Category: commentary

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The Humorist

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” -William James

black dark text humor quotes funny infographics 1920x1440 wallpaper_wallpaperswa.com_100Girls like guys who are funny, right? I imagine if every female had to take a quiz with a list of attributes they admire on it, a sense of humor will probably be high on the list, but is it really the case? Well, think about it this way: if a guy is always serious, things would get boring rather quickly. But that’s where common sense plays a part. A guy who is never serious would also get tedious in time. It’s all about walking that delicate tightrope between the serious and the humorous.

But, of course, if I knew where that line was all the time, and how to stay atop it without falling, I would be a genius. Most guys also can’t balance that well all the time. So we try our best to read the “signs” given off by whatever females we happen to be engaged with (engaged being a state of interaction in this case). I can’t tell you how many times I haven’t been able to read those signs and some bad things resulted from it, or when I read the signs the wrong way and made a mess of things that way too. In those instances, I just tell my wife, “You knew this about me when you met me.”

Not the right response when the lady’s not too pleased that you’re joking during serious time. Believe me.

I do pride myself on being funny, but that kind of quirky funny, you know the type. I’m the guy who takes the obvious punchline and overdoes it, making the reaction funny, not necessarily the joke itself. I guess you can say I’m over the top in most things I do, but I do have the corniest jokes. Continue reading “The Humorist”

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What Black Men Find Sexy

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Is this what black men want?

It’s funny how I picked up the November issue of Ebony magazine (for us black folk) and this headline stared back at me: What Black Men Find Sexy. It intrigued me, being a black man, that this article can tell me exactly what I find sexy. So I read it. You know, because I wanted to know. It blew my mind. Here’s what it said in a nutshell. Black men like…

1. When the ladies “flash those pearly whites.”

2. Soft hands. “Soft hands are important. Unless she’s a construction worker, they shouldn’t be rough.”

3. The “barely there” look. When the ladies wear makeup that makes it look like they’re not wearing makeup.

4. When the ladies have fresh mouths. She can be hot to trot, but if her mouth is foul that’s a deal breaker.

5. Pretty eyes. They’re the windows to the soul or something.

I found it interesting that the article said nothing about anything below the waist (hands don’t count). Apparently the brothers don’t care about 36/24/36 like Sir Mix-a-Lot told me we did. Of course on the magazine cover there is a picture of five “fine” black ladies who all have straight hair and “rockin’ bods.” What does that tell me about the things black men find sexy?

Continue reading “What Black Men Find Sexy”

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Diatribe

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Quit looking at me!

I have a wooden duck in my living room. No, seriously. It sits on the high shelf and looks down on me while I’m watching television. And I can’t help but feel like it’s judging my actions, that it’s telling me I should be out in nature doing something active instead of sitting here watching what my father always referred to as the “idiot box.” But I shut out his stare and focus on my programs instead, telling myself I’ll exercise later. Of course you and I both know I won’t, but maybe the duck will be easily fooled.

Being sedentary is a problem in our society, isn’t it? With all the screens around, our culture is geared toward sitting around, or standing around, and watching one thing or another. Sometimes it’s the laptop while we read and compose blog entries, and other times we’re staring at the TV. Still other times it’s our phones (yeah, it’s mostly our phones anymore, isn’t it?), or our tablets, or our iPod Touches. That sounded weird to me, iPod Touches, but I guess that’s the plural. Anyway, my point stands.

We don’t even talk anymore. In work just the other day during lunch, there were seven of us in the break room, and every single one was on a cell phone messaging, or texting, or trolling on Facebook, or tweeting, or Snapchatting, or any other variation of application available or popular to the masses right now. For a solid 20 minutes there was absolute silence in the room. I know, I counted. A room that used to have sound booming off its walls was absolutely silent for 20 minutes. That’s crazy.

But we do exercise, don’t we? At least sometimes we do. For about a month straight I was totally religious about it… in 2011. Every morning like clockwork I got up early and did my various routines. It got my heart pumping, I sweated out some toxins, and it made me feel better the whole rest of the day. But I stopped for whatever reason, and one of the worst things you can do when you’re on a regimen like that is stopping for a day. Because it’s so easy once you’ve stopped to stay stopped, to go back to being a sedentary creature. If I only liked nature, it would be easier. Continue reading “Diatribe”

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Words

Words can get us into some serious trouble, can’t they? Have you ever been in a situation where a misunderstanding involving the words you used (or didn’t use) caused a major rift between you and someone else? And all you wanted to do was SCREAM what you were really trying to say, but they weren’t … Continue reading Words

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So This is Global Warming?

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Bundle up.

Remember global warming? It was a hot-button term at the beginning of the 21st century. As our illustrious former vice president said, “It’s a certain truth. But it’s an inconvenient truth.” And yet since then we’ve recorded some of the harshest, coldest temperatures in this world’s history. In fact, today my children were home from school for a “snow” day, even though it wasn’t snowing. It was really a “frigid temperature” day, which was funny because yesterday it got up to 45 here in upstate New York. And isn’t that really the gist of the whole “global warming” issue, the idea of a global shifting of climate. Climate change, now that’s a phrase I can get on board with, but is it new?

When I was a kid growing up in Philadelphia I clearly recall a rough winter when it snowed more days than it didn’t, and during one stretch of time it didn’t stop snowing for three days straight, at the end of which we had over six feet of snow. And like good neighbors we made sure to dig out, at least to the sidewalk. There were these six foot walls of snow on either side, like we were rats in a huge, white maze. I was fascinated by it, sticking my hand out at one point while following my father, who was digging with the shovel, and touching one of the walls. My hand sunk in a little bit and was quickly covered in snow. I screamed and my dad turned around to laugh at me. I yanked my hand out of the snow and some of the wall crumbled at my feet. That was the end of that exploration.

Then, about fifteen years later, I went to New York City with a few friends of mine in order to party with another friend who lived in a dorm at NYU. We took the train in like we always did, but it was the time before instant notices ahead of time about weather situations. We knew a storm was supposed to come, but we didn’t realize it would be the blizzard of the decade, which it turned out to be. Continue reading “So This is Global Warming?”

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A Little Resolve

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is the time of year when people all over the world come up with their own personal resolutions, well-meaning as they are, meant to help them change things in their lives that are unsatisfactory to them for whatever reasons. Some of the most popular resolutions deal with body image, with emotional issues, and with organization, which all make sense because those are the same issues that a majority of human beings struggle with. But too many people take too much time focusing on the resolutions, on creating their list and making sure it’s numbered properly, that they lose sight of the other half of the equation: implementation of the plan.

Resolution: A decision or determination.

Implementation: The act of putting into effect.

It’s ironic that so many people resolve to be more organized, and implementing those resolutions is one of the biggest organizational tasks that can be undertaken. That’s precisely why usually even with such big hopes most people crash and burn when it comes to carrying out those gargantuan tasks they’ve set forth for themselves. Think about the resolutions you yourself have made over the years, and let me know how many of them were successful. Even thinking about my own, it’s difficult to pinpoint the ones that haven’t fizzled after a few days of fervent resolve. And that’s because life often gets in the way.

I know, it’s funny to hear that. After all, these resolutions ARE the epitome of the new life we’re trying to create for ourselves. How can life possibly get in the way of our heaven sent plans? The answer is so easy it might just astound you. We spend so much time those first few days focusing so much on our “new” life that we forget we have one that is waiting in the shadows for us to falter, and then swoops back in to reclaim us as its own. It’s really subtle at first, too. For example, one of my resolutions last year was to exercise more, and to that end I began a custom-made regimen on Wii Fit. It lasted all of two weeks (my personal record). Then life intervened. Continue reading “A Little Resolve”