The musings of a madman...

5: “Me Too!” and “Let’s Get Money Together”      No, this is not related to any basketball players’ attempts to rap or any rappers’ attempts to show how much “like Mike” he was in the gym.  It is more related to each side recognizing the other’s validity in the arena of entertainment.  There is a possibility that this could have been taken along with the “Acknowledgment” we previously discussed, but the level that this is taken to has a life of its own, beyond simple acknowledgment.  It almost becomes necessary to point to the fact that each experienced a bit of a burst in popularity right around the mid-80s, directly in line with the spikes in the popularities of – all at once – national media outlets (broadcast and cable TV, radio, etc.), the renewal of the Lakers/Celtics rivalry and perhaps most importantly, the previously mentioned marketing juggernaut named Michael Jeffrey Jordan.      A term born of this mutual resp...

As a matter of fair warning; my imagination is apparently one of the most dangerous places on this planet. This morning (well, the morning as of when I type this sentence – 7:39pm on Sunday November 11 th ), while I was cutting my grass I had this strange idea related to the fact that we have not much heard from Mitt Romney or anyone in his camp in the days since his failure to make good on his ascension to the office that he apparently felt that he was entitled to.  I do not recall how long it was before we heard from Old Man River John McCain in 2008, and I didn’t care how long it was with Gore and Kerry in 2000 and 2004, respectively.      This morning, my imagination intervened and created a situation that serves it that politicians and their ilk are these vast teams of supervillains, who sit around at large marble conference room tables and make conspiratorial plans to take off their rivals, and that each failed attempt – like last Tuesday’s emb...

(so you telling me they been IN America the whole time… and they wanna LEAVE?!) So apparently some people are a bit salty about Obama having won the election and CITIZENS (not the people in charge, mind you) have taken to petitioning The White House to peacefully grant their states secession. Honestly, comparatively few people are actually taking this seriously. Many people signing the petitions don’t even live IN the states petitioning to secede in the first place. As I understand and as of when I type this, 19 states have such petitions in place with Louisiana and Texas being the largest to do so and naturally having the largest number of participants. Granted, neither has the 25,000 signatures needed to warrant a response from The White House yet, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out. In the meantime, I came up with an idea. Start off by granting ONE state their request. For this to work, it will have to be a Border State – I am thinking Texas...

            On my next birthday, I will be 34, so it stands to reason that my life has left me with plenty of access to hip hop music in my time.  One thing that artists USED to try and actually pull off well was concept albums.  No, I do not mean an album upon which the artist finds a reasonably central theme well and sticks close to that across the entirety of the album.  With that in mind,  Ready to Die, Only Built For Cuban Lynx  and the like are off of the table.  They were classically presented albums that stuck to their formulas well, but “Concept Albums” they were not.             On the other hand, Prince Paul’s TWO concept albums  A Prince Among Thieves  and  Politics of the Business , Kool Keith’s entire career and minor outlying and TERRIBLY slept-on Sporty Thievz  Street Cinema  should all personify what it is I am getting afte...

4: Fashion Sensibilities      Two things can be guaranteed to be taken into consideration when it comes to regional applications and those are fashion and local team fanship.  When it boils down to it, through the presented history hip hop in popular culture, it was no huge deal – one could argue that it was expected – to see their favorite rappers donning the jersey of their favorite player or hat of their favorite team, or even both! One of the “standard” hip hop uniforms from the earliest days included the simple jeans and t-shirt with a pair of sneakers.  Sneakers would become one of the EARLIEST connected fashion items tying hip hop and basketball together.  As a child born in the late 70s and raised in the 80s, I distinctly recall seeing and desiring to own the player-specific Converse sneakers worn by Dr. J and Magic Johnson, badgering my parents for a new pair of the Chuck Taylors that seemingly every other player wore and To this ...

            In 2008, I was not connected to any of the social networks that I am currently plugged into other than this blog.  Then, MySpace still (kind of) mattered and I still used it.  I had not yet started to use FaceBook and at the time REFUSED to use Twitter.  I am inclined to think, at times, that my life was actually better for it.             See, in 2008 I remember exactly how Election Day went for me.  I woke up, went to work, then home for a moment then to the gym.  I had already voted early and therefore missed the crowds at the polls.  I stayed in the gym for longer than usual because they’d started reporting from the districts with their counts up really early, and that included several of the so-called “battleground” states with heavier Electoral College counts.  It was no later than 9pm that it was becoming obvious who had won the e...

3: “Just Like Us”      So now we’ve seen an understandable correlation born of the similar creations of basketball and hip hop.  We’ve discussed why the participants should want to involve themselves with one another, if only from more often than not coming up from similar backgrounds themselves.  Now it is time we discuss what good reason they may have to continue and cultivate the personal-cum-business relationship(s).      As with any connected entities, their mutual involvement will eventually espouse emulation.  One could argue that Biggie saw this coming (or had already witnessed) when, on his first album, he mentioned “either you slinging crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot” with the at-the-time unspoken third option naturally being music.  It was ironic, because he was passively speaking out that third option by participating in it for his own out of those very same neighborhoods.  Either way, ge...

I know what you're thinking "shut the hell up, Phillip, you don't bake!" ... and you would be right in that observation.  I usually don't, but I was up yesterday morning watching the Food Network and I had a couple of dollars to buy myself something, so I went down to the grocery store and made some plans. Start with a flat of crack cocaine King's Hawaiian rolls And dice them up Then a container of grocery store Croissants Dice them up too, put them in the same bowl and toss them together to mix Rub the pan you will use with butter, put all the diced bread in it and set it aside Genuine Swiss white chocolate bar Once you hit it with the knife, it will start breaking up nicely, get it as fine as possible Put it in a bowl, add semi-sweet chocolate chips (or chocolate/peanut butter if you're me) and toss to mix (sorry, forgot to photograph them "tossed," the white chocolate is underneath) Spread them on top of and...

2: Acknowledgement and Acceptance      With a mind fully focused on the facts that basketball remains a sport that requires VERY little to get into as far as resources, and hip hop a musical medium that (at the time) required little in the way of classical musical training, it seems only natural that kids from lower-rent areas would be into either, or even both of the two simultaneously.  The connection between participants of the two is more than natural.      What could not be assumed was that either would be accepted as continuingly viable forms of entertainment or even recreational activities.  For what they were and the relative obscurity from whence they came, they would surely be a hard sell to say the least. With that in mind, it is (or was) only fair that both would initially cultivate and grow in areas with less-than-affluent populations and grow from there up, sometimes (or often) moving those less-than-affluent ...

            2012, an election year… As it is an election year, it was ALSO an Olympics year.  Of late, as in the last 4 weeks we have witnessed a few Presidential/Vice-Presidential debates.  To be totally honest, the debates were the most contentious and therefore entertaining that I have seen in my voting life.  At 33 years of age, this will have been the 4 th election I have been able to legally vote in (and I have voted in each, for the record) and that fact got me to thinking.             The Electoral College renders votes in some states more valuable than others, and that has caused some people to simply decide not to bother with voting at all.  Strangely, as I mentioned on another site last week, those “I ain’t gonna vote” votes have a newfound value to the people who want you to vote for Romney simply because he isn’t black Obama.     ...