4/18/05 8:45 PM: When I was growing up, I didn't get access to a lot of good entertainment magazines -- Right On and Tiger Beat competed with the top 20 listing in Jet for music news on my little corner in Memphis. So when we got cable in the mid eighties, Kurt Loder and MTV came to mean "music news" to me. So, in that spirit, here's the "music news" from my perspective.

I WANT MY MTV: I've had a chance to watch VH1, MTV and BET recently, as I've been spending time at a house which has cable (I won't pay for TV). They really suck. I mean, they used to play videos, and now they only sometimes play videos. Music Television and Video Hits One now don't even live up to their name. This isn't news.

What's news is how inbred their playlists have become. VH1 used to, at least, play different stuff. The only difference now is that there's no rap on VH1 (except "VH1 Soul, which plays K-Os and some other rap acts). I flipped through channels on several mornings to find the same videos -- "Look What You Have Done" by Jet, for example -- playing multiple times on both channels in less than four hours. What the hell? No classics? No "world premieres?" What in the name of Martha Quinn is going on here? Short of the "marathon" days, I remember (and admittedly, that may be the haze of nostalgia) seeing different videos for hours upon end.

If I watched long enough, I finally found some new stuff to check for -- I liked "Cold" by Crossfade, as well as "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" by Jack Johnson -- but it was an uphill climb getting there. I mean, I love "Holiday" by Green Day, but to see it five times in two hours on two channels? Come on, dawg.

RECYCLING: There's a new Old Navy commercial where MC Lyte is rapping to the tune of "Bust a Move" about tunics. Uh, was Young MC unable to crowbar himself off of a couch and do it? He had to clear the song for their use ... I mean, I ain't mad at Lyte getting work (she's good on Half and Half), or at more Black people working ... but I dunno.

SHOWTIME: So I'm gonna be working three shows a week again, all for Tony DeFazio's Star Light Karaoke. I'm going back to Wednesday nights at Dano's on 238th and Western, which Rob Carter left and my boss Tony picked up. It's so cosmically ironic that I don't know how to deal with it. I'll also be hosting Bounce at the Redondo Beach Pier, Sunday nights. It's a very strange mixed crowd -- heavy urban content mixed with country music fans. They have Playstations and Xboxes for people to play on -- the last week before I started, I sat playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for three hours on a huge screen -- and it's a great room that I like a lot.

MR. BRIGHTSIDE: I bought the Top Hits Monthly Rock April 2005 disc for one song by the Killers. So worth it. I love this freaking song. They didn't have a Monster disc I've been wanting, one which has "Lawyers in Love" and "Tender is The Night," both by Jackson Browne, but I guess I'll order that sooner or later.

THE INDUSTRY: Every few years or so, I get an email from somebody I know about "doesn't rap music suck?" or "I've given up hip hop," blah blah blah. They all say the same thing -- everything I'm hearing or seeing is bad and/or bad for me/my kids/what have you. It tires me. If all people will listen to is what's on the radio, and all they see is what's on the video channels (and didn't we discuss that a moment), well, they'll clearly have a bad opinion. A lot of that's garbage. However, Haiku de Tat is out there, Alchemist is out there, and so is Planet Asia and Chino XL and scores more really important acts doing important work. Do they get the play that T.I. does? No. Should they? I don't even deal with those kinds of intangibles. But -- and I say this to all these poeple -- as long as kids gather around lunch tables and beat out beats, while one rhymes off the top of her or his head, hip hop will never die. Know that. All the bling in the world can't change what's at the core, any more than heroin could destroy jazz or Eric Clapton could change the blues.

CODA: I wonder if I could find a picture of Donnie Simpson ... oh well. That's all we got for now.