Excellent opportunity for a joke.
 

Oh man, there goes my week.

Excellent opportunity for a joke.
 

-Michael Jackson's nose
-Monticore
-Lacy Petersen
-Joe Strummer

It's funny how she just assumes it her in the hypothetical. I suppose she also believes that X was me, and not dualit.

A ranting and a raving
 

Because I'm totally and completely disinclined to do much work at all today, I've been taking a look at the rants and raves forum on Houston's Craigslist.

I found this gem. I don't care if it's true or not, but it's one of the funniest things I've read in awhile:

http://houston.craigslist.org/rnr/21516553.html (spree: rant, sex alluded to, but no pictures, nothing graphic)

SnoopDog says buy a Nokia
 

There is more than one form of selling out.

1. Willing to do what it takes to make the most money one can.

2. Willing to change who you are to maximize your earning potential.

It seems like your definition of selling out falls closer to (1) (Although you can argue that (2) is a subset of (1), I don't think it's that simple.) The term sell-out was charged in black communities long before rap music. And it doesn't just mean getting as much money as you can. It means a lot of things from trying to pass as white to swallowing your opinions around white people in order to get a job, keep a job, move ahead, etc. So, your question is more complicated than you probably think. I will only answer it as it applies to rap music.

It used to be that if you were a rap artist, you took one of two paths. You would either try to maximize your earning potential by doing whatever the label wanted you to do (read: mold yourself into what some white executive thought white kids wanted to hear) -- and that meant, be as much like Will Smith or MC Hammer as possible. Wear shiny clothes. Rap about harmless shit. Etc. You were viewed as a sell-out because you'd be selling your soul to be successful -- trying to be someone you are not. Trying to be less black (and therefore less threatening) than you are.

But, back then, you sold a few records and (as Ice Cube put it) your Ghetto Pass was revoked. You were a joke in the industry and all that fame and fortune did you no good because it didn't last long and you couldn't carry it to the places you wanted to go, since you got no respect once labeled a sell-out.

So, few people sold out that way. Everyone made many attempts to be "true" and "real" to who they were. The sad thing is, the people who were becoming the most popular with suburban white kids (read: MTV/Clear Channel) were the ones who had gang or drug dealing and violent histories. So, being "real" took on a whole new meaning that had nothing to do with the actual origin of the word. A new form of selling out arose -- that of acting like you were a hood when you just graduated from The School of Performing Arts.

Now that the industry has caught up with such frauds, you need actual ghetto credentials to be big time. That's why every rapper talks about which projects he's from, how many times he's been shot and how much crack they used to have to sling. The Jay Zs, Biggie Smalls and Fifty Cents of the world aren't sell outs in that they actually did sell drugs and had violent pasts. When they rap about where they're from and what they've seen, it rings true. In that sense, they aren't sell outs. And it is that sense and only that sense that is important to them. Because (1) now, success (selling to white suburban kids) only comes when you have the right background and that authenticity and (2) you don't lose credibility with black people for trying to be something you're not. Translation: Successful rappers can stay true to who they are, and who they are is what young suburban white kids who watch MTV want.

Now, if we look at your question using your definition of sell-out, it's a different analysis. Snoop Dogg is extreme because he's doing fucking AOL commercials for christsakes. He is a caricature of who he once was and is clearly only interested in cashing in. I think he's a joke (but that is neither here nor there). [I will note that he is a sell-out much like the Stones are sell outs for selling their songs to companies to be used in ads, though.] As for all those other artists who are doing commercials or endorsing products, I would say they're seizing an opportunity that only recently has presented itself to them. Would you call that selling out? Maybe you would. Is LL a sell out when he does a Sprite commercial, even though he now does movies as well as (crappy) CDs? Is that selling out (If I knew your sense of humor better, I would ask, "What? A nigger can't drink a soda?")? Is it just about product placement? What's your definition?

Also, most rap artists came from nothing. When you come from absolutely nothing, you are constantly trying to show everyone you have something (even when you don't). That's why so many artists spend so much on material crap. "Oh, you're big time? How come you ain't got no ice? Where's yo' Bentley?" Is this the cultural paradigm you speak of? If it is, I wouldn't say it's necessarily selling out. I wouldn't even say it's cultural. I think everyone who comes from nothing, whether they've made it or not, spends time and money letting everyone else know that they do in fact have something. That's why clothes companies put the labels on the outside of clothes -- to take advantage of that insecurity so many people have.

Let me also add that there are quite a few artists who don't care much about MTV-type success and therefore wouldn't fall into the sell-out analysis in any way.

TM

Well, I'm not

a) fat
b) bald
c) married (in the legal sense)
d) a tax attorney

so X being me is out of the question.

Dua(svelte, well-coiffed, partnered, in-house legal god)lit

You are also like the non-subtle person. People please, let's stop being like the non-subtle person.

Not that it hasn't been simply charming...
 

Maybe it's soap opera law, but I think annulment on the basis of inability to consumate/frigidity goes out the window if you do consumate. There may be other grounds, like the person was married, is a felon, is drunk, wasn't actually a former member of the mickey mouse club, isn't cool enough to hang with me, and so on.

Sorry. It's Monday (first day back after 2 weeks vacation) and I am very cranky.

Not that it hasn't been simply charming...
 

Hmmm, can't really tell from that picture. He seems to have a little trouble in the eyebrow area and flapping ears, but he has nice teeth, good skin. He'd have to have a really smoking hot body, though.......but maybe with enough alcohol.......hmmmmmm.

Not that it hasn't been simply charming...
 

So that's why they had to come up with the lame "not compatible" reasoning. Isn't there a no-fault annulment?

And why not just get the cheapy quicky divorce? Is annulment really more desireable?

Now, I am back after more than two weeks away and I could not be less cranky . . . and I spent this afternoon listening to a new client whine for an hour and a half on the phone.

Maybe you needed a longer vacation?

Not that it hasn't been simply charming...
 

Under the new version of the DOMA, (submitted by Falwell, I think), an annulment is almost automatic if you find your new partner is a vegan, a Muslim, a liberal, an environmentalist, or someone involved even marginally in the tofu industry.

Not that it hasn't been simply charming...
 

I assume, although citing the inability to consummate might not play well in the sticks.

And, since Brittney's "catholic" perhaps she doesn't want a divorce. Isn't that why Ted Kennedy paid the church to get his first marriage, of many years, annulled?

ETA: Oops. That's Joe Kennedy who did the twelve-years-after annulment.

SnoopDog says buy a Nokia
 

There's also the type of selling out which comes from having a "film career" based on doing "Snoop Dogg's Girls Gone Wild" videos to be sold on late night basic cable and the internet. That's got nothing one way or another with being black. That's just being a ho.

Like yo' Moms.