Tuesday, December 31, 2013
KayO Redd Wacka Flocka's lil brother gone too soon!
WAKA FLOCKA'S brother KayO has died from what appears to be a self inflicted gun shot to the head.
ATLANTA, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Aspiring Atlanta rapper Kayo Redd, the younger brother of hip-hop star Waka Flocka Flame, has died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, TMZ reported.
Few details about the artist, such as how old he was, were immediately available. His real name was Caodes Scott.
The Henry County Police Department told TMZ Monday Scott's body was discovered Sunday night in the Georgia subdivision where he lived.
His death is being categorized as a suspected suicide, but will not be determined until an autopsy is complete, the celebrity news website said.
"I just lost another son," Deb Antney -- Redd's mother, a music manager -- said on Twitter Sunday evening.
"God please bless me," Flame tweeted, along with a slide show of photos featuring his younger brother. "Ya Big Brother love you Kayo."
Antney previously revealed another of her sons died in a car accident when Flame was 13, MTV News said Monday.
My condolences to Debra and Wacak Flocka his mother and brother, and other family and friends he may have left behind. None of us may never know what troubled young Kayo Redd, we can only pray that we're able to help someone else out, because suicide isn't an option it's a disease. Peace and blessings to his family.
ATLANTA, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Aspiring Atlanta rapper Kayo Redd, the younger brother of hip-hop star Waka Flocka Flame, has died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, TMZ reported.
Few details about the artist, such as how old he was, were immediately available. His real name was Caodes Scott.
The Henry County Police Department told TMZ Monday Scott's body was discovered Sunday night in the Georgia subdivision where he lived.
His death is being categorized as a suspected suicide, but will not be determined until an autopsy is complete, the celebrity news website said.
"I just lost another son," Deb Antney -- Redd's mother, a music manager -- said on Twitter Sunday evening.
"God please bless me," Flame tweeted, along with a slide show of photos featuring his younger brother. "Ya Big Brother love you Kayo."
Antney previously revealed another of her sons died in a car accident when Flame was 13, MTV News said Monday.
My condolences to Debra and Wacak Flocka his mother and brother, and other family and friends he may have left behind. None of us may never know what troubled young Kayo Redd, we can only pray that we're able to help someone else out, because suicide isn't an option it's a disease. Peace and blessings to his family.
The Slow Motion Lynching of President Barack Obama
Sometimes you'd like to think the world is past color, at least our country would be. No, far from it and this former white republican will let you know, we are far from being colored blind in this country. Read on..
I’ve watched liberal and right wing commentators alike blame the president for being lynched. They say “he’s not reaching out enough” or “he’s too cold.” It’s the equivalent of assuming that the black man being beaten by a couple of thug cops must have “done something.”
I am a white privileged well off sixty-one-year-old former Republican religious right wing activist who changed his mind about religion and politics long ago. The New York Times profiled my change of heart saying that to my former friends I’m considered a “traitorous prince” since my religious right family was once thought of as “evangelical royalty.”
I’ve just spent the last 7 years writing over 200,000 words in blogs and articles in support of President Obama. My blogs on the Huffington Post alone would add up to a book in support of the President of over 300 pages. Weirdly, I just realized that through all my writing, this has been the first time in my life I’ve personally gone to bat for a black man. It just happens that he’s a president. But my emotional stake in his life is now personal.
So I’ve changed from a white guy who used to read news about some black man getting shot or beaten by cops or stand-your-ground types who assumed that the black man must have “done something,” to a white guy who figures that the black man was probably getting lynched. I’ve changed ideology but I’ve also changed my gut intuitive reactions.
I’ve changed because if this country will lynch a brilliant, civil, kind, humble, compassionate, moderate, articulate, black intellectual we’re lucky enough to have in the White House, we’ll lynch anyone. What chance does an anonymous black man pulled over in a traffic stop have of fair treatment when the former editor of the Harvard Law Review is being lynched?
One famous liberal commentator wrote a book on how Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neil could disagree and still be friends. Why, he asked on many a TV show promoting his book, couldn’t President Obama be like that? Because, I yelled at the screen, those two men were white Irish Americans and part of a ruling white oligarchy.
Because, I yelled, you might as well ask why Nelson Mandela didn’t talk his jailers in South Africa into seeing reason.
Because, I yelled, the President is black and anytime he’s reached out he’s pulled back a bloody stump.
Because, I yelled, liberal white commentators have been as bothered by a black man in the White House, who’s smarter than they are as much as right wing bigots have been bothered.
Because, I yelled, President Obama has been lied about, attacked, vilified, and disrespected since Day One.
Because, I yelled, this country may have passed laws so blacks can vote and eat in a white man’s world, but in our hearts we’re stuck in a place more like 1952 than 2013.
We’ve been watching a slow motion lynching of a moderate brilliant family man, a father, and faithful loving husband. The Republicans in Congress are so dedicated to lynching the President they’ve been willing to shut down our government and risk the future of our economy.
Evangelical “Christians” have been so stuck on putting a rope around this black man’s neck they have denied their faith and been the backbone of the lying Tea Party who spawned the so-called “birthers” and the rest of the white people driving our news cycle.
Roman Catholic bishops have denied their tradition of helping the poor and been so eager to destroy this president they aligned themselves with white Evangelical bigots and tried to stop health care reform, all because the President wants to give women a fair shake. The bishops even called him “anti-religious” because the president wants insurers to pay for contraception.
This is a slow motion lynching of a black man who is so moderate and centrist that he favored Wall Street enough so that the Left is all over his case. He’s so “radical” and “leftist” and “hates America” so much, and “coddles our enemies” so much, that he killed bin Laden and used drones to kill our enemies. He’s such a “socialist” that he presided over the revival of our economy from the worst recession since the Great Depression, and led us to the present day stock market boom. President Obama is such a “Marxist” that he tried to give insurance – not socialized medicine – to all Americans.
President Obama never answered back to the disgusting southern right wing rubes from the former slave states that have tried to belittle, mock and stymie his presidency shouting “You lie” in a million ways, while actually meaning “You lie, nigger!”
And did the “enlightened” Left have President Obama’s back? No. They carp about his “failure” because a website was slow to get running! The white privileged “progressive” few were too busy blaming him for getting lynched and telling him how to craft policy while a rope was put around his neck again and again and tightened with each filibuster, each lie told on the radio, each self-defeating scorched earth action to stop him from succeeding, even if it meant taking us all down too.
We don’t like to admit who we really are. So we make excuses and blame the victim. I’m ashamed for our country, a country my Marine son fought for in two stupid wars this president has been working to end. And I’m still rooting for the best, smartest and most decent man who has been president in my lifetime. I pray for his health care reform to succeed. I pray for his immigration reform to succeed. I’m amazed he’s gotten anything done, but he has, even while the lynch mob gathers again and again to laugh, lie and spit and claim he’s “failed” while “liberal” commentators nod sagely and talk about his “mistakes” as if President Obama has been playing on a level playing field.
We have a lot to do to heal this country of the damage done by the right wing Obama-haters and the Left wing know-it-all pundits who did not have his back because they don’t have the honesty to admit that we still live in a backward racist swamp of prejudice. Maybe in 50 years our country will be worthy of someone of President Obama’s forbearance again. For now we can just hope that the hatred of the Republican Party for our first black president doesn’t drive us to the brink of ruin again as they strip food from the mouths of the poor, and try to get people to not sign up for health care, just to get even with the black man they swore to destroy from the day that “uppity” black who is smarter than all of them put together took the oath of office.
God bless you Mr. President. I’m praying for you. I am so very sorry. But take heart, in the long reach of history the door you opened will stay open for the millions of Americans of all colors, genders and beliefs who will follow you. They will bless your name. So will history.
Amina Buddafly pregnant with Peter Gunz’s baby?
Peter Gunz may be a daddy again assuming the child his wife is rumored to be carrying is his.
According to reports, “The Breakfast Club” co-host Angela Yee has leaked news about Peter and Amina Buddafly. The “Love & Hip Hop: New York” reunion show was taped on Tuesday, November 17, and supposedly Amina arrived with a bun in the oven.
Though Amina threatened to end things with Peter after finding out that he cheated on her with Tara Wallace, the woman he was living with when he married Amina, most fans are assuming the two stayed together and the baby is Peter’s.
However, that remains to be seen once the reunion show airs next month. There’s also speculation that Amina has left Peter and moved on with another man.
Monday, December 30, 2013
I guess Gabrielle Union is pulling a Beyonce..Knows about the other kid but cool with it..
Dwyane Wade Has Newborn Son; Gabrielle Union Was Aware of Affair
What I mean by Garbielle pulling a Bey is, she knows there's another child and it happened during their relationship so it's okay with her. I guess I need a huge rap star as a husband or a A-list athlete to forget about the bullshit that they just pulled because this is just wrong. A man having a baby with anther woman while he's in a solid relationship is just not cool. 1. A baby means there was no protection. 2. This woman will always remind you your puss doesn't drip gold, and 3. No matter who you are a man is a man. Honey Please.. Some things require dignity and this is one of them.
NBA star Dwyane Wade recently spent time with his new baby boy he fathered with a woman.
Wade, 31, and Union, 41, who were officially engaged last week, have worked through the issue privately as a couple, and the Bring It On star was aware of the child before their engagement. Wade has known the mother of his youngest son “for many years.”
The long-time couple, who have been dating since 2009, are still very much committed to spending their lives together, and according to the Miami Heat star last week, a September wedding is likely.
Wade had a DNA test to prove that he was indeed the father. It appears to me at least this maybe the reason that Wade proposed to Gabrielle Union, best way to get out of the doghouse is with a ring, we call that the Kobe System.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Are you F*cking serious, WALLENSTEIN?
Major Pr Executive sends a racist tweet that got her fired from Pr firm, IAC
Unless you've been sleep for the past week, you're aware of PR exec, Justine Sacco sending out a racist tweet before she got on a 12 hour flight to South Africa that said "Going to South Africa, Hope I don't get AIDS, just kidding I'm white". Well by the time this nitwit landed, she had lost her job, and everyone in the world including the people in South Africa had 12 hours to read that stupid tweet that went viral instantaneously. Papparratzi was waiting at the airport like vultures wanting a snap shot. If she had any since left at that moment, right after her dumb ass turned on her smart phone and read her life flashing right before her eyes, hopefully she made a u-turn. It's safe to say "she bout dat PR life" LOL..
ANDREW WALLENSTEINNow how does the Chief Editor Andrew Wallenstein for Variety magazine one of Hollywood's top insider magazine commit the same stupid offense by defending her. It's a loooooonnnnnnnggggg read, but you need to know how ridiculous he sounds, then read on for my response.
No one knows what IAC publicist Justine Sacco was thinking when she tweeted Friday, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” – maybe not even she herself.
And yet not only do I unexpectedly find myself feeling sorry for her, but actually identifying with her a little bit.
That said, let’s get the requisite disclaimers out of the way first. What she tweeted was offensive, in my opinion, and because of the nature of the job she occupied, she deserved to be fired by IAC, regardless of her apology.
But as vile as the sentiment she expressed was, there are some potential extenuating circumstances here that don’t excuse her behavior but might mitigate her misdeed somewhat.
Repugnant as her joke was, there is a difference between outright hate speech and even the most ill-advised attempt at humor. It is within the realm of reason that Sacco’s tweet didn’t flow directly from some deep reservoir of prejudice, like the recently displayed homophobia of “Duck Dynasty’s” Phil Robertson.
A distinction without a difference, you might counter. But Twitter is a component of a broader culture of entertainment in this country where comedians routinely traffic in humor that plays on politically incorrect stereotypes about race, religions and other categorizations.
What Sacco said really isn’t all that different than a joke someone like Sarah Silverman tweets or utters in a stand-up routine. The context of professional comedy permits them to be that transgressive, a nuance lost on some.
You know the type; every office has at least one person who casually make the kind of cringe-inducing crack that betrays a tin ear to the subtleties of social norms. Sacco may be an idiot but she’s not evil, and given how we grant comedians the ability to cross that line, her confusion is not entirely incomprehensible.
Another type to consider: The person who feels they have license to engage in gallows humor about their own people because, well, it’s their own people. Sacco hailed from South Africa and may have forgotten that kind of crack doesn’t fly beyond closed doors.
That said, anyone who works in corporate communications and doesn’t have enough sense to steer clear of that kind of humor needs to find a new line of work.
But that’s what made this story so delicious in the first place, right? How can someone whose job is to protect the value of their employer by saying all the right things blurt out something so monumentally stupid?
It’s time to be blunt about the nature of corporate PR. While some of the smartest people I have ever worked with hail from its ranks, some bulbs burn a lot brighter than others, to put it charitably.
And believe it or not, that’s not a knock on those publicists. That broadside is directed at the companies with dysfunctional corporate cultures in which the people in these crucial posts are some combination of stenographer/cheerleader/babysitter instead of the savvy strategists required to do the job correctly. These people are treated like puppets by executives who don’t understand who they really need to hire because they narcissistically believe they can handle it all themselves.
I didn’t know Sacco well enough to know what type of publicist she was, but I do know that type exists. And we can call her a moron based on a Twitter history filled with inappropriate comments — but isn’t IAC the bigger dolt, because no one in the company flagged her previous tweets to superiors as a sign that they had a timebomb ticking in their midst? Maybe she should have never had that job in the first place.
But Sacco’s flack status almost feels besides the point in some respect. She’s just another seat at this Algonquin round table of unlimited circumference we call Twitter, where media types of all stripes engage in this nonstop game of verbal oneupmanship in an effort to make ourselves heard above the din. Flacks are no exception to this virtual cocktail party because social media is the place to influence the influencers. And instead of simply using social media to spit out press releases, they engage in our raucous conversation in an effort to charm and disarm. And part of that is cracking the kind of provocative jokes that resonate on Twitter.
However, a smart publicist knows the line between being a firecracker and a firestarter. Sacco did not.
But am I any smarter than she is? I’ll confess to several instances this past year where I tweeted comments I regretted. And yet, it’s those times when you manage to come close to crossing the line that draw attention on Twitter. I can’t shake the fear that one day I will look down and see that line far behind me given the haste and humor with which you have to conduct yourself to make your mark.
Whether it’s stress or anger or even medication, we’ve all had moments where we aren’t 100% of sound mind. And we’ve all been there at the same time as we’ve had a gadget in our pockets that allows us to essentially broadcast to the entire world a sentence or two that, if poorly chosen, can destroy our reputations in a matter of seconds. There but for the grace of a Buzzfeed retweet go I.
REALLY??? I must have read about 20 excuses why this wasn't really as bad as it seems. Unreal, she was basically working when she sent that tweet, it's what she does! Not 100% in her sound mind, her job is to blame, Her job is to be knowledgeable,
I'm not really sure what's going on in this country today but BLACK people have become the butt of numerous, outrageous, unheard of, inhumane, and down right disrespectful both physical and verbal attacks in the past 20 years that just keep getting worse and everyone get's a pass. I'm over it!
Nothing is more gear grinding than someone who has no idea what it's like to be you, but becomes the authority on what insults should and shouldn't bother you. This tasteless so called joke is blatant disrespect, but you seem to think it's in the same vein as a comedian, you sum it up to "a bad joke". Knock, knock, Wallenstein,anyone home, SHE'S NOT A COMEDIAN, so no, she's not trafficking humor as you so causally put it.
Ms. Sacco, was a professional PR Rep with a pretty hefty title, "THE CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR" I can't help but laugh at your long winded excuse of a save that reads as if you just got hired to put out Sacco's fire which by the way, you bombed!
Her JOB, the reason IAC was paying her was to deliver a message to the masses efficiently, properly, and appropriately. Who tweets shit like that which such a status as Sacco? So if your defense for this educated, witty, and fully aware of how powerful social media is PR Rep, is she just didn't know better... I'M NOT BUYING IT! It's so wrong that you damn near preface each paragraph with how wrong it is before continue your weak defense..BUT.but nothing, wrong is wrong. It's so sickening when people turn a deaf ear to the real issue and make a joke of it, well that shit isn't funny! So Mr. Wallenstein, the next time someone decides to insult another race and you know nothing about them, how about you let them defend themselves because you suck at it! And by the way, why do you still have a job? #justinesacco #andrewwallenstein #racisttweet
Now check out her drab ass apology, she better hope she doesn't run into Sharkiesha.. smh
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Is Gaga gone already? ARTPOP to possibly lose 25M! Now that's WHOA!
It’s already known as ARTFLOP.
On Nov. 6, amid the kind of hype not seen since Michael Jackson floated a statue of himself down the Thames River, Lady Gaga released her third studio album, “ARTPOP.”
And not since Jackson has such a globally famous, white-hot pop star had such a rise and precipitous fall: “ARTPOP” is on track to lose $25 million for her label, Interscope, prompting rumors of imminent layoffs.
But it’s not just album sales. When Gaga opened this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, her performance was eclipsed by the twerking Miley Cyrus. Gaga’s work as both host and performer on a recent “Saturday Night Live” was underwhelming, and her recent ABC special, “Lady Gaga & The Muppets’ Holiday Spectacular,” had a dismal 0.9 rating among viewers ages 18 to 49, with just 3.6 million viewers total.
“That ‘Applause’ Gaga is hearing these days has been reduced to a polite golf-clap,” said The Wrap, referring to the title of her first single from the album.
Modal Trigger
Once provocative, Lady Gaga is now floundering, with a Picasso-inspired look in London.Photo: SplashNews
Just five years ago, Lady Gaga exploded on the scene with her debut album, “The Fame.” She had an invented backstory as an art-school freak (in reality, she was a rich private-school graduate from the Upper West Side), a raft of witty, sophisticated pop songs and an ever-changing visual presentation that pulled from the greatest eccentrics of the 20th century, from Schiaparelli to Leigh Bowery — all thanks to a small, tightly knit team of stylists, collaborators and advisers that she called the “Haus of Gaga.”
“I don’t feel that I look like the other perfect little pop singers,” she told Rolling Stone in 2009. “I think I look new.” Indeed, Lady Gaga felt like the first pop star since David Bowie to approach every aspect of performance sideways. In a landscape populated by earnest, business-minded, on-brand idols like Taylor Swift, Alicia Keys, Carrie Underwood and Katy Perry, here was this glorious freak show with mass appeal, a kook with genuine talent.
And, as suddenly, it seems the public at large is now exhausted by Lady Gaga. Even she admits it: “People think I’m finished,” she told Britain’s Guardian newspaper in September.
What’s gone so wrong?
The inner circle flees
When Lady Gaga released “The Fame” in August 2008, she insisted the album — full of songs about boys and booze — was much deeper than the average pop record. It was, she said, a meta-commentary on a culture obsessed with celebrity as the ultimate validation, and the masses loved it all: “The Fame” ultimately sold more than 12 million copies.
“I operate from a place of delusion — that’s what ‘The Fame’ [is] all about. I used to walk down the street like I was a f–king star,” she told Rolling Stone. “I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be — and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth.”
She credited the Haus of Gaga — her version, she said, of Warhol’s Factory — with engineering her rise. There was Troy Carter, the brilliant and loyal manager who signed her in 2007; Laurieann Gibson, her choreographer and creative director; and Nicola Formichetti, the visionary stylist who refined her catchall approach to eccentric dressing, turning her into a high-fashion obsession as well as a regular in tabloids, newspapers and gossip blogs. Within months, Gaga was the rare global superstar to toggle high and low.
“I don’t want to take any credit for Nicola’s work,” she told CNN in 2010. “He’s really, really an amazing designer; he’s an amazing creative.”
Formichetti quit this past summer. “I’ve done two albums with her, it’s been like five years, and you know . . . I cannot do it every day,” he told WWD. “She changes like five times a day; it’s insane.”
Formichetti’s absence is keenly felt; since he quit, Gaga’s looks have become crude, obvious, off-putting. Most recently, she wore a grotesque, disfiguring grill to the YouTube awards, turned her face into a Picasso-inspired funhouse reflection and wrapped herself up like a burn victim.
“She doesn’t know how to do this as well as [Formichetti] did,” says celebrity stylist Robert Verdi. “People think it’s just so stupid and easy to come up with a meat dress — but it’s such a unique way to approach branding talent. The synergy between the music and the way she presented herself actually lets people know how hard the styling was. I think she needs to find partners that understand her the way Nicola did. She’s falling short now — it’s hard to keep up at that level.”
In November 2011, Gaga also parted ways with choreographer Gibson. “No judgment, but it just got a little dark for me, creatively,” Gibson told “Entertainment Tonight Canada.”
The most shocking defection from Gaga’s camp came last month: Carter, the veteran manager who guided her ascent, quit less than a week before ARTPOP’s release. As Page Six reported, Gaga’s label was concerned that the record had no hits and asked her to tweak some of the tracks, or release the record as an EP. She declined, and Carter attempted to intervene, to no avail.
Gaga, according to one source, said she refused to “adulterate my art,” and Carter quit.
“I have a lot of experience in this area,” says one longtime label executive and producer. “Artists have a lot of help on their first albums, and they’re open to a lot of help, and they are very smart collaborators and make great work.”
Once that work results in great success, he says, the artist invariably believes they are solely responsible. “Time and again, they feel like they could have done it themselves, and if they had done it their way, it would have been even bigger,” he says. “So they jettison the people who helped them get where they are and hire people who are less powerful, who let them do what they want. I think that may be where Lady Gaga is.”
And without anyone formidable to guide her, Lady Gaga, for the first time in her career, seems culturally tone-deaf, releasing an album that’s ostensibly about modern art — a “reverse Warholian expedition,” as Gaga so loftily describes it — to a public that doesn’t care.
The release party, dubbed an “artRave,” was held at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and included installations by Jeff Koons (who did her album cover), Marina Abramovic and Robert Wilson. Members of Gaga’s audience defaced several sculptures by Koons, whose “Balloon Dog (Orange)” just sold at Christie’s for $58.4 million.
Once a master at spectacle, her artRave entrance, strapped in a gargantuan hovercraft that lifted her about three feet into the air, fell flat. When she performed, she wept for no discernible reason. She declared the event was no mere record-release party, but about something larger than herself: “the youth of the world.” She did not elaborate. She then rambled about her struggles with sobriety and said that by collaborating with her, Koons was “giving a gift to young artists all over the world,” her convoluted logic belying self-congratulation.
“Never before,” said Pitchfork’s Amy Phillips, “have I felt more like I was living a scene from ‘Spinal Tap.’ ”
‘In a dangerous place’
Perhaps the best analogy to Lady Gaga’s trajectory is the rise and fall of the Showtime series “Homeland.”
When it debuted in late 2011, “Homeland” was a wild and unlikely hit, a thriller about a brilliant, bipolar CIA agent who falls in love with the Marine-turned-sleeper terrorist she’s tracking. Like Gaga, “Homeland” was a surprise: culturally relevant and super weird, electrifying in its warp-speed approach to burning through story.
But after that first season, it became clear that the writers had no idea where to take their narrative, and the show’s once-organic outrageousness curdled into patronizing gimmickry.
With her first record, Lady Gaga, too, burned through story — the outsider artist who crashed through popular culture, the “Mother Monster” to all the world’s freaks — and she clearly had no sense where to go next.
She spoke of addiction issues with pot and alcohol, but that narrative never gained traction — perhaps it was too pedestrian, or perhaps no one believed such a dogged careerist would ever lose that much control. Nor did her alleged hip injury, which put her out of commission for months, capture public sympathy or imagination. She didn’t even use it to go away — instead, she commissioned a gold wheelchair, and she began to feel like the guest who just wouldn’t leave.
“She had this incredible origin story emblematic of underdogs everywhere, but she’s no longer that,” says the exec. “She hasn’t found another thing that she can represent. She has to write another great story about where she is in her life — Eminem is really great at that. But when you come out and your new single is called ‘Applause’ and it’s about how you need it — you have to be about more than that.”
The most critical problem, says the exec, is quality control. None of the singles Gaga has released since “The Fame” has reached the same level of critical and commercial success. “I don’t think she’s made groundbreaking music since her first record,” he says. “It’s not enough to be a larger-than-life personality and have marketing muscle behind you.”
With her second release, 2010’s “Born This Way,” Gaga — devoid of the humor that made her so refreshing, that rare famous person in on the joke — began sounding as self-serious and delusional as Kanye West. “This album is the greatest of my career,” she said, calling herself the “voice of our generation” and predicting that “in 20 years, [this record] will be seen as my iconic moment.”
Instead, “Born This Way” was roundly criticized for blatantly ripping off Madonna’s “Express Yourself” on the title track, and for songs that were “thin” (Boston Globe), “boring” (Washington Post) and more concerned with “trite sloganeering” (Village Voice) than the witty lyricism she displayed on “The Fame.”
Her great friend Elton John, who named Gaga godmother to his two children, went public with his concern in September. “I’d like to be able to talk to her right now, but I can’t get through to her,” he said. “And there are times when you have to listen. When your persona begins to take over your music and becomes more important . . . [when] you have people around you who don’t question you, you’re in a dangerous place.”
They have since made up, as famous people do, on Gaga’s primetime holiday special.
So how does Lady Gaga reclaim her status — if not above, than among — the Taylors and Katys and Mileys? “Lady Gaga has set the bar very, very high for herself,” says the exec. “If her goal is to be more outrageous than she was before — I don’t know that she can surpass it. What she can do? Write a great song.”
Friday, December 13, 2013
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Gifts for guys this Holiday season!
We all have that guy in our lives. The one who thinks it's fine to wear white socks with black shoes, who wears a football jersey when he's not watching football or who thinks turtlenecks are okay.
Maybe he's your dad, or your brother or your boyfriend. Either way, there are some dudes out there who could use some direction in the wardrobe department. And what better time to give him the hint than during the holidays?
So, to help get him on his way to better grooming habits and a not-so-dreadful closet, we've rounded up 13 great holiday gifts that will slowly convert him into a dapper dude.
1. Aviators because they look good on practically everyone and will hopefully make him ditch his Oakleys. (Ray-Ban Aviators, $144).
2. Cologne because this is a gift for you as much as it is for him. (Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb, $105).
3. Beard oil because his long, shaggy beard may as well smell good. (MCMC Fragrances Dude No. 1 Beard Oil, $65).
4. A canvas bag because it's durable, affordable and most likely much better than whatever else he has been using to haul his stuff around. (J. Crew Abingdon Weekender, $198).
5. Desert boots because, obviously. (Clarks Desert Boots, $119).
6. A leather wallet because Velcro isn't okay. (Mulberry Cross-Grain Leather Card Holder, $150).
7. Grooming kit because, one step at a time. (Kiehl's Since 1851 'Essential for Him' Set, $31).
8. Patterned socks because white tube socks never work. (Happy Socks Optic Socks, $12).
9. A black umbrella because no one looks chic soaking wet. (Futai Vented Compact Umbrella, $18).
10. A masculine candle because what guy wouldn't want his room to smell like tobacco and leather? (Cire Trudon Ernesto Tobacco And Leather Scented Candle, $85).
11. Running shoes because his high school sneakers just aren't cutting it anymore. (Nike Lunarglide+ 5, $110).
12. Leather gloves because he'll have them forever, and they will keep his fingers warm as the temperatures start to drop. (Club Monaco Half Knit Leather Glove, $89).
13. Boxer briefs because a boy wears boxers and a man wears boxer briefs. (Calvin Klein Underwear Cotton Stretch Boxer Brief 2-Pack, $34).
Maybe if we casually tape pictures of these men around the house, our guys will get the picture:
2013, Was It The Year Of The Temper Tantrums Or The Unruly Crowds?
This was a year of many things. "Blurred Lines" dominated the airwaves, Miley Cyrus reigned over the news cycle and 17-year-old Lorde became the 2013's most unlikely pop champ. But one thing all of those A-list performers did not do is stomp offstage during their concerts. It might seem like they're in the minority. In a year where unruly crowds ran rampant and concertgoers expressed their distaste by pelting various objects onto the stage mid-performance, artists were lucky if they made it to the encore without any loathsome interruptions.
Here's a look at 10 performers, including one well-known comedian, who battled unfortunate conditions during their concerts and stormed off in fits of rage. (Not that we blame some of them, of course -- if only 40 people attended one of our shows, we'd leave too. Sorry, Brandy!)
- Kayne West
PAKanye West was ready for his close-up, but lighting issues prevented the rapper from living up to his self-proclaimed "awesomeness" when he took the stage on Nov. 30 in Tampa, Fla. Yeezus marched offstage during the third song of his set before returning to chastise his tech crew with language that the Tampa Tribune felt was inappropriate to print. "He screamed at his tech crew; he barked at the audience," the Tampa Bay Times' music critic Sean Daly reported. "But just try looking away: The local crowd would sing along one minute, collectively hold its breath the next, worried the star would storm off (or perilously writhe off) the stage for good." - Brandy
PABrandy was surprised to walk onstage in South Africa to a crowd of 40 in the 90,000-capacity FNB Stadium. It wasn't a total insult, though -- fans didn't know to expect the singer at Nelson Mandela Sport and Culture Day, which attempted to surprise the crowd with her performance. It didn't work out in her favor, and Brandy left the stage after two songs. - Justin Bieber
Getty ImagesIf you want Justin Bieber to finish the concert he started, don't throw a bottle at him. That's the lesson learned from an incident in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where a concertgoer chunked what appeared to be a water bottle onstage and knocked the microphone out of Bieber's hand. The singer left the stage and did not return, even though fans reportedly waited nearly an hour for a reappearance that never came. - Jack White
APJack White was not pleased with the "NPR convention" that greeted him at Radio City Music Hall in September. The singer lambasted the New York crowd for its low energy, coupled with what Yahoo! Music reported was a displeasure with the venue's sound system. White abruptly left the stage after 45 minutes, leaving attendees cheering in hopes of an encore. He never returned, however, and fans were booted out minutes later. - Art Garfunkel
Getty ImagesThe sound of silence, please! Art Garfunkel decided he'd had enough when, in June, a Long Island local official in attendance was more preoccupied with his cell phone than the performance happening in front of him. The 72-year-old folk-rock legend reportedly stormed offstage and returned 10 minutes later, only after the concertgoer apologized. - Lupe Fiasco
Getty ImagesLeave your tomatoes at home, Lupe Fiasco concertgoers. The 31-year-old rapper cut a Salt Lake City show short when a detractor pelted the squishy vegetable onto the stage. He wasn't going out lightly, though -- before exiting, Lupe Fiasco called the offender a "fat, white bitch" and threatened to cancel his next concert as well. - Fiona Apple
APFiona Apple is no stranger to onstage meltdowns. During a Louis Vuitton event in Tokyo this past August, Apple found the crowd so unruly that she couldn't stand it anymore. After trying to get their attention by telling them to "shut the f--k up" and climbing on her piano, Apple reportedly scolded the room by saying "Predictable! Predictable fashion, what the f--k?” She then stormed off the stage. - Yelawolf
Getty ImagesEminem prodigy Yelawolf didn't know the contract he'd signed before performing at LSU's student-run Groovin' on the Grounds concert stipulated that his set should comprise clean versions of his songs. The rapper walked off stage upon being informed that profanity wouldn't be tolerated. He forfeited the $17,000 he would have earned for the gig. - Dave Chappelle
Getty ImagesYes, we know, Chappelle isn't a musician. But he's a performer, as evidenced by the heckling he faced at the Funny or Die Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival in Hartford, Conn. Chapelle ended his set after almost 30 minutes, the amount of time he needed to perform in order to get paid. The comedian spent the entire stint fighting pervasive boos that erupted through the crowd before bidding farewell and exiting to the sounds of Kanye West's "New Slaves."
Getty ImagesOBAMACARE, Assume repeal is a wrap!
After forty some-odd attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, some of which were sexier than others, it would seem that the GOP is slowly putting those days behind them. Yesterday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) essentially conceded that the repeal battles were over and that his colleagues needed to "start talking about transitioning."
And right before Thanksgiving, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) -- one of several Republicans vying for the Senate seat of the retiring Saxby Chambliss -- put his electoral hopes on the line by insisting that letting the health care law fail would not be "the responsible thing to do." (One rival for that Senate seat, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), is already torching Kingston for it.)
While the Democrats who wavered in the face of Obamacare's rough-and-tumble November have commanded a lot of media attention, these Republicans who seem to be backing away from their party's all-in on Obamacaredämmerung wager are significant in their own right. There's a whiff of a notion, now, that the law may be a permanent fixture in American life (pending the result of one not-insignificant legal wrangling), and what's more, that it might even work (though it's probably too early to say anything definitive about that).
In a more immediate sense, however, the GOP has ended up boxed in as a result of its own tactical decisions, an "irony" that Avik Roy notes today over at Forbes:
President Obama's credibility has taken a significant hit since it became clear to the public that his signature promise -- that "if you like your plan, you can keep it" -- turned out to be dishonest. Polls now suggest that Republicans can retake the Senate in the 2014 mid-term elections. But the irony is that the GOP, having implicitly committed itself to protecting Americans' existing insurance arrangements, has backed itself into a corner. What happens in 2017 when tens of millions of Americans will be on Obamacare-sponsored insurance plans? Republicans have pledged to repeal the law, even if many of those Americans come to like their new health plans.
This is something that Philip Klein warned about in the Washington Examiner, writing that there was a "danger" in "making the idea that nobody’s coverage will ever change as a result of reform a tenet of Republican health care policy."
Of course, as I've pointed out before, the media didn't become interested in the whole "sad letter from an insurance company" phenomenon in time to help the nearly 44,000 people who lost insurance each week between January 2008 and December 2010. And it remains to be seen whether reporters will continue to enforce this exciting new standard for outrage. But repealing the Affordable Care Act opens the door for another round of headlines, and the discovery that the blade that nicked Obama is double-edged.
So what's the GOP to do, if not press for repeal? Well, it wasn't long ago that someone pointed out that "the gap between [the Affordable Care Act] and traditional Republican ideas is not very big" and there was ample opportunity to "align the plan more closely with conservative views." Those observations were made by David Frum, and they were probably part of the reason he's become an apostate among the conservative elite.
But if everyone assumes that Obamacare is now the semi-permanent structure in the health care market, there remain opportunities to work constructively within that structure and across party lines. Once laws are passed, things change: unintended consequences emerge, new problems loom and progress makes old worries obsolete.
There's no reason to believe there won't be room for new innovation -- and the potential for future fixes that come about through that spirit of bipartisanship that everyone seems to fetishize.
If nothing else, the bungled rollout of the HealthCare.gov website should be a distant early warning to lawmakers in both parties that we need some constructive reform in the Federal IT procurement system. The future of governing will involve more and more Americans turning to the Internet and their mobile devices for information and assistance, and it's in the interest of both parties to ensure that everyone has a seamless and positive interaction with the federal government.
Again, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself in predicting the permanence of the Affordable Care Act. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the future belongs to those who work within the structure of the law to make it more effective as health care evolves. This may come as bad news to those who have gone all-in on repealing the law, but things are what you make of them.
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