ByronCrawford.com

Change we can't avoid at this point

It's official, there's either gonna be a black guy or a woman in the White House next year.

John McCain announced, some time between when I passed out in a drunken stupor at 3 am last night and just now, that he picked this woman Sarah Palin to be his vice president. Which was a pretty brilliant move, if you think about it.

I mean, obviously McCain was gonna have to do something to stop people from fawning over Barack Obama all day. Personally, I didn't find his speech to be all that impressive (it was certainly well delivered... ha!), and the musical performances leading up to it were downright depressing. But even a hardened hater such as myself couldn't help but be impressed by the sheer number of people they managed to pack into Mile High (Club) Stadium last night.

What they were saying, albeit on MSNBC, was that there's no way the Republicans could even pay enough people to sit in a stadium and watch John McCain's old ass spew his hatred. So they're thinking about going with a more intimate town hall meeting type of setting. And I'm sure they're hoping the convention is interrupted by a hurricane next week, just so they'll have an excuse to look pathetic.

McCain probably would have succeeded in shifting the news cycle today regardless of who he picked. But picking some random broad from Alaska strikes me as a brilliant move for a couple of reasons. First of all, the fact that no one has any idea who this woman is gives it a certain "wtf" factor. I'm watching CNN now, and it's obvious no one there has any more idea who this woman is than I do. As we speak, they've probably got someone in the back furiously checking Wikipedia. (Already, based on a cursory perusal, I see she's married to an Eskimo. Word?)

Also, you have to think that this move was at least motivated in part by the fact that Barack Obama didn't select Hillary Clinton as his running mate, and now a lot of her supporters are wondering how he could be so... aww, let's just say it, uppity. You know that's the word they wanted to use earlier this week when they were all on TV talking about how Obama could have at least paid her the courtesy of giving her a phone call during the VP selection process. The fuck? I know code when I hear it.

Real Talk on the radio

Hot 97's Cipha Sounds and Peter Rosenberg have this podcast and now this radio show where they do a lot of co-opting of online hip-hop culture.

In the latest edition of their Juan Epstein podcast, they speak with Latarian "Real Talk" Milton, the fat kid from Florida who stole his grandmas SUV and crashed it into a buncha shit, then turned around a few days later and beat the crap out of his grandma because she wouldn't buy him any chicken wings.

Checkit: Juan Epstein: Meeting Latarian [zShare via Rosenberg Radio]

Kill Bill O'Reilly: The Video

Related: No, really, kill Bill O'Reilly [XXL]

Denny's rips off the slinger

Seriously, how in the fuck is Denny's gonna rip off the slinger and try to pass it off as the invention of some bullshit rock group?

Earlier today, I came across this story about how Denny's is enlisting rock groups to create their own signature menu items, and I thought to myself, "Damn, this shit might actually be worse than Tag Records."

At least in the case of Tag Records, it's a bunch of groups no one has ever heard of, who probably wouldn't have merited a deal with a major label anyway, if it wasn't for the largess of a motherfucking deodorant company.

With this Denny's shit, it's groups that are already established, including the Eagles of Death Metal, Taking Back Sunday, and the All American Rejects. And the product is even worse than deodorant. At least Tag a guy might be able to use to help get some stank; Denny's is where truckers and homeless guys go to take a shower.

Then I got to the part that describes what comes on the All American Rejects' breakfast dish:

The All-American Rejects (pictured above) went to their local Oklahoman Denny's kitchen to create their hometown favorite concoction with a little rock star flavor -- "The All-American S.O.S." The guys took the reigns with a plate of grilled Texas toast and hashbrowns and added the works to it with hamburger, cheese, grilled onions and sausage gravy topping it all off.

The fuck?

All that is is a slinger, except with gravy instead of chili (which is a common variation on the slinger here in the STL), and with Texas toast instead of eggs. Which is just gay. How are you gonna substitute Texas toast for eggs on a slinger? Did Denny's insist they do that so that people wouldn't complain that they ripped off the slinger?

The press material for this garbage, excerpted above, makes it seem as if this is a hometown delicacy from the Rejects' native Oklahoma. But if you check the world's most accurate encyclopedia, it doesn't mention the slinger as being available anywhere outside of Missouri, other than one diner in Chicago. And I'm pretty sure even that's a recent development.

It's obvious what's going on here: Denny's is trying to co-opt a St. Louis culinary tradition (right up there with combining Chinese food and white bread), and they've enlisted a sorry-ass failed rock group to run the interference.

This is wrong on so many different levels.

Checkit: Is Denny's Rockstar Menu a Sign of the Apocalypse? [Listening Post]

Young Jeezy - The Recession: Album Review

Young Jeezy, The Recession (Def Jam, 2008)
Atlanta coke rapper Young Jeezy is known, among other things, for having actually once been a drug dealer (rather than, say, a cop), and for his penchant for ad libbing. This is his third album.

• Young Jeezy @ MySpace

Proof you're only ever as desperate as your standards

Irony must not translate well to Espanol.

I was joking earlier today about how a major corporation could use sex with a fat lady to make me forget that I've been discriminated against based on my race (which, who knows, maybe they could), and Bookworm Brown must have taken it to mean that I'm actually interested in hollering at disgustingly obese women.

Just now, he emailed me a link to this video he put together about this club out in LA where it's nothing but fat chicks - or as they like to call themselves, BBWs. Of course, it's portrayed in the video as some sort of progressive movement based on positive body image. But it looks like it's just a place to go to find a fat chick to drop a load off in.

The girls all look extra slutty. None of them are wearing enough clothes (i.e. parkas), and one of them keeps threatening to whip out one of her huge, flabby cans. And the sad thing is, at one point, the camera pans around to give you an idea of the kinds of guys who would go to such a club, and it's nothing but thirsty-looking black dudes.

Um, thanks, Bookworm.

Check the video for yourself after the jump.

RIP Dr. Dre's son

I didn't even know there was a Dr. Dre, Jr., but I'm still pretty broken up.

It's too bad Hood Surgeon isn't actually a surgeon.

You know what? Fuck Facebook

Installing shady software on people's computers to record their purchases so they can announce it to everyone you know is one thing.

I could care less whether or not people know I bought, say, some fat guy pants or some pr0n.

But making fun of people based on their age and their relationship status, as they've done to me in the ad above, found on my Facebook profile the other day (click to enlarge, nullus), that's just wrong.

Or is that what's going on here? I wonder if these ads are designed to detect your age and your relationship status and mock you accordingly, or if I just so happened to fit into the sweet spot for... um, sorriness.

Something else I've noticed: I've also been getting a lot of ads for BBW dating sites, and I'm wondering if that's because I'm black.

I remember one of the first times I saw one of them. I was like, "Damn, the broad in this ad has some sizable cans!" But then I looked closer, and come to find out it was just a fat chick (how often does this happen), and that it was an ad for some dating site full of fat white chicks, i.e. like an Internets version of South St. Louis County.

Don't let me find out there's some skeevy race and sex shit going behind the scenes at Facebook. I might have two lawsuits on my hand: One for the emotional distress caused by reminding me that I don't have anywhere to deposit my load other than an old gym sock (which I might need come laundry day), and one for discriminating against me based on my race.

Or maybe they'd just settle and let me fuck one of those fat chicks.

Proof Chicago rappers are being extorted

Last week, before he got the shit kicked out of him and had his Transformers chain stolen by Trick Trick's little brother, Yung Berg gave an interview to the Rhapsody blog, in which he pretty much confirms everything it says in that email I posted earlier this year about the soft white underbelly of Chicago rap.

Here's a bit from the email, to jog your memory.

i moving to chicago in the 90's I saw all of this first hand. if your famous and from chicago, its either BD's, GD's or the DL's (tey gheys) that have your back. R.kelly got beat up by BDs for not giving them their cut after his first album. Kanye got beat (infamous busted face, credited to the accident) for jacking beats and not paying from his first deal, Lupe works with them on the heroin tip. Every single aritst, athelete and business that made it is sponsored by the gangs(mainly BD's) and they all have to give a cut of their money. think about all the chicago athletes getting jacked. The Black pharmaceutical rep, Naliah franklin found dead in chicago was a corporate drug dealer rep for the BD's and was killed by Antoine walkers business associate.

And after the jump is a bit from the interview with Rhapsody that proves this is true.

Fuck Fox News!