Like, nothing AND nobody. As in loneliness.

As of 10pm, both of the VSBs had somebody to spend Valentine’s day with, but that doesn’t mean we can’t empathize with those individuals sans date. We make it our business to be in business of problem solving and world happiness. It’s a gift and a curse really. Kind of like Jay’s Blueprint 2, except we’re actually worth listening to.

Odd question time: Didn’t Jay’s inclusion in the Super Bowl and his “mashup” seem kind of forced? I’m as big a fan of Jay as everybody else and Reasonable Doubt is hands down one of the 5 albums I couldn’t live without, but when it’s all said and done, aside from a number’s game, is Jay’s actual musical contribution that noteworthy? Just fodder for convo. Short of the first Blueprint, has Jay really spearheaded music into any new territories? He changed hip-hop for a few years and he’s the GOAT and all, but I find him performing with like a 40-piece orchestra, slightly ridiculous and an overstatement.

So here’s some ideas to get your motor running (since you have to do it yourself anyway  – no roadside assistance):

1) Crocheting – It’s slightly scary how many 30+ women I know who are actually into crocheting as a hobby. I used to assume that it was for the 70+ crowd since there really isn’t sh*t else to do while you wait to meet Jesus. Plus it doesn’t require much mobility, and what with all the old mothertruckers killing people at Whole Foods and outdoor markets, anything that keeps seniors in their rocking chairs is alright with me. Anyway, all it takes is some string, some needles (no Baltimore) and some creativity. Oh yeah, and talent, which is hard to come by. However, you were probably going to spend all your time watching pr0n, throw in a crocheting DVD and learn a skill you might actually use.

2) Snuggie Beer Crawl - They had one of these in DC a few months back and I heard about them in Chicago as well. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. And trust me, most people running around in Snuggies in broad daylight or at a bar are doing this because they don’t have anybody in their lives who loves them enough to say, “hey, stop it.” Love Misery loves company so just send out of those viral emails that results in legions of virgins and 16-year old college seniors meeting up and arguing about the 382nd number of pi. Beats the hell out of a solo Snuggie Beer Crawl which I’m pretty sure is called being sloppy drunk which is like so, ewww.

3) Online Battleship - This game f*cking rocks when you play with real people so I assume it’s pretty cool when you play against ROBOT1 too. Then again, with the advances in Internet technology, you can probably play legions of games with other gamers from across the world. And technically, if you plan to do it ahead of time it’s a date, so there you go. You can have a date with BigRobLove735. You just can’t see or touch him. We call that marriage at age 80.

4) Netflix Night – You probably suck at picking movies for a group of people. But fret not, MOST PEOPLE suck at picking movies for a group. But lucky for you, you have nobody to please but yourself so it can be all The Tale of Desperaux, A Scanner Darkly, and The Tony Yayo Story, to your heart’s content.

So good hearted people of the VSB, what are some other Valentine’s Day alternatives that folks might not think about?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL, HE A 3

ADMIN NOTE: On February 18, I’ll be at FAMU as a guest speaker at their 4th State of the Black Student Summit along with Dr. Steve Perry, Enitan Bereola, TJ Rose and another celeb panelist. I’m honored to be asked to be there and speak on the Edification of The Black Man. I know nothing about Tallahassee so I’ll be depending on you folks to let me know what to get into (if anything). Do we have any FAMU folks here…holla at the kid. Anyway, bigups to FAMU for bringing Panama “I Speak of Myself in 3rd Person” Jackson to speak about Blackness, no Kool-Aid.

Related posts:

1. Blackness 101: 10 Things All Black People Should (At Least) Be Aware Of…
2. Youzealie: 10 Most Common Lies People Tell in A Relationship
3. lending a hand: the people, places, and things that helped us make it through puberty

It's pretty 'til I had to shovel it.

Unless you get all of your news from TMZ or BET, you’ve heard that the mid-Atlantic region, and specifically the Washington, DC area got dumped on by snow to the tune of 18-30 inches.  For some of us, it’s a welcome, though inconvenient, mini-vacation and time to rest up because you really have no choice. But for some others, being snowed in can be that total bullsh*t.

Oh, by the way, congratulations to all the Saints fans, real and as of this season or proximity-ass fans who decided to jump on the bandwagon yesterday. It was a good game. I can’t even imagine what the French Quarter is like right now. Wish I was there.

Back to business.

While most folks love to hear that their job is closed on a Monday, for everybody it’s not all peaches and cream, peaches and herbs, or strawberry letter 23s. Here’s why:

1) You have to actually dig OUT of snow

Between Saturday and Sunday, I spent a sum total of more than 5 hours shoveling snow. No wonder slavery sucked so bad, aside from the obvious. I have a long walkway and a sizeable sidewalk that I’m responsible for. Condo living never looked so good in my life. Coupled with the fact that this is the 2nd snowiest winter in DC history and I’m about damn tired of snow and everything that comes with it. Oh yeah, AND we’re supposed to get ANOTHER damn snow fall on Tuesday night. The good thing is that all the neighbors come out together to shovel snow. The bad thing is that I have a lot of OLD neighbors. Just imagine the old gay guy from Family Guy out shoveling snow while he’s trying to lure the kiddies into his home with hot chocolate and Lincoln Logs. Shoveling your own snow sucks. Shoveling the snow of an 98-year-old who’s outside “helping” sucks ten times worse.

2) Getting snowed in with somebody you hate

Being stuck with somebody you hate is the worst part of a snow storm. There’s no reason to speak to them and you’re not going to see them naked. There is absolutely no upside here. In effect, you’re stuck inside with somebody who repulses you and you can’t go anywhere but outside to shovel snow. You know you really don’t like somebody when shoveling 2 feet of snow seems like a good way to pass the time, mostly because unless you’re training for the strongman Olympics in Helsinki, it’s NEVER a good way to pass time.

3) No matter how many groceries you get,  you always forget to get stuff you actually want

For some strange reason, being locked in for days makes you yearn for foods you normally could live without. All of a sudden you REALLY want that pizza from Pizza Hut that cannot be delivered without getting your Iranian delivery guy who actually is at work waiting to make a delivery stuck on the road your city is planning on plowing but somehow hasn’t got to yet. DC, I’m looking at you. Plus, you really can’t just eat water, no matter what that Australian cat who hit the big kahuna via a stingray might have told you before. Plus, you know how Black folks are, bought all kinds of bread but forgot to get sandwich meat. Got people eating loaf sandwiches with sugar on top. Or you could just go get some snow and everybody can eat sno-cones. Don’t eat the yellow snow though.

4) You get snowed OUT of your home

Across the DC area, there are people stuck at airports waiting to leave, stuck at other people’s homes, etc. If there’s one thing that sucks more than being stuck IN your own home for days on end, it’s being stuck OUT of your home for days on end. No using your own shower in your own bathroom and sleeping in your own bed. Plus, that usually leads to number 2 at some point. I mean if you’re stuck out of your own place for a while, you’re gonna get edgy and piss somebody off. It’s the law of nature. Well that and “eat things that are smaller than you unless your name is Shaq”.

For me, this isn’t a terrible experience; I don’t have any of those problems save number 1, but I do realize how it can suck. Good VSBiens, for what other reasons might it suck to get snowed in? Amuse me while I kiss the sky.

(Really I just wanted to vent somethings though; I REALLY hate shoveling snow.)

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL, HE A 3

Admin Note: By the way, I have an announcement of an upcoming stop I’m making that involves Florida, unicorns, and midgets, and not necessarily in that order. We going global.

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rapper. record-setter. roach

from the first black president and the first black head football coach at mississippi state university (sylvester croom. this was a really, really big deal when it happened, btw) to the first black woman to win an oscar for best actress and the first black roach to simultaneously impregnate two mulatto sex symbols, the past decade was filled with numerous black firsts many of us thought we’d never see.

despite this continuous progress, there remains more than a few black firsts i doubt we’ll seeing anytime soon. here’s two of them.

openly gay black male in the NBA or NFL

while former nba-er john amaechi came out after his playing days were over and kobe bryant remains a bitch, we’ll see sarah palin on the cover of black tail before we see an openly gay black male pro athlete.

now, i’m sure that there are many currently gay or bisexual black athletes on NBA and NFL rosters. as far as i know, catching punts and catching penises aren’t mutually exclusive. actually, considering the sheer number of men in each league, i’d be more surprised if there weren’t at least a dozen somewhat popular athletes with an extra spare in their tanks, and i’m positive that each of them have a teammate or three who are fully aware of their situation

but, when you combine the prevailing image of the hyperheterosexual black male with the fact that no other american industry capitalizes and depends more on the allure of the ultra-competitive alpha male than professional team sports, you can understand how an openly gay black man would be the complete antithesis of what many (if not most) professional sports fans and participants think sports are all about.

with the ostracization and threats of physical danger he’d probably face, a black male athlete would need balls the size of lincoln, nebraska to come out while he was still playing (and an actual college degree, because his playing days might be over), and i can’t see anyone making that decision

black blockbuster movie

although black actors and actresses have starred in numerous blockbusters, none of the megabucks movies will smith or zoe saldana or denzel washington have been in would qualify as “black movies“…just movies that happened to star will smith or zoe saldana or denzel washington. as much as we –and, in this case “we” means “not me”-- love and support the tyler perry flicks, a 60 million gross (box office +  sales made in barbershops and bodegas) aint sh*t compared to 600.

there are myriad reasons for this (ie: black movies don’t seem to translate well overseas, black movies usually don’t have megabucks marketing campaigns behind them, the IMAX people told hollywood not to produce any multi-million dollar “black” action or science fiction flicks because they dont want n*ggas shooting at those expensive ass screens, etc) but the fact remains that a black movie would have to overcome too many obstacles to reach blockbuster status, and, unless hype williams finally releases belly 2: sincere in africa, i can’t see it happening.

anyway, people of vsb: do you think we’ll see an openly gay black male professional athlete or a black blockbuster in our lifetimes? if so, which do you think would happen first?

also, are their any other black “firsts” we probably won’t see anytime soon?

the carpet is yours

—the champ

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hello.

my name is the champ, and i’m the coolest muthaf*cker any of you will ever meet.

i’m cool ass hell. i’m cooler than ice, ice water, ice cream, and debra lee

i’m to cool what crackheads are to home depot parking lots. if “being cool” was “being black”, i’d be the back of shaq’s neck

my coolness is all-encompassing, incessant, omnipotent, and a bunch of other SAT words i could have used because i’m too cool to just say “big”, bitch.

my cool plays chess while your cool eats checkers.

f*ck king kong, the other side of the pillow aint got sh*t on me

basically, i’m the sh*t

being this cool didn’t happen overnight though. while i was born with many inherently cool-ass qualities (dark-brown skin the color of a clear cup of raspberry iced tea, an egg head, an anadromic first name, a shrimp eating mother and a dad with a fro the size of pam oliver’s ass, etc), its taken a bit of work¹ to become the emo mandingo. and, while none of you lukewarm n*ggas will ever be as ice cold as me, here’s ten ways to help you to be the sh*t too

1. answer questions that were never even asked

nothing says emo mandingo like a bespectacled brother who’s asked a question but responds to it with an answer the person wasn’t even asking about.

for instance:

lukewarm n*gga: “yo. did you hear that new ghostface joint?”

emo mandingo: “nah, i don’t want any steak. i’m probably going to get some pizza later anyway”

see?

2. joke about being a nerd

when around company, refer to yourself as a “nerd” or “nerdy” even though you know you haven’t seen the inside of a library since the second season of twin peaks.

3. make randomly nonchalant analogies that noone in their right mind would ever understand, and allusions to people no one has ever heard of

lukewarm n*gga: “yo see that dunk lebron had last night?”

emo mandingo: “yeah, dawg. that sh*t was harder than a bowl of cream of wheat”

lukewarm n*gga: “huh?”

emo mandingo: “seriously. he got higher than a mexican papsmear. the only other cat i’ve ever seen jump like that is roscoe chang”

4. don’t drive anywhere, ever

walk if you can. if you can’t walk, bus. if you can’t bus, go back to sleep

this, by the way, only works if you actually own a car

5. make faces at people

sometimes, your flagrantly excessive coolness will be so overwhelming that words won’t possess the worthiness to leave your cool-ass lips. plus, remember: you’re the emo mandingo. actually speaking all the time is for the lukewarm.

why say a sentence or type a paragraph when a series of simple shrugs or squints will suffice? so what if a sneer doesn’t really translate over the phone. you’re the cool one; the pressure’s on their lukewarm ass to interpret what you’re saying

6. pay for stuff that you can easily get for free

***actually, this only applies to water, babies, drinking straws, purple objects, jitneys, and porn.***

7. start a completely impractical trend

in the summer of 2002, i began wearing inside-out dress shirts to bed at night. why? well, i’m the sh*t, which means that i don’t have to explain sh*t to you.

8. take showers during thunderstorms

cumulonimbus deez, bitch

9. give yourself three completely eclectic for no damn reason theme songs, and play them in your head when you’re talking to white people

for me, monday through thursday its marvin gaye’s “trouble man”. friday’s its fiona apples rendition of “across the universe”, and on the weekends its a collection of cat farts i recorded in the fall of 2007.

10. be unnecessarily descriptive and vulgar when people least expect it

lukewarm n*gga: “hey, can you have those reports done by 3 o clock?”

emo mandingo: “yeah, boss. i’ll knock them out when i get back from getting head on my lunch break from that waffle house waitress i met two weekends ago”

lukewarm n*gga to himself:  “damn. how the hell can one man be so damn cool?”

exactly, lukewarm n*ggas. exactly.

anyway people of vsb, although i know that none of you will ever be as cool as me, how exactly are you the sh*t, and what advice would you give people hoping to be as sh*tty as you?

¹by “work” i just mean “living“, because emo mandingos don’t work for sh*t

—the champ

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do you like chicken?

of all the crushes i’ve harbored, none have impacted my life the way angie williams has.

angie –a high school classmate– was the object of my silent appreciation for approximately three months in the spring of 1997. it wasn’t that she was the finest or sexiest girl in school or anything like that. i mean, she was definitely attractive, but my admiration completely stemmed from the fact that she was f*cking grown.

not “grown” in the “i’ve had boobs and booty and i’ve been boning since i was 12” way or the “my 23 year old boyfriend is picking me up afterschool in his iroc” way, but grown in the way you could imagine an 18 year claire huxtable or michelle obama being. her grown-ness wasn’t overt. she wasn’t the least bit condescending or patronizing. but, she had a general continence and class about her that made her so far removed from the bullsh*t minutiae of high school existence that it was almost like she was a character in one of those teen movies where they cast 25 year old actors as high school sophomores and juniors.

even her usual daily “costume” –black rimmed glasses, guess jeans, and a short, halle berry-esque do when most of the other girls had weave or ponytails– gave more evidence to the idea that she belonged in some corporate office or courtroom somewhere instead of homeroom and study hall

because i was seeing her best friend, i never said anything to her about the crush¹. but, she made such an impression on me that i’ve had a weakness for women with glasses ever since.

seriously, from the woman with the slight lisp who played the school superintendent on season four of “the wire” to tina fey, glasses have a way of making me much more attracted to someone than i’d regularly be. i wouldn’t quite call it a fetish, but…who am i kidding? i’d bag an albino pygmy if her angular frame game was on point.

anyway, thinking about angie and angie’s glasses yesterday made me think of few more non-sexual things that make me much, much more randy than they probably should, and i’d thought i’d share four of them today:

necks

i don’t know what it is, but something about a woman’s slender neck just makes me want to bite it, and then buy it a nice chicken dinner and never call it again.

the seated arched back stretch/yawn

there’s sexy, there’s very sexy, there’s uber sexy, and there’s “seeing a woman sitting down somewhere studying, and watching her do the extended yawn/stretch where she extends her arms and arches her back so much that her sweater lifts and shows a bit of back skin” sexy. that sh*t is so sexy that i’m honestly surprised that the reality kings or someone still hasn’t started a soft p*rn series called “sexy seated stretching sistas” yet.

dress shirts

nasty words and thoughts

enter the champ’s wicked mind

might c*m on collar

voices that sound like “money”

i’m not even going to attempt to articulate the distinction between a voice that sounds like a woman comes from money and a voice that doesn’t. just trust me when i say that hearing it makes me want to do awesome and terrible things to them.

anyway, people of vsb, am i alone, or are there any non-sexual things that also turn you on much more than they probably should?

remember, we’re all fam and sh*t. don’t be scurred

¹i actually did tell angie about the crush when i saw her at a nightclub several years ago. her reply? “wow. you’re not going to believe this but i felt the same way about you“. she then told me that she was pregnant.

i’ve lived a strange life.

—the champ

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boy approaches girl at lupe fiasco lookalike contest afterparty. girl is charmed by boys proper use of “peripheral” when describing her booty, and gives phone number to boy. boy calls girl three and a half days later, and continues to charm girl with the type of detached emo-negro affected behavior that sistas with glasses, asses, advanced degrees, and daddy issues love more than crackheads love stilts.

girl and boy plan date. girl is so enamored with boy that she requests boy as a friend on facebook. boy happily accepts, but is troubled when an email titled “yo…” ends up in his facebook inbox a day later. apparently, boy’s buddy recognizes girl as “easy e” –a name girl (ericka) was given while she was a sigma sweetheart in college– and warns boy that girl has been around the block more times than a mailman with alzheimer’s. boy investigates buddy’s claim, and finds that it is true. girl has actually slept with somewhere between 4 (confirmed) and 124 (rumored) guys.

upset by the fact that girl “hid” this info from him, and relieved that he found out before he actually kissed her, boy cancels date with girl, citing “shingles” as the reason for the change of plans. disappointed girl curses to herself, and begins to write and market memoirs about her experiences as a successful and single black woman.

the idea that a woman’s number –how many sexual partners shes had– greatly effects how society and (most) men will regard her has been practically embedded in our brains since birth.  little girls are taught how to properly sit down “like a lady” by their grandmothers two minutes after they first learn how to stand so that they won’t appear to be “fast”, and little boys are taught to avoid fast girls while we’re still so young that we’re still grossed out by what fast even means. this stigmatization intensifies as we age, as even an unsubstantiated rumor about a young woman’s excessive sexual activity is enough alter everything from her social status to her career arc.

nowhere is this idea more evident than in the dating and relationship game, where men are not only given carte blanche to insult, degrade, and dismiss promiscuous women…we’re actually dissed if we don’t. the only thing worse than a ho is a captain hell-bent on saving them.

there are myriad evolutionary and physiological reasons used to explain why this mindset has been ingrained in us, but these three are cited a bit more often than others

1. because there’s more of a likelihood that sex will do harm to a woman’s body (ie: pregnancy, an increased vulnerability to STD’s, etc) than a man’s, women who sleep around and continually put themselves in harms way have their decision-making abilities and sanity questioned, damning traits for anyone hoping to be a mother.

2. only in the past half-century or so has a man been able to verify without a doubt that his kids were undeniably his. because of this, its easy to understand why we hold relatively chaste chicks in higher regard than wanton women. its kind of hard to take someones word that “it’s yours” if you know they’ve already slept with the entire 2010 AFC pro bowl roster

3. men are natural explorers and discoverers, and no man wants to claim some scorched earth thats already been explored and discovered by the next n*ggas tribe.

thing is, none of these oft-cited reasons directly address the most important element in all of this, the real logic behind the continued animus towards wanton women, the driving force behind the boy from the story canceling the date plans: our dicks.

you see, for a woman to truly understand how neurotic men can be about our own sexual prowess/performance, take your hang-ups about your body, your weight, and your hair, combine them, and multiply them by ten.

why is this important?

well, if a woman’s been “around”, its assumed that she’s been exposed to an array of different people, penises, and sexual practices and positions. in the (typical) man’s mind, this exaggerated sexual experience means that there’s an increased chance that he’ll be unable to please her, and, subsequently, unable to keep her faithful. this is the main reason why most savvy men learn to adapt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy if they’re really into someone, but would have had serious trouble even getting to the “really into her” point if he was made privy to her past. even if this thought-process is completely off-base and untrue, we tie so much of our self-worth into our ability to satisfy the woman we care about that even the assumption that a woman might be sexually unpleasable automatically makes her unwifeable.

who knows, maybe one day things will be different, and women will possess the same relatively unstigmatized freedom to act on their sexual whims that we currently do.

until then, my advice for all the “easy e/erickas” of the world? build a time machine. if that doesnt work, just date reggie bush

—the champ

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1. a hobby

“what’s the most important thing for a grown-ass sista to possess?”

you know, while others may respond to this question with goeswithoutsayings like “a job” or “an education” or “a passport” or “a genius-level command of their gag reflex“, an actual hobby that doesn’t involve meeting men or buying blahniks is usually the first answer i think of. nothing says “i’m grown the f*ck up” more than a woman who has genuine interests, enthusiasms, and curiosities, and actually makes time to partake in and pursue them.

despite this, there still remains a somewhat sizable sista sub-species of seemingly “grown” walking, talking, vagina zombies with no discernible interests infecting the dating game with their uninteresting-ass e coli, and i’m curious to find out how this happened.  it’s almost as if they all took the exact same “how to be a hobbyless ho 101″ course their freshman year at howard

2. girlfriends

like i said before, when a woman tells me that she doesn’t really get along with other women, i interpret it as code for one of two things

a) “i don’t really get along with other women anymore because i’m a backstabbing b*tch who usually tries to steal their boyfriends”

b) “because i don’t have any friends, i’m going to expect any man i happen to be with to be my sole entertainment for the duration of the relationship”

seriously though, if you’re over 25, you’ve been on the planet long enough to cultivate at least one or two good relationships with someone else in your peer group, and you probably shouldn’t go around calling yourself a grown-up until you’re able to.

3. size, age, and situation appropriate clothing

4. orgasm ownership

if you’re a sexually active woman, the “i’m completely and utterly clueless about my vagina and have no idea how to make myself climax” sympathy card expires a month after your 27th birthday, and you probably should pencil in a permanent reservation at the kiddle table during thanksgivings until your “too old to be shook by my own snatch” ass figures it out.

5. nice hair

whether you’re rocking braids or a baldy, a bob or a halle, deceiving weave or the “spelman pullback”, a grown-ass sista should know a) how to handle your do, b) which do is most appropriate for you, and c) how not to leave the house looking like one of those tragic maury povich mulattoes whose mothers have no f*cking clue what to do

6. a go-to dude

whether its her dad, her cousin ronnie, her grade school vice-principal, or vsb, every grown-ass sista should have at least one (heterosexual!) male in her life that’ll give it to her straight with no chaser whenever she needs to know “what does it mean when he says that he only wants to see me between 3 and 3:45am on the weekends?” and other deep insights about the mysterious male mind

anyway, people of vsb, what else should every grown-ass sista own before she earns the privilegde to call herself a grown-ass sista? 

and, since we’re all here, who do you think is going to be the first popular recording artist that actually murders herself on stage during an award show because she’s trying to top a lady gaga performance? (my money’s on pink)

—the champ

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2. but when he gets on, he’ll leave your ass for a white girl…or not
3. i’m soooooo grown

Makes no sense, does it? Aw shuga no no no.

Well those commercials got me to thinking about other areas of life where people just might take things too far. Relationships, for instance. In every relationship, there are tests. The tests vary; some are for endurance, others are for sanity and peace of mind, which comes with every piece of the rock.

Prudential.

While these tests exist and will exist as long as man dangles, and patience is a virtue, everybody has a breaking point. I mean we all get pissed for things. But there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed. And in the spirit of my good friends at Bud Light and their comical depiction of the medium, allow me to bump that up two sizes to XL. Basically, let’s look at some situations that might piss you off but you’ll learn to deal with and then the point where they’ve crossed the line. This is educational, kiddies. Pull out the trusty #2, take notes, and shut the f*ck up while Professor Panama is speaking. Did Panama just go too f*cking far?

Possibly. But f*ck your couch. He’s sexxy. This is what he does.

FOLLOW ME.

1) Sex Tape

Not Happy – After 3 months of dating and boinking, you find out that you’ve been taped on nearly every romp in the sack, including the time you sang the theme song from Pirates of Penzance off key while wearing a checkered table cloth and some tassles.

Crossed The Line – You find out that you’ve been taped by Googling yourself and finding your videos on youtube and you’re not even one of the most viewed videos.

2) A Little Physical Violence

Not Happy – Amidst an argument, you get slapped upside the back of your head, with people watching. You might be pissed as all hell, but you ain’t exactly gonna break up with them because of a little head slap.

Crossed The Line – Amidst an argument, you get hit with THE PEOPLE’S ELBOW. That’s grounds for dismissal and an all out air assault on their assesses.

3) Tattoo

Not Happy – You wake up in the morning to find out that your girl has placed a 4-day temporary tattoo of her name across your forehead and she thinks its a hilarious joke. Not that I’d suggest this for real, but you should kick her down the stairs.

Crossed The Line – You wake up to realize that you have your bf/gf’s name tatted across your abdomen in Sanskrit because they took you out and got you drunk enough that you thought it wasn’t a bad idea because, you know, you’re in love and sh*t.

4) Nudity

Not Happy – Your girl walks around nude all the time despite your please to put those puppies away because if they start hanging any lower, you’ll have to enter them into a Ludacris “How Low Can You Go”  contest with the Twerk Team. (NSFW…you’re welcome).

Crossed The Line – Your girl walks around nude WHEN YOUR BOYS ARE THERE. You have to drop her dunny. I mean really, you can’t just play that sh*t off like, “yo, ignore her, B. She’s just looking for attention.” Mission accomplished. You can’t even be mad at your boys either. I’ve seen dudes stare at nude crackheads. There’s something about Mary nudity.

5) Little white lies

Not Happy – Your girl tells you she’s taking you to a Jay-Z concert but she’s really taking you to the opera. Talk about a blower. And not a good one either. Not that I don’t have an appreciation for opera…oh wait, Panama TOTALLY doesn’t give a sh*t about opera.

Crossed The Line – Your girl tells you she’s taking you to a Jay-Z concert but she’s really taking you to Maury Povich to tell you that you might not be the father of your child. Somebody might have to die. Seriously, can you imagine that shock? How pissed would you be if you ended up on THAT show? Or Jerry Springer?

So good people of VSB, what crosses the line for you?

And remember, it’s Friday, let’s have fun. Be sexxy like Panama.

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL, HE A 3

Related posts:

1. Just Perish.
2. Happy Thanksgiving!
3. Necessary Evils.

Duck. Duck. GREY GOOSE!

By now, nearly everybody has heard about Robby Pardlo’s episode of the A&E show, Intervention, where he’s exposed as an alcoholic. In said episode, he admits that part of his unwinding into a raging drunk was because his girlfriend of years, Claudette Ortiz, dumped her for their bandmate Ryan Toby, who she eventually married and apparently cheated on AT LEAST two times (she has 3 kids, two of which aren’t his, but were both born WHILE she was married to him).

Da f*ck? Where dey do dat at?

While I’ve never knowingly had a girlfriend cheat on me with one of my boys, I did have an ex openly ask me if she could pursue something with one of mi hombres after I broke up with her. Me? I said, “sure, go ahead.” I really didn’t give a flying frog f*ck about her at that point and had she been hit by a rhinosaurus driving a Silverado I wouldn’t have given two sh*ts. Mostly because she cheated on me with a dude I DIDN’T know. But I knew she cheated.

I’ve lost my point. Oh John the Rabbit, oh yes. So, the whole time we were dating, apparently she was scheming on my homey though she never pursued until we broke up. And I knew something was up. How’d I know? Well, I’m a beast, I’m a dog, I’m a motherf*cking problem. But more simply, people will tell you everything you need to know. Follow me.

1. They start randomly mentioning your friend out nowhere.

You ever been out with one of your friends and they can’t stop talking about somebody new they know. But even worse, they find odd ways to bring them up. You need an example, don’t you. Cool.

Shaniquilt: I really love what NASA’s got planned for the future of hydrogen-carbide O-rings and staples.  What do you think?

Shalulu: Yeah, James was just talking to me yesterday about apples and I was thinking about NASA when he  had said…”apples”.

Shaniquilt: Da f*ck?

So imagine that scenario if you and your girl are in the car and you say:

You: Baby I love these Skittles you bought me. They so tart.

Her: James loves Skittles too.

You: Um, yeah. Why’d you bring him up there.

Her: No reason. * whistling *

Sign number one you silly sucka.

2. Not only do they bring them up, they COMPLIMENT them.

If your girl starts doling out compliments to one of your friends all willy nilly, you should definitely give her a stern side-eye and make a mental note of it. Be clear, there is NO reason that you’re girl should be paying THAT much attention to any of your homeboys that she knows what king of cologne smells best on him.

3. They always want to invite your friend to functions.

Beware your gf/bf who ALWAYS wants your homey to be there because “they so funny.” Remember fellas, humor is what charms the drawz off of any woman. Thing is, initially it will seem really benign and actually nice and sweet that they want to hang with your friends but there will come a point where it jus seems odd to invite them – like to the bedroom or ice cream.

Her: I’m tired. You think James wants to come and watch movies with us and then possibly spoon. Don’t you think that would be great? What if he rubbed on my booty too! *shriek* Yay!!!!

4. They find ways to hang out with your buddy without you.

Not sure this needs and explanation, but you should definitely kill them if this happens and any of numbers 1-3 have occurred.

5. You catch them cheating.

Sorry, pal. We’ll see you on A&E’s intervention.

That’s a quick list for you.  Good patrons of the VSB, did I miss any signs???

Lay it on me.

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL, HE A 3

Related posts:

1. damn you, shakira (six signs you’ve fallen into the “friend zone”)
2. close-bus syndrome: six signs that a woman has been friend-zoned
3. All By My Se-eee-eelf: 5 Signs That You’re Dating Somebody Who Isn’t Dating You.

Oh yeah, I forgot, here’s the premise (I know you all don’t like reading two posts in order to read one so here are the pertinent parts):

The figures from the American Community Survey just in are more than crunched numbers. They suggest that this might be a good year for a certain term now familiar in American parlance to be, if not consigned to history, reassigned.

Namely, as of now, almost 1 in 10 black people are foreign-born. About 1 in 30 are from Africa. Which means that they are–you see where I’m going–African American in the true sense. Certainly a truer sense–true as in making sense–than Tracy Morgan, Donna Brazile, Jesse Jackson, or Mo’Nique.

Interesting assertion, though quite frankly, anybody who wants to draft Mo’Nique in the next race draft is more than welcome as far as I’m concerned.

Continuing.

It’d be one thing if it were a hundred years ago and lots of black people still had parents who had been born into slavery and grandparents who actually “spoke African,” as it was sometimes put. But this is a very different time.

A possible objection, I imagine, is that native-born blacks are African in a “different” way than actual African immigrants–but this would be a feint rather than an argument: clearly, the proper formulation, if we are to put it on the table, is that native-born blacks are African to a much lesser extent than African immigrants. In truth, a black man from Jacksonville has more in common with a white one from Tucson than he does with a man three years out of Senegal.

And I would argue that native-born blacks are so vastly less “African” than actual Africans that calling ourselves “African American” is not only illogical but almost disrespectful to African immigrants. Here are people who were born in Africa, speak African languages, eat African food, dance in African ways, remember African stories, and will spiritually always be a part of Africa–and we stand up and insist that we, too, are “African” because Jesse Jackson said so?

It’s an interesting question, no? There is some truth there. While many of us refer to ourselves as African-American, the fact is, most of us are no more African at this point than that “Irish” kid in Boston who’s parents came over on some random ship in the 1700s. Sure we’re all of descent, but given that there really ARE actual African-Americans (children of first generation African immigrants born here) who seemingly still readily identify as African, how African American am I?

Truth be told, I pretty much just call myself Black anyway and I think I’ve heard more white people say African-American than I’ve heard Black folks say it. But it is a word that is commonly donned upon our community without much objection.

Consider this: a white man from down South and a Black man from down South more than likely share a lot of the same customs, eating habits, and religious practices. The only thing separating most of us is social justice and race. But American? Sure, we’re all as American as it gets. One of my best friends went to Kenya when we were in college and upon his return he said he’s no longer considering himself an African-American, just an American, because he couldn’t be more different than the folks he met in Kenya. While I found that synopsis a bit shortsighted at the time, I do understand what he meant.

I have African friends who’ve alluded to being fearful of American Blacks (we’ve talked about this before on VSB).

Of course, it’s not really Black folks holding onto the African-American thing as handily as it is white people making sure to let us know that we’re not “American” American so perhaps McWhorter’s words are directed at the wrong audience.

But I ask you, thinking people of VSB, does it still make sense for American-born Black folks to be considering themselves as African-Americans?

Hell, does it even matter?

What say you?

P has spoken.

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL, HE A 3 (PENDING 4)

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