IF IT RAPS LIKE A CRIMINAL, IT'S PROBABLY A CRIMINAL: I'll apologize in advance that I don't have time to do this next post justice. But...

This article reminds me of my brief foray into the music/entertainment biz. Without naming names, let me just say I was astounded how much involvement and overlap big-time Hollywood and big-time Music have with crime and criminals. This is not an isolated thing. There are all manner of gangsters and gangstas mixed up in the business of show, as they say. I mean, just read the article. Not so many degrees of separation there between big-time show business and big-time street criminal. Like no degrees. One and the same. Okay, so maybe it takes one layer to get from gangsta to superstar, from criminal enterprise to big-screen blockbuster. One!

Sure, I like movies and music as much as the next guy. Hell, I even like wild and sexy movies and gangsta-rap. But the premise we often hear -- this is just fantasy, it's not reality, it's harmless entertainment -- to justify the misogynism and criminality and drug infuence and amorality of it all...well, it's not really true, at least not all the time, now is it? If a guy calls himself "Gotti" and runs with drug dealers and uses a recording studio called The Crackhouse...are we that crazy not to be shocked when it turns out he's a criminal?

In a roundabout way...and I apologized already for not running farther and harder with this premise...this is why Big Entertainment is a drag on the Democratic party. Middle America is catching on that songs and movies about killing and drugging and sexing -- and the progenitors thereof -- are not simply innocent fantasies and visionary artists. Nope. They're criminal kingpins/enterprises channeling our lust for helter-sheltered, vicarious thrills into real-life evildoing.

Not elegant writing, I know. But you get it.