Breaking Down the Myth of Men's Infatuation

Time and time again I hear women talk about how man are only interested in sex and we only think about sex.

That is somewhat true, there is obviously an initial attraction because after all a woman chooses a man and not the other way around.

I could talk to the next hundred women I find attractive and maybe get a number from twenty or so.

What I want to disprove is the idea that men only view women as sex objects...from the get go.

Women don't understand that we are much like animals. Us talking to you is part of our mating ritual. We are trying to find our mate when we approach you, talk to you, and get your number.

Here's another secret, guys actually talk you up to their friends. I can't even count the amount of times my friends or myself have talked about girl who we have just met as though she was the girl Jesus has been saving us for.

We'd talk about how she looks, where she works, what she's doing with her life.

Now you might be asking, where does that interest go?

Away. That's where it goes and it was probably your fault. As a matter of fact it was quite likely your fault.

I liken a man's infatuation with a certain female as if they were an NBA team with a top 5 pick. Not the #1 pick but a top 5 pick nonetheless.

The number 5 pick you at least expect to be very good, may not be your franchise player but will at the very least be good.

Men's infatuation with a certain woman maintains or declines as such:

Franchise Player: Dwyane Wade

Dwyane Wade was the fifth overall pick in 2003 by the Miami Heat out of Marquette. He was drafted behind Lebron, Melo, Chris Bosh, and somehow someway Darko "Playing in Serbia Right Now" Milicic. The Heat expected him to be a franchise point guard for years to come. He changed positions, won 3 NBA titles and played in 5 NBA Finals overall. He will go down as a top 5 shooting guard in NBA history behind MJ and Kobe.

Just about every girl we meet we to be that Dwyane Wade and far exceed expectations. This is the girl who you like to hang out with, light up when she texts you, and is basically your ride or die. Wade turned down a lot of money to remain in Miami, so he's pretty ride or die.

Most importantly she's into a lot of the stuff you're into. She love the teams you like, music you like, everything. I met this one girl who loved the Tom Green classic critical nightmare "Freddy Got Fingered" which was a movie I thought nobody liked but me. True story: my PS2 was my first DVD player and I bought the movie at Best Buy for $5 and watched it 40 times(I counted) in a span of 3 days. That girl was a keeper.

Star Player: Joakim Noah

Noah was a Knick pick that Isaiah Thomas traded away and nothing else to me. But, to everyone else he is the 2013-14 NBA Defensive Player of the Year and an intricate part of the Chicago Bulls throughout Derrick Rose's injury issues these past few years.

So this girl isn't the one you'd turn down tickets to a football game for but you will turn down a night out with your boys for. I had a friend turn down going out with us to go to Costco with a lady, so I guess it was pretty serious.

Starter: Danillo Gallinari

She is not the one you want but she's getting the job done. You talk about her good qualities. Gallo was tall and could shoot so you could talk yourself into thinking he was the next Dirk Nowitzki.

This girl is boring as hell but you know if you hit up her on Facebook she'll respond. She works at Footlocker so she can hold back a pair of those retro Jordans on Saturday so you keep her around.

Sixth Man: DJ Augustin

Just as DJ Augustin is always available somehow when your point guard is injured and you need depth, so is this broad. She's your sixth man, she's your microwave because she can heat up at any second.

But, you leave her out there too long she can become the detriment. Just like you can throw too much trust into your sixth man and leave him out there to yak up brick after brick, you can do the same with this girl.

She fits her purpose but feels as though she should be one of the three mentioned above and may try to force the situation. I had a friend have a sixth man girl force her way into being his star player and his team is still rebuilding to this day.

Role Player: Emeka Okafor

I picked Emeka Okafor for this spot because at some point he was all of these. This is the last valuable position.

He will text you from time to time especially when he is in a drought, not even a sex drought, like a "wow my phone is really dry, when's the last time I talked to a girl" drought. You've been broken down to a basic use, like a role player: we need threes, that's your role, we need to defend the paint, that's your role etc.

OUT OF THE LEAGUE: Darko Milicic

Would you look at that, number 2 overall. The best player in the league drafted ahead of you, NBA champions and a scoring champion drafted right behind you. What are you up to? Nothing. Nobody wants you.

This girl is so boring you ignore her texts whereas you used to at least acknowledge her with short messages to wet her beak. She has no sneaker hookups, phone hookups, food hookups or any hookups whatsoever.

So what is left? The sex, which for this girl, a lot is left to be desired. If the question is to hook up with her you tell yourself  that you've hooked up with worst but at the same time you've hooked up with much better. After careful evaluation, you ultimately pass.

So there you have it.

When we meet and flirt with women we have such high expectations for you until you give us reasons not too. At the same time I'm pretty sure it is the same for women when meeting men except women's expectations are way too high to begin with.

Things Black People Usually Don't Like That Suge Does

In a new weekly column here I've decided to end racism in baby steps. Even though in the past we've talked about racism a little on here and here.

So every week I will talk about three things that aren't popular with black people in general but quite popular with this black person.

1. Hockey

Well not all hockey. I'm not going to be watching random hockey games on the NHL Network. But, I am a huge New York Rangers fan. I've been following the team since the NHL returned back in 2005 from a season long lockout. I usually would only watch during the playoffs because playoff hockey is a million times more intense, maybe because there is no shootouts or ties. I started to watch regular season games coincidentally because of the NBA's lockout in 2011. That year the Rangers led the Eastern Conference in wins and points, we even made it to the Conference Final. Last season the team went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final on the backs of goaltender Henriq Lundqvist and eventual captain Ryan McDonough. They even have a rookie black dude on the team named Anthony Duclair who is highly regarded.

2.It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I have a unique sense of humor in that I find ubiquitous humor, things make me laugh in the most random places. Good humor, corny humor, all humor. "Sunny" is a show about four people who own a bar along with the man who raised two of them. The auxiliary characters are unforgettable. The titles of the episodes are simple such as "The Gang Buys A Boat" yet the episode itself is far more complex. As soon as I finish season 10 on Netflix I will be writing a list of my ten favorite episodes. I actually started watching this show by way of me watching a movie on FX, leaving to take a shower then returning to find cable TV's best comedy and being hooked. I even dressed up as Charlie for Halloween last year.

3.Portlandia

Now this show took me by surprise because it seemed like something I would never watch. I was a fan of Fred Armison from his days on Saturday Night Live. He and Carrie Brownstein make one hell of a team. The sketches on the show are humorous satire on hipster culture and make you admire the unique weirdness that is Portland, Oregon. Watch one episode and if you don't laugh, I don't know what to tell you.

So til next time, here's a pic of me as Charlie.

Basic Cable Porn: A Comprehensive Power Ranking

Coming of Age

A term that has been used to describe the growth from adolescence to adulthood. Boyhood to manhood.

Just the other day I was thinking about this period of time in my own life. I was cruising through YouTube out of boredom and found myself watching an old episode of Baywatch that featured Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage, and Ric Flair. But what I failed to realize was that it had Pamela Anderson before at least 3 unneeded breast augmentations. It also had the angelic Yasmine Bleeth, the BASEketball beauty.

I might sound like the old man telling kids, "In my day...", but what is true is that future generations from here on out will not know the...let's say "pleasure" you got from places other than the internet.

You'd read your mother or sister's Victoria Secret catalog or got your hands on the Sports Illustrate Swimsuit Edition, Maxim, or FHM.

For those fortunate as myself you could look no further than your cable television package. Especially, if also like me, you had your own TV in your bedroom.

What I have done is comprised a list of Cable TV shows that were as close to porn as you can get.

9. Desperate Housewives

Well this was on ABC so you didn't even need cable to watch this . Every main female character on this show was quite gorgeous except for Felicity Huffman, well they needed to level off somewhere. We never saw the Real Lois Lane, Teri Hatcher, in her undies but we saw plenty of Eva Longoria. Eva was fine but I have a thing for red heads. The one episode where Marcia Cross surprised her husband in a hotel room remains an all-timer for me. The fact that this show moved it's storylines from sex to god knows what shied me away in its later years hence its low ranking.

8. Wild On

Wild On was a travel show on E! hosted by several different hotties and featured several diffrent hotties in different locales with said host hotties. There were bikinis and sexy club outfits. A great watch on a late Saturday night for teenage boys. It was also the pregame for the next entry on the list.

7. Girls Gone Wild Paid Programming Commercials.

These infomercials included the wild parties where girls would show some boobs for beads, shirts, or a ham sandwich, maybe. Only problem with this was the boner killer that was the guy that ran GGW, Joe Francis. He looked like the guy that would be running GGW, that's the creepy thing about him. He looked like the type of guy that felt girls up when they were passed out drunk. Later in life I watched a full GGW feature and the infomercials were a lot better. The setup was a bus or hotel room and a drunk/uncomfortable girl. Thank god this fad faded.

6.  Syndicated Dating Shows

These shows included Blind Date, Elimidate, and the 5th Wheel. They were everywhere, channel 9, cable, Telemundo maybe. This was during the early part of reality television so there was a lot of luster to watching real people do stuff. Giving a rough estimate I'd say 84% of the women on these shows were hotties. They had Jacuzzis and bikinis. Blind Date had those funny cartoons and captions on the screen so it also had entertainment value.

5.  Undressed

MTV experimented with a show called Undressed. It was a late night soap opera that followed their 10-10:30pm timeslot known as the 10 Spot. It was like porn in that it had amateur acting. In retrospect it had all the stuff porn did before the sex. I found out that Christina Hendricks was on this show, let that sink in, Joan from Mad Men was on a show about sex and you missed it because this show stunk.

4.Wrestling

At this time there were three wrestling promotions, WWF/E, WCW, and ECW. Unlike today where WWE promotes a PG style of programming, all of the promotions were trying to outdo each other and push limits. WCW had Nitro Girls. WWE had Sable, Trish Stratus, Lita, Stacy Keibler, and Torrie Wilson. ECW had Dawn Marie and Francine. The thing about Francine and Dawn Marie was that if you found an episode of BangBus from 2000 and one or both were on it, it would not surprise me one bit.

3. Baywatch Re-runs

While I am old enough to remember Baywatch from its first run. When TNN (now known as Spike) showed re-runs as part of their re-brand as a male focused network I enjoyed coming home from school and watching it more than I did then. There was a perennial torch passed from hot lifeguard to hot lifeguard in the history of this show. From Erika Eleniak to Pamela Anderson to Carmen Electra and so on.

2. BET Uncut

Some of you may not know what BET Uncut was, especially if you didn't watch BET. Odds are you discovered it during the summer because it came on at 2am. It featured music videos that were too racy for TV or uncut versions of music videos that had been edited down for TV. Eventually the video block disappeared not because of its content but the trend of music channels distancing themselves from...well, music.

"Oh that's your girl, N***a you ain't heard, she naked in my studio, I'm on my Howard Stern shit"

-Big Sean

1. The Howard Stern Show

He had porn stars, nude models, and all kinds of strippers on his show. Looking back on it I wonder what it was like to listen to this on the radio, couldn't be as enjoyable. The only thing I didn't care for was this one stripper with this ridiculously mousy voice. Other than that I was introduced to a bunch of porn stars I never knew. I still have yet to go to Score's here in New York but Stern definitely put them on the map. Last but not least, he had chicks riding the Sybian, a god damn Sybian on TV.

Your Favorite Rapper's Favorite Rapper

The Black Man: America's Stray Dog

By Shaebaun "Suge" Benjamin

Should I begin this by listing the names of young black men who were killed by police officers, authority figures, or self proclaimed vigilantes?

That list is too damn long. If you go on Wikipedia and look up the recorded lynchings of black men since the civil war, the one's listed are only a small percentage of those that actually occurred.

In the past few weeks we have seen Michael Brown murdered and another young black man named John Crawford III. Who is Michael Brown? A young man who may have spent this week packing up and getting ready for his first semester of college.

In reaction to his death his mother spoke through tears about how it was difficult to raise Michael in the straight and narrow while keeping him from falling into the community around him. Michael graduated high school and had dreams of being an engineer not an athlete, rapper, or drug dealer.

He was murdered as he walked home from the store which follows the narrative that goes with one of these murders. "I'm going to the store and coming right back" sounds simple enough for anyone who's not a black man.

Crawford was killed in an Ohio Walmart for opening a toy gun he had bought and told the officers that approached him that it was not real and they proceeded to shoot him anyway.

There is an inherent fear of the black male in American society. The late comedian Patrice O'Neal talked about it in one bit called the "Pepsi Can Rapist". In it he talks about how when in an elevator with a white woman, the woman clutches her purse and is scared yet coincidentally he is thinking "God, please let this white woman get home safely so I'm not the prime suspect in whatever happens to her".

There has been many a time I've walked around the city, malls, different places and I feel the need to slow down how I walk in fear that I am making the person walking in front of me afraid. You read that right, I am in fear of their fear of me. Some may say if you're not guilty of anything you shouldn't be paranoid but when the Michael Browns and Trayvon Martins of the world are being killed without cause and there are laws like New York City's "Stop & Frisk" where an officer can stop and search you like a criminal without justification, you can't help but feel a little paranoid.

Michael and Trayvon's death follows a long history of black youths being made examples of. Emmett Till was just 15 when he was murdered by a group of white men for making a pass at one's wife in 1955. He was taken from his uncle's house in the middle of the night and the men were all acquitted even with overwhelming evidence.

The methods have changed but the outcomes have not. They can't grab you out of your homes as they did in the Jim Crow south but they still face no real consequence for exterminating us. That's when you have to ask what is the value of a black man's life in today's society?

Eric Garner was a 43 year old husband, father, and grandfather who made a living selling cigarettes wholesale, a non-violent crime that cost him his life by police officers in Staten Island, NY. There is footage of his murder and the events leading to the police officer putting a choke hold that is not part of NYPD procedure.

This case like many others involving officers will likely see these officers not face much penalties.

People like George Zimmerman and the murdering officers view black men as menaces, savages, or stray dogs. They fail to realize that we are people with lives and families that care for us and us for them. Oscar Grant had a daughter, Eric Garner had grandchildren, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were sons that had parents. Grant's daughter has no father. Garner's grandkids have no grandpa. Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin no longer have their son and neither does Lesley McSpadden. 

People ask why is there only an uproar when a young black is killed by a non-black but none when blacks kill other blacks?

Stray dogs. When two stray dogs maul each other on the street there is no issue but once a human gets involved then it is a crime. America cares not for the kids in Chicago killing each other because you never see the gun rights activists step up to the pulpit  fighting for the civilians in Chicago who aren't part of the violence to have guns to protect themselves from the world of crime and gang violence around them.

When I expressed my disappointment in the George Zimmerman ruling I said "How am I going to explain to my future son that his life means nothing in America", a white woman responded to me by saying "But we have a black president?" as if Barack Obama's election ended all the racism in America.

That statement in of itself shows that the ignorance will continue.

Martin Luther King Jr. and others started the work but we still have to eradicate the ignorance and intolerance of these oppressors.

The people of Ferguson took to the streets and rioted in retaliation for Brown's death. But if our history shows us anything it is that non-violence and turning the other cheek gains much more results. By letting the oppressor show what they conceive as their might and by displaying our resistance we make them look much worst to an outside eye.

Until there is a day young black men like myself can walk out the door without the fear feeling it may be the last we see our loved ones and them seeing us, America will not be at peace and racism will not be dead and buried as it should.

If I Was the Commissioner

By Shaebaun "Suge" Benjamin

It's been a little slow here at Hard Magazine because I'm getting ready for a two week vacation and finding plane tickets for the right price is getting to be a pain, but, here is my bit for the week.

I was watching a show on NBATV called Open Court that features former NBA players discussing different topics in an open forum. 

One question posed by the moderator Ernie Johnson was what each person would change about the NBA if he were the commissioner. That got me thinking about what I would change about the NBA, but, then I thought about other sports as well.

I can't really discuss hockey though I am a huge New York Rangers fan but I will talk about the other major sports as well as MLS since soccer is getting ever so popular on this side of the Atlantic.

NFL

Let's start with the nation's most popular sport beginning with the offseason.

I would make the NFL Combine a two week to month long event and make it televised so that when you watch the draft or undrafted free agent pick ups, you could say "I remember that kid benched 8 plates for 25 reps" or "that guy ran faster than every dude picked."

I would make the NFL season still be 16 games but add in another bye week so there would be 18 weeks in a season. 

I don't know about adding to the playoffs unless maybe adding two wild cards and giving the four division winners a bye but then the two top seeds in the conference would have two full weeks off and then if they were to make it to the Super Bowl have another two weeks off, that would mean three football games played in a month and a half. It doesn't really work in college football and would elongate the NFL season.

One thing I would change in the postseason is dropping the Pro Bowl altogether. One idea that may be possible is replacing it with a sort of a consolation game between the NFC and AFC runner-ups. The World Cup does it. Not only could it be popular but also be real football with no restrictions whatsoever with players still bitter that they didn't make it to the big game.

NBA

The NBA season should start on Christmas Eve and end sometime in July. I would also lower the amount of the games from 82 to 66 which could reduce some injuries.

When I say I would start the season on Christmas Eve, all games would be against divisional opponents or teams that are only two or less hours flight time from each other like Dallas and OKC or Nets and Knicks.

Fourth of July would be the first day of the Finals. Having the Finals in July would kill the idea of July being the most boring sports month. The draft and free agency would start right after Finals.

 Draft night would be the day after the scheduled Game 7 date and free agency would start right after the Finals and the amount of exclusive time a team has with their own player is cut from 10 days to 5. The reason for this is that with a salary cap, the amount of teams a player can choose from is as little as 2 or 3 anyhow.

Instead of a Trade Deadline I would have 2 two week long trade windows much like in international soccer they have transfer windows. You'd have the entire offseason until the start of the season to make trades, then the week of and after the All Star break and the two weeks leading to the playoffs.

I also agree with Adam Silver attempting to make All Star Weekend a week long affair. It would be fun for the host city much like the two weeks before the Super Bowl. For the players it would be extra rest. For front offices it would be time to prepare for the trade windows.

To fill in time that week, I would make the Rookie/Sophomore game a four team tournament over three days and the other All Star festivities filled in between.

MLB

Now to my favorite sport. I don't really like the commissioner we have as is. I also will not discuss the involvement of PED's, if you want to hear my thoughts on that read here. 

I have no problem with the All Star Game being played for homefield advantage in the World Series. The system before was nonsense. The homefield was alternated every other year so basically people's arguments against it and wanting the old institution is "I hope my team makes it to the World Series in an odd number year" against "I hope my team's league wins the All Star Game so if we get to the World Series games 1 & 7  is at our park." I do wish that they'd get rid of the "every team has to be represented" rule. There's no rule like that in the Pro Bowl and each conference has 50 or so players opposed to the 35 in baseball.

They could also add a few more events to the festivities aside from the Home Run Derby. Pitching Accuracy, Outfield Arm Strength, and Baserunning Races would be nice.

Something that irked me was a game played the night before the All Star Break. The Yankees lost to the Orioles in a rain shortened game, 3-1. The Yankees are currently in second place in the AL East. If they end the season one game behind Baltimore we can look back at this game and say these two teams play each other 19 times and MLB wants to emphasize winning the division rather than getting in as a wild card so why didn’t they play out that game another time. I would make it so that any intra-divisional game cannot be called after 5 innings due to rain or any other reason. The game will be subject to be suspended and be resumed at a later date.

Draft picks should only be connected to players somewhat if at all. No team should have to forfeit draft picks to sign players, teams that lose players should gain compensatory picks without the team gaining the players losing picks.

Other small things such as having a few more day games during the playoffs would be nice for kids to become more interested in the sport. I remember watching the 2003 and 2004 ALCS's at age 13 & 14 and having stay up as late as 1:00am and 2:00am to watch my Yankees play which is crazy for a freshman in high school let alone a kid in elementary or middle school.

MLS

If you are still with me, bear with me if you have little interest in MLS or soccer in general. The sport has grown from 10 teams and many ups and downs to a 19 team league. By 2017 there will be 23 teams.

International stars such as David Beckham and Thierry Henry have played in the MLS as well as our country's own stars like Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan.

My ideas for this league, unlike the others, are how to make the league grow and not fix flaws. 

I would continue to add teams, mostly in the under populated midwest as there are only teams in the Chicago and Kansas City. Perhaps in St. Louis, Oklahoma City, and Minnesota. The south will have teams in Orlando, Miami, and Atlanta soon.

The league institutes a designated player rule where a player can be signed with a salary that doesn't count against the salary cap with many restrictions as to who fits the requirements. I would do away with the whole thing.

Instead I would let each team have a $50 million budget for each international transfer window and raise the salary cap from $10 million to $20-25 million with increases as the league grows.

I would get the league in line with the other prominent soccer leagues around the globe by making the winner of the MLS Cup the team with the most points during the season and have the MLS teams play in an in season tournament for a secondary cup along with the US Open cup.

If you have any other ideas or disagreements for my changes let me know in the comments below. 

The Official Panty Dropper Hall of Fame: The Greatest Baby Maker Music Performers

by Shaebaun "Suge" Benjamin

While on my way to work the other day, I saw pretty good looking girl in yoga pants and I made my own version of Ginuwine's "In Those Jeans" in my head for yoga pants. I then began to think of "Pony" and a few other Ginuwine hits. I thought to myself where does Ginuwine stand as far as the pantheon of "Panty Droppers"

This weekend, baseball welcomed six new members into their Hall of Fame, so in honor of that I will make my own inaugural class for the Panty Dropper Hall of Fame.

I will only cover the 90's and 00's because getting into the Luther Vandrosses and Teddy Pendergrasses will be too much and should go without saying as being Hall of Famers.

I will have five inductees as baseball had in 1939. Well, five solo artists and I'll have a couple groups as well. The criteria for enshrinement will be panty dropping ability of course, body of work, and staying power.

Panty dropping ability is the the power this artist had to make people want to dance vertically and without pants or any clothes on for that matter.

Body of work. The amount of music this artist had for his audience and its substance.

Staying power. Does the music still resonate today? Can it make people grind slow to it that have never heard it before?

I also have a few that just missed the cut. So let's start with them...

Honorable Mentions

Jon B

Jon B revolutionized the blue-eyed soul legacy carried on today by Robin Thicke and Justin Timberlake. Linking up with Babyface in the mid-nineties launched him into the forefront of the R&B scene. He left us with "Pretty Lady", "They Don't Know", and "Someone To Love". The problem with Jon B is that all of those came out around the same time, so it's like being the Juan Gonzalez of of this time period.

Babyface

Mentioned earlier with Jon B, but, Babyface does not make the cut also due to body of work. Although hits like "Two Occasions" and "Whip Appeal" add to his staying power, he left the performing side and instead wrote and produced countless hits. He'd be the Joe Torre of the class because Torre had a great playing career but will be remembered for his managerial career.

Case

This one hurts as well as the next person on this list. Case made some panty droppers, legit ones, but stopped making them. Check out "Missing You" and "Happily Ever After". Here's "Happily Ever After" with a young Beyonce as the main female in the video.

Donnell Jones

I said this one hurts too because every black dude from this time period ought to know "Where I Wanna Be" by heart, it's our birthright. "U Know What's Up" featuring the late Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes is another hit. Even him singing the hook on the late Big Pun's "It's So Hard" is fire. Jones unfortunately lost steam and faded. He and Case have to be the Brandon Webbs of this list.

Musiq Soulchild

Musiq had you feel like he was someone that was going to remain, at worst, relevant to this day. His music had a message and would make great wedding songs or joints you'd give to your girl on a mixtape. I thought Soulchild would have the career of John Legend. Tim Lincecum is a good comparison.

Chris Brown

A controversial omission because Chris Brown himself may make panties drop, I do not consider him a panty dropper. He did make a few droppers such as "With You" and "Don't Judge Me. Songs like "Take You Down" and "No Bullshit" are songs people bring up and you're like "Oh, yeah I forgot he did that". He's like the Andy Pettite or Mike Mussina of this list.

Now without further adieu, the inaugural class of the Panty Droppers Hall of Fame...

Usher

The headliner of this class is Usher Raymond and I know how to spell that because of his premiere piece "Nice & Slow". Once that dropped, his panty dropper Hall of Fame eligibility was not a matter of "if" but "when". Usher is an icon now but when it comes to the matter at hand, he is a persistent panty dropper for every album he makes there is a panty dropper.

My Way-Nice & Slow

8701-U Got It Bad

Confessions-Superstar, Can U Handle It, Confessions Part II, That's What It's Made For

Here I Stand -Trading Places, Love In This Club

Raymond v. Raymond-Hey Daddy, There Goes My Baby

Looking 4 Myself-Dive, Climax

And he has another album dropping later this year.

Ginuwine

The basis of this article. This man has a song that heavily implies banging in "Pony". "Pony" is still used in movies and TV for highly sexual scenes. In addition to that there are "So Anxious", "Differences", "Love You More", and "Stingy". As you can see Ginuwine has no MVP seasons but year in and year out puts together solid seasons. He hit all three of the requirements swimmingly.

Joe

Y'all must have forgotten about Joe but he surely makes the cut. With hits like "I Wanna Know", "All The Things", "More & More" as well as hooking up with G-Unit for "Wanna Get to Know You". Joe represents Pedro Martinez, although he had a few good seasons, those seasons were so great they are hard to overlook.

Trey Songz

Tremaine makes it because, sheesh, ask your girl about Trigga. "Just Gotta Make It" Trey Songz would not have made this list. He was like a young player that struggled early in his career but worked on his mechanics and turned himself into a Hall of Famer. Compare him to Randy Johnson. Johnson was average before he turned 30 but turned into a Hall of Famer after changing his approach. Trey Songz turned into a more fun-loving and sensual artist. He carried every dude's "party hard with boys yet be passionate with the ladies" attitude into his music. "Invented Sex", "Neighbors Know My Name", "Lovefaces", and others. Some may battle me on this but Trey Songz "Just Gotta Make It" into the Panty Dropper Hall of Fame.

Tyrese

Tyrese is an actor and started off as a model but between all of that he was a singer. You may say he hasn't done much lately in the music department, I guess you didn't hear "Best of Me", but he's a busy man these days. Tyrese made classics "Lately", "Sweet Lady", "How You Gonna Act Like That", "What Am I Gonna Do", and did you forget "The Signs of Lovemaking"? Tyrese more than makes the Hall of Fame, this dude is Ichiro Suzuki.

112

112 dominated the R&B group division from the late 90's and the early 2000's. They had competition from Dru Hill, Next, and Jagged Edge but held strong. "Cupid" is the song lovers bond over. "Anywhere" makes lovers bond all of the place. "U Already Know" was their 2011 Derek Jeter season, the last good one by an aging veteran.

Jodeci

Jodeci makes the list not only for their own work but the work KC & JoJo did on their own later on. "Come & Talk to Me" was the anthem for the shy guys. "Feenin" was for the "cuffed-up" dudes. "FreakNYou" was the joint for the lovemaking. There was also "Forever My Lady", "Stay", and "Cry For You" among others. KC & JoJo then went on the make an all timer in "All My Life". They also had "Tell Me It's Real", "Life", "Crazy", and "Don't Rush".

So there you are, The Inaugural Class of the Panty Dropper's Hall of Fame. If you disagree or feel there are some artisst that should be on here please let me know in the comments below.

Best Walkoff Video Ever...File under thirst

Race at the Movies: Color or Lack There of in Films

by Shaebaun "Suge" Benjamin

In 1916, D.W. Griffith made history and broke ground on the art of film making when he directed and released Birth of Nation. The film was a loose a interpretation of the Reconstruction Era that took place after the American Civil War in the southern U.S.

It took the time to carefully make fun of blacks and northern republicans will making the vile Ku Klux Klan seem like The Avengers.

Although freed slaves were featured as sex-crazed and violent towards whites, basically making them the antagonists of the film, the main villains were played by white actors in black face.

In 1963, the love story of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony was released featuring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. At the time it was the most expensive film ever made. Joseph L. Mankiewicz was the director.

The Egyption Cleopatra was played by the very much Caucasian Elizabeth Taylor.

On December 12, 2014 acclaimed director Ridley Scott will release Exodus: Gods & Kings which will tell the biblical tale of the Hebrews escape from Egypt and the Pharoah Ramses led by Moses.

Based on the trailer I can tell this will at least be a decent film that displays the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.

Moses is played by the Welsh actor Christian Bale and Ramses is played by Joel Edgerton, an Australian actor.

Edgerton is fine actor whom you may know from The Great Gatsby and Warrior.

My problem with this is that in the 150 years of film making, we still have white actors playing the parts of people of color.

Perhaps in 1916 the idea of having an actual black man chase a white woman to her death might be too much for society to handle at the time.

And in 1963, it may have been too much to hire Diahann Carroll or Dorothy Dandrige to play Cleopatra when making a film with a then "unheard of" budget.

But here in 2014 there is no good explanation as to why an Egyptian character is being played by a white Australian actor with a spray tan.

There are plenty of Eastern African or Middle Eastern actors that may have made names for themselves while playing Ramses. As I said before this is no knock on Joel Edgerton, but this should have been an opportunity for ethnic actors to play a main role in what seems to be an epic film.

Race in film is still very much an issue, not as big of an issue in the past, but surely still an issue.

In early 2014, a reboot of the Fantastic Four films was announced to include Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, played by Michael B. Jordan. Storm is usually portrayed as white and will now be played by an African American. This was met with harsh criticism by staunch fans of the comic book. It also happened with Idris Elba playing Heimdall in both Thor films. But there is hardly any uproar when characters of color are played by whites.

No longer are African Americans constantly portrayed as domestic servants or submissive characters as in the early eras of film nor as pimps or drug dealers in the blaxploitation era.

A few years ago a film named The Help was released and met with plenty of critical acclaim. I was not too happy at the idea of a film about black maids in the 1960's and being able to overcome only with the help young white news reporter. As I saw the film, it was just as I had thought.

A joke made in Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle stated that black actors would always have jobs as long as they continued to make "slave movies."

Another issue of race in film is the portrayal of romantic relationships between races.

Zoe Saldana is phenomenal actress. In most of her films she is involved romantically with white actors even when she plays aliens in films such as Avatar and Guardians of the Galaxy. As far as I can remember, the last film she was in opposite a black actor was Drumline with Nick Cannon in 2002.

It is very rare to see a major film with an black actor being romantic with a white actress.

In the film Hancock, a romance between Will Smith and Charlize Theron is only displayed by her telling him they were alien lovers for over 200 years but they never get intimate, kiss, or even hug. In an earlier film featuring Smith, the love interest in Hitch was meant to be played by a white actress but replaced by Hispanic actress Eva Mendes.

Even in the 1980's the portrayal of white actress and a black actor was an issue film makers had to work around. Originally Beverly Hills Cop was to star Sylvester Stallone as Axel Foley and included a romantic relationship with Jenny Summers. When Stallone left and was replaced by Eddie Murphy the pairing of the two was dropped, likely because the Jenny role was already cast with a white actress. The relationship only goes as far as Jenny sitting on the bed of Axel's hotel room as he tells her his plan of busting her boss for murdering their friend.

Yet, Rae Dawn Chong was the "go-to black girl" to pair with box office stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger throughout the decade.

We have gotten to the point where we have an African American president and interracial relationships aren't as much of an "oh, look at them" thing anymore.

We ought to give people the chance to play their own race on different forms media rather than hiring someone and saying "let's get him a tanning bed and makeup" and as much as there ought to be a few relationships with two people of different races in film and television.

Can we talk about this?

The Carmelo Cash Grab: The Two Sides of Free Agency

by Shaebaun "Suge" Benjamin

It is Mid-July and the NBA Offseason as we know it is probably over.

I don't expect the Timberwolves to end up trading Kevin Love before the season, so maybe there might be a minor trade or two before September.

From here you will probably see  minor veteran minimum signings and players cut or designated to the D-League.

So let's talk about what happened that got us here.

Lebron returned to Cleveland, a magnificent story. Miami felt that Chris Bosh was worth $118 million for some reason and they also feel signing Luol Deng for 2 years is a franchise changing move. I think Lebron leaving moved Pat Riley ten years forward into dementia. Lance Stephenson will be blowing air into people's faces in a Charlotte Hornets uniform. Pau Gasol is Chicago's Carmelo plan B.

Now let's talk about Melo.

Of course the feeling if you are not a New York Knick fan your feeling is that he took money over a championship. He signed a 5-year $124 million contract with a full no-trade clause and an opt out after year 4. Much more than the 4 years and $73 million Chicago had to offer.

That's a $51 million difference. I know some of you are saying $73 million is a lot of money regardless. Well $51 million regardless.

The only thing Chicago could guarantee was the "chance" at a title with that contract. That's like giving someone a lottery ticket with 25% chance at winning because we can assume with Chicago, Melo would at least make it to the Conference Finals. But there are a pack of teams out west that would still beat that Bulls squad in the NBA Finals.

Carmelo Anthony emphasized wanting to be able to contend this season and thereafter. He consulted with Phil Jackson, Knicks president, on the offseason moves he made. Jackson highlighted that the Knicks may not be able to contend for a title in 2014-15 but would be able to have plenty of flexibility in 2015 and 2016 to make moves to make them championship contenders. He also offered him that max contract.

The NBA these days is structured in a way that promotes "superteams", but with a salary cap at about $60 million you cannot pay multiple players maximum money. So the term "sacrifice" comes up a lot.

This is why as fans we talk about players being greedy and taking money over winning. For instance I was mightily upset when former New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano left for Seattle. The Yankees had offered 7 years $175 million and Seattle Mariners offered 10 years $240 million and he took the latter. I hate that he left, but $65 million is a lot to pass up.

The people that don't sacrifice are the one's who get the trophy handed to them when the players win it, the owners. You never hear of any sacrifices made by them.

In the courting of Melo, the plan for Chicago was to acquire him by sign & trade. The Bulls did not have the necessary cap space to sign him outright. The name that kept coming up was Carlos Boozer, who is on an expiring deal for $16.8 million. The Bulls attempted to trade him rather than use their amnesty provision, which would clear cap space by paying him his full salary and releasing him.

Jerry Reinsdorf who owns the Bulls as well as the Chicago White Sox, one could assume, simply did not want to pay someone to not play for him. It isn't far fetched. Reinsdorf with a few other baseball owners were found guilty of collusion by an arbitrator in the 1980's. Collusion is the act of having an agreement with other owners to not sign a certain player in order to decrease their salary demands.

So the Bulls strategy was for the Knicks to facilitate moving their star by taking an unwanted contract and maybe some draft picks, probably not much else besides that.

That's like someone taking your nice leather couch in exchange for their ugly, stained couch and some coupons for a recliner.

Point is championships are far from guaranteed, which is why only a small percentage of players have them. You can only put yourself in good position to do so. Jackson offer that to Melo as well as the money he deserved. Money, at least in all sports except football, is all guaranteed and going for top dollar should not be criticized as vehemently as it has.

We all know the ones that criticize would not do it themselves. If you were working at Macy's you wouldn't take a paycut for the better good of the company knowing the CEO would still be jet-setting his family to Aruba and Italy for vacations year in and year out.

The other thing about Carmelo Anthony is that he was not leaving a 20 win team but a 37 win team coming off a down year with absolutely no leadership from the front office to the last man on the bench. Some would say that he did not deserve a max contract because he missed all three All-NBA teams. The man averaged 28.1 and 8 rebounds, you can't hold the fact that Raymond Felton was his point guard against him.

Phil Jackson arrived with a plan and implanted a coach with the tools to do well. They will have enough cap space to go after one or maybe two impact players in next year's free agent class and their first round draft pick.

Somehow in the past 2 months the thirteen-time NBA champion convinced Melo to take the money and follow his blueprint.

Jerry Reinsdorf and the Bulls offered a former MVP who relies on his quickness with questionable knees and defensively effective team. I actually speculated that the Bulls were sitting on their amnesty in the case that Derrick Rose's legs would give out yet again.

In actuality, they used the amnesty on Boozer because they could not work out a sign & trade for Gasol, involving him.

Lebron James' contract with Cleveland is only for 2 years but he smartly did so. The maximum contract and salary cap is decided by the result of revenue the league makes, which is why there was a lockout in 2011. This issue was the amount of revenue the players would receive. In 2016, the NBA's television contracts are up. With the league being the second most watched in the country and the second most popular sport in the world those contracts will be worth a lot.

The owners are always in good position to make money. Whether it is through television money or the sale of their team. A truly ignorant man will sell his franchise and make more than any other owner in history all because he made some sensationally idiotic comments to a female companion.

So Lebron has done this not as threat to leave Cleveland but as a way to insure that as the best player in the league he is paid as such.

If the owners continue to collect money and improve their ring and trophy collection, so should the players.

Derek Jeter...

What Happens When Men Are Honest...

I thought I add this video as bit of social commentary 

Men & Their Damn Feelings

By Shaebaun "Suge" Benjamin

For every romantic relationship you have, you stand to lose 2 or 3 close friendships in that period of time.

Much is made about men and their emotions. Men should be macho and the devoid of feeling. Those who show emotion have ostracized and called "bitches" or "pussies". On black twitter we call that acting "light skinned". 

While browsing through my timeline on twitter, I find many men, several of them friends of mine gathered up in emotion complaining of problems with their women, problems finding women, sometimes an angry deposition to women in general.

A while back I jokingly went on a tirade with the help of my roommate to portray myself in a woeful state brought on by a woman. In reality at the time had been talking to 3 or 4 women at the time. Not really caught up with any of them. But I will give a quick rundown:

Girl 1

Me and my two friends as well as another student rented a house where of course we threw parties. At one such occasion this girl whom my best friend had relations with 2 years prior had brought a friend to our party. My friend made off with his old flame and I took the young lady to my room. I attempted to make out with her but she hesitated because she had a boyfriend in the army. After a while I cut my losses and bid her adieu. We texted a bit and I'd say hello every now and again because she worked the front desk at a common place on our campus. I made a massive contact list to send a group text to everyone alerting them of a party of ours. One night I stepped on a landmine. I sent the text at 8:00pm, she texted back at 9:00pm and the longest "argument" I'd ever had with a woman started. We "talked" from pregame to party, party to mid-party, all while I was entertaining guests. She went on and on for about 3 hours while "laying next to her boyfriend" and I got to the point that I figured "this girl wants to cheat on her boyfriend with me but, god, she's trying to convince herself that she shouldn't by trying to convince me she shouldn't and I'm getting a fucking headache from this". We never texted again and I tried to avoid her at all costs in public.

Girl 2

This one was a freshman and I was what you'd call a super senior, I was 22 at the time. I'm a big USC football fan and we were about to throw a party on a Saturday. A bunch of my roommate's teammates came to our house to pregame. I was upstairs watching the Trojans blow a game to Arizona State. You know, one of those 14-11 games. This girl shows up and starts wilding out all over the place, one of the girls Aziz Ansari calls a "whoo girl". Fuck her. She had a friend with her who was the polar opposite it terms of personality but equal in attractiveness. I couldn't stand any of those dudes so I stayed out of the kitchen except to grab a beer or a drink. I went down and grabbed a beer and looked at this cute little thing looking like a lost puppy. We talked for a little and got her number. We texted and ate together a few times. She was an athlete so I promised to come to some games (I never did, I had no car, so I car pooled with my friends to campus). She texted me out of the blue and asked if I was just talking to her for sex. This is the moment of truth, how you answer this question shows your mettle as a man. I feel that when a girl asked you that question you ought to answer with your heart. If it is "yes" say it. If it is "no" say it and mean. If you lie, you are setting yourself up to be a scumbag. I said "no" because honestly I had never thought of sleeping with her...since the first time we met. She took my word for it. Then one night at a party she got too drunk and so I begged my friend to take her to her teammate's place where I helped her by making sure she was hydrated and took her and her friend back to her dorm. She texts me the next day and shows her gratitude by telling me she only thought of me as a friend. 

Here's some insight into me; I don't believe in the friendzone or being friendzoned. Understand me ladies, I have more than enough female friends, meaning women whose company I enjoy in a completely platonic manner and no romantic feelings. As soon most women understand that, the sooner they will stop calling men immature for not talking to them after they rebuff their advances.

Girl 3

The bane of my existence. When a girl compares herself to another girl who's sheer mention haunts a university, you ought to get away. The other girl was an insufferable broad who sought drama like I seek a new burrito joint in the city (that's a lot). They said my girl resembled this girl. I didn't see it because I never found that girl attractive. Girl 3 was from the same area as my best friend so he knew her for a while. They buddied up on the fact that their exes were dating. Then an incident occurred, I can't go into detail, but it was not fun. My friend and her became enemies but her and I grew closer. We tweeted cute things to each other (if Timehop brings them up I might vomit on the spot). We texted. Fact of the matter proximity was a problem. I say that because there was another guy who lived in her dorm that was talking to her (and likely much more) while he was also talking to an ex of my best friend (they were all involved in the above incident). This guy had it out for me and my buddy. He would stare at us at parties, at school, in the cafeteria, everywhere. Either he wanted to do something, or felt we were going to do something. Girl 3 loved all of it. She appreciated the attention. She probably had to change her underwear every time she thought of us beating the shit out of each other. Truth be told, because of something stupid I did the year before, I would never do something impulsive because of woman. More on that later. Should I also mention that the other guy showed up to my house and says to me “-----------, you can have her dog, we shouldn’t be fighting over hoes”. I told her of this gentleman saying I could have her as if she was the last slice of pizza and he called her a hoe in the same sentence and she still went on to have a relationship with the guy. Suffice to say I walked away because those two were made for each other.

After all of this I remember something my much more intelligent older sister advised me to during my freshman year of college, I'm paraphrasing, "Don't wife these bitches, hit it and quit it, son", she has her masters she knows what she's talking about. In all seriousness, what she meant was that college is a tough environment as is with education, social life, partying, and keeping up with family that to add the headache of relationship could be too much.

Throughout life I feel there will be people that you get involved with that snatch a piece of you that you need and they don’t really want but they take it anyway. It’s happened to me in the 8^th grade with a young lady that has done very well for herself and yet again during the best year of my life so far.

That year I did very well in school because I took more writing and literature classes, so I played to my strengths. My intramural team won the championship, which to a non-athlete that likens himself to one is a great feat. My social life was awesome. I met lifelong friends and had very few enemies. I was actually truly happy.

Then, let’s call her Girl X, Girl X came into my life. She wasn’t particularly great looking, a 6.5 or a passable 7 on some days if the sun lit a certain way. Her friends hung out at our suite which was almost like a hotel a few times a week. For some faint reason I felt an attraction.

I had always been shy from kindergarten to even this day when it came to girls especially the ones I really liked.

I went away for Thanksgiving break and went out with my boys from back home and texted her from this bar through the urging of my friends after telling them how I felt.

She was never concerned about ruining our friendship or anything so I convinced her to give us a try or at least I thought I did.

She made half assed efforts to hangout and get to know each other. I find that much more agonizing than friendzoning. At least if I was friendzoned, as I said before, I would have got out of dodge, by promising to keep things platonic but never speak to her again.

Apparently she had eyes for a friend of mine, actually the first person I told I had feelings for her to, ironically. But, unfortunately for her he was already courting another girl and saw Girl X as a “friend”. Also my friend and I were going through some issues at the time, as a matter of fact our entire group had internal issues like the 1977 Yankees or something.

With all of this going on my head was all over the place. I didn’t eat much and wasn’t much fun to be around. I became a caveman. I was like the kids on South Park when Bebe got boobs.

Here’s the thing I regret, and I will finally admit it here, and apologize to my buddy again.

I was walking down some stairs at a party and he was walking up. I passed him and he passed me. He reached out to embrace me and shoved him off. He yelled up to “what’s your problem bro”. In reality that meant, why are you pushing me away I’m your friend. But, my dumbass, at the time took it as “Alright asshole, your girl likes me, get over it.” I hurled an open beer can at him and a bunch of dudes grabbed us and separated us.

The next day, I played it off saying it was about the conflict in our group and not the girl. To be honest until recently I believed that myself. But, it was about her.

It’s been a while but I still see her and questions pop up in my head.

“Why did I want her?”

“Do I still want her?”

“If I she texted me out of the blue and said she realized she wanted me, how would I feel?”

I could have lost a good friend I had good times with that day. Fortunately I didn’t but our relationship is definitely different since the “beer throwing” incident.

So when you talk about men and their feelings, here are mine and their reasons. Share yours, instead of whining randomly on social networks leaving you open to ridicule. Since I was open about my experiences drop some of yours “anonymously” in the comments so we know why you feel that way.

Oh, and here’s the 2012 Intramural Championship Team,