Hand of God
8-ball jackets are back, Kim Kardashian gets peed on, and we drop continuous references to the Two Coreys.
Thumbs up to the return of the 8-ball jacket. Long ridiculed as the embodiment of late 80’s cheesiness (think Spuds McKenzie dry-humping the Two Coreys to the tune of Mike & The Mechanics’ “The Living Years”), the leather bombers have magically reappeared, albeit with digitized “8’s” and less Rainbow-Brite colorways. When they first started popping up around the hood a few months back, we assumed they were the fashion equivalent of those primitive frilled sharks that paddle through Japanese waterways – you know, prehistoric hand-me-downs or the result of Mobius Strip time-space continuum entanglements. But considering the ubiquity of the jackets following the holidays, the gaudy outerwear must have been at the top of every child’s Hanukkah list. Papoose and Kay Slay may dress like oversized children, but the duo deserves at least some credit for popularizing the jackets; take a peek at the cover of their Streetsweepers: Boyz in the Hood mixtape. But since Pap also frequently pretends to conduct important conversations on his cell phone while posing for photos (“Tell the governor that if he ever wants to see his daughters again, he’ll leave five Dre beats in a manila folder under the door of Studio C”), he’s either shimmering with nostalgic reverence or woefully trapped in 1990’s Brownsville. Anyway, we’ll know the trend has been resurrected to full strength when people start getting murdered for them.
Thumbs down to the rising popularity of Kim Kardashian. Another in the esteemed lineage of useless-but-kind-of-hot “celebrities”, the petite Meatpacking District everywoman is the daughter of the late Robert Kardashian and a beloved crony of, naturally, Paris Hilton. The Armenian bag-of-breasts also gets squired around by Hip-Hop dudes; the rap sheet of rappers wrapped in her sheets includes Game, Ray-J and, currently, Nick Cannon. There’s supposedly a sex tape of her being peed on by Ray-J, which is only slightly better than being caught on camera dry-humping the Two Coreys.
Thumbs down to the recent barrage of articles in New York-centric publications musing as to whether or not the city has lost its edge. So, after years of discussing soaring real estate prices and all those vegan bakeries and organic non-denominational dog massage parlors opening up in areas where unfortunate victims used to get jooked for their 8-ball jackets, the Gotham cognoscenti is concerned that the town has gotten a little too vanilla? A little too safe? Just go back to discussing pheasant appetizers at the new Venetian-Thai brasserie in East New York Gardens. Right now, being “edgy” in NYC means you wear a Kid Robot all-over-print hoodie and quote the Clipse on your Myspace profile.
Thumbs up to the Knicks. Nate Robinson is still an annoying titmouse, but at least they’re within spitting range of the .500 mark.
Thumbs up to the all-star cast of contestants on “Who Wants to be the Next President?” Groomed by incessant reality television, the American electorate is now capable of following a full two seasons of political intrigue -- starting, ridiculously, now. Let’s check out the cast of characters. We’ve got Hillary, the conniving shrew and frigid ice-queen. We’ve got Obama, the mellow Black guy with a terrible secret (he’s a Muslim). We’ve got McCain, the lunatic P.O.W. who still believes Viet-Cong snipers are trying to peel his wig back from across the Great Lawn. And then there’s Sam Brownback, the religious yokel who inevitably comes to the big city and learns the value of tolerance by getting greased-up and dancing shirtless in the Pride Week parade. At the exciting conclusion to season one, the surviving members of the “Well-Meaning but Toothless Clan” and the “Wealthy Closeted Child-Molester Clan” will team up into pairs and enjoy a luau where they’ll dine on the fire-roasted flesh of the average American.