That’s gonna leave a mark

Leave it up to the almighty TMZ to finally come up with a picture of Rihanna with her face all fucked the fuck up.

For a while there, it looked like there might not be a picture. I'm sure Chris Brown was hoping there wouldn't be, regardless of whether or not he's as guilty as the media would have you think.

Looking at this picture... well, yeah, she definitely got her ass whooped, though it still isn't clear to me the extent of her injuries. I look worse every day when I roll off the couch at the ass crack of noon, but a decade-plus of hard living will do that to you. I'd heard that she was close to losing an eye, and obviously that wasn't the case. Maybe she looked worse the next day, once a black eye had time to form.

I've heard that this might be a picture taken right there at the scene, to get an idea of the extent of the injuries, for posterity, but the last time I checked, TMZ wasn't saying where the picture came from. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't some especially lucky paparazzi. It's not usually the m.o. of 5-0 to put people's business out in the streets like that, but who knows. As big as this story has gotten, TMZ could probably afford to pay way more than you can make being a cop.

That's a lot of donuts.

I was in my car on my way to get a sandwich just now, and wouldn't you know, this was all they were talking about on the local "hip-hop" station. Girl after girl was calling up talking about how they had been victims of domestic violence (every girl's been a victim now, apparently), and how Rihanna needs to leave his ass, even if he is Chris Brown, and how his career is so over.

A couple of observations:

1) I guess Rihanna does have to leave him now, even if she doesn't want to. There's no way her handlers would allow the two of them to get back together after these pictures. It would be career suicide. You see what happened to Whitney Houston after she actually went so far as to marry Bobby Brown. And I'm not even buying the argument that he corrupted her. I tend to believe Bobby Brown when he says that it was the opposite. Whitney was the one who had the coke. Bobby just had a lot of kids.

2) Chris Brown's career probably is over. Best case scenario, maybe he can put out a sex tape with the fat Kardashian sister (I'm not gonna lie - I'd watch) and get a series on VH1, but I doubt he's gonna sell very many records ever again. But the reason is not just because he had the sheer balls to put a shoe on Rihanna. I can think any number of artists who, if I heard they beat the crap out of a woman, I'd probably think less of them as men, if I thought much of them in the first place, but I'd still be checking for a new album, in case there were some jams.

Take for example Nas. In all likelihood, a new Nas album isn't gonna be very good anyway. He obviously smoked away his ability to tell a good idea from a bad idea a long time ago. That having been said, of course I'm gonna listen to any new Nas album at least once, in case he somehow accidentally made some Illmatic-level material. Let's say Nas somehow did manage to pull a late career triumph out of his ass. Am I not gonna cop just because he found out his new son isn't actually his and had to regulate? Nigga, please. I'm not gonna cop anyway. But I will DL and have a look, as they say in some corners of the Internets.

The thing with Chris Brown is: he couldn't sing for shit anyway. He was like a fifth rate Usher knock off, and who would even want to listen to the real Usher? Girls didn't like Chris Brown because of his songs. They liked him because he was tall and light skinted and he was such a good dancer. No homo. Which is why I doubt he'll ever have a hard time procuring some stank for his hanglow, despite his reputation. If he gets with the right people, he might even be able to spin this.

Chris Brown, if you're reading this, holler at your boy. I've got a few ideas for how your career could continue from this point. In case you're wondering, yes, I do have a college degree in marketing. I can try to dig it up, if necessary, thought it might be water logged at this point. You can find my email addresses listed on my own site, ByronCrawford.com aka ThisIsUnfuckedBoy.