Ok.  On the my next prejudice thought. I live in the ghetto and while walking home I saw a gay couple. I know what you are going to say: "Kwaku how could you dislike gays?" But let me finish with the story. I saw this gay couple and I was happy. That's right happy; but not for the reasons you think. I saw this couple and all I could think about was that I was going to get a star-bucks in my neighborhood. I know there is no logic in this association, but I feel that there is some magical unwritten law, held secret by the wizards at StarBucks you know the same ones that will put two stores facing each other. According to these sages more than two openly gay couples in a neighborhood is followed, immediately, by the appearance of a Starbucks .. like over night (tomorrow I am not even making coffee.. I am just going to have a 5 buck Latte). I told myself this is wrong and you should be ashamed of yourself.  But still I am excited about the new Starbucks opening soon.

So there you have it . We all have these preconceived notions about race, sexuality and class. These are normal, even to be expected.  Mine are just a little straner then most.

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white … we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."

 This quote just shows how bad their home training is. How in the world are they going to stop being white? Look, I am black and I have never made another person black. I am not even sure how you would go about that (but I think you have to date a basketball player for starters). I am going to share a secret with you all: I love racists, especially the Klan … LOVE 'em. They say the most retarded things. I was once watching this special and they had these Klan people yelling all types of things. One of them was: "The Klan hates niggers." When asked about the nigger word, both the male and female Klan members said: "Oh, well, a nigger is just a lazy person. So we are against lazy people." Not even 10 minutes later the exact same people now with their hoods down were yelling, "Go back to Africa, niggers." So all lazy people should live in Africa? For every thugged out gangster wannabe sitting on the train yelling "nigga this, nigga that," there are two toothless trailer park dwellers that smoke a pack of Camels a day and say that black people commit all the crimes, Jews manipulate all the money and the media, and the Latinos have stolen all their jobs, while they sit around waiting for their settlement check, yelling "white power." Now, even that is not going to work any more since Dave Chappelle turned that phrase into one of the best one liners of the two thousands. Oh, and to all you racists out there, just because I said those girls were cute does not mean anything. But you knew they were cute. That's why you use them to sell stuff. You couldn't put the real racists up there. They are your gateway band, your come-on. It starts innocuously with saying that you're proud to be you. Then you say you are the best. Then comes "Others are worthless." That escalates to jack boots, cross burnings, and pick-up trucks. 

So let's just get down to brass tacks. I am going to tell you something that these bands and these racists will not. It is OK to be proud to be you and it is OK to be proud of your heritage. But it is never OK for you to think or feel that you are better than someone else just because you have a certain type of heritage. That’s like saying, "I know I am special because my MOMMY told me so." And we all know that kid was special in a whole different way than he thought he was.

PS: Like most kids, Prussian Blue has a favorite video game. Here is the game's basic premise: article

"The Race War has begun. Your skin is your uniform in this battle for the survival of your kind. The White Race depends on you to secure its existence. Your peoples enemies surround you in a sea of decay and filth that they have brought to your once clean and White nation. Not one of their numbers shall be spared…….."

 Oh yeah. Thank you God for once again making it WAY too easy to make fun of these white supremacists.]]> http://www.kwaku.com/blog/archives/2005/12/girls_gone_wild_1.html http://www.kwaku.com/blog/archives/2005/12/girls_gone_wild_1.html In The News Tue, 06 Dec 2005 13:18:05 -0500 In my quest to ever expand the reading audience of Errant Pixel, I present a new category: Signs of the Apocalypse. Why am I coming up with this category? Well, I have been noticing things just going askew as of late and thought that maybe I would point out the really weird stuff--stuff not really fun enough to make a post out of but worth mentioning. "What brought this to a head?" you might ask. It was my experience this weekend. Let me start off by saying that I am a little bit obsessive and sometimes it just takes me. So, with that as a basis, you will understand why I do not take too many things seriously.

On Saturday I found myself taking something too seriously (a video game). It just sucked me in. Have you ever forgotten about time? Well, it happened to me. The only thing that saved me from several hours of thumb-wrenching agony was the fact that my dog was crying. I told her to leave me alone but she persisted. At this point I look at the clock and realize that it was 2:00 a.m. and I had missed the dog's walk time by several hours. I decide I should be a good owner since my dog was a good dog and warned me before she soiled the floor.

I put on my winter gear and took the dog downstairs to do the puppy do. The night was cold. It was far too cold for me, but my dog loves cold weather. I decide to take her for an extra long walk so that she could really clear out her pipes. When the long walk wass over we headed back toward the house. As I got to the corner, a large dog briskly trotting in the middle of the street spotted me and my dog at the corner, and stoped and turned. It took me a second to notice that this dog did not have on a collar. I looked in the direction from which the dog came, hoping to see an owner running after him with a dog leash in hand--no such luck. OK... this is a stray. Not a huge deal. He could have recently been lost and I may look like the kind of person who carries dog treats. (I am, you know. I carry them so that I can give them to homeless people's dogs. Hell, it’s not the dog's fault that his owner is homeless. Most of them have these signs that say "Help, my dog is hungry and needs an operation." Blah, blah, blah.

 I bet you have never seen a more pissed off homeless man than one who sees your hand go into your pocket and come out with a handful dog biscuits. You see, for a second the homeless man calculates the street value of a milk bone...but back to the street at 2:00 a.m. This stray is not overly aggressive but I think it's better to stay still and hold my ground. As soon as I started to get comfortable, another dog comes from behind a car--then four more.

"Oh, look--dinner, " I hear echoing in the back of my head followed by hysterical laughter... God is that you? The lead dog is then flanked by the other dogs, forming a really nice semicircle. What the hell do you yell in a situation like this? Dogs!! Dingos!! Fire!! My dog realized that her need to doo-doo had left us in deeper doo-doo. She bristled and began to bark insanely. Taking her cue, I raised my arms, stamped my foot, and yelled "hya." Stop laughing. I saw it on a nature show. The dogs obviously were frightened by an insane man and his rabid dog. One at a time, they  turned and trotted up the street (and I swear one of them gave the that "Next time, McFly" look) as he went off into the night. Maybe they thought they would get some insane human disease from biting me.

I felt like I had just been in a scene from one of those post-apocalyptic movies for 30 seconds later the street is flooded with seven people who just got off the train and a cab pulls in front of my building to let a drunk girl out. (This is not a lie and has not been embellished in any way.) WILD DOGS!! Who the hell is writing the script for my life? They need to take it easy on me. Cut the cliff hanger bullshit and let me be for a little bit. WILD DOGS!! In the city. In Manhattan. WILD DOGS. I call foul and shenanigans and say yes this is a sign of the apocalypse. WILD DOGS.

Pat, you will be missed.

Well, I want to thank all of you readers for the great upsurge in readership. We had 3,176 hits. That is something like 100 a day. So you like me-- you really, really like me. I am hoping to give you more of the same. I know that this month has been a little bit of a wash, but I am here for you.

I do not know if any of you have left a job before, but it is strange on so many levels. Co-workers come by your desk to shake your hand and say goodbye.  But they are not really looking at you, they're looking around. Maybe it's because they're sad. Maybe they're going to miss me more than they thought they would. Maybe they don't want the tears to well up in their eyes and for me to see them cry--then one person says what is really on his mind. He breaks the silence and says,“You takin' that with you?” LET THE FEEDING FRENZY BEGIN. They are not sad to see me go, they are looking around at my stuff and taking a mental inventory to see what they want to take. VULTURES! Let my seat cool off first.

I am not saying that I have not been one of the vultures, but man, it’s tough-- "So you takin' that with you?" It’s a gold pen, of course I am. Even the stuff that is not mine it being picked over. It's one of those chairs with the lumbar support.  I am now sitting in an office with a box of paper clips and a picture of my dog. And I have one question, "Who took my action figures?" No, they are not toys-- I am over 30-- they are collectable action figures.

People pick over the carcass of the dead. Let my passing give you new strength, but like I said before, wait until I have died.

It's obvious that this researcher needs a girlfriend, but he does have a point. While it may be an object of fertility, it is not so hard to belive that this was borrowed from time to time by a male caveman who, we'll just say, did not need it to help him be fertile. Porn has been around for a long time and it has not destroyed the fabric of our society. I think 25,000 years ago when this object was carved, society, still new to the earth,  had a better chance of derailing than it does now.

This brings us back to portable porn and the market for it. Folks, the cavemen carried their porn with them because there was no 7-11 where they could buy Playboy, and they lacked closets, so they couldn't hide it from their wives. The modern home is full of advances that our predecessors could not have even imagined. And one of them is a place to put your porn. Dude, if you need to carry porn on your iPod you have an issue and you need some help. I mean you really need some help, the kind where you lay on your back and talk to someone about your relationship with your parents. Where the hell are you going to watch it? The train is already a wasteland of hyper audio stimulation filled with the sounds of video games, cell phones played by idiots who have forgotten how to turn down the sound on their game of Tetris, audio overspill from headphones played by people that two years later are going to to be asking you to speak up because they cannot hear you, and the occasional portable DVD player.

Please do not pollute this already crowded landscape with Debbie Does Dallas on your iPod. It is hard enough for me to enjoy my reading while trying to tune out the oh-so-intellectual conversations of the school kids around me. I'll tell you right now that “Nigga, that nigga is a nice nigga” is not a sentence in any language. If I hear a kid say it again I am going to have to show him what a REAL angry nigger is. I do not want now to have to tune out the porn being watched by the passenger next to me. Of all the things I will put up with on the train, a dude getting a stiffy next to me is not going to fly. How pent up are you that you cannot wait until you get home? The only people I can see this possibily being OK for are prisoners that have just been released after 10 years. You, you perv, have only been at work for eight hours. You should know that this is not appropriate for the train. One last time. If you cannot wait 'til you get home, seek help.

Do we all get it? Porn--not inherently bad. People that need to watch it on their iPods--sick, twisted, and really creepy.

A little note to men: Get yourself a porn “buddy.” This is a little invention from the British comedy Coupling. What is a porn buddy? It's a guy who has a key to your apartment and upon finding out that something bad has happened to you, swings into action, goes to your home, and cleans out all the pornographic material that you own. Then, whatever family member has to pack up your apartment will not think that you, the dead guy, is a perv--and the friend gets a new porn library. This is a win-win in my book. I will be accepting applications to fill this position next week.  

I really want to talk about the costumes. Do you remember dressing up as Dracula or the Wolf Man? How about my favorite--a ghost. I think this is every parent's standby: "Oh my goodness. I forgot to get a costume for my kid. I don't want to damage them for the rest of their lives so I'm willing to sacrifice a bed sheet."

I was a ghost on more than one occasion--once in a blue sheet. (Maybe I was a sad ghost.) Costumes are the fun part of Halloween. They make it worth the above average chance of being hit by a rotten egg while you're out late at night. However, there is a time when you grow out of the costumes and all the joy of the Halloween holiday disappears. It stays gone for several years and you begin to think of Halloween as a bit of a lark just for kids--provided that you have not moved into the thug life of robbing little kids for their candy bags (you bastards). Halloween is also a time when you get to eat all the candy that the kids do not get. What is it with these kids? When I have candy they stay away like I am an ax murderer. When I do not have any candy the little S.O.B.s give me the stink eye like I didn't do my job. Where were you last year when I had to eat two bowls full of candy? Shut up; I had to eat it. Giving handfuls of candy to the kids after Halloween makes you feel like a pedophile.

The Halloween apathy lingers for a few years until on one miraculous day you are invited to a party; not just any party, a Halloween party with costumes. All of a sudden, the holiday receives a new makeover. This new Halloween revival turns the mildest mannered of church mice into street  walkers. Well, maybe it's the costume that does that.

What is the impetus for grown women to turn every costume into a slutty outfit? Raggedy Anne has become Slutty Anne. And an innocent bunny turns into a Playboy bunny. It's amazing. Hell, I like to go sit out on my porch and watch the kids in their costumes escorted by their super hot moms in costume ( I am always like "Wow miss Joan who knew you filled out a French maid's outfit so well?"). Ladies, a pair of devil horns does not make the ho outfit a costume, you have become a ho in horns and fishnets (but go on with your bad self). Some mothers do not even try to fake like they are wearing a costume. They just put on that hot little dress that they never get to wear and walk their kids around the neighborhood in the highest pair of heels they own. In this case, it is not about the candy--it's about the CANDY. I wonder how it is to be a hooker on Halloween when half the women walking around the neighborhood are wearing your outfit. Is this confusing for the Jons? Well, I do not know any of the answers to these questions. Oh, almost forgot. To all you hot mothers or church mice who only need to take your hair out of that bun to be hot, I call the nicest of all shenanigans on you and wish you a happy Halloween.

Someone told me that I'm scared of everything. I'm not scared--just a little neurotic. I clearly have a reason to be concerned about boogie men that lie in wait to pull me into a dark corner and hack me to death—or worse. I have proof that the world is a very dangerous and downright deadly place. Here is a partial list (provided by the infallible writers at The Onion) of all the terrible things that can happen to you:

•  

• Shirt cuff snags on door latch  
• Trip on cable and fall to floor with broken ankle
• Discard bus ticket with tissue
• Run in stocking
• Nuclear annihilation of planet
• Phone system down
• Glass eye falls out during speech
• Condom breaks
• Hairdresser quits
• Wolverine attacks child
• Lose $60 at bus stop
• Fatal heart attack
• Meat goes bad
• Floor collapses
• Gored by moose
• Fan belt breaks on interstate
• Mother-in-law hates you
• Ignored by waiter
• Check gets lost in mail
• $2 winning scratch-off washed with pants
• Get caught in middle of knife fight
• Humidity makes hair frizzy
• Cola explodes all over you
• UPS package isn't for you
• Neck breaks while clowning around
• Everyone finds out you're a fraud
• Leg cramps up in middle of big game
• Plane gets hijacked
• Boyfriend's new friend cuter, funnier
• Oversleep on first day of work
• Bite inside of cheek while eating sloppy joe
• Get shortchanged at charity bake sale
• Mother throws out old stuffed hippo
• Real mother appears out of nowhere
• Friends, family learn the truth
• Drunk tattoo artist uses Dremel instead of needle
• One of your legs grows four inches
• Pants stay unzipped all day
• Batteries in remote control die
• Toilet paper stuck to shoe when fireman rescues you

© Copyright 2005, Onion, Inc. All rights reserved.

I'm never leaving my home again.

When was the last time you used Noxzema?
When was the last time you spent a night at your parents’ home? I did just that, a couple of weeks ago. I had a need to, a wanting to. My parents are aging and one is terminally ill. I stayed the night and actually slept on the couch. I watched television in the living room until it ended up watching me and wondering how I ever left. I removed my makeup with a good old-fashioned handful of Noxzema and the menthol smell took me back to my teenage years.

I watched my reflection in the bathroom mirror and remembered the skinny kid with pimples and no breasts. I recalled the cornbraids and multi-colored beads cascading down my back. I remembered the smell of black DAX hair oil that we called grease. I could hear the kids jumping double Dutch outside in the court and I could hear them playing Coco LeaviO, one, two, three.

I needed to spend time with mom and dad, like I had when I was young. I wanted to wake up and hear my mom say, “Have a nice day” as I left to go to work.

When was the last time you used Noxzema?
When was the last time you spent the night at your parents’ home?

Psst...movie execs. Come closer, I have a secret for you. If you just spent a little more time and made better films then you wouldn’t need to make Nike your pimp. When you can see the plot twist three miles up the road begging for spare change to buy some originality it’s sad (M. knight you know that was for you). These things get as predictable as a Punch and Judy show. (He’s got a bat and he’s going to hit someone and since she is the only one there, Judy is going to get it.) This was fine and dandy (and I’m sure it taught a generation of children that hitting women is wrong). We're adults now. I am going to go out on a limb and say that unless you are Fantasia (oh, I am going to write about her 'cause she’s just ignorant) you do not need the same type of setup. But wait. You and I all know the person who no matter what the plot is and no matter how transparent the motives of the characters are they turn to you and ask, “Now why did that man shoot the other man?” You should be allowed to stop the movie and send that person to wait in the car with an Etch-a-Sketch.

We want to be excited and entertained. I do not care that “Bennifer” is in the film. Is it good? Can they act? Is there a plot? Is there a rapper in it? (through painstaking research I have come to the conclusion that the suck factor of any film is increased 100 fold by the mere presence of a rapper in the film. This rule has few exceptions.

Hollywood filmmakers, please stop being threatened by the independent filmmakers--learn from them. Indy filmmakers stop with the 2 1/2 hour films on a guy returning home after the death of a parent. That may have flown for your senior film project, but this is the real world. It's time to step it up.

But all that is icing. This post is about movie trailers. What is it with these new trailers that fade from movie clip to black and then to another movie clip and then to black? As in this Aeon Flux trailer. I saw this trailer in the theater and I swear I began to foam at the mouth. I understand that studios want a dramatic effect so you will remember their trailers, but I do not think the memory they want you to have is flopping on the sticky ground covered in popcorn and jujubees. This stuff is going to cause someone to seize and it won’t be all fun like in Japan with the Pokemon thing. This is America and someone will sue and then someone else will get jealous and sue too. Then there will be a class action suit. Every movie-goer from the past two years will get a nickel and the price of tickets will rise to 17 bucks.

So let’s recap.
Hollywood:Make better movies.
Indy filmmakers:The dead parent device is a dead cliché.
And no matter how bad the movie is you cannot hide it by making me have a seizure while looking at the preview.