My President Is Black

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's newly hired Chief of Staff, is a total babe. Sadly, I'm not the only one who thinks this fiery, salt and pepper-haired hunk is great... just as I started digging up incredible articles from Rahm's past, the mainstream media also went to town. Gawker, it seems, is equally obsessed, and rightfully so! Didn't you hear about the steak knife?

"The best Rahm Emanuel story is not the one about the decomposing two-and-a-half-foot fish he sent to a pollster who displeased him... No, the definitive Rahm Emanuel story takes place in Little Rock, Ark., in the heady days after Bill Clinton was first elected President.

Revenge was heavy in the air as the group discussed the enemies - Democrats, Republicans, members of the press - who wronged them during the 1992 campaign...

Suddenly Emanuel grabbed his steak knife and, as those who were there remember it, shouted out the name of another enemy, lifted the knife, then brought it down with full force into the table.

''Dead!'' he screamed.

The group immediately joined in the cathartic release: ''Nat Landow! Dead! Cliff Jackson! Dead! Bill Schaefer! Dead!'''

I love him. F*ck Ruff Ryders and Sarah Palin; the meanest pitbull in a skirt is Rahm Emanuel- former ballerina turned political assassin. And now he's the Obaminator's right hand man.

And what a family!...

His brother, Ari Emanuel, is the Hollywood agent who inspired famed Entourage character, Ari Gold. If descriptions like "bad cop" and "watch dog" aren't enough to win you over, Slate had a great article on Rahm, and I'm sure you can learn more about him via Google.

OWW.

But before I let my hormones get the best of me, it's necessary to note how much Hip Hop has embraced Obama. In fact, NPR had an article on some rappers who've penned rhymes solely for his cause:

"Mark Anthony Neal is a professor of black pop culture at Duke University and a visiting scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He says that in the past 20-odd years, hip-hop historically has been black America's first response to national news."

While the hip hop community may have known about these songs, it's refreshing to see the mainstream media point them out as well. But beyond music, there's plenty of other celebratory stories to be told. Check out Obama's Flickr album from election night, watch footage of him and Michelle doing a happy dance, and read a relieved letter from Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker Michael Moore. Of course, all of this media is just skimming the surface of the cultural domino-effect that Obama's campaign triggered, and like I've been saying all along, we can only hope that this momentum continues to inspire real change.

And lastly, it wouldn't be right to celebrate without bidding farewell to the elephant in the room, the frightening Sarah Palin- a woman who's religious beliefs stood to demolish the rights that women have fought for for decades; a woman who made feminist Eve Ensler have nightmares.

South Dakota's Measure 11, California's Proposition 4, and Colorado's Amendment 48 are just a few examples of state legislation that was proposed by Palin-like religious neo-conservatives, and all are detrimental to a woman's right to choose. According to Woman's E-News...

"California's ballot initiative would require a woman under 18 to notify her parents before having an abortion, and wait 48 hours between the time of notification and the procedure."

-and worse-

"The Colorado measure would alter the state constitution to define human life as beginning 'with the moment of fertilization,' giving full legal rights to the mass of cells formed immediately after sperm and egg meet."

Yikes! The South Dakota legislation was even more direct- calling for a complete state ban of abortion in circumstances outside of rape, incest and endangering a woman's health. In other words, death of Roe v. Wade. Luckily, none of that garbage passed, but not hearing about it in the news prior to election day is disheartening. I'm not sure about yours, but in my book, reporting on what rights you might lose trumps which politician might win.

But you know what, Sarah?

Your own Alaskan constituents didn't want to hear it a few weeks ago...

And neither did Americans on election day- thank god.

Putting those small, important victories aside, there was one outcome from election day that managed to really bother me... 70% of African Americans voted in favor of California's Gay Marriage ban, Proposition 8.

That's right. In a year that brought race and equality issues to the forefront, the majority of African American voters in California were unable to see gay marriage as a civil rights issue :( Again, I blame the influence of religion -not skin color- for this unfortunate reality check. It's truly sad that such an uplifting moment in history can be tainted by such a (is it wrong to say, "ironic"?) step backward.

Today's Music Ain't Got The Same Soul

Have you seen the new Guitar Hero commercial? A-Rod, Tony Hawk and Michael Phelps slide into the room in their undies a la Tom Cruise in "Risky Business." Kobe then does the same, and proceeds to lip sync "Old Time Rock N Roll" while the other boys back him up.

I'm more of a Rock Band girl, but you have to admit that Kobe stole the show. 

He said it was fun and easy to shoot... just like singing with his daughters at home.

Also loving this street art from Cherry Flava...

"Found on the streets of London - this wilting, dying memorial of flowers with a sign reading ‘in loving memory of the boom economy’. At least the guerrilla street artists are having fun."

Word up. CaNiBa, what's the status with your street art?

Manhattan Mini Storage rips Sarah Palin in their new subway ad...
I wrote about their ads when I first started blogging.

They had balls of steel then, and they still do now.

And speaking of being in your face with information, please take the time to watch Zeitgeist: Addendum below.

I told you about the first Zeitgeist film a few months ago, but instead of just scaring us, the Addendum actually presents some solutions. Just like last time, I'm not saying I stand by ALL these assertions, but I do think it's important to be open minded and critical of our government. That is what freedom and patriotism should mean, no?

Shoot a Mother-Humpin' Moose 8 Days of the Week

Much to my initial chagrin, ObamaFever has proven to be infectious... even I'm close to catching it! I just hope he delivers everything he's promised- within reason, of course. But regardless, a new kind of mainstream political awareness has been growing over the last year+, and we owe Barack Obama for being one of the catalysts in the transition. The cultural impact of all this is overwhelming, but we're taking it in stride...

Check out what Bobby Kennedy said 40-years ago about race:

Spooky and ill at the same time, right?

But the Realest Moment Of The Week Award goes to Keith Olbermann for passionately addressing John McCain's sleazy and potentially dangerous campaign tactics. Take the time to watch below:

Fire!!! Oh, Keith- do you mean people like these ignorant Ohio residents (below) harassing an Obama supporter? Watch this next clip... it completely exemplifies the ignorant hate he speaks of:

Yikes!  To lighten things up a bit, Josh Brolin hosted the Saturday Night Live episode that Sarah Palin appeared on last night. He also stars in a little movie that I need to see... maybe you've heard of it?

I had no idea he played the older brother in The Goonies!

The SNL episode was terrible -it's only redeeming elements were Brolin hosting, the Palin skits, and my girl Adele as the musical guest. If you missed the Palin Rap during Weekend Update, definitely watch it now:

At the very least, the episode was a good look for Brolin and Oliver Stone to plug the movie. And speaking of W., imagine (1) Sarah Palin won the vice presidency, and (2) a movie named P. was made about her time in office. Someone put those ideas to life and created a hilarious animated movie trailor for it:

And here's a fun toy that literally allows you to play with that same hypothetical scenario...

http://www.palinaspresident.us

Beyond W., I also need to see Bill Maher's film Religulous. Speaking of which, I wonder if Bill's seen this footage of young Kanon Tipton "preaching" on stage in his church, and if so, I'd love to know what he thought about it:

It kind of wigged me out. *SIGH*

To read an account of a family member who was there, go HERE.

And lastly, you most likely saw this at some point in the last two weeks, but I had to post it anyway. Celebrities come together to convince people how important it is to vote...

It might be too late to register, but our day to enter the voting booth is right around the corner. Maybe they count 'em, maybe they don't... but you might as well do it. Or don't. Whatever. 

Let Me Simplify The Rhyme Just To Amplify The Noise

This week was like a jarring alarm clock... waking me up from my summer coma and reintroducing me to the grind of reality. My inbox at work is exploding, and the political climate is more dramatic than the novellas my college roommate used to watch! At least people are paying attention, though- right? Just take a look at some of the stuff that came my way this week...

A writer for The Huffington Post asked 

"What If Bristol Palin Were Black?"

"She is 17 and conceived this child out of wedlock. Now imagine she wasn't the daughter of a prominent Republican politician but an average person. Now imagine she was black.
What do you think conservatives would have to say about her? "Typical, urban youth with no sense of responsibility raised with loose morals who plans to depend on the state to take care of her child." You know it. It's not within dispute. That's exactly what they would say.
Barack Obama has told everyone to lay off this because it is a personal, family matter. Yes, but it also has public policy ramifications. Governor Palin is for abstinence only education. Well, that obviously didn't work."

"Cindy McCain was addicted to drugs and stole from her own charity to feed her addiction. Now what do you think the Republicans would have done if Michelle Obama had done that? How do you think the press would have covered it? You think they would have called it a simple mistake and moved on?"

Good question. 

Since we sometimes make generalizations without thinking about it, we should be constantly evaluating our own racial views- whether they're unconscious or not. For example, what did you think of 7-year old Latarian Milton when you first saw him on CNN? Did you notice he was black? What would you have thought if he was white, instead? 

He spoke with Cipher Sounds and Rosenberg- hilarious!

Putting race aside for a moment, the big issue regarding Bristol Palin is teen-pregnancy and abortion rights. Sarah Palin is pro-life, which to many women, is a little unnerving. But even more unnerving than that is Jezebel.com's article on a website claiming to have a list of all America abortions:

"To get access to this alleged database, you need to pay $799 for a seven day pass to the site or up to $16,999 for unlimited access to 'full names, complete addresses, unlimited contact information, false names used during operation procedures, reasons listed for abortions, known STDs at (and since) time of abortion, [and the] name of person believed to be the father.'"

Check out the article or go to AbortionTracker.com yourself.

Intense, right? To lighten things up a bit, 

Watch this hilarious video commentary on the McCain/Palin relationship...

Is McCain Palin's Bitch?

Salon.com had a great article on Palin's experience with/knowledge of energy policy issues (that we may be overlooking)...

"I don't think she's going to pull in disaffected Hillary voters -- she's too much a card-carrying member of the religious right for that, which is one reason why the convention attendees were so delirious. But that's not all she is, by a long shot. On one of the crucial issues in this campaign -- energy policy -- Sarah Palin knows the territory."

They also had an article calling her "The Hugo Chavez of Alaska" since she has apparently gone to bat with major oil companies and supports "expanding the search for domestic oil and gas as a solution to the energy crisis." So to help prevent Palin from getting in the good graces of recent Clinton supporters, The New York Times reported that Obama is now deploying Hillary and other female Democrats into swing states for a counter-attack. I'm all for it! Just because we finally have a woman vying for the job, that certainly doesn't mean she will contribute to female political advancement overall. In fact, there's a huge chance this woman might set us back 20 years! Every time Sarah Palin calls herself a "hockey mom," I cringe violently and feel Betty Friedan roll over in her grave. That type of diction is neither progressive nor helpful for females, even if she does spend the rest of her speech proving her toughness by aggressively taking shots at Obama (starting 7 minutes in). 

Jay Smooth returns, commenting on the HATE in Sarah Palin's HEART:

("Contrived showmanship"... I'd totally have his kids.)

Speaking of the DNC/RNC speeches, The New York Times dissected and analyzed the word-use of Democrats and Republicans, and even broke it down by individual. See for yourself:

And just when I want to throw myself out a window with the taking-sides hoopla of this whole process, a new season of Bill Maher returns to HBO, and slowly talks me off the ledge. Below, in his season premiere's set of "New Rules," Maher reminds me why it's so important to question our societal norms...

Specifically: At 2:14, Maher brings up John Edwards being "airbrushed out of the Democratic party," and then discusses how crucial it would have been to put the adultery aside, and have him speak at the DNC. After making the analogy that John Edwards is to Poverty what Al Gore was to Global Warming, Bill sneaks in a few jokes and goes on (at 4:10) to mention the important facts that Edwards would have addressed in his speech. Moments like that make me appreciate Maher for challenging the system in ways that many others do not... He may support Barack Obama, but he's still able to objectively criticize the Democratic party, and even question the presidential candidate himself for not presenting an alternative to war.

"If I get sniped tonight, you know why..."

No President Ever Did Sh*t For Me

Everyone loves Barack Obama.

Many think he's going to fix everything that's wrong with America. 

Others view him as our savior.

But few know he's also related to Dick Cheney :(

"Think about this," Mrs. Cheney said. "This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor, a man that came to Maryland, could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick's and Barack Obama's."
Mrs. Cheney's spokeswoman Ginny Justice gave CNN's Ed Henry more details, saying the two unlikely relatives are related through a French Huguenot named Mareen Duvall. Cheney and Obama are both descendants of her.
According to Justice, the vice president is related to her through "the first" Richard Cheney, who came to America in the 1650's. His granddaughter married Samuel Duvall, son of Mareen Duvall.
But Obama's family ties to the Bush administration don't stop with Cheney. According to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times last September, Obama is also an 11th cousin of the president himself. The two share a 17th century Massachusetts relative.

So Barack is related to both Bush and Cheney? "Amazing American story" my ass. I know I'm not related to Dick Cheney! Are you?! Maybe I sound like a lunatic conspiracy theorist, but when I first heard this news LAST YEAR, it didn't sit well with me then, and it still doesn't now. What's even worse is that I thought this was common knowledge, but when I ran it by a few people this week, they had no idea. 

I don't want to offend anyone, so before you get riled up, please know that I'm not against Obama; experience has just shown me that anything sounding too good to be true, generally is. I hope I'm wrong about this, trust me- but I don't think people waiting for him to come in and make it all better should hold their breath. He probably won't even win- the voting system is rigged, remember? But Obama Fever has infected culture so aggressively, our glasses are fogging up, and we can't see that he's still a politician. 

For example, 

the Big Boi/Mary J. video for "Something's Gotta Give"...

I love that it's uplifting, but I'm nervous it's giving us false hope.

Am I being a Debbie Downer?

I guess I just believe that it has to get much worse before it gets any better.

If you think I'm wrong, let me know.

Young Jeezy f. Nas "My President is Black"

If You Look At The Streets, It Wasn't About Rodney King...

You may have heard/seen this already, but if not, please watch this video of a PIG throwing an innocent cyclist off his bike the other night during a Critical Mass ride...

Caught on tape, MF. And the dude wasn't wearing a helmet!

NY Post article HERE.

Sublime's "April 29, 1992" comes to mind...

"...It's this f*cked-up situation and these f*cked-up police."

When I Arrive, I Bring The Fire

Gabriella Cilmi has a big voice for a 16-year-old Australian.

Her song "Sweet About Me" is already sassy, but the video makes it even better...

Apparently she's doing really well overseas... we'll see how it goes over here.

I caught Matt Pinfield's show this morning on 101.9 RXP. He was interviewing Chris Cornell (formerly of Soundgarden and Audioslave - remember "Black Hole Sun" back when MTV was great?)

You've probably heard that Chris is now making music with Timbaland. If you want to wrap your mind around it, the tracks are up on RXP's website. I think I'm going to like the album, but I can't decide if the dude is selling out on his roots, or just pulling a Madonna to keep up with the kids...

Kevin Rudolf

is a new artist off Cash Money/Universal Republic.

His record with Lil' Wayne is called "Let It Rock" - you can listen to it HERE. It's pretty wavy for pure pop, and since his resume is solid, I think he might hit us with some fire.

I was sick all weekend, so I missed Santogold and Kid Cudi at Summerstage :( Since I couldn't produce on my own, here's someone else's footage that I scraped off Youtube:

In more recent news, The Sun (UK) reported on Blake's sentence:

Everyone wonders why Amy Winehouse is destroying herself... but it's pretty clear to me. Look what LOVE does to people!!!

And now that she doesn't have him, she's even more of a mess... SMH.

I couldn't have dreamt this one up...

My live show wet dream of 2008 arrives on Sunday:

MGMT and The Ting Tings at McCarren Park Pool!

This sweet BK venue is where I first saw Bloc Party a few years ago :)

But on a more serious note...

Tomorrow at 2pm, NaS is joining MoveOn.org and ColorOfChange.org

in submitting a petition to FOX, asking them to STOP their racist propaganda.

I hope it goes well. I'm sure the counter-attack will be interesting...

We Go Against Everything We Used To Stand For

I wasn't going to get on the bandwagon, but both of these are really incredible:

Joe Budden- "Who (Part 1)" and "Who (Part 2)"

On these tracks, Professor Budden exhausts every theory out there in attempt to pinpoint where hip hop has gone wrong. Is it dead? Can we bring it back to life? Who's to blame? The music industry criticism is thrown in your face, and the shots fired leave a serious residue on all of our hands. He says everything I've always thought and/or wanted to say, but never quite could. Yet, ironically, while listing all the potential culprits, I think he's really just asking us to dismiss blame and look at the bigger picture...

Where do we go from here?

"If everything's commercial, where the f*ck's the show?"

And I know I'm also late on this, but the only thing I get from Jesse Jackson's comments about Barack Obama is that Messy Uncle Jesse is mad it's not him in that historical spot. I mean... maybe I'm reading too much into it, but even if his point has some validity, that aggressive stance stems from nothing but envy...

Okay, carry on...

I Don't Fear Nothing But God And Weddings

...and the government!!!

Why are we in Iraq again? Oh yeah, because "they" (Iraqis) allegedly had something to do with 9/11. Well, kinda/not-really. But since "they" pray to a different dude than many Americans, we were easily swayed by the fear of what we didn't understand. Ugh.

My mom is in Iraq right now. She's a photo-journalist and has been there a few times since the war started, this time around in a benign part of the country- Thank God. She sent me an email on the Iraqi football team winning some game, and said that U.S. soldiers are celebrating alongside the Iraqi people:

Not to say it's all sunshine and cupcakes over there, but I think Uncle Sam wants us to think it's worse than it really is (for obvious "us vs. them" reasons... SMH). Meanwhile, fear of "the other" will continue to divide us unless we start paying attention.

Speaking of which, I saw a link on Mr. Brink's away message today regarding 9/11 being a premeditated, inside demolition job. If you're still confused and bewildered like me, you should definitely check it out HERE. I also mentioned the movie ZEITGEIST a few weeks ago, and that same demolition argument was discussed too. Hmm.

Another gem from my mother- This ARTICLE is about a wedding in Newburgh that turned into a 100-person bloody brawl. And the fact that I was born in Newburgh makes it EVEN better!

Both pieces of news from my mom were pretty random, but yet a Wayne line was able to capture them perfectly.

Listen to "Hardbody" at 2:12 and you'll know what I mean :)