Mark Cuban, the owner of HDNetFilms is offering a job to anyone who can come up with a way for him to sweeten the tough economics of profiting upfront from a movie while in the theaters. Cuban should set up a meeting with Tyler Perry, who Business Week gave an ROI award for making two successful films for under 5 million dollars each.
First, Perry would probably explain how he self-produced the films without using sex or violence to make it sell, a trick I'm still waiting for the powers in hip-hop to learn. Then he would go on to describe the guerilla marketing tactics he used to get churches to buy out blocks of seats in the theaters and bus people to the film. Lastly, I'm sure Cuban would be schooled on how the pirated versions of Perry's "Madea" plays helped surge his popularity more than any paid for advertising.
... and vote on some Internet polls! These two polls will determine the best and worst of the current major, regional styles of hip hop dance. Now I know these categories are quite broad, dance styles can get granular, and many will bitch about how the representative videos really aren't representative of their regional "culture." Whatever. But seriously if you think you have a video link that better represents any of the 4 major regions, feel free to share in the comments and I might just switch the current ones out.
If in doubt- don't necessarily vote for the dance style itself, but for the regional "movement," as they are sometimes called. Remember, your vote may very well determine the future of urban hip hop dance. Ha.
Patient: Doctor, every time I wear my grill my gums hurt. What should I do? Doctor: Stop wearing your grill!
That sums up this MSNBC article on the dangers of wearing grills, or as they call it, “removable metal fixtures” for the teeth. According to dentists, grills can trap bacteria that cause gum infections and cavities. Your best bet is to brush before and after wearing a grill, and even brush the grill itself. And no, brushing your teeth while still wearing your grill doesn’t count.
The whole article is tongue-in-cheek hilarious, but you have to click through to MSNBC’s poll to get to the real comedy:
Is wearing dental bling worth the damage it could do to your teeth?
Hell to the no. Messing up my teeth is too high a cost.
Depends, if I got my grill up in there for just a few hours a day, I'm not that worried.
Not to make this blog sound like a Jay-Z fanboy site, but these guys are killing it with their Young Hov series of home made videos. More videos and a "trailer" after the jump. Credits ripped from YouTube:
"Starring 13 year old Samgoma Edwards, created AND DIRECTED By his brother Samtubia Edwards and CO DIRECTED AND PRODUCED with friend Chris Alverez. "
Jay-Z is widely considered the GOAT of hip-hop, except for some nostalgic purists who still like to throw out old school names as contenders, and one editor who calls Eminem the greatetst rapper alive in order to stir up controversy. The big discussion (at least on blogs and message boards) has now shifted from "Who's the greatest", to "Which album is the greatest's greatest"?
To answer that, I created a this-or-that style poll on Ning that pairs up Jay's albums against each other. I figure his best album will be the one that can beat all the others head-to-head. It worked for Lion-O, so why not with music?
Until I can get the bug shook out of my regular blog template, I've reverted the site to a temporary template that will allow Michael and I to post without seeing error messages.
If there are any MovebleType geniuses out there who know how to troubleshoot for broken tags, and want to help us out on this one, let me know.
