Machine Gun Funk

- One of these people is a superhero. Can you guess who?


(hint: it's the one who looks warmer)


- I realize it's pointless to get pissed off about a show for kids, but this morning's Sesame Street bugged me. It didn't really hit me until later. The episode began with Ernie walking around with a backwards baseball cap, soliciting the Sesame Street regulars (remember when the humans on the show had actual jobs? I do. Bob was a teacher, Mr. Hooper ran the store. Gordon sold crack from a bodega...OK, that last one is probably my revisionist imagination at work). E-Dog was asking everyone he encountered to listen to his "instant poetry." Now, Sesame Street has always represented hip-hop culture well (I think Oscar the Grouch was, in the early 80s, a graffiti tagger, though I was only 3 then, so my memory perhaps shouldn't be taken as gospel), but they kinda dropped the ball today.

What Ernie was doing was clearly freestyling.

For discarding the accepted nomenclature and coming off like he's a modern day griot without giving respect where respect's due, I have to pull Ernie's ho card. Again, I realize it's pretty dumb to get riled up at how a kids' show portrays hip-hop, especially since they had a musical vignette which was obviously ghost produced my DJ Premier (this is what it has come to: I have to watch Sesame Street to hear dope Primo beats), but they should have come correct on that one.

If I were running the ship (and it's only a matter of time), I would have had MC Shan come out and dis Ernie, then KRS ONE would have stepped on the scene, coached Ernie, and convinced him to take one last go at Shan. In the end, Ernie wins the freestyle battle (Bert plays his hype man, with a Flava Flav clock dangling from around his neck), Shan, humiliated, joins Oscar in the trashcan, and Still #1 plays as we fade to black.

Instant Poetry. Come on!

- Two quick basketball thoughts:

1) I watched the Lakers beat the Rockets today. Still waiting for Super Action to end their streak of crappy games. Let's see a Miami game again, how's 'bout; it's been a while. The best part of the fucktasmically boring game? Seeing Yao Ming sitting on the bench in the 4th, with the game decided, and mouthing Fuck, man! and then some shit that my keen eyes couldn't lip read because it was likely in Chinese. I probably should mention that Dikembe Mutombo was sitting next to him, nodding in agreement. I need this video. If anyone had the game taped, get thee to youtube.com and hook a brotha up.

2) The Nuggets have of late fallen harder than a fat man falling on something hard (my Simile Generator 3000 is on the fritz, please forgive me). I know 'Melo isn't one for snitching, but could he this one time do Nuggets fans a favor and implicate Marcus Camby and K-Mart (and possibly Andre Miller) as part of a clandestine gambling outfit? Naw, that's too unbelievable. Plan B could be that he works behind the scenes to have Camby and Martin traded to Toronto. Then the Magic could send Little Stevie up north, sort of as an experiment. The Raptors could change their team name to the Northern Cancer. You think people wouldn't be hype to watch their favorite team try to beat the Cancer? Let's get Stephon Marbury and Ron Artest shipped there in the offseason and make this a reality.

- When I got home tonight, the wife was watching Sam Raimi's (of Spider-Man and For The Love of the Game fame) The Gift. I didn't remember that Keanu (like Cher and Ashanti, he needs no last name) was in it.

What I got to say is this: yes, Keanu is a poor actor, and all reports are that his band Dogstar sucks, too; but for some reason I feel comforted whenever he's on screen. Does that mean I have poor taste -- or possibly that I want to give him oral? I don't know. But Keanu is alright in my books.

- I'm still looking for one or more guest writers to Psychedelic Krispy Kreme. Hurry up and try to stake a claim before I have to get on the phone and inlist Stephen King or my brother Kevin, whoever answers first.