ByronCrawford.com

2008: The Year in Viral Videos

Catch you bitches on the flipside.

Black Woman Walking

Over at XXL today, I went in re: this film, Black Woman Walking, that I found over at World Star. I figured I'd post it here as a sort of A/V bonus, in case you saw the thumbnail image and decided to take a pass on it the other day.

Checkit: Wookin pa nub in all the wrong places [XXL]

Bachelor Cooking 101 With Aria Giovanni - Egg Salad Sandwich

I notice the outfit is a repeat from last time.

Not that I'm complaining or anything - dresses have hardly looked better on women. I'm just saying. If they had to shoot these all on the same day, they could have done a few wardrobe changes. In fact, they could have filmed the wardrobe changes. Ha!

As far as the recipe is concerned, well, I see this is another one involving eggs. Is this also that same carton of eggs? Wow. For what it's worth, this is more of a legit egg salad sandwich than that omelette she came up with. She even put some capers on it. That's classy.

Behold, one of my life's great achievements

One of the most important duties of a public intellectual is to receive awards.

You'll recall that a few weeks ago, I was crowned the best hip-hop blogger evar by the magazine Hip Hop Connection. It's one of the first major awards I've received since being crowned, in a poll, the leading black public intellectual. But I couldn't post the article here, because it wasn't available on the Internets, and all I had were some scans of it sent to me by Akuma.

Well finally, the full text of the 2008 Hip-Hop Blog World Cup article has been posted on the Internets, over at Fat Lace Magazine. Finally, Melissa Perfect Calmness can bask in one of my life's great achievements. That is, if she hasn't already bought a copy in print, framed it, and put it up on the wall over her bed.

Checkit: The Hip-Hop Blog World Cup 2008 [Fat Lace Magazine]

Cynthia McKinney attempts to liberate Gaza

Shit like this I couldn't even make up if I wanted to:

The yacht carrying former US Congresscritter and Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney tried to outmaneuver an Israeli navy gunboat off Gaza early Tuesday morning. The yacht rammed into the Israeli gunboat, which then turned it around and sent it back to Cyprus.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said the boat ignored an Israeli radio order to turn back early Tuesday. He said the boat tried to outmaneuver the navy ship and crashed into it, lightly damaging both vessels. The navy then escorted the boat to the territorial waters of Cyprus.

For what it's worth, it was revealed the other day that Cynthia McKinney was right about how mad black people were shot and killed by white vigilantes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. There was a big story about it in the Nation. I'm sure you fruits already caught that though.

I hardly ever do this, but I'll go ahead and say it: I was wrong for ever doubting Cynthia McKinney. Even though I wasn't questioning the fact that there was a mini race war post-Katrina so much as I was her making it one of the main talking points of her presidential campaign.

And she wonders why they never let her on TV.

Checkit: Pro-Palestinian activists say Israel Navy fired on protest boat off Gaza shore [Haaretz via Sandra Rose]

And after the jump is a video from the Nation about Katrina's hidden race war.

Party like it's 1948

Looking for a handy primer on what's going on over in Gaza? You might wanna check these clips from yesterday's Democracy Now!

I know: Democracy Now!, even when they're discussing shit that's going on here in the US, is not nearly as entertaining as, say, watching Kay Slay perform experiments on pr0n stars with vodka bottles. If only there were more media outlets discussing these issues from a hip-hop perspective.

Speaking of which, I did go in re: Israel and Gaza at XXL today, in a post in which I tied it into my post from the other day about Peter Rosenberg. You might want to check that before the invisible hand of the market presses the delete button on it.

Checkit: But I thought this had been solved? [XXL]

Absolut Sara Jay

More Kay Slay, aka Molest Your Favorite Pr0n Star, and Sara Jay. In this one, Slay finds out whether or not she can balance a bottle of Ciroc vodka on her ass.

My bad if you already saw this the other day, when it first hit the Internets. Not all of us are sorry enough to spend Christmas sitting around watching pr0n.

Okay, I'm lying. I did spend some time on Christmas taking a look at some pr0n Slav Kandyba sent me in the mail. More on that later on this week.

This isn't NSFW in the sense that there's nudity (crap!), but it probably wouldn't be the best idea in the world to watch this at work. I know I've had people come up to me before talking about how they had HR issues at work because of this site. So don't say I didn't warn you.

I got my Wii back

Well, Kinda
As a matter of follow-up to my special Christmas Eve post, I just thought I'd point out that my little brother did get me another Wii. Nullus.

He brought it over to my parents' house on Christmas and tried to give it to me as if it was a present. Which almost caused me to put my shoe on him. Fortunately for him, he also got me a Sirius satellite radio.

I haven't had it set up yet, but it's only a matter of time before I'm cranking Howard Stern in the van. My bad, Melissa Perfect Calmness. Hopefully, this won't cause too much of a snag in our relationship. Also, I'm not gonna lie, I went especially hard on the food and alcohol over the holday. I'm definitely not in my peak physical form.

Finally, I know some people were wondering how my little brother could accidentally ingest dog shit. Well, from what I understand, his dog was locked in a cage all day and got the shits. It shit enough that shit rose up over the edge of the cage and onto the floor. Also, the dog's fur was covered in shit. My mom thinks my little brother might have accidentally ingested some shit while cleaning this up. But my little brother thinks he might have caught something from one of the kids at his job. The official diagnosis was colitis - an inflammation of the colon.

Let that serve as a lesson

I'm not saying it's cool to shoot people at the movies. I'm just saying. Sometimes people need to learn to shut the fuck up.

(CNN) -- A man angry that a family was talking during a movie threw popcorn at the son and then shot the father in the arm, according to police in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[...]

Cialella told the family sitting in front of him in the theater on Christmas Day to be quiet, police said.

[...]

Cialella then approached the family from the left side of the aisle and shot the father, who was not identified, as he was standing between Cialella and his family, according to the police report.

Checkit: Man shoots talker at movies, police say [CNN]

Some children need to be left behind

A Special Christmas Story
One time, this smoking hot broad I used to work with came up to me and told me I should let her know if I found out any schools were hiring teachers. She had just gotten out of college, and I guess felt she was too good for the BGM.

I told her I didn't have any idea what the fuck is going on in schools these days. Obviously. But I thought schools were always hiring? She was like, "Yeah, but you'd probably have to go work down in the ghetto somewhere."

It's one of my favorite things a girl has ever said to me, in part because I'm pretty sure that, due to my facility with the English language, white chicks will often say shit to me that they wouldn't say to most black people. I'm like the Barack Obama of white trash retail.

And I'm not gonna lie. I'd rather actually shove my joint in a broad... but if her cans are big enough, I'll stand there and listen to her explain how she can't afford to make $8 an hour for the rest of her life. I'm sensitive and understanding like that.

Anyway, she may have had a point. I can see wanting to teach little kids in the ghetto to read, on the outside that maybe they can join the mainstream. But you don't want to put yourself at too much of a risk.

My little brother teaches PE in an elementary school in that same district where, you'll recall, one of the teachers allegedly gave AIDS - the gift that keeps on giving - to as many as 50 of the students in a high school.

A few weeks ago, in the middle of the night, he broke into my apartment and stole my Nintendo Wii. I rolled off of the couch at the ass crack of 11 a.m., looked up at my TV, and was like, "What the fuck happened to my Wii?" Nullus.

I called my little brother and was like, "Dude, someone broke in and stole the Wii." He was like, "Actually, I took it. I needed it for work. But I need you to drive down to the ghetto and drop off the sensor bar, so I can actually use it."

The fuck?

Obviously, the reason he broke in, in the middle of the night (admittedly, it could have been like 8:00 in the morning), and stole it is because he knew good and well, if he asked if he could borrow it, I would have told him the same thing Garth Algar told his sister when she asked if she could use his Def Leppard records.

As much money as I pay in taxes (this despite the fact that I hardly make any money), the school ought to be able to buy it's own motherfucking Nintendo Wii. Plus, that damn thing cost more money than I probably had in my bank account at any given point in 2008. I didn't want to run the risk of it getting broken, and me having to curse out a ghetto elementary school principal, and/or whoop some young kid's ass.

But then my little brother offered to give me $10 if I drove down to the ghetto and dropped off the sensor bar. And I knew I could use that $10. So I was like, fuck it, let me go ahead and take this damn sensor bar down to the ghetto.

Fast forward a few weeks later. My Wii is still at this elementary school down in the ghetto. No Boutros. If I would have known my Wii was gonna be gone for that long, I probably wouldn't have agreed to letting him use it. I definitely would have demanded more than $10. You can't get a Wii from Blockbuster for that long for $10, can you? (You can still get systems from Blockbuster, right?)

Yesterday, my little brother stopped by to play the new Guitar Hero, and the discussion somehow turned to my Wii. No homo. He was like, "Actually, I had to cop another Wii. I just haven't brought it by yet."

Again... the fuck!?!?!?!

A couple of weeks ago, he accidentally ingested some dog shit and had to spend a few days in the hospital. (I know, likely story.) While he was laid up, one of the kids at his school made off with my Wii. [||] Or, he thinks it may have been one of the temporary staff they recently hired on.

But I wonder if he was just saying that because, when you're a teacher, it's your natural tendency to want to protect your students and your cowokers. How could he know who stole my Wii? In fact, I wonder if he even has another Wii (of course, he's yet to bring it by here), or if he's out today frantically shopping for one.

It just goes to show: When you try to lend something to one of these schools, despite the fact that they already get money from the government, which came from your pockets in the first place, you're basically just buying someone else's kid a Christmas present.

What do you fruits think? Should I head down to the ghetto to conduct an interrogation process? Should law enforcement be involved? Or should I just charge this one to the game? After all, my little brother supposedly did cop me another Wii.