Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry is the silliest shit on TV

NOTICE: This is going to be one of those cases where the title of the post pretty much sums up all that I really had to say about the topic, but don't let that stop you from continuing to read this crap anyway. As if you had anything else better to do!

So anyway, this Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam Or Whatever It's Called bullshit has been around now for a minute. It had gotten really popular there a while back and was even featured on Broadway, which I basically took to mean that it's also a big hit in the fag community. Because it couldn't have had anything to do with the actual quality of the show.

It's slam poetry (I'm assuming that's the proper nomenclature?) anyway, so it's already dumb as a concept, but in some ways this Russell Simmons shit manges to be ridonkulous even as far as that shit goes. In particular, it trips me out when they have MCs come out and recite their shit "acapulco," as if that shit actually counts as poetry. Other recurring jackasses include The Black Guy Who Obviously Just Got out of Jail, The Asian Dude Who's Got Problems Because He's Asian and The Black Chick Who Just Can't Seem to Find a Decent (Straight) Man.

You could pretty much pick out any moment from the series at random and just call that the worst of the worst, but I think I'm going to go with the time when the old jig actress Ruby Dee came out and read, get this, a poem about fucking 2Pac. Just beyond the fact that it was one of the worst poems I've ever heard (Not that I'm an expert on that shit. I'm no homo.), it was especially bad because it represented one of the more regrettable trends to hit hip-hop since the last one, namely people actually taking 2Pac seriously.

But that's a whole other post for another time.