I have to ask a question and I hope no one questions my commitment to the cause: Why is Beyonce always half naked in her videos?
Two years ago I would have rather been burned alive as a heretic than to question God's will like this. Beyonce showing up half naked on VH1 used to be an unexpected surprise for which I'd just tell God "thank you" and keep it moving, but things are different now. I have a daughter now and I'm a little more conscious of everything. Having kids is like having a mirror placed in front of you that you're forced to look into everyday. You constantly analyze your actions and behaviors and you make adjustments with the hope that it'll be enough to give them a good foundation for life. At least that's what good parents do. Bad ones just keep-keeping on.
Chris Rock said it and I believe it: Your only duty as a father is to keep your daughter off the pole. I don't know the first thing about being a woman, but I know everything about dating them. I may have majored in Accounting and English but I could've picked up a psychology degree while I was in college. I didn't have a hard time finding a girl in college, I had a hard time finding a woman. Daddy issues, low self esteem and insecurities made for easy prey, but it was finding someone who didn't have a Planned Parenthood Platinum Rewards card that was difficult.
I find myself being more conscious of the music I listen to and the images I let her see on television. I can't play my iPod in the car like I used to. Not only does she repeat things, but she comprehends a lot of what she hears. One day it went from Jay-Z's "Who You Wit" (SKIP!) to Lil Kim's "No Time" (Oh hell no! SKIP!) to Tupac's "I Get Around" (WTF?) and it made me go home and try to make a playlist that I was not ashamed of. I put a bunch of R&B songs on it. I figured that she should hear a bunch of women singing because maybe she'll pick that up and, who knows, become the next Beyonce.
She was enjoying Beyonce's songs a bit, so I thought it'd be cool to let her watch some videos. My main goal is for her to be wholesome but at the same time not be a social leper like I was when I was little. My grandmother only listened to talk radio, so everytime we had a party in elementary school I'd just sit there looking lost. "Who's Bobby Brown?" So anyway, I turned on Beyonce's Youtube channel and I had to turn that off too.
Why are you naked in every video? If you go back to Crazy In Love, she has on the "woman of the night" shorts walking the block and then rolling around on the sidewalk like she's having an epileptic seizure. In some other video she's getting married or something, but apparently it's at the Victoria Secret Tabernacle because she's naked in that too. The video for Love on Top has her doing the New Edition dance wearing a leotard and a Captain Crunch hat. One of the reasons I wanted my daughter to listen to her was because on some interview that my wife was watching she said that she was all about women's empowerment. She had an all girl band and an all girl crew or something like that. She wanted young women to see that they could run things too or something.
I don't see how dressing like a streetwalking tooth fairy and gyrating in your videos (which seems to have nothing to do with the lyrics to your songs by the way) serves the goal of women's empowerment. You aren't empowering my daughter. You are, however, appealing to my more primitive male desires, but isn't that the problem that y'all are facing already? Don't you wanna break the misogynistic archetypes? And please don't give me that, "Just because I'm dressed this way" spiel. Like Dave Chappelle said, just because you're dressed a certain way doesn't mean you are a certain way. Just because I dress up as a cop, doesn't make me a police officer. You may not be a whore, but you're sure as hell wearing a whore's uniform.
And I'll say it before someone else does...I know that my daughter is only one. Beyonce isn't Barney. She's not supposed to be the day care role model, but I'm thinking long term. At what age does it become cool? Let's say my daughter wanted to go to a party dressed like Beyonce. At what age would the average man be cool with his daughter going out in public like that? 10? 15? 20? Never! What makes it so bad is that she's like the squeaky clean one compared to some of the other singers out. That concerns me.
So who runs the world? Men, apparently, if you think you have to dress like that to sell albums.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Five Bucks If You Can Spot A Kid
[caption id="attachment_2039" align="alignnone" width="604" caption="Taking pictures of a playground is only okay if you have a kid with you."]
[/caption]
Do you see a kid in the photo? Neither do I.
We set a new world record today. I took this picture at 1:15 this afternoon. At 1:10 there were 18 kids on the playground not including my daughter. We cleared that place out in just five minutes. This place isn't on school grounds or at a daycare, so it's not like they all went back into class or anything. There were only two parents there with more than one kid, so it's not like a big family left at once. Nope, those two parents had two kids apiece so that still leaves 14 kids who all mysteriously vanished in five minutes. That's one hell of a coincidence if you ask me.
Whatever!
I personally don't like going to a crowded playground and in the past I used to just keep walking for fear that my daughter would be trampled or something by the bigger kids. Now I know that all I have to do is just step inside and we'll have the place to ourselves in no time. Works for me.
[/caption]Do you see a kid in the photo? Neither do I.
We set a new world record today. I took this picture at 1:15 this afternoon. At 1:10 there were 18 kids on the playground not including my daughter. We cleared that place out in just five minutes. This place isn't on school grounds or at a daycare, so it's not like they all went back into class or anything. There were only two parents there with more than one kid, so it's not like a big family left at once. Nope, those two parents had two kids apiece so that still leaves 14 kids who all mysteriously vanished in five minutes. That's one hell of a coincidence if you ask me.
Whatever!
I personally don't like going to a crowded playground and in the past I used to just keep walking for fear that my daughter would be trampled or something by the bigger kids. Now I know that all I have to do is just step inside and we'll have the place to ourselves in no time. Works for me.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Lady Luck
I'm not really in a writing mood. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, so I was sitting on the couch just now feeling groggy when I caught a glimpse of the news. The Megamillions jackpot is now at $476 million. That'll wake you up. That much money deserves to be written out in long form:
Four hundred seventy six million dollars. ($476,000,000.00)
Personally I prefer to think of it as:
School loans, car insurance, cell phone bill, credit cards and disappearing money.
Everybody has their own fantasy of what they'd do if they won the lottery. Here's mine. Like Deion Sanders' timeless ballad "Must Be The Money" I am certain that money will definitely change me. It's gonna change my address, my phone number, my credit report, and my friends.
The first thing I'm doing is signing my ticket and putting it in a fire proof safe. I'm calling up a security company to escort me to lottery headquarters because that shit is in the heart of Anacostia and I'm liable to get caught in a crossfire just walking into the place. Personally I want to remain anonymous, but lately they frown upon that kind of thing, so if I'm forced to do the ceremony with the big check then I'm going in there prepared.
I'm shaving my head, facial hair, and eyebrows and going in there with some foundation and mascara on. They'll think some negro mime has shown up. From there I'm going down to the school loan headquarters dressed like Moses with a staff and I'm gonna shout out "LET MY PEOPLE GO" and pay off our school loans in pennies. Then it's back out the door with my entourage of "big nigga security figures" to go down to the district courthouse to change my name. From there, we're heading to the airport to take a private jet to the country of Noneya (It's in Africa).
About a week later, my closest friends and family will receive a package with a check whose amount will be based solely on emotional connection and they'll get instructions on how to call me. My phone will be set up to give a "number not in service" message off the bat. Then you punch in a secret code which will cause it to beep. Then you read a secret code phrase. After voice analysis the phone will ask you to leave a message. You type in another secret pin number and it'll ring over to my phone.
I haven't really gotten much further than that in the fantasy planning, but trust me...I won't end up on "How I Lost My Millions."
Four hundred seventy six million dollars. ($476,000,000.00)
Personally I prefer to think of it as:
School loans, car insurance, cell phone bill, credit cards and disappearing money.
Everybody has their own fantasy of what they'd do if they won the lottery. Here's mine. Like Deion Sanders' timeless ballad "Must Be The Money" I am certain that money will definitely change me. It's gonna change my address, my phone number, my credit report, and my friends.
The first thing I'm doing is signing my ticket and putting it in a fire proof safe. I'm calling up a security company to escort me to lottery headquarters because that shit is in the heart of Anacostia and I'm liable to get caught in a crossfire just walking into the place. Personally I want to remain anonymous, but lately they frown upon that kind of thing, so if I'm forced to do the ceremony with the big check then I'm going in there prepared.
I'm shaving my head, facial hair, and eyebrows and going in there with some foundation and mascara on. They'll think some negro mime has shown up. From there I'm going down to the school loan headquarters dressed like Moses with a staff and I'm gonna shout out "LET MY PEOPLE GO" and pay off our school loans in pennies. Then it's back out the door with my entourage of "big nigga security figures" to go down to the district courthouse to change my name. From there, we're heading to the airport to take a private jet to the country of Noneya (It's in Africa).
About a week later, my closest friends and family will receive a package with a check whose amount will be based solely on emotional connection and they'll get instructions on how to call me. My phone will be set up to give a "number not in service" message off the bat. Then you punch in a secret code which will cause it to beep. Then you read a secret code phrase. After voice analysis the phone will ask you to leave a message. You type in another secret pin number and it'll ring over to my phone.
I haven't really gotten much further than that in the fantasy planning, but trust me...I won't end up on "How I Lost My Millions."
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games movie came out over the weekend. I haven't seen it or read the books, but I used to play it all the time when I was younger. There are several different versions. Let's see theres:
The Original Hunger Games
That's what homeless and poor people play here in the United States, but, like soccer, it's much more popular over in Africa.
The Hunger Games Junior
It's like Monopoly Junior but the opposite. The objective is to not have any money. I used to play it a lot as a kid. It's basically a bunch of minigames like "Grandma bought a 22 oz box of Cap'n Crunch but only one pint (16 oz) of milk. If I eat it with a fork can I make the milk last?" or... "Safeway had that nasty Townhouse store brand Spaghettios on sale, now we have 50 cans of it. Are we really eating this everyday for dinner? My mother says that unless I have McDonald's money I should stop whining. How can we alter it by adding hot dogs, onion powder and garlic salt?"
The Hunger Games: New Millenium Edition
The wife and I lost our jobs in the same month. The social services rep says we can't get food stamps because we don't work at least twenty hours a week. I told her that was the stupidest thing I've ever heard. She told me to have a nice day. We have twenty bucks a month to eat. What's the best way to die: Starvation or succumbing to a lifelong battle with diabetes, heart disease and cancer from eating ramen noodles, hot dogs, jelly sandwiches and sweet tea for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
I can't believe they made a movie about this.
The Original Hunger Games
That's what homeless and poor people play here in the United States, but, like soccer, it's much more popular over in Africa.
The Hunger Games Junior
It's like Monopoly Junior but the opposite. The objective is to not have any money. I used to play it a lot as a kid. It's basically a bunch of minigames like "Grandma bought a 22 oz box of Cap'n Crunch but only one pint (16 oz) of milk. If I eat it with a fork can I make the milk last?" or... "Safeway had that nasty Townhouse store brand Spaghettios on sale, now we have 50 cans of it. Are we really eating this everyday for dinner? My mother says that unless I have McDonald's money I should stop whining. How can we alter it by adding hot dogs, onion powder and garlic salt?"
The Hunger Games: New Millenium Edition
The wife and I lost our jobs in the same month. The social services rep says we can't get food stamps because we don't work at least twenty hours a week. I told her that was the stupidest thing I've ever heard. She told me to have a nice day. We have twenty bucks a month to eat. What's the best way to die: Starvation or succumbing to a lifelong battle with diabetes, heart disease and cancer from eating ramen noodles, hot dogs, jelly sandwiches and sweet tea for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
I can't believe they made a movie about this.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Frodo and Sam
I forgot to post today/yesterday. I don't know how it happened. Time just got away from me. It's one of those things that happens when you have kids. They're little langoliers who feed off of time. One minute it was morning and the next thing I know, it's midnight.
I remember us heading up to the grocery store, a trip that usually takes me about an hour. My grandmother was on the track team for the Underground Railroad. She's 82 and walks a good five miles a day, not for exercise or sport, but because she finds it quicker than waiting for a bus. When I was little she'd keep me out of school because paying bills was an all day affair and she wouldn't be home in time when I got out of school. We left her house and walked about 16 blocks from her house to Union Station and then another 15 blocks from there to the old Bell Atlantic building. Then we went to the Pepco office, then Washington Gas and then to the old Woodies building to pay her account. After all of that, we'd stop at Popeyes to split a two-piece and then walk ALL THE WAY back to her house. I was five.
With that in mind, you can understand how I can walk 2 miles to the grocery store and back in under an hour. At least I used to be able to do that. A new challenger has entered the ring. My daughter is at the stage where the stroller is no longer acceptable. She wants to walk too. Since marching for freedom is an Allen family birthright, who am I to deny her? It took about an hour to go four blocks. We stopped at every bus stop, mailbox, stop sign, manhole cover and piece of trash on the ground so that she could explore, point, and read the letters to me.
Obama was on his way somewhere today so they had Marine One flying over. For those who don't know, they fly two or three of those things at all times so that you never know which one he's in. That meant that three helicopters circled over us every other minute. My daughter stopped to point and yell "Airplane!" everytime she saw one. That meant I had to yell it out too. Then we had to stand there and absorb the magnificence of flight as she watched it go across the sky. Then we'd start walking again only to have her attention captured by the marvel of metallurgy when she saw "SEWER" written on a manhole cover. "S-E-W-E-R, S-E-W-E-R, S-E-W..." COME ON!
I'm sure the trip to the store was like the fellowship of the ring in her mind. To me it was like The Oregon Trail. It took forever, we lost some people to dysentery and I carried a hundred pounds of food back home. It was a very long day.
I remember us heading up to the grocery store, a trip that usually takes me about an hour. My grandmother was on the track team for the Underground Railroad. She's 82 and walks a good five miles a day, not for exercise or sport, but because she finds it quicker than waiting for a bus. When I was little she'd keep me out of school because paying bills was an all day affair and she wouldn't be home in time when I got out of school. We left her house and walked about 16 blocks from her house to Union Station and then another 15 blocks from there to the old Bell Atlantic building. Then we went to the Pepco office, then Washington Gas and then to the old Woodies building to pay her account. After all of that, we'd stop at Popeyes to split a two-piece and then walk ALL THE WAY back to her house. I was five.
With that in mind, you can understand how I can walk 2 miles to the grocery store and back in under an hour. At least I used to be able to do that. A new challenger has entered the ring. My daughter is at the stage where the stroller is no longer acceptable. She wants to walk too. Since marching for freedom is an Allen family birthright, who am I to deny her? It took about an hour to go four blocks. We stopped at every bus stop, mailbox, stop sign, manhole cover and piece of trash on the ground so that she could explore, point, and read the letters to me.
Obama was on his way somewhere today so they had Marine One flying over. For those who don't know, they fly two or three of those things at all times so that you never know which one he's in. That meant that three helicopters circled over us every other minute. My daughter stopped to point and yell "Airplane!" everytime she saw one. That meant I had to yell it out too. Then we had to stand there and absorb the magnificence of flight as she watched it go across the sky. Then we'd start walking again only to have her attention captured by the marvel of metallurgy when she saw "SEWER" written on a manhole cover. "S-E-W-E-R, S-E-W-E-R, S-E-W..." COME ON!
I'm sure the trip to the store was like the fellowship of the ring in her mind. To me it was like The Oregon Trail. It took forever, we lost some people to dysentery and I carried a hundred pounds of food back home. It was a very long day.
Friday, March 23, 2012
A Midsummer Night's Dream
There's a certain street savvy that one acquires living in this city. By 16 you've pretty much developed jungle-level instincts that cut on every time you walk out the front door. Ever so often those instincts are put to the test and so it was one calm summer night that I found myself taking an exam.
I was on my way to the old Blockbuster near Eastern Market when I noticed a black SUV slow down as it passed me. I tried to act like I didn't see it, although I was scanning the truck out of my peripheral. The tints were way too dark to be street legal, so my first thought was "drug dealer tints." The average drive-by or jump-out robbery begins with a pass by. That is, the people circle the block once and then come back around to do whatever it is they're gonna do. So, I waited to see if they were gonna turn or go straight. If they went straight then all was good, but if they turned then they were coming back. They turned.
I crossed the street. I knew the area like the back of my hand. There were way more parked cars on that side of the street (that's called gunshot cover), not to mention an alley that I could cut through if I had to. I kept looking back to see if the truck came back, but I didn't see it. Then I saw it coming from in front of me. "What the hell?" I assumed they would think I was still on the other side of the street so I dropped down like I was tying my shoe directly beside this big tree. They passed right by me. Then I heard the tires screeching as they slammed on the brakes. Then I heard it reversing back up the street.
I hauled ass full speed toward the alley. Even though the alley doesn't provide a whole lot of room to run (and we all saw what happened to Morris Chestnut running through the alley in Boyz In Da Hood), my plan was to zig zag, hop over some fences and Ferris Bueller my ass through some people's houses. I wouldn't get the chance though. As soon as I got to the alley another black SUV sped out and blocked my path.
It was like something out of a movie. My brain started racing like, "These niggas are organized like shit. What the hell is going on?" I turned and got ready to run the other way (You know, make the bullets work for it) when the truck started flashing red and blue lights on the dashboard.
The police?
Normally, you'd be relieved to find out that it was the good men and women of law enforcement and not body snatchers, but as the only black person on the street in a neighborhood not exactly overflowing with colored folks, I didn't feel any more sense of security. "Oh shit!" I threw my hands up over my head as four or five people jumped out with guns drawn.
"LORENZO!" one of them shouted out.
"Uh, no. Or-dale!"
"Lorenzo, it's okay! We're friends!"
The dude was talking really slowly like something was wrong with him. So I repeated really slowly, "I'm Or-dale. Who...is...Lorennnzo?" He kept telling me that my parents sent him to come get me. Now this was right after the Amadou Diallo thing, so I was really scared to move. I told him in a really slow voice. "I have a wallet. My license is in it. It is in my back pocket. Please don't shoot me." Without them even having to ask, I locked my arms behind my head, got on my knees and crossed my ankles. The guy walked up, got my wallet out of my back pocket and saw my license.
"What's your name?"
"Ordale Allen. I have no idea who Lorenzo is."
He told me I could get up. They put their guns away and one of the trucks drove off. He explained to me that there was an autistic child who apparently belonged to someone very important in the area (more than likely a congressman since it was Capitol Hill), the kid had gone missing, and that the guy fit my description. Apparently the kid hadn't taken his meds in a while so that's why they had their guns drawn.
"Rrrright. Okay."
He gave me my wallet back, got in the truck and drove off.
The moral of today's story...There are two types of survival techniques: Those that keep you from getting shot by drug dealers and those that keep you from getting shot by the police. It's good to know both.
I was on my way to the old Blockbuster near Eastern Market when I noticed a black SUV slow down as it passed me. I tried to act like I didn't see it, although I was scanning the truck out of my peripheral. The tints were way too dark to be street legal, so my first thought was "drug dealer tints." The average drive-by or jump-out robbery begins with a pass by. That is, the people circle the block once and then come back around to do whatever it is they're gonna do. So, I waited to see if they were gonna turn or go straight. If they went straight then all was good, but if they turned then they were coming back. They turned.
I crossed the street. I knew the area like the back of my hand. There were way more parked cars on that side of the street (that's called gunshot cover), not to mention an alley that I could cut through if I had to. I kept looking back to see if the truck came back, but I didn't see it. Then I saw it coming from in front of me. "What the hell?" I assumed they would think I was still on the other side of the street so I dropped down like I was tying my shoe directly beside this big tree. They passed right by me. Then I heard the tires screeching as they slammed on the brakes. Then I heard it reversing back up the street.
I hauled ass full speed toward the alley. Even though the alley doesn't provide a whole lot of room to run (and we all saw what happened to Morris Chestnut running through the alley in Boyz In Da Hood), my plan was to zig zag, hop over some fences and Ferris Bueller my ass through some people's houses. I wouldn't get the chance though. As soon as I got to the alley another black SUV sped out and blocked my path.
It was like something out of a movie. My brain started racing like, "These niggas are organized like shit. What the hell is going on?" I turned and got ready to run the other way (You know, make the bullets work for it) when the truck started flashing red and blue lights on the dashboard.
The police?
Normally, you'd be relieved to find out that it was the good men and women of law enforcement and not body snatchers, but as the only black person on the street in a neighborhood not exactly overflowing with colored folks, I didn't feel any more sense of security. "Oh shit!" I threw my hands up over my head as four or five people jumped out with guns drawn.
"LORENZO!" one of them shouted out.
"Uh, no. Or-dale!"
"Lorenzo, it's okay! We're friends!"
The dude was talking really slowly like something was wrong with him. So I repeated really slowly, "I'm Or-dale. Who...is...Lorennnzo?" He kept telling me that my parents sent him to come get me. Now this was right after the Amadou Diallo thing, so I was really scared to move. I told him in a really slow voice. "I have a wallet. My license is in it. It is in my back pocket. Please don't shoot me." Without them even having to ask, I locked my arms behind my head, got on my knees and crossed my ankles. The guy walked up, got my wallet out of my back pocket and saw my license.
"What's your name?"
"Ordale Allen. I have no idea who Lorenzo is."
He told me I could get up. They put their guns away and one of the trucks drove off. He explained to me that there was an autistic child who apparently belonged to someone very important in the area (more than likely a congressman since it was Capitol Hill), the kid had gone missing, and that the guy fit my description. Apparently the kid hadn't taken his meds in a while so that's why they had their guns drawn.
"Rrrright. Okay."
He gave me my wallet back, got in the truck and drove off.
The moral of today's story...There are two types of survival techniques: Those that keep you from getting shot by drug dealers and those that keep you from getting shot by the police. It's good to know both.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Neighborhood Watch
This Trayvon Martin situation is the real life example of what I've occasionally talked since I started this blog. What concerns me, however, is how we're reacting to it. I was right there with the public outrage that George Zimmerman wasn't charged. Where I get off the bus, however, is when I start seeing Facebook statuses talking about "White people still think they can kill Black people and get away with it."
I'm ringing the bell and I'm getting off the bus.
I think that's going too far. First off, George Zimmerman isn't White. He's Hispanic. Second, even if he was White, how does the actions of one person directly apply to the entire group? Are we not doing the exact same thing we accuse them of? I think generic hyperbolic statements like that are reckless and insulting to the millions of White people who don't feel that way. Reverse racism really irks the hell out of me. How are we ever going to bridge the gap if we're always pushing people away?
Now don't get it twisted, I don't think things are peachy for us. When I walk out of my apartment I immediately go into Black man mode. I turn on my nonthreatening voice. I take my hat, hood and sunglasses off whenever I go in a store and speak to every clerk I see. I'm careful not to stand too close to the shelves and I don't put my hands in my pockets until I leave. I choose my outfit carefully when walking at night. I keep my hands in plain view the whole time. If the worst of the worst should happen and I find myself alone at night on the street behind a White woman, I cross to the other side or go another route. Hell, I even keep my Runkeeper app going at night so that I have GPS proof of where the hell I was in real time in case I should fit the description of a suspect.
I shouldn't have to do any of that, but I've always been worried about having my own Trayvon experience. It's a conundrum. I look like the people out there committing the majority of the crime in this city. Hell, I get scared when I see a dude in a hoodie coming my direction at night. I've been robbed a few times and each time they were wearing hoodies, so that's become the official uniform of the criminal underworld as far as I'm concerned. Not all dogs bite, but I still get scared if I see a rottweiler. But the fact that George Zimmerman chased down the person he was supposedly afraid of tells me that Trayvon could've been wearing a suit and tie and he still might have shot him.
I'm ringing the bell and I'm getting off the bus.
I think that's going too far. First off, George Zimmerman isn't White. He's Hispanic. Second, even if he was White, how does the actions of one person directly apply to the entire group? Are we not doing the exact same thing we accuse them of? I think generic hyperbolic statements like that are reckless and insulting to the millions of White people who don't feel that way. Reverse racism really irks the hell out of me. How are we ever going to bridge the gap if we're always pushing people away?
Now don't get it twisted, I don't think things are peachy for us. When I walk out of my apartment I immediately go into Black man mode. I turn on my nonthreatening voice. I take my hat, hood and sunglasses off whenever I go in a store and speak to every clerk I see. I'm careful not to stand too close to the shelves and I don't put my hands in my pockets until I leave. I choose my outfit carefully when walking at night. I keep my hands in plain view the whole time. If the worst of the worst should happen and I find myself alone at night on the street behind a White woman, I cross to the other side or go another route. Hell, I even keep my Runkeeper app going at night so that I have GPS proof of where the hell I was in real time in case I should fit the description of a suspect.
I shouldn't have to do any of that, but I've always been worried about having my own Trayvon experience. It's a conundrum. I look like the people out there committing the majority of the crime in this city. Hell, I get scared when I see a dude in a hoodie coming my direction at night. I've been robbed a few times and each time they were wearing hoodies, so that's become the official uniform of the criminal underworld as far as I'm concerned. Not all dogs bite, but I still get scared if I see a rottweiler. But the fact that George Zimmerman chased down the person he was supposedly afraid of tells me that Trayvon could've been wearing a suit and tie and he still might have shot him.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Michael Bay Remaking Ninja Turtles!!!
Michael Bay, the same man who put two bullets into the back of the head of my childhood memories of Transformers, is remaking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. According to EW he's changing the origin story too. No longer the result of mutagen coming into contact with four baby turtles who fell down a sewer, these new turtles will be aliens from another planet.
[caption id="attachment_1999" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="WHY!!!???"]
[/caption]
Why Michael Bay? Why? Do you just hate 80s babies?
You screwed us by making the main character of the TRANSFORMERS franchise a human being. And once and for all...Megatron is supposed to be a GUN, not an airplane. So now here we go with Teenage (Alien) Ninja Turtles. Are there ninjas in space?
Let me tell you one thing Mr Bay: You put your hands on Thundercats or He-Man and it's on!
[caption id="attachment_1999" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="WHY!!!???"]
[/caption]Why Michael Bay? Why? Do you just hate 80s babies?
You screwed us by making the main character of the TRANSFORMERS franchise a human being. And once and for all...Megatron is supposed to be a GUN, not an airplane. So now here we go with Teenage (Alien) Ninja Turtles. Are there ninjas in space?
Let me tell you one thing Mr Bay: You put your hands on Thundercats or He-Man and it's on!
Criminal of the Month: CAUGHT!
You know that little jingle they play when someone loses a game on The Price is Right? It's like a trombone or something. Anyway...I heard that in my head the moment I read this article saying that our good friend the Nuclear Bank Robber has been caught in Texas near the Mexican border. If you missed my shout out to him a few weeks ago then you can read it here.
[caption id="attachment_2002" align="alignnone" width="296" caption="It was all good just a week ago."]
[/caption]
Look at that face. And that hair! No chemicals there, only juices and berries. I feel like Uncle Ruckus when I say this but..."Nigga didn't I tell you they was gonna find you? Praise White Jesus!" lol
Seriously though, it hasn't even been a month. I wrote the post on February 28th. You couldn't go 30 days without getting caught? Bin Laden managed to elude the US government for ten years and he didn't have half the genius that you have with your nuclear bomb building self. And Mexico!? Really? Been watching a lot of bank heist movies lately, have we? The bad guys always head for Mexico. Yeah, that ALWAYS works.
My question to you is this: It's been three weeks. Why the hell did they find you in Texas near the Mexican border instead of on the other side of the Mexican border? What the hell were you doing all this time? This is what my teachers used to warn me about when they said that Black people can't afford to waste time. Seriously man, you were the best of us. You were the Jackie Robinson of super villainry. You integrated the sport, man. Hall of Fame all the way. It was Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget and you, the Nuclear Bank Robber with a heart of gold that prevented him from decimating entire cities as long as he got twenty-eight dollars from the teller at Capital One.
It's in moments like these that I'm reminded of a quote from John Greenleaf Whittier:
For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been."
PS.
I know one thing, you better hope that perm grows out before you get to prison.
[caption id="attachment_2002" align="alignnone" width="296" caption="It was all good just a week ago."]
[/caption]Look at that face. And that hair! No chemicals there, only juices and berries. I feel like Uncle Ruckus when I say this but..."Nigga didn't I tell you they was gonna find you? Praise White Jesus!" lol
Seriously though, it hasn't even been a month. I wrote the post on February 28th. You couldn't go 30 days without getting caught? Bin Laden managed to elude the US government for ten years and he didn't have half the genius that you have with your nuclear bomb building self. And Mexico!? Really? Been watching a lot of bank heist movies lately, have we? The bad guys always head for Mexico. Yeah, that ALWAYS works.
My question to you is this: It's been three weeks. Why the hell did they find you in Texas near the Mexican border instead of on the other side of the Mexican border? What the hell were you doing all this time? This is what my teachers used to warn me about when they said that Black people can't afford to waste time. Seriously man, you were the best of us. You were the Jackie Robinson of super villainry. You integrated the sport, man. Hall of Fame all the way. It was Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget and you, the Nuclear Bank Robber with a heart of gold that prevented him from decimating entire cities as long as he got twenty-eight dollars from the teller at Capital One.
It's in moments like these that I'm reminded of a quote from John Greenleaf Whittier:
For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been."
PS.
I know one thing, you better hope that perm grows out before you get to prison.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Run!
I'm sitting on the couch with my leg elevated and my ankle wrapped. Who gets hurt jogging? I used to be a track champion...now look at me. At least back then my injuries were glorious.
The year was 1997. I was in the ninth grade and was at a track meet over at Dunbar High School. Somehow I got put in the fastest heat for the 100 meter dash. All the dudes looked like they were in their second or third senior year of high school and I had no idea how I was supposed to beat them. I psyched myself out though.
"You're a cheetah. You're a black cheetah. You're so fast that you can play quarterback and wide receiver in the same play. Scratch that, you're not a cheetah. You're light! You're so fast that at night you can turn off the light and be in the bed asleep before the room gets dark."
It didn't work. "You see all these girls in the bleachers...don't embarrass yourself." Women...works every time. I got in the blocks. "Runners on your mark. Set. Boom!" I came up out of the bleachers like a lion chasing a gazelle. I looked left. I looked right. There was nobody beside me. Nobody was ahead of me so through the process of elimination I arrived at this conclusion: "Oh shit, I'm winning! Run Run Run!"
One quarter of the way down I looked out the corner of my eyes again. "I'm still winning!" I'd hyped myself up before, but it never actually worked. I started thinking about all the numbers I was gonna get and I started running even faster.
Halfway down the track...still in front. I got three quarters of the way down when I finally had that moment that athletes talk about when they say they "embraced greatness." I wasn't just about to win a DCIAA track meet. I was building a highlight reel. I was going to college on a track scholarship. I was going to the Olympics in Sydney Australia. More importantly, I was about to get that girl's number, that girl's number, and that one's number. Yeah, I embraced greatness alright. "I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win! Oh my God I'm gonna *POP* AAAAAAAH!"
My left leg stopped working.
I don't mean I got a cramp or that it tightened up. It stopped working. When you're running full speed and one of your legs just randomly stops moving you nosedive into the ground...Then the momentum makes you tumble along the ground a few times. Then you come to rest. Then you realize there's a sharp pain in the spot that connects your thigh to your hip. Then you realize it hurts too bad to scream. As a matter of fact, your heartbeat hurts.
I heard my coach yell out, "Finish the race!" I responded with, "Come get me!" He couldn't hear me because the track meet had turned into some Disney sports movie moment where everyone starts shouting out encouraging catch phrases and doing motivational clapping as if you're some kind of Tinkerbell on its deathbed that needs claps to survive. Everyone thought I had tripped and fallen. I guess they thought my pride was hurt and I was laying there defeated. In reality the tendon in my thigh had torn off the bone and I was laying there asking God to rain down morphine from the sky.
When I realized no one was coming until they got a "Cool Runnings" finish where I picked up a sled and limped down the track, I tried to stand up. The best I could do was crawl a few feet before they realized I was in pain. Eventually a stretcher came and Doctor Obvious told me that I hurt my leg. He also quoted some DCIAA rule that says you can't give minors painkillers without a parent's consent. No one took me to the emergency room, no one called my family to come get me. My coaches even tried to convince me to hobble home on the metro so that they wouldn't have to "go all the way across town" to take me home.
A day later I went to Kaiser where they diagnosed the whole "tendon ripped off the bone" thing. I was on crutches for a while and eventually regained the ability to move my leg up and down about two or three months later.
The year was 1997. I was in the ninth grade and was at a track meet over at Dunbar High School. Somehow I got put in the fastest heat for the 100 meter dash. All the dudes looked like they were in their second or third senior year of high school and I had no idea how I was supposed to beat them. I psyched myself out though.
"You're a cheetah. You're a black cheetah. You're so fast that you can play quarterback and wide receiver in the same play. Scratch that, you're not a cheetah. You're light! You're so fast that at night you can turn off the light and be in the bed asleep before the room gets dark."
It didn't work. "You see all these girls in the bleachers...don't embarrass yourself." Women...works every time. I got in the blocks. "Runners on your mark. Set. Boom!" I came up out of the bleachers like a lion chasing a gazelle. I looked left. I looked right. There was nobody beside me. Nobody was ahead of me so through the process of elimination I arrived at this conclusion: "Oh shit, I'm winning! Run Run Run!"
One quarter of the way down I looked out the corner of my eyes again. "I'm still winning!" I'd hyped myself up before, but it never actually worked. I started thinking about all the numbers I was gonna get and I started running even faster.
Halfway down the track...still in front. I got three quarters of the way down when I finally had that moment that athletes talk about when they say they "embraced greatness." I wasn't just about to win a DCIAA track meet. I was building a highlight reel. I was going to college on a track scholarship. I was going to the Olympics in Sydney Australia. More importantly, I was about to get that girl's number, that girl's number, and that one's number. Yeah, I embraced greatness alright. "I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win! Oh my God I'm gonna *POP* AAAAAAAH!"
My left leg stopped working.
I don't mean I got a cramp or that it tightened up. It stopped working. When you're running full speed and one of your legs just randomly stops moving you nosedive into the ground...Then the momentum makes you tumble along the ground a few times. Then you come to rest. Then you realize there's a sharp pain in the spot that connects your thigh to your hip. Then you realize it hurts too bad to scream. As a matter of fact, your heartbeat hurts.
I heard my coach yell out, "Finish the race!" I responded with, "Come get me!" He couldn't hear me because the track meet had turned into some Disney sports movie moment where everyone starts shouting out encouraging catch phrases and doing motivational clapping as if you're some kind of Tinkerbell on its deathbed that needs claps to survive. Everyone thought I had tripped and fallen. I guess they thought my pride was hurt and I was laying there defeated. In reality the tendon in my thigh had torn off the bone and I was laying there asking God to rain down morphine from the sky.
When I realized no one was coming until they got a "Cool Runnings" finish where I picked up a sled and limped down the track, I tried to stand up. The best I could do was crawl a few feet before they realized I was in pain. Eventually a stretcher came and Doctor Obvious told me that I hurt my leg. He also quoted some DCIAA rule that says you can't give minors painkillers without a parent's consent. No one took me to the emergency room, no one called my family to come get me. My coaches even tried to convince me to hobble home on the metro so that they wouldn't have to "go all the way across town" to take me home.
A day later I went to Kaiser where they diagnosed the whole "tendon ripped off the bone" thing. I was on crutches for a while and eventually regained the ability to move my leg up and down about two or three months later.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Yesterday I Heard A Beat Girl Cry...
I read this article just now that says that more people are hooking up their phones to their car stereos instead of listening to the actual radio.
Big surprise.
Perhaps if they stopped playing the same song on the radio over and over again or played some variety instead of people who sound exactly alike then we'd tune in more. Right now I feel like I'm stuck in the middle somewhere when it comes to picking a station. It's like a job interview. I'm overqualified for WPGC and WKYS. I'm married, have a kid and too much life experience to get into the "I wanna (censored) every woman alive while drinking $500 bottles of liquor, partying in mansions that I can somehow afford with no credit and yet still keeping it real by (censored) every (censored) who looks at me the wrong way but only going to jail long enough to come up with new rhymes." I'm overqualified to listen to that kind of music.
Then there's WHUR and Magic 102.3...or as I think of them as "The Quiet Storm" stations. That's what my mother used to listen to on the little radio on her desk at work. It's "lady wearing a sweater duster at her desk" music. Occasionally they play something that used to be good back in the day but instead of getting into it and enjoying myself, I find myself getting depressed at the realization that Boyz II Men, Jodeci and TLC are on 102.3. That means one thing...I'M GETTING OLD!
When the song you loved in 7th grade is referred to as an oldie by the DJ the last thing you do is get excited that it's on. You start wondering where the last 17 years of your life went and then you have a mid life crisis that forces you to turn back to WPGC and hear Lil Wayne growling out lyrics through a mouth full of concrete pebbles and then you just say "(censored) it!" and you turn the radio off. Either that or you turn to the White stations and start wondering if you've sold out somehow because you actually enjoy these songs a little bit.
Before long you actually find yourself not changing the station and just letting the songs play until you pull up beside a bunch of Black people in the car next to you and then you hit the "favorite" station real quick to go back to WPGC to make it look like you're still "authentic." So yeah...it's either go through the motions with that or plug up your smartphone and listen to what you have in your own collection.
Then again, that could just be my experience.
Big surprise.
Perhaps if they stopped playing the same song on the radio over and over again or played some variety instead of people who sound exactly alike then we'd tune in more. Right now I feel like I'm stuck in the middle somewhere when it comes to picking a station. It's like a job interview. I'm overqualified for WPGC and WKYS. I'm married, have a kid and too much life experience to get into the "I wanna (censored) every woman alive while drinking $500 bottles of liquor, partying in mansions that I can somehow afford with no credit and yet still keeping it real by (censored) every (censored) who looks at me the wrong way but only going to jail long enough to come up with new rhymes." I'm overqualified to listen to that kind of music.
Then there's WHUR and Magic 102.3...or as I think of them as "The Quiet Storm" stations. That's what my mother used to listen to on the little radio on her desk at work. It's "lady wearing a sweater duster at her desk" music. Occasionally they play something that used to be good back in the day but instead of getting into it and enjoying myself, I find myself getting depressed at the realization that Boyz II Men, Jodeci and TLC are on 102.3. That means one thing...I'M GETTING OLD!
When the song you loved in 7th grade is referred to as an oldie by the DJ the last thing you do is get excited that it's on. You start wondering where the last 17 years of your life went and then you have a mid life crisis that forces you to turn back to WPGC and hear Lil Wayne growling out lyrics through a mouth full of concrete pebbles and then you just say "(censored) it!" and you turn the radio off. Either that or you turn to the White stations and start wondering if you've sold out somehow because you actually enjoy these songs a little bit.
Before long you actually find yourself not changing the station and just letting the songs play until you pull up beside a bunch of Black people in the car next to you and then you hit the "favorite" station real quick to go back to WPGC to make it look like you're still "authentic." So yeah...it's either go through the motions with that or plug up your smartphone and listen to what you have in your own collection.
Then again, that could just be my experience.
Night School Dentist
I'm on my way to a new dentist. Everybody say a quick prayer to little baby Jesus for me. I don't have the general fear of dentists that most people have. How can I if I started "investing" in them when I was five? (Investing=giving them a bunch of money to pay for their kids' college) Still, I worry about going on what amounts to a blind date with a complete stranger who has miniature power tools.
My first memorable trip to the dentist occurred when I was five. He basically asked me if I brushed my teeth with sugar because I had eight cavities. Several fillings, crowns and extractions later I was a certified dental assistant. At least that's what the nitrous oxide told me. It's amazing how quickly that dental assistant changed her tune from "just hold my hand" to "okay he's hurting me, give him the gas." All of a sudden, I didn't have a care in the world. The dots on the ceiling started moving in tune to the Gummi Bears theme song and I looked over out the window and saw that the sky was purple and the two buildings across the street leaned over and smiled at me.
Those were good times. Then my mother either took a pay cut or just decided to try a new dentist for the hell of it. We went to some back alley nigga who had an office over top of a liquor store in a strip mall. I went in for a cleaning and came out with three of my teeth in a bank withdrawal envelope.
I was about ten years old. I went in for a cleaning and two of my teeth were loose. They were the crowns (caps) I'd gotten a year or two before. One was real loose where I could turn it around (you know how you do as a kid). The other was just starting to wiggle a little, but had a month or so left. So anyway, I go to Leroy the dentist and he cleans my teeth. Then before it's time to go, my mother tells me that he's gonna "hook us up" and pull out my loose teeth for free. I didn't want my teeth removed. They were still working.
I tried to explain to Otis the Dentist that I was missing three adult teeth under the jaw. He told me that didn't make sense and told my mother I was just nervous. Trying to flirt and practice dental work will get you killed in the streets, but Rollo the Dentist wouldn't listen. "My last dentist said that I was born with all the baby teeth, but three adult teeth will never come in." My mother made me let him pull my teeth and when Cleofus was done he tried to prove me wrong by doing some X-rays.
"Oh" is all that back alley nigga had to say as he stared at the x-ray in between giving me the "I done fucked up" glances. Then he tried to rationalize it as "well they had to come out eventually anyway right?" and told me he'd go ahead and let me keep the teeth. Not "keep" as in put them back in, but "keep" as in reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a used bank envelope that tellers give you to put your money in and put my three teeth into it.
To this day I have spaces between my teeth where Roscoe the dentist pulled out my teeth early and the rest spread apart to fill the space.
dratsab
My first memorable trip to the dentist occurred when I was five. He basically asked me if I brushed my teeth with sugar because I had eight cavities. Several fillings, crowns and extractions later I was a certified dental assistant. At least that's what the nitrous oxide told me. It's amazing how quickly that dental assistant changed her tune from "just hold my hand" to "okay he's hurting me, give him the gas." All of a sudden, I didn't have a care in the world. The dots on the ceiling started moving in tune to the Gummi Bears theme song and I looked over out the window and saw that the sky was purple and the two buildings across the street leaned over and smiled at me.
Those were good times. Then my mother either took a pay cut or just decided to try a new dentist for the hell of it. We went to some back alley nigga who had an office over top of a liquor store in a strip mall. I went in for a cleaning and came out with three of my teeth in a bank withdrawal envelope.
I was about ten years old. I went in for a cleaning and two of my teeth were loose. They were the crowns (caps) I'd gotten a year or two before. One was real loose where I could turn it around (you know how you do as a kid). The other was just starting to wiggle a little, but had a month or so left. So anyway, I go to Leroy the dentist and he cleans my teeth. Then before it's time to go, my mother tells me that he's gonna "hook us up" and pull out my loose teeth for free. I didn't want my teeth removed. They were still working.
I tried to explain to Otis the Dentist that I was missing three adult teeth under the jaw. He told me that didn't make sense and told my mother I was just nervous. Trying to flirt and practice dental work will get you killed in the streets, but Rollo the Dentist wouldn't listen. "My last dentist said that I was born with all the baby teeth, but three adult teeth will never come in." My mother made me let him pull my teeth and when Cleofus was done he tried to prove me wrong by doing some X-rays.
"Oh" is all that back alley nigga had to say as he stared at the x-ray in between giving me the "I done fucked up" glances. Then he tried to rationalize it as "well they had to come out eventually anyway right?" and told me he'd go ahead and let me keep the teeth. Not "keep" as in put them back in, but "keep" as in reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a used bank envelope that tellers give you to put your money in and put my three teeth into it.
To this day I have spaces between my teeth where Roscoe the dentist pulled out my teeth early and the rest spread apart to fill the space.
dratsab
Friday, March 16, 2012
Thank You For Not Smoking
There's a new anti-smoking ad campaign rolling out that's the topic of debate. It shows amputees, people with their trachea cut open and lung removal scars. The question floating around is "Is it too graphic?" Personally, I don't think so. Some people are moved more by visual images than just words on a paper. Still, I don't know how much good it'll do in the long run. The hardest thing to change is a person's mind, which is why I rarely try to tell people what they should or shouldn't do especially with their own body. So long as you don't smoke around me, I don't really care. There isn't a person on this earth who doesn't know those things cause cancer, but some people are just so stressed that they figure it's worth the risk. Ride the maverick. Go for it, just don't smoke around me or my kid because I don't want to star in my own poster one day.
Now that's not to say that I'm without sin. I've tried smoking, it just didn't take. When I was in junior high school someone gave me a cigarette, I took a few drags of it so that I wouldn't look like I "was gonna snitch" and I didn't find it that spectacular. Fast forward to college and I'm sitting at my desk at my nice summer job when I got the infamous, "I missed my period" phone call. Ten minutes later I was sitting alone in a park that only homeless people go to, wearing a suit and tie on a 98 degree day smoking a pack of Newports.
As I sat there thinking about life, watching my dreams die one by one, I found myself feeling dizzy. I don't know if it was the extreme heat, the sudden onset of stress, or the fact that I hadn't been paying attention to the fact that I smoked three cigarettes in about a minute and a half. All I know is that I started thinking, "Did I just pay six dollars to feel like this?" I threw those damn things in the trash and went back to work.
Later that day, I got a "false alarm" follow up call and I now had two things I would never ever EVER do again.
Now that's not to say that I'm without sin. I've tried smoking, it just didn't take. When I was in junior high school someone gave me a cigarette, I took a few drags of it so that I wouldn't look like I "was gonna snitch" and I didn't find it that spectacular. Fast forward to college and I'm sitting at my desk at my nice summer job when I got the infamous, "I missed my period" phone call. Ten minutes later I was sitting alone in a park that only homeless people go to, wearing a suit and tie on a 98 degree day smoking a pack of Newports.
As I sat there thinking about life, watching my dreams die one by one, I found myself feeling dizzy. I don't know if it was the extreme heat, the sudden onset of stress, or the fact that I hadn't been paying attention to the fact that I smoked three cigarettes in about a minute and a half. All I know is that I started thinking, "Did I just pay six dollars to feel like this?" I threw those damn things in the trash and went back to work.
Later that day, I got a "false alarm" follow up call and I now had two things I would never ever EVER do again.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Sick Leave
I'm calling out sick for a few days. My mind hurts. Not my head, not my brain...my metaphysical mind. It might be allergies, could be a sinus infection...I have no clue. I've been sick for a couple of days so hopefully it'll go away soon. In the meantime please feel free to peruse our archives.
Good night and good luck
Good night and good luck
Friday, March 9, 2012
Stranger Danger
Once upon a time fourteen year old me was up at Eastern Market buying incense and oils for my uncle. I was at one of the vendor's stands looking for the specific one my uncle wanted when this dude standing next to me suggested one I should buy. I told him it wasn't for me, that I didn't wear that stuff and that I was just getting something for my uncle..."but thanks anyway." So then the guy asked me what I was buying. I told him. He asked what he should get. I told him I didn't know because I don't wear that stuff.
Normally, I don't talk to people I don't know. Hell, I don't really talk to people that I do know. It's a survival mechanism for living in the city. But this dude looked like a mix of Suge Knight and Terry Crews (Damon from Friday After Next). He was about 6'6, bald and looked like he picked up cars for a living. His voice sounded like thunder and I swear to God he looked like a minotaur. You tend to be nice to people who physically can beat the hell out of you and mentally look like they're one line of coke away from going on a stabbing spree.
So I'm thinking to myself, "Is this nigga on drugs? Does he want money or something? Why the hell does he keep talking to me?" I paid for the stuff and went on about my business. I get like two blocks away and I hear someone yell out, "Yo main man!" Oh hell, just keep walking. But you can't ignore that Darth Vader voice. "Yo main man!" The ground shook. The birds in the trees all flew away. He runs up to me and tells me that he bought the same thing I got. "Okay. That's good." I start walking. Then he tells me the guy let him sample something new and asked me if I wanted to smell it. "Uh...no." So then he gets in front of me and is like, "Hold up man, let me talk to you for a second." I think to myself.
This nigga bout to rob me. Damn!
Instead, his voice goes from Zeus to Antoine Merriweather (David Alan Grier) from Men on Film, "You wanna go home with me?"
...
The people in my head held a meeting:
Time out! Everybody bring it in. Okay look, this nigga is a foot taller than us and his arms are eight times more biceptier than ours. Anyone think we can take him? No? Okay. We need to be nice to him then. What's the chances of us outrunning him? No chance in hell? Okay. Using our peripheral vision, does anybody see anything we can hit this nigga with? No loose bricks, branches, or large rocks? Shit. Okay we're running out of time. What if we just say no really politely? Okay, we'll do that but if that doesn't work the backup plan is to break one of these little oil bottles and stab him in the eyes and then the throat. Good luck everybody.
"You wanna go home with me?" Clutching the little oil bottle in my hand, I said, "Oh naw, I'm good man. But thanks." I continued walking. As predicted, he thought I was playing hard to get and started telling me that he drove a Mercedez and had a bunch of movies back at his place that I might like. It was like a ghetto version of "The Way You Make Me Feel" video except instead of someone whose ass you could easily kick like Michael Jackson, it was Deebo. Then he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was in high school and in a surprising turn of events he said, "How old are you?" When I told him I was fourteen he said, "Oh, you too young for me." And he walked away.
The moral of today's story is two-fold. First, not all gay men are pedophiles. That's an unfair bigoted train of thought. Second, always carry some kind of make-shift weapon with you because you never know.
Normally, I don't talk to people I don't know. Hell, I don't really talk to people that I do know. It's a survival mechanism for living in the city. But this dude looked like a mix of Suge Knight and Terry Crews (Damon from Friday After Next). He was about 6'6, bald and looked like he picked up cars for a living. His voice sounded like thunder and I swear to God he looked like a minotaur. You tend to be nice to people who physically can beat the hell out of you and mentally look like they're one line of coke away from going on a stabbing spree.
So I'm thinking to myself, "Is this nigga on drugs? Does he want money or something? Why the hell does he keep talking to me?" I paid for the stuff and went on about my business. I get like two blocks away and I hear someone yell out, "Yo main man!" Oh hell, just keep walking. But you can't ignore that Darth Vader voice. "Yo main man!" The ground shook. The birds in the trees all flew away. He runs up to me and tells me that he bought the same thing I got. "Okay. That's good." I start walking. Then he tells me the guy let him sample something new and asked me if I wanted to smell it. "Uh...no." So then he gets in front of me and is like, "Hold up man, let me talk to you for a second." I think to myself.
This nigga bout to rob me. Damn!
Instead, his voice goes from Zeus to Antoine Merriweather (David Alan Grier) from Men on Film, "You wanna go home with me?"
...
The people in my head held a meeting:
Time out! Everybody bring it in. Okay look, this nigga is a foot taller than us and his arms are eight times more biceptier than ours. Anyone think we can take him? No? Okay. We need to be nice to him then. What's the chances of us outrunning him? No chance in hell? Okay. Using our peripheral vision, does anybody see anything we can hit this nigga with? No loose bricks, branches, or large rocks? Shit. Okay we're running out of time. What if we just say no really politely? Okay, we'll do that but if that doesn't work the backup plan is to break one of these little oil bottles and stab him in the eyes and then the throat. Good luck everybody.
"You wanna go home with me?" Clutching the little oil bottle in my hand, I said, "Oh naw, I'm good man. But thanks." I continued walking. As predicted, he thought I was playing hard to get and started telling me that he drove a Mercedez and had a bunch of movies back at his place that I might like. It was like a ghetto version of "The Way You Make Me Feel" video except instead of someone whose ass you could easily kick like Michael Jackson, it was Deebo. Then he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was in high school and in a surprising turn of events he said, "How old are you?" When I told him I was fourteen he said, "Oh, you too young for me." And he walked away.
The moral of today's story is two-fold. First, not all gay men are pedophiles. That's an unfair bigoted train of thought. Second, always carry some kind of make-shift weapon with you because you never know.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Shooting Two
It finally happened.
We were in the store when my daughter decided to have a nervous breakdown and act a damn fool...and in the worst possible place, Nordstrom. All of the pseudo-bourgeois people just stopped in their tracks. It was like the scene in every Western where someone walks into the saloon. The guy playing piano near the escalators stopped playing and all eyes were on me.
The White people were fixated on me probably thinking, "He better not strike that child. I will call the police right now." The Black people were looking at me like, "You better represent! Beat that girl's ass, you know we don't let kids fall out in the store." My daughter fouled me with no time left on the clock and now I was shooting two to win the game, but which team was I on?
Pre-parenthood I watched kids go crazy in the store and usually the response from the parents went along party lines. Most Black people beat the hell outta their kids to the point that it started looking less like discipline and more like a lynching. Most White people either ignored the kid or tried to reason with them which just made me wonder how long it'd be before the kid would be beating their ass in the future. I'll admit it was a pretty ignorant way to dichotomize parenting, but I was young and didn't know any better.
So fast forward to the present and my darling child has put me under the ire of the Nordstromites. I was tempted to beat the hell outta her, but all I kept thinking about was breakfast. She had a sippy cup in one hand and an apple in the other. She chewed up some of the apple and then took her sticky disgusting hand to put the pre-chewed apple in my mouth. All the while she's saying "Yum!" Then she semi-waterboarded me by shoving the sippy cup of water in my mouth to wash down the apple.
That's how we get down in our house. Back before she had teeth, we chewed up food for her and gave it to her. She saw that I wasn't eating anything and she wanted to share, and just how I would say "Yum" to her and put food in her mouth, she did the same to me. She was looking out for me because that's her subconscious way of loving me. That kind of innocent love doesn't go away in the three hours that transpired between breakfast and walking through Nordstrom. She's upset about something and hitting her as a knee-jerk reaction to my embarrassment just didn't feel right.
I did what I never thought I'd do, I knelt down to her level and gave her a kiss on the forehead and said, "I love you. I don't know why you're upset but you can't yell and kick and scream. Everything is gonna be okay." I gave her a hug and another kiss and we continued our walk through the store. I'd like to say that she quieted down and that the Full House moment was enough, but I'd be lying. She hollered even more and this Black woman gave me a look like she sincerely felt betrayed. My daughter yelled all the way to the car and before we made it out of the garage she was asleep. Apparently that's what was wrong all along. When she woke up at home, I gave her some potato chips. She chewed one up and fed it to me.
I love you too.
We were in the store when my daughter decided to have a nervous breakdown and act a damn fool...and in the worst possible place, Nordstrom. All of the pseudo-bourgeois people just stopped in their tracks. It was like the scene in every Western where someone walks into the saloon. The guy playing piano near the escalators stopped playing and all eyes were on me.
The White people were fixated on me probably thinking, "He better not strike that child. I will call the police right now." The Black people were looking at me like, "You better represent! Beat that girl's ass, you know we don't let kids fall out in the store." My daughter fouled me with no time left on the clock and now I was shooting two to win the game, but which team was I on?
Pre-parenthood I watched kids go crazy in the store and usually the response from the parents went along party lines. Most Black people beat the hell outta their kids to the point that it started looking less like discipline and more like a lynching. Most White people either ignored the kid or tried to reason with them which just made me wonder how long it'd be before the kid would be beating their ass in the future. I'll admit it was a pretty ignorant way to dichotomize parenting, but I was young and didn't know any better.
So fast forward to the present and my darling child has put me under the ire of the Nordstromites. I was tempted to beat the hell outta her, but all I kept thinking about was breakfast. She had a sippy cup in one hand and an apple in the other. She chewed up some of the apple and then took her sticky disgusting hand to put the pre-chewed apple in my mouth. All the while she's saying "Yum!" Then she semi-waterboarded me by shoving the sippy cup of water in my mouth to wash down the apple.
That's how we get down in our house. Back before she had teeth, we chewed up food for her and gave it to her. She saw that I wasn't eating anything and she wanted to share, and just how I would say "Yum" to her and put food in her mouth, she did the same to me. She was looking out for me because that's her subconscious way of loving me. That kind of innocent love doesn't go away in the three hours that transpired between breakfast and walking through Nordstrom. She's upset about something and hitting her as a knee-jerk reaction to my embarrassment just didn't feel right.
I did what I never thought I'd do, I knelt down to her level and gave her a kiss on the forehead and said, "I love you. I don't know why you're upset but you can't yell and kick and scream. Everything is gonna be okay." I gave her a hug and another kiss and we continued our walk through the store. I'd like to say that she quieted down and that the Full House moment was enough, but I'd be lying. She hollered even more and this Black woman gave me a look like she sincerely felt betrayed. My daughter yelled all the way to the car and before we made it out of the garage she was asleep. Apparently that's what was wrong all along. When she woke up at home, I gave her some potato chips. She chewed one up and fed it to me.
I love you too.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
It's A Celebration!
I was a strange little boy. My favorite thing to do when I was six years old was count money and make lists of things I'd buy when I grew up. I imagined that I'd be rich and make about a thousand dollars a month. I used to break out my notebook paper and Mickey Mouse calculator and total up all of my future expenses. I was gonna live in a nice place so rent would be about $100 a month and my car note would be $50. I dedicated a whole $100 to my wife. Yep, back then I knew that I was gonna get married. In fact, I spent my whole childhood trying to perfect the craft of being a good husband.
I wanted to hit the ground running. I had a surplus of bad examples, and I said I'd be different. The funny thing is, it's hard trying to find a wife when you're under 18. Girls used to always tell me that I would make a good husband but a horrible boyfriend. That's code for, "you're too nice." I didn't see the point of treating girls like shit just to get them to like me. That reverse psychology thing was for kids and I was 17 going on 30. I decided to just pick an HBCU and meet a girl like the ones like I saw on A Different World. In fact that was my only motivation for going to college...find a wife.
I picked a school in the South because I heard southern women could cook and considering the AIDS rate in DC, I needed to go to a more wholesome place. Damn was I wrong. There were so many skeezers running around my school. I remember reading an article in the school newspaper my freshman year. We had the highest turnout for a blood drive in the school's history and yet they had to trash 60% of it because of STDs. Finding the woman I'd been El Debarging for all these years was gonna be difficult. (El Debarge= All This Love is Waiting for You...Love in a Special Way)
Anyway...I'd just gotten out of a relationship and had pretty much just decided to King Jaffe Joffer it up (sewing my royal oats) when I had a Prince Akeem moment. It's the corniest thing in the world, but I literally found myself lost in her eyes. They were like these big pools of mahogany and I couldn't stop staring at her. It was as if time itself had stopped and we were the only two people in the room. One long three hour phone conversation and I knew that I was gonna marry that girl. Three months later,
I had seriously been planning my entire marriage from the time I was six years old. I thought about gifts, I thought about spontaneity, I looked at all the failed marriages in the adults that I knew and I tried to imagine not the perfect woman, but the perfect woman for me. I have a shit load of flaws and I used to write em down and figure out what traits my wife would need to have in order to complement them. After fourteen years of that kind of thinking, you know the minute that you meet it. It doesn't take a whole day to recognize sunshine, so when I met my wife, I put a ring on that quick.
Nine years later, we're still together. I still feel complete and I still feel like I found the perfect complement to all of my flaws. And thirty years ago, today, she was born. So while she's probably somewhere dreading turning thirty like most women do, I'm ecstatic that the fates conspired to have her born at exactly the right place and right time so that all of the random coincidental events of our lives could push us in a seemingly random directions that would cause our paths to collide and bring to fruition every dream that I could have or will ever have.
In short (which I probably should have began with)...
Happy Birthday. Your presence is the greatest present I could ever receive.
I wanted to hit the ground running. I had a surplus of bad examples, and I said I'd be different. The funny thing is, it's hard trying to find a wife when you're under 18. Girls used to always tell me that I would make a good husband but a horrible boyfriend. That's code for, "you're too nice." I didn't see the point of treating girls like shit just to get them to like me. That reverse psychology thing was for kids and I was 17 going on 30. I decided to just pick an HBCU and meet a girl like the ones like I saw on A Different World. In fact that was my only motivation for going to college...find a wife.
I picked a school in the South because I heard southern women could cook and considering the AIDS rate in DC, I needed to go to a more wholesome place. Damn was I wrong. There were so many skeezers running around my school. I remember reading an article in the school newspaper my freshman year. We had the highest turnout for a blood drive in the school's history and yet they had to trash 60% of it because of STDs. Finding the woman I'd been El Debarging for all these years was gonna be difficult. (El Debarge= All This Love is Waiting for You...Love in a Special Way)
Anyway...I'd just gotten out of a relationship and had pretty much just decided to King Jaffe Joffer it up (sewing my royal oats) when I had a Prince Akeem moment. It's the corniest thing in the world, but I literally found myself lost in her eyes. They were like these big pools of mahogany and I couldn't stop staring at her. It was as if time itself had stopped and we were the only two people in the room. One long three hour phone conversation and I knew that I was gonna marry that girl. Three months later,
I had seriously been planning my entire marriage from the time I was six years old. I thought about gifts, I thought about spontaneity, I looked at all the failed marriages in the adults that I knew and I tried to imagine not the perfect woman, but the perfect woman for me. I have a shit load of flaws and I used to write em down and figure out what traits my wife would need to have in order to complement them. After fourteen years of that kind of thinking, you know the minute that you meet it. It doesn't take a whole day to recognize sunshine, so when I met my wife, I put a ring on that quick.
Nine years later, we're still together. I still feel complete and I still feel like I found the perfect complement to all of my flaws. And thirty years ago, today, she was born. So while she's probably somewhere dreading turning thirty like most women do, I'm ecstatic that the fates conspired to have her born at exactly the right place and right time so that all of the random coincidental events of our lives could push us in a seemingly random directions that would cause our paths to collide and bring to fruition every dream that I could have or will ever have.
In short (which I probably should have began with)...
Happy Birthday. Your presence is the greatest present I could ever receive.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Michigan J Frog
My daughter is a year and eight months old today. She can navigate an iPod and iPad with no issue. She knows which songs she wants to hear by looking at the album cover art. She can spell two or three words, count to twenty and has been doing amazingly advanced things for the past three or four months...
And I have no proof of it.
Like that frog on Looney Toons, she won't do any of it outside of the house. Every time I try to get it on camera she shuts down. Today she was in the house spelling.
S-T-O-P, stop! S-T-O-P, stop!
P-O-T-T-Y, potty, potty!
I pull out my phone to record it and what does she do?
Apple?
Milk?
P-P-L-K-Z, Car!
So now I look like a dumb ass. A couple of months ago, she was running around the house singing James Brown and Michael Jackson songs.
"Baby Baby baby, baby baby baby. Ow. Good god!"
It's adorable. It's the kind of stuff that gets you on TV...and in other words, it's the kind of stuff that gets us some money. It's exploitable. LOL
I put up a camera on the bookshelf and tried to get her to do it. She started crying. I turn off the camera and she starts singing again. She's screwing with me!
My friends came over and did the "You gave a baby a iPod for Christmas!" look. I handed it to her and said, "Watch this." She sat there playing with the settings app. They left, and she started singing the sesame street theme before cutting it on and finding that song.
I guess she's saying, "You won't get rich off me."
And I have no proof of it.
Like that frog on Looney Toons, she won't do any of it outside of the house. Every time I try to get it on camera she shuts down. Today she was in the house spelling.
S-T-O-P, stop! S-T-O-P, stop!
P-O-T-T-Y, potty, potty!
I pull out my phone to record it and what does she do?
Apple?
Milk?
P-P-L-K-Z, Car!
So now I look like a dumb ass. A couple of months ago, she was running around the house singing James Brown and Michael Jackson songs.
"Baby Baby baby, baby baby baby. Ow. Good god!"
It's adorable. It's the kind of stuff that gets you on TV...and in other words, it's the kind of stuff that gets us some money. It's exploitable. LOL
I put up a camera on the bookshelf and tried to get her to do it. She started crying. I turn off the camera and she starts singing again. She's screwing with me!
My friends came over and did the "You gave a baby a iPod for Christmas!" look. I handed it to her and said, "Watch this." She sat there playing with the settings app. They left, and she started singing the sesame street theme before cutting it on and finding that song.
I guess she's saying, "You won't get rich off me."
Monday, March 5, 2012
Brother to Brother
I wrote about "the talk" (sex) the other day but there's another important talk that little Black boys get that's equally important. There isn't really a name for it, it's just the "what it means to be a Black man" talk. You hear little snippets of it all the time when you're young: "A Black man gotta work twice as hard to get half as far." In my mind, that was just the pledge of allegiance for the old men at the barbershop. A lot of the people in my grandmother's neighborhood were White and everyone at my mother's job was White and all of them were nice and friendly towards me. Then I hit puberty.
Now I won't lie and say that those people treated me differently, because they didn't. What did change was the way I was approached by strangers. Pre-puberty everyone greets you like your some kind of chocolate cherubim. Post puberty, you're a threat. I started growing a mustache when I was ten. I couldn't understand why people crossed the street when they saw me coming or quickly looked the other way whenever I made eye contact. Most importantly, I couldn't understand why the police always slowed down when they passed me and would shine the light on me.
Luckily my elementary school sent the guys to the "Brother to Brother" conference at Howard University. It was a one day "Intro to being a Black man." They explained the crime rate, the hard facts that most crime in DC is committed by us and that with puberty comes the unfortunate fact that you now fit the description of every suspect in the city. They talked to us about how to talk to police. Be respectful and answer their questions and whatever you do, don't run away or make sudden movements towards your pockets. Be conscious of your surroundings and don't walk too close or too fast near women, especially White women after dark.There were other things discussed that day like going to college and setting goals, avoiding crime and gangs, but the thing about the cops and walking behind women stuck with me the most.
It would all prove useful in the months ahead. That's it for today class. Tomorrow we'll examine the hilarious tale of Ordale's first few experiences nearly being arrested by the police.
Now I won't lie and say that those people treated me differently, because they didn't. What did change was the way I was approached by strangers. Pre-puberty everyone greets you like your some kind of chocolate cherubim. Post puberty, you're a threat. I started growing a mustache when I was ten. I couldn't understand why people crossed the street when they saw me coming or quickly looked the other way whenever I made eye contact. Most importantly, I couldn't understand why the police always slowed down when they passed me and would shine the light on me.
Luckily my elementary school sent the guys to the "Brother to Brother" conference at Howard University. It was a one day "Intro to being a Black man." They explained the crime rate, the hard facts that most crime in DC is committed by us and that with puberty comes the unfortunate fact that you now fit the description of every suspect in the city. They talked to us about how to talk to police. Be respectful and answer their questions and whatever you do, don't run away or make sudden movements towards your pockets. Be conscious of your surroundings and don't walk too close or too fast near women, especially White women after dark.There were other things discussed that day like going to college and setting goals, avoiding crime and gangs, but the thing about the cops and walking behind women stuck with me the most.
It would all prove useful in the months ahead. That's it for today class. Tomorrow we'll examine the hilarious tale of Ordale's first few experiences nearly being arrested by the police.
Kokomo?
My birthday is in four months and I'm still trying to find something to do to ring in the big 3-0. I want to rent a beach house for me and fam but having a birthday so close to the Fourth of July makes that venture extremely expensive. Plus I don't want just any beach, it has to be someplace with clear water. I grew up staring at the Potomac River so brown water doesn't interest me. I've only been to two beaches in my life. One was in The Grand Caymans and the other was Sandy Point beach.
Sandy Point beach is the equivalent of going swimming in a wastewater treatment facility. They say I was stung by six jellyfish, but personally I think I caught scabies in the water. I never actually got to get in the water in The Grand Caymans because cleaning crew on the cruise ship, Amistad, that took us there misplaced my trunks, sandals and anything else I would've used to go swimming.
For my 30th I want to make amends. I just want to sit on a private beach somewhere and watch the tide roll in as the sun rises on the greatest day of the year. My daughter and I have the same birthday so it'll be nice to say that she was able to do at two, what I couldn't do until I was thirty.
Here's hoping.
Sandy Point beach is the equivalent of going swimming in a wastewater treatment facility. They say I was stung by six jellyfish, but personally I think I caught scabies in the water. I never actually got to get in the water in The Grand Caymans because cleaning crew on the cruise ship, Amistad, that took us there misplaced my trunks, sandals and anything else I would've used to go swimming.
For my 30th I want to make amends. I just want to sit on a private beach somewhere and watch the tide roll in as the sun rises on the greatest day of the year. My daughter and I have the same birthday so it'll be nice to say that she was able to do at two, what I couldn't do until I was thirty.
Here's hoping.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Birds, Bees and Dreams Deferred
As my daughter gets older I find myself eyeing every man that walks by and stares too long. She's a year and eight months but my mind is years in the future thinking about all the guns I'll need to set up around the house. I keep wondering when exactly we need to have "the talk" with her. I tried to think back over my own childhood and after reflecting on the talks that I got, NONE of those will work.
My first talk came when I was about five. I saw something on TV where the kid asked the parents about sex and the whole audience laughed. I had no clue what the joke was, but trying to be funny I raised the same question in the living room one day. "How many of yall are having sex?" That prompted my mother to take me to the Martin Luther King Library where she checked out a book called "Where Babies Come From." She gave me the book, told me to read it and to let her know if I had any questions.
The book used chickens as examples and it talked about the rooster impregnating the hen and a chick hatching from the egg. For about two months I thought my mother got pregnant by a rooster and I hatched from one of the eggs in the fridge. Then I was in Sunday School one day and they talked about the immaculate conception. I stated that babies came from chickens and the teacher corrected me saying that the Holy Spirit got Mary pregnant. I thought that applied to me, so for a couple of months I was going around telling people that God was my father. Because of the wording of that statement, no one corrected me. "Yes, God is everyone's father."
It wasn't until I was in school one day and proudly telling everyone that my mother was a virgin that a teacher pulled me to the side and told me to stop telling people that. It just so happened that one day I was looking through a book called "The Science Book" for science fair project ideas when I came across a section in the book about babies. I was about seven or eight. It was extremely graphic in explaining the actual act of copulation. So I read it and then I asked my grandmother if what I read was true.
She had me read the book to her at the kitchen table and then she asked me if I had any questions. I had a bunch. My first was, "It says that it swells with blood and becomes hard. Does that hurt?" She told me that it did. My next question, "It says that the hymen tears. Does that hurt a lot?" Her reply: "Everything about sex hurts. If it doesn't hurt you physically it destroys you mentally. It's the worst thing you can do to a woman. Half of these old no-good niggas lay up next to these women and mess up both of their lives. Then the women too stupid to realize that the man aint no good and go running after him all the time. Just a bunch of tramps. It's just bad! If you care anything about a woman or yourself, you avoid having sex at all costs. You look at half the adults around you and I bet you that if they aint done nothing with their lives it's because of sex and having children that they weren't ready for."
So at eight years old I decided upon a life of celibacy. You know what? Now that I think about it, I might go with that version of the talk with my daughter after all.
My first talk came when I was about five. I saw something on TV where the kid asked the parents about sex and the whole audience laughed. I had no clue what the joke was, but trying to be funny I raised the same question in the living room one day. "How many of yall are having sex?" That prompted my mother to take me to the Martin Luther King Library where she checked out a book called "Where Babies Come From." She gave me the book, told me to read it and to let her know if I had any questions.
The book used chickens as examples and it talked about the rooster impregnating the hen and a chick hatching from the egg. For about two months I thought my mother got pregnant by a rooster and I hatched from one of the eggs in the fridge. Then I was in Sunday School one day and they talked about the immaculate conception. I stated that babies came from chickens and the teacher corrected me saying that the Holy Spirit got Mary pregnant. I thought that applied to me, so for a couple of months I was going around telling people that God was my father. Because of the wording of that statement, no one corrected me. "Yes, God is everyone's father."
It wasn't until I was in school one day and proudly telling everyone that my mother was a virgin that a teacher pulled me to the side and told me to stop telling people that. It just so happened that one day I was looking through a book called "The Science Book" for science fair project ideas when I came across a section in the book about babies. I was about seven or eight. It was extremely graphic in explaining the actual act of copulation. So I read it and then I asked my grandmother if what I read was true.
She had me read the book to her at the kitchen table and then she asked me if I had any questions. I had a bunch. My first was, "It says that it swells with blood and becomes hard. Does that hurt?" She told me that it did. My next question, "It says that the hymen tears. Does that hurt a lot?" Her reply: "Everything about sex hurts. If it doesn't hurt you physically it destroys you mentally. It's the worst thing you can do to a woman. Half of these old no-good niggas lay up next to these women and mess up both of their lives. Then the women too stupid to realize that the man aint no good and go running after him all the time. Just a bunch of tramps. It's just bad! If you care anything about a woman or yourself, you avoid having sex at all costs. You look at half the adults around you and I bet you that if they aint done nothing with their lives it's because of sex and having children that they weren't ready for."
So at eight years old I decided upon a life of celibacy. You know what? Now that I think about it, I might go with that version of the talk with my daughter after all.
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