On Frank Ocean, and Why 'Gay' Shouldn't Even Matter Anymore

I know I wasn't the only near-sighted person to almost have a seizure trying to read this.

BBQ's aren't my really forte. You can invite me to a barbecue, though. I might go. But most likely I'll think about going, and either go hang out with my closest friends or bury myself in books and reruns of Chopped. It's not that I don't enjoy the prospect of grilling food with family, friends, and an assortment of complete strangers. It's that small talk gets boring. 'Where are you working?' 'How's your mom?' 'Are you going back to school?' 'How about those Yankees?' 'You see what Mitt Romney did last week?' 'What was Evelyn thinking on last week's episode?' There are always some topics that get breached constantly in loose small talk.

This Independence Day, among the hordes of hamburger-fancying twenty-somethings, the subject at hand was Frank Ocean's heartfelt message to accompany his upcoming album Channel Orange. There were toasts to Frank's liberation, to his prowess as an artist, and to the open-mindedness of Odd Future for accepting his status. Frank Ocean was the man of the hour everywhere without being anywhere.

For a loose interpreter wary of Frank's (in addition to OF as a whole) knack for picking archaic language and rosy prose over strict meaning, such as myself, I found everyone taking Frank's letter as a coming out with mixed feelings. Nowhere in the letter did the OF crooner say the word gay, bisexual, or anything related to sexual orientation. He just said he loved a man. I think in this day and age, no thanks to Anderson Cooper, everyone is jumping to find a revolutionary idol of sorts: someone who, for them, can represent everything positive about a marginalized group and serve of a bastion of the group's accomplishment within the greater majority. The letter gave hope and shouting rights to fighters of sexual liberty. That it happened on Independence Day only served to amplify the fact that a post-sexual society is on the horizon, but not here yet.

One of the things I ponder a lot is whether we're even really in a post-racial society. Yeah, my President is black and my Lambo is blue. But since the man's taken office, there's been more working against him than for him. Birthers, Tea Partiers, Mitt Romney, and Bible Belters will say that nothing about their hatred for Barry O has to do with race, but the undercurrent is too great to ignore. I think as long as the construct of race still exists in that it can be used as a basis for anything other than physical identification, we're not in a post-racial society. In the same way, as long as society keeps mentioning 'gay' or 'straight' or 'bisexual' or 'bath salt users' as a delineation, instead of a trait of the greater person, we're not past sexual preference as an issue.

It's like the old saying, 'It's not what they call you, it's what you answer to.' Frank Ocean's sexuality shouldn't even be an issue. If there wasn't a name for a sexual preference or any stigma attached to it, would it be an issue? In this day and age, where flashes in the pan are the norm, it suffices to say that there'll be another celebrity to come out of the closet and everyone will laud their bravery at barbecues and in between meetings and at happy hours. It will become the small talk of that week, and that person's status will be debated hotly because sexual preference still is a taboo topic. Not in a post-sexual society.

In this post-sexual society I imagine, your spouse will be your spouse, male or female. People won't shudder at two fathers, and there won't be a 'down low'. The words 'transgender' and 'transexual' won't mean anything anymore. Two women utilizing in vitro fertilization will be widely accepted. Post-sexual society will affect more than sexual preference, too. No one will give a damn about abortions, or womb rights, or being pro-life or pro-choice. Just like the M and F you cross out on forms, anything related to sex will become an afterthought. If we don't even mention it, it will cease to be important. It might even become one of those 'don't touch' topics like politics or religion that polite, civilized people scoff at in public (that's another post in and of itself) and hold strong opinions about behind closed doors. Who knows? The only sure thing is that Frank Ocean loved a man. Any person with a father, brother, uncle, cousin, mentor, or friend can say the same. I think that's the first step to sexuality not mattering: letting love be, regardless of who or what the target is. Lord knows we loved Frank Ocean's music before.

Dear Readers

Replace the pencil with my computer, and you have my mind state for the past six months...

Fancy being back, isn't it? The last post published on Dear Whoever was almost six months ago. Since then, a lot of things have changed in my life, some for the better and some for the worse. Regardless, this blog was one of the things that had to suffer. Between job searching, starting projects, ending projects, reviving some relationships and ending others, existential crises, and reading obsessively, I somehow lost that fire to write everyday. It's a sad feeling. People ask you about your blog, and you have to come up with some half-assed answer or tell them you've got 'something in the works' (I actually do have something in the works, but that's another post). You try to lift the pen or type a few words, and everything sounds stupid. You wonder why you even started writing the blog in the first place.

Something changed to make me take this hiatus. I can't quite put my finger on what it was, but recently some small part of me said 'Ev, quit grab-assing and just write whatever your feel like'. I'd realized that the problem wasn't that my writing bug had gone, but that I was trying. Dear Whoever started out as a collection of rants about music, sports, sneaker culture, technology, politics, and whatever else I felt necessary. As the site grew, I found myself adhering to too stringent of a formula for posts. It started to get mechanical. After a while I had trouble coming up with content, because the letter format only lends itself to certain kinds of writing. You can't write a letter for everything, especially analytical letters with the intention of entertaining and informing. To borrow the words of one of my best friends, I turned into a professional hater, rather than an honest critic. My writing suffered because it was stifled and overly angry.

So here we are, readers. Dear Whoever is still alive, albeit a few changes. First, I'm going to be writing less letters. The Dear Whoever moniker will stay, but there'll be a lot more articles/essays/whatever-you-wanna-call-ems. Like I said, the letter format was constricting. Secondly, I won't post every day like when I started. The pressure to throw something up can kill your creativity and make my passion of writing seem too much like a job. Why post something if you know it isn't your best work? Why turn something you love into a chore? If it's no fun or uninteresting for me to write, I can only imagine how much it could've sucked to read.

If there's one thing I hope you have or will learn about me through my writing, it's that I'm a person who thrives when he loves what he's doing. I think that's what threw me off my game more than anything: the love was missing. Whether it took a six-month sabbatical, or I had some growing to do before I could love my writing again is a mystery to me. Either way, it feels good to hit that 'Publish' button again. The circumstances that brought me to this point were no coincidence, and I thank God for bringing me back full circle. That said, readers, I pray you'll support Dear Whoever like you did for the past three years. Aside from writing as an outlet, I write for my words to be read. If this is your first time reading, enjoy. If you're a longtime reader, welcome back. I do this for y'all! It's gonna be a hot summer! You know what it is! ... never mind. Let's get back to the writing...

On Condescension, Prognostication & The Educational Gap

via Forbes.com:

He’s right. The spread between rich and poor has gotten wider over the decades. And the opportunities for the 99% have become harder to realize.

The President’s speech got me thinking. My kids are no smarter than similar kids their age from the inner city. My kids have it much easier than their counterparts from West Philadelphia. The world is not fair to those kids mainly because they had the misfortune of being born two miles away into a more difficult part of the world and with a skin color that makes realizing the opportunities that the President spoke about that much harder. This is a fact. In 2011.

I am not a poor black kid. I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background. So life was easier for me. But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city. It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them. Or that the 1% control the world and the rest of us have to fight over the scraps left behind. I don’t believe that. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed. Still. In 2011. Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.

*gets in time machine and goes back to 2008*

Oh, snap!!! Obama's the President of the United States!! You know what that means! We live in a post-racial society! Race doesn't exist anymore. A charismatic, smart, half-Kenyan man from Hawaii can ascend to the top of the political world, so that means that every minority should be able to do comparably!

*gets back in time machine and goes to present-day*

Oh, wait... Educational gaps are still tremendous. Poverty is still rampant. Employment is sparse. But Obama's President, so none of that matters.

Such is the society we live in today... A society where the haves continually look down on the have-nots... A society where even in the face of mounting evidence that the system is no more fairly skewed that the lottery, people continue to cry 'self-determination'... A society where a man with admittedly no knowledge of growing up poor feels compelled to cast judgment on the poor. While I am no urban sociologist, I've seen enough of the ills of urban sprawl to know that the odds do not favor children in the inner city. From dilapidated and underfunded schools, to a lack of a successful network supporting them, is it really that hard to see why poor black children gravitate towards endeavors far-removed from academia?

The author, a 'mediocre accountant' and owner of a 10-person accounting firm, is engaging in what I like to call condescendent prognostication - the use of one's lofty ideals to scrutinize the actions of and portend the paths of those in a more precarious situation than he. He claims to be a supporter of Obama and the 99%, but is essentially echoing the unfounded sentiments of the 1%, namely:
- If you're poor, underprivileged, or the like, it's your fault
- The government and related entities have no responsibility to help those who can't help themselves
- There are more than enough resources to help the underprivileged

The author gets even more haughty in his rhetoric:

President Obama was right in his speech last week. The division between rich and poor is a national problem. But the biggest challenge we face isn’t inequality. It’s ignorance. So many kids from West Philadelphia don’t even know these opportunities exist for them. Many come from single-parent families whose mom or dad (or in many cases their grand mom) is working two jobs to survive and are just (understandably) too plain tired to do anything else in the few short hours they’re home. Many have teachers who are overburdened and too stressed to find the time to help every kid that needs it. Many of these kids don’t have the brains to figure this out themselves – like my kids. Except that my kids are just lucky enough to have parents and a well-funded school system around to push them in the right direction.

Technology can help these kids. But only if the kids want to be helped. Yes, there is much inequality. But the opportunity is still there in this country for those that are smart enough to go for it.

This type of grandstanding is only upended by the fact that the author says himself that his children have the resources (parents and good schools) to properly advance. When did complete hypocrisy and sociological blinders replace the social contract of Roosevelt's New Deal? When did the American tenet of every citizen's unalienable rights to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' fall victim to 'you're on your own social policy'? The problem here isn't the author's proclamation that the will to succeed doesn't go unnoticed. It's that he fails to fully acknowledge the crumbling systems around the same 'poor black kids'. Rather than addressing the systematic failures, he asserts that these children should aspire to be the best of the worst. How is that remotely inspiring? Even if an poor black kid in West Philadelphia does gain straight A's in a terrible school, chances are he will still be drastically behind his affluent counterparts across town.

The educational gap in this country is beyond detestable, not because kids don't want to learn, but because most people removed from the worst education systems in our country have little stake in it. They can point the finger and be condescending because they admittedly have never lived in conditions anywhere close to the ones they criticize. It's like a king pointing down at peasants, scoffing at the squalor they live in: easy. I beg the question to Mr. Marks and any other critic of 'poor black kids', what would you do to improve these schools, aside from claim that the kids need to try harder? What solution do you have for the dwindling quality of teachers, curricula, infrastructure and resources? What answer do you have for the student who have no clue what Google Scholar, SparkNotes, Evernote or the CIA World Factbook are? My guess is none.

That is the plight of the condescending prognosticator. They scream that if you're not winning the race, then you should run harder instead of blaming the busted soles on your sneakers. Maybe I'm rambling. Maybe undue outrage is coming towards the author for his clearly misinformed stance. The one thing I'm certain of is that there are many more Gene Marks' out there. They live anywhere from quiet, isolated suburban neighborhoods to high rise penthouses believe that self-determination is all one needs to be successful. For the amount of technological resources they espouse can help 'poor black kids', it would behoove them to use these same tools to see that the world isn't as cut and dry as they think.

On Hip-Hop & Consumerism

Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet. NWA's Straight Outta Compton. 2 Live Crew's As Nasty As They Wanna Be. Ice-T's Rhyme Pays. What do these albums have in common? Besides being four of the more iconic works in hip-hop because of their critical impact, they were all heavily chided by the mainstream media at the time, citing their profane language, overt sexual and violent references, and general disdain for anything pure and wholesome. One could argue that the impetus for these themes is of the 'product of their environment' school of thought. Regardless, these albums came out in the late 1980's, a period in which hip-hop was beginning to take hold not only on the charts, but in the mind's eye of American society.

One need look no further than the inception of the Parental Advisory sticker to see their impact. Tipper Gore's defense of family values (whatever that means) led to the now-ubiquitous brand placed on a hefty chunk of hip-hop music deemed too raunchy for most ears. Yet and still, hip-hop music continues to thrive. The four albums I listed above, while also critical successes, were respective chart-toppers. One couldn't go anywhere without hearing the praises of Ice-T or Ice Cube or Dr. Dre emblazoned in a negative light. Yet today, if one walks into a Wal-Mart, flips on Law and Order, or watches 'Are We There Yet', the same once-nefarious hoodlums are now peddling wares to the same (give or take) America that once cowered at the mere recitation of their lyrics.

Why is that? Has the world softened its view on hip-hop in the face of consumerism, or have these gangsters softened their images for the sake of staying relevant/making a profit? It used to be that if a rapper was placed in the same sentence as a consumer brand, that brand's stock would drop faster than a DJ Khaled record. Look at Tommy Hilfiger, which was once a staple of Americana and the boat shoe crowd. Many dubbed Snoop Dogg's donning of a Hilfiger Rugby on a 1994 Saturday Night Live episode as a cheapening of the brand, yet by 1995 Hilfiger was the Menswear Designer of the Year. Hip-hop was gaining the power to make things 'cool'. Look at products such as Clarks' Wallabees, Timberland Boots, Nike Air Force Ones, adidas Shelltoes, all of which were popularized by rappers. While the mainstream media may have taken longer to catch on, their buzz was a by-product of rappers simply wearing them or using them in songs.

These wouldn't have gone down 10-15 years ago:







Fast forward to this decade, and instead of hip-hop making products pop, products of hip-hop are popping. It's not clothing anymore, either. Gone are the days when MCs aspired to be fashion designers. Rappers are making forays into everything from liquor with Ludacris' Conjure to headphones with Beats by Dre; equestrian stables and Nike commercials with Rick Ross to corporate raiding with Diddy. Hip-hop, while still a form of music, is a business; an all-encompassing media giant capable of moving markets and making trends. Swizz Beatz for Reebok and Kanye West for Nike and Louis Vuitton have designed their own sneakers. Eminem is essentially the face of Chrysler, lending his wildly popular 'Lose Yourself' to the Detroit automaker. Jay-Z and Nelly are a part owner of basketball teams. Where in the 80s and 90s these happenings would be something out of the Twilight Zone, hip-hop's mainstream success has allowed for monetary power in the hands of its purveyors.

What does this mean for hip-hop, though? While it is great for exposure and letting Middle America know that rappers are indeed human and capable of selling more than their music, is it cheapening the cult of hip-hop? My answer is no. Hip-hop has always been steeped in consumerism, and even moreso in the American Dream. To quote the immortal Big L "to be seen clean in the mean Beem (BMW) is every teen's dream". Almost every rapper has made a song about overcoming rampant poverty and lack of funds to be able to afford a lavish and expensive lifestyle. Yes, they want to tell their story and reach the masses with their unique perspectives, but money is always a motivation. Maybe they sell themselves short to get to that ends more quickly, but the goal is not and was never to be a starving artist forever (as much as Charles Hamilton's crackpipe says differently).

Consumerism, while vilified because everyone hates Christmas shopping and greed, is as American as hip-hop is. And hip-hop, while once the nightmare of America, has proven its staying and selling power. Who knows what kind of commercials, endorsements and product lines we could be seeing in the next decade of hip-hop. Silicon Valley? Clean energy? Hell, the same Uncle Luke that was arrested for lewdness on numerous occasions is now running for public office in Miami-Dade County. It's amazing how hip-hop can expand across numerous avenues of media and run the gamut as far as those avenues may go. Does that mean that America is now hip-hop friendly? Not by any stretch of the imagination. One need look no further than Bill O'Reilly's outstanding vendetta with Common to see that. However, as long as there are kids bumping Drake in Beats by Dre headphones while wearing Air Yeezys drinking Vitamin Water, hip-hop is and will continue to be a focal point in consumerism. *buys more shit*

On Hip-Hop, Conservative America, and the 'Man's' Worst Fears

Remember that kid on the playground who could never win an argument? You know... The one who, when backed into a corner about the original amount of Pokemon (there were 151), would counter back with something to the effect of:

- 'but you have cooties!'
- 'I am rubber and you are glue.. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!'
- 'I'm telling Ms. (insert teacher) that you guys are cheating!'
- 'your momma!'

*rolls eyes* I can already feel the childhood urge to exclude him bubbling up. No one likes to be wrong. That said, the kid who can never be wrong no matter how idiotic his argument seems never dies. He grows up and either becomes an award-winning debater, a sufferer of dissociative identity disorder, or, best-case scenario, a (usually) conservative political pundit.

If there's one thing about conservative political pundits, it's that even when faced with situations that completely mirror those they vilify, they are always holier-than-thou. We could be talking anything from.. oh, I don't know... imperialism (#shoutout to Iraq and Afghanistan), personal liberties (word to the Patriot Act), or hell, even a rapper performing at the White House.



Enter Common. Now Common, in most educated circles, is about as safe a rapper as it gets. Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr's career originated in the chewstick era with his classic 'I Used to Love HER', an ode to a much more respectful and 'down to earth' time in hip-hop, devoid of the corporate influence that dominated the airwaves in 1994. He continued on in that same strain, collaborating with the likes of No-ID, Kanye West, Mos Def, The Last Poets and other hip-hop personalities who could be seen as 'conscious'. In hip-hop circles, if Eminem was is one side of the spectrum, the Common would be the other, speaking on issues affecting black people, political oppression and more or less being a voice of reason.

Conservative America doesn't see it that way however. The term 'rapper' doesn't have levels. It doesn't have shades. It doesn't have different strains. To the average conservative, the term 'rapper' is synonymous with rump-shaking, gunplay, drug-dealing, fatherless homes, and that bass-thumping monkey music that their daughters and sons play at all hours of night. Even if the song is talking about picking daisies and watching Barney with one's little sister, let there be a hard bass-line and a Kay Slay intro. I guarantee you, Bill O'Reilly and his conservative crew will find something to abhor about it. And this is regardless of whether they themselves are listening to what anyone else would consider 'offensive'. Yet, that is the tenet of conservative America: a self-serving bias towards anything that contradicts their strict view of how the world ought to be.

According to the average conservative, Bob Dylan runs the gamut in terms of protest music, Ronald Reagan's economic policies are the Ten Commandments, and a black man has little, if any place in the White House. That last idea continues to be swept under the rug as covert racism. Looking at everything from the Birther movement, to the Deather movement, to the continual dispute of Obama's educational background, it's clear that these controversies are arising not because there is a valid basis for them, but because the man is black. Point blank. Now that most of those arguments have fallen by the wayside, attacking anything coming from Obama that has a 'blackness' to it is the way to go.

When we speak about 'the Man', we speak of the kind of overt hypocrisy seen in the above O'Reilly interview, the posturing of falsehoods for the sake of personal gain, and the fear of anything remotely 'black' in politics. Anything resembling non-Patriotic extremism is seen as a threat to 'the Man's' peaceful existence as a dominant force. Hence why Common's appearance at the White House was such a bone of contention for conservatives. They would rather raise hell on a non-issue than see a rapper, a purveyor of that music they don't understand, perform poetry at the White House. It is the worst fear of conservative America to not be 'in' on something, and rather than try to reason or understand something, they fear and deride it. Rather than see the uplifting or beneficial aspects of something different, they hate it for its divergence from their beliefs. They compartmentalize the powerful rhetoric and wordplay that makes hip-hop great and turn it against us, as if Common joined NWA yesterday and made a song called 'Kill Cops, Stab Whitey and F*ck Reagan'.

It's sickening. As valiant as John Stewart's efforts were, it's clear they have no intention of losing an argument. It's clear Bill O'Reilly is content to fling mud in his dirthole instead of see the merits of open and fair discussion. He would rather pull out the ubiquitous 'Your momma' card and walk away knowing he didn't kow-tow than actually get something done. I'm not sure whether I'm more proud of this moment, or angered. What I do know, however, is that this discourse sheds light on the idiocy and pitiful fear that conservative America has. Chuck D and Public Enemy originated the term 'fear of a black planet'. Even though a black planet isn't what we seek in this day and age, until the kid on the playground will admit he's wrong, that fear will still exist.

Singing Telegram: The Notorious B.I.G. - Ten Crack Commandments

What's up people? Today's Singing Telegram is a bit different from the usual. It's not an actual song, but a poetry reading of a song. As normal as it sounds, the reading is done by Adrien Brody, who, up until this point was unbeknownst to me as a Biggie fan. At the Academy of American Poets, Brody recites the late Christopher Wallace's '10 Crack Commandments', citing Biggie as one of 'the most influential poets of his generation'. I can't disagree with him, though I do question whether he did this out of genuine respect, or to see the shocked faces in the crowd. I'll tend to believe the latter, especially as '10 Crack Commandments' is one of my favorite songs, and a pretty good instruction manual when dealing in any type of business. I've taken the liberty of explicating each of Biggie's edicts in much more general terms. It might be better served than spitting them free-form in front of poetry buffs. Listen along, so you get the full effect of these powerful rules.


The Notorious B.I.G. - Ten Crack Commandments

The Ten Crack Commandments:

1. Don't let anyone know what kind of or how much money you possess. There are, at every turn, jealous crooks waiting to steal it from you, whether in courts or on corners. Broadcasting your ends also makes it easier to track and audit them. You don't want the IRS barking up your tree.

2. Keep your plans and movements to yourself. No one likes to have their grand schemes interrupted by gunfire, much less another opportunist running away with your ideas. Additionally, telling more people gives way to the plan losing its general profitability. Too many heads on the bottle makes everyone go thirsty.

3. Don't trust anyone. Anyone has the propensity to double-cross you in the chase for material wealth. Make sure the people you keep around you are trustworthy and strong-minded, so as not to compromise your operation.

4. Avoid shrinkage. Whether it's bean pies, sneakers, stocks or rocks, don't allow your business to be cut into by your vices. Business and pleasure aren't two things that should live together, especially if your business is pleasure.

5. Don't do business where you lay your head. It's a sticky situation waiting to happen if your customers or enemies see you taking showers, watching the game, and selling your wares out of the same location. Not to mention, in the event that your domus is public knowledge, you'll see a spike in how many people you have hanging around. Keep a low profile in person, and habitat.

6. Don't do credit. Cash transactions were the creation of needing a medium for when bartering just didn't do the trick. It's a quick standard that always gets the job done. Credit does nothing but complicate things, especially when it's time to collect.

7. Mixing family and business is almost never a good look. The Godfather trilogy, songs with Beyonce and Solange... the list goes on. If it must be done, keep the circle as small as possible. Think Will Smith and his clan.

8. Don't ever keep your product on you. Police, government regulators, and greedy acquaintances will always find a reason to shake you down. You'd rather not give them any reason for suspicion.

9. Stay away from police. The funny thing about the boys in blue is that they are never around when they need to be, and always around when you want them gone. Don't entertain their witty banter or war stories, much less engage them in an argument. Not only will it arouse the suspicion of your competitors, you're more likely to be implicated if you slip-up.

10. Consignment is a hard thing to juggle. If you're not well-seasoned in your business, buying without the means to pay it back is essentially systematic debt. Rather than bite off more than you can chew and risk losing it all, remember this: slow and steady wins the race. Build your empire, until you are the one people are coming to for ends.

Singing Telegram: Aloe Blacc - You Make Me Smile (Take Away Show)

What's up good people! A fews days back, my boy Joshua put me on to the idea of a 'Take Away' performance, or simply a random performance in a public venue, mostly unbeknownst to the patrons of that venue. This one in particular stuck out to me, first of all because it's Aloe Blacc, but also because of how the performance came about. In an atypically organic fashion, David Patrick Neil James Wash-Lovell (Aloe Blacc's government) brings a small band of merry men together in a Parisian train station, and treats commuters to an impromptu performance of his ballad 'You Make Me Smile'. The performance also is great because of how effortless singing seems for Aloe Black. Standing off to the side, while the band plays at a soulfully rhythmic pace, Blacc saunters into the girth of the crowd to bellow out a cherubic melody that enthralls the Parisian crowd, most of whom have no clue who he is. He even breaks out into a cover of Bill Withers' 'Use Me' outside the station in the same fashion. I picked this for the Singing Telegram, finally, because you just don't see this kind of performance any more. Everything is on such a grand scale that people forget how to just enjoy the voices and the music. As simplistic as it is, Aloe Blacc's performance shows just how easily music can bring a crowd to its feet. Check out some well-placed music, and pray that Aloe Blacc finds his way to a train station near you...

The Mailing List: 5 Reasons Why the US Might Be Screwed

Call me a pessimist. Call me an angry liberal. Call me unpatriotic. Call me any derogatory term for a person upset with the direction our country is going in, but you can never call me uninformed. Our fair country, the United States of America, is knee-deep in a metaphorical pile of excrement, body parts, oil and missiles, and lately I've felt less and less optimistic about our state.

 
Sidenote: If there are any Feds reading this, please don't take this as anything more than an opinion. I'm just a blogger, not a terrorist...

1. We are engaged in three wars.

Between Afghanistan, Iraq, and now our newfound military front in Libya, the United States is spreading itself thin in terms of our armed forces. After 10 years and over $1 trillion spent on military costs, the 'War on Terror' has yielded next to nothing in answers for the 9/11 attacks, much less broken up any part of the new 'axis of evil' George Dubya duped the world into believing in. Imagine that. We've been at war for over a decade now, and still have nothing to show for it but dead soldiers and civilians, a U.S. funded puppet state in Afghanistan that's rife with corruption, and a loss of faith from the world community. Now that we've engaged Libya, and still have no plans to get out of Afghanistan or Iraq, I can only imagine the carnage that can ensue. Not to mention, the U.S. is on a fast track to conflict with North Korea. If we think the Middle East has some WMD's, then I'd hate to see what Kim Jong-Il has up his sleeve. Simply put, we've focused too much on the military over the last decade, especially economically, bringing me to the next point:

2. Our domestic economic policies aren't helping.

If there is any person whose opinion on finance and the economy I'm going to trust, it's got to be Warren Buffet. The man simply knows money. And guess what? Warren Buffet says the recession isn't over, and won't be for some time considering the steps our government is taking. Take a look around. Unemployment is still rampant and job creation is stalling. The amount of Americans filing for bankruptcy is still rising. Our national debt is still rising, while our GDP is stagnant. And the worst part? Our government is enacting policies that will probably add to our deficit.

If it's not the richest Americans getting tax cuts widening the gap between the haves and have-nots and turning the U.S. into a nation of classes, then it's our egregious military spending putting us in the hole and bringing us closer to nuclear holocaust. If it's not CEO's bonuses jumping 30%, then it's state governments attempting to block unions while not cutting their own pay. If it's not a RoboCop statue being erected in the economic wasteland of Detroit, then it's the government dragging its feet in a budget-saving health care plan. Our government blasts the country's spending habits when it spends its money on ridiculous things that don't serve to improve our nation, and instead set us back.

3. Dependence on oil is still the precedent.

Energy is what runs everything. Repeat that. ENERGY RUNS EVERYTHING. It runs our transportation, every appliance and piece of technology we use, and every resource we need, needs artificial energy to work. That said, our dependence on oil is sickening. Of all Western nations, we use the most oil while producing the least. Additionally, the world's oil reserves are set to be running low in the next 30-40 years, with the world reaching it's peak oil production in the past few years. That means the world, and more importantly the U.S., is going to have to find a new method of energy production. Ironically, we continue peddling money into oil subsidies and oil companies, rather than invest in sustainable energy. At this rate, we'll be in the dark faster than you can flip a light switch.

4. Our education system and infrastructure are failing.

If you're reading this, I'm going to assume that you're reasonably educated and can formulate a complete thought on paper without awakening the spirit of Mr. Ed. However, for a lot of American youth, that's not the case. Since 2000, the United States has fallen behind most of the industrialized world in reading and math, two subjects that we excelled at starting in the 70s. Additionally, we're at our lowest rate of college matriculation and graduation in over 30 years (you could blame the recession). No, I'm not saying the U.S> has become a nation of idiots, but we're getting closer to that title by the day. With even the SAT beginning to show signs of lower scores, it's obvious that something isn't going right in our schools as of late, which should seriously affect the country's future, and inevitably our ability to understand what's even going on in our country...

5. Political engagement is down, while political ignorance is up.

According to Newsweek, Americans are becoming more and more politically ignorant, with more than 30% of Americans being unable to name our own Vice President, 44% unable to define the Bill of Rights, and 73% unable to identify why the Cold War was fought and 6% unable to circle our own Independence Day on a calendar. Excuse me? In this nation so hell-bent on patriotism and national pride, people have no earthly clue what's going on! No wonder they vote for legislation that hurts them financially, allow warmongering politicians to draw us into foreign conflict and listen to idiots like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin spew misinformation. In the 60s, 70s and 80s our industrial might was enough to keep us afloat, because the rest of the world was simply playing catch-up. Now that the Internet has ushered in the information age, it's a necessity for the U.S. to know not only what's going on in our own country, but also the rest of the world... And we're failing terribly.

I won't sit here and say that I've lost all hope in our fair country. However, it's disconcerting to see so many ills in our country that are easily fixable with some smart leadership and engagement from our citizens. At the same time, with the way things are looking, a move to Canada might be just what the doctor ordered. They don't look like they're doing too badly. The U.N. seemed to think so, and I trust their judgment a lot more than the U.S.'s at this point...

Singing Telegram: Ol' Dirty Bastard - Brooklyn Zoo

If you are an Odd Future fan, then you need to pledge your allegiance and your swag to the man immortalized in the video above. In the midst of the golden era of hip-hop, rife with its complex rhyme schemes, witty metaphors and loopy wordplay, one movement stuck out as being able to reach music fans who didn't necessarily like hip-hop. That was the Wu-Tang Clan. While the group boasted a host of accomplished rhymesayers and producers, the true surprise was their Clown Prince, the one we affably call Big Baby Jesus. Ol' Dirty Bastard left the physical realm of our celestial body in November 2004 at the hands of a drug overdose. Before meeting his maker, he lived life within a foot of the edge, as evidenced by his music, which became an outlet for his larger-than-life and almost psychotic persona.

Today, ODB lives on in the shadows and minds of acts like Odd Future and Lil' B. Nonsensical, sociopathic and deranged lyrics pervaded his work, and do the same in theirs. If there was a way to direct lineage in hip-hop, I'm sure that the ODB would have more than a few seeds planted in today's hip-hop generation. Today's Singing Telegram is a commemoration of that. 'Brooklyn Zoo' (also the title of a good amount of my fantasy teams) is a cacophonous warning to those that deemed it safe to throw shade at Ol' Dirty and his Wu-Tang crew. Threatening his adversaries with Lysol, among other strange pieces of weaponry, ODB has his way with the beat and surprisingly makes more sense than he usually does. That the video is as gritty as the man himself is simply a sign and testament to the times. While we may never truly know the extent of Russel Tyrone Jones' affliction, we do know that it birthed some memorable hip-hop. RIP to ODB and let his raucous incantations rile you to a new level of hype...

Singing Telegram: Big L - I Don't Understand It

RIP Big L

Happy Tuesday, people!! Yesterday was a day of love by most accounts, and I love hip-hop, so today's Singing Telegram is a song that applies just as much today as it did in 1995 when it appeared on Big L's 'Lifestylez ov da Poor and Dangerous'. 'I Don't Understand It' is a tribute to the MC's in the game that switch up their styles in the hopes of a greater paycheck, and/or profess to be the hoodedest of rappers.

That said, L was ahead of his time in writing this. He was in the midst of a changing of the guards in hip-hop. The Golden Era of hip-hop was slowly hitting it's peak, the South hadn't taken over as yet and the Shiny-Suit era was about to take flight. L regaled his hip-hop compatriots to stay true to what they knew. That's not to say he was against experimentation or evolving with time. In Big L's two albums (one posthumous), the listener sees the same hunger and ravenous rhymes, all while getting better. L said it himself: "I'm older and smarter, this is me at my best."

It's a shame that today, rather than listening to L's 3rd or 4th album, we're mourning the death of Lamont Coleman. Hip-hop heads will list L as a GOAT, but the mainstream might never laud his greatness adequately (listen to Hot 97's Throwback at Noon and tell me if you've ever heard a Big L track). That said, as a hip-hop fan, it's impossible to not see the Harlem native for what he was: an amazing MC. That L could write a song that holds true and stands the test of time is a testament to that. Rest in peace to Harlem's Problem Child...

Hip Hop's Lost Relics

Let's rock!!!

If you grew up in the 90s, and didn't watch Legends of the Hidden Temple, then please consider your childhood null and void. That said, along with the funny team names, ubiquitous temple guards, and Olmec's weird catch phrases, the best part of the show was finding out about whatever treasure those retarded kids had to retrieve in the temple. It was always some feather, or a helmet or an item that we wouldn't bat an eyelash at today. That got me to thinking... If there was a 'Hip-Hop Legends of the Hidden Temple' what would some of the treasures be? Yeah... What are some of hip-hop's lost relics? Hit the comments if you think I missed something. *cue mystical, eerie music*


Drake's Blackberry

One of the most memorable tracks of 2009 was Drake's 'Say What's Real' off his So Far Gone mixtape. Drake waxed philosophical about being 'real (whatever that means) in hip-hop over Kanye's 'Say You Will'. At the end, Aubrey spits this gem:

Understand, I can get money with my eyes closed / Lost some of my hottest verses down in Cabo / So if you find a Blackberry with the side-scroll / Sell that motherf*cker to any rapper that I know

So... Where is Drake's famed lost Blackberry with the side-scroll? Has it been lost in the sand? Has some random Mexicano picked it up, erased everything and signed up on TelCel's Blackberry plan? Or has (insert rapper here) come up with it somehow and used the verses for his own diabolical purposes? We will never know...


Busta's dreads

For those of you who started listening to rap after 2006 (year?), Busta Rhymes did not always have a dark caesar with the grain. As a matter of fact, the first man of the FlipMode Squad used to look a whole lot crazier. Along with a knack for brightly colored bubble jackets, leather overalls and random exclamations on tracks, Bussa Buss was known for those locks. Flowing wild, much like his personality on wax, the dreads were put to rest in a now missing video promoting his 2006 album The Big Bang. To be honest, the locks are probably in some compost heap out in South Dakota by now, if not re-attached to some child's head via Locks for Love...


DMX's sanity

Contrary to popular belief and his sad position today, DMX was That Dude in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The dog had 5 platinum albums under his belt and was singlehandedly holding Def Jam up by its bootstraps at one point. Somewhere along the line, the miracle rock known as crack made its way into X's life, and the man's sanity has been lost ever since. A failed BET series, numerous arrests that would make COPS look like Law and Order, and 8 kids later, DMX and his sanity are nowhere to be found. I wish Drag-on was the lost one instead...


Juelz Santana's bandana

Among the pink Timbs and furs, swag splashers and skull apparel, there was a Dip Set fashion statement that flew under the radar yet over our heads at the same time. That, my friends, is Santana's bandana. What looked like a large paper towel crown draped over the head of a tall midget was actually the generic bandana that was synonymous with back pockets. Santana's bandana almost never seemed to fall out of its oddly-angled place, regardless of how many spastic 'A-YOO's' he threw out in his verses. Now that Juelz isn't Dip Set (is he or isn't he? This label BS needs to stop), the bandana has gone by the wayside.


The G-Unit Piece

Fresh off the success of his debut album 'Get Rich or Die Trying', 50 Cent had signed The Game and Young Buck to his G-Unit imprint. Curtis had buried Ja Rule into the dirt and like most fighters, needed a notch on his belt to make his victory complete. Thus birthed the G-Unit piece, complete with platinum and diamond encrusted EVERYTHING, and the spinning center. Of course we know that very piece was snatched at some point, with numerous people coming up as the owner (see above). The original chain's whereabouts are now unknown...

Any more pieces of hip-hop you think should be included? Use that little box below the post, please!