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Stomp the Drumline (and red wine)

Stomp the Drumline

I was in Columbus, Ohio recently and dropped in on a wine tasting randomly. I ended up buying a bottle of this joint called "The Turk," and it is hot! The Turk is what's up yall.

I'm feeling nice on my Turk tip right now and thought I'd freeform about the movie Stomp the Yard. I just caught it today, and gotta say I really dug it. Any movie that has ridiculous dance moves gets me to the theatre, Rize being the all time crown-bearer (I'm pretty sure Ms. Priss had a scene in Stomp..). I mean, I'm a pretty good dancer, but there are some sick moves in this flic.

I heard an NPR interview with a woman involved with the movie about a week ago. I can't remember if she was the writer or what, but she and the interviewer made a little mistake which has been bugging me. They were talking about how Stomp the Yard was the first movie set on a black college campus since Spike Lee's School Daze.

That's just wrong, man.

How could they forget Drumline?? That movie just came out a few years ago, and way more than School Daze, it shares a story line with Stomp the Yard. You've got a knucklehead kid from NYC (Los Angeles in this case) who finds himself a fish out of water at an Atlanta HBCU. He shows up on campus with major solo artistic talent (drumming/dancing) inspired by the streets and an emotional connection to a family member (dad/brother).

He seeks the attention of the hottest chick on campus but first must learn that it ain't all about him. He has to learn to play/dance on a team. Challenges ensue, but victory and redemption are assured. The plot was nothing original, but like I said, I'm a sucker for killer dance moves, and while there weren't as many scenes as I wanted, those that were there made the experience worth it.

I just did a search for Drumline and Stomp the Yard and found this great review which pretty much says what I just did, minus the red wine buzz. Here's an idea. When the Stomp the Yard DVD comes out, I want a video DJ to mix them together and show just how similar these joints are! I don't mean this as disrespect at all. I honestly think it would be cool to show the stories (or at least the key scenes) in split screen. Bad as drummer vs. badass dancer. The best would be if the drumline audio could drive the dance visuals from Stomp the Yard.

We'll call it Stomp the Drumline!

I'll never do that because I have about 2,000 messages to clear in my gmail inbox, but one of you youtube producers out there should hop on that.

Until the next post.

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Anonymous Internet Commenters

What is it that makes people online such commenting assholes? I suppose it's the anonymity, but still, it's damn annoying.

I learned about the online "dozens" as email was being born. Between 1994 and 2000, I started and ended my share of flamewars, so when someone comes at me with a comment dis, I almost always respond and escalate the war (or is that "surge"?).

Check out this comment from nicenonya2 on my YouTube video about black conservatives:

what is your fat ass gonna do with 40 acres and a mule?

And my response:

nicenonya2, based on your favorites you began @ YouTube w/ hope, watching Baz Luhrmann, Daily Show and Meet the Press clips. But you got more... pathetic.

Did "Hot Chick with Sexy Tits and Ass Strip in Bedroom Webcam" make you a) proud of your mom, or b) cry yourself to sleep?

Tell me what YOU would do with 40 acres and a mule. Would you film yourself making sweet mule-on-man love while dreaming of sex with a real, live, unrelated woman?

Thanks for the comment!

I hate that I spend my time doing this, but I just had to do it. I had to.

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Boston continues to scare young black people away

Photo by zapdragon via Flickr

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Look. I don't listen to the radio much. I have an iPod, lotsa podcasts and books on top of that. But from time to time, I like to find out what's poppin in the mainstream media world, so I'll turn on the radio. I learned back in 1995, when I moved here, that "Jammin" 94.5FM wasn't. There was an AM station called WILD, but me and my friends joked that it was "solar powered" because the signal died at night.

Then, something strange happened. I believe it was in 1999 or 2000. I was rollin down the street with some of my boys, headin to a club. We found a new station. It was 97.7FM, and it played Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina" "Wild Thing" ON A LOOP WITH NO DJs, NO COMMERCIALS, NO NOTHIN.

It was the strangest thing. A while later, we found out that there was a new black radio station in town, and they were pretty damn good. At least they gave JAM'N 94.5 some kind of competition.

After my summer in Chicago (a city with multiple Spanish language and multiple black radio stations), I turned on 97.7 and heard classic rock. Yes, CLASSIC ROCK. I thought it was a mistake, but today I read Adrian Walker's September 4th column (registration required). WILD (the solar powered AM station also owned 97.7FM) had sold the station. What's being broadcast now is a simulcast of WAAF which also holds 107.3FM.

This is some bullshit! From Adrian's column:

The sale was another reminder that a so-called minority-majority city seldom feels like one when money and power come into play.

<snip>

As far as WILD is concerned, the Jimmy Myers show was a casualty of the sale, as well as syndicated shows hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Michael Eric Dyson, a popular academic. At least the Radio One people had the judgment to shift the Tom Joyner Show, which has millions of listeners nationwide, to the AM dial. Boston shouldn't be the only major city where you can't find Joyner on the dial.

What's done is done. But there is a large community in this city clamoring for ownership and a larger voice that it can call its own.

Without those kinds of changes, the ``New Boston" will never be anything more than an empty slogan.

Right on.

Here's the deal. Boston has Negro Retention issues.

When I left DC to come to college here, black people at home told me, "Boston is the most racist city in America." When I got here, black people told me they couldn't wait to leave. Now that they have left, when I tell them I live in Boston, they say, simply, "Why?" It's as if I'm friggin crazy to be here.

One of my closest friends was just the sort of guy the Boston area wants to keep. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he worked for a firm downtown and clerked for a judge. He did volunteer and advocacy work. He partied. He left, for several reasons:

  • Almost all of his friends had left
  • He and his wife couldn't come close to affording a home anywhere within reasonable distance
  • He had family in Philadelphia

The third reason is out of control, but the exodus of black people drives further exodus. The high rent and housing costs drive anyone out of the city, and unless you want to live in Worcester, that means out of Massachusetts altogether. My boy got a three story home with five bedrooms for about $400K. That's how much a three bedroom CONDO goes for up here.

Meanwhile, in Boston, the black folk are all stashed away down in Roxbury and Dorchester. Out of sight and out of mind. There's no black nightclubs in the main areas of Boston. No substantial black political power. Never even had a black mayor.

And now we lost a radio station. Tell me this. How do you lose an "urban" format station in America 2006??? Hip Hop is the hottest selling thing since guillotines during the French Revolution, yet it lost to Classic Rock??

This is weak, yall. A city that can't keep it's young people is destined to fail. A city that can't keep its young black people is just sad.

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Why I screen my MySpace friends

There's a set of people on MySpace I like to refer to as "the hotmail webcam girls." I made the mistake of blindly approving one, and like roaches, the rest came pouring in with friend requests. The good part of the hotmail webcam girls, is that their bios are all the same and, well, "interesting." Here's one I just got today. Please, please leave some comments, if you can make it through the whole thing.
MY M.S.N is DUDACUTA@HOTMAIL.COM - PLEASE CHAT ME THERE - I HAVE A WEBCAM AND CAN ONLY USE IT ON MSN :) -- -- -- ---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - I am special.. I am horny... I am fun and caring and loveable. I like to go out and have fun with the girls and I love oral sex and surfing lol.. I also love to skate in the winter and going out with a hot guy to dinner then maybe some fun at his place! I guess you could say i'm a pretty normal gal who knows how to have a good time. I love to party and drink with my girls.. I have met several people off the internet who i am now friends with.. i love playing on my webbcam and just hangin out.. hit me up if u wanna know more :) I love girls and guys.. i think its beautiful when one can have an attraction for two of the same sexes.. ..*@% those people who thinks its weird, cause its not, its normal Turn-ons: Abs,asses, boobs, tongues, tattoos, piercings, soft skin, shaved down there, eyes, lips, tight jeans, hot cologne, motor bikes, hot cars, 3-somes, porn, chocolate!!! Turn-offs: Smelly people, hairy people, loud people, cheap people, liars, idiots, racist people! I am a very genuine and sincere person.I try not to catagorize myself into a specific sterotype or manner or presentation.I can speak for myself. I would like to say that I am assure in who I am and what I am, but it would be a lie if I did. However I know what I like and don't like, and I know the kind of person I would like to be. It takes alot to make me feel intimidated, yet i'll admit when I am feeling vonerable. Im not shy I just chose to be quite the majority of the time. I can be very hypicritical. I aspire to be the kind of person who walks into a room and lights it up, however that doesnt mean I expect or want to be the center of attention. I can be unpredictable, I tend to surprise myself sometimes. I am well mannered and i accept everyone. If someone is being rude to me, I am more likely to smile and compliment them in a sincere way rather than doing it sarcastically to provock them. I keep the negative things to myself unless its for the good of someones being. I can handle critism and i will not be afraid to voice my talents. I don't pretend to be older than I am, I just know what I know. I dont feel I am competition, nor do I have competition. I consider myself a someone not a something. I always tend to put others before myself.I am well respected and I appreciate what i have, i try to want what i have. I am a more spiritual then religious. The unknown and paranormal fascinate me. Sometimes I dream in color. I hardly ever take things literally but I mean what I say. I am confident yet modest, and comfterble in my own skin. I dont feel the need to hide my imperfections. Im learning to embrace them. I do not walk the streets thinking that everyone is looking at me however I will smile and say hi to everyone. *Im not very materialistic and I consider myself intelligent, I am just forgetful and absent minded at times.I dont freak out when I dont get my way however I can be manipulative. I don't believe in luck. I love it when random things happen it makes my day, ill get amused easily, it doesnt take much to make me happy.Im rather clumbsy and i love to ascociate with all different kinds of people. I try to stay very positive, open minded and laid back, but sometimes I can stubborn. I love a good challenge.......I am a fan of contradictions. * "I have a face, but I am not my face. I have a body, but I am not my body" *"It takes a smart girl to play stupid well"* "Why be a princess when parliment has more power" *"We pray to many different Gods like their flowers, and we call religion our friend" *"The world in which is emerging praises both mothers and virgins but in the end, despises mothers and despoils virgins" *"Fear is just the anticipation of pain whether it be mentally, physically emotionally or spiritually *No limits, No boundaries*

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Why I want to stab MySpace with a rusty knife in the ear canal

photo by Paul J Whaley via Flickr
To think, I had somewhat gotten over my insane hatred of MySpace. Well, that is over. Look, I understand that MySpace is "cool" and it's "social networking" and, no offense to my girl danah boyd, but yes, it's a relatively safe place for kids to have their own, well, space. I get that the design is somewhat intentionally ghetto. But my current frustration goes beyond web design snobbery. Answer me this simple question: how can a site that's all about social networking and communication make it impossible to send messages to people????? GOOODAAMMIT I HATE MYSPACE SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!@#!@#!@# I cannot find a simple way to COMPOSE an email message within the system. Sure, I can look at someone's profile and "send a message," but how do I find their profile?! especially if they have a common name, like John. Oh my god, I can't even explain how asinine the system is, it's gotten me so upset. To all those people who say MySpace is superior to good old email, you can suck my postage stamps! Let me try again from the beginning. I want to send a message to a MySpace friend of mine. How do I do this? Here's what I tried. I went to the "Mail" tab, which showed me my inbox. I looked for an option to "create" or "compose" or "send" a message. I clearly ask too much of a messaging system. There is no such option. I click on something promising called "Address Book." I think, "this must be where all my happy socially-networked MySpace friends are!" I am wrong. According to MySpace, my address book is empty. I have 417 MySpace friends, but my address book shows zero. Please explain to me how this is "cool" or "hip" or "Web 2.0" or "indie." It's neither of those things. It's pure crapola. So then I think, "well, I've sent this person a message recently. I'll just check my 'sent' folder till I find that, click on the profile and send a message that way." Wrong. According to the rotten placentas at MySpace, "Sent mail is automatically deleted after it is 14 days old." Wha??? Why would they do that? There is no good reason for this. This is not cool. This is dumb, and don't tell me it's about saving space on their hard drives. We're talking about simple text-based messages. Meanwhile the company is hosting, probably MILLIONS of hours of audio and video files. I go back to the Home page and look for other possibilities. There's a section that's all about my friends. I choose "Edit Friends." This takes me to a page showing my first 20 of 417 friends. There is no apparent order to the listing (though I've been told they're ordered by their sign-up date with MySpace). There's no way to sort by name or even search. So I'm supposed to manually flip through my friend list, 20 at a time, for all 417??? So, the more friends I have, the HARDER it is to communicate with them?? It's way too late for this bullshit. I swear, all these statistics about how much time people spend in MySpace is not a positive thing. It's an indictment against the whole structure of the service. I mean, people spend MAD time in line at the DMV. That doesn't mean the DMV is the hot new place to kick it. That means they suck at what they do. My short term love affair with MySpace is over. I want them to die a horrible death. Now.

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Relentless Aaron and me on Google Video


So last year, you guys may remember that I interviewed Relentless Aaron (Front Porch Podcast, episode 6, a super prolific street lit author from New York. Since then, he's been featured in the NY Times. I'd like to think I broke the story a little bit. Well he or someone on his crew remixed the interview with a video slideshow and some info about me. It's pretty interesting. BTW, I ran into Relentless at this year's BookExpo but didn't have time to interview him. The man was, predictably, busy busy busy!

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