Halloween 2012

First and foremost, yes, I know. That picture is absolutely disgusting and the person wearing it paid to present themselves this way. Since I've been an adult, I"ve found Halloween to be an interesting time of year for lots of reasons. It's not exciting for other reasons that don't involve shopping bags full of candy that end up being savagely consumed in about a week. As an adult, this time of year is both a relief and a source of comedy. The process of making a costume is a way to let your hair down as an adult. You can even get frustrated because your costume isn't exactly how you want it to be (Ex. I had to settle for a cigar rather than a pipe to complete my Hugh Hefner outfit because I refused to use a corn cob pipe when I was going more for the Sherlock Holmes pipe look). Also, when you go out to grown up Halloween parties, there is usually no shortage of two things: unorthodox costumes made of some combination of ingenuity/convenience/douchebaggery (see tampon costume pictured above), and typically women trying to use show off their sexiness. The Halloween party I attended Saturday night had a little bit of both but not in optimal ways. Some of the costumes in the building included an Afrocentric demon, Pai Mei (the old Chinese kung fu instructor from "Kill Bill" with the white hair), and the one that beat me out for "Funniest Costume", the half naked squatter. Literally, he was in the party wearing nothing but black underwear briefs and black socks. Imagine how uncomfortable it is to be sitting on a couch and a dude sit beside you wearing nothing but drawls and socks. What if his thigh skin makes contact with me or something? That's not cool, I show up for parties looking to make inappropriate contact with women, not men. His exposed banana hammock was making me uncomfortable. As for the women trying to show off their sexiness...they tried to missed badly. The main women trying to show off their sexy were the ratchets. One was dressed as a nurse, the other a gangster, each with a lot of skin showing in a way that made you wonder if they were strippers from a low budget brothel and a shameful bachelor party was about to break out; those costumes may have fit each 20 lbs prior. It was quite shameful. Quite possibly my favorite part of this time of year though is the endless stream of horror movies; mostly terribly unrealistic or predictable. I find them hilarious in several ways. There may or may not be extra low budget camera work, there's terrible acting, worse decision making by the movie's characters, etc. Despite the fact that they're being chased by a murderer who doesn't run or move fast, they always find a way to fall, start crawling, pick an obvious hiding place/run upstairs where the stairs are the only access, become easily distracted and/or loud, etc and meet their demise. And these slasher killers...they don't eat, don't drink, don't shit, don't sleep, they don't even get women. And of course they don't die, meaning if I was in one of those movies, instead of shooting them or stabbing them a time or two and turning my back, I'd be cutting heads off and burning them... movie over; hence why I they'd never base a horror movie character on me. The horror movie industry wouldn't survive if the young Black male (typically first to die) gets smart and kills and dismembers the killer 28 minutes into the movie. I was watching these movies the entire time Hurricane Sandy was dumping rain on my house. So all in all, despite the fact that it's become commercialized to the poing where people have lost sight of its true origins (like Christmas), I enjoyed my Halloween fun and I hope everyone else did the same. Enjoy the holiday and stay safe from the hurricane.

Uncontested ratchetness.

Upon further review, I met with the council (it consists 3 members: me, myself, and I) and have determined that the trio I shared an elevator with in Atlanta may have been the most ratchet group I've ever been in the presence of. Here's the kicker...nothing dramatic happened. Usually when you think of ratchetness, someone is being loud, ignorant, belligerent, inappropriate, etc. 90% of that didn't happen. I was riding the elevator down to the hotel lobby with a friend and we stop on a floor where three individuals enter the elevator. As soon as the doors open, the smell of weed (possibly with something extra involved as well) and just a little bit of cheap "smell good" (possibly Axe) punch me in the face like a quick jab to the nose...on an elevator. It takes me 10 seconds to remember that's it's not even lunch time yet. That's what Snoop used to call "the wake and bake" I guess. As they have a calm, louder than normal but not yet inappropriate conversation about their respective choice of drug to help them sleep soundly through a long plane ride, I take a closer look at them one-by-one. There are two women and one guy, all in about their late 20s or early 30s. The guy has on a smedium V-neck white tee, keeping the shirt simple so the jewelry on his neck and wrist can steal the show; also to put the interconnected tats covering his arms, chest, and neck on display. The belt on his jeans is keeping them secured right at the very bottom of his butt, entire ass full of drawls on display because of aforementioned smedium shirt. He has a flame like design on the side of his head, the type you probably couldn't wear to a good job because it would be seen as unprofessional. The first woman I see is a thick chick (a lotta woman) who is wearing an outfit she clearly bought 30 lbs (12 of those in the stomach) ago. Her weave was either 6 weeks old, or was only worth about $6, I'm not sure which. It looked like recycled roadkill.  The other visual catastrophe from where I was standing (behind her) was the colorful yet indistinguishable tattoo running from one shoulder to the other. I couldn't figure out the motivation of it...or the purpose. The second woman was about as thick but slightly more dumpy. She had the official hoodrat "I want hair down to my butt but bangs to my eye lashes in the front" weave; which she was scratching profusely with her acrylic nails. Her clothing selection seemed to be an attempt to taste the rainbow; I couldn't establish which colors were dominant and therefore which colors didn't match the others. She had "unprofessional piercings" (I'm a fan of sexy piercings on sexy ppl, on her, it just looked nasty) and her tattoos likely numbered in the dozens. One tattoo in particular caught my attention and may have been the most ratchet in my memory. She had the Louis Vuitton pattern going from her shoulder to her elbow area. Not one symbol, not one strip of it, her entire upper arm had the pattern of a handbag. I'm glad they never turned around and saw me, I was stuck between contemplating a laugh and a look of awe from what I was witnessing. They were putting an all out assault on almost all of my senses; the smell was so pungent that I felt like they would taste terribly as well. It was simultaneously entertaining, informative, and embarrassing as a young Black observer of this. I never thought I'd see that level of ratchetness in calm situation. U learn something every day I guess. Am I being overly judgemental? Maybe. I've Been Called Worse...

Stop Me When I Start Lying: The Illusion of Cristoforo Colombo

I had to work the holiday to celebrate the arrival of Cristoforo Colombo (later made Spanish into Cristobal Colon and then further Westernized into Christopher Columbus) in the 'New World' some 520 years ago. It would've been nice to have an additional day in Atlanta, where I spent my weekend and hell, everybody likes an extra day off. But the truth of the matter is Columbus (like many people in history) gets more credit than he deserves. Did it take balls to leave your home country and ask rival countries to get support to finance his insatiable thirst of exploration? Of course. It took even bigger balls to go out and do it. Kudos to him for that. BUT, his credit stops there for several reasons: 1) He was not the first person from another continent to land there, Chinese explorers, African explorers, and possibly others beat him to North and South America; which was also inhabited by Natives anyway. It's nice how history tends to take your side when your sponsors have more map makers and book writers than the competition 2) Dude missed his target (India) by 8000 miles and somehow couldn't figure that out. I know navigation wasn't what it is today but that was a significantly shorter trip. If I didn't use GPS or maps but planned on driving to California and got there in 12 hours, I'd know I was somewhere other than my destination. Wanna know why it's called America and not "Columbus Land"?? Because Amerigo Vespucci could figure out that he was in The New World instead of India and Columbus was running around calling Native Americans "Indians." Plus we all know the gruesome process of colonization that Columbus essentially pioneered in this part of the world; there came to be a practical 10 step manual --1) Befriend Natives on arrival, 2) Exploit Natives for all useful knowledge (farming, hunting, climate, geography, resources, etc), 3) Kill strongest members of Native culture, 4) Kill children who seem to have capability of growing into future threats, 5) Enslave remaining women and children, 6) Rape Native women therefore passing Euro-based STDs globally, 7) Burn and pillage Native villages, 8) Denounce Native traditions and religions, 9) Oppress Native people with white superiority logic, 10) Take credit for all knowledge gained (which will make it into future History textbooks) and call Native people "Savages." Although Columbus wasn't as heavily involved in all 10 of these steps as other Conquistadors (Hello, Henan Cortez), his hands were dirty enough to be disliked for his involvement. But hey, the spoils go to the victors when it comes to tell the stories of history. So I'd take Columbus Day as another excuse to miss work if I got the option, but I'm not sucking him off like everyone else. Stop Me When I Start Lying...

Read up if you don't know:
http://rense.com/general43/before.htm

http://wn.com/1421_the_year_china_discovered_america?_%7B1_of_8%7D

Are u serious: Dumbest Money Management I've Ever Heard

I often use the phrase "the dumbest shit I've ever heard" usually for emphasis rather than truly believing it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But (**turns on Katt Williams voice**) "this shit here nigga" actually may be the dumbest thought process about managing money that I've ever heard. My brother works with two young women, one about 24 and the other 22 I think. Each is said to have the same problem, frivolous spending...or in my analytic point of view, the lack of proper self control that an adult needs to stop themselves from spending frivolously. I don't know their names, so even though they are both young Black women, they will be referred to by names I believe Dumb Blondes would have for the purpose of this blog entry. So the first, Cindy Lou, is 24 years old and despite having a decent paying job with career possibility, she didn't feel she was getting paid enough. So she takes it upon herself to get another job as a waitress at a bar. Young lady, sees a problem takes action, sounds like a cool chick, I like her at this point...until the story goes sideways. Well, once she gets the side job, she finds that she is spending too frivolously on clothes and shoes...despite that fact that between her two jobs she never has time to go anywhere. So what would I do at this cross roads I wonder? I'd likely try to increase the amount of money I'm actively saving (extra savings account, start an IRA, high yield, or something) or make a list of meaningful items that I need to buy and make a plan to use the extra money to get those. Everyone doesn't think like me, so maybe the better answer for her is something like dropping the side job (which eliminates some of the extra cash while giving her back some of her social life), right? Wrong. Blonde Cindy decides that she needs another LARGE BILL to eat up her extra expendable cash. So she buys a new car....WTF??? Let's analyze this. She has now in effect locked herself into having two jobs (negating her social life and ensuring her erratic sleep schedule) because it's the only way she can afford her bills and newly acquired car. If she does want to shop for shoes/clothes or take a trip or anything else that may require a large amount of cash at one time, she probably can't because she consciously decided that she is going to swallow up all of her expendable cash. She is likely one of those women who is attractive, has a good job, now drives a nice car, and can't figure out why she doesn't have a quality man; she may claim there aren't any (and I know that there are a lot of "ain't shit" dudes around). As a quality man myself, I'd like to sit her down, put my hand on her shoulder and say "Baby, although u seem like a great catch, ur though process is ridiculous, I'd guess that it's not just limited to money management. This may make you seem toxic and/or too unstable/unpredictable to be true wifey material." It's a lot more polite than what ran through my mind when I first heard this story. So, what? If we were serious and we're taking trips and stuff, I just have to pay for everything for "us" because you've decided that every penny you make will be dedicated to "you"? You working two jobs to not have any extra spending money for anything? And for this reason, I only get to see you once a week or something because your schedule is crazy? I don't play that shit. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, take a moment and try to think of what could make less logical sense that Cindy Lou's idea of managing her spending. Over here behind door #2, Tammy Lynn takes that train of thought to a new level. Tammy Lynn has the same spending issue as Cindy did. It was never explained to me if these two formulated the plans together or what. She decides that not only does she need a new car, but she's going to lease a luxury vehicle, something that should cost her about $700-800 a month to help 'relieve her' of this extra cash that tends to be spent on clubbing, shopping, etc. Here's the kicker, Tammy Lynn (who is about 22) still lives with her parents. Let that marinate a moment...***Elevator music***...Yeah. No wonder she has all this expendable cash, she has a career path job living at home with her parents. So instead of getting her own spot, she's determined to make herself strapped for cash in her parents house. How the hell are you ever gonna make it out of your parents house if you've consciously decided not to save any money? You expect some dude to date you for a little big and then turn Captain Save-A-Hoe like "Don't Worry, Keep ur luxury car, I'll pay for everything"? It baffles me how a fully functioning mind can come to this conclusion as the best solution to a problem. Face the truth, the problem is not that you have this extra money, the problem is that you have no self-control and dont' bother planning and doing something constructive with that money. Get yourselves together ladies. You're making your gender, your race, your family, and everyone else look bad right now. SMH.