It's Friday. Do you know what that means? Tonight, TruTV will gift humanity with an all-new episode of Cable television's most terrible/brilliant gameshow, Killer Karaoke. An hour-long amalgam of Fear Factor, adult DoubleDare, and an American Idol audition, this series is an Americanized reboot of British spectacle, Sing If You Can, hosted by self-depreciating reformed jackass Steve-O.

The premise is awesomely stupid: contestants recreate songbook classics while being subjected to absurdly unnerving circumstances. In the first episode, a man attempts to recreate the Gap Band's "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" while getting his chest waxed. A young woman is lowered into an icy cold tank of swimming snakes and baby alligators while hooting A-ha's "Take on Me." A dork from Cincinnati wears a balloon suit and drunk goggles while ambling through a cactus maze and screeching "You Are So Beautiful," all in the pursuit of a money tree writhing with snakes. The episode's winner, who is none of these people, takes home "a whopping $5,500." As the Times so aptly put it, "What more do you need to know about the lust for fame that has infected our species?"

We recently spoke with the woman responsible, Natalka Znak, the British CEO of Zodiak USA, who is also behind such creations as Hell's Kitchen, Hardcore Pawn, and Celebrity Wife Swap. She knows what she is doing.

What was the elevator pitch for Killer Karaoke? This seems like the sort of show where you could just walk into a meeting, show a five-second tape, and then an exec hands you some cash, a stack of release forms, and a bucket of alligators.

We've based in LA, but we have a New York office, and every six weeks, I go out to pitch. I'm the head of [Zodiak USA] and I usually have people with me, carrying all the relevant bits—which makes me sound grand, but I'm not. But on this occasion, I was pitching alone and I had been given various packages, and I ended up at TruTV with a big jumbly pile of a mess. Things sticking out of my bag. So I go in there, and I rummage through my big, brown paper thing and I pull out this stuff and I go, "Okay, here's the batch I'm gonna pitch for you."

Marc Juris, the head of the channel, looked at my bag on the floor and said, "What's that brown envelope? I want to know what's in that bag."

So I got the envelope. I said, "Oh, it's a singing show [based on] Sing If You Can. I didn't think you'd be interested in a singing show." He said, "Well, I am, put the tape in." So I put the tape in, and he bought it straight-to-series in the room.

Sing If You Can seems to require singing talent. This doesn't require any vocal skills at all.

You would be wrong. We cast this show very, very carefully—we have an excellent in-house casting team. All of these people are really, really good singers. If you have really bad singers and they're screaming at the same time, then maybe that's too much. The times at which they are singing, they are actually quite good. We just do a very good job at distracting them.

The New York Times review was surprisingly positive, kind of cheekily saying Killer Karaoke "may be the greatest show in television history."

I've had a lot of reviews in my time. But in my favorite one, which is here on the wall framed from the UK, I was listed as "One of the 10 People to Have Dumbed Down British TV." Quite a recognition. I think the Times review might go next to it quite nicely. Killer Karaoke could sit on either list, really: it's either the best show in the world or the worst show in the world. Some reviews have said that—and I think as long as you've got a show where people are saying that, you're kind of onto a winner, aren't you?

To me, the show seems like deliberate self-parody. You actually have contestants in balloon suits walking through a cactus maze to get to a money tree that's writhing with snakes.

On many levels, it's very profound isn't it. It's a comment on reality TV. I've been asked over many years, "How low will you go?" The answer is, "A lot lower!"

You've produced Celebrity Love Island, Celebrity Wife Swap, and I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Who are your fantasy celebrity Killer Karaoke contestants?

This is going to sound awful, but I really love Donny Osmond, and I'd love to see Donny being electrocuted while singing.

Are plans for a celebrity version underway?

I've made a celebrity version of every show you can think of, so I always have plans for a celebrity version. It's always the next stage. But no, I haven't spoken to Tru about that, not yet.

What stunts haven't you been able to stage that you'd like?

We've thought about putting a shark in a snake tank, but thought that would be too much. I've got a particular obsession, emu? You call them ostriches here. I did a fantastic stunt with Johnny Rotten, of all people, once: on the British version of I'm a Celebrity, where we painted him in tar and he got pecked by ostriches. It was one of the funniest and most surreal things. But for some reason, we can't use them here.

Subway Australia finally got around to responding to Australian teen Matt Corby's request to know why his footlong sub was an inch shorter than expected, and, just like the actual length of its signature sandwich, the company's statement leaves much to be desired.

While Subway acknowledged that the undersized bread "is not baked to our standards," it goes on to claim that there really is no such thing as "undersized bread" because "footlong" is just a word.

"With regards to the size of the bread and calling it a footlong, 'SUBWAY FOOTLONG' is a registered trademark as a descriptive name for the sub sold in Subway® Restaurants and not intended to be a measurement of length."

The hell you say.

As BuzzFeed's Copyranter points out, Subway makes it pretty clear in its ads how long a footlong sub should be.

And all this talk of an inconsistent "proofing process" causing the bread to vary from store to store doesn't really make up for that lost inch of sandwich.

If the subs are known to shrink, why not make the pre-proofed bread a bit longer to make up for it? Because Subway is purposely cutting corners to save money.

"The shops have sliced their cold-cut sizes by 25 percent in the past few months," the New York Post reported yesterday. Less bread makes the reduction in cold cuts seem less conspicuous.

Naturally, Subway Australia has since removed the half-baked response.

[images via BuzzFeed, FoodBeast]

Are you an adventurous human woman? Adventurous enough to be a surrogate mother for the first Neanderthal baby to be born in 30,000 years?

Harvard geneticist George Church recently told Der Spiegel he's close to developing the necessary technology to clone a Neanderthal, at which point all he'd need is an "adventurous human woman" — einen abenteuerlustigen weiblichen Menschen — to act as a surrogate mother.

It's not out of the question at all. As MIT Technology Review's Susan Young points out, scientists cloned an extinct subspecies of ibex in 2009. It died immediately, sure. But they still cloned it.

What would that entail? According to a 2008 study of a Neanderthal infant skeleton (from which the above image is taken), "the head of the Neanderthal newborn was somewhat longer than that of a human newborn because of its relatively robust face," and Neanderthal women generally had a wider birth canal than human women. Neanderthal birth was simpler than human birth, because Neanderthal infants didn't have to rotate to get to the birth canal, but otherwise the processes were very similar. (Even so, I imagine all but the most adventurous of human women would opt for a C-section in this case.)

Once the baby's out, though, you're in good shape — Neanderthal babies are thought to have grown much more quickly than their human counterparts. And Church seems to think that there'll be a Neanderthal craze, as he told Bloomberg Businessweek last year:

"We have lots of Neanderthal parts around the lab. We are creating Neanderthal cells. Let's say someone has a healthy, normal Neanderthal baby. Well, then, everyone will want to have a Neanderthal kid. Were they superstrong or supersmart? Who knows? But there's one way to find out."

[Der Spiegel via MIT Technology Review]

Ahead of his second inauguration on Monday, President Obama's office has released a new official portrait.

As an homage to a childhood favorite — the Double Check in Highlights magazine — we thought we'd play a fun game of spot the differences between the two photos. The answers are below, and remember to have fun!

[Images via The White House/flickr and change.gov]

(buızıɯs) buıןıɯs 'ɹıɐɥ ʎǝɹb 'ǝɔıɟɟo ןɐʌo :sɹǝʍsuɐ

On last night's American Idol, Mariah Carey's irrepressible eccentricity once again took a starring role. She asked a guy with a stutter (in a segment that played my emotions like a harp), "Tell me about the way you speak — is that someone thing you're working on, or...?" She told a young woman, "I know what it's like to sing through tears." She reported that Mariah is "the 62nd most popular name," and you know she takes all credit for that. She said, "Cool beans...salad."

She also, of course, bickered with her on-screen rival Nicki Minaj, referring to the pop star/rapper at one point as "Missy." Heh. The also bonded over Another Bad Creation's "Iesha." I feel like their ultimately playful squabbling couldn't be done if they didn't actually like each other. Strange relationship. Developing...

Stephen Colbert's sister is planning to throw her hat in the race for South Carolina's First Congressional District, hoping to succeed where her famous sibling failed.

Though her brother's attempts to run for office were less than serious, Elizabeth Colbert-Busch's candidacy for the Democratic nomination is no joke.

St. Andrews Patch broke the news this afternoon that Colbert-Busch — pronounced with a hard "t" — will file papers next week to join the special election being held in May to fill the congressional seat made vacant in December after Tim Scott was appointed by Governor Nikki Haley to take over for retiring Senator Jim DeMint.

According to Patch, Colbert-Busch is currently "the Director of Sales and Marketing for Clemson University's Wind Turbine Drivetrain Testing Facility and was previously "the Director of Business Development for Clemson University's Restoration Institute."

Colbert-Busch is expected to pick up the Democratic nomination, but her victory in the general election in far from secure.

Former governor Mark "Appalachian Trail" Sanford is considered a favorite to receive the Republican nomination, and will undoubtedly have a fairly strong advantage over any Democrat running in the dark-red district.

Correction: A previous version of the post erroneously suggested Tim Scott had won his Senate seat. As now indicated above, he was appointed.

[photos via Clemson, AP]

Actor and concerned parent Michael J. Fox likely sealed his son Sam's fate Wednesday evening, when he told a reporter from Vulture that he would not advise his 23-year-old to date Taylor Swift.

Fox was commenting in response to a joke made at last weekend's Golden Globes, in which host Tina Fey warned Swift to "stay away from Michael J. Fox's son."

Here's what Fox said:

"No. No... Just back off…I don't keep up with it all. But Taylor Swift writes songs about everybody she goes out with, right? What a way to build a career."

The actor added that if Swift came to dinner at his house, he "wouldn't even know who she was," but that it would hit him, later, after she released the inevitable post-break-up song.

"'Sam, You Piece of Shit.' Oh … that was the girl you brought home"

Okay, let's run through this hypothetical:

Michael J. Fox's son, Sam, begins quietly courting the eighth highest-paid musician of 2012, Taylor Swift. Following a series of intimate dates, the pair grow close enough that he deems it appropriate to introduce her to his family.

Sam's mother, actress Tracy Pollan, eagerly awaits the meeting; Sam has not looked this happy in a long time. His father, Michael J., refuses to speak to his son about his personal life and remains distracted throughout the meal preparations.

Finally, the big night arrives.

Although he does not know who she is, Michael J. Fox greets Taylor Swift warmly, so accustomed is he to breaking bread with strangers and vagrants who wander into his home.

As course follows course (oysters, cream of barley, roast beef), Michael delicately attempts to glean information about his guest.

"Have you any thoughts as to how you might go about earning a little money, Tyler?" he asks. "Are you a good typist? A whiz with sums?"

At the conclusion of the evening, Michael J. Fox escorts Taylor Swift to the door of his palatial abode and discreetly slips a $20 bill into her hand.

"I wish you all the very best," he says.

Swift and Sam break up a few weeks later for unrelated reasons.

Months pass.

One day, Michael J. Fox is wandering around Ralph's in search of horseradish ("Is it with the pickles? Is it something that needs to be refrigerated?"), when a song comes over the store speakers that catches his attention.

"Sam, you piece of shit," a young girl sings.

"That's my son!" Fox thinks.

And then he Knows.

But that day, though it will come, is not today.

For now, over in the Kingdom of the Shadows of the Midnight Sun, Taylor Swift's assistant brings her an iPhone on a decorative tin platter.

"Hey Sam," Taylor Swift types. "Heard yr dad doesn't like me lol. What's up with that? ;)"

UPDATE:

Taylor Swift and Michael J. Fox are fucking.

[Vulture // Image via Getty]

Authorities and prosecutors investigating the case of a cleaning lady who was at the helm of a train when it went off the rails near Stockholm and crashed into a three-story apartment building say they have cleared the woman of any wrongdoing.

"Everything indicates that this was an accident resulting from several unfortunate circumstances that allowed the woman to set the train in motion in connection with the cleaning," prosecutor Pär Andersson told the press.

Immediately following the accident, both Stockholm's public transit company SL and the line's operator Arriva said they believed they cleaner had stolen the train, but now claim they made no absolute statements.

"I made clear from the beginning that all scenarios were possible. It's unfortunate that she was depicted as a thief, and I'm truly sad about that," said Arriva spokesman Tomas Hedenius.

The woman herself has not yet been interviewed by police as she remains in serious condition.

Andersson, the prosecutor, said his office is currently investigating possible workplace safety violations.

[screengrab via YouTube]

A Russian chef who founded the legendary Project OGI — a popular hangout space for the country's literary elite — has reportedly confessed to murdering and dismembering his journalist wife earlier this month.

According to local media, Alexei Kabanov, 38, attacked Irina Cherska, 39, during a domestic dispute over Kabanov's mistress.

Kabanov allegedly strangled Cherska to death with speaker wire and then dismembered her body using the knowledge he gained from his work as a chef. He subsequently stuffed her remains into garbage bags and hid them on the balcony.

As they say, that's when things get weird.

Three days later, Kabanov, a familiar figure in "the protest-minded Russophone Facebook community," reached out to his 1,500 friends to ask for help in finding his wife.

"Friends! My wife Ira has disappeared," his status update began.

She left home on January 3rd in the morning and never returned. The police are looking for her. The police say that she will return and it will all be fine. But as time goes by, I gradually lose hope. To give you a better understanding of the situation, I would say that she left after we had a fight. But I can believe any circumstances, except the ones that she just left without telling me. If you know something, please just let me know that she's alive.

The disappearance of Cherska, a radio editor who hosts a show on family violence, immediately conjured up thoughts of abduction among some in Kabanov's circle.

One friend offered to use his newspaper ties to spread word of the situation; another recommended Kabanov contact the Russian Investigative Committee and file a criminal complaint.

Kabanov continued posting updates throughout, but his inaction started raising suspicion with volunteers who were printing leaflets asking for the public's assistance (see left).

One of the more telling signs that something in Kabanov's story was off was his reference to his wife in the past tense.

It is believed that police, suspicious of Kabanov themselves, were monitoring his Facebook posts and phone conversations. After he borrowed a car from his mistress, allegedly with the intent to transport his wife's body parts out of town, officers decided to make their move.

Pravda reports:

Having learnt that Kabanov borrowed a car from a female friend of his, a detective visited the suspect's apartment. Having seen the car keys, the detective asked Kabanov to go to the car and open the trunk. Inside, there were a few bags. Kabanov began pulling the contents from some of them, but the detective wanted to inspect every bag.

The next moment Kabanov turned pale and said, "Don't, Irina is in there." One of the bags contained the woman's head and limbs.

Kabanov was arrested without incident, and now faces up to 15 years in jail for murder.

Alexey and Irina shared three children — two from their current marriage and one from Cherska's previous marriage. They have been removed from the home and will be placed in the care of relatives.

[H/T: The Daily Dot, photo via Facebook]

The final half of Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah aired Friday. While the first night focused more on the history of Armstrong's abuse of performance-enhancing drugs, tonight focused largely on the impact coming clean has had on Amstrong, his family (including his son Luke who spent years defending his father in person and online), his friends and his organization Livestrong — from which he has now severed all ties.

Armstrong talked about losing his sponsorships: a day he claims cost him $75 million. He also called the day he had to step aside from Livestrong "the most humbling moment."

Armstrong was criticized for sounding emotionless Thursday, and remained so for much of the second part as well. He did, however, choke up when telling Oprah how he came clean to his 13-year-old son Luke, who, he said, had been adamant in defending his father against allegations of doping: "I told Luke, I said, 'don't defend me anymore," Armstrong said, recounting the conversation that had happened just before the taping of the interview.

There's something, though, in the way he says "my dad said he was sorry" that sounds as if he expects a two-hour television special to absolve him of all the wrong he's done.

Oprah asked Armstrong several times if he believes he is now a better person. A question he answered each time in the affirmative, though he added he could make no promises:

It's easy to sit here and say, "I feel different, I feel smarter, I feel like a better man today." But I can't lose my way again ... I'm in no position to make promises, I'm gonna slip up every now and again, but that is the biggest challenge the rest of my life is to not slip up again and to not lose sight of what I've got to do. I had it and then things got too big, things got too crazy.

During the interview, Armstrong admit that he'd like to compete again, but cannot. His lifetime ban from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) not only prevents him from competing in another Tour de France, but any sanctioned event such as marathons. Asked about his penalty, Armstrong complained that it was unfair, saying others who'd admit to doping (rather than obstinately lying for years) only received six-month suspensions. He also called USADA chief Travis Tygart a liar, saying he never offered the organization a $250,000 bribe.

Some claims he made in the interview's first part — namely that he stopped using performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions was in 2005 — have come under fire. Investigators have said, flat out, that he was lying and that there is evidence he was using blood transfusions to boost oxygen as recently as 2009.

While Armstrong claimed several times to be "humbled" and "ashamed" by his fall from grace, he also told Oprah the scandal had not changed the way he sees himself. Asked what the moral of the story is, Armstrong said he didn't have a great answer (hint: not doping and then lying about it for years is a good start). Fortunately, Oprah was there to help: "I hope the moral to the story is what Kristen [Armstrong's ex-wife] told you in 2009, 'the truth will set you free.'"

On Friday, The Journal News took down its controversial, interactive online map of licensed gun owners in Westchester and Rockland counties in New York. According to Journal News publisher Janet Hasson, the move was in response to recently passed gun legislation in New York, which includes a provision prohibiting the release of information about gun owners, and not because of the firestorm of criticism the paper's received since publishing the list four weeks ago. From publisher Janet Hasson's statement on the Journal News' website:

Today The Journal News has removed the permit data from lohud.com. Our decision to do so is not a concession to critics that no value was served by the posting of the map in the first place. On the contrary, we've heard from too many grateful community members to consider our decision to post information contained in the public record to have been a mistake. Nor is our decision made because we were intimidated by those who threatened the safety of our staffers. We know our business is a controversial one, and we do not cower.

Hasson wrote that her staff had received "hundreds of threats" after the list's publishing. Staff members' addresses were published, death threats were issued, and, consequently, a branch of the paper hired armed guards.

Hasson also mentioned the new gun legislation, writing "we do not endorse the way the legislature has chosen to limit public access to gun permit data. The statute is very broad and allows anyone who meets certain criteria within qualifying categories to keep their permit information private...But we are not deaf to voices who have said that new rules should be set for gun permit data." In a statement to the New York Times, Hasson said, "While the new law does not require us to remove the data, we believe that doing so complies with its spirit."

The map was viewed over 1.2 million times in 27 days, according to The Journal News.

[New York Times]

As a general rule, I hate movie scenes that take place in the rain. Not necessarily because of the rain itself, but because whenever you see rain you know someone is sad, or in love, or sadly in love, or dying. I believe in the human capacity for imagination, and that we haven't come up with a better device to show melancholy or romance than some storm clouds and a light drizzle, kinda pisses me off.

Yet, there I was, a 21-year-old college senior, standing in front his girlfriend, outside of her dorm, with dark clouds and a light rain falling down. I'd have avoided it if I could have. I'd have a chosen a sunny 74 degree day with a slight breeze coming in from the northeast if I could have. But this was important. We had to talk.

I needed to hear what she had to say. She had to answer my question.

"Why does anyone care about me?!?"

We were on the cusp of graduation, preparing to be thrust into a real world being overtaken by a financial meltdown and global recession from which we still haven't recovered. I had spent four years thinking I wanted to be a lawyer, then realizing I had zero interest in law, then changing my mind and settling on graduate school and a life of the mind, then realizing I wasn't at all prepared for that because the time I hadn't spent working for the school paper and starting trouble I devoted to completely bullshitting. I had no plans for my future because I had never anticipated I would have one.

At 21, I had lived longer than I had ever bargained for and was disappointing everyone around me by not doing more. I was an underachieving know-it-all going through the second major depression of his life. I didn't know it at the time, or rather I chose to ignore all the signs. But the vodka knew. The sleepless nights and skipped classes knew. The one meal a day knew. The pants that started falling off my waist knew. My sunken face knew. Everyone that kept asking me, without prompting, "Mychal, are you OK?" somehow knew. And I needed to know: why did any of them give a fuck?

People have used a lot of different adjectives to describe me throughout my life, some of them to my face. I've been called smart, sweet, funny, sarcastic, asshole, immature, silly, articulate, intelligent, short, arrogant, cute, shy, spoiled, crazy, incorrigible, and a host of other accurate, complimentary, derogatory, and contradictory terms. Apparently none of that mattered. The only thing she came up with to answer my question, to tell me why anyone would bother to give a damn about me, was the fact that I was... me. How little self-esteem do you have to have to not even think of that as an option?

Malcolm X was my first hero. When I was seven, I stood in front my second grade class and delivered a Black History Month report on him that frightened half of the other kids. I barely understood it then, but I read his autobiography anyway, and then again when I was 10, and once more when I was 16. These days, I keep it on my nightstand like other people might keep the Bible. Like any devoted black radical, I've worshipped Malcolm's every word. There's this speech he gave, one not as famous as "By Any Means Necessary," but just as important to anyone learning about their blackness through the prism of Malcolm's growth, and it poses a question as poignant now as it was then.

"Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?"

Who taught you to hate yourself? You've got to turn it over a few times and really feel it out before you can even broach an answer. In all likelihood, before you heard the question, you probably never considered the idea that you hated yourself. You resented the question for putting the thought in your head and blame Malcolm for planting the seeds of self-loathing. The truth is that the question was there all along and you just kept it at bay with silly distractions.

I had no shortage of answers to that question. It was white supremacy; of course, as Malcolm's original question alluded to. But it was also that girl in third grade that called me ugly when she didn't think I could hear. It was my big cousins that made me feel like the ultimate herb when I didn't know the latest slang, or hadn't heard the new Tupac record, or because I squirmed and tried to cover my eyes, like my parents would have done, when we watched movies with sex scenes. It was that kid in sixth grade who called me nigger during a game of flag football. It was my "friends" in high school that let me shadow them in the halls, and even gave me a nickname, Fresh Mike, but never actually invited me to hang out with them outside of school. It was whoever shot my cousin Demetri when I was 12. It was my father who could brag about me in front of friends, family, and complete strangers, but made me feel like even when I brought home straight A's, I wasn't living up to my potential.

It was my father who didn't spend a whole lot of time at home, but what intimate memories I do have of him all involve yelling about God knows what. It was my father who never missed an opportunity to remind me of my shortcomings. It was my father who, each time I failed to live up to his vision me, would say, "That's not my son." It was me for believing everything anyone ever said about me.

Standing in the rain with my girlfriend that day, I came to the conclusion that I had spent too much time answering the wrong question. I knew where the hate came from, but knowing wasn't enough. Going forward, I needed to start asking myself the inverse: Who taught you to love yourself?

I force myself to ask the question, Who taught you to love yourself, every time I hear mention of Chief Keef, the teenaged rapper notorious for celebrating death, toting guns, and reveling in his gang affiliation. Chief Keef fills the newest popular incarnation of "young, black, and just don't give a fuck." Keef is every nihilistic impulse associated with growing up as black man in America rolled into a diminutive, bird-chested, foul-mouthed package, sporting medium-length dreadlocks.

I had heard the phrase ("that's that shit I don't like") that made Keef popular before hearing of him or the song. It's catchy, and in a world where a lot of shit can piss you off, it's a pleasantly concise rejoinder to it all. Chief Keef isn't doing or saying anything that hasn't been seen or heard in hip-hop for the past 25 years, but he's doing it at the most inopportune moment, in the most inopportune place. Chief Keef is from South Side of Chicago and the nation's eyes are on South Side Chicago because, well, the South Side of Chicago is burning from the inside out.

Every time I hear about another shooting in Chicago, I think about my cousin, Demetri. I don't talk about him much. Rather, I've learned how to talk about him without ever really talking about him. I tell people all the time my big cousin was shot and killed when he was 17 and I was 12. He was shot seven times. I cried at the funeral. We all did. Even my notoriously stoic grandmother shed a tear or two from the front row. I tell people his father died about a year later, due to complications from HIV, and it was the toughest period in my life. I don't tell anyone that it all helped me hate myself.

My therapist told me it was survivor's guilt. That's fancy psychology talk for hating yourself for being alive while seeing death all around you. I believe in fancy psychology talk sometimes. I also believe in ghosts. When everyone you grew up with, and everyone who looks like you, and everyone you love is getting murdered, yet you somehow managed to survive, the ghosts haunt you. Those ghosts haunted me and made death sound easy. And I know I'm not the only one.

Think of all the ghosts in Chicago teaching black boys to hate themselves. Now throw in local celebrity Chief Keef enjoying the success of a hit song where he grunts:

"A fuck nigga, that's that shit I don't like
A snitch nigga, that's that shit I don't like
A bitch nigga, that's that shit I don't like."

It's a Molotov cocktail of self-hate. Chief Keef's popular hook didn't pull the trigger, but the pervasive sense of self-hate that produced this song helped claim about 500 bodies in Chicago alone. Black boys are dying damn near every day in one of America's great cities. We need gun control. We need to end the war on drugs. We need to put a stop to the school-to-prison pipeline. We need more job opportunities and economic growth. All of those things are important and necessary, but it's getting rid of the Russians in Afghanistan and neglecting the infrastructure. Chief Keef and crew still don't and won't like those fuck niggas.

Honestly, you could substitute the names of various black men and boys you know into the song, and it wouldn't miss a beat. Chief Keef, that's that shit I don't like. LeBron James, that's that shit I don't like. Kanye West, that's that shit I don't like. James Baldwin, that's that shit I don't like. Malcolm X, that's that shit I don't like. Oscar Grant, that's that shit I don't like. Ramarley Graham, that's that shit I don't like. Chavis Carter, that's that shit I don't like. Jordan Davis, that's that shit I don't like. Trayvon Martin, that's that shit I don't like. Mychal Denzel Smith, that's that shit I don't like. Chris Brown, that's that shit I don't like.

OK, the Chris Brown one is personal. I wish I could tell you that my hatred of Brown is solely because I'm standing on my feminist principles and refusing to support a man who is capable of beating a woman so viciously and showing absolutely no remorse. I wish I hated him for that and that alone. But I don't have that luxury.

I hate him because my cousin, Demetri is dead. I hate him because black boys are dying in Chicago. I want to punch Chris Brown in the face because a whole new world of possibilities was opening up to him and he still found a way to hate himself. I hate him because he just won't ask himself Who taught you to hate yourself. I hate him because he won't find the answer to Who taught you to love yourself.

I hate Chris Brown because as long as he hates himself, I hate myself, too.

I see him, and in my mind I'm back outside in front of the dorm asking my girlfriend, "Why does anyone care about me?" It's a stupid question, not because it's stupid in and of itself, but because no one should ever have to ask. My girlfriend is answering, "Because you're Mychal Denzel Smith." I want to shoot back, "That's it? Then why didn't anyone tell me? Why did no one tell me that was enough?"

Sure, I'm grateful I learned, but I can't help but be a little agitated the lesson came so late in my life. I want those years back. I can only imagine who I would be with a twenty-one year head start on a fully realized love of myself. Maybe I would have become a lawyer and a doctor, the way my three year-old self told the world. Maybe I could have freed Mumia. I could have cured... something. I'm not totally unhappy being a broke writer, but that's the result of a little whiskey and a lot of therapy. I love what I do, and most days I love who I am. But what if (there are always those damn what-ifs) my whole life had been filled with the type reassurance, support, care, and love I never thought possible? And the scary thing, happens when I ask what if it wasn't just me that really learned to love myself. What if loving ourselves was the reality of every black boy across the country. Think of all the warmth and genius we're allowing to die, when all it would take is finding a way to say and mean to our kids, "You're enough."

No one teaches black boys to love ourselves until it's raining. That's that shit I don't like.

Mychal Denzel Smith is a writer, social commentator, and mental health advocate whose work on politics, social justice, mental health, and black male identity has appeared in outlets such as The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Nation, Salon, The Root, and more. Follow him on Twitter @mychalsmith.

In a project overseen by contributing editor Kiese Laymon, Gawker is running a personal essay every weekend. Please send suggestions to saturdays@gawker.com.

A man in Detroit was arrested Friday after he allegedly stole his father's body from a cemetery. According to reports, Vincent Bright corpsenapped his father's body from a cemetery on Monday, hours before it was to be buried, in the hopes it would be resurrected through prayer. Police found the body in a basement freezer in Bright's home.

"It's an unusual case, it's not something you see every day," Gerald Karafa, Bright's court-appointed lawyer, told the Detroit Free Press. Karafa said he had not spoken with his client.

Ridiculous as it all sounds, the case is actually sort of sad and likely the result of mental illness. Police say Bright's mother had also recently died.

"He was very, very, very distraught," Detroit Police Lt. Harold Rochon said. "In an interview of the son, he is very religious, and he was hoping his father would be resurrected. He was hoping for a miracle."

"The son didn't want to be separated from his father."

Police said the man may have mental problems. One neighbor said he seemed nice enough.

"He was a nice guy and he seemed like a normal person," Gwendolyn Coleman said. "Nobody thought he'd do something like that."

Bright faces charges of disinterment of a body, a felony punishable by 10 years in jail.

[Image via Shutterstock]

Why can't you suits understand: Kim Dotcom is just a simple man with a simple website who's definitely not burning with rage at the government officials who raided his mansion and arrested him almost exactly a year ago today?

Kim Dotcom, founder of outlawed file-sharing website Megaupload, said his new "cyberlocker" was not revenge on U.S. authorities who planned a raid on his home, closed Megaupload and charged him with online piracy for which he faces jail if found guilty.

"This is not some kind of finger to the U.S. government or to Hollywood," Dotcom told reporters from Reuters at his home in New Zealand. "Legally, there's just nothing there that could be used to shut us down. This site is just as legitimate and has the right to exist as Dropbox, Boxnet and other competitors" (Gizmodo has a more in-depth look at the new site here).

The man has hung up his spurs. He has broken with his past and started over. He just wants to tend to his tomatoes in the garden, where you can see the sun rising over the sea if the day is clear enough. But you people just won't let him.

[Image via AP]

Surveillance footage capturing a homeless man's death in the alley behind a CVS pharmacy in Chicago in 2010 was released today, showing several minutes of the attack in which store manager Pedro Villarosa held down and strangled 35-year-old Anthony Kyser while six passersby helped hold him down.

Kyser had reportedly stolen a tube of toothpaste from the store and was followed out into the street by Villarosa. From DNAInfo, which also released the original video:

It shows Kyser's final minutes on May 8, 2010, and the beginning of the police investigation into the case. No charges were filed in Kyser's death, which police ruled an accident. CVS has said the manager acted in self-defense after being attacked by Kyser.

The video appears to capture Kyser fleeing to the alley with the store manager close behind him. There's a brief struggle before Kyser hits the pavement, with the store manager on top of him.

Another man appears to punch and kick Kyser, at one point stepping down on his hand while the store manager remains atop Kyser. More bystanders join in, helping to hold Kyser down. Eventually, Kyser stops flailing his legs, the video shows.

Ann Marie Kyser, the victim's mother, has filed a lawsuit holding CVS liable for his death. Pedro Villanova claimed self-defense after Kyser struck him, but admitted in court that he heard Kyser say "I can't breathe" before dying.

According to Salon, the police department decided not to press criminal charges even after the Medical Examiner's Office "ruled the death a homicide." No criminal charges are currently pending.

Last year, several unarmed shoplifters were killed by security guards at Wal-Marts in Texas and Georgia.

[Screenshot from footage via DNAInfo]

Saturday, a gunman attempted to shoot a Bulgarian politician during a televised news conference. The video is wild. In it, Ahmed Dogan, the leader of Bulgaria's Movement for Rights and Freedoms – Bulgaria's Turkish party, narrowly escapes getting shot in the head after a gunman runs on stage during a speech and attempts to fire two shots. The gun apparently jammed, giving Dogan time to knock it from the attacker's hands before security stepped in. The gunman, identified as a 25-year-old from the Bulgarian town of Burgas, near the Black Sea, continues to fight, despite being pinned down and having the shit kicked out of him by various security guards and on-lookers. Police also found two knives on the attacker after he was detained.

[Buzzfeed]

Congratulations, Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno – not only have you written a horrifying story about a horrible incident, but you have also written what's probably the worst lede of all time. That lede is:

She lost a womb but gained a penis.

The former was being removed surgically - full hysterectomy - while the latter was forcibly shoved into her slack mouth.

"She lost a womb but gained a penis." Jesus Christ. "She lost a womb but gained a penis." I mean, what? I'm no expert — I took exactly one journalism class, and it was taught by this guy — but that's the worst lede of all time, right? Unless there's another lede out there that euphemistically refers to rape as "gaining a penis," then the answer is clearly "yes, this is the worst lede of all time."

As mind-shatteringly awful as that first sentence is, the story is somehow worse: It involves the perfectly named Dr. George Doodnaught, an anesthesiologist charged with assaulting 20 women while they were unconscious or incapcitated during surgery in North York General Hospital. DiManno focuses on one victim, who goes by "DD."

DD, who DiManno makes sure to note is "attractive," survived a horrible ordeal when she went into surgery for a hysterectomy. At some point in the procedure, Doodnaught allegedly began fondling DD, who was still awake, before kissing her ("twirling [his] tongue around") and then, as hinted at in that god-awful lede, forcing her to perform oral sex.

"I opened my eyes because I felt I was gagging. My head was turned to the left and he had his penis in my mouth. I saw the shaft of his penis. I saw brown skin. I saw veins. And I remember looking up at his face because he was leaning on the screen with his right hand on his hip, his left hand on the screen and I (saw) his wedding band."

Ugh. So yes, a terrible story that deserves to be told so that Doodnaught, if tried and convicted, can go to jail. But also: a story that could have started off in literally any other way and been better.

Poor Justin Bieber. When he's not the subject of a murder/castration plot or, worse, being mocked by James Franco, he's getting embarrassed by his mom, Pattie Mallette, who executive produced a pro-life film coming out soon. The movie, called Crescendo, will be screened at "pregnancy centers" around the country with the goal of raising $10 million. And, if you attend one of the screenings, you might just get lucky and see Mama Bieber herself; Mallette will appear at "some of these" screenings, according to Movie to Movement, the ridiculously named company that produced the film.

Mallette hopes her involvment will "encourage young women all over the world, just like me, to let them know that there is a place to go, people who will take care of you and a safe home to live in if you are pregnant and think you have nowhere else to turn."

Of course, Bieber probably isn't completely embarrassed by the move; after all, two years ago he went on the record as being pro-life ("I really don't believe in abortion. It's like killing a baby?"). Then again, in that same interview Bieber said "Whatever they have in Korea, that's bad" when asked about political parties, so we probably shouldn't put too much stock in his opinions on anything, not that any of us neccssarily were. Anyway, his mom's movie is out February 28th, in case you want to see it.

[Image via AP]

It's almost the night before Inauguration Day and no one in the entire city of Washington D.C. has a single thing to wear. The Wall Street Journal provides an investigative report:

Lobbyists Lena Moffitt and Dalal Aboulhosn worked the racks last Friday at a temporary boutique set up by Rent the Runway, a New York-based fashion-rental firm. Their mission: Find inaugural ball gowns that defied Washington's button-down standard.

Sipping complimentary wine, they perused strappy, spangly and sexy. They considered super-short, a risk recommended by their office's sole fashionista. The two women, who work for the Sierra Club, an environmental group, wound up in solid-color, floor-sweeping gowns-in other words, stolid political assets that gave away nothing.

After all, sighed Ms. Moffitt, D.C. style is "less skin…more blazers."

In tonight's Washington, strong men weep unabashedly in the streets. Iron-jawed matriarchs of Congress clutch at bewildered passersby, their eyes brimming with unspoken questions. "It isn't fair," they cry. "That's not fair at all. There was time now. There was all the time I needed! That's not fair!"

Many in Washington, the epicenter of political power, see high fashion as not only irrelevant, but downright suspect. Workaholics take a certain pride in looking like they slept in their clothes. A rakish fedora and cape, by contrast, recalls Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist. A daring dress means D.C. Madam.

Yet every four years it's Inauguration Day, when posh receptions and black-tie balls set the city's gray suits at war with themselves. Do stripes convey sufficient solidity? To sequin or not to sequin? Is hair gel only for the shallow?

"Has it really been four years," the men whisper hollowly to themselves. "Only four. Where has the time gone?"

"I thought we just had an Inauguration Ball," Patrick Leahy chokes before jumping to his death off the Francis Scott Key Bridge. "I can't put on another fanciful ascot. I can't. I can't."

Here, "There's an age-old need, or burden, to dress in a way that's not going to raise eyebrows," says Tara McCredie, manager and buyer at Proper Topper, a boutique in Dupont Circle. So when it comes to dressy affairs, "We try to bring women along slowly, give them a little bit more edge…like this dress," she said, holding up a plain black sleeveless sheath with discreet white checks. "It has a pocket."

The Pocket Riots of 2013, now in its third day of uninterrupted frenzy, has resulted in at least fourteen deaths, sixty-seven arrests, and countless amounts of property damage. As of this reporting, over 10,000 women in demure cocktail dresses have barricaded themselves inside of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, demanding elbow-length opera gloves and gowns with "clean, architectural lines for every goddamn woman over 50 in this christforsaken city or we will burn it clean to the ground. Pockets. What are we supposed to do with pockets."

"We already have handbags," a spokeswoman for the terrified, mud-streaked mob told a member of the press. "What are we supposed to do with a dress with a pocket in it?"

The trouble began, most observers agree, during Brooks Brothers' "Bow-Tie Primer" cocktail party last week. Two Beltway insiders came to blows during a discussion of the merits of the Land's End No-Iron Chino Pants. The violence quickly spread and threatens to engulf even the White House just two days before President Obama is scheduled to take his second oath of office.

White House officials so far refuse to confirm reports that the Lincoln Bedroom has become an "abattoir of textured blue-and-gray fabrics," or that women who venture north of East Capitol Street without tan pantyhose are kidnapped and tortured by the Patternmakers, a vicious gang of tailors and administrative assistants.

April Jones Firoozabadi, who goes by April Yvonne at work, turned heads at her former government job by "going against the tan pantyhose, navy blue skirts and gray blazers," she says. When invited to certain official meetings, Ms. Firoozabadi, 33, would "do astute," diplo-speak for grooming conformity, with a twist, she says. Her black pants were high-waisted and bell-bottomed with men's suspenders and she wore a white shirt with a colorful man's tie along with bright red pumps.

April Jones Firoozabadi has reportedly annexed the numbered avenues and declared herself Washington's Painted Lord of Misrule. Her challenge to First Lady Michelle Obama to meet her in single combat has so far gone unanswered.

Ayman Hakki, a cosmetic surgeon who has lived in Washington since the Kennedy administration, runs a Georgetown walk-in clinic that he says is jammed with inaugural ball attendees seeking last-minute Botox. For most of its history, the capital has attracted "an older, more homogenous crowd that took pride in a certain kind of haggard look," he said. Not this week.

"Yesterday five people showed up at the same time," he said. "They all left with a big smile on their faces…without a frown."

Hakki's next haggard, decrepit Washington client laughs in a wheezing, dusty sort of way at the joke, before his withered and ancient jaw flops uselessly onto the floor. Only hours remain.

[Photo via Getty Images]

Three people were wounded Saturday afternoon after an accidental shooting at the Dixie Gun and Knife Show in Raleigh, North Carolina. The incident apparently occurred at a security check point when the owner of a 12-gauge shotgun was asked to remove his gun from its case. Somehow, the gun discharged, shooting two people in the hand and one in the right torso.

Meanwhile, in an entirely unrelated incident, a man at the Medina County Gun Show was shot and injured later Saturday afternoon.

As the Daily Intelligencer notes, today is both Gun Appreciation Day and Guns Across America. What a perfect way to celebrate!

UPDATE: And there was another shooting. A man shot himself in the hand while loading his gun outside the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife Show gun show in Indianapolis.

[Photo of a gun show in Pennsylvania via AP]