Shouldn't all problems end with beer and Obama?

or at least a glass of Chianti?

Could you just image how much a better place the world would be if whenever you felt something was about to pop off you just said to the other person, "Hey you're at 10 and you need to be a 2, sip this."

Obama hosts beer reunion to defuse racial row

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Governor Patterson at the Club?

Why was New York Governor David Patterson all up in the club just giving us an Urban Chameleon moment ...with DJ Funk Master Flex no less.

click here for read full article on gawker

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Does Spicey Foods Cause Nightmares?

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor
Ken Stiggers




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Why White Men Love Me: "The Saliva Incident" (episode 2)

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor
Please note that the white man in this photo is not the one involved in this incident

A couple of months ago, my colleagues and I went down to Atlanta to have dinner with one of our major clients: a loaded older white man who always likes to keep the party going. He’s one of those clients that has your boss freeing up the next morning’s schedule because you know that it’s gonna be a long night of kissing ass. Well, we all flew into Atlanta and met the client at one of the many fine dining establishments “the dirty dirty” has to offer. It was a typical business dinner. The client was already at the bar when we got there, sippin’ on his Jack, No Coke. Of course, after dinner he was ready to hit up the next stop—a sleazy, locals jazz club. So there we were, all lined up along yet another bar, damn near midnight still kissing ass hoping to get the nod for our next deal, when the client leaned over to whisper something in my ear but nothing came out. That’s when I felt it. I froze in a state of shock.

Was that what I thought it was?

Ew ew ew ew ew ew

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god

But the client was already up, shaking my boss’s hand, then my colleague’s, and out the door.

“Are you okay?” my colleague asked noticing the horrified look on my face.

“No I need a bottle of gin.” I replied.

As the bartender was pouring I was trying to recover.

“What’s wrong?”

“The client just LICKED MY EAR!”

“What?”

I took the Gin to the head using it more as an antiseptic. “How is it that we all come to ATL, the southern Bastian of Black Professionals, and I’m the one who ends up with an ear full of a White Man’s saliva?”

click here for: episode 1

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Urban Chameleons in Transition…Trying to get to the Vineyard

by today’s Urban Chameleon contributor

Not matter where you are and what you’ve achieved on your Urban Chameleon journey there is always some new obstacle to overcome (just look at Sotomayor having to deal with the latest Senate Committee vote hearing. Click to see: White Men Judging Sotomayor)

The latest hurdle for my friends and I? Trying to get to Martha’s Vineyard for a networking event that’s taking place the end of August, coincidentally the same time the Obama’s will be there. However, regardless of whether the Obama’s are there or not the Vineyard truly tries to price the up and coming out.

For a roundtrip flight and three days we’re looking at close to $2,000! EACH! These round-the-way girls need to find another way around that. We’re definitely of the mindset of investing in your future and see this as a great business opportunity. It takes money to make money. We come from parents who scraped together pennies for our private school education and piano lessons so we surely can’t give up now. The brainstorming began,

“What if we fly to Boston, then rent a car and drive?”
"Who wants to get off of a flight to then still drive a couple of hours."
“How much is the bus?
“No girl it's not about a bus.”
“We could take the ferry from NY-I think it’s like 7hrs?”
“I’d rather jump off the ferry and end it I get sea sick- I won’t make it 7hrs.”
"I second that."
“Wait I just found a hotel room for $299.00 it’s a little further out but the cheapest we’re going to find.”
“Do we just need to crash in that bad boy and split it four ways?”
“My goodness, I had hoped at 30ty I would have out grown the two in a bed but consider it done.”
“Yea but we still need to get there.”
“See if your mother will let you borrow her car.”
“Alo maman, Regarde, mes copines et moi veulent allez a Martha’s Vineyard mais les billets d’avion son telement chers qu’on voulais…Quoi? Oui, on aime rait preter ta voiture pour…Oh, parait! Merci maman! Annnnnd we have a car yall.”
“Wait girl, we still need to get the car onto the island.”
“Apparently we have to put the car on a steamboat to take over.”
“It’s still cheaper than flying.”
“Have we looked at Amtrak?”
“Hmm, this might be a good option…ooh look $30.00 each way!”
“There’s even a shuttle that takes you to the ferry.”
“So we have to take a subway, to the train, to a shuttle, to the ferry, to a cab, to the hotel and then split a bed?”
“That’s what it’s looking like.”
“Wow, first you’ve got to fight to get into the elite white schools then you have to fight to get in the elite Black social circles.”
“When does it end?”
“When you’re the Obama’s.”
“No girl, they’re even still fighting to be accepted.”
“The journey of an Urban Chameleon... it's exhausting.”

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The New York Times hits home on the Urban Chameleon experience...kinda

I was delighted to come across this article in the New York Times that acknowledges people of color having to navigate a "second a world." (helloooooo HOME OF THE URBAN CHAMELEON) Although the article doesn't exactly delve into the complexities of living in those multiple worlds and also how the 20ty/30ty sumptin' generation is doing this, hot damn it's a start. In the meantime, we'll just continue doing it here...

Meet the New Elite, Not Like the Old

By HELENE COOPER

Published: July 25, 2009

WASHINGTON — They are the children of 1969 — the year that America’s most prestigious universities began aggressively recruiting blacks and Latinos to their nearly all-white campuses.

No longer would Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia be the domain of the privileged. Instead, in response to the national soul-searching prompted by the civil rights movement,

America’s premier colleges would try to become more representative of the population as a whole.

Forty years later, America is being led, to a striking extent, by a new elite, a cohort of the best and the brightest whose advancement was formed, at least in part, by affirmative action policies. From Barack and Michelle Obama (Columbia, Princeton, Harvard) to Eric Holder (Columbia) to Sonia Sotomayor (Princeton, Yale) to Valerie Jarrett (Michigan, Stanford), the country is now seeing, in full flower, the fruition of this wooing of minorities to institutions that for much of the nation’s history have groomed America’s leaders.

And yet the consequences of that change remain unresolved, as became clear on Friday, when Mr. Obama grappled a second time with the arrest of the Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his own home.

The incident, the president said, offered the potential to soothe longstanding distrust between minorities and police officers. But it also laid bare another reality, that the children of 1969, even those who now occupy niches at the top of society, regard their status as complicated, ambiguous and vulnerable.

“Whether I were black or white, I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive — as opposed to negative — understandings about the issue, is part of my portfolio,” Mr. Obama said.

It was a reminder that Mr. Obama, in addition to being the most powerful American, is also the fulfillment of the ideals embraced by Ivy League minority recruiters in 1969. Mr. Gates entered Yale that year, as one of 96 black freshmen. Today that number seems small. But there had been only six black students just three years before.

Mr. Gates belonged to the first affirmative action wave at top universities — a wave that continued into the 1970s and the 1980s. I was one of its beneficiaries. A black 17-year-old from Monrovia, Liberia, I was one of some 200 black freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1983.

My first roommate was a white student from Seagrove, N.C., whose SAT scores and grade-point average were higher than mine. Privately, I consoled myself that I had qualifications that she didn’t: I could name the capital of every country in Africa; countries she had never heard of. I knew where the Zambezi River emptied into the Indian Ocean. None of that had been on the SAT.

But every now and then I feared I was faking it, that my white classmates had something I didn’t. There were things they seemed to know instinctively, that I had to look up. I remember getting laughed at during a game of Pictionary when I couldn’t come up with the word for a giant bird landing on a lawn with a baby in its mouth.

My feelings of inadequacy were not unusual, said David L. Evans, the Saturn/Apollo electrical engineer hired by Harvard in 1969 to help lead its affirmative action program. When Mr. Evans visited public high schools in Arkansas in search of promising black students, he was met with skepticism. “Even people who didn’t have any mean-spiritedness would say to the students, ‘You going to be up there with the Kennedys?’ ” he recalled. “ ‘How do you think you can make it there?’ ”

There was anxiety, too, among the originators of race-based affirmative action programs. “The idealistic version of why these universities embraced racial affirmative action is that they said, ‘Hey, we’re in the business of training elites, it would be better for America if there were a diverse elite,’ ” said Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and author of “The Big Test,” a history of the SAT and the rise of America’s meritocracy. To its architects, the minority recruitment was the next phase for universities that for years had paved the way for whites, particularly the offspring of upper-class alumni, Mr. Lemann said.

“The cynical version of why they did this is they said, ‘We can’t control this country, it’s becoming too diverse, we need to socialize the brighter minorities and make them more like us.’ ”

In many ways, being molded into people “more like us” gave the children of 1969 an advantage denied most of their white counterparts. They learned to navigate within a second world. They also absorbed some of its ideas and values. And they paved the way for the next generation.

click here to continue reading full article

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A Fortune If You Vote For Us By Today!!!

Yes you read correctly we will tell your fortune if you vote for us by today for the 2009 Black Weblog Awards which ends TOMORROW July 25th! (oh hell tell a friend)

Thanks so much for those of you who already have voted for us.

Team
HOTUC

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Why I Don’t Mess With Bebe’s Kids

by today’s Urban Chameleon contributor

My friend and I recently joined a soccer team in NYC. We thought it would be fun way to get some physical activity going since neither of us can seem to make our way to an elliptical machine to save our lives.

Last week we had our first game, which was uptown right on the boarder where regentrification has started. We were caught off guard because when we got off the train along Broadway there were nothing but gourmet restaurants and shops but when we walked a few blocks over to our field a freestyle competition was taking place to the beats of Biggie, Mob Deep and Too Short to name a few. The other players didn’t seem to like this as they were in full concentration mode for the game. We were the only two Black girls jamming to da beats. Our team consisted of white boys who took the game way too seriously and we’re on some World Cup tip, yelling at us “Up the sides! Up the sides!” Neither of us could touch the ball with out taking some aggressive set of directions. At one point I got so nervous I accidentally kicked the ball to the other team and they scored. You know the white boys weren’t happy with this. This was not the friendly game of soccer the sign up guy had assured us.

To add another dynamic layer to the scenario, a group of Bebe’s kids were playing on the side and would every once in a while run on to the field to mess with our game. The Asian referee had constantly keep asking them to leave, which of course made them mess with us more. I tried to stay as far away from Bebe’s kids as my memories took me back to when I was growing up in Bedstuy and the horrific things I saw them kids do so I know what Bebe’s kids are capable and I don’t f*ck wit Bebe’s kids. Not to mention I wasn’t really prepared to break character in front of the white boys and get quintessential Black girl on dey ass.

One of the white boys suggested we just keep playing until a kid gets knocked down. He mentioned that the same thing happens to his friends in London and the kids learn their lesson after getting in the way. I viscerally responded that the difference here is that a kid will come back with a gun. By the look on his face he wasn’t ready for that answer.

Next thing you know, the only Black girl on the other team was in the face of one of Bebe’s girls who couldn’t have been any older than 10. Apparently one of the kids had messed with her stuff, which immediately made my friend and I go and grab our things. As we did this more and more Bebe’s kids began to pile in for the confrontation. Another white boy shouted, “Ohmigod this is like City of God with the runts!” The fact that that was his only reference for badass kids was hysterical. I began to notice that some of the kids were leaving but I didn’t trust it. My friend didn’t either. She whispered to me, "We need to raise up outta here." Just as we were creeping out we saw those same kids come back with water balloons and I thought, “Oh hell nah, for get this game I am not about to get my hair wet!’

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Dutty Wine Gone Wrong

The number of accidents that occur during some of these dance hall steps are really intense (click here for: Caribbean Country Side Bafoonery) . I mean I used to think I was doing something at the cub when I was younger with just one leg up on the wall but these girls are out here Dominique Dawes'ing it out this piece.

I do love a Dutty Wine but ... oooooh this is it gone wrong



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Spending Wisely in a Recession...Can that Include Catching a Sale at Barneys?

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

Yesterday my unemployment check came and you would think that first thing on my mind would be food, water, rent, and bills. No. I instead decided to go to the shoe department at Barneys and try on a pair of $769.00 Yves Saint Laurent shoes that were absolutely SICKALICIOUS. The fact that I was there trying to justify how two weeks of unemployment could pay for these shoes is a problem. It didn’t help that after trying them on a third time the sales person came over to tell me that everything was 33% off!!!
OH
MY
GOD!
33% off $769.00 is $253.77, which would bring my grand total to only $515.23. Only? I was able to do this math with in seconds so clearly I’m not dumb… but then why is my dumb ass trying to justify these shoes? Whenever I’m in these kinds of a predicament, which is not often (I’m not ridiculous) I think, “Sure I’ll just eat rice and beans for a month.” The problem is I can’t do it. Like shoes I’m obsessed with fine dining and the state of my mood is usually determined by what I’ve eaten for the day. If I bought these shoes I would have to be locked up in cave in Falluhja with no contact with the outside world, too hysterical from not tasting something savory, succulent and delicious. After pondering this for over 45min I finally put the shoes down and backed out of Barneys very slowly and went to this restaurant that serves a great Ossobuco.

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Fabulousity & Food Stamps

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

Back in my days as a gainfully employed graphic designer at the ad agency, I enjoyed the fruits of my meaningless labor just as any other cosmopolitan 20 something woman would - by buying shoes. Ferragamo loafers, Mui Mui pumps, Coach boots. Not too extravagant, just fabulous enough for my tax bracket.

The shoes were nice. But the job. The job! It was killing my creative soul. My dreams of being the 21st century Black female Jackson Pollock, were slipping out between my well manicured French tip fingers nails. At home, my canvases remained bare while certain carmakers, snack companies and corn syrup manufacturers were reaping the benefits of my art school education.

It was time I fed my spirit. I quit my job. Traveled to New Zealand and came back renewed, optimistic - creative energy restored. My artwork poured out of me. Oils, pastels...I even experimented with mixed media. For the first time since graduating college, I was proud of the work I was producing. And galleries seemed pleased, too as I was booking group shows all about town.

I remember the day I opened my first solo show at that gallery in Dumbo. I felt like I was reaching new heights in my art career...if only the buyers would recognize this greatness. There was even a write-up about me in the New York Times! But I hadn't sold a single piece and my savings account was dwindling. Albeit seemingly successful, I saw myself falling under the category of starving artist. But miss thing can't starve. I'm already slim- I'd wilt away! Not to mention, I only eat organic!

One night while enjoying yet another delicious bowl of rice and beans, I decided it was time for me to swallow my pride and make that next step: I decided to apply for food stamps. Walking into the office was deep. Mostly mothers with young children - one woman walked in with a baby strapped to her front, and on her back was an oxygen tank that was hooked up to baby's nose! She really really needs food stamps I thought. I should just go get a job! I started gathering the latest bead art I was working on, preparing to leave that odd waiting room, when they called my number. It was arduous, humiliating and scary, but I bit the bullet and applied. The torn agony melted away when my card came in the mail. I hoped on the train to Whole Foods!

But first, I decided to make a stop at Coach to get a new box for my boots. The original shoebox got destroyed during my move from the East Village to Harlem and miss thing keeps her shoes intact. I got the box, then walked on down to whole foods, shopping with glee! Pecorino cheese - ener-G egg replacer - Vermont maple syrup, Moroccan mint pepper the works. There I was at the checkout counter, my big Coach box in a big Coach bag, my organic groceries and a smile. The sister at the checkout counter told me my total and I whipped out my brand spankin' new Food Stamp Benefit card. Sister girl paused, looked me in my eye - looked at the Coach bag, looked at my food - looked at my card, then raised her eyebrows and continued to bag my gourmet vegetarian kilbasa.

As I ascended the escalator out of Whole Foods, excuses ran through my head - it's just an empty box! I bought the boots back when I had money. If she saw my bank account, she wouldn't be so judgmental.

On the train ride home, I decided to dismiss the excuses. I am doing the best I can with my God given talents. People are moved by my work (if only they'd move to their wallets and make a damn purchase!). I need not make any excuses for my fabulousness. Yes, I eat organic, yes I wear designer shoes and yes, I am on the food stamps.

Get with it. And maybe I'll invite you over for dinner.

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The First and Last Black Man at the Country Club

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

My darling grandparents (God rest their souls) decided after decades of fast and fabulous New York City living, that it was time for them to make that pilgrimage down south back to their roots for retirement. They settled on a good two acres of land that was footsteps away from a marina. My grandfather was an avid boats man and former member of the Jamaica Bay Yacht Club. It was perfect.

They moved in when I was about 5 years old. And every summer we would spend down there with them. My sister, brother, cousin and me building countless memories of an adventurous childhood in Little Washington, North Carolina. However when my grandparents learned that the country club across the street did not accept Black members, my grandmother insisted on having a pool put in the backyard so as not to "make her grandchildren feel slighted.”

Fast-forward a decade. Grandma has gone on to heaven and us grandchildren are now grand teenagers, too cool to spend our entire summer down in "North Cack", leaving my dear grandfather to socialize more with the neighbors. At a dinner party, a newcomer to the neighborhood casually asks my grandfather, "how come you're not a member of the country club, Charlie?” Crickets. Crickets and more crickets.

By the next week, everyone was up in arms with guilt and obligation and so my grandfather became the first Black member of the country club. I remember the first time going to the club’s restaurant for dinner (less than 10yrs ago) and the only other Black person was the bartender. And he was kind of cute.

A year or so later during a visit, my brother and cousin decided to get into some typical teenage mischief. They'd left the house in the morning and gone for hours. Dusk was near. The doorbell rang. Grandpa opened the door to my brother and cousin and the local sheriff. "Are these your grandsons?"
"Yes," Grandpa replied.
"We caught them driving along the main road in a golf cart they stole from the country club".

Damn.

I don't know why they thought it'd be a good idea to take a golf cart to the local gas station to pick up a pack of Newports and think their Black asses wouldn't get caught.

[Sigh] I think my grandfather might have been the last Black member that country club allowed in.

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A Jewish Girl Grows in Brooklyn

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

There is another side to the plight of the Urban Chameleon if anyone was wondering. Every story is not necessarily from the Black world to the White world. Like my world for example: The white, Jewish world. I am not white enough to be white and not Black enough to be Black. I exist in both, but don’t belong to either. In truth both are worlds I slip in and out of. But even my Jewish world isn’t all my own. See, in the world of a New York Jewess there are micro-worlds, smaller sections in the big beautiful scheme of Jewish culture.

There are the Black Hats that walk around fully covered, not showing an inkling of alabaster skin, devout. There are the hippie Jews who go to the love-ins and speak about the light of Hashem (Jewish word for G-d) etc. Then there are the Jews who don’t want to be Jews and lie to their Wall Street friends, throwing that Menorah in the sink and resurrecting a tree just so they can drink the proverbial eggnog in December. Then there’s me and my type of Jews, we love Judaism, we love food, we are outspoken, passionate, and aggressive. It’s funny because even when you feel like you should belong to a group you don’t.

I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Queens, and we were the outcasts of the neighborhood. We weren’t Jewish enough. We were reformed and everyone else was conservative. This was a big deal, because we were the only family eating bacon double cheeseburgers, and driving on Saturdays if you get my meaning. It never really bothered me so much until one day I was playing with my only friend in the neighborhood across the street. They were shunned as well, from the rest of the neighbors in my neighborhood: they were Cuban. I loved them and me and the youngest daughter in the family were best playmates. One hot summer day I was playing and had to go to the bathroom, but my Mom wasn’t home and neither was the girl’s family. So, I figured I would hold it till either my family or hers arrived home. But after a while, I couldn’t.

So, I proceeded to knock on every door on my block to see if I could use their bathroom. I mean they knew who I was after all, what was the harm? Picture it: a cute, short freckled face, curled haired little girl with her legs crossed standing at your door, asking to use the bathroom. I figured it would be no problem.

But not one person would let me use their toilet, not one single person.

I guess, I wasn’t Jewish enough for them, not Jewish enough to use their toilet.

When my Mom arrived home, she found me with wet shorts sitting on our doorstep. She marched down the block and knocked on each door and gave them something to think on, my Mom was good at that. And even though I hoped if it happened again I would have been able to rely on my own people to help me, my Mom made me carry a set of keys on me from that day forward…

There are always going to be people who think you aren’t enough- enough. That’s why we exist in multiple worlds at the same time. It gets lonely when you can’t feel welcomed by your people, sometimes finding a sister in another world fills you with a sense of belonging you never had, and that’s a good thing.

When I arrived at college I sort of accidentally landed upon a group of young Black women, all of whom echoed similar attributes to myself having a multifaceted way of looking at the world. I felt immediately drawn in and welcomed. They had me at “hello.” When I was with them I was free to be me in many ways: unencumbered by the confines of what it means to be white or what it meant to be Jewish.

Through out our friendship that still exist today having first attended a predominantly white University I witnessed how they existed in contradicting worlds. It was in those first few years that I discovered the chameleon code and realized who I was was just fine.

So you see it doesn't matter where you come from, there are Urban Chameleons of multiple shades and backgrounds creeping in the shadows and dancing in the bright light of the world, and if you look closely you can spot us because we have a knowing glimmer in our eye.

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Obama Condoms...When is this a Good Idea?

The level of creativity that is born out of capitalism is sometimes beyond me

Obama condoms at obamacondoms.com

I reluctantly encourage you to click on the link just to hear how they have used our president's voice to promote their product as you scroll over the tabs, "FIRED UP READY TO GO! (at least I think that's what he's saying)


















These are uncertain times. The economy's a ball-buster and the surge went flaccid... but now there's Obama Condoms, for a change you can believe in!

* FOR THE ELITIST PENIS
* THEY WON'T LEAVE A BITTER TASTE IN YOUR MOUTH
* WHEN YOU JUST WANT TO CLOSE THE DEAL
* REMEMBER THE ELECTION WITH YOUR NEXT ERECTION
* FOR HARD TIMES
* GUARANTEED TO ADD THREE INCHES TO YOUR LOVE LIFE


But seriously what would you do the first night you was gettin' some from somebody you was FEELIN' and they pardoned themselves only to return with an Obama condom?

Oh don't worry McCain and Palin have condoms too but oooh dat's just really nasty...or rather really needed.


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CNN is Getting On My Last Nerve

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

It’s very late at night but I need to ramble –

The universe does indeed work with symbols (we just have to look and listen)

The Big Picture symbols- Michael Jackson (MJ) & Obama

so

what’s tugging on my last nerve - journalists (TV - okay -
teleprompter readers and those that look ever-so-good, confident and
knowing-sort of) refer to the U.S. as now being in a "post racial" era
(ha!). Okay - maybe this works on paper but not in the minds and
hearts of people.

Talk-to-the-hand.

It's a bit like saying that apartheid (I refuse to capitalize the "A")
is over. Obviously, it still resides in the hearts and minds of
people ...and financial institutions. Slavery (and I mean this within
a U.S. and international context) is not over - it's just strutting a
haute couture mirage.

So about MJ & Obama...

...the symbols

Obama is said to be the symbol of post-racial America (who
decided this?) and now we have the icon of "racelessness" (MJ) die.
Stanley Crouch (back off - he is right on this one) said MJ wanted to
be neither Black or white but a Disney character - and MJ did indeed
look more and more like Peter Pan (the animated version - not the
Julia Roberts version - Ouch! that nose - Ouch - those tights bunched
up in the family jewels! ). But I am more comfortable with Peter Pan
than Clinton thinking he was the Black president or Chris Rock as the
Black president in the movie Head of State .

I argue that, yes, let's use MJ as what America looks like
- frail, needle-marked, can't sleep, longing, sad, pimped and
pimping, a use to be champ flat on its back. I am not buying into
post-race anything. And, MJ 's voice may still have been
pre-adolescent - but it's time
we shift from the falsetto and drop into alto and bass - we have
people alive who can talk about their great grand parents receiving
lashes on their backs while working on plantations, forced to build
railroads, forced into internment camps, figuring that being in prison
is better than going to college, figuring that suicide is better than
the rainbow. There is rhyme and reason to why Baldwin and Baker
were in France and Dubois was in Ghana - why we need the voices of
Patricia Mcfadden, Wole Soyinka and Nawal el Saadawi

Reasons why there is a secret list of Black atheists ...

so

as they say - if Jesus where alive he would need a PR agent - 'cause
it's a different world... but it ain’t a post-racial one. We are
going to need more than CNN and Obama's lineage to make the case –

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Yearning For Good Music to Chill Out to and that Brings Ya Back?

Kenzo Digital, the creator of CITY OF GOD SON, which if you haven't already checked out this one of kind creation, a sound movie, starring Jay Z, Ghostface, Nas and Biggie- ya late! and must click this link first:

www.cityofgodson.com

Once you've done this you can download his latest mixtape that resurrects the meaning of good music putting you in a time machine for 2hrs to indulge in pure and authentic chilaxness.

01 Nasty You - Sa-Ra

02 Say Goodbye To Love - Kenna

03 Lately [Sa-Ra Remix] - Sa Ra

04 Everbody [Feat. Kanye West & André 3000] - Fonzworth Bently

05 Ladies Sing - Sa-Ra Creative Partners

06 Gangsta Lean - Clipse

07 1nce Again - A Tribe Called Quest featuring Tammy Lucas

08 Footprints - A Tribe Called Quest

09 For My Peeps [with Red Hot Lover Tone, Notorious B.I.G.] [Remix]

10 Keep The Beat - Eric B. & Rakim

11 Life Is Like A Dice Game [Vocal]

12 Stress [Extra P Mix] - Organized Confusion

13 Mecca And The Soul Brothers - C.L. Smooth & Pete Rock

14 Wake Up

15 Gimme Yours [Remix] - AZ

16 One Plus One

17 I’ll Make U Famous [Remix] - Da Youngsta’s Illy Funkstas

18 Computer Love - Ghostface Killah

19 The Essence [Feat. Nas] [Remix]

20 Don’t Disturb This Groove - The System

21 Elevate Our Minds

22 [Soul Track]

23 Buttaflybeat - Koushik

24 Call My Name - Joe Bataan

25 Can We Try Love Again - Kool Blues

26 Can’t Hide Love [Live] - D’Angelo

27 [Soul Track 2]

28 Sweet Tears - Roy Ayers Ubiquity

29 Is That Enough

30 Black Cinderella - The Pharcyde

31 She Said - Sister Carol

click here to access link to download

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White Men Judging Sotomayor

by today's Urban Chameleon

I find it absolutely absurd that in this Senate hearing made up of primarily white men that some of them still have the AUDACITY to question Sotomayor's judicial ability because of her statements (taken out of context) about being a Latino women. Here they are tossing around the term "protecting the tradition of this country" as if that same tradition is what has not kept people of color at a disadvantage for so long. Post racism society my ass. It's unfortunate that some of these white men can't see how NOT having ever experienced racism has flawed some of their decisions.

Sotoyomayor, an Urban Chameleon for as you see, honoring where you come from and getting ahead is such a balancing act.
















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God forbid Michael Okwu Break Character

This Nigerian brotha, Okwu is hilarious. Not sure if he is a chameleon in character…can anyone confirm if they've seen him at a party getting down on some Jollof rice?.........with his over annunciating self. My man does not break character when he mistakes Betty White for Bette Davis in the burial grounds where Michael Jackson might end up.




Unlike THIS dude…where character is truly broken




Or even here, brought to you by Tickles.Tv





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The Panamanian Butt Is Not As Big As We Thought

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

I found this Internet craze that came out a few weeks ago quite...(I don't even know) regarding the controversy over the buttocks of the Panamanian women’s cricket team. Apparently someone had Photoshoped the butts of the women from looking like this














To this
















And all of a sudden people were fans of “cricket”.

Can we just take a moment here and really think about why the booty is so powerful? This is not the first time that its voluptuous presence has captivated millions through media attention and caused men to act out of character. Just yesterday the news reported that police had caught The Brooklyn Butt Slapper- some fool running around smacking women on their ass.
The booty...such a mesmerizing and what can be dangerous power.

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The Side of Yourself That You Don’t Reveal to Your Black Friends

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

I was meeting a friend of mine for lunch the other day that had recently started a new corporate job in midtown after being laid off from where we last worked together. He’s the type of Black man who puts on the suit and tie, closes every account in success in his white corporate world but hates white people. The funny part is that they have no idea. I wouldn’t even call him an Urban Chameleon I would just call him an actor. He talks the talk and walks the walk and the most popular guy in the office. Will even go out drinking, to games and events with his white colleagues because he sees it as getting the job done but as soon as he steps out of their site I swear he does a prayer. He's still really angry about slavery.

In waiting for Michael to show up to lunch I was engrossed in my latest book, Twilight, forgetting the real world. You know when you’re at a good part in a book where you just can’t put it down, so any spare moment including waiting for the walk sign to change, you whip it out and try and read a sentence of two? That was me, however I should have known better than to be caught in this read around militant Black Michael. I was startled by the sound of his voice, “What are you a fourteen year old teenage white girl?” I jumped up immediately putting the book down that was indeed about a white teenage love story with Vampires to give him a hug and quickly mask my embarrassment before my intellectual reflexes were able to kick in reminding him that the book was a New York Time best seller. The conversation moved on but I couldn’t help but to ponder his remark.

The truth was I think I totally do have a fourteen-year-old white girl side to me. I love the show Gossip Girl, I wear Birkenstocks in the summer, Uggs in the winter, I totally have a crush on Brad Pitt and think that Al Sharpton can at times be ridiculous. Sorry not sure where that last part came from. Maybe I was just putting too much pressure on myself in the presence of my “very Black friend.” The last time we hung out he invited me to a screening of an independent film about AIDS in Africa, which I really didn’t want to see and because he seemed to sense that he gave me a guilt trip about it. Never mind the fact that I was so over that perspective knowing that Africa has much more to offer and would have been more interested in another topic. However, unless I was eagerly attending the screening in my dashiki and ankh I was not keeping it real according to militant Michael. Oh the pressure of being "Black"...

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First Full Figured Fashion Week

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

I don’t understand why the fashion industry refuses to acknowledge the body size of the  majority in America, which is bigger than a Marc Jacobs fashion model who diets on sugar free Mentos and a cigarette. I was so glad to come across this article about the first full figured fashion week emphasizing our demand for clothes that fit. I like to get my sexy on and come with it why the hell do I have to wait 5-10 business days for my sh*t to come in the mail from J Crew when there is a store down the street? Then don't let the sh*t not look right I have to go into the damn store and explain how I bought it online leaving the uncomfortable lingering  assumption for the reason for my return on the cashier's face. Either deal with that or mail it back and have to pay a restocking fee! Or how about the time when I have to go to my tailor Hunhan and explain in my broken Korean how I need to expand the seams in my jeans so that when I take off my clothes I don’t have creases indented in my skin cutting off my circulation. Why the hell do we have to be subjected to this inconvenience when just plus size women shoppers are over a 25 billion dollar industry?

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Is A President Obama 'Chia Pet' Ever A Good idea?

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor


An Obama Chia Pet

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

How to really feel about a creation beyond your wildest imagination? Growing an Afro for Obama.

Patriotic, racist or ridiculous?

There are even options:

A "happy" Barack



A "determined" Barack



If I see this thing at anyone's house I'm decking dem dead in dey mouth


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The Migraine Skank

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

Yesterday I took my friend’s Hip Hop dance class. I was the only Black girl in the class. All the other participants where white girls who you could tell had spent hours in front of the mirror at home trying on different clothes to capture their inner b-girl swagger. Hats were tilted to the side and pants were baggy with one leg rolled up. My friend the teacher warmed us up with everything to chest isolations, head bops to the booty shake. It felt strange putting it all to an eight count but that’s today’s Hip Hop. I busted out laughing when my friend in attempt to have these girls “feel” it equated it to vibing out at a reggae club with Buju Banton. The white girls stood in utter confusion.

However, I was put on to the latest Euro craze “The Migraine Skank,” which is what the combination was to. I love it, just at the club with a migraine skanking it out.



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ARISE, Africa Is No Joke

The Vibe might haven fallen but we are on the Arise. This new magazine with only it’s 5th issue out is killin’ em. Arise is bringing a new light to Africa accentuating it’s beauty, innovation and strength. I hope that its accessibility of African culture can especially help to bridge gaps between Africans and African Americans. (See posting Africans vs. African Americans)









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Hip Hop IS Officially Dead

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor

Between watching the BET awards and the downfall of Vibe Magazine it’s confirmed for me that Hip Hop is officially over but I guess naturally it would be. If you think about it Hip Hop was always a catch 22. The rhyming used to be about getting out the ‘hood and legitimately so! But once we got out the ‘hood we have not looked back. With mainstream success we now brag about how many cars, houses, gold chains, yachts, and b*tches we have with thick thighs and fat asses over variations of Kanye and Timbaland beats. Could we have ever known the detriments of being out for self would be so discombobulating for the community? I mean this game did just start out trying to put food on the table and talk to the young Black youth.

“Remember Rappin' Duke, duh-ha, duh-ha
You never thought that hip hop would take it this far”

No we di’ in’t. The irony is that the ‘hood hasn’t changed. Same shit that was going on then is still goes on now. But you would never know for as soon as Hip Hop became a business that the rest of the world bought into why wouldn’t you get that money?

I just feel badly for children whose parents have left them with today’s rap icons as their only role models- role models who just aren’t equipped to be role models. We are a society that glamorizes and glorifies nothing but wealth so I wonder what kind of leaders the young generation will grow up to be when “this” is what defines character for them. ‘Cause we all know if the wealthy tells us to stomp that ho’ we… gonna stomp that ho’.

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