my bad

Forgive the derelict'ness' of my blogging last week...i had deadlines...but i'm back on the block...musings to appear soon...

On my Nyquil

I was supposed to be at the Brooklyn Academy of Music tonight, catchin my main nig Mos Def with the baddest young piano player on the planet, Robert Glasper. But I been sick all week, so I held off koppin tickets and then, of course, the joint was sold out.

I was also supposed to be pounding the pavement for most of the week. But its fairly cold and snowy (nuttin like upstate and WNY), so I've been holed up in the apt, writing and watching CNN.

This being sick ish is for the sparrows, man. So annoyed, dont even feel like writing about...so i'll just repost a blog classic. enjoy this lil blast fron the past:

http://twistinado.blogspot.com/2005/03/tussin-dex-and-listerine-fathers.html

Aguilerra?!

-- I went to a J Dilla tribute concert in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Good crowd. The spot where it was held, the Galapago Art Space, wasnt a bad venue. Pharoah Monch got on stage and performed a bunch of Dilla classics. Solid time.

The fact, tho, that Monch was the dude on stage paying homage to Dilla's legacy is an important thing to me. If you're gonna get an artist to lionize a dead-legend through inter[retations of their music, then the living artist should make sense. Monch made sense. He was on Dilla's posthumous The Shining, he's an underground legend and from (basically) the same school ya know?

But yesterday, we had Christina effin Aguilera singing "It's A Man's World" at the Grammy's. You all know how dearly I hold the Godfather of Soul. Along with Miles, he was THE artist of my childhood. And you also know how much i tend to despise Aguilera. I don't discredit her as a talent. She's a monster. glorious voice. a lil sass. and she's even pretty. i get all that. but she's a culture pirate and i hate that. When I think about it, this is exactly the type of stunt she and the Grammy's would pull...selecting that broad to showcase and perform a rendition of a James-great on the biggest televised music event of the year.

That would have been like Eminem being the host of the Dilla Tribute....nah, better yet, like Fergie doin the Dilla tribute.

I was literally INCENSE seeing Aguilerra trying to do James. I had a chemical reaction. That was, in effect, James' Grammy euology and they got some bimbo to do the honors. Here's a list of notable artist that would have not only been a better ideological choice, but more capable of capturing that soul..

Bilal, R Kelly, Bobby Brown (dont sleep, Bobby woulda killed it), Usher, Jill Scott, Mary J, Cee-lo, Beyonce, Cruchy Black fron Three 6 Maf...anyone.

I cant stand R Kelly, but he would have murdered that number.

Getting Christina to do that joint was like the NFL Hall of Fame selecting Billy Jean King to do the induction speech for a deceased great. King was a great athlete, but not the right person the gig.

Later in the show, during the montage dedicated to the recently deceased, they sorta made up for it with the "Night Train" intro, followed by Chris Brown doin hus thing and then Danny Ray coming out to put the cape over the mic stand as the lights dimmed. That ish got me emotional.

Trimspa, bish

-- I been sitting here working on my laptop with CNN playing in the background for the past six to seven hours and there has been, maybe, 15 cumulative minutes of news coverage that didn't deal with the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

This is perplexing me. I just can't see how this woman's death can hijack a cable news channel for almost two full days now. Surely, more important news items are breaking, developing, effecting as we speak. Thats not self-righteous, corn-cynical babble...that is effing real talk. If a movie star, musician, etc dies...I'm cool with coverage and retrospects and ish. But this broad?

But then I thought about it: If Paris Hilton died, I'd probably spend, at least 20 to 30 minutes checking out coverage and being generally interested in what happened. Which crystallized things for me. Apparently, Anna Nicole started this whole famous for being famous jump-off..and for someone in their mid-30s to late 40s, this is somewhat newsworthy.

I just find it to be puzzling. somehow we let these people grab our attention. Lets talk chicken and egg...if the media never began the obsession with Anna Nicole (a busty, red-lipped, ditz-brained gold-digger) or Paris (a skeletal, hot-crotched, closet-bigot) then they wouldnt be famous and require any news coverage when they overdose on some type of drug.

My nigga Wolf Blitzer is on right now and, interspersed between a shot-down US helicopter in Iraq and some Obama news, The Cafferty File has finally asked the question: "What the eff are we making this junk worthwhile for?" But not so fast, as soon as Blitz and Caff wrap up, Blitz lets us know their will be more coverage on his show: "Autopsy Results" and "Battle Over Bucks" being the two topics...On the friggin Situation Room?

I'm bout to turn it to the Food Channel...which is where it shouldve been to begin with. my girl Paula is on.

ThisIsRealMusic.com -- Feb

Check the new issue of T.I.R.M. Good stuff for music dudes and music chicks.

the NEW Humboldt Inn: I ain't no sellout

I usually go right to bed after these experiences which probably represents a shift in my life. In Florida, whenever something ridiculous happened, the first thing I did would be to come and type into this box so everyone could read. That stopped being necessary in Buff and NYC, since I could just tell my lil bro and sis or my lil cuzzes or Vino or whomever.

But yesterday was a bit of watershed moment for me in my short period of Buff-entertainment.

My nigga Jathan is basically my only single friend left in Buff. Everyone else has either moved or gotten married or never lived in Buff to begin with. So, he's been the only kat I've hung with on the reg, since I've been back. We thought it be fitting to go kop some elixirs before skate outta town. The night began at Bullfeathers, usually a pretty lowkey spot with a serviceable jukebox...except, this night it was packed with nearby college students who had the juke on lock, playing a nauseating mix of Akon, Metallica and LL Cool J. The Roots made a brief appearance in someone's playlist. Things were looking up, then "Smack That" followed and I furrowed my brow, swigged my cognac and began a lamentation.

As more drunk girls with vodka breath kept bumping into me like I wasnt there and more jukebox-travesties kept slicing through my ears, we decided to jetski on outta JPs. Where to? We didnt know. Then I remember that my girl Tara bartended at the Humbold Inn. For those not familiar with Buffalo, you should know that the Humboldt Inn, for 90% of my life, was like a senior citizen hangout. This is where a 50-year-old mack-daddy (the slick nigga who goes heavy on the cologne, wears his shirt unbuttoned down to the tip of his belly, maybe a few gold teeth, possibly a top hat, maybe a cane, definitely an liquor habit) can spit sinserious game at some old gals (nasty, horny older women that knew how to do all the latest dances, primarily the tootsie-roll and Da Butt). When you would be driving down E Delavan at night and cars were parked on both sides of the expressway-overpass, then you knew that the socio-cultural phenomenon that is the Humboldt Inn was poppin and all of Buffalo's finest old swingers had descended on this lil bar to comprise a real life middle-age meat market, where two 50-year-olds might be grinding to Earth Wind & Fire, while Cisco James is kickin it to Etta Scott, tryin to get him some poon-tang.

But dig...somewhere along the way, they switched the steez up. So much has changed in Buff since I left in 2000. There are many more options for the average young person -- from your standard bar on Chippewa to the hipper spots along Elmwood or around Allen. But its still a desolate wasteland for "those" kinda blacks. When I say "those", I mean niggas that can't move in and out of different lanes. "These" kinda blacks only wanna be around other blacks in environments that are...ghetto (ouch! can't stand that word, sometimes). You put one of these niggas in a regular pub, a college bar or a lounge and his brown eyes might start bulging out of his head. Thats just how it goes. I guess there isnt anything wrong with that...but then again, I wish it weren't that way. There's something really fulfilling about stepping out and hittin a spot that has a truly "mixed" crowd...not mixed as in, a bunch of mulattos are walkin around...mixed as in people from diff races and maybe even socio-economic stratas are together havin a good time. (But there's also something exhilarating about steppin into a spot where the majority of the folks there are similar to you..ie..like the same music, same educational level, similar outlook on life, etc).

Back to the NEW Humboldt Inn....

Last year, my sister called me. She had arrived in town a couple days before I did and she was heading out with one of her old friends. I asked where they were going and she said "Toomy's taking me to the Humboldt Inn." I laughed so hard I almost got throat cancer. I'm thinking, "I know we're mature adults now...but what are you young ladies gonna do, surrounded by old men that look like John Witherspoon and smell like english leather cologne?" That's when Lyd hit me with the Buffalo-scene revelation. She was like, "Nah...Toomy said its for us now. We'll see." Lyd's review of the night was easy to predict: "Duuuude, that spot was so ghetto! Classic Buffalo-black!" Weeks later, I got up with my girl Nish while she was visiting Sarasota. She spoke of going back home and hitting the NEW Humboldt Inn. She seemed amused by it all. She even described the hierarchy and how the spot was socially-sectioned: "OK, all the so-called ballers were in this one section, the drug-dealers' girlfriends were over in this part." I was fascinated. So when I visited my girl Tara's crib for a gathering she threw and she told me she bartended there on Thursdays...I was like, "I gotta check this out before I leave Buffalo."

Well, that day arrived yesterday. The first thing I asked the doorman was the most important question of the night: "Is Tara working tonight?" That's what this whole thing was about. Needless to say, I didnt wanna be in this spot if my girl wasnt bartending. The doorman replied: "You mean the light-skinned girl?" I'm thinking to myself: "Well, Tara is light-skinned." So Jathan and I get frisked (the first sign that you're in one of "those" spots) and head in. I'm looking for Tara...no dice. Infuriated, I go up to the bar and ask one of the servers, "Is Tara working tonight?" Turns out she had left at 10pm. At this point I'm ready to jet. No need for me to stay. Then the server hits us with this "But since yall here, yall might as well buy a drink and chill." Huh? Jathan surveys the scene and says, "I kinda wanna soak this in while I have the chance." So I say, "If yall pour a good drink we'll stay for one. Do you pour good drinks?" She comes back with about a half-shot of cognac, tastefully presented in those little plastic cups you get at the dollar store. But the damage was done, from that point forward Jathan and I sat back and observed the goings-on.

I consistently try to do the whole "looking-glass self" thing and make sure I'm not turning into the OTHER kind of "those" niggas. The siddity nigga. The nigga that cant pump with his people. Living in DC, you can insulate yourself in the black-bourgosie culture and it can eff u up. But even still, certain scenes can make u say some crazy things. Jathan hit me with a classic lug about 10 minutes into our stay, after a d-boy walked by with a big-tummy chick in a jean onesie on his arm...J said, "I hate going to spots where I look around and realize that I'm just a better person than everyone in here." I cracked up when he said it, because it was so haughty, but might have been true. My superiority-complex was raging uncontrollably for a good 15 minutes. It was also unsettling for girls in there 20s to walk by, smile at me and be missing a tooth. Times like those make you come to a full realization that we need some universal health care up in this bish.

The music was atrocious. When "Wifey" by Next is playing and the night's emcee is woofing on the mic, you're not in the proper establishment. I also got the feeling that if I walked up to ANY of the women in the spot and asked them to marry me that 1.) they'd accept with only minimal cajoling..and 2.) I'd be saving their lives. I mean, I really wanted to be on some Captain Save-a-Ho for real. I also got the feeling that if there were 100 women in that spot, they had probably popped out a combined 300 kids and i didnt see a single wedding ring. Some of the men probably had babies by multiple women that were in the spot. It was just such a classic scene.

After we finished our half-shot of yak, we skated out the door and headed to Staples on Allen, a spot my girl put me onto last weekend. We each kopped a specialty brew and the bartender hooked us with a free shot of Wild Turkey. That was so much more my scene than the NEW Humboldt Inn.

I dont know yall...I watch Flav of Love and I Love New York (even though Chuck D has implicitly told me that these shows are sinister tools)...I'm runnin from my people at the NEW Humboldt Inn...if I don't watch it, I might become a sellout. I'm bout hop in my whip, though, and head to the DMV...best believe By All Means Necessary will be playin on the pod.

"This whole scene is wild!"

Got a lot ish to spit about. But you always have to begin things with what's most important and save the mundane issues for later. you gotta get at whats important in life, what carries the most weight and meaning. As such...

-- Let me offer some words on I Love New York...primarily the i love I Love New York (I'm typing as I think, here. As always: disregard spelling, grammar and puncuation).... I recor this show DVR every monday. There's a gap-tooth nigga that is about 25 goin on 13, New York named this dude "Chance". Chance turned in, perhaps, the greatest comical reality-TV performance ever.

There's nothing more hilarious than watching an harmless enraged person. Know why? Because the enraged person is aware that everyone has concluded that he/she is harmless and that fact is making the enraged person even more enraged. Niggas have problems with this, because niggas like to a lot of posturing. And I've explained the psyche behind a black-man's reaction to disrespect. Well when these combine, you have a posturing clown trying to use a comically un-intimidating version of intimidation to intimidate (got it)...usually because he's not capable of using words, logic, wit, intelligence or charisma to get what he wants. These are usually beaten men. So when this cornball-intimidation tactics renders no results, in fact its rendering laughter, dismissal, etc...the only thing a buffoon can do is ramp up the rage and intimidation-efforts to lunatic levels. That's where Chance went on the first episode. He lost it. When you combine this with the chasm between his front teeth, his broken english, the slurred speech of a scorned-toddler and the "i've lost it" saliva that coated his bottom lip throughout the show...well, we're talkin a classic performance. I watched this with my lil sis, P, who was literally writhing with laughter.

But then, this is also getting me to an issue that we talk about a lot on the blog: duality.

Shouts out to my girl Laila and my man Marc. I was with them at a bar, when the first episode orignally aired. The big tele had the nat championship game playing, so I Love NY was on a smaller tele, with no sound. Laila and Marc are two white friends I went to high school with. I specify their ethnicity only because I remember making a comment that night about how I feel guilty watching shows like Flavor of Love and I Love New York because blacks should really boycott that type of television. Now, I mean, i'm the same dude that (for the most part) refuses to watch BET because I feel like its disrespectful to blacks for that to be "our" channel. ESPECIALLY now that its owned by Viacom which owns MTV. Have you ever noticed that BET can run shows that air basically identical to a similar MTV show and the BET version will be ridiculously amateur, while the MTV production is slick and first rate. I'm talkin, the BET show will have a fuzzy picture, poor sound quality, the whole she-bang-bang. That ish sickens me. And even before the Viacom takeover, the actual programming has always been sophomoric, sometimes detrimental. So I swore it off.

But then you got me checkin hard for Flav and New York. It all has to do with self control. An image can be as nefarious and despicable as it can get, but if it makes me laugh, I get suckered in. Thats something I have to work on. Now, I dont know if Laila and Marc look to Flav and New York for cues on black America. matter fact...actually, yes I do...I'm sure they dont. but those images and that behavior displayed on that show can reinforce subliminal ish. I know this, because Real World used to do that for me (and white people are prolly the only race that isnt categorized by the images on television). If I had any balls, any fortitude, and self-control - I wouldnt watch Flav or New York. Maybe I'd even sign some petitions.

Not gonna happen, tho. As I type, I'm awaiting next week's episode where Tango (a grown azz snitch) and Whiteboy (a blue-eyed soul-brother) are set to clash again. Triflin? Word. Satisfying? Word.

That is all for now...more catching up to come later. Glad to be back, tho.