Entries from May 2008 ↓

Five Months. Tops.

People cover
And we’ll grow 40-ish together: Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon begin their married life…and Month #2 of knowing each other

Is Mariah Carey getting stupider with age?

Like most, I didn’t get the Nick Cannon connection, when I heard she’d secretly married him. That is, until I read The Daily Mail, yesterday.

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Double-O Barkley?

Gnarl-y, dude…
Wake up and get your tuxes: Is this James Bond’s next chorus?

Should Gnarls Barkley record the theme for the next James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace?

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Yes.

B&W Obama

The answer is “Yes.”

The question is, when people talk about Barack Obama’s “electability,” or ask “can he get elected?”, is the word “electability” a white code word for race? (You know: Kind of the way many white people talk about “good neighborhoods” and “good school systems.”)

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Oprah’s “White People”

Just the two of us….

A reported conversation between Oprah Winfrey and BFF Gayle King on XM Satellite Radio, as transcribed and editorialized by listener “Mayme,” and posted to the comments section of Costas Panagopoulos’s Politico.com piece on white viewer flight from Winfrey’s show, after her Obama endorsement.

Reply #1
Date: Apr. 8, 2008 – 12:35 AM ESTIT’S ABOUT TIME THE DUMB “white” HOUSEWIVES WOKE UP FROM THE DAZE !!!

Transcript from Oprah’s XM Sattelite conversation with Gayle:

Gayle King: You could work for some good White folks.

Oprah (in Black slang accent, making fun of her grandmother): I hope you get some good White folks like I did ‘cuz I worked for some good Folks.

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“Maybe He Should Do More of That ‘Dirt Off Your Shoulder’ Song. White Kids and Black Kids Love That Stuff!”

Barack on campus
“Where’s the brothers?”: Obama college mixer’s half-mixed crowd

Barack Obama puts himself forward as a unifier, pointing to his campaign, itself, with its multi-hued, multi-aged-, multi-multied constituency as an example of the change he is helping to create, in America.

But a recent Wall Street Journal piece, “Race on Campus: Beyond Obama, The Unity Stops: After Campaign Rallies, Black, White Students Go Their Separate Ways,” argues that, well, after campaign rallies, Black and white students go their separate ways.

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“Join me, Barack, and together, with Bill, we can rule the galaxy as the more experienced president and the less-experienced vice-president. Though you have more delegates.”

[insert heavy labored breathing here]

Come on: What more do you really need to know?  : )  Just click on it.

Is Oprah Taking One for the Team?

The Double O
Actually, no: Cartoonist Daryl Cagle underestimates white backlash

How has Oprah Winfrey’s standing with her overwhelmingly white audience been affected by her association with Barack Obama?

In her piece for The Root.com, “The Trouble With Transcending Race: Why the Double O’s are standing on shaky ground,” Majorie Valbrun expands on what most Black women probably long expected, even before Fordham professor Costas Panagopoulos’s Politico.com piece, which she quotes, below, made it explicit:

“Ten days after she went on the stump for Obama, Oprah’s favorability ratings dropped to 55 percent, the lowest level of favorability ever registered for Oprah in opinion surveys,” the article states. “Oprah’s negatives also spiked, with one in three respondents (33 percent) reporting unfavorable impressions of her.”

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Lost Works That Should Have Stayed Lost: MC Skat Kat, “Skat Strut”

Paula Abdul and Skat Kat get it on…
“Now, pretend that you’re Corey Clark”: Paula and Skat role-play

Was Paula Abdul on drugs?

Not last week, when she tried to judge American Idol contestant Jason Castro’s non-existent second performance. No, was she high in the early ’90s, when she agreed to a cameo in the video for MC Skat Kat’s solo debut, “Skat Strut,” a Fresh Prince-ish piffle over Earth Wind & Fire’s “Let’s Groove” bassline.

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I Guess They Just Didn’t Know Where That Finger Had Been.

Bite down….

Further proof that, especially planetarily, there’s no accounting for taste: The above ad, notes Boinkology, for Tom Ford Sunglasses, has been banned in Italy by that country’s Institute for Advertising Self-Discipline (IAP).

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Me and My Shadow…and My Heckler & Koch MP5 w/ Suppressor

Solace until I open fire on you mugs….

The next James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, may have the corniest title of any 007 movie to date, but the filmmakers are totally not sleeping in the advance poster department. This double-sided German piece, slightly smaller (23.25″ x 36.2″) than an American one-sheet (27″ x 41″), is $25 at MoviePoster.com.