I posted a rant a few months ago about how a lot of lyric sites don’t seem to give a crap. It was inspired by trying to figure out a name from James Brown’s Santa Claus, Go Straight To The Ghetto.

So there’s a part near the end of the song that I couldn’t figure out. He says “Tell ‘em **unidentified** told you so” but I couldn’t figure out what the name is. Don’t ask why I’m just noticing this after all these years. Whatever it is, the name definitely isn’t James Brown. I decided to hit the lyric sites to see what they say. Not only did they claim that he said “James Brown” there but they don’t even have the obvious parts of the song right.

I forgot to put that name in the original post, but I kept thinking it was “Hank Ballast” or something like that. I looked around today and most of them still have messed-up versions of the lyrics. The one place that seems to have best version is the VH1 site. They don’t have all the botched lines like “Pitch up your reindeer” and admits that even they can’t figure out what that name was. But thanks to VH1, I think I figured out what the name is.

While watching VH1, a rock documentary had a clip from a man named Hank Ballard. I look the man’s up on the electronical intertubes and Google points to a lot of links about Ballard and the Godfather of Soul. They worked together in the late 60’s which was the same time period that this song was recorded in. I’m not a music historian or expert, but I’m guessing that the James Brown lyric missed by most sites is “Tell ‘em Hank Ballard told you so.” If anything, I’m more embarrassed that I didn’t know who Hank Ballard was.

Figured I’d post something I drew since I barely seem to do that here anymore. It’s Linda, a very, very bad woman from the old arcade game, Double Dragon. I drew a picture of her in practically in the same pose a few years back but that didn’t turn out so well. Too cartoony. This is more like it. It’s weird because I was thinking of drawing it over again recently because I need art of her for a few ScrollBoss projects. Out of the blue, a friend of mine e-mails me because he needed the old pic for a fan game project. I was glad that he wanted to use my art, but I felt bad because it was a bad picture. So that was sign that I need to draw her again. Plus, it’ll be good to have a pic of her that matches the quality of that Abobo pic I did last year.

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I bought that Lego set with Harley Quinn just for the minifig. Seriously. The Batman Begins-style Batman that comes with it was immediately put aside for trading fodder and the other parts are still in their bags to be sorted later on. It comes with some of those little diamonds and gems that you can put into a treasure chest and has lots of good vehicle parts. But, really, it’s all about Lego Harley Quinn.

I’m horrible at remembering birthdays, but there are 3 that I never forget: my mother’s, my sister Elizabeth’s, and my grandmother Marva’s. Sadly, she passed away in late 2002. Instead of being sorrowful and depressed that she’s no longer here, I’m going to post YouTube links to three of the songs that she enjoyed. I’ve done this before and I may have linked to the same song last time, but these are there are some fun memories tied into these:

the Gap Band - Party Train
Whenever there was a family trip in her car and the radio failed to play anything good, she’d pop in her Gap Band tape and everything was right again. I liked seeing the fun video in the brief time that we had BET in our area before it replaced by a second country music channel. Long after her tape snapped she got the same Greatest Hits CD that I had and played the songs all over again.

Maze ft. Frankie Beverly - Golden Time of Day
Another Greatest Hits CD I had then was from Maze and I eventually found out that me and Grandma thought this was their best song. Most people like “Joy and Pain” and the usual hits, but this one starts with strong funk and flows right into some beautifully moving soul music. The YouTube link isn’t a music video but the song and the album cover are good enough in my opinion.

Looney Tunes - Three Little Bops
As a kid, I’d watch cartoons from either the couch but I’d flop on the floor a few feet from the TV if something good came on. This was an instant floor-flop cartoon not just because it was good but because Grandma and Great-Grandma Nee would want the volume turned up. Everybody loved that cartoon just as much.

While most people are blaming recording artists for the wall-to-wall foulness in current mainstream Hip-Hop and R&B, people who listen to more than just profit-seeking pundits know what the real deal is. The record labels and media outlets have the most control. You’d think that’d be obvious, but pundits look cooler if they take it straight to the artists instead of attacking the real cause. Really, if any of those artists changed their message, their label would drop them like a bad habit after Viacom would refuse to air their videos. And if you don’t believe that, Bruce Banter from Playahata.com has a story for you about Keke Palmer:

Here’s a few clips from Atlantic records tries to turn Akeelah the Bee into Lil Kim:

Keke Palmer, is the 14 year old girl who played Akeelah, in the movie, Akeelah and the Bee.She and her mother Sharon have a huge problem with the upcoming record deal they signed with Atlantic Records in March of 2006. The problem is that the record label wants to market the 14 year old as a sexpot but she does not want that image.Keke admits “From the very beginning Atlantics A&R representative tried to get me to record inappropriate music, and my parents and I resisted.”

Who’s behind this nonsense? Well the Senior A&R rep, Mike Caren, was the main antagonist, he kept on saying , ” Keke is urban”, so as long as they refused to record the raunchy tracks that he sent them, he refused to pay for the good clean music they brought him.At one point he even stopped Keke from recording by not paying for studio time.

If that isn’t messed up enough for you…

She is only 14 years old, and when she signed the deal she was only 12 years old, “what did they think she would be singing about?” Anyway, they kept their word and did very little to promote her cd. They refused to provide marketing reports, even when Das management kept asking.Then on Sept 14th they received the report, 4 days before her cd release date of Sept 18th.

That’s just insane. You have the kid from Akelah at your record company and you don’t promote it because it jibes more with her image from a hit Hollywood movie than it does typical bass-ackwards urban radio? If the Congress wants to investigate something in the music industry, they may need to look into this. Of course, any execs that want a 14 year old girl to sex-up her image may need a different kind of investigation.

I apologize to the four people that still read this blog for taking over a week to post. Right now I can feel my sinuses headknocking me from the inside and it seems as if almost every other allergy-sufferer around here is catching hell. I have quite a few unfinished posts and unstarted post ideas that I’ll act upon once I feel better. For now, here’s some random stuff that’d I’d ramble about if I had the energy.

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X-Men fans: Sigh… when are the X-Men going to be the center of the Marvel Universe again?
Marvel: Okay.
X-Men fans: Not like that. NOT LIKE THAT!

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Davey-D postings:

Stop White on White Violence at Award Shows
Tommy Lee vs. Kid Rock. Like one of the commenters said there, I’m waiting for someone to mention how Kid Rock’s connection to Hip-Hop helped bring along the violence.

Johnny Rotten Judges Pop Stars and Politicians
I’m just posting a link to it since I’d just cosign the whole damn thing.

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It’s nice to see 2-D games coming back into style even if it’s on systems that I don’t own. I’m even more glad to see that some classic titles are being revived as a result. For those who haven’t heard about Contra 4, it’s strictly 2-D and seems to ignore all 3-D Contra lore (and it’s boo-worthy plot twist). On top of that, the Legend of Kage is making a comeback on the DS that will hopefully make enough money for the hero to buy a shirt. Of course, the original was more of a good idea and bad-ass name than a good game. I hope Taito will fix that, though.

and while I’m linking to DS Fanboy is the best subject line/slightly related photo combo I’ve seen in a while. Shame on yuh you if you don’t agree.

In the early days of this blog was a Funky Friday, a day where I’d post links to music videos that’d either have a theme or not have a theme. Then I called it ‘Make the Music with your Blog” because I found someone else was using Funky Friday. But back in the first post ever was one of my favorite videos from one of my favorite groups: Whodini. Unfortunately, the video was deleted almost right after I linked to it. Hell, just about all of them were. That’s what killed the feature in the first place. After checking out the usual place, I found that someone uploaded it again. So I present it with what I said in the old post:

‘Funky Beat’ by Whodini
- When I was a kid, Whodini was my favorite group, period. I’ll eventually do an entire post on Whodini. For now, just dig the only music video on Earth to feature the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dinosaurs, multiple chef hats (a true primal element of comedy), the ‘Funky Beat puppet’ and Theodore Huxtable.

Much respect to the uploader for allowing future generations to see the glory of the Funky Beat Puppet. “FUNKY BEAT! FUNKY BEAT!!!”

While rearranging my cluttered closet to get to my comics, I finally found the box with the 1990’s Black Lightning series by Tony Isabella (Jefferson’s creator) and Eddy Newell. It may have been brief, but damn was it sweet. Instead of going right to sleep, I reread issues one through three and it was like magic all over again. The fact that this run ended so early still irks me because a longer run would’ve cemented more of BL’s status quo here and the recent retcons would’ve been a lot less likely. I want to give this run a post of it’s own one day, but I’m posting because I just found out that Eddy Newell has a site again after thinking it had disappeared from the ‘net. That’s one huge upgrade! I’ll have to peep that out when I’m not working on something because I truly need time to browse. I’m joining that board, too!

Evorgleb from Highbrid Nation (which I just had to add to the Blogroll) inspired some rare envy in me by linking to a great interview he had with Mele Mel of the Furious Five. As always, Mele Mel had some important points about the current state of Hip-Hop. He also dropped a few jewels on crowd psychology and other seemingly-lost arts of Hip-Hop performances. That interview is further proof that the group deserves to be the first Hip-Hop group in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.

Gotta get back to the artwork. Later!

Why is this badly-drawn man smiling? You’ll find out on April 1st, 2007. Well, you’d have to go here then to get the full effect of actually seeing it. Not promising the funny here, but it’ll give you a slightly better understanding on how Nutroll works through one of his side-effects. Yes, there are side effects of Nutroll’s mere existance and the story that you’ll see in late April/early May will explain it all like Clairissa. Best of all, I figured out a way to screw with people’s heads with the preview. Hopefully, doing this will get me back in the swing of art things. We’ll all find out together, I guess. BTW: Smiley McNewsguy over there is now officially named Cliff Bannon. Yeah, that works.

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Even though the Vs. Faker generator is on the backburner again, I made a few improvements and added a few people (Chun-Li, Zangief, War Machine, Armored Spidey, etc.). It needs tweaks here and there but it’s still pretty fun to mess around with.

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Meanwhile, this is probably the most sickening remake I’ve heard in a long time. I’ve never wanted to punch modern R&B in the face so much in my entire life. I’m serious. It’s sounds glossy, manufactured, and without spirit. I know what you’re saying. “Damn, Op! That’s wrong of you to put unsoulful music in my brain! How I can wash the taste of that commercial out of my mouth?” Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. Didn’t that feel good? Remember that you can never truly realize how great things are until you’ve seen them turn to complete crap.

First of all, I need to hunt down whoever it is that’s been beating me in the head with a cinder block as I sleep. That’s just what it feels like right now. It’s as if someone said of me, “And you can’t beat that with a stickball bat!” and some jackass took them up on the challenge. So if the culprit is out there reading the blog, know you this:messin’ with me is a contest that many have entered and few have won. Okay, not really, but I just thought of that line and wanted to have it somewhere before I forgot it.

I was going to post a link to a Davey D story about Immortal Technique being blocked from performing at an anti-War demonstration by a maze of misdirection courtesy of the authorities, but there’s a ton of new stuff that I don’t have time to read yet. I’m dying to read the “Confessions of a BET programmer” stories that I didn’t notice last time. I love the fact that there are sites like Davey D’s and Playahata.com (which I keep forgetting ot add to my redone blog’s link list) out there exposing nonsense and bringing light to some of the positive stuff out there.

I’m working on the April 1st Nutroll preview and it’s pretty news-heavy. I have to keep looking at pictures of news desks and news anchors. The news anchors I’m drawing aren’t just plain characters in my head any more and have taken on a life of their own with frightening results. Some of the page layout may make it impossible to preserve a perfect TV screen shape, but there’ll still be lots of screen graphics cluttering things up just as in real life. More on that later.