beyonce ruined everything last night at Coachella

and i do mean everything.

how am i supposed to go to a concert now?

it’s not gonna be as great as she was last night.

how am i gonna even go to a club?

she took everything great about music and dance and spectacle and black pride

and shoved it in our faces

and flicked her long, wild wig at it

and smiled.

i was not a huge Beyonce fan, but last night not only did i, but we all saw the light.

we all saw the power of black girl magic.

she was graceful and fast and smooth and only got better as the clock ticked closer to two hours.

she didn’t rely on video screens or inflatable props

she was so magical that even the fireworks were all fuck this and felt like sparklers.

she had a whole damn marching band on stage with her, all of MC Hammers dancers, the twins from Cirque, an orchestra, and an all girl heavy metal band.

it reminded me of Kanye’s 808 n Heartbreaks redeux show at the Hollywood Bowl mixed with gasoline and twerking. it was the history of black college culture, hip hop, a cookout, and a family reunion when Destiny’s Child appeared and reminded us that you can come home again.

for years the rumors have been that Coachella would drop a boatload to get the Smiths to reunite.

all i can say after what i am still trying to process from last night ON TV

is fuck the Smiths.

beyonce showed us what giving 100% to the grandest idea you could think of looks and sounds like

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT

and it is flawless.

kanye is right about beyonce

 

shes everything. and mtv knows it and tidal knows it and even jay-z is starting to figure it out.

but here’s my problem with viacom. if you go to the MTV.com page of the VMA video clips

and you click the Beyonce video of her performance from Sunday night

a night that was tape delayed to the West for no good reason at all,

they provide you with an embed code so you can share the video on your busblog.

but when you use the code Viacom

for no good reason at all

blocks the video from being able to be played on your busblog.

several things happen when you do things like this, Viacom

the first is we continue in thinking that you dont know how to Internet.

the Internet is a Web. it’s many sites all sharing in information and linking to each other so as to spread the message.

the message on Sunday was MTV had many of the top female solo acts on one stage

(except for Adele, Kesha, Taylor Swift, Regina Spektor, PJ Harvey, and Banks)

the best way for that message to get spread is via social media, which blogging is still part of.

so when you provide a code to embed the video but then block it you seem bipolar and ridiculous.

sorta like when you stop showing videos on your music video network

but then go right ahead and continue to have music video awards each fall like nothing has changed.

the second thing we assume is you hate us. you dont want us to see Beyonce’s amazing performance.

we think that because, like was mentioned earlier, you tape delayed a Sunday “live” show to the West

and you make it hard for us to see today’s most fascinating and talented performers do her thing.

it give us the idea, Viacom, that you dont care about art or music, all you care about is beans.

the type you want to count. but you forget that the more beans you put out there

the more will be seen, and the more you can count.

but the worst thing you have done is you have played yourself.

and you have given an excuse to pirates to steal the signal that you have failed at protecting.

“stealing” a video transmission is easier today than ever before.

you are building a wall across the border but it is porous and ridiculous.

which makes you ridiculous.

and poor us, you are poor er.

we will see the video.

the mountain will move.

you will die.

and fail to reach paradise.

because what Saint will let you in to Heaven

after it is discovered that for a living you tried to block Queen Bey from her fans?

i pity you.

i pray for you.

you need to repent.

why do old people hate beyonce?

beyonce formation

in my weird universe Beyonce is Queen. thats how it is on my social media, in the web sites i read, and the young people i know.

when i drive if one of her songs comes on, especially the newer ones, everyone will hush up and sing along.

last week she sold out the 100,000 seat Rose Bowl, by her damn self, to support a record that had just come out a few weeks previous. The average ticket price was about $100 and the good seats were much more.

before the Rose Bowl concert went off,  she announced a future engagement at the more intimate 50,000 seat Dodger Stadium in September where face value ticket prices on the field range from $500 – $2,000. if you want to sit at the tippy-top of the baseball stadium tickets are a mere $109 before Ticketmaster et all get their cut.

beyonce poolpeople admire her beauty, singing, dancing, style, lyrics, husband, child, marriage, career, and most importantly the way she handles herself in times of every day real life drama.

people, other than those who wrote in last week to complain that the LA Times, that is. and what really irked them was the paper put one of their stories about her on the OMG front page.

Chuck from Huntington Beach said “I love newspapers.  I have been a subscriber of The Times since 1972.  I am not a subscriber of the National Enquirer, but it is beginning to seem that way.  I know all print media are struggling to stay afloat, but come on, guys.  There has to be some actual news you could put on Page 1.”

Jeff in Eagle Rock wrote, “Does an unusually gushy article about Beyoncé deserve to be on the front page of The Times when another story about her is on Page 1 of Calendar?”

There was Carole down in San Diego who complained, “Really, Beyoncé is front page news? And we wonder why someone like Donald Trump could be a leading candidate for president. By any chance, have you seen the movie ‘Idiocracy’?”

And of course Marty in Whittier who asked, “Is it just me or is anyone else getting weary of Beyoncé?”

if I was the LA Times, I’d write an op-ed defending its coverage and educating it’s whining readership why they, like the ticket buying public of this country and the world, appreciate her.

beyonce formationperhaps they can get into the fact that it’s rare for a black woman on a solo tour to be able to command such a huge audience that cuts across race, gender, and age. perhaps they can show pictures of attendees of the enormous Rose Bowl audience crying. Maybe it should be written by a choreographer who can explain that while many female stars like Brittany Spears or Rihanna or Taylor Swift pose real nice, Queen Bey is dancing in dozen of numbers in ways we haven’t seen since Tina Turner.

there’s a reason they keep inviting her back to the Super Bowl. there’s a reason HBO allowed her what amounted to an infomercial last month to air her groundbreaking Lemonade long-form video. there’s a reason she can put her album on the fledgling Tidal and everyone will rush to the streaming service to hear what she has to say.

it is because for many many many who don’t usually have a voice in papers like the LA Times or even in LA, she is their Streisand, their Elvis, their Beatles. and there is no way in hell that Marty in Whittier would have bitched that the paper gave The King too much ink if he ever sold out the Rose Bowl.

so he should probably STFU about The Queen getting hers.

or better yet, perhaps they should OMG listen to what she’s singing about and realize that she’s just not singing to girls, women, black, brown, gay and straight people, she’s singing to and for everyone. and that’s why everyone, pretty much, adore her. including your local rag.

beyonce called again. doesnt that girl ever work?

“i want to renegotiate our deal,” she said.

what deal?

she said, “the deal about you shutting down your site unless you get permanently linked to 100 sites before july 9.”

oh, that deal, i said. no, i like that deal. randy, the only dude who consistantly beats my ass at fantasy sports linked me to day. he has one of those ultra-jewish sites. funny thing about this conflict in the middle east–

“baby baby, sshhhh. i have a new agreement that i think you might like,” she said.

“do you remember when a.beam was saying a few months back that you were #27 of google results for the word “tony“?

yes, i remember that. by the way, i found out today who a.beam was.

“how did you do that?”

well, her real site matched up with her fake site which bisected something on her interview with dawn.

“why do you keep calling a.beam ‘her’?”

cuz he’s a she, im telling you, i figured it out today and im bummed. i wish they had never done that interview. i liked it better when i thought he was jason ross.

“shit, i always thought he was ken basart,” beyonce said.

nah, basart’s too busy sitting in that hot tub up in the hollywood hills reading the Economist like a spazz.

“oh, now listen, tony, focus up. in the last 8 weeks your have climbed into the Tony Top Twenty. right now you’re #19 with a bullet.”

so?

“so?! so youre on the front page, just scroll all the way down to the bottom.”

who cares about Google? what does this mean? how does this affect our deal?

“what i would like to propose is, what if everyone goes to google and types in “tony”, scrolls all the way down and clicks your name, and what if you get in the top ten before july 9?”

i know what you’re saying, and no. i like the deal and i dont wanna be the top ten of anything. especially lame-ass search engine results!

“but lets be reasonable,” beyonce pleaded, “do you really think you’re more popular than Tony Hawk, or Tony Stone graphics, or The Tony Awards?”

Beyonce, i dont care. of course im not more popular than Tony Hawk or the others, im just saying that if you want to change the deal then, i will only accept it if i am the number one Google search result by 7/9, which, by the way is my favorite day of the year, the All-Star Game.

beyonce said, “you suck, but yes, i will try to get people to click you to the top. i guess if Layne can be the number one Ken, you can be the number one Tony.”

and i said, and if i dont get 100 links and im not the number one tony, then i wont feel bad at all for quitting on top, even though i wouldnt really be on top, based on those results.

and then she told me about how short mike myers was and i asked her if she got me a keepsake from the movie to give to Chris and she said that she forgot and i called her a bad name.

45. How Appealing