Fido? Fughtabouit...

How many of y'all consider yourselves eco-friendly?

You worry about your car's gas mileage not because it costs you money but because it's better for the Earth. You recycle regularly, you pick clothes based on their impact on the Earth. You ponder your family's carbon footprint. You are a good Earthling.

Now, if that describes you, answer one more question for me. Do you own a dog?

If you do, then I want to direct your attention to this story.

Seems that according to this study, you and your little furry friend are destroying the world. I know you thought it was enough to have your little mulch garden, but apparently if you really cared about Mother Earth you'd be eating the dog, not taking him for walks.

Frankly this story cracks me up. I don't have a serious post, I just find it funny. I have a friend who is an avid dog lover and when I forwarded her this link she was coming up with all sorts of reasons why it was bogus. Dissecting the sources, analyzing the methodology. Now, if I send her a link about how people with dogs live longer, she just takes it at face value and tells me I need to get a four-legged freeloader myself. Hell, she even threatened to buy my kids one as a "surprise" one Christmas.

I would have had to kill her.

Anyway, before y'all get the wrong idea, I don't hate dogs. In fact, I had some serious love for the furry bastards back in the day. But, nowadays things seem to have taken a turn towards the absurd. Doggie clothes, doggie spas, doggie everything. I mean, dogs are the distant cousins of wolves, do they really need heated beds and gourmet dog food?

I wasn't surprised when I saw the news about dogs killing the world because most folks dote on their canines like other people dote on their children. So, dogs are like poorly trained babies who poo and eat more.

And they are ruining the world.

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Make Me Laugh

Word on the street is that I'm a sourpuss.

Recently, a friend of mine sent me this article, and encouraged me to add the interviewer to the "the list."

For the ignorant, "the list" is the mythical list of racists and bigots black people walk around with in their heads. Well, at least this black person.

Anyway, after I checked out the interview I decided I shared her sentiments. I then passed along the interview to another friend of mine.

Now, this guy and I often disagree on stuff, so when I pass stuff to him it's mainly because I want a different perspective to shake myself up. I like to force myself to defend and consider all my positions so that I can be comfortable explaining why I believe what I believe. I think I told y'all about this compulsion before.

Anyway, this friend tells me that I'm be too sensitive about the article, and I've missed the point. Mainly, the interview is for laughs, and there is nothing sinister about it. He chided me for looking for a reason to be offended.

This ain't a new thing. Those of y'all who have been following the blog for a while know I've discussed sensitivity and humor.

My friend's comments made me think. Have I lost my funny bone? Has my newfound pledge to treat folks the way I want them to treat me, or more importantly, the way they would like to be treated, turned me into a simp? A boring, bland mush of unfunny?

I don't think so.

I like humor, and I can laugh at stuff that's risque. I think Dave Chappelle was a freaking genius.

That said, I'm tired of this new breed of comedy that focuses on demeaning folks for laughs. I'm tired of snarky blogs that poke fun at any and everything and turn away complaints by hiding behind the stock response of "Lighten up." Yes, being intelligent is nice, but why do so many folks need to reaffirm their intelligence by taunting others? Why is that funny?

I wrote a while back about the lack of ass whippings in the world. I stand by that sentiment. While I don't like using violence to solve problems, I cannot deny the fact that violence can be a great deterrent. When I was growing up children talked about each other all the time, but there was always the understanding that things could get physical if you crossed the wrong line.

For some cats that was a momma joke, for other cats it was something else. No matter what, everybody understood that unless we were bosom buddies, you had better be careful with your mouth if you weren't ready to fight.

This interview reminded me that without checks and balances things get out of hand. In my opinion, the interviewer was lazy, and relied on stereotypes and snark instead of actually working for real laughs.

It wasn't funny at all.








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Can I Still Laugh?

Things have been a little serious around here.

Sure, I try to pack a little humor into every post, but a lot of my recent topics have been kind of serious. In fact, when I look at my life these days, I tend to be serious a lot more than I was a few years ago.

Now some of that is just the natural maturing process. At a certain point, fart jokes, semen jokes and general stupidity lose some of their luster. Plus, I have a son now, and that means watching my behavior and my humor to make sure I don't lead him down the wrong path.

But, sometimes I wonder if my sense of humor has atrophied. I seem to find so few things funny, particularly things that make other people bust a gut. Jokes that traffic on common stereotypes about white people, black people, Asians or Hispanics seem so trite. I often find myself explaining to people exactly why their jokes aren't funny, which is always a mood killer.

This kinda bums me out.

I used to be funny. Actually, people still tell me that I'm hilarious on occasion. But, I've started to feel guilty that so many of my jokes depend on dirty language or crude jesting. It makes me feel like I'm failing in my mission to lead a Christian life because I'm not always certain God would approve of my topics of conversation.

It feels like I'm trying to forge a path where I can still jest and joke, but without the crudeness and foulness that has dominated my humor in the past. The funny thing is, while it's hard for me to let go of those old types of humor when it comes to my actions, I've already let go of them when it comes to what I actually find funny in other people. I can still appreciate Eddie Murphy's "Delirious," but it's getting harder and harder.

And let's not even discuss this new "snark" movement which seems to be comedy based on the assumption of superiority. That doesn't work for me because I'm constantly trying to remind myself that I'm not superior. I don't want to be better than other people, I just want to be a better version of me.

Anyway, this post went in a totally different direction than I planned. Originally I wanted to discuss the fact that we all need to lighten up and find the humor in the world around us. Instead, I've managed to find even more reasons to be serious and gloomy.

Can anybody offer me some help?


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My Bar is Low

I read this story that had me chuckling the other day.

It was about President Obama attending a Wizards game and getting into a friendly trash talking match with one of the fans sitting near courtside. The heckler, although he said he wasn't really "heckling" the president, was actually wearing one of those bootleg Obama t-shirts that are so popular among black folks. Anyway, the Wizards eventually smashed Obama's team the Bulls, and the guy says that going back and forth with the president was easily one of the most important moments of his life.

That's so cool. (Y'all can check out the full story here.)

I told that anecdote because it made me think about way Obama affects folks, particularly black folks. I've written about it many times, but every once in a while I get reminded of how proud black people are of Obama, and how invested they are in his success. You can almost feel the emotional connection people have to this man they have never met in their lives, the way they feel empowered by his accomplishments. In addition, it's impossible to ignore how many black folks want him to do well.

Which brings me to my point.

I would like to see Obama succeed, mainly because he's the first black president, but also because I live in America and if he fails, my life is going to get a lot more difficult. Yet, I realized recently that my criteria for his success have changed recently.

See, during the election, I kind of wanted him to right all the wrongs of the last eight years and make America into the country I know it has the potential to be. But, that's changed.

Now I just want him to prevent the collapse of civilization.

I'm not saying that's going to be easy, considering all the problems we have in this country, but y'all do have to admit that's definitely not setting the bar too high. I mean, I'm not worried about universal healthcare, or prison reforms, or the black family structure. I just don't want the world to turn into what Octavia Butler described in the Parable of the Sower.

Some folks may claim that I'm moving the goalposts, that I'm giving Obama a pass on his campaign promises and that I'n not being fair or smart. Those people may be right. But, I'm not worried about what they think.

The world is rapidly spinning out of control and I'm not really interested in testing my mettle in a post-Apocalyptic America. I don't want to find out if I can scrounge for food, or hunt game or protect my family from marauding bands of crazies. I don't want to find my inner Mad Max.

I just want to go to work, get a pay check and live what I consider a normal life. Increasingly, that's beginning to look a lot like paradise.

Y'all think I want too much?

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Nutty Nostalgia

Hollywood legend CLINT EASTWOOD laments the loss of old-fashioned humour in today’s society - insisting he should be able to tell jokes about nationality without fear of people branding him a “racist”. The Dirty Harry star, 79, is adamant that modern culture has become humourless, and accuses younger generations of spending too much time trying to avoid being offensive. He says, “People have lost their sense of humour. In former times we constantly made jokes about different races. You can only tell them today with one hand over your mouth or you will be insulted as a racist.” “I find that ridiculous. In those earlier days every friendly clique had a ‘Sam the Jew’ or ‘Jose the Mexican’ - but we didn’t think anything of it or have a racist thought. It was just normal that we made jokes based on our nationality or ethnicity. That was never a problem. I don’t want to be politically correct. We’re all spending too much time and energy trying to be politically correct about everything.”

Remember when a nigger knew he was nigger and didn't argue about it?

How about when wetbacks picked your fruit, kept their mouths shut and didn't try to vote? Let's not even discuss how the Jews embraced their innate ability to earn money and Asian women didn't mind being submissive.

Remember those good ol' days?

Apparently Clint Eastwood misses the good old days. The days when Dirty Harry could tell a joke about niggers and watermelons and nobody busted his chops about racism. When Pale Riders kept the coloreds in line with nighttime jaunts. Eastwood longs for a simpler time when everybody laughed at jokes about what you say to black men in suits.

Will the defendants please rise.

I don't blame Eastwood. Honestly, if you were an old white millionaire, wouldn't you long for the good ol' days? Before this whole "equality" thing, the world must have seemed like a veritable Utopia for rich white men. You could fuck who you wanted, cheat who you wanted and say anything you damn well pleased. Nobody had the power to make you feel bad about yourself because nobody besides like-minded rich white men had any true power.

Those were the days.

Now, you're stuck in a pansy-ass world where everybody wants you to respect their feelings and treat them as equals. They don't want you to make racist jokes because they don't find them funny. They complain if you make a movie about World War II and conspicuously leave out all the black people.

Wah, wah, wah, all people do is bitch and moan these days.

In the good old days, you could say what you wanted and if people didn't like it they shut their mouths and took it anyway. The coloreds, all of them not just the niggers, knew what side their bread was buttered on, and didn't want to mess up their meal tickets by complaining. If they could only get roles as dope dealers or hoes, they were just happy to work. If they had to shine shoes while you called them "boy", well they shined those shoes with a smile on their faces.

What is the world coming to when a rich white man has to worry about whether other people find his jokes funny? If rich white men have to worry about what other people think, what's the point in being rich and white?

Where are the benefits?

If you can't make a joke about money-hungry Jews or funny-talking Asians, well why make jokes? If you can't make fun of somebody based on gross stereotypes about their race or nationality, what else do you have to work with? Where is the motivation?

Where has yesterday gone?







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Top Ten for the Weekend

As a man, I like lists. So, here are my Top Ten thoughts from this past week for y'all to ponder over the weekend.

1. Monkeys and black people don't go together. If you're making a joke and it involves a monkey and a black person, you're probably going to get called a racist. It doesn't matter if the black person is implied, or if the monkey is really evil. If a black person can be connected through six degrees of separation with your monkey, then don't make the joke.

2. Keep your damn hands to yourself. That's a carryover from last week but it's still relevant this week. Doesn't matter what gender you are, how much you weigh or how angry you might be, hitting is not cool if you don't want to get hit back. Period. Do not depend on men, or women, doing some sort of threat analysis before they respond to your violence. Expect them to beat your ass if you touch them. That's a good rule of thumb for everybody. Expect ass whippings when you touch people. It will make you more cautious and probably a better person.

3. Al Sharpton has a knack for saying good stuff, but he still has a perm. That's about it. Good public speaker, horrible Dark and Lovely.

4. All of your black friends have worked with racists. In fact, if you're black and haven't worked with a racist, then you should run for president in 2016 because you are the luckiest person on the planet. This doesn't mean that all black people deal with racism everyday, or that everybody is a racist. It just means that if you assume that black people automatically leave situations when they spot racism, well you don't know jack shit about black people. Black people have bills like everybody else. Nobody is going to pay our bills just because we can't handle racism. Besides, dealing with racists is good for your brain. It keeps you alert.

5. This stimulus package is massive and I'm still not convinced it's going to work. However, people who voted for George Bush, but oppose the stimulus just because it gives out money, are hypocritical dicks. This country has been feeding at the free money trough for the past eight years. If you didn't speak up before when your guy was in office, I'm going to look askance at your push for fiscal responsibility now. True, you could have had a legitimate change of heart... And Scientology could be a real religion and not a massive scheme concocted by a mediocre science fiction writer.

6. Monkeys again. If you need to sedate your pet with Xanax, it's probably not a pet. It's a ticking time bomb and when it tries to eat you, well, that's YOUR bad.

7. Allen Iverson cut his hair. He also plays on a horrible basketball team. One thing makes me happy, the other one makes me sad. A man over 30-years old can rock cornrows only so long before he looks like a herb. Iverson's innate coolness protected him for years, but even he was starting to crack under the pressure. And I hate Rasheed Wallace.

8. If you have children, love them hard and protect them harder. Too many folks don't give their kids enough love and those children then search in all the wrong places for that love. There are too many of the wrong people who are more then willing to fill a void in your child's life. They will hurt your child more than you can imagine. Don't give them an opportunity.

9. This post-racial utopia is really picking up steam, right?

10. Officer patting down black man: "What do you got there?"
Black man with his hands above his head: "Thaaaat's my penis."
Officer: "That's your penis... Oh... Sorry about that..."


Enjoy your weekend everybody.


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Always Bet on Black

Do y'all remember this movie?

It starred an up and coming Wesley Snipes as a troubled counter-terrorism instructor who had to thwart the diabolical scheme of a plane hijacker. In the film, Snipes was aided by a flight attendant, who he had met earlier during one of his training seminars on how to handle hijackers. It was a fairly entertaining movie, not great, but decent. It also introduced the line I stole for today's blog title.

"Always bet on black."

It seemed like such a cool line back then, and Snipes was a cool brother when he delivered it. He was Hollywood's favorite dark-skinned brother, the perfect combination of overly-dramatized karate moves and a completely jacked up haircut. He was a bad Negro.

Unfortunately, it seems Snipes believed the hype.

I wrote about Snipes getting convicted a while back, and I still feel like he got too much time. But, I had to stifle a little chuckle when I read that article about the recent move by his lawyers.

Snipes is using the Passenger 57 defense.

Seriously, he's saying that his time should be cut short because basically he was the real life Passenger 57. He helped America fight terror, so he should be free.

I just found that funny.

He is betting on stupid.

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Hoes Gotta Eat Too

I know, I know, that title is a fool.

But, man, once y'all read this and this it will make perfect sense to you. Basically, even the market for kittycat is tanking given the current economic crisis.

It's hard out there for pimps and hoes.

I don't know about y'all, but those stories tickled me, particularly the one from the New York Post given that tabloid's ability to combine a few facts and a lot of snark to make an entertaining read. Seriously, if you actually pay attention, the author of that piece quotes very few women, but manages to churn out a story about the state of gold-digging all over New York. That's some old-fashioned reporting right there. (The story about the brothels in Nevada was more depressing, given the fact that those women are actual prostitutes and that's not cute at all.)

I wonder if President-elect Barack Obama has a five-point plan to jumpstart the ho-conomy? Maybe tummy tucks and discounted botox for everyone? What do you do when men rediscover the joys of manual stimulation, and decide that right now it's a buyers' market for vagina?

If these aren't the hardworking Americans we heard about during the campaign, I don't know who is.

Actually, I would assume that if Obama deigned to consider the issue he'd point out that once he gets the regular economy back clicking the sex trade will take care of itself. He's probably right. Once cats can handle groceries and rent, I would expect them to be willing to spend a little extra on some nookie. After all, as KIT often says, the hierarchy in most men's minds goes 1. food 2. shelter 3. vajayjay. And sometimes numbers two and three are reversible.

Yep, I guess those struggling gold diggers and flat-broke hoes are just going to have to hold on and hope for better times like the rest of us. At least they can take solace in the fact that they know their jobs are unlikely to be outsourced and they won't need to re-train.

After all, ho money may be slow money, but it's fo' sho' money.




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Um, If I Were You I Would Duck

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra has balls the size of boulders.

Don't believe me?

Read this story.

Did y'all see that? This cat, who has had his own problems with the law, recently decided that before he left office he was going to indict Vice President Dick Cheney on corruption charges related to abuse in privately-run prisons. Guerra also indicted Alberto Gonzalez and a couple other minor political figures.

That's a brave dude.

We're talking about Dick Cheney, here. The guy who has no problem with torture or releasing the names of CIA operatives to the public. The guy who masterminded the Patriot Act and greatly expanded the powers of the Vice President.

The same Dick Cheney who shot his homeboy in the face and chest with a shotgun and then told the media, in Cartman's voice, "What's the big deal, bitches?"

Yeah, that Dick Cheney. The Geriatric Gatbuster.

Man, I'll admit that I wouldn't eff with Cheney unless I had a gang of politically connected mofos on my team. All that talk swirling around the blogosphere about how Cheney needs to be indicted for his role in torturing terror suspects is just talk. Random folks behind computer screens who wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight. Or indict a Vice President if he spit on them.

Couldn't be me. To put it simply, Dick Cheney is filthy rich and super-connected. He could have my big, black ass in Guantanamo faster than I could say "Jolly Roger." (Shout out to the Somali pirates doing their thing. My homegirl is obsessed with them. I think she just wants some water thug-loving.)

I'm joking about my cowardice, but I'm also a little serious. Even though this indictment probably won't go anywhere, it will definitely make the news for a little while. And that could convince news organizations to look into the private prison industry and how it functions. And if the news media starts shining its lights around all those dark corners, I expect a gang of cobwebs to be exposed.

Which is going to eff with somebody's money, right? In our current economic situation, effing with people's money is a good way to get deallt with.

And Dick Cheney doesn't mind riding on punks.

Even though Attorney General Guerra obviously did this to settle old political scores before he leaves office, it's still a fairly ballsy move. After all, he does live in Texas, the beating heart of conservatism and the place that produced our current National Shame. In the land of Bush, I'm pretty sure it's not a good deal to start attacking the lame duck President's right-hand man. I don't care how good your retirement package is, you can still get touched by the feds.

I have to take my hat off to Guerra, he clearly is a man who fears no one.

But, I ain't standing next to his dumb ass in public. Sharpshooters can miss too.

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They Are Golden

Don't have much time, but I wanted to share with y'all something that came to my mind.

I was wondering, despite the supposedly tightening poll numbers, about some of the after effects of a potential Barack Obama win today. More specifically, I was thinking that if the Democrats manage to get this country' first black man elected president, what exactly would they have to do moving forward to lose the support of black people?

It's kind of like that Eddie Murphy joke on "Raw." Eddie said that once a man makes a woman orgasmn a certain way, he can do damn near anything he wants and she will forgive him. He claimed that the good will a man builds up from being a stallion in bed is amazing. In fact, Eddie said a woman could catch a man in the bed with another woman in her home, and thanks to the fact that he made her have a "Super O", all that man would have to say to escape punishment would be "It wasn't me."

So, basically, if Democrats are the party that gives black people a black president, I'm thinking that they are pretty much guaranteed the black vote in overwhelming numbers for the rest of this country's existence. Black president trumps the party of Lincoln every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Right?

Anyway, here's a short list of how Democrats could potentially ruin the goodwill they would have among black folks if Barack Obama wins the elections. Feel free to include your own stuff in the comments.

5. Democrats would have to name Don Imus as the official party spokesman.

4. The party of the donkey would have to outlaw the names Keisha, LaToya and Leroy for children.

3. Dems would have require black people to perform an ethnic dance to gain entrance into the party, and bar clothing during that dance.

2. 3. Democrats would have to pass a constitutional amendment okaying the use of the word "nigger" by every American regardless of their race or the situation.

1. Democrats would have to bring back slavery.

If they avoid those five things, they are pretty much golden.


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