Before you read this, do you like Fall Out Boy? As
a Progressive Boink reader you are allowed one of three answers:
1) Yes, I like the pop-punk/emo-rock band Fall Out Boy. (continue to
paragraph 1)
2) Yes, I like Radioactive Man's sidekick Fall Out Boy. (continue to
paragraph 2)
3) No. (continue to paragraph 3)
1
You probably don't know a hell of a lot about R&B music. You don't have anything
AGAINST this kind of music (some of your best friends are R&B musics) but you prefer
your lead vocalist in power stance or bouncing tippie-toed in place instead of rolling
around on the ground rubbing a towel on his crotch. If you are a girl you may alternately
LOVE this kind of music, taking the necessary tangents to end up in Pioneer Square,
listening to Ice Cube on your iPod, decked out in Minor Threat hoodies and miniskirts with
a skateboard in one hand, and a website that gets me off about five out of every
six-thousand times in the other.
2
Isn't it funny that we're all old enough to be buying CDs for bands named after tertiary
Simpsons characters? I'm still not quite over it. I know the show has been on for
seventeen years and stuff they mentioned in the first few seasons has every right to be
kitschy and nostalgic alongside the Ninja Turtles and Nickelodeon Gak, but I really don't
think I'm ready to have my Avril singles sandwiched between singer/songwriter Langdon
Alger and the new one from The I Want a Taquitos.
3
You are black! Congratulations. You helped turn Eamon's "Fuck you, you ho, I don't
want you back" into a pop hook. You have listened to 50 Cent suggest that a girl
"unbutton [her] pants just a lil bit, take 'em off and pull 'em down just a lil
bit" seven-thousand times without once questioning how pulling something down after
you have taken it off is physically possible. You, like the majority of those cracker
bastards in the previous two paragraphs, listen to music for the "beat" and not
for the lyrics. Therefore anybody with cognizance of this can save time and frankly a
shitload of effort by playing some snake charmer music (I'm looking in your direction,
Eminem) and letting anyone standing around say anything they want over it. It happens all
the time. I swear to God that Nas' first three albums are just those fucking Muppets going
YIP YIP YIP YIP YIP at the telephone.
As the man who put the "B" in "R&B," I fancy myself a hip-hop
aficionado. That's why I'm such a fan of R. Kelly. I think it's safe to say that as
human beings we ALL are.
Lindy and I do a weekly comic about him. When Aaliyah died I felt so
badly for R's angelic child-bride that I poured out a bottle of Arbor Mist on my front
sidewalk even though I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to be doing. I even cried
at the part in "Space Jam" where Michael Jordan shoots a slam dunk shot. But
over the last few months every pundit and pop-culture comedian from Trey Parker to
Saturday Night Live has been enraptured by Kelly's epic masterpiece "Trapped in the
Closet (parts 1-12)," a gripping film noir about a group of overzealous
African-Americans who cannot stop fucking everyone they meet.
I'm not going to pretend like "Trapped" isn't headstrong and taking on anyone in
the competition for funniest series of videos ever. There's no question. If nothing else
it proves my long-standing point about midgets: a midget is not funny; however, DOING
something to a midget IS funny. King Kong Bundy dropping an elbow on Little Beaver is
one of the funniest moments in professional wrestling history, and not just because of
Gorilla Monsoon getting all outraged at the treatment of a beaver. It was the impending
DOOM of a midget that made me smile. In "Trapped in the Closet" Kelly not only
positions the midget to be roughed up as if the midget was under attack, but pointedly
writes him to have shitted on himself. This is humor at its most basic level, and if I
have to explain to you why someone shitting themselves is funny, enjoy your extremely tall
horse, Fauntleroy.
The misconception is that TiTC I-XII are somehow "out of left field" and
unexplainable. That they are an anomaly and R. Kelly is doing this as a unique joke. This
could not be any more untrue. As a leading Kellologist with a doctorate in Modern Hump
Bounce I know that this apparent mental retardation is nothing new. R. Kelly has been
rocking Walter Brennan's story songs with a hellafied gangsta lean for over a decade,
starting with this man, Ronald Isley AKA Mr. Biggs.
That's how you're supposed to identify him. Ronald Isley AKA Mr. Biggs.
Despite being at the helm of the influential family group "The Isley Brothers"
for close to a half century most modern Isley albums are labeled and categorized as
"The Isley Brothers featuring Ronald Isley AKA Mr. Biggs." I don't know if it's
a pride issue or that he really wants you to know he is SO THERE and owns a gun in the
middle of a sentence, but the truth remains that Mr. Biggs wants to be the one to be with
you, and deep inside he hopes you feel it too.
The Biggs character is an exceptional one because he is the weight-bearer of hip-hop
music's most underused and under-appreciated archetype: HAPLESS AND CONSTANTLY
DISRESPECTED. Teenagers like J-Kwon and aforementioned magic-sticked superstars like Fitty
make videos about how they call everyone bitches and are constantly at the dance club.
When the Hell did black people become gay people? Ronald Isley AKA Mr. Biggs is more apt
to make a video where he stumps his toe and then feels bad about it for five minutes.
Despite the fact that he totally waited on a line of greens and blues, Biggs' greatest
failure is his love life. It's never clear what he DOES but he's always in a limo, wearing
fur underwear, and eating gold. The man has got to be six-hundred years old so I'm
guessing he's like Vandal Savage and has just been around long enough to do all right
without doing much. Like, I'm guessing he can read hieroglyphics and shit. But yeah, Biggs
always gets a beautiful twenty-something, often live-in girlfriend, but his happiness is
always, always pissed on (groan) by, you guessed it, this man:
No, no, not THAT man. The worst he did was bring over some of his old
Motown records. And cover some old Motown records.
The urine in question is the WORLD'S GREATEST urine, straight from the narrah urethra of
the man who put the "R" in "R&B," Mr. R. Kelly. (Progressive Boink
writer Mike Fireball provided R&B's ampersand)
 
First up is the video for "Down Low." See, on the
"Down Low" nobody has to know. The "Down Low" is hip-hop things
for keeping something a secret, and is also the inverted version of D'Lo Brown's frog
splash. I'm going to be making wrestling jokes like this throughout, try to stay
with me.
Kelly works for Mr. Biggs as his, I don't know, gardener? Personal singer? so it's his job
to watch the Lady Biggs while the boss is away on business. This is one of the early flaws
of Biggs, seeing as how every other visible employee of his and most other Isley Brothers
are gruff, no-nonsense all-stars in the field of punching one's own palm to make an
impression. I guess Ronald Isley AKA moron feels that his vaginal property is safest in
the hands of a man who has been a creepy sexual deviant in voice and action for the last
15 years. Okay. At least she won't have to see any palms getting punched, I guess.
Sure enough the plan backfires and Biggs is left up on his kitchen counter figuratively
fucking a pie. Kelly and Lila Hart (the misses) fail to see anything wrong with a little
bump and grind, and before we even get to the chorus they are exhibiting several of the
things most wrong with both grind and bump. As a wrestling fan I know that sometimes
"bump" isn't necessary. It's like A.J. Styles. He's supposed to be a good
Christian, but no good Christian would bump so superfluously. You'd think a guy who
wrestled a wrestling priest all the time would've picked up on some of the finer points of
religion. But then again you wouldn't expect a good Christian to call people
"faggot" all the time either, and A.J. does that too.
Kelly, despite his varying ability to handle things Christian-like, is clearly no faggot
and before long he is engaged in a secret emotional relationship that can only be
described in the throws of passion. Or at least the remix of passion.
Click Here to Listen
Yes, what ARE we gonna do about this fucken threesome love affair? That's
one thing you have to know about R. Kelly. When he is cursing he is suddenly Dimaggio,
going back, back for the high fly ball. He is Manolete in Seville, going over the horns
for the kill. He is Pablo Picasso, deftly adding the third eye to a portrait of his lady
love. When he boastfully sings, "What, you'll shoot me for this FUCKIN MIDGET?"
you know that he has labored hard into the night finding the exact, perfection position
for FUCKIN. Which may actually explain why he's always having sex. He's doing research.
Ask yourself; what would you do if you came home and saw your girlfriend or wife's
"pretty titties in the air?" They'd have to be some pretty immense titties to be
"in the air," because even in rampant cowgirl they generally stay between the
stomach and neck. I don't blame Mr. Biggs for possibly "freakin'" when he sees
that. I would do everything short of laughing hot mess if my girlfriend's tits came off
during sex and started flying toward me like a fucking hadoken.
Mr. Biggs of course comes home to find that he is being CONSTANTLY
DISRESPECTED and before you know it Ronald Isley AKA pissed off and his associates SHOUT
kick their heels up and SHOUT come on now and drag Kelly off into the desert to beat the
piss out of him. This isn't your Enrique Iglesias desert beatdown either, where Enrique
gets punched in the stomach once and gets that little trickle of blood running out of the
corner of his mouth. Mr. Biggs is no chump. He's hapless, but NOT A CHUMP. He's THAT DAMN
GOOD.
 
more like percy sledge am i right
Kelly gets his leg bones splintered up into his chocolate factory and Biggs rubs it in,
demanding Kelly stay conscious long enough to hear that "I'M THE ONE WHO DID THIS TO
YOU." I just wish he had a ramp to walk up smirking. R. sells the vicious leg
injuries with an eyepatch and watches helplessly as the love of his life, Ms. Lila Hart,
is screwed out of being able to be alive.
 
Okay, sorry, I'll try to cut it out with the wrestling jokes. Here.
The worst part is that Lila could've lived if she would've just stopped
yelling out words randomly as Kelly tried to lock Biggs out of the house.
Click Here to Listen
Lila, you silly bitch, I can't believe it. In the end, Biggs has
driven a Wedge between his love life and R. Kelly.
Well, for about a year at least.
In 1997 Ronald Isley AKA Need Some More Money took over the reigns of the
Biggs Saga with "Contagious," a soulful talk-song about how a man sitting in his
house looks everywhere for his girl except for in other places in that house. He tries to
"two-way" her (a popular theme in these songs, also known as a "fucken
two-way phone affair") but she doesn't respond, so he knows something is fishy.
That's when he hears a "squeaky sound" from upstairs in his castle and rockets
his Bowser looking ass up the stairs in a three-minute bout of slow motion to discover
what the hell is going on between the sheets in his home. "Contagious" is
actually the song where I discovered my own perverse love of Ron Isley AKA Old River and
his Post-Crisis career, and one of my favorite noises in the world is the BUM BUM BUM that
accompanies every moment of drama and/or realization and/or speaking in the song.
Click Here to Listen
 
Mr. Biggs bursts into the bedroom that looks a lot like my ex-girlfriend's
Florida grandparents' bedroom and demands answers. The new Mrs. Biggs and soon to be Mrs.
Buried in the Fucking Desert pleads with "Frank" (okay) to refrain from
"pointing his cane." Pay attention, the cane becomes important later.
From here on the song goes from decent R&B song into the yappy discussion that Kelly
later mined for "Trapped in the Closet," with great rhyming dialogue like
"Girl I'm bout to have a fit!/Oh it's about to be some shit." Kelly is of
course not bothered because he totally has another eyeball to spare but Biggs is oblivious
to his identity until Kelly accidentally identifies Frank by name. That's when we get a
great "WAIT HOW YA KNOW MY NAME SON" and Encyclopedia Brown People finally figures it out.
The girl becomes a non-factor (because I guess Frank learned from Lila)
and she is dismissed in absolutely the most hilarious, overly dramatic way.
Click Here to Listen
The mystical incantations of Ronald Isley AKA Frank Longbottom! Once the
bitch has hit the streets (because her "ass is grass") Biggs refocuses on Kelly,
recalling that he "knows him very well," which may or may not have to do with
Smithers identifying him as that naked guy in the Zorro mask from sector 7G. Frank notes
that the "Down Low" is "happenin' to [him] all over again," and that
Kelly better "leave this place," 'cause he's "about to catch a case."
The problem with this is that the chorus goes:
"You're contagious
Touch me baby
Give me what you got
Sexy lady
Drive me crazy
Drive me wild."
That's what he hears them saying to each other as he's climbing the stairs. So when he
warns Kelly to leave before he "catches a case" is he suggesting that Kelly
leave before he decides to ball him himself? Even though this makes sense there are two
pieces of evidence which disprove the theory: Firstly, Biggs walked in on the two having
sex, and I KNOW he noticed that Kelly still had his freaking socks on.
Secondly (and I asked you to remember it), when Biggs begins to
"point his cane" it is revealed that his cane is ACTUALLY A SWORD.
If I ever catch somebody with which I'm in a relationship having sex with
another man I will make it clear to them that any further misbehavior will be met with
STABBING from my DEADLY CANE SWORD. The only thing more pimp than a cane sword is a furry peach suit.
Kelly does an "o i c" and bolts as Biggs' men arrive to carry him off to, I
don't know, the ocean to stab him in the arms.
So once again Mr. Biggs has ended the scourge of infidelity plaguing his home, and peace
can finally be ach--
 
AH CHRIST
The next girl Biggs decides to get frank with is Asia, who decides in the
"heat of the moment" that she needs to hook up with their next door neighbor: R.
KELLY. So okay, this is getting ridiculous. Even if Mr. Biggs is rich he's still a very
old, out of shape man in a fur coat. He's working HARD to get the quality of sweet Miami
love muscle he's pulling. R. Kelly is generally considered to be a man of average
attractiveness and he's young, AND rich, AND incredibly famous. And he goes
"HOO!" after he's hit a high note to let you know how exasperated it made him.
He can get tail. He doesn't need to stand outside in Mr. Biggs' bushes waiting for Mr.
Biggs' bushes.
But he does, and before you know it Asia gets BUSTED. And Mr. Biggs knows a thing or two about
being busted, having been the last boss in NARC for so many years.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the crown jewel of the Mr. Biggs series. "Busted" got less
airplay and radio play than either "Down Low" or "Contagious," but
though sheer songwriting hilarity rises up above them both. "Down Low" was
generally a serious R&B song about a love affair before it got pretty tittied in the
remix, and before and after the Rex Harrison shit "Contagious" had a good hook
and a decent structure. What I'm saying is that they tried hard to make the songs as good
as they could. "Busted" does not do this.
 
Asia walks in and flips on the lights to find Biggs in a robe sitting in
the darkness waiting for her so he can say BUSTED~! and ask her where the hell she's been.
Asia is obviously shaken -- anybody who has spent more than five seconds with Ronald Isley
AKA middle-aged psychopath knows that he could have anything under that smoking jacket: A
sword, a bazooka, some nunchucks. He could open that baby up and spit snakes out at her.
She doesn't know. She says she "was with her girlfriends."
"YOU A LIEEEEE" responds Biggs, and I just lose it for the rest of the song. Do
yourself a favor. If any of this has interested you whatsoever get on Kazaa or Limewire or
SOMEWHERE and download "Busted." How can you deny the beauty of a song that
features the lines:
"Tell me what's her name?
(Sharon)
Where she live?
(Uuummm...)"
Yes, Asia SINGS THE WORD UM. She does it several times. She can't get her
story straight and Sherlock Homey cuts to the quick by asking her questions like "THE
NAME A THE CLUB (Kisses!)" and "How the fuck is she your friend if you don't
know that she got kids?" Kelly doesn't even make it into the video after the opening.
Ronald Isley AKA Tired of this Shit lays down the smack and taunts her indecisiveness with
an impish dance.
TELL ME WHICH OOOOONEEEEEE you were DOOOINNNNNN
And all she can sing is "UMMMMMMMMM." Frank sends her
packing despite her not having a place to go, because "frankly my dear [he] don't
give a damn." Yes, he actually says that. Look on the bright side, Asia! You can head
off to a city of justice, or a city of peace like Gotham City.
As an aside that really has nothing to do with Mr. Biggs, what was the deal with that
song? R. Kelly did a song called "Gotham City" on one of the Batman movie
soundtracks talking about how peaceful and nice the town is. Has he ever read a comic book
in his life? Do they not screen this stuff before they release a movie with the soundtrack
tacked onto it? I guess this is the same kind of progressive thinking that made the people
at Disney use Third Eye Blind's song about being on crystal meth in the commercials for
the Tigger Movie.
Anyway, one of the better parts of this video is Biggs' wardrobe as he taunts her, using
intricate legal jargon to bring her up on charges.
Click Here to Listen
 
I don't even think Larry Bird is man enough to wear a fur coat over a
Larry Bird jerseyt. How did Biggs automatically know she wasn't telling the truth? It's
not like he walked in on them fucking like the last two girls. But ah, there's the rub.
You're forgetting about Mr. Biggs' FAMILIA HOLMES. You see Luigi Isley back there? The guy
playing guitar. The one dressed like Jesse the Body Ventura. There he is.
Luigi was in the back watching Asia give Kelly that mack shit over
surveillance, proving once and for all that the Isley Brothers are the most dangerous
creatures in the Serengeti.
And so we bring to a close the story of Mr. Biggs and R. Kelly, who never
again crossed
 
who
I
and with the
*sigh* ah this isn't going to end well.
Mr. Biggs (a few years later, when even FEWER people are listening) charters a yacht and
uses it to finger Traci Bingham in a bubble bath. Yyyyyyeah. But you see, one of R's
friends is on board and the prisoner of Ronald Isley AKA Habib Marwan, so it makes perfect
sense that a real-life R&B singer/fictional-life handyman-Casanova would STORM THE
BOAT WITH A TERROR CELL AND BE BAD ENOUGH TO RESCUE THE FRIEND AND SIMULTANEOUSLY STEAL
MR. BIGGS GIRLFRIEND AGAIN.
 
"Secret Lover" is BFE to the point that even R. Kelly wouldn't
show up in the video, and the only time you see "him" is from behind. You can
recognize him by the corn rows. Clearly looking to be more of an instigator this nWo R.
Kelly commands assault vehicles and does battle with henchmen on Frank's floating lair.
Biggs clutches his hat and cane as Aren't Kelly putts away, thoughts of revenge and how to
work the cane's spring loaded shuriken function mulling over in his head.
 
What does a man do when he's had his girlfriend stolen four times by the
same man, resulting in murder, homelessness, and kidnapping? You can do one of two things.
1) Accept it. You're rich, powerful, and can have anything you want. Let R. Kelly have the
trampy women who don't deserve you anyway, and if you ever want to have decent sex again
make a conscious effort to move away from where R. Kelly lives.
Or
2) Call up Hannibal Lector the Fictional Character and ask him to eat R. Kelly.
 
R. Kelly's speedboat made it all the way to Morocco or something and
somehow he wandered into the only bar in the world where someone Anthony Hopkins played in
a movie is going to cross over and devour you with a side of fava beans and a nice
chiaaaaanti, pronounced like you are raising the stakes against your fellow locksmiths.
Biggs asks Doctor Lector (I swear to God) if he has "taken care of the problem"
AKA eaten his balls off yet, and is informed that the situation is underway as they speak.
There's only one problem...
MR. BIGGS' GIRLFRIEND IS THERE TOO
NO NOT HER DON'T EAT HER NOOOO
Lector remarks that she looks like a "delicious crem bruleé" and hangs up the
phone, leaving Biggs upset and use to assume that R. Kelly has met his fate via
CANNIBALISM for FUCKING GOD'S SAKES.
Then, in the next video, Mr. Biggs walks into the kitchen to find his wife having sex with
a plate of pork chops.
The moral of the story is this: The next time somebody comes up to you and does something
stupid, or says something stupid, or shows you something stupid that they created or sang
or acted in, don't just assume that this is the stupidest thing that they've done.
Listening to or watching a pastor's gay lover and wife threaten each other with knife
violence becomes pretty tame when you realize that behind that next R&B song may lie
the RED DRAGON.
In conclusion, R&B = Best!!11 Thank you, black people! |
