All I could say is, "WOW".

The little kid in the picture above with President Obama was invited to the White House for whatever reason. However, he had the oddest question. He asked if he could feel the Presidents hair to see if it felt like his. Now it may not seem like much, but for a child to make an association of themself to an adult allows them to see that they are not that different at all to that adult. In this kids mind, he has now made an assimilation of greatness to himself. This is so cool.

Wait! I feel a prayer coming on: "Lord, please don't let it come out in the next year or so that this lil red boy is actually Obama's child. Please Lordie hamercy. Don't let that be the reason why he wanted to feel his hair, Jesus." That would be all we need (LOL)!

Blues Legend, Koko Taylor Dies

I received an e-mail late yesterday evening from Alligator Records that my favorite Blues artist of all time, Koko Taylor, had died on June 3, 2009. I can't put into words what this woman meant to American music as she had expressed to me in an interview in 2004, her lifetime goal was to keep the blues alive. I am deeply saddened over this news being the ultimate Koko fan that I am. Here is the release from her official website www.kokotaylor.com:

“QUEEN OF THE BLUES” KOKO TAYLOR 1928 - 2009 posted: 06/03/2009
Grammy Award-winning blues legend Koko Taylor, 80, died on June 3, 2009 in her hometown of Chicago, IL, as a result of complications following her May 19 surgery to correct a gastrointestinal bleed. On May 7, 2009, the critically acclaimed Taylor, known worldwide as the “Queen of the Blues,” won her 29th Blues Music Award (for Traditional Female Blues Artist Of The Year), making her the recipient of more Blues Music Awards than any other artist. In 2004 she received the NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award, which is among the highest honors given to an American artist. Her most recent CD, 2007’s Old School, was nominated for a Grammy (eight of her nine Alligator albums were Grammy-nominated). She won a Grammy in 1984 for her guest appearance on the compilation album Blues Explosion on Atlantic.
Born Cora Walton on a sharecropper’s farm just outside Memphis, TN, on September 28, 1928, Koko, nicknamed for her love of chocolate, fell in love with music at an early age. Inspired by gospel music and WDIA blues disc jockeys B.B. King and Rufus Thomas, Taylor began belting the blues with her five brothers and sisters, accompanying themselves on their homemade instruments. In 1952, Taylor and her soon-to-be-husband, the late Robert “Pops” Taylor, traveled to Chicago with nothing but, in Koko’s words, “thirty-five cents and a box of Ritz Crackers.”
In Chicago, “Pops” worked for a packing company, and Koko cleaned houses. Together they frequented the city’s blues clubs nightly. Encouraged by her husband, Koko began to sit in with the city’s top blues bands, and soon she was in demand as a guest artist. One evening in 1962 Koko was approached by arranger/composer Willie Dixon. Overwhelmed by Koko’s performance, Dixon landed Koko a Chess Records recording contract, where he produced her several singles, two albums and penned her million-selling 1965 hit “Wang Dang Doodle,” which would become Taylor’s signature song.
After Chess Records was sold, Taylor found a home with the Chicago’s Alligator Records in 1975 and released the Grammy-nominated I Got What It Takes. She recorded eight more albums for Alligator between 1978 and 2007, received seven more Grammy nominations and made numerous guest appearances on various albums and tribute recordings. Koko appeared in the films Wild At Heart, Mercury Rising and Blues Brothers 2000. She performed on Late Night With David Letterman, Late Night With Conan O’Brien, CBS-TV’s This Morning, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, CBS-TV’s Early Edition, and numerous regional television programs.
Over the course of her 40-plus-year career, Taylor received every award the blues world has to offer. On March 3, 1993, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley honored Taylor with a “Legend Of The Year” Award and declared “Koko Taylor Day” throughout Chicago. In 1997, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame. A year later, Chicago Magazine named her “Chicagoan Of The Year” and, in 1999, Taylor received the Blues Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009 Taylor performed in Washington, D.C. at The Kennedy Center Honors honoring Morgan Freeman.Koko Taylor was one of very few women who found success in the male-dominated blues world. She took her music from the tiny clubs of Chicago’s South Side to concert halls and major festivals all over the world. She shared stages with every major blues star, including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy as well as rock icons Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.
Taylor’s final performance was on May 7, 2009 in Memphis at the Blues Music Awards, where she sang “Wang Dang Doodle” after receiving her award for Traditional Blues Female Artist Of The Year.Survivors include Taylor’s husband Hays Harris, daughter Joyce Threatt, son-in-law Lee Threatt, grandchildren Lee, Jr. and Wendy, and three great-grandchildren. Funeral arrangements will be announced.

Eminem

The media is all a buzz about the following video. In the video, Sasha Baron Cohen (Borat, Ali-G) makes his entrance as gay guru, "Bruno" at the recent MTV music awards. He makes his entrance via wires suspended from the ceiling and in mid flight experiences some problems and asks to be lowered. However, he is lowered right in the lap of Eminem. Now here's the the weird part; he lands right in Eminem's lap head first which puts his business (booty, etc) all in Eminem's face. Visibly upset, Eminem leaves the theater with his entourage.

That guy is a character and took a real serious chance on this gig because Eminem is supposedly homophobic. The video is being taken down left and right but you can see it right here (LOL):

I bet he would not have done that to Pitbull. He laid a guy out at his concert last week.

Halle Berrrrrrrrry, Halle Berry...

From showing your breasts in, “Swordfish”, then getting busy trailer-trashy style with Billy Bob Thornton in “Monsters Ball”, then swapping spit with some foreign guy at the Oscars and now doing a live sex tape with Jamie Foxx in front of America! Wow, it is amazing to see what a woman will not do to feed her baby when her career is on the downslide and she hasn’t had a hit movie in years. Halle Berry and Jamie Foxx got real busy at the SPIKE TV Guys Choice Awards with a heated makeout session when he presented her with the “Decade of Hotness” award. This blatant attempt to jumpstart her career and catapult her back into “Hottie” status may or may not have worked, but fact remains, it was a risk taken that may have some backlash from conservative movie goers. Me personally... not a good idea. I would expect this type of action from Pamela Anderson but Halle…come on. Nonetheless, your efforts may be fruitless because Gabrielle Union has the, "no-talent working black actress" genre on lock.

Halle knows better!

Hold My Mule!

And my keys, and my cell phone and even my Hi-C juice box. This brother here has set the gold standard for what women should stay away from. 29 year old Desmond Hatchet (remember that name ladies) of Tennessee is the father of 21 children. No misprint, I said 21. He went to court last week after his name appeared 11 times on the docket in a single day, representing 15 children, all his. “It just happened,” Desmond Hatchet said. He didn’t intend to set a record, but he did all his children by mistake. He also claims that all the 11 women knew about his other kids. His children are between newborn and 11 years old and he can’t support them, because he has a minimum wage job and laws can only force him to give his children up to 50% of his paychecks. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, they have to supports all his children, because some of the mothers get less than 2 dollars a month from him, the money being split to all his 21 children.

The sad thing is, that if the women knew about the other children, why would they even allow this man to father their children? I blame them equally. Well at least the last 10 because he has children with 11 different women. While he says, he can't support them, he know the ages and birthdates of every last one of them. Oh, how special...

I just wonder why this guy hasn't gotten as much paid media attention as Octomom? (SMH) shaking my head and singing, "We Shall Overcome". I am going to personally call my old friend, Rev. Ike and ask him to please engrave this guys name on the wall in the Tower of Power for those seeking prayer requests.

A Must See Movie - "Precious"

This movie looks like one of those movies that when you see it, you leave the theater changed. It is backed by both Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry and directed by Lee Daniels (Monster's Ball) and is scheduled for release this November. I can't wait. Check out the trailer:

We're Gonna Need Each Others Support

Over this coming weekend, people all over the world will celebrate that one day that we honor the favorite gals in our lives. The one’s whether biological, adoptive or the just because you seem so…"motherly”; our mothers. Most of us are blessed to have our mothers in all of their, nagging, nurturing, worrisome and loving capacity and to have them healthy and whole. But there is one mother who is sick, the mother of all mothers, the one that sustains us all; Mother Earth. As much as she tries to put on a good face, Mother Earth is not the mother she once was. And as strange as it may seem, it is all because of her own children, we are what’s ailing Mother Earth (what an analogy). I have mentioned on my blog once before that I am working on a second book, tentatively titled, “Earthsongs” and that 100% of every penny of all royalties will be divided equally among three charitable organizations: The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) http://www.nrdc.org/, iAbolish American Anti-Slavery Group http://iabolish.org/, and The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) http://www.amfar.org/.

The following are some startling facts about my movement that you may or may not already know. They are grim but real as well as disturbing. I often wonder that if the level of consciousness does not begin with us, then who?


*Ninety percent of large fish such as tuna and swordfish are already gone. High-tech fishing trawlers scrape bare the ocean floor, all six species of sea turtle in U.S. waters are threatened with extinction, and marine mammals are increasingly assaulted by lethal sonar and industrial noise.

*China is about to overtake the United States as the world's largest global warming polluter. Its thirst for oil will double by 2010, and its air pollution is poised to quadruple in 15 years.

*The Earth's atmosphere is overloaded with heat-trapping carbon dioxide, which threatens large-scale disruptions in climate. The consequences of a drastic temperature hike of 3 to 9 degrees by the century's end could be disastrous.

*Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting—for example, Montana's Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.

*More than 1 million plant and animal species will vanish if global temperatures continue to rise as predicted in the next 50 years

*A total of 33 million people worldwide now live with AIDS.

*Young people (under the age of 25) account for more than half of new HIV infections worldwide. Every fifteen seconds, another person age 15-24 becomes infected with HIV/AIDS.

*Every day, over 6800 people become infected with HIV - almost five people per minute (globally).

*5700 people die from AIDS every day (globally).

*The number of people living with HIV has risen from around 8 million in 1990 to 33 million today, and is still growing. Around 67% of people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa.

*Experts estimate that today there are 27 million people enslaved around the world. It’s happening in countries on all six inhabited continents. And yes, that includes the United States. The CIA estimates 14,500 to 17,000 victims are trafficked into the “Land of the Free” every year.

*600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked internationally every year. Approximately 80% of them are women and children

*Slavery is an extremely profitable, international industry. Experts estimate trafficking in the US yields $9 billion every year. Around the world, trafficking in women for commercial sex purposes nets $6 billion per year!

*To add insult to injury, $90 is the average cost of a human slave around the world.

*There are more people in slavery now than at any other time in human history.

and get this:

*Human trafficking has recently been described as “the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world”.

The immediate answer to these problems is within us. We have to take the initiative to become active now before it too late, if it’s not already. This book will be my small way and the bigger beginning of me doing my part. You can start today by donating to these organizations (two of them have been verified and screened by Charity Navigator and Charity Watch), volunteering for a charity of your choice, going green, becoming an advocate or a host of other ways. As of today, the book is right at about 30% complete so I should be going to press by year’s end and I have been in talks with representatives from all charitable organizations. I will keep you up to date with details as things progress and as always, thanks in advance for your support.

Poem of the Day - "The Looking Glass"

I just felt that someone needed to read this today:


The Looking Glass

When you gaze into the looking glass
what do you see?
The person that you are
or the one you want to be?

Can you look in your eyes and smile?
Can you stare in your face a while
without shedding salty tears?
But what’s so bad about it
it that you’ve been this way for years.

If you read your mind to find
your destiny was gloom,
would you drop your looking glass
and run in the other room?

Only to find out that you were followed
by yourself and you were out to kill.
How does this make you feel?

Your self has the looking glass
and puts it to your face.
Are you disgusting to the human race?

Who do you want to be?
A slave to yourself or
a role model for me?

Then break the looking glass
and set yourself free.

WYLD STYLZ

Stronger

I was checking my e-mail on yesterday evening and for some reason I has missed one that I received over a week ago from an avid reader of my blog from Detroit, MI. I always love getting e-mails from readers telling me how much they love the blogs content. He complimented me and said how he enjoyed reading my entries but was a bit taken aback at how I can post certain entries that are of an “inspirational nature” (his words) and on the same day post entries that are “worldly” (his word again). He felt that as a Christian, I was straddling the fence and that he was a bit insulted and that he would suggest that I do it one way or the other. While I do appreciate and welcome constructive criticism, I felt that an attack on my relationship with my Creator was a little on the extreme side, yet I took his suggestions into consideration. Now a few months back, it was brought to my attention that I had swayed away from my original vision for my blog and I certainly apologized for that and since that time have made every effort to include entries that are entertaining, inspirational, enlightening and funny without compromising my personal standards for what I consider right and wrong. However, I will not apologize again! My blog homepage reads, “The Wyld Truth (not that it's always right, it's just how I feel). That’s just how it is. I am human and if I do not have the right to express myself as I feel, without hurting anyone’s feelings, then I am suppressing my emotions for the sake of others. This would mean that others are trying to make me conform to their beliefs and not my own. I was that guy five years ago…not anymore. So I feel compelled to advise, that if you don’t necessarily feel what I write, you always have the option of passing to another entry or another webpage or even better yet, starting a web blog of your own, with my sincere and complete support. I just think that in this uncertain and sometimes cruel world, there is so much more that we can concern ourselves with, other than the opinions of others…and besides, it’s not like I write for USA Today or anything. While it is true, that I am a man of God and will always put Him first in all that I say and do, He has allowed me to realize and understand and embrace my own spiritual and worldly balance. I am a spiritual being on this journey in this world. We are all a part of it, whether we like it or not, we have to deal with it. I am just trying to do my part to help someone make it through this journey and their path a little less strenuous. I want to be a vessel used by God, I want to be a light to help lead the way, I want to be a raindrop in that shower that he allows to fall on some dry soul so that by His grace, we can blossom together and I refuse to let ANYONE take away from what He has given me. In closing, a song comes to mind that I would sing many years ago in the Mt. Zion Spiritual Baptist Church junior choir, the words say, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shiiiiiiiiiiiiine. With that said, K.I.M. (Keep it Moving), I’ll see you at the finish line.

Sincerely,
WYLD STYLZ

Question...

Is it me, or is there something so funny about this picture that it has me wanting to laugh like I do behind a church fan during Sunday service? You know the ones with the oversized popsicle stick with Mahalia on one side and a funeral home advertisement on the other.