Lucid Culture

This myspace bulletin just in from the legendary Kool G Rap (formerly of Kool G Rap and DJ Polo), author of such ghetto classics as Rikers Island, Talk Like Sex and Ill St. Blues:

“IF YOUR LOOKING TO HAVE THE LEGEND KOOL G RAP ON YOUR NEXT SONG AS A FEATURE 16 BAR VERSE OR JUST A HOOK….IF YOUR SERIOUS ABOUT DOING THE BUSINESS…HIT DOMINGO ON HIS MYSPACE PAGE FOR THEM OFFICIAL RATES ON KOOL G RAP!!!”

That’s right: for the right price, your group, your band, your single could have the great Kool G Rap on it for a whole verse.

Probably better than anything you could ever come up with, too.  

This just in: India has just successfully tested a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead at a distance of just 435 miles. Presumably, a successful test means that at the end of the flight, the missile crashes.

Isn’t this like building the kitchen over the septic tank?

When asked by a stock analyst if the Barnes and Noble bookstore mega-chain would be interested in gobbling up its biggest rival chain, Borders Books & Music, a spokesman for Barnes and Noble stated that though they had no strategic plan to acquire the country’s second-largest bookseller, they would be interested in speaking with Borders’ investment bankers. According to Publishers Weekly, this came to light in the wake of an almost ten percent dip in B&N’s net income for their fiscal year ending last month. The decline in earnings was attributed to the deterioration in music sales (which comes as something of a surprise, that music made up even this relatively small a percentage of B&N’s overall sales).

Despite perilous economic conditions, every poll indicates that those Americans who actually read are doing so at a record clip. Expect that to finally come to an end when books are only available at one central location who have complete control over pricing.

Imagine this happening under Jimmy Carter. Or Nixon, for that matter. It wouldn’t. Thank you Ronald Reagan for destroying antitrust protection for consumers.

Here’s who’s taking money out of your pocket in order to cover their losses in the Bear Stearns fiasco, whose holdings are now guaranteed by the United States treasury:

Texas multimillionaire investor James Barrow, of Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Straus Inc., owns almost ten percent of the company. Billionaire British golf enthusiast Joseph Lewis, a native of the Bahamas, owns just a bit less.

Florida multimilllionaire investor Bruce Sherman, who runs Legg Mason subsidiary Private Capital Management Inc. owns about five percent, as does another multimillionaire, former Bear Stearns chairman James Cayne (who resigned two months ago, just before the firm imploded). These are the people your tax dollars are going to bail out. Not ordinary Americans whose pensions, property and lives’ savings may be at stake, but a secret society of super-rich robber barons who, even if their Bear Stearns holdings were reduced to zero, would still have the means to live comfortably for the rest of their lives without lifting a finger.

Here’s a proposal, not a modest one, but in cases like these we need to make immodest demands in order to walk away with even meager results: if the government must guarantee anything (which is an eminently debatable issue), why not limit guarantees to small holders and let the big gamblers live with their losses? Let’s say a Federal or state employees’ pension fund held a small piece of what’s left of Bear Stearns. Why not save the retirees from destitution, instead of making a vast, multibillion dollar money grab, transferring wealth out of the pockets of middleclass American taxpayers and into the secret accounts of ultra-rich Wall Street gamblers? Why should the American middle class continue to subsidize the gambling addiction of a cabal of billionaires, many of whom aren’t even American citizens?  

Regular readers will recall that we’ve been following the baseball steriod scandal off and on, if only for some badly needed comic relief. When Congress creates such an entertaining distraction, one has to wonder what nefarious things the Bush regime is up to while the world holds its breath waiting for Special Agent Jeff Novitzky to lower the boom on Roger Clemens.

But people are getting bigger. Maybe Clemens, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and the rest of the New York Yankees (and other teams’ players) implicated in the scandal really are telling the truth. Maybe it’s the hormones in the beef. A recent AP report examining municipal water supplies contaminated by prescription drugs cited one instance in Nebraska where fathead minnows downstream from a factory beef feedlot had noticeably lower testosterone levels and small heads. The cause? Trenbolone, the same anabolic steroid that the Yankees’ Jason Giambi used to bulk up so he could hit all those home runs. As it turns out, factory feedlot cattle - the source of most beef in the US - have implants in their ears which supply a steady stream of the steroid, making the cows bulk up in the same manner as the sixty-odd ballplayers named in the infamous Mitchell Report.

Have you lately been subject to fits of unexplained, uncontrolled rage? Get an overwhelming urge to drive three times the speed limit, even in a school zone? Has your hat size grown threefold in the past decade? Do people behind you at concerts always ask you to move because you’re so damn much taller than they are? Maybe it’s time you got your water tested.

And by the way, all that business about Clemens being at Jose Canseco’s barbecue? It’s true. See, we were there. At least that’s what Special Agent Jeff Novitzky said we have to say, or else we’re getting audited. All those free cds, free tickets, guest lists, wine, cheese and countless beers from everybody who wants to be reviewed here? That’s income. So unless you have a video of the entire Canseco picnic, don’t expect us to say we weren’t there listening raptly to Canseco’s and Clemens’ wives comparing the fine points of breast implants*.

*supposedly this actually happened

This just in: John McCain has criticized Barack Obama and that harpy he’s running against for their critical comments about NAFTA. The reason? Criticizing NAFTA might cost us the crucial military support of that mighty superpower, Canada.

Is it that they’re pawns for the scam developers who’re razing perfectly good buildings in working-class neighborhoods and replacing them with plastic-and-cardboard monstrosities that the people who live and work in those neighborhoods will never be able to afford? And that will raise rents in those neighborhoods to the point that the people who live there will have to move?

Is it that they stand in the middle of the sidewalk yakking on their cellphones and refuse to move for passersby? Is it their abysmal taste in music, their fondness for everything corporate (chain restaurants, reality tv, in other words, everything that’s big in the suburbs where they were born and raised), their hideous fashion sense or their sheer physical ugliness? No. It’s that trendoids are just plain GRODY.

Case in point: Brooklyn-bound L train, 8th Avenue, rush hour. At the back of the train so as to engineer a quick exit. A trendoid grabs the adjacent seat. Skintight jeans, black wool hat pulled down practically over his eyes, silly goggle glasses like the kind the Red Sox wore after they won the World Series and started spraying champagne all over each other. Pulls out a paperback on how to write, by Thomas Lynch (in case the name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s the “undertaker poet” that NPR loves so much, whose precious, effete style is everything a writer should AVOID EMULATING AT ALL COSTS). Trendoid then promptly sticks his fingers in his mouth, as if he’d just touched something hot on the stove.

Now one would assume that at some time or other in this kid’s life, his mom or his nanny or babysitter or older sibling/s might have told him that in a dirty city like New York, sticking your fingers in your mouth and sucking on them might not be such a good idea. Evidently not this guy.

It gets worse. A lot. Next, he starts picking his nose and eating it. And then he’s surprised - or he feigns surprise - when the passenger  next to him flinches and huddles up against the wall of the subway car.

Why is it that the most disgusting creatures on the subway are NOT the bums, junkies or prostitutes? Why is it that it’s always the affluent, privileged white males, many of them in suits and ties, who’re always the ones throwing up, coughing and sneezing without covering their mouths and picking every available orifice?

This past January, John Rossi, owner of Lowen’s Pharmacy in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn killed himself in the wake of a steroid probe. As the investigation uncovered, some of the customers purchasing steroids at his pharmacy were NYC police officers. The question of whether multimillionaire baseball superstars like Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte or Jason Giambi are on the juice becomes pretty meaningless by comparison to how many members of the NYPD – or members of police forces around the country, or even around the world – may be addled from steroid abuse and suffering from “roid rage.” With this in mind, we uncovered a list of potential juicers whose possible steroid abuse may have proven fatal to several innocent civilians.

Justin Volpe. the NYC cop who infamously sodomized Haitian immigrant Abner Louima with a broomstick. Odds of being a juicer: high. Volpe was a mohawk-wearing, swaggering presence in the station house, and his behavior is consistent with roid rage.

Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, Kenneth Boss and Richard Murphy, the team of NYPD undercover officers who may have been partying with cocaine in the minutes before they showered innocent African immigrant Amadou Diallo with a hail of bullets, 41 of which struck and killed him. Odds of being on the juice: pretty high. Roid rage causes extended, unexpected outbursts of violence and is a frequent “pathway” to the abuse of other substances, as the death of baseball star Ken Caminiti demonstrated.

Indicted but acquitted NYPD officers John Kostick, Anthony Piscola and Henry Boerner, who were initially charged in the murder of graffiti artist Michael Stewart, whom they arrested in the 14th St. L subway station in September of 1983. Odds of being juicers: slim, since this was 1983. But steroids were available in those days.  

NYPD officer Anthony Kianka, indicted in the strangling death of Dane Kemp of Brooklyn in 1990 following an arrest (the indictment was later dismissed). Odds of juicing: a little better. Steroids were just starting to get popular around the time Kemp was murdered.

NYPD officer Anthony Paparella, who was acquitted of strangling Frederico Pereira of Queens in 1991. Odds of juicing: even better, considering the violence of this particular crime.

NYPD officer Francis Livoti, who was convicted of asphyxiating innocent Anthony Baez with a chokehold in 1994. Odds of juicing: almost 100%. Livoti was five foot ten and 170 pounds; his victim was several inches taller and almost fifty pounds heavier. Only steroids give people the kind of superhuman strength it takes to commit a violent murder like this.

Donald Brown and Gregg Gerson, the NYPD officers who escaped charges of killing suspect Ernest Sayon the same year. Odds of juicing: less, but remember, this was when the steroid era was just getting started in baseball.

Atlanta undercover narcotics investigators Gregg Junnier and Jason R. Smith, who in a classic case of miscarried justice were allowed to plead guilty to “infringing the civil rights” of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, whom they gunned down after breaking down her door without a warrant in the middle of the night. Odds of juicing: high. It has been estimated the one in three high school football players in the southern US is on steroids, so, extrapolating that, it isn’t a stretch to assume that a similar contingent of southern police officers may be on the juice.

Officer Don Falks, who escaped murder charges after admitting to shooting 17-year-old Daniel Castillo in the face in another no-knock drug raid in the middle of the night in Wharton, Texas. Odds of juicing: same.

NYPD detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper, currently on trial in the shooting death of unarmed Sean Bell and the near-fatal shooting of the passengers in his car last year. Odds of juicing: same. Bullets were flying all over the place. At least one person here was really pumped up, possibly because of steroids.

Drug testing in baseball? Sure, why not. That way we can keep a handful of juicers out of the Hall of Fame and Roger Maris’ hallowed home run record will be left intact. But how about football? The 800-pound gorilla in this room is that virtually EVERYONE in the NFL is on steroids or human growth hormone or something equally maddening (just ask Reggie White. Oh yeah, you can’t – he’s dead). And while we shouldn’t ride rampant over the First Amendment rights of police officers, we also ought to devise a procedure that would severely discourage and punish those who are supposed to protect and serve but instead go on the juice and ride rampant over our rights, with deadly results.  

Citing unidentified law enforcement personnel, the Albany Times Union reported yesterday that corporate black pop singer Mary J. Blige, hip-hop artists 50 Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, and comedian/actor Tyler Perry may have purchased steroids and/or human growth hormone. Paradoxically, law enforcement sources also stated that it does not appear that any of these performers have violated any law in connection with their alleged purchases.  Given what we know about steroid usage in major league baseball, the NFL and the NBA, we can extrapolate who else might be juicing,

Take L’il Kim, for example: she’s tiny. Less than five feet tall and topheavy, she could use a little something extra for those strenuous live shows she used to do before she went to jail. Foxy Brown, punching out that girl at the nail parlor? ‘Roid rage, plain as day. Naomi Campbell brutalizing one nanny after another? Gotta be the juice talking.

Bob Marley died of cancer, young. Very common in steroid abusers. And steroids are legal in Jamaica. Eazy-E? That wasn’t AIDS, that was his body breaking down from all the crap he was shooting up. Wilson Pickett and Nina Simone? Juicers often turn to drugs and alcohol. Ike Turner? As classic a juicer as there ever was.

And while we’re at it, what about Richard Wright? How did he get the energy to write Black Boy when he was sweating behind that dishwasher for 80 hours a week? He died young, too. Donald Goines? If you read between the lines, you’ll see that heroin is really just code for steroids. Zora Neale Hurston? She kept her looks for a real long time. They had HGH back during the Harlem Rennaissance too.

And in case you were wondering when we were going to get to all the white steroid abusers…well, white people don’t do steroids. Just ask Roger Clemens.

On August 4, 1964, wanting to invade South Vietnam, the Lyndon Johnson administration claimed that a US warship, the Turner Joy, had been fired on by the Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin. Using this as a pretext to justify the invasion, Johnson sought and won approval from Congress. Years later, Johnson admitted that the incident never occurred.

Today, US Navy Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, Commander of the US Fifth Fleet, stated that several small Iranian vessels moved rapidly on a collision course with a convoy of three US warships in the Straits of Hormuz, turning away just in time to avoid contact, then dropping unidentified white containers in the water near the last ship in the convoy, the USS Ingraham. He stated that the US ships were about to fire on the Iranian vessels until they suddenly changed direction, averting an exchange of gunfire.

Several months ago, battle orders were issued to US naval personnel stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.