If you know the rest of the words, then what up doe? If not, keep reading.

Time: 1980 something

Place: Channel 62, WGPR

Host: Nat Morris

Setting: Hot summer Detroit day. Wet concrete smells waft up down the street. Faygo Red Pop stains on the front of your shirt. Fingers sticky with Better Made Hot Chip residue. Sitting on the porch watching folks drag race down either E. Outer Drive or 7 Mile. This ain’t no Eminem movie but there was a White Boy Rick that Kerry (so very old best friend that I’m sure we’re blood now) had a crush on. Biggest drug dealer on the East Side. We are still not sure what he exactly looked like up close.

Why?

Well, because I was focused on Tillary. The biggest drug dealer in MY neighborhood on Kirby. Young and fine. Liked an older woman who had a townhouse right across in my back yard. I could see his bird chest working the bbq grill sometimes and I would sigh like Michael Jackson just gave me his last glove. Tillary bought his lady a looooooooong Mercedes and she would drive around blasting Prince’s “Adore.” I used to think, if only I could pop her on the head and step into her life.

In between my dad’s trips to Aknartoon’s (the best and most delicious Muslim eatery in Highland Park with a bean soup and cornbread that, to quote my dad, “would make your tongue slap your brains out.”) and drives through Palmer Park off of Woodward Avenue, I occupied my summer’s with The Scene.

Forget American Bandstand and even forget that janky Soul Train. Yeah, I said it. Detroit held it’s own with our dance show, “The Scene.” At six o’clock, everybody cool was around the TV watching channel 62, singing the show’s theme song:

It’s six o’clock and it’s time to rock
We rock nonstop til seven o’clock
We don’t stop
We don’t stop
We jam, jam til dawn
The latest steps and the latest styles
Pretty faces and pretty smiles
We’re looking good and everybody’s clean
It’s six o’clock and time for the SCENE

I don’t care who you are, you knew somebody big sister or brother on the show. Nat Morris could make you a star if you were patient. And even if you didn’t know folks on the show directly, you better believe you would know them like you knew DeBarge or Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. Just as famous and I ain’t lyin.

Once, when I was young, we got the entire cast of dancers to do Michael Jackson’s ENTIRE dance for “Thriller” right there in our parking lot. You couldn’t even get a seat on the grass if you didn’t show up early.

I ain’t faded if you ain’t in the know.
But for your reference, you should watch the show!

If you are an artist or a regular person waiting on someone else to do something for you (i.e, some kind of agent/manager/best friend/baby mama/baby daddy/girlfriend/protege), please know this:

Those people are not your employment agency. You are your own employment agency.

I had that revelation a few weeks ago and since then have been calling production companies about my script, “Smoke and Mirrors.” Me and my friend Tracie Thoms have been on the hustle for this vehicle for her. It’s a script about a girl who finally grows up at the age 28 after she loses everything that made her comfortably immature.

Guess what?

Folks are actually okay with me sending my stuff to them. Okay, so it took this long for me to get here but I got here and I got here in a way that makes perfect sense to me.

(Insert Charlie Brown chorus here)

So if you are waiting for people to do something for you, I hope you are sitting in a very comfortable seat and not one of those DMV plastic chairs.

And in reference to my “Notes to Self”, there’s this new craze running around since it’s been on Oprah called “The Secret.” Now, I’ve not seen this DVD but I have been to Dr. Michael Beckwith’s place of peace called Agape. There is nothing new in the world, by the way. But I believe in this: gratitude is the way to move yourself. If you are not grateful for EVERYTHING that happens to you, then you are not doing a service to yourself at all.

I was hard on myself in “Notes to Myself” by using the word failiure, which I’m not (yes, I know this! I am the most successful T. Tara Turk I know!). But I don’t mind that. I also am aware that I’m working on my second novel, my fourth screenplay, looking at a short story coming out in another anthology in late March (more to come on that), and learning how to file away all the ideas I have.

By the way, I forgot to also mention that seeing my old theater professor/mentor Kevin Confoy on his trip to the Left Coast and I want to thank him for bringing some awesome theaterical intelluct to my brain. I had a great idea for a play (I hope I remember it when it comes time to write it) while he spoke on the various joys of love in plays from John Patrick Shanley (read awesomely by Ben Provo - super talented actor who is not acting because it is not only what he is and I support him…sigh - and SLC parent Caryn Mandabach - who opened her lovely home to us) to Shakespeare (alums from the 50s to last year reading different scenes!). Kevin and Christine Farrell are bomb lovers of theater who can actually articulate it. That’s hard business.

My last mention is for Dr. Barbara Emerson. There isn’t really enough space on this page to show gratitude to her for being an amazing supporter, believer, funder and mother to what me and Ka’ramuu Kush did at The New School in our time there. We did the first black theater festival at The New School because of her. We brought Jessica Care Moore, T’Kalla, Jasiri, Nathan Trice, Dyron Holmes, Lawrence Holder and many more folks into the fold at The New School, showing that place some shades of brown they’d never seen before. So there. And the whole time, this lovely Dr. Emerson steered the way for us. I am eternally grateful for her.

Keep your revelations coming….

Nor should it be! Life is about evolution. You can be on Dyckman Ave. in your leather Eddie Murphy Raw Suit for the rest of your life if you want to, talking about Atari being that new sh*t. In the spirit of all things evolving, there are still pioneers who ain’t rockin’ box top forever. Read the below and then think to yourself, what’s next?

Shout out to Jen’s Den of Inequity for making me remember blunts, 40s and De La Soul in the Big Apple.

Taking hip-hop to new heights
Story Highlights• Felicia Palmer co-founded SOHH.com• Site is leader in hip-hop music coverage• SOHH has grown greatly, provides “voice for the people”
By Jennifer JenkinsCNN
(CNN) — “What’s the Internet?”
That was the response Felicia Palmer got 12 years ago when she went to some record labels to offer promotion for artists on her recently launched hip-hop site, SOHH.com.
In 1995, though its roots went back more than 20 years, hip-hop still hadn’t established a formidable presence online, despite increasing commercial and mainstream success.
Palmer saw an opportunity.
“We thought, this is hip-hop, we love hip-hop, and guess what, there’s this thing called the Internet,” Palmer says.
“We weren’t satisfied in what we saw in terms of the coverage of hip-hop and the presentation of it, so we wanted to find a vehicle where we could present our own perspectives and be able to change the landscape a little bit.”
Armed with an entrepreneurial spirit and a genuine love for the music, Palmer and her husband and partner, Steven Samuel, launched SOHH as an online site with news and message boards focused on the hip-hop community.
SOHH survived the dot-com bust of the late 1990s, and five years after its launch, Rolling Stone proclaimed SOHH the “best overall hip-hop site.”
Growing up with hip-hop
Palmer grew up during the ’70s in the Bronx, New York, widely regarded as the birthplace of hip-hop. With an older brother who was a member of a local rap group, the hallways in her house were often filled with music blasting from five-foot high speakers.
Despite her roots in the hip-hop culture, Palmer didn’t set out to be a trailblazer in the online world of hip-hop.
After graduating from high school with honors, Palmer went on to study at Cornell University, with plans to become a veterinarian. Intense science courses quickly convinced her to switch her focus to business management studies, but Palmer also ran into obstacles outside the classroom.
“The culture shock of being a sprinkle of pepper in a sea of salt was overwhelming,” she says. “I distinctly remember being in one of the huge cafeterias the first week of school and saying to myself, ‘What do I say to them?’ “
Palmer toughed it out, and graduated in 1993.
After graduating, Palmer went to work for a small licensing firm that had been founded by two young women. She credits her experience there with giving her the motivation to launch SOHH.
“It was there that I learned that I could be an entrepreneur. They gave me the inspiration to have my own company,” Palmer says.
Palmer went on to serve as the new-media manager for Essence magazine, helping to launch the magazine’s first Web site, and simultaneously launching communications company 4Control Media and SOHH.com in her spare time.
After two years at Essence, she quit her job to pursue SOHH full time.
‘A voice for the people’
Initially launched with just a focus on forums and message boards, SOHH quickly grew to include breaking-news updates and longer feature pieces on artists and figures in the industry.
Today, SOHH gets an average of 1.5 million unique visitors monthly, and boasts a full-time staff that produces news updates, columns and blogs, video features and a healthy dose of user interaction in the form of comments and message boards.
Much of SOHH’s success is owed to Palmer’s savvy in filling the online void in the hip-hop community in the early ’90s. Palmer says it took time to convince the record labels and artists that the online effort was worth it.
“We just wore them out with our staying power and our ability to build audience and relevancy by working around them,” Palmer says.
“Now that SOHH.com has reached the mass audience and acquired significant market share, the labels work with us to promote their hottest projects, test market new music and build audience for emerging projects.”
Last year, Palmer and staff launched a special TV/video section of SOHH, showcasing movie trailers and advertisements, and began creating their own feature video packages and interviews for the site.
Plans include launching a broadband video download platform and expanding SOHH’s in-house video producing and offerings.
Though the hip-hop industry has shifted as it has gained mainstream popularity, Palmer is confident that SOHH will continue to grow.
“We realized when we started SOHH and were doing it on our own that it had more energy, it spoke to the people,” says Palmer. “It spoke to what people needed and it was a voice for people who didn’t have a voice.”

So for the first time a long while, I sat through the Music Superbowl - Grammy’s - in its entirety. Thankfully, this was the year of talent. All you sampling, voice correcting, widget using singers and computer musicians better go get some classes.

First: I was VERY disappointed with Beyonce. One, she looked devastated. I’ve looked devastated before but if I had a lot of money, I would pay people to make me look not devastated (see Ashley Simpson) because, with money, I can fix almost anything. The dress looked like some tissue that was squished on her clasped with a rhinestone contraption. I know what tissue looks like when it does this because I used to be an expert Kleenex Flower Creator in my past life. Amazing what staples and a box of blowies can do. Also, not a fan of the fake hairline, home girl. Again, you have a lot of money. Stop tripping. THEN she sings. I think Beyonce can sing, for the record. However, her cheetah dress and that AWFULLY boring performance she gave us stood out more than anything. Why? See below.

Second: As Yaze likes to say, “Who hid a black woman in that 80 pound white body?” Christina made all you folks who didn’t come with your game look like fools. The girl let us know that she could outsing most folks just by opening her mouth and dropping some throat drops down her throat and playing a bazooka. It was like she was the minister for the James Brown Church of Get Your Act Together. Yaze says her album sales haven’t been that great. Obviously she could give two shits on the side of the road. If I’m shelling out cash to see somebody sing, this is who I’m going with. Not a widget collector who’s been singing the same damn songs for fifteen years (See Janet Jackson - Sorry, bud, but you have got to step your game up. I don’t want to see your boobies because you could be my mom and that just sends me to therapy in my head thinking about it. Plus, I think that you sing in a register that would be great for my dog Harlem.)

Third: That James Blunt song is my idea of Chinese Water Torture. I also think he was in “Lord of The Rings: Return of the Really High Voiced Short Man.”

Fourth: I’m into the Dixie Chicks. In fact, I think it’s awesome Rick Rubin and those three ladies got together and did a f-ck you record to all those crazy middle America people who got pissed at them for, gasp, being able to see whatever the hell they want to say. Burning CDs? Death threats? Are these the descendants of those fuckers who killed all the civil rights leaders? If so, why haven’t we put those birth control jammies in their arms instead of the poor women of color? I would rather support 47 children on welfare than to tolerate some ignorant fool who thinks they are American but keep not reading the Constitution. That said, Dixies, get a speech writer. The Simpsons sound bite was cute…if I was having drinks with you. But I wasn’t. I was watching you accept some awards. And your thank yous put me to sleep. Where’s Rick Rubin when you need him?

Five: The singer/songwriter showcase. Okay. So. Um. Corrine Bailey Ray annoys me. Sorry. I know there are A LOT of you out there who think she’s the British Anita Baker. Negative-o. I like the first song she came out with. It’s dope. The rest of it belongs in a Summer’s Eve commercial. Sorry. I have great hope for her future. Currently though, she is grates my nerves as the cutesy cute cute girl who just invented the cure for cancer. She did not. She made two videos for one song. That’s what she did.

Back to the showcase. If my name is CorrineJohnJohn, I am going to use JohnCorrineJohn or JohnJohnCorrine a helluva lot more in my song medley. You are not singing songs together if you just trail off and then somebody’s goes into their song. You are also not fan’s of Qunicy Jones because that’s a man who knows how to use some transition.

John L, we like you. You are everyone’s favorite choir boy. If you had used John M and Corrine a bit more, we would’ve seen how bomb you can be. But instead it looked like you just wanted to hog your spotlight. And then Lionel came and showed you how it’s really done - without effort!

Corrine, you were really elegant even if I think you are pinching my nerves. And the use of John M on your song was wonderful because that’s a Dominican White Boy who can throw down (see Christina Aguilera - Latinos who look white are fooling all of you!).

And John M…well, you’ve been in this game a long time. I love you. You are a crafstman and are really good friends with Dave Chapelle so that works in my book. You’ve been around a long time so I don’t understand why they threw you in with the new faces…but whatever. You have flaws but they don’t seem to have anything to do with music. You just have crazy taste in women (if you do a duet with Jessica Simpson, I’m leaving you) and you obviously need a haircut (that Eight is Enough haircut is driving me crazy).

Six: Red Hot Chili Peppers…good night to you, sirs. Were the tiny bits of paper supposed to be revolutionary? I would have been mad at you if I were there and I was picking off paper shreds off my gown. Once you had socks on your penises…this is how you follow it up? Snow? No Dani California??? Did James Blunt slip you something???

Seven: Justin Timberlake. I likey him. Yes indeedy I do. Another one with peculiar taste in women (Britney? Stalky Diaz?) however it’s okay. I understand why Stalky Diaz would stalk you. You have some black in you clearly. Before you all get up in arms, remember what the Ahmet Ertegun clip said about black music being the bomb (so pump your racist breaks, shorties)). And I really like the “What Goes Around” song. The video, written (what’s that script look like?) by Nick Cassavettes, is a rip off of “Butterfield 8″ with Elizabeth Taylor but do what you gotta do. The handheld video? Creepy. You looked like Beeker. And it was boring. But you did the damn thing with the piano, the all black band, the dancey moves, etc. And it was really nice of you to tolerate that amateur Robyn who won some contest. I say SOME contest because us folks on the west, despite the damn show being shot on the west, did not get to vote because the shit was over by the time we saw it. Thank you so much, Academy People. We care about you too. That’s why your red carpet tent was a bust and folks kept asking where the air conditioning was. So there. Back to Lil Bit singing her song with JT. It would have been dope if it were all spontaneous. But it was rehearsed and I’m not sure if you knew that you were singing a different note than JT. Nor am I sure that you know that you attempted to out sing your host. Chill on that. I can’t wait to see you on American Idol next week, Robyn. Good stuff. JT, you’re a genius man. All you had to do was do some karaoke with some chick in the audience and you got to do more songs that anybody else in the show. GENIUS!

Eight: You camera guys need to have a meeting next time you shoot something big like Grammys. I got tired of looking at flashing lights that were supposed to be Justin Timberlake or the little bits of paper fall in front of the obviously important homemade sign next to the Chili Peppers. And don’t ever show me Imogene Heap again!

Nine: The Police were boring. I’m going to get flack for that. I was moved by the sentiment. But you have got to step up your game! We waited twenty some odd years for that! Before you go on tour (and charge us $120 for a ticket) please have some meals together, get drunk, laugh about old times, wind up huddled in each other’s arms by accident, hungover, the next morning. I need some more romance between all of you.

TEN: Mary J! I love Mary J! She talks in third person about herself, “Mary J wants to let you know…” That’s diva right there. I hadn’t realized that she never won a Grammy since she was sniffing too much of that powder, downing her Henny’s and chasing KC all over the place. Think of the stuff they didn’t let us know about! If they were throwing salt in her game all this time…there must be some bomb stories out there. But she’s right. Let’s talk of Mary J in a positive light. I am positively certain she should’ve won for that Lauryn Hill song a hundred years ago. I’m positive that she turned a bunch of folks into Born Again as soon as she uttered, “Father God…” (cause that’s church right there). I am positive I will be sick of her Miss Celie braid soon. I am positive that Beyonce was back stage trying to kill herself with eyeliner when Mary came out and sang most of her vital organs out her body, thus showing us that Mary J is no Tiffany mall discovery! No sir. We haven’t seen Patti LaBelle Mary in a while so I was very happy to see her win some stuff so she can continue on loving herself. Though, either way, her next CD was going to be the bomb.

Misc: I would like to exchange my Jessica Simpson for a Carrie Underwood. I would like Chris Brown to take his circus show down a notch when performing after Lionel Richie and Smokey Robinson (who used ZERO fire balls, Chris. Note that. But you redeemed yourself on the James Brown tribute. I see you.). I would like all of our comedians to stop being cocky and bombing your jokes all over the place. I would like for somebody to tell me how many awards we actually got to see since this was obviously a concert and not an award show. Did you see all the stuff they didn’t tape? Jeez…

Thoughts?

Every day I try to think of something to put me on the map….

This one beat me good:

Eternal embrace? Couple still hugging 5,000 years on 1 hour, 39 minutes ago

ROME (Reuters) -Call it the eternal embrace.

Archaeologists in Italy have discovered a couple buried 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, hugging each other.

“It’s an extraordinary case,” said Elena Menotti, who led the team on their dig near the northern city of Mantova.

“There has not been a double burial found in the Neolithic period, much less two people hugging — and they really are hugging.”

Menotti said she believed the two, almost certainly a man and a woman although that needs to be confirmed, died young because their teeth were mostly intact and not worn down.

“I must say that when we discovered it, we all became very excited. I’ve been doing this job for 25 years. I’ve done digs at Pompeii, all the famous sites,” she told Reuters.

“But I’ve never been so moved because this is the discovery of something special.”

A laboratory will now try to determine the couple’s age at the time of death and how long they had been buried.

So what ya got?

Okay, I love pop culture. Sorry. I do. I can talk some Marquez with the best of them but I can also hold my on with various bits of useless information.

Useless.

Brings me to this:

If Isiah Washington had to go to rehab over saying he didn’t call somebody the f-bomb when he did and Michael Richards had to call everybody black from me to Michael Jordan, why is Paris Hilton still in existance? Don’t we have Blackhawk helicopters anymore or did all those go away in Somalia? Can’t we use them for good and target her extensions like Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial? I won’t even mention the racist shit she’s been not even trying to hide. I refuse to post said videos since they all over. If I post them, you have to look at her in moving image and I just respect you too much. Whoever you are. Suffice it to say there was a blind item about a celebrity who’s been in the news recently for being racist who has now changed her racist slang to refer to black folks as “Lolas.” Okay, lazy eye. Keep trying to be clever.

What can you do? Boycott! Here’s a website with her affiliated companies. I looked at the list and I don’t use none of this shit BUT in case you’re in the need to smell lie Pepe Le Pew, I’m sure there’s some other stank pee you can put on aside from her perfume. And if you have to stay at a Hilton, stay at the Motel 6 since they’re about the same nowadays (and I’m not even saying that because my ex - The Raisin (cause he’s in his 50s—see I had an open mine back in the day–thanks to Kyle Rivers for the nickname!) works there. There’s some other bull on there but honestly it’s all like a brokedown parking lot sale.

http://www.ktkm.com/Noparis.htm

Yawn.

Okay, here’s a crazy ass picture of her anyway because she’s a lazy eye vomit factory.

The cast of the remake of The Wiz has been announced. Execs have decided to merge the Tin Man and the Lion together to make a Andre Leon Talley (has anybody else realized his initals are close to ATL -ALT - A Lettuce Tomato. A Long Turkey. A Lion Tail). Eviline will be played by Kimmy and Russell will be producing her hit single “Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News.” And since Michael Jackson has lost his work visa in the States, the Scarecrow will be played by Britney Spears who has decided to pull money out of her head to read rather than Chinese fortunes because she said they didn’t come with duck sauce. Oh wait. That IS Michael Jackson.

Okay, I’m a curvy girl. Period. And I am a little confused about Tyra’s rampage over her Fat press. On one hand she was boasting about being a big girl and how great it is that we should embrace herself blah blah (hold on, I gotta get a scoop of this cream cheese frosting that I’m eating from a bowl — no cake)…and then as soon as they start talking about how she’s “Thigh-ra”, she says they airbrushed her to make her….FAT! What? Why would they do that? Is it because she’s the Whistle Blowing Model? Are they trying to take her down because she told us to love our chunk? Who is THEY? She’s entertaining at least:

Fight the power, Thigh-ra…but listen…the larger question is not why you got a Lane Bryant swimsuit on (no diss to LB, just asking for LB to get some props is all). The real question is why is homie about to POKE YOU WITH HIS 9MM?

From the front instead from the left:

I wonder if she’s going to talk about his trunk triangle in the front…on the next Tyra…