We begin with a snippet from a Bloomberg article:
In memory of Back Page, which I must admit, I never actually visited until seized by the federalis, todays song of the day is Big Pimpin’ by Jay-Z. Candidly, the song sucks and the artist is even worse but I have to pay homage to pimpin in all its forms, even Pill Cosby’s unique angle on the pimp roll:
In other news, I came across the following sign which provides an appropriate shoutout to Arch Stanton and his recent guest post on edible Star Wars characters.
And finally, back to the basics of Musings and Malarkey. This blog was originally intended to be a shrine to two great American Superheroes: Ronald Reagan and John Wayne. During a recent visit to Bass Pro Shops, I perused the six shooters (author note: in reality, I’m still against firearms and the second amendment has been stretched too far) and found the following which are absolutely amazing. Considering buying one for my John Wayne shrine:
These firearms would be highly complementary to this mustache (two photos, same man):
Musings and Malarkey 
I do not have time to tell you how wrong you are about the artistic merit of Big Pimpin’.
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Actually is going bother me if I don’t.
I believe I had previously addressed the history of Jay Z’s magnum opus, but for those of us with short memories/dislikers of Big Pimpin’, I’ll repeat here: this song was written after Jay had been charged with assault after stabbing a, manager he believed responsible for leaking a, previous album. For those unfamiliar, stabbing people = bad. So bad in fact, he faced fifteen years in prison (note to self – consider alternate reality where Jay is imprisoned until 2016…). Regarding this point in his life, Jay said, “there’s an equal and opposite relationship between balling and falling.”
This song featured Houston hip hop legends UGK, or Bun B and Pimp C. Pimp was VERY much against being a part of what he considered frivolous, famously shooting Jay down multiple times about being featured. When Jay eventually got him to listen to the beat, Pimp, after a long pause, responded “TRASH” and walked out (later he rreiterated, “don’t know bout all then flutes”). Jay had twenty hit singles up to this point whereas UGK had had none take off outside Houston. Jay asked for a standard sixteen bar verse, but Pimp would only provide eight, basically because fuck y’all. In its place is a hastily added half-verse from Jay to round out the song which he later lamented as cheesy.
As part of their agreement to be part of the video, Pimp C required his as-to-yet unreleased Mercedes be included. Cash flows being an issue, Pimp was unable to front the payment for an unreleased Mercedes and borrowed $80K from a Nashville drug dealer to complete the transaction. Two notes here – first, this dealer showed up not with a check or an ACH transfer, but two garbage bags full of cash. Second, this video obviously takes place on a boat, so… Not in Nashville – this dealer drove two garbage bags of cash to Miami so Pimp C could make Jay Z’s life harder. The car was in the video for two seconds.
This is also the video where, now recognized on a national level, Pimp C had to answer why he was wearing a full length fur coat in Miami, to which he replied, “television ain’t got no temperature.”
SOME MORE PROOF OF THE GREATNESS OF THIS SONG – it was Jay’s first platinum single, it’s in Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs as well as their 50 Greatest Hip Hop Songs, it was nominated for a Grammy and a VMA (one being mildly more significant than the other).
OH YEAH and Bun B raps, “so pick up a book you illiterate son of a bitch and step up yo vocab”. This song is legendary.
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