WATCH YASELF.

Today Sam sent me one of his funny demanding declarative BBMs. This one was non sequitur to any conversation we had going prior to said message. It read: “Update your blog.” and then “Write about Mystikal.” I wanted to write about the war, I replied. He told me if I needed a connection, i could talk about the one Mystikal video shot in the desert. It is unembeddable because record labels do not understand that if someone embeds a video they paid for, it’s like free viral marketing, and why would a record label want to get anything for free? Especially on such a useless and media-devaluing tool such as the “web.”
I digress. Someone else told me that writing about the war was not the look and then when I tried to discuss it with Will, there was really nothing either of us could say about it. This may be because my dear friend Will and I are on the exact same psychic wavelength at virtually all times barring when he is watching hockey (or when he was voting Edwards), and we already intuited how the other felt. Perhaps we couldn’t discuss it because words are a way of exerting a kind of power over such a situation, when the more honest response is to stew in our own helplessness. So we let there be silence.
Let’s discuss this Mystikal video, because it is something we can control. First of all, dude is wearing a TURTLENECK SWEATER, suede or leather suit, skully and Timbs in the MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING DESERT. This is of course hot in men’s fashion in 2000 but moreso, it is a signifyer that HEAT DON’T BOTHER THE GOD. CUZ THE GOD IS ALREADY MAD HOT. The sentiment is underscored when he barks “BAD” and grabs his nutsack with his left hand. Also, this being one of Mystikal’s most blatantly James Brownian (and amazing!) tracks, it recalls the fact that the Godfather perpetually wore full suits and leather botas and danced for hours and sweat his balls off but, marvelously, kept the fly little jacket on.
I want to know what went down in the video treatment pitch session. “So, Mystikal, after you land in the desert, this Pam Grier chick picks you up on a giant hog and drives you to an old house in Kansas. We know it is an abandoned house because a tumbleweed rolls by precisely when you and Pam pull up the crib. There, you perform a concert with Nivea, get into a 22-girl orgy with a nine-foot python, and just as the fly Pam chick is about to let you get it, You Wake Up! It was all a DREAM! You are simply a sucka who passed out in the desert because you are wearing copious amounts of clothing.” and Mystikal’s like “YEAH GREAT IDEA DUDE!”