August 2009
1 post
July 2009
18 posts
It’s one of the cruelest paradoxes of the black experience: an unreasonable fear of the world around you, and it happens for good reason.
That’s the best sentence in this, an article I wrote about Mos Def’s self-defeating tendencies.
I still love the guy, but sometimes he’s just on some far out, paranoid, conspiracy theory shit.
Told You, Mom
Researchers from the school of psychology at Britain’s Keele University have found swearing can make you feel better as it can have a “pain-lessening effect,” according to a study published in the journal NeuroReport.
Irony, You Runny, We All Runny
My “Angry White Men” piece hit the front page of MSN early this morning. Here’s a sampling of the hate mail I’ve received since:
“People like you will only be happy when we become a third world country and there is only the elite on your side sprinkle alittle down to the rest of us”
“You need to spend more time writing articles like ‘blacks need...
The Beasts Continue Their Quiet Assault
A runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport was shut down briefly Wednesday morning after at least 78 turtles emerged from a nearby bay and crawled onto the tarmac.
… the incident disrupted JFK’s flight schedule and contributed to delays that reached nearly 1 1/2 hours.
First the geese take down Sully, now THIS! Will no one protect our fleet from New York’s rotten...
Whatever Works, I Suppose
Overheard on the streets of Brooklyn:
I’m tellin’ you, son, you gotta get that master’s degree. (Pause) Once you got that master’s, a nigga be fuckin’ bitches he never thought he could fuck.
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And over there was Glenn Beck, dousing a staffer in pretend gasoline before hovering a match over the pleading young man’s head—conveniently, Beck’s horror show was passed off as a metaphor for the way Barack Obama was going to incinerate America, instead of what it actually was: a gruesome theater spectacle that belonged not on a news network, but in an old-timey street revival. Fox...
An Awesome, Invigorating and Slightly Nerdy Dad...
In response to my twentysomething bitching about “the futility of everything”:
Writers with your interests are exceptionally vulnerable to the ugly fate of doctors and lawyers. People of good health and mind generally do not want to go see their doctor, their dentist or lawyer. They only go to see these professionals because they have to. And once there, they rarely return, call or...
June 2009
19 posts
Very Be Careful is coming to Brooklyn for the...
Cruel and Usual
If Madoff gets medium security, says Webster, “He will be assaulted, there’s no doubt about that.” It’s that much of a certainty? “God, yes. Oh, God, yes.”
While I’m right there with Team Go to Hell, Madoff, shouldn’t we Yanks be sort of embarrassed that our prisons are known by everyone to be hellholes in which criminals can mercilessly torture...
I was interviewed on Canadian public radio about my pride parade article. To listen, go here, click on “Part 2” and skip ahead about 14 minutes.
Like the Cookies
Like many people of mixed parentage, for years I’ve struggled with what box to check under “Race” on standardized forms. Now I know: “a black and a white.” As in, “Besides those originating from rapes, what types of fetuses should be aborted?” Thanks, Dick!
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The annual marches ultimately accomplish two things: They entertain those of us—gay and straight—who already wholeheartedly support the cause of equal rights for the LGBT community, and they feed into the rotten stereotypes of bigots, the same people who fear gay Boy Scout leaders and consider same-sex marriage “deviant.” The LGBT community has every right to claim its place in the...
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In essence, the most important story in Judaism is a tale of rebellion against those who would smother goodness and decency, and Moses, the religion’s most important prophet, is equal parts John Brown, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King Jr. Little wonder that Harriet Tubman, the great emancipator before The Great Emancipator, would come to be known throughout history as...
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WatchAs an Arizonan living in Brooklyn, watching this news segment about a homeless man who rubbed his shit all over a commuter train in Phoenix gives me conflicting feelings. On the one hand, I love that my native state is still innocent enough to be scandalized by human beings pooping—POOPING!—on trains. On the other, I really appreciate that this sort of thing would never end up on the news in New...
May 2009
2 posts
April 2009
8 posts
Francis and the Lights doing Kanye better than...
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Everything is more complicated than you think....
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It’s a subject very near to my abdomen.
That’s the best sentence in a piece I wrote for The Daily Beast about the failings of America’s kidney transplant system. Read it here today, the third day of National Donate Life Month.
March 2009
2 posts
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But Why Clew?
Check out Google’s query suggestions for an interesting look at what’s freaking people out.