G’day yall. Welcome to “Defending my tweets”. I tweet stuff and , sometimes, 141 characters isn’t enough. I feel the need to expand on these mini-thoughts. So, allow me to explain my dumb tweets in long form. If nothing else, for the clarity. It also allows me to get a nice rant off and that’s always fun.

We all have those things that we see (or hear) people do that just set off small red flags within. These are harmless things that really don’t mean anything in the bigger picture but, for some reason, they make us question the character of a person on some level. Whether or not they’re an accurate judge remains to be seen. After all, if I meet an adult male who is obsessed the TV show “Big bang Theory”, it’s gonna be tough for me to not take him less seriously as a human being. He may be a great guy. He may the type of person who would give a kidney to a stranger. Who knows? But that one thing would be enough for me to know that, deep down, we could never be THAT tight. Friendly acquaintances? Without question. Now, this is admittedly short sighted and not fair. I know this. But, you know what, there are millions of people in the world and we don’t have time to meet every fucking one of them and give them a fair shake. Sometimes, we gotta do quick edits. Honestly , in my entire life, I can’t say I’ve been wrong about a flash judgement ore than a handful of times. And I accept that people do the same to me. It’s just a logical way to save time.

In the case of airplane clappers and people who eat pizza with a fork and knife, we have two groups of people completely unrelated. The people who clap when a plane lands, to me, are just novices. Sure, if you’re on a flight in terrible weather and the plane comes down smooth, I get it. But fucking 45 commuter flights? Do you also high five your barista for putting the right amount of milk in your coffee? Landing planes is the pilots job. If he fails at that job, we all die…so I see why one would be happy when he succeeds but…you know, it’s still something he/she does like 30 times a week. So, you do that,I’m judging. I’m assuming this is the first time you’ve been on a plane. It probably isn’t and that’s unfortunate.

Now, if you eat pizza with a fork and knife, my judgey assumptions point me towards you were raised way too fancy or you have germ issues. Same goes for people who eat wings with a fork and knife. That’s just fucking insane. It’s hand food. use your goddamn hands.I see that fork and knife come out and I wanna say “hey dude, this isn’t the country club. Put that neckerchief to work and get some grease on your fingers”.

In both cases, these people aren’t bad folks. Of course not. But ,to me, they are worthy of a brief and stern judgement. Cause, this is America and that’s what we do.

Nostalgia is funny. It rearranges reality. As people, we are obsessed with our youth and the things we coveted during that time. It’s the reason I love the movie “Police academy 3: Citizens on patrol” but if I showed it to the average 18 year old he’s be like “What is this corny bullshit?”. There comes a time when, we as adults , must come to terms with separating what is actually quality from what is simply a poorly aged relic of an era we grew up in.
This is never more relevant when discussing rap music from the early 90’s. This is the music I cherished and grew up on. During that era, i would buy a new album every week and 8 out of 10 times, i’d love it. You could say this was a result of the quality of that era but, really, it’s not all true. Bad rap music has existed since the beginning. We were just to green to realize it. Like, Kid N’ play…they were never dope. Ever. But when viewed through the rosy glasses of nostalgia, one could perhaps convince themselves otherwise.
Then there is the stuff that was actually quality but didn’t age well. In rap, I find this is often because of stylistic choices. in the early 90’s, people were going out of their way to find a style no one had ever done before. The resulted in all sorts of funny gimmicks. From Das Efx iggity biggity style, to Akinyele lowering his voice at the end of every line to Kwame wearing Polka dots. It was people trying to be new and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, 2015 could use more of that mindset. However, the problem with always trying to elevate is that when it misses, it really ages poorly. I can’t listen to a Fu Shnickens song now. I can’t. And I LOVED their first album when it dropped. It just doesn’t work in 2015. But, there are people out there who probably still listen to it like it’s the last of the good shit that was ever made. That kinda makes me sad but, at the same time, we’re gonna like what we like. If you’re musical ear stopped expanding in 1991, then that’s that. Same goes for people who still only bump the Doors and similar groups from that era, lamenting about the good old days and how these new guys have no soul. It’s beyond rap. It’s all art. My point is that liking what you like and loving what you loved is perfectly fine and natural. That said, it’s okay to acknowledge that the stuff we loved in our formative years is just that and nothing else. Aging is supposed to give perspective. And the ability to step back and look at the past rationally is part of that.

This Rachel Dolezal story is my favorite news item in recent memory. It’s so fucking ridiculous I can’t even really gather my thoughts enough to express how it makes me feels. I love it. I love that this delusional liar of a white woman thinks that it’s okay to call herself a black woman. I love that #transracial is something people are really trying to make happen. Part of me can’t tell if the whole “transracial” thing is someone trying to poke holes in the purity of the “transgender” cause by pointing out “hey, if it works with gender, then it should apply to race!”. I almost feel as if , after she was exposed, she just made it up to see if it might stick. After all, in the hyper sensitive world of 2015 where everyone is a victim, if you cry about something enough, SOMEONE is gonna hear your moans. Seeing as no one is allowed to say anything about anyone, it makes all the sense in the world that someone would try and pull “transracial” off. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be flying. Which is good cause it’s total bullshit.
When I was in high school, every white kid I knew was “transracial”. in those days, it was called being a “Wigger”. I know that term rubs people the wrong way but that’s what it was known as back then, in the less sensitive early 90’s. Well off rich white kids wore their pants below their butts, spoke an affected tongue that was learned from watching “Yo!TV raps” and they all did graffiti. The girls wore door knocker earrings, pulled their hair back as tight as possible, wore dark red lipstick and dated latin kings. Sephardic jews and Italians would often be confused with puerto ricans , much to their own delight as that lent them endless street cred. Simply being not white was a social bonus within this small community so anyone who could pull off “off white” ran with it. I realize, the rest of the country was not like this. Being a minority down right sucked for most americans back then. Hell, it sounds pretty shitty right now. But, in NYC high schools in the 90’s? It was the shit. At least in Manhattan.
Most of these privileged white kids grew out of that phase once they graduated high school and realized being that person doesn’t exactly work in the real world. The guys grew their hair out , bought button ups, went to a good college and got jobs working for their parents. The girls let their hair down, started wearing clothes made for women and eventually dated some preppie guy who wears boat shoes 8 months a year. It was just a phase. But Rachel Dolezal? Nope. She stuck with it. Possibly more than any other person before her. She took it to the limit. She dyed her hair and made it look ethnic. She tanned her pasty white skin. She went to Howard university. She most likely hasn’t seen a white penis since high school. All this is fine except she literally told people she was black. Oops! And that’s when it goes too far. We all know white girls who wear head wraps, light incense 24 hours a day and have a few spoken word poems in the chamber. They’re embracing a culture they revere and that’s fine. But the second you tell people you’re not who you are? You’re a liar. A big white liar.
This story is unraveling more and more every day and it just keeps getting better. I look forward to all of this further exploding in Dolezal’s face as she tries to talk her way out of being full shit by using the political correctness machine to save her lying ass. Luckily for us, as open minded as we are as a country, this subject is simply never gonna fly. At least I assume it won’t. God, I hope it never does.