How Real is Real

Some years ago, the run of the mill hip-hop album would be structured like this:

• Start off representing your neighborhood, your [commercialized or authentic] gang, and or yourself
• Continue the theme of how real you are by ensuring that you or your gang will kill anyone
• Do a few songs for the women who don't mind being disrespected or who disrespect themselves
• Add another that really shows your soft side
• Thank God/ask God for forgiveness for...uh...being able to do all of the above

The Cost to Provide

In a time where the camera adores dysfunction, even the most desensitized has got to feel for little Eva, the daughter of reality television personalities Mimi Faust and Stevie J.  She's been ushered through VH1's mud pool for a couple years now.  And even thought this is an experience she'll probably only remember through the digital recordings, it's really unfortunate that the bad seeds of her family are been sown while on cable television.  An Instagram pic I saw captured a child (not really Eva) with a very disappointing look on her face.  It was meant to give the reaction Eva may have had after discovering her mother starred in a porn film.  It read Mimi's daughter was at school like.  Again, she's only three so it's unlikely she sees the film or the IG picture...well, while she's three.  'Cause with this being the start to her family life as she knows it...in a few more years, who knows what she'll see or even be a part of.

Good Friday*

Yesterday in Richmond, an upcoming Good Friday celebration got an asterisk...with the asterisk meaning *certain crimes non-applicable.  And in an opportunity to really demonstrate what makes Good Friday good,  many heads of church fumbled; opposed to embracing the broken...as Christ did...they pushed the broken away.  However, the reaction that [allegedly] encouraged Geronimo Aguilar, the embattled former pastor charged with several counts of child molestation, to step down from a pre-Easter service that featured an all-804 line up, will go mostly unnoticed.  Because for most of us Aguilar's reported transgression is too much for us...so we'll pray for him from a distance.