Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Summer Sessions: Recognize Freestyle


Obviously, Summer Sessions would not be complete without a DJ Premier beat. Week 11 is over that glorious LOX instrumental. You better recognize...


J. Brown - Recognize Freestyle

Friday, August 21, 2009

Summer Sessions: Beatbox


Week 10 got that old, freestyle-in-the-park feel to it, know what I mean? I wanted to bring it back to that classic hip-hop sound. And of course, dope lyrics as usual. Only a few weeks left...


J. Brown - Beatbox

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Football, Looks & Single Ladies

Alright, the laziness has ceased... back to the regularly scheduled program.

For my return to blogcasting, I discuss two quarterbacks who made their way back into the NFL: Michael Vick and Brett Favre. I give my outlook on both situations.

Also, I ask for some feedback to answer a question I've been asking myself: How much do your looks dictate the looks of those that you date? And is there really such thing as someone being "out of your league"?

Lastly, I touch on women who aren't married; is there really such thing as a happy, single woman?


Friday, August 14, 2009

Summer Sessions: Contradictions (Why)


I know sometimes I don't make any sense. Well, this is me trying to make sense of the lack of sense I sometimes make. Make sense?

Week 9.


J. Brown - Contradictions (Why)

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Coaches, Abortions & High Horses


Greetings, RLGL listeners/readers. I decided to write again this week, as you can tell by the length of this post. Some of you are happy to see me writing, others prefer the blogcasts. Quite frankly, your opinion is irrelevant to me at this point in time, especially since the overall feedback has been underwhelming for the past few weeks. If you want me to take your preferences into consideration, you'd best be able to get my attention by actually sending me some suggestions. Anyway...

I figured I'd touch on this Rick Pitino thing. For those that don't know who that is, Rick Pitino is one of the most popular coaches in college basketball. He became popular back in 1987 when he took the pathetic Providence Friars to the Final Four. Since then, he's taken three separate teams to the Final Four, becoming the first NCAA coach
ever to do so. Currently, he coaches at the University of Louisville.

OK, now that you know his background, here's the actual story: Six years ago, Pitino was at a restaurant when some woman approached him and starting gushing about how awesome he was. After the restaurant cleared out, the owner left Pitino the key, and he had sex with this woman in the empty restaurant. Classy? I thought so. As you could have guessed, he wasn't wearing a rubber, and she ended up getting pregnant.
As you also could have guessed, Pitino is a married man. After he found out that she was pregnant, he met up with this woman at one of his assistant coaches' house to, you know, get rid of the problem. (In the irony of all ironies, the woman actually ended up marrying Pitino's assistant coach six months after meeting him that day. Needless to say, they are currently estranged and going through a divorce.)

After they agreed that there was no way she would be having his baby, Pitino agreed to pay her for an abortion. He gave her $3,000, which sounds exorbitant to me. Aren't abortions like $300? I don't know if they charged her so much because she had no health insurance, but I'm under the impression that he just hit her off with the extra $2,700 as comp for the restaurant sex.

In any event, the same woman, who already had four children of her own, decided to extort him to keep their little secret intact. As we all know, college basketball coaches get paid some pretty healthy checks (half of which is probably spent on hair products). So she started asking him for cars, house payments, and college tuition for the four kids she already had. He refused to pay her, and she decided to accuse him of rape. Obviously, anyone would much rather be an adulterer than a rapist, so Pitino finally came out and admitted what actually happened.

Now that the truth has come to light, Pitino has been under all sorts of scrutiny, and the question has been raised of whether or not he should retain his coaching job. Here's my thing: When did we all become so righteous in this country? Obviously, cheating on your wife with a stranger isn't a commendable thing to do. But what does it have to do with coaching basketball?

Pitino released a public apology (as expected), and the president of University of Louisville said today that Pitino was still "our guy." I just wonder where everyone comes off having an opinion about his sexual escapades. I was never a part of the camp that believed that all public figures are supposed to be role models. Quite frankly, the only person who should be concerned about his infidelity is his wife. Why should the fans or the journalists or even the players care about who he's sleeping with? The only thing we should be concerned with is whether or not he's doing a good coaching job. If it doesn't affect his coaching, than we have no reason to care or voice our opinions.

It's kinda like that whole Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky thing. The President copped some dome in the Oral... umm, Oval Office and skeeted on Lewinsky's dress. Big deal. JFK was probably doing all kinds of unmentionable things to Marilyn Monroe back in the day, and no one cared about that. But Clinton fingers some intern with a cigar, and we want to impeach him? (Actually, I don't even think that's called fingering anymore... cigaring??) So far as I'm concerned, that doesn't interfere with his ability to run the country. To be honest, it might have helped him to release some stress and perform his job better, because we all know Hillary wasn't putting out.

All I'm saying is that not all public figures are supposed to be role models. They're just regular people. If their personal activities don't affect their performance, we have no reason to care. Get off your high horse, America.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Summer Sessions: Duckmouth


For Week 8, I'm trying something a little different...

I bet you never heard nothing like this before. Shouts to FAMU and all the other HBCU marching bands.


J. Brown - Duckmouth

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Gates, Guns & Goons


I know I don't usually do this. In fact, I haven't done this ever in the history of this blog. But after almost a year of blogcasts, freestyles and Throwbacks, I decided to actually write this time around. I was too lazy to record anything this week, which is ironic, because my original reasoning behind blogcasting instead of blogging was because it was easier for me to get my thoughts out verbally. Oh well...

First off, let's touch on this Henry Louis Gates thing. I won't pretend like I know all the details, and I'm much too lazy to actually do the research. But from what I understand, this black professor couldn't get his front door open and was forced to break into his own house. His neighbor saw what was going on and called the cops on him. The cops showed up, he spazzed out, they arrested him for disorderly conduct. Now a bunch of black people are up in arms because they feel like he was a victim of racial prejudice.

Here's the thing, though... He wasn't arrested for breaking and entering. He was arrested for disorderly conduct. Which means two things: Number one, he saw cops come to his house to ask him about why he had to break in, and he lost it. We don't know what the conversation between him and the officers was. All we know is that he was arrested, and subsequently released. Numero dos, if his neighbor saw him trying to break into the house, should they not have called the cops? Furthermore, should the cops not have arrested him if he was truly out of line?

I, unlike other black folk, don't believe in using the race card to explain everything. Sometimes bad things happen to black people. And a lot of times it's on account of them acting ignorant. A part of me feels like as soon as he saw the cops show up to his house, he probably went all Malcolm X on them and felt like he was being a victim. When, in fact, they were simply responding to a domestic call. I don't know if the arrest was racially motivated. Not saying that it wasn't, but why is everyone so quick to assume that it was? We as black people need to look at all the facts instead of always assuming race is the deciding factor. Can we smarten up, please?

As a New York native, I know as much as anyone else that police brutality exists. And I also understand that a lot of cops make judgment calls on the basis of race. I'd even go so far as to say that I don't trust most police officers. But I don't think that every time a black person gets arrested, it's simply because they're black.

You know, the whole topic actually reminds me of the whole "Free (insert rapper's name)" movement that started a few years ago. From Gucci Mane to Pimp C to Tony Yayo, we always seem so concerned with making sure our rap brethren are released from prison. However, most of these rappers deserve to be in jail for doing stupid things. Take T.I. for example, who had Army guns in his basement like he was getting ready to go to Iraq. Or the aforementioned Pimp C, who actually pulled a gun on a woman in the middle of a shopping mall. Why would we wear t-shirts saying that we should free these people? Is it simply because they're black that we assume they can do no wrong?

Racial politics is a touchy subject that needs to be approached with caution. We need to look at the facts of a situation objectively without first asking, "Wait...Was he black?" That's unhealthy, and above all, it gives a lot of idiots the line of thinking that no matter what they do, it's always the white man's fault. A lot of people think that having a black President gives us the right to act however we want, because "now white people have to respect us." In actuality, Obama's inauguration has done nothing more than give us added responsibility. We have to understand that because of the President's position, everything we as a people do will be further scrutinized. Obama's presidency isn't a free pass; it's really a challenge.