October 30, 2009

To the next step

Saturday is my last day on the air for 850/620. I guess I’ll say more on it Monday — today’s been a bit much, to be honest — but in the meantime, I thought many of you would enjoy our final segment.

I’ll be back soon.

October 26, 2009

Bob Griese’s “Subtle” Racism

The interesting thing about watching football while using Twitter — you’re kinda watching every game. So, without having to watch Big Ten football with my own eyes, I saw that Bob Griese pulled a Fuzzy. Zoeller, that is.

Eek, man. The worst part about it is that Griese laughed breathlessly for long enough that he could have hit the brakes. Hell, I don’t think he could have given you his phone number while he was hiccup-laughing. But he gathered himself, just because that “taco” line was too good to keep to himself.

Hey, anyone that works in the humor business — and, to an extent, I do — gets himself in trouble in the name of a great laugh. The only way it’ll work, though, is if you get that laugh. It’s got to be great.

It’s got to be better than “he’s having a taco.” But let’s move to my reason for writing this…

Chris Mottram, editor over at SBNation.com, tweeted that the line was “subtle” racism. That is laughable. Say that in front of Mr. Montoya and see how subtle it is. The line was racist, simple and plain. I understand playing it safe, but I’m not going to be wrong in the name of safety. That’s just silly.

I went back and forth with Chris, and he said he’s reluctant to say that something is racist. That’s his right, and I fully understand why he takes that tack. It’s almost like saying someone’s racist is worth a scarlet letter, as if such people are rarely-seen relics.

They’re not that uncommon, actually. And if you think that people who, when all the math is done, are racists are rare, you certainly can’t deny the presence of racism. I don’t know any thinking person that does.

Then why is it so friggin’ hard to get someone to acknowledge that something like, “he’s having a taco” in reference to a Colombian, is racist?

(It’s also important, at this juncture, to make sure it’s understood I’m not singling Mr. Mottram out. He’s just the most recent person I’ve had this conversation with. He knows this post is coming, so no need to run and tattle “ooooooh, Bomani’s talking about you!)

We have a hard time separating racist actions from racist people. I don’t know anything about Bob Griese, nor do I know much about Chris besides what’s in his Twitter profile and his delightful blogging. Bob Griese might have marched with Dr. King, for all I know. Chris, too. But that wouldn’t change, for a second, just how racist “he’s having a taco” was.

Chris is reluctant to call something racist because, presumably, that’s making a bold statement about the person who uttered the statement. Except that it’s not.

We’re humans. We do messed up stuff. And in a country that’s still bass ackwards in the brain about race, we’re gonna get those things wrong a LOT. But part of the reason we’re so bass ackwards is that we do whatever we can to ignore the oft-obvious conclusion that something is racist. We’re bass ackwards at knowing it when we see it, and we’re often just as bass ackwards at responding appropriately in its various presences.

But the truth is that, in order to come out of this madness without internalizing a LOT of racism, you’ve got to make a concerted effort to avoid the easy joke or easy answer. Most of us don’t make that effort. The result is that you just might slip and say something you shouldn’t. It’s not much more complex than that.

But when we don’t call racism when we see it, or dance around it when we know damn well that’s what it is? Well, that’s how you wind up with guys like Rush Limbaugh, who sell racism for a living, looking us dead in our faces saying he’s not a racist…and a bunch of people trying to pretend that the invalidation of two quotes redeems decades of toxic work.

Go back and read the stories about Limbaugh’s attempt to buy the Rams. See how many people danced around the word “racism,” all while only asking black players if they’d play for a Limbaugh-owned team. It was a disingenuous charade, largely fueled by our refusal to squarely say what we all can see and our confusion with what to do with what’s in our faces.

There’s no way we can acknowledge there’s racism…but never actually see it with our own eyes. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.

But here’s the thing — saying Bob Griese said something racist is NOT putting him in the same boat with Limbaugh. It’s really just putting him in the same boat with most of us.

In the grand scheme, what Griese said wasn’t that big of a deal. It was unequivocally wrong, but nothing to sweat for too long. Say he’s wrong, let him apologize, then move on from there.

But dammit, say it. Just say it. Because if this is subtle racism, then the racism that really is subtle — often the most damaging — will seem like nothing to far too many people.

And lemme tell ya…it is something, jack. It is something.

October 23, 2009

My Show, My Music (Edited with links to iTunes Store)

Before I actually got this radio show, I picked out music for it. Seriously. But hell, you know me. I do the sports stuff for money. I’d write about music for free (which, BTW, is why I can’t do it, because that biz wants you to do it for free, and I’m too grown for that).

When I started here, we had two CD’s that everyone at the station used. I won’t say there was anything wrong with them, but the music on there just didn’t make sense when my voice was coming behind it. They also sounded like each song was intended to reach the same person. That left a lot of people out.

Had to come up with some middle ground — something that sounded like me, but other people could get into. The way I saw it, the tracks didn’t need be but so familiar. They just needed to have a universal appeal to the sensibilities of everyone listening to the show.

So I figured there was only but so much rap that could be used. It’s a bit polarizing, and the target demographic in sports talk radio is 25-54. No need to offend unnecessarily over music when we could find a middle ground.

I decided to go as heavy on funk and ’70s soul as I could. If it was good enough to be sampled and start another movement, it was good enough for this. Plus, everybody likes a killer bass line. The other stuff doesn’t even matter that much usually. But I figured that approach — plus a few classics across genres — would allow me to have a sound that was genuinely me, but also genuinely you, too. And while most sports talk host probably don’t give a kitty about their music, I do. Part of the show was sharing who I was, and one thing about me — I love listening to music. Plus, I think the song is the most efficient mode of expression ever invented. Sharing the sound was sharing me, without throwing it in your face or having to say a word.

So yeah, this was a big part of coming up with the show. Spent weeks getting the tracks right, finding the right sections to use — and messed up on that, too — and finding the perfect, relatively obscure tracks that I knew would make people e-mail and ask what we just played.

Anyway, here we go. There’s so significance to what’s on each disc. I didn’t want there to be blocs on the discs where you had a run of the same artist, so I just reordered the tracks alphabetically by track name in my iTunes (a decision that, curiously enough, I thought of using some principles of OLS regressions…don’t ask), then burned five discs with 40 tracks. The hyperlinks on the days will take you to an iMix at the iTunes Store.

Monday

A Tribe Called Quest, “Electric Relaxation”
Alien Ant Farm, “Attitude”
Audioslave, “Cochise”
Black Sheep, “The Choice is Yours”
Bob Marley, “Concrete Jungle”
Bob Marley, “Easy skanking”
Bob Marley, “Africa Unite”
Bobby Womack, “Across 110th Street”
Boogie Down Productions, “The Bridge is Over”
Commodores, “Brick House”
Eric Clapton, “Cocaine”
Funkadelic, “Cosmic Slop”
Gangstarr, “DWYCK”
Gnarls Barkley, “Crazy”
Green Day, “Brain Stew”
Isley Brothers, “Between the Sheets”
James Brown, “Cold Sweat”
James Brown, “Blind Man Can See It [Extended][#][*]”
Jimi Hendrix, “Come On, Pt. 1″
Johnnie Taylor, “Cheaper To Keep Her”
Living Colour, “Desperate People”
Lucy Pearl, “Dance Tonite”
Maxwell, “Dancewitme”
Maze, “Before I Let Go”
Meters, “Cissy Strut”
Michael Jackson, “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”
O’Jays, “Darling Darling Baby”
Ohio Players, “Ecstasy”
OutKast, “Dracula‚Äös Wedding (Feat. Kelis”
Parliament, “Chocolate City”
Prince, “D.M.S.R.”
Rolling Stones, “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”
Rolling Stones, “Brown Sugar”
Shuggie Otis, “Aht Uh Mi Hed”
Slick Rick, “Children’s Story”
Smokey Robinson, “Cruisin’”
Stevie Wonder, “All I Do”
Temptations, “Ball of confusion”
The Beatles, “Come Together”
War, “The Cisco Kid”

Tuesday

Al Green, “Here I Am (Come And Take Me)”
Bob Marley, “Get Up, Stand Up”
Bobby Byrd, “I Know You Got Soul”
Buffalo Springfield, “For What It’s Worth”
Commodores, “Gonna Blow Your Mind”
Commodores, “Gimme My Mule”
Doors, “Five to One”
Dramatics, “Get Up & Get Down”
Eric B. and Rakim, “Eric B. is President”
Faith No More, Falling to Pieces”
Faith No More, “Evidence”
Funkadelic, “Freak Of The Week”
Funkadelic, “Hit it and quit it”
Gangstarr, “Ex Girl to Next Girl”
Gil Scott-Heron, “Gun”
James Brown, “Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose”
James Brown, “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine”
Jay-Z, “heart of the city (aint no lov”
Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, “Funk Beyond The Call Of Duty”
Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, “Feel The Spirit Of My Guitar”
King Floyd, “Groove Me”
Lakeside, “Fantastic Voyage”
Lauryn Hill, “Everything Is Everything”
Maze, “Golden Time Of Day”
Metallica, “Enter Sandman”
O’Jays, “For the Love of Money”
Ohio Players, “Fire”
Otis Redding, “Hard To Handle”
Parliament, “Flash Light”
Pink Floyd, “Have A Cigar”
Prince, “Head”
Prince, “Erotic City”
Rolling Stones, “Gimme Shelter”
Stevie Wonder, “For Once in My Life”
The Beatles, “Glass Onion”
The Clash, “The Guns of Brixton”
Too Short, “Gettin’ It”
U2, “Even Better Than The Real Thing”
U2, “Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me”
Wilson Pickett, “Hey Jude”

Wednesday

Al Green, “Love And Happiness”
Average White Band, “A Love of Your Own”
Bill Withers, “Make Love To Your Mind”
Bob Dylan, “Hurricane”
Bob Marley, “I Know”
Bob Marley, “I Shot The Sheriff”
David Bowie, “It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City”
Funkadelic, “I’ll Stay”
Funkadelic, “Loose Booty”
Funkadelic, “Let’s Make It Last”
Gil Scott-Heron, “Home Is Where the Hatred Is”
Grandmaster Flash, “The Message”
Green Day, “Longview”
Jackson 5, “It’s A Moving Violation”
James Brown, “I Can’t Stand Myself (When You Touch Me), Pt.1″
James Brown, “I Got Ants In My Pants, Pt. 1″
Jimi Hendrix, “If 6 Was 9″
Jimi Hendrix, “I Don’t Live Today”
Johnnie Taylor, “Last Two Dollars”
Lou Rawls, “You’re Gonna Miss My Lovin’”
Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Saturday Night Special”
Marvin Gaye, “I Heard It Through the Grapevi”
Muddy Waters, “Mannish Boy”
Musiq Soulchild, “L’ Is Gone”
Ohio Players, “I Want To Be Free”
Pink Floyd, “Let There Be More Light”
Prince, “Let’s Work”
Prince, “It”
Rick James, “Mary Jane”
Shuggie Otis, “Inspiration Information”
Sleepy Brown, “Me, My baby And My Cadillac”
Sly and the Family Stone, “I Get High On You”
Stevie Wonder, “Master Blaster”
Stevie Wonder, “Maybe Your Baby”
Stevie Wonder, “Jesus Children of America”
The Roots, “I Don’t Care”
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
Willie Hutch, “I Choose You (Soundtrack/The Mack)”
Willie Hutch, “Mack Man (Got to Get Over)”
Wilson Pickett, “In The Midnight Hour”

Thursday

A Tribe Called Quest, “Scenario”
Al Green, “Right Now, Right Now”
Aretha Franklin, “Rock Steady”
Average White Band, “Pick Up the Pieces”
Black Sabbath, “Paranoid”
Branford Marsalis, “Mo’ Betta Blues”
Curtis Mayfield, “Move On Up”
Earth Wind and Fire, “Shining Star”
Earth Wind and Fire, “Serpentine Fire”
Eric B & Rakim, “Paid in Full”
Erykah Badu, “Penitentiary Philosophy”
Five Stairsteps, “Ooh Child”
Funkadelic, “Nappy Dugout”
Gil Scott-Heron, “The Revolution Will Not Be Tel”
James Brown, “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag, Pt. 1″
James Brown, “The Payback”
Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, “Miss Frisco (Queen of The Disco)”
Junior Walker & The All Stars, “Shotgun”
Lou Rawls, “Natural Man”
Marvin Gaye, “Right On”
Michael Jackson, “PYT”
neil young, “rockin`in the free world”
Otis Redding, “Satisfaction”
OutKast, “Roses”
OutKast, “Movin’ Cool”
Oysterhead, “Mr. Oysterhead”
Pharcyde, “Passin Me By”
Rage Against the Machine, “Renegades of Funk”
Roots, “The ‘Notic”
Spinners, “Rubber Band Man”
Staples Singers, “Respect Yourself”
Stevie Wonder, “Sir Duke”
Stylistics, “People Make the World Go ‘Roun”
Sugar Hill Gang, “Rapper’s Delight”
The Roots, “Silent Treatment”
The Roots, “The Seed (2.0)”
U2, “Mysterious Ways”
UB40, “Red Red Wine”
Wilson Pickett, “Mustang Sally”
ZZ Top, “Sharp Dressed Man”

Friday

Alien Ant Farm, “Smooth Criminal”
Barry White, “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything”
Bob Marley, “Work”
Bob Marley, “War”
Bob Marley, “Wake Up And Live”
Brand New Heavies, “Wake Me When I’m Dead”
Brand New Heavies, “Soul Flower”
Brand Nubian, “Slow Down”
Brothers Johnson, “Brother Man”
Brothers Johnson, “Right On Time”
Brothers Johnson, “Runnin’ For Your Lovin’”
Commodores, “Young Girls Are My Weakness”
Funkadelic, “I Got A Thing… (1970)”
Funkadelic, “I Bet You (1970)”
Funkadelic, “Who Says A Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?!”
Jackson 5, “(You Were Made) Especially For Me”
Jefferson Airplane, “White Rabbit”
Jimi Hendrix, “You Got Me Floatin’”
Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, “Superman Lover”
Ohio Players, “Skin Tight”
Parliament, “All Your Goodies Are Gone”
Paul Simon, “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, “They Reminisce over You (T.R.O.Y.)”
Prince, “Uptown”
Puff Daddy & the Family, “Victory”
Run-DMC, “Walk This Way”
Smokey Robinson, “The Tracks of My Tears”
Soft Cell, “Tainted Love”
Stevie Wonder, “You Can’t Judge a Book by It’s Cover”
Stevie Wonder, “You Haven’t Done Nothin’”
The Band, “Up On Cripple Creek”
The Beatles, “The Word”
The Beatles, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
The Undisputed Truth, “Smiling Face Sometimes”
Time, “777-9311″
U2, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”
Uri Cane – Ahmir Thompson – Christian McBride, “Trouble Man Theme”
Van Morrison, “Wild Night”
War, “The World Is A Ghetto”
War, “Where Was You At”

October 14, 2009

Best way to be a leader? By following, of course!

‘Round the time my show started, someone tweeted a link with the new dress code at Morehouse. Here it is.

Much of the discussion on this has centered around the prohibition of customarily female clothing on campus. In the linked post, much is made of the “heteronormativity” of the code but, I must admit, I’m not qualified to discuss a term whose meaning I’m not totally familiar with. I can add the prefix, base, and suffix, but I’m sure there’s more to it than such a clinical interpretation.

Nope. My problem is with Morehouse’s refusal to let dudes be who they are.

That’s an important point if Morehouse continues to posit itself as the last bastion of the upwardly mobile black man. The tone of the linked post carries that assertion. I attended my nephew’s graduation from Morehouse, and I heard someone on stage (I believe the President) say the same thing. Saw it on the preface of this dress code, too.

It is our expectation that students who select Morehouse do so because of the College’s outstanding legacy of producing leaders. On the campus and at College-sponsored events and activities, students at Morehouse College will be expected to dress neatly and appropriately at all times.

So I’m assuming this dress code is being administered because this is how Morehouse believes leaders should behave.

What a load of bullshit. Continue reading Best way to be a leader? By following, of course!…

October 9, 2009

Harry Connick Jr. gives us something to consider

Not sure if you heard, but Harry Connick Jr. had to check some Australians about a blackface routine. The video’s right here.

First, who knew Harry was the fifth Hot Boy?

(Well, I knew, but still…)

Second, points for having the heart to take the needle off the record. Most people won’t. I know I’ve let lots of things slide in situations like that, just to keep the party going. Nothing like that, mind you, but let’s not pretend as if it didn’t take serious nerve to assert himself there.

Here’s where he got me to thinking.

“I just want to say, on behalf of my country, I know it was done humorously, but we’ve spent so much time trying to not make black people look like buffoons, that when we see something like that we take it really to heart.”

Now, there’s some hyperbole in this. There’s still lots of money in making black people look like buffoons. The trick now is to find real-live buffoons to do the job. They can do it better than actors, anyway.

He’s right about one thing, though — that nonsense would NOT fly here. Maybe the response would be disingenuous, but the American public, generally, wouldn’t let that slide. Some folks would be OK with it, lots would think it’s funny…but someone would get fired and/or beat down behind that.

I’m one of those people that doesn’t have much patience for people that defend America’s current state of racial affairs by saying things are better than other times and places — as if that’s got a gotdamn thing with here and now. I can, however, say there was truth in what Connick said.

And that does say some good things for America. Doesn’t matter if people want to act right. Just matters if they do. And, at least when it comes to putting shoe polish on your face to look like Tito, we have some things right.

For better or worse, there’s something to that.

October 8, 2009

Twitter’s down…therefore, so am I

Twitter’s down right now. It was telling that a friend of mine, rather than asking if Twitter was down, asked if I was OK because I hadn’t sent a tweet in 20 minutes. That, ladies and gentlemen, has become my life.

I use Twitter for a lot of thing. Searching Twitter is a better way to find breaking news than Google News at this point. It’s also a great, great way to see what kind of stuff people are randomly talking about. It’s also how I podcast my show (oh yeah, the podcast link isn’t up on the page here, but you can search for #bomani_podcasts and get the best of each day’s show). It’s become part of my routine.

And when it’s down, like right now, I sincerely don’t know what’s going on.

I have no idea when this happened. I went from refusing to get on Twitter to becoming a Twitter “polluter.” Or, put another way — since Twitter’s down, I’ve got time to blog. Sounds like it’s time to look in the mirror.

Anyone else having this problem right now? Anyone else without Twitter and a wee bit ashamed to admit it’s a serious inconvenience? I hate when my phone rings for real — not a big phone fan these days, for some reason — but I miss being notified of a reply.

Why is it like this? Because we, as adults, work and go home. Then we wake up, go to work, then come home. At least a lot of us do. Twitter is the world’s largest barbershop. It’s fun for that reason. And when it’s gone, it makes you kinda realize how much fun human interaction is, and how hard it can be to come by as a grownup.

Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, can somebody get on their grind and get this shit back up, please? I got work not to do.

Thanks.

October 5, 2009

The phone call on today’s show

So today, I had to let loose on a dude on the show.  I won’t apologize for what I did, though I don’t think I necessarily said it the right way.  Which is to say that I shouldn’t have called the man one of the names I used.  I apologize to you for that.
To him?  Hardly.

The call is linked at the bottom of the post.  I will preface it with an e-mail I received.

Bomani -

I listen to your show on a regular basis.  First, let me say that the ”person” you spoke with today was a nothing more than a seemingly uneducated, dirtbag racist – you don’t need me to tell you that.  He obviously doesn’t listent to your show much; if he does, he can’t hear too well due to too much wax buildup from lack of hygiene.

To my point – I hated hearing you loose your cool; at least it seemed that way.  I am not a radio personality and I can only imagine how difficult it is at times keeping your cool talking to dirtbags like that.

For what it’s worth, I am still listening.

It wasn’t until I read this e-mail that I decided to podcast that call.  I hated hearing me lose my cool, too.  When you’re mad, nobody’s mad but me.  If I learned nothing else from my childhood, it’s the uselessness of anger.  Many of you have known me or years and have never seen me mad.  That’s how serious I am about it, and I thank my parents and my brother for getting me to that point.  Twas a helluva trip to get here, but we’re here, and it’s the one thing about my personality I take absolute pride in.  And if you knew me growing up, you’d understand it.

However, somebody’s got to tell these fools that they’re fools.  This idea that we can just laugh off these fools is a flawed one.  They are fools.  They need to be called fools.  They need to be treated as fools.  They need to be shamed.  They need to get cussed out.  They need to be embarrassed.  And even if it’s just this one, the world’s a better place for it.

We’ve tried ignoring these clowns and laughing them off.  See what this has gotten up?  A world where a columnist in the friggin’ New York Times is afraid we’re breeding a culture that will get the President shot, he’s got precedent to support his suspicions, and it seems glaringly obvious that he’s telling the truth.  That’s what ignoring these clowns has gotten us.

It’s gotten us not a damn thing. The clear resentment fools like him have over…so damn much needs to be addressed, and they need to be addressed publicly. Guess this was just his day.

I’ve tried my best to host an honest show.  And honestly, I put up with too much on a daily basis to have to put up with him and the people like him.  Today, simply, was not the day.  The only thing I really wish was different is that I wish he would have called at 11:30, so we could bomb on this fool for an hour and a half. No coincidence, btw, that he waited so late to call, for he knew he’d catch it for an hour and a half.

Sorry if this messed up the 176 minutes of entertaining radio — at least for me — we had before this.  But sometimes, it’s necessary to take four minutes to let these clowns know that WE will neither encourage nor enable their idiocy.

I’m not posing as a hero.  I’m just a dude that lost his cool on a radio show.  However, I’ve had enough of ignoring racists, whether on this show or in real life.  Call ‘em out.

That said, here’s the call.

October 1, 2009

50% Divorce Rate? Not bad, actually.

Supposedly, the divorce rate in the U.S. is 50 percent.  I have no idea if this is true.  I just hear it all the time.  I could Google it but, quite frankly, I’m not that curious.  And trust me, given the things I’ve Googled over the years, that should let you know how inconsequential this factoid is.

Anyway, the number is of interest to me because, once again, I saw it used somewhere to lament the shakiness of marriages today vis-a-vis the June and Ward days (or, given that era, should I show Ward proper respect and list his name first ?).  Now, I normally shake my head at that statistic because I rarely see a citation with it.  The exiled academic in me calls BS when everyone says something, but no one has actually seen proof of its truth.

This time, I looked at it differently.  For giggles, let’s just say it’s true, that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce.

You know what?  That’s pretty damn impressive.

Seriously, think about it for a second.  We’re talking about a process in which two people, with dreams and needs and desires that are rarely static, basically decide in a few years that they’ll be together for decades.  Noooooo matter what.

And people manage to get that right half the time?

Clearly, keeping things together is difficult.  Were it not, people wouldn’t actually pay money to get relationship advice from Steve Fucking Harvey.  Seriously, my man may have all the game in the world.  I’m sure there are youngbloods in his old neighborhood that love to chop it up with him.  But I’ll be good and gotdamned if I’m actually $20 for his two cents.  Really, think about that.  If you like that, I’m selling nickels for the low low price of ten cents.

Anyway, like I was saying, making something work is no small feat.  I think I’ve lived enough to say that from first-hand experience.

But simply think about the likelihood of two people’s wants, needs, insecurities, flaws and demeanors remaining complementary until one of them leaves the Earth.  How many friends of any type have you managed such things continuously for even ten years?  And you don’t have to share a bathroom with any of them (nor are those people the only ones you’re allowed to sleep with, a really big deal in all of this).

Those odds are slim, jack.  It’s not rolling straight 7’s and 11’s until the end of time.  But you’ve gotta roll enough to beat the house, and the house wouldn’t be open if that happened very often.

Just a thought.  We might not be as jacked up as we sometimes like to think.