Hot, Poppin'

1. Congratulations to Amal, for finishing up that Drexel U. Ph.D in Math yesterday (while seriously pregnant)! She called me up after her thesis/dissertation oral arguments stuff. Color Voguing to Danzig totally proud. We're also, belatedly, proud of Cecilia, who handled her own rarified Ph.D business (thesis: something about globalization, discipline: related to philosophy) like a month ago or something and graduated a couple weekends back. Yeah! HELL yeah!

2. "According to Monique, "over 100,000" people voted on which song 50 Cent should perform tonight. That's not actually a particularly impressive number. In any case, "Amusement Park" wins. A bunch of girls dangle upside-down on streamers at the back of the stage. For some reason, 50 declines to rap the first verse of the song, lip-syncing the chorus and then wandering around in the crowd muttering to himself instead. It's a really weird moment; even Yayo seems confused. 50's parting words: "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Vitamin Water. It doesn't even matter anymore." Someone needs to tell 50 that there's a fine line between greatness and insanity." That's from Status Ain't Hood's rundown of the BET Awards, which doesn't even require additional comment from me beyond "50 Cent ain't a businessman, he's a business, man."

3. R.I.P. Chris Benoit, aka "the rabid wolverine." (The irony, indeed.) Shit is fucked up in pro wrestling.