Saul Williams and Bobby Brown- abject lessons in race relations, large and small

- Saul Williams
The rapper/poet was easily the highlight of the Village Voice's Siren Festival though some would complain that this year's fest was a little light on talent (likely sucked up into the Intonation Fest the same weekend). I had two friends with me who were definitely NOT rap fans but were still impressed by his set. The rest of the crowd responded too as his record was soon sold out at the mersh booths (the other acts had plenty left over at the end of the day).

His most interesting banter was about the recent London bombings- while not brushing aside this horrible attack, he also noted how unfortunate it was that the news media plastered headlines about it all over the place and ignored the G8 conference push for helping Africa. Williams rightly wondered why millions staving and dying in the continent were immediately old news now, even after the spectacle of Live 8. The answer is obvious, sad to say.

- Being Bobby Brown
Though Bravo's happy with having 1 million viewers for this reality show, they still pulled in 1/2 the audience for Britney's flop show- guess it's all in a scale of numbers/audience. I've never had much use for BB (who Britney covered recently), especially in light of his ongoing legal problems. Still, if you're going to pick someone who's gonna be a real character for a show like this, Mr. Houston will certain do.

Listening to Star and Buck Wild's morning show for Power 105 today, they noted a recent incident on BB's show. Seems that he and Whitney were looking to fly across the water so he yelled out to a white jet-ski-er "How much is that?", asking about his pricey little aquatic device. "More than you can afford!" he snobbishly replied. The DJ's implied that the jet-ski guy was probably ready to append "nigger" at the end of his reply. Even if the guy didn't recognize BB and Whitney (who Star rightly noted could buy a country by now even factoring in BB's court expenses), he obviously meant that 'those kind of people' weren't upwardly mobile enough to afford a little luxury. Sounds like Hermes store incident where Oprah was turned away, doesn't it?