Being around

I used to joke about wanting to have an entourage (though I probably called it a "posse" back in those naive days), but it's more true that I would like to be in an entourage. Less thinking.

I've seen this picture around the net (found it here today) a few times over the last couple months, and I love it. I'm aiming to be the guy standing to Kanye's left.

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I thought of this picture after I read an article about the actor/rapper Ludacris and the Singaporean restaurant he launched in Atlanta. There were some great details in the piece -- I'd love to see someone write an immersive, well-reported Tom Wolfe-style novel about the world of a rap star. Not one of the gun-toting, misogynistic jackasses, but a quirky Ralph Lauren-loving aesthete. Until someone writes it, two vignettes from the life of Ludacris:

"...until Straits, his biggest commitment to food was sending his childhood friend Willie Box to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. "I happened to stop by his house one day, and he'd made this soul-food spread," Ludacris recalls. "It was incredible, but Willie said, 'I was just cooking." So I said, 'If this is something you really want to do, I'm going to put you through cooking school. Then you're going to be my chef."

"Ludacris had one regret: The Cognac he'd blended in France with a mix of XO and VSOP brandies wasn't ready to drink yet, so he couldn't serve it at the party."