Nicki Minaj would like to buy you a drink

I interviewed Nicki Minaj for Forbes:

“I kind of think of myself almost like a man,” Minaj explains. “I’m not going to fall back from something because it’s never been done before by a woman. It’s time for a female Jay, a female Puffy.”

Hey, homo

Nicky Da B - Go Loko (Official) from Clayton Cubitt on Vimeo.
One thing that's cool about the internet is that you can watch the arc of someone's career play out in real time.

Take, for example, Clayton Cubitt. A long time ago, he lived in a dreampod. And he took pictures of girls (sometimes in trouble). And he worked with meat. And then he die-d (Antwoord). 

Now, he's gone loko.

It's your career. Expanding and contracting. Rising and dipping. The internet where you leave the residue.

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I'm a pole dancer

For my Forbes blog, I took a pole dancing class.

In pole dancing class, there is nowhere to hide. At the start of class, I had chosen a pole in the second row. Presciently, most of the other women had chosen poles in the back row.

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Tax that ass

My pal Bubbles let me interview her for my Forbes blog. What's it like to work with a pole tax? Bubbles explains.

Jezebel, as you pointed out, called Houston’s pole tax “genius,” adding, “Pretty smart to use money from folks who enjoy sexualized women to aid sexually assaulted women.” Are pole taxes feminist — or anti-feminist?

The pole tax is a regressive and optional tax and as such is definitely not progressive, liberal, or in line with a statewide economic policy that would further the interests of most of the working women in the state.

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The Bitcoin girl

I really loved Kashmir Hill's bitcoin survival story. Hilarious, interesting, smart. Definitely check it out.

Kenna unlocks a barred door next to the T-Mobile store on 20^th Street to a bicycle-choked staircase that leads to the second-floor “halfway hacker house.” He tells me he took over the space 14 months earlier and convinced the landlord to let him live in it for 9 months rent-free while he and his childhood friend, Jeff, cleaned the place up.

“We think it was basically a crackhouse,” says Jered. “We were sweeping hypodermic needles off the floors.”

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Opium

"For all its drawbacks, opium had one beneficial effect for De Quincey, that of acting as the ice-axe to free the frozen sea within him." -- "The Addicted Life of Thomas De Quincy" via Arts & Letters Daily

Take my advice

Over on my Forbes blog this week, I'm doling out advice. Got a question? Want my advice? Prefer to be anonymous? Email me.

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$krippers

Nokia Music, 'Atlanta Dream$' from Somesuch & Co. on Vimeo.

Interesting short on strip clubs and hip hop directed by Tyrone Lebon, friend of cross-eyed girls.

Advice from Ice-T

"You don't get credit for being safe in life." -- Ice-T

Quote of the day

I'm not haunted by what happened to me. I never had any desire for vengeance. I never felt any need, even, for justice. Now I feel if I say something about it, people try and use it in certain ways and make it something that it's not. It is what it is to me. It happened. And actually, I got breast cancer a year after, and I think that scarred me worse than what happened in Egypt. When Egypt was over, it was over. I got on a plane, I came home, and I was thousands of miles away, and I had a choice. My choice was very rational. Are you going to take the life that you've been given, or are you not going to live it? Are you going to live it fully, freely — or are you not? Are you gonna be a victim — or are you not? -- Lara Logan

I get email

At least you have breast cancer. Imagine having to deal with everyone who knows you, knowing that they know you have cancer of the asshole!

Hold that note

Probably the favorite moment of my trip to New York City is when I was standing in the back of the Beacon Theater filled with several thousand people, and before the show itself started, the band was playing, and Mark Pender, Conan's trumpet player, was doing this thing where he plays a note on the trumpet, non-stop, for this terrifically long time, like so long you can't believe it's real, and everyone shouts, over and over again, "Hold that note!" while he goes up and down the aisles and across the stage of this beautiful, packed gold theater, and he's still playing this note. It was really spectacular. To see something live that was so incomprehensible you almost couldn't believe it, but it was real, and it wasn't YouTube, and it wasn't Photoshopped. It seemed like a metaphor to me. For how to do things right. You just find your note, and you keep playing it, for as long as you can, and maybe there's an audience.

I'm a rich white girl and it's plain to see

Last Friday, I wrote a post with a lot of music in it. I did that because someone was like, hey, what kind of music do you listen to? And that was my answer. Then this person read that post, or listened to it, and they said they were expecting more women singing. And because I view everything that presents itself in front of me as some kind of a personal challenge, I set about putting together another post that's all ladies.



"Living Proof," Cat Power



"I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By," Method Man featuring Mary J. Blige



"I Get Crazy," Nicki Minaj



"Wise Up," Aimee Mann



"Gloomy Sunday," Diamanda Galas



"Black Is the Color (Of My True Love's Hair)," Nina Simone



"A Sorta Fairytale," Tori Amos



"Love to Love You Baby," Donna Summer



"All the Drugs," Courtney Love



"Glory Box," Portishead



"Broken Homes," Tricky featuring PJ Harvey



"Don't Make Waves," The Gossip



"Stupid Girl," Garbage



"Money Can't Buy It," Annie Lennox



"What It Feels Like for a Girl," Madonna



"Thank You," Alanis Morissette

Press rewind if I haven't blown your mind

The other day, someone was like, what kind of music do you listen to? And I was like, fuck if I know. I never buy CDs or download music, or whatever it is you people do. Don't mostly guys do that shit? Who knows. Anyway, I do listen to random music that I encounter on the interwebs, but I listen to it mostly on YouTube. Is that strange? Am I the only one? Probably. I'm so fucking singular it fucking blows my own mind. Anyhoo, enjoy your weekend music remix.


"Anenome," The Brian Jonestown Massacre


"The Homeless Wanderer," Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou


"Way Down," N.A.S.A.


"Heart of Stone," The Raveonettes


"Walk Don't Run," U900


"Go with the Flow," Queens of the Stone Age


"We Had Love," The Scientists


"Wood," The Dead Pirates


"Smokin' on da Dro [Alice in Wonderland Version]," Three 6 Mafia


"The Outsider [Typographic Animation Version]," DJ Shadow


"Head Get Mangled," Newham Generals


"Way Down in the Hole," M.I.A. featuring Blaqstarr


"Honkin' (On My Crack Pipe)," Paul Steel


"Honey Honey," Feist


"House of Cards," Radiohead


"She Is the New Thing," The Horrors

A love song for Jeffrey Dahmer

Over on True/Slant, I interviewed singer-songwriter Dudley Saunders about his serial killer love track, "Love Song for Jeffrey Dahmer."

"The second thought is that, when I hit New York, I felt like a ghost to myself, like I could look in the mirror and not see anybody there. I had no idea who I was, and I knew I was forbidden to find out. But somehow I got this sense that the things that made me scared or uncomfortable or upset were like little signposts to who I really was, and if I could only go straight into those things, I might find out what was hiding in there."

[True/Slant]

So you wanna be a superstar

I like this new song and video from Lykke Li, "Possibility." She sings: "So tell me you hear my heart stop/You're the only one that knows." Li isn't afraid to come across like she's batshit.


I don't know what's cooler about this: the video, the music, or Tokyo. I need to relocate, stat. I want to go to a place where I can fly at night.


My friend Xeni is one of those people who listens to music cooler than you will ever be. She introduced me to Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou. Exiled nun playing some serious piano.


"me bored ass hell doin a lil dance to Punjabi MC." Artist Dennis Knopf takes the part in booty shakin' videos before the girl comes out and starts shaking her booty, loops it, and calls that art. It's a "Bootyclipse."


That whole iamamiwhoami thing turns out to be Jonna Lee. A viral campaign works for only so long. I contracted this one.


This is the mostly instrumental version of Cypress Hill's "Superstar," which I re-enjoyed recently in "Training Day," where it's featured in the scene with the infamous "shit pushed in" exchange.


Gil Scott-Heron, "Me and the Devil": "So if you see the vulture coming/Flying circles in your mind/Remember there is no escaping/For he will follow close behind."

Your video remix

Maybe you follow me on Twitter? Maybe you do not. Either way, here are some fine videos that I've tweeted lately. Some are happy. Some are sad. Some are scary. Some will make you want to dance. Some will make you want to take a photograph. Hopefully, one of them will make you want to do something.

Above: U900 does "Diamond Head." I'm dating the lead ukulele player, but "carrying on" with the other guy. I like him because he's the "bad" one.

My buddy Alex Jablonsky and his partner Michael Totten have created another installment of their Sparrow Songs project. This time, it's "The Puppet Maker." It freaked me owwwt.

Xeni does not use the "n" word.

Man-about-the-street Bill Cunningham says men are the new sex objects, and Bill knows shit.

This is a terrible video, but I can't stop listening to the song. Brian Jonestown Massacre does "Anenome Amenome Anemomnuonme?." Or whatever it's called. Courtesy Kevin Depew.

"Nuit Blanche" broke my heart.

Back to Congo with Dr. Mukwege, who appears in my novel.

A photog goes raw dog.

Press Rewind One More Time

Check out my buddy Vinny B.'s latest music mix, delivered just for you readers: "Thump." He's got five on it! True story.

Remix

What I've been listening to lately ...



The Scientists, "We Had Love."



Diddy and Dirty Money, "Love Come Down."



Beyonce and Lady Gaga, "Video Phone."



Optimus Gryme remix of Lil' Wayne, "A Milli."



Denots MCs, "Movimiento."



Nicki Minaj, "I Get Crazy."



Ohio Players, "Pain" (via Kevin Depew).