Happy Face / Frowny Face – Dec. 2007

It’s almost time to celebrate the arrival of a new calendar year, but before we can do that I have run down the best and the worst the final month of 2007 had to offer. With everything from a Jessie Spano appearance on The N to the passing of Pimp C this is a loaded edition of Happy Face / Frowny Face. Enjoy.


Happy Face
Jay-Z Out at Def Jam - Well, well, well, the jig is up for the Jigga man at Def Jam. “Stepping down” on Christmas Eve essentially meant he was told to leave but allowed to do so in a nice way, kind of like when a football team allows a coach to step down at the end of a bad season rather than get fired. The main reason that I’m mentioning this news item is that I was one of the first to question the job Jay was doing. Now maybe Def Jam can get back to being the label it once was. Here’s hoping Jermaine Dupri gets the position of President. Say what you will about him, the man knows how to develop talent.

Random Emails from Mike Jones- I answer literally hundreds of emails a day, so the other day when my Outlook inbox made it’s little noise indicating I had new mail I laughed a bit when I saw the name that popped up was Mike Jones. I thought to myself, what a funny coincidence, much like the time I met a publicist named Dana Gordon and instantly made the Entourage connection. Well, I opened the email and it turned it out really was from the Mike Jones. Mr. “back then hoes didn’t want me, now I’m hot hoes all on me,” was sending out an email blast to a bunch of writers regarding the unedited version of his video for “Drop & Gimme 50” because, he claims, the label refused to do it. I guess the label was cool with giving him their email lists, though, which I’m actually perfectly happy about since we sent a few messages back and forth and now there’s a fairly decent chance I’ll be interviewing him in the near future.

Saved By The Bell on The N - In January Nickelodeon’s teen network, The N, is going 24 hours and they’re doing so with a bang, adding one of the single greatest shows in the history of television to their lineup, Saved by the Bell. I first saw a promo for this monumental pairing about a month ago. I wasn’t even paying attention to the TV, but I heard, loud and clear, Elizabeth Berkley in the now infamous “I’m so excited… I’m so scared” scene. My head darted to attention. The N now has two of my favorite shows of all time, The Fresh Prince of Bell-Air, which they’ve been showing reruns of for quite a while now, and Saved by the Bell. Now if only we could get episodes of Beyond the Break, a show that features current Foam cover girl and total hottie Sonya Balmores, on a loop then we’d really be in business!


Frowny Face
The Passing of Pimp C- I was both surprised and saddened to hear of the passing of southern rap legend Pimp C this past month. I was equally surprised and saddened to see it treated as a bit of a commonplace occurrence. I expected to hear radio stations playing his music and some sort of continual rest in peace moments throughout the month. As a member of UGK Pimp C is partially responsible for the rise of southern Hip-Hop and he deserves the same kind of treatment from radio stations that Biggie received and continues to receive a decade after his passing. Unfortunately, Pimp C’s biggest commercial success came on a Jay-Z song, which means for a lot of people he’s just “that guy from ‘Big Pimpin.’” Radio needs to wake up and right this. Yes, it comes under the heading of better late than never, but when an MC of such influence passes and it’s barely recognized a week after the fact there are some serious issues with the way things are being done. Rest in peace Pimp C!

Hollywood Ruining Great Books– Imagine how excited I was to hear Will Smith, one of my favorite entertainers, would be doing a film adaptation of I Am Legend, one of my favorite books. My excitement was soon squashed by the giant boot of Hollywood’s inability to even come close to staying true to Richard Matheson’s classic horror novel. I read the synopsis of the film and all the reviews and knew I couldn’t even set foot into the theater; the descriptions didn’t even resemble the book. Suddenly it was a sci-fi epic set in New York City that involved a killer disease. I don’t blame Will for taking the role, but this I do blame whoever made the movie for calling it I Am Legend. My lone hope for this film is that it will inspire people to pick up the book, which is a truly terrifying tale.

Previous Months

November 2007
October 2007
September 2007