The Billiken's Bluff

"Just how I’m gonna get my crazy ass up out this house"

AND

"i tried my best to put it on vvvvvviiiiiibbbrrraatttteeeee!!!!" (R. Kelly referring to his cellphone)

These are just two of the absolute gems that R. Kelly sings in his latest single. "Trapped in the Closet" is a 5-part R&B Melodrama/Soap Opera. In this epic ballad R. Kelly sets out to tell a tale in Slick Rick narrative form. However rather than rapping, he croons. Witness...

Ho, I shoulda known
That you would go and do some bogus shit up in my house
But the Christian in me gave you the benefit of the doubt

And if you don't think it's humanly possible to sing a line like that without cracking up, then you obviously aren't familiar with Robert Kelly, who time after time pushes the limits of what is possible.

For example this is a man who has avoided jail for three years despite having been videotaped urinating on a naked 14 year-old . He is still churning out music and, in fact openly and proudly refers to himself as the Pied-Piper of R&B (In the fairy tale, the Pied-Piper leads children along with his magic flute). If he can manage that fete, nothing... nothing is impossible.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the song...

“Shh, shh, quiet
Hurry up and get in the closet”
She said, “Don’t you make a sound
Or some shit is going down”
I said, “Why don’t I just go out the window?”
“Yes, except for one thing, we on the 5th floor”
“Shit. Think. Shit. Think. Shit, quick, put me in the closet”
And now I’m in this darkest closet, tryin’ to figure out
Just how I’m gonna get my crazy ass up out this house"


But it gets better, this song is accompanied by a video/5-part-DVD-mini-movie that is equal parts unneccesarily dramatic and completely fantastic. In this video, R. Kelly makes it clear this is not a joke, and Trapped in the Closet is not a metaphor. Being Trapped in a Closet is not symbolic for some inner struggle that this man is coming to terms with; no Robert Kelly is literally trapped in a bedroom closet.


Next thing you know, a call comes through on my cell phone
I tried my best to quickly put it on vibrate
But from the way he act, I could tell it was too late
He hopped up and said, “There’s a mystery going on
And I’m gonna solve it”
And I’m like, “God please, don’t let this man open this closet”

He walks up to the closet
He comes up to the closet
Now he’s at the closet
Now he’s opening the closet…

He walks in the bathroom
And looks behind the door
She says, "Baby, come back to bed"
He says, "Say no more"
He pulls back the shower curtain
While she's biting her nails
Then he walks back to the room
Right now, I'm sweating like hell
Checks under the bed
Then under the dresser
He looks at the closet
I pull out my Baretta

I said, "We need to resolve this"
And he stepped to me, I'm like woah
"There's a reason I'm in this closet"
He says, "Yeah, what are you, taking clothes?"

You really have to see the video and hear the song to get the full-effect of just how unbelievable this production truly is.

I was scouring the internet for some appropriate pictures of Robert Kelly to add to this post. And what I discovered is that R. Kelly appears to have come out of the closet a long time ago. Consider these photos...





>





Trapped in the Closet... Well then come out of the closet already Robert. Come on! I predict that in Chapter 5 of this R&B Drama, R. Kelly comes out of the closet for real.

You heard it here first.

Two poker clubs frequented by the likes of Yankees All-Star Alex Rodriguez, and certain NYU Alumni were raided by police late Thursday night. 39 employees were arrested. Police officials described the raid as part of a campaign to counter the growing number of illicit poker establishments in the city.

In coordinated sweeps, more than a dozen police officers stormed two Manhattan poker casinos: Playstation at 4-6 West 14th Street and New York Players Club at 200 West 72nd Street. At the time of the raids, about 11 p.m., there were between 100 and 150 players at each casino, the police said. Only employees of the parlors, however, were arrested. Prosecutors said it was not illegal to play poker in New York State, only to profit from promoting it.



The New York poker parlors raided on Thursday night: Playstation on West 14th Street, left, and New York Players Club on West 72nd Street.

The casinos were members-only establishments that drew thousands of players weekly, among them men and women including cabdrivers, businessmen and actors. The management kept records of who came to play and new members could join only if they were referred by current members.

Neither establishment served alcohol. At Playstation, members were served Oreo and Chips Ahoy! cookies. New York Players Club offered its customers valet parking and massages. Games would go until 7 a.m. or around the clock on weekends, the police said. Tournament prizes could be as much as $10,000. The most popular game was Texas hold'em, a version of poker that many say requires the most skill and the least luck.

Lt. Pasquale Morena, who oversees special investigations in the Police Department's vice squad, said the parlors would bring in between $20,000 and $30,000 a night in fees that they charged their players to play. The police, he said, recovered $100,000 in Thursday night's raids.

This Al Sharpton-related story somehow flew under the Billiken's radar earlier this week.


Monday, May 23

MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox again refused to issue a formal apology Monday for remarks about blacks that some people construed as racist, but he accepted an invitation from a U.S. civil rights activist to meet with blacks in New York.



After meeting with Fox, the Rev. Al Sharpton said the president still needed to apologize for saying Mexican migrants take jobs that "not even blacks" want in the United States. But he also said he would join Fox in pushing for U.S. migration reforms that would favor Mexican workers.

Sharpton said that Fox's refusal to apologize for the remark during their blunt and frank meeting was akin to:

'Him wee-weeing in my face and calling it rain'.



Well Put.

I@W brought this musician on trial for murder to my attention. He looks like Michael March's long lost (emphasis on lost) brother.

In case anyone was concerned, The Prague Writer's Festival is still alive and well. It will be running June 4th-8th.

"I've had to overcome a lot of diversity."
-- Drew Gooden discussing his NBA career.


"I've taken a lot of crap from a lot of people. Probably more than anybody in the history of this sport. I know Hank [Aaron] and Jackie [Robinson] took a good deal of crap, but I guarantee it wasn't for six years. I just keep thinking: How much am I supposed to take?"
-- John Rocker


"Isiah Thomas is building a championship team ... too bad it's in San Antonio."
-- Charles Barkley on Nazr Mohammed

"I've always been competitive, I've always been in sports. I couldn't see myself not being the biggest dope man."
-- Nate Newton on selling drugs


"I'm always trying to see what the joke is, so I miss the play that's called and I've got to ask a teammate."
-- Joe Johnson on the Phoenix's gorilla mascot


"He might've won the war, but the battle's not over."
-- Cadillac Williams on his friendly competition with Auburn teammate Ronnie Brown, who was picked three spots higher than him in the 2005 NFL Draft


"It moisturizes my situation and maintains my sexy."
-- P. Diddy in an infomercial for Proactiv skin care

Liveprool rallies from 3-0 down to win the Champions League Final on Penalty Kicks.



I only bring this up because I spoke with Zwill during the first half when Liverpool was trailing Milan 3-0. He was complaining about what an awful game it was.

I'm currently in the middle of watching the season finale of 24. The show has turned into a tedious, improbable quagmire. Not only have they recycled countless story lines from the prior 3 seasons, i.e., C.T.U. agents forced to choose between love or country, but they have actually recycled characters from previous seasons like Tony Almeda, Chloe, President Palmer.

It's gotten so bad that I find myself hoping against all hope that something awful will happen to Jack Bauer, C.T.U., and possibly even America as a whole during the final 45 minutes of the season.



I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Fasten, fit closely, bind together.



And you can glance out the window for a moment.



Distracted by the sound of small kids playing a made-up game in the neighbor’s yard.



And you try to imagine the word on the screen





becoming a thing in the world,







taking all its meanings,











its sense of serenities and contentments out into the street somehow,







its whisper of reconciliation,



a word extending itself forever outward,



the tone of agreement or treaty,



the tone of repose,





the sense of mollifying silence,



the tone of hail and farewell,



a word that carries the sunlit ardor of an object in drenching noon,



the argument of binding touch,



but it’s only a sequence of pulses on a dullish screen and all it can do is make you pensive –



a word that spreads longing through the raw sprawl of the city and out across the dreaming bourns and orchids to the solitary hills.



PEACE.



[Underworld]

Wednesday Night - 34 points, 13 Rebounds, 12 Assists.

So Steve Nash did repeat them...



Friday Night - 39 point, 9 Rebounds, 12 Assists.

A sketch by Thomas V. Curtis, a Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell.

Not quite as visceral as the Abu Ghraib photos, but it gets the point across.

The point being that the US soldiers fighting in the Middle East are a bunch of kids.

From the NYT:

In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths

...The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths...

My sister is coming home this week from her semester in London. So let's all get together and welcome her back. We'll catch up while having some cheap drinks.

We're having it at Botanica which is located @ 47 E. Houston btwn Mulberry & Mott, New York, NY

When: Saturday, May 21, 10:00pm

Botanica is a cool, relaxed bar on Houston St. You can take any train that goes to the Broadway/Lafayette subway stop.


See you there!

From Scoop Jackson's ESPN.com Page 2 article about Kwame Brown's complete inability to live up to his #1 pick hype.

Al Sharpton has this saying:

"If someone comes in your office and knocks you out of your chair there's nothing you can do about it. But if that person comes back an hour later and you are still lying on the floor it's no longer that person's fault that you are on the floor. Staying there is all on you."

He uses this scenario to discuss apathy in groups of people, races of people, generations of people, life.

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I say this with a completely straight face...

Al Sharpton is one of the clearest thinking public figures in US Politics. Period.

Putting up some grown man numbers.

34 points, 13 Rebounds, 12 Assists.

Laws of Physics Need Not Apply!