ByronCrawford.com

I got the UK going nuts

If, anytime during the next month, you happen to be in one of the finer book-selling establishments like a Borders or a Barnes & Noble (i.e. not the kind of joint that carries Mini Trucking or Nugget), stop by the magazine section and pick up a copy of this month's issue (i.e. April, the one pictured above) of the British style magazine Arena. In it, on page 86, in a section called "Browser - Internet favourites from the Arena search engine," you'll find none other than the Infamous and Lamentable BC dot C listed as the "Funniest blog of the month."

Says Arena magazine, "Byron - a man with "the mindset of a champion" - lays down the law about whatever's vexed him that week with unparalleled editorial brutality." You hear that, bitches: unparalleled editorial brutality. Specific posts cited include my series of posts on why Johnny Carson should have been denied a proper burial and Combat Jack's posts about Jay-Z and the movie The Wiz. Should you come across a copy, you're probably going to want to take one home, as it features lots of pictures of fine, naked pussy throughout.

ALSO: I see one of my petitions to deny Johnny Carson a proper burial actually picked up a few signatures.

I once killed a dog

When I was in high school, like in '97 and '98, I used to drive this 1985 Ford Country Squire station wagon. It was a navy blue with fake wood grain paneling on the side, and even though some of that fake wood grain had started to peel, it was still a pretty sweet-looking car. It had power everything including a front seat that moved in about 80 different directions (fully superior to the one in my old man's BMW) and a back window (not for the back seats, but for that back cargo area) that you could roll down all the way from the front seat.

After about 6 months, everything stopped working except for the engine (a huge, gully V8) and the stereo (suprisingly capable for an old station wagon), but that's really all you need anyway. Also, I had a bad run of luck with leaving the windows down and having the damn thing get rained in. After a while, I just stopped worrying about it. If I had somewhere to go and the seats were wet, I would just grab a trash bag or something to lay over it and go about my business.

Anyhoo, when I used to drive in this thing, I would do something that I'm sure millions of other teenage boys had done before me and millions still continue to do to this day (no homo): If I was driving, and a small animal appeared anywhere on the road ahead of me, I would swerve and try to hit it so that I could hear that ba-da-bump effect under my car. It was especially awesome if you could find a possum because a) those fuckers were so easy to hit and b) that was about the biggest jolt you could get without risking damage to your car.

The kind of guy Mark McGwire really is

After reading my roommate DCOY's story about the time Mark McGwire came to the aid of a poor little 8-year-old boy who had just lost his entire family in a car wreck, I felt compelled to tell my own Mark McGwire story. While this is the first time this story has been heard before anywhere, you can rest assured that it is true. Say what you will about the man, but no one can question the depth of his heart, integrity and character.

A few years ago, maybe 3 or 4, I was in town on spring break and decided to check out half off lap dances night at the Diamond Cabaret over on the Eastside. Tuesday nights at the strip club are cool because you can actually get a chick to service you for less than it would cost you to buy a drink in one of those shitholes. On the other hand, it's tough for the chicks who get stuck dancing on those nights. Many of them, I'm told, have taken up this line of work because they were trying to pay their way through Med School.

I was on my way to the back of the joint to do what little I could to give back to the community when I heard this voice out of nowhere:

"Excuse me, ma'am," said the voice, "it looks like you've dropped two dollars."

No sooner than I could look down and see what in the world this person was talking about, my woman, Crystal, had bent down and scooped up two wadded up dollar bills, carefully depositing the money into one of those little boxes they carry around. I turned around, looked up at the bar, and there was none other than, you guessed it, Mark McGwire. Crystal and I then proceded into the Fantasy Room, where she gave me a lot more than I usually receive for 5 dollars.

You know, there are a lot of men in baseball who would've waited until she walked by and grabbed those 2 dollars for themselves.

The Futureheads - The Futureheads: Album Review

The Futureheads, The Futureheads (Sire, 2004)
Like a nerdier Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads specialize in that good ol' barbershop raga that was popular back in, shit I don't know, the '50s? but heavily updated with that dance punk sound that's so popular with the kids these days. Actually, the group that they probably remind me of most, other than maybe Franz, is the motherfucking Proclaimers. Now that was good group!

Johnnie Cochran = Not alive

Around 5:15 this evening, I heard a huge collective "Yes!" coming, seemingly, from every other house on my block. At first, I figured that they must have announced that they were bringing the show Friends back, but that didn't really make sense just because I don't think that they usually announce new shows like that at this time of the year.

So I did what I usually do when some shit happens and clicked over to the ol' Drudge Report. First of all, I noticed (I hadn't been there in ages) that that closeted motherfucker has now found a way to make his pop up ads work even in Mozilla. And then I saw the news: "Famed defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran dead..." Which sucks, really, because, as a young African American, Johnnie Cochran was one of the very few positive role models out there, and probably my personal favorite.

Famous people's deaths usually tend to come in 3s, and, looking at that same page, I see that both The Pope and... um, Jerry Falwell are laid up as well. I don't know about the rest of you, but since JPII already went past my date, I'm actually hoping the old codger lasts through the summer so that he can die on November 22nd. Because that would just be awesome.

Is Terry Schiavo considered a celebrity?

Developing...

Tragedy Khadafi likes his Cris warm

Combat Jack's Top 5 gulliest moments he's experienced first hand in the music industry (that you won't hear about anywhere else on the whole effin planet but here)

SEE ALSO: Parts 5, 4 and 3

#2. Tragedy Khadafi Likes His Cris Warm

Tragedy Khadafi is a good dude (no homo). He doesn’t, however, get the recognition he deserves. He was a junior member of the legendary Juice Crew, he mentored and actually named Havoc (of “Mobb Deep” fame), he discovered CNN (Capone –N- Noriega) and was fully responsible for their classic underground LP The War Report. He was also featured on the only diss record fired back against 2pac and the Dogg Pound during the East-West coast beef (“LA, LA,” also featuring Mobb Deep and C-N-N).

So the year is 1999 and Trag is feeling a bit down (cause life has a way of kicking a nigga’s ass every now and then). To cheer him up, I suggest that we head to a party that Gorilla Pimp Sean Combs is throwing cross-town. We get to the joint and are ushered into the V.I.P. section which looked great (the walls were draped with some velvety red curtains and the chicks were definitely on some video ho material). Around midnight, Diddy steps in the club and decides to open up the bar in our section. Trag and I go apeshit and start throwing drinks back like we had been stranded in the Sahara desert for 15 days with no canteen in sight.

After an hour of doing some serious man-style drinking, Puff ups the ante (along with some other baller crews chilling in the cut) and decides its time to treat the crowd to bottles of Cristal. The wait staff starts bringing out mad ice buckets stocked with yellow bottles and it’s on. Almost everyone in the area has access to at least 2.5 of their own bottles of the fine bubbly. Everything is going real perfecto, chicks looking and smelling good, dancing, trees is burning, niggas is all types of happy with no types of gun talk in the air, the dj (I think it was Flex) is spinning hit after hit after blood clot hit, we’re partying like it’s, well, um, 1999 and Trag is smiling (no homo).

Anyways, after downing our respective second bottles of Cris, Trag pulls me to the side with a real serious and concerned look in his eye and asks me where the men’s room is. In my blissfully drunken state, I explain that it's past the V.I.P. ropes, through the dance floor (jam packed with about 700 sweaty dancing patrons), up the crowded narrow ass stairs, right behind the capacity filled lounge, where finally, there’s probably a line with a wait time of about 10-15 minutes. He processes the information and says “cool.” A few minutes later, there’s like one unattended bottle of Cris left, and from the corner of my eye, I spot Trag grabbing it along with the effin ice bucket, greedy ass motherfucker!

The Bravery - The Bravery: Album Review

The Bravery, The Bravery (Island, 2005)
The Bravery, who, apparently, formed about 2 years ago and had one previous EP that came out earlier this year, are the current Next Big Thing in the NYC disco rock scene (which is truly one of the finest scenes in all of music, I might add). I read about them a while ago in, I think, both Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, which lets you know that they're receiving that proper major label push. It's just too bad that their music fucking sucks. This has to be the most unjustified hype that I've seen in the music industry since at least last week.

P. Diddy = Gorilla Pimp

Combat Jack's Top 5 gulliest moments he's experienced first hand in the music industry (that you won't hear about anywhere else on the whole effin planet but here)

SEE ALSO: Parts 5 and 4

#3. P. Diddy Is A Gorilla Pimp

Spring 1995, New York City. Bad Boy Entertainment is hip hop's number 1 label on the East Coast and the G.O.A.T. Biggie Smalls was still alive. Jessica Rosenbaum (the Jewish American Princess bitch who promotes hip hop functions) threw a weekly dinner dance event at a club called Esso's where all the "beautiful" hip hop industry folks could gather, talk mad shit and waste ungodly amounts of money on liquor, party and bullshit.

In addition to his growing record empire, Puffy was making his name as a producer and one of the many artists he produced a song for at the time (I don't think I ever heard it) was Brooklyn rapper Positive K. K seemed like a cool dude, ran with Audio Two and MC Lyte and even scored a nationwide hit with a single called "I Gotta Man." Anyways, I'm sitting at a table with my folks and Puffy and his weed carrying entourage make a grand entrance. Shortly thereafter, Positive K walks in dolo. Puffy sees K and approaches him. Apparently, Positive K (or, more specifically, his record label) hadn't gotten around to paying Puff his producer fee (which was something like 5 thousand dollars) and Puff was heated.

In addition, I heard that both Puff and K were in Los Angeles a week earlier and when Puff stepped to K about his dough, K was like "You? Nigga please, I'll get atcha when I get at ya, Bitch!" So, at Club Esso's, when Puff steps to K again, he asks "Yo nigga, you got my money?" K looks at Puff like "whatever nigga" and starts to walk away when Puff whips out his cell phone (phones at the time were about the size of a brick) and starts whupping on K's head like there's no effin tomorrow! The place goes crazy, chicks are sceaming, folks are scrambling around and Positive K is catching a royal cell phone ass beating by none other than Sean "Puffy" Combs.

Hate mail bag #2

Every week I get a buncha emails from random assholes who read something on my site and feel compelled to write in, usually calling me all kinds of mean names and accusing me of some kind of deviant sexual behavior. I collect the best ones each week for a feature that I call the "hate mail bag."

This week's hate mail letter of the week comes from Alexander Cooper, one of the young British fellows from the Voyage to Fiji episode of The Real World Philadelphia.

hugocoops@hotmail.co.uk writes:

you fuckin sad cunt. you spend all day wankin over sarah off real worl cos you cant get pussy yourself. The reason we didnt shag the girl off real world is cos we could do better. Have a fuckin wash get some face surgery and then kill yourself you sad cunt

Freddie the Britsh guy
Real World Season 15 episode 19!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's not too often that I get email from people angry about my review of that Guerilla Black album. Apparently, the fact that I called his dead wife a beast (I did?) means that I had a "disrespectful homo sexual childhood." No homo.

S432PO213@aol.com writes:

u know what man your a real fucken asshole.to talk down on a dead man's wife.what the fuck is your problem.on guerilla black's review u add at the end that his dead beastly woman.what kinda disrespectful homo sexual childhood did u go through u fucken faggot.u cant b serious.u rate cd's just to downplay them and say they are garbage.what the fuck are you doing.running a piece of shit website making 30 g's a year or what.you cant talk bad about these rappers all u want.just know they make more money then you in a week then you do in a year.or maybe your just mad ur stuck running a website with no future.you fucken joke faggot mutherfucker.eat a dick bitch.

sincerely, your mom

Finally, I like this last letter in this week's edition of the hate mail bag because the guy called me a "boo." I've been called a jig before, but a boo? That's some funny shit! It's also amusing to me to see that white people are still all broken up about OJ.

pauljmc@rcn.com writes:

Great another boo that thinks OJ is not guilty. Based on the fact he is a political prisoner…right?

And that's all for this week, though I'm sure there'll be more next week.

Doves - Some Cities: Album Review

Doves, Some Cities (Capitol, 2005)
The Doves are one of these Brit-pop groups that aren't Coldplay. Where as the fellow from Coldplay is married to Gwyneth Paltrow, the lead singer from this group actually had a baby by a women who was hostessing at a Red Lobster. It's cool though because if they go on Sundays before 3PM, they actually get 20% off of their meal. Motherfuck going to church (Happy Easter everyone): Cheap seafood is cheap seafood. Supposedly, their last album was pretty good, but I guess the single from it never took off and so they remain more or less unheard of in the States. Not unlike myself (more on this later), they're actually pretty big time in Europe.