In all this time that I’ve had this column, I don’t think I’ve ever profiled my favorite person to meet in the industry – Mr. First Name. Whenever you go anywhere where there’s going to be a lot of people, you can always guarantee that you will find at least one Mr. First Name. And once you meet one, you’ve really met them all. 

See, Mr. First Name lurks everywhere because there’s so many of them. And it’s just like listening to an Uncle Murder song – you never forget your first one. This is how my first conversation with Mr. First Name went. 

Mr. First Name: You’re with HipHopGame? 
Me: Yeah.

Mr. First Name: I saw you interviewed my boy Clifford?

Me: The big red dog?

Mr. First Name: Who?

Me: You know, the big red dog that was always getting into wacky adventures. I wish I could interview him.

Mr. First Name: No, not the big red dog, whoever that is. I’m talking about Method Man. I guess you know him as Method Man.

Me. Oh.

Mr. First Name: Clifford’s a real cool guy.

Me: Really? 
Mr. First Name. Yeah. (awkward pause) We smoke tical. (another awkward pause) Together.

(another awkward pause)

Mr. First Name: Who are you interviewing next?

Me: I don’t know. It might be Ghostface since he has an album coming out.

Mr. First Name: Make sure you tell Dennis I said, “What’s up?” 

I’m willing to bet my collection of Maino mixtapes that RZA, excuse me, I mean Robert, doesn’t call up Meth and Ghostface like, ‘Yo, Clifford and Dennis, let’s make these songs. Bong bong.’ 

When did having swag mean you wore big sunglasses and hooded sweatshirts in the summertime with dollar bills printed on them? If I knew that the only thing one had to do to attain mad swag was sell mad drugs in between being a heartless killer and ladies’ man I would have started rapping a long time ago. I knew at kid in college who thought he had swag before swag was really a widespread term. Unfortunately for him he thought having swag was grinding on girls at all hours of the night, with clothes on and against their will. Needless to say we never saw eye to eye on anything and that’s definitely a good thing. 

I think he spends his time now going back to the local bars on the weekend as a big-time alum, hoping a girl looks away from her drink long enough for him to slip a Mickey in it. 

Now that Latrell Sprewell’s yacht got repossessed, doesn’t that give a whole new meaning to “sitting on Spreewells”? If you’re sitting on something that’s about to be repo’ed by the government, then you, my friend, are truly sitting on Spreewells. 

Killah Priest’s album The Offering is finally out. 

Probably the best thing to happen this week is Bill O’Reilly taking on Nas. I know it’s gotten a lot of people angry and resorting to the Talib Kweli/Mos Def argument while O’Reilly’s fellow Culture Warriors cite any violent lyrics Nas had as proof that he’s an ill fit for a Virginia Tech Memorial concert has been pretty memorable in a not-so-memorable way. Good job, Rap Warriors. Watching both sides go at it is like giving a dog a supersized dog bone. At first the dog will chew and chew, then once it realizes that it’s not going to be able to eat the whole thing that night, they put it aside, go to sleep and forget about it. 

If you hate Bill O’Reilly, that’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion. But he’s entitled to his and no matter how many times you cite Talib Kweli and Mos Def lines, he’s not going to change his mind and honestly, why does it even matter to you if he does? Is Bill O’Reilly really someone you want championing the positivity of hip-hop? If he’s down with rap, how cool can it really be? The best thing anyone can do is just ignore the dude. He’s like that annoying kid sitting in the back of the class – all he wants is a reaction and most of these so-called supporters of hip-hop are so myopic that they jump at the first chance they get to proclaim the positivity of hip-hop. Some even go so far to say how hip-hop saved your lives. If it did, that’s great and I’m honestly glad that it did, but that’s still not as strong of an argument as silence. 

You could pick Bill O’Reilly apart all you want, but dude is still getting a reaction out of hip-hoppers everywhere after all these years. He must be doing something right. 

And as far as everyone debating whether or not Nas should be performing at Virginia Tech, let’s remember who the concert is for and who set up the concert. VaTech set up the concert and if they felt someone was inappropriate, they wouldn’t have invited them. They chose Nas because they wanted him, so let’s let them have Nas. It’s not like Nas said he’s coming to Blacksburg whether the Hokies like it or not and he’s going to perform and he’s going to pay tribute and there’s nothing that can stop him. If dude said that, then yeah, he should be checked. But he was asked to perform. If anyone is to be blamed, blame the concert organizers. But you’ll never see Bill O’Reilly or any of his cronies do that because it’s much easier to blame the alleged black gangster than the grieving students. 

And in my opinion, the only way for Bill O’Reilly to get any respect with young people today would be to address their concerns on neutral territory, but we all know dude would be too scared to go anywhere where he couldn’t turn someone else’s mic off if they started to make too much sense or mysteriously break for commercial only to come back with no trace that the guest was even on the show. 

So Mike Vick’s friends really stepped up to the plate and now #7 is going to the hole to think about what he did. Whether he gets a day, a month or a year, it’s not going to matter. His career is over. He’ll never get another endorsement, another big contract or be unstoppable on Madden again. After seeing all those losers who sit outside on the courtroom steps with their dogs and/or pictures of dogs, I don’t think they’re going to quietly accept Nike swooshing it up with dude when he gets out of the big house. I know a lot of people, me being one of them, aren’t cool with what Vick did. I also know that most of us aren’t big enough losers to call out sick from work to hold up a big poster with a picture of a dog on it. The only point those people are proving is that they don’t have a life. I wonder if they already booked their plane tickets for the R. Kelly trial or if they planned on losing their virginity by the time that freakshow starts. 

The NAACP told me and everyone else that we should forgive Mike Vick and “aid in his rehabilitation and welcome a new Michael Vick back into the community without a permanent loss of his career in football. We further ask the NFL, Falcons and the sponsors not to permanently ban Mr. Vick from his ability to bring hours of enjoyment to fans all over the country.” 

Well, that does it for me. Free Ron Mexico! Just what are these “hours of enjoyment” that this group speaks of? I don’t even know if I have one hour of enjoyment in my life courtesy of Michael Vick, although that Ron Mexico story must have lasted me at least ten minutes. I know whoever was playing the Falcons got 60 minutes of enjoyment from playing against Mr. Vick each time they squared off. I’m not sure how much enjoyment #7 really brought to Falcons fans. 

But, hey, he should be a Falcon again, right? I’m sure the Falcons would love to have Ronnie back on the team. That wouldn’t be too much of a distraction, right? Barry Bonds thinks that could get out of hand. And who exactly would want to buy anything sold by Michael Vick? It’s not like he was really that hot of a commodity when we just knew him as a scrambling quarterback with a shaky arm who had never really won anything on a professional level. Add terrorist/potential dog electrocuter into the mix and I think the only thing dude could get is a reality show on BET or Spike TV.  

You know who’s feeling Vick’s loss the most is those guys up at EA Sports who have to design next year’s game sans Vick as well as inferior Madden gamers everywhere who can only win games by scrambling with Vick. 

Now Ron Mexico has to worry about his new friends in the pokey calling a QB Spy, and not the kind Tom Coughlin would call. 

Speaking of the Giants, Eli Manning came out of nowhere and instantly became my favorite quarterback. Talk about coming out of the woodwork. If he can keep cracking on Tiki Barber like he did this week, dude can throw as many interceptions and fumble as many snaps as he wants. 

The whole situation started when Tiki questioned Eli’s leadership ability during halftime of the Giants’ first preseason game. I knew Tiki was going to stumble in the booth, but I didn’t think he’d have to go digging for dirt in his first five minutes on the air. Eli cracked back with some classic lines. Perhaps you should bang the instrumental to “Ether” while reading this next part: 

“I guess I’m just happy for Tiki that he’s made a smooth transition into the media world. I’ll be interested to see if he has anything to say [about other teams] besides the Giants and what his comments will be on that. It’s one of those deals I’m not going to lose any sleep about what Tiki has to say. I guess I could have questioned his leadership skills last year with calling out the coach and having articles about him retiring in the middle of the season, saying he’s lost the heart. As a quarterback, you’re reading that your running back’s lost a little, the heart, him playing the game, and it’s about the 10th week. I’m not going to get concerned. I’m going to go out and play ball.” 

Ouch. Eli, way to step up. If this dude is not the most feared quarterback in the post-Michael Vick NFL then I don’t know who is.

 
Amani Toomer also scored some points with: “I thought Tiki and I were pretty good friends. It’s kind of strange to have him say something like that. It’s kind of tough to listen to that type of stuff over and over gain. 

Tom Coughlin came up big too, as he said, “That’s Eli’s business. I think he thought about what he was going to do and decided to say exactly what he felt. More power to him.” Coughlin also denied a request put in by NBC to have Tiki interview him before the Giants’ season opener. 

As 50 Cent would say, “Are you illiterate, you can’t read between the lines?” 

I think most Giants would welcome back Dave Brown before they’d welcome back the Kanye West of the NFL. 

I’m just glad I got the Killah Priest interview done. You do know about Walter, don’t you?