Sherrodzilla

This Week's 8Tracks Mix: Rule In Hell (Unbridled Hubris)

2011-09-05T05:22:00.004-05:00

Hello. My hobbies include megalomania and world domination. This is the soundtrack to the biopic of my id. Fifteen tracks:

Kanye West Feat. Pusha T - Runaway
Jay-Z/Swizz Beatz - On to the Next One
Jay-Z/Kanye West/Lil Wayne/T.I. - Swagga Like Us
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
Clipse - Ride Around Shining
Justice - Genesis
Pharoahe Monch - Simon Says
N.E.R.D. - Lapdance (Trent Reznor NIN Remix)
Korn - Reclaim My Place
Limp Bizkit - Break Stuff
Nine Inch Nails - The Only Time
She Wants Revenge - Tear You Apart
Depeche Mode - Stripped
Santogold - Starstruck
Gnarls Barkley - Who's Gonna Save My Soul

Just click the link for more of the best mixes on 8tracks.com

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I hope you dig this mix. If you like what you hear, please consider passing it along. You can share it by bookmarking it on any of the social networking sites listed below or emailing it to someone you think might dig it. Thanx

This Week's 8Tracks Mix: Let's Set The Night On Fire

2011-08-29T05:16:00.011-05:00

A playlist for heartbroken arsonists. You get the matches; I'll get the gasoline. Fourteen tracks:

Rufus Wainwright - Gay Messiah
Michael Penn - Long Way Down (Look What The Cat Dragged In)
Aimee Mann - Driving Sideways
Crowded House - All I Ask
Aerosmith - Seasons of Wither
Tom Petty - It's Good To Be King
Slipknot - Vermilion, Pt. 2
System Of A Down - Lonely Day
A Perfect Circle - 3 Libras
Team Sleep - Ever (Foreign Flag)
Rollins Band - Tired
Sonic Youth - Little Trouble Girl
Björk - The Anchor Song
Tricky with PJ Harvey - Broken Homes

A Practical Guide To Warmongering For Nations So Inclined

2011-08-25T05:55:00.006-05:00

Wars must be fought out of necessity, not out of choice. There can be no other option when one makes the decision to enter a war. As such, a nation should not be goaded into declaring war. Look at the history of modern warfare, especially in the United States, and you will see the outcomes of wars fought when there is no alternative versus wars fought as a rejection of diplomacy.

As we launch into campaign season, keep in mind it's not always the economy, stupid. There are lots of hawks and doves circling out there trying to get your vote. Ask yourself who you trust to deal with America's allies and enemies.

Former presidential candidate Ross Perot had a lot of backing because many of his supporters thought that since he was a successful businessman he would help ensure the economic prosperity of the country. That may have been the case, but can you imagine how disastrous he would've been on the international stage?

Sure, his skills in the financial arena may have been impressive, but Ross Perot was primarily a salesman. That doesn't equate to someone who can negotiate sound foreign policy.

This man makes Ross Perot look like FDR.
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Maybe I'm just a little paranoid about going off to war since my people would be on the front line getting the short end of the stick. After all, Blacks have had the honorable distinction of being the first ones to die in battle ever since the days of Crispus Attucks. A fine tradition that Hollywood has been keeping up with in every horror, sci-fi, war, post-modern western, and historical drama movie ever made, with a few romantic-comedies thrown in for good measure.

Man, this is the last time I hang out with White folks!
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We're not even safe in comic books. Marvel made sure they upheld this time-honored ritual with Civil War #4 by making Goliath the first casualty of war. I guess I should just be glad that it wasn't the Falcon. Of course, that's not such a big surprise. If any darkey is to be spared, it'll be the house nigger. And the less said about Darwin in X-Men: First Class the better.

Anyway, I remember being in high school during the first Iraq war under Bush I. The fear at the time of a possible draft made me seriously reconsider my view on skipping college. Even when I joined the Army, I made sure I scored high on the ASVAB so as to get an MOS that would keep me relatively out of harm's way.

War is not something to be taken lightly. It's no joke, especially to the men and women fighting in combat. That's why before entering a war, it would do governments well to remember that in armed conflicts between nations there must be the victor and the vanquished.

Before waging war, I hope that world leaders consider what it would be like to be on the losing end of the fight. It took Germany getting their collective ass whipped TWICE to figure out "don't start none, won't be none." Imagine history from the point of view of the losers. If more nations considered the outcome that they might not win and what the aftermath would look like for them, there might be fewer military clashes started by blowhard governments.

Violent conflict, whether it be between nations or individuals, can best be summed up by one simple edict. Never start a fight, and never lose a fight.

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Why A Good Pair Of Headphones Might Turn You Into The Next Henry David Thoreau

2011-06-23T05:31:00.026-05:00

I don't ignore people out of some misanthropic defect in my personality. If anything, it's to make life easier for everyone, myself and others. Dealing with people makes life harder, and I make my life harder by bringing people into it. Don't get me wrong. My life is extremely fulfilling with my family and friends in it. It just happens to be more complicated as well.

Getting away from others can sometimes be the best thing for you to recharge your batteries and gain perspective on how to live one's best life. Thoreau wouldn't resonate with so many people if there wasn't a desire within all of us to get away from others and detach ourselves from society, even if only for a little while.

When I isolate myself, it helps me to ignore all outside forces and do what I know to be right. It's better than the alternative: drinking myself into a vegetative state just to experience a little peace and quiet. No, taking a little time to be by myself is a boon to mankind. It keeps me chilled and curbs my destructive tendencies. It ensures that I'll be calm enough to use my powers for good instead of evil.

My Own Personal Walden
A peaceful spot to chill out 2 minutes from my house.

Problem is I keep myself to a busy schedule. I don't have an unencumbered block of time carved out for myself until the middle of 2012. So, what's a fellow to do when he wants to get away but won't allow himself to run off to his own personal Walden?

That's where technology comes in. Headphones. Big, clunky, old school headphones.

Much like Thoreau's sojourn at Walden Pond, a solid pair of headphones can isolate you just enough from society to give you a better understanding of how to function within it.

Lately I've been listening to my iPod with earbuds a lot. Not the white, zombie-identifying white iBuds supplied with the player. I found some cool earbuds that actually stay in place and are comfortable. But I want to use my actual headphones more because they send the right message.

When people see you wearing ear pieces like pop-in earbuds, they hesitate before bothering you. But they still bother you. Earbuds and Bluetooth headsets have become so ubiquitous that even though people realize they're imposing when they interrupt you, they feel no qualms about doing so.

On the other hand, the actual padded, over-the-ear headphones are less commonplace and more imposing. Anyone bothering somebody wearing a set of those has to acknowledge that he's actually inconveniencing this person. After all, the poor individual being disturbed has to remove the things to hear you.

I make a big show of removing the headphones just so pests get the picture. Even though I can usually make out what they're saying just fine, the headphones make it more believable when I pretend I can't. As such, the big bulky headphones offer a stauncher deterrent against people bothering me. I highly recommend investing in a good pair if you want to get any work done.

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So, anybody got a recommendation on a good pair of over-the-ear headphones? Headphones, not earbuds. Preferably noise-cancelling, but not mandatory.

I recently bought a pair of Koss PortaPros that have great sound, but they don't cover the whole ear and they get a little uncomfortable after wearing them for a few hours straight. (That's right. I stay plugged in for hours at a time.)

Oh, yeah! Gotta be under $40 bucks. And don't give me any snobbery about how I need to shell out at least $80 for good headphones. I realize that the sound quality on a pair of $200 Beats By Dr. Dre headphones is gonna' be outstanding. I know you really do get what you pay for. But I'm not going to be DJing, so I can't justify going above the $40 threshold just to ignore people on the street.

I've had a really good history with low end Koss over the years, but I can't find the same style I usually get. I switched to Sony a while back, but the foam ear covering starts to flake too soon for me to give those another try. I'm open to switching, so leave your suggestions in the comments. Let me know if you know.

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Just In Time For Juneteenth: Abraham Lincoln Exposed

2011-06-16T05:02:00.087-05:00

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One of my sons was born on February 12th, the same day as President Abraham Lincoln. Being a Black kid in America, that should probably have some type of symbolic resonance. However, I've never emphasized that connection to my son. Why not? Because I think old Abe is given too much credit as it is.

Like the myth that Lincoln single-handedly freed the slaves. That's bull! The Industrial Revolution had more of an impact on the end of slavery than Abraham Lincoln. And old Abe had aspects of his personality and governance that seem to get swept under the rug nowadays.

This year, 2011, marks the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. Let's take a look at the president who ushered this nation through one of the darkest, most tragic moments in its history.

Was he the greatest President of the United States? Debatable. Was he the man the country needed at the time? Definitely. Was he perfect? No way! And when you're out there celebrating Juneteenth this year, just remember that more people than Abe Lincoln deserve more credit than Abe Lincoln for the abolishment of slavery.

I'm not trying to disparage the man's name. Although I probably couldn't even if I tried. It seems like the publishing industry has just turned into a factory of books about Lincoln.

How many a year do they put out? I'm sick of them. Does the world really need another Lincoln biography? There is positively no new light that can be shed on the man or his place in history. What's the next one, Lincoln: Boxers Or Briefs?

It's ridiculous. I am of a mind with Frederick Douglass that "no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln," and Fred said that back in 1876! The glut of Abe Lincoln bios is akin to posthumous 2Pac albums. Enough already!

(See, Big Six? This is the type of bad decision by you that ensures the market is wide open for independent publishers to steal your thunder and put you under. Hear that bell? It tolls for thee.)

So, no, this is neither a Lincoln hagiography nor a hit-piece. It's just a simple reminder that any history lesson you've been taught is just the tip of the iceberg. Explore for yourself and find out the rest of the story.

Right off the bat, let's get one thing clear. Despite signing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was no BFF to Black folks. Sure, he was anti-slavery, but he was not anti-racism.

Don't believe me? Peep this quote from the fourth joint debate at Charleston between Lincoln and Douglas:

"I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Translation: "Know your place, darkie." Lincoln goes on further to ensure the crowd understands he ain't no nigger-lover:

"I do not understand that because I do not want a Negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never had a black woman for either a slave or a wife."

Abraham Lincoln was a pragmatic man, and his efforts to end slavery had more to do with politics than any love of colored folks. This may come as a shock to some folks, but those in the know aren't surprised one bit. You can be forgiven for assuming that White folks comprise the former and Black folks the latter in that last sentence.

White people are way more attached to Lincoln than Blacks. And for those to whom his legacy stands as a noble reason to continue their self-congratulatory revelry, they will defend his reputation to the bitter end.

Even the ones who know that Lincoln was nothing more than a man of his times still have a vested interest in keeping his rep intact. After all, they've got a whole industry built on canonizing him. Somebody's got to buy all those new Lincoln biographies the corporate publishing industry insists on putting out every year.

And if you don't give props to the man those people consider to be the most important figure in the Civil Rights movement, they tend to get a little pissy. For example of this behavior, click the link and check out Stewie Griffin in the scene at 10:08 from the "Road to Rupert" episode of Family Guy.

Lincoln did want to free the slaves of African descent in America, but he wanted to get them the hell out of the country as soon as he did. If Lincoln had had his way, brothers and sisters would've been packed off to Haiti or Liberia. Only after he witnessed the ass-kicking abilities of Black Union soldiers against the Confederacy during the Civil War did Abe begin to think that maybe these Negroes ain't half-bad after all.

Of course, it would make perfect sense for a brother to be one of the fiercest fighters in the conflict. What's the alternative? You lose, you go back to getting the lash and picking cotton in the sun all day. "Aw, hell naw! I'ma shoot every peckerwood I see!"

Don't get me wrong. I'm not hating on old honest Abe. He did a lot of good, not the least of which was working tirelessly to ensure the United States remained united — Good lookin' out, Abe! — but the man was no saint. So, let's keep a little perspective; shall we?

But I guess it's alright since Abe Lincoln was the actual first Black president. That's right. There's speculation that Abe's own mama, Nancy Hanks, called Abe out on his heritage claiming that the 16th prez was the bastard son of an African man.

Now, I have no way of proving this, but I'm just saying. It makes sense if it is true. American Blacks have a history of self-loathing due to poor self-image which had to have been amplified if you were passing like Abe may have been.

If Abraham Lincoln was a Negro trying to live in denial, that probably fueled his anti-Black mind set even more so than the prevailing cultural sentiment of his times. And just in case you think this theory is a little too far-fetched to be believable, don't sleep. The legacy of living in denial and passing is still going strong well into the 21st Century.

Oh, and if you come across a redneck who uses that old fallback they so love that "Africans owned slaves, so it started with them" even though they know nothing about the practice of slavery in other countries prior to the Middle Passage, feel free to whip his ass. As well, this may be a little off-topic, but don't let them fool you with that "you're better off here in America despite the legacy of slavery" bullshit either.

I do appreciate that I am in America and all the opportunities afforded to me because of that. I do not, however, allow myself to be mislead into believing that Africa's current condition and the position of the modern White Western world have no correlation. Without the free labor of slavery upon which the United States was built, America would not be the world super power it is. Without the intrusion of White European influence, the continent of (Sub-Saharan) Africa would not be in the unstable state it is in today.

Don't let ‘em fool you. It's better to be "Here" than "There," but "Here" wouldn't be better if it hadn't made "There" worse.

All in all, though, I still give props to President Abraham Lincoln, if only because it pisses off Lynyrd Skynyrd fans. Happy Juneteenth!

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I Don't Want A Degree

2011-06-09T05:35:00.044-05:00

My daughter is entering her last year of high school next year. Soon, she and a host of her cousins will be college students. This graduation season makes me think back to when I was her age. I was a college freshman and decided to drop out. Best decision I could have made at the time.

I didn't want a degree. I didn't even want to go to college. I allowed myself to be bullied into the decision to attend by family and school administrators admonishing me not to pass up the opportunity. So, I went.

I had fun. I met a few people. I hung out, partied, fell in love, and attended a few classes. I got some life-enriching experiences from it. I did not get a degree.

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I didn't want a degree. I still don't. I don't want a Bachelor's. I don't want a Master's. I don't want a Ph.D. I want an education.

Pursuit of a degree does not equate to pursuit of an education. A degree marks an end. I never want my learning to end.

If I go back to university, I will gladly attain degrees in any area of study which I pursue. But the sheepskins won't be the reason I go back, if I go back at all. I know I'm not college material. I have no desire to fit into the shape for which a college education is commonly used as the mold.

As it stands, the post-secondary education industry is set up to prepare kids for jobs, to be employed by someone else. I already know what career path I will follow, and it does not include being an employee. So, a college degree wouldn't do me any good.

It would be a good idea if more careers were amenable to recruiting talent where it's found rather than insisting on sending high school grads through a program to teach them how to follow orders and expect less from life. Professional athletics in America could lead the charge and set an example for other businesses by recruiting more high school players. Why not? Would Babe Ruth or Kobe Bryant have benefitted from wasting a couple years in college rather than getting right down to business in the majors?

I am all for high school athletes going straight to pro. That way the young athletes can bypass college and leave more instruction time, enrollment space, and scholarship money on the table for real students who attend for academics instead of wasting those resources on future dropouts who are just passing through on their way to sports careers.

That's why I respect golf and tennis. Whenever you're good enough to compete, regardless of your age, you're welcome to do so. Yet, for some reason ($), team sports insist on pretending that American professional athletes will somehow benefit from a pretend education. The true benefit of college is to gain knowledge. (That and networking.)

I crave knowledge, and I love learning. So, if I do return for a degree, it'll probably be in a needless Liberal Arts major like Philosophy. And I'd like to pay my own way as I go. Footing the bill myself is preferable because the primary financial assistance alternatives for funding college are loans and scholarships.

I'm not a big enough sucker to apply for student loans. I'd be better off overextending myself with credit card debt or misusing a home loan rather than taking out a student loan. (Not that I advocate that.) After all, once you get in over your head with that kind of debt, you can at least declare bankruptcy. With student loans, there's no escape.

And I don't want to take scholarships or grants because I don't want to take that money away from people who actually need it. Some people look at college as their lifeline out of a difficult existence. Without the grants and scholarships I'd be taking from them they wouldn't have a chance. Besides, I already had my turn at the financial aid trough.

I was 17 years old, fresh out of high school, and had a full-ride scholarship to Texas A&M. I decided it wasn't for me and dropped out after my freshman year. So, it wasn't a financial consideration that kept me from finishing a degree. It was purely motivational.

If I ever become properly motivated, I'll pay my own way. I'm a pretty resourceful guy. I can make it under my own steam.

I don't want to be a doctor, an engineer or an architect. And I don't want to jump through hoops just to show a potential employer that I'm a well-behaved puppet. If the position doesn't require a degree but the employer does, that's not a workplace well-suited for me anyway.

So, for now I'll keep doing what I'm doing and enjoying myself until I decide that I need to learn something that would best be learned through college course work. That hasn't happened yet, though.

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If you like what you read here, I'd really appreciate if you'd pass it on. You can share it by bookmarking it on any of the social networking sites listed below or emailing it to someone you think might dig it. Thanx

Crazy-Ass Baby Names Part II: Rules For Black People When Naming Kids

2011-05-12T05:21:00.060-05:00

Not too long ago, I wrote an article about the grief that Black parents take for giving their kids extraordinary names whereas White parents generally get a pass. This double standard is indicative of the race-based hypocrisy that still pervades America. Maybe Blacks should just leave crazy baby names to White celebrities. However, if you do decide to think outside the box when naming your son or daughter, please keep a few things in mind.

Regardless Of What You Name Your Child, The Name Should Have A Meaning.

Keep in mind, this is a label your child will most likely have to wear for the rest of his life. It can not only affect how others perceive him, but how he perceives himself. A meaningless or misinterpreted name negatively affects a kid. It makes others look at him a certain way, plays into stereotypes, and makes the kid perceive himself a certain way because he is constantly bombarded by others who misinterpret who he is based on the choice of name his parents gave him.

Much like a tattoo, your child's name can't easily be removed. It should be well thought out and chosen for it's meaning, not because it seems pretty at that moment. Don't saddle your child with the equivalent of a Tasmanian Devil tramp stamp.

It may seem silly, but sometimes a name helps shape a child into what you would least hope for that child to be. Why is that? Maybe it's not only the power of the name itself. Maybe the environment which produced parents who would think that's a good name have something to do with it, too.

If your name is Precious that doesn't mean you are destined to be a 300-lb. single mom stealing chicken. It does however signal that yo' mama is the type of woman who would think that a name only suitable for a pampered Bichon Frise is okay for her child. Let me tell you, calling some stranger by a pet name is awkward. The only time a man will feel comfortable calling a girl "Treasure" is if she's calling him Daddy and she's NOT his daughter, if you get my drift. That calls into question the parenting ability of that girl's parent, which means that's how girls like Precious end up as girls like Precious.

As a matter of fact, Naming Children After Virtues Is Generally A Bad Idea.

Charity, Chastity, Grace. This is something White people do like crazy, but Blacks are guilty of it as well. Name your children after these ideals and they will invariably turn out to be at worst the complete opposite of the name you've given them or at best some corruption of said virtue. How many Preciouses do you know who are anything but?

And Don't Name Your Children After Cars.

That will only guarantee that she will never make enough money to own said car regardless of how many tips she makes stripping. Oh, yeah. You name your daughter Mercedes or Lexus, you might as well install a brass pole in her bedroom so she can start practicing early.

And, yes, I know that in the case of Mercedes the car was named for a girl, but the cultural reference has changed. Words/names do that. See: Gay.

What About Names Related To The Mother Land? Are Those OK?

One worthy motivation for having a unique, self-derived name for Blacks in America can be traced to the racism-fueled Antebellum period of America's history. I carry the family name Henderson, and I have no idea why. Was that the name of the White family who owned my branch of the bloodline during the slavery years of this nation's founding? Was it adopted by my Black ancestors? I don't know.

Some Black people don't like the slave names given to them. As a result, after the peak of the Civil Rights Era, it became popular to give Black children African names. That is all well and good. Actually, I'm all for it. What I am not all for is African-SOUNDING names.

You name your child Akili, good for you. In Swahili, that name means "Wisdom" and "Intellect." Dana Owens, an intelligent, well-respected, beautiful sister, goes by the stage name Latifah, which means "Delicate" and "Very Kind" in Arabic. However, if you call your child Ungawa that just means "My parents were too lazy to put in the work to find a good name for me and were probably too lazy to raise me right and if you drive through my neighborhood the locks on your car doors better be bullet proof."

Don't do that to your kids. There are great books of African baby names out there. If you can't come up with a good African name, just call the kid Africa. That, although idiosyncratic, at least makes sense. But don't spell it with a 'K'. Only Mr. Bambaataa has earned that right.

As well, if you're going to give the kid an African name, be sure of the meaning. You could end up thinking your child's name means "Peace" or "Strength." Then, when they encounter someone from Ghana or Nigeria, they wind up being asked why you chose to give them a name that means "Horse" or "Village Idiot." This is the same thing as the jackass frat boys who can't read Kanji and get a symbol that they think means "No Fear" but it really means "Shrimp Lo Mein."

Careful With Those Prefixes

Barely acceptable are the typical names with one of the popular De-/Ja-/La- add-ons, such as DeMarcus, JaMichael, LaShaun. At least then the kid can just drop that silly ass prefix and say, "Call me Mark/Mike/Shaun." Don't be surprised if you find your kid abbreviating his name just to fit in. Even the president went by Barry for a good portion of his school years because Barack was just too exotic a name for many people, Black and White, to wrap their heads around.

Finally, although White people do name their kids crazy shit, this isn't about them. It's about you, Black folks. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Remember, this is how your baby is going to be perceived. I'm not against you naming your child whatever you please. Just think long and hard about what that name will convey. Sure, a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, but that rose doesn't have to worry about getting turned down for a job because of the name on its resume.

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If you like what you read here, I'd really appreciate if you'd pass it on. You can share it by bookmarking it on any of the social networking sites listed below or emailing it to someone you think might dig it. Thanx

Definition Of Purpose

2011-05-05T05:25:00.005-05:00

The key to success.

This is not a mission statement. I don't believe in mission statements. I mean, sure, they exist. I just don't believe that the majority of them do what they set out to do. As purported by it's very name, a mission statement is a statement of an organization's or an individual's mission. It should define the purpose of that organization or that individual's existence. Unfortunately, too often it only exists to fill out a business plan to secure a loan or flesh out an application to get a grant approved. Beyond that, most mission statements carry about as much impact as those motivational posters that management plasters all over the walls.

Speaking of which, where do those come from? Are they issued by the chamber of commerce as part of a welcome kit? Do they sell them in office supply stores in the "morale" aisle? And, if so, I can't imagine who actually thinks they're a good idea, unless the idea is to cover holes in the wall. And whose job is it to purchase them? The owner? HR? Sylvia, that overly perky admin who takes charge of the cakes for the monthly birthday celebrations? I'm serious. I really wanna' know.

Anyway, back on topic. What this is and what it ain't. This is me defining my purpose to remind myself in case my enthusiasm for what I'm doing ever starts to wane. I want to set forth the reason why I do what I do and stick to it. So, rather than cook up a stuffy "mission statement" to be chiseled into stone, never updated and ignored, you get this: my definition of purpose. This is the reason why I started this blog and what goal(s) I have set to achieve with it.

My long-term goal in life is simple, extremely simple, it is cavemanesque in its simplicity. You ready for this? I want to eat when I want, sleep when I want, have sex when I want. That's it! That is all I desire for myself. Everything I do for myself is in service of that lifestyle. And I tell ya', once I simplified my wants it became so much easier to enjoy life.

As well, it freed up a lot more time and energy. I stopped running on the hamster wheel with a bunch of amorphous, undefined dreams. I began making my dreams real by determining what I actually want. That's when they became goals. I then plotted what I would need to do to get from where I am currently to where I want to end up. That's when the goals became plans. After that it just became a matter of following the plan.

Some plans I've abandoned after initiating them because they turned out not to have been what I wanted after all. Of course, I never would have known that had I not taken action and initiated it. In which case, I probably would have wasted time and energy regretting not taking a chance on something that wasn't right for me in the first place. So, I count it as a plus. I didn't get the brass ring, but I at least had the guts to reach for it and removed any doubt as to whether or not I actually wanted it.

There has been some failure, but there has been way more success. Not only has the good outweighed the bad (the only true determining factor of success), but I've been able to appreciate life more fully because I'm less distracted by chasing after things I don't want. Plus, quite often, things turn out better than I expected.

That's the thing about actually doing instead of just dreaming. A benefit of taking action that most people don't fully comprehend until they experience it is that simply making that first move sets so many wheels in motion that you may be indirectly affecting things around you without your knowledge that will help improve the results of your direct action. So, as long as I remain safe and have fun, without sacrificing one for the other, I pretty much do whatever I want. Which finally brings me to the (drumroll please!) "definition of purpose" for this blog.

After some analyzation, I determined the areas where I most want to improve myself. I am a writer. It's what I do, and I love it. Problem is, like any writer worth his salt, I am a master procrastinator. I write when I feel like it and submit when I damn well please. Well, that's starting to get old. Worse than the pay being sporadic and uncertain, I feel like I'm losing my edge. I am less prolific, and I am showing what I do finish to fewer people.

Less work of an inferior quality and a dwindling audience. I am going in the exact opposite direction with my writing than I want to. So, this is the first step in me slamming the brakes on that. My aim with this blog is to improve my writing, increase my output, and grow my readership.

I figured the best plan of action to achieve that would be to incentivize the proceedings. So, I mapped out my target daily income and decided to achieve that through writing. Hence, this blog. Still, if I can work ~~hard~~ smart enough to prove that I'm capable of supporting myself by getting paid to do what I love, it will be a major coup for me in the self-reliance sweepstakes and an even greater lesson for my kids.

I constantly tell my kids that you do not have to follow a conventional path to find fulfillment. I can think of little better to drive that point home to them than by leading by example. So, there is my purpose, my goal, my mission. Call it what you will, but, whatever you call it, here it comes.

By the way, if you're in a company that has those posters on the wall and you know how they got there, I'd love if you'd tell me in the comments section.

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If you like what you read here, I'd really appreciate if you'd pass it on. You can share it by bookmarking it on any of the social networking sites listed below or emailing it to someone you think might dig it. Thanx

Crazy-Ass Baby Names: Black Parents Get Grief While White Parents Get A Pass

2011-04-21T05:38:00.008-05:00

My youngest child is fortunate she wasn't born a boy. If she had been, I was prepared to have a knock-down, drag-out with her mother over the name. My top contender for naming a boy (and one I'd still like to see on a Black kid) was Ku Klux.

Just imagine that: Ku Klux Henderson. The only thing that could've made it better would be if my last name were Kennedy. I wanted to do it just to make a point. Black people be naming they kids some crazy-ass shit, right?

It's true. They're almost as bad as White people. That's right. As ridiculous as some of the names on African-American birth certificates are, the ones that accompany the designation of Caucasian on birth certificates certainly give them a run for their money. So, why does the focus on unusual names fall so squarely on the shoulders of the Black race?

What's my name? No, I'm not making some sexual come-on. I'm making a point. My name is Sherrod. It's a unique name. — Although, it has become familiar to more people in recent history, for good and for ill. — Some people think it's a made-up name. Which it is, all names are.

But people seem to get bent out of shape when a Black person has a name they're not used to hearing. They think "Oh, that's how those people are." Why? The territory of crazy names isn't relegated solely to Black people.

Though overwhelmingly, here in America, the top baby names are shared by people of all races, White people have more than their fair share of crazy-ass named kids. Scout, Rumer, Moon Unit, Pilot Inspektor, and Apple just to name a very few. But somehow Black people seem to have cornered the market on receiving the lion's share of scorn for giving their kids unique names. This hypocrisy can be supremely frustrating.

For instance, let's look at the ridicule Black people get. It's indicative of the double standard here in America. If a White girl wants to name her daughter after a piece of fruit it's seen as eccentric and unique. Black woman names her child Tamika, "Aw, hell. Here come those crazy Black people with their made-up names and their loud rap music!"

Even though the double standard is unfair, Black people have got to share some of the blame. Giving your child a name like Tierra or Demetrius is just asking for it. If you have a child named for someone or for a reason, that's one thing. To just make up something out of the blue because you think it sounds nice is asking for trouble.

Now I've come across some colorful names in my time. I've met Laquintas, Jamarcuses, and a few JoNathans. You mean "Jonathan?" No, JO-NATHAN. Okaaay. (Of course, that's not really a Black thing. That's just country.)

Having an odd name doesn't make its owner a bad person, but it can be a factor. The movie Precious shows a great example of how sometimes a name backfires. I knew a few Preciouses growing up, and that movie could've been based on almost any one of them.

In your defense, you say "What about foreigners? They have funny sounding names." We've all heard the old joke about how Asian kids get their names. Hint: It involves a handful of change and an empty stairwell. Well, if you think I'm going to make fun of other nationalities' names, you can forget it. Although their names may sound peculiar to Western ears, they are at least usually given names typical within their cultures. You don't know, but Rahul in India could be as common as John in the USA.

So, come on, people! Stop giving your kids these ridiculous names. And that's not just targeted at Blacks. That goes for everybody. If you do decide that you simply must saddle your child with a weird moniker, keep in mind that acceptance of that name will primarily be based on the kid's skin color.

And, by the way, my name Sherrod is an old English name that means "Clearer of the Land." I had a smartass friend who once joked, "So your name means cotton-picker?" I had to correct him. "No, it means I wipe idiots off the face of the Earth."

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Active Cognition: An Unauthorized Philosophy - Think At Your Own Risk

2011-04-14T05:38:00.003-05:00

Shitting Marble

Philosophy has become too detached from the everyday life of the common man. It's all good and well to consider the "big questions," but in all their unanswerable, existential glory they are pondered upon only by high-minded elites.

Modern-day philosophy is sequestered away in an ivory tower far removed from the lowly average Joe who should be its greatest beneficiary. What has come, in the modern age, to be known as "Philosophy" with a capital P is jealously guarded by a select few academicians who, to paraphrase Oscar-winning dramatist Peter Shaffer, are so lofty they sound as if they shit marble.

So what does that leave for the rest of us who seek a guiding principle by which to lead a fulfilling life?

Two-bit hucksters purporting to be privy to some clandestine formula? Gurus who espouse enlightenment as only a commodity? Holy rollers who seek to anesthetize us with nonspecific, impractical parables?

People who want to find a system by which to improve their lives deserve more than that. There needs to be some connection to contemplating the theoretical which has consequential influence on human behavior for the better. We need to move to a more pragmatic practice of philosophy and not just with an eye toward making a buck. Hence, this article.

Just so you know, I hold no formal degree in Philosophy. Nor would I wish to. Philosophy degrees are only of any use to Philosophy professors.

The purpose of this life is to determine paths which lead to success and fulfillment. How do I plan to do that? Well, look at the title of this page. Go ahead, scroll up if you have to.

Active Cognition

This is not some new dogma of which I profess to be the originator. As well, it is not directly associated with any similarly named school of thought. It is simply a method by which I wish to achieve success in my endeavors.

Active + Cognition are just two words that when strung together serve as a reminder to be aware of yourself and your surroundings. Pay attention and actively think about what you want and how to get it. Formulate a plan, then put that plan to the test in real life. Nothing beats theoretical understanding like empirical results.

If it makes you feel more comfortable to distill this method into an easily understandable motto, here you go: "Be safe. Have fun. Don't sacrifice one for the other." There you go. It's that simple.

Now if your sensibilities will not allow you to recognize what you read here as true capital P Philosophy just because the expressed views did not issue forth from an accredited institute of higher learning, then call it a personal development blog post. Anybody can write one of those, right?

Et voilà! Now philosophy snobs can happily dismiss this enterprise as a joke. (Of course, aren't all jokes philosophy?) The rest of us who want to use our brains to focus on techniques for living a successful life can do so without pretending to be interested in the purely hypothetical.

And don't think that this is a one-way street. As much as I want to share what I learn with you, I want to learn as much as I can from you. Everything is everything, and we are all connected. Therefore, any improvement — not mere change, but improvement — in any of our lives serves to improve us as a whole. So, what do you think?

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Pinch The Tail, Suck The Head: The Simplest Guide To How To Eat Crawfish On The Web

2011-04-07T04:57:00.004-05:00

Every year around the Memorial Day weekend my in-laws have a block party in their neighborhood and throw a crawfish boil. I haven't always been able to make it, but each year that I have has been hella fun. There's always plenty beer, plenty music, and plenty crawfish.

Aside from the possibility of seeing one female giving another one a drunken lapdance, the highlight is the food. And there's always tons of it: chicken, corn, sausage, some kind of spicy cauliflower last year that was so hot it left many of the guests crying. But the main event this year, as in every year past, will be the crawfish.

I plan to make it out next month, so it's time to bone up on my crawdaddy eating skills. As I get back in practice, I figured I'd share the basics of enjoying crawfish with you. Some people find it a little daunting, so here's all you need to know to have a good time.

Do Crawfish Have A Season?

Yes, it's usually from March through May. An easy to remember indicator of when it's time to start eating crawfish is that crawfish season kicks off after Mardi Gras. But in this "get anything you want anytime you want" modern world in which we live, the crawfish season time frame is really more of a suggestion than a rule. If you go anywhere along the Gulf Coast during the late spring/early summer, you're likely to come across a crawfish boil being held somewhere.

They go by many names: crawdads, crayfish, mudbugs. Whatever you call them, if you grow up in Houston you're going to encounter crawfish. It's as inevitable as lobster in Maine, beans in Boston, or potatoes in Idaho.

Yet, a lot of people don't eat them. They claim it's because it's too much work — true, you don't get a lot of meat per crawfish. Or they claim they just don't like them. That's fair. To each his own.

But many of you probably shy away from them because you just don't know how to eat them and you don't want to embarrass yourself. That's understandable. After all, look at the thing. What are you supposed to do with it? Smaller than a lobster. Tougher than a shrimp. How does it work?

Well, to save you from shame and allow you to enjoy Mother Nature's most misunderstood crustacean, I've put together a simple guide for you. Get cracking and next time you're invited to a crawfish boil you'll be ready to put ‘em away.

I know if you're a grownup, especially if you're a man, it can be awkward sitting next to a 10 year-old who's leaving you in the dust. He's got an ever-growing pile of discarded shells while you're mincing around still trying to figure out how to get into your first one. Don't fret. If that kid's from the Gulf Coast, he was probably shucking shells before he learned to read — or instead of learning to read in certain parts.

If you're going to make a meal of the suckers, that's fine. But after you put away a few dozen, they start to fill you up. Fortunately, crawfish are great in recipes.

Got more crawfish than you can put away? Just peel them, bag them, and store them to use in other dishes. There are a bunch of great crawfish recipes. But this article ain't about how to cook ‘em. It's about how to eat ‘em. So here you go.

How To Eat Crawfish

It's best to drain the crawfish and pour them out on a table first. If you're in a restaurant, you'll usually be served by the bucket. If you're at a boil, they're probably already laid out on a table. Either way, if you've got newspaper around, get it ready for your discard pile. Yeah, you're going to be throwing away more than you're eating.
Grab the head with one hand and hold it tight. By head, I mean the entire top half of the body with the claws. The grip that works best for me is to put the little sucker in a headlock between your thumb and a knuckle. With the other hand, pinch the tail right behind the head close to where the two parts of the body meet. Then twist and pull the tail and head apart. You should have a tail with a little bit of crawfish meat hanging out. This is what you're after.
You know what comes next. Stick the head in your mouth and suck it for all it's worth! That's where the extra spicy flavor is, and, yeah, if you're really gonna' get down on some crawfish, you've got to do this step BEFORE you finish it off. It's like doing tequila cruda. You have to get the order right: lick-shoot-suck.
Finally, you've got to peel off the tail to expose the rest of the meat. So peel off the first couple rings of the tail to loosen it up. Then, holding the exposed meat between the fingers of one hand, pinch the very tip of the tail with the other and give it a swift yank to separate it from the meat. There ya' go. (Now once you get really good at it, you'll be able to pinch the tail at just the right spot to loosen up the meat, which you then clench between your teeth and just slide the tail right off. Saves you time and gets you more eating done while everybody else is still peeling. But you're a beginner. Leave that to the natives and the pros.) You got any sauce, dip it. Otherwise, bon appétit.

Repeat until full.

Bon appétit

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LOL Tweets: The 20 Funniest Twitter Feeds You Should Be Following

2011-03-31T05:05:00.006-05:00

When Twitter first hit the scene, my good friend Rik Speed (@RikSpeed) was one of the early adopters. He urged me to get on board, but I just didn't get it. I asked him what it was for. He raved that it was a new means of communication like mental telepathy. No, thanks. Sounds like a colossal time-waster. I passed.

It was another couple years before I gave it a try and finally got it. Getting a tire changed? Stuck in a boring lecture? Waiting outside your kid's principal's office to get read the riot act about his latest disciplinary infraction? Just whip out your phone and scroll through your feed. It's fun, informative, AND a colossal time-waster.

It's always fun to discover a new Twitter tweeter to follow, so I offer up the 20 funniest tweeters Twitter has to offer. Whether you're a newbie (Welcome to the party, @AlbertBrooks) or an old hand, these are 20 of the funniest accounts on Twitter.

	Aziz Ansari - @azizansari This stand-up comedian and Parks and Rec regular is just as funny in 140 characters as he is on stage or screen. Plus, he's also one of the only two cats on this list to use a photo of himself as a little kid as his avatar. Chix dig it! Sample tweet: Dude from my hotel just brought up a fax while I was blasting Waka Flocka, so I yelled "WAKA! FLOCKA! FAX!" He didn't seem amused. 5:02 PM Feb 16th
	Tim Siedell - @badbanana You haven't seen him on late night doing stand-up. He doesn't have a web series he's trying to option for a show on Comedy Central. He hasn't penned or starred in anything for Judd Apatow. So, who is he? He's simply Tim Siedell, and he's the funniest guy to come out of Nebraska since Dick Cavett. - That's a compliment. Sample tweet: Once you're a white-haired man in sunglasses and track suit, you might as well take the next step and become a pornographer. 7:04 PM Mar 20th
	Mike Birbiglia - @birbigs Few comedians can match Mike Birbiglia's style. Best described as controlled hilarity, he's equally good at story-telling and absurd observational humour. From his low-key entrance into the game to his successful one man shows, Birbigs consistently brings the funny. Sample tweet: I heard even the C & C Music Factory is exporting jobs to India. Their new single is called "Everybody dance in 4 to 6 weeks." 1:01 PM Mar 27th
	Andy Borowitz - @BorowitzReport Andy Borowitz is one of the wittiest satirists out there. He's like a one-man version of The Onion. (SPOILER ALERT! They're on the list too) He cranks out smart, funny, biting jabs like a modern-day Mark Twain, except without writing a book full the of the N-word. Sample tweet: Sunday Morning TV highlights: A roundup of the week's news with a diverse panel of white men. 7:17 AM Mar 27th
	Charlie Sheen - @charliesheen Oh, hells yeah! Are you ready for some batshit crazy? Batshit crazy like a Vatican assassin warlock fox is more like it. While substance abuse related meltdowns* are rarely, if ever, funny, when they're this well orchestrated and served up on a silver platter you can be forgiven for laughing your ass off. The sheer genius (Sheenius?) of this Twitter feed is that with a little social media judo, Charlie Sheen flipped those who were laughing at him into a small army laughing with him. Plus, it's funnier than every episode of Two and a Half Men combined. Sheenius indeed. Sample tweet: Like a Dinosaur Stampede from middle earth RAGING atop Col. Kilgore's main rotor, our assault must be EPIC. The Truth is our rocket fuel. c about 7 hours ago * Seriously, though, Charlie, get some help.
	Conan O'Brien - @ConanOBrien This is the man partially responsible for a huge influx of tweeple into the Twitterverse over the past year. After slugging it out in the nastiest late night battle since Leno vs. Letterman, Conan lost his place as the rightful heir to The Tonight Show legacy. However, much like Letterman before him, he lost the show but won the support of the people. And he did it all without losing his sense of humour and remained funny throughout. Sample tweet: I am really experiencing “pain at the pump.” I am also really hurting from the price of gas. 1:49 PM Mar 27th
	Doug Stanhope - @DougStanhope Stanhope is one of the filthiest, most foul-mouthed, most offensive stand-up comedians working on the planet today. He is also one of the most insightful, daring performers to master the art of comedy. Nobody rants better than Doug Stanhope. When he goes off on a tear, he can simultaneously gross you out, crack you up, and make you relate to every word he's saying. Simply put, if you miss Bill Hicks, weep no more. You've found your new favorite comedian. Sample tweet: Manchester = 13yr old Mardi Gras of retards and hair products. Genocide only reasonable solution. 10:38 PM Mar 26th
	Jelisa Castrodale - @gordonshumway Yes, Virginia, there are funny women on Twitter (as you'll see at least two more times on this list), and Ms. Castrodale is one of the funniest. Quick, witty quips to keep you in stitches are the order of the day. I mean, come on, she was prescient enough to be the first one to jump on ALF's real name as her handle. Mad props. Sample tweet: Just got a prescription for hydrocodone cough syrup. By tomorrow, I'll either feel better or release a mix tape. 5:05 PM Mar 1st
	Max Valdivia - @JudoMenudo Max Valdivia is a cat out of Los Angeles. That's all I know. That and the fact that his is one of the Twitter feeds I tap into the most when I'm bored and feel like cracking up. This guy should have way more followers. That's your cue. Follow him! Sample tweet: It's hay fever season: lock up your hay before someone gets kinky with it. 11:35 PM Mar 24th
	Mat Johnson - @mat_johnson Now we come to Mat Johnson, a teacher on the faculty of the esteemed University of Houston Creative Writing Program. He is also the author of several sharp-witted satirical novels. He's also one of the funniest mo-fos in the Twittersphere. His feed ain't no Strunk & White. No dry, stuffy tweets here. Just bursts of laugh out loud funniness, sometimes laced with academician wit. Sample tweet: So the hive mind has decided my next novel will be a steamy paranormal story with a hip-hop twist. 50 Cent-aurs it is! about 18 hours ago
	Mo Rocca - @MoRocca Writer and satirist Mo Rocca not only did a stint over at The Daily Show during the transition from the Craig Kilborn years to the Jon Stewart era. He's also familiar to any hipster geek who digs on NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! or CBS Sunday Morning. On his off hours, he keeps the funny going on this Twitter feed. Sample tweet: Hipsters are Geek Chic. True nerds are Geek Orthodox 2:32 PM Mar 18th
	Paul Scheer - @paulscheer You know the pedigree. Human Giant. Funny or Die. And if you don't know, his Twitter account is a perfect introduction. Small bite-size hors d'oeuvres of absurd humour before feasting on the full bore lunacy at his site, on TV, and on the web. Hey, he's buds with Aziz Ansari who's at the top of this list. What are the odds? 2-in-20, I guess. Sample tweet: I wish mornings would be moved to afternoons. 10:40 AM Mar 17th
	People of Walmart - @PeopleofWalmart The first of two entities who aren't individual people on this list -- although I have my doubts about that O'Brien guy. Anyway, People of Walmart is an hilarious blog that takes pictures of real people at the retail giant and publishes those pics with mocking captions. In other words, it does what you do inside your head every time you walk through the place. The tweets in this feed link directly to those pics. They originally tried the concept with People of Sam's Club, but the membership fee ensured that the patrons there were so high class that there was no one to make fun of. So enjoy this instead. Sample tweet: East: #3 No Tan Line Vs. #14 Sneak Peak... http://fb.me/Gz4CIL6t* 1:43 PM Mar 23rd * It makes way more sense if you follow the link
	Rob Delaney - @robdelaney Rob Delaney is a relief pitcher with the Tampa Bay Rays. He is also not THIS Rob Delaney. This Rob Delaney is a stand-up comedian and Twitter phenom. Dude has got like beaucoups followers. Why? Because his tweets are unique. He doesn't tweet about the same funny things you tweet about. Follow him and get a glimpse into the mind of one very funny man. Sample tweet: Women who offer me sex on here, please know that I'm happily married to a wonderful woman. Then tell me where to meet you. 7:27 PM Mar 24th
	Rob Huebel - @robhuebel Alright. Thanks to this list you might think that Human Giant just spawns the type of mind that is perfectly suited to take advantage of Twitter as a medium for humour. And you'd be right, because look who it is, Rob Huebel. You've seen him do his thing on the tube/the web. Now read his thoughts with no more scatological humour than is absolutely necessary. They'll make you laugh. Sample tweet: I do NOT have hoes in different area codes because that would be inefficient for business. 2:07 PM Mar 27th
	Sarah Silverman - @SarahKSilverman Miss Pottymouth herself. Did you really think we'd forget Miss Silverman? Heaven forbid. It took us a while to warm up to her, but once we heard her tell her story "The First Time I Bombed" on NPR's Fresh Air we knew this was a chick we'd better pay attention to. There's no telling what she might say. She brings that same candor to her Twitter stream. Sample tweet: Disneyland: the destination of Superbowl winners and dying children everywhere! 10:48 PM Mar 6th
	Shari VanderWerf - @shariv67 Stand-up comedienne VanderWerf has been hitting the stage since the 80s and tearing it up on Twitter since 2009. She's funny, and her tweets have a style that come off as polished without being slick. Must be her background in the ad game. Sample tweet: Buy generics to save money. Fine. But a plastic bag full of brown nuggets, simply labeled "food?" That's a step too far. about 12 hours ago
	Sherrod Henderson - @Sherrodzilla That's right. Yours truly. What? It's my list. I can put who I damn well please on it. Plus, you know I'm funny. You can't deny it. 400+ followers and counting can't be wrong . . . or can they? Oh, no, now I'm doubting myself. Cut to the sample tweet! Sample tweet: I think my aversion to sports may stem from my phobia of large crowds screaming at Black men to run. 8:54 PM Jan 25th
	Justin Halpern - @shitmydadsays You already know the story. Kid in his 20s lives with dad in his 70s. Kid tweets funny shit dad says. Boom! Book deal. TV Show. And you ask yourself, "Really?! Is it that damn funny?" Yes, it is that damn funny. Sample tweet: "Don’t focus on the one guy who hates you. You don’t go to the park and set your picnic down next to the only pile of dog shit." 11:41 AM Jun 28th, 2010
	The Onion - @TheOnion The Onion grew to be a satire site like no other. It doesn't just lampoon news but society in general. It is constantly on the money whether it's just a headline, a full article, or a video showing an autistic reporter covering a funeral. (That last one is much funnier than my description makes it sound.) Some of the tweets are stand-alones while others contain links to articles and videos. Either way it's a nonstop torrent of laughs. Sample tweet: Damaged Women Stage Drunken 2 a.m. March On Washington http://onion.com/dRCVkA* about 13 hours ago * Once again, even funnier if you follow the link.

These are the 20 absolute funniest tweeters out there! No one else can compare. There can be no dispute about this from any rational person.

Of course, on the off chance that I am wrong, feel free to correct me. Did I miss anyone? Who makes you laugh when you're scrolling through your timeline? Got an opinion? Voice it in the comments section below.

And if you don't want to bother following all these folks, just follow the list LOL Tweets. It's got all 20 of these tweeters and will be updated with even more as more funny accounts roll in. So check it out.

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If you like what you read here, I'd really appreciate if you'd pass it on. You can share it by bookmarking it on any of the social networking sites listed below or emailing it to someone you think might dig it. Thanx

Is It Ever Okay To Murder Someone?: The Story Of Franz Stigler and Charlie Brown Will Make You Reevaluate The Value Of Human Life

2011-03-24T05:54:00.005-05:00

I recently discovered a story that I found very touching. And I'm no big softie. You can ask anyone who knows me well. I'm not sentimental or overly emotional. That having been said, I'm not made of stone.

When this story was related to me, it reinforced that human beings are social creatures and need to behave accordingly. It's in our best interests to look out for one another. The story illustrates how a simple decision by any one of us can change the course of history whether on a grand or individual scale.

Franz Stigler was a fighter pilot, a German fighter pilot, in WWII. He flew 400+ combat missions and shot down dozens of Allied aircraft. This was a man who didn't shy away from battle. Obviously you know what kind of killer Nazi we're dealing with, or at least you think so.

In 1943, Franz Stigler was flying a mission in which he'd already shot down two Allied aircraft and was closing in on his third for the day. It was a B-17 bomber piloted by an American named Charles Brown. According to accounts, this B-17 was shot all up to Hell and back.

The tailgunner was dead. The pilot, Charlie Brown, was wounded. One engine was dead, the other dying. The plane was practically at ground level.

There was no way this crippled aircraft could defend itself against Stigler. Easy pickings. Here's where the story diverges from what most Call of Duty players would do.

Instead of taking advantage, Stigler drew Charles Brown's attention and actually flew escort with the damaged aircraft back to the North Sea. Then Franz Stigler turned his plane around and flew home. He spared the lives of the rest of the crew even though they were there for the taking.

Now Franz Stigler didn't go home thumping his chest over what a good Samaritan he was. He couldn't. He would have been charged with treason.

So, he kept quiet about it, maybe even saying that he had shot down the bomber. The pilot Charles Brown upon returning to England had to keep the day's events under wraps as well. He was likely told by his superiors that revealing this instance of mercy would make the enemy look too good. Can't have that.

It's harder to kill a fellow human being if you think of him as a fellow human being. No, better to just keep him as a faceless, nameless antagonist. Gotta' keep that "killer instinct" up!

"A Higher Call" by John D. Shaw

Fast forward. Both men survive the war. Franz Stigler moves to Canada not even knowing whether the crew he spared on that bomber survived or not. The story of Charlie Brown and his crew makes its way to a newsletter for German pilots.

Long story short, Stigler writes to Brown. They eventually meet and become good friends. How good? When Franz Stigler died in 2008 at the age of 94, his obituary read that he was survived by not only the members of his family but by his "special brother Charlie Brown."

I hope you see why this touched me. It's not just fluff. It's real men facing life and death and choosing life.

It's a fascinating true story which is a reminder that when you walk in the world, it's your job to preserve life, not take it.

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Shamrocks and Shenanigans: How the Hip-Hop Nation Can Celebrate St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-16T23:28:00.003-05:00

Who's the player with the green afro?

Pucker up and kiss the Blarney Stone, bitches! It's that time of year again. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Break out your "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" buttons and any apparel sporting a four leaf clover. This year, St. Patty's falls on Thursday, March 17, 2011. It's when we celebrate Irish culture by donning green gear and downing pints of Guinness. So what are you doing this year for St. Patty's? And can you get down with the party even if you don't have the Orange and Green running through your veins? Hells yes!

Just like Cinco de Mayo and Juneteenth, everybody's welcome on March 17. You may not have a direct connection to the Emerald Isle, but don't let that stop you from joining in the fun. Don't sleep. From parades to pub crawls, it's all good. But where to start?

You may not be able to get down with Flogging Molly, the Chieftains, or the Pogues. (Although I can't see how that's possible. Have you even listened to "Fairytale of New York"?!) But I'm sure you can get with Hip-Hop's ambassadors of the Emerald Isle: House of Pain.

Put on that first album from 1992 to get you in the mood. After a few hits of "Shamrocks and Shenanigans" and "Top o' the Morning to Ya," you'll be giving Michael Flatley a run for his money with your Riverdance-cum-Cabbage Patch footwork.

House of Pain hit the scene back in ‘91 and came out of nowhere to knock everybody's socks off. Everlast was a whiteboy who could actually flow and the production, with ample assistance from Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs, was first rate. (As a side note on production, get your hands on Pete Rock's remix of "Jump Around." Thank me later.) However, few people who were down with H.O.P. realized that their debut album wasn't Everlast's first rodeo.

In fact he originally came out of the gate as a solo artist in the late 80s. He was part of Ice-T's Rhyme Syndicate back in the day. And his persona back then was a far cry from the goateed roughneck most of us came to know and even farther from the hardscrabble Whitey Ford persona he's been sporting more recently. His flow and image were way more GQ Smoove than alt-rock neo-bluesman. Think less Eminem, more Pete Nice.

Still, he did a good job in remaking his image, especially considering that he had to contend with the aftermath of Vanilla Ice. In retrospect, I actually feel sorry for the White guys in the rap game who came up after Vanilla Ice. Until Slim Shady came along, post-Vanilla Ice White rappers had more to prove than Black Republicans.

Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele recants his statement that he "once got busy in a Burger King bathroom."

So how did Everlast, Danny Boy, and Lethal "keep it real" in spite of Mr. Van Winkle's nearly ruining it for pale MCs? They did it by embracing their melanin deficiency rather than fronting that they were Blacker than Malcolm X. They came out hitting you over the head with shillelaghs just so there was no mistaking what lineage they were repping. There ain't much whiter than an Irishman ceptin' for an Englishman.

Suffice it to say that by playing up the Irish roots of the group's members, they placed themselves squarely at odds with the ideal of White privilege. They were able to come off as victims of discrimination (as experienced by early Irish immigrants to America) and hardship (Potato Famine, anyone?). What brother in America couldn't relate? I'll save you the insult of repeating that whole Blacks-Dubliners-Irish connection nonsense from The Commitments.

You got to give it up for clever marketing. Whoever the boys consulted with on branding hit the nail on the head.

Anyway, take some time this St. Patrick's Day to give it up for Irish culture. They wouldn't have so many pubs if they didn't know how to party. I'll be wearing my green. I just wish I had those House Of Pain kicks Adidas released back in ‘09 to really set it off. Those were sick!

I wear a size 14. Just sayin'.

And along with the music and dressing out, be sure to get a taste of Ireland. And I don't want to hear about how you don't care for corned beef and cabbage. Personally, I like cabbage. I make a killer cabbage/bacon/noodle dish, but maybe this year I'll break out the corned beef and the crockpot.

Hurry up and start looking for your St. Patrick's Day recipes. You're going to need something to soak up all those Mickey's wide mouths.

Speaking of which, please(!), please(!!), please(!!!), my people, don't go overboard with the green beer. We don't need anymore Leprechaun sightings in the hood.

And so, I leave you with one of the seminal Hip-Hop joints from the 90s, St. Patrick's Day- themed or otherwise. Come on. You got to get up out of your seat for this one. Put on your Celtics jersey and jump around! You know you want to.

Oh, and if anybody knows of a Hip-Hop track with some funky bagpipes, lay it on me in the comments. I need to make a mixtape.

***

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Just a test

2010-06-17T08:27:00.001-05:00

No need for alarm. The blog is going in a different direction for a while.

Don't Confuse The Pigeons

2010-03-20T14:04:00.008-05:00

So, I'm sitting in the park enjoying my $5 foot long with chips and drink. (I like how the cute little ESL chick at my local Subway spits out the meal offer as one word: "Chipzandrink?" I cannot resist. "Sure, chipzandrinkpleez!") So, I'm answering the question What Would Jared Do? when a pesky bird starts hopping around my table just waiting for me to feed it.

I'm sick of its bouncing around, so to get rid of it I make the mistake of tossing a chip away from the table thinking he'll go after it. The chip never even made it to the ground. The little bugger swooped, caught it in his beak, and was off. This is where the trouble began.

WARNING: If you are in a park DO NOT throw any object that is food, food-like or could be misconstrued as food by any animal with a brain smaller than a peanut!

I was immediately swarmed by all manners of fowl. Pigeons are popping up from behind trash cans, robins are flocking from the trees, the ducks and geese from the pond are flying my way. There were woodpeckers, finches, and crows. I think I even saw a fucking Fluffy-Backed Tit- Babbler! It looked like something staged by Hitchcock.

So, within seconds, I am sitting in a sea of feathers all strutting and cooing "Hey, you got any food? Wanna' give us some food? We saw you give that other bird some food. Why don't you give us some food, too? We like food. Hey, is that food? Why don't you give us some? Come on, be cool. Give us some food, man. Don't hold out on us. Give Us The Fucking Food!"

So, I slowly (for fear of being pecked to death or shat upon en masse) wrapped my food, got up, and made my way to my car where I finished my lunch behind rolled-up windows and locked doors.

All of this made me wonder: What about downtown pigeons? They hang out Monday through Friday and get fed by all the office employees on their lunch breaks. But what happens on the weekends? Pigeons don't know it's the weekend. They don't have clocks or calendars, at least not that I know of. If they do, I need to get into that market because there's tons of customers. Of course, pigeons probably don't make a lot of money which is why they live on the street. So, nix that business idea.

Back to the original conceit, though. Do pigeons get into a habit of around 11 A.M. everyday thinking "Food! Food! Free food! The people sitting by the reflecting pool here give us free food!" And sure enough, Monday through Friday, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet. Then Saturday comes along, 11 A.M. rolls around, and all the pigeons are like "WTF?!" It must confuse the hell out of them.

Of course, they're probably pleasantly surprised to no end when Monday comes and the pigeon- feeders return. " Hey, look! It's those guys with the food! They're back!" Maybe this weekend you should go downtown and feed some pigeons. Yes, YOU, the one reading this post. I sure as hell ain't gonna' go feed the little rats with wings.

All this fowl confusion is because man had to cook up "the week." The 7-day week is the only idea of time above an hour that has no physical determination in nature. A day is the amount of time it takes for the Earth to make a complete turn on its axis. Months are determined by the cycles of the moon. And a year is the (approximate) amount of time it takes for our planet to revolve around the sun.

So what would happen if we did away with the week? How would human development change? No more Mondays or Fridays or any other day except for to-day. Would we shift our way of thinking toward months just to keep some semblance of cyclical routine? Would single digit days receive the dread that was once particular to Mondays? Would we coin the phrase T.G.I.the 27th? Would the ides become the new hump day?

What do you think? Can we finally get rid of the week? I'm sure the pigeons would be much happier. Won't someone please think of the pigeons?

Cheetahs Never Prosper

2010-03-11T14:07:00.006-06:00

I don't believe in cheating. Cheating is wrong. That having been said, I can only stand by that statement as true if I add a caveat. What is commonly known as cheating is not cheating.

Cheating is using an unfair advantage that is not available to most in order to put yourself ahead of the pack. That is wrong. However, using every opportunity available that is there for anyone who is willing to use it in order to win is not cheating. It is not only perfectly acceptable, but should be encouraged. The reason most people call that action cheating and seek to disallow it is because they're pissed off that they didn't think of it first.

If I sit at a black jack table and have the dealer send me signals as to when I should hit and when I should stay, that is cheating. If I sit at that same black jack table and memorize what cards have been played, use that knowledge to deduce what has yet to be played, and calculate the odds of what card will be played next in order to know when to hit and when to stay (commonly referred to as counting cards), that is playing smart.

And that is what I do, play smart. So, it would be fair to say that I don't believe in cheating. I believe in winning.

Let's look at the situation in this way. Who gets first chair? I'm talking about violinists here. Who gets first chair? I'll tell you who will and who won't.

The kid with the most talent never, ever gets first chair. First chair always goes to the kid who puts in the most diligent practice. Sure, the kid who eventually gets first chair just may be the most talented of all the contenders, but that is not why he got it.

The position goes to the kid who practices until his fingers bleed. And surely for his success he will be hated, especially by the more talented jack-off who expected to breeze into what he felt was his entitlement without earning it.

When you upend people's conventions by being better than they think you're supposed to be or better than they think they can be, be ready for their disdain. And be comforted by your success. Ecclesiastes 9:11-18 backs this up. The race goes not to the swift...

The Good Thing About Innocence Is That You Only Have To Lose It Once

2010-03-03T09:29:00.005-06:00

I just had to get up and get rid of a Jehovah's Witness who was at the door. Then as soon as I closed the door and she went away I realized too late that would have been a perfect learning opportunity for the kids. I should have called them down to show them how to properly shoo a Jehovah's Witness. I remember teaching my little brother when we were kids, and I'm pretty sure he's been keeping his doorstep JW-free ever since.

I'm full of wonderful knowledge like that, and I should really share it with the youth out there. Y'know, Sherrodzilla loves the kids.

I want to write a book for kids. I want to write a book for kids that exposes all the lies that adults tell them. Because I think they deserve it. The target reader for the book, in my opinion, would be kids about nine years old. Because that's about the time that I began to really be aware of what was going on around me.

At nine years old, I pretty much had it pegged that most of the things that adults said that was directed at me were just a load of bunk. And I got pissed. I was mad that there seemed to be this vast conspiracy to pull the wool over my eyes.

Now, I realize that it's not so much an intentional, malicious form of keeping control over youngsters that adults engage in when they tell these lies — although that is a part of it. It's more so that these adults have no idea how to talk to kids.

For instance, at this church I attended they had this thing called the Children's Sermon. It was essentially a part of the service which was aimed at the kids in the congregation. It was kind of like, "Come on down to the front of the church, kids. Let's rap about Christ." And what it was was some adult up there trying to convey a Christian message to those under 18 (always a good thing), but doing it in this pandering, talking-down-to manner (not so good). And you could see, not that it was glaringly obvious unless you were paying attention, that these grownups were in front of these kids and they were terrified!

They weren't scared of the kids, but they were more afraid of how to communicate with these kids the "right way." You could see it in their demeanor and hear it in the slight stammer every now and then, they were frightened they might fuck up and tell the truth.

They honestly had no idea how to speak to these kids as human beings. And I think that's primarily for two big reasons: 1) They had forgotten what it was like to be children and 2) They came up being lied to and being fed this line of bullshit; then they came of age, realized it was bullshit, and decided "O.K. This must be the way it's done," kind of like most traditions.

"Son, this bullshit was given to my father's father by his father. Then my grandfather passed this bullshit on to my father. Then my father abandoned me and my mother and started another family in Phoenix, but not before he passed this bullshit on to me. So, now, I pass this bullshit on to you, and someday it will be your duty to pass this bullshit on to your children.

Take good care of this bullshit. It's been in our family for generations. It came over on the Mayflower . . . Of course, that last part could just have been some bullshit."

They just keep shoveling it down the hill through each successive generation, and I don't think that's fair. Fortunately, when I was a kid I had a family that told me the truth as much as they could, or, I should say, they did their best not to lie to me.

When I was about five or six, I called them on Santa Claus. The myth just didn't make sense to me. And rather than trying to convince me of the lie, they respected me enough to see that I was ready for the truth and they pretty much dropped the charade. And that's what I do for my kids. I try to be honest with them and encourage them to question whether or not someone is being on the up and up with them.

I find it detestable when any grownup refuses to acknowledge when a kid has outgrown a myth. It's one thing to spoonfeed them a load of crap from infancy when the kid doesn't know any better. However, when the kid gets old enough to spit it out, some adults insist on continuing to force-feed the kid all this nonsense.

That is a truly heinous crime against nature. Because the authority figure is trying to keep the child a child, and that just can't be done. I understand it's hard to cede control to someone who you feel isn't ready to wield that control over themselves, but you must. When the kid is ready to grow up, let him. Usher him into adulthood by being honest with him. Don't try to keep him a baby. Because then, instead of looking at you as the person who they can trust when everyone else is telling them lies, you'll be the person who betrayed their trust the worst. And they'll resent you and end up distrustful and paranoid and grow up to be me. And I'm the last thing you want to contend with.

I don't mean that I'm going to have an absolutely candid conversation with a kid the way I will with an adult. I'm not going to say, "Sex is fun. Drugs are fun. And sex on drugs is a whole lot of fun!" No, they'll find all that stuff out themselves. But I will refuse to try to hoodwink ‘em, not even for "their own good."

I just want to be a part of opening up the exchange between children and former children. That's all any of us are or, if fortunate enough to survive adolescence, will become. This book I'd like to write will ostensibly be for the kids, but I hope it also reaches some parents and grownups who regularly interact with kids. Communication is important.

So, in this book that I'm going to write the first sentence will be "There is no Easter Bunny." Then, I'll say that if they found this revelation too shocking they should just put the book down before it gets even scarier.

I'll go on to explain how the book is about the way adults talk to children and that some of the things adults say are the truth, some are outright lies, and some are half-truths because adults don't think kids can handle the real deal. I'll explain how the Easter bunny myth got started, and I'll end the introduction by stating that there is a Santa Claus.

Later in the book, I'll explain that there actually was a St. Nicholas, but he's not the guy that Coca-Cola fooled your parents into lying to you about. I think it'll upset a lot of people, but it'll most likely be the people who most need to be upset, namely the parents who lie to their kids. And they got it coming, and that's the truth.

Call It A "Vacation" If You Call It Anything

2009-05-28T08:21:00.002-05:00

Hey, kids! I'm going to be going on, shall we say, a "sabbatical" for a while, so don't expect to read any new posts until after Thanksgiving 2009. I appreciate the emails expressing your concern (even the one calling me a "no-posting ass prick" - It means so much to me.), but don't worry. Everything's fine, even if presently unstable. So, I'll be back after November is almost over. Try not to miss me too much.

W.W.J.Really.D?

2009-04-09T09:57:00.004-05:00

Jesus is my role model. He is what I strive to be as a man. Lots of people walk around spouting the line and urging us to ask "What would Jesus do?" Yet, most of these people don’t stop to truly ponder the answer to this question.

Jesus preached love. What’s more, He didn’t just preach it; He acted on it. Many of His so-called followers forget that His message and His activities weren’t popular during His lifetime. Remember how His story ends?

So, I ask myself, when looking to His example for guidance, "What would Jesus really do?" And I try to answer from an honest interpretation of His life and His teachings. What would Jesus do?

Jesus would preach against "good works" if they were only done for show. Jesus would kick over the tables of the money changers and chase ‘em out of the temple with a whip. Jesus would turn water into wine to keep the party going.

That’s what Jesus would do. That’s my Jesus.

Happy Easter!

Soda & Drugs & Rock n' Roll

2009-04-09T09:28:00.004-05:00

I kind of like that Pepsi commercial that uses the Who’s "My Generation" as its score. I must admit it’s pretty good, entertaining and all that. At least as much as a television commercial can be if you can get past the fact that they’re trying to reshape culture into commerce. (Oh, surviving members of Led Zeppelin, it truly has been a long time since you rock n’ rolled.)

But, the commercial transcends itself and works on so many levels, especially so by highlighting the examples set by the lives of Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, and John Entwistle. Keith Moon is the only one who died before he got old.

Of course, John Entwistle does get rock n’ roll points for going out from a cocaine overdose. He and Ike Turner both showed these youngsters how you do it. When you kick, you do it with coke in your system.

None of this namby-pamby heroin shit that made a resurgence back in the 90s. What is this, 1974? That is so Sid Vicious.

So, it’s good to see that old Brit Invasion anthem extolling this new generation to be young, have fun, and drink Pepsi while at the same time reinforcing that coke is the real thing. That’s the kind of spirit we could stand to see more of.

However it all shakes out, I’m sure that we’ll see the kids are alright.

How To Draw

2009-04-02T11:22:00.004-05:00

. . . or Opiate Of The Masses, Here I Come

Maybe I should stop reading. All it does is expand my mind and make me see things more clearly. Not that that, in itself, is a bad thing. I quite enjoy encompassing more knowledge than I previously held at any given moment in time.

But as I expand and stretch closer towards the horizon I am pulled further away from the center. I am losing touch with my fellow man. The more I see, in comparison with the unenlightened man, the less I have in common with him.

And seeing as how I have chosen to live in a society of common men, it would be of no great assist in my journey through this life were I to become more and more radically uncommon. It might lead to greater self-satisfaction, but it most certainly will add to a level of grief concerning interaction with my fellow human earth-travelers, on their part and mine.

No, if anything, I should be trying to dull my senses if I am to get back in touch with my fellow man. Although they have somewhat slowed it, even organized religion and acceptance of the laws of my home nation have been insufficient to entirely stunt my growth.

I should probably just give in and watch more television.

How To Cook A Turkey

2009-04-02T10:33:00.001-05:00

. . . or All Money Ain’t Good Money

Any good thing that is introduced to the public at large quickly deteriorates. Entropy exists. The universe and all natural systems within it tend toward decay. Without controls set in place to prevent it, that is just what will happen to all organizations, industries, and endeavors.

Specifically, in this instance, I refer to the business plan of many businesses to seek patronage from everyone indiscriminately. All money ain’t good money. That is why organizations like Borders and reddit have gone to the dogs; because they let anyone in.

Well, when you welcome everyone and spend your time trying to please them all, that means that you are devoting as much time and energy to preserving the detrimental sectors as the beneficial ones. Thus you are creating more problems for yourself while at the same time weakening your ability to solve them. Cancer left unchecked spreads, and it does so at the liability of its host.

So, how do you prevent this from happening? Well, you don’t entirely. Everything falls apart. It’s only a matter of time. But with proper foresight that amount of time can be lengthened, and history will judge you kindly for it. It will be a testament to your design how long a thing stands before it crumbles.

The key lies in offending customers, but only a select few. Turn away business that will be bad for business. This is how systems like Amazon.com & eBay have seemingly grown unchecked without suffering the scourge of catering to the lowest common denominator. Because their growth has not been unchecked.

Every opportunity to make a buck has been checked, balanced, weighed, and measured. And if the cost in time, manpower, and the loss of other opportunities to earn that one buck is five, then that dollar is declined. "Please spend that money with my competition," its owner is kindly told. And sure enough, there will be some bonehead who doesn’t know any better to take that customer in.

You’ve got to strengthen your system’s growth through cultivation. If someone is a fuck-up, they get weeded out.

Someone on your message board flaming and submitting bullshit? Pluck him out and let him express his freedom of speech elsewhere.

A customer is taking advantage of a lenient return policy? Refuse that customer’s business.

If they get offended and tell their friends such, so much the better for you. They are unintentionally warning away their peers. After all, most of the people with whom they associate are likely to be deadbeats as well. Birds of a feather flock together, so scare that flock of crows into someone else’s cornfield.

In simple, do not try to appeal to everyone. Be selective to whom you turn your attentions. Elsewise invite your own destruction.

How To Lose Weight

2009-03-29T14:09:00.000-05:00

. . . or Where There’s Smoke . . .

So, I went out for one last glimpse of the Knoxville flavor I’ve been hearing so much about. (Yeah, right.)

I go to the Tomato Head to get a lamb sausage pizza and get talked into the Andouille sausage pizza instead.

While I’m waiting for it to cook up, I stroll around the corner to Downtown Wine & Spirits where I got a half-pint of Jack and a crappy bottle of Pinot noir yesterday. While I’m on my way there I pass a blind alley, dark as a well, and the kind tourists are most definitely supposed to avoid. Which, of course, means: "Time to go exploring!"

Then I think about Mrs. Zilla and how pissed off at me she would be just for thinking about going down that alley. So, I keep on trucking around the corner. And whaddayaknow? Are liquor stores open on Sundays in Tennessee? I don’t know, but it sure looks like it because the lights are on and there are people busying themselves inside.

Sadly, I guess they close early because the three people behind the locked door seem to be shutting down for the evening. So, I head back to the Tomato Head to pick up my pizza in a bit of a foul mood . . . until I pass that blind alley.

What the hell? I could use a motherfucker jumping out of the shadow for me to take some aggression out on after that liquor store disappointment. As I saunter down the corridor of blackened doorways and graffiti, my first thought is how pissed Mrs. Zilla would be at me if I got killed on this trip.

So, I’m keeping an eye out for danger, hoping for some, when I notice through a plate glass window a bunch of boho negroes in a hipster loft watching a big screen. - Okay.

Then I see a cardboard sign asking people not to use the restroom in the doorway. - Huh?

Then, deeper into the alley, a motion-controlled light in a vestibule pops on as I pass by. - WTF?

This isn’t dangerous at all. Then I get it. This is where the fucking hipsters live downtown to feel trendy. This is no dark, dangerous, dead man’s alley. This is a gentrification corridor for college kids. What a disappointment.

The most dangerous thing I came across was a graffiti bug throwing up a tag in spray paint. I think I startled him more than he did me. I waved him on his way and exited the alley back out into Market Square to pick up my pizza.

How To Make Money

2009-03-27T14:06:00.000-05:00

. . . or A Challenge

I just made a realization about myself. Epiphanies have such a way of shaking you up because so many of them elicit competing reactions. There is the elation of attaining vital, new knowledge but the startling discomfort that comes with realizing you went so long working without a net because you didn’t have this information.

Sort of like someone telling you, after you’ve swum in a bayou, that it is rife with alligators. Retroactive fear. Regardless, what I came to realize this morning is having a similar effect on me.

It’s something that I’ve never contemplated before about myself, the rest of the world, and my place in it. I am relatively successful. I am actually (in the true sense of the word) successful because I am pleased with myself, but my relative success is based on my rates of accomplishment in comparison to others.

My success rates are high. I deliver. And I do it big. I was always under the impression that this was due to my capability and my attitude. I am strong, smart, eager, and tenacious. Therefore, those attributes are what have propelled me to succeed.

And that’s true, but only partially. It’s entirely true, but there’s more to the story. My achievements are not only fueled by my high level of self-confidence. They are also allowed by the low self-confidence of others.

And I’m talking about self-confidence, not self-esteem. There is a big difference between liking yourself and trusting yourself. Sometimes I hate myself, but never do I falter in my belief that I can conquer any obstacle I come across.

I don’t think that there’s anything that I can’t do. If it can be done, I can do it. I realize what a great and capable individual I am. Most other people don’t. They don’t know what is possible for them if they only work to get it.

Or they really believe that they can’t make it even if they try. They believe that the circumstances of life are stronger than they are, so they don’t go for it. That is the, until now, unrealized aspect of the secret to my success. I have virtually no competition!

Nobody is going after what I’m going after, so it’s mine for the taking. If more people realized what they could have if they only believed it, it would blow their minds. But they don’t believe so they go for the silver instead of the gold.

The fiercest competition is for the mediocre. Everybody goes for that. We all want to fuck a 10, but most of us only have enough confidence to shoot for a 6, which leaves me the pick of the top 4. That makes it more likely for me to fuck an 8 than for you to even get a 7.

The closer to the middle a goal is the more people you will have clamoring for it. Most people are not unemployed. Neither are most people CEOs. Most people are wage slaves trying to fuck over other wage slaves in order to keep their skinny little slices of the pie.

That’s the scary part. I always knew that there had to be people out there who could give me a run for my money. I just wondered where they were.

They’re out there cowering in a corner scared to come out and play. If they ever realize what they’re capable of, then they could give me a run for my money. I might actually have to start working for it.

That means I wouldn’t win as often. But that might also mean that the victories I will achieve would be sweeter. I’d like that, to actually feel that I’m winning what is mine instead of always just taking candy from babies.

If more people had the balls to be me, we might make some real progress as a society, or at least have a few more fulfilled people walking around.

So, I dare you to take me out. Do a better job than I can. Give me some competition. I dare ya’! I double dare you!!

All it takes is the will to do what the other guy won’t. I will. You won’t.

C’mon, bitches. I dare you.

How To Get Pregnant

2008-12-12T08:09:00.000-06:00

. . . or Good, Fast, Or Cheap? Pick Two

When did everything become a product? Food, art, almost anything for which money is exchanged. Once upon a time a good or a service was crafted with an eye towards quality, but now it is only quantity that matters.

How did the commoditization of the world happen? Was it gradual or overnight? Was it a result of technology or policy? Or a combination of both?

However it occurred, it seems that the farther away from the face to face barter economy we’ve slid, the more removed from responsibility for what the end product is we have become. So you end up in a world in which people confuse McDonald’s for food and James Patterson for literature.

However this sea change has taken place, steps need to be taken to reverse it. Otherwise standards will continue to drop until we are drowning in shit (and I do mean that the potential for that scenario is literal) and don’t even realize it.

Knowing that once interpersonal relationships between human beings shifts from governance by social norms to market norms, the shift in reverse seems to be nearly impossible. So it seems to be in a free market economy in which a commodity has slipped beyond the rules of supply and demand. How do you fit that back into the mold?

I have a general idea, but the specifics elude me. First you’ve got to teach people to value quality over quantity or at least give them equal weight. And this is in all things, whether it be a meal you eat, service you receive at a doctor’s office, or even in the grammar and content of an email you receive from a colleague.

Beyond that you must teach people the lost virtue of sacrifice. They must learn to forego a little comfort or money or convenience to attain what is best for them. Now junk has its place within any culture, but it should not be so influential and ever-present as to shape a junk culture from a well-functioning society.

Our desire for instant gratification at the expense of quality has lead to a microwave mind set. We want it fast and cheap. Well that’s no good. Really.

If the three pillars upon which desire of a commodity rests are good, fast, and cheap, then keep in mind that you can only have two without causing the third to suffer. We cannot allow quality to suffer, so that removes good from the equation. The asset must be good, so what you choose must be based on whether it’s fast or cheap.

The only time one must trump the other is when you need something. For instance, when you require medical attention, you want it good and you want it fast. And price is not a consideration. You will pay whatever you have to in order to feel better.

But there are so few instances in which we find ourselves absolutely needing anything, not even food. Abundance is so rampant that this country suffers from it. So perhaps we should try to educate consumers to steer towards inexpensive, high-quality merchandise which may take some time to attain. However, easy credit makes difficult putting that change into effect. So something must be done on that front.

Sadly, we can’t expect Joe the Plumber to be fiscally responsible enough to turn down credit for instant gratification regardless of how dire the long-term consequences may be. So the responsibility must be shifted to the credit-lending companies. We must find some way as a society to encourage business to encourage responsible credit, a bit of an oxymoron I know.

I find that positive encouragement is more likely to bring about a desired effect more often than the threat of punishment. The devil does not corrupt you by punishing you for being good. He corrupts you by rewarding you for being bad.

So, rather than trying to teach John Q. Lunchbucket to completely forego his "something for nothing" mentality (a plan about as feasible as training every donkey to resist the carrot at the end of the stick), we must find a way to reward companies built on credit for training consumers through responsible, restrictive lending. Now, how to do that? That is a brainstorming session for another time.

I don’t think that I would be too productive with anything I came up with right now. The only thing that comes to me right now is getting rid of the FDIC. Working without a net might cause everyone to step a little more cautiously.

Or maybe I’m just being too idealistic. Fortunes will wax and wane. Cycles will be repeated. A system will only continue to grow until it can no longer support itself. Then it will collapse.

Perhaps instead of trying to stave off the inevitable I should try to hasten it. I should try to hurry old doomsday down already. Or maybe I should just sit back and enjoy the ride.

How To Kiss

2008-12-04T11:50:00.000-06:00

. . . or A Night In Tunisia

I’m sitting in a restaurant right now listening to A Night in Tunisia on the overhead sound system. I know it’s A Night in Tunisia because I love this song. It, along with John Coltrane’s full-length version of My Favorite Things, is one of my favorite things.

Once you find a version of A Night in Tunisia that you fall in love with, you will always recognize it and always compare any version of it you hear with your favorite version. This is not my favorite version of this song. This is some smooth jazz version heavy on the syrupy sax.

It’s not bad. It is competent, enjoyable. But it is a far cry from my favorite version.

That distinction would have to go to a 1960 recording by Art Blakey that Ken Burns lifted to include on his Blakey disc of the Jazz-inspired series. It is amazing.

Make no mistake. I knew of the song, but I usually didn’t pay it much mind. I had heard it before, but never like this. It was raw and energized and the musicians were tight beyond belief. I have never listened to that song the same way again.

I once came across another version of it by Blakey and played it on the air at Rice when I was DJing at KTRU. It was like a 16-minute long, live recording of the song. After it played, I received an excited call at the station from a guy who wanted to verify that it was A Night in Tunisia he’d just heard. I told him that it was.

Who was playing it? What album was it on? We talked a little bit about jazz and I went back to spinning.

I like to think, or at least I hope, that I gave him a contender for the new top spot in his favorite version of A Night in Tunisia ranking. I may yet one day hear a new version of it that takes my breath away more than Art Blakey’s . . . but I kinda’ doubt it.

How To Tie A Tie

2008-11-28T17:04:00.000-06:00

. . . or Why New Coke Really Sucked

Why are people so stupid? I think it may be greed. And jealousy. Or greed and jealousy combined.

They say that the love of money is the root of all evil. Well, I guess it’s also the root of most stupidity, at least when it comes to decisions made by corporate masters. Remember New Coke? -What was that a result of? It was Coca-Cola being scared that it was losing some — not all, not most, not even a lot, but some — of its market to across-the-aisle rival Pepsi. So, what do the geniuses (genii?) at Coke do?

Make their product taste more like Pepsi. What the fuck? So, of course there was vociferous opposition by those who drank Coca-Cola primarily because it was an alternative to rather than a better version of its leading competitor.

Much backpedaling and coupons for rebates and Coke-sponsored blowjobs ensued. That’s why I like 7-Up and Sprite. Sometimes I’m in the mood for dry (7-Up); sometimes I have a taste for sweet (Sprite).

This wayward way of thinking permeates many ways of approaching things. Remember My Wife & Kids? Not the greatest sitcom ever, but it was entertaining and worth better than what it got.

What did it get? A time slot directly opposite the Bernie Mac Show. That’s right.

ABC executives saw that a sitcom about a Black family headed by an irreverent, funny dad was popular with an "urban" audience which augured high prospects for their sitcom about a Black family headed by an irreverent, funny dad. Unfortunately, flawed research by ABC must have shown that the so-called urban market only allots one half-hour per week, all on the same night, to relax from bringing down property values and augmenting their booming systems to watch television. So, instead of both networks having independent success in different time-slots with two well-done programs, the market was split which hastened the demise of both programs leaving plenty of room for more half-assed cheap game shows hosted by formerly C-list celebrities.

This happens time and time again, and not just in the business sector. How many guys look like they come from a cookie-cutter in a vain attempt to score in the same limited pool of pussy? We would all benefit, as organizations and individuals, if we sought to provide viable alternatives to what’s out there.

That leads to competition, which leads to diversity, which leads to choice, which leads to satisfaction. Go the other route and you end up with 18 fuckwits between two political parties all echoing their respective sides’ same core tenets in an effort to show that s/he is the individual, unique-thinker qualified to be the President.

Left Behind

2008-11-13T12:09:00.000-06:00

I keep hearing about how American public schools are doing so much worse on standardized testing than their counterparts in other countries. Could one of the determining factors on their scoring be a result of race relations in this country? Think about it.

All these other countries which are outscoring us are not the most formidable competitors in other areas on the international scene. However, these other countries (the Swedes, Asians, even China, etc.) have insular, homogenized societies whereas America is one big melting pot. Sometimes, though, the melting pot has been more of a cauldron threatening to boil over.

Non-White American students have had a hell of a time trying to get educated adequately in this country’s history. Once upon a time it was illegal to teach Blacks to read or write even their own names. Is it any wonder that within this system the term "dropout" has come to be synonymous with "Hispanic teen" or that the label "at-risk" conjures up the image of a dark-skinned child?

The American public school system until recently was engineered to actively harm any student who couldn’t pass the brown paper bag test much less a standardized comprehensive knowledge exam. So, fast forward through the ugly past into the modern day. Take all the disenfranchised youth whose heritage has been one of encouraging underachieving, mix them with the scions of those who inherited privileged teaching without the competition of a whole sect of peers which were barred from learning with them. What do you get?

The outcome is a mixture of students who have been hobbled against their natural potential and ones who were never as smart as they were believed to be because the drive to excel through competition had been lessened. Meanwhile, the cinnamon-skinned youth of India and the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Swedes all progressed at the same rate within their respective nations. If we can stop trying to tailor specific curricula to different dimensions of society and work toward truly standardizing education, maybe we’ll actually succeed at doing so.

On The Election Of Barack Hussein Obama As The 44th President Of The United States Of America

2008-11-06T11:42:00.000-06:00

Barack Obama is the new President-elect of the United States of America. I can’t recall, in recent memory, feeling more happy and hopeful as a result of something happening that I did not directly cause to happen. I feel good, better than I have in months.

Now I don’t believe that this is the end. I know that this is just the beginning. Now is when we roll up our sleeves and begin the process of getting down to the real work.

This is a momentous and monumental occasion. Barack Obama ran on a platform for change and change is exactly what will happen. This one change will lead to others.

This has not changed the world, but it has changed the way a significant number of people view the world. And in so doing, they will change the world. For the better, I believe.

When I was nine years old and graduated from elementary school to middle school, I went back to visit my second grade teacher, Mrs. Sharp. She had made a big impact in my short life and I wanted to say good-bye.

As we parted, this seasoned, Southern White woman told me how much she believed in me and encouraged me to do great things. She even told me that I could be President one day if I wanted to be. I didn’t believe her.

Today I feel sorry for my youthful cynicism. Mrs. Sharp was already old when I was young, so it’s doubtful that she is still alive, but I hope that she lived to see this moment.

And as for all the Americans who claim that the office of the President of the United States of America is more about the position than any one man who holds it and that every American citizen should help, trust, and support the President, consider this: Now we’ll see if all those so-called patriots who have W stickers plastered on the back of their SUVs will stand behind their statement that we should support the President. Something tells me that this term will discern the true American patriots from the bigoted jingoists.

Raising The Bar

2008-10-30T12:13:00.000-05:00

I want to write, but I don’t know what to or how to go about doing it. As anyone can see by the paltry output of these recent times that I haven’t been putting pen to paper as often as I should. That’s not to say that nothing has been happening. I just haven’t been documenting it.

I’ve become lazy. I’m too domesticated and comfortable to care about whether or not I succeed at what, until recently, was the only thing I was ever absolutely sure about wanting. I’m trying to change that.

Being a writer, you will do absolutely anything to keep from writing, and I am one of the best at putting off my passions. I am a professional procrastinator. Something I’ve discovered recently is that my propensity for putting things in order has been a detriment to my writing.

I’ve been inadvertently scheduling my day to ensure that I don’t get any writing done. I’ve even worked out a very efficient schedule to keep me away from my duties, so efficient it even fooled me into missing how it was hurting me.

I’ve got a stack of papers to which I must attend (bills, receipts, letters, etc.), a stack of books I must read (fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, some for research, some for pleasure), multiple inboxes full of unanswered emails (six different accounts), and an organizer/date planner in which I am one month behind. So, I figured a juggling act which has been actually working out pretty well for me.

I handle a few emails, handle whatever is on top of the stack of paper, catch up on one day’s worth of work from the scheduler (Oops! Missed a couple of birthdays.), then read for a bit until I get to a good stopping point. This system has proven to be very efficient for me. On a good day, I can go through the cycle about four or five times.

At the end of the day I feel a sense of accomplishment, but not always fulfillment. Sometimes it gnaws at the back of my consciousness; sometimes it’s the foremost thing in my mind. "When are you going to write?"

I keep thinking that when the time is right, when I’ve cleared my schedule and have less to do, then I’ll write. That’s bullshit, and I know it. It’s just like anything else in life. If you believe that the right time is in the future, then it will always be there, planted firmly in the future just out of reach.

There will never be a right time. There is always only right now. So, I decided to reschedule.

I was figuring (wrongly) that after I went through my aforementioned cycle a few times each day, I’d get down to the business of writing. Never happened. That’s because I was doing all that other stuff instead of writing as opposed to before writing.

Here’s the solution: Write first. It’s that simple.

I’ll schedule the write time first. All that other stuff will be waiting, and I can do it just as effectively after I knock out a few sentences. And I can do it guilt-free without feeling like a negligent parent.

So, I’ve decided on my off days (or the days that I don’t go to my job since I don’t ever really get a day off) that after I get the kids off to school and the wife off to work, the first thing I will do is write. The hours between 9 A.M. and noon will be given over to writing and nothing but. I’ll try to get to work early on the days I have to be at the job to do the same there.

I can attack the rest of life later. I’m sure it’ll be waiting for me.

Acing The ASVAB Is The First Step . . .

2008-10-22T11:15:00.001-05:00

Here’s how to go into the military without going to war. It’s not a guarantee, but it hedges your bet. Going into America’s military is honorable, and I highly recommend it for any individual who would like to serve his or her country and be part of a disciplined, vital organization.

That having been said, very few people want a career which keeps them in constant harm’s way. Your key to working for Uncle Sam without becoming a bullet-catcher starts at the ASVAB test.

I first took the ASVAB as a way to cut class with authorization in my junior year of high school. I did well and got pestered throughout my senior year by recruiters. I turned them all down. I had no intention of entering the service.

However, years later, I took the ASVAB again. This time in earnest. I wanted to join the Army.

I took the test and scored a 98. A woman at the recruiting office said that mine was the highest score of a recruit she had ever processed. In a whisper, she tried to get the secret out of me how I did it. I told her honestly that I just did my best.

My drill sergeant in boot camp called me out once in front of my fellow soldiers, asking if I knew that my ASVAB score was the highest of anyone in the platoon. "Drill Sergeant, no, Drill Sergeant!" I lied knowing that I was being called out to be made an example of (and not in a good way).

He proceeded to tell me that I was pretty smart "on paper." Which was true. I knew how to take that test, and I did it well. Here’s how.

The ASVAB is timed and your wrong answers don’t count against you. Just keep those two factors in mind.

Answer every question for which you’re sure you know the answer. Skip the ones you know that you don’t have a chance of even guessing right. Answer correctly as many as you can.

Whether you’re finished or not, once you’re down to about a minute left, pick a letter (I chose ‘C,’ but which letter really doesn’t matter.) and fill in every unanswered question in that section with that letter. Some people, not myself of course, would even suggest that if you have time, go back to the other sections you couldn’t finish and fill those in with your chosen letter as well.

By choosing one letter and sticking with it for your unanswered questions, you’re giving yourself a 20 - 25% chance of answering any given question right. You’ll be wrong more often than not with this method so it won’t work to do the whole test this way. However, it gives your correct answers a nice little boost.

Once you’ve done well on your ASVAB, the second most crucial factor to a good military career is choosing the right job. Being a soldier does not necessarily mean charging into battle on the front line. It can also mean driving officers around, being a recruiter, or even counting supplies in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere.

Your job is your MOS, and its designation is a letter-number combination. Always find out what the letter-number combo of your MOS is. The lower your MOS, the more likely you are to be a front-line infantryman, i.e., bullet-catcher. The higher your MOS, the more likely you are to be in logistics, i.e., paper-pusher.

So, a MOS of A1 means that you could quite possibly face some life or death situations while a MOS of Z92 should give you a little room to breathe easy. With such a high ASVAB score, I was pretty much able to pick any MOS I wanted.

Remember, the higher your ASVAB score the more MOSs you’re allowed to choose from. I knew plenty of guys at the intake center who came into the process with the sole desire of being something like an Apache helicopter pilot until their low ASVAB scores quickly slam-dunked them into having to choose between infantry and shit-shoveler.

One more thing as added insurance, find out if your MOS is non-deployable, which means that in order to do your job you most likely have to stay in the United States. That also cuts down on the likelihood that you’ll get shipped to a war zone.

I chose as my MOS "legal specialist," an MOS of Y89 or something like that, I think. This meant that all I had to do was clear basic training. Once that was done, I would basically be nothing more than a paralegal in Army green.

During one class at basic training, a lot of us new fish were able to ask one of the sergeants what we could expect from our chosen professions. A lot of guys hollered out low to mid MOSs and had the sergeant regale them with tales of drudgery, boredom, and bullshit. I screamed out my high MOS and the sergeant proceeded to illustrate my future chores by pulling up a chair, kicking his feet up on the table, and acting out a phone call full of "Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, right," then ended the call with "Alright. Later, baby," then turned to an imaginary non-com he’d kept waiting. "What’s up, Sarge?"

The audience laughed, clapped, and hooted. I was the envy of the class that day. So keep in mind, it’s never a guarantee, especially during wartime, but there are ways to enter the United States Armed Services and exit with great training in a career, money for school, and, if you decide to make a career out of it, a nice little pension after retiring while you’re young enough to pursue other interests.

The same drill sergeant who called me out in front of the other troops let us know that he’d entered the Army when he was 18 and that he was about to turn 38. He admitted that once his twenty years was up, the only thing he planned to do with the military was walk to his mailbox once a month to pick up his check. Not too shabby.

We Are All Made Of Stars

2008-10-16T16:11:00.000-05:00

I got something profound out of reading Moby’s essays in the liner notes of his album 18 (or CD, or collection of MP3s, or whatever future generations will call collections of songs). Anyway, the thing I got is this.

The universe is billions of years old and it is vast. The stars we see in the sky are so far away that it would take longer than a natural lifetime to reach them. There are over 6 billion people on the planet right now. That means if we have a fatal event like the Christmas tsunami of 2004 every single day, it would take over 100 years to wipe us all out.

That’s a lot of space and time and people which compromise human existence. So, what makes any single one man believe that he has the mind to fully comprehend the order of things and the meaning of life? That’s what people are doing when they hate. That’s what we do when we allow our beliefs to drive us to commit violence or destruction.

Osama bin Laden, Ku Klux Klansmen (all white supremacists), murderers, Jew-hating Palestinians, Palestinian-hating Israelis, all those who resort to the most brutal means of expression. How can any person be so certain that he knows how the universe should work that he feels it is his right to kill and destroy what others have created? If that type of arrogance led to Lucifer’s fall from grace, what drives us to be like him rather than learn from his story?

So, that’s my lesson learned. And to think I got it from a techno DJ who I used to think was an overrated sanctimonious jerk.

So, I’m listening to 18 right now and I’m enjoying it much more than I did on initial listening a couple years ago. I can't say for certain whether or not it has won me over, but I can say that I’m hearing so much more to like than I did at first. I guess that’s because this time I’m actually listening.

At first I guess I was just upset with it for not being a redux of Play, which was an awesome disc. Now I can see it has its own merits. It seems that Moby’s music has improved since he stopped being so self-righteous. He and his compositions both seem happier and more accessible.

Christmas Jiu Jitsu

2008-10-09T08:17:00.001-05:00

Maybe I’ve been looking at this whole Santa thing from the wrong perspective. Instead of pushing against the people who believe in lying to their kids, maybe the key is to pull. So, this Christmas season I’m not going to get upset with the whole charade.

I’m going to join in the "Christmas ® spirit" and play along. Instead of bikes and Gameboys, I’ll encourage every little delusional, misinformed kid I see to ask Santa for what they really want.

"Ask Santa for ice cream for breakfast every day. Ask him for a flying broom like Harry Potter. Ask him for a pet unicorn to ride to school."

"If you believe in Santa, he’ll bring you everything you ask for. If he doesn’t then he just doesn’t love you because you were naughty. If your parents got divorced this year, ask Santa to put your family back together. He’ll do it unless it was your fault."

"And, just remember, Santa is always watching you. If someone you don’t know offers you sweets, you’d better be nice to him. It could be Santa Claus in disguise. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake. Especially to old men with candy."

Sometimes, if you can’t stop a thing, you just have to push it full steam ahead and hope you drive it til it flies off the rails. Use your opponent’s strength against himself. It’s sort of a judo thing.

1st Post Since Hurricane Ike Kicked My Ass

2008-10-02T11:52:00.001-05:00

This is the official first post to the blog since Hurricane Ike came through, but seeing as how I just got the last of my inoperative utilities up and working at the end of last week, writing has been a low priority. So, let’s go back, back in time, back to around this time of year four years ago in a hotly debated little contest known as "Bush v. Kerry." Ah, yes. It went a little something like this . . .

I am out at a polling place close to my house voting early. I am performing my civic duty. Along with about a couple of hundred other cattle.

I call us cattle because there are so many of us we have been herded into one of those winding line formations. I have been here 15 minutes and am only in the third leg of a six-leg line. At least there are only six legs I can see. The end of leg six snakes around a partition, so I could be almost halfway there or just at the beginning.

We are also cows because the sound of the crowd is one of those soft, murmuring constant dins that resembles nothing so much as the sedate mooing of penned bovines.

You know that people are saying actual words, but they are all indiscernible except for the snippets of conversation you catch as you pass by when the line moves ". . . don’t really worry. He’s eaten cat food before . . . " — "Are you serious?!" — ". . . usually calmer in the morning . . . " — ". . . wish I had brought a book!" — ". . . gotta’ get back to work before . . . " — ". . . brought a book . . . " — ". . . been divorced longer than you are old . . . " — "Why didn’t I bring . . . " — ". . . should’ve brought . . . " — ". . . wish I had brought a book!"

Fortunately, I did bring a book. Dave Eggers’ A Pretentious Work of Inconceivable Self-Absorption. Don’t even get me started on him.

I don’t even know why I’m forcing myself to finish it. This is like the fifth time I’ve checked it out, and I’m only on page 122. I just have to keep reminding myself whenever I get especially pissed at the book that he was only a kind in his early 20s when he wrote this. It’s starting to get better, though, or maybe it’s just wearing me down.

Oh! And the b.o.! I forgot to mention that when describing this early voting scene.

The b.o., like the noise, is ever-present but easily ignored until you sidle up right next to one of the carriers. Then it kicks you right in the face and it makes you wonder: "Waitaminute! Am I one of the so-called unwashed masses?"

I mean do people who aren’t even competent enough to choose the right deodorant really possess the capability of choosing the next Leader of the Free World? Anyway, onward to cast my ballot.

A Disappointing Follow-Up To Season 1

2008-09-09T04:49:00.002-05:00

Aaron McGruder's thinly veiled self hate from Season 1 has devolved into a full-blown call for self destruction here in Season 2. The insightfulness and humor that made the first season so funny are gone, replaced by harsh invective and boundary-pushing for the sake of seeing how much the producers can get away with.

The first season of Boondocks was freer and smarter than the strip and slowly won me over. I looked forward to Season 2, but after watching it am sorely disappointed in the wasted potential. There are a few funny moments spread throughout these three discs, but they don't make up for the rest of the garbage on display. And the social criticism is all but gone.

The stand out episode of this collection is Invasion of the Katrinians, a well-played, funny, accurate appraisal of the fallout from Hurricane Katrina. In this episode Granddad and the boys take in some extended family from New Orleans. This one episode lampoons everything from bleeding heart do-gooders to the misinterpreting media to the so called "victims" who might not be above a little opportunism in the face of tragedy.

Unfortunately, the rest of the episodes are typified by The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show, an episode which looks like it actually mirrors the producers' motivations. In it, BET and a stand-in for Reginald Hudlin (President of Entertainment for BET and executive producer of the Boondocks) seek to air a television series so vile and destructive to the African-American image that it actually hastens the destruction of Blacks in America. Sadly, the plot line for this episode doesn't seem to be too far away from the reality of the Boondocks: Season 2.

***

Put Your Butt In The Pew And Shut Up

2008-09-04T11:18:00.001-05:00

I believe that children should attend church services regularly. And not just for the spiritual indoctrination. Because the way your forefathers worshipped God may not be the way you choose to worship Him. What to do with his immortal soul is each individual’s choice.

A very solid reason I believe children should be made to attend services is so that they learn how to comport themselves in a manner which is respectable and respectful to all. Having to sit still, be quiet, and pay attention via participation in communal ritual (and having to do it all while dressed to the nines) is excellent training for knowing how to properly behave when and where you are called upon to do so, be it on a job interview, handling finances in a public arena, or making a good first impression on your possible future in-laws.

Not only are accurate religious teachings good for your soul, but the custom of churchgoing is also beneficial to your outward carriage. Whether or not you end up accepting God, going to a good church helps teach you that there is something beyond yourself of which you are only a part. And it teaches you how to deal with that.

And popping in twice a year at Christmas and Easter don’t cut it. You’ve got to go every week. You’ve got to get those kids into a rhythm.

What do they say? "Practice makes perfect." Too true. Too true.

Once a child becomes accustomed to a thing, it will become second nature to him, as easy as walking, talking, or reading. Proverbs 22:6 sums it up best.

***

How To "Retire" Early

2008-08-27T10:18:00.007-05:00

Fuck retirement! All the idle fuckers seek early retirement. You constantly hear the refrain to plan for your retirement.

I don’t want to retire. I’m not suited for it. I want to work until I die. I just want to die working at something I enjoy rather than something I abhor. I mean, just look at the numbers.

The average life expectancy for an American (barring race, gender, socioeconomic status, and all that other malarkey) is 78 years. The age of retirement is generally agreed upon to be 65 years old. Now the age at which you are expected to graduate from college and enter the workforce is (and I’m being extremely generous here) 22 years old.

So, by the numbers, your expected length of retirement is 13 years. Your expected years of labor to reach that retirement is 43 years. So, that is roughly three times as long that you are expected to work and toil as you are expected to devote to idlesse.

Here’s where I might shock you. That doesn’t seem unfair. It seems perfectly beyond reason. The idea of "earning" idleness is such an amazing, absurd aberration of nature that I fully support it for the sheer entertainment value of the whole concept.

Here’s the thing, though. I’ll buy into the collective delusion of retirement as a right of life, but insist on some stipulations in the unwritten rules if I am expected to play along. After all, I play to win and will exploit every loophole of reason, physics, and imagination to do so.

So, I will accept your three-to-one trade off, but I don’t want it in one deferred payment lump sum. I want to spread it out for the rest of my life.

I will gladly work for the rest of my life at gainful employment if I am allowed one week off for every three weeks at work. It’s the same ratio of toil to leisure (3 to 1) so that makes it, by the rules, fair. I’ll even forego you putting any contribution into my 401(k) or IRA or whatever seeing as how I won’t be using one.

This means that the length of labor will be extended to 56 years, but that’s alright because I bet that my 56 years will be more fulfilling than your 43. Also, it works in my favor. Here’s how:

Let’s say I keel over at 65 like a good Black man is supposed to do in this country. In that scenario, I’ve put in the full 43 years of work and gotten 0 of the years devoted to rest. Seems like a shit deal if you ask me.

Now, go with my proposition and the whole deal works out a little differently (and a lot more satisfactorily). Drop dead at 65 while living the 3-to-1 installment plan. That means that over the 43 years I was employed from 22 to 65 I actually only "worked" 32 years and "enjoyed" 11 years of retirement.

Not only did I get 11 years more than the 0 I would have gotten by playing by the accepted rules but I stiffed the man of one-quarter professional lifetime’s worth of toil. Fuck you, Mr. Charlie.

This is definitely a theory I need to work into action.

***

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Lowering The Bar

2008-08-21T14:21:00.002-05:00

I think I’ve finally got it figured out, how to make myself do the actual writing part of writing. You have to have a reasonable work ethic to make yourself sit and funnel your great ideas and interesting experiences into actual words on paper. I’ve found that I’ve always been able to force myself to work best when I set limits for myself.

I’ve found that page limits, for instance five pages a day, work better than time limits, say an hour at a time. They work so well because I usually find that once I get going I start flowing freely and blasting through the work. Those five pages easily become eleven; that hour works its way into three or four.

And even when I don’t surpass (or even sometimes meet) my minimum that’s okay because I know it wasn’t due to procrastination. Doing the work is no problem. It’s getting started that’s the bitch.

No matter how well I know they work, it seems that whatever minimums I set for myself are always too stringent. I wouldn’t call it laziness. I suppose I’m just rebellious/antiauthoritarian to a fault, determined to buck the rules even when I’m the one who set them.

So, I’ve determined that the optimum limit for myself is 1 page a day. One page! You can’t do any less than that without doing nothing.

I can knock one page out in my sleep. Hell, this entry is probably going to end up going over a page. And since I have a verifiable habit of going above and beyond the daily recommended dosage (for many things, good and bad) I’m almost assuredly going to do more than I set out to do.

Think about the drive to continue and the admitted ego boost (no matter how undeserved) would be provided by the fact that two pages in one day would be a 100% increase in productivity. One page a day. Yeah, I’m liking the sound of this.

The bar is set low, but I think I can do it.

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Meditation On Monogamy Vis-À-Vis Meanderings On A Completely Hypothetical Condition

2008-08-16T10:21:00.002-05:00

Here’s the problem with monogamy. Let’s say you’re in a mono relationship with a woman with long hair and large breasts. These are your default. You enjoy them and usually want them.

Now, let’s say you see a sweet little thing with short hair and small, perky breasts. You’d love to fuck her. Not because you’ve fallen in love with her or because you want to leave your partner or even because you want to be with Miss Short Hair-Perky Tits beyond just the experience of fucking one another.

However, you can’t fuck her. Why not? Is she unwilling? Oh, no. She’s all for it.

No, you can’t fuck her because some other woman who wouldn’t even be involved in the action says you’re not allowed to fuck anybody else but her. So, what are your options? You could have your main squeeze cut her hair short in the style of the one you want to fuck, but then the problem arises that you have changed the essential make-up of the one you love and want to fuck on a consistent basis.

You only want to have sex with this new girl for as many times as it’s enjoyable. Tomorrow night you’ll want to get back into long hair and large breasts. If your LTR has cropped her do short, that’s out the window. So, you could always get her to wear a wig, but then you’d have to get past the distraction of the fact that you’re having sex with someone who is wearing a wig.

Okay. So you find some way to get past the hair thing, there’s still the dilemma of the breasts. There’s no way you can satisfactorily handle that one. Plus, modifying the characteristics of your main squeeze to satisfy the primary attractors to the newness (short hair, small tits) will still deprive you of the actual experience of fucking someone new.

Perhaps, you’ve become accustomed to the rhythms and repertoire of your mate in the bedroom. Maybe this new girl fucks like a tiger. Maybe she knows tricks with muscle control that your long-term partner has never even heard of.

Maybe she lies there limp and unresponsive like a cold dead fish. The point is not whether it will be good or bad. The point is that it will be different.

But, thanks to monotony — oops! "monogamy" you’ll never find out whether this new girl is a tiger or a fish. That’s the problem with monogamy, it restricts your scope of experience and limits your development as a fully well rounded human being.

Of course there’s always some small consolation when you actually speak to Ms. Perky Tits and you find out that she’s a pretentious, vegetarian, retro-hipster who’s into Vivian Leigh movies for all the wrong reasons and stinks of sandalwood. Then you can conclude that, eh, you didn’t really want to fuck her anyway.

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What If This Is Heaven?

2008-08-08T14:56:00.001-05:00

What if you won the lottery tomorrow? Everybody thinks that if they just won the lottery that everything would be fine. They actually believe that they’d be off doing grand, wonderful things.

No, they wouldn’t. They would be doing the exact same thing, except with more money.

Better yet, what if this is Heaven? Let’s say you believe in God and Heaven and Hell and the afterlife and the whole shebang. What if you died tomorrow?

Okay, you’re up in Heaven. What do you do now? Have you given any thought to it?

You’re going to be spending the rest of eternity there. Eternity, that’s a mighty long time. How are you going to fill all the time?

Do you think that Heaven has an activities director? No, of course not. Heaven is going to be full of people who know how to amuse themselves.

So, think about this life as preparation for Heaven. There are very few things in this world that you absolutely have to do. You have to eat. You have to sleep.

There are other various ancillary activities that you should do: wash laundry, go to work, shower, shave, etc. Still in all there are vast swaths of unincorporated time in one’s life available with which to do what you will. If you’re not engaged in any of the aforementioned activities that you have to do, do what you want.

There’s no one stopping you. By the same token there’s no one encouraging you either. Besides if you’re not doing what you want to do, there are plenty of others out there who will find things for you to do.

After all, that’s why one of the favorite sayings of unimaginative labor managers is "If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean." And it’ll be hard for you to say no because it’s not like you’re doing anything. Best to find something to do that you want before you end up having to do something that you don’t want. Idle hands and all that, you know.

Just remember, it’s good practice for Heaven.

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If You Can't Stand To Be Hated You Don't Deserve To Be Loved

2008-08-06T08:24:00.002-05:00

It truly amuses me to discover how many people cannot fathom that they could be hated. They’re all like "Why me? Why would you hate me?" Why not you? What makes you so special?

Take a guy like me, for instance. I’m a great guy. And I don’t mind admitting it. As well I know that there is a whole admiration society of people out there who feel the same way.

There are people out there whom, when I walk into a room, light up because they realize their day is about to be made. That realization firmly in place, I also realize that there are people out there who hate my guts.

There are people out there who don’t even know me and can’t stand me. I know that there are even some people who have heard second-hand stories about me and have decided that I am worthless. And I can live with that.

Does it bother me? Maybe, sometimes. But it doesn’t surprise me one bit.

I don’t believe that I’m worthy of hate, but I don’t delude myself into believing that there’s nobody else out there who feels differently. Some people just don’t know me well enough. Some people know me too well.

You just can’t let the opinions of others get too deeply under your skin. People’s hearts are like lifeboats. Some people have great big capacious lifeboats with room for many. Some have teeny, tiny lifeboats that can fit maybe two, three tops. Some people don’t even have a lifeboat for themselves; they’re just adrift at sea clinging to a piece of driftwood.

There is not going to be room for you in everybody’s vessel. But that’s okay because no matter how many craft you get turned away from there is always going to be that one person at least who says, "Climb aboard! I’ve been saving a seat for you."

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Lansing State Journal: Schneider: Ride to laundromat lands cabbie on sold-out stage

2006-07-02T11:58:00.004-05:00

Lansing State Journal: Schneider: Ride to laundromat lands cabbie on sold-out stage

Not only an interesting and incredible true story, but reason enough to give Ben Folds an ear despite his embarassing endorsement of the horrendous CBS grab for the youth market known as Love Monkey.

Only an artist who is willing to take chances and extend generosity such as this could be innovative enough to completely shun the mainstream method of hit-making in favor of creating art.

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DenverPost.com - Student hideaway: The 31-year jig is up

2006-06-29T14:04:00.005-05:00

DenverPost.com - Student hideaway: The 31-year jig is up

These rat-fink journos ruined a cool tradition at this school. However, they were doing exactly what they were supposed to do.

They impartially published facts of interest to the general public (the school's students at large, faculty, and administration). This is exactly what we want reporters to do, undeterred by the possible repercussions. Otherwise, we'd have media filled to the brim with nothing but press releases by government, business, and hucksters which we would all have to accept at face value.

These kids investigated and published the facts. Kudos to them for upholding the principles of good journalism; thumbs-down to them for fucking it up for the drama kids.

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Why A Russian Is The Greatest American Hero

2006-06-17T23:22:00.005-05:00

Stanislav Petrov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is incredible. I was completely unaware of this incident in history. In 1983 I was 9 years old and scared to (almost) death of dying in a nuclear war thanks to the propaganda of my school and the media and the paranoia of my fellow Americans induced by our government and media. Finding out that my fears weren't entirely irrational almost made me wet my pants.

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Legalize It?

2006-06-11T21:13:00.004-05:00

Anyone whose mind is made up before he hears the argument is a fool. Drugs are bad. I know this to be true, from research and other first-hand recollections from others. Still, knowing this does not mean that I will turn a deaf ear to a case made for legalizing all drugs.

I have not heard an honest, unbiased, nor reasonable justification made for it yet. However, I am not close-minded enough to believe that just because I have a piece of the puzzle that I have already seen the whole picture. A wise man knows first that he does not know all.

Read: Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar
Watch: Monster directed by Patty Jenkins
Listen To: Veni Vidi Vicious by the Hives

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Social Engineering To Maximize Partying

2006-06-05T20:39:00.005-05:00

Austin has its 6th Street. New Orleans has its Bourbon Street. How does a city go about creating an entertainment district/corridor like that? It can’t just be by chance. There have got to be social and economic structures in place surrounding those areas that make them the premier party places that they are. So city engineers should be able to reverse engineer what goes on around those spots and help those same elements come into place in almost any mid- to large-size American city.

Sure, Austin and NOLA are unique cities with big tourist industries, and it would be hard to recreate the climate of either city-wide anywhere but there. Yet, I think it’s not the whole city that has to do with the successes of those streets.

I think if you can shape the neighborhood (geographically and community-wise) immediately surrounding the area you wish to make a destination it can work. I’d like to find out what makes these streets tick and bring it to Houston.

Read: Old School by Tobias Wolff
Watch: Blazing Saddles directed by Mel Brooks
Listen To: Morning View by Incubus

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What To Do With Your Pokemon Cards

2006-05-30T17:57:00.008-05:00

This is for all you kids who loved to collect, play with, and trade Pokemon cards, but are now old enough to see the folly of your ways. (And for all those kids' parents who mistakenly thought you'd be able to pay for your son's community college classes with those cards.)

DO NOT take them to a comic book shop. DO NOT call them asking if they buy Pokemon cards. DO NOT walk into the store and pussyfoot around the topic with a useless exchange like the following:

YOU: "Do you guys sell cards?"

Overworked Snobbish Comic Geek: "Yes."

YOU: "Do you guys have any Pokemon cards?"

O.S.C.G.: "I think we've got a few left." blows the dust off an unopened box of Ex Delta Species boosters "Yeah, here we go."

YOU: "You sell singles?"

O.S.C.G.: "Nah, we don't have singles any more."

YOU: "Oh. Um. I've got some cards. Um... Can you tell me how much you'd give me for 'em?"

DO NOT do that. You will get offered nothing for them. You will get offered less than nothing for them. You will get offered a steaming heap of derision for wasting their time as soon as you walk out the door.

All Pokemon cards have found their final destination, your stuffed binder full of holofoil, super-rare goodness. Don't despair, though. There is something you can do to cut your losses: Wait. Then keep waiting. Nostalgia runs in about twenty year cycles. So, stick those cards in the 9-pocket sleeves you bought, put them in your binder, shove them in the back of your closet, then forget about them.

Go have a real life. Go outside and play. Go ride your bike. Go kiss girls. . . or boys if that turns out to be your thing. Go read a book, maybe two. Then, after fifteen or so more years you and your college buddies can sit around, have a few beers, and have the following exchange:

Drunk College Buddy: “Man, I saw this punk yesterday with a Pikachu t-shirt on.”

YOU: “Retro poseurs! I hate these kids, with their chain wallets and their Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts. We invented that style!”

D.C.B.: “Exactly! The kid probably wouldn't even know who the hell Team Rocket is. I used to have all those damn cards. For some reason I believed I ‘HAD TO CATCH 'EM ALL!’ I'd take them around to those saintly comic book dealers and pester them with my worthless crap. Then my mom threw 'em out.”

YOU: “Actually, I think I still have mine.” blows the dust off an old binder buried under Maxims and Playboys “Yeah, here we go.”

D.C.B.: “No fuckin' way! Charizard! Dude, I'll give you 100 euros for that.”

And that is what you do with your Pokemon cards. As for Yu-Gi-Oh!, trash that shit. They’re worthless.

Read: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Watch: Dogtown and Z-Boys directed by Stacy Peralta
Listen To: Rain Dogs by Tom Waits

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Another Austin Post

2006-05-28T21:21:00.004-05:00

So last night I come back to the hostel after deeming Austin's famed 6th Street a bust. What do you know? Just as I'm about to turn in, some kid comes up and asks if I want to go out on the pier and have some beers with a few of the other residents. I take him up on it and end up hanging out till like 4 in the morning.

That's a cool thing about hostels: there always seem to be at least a few people who can't wait to make your acquaintance. And since everybody's usually from a different place it's a nice exchange about cultural differences. And if you're lucky, there's a chance that there'll be a chick from some Eastern bloc European country and you can make fun of her obsession with "American blue jeans."

Read: Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Watch: Amadeus directed by Milos Forman
Listen To: The Big Lebowski Soundtrack by Various Artists

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Why I Hate Cargo Pants

2006-05-27T16:35:00.004-05:00

I’ve got a pair. They're comfortable and having a bunch of pockets is handy. However, this is why I hate them. Because I keep losing things on my person.

I don't know how many times I've been whipped into a near panic because I checked left top pocket instead of right middle pocket for something. For instance, I'm walking out of Starbucks this morning and reach into my hip pocket for my keys. Oh, shit! Where are my keys?

I reach in the opposite pocket. No keys. Uh-oh. I pat myself down like I'm searching for a concealed weapon at an airport checkpoint. I reach into the right pocket on the front of my leg. No keys! Did I lock them in the truck? Damn, I hope I didn't lock them in the truck. Now I'm gonna' have to call for a locksmith!

I reach into the left pocket on the front of my leg. Oh, there they are. Panic subsides. That's right. I forgot that I moved them from their regular pocket so I could put my wallet there. Oh, shit! Where's my wallet?

Read: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer
Watch: American Pimp directed by the Hughes Brothers
Listen To: She Wants Revenge by She Wants Revenge

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Better Than An Academy Award

2006-04-23T20:27:00.009-05:00

Actors are key. That’s why Reagan won the White House and got to shape the political landscape of the country and, in so doing, the entire world. Reagan (a divorced Hollywood star who didn’t even go to church) somehow convinced the God-fearing moral folk of middle America that his sunny platitudes were the way to go against that fine God-fearing Carter fellow.

How did he do it? Well, he was an actor. He was trained and rewarded for the art of leading the masses to believe a lie. — Hell, even I bought into the fallacy while growing up that he was the greatest (read: most effective) American president — How else can you explain Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger?

So people like Tom Cruise and Tim Robbins are on the right track, but they’re going about it the wrong way. If you can convince a well-liked actor to take up a cause and champion it on the platform of his popularity rather than on his "informed insightfulness" you can easily sway the public to go along.

Long story short? So long as he stays on track with what he’s currently doing and doesn’t get any more radical, I’m thinking President George Clooney in 2020. Sadly, that may mean a political appointment for Julia Roberts, possibly even a cabinet position.

Don’t laugh. There have been darker horses. Who thought the gun-wielding muscle-brain from Predator would go on to rule a state body? You guess which one I’m talking about.

Read: About A Boy by Nick Hornby
Watch: Best In Show directed by Christopher Guest
Listen To: Van Hunt by Van Hunt

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Hiatus Over

2006-04-11T09:06:00.009-05:00

This dispatch was made during my time away from home in the past two months:

Okay, so I’ve been in Austin since Friday, and it’s going alright. Yesterday I had an eventful, but calm, day. I woke up around 8, had breakfast at the Kerbey Lane, went to a comic book shop (Austin Books, very nice. They had tons of Incredible Hulk #92, but the clerk limited me to 2.), did some bike-riding from the hostel to 6th Street, saw the bats on Congress at sunset, and went to an incredible (!) show by Buddy Guy at Stubb’s. So, much like the Simpsons, this lead-up has nothing to do with the actual post.

I’ve been having a fine time in our state capital, but something is missing, something I didn’t know was gone until this morning. It’s the rage. The rage is all gone. I haven’t been mad since I left Houston Friday morning. That’s very strange because I get furiously angry and frustrated at least once a day every day.

Last night, before the Buddy Guy show, an inconsiderate guy with an overly friendly wet dog wouldn’t put the beast on a leash, so I had to wait until he was out of the park before I could get to my truck without being mobbed by the animal. Even that was only mildly annoying and soon forgotten. I haven’t felt rotten since a very slight speed trap-induced bout of paranoia driving in on 71 Friday.

This is strange for me. I wonder how I’ll be able to cope when I go home. How long will it take to shatter this manic calm?

Read: The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life by Laurie Notaro
Watch: Samurai Champloo directed by Shinichiro Watanabe
Listen To: Rabbit Fur Coat by Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins

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To Get, To Have, To Be

2006-02-14T19:32:00.010-06:00

Experiences, not things. Things will not enrich your life. The fun of possessions is in the getting, not in the having. A house, a car, jewelry, a high-end audio/video system. Once you have them for any length of time, the newness wears off and so does the pleasure derived from them. A safari, scuba diving, a marathon, losing your virginity. These are things which will enrich you as a person and add to your abilities, knowledge, and wisdom, thus allowing you to enjoy life more.

As well, material items cannot become an intrinsic part of your being. You cannot carry an iPod, a Jaguar XJS, nor a summer beach house with you wherever you go. And, no matter how much you own, you can only drive one car at a time, be in one domicile at any given moment, wear only so many necklaces, rings and watches at once.

An experience, however, creates a memory, an indelible imprint of the activity on your personality. You can pull that up whenever you desire to recall a feeling for private enjoyment or public recollection. I get a much bigger kick from someone recounting his recent trip to India rather than accosting me with all the tedious features of his brand new cell phone.

Encourage your children to do things rather than have things. I need to remind myself of this so as not to fall into the pit of consumerism. I’ve gained, lost, and even regained some of the many things I’ve owned/possessed/been owned by in my lifetime. However, the good times I’ve had out with friends, the women I’ve loved and danced with, all the experiences I’ve had could only have been had at the times I realized them.

Equate material items with money and experiences with time, then never forget that money can always be made, but time can only be lost.

Read: Erasure by Percival Everett
Watch: Grosse Pointe Blank directed by George Armitage
Listen To: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco

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Not Necessarily the News

2006-01-29T12:16:00.005-06:00

I’m so sad that the news is so meaningless. The stories are useless, mindless entertainment. The news simply shows us car chases, fires, sports games, and scary stories. The only useful info on the tube is weather and traffic.

News reports tell us about crooked lobbyists (Is that a redundancy?) and partisan bickering on the level of a high school feud, but it doesn’t show us how our government is run. We get gossip and intimate details on the doings of stars and box-office totals, but we receive scant appreciation, criticism, and exploration of art and media.

And don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about specialized shows like talk shows (be they of the Springer, Leno, or Oprah variety) or all these bastard children of Entertainment Tonight. Their purpose is to provide a diversion from what is important. However, the News (capital N) is supposed to tell us about the world in which we live. It is supposed to equip us with the knowledge to make informed decisions about what we will do to, with, and for ourselves and one another. I just don’t see it doing that.

Read: Naked by David Sedaris
Watch: Batman Begins directed by Christopher Nolan
Listen To: Black Music for White People by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

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The Tarzan Syndrome

2006-01-25T16:33:00.007-06:00

Here’s what trips me out. Why is it that every significant Hollywood movie about Black people can’t just be about the Black people? It’s got to be about the White people who saved the Black people and showed them how to be human beings of worth. Glory, Mississippi Burning, even Biko. Come on! Stephen Biko is reduced to a supporting character in his own biopic! Well, at least that’s better than poor Medgar Evers. Apparently his life story was about the battle between Alec Baldwin and James Woods.

The one movie I can point to in recent memory that gets it just right isn’t even about American Blacks, although we are the ones who should be crying out the loudest about this cinematic injustice.

The movie that gets it right is Hotel Rwanda. The movie is not about U.N. forces come to save the poor non-self-reliant savages. It is not (thankfully and surprisingly atypically) about the intrepid young White American reporter who brings the plight of the Tutsis to the attention of the (White, Western) international community, thereby saving the helpless Africans while at the same time securing the heart and loins of the White British humanitarian aid worker.

No, the movie was about Paul Rusesabagina and how he helped to save thousands of Rwandans from genocide. The movie has plenty of White characters, but they are neither portrayed as the saviors or villains of this piece. They are, as should be the case with any pic about Black folk made today, integral to the story (Hutus and Tutsis would not have even been driven to those ends without the influence of White European settlers) but tangential to its telling (best embodied by Nick Nolte in, sadly, his most substantial role and capable performance in years). Even my seven year-old son was enthralled with the picture.

We need more films like Hotel Rwanda and fewer of the typical Hollywood fare concerning Black stories, typified by the dreaded Tarzan syndrome. Whiteboy gets dropped into the heart of deepest, darkest Africa and ends up running the continent. Not only is he better than any native-born Black African, but even the animals defer to him. Rice would have us believe that not only is Caucasian genetic material heartier and more adaptable than anything that could come from a Negroid, but also (and here’s the real slap in the face!) that even apes are more effective parents than Blacks.

I’d love to see a mythology built around a young African orphan raised by mountain goats and growing up to be the revered and undefeatable barefoot-skiing protector of Switzerland. Unfortunately, Paul Mooney was right. I am in my lifetime more likely to see the mega-budgeted film The Last Nigger On Earth starring Tom Hanks.

Read: Beneath the Underdog by Charles Mingus
Watch: 25th Hour (2002) directed by Spike Lee
Listen To: DecksandDrumsandRockandRoll by Propellerheads

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Social Retards

2005-12-02T19:46:00.004-06:00

I can understand the derision that comes along with not knowing certain obvious, common knowledge facts within certain sects. Especially, when those sects are comprised of socially maladjusted fanboys who have nothing but useless factoids to make their lives complete. What I don't understand is expecting people outside of your limited pathetic circle to understand the obscure crap you spout. We get fanboys all the time who go off naming characters, plotlines, and accessories of comics, toys, games, anime (oh, the anime geeks are the worst!) as if it's all common knowledge to the average man. What is their problem? I mean, a chess master wouldn't just start talking about defenses and famous matches to the guy behind the counter at Stop N Go.

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Top 10 Things I Hate

2005-11-20T18:04:00.005-06:00

	10. Tabloid Television (Extra, The Insider, etc.) Sensationalistic celebrity sycophancy and rumor-mongering masquerading as journalism; these bastard children of Entertainment Tonight make you want to get as drunk as Pat O'Brien just to tolerate them.
	9. Professional Sports (NFL / NBA / MLB / PGA, etc.) If I could get seven figures a year just to play with my balls, I'd start to juice up on steroids too.
	8. Wiggers This goes for anybody, any color who knows more about 50 Cent than Frederick Douglass. Everybody wanna' be a nigger, but nobody wanna' be a nigger - What up with that, yo?
	7. Viagra / Cialis / Levitra Now healthy guys have to compete for the same amount of women against guys who natural selection already deemed unworthy of reproducing - As a matter of fact, let's just make it all prescription drugs with television ads.
	6. Posthumous Tupac (2Pac) Albums Dammit! Let the man rest/roast in peace!
	5. Commercial Radio The only thing worse than the limited, repetitive music selection is the so-called on-air personalities (once known as DJs); if the first thing I hear when I turn to a station is a bunch of morons laughing, I put in a CD.
	4. TIE: Democrats and Republicans "This OR That" is not a choice. That's why I'm voting for Kinky Friedman if he can get on the ballot.
	3. Myself I'm my own worst critic, so there's nothing you can say that would be any worse than I've already subjected myself to. . . though you're welcome to try.
	2. Bad Drivers Including, but not limited to: tailgaters, those who don't use their signals, those who don't turn right on red, those who pay more attention to their cell-phones than the road, 99% of those behind the wheel of a Lexus, and 100% of those smug Prius-driving bastards.
	1. Faux Lesbians Will immature little girls with tattoos over their ass-cracks please stop trying to titillate immature little boys with barbed-wire tattoos by kissing your female friends? To paraphrase a script-writer who gets paid much more than me to say it so much better: If you don't eat pussy, you're not a dyke!
	0. Top Ten Lists They're lame, gratuitous, and lazy! Ten is a nice round number, but life is never that neat. Life is not an exact equation of only 10 items; life is an essay question with lots of run-on sentences.

WHEW! Well, I'm pooped! That little spurt of creativity took almost a whole minute per entry. So, in the grand traditions of American self-satisfaction and 21st century laziness, I will now take a break until after the holidays. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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