Is it March yet?

It’s a sad day here at Drunk and Stupid. I awoke this morning to news of the passing of James Yancey aka Jay Dee aka J. Dilla. If you haven’t heard of Jay Dee, he was one of the most sought after, loved and respected artists/producers in all of hip-hop. Though you may not know his name, you’ve definitely heard his talent at some point or another, as his beats permeated all of hip hop as well as many other genres of music. Jay Dee first came to prominence with the Detroit based group, Slum Village. Shortly after leaving, Slum Village, Jay Dee established himself as a top notch producer as well as an extremely underrated MC. While he had been battling health problems for some time, his death came as a surprise to most. Though Jay Dee actually passed on Friday afternoon, I didn’t become aware of his untimely death until this morning when I logged onto okayplayer.com. Proof of Dilla’s influence is all over the web today, as numerous people have posted links in tribute to the beatsmith. If you’re interested in reading more, or hearing some of Jay Dee’s songs, click on some of the links that I’ve embedded here. Finally, Jay Dee’s last album, Donuts, was released last Tuesday and it’s already in regular rotation ‘round these parts. Check it out.

I was going to bash Eddie Sutton today for getting a DUI on the way to meet his team’s charter to Texas A&M. Yet, with the news of Dilla’s passing, it’s become quite obvious that Eddie was just trying fight through the pain of Jay Dee’s death the only way that he knew how…Boone’s Farm and Hydrocodone.

I’d like to say that I have some sports related musings for this afternoon, but the weekend that was left me with little to no blog worthy thoughts on the current state of the sports world. There’s just not that much to talk about when it comes to sports this time of year. College Basketball is about another week away from really revving up for the stretch run, pitchers and catchers haven’t reported yet, and nobody really cares about the Winter Olympics. Sure, the Pistons-Heat game was fantastic yesterday (at least the 4th quarter was), but does anybody even really care about individual games in the NBA during February? I love the NBA (I even order League Pass each season) and I don’t even care that much. In all honesty, I really wish I could just go into hibernation until the first week of March when Spring (Training) has sprung, the Madness has begun (at least in it’s Conference tourney form) and the good folks at Home Box Office finally get off their well compensated asses long enough to bless us with another season of The Sopranos. I guess things could be worse, I could be working seven days a week (for below minimum wage) at a Minor League Baseball stadium while being treated with all the dignity and respect of a hubcap washer at the local Kia dealership. Not that anybody would ever take a job like that or anything.

Because of the dearth of sports this weekend, I was forced to watch (and think about) other things. As you’ll quickly realize, this is not a good thing for me. Here's hoping that UConn-Villanova supplys us with some much needed sports-related excitement. Until then though:

- I was hanging out at my friend Sammy’s house this weekend as he was flipping channels in a (futile) effort to find something to watch. Eventually I persuaded Sammy to put on the Gonzaga-Stanford game, but not before he sat on TNT’s airing of Underworld for an extended period of time. As I sat watching this movie, a question popped into my head. A question that I will pose to you:

Vampire movies have become very popular recently. It seems everytime you go to the movies you end up seeing a trailer or poster for some new movie involving vampires. Though I’ve yet to see any of these movies in their entirety, I’ve seen enough of them to notice a common theme: Money. All of the vampires that appear in these movies are extremely well fitted. They have the biggest and best weapons and are constantly wearing a ton of black leather(trenchcoats, pants, body armor, etc.). Beyond this, they routinely drive rare and expensive cars while also residing in some extremely large and finely designed lairs. Some of these vampires even have their own cutting edge technology for human hunting (or whatever it is they do). So here’s my question: Where are the Vampires getting all of their funds? These people are clearly busy during the evening hours and, by way of being a vampire, are sleeping all day which, in my estimation, doesn’t leave a lot of time for gainful employment. Are vampires, by nature, all stock traders? This would allow them to work from home while rendering them able to trade on many of the world’s stock markets. Do most vampires speculate in Real Estate? The ability to work from home applies here as well, though having to always meet buyers at night could prove troublesome. Sammy says that, "It’s old money” and that vampires all come from rich families, thus allowing these blood drinkers ample time to pursue their singular passion. I disagreed, saying that there are far too many vampires for them all to come from wealthy families. Somebody’s got to know something here.

Another thing thats really been bothering me of late is the abundance of actors who are now doing commercial voice-overs. It used to be that people could make their living off of being a good voice-over guy/girl. Those days are over, my friend. Now days you’ve got everybody from Kiefer Sutherland to Charlie Sheen selling the various goods and services of any number of companies on your television all day and all night. What the fuck? You guys weren’t making enough money on your tremendously over-hyped TV shows? The bloated paychecks you receive for your appearances at charity events weren’t paying your hooker bills anymore? Do you people just enjoy taking food off the table of hard working voice over actors? These people didn’t have your well established Hollywood pedigrees to fall back on when times got tough for them. No, a smooth, melodic voice was their only chance to make it in the cut throat world of TV and Radio. Now they don’t even have that, not when you’ve put them and their kids out on the street…and all because you wanted to be able to swim around in your pool of cash and gold like some real life version of Scrooge McDuck.

You might not recognize Tobacco Bob, but I guarantee you'd recognize his voice.