Welcome back to The Bootleg. Well, another National Boss Day has come and gone and with it, the dignity of the American employee, which seems to call in sick every year for this pseudo celebration.
For those that don’t know, I work for the one of the largest defense contractors in the world. I’ve been there for six years, scored three promotions during that time and I still need about three retirements and a workplace assassin in front of me if I’m ever gonna have anyone working under me.
So, earlier this week, the embittered worker bees in my department gathered under the glass ceiling to celebrate our supervisors”¦all five of them. No lie”¦there are five bosses for about 15 of us in the department, including one boss who has one person under her.
Over 2,000 people at my company and somehow we can support a two-person “department”. And, they get to have an annual budget! I’m sorry, but if you’re two people or less, you should be forced to pay out of pocket for your Post-It ® Notes.
Anyways”¦our office celebrated the day with the traditional workplace feast of donuts and bagels. And, trust me college kids”¦there will come a day when you become sick at the sight of donuts and bagels. Glazed holes and Jewish dough get old quick when it’s all you ever see, every day, at 7:30.
(OK, OK”¦I assume they’re there that early. It’s not like I’d know.)
But, back to Bosses’ Day”¦everyone helped themselves to the free eats. In fact, for all my bitching in the paragraphs above, I must say that the cinnamon raisin bagel I enjoyed, with a smear of never-before-heard-of brown sugar cream cheese would’ve made a diabetic beg for more.
Hours later, however, I ended up having to work through my lunch hour. In a search of sustenance to get me through the rest of the day, I came back to the box of bagels that I’d previously mocked. And, what I saw shocked me”¦
There were two bagels left”¦one garlic and one “everything”. And, my cream cheese options were brown sugar and strawberry? Is there actually an office worker on Earth that doesn’t get bagel etiquette?
Rule #2: For every dozen bagels, provide one plain cream cheese and one fruity/flavored cream cheese.
(BTW, Rule #1 is: For every dozen bagels, provide one poppy seed bagel that no one ever eats.)
I couldn’t spread either of these cream cheeses on a garlic bagel! Disgusted by this egregious omission, I turned towards the donuts only to be shocked for a second time”¦
Someone had seen fit to take half of a donut. And, not just on one, but several of the sweet treats were missing their left (or right) side. Who does this?! Do these people really think that cramming just half a maple bar in their mouth is “healthy eating”?
And, of the four vandalized pastries, the one that I wanted (plain ol’ round glazed) was the only one where the felonious fat bastard didn’t use a knife. Still”¦even as unappealing as a hand-torn donut was, I was still hungry enough to take it”¦until I noticed the half-donut’s deep, sweaty thumbprint indentation that the thief left behind.
That’s weird: it’s rare that the gag reflex kicks in before The Goodness”¦!
Sometimes the News Just Writes Itself (Top Story Edition)
First off, I’d like to thank Miami rapper Trick Daddy for providing me with some most proper Bootleg fodder. Trick has announced that he’ll be sponsoring a fundraiser to support displaced hurricane victims, as well as raise awareness for his non-profit organization, Trick Luv Da Kids, Inc.
I am NOT making this up. But, wait”¦it gets better. On Saturday, October 29, Trick will host the “Trick Luv Da Kids Spooktacular Halloween Fundraiser”.
“Spooktacular”?
Jesus Christ, Trick, what was the alternate unintentionally offensive name for the event, “Trick’s Halloween Jigga-BOOOOOOO”?! Anyways, for anyone interested, admission to the costume (eight)ball is a $25 donation at the door, while $100 gets you in and free food and drink for the entire evening.
Think about that for a second: you’re making a donation”¦to someone named Trick Daddy. And, for tax deduction purposes, how would you explain this to the IRS?
“See, Trick Daddy is just the good-for-nothin’ gold-toofed front man”¦but, ‘Trick Luv Da Kids, Inc”¦? Now, that’s on the level. What they might lack in syntax, they make up for in”¦
Them n*ggaz stole my money, didn’t they?”
Yo, Dawg, I Ain’t Down Wit’ That Gay Sh*t”¦
Our friends at MTV have gone and started a new network called LOGO that targets the gay and lesbian community. One of their most highly anticipated flagship shows is Noah’s Arc, a “dramedy” set against the backdrop of an all Black cast.
In keeping with the culture, the show’s producers have attempted to get clearances to use the recent works of Kanye West, and other in demand “urban” artists, but have been outright refused by almost all of the major labels.
LOGO executives believe the freeze out is due to the labels’ erroneous assumption that the show’s subject matter will weaken the street cred of any rap artists involved.
Umm”¦help me out here. Since when did Hip Hop and homophobia start walking hand-in-hand? Has the industry already forgotten the two most obvious examples of rap music juxtaposed with gay programming?
Allow me to offer up Exhibit A & Exhibit B.
Now, is there anyone among us who doesn’t know that the former was basically Queer as Folk”¦in Cell Block 4. Meanwhile, the latter boils down to a handful of hairless boys bouncing off each other.
And, isn’t it odd that this same precise plot has extended Gordon Jump’s career slump into its 22nd year of “he played that pedophile just too well”-based fear?
What?
An early dip into the Junk Mailbag:
“(Two weeks ago), you made fun of Fantasia’s illiteracy, yet you passed up on the Foxy Brown’s hearing piece for (last) week?!? Maybe your pops was right and you really are a ‘soft azz n*gga’.” -E.S.
Now, hold on”¦in my defense, I hadn’t even heard (sorry, Foxy) about this sordid story until Fernandez off-handedly mentioned it at the end of his Swindle Sheet, last week. But, for those of you who haven’t hea”¦uh, “found out”, hot-for-a-minute Hip Hop mistress, Foxy Brown has been diagnosed with “sudden sensor neural hearing loss”.
She spoke publicly with People Magazine this week about the day she first discovered something was wrong:
“I pressed the volume (of the TV) to maybe 60″¦nothing. I ran outside to my truck and honked the horn”¦nothing. I ran back inside and dialed a number on the phone”¦nothing. Then, I started breaking down in tears and screaming and I couldn’t even hear myself scream. That’s when I knew there was a problem.”
OK”¦I know I have to tread lightly here (goddam homophones), but am I the only one who noticed that Foxy didn’t discover the problem until she started screaming? The failed self-tests on her TV, truck and telephone yielded nothing out of the ordinary, but the scream test? Now, there’s a problem.
“There were signs for a few days before. My phone would be ringing and my Blackberry would be going off and people would be ‘Yo Foxy, your Blackberry.’ And I’d hear it. It would be a delayed reaction but I’d still hear it.”
Now, in Foxy’s defense, it’d be easy to see how she might’ve missed this sign. Especially, if this occurred 40 minutes into the feature presentation at her local movie theater. As you all know, this is pretty much common practice within the back row of Black folk who populate the 11:00 PM showing of anything at the Cineplex.
(Now, this is where I awkwardly wish Foxy Brown the best and my sincere hope that she overcomes this condition. I hope the Gods of Karma are kind to me.)
George Bush Doesn’t Care About Jeff Feagles
Kanye West recently ran afoul of about two dozen privileged offspring and their white right-wing ideology, when West’s “Touch the Sky Tour” stopped off in Gainesville, Florida.
25 students from the University of Florida’s College Republicans group protested West’s appearance at the city’s O’Connell Center with signs, chants and a righteous indignation carved from several seconds of a celebrity’s self-serving soundbite.
The group’s “executive director”, Matt Dean, made my day with this unintentionally hilarious harangue:
“We just wanted to come out here and make our presence known. You hear a lot of negative things in the press, negative things from Kanye, and we thought this would be an awesome opportunity to come out here, you know, to show that there’s (sic) a lot of people out there who support the president and support what’s going on in the country right now.”
Awesome, you know? And, you know what’s even awesomer, dude? It’s the fact “a lot of people” who support the president totaled about twenty-five kids out of a student body of 48,000. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I don’t have much love for either Kanye or Dub-yay, but come on, college boy. Why not break out the “Bush has had Black people in his house” rebuttal, to boot:
“I can give you two clear examples (of Bush caring about Black people): Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, close friends of George W. Bush.”
Oy. White people”¦just trust me on this”¦if anyone ever accuses you of being racially insensitive, just walk away. When you start counting the colored folk you know, it makes it look like you’re carrying around a quota of bruthas n’ sistas.
Please, give Moodspins Mathan anything else to write about, won’t you? Just walk away.
Hooked on Phonics”¦Just Don’t Ask Her to Spell It
Residents in High Point, North Carolina are up in arms over the hometown girl-makes-good story of American Idol champion, Fantasia Barrino. Specifically, they’re none too pleased over the words that Fantasia (chuckle) “wrote” in her autobiography with regards to growing up in High Point, including her references to the town as “the land of the dead”.
Wow. With literary analogies like that, I’m wondering if this illiterate jughead really did write her own book.
Anyways, a handful of residents have campaigned the city council to remove all mentions of Fantasia from the town’s “Welcome to High Point” road signs. And, I bet we all know what Fantasia’s thinking right now:
“So that’s why I was at that roadside ceremony.”
A spokesperson for the city council has said that High Point will stand by the Black Bizarro, but her intra-city enemies have seemingly dug in their heels. They’ve promised they won’t end this fight until High Point is portrayed in a positive light.
And, these hicks need all the help they can get”¦or have you not visited the High Point Convention & Visitor’s Bureau?
It’s alphabetically-listed hilarity, beginning with the “all-a-flutter butterfly farm” and ending with the “World’s Largest Chest of Drawers”. For Allah’s sake, they’ve got a library that boasts “the world’s largest collection of books on the history of furniture”!
I’m thinking Fantasia already is your high point, High Point. (Yeah, yeah”¦I’ll think up a better ending in post-production.)
Sometimes the News Just Writes Itself II
As part of MTV’s new series Stand In, New York’s Hunter College was the site for the show’s latest surprise celebrity guest lecturer. And, imagine, if you will, a room full of film students getting a chance to learn the ins and outs of the industry from this week’s stand in”¦Madonna.
And, class, today’s lesson is i-r-o-n-y. The world’s most famous unshaven Italian stuck around and took questions from the class. Here’s a sampling:
“Is this a joke?”
Far from it, apparently, as Madonna, herself, explained afterwards:
“Being a celebrity, you can get very caught up and seduced into believing and thinking that what you do is the most important thing in the world and get very attached to material things. I’m guilty of that and I’m still guilty of that, but hopefully I’m becoming less attached.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa”¦celebrities are shallow, self-absorbed and materialistic? Well, I guess we can file that under “this just in”. And, what the hell does any of that have to do with the film industry?
Face it, Ciccone, your movie career was based entirely on your quasi-sex appeal and Q-rating with the kiddies. The fact that you couldn’t act was conveniently ignored, until 1993’s Body of Evidence forced a naked Willem Defoe, covered in candle wax and broken glass, upon all of us.
America had to blame someone for this box office abomination, Madonna, and your name came first in the credits. And, since you obviously aped everything in that movie from Basic Instinct, we shortened Sharon Stone’s six-month run as a viable leading lady just cuz we could.
Oh”¦you mean you missed her in Sliver?
Mission accomplished.
Nick’a Please
conceptualized by Nick Salemi
M.O.P. Salutes the St. Marxmen Review
Inside Pulse:
If you don’t know who the Mash Out Posse is by now, you need to be learned…on your own time. I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version. The Brownsville duo of Lil’ Fame and Billy Danze have been dropping heat on the Hip Hop game for over 10 years. They’re probably the greatest hardcore Hip Hop artists during that time and still today. And, they have served that title with little fanfare. But it’s to their credit that they are not only still alive and kicking, but still kicking the f#$%^ door in!
I know you at least remember How About Some Hardcore? World Famous, 4 Alarm Blaze, and Ante Up as they were the few songs they’ve put out, off of their four full-length albums (released from 1994 to 2000) that got some rotation. In addition to their albums, M.O.P. is famous for their scene-stealing guest appearances where they almost ALWAYS outshine whoever’s track they’re on. However, they haven’t released a full-fledged album since 2000’s Warriorz. The buzz was huge when they signed to Jay-Z’s Rocafella Records. However, delays and multiple label problems most likely contributed to their Rocafella debut from ever happening.
This brings us to now.
Reportedly, the group is in negotiations with 50 Cent’s G-Unit records, and no one is quite sure what to make of the situation just yet. In the meantime, they’ve released St. Marxmen through the indie fav Koch records to hold everyone over. I don’t know how much of it is leftover, unreleased material from the Rocafella sessions and how much is totally new, but either way SOMETHING is finally here.
Positives
C’mon, M.O.P. is back for God’s sake! While the album intentionally has a bit of a mixtape feel to it, this doesn’t take away from it and doesn’t have any low-rent DJs screaming over the tracks (because, how the hell are you gonna out scream M.O.P. anyways?)
Check for Pain, a bit of laid-back track but, don’t fret, these guys have been able to pull those off for years, even with their hyped-up style. Suicide, a solo track from longtime affiliate Teflon is a storytelling track that he spits over a Castlevania-like beat. Hip Hop Cops with Wyclef, of all people, is an absolutely blazing song (I believe it has appeared on mixtapes as Police In Helicopter) which is one of the best on the album. They also collaborate again with Def Jam’s president on Put It in the Air, while tearing apart and giving new life to Eric B and Rakim’s Microphone Fiend beat.
My personal favorite song on the album is Instigator, produced by 9th Wonder, who is not so quietly putting on an MVP performance for producer of the year. Take a Minute also showcases the Brooklyn boys doing what they do best, which is bring an unbelievable energy to their performance. The disc also includes two uncredited bonus cuts.
Mixed Bag:
Pop Shots Remix, featuring ODB, is basically the same track from ODB’s “mixtape” from late last year with a new verse from MOP added. DJ Premier and MOP are always a solid combo, though. Hey, it was a sick song, I’m not taking away from it, but it’s more of an ODB song, that’s all. (If memory serves correctly they set Jay Z’s You Don’t Know Remix off the Blueprint 2 album on FIYAAAAA a few years ago. )
Negatives:
It’s Hard to Tell comes too close on the disc after Pain, which it sounds a little similar to. The disc sounds a little bit unfinished, but hey, their holdover material is better than most artists’ best output. Oh, and where’s the original Premier track(s)?
Reason to Buy:
One of the most consistent artists in all of Hip Hop keep true to the sound that made them famous while not allowing their music to get stale. If you’re a fan of their past work, do you even have to think about it?
Pulse rating: 7.5
General Haberdashery”¦Fun Fact Edition 2
A shockingly decent amount of feedback on my “fun fact” concept for last week’s links pretty much guarantees that I’ll be beating this horse into the ground. Let’s all partake in the pummeling:
Fernandez survives a catastrophe involving canisters of Pringles® and dishes on Celine Dion’s uncanny canine comparison. Fun Fact: Mad Libs were invented in New York City in 1953 by Leonard Stern and Roger Price. Hailed as “America’s Premier Party Game”, I’m thinking I’d rather stay home. And that’s saying something since I’m married.
Gloomchen is all about broadening horizons and using the word “crunk” more times than any Californian has since the concept’s inception. She finishes just 1.5 for 4 on her closing food suggestions, though. Fun Fact: If you’re over the age of 2 and still eating Spaghetti-O’s, all the jalapeños in the world can’t change the fact that you’re probably homeless and that meal-in-a-can was probably someone’s holiday donation.
Mathan kills it with his contribution this week and we won’t even mention that he’s only the sixth or seventh staffer to swipe Salemi’s mixtape concept for their column. It’s a trip back to 1994-95, so turn on some Living Single, crack open a Crystal Pepsi and wait for Deion Sanders’ album to drop. Fun Fact: When Crystal Pepsi spectacularly flopped in 1993, it was repackaged as a citrus cola about a year later. Then, flopped again.
J.A.M. = the fourth in the line of short-lived novelty writing nicknames for a trio of Inside Pulse and 411 writers.
J is for Movie Joe Reid. He’s got his annual crazy long Fall Movie Preview column(s) up right now! Read Joe’s thoughts on big releases like Harry Potter, Jarhead and Zorro, as well as the smaller indie flicks like”¦well, like all the other ones that Joe lavishly overpraises. Anyways, consider Joe’s column a supplement to your Entertainment Weekly Fall Movie Preview, which hit newsstands six weeks ago.
Also, be sure to check out Joe over at The Film Experience. This is the movie column that Joe gets pizz-ayed for, so expect him to bring the A-material here.
A is for me.
M is TV Mathan. I’m pretty sure I linked this same column last week. Oh well, it’s Mathan so the second read is as smooth as the first. Someone pointed out to me that Math makes a reference to interracial dating without breaking out the soapbox! Memo to Math: “this guy” is dead, I think.
Junk Mail
So, when is the Bootleg Guy going to get his own obnoxious self-serving blog? Isn’t that the prerequisite of every self-important ‘net writer? And, in the case of you (and your boy, Joe Reid) you know I say that with nothing but respect for you guys. Is it possible to be self-important without taking yourself seriously? That’s a compliment. Sh*t, this is making no sense, but if you get it, then school some of your peers”¦please.
Tony W.
Umm”¦got’cha, I think. Actually, you’re not the first person to suggest the blog thang, but I daresay that no one on IP Music puts as many hours n’ pages into their columns as I do. Doesn’t leave much time for a vanity gig, kid. Besides, who wants to read every uninteresting thing that happens to me? That’s what my weekly intro is for. HAW!
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Stupid question that I hope you can relate to: my girlfriend of four weeks HATES hip hop with a passion and I was wondering if you knew of anything she could listen to that would win her over, preferably something that ain’t all b*tches and hoes, y’know?
A.S.
Yikes. Well, as I see it, you’ve got two problems here. The first is your girl ain’t ever gonna change. She won’t be “won over” by anything we could suggest, if she feels that strongly against it. Second, “b*tches n’ ho”-free Hip Hop ain’t that hard to find, so I’m wondering how much you actually LOVES Hip Hop, brutha? Sorry, turned into m’man Mathan there. Readers”¦suggestions, here?
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Whatever happened to the Bootleg Family moving to Northern Virginia? I thought I read that in an old column of yours from earlier this year?
Terry P.
The formal offer probably won’t come until early next year, but it could still happen. I got a lot of feedback from readers, selling me on the area, but the one that stuck with me was the guy who told me about the abject absence of real Mexican food out there. That’s a price I just won’t pay.
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As I’m sure you know, there a WWE pay per view at the (San Diego) Sports Arena next month. What are the odds of That Bootleg Guy coming out and representing for the three fans you have in SD? I work cough-intern-cough for (a local rock station) and we’re having a pre-show tailgate/BBQ before the show. All I can offer is a paper plate with a rib, some slaw and a corn cobbette, but you’ll get all the free (local rock station) merchandise you can grab and baby bootleg needs one of our sh*tty t-shirts!
Niice. The FM-station sponsored parking lot appearance. And, since it’s sports entertainment-related, who’s betting that two of their DJ’s will be rasslin’ in those sumo suits for the enjoyment of no one? Actually, I was planning to go, but now it appears that I’ll be on the east coast that week for work. But, seriously, save me a plate.
>>Whatever happened to these guys? I’ve got the inside story”¦get at me on Yahoo or AOL IM: ajcameron13.
