Our Generation's Purple Rain

If you're not excited, something's seriously wrong with your synapses.

God Bless You

A couple weeks back I was walking along the subway platform, rushing to or from something for which I was undoubtedly late. As I passed, a young guy cocked his head to the side and said something I couldn't quite hear. He was a gangly teenager, so I did not blurt out the standard "What did you just say to me?!" Instead I just asked him tartly to repeat himself.

"I said, God bless you." There was no whistling, teeth sucking, nor attempt to approach me. Just an extra emphasis on the Gaaaawd part.

I was caught off guard. If it sounds like run-of-the-mill street harassment, but the words are actually an invocation of God, what's a girl to do? It's like smiling at someone and telling them you hate them. Or visa-versa, I guess. Except he was confusing God with sex and I'm not Catholic so I can't process that thinking (jk!!). So I think I mumbled 'thank you,' and shuffled off in confusion.

Since then, I have noticed that guys ask the Lord to bless me regularly. At first I thought it was just my neighborhood, where a lot folks have stickers of Jesus on their apartment doors and candles in the windows. But now, I've got Jah, Yaweh, JC, and all them guys accompanying me on street corners all over the city. A couple of years ago, I would have heard any number of nasty things on the street. Now, only blessings...

Have young men finally stumbled upon the perfect catcall? A jeer that can brilliantly neutralize women with the use of a confusing religious message AND still maintain control over the public space? It's genius. Thank God!

Monkey President

This is really hard to watch...

Are mixed people snitches?

My brother recently took offense to one of my posts, Regarding Stuff White People Like, where I wrote that being mixed is "part Donnie Brasco." I sat in the room while he read, hoping he would approve and maybe even chuckle. But before reaching the second paragraph, he threw up his hands as if scalded by the keyboard, swiveled his chair authoritatively and informed me quite seriously that I was mistaken.

I don't know what kind of mixed you are, he said, but I'm no snitch.

Ouch.

I tried to explain. I meant racial informants, not the rats that our favorite rappers taught us to despise. I meant unofficial spokespeople, like when back in the day my bad ass friends elected me the pale and innocent-looking ambassador to calm the respective parents/teachers/police officers and assure them we weren't up to any trouble. Stool pigeon in the sense that us mixed folk have been on both sides of the interrogation room glass, translating and being translated. In other words, we are cultural double agents allowed special access to information usually reserved for insiders. Definitely not snitches.

But then I started to think... There have certainly been times when white people let me in on a secret, usually unknowingly, and I've practically sprinted to share this insight with everyone else. (Someone remind me to write a post about the white people I overheard discussing why they won't vote for Obama). But isn't this more like telling the hoppers that the boys in blue are planning a bust of their corner? Given black/white power dynamics, this can hardly classify as snitching. We'd be crooked cops, maybe. Even those torturous afternoons in college when I was forced to tediously e-x-p-l-a-i-n some feature of black culture to white students wouldn't make me a narc per se. Snitches get stitches, everyone knows that.

Despite my arguments, my brother is demanding a retraction. He knows that I never watched the second tape of Scarface, that I know all the words to Carlito's Way, and that I would spit on that guy from Goodfellas. He even remembers how I used to threaten to fight Diane Keaton in the second Godfather movie. Nonetheless, my brother looks at me funny now and only talks to me in the car with the radio on. I'm definitely not retracting my analogy, but it certainly leaves something to think about...

In the case that mixed people are indeed snitches, the rest of you might want to think twice before divulging guarded racial secrets in our presence. Or simply move to Maine and avoid California, Alaska, Oklahoma (wtf?), northern Michigan, and all Hawaiian islands. Fucking forget about it.

untitled

Baddest Bitches Bureau Chief: Tina Fey

Long before the genius Sara Palin impersonations, Tina Fey became my role model and hero. In this clip she showcases every modern woman's dilemma: food vs. men. Well done T!



Nerdy women will inherit the earth

Meltdown Madness

Who's in??

What do Condoleeza Rice and Barack Obama Say to One Another When They Pass in the Hall?

Two figures spot one another from opposite ends of a dimly lit federal hallway. Each entertains ducking into a nearby office, but resists. They move closer, making just enough eye contact to be polite. Ms. Rice leafs intensely through the file folders she carries. Senator Obama struts toward her, sashays even, while adjusting his Hartmarx tie. Before the inner monologues can really develop ("I get so tired of dealing with these..."), they have reached a distance at which speaking becomes necessary.

B: Condy.

C: Barry.

B: You're well, I assume?

C: Indeed. And yourself?

B: I'm well, thank you.

C: And Michelle?

B: Oh, she's fine. She enjoyed meeting you the other day, we should do that again sometime.

C. Yes, sometime. Well, give her my best.

B: Of course. Have a good day.

C: You too, Barry.

B and C: (simultaneously under their breath as the walk away) #&$%@!

20 Billion For Every Year He's Been Alive

Neel Kashkari
Curriculum Vitae

Objective: I am very interested in furthering my skills as the Interim Head of the Office of Financial Stability. I am highly qualified for this position because I have worked for the US Treasury for two whole years and all my buddies from Goldman work here now too. I have a lot of good ideas about what to do with the $700 billion because I used to build space ships. I'm 35 and I'm from Ohio, so I am confident that I can reinstill confidence in our shaky markets.

EDUCATION
- MBA, University of Pennsylvania (2002)
- MS, Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- BS, Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

WORK EXPERIENCE
- Head of Subprime Fast-Track Loan Modification Plan, US Treasury Department (2006-present)
- Vice President, Goldman Sachs (2002-2006)
- Technology Developer for NASA Space Science Missions, TRW (sometime in the 90s)

SKILLS
- Excellent silent figurehead capabilities
- Eagle-like stare

Sweatshops Exist Because...

no one in their right mind would actually sit down and try to decipher all this shit unless they knew they'd be getting a hefty salary afterwords. All the normal people didn't take calculus in high school.

You ain't a pimp, you just pissed off

Track from Murs' new album. Unfortunately, I don't love this CD (I really wanted to) and I don't even love this song. But I think that there should be more rap songs telling guys to buy tampons for their girlfriends.

fallopian pranks

those wily fallopian tubes are at it again!

i have it from a credible source that a fertility crisis is afoot: all the wrong people are getting married and having kids. if you are one of my many friends that are married or in the process of tying the knot, i'm definitely not talking about you. i'm talking about my other friends. seriously. the friends who have been so quick to promise forever (do you know how many lifetimes that could be!?) because they're afraid to be the last person on the island. or the ones who are giving their kids custom nikes and myspace pages. (why do you do this with the myspace page? it is not clever to pretend that an infant is typing and uploading pictures.)

my roommate (if she read this blog) might call this particular rant a case of the sour grapes. and indeed, she might have a point. i am reminded monthly of the hormonal cross i bear as penance for my heretofore unwillingness/inability to fulfill my assigned biological duties. as the years pass, the first rumbles of abdominal cramps have gone from a moment of euphoric relief to a stand-up routine with me as the focus. i get it. the biological clock is ticking, chiming, coo-kooing, whatever.

still, the last thing we need is more fucked up little kids from fucked up families. as a former member of this group (F.U.L.K.F.F.U.F.), i would like to think that a little dysfunction is ok. charming, even. but i can't stop wondering what is the point of it all? i am happy for those of you who have morphed two identities into a single unit, i really am; maybe even a teeny bit jealous. but i still don't get it. maybe the biological impulse to create our own little where's waldo butterball (see photo) is too overpowering to decipher, much less resist. i don't know.

i hope to one day participate in this circus of childbirth. but i will be sure to do it for the right reasons and not as a compensation for some weird personality flaw. if i have kids, it will be solely to showcase that my progeny are smarter, more attractive, more athletic, and more successful than those of my ex-boyfriend. this will, by extension, prove that i am better than him too. i need to get started soon though, because i'm expecting an email from him any day ("wonderful news, sarah/megan/allison/kate and i are pregnant and the baby's already been accepted to harvard!").

if you know someone who might be willing to aid my ovarian space race, please leave a comment below. thanks!

I'd like to give a shout out to all my lil homies

Please just imagine what the response would have been if Barack or Michelle ever said they wanted to give a "shout out" to anyone, big or little. Yet another terrifying reminder of how pervasive hip hop culture is. How the hell did it leak into the crevices of Alaskan municipal government? Jeeze.

Luckily, I also found a video of daughter Bristol's babydaddy giving a shout out too. Wonder who inspired who.



(Ok this is not really a video of Levi McHotPocket, but this is how I would like to imagine him)

Someone help that baby!

Me watching this thirty second spot:

Ugh.
Really?
I don't want to...
Oh man.
Poor girl.
Yikes.
Oh no.
Wait.
Oh noooo.
Whose baby is that?
Oh my God.
Get away from that child!
Someone help that baby!
Right now! Please help him!!
Isn't there anyone in the studio?!
Can't you see the baby's not moving??!!
I can't even imagine what she's breathing on him.
Liquor?
Weed smoke?
Penis breath?!!?!?!
Oh...wait.
Didn't she have a baby recently?
Ohhhh...that's her baby.
My bad.