Jay-Z (feat. Rihanna and Kanye West) – "Run This Town" (2009)

Only thing that’s on my mind

Is who’s gonna run this town tonight? 

The last 2 or 3 lines presented the itinerary for day one of my perfect three-day New York City trip.  Now it’s time for day two.

Day Two

You’re in New York City, so you need to have a bagel for breakfast.  Modern Bread and Bagel is just a hop, skip, and jump from the Blue Angel, so it’s easy to chow down there.

If you’re a newcomer to New York City, the best way to get an appreciation of the physical layout of the city is to take a Circle Line cruise.  Get on the E train or a crosstown bus and head to Pier 83 and the Circle Line ticket booth.  You can circumnavigate the entirety of Manhattan island if you wish, but I recommend the shorter (and cheaper) “Landmarks” cruise, which takes you down the west side of Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty, up the East River – passing under the Brooklyn Bridge (as well as the less famous Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges) – and then does a U-turn and returns to Pier 83.  

The entire trip takes precisely 90 minutes, and gives you beautiful views of the Empire State Building, the new World Trade Center, and many other well-known skyscrapers in addition to Lady Liberty and the aforementioned bridges.

Click here to watch a video that shows the highlights of the“Landmarks” cruise.

For a quick and convenient lunch, just walk south to the brand-spanking-new Hudson Yards development, which includes a fancy-schmancy shopping center and lots of fast-casual restaurants.  Feel free to drop fifteen bucks on admission to the Vessel if you’d like – I was content to just look at that unique structure from the outside:

The Vessel

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After you’ve grabbed a bite, walk down the 1.5-mile-long High Line Trail, a linear park that follows the right-of-way of an abandoned elevated rail spur.  It abounds in interesting statues, murals, and other art works, and gives you a bird’s-eye view of the neighborhood and the Hudson River.

Here are photos of a few of those art pieces:

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From the end of the High Line Trail, it’s a short walk to Pier 57, where you can grab a quick drink before visiting Little Island, a place that proves that the world is a better place because of billionaires.

Little Island is a 2.4-acre artificial island that has a small amphitheater, short walking trails, and hundreds of different trees, shrubs, perennials, and grasses.  It owes its existence to media mogul Barry Diller, whose foundation has contributed an estimated $380 million toward the construction and upkeep of the park.  (It’s hard for me to understand why Little Island should have cost that much, but I probably am underestimating the amount of baksheesh Diller had to spread around among the politicians, unions, etc.)

Little Island

Little Island is a short walk from Greenwich Village, which is full of interesting restaurants.  I stopped and got a drink at a cash-only neighborhood bar called the Corner Bistro – who knew there was still such a thing as a cash-only bar? – and took the subway back to my ’hood for dinner at the Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen restaurant, a Michelin Guide-recommended Chinese restaurant that’s next door to the Blue Angel.  

My dogs were barking at that point, so I put my feet up, cranked up the A/C, and watched the final innings of the Yankees-Blue Jays before going to sleep.

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“Run This Town,” which was named Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 52nd Grammy Awards, features three of hip-hop’s biggest superstars: Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West.

Unlike “Empire State of Mind,” which was also released on The Blueprint 3 in 2009, “Run This Town” isn’t chock full of references to New York City neighborhoods and sports teams.  But it still sounds very New York. 

Former New York City mayor Eric Adams got a lot of criticism for entering a 2023 press conference to “Run This Town.”

“Are you a politician or a professional wrestler?  I’m so confused,” one X/Twitter user quipped after that press conference.  

“Eric Adams having ‘Run This Town’ as his intro song will never not be funny,” wrote another.  “The man is deeply unserious.”

The year after that press conference, Adams was indicted on federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations.  Prosecutors later dropped the charges, but that didn’t help Adams’ re-election campaign – he poll numbers were so poor that he dropped out of the race five weeks before the election.

Click here to listen to “Run This Town.”

Click here to buy “Run This Town” from Amazon.

Jay-Z and Kanye West – "Otis" (2011)

They ain’t see me ‘cause

I pulled up in my other Benz

Last week I was in my other other Benz

(Think about those Kanye West lines, boys and girls.  Imagine having a Mercedes-Benz that people are used to seeing you in.  But one day you pull up in your other Benz.  Which confuses everyone, because just last week you were in your other other Benz!)

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In case you haven’t been to a baseball game since the 1980s, you may not know that teams play brief snippets of popular songs before each player comes to bat.  

There are “walk-up” songs representing every music genre – from hip-hop to metal to country to Latin.

Some players choose new walk-up songs frequently, while others stick with the same recording.  (Bryce Harper has used Moby’s “Flower” for many years.)  

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Before the New York Yankees’ home opener last Friday, Empire Sports Media – an independent digital media company that covers New York’s professional teams – posted the team’s starting lineup, along with each player’s walk-up song:

The Yankees’ walk-up music runs the gamut.  Veteran sluggers Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, and Giancarlo Stanton walk up to the plate to hip-hop recordings.  Ryan McMahon uses a song by the country artist Hardy while Jose Caballero prefers Dandy Yankee.  Trent Grisham goes with a contemporary Christian record.

My two favorite Yankee walk-up songs are Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” (which is favored by catcher Austin Wells) and “Otis,” the Kanye West/Jay-Z collaboration that samples Otis Redding’s recording of “Try a Little Tenderness” (which is the walk-up choice of second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr.).

“Otis” is a silly-bazilly song – its lyrics will remind you just how clever and witty Kanye and Jay-Z could be when they put their mind to it.  (I did a deep dive into those lyrics in 2013.  Click here to read that post, which was published exactly 13 years ago today.)  

Kudos to Jazz Chisholm for choosing “Otis” as his walk-up music.

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The Spike Jonze-directed “Otis” video is one of my all-time favorites.

That video features Kanye and Jay-Z having the time of their lives cutting up a $350,000 Maybach sedan, filling the back seat with hot chicks, and then driving around much too fast.

Click here to watch the “Otis” video.

Kanye West (ft. Mos Def) – "Drunk and Hot Girls" (2007)

Driving around town

Looking for the best spot

For the drunk and hot girls

Eastern Shore Undercover is a social media-based news source for the good citizens of the lower Eastern Shore region of Maryland – Wicomico and Worcester Counties, to be precise. 

Click here to visit its website, which has links you can use to follow Eastern Shore Undercover on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram.

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Most of Eastern Shore Undercover’s content relates to incidents that resulted in calls to local police and sheriff’s departments.  (It looks like they get much of their information by monitoring law enforcement radio communications.) 

There are items relating to complaints about domestic abuse, illegal panhandling, public intoxication and drug use, fights, and various other low crimes and misdemeanors – as well as 911 calls about traffic accident injuries, heart attacks, and the like. 

Here’s a recent Eastern Shore Undercover Facebook post that caught my eye: 

As you can see, that post had attracted 259 comments at the time I viewed it.  

No surprise that most of the comments were from men:

But quite a few ladies chimed in as well:

I have to say that the women of Salisbury, MD sound like they are a lot of fun:

Last but certainly not least:

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We’ll feature some more Eastern Shore Undercover items in the next 2 or 3 lines.

In the meantime, click here to enjoy “Drunk and Hot Girls” from Kanye West’s best-selling 2007 album, Graduation.  (I don’t know if the young lady walking around the Irish Penny Pub & Grill parking lot nekkid as a jaybird was hot, but she must have been very, very drunk – after all, it was below freezing in Salisbury that night.)

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Kanye West (ft. Desiigner) – "Pt. 2" (2016)

All his cash

Market crashed

The stock market certainly didn’t crash in 2017 – the S&P 500 ended the year almost 20% higher than it was at the beginning of 2017.  

That was good news for Kanye West, among others.

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Ladies, were you happy with the Christmas gifts your husband and/or boyfriend gave you this year?

Kim Kardashian West

I’m pretty sure that Kim Kardashian was happy with the gifts she received from Kanye West.

When Kim opened the box that Kanye gave her, she found items from Disney, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, and Adidas.

For example, there was a Disney Mickey Mouse figure, a pair of Adidas socks, Apple headphones, and Amazon and Netflix gift cards.

“And I’m like, ‘That’s so sweet!’” Kim said.

Kanye gave Kim Adidas socks . . .

I guarantee you Kim was not really thinking “That’s so sweet!” when she opened Kanye’s gift.  She was thinking WHERE ARE MY F*CKING DIAMONDS???

No need to get your knickers in a twist, Kim.  Kanye’s no fool – he knows better than to think you’ll be satisfied with socks, headphones, a couple of gift cards, and a stuffed Mickey Mouse.

It turns out that Kanye not only gave the missus trinkets from Disney, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, and Adidas.  He also gave her hundreds of shares of stock in those companies.

A photo Kim posted on Instagram (she later deleted it) shows the stock certificates that were in the gift box that Kanye gave her for Christmas.

For example, she received 920 shares of Disney stock.  Those shares have a market value of just under $100,000 (which may explain the odd number of shares he gave her).

. . . as well as Adidas stock

Kanye gave Kim 995 shares of Adidas stock, which have about the same value as the Disney shares.    Assuming he gave Apple, Netflix, and Amazon stock worth the same amount, his gift was worth a cool half million altogether.

Which isn’t all that much, relatively speaking.  (Forbes magazine says Kim’s 2016 income was $45.5 million.  That’s over twice as much as her hubby’s income, although Kanye’s net worth may be double hers.)

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“Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 2” was released in 2016 on Kanye’s seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo.  “West just drops broken pieces of his psyche all over the album and challenges you to fit them together,” according to Rolling Stone, which called the album “both a mess and a masterpiece.”

West first said that The Life of Pablo would only be available through Tidal, a new streaming service owned by Jay-Z, West, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Jack White, Daft Punk, Madonna, Jason Aldean, and a number of other famous musicians.  After an updated version of the album was released for streaming on Spotify, Apple music, and Google Play, a class-action lawsuit was filed that claimed that West never intended to make the album available only on Tidal, but said that in hopes that his fans would download and use the struggling streaming app. 

The day that The Life of Pablo was released, West tweeted that he was $53 million in debt and asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to invest a billion dollars in his ideas.

Here’s “Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 2”:

Kanye West (ft. Jamie Foxx) – "Gold Digger' (2004)

Now, I ain't sayin' she a gold digger

But she ain't messin' with no broke n*ggas

  

If you listen to a lot of news/talk radio, you’ve probably heard the commercials for TermProvider, Inc. – also known as “Big Lou Insurance” – which claims to be one of the largest term life insurance brokers in the country.

Big Lou’s message is quite different from the typical life insurance advertisement.  His target is the middle-aged guy who’s put on more than a few pounds and is taking meds for elevated cholesterol levels and high blood pressure.  At some point, he’s traded in his first wife for a newer model, who is afraid that he’s going to drop dead of a heart attack or a stroke any day.  So she’s been nagging him to pony up for a big-ass life insurance policy that will allow her to continue to live in the manner to which she’s become accustomed if he suddenly keels over.

Here’s one of Big Lou’s charmingly honest radio spots:

Do you have three ex-wives, and your current trophy wife wants a life insurance policy three times the size of the policies you had to purchase for your previous mistakes?  If so, you need to call Big Lou. . . . Big Lou is intimately familiar with your problems, and if you’re 50 or 60 years old and in reasonably good health, a one million dollar policy should only cost about a hundred to two hundred dollars per month.  Big Lou may have a solution for your previous policies as well.  You may even save enough to lighten the load on your new one million dollar policy.  Remember, call Big Lou.  He’s like you . . . except he’s only on number two.  

(You can click here to hear that radio spot.)

Here's a Big Lou ad that's aimed at trophy wives: 

Ladies, is his waistline expanding? . . . If so, you need to call Big Lou.  Big Lou can fit him into a term life policy even if he is a bit porky, has type II diabetes, or has high blood pressure. . . . Big Lou can show you affordable rates for one million in coverage – instantly making your man a bit more attractive, if you know what I mean.  

(Sounds like the honeymoon is over, pal.)

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A word of advice to all you trophy wives whose hubbies buy insurance from Big Lou: be patient!

I understand that it’s no fun when Mr. Expanding Waistline has one drink too many and gets all frisky.  It will be tempting to take matters into your own hands rather than biding your time.  But the spouse is always suspect number one when there’s a murder.  

Better to keep feeding him big steaks and baked potatoes with plenty of butter and sour cream, and saying “You stay on the couch and watch your football game, honey – I'll bring you another beer.”  Pretty soon, nature will take its course.

Even if you’re a few years past your prime when that heart attack occurs, you’ll still be able to attract a virile young boy toy with the help of that million-dollar insurance payout.

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Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” (which features Jamie Foxx) is a match for Big Lou’s radio commercials when it comes to cynicism.    

West originally intended the song for the female rapper Shawnna, and the lyrics were written from a female’s point of view:

I'm not sayin' I'm a gold digger

But I ain't messin' with no broke n*ggas  

But Shawnna decided not to record the song, so West rewrote the lyrics to make them more suitable for a male singer.

“Gold Digger” was a huge hit.  It sold a million digital downloads in only seven weeks, and quickly rose to #1 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in 2004.  

Here’s the Hype Williams-directed music video for “Gold Digger” (which features the "clean" version of the song):

Click below to buy the explicit version of the song from Amazon:

James Brown – "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" (1966)

Man made the cars to take us over the road

Man made the train to carry the heavy load ...

This is a man's, man's, man's world

Every so often, 2 or 3 lines feels compelled to write a long, involved “think” piece on some complicated and controversial topic.

Whenever 2 or 3 lines does this, things never turn out well – especially when the complicated and controversial topic involves women.

But 2 or 3 lines never learns.  Hence, today’s post.

My choice of the 1966 James Brown hit, “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” as the featured song for today’s post proves just what a well-developed sense of irony I have.  Because it is most definitely NOT a man’s man’s man’s world fifty years later.

To wit:

– Only 49% of college-age Americans are female.  But women are now receiving some 60% of all degrees granted by American colleges and universities.  (When men constituted 60% of the college population, that was viewed – and rightfully so – as a clear indication that women weren’t being treated as equals.  But have you heard any expressions of concern about the fact that the tables have turned and 60% of new college graduates are female?)   

– Women now dominate the service professions, while industries that have a higher proportion of male employees – like construction and manufacturing – are shrinking.  In fact, three-quarters of the eight million jobs lost during the Great Recession of 2008-09 were lost by males. 

– The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964.  And the gap is growing, too: ten million more females than males voted in 2012.  (If you women out there don’t like the last half-dozen or so Presidents we’ve elected, you have only yourselves to blame.)

– Within a few months, women will likely be leading the governments of the United States, Britain, and Germany – the three largest Western economies.  (This is good news for American, British, and German males: it won't be our fault when things go FUBAR, which things always do sooner or later.)

In 2010, an Atlantic magazine cover story famously declared “The End of Men.”  

Perhaps the most startling fact noted in that story was how rapidly the traditional gender preferences of prospective parents around the world were changing.  According to that article, American parents who utilized a new sperm-selecting technology that enabled them to choose whether they wanted a boy or a girl were choosing to have a girl 75 percent of the time.  

Even feminists are realizing the pendulum has swung too far.

The Washington Post recently featured a column by Cathy Young, an “equity feminist” (that’s the best kind), who decried male-bashing:

[A] lot of feminist rhetoric today does cross the line from attacks on sexism into attacks on men, with a strong focus on personal behavior: the way they talk, the way they approach relationships, even the way they sit on public transit.  Male faults are stated as sweeping condemnations; objecting to such generalizations is taken as a sign of complicity.  Meanwhile, similar indictments of women would be considered grossly misogynistic.

For example, it is now common for women to complain about “manterrupting,” a neologism that is used to describe the supposedly common male practice of interrupting female speakers in business meetings rather than listening to what women have to say.

Kanye West "manterrupting" Taylor Swift

Here’s what a Time magazine columnist had to say about “manterrupting”:

[A]sk any woman in the working world and we all recognize the phenomenon.  We speak up in a meeting, only to hear a man’s voice chime in louder.  We pitch an idea, perhaps too uncertainly – only to have a dude repeat it with authority.  We may possess the skill, but he has the right vocal cords – which means we shut up, losing our confidence (or worse, the credit for the work).

But there’s a teeny-weeny problem with all the talk about “manterrupting.”  

While a 2014 study confirmed that male listeners interrupted female speakers more frequently than they interrupted male speakers, that same study found that female listeners interrupted female speakers even more often than male listeners did.  

Maybe “manterrupting” should be “femterrupting”?

More from Cathy Young’s Post column:  

Things have gotten to a point where casual low-level male-bashing is a constant white noise in the hip progressive online media.  Take a recent [online] piece titled, “Men Are Creepy, New Study Confirms.”  The actual study found something very different: that both men and women overwhelmingly think someone described as “creepy” is more likely to be male. 

PSYCHOLOGY

Men Are Creepy, New Study Confirms

Imagine if a study had found that most people think that someone who is described as “cheap” is more likely to be a Jew.  Can you imagine a story reporting on the findings of that study being headlined, “Jews Are Cheap, New Study Confirms”?

What’s bad for the goose is perfectly OK for the gander when it comes to misogyny (bad!) vs. misandry (not a problem)  at least in the eyes of those feminists who view sexism as a one-way street.  They believe that gender-based prejudice isn’t sexism unless it’s directed against the oppressed and disadvantaged – i.e., females.  Since males hold the power in our society, they’re fair game.

Except for the fact that males don’t really hold the power any more.  Remember: ten million more women than men voted in the 2012 presidential election.  

That trend may sound like a bad thing for men, but it does offer one big advantage for males.  We’ll explain what that advantage is in the next 2 or 3 lines.

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“It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” was recorded back when males did hold the power in our society.

Officially, the song was co-written by James Brown and his girlfriend Betty Jean Newsome.  Brown later said she had nothing to do with the song, while Newsome claimed just the opposite and took the “Godfather of Soul” to court – unsuccessfully.

Betty Jean Newsome in 2007

The Village Voice published a long and sordid story about the Brown-Newsome relationship and the squabbling over who deserved credit for writing “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” in 2007.  Click here to read it.

Here’s my favorite paragraph from that article:

[Newsome] says Brown asked her to have a baby with him, but she rebuffed him, saying, "I ain't gonna be having one of your little monkey babies."  The Famous Flames, Newsome recalls, marveled at the fact that James didn't kill her right then and there.

Here’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: