Dear TAN: Is Perez Hilton Always This Racist?

Send your questions/letters to theassimilatednegro [at] gmail [dot] com.

In this edition: The metaphysics of Perez Hilton's racism!

Dear TAN,

For whatever reason, I've found myself skimming his site for the past week or so.

Check this out: "She joined by some dude name Zalon. In this alternative universe, the white bitch is rapping, while the black guy is singing the sweet melodies. Go figure!"

Or this one: "Also, Whoopi Goldberg eats fried chicken - and we love her for it!"

???? I like to err on the side of not accusing people of being bigots, but I don't even know how else to interpret these. Do you follow the site regularly? Are these just aberrations, or part of a trend?

- Not Terribly PC

~~

Dear Not Terribly PC,

Well, on the surface your question is an easy one: Yes, he is racist. Besides your links above, you won't be at a loss to find plenty of examples of Perez Hilton(TM) being full of dubious isms and phobias.

But it brings to mind a phrase both Perez and myself would be certain to mispronounce as silly americanz, the ol': "cogito, ergo sum", aka: "I think, therefore i am"; aka: if Descartes didn't say this at a time when 90% of the world was racist/less worldly, it might have been phrased as "I think, therefore I am ....Racist?."

Which is to suggest that beneath the surface question lies deeper, more difficult questions: Like, is Perez Hilton a racist of his own free will? Does Perez Hilton have malicious intent? Is Perez Hilton a bad person?

The answer to the last one is also obvious: Yes. PH is a bad person. But we do need bad people. As outlets and objects for our own animosity, angst, assholishness. So, yay him. Good job!

The other two though... I don't know. Michael Richards revealed he was a racist. Then went on his "But I'm Not A Bad Person" tour, featuring Jerry Seinfeld as lead moral representative. I don't think Michael Richards or Perez want to discriminate against black people. Or deny them some sort of equal opportunity. They just want to make a little dough off the n-word, like a lot of other n-words are doing. Does that make them bad people? Like Perez Hilton, entertainment-meets-capitalism America is full of dubious isms and phobias. R-list celebrities. Chappelle went crazy off this.

So this is classic Post-Racial 101 stuff. People -- especially, "the kidz theez dayz" -- own the stereotypes and wield them for their own purposes. Most likely somehow someway trying to turn it into fortune, maybe fame. 30 Rock, Curb, The Office all use racism to great comedic effect. It's a universally resonant human condition; by virtue of our timing and circumstance most of us have some socialized racism in us. Sexism as well. Also the odd attraction to musky foot funk (just me?). And we deal with those the same way we deal with the rest of our flaws and foibles.

Even better: this deconstructing can be summed up in this clip of an ethnically-discriminating child, and asking the same question: is this baby racist?



well, is he? Please let me know.

Thanks,

- TAN

"Am I In The Right Place? I Don't See TAN's Laptop Anywhere ..."

while you're fixing your straps and awaiting my return. here are some old items to peruse at your leisure while smoking a cig, or not:

Michael Vick's been in the news. I once challenged the dogs on his behalf.

Eminem's back. I once did a spoof of "My Name Is".

Football's back. Do you remember Negro Bowl I?

Who Will Be America's Next Top Racist?

I still think Salt Water Taffy is a fairly retarded invention...

internal: might be worth revisiting Post-Racial Fight Club again ...

since we know Post-Racial is not PostModern, or somesuch...

Who's Got Next???: y'know on the whole Minorities Being President tip ...

remember the girl whose booty Obama supposedly looked at? No? Well she probably remembers you sizing up her booty.

unrelated: my shower doesn't talk anymore....

hmm, speaking of showers, i haven't talked about sex in a while. i wonder if i should re-sex "Sex is re-sex"...

kanye's still around, but who's the new 50?

eh, should be back by the time you finish this and listen to lykke li's black cab session 500 more times.


pic via: Ye

Table Beat-Boxing Has Improved Since I Was A Kid

As a kid in the south bx, banging a beat on the desk or table was standard practice. nothing to see here folks. when i went off to prep/boarding school, and me and my boys would start orchestrating multi-track instrumentals in the dining hall, it was probably a little more avant garde. a future look at the assimilated learning curve, or somesuch....

and now it's just cool to see that the kids are a little bit on some table beat-box 3.0 with it. this business with the pencil was definitely beyond our skill-set in the 80s, 90s.



via videogum

TAN: Out To Greece

TAN is away in Greece. Athens, Mykonos, and Santorini. Your regular irregularly scheduled programming will resume end of this week. The Greek assimilation will not be be televised, but probably blogged. holla.

Hov's Blueprint 3 Leaking, Might Be A Little Watered Down

If the world is made of two people, artists and executives. animals and zookeepers. or somesuch. I've long thought Jay-Z's legacy might be most interestingly framed as testament to an executive pushing the artist envelope as far as possible. A zookeeper jumping around with gorillas, hunting with lions, and pulling it off, for a while, with great success. The Black Album might be where he even blacked out and ate like some raw carrion or some shit before puking out Kingdom Come on some "raw, uncooked flesh does not agree with me" ish. Hov is technically brilliant, and knows his *brand* inside-and-out, but he lacks the stomach for the risk required of the most brilliant, soaring, time-spanning art[ists].

The Blueprint 3 looks like its fitting the same formula. Recent leaks from nahright and the NMC:

Reminder (prod. Timbo)
Off That (w/ Drake (on hook))

of course DOA makes airs of ambition, but ends up staying a solid song.

Run This Town bumps, but the vid is conceived in a much airier space; the song itself is much more dense, inert. It's a solid song.

Jay-Z |MTV Music

that's 4 of 15 or so. 25%-ish for the lazy mathematicians in the building. suffice to say, there's probably some decent music coming- we hope. which is nothing to complain about. but for jay, if he really cares about such matters, it's clear The Chase is still on.

When Will Hip Hop Get That Woodstock Love?

TAN's bringing in guests and correspondents! Herewith: MGJordan on Woodstock, hip hop's lack of media respect (no Rodney Dangerfield?), and how he learned to stop worrying and love Jonah Weiner.

Last week, anyone with access to a TV or computer was treated to a display of boomer self congratulation so vast and insistent that experiencing it became compulsory—Woodstock turned 40. The entirety of the MSM stopped to remark on that glorious occasion when America’s youth gathered in the mud of upstate New York to drop acid and listen to the Grateful Dead’s poorly amplified noodling. For a single slight shimmery weekend the 60s counter-culture realized its belief in peace, love and understanding—and then everyone grew up and ushered in Reaganomics.

Yes, put me in the group dedicated to deflating the Woodstock bubble. The continuing fellation of the boomer’s moment in the sun—remember Woodstocks 1995 and 1999? (hopefully not)—annoys me to no end. But even though it’s beyond obvious that Woodstock reverence is beyond hyperbolic, it’s not necessarily its extent that irks me. Culture, to a degree, is delusion on a grand scale and that’s fine. There’s no real difference between scrawling “Clapton is God” on a London subway wall and swearing to your friends that Jigga man is the God MC.

What really bothers me about the Woodstock celebration (besides boomer hypocrisy…that’s a horse to flog on another day) is the disparity it reveals between the press’s attitude towards hip hop and the press’s attitude towards other cultural movements. This October marks the 30th anniversary of “Rapper’s Delight,” the first top 40 rap single and the song that launched hip hop culture’s global explosion. Will Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood put together a retrospective like they did for Woodstock? Doubtful.

I suppose that’s fine in a way. The appreciation gap between rock and rap doubtless has much to do with racism and classism, but it probably has even more to do with age—rock is old and rap is young. Rock, already canonized, has affected all the change it ever will—rap is rock’s kid brother, all grown up but still largely undefined by critical consensus. So I guess I’m okay with hip hop not receiving as wide coverage as rock does—how can we celebrate hip hop as a group if we haven’t really agreed yet on what parts to celebrate?

My real beef is that the press seems congenitally incapable of treating rap as a legitimate art form. Consider the lazy journalistic device of rendering articles humorous by mashing up hip hop and a “serious subject.” As offensive and nonsensical as these articles are, they’re still alive and well. Check out this NPR piece on how the feud between Jay-Z and The Game mirrors world politics. The author writes:

The Game is the erratic wildcard.

"He's North Korea; he's Iran," Lynch says. "He might not win, but he can hurt you if he drags you down into this extended occupation, this extended counterinsurgency campaign."

Why is he doing this? After Jay-Z released "D.O.A. ('Death of Auto-Tune')" The Game saw an opportunity to peel off Jay-Z's key alliance partners to form a coalition and undermine Jay-Z's hegemony.

No. Fine, Game is an erratic wild card. But what “key alliance partners” is he trying to peel off from Jay? What, he wants Memphis Bleak to guest on The R.E.D. Album? It’s just confusingly wrong. Anyone who knows anything about hip hop can recognize that this article is logically barren.

But that’s sort of beside the point, isn’t it? The intent of the article isn’t to conduct an interesting juxtaposition between hip hop and international relations. The article exists to compare a subject that is, to NPR’s audience, obviously silly—hip hop—with a subject for grown ups—international relations. The whole thing is just an excuse for suburban house wives to exclaim “well, isn’t that a riot?!”

Hip hop deserves better than that. Hip hop definitely deserves better than blogs like Snacks and Shit, which gets its name from a woefully misinterpreted Jay-Z lyric and purports to catalogue “preposterous” rap lyrics. I’m all for acknowledging that hip hop can be ludicrous and stupid, but most of the blog’s posts either aren’t funny or depend on taking a lyric outside its original context. I mean, wow, if you take rap lyrics literally they often make no sense? I guess these guys never heard of figurative language.

Rock ‘n’ roll is no less inherently silly than hip hop (“I am the eggman, they are the eggmen/ I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob”), but it hasn’t been held up as an object of ridicule since hair metal went out of style. Enough with the goofy or ironic hip hop references: hip hop, even when it’s being fun and insane and over the top, is worthy of serious consideration.

That’s why the embrace of rap music by mainstream critical outlets—Pitchfork, The Village Voice, Slate, The New Yorker—is so important. Reading Jonah Weiner painstakingly explain the ins and outs of rap to a rap illiterate audience may grate on the nerves of serious hip hop heads (see comments here), but at least Weiner’s articles propagate the idea that rap is a legitimate art form. Maybe with a few more Weiners (and a few more Nathan Rabins and Sasha Frere-Joneses), hip hop will eventually get the mainstream respect it deserves.

~MGJordan

Quotable Nietzsche: Why TAN Is So Wise

(more and more feeling like TAN is trending towards a meaning closer to that of "The Assimilated Nietzsche" over "The Assimilated Negro", but then any minority rising to power is Nietzschean, so yeah, makes sense ... anyFried, more/excess is coming...)

"How much truth does a spirit endure, how much truth does it dare? more and more that became for me the real measure of value. Error (—faith in the ideal—) is not blindness, error is cowardice ... Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself ... I do not refute ideals, I merely put on gloves before them."

~~

"Under these circumstances I have a duty against which my habits, even more the pride of my instincts, revolt at bottom, namely, to say: "Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else!"

~~

"My practice of war is formulated in four principles: First: I only attack causes that are victorious,—I may even wait until they become victorious. Second: I only attack causes against which I would find no allies, so that I stand alone—so that I compromise myself alone ... I have never taken a step publicly that did not compromise me: that is my criterion of doing right. Third: I never attack persons,—I avail myself of the person merely as a powerful magnifying-glass that allows one to make visible a general, but creeping and elusive calamity [...snip...] Fourth: I only attack things when all personal differences are excluded, when any background of bad experiences is lacking. On the contrary, to attack is to me a proof of goodwill, sometimes even of gratitude. I honor, I distinguish therewith by associating my name with that of a cause or a person: for or against—that makes no difference to me at this point.

- all quotes from Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is
(no homo?)

Real Recognize Real: 2 Years Is a Long Time On the Internet

A couple years ago I posted a Failed Ideas in Hip Hop video, billing it as "a funny sketch by people who do funny sketches". Lo and behold, "It's The Real" (I think they changed their name from "The Real to "It's The Real"?) are still making funny videos a couple years later. As the hip hop loving jews say, muy impresivo.

Also they got all kinds of internet and hip hop cameos/testimonials in their 2-year anniversary video. Which is like the internet version of "making it rain" or something.

2 Real 2 Furious from jeff on Vimeo.

Congrats to It's the Real, here's to two more years, 95 more vids, 200 more testimonials, etc. etc.

No Homo and the Evolution of Tolerance

Jonah Weiner, who serves as one of the hip hop/urban music ambassadors for Slate, has a solid point-of-entry piece on the "No Homo" craze in hip hop (and beyond, since the term has by-and-large crossed over into more of a pop cultural phenomenon). His point, essentially, is: yes, saying "no homo" is still homophobia; but it's a lot better than what used to be status quo in hip hop.

Both those things are true. But, just like when racial or religious or *any* sort of intolerance needs a firmer hand, or at least noting that we are only scratching the surface of a much more profoundly complex issue, I think that's called for here. Because honestly, we need to be further along, and I say that mostly from the spirit of being a fan and hip hop urban-culture enthusiast.

Coates at the Atlantic has run some harsher words over this before. And been much more pointed about the problem. It makes me briefly wonder if Jonah, and/or Slate as proxy, can only approach with a certain cavalier attitude because it's not *their* issue so much. Maybe The Root and Skip Gates need to be slamming the door on this a little harder. Because while i don't actually cry, I do think about shedding a tear or two -- i feel the emotional swelling (no homo) -- when considering the rampant homophobia and ultimately, hypocrisy of intolerance, when I think about all the rappers and artists and *Heroes* who have brazenly been hateful to a group of people. It's really no different than your daddy being a racist.

Jonah opens his piece with the both brilliant and obvious example of Kanye. Specifically mentioning his rant about homophobia, that came a little prior to his "george bush hates black people" comment. Which got a lot more pub. He notes the anti-homophobia rant for its unique anomalous nature; no one else has really come out of the closet in such a bold declarative way on the homophobia issues in hip hop (and hip hop serving in some sense as proxy to black culture here).

But the more direct attack and implication is to consider Kanye extending the George Bush comment in this way: "George Bush doesn't care about Black people, Black people don't care about homosexual people. (Homosexual people don't care about vaginas, but that part is neither here nor there.)" Such a line might have framed the tradition of (American?) intolerance in a more comprehensive light.

In any event, i wonder about proprietary issues when righting a wrong. Correcting an error. Obama challenging black folk is different than Bill Clinton. An old-wave feminist doing the same to women, is a similar formulation. Rappers and black people need to be more forceful and demanding in this zone. Because we are losing when we reject ourselves in this way.

Which segues to some of Jonah's extended premise in his piece. A sense of humor/jokes as indicator of progress, movement towards truth.

This makes sense in the realm of racial and sexual identity politics. Black people make black people do this and white people do that jokes. Men and women make men do this and women do that jokes. "No homo" is in fact often a funny addendum. If you can insulate yourself from the hateful part of it all, it's an amusing pithy little phrase. And certainly when used to access the even broader construct of masculinity, femininity etc., it can bring a smile. Of course, that shows the "no homo" isn't even actually about "homos" any more. But what we consider masculine and feminine. The Katy Perry "ur so gay, and you don't even like boys" sentiment. Kanye and many famous "tough rappers" are probably a little removed from knowing how to fix a car that broke down on the highway, chop down a tree and start a fire, fist-fighting, but know about the latest fashion-designers, getting pedicures, etc. No homo?

But as any dysfunctional comedian will tell you, the sense of humor, comic relief, is sourced by a sense of detachment. ironic distance. you/we couldn't make jokes about black people for a long time, because it was too raw and serious and immediate. The wounds were still open. Then they scar over, and it gets a little easier. And now, shoot, we almost can hardly tell it's there now with all the cosmetic surgery we've enlisted *cough*.

So that's progress. But again, point of entry. There's a narrative of tolerance here. Where are we progressing from? How did the story begin? Why was hip hop culture so invested in hating others in the first place? I sense this racial issue, like so many others, is a gateway to larger American or human issues. In this case my suspicion is that when we have been abused we want someone else to at some point experience the same pain/abuse. We want to be empowered by damaging someone the same way we felt damaged. If we stop and *pause* and think about it, such logic doesn't make sense; all of these abuses and wrongs are circumstantial. You can never inflict the same pain, only the particular pain for those particular people/circumstances. If you as a father abuse your son, he doesn't know the abuse you received from your father, his grandfather, any more intimately. He only knows the pain he's receiving from you. This is why the Golden Rule works practically, not only as a morally idealized notion of the universe. We can't transfer our rationalized selves, which is what the psychological scars from abuse are. There's the immediate pain (or joy), and then how we live with it and synthesize it into the new us that emerges from the experience.....

I've sprawled out into deeper waters, and want to stay swimming safely in this smaller pool.... so, no homo. i guess, much like with women, we just need a "homo" rapper who through the sheer force of his will makes all the jokes and lines premised on intolerance, obsolete.


The Changing Face of Hip Hop Homophobia [Slate]

If Obama Is The Joker, Who Is Batman?

The couple of posts I've seen with these Obama-as-Joker "socialist" pics all say the same thing: it's a striking image, that's making it way around not only on the internet, but in The Real World (so much as Los Angeles can be called The Real World), but no one knows or has any sense of what it means.

And to that I add: Ditto.




via: American Thinker, NRO

About TAN: Web Hunk, 4.0

The Houston Chronicle included Patrice Evans, TAN, The Assimilated Negro in their gallery of Web Hunks today. Indeed, as you suspected, the Apocalypse is nigh!

Since I don't want to just be ogled as a savory hunky piece of melanin-meat laptop. Here are some links:

Hip Hop Stuff:
Will "Keeping It Real" Ever Go Right?
Is Elzhi Deeper Than John Updike?
Maybe We Should Just Hand Hip Hop Over to the Ladies?

Racial, Post-Racial Stuff:
Black People film boobs like this, White People film boobs like that
The 4 Horsemen of the Post-Racial Apocalypse
Negropedia Brown and the Case of the World White Web

Matrices, Video, and Random Hits & Misses on/for Gawker stuff:
The Morality Matrix
A Bronx Tale: In Search of Sonia Sotomayor
Does Weed Have "5" On the Economy?
miscellany

House of Hot-Ass Interviews: including The Roots, Sasha Grey, Larry Wilmore and, uh, still more... (?)

100 Things About TAN: this is kinda old, but, y'know, has a personal facebooky touch.

What Else???
sports head: not so much recently, but for nbc new york, deadspin, fanhouse and others in the past. I also think the Mets Are Better Than Sex.

I've done readings: about letters to my genitals, and sex on shrooms.

book deal, "Negropedia" is no longer the title, fyi.

There's more if you want to noodle around, but I'm guessing that should be plenty to scare you away at this point. But before you go: PLEASE SUBSCRIBE -- i don't blog-churn out volumes, but there is more, bigger, better in store. And Subscriptions allow you to keeps tabs from a safe distance, and maybe I won't have to whore my body out for internet celebrity currency. it's like saving an african baby, except i went to prep school and live in nyc.

When Naked in France, Is It Better to Be Sexy or Funny?

oooh la la, oui oui oui:

Make The Girl Dance "Baby Baby Baby" ( official video )

ha ha ha, hee hee hee:

Prom Night In Mississippi

How old are you?

Did you go to your High School Prom?

Was it integrated?

I'd imagine that last one to come across as sort of a joke question -- is it integrated??? do you mean like cavemen and dinosaurs? these are the jokes people -- But for Charleston High School in Mississippi, it's a legitimate query. They just had their first "integrated" prom a couple years ago. The story of it serving as the old world grist for Paul Saltzman documentary "Prom Night In Mississippi".

Here's some pub copy on it:

The film deftly weaves together student-made videos, interviews, and fly-on-the-wall moments with scenes of school officials, parents and Morgan Freeman himself, as white and black members of the Charleston senior class work together to organize the groundbreaking dance. While students prepare for the big day, seemingly inconsequential rites of passage suddenly become profound as the weight of history falls on teenage shoulders. We quickly learn that change does not come easily in this sleepy Delta town, as Freeman’s generosity ends up fanning flames of racism among several generations of Charleston residents.

And a video clip:



Some thoughts:

1.Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. These people are from The South: The reason to watch the film is to get a little glimpse of this small Southern town, and see how anachronistic it is. Like going to the Museum of Natural History and the dinosaurs are casually talking about their lives of swamps and eating each other. It's interesting, but you can't truly relate/empathize/connect to something living behind a glass wall. It's like: hello, Mr. T-Rex, i don't want to be a dinosaur-chauvinist hater or anything, but y'all might want to step outside the museum. realize no one complains about the swarming pterodactyls anymore. Go on the internet. meet new friends. Like that, but y'know, with real people involved.

The whole story is Morgan Freeman paying for the school's prom to take the burden off the tradition of separate proms at this school. But some of the people - parents! - still organized their own White Only prom. Which they did not allow the filmmakers to get footage of. Which was supposedly attended by 30 people or so. So i don't know, if they started a facebook group "White Only: Dancing and Hanging Out, for one night", you'd prob get like 30-40 people. Maybe the same people. Actually, definitely not the same people. I guarantee those people are going to be opening their free sample AOL test DVD in a few months from now. Facebook eta circa 2014.

I'm being mean, but I'm sorry, I do not understand the South. Baldwin wrote in essays about how he changed as a writer, as a black man, after visiting the south. Eddie Murphy joked, "don't go down to texas, they'll f you up". I can't front, I'm a little scared of it; you either get changed, or f'd up/dead.

I just wonder if it will in fact be a matter of time, and these were cavemen times. Or if there is something in the DNA, the genetic makeup of the geographical culture, or somesuch.

2. Generation Gap: The kids are a lot more sane. When I think about the kids, I don't think the DNA issue is a question. Then again, a lot of the crazier thinking people in the film, or alluded to in the film, did not actually get face-time. It's telling to something that the more backwards thinking folk are not oblivious, feel some sense of shame or embarrassment. They're not young Israelis boldly pushing their drunken shimmering worldview. They prefer to pop their racist zits in private.

Mostly the kids seemed annoyed, frustrated by the parents. But still respecting them, in most cases. Which then feels like "nothing to see here", and probably deflates some of the dramatic tension in the film. Watching Paint Dry have you met Town Watching/Waiting For Olds To Die,... that sort of thing. The kids are cute, not weird, aside from general high school age weirdness, and definitely not the problem.

3. Driving Mr. Freeman: The doc starts off with Morgan Freeman talking about growing up in the town. And the tradition. And how it was stupid, etc. And how we was going to propose to get involved. Which he did. The thing is once the kids are diagnosed as normal kids, he's kind of the star/engine of the film. But once he gets the ball rolling, that's all we get from him. There's a meeting in the auditorium when Shawshank Redemption talks to everyone and tells them what he wants to do. All the kids are treating him like he's Will Smith instead of Morgan Freeman. But he doesn't turn the Will Smith on. There's a stunted emotional investment that begins to emanate from him. Maybe it's just how things worked out, but it could/should have probably been more a little more autobiographical. Or at least Freeman giving more context and background to the town history. Helping us understand The Aliens from The South. But he mostly becomes the hollywood name that gets the film through the process. It's a little disappointing.

All in all I'd say, if you want to go to the museum, but from the comfort of your home. Check it out. There are worse ways to spend 90 minutes than looking at old people and normal people behind the glass.


Prom Night in Mississippi website

Related:
Jena 6: From the Noose to the Red Carpet

KRS, I Knew, Duh, But I Did Not Know Buckshot and Talib Had Off The Dome Skills Like This

I think there is an objective philosophical argument to make for dropping "freestyle" as our textual indicator of off-the-dome skills. It muddies the clarity of our folklore/storytelling. It will be confusing *in the future*. But it's also an argument that's tough to make with conviction, cause I do agree, with many, that whatever you call it -- "freestyle" -- is the pinnacle of the hip hop culture. Professor Chang once said "hip hop is the art of the impossible", and freestyle is the most transparent, immediate practicing of that. A good freestyle is that perfect form of spontaneous literature. And as readers, consumers you have a sense when you're seeing the *real* shit.

Two samps below:





But for real, I always thought Buck and Talib were "written freestyle verses" types. And I'm not quite certain with Buck if that was all off the top, I mean if it was, he's sick and immediately moves up a pay scale or two.

Hate to be Grumpy Old Men about it, but def don't see it that much from the young boys. Here's Drake, "freestyling, on Flex. Not off the dome. Off the cellphone. I like Drake, but y'know, it's not the same. KRS and Buck got 20-somethingK views, on two clips, Drake has gone gold with this one. Huh?

Got Beef, The Game Vs. Jay-Z: Satellite Just Went Down

"A wise man once said don't argue with fools/ cause people from a distance can't tell who is who"
-Jay-Z

So a couple days ago, somewhat surprisingly, the hegemonic Jay-Z did actually speak out on the whole beef with "The Game", and he wasn't particularly stately about it saying bluntly, "tell groupie, get over it".

The Game, who when not barking in front of the Hov estate has been tussling with Bow Wow in ALL CAPS, was probably delighted to get wind of Jay taking notice, and subsequently gave an *exclu-clu-clusive* to the Boodah Brothers where he fires back.

It's more of the same, which is to say childish blather from someone not playing in the same league really. Like if the kid who dunked on LeBron recently started talking to the press about how he is a better all around ball player than James. ...As I'm writing this, I sort of feel like I'm too biased to Jay, but Game calls Jay ugly, old, and wonders why he doesn't have a child "is he firing blizzanks or somethin'". It's like, come on, really? For 15 minutes, that's all you got? Firstly, ugly, besides being childish when repeated ad infinitum, is irrelevant when this guy is marrying (married?) a girl widely considered "the hottest chick in the game". Nextly, hello, we're all gonna get old. Thirds: Game's bio talks about a history of child abuse, from presumably too-young parents, ... so the final stab seems particularly short-sighted.

He also says a lot of ridiculous nonsense implying Jay would be wise to let the beef marinate for his (Jay's) own publicity. Meanwhile Jay's talking about never having a record deal again. Uhhhhm, ok ....

Besides the fact that no one respects this kind of lowball superficial kind of attack in hip hop, even from Jay-Z himself (c.f Jay backlash when he dropped Supa Ugly); I really don't understand this "hardcore" position from someone who was on Change of Heart. Like seriously, if you go down the "keep it real" gangsta road all the time, every things is going to end with people playing that clip and laughing. If you do that kind of show you have to be a little emo with your persona. only option. Game doesn't seem to have the capacity or heart for keeping it real real.

All that said, the beef between Game and Jay in and of itself is a non-starter, but the fact that NPR and mainstream media picked up this political interpretation of the beef does mean it might have an incidental ancillary benefit for Jay's chasing of history. There's gold in them thar hip hop hills if you get MSM folks to think about it the right way. Since no one is confusing Jay's star for west coast repping Game, it probably does benefit Jay's interplanetary status to have an extra satellite hovering in his orbit.

The Game Responds to Jay-Z's Groupie Talk [2dopeboyz]

Forward Fodder

Do people still do the email forward thing? I think some people who read my blog do. I take 'em 8-80 dumb crippled and emailing-crazy, etc.

Anyfod, came across this site with so many wonderful little images/sayings to forward I could hardly choose which ones to post. And goshdarnit if they're still not fun as all heck.

for the "gotta have my coffee" workaholics:


for the slow chin-strokers:
for socially-conscious-liberal-do-gooders-who-do-good-to-the-extent-that-bumper-stickers-and-such-constitute-doing-good:

for ironic quirky humor lovers:


for people who like to intellectualize their cycles of depression:


for all my single ladies, who know what they want:


via Make My Mood, People Sayings

AssimiLinks: Your Jealousy and Black Female Rabbis are Useless To Me, Like Newspapers and Indie Dream Girls

Changes afoot. TAN soldiers being recruited and suited up for war. There will be AssimiLink-dumps. Send assimilated links, news, brainfarts to theassimilatednegro at gmizzy.

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On Jealousy: "Jealousy may be losing its utility in contemporary life, more useful to our ancestors than to us" -- does this mean in 100 years jealousy might not exist? useless and/or phased out via our evolutionary tract like the dodo bird, the appendix, third nipples? what other emotions are no longer useful to us nowadays? Psychology Today with the fodder for thought.

Paper vs. Web, the unscientific experiment: Slate's having some people only read physical newspapers for a few days, while others only read the web. Unscientific but interesting, and a model TAN might use to to conduct some cultural experiments of his own.

Speaking of newspapers, how does the Times home page gets made: don't need much more explanation than that. via the Observer.

LeBron James going from classy to ashy: Josh Levin dissects the Lebron James video cover-up. "The man who wants to be known as "The Global Icon" should be smart enough to realize that a single dunk in a pickup game does a lot more to build the name of the unknown dunker than it does to harm the world-famous dunkee. LeBron lost face the only way he possibly could have: by failing to be magnanimous." Indeed. Although really the reason to peep is for inclusion of video of Michael Jordan losing a one-on-one game to CEO John Rogers. Nice insightful pull on that one, Josh.

Indie Dream girls: Doree Shafrir, who's hot to death right now, explores the genre of manic pixie dream girls in movies. we're gonna have some focused follow-up on this.

First African-American Female Rabbi: have the jews gone post-racial and post-gender? i'm surprised at the lack of negro memos i've received on this.

And finally, some unreleased Nas, a snippet from a song called "Colors", from DJ Khalil and OKP

DJ Khalil and Nas in the studio recording "Colors" from DJ KHALIL on Vimeo.

illustration: via

Dear TAN: As the Ass of Your Blog Turns, Or Something

Send your questions/letters to theassimilatednegro [at] gmail [dot] com.

In this edition: How to shortcut-access this blog!

Dear TAN,

Noticed I'd started typing "ass" into my browser address bar to get to your site a bit back. Realized I could just as easily type "as". Would you rather have a rump association going on in my head when I'm looking for you, or preposition?

LV-LT

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LT,

Firstly, thanks for asking! There are many things we do not understand in this world. Many things we know exist, but can't tangibly grasp. Associations by way of browser address routines are certainly one of the numerous, perhaps infinite, number of intangibilia that indeed influence the way you, me and everyone we know lead our lives. If you think a certain thing, or are triggered into a certain mode/sensibility by way of my url-shortcut, then that quite possibly frames my content as much as the blogger template, letters, and words. It -- WE -- are all connected.

As we try and fix the circuitry of life, it'd be easy to overlook this little filament of a notion. Luckily, because you are bold enough to ask what needs to be asked, we at least have a point of entry.

So. Now. "As" or "Ass"? Well, I guess it's more about what the associations do in your head. That is to say TAN is here to please. Or at least provoke in a pleasant fashion. So my natural impulse reaction is to give the "Ass" a thumbs up, but then again I'm a guy; we thumbs up most anything that's moist on the inside, and in close proximity to a viable orifice for our egos. (hmmm, should I edit that?). So the question really is for you: does "ass" make you think, "oooooh, ass. i want me some of that." or "i'm glad i do yoga/run/eat right/sex-like-a-champ cause i got a good one..." or maybe "lots of fine asses 'round town these days." Does the word make you think things that fall on the spectrum somewhere between positive and innocuous?

Or does it make you think of assh*les, and/or people who act like asses (is there a difference?); the smell of ass, and/or the ghosts of gas-passed past. and other such cheerless ephemera.

i can only presume "as", the preposition, is more of a blank slate. at least, that's what it is for me. something neither here nor there in terms of associative properties. I guess its entirely possible for you to have strong feelings about grammar, and positive or negative emotive connections in that regard. I know grammar enthusiasts. And was once good friends with a girl who was abused by commas as a little girl; totally killed our chances of making beautiful poetry together.

Anyas, i like showy. i like to stand out. when i can. when appropriate. I'd rather be a stinky ass, than an unnoticed preposition. Psychologist Caorl Gilligan teaches growing up as a process of slow-forgetting. I want to be remembered! Even when you're old! So if forced to choose between two undesirables, i'm inclined to go with an indelible ass.

but as with all things, it really just depends... somehow, though, i think this particular train of thought will linger with me for a while. Thanks for the food for thought.

xo,

-TAN



top ass image: via

The Prep School Negro, Trailer

This isn't in my *voice*, but it is in so many ways what TAN is all about. Where the conversion process begins.



Looking forward to peeping the movie in full. Contact has been made with Andre, the director and producer, so hopefully more recon/stuff to follow on this thread. But really it all just gets me to thinking about how we're close to hitting *our* stride; maybe the final hurdle will be when we finally have the *assimilated* Judd Apatow sensibility on the screen. Not oriented as documentary (unless it's faux/mock), but as simple funny story-telling. Baby steps, negrosan.

We are coming. We are Assimilateds. Hear us roar!

The Prep School Negro

BYOBBQ and The J Period Mixtape Giveaway

This weekend the hip hop blogosphere is getting together for a first annual BYOB (Bring Your Own Blog[ger]) BBQ. That's BYOBBBQ for short, and blog-cutesy.

AnyB's, looks like they got some online power brokers in the building. Nahright, Missinfo, 2dopeboyz, smoking section, OKP, others ...


also jperiod (mixtape king-ing-ing-ing!) on the wheels, and in the spirit of a first annual, and the online-free-hip-hop-content-sphere, there's a couple classic mixtapes being given away. here's the links:



Alternate Links:
THE BEST OF THE ROOTS: http://www.zshare.net/download/62630976eb935c84/
CLASSIC SOUL VOL. 2: http://www.zshare.net/download/62630909c7c8a245/

not sure if i'm gonna be able to make it cause my daddy went and got born on the same day and wants to have a party himself, so if you're in nyc and interested and have the ability to socialize and mingle, holla at me for details, i might want to send an emissary or something.

If It Looks Like a Duck, And Quacks Like a Duck, Then Maybe It Has a Spiraling Maze-Like Vagina

Sometimes you come across things on the internet and you're like, how did this not result in an intergalactic media extravaganza, the likes of which a leaked Michael Jackson-Sarah Palin sex tape could only hope to muster, ... or at least land a Time magazine cover story or something:

Female ducks have evolved "maze-like" genitals with many twists, pouches and dead ends, in a bid to prevent rape and retain control of who fathers their offspring – while male ducks have evolved equally convoluted penises to keep up.

OK then!

You win everything, ducks. Congratulations.

Duck genitals locked in arms race [Cosmos]

image: via

How I Learned To Be Super Successful By Writing Letters to My Genitalia

A couple months ago the lovely and charming Blaise asked me to participate on her "How I Learned..." reading series. The subject that month: How I Learned To Be Super Successful.

Video from the evening just came in. Here's part 1, which is the letter I wrote that started the viral-meme-chain-reaction of people writing letters to their genitalia (everyone knows about that craze, right? right???):



A Letter From A Black Man to his Average-Sized Penis [TAN]
How I Learned [HIL]

Michael Jackson RIP: "ABC"

The End of Pop, looking at the story and legacy of Michael Jackson one song and video clip at a time.

1.2: The Wicked Witch of Motown

The songwriting collective that bequeathed MJ and The Jackson 5 four #1 singles was called "The Corporation", and they remind me of the wicked witch in fairy tales who shows up when The Prince or Princess is born and gives some sparkly gift that's also a terrible curse only realized over time. Like a diamond ring that allows the wearer to turn any piece of doodoo they touch into gold, but then every ten years, on your birthday, one of your fingers fall off.

That character in fairy tales is usually mean, and I wouldn't want to ascribe the karmic sin of "evil intent" to The Corporation -- songwriting collectives, after all, have the noblest of goals; championing Art over Artists -- but in the narrative of MJ King of Pop, these guys are playing that oft-forgotten role that sets our hero on his predestined journey. The gift-curse of the gold-doodoo ring, or somesuch.

"ABC" is the second #1 single, but the first that showcases a little of this weird yin-yang golden-doodoo relationship.



So on one hand it's a song that's the epitome of "bubblegum soul"; this is what a songwriting collective should produce: Fun, bouncy, danceable hits. On a musical-enjoyment level, it's brilliant.

But then, on the other hand, from a distance you might think: hey, wait a minute. did that 12-year-old befroed boy just tell the girl (presumably older) "to git up and show him what she can do?" And how "t-t-t-teacher's gonna show her how to get an 'a'?" Huh? What in tarnation is this fresh befroed boy talking about? What does he know enough about to t-t-t-teach anyone?

This is a definite theme from the early Jackson 5 era. There's an empty soulless precociousness that conjures images of Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageants and child labor laws. It's obvious when a kid is sewing fabric or something, but as any American Idol will tell you, being a pop star is hard grueling work. And what does a kid know about the "ABC's"? I've got a 3 at the start of my double-digit age bracket (sigh), and I'm still in the "LMNOP" section. Let me not even front, I'm still on "B".

With this as backdrop I think we have a clear red flag warning against the union of child/teen-bands and songwriting collectives (keep your kids from those songwriting collectives!). The best songs come from a place of genuine human emotion, not calculated formulaic manipulation. The best songs are pieces of art, and also a piece of the artist. Suppressing egos is good on a project, but not when it's teaching a child to suppress his nascent individuality. The boy's jsut growing pubes, now he's gotta act like some premature Rico Suave or something?

MJ's narrative as a whole casts a huge shadow over our conception of art and artists. Producer and product. In the end it strikes as a lesson about goodness over greatness; Michael clearly lost some of his own goodness in the pursuit of greatness. He achieved it. Was it worth it?

And he learned this at a young age via The Corporation. The witch who showed him how to make hit songs without necessarily being connected with the content of the song. As adults we can enjoy "ABC" as airy confection, we can enjoy The Corporation's golden-doodoo rings; but maybe as a kid it plants an unfortunate seed that life can follow a formula, when obviously it does not.

"ABC" fun notes:
OPP sample

Previously:
1.1 "I Want You Back"

(next up, 1.3: Young Michael's "slow down, hoe!" song, "The Love You Save")

Jaydiohead: The Encore

Max Tannone, the DJ behind the Jaydiohead (Jay-Z + Radiohead) mashup that got some buzz late last year, and eventually landed a twitter shout-out from Mr. Carter himself, has released a 5-song encore.

When I unpacked the concept a little bit in January i said:

Jay and Radiohead seem complementary on the surface but are actually antithetical artists in sensibility. Jay in his own words, "is a business-man." "He's not trying to do numbers like The Roots." The Roots, of course, are artists. Maybe the closest thing to a Radiohead of hip hop. Also, the Obama of hip hop bands.

Jay is an artist as well, of course (my word choice is/was lacking); but this also ties in with the DOA critique. Hov's flow, presence exudes a bottom line sensibility that prioritizes business over "artsy" impulses that could potentially expose him, i.e. artist vulnerability is lacking. Mr. Carter plays it smart/safe as an emcee. Which is why I think the *concept* of Jaydiohead strikes more than the actual execution (though as toure and jay attest, there are definitely a couple joints that really cook). Radiohead's ethereal vibe/sensibility is more befitting abstract poetry, not matter-of-fact smooth criminality; hence my RadioNas suggestion.

I haven't gotten to marinate with the 5-song additions to really dig in on those, but I'm glad Max is still experimenting. It's all good-culture in the hood.

Jaydiohead: The Encore

Previously:
5 Fingers on Jaydiohead [TAN]

Dear Mayara Tavares

You opened my eyes yesterday. And not in the way everyone, including myself, who got suckered into O-Bum-a-Gate would imply.

I don't know. I just empathize with your position. And want to apologize for being part of the knee-jerk media monolith (an eensy-weensy small part that sells Snotsicles in the back of the mailroom) reaction.

Because when the picture came out that seemingly captured our President Barack Obama taking a peek at your tush (perhaps elevating you to "ass that changed america" status), some clowns made jokes, some crazies exclaimed how this meant our president was a pedophile, some skeptics skepticized it as a plant by conservatives. Still others wondered why anyone cared either way because guys look at girls behinds all the time.

But no one really wondered about Miss Tavares. No one, so far as i saw, was like: Hello??? Everyone?? Please everybody just shut the f up and think about this young socially conscious and proactive teenager getting to go on what is likely a once in a lifetime trip of her dreams to meet the president -- the new and improved *special* president who represents the face of a new world order -- and how everything is absolutely ruined when your ass ends up circulated around the planet as, uh, the butt of headlines, and now people are slow-frame analyzing your walk, and feeling free to comment on the power rankings of your booty, and every possible reaction you could have except for the one that empathizes with the little girl who just wanted to look nice when she met the president.

so, i don't know... for what it's worth (very little), i was guilty too, but sorry about that.

(uh, and you too, #1 megan fox fan.)

Sincerely,

TAN