Personally, I tend to stay away from them joints. If I go to McD’s, chances are, I’m grabbin that Quarter Pounder. In the BK Lounge, it’s a Bacon Double Cheeseburger.
Although to get down to it, I think I prefer Burger King’s burgers and McDonalds’ fries. When BK switched their fry recipe, it was intersting, but not necessarily enticing. It’s like something I have as a change of pace because I want a change of pace, not because it’s particularly good. I kinda miss the days when McDonalds and Burger King were always in walking distance from each other so I could get the good burgers and fries, even if I had to get them separately.
I Know You Got Soul – Eric B. and Rakim Don’t Believe The Hype – Public Enemy Kool Is Back – Kool G Rap & DJ Polo Welcome Back – John Sebastian Headbanger – EPMD, f. K-Solo & Redman Eighteen Pounds of Unclean Chitlins – Mel Brown Description of a Fool – A Tribe Called Quest Can I Be Your Squeeze – Chuck Carbo The Interview – Artifacts The Hustle – Van McCoy
I don’t know if I’m jaded or if the lens through which I view the world is particularly different, but some things are just surprising to me.
Take, for instance, the fact that an interracial couple was denied a marriage license by the Justice of the Peace. While that on it face surprises me a little, I think what really surprises me is that there are people who are stupefied by it. Seriously. People are surprised by an expression of racism? If it’s that surprising, then I would imagine it means they need to get out a little more. Is that type of egregious behavior less-prevalent than it was in times past? Absolutely. Does less-prevalent mean altogether gone? Under no circumstances. A lot of me thinks that type of surprise has more to do with political brand identification than it has anything to do with an individual person’s life experiences.
Speaking of political brand identification, I think I am genuinely surprised at the level of outrage over Rush Limbaugh’s being dropped from an investment group looking to buy the Rams. Rush himself, and many of his supporters want to point the finger everywhere else but at Rush’s previous statements about the NFL. Really, who cares whether the man is a racist or not — at least in terms of his ability to be an owner in the NFL? Who knows what the majority of League owners feel? Whatever they feel, they have the good business sense to limit their comments to things that aren’t going to damage the NFL brand. Limbaugh knows no such boundaries. He’ll say whatever comes out of his mouth — I was gonna say whatever he thinks, but I’m not even convinced he actually thinks everything he says. He’s a provocateur. He might be in it partially for the ideology, but he’s in it mostly for the attention. As such, I really can’t take anything he says very seriously — and that’s just not good business. Especially for a product that’s very likely to go international in the near future. But jokers runnin around and actin like it’s some grave miscarriage of justice? C’mon son. Especially Black folks. C’mon son.
(And as an aside, I’m straight confused by folks who will try to argue that Limbaugh was right about McNabb. Are you serious? Yeah, the Eagles D was excellent back then, but the season before homey opened his mouth, the Birds had just dropped 415 points. Come on. Aaron Brooks was in the League and he came at McNabb? And jokers to this day are defendin Limbaugh like what he said was accurate? I’m sayin. If he had’a said somethin about Aaron Brooks, what argument would there really have been? Even Vick, at that point, would’ve been a better target than McNabb. And that really gets to my point that Limbaugh says what he does for attention. One of those other dudes might’ve been more accurate, but that wouldn’t have gotten people all lathered up. He went for the target that would get him the most attention. What’s more, he say, ‘McNabb is overrated,’ he said ‘The media is conspiring to make people think a Black quarterback is better than he is.’ As if that’s not standard behavior with a successful quarterback. C’mon, son.)
I think I’m still surprised at sports haters. Obviously, most of my friends from high school are rooting for the Phillies in the MLB playoffs again. But then there are those other jokers who are rooting against the Phils, just because. LIke, it’s one thing to root for your team. But to root against another team? That’s corny. Unless that team is one of your team’s archrivals. Then I can understand it a little. Or if it’s the Cowboys.
Saw Chris Rock’s Good Hair over the weekend, along with some critiques of it at the beginning of the week. I thought it was pretty well done, exploring some of the issues without ever being really heavy-handed. Given the topic, the documentary could easily have veered into super-nationalist territory, on some ‘you get straight hair because you wanna be white’ steez, but it never really went there. Instead, it just kinda pointed out what was what and left the viewer to draw his or her own conclusions.
One the bigger ironies that I noted was that two commenters who had some fairly profound statements were men with perms: Ice-T and Al Sharpton. It’s funny, because in looking at Al in Good Hair, it kinda reminds me of why Al seems to be a fairly likable character in the first place. Dude is quite witty, and he is by no means dumb. I may not completely buy into his shtick, but if you listen to him on there, he clearly knows what he’s talkin about; even when he gets extra, talkin about the ‘economic exploitation,’ it’s not at all hard to see the logic in what he’s saying.
One of the more interesting points in the documentary for me was where the hair for weaves actually comes from. I was quite surprised at the actual place of origin; not just the country, but the actual place. A good portion of weave hair is shorn from Indian people as a part of a worship service. Here’s the real kicker: they give the hair away for free, then the religious institution sells the hair to dealers, who make crazy dough off it. In the end, the users and the suppliers are the ones being fleeced, while the middlemen make all the profit. It’s absurd.
I was pretty comfortable with the movie not getting into all that ‘white hair’ business, though. In fact, the movie did a good job of making the point that while straightening hair probably did originate as a means of trying to physically assimilate, at this point, hair styles are just almost as interchangeable as outfits. While I still have my personal thoughts about people who choose to straighten their hair, I hafta recognize that for some people it’s just that simple. It’s not about what would appear in nature, it’s about what looks right with what the outfit and what’s easy to maintain.
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