TragicallyInept

ah, thank you kind sir

nevermind

Anthony Hamilton's "Mamma Knows", 2pac's Dear Mama are the best. Kanye's is nice too. Haven't heard the Will Smith one.

what all is on this dvd?

Master P is all about dissing Bow Wow lately, so it comes as no surprise that he would go on record with this. Not that he doesn't like and support Will, just saying it looks like it had more to do with continuing his bashing of a fifteen year old than it does anything else.

not sure how you can favor Cam'ron in an argument that you haven't read, but...okay. I recognize you like his skills and whatnot, but that's not what is at issue in the piece I wrote.

Don't forget Boyz II Men, who showed up on the Christmas episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Quincy Jones, Evander Holyfield, Bell Biv Devoe, man EVERYBODY was on that show! And I never took that Eminem line as a diss towards Will, to be honest. I felt it was a slam on people who would compare Em to Will and say, "Well, he doesn't curse, why are you?"

good work ethic, my man! lol

EDIT: Despite this being in 1st person narrative, this is not about me. Fiction. You'd be surprised how many people I have had to explain this to. lol THE FLAME By Gary Anderson As I sit on the floor with my legs crossed I stare intently at the flame burning on the end of the matchstick. I lower it to the candle sitting in front of me. As soon as the flame touches the wick, a new flame is born. I have created life! Ah, I wonder if this is how God felt while He was creating life. Creating the universe and everything must have been an immensely intense feeling. One I aspire to achieve. I bring the matchstick back up to eye level and watch as it slowly burns out. A feeling of sadness overcomes me. I feel a kinship to the flame. It is all I have known. All I have understood. It has become like a parent to me. It is why I am who I am. All that I am is because of the flame. I look around and see the fire licking at the curtains, slowly making its way up to the ceiling. My head slowly turns the other way to see furniture and paintings on the wall engulfed in flames. It was beautiful. I remember the first time that I experienced the flame. My world mother killed my world father when I was very young. She claimed self-defense because he would get liquored up and slap her around. She was acquitted and soon began dating again. She didn't seem to really take to being a mother. She didn't seem to have time for me. She'd leave me with the TV and go out to find someone to take her ex husband's place. I didn't really mind. I didn't care for her either. One night she punished me for something that I don't remember. She tied me to the radiator and then left for her night out on the town. She left a cigarette burning in the bedroom, and the house went up in flames. By the time the fire truck got there and rescued me, I was unconscious from the smoke and burned badly all over my body. When I woke up and saw myself in the mirror I didn't cry. I didn't say a word, I just stared. It was like something out of a comic book. Scars spread all over my face. I wasn't sure what to feel about it. I was more intrigued than anything else. I opened my mouth to speak and quickly shut it. My skin stretched when I did so. It hurt, but the doctor said I should slowly try to open my mouth a little at a time so I didn't do any damage. My mother was found a couple days later in some low rent motel. She had been beaten and raped by some drifter who she had picked up at a bar. Or rather he had picked her up. Didn't matter. My world parents were dead and I had been reborn. Reborn to the flame. So as I stare at the flames all around me I smile. It is all so beautiful. I have created all of this. I turn my head slightly as I hear a firetruck's alarms in the distance. I feel at peace. I am finally ready. Ready to return to the flame, from which I was born.

EDIT: Even though this is in first person narrative, this is NOT about me. This is pure fiction. Playing God By Gary Anderson She said that killing her baby was like playing God. The ultimate rush. I was confused by the whole thing and kept mentally referring back to that David Duchovney movie. She didn't seem the least bit disturbed by what she had done. No pesky morals getting in the way. No bell going off inside her head saying, "Hey! You just killed your baby!" None of that. If anything she seemed kind of proud about it. Almost euphoric. She asked me if I had ever done it, and I said no. When pressed to give an explanation of why, I told her simply, I could never have a child. That seemed to satisfy her. I guess in her mind, you have to create the child in order to develop some satisfaction from uncreating it. She had no idea how sickened I was listening to her. It was amazing that anyone found out. I'd known she was pregnant, but I didn't know she was that far along. She'd had the child in her apartment, and I had happened by to see if she wanted to go to a movie that night. That's when I found her lying in the middle of the floor, holding her dead child in her arms, cooing to it. When the police came to take her away, she insisted that the child had not suffered. She had nurtured it for several days before she had drowned it. Fed it nice, the child never wanted for anything. I resisted the urge to suggest possibly childhood. She pointed out that the water was quite warm. Very pleasing to the touch. The police officers looked at each other in amazement. They say that you hear everything on this job, but I'm pretty sure they had never had someone insist that she'd acted humanely by having warm water in which she submerged her only child. The trial didn't take long. It captured surprisingly little attention from the nation. There were terrorists hogging the front page, what did another crazy mother who drowned her kids matter? It seemed that every other week another woman drowned her children. When her lawyers proposed the idea of an insanity plea, she wouldn't let them. She told them that she didn't want her daughter to grow up thinking that she was crazy. She couldn't do that to her only child. The lawyers just stared at her in disbelief as she insisted that her daughter not think she was crazy. At first, they thought she was just playing the part of the insane mother, but soon it became obvious that she had no idea that her daughter was dead, and even less knowledge of the fact that she had done it. After consulting with the judge, the prosecuter agreed to a sentence of life in a mental institution. That was many years ago. I've grown up now and have a family. I'm a successful comedian, an occupation that everyone told me growing up that I was suited for. Lately though it's become hard. How do I maintain a happy outlook on life, knowing that there are people like her. Cursed to go through existence with a f----d up mindset. And the fact that they don't know it, makes it even harder to grasp. I'm not going to take the cliched way out and blame God. That's too easy. I don't know if God intended for her to be the way she is, or if He intended for her to kill her child, as part of some grand master plan. I am not even going to try to understand her. I heard that in her later years, she cried out for mercy. That she could be heard in her room screaming out to God for forgiveness. I wonder also if she's sincere. How can she be remorseful if she doesn't realize what she's done? Is it a plea just because she feels that it's expected? Or is she even able to understand that idea? Who knows what is going on in that mind of hers? Maybe she realizes she's going to die there, and this is just a result of the looming death mentality that grips death row inmates. Seemingly all death row inmates find religion at the end. Facing death what more can you do? Might as well "find" God, just in case. All I know is that I cry for her every year. I don't know why, but I do. This is a woman, perhaps I could have made a life with. At least, I had thought so. I wonder if it's wrong for me to thank God that she did this before I got with her. I visit her daughter's grave and put flowers on them every year on her birthday. People have asked me why, but I don't have an answer. And before I leave, I lean over and place flowers on her own grave as well. My wife doesn't know why I do this every year. And I haven't really been able to explain to her the sad story. For now she assumes that this is an old girlfriend. When the time comes, as well as the words, I'll tell her. But right now I can't explain it. I don't think anyone would understand if I could.

I've put all the files in one rar package (download winrar to open it) and they are all in there. Six or seven, I think...whatever was on that site.). I don't have any other videos. If there's a streaming site that has them in a windows media player, than let me know and I'll get it for you. File will be up in ten minutes. p.s. check your pm's...I sent you something 45 minutes ago about this.

thank you. Yeah, I think the bad thing is that it's not ALL the radio's fault...the masses seem to crave the mindless music, you know? Gotta get more consciousness in there...somehow.

Vegas Baby by Gary Anderson She walks down the sidewalk, swaying slightly almost as if in a daze. Her eyes are glazed over and she seems barely there. People step aside as they continue on their way, barely even paying attention to her. Her breathing is labored, and erratic. Her makeup is smeared on her face, the results of many tears streaking down her pretty cheek. "What a difference, a day makes," she sings softly, as she brushes against a car, as she walks. "Twenty four little hours." She feels eyes on her, but she ignores them. They don't matter. Nothing else matters to her now. Those times were gone. Her sympathy for others, her caring of what people thought were gone, having been replaced with a numbness that went from the surface of her needle marked skin, to the depths of her soul. She stops at a building and leans against the wall. Her hands, instinctively go to her belly without even thinking. They hovered there for a moment, before she withdrew them, and put them in her jacket pockets. How long would it be, she wonders, before she stops rubbing her stomach? Before she puts the past day's events out of her head? Before she can forget? What would happen if she could not move forward? Is moving forward an option, or would she be doomed to a life of self-flagellation for her many sins, and most importantly her most recent egregious one? What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, the tagline says. "If only that were true." she whispers, to no one in particular. No matter what the tourism department wanted her to think, she would never be able to rid herself of the memories of what happened. A hundred and fifty years would not erase 24 hours. She would grow up, and have more children, she was sure. Maybe even five, but she would always wonder what could have been. What would have been. She would blame herself, whether or not that was warranted. If she hadn't drank, would things have ended differently? If she hadn't been a sorry loser f------junkie, would that have changed things? Would she get another chance, or had she lost her chance to be a mother? She drops to her knees and looks up, seeing a giant neon cross, and the words SALVATION. "God help me!" she croaks, tears streaming down her face, as she is on her knees, arms outstretched. She closes her eyes and falls back on the cold sidewalk, arms still stretched out. After a few moments she opens them, and sees nothing. She sits up, and looks at the building in front of her, and sees just a casino. She looks around and wonders if her mind is finally going away. She has so many questions to be answered, and they eat at her very being. She draws her arms in, and folds them across her stomach, wishing that someday she would be able to feel a life growing inside her again. And praying to God that this next one would live long enough for her to look into it's eyes, and whisper it's name. She had the name picked out and everything. Deborah Vegas. To remind her always, of the day she went into Vegas a 'sorry loser f------ junkie' and came out a winner. The house of life loses, and she wins. For once in her life. Deborah was gonna change things. She now had a reason to live. A reason to rise up out of the drugs and sex and alcohol that had ruined her life since she was little. Everything was gonna work out, she told her self. Now she never wanted to remember Vegas again. Nine months of happiness and anticipation all went to hell during three hours on the operating table. They hadn't said that drugs or alcohol played a part in her baby having been still born, but she would never be able to separate that thought from her mind. Every waking hour, of every day that she lived she would know in her heart that she had killed her child. What kind of forgiveness was there for that? What kind of absolution could she possibly receive for such a heinous crime? Women all over the world are suffering because they can't have children, and now she gets one and what happens? She kills it through excess and self medication. Always being selfish, even to a fault. All her life she had followed a certain path of self-destruction, and now it had reached it's destructive grip out to that which was most precious. Now she couldn't help but think she would never get out of her rut. What did she have to motivate herself? A family that had disowned her? A boyfriend who took off as soon as he found out she was pregnant -- but only after he realized he couldn't get any 'pregnant ass' from her? Neighbors who had looked at her with disdain at the fact that she was a single mother to be. She could only imagine the whispers from them once they find out that her baby had not lived. As she sits on the sidewalk, back to the wall she realizes that she would get over this, as hard as that is to imagine. She has to. It is either get over it, or die. And as appealing as death looks right now, she's sober enough to realize that it wasn't the answer. She closes her eyes and says a little prayer to the God she has forsaken all these years before. The God whose name she had mentioned a mere five minutes before for the first time in six years. Wondering if God would forgive her for all that she had done, and for putting her child in harms way, and ultimately leading to Deborah's death. She is tired of living everything according to how she wanted. Maybe it is time to let someone else help. "It's up to you now God. You better be for real, cause I got nothing left to try." She sighs and opens her eyes. She gets up and brushes off some dirt that is on the back of her jeans. She puts her hands in her jacket pocket and makes her way back to her motel. Back to her life. Back to a new life, unsure of what waits for her.

yeah...you're right about that. I was talking via email with Adisa Banjoko (www.lyricalswords.com) and I mentioned that a friend said that she felt that 99 percent of rap out there is negative. He replied that it's not that 99 percent is negative it's that 99 percent of what is PROMOTED and ADVERTISED is negative. And that's an excellent point.

heh heh.... Ahh...let's see...how do I sum all this up. lol I am originally from the East Coast (Virginia) and am now in Washington State, about 3000 miles from where I used to call home. been out here for about 6 or 7 years now. I've got a few medical issues, mainly physical, not mental or psychological (that I know of) and although I realize FULLY that there are people out there that are SO much more messed up than I am, and that my life is pretty damn good compared to what it used to be when I was homeless, that it doesn't negate the fact that I have problems now. I'm currently classified as disabled because I have lymphadema which is swelling in my lower legs. From ankles to knees are pretty bad and they hurt. I told my mother I was retaining water, and for some reason she found that funny. :-) I get frustrated because I'm only 31 and I shouldn't be out of work. I shouldn't be going through the **** I'm going through and my life shouldn't feel like it's so empty (both emotionally and otherwise) when I'm 31 damn years old, you know? I'm trying to get back in the church. The last place I went to I happened to live above the church in an apartment building run by the church. That was not an ideal situation. The people there turned out to not be quite as sincere as I would have hoped, or believed. I had many people tell me, "You know, these people are phony. They're not Christlike at all, they pretend to, they say they are, but they're actions don't exhibit that." I, however, continue to think only the best in people (I balance that ideal with the outright distrust of people as well...wrap your head around THAT one...*rolls eyes at myself*) so I allowed myself to fall into the whole bad situation, and it came to a head when the Pastor's wife had an affair with another co-worker who lived in the building and worked down there. Couple that with all the growing distrust (on their part) of anyone who didn't side along with what they had going (Gee, where have we heard of anyone slamming and attacking those who disagree?) leading UP to that incident, and now everything over there has fallen apart, and the church/fellowship is barely even open right now. I got sort of caught up because I was looked at as supposedly spreading gossip about the situation and I was kinda surprised because if I'm gonna spread anything, it sure as hell isn't gonna be THAT, because that's not anyone's business, but nevertheless, I was threatened by the Pastor's son (The family are a bunch of backwoods gun carrying hicks, so...that was an interesting phone call) and fortunately I had moved out a couple months before all this went down. So now I'm luckily in another apartment building on the other side of town, MUCH happier, MUCH less stressed, and overall doing well. I found another church and have been going there for the past few weeks. I think I'm gonna enjoy this one, and they don't seem to be as phony and plastic as the last place. Of course everyone saw that but me so...take that for whatever. So I'm just in the middle of a whole lot of crap right now, and the physical stuff doesn't help it when I'm dealing with all this other stuff too. So, anyway...just keep me in your prayers people. I much appreciate it all!

thank you.

I got them all off there...they're about twenty megs or less apiece and are in WMV format. I'll put them together in a RAR and upload it in a few minutes. I also grabbed the Kanye West performances and the Floetry performances, if you're interested. And for the record, I got all the music videos, plus the behind the scenes & interview, AND the actual music video of LL & JLO on Control Myself.

you looking for audio or video? Is this streaming? Look for a program called CoCSoft That works good for streaming video/audio. Also a thing called Total Recorder records audio from your soundcard, so that's a good one too. EDIT: never mind that I gave you...that program won't work for some reason.... I got another...I'm gonna rip the stuff off, and post it for you tomorrow (or at least send it to your profile account name)

Wow...good to see something like this is here. I would explain my own situation, but man...I'd be here all night typing, and nobody would read it all, so...lol... Just make sure that if you keep people in here in your prayers, to please keep Gary in yours. (by the way...Gary is me....figured you knew that, but...you know...it's the net and all...can't assume anything..lol). I could definitely use all the prayers I can get.

*hick voice* aw shucks, you all making me feel SOOOOOOO Welcome*hick voice*

I wrote this last year, and still feel the same, just more things happening to reinforce this thought. Wondering what people thought. My lament for Hip Hop by Gary Anderson Do you ever stop to think about hip hop? I mean, really? Not just about what artist you like the best, which rapper just destroyed another one on the latest mixtape, or which MC ranks the highest of all time. I mean think about how far hip hop has come. Used to be, hip hop music was just something that few people outside the urban areas knew anything about. It was kinda like "the best kept secret" type of deal. You know how you hear a song, and it hasn't lit a fire under the world yet? You hear it and are just blown away. You're like, "this is mine. Hardly anyone knows about this sh*t here." It's cool to have something that is yours. You wanna share it with the world, but you know that once you do, it's out of your hands and you can't control it. It's no longer yours. So then the word of mouth spreads. The song begins airing on the local radio station. Then it spreads to a couple cities outside your town, then to the next state. Next thing you know, heads on both coasts are bouncing to YOUR song. It's in heavy rotation on Hot 97 and the video is out there being overexposed by MTV & BET. Now it's just not the same. Rap music used to be pretty tame stuff in terms of lyrical content. I mean, yeah there were some pretty deep messages on some, but for the most part it was about partying and having a good time. RUN DMC talking about their Adidas, and LL lamenting about how he would die without his radio. Then rap started getting harder and harder. It was almost like once a line had been crossed, you had to continue outdoing the last guy or you weren't viable. Reminds me of how the rating "XXX" came to be. See, when Midnight Cowboy and The Clockwork Orange came out they were initially viewed as too hardcore to be a R rating. These movies shocked the conservative sensibilities of the people, so they were given an "X" rating by the MPAA. Then when people started to make adult movies and release them, the first people out the gate slapped a "XXX" rating on it, to show that their movie was more hardcore. Something heretofore never seen. So they basically jumped the double X and advertised as XXX. See, no one could come out as XX now, because let's be honest. If you're in the mood for some porn, you're gonna want the full nine, not a half-ass version, no pun intended. So from that day on they were all listed as XXX. Same with hip hop. This situation was basically summed up perfectly in Common's track "I Used To Love H.E.R.". Hip Hop has gotten to the point where the fun is gone. How many rap songs are out there now about strictly having fun. I mean not a single reference to kicking someone's ass if they step to you, or pulling out your nine and showing them who's the man. None about smacking a hoe if she don't act right. And the sad thing is that we don't seem to care. Will Smith is a rapper who doesn't curse (aside from a few minor ones), doesn't put in sexual material (beyond a few minor things), and is someone who can put out music you don't have to worry about whether your kids are gonna be listening to it. So what is the result? In chat rooms and message boards he's slammed for being "wack" or "soft". When Kid & Play came out they were pretty popular. A handful of movies and albums followed and then they just seemed to fade away. Now as popular as they were, how do you think they would be received now? If they came out tomorrow with the exact same routine, style, etc, they would be laughed out of the damn scene. People would probably call them a couple of "fags". And I'm not saying that everything has to be light and fun. We need diversiveness in the music, to branch out to all people, to experiment and evolve. But what is the obsession with being the hardest rapper alive. When did we make the jump from something that we could be proud of, that we could sit and say, "hey, this is cool...not many people know about it, and that's cool", to where we are now. Yeah, hip hop has grown beyond our wildest dreams. It's the one of the highest selling genre of music out there, and yet a vast majority of it is negative. As Chris Rock said, "I love rap music, but it's hard to defend this sh*t." Not to get all spiritual on you but it's as the Bible says, "what does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?" Hip hop has lost it's soul folks, and I don't know what it's gonna take to get it back. I personally believe, and this is just my opinion, but I don't think it can be gotten back. I think it's too far gone. It's like the porn example I gave you. No one is gonna go back to double X when the XXX line has been drawn. And it's our fault. We buy the ****, we support the ****, and we do it all in the guise of supporting our own. I say our, even though I'm a white guy. I don't look at hip hop as having any color lines anymore. The top rapper, by a lot of people's estimation, is a white guy. I've grown up with hip hop, and I love hip hop. Hard to defend it sometimes, but I love it. And it's not just the music. Rappers are getting involved with the porn industry, and getting into gun fights, and then you have DMX's crazy ass driving high and trying to pass himself off as a cop. Chingy getting groped by a transexual, and a member of his group groping said transexual at some porn award show. And this is the **** that gets promoted. The Fresh Princes and the Kid & Plays of the hip hop world aren't getting promoted. Radio stations are more interested in what is gonna sell, and what sells? Murder. Racist Lyrics. Drugs. Sex. Guns. And I'm not really that different. My favorite rapper right now is Jadakiss, even though I've nearly gotten to the point where I'm through with almost all rap music. Aside from groups like The Roots, and artists like Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, Brand Nubian and some others, I don't see the point. I'd much rather sit back and groove to some Amel Larrieux, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Raphael Saadiq and artists like that. Put in some Jamiroquai and just close my eyes and think of the possibilities. And the thought that if we could get into a time machine and go back in time to the era before the gangsta rap and before the 2 Live Crews and before all of that hardcore gun sh*t. Before all the hardcore beefing that eventually led to the murders of two of Hip Hop's Kings, if we could go back to the time when hip hop was still just something that was a little known thing that we had in the neighborhoods. Back to when we had our own little "Best Kept Secret". I wonder if we could do that...how many would? Would you?

Okay, I'm nobody. I get it. It's a hard reality to face, but I acknowledge that in reality, neither Cam'ron nor anyone else gives a sh*t what I think about this subject, but I shall put my two cents out anyway. For awhile now there's been that swagger jacker audio out there ripping on Jay Z for supposedly stealing other people's lines, and recently Cam picked it up and ran with it, putting it on his mixtapes to attack Jay for a beef that he doesn't even belong in. Let's get this straight. Cam doesn't have personal beef with Jay, it's all about Dame. Cam's cool with Dame, and feels he should step up for his man and rip on Jay for supposedly stealing Rocawear, Roca-fella, Kanye and other things from Dame. Cam threw out the half-hearted explanation of how Jay was supposedly gonna try to get the video of Cam and Jim being jumped at Rucker and show it at his "I Declare War" concert, and then when Jay supposedly couldn't come up with anything, he flipped it and made the concert into a "peace" gathering, and made up with Nas. But let's be honest here. If Cam is pissed because Jay DID NOT come after him? He's got some issues. It's all about the situation between Dame and Jay and Rocafella. There's a little bit about Cam supposedly gonna become President of Def Jam, but for the most part, Cam is jumping into someone else's beef, kinda like what 50 wanted Game to do when 50 had beef with Jada and Fat Joe for doing a video with Ja Rule. It's also similar to what Dre told Em NOT to do, when Suge was talking greasy about Dre, and Em wanted to jump into it and diss Suge. So now that that's out of the way, let's address the swagger jacker allegations. It's bullsh*t. That's all it is. You can't come up with anything on a man other than he's dropping similar verses, or recited lyrics into his songs? That **** ain't new. And it's not strictly limited to Jay, as Cam'ron knows because there is a Cam'ron version out there too, although not quite as long as the 7 minute version Cam put out on a mixtape. This is not limited to rap music either. Comedians have long stolen bits from Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Red Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Bill Hicks, Rodney Dangerfield and the list goes on. In fact, recently after Pryor's sad passing, his wife Jennifer said the following: "His comedy is unparalleled. They say that you are not a comic unless you imitate Richard Pryor. ... He was able to turn his pain into comedy." I mean Eddie Murphy is considered one of the funniest men who ever lived, and yet a lot of his act was directly influenced, and at some points liberally borrowed from Richard Pryor. Back in Vaudeville days comedians often would basically lift skits and characters from each other's plays, and make changes, or alterations to them. How many rappers out there have done this, though? I can't name them all, to be honest. It's as much a part of hip hop as is Sampling. Yet, everyone wants to act all appalled at Jay Z for daring to "steal" Big's music, along with other artists. Don't you think if this was as big a deal as Cam is trying to make it out to be, that these artists would have done something before this? Maybe gone public and been like, "Yo Jay is stealing Big's sh*t, he's stealing MY Sh*t"? I can't sum it up better than Jay's famous line, "I say a B.I.G. verse I'm only bigging up my brother" It's the same thing Diddy does by continuing to bring up Big's name in songs, and videos, albeit in a less "raping the dead" kinda way. It's a way to keep your man's name alive and on the people's lips. So when people hear a Jay Z song and they recognize a lyric they're like, "man, I remember that song!" To be honest, after hearing Swagger Jacker, I went back and listened to Life after Death again, because I had forgotten just how good some of that album was. So, Cam'ron, you need to realize you're only making a fool out of yourself with this. You're a rapper. You know the deal. You know that, as I said before, this is just as much a part rap music as sampling is. And you portray yourself as a hypocrite, because as the Cam'ron version of that track shows, you've done the exact same thing. So everyone needs to get off of Jay's ass over this, and just see it for what it is. Much needed publicity for Cam's album.

www.myspace.com/jazzysoul2k6 feel free to add me if you like!

I haven't read all the posts in here, but I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt, this was a fantastic album! I'm all about the neo-soul!

yeah, I was just getting ready to say that I saw it was displayed on Youtube...haven't watched it yet though...