Photoshop of Horrors | Wired Readers Show BP How It’s Done

Wired readers show BP that when hiring unethical photographers (or photo editors) in the future, they should look for Photoshop proficiency on their resumes. The Wired audience put BP’s pathetic photo-doctoring of oil-cleanup press photos to shame by being more skilled and far more imaginative.


*"I'mma Let You Finish": Urban Dictionary | Kanye Gate | Kanye West Will Let You Finish

**The Kanye West "I'mma Let You Finish" Tumblr: Why the Internet Was Invented | VV

First Rapper?

Blowfly: Nobody's Butt But Yours, Babe (X-Rated)

From: Blowfly's Party (Weird World, 1980)

Before there was Kool Keith, Old Dirty Bastard or 2 Live Crew - before there was Hip-Hop, for that matter - there was Blowfly, who declared, "I never drink, never smoke, and I never use drugs, I may go to hell, but it won't be for those things!", performing X-rated songs with a funky groove. Born 60 years ago in Cochran, Georgia, Miami's Clarence Reid has recorded more than 40 albums during his illustrious career.

He got his nickname as a child when his grandmother, after hearing him sing dirty versions of then popular songs - like "Suck My Dick" for "Do The Twist" - proclaimed, "You is nastier than a blowfly."

There's a split personality involved in this man's music: there's Blowfly, the outrageously garbed creator of trash classics such as "Shittin' on the Dock of the Bay" and "Porno Freak," and then there's Clarence Reid, who has recorded more than a dozen "clean" albums over the years and penned songs for the likes of K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Gwen McRae, Betty Wright, and Sam and Dave.

Many people cite Blowfly as being the first rapper with his 1965 "Rap Dirty" record, which was re-recorded for disco giants T.K. Records after the smash success of Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight." Blowfly himself credits the "soul talking" Southern radio DJs of the '50s and '60s as the pioneers of rap, but he is without dispute the first rapper to have a song banned, after an Alabama record store was busted for peddling "Porno Freak." Blowfly was also sued by the President of ASCAP for his "What a Difference a Lay Makes." (The music publishing honcho also happened to be the composer of the popular "What a Difference a Day Makes.")

Blowfly's sounds are a staple of modern-day hip hop. His music has been sampled by many rappers, including The Jurassic 5, (whose hit "Quality Control" is backed by the outro from Weird World Of Blowfly) Ice Cube, Atmosphere and Puff Daddy.

In 1991, Blowfly hooked up with Fishbone and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist/wild man Flea to record "Shake Your Thang" (clean) b/w "Shake Your Ass" (X-rated), both of which are included on the soundtrack of Blow's legendary film, The Twisted World of Blowfly. Since then, Blowfly has toured coast to coast in the US on his first headlining tour in decades, blowing the roof off of clubs and landing on festival bills with the likes of Har Mar Superstar, The Ravonettes, Dash Rip Rock, Rudy Ray Moore, Link Wray, Yo La Tengo, Kool Keith, Fatlip and RJD2 among others.

*Blowfly: Diptera Calliphoridae


ALTRNTVS

+ How a few black publishers are making a play for the Maxim man
+Naked man superglued to exercise bike

Complexion Protection

Richard Pryor: Black & Proud & White Folks
From: Craps (After Hours) (Laff, 1972)

The Last Poets: Black Woman
From: Right On! (Juggernaut, 1968)

Meet America, anew, not her masquerade:

U.S. Army Recruitment Command at Ft. Knox, Ky., Sergeant Marcia Ramode, assigned to the Brooklyn, N.Y., recruiting office, in an email to Corey Andrew, gay, seeking to enlist:

“…Go back to Africa and do your gay voodoo limbo tango and wango dance and jump around and jump around and prance and run all over the place half naked there...”

Writer and performer, Victor Varnado, Black albino:

"Race and racism is so arbitrary," he says. "Sometimes people see me and they think I'm 'acting black.' Once, I was in a secondhand clothing store with one of my friends and commenting on the fashion, joking: 'I need baggy pants and long T-shirts what rappers might wear.' And this white woman came up to me and said: 'I really find what you're saying offensive.' And then I said, 'I'm black,' and she was like, 'OK. It's fine.' Then she walked away."
"Recently, somebody told me this horrible stereotype, that all Chinese people know kung fu," started a joke he told on Comedy Central's Premium Blend. "And I disempower stereotypes whenever I get the chance, so for the past six weeks I've been fighting the Chinese. And what I've found is that not all Chinese people know kung fu. But most of them will hit you anyway, because, let's face it, Chinese people are very irritable. Irritable people!
"Some people hear that joke and say, 'Victor, I'm disappointed in you, because you said you hate stereotypes, but you made this horrible stereotype.' That's what people have said, but most of those people are Haitians, so whatever! C'mon. Who listens to Haitians, right?"
And then he puts his hand to his forehead and raises two fingers, forming demonic horns, and laughs like Satan.
Commenting on Varnado’s Satanic satire Mike McGowan, president of NOAH, says that since 1960 there have been at least 68 films depicting albino characters as supernatural or evil. McGowan further comments: “To give the devil his due if you're looking to make a character visually stimulating, giving a character albinism is a quick and easy way to do it," he says. "But I think it is an overused literary device, by lazy writers. Research shows that if you look at the '80s, '90s, and first years of 2000, the use of this hackneyed device increases exponentially.”

Lastly, I wish to formally introduce you to the Mandingos

*I've had the fortune of having Abiodun Oyewole, of The Last Poets, as a family friend. He was a frequent visitor to my home when I was a child.