August 28th will mark the 45th Anniversary of the day that Dr. Martin Luther King gave his historic I HAVE A DREAM speech at the Washington Monument.
No doubt about it, MLK is the Black American Moses and the way each and every one of us, black and white, red, yellow, brown, dog, cat, tree, etc…live our lives today is, in part, the result of what this man sacrificed his life to achieve.
"And I would like to make a special comment, Your Peach Cobbler was magnificent, Mrs. Jenkins."
But…I had always wondered, Why Didn’t MLK Weigh 400 Pounds? Why didn’t he blow up to big like sumo fat?
Think about it.
All those churches where MLK spoke at, all them old sistas wanting to be THE ONE WHO COOKED MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. THE BEST FRIED CHICKEN HE EVER ATE, a lot of young sistas wantng to be THE ONE WHO HAD A DELIGHTFUL EVENING WITH THE LEADER OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT (now for those of you who were thinking I was gonna go there, shame on thee). I bet Dr. King never had to come out of his pocket for a meal.
Lord, I ate so much last night during the fish fry at the Elks, that I will have to walk from Selma To Montgomery to work that off...hey, that's a good idea!
He wasn’t just marching for civil rights, he was also getting some exercise, working off all that ham, neck bones, candied yams and chocolate cake. Sh*t, Brother Martin had to be in shape and be ready for Bull Connor, J. Edgar Hoover, Jesse Jackson always hanging around like a big nerd…
Here is a part of his famous I HAVE A DREAM speech that Ralph Abernathy told him to change after he had something to eat:
I have a dream that one day, I’ll be able to have some tasty pickled pigs feet and hawg maul with some turnip greens and a big slice of corn bread, not just any corn bread, but some Jiffy corn bread, made just the way I like it, not too hard, not too soft, the same way Goldilocks likes her porridge, made by Sister Patterson of the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Mound Bayou, a town in Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, that will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice and catfish cafes from Tishomingo to Pascagoula.
Dr. King had a slice of Red Velvet Cake and a tall glass of milk, went back and edited that part of his speech and the rest is history.
Nope, can't feel anything, that video has made my entire body numb
Just when you thought that Mayor Kwame’ was about as bad as things could get in Detroit, you’re proven wrong. Allow me to introduce, for your viewing displeasure, IT’S SO COLD IN THE D:
Oh, these are the kids that Bill Cosby’s been talking about! Damn, he was right!
I’m just numb. All those years of therapy, totally wasted now thanks to this. I blame RENT TO OWN stores and YOUTUBE. Once they started selling camcorders and computers allowing every broke ass mofo in the tri-state area the chance to become a bootleg Dr. Dre/Gordon Parks, and YOUTUBE provided the platform for these “rap stars” to spew out them lyrical drive-bys, it was over. I’m going to bed. This is the end. This is the end of hip-hop.
Honestly, who's grave is that? Who's kid is that? It's like a straight to video version of FAT ALBERT II with a $12 budget and they pouring out $11 of it in this scene.
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A Big Ty addendum:
Normally, I would comment in the comments section, but this one deserves an intervention from me. I just watched this video, and it is the most horrible, most laughably bad song and video that I’ve heard and seen in a long time. Whoever greenlit this project should be taken out back and forced to bathe in a pool filled with rabid badgers. This song hits on just about everything that is terrible about Black music, in 4 minutes of mind-numbing and terrifying stupidity. I was literally laughing out loud at how ludicrous the whole project was.
But let’s just get into why this video is so bad that you want to claw your eyeballs out through your nasal cavity. You can rest assured that “It’s So Cold In The D” isn’t about the terrible winters in the Michigan area.
...feel my pain...we definetly hear your pain and our ears bleed.
The girl, named “Baby T” (does the T stand for “Tourette’s”?) cusses up a storm about the loss of life in ‘Tha D.’ Gangs and crime are apparently a problem in Baby T’s world… but Baby T seems to be mad that her criminal hardcore gangster friends are the ones that are getting snatched from this mortal coil. Baby T sounds like she’s all of 15, and the video opens up with Baby T and her hoodrat pals walking through a cemetary. The problem is (among others) is that for a song that’s supposed to be so grim and dire, one of the background girls is having a good ol’ time shaking her groove thang. Yep, what better way to project the sadness of death by cheesin’ it up in the graveyard? But listen to Baby T was philosophic about the tragic loss of life in the Motor City:
It’s so cold in The D/How the f*&# is we ‘posed to keep peace?
That’s all on a nigga’s mind/merkin’ and then doin’ time
(lather, rinse, repeat)
You can tell that Baby T is serious about the ‘merkin’ part, because of the “squeeze the trigger” gesture she half-heartedly makes with her hands. But wait. Put that Q-Tip soaked in battery acid down. Don’t shove that in your ear! Because if you render yourself deaf NOW, you won’t get to hear the tragic tale of Baby T’s friend (who was like a brother to her) and how this friend was into the Hard Knock Life (tm - Jay Z). Baby T’s lyrical dexterity knows no bounds, because she opens up with ending every bar with “and s&#@…” Baby T is such a lyricist, and such a lady. The rest of the song talks about her feeling the pangs of this friend’s death. But the insanity doesn’t end there. No, it doesn’t, my friends.
You see, it’s all about the imagery. Sure, you may forget Baby T’s profound lyrics. You may not remember the hook that makes you want to stick a toothpick into your eye, so that the sounds of your own screams will drown the hook out once and forever. Baby T thought about that, and she is way ahead of you. Remember when I said that this song opens up with the crew (including a little boy who should probably be in school somewhere — where’s that kid’s mom, and why is she letting him hang around a girl who uses a graveyard for a video backdrop?) walking through a cemetary?
In case that message is too subtle… in case the theme about death goes over your head, Baby T is a step ahead of you. In order for you to see that “OH NOEZ DETH IS TEH SUXXORZ SAD FACE OMGZZ WTF BBQSAUCE”, Baby T has gone the extra mile for you. Like a rapping Emeril who “kicks it up a notch” (after being repeatedly kicked in the head by the same Shaolin monks in the opening picture), Baby T goes the Extra Morbid Mile.
“But Big Ty… she is rapping about how hard life is in Detroit, the hook to her song talks about people getting merked, and she’s rapping in a graveyard. How can she POSSIBLY go the Extra Morbid Mile?”
I’m glad you asked. If you look closely, you’ll see that she’s holding some kind of obituary, probably one for the funeral of her late, lamented friend. But oh no, mi amigos… That’s just scratching the surface. Apparently, rapping about death is so traumatic to her that she gets off beat at around the 2:45 mark. But ten seconds after that, the lunacy reaches its apex. In the midst of what looks like street memorials, she has snapshots of a man in a casket, taken at said man’s funeral, I guess… and not to be outdone by THAT, she has snapshots of…
…are you ready for this?…
…BABIES IN CASKETS. YES. She goes the Extra Morbid Mile by using snapshots from a CHILD’S FUNERAL to hammer home the point that death is bad. This catastrophic train wreck of epic proportions comes to its merciful (?) conclusion with Baby T rattling off a laundry list of names of people that are resting in peace. Um… Baby T… baby girl… sweetheart… if you know THAT many people that have kicked the bucket in your lifetime, then perhaps you might consider a locale change. I hear that Beirut is nice this time of year.
The first thing that crossed my mind when I saw them was, “boy aren’t they some happy campers”. There was no doubt in my mind that they were both comfortable in their skin and that the love for one another was strong as The Force. Score one for Black Love.
Then I found out they parlayed that guest spot into their very own show, DOWN HOME WITH THE NEELYS, score two. And the hits keep coming because now they have a spin off of the show where they made their first appearance called ON THE ROAD WITH THE NEELYS and they are just as goofy and in love as ever. Hey, it works for me but not everybody feels the same way.
What’s the problem, not enough big booty biotches and fake assed gangstas on the music channels for you? The PDA too excessive or something? Or is this your idea of what Black PDA should be? One of my friends even thought that they were “putting on a show for whitey”, modern day coons cooking, was the way they summed them up.
Hold up. Here is some coonin’ & cookin’ for you:
I want you understand this, BLACK PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF LOVE, TOO.
So what if what the Neelys do may be over the top for you. Hell, maybe if we saw more black folks in like rather than in lust or disgust or acting a damn fool, we could be cool with a couple like the Neelys. We’re not all dysfunctional, well, I take that back, the whole world is on some crazy, in my opinion. The crazy doesn’t have to rule you, however. It’s 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. I just happen not to mind the way that the Neely handle theirs.
I wish we had a lot more black folks out there willing to be unconditional with one another in positive ways like this, then maybe your kids won’t think that the only way of showing affection is throwing money at them while they work the pole or being a baby daddy or baby momma is the way of the world.
Stop hating on Gina & Pat and let them roll with their goofy lovin’ ways.
Eric Benet and his daughter, India, singing the first single, YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE, from his newest CD, LOVE AND LIFE, currently set to be released September 9.
I had a vacation day Friday and had it all planned out.
I wasn’t gonna do a damn thing and spend all day doing it. That lasted until 0630 hours. approximately.
My S.O., Mr. BarkyVonSchnauser (it’s a she, sistas, stop grabbing your loins in anticipation of some NOAH’S ARC action, go buy the DVD or something) wakes me “accidentally” as she’s getting ready for work.
“Oh, since you’re up, could you iron my pants for me,” she smiles.
I think I grumbled yes as I got out of the bed, took the pants and headed down to the basement to throw them in the dryer and say that I ironed them. Long story short, they were too damn wrinkled for that to work, so I wound up ironing them anyway.
After I finished that, I gave them back to her and went back to bed. You know Barky wasn’t done with me all that easy. Usually she’ll bust out the “honey do” list, Friday night as I try to watch Doctor Who to make sure my weekend is properly filled with more than just PlayStation and anything else I might consider fun (What do you consider fun? Fun. Natural Fun. But since I was up…
“I want you to weed out the rock garden for me and take the dog to the groomer and…”
I rose up out the bed like the Living Dead with a grudge on. I wasn’t having this, dammit. Today was a vacation day and I wasn’t going to spend it pulling out some weeds in some HGTV inspired dream turned nightmare! I’m a grown ass man, dammit. Today, I put my foot down to that f*cking “honey do” this and “honey do” that s*it. Woman, thou art about to get thee check hard into the boards!
So after I dropped off the dog, I was weeding out the rock garden, trying make sure that I got every sliver of grass out of the thing.
The neighborhood that we live in is a nice, quiet place where the majority of residents are the folks who white flight left behind. Those white folks who were either too old or too broke to make another move when the middle class Negroes started advancing on the territory aka The American Nightmare.
This particular bunch of the left behind, the casulties of racial segregation, are a nosy bunch. Using investigation tactics under the guise of “chit-chat” that would make the CIA and KGB envious.
I could see out of the corner of my eye that one of the neighborhood’s “Mrs. Kravitz” was watching me from her sun room. I knew it was only a matter of time before she would be over, making with the “chit-chat” (aka being nosy). No sooner than I thought it, her ass was standing in front of me. I didn’t even see her walk over, she just appeared like a damn ghost. POOF! “Whatcha doin’?” No hi or nothing.
ME: I’m pulling weeds.
NN1 (Nosy Neighbor #1): Hmm. Whatcha doing’ home?
ME: I’m pulling weeks.
NN1: (cackle) Oh I can see that, silly! I mean, you usually ain’t here this time of day, you take a day off or something?
ME: Yes. To pull weeds.
Now, you know I see her working it. She all up in the kool-aid wondering if a nigga still got a job as if her life depended on it. There will be no urban decay on her watch, no doubt. Ah, the joys suburban living.
The neighbor next door to the right of us, NN2, comes out side to see what’s going on and to see what’s she’s missing out on, heads over and she starts up with the questions.
Thankfully she’s asking pretty much the same questions as NN1 so they re-hash intel. Mind you, I’m still on my knees, pulling away at these stupid weeds in the rock garden, they don’t let that bother them at all. I guess a black man on his knees tending to yard upkeep brings backs memories of “the good old days”.
Okay, that was kinda harsh. Neither one of these ladies has even shown the slightest hint of prejudice in the entire time we’ve lived there. Outside of the excessive nosiness, they’ve been pretty nice. Swell even. But then there’s NN3.
NN3 reminds me of a lyric from Public Enemy’s CAN’T TRUSS IT:
Look here come the judge
Watch it here he come now
I can only guess what’s happ’nin’
Years ago he woulda been
The ships captain
Old dude just reeks of “I’m watching you, boy” -itis. Always talking about his old dog, a German Shepard, of course, that died back when Johnson signed the CIVIL RIGHTS ACT. I guess the dog didn’t want to live once it found out that chompin’ on black folks asses was now legally wrong. Or how Jim Brown was the scariest football player he had ever seen (old white dudes over the age of 50 tend to have this fear of Jim Brown, an unstoppable black man that it took at least five men to take him down. He must have been the 1960s version of THE TERMINATOR to them.) plus he was the first brotha to get with a white woman on the big screen and didn’t get lynched afterwards. Scary shit.
The American Nightmare Getting His Backfield In Motion
He also notes that Barky and I are “a very nice black couple” as opposed to the “very bad black couple” who would put a foot up his ass for saying that mess? That’s nice.
Bad Black Couple Example
I don’t think, however, that he hates all black people, just the men. He’s always on the lookout for my other neighbor, a late 30s-early 40s sista and is forever trying to engage her in convo, which she is having none of whatsoever. Soon as she pulls up to her driveway, he tries to get her to slow down but she hits her garage door opener and is in her garage with the door closed quicker than Bat Man getting back to the Bat Cave before anybody sees it’s under Wayne Manor.
Nobody sticks around when any of these three are around lest they be sucked into a 45 minute conversation/interrogation. The dog, who loves people if only to bark at them, takes off at the first sight of them.
Man’s Best Friend, yeah, right.
So Nosy #3 has been sitting on his porch watching NN1 and 2 standing over me and unlike with the ladies, I know that the sight of a black man on his knees tending garden while two other white people stand over him must brought up lynching flashbacks. He doesn’t run over right away, however because he hates talking to the ladies because “they’re some nosy old bitches”, he says, irony being oblivious to him.
He can only stay away so long and, eventually, he had to come over and get in on the festivities. “Hey! Hey! Looks like a party over here! That’s great! Whatcha doin’?”
The Nosy Three The Hard Way team is now complete.
Now this little garden party goes on for an half-hour. When they start asking me what I think of Michelle Obama, it’s time to end this and I know just the way how. I stand up, and this takes a minute because the knees been through a lot over the years, the war…on Nutrition, that was a killer, and, without saying a word, start to walk towards the house and they start to follow.
I Like Michelle, she's sassy!
Okay, that didn’t work.
I could use the old standby, opening up a can of Act-A-Fool but having neighbors this nosy does have some benefits. They watch our house better than the cops and we save about 40 bucks American a month on ADT. Anybody that even look remotely suspect, and for old folks, that’s anybody under the AARP age requirement, and they are hitting 911 on speed dial, nosy with benefits.
So I appeal to the one thing that both men and women of all ages, shapes and color can relate to, control. “Ooh, I didn’t realize it was so late,” I say. “I better get to my other tasks before the little woman gets home because she won’t be pleased if things aren’t done. You know how that is?”
The ladies cackled with delight and went their separate ways. Whoo! A woman who controls their man? It’s a wet dream for old ladies to hear about how these liberated women take care of business and keep their men leashed.
The old man, however, looked at me with disgust that had nothing to do with me being black. A old time “a woman stays home and keep the house and kids and hot food clean, quiet and ready by the time the man gets home, respectively” soldier like him probably wanted to slap some manhood in me. But, instead, he walked away mumbling under his breath and spitting on the ground.
I laughed to myself and ran in the house before they came back and fired up the PlayStation.
The lesson learned, next time I take a day off, I’m going to invite Jim Brown and Michelle Obama over.
Hey, Jim, wanna play MADDEN? Oh, the lawsuit…my bad!
[singing] Now is a time of great decision / Are we to stay or up and quit? / There’s no avoiding this conclusion: / Our town is turning into shit. Amen. — Church Congregation, Blazing Saddles (1974)
