Fuck Yo Couch N***A!

I’ve just come home from a press screening of Dave Chappelle’s “Block Party” and I’m still rollin’. The movie is literally Dave running around Dayton, Ohio and Brooklyn, NY with a film crew talkin jive and getting pumped for the ultimate block party. It’s full of random scenes that we would normally dub “wtf crap” moments like Dave racing a little kid in the street or trying on pimp suits in a store but it’s also fucking brilliant! Not to mention the amazing performances of Talib Kwali, Kanye, The Fugees’ first fuckin’ appearance together, Big Daddy Kane, The Roots and one-of-a-kind, stop-your-heart acts by Jill Scott and Erykah Badu (there’s more but way too many list and you should go see it anyway!).

I left the theater with my love for self and black folk completely rejuvenated (not as if it needed to be but damn!). This ain’t your average “let’s make fun of white people” Chappelle skit, either. Chappelle and Co. spend much of the film talkin’ shit on white people; and while it’s still in jest, Chappelle’s interlude on what’s not heard on the radio with Dead Prez in the background saying how crackers in city hall should be killed is lengthy for a reason. Indeed, the film is still choc full of Chappelle’s classic shrieks and hilarious wisdom but the themes of race and especially the intimacy that is only found in the black communities of places such as BedStuy are strong enough to slightly alienate those of the caucasian persuasion. But, as always, Dave makes a point to note the “19 white people” he sees peppered into the party crowd and proceeds to look for a lone Mexican.

The soul of the film is community and it’s very warming. I found myself – as usual when seeing spectacular live performances – thinking how much I fucking love black men (Talib Kwali is fucking sexy as hell when he’s on stage), even Kanye’s crazy ass.

And it’s probably a very good thing I missed out on this shindig because I’m damn sure I would have been the block party groupie. “Every single one of the performers coulda got it!” my buddy and I kept admitting in the theater, Mos Def, Kanye, Common, Talib, anyone from the Roots. Hell, I say even Jill and Erykah just so I can check ‘em off my groupie card.

Seriously, Dave Chappelle has again surprised me in his genius…

There are too many jokes, scenes and performances and they’re too good to give away, but here’s just a tidbit of one of his many musings: on the DC sniper, Chappelle always said he was black “because he took the weekends off.”…fucking brilliant.

So What Was All That Money For Again?

“This deal wouldn’t go forward if we were concerned about the security of the United States of America,” Bush told reporters during a Cabinet meeting.

….but…but…but i thought that..errrr…

Every time I think Bush can’t shock me anymore, he does something new. He’s full of tricks that one!

Where oh Where Have My Privileges Gone?

There’s this new show airing on FX called “Black/White.” Ice Cube sings the intro about two families, The Wurgles and The Sparks (there are just too many jokes to be made with either of the names i.e. is this a reality show or a morning cartoon following Teletubbies?), white and black who will don the makeup of the other race and see what it’s like to live as their counterparts.

I honestly in a rare moment am at a loss for how I feel about this. In many ways, the experience could be enlightening both for the players and the viewers. As we all know, when surrounded by sameness, certain things will be said and done that wouldn’t otherwise occur and I think both families will encounter hearing some pretty ugly things.

One thing I can say just from the previews, while the The Wurgles can definitely pass (especially the daughter, she somehow looks prettier black…well I guess that’s not a stretch, right?) can realistically pass, The Sparks look like something out of a 1980 freak movie! All three members, mom/dad/son, look like albinos who’ve come from a loooooong sunny vacation..with bad wigs. Especially the son, his eyebrows look pasted on. Hopefully the producers will keep them in the confines of white-town because there ain’t a black person on earth who’d mistake them for white. Not only that, a black person would publicly call The Sparks out for looking insane trying to pass. Frankly, I’m not even sure how much white people will buy this family’s authenticity. I’m no whitey but I’m sure there’s like some internal or tacit eye-action that goes on among whites to test for caucazoid-quality and, if so, The Sparks better run!

On the other hand, let’s hope that The Sparks will at least enjoy some nice shopping and driving experiences and that The Wurgles have some bail money stashed away.

And Then He Said, "Shit, Bitch…"

This is a little overdue but I’d be lying to y’all if I didn’t let on that my Valentine’s Day was actually pretty fuckin spectacular and not because I spent it drunk and alone cursing past loves. I mean I did that, too, but I wasn’t alone.

Well, awhile back I met a guy who sort of, not entirely because I won’t let him, swept me off my feet for that day or week or now or somesuch. For V-day, he did it with tulips (not roses, blah) and a teddy bear. And not any sappy teddy bear – the Shit Bitch bear! It was the perfect gift showing he was thoughtful, considerate, LISTENS to my crazy ass, and gets my sick sense of humor. Hell, if this had been a different time I might of even dropped the panties, but I’m trying not to slut it up as much this year…no worries, I’m not going into full nun mode

We met up, he tried to take me to someplace where all you do is DIP food but considering the Hallmark holiday, it would have been too crowded so we went to a cozy intimate Thai spot where we got tipsy on sangria. I was worried all day that we’d have nothing to talk about – you know that weird fear you get of being boring – but we did! And he touched my leg under the table just so and I didn’t gasp nor did I drop the panties, good form!

The night went well and I went home alone to absorb and over-analyze it all as usual so all in all a good night.

But still it’s not like I’m losing my head over anything, I mean I’m leaving in 5 months…but that’s a whole other story.

Driving While White, What Gives?

This week’s New York mag covers a most upsetting trend in police work – upper west siders being arrested for – gasp! – suspended licenses. One woman had to spend a night in a Harlem jail where women did crack in the corner and told her not to fuck with them, why I’m surprised she didn’t have a heart attack! She’s then quoted at the end of the piece griping, “To be treated this way for something like this – it’s shocking!”

Now, being pulled over and getting thrown in jail for hours because your license is suspended, and sometimes mistakenly so, is ridiculous, wrong and shouldn’t happen. My irritation at the article is these people’s outrage over shit that black people have had to deal with for eons and suffer much more dire consequences. And maybe, just maybe, if more white people put up a stink about the abuse of power that runs rampant in the police force, Park Avenue hoity toits wouldn’t be getting snatched up in central park for speeding on their scooters….and have to sit next to black women in Harlem who we can only assume were arrested for far worse offenses.

With Luck Like This…

Hurricanes, Floods, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, The End of New Orleans, President Bush killing people, Dick Cheney shooting his friends, fuckin’ 60 degrees in February….I’m seriously starting to think the world is falling apart.

2005 Regret

I cant believe I shared my naked body with this man for a year….I think you can all figure out which one, but just in case, it’s the photoshopped whitey on the right.

Post-Valentine’s Day Line-Up

while i actually had a very surprisingly nice V-Day (more on that later), looks like I had an exciting prospect all along!
talk about follow-up (it’s “Hxx” from the last vday post) and the pic is so enticing.

Date: Feb 15, 2006 3:21 PM
Subject: No Subject
Body: WHATS GOOD? HOPE YOU ENJOYED YOUR CLICHE DAY YESTERDAY, ARE YOU AT ALL STILL INTERESTED IN GETTING TO KNOW ME??

…looks like i’ve got some competition.

To Be Or….

So things aren’t going so great for me at the elite mag I work for these days. I guess I’m just not cut out for the administrative part of the editorial assistant gig.

I’m not even upset by the flaws I’ve been showing. My editorial abilities aren’t what’s called into question – it’s my ability to tell people when and how to wipe their own ass. My parents didn’t do what they did and I didn’t go to college to learn how to be a secretary. I’m not knocking secretaries either, it’s just not what I’m skilled in.

And yes, I am fully aware of paying one’s dues but I feel like I did that with my previous jobs as an assistant to the editor and an office assistant. Bad experiences are just as educational as good ones and this one is certainly helping me see that I just suck at taking care of other people’s shit. If I tell my boss something once, I hesitate to remind him/her more than once because I feel like I’m nagging or being condescending. But apparently some folks do need to be reminded of their ass-wiping.

I am much better being left alone – left independently with a list of tasks and projects and that’s it. It’s why I’ve always coveted more research/fact-checking positions than anything editorial because you’re just given what you’re supposed to do and that’s it. Your boss doesn’t tell you how many times a day he’ll need his ass wiped. He has someone else for that.

So I was talking to my father about this today and how I’m more and more feeling like I need to get a research job (however impossible that may be!) and having more time to write. He surprised me with the suggestion that if I really wanted to be a writer, I could take off to the family home in the country – Buckingham County, VA – and take time to really focus and write and pitch, etc. That if I was interested in writing a book, that’s the ideal way to do it and then send it off to publishers and whatnot. As much as I argue with my father about how little he knows about the publishing world, I had to admit that he was right. So what’s stopping me from packing up, going away to a place with no distractions and figuring out what I want to do and focusing on it? Honestly, I guess I’m a punk. Because what the hell is keeping me here taking these bullshit jobs that are demeaning and teaching me virtually nothing I hadn’t learned before?

Perhaps it’s the deep fear that if I really buckle down and focus, I’ll realize that not only am I not that good, I also have nothing to say…..

100 Things….

I saw this on TAN’s site and thought it was an interesting exercise. Though I don’t know if mine’s factual enough, I’m too cerebral. Dah well, for your pleasure or disgust….

1. I’m 23 but forget or misstate my age a lot.
2. I wish I was 17.
3. I was damn cute at 17.
4. I feel old.
5. I hate bananas, they make me nauseous, even when mixed into other foods.
6. When I was a child, I absolutely loved bananas and ate them all the time.
7. i’m always afraid of being boring even though I have many friends.
8. My ex-boyfriend has more friends than me.
9. I think I’m smart, I’ve been told I’m smart.
10. I scored high on all the national, standard tests given to me.
11. I graduated magna cum laude from New York University…before the Olsen twins made it look like a school for the rich and retarded.
12. I constantly feel like a dumbass at my job.
13. I panic that I haven’t made the right career choice.
14. I spend a good 4-5 hours a day living in fantasy of another life (but I’ve read that Leos have a tendency to do that).
15. I believe in astrology when it suits me
16. I have an obsessive need to let someone know when he/she’s wrong.
17. I’m deeply aware of the old adage, “God don’t like ugly.”
18. I debate the existence of God.
19. My father is a bitter atheist, my mother is a devout unorthodox Christian.
20. My parents divorced when I was 7 and religion had nothing to do with it.
21. Blogging is sometimes my attempt to tell others how wrong they are e.g. my ex, bigoted white people, my ex and bigoted white people, my boss, my friends, my ex, bigoted white people.
22. I’m just as much wrong as I am right.
23. I have judged those close to me.
24. I am too sensitive and take too much personally.
25. One school accepted me so that’s where I went.
26. I graduated early.
27. I had an editorial job at The New York Times before the age of 23.
28. I get ahead of myself, especially in thought, see #’s 13 and 14.
29. I procrastinate, see # 14.
30.I’m neurotic, see #13.
31.I take Celexa every night before bed.
32. I was diagnosed with ulcers and esophageal reflux at age 16.
33. My mother is clinically depressed with bipolar tendencies.
34. I grew up with my mother and visited my father on weekends, summers and holidays.
35. I grew up in Washington, DC, the actual city, not the burbs.
36. My mother has attempted suicide 5 times in my lifetime, but I only remember one time.
37. I attended National Cathedral School for girls from 4th to 12th grade on scholarship.
38. I was one of four colored girls in a class of 50 in 1991 and one of eleven in a class of 76.
39. We were not all friends but that didn’t stop those of us who were from being labeled as “the black lunch table”, every white school has one! (even though I guess all the other white tables were just tables)
40. I can be argumentative.
41. I can be complacent.
42. I am less argumentative with white people as I’ve been labeled as “angry” too many times.
43. No black person has ever called me angry.
44. I guess I’d call myself a race woman.
45. My first love was with a white guy, go figure.
45. My first heartbreak was with a white guy.
46. When I was 12, a man followed me from my house to the store in his truck. I was wearing a short summer dress as I walked and he spoke to me the whole time from his car.
47. I bought my first short skirt in 2006 at 23 years old.
48. I love wearing short skirts.
49. I hate men eyeing me in public.
50. I was xxxxxxxx xxx x xxxxx.
51. I oscillate from flattered to angered when I’m told I’m too pretty to smoke.
52. Everyone thinks I’ve quit smoking or that I am quitting.
53. I smoke a pack every few weeks.
54. I am quitting smoking.
55. I always think I’m thinner or fatter than I am, see #’s 53 and 54.
56. I always think I’m prettier or uglier than I am.
57. I lost 30 pounds in high school from late puberty and a growth spurt. The same guys who called me funny now called me hot.
58. I was asked to – and attended – 4 proms my junior and senior years of high school.
59. I never had sex on prom nights.
60. My secret nickname among the boys in high school was “chocolate nipples.”
61. I abused diet pills and laxatives until 2 years ago.
62. I work out when I can and eat right, though I also spend a lot of time thinking about working out, see #14.
63. I will never be rich but I imagine one day I will be.
64. I will always struggle not to be poor.
65. I want to be a writer. Technically I am one in that I currently freelance for peanuts.
66. I am afraid that I suck.
67. Sometimes – though, not enough – I think I’m fucking fabulous.
68. I am 5’3 or 5’4, but I wear heels 24/7.
69. I hate newly developed suburbs.
70. My father has had gastric bypass surgery and still hasn’t lost enough weight as he should.
71. My father had a mild heart attack the following year.
72. My father is now doing so well that he doesn’t think he even had a heart attack despite his not ever having attended medical school.
73. I thought I’d have a lot more to say here but I don’t.
74. I hate leaving things unfinished.
75. I am uncomfortable with silence among two or more people, myself included.
76. I have made my mother cry.
77. I got my first period at a classmate’s house whose parents were well-known millionaires. Her mother gave me flat ginger ale and a scented toy bunny. I was 11.
78. I am very close with my father. He is a great dad.
79. My father has been a terrible husband to both his former and current wife.
80. I have an 11 year old sis and 8 year old bro from my father’s current marriage. They are great.
81. I danced a lot better in high school.
82. If I talk about high school more than college, it’s because much of college is a drunken blur.
83. Needless to say, college was fun, “I studied a lot, drank a lot and fucked a lot, thank you very much.”
84. I dated older professional men while I was in college, they were the only ones who paid me attention and I thought college guys were whores.
85. I never dated/slept with a college guy until I was a college graduate.
86. I eventually figured out college guys weren’t whores, all guys were.

87. I get tired from dancing to one song.
88. I hate ass/crotch dancing with guys, when did bust a move become bust a nut?
89. I am probably lonelier than I’d like to admit.
90. I like to be left alone…a lot of people get on my last nerve.
91. I don’t like to cry but I do.
92. I have cried more than once when I witness a homeless/poverty-stricken person.
93. I used to bring coffee and/or food to a homeless man by my old job everyday. When I got a new job, I asked my co-workers to keep it up but I knew they wouldn’t.
94. I am a state-certified rape crisis counselor via Mt.Sinai’s Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention program (SAVI advocate). I tried out sort of on a whim and ended up doing 40 hours of training and getting incredibly involved.
95. I have had to help two rape survivors, both adults.
96. I am trained to work with child survivors, but am afraid of what I’d do if I had to, see #91.
97…..
98…
99…
100. My mother told me that you’re your best when you’re 8. She said that I was either happy or angry and if I got sad, I dealt with it and got happy again, that I never internalized what I didn’t need to. I am trying to be 8.