My Very First Tea Party Rally..

Ever since I witnessed disgruntled octogenarians everywhere protesting the "socialist" heath care bill while their pockets swelled with social security cash, whiny bigots literally breaking down in tears while saying the words "I want my country back", and scores of people who would fail a High School Civics class holding misspelled signs with pride - I just knew that one day I would attend a Tea Party Rally. Some people hope to one day pilgrimage to Mecca, I had dreams of being surrounded by thousands of minor league Klansmen who want people to think that taxes are the real reason they have such a distaste for our 44th President. I mean, we can finally drop the "its just a bunch of concerned citizens" pretense, can't we? A couple of weeks ago shitloads of people around the country gathered to scream bloody murder about taxes despite the fact that federal income taxes on middle class families are at historic lows and Obama gave 95% of those ungrateful sons of bitches tax cuts. Not for nothing, but if it walks like a racist and talks like a racist, chances are they are holding a sign calling the President a "communist".

I know, broad generalizing is wrong, and I'm sure there are folks in the Tea Party who do indeed have legitimate concerns. I just contend that that number is relatively small, about the same minuscule percentage of strippers who are thrusting their glitter encrusted pelvises to actually pay for college courses. But hey, I've been wrong before. So after a year of fearing that attending a Tea Party rally would result in me going all Nat Turner on a motherfucker, I finally trusted myself enough to mingle with what I believe to be the most disgruntled people in America. Here is what happened when yours truly decided to enter the lions den.(Town Point Park, Norfolk Virginia)

I arrived on the premises around 5:30 or so, about an hour and a half late. Sure, I know that my penchant for tardiness has "subpar journalist" written all over it - but after I learned that I had just missed a speech delivered by Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr, I couldn't have been happier. See, nothing is wrong with black opposition of Obama, but the good Bishop is one of those self loathing black folks who incessantly shields republicans from the racism charge by claiming the ones making said charge are playing the "race card". Because him and black folks of his ilk are too stupid to know that Tea Party folks are just using them in a "I have a black friend, I can't be racist" sort way, I'm glad I missed him - the mere sight of him giving a rhetorical softshoe routine would have forced me to become rather indignant and break whatever cover I attempted to maintain.




The first thing I saw as soon as I entered the premises were these kids holding signs. Because I didn't want to bring any undue attention on to myself(I have a thick beard and long dreadlocks mind you) I refrained from yelling "Your parents really need their asses kicked you little shits!"(It was extremely difficult to hold that back) Using kids to peddle your flimsy political philosophy is rather unseemly. Then again, I'm the same guy who has every intention of using my niece this summer to meet rather flexible, low self esteem having women. Anyway, remember that scene in "Malcolm X" when Malcolm went to Mecca and he was being shadowed by those CIA agents with video cameras? As much as I tried to blend in, I always felt like the CIA agent in the aforementioned scenario.




This is Karen Hurd, the founder of the Hampton Roads Tea Party who was the person speaking as I walked up. The rampant misinformation that came out of this woman's mouth would have been laughable if the people in attendance weren't willfully eating it up like hungry pigs at a trough. As I stood there listening to an unrepentant liar whose main agenda was to scare the living shit out of every unenlightened bigot within the sound of her voice, you could tell that she was doing her best Michelle Bachmann impression. That said, this woman's rhetoric was so exceedingly clumsy that she made Michelle Bachmann look like Maya Angelou.




Um, Yeah. Whatever gets you through the night lady.




Here are a few crowd shots. I'd say there were roughly 300 people there, nowhere near Town Point Park's capacity.




Of course there were an abundance of signs referencing the Constitution and how the President is apparently wiping his ass with it. But Obama was a Constitutional Professor for Christs sake, lecturing him on that document is like holding a sign in front of Karinne Steffans' house that reads "Remember the Blowjob!". Or holding a sign in front of R Kelly's house that reads "Remember the Pre-teen". I asked one of these folks about the Constitution and it turns out that I know more about the mating habits of the Fossa than any of them know about the Constitution. If people like Andrew Breitbart are so concerned with people smearing the Tea Party, he should be more concerned with them making it so easy for assholes like me.




This is purely anecdotal, but the staff there seemed to hand out Tea Party materials to everyone except me. I smiled, said "hello!", I even distributed nods of approval. Nothing. To be quite honest, they seemed like they were actively avoiding me. Maybe my agenda was obvious, I dunno - its not like I was wearing a Public Enemy shirt with Che Guevara wristbands. Either way, what better way to silence the folks who think that you are movement motivated by racism than to embrace everything within a square mile radius with a pulse. It was just rather telling to me.




Yes, there was black people. Two things on that. 1.) I saw that there was a nationally coordinated effort to have more and more black people at Tea Party rallies that day. Which is nice optics, I'm sure, but it doesn't mean a goddamn thing. Like I always say, there are self loathing black people who would join the Klu Klux Klan if they were allowed to. 2.)The black people pictured above were brought in by a local candidate running for office, I found this out when I saw someone come by and relieve them of their sign holding duties. Not only is their whole movement astroturfed, so is their black support. To my brother and sisters, with the economy in the shape that it is, there is money in part-time conservatism. Get that paper homey, I won't judge you.




What's a Tea Party Rally without the "Obama as the Joker" sign? It's sort of like going to a Stevie Wonder concert, you know you're going to hear "Superstition" before the night is done.




This pair of tits is Bob Marshall. Not for nothing, but thank god for Wikipedia pages because otherwise I'd be spending an inordinate amount of time detailing the many varieties of shit that makes up this rather lackluster human being. He kept bragging about being the architect of Ken Cuccinelli's Health Care Lawsuit against the Federal Government, which is obviously frivolous, but that didn't stop him from lathering up the dopes with the pipe dream of Health Care repeal. The contempt that a lot of elected republican officials have for their constituents is amazing. The one thing that I noticed as I listened to Mr. Marshall attempt to stick the proverbial landing on what has become standard Teabagger boilerplate, is that these events are nothing more than third rate comedy roasts of President Obama by bigots - with each speaker desperately trying to outdo the other with their insults of the President. Coming from a guy who feels the need to get an STD test every time I even think about some of my past dalliances, the mere fact that I felt like taking a shower after Bob Marshall spoke is really saying something.




As I prepared to leave, I noticed a guy holding this utterly despicable sign. When he was saw me taking a picture of it he quickly dropped the sign to his side and folded it up. When he past me I just smirked, shook my head slowly and told him "Too late motherfucker!". At that point I could care less about maintaining any sort of cover.

But as I left the Tea Party Rally that day, I realized that the man holding the "Barry Soetoro Is our Terrorist" sign is a microcosm of the entire Tea Party Movement. When their tax arguments are proven to be fraudulent, when they don't seem to have the same critiques of "Big Government" when Arizona does it, their silence in the populism department when it comes to Wall Street - why don't they just admit that its all about racism already. Like the guy with the sign, own your racism for Christs sake - I'd at least applaud you for being honest for once.

Ahh, I love the smell of racism in the morning..

Chase Whiteside is absolutely killing it. For the last year he has been routinely exposing these Tea Party folks with a surgical precision that's quite unparalleled, his patient and non-combative nature allows his interview subjects to reveal their ignorance with reckless abandon. It's quite a thing of beauty. To me, especially considering how the folks in the video above flatly rejected factual information, its pretty obvious that they have more of a problem with the color of our President's skin than anything else. Its just a shame that no matter how painfully transparent their dogwhistle rhetoric is, how many clearly racist signs that many of them carry, or how utterly fraudulent a lot of their claims turn out to be - the media will still continue to say that these folks have "legitimate concerns". Liberal media my ass.



Chase Whiteside's website and facebook page

Jon Stewart's beautiful Bernard Goldberg Takedown

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Goodbye Guru (July 17, 1966 – April 19, 2010)

Growing up a latchkey kid with two siblings more than a decade older than myself and parents with time consuming careers, I spent a considerable amount of my childhood alone. My folks were absolutely great parents, don't get the wrong idea, but I'd be intellectually dishonest if didn't admit that television had a legitimate hand in raising me. The mere thought of television raising kids nowadays makes me throw up in my mouth a little, especially when you think about petri dishes like Tila Tequila offering young girls Cliff Notes lessons on being a whore, or any other 30 minutes of moral decay posing as television programming. But back then it was just reruns of "Hazel", "Gilligan's Island", "The Courtship of Eddie's father", "Good Times", My Three Sons", etc - rather milquetoast by today's standards. But never the less, every hour that my parents weren't around for some in-your-face guidance I was getting life lessons from syndicated sitcoms. But then Hip Hop hit me like a ton of bricks, so my penchant for watching 60's era television was quickly replaced with watching myself in the mirror passionately mouthing rap lyrics. I know Hip Hop metaphors are both sleep inducing and overused, but Hip Hop as the surrogate parent merged into the good friend - and there was no better friend than Guru.

Sure, I didn't know Keith Elam personally - but he always seemed to be there for me despite that particularly inconvenient fact. When I first met him he was dropping knowledge, a positive influence that a knucklehead like me needed when I was 15. He'd hang with me at parties, schooled me on the streets so some disgruntled thugs wouldn't stomped me into wine, and he was even there to console me when some evil seductress decided to rip my beating heart out of my chest. We got high together. He introduced me to new people. The guy could talk shit with the best of them, so of course some of that rubbed off on me as well. Lastly, like all good friends he didn't care what I wanted to hear, he always told me what I needed to hear.

Despite his health issues as of late, the death of Guru still felt like a punch in the gut this morning. Outside of being a big fan of his music for more than 20 years, feeling like he helped usher me through manhood probably had something to do with how I felt. Guru, rest in peace brother, you will be missed.

Upon further review: LL Cool J's "I'm bad"

In honor of LL Cool J's classic stiff arm of Sarah Palin and that monstrosity of a television show FOX News clumsily tried to peddle, I thought that I'd dedicate the inaugural episode of "Upon Further Review" to the Queens MC by waxing poetic about the "I'm Bad" video. "Upon Further Review" will simply be posts documenting the different perspective I have on various aspects of Pop Culture now that I'm adult. I know, I should have put the word "adult" in quotes. Here are a few things about "I'm Bad" that I wasn't thinking about in 1987.



Thought #1: Police Dispatcher: "Calling all cars. Calling all cars. Be on the lookout for a tall, lightskinned brother with dimples." Not for nothing, but any description that involves dimples has me questioning your hetero street cred. Why didn't he alert his fellow police officers of the way LL's ass looks in his jeans, or the sweat glistening on his chest? I'm no homophobe, but did LL have so many yes men in the studio that they were afraid to point out a dispatcher who obviously wanted to treat his prostate like a pinata?

Thought #2: Not undercover cops infiltrating their drug operation. Not a rival drug kingpin trying to take over their territory. The biggest threat to an organized narcotics ring is a tiny black woman handing out poorly crafted anti-drug fliers? Really?

Thought #3: OK. Now that the mob guys kidnapped LL's girl for handing out anti-drug fliers, what in the world do they plan on doing with her? Slowly torture her until she tells them what Kinko's she had them made at? "Tell me what machine you used!! You will tell me what font you went with!" What the fuck?

Thought #4: That reminds me, what was up with stereotypical mob guys anyway? By this time "Miami Vice" had been out for three years, showing America's unenlightened that drug trafficking scumbags come in all shapes and sizes. If I was an Italian American I'd be pissed that the director lazily went the mob approach. Second thought, Italian Americans are too busy being embarrassed by "Jersey Shore" to worry about a 23 year old video.

Thought #5: I know that the misogyny in current day Hip Hop videos can be somewhat unseemly, I'll give you that - but at least the women being objectified nowadays are attractive. The 80's era rap video landscape is littered with questionable choices in eye candy, and this video is no exception. The woman who plays LL's girlfriend is attractive, but what is up with the random chicks in the warehouse? Its as if the director pulled a couple of homeless crackheads off the street, promptly bathed them, and the proceeded to throw them in front of the camera.

This has Karl Rove's doughy fingerprints all over it.

Note to Jason Levin: Infiltrating anything requires a great deal of stealthiness, having a website and a twitter account announcing that you're going to pose as a Tea Party person kind of defeats the purpose numbnuts. I'm pretty sure Mr. Levin has a sincere distaste for the organized bigotry that is the Tea Party rallies just like I do, but as soon as I read the piece on him at Talking Points Memo I immediately knew what the Republican playbook would be: From now on, every time some Teabagging knuckle-dragger is photographed with a sign highlighting their racism and functioning illiteracy, the right will just say its some liberal trying to make their honorable movement look bad. Shit, its already happening. This tactic comes right on the heels of Andrew Breitbart's incessantly desperate attempts to have you believe his word over a civil rights icon like John Lewis. But this tactic isn't Breitbart's. Even though the tactic is both hamfisted and clumsy, Breitbart doesn't have the intellectual capacity to come up with it. I wouldn't trust that parasite to pen his own autobiography. This has Karl Rove written all over it. Whether its Max Cleland or John Kerry's military service, Rove is a firm believer in attacking people's strengths. The rampant racism exhibited at these Tea Parties strengthens the argument of many on the left who feel that the disgruntled people gathering en masse are more pissed off at the shade of our President than taxes and the expansion of government combined. This is Karl's attempt to legitimize militia malcontents and garden variety bigots. You've been warned motherfuckers.

My letter to MSNBC's Phil Griffin: "David Shuster"

Dear Mr. Griffin,

I've been predominantly watching your network for the better part of decade now. I wish I could report to you that my viewership was more than just a byproduct of me lazily retreating to a default position based on the paltry cable news landscape, but I can't in clear conscience. I know that the previous sentence comes off as a slight, but some rather good things have come from "settling": I was my prom date's 5th choice but I still ended up having a good time with premature ejaculate on her rented prom dress as proof. Phil, there is nothing wrong with being the Khloe Kardashian in my cable news watching scenario - with FOX making me projectile vomit and CNN having more mixed nuts than a Tiger Woods mistress.

But despite my petty complaints I'm still a viewer, and as a viewer I've got to say that your treatment of David Shuster as of late has been pretty eyebrow raising. I mean, I'll never be the president of any David Shuster fanclubs mind you - but compared to your other daytime talent who routinely subscribe to right wing frames and let republican politicians get away with murder - he clearly was someone who took the lost art of news journalism seriously. So yes, his indefinite suspension was a loss to all of us weirdos who like people occasionally held accountable - but I truly can't take issue with you letting him go for filming a pilot for CNN. I can see why that would be a firing offense. It was just your post-Shuster suspension rhetoric that I personally found rather rich:

"[Shuster] was not moral, ethical or professional and that is not fair to the 500 people who work at [MSNBC]."

“I said all along that this was about loyalty and looking out for this network and not our competition”

With all do respect Mr. Griffin, concerning the first quote - how can the word "moral" even dare escape your mandible when you have someone in your employ who thinks that blacks benefited from slavery? There are tons of racist Pat Buchanan quotes on youtube that make "Birth of a Nation" look like "Soul Train" for Christs sake. How can you talk about David Shuster's professionalism when the host of your morning program routinely takes thinly veiled shots at one of his colleagues, some not so thinly veiled. Did you happen to see the DNA sharing that was Dylan Ratigan's interview of Andrew Breitbart? There is nothing professional about a complimentary reach around posing as news journalism. Here is some more Dylan Ratigan "professionalism" to tide you over.

Concerning the last quote about "loyalty", what is so loyal about grabbing every stray derelict off the street and giving them a show over David Shuster?(And no, "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" doesn't count. 1) He replaced David Gregory and 2)That show was all about the run-up to the election, not a true Shuster vehicle) So, why did David Shuster get in trouble for that tweet to Jame O'keefe again? O'keefe is a criminal who doctored those ACORN tapes that FOX News loved so much, when did MSNBC get in the business of siding with unrepentant pieces of shit? No disrespect Mr. Griffin, but it takes some set of balls to talk about "ethics" and "professionalism" based on what you've let go on at your network. On one hand I really hope that you see the logical pretzel you've bended yourself into and keep David Shuster on, but on the other hand I can totally see why he would want to get the fuck out of dodge.

P.S Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow rock!



HumanityCritic

Drunk History

Duncan Trussell drunkenly breaks down Nikola Tesla and the alternating current. I love this series.