Ripping a graven image of the now deceased pope on SNL in October 1992

"If you're going to sing, you need to have your mouth not full of cock..."

~Sinead O'Connor in this week's Time Out New York

On a semi-related note Sinead reminds me of Kanye West or vice versa.

Mom Genes

My mom, thanks to my champagne-swigging influence, wears lower--still far from crack exposing--rise jeans

My mom is now on her way to JFK. I sped home during my lunch break to say a proper surprise goodbye. I made myself useful for the 5 minutes I could spare before racing back to work by finding her cell phone charger then I told her I had to go and she cheerfully embraced me, blessed me in the name of all that is good and perfect, and said “Peace” while matronly throwing up the deuces. You gotta love her but for me it's a cherished choice.

Genius Loves Company

"I'm not risking my entire career to tell white people obvious things."*

*Dave Chappelle on Kanye West's post-Hurricane Katrina statement, "George Bush does not care about Black people."

Her Yoke is Easy

I love black people. I despise poverty. In extricating myself from the latter I am distanced from the former. I know better than to say “Fuck the ‘hood” but my sentiments are a mere euphemism. Acknowledging this truth triggers guilt. I want to renounce these feelings, attribute them to my faulty logic. When things go wrong I say, ‘If I was rich, this shit wouldn’t happen.’ In my mini tragedies, currency first comes to mind. Wealth not richesse (Chris Rock taught me the distinction; Ed Guerrero co-signed it) and how more money would buffer if not banish my problems. I don’t think this is productive. I don’t think this is true. I think I am confused. Auntie Barbara would say ‘cornfused’ or ‘flustered’. Hate is not a hospitable residence for me or any free black woman. Pessimism isn’t even enough for the birds: not the chickens that used to cluck on the corner of 125th and 2nd or the 16th St. pigeons that poop on pedestrian’s foreheads. So I take back my spite long enough to discard it and henceforth operate in repentance.

Booty Music's Expanded Demographic

Family Guy is really funny. Sadly, my schedule only permits the occasional viewing. Watch this clip.

(From Gkko.com via Best Week Ever)

"You'd Better Tell Your Story Fast"

I find fault with hustlers and their ambition in part for their unabashed amorality but mostly in frustrated envy. Rob Brezny, my virtual life coach, says:

"Motivation will almost always beat mere talent," says businessman Norman R. Augustine. You've been a victim of that fact on several occasions, Gemini. People with less skill than you have won out because they had more raw drive than you. Now I'm alerting you to the possibility that the same damn thing could happen again soon unless you take vigorous action. Please ask your imagination to come up with a batch of fresh, hot ideas for ramping up your ambition.

In the Company of My Sisters

From club 213 to the big apple, me and Cocacy been down for years. I am privileged to know her in the flesh and pleased to welcome her virtual incarnation, A Biography of a Face, to the blogosphere.

Since we're shouting out folks, I'll go ahead and shout out, ahem, myself and m dot since we've finally followed through with It's My Beat, an idea that's been festering for over a year. It's not quite done design or content wise but it will get there. Respect the process. Check, check, check, check out our (beta) melody!

I really mean it

just cuz i like this painting and i am considering a cease fire

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."

Paul Dirac

in unrelated news: i'm battling what feels like avian flu but then again I have a tendency to exagerrate.

Crazy Talk

Someone must have sprinkled crack in Tavis' coffee perhaps the same individual who encouraged his boy Cornel to record a spoken word album. Liken Condoleeza "my handkerchief is tied so tight around my head I'd be completely OK with reinstituting American slavery" Rice with Alice "revolutionary wordsmith and (conflicted) Spelman alum" Walker? Chris Bridges! Walker handled him as expected. But I've got to ask: would Tavis have compared a male author of her stature to the dishonorable Clarence "Clayton Bigsby's prototype" Thomas? As everybody's favorite Jersey girl gone wild would say: "hell to the naw." I was a fan but now he's suspect. At least we still got Ed Gordon.

Edit: More evidence of Brother Smiley's overwhelming fallibility.

On a semi related note: boogalue, doll, I think I may have found you a kindred spirit in ghostwriter par excellence Rhymefest.

SOHH.com: Ok, the last quote is from Damon Dash from BET's The Ultimate Hustler. He said, "There is the day your born and then there's the day you die. That dash in the middle that represents the life. Life is the Dash."

Rhymefest: I heard that and was like, "Yo, that was kind of prolific.* That was deep." That was the first time I ever heard Damon Dash speak. And I want him to know, I want you to know and I want the readers to know is that the Dash doesn't mean you, but the things you do in between the life you lived. So speaking of that, not Damon Dash, but '77 til when you die or whatever, you got to give the most of that dash you take into life, the rate of life and I wonder who wrote that for him. If he thought of that of himself, then that is kinda tight.

*'fest means 'profound'.

My Life in the Sunshine

Ernie Johnson: "Now do you know what a blog is?"

Charles Barkley: "No, but I know it's got something to do with the internet. You know, I don't use internet. Anybody who can sit around and thumb a keyboard all day just has no life."

Don't you agree?*

*Tongue in cheek, as always, my dears.