Government Watchdogs
In light of last week's election, it's probably more important than ever to know exactly what these people are doing in our name when we elect someone to public office. Here's a site that the ACLU put together that, given your zip code, tells you exactly how your federal representatives are voting. Keep an eye on these people and let them know how you feel.

President of '24'
The NAACP has complained for years that there isn't a diverse enough representation of Black actors on television, that we've been ghettoized to corny sit-coms. Which is why it's amazing to me that they aren't dancing in the streets over the casting of Dennis Haysbert as a Black President of the United States on Fox's 24. Not only is it the best show on television, not only does Haysbert get 2nd billing behind Kiefer Sutherland, but, by having a Black President, they're forced to cast all these other Black actors as his family, especially Penny Jerald Johnson as his Lady MacBeth-like ex-wife, Sherri Palmer. If you're not watching this show.... I dunno.

NewSpeak, American-Style
For those of you who aren't George Orwell fans, I vaguely recall NewSpeak as the term used in the book 1984 to describe the way that Big Brother manipulated the use of language to control thought in that imaginary facist culture. Keep that in mind as you read this article about the insidious new form of pro-war propaganda that's going to be coming to a multiplex near you, whether you like it or not. This, like so many of these kinds of ventures, is also funded by yet another insanely rich, old white man with very strong feelings about right-wing conservative politics. Somebody should get these guys some therapy.

Meet Ice Cube, the rapper turned Hollywood player
I bet you didn't know that Ice Cube has had his own film production company for the last 5 years, did you? I sure didn't. Favorite quote: when commenting on the fact that ALL of the films he's produced for New Line have turned a profit Cube says,''I know people respond to profits. And I knew that the only way that I would get respect in this town is to be a person who takes a small thing and turns it into a big thing." Aspiring producers, take note.

Harry Belafonte Speaks His Mind
A few days after the whole Colin Powell issue hit the airwaves, Harry Belafonte went on Larry King Live and dropped nothing but pure science about the Secretary of State, the President, and plantations. Read and be enlightened.

The American Idol
Yes, he's a skirt-chasing, draft-dodging, non-weed-inhaling, slick son of a gun, but Bill Clinton is still the President who's administration has had the most positive impact on the most Americans (and even non-Americans) in probably the last 25 years. Love him or hate him, the man kept us all fatter and happier than we had any right to be during the '90's. Here's an editorial from the New York Times that talks about the mercurial matters that make him, and America, occasionally great.

"Democrats have only themselves to blame"
Here's Joe Conason's autopsy on the Democratic Party after the Bush Family pimp-slapping we now call Election Night 2002. Quite honestly, I'm really one more outrage away from giving my hard earned money to the Green Party. They may be broke as Hell, but at least they believe in something and are willing to go down with the ship for their convictions. Remember when government was supposed to at least kind of be about statesmanship and principles of a free society?

Traficant runs for re-election from prison
This had me rolling on the floor, laughing. After being busted and sent to a federal prison to serve and 8 year term for racketeering, former Congressman Jim Traficant is running for re-election from within a federal penitentiary. I swear, sometimes, this stuff writes itself.

That DJ Made My Day

No links or anything of that sort this time.

I'm sure you've all heard about the murder of Run-DMC's DJ, Jam Master Jay. The term "senseless" gets tossed around a lot with regards to street violence and hip-hop violence, but this is the first time one of these murders made absolutely no sense to me. 2Pac & Biggie, after all, regularly claimed to have enemies and routinely spoke of their own mortality on their records. Their deaths, while still shocking and awful and painful, seemed almost foretold in their own lyrics.

But Jam Master Jay? Who ever heard of somebody putting out a hit on a freaking DJ?!?!

But that's not what I really wanted to talk about. As I was listening to all the tributes and retrospectives about Jam Master Jay and Run-DMC in particular, I remember a quote from DMC, where he said "We don't need a band. That's our band, right there". He was pointing to Jay as he said this. The press has made the point of referring to Run-DMC as a "hip-hop band".

Once upon a time, you had nothing but bands in hip-hop. KRS-One once said that the 4 pillars of hip-hop are breakdancers, graffiti artists, MCs, and DJs. Back in the day, virtually every hip-hop group of any kind of merit consisted of both an MC AND a DJ. Run-DMC. Eric B. & Rakim. Public Enemy. BDP. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. NWA. And, even into my college years, with the golden age of the Native Tongues, there was A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Naughty By Nature, Black Sheep, Gang Starr, Brand Nubian. Even solo artists like Ice-T had their own DJs who were present on every single cut of their album. All groups that consisted of MCs and DJs, because originally, hip-hop music was about "rockin' parties", and I don't care how much skill you have on a microphone, no MC can entertain a party by himself all night long without some music to back him up. These guys travelled from club to club, they had their own signature tracks & scratches & breaks & riffs. The same James Brown LP became a vastly different thing when it passed from the hands of Terminator X to Ali Shaheed Mohammed to DJ Premier. And, ultimately, the DJ was the guy who created musical consistency across an album, or albums. My brother, a child of the funk era, says that he would buy albums from The Time or the Gap Band or Earth, Wind, & Fire sight unseen, because, as long as it was the same musicians, you knew what you were getting into with each album.

Today, in the age where the producer is the king of hip-hop, an individual artist's album is a complete crapshoot. Just because that one single you hear on the radio is great, that may be the only song like it on the whole album. Who knows what the rest of it is like. To find that kind of consistency, I've really limited myself to buying albums from the producers themselves (i.e. N.E.R.D. from the Neptunes, or Tim's Bio from Timbaland, or Soul Survivor from Pete Rock). The only hip-hop band I can think of these days is Reflection Eternal (Talib Kweli & DJ Hi-Tek). Although Rawkus Records has the distinction where alot of their artists, like Mos Def and Pharoahe Monch, produce the albums themselves, and it shows in the quality of their work.

But the disappearance of the band/DJ is indicative of something else in Black culture. Without the "garage band" aspect of hip-hop that the MC/DJ pairing brings, you don't have young brothers coming up together as a unit, bringing the music and providing a fabric to a neighborhood or a community. A hip-hop band can become a community standard bearer, creating the sound and a rally point for their neighbors. And a band can be the first place that these young brothers can learn about unity, the greater good, community, and family where they may not find it at home, and where they shouldn't have to find it in a gang. The emerging hip-hop scene has, instead, filled itself with young men who want to be the musical equivalent of a pre-Larry Brown Allen Iverson. Lone wolves who have no sense of the team around them. And, in the end, most of them turn into John Starks or Allen Houston. And you see what happened to the Knicks, right?

So, what am I saying? I'm saying we have more than enough P. Diddys and Master Ps and even Eminems. We need more Jam Master Jays. And Grand Master Flashes. And Terminator Xs. And DJ Premiers. And Ali Shaheed Mohammeds. And King Britts. And Jazzy Jeffs.

And, for God's sake, we desperately need some more Spindarellas.

And, instead of a CD player, go out and buy your kids a set of turntables for Christmas.

Before You Go Vote Tomorrow....
...if you can, make a point of watching this documentary, Counting on Democracy. Now, I'm sure some people out there are tired of hearing that G.W. Bush stole the presidency because the Supreme Court prematurely stopped the Florida ballot count and declared him the winner. Well, you should be tired of it, because it's a smokescreen for what really happened. Short version: The government of Florida, run by Bush's brother Jeb, unlawfully removed THOUSANDS of eligible voters from the registration roles in the months prior to the election, and a disproportionately large number of these voters were Black and probably Democrats. What's worse is that, even after investigative reporter Greg Palast broke this story, NONE of the major news outlets would air it. Palast lives in the UK now. This documentary, Counting on Democracy details and confirms many of the findings in Palast's report, and the national PBS news organization refused to air it! It's only getting national play because a few local PBS stations are choosing to air it independently, and, even then, they're not really promoting it. Do yourself a favor and watch it if you can (or buy it and pass it around). Also, for all you Angelenos out there, check out Unprecedented, a feature film documentary that covers the same material. It's airing later on this month at the Arclight as a part of AFI FEST. And please, PLEASE remember to vote tomorrow!

The Brother Who Trumped Einstein
When I was in elementary school, my parents had a book that give brief synopses on the lifes of great African-Americans throughout history. And, while everyone loves to talk about Frederick Douglas, or Harriet Tubman, or Martin Luther King, of W.E.B. Dubois, all extraordinary people who'd made amazing contributions to humanity, the man who always held the most fascination for me was Benjamin Baneker. Born a free man in the slave-holding state of Maryland over 130 years before the Civil War, Baneker was a farmer who taught himself from borrowed text to be a surveyor, mathematician, & astronomer so talented and renowned, he was commissioned to survey the land that the city of Washington DC rests on today. But, even beyond DC and his bestselling almanac, Baneker was the first astronomer EVER to postulate that the other stars in the sky were orbited by their own planets that contained their own forms of life. The first half of this theory wasn't proven until the 1940's. And he speculated about time/space relativity over a century before Einstein provided the mathematical proofs. Here's a recent biography detailing Baneker's life that, IMHO, every parent of a Black child should have on their bookshelf.

Why not just call it Di-Lithium?
Here's an article I stole from "Die, Puny Humans", that proposes a possibly more accessible approach to interstellar travel though the controlled use of anti-matter. Did you hear that, Trekkies? Anti-matter! Way kewl.

"Dread. Pure dread."
You've all heard me rave about Ringu being the scariest movie I've seen in recent memory. While the Dreamworks remake, The Ring is game, it still pales in comparison. Well, the director of the original, Hideo Nakata, has a new film which is another adaptation of a novel by Koji Suzuki, author of "Ringu". The American title is "Dark Water", and, for all you Angelenos, it's screening twice at AFI FEST in the beginning of November. American horror directors should take note: sure, it's easy to make someone jump out of their seats with a loud noise and a sharp cut. But a movie that takes its time to make you afraid to go to sleep at night will stick with your audience (in other words, build buzz through word of mouth) forever. Check it, if you dare.

Politicians killed in plane crashes
It's always cool when CNN reads my mind. So far, the tally is 7 Democrats to 5 Republicans killed in crashes. Retrospectively, I would probably like to see an "Untimely Death While In Office" spreadsheet. Not to mention the "Untimely Death While Campaigning for Office" poll. And let's not even get into Wellstone's family disinviting Dick Cheney from the senator's funeral...

Writing Craft Quote of the Day

"The only real difference between me and the signboard guy in San Francisco who rants about the Clintons betraying 16 galaxies and a zegnalogical rocket society is that I get paid for my perception of the world. And I own better suits."
- Warren Ellis

Ellis is a comic book writer who occasionally referred to himself as either Stalin or Emperor Ming on his old online forum. But, delusions of his own grandeur aside, he is one of the best in the business these days, penning some of my favorite titles, like Planetary and the original run of The Authority. Here's a brief interview where he gives his take on the future.

After "The Punch"
Apparently, Sports Illustrated is going to pub;ish excerpts of "The Punch" in next month's issue. Here's an article from and SI reporter, who gives a little insight into Kermit Washington's relationship to Rudy Tomjanovich today. Proof once again that one of the most powerful skills in the world is mercy and forgiveness.

Senator Paul Wellstone killed in plane crash
So, for those of us who are keeping score: Ron Brown, JRK Jr., and Mel Carnahan where the last few politicos I can think of who've died in plane crashes. Carnahan was another guy running for a senate seat against Jon Ashcroft. When Carnahan was kiled, his wife took his seat and beat Ashcroft. No such luck with the Wellstones. Where am I going with this, you ask?

I'm going here: Can anyone recall who was the last Republican to get killed in a plane crash?

In fact, can anyone remember who was the last Republican to get assassinated? I think it was Lincoln, when the Republicans really weren't the party that they are today, if you catch my meaning. Makes you wonder if Al Gore had an ulterior motive when he did his whistle stop tour in 2000 on a train....

Barbers seek Jackson 'Barbershop' apology
Proof, once again, that natural systems eventually find their own equilibrium. I love it.

NASA: The Next Generation
Here's something I stole from Warren Ellis's blog, lovingly entitled "Die, Puny Humans". I think I learned more about the scientific challenges of long range space exploration in this one article than I have in the last few years. Now, if only we can get over this War on Terrorism/Iraq thing and get back to elevating the human race....

What if Bruce Wayne was P. Diddy?
Here's a blurb about a new show featuring yet another obscure Black Marvel superhero, the Night Thrasher. Personally, I've been waiting for a character like this to show up on the radar any day now, so I'm pleasantly pleased. And, as usual, I'm amused at how horrified the fanboys are about this.