Tears Are The Most Powerful Tool In Public Relations

Certainly for sports, where there's "no crying in [insert tough sport here]." Remember when Terrell Owens was a selfish asshole? Well no more after this blubbery performance:



I'm a big fan of this; I'm a cry-baby myself, and think we need more of it in the new millennium. With this breakdown TO may have just cried himself into the Hall of Fame. Awesome.

The Imogen Heap Experience

Wow, this was a nice discovery. I wasn't up on Imogen Heap, but this youtube clip of her making awesome for 103.1 FM (apparently) is pretty cool.



Besides being a wonderful introduction to an artist, I like this clip because it's a great example of the music-making process creating wonderful content. Even if the song isn't your cup of tea, the first couple minutes watching her create something out of nothing are still compelling.

All new artists should be recording video footage of them making their music if at all possible. There's little downside to having the clips to play with, and a little video demo like this might give a track that extra oomph in connecting people with your music. I'm all about Imogen Heap now, and it's because of this clip.

thanks: Lucy

The Internet Does It All

This youtube user just does "fast versions" of songs. The fast version of "Lip Gloss" is embedded below. I love his user profile note: "messge me if you want a music to be fast."

Shirts & Skins: The Fresh Prince of New England

So I'm debuting a new column at AOL Fanhouse this week. It's called "Shirts & Skins" and according to the current tagline it will be a forum for me to make "jokes and sweeping generalizations" while exploring the week in sports from a racistial perspective.

The opening column examines "The Assimilation of Randy Moss" as he got plucked from the ghetto in Oakland and now sits on top of the world in New England. Here's the intro:

One of the NFL's major stories this year could be an American sitcom called the "The Assimilation of Randy Moss."

At the start of the season Moss was a down-and-out malcontent; a tarnished diamond in the rough of the NFL projects known as the Oakland Raiders. Then he gets shipped off to a New England boarding school, shares a room with Captain America Brady, throws on the blazer, button-down shirt, and tie (in J Crew's fall catalogue this look is called The Patriot) and shapes up his act. From there his exponential development could only be properly expressed through video montage.

Now motivated, Moss is putting his abundant tools to good use. Assimilation successful: Touchdown! Still sassy, funny and smart -- but no longer a menace to society -- Randy Moss has become the Will Smith of Wide Receivers. The Fresh Prince of New England...

We pulled this together quickly, and we're still feeling out some of the layout, format, additional features. But it should be fun -- I hope -- and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops. Feel free to hit me (read: please!) with feedback and story links/tips; together we can rid the universe of racism one blog post/column at a time.

word.

Randy Moss is the Fresh Prince of New England [AOL Fanhouse]

Fox TV Presents: Call-In Racism

I love the idea that "they" did this on purpose. That's hot. Do black people lose a nickel every time they hear the n-word? I'm gonna look into that ...


via: Stereohyped

Stevie Wonder: Blindingly Funny

Sucky headline? It doesn't matter really, because look: Stevie!



There should be a holiday in Stevie's honor. Seriously. How do we get that started? If it's too gauche to give holidays to individuals now, then let's make it Blind People Day or something. Why not? This feels like it should be setting up some joke. But no jokes. Real life. If you would protest blind people getting a holiday, raise your hand. And if we get a BP Day we might as well make it Stevie Day cause Stevie Wonder, at the least, has to be the greatest blind person ever. Right? Is that naive or ignorant of me to say? Is it not true? Are there other blind A-list talents? It's possible I could be a naive and ignorant blindist. I'm open to that. I'm going by Helen Keller personally, it seems her name still carries a lot of weight. And Stevie's leaps and bounds beyond her, right? But if someone evaluated black people according to some Frederick Douglass metric, I would be a little disappointed in that. So maybe I don't know. But regardless the refererence, the point is that Stevie comes before Keller in the pantheon of important blind people. I mean, dude's doing sketch comedy here. What blind person holds it down like that? I wonder if HK could maintain a strong comedic presence on a show like SNL. I guess that's the beauty of these times, HK would certainly have the tools to do her thing. A hardcore young, talented blind person's blog might be kind of hot. Especially if it were like a female Stevie Wonder type.... Incidentally, I would date a female Stevie Wonder. Just, y'know, FYI ... if you're out there reading this. Or whatever. Feel free to holla.

More Stevie being funny:

Eddie & Stevie SNL
Uploaded by woody971-2

via Sports Guy

Religionism Trumps Racism?

Christopher Hitchens in Slate joins in the Obamontificating, suggesting that Barack's victory in Iowa (less the victory itself, more the accompanying hubbub) is not a triumph of race, but a failure of our presumed war against "uplift, and deceptive optimistic windbaggery" ....

I'm with him on the "God Is Not Great" tip, but he throws baby after bathwater when he eschews other aspects of Obama's import on racial politics to highlight our collective blind spot for black people with sketchy church affiliations. (can I get an amen!) Suggesting that going to this church makes Obama Al Sharpton with a proper haircut? Eh. Some good points are made, but they all suspiciously direct to his book.

Anyrace, I'm surely out of my depth, but do think I prefer "optimistic windbags" over "drunken-grump windbags." Hmm, actually that's not true. But I still want to stand up for positive people, cause they give us drunken-grumps something to complain about. Yay! I mean, hrrumph!

Identity Crisis [Slate]

How To Blog: Slavery Amusement Park

Wanna blog like a pro? Let TAN show you how!

Step #1: Find an interesting piece of news; for example this article on an apparent Slavery Amusement Park.

Step #2: Find an angle/spin that connects the news with your particular niche/audience (don't forget to sprinkle in the smart/funny!):

Gawker/Vulture/Wired set: Rabid fans of The Wire looking to up the ante on Understanding Black People, and in need of more than a weekly fix of the drug known only as "Black Meth [odology?]" (also available in: Hip Hop, Def Comedy Jam, Obama???) might want to invest in this Haitian theme park that will allow tourists to "play the part of a slave for 12 hours" ....

Jezebel/Glamour/Bust: No mention of the Rape Romper Room in the plans for this Haitian-based American-owned Slavery Theme Park; gawd, looks like we can't get an authentic female perspective even when we re-enact historical tragedy/genocide ... whatever, it's all men's fault anyway!

Perez/TMZ/Star: OMG OMG! We've found the new must-do activity for Shitney Spears/Lindsey Hohan/Paris Hilton (PH is ok in my book), and they're totesies gonna LUV IT. Slavery Re-enactment! For a day! In Haiti!! It's like going to jail, but hardcorer .... we give this idea 4 Unwanted Spears Babies out of 5

Step #3: Link your sources.

'Slave for a day' event [metro.co.uk]

(if you found the news on competitor blogs, make their link smaller)
via: Stereohyped and Racialicious

Baseball Has Steroids, Hip Hop Has Weed

So I was on this GZA/50 Cent beat hoping for a little old school battle to pop off, no such luck apparently. But I did find this blurb on GZA quitting weed and talking about its effect on him:

“I could have done so much more in the past,” he says. “I’d get up, roll a blunt at seven in the morning. If I played chess online, I wanted a blunt. If I read a book, I would smoke a blunt, and then I’m reading the same page like five times.”

While GZA smoking a lot doesn't come as any shock, it does take some luster off one of the legends of the game. GZA was always the hardcore street-intelligence emcee in the Wu, and while he's still a first-ballot hip hop Hall of Famer, somehow I think this news, and specifically his own sense of regret about it, cheapens the value of his catalog a little. It does feel a little like finding one of your fav players was on steroids, in an era when everyone was on steroids.

I also think there are seeds for a real story here. Consider this recent e-snippet I got from TAN3:

By the way, I gotta tell you about a concert I went to this past week - Nas at the Hammerstein. You know I love me some Nas - but this n*gga is ridiculous - he couldn't remember his own lyrics!!! I'll give the full recap later...

I see this as a tipping point for judgment on Nas, cause he's notorious for dropping lyrics -- even skipping lines on Made You Look on the grand public stage of the MTV awards a few years back -- and at this point it's obviously from weed abuse. For hip hop heads, Nas and GZA are in the same school, art via lyricism, and their inability to step their game up to a higher level (neither was able to make an album/big project that matched the genius displayed on an individual song level) might need further examination in light of this weed referendum of sorts.

You take GZA, Nas, and say, Redman. Maybe Meth also. And talk to them about the varying dynamics weed has on their life and art. Presuming their candor on the subject (and at this point their reps are entrenched, and they'd have little to lose), that's gonna be an interesting piece.

Maybe I'll look into it ....

In the meantime, this weed PSA is even funnier if you imagine the dog talking to GZA or Nas.

Please read my demo ...

NY Times provides more evidence on the blogging's the new rapping front ... more bloggers will surely be providing us their version of mixtapes.

I'm A Part-Time Blogger And A Full-Time Friend

Every time I think I'm just gonna be "black" and that's that, caucasians up and do something that pulls me back in and makes me love them all over again. Of my own free will even! ... I think. This time it was the movie Juno. Like the reviews say, it's smart, with heart and all that. And it has a quintessentially hipster-y soundtrack that's cute and oh-so-apropos, but black people over 25 can't listen to except behind closed doors, with headphones, and a gun to shoot yourself before They get you. It's no Eternal Sunshine; it's smart but not as clever, and as far as love stories go I prefer those that focus on the couple and not with forcing kids and preggerdom down my throat. That's where I am in my life. Knahmean, ladies?

The cast is all caucasianed out for the most part (not that there's anything wrong with that!), so it's also a good sample of young white intellect. Any minorities working corporate or creative should see it just for the schmoozing touchpoints. "Heeeeey Bexy. Juno? Yeah, just saw it! OMG, huh?? It took me like 45 minutes to start *getting* the dialogue, but soooo funny. That Ellen Page. I think she's gonna be a good one." Here's a clip of the theme song live, with the anti-folk group The Moldy Peaches, and then the trailer for the movie. Go see it!

Melting Pot Without The Melting

So this summer I helped out the lovely Rachel Natalie Klein with an interview for IntoTheBox; Rachel does daily videos about NYC real estate themes, stories, issues, and my episode was called "The Manhattan Race Card" and themed around gentrification and neighborhood segregation in Manhattan/NYC.

At the end of the year she ran a Top 10 videos of the year, and 'gro-and-behold Race and Segregation and TAN win again! (#1 video bidges, I told y'all TAN moves units!)

When I first posted the video, I didn't really dig into the issue much. And honestly, gentrification is so HUGE there's really no way to cover your bases in a blog post. But some of the comments in their "And the winner is ..." post are interesting. Here are some quotes:

"well before the "mass exodus" of black people from the city we still were segregated. affordability aside, i'd live in harlem over any other neighborhood in the city."

"Interesting, however it doesn't mesh with my reality.... Maybe poorer or lower-middle class AfAms might be vacating the city due to price of housing and costs of living (really people your food and other stuff is expensive), but better off Blacks are not as sensitive to those matters. What may be needed is the growth and strengthening of the AfroAm middle & upper-middle class. If you want a stabilized population, the people need to own their studio apts, houses, land, etc."

"black people are being FORCED OUT. landlords are seeing the dollars and benefit in harrassing and forcing blacks out of their homes. it. something like ethnic cleansing."

"Whites looking for cheaper rents move into traditionally Black areas like the bronx are the problem. They are are contributing to the destruction of black culture and removal of the long time black residents."

"New York is one of the most segregated cities in the US. Most non-New Yorkers don't know that. I grew up in the East Bronx and after Co-op City opened*, I wasn't around whites until I entered high school, approx ten years later.....The Bronx was very Jewish. There was a very active synagogue across the street from the apt building where I grew up. It's now a regular store. There were Hebrew schools, stores, etc. all over the place. Going there now, unless you know where to look, you would never know."

"many of you need to cut the BS... where lower income blacks go, all hell follows... they destroy everything in their path - most notably themselves - and you'd have to be absolutely insane to want to live among them... I did it for three years in North Philly... i'm now in in NY and I'll never, ever, live in a lower income urban black neighborhood again... and it IS NOT because of the color of anyone's skin, I don't believe in any inherent racial "Defects", it's because of many socio-cultural reasons that I don't even comprehend fully... but I think I speak for a vast majority of non-racist whites when I say - i don't really care - I'm sick of hearing it... as much as the "white man" may be to blame to an extent, that song & dance is overshadowed by apathy, laziness, a disgusting sense of entitlement, and a sheer lack of any morality or humanity... get your sh*t together..."

Some good fodder there (and it never fails that someone will pull the "personal responsibility" card and soft-shoe around "many socio-cultural reasons" in discussions like this). In the video I echo some of the points I made for Time Out New York's Race Issue; basically saying we shouldn't see segregation as an inherently bad thing, differences should be embraced and cultivated. And Rachel closes asking: Are you a part of the most culturally diverse cities on the planet, or one of the most segregated?

The answer is both. But what does that mean, or why does it matter? I don't know for sure, but I do think this video commanding interest, and the stats related to the homogenizing of Manhattan mean that race and the exploring of "many socio-cultural reasons I don't comprehend fully" remains extremely important. And where better to start/continue mining this terrain than NYC?

That's all from me for now. Rachel and I will be working on a follow-up video soon, and I'm all into exploring dating/relationship stuff now so expect another hot seller tied to interracial love or some such thing. Just need to conduct more research on the subject .... *cough*

Here's to more TAN-homeys making paper and moving into the city in the '08.

You Can Not Pass Out Around White People

So I was going to write about my NYE "Party Crash" style, because it was a quintessentially TAN evening with both a caucasian party and a negro party on the docket. And honestly, on Sunday my cloudy brain was absolutely flummoxed by the black/white partying dichotomy.

But I don't have time to flesh it out, and the negro party is largely irrelevant, only serving as racial contrast and control to what I'm really curious about: what is going on with white people at parties?

In lieu of the Party Crash, I offer Dave Chappelle's analysis:



But seriously folks. I would have thought those stereotypes expired once I got out of college, but peep this NYE aftermath written by the hostess of a party I went to in Williamsburg. That's definitely some ass-meet-carrot ish right there. And seriously? Wine on the walls and the autographed Dolly Parton poster? A hole in the wall?? Tampons on the couch??? Who does this? As an assimilated negress friend of mine said when I shared the story, "black people of the same socio-economic/education level would NEVER do that."

And she makes a good point, because you want to say it's just some entitled ish, but no. Black people get to' up and will do some drunken nonsense, but never no carrot-in-your-ass like this. It's like this ilk of white people were raised by animals. Can someone please explain this phenomenon?

The flip side of this is the aftermath itself. This girl got Paypal donate links and ish, and still manages to say Happy New Year to folks. As far as I'm concerned the scene in those pics is WAY beyond Paypal. Like Dave says in the clip, this type of behavior is a DEATH SENTENCE on the street. If someone got red wine on my autographed GZA poster, it's A WRAP for them. I would most certainly be hunting hipster in Williamsburg right this very moment. Fuck carrots!

"It's Not Wu-Tang Beef, It's Just GZA"

Wow, I might be through knocking 50 Cent. That's a funny, smart dude right there. He's not an "artist" or whatever; he makes formula music. But as he says time and time again, that's his business approach. In any event, he's still willing to throw daggers at people, which for the most part is the upside of rapper entertainment in hip hop -- rappers are celebrities who don't go the politically-correct route. So this clip here has 50 retaliating to a clip I posted a week ago or so by GZA of the Wu.

GZA's a smart guy too, so I'm sort of hoping he'll have yet another clip up by next weekend. A little flame-war with 50 would def. be good for business, and might provide a little lrical inspiration also. Stay tuned.



via: WSHH

previously:
GZA Calls out 50 and Soulja Boy

Mediocre Black Chick Reconditioning Program

So a few days ago I was out with a black girl and as is wont to happen when black guys hang out with black girls the conversation turned to the subject of interracial relations, and specifically about my (and my TAN-kind) presumed hearting of white girls.

I was taken aback because my presumed pedestalizing of caucasian women was under attack before I even had the chance to raise my usual defenses, like my Quest for Claire Huxtable post, and ummm ... that's it. Sans any legit evidence, I was already labeled: Guilty. Granted the "White Girls #1" gold chain around my neck (I made the switch from African medallions in the late 90s) serves as a little bit of a cue, but I still think in these murky racial waters benefit of the doubt should at least be offered like a life preserver, before you deflate it with your socio-political darts.

CONTINUED IN NEGROPEDIA

UPDATE: when I posed this "MBC Reconditioning Program" as a response to her gripe with black guys and MWCs I was told there's no such thing as a mediocre black chick. Truuue. So, oh well, back to she-males for me.