There were, of course, interesting moments. I think I can come up with 10. If I was more inclined toward snitching, I could probably bring this up to 875 (including a top 10 that would trump all of these). However, I was a man before I had a blog and/or jokes.

1. For the first time, I noticed just how light skinneded an organization NABJ is. No knock, of course. From what I hear, a battle between me and a paper bag would go to the judges. However, if you want a study in the role skin shade plays in determining economic outcomes, take a trip through this convention. If you took me, then surrounded me with four randomly chosen attendees, I’d put money that I’d look like Robert Parish in the starting lineup of the ‘86 Celtics. Make it four randomly chosen female on-air personalities, I’d put up the Palatial Bomaniland Estate. I was in one panel where I counted six darker-skinned people in the room. It was like taking a day trip to Ghana.

2. To be a city people have heard of, San Diego’s airport is kinda struggling. It’s a step above St. Thomas’, and that step is air conditioning. Not too many gates. However…

3. Compared to Nashville, it may as well have been LAX. My goodness, that was a bus station with wings. And considering it does a lot of Southwest business, that’s not really hyperbole. Look at the little area they got allocated for the kids. It’s what the play area would be like if they had one at Church’s.

4. The red hat ladies are off the hook. A convention of ladies in red hats shared the Hyatt with us. We all asked them what they did, other than wear red hats. They all said the same thing: “we’re just old ladies looking to have a good time.” Lemme tell ya something, folks — when everybody says the same thing, it’s a cover for something. I don’t know exactly what they were covering up, but I can tell you that they come looking for mischief. Take Brazen Bonnie, for example. That’s her on the left.

She told us that she was 78 years old, and she came to flirt. After all, she is Brazen Bonnie, which you’d know if you could make out the pin on her hat that read “Brazen Bonnie.” Well, I had to take a picture with Bonnie, for her gangster was respected.

See that look on her face? It looks just like her hand felt on the small of my back. The moral of the story: they’re some old ladies looking to have a good time. I’m content to leave it at that.

5. A lot more writers follow me on Twitter than I realized. Glad I figured that out after a few hours, because I was getting really paranoid about all these people knowing my face. Can’t that many of em have family in Canada. Either way, that’s a win for me. This way, when I say the crazy stuff you lovely people have gotten used to, I don’t have to worry so much about shocking someone’s sensibilities. They know what’s coming now. That’s more of a relief than you realize.

6. Roll the dice on Hotwire at your own peril. So I went with Hotwire on my hotel, and came up with a great rate. The problem, of course, was I couldn’t tell how close I was to the action. Turns out I was a mile’s walk from the action. That was pretty cool in the morning, when I’d soak up the California morning walking down the street with the iPod, scaring the bums singing Marley. At night, it was all about the taxi. It’s refreshing on the way there, but taxing on the way back. However, for $70 less a night, it’s a fair trade. Save the dough.

(Plus, should something come up, you’re away from those watchful streets. Gotta plan ahead.)

7. Elgin Baylor’s one of the eight coolest men on planet Earth. I’m not sure how tall he is, or how old, but considering how much I’ve laughed at him in my life, it was a shock for all that texturized cool to hit all at once. He carries it like he’d see Lou Rawls and hit him with some fresh dap you ain’t never seen before.

8. I’m now old enough that the youth expects ME to pay for food. So I see a young cat I go back and forth with. He asked if he and his homeboy could catch up with me to chop…well, it went like this (with names changed).

JOHNNY: Hey man, you got some time later, cuz me and Willie and Bobby. You know Bobby?

ME: Nah, don’t know Bobby.

JOHNNY: Oh okay. Well, we just wanted to chop it up with you.

ME: Cool, just lemme know and we’ll see what we can do.

JOHNNY: Now, I don’t know if this is the South in me coming out of whatever, but I’m just gonna ask…if we go out to eat, you got us?

After that, things get kinda gray. I think I found a way to politely sidestep that one. A sticking point was that I didn’t know this Bobby character. Either way, yeah, spring chicken I am no longer. I do, however, give off the vibe I make more money than I actually do. I’m not sure if it’s regal, or Regal. Like the Buick.

9. We missed the chance to see Michael Steele speak before the convention. My man came down with “food poisoning.” They always do. Anyway, I may never again have the chance to see the least respected man on the planet give a talk. And if you can name someone less respected than Steele, I’d love to hear it. The only man in politics who doesn’t have a base.

10. A hole in your shirt will show up in photos. It was a real little couple of holes, too. Great, now I gotta get a new good shirt.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was that.

Then there’s the job they pay me for that consumes my life, but I’d be lying if I said I think of myself as a radio guy or anything else.

I’m writing this less out of self-indulgence than so I’ll have a clear answer for “how did you get your start in sports journalism?” Younger folks with ambitious of getting in this business ask me all the time, and I can rarely answer because it takes entirely too long to say over Twitter, e-mail or anything else. So, I’m going to do my best to give a timeline of how this went.

It’ll start with this disclaimer: don’t try this at home. Seriously. The only reason this has worked is that I’ve been able to ask people for money that I don’t have to pay back. And by “people,” I mean the best set of parents I can imagine anyone having.

April 2000: Left campus toward the end of my junior year. My best friend died, and it made me nauseous to be on campus. So, drove back to Atlanta from the funeral, stopped by the dorm, got some clothes, and went to my parents’ house, where I went to hide from the world.

May 2000: Started ordering books so I’d have something to do while I was doing nothing. One of them was Chuck D’s “Fight the Power: Race, Rap and Reality.” Chuck mentioned the shortage of capable writers in hip hop, largely because so few people who wanted to write about rap had a broad knowledge of pop music. Somehow, in that book, I saw enough to make me think that I could do what he was describing. Then, I read a book by a renowned cultural critic, a book that Amazon said was really good…but I thought sucked. After that, I saw zero reason why I couldn’t be a writer.

June 2000: Came across a site that allowed people to publish their own columns. You got something like five cents per hit. So I started writing and e-mailing links to anyone that might put a nickel in my pocket. A few of those people told me that I could be good. One of them told me I should pitch stuff to XXL. I’d never considered the possibility that, at that moment, I could make money off this or was close to being professionally good. So I hit up XXL, and they told me that I wasn’t professionally good. Or good enough for them.

Also, at this point I came across Napster. More on that shortly.

July 2000: A friend of mine named Cory Brown — the single most important person I’ve met in my professional development — gave me the information for a site called Africana.com. Twas the brainchild of Henry Louis Gates. I checked the site and decided to try to get on. I nagged the senior editor, Kate Tuttle, to give me a shot. Probably even lied about how much I’d written. Either way, I got in, wrote a piece on the NAACP convention, and that was that. Couple weeks later, I had a piece that got them out of a bind, and I suddenly felt like I belonged. It didn’t hurt that they treated me like a pro, and that boost in confidence changed everything.

I spent my waking, grieving hours reading stuff on the Net, looking for something I could write about. Spent that summer home alone, essentially, because my old man had a summer gig in D.C. So it was hardly any sleep, trying to keep my girlfriend happy when I was too immature and overwhelmed by life to even have a clue as to how, and downloading music on a dialup connection. If I was going to write about music, I needed to learn about music like Chuck wrote. So I did.

August 2000: Went back to school. Changed my major back to economics so I could hurry up and graduate. Went to class as much as absolutely required, drank just about as much as I possibly could on weekends, and stayed up all night trying to figure out how to become a writer. Figured it meant becoming a reader and listener. So I did.

Fall 2000: I remember very little, if anything at all. But miraculously, I pulled out a 3.2 GPA.

Winter 2001: Got the hi-speed connection in the room. In the first three weeks, I downloaded 2,000 songs. And I listened and I listened and I listened. I’d go on allmusic.com, find a record that seemed interesting, and download it. Along the way, I’d write a piece a month or so or anything, plus do some A&E work here and there for the school paper. Also figured out how to start hustling interviews. First one was in the fall with Guru. Got to interview Mystikal the day his album “Let’s Get Ready” hit No. 1. Did a couple with Talib Kweli. Oh, and free concerts with the plus-1, which was my “photographer” (my homeboy with a camera around his neck).

The one thing I remember: had a miserable day late that semester. Went to a senior sendoff event, which can be monstrous when you’re grieving. I came back to my room half dead…only to find out my car had been broken into. Come back to my room, ready to pass out, and my phone rings.

“This is Tavis Smiley, how are you?”

I’d written something about him. He mentioned me on Tom Joyner the morning before. Then, there I was, on the phone with him. Blew my mind.

Summer 2001: Graduated, somehow. Had no idea what to do with my life, but I knew I needed to do nothing in the immediate short-run. Met a guy through the Internet that was starting a magazine and said he wanted to center it around me. After weeks, nothing was moving. I borrowed $100 from my parents and rode with friends to Maryland, hoping to meet him. We never connected.

At some point, that hit me, cuz it meant I had no way to get out of my parents’ house and into an apartment with my homeboy. While sitting there, the phone rang. It was a woman from Claremont Graduate University inviting me to apply for a fellowship. I’d start school that fall…which was in less than a month. I applied and…

Fall 2001: …I was moving to Southern California. Parents had my back, but I had no clue. I was somewhere just to be there, in a graduate program involving economics even though I said the ONE thing I wouldn’t be doing after graduation was economics. And there I was. Didn’t know a soul out there, but got lucky. The only other black dude in my program? His father and my mother graduated from high school together. Another woman met my old man at a conference and let me stay with her.

And there I was, trying to find an apartment for the first time — with no car — and all that fun stuff. Eventually, I got it right.

Of course, going deeper into econ wound up being the best thing ever. Suddenly, I saw how economics could be helpful and interesting, a broadly applicable thought process that helped explain why people did the things they did. It was a perfect thing to use in the writing I wanted to do, and it made my work different from anyone else’s.

And I was in Cali. Africana wanted to do more entertainment coverage, but didn’t have anyone there. Well, there I was, going on Sunset to have lunch with singers, going to press junkets for movies at the Four Seasons and Beverly Wilshire, hitting up the Rudy Ray Moore celebrity roast, movie screenings, whole nine.

Summer 2002: Took the GRE, and blew it out the water. Suddenly, a Ph.D in economics sounded like a great idea. Now, the game was the “public intellectual” route. Yanno, Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, etc. Needed a Ph.D to pull off that hustle, but I was sure I could do it if put in the right position.

Did my research, and discovered that Sandy Darity, an economist at UNC, was who i wanted to study under. My mother, an econ prof herself, knew him. He and I talked here and there. Then, I saw him at a conference in…

January 2003: …and he says “so are you coming or what?” That answered that. I was off to Chapel Hill in July. But before I went, my buddy Cory met Ralph Wiley. I begged Cory to send some of my work to him to see what he thought. Ralph read a piece and replied to Cory…

“Tell Bomani if he keeps writing great shit like that he’s going to be dangerous.”

After that, you couldn’t tell me nothing. And still can’t.

Fall 2003: Yeah, that econ program wasn’t what I thought I was signing up for. Harder than I imagined, more crank-and-grind math than I thought was coming…and no, it didn’t work out well. First time I’d ever considered the possibility I wasn’t smart enough for something, and those doubts were deafening. I understood the material and could discuss it in lots of contexts, but I wasn’t a very good graduate student and I clearly wanted to write, not run LaGrangian multipliers.

Winter 2004: Ralph sends a story about Marcus Dixon, a young man having some legal troubles in Georgia. I told him I used to work in the Attorney General’s office in Atlanta, and maybe could put him in touch with folks if he needed to talk to someone for a story. Instead, he put ESPN.com’s Page 2 in touch with me to ask me to write on him. First sports piece I’d ever done. And the first time I’d ever considered making any mone writing about sports. I wasn’t trained in the field, and I had no idea how you did it. I just wrote what I had on my mind and, luckily, I had a helluva letter of recommendation.

Summer 2004: Got word I was getting my own music column on AOL BlackVoices. More money than I ever thought I’d get writing. Great platform. All that. Got ready for my new life, where I made real money writing. Even got the courage to query ESPN.com again. I thought they put me on as a favor. When I was told I could do more, I rattled something off in two hours.

Oh, went and bought a house that October. And I passed the macro qualifying exam while failing micro. Not uncommon.

Fall 2004: Please get me out of school now. After Round 2 with the micro qual in January…

Winter 2005: No more grad school for me was the word. Good for them, and good for me. Oh, and no more column. So let’s do the math: no more school, which paid a stipend, and no more column, which paid the mortgage. Well, guess I’m gonna be a hustling writer for a living. Which sounded like a great plan…except it wasn’t, seeing how I had no idea how I was going to make enough money to live. Until…

Summer 2005: Got a call from ESPN.com. They wanted to talk about more work, and work that centered around what I’d been doing with music and movies. They wanted an interplay of those worlds with sports (keep in mind this is around the time of “ESPN Hollywood”). And I wanted checks. And boom, had an arrangement that meant consistent freelance work. Still had a blog with BV, so I could eat. And I was working with ESPN. At the least we had a short-term plan, and a long-term one: I was going to get a contract writing for ESPN.com. That was the plan.

Summer 2006: Yeah, it was my plan. Not sure it was anyone else’s. But, through a long story that’s not appropriate for this setting, I got that contract and signed it November 10, 2006. Got the chance to cover all kinds of cool stuff. Still remember being scared to death at the NCAA Tournament, wondering if i had any idea what I was doing, eavesdropping as the gentleman next to me in the press room tried to get his Internet up and running. Learned a lot about…a lot.

Summer 2007. Found out that one-year contract was just that: a one-year contract. Come November, time to look for another gig…except writing gigs were hard to come by for someone with an unconventional path, no beat writing experience, etc. Had to find the right place, the right editor, etc…and all while totally convinced no one knew my name. At least didn’t know enough to think of me when it came time for a job.

Oh, and I got engaged. The plan: to move to New York, since I had a job then that let me work from wherever I wanted. I’d done the self-actualization thing. She was younger than me, and it was her time to chase her dream, so it was time for me to make that move. Then I didn’t have the job.

Winter 2008: Two-pronged short-term plan: my good friend Mark Anthony Neal asked me to teach a course at Duke on the Black Athlete in America, and my good friend Adam Gold invited me to host a Saturday sports show on 850 The Buzz (as soon as Adam found out my contract was up, and my editor’s desire that I not do radio no longer mattered, he got this moving). I said yes, and he put me on the show with Shannon Penn as my producer. I can only compare it to how it must have been for Elton John the day he met Bernie Taupin: I found someone I’d be working with for as long as I possibly could.

On Saturdays, we just let it loose. He and I were from similar backgrounds, had similar senses of humor, and both had the supreme confidence that we knew what we were talking about. So we did our thing, and the sincerity and energy registered: our show caught on.

And then I wasn’t engaged anymore. If you’ve got any idea, that statement says it all right there. Or, if you need more: not only did I no longer have that flexible job, I had no reason to be flexible anymore.

Summer 2008: Filled in the afternoon drive show on 850 while the host took a summer vacation. I also did fill-in work. After all, the Duke thing was over. I had to eat. So I did more radio than I thought was possible, in hopes of earning a full-time job. Because if I didn’t get one, I had nothing. Had a house I couldn’t sell, a line of work that I didn’t think was as interested in me as I was in it, and no idea what else I could do that would keep me sane.

Luckily…

Fall 2008: I got that job. Started on my birthday, in fact. After my substitute work was done, I started building a show in my mind, and I called it “The Three Hour Lunch Break.” I was going to create a show that was so much fun that you’d forget you were at work. That was my goal. Also kept doing Saturday with Shannon. In 2008, I hosted a show on 50 out of 52 Saturdays. Why? Because sleeping in couldn’t have possibly been more fun than doing that show. And when I didn’t do it, I had no idea what to do with myself.

Winter 2009: The grind. My life was the show, and vice versa. I worked to come up with ways to promote the show with no budget. The station didn’t want to take up a podcasting platform, so I figured out a way to do so (which was what attracted me to Twitter, the chance to push the product on as many platforms as possible). If it wasn’t about that show or how to push it, I really didn’t have much time for it. Part ambition, part escapism…but 24 hours a day.

Summer 2009: What we did was working. Got word that Spring ratings for the Lunch Break were 200% higher than they were one year before. I was working on how to get a raise, given how we’d exceeded expectations and had built an Internet following that was more than the server could handle before it was expanded. And then…

Fall 2009: …I got word the station was being sold. The next day, I read a press release that said that my time slot would be going to someone else. Writing was on the wall (and, btw, it followed an incredible streak of good luck that ended at the end of this post). I was about to get cut loose again, effectively the fourth time that had happened in five years. Knew what was coming nearly two months before the end. To this day, I take pride in the fact no one could tell until my last two days. And yes, I still miss that show and the people I got to speak with every day.

But such is life. Got a call from some folks in Toronto that November, flew up the week of Thanksgiving, and I’d found a new home: Hardcore Sports Radio.

Winter 2010: Somehow, I got fired into a national radio gig. It’s the best job I’ve ever had, and it’s not close. For the first time, I had bosses that, even if they didn’t get it, trusted what I was doing. They let me put on a show that combined all those things from the previous 10 years — the book learning, the real life ass whoopins, the things I covered and people I’d talked to, the friends I’d made and lost — and put them in one place. The soundtrack? Effectively started building it when I was staying up until 4 am downloading music in the dorm. The approach, which is sports but not quite sports? I got in this game because I could make a hodgepodge make sense…and that’s what we do now. The confidence in my tone? Read what’s above and tell me what reason I have to be afraid of saying or doing anything.

So yeah, in about 3,000 words, that’s how I got started and how I got here. None of it was planned. I just decided I was going to do a few things, and then rode those things out. If I could come up with something interesting, I thought I could write well enough to bring it to life. Then, once I got into the spoken medium, I thought the fact that people liked talking to me in real life could translate to a larger stage.

So far, it’s been correct…except when it wasn’t. And at some point, what I’m doing now probably will be incorrect to someone, too. What to do from there? I have no idea.

I took just about every cool opportunity I had, immersed myself in them, then tried to find a way that I could make them work. Maybe I’m lucky that I was too naive to know that nobody went about things like this, because then I didn’t realize I probably should have approached things differently.

But in 10 years, I got to hang with movie stars, talk music with cats that I grew up listening to, meet the writer that made me want to write and showed how much one can do if he takes the opportunities in front of him, and talk sports with figures I respect the same way I used to when I’d hang out at Mr. Kirby’s barber shop when I was a kid.

I thought, in 2000, I’d be large in a year, two tops. 10 years later? Still not larger…but done way more than I ever thought I would.

So, to answer the question: how did you get into sports journalism? By accident. And it had been planned, it couldn’t have possibly worked out as well. I’m not living a dream — I don’t set goals, weird as it sounds — but I’m knee-deep in this hustle, and that’s still where I feel most comfortable. And I have a ball every day I come to work.

I wish everyone could have it that good.

However, I’ve seen this guns in church thing in Louisiana, and I just can’t let it slide.

I really don’t want to get into the Second Amendment because that’s an area where no one’s going to be swayed. I just like to mention the irony that the amendment reads in a way that allows guns to form a militia, but see how quick the government will shut down your gun-toting militia.

Anyway, here’s my one question — what is going down at your church that makes you feel the need to pack heat?

I readily admit that I don’t have a lot of church attendance on my resume, but I’ve never been to a church where I felt like I might wanna have some steel. And hey, I’ve been to church a few times in Acres Homes in Houston. There’s no shortage of chrome ’round those parts, Jack.

I see that the law would allow church employees to have guns, just in case something jumps off. I can see the point there, given that there tends to be money in churches, and there’s always a criminal demand for money. But…you’ve got to be kidding me.

Maybe this is a statement to where we’ve come as people, but I just can’t see that. If you need the tool at church, you need to find another church. Either that, or your church really doesn’t command much respect. Somebody’s preacher needs to step his game up or something.

I’ve found that I joke on the lil fella a lot. It’s partially because my producer, Corey Erdman, gets laughably defensive over it, like the two of them are kin or something. But it’s also because it’s like the saying goes — we mock that which we don’t understand.

And what I don’t understand are you people that really, really love his album. Or, like Talib Kweli, those that assume those that dislike Drake’s album are merely haters.

Thank Me Later is soft. There are just no two ways about it. If soft music doesn’t bother you, then that’s OK. I’ve got my soft indulgences, few though they may be. And, to be honest, the only one I can think of is the Counting Crows.

The thing with them is that Duritz is ridiculously compelling. Yeah, he never seems to be too happy with anything, the chicks are doing him wrong (that Latina he wrote about circa ‘94 put him through the ringer), but he’s so damn emotive and sincere and writes brilliant songs. Yes, he’s soft, but he’s absolutely fascinating.

What makes Drake’s album so wack to me is that it’s absolutely uninteresting. I don’t mind him talking about the women he pines for and the ones that did him dirty. But just talking about them isn’t enough. Since he doesn’t give much emphasis on any syllables, let alone punchlines, there’s never a moment where I feel these songs. To hear them is to read them off a piece of paper. At points, they read impressively. But that’s all they do — read.

They float, but they don’t dance. They never rise above the din. And no matter how much talent Drake has, and how witty his wordplay is, I cannot understand how so many people — people I respect and admire, in some cases — are so enamored by such an emotionless record.

Maybe it’s emo, but it’s not emotional. The beats aren’t evocative (or, as my man says, it’s 808s and Heartbreaks minus the 808s), making it even more crucial that he be able to sell what he’s saying. Where on Thank Me Later does he do that?

The problem is that just talking about your problems with little behind it is just as annoying to listen to on record as it is in real life. The dude sounds like a complainer. Listening to this album, for me, was no different than listening to someone go on and on and on about his problems. Since it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with me, it just drones on and, after a while, makes you wanna shake him by the shoulders and tell him to man up. I can’t feel it, so there’s no way in the world I can be expected to care.

And in the course of writing that paragraph, I think I figured out why I dislike this album so much.

Now, that’s an opinion that’s formed independent of what anyone else thinks. I admit, however, I’m probably more vocal because of the huge contingent on the other side. Better conversation that way. Plus, I really don’t get the appeal.

Some have credited Drake’s ambition, making an album that goes between genres. I could care less about that, personally. If you rap well, rap. If you sing well, sing. Just do it well. I sure didn’t hear that, particularly the singing. For that quality of vocal, I’d go listen to Ciara.

Now, let’s get this part straight — I’m not saying that, if Drake is soft, he should pretend to be something he’s not. But he simply lacks the depth to articulate who he is in a compelling way.

So worse than disliking Thank Me Later, I’m totally disinterested in it. I haven’t had an inclination to put it back in after the second time I listened to it.

I’m just trying to figure out what’s got other people interested. Considering how passionately people defend the album, I’ll acknowledge that there may be something he’s trying to get across that I simply don’t see. Please let me know what it is because, based on my recollection of what sorts of music people have enjoyed since the beginning of time, I have no idea what makes some of you dig it so much.

This came up earlier with the John Mayer sitch, also. It’s a tricky one for me to answer. On one hand, I get exactly what he’s saying. On the other, I’m trying to figure out who in the world was looking to Slim Thug or John Mayer for legitimate opinions on anything?

Maybe I’ve been in talk radio too long, but I think people have the right to be as stupid as they want. I’m really not in the business of trying to fix those folks. And what Slim Thug said, by and large was stupid. And again, his biggest problem was essentialism.

But I just can’t pretend to take someone seriously that I never took seriously before, and I think people’s energy would be better placed toward those who are taken seriously and promote ideologies just as damaging and dangerous as his. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to talk about people that really matter if I’m wasting my time talking about this cat. How much sense does that make?

And sorry, but I’m not going to do it. Now, had Obama said what Slim Thug said, I’d speak on it. Jesse Jackson? Same thing. Hell, even Jeremiah Wright, and I barely remember what he looks like.

But Slim Thug? C’mon now. I didn’t listen to him yesterday, and I’m not gonna listen to him tomorrow. I still ask the same question — if you listened to his music, what about his blog bugged you that hadn’t before? That just doesn’t make any sense.

Look, I’m all for being mad about what’s messed up in the world. But I just don’t have time to waste on him or whatever he said. And, I have no idea how you claim to be so busy and have time to get upset with that and continuously comment on it.

If what he said was worthy of dismissal, then dismiss it rather than, yanno, inadvertently giving him, his thoughts, and his work more shine than you believe they deserve. Seriously, am I the only person that sees how stupid that is?

So, should I just dismiss a celebrity saying something stupid in a public platform? I don’t know about “should,” but if it’s someone I deem unimportant — and someone that doesn’t seem to have any legitimate importance — then yes. I don’t know how you’ve got time to do anything other than that.

Now, there are two kinds of people reading this post — people who have heard of Slim Thug, and people that haven’t. Under 30 and listen to rap and/or from Houston? You probably know who he is. If not, then not. For example, my father just resigned himself to not knowing who he is.

Now, if you have no idea who he is, I’ll save you some time — he’s not important, so I’m pretty sure the post’s grammar alone let you know he’s not someone whose opinion you should be concerned with.

If you do know who he is — I mean, have you heard the man’s music? Given that, what exactly surprises you about his ridiculously essentialist takes on race and gender?

As many times as he’s rapped about bitches, I can’t say my world stopped when he said something largely ignorant (I say largely because he did make a point or two not far off the mark, most notably about the unrealistic expectations many women have). I wasn’t thrilled to read it, but I’m not sure what else I should expect given my previous exposure to his art and the philosophy he expresses.

Oh, but I see people are mad, assuming the wonderful world of Twitter is any indication of the public response (FWIW, n>>>>30). I then ask this question…

If you’re really that mad, how in the hell did the man sell all these records? I mean, damn, how did the dance floors fill up to give him some shine? Man making that much money selling records without getting some ladies to dance? I ain’t heard of that!

I’m not going Delores Tucker here (though, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized she was more correct than I could understand as a teenager). But if you’re not going Delores Tucker with yours, then what are you talking about? You’ve been cool with him and others saying a lot worse. I just don’t know what you expected from him in a blog. No disrespect to the man, but it’s Slim Thug, folks.

Slim Thug

I guess what I’m asking — if Slim Thug broke bad with women today, what’s different than yesterday?

Forgive the caps. I’m not gonna have time to re-type this. That’s the formatting I’ve got to make it easy to read.

I WOULD LIKE TO START BY CONGRATULATING ALL OF YOU FOR MAKING IT THIS FAR. AND BY YOU, I MEAN YOU – THE PARENTS. YOUR CHILDREN HAVE FINISHED MIDDLE SCHOOL, BUT YOU HAVE SURVIVED IT. THIS CEREMONY IS FOR THE GRADUATES, AND I’M CERTAIN THAT ALL OF YOU ARE VERY PROUD, BUT I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU.

AND IF YOUR PARENTS ARE TAKING YOU OUT TO EAT AFTER THIS IS OVER, OR EVEN IF THEY’RE SIMPLY GOING TO WARM UP A PLATE WHEN YOU GET HOME, YOU SHOULDN’T FORGET ABOUT THEM, EITHER.

BUT TO THE GRADUATES, I OFFER THE SAME CONGRATULATIONS. I’M PRETTY SURE MOST OF YOU ARE MORE EAGER THAN ANYTHING TO MOVE ON TO HIGH SCHOOL, WHERE YOU’LL HAVE MORE FREEDOM AND THE OPPORTUNITIES TO DO MORE THINGS. OF COURSE, THE TRADE YOU MAKE IS TAKING ON MORE RESPONSIBILITY. WHAT IS GOOD ENOUGH NOW WILL NOT BE GOOD ENOUGH THEN. YOU HAVE TO CATCH UP TO THE FUTRE, BECAUSE IT CERTAINLY WILL NOT SLOW DOWN FOR YOU.

BUT I DON’T SAY THAT TO TRY TO SCARE YOU, OR EVEN TO WARN YOU. EVEN THOUGH, YOU CAN TAKE THAT AS A WARNING. BUT KEEPING UP WITH WHAT’S NEXT, THOUGH IT’S RARELY EASY, SHOULDN’T SCARE OR INTIMIDATE YOU. IT SHOULD EXCITE YOU.

EVEN AT MY AGE, EVEN AT YOUR PARENTS AGES, AT YOUR TEACHERS AGES – NONE OF WHOM, BY THE WAY, LOOK A DAY OVER 27 – PEOPLE LOOK FORWARD TO SOMETHING I KNOW ALL OF YOU WANT – TO BE ABLE TO DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.

OF COURSE, THAT DOESN’T MEAN MUCH IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. AND HOW DO YOU FIGURE THAT YOU? THROUGH PREPARATION AND BY LIVING.

BY LIVING, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SEE ALL THE WORLD’S POSSIBILITIES. THROUGH PREPARATION, YOU WILL FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO WITH THOSE OPTIONS AND WHERE YOU FIT.

BUT LIVING, OF COURSE, ISN’T JUST EATING, SLEEPING, WORKING AND BREATHING. IT’S TAKING THE TIME TO APPRECIATE WHERE YOU ARE AND WHAT’S BEFORE YOU, TO TALK TO THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU AND LEARN FROM THEIR DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES, TO BE CONCERNED WITH MORE THAN JUST WHAT YOU CAN EASILY SENSE.

AND PREPARATION ISN’T JUST GOING TO SCHOOL. IT’S LEARNING AND NOT JUST UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOU’RE BEING TOLD, BUT UNDERSTANDING WHY YOU’RE BEING TOLD THOSE THINGS. SCHOOL ISN’T SUPPOSED TO SEE WHAT YOU CAN REMEMBER. WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE, OR ANY OTHER SCHOOL, YOU SHOULD KNOW THINGS. AND YOU WILL ONLY KNOW THESE THINGS IF YOU TAKE THE TIME TO THINK OF THEM.

AS YOU HEARD IN THE INTRODUCTION, I HAVE A FEW DEGREES IN ECONOMICS. BUT I HOST A SPORTS TALK SHOW. PEOPLE OFTEN ASK ME HOW I’M USING ECONOMICS IN SPORTS.

FOR ONE, STUDYING ECONOMICS FOR YEARS TAUGHT ME THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO SPEND MY LIFE IN ECONOMICS. BUT ECONOMICS TAUGHT ME TO THINK, AND THAT THINKING HELPS ME DECIDE WHAT TO SAY EACH MORNING. AND, ON TOP OF THAT, THAT THINKING HAS PUT ME IN A POSITION TO MAKE A COMFORTABLE LIVING FOR SITTING IN MY HOUSE IN MY PAJAMAS AND TALKING AND LAUGHING FOR THREE HOURS PER DAY. I’VE HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET PEOPLE THAT I LOOK UP TO, AND THOSE PEOPLE SEE ME AS THEIR PEER. I’VE DONE THINGS PROFESSIONALLY THAT I NEVER DREAMED I WOULD BE ABLE TO DO.

I DON’T SAY THAT TO BRAG. I SAY THAT BECAUSE I’M FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO ACTUALLY DO WHAT I WANT TO DO. AND I SINCERELY BELIEVE THE REASON I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO THAT HAS BEEN THE TIME I TOOK TO GET TO KNOW THE PEOPLE IN MY LIFE AND TO LEARN FROM WHAT THEY HAD TO SAY.

SO, AS YOU GO FORWARD, THERE IS PLENTY OF ANXIETY. IT’S CERTAINLY REASONABLE TO BE NERVOUS ABOUT WHAT’S NEXT. JUST ABOUT EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM WAS IN THE SAME POSITION ONCE. BUT DO NOT BE AFRAID. THE REAL FUN IS AHEAD. TAKE THE TIME TO GET READY FOR IT, AND ENJOY YOURSELF ALONG THE WAY.

Yeah, he broke that. Here’s the money quote.

It’s a great country here. We have disasters issues when people pull together and help themselves and I thought the people in Tennessee, unlike — I’m not going to name names — when a natural disaster hits people weren’t standing on a rooftop trying to blame the government, okay. They helped each other out through this.

And Mike Helton, president of NASCAR, Tony Stewart, among some drivers went from the race over to the middle Tennesee area where still a lot of hardworking, tax-paying, legal American citizens have been affected by the floods and are trying to rebuild their lives and they are helping out. And I think that other people around the country, of course the music industry in and around Nashville helping, without making a big deal out of it and I think that’s a good thing.

Now, because he’s not a fool, Myers apologized…to the city of New Orleans.

I can’t think of anything more ridiculous.

New Orleans was merely the vehicle he used to express his views. There’s nothing fundamental about that city that brought Myers to make his statement. Myers’ rhetoric was steeped in bootstraps ideology, which is used as often to affirm the greatness of the American spirit as it is to separate “real” Americans from fake one. That would explain why his transition from talking about the complainers of Katrina to “hardworking, tax-paying, legal Americans” was so smooth (complete with a NASCAR shout-out, it should be noted).

This wasn’t about New Orleans or Arizona or anywhere else. This was about people, with locality serving as little more than context for this passive-aggressive attack.

What people? It was about the power and resolve of white people and, by an extension Myers didn’t have to make to make his point, the deficiency of black people. Or, more specifically, about how all black people do is complain when things get hard.

Never mind, of course, that those folks pulling together in Tennessee had a lot of help doing so from dry land. It seems erroneous to compare the aftermath of the flood in Tennessee to what happened in the midst of disaster in New Orleans. If it’s like that, there was a telethon for Katrina. Top that.

Think I’m reaching? Put it like this — it wasn’t all of America that was on those rooftops begging for someone, anyone, to save them from the water. Yanno, the water that had friggin’ nutria rats in it.

And this dude apologized to New Orleans?

Come on, man. You weren’t talking about the city. You were talking about those people. And the only thing you really know about those people was that they were black (and presumably poor). No way in the world you’re going to get me to believe all he was doing was speaking on an isolated incident when what he took from the single greatest American tragedy of my lifetime — and I limit it there because that time is all I can speak confidently about — was people complaining.

No, not the people drowning, or cooking on roofs, or losing everything they had. All they were doing was complaining.

Right.

But don’t apologize to New Orleans, Chris. Apologize to me and the rest of the people that look like me. That’s who you offended because that’s who you were talking about. Myers’ racism is the same racism that partially explains why it took so long to get people off those roofs, why the President of the United States never treated the situation with proper gravity, and why Katrina was largely ignored by the media as soon as the ground was dry enough for everyone to get the hell out.

It’s the racism that we all say we hate but spend so much time trying to ignore. Well, there it is. It’s right in your face, and it was offered without provocation. And, to make matters worse, it was expressed without a semblance of backbone, dancing around the topic as if he just had to say it, but didn’t want to get in trouble.

And an apology to Mitch Landrieu is enough, ha?

I think I chose to write about this because of the significance Katrina plays in my life, for better or worse. I haven’t been the same since. At first, I didn’t get it. Then I got too much, walking around in a malaise for days and days because I was so distraught by what I saw on TV and what I heard people say about the area, the people, and the situation. I haven’t paid close attention to the news like I used to. I’m far more cynical than I ever was, perfectly aware that the only difference between me and the folks on the roofs was a whole lot of good luck.

In many ways, it broke me. I heard a good friend openly weep in the airport when the storm was approaching. I talked to him as he drove back and forth to Houston, looking for a father he didn’t like that much in the first place but couldn’t leave in the Astrodome. It was the end of any idealism I had about how things should be.

But, for Chris Myers, it was a bunch of black people on the roof, whining when they could have been building boats or swimming to freedom or growing wings so they could fly or Macgyvering helicopters to get outta there or something. Hell if I know what he thought they should do.

But I know what he should do now — be real. What Myers said was racist, and it displayed a level of racism that’s disturbing coming from someone whose job is to cover sports, where so many black men participate.

Don’t apologize to a city in a letter. You’ve got access to places where you can do what you should — come out and acknowledge what you said as being racist.

Now, if Myers doesn’t think what he said was racist, fine. Where are the rest of you to tap him on the shoulder, like good friends do, and remind him that what he said was, in fact, racist. You’ve got enough common sense to see through that rhetoric, and it only took me a sentence or two to unravel that thought process.

So, if it wasn’t racism, either Myers or anyone else can answer that — what about those people made them complainers when, under similar circumstances, the people in Tennessee rose up? What makes one group different than another. Given that n > 30 in this case, allowing us to assume the population in Tennessee is essentially the same as those in New Orleans, what made them different?

He said, effectively, that black people are whining malingerers, even when give a chance to fight for survival. We know what’s up. We know what he did. Now let’s call him on it.

There are all kinds of hot buttons in the media, things you don’t go out of bounds talking about because they’re of such great magnitude. Katrina was as much of a horror as any of those things.

Yet this cat can say that, send one fake apology, and it’s over?

Sorry, but I’m not going for that, even if all I can offer on the topic are these 1,100 or so words.