The Good And The Bad Of It All...

For all the complexity of life, maybe it's just our human nature to try and dumb it down and veer towards a perspective of duality. Christianity took the ball and ran with it, establishing a moral context to the binary view of life: for any moment, it can be great or terrible, things are with good or bad. We are either in the good fortune to behold the raptures of Heaven or condemned to the infernal tortures of hell. Hyperbole can be a bitch, sometimes.
Regardless of my personal believes, when observing current events or merely ‘trending’, it’s hard to deny that sometimes things just come up in twos: for every positive ‘ying’, there is a more negative development as its ‘yang’. It’s still relatively early into ’07, but given my recent brief hiatus, its time to roll out a brief review of the current state of affairs, classified as either falling under ‘Styling on Heaven’ or relegated to ‘Played Out Hell’. Oh, the bliss and pain of it all…

'Styling On' Heaven: Raptors winning by outgunning teams (while playing little defense)
'Played Out' Hell: Raptors losing by getting bullied and beat up by teams (still no D)

SOH: Post All-Star Game Bargnani
POH: Post All-Star Game Bosh (hopefully, this will change soon)

SOH: Kobe turning down jumpers to aggressively attack the basket
POH: Kobe getting his shot turned away and using his patented arm flailing technique to aggressively attack the man guarding him (everybody knows you do it on purpose, it doesn’t matter if it’s just to get the foul call, so save the whole post ‘WHA meeee’ act…)

SOH: Free Ron Ron
POH: Freed Ron Ron

SOH: Parity in College Basketball potentially making this the wildest March Madness in years
POH: Now you try and figure out the number 1 seeds

SOH: The prospect of Duke losing embarrassingly early in the NCAA’s
POH: The fact that Duke will avoid total humiliation by still managing to even make it to the tournament…

SOH: Shawn Carter selling Rocawear for 200+ million in cash
POH: Jay-Z’s music catalogue (still nothing on there that’ll touch Illmatic, Big Homie)

SOH: Def Poetry Jam
POH: Def Jam

SOH: I heard Craig Mack back in the studio (he even used the Apache beat!)
POH: Diddy near any microphone, anywhere (is it just me, or did he tell the studio engineers to leave Keyshia Cole off key so he would sound less horrible on that Last Night record)

SOH: Misogynistic Kayne (sorry ladies, he’s more likable AND makes better music)
POH: Ghetto Fabulous Celebrity Kanye (remember #1…doo doo song AND he looked mighty suspect next to Pharrell in the video…maybe that’s just a moot statement tho)

SOH: Ciara upping her femininity game and looking good doing it, putting to rest those ridiculous cross gender rumours
POH: Ciara shooting a new video, and looking like she could beat down Omarion, Justin Timberlake, Lloyd, dancin’-ass Chris Brown, lil’ Bow Wow or any other young male R&B singer/teen idol type in a straight up brawl

SOH: Jamie Foxx doing comedy on his concert tour
POH: JF having to bring Twista on stage to so he could do his biggest musical number

SOH: “I don’t dis nobody to be somebody. I just like to kick the flavor that makes the people party…”

POH: Asinine Timbaland/Scott Storch producer beef that will just beget more forgettable music

SOH: Kells killing every hip-hop collabo/remix in sight (is that Young Jeezy joint even listenable without the R. on it?)
POH: JT on a beef (?!) record with a hip-hop producer (you started in a boy band and still managed to gain credibility as a solo artist…WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT DAMMIT!!!?)

SOH: Is Curtis really gonna manage to enforce his will on the industry and play out dissenting, less popular rappers for good? Naw…
POH: Is Jim Jones really the flagship Dipset rapper now? Oh, hell naaaaaaaw…

SOH: Kerry Washington being chosen by Chris Rock to represent an every woman’s sexy gal in his new movie
POH: Hulk Hogan’s daughter being chosen by anyone to represent anything (except as a stand in for one of Nick Carter’s sisters…that’s for you, L)

SOH: Wonderment at the seasonal originality and over all quality of the Wire while waiting for the new season
POH: Resignation at the recycled concepts and over all ‘been there, done that’ feel while watching the current season of 24

SOH: Gold digga/femme manipulators (cuz the dude saying that you wouldn't get far is a liar himself)
POH: The cats getting dug/manipulated (that's just G.P., Nick...it ain't personal)


SOH: College Hill’s ravenous skettels plotting Island-backdropped mayhem (as much as I hate to endorse any BET programming but this is the double-edged sword that's reality TV)
POH: American Idol keeping untalented skettels around to sing less than well. That’s it…just sing…not rock the mic (uh, check the web for more...so if they really getting down like that, AI should push Paula to get in touch with her bi side…they could dress the girls up like Debarge sisters…don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about)

SOH: Doritos Tandoori Sizzler ads (in spite of white guy voice over)
POH: Old Spice for featuring a lady French model as a champion for personal hygiene in their ads (cause in France, that’s a deal breaker)

SOH: Fronting/baaaallin’ in the club by applying R. Kelly’s bottle/model math
POH: Fronting/baaaallin’ in the club by trying to make it rain like Kells (only Pacman truly knows why it had to be like that…)

SOH: “…plus 2, I’m on the guest list fam, but if this dude ain’t like thirty, he don’t know who I am…” (…cuz I’m only the biggest rap star... in your apartment complex)
POH: “Thirty’s the new twenty…I’m so hot still…”
(uh…nuthin’ to do, huh…just another 80’s baby keeping it real)

SOH: Arrive. Raise Hell. Leave.
POH: "I’ll smack flames out of your ass!”

SOH: Liverpool as the only EPL club destined to get a result that matters in European competition (sorry Chelsea, whatever Man U)
POH: Man U running away with EPL crown in what has become an inconsequential snore fest (sorry Naeel, whatever Sir Alex)

SOH: Sudden outbreak of fights amongst players in high level international soccer matches
POH: Sudden outbreak of fights amongst players in high level international soccer matches (I didn’t think it was possible for grown men to repeatedly look this fassy…)

SOH: Bush administration winding down with the start of ’08 presidential campaign buzz
POH: Halliburton seemingly behind every major Bush administration scandal for past 8 years (somebody want to check that out?)

SOH: Cheney...uh...not alive
POH: Cheney alive and kicking (like you can really kill pure evil)

SOH: White folks loving Obama

POH: Republican braintrust manipulating a Hillary nomination to successfully place GOP candidate in the White House...again

This post is dedicated to the little man that's been keeping us waiting, and just blessed us with his arrival this week...welcome to the Dot, Don Adrian.