There’s a lot of things to be disappointed in recently, but none more so than Carmelo Anthony’s silence. Where is ‘Melo when we need him? Gambler/referee Tim Donaghy is going to comply with the Feds and ‘Melo’s just going to keep silent? Now is not the time to backpedal! What are you telling me, ‘Melo? You can take a stand on snitching on a DVD but when it comes to real life, you’re not there? Where was Carmelo when one of Ron Mexico’s BFF’s crossed the line and pleaded guilty? I know it’s bad that the NBA has a game-fixing scheme on their hands but probably the most disappointing thing in all of this is Carmelo keeping quiet. Hell, the least he could do is rock one of those humongous shirts with the red stop sign on it. 

In other NBA news, police suspect that there’s a link between the robberies of Antoine Walker and Eddy Curry. I guess the robber hates fat, lazy, horrible shooters as much as the rest of us. Zach Randolph should probably watch out. 

You’ve got to love it how one of those losers from American Idol keeps getting arrested. Loser Corey Clark was arrested in North Little Rock on charges of possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. What I really want to know is how do you go about prosecuting an American Idol reject? Do you put him on stage and force him to make license plates and hospital beds and have the losers that watch the show call in and vote for how long his sentence should be? Do Simon, Randy and Paula judge Corey’s ability to toss his bunkmate’s salad? How exactly does this work? I think if you really want to punish the dude he should spend a day hanging out with Clay Aiken and all night listening to Ruben Studdard’s album. I’m Sorry 2007. 

Twista was dropped from the McDonald’s tour. Rumor has it he was caught with a Whopper and Frosty in the back of his tour bus. A spy on the tour also said the fast-talking rapper was caught flirting with that chubby girl with pigtails and freckles that we always assumed was Ronald’s bitch. Talk about an adrenaline rush. 

You’ve got to love why Twista was dismissed – for his controversial lyrics. The last time I checked, no one has ever comprehended a word Twista has rapped. The next person that tells me they understand what Twista says will be the first. Come on, Ronald. You have to do better than that. At least say the dude was watching Supersize Me or passing out Burger King gift certificates on stage. But in another way, you have to admire McDonald’s tenacity. They really won’t stop until they poison all of America. Uncle Murder and Maino are vigorously taking notes. 

I think I have a new respect for King magazine. I always thought of the mag as a bunch of ass-shots and ads, which is perfectly fine, but I never really considered the high level of journalism that takes place within the mag. Peep the line of questioning in the interview with reality TV loser Buckey: 

Asking about Buckey’s relationship with her fellow reality TV loser named Larissa – King: But you two were tighter than some Ds in a B-Cup bra.

Trying to get her to admit she made sexytime with Andre 3000 – King: If he’s such a great guy, you must know him personally.

After realizing that Buckey had nothing to say and nothing to offer – King: What do you care to comment about? 

Is it just me, or is it a prerequisite that you be a pervert before you conduct any interviews for King, Maxim and any other mags like that? 

You know an interview goes drastically wrong when you pull out the, “What do you care to comment about?” question. It’s basically like saying, “Okay, I’ve run through my entire list of questions. You’ve given me nothing and I don’t think you have anything interesting to say. I can only make your intro so long because all you’re known for is being a bad actress on a low-brow VH1 show and I need to meet a certain word count because we can only run so many shots of your ass. So please, Buckey, say something, anything. Talk about your favorite movie. Your favorite color. What you order when you’re hungry. Say anything, please!” 

And I can’t lie, I’ve gotten a few of those interviews where the interviewee just has nothing to say, nothing to offer and you can just tell they’re not enjoying the whole interview process – Yung Joc, Lil’ Webbie, Mike Jones, Lil’ Scrappy, Styles P, AZ… 

But back to my new appreciation for King magazine. I never realized it before, but they have a gift for really making something out of nothing. They can take airheads like Superhead and Buckey and run real interviews with them with actual words. I’m actually impressed that they were able to reach two pages in an interview with Buckey. That shows real determination. It actually motivated me. And to be honest with you, it motivated me so much that I scheduled an interview with my half-full bottle of shampoo for later this week (weekly shower, ya dig?). So when that time comes, I’m going to have a full line of questions to ask my half-full bottle of shampoo and I will transcribe the interview, take a nap, wake up and collect my awards for being an awesome journalist. 

Virginia Tech is planning a concert for the students and Nas agreed to be there. By now you’ve definitely heard about that. And you’ve probably also heard about how there’s a group of parents protesting the school’s decision to have Nas perform because of his “violent” lyrics. If they want to attack hip-hop, let them. The real issue here is that these parents are fighting an issue they should leave to their kids. 

For the parents that lost a child in the tragic day, they really can say what they want to. I’ve never had a child or lost a child and I can’t even begin to imagine what they’re going through and what they’ve been through, so they can say whatever they want. If they don’t want Nas, I’ll listen to them for why he shouldn’t be there. But I think the parents would be much better served speaking out to other schools about beefing up their emergency communication system so that students aren’t alerted via email when a shooter is on the loose. 

But for every other parent that’s fighting this, usually once a person graduates college, they stop protesting about college happenings. College is the time to protest. If you don’t like the cafeteria food, you write an editorial in the school paper, make some angry posters and/or buttons and start a Facebook group about how much the Sloppy Joes suck. That’s what college is for. I may be a year out of college, but I haven’t forgotten how things go down. When anything, and I really mean anything, goes down, there’s a group of freaks armed with their posters and tables, ready to badger anyone trying to get to class without joining the libertarian party, pledging to go vegetarian or promising to vote for Brad Festerham for class president. 

That being said, if the students have a problem with Nas, they will let you know. Students always let everyone know. And I think Nas is smart enough to have good taste with his show. I don’t think he’d be dumb enough to perform “Got Yourself A Gun” or any other songs that would be deemed offensive to this situation. And as great as Nas is at making albums, I am surprised that VaTech wants to have him come to their concert. I’ve seen Nas twice and a live Nas show is akin to hammering out your teeth with a rusty nail while Mike Jones and Paul Wall babble out of the speakers turned up on full blast. 

MTV recently inspired a lot of debate when they decided to make a list of the hottest MCs in the game today. Great. Whenever you see anybody make a list in hip-hop, it’s because they don’t have any ideas to write about (Poison Pen gets an exception here because his lists are actually fun to read). The next time I write a list in the column will be the first. And the next time I care about a list that anybody besides Pen writes, I will personally punch myself in the face, create a YouTube account and post it. Until then, please, everyone, no lists. 

Making lists are about as creative as a Lil’ Flip album, but what’s even worse is ESPN debating about what athlete is ‘Now.’ You know what’s ‘now’? Me not watching Sportscenter or any variations of Sportscenter until Keyshawn stops embarrassing himself by debating who’s cooler, Tiger Woods or Lebron James. I can’t believe that this is the same guy that used to fearlessly go over the middle, make the catch and take the hit. I was the only tight end in Pop Warner rocking No. 19 and watching him emasculate himself on live TV for the viewing pleasure of corporate weirdoes really hurts. ESPN always sucks in the summer but they suck more this summer than in the past. At least we don’t have Chris Berman on 24/7 showing off his wit with all of those ‘creative’ nicknames he comes up with. “We now go to Key-to-the-lock-Shawn Johnson, who will now tell you why Tiger Irons-and-Woods is more “now” than the cinematic Lebron James Cameron.” With all their money, you would think ESPN could do a little better. 

And for the record, our quarterback from Pop Warner is now officially an NFL quarterback. The Detroit Lions are still considered an NFL team, right? 

Props to Akon for completely doing a 180 and taking a stand against dirty lyrics. The little girl grinder/fan thrower told Yahoo! that artists should be able to write songs without foul language. This coming from a guy who hit superstardom with a song titled “I Wanna Fuck You.” Very nice, Akon. It’s just too bad that nobody believes you. Do your apology songs and throw fans but please, please do not take a stand on dirty lyrics because you blew up off dirty lyrics and foulness and there’s no doubt in my mind that you won’t go back to that when you need to score another No. 1 hit. Akon asking artists to clean it up is about as believable as Atlantic saying they care about Saigon’s project. 

Speaking of which, how frustrated should Saigon be right now? In short, very. How can you explain a label pushing a dude who thinks he named himself after pliers because they squeeze things versus the next big hip-hop artist? There’s only one reason I’m checking out Plies’ album and that’s for Trick Daddy, because anything TDD puts his stamp on has got to be good money. Deuce Poppi, where are you? Maybe the Plies album will be very good. Maybe it will be great. But unless it’s better than Cracked Rear View, then I really can’t see how Atlantic can justify their blasphemous campaign about how Plies has “the real testament” when they have Saigon sitting in the waiting room reading back issues of Newsweek and National Geographic. 

But back to Sai. He’s got to be frustrated because I don’t even think Atlantic pressed up CDs of the single to service out to DJs. I haven’t gotten my copy in the mail yet but I get Gorilla Zoe and some guy named Fats. I don’t understand this situation but that’s probably a good thing. If I did or could understand it, it would prove that I got tricked into becoming industry and that I could actually see and understand things from the window office perspective. That hasn’t happened yet and it’s not going to happen, because if it ever does, that’s when I know it’s time to gracefully bow out instead of stumbling around the outfield like Willie Mays. 

Time to go check the mail. I had to re-up on my red stop-sign Stop Snitching t-shirts and I’m hoping they came today. But if they don’t, I’m not going to tell you. Why? I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. 

Also: http://benjaminrubenstein.blogspot.com