Massachusetts voters, fooled by "Le Tigra"

Last night, as soon as the race was called for Scott Brown, I said on Twitter: "Congratulations Massachusetts, Derek Zoolander is your new state senator." Sure, Scott Brown was a male model with what appears to be the same thimble sized intellectual depth as the Zoolander character. But just like the Ben Stiller character who believed that he had a wealth of signature looks when in reality he basically gave the same facial expression each time, Scott Brown too believed that the voters of the great state of Massachusetts wouldn't figure out that the centrist stance that he was running on was still the same old Scott Brown. Well he was right, Massachusetts was fooled by "Le Tigra". Or "Blue Steel?" Or "Ferrari?" Pick a Zoolander facial expression.

Listen, I know that your garden variety republican pundit will wax poetic on some cable news show where he is never challenged that the vote in Massachusetts was a referendum on Health Care. Some progressives(see Anthony Weiner, Jane Hamsher, and Arianna Huffington) will disingenuously agree and adopt those same right wing frames because they don't think the bill goes far enough. Many have already claimed that the Scott Brown victory was a clear repudiation of the Obama agenda. Well, I personally don't see how anyone can comfortably come to any of those conclusions when you had a crappy candidate who ran a lazily abysmal campaign in the first place. I'm saying, save that "repudiation" shit for the time when the candidate doesn't put her campaign on cruise control for most of December. When the Democratic leadership doesn't allow said candidate to put their campaign on cruise control and gives her/him an encouraging kick in the ass. The "referendum" rhetoric would make sense only if that same Democratic Leadership had learned something from the Virgina Gubernatorial loss and stopped getting "Eddie Haskell-ed", allowing foaming mouthed right wingers to paint themselves as lovable centrists that you'd trust with your sister.



If anything, the message I get from this election is that Progressives have to abandon the hyperbolic hyperventilating, the histrionic hand-wringing, and the petulant Nihilism. We should constantly hold President Obama accountable, but like Bob Cesca always says, there is a smart way to do it that without severely depressing the base and giving both comfort and artillery to your fiercest enemies. I'm certain that one of the reasons the Democratic base in Massachusetts wasn't particularly excited was probably from hearing one too many Progressives call Obama a crypto-republican, corporate sell out, sodomizer of grandmothers. Whatever the fuck the clumsy charge was that week.

If anything, the message I get from this election is that Obama should stop extending his hand out to republicans and start landing some preemptively well placed throatchops. The thing about republicans, even if their claims happen to be hysterical and nonsensical, is that they are firm believers in repetition. Its like my hideous looking neighbor who is married to a woman who is out of his league, fuck that, she isn't even in the same sport. After I befriended the woman and asked in the most polite way my limited vocabulary would allow how she ended up her wet Gremlin of a husband, she said "Well, he was the most persistent. Shit, he really just wore me down". The President can't be the lonely, chubby neighbor pining for a woman of that magnitude as he engages in a daily ritual that has made his right arm extremely stronger than the left. (Yes, I'm the masturbating fat guy in that analogy)

Parks and Recreation is the Wu-Tang of Comedy

Parks and Recreation is the Wu-Tang of Comedy - watch more funny videos

As much as NBC has been an object of my ridicule for years now, ranging from their historically premature penchant for dismantling quality shows to the clusterfuck they've created by giving Conan O'Brien the proverbial stiff arm - I have to say that their Thursday night comedy line-up is second to none. "Community", "Parks and Recreation", "The Office", "30 Rock" - its essentially a murderers row of basic programming. As for one of the aforementioned shows, "Parks and Recreation", here is a funny or die clip that I believe was born out of one of questlove's tweets.

Trailer for "Repo Men"

There are certain actors that I'll go see in pretty much anything, damn near sight unseen. Even though I've made a concerted effort to avoid a handful of Matt Damon flicks, he's had a pretty good track record of picking good projects. Same thing thing with Ed Norton. Phillip Seymour Hoffman as well. Jude Law also falls into that category. Shit, ever since "Gattaca" I've seen a lions share of homeboy's movies - and this trailer only ensures me seeing another one.

4 Things I learned during a Power Outage

If the events of a couple of weeks ago proved anything to me its that you never stop learning things about yourself. After dictating my innermost feelings on this blog for the last 5 years: The nonexistent relationship with my father that I'll be regretting well into the winter of my life. My penchant for gratuitous violence that's only rivaled by my ravenous appetite for putting low self esteem having women on the business end of my catalog of perversions. My randomly reluctant admissions that the career asshole who once sodomized a woman in a church does indeed have a heart at times. The catharsis that this blog has provoked had me thinking that I've pretty much figured myself out, the same way one masters a rubix cube or the game pattern to Pac-Man. But the Nor'easter that hit Virginia recently where I was one of the 100,000 that went powerless(for two days), taught me some truly revealing things about yours truly.

I'm an authority on old sitcoms: Besides the binge drinking. Forget about my sordid history of unflinching womanizing. Take away the fact that a handful of women that I've dated would probably characterize me as an "emotional cripple" based on the glory hole in my house that I pressured them to pleasure me through. One of the main reasons why I firmly believe that I'm single is because I'm extraordinarily quirky. I'm a 36 year old black guy who likes skateboarding, Kevin Smith movies, shooting high powered weapons at gun ranges, collecting comic books, has an eternal crush on Janeane Garofalo, and more times than not has purposely made love while Public Enemy's "Welcome to the Terrordome" was playing. But as I found myself in the dark, bored, staring up at a ceiling that was barely visible thanks to the cheap candles that I had just lit after the power cut off - another nerdy trait of mine was thrown into the mix as I spent the next 2 hours singing/humming theme-songs to sitcoms that stopped airing years before I was born. See I was a latchkey kid, so most of my afternoons were spent watching "Hazel", "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis", "Bewitched", "My Three Sons", 'Leave it to Beaver", "The Andy Griffith Show", "The Flying Nun", "Green Acres" "Hogan's Heroes" "The Munsters", "McHale's Navy" "The Courtship Of Eddie's Father", and a shitload of others that I'm purposely excluding for the sole purpose of saving what shred of street credibility that I have left. Shit, no wonder I've been reduced to craigslist companionship.

I admit, talking to myself is pretty creepy: I'm not a bloody savage for Christs sakes, I always make sure that any dialogue that escapes my hairy mandible directed at myself is always done in complete privacy. Its actually a habit that started when I was a kid, talking to yourself is nothing but self preservation when spending inordinate amounts of time alone in your formative years. My mother believes that my penchant for turning an internal dialog into an external one is what has turned me into a somewhat serviceable writer. That said, I never thought it was that much of a problem until I actually heard myself babble on when complete silence served as the backdrop. What turned into a harmless habit that I simply felt was me actively organizing my thoughts became a rather sad display of loneliness from a childless 30-something.

I'm not the human hard-on that I thought I was: Ladies, I may not leave you walking funny come morning time, I may not reach your personal top 5 as far as sexual endurance goes - but rain, sleet, or snow I will be there whenever you need me on some postal carrier shit. I've been deathly ill with the flu, sporting a fever on the verge of putting me into a coma, and I've always found a way to desperately attempt to share my unimpressive black penis with my significant other. One time I had a nasty case of food poisoning where I was throwing up every five minutes and had the audacity to tell my girlfriend, "I just threw up so we have plenty of time to fuck, I'll brush my teeth if you want me to!" A few years ago I got jumped, mercilessly pounded into hamburger meat because I had previously beaten up one of their friends. Later that night with my eyes swollen shut, looking completely unrecognizable, I told my then girlfriend, "You'd better ride me because I'll bleed on you otherwise." I said all of that because during the power outage a young lady that is an acquaintance of mine(local stripper) wanted to come over and get to know me in the biblical sense.(I guess she likes her pre-ejaculation to dollar store candlelight) When I informed her via text message that my street was severely flooded, she quickly responded that she could drive her brother's jacked up truck to thwart said problem - also mentioning that she had some fly fishing boots to help her brave the rest of the way. I was flattered, but too dejected and irritable to even think about sex. I know, me refusing to get my unadulterated fuck on must be a sign of the apocalypse.

I'd commit suicide if I worked in radio: I always knew that listening to the radio was a particularly soul crushing experience, especially if you are a Hip Hop fan - even pedestrian aficionados of two turntables and a microphone can unfortunately hear artists desecrate the artform in Real time. New millennium minstrel acts, monosyllabic wordsmiths satisfied with their unimpressive station in life, sub par artistry of that magnitude had successfully kept me far away from the radio for the better part of a decade. But as I was forced to wade through the proverbial muck and mire of urban radio as I searched for weather updates due to the power outage, I was shocked to find out that it was actually much worse than I imagined. I felt myself losing I.Q points by the moment, so much in fact that I sincerely thought that my motor skills would be lost forever if I listened to the radio for one solitary hour. But I didn't know what was sadder, the state of affairs that music is in nowadays or the radio personalities who I know love real Hip Hop who are being forced to play such monstrosities? Suicide should never be an option, but if I worked at a radio station I'd make sure that they collected my shoe strings and kept me away from sharp items at all times.

Glenn Nye: Not exactly a profile in courage

(This was written early last week, but a power outage due to the Nor'easter is why I'm posting it now)

Remember that scene in "Goodfellas" when Jimmy(Robert DeNiro) excitedly called to hear how Tommy's(Joe Pesci) ceremony where he was being "made" went, only to get the unexpected news that his childhood friend had met an untimely demise? The dismissively casual nature of the person on the other end of that phone call has always stuck with me, I can't tell you how many times I've uttered the words "He's gone, and we couldn't do nothing about it" in a rather deadpan manner to the girlfriend of some insufferable douchebag that I had just put on the business end of a merciless beating. I was reminded of that scene in "Goodfellas" two weeks ago when I called Glenn Nye's office to find out how he intended to vote for the health care Bill in the House. Immediately I was told, without the receptionist at Glenn Nye's office even doing what I feel would be the bare minimum and explaining the rhyme or reason behind his decision, that my state representative was voting against Health Care reform. I guess the news of my state representative blatantly betraying his constituents would have been easier to take if it wasn't delivered with such arrogant indifference, I'm still convinced that she was literally shrugging while informing me of his "no" vote. I'm willing to bet good money, dough that would have otherwise gone to my weed dealer and various handjob professionals, that my sound political advice that a "no" vote would guarantee Mr. Nye a primary challenger was purposely being ignored while cuticles were being taken care of and polish was being applied. I've historically been an insensitive lover who desperately loathes post coital conversation, so I know what condescending silence sounds like.

What's really troubling about Glenn Nye's vote is that he ran as an anti-war candidate against a horrible right winger(Thelma Drake) who voted with Bush 98% of the time - I can concede that voting for Health Care reform may be tough politically, but the pitchforks wouldn't exactly be out for Glenn Nye if he voted for it. Also, we all know from our childhood experiences that acquiescing to bullies still gives you fist marks in your chest and prostate puncturing wedgies - the right wing will still paint you as a tax and spend liberal who adores the Kenyan in the White House. But a "No" vote doesn't make sense, the republicans still attack you while your base sits on their hands because of your abject cowardice.

I should have seen this coming though. Right after Glenn Nye was elected he claimed that the President being at the top of the ticket didn't help him get elected because Obama didn't win his particular district. Its tortured logic like that that should have let me in on who Glenn Nye really is, my most regrettable vote to date.

Current Music Presents: Embedded with Common

Why the White House is Smart to Take on FOX

I don't know if this is prevalent in other cultures, I've mostly seen black folks do it as of late - but the one thing that I hate more than black republicans or extremely toothy blowjobs is a person who passionately defends an artist that they like by simply noting the size of their bank account. Let me give you an example. I'm of the firm belief that Tyler Perry's movies are cinematic poison. Even though I don't wish any physical harm on the director, for all I know he has a heart that should qualify him for Sainthood, but the gruesome things that I want to do to people who incessantly gush over his extremely shitty movies would scare the shit out of Stephen King. Stereotypical characters. Phoned in storylines. Cringeworthy dialogue. A black man in a goddamn dress. I'd really have to dedicate a blog series to accurately cite every reason I loathe the creative vision of Tyler Perry. Whenever I've expressed said disdain whether online or in every day conversions, the winning retort that I usually find myself on the business end of goes like this: "Yeah, but he's making money!!" You also get the same clumsy response when you criticize some monosyllabic rapper with a limited world view that they happen to be a fan of. Forget about the substantive gripes that you may have, from sub par lyricism to the fact that said artist happens to be a new millennium minstrel act, the fact that he/she never has to look at a price tag again is supposed to easily thwart all of your artsy fartsy critiques.

I'm only highlighting my least favorite defense of substandard artistry because Rupert Murdock reminded me of it recently when he pointed to FOX's increased ratings after he was asked about the White House taking on his News channel. Tyler Perry's vast fortune doesn't address the piss poor craftsmanship of his movies, a rapper who can pawn his platinum chain collection and singlehandedly pay for sufficient Health Care reform doesn't negate his mindnumbingly wack lyrics - and Rupert Murdoch pointing to an increase in ratings due to FOX's back and forth with the White House doesn't fundamentally answer their claim that they aren't a legitimate news channel. Besides, the White House could care less if they help FOX News get 10 Million more viewers, because their attack on FOX really isn't about FOX.

The White House doesn't have to look any further than that last Democratic Presidential Debate that ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson hosted to know how quickly right wing smears can infiltrate the mainstream media. People forget that it took both moderators 52 minutes to ask anything resembling a substantive question, most of the time was allotted to silly shit like Flagpins, Reverend Wright, and William Ayers. Stephanopoulos was basically a puppet for the right wing in that debate with Sean Hannity and Steve Malzberg pulling the proverbial strings - being that both men personally urged him to ask about William Ayers when he was on their respective shows. We also can't forget that Reverend Wright was a personal fetish of Sean Hannity's months before the mainstream media finally bowed to right wing finger wagging and started covering it, yet another example of the national discourse being sullied by the mainstream media taking its cues from FOX. Remember the Democratic Presidential Debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that Tim Russert moderated? I'm sure the White House does. That was a debate where the sorely missed Russert not only asked Obama about Reverend Wright, but didn't seem to accept a clear word like "Denounce" when grilling him on Minister Louis Farrakhan. Undoubtedly more right wing influence.

Listen, that was only a small example of how right wing meems seeped into all facets of the press during the campaign season, if you are an ardent watcher of the news like I am then you know that that sort thing happens all the time. (See Czars, "Enemies lists", "Death Panels") The White House knows this all too well. Their attack on FOX isn't about them "whining", something that many intellectually lazy writers have accused them of. Their attack on FOX isn't about garden variety pushback, they know that the bottom feeders over there will continuously call him everything from a Communist to a puppy torturer no matter how much they fight back. The White House tapping FOX News on the proverbial shoulder and asking them to "step outside" is more about shaming all the other news outlets who from this point forward proceed to regurgitate their horseshit smears as if it were legitimate news. It's an extremely smart tactic. I can totally imagine, after 6 more months of saying that FOX "isn't really a news network", some White House official sarcastically prefacing their answer to someone at CNN with, "Wow, that's a FOX News question.." Its a great way of marginalizing FOX while rhetorically wrapping legitimate news organizations on the wrists for clumsily reporting smears. This is a brilliant strategy, please keep it up.

How an unrepentant Asshole would improve VH1 Hip Hop Honors

When it comes my history of relationships, being an asshole hasn't exactly served me well - I'm single, 36, childless, and the only chicks who want to fuck me are either nuttier than squirrel shit or have vaginas so weathered that they resemble your grandfather's extremely weathered catchers mitt. When you are an insufferable prick, meeting new people often turns disastrous. Just last week I was chatting up a woman at a bar, a rather standard conversation where a solitary sexual advance was nowhere to be found - so you can imagine my disgust when the young lady said, "I hope you're not hitting on me, I'd never date a black guy!" In which I responded, "You are a chubby white woman, without black men you have no viable options!" I've lost a lot of friends because of my tactless nature: Literally hogtying a friend who refused to go to rehab - punching a wedding DJ who had the audacity to play "The Electric Slide" - telling a gay guy that my friend wanted to blow him, only to underline the fact that my boy was already sucking dick every time he tongue kissed his cheating wife - bringing a bottle of Jack Daniels to the "1 year Sobriety Party" that my friend threw for his father - getting a drunken blowjob by a friend's mom at her birthday party and justifying it by saying "You're adopted, I would never had done that if it was your blood mother! I'm not an animal, Geez!" Real asshole shit that I regret.

But when it comes to Hip Hop I have no regrets concerning behavior that I'm sure most sane people would probably find utterly reprehensible. Just look at me as a portly, alcoholic superhero who uses his powers for good and not evil - belligerently calling out all the bullshit in Hip Hop for the betterment of the Culture as a whole. For the sake of the culture that I hold dear, I've nonchalantly thrown CD's out of my car for distance no matter how much my passenger paid for or loved said banality. I've eagerly wanted to meet MC's with third grade vocabulary levels just so I could tell them how much they sucked to their faces. I couldn't tell you how many times I've left monosyllabic rappers with platinum encrusted smiles hanging as I turned my back on them while posing in my toughest B-Boy stance. Friends of mine stopped asking me to critique their music because more times that not I barraged them with armchair micromanagement: "Why did you say that there?" - "That simile didn't make any fucking sense!" - "Who's singing that chorus? It sounds like a chicken getting strangled, or two goats fucking" - "You should really go solo, the other guys in your group can't rap for shit". Yes, I can be a steaming pile of shit when I want to be, but its for the good of Hip Hop. Sincerely.

That said, even though I thought that the good folks over at VH1 did a serviceable enough job with this years Hip Hop Honors - they'd agree that there is always room for improvement. Even though my advice for improving Hip Hop Honors programs will be in the form of sarcasm and overall assholery, just know that its coming from an extremely good place.

No More Tracy Morgan: I loved Tracy Morgan when he was "Hustleman" on "Martin". Even though my pride as a black man wants me to resist any character that perpetuates the "Crazy black man" stereotype, he is great on "30 Rock". But left up to his own devices, when a team of writers aren't carefully crafting every syllables that exits his mandible, Mr. Morgan is painfully unfunny. You would have thought that VH1 learned their lesson when Tracy Morgan hosted Hip Hop Honors last year: Cringeworthy skits that seemed to go on forever and even irritate the extras that were in them, a standup routine that reminded me that I found my father's wake more chuckleworthy. The mere fact that VH1 had him back this year either means that VH1 is tone-deaf comically, or they always get Tracy Morgan on the cheap. For Christs sakes VH1, if you can't find someone who loves Hip Hop and has the comedy chops to host an award show - at least get a quality actor who loves Hip Hop to simply play the damn thing straight. (See: Mekhi Phifer, Michael Rapaport, etc)

Have the Roots Play the entire show: The Roots are the hardest working men in show business. Between their nightly gig on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", playing their own gigs, and constantly creating new music - I'm sure those gentlemen barely get a moment to themselves. That's why its important for VH1 to lock them down a year in advance. I mean, I like "Onyx" well enough, not their biggest fan - but to hear Gym Class Heroes damn near make "Slam" unrecognizable was blasphemous at best. Again, book the Roots for the whole goddamn show.

No more washed up Rockers: Regardless of what race you are, you always knew that it suddenly became uncool to like a Hip Hop song the moment your local white Top 40 radio station got a hold of it. The opposite seems to be true when it comes to the Hip Hop aficionados who put on these shows, because they apparently are the last ones to know when a rock artist needs to be sent to the proverbial glue factory. Kid Rock? Really? Gym Class Heroes are so 2006, and I didn't like their ass then.(Disclaimer: Outside of Zack de la Rocha, I never gave 2 shits for the Rap/Rock genre) The mere fact that they would recruit such milquetoast "rockers" to pay tribute to Hip Hop stars of years past is rather condescending to the many of us who love that real rock shit. Its sort of like being racially profiled by your own people. I grew up on Bad Brains, don't fuck with me.

Its Pre-taped for a reason: Maybe I'm too much of a snob, but I always find it highly offensive when some artist paying tribute to an honoree horrible flubs lines during their performance. I hate to armchair MC here, but out of respect for the musical act being honored and just for ooverall professionalism sake - as soon as VH1 called me I'd be feverishly studying the lyrics I was set to perform like it was a fucking SAT exam. I know mistakes happen, but there really is no excuse for butchering classic Hip Hop lyrics like I've seen done at pretty much every Hip Hop Honor program. (KRS, you are a legend, but you should be ashamed. You couldn't get "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" right? Really?) Anyway, to combat that, all VH1 has to do whenever someone mangles a verse that most of us can recite backwards is simply have everyone start over. Its not like its live, the crowd can act like its the first time they've heard it. Its not hard.

Current Music Presents: Embedded with Mos Def in Japan

Helping America become post racial, one brutal beating at a time: Episode Three

Even though my dating history is a sordid one, mostly a dismal collection of brief sexual encounters where being an emotional cripple with a bed that becomes a proverbial ejector seat as soon as I ejaculate halts any possible prospective relationships - it would make perfect sense that my favorite "girlfriend" just happened to be a therapist. The level of catharsis you feel when dating a mental health professional is unparalleled. I mean, outside of admitting that you have dismembered bodies of miscellaneous strippers buried in your backyard, you can pretty much unload some of your deepest and darkest secrets without them so much as batting an eye - something I usually did post coitus by the way. My penchant for penetrating low self esteem having women in church buildings almost provoked shrugs from her. Pushing a wheelchair bound man into traffic? Her beautiful stare was unchanged. Headbutting a clergy member, getting a handjob from a girlfriend's mother at a wedding, tossing a rather lippy midget on to a bar roof, pushing an entire book shelf on someone at a public library, threatening to publicly waterboard an old man who snaked my parking spot. Incidents that would usually repulse most people were met with indifference from a head shrinker who was desensitized from all the certifiable shit smearing psychopaths she had previously treated. Sure, I knew that she was probably using me as her personal take home assignment, but I fully embraced it. Shit, it wasn't the first time I fucked my therapist.

Between all the deviant sex and my unsuccessful attempts to score some prescription medication from her, she did uncover something about me that had never crossed my mind before. She concluded, because of my father's verbal bullying that I was constantly on the business end of, that many of my physical altercations that I had been a part of over the years were a direct result of me trying to right that particular wrong. I never thought about it before, but a large percentage of the throatchops that I have mercilessly administered to some asshole's larynx were indeed born out of me sticking up for someone. I'm sure if I was still with her she'd come to the same conclusion about my violent defenses of President Obama as well.

I mean, this may anger all the pseudo-militants out there that I'm constantly coming in contact with: Armchair revolutionaries who spend their time viewing President Obama as an "Uncle Tom" simply because of his job title or because he isn't spreading the teachings of Marcus Garvey. Ridiculous child-like giggle provokers who naively view him serving Americans as a whole as an affront to the Black Community. The same intellectual knuckle-draggers who incessantly try to push "The Obama Deception" on me as it was a motherfucking "Watchtower", fake ass "Michael" from "Good Times" wannabees, feverishly masturbate to Dead Prez records on your own goddamn time. With the racism directed at the President in the form of blatant disrespect. Racism in the form of citizenship questions. Racism in the form of assassination dogwhistles. Racism in the form of daily manufactured outrage. Please get this through your kufi's, I'll have the President's back way before I'll ever have yours. Shit, even if I wasn't a supporter of his policies I still may have his back based on all the bigots that are out to get him.

"Don't spray me bro!": When you live around as many knuckle dragging savages as I do, drooling lunatics with racial attitudes so backwards that you are certain that they were recently thawed out from their cryogenically frozen state that they've been in since 1944 - a common occurrence is getting extremely dirty looks from fellow motorists simply because an Obama sticker is on your bumper. Seriously, you would have thought I had a ringing endorsement of necrophilia on my car, or puppy torture. Usually I respond to such hostile grimaces with utter civility: The one finger salute, screaming "What the fuck are you looking at you goddamn Hillbilly?!", or threatening to beat them within an inch of an amnesiac state. So when a young couple in their early 20's decided to flash me the icegrill from stoplight to stoplight, I didn't find anything strange in what I felt was pretty much par for the course. But the constant pulling up beside me? Tailgating? - I'm constantly amazed how threatened some white people are by possibly the least threatening black man that has ever existed. Anyway, when I ran into rush hour traffic, the young couple found themselves behind yours truly. You know that feeling you get when something is about to happen, like a fight is about to break out at a club or Mary J Blige is about to give an interview where she doesn't depress the shit out of you. Well something was in the air, and my instincts proved to be right as I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw the young couple carefully exiting their car and approaching mine.

Because the only beating I do on a female involves premature ejaculatory pelvic thrusts, I grabbed the pepper spray that I purchased for my mother and proceeded to the back of my car where I found the both them attempting to take my Obama sticker off of my car. To sell the altercation to curious onlookers, I screamed with an Academy Award winning panic "What in the world are you doing to my car?" - before mercilessly spraying the shit out of what I perceived to be raging rednecks. As they both writhed around in anguish, invoking the name of our heavenly father, pleading for help - I realized that I'd be a perfect Abu Ghraib guard because I simply didn't give two shits about the excruciating pain that they were in. Immediately a cop showed up and I, along with some of the onlookers that I performed for, told the cop exactly what happened. I even topped off my acting tour de force by nervously exclaiming, "Sir, I was scared for my life! I saw those two approaching my car and I didn't know what to do. I just want to go home and hug my children!" Everything turned out fine and the cop let me go, but I had the sneaking feeling that he didn't believe me - and I'm sure the wink that I gave him before I entered my car didn't ease his suspicions any either.

My Thoughts on "Zombieland"

When you're are a latchkey kid you have an inordinate amount of time on your hands. Either my countless hours home alone were spent rifling through my father's closet looking for some dated pornography where the actresses had bushy Afros in two locations, dancing to my old man's blues albums with the grace of two drunk monkeys fucking, or watching every Zombie themed movie that I could get my chubby little hands on. Something about the forced camaraderie brought on by the scores of meandering undead wanting to chow down on your entrails has always intrigued me. The sheer paranoia that sets in every time one of the uninfected gets one solitary moment of peace. For the sake of not becoming a walking cadaver that sporadically lets out inaudible moans, complete strangers from all walks of life are forced to trust one another. But most of all, I've always been drawn to the shitloads of creatively brutal ways one could dispatch nasty apocalyptic feeders. As a kid with an imagination rivaling the amount of alone time that I had after school, Zombie movies were right up my alley - and ever since then I've been crafting the perfect Zombie movie in my head. Sure, I've been mentally editing said flick for at least 30 years, but these particular components have remained the same: Non stop gratuitous violence, the right amount of campy-ness, and an inordinate amount of obscure Hip Hop references thrown in for good measure(If I was a film maker I always assumed that that would be my trademark)

So you can just imagine my excitement when "Zombieland" came out. I mean, I knew there wouldn't be a Hip Hop reference to be found, but it definitely seemed to be a movie that winked at you while mercilessly bashing Zombie skulls in. Was this indeed the movie that I've been making in my head since the Reagan administration? Well, Yes and No. There is indeed a good amount of comedy mixed in with a tale about lone survivors of a post apocalyptic world banning together. Tongue is securely planted in cheek as our heroes put holes through ornery flesh eaters while searching for other uninfected people. Woody Harrelson once again proved that he's a master at, well, playing himself. Jessie Eisenberg's "quirky guy" shtick worked masterfully for a character who meticulously created a list of steps on staying alive.(Lets just hope that he's never in a movie with Michael Cera, because audiences everywhere would overdose in nervousness) Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin didn't exactly blow my skirt up, but they did a serviceable enough job playing sisters killing and conning their way to safety. Overall I liked the movie. The camp was there and the violence was there, my only beef with the movie is that there wasn't enough of either one. At a brisk 80 minutes, they should have cut some dialogue and concentrated on satisfying my blood lust while being a complete dick about it - or simply making the thing at least a half hour longer. Maybe "Shawn of the Dead" spoiled me? Or maybe its just impossible to compete with a movie that I've been making in my head for the better part of three decades.

Conservatives love reminding me of my dead father

This may be sound a bit hyperbolic, but I can't control the exact feeling that I had when I saw these right wingers applaud the news of Chicago losing its Olympic bid. Yesterday when I saw this video, along with the scores of utterly reprehensible conservatives doing proverbial endzone dances because they perceived the failed bid as an Obama loss - I immediately thought about a story that my father told me that breaks my heart every time I think about it. The three times that I saw my father cry had nothing to do with a joyous occasion, a tearjerker of a movie, not even the cancer that took his life. Salty tears flowed down my old man's trademark beard stubbled face every time he struggled to tell a painful story about returning to his Navy ship to find his shipmates literally celebrating the death of John F Kennedy. Living through Jim Crow South Carolina, seeing people he knew personally hung until their necks snapped, horrors of that magnitude paled in comparison after he came face to face with inherent evil that day on the Naval Fighting Ship that he called home for most of the year.

I'm not saying that the conservatives who celebrated Chicago losing its Olympic bid yesterday wish death on our President, or that they would openly celebrate his untimely passing if that were to happen. But the unadulterated hate for Obama that I witnessed yesterday, his Presidency thus far for that matter, too frequently reminds me of my father's emotional Kryptonite. That's all.

De La Soul: 20 Years High and Rising Tour: (Entire show) @ Paris, France

Hat tip Grandcrew

GRITtv with Laura Flanders: Janeane Garofalo, Max Blumenthal, Kai Wright

Janeane Garofalo, holding it down as usual. This bares repeating: I have a huge crush on Ms. Garofalo, so much so that hearing 20 million teeth sucking sounds for the rest of my life by irate black woman(who probably wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire anyway) would be worth it if I could spend it with the acerbic comedian. Granted, my binge drinking wouldn't go over too well(she's a recovering alcoholic), but I'm sure that we could work something out.

Lieutenant Carter, providing much needed cover fire

Providing cover fire. Setting a pick. Taking a pitch for the team. Whatever analogy you want to use, that is exactly what I thought Jimmy Carter was doing last week when he called out some of the garden variety racism being directed at President Obama. Despite the outstanding humanitarian work he's done since leaving the White House, President Carter knows that people look at his presidency as a less than stellar one. He also knew that the consequence of him speaking out on the racial toxicity our Commander in Chief was on the business end of would instantly turn him into a low hanging pinata to his detractors on the right. But the man who served as our 39th President knew something had to be done and he didn't care if it meant sacrificing himself in the process.

For the longest time the mainstream media overcompensates as a result of right wing criticisms, the same way a black police officer might mistreat a civilian of the same skin tone to prove that he isn't giving anyone preferential treatment, and I'd be damned if the last 8 months hasn't been exactly that. Definitely a case study in overcompensation as sentiments from the highly questionable to flat out racism were clumsily being treated as legitimate opposition: A dirty broad from Russia(A reader corrected me, she's from Moldova. I already know too much about that shitheel) of all places questioning the President's citizenship and the legions of tin-hatted glass lickers who gleefully follow her lead, unfortunately treated as a "Conspiracy theory" and not the blatant racism that it actually was. Uneducated townhallers saying "I was my country back", a racial dogwhistle usually prefacing some regurgitated smear in the form of a question - pundits of every political stripe treated the miscellaneous authors of said belligerence as if they were simply a "concern citizen" voicing a standard inquiry. Of course the "socialism" charges being leveled at Obama are ridiculous on their face considering that said detractors usually have no problems with roads, firefighters, and medicare - but it has a racial component to it when the person saying it doesn't know what it means and says it like an epithet. The signs of Obama as Hitler. The signs of Obama as a member of al qaeda. The assholes coming to health care townhalls strapped. Because of Jimmy Carter, last week was the first time in Barack Obama's young presidency that I heard anyone outside of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow even openly wonder if racism was indeed a factor.

In a move that will disappoint all the armchair revolutionaries out there, the same black folks who incessantly try to divide and conquer African American supporters of the president simply because Barack Obama isn't channeling the spirit of Huey Newton - the President was correct in disagreeing with Carter about the rampant racism. Sure, he sees the racism, but the Commander in Chief has to be above the fray. Besides, its politically smart, the moment he characterizes anyone as "racist" he will be painted as insensitively smearing hard working Americans with legitimate concerns. Carter's concerns forced the media to seriously look into something that had been angering the rest of us for months, allowing the President to act above it all. Like I said, cover fire.

Dude, I think I just got threatened by Rohan Marley..

A little more than two years ago when I was in Vibe.com's employ, I wrote a piece entitled "Rohan Marley - The New Millennium Yoko Ono". Even if you haven't read the piece I'm sure that you gathered from the title that I took Mr. Marley to task for being a shiftless layabout whose only discernible skills were cashing in on his father's good name and throwing the proverbial monkey-wrench into Lauryn Hill's career. Of course the piece was a bit tongue in cheek, but the rhetorical gymnastics and my misguided attempts at humor aside - I still hold the strong belief that Lauryn Hill's career would be in an entirely different stratosphere if she had never fallen victim to Mr. Marley's evil clutches. As much as I covet MC's like MC Lyte and Sha-Rock, if Lauryn's career had continued on the same trajectory it was on after "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", there wouldn't be a question in my mind as to who the best Female MC of All Time was. I know the trappings of fame can be a ruthless bitch. That unrepentant harlot has driven her stilettos into the hearts of many great artists since the beginning of time. But I don't think that's the case here. Rohan Marley is the foundation that all of Ms. Hill's problems as I see it rests on, nothing can convince me otherwise. All roads lead to the man I referred to as "The New Millennium Yoko Ono", possibly one of the only people on earth you'll find with skills less marketble than Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian.

The only reason I'm bashing the one man, career ending wrecking crew is because of a rather cryptic email that I received last week from a gentleman that calls himself "Rohan Marley". The aforementioned email states the following: "We should meet up one day..I think we have somethings to address.." Not for nothing, but you don't have to be a C.I.A code cracker to know that said emailer probably doesn't want to discuss the public option with me.(But if I read it wrong and he wants to engage in civil discourse, at least our penchant for clumsily using ellipses will be a great conversation starter.)

Listen, I'm well aware that I'm dealing with the internet here, a place where anonymity affords you the luxury of expressing which FOX News personality you would like to tie an anchor around and throw into the deepest body of water you can find. Which actresses and seductive songstresses are so hot that you'd gleefully drink their bath water, be willing to eat food out of their less desirable orifice. For all I know some incensed Rohan Marley fan(They exist? Really?) finished reading my Vibe.com post and created a email account to toss veiled threats at yours truly. I have no particular quarrel with that theory, that may indeed be the case. But due to my extensive reporting(a search that took 2 seconds tops), it lead me a dummy myspace account that coincidentally was last logged on to around the same time his current myspace account was activated. Not exactly smoking gun evidence, and not exactly Woodward and Bernstein type of reporting.

That said, I like to cover all my bases here at The NappyDiatribe. Rohan, if you are reading this, as a veteran of more bar fights than I'd like to remember - I'll spare you the tough guy rhetoric that I'm so well versed in. Threatening to throatchop the shit out of you in the most public of venues, suggesting that your diet will consist of nothing but jell-o and applesauce after a chance meeting with me, respectfully telling you that I posses a forearm that will make you backflip if any variety of clothesline is involved - all of those tough guy overtures come across as shrug-worthy wolf tickets in an age where 70% of insecure wordsmiths fabricate their rather milquetoast backgrounds. Lets embrace civility and meet up for real, maybe we can discuss you releasing Lauryn from your evil spell so she can fimally get back to making great music again. If I have to play the hostage negotiate on some Kevin Spacey shit, then so be it. If have to get my Ralph Machio on, and possibly freestyle battle your dumb ass at the crossroads so Lauryn's soul will be hers again, I'm down with that too.

But if we happen to exhaust those peaceful options, I'll just have to resort to.. Well.. Don't let the fact that I have a blog where I constantly talk about the sub par women that I penetrate fool you.

Nutty Black Conservative Watch

For the longest time I thought the absolute worst of Black Conservatives, until a few of my conservative brothers and sisters sat me down and very thoughtfully and thoroughly broke down the reasons why they were in facr=t conservatives. Even though the civil discourse that day did nothing in terms of swaying me politically, I respected what they had to say - and I felt that my lifelong assumption that every republican with melanin were nothing but shuffling Uncle Toms was an awfully unfair, kneejerk assessment. But after witnessing the gutter tactics of a McCain campaign that toiled in dogwhistle politics, the foaming at the mouth racists at Palin rallies where cries of "Kill Him" started to become old hat, I couldn't see how any self respecting black person, republican or not, could support such a ticket. But many still did, and many still continue to completely co-sign extremely questionable G.O.P tactics and those of the extreme fringe that make me seriously rethink my conservative induced epiphany that I had with those reasonable black conservatives. So every now and then I will document viral lunacy, nutty as squirrel shit black republicans with youtube accounts. This is the first installment of "Nutty Black Conservative Watch"

"The Gilberts"



I know it would be rather unseemly for me to attack children on this blog, that's why I have no intention of doing so, my target today is the father of the children in this video - a man named Bruce Gilbert(seen at 2:27 of this video). Because I'm a glutton for punishment(I have a habit of trolling youtube and twitter for garden variety hatred), I've been aware of this family of seven from Easton, Pennsylvania for more than a year now. My problem with Mr. Gilbert isn't that he's a black conservative, my problem with him is that its obvious by the all the clumsy edits and his children referencing The Employee Free Choice Act and Saul Alinski of all people - that he is forcing his twisted politics down his the impressionable throats of his kids. To use his kids in that manner is pure cowardice. Hell, giving their youtube page a quick lookover will have you openly wondering where in the hell social services are. You'll find everything from the disturbing, like Bruce making his kids wade into birtherism, to just sheer pettiness. Shit, under the "favorites" section of their youtube page they actually have an interview with that dipshit who carried a gun at that New Hampshire townhall speech. Jesus Christ man. I view self hating black people of Mr. Gilbert's magnitude the same way I view most strippers: There had to have been some extremely painful event or lack of love that has turned them into the person they are today. I'm suddenly forced to quote Nas in "Ether": "Were you abused as a child, scared to smile, they called you ugly?"

Anyway, the video above is Mr. Gilbert forcing his kids to clumsily celebrate the fact that their school district decided not to screen Obama's extremely scary "stay in school" message. Nutty Fucking Black Conservatives indeed.

President Obama’s stay-in-school speech (full video and transcript)

Like I said on twitter earlier, as I watched this speech I suddenly wanted to mercilessly beat all the parents who kept their kids home today with a pillowcase full of sodas. The opposition to the speech was nothing but straight up racism, I really wish the media would stop playing referee with these people.

Hey Keith, fuck you and the primary challenger you rode in on

On the night of November 4th 2008, as I saw images from around the world of complete strangers embracing while emptying their respective tear ducts, the one emotion that I was overcome with on that memorable night was relief. Sure, I was relieved that the man that I fully supported, constantly defended, canvassed and mercilessly beat peoples asses for - had finally captured the highest office in the land. But after almost two years of hyperventilating, incessant handwringing, armchair quarterbacking Team Obama at every turn, cursing Hillary Clinton's good name and wishing bad things happened to Mark Penn, absolutely loathing Bill Clinton, the sleaziness of the McCain campaign that made my skin crawl, the intense anger I felt every time Sarah Palin had one of her Hitler Youth rallies - I was relieved that finally my blood pressure raising nightmare was over. Boy was I naive. The Primaries and the general election were Shiatsu rubdowns compared to what has been going on since the President and his family took up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

We knew that the Republicans would reflexively be against anything Barack Obama proposed, that's not exactly a news bulletin. But all of the outright racism that has been reported on as legitimate American dissent makes me want to club someone to death with a pillowcase full of sodas. Succession, angry townhallers who preface their misinformed diatribes with "I want my country back", bigoted parents willing to pull their children out of school for what has been characterized as an Obama "kids stay in school" address, the cries of "socialist" and "marxist" that actually happen to be the new millennium version of "nigger", assholes with guns at health care townhalls.. What does a guy have to do nowadays to be called a racist? I'm sure someone wearing a klan outfit while burning President Obama in effigy would simply invoke some clumsy false equivalency by the likes of Joe Scarborough, citing some code pink member or something.

But even the racism, to some extent, was expected. But what I didn't expect was all the liberals acting as if their best friend just sodomized their girlfriend's right in front of them every time the Commander in Chief didn't do everything that they wanted. Jesus Christ man. Look, of course we should hold the President accountable, we can't be like the republicans who gave Bush a blank check for 8 longs years. I openly disagree with his bi-partisan fetish, the continued use of Blackwater, rendition, a number of issues. But ever since Barack Obama had Pastor Rick Warren give the invocation at the inauguration, people's moping, their "Santa Claus is really daddy!!" discontent, the "I'm going to take my ball and go home" rhetoric - is both immature and extremely petulant. That said, nothing has shined a light on said petulance like the behavior of liberals during this Health Care debate.

Listen, I want a public option, and I feel that a bill without it isn't really reform. But the histrionics from progressives and liberal commentators alike has been nothing but vomit inducing. Incessantly dissecting every random statement concerning the public option, like Cenk Uygur did in this video, isn't helping anyone. Statements from lawmakers on the subject are absolutely useless, since it seems that the whitehouse is treating them like Mushrooms(feeding them shit, keeping them in the dark. See: "The Departed"), and statements from any WH official are useless as well, they aren't trying to tip their proverbial hand. My opinion is lets hold off on the ritualistic mass suicide until we see what a final bill looks like.

Which brings me to Keith Olbermann floating the idea of a Primary Challenger to Obama in 2012. Sure, he would probably say, if asked, that he himself wasn't suggesting it - only that he was guessing what the reaction of progressives would be if there were no public option. But since this is the first time I've heard of such lunacy, I'm forcefully putting that blissfully belligerent albatross around Mr. Olbermann's neck. That said, even though I know that Olbermann's veiled threat is a rather empty one - I would love to see someone take heed to his desire to cause irrevocable damage to the Democratic party and challenge Obama in a primary. Nothing says disaffected black voters like calling for a Primary Challenger 8 months into an administration based on a final Health Care bill that no one has fucking seen yet. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face: "That will show Obama, we beat him in a primary only to be forcefully sodomized without a complimentary reach around in a general election by a politician who makes George W Bush look like Janeane Garofalo. Wait.." I'm saying, I don't think its unreasonable to suggest that calls for primary challengers are a bit premature at this juncture. So Keith, to obscenely paraphrase a famous republican actor: "Make my motherfucking day!"

Why We Need Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance

With all the misinformation out there, and the shocking amount of drooling lunatics in this country who believe everything hamfistedly clumsy politicians named Grassley and DeMint tell them - its this writers firm belief that "School House Rock" needs to be brought back strictly for adults. Watching so many incoherent malcontents at these townhalls, its safe to say that civics was never their strongest subject in High School. Check out this illustration, a concise video that really breaks why we need Government run Health Care - its simple enough for a Jim DeMint constituent to understand.