the newest issue, when the character doesn't know who Nino Brown is and had never seen nor heard of the film New Jack City, I almost wanted to call bullshit and scream "how DARE you sir?"  Then I have to calm down and tell myself that not everyone is a movie freak like I am.  I do tend to be like Keegan-Michael Key's character on Key & Peele where he finds out his friend hasn't seen Roots, and he starts spazzing out and falls on the floor in mock exasperation.



I was very interested, and remain interested in Dr. Watson's backstory of his time in Afghanistan.  That is very intriguing to me, even more so that Sherlock's.   I've never really read a lot of the Sherlock Holmes stories in the past and only have a general knowledge of them, so I don't know how much of the characters here are similar or different than the literary giants' original story lines.  And right now there's some literary nerd out there (much like my own movie nerd) who's screaming at the computer screen, "how have you not read Sherlock Holmes???"

One thing I just sort of noticed, while reading this review copy, is that this is a very wordy comic.  While I can read an issue of The Walking Dead in 8 minutes (I've timed myself) without even rushing, with this it's a different situation.  There's more words than your average comic.  I almost feel like there's two issues of story in each issue, maximizing your value here.  And considering the books are only 99 cents, that's gotta make this one of the best values in comics today.

The book is not a breezy read.  It's not something you just decide to read because you have five or ten minutes to kill.  I enjoy this book because it's a "grown folks" comic book, for lack of a better phrase.  And I appreciate that.  It's nice to have comics that don't dumb things down or explain everything to you right up front and make you actually wait and be patient.  As anyone who read my previous review can attest, that's not always my strong suit.  As I said in the intro to this, most of my issues that I had a problem with have been alleviated, and my other main issue (why put the African American Sherlock Holmes + John Watson in Harlem of all places) could simply be my own kneejerk reaction.  I do tend to be a bit oversensitive to issues dealing with race and stereotypes, whether it's warranted or not.  Not a great thing to admit, I suppose, but it's the truth.

All in all this continues to be shaping up to be a fantastic run of comics, one I am looking forward to seeing through to the end.

If you enjoy the comic series, consider going over to the Kickstarter page for the guys putting this out.  They're seeking to put out a print edition, and there's all sorts of cool perks available.   There's only 4 days remaining and while they have their goal met, they now have introduced some amazing stretch goal perks, including having your own character be a hero or a villain in the book.  How cool is that?

The One With The Christian vs. Gay Double Standard

Ever since NBA player Jason Collins came out yesterday in a Sports Illustrated column, declaring that he was a gay man, there has been mostly positive responses from those in the sports world, with a few glaring exceptions.  Most of the criticism is coming from the ones you'd most expect it to come from, but there's also a lot of criticism on social media, where people are able to hide behind their anonymity.

In a strangely related story, the New York Jets finally released Tim Tebow after having misused him for the past year, and pretty much destroying his brand by the way they have handled the situation. There are conspiracy theorists out there who are ridiculously claiming that Tebow's faith is the reason he was kicked out of New York.  Not because he had problems throwing the ball, not because the team just drafted Geno Smith, bringing the total QB's on the roster to 6.  No, the reason he was released was because he was an avowed Christian.  Whatever.

Doing a quick google search, these are the following athletes that are avowed Christians, and yet were not discriminated against because of it, and had or are having very successful careers.

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The One With The Gay NBA Player

Today was an historical day as Jason Collins, active NBA player came out in an interview as gay, finally becoming the first active athlete from a major sport (Baseball/Basketball/Football/Hockey) to admit their LGBT status.  In the past we've had numerous athletes come out after their careers are done, however none have done so while still playing.

In the last week though Alan Gendreau, an openly gay college kicker has started trying out for teams after he was not selected in the NFL Draft this past weekend.  If he were to make an NFL team (and by all indications he's a very good kicker) then he would become the first active NFL player to be openly gay.

As big as this announcement is, for Collins to come out while he's still playing, I can't help but think that it won't be as big of a needle mover as some might be thinking.  For one thing, Collins is not a very good player.  He's an end of the bench guy on most teams, and his averages are abysmally low.   While Ben Shapiro is a giant asshole, and his point he was making is flawed and bigoted, he pointed out this very thing in his twitter comment about Collin's production, pointing out his 1.1 PPG, 1.6 RPG, and 0.3 BPG stats.

Now while I don't believe his on court production is tied into his sexuality, I DO think that if it was a major athlete that was doing it it would have much much more impact.   As it stands, people can dismiss it and say "oh well, he's a bench player" and draw false correlations between the two.  There's already people who believe that being gay is equal to being weak or soft.  Which is one of the reasons why it would be so difficult for a hip hop star to reveal his homosexuality, because the entire genre is so heavily wrapped up in masculinity and machismo.

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How NOT to do a Kickstarter Project

A few disclosures before I begin this post. The purpose of this post is not to "shame" anyone.  It's not to point at someone and laugh or anything like that. Anyone that knows me knows that's not my thing.  Instead this is something that has lingered on my mind for awhile because it's something that did not have to happen.

Also I obscured any identifying marks on the image, because this is not a mocking situation, as I said.  It's a situation born out of me trying to help someone out, and they wouldn't take that help, and in the end they were not able to make the project as good as it could have been.

Not that I'm some genius or I represent the missing ingredient, more to the point that I've helped fund many kickstarters, I've seen a lot of people do kickstarters, and I therefore I know what works and what doesn't.  I've seen kickstarters succeed due to brilliant marketing and having a perfect plan, and I've seen some fail miserably due to poor planning, poor execution, and a presentation that was anything but concise.

So this is simply me presenting this situation and pointing out that when you are setting up a Kickstarter, you are asking people to put their faith in your abilities to come through in exchange for them giving you their money.

So now that that's out of the way, let me explain the situation.  A month or so ago I found a Kickstarter project with an up and coming rapper who was trying to raise money for studio equipment so that he could record his mixtape with professional sounding equipment.   That makes a lot of sense, and I've seen Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects with that very thing succeed.

The problems with this one are severalfold.

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The One With The Orange Packers Identity

So here in Spokane I live near a food bank that serves the low income people of the community, and they are blessed to receive food from a variety of sources, whether it's donations, or a larger centralized food bank that distributes various foods (canned goods, boxes of fruits and vegetables, etc) to the smaller food banks throughout the city.

The local food bank got a box of apples in (ironically in a box originally shipping oranges) and I noticed something on the side that I've never seen before.  Look at the pictures here, and you'll see there's a square in the bottom right hand corner that shows the picture of a Latino woman and her name with the phrase "I am packing for you". 

Am I the only one that is kind of surprised by this?  I've never seen that before.  I've seen shirts and underwear that have a little slip of paper in the packaging that says "So and so folded this for you" or "tested this" but never one where the person's face and name were clearly labeled on there.

I can't help but have a problem with this.  I doubt that woman wants her face and name plastered on those boxes and shipped out across the country.  

Maybe that's just me, but it seems odd.

[REVIEW] DJ Drama + ItsTheReal Present: Urbane Outfitters Volume 1

 

 9/10 CHET BAKERS

Sometime around 2008 I first discovered the Rosenthal brothers (Eric & Jeff) aka "ItsTheReal" and their hilarious hip hop sketch comedy.  I would laugh continuously as I would go from video to video of their expert satirizing of hip hop, some so brutally that I was sure I'd read about the target of their mocking having killed them.

There are even rumors of a rapper or two taking issue with their jokes, and looking over their catalog I could definitely see a small handful reaching in and touching the egos of some of their targets.  Some rappers definitely come off as surprisingly sensitive given the macho exterior that they put forward, and it wouldn't shock me to hear of them confronting someone for making jokes.

However the vast majority of artists seemed to take the jokes in stride, even jumping in with them on videos making fun of their image.  That's a brave thing to do, and something that sadly enough people can't.  I think some of the most successful people are those who can stand in there and send up their own images and not take themselves so seriously.

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The One Where Terrorists Ethnicity Matters

Image Courtesy of The Guardian

On April 15th the Boston Marathon was the location of a terrorist attack using home made bombs.   In the immediate aftermath of it, there were questions about who did this, naturally, and then CNN started the ball rolling by claiming that the FBI were looking for a "dark skinned male".

On the 16th, David Sirota from Slate wrote a very good article about how he wished that the bomber(s) would be revealed to be White Americans.    This got a whole heaping of scorn by those on the Republican side of things, and he was mocked and ridiculed, even though he had a very valid point.  When it was revealed that while the bombers where fairly white, they were also Muslims, so that allowed the Republicans and Tea Party people to lash out at Sirota with condescension and mocking to point out that "sorry, Dave! They're Muslims!", despite the fact that they are, as you can see from their pictures, fairly white.  However the fact that their belief in a religion supercedes the color of their skin.  Too bad Republicans don't have the same attitudes towards our President who is an avowed Christian.

What? Too soon?

On a side note, I'd like to point out that I wrote the very same thing the day before, and yet nobody pays attention to me. lol.

But I digress.

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The One Where The Boston Marathon Bombers Were Set Up In a False Flag Operation

So as you can imagine, now that the Boston Marathon bombers have been either shot and killed, or brought in alive, the conspiracy theorists are out in full force proclaiming all sorts of crazy shit.  Whether it's Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity pushing the whole "Obama is deporting the Saudi National who masterminded the whole thing to protect him", or Alex Jones and his ilk screaming "False Flag", you have your usual assortment of nutjobs mucking up the gene pool.

Today the aunt of the two bombers went before the cameras and started screaming about how her nephews were set up, and the FBI knew about them for four years, and how her sweet angelic family members would NEVER do what they did.

I'm not buying it.

However I would like to, for one moment, point out something I thought of as soon as I read what she said.  The idea of them being set up for the bombings, while making incredible drama and whatnot, may be bullshit, but it DID remind me of this little seen ABC thriller from about six years ago (damn was it that long?) called "Traveler".

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The One Where Keeping It Real Goes Wrong

There's something I have noticed over the years as it relates to those who try to break out of their niche audience to reach a broader appeal.  The ones who make it and succeed are the ones who realize that you have to adapt and change up your style.  Not necessarily change who you are, but you have to make little changes to how you are perceived and how you interact with others when in that new lane.

Allow me to explain.

Rapper 50 Cent came up with this image of the hard core thug drug dealer turned rapper who was displaying the realness and rawness of the street life that he experienced.   As his success increased, he decided that he was going to branch out from just rap music.  He began to do some movies, invested in Vitamin Water, and has also created a line of headphones.  He has also made a ton of money in the process.

Rapper Jay Z also came from a Hard Knock Life, forgive the pun, to have a succesful rap career after years of selling drugs.  He also has evolved from simply rapping to running his own label, having a club and owning a tiny portion of an NBA franchise (while helping that franchise move to Brooklyn), before selling that piece so he could become a sports agent and represent NBA players.  Need I point out how much money this man has accumulated in his time in the business?

There are others who have done this as well, come from hard times, have this image of the tough street hardened guy who will take no shit and will not suffer any fools who would step to them.   However they also were smart enough to understand that when you are in the streets, or you're in a rap battle, or you're doing something that is affiliated with hip hop, there is a different mode of behavior and way you conduct yourself than when you are stepping out of that niche and into a more mainstream setting. 

You don't react the same with the Fortune 500 crowd as you would an up and coming rapper who thinks he's going to take your spot.  You just don't do it.  There's a difference in the image that you convey, as well, when you are growing older and you are preparing yourself for the life after rap.  It's a whole new world.

Nicki Minaj has not figured this out, which is why she continues to act the exact same in her pop (I refuse to call her hip hop) world, that she does in the more mainstream and much larger audience on American Idol.  She has been presented with a perfect opportunity to broaden her audience and attract a whole new crowd of people who perhaps would never have heard of her before.  While she's not my cup of tea, she does have a lot of fans out there. 

However she seems like she's destined to forever be locked in that holding pattern.  She'll never be able to expand her empire beyond what it is now the way she is acting on the show.  You can call it "Selling out" or "forsaking her identity" or whatever you want.  And her fans can talk about how she's just "keeping it real" until their blue in the face, but the bottom line is that when she gets a golden opportunity such as being a judge on a massively popular show such as American Idol, and the chance to introduce herself to a whole new audience and potential fans to buy her albums and come see her on tour, and the entire time she's on there all the reactions to her are negatively portraying her in her ridiculous and at times petty disagreements with Mariah Carey, she's doing something wrong.

This hit home in the last few days when it came out that Minaj childishly dismissed Mariah Carey's critique of one of the artists (And Minaj's criticism of the artist) with a "Simmer down sir".  This apparently caused a reaction from the crowd which was shocked that she had said that.  At the end of the day, it's not that big a deal in and of itself.  It's another instance of Minaj's pettiness and her striving for this thing of her always being in the news.

She's not realizing the great opportunity she's got, and she's not understanding that you don't get out on the big mainstream stage, with a chance to attract a whole new set of fans to go with your older ones, by behaving the exact same way.   You're not attracting new people then, you're preaching to the choir.   And you're turning off a whole new set of people that potentially could have been fans.

I don't watch the show (I saw the 2nd season and that was it), but I've talked to three people who watch the show religiously over the years and every single person A. asked me "who the hell is that loud mouthed girl?" and B. can't stand her.  A few of them have said that if she's back next year they won't watch it.   I have to imagine they aren't the only ones who feel that way.

Now I realize that Nicki is an acquired taste.  She's definitely not for everyone, and her style is ...something else.  I get that.   And if all she wants to do is have her limited success that she's got right now where she sells a few million records, gets a Grammy or two perhaps, and gets some reality TV work, then hey, have at it.  Continue to be ....for lack of a better word, Nicki. 

However if you want to expand your empire, and grow and branch out into the corporate world, perhaps you should take a page from the book of 50 and Jay.  Learn there's an attitude and personality that you can exhibit in your music world, that is not how you react outside.    Can you imagine 50 Cent getting a deal where he's an American Idol judge, and going out there cursing, insulting other judges, and just playing that role that he's done in hip hop?

Howard Stern, is one of the few people who is able to basically just be him no matter where he goes, however even he knows that he has to dial it back when hosting America's Got Talent.  He's not going to be going out there cursing and inviting these girls who come up to sing to take their tops off.  He knows how to act, while still being him.

50 and Jay know how to act when in different environments.  Nicki, it appears, does not know how to do that, and sees no problem with spazzing out on live TV at someone who has accomplished an incredible amount more in the music industry than she.   I'm reminded of that time that Bow Wow went and started talking trash about Will Smith, and damn near everyone pushed back and let him know he wasn't anywhere near where he could throw rocks at the throne like that, ESPECIALLY someone who paved the way for someone like Bow Wow to go from music to TV and Movies.

Nicki doesn't have to like Mariah Carey, but she should have respect for what she has accomplished in this game, and Nicki should also know enough to realize that she's got a golden opportunity here to really create a lane for herself.

She just has to be smart enough to take it, and not just be fine with the spot she's in now.

The One Where The Boston Marathon Bombings Expose Our Bigotry

Image courtesy of WTAE

Moments like this always expose two things.  Our kindness and our bigotry.  Sad but true.  In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and for weeks and months after, you saw people in New York, a city not known for their kind and gentle nature, were helping their fellow man.  They had been knocked down, and they were helping each other get back up.  You saw New Yorkers rushing TOWARDS the towers to help those in need.  You saw them helping digging bodies out of the rubble, putting their own heath and safety at risk to help their fellow man.

And then you had the flip side of the coin where in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 you saw hate crimes against Muslim-Americans (And anyone looking like Muslims) skyrocket.  You had people suspected of being Muslim being beaten in the streets.  You heard these chicken hawk politicians and talk radio hosts openly talking about bombing *insert foreign country here* off the face of the earth.

You saw people painting an entire religion with a broad brush, based on the actions of 19 individuals.  You had people maligning an entire race of people, because others who looked like them did something horrific to us.   Yet when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building, we didn't go around seeking out white people to beat up.  We didn't lambast all white Christian people as terrorists.  Christians didn't have to worry about hiding their faith out of fear that they would be beaten, or worse.

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The One Where The Media Twist Facts To Attack Jay Z And President Obama

The Media has been raked over the coals over the years for a variety of reasons.  Essentially becoming stenographers of the White House and/or people in power, not asking any hard questions, and also for spinning events into a narrative that works for them, rather than one that illustrates the truth of what is going on.

This has never been more evidence than in the recent Jay Z & Beyonce go to Cuba Nontroversy.

Jay Z and his wife Beyonce went to Cuba after having gotten a permit from the US Treasury, who handles that sort of thing.  They say it was for some cultural outreach thing, but come on...come on.  No big deal though, except a couple Republican congressmen were all up in arms and realized this is a great chance to attack the President.  I mean Jay and Bey are supporters, they raised money for them, and hey, they're black too, right?  Three birds, one stone.  (well four birds, if you count that socialist First Lady who wants to get kids in shame and educated right).

Well Jay was having none of that and decided to write a little song called "Open Letter" which was produced by Swizz Beats and Timbaland.

In the song, Jay Z said.... well, here let me show you what the White House Reporter who actually, and I shit you not, read these lyrics to Jay Carney, the WH Spokesperson said, and how it was framed:

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The One Where Digital Piracy is Going to Kill Comic Books! Or Not.

The questions regarding the impact that piracy has on various industries has been one that has been broken down and analyzed a lot.  There are many who say that piracy has contributed majorly to the spiraling descent that the music industry has gone through over the past decade or so, and there are others who point out that not only is the logic used in those arguments flawed, but that there are many instances in which piracy has actually HELPED the artists that know how to use it to their advantage, as surprising as that may seem.

When Radiohead released their new album on Oct. 3, 2000, it debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, an album with heavy electronic, ambient, and experimental jazz influence, nothing like any album that had ever been #1. And all this was done without music videos, interviews, radio play, or touring (the main sources of publicity for most big artists).  

The publicity it gained before its release was through free online downloads, particularly Napster.  The record company decided to give out the entire album online to radio stations and selected sites, and as a result, 3 months before the release date, all of Kid A was available for free for all to download on Napster, where massive amounts people downloaded the album for free.  

This is why the RIAA worked so hard to shut down Napster, because if people have already downloaded an album, who would want to buy it? But despite the heavy downloading, the album still sold 210,000 copies in its first week, which suggests that downloading created enough publicity, and gave people a chance to become accustomed to a type of music they had never before heard, to make the album hugely successful, more then anyone could have possibly imagined.  

For Radiohead, mass downloading took the place of mass radio play, and made it a prime example of how free music actually increases sales.

Will you look at that?  When you are able to utilize the internet and adapt to the technological advances that your customer base uses, then there can be benefits!  

And recently the director of HBO's massive hit Game of Thrones (a series I just can't get into no matter how hard I try) came out and said that piracy has not hurt them at all, but actually HELPED them create buzz.  There are actually more people pirating then those watching.  Although we all know the measuring stick for how they rate viewerships is bullshit, so who knows how many people are really watching.

Now clearly that isn't going to be the case all the time.  I wrote about this last year in relation to music piracy, after Cracker frontman David Lowry attempted to shame an NPR intern because she had admitted to downloading music for free, while seeming to implicate her in the suicide deaths of two of his musician friends who had fallen on hard times due to the music industry's problems.

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The One Where Hip Hop Needs To Support One Of It's Own

In the time that I just started getting online regularly, around in the 2003-2005 range, I ended up really latching on to some hip hop forums, and was fortunate to make some good connections and even some people that I consider very good friends to this day.   One of those people who I knew about, and saw around and even talked to a few times on the boards, but never really KNEW, was DJ Smooth Denali.

Now while I don't know him like that, I do know his mixtapes.  Anyone that listens to hip hop mixtapes and don't know Smooth Denali's name, well...all I can say is you need to listen to some better mixtapes.  While he has an extensive catalog of mixtapes, I mostly was familiar with his R&B tapes, as that was more my style during those days.  I still hadn't gotten over the end of the 90's era of hip hop which I still maintain is THE era in hip hop.

I know, I know, I'm a "stuck in the 90's old head".  Guilty as charged.

Having said all that though, man, Smooth has been a staple in hip hop for years.  He's someone who has given his life to hip hop and who has done it for the love of hip hop and for the entertainment of you and me and everyone else who love it too.

That's why if you love hip hop, then you gotta love Smooth Denali, and you gotta step up right now when a staple of hip hop needs that love the most.   The man is going through some rough times right now with this Cancer thing, and as I'm sure most of you know, the health care situation in this country sucks.  He's got insurance but that pays for only so much, you know?  Cancer treatments aren't cheap.

Some info on his situation:

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The One Where This Blog Turns Five

Five years ago today, I created this blog and made my very first entry, which was a video of the late comedian Bill Hicks talking about how life is "Just a ride".  That blog post apparently was almost never seen, as today when I checked it it has 4 visits.   I've definitely come a long way since then.  At that point, in April of 2008, I was merely interested in showcasing videos that I found online that I enjoyed and wanted to share with others.  I've evolved now into creating my own content, whether it's reviews, interviews (which I no longer do) and even my own podcast where I highlight independent musicians that I feel should be given much more exposure than they currently receive.

When I first started this blog I had no idea that at this point in time I would have met the people I have.  I don't think of this as a "hip hop blog", although I post a decent amount of hip hop related things on here, including my own podcast.  And when I had looked around the internet landscape at the various hip hop blogs and their relationships with the various artists back then, I always thought that was interesting, but not something that I would do.  Little did I know that I would eventually develop my own relationships with artists.

I also don't think of this as a "political blog", although I definitely post a good deal of political observations and critiques, along with my frustrations at politics and religion and the incessant need by many to merge the two.

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The One With The Gay Baiting of Matthew Warren

Image courtesy of NBCLosAngeles.

As I wrote about last night, the suicide death of Matthew Warren, the youngest son of Mega Church pastor Rick Warren brought out a lot of hateful people who, blinded by their hatred of Rick Warren and his bigotry, particularly as it relates to the LGBT community, went on the comments sections of the articles about Matthew, along with Facebook and twitter, to make hateful and vile comments aimed at his father.

While I made a passing reference to the fact that a lot of people seemed to suggest (with absolutely ZERO facts or anything even remotely resembling facts) that Matthew was in fact gay, and that his father's anti-gay stances, and support for things such as the Ugandan "Execute the Gays" bill played a part, I didn't really get into it.  That's because I was focusing more on just the general asshole type behavior that many was exhibiting.

However it's gotten even more pronounced leading into today with people being bold enough to either flat out stating as if it's a fact that Matthew was gay, but unfortunately a news show that I watch each day, The Young Turks, actually reinforced that bullshit idea on their show by saying that they "had a meeting" and decided that since they didn't know whether or not Matthew was gay or not, that they weren't going to get into it, however if it WAS a situation of him being Gay, they would "be all over that."

He was not gay, and there is no evidence to support that allegation.  What is so hard to understand about that?

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Something To Restore Your Faith In Humanity

After my previous post in which I pointed out that I have long ago lost faith in humanity because of things like the vicious comments left in the threads about the suicide death of Pastor Rick Warren's son, I found this video and this makes me smile.

7 Year old Jack Hoffman is battling Brain Cancer, and he got to go and score a touchdown for the Nebraska football team at one of their spring practices.  How awesome!

Watch this and have your faith restored, if only for a little while.

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Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren's Son Commits Suicide, Assholes Emerge from Under Rocks

Today the sad news came over the wire that the son of Megachurch pastor Rick Warren committed suicide.  Matthew Warren, 27, was said to have dealt with mental illness and depression for a long time, and I suppose it got too much to bear.

As someone that deals with depression and mental illness, I know all too well that feeling of wanting to just make all the pain go away, whether it be physical or otherwise.  I've tried to do it in the past, but fortunately I'm at a place now where despite my problems, I don't feel that there's no way to deal with it other than taking my life.

I wish Matthew could have perhaps found that peace, however this shows that even with the best health care money can provide, no one is immune from the grip of mental illness.

An interesting byproduct of this is that it has brought out the assholes of the internet.  I'm not talking about the grief trolls who search out any "In Memoriam" facebook page and starts posting mocking memes and whatnot, just trying to hurt and cause pain to people because they have nothing better to do, and because shockingly they get off on it.

I mean on regular websites, with regular posters who are so blinded by partisanship that they can't take a break from their vicious dislike of someone to just let things pass in a tragic instances as this.

Usually when someone passes who is either in the public eye or is related to someone in the public eye, and the person in the public eye is a high profile divisive person, as Rick Warren certainly is, the comments you see break down in one of three categories.

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The One Where Rick Ross Doesn't Know what Rape Is

UPDATE: APRIL 14th

A few days ago Reebok officially cut ties with Rick Ross, implying that it wasn't necessarily that he had those lyrics, but his bullshit non-apology apology to it, and his seeming lack of any sense of realization as to why there was an outrage over it.   There are of course people defending Ross and screaming "Free Speech" and other nonsense.  As I've pointed out before, Free Speech means you can say what you want.  Free Speech ALSO means everyone else can express their outrage, and your sponsors don't necessarily have to keep you on.

After Reebok made their move, Ross came out with a heartfelt and sincere sounding apology in the form of a statement.  Now of course I can't imagine Ross actually wrote those words.  I've heard way too many songs by Rick Ross to believe that.

But the situation seems to be over at this point.  Good has prevailed, and hopefully Ross thinks before he raps next time.  Now he can just go back to generally making all black people (and fat people) look bad, which is what he's exceptionally good at.

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Rick Ross, corrections officer turned drug kingpin and all around bawse, has a verse on a song by an artist named Future that has stirred up a lot of controversy lately, due to what appears to be Mr. Rawse condoning the drugging and raping of a girl.   You might remember it was another song by Future where Lil Wayne courted controversy after appearing  including a vulger sexual verse that name dropped Emmett Till, who was beaten and tortured, then killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

Apparently Future is the guy whose tracks you hop on when you want to get some media attention.

In the offending song (this time) called "U.O.E.N.O", Ross drops these bon mots:

"Put molly all in her champagne / She ain't even know it
I took her home and I enjoyed that / She ain't even know it,"

Now, surprisingly there were many people that had a problem with the idea of drugging a woman with ecstasy, and then when he gets her home, he has sex with her, and all the while she doesn't know about any of this. In most parts of the universe, that is called rape.  In Ross' universe it's called....well...I'm not really sure, because in his "explanation" for it, it doesn't really seem that he knows what rape IS.

Ross said the following in an interview with a radio station, which had been posted on youtube with the erroneous headline "Ross Clears the Air" regarding the lyrics.

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The One Where Christian Music Bloggers Are Uncomfortable with Race

In the film "The United States of Leland", Ryan Gosling was a youth who was put in a detention center as he was awaiting trial for a horrific crime that you don't fully realize what it is until the end of the film.  He's talking to Don Cheadle, who is the instructor there in his class, and in this discussion he points out a fault that Cheadle has and Cheadle responds with "I'm only Human, man." To which Gosling brilliantly quips, "It's funny how people only say that after they do something bad. I mean, you never hear someone say, "I'm only human" after they rescue a kid from a burning building."

I think that's how many of us in the Christian community seem to be.  We tend to want to hold others up to impossible standards that we ourselves don't want to be held up to. We don't have a problem pointing out others' shortcomings and failures, but when it is throw back on us the tendency to rely on the tried and true "I'm only Human, none of us are perfect" is a bit tempting.

I am reminded of that when I've seen some criticism lately from Christian music reviewers, as it pertains to Christian rapper Sho Baraka's newest album The Xth and more specifically his song "Jim Crow".  I've seen quite a few reviewers take issue with some of the strong language in the song, namely his using the "N-Word" as well as the words "bitch" and "hoe".

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The One Where Beyonce Politely Requests For Bitches To Bow Down

UPDATE: Clarified some points in here that I think, in hindsight, came off as overly harsh and not really representative of what I think.

So Beyonce who has seemingly been decreed Queen and Emperess of R&B/Hip Hop for some reason, came out with a song recently that has been a tad bit on the controversial side (as Controversial as Beyonce can be anyway) called "Bow Down", in which she spits out the following lyrics:

I know when you were little girls
You dreamt of being in my world
Don’t forget it , don’t forget it
Respect that, bow down bitches
I took some time to live my life
But don’t think I’m just his little wife
Don’t get it twisted, get it twisted
This my shit, bow down bitches

Perhaps not surprisingly, this has raised a few eyebrows since its release with so many people losing their collective minds over this. "OMG She said bitch!" or the utterly ridiculous "WHAT? You're supposed to be a female role model and feminist icon and this is how you act?" and even the slightly more realistic, but still bizarre "You're supposed to be about women's unity and now you're telling them to bow down?"  Even Rush Limbaugh jumped into the fun with a completely ridiculous and incredulous take on the song's meaning.

Let's be honest here.  Who give a shit?  Her music is generic pop R&B, and nothing more.  Each song she puts out, with few exceptions, sounds much like other songs that are out by other artists. Also, it is not like her putting out a song depicting herself as a strong powerful woman is really any different than any other female artists who have done similar things?  The only reason this is somehow a big deal is her using the word bitch so many times in the song.

And beyond the initial shock value of it, once again, I'll ask: who gives a shit?

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Justin Timberlake - Mirrors (Official Video)

Justin Timberlake has been on fire lately with the promotion for his new album "The 20/20 Experience".  Hosting SNL, a week with Jimmy Fallon, and his secret show at SXSW, paired up with the absolutely flaming hot band "The Tennessee Kids", he's been pretty much everywhere lately.

Now he's released the brand new video for the second single, "Mirrors", and it's a doozy.  Honoring the memory of his late grandfather William (the video itself is dedicated to both grandparents), the video depicts the love of William and Sadie over the years.

Simply amazing and emotional work here.  There doesn't seem to be any shortage of people crawling out of the woodwork to throw shade at Justin lately, which is something I don't understand.  He's clearly one of the more talented and seemingly genuine in his down to earth appeal.  There's much worse out there that someone can be trying to disrespect.

Anyway, here's the video.  Check it out.

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The One Where Sarah Palin Becomes President Due to Insanity

UPDATE: April 20th 2013:  I finally got it. Pictures added.

So I wrote last year about this fantastic strategy game for the iPhone/iPad and Android called "Plague Inc".  Similar to the game Pandemic 2.0 (according to those who have played that game), it puts you in the position of spreading a virus throught the world, with the point of infecting and killing everyone.  You can up the symptoms, alter how it's delivered, all the while trying to avoid having the virus cured.

In the game you can choose between Bacteria, Fungus, Virus, Bioweapon and even a Zombie virus (with the newest update), each of which requires a different way of approaching things.

Some of the achievements on here are crazy difficult to get, and seems to require a lot of luck in how things happen, as many of the events that go in in the game are completely random (I've had the Olympics go on in multiple different years), however one that I had been trying to get for awhile was for the United States to nuke Russia or China.

Well I finally got part all of the equation necessary, and it kind of made me chuckle a little bit when the events popped up on the screen to let me know I had activated an event.  Not necessarily because I was overcome with glee, but just because it seemed kind of an odd thing to throw in there out of nowhere.

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The One Where Video Games Can't Have Female Main Characters

In my previous review of Tomb Raider, I mentioned how there's a difference, I believe, in how men and women experience a video game based on the gender of the character they are playing.  I pointed out how due to Lara Croft being a female, that when she was put in extreme danger, including a scene where it appeared that she was in danger of being raped, that it puts some men in a position of wanting to protect her.  I don't view that as "sexist" or "misogynist", just a matter of fact.

I posited that if any man could see something like that and not want to do something about it, then they're a sociopath and possibly worse.  I understand that there are many women who find it unfortunate, and infuriating, that there are men who feel the need to protect them, as those women feel they are perfectly able to save themselves.  As if the idea of a man being protective, somehow lessens the woman's image of being able to be anything but a Damsel in Distress.

I disagree, obviously, and think taken to it's logical conclusion, would that also mean that if someone WAS attacking a woman, that the man shouldn't step in?  They should just keep on going, because the woman is independent and doesn't need rescuing?  Maybe that sounds absurd, I don't know.

I do acknowledge though that there is a lot of sexism out there, especially in the gamer community as it relates to women.   And as if we needed more examples of that, we have one that came out today where Capcom's upcoming third person action game "Remember Me" was rejected by multiple publishers because the main character, Nilin, is a woman.

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The One Where I Review Tomb Raider & Infuriate Feminists

So I finished my initial playthrough of Crystal Dynamics' amazing new release Tomb Raider, and it is pretty damn good.   There has been a lot of talk on gamer forums recently about it being "Game of the Year".  While I can't argue with that at the moment, there's some top shelf amazing looking games coming this year, such as Beyond: Two Souls, The Last of Us and Watch Dogs.

The storyline of this is decent, I guess.  I wasn't that caught up in it, but I think the big reaction it is getting is from the dark tone that the game has, and the eye popping graphics.  There's also some really brutal fight scenes in the game as well, which I think adds to the appeal for a lot of people.  And there's this real sense of danger that the main character, Lara Croft, finds herself in.  This is an 18 year old college girl that is shipwrecked on the island and has to fight off these waves of increasingly more powerful bad guys to achieve your goal by the end, which is to rescue your friends from some guy trying to bring back their leader.  Or something.  As I said, I didn't really care about the story, but the story did lend a certain suspense and danger as it relates to Lara.

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The One Where I Need To Write More

So yeah, it's been awhile huh?  I haven't written a whole lot lately, and I have been struggling to figure out why.  It's not like there hasn't been things in the news that have provoked me to want to speak on it.  Then I kind of came to the realization tonight that it feels like I've been writing in circles.  I'm essentially writing the same things over and over on a small group of topics.  Namely racism, homophobia and religion, with those three often intersecting with one another.

And so while I've had quite a few things come up recently that I would have normally torn into and written a long piece about, I feel too much of "Been There, Done That", and it's no longer that interesting to me.  Also so many of these people who I normally would have been upset at something outrageous they said, it's just almost sad now to look at them and I just don't have the ...whatever, to rip into them.

I need to find some new topics to write about, which I plan on doing.  Hopefully I can recharge, so to speak, and bring some more content here on topics other than those big three, because quite honestly, if I never write on those subjects again, it'd be just fine for me.

So I just ask that those of you who have been faithfully reading my website over the last five years that I've been doing this (Five years next month!) just be patient, and hopefully things will pick up again soon.

Thank you all for indulging me my thoughts on this blog.  Hopefully the next five years, and beyond, will be even better.

The One Where Richard Sherman & Skip Bayless Embrace "Debate".

"A Thing of Beauty Is A Joy Forever" - John Keats

There are few things in life that are more enjoyable than watching someone that is arrogant and just completely full of themselves get taken down a peg or two. There's something quite rewarding in watching someone get their comeuppance, especially when that person makes their living being hateful and spiteful and prides themselves on creating "controversy" where there is none, all in the pursuit of attention for themselves and their brand. 

And especially when that person is someone like ESPN's Skip Bayless.

Now a few things about Bayless, for those who perhaps are fortunate enough to have never heard the man speak.  He is a professional troll.  Imagine, if you will, someone like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter.  Those are three genius examples of professional trolls.  People who you hear say things and you get the idea that 90% of the stuff coming out of their mouths are not just complete and utter bullshit, but they are things that even those people do not believe.  They are things designed to rile up those that they view as their "enemies", in the case of Rush, Beck and Coulter, those people would be "Liberals".

You can hear it in their voices, you can tell it when you read the latest headline by Huffington Post breathlessly hyping the most inane things that they've said with hyperbolic headlines like "RUSH SAID WHAT????" or "OMG Ann".  And then you read the article and are like "Really?  They're not even trying anymore."

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The One With the Conspiracy About Black Men Dressing Up In Drag

So last night on twitter there was a sudden flurry of posts by people offended by Kevin Hart's wearing a dress while portraying Quvenzhane Wallis as the new Pope on Saturday Night Live.  And of course someone brought out the Dave Chappelle clip from Oprah where he, while admitting that he was a conspiracy theorist and was perhaps connecting dots that didn't need connecting, said he felt that Hollywood always tried to put strong Black actors in dresses to feminize them.  Although his comparison to Brokeback Mountain felt a bit offensive in it's own right, but that's another discussion.

 

And while I understand that there is this concern by some out there that there's a conspiracy by the White/Jewish overlords in Hollywood to feminize and make palatable to white folks,  the strong black male by putting them in feminine clothing, I'm not sure I can buy it.

Now I'd like to make a few disclosures here before I go further, just to be open about some things.  I, myself, am white.  I also despise any movie/tv roles where men are dressed in drag, no matter what the race.  I didn't think it was funny when Robin Williams did it in Mrs. Doubtfire, and I didn't think it was funny when Martin Lawrence did it in Big Momma's House.  And don't get me started on Tyler Perry.

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The One Where White People Can't Say The N-Word

Today I read an article by Dr. James Braxton Peterson about the "N-Word" and his assertion that white people cannot ever say it. It's an interesting piece, and I encourage everyone to check it out, and if you're inclined, follow him on Twitter. However I have a couple issues with the article. Not with the idea of "white people shouldn't use the word". I'm white and have ZERO interest in the word, and despise it no matter WHO uses it.

That said, Dr. Peterson brings up the incident where the NAACP symbolically "Buried" the N-Word, and appears to suggest that white people should have taken the hint and just stopped trying to use the word.  In fact, these are his exact words.

Sadly, we have had this debate or public conversation too many times to recount here. I distinctly remember the NAACP actually burying the word – or at least they ceremoniously buried it – and my hope was that our white friends and family would take the hint. You can’t say it.

Clearly black people have reclaimed and re-purposed the word over scores of years, but not even your favorite rapper disassociates the n-word from its white supremacist history.  For a long time now, I have challenged those who criticize rappers for using the n-word in “positive” contexts to actually listen to the music.  More often than not, the deployment of the n-word in popular rap music is not done so in some utopian, “positive” vein.

The meanings of the n-word, especially when used by black artisans, are nuanced and multi-faceted.  Believe it or not, the meaning and the use of the n-word often varies by both situational context and intonation.  Sorry, but because of these complexities – we gotta take it back.

You see what happened right there?  Dr. Peterson asserted that his hope was that white people would see that the NAACP had ceremoniously buried the N-word, having a service, a euology and everything, and would "take the hint" that they can't say it.

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The One Where Tim Tebow Pals Around With Extremists

UPDATE: February 21st

So it looks like, predictably, Tim Tebow has cancelled the appearance at the hateful church.  My first impression when I saw the headline was, as I said, predictably so.  I maintained that while many would criticize him for his wearing his faith on his sleeve, he was never someone who gave me the impression that he was a hateful bigot like many others who wrap themselves in the cloak of Christianity and then try to discriminate against others.

Then I read the article, and I have to say it kind of irritated me.  Because there's a quote in there by "Pastor" Jeffress, that if true, completely flips my view of Tebow on it's head.  When asked about Tebow's backing out, Jeffress said that Tebow had texted him and said that at this time he was trying to stay out of controversy and that he would have to pull out of the engagement.   Now that's fine, he's under a microscope as it is, and there's a lot of people who think that he may not get another NFL job after the Jets completely screwed him over this past year by essentially wasting his time and never giving him a legit chance.

So I get the idea that he doesn't want to be in the headlines for this kind of thing.  However it's the rest of that quote that irritated me, and that was when Tebow said that while he was backing out he'd love to come back at another time to the church and speak.

Get that?  He doesn't seem to have a problem with the hateful things that Jeffress says on a regular basis.  He doesn't have a problem with him comparing the President to Hitler.  He doesn't have a problem with a man saying that 70% of LGBT people have AIDS. A man saying that "gay activists" are trying to hide a link between homosexuality and pedophilia, when there IS NONE.  It turns out that, providing this quote by Jeffress is accurate, Tebow has been a wolf in sheep's clothing all along.

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