Two thoughts weighing heavily on my mind that I need to get out:

1) If I ever see the WikiLeaks guy, I’m fucking him up on sight.
2) What the hell is wrong with North Korea.

First….

I’m trying to do my part and invest in some fledgling stocks…mainly the banking industry. I know it’s risky, but if things turn around one could make a huge gain. Just as things are getting better, jackass from Wikileaks comes back with his “announcement” that he’ll publish documents from “one of the biggest banks in the US.” Could you be any less specific? He made that announcement over a year ago. Why the hell are you still talking about what you’re gonna do? You’re messing with my money and playing with my money is like playing with my emotions. So…if I ever see him, Imma bust his head to the white meat. Imma go Kim Jong-Il on his ass.

Speaking of which…

What the hell is wrong with North Korea…making it rain on those people over in South Korea. You got beef with your neighbor? Fine. I get that. My neighbors get on my damned nerves too. But dude, watch your mouth when grown folks are talking. You don’t talk to Mama Liberty (America) like that. I’m not super patriotic, but I am aware of my surroundings and Lil Kim, trust me when I tell you that you don’t wanna mess with these crazy ass people over here.

Lil Kim Jong has been real big with his, “We got nukes” chest puffing. On behalf of Barack, I have this to say: Whatever you about to discover, we off that. We started this nuke thing. You are threatening a country where people kill each other over tennis shoes and puffy coats. Do you know the type of ass whooping you’ll get if you so much as light a bottle rocket facing our direction?

Go back to your little fort, listen to your iPod and re-evaluate your life, man. Have a frappucino or a slurpee or something.

Is it just me or do White and Black people have two totally different concepts of God? I think the overall “jist” of God is the same (loves people, hears prayers, etc) but the physical and intrinsic characteristics draw a stark contrast. Lemme give you some examples:

White God can hear.
Walk by any White church on a Sunday morning and you won’t hear a peep from inside.  That’s strange too because they tend to have rather large congregations. To the contrary, Black churches can be heard from a block away. Doesn’t matter if there are only four members in the church, you can hear a guitar, organ, drums and tambourine as soon as you enter the same zip code. 

This leads me to my theory that Black God suffers from mild hearing loss. You have to shout to get His attention and I’ll even go so far as to say that He has a mild case of ADD. That’s the best explanation I have for people shouting, dancing, running around the church and perculating. I assume it’s to keep Him interested. Meanwhile, White God seems to be cool with a simple (and quiet) “Dear Lord.” Some even speculate that you can actually pray to him silently. I’m guessing that prayers come to him on some kind of big screen tv with subtitles/ closed-captioning.

Black God is from the streets.
White God doesn’t require you to converse with Him in the King’s English, but it seems to be the lexicon of choice for White parishioners. And even if they don’t speak perfect English, the way that they talk to God seems more casual and direct. “Lord, please watch over us. Amen.”

Talking to Black God is like walking up to Goldie or something. First, you have the signifying. You don’t just say, “Hey God, what’s up.” You have to approach Him and let him know that you know that he knows that he’s the man. “Lord, we know that you were there with Daniel in the lion’s den. You are an awesome God. When I rose this morning, I didn’t have no doubt…” It’s almost like you’re introducing Him at the Apollo. “He hails from heaven. He is the inspiration behind the best selling book, THE BIBLE. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the Father, Son and the Holy Ghooooooost!”

Black God’s street cred isn’t just fueled by the lingo, it’s where Black God lives. White churches tend to be very nice, pristine places. I’m not saying that Black God doesn’t have some nice places, but his brand image is diluted by some of the “other” places he lives. Black God is kinda like the dude on Grand Theft Auto. You start out with crappy houses when the game begins, but then you upgrade over time. No different with Black God. He’s the original hustler and moves his product in any locale. You have your hole in the wall churches, the store front churches, the shacks that were leftover from the Underground Railroad, basement churches, rec centers and I even saw an old gas station converted into a church.

Now, when he does buy a nice place, he decks that joint out. ATM’s, bowling alleys, huge jumbotrons. He lets his people walk around with iPads and s-curls. He takes care of his peoples.

Now I don’t mean to say that I think either side is right. Both sides will probably say I’m going to hell for this. I just like to share my observations.

Is it just me or do White and Black people have two totally different concepts of God? I think the overall “jist” of God is the same (loves people, hears prayers, etc) but the physical and intrinsic characteristics draw a stark contrast. Lemme give you some examples:

White God can hear.
Walk by any White church on a Sunday morning and you won’t hear a peep from inside.  That’s strange too because they tend to have rather large congregations. To the contrary, Black churches can be heard from a block away. Doesn’t matter if there are only four members in the church, you can hear a guitar, organ, drums and tambourine as soon as you enter the same zip code. 

This leads me to my theory that Black God suffers from mild hearing loss. You have to shout to get His attention and I’ll even go so far as to say that He has a mild case of ADD. That’s the best explanation I have for people shouting, dancing, running around the church and perculating. I assume it’s to keep Him interested. Meanwhile, White God seems to be cool with a simple (and quiet) “Dear Lord.” Some even speculate that you can actually pray to him silently. I’m guessing that prayers come to him on some kind of big screen tv with subtitles/ closed-captioning.

Black God is from the streets.
White God doesn’t require you to converse with Him in the King’s English, but it seems to be the lexicon of choice for White parishioners. And even if they don’t speak perfect English, the way that they talk to God seems more casual and direct. “Lord, please watch over us. Amen.”

Talking to Black God is like walking up to Goldie or something. First, you have the signifying. You don’t just say, “Hey God, what’s up.” You have to approach Him and let him know that you know that he knows that he’s the man. “Lord, we know that you were there with Daniel in the lion’s den. You are an awesome God. When I rose this morning, I didn’t have no doubt…” It’s almost like you’re introducing Him at the Apollo. “He hails from heaven. He is the inspiration behind the best selling book, THE BIBLE. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the Father, Son and the Holy Ghooooooost!”

Black God’s street cred isn’t just fueled by the lingo, it’s where Black God lives. White churches tend to be very nice, pristine places. I’m not saying that Black God doesn’t have some nice places, but his brand image is diluted by some of the “other” places he lives. Black God is kinda like the dude on Grand Theft Auto. You start out with crappy houses when the game begins, but then you upgrade over time. No different with Black God. He’s the original hustler and moves his product in any locale. You have your hole in the wall churches, the store front churches, the shacks that were leftover from the Underground Railroad, basement churches, rec centers and I even saw an old gas station converted into a church.

Now, when he does buy a nice place, he decks that joint out. ATM’s, bowling alleys, huge jumbotrons. He lets his people walk around with iPads and s-curls. He takes care of his peoples.

Now I don’t mean to say that I think either side is right. Both sides will probably say I’m going to hell for this. I just like to share my observations.

The Beyonce special is on TV and the wife is watching. If one of us were a different gender then this wouldn’t be a problem, but my wife is a woman and I’m a man. That means that there’s tension already. You have no idea what I’m going through right now.

Women–even her biggest fans–hate Beyonce. It’s like they’re all agents and she’s Neo from the Matrix. She represents the anomaly, the unexplained occurrence that pisses them the hell off. Take my wife for example: After the concert she said, “That bitch is perfect. I couldn’t find one flaw on her ass.”

Women exist in the realm of “Beauty, talent, success: Pick one.” Beyonce is Neo and they have to kill that broad. LOL So here I am in the house listening to my wife saying stuff like, “I find comfort in the fact that she’ll be thirty before me.” I have to walk the tightrope of watching the show that my wife wants to see without falling victim to the siren’s song. I have to look interested in the show, without looking interested in Beyonce.

I failed horribly the last time we played this game. I took her to a Beyonce concert and unfortunately we had pretty good seats. She came out half naked and I kept my composure. I swear to God she looked at me like five times and I kept my cool. But then she lifted up on some wires and landed on a satellite stage a few feet away from us and I got to see her up close and personal and that was just it.

Time slowed down. It was like that Rick James sketch on Dave Chappelle. No lie, I saw Beyonce’s aura. I looked in her eyes and it was a rap. I love my wife to death, but at that moment in time, I couldn’t tell you what her name was if you offered me a million dollars. My wife caught me gawking and although she “gave me a pass” I haven’t stopped hearing about it since. (Secretly, that shit was worth it. That woman is fucking gorgeous.)

Anyway, I’m trying to do better this go round, so when she asks stupid questions like, “What do you think of that outfit she has on,” I know to just say something like, “I wouldn’t let our daughter go out in something like that, I don’t care how much money she made.” Deflection, my good friends…it is the cornerstone to a happy marriage.

God damn you Beyonce for trying to break up my shit.

People go through all kinds of phases before finally coming to rest in the seat of their own wisdom. I’m sure that there are a lot of people out there who hate holidays. I’m no exception, because I used to be one of those people.

For a long time I saw Thanksgiving as just another lie agreed upon that benefits the food, travel and retail industries. I didn’t celebrate it for a couple of years as some sort of protest. Now, I see things a little differently.

Sidebar:
That Folgers Coffee commercial just came on. The son comes home early in the morning and wakes the whole family with the aroma from a fresh pot of coffee and the mom and dad jump out of bed like, “He’s here.” The guy gives his sister a gift and she takes the bow off and places it on his shirt saying, “You are my gift.”

I think that drives home the whole point, but not in the cliched warm and fuzzy way that you may think. Imagine the backstory on this guy: Maybe he’s starting out in his own career and hasn’t been home in forever. He doesn’t call because he’s trying to start his own life and when you’re young, the more distance you put between you and where you started, the more you feel free–a necessary thing for personal growth.

So anyway, the dude probably didn’t really want to go home. Maybe his family felt dejected because they didn’t see him that much…like he forgot about them. The people at his job kept talking about the holidays, the stores he frequents put up decorations for Thanksgiving the day after labor day and now he feels obligated to go.

My grandfather died a month or so ago and even though we weren’t really close or affectionate when I was growing up, he always seemed so excited to see me during the last year or two of his life. I felt weird when I realized that I had that much value to someone. It also made me feel kind of bad to realize that my not coming around was essentially the same as denying someone a present that cost me nothing.

So, back to young Johnny (whatever the guy’s name is in the commercial). If you cast aside the history of the holidays (and the money that companies make off them) and just take them at face value, they aren’t really that bad. I can’t hate the fact that people have agreed upon a day where despite whatever is going on in your life at that moment, you have to drop everything and fulfill that promissory note that you took out years ago when you first allowed someone to love you. There’s no shame in paying it back with your presence at the table or gathering around the tree.

So Happy Thanksgiving to everyone…from the guy who used to think that it was stupid.

I’m thankful for the insight that tells me just how much of a good thing I’ve got going with my life.

I just watched a segment on the news talking about (ahem)

THE DANGERS OF NUTMEG!

Apparently there are videos on Youtube teaching kids to smoke nutmeg and that has become the new fear-flavor of the week. First, nutmeg has been used as a drug for a minute. I learned about that watching the Malcolm X movie as a kid. Did I run out and try to do it? Hell no. I didn’t even know what was going on and my mother explained it in the usual dismissive Black parent tone.
“Why did he give him nutmeg?”
“People get high of that sometimes. Now be quiet, we’re in the theater.”

Now they’re talking about trying to figure out if there should be some registry you have to get on in order to buy nutmeg, similar to the whole Sudafed thing. My question: Why are we constantly trying to save people from themselves? I’m all for putting safety caps on top of the Triaminic bottle to keep little kids from OD’ing, but once you pass twelve I don’t really give a damn what you do.

If you want to go out and buy a treasure chest of Sudafed to build a meth lab, knock yourself out. When you blow up in the process, I just hope none of your neighbors die with you. If you want to smoke nutmeg, K12 or pop rocks…knock yourself out! Why do I have to now show ID to buy sinus medicine?

I personally believe that part of the problem with society is that we’re trying to steal nature’s job. Sometimes survival of the fittest helps in population control. If you’re too stupid to know that smoking seasonings or playing chemist with a GED is bad then we don’t really need you. Heaven forbid you reproduce and raise another dimwitted child.

People are stupid.

So where the hell have I been?

I know my loyal reader (whoever you are) out there was ready to send out a search party. Fear not…I’m back. My computer crashed, my grandfather died, I’ve been fixing up my grandmother’s house and just about anything else that could happen, happened. But, I’m back and man have I got a lot to talk about.

First off…I got a new computer.

Now that's sexy right there

Yes dear friends, your boy is now “bougie” on a whole ‘nother level…I got a Macbook. Personally, I never felt glam enough to even go in the Apple Store, but after resuscitating my windows laptops (plural) over and over for the past two years, I finally put some money in Steve Jobs’ plate.

Now that I’ve joined the cult, I must say that I am loving the new life. I have been through maybe five Windows PCs in as many years and it was quite the experience to boot this baby up and it just came the hell on. There was no “Would you like to activate your free trial of Norton/ Corel Picture/ MS Office 2010/ AOL/ Yahoo Messenger.”

I never noticed how much of an advertising whore Microsoft was until I bought this Mac. What’s even trippier is the fact that I’ve had this thing for about a week and haven’t had to reboot it yet. I close the lid, open it back up and shit keeps working. I’m going bananas in here.

So anyway, there are some challenges to this thing. In many ways, switching from PC to Mac is like screwing outside of your race. You know someone who’s done it, but you kinda have to see for yourself. The same thing that worked on one, doesn’t work on the other and you feel the need to brag to someone.

So anyway, I wont bore you with the details, but it is cool to have something that friggin works. The coolest thing of em all is being able to work on this thing six-eight hours straight without charging it. My old Sony Vaio gave you a good hour and a half before giving up the ghost. And that was with the power settings turned as conservative as possible. Now…please don’t let this damn thing break since I’ve hyped it up so much.

All hail our leader

Just when I think people can’t get any dumber… Are people really planning an “Opt-out Day” for the airport body scanner? And wait…they’re doing it the day before Thanksgiving…the busiest day of the year??? What the hell is wrong with people? Where’s all that damn patriotism that was going around like the swine flu a few years ago. Back when Bush told everyone that terrorists were hiding inside cereal boxes, you could’ve gotten people to do anything. Now, after actually catching a guy with a bomb in his underwear, people are sheepish.

“It invades privacy.”
So does shrapnel from an airliner falling at a rate of 9.8 m/s through your bedroom ceiling and through your bed/body before coming to rest on the kitchen floor below.

“It’s unAmerican.”
Get the fuck outta here.

“Too much radiation”
Really? You get more radiation standing in front of a microwave.

Now conspiracy theories aside, we all saw two planes slam into a building a couple of years back. Considering how well the country handled that situation, I’m personally on board for any kind of searches up to and including stripping down completely and riding the plane naked. Get over yourselves! You are not that friggin important where you feel that you shouldn’t be scanned. That sounds like some axis of evil stuff right there.

The White man within

Even though you’ve been raised as a negro, you are not one of them. They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They lack only the light to show them the way. For this reason above all, I have sent them you, my only son.

It happened again today: My mutant power ruined what would have otherwise been a perfect day. I called my bank about a problem with my account and the lady on the phone was extremely friendly. She told me to come in and that’s when the problem arose. As soon as I got there, I got “the look.” I get “the look” everytime I go in for a job interview after talking to someone on the phone. It’s the look that says, “Oh my god, you sounded White on the phone.”

While she was pregnant, my mother was exposed to radiation while standing next to a White man. It altered my genetic code, leaving me with the ability to code switch. I’m not the only one of my kind, but with our identities being secret, I rarely know who else has the gift.

It’s kinda like that thing that the Hulk has…except in reverse. If I go out to Bethesda or some other place with few Black people, my mutant power triggers. I can’t help myself: The “pimp” in my step that all Black men have turns into a bounce, the scowl on my face that keeps crackheads at bay in the hood turns into a smile and even my clothes change. My North Face coat and jeans turn into a Polo coat and Dockers.

It’s not just my outward appearance either. I watch Charlie Rose, listen to NPR and actually enjoy going to the National Art Gallery once a month. That means that my conversations go a little different than you’d expect from a Black guy in a hoodie and jeans.

Now, this mutant power works both ways. You can’t enjoy the works of Thomas Cole without getting some flack from your ghetto counterparts. Years of being “the nerd” in DC Public School taught me to blend in. I’ve learned how to hit reverse on the code switch button. You can’t pull into the parking lot of Forestville or Iverson Mall blasting classical music. You’ll get “got.” So, that’s when knowing every Jay-Z  and T.I. song comes in handy. Those Dockers turn back into jeans REAL quick. My speech slurs, my walk becomes more purposeful and I look over my shoulder a lot. I also keep my fists balled up and have the “nigga please” look on my face. That’s how I get in and out of the Chinese carryout in one piece.

I run into a few other code-switchers from time to time. I’ve even encountered some who were so good at it that it took months to see through them. It’s a secret society, all we ask is trust.

Random rant of the day:

The people across the hall are driving me crazy. Our rent is entirely too high to have to put a towel under the door every single day just to keep the smell out of our apartment. They’re nice people and I try to cut them some slack because they have small kids, but damn…how hard is it to learn to cook? Right now it smells like they’re over there cooking marinated raccoon meat in a urine bath.

Every. Single. Day.

There isn’t a point to this entry…I just had to get that off my chest.

Thank you for reading.

Good day.