ByronCrawford.com

The Real World: Key West - Episode 1: Episode Summary

The Pride Is Back
From what I understand, Hurricane Katrina hit before this season started taping, but I suppose that's neither here nor there. Notice how you keep seeing action footage of the hurricane and then they cut to a shot of the cast members indoors somewhere? Ah, MTV.

So there was that. Now Tyler the gay guy, who apparently speaks some Russian, meets Svetlana the mail-order bride with the low self-esteem on a beach somewhere. She tries to fuck him right off, but he's like, No, sorry, I'm gay.

This could be an incredible season. I mean, there's no black dude (nullus), but I'm certainly impressed with the level of trim on display. If you haven't already, check out my season preview to get the scoop on the rest of the cast.

So the rest of the group meet and gradually make their way to the house in the most roundabout way possible, lest something interesting happen in the first half-hour of the show. Svetlana and the fruit take a Jamaican-piloted, Aaliyah-style crop duster, but it doesn't crash or anything.

Meanwhile, the Puerto Rican real estate agent college student describes how his childhood was so awful until he discovered the Robert Kiyosaki path to fame and fortune, at which point he took some money from his "mutual funds" and purchased his first house at the ripe old age of 18. Huh?

Once they all arive at the house it becomes obvious that Zach, the self-proclaimed old money Jew has designs on Svetlana the catalogue. Perhaps he'll even purchase her outright. And the gay guy may have some issues with the halfrican-american broad, who displays some diva like tendencies right off the bat.

Also, Svetlana is concerned that the blonde chick might receive more attention than her, because she's blonde. So maybe they'll go at it. I know personally I'd have difficulty deciding between a blonde and a girl with big boobs. Big boobs are nice, but blondes might be more rare. Also, I could do without immigrants in general.

I do kinda wish there was a Lacey-style semi-ugly (but actually kinda hot) chick, just for dramatic purposes. Janelle is half-black, which should give her a natural inferiority complex, but she's had a boob job, which makes her awesome.

Doing something like that to your body shows a certain level of dedication. Also - let's keep it real, it's the rare occasion that you see a girl with a boob job that isn't pretty hot on a certain level. Meanwhile, I'm beginning to find real boobs increasingly disgusting, like udders on a cow or some shit.

Still, competition between the three chicks should be intense. Paula is already claiming to have an eating disorder. Slut-lana can't have a cock in her soon enough. She hounds the Jew and the Frat boy about playing charades (presumably, strip charades) while they're trying to do a little fishing.

One wonders which one of them will be the first one to hit it. If they were thinking, they'd set up some sort of arrangement in which they could trade off. Whoever's not currently diddling Svetlana could shag Paula the anorexic blonde, who would naturally be lonely and jealous.

Speaking of which, the gang goes out to some teh ghey-looking nightclub, and John and Paula get into a little lover's quarrel. It's obvious she's jealous because Svetlana let him play with her shirt (I'm jealous as shit!) So she starts going off on him and ordering him to get out of the car.

Then John slips up and mentions the fact that her boobs are tiny and worthless, which sends her into an obviously fake panic attack. Now he's the asshole. But then she kinda falls alseep as soon as they get home. Whew!

Snitching on women = OK

The True Code of the Streets
Does the important street code of not talking to the police count when the perp in question is a woman? I'm inclined to say no.

SOHH, which regularly runs ads from the US Army, recently posted a gossip item in which it's revealed that Busta Rhymes once went to the police when his baby's mother went Jim Brown on one of his cars, and tried to pull out one of his dreads.

Here are the actual police documents, courtesy of a site called Media Take Out:

• Busta Police Report Page 1
• Busta Police Report Page 2

So yeah, Busta sorta kinda snitched on his baby's mother, but here's a few things to consider: A) You don't fuck with a man's car B) If he would've put his shoe on her, he would've went to jail and C) She caused $2000 worth of damage, and it's likely she doesn't have a job other than being Busta's baby's mother.

I think we can all agree that this is one case where it was probably best to just go to the police.

A dearth of gay Mexicans (nullus)

There have to be gay Mexicans, right? I mean, there's so many of them, the law of averages would suggest that at least a few of them would have to be members of the fudge community.

Yet and still, it's the rare occasion that you see a gay Mexican. I deal with mojados all the time at the Current BGM, and I don't know if I've seen one. Granted, they may be five-foot two and rocking skin-tight Wrangler jeans, but they'll usually have their tick-like wives and their eight children with them, so that there's no confusion as to what they've been up to.

From what I understand (nullus), in places like New York there's no shortage of flaming Puerto Rican fudge not unlike Willie from the Real World Philadelphia, but that doesn't count because it's a whole different country. I'm speaking primarily of the tiny, sun-baked farmer types you see here in the Midwest. Nullus.

Which makes me wonder (nullus!) if "the DL" is prevalent in Mexican communities. Could it be that the amount of "machismo" inherent in Mexican culture is driving its gay men underground. Or could it be that the gays of Mexico don't have the balls (nullus!) to skip across the border, and so all we get up here is the straight ones?

Not that I'm complaining!

Late Registration vs. Purple Haze

Kanye West's Late Registration and Cam'ron's Purple Haze, which I featured in an album deathmatch last week, are two of the more critically acclaimed rap albums released in the last year or so.

Late Registration in particular could very well be the most ridonkulously overpraised album in the history of rap music. The Cam'ron album, though it wasn't nominated for 14 Grammys or whatever, was well-received in hipster circles.

Obviously, the one was a lot more commercially successful than the other, which is interesting considering they were released by the same label, but which one is actually the better album?

Best Rocky movies

Per the results of last week's poll, here are the five Rocky movies ranked in order from best to worst. I was surprised to see the third movie (with Mr. T, of all people) rank higher than the second one, but otherwise I'd say this is a pretty solid list.

1. Rocky
2. Rocky IV
3. Rocky III
4. Rocky II
5. Rocky V

Next week's poll, which is already up, is arguably the most important poll I've run on this site to date. In fact, I may be submitting the results of it to the governement, if they're interested and willing to pay.I urge you all to vote early and vote often.

Never Drank the Kool-Aid: Book Review

Never Drank the Kool-Aid: Essays
by Touré

Journalist Touré, the Oscar Wilde of the ghetto, is the author of the novel Soul City, the short story collection The Portable Promised Land, and has written for such important publications as Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Tennis magazine.

However, readers of this site may remember him most for his stint as the "angry black guy" in an early season of MTV's seminal reality series The Real World. Who can forget when the Midwestern white girl, Becky (or Tonya or whatever), would regale us all with her typically naive views on race relations, and ol' Tour-ay would be like, YOU IGNORANT WHITE BITCH!

Ah, the 1990s.

Never Drank the Kool-Aid is a collection of articles he has since written for the aforementioned newspapers and magazines, as well as a few pieces that weren't quite good enough for publication elsewhere and yet are included here none the less. If you've followed hip-hop journalism at all in the last 10 years or so, it's likely you're familiar with his work.

Articles in this collection include:

• The one where Biggie Smalls gets shot and the author claims he's through with rap music
• The one where DMX, drink in hand, drives his Cadillac Escalade like a forking maniac
• The one where Fiddy's baby's mother shows off the baby's new bullet proof vest
• The one where Suge Knight holds the author over a piranha tank and makes him erase his tape
• The one where the drummer from The Roots claims that crack is responsible for hip-hop

And a whole shiteload of other ones.

As with any collection of this type, obviously some articles are going to be better than others. The very best articles here are some of the best articles I ever read about hip-hop anywhere, which is, granted, not saying a whole lot, but still. The worst ones aren't as bad as they are boring and pointless.

For example, did I really need to read a completely serious, six pages long profile of Beyonce from Destiny's Child? At least Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s daddy died in an horrific car wreck. Call me when Stage Daddy Knowles runs his Bimmer into a concrete wall at 600 miles per hour. (Seriously, that'd make for a good story!)

And then there's the whole chapter where the author attempts to combat homophobia in hip-hop (the true scourge of this generation) by showing how secretly teh ghey rap is. Um, yeah. Whatever.

That said, this is still an easy recommendation for anyone who likes to read about pop culture in general and hip-hop in particular, especially if you didn't get a chance to check these stories out when they were first published.

XXL = the new SOHH?

The Poo Has Hit the Fan (Nullus)
Is XXL attempting to "Harris" its way into online hip-hop? Is it even possible, or necessary, to "Harris" one's way into this field? Today I was browsing Clyde Smith's desolate press release depository ProHipHop and came across a post in which it's revealed XXL's plans to relaunch its website. Nullus.

You can check out the post (which features Clyde Smith having a very Clyde Smith moment) for yourself, but the gist of it is that XXL is planning to relaunch its site in the next week or so, and they're gunning for SOHH's spot.

Alleged features of the new XXL site:

• Up to the minute breaking news
• Original features/Q&As/reviews and content
• Personality based blogs
• Exclusive streaming audio and visuals
• Message boards

Sayeth the email, in part:

Hey industry - So XXL has some breaking news. In the next two weeks we will be lauching the new XXL Magazine website - xxlmag.com. We will have all original content and will be documenting the daily movements of hip-hop with the quality and professionalism you expect from XXL. We are going to give all those other rap sites a run for their money.

Ruh roh.

I wonder, though, if it's a bit early to suggest that Hashim and the rest of those bums start looking for another line of work. After all, if there was a viable business model for documenting the daily movements of hip-hop with a modicum of quality and professionalism, don't you think SOHH would've tried that shit a long time ago? They've been around for like 10 years now.

It's worth noting that hip-hop magazines in the past have attempted to enter the online arena. In fact, the Internets are the main reason Dave Mays no longer works for his own company. And speaking of people who pretend to own companies, does anybody else remember Russell Simmons' 360HipHop? Quality and professionalism.

Also, I suppose it's worth mentioning that since this new site will feature "personality based blogs," they're sorta kinda entering my own little sphere. Admittedly, I'm a bit worried. If this works out well for them, I may be forced to request more hours at the Big Gay Mart. The horror!

Least Tragic Hip-Hop Deaths

The least tragic deaths in the history of hip-hop, in order of... um, how un-tragic they were.

Buffy. The really fat guy (more so than the other ones) from the Fat Boys, who liked his women like he liked his coffee: young. Did you know he actually died while rapping? It's true.

DJ Screw. Getting high on cough syrup? Serves him right. Furthermore, slowing down rap music (or any kind of music) shouldn't count as an important musical innovation.

Left Eye. Not to sound insensitive, but you know the other two members of TLC were secretly glad to see her go. I mean, what did she do, anyway?

Chip Banks. A member of Raekwon's weed carrier group American Cream Team, which was sort of like Ghostface's weed carrier group Theodore Unit, but with more awful. A lot more.

E Money Bags. Does anybody know if this guy was an actual rapper, or if the cops just assumed he was a rapper because he got shot?

Marlon Brando. From what I understand, this guy died trying to save a young kid from being hit by a car. Priorities, people. And the Sporty Thievz sucked anyway.

Yusef Afloat. I have no idea what happened to this guy, but the details surrounding his death suggest to me that he was a clucker. Also, it had already been a good five years since the last time he had a hit (relatively speaking).

Slang Ton. The dead member of the Outsidaz, who used to carry for the Fugees back in the day.

Freaky Tah. Don't get me wrong. The Lost Boyz were the shit. Sort of. But this dude wasn't really a rapper anyway. The group could've gone on perfectly well without him.

2Pac. Granted, 2Pac is arguably the most talented rapper on this list, but you have to admit the dude was cruising for a bruising. Shooting at cops, butt-raping chicks, pretending to be a gang banger; it was only a matter of time.

Free Paul Dawson

Perhaps you've seen this already. I know the video and its "remix" have been making the rounds for a couple of weeks now and have already been posted on several Internets.

Paul Dawson, a high school English teacher in Kentucky or somewhere got the bright idea to call one of his students the dreaded n-word, because he thought it might make the kids relate to him a little better. Admittedly, he was taking a bit of a gamble.

He made sure to use the version with the -a suffix, which black dudes use among themselves as a term of endearment (nullus?). Also, he alleges that the student first used the term towards him. But come to find out (surprise!), black dudes don't really like it when old white guys say it.

The kid he said it to complained to the administration and Dawson was subsequently suspended for 10 days without pay and ordered to attend "diversity training." A cursory Google search reveals that he's since been transferred to "non-instructional duties in a district office."

Here's the thing, Obviously this guy Dawson made a huge lapse in judgment, thinking it would be a good idea to call some jig the dreaded n-word. Still, watching this kid (a member of the Boy Scouts and the ROTC) sit there and whine like a bitch, I couldn't help but think he himself was taking things a bit too far.

Trying to get people fired from their job for using a racial slur is for Chinese people, or, as I prefer to call them, chinks. If anything, this kid should've been offered $100, or some "me time" with the guys wife, and then this whole thing could've been swept under the rug.

Check the videos after the jump.

Jay-Z's favorite Jay-Z songs

A few excerpts from a live chat Jay-Z did recently with fans at Roc-A-Fella.com:

Besides Dead Presidents - what is your fav song done by you?
Can I Live and D'Evils.

When is the album coming out?
I don't know at this time about doing a new album, although I’m itching to do one…we’ll see.

Was there ever a point in your career when you just wanted to stop rapping, before the retirement, before Vol. 1?
To be honest with you, in my delusional mind I thought I would make 1 album and cross over to the executive side. But you know when you love something it's hard to just walk away. Besides I was the only artist at the time on Roc-a-Fella.

Who is your fav old school rapper?
Rakim and Kane and G Rap.

How do u feel about the passing of Jay Dee and how well did u know dude?
I didn't know him personally I was a fan of his work from afar. I was talking to Ahmir (?uest) from The Roots the other day about him and he told me he was the producers' producers' producer and they had made a song dedicated to him before he passed. We're going to put that out in honor of him... may he rest in peace.

Read the transcript