If you told me to jump in the waters off Coney Island for the new year I would have replied to you with profanity.
I wouldn’t go into the waters off Coney Island during an NYC heatwave so why the hell would I take the plunge after a major blizzard just rolled over the city?
I told Rafi Kam that shit was #stuffwhitepeoplelike
Rafi Kam is a true believer tho’ and he said that the waters off Coney Island would bring the IC’s good ‘Chea’ for the new year.
I was still a serious skeptic tho’. Mainly because all the real Black people had on coats and scarves.
I told Rafi that if I didn’t see any ‘real’ Black people going in the water I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t want to be trying something that is culturally opposite what I’m supposed to do as a Black man.
I wouldn’t want to Crispus Attucks‘ my shit on the first day of the new year. That’s never a good look.
The boardwalk was an official freakshow too.
[ll].
Rafi then spoke to me from the heart…
The water had no prejudices. It would be just as cold for everyone. It was in the icy, near- freezing waters off Coney Island that we would all be equal.
White and Blacks freezing their nuttsachs and tittyballs into ice cubes. Together.
Rafi also got to show off his post-Ghetto Big Math body. He’s doing amazing things with his new nutritional program. Kudos to the Kamster.
Rafi’s mom came to meet us with towels after the swim and then invited us to her home for a post-swim brunch. Mrs.Kam knows how much Coney Island polar bears heart herring and mackarel (and caviar too FTWWW!)
Mrs Kam calls me Douglass, and Frederick Douglass >>> Crispus Attucks. Is all I’m sayin’.
Our post-shoot meal was fantastic and refreshing. Mrs.Kam was a magician in the kitchen and she brought out a new dish what appeared to be every five minutes.
Mr.Kam regaled us with stories of his youth and his polar bear excursion while living in a kibbutz in Israel.
Mr. and Mrs.Kam were true believers themselves. It was immediately obvious where Rafi’s resolve comes from.
The Internets Celebrities have started the new year winning by going swimming.
The lesson for us all here is to just take the plunge in 2011
Being an Internets Celebrity isn’t always all low-brow glamorous like eating an extra value crispy chicken meal at Wendy’s. Like all the best low paying professions there’s some work involved in doing this. It’s good for me that I like this job.
Das Racist invited me to hang out with them at the release party for their latest mixtape project ‘Sit Down, Man’. You might imagine that the tripster darlings of the internets know how to throw a party. Well I’ll confirm the yes. It starts with letting anyone who arrives early get their drink on gratis of the producing party promoting Cerberus – Greedhead, Mad Decent and Mishka.
A few bands that DR fux with opened the stage up for them. Tecla Esposito, who is also part of the retro electro galactic R & B band Gordon Voidwell was the first act. I think I’m in love with her. Keepaway brought an Amish drum and bass rockstar vibe to the party. Next was Maluca Mala who made me think she could be the daughter of Sheila E. and Prince, if they had ever mated.
Das Racist was due to perform next but my glass slipper was about to become a wooden clog because I had to scramble back to Brooklyn to record the Combat Jack Radio Show. I missed the DR set but these folks caught it and liked it.
Internets,
Greetings from sunny St. Ma’arten. My summer of rest, relaxation, recharging and realization continues from the fair shores of the famous Dutch Antilles isle. I’m in a cafe, stealing a wireless, the ocean before me, latte beside me, sunblock on and cooking. I would have loved to tell you that Oprah lent me her crib so that I could finish the scribework on my memoir.
Its the story of the prodigal son of New York City who turned his back on everyone and everything that raised him until he was brought to his knees, within an inch of his humanity, and had to begin the difficult journey of finding his way back home. I hope this story will help teenagers get through the tough years when peer pressure forces them to do things they might otherwise not.
Awww, who am I kidding? No one gives a shit about morality or humanity or any of that fruitbaggery anymore. We are beyond books and beyond spirituality. What I’ve really been trying to do is Facebook friend Caroline Gu911ani since I learned that Sephora declined to press charges against her because of who her dad is. Maybe I can convince her to do a smash and grab at Tiffany’s?
I’m still following the news feeds in St.Ma’arten although I’m gathering news using legacy methods like newspapers and television news. I’m about to turn off my Twitter accounts and leave my Facebook page alone. I feel like the information cycle and focus that exists online doesn’t serve me for learning about stories or the people that make them. I’m returning to a simpler existence.
Fuxing around on a Caribbean island can be a sweet reminder for all the things you forgot were important. I take so much shit for granted back in NYC. I try to do everything possible. I want every plum project at my day job. I want to attend every free outdoor concert and every open bar advertising or entertainment industry party. I want to buy every sneaker that has air in the midsole. And then I want to go back home and sit in front of a computer until the sun rises to tell everyone about everything. But its not possible to do everything — and you miss so much when you try.
The trip to St.Ma’arten was mostly to find some time to be alone with my girlfriend. I refer to her on the blogs as Chocolate Snowflake. I called her that because she does all kind of crazy shit that I only associate with the white, but then again she and I went word for word on every song at the Hall & Oates concert last year at Coney Island. I wouldn’t trade my Chocolate Snowflake for anything.
Dallas Penn in virtual reality is pretty fun to fux with. DP in real life reality is just as dope. As a matter of fact, DP is real reality. I’ve just been waiting for the rest of you to catch up with me. Don’t do me like Rakim and have my shit be obsolete by the time you get up to speed. The very fact that you are here at IC.com means that you are capable of moving faster than the speed limit. In a minute we are going to take you on a journey as fast as the speed of light. Faster even. We are going to take you into the future.
Tomorrow may never come
For you or me
Life is not promised
Tomorrow may never show up
For you and me
This life is not promised
I ain’t no perfect man
I’m trying to do, the best that I can,
With what it is I have
Dear Internets…
Dear friends of the inter-connected networks. The Twitterers, the FaceBookers, the folks that have this page as part of their RSS feed, everyone still on my Hotmail e-mail blast list… How the hell are you?! Have you gone to any of the free concerts being held all around the city. I was able to catch Gil Scott-Heron at Central Park’s Summerstage. I will definitely be in the park on Sunday, August 15th for Public Enemy as they commemorate the 20th anniversary of their greatest album – ‘Fear Of A Black Planet‘.
Gil gave us some blues that makes me recall the oil spill in the Gulf.
How has the summer been treating you so far otherwise? Excellent, you look well. Me, not so much.
If you have recently looked at my face when I didn’t know you were watching me you have seen that I don’t smile as often. It isn’t anything that you have done per se. You’ve actually done your best to keep me in good spirits. You watch the videos that are produced by the ICs collectively and singularly, you also read the blog posts that we all generate in various online locations. You’ve done your part to keep us together on the web, but I still got the blues.
This could be that male menstruation thing that I read about somewhere and maybe I’m cycling thru that right now. Actually to be honest with all of you I know why I have the blues. I received an eviction notice from my home for the last almost 40 years. Not my co-operative apartment that acts as a warehouse for all my shit from action figures, to hundreds of pairs of sneakers and over twenty years of Polo Ralph Lauren clothing. Not my mother’s basement (which incidentally is now located in an Atlanta suburb called Marietta).
The home I’m referring to is Never-Never Land. I’ve been the steward of this place for as long as I can remember. Everyone that has come thru here during that time has pretty much deferred to me. They’ve allowed me to guide them on adventures that have been delightful, daring and sometimes deadly. Each year I welcome the next group of adventurers and we fly thru this land making our own rules and avoiding Captain Hook and his henchmen as best we can.
But then Tinkerbell came to me with the message that NeverLand was being developed as a resort island. There is no way I’m going to be able to avoid the bulldozers that will uproot all my favorite treehouses and cubbyholes. It’s finally time for me to grow up. Growing up isn’t about just paying bills on time, altho’ that is definitely something I will need to work on. Growing up is living your life in service of others. Family, friends and even total strangers. I’ve been a solo act all of my life. Even when I had a younger brother I was on my own shit. Even with a girlfriend I still went in my own direction at my own whims.
My life changed a bit when my father died, but my mother was still independent despite contracting multiple sclerosis. As she has become elderly and now invalid I am asked to assume the responsibility of the leader of my family unit. I have been a leader of the Lost Boys, but that isn’t how you lead a family. Leading the Lost Boys was still an exercise in selfishness. The boys that couldn’t keep up with my madness were cast off from NeverLand. If you didn’t have the courage to follow me into the mouth of the volcano I called you a coward and mocked you. I had no patience for those with fear.
I was like that because I had so much fear. I used to afraid of being alone. My mother left me alone a lot when I was young. I was raised by her grandmother. My mother was young and pretty and she had many suitors. I’m sure she loved my father because she married him and gave me his name, but his drug abuse demons drove her away. So as a young single mother trying to get by in New York City she had to leave me. For days and weeks and months my great-grandmother did her best to replace her granddaughter. And she did a wonderful job. My great-grandmother was a Scottish goddess named Beryl O’Loughlin.
I just returned to NYC from visiting my mother in Atlanta. Her condition is deteriorating after falling and breaking her hip last year. She isn’t able to walk any longer and the MS is stripping her nervous system of control of her life. I suppose I should start looking for a place in NYC that offers assisted living because she isn’t going to be able to remain in Atlanta for much longer when the family that is living with her has to go their own way. This is the sound of the bulldozers and excavators entering Never Land.
I brought my nephew with me to see his grandmother. He is the middle child of my kid brother’s 3 x 3 litter. 3 sons by 3 different mothers. This child is the only one of the three that I know. For various reasons of the American story that is how shit goes. I haven’t seen the child for over a year. He reminds me of my brother too. I have to make sure that my nephew doesn’t end up a Lost Boy. Not too many kids can get thru that period without gaining horrible scars or worse. I was lucky that I was smart and emotionally unavailable. He needs my help and I see this.
Now Peter Pan has to become a parent or dare I say a patriarch. I didn’t want this day to come because I never wanted to be responsible for anyone other than myself. So this is why I’ve got the blues. But the good thing about my blues is that it isn’t the song of defeat or humiliation. My blues is the song of redemption. My blues is the phoenix that rises from the ashes to spread its beautiful wings to the sky.
You won’t find too many Af-Ams going to the shrink (or a general practicioner for that matter). We’d rather spend our available dollars self-medicating. The problems which arise from the skin we are in can’t be mitigated on a couch or even a comfortable leather chair.
Now don’t get me twisted, I am not morbidly obese because of racism, altho’ if I were motivated enough to push the narrative I’m sure I could find the institution of racism inside of my weight gain. No, I’m fat because I have chosen to be. I have chosen to find emotional comfort in foods that are unhealthy.
So how do I break this chain of self-abuse because the fatter I become the less people want to be around me or afford me the opportunities to move upward in life? Let’s be honest with each other in this forum and admit that Blacks in America (unless they are endowed with supreme athleticism or entertaining ability) are already considered second-class citizens.
Celebrate the life and artistic legacy of Roy DeCarava…
C.S.’s father was an accomplished artist who was supremely and fiercely principled. Because of this he would eschew much of the acclaim that other less courageous artists would accept for themselves. DeCarava demanded that he be viewed as an artist, without qualification as an African American artist, or street artist, or a documentarian.
He took his camera everywhere he went. He lived and raised his family in Bed Stuy, but was born and raised uptown in Harlem. The art world tried to marginalize him because so many of his early subjects were the residents of the neighborhoods where he lived and worked. He knew that this made his subjects and his art no less great, even as the T.I.’s tried to say otherwise.
I’m proud to say that I was a fan of Roy DeCarava’s photographs decades before I had met him. In real life he was as compelling as the images he crafted. Speaking truth to power and expressing the beauty of it all, DeCarava is in large part the inspiration for why I do what I do.
In memory of
ROY DeCARAVA
A celebration of the
life and work of
an American artist
Monday, May 10th at 6:30 PM
The Cooper Union Great Hall
7 East Seventh Street at Third Avenue
New York City
The whole point of the Internets Celebrities FIT Club is for you to change your nutritional lifestyle. Losing weight will be the by product of that change. If I simply wanted to lose weight I would just get liposuction or a kilogram of cocaine.
Since I am a former athlete I understand the things my body needs in order to operate at a high cardio rate. Sadly tho’ my wallet operates thru recurring deficits (shouts to Pierre Bennu) and the only fuel I can afford is frequently on a $1 menuboard.
RafiK Shalom threw down the gauntlet(or so he says), but I’m throwing it down now for real.
The Internets Celebrities F.I.T. Club is now getting started. Even tho’ we haven’t completed our Ghetto Big Mac trilogy we are still moving forward with our plans to make ourselves healthier. Hopefully we can improve the lifestyles of our friends across the internets as well.
It’s simply about making better decisions on the daily. Consistency will be the key to the plan. I’m not going to get on a scale to weigh myself. I’m a lard ass. It’s fuxin’ obvious. What I am going to do is make a decision to not purchase a 24oz. $1 can of Arizona sugar water when I am thirsty and instead I will spend that same $1 on a 16oz. bottle of Poland Spring water. Sure I’m losing 8 fluid ounces in the trade off, but think about the money I’m actually saving in health related costs in the future?
Provided I live that long. That’s the other totally awesome thing about becoming health conscious, you start to get a God complex. Once you worry about living longer and doing things you think will give you access to longer life you are in effect biting the apple. Literally, and figuratively. Let’s get healthy internets so that we can live forever and tell God to go to hell.
Has it really been over a year since the last i.C. feature presentation?
Sure, I do all kinds of Ricky Retardo shit on my site – DallasPenn.com and my corresponding YouTube page, and Casimir still makes films that are LOL funny and Rafi still dissects the egregious commercialization of Hip-Hop at the revamped OhWord.com, but as far as Internets Celebrities goodness there hasn’t been a flick in a minute.
We all enjoy a modicum of success in our own separate endeavors, but when we form the three-headed social justice Cerberus not even an army of Michael Vicks can drown out our barking. The great news is that in a short while you will all see our latest project. The three of us take to the streets of NYC to get a portrait from the frontlines of the U.S. economy. I wanted to say street level view but using the word ‘street’ in the sentence twice looked like bad form.
Anyhoo…
As the new movie is about to roll off the Final Cut Pro console we thought we could entertain you with a mini-clip from the virtual cutting room floor. Cas chopped up a nice little clip from one of the interviews we conducted while on the grind for this new project. The funny backstory for this clip is that the subject essentially volunteered to be interviewed since he saw us with our fancy camera out.
There are certainly eight million stories in the city when you consider the folks that are homeless as a lifestyle choice. This man has no overhead and free entertainment provided by the New York public library system. The bonus is that he gets high everyday. Homelessness for the win. Internets, meet Jean aka Scott, Homeless Celebrity.
At the end of the day Mountain Dew blue didn’t call for me to go to South by South West. That didn’t change my feeling for Mountain Dew blue either. I want to be with Mountain Dew blue. We have fun together. We like the same things like action figures, anime and Adult Swim.
I appreciate all the time that Mountain Dew and I have spent together, but I’m ready to move on with Mountain Dew blue now. I just hope Mountain Dew doesn’t call my phone when blue and I are together alone. That might get uncomfortable.
“Wisecracking social critics who deconstruct the worlds of check-cashing outlets, street vendors and even sugar-laden breakfast cereal.” Read the rest.
