Your Favorite Michael Jackson Memories?

Question: Your Favorite Michael Jackson Memory.

I really should have posted this one on a weekend cause I think I might get a couple of responses.

But as the clock struck 2009 we came into our 40th year with Michael Jackson and his issues. (I Want You Back hit radio in December 69 from the LP Diana Ross Presents The Jackson Five)

Unfortunately MJ’s behavior has forced me to separate his talent from what I think of him as a person. According to people like Dick Gregory and Eddie Murphy, Mike’s as cool as we all think he would be.

What concerns me however, is his serious denial in regards to healthy and proper relations with little boys and the culture in which we live. If he has not already harmed someone’s child, I fear he may actually kill or hurt someone before he gets help.

But this blog ain’t about that.

This blog asks you to discuss your favorite Michael Jackson moments of so many over the years. Please don’t go too far into the Jackson’s/Jackson Five stuff because I’d like to do a blog on that another time. Of course when you mention Mike the J-5 are not that far behind. So here are like 10 of my favorite MJ moments in no order at all.

10. I crack my brand new copy of Off The Wall (My fave MJ LP) and put the cassette in the deck. The base line comes on to Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough and DAM, DAM, DAM!!!!! I ain’t had enough yet.

9. ABC is released. The title cut from The J-5’s second LP (my fave Jackson 5 disc) and I only ask my cousin to play this record like 7 million times. This was my generations Chicken Noodle Soup or Lip Gloss.

8. The Jackson Five Cartoon

7. MJ-Jacksons smash Donnie Osmonds’ Family ( I met Donnie though and he’s mad cool but he got smashed.)

6. Four Words..WE ARE THE WORLD

5. I Wanna be Where You Are…My favorite Motown Michael Jackson Record

4. BET releases the special long version of Billie Jean from The Victory Tour and you get an idea that Michael is kind of a super star now.

3. It’s 1982 I’m telling people that I think Off The Wall was a better LP but MJ has a decent album about to drop called Thriller…lol.

2. MJ Smashes the color barrier on MTV when Billie jean becomes the first video by a black person to play on MTV.

1. MOTOWN 25. All we talked about in school that whole week was Michael’s Billie Jean! I haven’t stopped talking about this performance since the night it aired.

Well I still didn’t discuss Mike and Wesley in the Bad video…hilarious. Or a host of other moments and performances. What are your faves?

Question: Why Do Poets Take Themselves Too Seriously

I asked a friend of mine to attend a poetry reading with me a while ago and she declined. She explained that while she enjoyed my poems she claimed “POETS DON’T LIKE SH!T!” She said “Raymond. I tried. But if you don’t wear your hair natural. Carry a back pack and if you like Beyonce…it’s a problem. I love me some Beyonce.”
As we talked I told her about the time I went to a club to celebrate a friend’s birthday and I ran into a person from a place where I read IN PHILLY and they said and I quote. “Don’t Tell nobody from _c_ _o_ e _ you saw me in the club.” And I bust out laughing in her face. She sounded like a teenager or a church deaconess dodging a choir member.


One more story before I get to today’s question. I have a friend who was INVITED to a spot IN PHILLY. After I bragged about my friend/family-ships with some of the people you always see noted in my blogs. Well she went to this one reading and was thoroughly insulted because some one didn’t feel she fit their small image of what a poet should be.

Now I do not want to get into this whole spoken word vs. poetry thing. I do but not right now. Here’s what I want to know.

When did being a poet become…BEING GOD? Some cats act like if every poem ain’t about the revolution in the next 15 seconds you wrong. And evidently God must think we can make it with out a revolution coming soon because we still here and the Revolution is still a long ways off!!!!!

Why do we take ourselves so seriously? I read and perform a number of angry poems and my share about the revolution. You know what? White people tend to see me as an angry poet. And Black people barely remember those poems but remember the stuff I write about having fun. I try and present a balance.

Where did this perception come to the general public who don’t catch at least one reading a week, that POETS HATE EVERYTHING?

And if that is true that they think we Hate EVERYTHING? CAN WE GET SOME LOVE OUT THERE? PLEASE.
I am the first to say we should examine everyone with the critical eye…INCLUDING POETS!!! But be fare and real. I hear a lot of poets slamming hip-hop and I critique aspects of it myself in my poetry.
But I never let my listener forget…Stephanie Renee and Kevin Powell are hip-hop, Chuck D and KRS One are hip- hop, when no other art form made room for us we had hip hop, and Muhamed Ali, Sammy Davis and Dezi Arnez pre-date but still inspire hip-hop. And also hip-hop did not create sexism or drug abuse…those intimately more American institutions than they’ll ever be hip-hop.

Alright what’s your feeling? I do have a lot more to say.

Statement: I Do Not Get The Metrosexual

Statement: I Don’t Get It. METROSEXUALS! Help Me.

As usual my blog today has a specific topic but will ask a number of questions. Please feel free to give me any feedback you deem positive, informative, funny, or even wrong as long as it’s not intended to hurt.

NOW! I hate interviewers who have only read about subjects like “Gator Wresslin” asserting points they’ve read in a book. I can tell you the only way you could know how “Hot Ghetto Mess” my neighborhood was, was to spend time and meet the people. Spending a week around me and my people in the 80’s would definitely be better than the book. (Side note: But if you have never seen American Graffiti, Cooley High, or Hollywood Knights check them out.)

I say all that cause. I DO NOT GET THE obsession or attraction to Metrosexuals.

This is what I do know. Everybody likes something. (I’m cool with that)
I usually don’t follow the curb.
Back when dudes used to like skin and bone girls in the little black video dresses…I always said “That chick looks like she’s 12.” Every since I saw “Thelma Evans” with the corn rows and she was going to elope with “Ebe” it ruined me for skinny women.

Getting back to Metrosexuals.
I admit that the “cave man” is corn ball too. Myself I love a woman who wants to be dragged by her hair…to a point. I actually find a woman with self confidence and her own life sexy. Add smart and creative to that and I start to feel down right perverted.
But when a woman can let me sweat. Cuss. Eat food that I should have thrown in the garbage at 19. And hug her till I hear bones crack…I’m in love…but I know that works for me.

Here’s my question. When did a man with a purse, who wears make up (yeah I listen to David Bowie too) and has his own make up bag, and constantly diets become sexy?

Statement: I always knew dudes like this and they always had their own way. And I do know that Metro is not specifically “gay” and there’s nothing wrong with “gay.” So we’re clear, me “not getting it” is not any type of phobia…there’s a gang of ish in this world that confuses me.

Question: Why do we have to quantify any strong statement these days? While actions are disregarded? If I say I love ice cream, I have to follow that up by a 14 paragraph statement explaining that my love for ice cream does not mean I hate people who eat Jell-O (I hate Jell-O itself.)

I could go on but I’ll let you guys respond.
Please explain the metrosexual craze to me? And why I can’t say I hate something with out having to support the thing I hate with a pre-amble?

Coming Soon! Shot Gun!

What I want to do is thank my friends here on facebook for your time and feed back during the past few months.

It with some pleasure and a hope that there will be no jinxes that I announce one of what I hope to be a few new projects for 2009.

This project I'd like to discuss now is my literary newsletter called Shot Gun.

Shout Gun will collect some of my more adult and deeper (I hope ) than skin thoughts. I will also include some artwork and pics. I will also be asking people if I can interview them candidly about various subjects. As well I may beg for some people to do some writing as well.

I am putting together the blog spot and newsletter at the same time. Here is a sample. A piece of a poem that one can find at www.shotgun2009.blogspot.com. You can check out the whole thing there...but I will send another note when the site is officially launched this February.

As always any feedback is appreciated.

I BROKE THE SKY

I broke the sky
today
I could say I didn’t mean to
but that wouldn’t be true

I did not intentionally
bump my head on the sun
I got started dreaming and
before
I barely got big
My words were bouncing off the moon
My verbs
were mixing through the milky way
and I wasn’t even
blessed yet

If you would like to read the rest of the poem please visit
www.shotgun2009.blogspot.com

QUESTION: Where The Hell IS SECURITY? Or any one else thinks this stinks

I can not remember any other President elect white or black (I like the sound of that for the first time in my life)being photographed so liberally or extensively at any time.

I'm not a conspiracy guy (okay I am but for the sake of my future business I don't broadcast it) but come on. They got pictures of Obama and family doing every thing from picking out drapes for the white house to discussing how to get "that George Bush smell out" with Hillary.

The only thing we haven't seen on film that we know has gone down is what our parents would tell us if they were Michelle and Barack and we were the first kids. "You act a fool while we in the White House and I'm a beat all the black off you." Okay maybe "Chell" and "Bam Bam" got more sense then Big Raymond and Mary (my parents)...however. A good and liberal threatening of having all the black beat off of me usually kept me from doing stuff that would be considered "acting a fool."

Anyway I am worried a little bit about the access people are getting to the family and the fact that the secret service went public with the family code names like the day after the election.
I'll pose one more topic of question in this blog.

Are you going to the inauguration? I'm not. I figured that I rolled the dice once when I attended The Million Man March and as far as I know nothing happened. I do see the possibility for some sick folks to try something and I don't want to be bothered.

That's not to say I discourage anyone else from going (sounds like it though right?)

Anyway...whats your thoughts?

QUESTION: Why Do ...Um Neo-Soul Artists...Hate The Term Neo-soul?

I have a friend that is a successful recording artist. During the first time I interviewed him however, I asked him about being a "Neo-Soul" artist and...well let's just say eventually my head grew back.

To make a long blog...longer he isn't wild about the term or label neo-soul.

Now as a critic and a radio show host I have to catergorize what I spin and when I spin it. I do old school hip-hop and R&B that would include everyone from Guy to Nucleous to Whodini and now even B.I.G.

Getting back to neo soul I would say Jill Scott is a different type of music than Keyshia Cole. So I do see the need for a seperate term.

But how do you see it?

Should music just fall into the catergories of good or not good?

Should Stevie's soul music be in the same conversations at Tank's and El DeBarge's and Chris Brown's and Maxwells?

Please tell me youside of view and why?

Question...Who do you miss from 2008

Isaac Hayes/Black Moses
Bernie Mac
Eartha Kitt
Ike Turner
George Carlin
Paul Newman
Bo Diddley
Heath Ledger
Harvey Korman
Dick Martin

Who will you miss?
Who will you miss the most?

For me the comedians have impacted me the most. From Bernie Mac's first Def Jam Appearance going all the way back to before I was born to Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.
I was on my way to a comic convention the day Harvey Korman died and I saw a fellow geek with a Great Gizoo t-shirt on and I informed him that Korman's passing had just been announced.
The geek turned to me and pointed out "the first thing he's done in a while that wasn't funny."
One of the first routines I remembered was Carlin's a place for my stuff. Though I disagree with Carlin's feelings about God, I understand how some people can turn you off from religion.

Who do you miss and why?

Oh...Good Night Dick.