#42: Daytime television

Once upon a time, the American afternoon was the home of Mike Douglas, soaps like Another World, game shows, reruns of prime-time hour dramas, and the greatest cartoons one could possibly wanna come home from school to. Maybe even a random movie…and this was on a Big 3 affiliate! As time passed and cable penetrated more homes than Ron Jeremy has college dropouts, habits began to change. Two people worked instead of one (the cable had to get paid for somehow!) and there was increasingly a different demographic at home. That’s when the car insurance companies, personal injury lawyers, for-profit vocational schools and such began advertising to replace the dishwashing liquid and peanut butter commercials. And the soaps, reruns, and especially the cartoons started getting s-canned in favor of judge shows and very. Trashy. Talk shows.

Let’s examine the messages presented here, shall we?
-vocational school:
“Yo’ *ss need to be in SCHOOL, you non-workin’ muhf*cka, so you can go get a job to feed all them bad *ss kids with!”
-car insurance:
“You can’t drive that bucket parked outside to go find a job with (since no one will hire folks who ride the bus) until you insure that b*tch! But it’s a bucket, so you can forget about full coverage.”
-weight loss surgery:
“We’re here to help the nation of fat bastards like you get a job and a date. And since you’re mentally and physically bankrupt enough not to mix in a walk or two and quit eatin’ bullsh*t, we’ll be more than happy to take your money and make you financially bankrupt as well!”
-bail bonds:
“Come to us, we’ll get your baby daddy outta jail so he can help raise them kids and pay them bills for you…or not.”
-tax and credit services:
“Fix your financial issues so you can move out your mom’s rest! So she can invite a man over and do naughty thangs without having to look at yo’ triflin’ *ss on her couch.”
-talk shows and judge shows:
“Do you really wanna look like these pathetic, uneducated, ugly, ghetto/fat/queer (probably all three) pieces of sh*t?”
“See the makeover these ex-nerds and miserable shrews got? They couldn’t buy sex at one point, yet look at them now! This can be you!”
“What kinda superhoe has no idea who fathered her kids? This bet’ not be you!”
“Raise your damn kids right lest you want some random dude in prison shouting at them. While longing to finger them inside their underwear.”
“We need guests dumb enough to air their dirty laundry and show their lack of decorum and intelligence on television. You need money. Give us a call.”
“Then again, don’t. All you’ll do is play yourself and millions will laugh at you just like you laugh at these bozos on the screen now.”
“Your mama didn’t raise you right and your daddy probably doesn’t even exist…let me be the parent you never had as I give you a crash course in the real world with this ruling.”
“Don’t you dare raise your kids on shows like these! We cancelled away the cartoons in order to make you buy cable for them to watch Nick and Disney on so they can talk about it with their little friends on the schoolyard. But what good parent plops them in front of the TV so that they think like these twerps? Send their Flamin’ Hot Cheeto eatin’, red-fingered *sses outside to play so they don’t end up an obese roly-poly like you!”
-soaps:
“If you’re lowbrow enough to watch this, you deserve this bad writing and bad acting we phoned in for you. And you actually tape this sh*t? Well…actually you have to tape it because people like you can’t afford a DVR.”
-all of the above:
“You have too much time on your hands. After a few days of this, if not mere hours, maybe it will sink in. Se habla espanol (even if you don’t, which keeps you from getting hired in CA, FL, and TX)”

The time slot between 10am and 4pm on the Fox, CW, MyNetworkTV, and independent stations (+ Big 3 affiliates in those podunk markets) is now home to television aimed at making you feel like a loser for being at home to watch it (instead of at work like every other red-blooded American is!)…or at least slightly better than the losers cast on it (who are ghetto to deeth for a reason). Social engineering at work free to air.

This has been a public service message from the SGPL Get A Life Association.

#41: Taking rap(s) too seriously

Studio gangstas exist because rap’s biggest problem since the rise of the thugs and “roughnecks” has been the idiot fans (and some rappers’ colleagues) who feel that keeping it real actually means that rappers must live exactly what they say in rhymes (that subject matter usually being some hardcore dirt or illegal way they got extreme stacks before they first hit the mic). To these people (usually ghetto), there’s no such thing as a persona or a character, no such thing as creative license.

Somehow this “keep it real” contingent never got the memo that a rap song isn’t an interview with a given rapper.

Some, to be sure, actually do rap about their real current lives or true experiences. Or even base fictional raps on something that really happened, ripped from national headlines or their personal ones.

But one should be able to paint whatever type of picture they like without some weirdo attaching these works to how the performer actually lives. Many rappers are their own worst enemy, as these lyrical Brunos never step out of character, and perpetuate the idea that this should be the normative of Hip-Hop. Even wrestlers change it up when they get out of the polyester daduntaduns.

Overemphasizing that other idea of “realness” is what has poisoned the rap climate for so long. It’s partly how Tupac and Biggie got killed, it’s partly why so much corny E-thuggery is posted to rap sites like allhiphop.com or DubCNN, it’s partly why so many MCs (like Max B and Shyne) go catch cases and end their own careers.

It’s really disrespectful to the beauty of what Hip-Hop has been and still could be. You don’t see this f*ckery go on in rock or jazz, not even with these all-too-closely-associated R&B artists.

And it’s paradoxically hilarious that these homophobic alpha males are analyzing every square inch of the life of another man as if they’re getting paid for it. Message to that man in question who rolls like this: If another dude was on your tip like that, living vicariously through you, you’d call him all kinds of queers, right? Of course you would, the world already knows how people like you are. You don’t think you look some kinda way all in a rapper’s personal business (or that of some sports figure, for that matter)? *cue the plea copping that it’s supposedly different*

And leave it to this idiocy that you got rappers not admitting to or proud to have perfectly legit jobs or degrees in the name of higher street cred. For the sake of feeling right listening to a record, one would rather that someone getting smoked or turned out on crack actually happened, and at that rapper’s hand! As if that makes the beat sound better in the speakers or some sh*t…

Michelle Obama

There’s just something about her like there’s something about New Balance 574s on your feet. You can’t place a finger on it, but it feels right.

Adele Givens tells it best. She’s just such a f*ckin’ lady!

She ain’t no video vixen and she ain’t tryna be no hot mama or anything else out of pocket. She’s just straight up woman. Fits Barack to a T. Those factors alone make her bad as hell. And she got badder as she got older! How many women can you say that about?

A woman like her could say “let’s get it on right here right now!” and a ghetto dude wouldn’t even accept because he’s just floored by her general steez…just wanna lay on her bosom and listen to her tell stories or something. And as he lays there, two milk 20-something freaks could come by ready for a three-screw, and he’d turn them down out of hand like “nah, I’m good” with a Kool-Aid smile on his face for a month.

Michelle Obama is the wife every man ghetto or otherwise wants next to him on every date and vacation, let alone bearing his children. And a lot of dudes don’t even know or won’t admit it! Queenly without tryna be some overbearing diva. Comfortable in her own skin just like the President. She knows where she fits in this world, doesn’t have a pretentious bone in her body. Whether wearing shorts in public or getting physically close to Queen Elizabeth, she pulls off being her.

Yo, kcuf the dumb….this author fox with Michelle Obama. Period.

#40: 24/7 Alcoholism

You know how you see somebody and you just KNOW they been drekkin’? You know know how you SMELL somebody and you just know they been drekkin’?

Times ain’t that hard and it ain’t always a party. It is ghetto to be drinking, drunk, or have liquor breath if you’re not painting the town red, watching the game, doing champagne brunch, in the studio or casino, chilling with some skins, or simply meditating by self-medicating at the end a long hard day. There’s a time and a place for getting it in, and until then, gotta be about that self-control.

Something ain’t right about the cat having the alcohol dragon behind you in the checkout at the supermarket…at 9 in the frickin’ morning. Something ain’t right if you’re drinking before driving the kids to school, then having them drive you to the store to reload the clip on the way home so you don’t catch a DUI rap. Dude tryna mack up a freak at the bus stop when his eyes are dim and watery should be shot down by her. And ladies, y’all are douchebags if you’re drinking between the invite over a man’s rest and your arrival, then having the nerve to demand respect when you don’t respect yourself or him enough to come correct with the presentation.

This author sees you who was invited to hang out, got in the car immmediately fiending for a drink way too early in the day, and when the decision is made to play along, cop some drink and make lemons into the lemonade of laughs, you pass on sharing brew, wine, even Hennessy, in favor of satisfying your suspect Cisco fetish. Cisco, known to the hood faithful as crack juice! Your flipping the script and suddenly needing a drop-off immediately afterward to go babysit your friend’s child was addition by subtraction.

Matter of fact, calling these drinking situations ghetto is an insult to the term “ghetto.” Nah, it’s just flat out trifling.

And I don’t buy that one is expanding his mind when he’s doing dummy moves to begin with (the drink of choice being Thunderbird spiked with a Kool-Aid packet doesn’t help his case). That person is just bad at life. May as well smoke crill.

Author’s note: This entry coming up as #40 was purely coincidental….or not.

You can’t make this stuff up #5

Out on the town a few weeks back, I spotted the following:

Yeah, it’s the ghetto Lady Deathstrike. A female Freddy Krueger. And she looked about 40 something running with her boyfriend that was probably 28 or 30. So she’s been studying at the Cougar Den. And her thickness indicates she was taught to kill her own food using those.

You guys can’t tell in the pic, but those things were quite thick and sturdy lookin’. Can’t imagine bangin’ her walls out and her carving one’s back up with those talons (not saying I wouldn’t poke–she had a nice meaty rack and, as you can see, a serviceable rump). What practical use could she have for those things? Maybe to sniff 2 lines worth of coke at once? And why do chicks with these swords on their fingers always have jobs that involve typing?

Author’s note: Yeah, it’s the first post in 30 days. Had been out enjoying summer for one (freaks, sneakers, drinks, you know the deal). Beyond that, what’s the point of casting pearls to swine, AKA these recent commentators who take this blog on face value and swear they know what this author is talking about better than I do. Reminds me of people who buy magazines for the pictures and not the written content. Those who see me drop it over on Kicks On Fire and Very Smart Brothas know the real deal. Anyway, all that is to say I’m alive and well.