the Drewniverse

drewniverse shorts: when your lady wants to cut her hair...

2014-10-30T15:08:00.000-04:00

when your lady wants to cut her hair, she'll make her case:

and you, being a good guy, will listen:

she'll say it's for

because shes bored

and you'll say, "but you'll get bored with it cut",

becuse you know her and it's not that she wants the cut JUST because "it's cute", it's that it's new. and she'll say, "then i'll grow it back"

perfectly reasoned

and you'll see, "i wouldn't like it" because you think she looks fine how she is

or you'll flat out say

and she'll begrudgingly concede the point

and you'll feel bad because no matter what she does you'll be fine with it. and all you want is for her to be happy

my impassioned unnecessary plea to the creators of "Dear White People" (I'M BAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCKKKK!)

2014-10-30T12:56:00.000-04:00

Dear DWP,
I would like to begin by pointing out a few things about me:

I'm a 27-y-o black graduate of a PWI law school. As such nobody appreciates what this movie stands for more than I do.
I haven't been this excited about an indie film since "Black Dynamite". I'm glad black filmmakers are still producing quality work, at least outside the Hollywood mainstream.
The closest theater showing DWP is 6 hrs from where I live. SIX HOURS!! (I live in Charlotte, NC making D.C. the closest city where the movie is showing)

Which brings me to the reason I'm writing: PLEASE BRING "Dear White People" TO NORTH CAROLINA!!!!!! Bring it to Durham! Bring it to Raleigh! Bring it to Greensboro! BRING IT TO CHARLOTTE!!! I guarantee there is a strong enough market in any of these tobacco road towns to cover whatever the expenses of opening there will be. Further, if the purpose of this movie is to shine a light anew on the absurd ideas about race held by the white and privileged, I can think of no market in America more in the dark than this one.

In short, North Carolina needs, nay, deserves "Dear White People". Plus it would make my Girlfriend very happy. Very happy indeed. So pretty please, with sugar on top, open DWP in NC. Love, Drew Everyday

(minutes later after exploring their FB page)

Dear DWP,
Upon further investigation, it has come to my attention that "Dear White People" is indeed opening in several theaters across NC, some of which are in my home town. I would like to thank you for answering my letter with action before I had even penned it. So much for CPT, amirite? Thank you, again for bringing DWP to NC where Drew to see at the AMC in the QC. You've made my Girlfriend very happy. Love, Drew Everyday

blackwashing hollywood and hypocrites

2014-02-24T05:55:00.000-05:00

I'm in a terse mood. Wanna know why? Well, there are very few things that really huffle my puffs and this is a list of them: 1) stupid shit; 2) law school shit; 3) racist shit; and 4) “even though God made my body in his image, men in nightgowns tell me that it’s a gross and evil thing therefor I find my natural human body related urges icky” shit (or puritanical views on sexy time for short). That’s it. You steer clear of those categories and you find a very happy and agrreable man of every hour, drew everyday. But then I go and hear about the “controversy” over the casting of Michael Balthasar Jordan (I assume that’s what the “B” stands for), one of the finest young actors not named Jonah in all of Hollywood, as the human torch in fox’s Fantastic 4 reboot.

seriously, the fat kid from "superbad" just turned 30 and has 2 oscar nods already. he's basically on route to be this generation's robert de niro.

Seriously. People are pissed. Why? Glad you asked, and the reason for the misplaced nerd rage took a hard left right into one of my puff huffler zones, then swerved in time to side swipe anothers bloated gas guzzling minitank of a car. You see, this is a fundamentally different issue then the rage over batfleck or superman murder. Those two internet poo-ricanes (tm) were due to questions over ben affleck’s ability to pull off being batman (he can, but much like Clooney was, is too… too… who he is for the cowl) and for the sheer… just un-supermanlikeness of neck snapping a fellow kryptonian. I mean superman will kill a… giant bug monster from the center of the earth, or rip the head clean off an unkillable cyborg (hell, he banished doomsday to the end of time, so he’s no saint) but straight up bare hands murder of a humanoid form his home planet? No. just no.

no.

NO.

Before I go completely on this sidetrack like another, faster locomotive is heading toward me- hold on a sec…

stop it.

Ok, so before I go off on this sidetrack any further like my engine gave out on lap 63, what makes the Michael Bosworth Jordan human torch outcry different? Well, as this article puts it, and I’m paraphrasing, “because white nerds are racist little pricks”. That’s right. The outrage has nothing to do with Michael Benvolio Jordan’s capability of pulling off the complexities of Johnny Storm (b/c, c’mon, being a hotheaded manchild requires Shakespearean depth and character dev skills) as a character. It’s just because J-Torch is a fire elemental and we all know fire elementals are white people. Or at least that’s how they drew him in the comic. But there’s a reason that stormfire johnny is white in the comic… it was first printed inthe sixties. The first black superhero wasn’t invented until a later issue of the Fantastic 4 series.

you know he's black because it says so in his name. BP's a BA BTW...

So that first piece of rage inducing back lash is the easy one. Hell, it's the type of low hanging fruit that has also seen outrage over Heimdall’s movie casting (a decidedly black Idris Elba) or Nick Fury’s (an even blacker Samuel L. Jackson), both traditionally white characters. And you know what? They crushed it in those roles. Hell, Samuel L. “and the L is Motherfuckin” Jackson was so great as the leader of shield, marvel retconned the character to look like him!

who you callin a ret-con, muthafucka?

The second rage inducing backlash (the one they swerved into earlier, remember?) is the other stupid reasons people shit on these fine actor’s being cast in these roles: the purist reasons. These are stupid. Why? Because they’re excuses for people to be racist without feeling like dickholes. The purist reasons range from “but the character was always white before, so casting a nonwhite person in the role ruins it for me” to the equally annoying (and this is fantastic four specific) “but how can he and sue still be sibs if he’s black and she’s white?”. Those arguments seem reasonable until you hear the third, which pulls the sheet off the alleged unracism and reveals the pointier hooded sheet underneath. The third purist argument is, “but I can’t get invested in the character now, because they were white in my head”

this basically

All of those sentiments are coded. They all imply a level of discomfort with black people akin to that of finding your dog has been replaced with another dog of the same breed, but in a different colorway. It’s like yeah, it’s a chow, but you don’t like it now because it looks different than the chow you knew. Bad analogy aside, this has even been used when the character in question was always black. If a character is being adapted from print to film and is belived, white people will often assume the character is white, even if the source material explicitly describes them a different way.

**ahem**

And to all you contrarians who are loading up your, “but just because SOME people said racist shit doesn’t mean EVERY person who doesn’t like these casting choices is racist” cannons to counterstrike, SHUT UP! There are people who dislike Obama for policy reasons, but that doesn’t excuse the inherent bigotry of the birther crowd and the secret muslim coalition. Not to mention the “I’m uncomfortable with the idea of a black president” contingent.

Now, the worst part about these racists and puri-racists is that they’re hypocrits for shitting on the ‘racelifting’ in Hollywood. Oh, you wonder how? Well then, you, you.. drewninite jerk, for the first time in drewniversal history, join me on page 2 and I’ll prove it…

rawr

That black lady up there? the one that was clearly designed after Halle Berry? That’s a character from a small indy comic named simply Fox. Heard of her? No? you sure about that? Well, I don’t blame you. See, her comic wasn’t a mainstream success. It was more of a culty niche audience thing. It appealed to young men of working age who had become disenchanted with there normal life.

these guys

You know, they gave her comic a movie. When’s it come out and did they actually get Halle for the part?

perfect. hooker party for everyone!

Well, lemme tell ya: Fox’s movie came out already. Like 6 years ago, in fact. Name starting to ring a bell yet? Well, there was a superhero movie that came out around 2008 for a little Mark Millar created series called “Wanted”. The movie starred James McAvoy in the lead role as Wesley Gibson, the surrogate for all the disenchanted working age guys in the theater. So who did they get to play Fox in that movie? You remember now, don’t you?

perfect. stripper orgy for everyone.

What? Angelina Jolie?! She…. She’s not even… Black!!! She looks NOTHING like the character at all! How dare Hollywood racelift this comic character who is very clearly tailor-made for Halle Berry, or at least a black actor! Where is the outrage? Where is the vitriol? Why hasn’t the NAACP issued a statement about this great injustice to comic cannon?

…. No, really. Where is it? I looked! I searched for “Angelina Jolie backlash for wanted movie”. I switched out backlash for “controversy”, switched out wanted for “Fox”. Still nothing. The only thing I found was one article that fell in the “genuinely only concerned about the studio taking liberties with the source material” category. But nobody else was questioning the change in race. Nobody else expressed a since that the movie was ruined because of such an important character changing from black to white. Nobody questioned whether they could care about the character anymore after the transformation. The closet anybody ele came to outcry was an article that’s author couldn’t decide whether going with Angie over Halle was a good decision or not. Not exactly “Rue being black made me not care about her death” level outrage, is it?

Want it closer to home? Fine. Remember the first run for the Fantastic 4 in the Fox Marvel universe? Remember who they got to play Johnny and Sue Storm? Chris Evans and Jessica Alba.

them. also known as the eye candy duo

Chris is a good, all-american white guy (probably why Disney stole him to play Captain America), so great choice for Johnny, right? Right. But di you know that Jessica Alba is a *pauses for dramatic effect* Latina?!?!? And a MEXICAN no less?! But if she’s Mexican and he’s white, how can they be brother and sister? How can she play a white lady if she’s got that hot Latin blood going through her veins? Sue Storm isn’t Mexican! Where is the outrage over this affront to a comic book legend?!? Huh? Where is all the outrage over this Latina playing a white woman?

…… again, I really can’t find it. Googling Jessica Alba fantastic four controversy, only brings up articles on how controversial it is that Wallace and Zoe Barnes will be playing characters traditionally written as biological siblings.

just like real life

So there you have it. The race of the character only matters when the character was written white and the actor chosen doesn’t look white. You can have a Latina Sue Storm as long as she can pull off gringo. You can cast Angelina Jolie as a character modeled after Halle Berry. But cast Jamie Foxx as Electro? Or even suggest Donald Glover might make a good Spiderman? Blasphemy.

The point is not to shit on the fan’s opinions on their favorite characters and how they should be portrayed on the big screen (I’m sure a white Storm or Lady Deathstrike would have been met with opposition). My point is to call a spade when I see it. So I’m just gonna let you know: racism is still alive and well. It just doesn’t come in lynch mob and jim crow flavor anymore (well… maybe I spoke too soon). Now it comes in 140 characters or less.

shut up in my bones

2014-02-19T15:55:00.000-05:00

bones are important, man.

stay with me. have you ever really thought about them? beyond them being hard or hurting a lot if they break i mean. have you? bones are why you have a form!! they hold you up and let you walk and stuff. they do other stuff, too. they enable you to eat and start digestion (teeth are bones, too, you know) they hold your muscles in place so you can, like, have mobility. they make stuff taste better (the difference between unctuous and flavorful stock and blah di blah broth? stock is made with the bones of the beastie). even bugs have bones (they call them "exoskeletons" because they wear them on the outside because bugs have no shame). and the most important thing bones do?

star in noir style mysteries?

no, they make blood! thought it was the heart that did that? wrong again Bob! the heart is like the head of person city's blood distribution ring. it moves the product through the veins and what not, but it has a supplier, and the supplier lives in the bones. that would be the marrow. see, if the heart is Frank Lucas, and the blood is blue magic, then the marrow is the vietnamese general that grew the opium it was made of.

And that would make Richie Roberts a heart attack (get it? because he was the arresting officer?!)

the bone marrow is very important. it's what makes bone in food taste good, and it's what gives stock it's oomph. also it's wht gives your body blood, and more importantly, white blood cells. without white blood cells the body can't fight infection, and if you can;t fight infection, you can't, like, live through stuff. you need to be able to live through stuff. i mean it! how terrible would it be if everytime you got a sniffle you had to fear for your life? that's how important bones are, they give you the ability to live your life and live through the stuff that wants to take your life from the inside.

and the cool thing is we all have that superpower!

.....

ok, so i lied. most of us have that superpower, but there are those of us who don't. there are people in this world that for one reason or another lose the ability to produce new healthy blood cells to fight off infections that might do us in. and you know what? as superheroes, it is our duty to help those who cannot help themselves. we have to give our powers to those who have lost the ability to use their own. that's what wolverine would do. remember that scene in the first [read: the good] X-men movie? when rogue was latched into Magneto's "turn-all-the-people-into-mutants-but-it'll-kill-the-person-acting-as-the-battery-so-i'll-trap-a-teenager-who-can-steal-powers-into-it-in-my-place-because-the-nazi's-killed-my-mom" machine and died as a result, wolverine went and did the one thing he knew could save her: touched her so she could steal his healing power to come back to life.

shown: life giving. not shown: what it looks like (fuckin)

that's what we are: a bunch of wolverine's. we all have a healing factor shut up in our bones. and we need to be willing to give our powers to those who have lost the ability to use there's. that's why i encourage everyone who is able to sign up to the National Marrow Donor Program as a bone marrow donor. it costs you nothing but a cheek swab and it could save someone's life, man. you could be somebody's personal wolverine!

not a butt cheek swab, you perv....

look, i know it's a scary proposition. donating a piece of you to somebody else, somebody you've never met no less, doesn't sound appealing. it sounds painful and invasive. i know man. when i signed up i had the same thoughts. but you know what outweighed all of my fears? the idea that just maybe one day there would be a part of me out there saving the next michael jackson, or the next bill gates. somebody might have leukemia and need a marrow transplant and that may be the person that cures AIDS or cancer. somebody might need chemo and require a transplant to repair their immune system afterwards, and that person may go on to invent time travel, or may negotiate peace in the middle east. hell, you may just save somebody's mom or dad, brother or sister, son or daughter, and they may go on to just lead a normal life. and that? that's worth more than any fear i had. that outweighs all of it.

i don't really know how to close this one out, so i'll just leave you with this image that pretty much says it all.

any questions, bub?

the resurrection of the RQOD

2014-02-10T22:51:00.000-05:00

pictured: 40-year-old men

With 2 songs in the billboard top 10 at the same time last year (including a #1 song) and a couple of grammys, is it safe to say The Neptunes are the hottest producer in the game right now?

The Hunt for Red October

2014-02-10T21:10:00.001-05:00

so the good (no pun intended) people at NIKE finally caved to the incessant ranting and raving by incessant ranter and raver and professional full grown baby Kanye West and made the Air Yeezy II "Red October" available to the public: a sudden and surprising phenomenon which lasted all of about 11 minutes. see, the shoes which yeezy had spent the better part of 2013 shouting about incoherently at radio and tv interviewers had achieved a status that every product not designed for McDonald's style mass production lusts for: they had become a white whale. an urban legend. a unicorn. a sort of holy grail for every sneakerhead, taste maker, and twitter teenage millionaire to fawn over. they were to the shoe canoodler what, say, "Nintendo World Championships '91" is to the retrogamer, or Action Comics #1 is to the comic collector: a piece of fandomonium trumped up by the real thing i want to talk about here: artificial scarcity.

which makes the Red October worse than action comics #1 as unlike the Yeezy, it was printed in 1938 with ink made from black people and whale infant blubber.

what artificial scarcity does is take something that's is actually common/easy to produce/super inexpensive and by withholding large quantities of it (like OPEC does with oil) or only making a relatively small number of product (like holofoil pokemon cards) drive up the price, or, as is the case with this particular shoe spike peoples desire by making it unavailable for no reason whatsoever. like the McRib. NIKE clearly did this with the red october. let's look at the case a little more closely.

artists depiction of the red october

NIKE collabs with YEEZY on the air YEEZY. they only make about 3000 pairs and sell them at $225. they make like $800,000 on them (according to kanye) (they couldn't have made more than $675,000 because that's how math works). BIG SUCCESS! YAY! COCAINE SHOWERS FOR EVERYONE! the resale value on the air Yeezy tops $1000. so because of the success and obvious demand demonstrated by the resale value, NIKE commissions the air YEEZY 2 and sells them for $245. however they (strangely) push back the release schedule for the shoe's signature colorway, the "Red October". YEEZY then does what he does best: complain about all the success he isn't having!

that's what he's best known for right? all the not success? right?

he goes on the breakfast club in ny "why they won't release the red octobers?". he goes on sway in the morning "WHY THEY WON'Y RELEASE THE RED OCTOBERS?! YOU AIN'T GOT THE ANSWER SWAY!" he goes to england. ENGLAND! "i'm trying to be the next louis vuitton... of shoes, but NIKE won't release the red octobers". this creates a buzz in the fashion world. "why won;t nike release the red octobers? how do they look? where can i buy them? when will they be available?" are all questions you were likely to hear if you perused the sneakerhead sites over the past year. what this does is create a ground swell of deman for a shoe that Nike knew they would not have pressed more than a few thousand of. with millions of people demanding them and only thousands pressed (for pennies, btw) they could charge a factory direct price of $245. that's a brand new XBOX 360 with kinect and watch_dogs!

i DO have a birthday coming up...

and the final piece to the false scarcity puzzle? have a cool person seen in it. like macklemore at nye!now all the stans are drooling on their eminem cds and hair bleach, b/c the unicorn is real and maybe, just maybe the great unicorn masters will let them stroke it's mane for a few minutes (you don't wanna know what it did with the horn...). then suddenly a tweet announces that they are available, and 11 minutes later artificial scarcity proves it effectiveness again. (hell they were on ebay and hour later and going for upwards of $16,000,000.00!!!!!!!!!!)

above: macklemore just despising all the fame and success rap has brought him.

i guess the greater point i'm trying to make is i heard the rib sandwich was coming back on tuesday!!!!!! sign a bruhva up for that!!!!!!!!!!

zequals me

2013-08-17T23:09:00.000-04:00

what is zequals? it's a rough approximation to the nearest multiple of ten, if by multiple of ten you mean "only the first digit".... confused? ok, i'll let this guy explain it

ruthless a-guessin'

that's Rob Eastway, author and math-o-matizer. he pretty much makes a living writing books on why math makes everything better. i'll leave you with him discussing his zequal method on where it fits in the mathoverse and why it's awesome. til next time:

let's talk marley

2013-07-16T14:26:00.000-04:00

if you've been following my tweets, my facebook rants, or read my blog over the past year then it's no secret to you that i have a special place in my heart for the trayvon martin/george zimmerman situation. and those who have been following are very aware of how upset i am that the verdict came out the way it did. i wasn't surprised -- legally the prosecution failed to meet the burden of proof, and the system worked the way it's designed to work: every benefit of doubt goes to the accused, little if any consideration is given to the vicitm. and on a personal level, c'mon, when's the last time a black person got justice from the courts? -- but i was angry.

and apparently my side doesn;t have the monopoly on anger. zimmerman supporters are angry that martin supporters are outraged. and some of the neutrals are mad because in their minds as long as there is injustice anywhere else in the world no one has a right to be upset by the injustice in this case, right lupe? (to him the existence of previous black on black crime renders illegitimate any outrage over this injustice)

then there's this bit of ignorance:

#JurorB37 & her fellow jurors got it right, & media, celebrities, Obama, do you even know who Marley is? #tcot pic.twitter.com/sFGOpeueRW
— l8rg8r (@HEY_l8r_g8r) July 16, 2013

for the uninitiated, marley lion was a 17 year old white kid who was murdered by a group of black men in SC following a party. as you see this persons misguided, though understandable, anger is of the lack of coverage young marley received compared to trayvon. well since you want to compare injustices, ms. @hey_l8r_g8r, let's compare injustices.

young marley was murdered while sleeping in his SUV outside of a bar. he was tired after leaving a party, and it was 4 A.M. during the attempted robbery, he was shot and killed. after a six week investigation, 4 arrests were made. trayvon martin was murdered while walking home from a seven 11 on a rainy florida evening. he had on him a sugary beverage and a bag of candy. after being followed and confronted by a strange man, a scuffle broke out that ended in young trayvon's untimely demise.

there are some similarities: both cases had arrests made after more than a month. both featured men in their mid to late twenties shooting teenagers. both contain racial undertones. and, most importantly, both ended in tragedy. here's the difference. in young marley's case the assailant wasn't readily known. the investigation took six weeks, because the police had to do police work to find the assailants, and once they had the assailants, they brought appropriate charges based on evidence.

trayvon was not afforded that courtesy.

from the very beginning, the system failed trayvon martin. first let's look at the way the shooters were treated. when police arrested the 4 men they followed SOP: their histories sand criminal backgrounds were checked. when the sanford police arrived at the scene of trayvon's death, it was the victimized teen , not the shooter (who's record would have hurt his claims in court), who's background was searched. apparently not unusual given sanford police's history dealing with black victims. next the reason there was a 44 day gap between trayvon's killing and arrest wasn't due to the need for police work to be done, but because the shooter, who stayed on the scene, was given the benefit of the doubt. finally it is apparent that the evidence in the zimmerman case was, put nicely, insufficient and mishandled. the evidence in the case involving young marley's killers has been handled in an ethical and competent way.

i'm not going to in any way denigrate @hey_l8r_g8r for her passion; young marley deserves justice. i won't even condemn lupe for his comments. he's absolutely right about black people's need to stop celebrating death and lack of outrage at the injustices facing our young men everyday. i only ask that they not let there passion cloud the truth. the truth is, for all the similaritieds between trayvon and marley, they're merely coincidence. trayvon's tragedy is national news because of the injustice that took place after the tragedy. it was news for the way the police mishandled the investigation, for the lack of an arrest when the assailant was known, for the racial prejudice of his shooter, and the fact that certain media outlets were loathe to recognize it, @hey_l8r_g8r i assure you that trayvon's tragedy and marley's are not unequal. twi young lives are goone, their fire's not yet ablaze, their fruits not yet ripe. trayvon's tragedy goes beyond just his life. it is a symbol for how far we as a nation still have to go. because of the way self defense laws are written people like george zimmerman will always be able to murder young black males with impunity, their unwarranted fear and hate their shield. we mourn the loss of marley lion with the same fervor. we cannot let our passions for either of these tragedies skew our judgment of the others.

strange fruit

2013-07-13T23:18:00.000-04:00

so, justice? we got the arrest, we got the charges. but did we really get justice? did the martin family really get justice? i think not. the state of florida, who failed to find the killer of caylee anthony, or bungled the case against her mother, casey. the same state that several times let aaron hernandez walk on felony charges. the same state that did not afford a self defense argument to a woman, victimized by her abusive husband, when she fired her gun into the air. the state of florida has proven time and again that they cannot or will not find justice for anybody. and, with the verdict in this case, it's clear that on even down to the local level will be no justice for certain people.

why won't i just say that black men can't have justice? well, because that's obvious. that's always been obvious. we've known that since dredd scott had his freedom stripped from him in the famous supreme court case. the truth is in this country no white or white looking person will ever be convicted of doing anything to a black man. if that was somehow obscured by the election of president obama, now it''s clear again. the mask is off of america and it's face is as white as it's always been. what i will say is something that might be lost on some people: this trial was a joke. zimmerman's intent was never questioned. his reasons for profiling martin were never pushed to the forefront. his psychological history was never raised. his criminal background never researched. no toxicology screen was given to the assailant. evidence containing DNA was bagged in such a way that it degraded to the point of ruin. the states attorney used ethically questionable practices with their evidence. and the way the witnesses were handled was an absolute travesty.

so what now? do we take to the streets and burn it all down? no. we fight. the right way. by taking the power back from those who would see us remain second class citizens. by urging our lawmakers to change the ridiculous laws that led to this travesty of justice. by changing our gun laws so men like zimmerman can't kill a human whom they've unfairly profiled and keep the weapon. how about by automatically treating every incident of gun violence as a potential felony FROM THE START instead of waiting over a month to start the investigation in earnest. or pushing for laws that put the ownus on the profiler, rulling the incident to have been initiated from the point wher the profiler becomes the pursuer?

there were some poignant points made on the issue tonight. one of my twitter followers who's race is the same as mine and trayvons asked "what am i supposed to tell me son to do when a man with a gun comes up to him now?". because trayvon defended himself and was killed. and according to the jury he brought it on himself. because he defended his life he was at fault when his life was taken. and mark o'mara, the defense attorney, asked why the young man felt it was necessary to lash out violently at his pursuer. we'll never know trayvon's mindset. unlike his killer, hew wasn't available to defend himself at trial.

omar voice where it at, yo?

2013-07-02T02:24:00.000-04:00

ummm, for all you cats who think hip hop is dying, stop listening to the radio and check out this life enriching hood spit fezt by el-p and killer mike of "akshon" and "a.d.i.d.a.s." fame. simply put it's that raw southern based organized noise camp fare that we come to expect from mike. if you're sick of cookie cutter rhymes on the radio and want to remind yourself why you fell in love with hip hop in the first place, watch the vid then click the links. to download click this link for pitchfork's download page

the price of freedom

2013-07-01T13:21:00.000-04:00

** for more info on student loans visit asa.org**

it's july 1. a date that means little more to the average american than 72 more hours til cookouts and fireworks.. but i'm no average american. i'm a student. with loans. lots of loans. i'm one of the 3% who owe more than $100,000 back to Uncle Sam, meaning i now don't qualify for a home loan, car loan, hell, even the student loans i need to finish my education. so what does that have to do with july 1? today is D-Day, but the D doesn't mean doom.

holster your BFG, soldier!

the d is for double, which is what the interest rates on student loans did today. that means that unless by some miracle there is a retroactive resolution, i'll be paying 7% interest on my loans for the next year. this unreasonable. it's unconscionable! do you know what the interest rate banks and financial institutions trade money with each other is today? about 0.25%!!! because institutions with enough money to break the world's economy need the financial incentive.

because raping people's livelihoods is expensive work

who's to blame? congress, of course. old rich people who already made their way in the world couldn't reach the logical conclusion that maybe we should stop punishing the best brightest of the next generation. no, let's make a generation of wage slaves who can never join the american dream club working regular jobs because they'll be paying the entrance fee fro the rest of their lives. july 1 is double day. and because congress couldn't make the common sense choice to give we the future a break, they dump the burden on us yet again.

so let's all rest easy today knowing that this independence day rest easy knowing that your fat cat law makers are getting fat at their palatial estates and on their well deserved vacations. your future leaders are going to stress themselves into an early grave wondering if they will ever have the american dream, but that's our fault for wanting to make something of ourselves.

because, 'murica

ok, so there is a july 10 mulligan date planned, but this is the 'murican congress we're talking about. you wanna hold your breath for a solution?

SEE?! IT IS REAL!!!

2013-05-30T20:54:00.001-04:00

Topanga Lawrence herself acknowledges the existence of this performance! I propose that we start a petition to have mtv release the video of Danielle Fishel performing busta rhymes' "gimme some more" on say what? Karaoke. In fact I'm doing that now! More to comelater, so stay tuned...

more wordles

2013-04-24T15:44:00.001-04:00

a heroes eulogy


on sportsmanship
on ms. lawerence

average cat

2013-04-23T18:17:00.000-04:00

play the vid for a little background music while reading

i was going to write a blog today about CISPA -- a bill that recently passed in the house that allows corporations to harvest and trade your personal online information such as passwords and search history with the federal government -- but shit happens. school type shit. let me explain.

life is filled with things. terrible first line, i know, but it's true. there are good things, bad things, neutral things, scary and exciting things. there are cold things and warm. hard things and soft. you get the picture right?

this. this is the picture

for those extraordinary drewninites it must seem that the pleasant things greatly outweigh the other, more sobering things. for every crying baby there are ten yippy puppies and shit. ten. and even among the more realistic of you exceptional MFers that realize that the good and the bad must be even in number, the warm flowery things have the caloric density compared to the icky things of chocolate to lettuce. chocolate to lettuce.

what do you do when life gives you lettuce? make chocolate lettuce cake

i haven't forgotten about you curmudgeonly drewninites either. those who swear that everything bad in life happens to them and only them. well let me assure you that it doesn't. even those charmed bastards i spoke to above go through rainy days in their life. hell, Mary j. Blige made a career singing about all the bad things she went through, and she's one of the most celebrated singers in the history of singing! look, you sad sacks, the sun shines on all of us, and it'll shine on you, too, if you step outta the shade for a minute.

me? i'm just an average cat. slightly above average height, slightly above average IQ, but average looks, average fitness level, and below average scholarship. i get a lot of good things but every time i start to feel a little good about myself, every time i get a little chocolate high, life throws me some lettuce to balance that shit right out.

eat ya veggies, NYUGGA!

which brings me to the reason i decided this was my topic today: a bruhva got a little of that life chocolate last week. i was admitted into the community & economic development clinic for the fall. its a big deal b/c only 8 slots are available, you have to interview for it (and it's a short interview: 15 minutes. not a lot of time to sell yourself), then you have to get picked over all the other applicants and have your name submitted for university so you can register for it. well, all that went off without hitch, so yay!

YAY!

needless to say i was feeling myself a little bit. life saw me feeling myself and realized that i was on a chocolate high. life always has a way of keeping things at an even keel, and in my case it came in the form of a grade. i got a stupid C on my last assignment. a C. and then prof had the audacity to sit in front of the class and pat himself on the back for the overall improvement each student made in their writing. explain then why, if my writing is so improved, did i earn a solid B on my last assignment? i put no more effort into that one than i did into this one. hell, on this one i even went beyond the call of duty to make sure i included legal arguments only barely hinted at in the fact pattern. so why isn't my grade at least the same as it was on the last one?

the moral of this story isn't that some professor's are full of it, though. it ain't even that i'm just an average cat. the moral is that you can't have life just one way. there is no perfect existence where only the good things happen. life gives us the opportunity to experience all the things, good or bad or otherwise. yes, i'm miffed that i didn't get a better grade, and it is radicchio bitter, but that doesn't mean i don't get to eat that law clinic chocolate, too. and just being in the law clinic doesn't excuse me from eating the lettuce. you can't have life just one way. there's gonna be sweet chocolate and bitter lettuce. but if you gotta eat what life serves you, it might as well be cake.

maniacal

2013-04-07T14:00:00.001-04:00

ladies and gentleman ..... I'M GOING TO WRESTLEMANIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! bo real blog today, just thought i'd let you guys know that

thesleeplessmanlaments

2013-03-26T11:46:00.000-04:00

"And then there's Leroy Smith. Now you guys think that's a myth. Leroy Smith was a guy when I got cut he made the team - on the Varsity team - and he's here tonight. He's still the same 6'7" guy - he's not any bigger - probably his game is about the same. But he started the whole process with me, because when he made the team and I didn't, I wanted to prove not just to Leroy Smith, not just to myself, but to the coach that picked Leroy over me, I wanted to make sure you understood - you made a mistake dude."

-michael jordan

can't sleep. need to. gotta drive tomorrow. but i think this is one of those times where the thing i need to do is being overshadowed. i have come to a realization this late at night/early in the morning: i need motivation of a certain very specific nature, and to be honest, it's kinda hard to talk about. which is why i've decided in my infinite wisdom to tell it to the drewniverse.

i must admit, i am not confident my writing is more as gooder than it used to was, so don't not make with that bad talking about it.

what motivates you? money? praise? the respect of your peers? maybe it's just the knowledge that you did whatever it is you set out to do. perhaps the promise of a better tomorrow fuels your drive. well, cousin, none of that pretty shit works for me. i tell myself i'm gonna earn a nice salary and nothing. just nothing. i don't care about money. i never believe people are being totally honest when i receive any sort of praise. and even if they are, praise makes me physically uncomfortable. and what in the blue hell is respect anyway? you can't rightly quantify it. there ain't a unit by which you can gauge the amount of respect you get. "hey Shiz, you wanna go out tonight?" "sorry Keef, i'm about 7 centarethas short on respect today. i gotta hit the gym and turn in early" is a conversation you've never heard. ever. and even if you think you got it, you can never be sure that it's genuine. i mean, what guarantee do you have that niggas have the same opinion of you when you're out of earshot? none. nada. sorry but your peers? they're the most likely to form negative opinions about you because they see you all the time. they know the crust of you. they see you at your worst in the most high stress situations of your respective lives. eff the respect you think you have. i've heard more foul shit about people from the ones who they see on an academic and professional level in the past year than i ever have. you know what i don't hear a ton of? respect. next please. and tomorrow isn't promised so that doesn't motivate me. trust me i've tried. i wake up on a daily basis with the promise that i'm going to better myself that day and go to bed every night vowing not to repeat the same mistakes the next day. guess what happens the next day. no, guess. if you said the same old bull, congratulations, you get a cookie.

it's not even a cookie for real. the cookie is a lie.

so what motivates the masked warrior? i warn you, this is gonna sound really shitty. like really shitty. it may even cause your opinion of me to change, but dammit, i think i can handle the shift. if not i can always remove the mask and walk around in anonymity. my motivation is simple: spite. that's it, really. i don't want to be rich or respected or even "happy" whatever that is. what drives me is the desire to throw my successes in the face of whoever i perceive to have doubted or misunderestimated, misjudged or undermined my talents and abilities. and hell, it worked for michael jordan, who attributes his drive to win in no small part to the collection of grudges and emotional wounds both real and perceived he amassed through his career (he even thanked leroy smith, the kid he was left off his high school roster for, albeit [half]jokingly, in his hall of fame induction speech). look, i don't hold grudges. my christianity kicks in really hard in that department, so i can't help but forgive. but i never forget. you dare to tell me something, act in a way, hell, even hint at a suggestion that you're better than me, that you don't think i have what it takes, that i'm not good enough? congratulations, you just became the target of my vitriol filled success missile.

i write my success in korean. keep reading to find out why....

you don't even have to mean any harm by it. hell you can even like and honestly respect me, but if i get that twinge of doubt from you, better believe i'm grabbing whatever brass ring you thought my arms were to short to reach. hell i might grab the harder to get brass ring just because, fuck you! you don't tell me what i'm not capable of! don't believe me? i once went on a three game win streak against a close friend of mine who was more talented than me because he said i couldn't beat him... in a game of pickup basketball. and you know what? he's still better than me, but he would never be able to say it again. he got real mad and wound up throwing the ball away, but still...

hell you don't even have to suggest it! if i think you might be perceived by other people as better then me, that someone else might doubt my abilities next to yours, even if the thought never entered your mind, too bad, i got a missile for you, too. ask Devin Roundtree. who is that? just the guy who was making straight A's in my department back in undergrad. i made it my personal mission, even though he was a cool guy who had never personally given me reason to believe he doubted my ability as a student, to never let him get an A that i didn't match. two year later, i go from academic probation to graduate with honors and you know what? my last three semesters in school i was a straight A student. and every waking moment i vowed he wouldn't be better than me.

even in video games! if a friend of mine beats me in a PvP game whether its a tourney fighter or a sports game or RTS, whatever, i'm prone to make them play me until i win. i've come to blows over this.

artists depiction

and it takes every bit of reasoning in my body to not start training for the octagon. not because i'm into the idea of getting face punched and armbarred for fun, either. here;s why. i'm a 12 year old red belt in Tae Kwon Do when it comes to my 12 year old attention that TKD would be an Olympic sport starting in 2000. that was all i needed to hear to run to my instructor and inform him of my intention to train for the 04 Olympics because, you know, i'd be the shit by then. at this time i was fully prepared to make this sport my whole life. i told my folks that i was going to korea to study at the Tae Kwon Do university in Seoul. all i wanted in life was to be great at TKD. you know wat my instructor says? "IF.... IF you can beat Sam, i'll prep you for the Olympics in 04" my 12 year old world was shattered. no more TKD university. no more Olympics. no more serious TKD. why? because my 12 ear old brain didn t recognize the challenge. see, sam was in his mid teens, and the closest i'd come to beating him with my 12 year old ability was not getting my ass handed to me. i could SORTA hang with him, but i wasn't in mid teen form at 12, i'd not even started t grow into my body yet! (i was already about 5'6" and over 200 pounds). i got my black belt, but all my fire was gone. and today, 1.5 degrees and a teenager older all i want to do is shove that if in mr. kempka's face SO HARD by bludgeoning grown men until they say uncle. and twist their limbs outta socket for every fight i should've been more into. and it takes every bit of civility and higher learning in me to not do that.

and you know what the fucked up part about kempka's "if" was? i stood almost head and shoulders over everyone else. i could beat his brother, who was my age. i wasn't allowed to face most people 1 on 1. the adults would strategize to face me last on sparring days in hopes that id be worn out. you know, from ass kicking.when he needed a hitman to humble somebody who thought they were too good for the discipline side of martial arts training, he didn't sic sam on em. it was me! i was the hitter! i was the one who humbled that ass. if only he'd said "WHEN you beat sam" instead of "IF you beat sam" the little orientation speech we got when we first got to hofstra might have included "... and Olympic athlete" and i would've quietly fist pumped to myself.... and now i really wanna fight....

... like this. this is how i wanna fight

OK so what am i writing all this for? other than the fact that this was swelling my melon and keeping me awake i gotta admit something, and it's a thing i've only just come to fully accept. the simple truth is i've developed a far to structurally sound wall of fuck it around my vitriol center and thus no fuel has been able to reach my motivation ducts. it was a combination of too many good things and a few devastatingly hurtful instances happening in quick succession. the same minor slights that got me in law school (too a little too long on those recommendation letters, didn't ya,professors??) and fueled my pre law school weight loss (i know you can't recognize the sexiness, college girl. you don;t have to say it. i'll show you how sexy i can be [side note: yeah, so my desire t not fall into the diet related health pitfalls my uncles, pops and grandfather did was the reason. the girl was the catalyst]) no longer seemed to work for me. nothing did.

recently, the mortar that held the fuck it Wall together evaporated and the vitriol has started to seep through. and with the mortar now up in the clouds, something punched a hole in the brick. for the first time in almost a year and a half i felt the twinge again. hopefully it wasn't just an apparition. i NEED a new Leroy Smith. my old one's are broken.

wordle's take on Manti's girlfriend

2013-03-07T17:40:00.000-05:00

i did a wordle on the internet dating RQOD. it's pretty much the most awesome. look it!!!!

thanks to lost key productions for the groovy internet love pic

shallah a dream

2013-03-06T17:47:00.000-05:00

because i know people don't know how to separate stories and criticisms from hate, i gotta preface this entry by saying i'm a huge fan of the Wu, and the chef's "only built 4 cuban linx" is one of the greatest albums of all time. he had the best verse on "C.R.E.A.M.". he basically wrote a chapter in my hip hop life story. OK so now that we've established that i got love and respect for the chef as an artist and a man:

my theory is that watching the above video messed with my head. not on some psychological programming, or nothing like that. i guess that a better way to say it would be that i saw the above video and the incredulousness of seeing Raekwon the Chef's uninformed knee-jerk reaction to a question about homosexuality in music while sitting next to Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, an openly gay and socially active actress and aspiring MC, sent my overactive synapses firing on overdrive. questions like, "did he not just hear Snoop talk freely about being openly gay in hip hop and how it was just her being herself?" and "he also just heard that it's people you wouldn't suspect who were LGBT in hip hop?" to craziness like "how long before her and Chris take the chef into one of those vacant houses for talking reckless?". it was interesting but at the time seemed to be only a brief distraction within the confines of that particular trip into the doldrums of the YouTubes.

"chef this pistol, nigga"

of course it wasn't over. when i finally laid my head down that night the weirdest dream came over me. is that a weird way to describe having a dream that it "came over you"? i don't know, i mean dreams aren't conscious. you don't decide that you're going to have a certain dream. you just sorta dream about whatever strange, psychologist's boner fuel happens to pass through your subconscious during your several rem sleep sessions on a given night. and usually you can't control them. take the dream i''d been having before the one you're here for. over the course of about three nights i dreamed about having a dream only to wake up and find that i was still dreaming. eventually i figured out that i was dreaming and tried to wake myself up, and you know what? it still had a false ending. and then there's the thing that most skeptics assert to alien abduction stories.

see, during this series of dreams within dreams (inception?) i experienced physical sensations. like in one a dog or something bit me on the ass, because dogs are assholes (get it? thank you! i'll be here all week) i woke up because i felt the teeth sink in to my luscious man cheeks.of course nothing was there, but i felt it. in a different dream from earlier, i got in a mild car accident, but the way i was aligned caused my spinal cord to sever. the crazy thing is i felt my body go numb. like i seriously could not move. the shock caused me to wake up. it couldn't have been for more than a few seconds but it felt like a few years, i shit you not when i say i could not move my arms or legs.

then there's the thing that i have just now decided to call tearing back into reality. what's that? that's what happens when you realize you're dreaming and want to wake up, but the weight of the reality in your dream holds you in place so you have to literally tear through it and pull yourself into the waking world. ever seen somebody wake up really suddenly after stirring in slow mo for a few seconds? hats probably what happened to them. dreams are weird is my point. now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

so i had this dream later that night. in it i was like a Jules winnfieldian hitman or something. i don't know for sure, but the evidence suggests that. see i had THREE count em THREE pistols, and they were all shiny. like i took really good care of 'em. the plot to the dream was that someone had stolen my silver and black pistols and me and my gold pistol were off to get that MFer. when we found the person, (i don't remember whether it was a girl or guy. it was probably a girl, so for the sake of argument) she wanted me to perform a hit if i wanted my pistols back. being that i didn't just shoot her and take my pistols (it had to be a girl, come to think of it. i always fuck up dudes that disrespect in my dreams. like the one where i spent the whole dream kicking this guy's ass because he tried to fight me. or the one where i had the epic final showdown with john cena in a cul de sac surrounded by the cast of 8 mile) i decided to do the job. she showed me the video of the person i was to hit and it was Raekwon the Chef. i asked why i had to hit one of the auteurs of hip hop and she said, "keep watching".

"... and furious anger"

so as i watched the video got stranger. first rae's voice got lighter and lighter, more like a deep voiced lady than a gruff rappers voice. then his hair grew and straightened so it hung over his shoulder like Cher in the 70s. then homie started to grow boobs! u was like "wtf is happening to Shallah Raekwon?!" she then scrolled down and i saw the caption for the video: "raekwon talks about being the first transgender rapper" i kept thinking "damn, as long as i've been into Wu Tang how did i never notice Raekwon changing into a lady?". then i woke up.

the moral of this story is, some rappers need to enlighten their views on the world or they might end up the subject of a gender bending revenge epic in the recesses of the drewniverse...

an open letter to ESPN: sporty steinbergmanthol returns

2013-02-28T13:13:00.000-05:00

dear ESPN,
i'm all for sportsmanship and all, but is it really sportsmanlike to let the other the win b/c one of their players has special needs? it;s one thing for their own team to give their special needs manager the opportunity to play and for the other team to ease up to give the kid a fighting chance to do something. but to fold so that the special needs player wins with no effort? that ain't sportsmanship, that's pandering.

be honest with us ESPN, the only reason stories like that make sportscenter is because it makes people feel good about themselves. and that's the point, isn't it? it ain't about the kid living their dream, it's about us. you run those stories so we can all pat ourselves on the back and marvel at how gracious, how swell we ports types are. how good are we to let that poor autistic kid shoot that three to win the game or to let that dear child with the rare form of palsy win his heat in the local swim meet. aren't we just great for not competing with that kid? no we aren't. we're selfish. this is nothing but another way for athletes to diddle their egos, and it needs to stop.

now don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that when it's warranted these moments shouldn't be reported on. the kid with autism who came in at the end of the game and knocked down 6 threes to bring his team back from the brink of defeat deserved coverage. it was an amazing story. but that's the reason why: his story is special. had his mind developed in a conventional way that would've been movie worthy (rudy anyone?). the other stories are just self aggrandizement.

so what is sportsmanship? sportsmanship is what happens when a girl hits her first home-run on the collegiate level, tears her ACL rounding first, and the other team, knowing that it would be illegal for her teammates to aid her, carries her around the bases so she wouldn't have to forfeit her first homer. sportsmanship is when a similar situation happens in track and field and the opposing team carries her over the finish line. sportsmanship is magic Johnson returning for the all star game after AIDS forced him to retire and every wing player on the opposing team took turns defending him.

sportsmanship isn't giving a disadvantaged player a free pass to beat you. sportsmanship isn't giving a disadvantaged player a free pass to do anything. the true spirit of the sportsman is to take no unfair advantages. the sportsman respects their competitor, they treat them as equals, and if the mythical sports gods take from their competitor what they've rightfully earned, the sportsman does what they can to help their competitor take it back. and most importantly, sportsmanship isn't lying down, even if the competition has special needs.

so ESPN, stop calling these stories of sportsmanship. call them what they really are: feel good stories. there's nothing wrong with that.

-sporty

mini post: excitement

2013-02-28T04:15:00.000-05:00

things like this keep me up at night...

yasiin bey x mannie fresh

OMFGOD

which was the reaction you had if you're as big a hip hop fan as me

good mornin'!!!

grammy's aint cool no mo'

2013-02-11T02:17:00.003-05:00

jay "i've admitted several times that i dumb down my music for commercial success" z has been nominated for 46 grammys (not counting all of the 6 he's nominated for this year) in his career and has more than 14 wins (not counting the 3 he won tonight). andre "i'm the greatest MC of all time and here's the proof: you've never brought me up in the debate because my greatness is a given. ask talib kweli" 3000 has 20 grammy nods (precluding his 2 tonight) and only 6 wins (all with outkast). why is this a problem? let's examine the history books.

talib kweli: hip hop expert

what do you see in the all-time classics chapter's hip hop section? under all time classics? you see the numbers. jay z has 2 all time classics under his belt (reasonable doubt, the blueprint). how many do you see under andre 3000? i'll tell you. you see 4. twice as many as jay z. what are the four? as follows: southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, aquemini, stankonia, the love below. ok, so if you're a huge jigga mark you can make an argument for black album or even volume 2, but you don't question dre's classics. unless of course you're the grammy organization, in which case you've seen fit to reward the greatest MC of all time half as often as the richest.

straight from the A wants you to know they took that picture. click to hear my fave jay/kast collab

now i don't want y'all to think i'm just taking a dump on grammy because i dislike jay z, because he's awesome. ok, fine. you want a more egregious example? lil "i jacked my flow from juvenile, Gilly the kid, and most recently drake" wayne has 18 nods and four wins not including this year. only 2 fewer than the greatest MC of all time. and MORE than NAS! Queens bridge's finest only has 9 nods prior to tonight. [link]

this guy has more grammys than Nas...

and that's why i have a problem with grammy. ever since steely dan beat all the contemporary artists in the major categories (because they legitimately made the best music that year) and everybody (disclaimer: that terrible article caled lauryn hills '98 grammy success a goof... we at the drewniverse do not endorse that message, and in fact refute it vehemently), yours truly included (i was young and hadn't learned how to be sexy yet) threw a ratings killing fit, the grammys have become the AMA and billboards big cousin. same old chart humping formula ([popular * not terrible]/insufferability brought on by saturation = award) with a shiny new "we'll also nominate the black keys" veneer. here's the full list of winners and noms before we get started.

link

i'm wrong? well then explain how you reconcile this:

w/ this:

those are graphics of a pole conducted by the grammy website asking the people who they felt the voters would chose as the best album in the rap category vs the result. remember how grammy markets itself as the organization that awards the most outstanding music of the year? the people who answered that survey did, and cast their vote for the album they felt was best. what resulted was one of the most thorough ass whoopings i'd ever seen in a poll. 58% of the people thought the superb, provocative bitch slap to rap convention that is Food and liquor 2 was so good that the grammy voters had no choice but to acknowledge it.

however, in keeping with their decade long overreaction to the steely dan backlash, grammy went with the safe choice. the sweet cream ice cream bland "take care". the backlashers even knew that take care stood no chance, coming in with a laughable 18% chance of winning.

and this wasn't the only issue in that category. rick "i made the same song for 5 years" ross and 2 chainz (OK, he's cool) are nominated over the scintillating debut album from kendrick lamar? but they did it elsewhere, too. for example in the record of the year and new artist categories, the soft as tissue (and light bright lily white) Gotye won w/ his one single over the much more interesting and more prolific Frank Ocean (who also got snubbed for AotY). God forbid they reward the first openly gay mainstream urban artist and his anarchistic occultist crew OFWGKTA. and dub step is popular now, so the formerly "awards handed out earlier" segment staple, dance and electric categories were upgraded to the main show (i'm assuming. i didn't watch).

well it's late, and all this vitriol got me stressed. time to wind down with a jasmine and lavender bubble bath, sea weed wrap and full body guava oil rubdown...

black history: down by the riverside

2013-02-05T17:31:00.000-05:00

Dr MLK was famous for a lot of reasons. perhaps no other speech in history has been as revered, repeated and misunderstood as the "i have a dream speech" recited on the steps of the Lincoln memorial. Dr. King wrote and recited that speech as a response to the hatred and vitriol that dominated race relations in Jim crow America. what the good Dr. hoped to accomplish that day in the capital was to redefine what the civil rights movement was it wasn't a hostile takeover by the black community, it wasn't a violent overthrow of then conventional ideals. it was simple: the movement was a dream come to action, and that dream was for equality in the truest since. it was a dream in which everybody in the US regardless of our ethnic background was provided equal protection of the laws not because they had to, not even because it was right, but because the differences in skin tone weren't taken into account at all. because they didn't matter. because it's stupid to treat people like they're less than people because they look different than you. this is rightfully the takeaway from MLK's legacy.

but recently, as in over the past 2 decades, the santafication of MLK has happened. what i mean is that people every year around his birthday use hm as a symbol to advance their own POVs even if their position is one that the good Dr. was publicly against during his lifetime this video from the young turks goes into it better than i can:

i wanted to know more about this riverside church speech. so i looked it up. i'm in class right now so i don;t want to do too much more,but it turns out the good Dr. was vehemently anti war. i think i should start listening now, because prof is pacing, but if you'd like to hear the riverside church speech, follow this link

10,000 pageview special: life erichment from the far east

2013-01-26T01:57:00.000-05:00

... WE JUST HIT 10000 PAGEVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10k! 10 large! now i really AM your man 10 grand! and to celebrate, watch this little asian kid play the high falooting shit outta this xylophone!! TEN THOUSAND PAGEVIEW SWAG!!!!!!!!!!!

RQOD-ception: RQOD in an RQOD

2013-01-24T16:58:00.000-05:00

today's RQOD is about RQOD's: is it better when i do an RQOD like this where i just ask a question and keep it moving, or like this where is go into some detail about whatever random thoughts are going through my head at the time? because i like the latter, but i'm not opposed to doing less work.

in other news, this cat is employee of the month here at the drewniverse

RQOD: internet dating

2013-01-23T15:24:00.000-05:00

hmmm..... to be honest with you, i don't really care about this whole Manti hoax thing, so i won't be discussing my opinion on that. but i do like ESPN First Take [especially when they feature Ed "c'mon son" Lover as a special guest] and the Te'o hoax was one of the topics of discussion. as you all know, we here at the drewniverse believe in being timely so now that the horse is dead we won't beat it. we have more journalistic integrity than those ESPN talking heads, you see. but i did appreciate one of the points that was made during First Take's discussion of the issue. during the discussion Lover pointed out [well, to be fair Stephen A. Smith raised the point first] that it was a bit unusual for a young person to meet and fall for another person whom the have never met in person. the debate then went into whether Te'o was just swagless and naive [he is] or complicit and devious [he was probably willfully ignorant][so i discussed my opinion a little. sue me].

but i think they glossed over the most important question that their topic raised, and that question is threefold. first, there's the problem with the pressure we put on young people to succeed. now i don;t mean to suggest that i'm against a society that values achievement. i think merit based reward is a good thing when used right [i'm just not convinced we do it right]. but what we do here in america is put too much value on the reward. one of the theories for why Te'o was complicit, if he in fact was [like i said, he probably was just naive and a little willfully ignorant] is that he needed the story to garner support for his Heisman campaign. that this is even a consideration speaks volumes about the public psyche. nevermind that you've done your best, grown as a player and a person and are considered a lock for your dream career, none of that matter unless you get the achievement.

next there's the question suggested n the title. First Take, being that the talking heads are from a different generation, wholly dismissed [save for Skip Bayless] the possibility that Te'o could have legitimately connected with a person that he'd never had in person contact with. but is it possible to connect on a substantial level with a person we've never occupied space with? last night, while fake shooting people in the face playing Farcry 3 online, i witnessed two players who had never met before develop a friendship over the course of a single match to the point where they planned to "meet up" at a later date to play again. at no point did they plan to meet in person, but the connection was there.

finally, even if we concede that you can make a real connection with people whom you've never met, is it possible that the connection can blossom into love? certainly not, right? well, it seems that there are tons of examples of even online gamers falling in love with -- and even marrying -- each other based on there online interactions.

so here, after all of that, is the RQOD: can we be done with Manti's fake girlfriend now? please??

:-\