A Dirty Mind

As I sit here and listen to Prince's 26th studio album Planet Earth, it makes me realize why I have been a fan of his for almost 3 decades now. The man is just dripping with talent, sometimes too much to comprehend. Some people think he is no longer relevant in today's music industry of one hit wonders, boy bands and manufactured music, but I say that is total nonsense. He may not have the radio play and albums sales of the 80's, but no one can touch him as far as stage performance goes..no one.

This brings me to the topic of this blog, Dirty Mind. I was a mere lad when I came across this album at the local record store where I grew up. The album cover alone was bad enough to were my mother said I couldn't get it. But, I went ahead on my own and purchased it, but never told her that I did. Realize, this album came out in 1981 and was the very first cd in the music industry to receive a Parental Advisory sticker. I played it several times and although I did enjoy it, I didn't actually realize what I was listening to....a groundbreaking masterpiece.

Flash forward years later and several Prince albums later, I was home one night and decided to dust off the cd and play it again. It had been a while since I had listened to the entire cd. I was completely floored at what I heard coming from my speakers. How could this album be from 1980? It was truly groundbreaking, it had elements of funk, new wave, rock and pop. But how could an album that was only 8 tracks and 30 minutes long accomplish this? One word, Prince. Every instrument, every vocal and every lyric was Prince, unprecedented at the time. His touring band was made up of different races and women, another first for that time period. As I continued to listen to this album, I thought to myself, I can't be the only one realizing the greatness of this album. So, I searched the web and found many critics agreed with my opinion. Rolling Stone magazine named it one of the 500 best albums of all time. Here is a review from AllMusic.com that pretty much sums up this album:

Neither For You nor Prince was adequate preparation for the full-blown masterpiece of Prince's third album, Dirty Mind. Recorded in his home studio, with Prince playing nearly every instrument, Dirty Mind is a stunning, audacious amalgam of funk, new wave, R&B, and pop, fueled by grinningly salacious sex and the desire to shock. Where other pop musicians suggested sex in lewd double-entendres, Prince left nothing to hide — before its release, no other rock or funk record was ever quite as explicit as Dirty Mind, with its gleeful tales of oral sex, threesomes, and even incest. Certainly, it opened the doors for countless sexually explicit albums, but to reduce its impact to mere profanity is too reductive — the music of Dirty Mind is as shocking as its graphic language, bending styles and breaking rules with little regard for fixed genres. Basing the album on a harder, rock-oriented beat more than before, Prince tries everything — there's pure new wave pop ("When You Were Mine"), soulful crooning ("Gotta Broken Heart Again"), robotic funk ("Dirty Mind"), rock & roll ("Sister"), sultry funk ("Head," "Do It All Night"), and relentless dance jams ("Uptown," "Partyup"), all in the space of half an hour. It's a breathtaking, visionary album, and its fusion of synthesizers, rock rhythms, and funk set the style for much of the urban soul and funk of the early '80s.

That review right there sums it up. To give you even a better taste of this album, here is the video of the title cut:



So, if you are a Prince fan and don't own this album, shame on you! If you are not a Prince fan or want to get into Prince, this is the first album to pick up. This is the one that showed the world exactly what was about to hit it, the artist known as Prince.

Media whore??

When I was a young man growing up, my mother always taught me to be proud of who I am and where I came from. I was also taught not only to embrace my culture and heritage, but to learn and embrace the cultures of others, making me a more diverse and affluent individual. One person my mother would always bring up as an excellent example of this kind of individual was Jesse Jackson. Now granted, she also was a great admirer of Martin Luther King, Jr and was actually at the march on Washington in 1963. As well all know, King was gunned down in his prime, before he could finish the work he was put on this earth to do. So, with King gone, she took a notice of Jesse Jackson and constantly told me what a great man he was and what great work lies ahead for him. This was an exciting time, to see someone like me on television, debating , representing himself as a proud black man. But, as I became older, I started to notice that it seemed to me that he began to change...yes, he was still one of our most valued leaders in taking up the black cause, but to me it seemed like it was more for him than us.

Jump forward to today and the reason I am writing this post. I happened to be on YouTube as always, looking for something and came across some Jackson press conferences and speeches. It seems that Jesse has become a media whore. What makes this so unsetteling to me is that he has become a media whore ONLY when it is something that is major and will get him some serious tv time. Let's look at a couple of recent examples:


1) The shock jock Don Imus had made a comment about a women's basketball team. Calling them "nappy headed hos" while on the air. Now, when I first heard this, yea it wasn't in good taste, but he is a shock jock, duh. Jesse took it upon himself to not only call for the firing of Don Imus, but began picketing outside the studio were he did his show and going on every televison and news program that would have him on. Did Imus deserved to be fired? Not my call, that was up to his bosses, but I think Jesse made the situation much bigger than it needed to be. There is a columnist for the Kansas City Star named Jason Whitlock, who also happens to be black and totally agrees with what I am saying here. He said it best by saying the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are a couple of opportunists. Look at this clip:



2)The second situation that he put himself in was the Michael Richards issue. Mr. Richards used the "N" word while at a comedy club in Los Angeles. I am in agreement with everyone who says that the "N" word should not be used by anyone, not even black people. But yet, here comes Jesse with his super cape..jumping on the bandwagon, protesting Richards, the release of a Seinfeld season dvd set. Here is a clip of Richards on Jesse's radio show:



All I am saying is that if you are going to call yourself a leader and represent the common black man, white man, yellow man, make sure you are doing it for the RIGHT reasons and not for personal gain. What has his Rainbow Push Coalition actually done? What the hell does Jesse do for a living? Can anyone tell me???

Say what you mean...mean what you say!

Boy, I am on a roll this week. Got alot of stuff on my mind. Today's blog is going to center around political correctness. I can't stand it! This country has become too PC and it's really starting to drive me nuts. People are scared to say what is really on their minds in order not to offend someone. Fuck that noise! Say what you mean, mean what you say. You can't make everyone happy and if you are trying, you will fail. Case in point, I was at a club this past weekend with some friends and struck up a conversation with a very attractive looking female. She happened to have a friend with her that in my opinion, was not that attractive, but she was nice. So the attractive friend and I are talking and during our conversation I find out that she has a boyfriend, good for her. No harm, no foul on my end. She then proceeds to try to set me up with her friend and I kindly say that I am not interested. She asks me why with a how dare I not want to talk to her friend attitude, to which I reply, I don't think she's attractive. No sooner did I finish saying that, this girl starts getting all hissy with me and telling me I don't look that good, blah blah blah. First of all, I have never and will never go around thinking I am the best looking person out there, I am far from that..but I think I am decent enough to were I can make a statement like I did about her friend. So, she asks me why I just came out and said that...I told her, why lie? Why beat around the bush? Tell the truth, it will save you a bunch of drama in the long run.

So then she hit me with the, beauty is measured by the person inside not outside crap. What's that saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but ugly goes straight to the bone?? More PC bullshit.

That's my point, don't sugarcoat anything, but don't be overly mean either. People get offended if you call someone retarded, that's the word that I grew up on, it wasn't meant to be cruel, just a fact. Now they are mentally challenged. All I know is that the "mentally retarded" kids went to a different classroom and got out early, just in case. Don't call me black anymore, call me African-American. What the fuck does that mean? I am African, hm, the last time I checked my roots go no further than Maryland and don't give me that go to Africa and find your roots shit. I'll be damned if I am gonna fly on a plane for 14 hours or whatever just to find out that my great times 10 grandfather was a tribal leader, wow, that's nice but it isn't helping me here. If some of us black folk went to Africa, we'd be back on the plane in a minute. As soon as we found out they don't have any KFCs or kool-aid over there, we'd be homesick. Plus,that's a long flight you guys. Imagine the slaves on the boats coming to American. That boat ride was so long, I think there are still slaves on ships on there way to America right now!

People are too afraid of someone not liking them, wanting to appease everyone. Screw that, I live for just the opposite. I say what is on my mind, whether you like it or not. Whether you will be my friend or not, I dont' care. Can't call someone dumb, they are educationally challenged, no, you're dumb. Nope, he isn't a dirty person, he is just hygiene challenged. Whatever happened to people just being filthy or crazy or just plain stupid? Can we go back to the old days when I was growing up. Stop trying to kiss everyone's butt and take a stand.....

you may like yourself more when you do. :)

Pardon my rambling, it probably doesn't make any sense! LOL!

Can the Lord save you in a theatre?

Apparently the Lord can and I wasn't aware of this. Let me start from the beginning. Saturday night I went out with my good friend Kevin to meet up with some friends at a club called UltraBar. One of the people in the group was Jen, who is becoming a good friend of mine. Well, we are all drinking having a good time and Jen is kind enough to tell us on several occasions that night that she went shooting earlier in the day. Very impressive and also a bit frightening..lol. Anyway, during our conversation I asked if she had seen the movie 1408 yet because I knew she wanted to see it as well as I did. So, we made arrangements to go see it the next day.

Jen sent me a text at 10am the next morning to meet up with her at the 4:05 showing of 1408 at Potomac Yards 16. Cool..everything is lovely. So, I get there and purchase the tickets. On a side note, is it me or has the price of movie tickets just become insane??

So, Jen shows up and immediately lets me know that it's freaking hot outside! LOL! Hell yea it was hot outside. We get into the theatre, find a seat and prepare to watch a movie we both had been looking forward to. The previews start which really didn't do anything for me. Some western with Russel Crowe, a very cool looking movie with Elisa Cuthbert and the new Lindsay Lohan movie. In the preview of that movie, she was dancing as a stripper, hmm..gonna have to pass on that one. So the movie begins and everything is lovely, starts out nice and then it happened. 30 minutes into the movie a, how can I put this, rather plump black couple sit right behind us. The man behind me, the woman behind Jen. The woman is carrying what looks like a white hefty garbage bag with a bunch of food in it. We were the lucky ones to hear the crinkling and cracking of such bag and the bags of food they were consuming. Both Jen and I were also lucky enough to be on the receiving end of many kicks to the back of our chairs because the couple could barely fit in to seats and aisle. Back to the flick, it is very entertaining and moving along at a nice pace, when the first gotcha moment happens, the black woman let's out a scream that I swear woke up 2pac and Biggie. Then she did something I'd had never heard before at a theatre, she asked for the Lord to help her. Oh Lord, Jesus! What the fuck??? Not only did this happen 3 more times, but their constant talking during the movie didn't help either. Each time there was a gotcha moment, she put the Lord on standby, what is up with that??

Anyway, if you want to see a well acted and suspenseful movie, go see 1408. John Cusack does an amazing job in the lead role. But, if you want to see the movie and not worry about a ear damaging Jabba the Hut scream, go to a white theatre, they are much more quiet! LOL!!

White Boy Can Dance!!

There is an epidemic in this country. White kids listening to rap, watching rap videos and thinking they can dance and rap. Before you say it, no I am not a racist, I am a realist. Reality is telling me I need to stop these kids from making fools of themselves. Ladies, if this guy came up to you at a club, would you dance with him?? LOL!

Roid Rage?

Roid rage? Unless you have been living under a rock, you are aware of the tragedy involving WWE wrestler Chris Benoit and his family. If you haven't heard, the short version of the story is that Chris Benoit was scheduled for several appearances over last weekend and contacted WWE officials to tell them basically he couldn't make the events because his wife and son were sick. He sent several very strange text messages to 2 WWE officials which led them to contact the autorities to go investigate what was happening at Chris Beniot's home. The text messages were strange to say the least. Here are the first 2 messages he sent:

* 3:53 AM - Chris Benoit’s cell phone: “My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayeteville Georgia. 30215″

* 3:53 AM - Chris Benoit’s cell phone: “The dogs are in the enclosed pool area. Garage side door is open.”

Now if that isn't a hint and a half for your ass that something is definitely up, I don't know what is. When the people do finally arrive at the residence, they find Nancy Benoit tied at the hands and feet and a cord around her neck were she had been strangled. Beside her was a bible. Upstairs they find his 7 year old son Daniel dead with a bible beside him. He had been smothered with a pillow. Finally, they found Chris Benoit in his gym hanging. A murder/suicide. This sent shockwaves through the wrestling community. What would cause a man who was so well respected in his profession to just lose it and commit this horrible act? According to police, Mr. Benoit killed his wife sometime Friday night, then the next morning killed his son and finally commited suicide on Sunday.

Now granted, none of us were there when this all took place so no one REALLY knows what happened. But the first thing I started reading and hearing about was roid rage. So what exactly is roid rage? I kind of had an idea, but did some checking around and found this simple answer:

Roid rage, in many ways, I would characterize as a form of loss of impulse control. It provokes overreactions via a stimulus that normally doesn't produce such a severe reaction.
So say somebody says something to you that you don't like. You may put your fist through a wall. The impulse is there; it's overreaction. Forget the roid, for the moment. It's a rage ... and that rage is precipitated by the brain being exposed to anabolic steroids.

Now this is by no means the definitive definition of roid rage, but you get the point. An impulse, severe overreaction. So, here is my problem with the roid rage theory. If that was the case, wouldn't he have killed his entire family right then and there without any thought? I mean, this man tied up and strangled his wife, then laid a bible right next to her. Waited several hours later and then smothered his son. Then the following day decided to take his own life. Doesn't that seem to be a bit more on the pre-meditated side? Am I way off base with this one? There is going to be nothing but speculation as to what really happened..did steroids have anything to do with this horrible crime. Now, for anyone to deny that Chris used steroids is crazy. I have been a fan of wrestling for over 30 years and was quite aware of steroid use in the WWE. That is one reason the WWE calls itself "Sports Entertainment" instead of a regular sport. That way it is not governed under certain rules that regular sports have to follow. In recent years several wrestlers have died and others have tested positive for steroid use. The WWE has now created the Wellness Program which does not tolerate the use of steroids and will punish anyone in violation...yea right. As long as these guys are making money for the business, they will always have a way around the Wellness program.

Bottom line, make no mistake about it, this is a horrible tragedy, but I think it has to do with a man who was deeply disturbed emotionally and not in a fit of roid rage. What do you guys think?

In the end, the WWE will go on and continue to entertain the thousands of fans it does every night. Maybe this incident will make the WWE take a hard look at not only drugs their wrestlers are taking/using, but also the emotional well being of these individuals. Although they are placed on pedestals to many, they are still human.