Skating Downhill with Wesley Snipes

Holy shit, people. Snipes' new movie is about to drop. It's not direct to DVD either; it's going to be in movie theatres! Also, what is the one thing I love almost as much as Snipes? Brooklyn. What is the best song Jay-Z ever recorded? "Brooklyn's Finest." What is the name of the new Snipes movie? Brooklyn's Finest. 

On an aside, do you think Snipes has any thoughts on that "bad apple" (read: not terrorist) Joseph Stack who flew his plane into the IRS? Of course, you do. Here are Snipes' thoughts: “I think [tax revolt] was an issue even for the early colonists and the British, so what’s new?” Snipes is a student of colonial history! It's weird how you can love someone, and then discover new things about that person, and love them even more. And here's an interview that Snipes did recently, and, finally, New York 1 thinks 20-term U.S. Congressman (D-Harlem) Charlie Rangel is Wesley Snipes (see picture above). Look, racism is totally not cool, but sometimes, just sometimes, it's hilarious. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's the bow ties. Snipes does Capoiera. He does not wear bowties. Come on, New York 1! 

Meanwhile, Lethal Discovery, my screenplay which will be turned into a film starring Wesley Snipes, has been shelved for the moment. The special effects technology that the narrative requires just doesn't exist yet.

Not Music Video of the Day: Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, "Empire State of Mind"

This is the new-ish Jay-Z video. It is trash. And you know, that's fine. Sling that trash, Rake in that cash. Respect. See what I did there? I made a stupid rhyme, but that rhyme is better -- lyrically, syntactically, rhythmically, what have you -- than any one couplet in this song. In fact, I don't even know why I said "couplet." This is essentially a mad-libbed series of non-sequitirs sprung from random New York-based touchstones, and strung against a mis-matched beat. This song is vile, vile trash.

First of all, Jay-Z, you live in Alpine, New Jersey. That's just the cold, hard facts. Stop fronting. You live in a villa designed by I.M. Pei with your purebred Himalayans, with hundred dollar bills in your pillowsacks, and with Beyonce Knowles. (She makes good music videos, fyi.) That is a good life you lead, especially considering you were handed nothing and you used to sling crack in the Marcy Projects. You harnessed this God-given gift for beat and flow (see here) and made art, and then you took this art and married it to a preternatural business acumen, and created an empire. You are in like the top 100 humans, Jay-Z. So what the fuck? You took a city that counts you among its favorite sons and made an undignified whore of it.

Here are the "New York" references you make in this song: DeNiro (ed's note: What is going on with that guy?), Frank Sinatra, Brooklyn, Tribeca, Harlem, Dominican people, the Knicks, the still New Jersey Nets (cross-promotion!), yellow cabs, gypsy cabs, dollar cabs, Afrika Bambaataa, and the World Trade Center. Literally, these are the references somebody from Dubuque would make of New York, based on his experience watching an afternoon of I Love the 70's and thumbing through a coffee table book from grandma's house.  Please, Jay-Z, stop. There is only so much vicarious embarrassment I can take.

Now, as far as that Alicia Keys hook:

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can’t do,
Now you're in New York!!!
These streets will make you feel brand new,
the lights will inspire you,
Let's hear it for New York, New York, New York

I mean no disrespect when I say this. Alicia Keys, you made a really sweet, quietly sexy, authentically New York video where you captured the nuances of unrequited love, begun in a coffee shop on 39th and Lennox, that then blossoms in the wake of a broken-up, uptown houseparty. You are a good singer! And you got Mos in your video, before he went crazy. But now -- and again, no disrespect -- you really need to kill yourself.

Last Days of Disco

So, my long summer vacation's starting to wrap up. Radiohead's playing over the end credits, as I struggle in vain to get Comcast to correct their spelling of my first name (no, it's not "Adios.") As of Monday I rejoin the ranks of the gainfully employed (and health-insured). But I've learned quite a bit in my time off. For instance, did you know The Hills is fake? Sadly, with great knowledge come soul-rattling questions too: like, umm, wtfuck is up with Michel Gondry's new movie? And w(ho)tfuck is Bobby Trendy, and why didn't anybody tell me about him before?

This is Not What Your Umi Had in Mind

In October of 1999 Mos Def released Black on Both Sides; somehow I didn't discover it till the following summer, but when I did it's all I listened to for maybe three months straight. It changed my life, and was one of the reasons I moved to the magical land that is Brooklyn. Since then Mos has blown up--Hollywood-style--which I don't begrudge him, but he's also foregone the MC life, choosing to release two very dismal albums, and then meandering drunk and high through the one live performance of his I managed to catch. Still, I've held on to the hope that the genius within would find a way out, but if ever there were a sign from God that the Mos I knew is no more, this is it: he was caught scuffling with a a paparazzo outside of Hyde, the West Hollywood celebutard club of choice--his brogue an unintelligible mess; his self-righteousness, his sense of entitlement, on full display. He has become one of those empty souls Perez Hilton fetishizes.

What I implied in the inaugural post to this blog, thus, I now say without equivocation: Mos Def is dead. Thanks for the memories.