Vincent Price's Voice Freaks Me Out

I'm almost back from the dead.  Finally finished restructuring my draft.  I have a gang of emails to write and apologies to make.  For the moment, I'm just waiting for word on my uncle's latest surgery.  Still, I've been hella zen throughout.  On the real, I think I've been changed these last few months.  I got a story to tell--for real.  Maybe I'll tell you one day.

Anyway, just posting this video.  I can't watch it.  It still freaks me the fuck out.

Happy Halloween.  I need nahlaters (Now and Laters) and fun size Snickers, please.

Kiss and Tell: Losing Isiah

Johnson, left, and Thomas exchanging kisses before a game during the 1989 NBA Finals (Andrew Bernstein/Getty Images)

Those of us who lament the current incarnation of the NBA despite Lebron James' and Chris Paul's (he's soooo cute -- no hetero) greatness do so because we remember the golden age of the league.  (Are you looking for Kobe love?  You won't get that here.  Move along.)  Those of us born in the 80s were raised on the good and nutritiously entertaining similac of dope hip hop and an NBA that was absolutely faaaaaantastic.  Part of what made the mid-80s professional basketball such a renaissance was the rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, a contentious pairing that began during the championship game of the 1979 NCAA men's basketball tournament, where Magic's Michigan State Spartans beat Bird and the Indiana State Sycamores.  Thirty years after the Bird or Magic debate began, the former adversaries, now friends, have co-written a book with the help of former Boston Globe sports columnist Jackie Macmullan.  Though the book won't be on shelves until November 4, last week the sports world took a brief break from obsessing over football to report on some of the juicier content.

War Chant

My Bob Marley marathons are never planned.  Usually something random happens, and the next thing I know, I can't do anything but listen to RNM for six weeks straight.  I think I might be having one of those moments.  The other day, N and I were rolling through the city in Octavia (my responsible-looking Honda Civic), and she--in an effort not to use my iPod to salve our musical wounds--put in Babylon by Bus after Van Hunt finished.  I swear, every time I hear "War/No More Trouble" I want to stop whatever I'm doing and start my own revolution--or at least begin televising it.  I love the medley so much that I forget that for a long time my ear had been trained to hear "Rat Race" after "War."  That's called listening to Rastaman Vibration your entire junior year of college.

New dissertation distraction: compile a "This is Revolution" playlist.  

The message is in the music.

Oh, and the I Threes are awesome.  F'real, who's cooler than they are?

Today in Post-Race History: Random Acts of Racism and the Rest of my Beautiful Day

The rose we remember; the thorns we forget. -- Sade

Heads: I haven't been to the grocery store in weeks.  Though I love and highly recommend the Caesar the Day chicken wraps from The Goddess and the Grocer, I'm growing tired of smashing on them.  The price tag is steep.  Besides, the store is located across the street from Dairy Queen, and I just don't have enough will power not to O.D. on Blizzards.   I was out of Trader Joe's O's and rice milk, anyway.  I gotta have my O's.  So yesterday, I went ahead and made the schlep for vittles. 

Today in Post-Race History: No Homo

Remember last year when all the white gay people were mad at black people because Prop 8 passed in California?  Well, it wasn't a fluke.  We're still their whipping boys (er, bois?).  Last week, my internet boyfriend AC (again, the only man I'd ever seriously consider marrying), sent me a link of the above video, where Current TV contributor, Bryan Safi learns us about the phrase "No Homo."   Most of the commenters loved this piece and deemed it "genius."  Me?  Not so much.

Empires

As I was writing my earlier post about BHO winning the Nobel, Lamya's "Empires" crept into my head.  I used to listen to Lamya's debut album, Learning from Falling a lot during my first year in graduate school.  It wasn't that great of an album, but for whatever reason it spoke to me and I enjoyed it.  I was especially drawn to her lyrics, which I thought emanated from a true wordsmith; I'd listen to the single mix of "Black Mona Lisa" ad nauseum.   (The sky above me is silent and empty/I am an island/A little freak of melancholy/But these hands/They unbead your rosary of wisdom/Bewitched, spellbound I'm found/And returned from superstition/You are my martyr/I'm a vestige of a revolution/My alma, my mater/And now I can let go)

Today in Post-Race History: Ignoble Nobels

Here's your daily dose of hate-filled pessimism.


Dear Vh1, Guess who's having the best year ever.  Hope.  That's right, Hope--a four-letter word I find no reason to use unless it's accompanied by a "-less."  Yet, in retrospect, I totally should've kept the little bit of Hope stock I had.  Instead, I panicked when the economy kissed it* and sold it to David Axelrod for a Home Run Inn Pizza coupon and a used copy of The Jordan Rules.  Yep.  I choked, just like my fantasy football team did this week.  (Gargamel's Revenge is now 4-1.)  Hope is not intangible.  Hope is priceless.  Hope is worth more than the American dollar multiplied by GM stock.  Hope is currency.  Hope can e-race you.  Hope can garner you more votes than your opponents.  Hope will win you Nobels.

(kissed it = committed suicide)

She's Gotta Have it: What, Exactly, is "Rape Rape"?

I'm still on IR trying to get this chapter draft to semi-embarrassing level.  (Which, frankly, would be a pleasant surprise to my committee since, you know, I rarely have anything to show them--and when I do it's some incoherent mess about black people and geography. Yes, I mortify the race with every word I type.) So, I have to give you a video you've probably already seen.

Forget Me Not

What can I say?  I love this song.  And frankly, how can you not love Shingai Shoniwa?

That is all.