HOPEFUL? Now take a bow.

Ever since Jesse Jackson put his whole foot and ankles into his mouth last week, by stating that he felt Barack Obama was speaking down to black people with his faith-based program initiative, and then went further by stating he wanted to cut his nuts off, I've been thinking.

I've been thinking that yes, my first instinct was indeed right.

JESSE JACKSON IS JEALOUS AS HELL THAT BARACK OBAMA IS THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT!

I mean look at the facts....

Two black men

Both raised by their mothers, and grandmothers

Both raised lower class to middle class

Both went to good schools, and received great education

Both became pillars in Chicago politics

Both live on the southside of Chicago

Both ran for president

Both had platforms surrounding the idea of HOPE!

Yet, Barack became the nominee and by this time in '84 and then again in '88, we were watching Michael Dukakis smiling and shaking hands, while Jesse went fishing. While he has built an international name for himself, he has also somehow not done enough to have SUPERSTAR status!

There weren't celebrities writing songs about him. He certainly didn't break records by raising almost $55 million dollars within a month during his primary. He also never was able to defeat a political machine like the Clintons. Let's face it, you lose to Michael Dukakis, it's a wrap.

Yes, Jesse Jackson is the epitome of my parent's generation. All talk - no action! I say it all the time, our generation has to pick up the pieces left on the ground by our parents. Pieces that will somehow move our community forward instead of keeping us stagnant since the civil rights era. Jesse Jackson's message of change, come on now, we all know it: KEEP HOPE ALIVE! But once you get that hope, what do you do with it? Barack, on the other hand, said, we have the AUDACITY TO HOPE, and then took it further by saying, "Can we win the white house? YES WE CAN! His message is precise, hopeful, yet realistic. He is about taking a stand, and doing what needs to be done, truthfully by any means necessary, but in a calm and peaceful way. I imagine that infamous conversation that took place between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King served as the blueprint for the very message Obama is giving today.

Jesse Jackson had his moment - twice! He had his time during his prime, and he fell short. Perhaps, it wasn't the right time. Perhaps it wasn't enough. Either way, 20 years later, here we are again, except now, this hopefulness is working. So my advice to Jesse is to take a bow, be proud of the road you set, but stop HATING because the new flock is making it work. Not only are they making it work, but we have HOPE that it will bring the change we so desperately need.

Hip-Hop ROCKS!!!

The Glastonbury Festival is a 38 year-old festival with music, mostly rock that was founded by Michael Eavis. It first took place just one day after Jimi Hendrix died on Eavis' farm, where attendees paid one lire and got a glass of free milk from the farm's cows. Over the years, this festival has played host to acts such as Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, Sinead O'Connor, Joe Cocker, Oasis, Radiohead and Sting. It is this rock and blues sort of spiritual hippy concert that can only be compared to Woodstock, except Glastonbury occurs every year.

Through the years, the numbers have gone from 3,500 people to well over 100,000. The ticket sales usually fund big charities and attendees have made mud a second home. While the outdoor concert normally takes place in June, it is usually cool and rainy in England at this time. Last year's festival featured The Arctic Monkeys headlining the Pyramid Stage on Friday night and The Who rocked as the closing band on Sunday. Other acts included Bjork, Shirley Bassey, Iggy Pop, CSS, The Go Team, Amy Winehouse, MIA, Kate Nash, Billy Bragg, Corinne Bailey Rae, Damian Marley, Lily Allen and The Chemical Brothers. There was an attendance of 153,000. Tickets were £145 which included a program and the tickets sold out in one hour and forty-five minutes. However, it rained like the heavens were opening up and the mud was so bad, people came in plastic bags.

So fast forward to June 2008 - it is just a week before the festival and 137,000 tickets have been sold with about 3,000 left unsold. Highly unusual for the festival and some critics believe it is because American rapper Jay-Z is headlining the pyramid on Saturday. In fact Noel Gallagher from the band, Oasis, said he felt having a hip-hopper headline took away from the spirit of the festival. So amid much criticism and days of speculation, HOV hit the stage.....

AND MADE HISTORY...



BUT IT DIDN'T END THERE, BEFORE HOV HIT THE STAGE, LUPE GAVE AN INCREDIBLE
APPETIZER!



CHITOWN STAND UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lupe put his foot in this performance, OMG! And they had the nerve, the actual audacity to question whether or not hip-hop had a place at Glastonbury??? WHAT? Oasis doesn't have anything on either one of these performances. This is the kind of thing, that affirms why I love hip-hop so much. They made freggin history. I love how when they panned to the audience, those British kids knew like every word. So to Noel Gallagher, breathe in and breathe out, in fact inhale it real good, that smell is called REAL HIP-HOP, and in case you were wondering, it's taking OVER!