Archive for March, 2010

Mar 10
31

Strike a Pose

TheGhettoist
1 Comment »

                Last week there was a bit of a controversy involving Gaborey Sidibe.  The powers that be over at Vogue said they will not be featuring the rookie actress in any issue as she is “too fat.”  This caused some outrage and controversy.  In addition Howard Stern came under fire for saying that she is not part of Hollywood and will vanish pretty quick because of her weight.  As much as I hate to do so, I have to defend those two entities.  I have to tell you Vogue is 100% correct in their actions and Howie, is probably right.

                I have to start by saying I am not a vogue subscriber.  I don’t read the publication.  I have thumbed through it but only as any other man does, to look at pretty ladies and hope for a glimpse of boob.  In addition I am no fan of the fashion industry.  I have worked indirectly in the industry and I have to tell you the stereotype of the shallow fashionista is based very much in fact.  Many (not all) people who work in fashion believe they are doing God’s work.  They think that by designing shoes and purses that their chosen career rivals surgeons who remove malignant tumors from cancer patients.  I bet if you surveyed ten cancer patients they would probably vote for the surgeon as having more important role.

                The editor and chief of Vogue Anna Wintour is legendary for her diva (there was another word I wanted to use that begins with a C…you can figure it out)like behavior.  Editor please!  In spite of your self-important view, you’re no more important to the planet than Rob Schneider.  I am sure when fashion week rolls around you feel like a big deal, and to your staff of servants in your Hampton’s estate you are the center of the universe, but lady you and I breathe the same exact air.  Can you see my disdain with Vogue and the fashion industry itself?  Guess I’m not getting a job writing for Conde Nast any time soon.  I’m okay with it, I will keep my soul.

                The other critic of Gabby is Howard Stern.  I am not a fan of Stern.  I just plain don’t find him funny.  This has nothing to do with his raunchiness either.  I am a Sirius subscriber, but you never see me tuning in to Howard 100.  I will say that channel 197 The Virus is on my presets.  I laugh my ass off every time I listen to Opie and Anthony.  They’re just funnier and edgier.  They also seem to understand that what they are doing is for an audience and not some self indulgent exercise in ego stroking.

                I will never deny Stern’s legacy.  He was at one time cutting edge and relevant.  His wit and antics were a machete that cut through a sea of boredom and fake politically correctness for the sake of preserving sponsors.  He set the bar really high and I feel like he might have been his own worst enemy.  It’s hard to live up to the image he created.  As time went on he got complacent and lazy.  The last time I seriously listened to him, he was bitching because he didn’t like the limo his driver picked out for him.  Are you serious?  Are you that out of touch with your listeners?  You have your fanboys who eat shit like this up, but the average listener does not want to hear about your model wife, Hampton’s mansion and how your chauffeur is an asshole.

                It’s hard to defend the positions of two entities you have a strong dislike of, but I’ll do my best.  In order to write this entry I shelled out the $4.99 and watched Precious on pay-per-view.  It wasn’t a movie that I was interested to see, as I have a hard time relating to urban literature sometimes.  I’m down with a lot of stuff in the hood, but Zane and other urban authors don’t speak to me.  It’s probably because most of the work is geared towards women.  So I did not read the book Push.  Besides, people who use one name like Sapphire and don’t have the name recognition annoy the piss out of me.  Stop trying to create a persona, you’re a writer not a pop singer.

                So I sat through a viewing of Precious.  I thought the film was good, I’m not sure if it was worthy of a best picture nomination, but I guess that it was a symptom of the expansion to ten.  I have some insider info that if there were eleven nominees that GI Joe:The Rise of Cobra would have been it…and if it weren’t for politics, it surely would have won.  Seriously though, I did like the acting in Precious.  It was good.  Gabby Sidibe proved she could play ghetto, and Monique made me want to throw  my television down a flight of stairs just like in the movie every time she appeared on the screen.   I can’t stand her to begin with, and she made me hate and respect her at the same time.  That’s a pretty strong indication of the performance when you can stir up hatred but still garner respect at your craft.  As I write this entry, Monique’s talk show (if you can call it that) is on my television.   It might be one of the most amateur productions on any network, ever.  And I am not referring to the people behind the scenes.  I am addressing the people in front of the camera.  But she’s sassy so I guess you have to listen to her.

                These two women became their characters.  I can’t say any more than any other film critic has already  stated.  I can imagine to channel these characters could not have been easy.  It has to put a black mark on your psyche to be able to live in the darkness that the mother and daughter characters existed in.  It could have been easy to take these roles and made them comedic, as the subject matter defies what a rational person would consider natural human behavior(I challenge you to find another species on this planet that would treat their offspring in that manner) , but neither woman fell into that trap.  If it were me and I had that kind of talent, then I know I’d need some therapy to recover from the experience.  But I ask the question, do we have to reward these woman for the rest of their lives for one role?  Unless they perform in their next respective projects they should be treated like every other actor who faded into obscurity.

                Should Gabby be on the cover of Vogue…HELL NO!  I recently posted as my Facebook Status, “Are we really shocked that Gabourey Sidibe will never appear on the cover of Vogue?”  It was more of a commentary on what a shallow bunch of douche bags Vogue was  as opposed to anything regarding Gabby’s weight or appearance.  I received a comment from a person who I went to grammar school.  She wanted to know why Vogue couldn’t do something different and put Gabby in their magazine that the situation as they are creating it sends a bad message to women everywhere.  I don’t disagree with her, but Vogue was built on a being vanity elitist.  Gabby obviously has inner beauty, but that’s not what Vogue is about.  The reality is though that she does not deserve to be worshiped as an object of physical beauty.  Vogue does promote unhealthy physical standards for women, but then again so does Gabby.  The woman is morbidly obese (my wife the doctor said so, so I am not just throwing the phrase around) and women should not aspire to look like her.  You can figure out for yourself what being that fat can do to a human body, I don’t need to give you a lesson in health.  I will never have a body like somebody who graces the cover of Muscle and Fitness or even Sports Illustrated (unless they feature a 13 year old girls softball team) no matter how much I lift weights and eat right.  I am just not genetically made up for that.  That’s just life, but it sends the same message as Vogue.

                These magazines make their living on selling a certain image of beauty and shouldn’t have to change.  Hollywood and Madison Ave know that sex appeal sell.  Ask yourself who would you rather see in a steamy love scene Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston or Kirstie Alley and John Goodman?  A friend of mine told me the easiest way to not be racist is to back up your views with unbiased facts.  This entry is not so much about race as it is about human nature.  Recently Arizona State University released a study that said when companies use regular people in their advertising campaigns that the results were not as positive as when they used models and people based solely on their appearance.  When Dove used “real women” the campaign drew raves, but the fact was that it actually hurt sales.  People develop lower self esteem by looking at plus sized models compared skinnier ones.

                Recently when I was watching The View (it’s okay call me a bitch) and Joy said that writers will now have to keep Gabby in mind when creating roles, and I agreed.  Much like the clothes she has custom made for her, roles will have to be specifically written with her in mind.  If I look at it from the other side of the coin, I can’t see her being that much of a box office draw where people are going to pay $12 to see projects where she is the centerpiece on a consistent basis.  People watch movies for the escapism.  They want to live vicariously through the characters they see on the screen for the most part.  Sometimes we like to take a masochistic journey through films like Precious.  But other times we want to do our best to identify with the ultra dreamy Robert Pattinson.  Do you really want to repeatedly take the voyage as somebody you can see every day on the 2 train?

 

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Acting All Ghetto, These Are The Breaks
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Mar 10
26

Is This the Best Brooklyn can do?

TheGhettoist
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                         I’ve gotten a lot of guff recently.  People have told me that I have turned this blog into a pro-cop apologist rant.  They are not incorrect.  It’s possible that I have strayed from my original mission statement, and I now risk losing my funding.  Well this will be my last cop related entry for a while.  This is not so much cop related though as it is entertainment related.  Last week I decided to take in a movie and review it, I was going to spend the loot so you didn’t have to.

                I took myself to my local multiplex and plopped down the nearly criminal $12.00 to view Brooklyn’s Finest.  I did not go into this movie hopeful, and was not surprised when I left the theatre with the same sense of emptiness that I walked in with.  Movie food might fill your belly, but do you ever feel satisfied when you walk out?  That’s kind of the same feeling I got from this film.  Yes my time was occupied by this movie, but I cannot say it was time I felt like I accomplished something.  After I saw The Hurt Locker, I felt like I used time wisely even though it was a self indulgent veg out kind of thing.  A certain part of my psyche was fed and fed with quality ingredients.  Finest was nothing like that.  The hollow feeling in my psyche was the same as the one in my belly that was filled with popcorn.

                Now I have to qualify this review with my DQ (Douche Quotient) regarding cop movies and cop shows.  The first article I ever had published was titled Why I Hate Cop Shows.  Don’t go looking for it anywhere.  The magazine NY Hotshot has long since folded and the website is now an advertisement for a photographer.  I wrote the article back in 2000 and I have always contended that Barney Miller is the best and most realistic cop show ever produced.  If I had to pick a cop movie, I would have to go with Fort Apache The Bronx.  Whereas those two works in my opinion share a brilliance and have done their 20 and now retired, Finest seems like it just entered the police academy.  I watch these films and shows from a little different point of view than most people, but I still am a watcher of film.  So like every other person who thinks they are right, I know best.

                One area where I have to praise this film for is it’s casting, but only part of it.  Don Cheadle is good in everything he does.  The man just plain has range, maybe more than any other actor out there.  This is the same man who was nearly unrecognizable (and it has nothing to do with his appearance) as Rocket in the movie Colors, is the same one who moved me to tears in Hotel Rwanda.  Then by the same token cracked me up as Basher in the Ocean’s Eleven series.  In Finest Cheadle plays Tango, an undercover cop who is embedded with a nefarious Brooklyn drug crew.  Cheadle was likable but the script had him playing the cliché undercover cop who is “in too deep.”  If you plan on seeing the film, I won’t ruin it but his actions at the end of the film had me saying WTF?

                One surprise in this film was Wesley Snipes.  Snipes’ Cazanova was good and even seemed to have some dimension to him.  It was a supporting role, but Wesley seemed to make to most of it, and didn’t try and over act it.  I’m glad about this as in light of his recent IRS troubles and lack of quality work in recent years, this might be a good turn for his career. Does this mean that Blade 4 is in the works?  I sure hope so.

                For me personally the best part of the casting was seeing  Michael K. Williams, Hassan Johnson, and Isaiah Whitlock Jr. on the screen.  If you’re saying who perhaps if I said Omar Little, Wee Bey, and State Senator Clay Davis you will know exactly who I a speaking of.  I’m a huge fan of The Wire and even though I came late to the game watching it(the only season I actually saw when it aired originally was the final one), felt it was the finest piece of television ever produced next to Band of Brothers.  It was good to see these three actors working, like seeing three old friends who you haven’t seen in a while.  You saw they changed but were still essentially the same people.  Williams had the biggest role playing the typical psychotic black drug dealer who has no regard for anything other than getting paper and power.

                On the other side, the side of the cops, I can’t find much to praise.  It strikes me that these men didn’t spend much time with actual cops, or if they did; the cops didn’t let their real personalities out.  Ethan Hawke, a guy who I sometimes see walking around my neighborhood has instant name recognition and will put the asses in the seats, was not a great choice for this role.  Hawke came from an upper class background and seemed to have trouble playing a blue collar cop.  It seemed to me that he thought to play working class you just need to exchange your wallet for a wooden personality.  He did his best to pretend he was Denzel in Training Day, but doesn’t hit the mark.  His role has him playing another cliché of the cop who needs money and decides that killing and robbery are the way to go.  Before they were given a decent contract, every cop I knew needed money.  You know what they did to get money, they worked overtime constantly, or got side jobs.  They didn’t take to robbery and murder.  His character even takes to turning down overtime.  His actions just did not make any sense to me, not as a cop, not as a human being.  Shouldn’t there be reasons for a person to take the actions like Hawke did?  All we know is that he has twins on the way, and needs to buy a new house.  When you violate your oath in ways like his character did, then there has to be more than the typical struggle than what we all face every day.  There has to be some sociopathology which the writing and acting did not let on.

                Richard Gere was a little closer to the target as the weirdo loner cop.  He was stubborn, and slightly on the dim side.  He was very set in his ways and most of those ways were pretty flawed.  But even the biggest asshole on the department has one or two people that they talked with, joked around with.  What struck me was that he had no hobbies, no interests.  Those guys usually had something away from the job that kept him going, whether it was fishing, or horses, or trips to Atlantic City.  Eddie Dugan had none of that.  In one scene he bought a fishing rod, but that was never explored it did nothing to give the character depth.  The only hobby he did seem to have was a certain hooker in Chinatown.  I can’t say this is far from the truth because it brings me back to a situation where a cop I knew started dumping rounds into the projects when a certain prostitute didn’t service him properly.  In the man’s defense it wasn’t his regular girl, so can you really blame him?

                So acting aside, the writing of this film needed work.  I saw an interview on The View (it’s okay, call me a bitch) where Don Cheadle and Wesley Snipes were discussing how the writer of this film had worked in the subway.  As I was watching the film I said to myself often, “Yeah this film was written by an MTA employee.”  The guy had a good idea, but it seems like he wrote the story without doing the research.  Just because you saw cops occasionally in your job doesn’t mean you understand how things work.    I’ve got a theory with cop shows and movies.  You either have to go way over the top like they did in a show like The Shield.  It was easy to suspend belief and just enjoy the fantasy component, or keep it real like The Wire, and show us the comedy and drama that exists normally in life, especially in that life.  You don’t have to manufacture it, it’s there already if you just look hard enough.  You don’t have to create a scene like the poker game where the dialogue is unnatural and forced with the stupidity of guns being pulled to create artificial drama.

                Am I being a nitpicky douche?  Yeah I probably am, but I’m going to be this way till they come out with a cop movie that gets it right in this modern film era.  Maybe I will just have to open my copy of Final Draft and write it myself.  Then some asshole such as myself will rip me apart, but hopefully he decides he needs to do it right and comes out with something better than what I wrote.  Then I will be able to die in peace.

                Well  that’s it for cop stuff for a while…Back to the hood!

 

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Acting All Ghetto, Rhymin and stealin, White People
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Mar 10
24

I Don’t Play for No Basketball Team

TheGhettoist
1 Comment »

                Ridden the subway in the past few years?  It’s midday and you found a seat away from the homeless guy at the end of the car who smells like really good French Cheese and urine.  You’re about to really lose yourself in some smut that’s been authored by Zane.  You somehow manage to filter out the idiot standing in the doorway who is playing their damn IPOD so loud that you think Akon is actually in the train car with you.  You find the place where you left off in Addicted, and it’s getting steamy.

                Then without warning, your concentration is broken.  “Excuse me ladies and gentlemen.”  You cringe a little.  You think to yourself, “Shit, Zoe Reynard was just starting to really let go of her inhibitions and now I have to listen to this amateur P.S.A.”  It’s right about this time you start to wonder which one will it be?  Is it the guy who lost his job and needs to feed his family?  Is it old homeless black guy who tells jokes.  If I hear “I know where you got your shoes, you got them on your feet,” I might just punch somebody.

                Last night the car crier proceeded to let everybody on the train know that he was HIV positive and a brain cancer survivor.  He went on to tell us that he was also a marathon runner and the head of his own foundation.  As if his resume wasn’t impressive enough, he even shows us a picture of Barack Obama’s grandmother, as she is the one who fires the starting pistol of a marathon his foundation organizes every year in Kenya.  Hmm if you are the head of a foundation do you really think the New York City subway is the best spot to seek funding for your international charity?  If you personally know the president’s grandmother wouldn’t she be better to solicit for money than some construction worker on the 1 train?

                You might be treated to a spur of the moment concert by some out of work musician who plays the guitar, drums, bass, kazoo, or kazoo made out of a comb and tissue paper.  It can also be the cheapskate who doesn’t take the effort to buy an instrument but will regale you with their amazing voice.  I know, they’re saving up to get a ticket to audition for American Idol.

                There’s also a chance it could be a sports team selling candy to buy new uniforms, rent a bus to drive to the league championship or build a new state of the art training facility.  But you are most likely to have Zoe’s sexual epiphany interrupted by Michael Jones (or whatever name they are using) to tell you that he doesn’t play for no basketball team and he is selling candy just to put a little money in his pockets.

                I have to admit, out of all the subway solicitors, I like these kids the best.  If they are nothing else, they are honest…and I respect that.  Now with this being said every so often I throw these kids a few bucks when I have a sweet tooth, but I must admit that their speech does make me scratch my head.  It’s the same speech every time regardless of who says it.  I’ve had horrible sales jobs and the one thing they all have in common is the fact that they have a presentation that you have to memorize to sell the product.  The words are carefully selected and seem to have been written by some marketing firm for maximum effectiveness.  The candy speech has the same feel to it.  If we look at another commonality, we see the packaging is identical on every one of these kids.  Where are they getting these boxes?  These are obviously wholesale products, and not the type you can buy at Costco either.

                If I look at these two facts it tells me that these kids are organized, and that means that there is a head to this organization.  I have a hard time believing it’s a collective of ambitious youths who are conducting their own marketing experiment.  I wonder is there some Candy Fagin pimping street urchins out to hawk his wares and in turn they receive a pittance.  Or it might be an adult who uses the famous words to hook suckers into sales jobs where there’s no future,just in scams like Herbalife (just Google those two words to see what I mean,) “You will be owning your own business.”

                The one part of the speech that disturbs me is that they say they are doing this so they don’t have to “rob nobody,” or sell drugs.  Oh so you have two options as far as a career?  You can either sell candy or deal drugs and rob people.  Those are really the only two choices?  And since when did robbery and sale of controlled substances become viable career options?  They are the easy way out, a quick road to fast money usually with a bad ending.  How about you do what regular kids your age do, you get a paper route or your go work at McDonalds or some other fast food joint for a little more than minimum wage?  That’s what I did…I flipped cheese steaks at South Philly Steaks and Fries in The Staten Island Mall.  It wasn’t glamorous, or cool, but it was honest and honorable.

                Now if it is as it seems where it is just kids who is hustling trying to make an honest buck I seriously commend them.  Technically what they are doing is illegal as they need a license, and the MTA won’t let you sell anything on their property unless you pay a hefty tribute to them.  But I say Fuck the MTA.  They are one of the greediest most corrupt organizations on the planet.  They make Enron seem like a company that cared.  If by some weird turn I end up running a company I would hire these kids and show them what real work is like.  Give them a chance to put that hustle and ambition to good use.

                I must admit I am torn with the whole panhandling issue (whether it be selling a fugazy product or not.)  I used to be completely anti when I was a cop.  Under Emperor Rudy we were told take a zero tolerance policy to panhandlers.  I did my job, but at the same time I dealt with them as human beings.  They were the lowest rungs of the ladder that was society, but they were still people.  I would tell them, “I’m out here till 12:00.  When I am here, you are not.  Nothing personal, it’s what they’re making me do.  Go hang out in the park till then.”  I’d usually have no problems.  I didn’t bother them, I sure as hell wasn’t taking them to jail as the brass had wanted me to, but at the same time they weren’t on my post.

                Then one day I had a situation.  It was the only white panhandler I had ever seen on my post.  I walked up to him and he shook his cup at me.  Was he serious?  I was in full uniform and here he was asking for money from me.  He must not have read any newspapers lately.  City Hall had declared him the enemy.  I said to him, “You can’t be serious?  You know they want me to lock you up for this.  Besides, how about just a tiny bit of respect for the uniform?”  He told me that he was just trying to get something to eat.  I told the man to come with me.

                He and I walked to the coffee cart that was on my post.  I asked the man running it to give me a bagel and a cup of coffee.  He gave it to me.  I let him park his van in commercial parking even though he had passenger plates.  He was a working man…why would I want to fuck with him?  A bagel and a coffee was like a parking tax, cheap if you ask me.  We’d talk and he was kind of like a friend anyway.

                So after my friend Hassan gave the food and drink to Mr. Cup Shaker, I sent him on his way.  I gave him the speech about not shaking a cup when I was around.  He said okay and was gone, or so I thought.  Fast forward an half hour or so.  I walk up on Mr. Cup Shaker and another homeless guy Charlie that I knew.  They were sitting on the curb and talking.  Not knowing I was behind him Mr. Cup Shaker took the bagel and proceeded to throw it on the ground.  He took the coffee and dumped it out.  “I want bacon and eggs,” he barked, “I don’t want this crap.”  Let’s just say I was livid.  I went out of my way and this was his gratitude for my efforts. Let’s just say Mr. Cup Shaker was not seen in the vicinity of 57th and Broadway ever again.  No I didn’t murder him, but I did scare him a little, nothing illegal either.   It kind of led me to believe that people who live on the streets shaking a cup are often there by choice.  I’ve had other incidents which reinforced this.

                On the other hand I feel a great compassion and empathy for people who are truly down and out.  I’ve been there.  I know what it’s like to be hungry.  I myself walked around the streets begging, it was to stores and companies wearing a suit and begging for a job; but it was a time of desperation of my life so I know the feeling.  Human beings who have should help human beings who don’t, provided they want the proverbial hand up and not a hand out.  Some of the stories you hear are heartbreaking.  They can’t help but move you to tears, but some are rehearsed and that is their exact intention.  Just like a movie like Precious can get you to open your wallet with a moving tale so can a story of undeserved tragedy.  The hard part is finding out who is being honest and who is worthy of an academy award.

                So yeah if you’re just trying to put a little paper in your pocket and my sweet tooth is itching, I’ll give you $1.50 for some m&m’s…peanut please.  Now let me get back to my Zane book.

 

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Acting All Ghetto, These Are The Breaks
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Mar 10
17

41 Plungers Part 2 Redo

TheGhettoist
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So I haven’t posted in a while, but it’s not from being lazy.  I started writing the second part of the last blog about police brutality, and the more I wrote the more I was dissatisfied with what I saw on the screen.  Originally I had intended to write a blog about something much lighter than the topic at hand.  I was thinking about maybe exploring why there were five freaking churches on my block when I lived in Harlem.  Or I wanted theorize how Monique was going to be the fatter hairier female version of Cuba Gooding Jr.  Cuba man I kid.  I loved Rat Race, I mean it; and you really pulled off Nicky Barnes damn good.

                But then something happened.  I got a response on my last blog from a friend of mine.  This person is a man I value as one of my closest friends on the planet.  He’s a man who aside from being incredibly smart and insightful has a pedigree in the hip hop world that few can match.  When you walk into this man’s office there are gold records and a large photo of him and Biggie with their arms around each other wearing tuxedos.  I knew when this person commented that I had to respond to what he wrote.  He’s a very measured person and if he took the time to carefully craft his response then I had better do so as well.

                Then came the actual writing.  As the words came out of me I couldn’t help but get a douche chill.  If you have never heard the phrase before, it feels just as uncomfortable as it sounds.  I found myself speaking from a place that was totally devoid of any humanity.  I guess with all the exposure I have seen about the Diallo case,  I became desensitized to whole thing.  Couple that with that fact that I came from a position of academia and it’s easy for me to lose sight of the humanity of the situation.

                You see when I was a member of the force, I spent a portion of my career as an academy instructor and one of the courses I created and taught was called Emergency Incident Management for Police Supervisors.  This class had me breaking down various types of incidents whether they be natural disasters, airplane crashes, terrorist attacks, or shootings and telling people of higher ranks how to be cops when they get to them.  Here I was a kid in my 20′s telling people with more time on the job than I had on the planet how to do their respective assignments.  This forced me to really be on my game.

                Without getting too pro cop in the Diallo shooting, I just want to raise some points briefly.  Diallo did in fact resemble a rapist.  The unit that he encountered The Street Crime Unit were some of the most active cops on the NYPD.  They made up less than two percent of the department (380 cops) but yet they took 40% of the guns off the street in year prior to the shooting.  How many lives were saved by those hundreds of guns being.  These were active cops with lots of interaction with the public.  They weren’t desk jockeys like myself.

                The tragic events were complicated by a phenomenon called Rapid Reflex Response.  I am not going to go too in depth to it but put simply when one person shoots, it is reflexive for other people to fire.  If you have never been in a gun fight before I will explain something.  It is very disorienting and you can’t always tell where the shots are coming from.  I’ve been shot at and the only way I knew where the bullets were coming from was on the second shot I saw the person actually fire the gun.  Before that, all I knew was there was a loud bang not far enough from me.

                One thing I can tell you without doubt is that race was not a factor in this shooting.  When it comes to racism and police officers, I refer to the movie Crash and Matt Dillon’s character in particular.  Officer Ryan was one racist motherfucker.  I never saw things like he did to Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton’s characters, but I knew some guys who on the surface didn’t seem to understand the meaning of racial tolerance.  I’ll even own up to throwing names around like Mutt, Mope and Skell.  But much like Dillon’s character when it came down to it, every single cop I knew would willingly throw themselves into harm’s way to save another, regardless of color.  Now I am not saying with every cop in every instance that it’s 100% true, but in my experience when the shit hits the fan you become colorblind. 

                One thing I can guarantee is that not a single one of those four men when they were standing in front of their lockers on Randal’s Island that night was sitting there counting their bullets saying “This one is for Raykwon, this one is for Tyrone, this one is for Jose.  The Diallo shooting was a horrible accident and not the execution Al Sharpton, and Susan Sarandon would have you believe.  Funny,  Susie “Get Behind the Cause of The Moment,” was down at Ground Zero after 9/11 with pizzas in hand trying to make nice with the cops.  A buddy of mine told me they wouldn’t let her in and essentially told her to beat it. 

                When a dentist drill a wrong tooth, it’s not the end of the world.  Cable guy screws up you lose your cable for a bit.  When a cop makes a mistake there’s a chance people can die.  They’re human, and they do make mistakes.  Now I’m not giving cops a pass here.  Later I’ll show my true colors.  But if you think 41 shots between 4 officers armed with anywhere between 68 (17 rounds in each service weapon) and 200 (additional 16 round magazines and possible second weapons) bullets is excessive then I can tell you have never been in a situation like those four officers were.  When you think you are under fire you just pull the trigger and counting your shots is the last thing on your mind.  You’re squeezing the 12 lbs (modified from 2.2 lbs) of pull from the trigger of your 9 millimeter till the disorienting boom stops.  From an academic point of view 41 isn’t that many, from a civilian point of view…it’s more than excessive.  I’ve heard comments like they should have shot him in the hand or the shoulder.  They should have shot the gun out of his hand…are you serious?  When you discharge your weapon you aim for the biggest part or the target, or center mass as it’s called.  It’s hard to hit shit with a bullet, trust me I know.  If you can shoot the gun out of somebody’s hand, you are a better person than me, and pretty much all the cops I know with the exception of one who can hit whatever he wants whenever he wants.

                I’m not sure that I have convinced you that this was a mistake and a horrible tragedy where an innocent man died, and not a brutal execution.  We can probably debate about this topic forever.  But please debate me.  Comment on what I’ve written.  In the future I will write about this subject again.  There is just too much to say about it.  But with that being said, cops are held to a higher standard than other occupations, with good reason.

                The screening process for the department is decent, but not great.  Investigators have too many candidates, and often they have to worry more about making sure the applicant has their paper work in and complete as opposed to seeking out details of their character.  Where the department needs to make a change is in the psychological test.  In 1990 I took the same psychological test that my father did in 1973.  That is not a joke or a typo.  It’s two tests consisting of 1300 questions and there are tricks to passing it.  In addition you have to draw three pictures which will miraculously reveal all your character flaws  The truth is that if we sat in a room for twenty minutes I could teach you how to pass the psyche.  It’s a crime that the same process is used for the past forty years.

                I will tell you this though, the department is most likely going to get an influx of good candidates in the near future.  There are no jobs out there and the bad economy makes civil service seem very appealing.  You get a steady pay check along with some of the best benefits anywhere.  Now that the city has decided to open up its check book you will get people who are better qualified than people who would take the same job for a lot less money.  Top pay now is around $79,000 a year, and that’s without any overtime or night differential, or longevity pay.  Realistically with some time on you’re making closer to $90,000.  I know sergeants and detectives who are pulling in $120,000 a year.  That money in a bad economy, there’s going to be people lined up and good people too. 

                There’s going to be competition as opposed to the philosophy the job is yours just come down and sign up…no matter who you are.  The city can disqualify people who have arrests on their records.  There have been cops in New York (and are most likely still employed) who have been arrested for armed robbery, they took plea bargain for a misdemeanor and eventually became New York City Police Officers.  With a large applicant pool now the city can say don’t call us, we’ll call you.  With money like that on the table you’re going to get Ivy League graduates who felt the vocation calling them but weren’t going to do the job for $49,000 a year.  Tens of thousands of people apply for Nassau and Suffolk every year for a couple of hundred spots, why do so many apply…I’ll give you 116,000.  In addition with more money you’ll not only attract the best but keep them around.

                I worked with some great people who truly are the salt of the earth, they took the job for the right reasons.  I worked with people who I thought were of questionable moral character.  A badge and a uniform do not hide flaws on the contrary they magnify them.  We need do need to hold men a women who chose this profession to a higher standard, but at the same time we need to give them our support.  We also need to sometimes keep our emotions in check till we have all the facts.  Bill Bratton had it right when he destroyed the badges of the men who were caught up in the Dirty 30 scandal.  He said that the men forever tarnished the badges and their memories should wiped from the department.  Those men were criminals, just like Justin Volpe is a criminal. 

                Those four men of The Street Crime Unit (which has since been disbanded as a result of the Diallo shooting) are not criminals, but rather men who were doing their job and made a horrible mistake.  A mistake that I hope no cop, or parent or son ever has to live with again.  And if you think those four men are not haunted by their actions even though they thought they were completely justified (which a jury agreed with) then think again.  The four have huge crosses to bear and I for one am glad I will never have to bear it.

Rhymin and stealin, White People
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Mar 10
10

41 Plungers

TheGhettoist
4 Comments »

                Every time I go to work I pass by the Wakimba Lounge on 8th Ave in Midtown.  At first glance it looks like it’s trying to be something it’s not.  It’s trying to look like a tropical locale in the heart of one of the busiest parts of the city, an urban oasis.  Then after a second look, you can see it’s just like any other Manhattan Dive Bar.  It’s not one of those kitschy dive bars that attracts the hipster crowd, and has them thinking they’re cool for going there.  Not the Wak, it’s a true dive bar.  It’s the kind of place that the smell of stale beer and desperation wafts out even when the doors are closed.  The place has a soul, but the soul screams of hopelessness.  The Wakimba does have a place in New York history.  It is the place where Patrick Dorismond was shot by a New York City Police Officer.

                The case of the Dorismond shooting was one of great controversy.  The officers involved were not indicted.  The Manhattan Grand Jury deemed the shooting accidental.  The case drew little fanfare, not as much as you would have though a cop shooting an unarmed man would draw.  The fact of the matter is that the shooting was overshadowed by two incidents that happened in the three years prior.  Those two incidents which often get lumped together have very little to do with each other than they involved members of The NYPD and black men, immigrants for poor countries as well.  But that’s where the similarities end.  They are about as close in spirit as the homelands of the two men, which is not at all close.

                The first case involves Haitian immigrant Abner Louima and the 1st Platoon of Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct.  Louima was sodomized in the bathroom of Flatbush police station when he was taken into custody.  The case drew massive protest and outrage, but most of it was knee jerk reactions led by my favorite “Holy Man” Al Sharpton (and you can expect a whole entry on the man I called Al Overtime at a later date.)  When I say knee jerk, I mean that people over reacted without knowing all the facts.  I actually had a pretty close connection to the case and know some details that most people do not.  I knew Justin Volpe, we grew up not far from each other.  We didn’t know each other personally, but I knew him from sight.  I knew the crowd he ran with and thought he was a punk, a bully, worst of all, a guido.  Now you don’t really think that a badge and a gun is going to change that do you?  Guns make weak men feel strong, picture being able to carry a gun where ever you want.  Talk about absolute power corrupting absolutely.

                I did not know Chuckie Schwartz ,one of the other men involved, but I knew people who knew him and well.     Everybody I knew who knew him said that that he was not the kind of guy to do something like that, and these were men I trusted, who trusted Chuck.  Nobody was surprised that Volpe had done something like this, but at least four people I knew said it was not in Chuck’s character to do something like that.  Even Volpe himself cleared Chuck, but it didn’t take much to call Justin’s character into question.  I never got commentary on Bruder or Weiss, so I can make no judgment on their deeds or character.

                There is another key player in this case that I knew.  How I came about to know him was unfortunate.  He was just a kid who was doing the right thing, what he was sworn to do.  His name Eric Turetsky, at the time it was Police Officer Eric Turetsky the King’s County D.A.’s star witness.  Eric had seen parts of the incident and had come forward with what he saw.  I had met Eric while visiting my father at work one day at Nazareth High School.  My father was Eric’s boss after he came forward.  Now if you put two and two together, you can will figure out that Eric was assigned to the Internal Affairs Bureau once he was removed from The Seven Oh.  My father at the time was a lieutenant in Group 32 and one of the final cases he worked in his career was the Louima case.  When the news broke I asked him about it.  His words were that it was bullshit and they essentially were trying to find evidence to clear everybody involved.  As the investigation progressed they said there was no way that this did not happen.  Louima was sodomized, sexually assaulted by a New York City Police Officer.  He wouldn’t give me details but he said that anybody involved was going to do serious time, like the amount that can be measured in percentages of a century.

                So we have to look at the facts of the case and we will see that justice was served and pretty well for that fact.  Louima was involved in a scuffle outside a Brooklyn nightclub.  He is alleged to have sucker punched Justin Volpe.  The case was dropped so we will never know the outcome.  Louima most likely got his ass kicked on the way to the precinct.  I’m not condoning street justice, but I understand it.  Sometimes it’s the only message a knuckle head understands, you meet his violence with your own harsher violence.  I never participated in it, but the fact is an Assault 2nd Degree (which is the charge for hitting a police officer in New York) arrest is usually a tough case to make stick in this city.  If the person does get convicted or cops a plea there’s a good chance there will be no or little jail time.  The system sucks in that respect.

                So if we fast forward to today, we can see how the lives of four people have been changed by this incident.  Justin Volpe took a plea for 30 years with no parole.  Chuck Schwartz was convicted and sentenced to twelve years.  That conviction was overturned because it was deemed that he did not receive a fair trial.  With perjury charges looming he took a plea for a five year sentence.  He has since been released and is reported as working as a carpenter.  Eric Turetsky did what he perceived as the right thing and is branded a rat for the rest of his career, which is the worst thing possible among police officers.  He was an amenable guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and even his actions and motives were called into question while on the stand.  I’ve always contended that this was a crime and if any cop had come across this event on the street that he’d think it a great collar.  Volpe deserved to be punished, but I’m not sure 30 years was correct.  If he had been a civilian and it was a first offense then I couldn’t see him serving more than 10 years and a life time of sex offender status.  Does a uniform elevate the severity of a crime, not in the New York State Penal Law to my knowledge, but in the court of public opinion and surely in the Reverend Al’s definition of justice.

                 Abner Louima a Haitian immigrant who had not seen his family for six years before the event is now a very rich man.  He won $8.5 Million in tax free money ($5.8 after legal fees) and now lives in Florida.  In 2003 he went back to Haiti to see his family, wow great family man he is.  He has since set up The Abner Louima Foundation which form information I obtained listed $1181 assets and $6181 in income as of 2007.  He’s a rich man who lives in Florida while the good intentions of his “foundation” seem idle.  He has since found a role as The Rev. Al’s pony to trot out when he needs to put a face on police brutality.  He’s the victim of a crime who was compensated more than most victims are.  He’s no hero in my eyes as some would have you believe.  I’ve discussed this case with numerous people and myself included would trade places with him in a second for a pay day like that.  Giuliani Time (an allegation he made that the cops screamed as they were sodomizing him, things changed under Rudy but I don’t know a single cop who was a fan of the man, a fan enough to evoke his name anyhow,)paid him very well.  Three men’s lives forever changed by the actions of one, and only one being compensated for it.

                The other case that often comes under the same umbrella is Amadou Diallo.  In this case the four white Street Crime cops were acquitted.  This case involves no crime as some would have you believe.  This is a very unfortunate tragedy in which a man died.  He looked like a wanted man who was raping women in the South Bronx.  When questioned in front of his house he did not comply.  Call it a language barrier, call it a miscommunication, but don’t call it a murder.  Don’t be like Springsteen and write a song about it, till you understand the case fully.  In a later entry I will discuss The Sean Bell Shooting and I will introduce some facts and theories that will show that neither of these incidents were crimes but tragedies, bad tactics, yes; but not a bunch of white cops gunning for brothers as certain activists would have you believe.  So I ask for you not to have a knee jerk reaction to some of my statements.  In a coming blog hopefully you will see where I am coming from.  I’m by no means saying not to be mad.  I’d never want to take your feelings away, but I just merely want you to know there are two sides to the story.

Rhymin and stealin, These Are The Breaks, White People
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Mar 10
09

Man Two Point No

TheGhettoist
7 Comments »

                I hate hipsters, I hate them with a passion.  Now I know this is by no means a bold statement.  They’re a pretty easy group to hate.  But my next statement might shock you.  I am incredibly grateful for them, and I will explain at the end of this blog.  Understand though my gratitude is purely a personal thing and has nothing to do with any redeeming qualities they possess, as it’s common knowledge that they possess none.  So let’s start with the natural progression and start with why they’re such douches.  Now before some hipster advocate group threatens me with legal action, these are strictly my opinions.

                So why do I hate hipsters?  It’s pretty easy, there’s lots of reasons.  If you don’t quite know what a hipster is, then all you have to do is head to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Just look for anybody who is not Hassidic and isn’t one of the ten Puerto Ricans still left in that neighborhood.  They’re pretty easy to identify from their skinny jeans…yeah, that’s a hipster.

                One thing that pisses me off about these bastards is the fact that they believe that they are actually interesting because they live in Brooklyn, so fucking what?  I was born there doesn’t make me interesting or cool.  Admit it, you can’t afford Manhattan rents or else you would be here.  And I’m not cool because I live in Manhattan…unless I’m in Staten Island for the day.   I have news for you Williamsburg is the land of the posers.  It’s played out.  It’s not the Lower East Side back in the  smack days, like you keep telling yourself.  There’s no heroin in your hood.  If you are a “pioneer” and live in Bushwick, you’re not cool either.  Bushwick is the ghetto.  Any place you can buy loosies (single loose cigarettes) is the hood and doesn’t make you edgy.  It means your poor.  I’ve lived in the ghetto and try getting something other than Spanish food or something from a deli that is encased in glass.  On the bright side, you can always get some Little Debbie’s when you need to eat.  I’m a retired cop with a black belt in jujitsu and there are more than a few corners I’d avoid.  What are you going to do get into a slap fight (more on that in a bit) with a Blood when he looks at you cross?

                Have you heard any of the music?  You are not cool because you listen to Arcade Fire.  They’re Canadian and play the fucking glockenspiel.  No cool music has ever come out of Canada.  Even when Rush first came out they were ridiculously talented, but never cool.  Nobody cares about the new Dressy Bessy album.  Admit it, before you moved here from hardcore places like Delaware, you thought Dave Matthews was good, and he’s like rock music played by a group castrated Quakers.  You need balls to play rock.  Even if you’re not a fan, you have to respect Lemmy Killmeister.  You think the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie is inviting GWAR over and laying down a line of meth before enjoying a steak dinner?  Face it Jeff Buckley did the world a favor by drowning.  There’s a reason why people still listen to The Who and Zepplin…they were good!   

                Another thing that pisses me off, their sense of “style.”  Why work so hard to look like you don’t give a crap what you look like?   I get it.  Back in the day it was grunge, but guess what most of those guys were really dirty.  It was a rebellion against the mouse and spandex of hair metal.  You on the other hand, you aspire to look like Ashton Kutcher from five years ago.  Even truckers don’t wear trucker hats any more.  Skinny jeans will never look good on a guy, they do look good on a woman though.  What’s your next trend male leggings?  I’ll admit female American Apparel models are hot, but that doesn’t mean you have to dress like them.  What’s with the wallet on a chain?  It used to be that three types of people had wallets on chains, old men (because they were old and lost shit,) bikers (because they rode Harleys and would lose them,) and cops (because they would get drunk and lose them and you get in trouble for losing your badge and id.)  Your shirt is too small, you wear size smedium ladies when you should be wearing man’s sizes.  What’s with the hair my friend, are you auditioning to be the newest member of The Flight of The Conchords?  The show has been cancelled.  Those ridiculous mutton chops went out right around the time Martin Van Buren died…God rest his soul.

                Another thing that pisses me off is that they act like Apple is a religion.   That piece of fruit on an piece if electronics makes it immediately pretentious and overpriced.    I’m sure you love your I-Phone, but good luck using it as it was intended, as a phone.    Apple should make an App that keeps track of how many dropped calls you had.  I have Verizon and guess what, the shit always works.  You know what, my Droid does everything your I-phone does except I don’t have to bring it back to the Apple store once a month because it’s not working. And my apps, guess what they’re mostly free because Android is open source which means anybody can develop an app for the OS.  Apple had a commercial that aired during the Super Bowl many years ago with a look and feel like it was set in the book 1984.  Hey Jobs, I have news for you; that’s what you’ve become.  You do it the Apple way, or no fruit for you, only AT&T and only approved Apps.  I’m sure by now you’re saying, “Oh my Mac works flawlessly.”  Yeah I’m sure it does, with it’s stupid one button touch pad.  Guess what, I paid 1/3 of what you paid for your computer and mine works too probably with better specs. When it bites the dust, it’s a piece of electronics and it will; I will buy another one.  I have a Mac and PC, and I might be all counter culture, but I like my PC a million times better.  I don’t really hate Apple and its products.  I believe in a free market economy and they’re causing Mr. Gates’ firm to come out with better shit or else be run over. But come on, I have to go to “A Genius,” to get my Mac fixed?  So because somebody can fix my Mac he’s a genius and I guess that when I go to get my PC fixed I need to make an appointment at The Retard Bar.  I was waiting at the 14th Street to get my Mac back because my kid decided he wanted to see what happens when you mix a MacBook Pro and milk.  Now the store is right by the L train, which runs right through the heart of the hipster motherland.  I took out my PC to write a blog entry and then the looks I got…whew.  You’d think I was a rabbi at a Hamas meeting.  Really, you think less of me because I use a Window’s based product.  Here’s a prediction for you, if Apple tries to develop a gaming system to compete with the X-Box, I can tell you this, I will hate to see the crowd of douches who buy it just because of the stupid piece of fruit on the side.  I’m sure all the games will have to conform to the vision Apple has.  I bet there’ll be a version of Grand Theft Auto that involves using your Metro Card to buy a stupid ironic t-shirt while enroute to go play a game kickball in the park with your hipster buds.  The whole time you have to use the The J (for Jobs) button to giggle every time you think “I’m a grown up and I’m playing kickball, tee hee.”

                Hipsters technically are male, but I have a hard time declaring them men.  You are not a man.  You have evolved into some weird androgynous hybrid man.  Are you trying for the shape of a female runway model?  You owe your physique to Red Bull and American Spirit or whatever the hell pretentious brand it is you smoke.  If I didn’t know any better I would think you were going for the look of a homeless goth kid with that complexion.  Are you allergic to light that is not produced by your 22 inch monitor?  And that’s the only screen in your apartment, because you don’t own a damn TV.  Who the hell doesn’t own a TV?  I bet it must be the fact that you have sworn off meat and other delicious foods.  Men eat meat.  We need it to survive.  Tofu, that shit is for women who wear Birkenstocks and Tibetans.  You may think the Dali Lama is groovy, but you are not Tibetan.  You’re kind of like Euro trash with the exception that you were born and raised in suburban Ohio; so you don’t even have the luxury of being exotic.   Also people only drink PBR (that’s Pabst Blue Ribbon) because it’s cheap or their 61 year old men who live in Birmingham, Alabama and it’s what their daddy drank when he wasn’t drinking Jack Green Label; not because they have discerning pallets.  For some reason you view this as a badge of honor.  Your graphic design job doesn’t make you rich, but after your rent and AT&T bill are paid you have enough money to buy a real beer .  The newest trend in the bars of Williamsburg to gain any kind of street cred is to get a black eye.  Not even win the fight, just emerge with a shiner.  And the truth is that hipsters actually seek out fights to obtain these.  C’mon are you serious?  I can’t wait to read in the paper that some web developer who lived on Bedford Avenue was pummeled to death because he was out looking for a black eye and bit off more than his skull could chew.  You’re not tough guys so stop seeking it out.  Leave the fighting to men who want to actually beat their opponent’s brain out and not just take home a souvenir of the temporary trip to masculinity.  If you refuse to give up this silly behavior at least try and learn how to throw a punch.  It’s closed handed with the thumb on the outside, and use the first two knuckles or else you’re going to break your hand.  Slapping isn’t good unless you have a glove in your hand and you follow it by saying how you demand satisfaction.  Hey hipster I’ll make a deal with you.  If you see me out, put down your PBR and ask me to give you a black eye.  We cut out the middle man.  You get your cred among your kind, and I get to do something productive with my anger towards you.

                So those are few reasons why I can’t stand them, but there is one reason why I am grateful.  You see they are essentially the impetus for this blog.  I was aggravated by hipsters and decided to write a short article on hipsters.  I showed the article to my lovely and talented agent, and she suggested that I start writing about the hood, that is where she felt my astute observational skills lie, and the fact was that everybody hated hipsters so I wasn’t doing anything new.  A couple of months later and here we are.  In an effort to give back, I want to let hipsters know that I am here to help.  I am running a hipster relocation program.  I have employed a team of experts who will teach you how to join regular society.  They will get you an apartment is Queens, and get you shirts that don’t have an ironic saying on it.  They will cut the chain on your wallet and finally slap you around till you realize what a pretentious ass you have been.

White People
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Mar 10
05

Cracker Rap

TheGhettoist
2 Comments »

                In my previous blog about Affirmative Action, I declared it was not a good thing and I stand by it.  I’m thinking though maybe we need a little of it though in the world of rap.  That clearly is a joke, but I want to know why the hell it is nearly impossible for people lacking color to make it in the world of hip hop.  Now I will admit the sampling that we have had the pleasure of hearing throughout hip hop’s existence is quite small, and not very distinguished.

                The father of white rap is Rodney Dangerfield if you can believe it.  In 1981 he released his Grammy winning album No Respect which contained the wildly popular hit Rappin Rodney.  The song was clearly a spoof, but not knowing any better I coveted the album almost as much as I did Paradise Theatre (I know I was a fan of Styx, it’s fine make fun of me.  The following year I bought Blizzard of Ozz and everything changed.)  Music historians will contend that Blondie’s Rapture is the first song with rap in it, but in White mainstream America, but we just thought “Hey Blondie is really singing along with the beat.  And look wasn’t that black guy in the white tux on the Gong Show, and that Fab Five Freddy, he has a real alliterate name.”  I also think we might have been a little distracted by how hot Debbie Harry really was to notice any cultural implications.

                Fast forward to 1984 and we have a performance by two icons of white rap.  We have Jim Belushi and Alex Karras (it’s okay, he had flava he adopted a black kid named Webster,) perform White Guy Rap on Saturday Night Live.  C’mon if you were alive around that time you remember lyrics such as “I like your shirt.  I like your tie.  I like your wife, just kidding guy.”  Funny stuff, right?  For white people rap had been a vehicle of satire.  Whereas people like Kurtis Blow used rap to tell us about The Breaks, we used it to be cute and get chuckles.   The uncategorized genre had no seriousness to us.

                Even with the emergence of what many consider the first white rap group The Beastie Boys the landscape changed.  Don’t get me wrong, I love their first album (it was required listening on any road trip) but I can’t in good conscience rank it along side It Takes a Nation of Millions, Strictly Business, and Road to The Riches, and Paid in Full.  The Beasties are musicians, and with their body of work I have a hard time calling them strictly rappers.  And please don’t misunderstand I am a fan of them.  I own several albums .  I even played Paul’s Boutique for a black friend of mine and he was like “Who the hell is this?”  My response was, “Yo man, this is The Beastie Boys. It’s their second album.”  He answered “Shit, I have to get this.  This is good.”

                I hope you’re not on Wikipedia right now and thinking well The Beastie Boys released some tracks before License to Ill in like 1983.  I respond…puh lease.  Have you heard Cooky Puss?  It sounds like The Jerky Boys were trying to make a song out of a prank phone call.  Besides, it was an underground song and never made it to wide release…with good reason.

                In 1986 though something changed.  Rap met rock.  Run-DMC collaborated with Aerosmith on a remix of their song Walk This Way.  Now if you were a hardcore rocker, it was okay to listen to rap.  You might have even ventured to other sections of the record store saying “Hey I heard that album King of Rock has a Zeppelin riff in it.”  ’88 saw the creation of The Source magazine by two white Harvard students.  But the truth is that we only had our toes in the water and hadn’t quite jumped in the pool.

                1989 changed all that.  When 3rd Bass’ The Cactus album debuted.  They weren’t just good white rappers, but they were good rappers period.  Who knew Columbia English majors could rap?  Well Pete Nice was there on a basketball scholarship so that might have given you a clue.  They had acceptance by the most respected rappers.  Their videos were like a who’s who roll call of hip hop.  They were down with De La Soul, they were down with EPMD.  They had crossover appeal, they  were down with Black Flag singer Henry Rollins, the angriest man in music.  Their follow up album The Derelicts of Dialect did not let off the gas pedal for a second either.

                I guess Pete Nice and Mc Search (I’m not forgetting about you DJ Richie Rich, but this entry is about the crackers of hip hop) set the bar so high that white rappers went underground.  They were relegated to basements and making  their own record booths on the boardwalk of Seaside Heights, New Jersey (there’s a really bad recording of Going Back to Cali out there with my name on it.  I hope it was lost in a fire somewhere.)

                There were a few blips on the radar though.  3rd Bass’ hard work was wiped out by Robert VanWinkle and they gave him the gas face for it.  Ice was popular, but time revealed that he just wasn’t anything more than a novelty.  He was like blue Tropical Fantasy soda, you like it at first; but eventually you get sick from it; and the blue tongue would do as much to attract the ladies as it would blasting anything from To The Extreme.

                We had P.E. play with Anthrax on Bring The Noise.  You can’t argue with the marriage of Long Island and Queens.  Both these groups were considered the pinnacles of their respective genres.  I know all the words to every song on It Takes a Nation of Millions and Among the Living.  It’s hard to argue the talent of these two organizations (that’s provided you like rap and metal.)  It’s like the marriage of chocolate and peanut butter in a Reese’s.  Both groups do what they do best.  Chuck and Flava rap their hearts out and Scott Ian thrashes.  Charlie Benante pounds the drums with more heart and soul than any drum machine ever could.  I was a little scared when Scott took the mic, but he doesn’t try to be black.  He does his best to keep it metal, and Chuck doesn’t leave him hanging out there alone.  Bio Hazard and Onyx tried to capture the same magic with slam but Evan Seinfeld and company seem to just be playing backup to Sticky Fingaz and the rest.  It’s a damn good song that was made better with the melding of the two groups, but it lacks the ying and yang flow of Bring The Noise.

                We can’t forget about Snow and his song Informer.  It was kind of a novelty in the fact that if it weren’t for the fact that you saw the video you would think that flow like that came from a brother from Jamaica.  Take the fact that he was from Canada and not even Jamaica, Queens then the novelty factor is increased tenfold.  He couldn’t sustain anything after the one song…can you name another song by Snow?  Didn’t he rejoin Color Me Bad after that song came out?

                Sometimes it gets downright embarrassing though.  We have Markie Mark and the Funky Bunch.  Mark stick to producing Entourage and roles like Staff Sgt. Dignam in The Departed.  He’s a great actor but I hope he sticks with his true calling and doesn’t catch the music bug again.  The biggest embarrassment I felt while being white and listening to a rap song by one of my Caucasian brethren (well aside from K-Fed, but he’s a joke in and of itself) is The Notorious B.A.G. or Brian Austin Green, the name he was given.   It’s on You Tube so there is no need to describe it.  You can formulate your own opinion of anything off One Stop Carnival.  Brian should stick to what he does best, acting occasionally and banging some of the hottest women in Hollywood (Tiffani Thissen, Megan Fox and my personal favorite Vanessa Marcil.)

                When you talk about white rappers you have to mention The Insane Clown Posse.  I see their place in the discussion but I can’t see fit to call them rappers.  Their songs are catchy (although I am not a fan) and their rabid fan base gives them validation, but c’mon can they keep up with Rakim Allah?  I feel their best work was inspiring the hilarious Jugalo News skit.  Look for it on You Tube and be prepared to laugh your nuts off.

                No discussion about white rap is complete without the inclusion of Eminem.  He has Dr. Dre’s production, catchy beats that white people like and the ability to flow like KRS-One.  How could he not be great?  He hasn’t done much of late, but he doesn’t have to.  Marshall Mathers III’s legacy is intact.  He will emerge from hiding one day and gift us with genius and then it’s back to hiding.  C’mon he made Dido cool to listen to.

                Before I conclude, I have to pay homage to a Jewish man from Lido Beach, NY.  It is impossible to discuss rap regardless of the color of the singer without giving defernce to Rick Rubin.  Rick was there from the beginning and his DNA is in every rap song produced.  The fact is the man has worked with anybody who is anybody in music not just hip hop.  Do I really have to tell you about him?  If I do then you better start asking The Google.

                There is a glaring omission of a mention of the white rap fan, but that will be saved for a later entry entitled Wigga Please.

                Well  I’m never going claim that white people formed the landscape of rap, but with Rick Rubin, Eminem and 3rd Bass we’ve put the snowy caps on the top of the mountains.  Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to be satisfied with ice hockey, and a whole shit load of other stuff.

Rhymin and stealin, White People
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Mar 10
04

A Tale of Two Idiots.

TheGhettoist
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                They were the best of pols, they were the worst of pols…nah, they were the worst of pols.  Pretty much all politicians suck, and currently the only one I can think of who actually does what he said he would do and has a heart in the right place is Newark Mayor Corey Booker.  Watch the series Brick City and you’ll see a man who gets things done, but still genuinely cares about the people who he governs; and best of all he is willing to get his hands dirty to get the job done.  What I think speaks most of the man’s character is that from what I have seen he is both pro-cop and pro-pop(ulation) which most mayors are of low income urban areas areusually seen as one or the other.  I can go on all day extolling the virtues of Mr. Booker, but this entry is not about him.  It is about two politicians who embody the opposite of my favorite mayor.  Those pols are The Dishonorable Charles Rangel (or Cash Rangler as I like to call him) and David “the guy who followed the guy who liked hookers” Paterson.

                Let’s start with good ole Charlie.  He took office in 1971 (yeah, that long ago) when he defeated trail blazing Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr.  He won based on a platform of youth and change.  While he was in office he did some good things for Harlem.  He turned it into an Economic Empowerment Zone, it’s not there yet, and it will never turn into The Upper West Side, but it’s definitely a better place to live than it was in the early 1990′s.  He was a vocal opponent to the war in Iraq, and his call to reinstate the draft ruffled the feathers of old white, out of touch men of power and that’s never a bad thing.   He was a supporter of Israel in the Six Day War, which I have to give him kudos for.  The man was a war veteran and best of all he was a kid from Harlem, from a single parent home who rose through the ranks and became one of the more powerful men in D.C.

                But as he is a public figure, you have to look at some of his misdeeds which I feel define him.  First of all you have to look at his role in the cover up of the execution of NYPD Patrolman Phillip Cardillo inside a mosque in Harlem.  Rangel sided with his constituents rather than the police who were just doing their job, responding to a call for help.  While next to well known militant idiot Louis Farrakhan, Rangel ordered all police out of the mosque or else he could not protect them.  Sorry Charlie, I beg to differ.  One call for The Tactical Patrol Force (T.P.F.) and I not sure much could have protected the residents of Harlem.  Those monsters had one role only, to break heads.  The behemoths carried ax handles instead of nightsticks. I am not by any means justifying police brutality.  It obviously was a different time, not better by any stretch of the imagination; but that’s the way things were done back then.

                I looked, but could not find on the internet  Congressman apologized to Cardillo’s son Todd for sabotaging a crime scene and shit canning the investigation.  Cardillo’s killer has never been caught, and probably never will.  Hey Charlie if you have apologized please let me know, if not don’t you think it’s 37 years overdue?

                If we look at some other doozies, we can look at Charlie’s tax problems.  He claims to represent the people of Harlem, but yet lists DC as his primary address.  Now I’m not sure where in D.C. he claims to live but I can tell you for sure it’s nowhere near Howard University.  It’s probably in a pretty nice area but I’m sure it’s only so he doesn’t have a long commute.  Apparently by living in D.C. he gets a pretty good homestead tax break.  When he is not there though, he has not one but three rent controlled apartments.  I’m sure you’re doing good for the country and the world, but don’t you think three families could benefit from affordable housing.  I’m sure you ran on a platform that promised affordable housing, you had a chance to really keep a campaign promise but you blew it.  Couple that with the fact he has an apartment in The D.R. that he makes rental income off of and never told the IRS about and I would say Charlie does not keep his house (or housing in order.)  The man came under investigation for storing his Mercedes in The House of Representatives garage.  Really you can’t afford a garage on $174,000 a year?

                Charlie’s latest scandal involves him taking trips to the Caribbean which were paid for by corporations.  Gee whiz, is it possible that when it comes time to create tax policy you might be influenced by somebody who gave you a free vacation to a tropical location?  Hell, buy me dinner and I’ll write an amazing blog about you.  Charlie is claiming he had no idea about it.  I guess his staff must not tell him much, either that or he’s got so much money he never thinks about it.  If he has that much money then he must have done something he shouldn’t have been.  Let’s face it $174,000 a year is not enough money to not care about money.

                So with an impressive resume of a few of the deadly sins (sloth, gluttony and greed) Charlie wanted to preserve his legacy by adding pride to the list.  He used his Congressional office (in the illegal rent control apartment) to raise money for a public policy institute (exactly what a public policy institute does is a mystery to me) bearing his name.  Talk about vain.  Rangel has done some good things in his career, but the fact is that he is greedy and seemingly complacent.  He until yesterday headed the most powerful sub-committee in Washington and should we have somebody with questionable ethics determining where the money goes?  I think Rangel should go the way of Evan Bayh and decide he’s done enough good, and step aside and let somebody else serve the residents of Harlem.  Isn’t that what it actually is about…public service?

                Our second idiot David Patterson has come under much fire lately for his ordering the New York State Police to shit can an assault one of his top aides committed against their girlfriend.  Patterson has come under fire by critics often and really hasn’t done much to quiet them.  Within a few days of his swearing in it came out that he had an affair.  Okay, not earth shattering news, but it’s an indicator of things to come.  My main problems with the man is that his proposed budget rode on the back of the middle and lower class.  It imposed taxes on things like soda and movie tickets.  Times are tough, but how about hitting the rich.  Everybody complains the middle class is vanishing, well be all means help speed the disappearance.  He lets the MTA run unchecked.  Most people don’t realize that the MTA is not a government agency.  It is what is called a public benefit corporation.  It’s a private company that serves the general public.  How is it serving the public by cutting Metro Cards for students?  How about you keeping contractors hired by the MTA in check?  I have some insider info that contractors cost the MTA hundreds of millions every year with illegal practices.  That’s for a whole other discussion though.  Take the whole Aqueduct mess and you have painted a picture of a man who should not be where he is.

                Worst of all, the man has no leadership qualities.  The New York State Senate which is the most dysfunctional organization I have ever seen had itself hijacked by two spoiled brats (one who has since been removed from office for beating up his girlfriend, but has vowed to run again) and Davey did nothing to stop the temper tantrum.  Does the man have no pride, or ego?  He let state government be shut down and I can’t remember him making a single statement about it.

                                One of the few decisions I agree with is that Paterson did pardon Slick Rick from his attempted murder charges which ceased his deportation.  I guess my love of LaDiDaDi and Children’s Story is greater than my love for justice in this case.  But understand the man did serve his time, and nobody was killed.  The whole deportation was a political move, I guess some I.C.E. official took exception to Treat Her Like a Prostitute.  I have an idea for Dave when he leaves office he can be kind of like The Wizard of Oz for hip hop stars.  I mean Slick Rick is now back home.  He can find Bushwick Bill an eye.  He can get Roxanne Shante real PhD, and he can get MC Search and Pete Nice back together.

UPDATE: As I was finishing this entry, a new scandal broke involving David Paterson.  It appears that he is now under fire for an issue involving free Yankee tickets.  My feeling is this, if you are the governor of a state and a team in that state is playing in The World Series, you should be able to attend the game, and for free.  You are the highest politician in the state,  and it’s just the way things are.  I still think that Paterson is not qualified to govern.  Hell Slick Rick might be more qualified than David Paterson.   He’s just not the man for the job.  At the same time I think there is a witch hunt and he unfortunately is going to have to step down early.  The man is the ultimate lame duck, and now he’s kind of the underdog that people often root for.  I am not rooting for him, but I say let him serve out his term.  Nothing is going to get done in the state government anyway, it hasn’t in a couple years.  Let the man have his dignity.  He is owed that at least.  November is not as far away as it seems.

Acting All Ghetto, Rhymin and stealin
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Mar 10
01

The Guidoist

TheGhettoist
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                I have to give my friend Mateo credit for this blog entry. He gave me the idea for it. If you like this entry you can thank him by going to his site www.chefmateo.com or better yet by going to his restaurant Pata Negra www.patanegratapas.com. Tell him The Ghettoist sent you and he’ll take real good care of you. If you don’t like this entry go there any way for the ham. You won’t regret it. I figure who better to comment on a cultural phenomenon that has suddenly come to light than me, and I will explain.

               What qualifies me to talk about guidos? First up I am Italian. I have a vowel at the end of my last name it originates from my family’s emigration from Naples, Italy. I’m really only half Italian, but seeing how out president has only one black parent and everybody considers him black then I’m taking the same liberty.

                 I was born in Brooklyn and raised in Staten Island. All true guidos can trace their blood line from the motherland, no not Italy, but Kings County. The bloodline may have diverged to Shaolin, or Jersey, or Long Island; but you have to show your origins from the historical document Saturday Night Fever. If not, then you are resigned to a fate like Henry Hill in Goodfellas, you can never be a true guido.

                  I’ve summered on various exits along The Garden State Parkway. For several summers I would rent a house at various towns including Belmar and Manasquan, never Seaside, but I’ve been there so many times I could drive there blindfolded. It’s not hard anyway, just follow the smell of Hawaiian Tropic Dark Tanning Oil. Not the one with SPF because sun block is for pussies.

                    Finally, I will admit this here to you, and I have not told anybody this in many years; but now with this blog gaining some readers and I am now an important public figure (that was a joke by the way, this font does not show sarcasm very well) and I fear that somebody might emerge with a picture of me wearing a pair of Z Cavaricci’s. I am a recovering guido. You can probably find security tapes of me shopping at the Merry Go Round in the Staten Island Mall. Thank God there is no audio, or I might be heard saying “These sweat pants are mint, should I get a lightning bolt or a Playboy Bunny ironed on them?”

                 MTV and their hit show Jersey Shore has brought to light a segment of our population that I have known existed virtually since its inception. Much like the Goth, the Young Republican, and the bullfighter, the guido is a lifestyle choice. It requires you to look a certain way and act a certain way. How this sub culture went untapped by the reality television market is beyond me. It seems like guidos are a new found identity like the hipster, but the fact of the matter is I have known about guidos (by name) since the late 70′s. I actually joined their ranks sometime around 1986 when I found out that women were more partial to the song There But For The Grace of God, than they were to Number of The Beast. They seemed to be more drawn to short neatly coifed hair and a fuchsia sweater than they were to messy hair and a denim jacket with The Blizzard of Oz cover on the back.

               Now the guido’s of today from what I can see from the show are exactly like the guidos of my day with few changes. They are as superficial as ever, They care more about style over substance, and they are meticulous about the way they look. The biggest difference I see is that they now put more thought into the look of their body than the look of their outfits. They spend more time in the gym, and tanning booth than they did in my day. Back in the day, the skinny guinea was the in look, now it’s all G.T.L. (that’s gym, tan laundry for those not in the know.) One notable difference is that cars do not play as much of a role as they used to. I guess GTL just takes too much time and doesn’t allow for the same meticulous detail to the ride. They still seem to drive nice cars, but nothing screamed cugine (an old school term for a guido that stemmed from the Italian word for cousin) like spending hours Armoralling the Goodyear Eagle GT’s on your burgandy IROC, or your white Monte Carlo.

                What hasn’t changed the attitude. There is little ambition other than being the best guido you can be. The game plan for the night is still 100% the same. You go out with the intention of doing one of two things, fucking or fighting. When you go to the club you have one primary mission, to get laid. You usually do whatever it takes even if it means cock blocking one of your friends. If none of your tricks work then it’s usually brawl time. It always doesn’t have to be a stranger. You can fight your best friend, brother or cousin. What’s most important is that you had a good reason. If it’s somebody you know then it usually ends with some bizarre conversation about how you love the person and finishes with some homo erotic hugging. Then you go out to the diner for fries with mozzarella and brown gravy. All is forgotten and then you and said person who beefed, are the best of friends and trying to pick up stragglers at the diner.

               Now I do not want to stereotype. There are other types of guidos. There are ones like The Situation. I’ve known guys who talk a good game with quotes like “I’m gonna put that guy in my trunk.” Then when the time comes to actually walk the walk like when Snookie did her best Deebo impersonation and “Got knocked the fuck out.” The Situation did nothing but stand there dumbfounded. I am not a tough guy, nor do I ever claim to be…well except maybe on rare occasions when I develop beer muscles (remember recovering guido…sometimes I have a relapse.) But I have to tell you though, if I saw a friend of mine and a woman at that get punched out , I feel it would be my civic duty to instruct a douche like Brad Ferro that he should never hit a woman. My reflexes would take over and I would do my best to break my hand on his cement like head. I’d probably get my ass kicked afterwards badly, but that doesn’t mean I sure as hell wouldn’t try. When I think of Mike’s response to that situation, the only thing that pops into my mind is the famous line uttered by Full Force in House Party. “I smell something, I smell…” you can watch the movie to find out what the smell was.

               Now I have only focused on the male guido. The fact is that the female guido or guidette as they prefer to be called (they called themselves giltters back in my day) seem just the same but with the exception that they too have become less materialistic as well. Instead of going for a guy’s car and how many diamonds there are in crown of thorns on the Christ head he had around his neck, she instead goes for how big or juiced (referring to how much steroids he has done) he is. But yeah otherwise they seem the same too. It won’t be till they hit their 30′s that they don’t have much in common with the guy they married and don’t think it’s cool anymore that he opted for construction than college.

                Now I can’t be that hard on the kids from Jersey Shore they are honest and up front about who and what they are. They also have said that they don’t represent all Italians just themselves. They have been the victim of some controversy or PC outrage. Certain Italians have taken offense at the term guido. Really? In Italian the word is a man’s name (which is probably the origin) or it is the first person conjugation of guidare which means to drive. In my day that fit because you loved your car so much and spent as much time driving as you could. You craved the mixture of Vanillaroma and Drakar Noir. It’s like guido Prozac. I’m Italian and the term does not offend me in the least. I think if you are offended could it be that you just feel left out that you don’t have your own N-Word, and want to come to the PC party? The only way you can be offended by the word is if you identify with these people and you think that they are what being of Italian heritage is about. But if you’re going to fly the Red, White and Green, then you had better speak fluent Italian and can tell me all about who Giuseppe Garibaldi is. They don’t even have guidos in Italy. They are strictly a New York Metro area phenomenon.

               Lighten up Paesean, they’re not calling themselves dagos or WOP’s, so lighten the hell up. What happened the Soprano’s are off the air and you have nothing to do? Remember the name Joe Colombo who protested how Italians were portrayed in movies and television, that they were all pizza makers and mobsters? Yes the same Joe Colombo who was the head of The Colombo Crime family.

White People
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