Here is the the song that appears to be the jumping off point for everything I’m trying to do with the start of my book about The Chronic. Dr. Dre’s new turns in musical direction are rooted in this era, which began right before the Ruthless Records alliance fell apart.

Michel’le was a singular pop star, and “Nicety” is a cool little song. But I’m blogging ’bout it purely for Dre’s rap, an indictment penned by The D.O.C., who — to put it mildly — did not care for Ruthless’ new pop leanings. It’s pretty fucking phenomenal, the verse, and I believe Dre and D.O.C made the track a lot more dangerous and interesting.

Like many of my L.A. readers, I’ve been watching and waiting for Manny. I have, however, not been whittling away my days.

A TV pilot, based on an early portion of Rhyme Scheme, has been making the rounds. Yesterday there was a terrific, two-hour lunch with a manager, in downtown Culver City. And if the interview I have scheduled for an hour from now plays at all the way I think it will, MTV will soon have in hand a remarkable representation of how  that 2010 book about The Chronic will open.

Damn I’ve been writing a long time about the life and work of Andre Young. Too much writing about wrap music. It may be time to start writing long-form shiznit about baseball.

But I’ll probably never get off my Negro subject matter. Too much good stuff. Like Medicine for Melancholy, which most are likely to think of as that Wyatt Cenac indie film.

Thing is, Cenac — who’s probably too low-key for The Daily Show stardom, but dour enough to play as brooding in films — isn’t the star of this Barry Jenkins debut. The main charactor of Rx f Melancholy is lovely and expensive San Francisco — my long-lost home away from home. Reducing Cenac to third banana is cinematographer TK, whose moody, color-drained moving images examine the meaning of blackness in a town that gets whiter each year. “I love this city. I hate this city,” Cenac’s character says. And it’s funny ‘cuz it’s true.

While we settle into our allegedly post-racial days of shared suffering, this film feels cozy and relevant. Sad, with just the right pinches of humor. Also, it makes me feel validated to see the main characters chase and feel around for the backstory of each other’s lives while futzing about on MySpace. I feel like my white friends aren’t believe me when I tell them that’s where most of the Negroes dwell, when online.

But yo: I come here not to talk about race, but to prepare for baseball. My kids and I have the balls and gloves out and are starting to get warm. This includes my little sun. More importantly, the World Baseball classic starts up this week, and I’ll be following it closely. Amazing, the consistently crappy Time-Warner cable package has gifted me with the MLB channel (not to mention Medicine for Melancholy, on demand). Methinks I’ll be foregoing March Madness this spring and finding a way to not think about steroids.

And, in the interim, I’ll be blogging.

In Brazil, at least, this is true. Plastic surgery keeps improving there, despite a crashing world economy. And maybe the biz is moving too fast; Usher ducked out of the Grammy festivities to tend to his wife, who was getting worked on.

Plastic surgery is out of control. Show some perspective, people.

I’m all for nice titties. This is too much though. According to PRI, Brazilian demand for new knockers pops 10 percent with the arrival each year of Carnival. That includes this year. Wow.

I told Kevin Powell that at ’09’s start I’d do something for the anthology that he put together about 10 years ago.

Step Into A World was a little ahead of its time. Criticized in certain quarters as being overbroad, the book left me wanting more of  just about everyone. That’s a good thing.

Can’t exit without bragging that “Cool Like Me” is the first piece in Step Into A World. Invest in this awesome collection, which contains prose and poetry from Junot Diaz, Elizabeth Alexander, Zadie Smith and an exponential number of other fine scribes.

While you eat this free meal.

Apologies to my vegetarian brothers and sisters; Ernest is all about the meat.

I was a registered socialist for quite a long time and caught quite a lot of shit about it. Now we’re all quite happy to have the government in my back pocket. And by “we” I don’t just mean my lefty friends. As a strategy, socialism is getting to be more conservative by the day.

This analysis of Paul Krugman’s latest column makes the case for nationalized banks pretty plain.

I hardly ever watch the Oscars, one notable exception coming in 2006, the first night I spent with my girl. This one, as you probably know by now, rocked. Why didn’t someone think of deading the clips component decades ago?

While it would be fun to regale you with the story behind my interview with Danny Boyle from more than a dozen years ago — Manohla Dargis edited my LA Weekly piece Boyle’s game-changer Trainspotting — it just feels more important to note that Man on Wire moved me even more than Slumdog Millionaire. It seems silly to me that a documentary can’t win Best Picture.

This ESPN mea culpa collection is misnamed, “I’m Sorry, So Sorry.” The name’s not right because not everyone here has apologized. Clemons never apologized. Bonds hasn’t apologized. Neither has Palmeiro, that I know of. (My general thoughts are that he doesn’t think about it much, that he hangs out on a boat in the Caribbean, surviving on a diet of coke and blow jobs. Poor guy.)

Whatever though. It’s bitter watching Kobe, Michael Vick, et al fall on their swords. Nahmean? We’ve all had to apologize, but how brutal is it when you gotta say I’m sorry while cameras flash and video rolls?

A cat in New York cut his spouse’s head off.

[shiver]

I voted for Zuma Dog when I mailed in my ballot for the March 3 City of L.A. elections.

And I didn’t cast this mayoral vote because dude opened for me at that Bibliobacchanal. I did it because I feel generally let down by the mayoralty of Antonio Villaraigosa. His sex scandal ain’t the main reason. Neither are the allegations of campaign finance violations. Naw, last Sunday I decided against re-upping for Mayor Antonio — who’s gonna run away with the election, btw — after rattling southbound over an enormous pothole on Vermont, just north of the 101 freeway entrance.

Wasn’t this nigga supposed to have filled in a million potholes?

Well, I guess them shits was all out in the Valley. Somehow I don’t see drivers in Laurel Canyon exiting their driveways and all but falling into a gaping hole in the street. Smoothe streets for everyone seemed implicit to Villaraigosa’s message. I feel played right about now. Sunday’s discombobulation continues to bother me. My neck, my back.
Anyway, yeah, Zuma Dog. He might not craft great mounds of policy, but I think he believes every word that comes out of his mouth. And that’s something.