ByronCrawford.com

Sylvia's: Don't bother

It's Not Ghetto Enough
First of all, some bad news: It doesn't look like there's gonna be a rerun of last night's episode of the Real World today. So that might have to wait until next week. If you notice, these days, when you turn on MTV during the day, they're always showing America's Next Top Model. Um, why? That isn't even kinda music-related, is it? Well, I suppose NEXT and Parental Control aren't either, but still.

Also, there's this audio clip someone sent in of Bill O'Reilly claiming he went to the legendary soul food restaurant Sylvia's in New York and he was dissapointed because it wasn't ghetto enough. There wasn't even anyone shouting, "I need some more ice tea, motherfucker!" or anything like that.

And, to be honest with you, I'd be kinda disappointed, too. I haven't been there, so it's hard for me to say, but if there isn't some sort of ghetto milieu to the place, then what's there to separate it from any other chicken restaurant. Is there at least some nasty R&B music on the Muzak?

I ate at P Diddy's restaurant in New York, Justin's, once when I was up there, and there wasn't anything about it that struck me as particularly hip-hop other than the fact that there were several menu items that featured shrimp (admittedly, I had the fried shrimp myself) and the Incredible Hulk was an actual selection on the drink menu (I had it, too - it was the only time I've ever had it).

Of course Bill O'Reilly was attempting to make some sort of point about how black people being able to behave themselves in a restaurant might be a sign of the black community at large moving away from Jesse Jackson-style ambulance chaser politics. The sad thing is: he might have a point. These days, it would kinda take being the kind of person who shouts motherfucker in a restaurant to take the likes of Al and Jesse seriously, no?

O'Reilly surprised "there was no difference" between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants [Media Matters]

Go play somewhere, I'm busy

(There's a shiteload more revealing-and-yet-decidedly-unappealing pics of Shauvon on her MySpace profile.)

For a while there, when this Sydney season of the Real World began, I debated switching my availability at the BGM so that I couldn't close on Wednesday nights anymore, but I never got around to it.

The weird thing is, for all of those months when I wasn't writing about the Real World, earlier this year, I don't think I had to close on a Wednesday once. But then, as soon as the season began, I had to miss an episode.

I'm sure it probably had to do with the school year beginning, rather than, say, whoever normally closes on a Wednesday night taking off to watch the Real World like I thought about doing, but still.

Well, at any rate, I'm not gonna be able to catch tonight's episode, since I'll be at work. Usually when I have to miss an episode like this I'm able to catch the rerun the next day, but we'll see.

Also, I've got to go to a wake tomorrow and a funeral Friday. My guess is that I should be able to get some work done tomorrow, but Friday might be out of the question, but who knows. If not, I should at least be back to my normal half-assedness by next Monday.

A lamentable trend at Taco Bell

Other Than... You Know, The Smell
For most of my life, Taco Bell has been the only game in town when it comes to Mexican food here in St. Louis. Er, at least as far as fast food-type places are concerned. There's always been sitdown places like El Maguey (like the Kennedy Fried Chicken of Mexican joints here in Missouri), but why the fuck would I need to sit down to eat a burrito anyway?

Back when I was in high school, they opened up a couple of Tomatillos (I'm not sure if this is a national chain or not) and a place called Flaco's Tacos, but they all folded in a matter of a few years despite my best efforts to keep them in business.

[Back when it was announced that Flaco's Tacos might go out of business, there was a story on the news about how mad people were going in there and buying empty soda cups in order to help boost profits. I thought about doing it myself, but I was roughly as broke then as I am today. I couldn't just part with a dollar like that.]

I wasn't sweating it that much though anyway, because Taco Bell is the shit. I don't care if it's real Mexican food or not. If actual Mexicans had come up with brilliant ideas like putting sour cream and shredded cheese on a plain-ass taco (not to mention the almighty Fire sauce) maybe mad people wouldn't be risking life and limb trying to break into the US. No, that's called American Ingenuity, my friends.

But recently, i.e. in the past several months they've put in a Chipotle and some shit called Moes and a La Salsa and Qdoba. I'm not sure what the hell is going on. It's not like Creve Coeur is suddenly overrun with anything other than it's usual assortment of Asians and Jews. My guess is that at least half of them will eventually go the way of Tomatillo and Flaco's Tacos. I've mostly been hitting up Chipotle myself, so hopefully it manages to stay in business.

Unfortunately, this has meant that I've been to Taco Bell less times this year than probably any year since I was a baby. When I went the other day, I don't think I'd been there in a good month and a half. And even then, it was more a matter of I just happened to drive by and figured what the fuck.

The would-be holy grail of sex tapes

The bad news? The woman in this Meg White sex tape video that's been circulating the Internets isn't actually Meg White?

As the White Stripes' publicist put it:

Some people have a very twisted sense of humor and this prank is in particularly bad taste. The tape circulating on the internet as featuring Meg White is fake. It’s definitely not Meg.

The good news? It's still a pretty good video, in the way you'd expect a Meg White sex tape to be damn enjoyable - though I know it can be difficult to come to a consensus on this site re: what constitutes a "doable" woman.

I'd spell it out even further, but chances are, if you know who Meg White is, you already know what I'm talking about.

NSFW: Here's a link to some screenshots from the video which will pop-up window, in case you need to take a look at them and make sure it's really not her. And here's a link to the actual video itself, since your probably gonna want to see these cans in action. Definitely don't click either of these if you're at work. (via)

The other good news? I just saved a shitload of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.

Sex Tape "Definitely Not" Meg White [Pitchfork]

There were hispanics in World War II?

I didn't think they started letting hispanics fight in wars until just now - because they can get their immigration status fixed as a condition of enlistment. But you guys know I'm racist as shit.

Come to find out, something like 500,000 hispanics fought in World War II, presumably for our side, but who knows. In fact, I'm not even sure how they came up with that figure, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, a) because I lack the resources to prove otherwise, and b) why should I give a shit anyway?

I have seen my share of films about World War II and various other wars, and I don't think any of them featured any hispanic characters. White guys and black guys? Sure. Steven Spielberg's silly Saving Private Ryan even had a few Jewish characters (natch!), but it could be the case that there's never been a war film with any hispanic characters in it.

That is, until now. Ken Burns spent six years working on The War, his new 14 hour-long documentary about World War II, but he never did get around to mentioning any hispanic people. So of course the hispanic community got all pissed off about this. They raised a big stink, so he had to tack on some bonus footage of some beaners with machine guns or whatever.

You have to wonder though if this was a purposeful effort on behalf of Ken Burns to write the hispanic community out of the history of World War II, or if the shit just kinda happened. If you've never seen one of these Ken Burns films, they're made up almost entirely of stock footage and photographs. Could it be the case that he just couldn't find any picture of hispanics in World War II? Like I've said, I know I've never seen any other World War II films with hispanics in them.

Also, what did hispanics do during World War II anyway? Maybe the real reason there's no pictures of them is because they were all pulling latrine duty and washing the filthy underwear of all of the real soldiers, and who would want to see a picture of that? I'm just saying.

After the jump is a clip of some hispanic broad discussing this issue on Democracy Now. If you've never heard Democracy Now, it's the most dreadfully boring radio program possible. It's not even entertaining enough to be on regular NPR. I only watched about two minutes of these clips myself.

Britney Spears is still doable

According to Last Week's Poll
When I mention that I happen to like white chicks here and there (and everywhere!), I think people get the wrong idea. I don't like chubby, fucked-up-looking white chicks any more than I like chubby fucked-up-looking chicks of any race. Which is not to say that I wouldn't make like many a black man before me and score with one of them, if given the opportunity (or if I just had to force myself on one of them). I'm just saying.

Take for example Britney Spears. Based on pictures like the one above, I'm tempted to say that I definitely wouldn't score with her, but who knows. Not to get all Jack Nicholson in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, but sometimes, when it's right in front of you like that, it can be hard to say no.

Last week's poll had to do with whether or not you'd bang Britney Spears. Here are the results.

Britney Spears?

1. I'd hit it (345 votes)
2. Hell no! (147 votes)

Perhaps surprisingly, something like 70% of those of you who voted would still bang Britney Spears. I suppose it's not that surprising, in that she still in better shape than half the chicks you see walking the streets of a city like St. Louis, but you know how people like to front on the Internets about having such high standards when it comes to women. Meanwhile, I'd imagine pretty much all of us have done a lot worse. Many of us on a regular basis!

Next week's poll, which has been up since this time yesterday, has to do with whether or not Tucker Carlson is teh ghey. Vote early and vote often. Nullus?

Jay-Z - Blue Magic: Track Review

Lazy-ass Rakim homage over the world's shittiest Neptunes beat, anyone?

Me neither.

To his credit, this is more of just an all-around bad idea (especially the chorus) than a genuine, "Show Me What You Got"-style fuck up. Still, who wants to bet that next week they announce that this was just the street single and they've got something else, produced by anyone but Pharrell (pleeease?), to play in the requisite beer commercials and what have you.

Or it could be the case that due to the unique nature of the marketing deal behind this album, there won't be as much in the way of non-American Gangster (the film)-related tie-ins. At any rate, they're still gonna have to come up with something else, no?

If you haven't already, you can stream "Blue Magic" at XXL.

Stephen Colbert = joke thief?

Isn't the Young Turks that radio show Nonutsbuey listens to?

Well, at any rate, one of the guys from the Young Turks is claiming that Stephen Colbert pulled a Carlos Mencia on one of his bikes jokes.

The guy's name is Cenk Uygur, which is a much gullier name than Byron Crawford. The joke, which didn't strike me as being all that funny anyway, had something to do with comparing the Republican presidential candidates to the Klingons from Star Trek, I guess because they keep talking about bringing the troops home "with honor." Hmm...

Check the video, posted to YouTube by Uygur himself, after the jump. And then after that is another video I came across while researching this which features a broad with a fairly impressive rack. Is she the other host of this mess? If so, how is this not on real TV already?

Bill O'Reilly eats tasers for breakfast

You have to hand it to Bill O'Reilly. The guy may be full of shit, but he's as gully as all hell.

The other day I brought you the story of that kid down in Florida who got "tased" by 5-0 for having the sheer balls to ask John Kerry whether or not he was in Skull & Bones with President Sieg Howdy. Well, in discussing the incident on his show the other day, O'Reilly claims he was zapped once with a taser for a story he was working on, and the shit didn't even hurt.

Who knows, this could be a case of O'Reilly frontin', like when Tucker Carlson claimed him and his crew beat the crap out of a fruit who tried to solicit him for bufuing in a public restroom, but I'm tempted to believe him.

Check the video for yourself after the jump.

New Jay-Z album, anyone?

Me Neither
So wait, let me guess, the TIs at Universal spent too much on this Denzel-Ridley Scott movie American Gangster, but they figure they can still recoup if enough black people show up. You know how us blacks are about our crime movies. So now they're gonna pay Jay-Z a few million to drop several references to it in a new album, just like he did that Ace of Spades champagne on Kingdom Come.

If it works, it could be one hell of a marketing move. I'm not sure whether or not Def Jam themselves get a cut of whatever Jay-Z is being paid, but I suppose Jay himself stands to benefit regardless, even if less people run out to cop this than its dismal predecessor. Whether this is just as bad remains to be seen, but the fact that it was only recorded in the past few weeks doesn't seem to bode well for it.

Then again, the Blueprint, which people tend to idolize all out of proportion (word to Woody Allen) was supposedly recorded in the space of a weekend, so who knows.

For Jay-Z, Inspiration Arrives in a Movie [New York Times]