I did shows in Birmingham, England over the weekend. After one of my shows, some birds invited me to go see Will-I-Am from the Black Eye Peas DJ at a club. The Black Eye Peas have gone #1 in over 20 countries, they sell out arenas; but just in case it doesn’t work out it’s good to see Will can still do weddings to make ends meet if need be. You think he brings his own crates of records?
I actually understand this from his position. A performer performs. An artist creates. The scale of the project or size of the audience is arbitrary. Although bigger is usually better. I have gone from doing television tapings directly to open mic shows. Granted, I have a special brand of tolerance for pain.
REPORTER: Dwayne, you just won the Academy Award what are you going to do now?
ME: To do 15 minutes at the Liquid Zoo in Van Nuys. Two for one beer pitchers and free popcorn yall!
So maybe Will-I-Am is Will-ing-To-Work. But, for the people going to see him DJ, what’s their motivation? Find out what music tickles Will’s fancy? Even worse you pay a premium to go to club and you get Will-I-Am playing Black Eye Pea songs. Do the songs sound better because he’s behind the turntables?
This would be like paying 40 bucks to see Avatar because James Cameron is running the projector.
Cameron’s spinning celluloid down at the Cineplex, yo!
I wonder what odd things people will pay me to do if I ever get super famous…
Come see Dwayne Perkins make Pizza…Live!!
I didn’t go btw, so I can’t speak on Will’s DJ Skills.
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I would definitely pay to watch you make pizza subject to the following conditions:
1) Traditional crust making technique (i.e., spin-and toss).
2) Microphone-with-headset and your best 20 minutes of pizza-friendly material.
3) The pizza must be served with your best recommendation of ginger ale.
(Conditions #1 and #3 would be negotiable. Condition #2 would not be negotiable.)
Not calling your blog skills into question...but I notice that today is Wednesday and your last post was on Sunday, only 1 day after your 30/30 "blogathon" post.
...just keeping you honest.
We'll let the infraction slide this time, but if it happens again, a report will be filed with Jay-Z and the Brooklyn Celebrity Council.
You do not want Jay-Z on your case about this.
Lest you fail to view my earlier post with adequate seriousness, I have included here a draft of the letter I will send to Jay-Z if necessary:
=============================
Dear Mr. Carter:
I have been advised that in addition to your many other responsibilities, you are the de facto lead "A-List" celebrity from Brooklyn and that you therefore have an interest in ensuring that Brooklyn is properly represented by any and all celebrities (established and rising) who claim to represent Brooklyn.
It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter. It is not my normal course of action to report on the performance of "C-List" celebrities with regard to their representative responsibilities, but I have taken an interest in a particular "C-Lister" who hails from Brooklyn, and I send this letter in hopes of preventing a rising young star from going off the tracks. As one who has mentored many a budding career, you are no doubt familiar with the need to provide "tough love" guidance on occasion.
Dwayne Perkins is a rising comedian from Brooklyn now residing in Los Angeles. I will spare you the tedious details of his resume (Conan, Leno, Comedy Central, yada, yada, yawn) as my primary concern relates to his blogging, not his stand-up comedy or oddly frequent trips to Dubai.
As a Brooklynite, Mr. Perkins makes frequent claim in his blog about "going hard." As I understand it, the propensity to "go hard" is a characteristic distinctive to Brooklyn and a source of local pride. On more than one occasion in his blog, Mr. Perkins has made the assertion that "we go hard," and the assertion is almost invaribly made within the context of hailing from Brooklyn.
Mr. Carter, I know that you are a busy man. I know that your responsibilities reach across many facets of the entertainment industry, not to mention your aligned interests in merchandising, apparel, and other business areas too numerous to list here. But I would not trouble you with this matter if it was not of the greatest personal concern to me.
You see, Mr. Carter, Dwayne Perkins has not been "going hard."
To be sure, he has made a great show of claiming to "go hard." Indeed, as recently as early May, he flew all the way to London for the express purpose of making a YouTube video about how hard-core a blogger he was.
I will spare you the uncomfortable details of this video, except to say this: There were two British people in the video acting as his "crew."
Now, the fact that Dwayne Perkins would need to cross the Atlantic Ocean to find unwitting Brits to serve as his "crew" raises obvious questions as to his fitness to represent. Additionally, it was clear from the "crew's" performance that they were clearly not up to the job. Indeed, at the end of the video, one of the "crew" had the temerity to actually touch Dwayne on the shoulder and speak to him directly.
I know. I know. It's appalling. But it gets even worse.
In that video, Mr. Perkins made the assertion that he was going to prove the "haters" wrong by posting a blog post a day for 30 days in May. Setting aside the matter that May has 31 days and therefore Mr. Perkins was allowing himself one day to slack, this was nonetheless a creditable promise. However, within less than a week's time, Dwayne Perkins had already failed to keep his promise, and there were no posts on Monday or Tuesday of the first week after his video hit the World Wide Web.
Mr. Carter (May I call you Shawn? No? Very well.), I believe that Mr. Perkins has real potential as a blogger and as a representive of Brooklyn. However, I also believe that it critically important at this formative stage to impress upon him the importance of delivering upon promises and educating him of the fact that "going hard" is a matter of action and not words.
Respectfully, yours,
me!
Hey Me!
No one feels worse than I do about this whole thing. That's why I'm sometimes wary of making proclamations because you always set yourself up for failure.
So, I shot over to Italy with a few days i had off in england. Here in Italy my days have been packed. That coupled with shody internet service and I have already failed just 3 days in. I will give my readers 30 blogs in 30days for sure. Like working out, when I miss a day i'll have to double up to make up for it. On a good note, Italy is a blogger's dream and much like Jay-Z, who went to the south of France to write his rhymes, I'm in Rome penning some of the best blogs of my life. Now that's what I call hard. Look out Blog-o-sphere, here I come :-) Thanks for keeping me honest me. That was quite Brooklyn of you.
Also, I briefed the british chaps on how it works, even showed them some youtube videos we were trying to parody but in the end i don't think the whole silent non-support, support thing resonated with them. :-)
Wow, Unbelievable!
Time to stop waiting for
your Literary Close-up, Dwayne.
Let's talk soon about really
Going Hard.
Your biggest fan, stateside-
The Editor In Chief
Waiting For Your Call
Well, you've done it. The cat is out of the bag.
My ears are still ringing from a call I just received from Jay-Z. He and the entire BCC (Brooklyn Celebrity Council, in case you forgot) are completely up in arms.
Silvio Berlusconi lit them up in a conference call about your "shoddy Internet service" remark and proceeded to subject them to a two hour PowerPoint presentation about Italy's network infrastructure via WebEx. (Touchy guy, that Silvio. Apparently Internet access is a sore spot with him.)
Mr. Carter was audibly displeased and muttered something about tying your fate to that of Autotune's. I didn't quite get his drift.
Then the British came on the call to complain that you had implied that their citizens were slow learners in the "crew" department ("We invented crewing!" they kept whining, apparently mistaking it for some sort of boating sport), whereupon Mr. Carter said that Brits are not competent to participate in Brooklyn-fronted posses.
Things got ugly. The State Department was brought in.
To her credit, Ms. Clinton did as well as possible under the circumstances. She couldn't stop Gordon Brown from resigning in protest, but an international incident was avoided when she promised to take up the matter with the Hottie-with-a-Smoking-Little-Body-in-Chief.
Keep your British crew on speed-dial, Dwayne. You may need them the next time you're in Brooklyn.
I can't think of anything more arrogant than a musician getting a one-off DJ gig and playing their own band's music. Crikey.
And I personally think that Me!, with their sparkling sense of humor and impressive arsenal of DP trivia, should reveal their true identity. A ginger ale reference, even! After all, why deny us the unique pleasure of knowing you better?
QSN: Me! isn't me.
Deana--
That's very kind...not really that much to reveal other than that I'm a cubicle serf in a flyover state who writes long comments on blogs.
No special DP knowledge here other than a regular reading of the blog. Became a fan after seeing his Michael Richards bit in panel format on The Ointment. Did a YouTube search, ran across his bit about "that friend you like a lot...a whole lot...but not that way" and I was hooked.
That's about it, really. No claims to fame...you wouldn't know me from Adam.
Well (full disclosure) the following minor claims to fame:
1) I once worked in the same building as Vern Troyer before he went into show business.
2) I have corresponded with Franklyn Ajaye via email.
3) I am related to a Nobel laureate whose life story garnered some Academy Awards.
But that's the extent of it.
This blog post and the accompanying blog comments totally rock. Thank God, I was born in South Florida, land of the retired/aging New Yorker. It means I am accustomed to going slow and being angry about it, but never by any means have I ever gone hard. I couldn't take the pressure. Plus, celebrities who are associated w/ Florida are typically retiring and/or dead so there would be no one to report me to.
Also, I'm so totally impressed with another commenter's correspondence with Franklyn Ajaye. I was just talking to a very talented comedian about the bit Ajaye used to do about People's Court and the People's Court band.
Two thumbs up to blog and blog comments. A delightful read.
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