Archive for December, 2006

The DP Dot Com Football Pool (Final Week)

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

ldt

***submit your picks to this e-mail address***
***blu_cheez at dallaspenn dot com***

This is the moment that we have all waited for. The final week of the football season and someone is about to crowned the ‘King (or Queen) of the first annual DP Dot Com Football Pool’. I want to thank all of you that stuck around since the beginning and those of you that came to play when you did. Give it up CANDICE for holding down the leader spot almost all season, but like her Giants she faded in the end. Big up to all the ladies that repped for their squads. There’s nothing better than having a shorty that watches football with you on Sunday and know the point difference between a basketball and a football field goal.

Here’s a breakdown of the leader board…

AMADEO = 4 pts (81)
Mr.KAMOJI = 5 pts (80)
S DOT = 10 pts (80)
THE DALLAS = 10 pts (79)
SASQUATCHFART = 4 pts (78)
LM = 6 pts (78)
PRYNSEX = 4 pts (76)
CANDICE = 0 pts (75)
J trademark= 17 pts (74)
40’s-Odie-Dillie-Dopeshit = 3 pts (71)
ALEX2.0 = -1 pts (71)
ESBEE = 0 pts (65)
SHONQUAYSHAH= 4 pts (59)
TIFFANY = -1 pts (56)
JESSE = -2 pts (47)

The only person that is technically mathematically eliminated is JESSE (sorry dude), but everyone else has a chance to win… Technically. Follow the Bonus Points Heavy Rollers chart for this week carefully. Keep in mind that if your H.R. picks fall you lose your point wager, but if they win you get double.

The Bonus Points Heavy Rollers breakdown goes like this…

The following poolers are all allowed two seperate +1 H.R. picks in the Bonus section
AMADEO
Mr.KAMOJI
S DOT

The following poolers are all allowed two seperate +2 H.R. picks in the Bonus section
40 DAWG
SASQUATCHFART
LM
PRYNSEX
CANDICE
DALLAS
J trademark
ALEX2.0

The following pooler is allowed two seperate +3 H.R. picks in the Bonus section
ESBEE

The following poolers are all allowed two seperate +4 H.R. picks in the Bonus section
SHONQUAYSHAH
TIFFANY

JESSE, it’s just for glory this week, but you do get to submit two(2) +5 H.R. picks.

***submit your picks to this e-mail address***
***blu_cheez at dallaspenn dot com***

Here’s your lineup card for the final weekend…

NEW YORK GIANTS @ WASHINGTON REDSKINS

CLEVELAND BROWNS @ HOUSTON TEXANS

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS @ TENNESSEE TITANS

PITTSBURGH STEELERS @ CINCINNATI BENGALS

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS @ KANSAS CITY CHIEFS*corrected

SAINT LOUIS RAMS @ MINNESOTA VIKINGS

ATLANTA FALCONS @ PHILADELPHIA EAGLES

BONUS POINTS * HEAVY ROLLER * BONUS POINTS

Most rushing yards this weekend?
STEVEN JACKSON or FRANK GORE

Most passing yards this weekend?
CARSON PALMER or REX GROSSMAN

Which cats score more?
PANTHERS or LIONS

Total score for GREEN BAY @ CHICAGO – 44 points
OVER or UNDER


***submit your picks to this e-mail address***
***blu_cheez at dallaspenn dot com***

Rest In Peace To The WIGFATHER

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

j.b.

“If you just give a man a wig, he may not know how to brush it, but if you teach a man the value of his wig, he will always take care of his wig”
-the WIGFATHER

As the internets prattles on ad nauseum about the greatness of the Wigfather we thought that we should highlight a few of the many people that the Wigfather trained in his soulful school of Wig Ownership. In this way you still have the opportunity to see the Wigfather manifest his influence in the entertainment realm. JAMES BROWN is to music what MICHAELANGELO is to painting what SHAKESPEARE is to tragedy what the Sun is to life on Earth.

So show some mother effing respect to the Wigfather!

j.b. JAMES BROWN – THE WIGFATHER
More than just a Wig Owner, the Wigfather used his wigs to buy record labels and radio stations. The Man knew that the Wigfather was the truth and he sent all kinds of ho’s and IRS flunkies after him to slow down his Night Train. The Wigfather’s example of creativity and determinism wasn’t lost on any of the musicians that he came in contact with either.

starchild

GEORGE CLINTON a/k/a STARCHILD

george GEORGE CLINTON
From humble beginnings as a doo wop singer and hair stylist from Plainview, New Jersey, the Wigfathers’ number one disciple became a major Wig Owner in his own right.
GEORGE CLINTON spearheaded the next generation of funk soldiers by creating several bands that would be recording albums all the while simultaneously touring. Parliament, Funkadelic, Parlet, The Brides of Funkenstein… The list goes on and on.

bootsy george

GEORGE CLINTON and BOOTSY COLLINS

bootsy BOOTSY COLLINS
Listen to the bassline on ‘Sex Machine’ and you are hearing a young BOOTSY COLLINS grind for JAMES BROWN and the J.B.’s. BOOTSY was an incredible talent and the Wigfather knew that with the right direction he would become a legend and extremely wig wealthy.

lenny terrence

LENNY KRAVITZ and TERRENCE TRENT D’ARBY
It would take these two cats combined to give you the full impact that the Wigfather brought to the stage, but at least these dudes have been steady maintaining the wigs that they earned.

m.j.

MICHAEL JACKSON a/k/a ‘THE KING OF POP’

m.j. MICHAEL JACKSON
If anyone realized the Wigfather’s acclaim in the popular music field it would have been the ‘King of Pop’. No single artist has sold more albums across the globe than this eccentric and brilliant Wig Owner. MICHAEL’s brilliance was in taking the Wigfather’s advice and buying the publishing catalogs of other popular musicians. In all of MICHAEL JACKSON’s publishing empire do you know that he doesn’t own one JAMES BROWN song?! M.J. had ’nuff respect for the Wigfather.

rick james

RICK JAMES, BITCH!

rick james bitch RICK JAMES
RICK JAMES didn’t just inherit the Wigfather’s funky grooves, but he also liked to put his foot on a broad when she slipped out of pocket. Unfortunately for us RICK JAMES returned to the essence before the Wigfather but you can enjoy some of RICK JAMES best work in the countless Hip-Hop samples of ‘Mary Jane’.

prince

PRINCE
No one replicated the Wigfather’s energy and creative spirit more than PRINCE. From the dance moves to the caterwauling screams PRINCE is everything that the Wigfather intended him to be. A sex machine with ants in his pants.

If you ever have a chance to see ‘Purple Rain’ in Brooklyn or Manhattan please do so. I will be somewhere in the theatre singing all the songs in my unfortunately un-PRINCE like voice.

MUGSHOT HAIRSTYLE MODELS: THE GODFATHER

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

junglegroove

The Godfather of Soul was the O.G. inspiration for these Mugshot Hairstyle Model posts way back when. Since the first time that J.B. has been pinched by the po-po many other celebs have found themselves behind the bright lights and sharp lens of the district attorney’s fingerprinter. MICHAEL JACKSON, NICK NOLTE, JESSE JACKSON and MARV ALBERT have all been featured as guest celebrities for these spots. I wish that we were featuring JAMES BROWN under better circumstances. Isn’t it somewhat ironic that another arrest would be better than the knowledge that he is gone from us forever?

One of the things that we will take with us is that JAMES BROWN was hardbody all the time. The same intensity that he used to create his hard driving music was also the same focus that he used to perform. JAMES BROWN wasn’t about to take shit from anybody, not from lackluster bandmembers, not from sheisty lawyers that tried to take his loot, not from from southern police officers and never from any of his wives. JAMES BROWN was quick to put his boot in woman’s azz. I believe that’s called getting ‘On The Good Foot’. I respect a man that keeps his broads in check whether or not they will call the police on him. A man’s got to stand for something or these chicks will walk all over him.

The Godfather is gone from us now but his legacy will be that of one of America’s greatest artists evar. He’ll also hold a spot close to our hearts for being that man that just didn’t give a fuck what you said to him about his hair.

jb KING HEROIN
After JAMES BROWN’s most productive years during the 1960’s aqnd early 1970’s he fell into problems with the law and with drugs. All kinds of drug busts from pot to coke to LSD almost turned J.B. into a caricature of his former stately self. What could never be denied was the fact that his musical talent was pre-eminent. The JAMES BROWN sound was a staple for break beat deejays and anybody who wanted to get a party started right.

jb THE CHASE 1988
Peep the story… J.B. might be a little hopped up on pain medication when he busts into an occupied rental office in a building he owns. Apparently someone has been using the restroom in his private office. J.B. wants to know who the offending party is. To facilitate the truth he brings his little friend Mr.Mossburg (a shotgun) with him. A high speed chase ensues across county and state lines and back again until the police finally shoot out the wheels to J.B.’s whip.

jb EX-WIFEY #3
Kick azz shows aren’t the only times that J.B. gets on the good foot. When one of his wives gets out of pocket J.B. puts his boots down so hard that poppa usually needs a new pair of shoes afterward.

jb EX-WIFEY #4
Approaching his seventies and still as hardbody as a South Carolina slave. JAMES BROWN has been pinched for d.v. more than anyone that I can think of. The police shouldn’t even waste their time unless someone gets killed. J.B. always makes up with these broads anyhoo.

JAMES BROWN’s SOUL KITCHEN…

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

unity

I can’t front and act like I was always down with the funky sound of JAMES BROWN. Yeah, I knew how often his music was sampled for the Hip-Hop music that I grooved to the most, but there was still a large disconnect that I had with JAMES BROWN’s music. It’s no small stretch to say that JAMES BROWN is the father of modern day popular dance music. When you listen to a J.B. song there are two things I can guarantee. It will be funky, and that funk will make you move your body.

Let me begin with my teenage years at the Times Square nightclub Latin Quarter. One of the popular songs for Red Alert’s Saturday night party was made by Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud. The song was called ‘Do The James’ and it referenced the Hip-Hop dance called the James Brown. The dance was based on J.B.’s signature move of sliding across the stage on one foot. There were several dances that you had to do during those days including the head shaking Wop, the goofy Pee Wee Herman, The suave Cameo slide, the high jumping Fila and the energetic James Brown. When the Super Lover Cee song was mixed through the speakers was when you had to do your version of the James Brown. I wasn’t as good a dancer as the kids from I.O.U. were, but I had an extremely high flattop haircut and freshly ironed Girbaud slacks with a crisp Polo rugby so I wasn’t trying to play the wall either.

8 x avirex

Even though so much of the music that I loved owed an unrequited debt to JAMES BROWN’s musical genius I had no greater appreciation for him than the skits performed by EDDIE MURPHY I remembered from Saturday Night Live. There was that song he did in Rocky 7 or whatever. It would be several years before I would come to understand exactly how influential JAMES BROWN was to everyone that was making music in the 1980’s from R & B to new wave, to disco and gospel. It was all contained within the evolution of jazz into funk. JAMES BROWN was that COUNT BASIE, DUKE ELLINGTON, LOUIS ARMSTRONG, MILES DAVIS type of musician and so much more. He also knew that music held the key to educate and inspire it’s listeners so he unabashedly tackled social issues like race, drug addiction and poverty.

When the 1990’s came around New York City was without a specific Hip-Hop club. Mars on West 13th Street tried to fill that void with their ‘TRIP’ parties while a host of promoters would have loft parties on Broadway in the SoHo area. One of these parties called ‘Payday’ had an interesting mix of promoters who were classic and current Hip-Hop fans. They hired a dee jay named FRANKIE INGLESE to spin for their small Monday night party at Brother’s Bar-B-Cue. The party was primarily a cool out for the music industry people that worked in the neighborhood. Doors opened at 10pm and there were free bar-b-cue wings along with quarts of Colt 45 sold for a ridiculous three dollars. Suffice it to say this was my Monday evening dinner party.

FRANKIE INGLESE kept it funky all night. Classic hits from Parliament Funkadelic, the Meters, Sly and The Family Stone, Average White Band, Rufus, Rick James and so many other great musicians played on through the night. FRANKIE had the original 12 inch vinyl records for all the music that rappers were sampling. He even had stuff that hadn’t been discovered yet by Hip-Hoppers. This was where I first heard the extended version of JAMES BROWN’s ‘The Big Payback’. It’s a song so rich and complex with melodies that several songs have been sampled from that record and most of them sound different from one another. It was as if you could get an endless amount of samples from one JAMES BROWN record.

jb

If you wanted to become a Hip-Hop producer then Franky Jackson’s Soul Kitchen became the only party that you needed to attend. There was a moment when everyone who was involved in Hip-Hop was coming to this party. I credit this party with restoring the popularity of artists like GEORGE CLINTON, WILSON PICKETT, BOOSTY COLLINS and MACEO PARKER, but bigger than all of those guys was the man who inspired their music. Franky Jackson’s Soul Kitchen helped me appreciate why JAMES BROWN was called ‘The Godfather’.

JAMES BROWN deserved extra credit for his bandleading and musical composition abilities since he never learned how to read music. He employed classically trained musicians that were familiar in styles like swing and jazz and they would help him translate the desired notes and charts to the other bandmembers. The key to JAMES BROWN’s music were his rhythm tracks and the fact that he did not employ chord changes. His improvisational use of the horn section was also signature. Because his instrumentation was so uniform and tight there has been no one sampled in Hip-Hop more than JAMES BROWN.

In the summer of 1997 JAMES BROWN performed a concert in NYC’s Central Park. This was the only time that I saw him perform and it was worth twice the money of the ticket even though I snuck in. JAMES BROWN lived up to his other nickname as the hardest working man in show business. He never stopped dancing for his over two hour set. Hit after hit rained down from the stage and this might have been the one time in my life that I saw people in their twenties dancing with those in their seventies. JAMES BROWN’s groove was that universal and that transcendent. Heaven was already a swingin’ joint with a touch of jazz. This Christmas, GOD gave Heaven a funky president for a present.

R.I.P. JAMES BROWN

jb

JAMES BROWN’s RENT PARTIES…

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

j.b.

Editor’s note: ERNIE PANNICOLI is one of the greatest storytellers of any generation. He is a world renowned photographer and Hip-Hop’s first and foremost image taker. ERNIE’s book titled ‘Who Shot Ya?‘ is required reading for anyone who loves Hip-Hop culture and the characters that have existed inside of it. ERNIE is one of Hip-Hop’s elder statesman and he’s someone that I listen to for advice and information. As a proper tribute to JAMES BROWN I thought that I would feature some of ERNIE’s thoughts because he was difinitely inspired by J.B.’s work.

Growing up in Brooklyn there was one thing you could count on in the late 60’s and early 70’s and that was every weekend, especially around the end of the month was a rent party. For those of you who are too young or too privileged to know what a rent party was it was simply a means to get up the rent. Usually for a couple of bucks and BYOB (bring your own bottle) the party would start around 11pm and last and last and last. It ended around dawn or earlier if there was a knife fight (usually over a woman who would leave with another man not involved in the fight) or folks were too drunk or tired to dance any longer. Most of the places, women and people are a blur to me now, but the one thing every rent party had to have was a DJ (no not a Grandmaster Flash, Grandwizzard Theodore or Grandmaster Caz, this was before Kool Herc showed us what a DJ was in Hip Hop style).

The rent party DJ’s were cats with a record player, two or three large, loud speakers and a ton of LP’s or 45’s (damn it, not the guns 45’s were small 45rpm records). And if they ever wanted you to come to another rent party in their apartment again they better have a lot of James Brown music and they better have his best known jams and they damn well better have his latest stuff. It was believed in Brooklyn at that time that James Brown did an album a month and that every album had 12 cuts and that at least 5 of the 12 were hits and at least 12 of the 12 were danceable. If you could not dance you also better get out the way or learn to dance or at least look cool trying to dance. And only the very elite, the top of the top would even try to copy any dance moves from the master himself James Brown.

This was long before MTV, BET or even music videos. Folks would go see James Brown live and in a week whatever new steps he would create would be known, copied and built upon from coast to coast. We felt sorry for people outside of Brooklyn and knew the only place that danced as good, fought as hard or had as much soul in the world was Brooklyn. We also knew that wherever James Brown was born, raised or lived his soul was from Brooklyn and the music he made was especially made for Brooklyn. I learned to make out, dance and fight in Brooklyn and the music that always seemed to be in my head was James Brown. Today Heaven just became a hipper more soulful place, right now it probably sounds like a rent party in Brooklyn. Those rent parties are why I put James Brown at the front of my book “Who Shot Ya?”