I am, whoever you say I am

This week, as I prepared to make my acting debut for a comedy troupe that I've been writing for since March - it made me think about some utterly random career advice that has haunted me for the last 6 years. As my father was dying of cancer in a hospital room in Virginia Beach Virginia, me feeling funny about the both of us bonding over tales of me ass-fucking his nurse in a broom closet despite our historically turbulent relationship - I distinctly remember the Denzel Washington movie "The Siege" playing in the background. After tales of hardcore hospital sodomy wore off, and when the laughing at the irony of her name being "Ms. Brown" subsided - my father watched the movie for a few moments, looked at me and said "You know, you're funny and charismatic. You could do that!!" Being that the scene that was on when he said that featured Denzel's co star I said, "You think I could fuck Annette Bening? Really? I guess if the opportunity presented itself I could...." - my father interrupted me with "No fuck-nuts, I think you could be one hell of an actor!" I was speechless because on one hand the last compliment that my father gave me had to do with me bashing a bully in the face with a brick like he suggested when I was seven, and on the other hand it was strange coming from my father since he historically viewed any occupation where you didn't fix something as an illegitimate profession - so I know that my face exhibited a sort of bewildered smile, a facial expression you'd probably make if you were about to fuck Jennifer Lopez and she all of a sudden took a rather busy shit in the middle of the floor. Besides the randomness of it all, I guess that display of fatherly advice has always haunted me because it was the last conversation that we ever had.

But after a few sporadic encounters that I first chalked up to garden variety coincidence turned into an actual sign from some miscellaneous deity - I started to think that being a thespian was an actual possibility, and not just what I thought you called a lesbian with a lisp. See, for the past few months, friends of mine from all walks of life mind you - didn't take it upon themselves to go the easy route by describing my behavior with some flashy adjective, they went out of their way to equate my idiosyncrasies to characters in theatrical releases. The first time it happened I was kind of honored, but the fourth time it happened it was both creepy and a hint that most of my friends view me as an ultra violent prick - let me break it down for you.

I am Robert DeNiro in "Mean Streets": The mere fact that I'm both a Kobe Bryant and a Mike Tyson fan is kind of telling, no, I get a woman's consent before I make sweet and tender love to her voice box - its telling because like both of those men, either you think that I'm the unadulterated shit or you want me having passionate discussions about Hip Hop with Tupac and Jam Master Jay. My friend Brian pointed this out the other day while we were at a local club, the first few people that I encountered sang my praises to Brian - retelling some good deed that I had done and how I made them laugh when they were going through some seriously troubling times. But the next encounters were with dudes I had knocked out, friends of dudes I had throat-chopped, women who I ejaculated on and never called again, men whose chains I snatched off their necks post pummeling - 99% of the words that escaped their bitter mandible were either veiled threats or them calling me some variety of douche-bag. That's when Brian said, "Jesus HumanityCritic, you are the human embodiment of the Robert DeNiro character in "Mean Streets" and shit!!"

I am Don Chedle in "Devil in a Blue dress": Most of the friends that have disassociated themselves from me has less to do with my violent outbursts but more to do with the extremely casual nature in which I perform said viciousness. Not only that, especially when someone is deserving of the time honored beat-down, I find knocking someone on their proverbial ass as funny as slapstick pies in the face and pratfalls - a habit that usually leaves the victim more horrified than anything. I know that I have serious issues to wrestle with, beating up the husband of my ex-girlfriends co-worker who was making her life unbearable to "send a message" was unnecessary - laughing while I choke-slammed an older gentleman who was mad at the fact that I had commented on his wife's breast augmentation surgery by saying "Your wife getting a boob job is like putting expensive rims on a jalopy, whats the point since its going to the junkyard soon anyway!" was inexcusable. But recently when a fight broke out between four gentleman and my bouncer friend subdued one of the offenders he said, "HumanityCritic, hold this guy while I get the others - don't hit him!!!" Lets just say when he got back the poor kid was on the floor nursing a black eye and sobbing like a school girl with a bruised knee, to retort the disgusted look on my friend's face I said "Hey, he was trying to get away!!" When the young man tried to reject my claim I cut him off mid sentence by kicking him in the ribs, that's when my friend cryptically said "Damn, Don Chedle in "Devil in a Blue Dress!"

I am Leonardo DiCaprio in "Aviator": OK, so I may have a few quirks that some people find alarming - like how I carry around bottles of sanitizers in my pockets, and before having a meal in a restaurant I perform circus-like maneuvers where I open doors and pull out my chairs with my feet when returning from the restroom. I have fucked women with questionable backgrounds while wearing three condoms making my cock resemble a balloon animal, I routinely clean my house-phone that only I use - and when I'm on that phone and a person yaps continuously with no sign of ever stopping, I angrily shake the receiver and let out subtle groans like I've lost my natural mind. But the most egregious of all offenses is my inability to get certain phrases out of my head, like the other day when I was talking to a "Hip Hop writer" who said that Rakim was "overrated" - I said "You don't know shit about Hip Hop, die you fucking infidel!!", but I kept uttering that same phrase for the next half hour. Hence the Leonardo DiCaprio comparison that followed.

I am Peter Ustinov in "Death on the Nile": Ever since I was a kid I fashioned myself as a pedestrian sleuth, solving neighborhood mysteries like finding the culprit who stole Johnny's bike or the identity of the new man Chris's mom is letting treat her tonsils like a bona fide pinata. Even now that I'm a grizzled 34 year old with grey pubes and a distinct distaste for post coital snuggling - I can be found figuring out who the real father of a chick's baby is, the only woman with the motive and the opportunity to put a brick through my car window, and who had the most to gain by telling a girl that I'm crushing on that I frequent a gay bar called "The Cockpit" - I'm like a dreadlocked version of Magnum P.I, minus the Ferrari and the queer flavor-saver mustache. Recently a friend of mine said that I reminded them of Peter Ustinov's character in "Death on the Nile", Hercule Poirot, because of how I explained to him why I felt that he was the one who had stolen my Kool G Rap Greatest Hits mix-tape: (Me pacing in front of him) "You were the one that swiped my CD, fucking sticky fingers - the way you acted all nervous as I searched my car for it was the first clue. Then I remember how many times you've expressed your admiration for the queens born MC, waxing poetic about how underrated he is - even going so far as to tell me, on July 3rd to be exact, that listening to his verse in "The Symphony" gets you physically "aroused" as you described it. Not to mention the fact that your son's first and middle name miraculously happens to be Nathaniel Wilson and the thousands of threatening emails you've sent to Superhead for slandering Kool G Rap's good name - just admit, you took my motherfucking tape!!" That's when he did what all the culprits do in murder mysteries when confronted with the truth, he clapped very slowly and then the bastard said "Jackass, you let me borrow it - remember?" Oh..