Alright, I am not exactly fond of the huge Hollywood actor formerly known as Fresh Prince. And I still haven't seen I Am Legend. But after checking this pirate trailer out, I gotta say Hancock is a movie I am looking forward to, despite the fact that it's a WS vehicle. Check the trailer out quick before the evil AMPTP take time out from trying to screw writers and take it down!





tags: will smith, i am legend, hancock

I always start cringing about this time of year, when the Xmas marketing machine kick into full gear and there's no where to hide from the drunken Santas, screaming kids, and kamikaze parents willing to run you down in cold blood to get the last hot toy.

To get through  the misery I just close my eyes and start rapping Kurtis Blow's classic Christmas Rappin'. Come people, rap along:

We were all in the mood so we had a little food, and a joke, and a
smoke, and a little bit of wine, when I thought I heard a hoof on
top of the roof. Could it be or was it me, I was feeling super
fine. So I went to the attic where I thought heard the static
on a chance that the prance was somebody breaking in. But the
noise on the top was a reindeer clop, Just a trick St. Nick, and I
let the sucker in.

Thaaaaaat's betta!

Okay, I got in my shot at the WGA for their lack of diversity, now it's time to get on the soap-box and show my support. I doubt much of the rest of the country cares as much as L.A. does about the ongoing strike, since no other city's economy is built on the entertainment industry like this town's. But come January, when you are sick of watching reruns and Dancing With the Stars, don't go blaming the writers for your couch-potato whoes.

Last Friday it was the studios, who are repped by the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers), who bolted from the negotiation table. And according to insiders like Nikke Finke, it looked like they planned to walk all along instead of seriously trying to settle the dispute. The studios are looking like they want to try and ride out the writers over the holidays, and if they can break them that means they can try and stiff the Screen Actors Guild on possible internet revenue when SAG negotiations start next year.

Do writers and actors make good money already? Some do, yeah. Do studios make way more? Hell yeah. And they're looking to profit even more than they already do off the backs of the folks who actually create stuff.

If you care enough to get into the details, you should go to the United Hollywood site. If nothing else, the writers are putting out some good videos on Youtube in their spare time. Below is one of my favorites:





tags: writers strike, wga 

Being the deep brotha that I think I am, I really tried to get into the head of the Michael Vick supporters that showed up this morning outside the Virginia courthouse where the dog-fight ringleader/NFL player was pleading not guilty to the federal charges against him.

I tried to figure out what would possess someone to put in all the effort to make signs and t-shirts, drive for hours, and then stand around for hours chanting and praying for this guy. I couldn't.

I mean, who are those people who were the majority on the streets today after animal-rights activists stayed home when it was announced that Vick was going to plead guilty. Are they:

a) NFL fanatics who can't live without seeing a talented athlete like Vick play again?
b) Folks who will support any black man from the 'hood who has made millions, just because he's a black man from the 'hood who has made millions?
c) Dog-fight fans?
d) Good church-goers who think that because Vick claims he's found Jesus, there's no need to lock him up?
e) Freaks who need to get jobs?

They could be any, all, or none of those options, I really don't know.

Vick has plead guilty to not only being a major player in a cruel and nasty operation, and has even admitted to personally killing dogs. And that's just what he's told the courts, who knows what he's done that can't be proven.  Now I'm not saying he's a Saddam Hussein, or even a Dick Cheney. But why anyone would go and publicly support a guy like this, Lord knows. Neither does my mutt JamesBrown.



tags: michael vick

Hey, I'm all for the members of the Writers Guild of America currently on strike. If the writers don't get some deserved dues for the creative contribution they make, that's just more money in the pockets of five fat-cat corporations that control all the major studios. No question where my support goes.

Of course, the WGA needs a little make-over in it's diversity department before I jump on their bandwagon 100%. The video from The Message says it all below:




tags: writer's strike, wga

I was maybe nine or ten when my dad sat me down and forced me to watch a movie called Killer of Sheep. It was shot in black and white, the sound was sketchy, and there was little or no action, so about ten minutes into the thing I was begging to go out in the street and harass my sister and her friends. But dad wouldn't let me leave.

"You wanna be one of them reporters, you better watch this shit, boy!" he bellowed. "You won't know anything about being black unless you watch this thing."

I remember thinking he was nuts for saying that. I knew I was black. I looked in the mirror every day. My momma picked stuff from my nappy afro every day. How could I not know what it was to be black? And why would watching this movie help me become the intrepid Clark Kent-like reporter I dreamed of being as soon as I was tall enough to steal a car and escape from home?

Killer of Sheep was not about reporting. It wasn't about anything, that I could figure. It was about a dude who worked in a slaughterhouse, and his family, and his homeboys. They sat around talking. Listening to music (good music, at least). It was about them trying to do stuff, like road trips. But overall, not much went on. I drifted through a lot of it, but I watched it to the end. Dad was disappointed I didn't turn more righteous right then and there. Then we ate dinner.

But, the film stuck with me for the rest of my life. At least images, scenes, and impressions did. Like the scene when Stan and his old homeboy try to buy an engine. And the last scene, where Stan and his wife put aside all the failure, the heartbreak, and the pressure of their lives, and do a long slow dance to a Dinah Washington song. I can't think of many movies that have left a big as impression on me than Killer of Sheep, and all that was confirmed for me when I bought the recently-released DVD.

The film, by Charles Burnett, got extremely limited release when it came out in '77 (Lord knows where my dad got the VHS copy that I originally watched), then collected dust for 30+ years because Burnett couldn't get the licensing for all the music in the film. And thanks to a big lift from Steven Soderberg, it's been restored, music paid for.

Now I can slip it in my player and remind myself how it is to be black, on those days when I lose my way.



tags: charles burnett, killer of sheep, steven soderberg

Wow. R. Kelly's publicist Regina Daniels turned in her quit letter last Friday, stating:

Though I have a great appreciation for Mr. Kelly as an artist, there are some lines that should never be crossed professionally or personally. Mr. Kelly crossed a line that forever altered the scope of our relationship. For this reason I made the decision to resign.

I can't tell you how much this news freaks me out. Daniels has been the Pied Piper of Urination's publicist for 14 years. She's worked for a man that married Aaliyah when she was 15 years old. He's been indicted on a truck-load of child pornography counts. He's videoed himself peeing on an underage girl. His wife has taken out a restraining order on him. I could go on, but I'm sure you've read about all the other good ones.

My mind boggles at the thought of what - after all that she's undoubtedly seen - what could R. Kelly have possibly done to Daniels to cross the line???? If there is a video out there somewhere, I'm hoping nobody has to ever see it.



tags: r kelly

A lot has been written about Radiohead's attempt to re-boot the way the music industry economy works by releasing their latest album as an online pay-what-you-can deal. Cutting out the corporate middle-men (the record companies) is an idea that many musicians have been trying to make work, especially given their history of jerking around artists in favor of the bottom line. Prince started it way back when he changed his name to a symbol to back out of his contract with Warner Bros, and later started releasing albums on his own label NPG Records.

And with music corporations scrambling to try and figure out how they can win back some of the profits they used to make before the internet and music-sharing, I have no doubt it's the musicians that are paying for the tanking sales. Radiohead is playing ahead of the curve - instead of suing soccer-moms and pre-teens for tens of thousands of dollars for having too many songs on their hard-drive, they're giving away "In Rainbows" and telling folks to send 'em some money if they feel like it.

Will it work? Well it's easier for a band that's already made buckets o' duckets like Radiohead to try it, and I'm glad they had the balls to do it. They also got a load of free advertising from this trailblazing move, so I bet the profit-margin for them will be pretty nice.

I'm hoping the same for Saul Williams' latest album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggytardust. I am not a fan of most spoken word, but Williams has always transcended the mediocrity of the genre and moved into the realm of MC, singer, griot, etc. This joint pushes Williams' words into new places. Produced by Trent Reznor, it fuses hip hop and rock in a way that suits Williams' angry, bleak, opaque, poetic vision very nicely.

Niggytardust is available for free, but even if it's too freaky for your taste spend the recommended $5 and support someone cutting the edge.




tags: saul williams, radiohead, prince, trent reznor

My shiftless cuz Dick Cheney pulled a blunder worthy of his boss lil' Bush the other day while dissing one of his arch-enemies, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez:


First, Venezuela and Peru don't even share borders! I'm actually shocked that Peru is even a part of Dick's vocabulary, since it doesn't have any oil. What made my day was how no one in the World Affairs Council of Dallas-Fort Worth crowd that Dick was speaking to even bothered to try and correct him. Maybe they thought he was talking about Alan Garcia, the current President of Peru, who bankrupted the country and racked up a 7500 percent (not a typo!) inflation rate last time he was run out of office in 1990.

But no, it's Chavez that Dick's got the problem with, not Garcia. Cuz's people told the Washington Post it was "a simple slip of the tongue" and that "Both the president and vice president hold President Garcia and the people of Peru in high regard".

Now... I know a little somethin about slipping tongue, and calling Venezuela Peru is not a slip. If he'd called it "Venezola", or "Vene Rica" or something, that would be a slip of the tongue. C'mon, cuz, how could you pull a Dan Quail like that after I reveal that you're part of my fam?



tags: dick cheney, hugo chavez, venezuela

Yeah, FFF has been pretty quiet and boring this month. But FlyNerd is going through some major Academic Blues - also known as AB - this semester. And when FlyNerd's brain gets fried he just can't rant as much or as well as he wants. AB also causes FlyNerd to talk about himself in the third person.

I had started writing a fun little essay on the evil machnations of my long-lost twentieth cousin fifth-removed by marriage, Dick Cheney, but that's going to have to wait for another day. These days when I get a few moments all I'm good for is surfing brain-dead crap like Bossip (not even going to link to it, I'm too ashamed).

One story that caught my eye was about Madonna's new book, where she confirms the rumor that her and Tupac were more n' just homies, she wanted to be his baby's momma. Blender (will link to this one) mentioned it back in '04 in their 33 things You Should Know About Tupac Shakur:


As you can see by the number, that drivel of gossip almost didn't place on their list. And it really ain't very important, but it's all my AB-wracked mind can mull over these days outside of school drama.

In between hitting the books and outlining papers and arguing with T.A.'s, my mind wanders and I actually find myself thinking about Tupac and Madonna's shorty that never happened. I call it: MadPac. Or 2Donna. I'm going to bed now...



tags:
madonna, tupac, gossip