True Urban Legends

i used to wonder about that sade line in smooth operator..."coast to coast, LA to Chicago" and recently, Black Thought (dreamboat interview, husband in a heartbeat if he asked due to lyrical prescence alone) shouted it out on Game Theory..but now i am certain that chic-a-go is the place to be.

if ever i was to abdicate (and there better be a damn good reason) to America, Chicago would be the place that i would go running to.

i applied last year to the school of alternative journalism there, and i would still love the chance to be there. and besides the fact that my favorite virgo writer is regularly commuting for love there (so if she ends up there, there would be strength in candian virgos who love the hop) the rash of talent that's always been constantly streaming out of there (and we're gonna let the r.kelly comments slide right now) bigup recently to jennifer hudson...whoo again.

also, Senator Obama, i'm still for him, i haven't seen anything contrary yet, though a certain neck chopping blogger who i read seems to not want to co-sign...i just saw a clip of the man on the Jon Stewart show, and i have just seen an honest glimpse for a great American hope. i also saw him on Oprah, and he killed it there as well.

speaking of Oprah, folks need to give her a break already, i forgot to mention the fact that my accomplice and i were in line at the grocery store a few weeks back (debating the merits/dangers of veggie "meat") and we saw this crazy claim that Oprah was slapping American kids in the face because she built a school in Africa. come the fuck on, you gonna tell a woman who made her own millions how to spend her money? it ain't like she's spending it on rims, y'all (and an aside to suggest that a) Prince stop rapping and b) if he insists, to please not rap about rims-i don't mean to sound like a hater, but as he's gotten more popular with the release of the last couple of albums, i've retreated back to the Sign o' the Times days and even the 'Freaks on this Side' epoch of the late '90s) anyways, why are folks shitting on Oprah's head for doing something for the most neglected continent, and not calling out the president on his lack of attention to the deteriorating school system and obvious lack of commitment to ensuring that America's youth can even read good.

props to Aaron Mcgruder on stating the obvious that the President is not a smart person, even though CNN presented him as "the Contrarian" and bookended the clip with bullshit, first, leaving in his "blooper" that he came out of like a pro, and with the insulting comment of "come back, we're equal opportunity here, in every sense". 2007 is the year of the Lover, and you heard it here first, i'm starting to be a fan of Americans, though the real secret is that i never really wasn't.

oh, and i just mapquested locations of Trader Joe's in Chicago and there's at least three...and i'm getting another shiver and tear in my eye from jennifer hudson's voice, y'all.

"a thug is a lost man in disguise" damn, common, i wish you didn't have to go sell your soul to the GAP (and for what, you couldn't even help your daddy buy back his house).

anyways, it's been a hot minute since i've been on youtube, so i forgot what gems are there. bigup to Rusty for the Myspace notification on his videos up on there, so i went looking for his empire. search "Mudkids". just do it. you won't be disappointed.

i have to say that i came across some interesting things, including the Nas track i've been meaning to listen to for a hot minute, is it me or are there a few more that "one mic" hanging in the back of the shot? hmmm...then of course, it's all the 'hip hop is dead' co-signing that inevitably comes along with that...funny, i'm reading the new Jeff Chang edited (and earmarking like a fiend) 'Total Chaos' and there's a really great article about a roundtable discussion about multi-culturalism and hip hop moderated by the author of the Village Voice article that became known by the same name and the fact that people have been saying that since Puffy first picked up a mic, so hip hop's officially been dead for almost 12 years. what does that mean? that it never was, and it never went anywhere. tupac's not the only one that lives on, so do yourselves a 2007 Year of the Lovers favour and get over it. stop fighting the living beast. HIP HOP IS NOT DEAD.

and what's with that Luda cat? i can't seem to figure him out. it was Crash that got me thinking, but then he has the chance to show us what he's really like with his blog for Blackbook magazine (cuz we all know that Amy Sedaris took that chance and ran with it) and was really boring. so is he just interesting for pay? then i come across him doing a song about runaway little girls with Mary J. Blige and i'm completely befuddled...

but i'm stuck on Victor Wooten for the moment, can the bass player get some?! and check for miss Melange Lavonne, more personal probings coming in a hot minute...but do the research while you're checking out Rusty and crew. if you're in the NYC area, Eternia's putting on a free show in BK this week...

whew, it's days like today when i am so greatful that i made this move across the country to actually live the life i wanted, which is a high-paced, multi-media, no holds barred charging towards exhuberant festivities known as the massive effort it takes not to have a "real" job. 

after school, i headed to berri-uqam to return "Rent", which had its moments but i suspect that the actual musical was better, i also have to shout out "Volver" and Almodovar for being so dope that i was touched even though i watched it in the original spanish with french subtitles, though i have to ask what it is with penelope's boobs, that's one hell of a push up bra that was employed there. the film just brings a whole new meaning to "she's got her father's eyes".

after that, i did some window shopping up mont-royal, and made it early for my clip on sex toys featuring our very own Joy Toys, and i learned a lot about the advances in things like honey dust (now available in many flavors and no longer administered with an ostrich feather), male masturbatory devices like mock assholes (very, very stretchy, unlike the real thing) and this thing that i swore was a soapdish (guess you're gonna have to watch the mojo, i'll let you know when it comes up) and the technology of the rabbit and various harnesses. the world is not longer about dildo or vibrator, you can now get a vibrating dildo. who knew?!

next up, i had to rest from two hours of sex toy filming to eat something because a girl cannot subsist on lube alone (seriously though, some of that stuff is just not good tasting at all, but the things i do for the camera) and then it was off to the opening of the ice bar on the terrace of "Le Garcon". literally, folks, an entire bar made of glass, and they were serving hot wine, roasted chestnuts, oysters on a halfshell, and champagne.

i stuffed my pocket full of chestnuts and headed over to meet my punk-in (who needs to get that cord to my old celly like last month) because i was late to join him for the symposium on black writers that was being held at mcgill. i met up with an old women's studies department uvic alum, and that was cool, what a small world it is after all.

after all that hoopla, i'm still excited to to the lastest hip hop related works...and i hope certain fine vancity and toronto ladies are coming my way soon....i could be so lucky. 

where the heck have i been? well, i've been around..but lest i be too repetitive, here's the latest.

work related? new interview with my boy Gabriel Teodros at www.shotgunreviews.com in the Lyrical Lounge as per usual...i gotta get at folks about spelling my name right...grrr...it's a big M...but other than that, it's all there so read about your new favorite emcee there.

www.montrealmojo.com for the syndicated version of this here pilot that i envisioned so long ago.

also, coming up will be my daily clip on watchmojo.com, the "firsts" is all me, all the time. check the site daily starting february first for my two cents. currently up now? "bagels", "furniture for your home/apartment", "butterscotch cookies" and a few other food related bits... 

bloggery can be found at myspace, which is now linked through above interview...so the circle gets smaller, just like the circle here in mtl.

recent highlights? ally's show at the MAI, unforgettable African theatre, music, dance in promenade style, i was elbowed by children yesterday and it was grrrreat.

baobab, up and coming magazine montreal based promises some good times on the cross-promoted events amongst which include a trip to the pussy corps and cabaret mado in the same night.

french class? going swimmingly...

elem? well, let's just say i've been falling asleep at movies of my choice, but we are going to see volver (spanish) with french subtitles later so it should be interesting, and he's currently the giggle maker, gifter of a 2007 year of the lover's version of my christmas present...

my personal favorite metro story of the last month or so? did i tell you guys the one about the old man and his lemons yet? anyways, there was a giant stuffed tiger riding solo on the metro last nite in our car (coming back from one hawt mama's fete for her son...) and i posed it to "derange" the folks and got a nice photo of it with the city's most famous blackbird.... 

there's something worth saying

about he who is neither trying nor tested

rather just true

reaching out to prove thoughts of you

in as low a wordcount as possible

i suppose we have to disagree on some level

and how we approach our craft is as good any devil

besides, it appears that we're on the same page in many, many ways

and means, i mean when i stop to think of all the things that usually wouldn't fly

mono and dialogues about and at the opening of arrival gates, when we decide to wait

to dispel misconceptions blissfully accepted by others and perceived by mothers

in a perfectly okay way

at the end of the day

the perfect convergence of conversation is wordless

and "on se parle" in plusiers tongues

every other video...well, maybe not the video part, but dammit, why does it seem that everywhere i turn, always beside me on the metro, in front of me in the library, at the cafe is some patchouli smelling white person with some mangy looking "dreads"? even if you paid a lot of money for them in a salon, it looks wrong. it's not a thing of fashion, and besides that, it doesn't even look good. i don't want you serving my food, i don't want you near my person. that shit is wrong. and what's with the extra shit? why the little wooden beads and that one loooong one that's wrapped in a billion threads? y'all have such pretty faces, man, quit that shit already. they call it a "natural" hairstyle (and for some it actually has a spiritual meaning too) for a reason. i'm just saying, ok? think about it.

whoo. someone shoulda warned me that i was going to be so blowed away. is this what happens when you don't watch American Idol? i haven't seen it since the first season, and i doubted Fantasia too, but then i saw her kick it on the Kanye West tour, damn. i have to admit that i'm a bit confused by the sophomore album, especially by the opening track, was that Andre Patton doing the pop cameo, 'cuz i thought Andre Benjamin had the monopoly on that? but miz Fantasia's talent can definitely come through on a record, and "Two Weeks Notice" is great in terms of wit and aural pleasure, does Missy have a new production company? She (Missy) is also my favorite part of the Lady Sovereign cd (yes, JB, the review is coming, but i'm moving on the teodros shit right now, i'm biased and not even sorry about it).

ok, so back to miss "stone cold fox" commanding the screen attention as the thick and clearly most talented member of the singing cast of Dreamgirls, whoo again. oh, and she's pretty believable as an actress as well, it's just sad that as soon as we got out of the cinema, i see her on magazine covers that boast the secret of her "miracle diet", but it's inevitable...though still sucky.

i guess it really was a stretch to Beyonce to play this role, to have to be in the sidelines for the most part, though who are we kidding, the whole movie was really a visual masturbatory hommage to her face. and did anyone else notice the seamless kicking out of the bandmember when she became the centre of attention marketed and the superimposition/rewriting of the history of the new member named Michelle? ya, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction...

mister Foxx pulls off the role of the hustla turned exec who is hard to hate in the beginning because he's all about getting artists heard and eating, but somewhere along the line gets drunk with power and becomes a tyrant (or was he so all along?) i had dinner with a friend last week and we decided that the motivation for 2007 should be that we need to stop selling eachother out, because the truth is with the history of oppression is that it couldn't be possible without the help of folks on the inside track...just a thought. but it's a thin line between oppressor and oppressed, and this movie (and i presume the musical) brings that all to the forefront. the double edged swords of message songs, owning rights, paying djs for airplay, white appropriation (and the subsequent spreading of the form like syphillis) of black music are all important on-screen issues that are important in a movie of this magnitude.

and a final note about this as being the real film about working hard and sticking to your guns and "haters" if you will (namely folks who try to steal your thunder or take credit for your greatness or keep you warming the bench for the "greater good" of the "team") and that is that the rewards are so much sweeter with your relative experiences of loss if for nothing else but the point of comparison. if you don't believe me, check out LOVEWORK (www.myspace.com/gabrielteodros)

 

i just got gabriel teodros' album LOVEWORK in the mail, and i can't stop bumpin' it...."No Label" especially works on so many levels..bigup homie, i'm so proud of you! this man radiates love and works harder than most emcees, so the title and the project are both extremely apt.

and how great is the Grand Bibliotheque for offering not only the entire catalogue of Warren G albums, but i got my stuff together with their copy of E-40's Loyalty and Betrayal (can someone please come "lace me up"?) and i smiled at the innovator of vocabulary and figuratively poured out a lil' liquor for my man Camobear who is leaving the MTL for Toronto tomorrow, sniff...rock your stunna shades in the Dot and think of me...but the album is great (relative, ok?) for its encompassing Ice Cube, Mack 10, 2 $hort, Mystikal, and reminding us to ask the question, where is Suga T? As an aside, I also re-visited Ghostface's cannon, where were you when you first heard "Camay"? just another foolish fool in love....

in other west coast news, the new Snoop Dogg is pretty solid, for a Snoop Dogg record (you have to factor in all the usual nonsense that comes along with Snoop like "I wanna fuck you"...uh huh. as if i wasn't impressed with Akon before, i thought he was locked up or some shit, he didn't look shackled at the American Music Awards with the strippers and money, but oh wait, what am i saying? those are the trappings of being more imprisoned than ever...and Imagine a cut D'angelo again singing the hook on the track that's "so ungangsta" in Snoop's opinion, but he included it anyways, so should we presume that the Dogg's trying to get the neo-soul audience? beats, beats, beats, and consistantly dope (none of that No Limit bullshit here..uuuhhh...'member that?) a few eyebrows were raised at the listening station (my two) when he incorporated the "royal penis" skit from Coming to America and R.Kelly, i mean, am i the only one who's thinking, "black, white, puerto rican, if you freakin', kids you're a sick bastard period"? i'm saying...and yes, i previewed the album at the HMV post, not just 'cuz i'm broke, but because i still haven't been moved to purchase any Snoop album since Doggystyle, and even then i just taped it from my friends. give me a break, i was 14. but in any club in Victoria or on Granville Street in Vancouver on any given day, they will still be playing "What's My Name" and "Ain't No Fun", somebody give Nate Dogg a lifetime achievement award already....