The Hit Man Part II

Now Lil' Wayne is blogging for ESPN the magazine? Are you kidding me? He's taking over the world by making one goofy voiced rhyme after another. The interesting part is that I read his blog and although it wasn't very in depth he actually seems to have an intellectual appreciation for sports. He mostly talked about Football, but surprisingly enough he's into tennis and even had a party at his place to watch the Wimbledon finals. Not to be racist, but how many people out there would have thought a black super star rapper would know and appreciate Rafael Nadal? That's what I thought.

Famous Sunglasses

This clip on youtube is hilarious. The kid is a total D-Bag, but funny none the less. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWj4gQivR3o

I can't believe how cocky this kid is. Some of my favorite quotes are "I'll apologize, but I won't take off my glasses." why not, "because they're famous." Seriously? Who thinks of this?

I also loved that he told kids they should call him to plan their parties for them when the lady asks what he would tell any kid thinking of throwing a party.

The best of all though was at the very end when the lady tells him he should go away and take a good long, hard look at himself. His response was, "I have ... everyone has ... they love it."

To top it all off this kid has a shirt made in his honor. I couldn't believe it ... take a look:

http://www.bustedtees.com/sunglasses

I'm sure there are some people out there rocking this shirt and totally idolizing this kid. It's really a shame.

Hooters

Is it ever possible for a waitress or bartender to truly be interested in one of their customers? Are their intentions in conversing with you solely to get a better tip out of you? These are questions I ask my self occasionally and found myself asking again on Saturday night. 95% of the time when I experience a waitress or bartender being friendly or slightly flirtatious I can immediately tell that they're just working me for a better tip. I'm ok with this. They're going to get 15-20% out of me regardless unless for some unforeseen reason they decide to hook it up with a free drink or two. There are those rare occasions, however, where I cannot tell if the flirtatious vibes are authentic or not.

Saturday night was just such an occasion. First of all, we were at Hooters, which automatically tipped off my suspicion radar. These ladies are trained professionals at personalizing their way into your wallet. Anyways, I was sitting at the bar with my friend Alex enjoying some wings and a beer, when the bartender broke down my wall of suspicion in a matter of just a few minutes. A true southern bell in orange shorts stood in front of me recapping all the highlights of college football from the entire day. Needless to say I was infatuated at this point. It wasn't until after we had been there for an hour or so and she had stopped to talk on a number of occasions that I began to wonder "what if". Eventually it was time to go and of course I was too big of a pansy to ask for her number, but in hind sight the effort would have more than likely been futile.

Maybe she was just trying to up her tip by talking to me. Maybe we were the least creepy guys at the bar. Maybe I had some funny things to say and it livened up her night about. But could there have been a small chance that she was actually interested? When do you know? How can you tell? These are answers I need. If not to go back and talk to Patricia, at least for future reference when this rare occasion might happen again.

The Hit Man

Lil Wayne is the man. I know he's been on the charts with his past couple of albums, but honestly, did anyone see this coming? I remember when he first came out with The Hot Boys when Juvenile was the man at Cash Money Records. Juvenile's not even with Cash money anymore. Wayne was pretty clever with his voice affects in his rhymes, but I never thought that teenager would turn into the star he is today. The guy has topped the charts for a while now and his record sales for The Carter III are ridiculous. I mean he's selling records at a pace that hasn't been seen since The Slim Shady LP. And considering how easy it is to download music for free now that's pretty impressive.

I actually think it's pretty sad though. There are so many artists out there struggling to make it that probably have more talent than this guy. I'm no music genius, but it seems pretty absurd that someone who can fluctuate their voice in some cool ways while they're rapping can sell more records then someone with amazing vocals that actually plays instruments. Now Lil Wayne probably has great talent when it comes to producing and mixing sound affects with base lines and what not, but could he get on a guitar or piano? My guess is no.

Don't get me wrong, I like Lil Wayne and his songs are cool, but I just don't see how he can have one of the top selling albums in recent American history. Is this a reflection of music appreciation in our country? The only music class I ever had to take was once a week for a year or two in elementary school. Now I know not everyone can be a musician. I can attest to this first hand, but shouldn't everyone be taught how to appreciate music and recognize when an artist has just done something incredible with an instrument? I think so. I'm not trying to say that rapping isn't music because it is. It takes a lot of talent to come up with a rhyme and match it to a beat as well as make it relevant to the audience. But society's dominant appreciation for Lil Wayne (or rap in general for that matter) over all other types of music reflects a laziness. It is a lot easier to bob your head to a catchy beat and laugh at some clever lyrics than it is to appreciate a difficult guitar riff. One must have a knowledge of the difficulty it takes to be a talented guitarist to appreciate something like that.

What's the point of all this? I don't even know. All I know is that I was in shock when I heard Lil Wayne's album was selling at a pace not seen since the Slim Shady LP dropped. I didn't see that one coming at all.