Music in 2008: A Music Dude review

No intro needed...littered with typos, here's a look back at music in 2008 for your casual consumption as we kick off '09...

Most Poignant Example That Black Music Is Underappreciated: My favorite album of the year and the best album of the year is Q-Tip's The Renaissance. There have been many grown-up hop albums that are often actually hop albums struggling to grow up. Q-Tip's newest joint is the most effortlessly grown album ever. From the subject matter to the vibe to the production to the artist, it was an album whose target audience was grown people with grown taste. If my little cousin Kadara (17, i think) said she didn't like the the Tip album, I'd say, "That's cool. He didn't make it for you." If my little sister P (27) said she didn't like Tip's album, I'd disown her. The Renaissance is like Black on Both Sides, if Black on Both Sides were made by a Gen-Xr in his 30s in 2008 for fellow Gen-Xrs in the year 2008. Yet, you won't find this classic album on any of the year-end top 10s and it didn't garner ONE Grammy-nod. I have this theory that black artists suffer from the fact that black artistry is not truly appreciated in their music. You either have to be ultra-bombastic or ultra-popular to get recognition from fans and critics. Subtlelty, vibe and creativity is a an avenue that typically only white artists are priviledged to drive on. Keep in mind that, in the nearly 10 years between 1999's Amplified and 2008's Renaissance, Tip made Kamaal The Abstract. If you never heard or heard of Kamaal The Abstract, it's because Tip's label at the time, Arista, never released it. It's one of those hybrid black music albums that featured heavy doses of jazz, hop, soul and rock all fused into one composite entity that me and my boys coined Bridge Music (I wrote about it on our old music website). The album predated Andre 3000's Love Below and Mos Def's New Danger, Common's Electric Circus and everything from Cee-Lo's pre-Gnarls cuts to K-Os, etc. The album is astounding in ways that can't be articulated. But unlike rock and indie artists that are allowed to stretch out and create and boundary-push, Tip's label deemed that the public wouldn't dig this new music...and I mean that literally, it was basically the first sull manifestation of a brand new genre of music. Think about how groundbreaking that is! The thing is, Arista was half-right. Much of Tip's audience would have scoffed. Joints like Kamaal The Abstract and, germane to 2008, The Renaissance are the richest examples of black music, so it annoys me that these albums are generally ignored. I'm urging all of you to kop Tip's album (lord knows we don't have to pay for it) and listen to this joint and then tell your friends and then go see Tip in concert and do all that is entailed with supporting great art. Tip made this for us.

One Is A Rock Star, The Other is Literally The Corniest Human Being Alive: Did you hear Carter III? Of course you did. Weezy gets down. Did you see his performance on SNL? Of course you did, Weezy gets down (I need that SNL version of Lollipop in my life). Did you hear 808s and Heartbreak? Of course you did. Kanye goes in, this we can't contest. Did you see his pious, profoundly nauseating performance on SNL where he tried to mimick Chris Martin and Bono, while turning a vocal performance that was worse than the worst karaoke performance you've ever seen? One of these days, I'm gonna break into his LA studio and beat him over the head with his Auto-tone machine.

I'm Not A Hipster, But I Dig These Dudes: MGMT, I dig these dudes. I don't dig the whole album, but I dig these dudes because they made "Electric Feel", which is probably the most accessible of the cuts. It's the kind of song that slays me. And if you don't know (they probably don't know either); they can only make a song like that because Parliament/Funkadelic came before them. It sounds like a weirded out MJ tune, a little further out than some of Timberlake's stuff on FutureSex...but the way the track marches and chants forward, that's so P-Funk.

Proof That The New Generation is a Wack Generation: Yeah, I'm on that "old man ish"...when me and my nigs were growing up, you could be a Tribe or Mobb or Wu or Nas or Kast and get love from your peers and teenagers. I was a teen when Illmatic and 36 Chambers and 93 Til Infinity dropped. We actually LIKED dope hip hop. Nowadays, a young man like Black Milk drops Tronic and nobody under 25 is pumpin it unless they're with their older brother or cousin. And Milk is 23! Tronic might be the greatest ehibition of production prowess we've witnessed this decade...and this is a decade that gave us Fantastic Vol. 2, Madvillainy, Mama's Gun, American Gangster and Late Registration. The kind of robotic funk that Dilla started on Trinity and shaped more on Rough Draft (my boy Trav called it industrial which is probably the illest way I've heard it described way), he diverged from it when he made The Shining, like he dropped one toy and picked up another one. But Young Milk took those parts put it on a Motown assembly line (again shouts to Trav) made some kind of one-man rocket and took off to the cosmos. "Bounce" turns me into a caserole. "Give The Drummer Some" breathes so effin hard. And yet, only some old head like me digs it. The weird thing is that Milk gives you some of that same pointless swag that wacksters like Yung Berg and Plies drip with, except he does it in a hip-hop way, with classic production. Oh well. All I'm saying is that one day I'm gonna crash my car listening to "Hell Yeah".

If I Can Listen to Two Acts Right Now: I'd choose Muhsinah and J*Davey. Davey dropped in '07, Muhsinah rushed me in '08. I reviewed Muhsinah's EP Daybreak here. She's like an accessible Georgia Anne Muldrow. She's heavy enough to extract the prettiest melody from Pharoah Sander's 32-minute "The Creator Has A Master Plan" and coo "Once Again." She's a singer-songwriter-producer that is creating music thick as Pam Grier in the 70s.

Are You Kidding Me?: I'll never forget driving down Wilshire in L.A. and hearing Fellie Fell say the following: "This is a brand new hot joint from M.I.A. -- 'Paper Planes'!" Brand new?!?!!!! That album (Kala) came out in the summer of 2007! I thought I was late when I first got hip last winter! Then the Apatow gang uses the joint for Rogen's Pineapple Express commercials and I got my little brother asking me to forward him "that new M.I.A. joint." Insane.

Is She The New Mary J?: Every generation of females needs an artist whose voice and lyrics express the angst and anger that comes from living in James Brown's world, right? Gen X had Sade and Mary J. Well, there are artists that have, collectively, carried Sade's torch. Sade's music was reflective and moody and, in relative terms, quaint. Women like India Arie and Jill Scott inhabit that world these days. But -- and here comes some good ol' classic Vince stereotyping -- what about the greater sect. Sade sold millions, but we can all agree that not every 14 to 34-year-old in the 90s and early 00s was digging on Love Deluxe and Lovers Rock. But I can pretty much guarantee you they dug CD-skips into 411, My Life, Share My World, and Mary. Lauryn Hill seemed poised to grab that mantle and then ascend to strata that would make her one of the 50 Greatest artists of all time, regardless of genres. Unfortunately, she succumbed to whatever forces have put her on mute for the past 7 or 8 years. So Mary has continued to drop albums and womankind has continued to dig them, but, I'm sorry, those joints suck. It's not good music. I remember hanging with my friend one night and she put on Mary's Breakthrough for me, attempting to convince that Mary still made good music. Each track sucked, but she dug the snot of them. I just remember thinking, "Man, these women need a new Mary." Well, enter Jazmine Sullivan. I first heard Sullivan's "Need You Bad" this summer as I was standing outside a sneaker shop on Broadway in Manhattan. It kinda floored me. Then came "Bust Your Windows" which, as a man, didn't really impress me, but sounded exactly like something that would take off with women. Then her album, Fearless, dropped and, one by one, most ladies I talked to said the "loved" her album. I never want May to stop making music. If Madonna and her Oscar De La Hoya Arms can continue to drop albums, then so should Mary, she's a legend. But maybe a woman like Jazmine can inch Mary's Oprah-music off heavy-rotation a little bit. If I hear "Just Fine" one more time, my nuts are gonna fall off.

Two 2007 Albums That I Pumped Relentlessly in 2008: I'm gonna go to Sweden, impregante Yukimi Nagano and make us some Anthony Knights. Seriously, I'm gonna lover her down and seed some afro-asians. Little Dragon's self-entitled album dropped in September of 2007 (I wrote a review on it for All Music) and it has stayed in heavy-rotation. One day, I'm gonna make a short film about two young mutes falling in love and this will be the soundtrack...this and Miles' Nefertiti. A few months after Saul Williams gave the world The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust in November of 2007. If there were a such thing as predominantly black raves, this is what we'd play. I'm craaaaaaazy late on this. But I remember pumping this joint on the NJ Transit and when I took of my earphones, my ears were bleeding, it was a good bleed though. If it's black-rave-music ("DNA" "Banged And Blown Through", it's also black-protest-music ("Raised To Be Lowered"). One final note: I'm gonna throw a party just to drop "World On Wheels" and you better dance.

The Album That Takes on Great Significance Based On Recent News: When it first dropped, I dug The Root's Rising Down, but didn't love (although my boys did). "Get Busy" got really busy, making it on to most my playlists (especially the slept on Peedi Crack); "I Will Not Apologize" was slick; the album was dope. But then I heard The Roots were no longer gonna record and only periodically tour because they signed on to be Jimmy Fallon's house band when he takes over the Late Late Show when Conan takes over for Leno. The Roots -- since I became aware of them with 1994's Do You Want More -- have held me down. Not one wack album in the whole discography. Their worst album, Tipping Point, is slept on. And, for a swan song, Rising Down is stupendous. I'm hoping however, that Fallon falls flat on his smirky face and The Roots can resume.

Hardest Working Man in the Rap Business: Blu dropped Johnson and Johnson with Main Frame AND dropped the gem that was CRAC Knuckle's Piece Talks with my dude Ta'Raach. Both albums were stellar. The CRAC Knucks was my fav album for a good six weeks.

I Know They're Different, But...: This chick Adele is no Amy Whinehouse. How this chick gets all the acclaim for 19 just irks me. But people support her and I can dig that, since she is, at least, an artist. Meanwhile, Muhsinah and Georgia Anne Muldrow might as well being throwing tennis balls against the wall.

Other Albums That Tickled My Ears: Portishead's Third, Dwele's Sketches of A Man (this might be a classic), Badu's New Amerykah, NERD's Seeing Sounds, Gnarls Barkley's Odd Couple, Nas' Unlreased Nigger Album (the mixtape, not the untitled, more watered down label release).

RIP Freddie Hubbard

A lot of important, influential, famous people died in '08. Hometown legend Tim Russert was, perhaps, the most celebrated. George Carlin's passing hit me in a weird way, since I had recently started studying a lot of his performances. I wish my brain was as sharp as his was. But, by far, the death that hit home the most was Freddie Hubbard's recent passing.

Freddie died a couple days ago. He was a jazz musician, played some of the most stellar trumpet in the history of mankind, dropped classic albums in three different eras and, could arguably be considered hip-hop's most sampled jazz artist. If he isn't, he's right up there with Herbie, Miles and Donald Byrd in terms of hop's go-to jazz musicians. I am positive that Red Clay -- Freddie's most popular and influential album -- is the most sampled jazz album of all-time. Most famously, Tribe pulled the bass-drum-keys rhythm from the head of Red Clay's title track. What bugs me about this is that the obits in the big papers don't mention this, which is criminal. Anytime a musician has a profound effect on the foundation of a brand new genre, specifically the forward-thinking production we heard on Native Tongue recordings, then that needs to be mentioned near the top of his obit since it makes him more than just a giant in his own genre.

That's thing about Freddie, though. He's maligned. He started off as a prodigious young voice in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (tho he was overshadowed by Wayne Shorter who happens to be, probably, the greatest songwriter in jazz history). Then he dropped a string of albums as a bandleader -- Ready For Freddie being my favorite -- that showcased what was an unparalleled expertise on his horn (tho, for all the greatness of that music, it seem staid when compared to what the Miles Quintet was doing at the time). Then he dropped two early 70s albums -- Red Clay and Straight Life -- that are among the greatest albums ever made...in all of music. Freddie is one of those jazz artists that can give you some cred with me. If namedrop Freddie (or Billy Harper or Joe Henderson or Tony Williams, etc) and have a working knowledge of his discog, then I know that you aren't one of the zillion jazz impostors out here that simply SAY they dig jazz. What happened to Freddie, though, is that, by the mid-70s, he was making some fairly corny albums. I say that with a heavy heart, but it was true. Even still, there were some gems on those joints.

As I write, I'm listening to "Kuntu" off of Liquid Love. It's a storied album around these parts, an album my Pops sold when he was a young father in a financial bind then spent years trying to track down. But because Columbia hadn't re-released much of Freddie's mid-late 70s catalog, it remained unattainable. (This was before EVERYTHING was koppable on mininova, isohunt, itunes or some pirate-blog). At any rate, my boy Rek tracked down the elusive vinyl copy about six or seven years ago, had it transferred to CD and dropped it on us during one of our sessions. I think my Pops' brain burst. I went into a coma. The track has this afro-cuban rhythm with Freddie going berserk on top. Liquid Love stands out as a tremendous effort in the midst of a bunch of duds. Freddie's labels, chiefly CTI, wanted to make pop-jazz and Freddie followed suit, often with disastrous results. Then, Freddie busted up his top-lip and lost his chops, had trouble blowing his horn in his later years. I just think that the stupid four or five year period in the 70s unjustly mars an incredible career.

Whenever I listen to The Black Angel's title track I swoon -- same thing with "Sky Dive". Straight Life's "Mr. Clean" is filthy. Freddie's rollin on "Far Away" off Breaking Point. He may not have emoted and influenced like Miles or created new language and vocabulary like Satchmo and Diz, but Freddie could do ANYTHING on that horn. He'd probably win a game of Trumpet HORSE on his horn...and he made great music for a good 20 years. He deserves a better eulogy than what he got.

Brazen Street Beggars

As Hurrican Havana related tropical storms rain away my Saturday in NYC, allow me a long, senseless moment to talk about a new breed of street beggars...

One of the most unique, random aspects of minority life in America is the mutual public acknowledgement between those of the same ethnic gender. Unless they work in a restaurant kitchen or are at a Tyler Perry play for some reason, they are typically around a ton of other white folk, so I don't know if they developed this type of encounter too often. For minorities it has generally become second nature. Let's say a Mexican woman sees another Mexican woman while shopping at a Crate & Barrel in suburban Portland...I guarantee you they share a smile. And that seemingly reflexive smile was actually an unspoken conversation: "I see you mija. Word to Mexico, you're hair is looking extra bonita."

Black men are notorious for this kind of public acknowledgement. We do The Head Nod. We have to be the smallest ethnic group of free citizens in the US. With, like, 90% of the black male population in jail, I think that Native American eunuchs are more populous among the free American citizenry than my negroes and I. Add to that the somewhat shared self-consciousness many deal with when walking, banking, shopping or doing anything amongst the general public -- the idea that everyone is looking at them, looking down on them and, on a psycho-analysis level, looking past/beyond them. This has made for generations of gestural greetings for people that we don't know personally, but with which we feel an intrinsic kinship strong enough to be compulsed to making direct eye contact and nodding one's head -- sometimes even mustering an accompanying waist level fist-pump or even actual mumblings like "alright now" or "yes sir" or "what's happnin, man." This is actually outrageous given the cold dearth of human pleasantries exchanged between normal strangers on the street or in marketplaces. Black men even Head Nod when they pull up next to each other in cars. If you subscribe to the notion that black men -- succumbing to socioeconomic gravity of few opportunities -- are the quintessential "crabs in a barrel" ethnic gender; then these random moments on the street should have been the subject of an academic documentary long ago. To this day, the moment after I hit a brutha with a head nod, I still marvel at the ventriloquist quality of the whole encounter. in urban cities, you tend not to make eye contact with people you pass on the street or going the opposite way on a shopping mall escalator (unless you live in the south or the sticks). Yet, there is this outside, emotional, definitely historical force that moves you to begin peering up as the brown face encloses, make eye contact and nod your head. It's not always a noble motivation...sometimes it might be "I see you black man and I'd like to keep my wallet and watch; let's not be a statistic" or "I see you black man and I know you might think I want ruckus, but I'm gonna flash you this grin, nod my head and mumble a barely audible greeting. This all means that you can relax; I don't want us to be a statistic." But most of the time it's "I see you black man. And I know you see me and you "see" me. Peace."

This whole excessively long, rambling string of reflective babble was a tragically non-sequitor way of talking about the new breed or brash Street Beggars.

Yeaaahhhh, I know, sorry.

This same familiarity and unspoken kinship between black men has made for some extremely alarming encounters between me and black men that clearly aren't bums, but they're begging like bums.

Don't get it twisted: I'm not Armstrong Williams or Bill Cosby. This isn't some derogatory reprimand calling for shiftless nigras to get to tuggin on their boot straps. I def don't believe there's a work ethic problem amongst black men. Like Obama said, a lot of these folks (poor, struggling folk in general) don't even have the metaphoric boots to begin with. But there's always a fringe in any group. And there's a very small percentage of black men -- albeit very brazen and audacious -- that have begun taking advantage of the Afro-American Man kinship. The same unwritten, unspoken, ethereal, internal, abstract "thing" that moves us to Head Nod, moves some kats to walk up to us and have exchanges like...

Brazen Street Beggar: "sup, bruh. I don't mean no harm, ya know. No disrespect, but I aint even gonna lie to you...I need 'bout sixty-fo cent to go wit my dollar, 'fo I can kop dis 40. I aint even gon' lie to you man...I'm just tryna' feel mellow tonight."

Me: "I can dig. But you know good-n-well that I don't have 64 random cent in my pocket. Here's a buck, tho."

Far be it for a kat like me to deny a dude a little late night medicine. He caught me going into the "hood-spot", the liquor store that stays open til 1am on weeknights (every city has one). This happened earlier this year. That, when I got back in the car, I recapped the story to my boy. But I was more amused at the preface to his request, the fact that street begging is always annoying, but never "harmful" or "disrespectful" and, of course, the grand preposterous'ness of asking me for an amount of money -- 64 cents -- that would include pennies.

But it was my dude that made, perhaps, the most keen social observation of the year (save for my Pops' early summer epiphany that there's no such thing as a young "wino"). After I expressed my amusement and annoyance at the "bum's" request-preface and donation-amount, my boy was like, "and this ni$$a wasn't even a bum!"

He continued: "Dude...look at us. He's like 50 and we're some young dudes. I'm drivin' this old whip with a carseat in the back. You got on a tattered replica jersey, faded sweats and flip-flops. This dude got on brand new Nikes and a new jean jacket! We look like some scufflin dudes that ran out the crib to kop a night cap and this clown looks like he just got off work! What made him think he could ask for money?! That ni$$a don't need 64 cent!"

Then he said it: "Man, a black dude sees another black dude and he don't even gotta be a bum to beg like a bum."

It was so true. Not more than a week later, I was at a gas station. A young kat, maybe in his early 20s came up to me, commented on that vintage Smif-n-Wessun I was pumping, then dutifully asked for a dollar, followed me in the store and kopped a brew right in front of me! Whatever happened to the lies about "bus fair" or getting a meal. Not with this cat. He seemed like a perfectly able-bodied, non drug-addicted young man, except, I guess it was a broke week for him, so he automatically felt that our blackman-kinship entitled him to a loose dollar in my pocket. This was basically akin to him approaching me and saying "Say, b!:$h, how much you got on my Colt 45?!"

Black men usually don't take these far-reaching, "you-got-some-super-nerve" liberties with any other ethnic gender (forget white folks, who, at least they have guilt. A blackbum will approach a Caucasian light years before they approach the disapproving gaze of a black woman).
Check it out sometime. A real blackbum will approach a sidewalk table of white folks with dough-eyes, a severe limp and all the "so sorry to bother you angelic people"-deference in the world, maybe invent a sobb-story or create a sobb-story cardboard-sign "I Loss My Woman To STDs, Will Cry For Food". Right after the performance, he'll see a fellow blackman and get all chummy, come struttin' over on some, "say man, let me hold bout 40 bucks so I can kop some taste and have a little disposable income left to snatch me a whore. Ya dig? I know you dig."

That's for real beggars...but the Brazen Street Beggar -- the ones that aren't homeless, insane or down on their luck, but merely temporarily too broke to kop a brew or a steaksub -- wouldn't even fathom bringing these wack requests to regular folk.

I'm in NYC right now and I've always found Gotham's homeless people to be oddly refreshing. Last year, on my way to the office, I'd post at least 10,000 hobos lining Broadway, but I wouldn't be bothered once, save for an occasional jing-jing from a cup'o coins. It makes me appreciate both the fact that NYC's homeless lot stays invisible and unassuming after years of cruel New Yorker treatment, but it also makes me appreciate the other sector of beggars -- the street performers, the kids selling Twix for $10/bar, the dudes that approach you with stories like, "Man, I'm tryna get enough dough to give to my b!+$h so she can get an abortion." They may be brash, but at least they're not brazen.

RIP Winos

I'm sitting on my parents porch, right now revisiting Sa-Ra's Hollywood Recordings. When I listen to music for more than backdrop, I usually have some "taste" with me. "Taste" is what older black men call alchohol. I happen to be drinking Wild Irish Rose out of a plastic cup. It's the product of what was a bit of an evening journey.

Earlier in the afternoon, my father, while doing the lawn, approached the porch to hit me with what was, to him, a bittersweet anecdote.

"Yo, Vince. Check this: Man, the other day, I just had a jones for some 'white'" (Wild Irish Rose -- known as the drink of choice for jitterbug lushes low on funds-- comes in red and white. But in the hood, it's simply refered to by its color. You don't ask for Rose, you simply ask for a "white" or a "red". In fact you don't ask for a pint of white, you as for a "long neck white" they're called "long necks" because the bottles are long, slim cylinders that resemble Will Ferrell's character in the Oblong cartoon)

He continued: "So I went to my spot to kop and they said they had one more long neck left."

Then he dropped this revelation on me that made me practically spit out my coffee onto my Esquire.

"And the dude behind the counter said that's the last one he'll ever sell."

Huh? WhatchutalkinboutPops?

"Man, Vince, them suckaz at Richards (the manufacturer/ghetto vineyard) are discontinuing all the long necks, baby!! Can you believe that, man?!

I couldn't. So Pops and I decided that over the next few days, we're gonna travel to all the local liq-stores and buy out the last of the long-necks, so, as Pops said with a straight-face, somber-tone and heavy-heart, "So we can give them a proper home and proper goodbye."

Pops is not a wino or lush, but when he was a teen, he cut his drinking teeth on Rose. Before he found Jah, his claims to fame where being able to shoot 30-foot jumpers, "out-cuss a nigga" and, as he's said often, "drink a lame under the table." He first started with red then moved to white. Although he suscribes to ridiculous urban-myths like "drinkin that red puts freckles on a nigga's nose", he said that his crew chose Rose because it was "better" than the other lush liquid back then, namely Rose' chief competitor, Thunderbird. So if/when he cracks a long neck white (always in the paper bag) and takes that first sip, he's trippin down memory lane. He might as well be listening to Bitches Brew.

Anyways, all the Buff liq stores are selling out. I went to a spot in a poor white neighborhood called Black Rock. Nothing. Then I went to a new spot that opened on Main Street. The girl looked at me and said, "they aint makin them no mo. We been out since Fursday."

So I went to an old trusty, Pernell's on Fillmore. (I know the actual names of liquor stores in the cities I've lived in.) He was out whites too, but he had three long neck reds left. So I kopped to fifths of the white and the three long neck reds.

Mr. Pernell was sittin in the back with his arms folded over his liquir-n-ribs gut and said, "you got the last of 'em, youngster."

Then the jitterbug workin the counter, a mid-40s aged kat, rockin a wife-beater, talking on a cell phone with fake-diamond bedazzlers, dropped the bottles on the counter and in the most eery James Brown voice said "Uh! 11.50!" Not "eleven fifty", but "elemem fiddym" Then he winked. He knew it was a moment.

Rose has always been a stalwart of hood liq-stores, specifically the long necks. If a wino has about 2 bucks, he's going to the medicine shop and koppin a long neck white or red.

When I got back to the crib I asked Pops why on earth they would discontinue a wino staple. He swigged his red and then hit me with one of the most heavy generation-gap observations in a while.

"I don't know, baby. I mean, I'm sure they did their consumer studies and what not, but probably the gist of of it is that you young boys just don't really drink wine no mo. I mean, when yall wanna go get some taste, yall aint koppin no wine."

I was like, "Yeah, I dig. I guess it aint no winos anymore, huh, Pops?"

I mean, my dude Rek said when he would pick up an occassional long neck, the counterman would usually ask, "dis for your grandfather?"

Think about that. There are plenty of Gen X drunks and lushes, but no winos. What 20-40 year old says, "Man, I got a couple singles on me...hmmm...let me go kop some wine"? Probably like, .056%.

Don't get me wrong, like I said, there are plenty of Gen X drunks, just not winos. I mean, even take my crew (not my CHS crew, my other crew) for instance. Our tastes run the gamut. We like to $120 bottles of single malt scotch, but we also kop malt liquor -- our generation's Rose. When Rite Aid was selling Hurricane's for 99 cent last summer, me and Rek would just look at each other and say things like, "It's Katrina Time" or "Let's get Huey'd". But wine? Na.

We call one of our boys "Vino", but not because he drinks cheap wine, just because he "looks" like a wino.

When we were young and broke, we didn't buy wine, we bought cheap brandy and nicknamed them after jazz musicians and athletes based on their initials. E&J became Elvin Jones, Christian Brothers became Charles Barkley.

Me? I can spend close to $200 at specialty beer stores and do so in every city I live in. But I also made habit of buying Puerto Rican rum when I lived in tampa. That used to be a typical satirday or sunday for me. I'd try to recreate some dish I saw on Food Network or throw some meat on the grill and drink rum with names like Ron Rico or Juan Carlos. The thing is, they cost like $8 for a full fifth, $10 for a whole liter. If that's your official poison, itd probably put freckles on your nose like the red.

Still, Ron Rico was cheap go-to, not wine.

I have no idea when this shift occurred. But, by the 90s, Wu-Tang was pitching St. Ides, everyone in John Singleton flicks was drinkin OE, Spike Lee was parodying malt-liquor with his atomic-bomb bottles and young men were choosing cheap brandies over wine. (Maybe my fav song of 2008 is Dwele's metaphoric ode to cheap brandy)

It's sad that Rose is getting discontinued (long necks at least). I personally attach a very romantic tag to the wino-archetype. What isn't quaint about some old dude with a lil dough, drinking drinking cheap, ghetto vine? A jitterbug-sophisticado is Americana to me. My generation swigging on big 40 bottles or mixing juan carlos with RC Cola is just no where near as deviantly distinguished as a snaggle-tooth old timer sippin a long neck white.

RIP Rose and RIP winos.

For what its worth my father has vacilated between extreme ways of euologizing the death of long necks. He toggles between directives like, "Vince put those in the back of the fridge, some peoples' eyes aint even worthy of looking at the majesty of a long neck" to the other end "Man, Vince, I think I'm gonna start drinkin Rose at dinner parties."

That's nosalgia speaking, but let's be clear: somwhere in Cleveland or Detroit or DC or Dallas or Compton, there are winos mourning. They just lost the medicine for their cough.

Black Men Don't Whisper

I love watching Jesse's Obama-Nuts gaffe on YouTube, but I always end up kinda feeling bad for him. I'm sure he actually wants to rip Obama's nuts from his crotch, he said so and caught on a hot mic, but he didn't wanna get caught, I don't think. Poor geezer.

Don't get it twisted, I think it was preposterously dumb what he did. I mean, I have a proclivity for being offensive...it's actually quite miraculous that, to be so tragically obese, I'm flexible enough to perpetually stick my foot in my mouth; but when I'm on television and hooked with a mic, I keep my El Salvadorian jokes to myself. It actually boggles the mind that Jesse would ever say something so inflammatory with a camera pointed at him and a mic near his mouth. But he did. Apparently his frustration (and likely jealousy) is/was so strong, that he couldn't hold it in. He was like the biblical Jeremiah in that way, I guess. His urge to let some one know that he wanted to paw Obama's nads from tween his legs was so strong that he had to get it out there and then. Problem is, he's a man -- a black man at that...so whispering wasn't an option. If J could've leaned over and softly whispered that vitriol, he would have. Except, well, that would've been, hmmm, how do I say this, uhhh, well, that would have been really gay.

Men don't whisper, unless they're trying to seduce a woman. Whispering is typically viewed one of two ways: effeminate or sexual. If Jesse would have leaned over and whispered to that black man (whose name escapes me), that black man may have have elbowed him in the chin. I'm sure there's going to be some schmuck reading this saying, "hey, wait a second there, fella. I whisper to my pals all the time." To you, I offer a pat on the back, a doggy biscuit and some sage advice: stop whispering in other men's ears, sir. I ask my fellow mates: how often have you felt some man's hot negro/anglo breath seeping into your ear or down the side of your neck? Probably never, right?

Jesse hit us with the gangsta move. Did you see him? His lips were severely pursed, his neck was taut and he spoke his castration plans through gritted teeth. In a way, it was similar to what big, old black woman do at baptist churches. "Look at that skirt that this heffa got on." Big ol black women at baptist churches do this not because they're adversed to whispering, but because the physical act of whispering is too much of a spectacle. Jesse did it because a man should never have his mouth anywhere near another man's ear lobe.

Trust me, if Amy Holmes would have been seated next to the Rev, he'd have leaned in for a whisper in a second. "Amy, I hate Barack just like you do. Talkin down to the black folks. I wanna remove his primate genitalia. Anyways, whatchu doin after this, sweet thang? Why don't you come back to my hotel for Operation Push." Why? Because Amy is a sexy lil somethin and the Rev would have been OK with getting close enogh to smell her perfume. But he didn't wanna smell that black man's (name still escaping) stetson cologne.

It's too bad. Now he's getting pounced on. Women deal with menstrual cycles and child births. Men can't whisper to other men. I'm struggling to determine who's got it worse.

Tim Russert and South Buffalo

Before I get into Tim Russert, let me first say that learning that Wolf Blitzer was also a native-Buffalonian was a ridiculous revelation. Us Buffalonians ALWAYS had to hear about Russet and his Buffalonian roots, but somehow Wolf flew under the radar...at least my radar. And my man Blitz is, like, My Dude. I'm a late-night reveler, so I rarely woke up in time for Meet The Press to see Russert do what he did better than any other journalist. If I was up that early, I was probably off at a religious meeting (that's my hypocrite steez...I spend Sunday mornings either brushing the whiskey residue off my tongue or reading the Bible. Yes, you should absolutely judge me). But, the Situation Room is typically on one of my televisions during the early-evening (the other is either on ESPN or Food Network). I think Wolf is a great journalist, but he's actually a fairly sucky host. He stammers and repeats himself all the time, but I find this inviting. Aside from Lou Dobbs -- who is the most entertaining of curmudgeons and brings a unique independent/socialist perspective to polisocial issues -- Wolf is my favorite host. If I'd have known he was from Buffalo I'd have bored people with that factoid at all times. On some, "Hi, name's Vince. I'm from Buffalo, Wolf Blitzer's hometown." Granted, he's from Kenmore, which borders North-Buffalo, but folks from the Buff suburbs won't be in Iowa and say, "I'm from Lackawana," they're from Buffalo. Blitz even graduated from my semi-alma mater UB. Wow. This was good to know.

The only reason I knew this is because Wolf said so when recounting conversations he had with the recently and tragically deceased Tim Russert. Pretty much every politician, analyst and journalist were all in agreement that Russert was, by far, not only the highest profile political journalist; he was also the most influential political journo and unanimously viewed as the best political journo. There is rarely that kind of consensus about ANYONE in ANY profession. Tiger and MJ can claim that. Maybe Steve Jobs can claim that. Stevie Wonder could claim that in the 70s. Will Smith can claim that as a box-office Hollywood Star. But, seriously, the amount of people that are unanimously viewed to be without peer in a given profession is probably astonishingly small. Wolf was two years older than Russert, but said that he viewed Russ as a mentor of sorts, which is quite telling. I can't tell you one person that is two years younger than me, even my age, whom I look up to. Russert was that good and that charismatic and that compelling, I guess.

Getting back to Buff, though, Wolf told of a story where he and Russert were one of about 10 people invited to meet the Pope a few years ago. I'm a Jehovah's Witness, so I don't have any type of experience to put context around this type of encounter, but given how reclusive the Pope is, I assume this is a huge deal, specifically for Catholics like Russert (Blitz is Jewish). Anyways, Wolf said Russert was like a wide-eyed fan -- much different than the tough interrogator he was on Meet The press, regardless of the position of his guests -- and remarked (im paraphrasing) "Who'd have thunk that two kids from working class families in Buffalo would have risen so far in their profession that they'd be among the select few to meet the pope?" I was shocked. "Huh, Blitz is from Buff?!" I always took him to be a New York Jew, maybe from Long Island.

Growing up in Buff, you always knew that Russert was a Buffalonian, because he touted his South-Buff roots so hard. Not just Buffalo, South-Buffalo. This actually annoyed me a little bit, because he and everyone else referred to it as "Russerts roots in hard-working South Buffalo." This used to incense my father when I was a teen. Russert went real hard at this in his book about his pops as well. I can remember Pops saying how there were a lot of coded messages in the book, messages about how "things used to be", which is usually code for, "before blacks started effing things up", which is what many working class whites felt about black-infestation and white-flight of the 70s and 80s. And the "hard-working" thing is always extra conniving because i have NEVER read ANYTHING or ANYONE refer to working class East Buffalo neighborhoods as "hard-working" unless they're refering to the last vestiges of East Buffalo that remain predominantly Polish.

Working-class and poor white hoods are always "hard-working", people "doing all they can to survive"; working class and poor black hoods are typically full of welfare recipients, addicts and shiftless nigras. That's just the way it's always been.

I don't know Russert, but, judging from the fair way he treated most of his guests, I can only deduce that he is a man that is remarkably free of some of the ingrained bigotry that infests South Buffalo. South Buffalo is a large section of Buffalo that is predominantly Irish-Catholic. Much like the Italian half of North Buffalo and the Polish enclave in East Buffalo, there resides a great deal oh white-resentment in South Buffalo. It all spreads from working class, ethnic white's relationship with blacks that began when they came over to America and competed with the newly emancipated blacks for jobs and, to a large extent, respect from elite whites or WASPs. Over time, as various social policies were created to assist blacks catch-up after slavery and jim crow, the ethnic-whites viewed these as unfair handouts, since, in many cases, they were in similar situations -- at least economically speaking. Not to mention, there's always this thinking that the lazy-blacks never take advantage of the "handouts" and don't display the same "boot-strap" mentality of this nation's immigrants. None of this is news to anyone that lives in a midwestern or northeaster city with large populations of blacks and ethnic-whites.

Well, South Buffalo is Buff's reigning champ for racial intolerance, the kinda hood that will probably overwhelmingly vote for McCain, even though it's a hood mostly composed of registered Democrats. It remains, to this day, an uninviting sector of Buffalo for blacks. For what it's worth, I went to school with South Buffalonians and they all tended to be cool. I got to know many of them and counted them as friends during our days walking the CHS hall. They're the type that, if I had the stupid-audacity to walk into a South Buffalo bar, would probably immediately tell their less tolerant friends, "He's cool, don't break that Molson bottle over his afro, please." ((random aside: Not to compare, but I think that is the sole, yet marked difference between the intolderance you see in black hoods versus white hoods. White hoods are territorial, on some, "You don't belong here" type steez. If I happened to be at Jazzy's or Birchfields or Humboldt Inn (which I rarely am, prefering the more multicultural dives in other hoods) and one of my long lost South Buffalonian classmates walked in, I'd automatically wave them over to take a shot of medicine with me, but I don't know if I'd fear for their safety (unless, they were wearing gaudy jewelry, because blacks love to rob folks). Blacks have been beaten down to the point where, in America, we generally have no sense of entitlement or ownership, definitely not enough to shoot a visiting South Buffalonian a "what are you doing here? you better kick rocks before I beat you senseless" glare.)) But, back to my point, I think I got along well with my South Buffalonian classmates so well because everyone in CHS tended to be cool because of its overtly liberal atmosphere. You'd never hear any white student call a black person a nigger and there weren't student body factions based on race-hating. No skinheads in CHS or black dudes walking around beating up poor white cats just for shats and giggles. We were a laudably intermingling student-body, something that I am immensely thankful for experiencing given what lies ahead for every ambitious minority. Now, South Park High in SoBuff? Well, that's a different story. I had boys that went to South Park and told me stories about getting jumped on the bus and what not (much like white kids that went to my school were mugged in the Fruit Belt). Or, my old-pale Eric (our school's Eminem, without the rhyming skills), from the LoveJoy district, used to tell us horror stories about black families getting their windows busted in and ish. Buffalo was/is like that.

Talk to a young black guy from the East Side today about his gig and you'll hear, "Man them whities ain't gonna let me do my thing." Talk to an older white man from South Buffalo about the city at large and, if he's honest, he'll begin on some diatribe about black people ruining the city. Buff is bad. It can be a very welcoming and fun city, but there's a perpetual racial-geyser bubbling beneath the surface.

I don't mean to taint Russert's legacy or disrespect his recent passing, but the sadness of seeing such a young and vibrant man pass while in his career-prime was tainted for me because I had to constantly hear newscasters and folks that have no knowledge of South Buffalo talk about it in such reverential terms, like it's the All-American, Everyman neighborhood. If South Buffalo is All-American, then this effin country is screwed like a whore. I can tell you that...

Anyways, three cheers to Tim Russert, one of Buffalo's greatest sons. Who knows, if this world and I are still here when I'm 50, maybe I'll be on the Media Mount Rushmore with Blitzer and Russert. Russ, Wolf and Vince. And Irish guy a Jew and black Vince, three faces side-by-side, about as unified as race-relations will ever be in our beloved hometown...we just need to get an eye-tal up there with us. Calling all Sals and Nicos -- Buff and journalism needs you. Yes We Can...

My Week in LA

(Please excuse the litany of spelling errors, broken sentences and generally cryptic/retardedy thoughts....this was not spell-checked or re-read...)

A couple weeks ago, I was in southern California, appearing on Jim Rome Is Burning for the first time. The Forum is a segment of the show where he invites two journalists on the show to discuss sports topics. As far as my television appearance go, it was easily the most high-profile appearance and something I thank Jim and Mike for. I met them last year when we were discussing some possible employment opportunities. Since then, I've kept in regular contact with them and they both gave me the good look coming on their show. Mandt is an excellent dude and great tv producer. Rome might be highest profile sports personality in the country, made even more impressive because, although he has a show on ESPN, he is not an ESPN-entity, he's his own man and has forged a ridiculously lucrative and influential career, almost on his own. Just being around those dudes at work is like a lesson

As fun and educational of an experience it was to be on the forum, the highlight of the week was hangin in SoCal. I can't get enough of LA and it sucks that it's all the way on the other side of the country.

They put me up at the Hyatt in Huntington Beach, since the studio is in Orange County and LA traffic is so horrendous. I'm not a beach-dude. I'm about as urban as they come. I like concrete and buildings and dive bars and cafes and corner-stores where I can kop $1.50 40oz malt liquor. And it's a good thing I don't like beaches, otherwise you'd run the risk of seeing me in all my burlesque glory, sorta like Martin in Big Momma's House two, except I'd exchange the onesie for some trunks. But I am a nature-dude. Does that make sense? I may not like laying on the beach, but I love DC during cherry-blossom season, take trips to see resplendent trees in the fall...that kind of stuff. In that respect, my room was awesome. it had a balcony that looked out on the pacific ocean. I kept the balcony door open 24-7, so I smelled, felt and heard the Pacific throughout the day and night. You can't get that in downtown Dallas or Detroit.

My afternoon habit was buying fast food. I never ate breakfast, so by the time I left the studio in the afternoon, I'd be near-starving. I tried them all -- In-N-Out (a favorite from previous trips to SoCal), Carl's Jr., Jack-N-The-Box, Del Taco. The West Coast is king of fast-food options and, between the ridiculous amount of beef, fried potatoes and alcohol I consumed, my digestive system was wrecked for a week. Unfortunately, I wasn't on my foodie game this time, so I don't have too many stories about fine-dining...I'm saving that for next trip.

Monday and Tuesday night I stayed in Huntington Beach for the most part, which was a corny option. Orange County is souless. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the MTV shows Laguna Beach and Newport Beach...well, those depiction of OC are not far off. It's very white, very suburban, very rich...very corny. People may mistake LA for being nothing but Hollywood (starlets and wannabees), Compton/SoCentral (gangbanging nigras) and East LA (essays that wear their shirts buttoned to the top)...but it's not. LA has a surprising and commendable cultural mix and a ton of distinct neighborhood with a lot of character. Ornage County does not.

I got to the telly Monday eve and watched the game in my room, ordered room service and chilled out, but Tuesday, not having any real plans, I watched the Lakers game at a bar on Main Street, which is Huntington Beach's main drag. The scene was typical...a bunch of beach bums, tanned white women with tigo-bitties and trustfund brats...besides the fact that I'm not the kind of dude that minds being the only black dude in the room, there's a difference in crowds when, say, you're at a predominantly white bar in Adams Morgan in DC than, say, an all-white bar in Capitol Hill? An atmosphere can be multi-culturally inclined even when it's composed of one race. But then you have places like Ornage County that are monolithic, isolated and insular. But here's all that I needed to feel like one of the guys -- they were all cheering the Lakers...ha, my people. And of course the Mexicans were clearing our empty beer cups and shot glasses. Ultimately, aside from the pro-Lakers atmosphere, the actual bar and bartenders sucked, though. It was one of those spots that poor sucky drinks in plastic cups, but it was packed and young, had the game on loud and a slew of flat screens. And LA won! It wouldve been a really cool experience, sharing -- for the first time in my life -- a significant Lakers win with a bunch of fellow Lakers fans in Lakerland...but there was thic black girl....

This black girl took obnoxious to profound levels...I mean, it was beyond my Vince-On-10-Obnoxious level.

There were two black couples in the bar and me. So 20% of us were acting like a Class A rube. This loud-a$$ black woman was shouting at obscene levels in support of the Spurs. I was afraid that someone was gonna call her a "black b*tch", tell her to shut her monkey-mouth up, then I was gonna have to get valiant and help begrudgingly seek justice with the other afros on site. I doubt she even knew the name of two players, she was that kind of bird. She would clap extra loud and long after a Spurs bucket. She called Kobe a "b*tch" at least 100 times, at the top of her lungs. And she was drinking an apple-martini out of a plastic cup -- what a typical afro-bimbo. She paced the bar, screaming and yelling "woooooooo!!!" during timeouts when the Spurs were up. I'm an anxious Lakers fan and, although I have tons of patience for true fans, supporting opposition in a non-obnoxious kind of way -- you know, some good-natured needling -- there is never a need for some bimbo to be in SoCal, at a sports bar, mindlessly rooting for the opposition. She embarrassed me. And if she embarrassed me, well imagine what her boyfriend thought. The three blacks she was with were all Lakers fans, so it annoyed me that her boyfriend didn't 1.) have the gonads to calm this bish down; 2.) instruct before entering that it wasn't kosher to be obnoxious just for the heck of it. A couple times I shot a menacing glance their way and the dudes looked at me with this sheepish grin like, "Sorry, bruh. But you know how they are and you know how we are. Whatcha want me to do?"

I find it comical that when I'm out with a group of black women they tend to have little patience for the Girls Gone Wild kind of white woman. If they see two or three white women getting kind of close on the dance floor and dancing a little too dykey, or if they hear them screaming too much, they all get this tense look, like, "I'm about to slap this attention-whoring white-chick." yet I don't think there is any ethnic-gender more annoying and grating than out-of-control black women. When any kind of man is out of control, it's usually not annoying, more like threatening, since a fight always seems within the immediate future. But not only are out-of-control black women rubish, they also think they can intimidate everyone, specifically white people. There was a bully-streak to this woman's behavior and it frustrated me that these soft southern californians were letting it go down.

That whole experience really typified SoCal -- outside of the hood, it's very soft. I always say that a city really doesn't have full character and heft unless you get some ethnic whites in the mix. It goes without saying that she wouldn't have been acting a fool in Watts or East LA, since logic would hold that some Lakers-loving gangsters (and make no mistake, Angelenos LOVE the Lakers) would have made it abundantly clear from the onset that her kinda behavior was gonna be met with the threat of violence. But she got around white folks and thought she could act out. Well, you can do that with WASPs, but ethnic whites -- Irish, Polish, Italian -- don't play that garbage. In fact, insulting their teams might be more of a volatile act than insulting a family member. Whites in SoCal are a bunch of bidussies, so this bimbo invaded a pro-Lakers bar and acted a fool. It was such sweet silence when Kobe went off at the end and shut her up with the LA win.

Later that night, i hooked up the GPS system and drove up and down Pacific Coast Highway and Ocean Blvd, from Huntington thru Long Beach, pumping my iPod...now THAT was a good time.

The next day I got up with some old friends from Buffalo. We met in Santa Monica and watched the Detroit-Boston game at fairly swanky sports-bar, if such a thing isn't automatically an oxymoron (to get to Santa Monica, I drove through Venice Beach and Marina Del Ray...I wanna live in Venice...the residential hood and the arts/entertainment district around Abbott kinney Blvd is nothing like the touristy boardwalk....it was dope.) Sitting at the table next to us, there was a crew of Pistons fans from Detroit. I tried to let them down gently when I told them that Boston was gonna win, since Detroit spent all it's energy picking at the lead. They didn't believe. So I just smiled as the final buzzer sounded and the Cs were walking a way with the vic. That was a typical NBA game. One team gets up by a big lead, the other team expends ridiculous energy to get back into, but doesn't have enough to actually pry away the lead and get the W.

The ill thing about games on the West Coast is that they end in the early evening. So you don't go out to watch the game, you watch the game while you're out and then really go out. Later that eve, we made our way to Hollywood and went to the Comedy Store on Sunset Blvd, which is a famous and fairly historic comedy-haunt in LA. Interestingly, basically the whole cast of MadTV showed up to do bits and none of them were extremely funny, which is probably why I never watch MadTV. Pauly Shore dropped in for a hilarious 10 minutes, though. I was never a Pauly Shore fan, his MTV persona was about as bad as his movies and his movies were atrocious. But, on a stage in a club, he's got a pretty strong presence. He's excessively vulgar and comports a deliberately stoned persona, but it all works. During the week, the pros descend on clubs like the Comedy Store to try out different bits they'll use on tour. Pauly came up with a with about 5 or 6 crumpled sheets of print-paper, which he had stuffed into some sweats that he clearly copped from WalMart. And almost every other comic would end certain jokes with "I guess I won't use that one" or subtely mutter things like, "So they like that one."

There happened to be one guy there, however, who insisted on laughing raucously at every joke that was told. he was the worse kind of audience member for others in the audience. His laugh was grating. He was a knee-slapper and the guy that ends every laugh with strings of "Oh god" and "Oh nooo" and "Ahhhhhh god." Even some of the comics had to put dude on Front Street, like, "Was it really that funny, guy?!" Initially it was mildly amusing, his hysterics. then it became intriguing, then puzzling, then annoying, then alarming...and finally you became numb. Take Robert Deniro in Cape Fear -- the scene in the movie theater -- and multiply that by 1,348...that's how this rube was carrying on. But hypocritically, this one comic -- a weird looking guy, who dressed like a bag man, looked like he'd mug and rape you in an alley, stood hunched over with his shoulder length hair covering his face and told self-deprecating jokes that were Rodney Dangerfield, if he were sadistic and suicidal -- had me and Mike rolling and we happened to be the only one's laughing. There's something about a frightening looking comedian telling dark knock-knock jokes and ending them with, "Please like me...or I'll kill myself," that we found hysterical. And I can assure you it wasn't the Makers Mark.

After that, we were denied entrance into a lounge on some "this is for cool people only". Even though that had never happened to me in LA before, neither in all my time in NYC, San Fran, Atlanta, DC, nowhere -- I thought it was such a wack "LA" moment. It wasn't the "We have a dress code" kind of thing. It was the "LA thing" where the doorman looked at my friends and I and just didn't wanna pull back the rope. Didn't matter that it was a Wednesday and no one was in line...the spot was obviously too dope for us. We left the Comedy Store well after midnight and LA closes at 2am ( which is absurd coming from NY where last call is at 3:45. L:ast call in LA is at some stupid time like 1:30. This is no joke, but there are plenty nights where I dont even get my night started til after 1am) and walked across the street from Comedy Store to this nameless spot. My two firends and I (the Benzes, a guy and a gal), we just wanted to sit at a bar, hang, catch up, spend money and mind our buisness. We got up to the bouncer and he just stared at us. Mike was like, "Okaaayyy. What's up? How's everything in there." The bouncer responds, "It's cool," without making eye contact. I'm like, "Aight, are you gonna let us in?" He says something coy, gay and rude like, "We're cool for now."

"WHAT, NIGGA?"...at least that's how I wanted to respond. I can see if your at capacity, or if there's a line, or if it's a group of 5 guys walking up, or if there's a dress code...there's a litany of reasons to deny someone entrance into your establishment..."We're cool for now" is not one of them.

I kinda got buppie on him, though. I was like, "You're cool for now? What does that even mean, dude? What's makin you cool. Explain cool to me." He greases me with the silent treatment. I felt like gettin at him how Leslie Mann got at the doorman (Craig Robinson bka Darryl from the Office) in Knocked Up. Remember how she just kept calling dude "Doorman!" and then Craig broke doorman-character and divulged how he hated playing gatekeeper. I'm hoping either 1.) it was a gay-bar and he didn't want heteros effin up the vibe or 2.)Puff, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jessica Biel and their entourages were up in there a the cool-quotient was way too high for normal people. Otherwise that was just some LA bs and it bothered me. But you know how I get down, just give me some oak and some whiskey and I'm good. So we walked a half-block to the next spot and ended the night there.

It should be mentioned that LA bartenders pour ridiculous amounts of alchohol. If you ask for a whiskey in Buff, Orlando, ATl, DC, NYC, most places, you often get a shot. If you ask for a neat whiskey, they might give you a double shot in a tumbler. In LA, they give you like 6 oz of the good medicine. It's insane. By the end of the night I was nice and fuzzed, which made our encounter with another Buff-transplant all the more entertaining. he was Asian, which meant that he was most likely kin to one of 4 or 5 Asian families in the Buff metro area. he also hailed from Lackawana. An Asian in Lackawana is like a Prius in the parking lot of a Lynard Skynard concert. I can't remember if I said anything offensive to him, but chances are I did. Anyways, he finagled the bartender to serve us shots after last call and invited the Benzes to his house party. I also think he asked Sarah if she modeled or some other "LA" question. I'm predicting with a good deal of assuredness that any party this dude throws is quintessential-lame. He's the dude on Chippewa, at SubZero, dancing with teenagers, singing along to Akon. trust.

Thankfully, I had Thursday off, since there was no show. So I woke up late, drank wine on the balcony, ate lunch with my visiting cousins and my uncle BJ, who now lives in LA. Then I headed to downtown LA to catch Game 5 of the Lakers-Spurs series. You know the story. LA clinched thanks to a gangsta-Kobe performance. When I left the arena I pumped the Snoop-Kurupt "Lakers Theme" all the way down Wilshire on my way to Hollywood. It was euphoric and made me wanna spend at least one year as a single adult in LA, during NBA season.

I ended that night in West Hollywood with two journalists friends of mine. The bar was dope, except the men were serving us our drinks barechested...bare...chested.

One of my friends -- a self-proclaimed "fag-hag" -- was a female, thankfully...otherwise it would have been uncomfortable. I just don't see any reason for that. Unless it's Chippendales or a male strip club, I just don't see any reason for a dude to serve me my drinks without his shirt on. I know that's probably just a West hollywood kinda thing, but this bar wasn't overtly gay. What I mean by that is, it didn;t feel like a gay meat-market. There were plenty of gay couples, but just as many hetero couples and a healthy share of straight women. Maybe like in that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, when Larry and Jeff were opening a restaraunt with Ted Danson and they were having the pre-opening meetings about menus and wardrobes; the pre-opening mtgs for the Abbey must have went like this, "What should our servers wear?" "Umm, how about jeans tight enough to hopefully reveal the outline of their shafts....and no shirts!" "Fabulous!" it was still a good time, but i'm sayin...put your shirts on, fellas.

By Friday, I was petering out. I had spent the past three days staying out till 3 or 4am, drinking like Jimmy McNulty and eating like a teenager or a 2006-2008 Vince. The show went well, then I went back to the telly to take a nap, hoping that I wouldn't be a zombie later that night. I ended up hangin in Long Beach with a friend and her friends. By the time I got back to the telly, I had enough time to pack and get to the airport for the morning flight.

As far as late-May biz-n-pleasure trips, this one ranks right under Memorial Day Weekend 2006, when I was in Miami covering the Miami-Detroit Eastern Conference Finals and VIP clubbing in South Beach.

Funny, my girl J -- who has been to LA far more than me -- did Rome's show the week after me and she did something interesting -- she did all the tourist stuff -- she went on the Houses of the Stars tour, watched pickup basketball on Venice Beach...stuff like that. Back in the summer of '04, I was in LA for a few days interviewing for a post-grad internship and I did the Hollywood Walk of Fame thing, but that's about it. Maybe in the midst of work and revelry, next time I'll take out a few moments to tour a movie-studio lot, see Will Smith's crib and stuff like that...seriously...or maybe not...maybe I'll go back to that lounge-spot on Sunset, call that dude "doorman" and piss on his Kenneth Coles...it could either way....

My new neph Aidan

My little neph Aidan was born Thursday night/Friday morning. I got a call from Moms during the middle of the 4th quarter of the LA-Boston Game 1, telling me that Aidan was on his way and me and my younger-bro Adam needed to get going immediately. The little nig had to rear his precious little head during the end of Game 1, didn't he? Ha. He was a couple days past his due date. I actually wanted him to drop the prior week, while I was in LA, so I couldve given him a shout-out on television. But he dissed me.

It's already apparent that the immediate family -- and extended fam to a larger extent -- is gonna revolve around this young dude. He has two significant distinctions. For the immediate fam, he is my parents first grandchild and me and the sibs first niece or nephew. For the extended fam, he is Lydia's first child, Lyd being the Queen Bee and Unofficial Favorite of the Thomas and Frazier cousins. She was the first girl and semi-perfect child of the first slate of kids, which included my big couzzes Rashaad, Jason and Ryan; Lyd, me and my twin-cuz Halima. Every new addition is met with excitement and affection, but Lyd's first kid is a big deal. It's never articulated that way, but you can sense it.

The sibs and I are a weird pack. There are five us: Lyd (30), me (29), P (27), Chrish (25) and A (23). Until Lyd got hitched in November, that question started coming up: "When are one of them gonna finally get married." And as our cousins and close friends started popping out kids with increasing regularity and my parents siblings and friends reveled in grandparenthood, there was some pressure building. Straight-up, I was thinking about going to a trailer park and seeding-up some pwt with low self-esteem or making my way back to the hood and giving some early-20s hoodrat her 8th illegitimate kid. But, alas, not even they were falling for my advances.

But seriously, not get too Freudian or Spockian or Philian, but there's something at work with me and the sibs. Our friends say it's a mix of "outrageous standards" or commitment phobias, the list goes on. But Aidan looks like he's gonna be the only grandchild for quite some time, unless one Christian's condoms malfunction.

I have two groups of blood-brother-like friends that are basically separate entities. The one group is all Jehovah's Witnesses. I kid you not, but every last one of them is married. Rek, Vino, Sheez, Nast, Swayz, Dubb, J, San, all of them. Two have kids, one has a seed on the way and I have all the rest on the clock. I am a martian in that group. My other crew is, basically, a crew full of martians. Up until a month or so ago, when Gee proposed to Meredith, we were a group of unmarried, childless black men closing in our 30s. You might think that college and careers were part of the reason, but not even that truly explained the bucking of the statistic/trend. And again, we've spent enough sessions debating why things are the way they are, but you can't really put your finger on it. These things kinda just happen the way they happen. And I'll probably be the last of that crew to get hitched and seeded, too.

So when the Thomas fam learned that Lyd was pregnant it was some wild news. I'm sure somewhere in the glee, my parents were also breathing a figurative sigh of relief, like "Finally!"

Mom and Pops, mind you, are from that generation that married early and started squeezing out kids almost immediately and with regularity -- at least that's how it was with black folks in Buffalo. So when they saw their children marching on without so much as a single, meaningful relationship that they could see lead to marriage and then, at last, a grandbaby, I'm sure it was unsettling for them. But, as always, Lyd to the rescue.

No joke, Aidan is kind of a savior in that way. My other sibs may not have even given a milisecond of thought to the grandchild issue, but i used to think about it occassionally in my reflective moments. And since I knew (hoped) I wasn't gonna be letting my sperm fly into any ovaries any time soon, I was hoping that, at some point, that grandchild would come -- but under non-stressful circumstances. For instance, if Adam came home and alerted the fam that he impregnated a Haitian immigrant with AIDS, well, that wouldn't be so dope. Or if P came home and told the fam that a one-night stand with a drunk Italian in a Jims Steakout bathroom resulted in a her mulatto fetus, well, that wouldn't be so sweet. Lyd, however, is happily married, with a healthy son and she even left NYC to come home for Aidan's first year or so. And my parents are giddy. They're saying all the ridiculous grandparent things. About an hour after Aidan was born, my Moms was standing outside the newborn room, with her palms and nose pressed against the glass, alerting us to things that are biologically impossible. things like, "Ooh look guys, Aidan's laughing at Najib." This is patently absurd, seeing as though newborns can't smile, let alone be amused and react by laughing. Moms is sure of it though. Pops says that Aidan already has a distinct personality. You gotta just smile and go along with them. They're going to be a handful as grandparents though...I'm sure of that.

I'll be gone soon, but for these last few months in Buff, I plan on spending a good amount of time with my neph. One of the few regrets I have about leaving Buff and visiting so infrequently (I was a once or twice a year dude) was that my young-young cousins practically have no idea who I am. I can't have it like that with my neph AD...that's my nickname for him, AD, like Adrian Dantley AD.

But anyways, another grand shout to the new Lyd-Aidan-Najib trio. Good times are ahead.

Buffalo Braves

In this month's SLAM, issue 120, the one with my basketball-crush Chris Paul on the cover, I have a feature on the Buffalo Braves, an NBA team that left my hometown less than a year before I was born. All Buffalonians should check it out...

Twist Update

It's been a while. So, I'll spare you all the apologies and the promises of more regular blogging that I'm sure I'll break. Before I start writing a few other posts, let me update you on the career-tip, which, ultimately, was why I started this blog 4 years ago -- to keep my extended and scattered fam abreast of what I was doing and where I was at.

I am in Buffalo these days and probably will be for the next few months. I'd like to be gone by Labor Day, but we'll see how things go. Career-wise, my proverbial star is on the rise. I'm just trying to capitalize on momentum. Here are a few links for you check out...

These are my online SLAM columns. Most of them are very hoops-centric, but a few delve into other topics (single moms, YouTube, man-crushes, etc)...

This link takes you to the YouTube clips of my ESPN appearances. Since early this year, I've appeared, in a fairly steady stream, on ESPN shows like Outside The Lines, First Take and, recently, Jim Rome Is Burning (I'll be writing a post soon about my time on Rome in LA)....

Asian Pickup Basketball

Yesterday I was at Alumni Arena, trying to shed the weight I've gained over the winter which is equivalent to a fat 10-year-old. I've "gained a fat 10-year-old" over the past 4 or 5 months. It's sad. At any rate, my normal routine at the gym is to co about 30 minutes of cardio, hit a few machines, go play some ball and then hit the sauna.

Because it's finals time for most of the kids, the campus, specifically the arena and gym, are like ghosts towns around this time. So when I hit the court to put a few shots, the only cats playing were a group of Asians, with the few requisite girlfriends standing on the sidelines looking demure and afraid of the big black man that just walked in the gym wearing a hoodie.

Depending on how much ball you play, where you play, what city you're in and a few other variables, you have varying degrees of familiarity with the phenomenon that is Asians playing ball. The best place to take this in is on the campuses of huge state schools, in my case we're talking University of Buffalo. Asians probably make up 10%-15% of the student body. Now, when you're talking about 25,000 students, that means anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 young Asians walking around campus with 4.0 GPAs and fuel-efficient cars.

I have a theory and it's that foreign studying Asians don't party. I never see large groups of Asian kids at the college hangout spots. I suspect, in the most ignorant manner possible -- that they are either studying or doing something far less damaging that whisky shots. One of these things is playing basketball -- an abhorrently poor brand of basketball.

When it comes to basketball -- the Asians come out at night. You won't see them too often during the day, when the gym courts are packed with pickup games. And it's for two good reasons: 1.) they'd like to save this leisure activity as a evening substitute for normal college revelry and .....

Asians Only Play Basketball With Other Asians
I have yet to see even a token black or white male playing in an Asian pickup game. It's startling to walk on a court -- no matter where or when -- and see that one HALF of the court being used by a group of Asians and only Asians.

You want some other hallmarks of Asian basketball? here they go...

Asians Will Never -- Under Any Circumstances -- Play Full Court Basketball
They adhere to this rule with fastidious and comical conviction. I have no idea why. You'd think with their healthy diets and slender frames that a good game of full court wouldn't be a problem, but then you recognize what's holding them back...

Asians Don't Know How To Dribble A Basketball Like An Adult Male
Have you ever seen toddlers or grade school kids try to run while dribbling a basketball? It's cute isn't it? Tey fumble the ball, have to turn around and go retrieve it, then start the process over again. Well, when you're dealing with young adult Asian men, it's not cute, it's tragic. They lose the ball dribbling it so high over their shoulders that it drifts over their head. Some throw caution and rules to the win and dribble with two hands if the awkwardly physical Asian defense gets too tight. For a group of Asians to play full court would be a grave sight, for it would entail the ball never passing half court, or men straight picking up the ball and running or dribbling with two hands, like, say, Richard Simmons or some other gay blade that never bothered mastering the insanely difficult skill of bouncing a ball. You'd think those scientific Asian minds could master the mechanics of bouncing a ball.

Anyways, to ensure some fluidity to the game, they only play half-court basketball, which sometimes gets ridiculous because....

Asians Never Bother Putting A Ceiling On How Many Dudes Can Play At Once
These niggas will play 10-on-10 -- no bull. I once saw a group of Asians playing 6-on-6 halfcourt. Do you know how insane that is? yes, they're a typically diminutive ethnic gender and, yes, they're used to living in cities like Tokyo and Beijing, where there are 50 million people living in a city the size Yonkers...but still, what about rules? It's disconcerting to see 15 Asians frantically running around a halfcourt, double-dribbling and shooting up airballs.

These dude will also pull out a 4-on-3 with no problem, like they're 10 and one of the dudes is 16. Remember how that might have went back in the day? We had a dude like that in my crew. He was, like, 25 years older than everyone, so sometimes, if number were uneven, he'd count as two people. Well, all that trash stopped when we reached junior high. It doesn't for young Asian men. If 9 of them roll up to the court on a Thursday night, then it's gonna be a 5-on-4 scrubfest.

It's a scrubfest because they have the weirdest games. For instance...

I've Never Seen An Asian Successfully Make a Layup
There are only a few conclusions to an Asian Drive and none of them include actually making the layup. After the Asian has double dribbled his way to the basket, he will either shoot it over the backboard, violent scoop it to hit the bottom of the backboard or get tackled by the Asian defending him..at which no foul will be called, they will simply get up and continue playing.

Also....

On The Court, Asians Will Neither Stand Upright Or Jump When They Shoot
Seriously, they are always in a crouching position. Perhaps this comes from martial arts training. What this does, however, is totally prohibit them from ever making a pass that leads to a bucket, what is known as an "assist". Asians play assistless games, namely because they're always crouched, unable to see the floor and the fact that the teammate they pass to knows neither how to dribble or complete a layup.

They also never jump when they shoot. And because the defender is always playing either butts-to-nuts or crotch-to-crotch defense, this leads to an inordinate amount of blocked shots, which always leads to EVERY player on the court pursuing the loose-ball. That means that almost every possession there will be a moment when anywhere between 8-22 Asians make a mad dash for the up-for-grabs ball. It's chaos, I tell you.

You know what else bothers me?...

Asians Let Girlfriends Play
And they are usually still dressed in their school gear -- jeans, flip flops, tank tops. I once saw a girlfriend playing with her winter jacket on. This displeased me. Here i thought Asians came from a strict patriarchal society where broads knew there place, but they come stateside and get all egalitarian on me. "Sure, we need another body so we can make this an 8-on-8 halfcourt game...and do us a favor Sun, we need to legitimize this game, so keep on your parka."


I hope I don't/didn't come off bigoted/prejudice/ignorant with any of this. I mean, at the end of the day, Asians, Too, Is A Beautiful Thang

Stuff Vince Does and Doesn't Like

I told you that I was gonna have my won personal response to the websites Stuff Educated Black People Like and Stuff White People Like. They're my two favorite websites on the Internet right now and I wish they were like some of these other blogs that update multiple times per day. Anyways, as I went through both sites, I found instances where I thought, "Yep, I'm definitely on some EBP steez right there" and other instances where the EBP rhetoric was insufferable. That's been somewhat of an insecurity of mine. You all know that buppies irritate the snot outta my nostrils, but, in so many ways, I'm a true-blue buppie. For a dude that grew up in a working class family on Buffalo's crack infested eastside, I don't know if that's an accomplishment or an indictment. What I do know is that buppies/EBP can be a hoe-azz sect when they wanna be.

I've also tended to be a black dude that could identify with a certain type of white person, mostly the kind of white person describe in hilarious satire on the Stuff White People like blog. I found my self scouring that list and mostly thinking either, "Yep, I love that or feel that way, too" or "yep, i love those kind of white people." I'm a fan of two types of Caucos 1.) hard-partying manics; and mostly, 2.) liberal, semi-gult-ridden whites that are hip enough to know that white people aren't hip. It's #2 that gets extensive insight from the SWP blog.

Anyways, this just might be what I needed to get my own blog poppin again, a jumpin off point for some thoughts, anecdotes, etc...I wanna begin by lookin at the first 5 items from the EBP website...

1. Fraternities and Sororities -- I have very close friends, both male and female that are Greek and I spent much of my early 20s, my first years in DC, railing against the Greek culture in the most obnoxious way possible -- whether that be purposely standing in the way of their ridiculous and stupid souped-up conga lines or getting thrown out of a Homecoming step-show for being a disruptive, drunk-jerk -- so I don't wanna start spewing any vitriol, here. But, I'll never forget how startling it was to see how omnipresent Greeks were at HBCUs. I spent my first few college years reading novels at University of Buffalo, a large state school with a predominatly-cauco student body. Blacks were a real minority, BLGOs (Black Greek letter organizations) were an even smaller minority. When I went to a college party, Qs weren't crawling on the floor and barking like dogs. And most of my disdain for BLGOs was the notion that I ascribe to it, the notion that most of the pledges were sheep that used these organizations to attract friends and be apart of something. Followers have always annoyed me and, to me, frat boys were the quintessential followers. As I've grown older, I see the good and benefit of BLGOs, but only the grown-adult portion of it. College-age greeks still get the gas-face.

2. Neo Soul -- Here's a portion of what the blog said: "Neo Soul music makes educated black people feel like they are getting in on music that regular blacks don’t know about. The most popular neo soul artist is Erykah Badu….even though some of us may feel she’s a little bit crazy. Some educated Blacks have distanced themselves from Ms. Badu because too many people know about her. Neo Soul allows these educated blacks to feel they are the only people who know about these artists and are the only ones educated enough to understand this music. Once an artist “catches on,” it’s time to move on to the next undiscovered talent." There is no greater EBP cliche and identifier than this music, to me. It rages with buppieness. But here's the thing, EBPs don't actually have good taste in music, they simply follow trends and attach themselves to what "seems" highbrow. That's why they can't tell the sonic difference of direction and quality between, say, India Arie and the new Badu. People don't understand this, but Badu really stopped making neo-soul after her first album, because she understood that the genre had become a cartoon. Same goes for D'Angelo. Neo-soul is for the Glen Lewises, it is the tired, musical carnation of No. 5 on this list, the hackneyed poetry slam. That's why I can't get down with a lot of EBPs. Neo-soul, however, is not the EBP equivalent to indie music. White people actually take their music seriously. The artist they like are musicians and actually write out substantial lyrics. They really do seek and search out hidden gems. That's not neo-soul. Neo-soul is basically just EBP pop music. I love Angie Stone, but Angie Stone is as much an EBP poster-girl as she is a great artist. Give me Georgia Anne Muldrow everyday and allday. Neo-soul is for squares.

3. Baked Chicken -- I didn't know this was an EBP thing. But I gotta admit, I'm a baked chicken dude, although I'll always enjoy a good piece of fried chicken, so long as you soak it in butter milk and coat it with a nice seasoned-flour. This is an excerpt of what the blog wrote: "Educated Black People have a more sophisticated taste. We like BAKED CHICKEN. Some even go so far as to use lemon pepper seasonings, but this is only for the upper echelon blacks with advanced degrees, so don’t try this at home if you only have an undergraduate degree. Now if you want to really show off your education, bake chicken breasts only! By eating baked chicken, we educated Blacks feel as though we are beyond the stigma of eating common fried chicken." Now, I believe that a good deal of the baked-preference is due to health concerns, which should be a greater premium in the black community. But, somehow, fried chicken did become the modern-watermelon in that it was used as the food-stereotype for niggas. More than anything, buppies and EBPs are image conscious and spend an inordinate amount of time and effort on distancing themselves from niggas theoretically and aesthetically. This would definitely mean getting your chicken fix -- because buppie niggas still love chicken -- without stooping to the perceived porch-monkey levels of frying the chicken. Of all EBP MOs, this baked chicken stance is one of the most trifling.

4. Natural Hair -- I love black woman that rock their hair natural. I think it's sexy, because, not only does it look hot, it also says a lot. I wrote this column about it when I was a young pup. I think it says it all...

5. Poetry Slams -- i HATE...let me repeat, HATE spoken word. It is the most cliche, hackneyed, imposter-portion of black culture right now. Spoken word and poetry slams are about 2 years away from caucos fully taking it over like they've done break-dancing...that's how bad it is. Every BS nigra thinks they can string together a few big words and spit them in the same exhausted staccatto/cadence and feign like they're sophisticated and above the nigger-fray. I liked this portion of the EBP blog: "It also allows us to show off our verbal rhythm, because true slampoets……..always…….talklikethis ……because if you don’t …..thenyouare …..a …..FAKE …..poet *thoughtful look*." I tried to watch Def poetry Jam last year and it was excruciating, like a construction worker was jack hammering my ballsack.

Stuff Vince Likes

Ever seen these sites?

Stuff Educated Black People Like
Stuff White People Like

Well, these twi sites have really thrown me for the most entertaining loop in quite some time. Get ready for an epic posts about why I like and don't like some of the Stuff Educated Black People and White People like...

Some more of my ESPN YouTubes

For those that didn't get a chance to check out the past couple weeks' ESPN seg...here they are...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-btMYSX_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwm-TbnsU5Q

(FYI...if you don't check the blog that often anymore, I post all of these on my Facebook page, if your on Facebook)

Google is evil and awesome

I absolutely LOVE Google. It's reached a critical point. I mean, these dudes and this company are so impressive that I'm beginning to think of them in a conspiratorial light.

I watch a show on HBO called In Treatment. It's about a shrink, played by Gabriel Byrne (Dean Keaton from Usual Suspects, Tom Reagan from Miller's Crossing) and the whole show takes place, primarily, in his home office. It ran five evenings per week for about 9 weeks. The same patients came back at the same time each week. Monday was a sultry young woman that had a crush on Byrne and wanted to ball him. Tuesday was Blair underwood's character, a military dude that left his wife, killed a bunch of Arab kids in an air strike and had a litany of other emotional problems. Thursday was the fractured married couple, etc. Wednesday was my favorite day. That's when Sophie came thru. Sophie was an Olympic hopeful and suicidal brat that may, or may not have been sexually abused by her absentee father.

Sophie is germane to this post about Google because she dropped one of my favorite television lines of the Spring. there was one episode that began with Paul (Byrne) unexpectedly paying a pizza delivery guy. Minutes later Sophie arrived, the pizza was hers. She goes off on some tangent about she hadn't eaten all day and, while on the bus en route to her session, she searched google for a good pizza spot near Byrne's office and had them order and deliver the pizza. Byrne, your typical old dude, seemed surprised and asked, "Google can do that?"; Sophioe smirked and responded: "Google can do anything."

"Google can do anything." If you don't agree with that, then you need to get hip. It's scary, because if Google channeled its genius and mind-boggling resources for evil efforts, I'm of the mindset that it could probably rule the world.

Anyways, I awoke this morning and did what I do every other morning, I put on the pot of coffee, piss and check my email -- always in that order. Google has a really simple and informative log-in screen for Gmail. Many times, it'll have announcements if there's a new Gmail feature (Gmail, by the way, is leaps and bounds above every other email provider. I seriously can't understand why any of you rubes still deal with AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail...). This morning, I was greeted with this announcement:

NEW! Gmail Custom Time
Ever wish you could go back in time and send that crucial email that could have changed everything -- if only it hadn't slipped your mind? Gmail can now help you with those missed deadlines, missed birthdays and missed opportunities.

• Pre-date your messages: You tell us what time you would have wanted your email sent, and we'll take care of the rest. Need an email to arrive 6 hours ago? No problem.
• Mark as read or unread: Take sending emails to the past one step further. We let you make emails look like they've been read all along.
• Make them count: Use your custom time stamped messages wisely -- each Gmail user gets ten per year.
• Worry less: Forget your finance reports. Forget your anniversary. We'll make it look like you remembered.

You have to recognize how simultaneously great (in an extreme way) and evil (in a debased and devious way) this is. I mean, just in terms of utility, this is, perhaps, the most awesome email development since email was developed. For a irresponsible, forgetful and also conniving schmuck like me, this is a proverbial godsend. I'm ALWAYS forgetting to send emails, or missing a deadline. But that second bullet is sooooo greasy. "We'll let you make emails look like theyve been read all along"!!!!!! That is sooo grimy. So now we can not only lie that we sent an email to a significant other, business partner, scorned friend, offended parent, etc; but we can make it seem like they're the idiots that never received OUR communique.

It could go like this:

You get an email from this friend that invited you to a dinner party that you really didnt want to attend. The friend is mad that you didn't show thru. There was acold plate of lamb chops and stale glass of red wine sitting in front of a seat meant for you, not to mention a bored bimbo they had invited for you to meet. Your friend is furious, mainly because he/she suspects you blew the engagement off to do something trivial, like play with your ballsack watching the Flavor of Love marathon and drink vodka. That's when you send them a custom time email that shows up as read in their inbox, the day before the engagement, telling them you had a project with a changed deadline and you had to go in the office. Then you send them an email, blasting them for being sensitive and imploring them to check their inbox "for real and not like an illiterate idiot"...and you demand an apology, too. This ish is sinister.

"Forget your finance reports. Forget your anniversary. We'll make it look like you remembered"?!?!?!!!!!! Wow.

At least they have the foresight to only allot 10 per year.

But here's what I can't shake: I can't shake the feeling that this is an April Fools joke.

Book Nerds are Shallow

I loved this essay in the Sunday Times about deal-breakers for book lovers. It's called "It's Not You, It's Your Book." It begins: "Some years ago, I was awakened early one morning by a phone call from a friend. She had just broken up with a boyfriend she still loved and was desperate to justify her decision. “Can you believe it!” she shouted into the phone. “He hadn’t even heard of Pushkin!”"

I found that hilarious, telling, pathetic and enviable all at once. In the next graf, the essayist, a book lover, sates: "Anyone who cares about books has at some point confronted the Pushkin problem: when a missed — or misguided — literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast."

Or there was this nugget later in the essay, from Augusten Burroughs, the gay-blade that wrote Running With Scissors. I've never read the book, but adore the film, which, I'm sure, makes me a rube. But check one of his recollections: "The author recalled a date with one Michael, a “robust blond from Germany.” As he walked to meet him outside Dean & DeLuca, “I saw, to my horror, an artfully worn, older-than-me copy of ‘Proust’ by Samuel Beckett.” That, Burroughs claims, was a deal breaker. “If there existed a more hackneyed, achingly obvious method of telegraphing one’s education, literary standards and general intelligence, I couldn’t imagine it.”"

All of this is quite humbling, since I'm a very proud non-book reader. I read newspapers and magazine, neve finding the time to read books. Well, actually, I have no inclination to read books. I guess that my own personal symptom of growing up in the ADD Age. A book is too daunting, time consuming. They're also somewhat pompous and self-serious. But I admire book readers. They're cool to me. Not cool as in: "Yeah, dude is aight." Cool as in: "I wish I was a book reader." And, in all honesty, I could totally see some potential main-squeeze kicking me to the curb because I'm an ignoramous when it comes to novels. I had to google and then wiki Pushkin. I've never had any desire to read Proust. This usually surprises people when they find out that I'm a writer, but that's the reality. I'll read non-fiction, but films satisfy my fiction jones.

I identify with these kind of people, however, because I'm a music snob. On a fundamental level, I would probably never fall in love with someone that isn't passionate about their music. Or, someone with poor, schumck-tastes in artists and albums -- I'd probably sabotage that kind of relationship. A lightweight music head can head for the next lame. "You never heard Fullfillingness First Finale?! Peace." "You think jazz is boring?! Bye." "You don't wanna go see Bilal?! I'll call you a cab." That's me, in a nutshell...I'm serious.

The irony in all this is that the book and music snobs have these deal breakers and go around sifting and filtering relationships, based on some deviant notion that they are ensuring that they link up with someone of similar heft, depth and gravitas. But the mere fact that we're using entertainment (books, music) as a barometer or litmus test is as shallow as it gets.

Leave it to someone from the Daily Show to sum it up best: "If that person slept with the novelist in question, that would probably be a deal breaker — more than, ‘I don’t like Don DeLillo, therefore we’re not dating anymore.’”"