Apparently the "stay black, homey!" edition. This is post #500, btw. Damn, I write too much!
The latest in the strange wonderful world of building a band in The Morning News. This episode Gary gets a PSA from his new bass player:
Jacob: OK. [very serious, like a doctor] See, what you have, Gary, is a condition that is very common among white males between the age of 16 and 40. It’s called eye-cob.
Gary: Eye-cob?
Jacob: E.I.C.O.B. Entertainment-influenced Concept of Blackness.
Gary: [nervous laugh]
Jacob: [holding up hands] Now watch. Over on this left hand you have famous black people. P. Diddy, right? Missy Elliott, Oprah, uh, Damon Dash running Roc-a-Fella with Jay-Z. And Denzel. That’s E.I.B., Entertainment-influenced Blackness. Now, on the right hand here you have Jacob. And Jacob is playing bass and trying to get a novel together. He’s writing for Matchstick. He hangs out with his friends, and he has to go to a family reunion next month in piss-hot Georgia, and meet up with the same cousins who used to beat him up when he was 12. That’s J.P.B., Jacob’s Personal Blackness.
Gary: My cousins beat the crap out of me.
Jacob: My cousins are knuckleheads. [taking a drink] All right. [raising left hand, then right] You’ve got big wide-world MTV blackness, and little old Jacob blackness. And the problem—are you ready for the problem?
Gary: I am ready.
Jacob: The problem is that when white people walk down the street, and you see black people, you’re seeing the left hand of blackness. You’re seeing blackness in culture, this big crazy blackness with Jesse Jackson on one side and, like, Chingy on the other. But when you see white people, you don’t think, there’s a white man just like that Ted Koppel on TV. You don’t even see their skin, right?
Gary: Nope.
Jacob: You don’t watch The Apprentice and say, Donald Trump has taught me something about the white experience. Donald Trump is just an individual with fucked-up hair. Do you know what I mean?
Gary: [shifts in seat]
Jacob: So, you’re a sensitive guy. And you’re like, let me go out and get a cool black bass player, and be diverse, let me get some of that P-Funk vibe, some Bootsie cool. I’m going to do some good. But when you ask a man to play bass because he’s black, it’s not all that different than coming up and offering me a big ol’ tas’ey watermelon. You’re looking for left-hand blackness, but Jacob’s only got right-hand, one man blackness on tap. And when you expect my right hand and left hand to be the same thing, Gary, is when you commoditize my negritude.
Gary: [takes a long drink of beer] I’m sorry.
Jacob: All right. And because it’s obviously heartfelt, I accept that apology.
Gary: Thank you.
Jacob: You shouldn’t feel too bad. Even Bill Cosby is confused on these issues.
Make Jay a talking head! But, am I wrong in kinda liking that Spoke N' Heard show?
Oh look, Al found himself an extra suit from the Mo Money, Mo Problems/Been Around The World Era of Puffy!
I can't say I haven't made this mistake before:
IT must be such a drag to be a celeb, what with the cars, the clothes, the cash — and the mistaken identities. Case in point: on Saturday, a Mercedes Maybach pulled up in front of Downtown Cipriani. An attractive, casually dressed woman with a long brunette ponytail got out with a similarly attired man. A passerby called out, "Oh my God, J.Lo you are so gorgeous!" The woman in question smiled and looked directly at the fan. "Thank you," she said. "But my name isn't J.Lo. It's Beyoncé."
An interesting take on the recent history of the "n word." [via P6] Did anyone watch that show on Trio, btw? I haven't watched TV in weeks. Oh, and the Bill Cosby thread on Fametracker is a pretty good read.
Posted by Candicissima at July 7, 2004 11:09 AM