• Da Brat needs to make sure the next person she smashes in the face with a rum bottle isn’t so litigious. [EUR]
• Sam Fine, makeup artist to the black stars, blogs! [SFB]
• Jada Pinkett-Smith steps behind the camera to direct The Human Contract. [SP]
• Isiah Thomas should cease and desist from sharing juicy secrets with Stephon Marbury from now on. []
• Shut up, Shar. [People]
The American dollar is at such a terrible low that it’s not even cool to carry around obnoxious stacks of it anymore. Ask Jay-Z.
In a video for the movie “American Gangster,” hip-hop maestro Jay-Z thumbs through a wad of 500-euro notes on a night of cruising through the concrete canyons of New York, a city where the euro isn’t legal tender. The euro gained against the dollar today as European economic growth in the third quarter accelerated more than forecast.
How embarrassing! Uh, for a variety of reasons. []
O.J. Simpson’s lawyers are saying that Walter Alexander, Simpson’s accomplice-turned-rat, sold his to the highest bidder.
Out by the pool at the posh Palms resort a few hours before the alleged heist, “he asked me if I could watch his back,” after which “he leaned forward and it was kind of like, ‘Hey, do you think you can get some heat?’ ” Alexander testified. “‘Just in case things go wrong—just in case, you know, they may have heat, you know, can you bring some heat?’ “
The prosecuters are saying, “who the hell cares, we’ve got O.J.’s ass!”
I have never shied away from making it known that I find Angelina Jolie to be a smug, holier-than-thou, obnoxious, and self-important person. I acknowledge that she does many good things — in Africa, no less! She highlights causes that certain people would otherwise ignore, but there are many other high profile celebrities who do similar good things without becoming insufferable. I also acknowledge that she is beautiful (because everyone always tries to tell me I’m just hating when I talk about how much Angie sucks). But please. She’s an actress. And I really don’t care to read her thoughts in the Economist’s “World in 2008″ special issue.
Jolie’s piece on accountability for the atrocities in Darfur sits alongside contributions from several presidents, an exiled god-king, the head of the United Nations and other political heavyweights…
The field of high-profile contributors includes French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, the Dalai Lama, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and Korean-born UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.
I know! Let’s play “One of These Economist Contributers Is Not Like The Other.” Hint: just pick out the one who starred in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Or the new film adaptation of Beowulf, in theaters Friday!
Dr. Jan Adams, the unlucky (to say the least) surgeon who performed the breast reduction and tummy tuck that may have caused Donda West’s death, just got unluckier. The Discovery Health Channel decided to stop airing Plastic Surgery the show that Adams hosted for five years.
With talk show appearances and his own show, Adams had been riding the wave of plastic surgery popularity until his bubble very publicly burst early this week. According to a story in the Washington Post a few months ago, plastic surgery is getting more and more popular within the black community, with black plastic surgery patients rising from 16 percent in 2002 to 23 percent in 2004. Blacks are seeking out surgeons who specialize in “ethnic plastic surgery” — meaning they preserve ethnic characteristics when they do facial work and pay special attention to issues such as scarring and keloids during procedures like breast reductions and tummy tucks.
This is possibly why Donda West sought out Adams, a prominent/well-known black surgeon. Who knows? Adams might have performed the surgery by the book, and West might have met the same fate no matter who she had gone to. But as evidence builds against Adams, you’ve got to wonder what would have happened if Adams was a plastic surgeon with a board certification on his resume instead of television credits.
Alicia Keys and Common are playing a game of trade-the-cameo. She appeared as his love girlfriend/wife in the video for “I Want You,” and now Common is playing Alicia’s ill-fated man in her “Like You’ll Never See” video. Not bad at video-acting, these two, but their videos are kind of depressing me.
Those of you who were rejoicing when Page Six reported that Jennifer Hudson had dumped James Payton, her pre-fame ball and chain, for easy-on-the-eyes NY Jet Kerry Rhodes will no doubt be disappointed to see that J-Hud was cuddled up with Payton, not Rhodes, at a NYC party last night. Those first loves are hard to shake. [Image Source: WI]
Russell Simmons, who has done PSAs about animal cruelty in the past, appeared in a clip about dog fighting that was released on YouTube yesterday. I’m waiting for the one starring Michael Vick.
Keisha Whitaker, my favorite wife of an Oscar winner (sorry Pauletta Washington), just launched her makeup line — Kissable Couture — in LA. Her daughters and famous hubby came out to support, of course, along with some famous (and semi-famous and not-so-famous) women of color. Pics after the jump.
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Larry David and Tina Fey understand race humor. When you watch Curb Your Enthusiasm and 30 Rock, it’s understood that the majority of their jokes about race are used to make fun of stereotypes, racial tension, or even the writers’ own white liberal discomfort with racial topics. A story in the today examines the two shows and how Fey and David (to a lesser extent, in my opinion) and the writers of The Office have managed to successfully pull off the sort of racial humor that could get a less capable writer thrown off the air.
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