Last night, I was unfortunate enough play the Xmas party for one of our local professional sports franchises. I won't name which one, mainly to avoid the headache of having to shank some payback seeking musclehead at the Best Buy (or some other similarly absurd scenario)

This was a party for the "organization", which means everybody from the owners to the players to Phil in accounts recievable.

From the moment the first patron arrived; some schlumpy guy, (probably the aforementioned Phil, alone and looking like he had no business in a nightclub.) I knew I was doomed.

The "organization" reserved the club from 6-10 so of course, Phil arrived at 6:01pm

The players and the rest of the people who mattered wouldn't start trickling in 'til 8:30 or so.

So, Phil drank alone and pensively ogled the comely waistaff for an hour and a half while I played Nat King Cole and John Coltrane for my own enjoyment.

This would prove to be the highlight of my evening.

Once the athletes, execs, trainers, and their hangers-on started to show up, it was a non-stop crucible of inane requests and questionable behavior by people who should by even the lowest of standards, know better.

Which brings me to the point of this blog entry.

When dealing with sports franchises, even jaded, black nationalist, music elitists like myself cannot help but be impressed by the quality of the arm candy orbiting  around the athletes.

These women typically come across as though it's their sole purpose in life to be mind alteringly attractive and sexually available only to the highly paid transients of the sports world.

You seldom see them anywhere outside of events like this one, and never anywhere as pedestrian as a chain resturant or a nightclub patronized by people who work at regular jobs.

It's all very mysterious and thus, takes a little bit of the edge of the whole "concubine" thing.

So it was with a little bit of disappointment that I came to notice that the ho's of this particular sports franchise were not of the usual quality I'd come to expect.

Instead of fielding inane requests from glamorous women who looked like they knew a little something about anything, I was fielding inane requests from women who looked like they were coralled coming out of a Fashion Bug with promises of free drinks and hors d' ourves.

Do you know how dismaying it is to have some drunk, pasty girl (in a feloniously bad outfit mind you) indignantly demanding to hear the Soulja Boy remix?

Very dismaying, to say the least.

I've been a huuuge non-blog updating bamma in 2007.

That's about to change.

Watch this space for frequent blog updates containing cool events and stream of conciousness rants from an ageing b-boy.

The DCist has listed my new residency at Marvin on its site.

Come thru and check it out.

Each and every Monday at Marvin

I start at 9pm and play until I get tired, which is usually around 2am.

It would be uncool to let the birthday of Fela Anikulapo Kuti pass without celebration.

Not to worry, the "Getalong Gang" and the good folks at Bohemian Caverns have gotten together to host "Black President's Day".

$7 B4 10pm - $10After

Music by DJs Iwah, Stylus and Jahsonic

Performances by The Painted Ladies

Visuals by Dissident Display

Live Painting by AM Radio

As the number of annoying people coming up to me during gigs seems to increase exponentially with the release of each new crunktastic single, I have developed a series of notecards.

Each notecard contains a canned response to the imbecilic requests I hear most often.

WannaHearEmHearDeyGo!

1. Dear Friend, I already played that song. It was a perk for all the nice people who came early

2. Dear Friend, being rude to me will not convince me to play the song you want.

3. Dear Friend, While I understand your desperate need to hear songs with which you are already familiar, that is neither my personal or professional mandate as I do not work for Clear Channel Communications, Sony, BMG, Radio One or any other commerical media outlet.

4. Dear Friend, Thank you for telling me where you are from. Me? I'm from DC, thanks for asking. Unlike you however, I do not visit your hometown and ask DJs there to play my local music Go-go. Instead, I just roll with the music that's going down wherever I happen to be and have a good time anyway. I would appreciate it if you would extend me the same courtesy.

5. Dear Friend, It's going to be alright.

6. Dear Friend, I am not taking requests at this time. Please come back next year.

7. Dear Friend, I am not your personal Ipod. Please go away.

Thanks,

Your pal the DJ.

Please feel free to add to this list and take whichever of these you find useful.

In the meantime, I will continue to develop ways to head idiots off at the pass.

You may or may not be interested in seeing the New  Poseidon Adventure aka "Poseidon" for the simple reason that the previews sold it as mindless, soulless "Hollywood Action Schlock."

I am not here to disabuse anyone of such a perception. Thats  exactly what Poseidon is.

Some bullshit.

I DO however recommend students of American race relations watch the film, if not in theaters, sometime this fall when it appears on Cinemax between an Eric Roberts marathon and the endless reruns of "Aliens vs. Predator."

 Why Jamil, Would I do that?

 The answer reader is quite frankly because Poseidon is host to some of the most overtly racist symbolism since "the Color Purple." aka Mammyfest '86

You see, Hollywood has been transmitting messages from the ruling class down to the proletariat for decades now, encoding them in every genre of film from tear jerker dramas starring Meryl Streep to hideously expensive Blockbusters starring Tom Cruise.

These messages have been signposts to "The Way Things Are"  if not the way things "Ought to Be" and have provided the softheaded, easily manipulated public with what are commonly understood to be "the Rules."

Television programming, print media and particularly advertising also contribute to the establishment of "the Rules" but films are the grand sweeping gestures that really make or break the status quo. If it goes over big, the system knows its got sound practices on its hands, if it flops.you know the rest.

This is especially true of race and how it is lived in this country.

The messages contained in films Going as far back as Birth of A Nation, right through Guess Whos Coming To Dinner up to modern fare like Poseidon, have always laid out the landscape of race, sex and class for all to see, internalize and hopefully act out in their daily lives.

Know what I learned from Poseidon?

Latinos are the new Nigger. Actually no one race can do the job black people did, representing not only the exploited underclass, but the feared predatory villain AND the lightening rod for displaced sexual repression as well. For close to 300 years.

No, no one can quite fill our shoes so the job had to be split, with underclass duties going to Messicans and the Villain job being assigned to Ay-rabs with every single non-white group on the planet doing the "sex toy for white folks" rotation as necessary.
But I digress.

I dont find it the slightest bit coincidental that this theme was played out in the film in one of the most graphic, racially charrged scenes on celluloid since the whipping scene in "Roots", JUST as we are having a National Debate on immigration (by brown people from Latin America).

********spoiler alert**********

 In the movie, I watched the films sole Latino male sacrifice his own life so white people could survive, only to be treated like the dogshit on the bottom of a shoe.

Richard Dreyfuss character actually kicked our nameless Latino dude IN THE FACE to save himself from falling to his death, while the rest of the intrepid survivors yelled Kick him off!, Kick him off!

 Then an elevator fell on him and exploded into a fiery maelstrom.

Did I mention he got impaled on some jagged metal?

Me and my boy looked at each other like What fuck is this Mantan shit?!?

20 years ago, that would have been a black dude.

Meanwhile, the rakish male protagonist of the flick didnt even bother to learn dead Latino guys name,  referring to him only as Map, rightly presuming that  his job as a busboy/waiter meant he knew the layout of the doomed vessel.

I guess rakish male protagonist was too busy trying to decide if he was going to fuck the sexy Latina stowaway who was bunking with dead nameless busboy #1 OR perhaps he would plow the cute single mom with her nauseatingly precocious son in tow.

Decisions, decisions. Its hard out here for a pimp I guess.

Needless to say, Latina chick would buy the farm before too long, leaving only white folks to enjoy the benefits of breathing. Well all except Kurt Russell, who at least got to die the noble, heroic white man death aka the John Wayne.

The good news is that black folks, having been replaced on the bottom of the totem pole (symbolically in films at least) by Messicans have been bumped up a notch and are now allowed to die the somewhat dignified deaths that used to be reserved for white folks played by august character actors like Jason Robards.

 And that folks, is Andre Braughers sole contribution to this piece of shit.

Yay for progress! I guess.

Somewhere, Harriet Tubman and Cesar Chavez are spinning like two chickens on a Boston Market rotisserie.

(if you dont know what ID is, look it up on google)

It's getting warm out, which means we must now choose a genre of Tragedy to completely capture our collective imagination until it borders on hysteria.

With each coming of spring, America begins its annual primary runoff to select the type of tragic, alarmist news story that will suck up way too many news cycles.

This is a blessing in disguise, it usually gives me a reason to turn off my TV, get off my couch and go do something. Of course, I could just turn the channel to one of those stupid competition shows (America's Top Home Remodeling Chef!) , but in many ways I would be worse off.

I haven't yet figured out if there is a pattern to the whole thing.  I just know media will ceaselessly fulminate over a story that falls into one of the following categories from May to November (As you get closer to Thanksgiving all "downer" stories are given the bum's rush. Apparently, people don't consume as mindlessly if they are concerned about the state of the world. )

1. Missing White Women - We need at least two of these stories per year. If it's not Lacey Peterson, it's that chick in Aruba. Extra points if a minority male is the suspected villain. Even MORE points if the minority male is actually guilty. Otherwise, it's really just a crapshoot - It may turn out she just ran away from her wedding or something equally idotic. And that's always a letdown innit?.

 2. A Child trapped in, or under something. This always sends the Mom-Jean crowd into a dervish of projected concern. Time was, a missing child used to be a big deal, but since the whole Milk Carton ID campaign began, people are just numb to it. What Americans like is live, blow by blow coverage of rescuing little Timmy from the well. Otherwise kids are just boring.

PS, Believe it or not, a child trapped between his insane relatives in Little Havana, the US Attorney General and a surly Cuban government falls under this category.

3. Animal Attacks - Increasingly rare, as even white people have started to figure out that baiting bears in Yosemite mighit not be a good idea, and that taking your family camping in mountain lion country armed only with a Leatherman tool and some Beef Jerky is downright suicidal. Luckily, a recent spate of shark attacks has made up for this shortfall in news producing activity.

(note: Shark Attacks are not funny. At all. Sharks are nature's own meat grinders and I'm not going anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico until Dow or Proctor and Gamble invents "Shark Away" or its equivalent).

These are just a few of the things that Americans can be bothered to care about. Of course, natural disasters like the Tsunami in Southeast Asia or Hurricane Katrina, have been receiving much deserved press coverage as of late but I fear these are just placeholders until the really important stories start to break.

I'm certain the publishers or 'People' and 'US' magazines pray I am right and that they will soon be able to get back to the people's business of selling human loss as entertainment.

Interspersed of course, with the 50 hottest people their editors would like to sleep with.