Month: March 2007

Unk T seen w/Public Enemy

pe_1.jpgUNK T was IN DA HOUSE last nite (Sunday 3-25) @ a local club to see Public Enemy. Rolling Stone included PE on their list of The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. A seminal hip hop group for over 20 years, “their politically charged lyrics” take an “activist interest” in the concerns and needs of the African American community. They are known for “their aggressive artistic expression and behavior”, whose rhymes deplore violence, chauvinism, crime and reverse racist hate”. Even though D preaches about DA MAN enslaving the blacks, nobody apparently blamed me personally.

Public Enemy’s most “mainstream” exposure has been from writing for Spike Lee films such as “Do the Right Thing”, “He Got Game”, and “Malcolm X”. Chuck D, FlavorFlav (yep,the one an only), Professor Griff, and Terminator X took over the small venue’s stage about 11:30PM, after a series of SEVEN other acts has literally worn me down with their crotch-grabbing, baggy sweat clothes, heavy bling, mumbling into the microphone. (A highlight was the group AGO: all girl orchestra. who turned out to be hot female rappers. As Borat would say: “Aza nice!”). I really love hip hop, but in live shows, over-produced acts really stick out in their poor stagecraft, choreography, and screaming incomprehensible rhymes.
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Letter From Languedoc

chirac_sarko.jpgThis morning Chirac finally (and tepidly) endorsed Sarkozy as his choice for prez. Much was made of the wait and basically it was about as climactic as Clinton endorsing Gore in 2000 (or Bush Jr. endorsing whatever fascist gets the nomination next year). There was a big thing on the noon interview show that the lab lunch crowd watches (of which I join about 3 days a week) about the impending (5 weeks!) first-round of the election. The main reason is that last time (’02) Le Pen came out of nowhere to make the top two (who advance to the second and final round).

This time the left learned their lesson and anointed Ségolène Royal and are more or less standing behind her (last time, the left was much more split than usual, which contributed to Le Pen sneaking into the 2nd round with 17%). The right is more or less united behind Sarko.

[also for reference: No Sex, Please, We’re French, an NYT op-ed by Stephen Clark printed 23 March]
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Tourney Time

bball_david_spin.jpgIt’s impossible to resist filling out a bracket for the Enceedubelay Mensmarchmadness event, and the big web sites have caught on and are offering their own ways to do it on-line. (I also couldn’t resist using the kih-kass graphic I put together last year at this time…)

It would be nice if all the Rectors who were similarly inclined would use the same tool so we can easily compare and contrast. I look at the NYTimes every day, so I’d prefer to use theirs — the NYTimes site always seems to load very quickly on my cussed dial-up line, while the SI, ESPN and CBS sports sites take FOREVER to load, probably because of the million little ads they sprinkle around. I have gone ahead and picked my bracket on the NYT site, and also created a “group” called HilltopGang (see below for group code) if you should decide to join me there. (Their bracket page is actually VERY cool because you just click and drag your picks, and you don’t have to wait for the page to update each time because they’re using Shockwave in a very clever way…sorry, but this geek is impressed.)

NYT Bracket Group Code: 99369b0cecCJtW9063K1BdQ2FcdeAJnUoQ51

The Duke men, alas, will probably not go far this year (they look pretty slow, though the ladies are going to be #1 seed on their bracket), but there are seven ACC entries, and I’m going to root for them all, except for UNC.

Meanwhile, the Buckeye mens BeeBall team better play as a better favorite than their EffBall brethren, and the only way they can exact some revenge on the Gator team would be in the final game. I know that Celtic fans will be watching young (but elder-looking!) Mr. Oden while he’s still in the mix.

Good luck gentlemen — may the upsets be “obvious” and your biases not blind you.