Poisoning the well: still not the best way to make friends

Joe Berkowitz, the fudge from the Awl who tried to conflate hip-hop with Hitler, must have a Google Alert for his name, in case anyone finds about the collection of tiny shoes in his attic.

He found my post from the other day in which I took his post, ripped it to shreds, dropped it in a urinal and took a piss on it, like in my favorite scene from Hustle and Flow (nullus), and fired off an angry email in which he attempted to debunk my post, mostly by splitting hairs and grasping at straws.

This was last Thursday, but I didn't realize it until just now, when I was alerted to it via what looks like some sort of spam Twitter account that posts links to sites that sell viagra, vicodin and what have you, along with the occasional link to a blog that's legit, but obscure enough that literally no one would recognize it, like Joe Berkowitz's personal blog And Now For Something Completely Unnecessary. I'll admit, I search for my own name on Twitter on occasion, but mostly because Jean Grae updates way too often for me to follow her (which would fuck up my timeline), and I need to know whether or not she's talking shit about me. I know one time she threatened to knock my teeth out, or something to that effect. I'd have to check with my (Jewish) lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that's grounds for me to do this to her.

I searched for the name Joe Berkowitz in my gmail and, wouldn't you know, he had emailed me. It must have gotten lost somewhere in the piles of email I receive from bum-ass rappers looking for free publicity, the anti-illegal immigration listserv I belong to, sites that sell pr0n DVDs and what have you. It makes you wonder what other emails have flown under my radar. A girl could have sent me a picture of her cans, and I wouldn't even know. (Hey, it's happened before.) There was also an email from a guy named Joe Berkowitz bitching and moaning about a review of an Atmosphere album I wrote a few years ago. I wonder if that's the same guy. If so, that would help explain how sensitive and in touch with his femininity he seems.

The text of the email I got last Thursday is the exact same as the version posted on And Now For Someone Completely Unnecessary, except the one on the blog also includes a brief introduction to yours truly, as if it would be read by anyone other than someone with a Google Alert for my name. (Check the comments section.) It's a good thing no one gives a shit about this guy. People might get the wrong idea about me.

This part at the very beginning is what I meant the other day when I was talking about how closeted teh ghey guys will purposely look for ways to insert their junk into the conversation, for no apparent reason.

Anyway, one particular person found my essay to have rubbed him the wrong way. It did not rub him correctly at all. He is very exacting when it comes to the way he gets rubbed.

That's actually true, but I don't need another guy pointing that out, and anyway, I'm at a loss for what that has to do with the price of tea in China. This fruit must have a thing for black dudes. [||]

His name is Byron Crawford and he is a blogger for XXL, the Hertz Rental Cars/Burger King of the hip-hop magazine industry.

What's that supposed to mean?

Then he inserts a picture of me, the same one I use on my blog. Why this is necessary I'm not sure, except that it's his subtle way of informing his (would-be) audience that I'm black, at the outset, so that they don't have to take anything else I say seriously. And then in the email he has the sheer balls (the chutzpah, if you will) to wonder why I suspect he has a problem with black people, possibly tied to his sexual attraction to black men.

Notice how he transitions from my picture (which may have been slightly darkened using photoshop, the way they did OJ in Time magazine) to discussion of a post I did last week on how Katy Perry's "California Gurls" video could very well be the most fapworthy non-rap video of all time. Of ALL TIME. The subtle message there being that here's a black man who spends his every waking hour fantasizing about getting it on with white women (define "every"), and hence is a potential rapist. There may even be a connection between that and his mandingo fetish. The fact that he's upset that I dissed Lady Gaga is definitely a telltale sign.

Here are some interesting things about Byron Crawford:
He thinks that Lady Gaga wishes she could be as interesting as Katy Perry is in the California Gurls video. That is a quote.

I'd hit ?uestlove up on Twitter and ask him to back me up on the following, but I know he tried to front on me, years (and years) ago, when I tried to tell those brownie hounds over at Okayplayer that he told his mother that I was his favorite writer, essentially calling his own mother a liar.

On his Wikipedia page, it reads: "Crawford claims that during a meeting with Questlove, the Roots drummer named several rappers that regularly read his blog." I will take that claim at face value! Because the source is reliable!

And then comes the coup de grace (the money shot, if you will) - a picture of the Boycott Israel banner from my blog. The only other picture in the post, besides the one of myself. (Why not a picture of Katy Perry?) As if that has anything to do with my post. It isn't even on this site, despite my repeated suggestions to management; it's on my own site. I hardly so much as mentioned Israel in my post here (the term tall Israeli may have been bandied about), but so what if I had? There's no (necessary) connection between anti-zionism and anti-semitism. Many anti-semites are also anti-zionists, but many anti-semites are also known to eat a ham sandwich. I guess that makes a ham sandwich anti-semitic.

Alright, bad example, but you catch my drift. This guy is full of shit. He's written umpteen paragraphs explaining why he's not paranoid (never a good sign), but clearly he's one of these people who tries to conflate anti-zionism with anti-semitism, and obviously you can't have the one without the other.

He must think I can't understand basic logic, because I'm black.