Tag: commentary

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Idolatry

american-idolIt is early morning, and there are 3,500 people packed into a giant room, all waiting to be called so they can show their stuff. Every single one of the other 3,499 people who sit there are poseurs though, because you — you are the next American Idol, and you almost feel sorry for those whose dreams will be crushed on this day. Then your number is called. You are supremely confident as you strut — yes, strut — into the room where the judges currently sit, waiting to tell you what you’ve known since you were young. They listen attentively — for 30 seconds before a hand is raised into the air. Your verdict comes.

Damn them, you think as you leave the room with their “No”s still ringing in your ears. It is late afternoon and your entire life has been invalidated. By that one simple word, multiplied by the power of three. That one word made you doubt every single loved one who told you how amazing your voice sounded in the shower every morning, every friend who went with you to karaoke and exclaimed how good you were, and every stranger who heard you singing at work and said, “Right on.” All of your faith in yourself, gone in the blink of an eye.

That’s because you tied all of your belief system up to one pie-in-the-sky idea, to an occupation that is hit-or-miss at best, one that spits out even some of the best voices and makes gruel of them. And honestly, you’re no Adam Lambert. So, why did all those people say you were the best they’d ever heard? BECAUSE IT COST THEM ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO SAY IT. See, they would have done you a better service had they been like my mother and told the truth. At least then you wouldn’t be sitting there on the curb outside of the American Airlines Arena looking like your dog just died, and questioning everything you ever thought you knew. Continue reading “Idolatry”

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Six For Saturday

It’s amazing to me how much happens during the course of a normal week, and you know my brain goes about a mile a minute. So I thought at the end of each week I would sum up the top six recurring thoughts in my head, or just ideas or stories that hit me in … Continue reading Six For Saturday

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When the World Ends

The-End-Of-Seattle“We ate the food. We drank the wine. Everybody having a good time. Except you. You were still talking about the end of the world.” -U2

There are so many books these days focused on what might happen after the world as we know it ends, books like Divergent, The Hunger Games, Prodigy, Uglies, and Matched. And in these books inevitably some horrible thing happened, involving human greed and devastation, that brought about a mass change in the way people looked at and interacted with their world. There are many movies that mirror that dramatic change as well, films like After Earth, Oblivion, and 12 Monkeys. As a society we are obviously obsessed with what comes after life as we know it.

I’m intrigued, however, about why we seem to think the world will go through some type of apocalyptic war and need to be cleansed by something that turns horrendous itself. Perhaps it’s because we tend to go in cycles, with good times and bad times, but human nature always wins out regardless. Human nature is of course greedy and self-serving. I remember watching White House Down and thinking about the motivations for the characters to do what they were doing, holding people hostage, killing people indiscriminately as they were. Then it hit me that they were just looking out for number one, what regular people do every single day in real life.

That’s why so many of these characterizations and plots revolve around horrible things happening, because when individuals are self-serving, it leads to chaos, anarchy, and war. We fight little wars every day, as singular human beings, but larger wars escalate as well, and it’s easy to see how they could morph into world-wide catastrophes. I often wonder what would happen if every single person did one thing every day to help someone else, how much that would change anything. I honestly think it might. If we’re thinking of others instead of ourselves, we would make decisions to help the collective instead of the decisions we make that lead to dissension. Continue reading “When the World Ends”

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Fear Itself

I’m afraid of heights. I never realized it until I was hanging onto the ladder on the side of that thirty-story silo twenty-three years ago, and I looked down. Everything was so far away. The people in the field across the way looked like ants, but that thought was fleeting because it all started spinning. … Continue reading Fear Itself

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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”