The camel’s back!

To think, when I woke up just now, I didn't even know it was Thursday. I think it's because I spent Monday sitting on a bus, and so Tuesday was kinda like Monday to me. And it's not like I had to do shit these past couple of days that was for real dependent on what day it is. (I didn't, right?)

I cranked up the Internets, saw some shit that said it was Thursday, and I was like, "Damn, it's Thursday?"

You know that means: Time to do something progressive, for my community. Time to check to see if there's any new Carmella Bing.

More often than not there isn't, but today there was. Bonus! It was especially sweet, since I'd read, a few weeks ago, that she retired from Internets pr0n to go back to her career as an escort. Which was, of course, fucking devastating for me personally.

I mean, I suppose I could still fly down to Florida and pay to have sex with her. Which would be even cooler than watching her break off some douche on the Internets. But obviously that's not gonna happen while I'm working for motherfucking XXL.

Any pussy I'm gonna pay for is probably gonna have AIDS and a c-section scar.

So that ended up being a nice surprise. If it had anything to do with the current state of the economy, then I guess that's the rare occasion this shit has worked out in my favor. I also notice they've dropped the prices of sandwiches at Quiznos.

All told, this has been one of my better weeks in a minute. Not that that's saying a whole, but still.

Similarly, I see there's been an entire publicity campaign for a new Jay-Z album that's been kicked off in the mere matter of hours since I fell into my most recent alcohol and discouragement-induced coma.

How exciting!

Last night, Kanye West brought Jay-Z out at one of his Glow in the Dark shows in New York (nullus?) and Jay did a new Kanye-produced joint that's gonna be on the Blueprint 3, his new album, coming this fall or whatever. I'm sure you fruits have all seen the video of this shit by now.

What did I think? Well, it's hard to say, based on the brief snippet Jay and 'Ye played for us, but what I heard didn't strike me as being all that impressive. The beat by Kanye West sounded like it might have been cool, but Jay-Z's raps didn't do anything at all to inspire confidence that he's gonna bring his a-game on this album.

First of all, I can't believe he included that line in the beginning about the guy from Oasis. That shit is old news at this point, let alone when the album comes out. And the line itself sounds like he might have had Kanye West write if for him. Then he breaks out into the first lines of "Wonderwall." So gay.

Also gay: That punchline towards the end where he's talking about how some broad is sweating him in a club and he has to tell her his wife is here. Not only does it suffer from the same issue as the Oasis line, where it's just not that clever, but who wants to hear a guy rap about how he can't fuck broads because he's married? Nobody. Not even other married guys.

I can see it now: This shit's just gonna be another Kingdom Come, with him rapping, poorly, about shit no one wants to hear about - except maybe (mercifully, I might add), with less Just Blaze production. Or, god forbid, those ass clowns who had so many beats on American Gangster.

And I wouldn't be surprised if, like Kingdom Come, the shit ends up being more interesting for the various marketing strategies and ancillary business matters associated with the album rather than the actual music contained therein.

Already, there's Jay-Z on the cover of the new 15th anniversary issue of Vibe. Which, in retrospect, should have been my first clue that there's a new Jay-Z album coming pretty soon. Granted Jay's status amongst the kind of people who read Vibe is such that they probably could have thrown him on the cover anyway. But you know how these TIs like to have some sort of product tie-in with these magazine covers. It's probably part of the deal in which these labels buy advertising. In fact, my former colleague Sickamore has the new issue, and he says there's 20 pages of Roc-A-Wear ads in it.

Hmm...

Speaking of former colleagues, the cover story on Jay-Z in the new Vibe is written by none other than my old boss here at XXL, Elliott "Bad Habit" Wilson. I figured he might start writing stories for Vibe back when he got let go, since his wife is the boss there and all. But when months went by with no stories by BH that I'm aware of (not that I was checking that hard), I figured that wasn't gonna happen, maybe because they thought it would look weird.

I used to work at a Hardees where there was a similar arrangement. One of the assistant managers was dating this guy that used to work there, and I remember the guy used to steal a shedload of chicken. (This was back when Hardees used to sell fried chicken.) I asked him about it, and he said he would take it home and bake it in the oven. He offered me some, but I replied that I don't really cook like that. Which I don't, to this day. I'm not saying the TIs that own Vibe need to be on the lookout for shit disappearing around the office. I'm just saying.

Finally, speaking of the TIs, there's rumors circulating about that the deal Jay recently signed with concert promoter Live Nation might have fallen through, and he might be trying to sign with Warner Music, which is staffed by a lot of people he used to work with at Def Jam - including the original Tall Israeli, Lyor Cohen. Or maybe Jay's just trying to have his weed carriers sign with them instead of his own supposed new Roc Nation label. Someone over at Media Take Out claims they've seen Jay-Z going into the Warner Music Offices twice this week, but you know how that goes.

The grating, cackling Puerto Rican woman who hosts Sirius Shade 45's morning show asked Jay about it today (I'm assuming - I'm still regaining my bearings), and he just kinda laughed it off. But what else was he gonna do? He can't just take these TI's money and talk shit about them on the radio. There's probably some sort of clause against that in his contract. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if this 360 deal Jay-Z is in isn't working out as well as he would have liked. That's what he gets for chasing every big payday some TI waves in front of that huge nose of his. As if he's really that desperate at this stage in his career.