this is the way, step inside

I think I've made this post every single year since Sexy Results! existed, and damn if I'm gonna let this opportunity pass me by. It's not like AOL is gonna give me that fat $8-per-post money anymore...

It's bad enough that Sexy Results! progenitors like Patton Oswalt, John Stewart and Travis Morrison went to William & Mary and that certain Sexy Results! correspondents described the W&M experience as such- "I thought their students just sit around all day depressed, studying for their pointless liberal arts exam and discussing the latest Death Cab album." For eleven years and running, I've always wondered whether I made the right choice in attending UVA over William & Mary...most of what I remember from my visit to Williamsburg was a bunch of frat boys hating the shit out of UVA, which I somehow thought really wasn't my style. I just never thought that in 2009, I'd regret not going to the school with the better football team.

y'all respect the one who got shot, i respect the shooter

I'm afraid of the future

They're not gonna make it easy for any of us, will they? Such is the nature of Virginia basketball in the 21st century where you can have ten conference wins and spend all of your time waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yeah, that's a six-point win against the bubblicious Yellow Jackets, but that's also the second time they've had to pull a a ridonkulous game-ending run (13-0 today, 15-0 against Clemson) to secure something they had no business winning. Here's hoping 30's the new 20 in the RPI.

Actually, I'm comforted a bit by UVA slipping out of the 4/5/6 seed that most projections had them at before they lost to Miami. Did you see some of those matchups? We were up against Santa Clara, Xavier and Winthrop more times than I can remember. And if those scenarios actually panned out, the Hoos would be the biggest "mortal lock for every first-round upset pick" in the history of college basketball. Or at least since the last UVA team to make the tournament; thanks to those guys, the seeding committee realized they should never make Gonzaga a #12 seed ever again. Maybe as a #7, we can get one of those big-conference teams that tanked the latter portion of the year (USC, Alabama, Michigan State) and a #2 that clearly doesn't deserve it (Kansas?).

In other news, there's nothing more sobering than hearing "Sittin' Up In My Room" at the gas station and realizing that Brandy has actually killed someone in the city where you live.

Also, if you read this blog, can you please write to Electronic Arts and beg them not to put LaDainian Tomlinson on the cover of Madden '08? I know he's an obvious choice and it might momentarily cheer him up, but he's dealt with enough shit already this offseason. If he's the coverboy, he'll be framed for murder by October.

Virtua Fighter 5 on PS3, The Besnard Lakes, John Caparulo (the funniest dude I've seen live since Lewis Black blazed UVA right after the 2000 elections), Dungen's new album and Trader Joe's BBQ Chicken Salad: file under "The Realest Of All Deals."

you're not at all a baller

Locks get lazy and lose to Miami

Fuck this. Not the mood I need to be in before I see Dave Attel at the Improv and then Ghostface at the Key Club. Those are pretty much the brackets of the Sexy Results! aesthetic, no? The club says Starks will be onstage at midnight, meaning I'll be lucky if he's up there before next Tuesday.

we hug the block on president's day

Gettin' that money the American way

Nope. Not gonna write that "UVA is on some Jada, Styles and Sheek Louch shit" post. Just gonna let that slide until March.

Anyways, having spent seven of my last eight years in some sort of educational program, I had no idea just how many people don't have to work on Presidents Day, despite it registering somewhere on the holiday scale between Flag Day and Task Force Tuesday. I work at a talent agency. I have the day off. My gal works at a public university. She does not. Sounds about right.

So, I've honored the holiday the best way I know how, mostly by watching episode after episode of "24" (currently, I'm watching Lou Diamond Phillips at his most icy) and walking down Sunset to Ralph's because driving there wouldn't kill enough time. After doing such, I have to say: I completely underestimated the promotional muscle behind "300" (no Hardaway). My preparedness for glory is off the fucking charts right now.



It's the pot of gold right here man this is it, man this is glory

(Update: listening to "Why You Hate The Game," it's dawning on me: why does Nas sound so nice on jams that are about 8 minutes or better?)

all you jealous punks can't stop my dunks

Dwight takes 'em to chuuuuch. This time, in a non-literal sense

My gal knows me pretty well. If you've been following this blog for any amount of time, you know that for the time being, we are on opposite coasts (funny, I listened to Transatlanticism far more often when I didn't have a girlfriend on the other side of the country). One of the side effects of this is that she'll know three hours beforehand how often I'll be yelling "ballin!" at the screen whenever Jack Bauer does something badass. And yes, during the intros where they show people's names, they should have the word "BALLIN'!" replace "Jack Bauer" every now and again. Anyways, another side effect is that she'll be able to tell me when I'll need to avert my eyes. In a ridiculous coincidence with all of my shows this week, it involved a drill each time. You won't see your boy up in Home Depot for a while.

The great gal that she is, she bought me the first season of "24" for Valentine's Day, since I haven't really watched the show until now. The one thing that immediately strikes me is how I don't recognize anyone other than Jack. Meaning that I can look forward to each and every one of them dying somehow. I choose to blame it all on perimeters somehow.

The thing is about "24" is that it pretty much goes against everything I usually like about TV or movies. And that parenthood can preclude bad-ass federal agenting. Oh, and also that I'm fucking ecstatic that I have a real job, because I'd be the worst henchman ever. Then again, the henchmen never seem to get paid very well, or paid at all. Anyways, my DVD collection is so female-repellant, it's virtually porn. Two SeaLab collections, nothing in AFI's Top 100 Movies of All Time. Basically, I'm not buying it unless it's funny, and that definition stretches to include "Falling Down," plus "American Psycho" and "Boogie Nights," two movies which have first halves that can fuck with any comedy ever made before getting all depressing and shit in Act II.

After a pretty impressive stretch of "24" watching, I can only come to this question: which is a worse source of comic relief, "24" or Bloc Party?



Um, hey...I'm black, gay and British too, y'know? Where's my "Outside The Lines"?

(Disturbing sidenote: the lack of rap references to "24." No, I'm not counting "24s." I dunno, "I'm like Jack Bauer, got drama every hour" or whatnot. Maybe I just haven't heard Lil' Wayne's The Palmer Mixtape yet, if such a thing exists. And it probably does.)

Speaking of comic relief, might as well throw my hat into the ring with another Slam Dunk Contest post. I said last year that getting pissed about the scoring methods of this thing is about as useless as complaining about the strike zone in Rock 'n' Jock Softball. Well, it didn't make things any easier in 2007, and yes, I can extrapolate this to explain why I don't consider gymnastics, ice skating or diving a sport.

I find the treatment of Nate Robinson to be kind of odd. Yes, I know that little dudes like Spud Webb, Earl Boykins, Muggsy Bogues and, to a certain extent, Khalid El-Amin are often beloved by fans who aren't particularly interested in skills so much as resemblance to Phife Dawg. 'Cos everyone loves Phife.



Height of Muggsy Bogues, complexion of a hockey puck

Nate's not like those guys. Nate will punch people in they face just for livin', even in the shower. Word to Tim Hardaway, you're more likely to get coldcocked in an NBA shower than....never mind. And let's not forget that Nate played the Steven Jackson role in the Nugs/Bricks brawl. Paul Pierce brought that cardboard cutout on the floor and I feared that he'd end up being the only guy in the NBA to get stabbed two non-consecutive times.

I beg of you David Stern: please let this be the last time Nate is in the Slam Dunk Contest. I really can't take this shit every single year. We've seen everything this guy is capable of, and unless you let him use a trampoline, that's not gonna change. Maybe Stern can't take much more either. You know how much he hates stalling during the Slam Dunk Contest. How else do you explain planting that ecstacy in Chris Andersen's locker?



A distant #2 in "Birdman most likely to kiss another man"

Honestly, I'm not all that surprised in retrospect that Dwight Howard ended up getting screwed far worse than Iguodala did last year. Was the concept behind the dunk hysterical? Of course it was, particularly the part where he got Prodigy to grow eight inches and throw him the alley oop pass.



I break bread, ribs, hundred dollar bills

But can you think any NBA superstar more humorless than Michael Jordan? Well, how about Kobe Bryant? "NBA Posterized" was quite possibly the greatest show in television history; does it get any better than hearing the likes of Shaq, Darryl Dawkins, Kevin Johnson, Tracy McGrady and so forth discussing the greatest in-game dunks in NBA history? And would you believe that one of the four best was by Tom Chambers?

And yet, whenever Kobe got on there, it came to a screeching halt. It was "Christina Applegate in 'Anchorman'" bad. Not because he was brutally butchering jokes (I'm looking in your direction, Magic), but instead of enjoying the moment, he'd talk about the X's and O's, like "I did a high post move and switched to my offhand." Despite the rumors, I can't believe he and his wife and swingers; he just seems like the kind of guy who does superhuman shit at work and then goes back to the lab and broods for the rest of the night on some House shit.

So think about it: Kobe and MJ constitute 40% of the judging panel. A stunt like Howard's had no chance at all. So I beg of you, David Stern: get these guys off the case next year. Personally, I'd roll with Shaq, Noreaga and Clinton Portis and go from there.

It's not like they'd do a worse job; for whatever reason, the guys somehow thought jumping over a table-that-really-isn't-a-table is more impressive than jumping over Nate Robinson while reenacting a dunk so ill, it got Dee Brown his own fuckin' shoe. At least they got shit right on Tyrus Thomas. A lot of people were disappointed in his performance, but I didn't see that as being any more or less indifferent than anything else he's done since he became a Bull. Even the most thoro Thomas skeptic couldn't foresee him becoming Stromile Swift this quickly.

I'm all for Gerald Green becoming that new dude, but he just doesn't seem to have the same swag that the guys of the past did. Say what you will about Shawn Kemp (particularly how he looks like post-dreads Busta Rhymes nowadays...which should be of more concern to Busta Rhymes), but his performance on "Posterized" was surprisingly hysterical. Shit, everyone's performance (other than Kobe's) was. From the sound of Green's interviews, I'm guessing with a great degree of certainty we were only getting one year of college from him. If I remember correctly, he signed a LOI to Oklahoma State, but they should be glad he never made it. Between him, Bryant Reeves and Dexter Manley, they'd probably lose their accreditation.



Stillwater, but apparently not very deep

kill! your! television!

Nothing like a little Ned's Atomic Dustbin to start your Saturday off right, no?

Don't quote me on this, but doesn't the average person watch some ridonkulous amount of TV per day? Like, 7-8 hours or something? I always take those studies with a grain of salt because you never know about sample size and as Homer Simpson once put it, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that.



I'd be lying if I said my men weren't committing crimes

But mostly, it comes down to the fact that you'd literally have to come home from work, turn on the TV and not stop until you eventually go to sleep in a Michelob/Funyon-induced daze. While I'm sure there are plenty of people who are into that kind of thing, I think there are a lot of people like me who simply don't watch a lot of TV.

I feel conflicted about saying that I don't watch a lot of TV (or didn't watch a lot of TV, as I later explain). Whenever someone makes a point about "oh, I don't watch TV," I automatically (and most of the time, correctly) assume that this person is a complete douchebag. Because you never say that kind of thing without trying to imply, "yeah, I don't watch TV because I spend all my free time reading Tolstoy and being all cultured and shit...so, are you gonna make out with me or what?"

It's a little different for me, because when I say I don't watch a lot of TV, I use the term "TV" to mean "non-sports programming." I'll sit and watch six straight hours of college football like it's nothing, but I barely could get past thirty minutes of prime time sitcoms. And moreover, for the last three years, I was in law school, which imbues you with the guilt of always having something you could do, and probably should do. You could really be finished with all of your reading, and yet, you still could benefit from studying or outlining or polishing up your resume (later, this would change to "blogging").

This is no longer the case right now, and three nights out of the week, I have an hour cordoned off for my "stories." "House," "24" and "Grey's Anatomy" are certainly different in approach, but they're all tied together by one characteristic: they all require Herculean suspension of disbelief.

For "24," it's pretty obvious why. Combine your skepticism surrounding the continuing triumphs of James Bond and McGyver, and you've got what it takes to pick up what Jack Bauer's throwin' down.



Two on the waist, two on the ankle, two to just spank you

And I'm not the first guy to mention this, but Wayne Palmer is threatening to knock Warren Harding out of the ranks of "worst president ever" in spite of being a fictional character. Let the punishment fit the crime. Some people have argued that "24" is hawkish because it legitimizes the use of torture and almost always portrays foreigners as being the terrorists. But I think it has a Republican agenda for more subtle reasons; Palmer is singlehandedly setting back the cause of electing a black president by about a century. Barak Obama could run against Mark Foley in 2008, and all we'd be thinking about is that speech Palmer gave when rejecting Tom's proposal.



Palmer is the pres, but I voted for Shirley Chisholm

"House" is different in that the formula the show follows has become so strict, that it's almost like watching science fiction instead of a medical drama. I'm not sure how quickly word spreads around that part of the country, but I imagine some newspaper or magazine would've got the scoop on the amazing shit this guy does. I'm waiting for the episode when one of his patients says, "look, I'm completely prepared for all the unnecessary surgery I'll be getting while you eventually find the real problem. Can you just make sure I'm doped up real good in the meantime?"



Don't blow my high when I'm sippin' on purple rain

But when it comes down to it, no show requires a greater suspension of disbelief than "Grey's Anatomy." And with that, I've officially made it OK for women to read my blog again. But really, no show infuriates me in the unique way "Grey's" does. I enjoy watching it, but I really wish I could channel the energy I spend trying to constantly suspend my disbelief into something that could help humanity, like making Cisco more readily available. In the debate as to whether "House" or "Grey's" has more credibility, I side with "House" every time. It has nothing to do with either show's scientific accuracy or inordinately attractive medical staffs. It comes down to this: based on these two shows, Seattle is the worst city to live in America. Comparatively, "The Wire" looks like it was made by the Baltimore Board of Tourism.

How can that be? I've never been to Seattle, but it seems like the kind of place everyone wants to move to. It's actually third in line, but it's more sensible than the usual alternative desirables, those being Portland (Seattle's got more job opportunities) and Vancouver (do you really have the balls to move to Canada)? And yet, New Jersey looks infinitely more attractive than the Emerald City based on their medical dramas. Yeah, Princeton's got worse scenery and it's usually cold, but at least the medical atrocities are the individual type. Meanwhile, if we're to take "Grey's" on its word, it's got more mass casualty events than Beirut, up to and including train wrecks, utterly absurd bomb scares and now, ferry boat disasters. Not to mention the dozens of metaphors that are completely brutalized by the show on a weekly basis.

Worse yet, you'd better hope you don't have a coed team working on you. Because at some point, they'll leave you open on the table because the chick realizes that she's working with the only male in the hospital she hasn't given head to yet; so she better get on that. It's even worse if you're black. Once again, if I'm to take "Grey's" on its word, either black people (particularly couples) are exponentially more likely to suffer major injuries, or Seattle's population is 75% African-American. And we all know the latter ain't true.

And that's before you get to the staff itself. As one of my Seattle connects put it, you can easily tell "Grey's Anatomy" is fiction because the only two corporations that employ more than four black people at a time are the Supersonics and the Seahawks. Besides that, they're wholly unrealistic, particularly in a physical sense. If you are employed by Seattle Grace, there's a good chance ya ass is either gon' get shot, stabbed or knuckled down, one of the three, so don't gamble wit' your life, duke.



Definitely got the gat on me

Add to that list, "nearly drowned." Or "having the ability to lift concrete pylons." And yet, they pop right back up for more as if nothing happened. In the end, despite Shonda Rhimes' attempt to portray a medical staff as diverse and emotionally open as possible, these aren't surgeons: these are Nazi ubermensch.

UPDATE

More news from the Seattle correspondent of Sexy Results!:

But commuters like my father ride that thing everyday, and to my knowledge the worst injury that ever occurred on the ferry was a sprained ankle. It in fact it did crash at one point into a marina on Bainbridge (I think the captain was drunk) and has collided with another ferry in the fog, but again no real medical emergencies emerged from that.

Because of all of this, I was already amused when I saw Merideth fall off the pier. When I saw that "dramatic" "to be continued moment", I wanted to hurl because that pier is only 8-15 feet off the water (depending on the tide). Therefore, the worst injury she should get from the fall were some wet panties.

Also, good thing I waited on writing that Virginia basketball post, what with us getting the business from Seth Greenbergsteinwitzberg.

cleanin' out my closet

Couldn't pull one drag off RZA's blunt

The announcement of the first openly gay NBA player this past week was disappointing on several levels. For one thing, I think a lot of us were secretly hoping it was Kenny Anderson or Patrick Ewing or something. Secondly, it made me a little sad inside thinking how difficult it must be for John Amaechi to find someone special; if you saw a profile on match.com or whatever saying "6'10" GBM, loves basketball and The Klaxons," you'd automatically assume they're lying. Third, you stole Kanye from Dame (sorry, there can't be a discussion about homosexuality without a Cam'ron quote). Fourth, I haven't heard any opinions on this yet from the NBA's answer to dead prez, Jermaine O'Neal and Etan Thomas. Oh sure, when David Stern fucks with the dress code, it's a race thing and you're totally against the war, but just how liberal are you guys when it comes down to brass tacks?

Lastly, and I think a lot of media outlets are picking up on this, in terms of courage, John Amaechi is slightly below Private Joker and slightly above the protagonist of "In The Air Tonight." This really doesn't strike a blow for gay rights so much as it ensures that John Amaechi will be far more famous and profitable than he ever was or had any right to be. All those book deals, TV appearances, etc.- those weren't really poppin' off when he was merely a more British Greg Ostertag.

Of course, the real boon in all of this is getting to hear other NBA players react, proof positive that you should never ask a pro baller opinions about anything remotely important. This article should permanently end any possibility of Charles Barkley becoming a politician. At the very least, it unquestionably posits the Sixers as having the most homophobic front court in the NBA. All that was missing was Sam Dalembert calling him "batty boy."

I seriously doubt we'll see an openly gay active player any time soon, and that's a shame, because NBA players should really see the big picture here. I'm not really talking about embracing different lifestyles because it's the right thing to do. But think about it; most of the players' concerns (other than getting ass-raped in the shower) revolve around whether a homosexual would be "manly" or physical enough to be a good teammate. Look, you could probably guess this from watching a gay episode of "Next," but homosexual men have far more exacting standards when it comes to physical appearance than straight women do. I've never been to Muscle Beach, but I can't imagine it doing more damage to my self-image than going to the West Hollywood L.A. Fitness already has. Let's be real: Stanley Roberts would be the loneliest gay man alive.

If I were a GM, not only would I completely accept a gay guy on my roster, I would actively try to find one. If John Amaechi came out while he was still an active player, hopefully he would choose to do once someone other than Larry Miller was signing his paychecks. And if he did, I guarantee you he'd be an All Star, and probably a Hall of Famer. Think for a second- the guy plays center. His opponent posts up in the paint, and all of a sudden, he's trying to box out by putting his butt into a homosexual's crotch. If that above article is any indication, that guy will go as far away from the basket as possible to avoid this. If openly gay, John Amaechi would neutralize any post presence. Even on the offensive end, it works. We saw what happened when Magic came back to play in the All-Star Game after he admitted having HIV. No one would go within six feet of him. Most NBA players probably assume all gay guys have the high-five anyways, so what would stop Amaechi from scoring at least 30 a game? Bill Simmons was totally wrong again; an openly gay John Amaechi could totally be the next Bill Russell.

But even off the court, having Amaechi around would've worked. Look, I'm not saying that NBA players have trouble pulling tail. But John Amaechi's gay and he's British. By my calculations, that would probably put him in contact with the kind of chicks that probably aren't hanging outside the locker room, ready to blow Peja Stojakovic right when he walks off the court after playing 42 minutes if it lets her get closer to Chris Paul. Maybe it's me, but I assume that most NBA players will eventually get tired of passing around the last three years of XXL's Eye Candies of the Month. I mean, would you hit it if there was a chance Michael Finley got to it first?

tell the freaks to find a man of they own

After witnessing the latest batch of reviews for the new Bloc Party and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah albums, I've come to the realization that I really miss the old internets. Don't get me wrong; I think both of these albums are really great, but it brings me back to something I read back in August. I was in between two job interviews in Beverly Hills, and even though I was rocking a suit at the time, I felt more comfortable wasting an hour reading a magazine than I was at the Bentley dealership (what advantages does this motorcar have over a train? Which I could also afford). For whatever reason, I picked up Wired, which was running a Pitchfork profile. I recall them saying that after they gave Travis Morrison a 0.0 and subsequently ruined his career (despite his sterling track record in Dismemberment Plan, a lot of college radio stations wouldn't touch his album), they realized that they've gotten too big to really pull something like that anymore.

And as is the usual case, many sites are following suit and completely wussing out when it comes to taking out indie sacred cows. Let me repeat: "A Weekend In The City" and "Some Loud Thunder" are great, but they're just begging for the kind of withering, unnecessary and ultimately entertaining backlash we used to get back in the day. The going theory is that the blog community is populated by sweatpants-wearing haters who praise bands like Arcade Fire for their resonance and then pan them once they resonate with too many other people. If anything, we're becoming too nice.

I recently had an album review pitch turned down by my Stylus editors. If you've spent any time on the internet, you've probably seen an ad for this group called Young Love. My interest was piqued, seeing as how he looks like he belongs in Teen People and yet, he's popped up on Stereogum and Losanjealous. I gave the album a listen. Observe my first two paragraphs from the aborted review;

I don't feel particularly guilty about beginning a discussion about Young Love by mentioning its ad campaign. Let's be real: if you read Stylus, you probably frequent a battery of other music sites that have been absolutely plastered by Young Love promo. This is a mission with laser-guided precision; go to the Island website, and you'll find an obviously popular indie-leaning girl who could be anywhere from 16 to 25. She's in varying degrees of undress, getting prepared for tonight's festivities. In 2003, she would've ended up slumped on her bed, doing her damnedest to imitate Natalie Portman. In 2007, she won't be doin' the standin' still; she's ready to go out to the discotheque (does America even have these?) and dance, man.

Young Love wants desperately to be her new favorite band. The most prominent blurb about the Dan Keyes vehicle is how they find a middle ground between Bloc Party and Justin Timberlake, which is not as audacious as it wants to sound. For one thing, many people (Stylus writers in particular) hold them in almost equal regard, and if I'm not mistaken, these are nearly the exact coordinates that get you to Panic! At The Disco. Of course, there are also stubborn assholes like me who, all four-on-the-floor disco beats aside, realize that alienation is Kele Okereke's most pervasive lyrical theme and think most of FutureSexxx sounds like it comes from the perspective of a date rapist. So if these are truly the elements of Too Young To Fight It, that makes sense, since this is an album that's supposed to get the party crackin' in spite of the fact that it's the kind of music that has no relationship with a dancefloor whatsoever. As a matter of fact, it'd make great intro music for boxers, as Young Love inexplicably does what M.O.P. never could: inspire me to fucking coldcock a total stranger.

It was ultimately rejected for being too much of a hatchet job, and that most reviews of it would probably pan it anyways, so it wasn't worth the space. Man, do you think that would happen in 2002? I'm getting too old.

Here's one of the points I made in the last paragraph"

Then again, from this review, you might just assume that Young Love will be someone else's problem, but there's a reason he's on Stereogum and not Teen People; the Great Crapshoot of 2006 proved that everything's fair game with the indie kids these days, but it hasn't been liberating so much as the full-blown realization of Talib Kweli's sentiment on "Hater Players".

Which quote am I talking about? Reverse psychology got em scared to say when shit is whack/out of fear of being called a hater, imagine that!

C'mon, people. Even the 19-year old self-described "emo girls" who intern at my office think they're shit. It's one thing if Rob Sheffield rides for their cause, seeing as how he's the father of the "if you can't beat 'em, join' em" thread of music writing that found Limp Bizkit and Korn being critical darlings in 1998 (this happened. I remember it). But unless you are a teenage girl, please stop making excuses for this band's popularity and start telling me why they're actually good. Are the lyrics good? No, they're the most irritating in all of rock music. Is the production good? No, it sounds like a Bon Jovi record. You get the idea. Your teenage years were good. Stop guessing at what today's kids are supposed to like. "Siamese Dream" is still a fucking awesome record. Go listen to that instead.

In other news, the first real job I ever had was working as a cashier at Dollar Express. I say first "real job," because I had two previous side hustles. The first was babysitting my cousins, which was how I got that Genesis money up back in the day. They had Super Nintendo and the Playboy Channel. As a 12-year old, that's pretty much all the perks you need. Before that, I worked at the country club across the street, picking up the golf balls from the driving range. I got to drive the cart around and I had access to all the pretzels and soda I wanted. As an 11-year old, that's pretty much all the perks you need.

But anyway, fast forward to your boy at the Dollar Express. Didn't end up lasting too long; I got fired because I rung up a transaction incorrectly and forgot to circle it on the receipt. Who knew that a store that charges the same price for everything were such sticklers about finances? Anyways, the joke was on them, since the guy who gave me the axe was a cokehead who was embezzling money from the company.

During my brief stint there, the best way to pass the time was to listen to the quiet storm shit on the PA and try to pick out if it's been sampled in any rap track. Being that it was during the heyday of Bad Boy, the chances were often pretty good that it was.

This is something I still enjoy to this very day; why, just the other day, I was in Rite Aid and, while holding a box of Q-Tips, I was all of a sudden paralyzed. As in, "oh shit...I've been looking for that shit they sampled all this time!" To answer your question, the track is "So Free"...on Diplomatic Immunity 2. No, I'm not embarassed by this. I go into the liquor store to get some wine, and I hear "Ain't No Woman Like The One I've Got" (stay in school if you can't get the reference). And I just stand there and let it run.

Of course, post-DipSet, the doors have been blown open and now we've got Billy Joel and Phil Collins as likely to get sampled as Patti LaBelle. This had me thinking: everyone's already made jokes about how there should be a DVD that collects all the reactions of NBA players to the Slam Dunk Contest. Well, what if you got a show where you got Cam'ron, Ghostface (because that's the only NYC rapper Killa hasn't clashed with), Jim Jones or whatever and put them in a room with an XBox 360 and whatever liquor they wanted. The premise of the program is this: you randomly spin selections of '80s R&B, hair metal and blue-eyed soul and just watch them react to it. Would this not be entertaining? Sure, by episode five, you'd hear nothing but, "oh shit, that had me open back in the day!" Still, those four episodes we could get out of this would be the most priceless television in history. We can make this happen.