Music - Lana Del Rey - National Anthem - starring Asap Rocky - BlackManWhiteWoman We Know How That Go - Still Peep This Sexy Ass Vid

Can't fight it.  Won't fight it. Dis a sexy ass video.  How we get around that?  Can't.  Director Anthony Mandler does a helluva job mixing and moshing the national psyche using a number of provocative tropes.  So Lana is Marilyn is Jackie O is the black man's dream of the ultimate prize - symbol of the white male's happiness/possession/power/control.  Asap Rocky is JFK is the black male athlete the sexualized objectified BM is Barack Obama is hip hop is the rebel the renegade the corn rows rocking hip hop hopping male thug love object of an America that hates all such things historically and whenever possible.

So, what's poppin slime?  This ish is.  Yeah, they both fine as hell.  FAH.  Lana and Asap.  Who wouldn't want to bang 'em?  If I were a man or a gay woman, I sure as hell would want to put it to Lana.  And as it goes, just watchin Asap I feel the same, in the reverse.  Who the hell wouldn't want to feel up on that fineness? 

And therein lies the conundrum.  As hot as this video is, as subterranean, as much as it does its due diligence in crawlin' up under your skin, it also falls back and digs deep into the stock image of the white woman as the ultimate in black male desire. 

On one level the acceptance of that truth (yeah, I said truth cuz it iz) makes my stomach curdle.  On the other I have got to fist pump Mandler for using the latent and potent energy pent up in that powder keg of race and desire and for playing to type while playing against type.  I mean, it's rich and as much as it smacks of the commonly accepted notion of beauty-desire and black male desire, the image of Asap Rocky as the Hip Hop nation's anthem and an amalgam of Obama and JFK is
f-ckin creme-laden and equally f-ckin priceless.  I bows down to that.

Anyhoo, that's my uber long-winded review, and I'll say it twice, 'as much as certain notions of desire and what is considered the finest and the fittest sticks in my craw, a.k.a, works my last nerve, I cannot resist the diggity dopeness of Lana Del Rey's music and the fineness represented by Asap Rocky and herself.  It bleeds the mind to think of their coupling.  Go fig.'

End note: And in the era of Obama's running for re-election doesn't the end note of the vid ring especially chilling and provocative?  It do. 

NYC Subway - 36th Street - Wonky Subway Steps - Everybody Trips Here

Only in NYC.  We keep it movin' without missin' a beat, even if we missed a step.  Q:  Is it odd that with hundreds of people tripping every day, no one complains.  Nah, we gully, we unh cur.

Beauty and the BEAT by Todick Hall + Lyrics - Beauty and the Beast classic gets a hood makeover

Okay, so this reinforces every stereotype possible, still, I couldn't resist.  It is funny as hell and really, these stereotypes ain't real, not for the majority of folks we know, so, WTH.  (Guilt-ridden negro disclaimer to follow.  Here go:) Naah, I ain't lookin' down on nobody, an' I ain't sayin' nobody wrong for the way they ac' or the ish they do, but hell, it funny.  An' I ain't worried cuz....just watch the video.  Peep lyrics below.

Belle:
Little town, it's a quiet village
Every day like the one before
Little town, full of little people
Waking up to say...

People of the Hood:
What's good, What's good, What's good, What's good
Get yo tail out the street

Belle:
There go Bonquesha she wit Trey like always
He's on the downlow I can tell
Every morning just the same, since the morning that we came
To this busted ratchet town

It Has Arrived! Watch Fiona Apple's New Music Video Every Single Night! | PerezHilton.com

It Has Arrived! Watch Fiona Apple's New Music Video Every Single Night.  Madam Apple has always marched to her own drummer and her own beat and she continues.  Can't help but ck for this.  Could u have imagined it?  Would you have put these images with this song?  Probably not, and all of those reasons add to its being extra special.  Give it a look-see.

Music - Dat Real Old Old Skool Classic - Billy Eckstine - Blues, You're The Mother Of Sin

Billy Eckstine - Blues - You're The Mother Of Sin.  Sometimes we have to go waaaay back to reflect on good music.  Today being the day that it is, seemed a good one for basking in the smooth, velvety tones of an earlier era.  It ain't for the fainthearted or the tin eared.  (Aw shite, not putting anyone down in an attempt to explain away my own leanings.  No offense meant, and hopefully none taken.)  If you can't venture to anything before the past twenty years, then maybe this isn't for you.  But, if you can, give it a listen, and see how it hits u.

Billy Eckstine is one of them original J's.  The Jazz Cats who kept it funky and put the country on track to more rhythm and soul and the cultural cross mingling that exists today.

Take a swig of his honeyed tones, then kick back, relax and engage.

A Story of Redemption and Resilience: Napalm girl thanks rescuers 40 years after photo (VIDEO) | GlobalPost

The Associated Press: Copyright/Source: Screengrab: Nick Ut won a Pulitzer Prize for his photo of Kim Phuc, taken on June 8th, 1972, during the Vietnam War.

Napalm girl thanks rescuers 40 years after photo (VIDEO) | GlobalPost.  Excerpt: Kim 'Phuc, known to a generation as the napalm girl, thanked her rescuers today in Toronto to mark the 40th anniversary of the iconic photo that some say helped stop the Vietnam War.

It was June 8, 1972, when South Vietnamese airplanes bombed Phuc’s village with the incendiary gel.

With her skin burning, the 9-year-old girl fled naked down a road, screaming.
Nick Ut, then 21, turned and raised his camera to capture the picture.'

This is the good news story of the day and proves the truth that even when horrific, unimaginable atrocities are inflicted upon human beings our incredible powers of resilience can enable us to overcome them.  Of course this is true for folks who are remarkable in some fashion, be it via character, strength, inner fortitude -- something -- but these folks are never easily identifiable.  You couldn't pick them out of a crowd or in a study and say 'So and so will be most likely to survive a tale of human depravity,' but somehow these folks survive and triumph, and they give the rest of us hope that we can overcome.

This story also offers a redemption of a kind for the U.S. and all the allies in the war on Vietnam who were responsible for some of the terrible things that happened.  So, am glad to share this story with you, so that we can all have a little hope in the human character and the human heart.  (Thanks to Ut for doing the right, the kind, the humane thing 40 years ago when he stepped out of his role of photographer and retained his primary role as human being.)

Side Note 2: How crazy -- and uninformed -- is it, that I've always thought of the Vietnam War as a 1960s war?  Call me cray cray, but I always marveled at how it was allowed to go on as long as it did - me again thinking that meant some five to eight years.  I kinda grouped it and the terrible atrocities that happened during its interim, with the human failures and depravities of the 20th Century, like the Nazi concentration camps and World War II.  (Never Again! has happened in regular and repetitious fashion -- and continues to happen -- though to other groups each time. But back to the Vietnam War.)

Who knew that it lasted nearly twenty years?  Well, thanks to this AP story we now know better.

The good news is that Kim Phuc, the girl in the photo, survived and is alive and well in Canada where she works as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador.  Ut won a Pulitzer Prize for the photo.  Read the excerpt from the AP article below and click on the link to read the entire story of how Phuc and Ut came together recently, and to see a video of the two.    

The incredible shrinking President Obama: 3 things to watch | GlobalPost

Barack Obama: Photographer Mark Wilson: Getty Images.  Does the economy have his back?

The incredible shrinking President Obama: 3 things to watch | GlobalPost.  Excerpt below: Click on above link to read the GlobalPost article.

BOSTON — Economics is an up and down game. So, too, is politics.
But as President Barack Obama has been reminded in recent weeks, the two are inextricably linked. And right now for the White House, the direction on both is decidedly down.

Mitt Romney, naturally, has pounced on the bad news.  In a speech Thursday that he no doubt dreamed of making, the GOP nominee said President Obama "simply doesn't understand" the free-market economy.

Then Romney got downright nasty.

Yovanka Bryant: Face-eating suspect was 'sweet to me' - CNN - Dr. Drew on Call

Face-eating suspect was 'sweet to me': Yovanka Bryant says the Rudy Eugene she knew was a good man who was kind and loving to her and her children. Bryant is attractive, she looks normal and she sounds normal.  All of which amps up the scare factor.   Her description makes Eugene sound like the kind of man you'd laud on Father's Day.  Which, of course, makes it far worse.  To think a monster could lurk so closely, and invisibly, beneath a loved one's skin.

Kinda summons all the fear you've ever felt, or could ever feel, when confronted with dating someone 'new.' Or someone old, as in 'long known.'  How about looking over your shoulder when sleeping, in case your loved one morphs into some kind of psychotic horror show.


Is there a silver lining in this twisted tale of murder, cannibalism and an allegedly 'good guy gone mad?'  Well, while clearly there's no jewel-encrusted lining to this tale, there is the possibility that Eugene was bugged out of his mind on drugs that turned him into a bizarrely freaky cannibal thug.

Oddly enough, that's what his ex, Bryant is hoping for.  If that is indeed what happened, then Eugene's horrific tale may have some benefit to it.  It may help shed light on a new strain of drugs that takes its victims not only on an incredible high, but on a trip far beyond the recesses of the normal human mind.  That drug, if it exists, would be worth knowing about, if only for the purpose of informing our selves of it, and keeping it far away from human hands. 

To hear Bryant's interview, click on the video. 

Obama's Kill List: Silence Is Not an Option | The Nation

The silhouette of U.S. President Barack Obama is seen as he sits in the back of the Marine One helicopter, landing on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington June 3, 2012. Reuters/Joshua Roberts

Obama's Kill List: Silence Is Not an Option | The Nation.  Click on the link to read the story.

Short Story + Photography - Yellow Edges - by AmRak

All images by AmRak

                                          

"At that age, he was still shiny then." 

The killer was shackled to the floor, His foot chained to the table leg, arms handcuffed and held tightly in his lap.   His slate grey eyes glanced over the table top trolling from the interviewer's lap to the tip of his oily forehead. 

The room sought, but failed to envelop him.  The walls surrounding him were the putrid blue of empty hospital halls and diluted living, still they did not emanate sickliness.

The guard stood close enough that he could take two strides and break a man's neck from behind.  The  metallic silver table matched the two remaining chairs.

In this setting the prisoner's florescent orange jumper made the interviewer's eyes quiver, and it took him several minutes to adjust to looking at the man.

"What made you do it?"

"Do what?"  the killer asked, raising his eyes a half-a-shade from the spot in the interviewer's lap.

"Kill.  What made you kill?"

The interviewer's question was compact -- a small stone tossed against a freshly polished concrete floor -- and the guard who'd begun to be bored by the filming for a documentary on a death row prisoner's life, looked up and pulled back his head to scour the interviewer's face more than the prisoner's. 

Dan Freeman, middle-aged with horn-rimmed glasses and thinning strands of once sandy hair, stared into the prisoner's eyes when he asked him the question.

He continued staring while he waited.

The prisoner shifted absentmindedly on the metal chair.  It was a gentle shift and undisruptive, and Dan thought it noteworthy.

The prisoner cleared his throat without meaning to.  He'd been asked this question a thousand times since he'd been in prison.  He was not unused to it.  Still rarely had he answered it.

He chose to answer it now, for reasons that did not occur to him. 

The air in the room was extraordinary, so flat it was nearly incapable of movement.  Dan was certain that if he threw a feather it would sink vapidly to the floor, incapable of floating even on its tiny wing.  The air did not impede breathing, but neither did it make breathing any easier. 

Behind the two men sat a cast iron door with a small square of glass cut out at face level for a six foot tall man.

The guard jangled his keys distractedly.  The fuck with all this damn babysitting for these butt-crazy lunatics; why the hell did the system choose to entertain them.  It grated his skin it did.  There was a reason the world was plagued by pollutants like this shit-eating asshole.  He swore the fucker's mouth smelled like ass. Glancing at the early model Bulova watch on his hand the guard saw that  the interview was fifteen minutes from over.

Music - The Temper Trap - Love Lost

The Temper Trap - Love Lost.  If I liked the Temper Trap before, I positively luuuv them now.  Hard to believe this band just formed in 2005.  Something so plaintive in the music, and the lead singer's voice just kind of seeps into you and courses.

Brillz song.  Reminds me of Fine Young Cannibals. Kinda sweet and mournful with the achingness of youth.  The kidz capture perfectly the imperfections of the regular kid, which makes them even more beautiful.  And the girls are excellent!  They are crazy, aggressive and wild, and can outrun all the boys, just like all real little girlz can. Luvz it!

Music - The Temper Trap - Trembling Hands

The Temper Trap - Trembling Hands.  Grt song from Aussie band, 'The Temper Trap.'  The song is the second single from the  group's self-titled 2nd album.

Ck the Temper Trap at: www.thetempertrap.com.

Music - Coldplay - Princess Of China ft. Rihanna

Coldplay - Princess Of China ft. Rihanna.  Like the song, and the video.  Just wondering about Asian culture played out with nonAsian actors.  Is that a bit like fetishizing? Or blackface? 

How would blacks feel if someone from another race dressed in purported African gear and plumped up their lips, the way Rihanna seems to have tilted the lines of her eyes.  Just curious?  Is it ever okay to try to don the 'appearance' of another race?  In the name of art?  Where does art end and fart begin?  Is it an insult to the racial group in question?  (And of course the same question applies to Chris Martin.)

Final question: Does art supersede all?

Any answers?

Music - Frozen - Reva DeVito + Roane Namuh

Frozen - Reva DeVito + Roane Namuh.

A Place Called Hope? Young and Black Voters Turn Out in Wisconsin Despite Suppression Efforts - COLORLINES

Young and Black Voters Turn Out in Wisconsin Despite Suppression Efforts - COLORLINES.  (In light of the title the photo's a bit ironic. :).  Still, despite the terribly bad not very good week that Michelle's hubby has been having, this story suggests that hope buds and despite momentum slowed, there is still a presidential election to be won.

Hold your head up B.O.  Supporters who want the road map may look to this as yet another weapon in their arsenal. 

Music - Leikeli47 - Miss America -

Miss America.

Music - Blood Orange - I'm Sorry We Lied

Blood Orange - I'm Sorry We Lied.

Music - The Seshen - Oblivion

The Seshen - Oblivion.  Much about much going on here, definitely kind of intrigued by it.  Tits and tats, sonically references rave fave Santigold a bit.  Liking this. Click on the following link to ck out SanFran band, The Seshen's official website. 

Music - Danny Brown - Grown Up + Earlier interview w/Brown + UK producer Joker

Danny Brown - Grown Up.

.


The creative process. Dirty, but sexy though.  Raaaahiiiigghhht.  Truer words, rarely said.  

Music - Kanye West - Mercy (Explicit) - Official Video

Mercy (Explicit).

Hama Massacre: Qubair, Syria, Site Of Fresh Violence, According To Unconfirmed Reports - HuffPost

Hama Massacre: Qubair, Syria, Site Of Fresh Violence, According To Unconfirmed Reports.  
Excerpt:  BEIRUT, June 6 (Reuters) - Activists said pro-government militia men and security forces killed at least 78 people, including children, in Syria's central province of Hama on Wednesday.


Some of those killed in the village of Mazraat al-Qubair were stabbed to death, the activists said, and at least 12 bodies had been burned.

The unconfirmed reports suggest that at least 40 victims were women and children.' Click on the link to read the article.  

Scary Times for Dems: Walker Wins Wisconsin Recall Vote - AP

That sniffling you hear in the background is the sound of me crying.  Click on the link to read the HuffPost story:  Excerpt:  'MILWAUKEE -- Scott Walker did it. In the historic Wisconsin recall battle, Walker emerged victorious on Tuesday, beating back labor unions and Democrats who tried to kick him out of office.


He remains governor of Wisconsin and will finish his original term.

Multiple TV networks called the race by 9 p.m. Central time, ending the race much earlier than many pundits had anticipated.'

Scott Walker Defeats Tom Barrett In Wisconsin Recall Election (UPDATE)



Walker Wins Wisconsin Recall Vote .  If u ain't been payin' attention to the upcoming elections folks, it's time to start doing so.  This is an ugly indicator, showing how easily folks can be swayed to vote against their own interests. 

Fear of a Romney in the White House?  Hmm, then it just might be time to get your arse to your local Democratic headquarters, donate a couple dollars to a progressive's campaign and/or begin to work the phones on behalf of Barack Obama and his get out the vote initiative. 

B.O. cannot win this alone, and if you believe he's our nation's best hope, it's time to start walking the walk, instead of merely talking the talk. 

In the words of Benny Banger when talking to Tina the Tease, 'Put out, or shut up.'

Music - Russo f/ Rodney P - Old School | SClusive Music Video | SoulCulture

Russo f/ Rodney P - "Old School" | SClusive Music Video | SoulCulture.  Noiyce vibez, energy, sound - Ck. Luvin' Old School.  Give a listen. 

Black Women’s Transitions to Natural Hair - NYTimes.com

Click on the following link to view "The Coiffure Project" by photographer Glenford Nunez on Huffington Post.  Click on the link below to read the NYTimes article and view filmmaker Zina Saro Wiwa's film doc:
Black Women’s Transitions to Natural Hair - NYTimes.com.

Music - Elro - Dropout Demo | Dropout UK

Elro - Dropout Demo | Dropout UK.

What the Eye Saw: Black Genocide

  

Standing in the doorway.  Dark blue hooded shirt pulled over a puff of afro, faded blue jeans covering his bottom half.  Boy-man somewhere between the ages of 19 and 25, looking destined for death.  Eyes soft dark brown and begging for release, penance, patience, recompense or just a good god damned second chance.

Ain't none comin' boy, whispered the wind.  Ain't none comin' boy, whispered the concrete at his back.  I prop you up good, though, don't I?  Don't I?

The world looked back but could not see two eyes naked and full of want.

The world could not see two eyes crying out for a second chance.  Grasping, grabbing at air, so far beyond the quest for hope that they had closed in on themselves.  Two eyes incapable of seeing distance, two eyes  seeing nothing before them, all that was past.

How is it possible for a boy that young and beautiful to be so far beyond the gates of hope.

Yet every day in too many ways plain intricate and easily explained another black boy dies, succumbs to the failure around him, to the closed doors in his face, the hard rocks at his back, the walls before, beside and behind him.

This black brown boy, this black black boy, this black yellow boy, this black tan boy, this black boy, walks, rides, lives, dies in a concrete box, surrounded on all four sides by cement walls.

Is it no wonder then that they are no longer afraid to die.  Is it no wonder then that they rush towards death the way some of us fly towards life.

Is it  a spectacular feat, that for them death seems to be the only life they are capable of living?  And the knife, the gun, the swift sweet bite of metal against skin, of gun powder and pewter bullet tearing into flesh seems to be the only ineluctable kiss sweet kiss they will ever be given while treading this cold earth?

Death so hot, so infused with heat and feeling, these man-boys know it is the closest they will ever come to living.

Don't cry for them then or speak kind words when you remember their image and think of them poor black boys ripping through this lemon flavored life, twerking, hip hopping, b-boying toward this grief-induced reprieve called death.

Black boy on side walk bled, his breath his hope his eyes leaking out this too tired overlived and under used life.

Don't it make you wanna holler?

Back some fifty years ago, so Marvin said.

                                                                                  Ordnas Rellim

After Miami Zombie Apocalypse, Maryland Cannibal Feasts On Housemate’s Brain and Heart - International Business Times + More Questions than Answers: PCP, A Helluva Drug

After Miami Zombie Apocalypse, Maryland Cannibal Feasts On Housemate’s Brain and Heart - International Business Times.  First there was the Miami Zombie, now there's the Maryland Cannibal, cases so bizarre we're prompted to say 'PCP is a helluva drug.'  Though there are indications that the deranged killer in Miami was in a drug-induced psychosis, so far there's no evidence that the killer in Maryland was, though on further digging we won't be surprised to hear that was indeed the case. 

A deranged Hispanic man on PCP ate out his five year old son's eyes a year or so ago. A rapper 'Houston' several years ago, gouged out his own eye while high on PCP.  Another rapper, 'Big Lurch,' back in 2002, slashed his roommate's chest open, ripped out her intestines and supposedly chewed on them, and some folks are saying that Kony's founder, the guy who was videoed walking around naked on California strees some two months ago, was also on PCP.

Reasons to tell the kiddies to stay the hell away from drugs.  The real is that there are synthetic drugs on the market now that don't just mellow you out, or induce a chillaxed high, they induce paranoia, psychosis and behavior that is so far out of the norm that it can only be considered horror-like.

Given these most recent incidents happening in such close succession, the concern is that a new drug has made its way onto the streets and into the hands of the naive and unsuspecting.  With that thought in mind, let us pray.  But beyond the prayers, it's up to our legislators to find out what's what and to create legislation to ban such drugs if they exist, and to get and keep them off our streets.

What's crazy about this is that -- and this is a leap, given that we've only listed a handful of cases -- this drug seems to be making its way into the hands of the low-income.  Just one more destabilizing factor on top of a bonfire of other destabilizers. 

Can a low-income community snag a break?  Nah, not unless the community bands together to create one.  Question one: is there a new drug promulgating the streets of the inner city?
Question two:  Where is it from?
Question three: How is it getting there?
Question four: Who is the manufacturer?
Question five: Who is the distributor?
Question six: How do we stop them?
Question seven=s Question one: How do we educate our youth and the community at large to reject such drugs and to refrain from trying out the hot new thing in the streets?
Question eight, nine and ten: How do we get government to notice and to take the action necessary to stop such drugs from being manufactured and trafficked?

HuffPost: Bath Salts: The 'Cannibal' From Miami's Alleged Dangerous Drug Of Choice

Bath Salts: The 'Cannibal' From Miami's Alleged Dangerous Drug Of Choice.

Music - Leela James - Something's Got A Hold On Me - Throw back style, LUVIN it!

Leela James - Something's Got A Hold On Me.  A nice fat slice of divine, put some staaannnk on it.  Luuvvvin this Leela James track.  Go cop it.