A sad end....

By almost any measure, Stephon 'Starbury' Marbury has had an interesting last few years in the NBA. Even if you're not a basketball fan, the story is interesting. His career spans like this: Raised in Coney Island in Brooklyn, one of the most highly recruited point guards of all time, played one year at Georgia Tech, up and down NBA career (highs - 2x All-Star; lows - benched for the first 15 games of the season by the Knicks).
With his talent level, he had all the potential to become a great NBA point guard. Instead, at 32, the words mercurial and enigma, rather than great, come to mind. Almost three years ago, Stephon Marbury came out with a pair of affordable basketball shoes ($14.98) that he and a few other NBA players wore. Great idea and message. Yet, in the same year, he gave this now infamous interview:

Watch these segments in particular:
(1.46-1.55) - Not starting well
(4.30 - 4.51) - uh oh
(7.06-7.19) - no way
(7.27-8.07) - are you serious?
(8.41-9.15) - Unbelievable!



Fast forward a few years. The Celtics took a small risk and signed Marbury to a contract where they could release him at any time. He played as a backup point guard, and became at least serviceable by the end of the playoffs. They offered him the veteran's minimum (1.3 million/yr), and Marbury rejected it to look for more money. Heading into August, he is is still unsigned.
Now comes this. Marbury came up with an idea to post a continuous stream (24 hours a day) of his life for the next 7 days. Not 1 day, but seven. In this stream, he has done everything from freestlye rap, dance with shaving cream all over his face, cry while listening to a Kirk Franklin song, eat vaseline, etc. Here's an example:


(2.08-2.51)

And then there's this: (1.45-2.00)


Some team will sign Stephon Marbury this year. In fact, if I were an NBA GM, I would sign him because of his ustream on www.justin.tv. I'd feel remorse not signing a person whose career path has taken the proverbial u-turn time and time again. If you waded through the segments in these clips, it becomes much more sad than funny. If Marbury doesn't play another minute in the NBA, it will not be the last we hear of him. Something is seriously wrong with him. The sooner the people around him realize that, the better. The warning signs are there for EVERYONE to see.

The new Jay

Hip-hop's mystery man continues to be...well, a mystery. Saw this snippet of a new song a couple days ago called 'Dear Moleskine'. I know the song samples from the same song De La Soul used on their classic Stakes is High album. But with all the extra sounds, Jus Blaze places the beat into the modern age. I cannot wait to hear the full song. Already sounding like my song of the year.

Love

Doing a quick google search of the following popular items, you get these search results:

Jesus: 194,000,000

God: 469,000,000

Food: 742,000,000

Car: 927,000,000

House: 1,190,000,000

And then do search 'love'.

Love: 1,530,000,000

Not to put too much stock into a google search, but I take two things from this seemingly mindless study:
1)People place a higher interest/importance in love than material possessions (cars, houses), the most basic of needs (food) and faith (God)
2)Apart from food, love is the most universal.

Love is so universal, yet so hard to find for so many. Even when love has been discovered and marriage happens, it tends not to work out for Americans.

From divorcerate.org:
The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%

Evidently, you don't become a better lover with experience.

You certainly don't have much a chance in marriage if you weren't meant to be in the first place. Two quick examples: 1) Richard Jefferson (if y'all couldn't contact everyone to let them know the wedding was off and heads showed up, clearly this was no match. Luckily for Jefferson, he gave the group of people who showed up his Visa black card for the night. Now that's a mea culpa if I ever heard one) and 2) this couple that lives below us that argues constantly. They're scheduled to get married next month. We've heard them argue constantly for the past three months (which just so happens to coincide with when we moved in). I have a sneaking suspicion they've been arguing for a lot longer than just the past three months.
Couple #1 got out before the big day, albeit a tad late.
Couple #2 - Well...let's just say their wedding date and arguments are still on and poppin.

About six weeks out from my wedding, I know I have found a true love. Elizabeth is everything you could want in a life partner. Intelligence, motivation, sense of humor, care for others, beauty, etc. We can hang out with friends, run around together in the city, or just sit around watching tv (usually HGTV, and oh how's it growing on me). Whatever it is, I enjoy every moment of it. Before I met Liz, I had been a single guy for all but 2 weeks of my life. It was great and I enjoyed it. But it pales in comparison to being in a long-term relationship. It truly is indescribable. Poets and musicians have penned lyrics about the subject of love for centuries. Very few have captured it, and I won't attempt it with any words of my own. I know this much: I'm infatuated with love and the thought of my life with Liz. Coltrane's "Naima" describes how I feel perfectly.

John Coltrane - "Naima"

Hip-Hop Lives

Just saw the album cover and tracklist for the first official Skyzoo LP, The Salvation (read my previous blog about album titles and covers as they can usually predict a good album; this title/cover looks legit). Definitely one of my favorite rappers of the past few years. If you haven't heard of him, check him out.



Here is the tracklist:
1. The Opener (produced by Cyrus Tha Great)
2. Return Of The Real (produced by Just Blaze)
3. The Beautiful Decay (produced by 9th Wonder)
4. My Interpretation (produced by Best Kept Secret)
5. Popularity (produced by Nottz)
6. Like A Marathon (produced by 9th Wonder)
7. The Shooter’s Soundtrack (produced by Cyrus Tha Great)
8. Under Pressure (produced by 9th Wonder)
9. Penmanship (produced by Black Milk)
10. Dear Whoever (produced by Illmind)
11. For What It’s Worth ((produced by Eric G)
12. The Necessary Evils (produced by Needlz)
13. Easy To Fly featuring Carlitta Durand (produced by 9th Wonder)
14. Bottom Line (produced by Eric G)
15. Metal Hearts (produced by 9th Wonder)
16. Maintain (produced by Nottz)

Production looks crazy: 9th Wonder, Nottz, Needlz, Illmind, Black Milk, Best Kept Secret, Just Blaze!!!

Here is the video trailer for his first single, "The Beautiful Decay." Sick title, sicker song.



While I'm on the subject of Mr. S-K-Y z-o-o, here's one of his old songs, "Way to Go", CLASSIC:

Dr. Henry Louis Gates

Dr. Gates has written and researched extensively on the history of the black experience. For those of us who have any sort of interest in reading up on African and African-American history, Dr. Gates' (along with Kwame Appiah) name is synonomous with the field. Which all brings me to my disappointment. I realize over the past few days that many African-Americans (both the famous and the facebook versions) have expressed their anger over the actions of the Cambridge police force. But why?
As African-Americans, we are always quick to join forces to unite when under duress or times of inequality. We can even go back to two weeks ago when Michael Jackson passed away. For the past ten years, Michael Jackson and the insertion of any combination of 'bleaching' or 'voice' or 'baby held out porch' or 'NeverWILLISENDMYKIDTOTHATLand' has evoked widespread laughter from the audiences of all of America's known and lesser known black comedians. But for the past two weeks, you better dare not say nothing about Mike! I digress.
Last Thursday, Dr. Gates was arrested on suspicion of breaking and entering. That much is true. The rest is subject to interpretation and point of view. According to the police report, Gates intially refused to step out onto the porch when confronted by the police. Furthermore, he refused to show the officers his identification. According to Gates, he followed the directions of the police officers. They did not follow his request to tell him their badge numbers and names. At that point, he became angry.
Now, we will never fully receive the true version of events. This isn't to say that any of the parties is lying. It is to say that the one side (the police) is going to be overzealous in defending their actions. The other side (Gates) is extremely upset over how he has been treated trying to enter his own house. But this much is true. According to both the police report and Dr. Gates himself, he either said, [police report - in response to to being asked to open the door of his house], "Why, because I am a black man in America" or [Gates' version of events - in response to not being told the name and badge number of the first police officer], "You're not responding because I'm a black man, and you're a white officer."
Place me in the minority here (no pun intended), but when you utter any one of those responses to a police officer (or anyone for that matter), the offended person will probably not respond in the most polite of ways. Furthermore, if you berate the officer continually to get him to tell you your name and follow him out of your house, should it really be a surprise when two metal links are placed around your wrists?
What I'm writing isn't to defend the actions of the police force or okay racism or racial profiling in our society. I am writing to convey my disappointment in the actions of our foremost intellectual. Gates is a 5'7, 150 pound, light-skinned black man with glasses and a cane. He is rarely going to racially profiled based on his appearance. And in the case when he is (which is allegedly what happened here), it should be all the more shocking because of his appearance. I am a 6'1, 200 pound, dark-skinned black man with no glasses and a confident walk. I think it's fairly safe to say that I have been the victim of racism and racial profiling much more often in the past 10 years than Gates has. Perhaps this is why I can't side with Dr. Gates on this one. Perhaps because after years of being pulled over while driving (four times) and having to place my bag at the front of the store when I later realized every other person had their bag with them (three times), hearing an obscene number of racist comments and/or epithets thrown in the direction of myself or other brethren in my company, and having numerous other friends had things much worse done to them, I feel it is only right for me to say to Dr. Gates: 1)Please don't make a mountain out of a molehill so that you can now claim to have been the victim of racial profiling and 2)You don't have to embolden your blackness by claiming to have been wronged by the justice system. You're makeup (physical and social) doesn't quite match up.



Comments?

Ain't

As I was watching television today, I came across this commercial:



Due to the power of DVR, I was able to rewind a few times. Now I am fully aware of a few things: 1) Stereotypes of every type (racial, male vs. female, gay/straight, etc.) are ubiquitous in America today, 2) Everyone stereotypes and 3) Stereotypes are necessary. While they used to cause outrage for some and the threat of boycotts (or some combination of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who at this point I am quite comfortable with saying they are causing more harm than help), I would argue now that most stereotypical images in our society cause only the slightest blip in the 'racist radar' (that being the radar manned by the average citizen, not the media). Many stereotypical images aren't even noticed by the average person. Either the producers of the media do a great job of blending the stereotypes or we have become desensitized. I tend to side with the latter.
I won't do a bell hooks and analyze the every minutiae of a 20 second commercial. I won't even say that I'm offended by the "ain't", the dancing by the black dude,the sheer "why are these two seemingly magnetic opposite types of people cooking and hanging out together" factor, the black lady cooking while the white couple is apart from everyone talking by themselves while the other white person (complete w/ extra dark tan) is lounging, the over the top differences in dress (prep galore vs. plain clothes) and everything else. In fact, the commercial and the dude's dance is kinda catchy. Which is the whole point of advertising in the first place, right? So if there is a smidgin of stereotyping in the commercials, I guess what I'm saying is, "Get over it. It's funny."

Or maybe I am just desensitized to it all. If pressured, maybe I'll just say,

'Blame it on the me-me-me-me-me-me-me di a'

Pop references

Pop culture references are what they are: popular. Black celebrities, specifically, seem to have created their own personal lexicon lately. It's almost guaranteed you will hear one of these words whenever a black celebrity is being interviewed...
(not necessarily in any order)

#1 Organic ^
#2 Barack #
#3 "It ain’t trickin if you got it" @
#4 Homage !
#5 Twitter %

Legend
^ This could be my favorite one.
# I swear I even heard a baby say this the other day on the train
@ Can count at least 10 songs off-hand with that phrase in it
! Did it not spark a conversation between someone you know about how it's pronounced?
% Black celebrities have really gotten out of control with this (cue Holly Robinson Peete; you know, Ms. 21 Jump Street)


If you don't know the story, link - http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=granderson/090709

I can only wait with bated breath for the next must-have words to incorporate into my daily conversation.

P.S - By the way, this blog post was 100% organic.