Negro Please

my struggle with hip-hop

After all the anthem for the new millennium was...Big Pimpin'? And it all seems a bit surreal, cuz when I was dancin' around I didn't know the damage my soul was going to feel. - Bridget Gray, my letter to hip hop

I love Jay-Z's music. I've been banging Jay-Z's Unplugged CD practically nonstop since the day I bought it. Its perfect for me. The Roots are the back-up band, there's a full string section with a Cello and a Double Bass (yay String Instruments, Suzuki Book 1!), Jaguar Wright is blowing up the spot with vocals, Mary J. does a guest spot, Pharell Williams proves he a total studio singer by destroying the chorus to Give It 2 Me. Its beautiful Hip-Hop. I bob my head, I dance my ass off. If Big Pimpin' or Can I Get A... or Ain't No Nigga or The Izzo (H.O.V.A.) gets dropped into the mix at the club, I'm throwin' 'bows with the rest of them, probably got the circle around me while I drop a little Harlem Shake or Crip Walk or go old School with a lil Running Man/Cabbage Patch/Kid n' Play medley that will fuck everybody up.

But what am I so celebratory about? Music, for me, has always been about celebration. I want to shake my ass, watch myself, show you what I'm workin' with. I want the music to make me think about what love feels like or what that perfect spring day is or how it felt when it was dark and quiet and the only sound was me and her...exploring...and sweating. I want the music to be the soundtrack to my spirit at its highest or lowest. But always in celebration of it. And so I bob my head to the music. I react powerfully, unable to contain myself with the joy that I feel when the beat is tight, the song is hot and damn I'm singing out loud and my shoulders are moving up and down and I might be swerving in the street because I feel it like I feel nothing else. I'm all over the hook, singing every word. I'm trying to hit every lyric, not really thinking about what I'm saying.

But I am thinking about it. I intentionally swallow the 'niggas' 'the bitches' 'the hos' almost unconsciously. I know the words aren't right. I know the meaning behind them isn't cool. But I'm listening and I'm loving it anyway. What's that all about?

And there are times that I'm still compelled to move, but I swear to you its that old school groove that's playing above the lyrics. Because if the music wasn't there, I definitely wouldn't want to hear it. - Bridget Gray, my letter to hip hop

Why do I accept it from Hip Hop? Is the beat really that spectacular. Why will I dance my ass off to a brotha talking about pouring liquor on his hos but if I actually saw it happen in real life, I'd be beating down a motherfucker because you don't do that to a lady? Why am I so willing to chastise a Video Ho about selling herself on the screen, when I should really be complaining about the no account, shiftless fool who thought that it would be cool to treat her like that to sell another record? What is it about this music?

My favorite hip hop album of all time? Talib Kweli and DJ Hi Tek, Reflection Eternal: Train of Thought. Not a bitch, a ho, a use of the word Nigga without purpose. It features songs about Love, about celebration of history and family, about how we treat our ancestors, about self worth and determination. All over banging beats...hot, creative tracks. I wonder why I love the album? I wonder how I can love this album so much and then pull it out the CD player and drop in Eminem screaming about "Bitch I'm a kill you, you don't wanna fuck with me" Why does the beat give the words a free pass?

I love that Jay-Z CD. I'll probably listen to it on my way home from work today. My feet will be moving, my head will be bobbing, I will be singing along. But is my heart crying? Is my soul ashamed?

What does it say about hip hop? about us? about me?

I thought Hip Hop was supposed to be a means of poetically expressing yourself. But it seems these days, you'll say anything to get your CD off the shelf. So let's toast with champagne and good blunts for your health, but first...tell me why? - Bridget Gray, my letter to hip hop

rob zombie's house

what you think this a game? Ain't nobody playin'. - Jaguar Wright

Please buy Jaguar Wright's Denials, Delusions and Decisions. There are only a few artists in the R&B world coming correct and Miss Wright is one of them. Its only 6.99 at most stores, so buy two and give one to a friend who needs a pick me up. Plus she puts her In-law's on blast in the thank you notes. Straight tells them she hates them and they can kiss her ass. That's hot to death.

Fair Warning: this is about to get deep, muddy, murky and political. Please feel free to discuss it with me afterwards. I never get angry or upset when discussing politics.

I want Rob Zombie's house. Saw it on MTV Cribs last week. Its like a horror museum, dark colored walls, gothic furniture, arcane nick knacks everywhere. Classic horror movie posters throughout the house. His kid's room has a mural of The Nightmare before Christmas. There's a room that's just a home theater with a closet full of every horror movie Rob has ever loved on VHS, Laserdisc and DVD. I want it...really bad. Should I feel guilty that I aspire to be able to afford and enjoy this one day?

One of the writers in LA Weekly seems to think so. It wasn't even an article about commercialism and whatnot but it threw away a line about MTV Cribs calling it "hip-popitalist real estate porn," suggesting that somehow it was at the least, undesirable to have a show showcasing celebrity homes and at most, detrimental to society. And as I ate my Baja Fresh Taquitos, last night, thinking about this, it struck me, all at once, like one of those scenes in an indie film where the only special effect they can afford is to speed up the film so they run every scene of the movie in about 30 seconds time like some kind of drug induced flash back. It struck me that everything I had learned in my highly liberal education might be really, really wrong and not only wrong, but hypocritical.

Hear me out here. I grew up in a democrat's household. What black family isn't right? My Sophomore year in high school, I joined Junior State and got really good at debating social conservatives with my superior liberal philosophy that went something like "you hate everyone, I love everyone, therefore I'm better than you" and everyone ate it up. I went to college and my lovely liberal professors continued to reinforce the ideas that capitalism just might be evil and the government should really do more about this issue and that issue and it was all sugarcoated around this concept that higher thinkers really know about loving one another and the pursuits in life that are really important.

But some dissension started to creep in. I ran all the multicultural programs at good ol' Gee Dub. Pretty much no programs got funded unless I gave it the okay. Junior year, I started getting requests from religious organizations at school. The Junior Christian InterVarsity Fellowship wanted to invite a speaker to hold a discussion about how he had been cured of his 'gayness.' Sounded interesting to me so I approved the 500 bucks, booked a room and required that they have the program open to the public and allow for open discussion with me moderating. Didn't think anything of it. I was shocked when I started having to have meetings with the gay and lesbian organizations at school asking me how I could support such filth. My explanation seemed logical to me...look this crazy cracka from bumblefuck Georgia is going to come up in here and talk to this crowd of 100 people 90 of them liberal and/or gay and get tore a new asshole and screw up and say "well, I still do like to rub up against sweaty mens but the lord tells me no so I don't do it unless the preacher tells me its okay when he gives me my bath" or some other shit and we'll all laugh at the silly misguided man. They didn't like this logic. They didn't care that I had already helped fund a film on the life and times of Harvey Milk or gave $1500 to Gay and Lesbian Awareness...obviously I was becoming a hate monger like the rest of those damn conservatives.

It made me go hmmm.

But I was still way liberal and didn't question much.

Then I got my first paycheck. Wow, taxes suck. But they are necessary right? I mean we wouldn't be good people unless we let the government take from us and give to those less fortunate right? Still seems a shame that 300 bucks is walking out of my check every week though and I have no idea where it goes and if its doing good. I mean that's a lot of money and I really did work hard for it and someone thinks that I'm worth that much for the work I do but...we got the homelessness problem and unwed mothers and sick people with no health care and artists need money and blah blah blah democraticpartyhandbookcakes. Then came one fateful day, driving home from work trying to find the Lakers game and came across 790 KABC and Larry Elder and wow a Libertarian was born.

All of a sudden, I started to wonder why I felt guilty about being a capitalist and wanting to be rich and wanting to have things and being secretly upset that the government was taking so much of my paycheck that I could do so much more with. I started to wonder about the hypocrisy of my liberal professors telling me that the most noble pursuits were those of the mind rather than those of the pocketbook all the while they bootstrapped for research dollars to pad their wallets and quest for tenure so that they could finally buy the big house on the hill. All of a sudden, I stopped saying I don't care how much I make so long as I enjoy my work. I changed it to, I want to get paid well and fairly for work I enjoy. All of a sudden, I started to wonder why I thought I was obligated to take care of somebody else. Why the government was preventing me from doing with my money what I see fit.

Don't get it twisted. I care about homelessness, I care about the arts, I care about education, I care about people. I care so much about people and think so highly of people, that I believe that we are more likely to do a better job of taking care of each other when we control the money than the government is. I lose 35% of my income every year, yet I still find the money to donate to KCRW and give to homeless shelters and drop a 5 spot on the homeless man on the corner about once a week. I think most people do that for the things that they care about when they can afford to do so. Hell, I even have found ways to save money so I can buy my house. And this is with the government taking a 3rd of what I make. Think about that. 121 days of the year, I work for somebody else without ever seeing the benefits. 121 days of the year, I don't get a damn dollar for the work I do. What the fuck?

Imagine what I could do with another 121 days of pay. Strike that...just give me 40 days of pay back. You keep 80 to pay police, fire, the EMT's, your salaries and the military that is keeping me safe. Protect our physical land and take some of my dollars for the environment. That all makes perfect sense to me. But you know what...I don't have kids, so why am I paying for everybody else's child to go to school? I'd rather be giving money to the arts or to beautifying my community, things I care about that affect my life. I'd rather be heavily supporting homeless and animal shelters. I'd rather have my money so I could consider starting my own business and do something real for the community like give people jobs. Wow...that makes sense.

But, I don't think I'm special. I think that if most people had their money, they would do good things with it. We aren't a bunch of Scrooge McDuck's sitting on a pile of gold just hoarding money. I shouldn't feel guilty about wanting to have a big house, decorated wonderfully, with tons of crap in it. Because if I buy the big house, I just employed several people in real estate. When I decorate the house, I just employed the contractor, his crew, the interior decorator, the painter and the candlestick maker. Every piece of crap that I buy, there is a factory somewhere thankful for the dollars I spend because they get to keep working. I will never again hate on a person for making money and spending it. Please spend, spend spend spend. You are doing good things with your dollars. You know what's best for your dollars. Right after you bought the prada bag, you probably opened it up and gave 5 grand to the Pediatric AIDS foundation.

I'm over the bullshit that suggests that somehow people are bad for being successful and wanting to keep the spoils of their success. I'm still a social liberal. I still believe in the happy pappy I love everybody spiel. But I'm taking it even deeper, I say that even if I don't like you, I give you the right to be who you are. Do whatever you want, live however you want, so long as you don't impede on my right to be me or my liberties. And that's all the government should be doing. Create laws that protect the rights of your citizens...all of them. Protect our borders, our bodies, our things.

And then let us do what we do best...be American. Americans are charitable. The most charitable people in the world. Imagine what we could do if we controlled more of the private sector...and we'd do it cheaper.

Just consider this one thing. Los Angeles Unified School District spends 7000 per student. Private Schools spend 4000 per student. Parochial Schools spend about 3500 per student. Private Schools and Parochial Schools double the graduation, college and general education test score rates of the LAUSD...for about half the money.

Its so weird to be independent. A Libertarian. Nobody even knows what it means. Or really cares to hear about it.

Basically it means, give us our money back...we know what to do with it. And Don't tell me how to think. Just protect my right to think it.

Marinate on that for a minute.

And don't be mad when I buy Rob Zombie's house.

lowercase black

My father knew exactly what he was doing when he made me. Tried to get his nut and he got a nut and what? - Jay-Z, The Hustle

I guess I should explain what this whole "Mild Mannered Negro" thing is all about. Why I'm all lowercase b black instead of Big B BLACK. (back in the day I was a lowercase G but now I'm a big G dollar dollar bill y'all. Who names their child Montell? What does it mean?) Black means you're representin', you're keepin' it real. Black is thinking that race plays a factor in everything. Black is not wanting to move out of the ghetto because you're scared of selling out. Black is being mad that Black History Month is only 28 days (yet probably not knowing who W.eB Du Bois is...). Black is being mad that nobody says Happy Kwanzaa to you during the holidays (yet probably not knowing what the 8 days of the event are). Black is when you pull an Al Sharpton, performing a sit-in at McDonalds because you ordered black coffee and they gave you coffee with cream and it scalded your tongue because that white ass cream from that white ass restaurant is hot AND racist and they won't just give a brotha black coffee and let him be black with his black coffee and motherfuckers we are about to raise up because slavery's been going on for 400 years and you better give me what I ask for goddammit, I don't care that you dropped out of high school and your mother is a heroin addict and that you can barely read let alone know the difference between black coffee and coffee with cream and that's the reason you're making coffee at McDonald's. Besides, do you see I have a perm AND aligator shoes and drive a cadillac with gold rims and green leather interior because I'm fly like that. Racism is in full effect.

Yeah. I'm not that Black.

I'm that brotha that sat in the front row of your honors english class and didn't realize he was the only brotha in there. I'm that negro whose family has always lived pretty middle class in integrated neighborhoods and went to college and made money and were happy. I'm that brotha who thinks the civil rights movement worked. I'm that brotha who feels guilty that he's not a part of the struggle but not really because he doesn't know exactly what we're struggling for anymore. I'm that brotha who doesn't understand how his upper middle class relatives can scream about racism when they own houses in upscale neighborhoods and buy new cars every 3 years and worry about their retirement plans and stock options. I'm that black guy whose always had more white friends then black because there just weren't any other black folks around and it didn't even occur to him that he was supposed to go search them out to try to figure out his identity. Identity. I'm that brotha that struggles with that every day. I'm that brotha that gets scared to say that he's never experienced racism. That he's gotten every job he's asked for, every raise he's wanted, no one's ever physically attacked him for being dark skinned, no one's ever denied him a place to live, no one's ever had power over him because of their race. Except, of course, for other black people. I've been sat last at a soul food restaurant because I came with my white girlfriend. I was told not to come back to a north carolina mall in a black neighborhood because I was foolish enough to hold hands with a white girl while looking at t-shirts. I'm that nigga that forgot he was a nigga until another nigga suggested that he was supposed to be in the back of the bus with them instead of in the front of the bus reading John Steinbeck and discussing it with the old white lady and old korean lady that were taking the bus to their book club meeting.

I'm that black kid that was okay to bring to your parents house. I'm that black guy that your parent's just might be able to deal with if you brought me home as your boyfriend. I'm that black guy that you said some inappropriate shit in front of because you almost forgot I was black. I'm the one that you're complaining about when you talk about affirmative action because yup, every school wanted my ass because I was one of the 100 smartest black kids in high school in 1993. Harvard fed exed me an application and waived the fees when my smart ass pulled a 1340 on my SAT's. Your white ass couldn't get a call back from Harvard even though you scored a 1600 and complained that the test wasn't hard enough. I feel guilty about that...but not that guilty. Sorry.

I'm that Mild Mannered Negro who sees prejudice from everyone everyday and accepts it. I'm the one who just wants you to like him but doesn't think you're a racist if you don't. I'm the one whose just as comfortable in the ethiopian restaurant shooting the shit with his mother and father about what crazy shit black folks done got into now as he is sitting with all his white wimmins in the sushi bar discussing important things like movies and *nsync and how you don't like Venus Williams (and biting my tongue because I really want to ask if you don't like her because she's black. Hey I may be lowercase black but i'm not, y'know, white). I'm not angry. I'm just me. Hi, Jason. Yup, that brotha over here who spent saturday evening with a bunch of people watching an O-Town DVD and listening to the love song from Tootsie. Damn. I hate you white people.

on the first day...

is every brotha wearing dreads for the cause? Is every nigga wearing gold chains for the fall? Naw. - Outkast

…but all I know is that there's a stranger inside of me. - Madusa

I feel like I'm habitually an alter-ego. But if I ever do become a superhero, my name will be 'The Negroid' - me

What's up, yo? So, this is my very own L.A. Story (big ups to Steve Martin!). I've been debating this whole weblog thing for a long time. I'm not a big fan of personal websites. For the most part I find them a tad pretentious and cheesy unless they are really smartly done and I didn't want to become a cliché following this whole blogger trend. But, I say I'm a writer and I had this brilliant idea in December to make my first attempt at published written word a series of essays detailing my daily thoughts about being a mild mannered negro trying to figure out this whole hollywood thing.

I should just sit down, write out all these random stories and situations in my head down on paper, submit them somewhere, make my 250 bucks for 1000 words then write the Great American Novel so that I can sit in my summer home in Santa Cruz and chuckle as I think about how I'm going to wow the world with my next tale of a rock band on their first cross country tour that really is an allegory about gender issues and sexuality in the malaise of marginalization that comes from growing up in the midwest. (yay alliteration!) But…I need an audience and immediate gratification in order to get my shit going.

So until I find my focus, you can find me here. Who am I? (Petey Pab motherfuckers! Boo on North Carolina rap.) I'm Jason. Born on 03.19.1975 (you can still drink me!) I'm black. Not capital B black. Just black and soon I'll explain the difference. I'm a web content producer/manager for some television shows. I'm single and ready to mingle at the reagle beagle should ever an art chick with a cute smile and a fucked up sense of humor should want to share a sandwich with me. I'm a valley boy through and through. My formative years in the San Fernando Valley (BVN!) have left me a lover of California and specifically LA and all its plasticity and wonder has to offer.

And this is my world. One thing I should definitely mention - To all my friends…don't get offended. My written voice sounds decidedly different from my spoken word. You'll notice a lot more 'fucks' in the vernacular. You'll notice a lot more 'fucked up shit' then I'm usually want to say in mixed company. But know that I love you all. Example…if we're walking together and you trip and break your nose and we have to go to the hospital and you need plastic surgery…I'm not going to laugh at you in person. But, if in doing so, the blood that splatters from your sadly broken nose looks to me like manorexic spike and manorexic Jason Behr in a loving embrace with the UPN logo tattooed on their asses, I will defintely laugh it up here. I love you but that's some funny shit.

These are my stream of consciousness thoughts. I will diatribe and rant here, pontificate and politick…but take everything with a grain of salt because I write to be funny and witty not really to be tactful and considerate. I am those last two just far less so in words.

So Welcome to the mind of the mild mannered negro. You don't know how fucked you really are.

The dopest heckuvfresh stuff today:
That the Patriots won. I think an actress that will remain nameless bought off the NFL to get Tom Brady in the Superbowl.
Jenny and P'lette. They rule my world…even when they invite me to the whitest event I've been to in a long long time. I had fun but damn…I had to buy collard greens, fried chicken and watermelon on my way home just so I could be sure my melanin levels were on point today.
The Avalanches Since I Left Youcd.

So Fired…
Making Pacts.
4 legged roommates that won't let you cut their too long toenails.
A week's worth of grime in the house after illness.