Semper Dry: UPDATE!!!

Aww sheeeeit y'all!!!  Turns out Obama isn't the only one who was once mired in an umbrella-related scandal!  That Persian dude Xerxes way back in the BC times was caught using his top-ranking palace eunuchs, Aspamitres and Aspartame, as umbrella attendants.  This foolishly arrogant act outraged Xerxes' subjects and in short time he was assassinated by Artabanus in 465 BC.  Obama is usually quick to learn from history so I'm surprised that he wasn't smart enough to not copy Xeroxes' folly.  

L-R: Aspamitres, Aspartame, Xerxes.  Not pictured: rain.

  

Semper Dry

Damn y’all heard of this outrage about Obama having a Marine hold an umbrella over his head during an outdoors press conference with the Prime Minister of Turkey?  First of all it seems impolite to refer to an entire country as a ‘Turkey’ but then Lebron reminded me that the Ottoman Empire lost World War I so as part of its punishment it must’ve had to rename itself.  Anyway, idiotic conservatives are all like "why can’t the man hold his own damn umbrella?"  But I think these people are missing the larger point.  Don’t get me wrong, I do sympathize with those who feel that people should hold their own umbrellas.  I myself, as a 7’2” black man, have found it near impossible to find a sufficiently tall and unracist umbrella attendant.  This forces me to take care of all my umbrella-related program activities myself, but come on people, Obama is the President of the United States!  I also mow my own lawn and clip my own toenails (though rarely at the same time), but do we really expect the POTUS to do such menial tasks himself?  And why do people care so much that it’s a Marine?  The Secret Service does all the President’s laundry, reads him his bedtime stories, and packs him his Lunchables, but I don’t hear anyone complain about that.  

Just imagine if the Obamas laid off all their staff and started doing simple everyday tasks for themselves, the unemployment rate would skyrocket!  The head umbrella dude over at the Marines has a family to feed just like you or me.  He gets laid off, and his little girl can’t go to college.  Is that what you monsters want?  He went to umbrella college for 4 years just to get laid off during a recession so the White House could save a few bucks?  HAIL NO.  He served his country nobly and protected his President from the rain, and now you want to leave him out in the rain?  I DON’T THINK SNOW.  I AIN’T DOWN WET THAT.  In the olden days a man and his umbrella jockey had a special relationship, almost like bloodbrothers.  They say blood is thicker than water, but nothing is thicker than rain.  Ponder that.  Most Americans hold their own umbrellas nowadays which may seem like a good thing, but that’s a lot of former umbrella attendants out of a job.  New Jersey is the only state that has a law against self-serve umbrella use.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that New Jersey also happens to be the most beautiful, prosperous, and happy state.  And anyway, every American President has had his own umbrella attendant ever since an un-umbrella’d William Henry Harrison caught a fatal case of the pneumonias during his Inaugural Address.  It’s an American tradition, just like baseball, apple pies, and wars in Iraq.  

Think about what happened to the last U.S. president who foolishly decided to defy proper parasol protocol.  

 

Never forget.

Even though George W. Bush presided over America’s halcyon days, and while history will surely remember him as the dignified, principled, capable leader he was, many misguided partisans stubbornly continue to define him by his sole mistake.  In case you don’t remember, in early 2005, in a rare departure from his usual practice of moderation and judiciousness, George W. Bush insisted on holding his own umbrella.  This bold demonstration of American strength was designed to strike fear into the hearts of Islamic terrorists, but it sadly ended in disaster.  The operation proved to be too ambitious, too complex, too demanding for one man to tackle, and thus had to be abandoned halfway through.  The mission left unaccomplished, an entire nation gasped in horror.  Though this was the one and only blemish on W’s legacy, a solitary turd floating along a vast tranquil pool of immaculate chlorinated glory, his reputation never really recovered. 

It's almost as though he's not that bright or something.

Umbrellagate is just proof that Obama has learned from his predecessor’s mistake, like Dubya himself who learned from Bill Clinton that one should never use an intern’s vagina as a humidor, and Clinton who in turn learned from Bush Sr. that Japanese ambassadors, contrary to certain videos you can find on the internet, do not enjoy being vomited on. 

Mission accomplished.

Nate Robinson comes out as first openly short player in NBA history

CHICAGO (AP) -- In a move sure to shock NBA fans the world over, an emotional Chicago Bulls guard Nate Robinson revealed that he is, and has been his whole life, short.  “I’m like 5’6’’, 5’7’’ tops,” Robinson tearfully admitted to a group of astonished reporters who had gathered near his locker Thursday afternoon.  “This has been eating me up inside for so long.  I knew it was time to be a man and stop living a lie.”  Asked when he first realized the truth about his condition, Robinson stated he had long suspected it but had hoped that it was “a phase [he] would grow out of.”  “I had my suspicions since I was a kid, looking at all the other kids, wondering why I was so different from them.  No one ever understood me.  Like literally, everyone stood over me because I was so much shorter than them.  Everyone looked down on me.  Like literally, they had to look down to make eye contact while talking to me, I was so much shorter than them.  At sleepovers my friends would all hang out in the pillow fort, while I’d be in the closet.  Like literally, I slept in the closet.  I was short enough to do so.”   

In an exclusive interview with Proceedings of the National Institute of Basketball, Robinson divulged more details.  In late August of last year, despondent from the stress of living a lie, a desperate Robinson attempted suicide.  “I tried to hang myself from a ceiling fan, but I couldn’t reach it,” Robinson candidly recounted.  “Then I tried to jump off a bridge, but I couldn’t clear the guardrail.  Then I stood on the El tracks hoping to get run over, but the train just whizzed by right over my head.”  The new relaxed, unburdened Robinson can see the silver lining in his suicidal predicament.  “[The train] did give me a free buzzcut, so I guess God really does have a plan for each one of us.”  Though life is often difficult, Robinson has developed ingenious ways to cope with his disability.  He shared his predicament with Chicago celebrity meteorologist Tom Skilling, who developed a state of the art device to inform Robinson of the weather.  Gushed Robinson, “I’m no longer the last to know when it’s raining, and that’s a big deal for me.”   

Robinson expressed hope that his confession would not pose a distraction as his Bulls team finds itself in the middle of a grueling playoff series against the defending champion Miami Heat.  “I know my boys in this locker room, on this team, we’re tight.  They got my back.”  “We love Nate, we know he’s so much more than just his height,” offered Bulls teammate Joakim Noah.  “He’s also his weight, speed, and jumping ability.”  Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau was supportive of his diminutive point guard.  “I think it’s great he came out.  The younger kids, this new generation, they’re a lot more open to these things.  And don’t get me wrong, I think that’s a great thing.  A great thing.”  Injured point guard Kirk Heinrich agreed.  “I don’t care if a teammate’s tall, short, white, black, green, [or] Jewish.  The only concern is ‘can he play?’  And Nate can play at times.”   

Robinson’s travails have hit home with fellow Bulls guard Jimmy Butler.  “I don’t tell people this usually, but Nate gave me the courage.  My dad was short.  Growing up, I really didn’t have any idea.  I didn’t even know what that meant.  But later my mom figured it out and they got divorced.  I didn’t have hardly any contact with him because [the divorce court judge] said that no short man could be a good father.”  Robinson’s brave admission comes at a time of increasing acceptance of short people.  “Nowadays a short person can walk down the street and no one bats an eye.  Some of my best friends are short.  Hell, my baby daughter is short, but I love her all the same,” stated Bulls forward Carlos Boozer, who signed with the Bulls two years ago after many seasons playing for the Utah Jazz.  “In Salt Lake, Nate would’ve been hassled.  They don’t take kindly to his type there.  The Mormon Church still considers shortness to be a sign of God’s disfavor.  So I’ve seen firsthand how hard it can be for people like Nate to feel welcome in society.”  Bulls small forward and native of Sudan Luol Deng, who has been hospitalized all week due to complications stemming from meningitis and a botched spinal tap, expressed pride in Robinson’s announcement.  “I come from a war torn country and almost died last week.  But when I see what Nate has been able to overcome, it makes me realize just how lucky I am.  He motivated me to play through the pain.  I knew I had to fight and represent my team.  I knew I couldn’t let Nate down.”  Bulls star Derrick Rose was unavailable for comment, as he bit his tongue five weeks ago and his personal doctor had yet to clear his mouth for speech.   

They call it the playoffs.  Perhaps it’s because, with the stakes so high, you can’t afford to take a play off.  Robinson understands this, and doesn’t shrink away from the pressure.  He has come up huge for the Bulls even while being under the microscope on this, the NBA’s biggest stage.  “The way I look at it is, you can’t spell ‘disability’ without ‘ability’”, Robinson astutely observes.  “The Chinese use the same character for ‘short’ as they do for ‘opportunity’.  It’s a blessing in disguise.  Only through adversity can we ever improve.  Yeah, so I’m short, so what?  Life is short.”  Short in stature but a giant of a competitor, Robinson is living proof that sometimes the best things do come in small packages.  Can Robinson lead his beleaguered Bulls to an upset series win against the Heat?  It would certainly be a tall order, but I for one am not about to sell him short.   

Rick Reilly contributed to this article. 

Ball is life

Aw man y’all heard about this gay dude was playing in the NBA all this time and he didn’t even tell anyone about it until just now?  That dude Jason Collins has come out of the closet.  He’s easily one of the tallest gays of all time.  And certainly he’s the best gay center in NBA history.  Seeing as how I’m the best straight center in NBA history, my fans have been hounding me to share my take on Collins’ announcement.  Of course I’m proud of Collins and impressed with his honesty and courage.  This is the most momentous event in the NBA since Oliver Miller came out as the first openly fat player (prior to Miller’s emotional 1995 press conference people had just assumed he was 2 moderately sized small forwards).   

Throughout the U.S. millions of people, even those with no previous interest in basketball, have been remarking on the significance of Collins’ revelation, and rightfully so.  Jason Collins is now a trailblazer.  Well, not a Trailblazer, he’s still a free agent although I’m sure he’d sign with Portland if they want him, but why would they with J.J. Hickson and an up-and-coming Meyers Leonard already on their roster?  But anyway, you know what I mean.  Collins has placed himself at the vanguard of the gay rights movement, a beacon of hope to extremely tall gay children everywhere.  He is now a civil rights icon, with an impact that will echo throughout history.   

I just hope that Collins’ newfound fame doesn’t overshadow the contributions of the civil rights pioneers who came before him.  People often forget that basketball, having been invented at a YMCA in Massachusetts, used to be an exclusively homosexual sport.  Teams of sweaty men wearing color-coordinated outfits consisting of sleeveless shirts and shorts as tight as saran wrap, running up and down the court whilst showing off their ball-handling skills.  It truly was a sport for men.  Men’s men, if you know what I mean (I mean homosexuals).  It wasn’t until 1956 that Jiminy Carbunkle became the first heterosexual allowed to play in the NBA.  Controversy and conflict ensued.  Teammate Fat "Sweetwater" Lipton refused to take the court alongside Carbunkle.  Carbunkle was inundated with hate mail laced with such devastating insults as “woman lover,” “breeder,” “lady toucher,” and “breast enjoyer.”  On one infamous road trip through the Midwest, fans in Fort Wayne, Indiana tormented him by throwing novelty rubber vaginas at him during the pre-game introductions.  Things got even worse in St. Louis, where a group of heterophobic pastors demanded that Carbunkle undergo aversion therapy to cure him of his heterosexual affliction.  It was only St. Louis star power forward Lavender Dempsey’s timely intervention that convinced the enraged crowd of straight-hating Baptists to let Carbunkle go safely back to his hotel room.  The press, as insatiable in its need to stir up gossip then as it is now, relentlessly hounded Carbunkle about his love life.  For his family’s protection, he had to hide the true nature of his relationship with his wife and child when they joined him on the road.  When asked, he would claim that his wife was actually his personal trainer and his 9 year old son was actually his dwarf valet.  Teammates “Jumpin” Whit Hogarth and Bruce Pepperton selflessly volunteered to convey the appearance that the trio was involved in a passionate, satisfying, and depraved polyamorous relationship to throw people off the scent of Carbunkle’s heterosexuality, but Carbunkle nobly refused to live a lie.  His career would suffer greatly for his integrity.   

In the late 1950s there was a pernicious yet regrettably widespread belief that the sweat of heterosexuals caused gay people to develop cancer.  Carbunkle was forced to play wearing a full body wetsuit lest he sweat his fellow players into an early grave.  The bulkiness of the suit severely hindered Carbunkle’s usefulness on the court and his career prematurely fizzled out.  His last appearance was Game 6 of the 1963 NBA Finals in which he played 2 minutes, amassing 0 points, 0 assists, and 2 death threats.  The next year a team of nuclear physicists at MIT demonstrated that the perspiration of heterosexual humans was harmless to gay mice.  After a decade of trials on humans, the destructive rumor was finally put to rest, much too late to help out Carbunkle. 

Moron Labe

Shit y’all heard about this tareist attack they just had over at the Boston Marathon?  Man I remember the first terrorist attack at a Marathon, that dude Darius got fucked up pretty bad that day.  This was before cell phones so Phiddipides had to run tell dat all the way back to Athens and dropped dead upon arriving cuz back then there wasn’t no Nikes.  But at least his message didn’t contain ricin, which is the new terroristical thing that’s been going around.  Maybe we should reinstate couriers to orally deliver messages in person, that way can’t no one put some poison in the letter and kill a Congressperson or some such.  Of course, the modern Phiddipides will have to be thoroughly vetted i.e. body scanned, cavity searched, irradiated, and racially profiled (in case of any brown skin related program activities).  Only then can we be sure that our nation’s Congressional correspondence is completely free from lethal toxins.  And before you say that it would be easier to just train carrier pigeons to do the same thing, keep in mind that North Korean tareists could easily just send weaponized pigeons infected with bird flu over to America (once they develop the range) and then we’d all be screwed.

So far the authorities haven’t been able to determine who’s to blame for the attack, but that sure hasn’t stopped people from making all kinds of wildly irresponsible accusations.  Of course, some liberals are saying that it’s domestic terrorists (i.e. right-wing nutjobs) who did it, and most conservatives are saying that it’s Islamic terrorists (i.e. Muslim right-wing nutjobs) who did it.  Either way, it’s almost certainly right-wing nutjobs who are responsible, and whether they play for the home team or the away team shouldn’t really matter.  Some Fox News contributor even tweeted that we should “kill all Muslims” but for all we know that could have been totally unrelated to the bombing in Boston.  It was most likely just a promo for Fox’s newest show, Kill All Muslims with Mark Levin.  I just hope the perpetrators don’t turn out to be 7 foot tall, 300 pound black men, else I’ll probably get profiled.

Alex Jones, everybody’s favorite cross between Yosemite Sam and Rush Limbaugh, claims that the attack was a false flag operation.  On the surface this seems like an unlikely, poorly reasoned, excessively paranoid, some may even say really fucking insane assertion but let’s not dismiss Jones as a delusional idiot just yet.  As I type this in solitary confinement in my meager tent at a classified FEMA internment camp, hooked up to a government-issued mind control helmet that, while uncomfortably bulky and unbearably loud as it force feeds an audiobook of Piers Morgan reading The Collected Works of Karl Marx directly into my ears, is at least mercifully protecting the open, unhealed head wounds I unrelentingly suffer at the whip of my Reptilian overseers from exposure to the acrid, stale air that permeates this desolate hellhole, I am begrudgingly reminded that Alex Jones has indeed been right in the past.  And though the lamestream media may refuse to connect the dots, certain facts do lend credence to Jones’ false flag theory.  The Vatican recently elected a new Pope; Kate Middleton is pregnant; Obama uses fluoridated toothpaste; Boston spelled backwards is “not sob”; Russian oligarchs have crippled the Cypriot banking system by overwhelming it with speculative capital; Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi; Kobe Bryant recently tore his Achilles tendon; Marathon spelled backwards is “Nohtaram” which happens to be the capital city of the Reptilians’ home planet of Alpha Rigel DQX-17.  The evidence is all out there, it’s just a matter of who’s willing to see it.   

Episode V: The Holy Roman Empire Strikes Back

Awww yeah y'all heard the news???  The Catholic Church's Papal opening has at long last been filled!  Sorry that came out a bit dirty, but I'm just so excited that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was just elected the new Head Pope of the World, narrowly beating out Rick Santorum!  Bergoglio's papal name will be Pope Francis, presumably because he lost a bet with the other cardinals.  Francis is the first Pope from Latin America, which is surprising considering Latin is the official language of the Holy See.   

As Head Pope, Francis is now the Lord and Master of 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, and with their belief that contraception is a sin, expect that number to rise exponentially.  Francis is 76, or in Vatican years, LXXVI years old.  So no one really expects him to be popin’ it up for as long as, say, Pope Pius VII who reigned from 1800 to 1823.  However long he serves for, I hope he's successful in implementing some much needed reforms.  The Catholic Church has lately been mired in controversy and scandal, with many people wondering how a supposedly holy institution could have such a large moral blind spot regarding one of the most pressing issues of our day.  Y'all know what I'm talking about.  It's a disgrace that we're here in the 21st century and the Popemobile still isn't fully electric!  Can you believe that shit?  We're in the midst of global warming on a scale heretofore unknown in recorded history, and meanwhile the Pope is blithely jaunting along in his gas guzzling monstrosity?!?  For shame.  The Popemobile is responsible for 5% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  I beseech you Pope Francis, please do something to make sure that all Popemobiles are fully electric by 2025.  Fail to act now and soon you'll be living on Vatican Island.  

And while we're on the subject of Papal reform, is it too much to ask for the Vatican to come out with a new calendar?  The one we use now was instituted under Pope Gregory XIII all the way back in 1582.  That's a long time to stick to the same one and frankly I'm pretty tired of it.  It's got way too many weekdays and not nearly enough weekends.  We can do better.  Get on that, will ya Pope Frank?  Can I call you Pope Frank? 

So anyway Pope Francis seems pretty cool and all.  His Papal motto is "Miserando atque Eligendo" which if I remember my high school Latin correctly has something to do with Jesus or God or something.  Whatever it means, it surely is more family friendly than Pope Paul VI's motto, "Cum in Ipso Monte."  Poor Monte, he must've been mortified to see the details of his private life revealed for all the world to see.  I have high hopes for Francis's Papacy, he seems progressive enough to try to shake things up a bit.  But seriously he has his work cut out for him because the Roman Catholic Church hasn’t been this unpopular since Titus Oates accused King James II of Popery… and scented candles!  Zing! 
 

With me playing center the Vatican dominated San Marino in the EIMSBA (Enclaved Italian Microstate Basketball Association)

SeQuester GOP

Aww shit y'all I'ma have to take a break from all this Papacy related program activity on account of some doings going on up in the Washington DC.  In case y'all haven't heard, them folks in Congress done passed some kind of Sea Quest or some such.  Now I don't know exactly what that means since I'm not a genius, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that now is not the time to insist on drastic across the board cuts to the gubmint's budget just so the GOP can afford go on some cruise.  

I can't have the fejrul gubmint reducing its funding at a time like this.  Being recently retired I'm more dependent than ever on government checks to survive.  Life is already hard enough without the fat NBA paychecks I'd been so accustomed to, now you expect me to live without my Social Security checks?  That's cold, President Obama.  And let me tell you, doing the halftime show of the NBA on TNT doesn't pay shit.  

I get that Uncle Sam has to pay down his debt, but I don't think that eliminating crucial government services is the way to go about doing that.  If the U.S. really is way over its salary cap, can't we just amnesty the entire South?  Jettisoning the contracts of all those underperforming Southern states would free up cap space so we could sign some better functioning democracies with plentiful natural resources like Canada or Belgium or I don't know Steph Curry is pretty good too.  At this point I'd trade Arizona for Nicaragua straight up, maybe even add a conditional 2nd round draft pick to sweeten the deal.  How about releasing Georgia the state and signing Georgia the country?  

I just hope President Obamacare reads my blog and takes my awesome budgetary advice.  The gubmint would run a lot smoother if it was run like an NBA team.  In the NBA if you're losing you can't just decide to cut back services and expect to start winning.  Back when I was with the Heat, we had one game where our point deficit vis-a-vis the Lakers was out of control.  We were down by like 20 in the 3rd quarter, with a projected 4th quarter deficit in the 40s.  We knew we owed it to our children and our children's children and also all of Shawn Kemp's children to erase the deficit so that they would not grow up in a world where the awesome Miami Heat had lost to stank ass Kobe Bryant and the pathetic Lakers.  So what did we do?  Did we beg Yao Ming to come bail us out?  Did we implement an across the board 10 percent reduction in non-essential bounce passes and alley oops?  Did we decide to go without sneakers and headbands to save a few thousand dollars?  Did we eliminate food stamps so that millions of Americans would go hungry just to save a few billion dollars?  HELL NAW!  On the contrary, Coach Stan decided to not only continue his pledge to feed me in the paint, he actually increased the rate at which I received assistance.  As you probably guessed by now, all that Dwyaneane Wade assisted stimulus helped both of us get double-doubles and of course we came back to win 124-119.  Boo-yah.

Compare that inspirational story with what the gubmint tranah do these days.  I even heard a rumor that the Post Office was thinking about not delivering mail on Saturday no more.  Sheeit.  Can you imagine the outcry if Karl Malone told the Utah Jazz he refused to deliver rim-rattling dunks on weekends?  Stern David and Jerry Sloan would have straight Sea Quested his ass to the Bobcats but they didn’t exist back then so I guess some other scrub team like the Clippers.  The point is, Mailmen, no matter if they work for the USA or the NBA, need to bring their A-game to the court 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 48 minutes a game.  Except from July to November.  They can do whatever they like then, whether it be starring in a classic kid’s movie or recording a hit rap album.  

Vatican Wars Episode IV: A New Pope

Say y'all heard this dude Benedict XVI done peaced out as Head Pope of the World?  So then on Tuesday them cardinals and robins up in Vatican City went to this thing called a Concave or a Batcave or something (I'm really not sure because it's been a long while since I've read the Bible) to elect a new Pope.  I wish I could vote for the new Pope but unfortunately I failed to register on time.  Damn Republican voter fraud laws.  

New Pope season is my favorite time of year.  It's much more exciting than March Madness. I can't wait to see who the next Pope will be.  If America is ready for a half-black president then who’s to say the Vatican isn’t ready for a half-Jewish pope?  That would be kewl.  Or maybe Sarah Palin will become the first female Pope?  I wouldn’t be down with that though.  I don’t think women should be Pope, or even be canonized for that matter.  God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and St. Eve.  We already let women be nuns.  Nunneries are like the WNBA of Catholicism.  I don’t care how old and retired I am, you put me in a nunnery and I guarantee I’ll dominate.  It’s a biological fact that women can’t pray as fast as men.   

And another thing, I’m sick of the Pope always being Catholic.  Y’all can’t seriously tell me there isn’t something fishy going on.  Surely it can’t be a coincidence.  I guess Vatican City isn’t an Equal Opportunity Employer.  There should be affirmative action for the position of Pope, or at least some kind of Rooney Rule or something.  So, does the Vatican engage in discriminatory hiring practices?  Uhhh, is the Pope (always) Catholic?

Love, Shaqtually

Hey y'all, y'all heard of this momantic holiday known as VALENTIMES DAY???  That shit is today so if y'all haven't bought y'alls honeys some flowers and edible arrangements and stuffed animals and edible underwears and what not then y'all best get on that quickly.  I wrote my special lady a romantic poem, check it:

Roses are red/
sometimes.    

Bottled Watergate

Shit y’all heard about the State of the Union?  That’s this speech what the president has to do every year in front of Congress and a bunch of esteemed guests such as war heroes, Supreme Court justices, and noted self-soiler Ted Nugent.  Of his nationally televised speeches in 2013, I'd rank Obama’s SOTU address a little bit behind his inauguration speech.  But say y’all noticed that Obama has developed a really bad habit of scheduling his most important nationally televised speeches on holidays?  The inauguration was on Martian Luther King Day and the SOTU was on Mardi Gras.  Damn, Obama, I’m tranah get my drink on and my throwcatch on, I don’t have time for all this political shit.   

Anyway, Obama said some stuff about political stuff and what not.  It was pretty standard fare.  The real star of the night was Florida senator Marco Rubio, who delivered the GOP’s rebuttal immediately after Obama’s speech.  The GOP has a storied tradition of allowing its most charismatic rising stars to give the rebuttal, and last night was no different.  Rubio was an excellent choice as he had already captivated America with his inspirational life story, from his parents' daring escape immigration from Castro's Cuba in 1959 Batista's Cuba in 1956 to his swift ascent through the ranks of the Florida Republican establishment, culminating in his 2010 election to the U.S. Senate.  Marco Rubio truly epitomizes the American Dream (and maybe the D.R.E.A.M. Act?).  More importantly, the fact that his family is from Cuba is proof positive that the GOP does not hate Hispanics, just as Mitch McConnell's high stature within the party is proof that the GOP does not hate turtles.   

Rubio showed that he was up to the task, giving an unforgettably stirring and patriotic speech that will no doubt catapult him to national prominence and secure a place for him in the pantheon of GOP rising stars, right next to Bobby Jindal (first Indian –American governor of Louisiana and winner of the 2010 Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Musical for his work in 30 Rock) and Michelle Bachmann (first Woman-American Head Counselor at the Marcus Bachmann Institute of Not Being a Gay).   

Unfortunately, most of the lamestream media will remember Rubio’s speech not for the golden-tongued eloquence of his rhetoric or the irrefutable soundness of his fiscal ideas, but for a fleeting faux pas.  Rubio interrupted his speech in mid-sentence to crouch off frame and retrieve a bottle of Poland Spring and take a tiny sip of it, all the while never failing to maintain eye contact with the camera.  This was a surprisingly unpolished breach of television decorum, one that some liberals have even dubbed “Watergate”, presumably as a reference to the Clinton-era real estate scandal Whitewatergate.  I’m not so sure that the whole –gate suffix thing as boilerplate to denote a political scandal will catch on, but whatever. 

Conventional wisdom is saying that Rubio unintentionally made an embarrassing mistake, but I challenge that.  Rufio is playing political chess here.  He wants the media to think he made a gaffe, when really he was just slyly reaching out to an important foreign ally.  Think about it: the water he was drinking was Poland Spring, which is of course a reference to the recent wave of pro-democracy demonstrations sweeping through the former Soviet bloc, demonstrations that no doubt owe much to other contemporary grassroots movements that have spread around the world, from the Arab Spring to the Irish Spring to the Silent Spring.  This was a subtle but no doubt very effective way of expressing our gratitude and validating the support of our most crucial ally in the War on Terror, Poland.  As George Dubya repeatedly reminded John Kerry during that debate in 2004, DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE FORGET POLAND MOTHERFUCKER WHAT?  John Kerry proved you can't forget Poland and win the Presidency.  As Poland goes, so goes Murka.  With Poland now at his side, Marco Polo has positioned himself at the head of the pack in the 2016 presidential election.  

 

Psycho Willard, qu'est-ce que c'est?

Aww man y'all heard of this election about to go down tomorrow?  This nation of America finnuh elect a President!  Also a Vice-President, I think.  And various other state and local  offices and initiatives.  But the main thing is the presidential election.  Who do y'all think will win?  As of now it's basically a two-man race between Barack Hussein Obama and Willard Mitt Romney.  I bet y'all prolly want to know who Shaq-Fu is gonna vote for, but I gots to keep that shit under wraps since as we all know if you say your wish out loud it'll never come true. 

Now I'm no political science guru, but seems to me that in order for Obama to remain president he needs to win at least 270 votes in the Electoral College.  If the Electoral College is staffed by liberal elitist eggheads like most other colleges I know of, then this shouldn't really be a problem for him.  Romney is already facing long odds, and to make matters worse, his campaign continues to show itself to be remarkably gaffe prone.  We all know about the infamous "47%" and "binders full of women" comments, but those blunders pale in comparison to his most recent mistakes.  At a controversial campaign rally in Ohio, Romney lambasted President Obama for not declaring Hurricane Sandy an act of terror.  He then tried to create buzz in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state with 20 electoral votes, by partnering with its flagship university to rename its football team the Penn State Mittany Lions.  Pundits are still divided as to whose reputation was damaged more by the ill-advised partnership. 

I haven't been following this election too closely, but both candidates seem flawed to me.  Obama, of course, is a Kenyan anticolonical Muslamic atheist Marxist Jew, and Romney is... well, that's actually hard to say.  Who is Mitt Romney?  The 'Etch-a-Sketch' candidate and consummate political chameleon (or is that chamillionaire?), it's hard to pin him down.  Arguably, his two defining qualities are his deeply held Mormon faith and his immense wealth.  Most people know that cars exist, and that elevators exist, but did you know that car elevators exist?  It's true.  There are these things called car elevators, and Mitt Romney has one.  Can't Romney's cars just take the stairs like the cars of the 99 percent?  Apparently not.  When I was a kid, my car had to walk to the garage uphill in the snow both ways, it didn't have the luxury of an elevator.  The concept of car elevators is so absurd that if a foreigner trying to learn English were to hear the phrase "car elevator" he would just assume it was one of those crazy, inscrutable English idioms like "let the cat out of the bag" or "by the skin of your teeth" or "spill the beans" or "throw the baby out with the bathwater".  I wouldn't be a bit surprised if, in addition to car elevators, countless mansions, and numerous offshore tax havens, Romney had a fleet of butlers ready to attend to his every need.  It seems difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile his professed religiosity with such immorally ostentatious displays of wealth.  What would Jesus do?  He'd bus his own damn dishes, that's for sure.  God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Jeeves.  So, who is Mitt Romney?  Well, if brevity is the soul of wit, then Sotheby's is the soul of Mitt.

Shaq-Fil-A

Damn y'all heard of the First Amendment?  That's the one that says God hates fags.  But anyway, them liberal elitists been boycotting this fast food establishment Chick-Fil-A just because its President and Chief Operating Officer has donated millions of dollars to anti-gay groups.  So what if Chick-Fil-A is against gay marriage?  God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.  Marriage is between a man and a woman, not Amanda and a woman.  Whatever happened to freedom of speech?  If conservative Christians want to devote their time, energy, and money to making the lives of millions of their fellow humans miserable, then that's their right and of course they shouldn't be questioned or challenged in any way whatsoever because they are truly doing God's work here on this giant blue teardrop known as Urf that's hurtling around and around in space like a drunk driver, damned to eternally be in pursuit of a destination it'll never reach.  And also the moon is its sidecar, I suppose.  Anyway, the point is that Christians shouldn't be penalized for exercising their right to believe in freedom and Jesus and the freedom to Jesus. 

Now, some people might think that eating greasy fried chicken isn't exactly the most important part of being a Christian.  Might someone's faith be better expressed by accosting people outside an abortion clinic, protesting a soldier's funeral, or creating a profile at Christian Mingle?  Sure, but we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Even a cursory reading of the Bible makes it clear that God wants people to eschew the heathenous liberal abomination of hamburgers served at such dens of iniquity as Arby's and Five Guys, with their Satanic red meat and blasphemous horsey sauce.  Of course God wants people to eat mor chikin.  God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Beef. 

So conservatives are swarming into Chick-Fil-As all over the country, temporarily casting aside their impeccably healthy lifestyles in order to indulge their greasetooth in Jesus' name.  Good for them (I guess gluttony isn't a sin anymore?).  Maybe some liberals will want to boycott the delicious artery clogging holiness of Chick-Fil-A due to Chick-Fil-A's supporters raising such a fuss about defending "traditional family values", to which I say don't hate the dinner, hate the din.  Just because Chick-Fil-A is full of hateful bigots, that don't make the chicken any less greasy and fattening and therefore delicious.  By boycotting Chick-Fil-A, you're really just boycotting your cardiologist and liposuctioneer.  A better reason to boycott Chick-Fil-A is the horrible example their beloved cow mascots set for our children.  Their atrocious spelling is reason enough for me to forbid little Shaquilla from eating there.  Really Chick-Fil-A, how hard is it to find literate cows for your ubiquitious ad campaigns? 

Moo didn't build that!

 

Marbury v. Medicine

Say y'all heard of this thing called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as OBAMACARE???  The Supreme Court just ruled that that shit was constitutional the other day.  As a conservative, I'm against all medicine, especially antibiotics and the like.  Why should doctors administer medicine to boost sick people's lazy, shiftless immune systems?  Your white blood cells should pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and not rely on an antibacterial handout.  If your white blood cell count is too low, then you need only blame the multicultural, pro-diversity PC liberal lie that says red blood cells are just as important as white blood cells.  White blood cells are already the minority, pretty soon they'll be overrun by all kinds of illegal bacteria and other assorted swarthy pathogens that the PC liberals insist on letting into our bodies.  THIS IS AMERICA SPEAK ENGLISH.

The Surpeme Court got it wrong.  Obamacare is undoubtedly unconstitutional and should be repealed post-haste.  I don't want my taxpayer monies to go to federally funded abortions.  I think the Republicans should pass a law forcing women to name their fetus before being able to get an abortion.  I also don't want my taxpayer monies to go to contraception.  Life begins at conception, therefore abortion begins at contraception, therefore contraception is wrong.  The penalty for having sex should be pregnancy because life is a miracle and children are the future. 

If I were a short black kid*

I am not a short black kid. I am a 7'2", 350 pound, middle-aged former NBA center and current actor/rapper extraordinare. So life was easier for me. But that doesn't mean that averaging 2.3 blocks per game over a 19 year NBA career and having a debut album that goes platinum are impossible goals for those short kids from the inner city. It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. And technology. And littering your inane Forbes op-ed with sentence fragments. Especially sentence fragments. Because people who are incapable of writing a sentence with more than one clause are precisely the type of people who should be dispensing life advice to kids.

If I were a short black kid I would use all the technology at my disposal to become taller. When I was in 9th grade, I was barely over five feet tall. Can you imagine me becoming a Hall of Fame caliber NBA center if I had stopped growing at age 14? Well, luckily I took the advice of my guidance counselor (a learned white man, by the way) and decided it would be good for my future basketball career if I grew a couple of feet. By feet, I mean the unit of measurement, not the body part. I already had two of the body part. Like my parents before me, I was born with them. Anyway, with lots of hard work and dedication, and of course an assist from study websites such as TED and the Khan Academy, I eventually grew to 7'2". And thanks to the free online calculators my guidance counselor informed me of, I can also tell you that 7'2" is 218.4 centimeters. I used Skype to practice with other students from my school who also wanted to get better at basketball. When possible, my family and I got our food and shelter for free from Project Gutenberg. I "became expert" at Google Scholar and my drop step improved dramatically.

If I were a short black kid I would get technical. But not technical fouls. Coach would bench me for those. I would learn software. I figure most kids who want decent jobs just go to the decent job fair or whatever and the Wizard of Decent Jobs is all like "Do you know software?" and then the kid goes "Yes sir, I learned software on the intertubes." Then the Wizard would ask "What about homework tools? How familiar are you with those?" to which the kid would reply "Very, sir, very. I go to my public library everyday and watch relevant teachings on the interweb." Then of course the Wizard would give the kid a decent job because that's just how easy it is.

When I look at all the short black high school kids throughout our nation's inner cities, my heart aches. It saddens me to see an entire generation of black youth sitting idly by while their peers in Europe and China, the future Dirk Nowitskis and Yao Mings of the world, are growing taller by the day. If only they had my tenacious work ethic and nonstop dedication to becoming a better, taller person. Technology can help these kids. But only if the kids want to be helped. Yes, there is much inequality. But the opportunity is still there in the NBA for those that are tall enough to go for it.

*c.f.

I have an impressive history of mentoring at-risk youth.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Aww man y'all heard of this thing called hockey??? That's this sport that people from Canada and Russia like playing. Being American, I'm not too sure about the rules, but from what I've observed it's basically a cross between figure skating and boxing. There also seems to be a racist subtext to the whole thing, after all it's essentially a bunch of violent white dudes chasing around a black object with sticks. So that prevented me from becoming a fan until I found out that there's this black dude named Wayne Simmonds who actually plays in the NHL! I don't understand why any black person would want to play hockey in the first place, but I still have to give props to Wayne Simmonds for defying the bigoted Gym Crow laws that have plagued the NHL for its entire existence. He is to hockey what Jackie Robinson was to baseball, what Flip Wilson was to cross-dressing, and what the DC Sniper was to serial-killing.

Now that the NBA doesn't exist anymore and all the best basketball players have moved to Turkey and Italy, I figured it would be a good time to cultivate an appreciation for some other sport and decided that hockey was as good an option as any other. And what better way to become a hockey fan than to plant myself in my La-Z-Boy and enjoy the NON-STOP ACTION AND HEART-STOPPING SPECTACLE THAT IS THE NHL PRESEASON?!?!?!?! My boy Wayne was doing really well, scoring in the 3rd period to tie the game up and send it into overtime (sidenote: I was really confused by this, but I guess NHL policy is to skip the 4th period in preseason games? Maybe the NBA should look into this. It would keep players fresh for the rigors of the 3 month long postseason). Anyway, no one scored in overtime so the game then went to a shootout. My boy Wyane (I will spell it that way from now on as an homage to my other boy Dwyane Wade) set up to take the first shot when, and y'all will not believe this, A MOTHERFUCKING BANANA was thrown at him from the stands! Yes y'all, in 2011, in Canada of all places, some idiot racist sports fan (Chris Moorhouse is his name according to police... the name is sort of ironic, isn't it?) threw a banana at a black hockey player. WTF? Oh, and before someone says something about how it's not necessarily racist and that maybe Moorhouse was just trying to ensure that Simmonds' potassium level was adequate so that he'd make the shot or conversely that he wanted Simmonds to miss the shot by slipping on the banana peel, let me remind y'all that, according to the 2011 NAACP Racist Fruit Index, the banana is the third most racist fruit, trailing only the watermelon and the unfortunately named negroberry. So there.

Of course I can't bring up Wyane Simmonds without also mentioning what he did a few days later, when he called renowned metrosexual and gay-rights activist Sean Avery a "fucking faggot". Avery is also a notorious asshole, even by hockey standards, so it may be difficult to feel sorry for him, but Simmonds was targeting Avery not for his assholeness but for the fact that he doesn't exactly conform to the narrow ideal of masculinity expected of NHL players. There are much better ways to retaliate against assholery than to resort to using hateful Kobeisms. Simmonds should have known better. And anyway, so what if Sean Avery were gay? I think that would be cool. He would be what John Amaechi was to the NBA, what Rob Halford was to heavy metal, and what Marcus Bachmann may one day be to presidential spouses.

Harry Potter is kewl

Oh man y'all heard of this dude named Henry Potter? He's the most powerful wizard since Gilbert Arenas. I love everything about the Harry Potter series. Me and Big Baby even dressed up as Fred and George Weasley last Halloween (this Halloween I am leaning towards being Fleur Delacour because I want to wear one of those funny Beauxbatons hats). I know all about magic, having played for the Orlando Magic early in my career, plus I used to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix Suns, so I consider myself somewhat of an expert on all things Harry Potter. I even reviewed one of the books right here on this very blog a few years ago. Unfortunately, since then I've been remiss in my duty to provide my loyal readership with the Harry Potter reviews they crave so much. The last movie just came out last month and I figured I owed it to y'all to review it, so here goes:

First, a bit of background for those unfortunate souls who haven't yet ventured into the Potterverse. Henry Potter is a wizard with magicful powers who lives on a fictional isle called Britain and goes to this wizarding school known as Hogwarts. Hogwarts is basically the Oxford of wizarding schools. To put that in terms my American readers can understand, Oxford is the Harvard of Britain. For my New Orleanian readers, Harvard is the Tulane of Boston, Boston being the New Orleans of Massachusetts. So anyways, this dude Harry, he's got a tattoo on his forehead which is how everyone knows he's a total badass. When his parents fount out about the tattoo they died of disappointment, leaving Henry in the care of his aunt and uncle. His aunt and uncle were fraggles, which means that they didn't have magicful powers so they neglected him and made him live in the cupboard. The cupboard is where I keep my Nestle's Crunch and other delicious snacks so you can imagine that it isn't the best place to raise a child. Eventually the Ministry of Child and Family Services caught up with Harry's aunt and uncle and took Harry away to live at Hogwarts. There he wore a hat that told him to go to Gryffindor so to Gryffindor he went. And then he met his bestie Ron and this girl dork Hermione. Oh also there's this other dude named Lord Voldemort who doesn't even have a nose, and as we all know not having a nose symbolizes evil in the same way forehead tattoos symbolize awesomeness and eyeglasses symbolize bad eyesight. So Voldemort and Henry don't get along too well, I forget why. It's not really important I don't think. So that pretty much catches you up on all the events leading up the latest and lastest movie, which is called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I know that "hallow" is a traditional British greeting, but I don't know what a "deathly hallow" is. But I guess it's British or something, and they speak a different language down there anyway. Everyone in the book is British which I didn't even realize at first, so I had to go and reread all of them and redo the dialog with a British accent. So go do that if you read it wrong the first time like I did. The movies are cool because the actors do the British accent for you.

So anyways, about the movie... It starts out really sad because Dumbledore leaves Hogwarts to enter the exciting world of competitive bearding. In his absence Harry's nemesis Lord Waldemart takes over the Ministry of Magic and wreaks havoc on the Diagon Alley economy, forcing mom-and-pop shops such as Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes out of business. To make matters worse, rumors of insolvency lead to a run on Gringotts, which as the only bank in the wizarding world was thought to be "too big to fail". Unfortunately, this proves to be incorrect and the entire wizarding world is thrown into a severe recession. Waldemart uses the recession as an pretext to institute sweeping austerity measures. Deep cuts to MagiCare lead to St. Mungo's being effectively shut down. Hundreds of owls are laid off from the post office. Much needed improvements to the outdated Hogwarts Express are rejected in favor of renovations to Malfoy Manor. Millions of pounds of taxpayer money are siphoned off to Waldemart's corporate donors in Knockturn Alley while Hogsmeade lies crumbling and blighted. Digusted by Waldemart's incompetent and corrupt leadership and distraught at Britain's bleak prospects, the students of Hogwarts finally decide that they have had enough and begin to riot. From Tottenham to Hogsmeade, Harry and his friends burn and loot with an untamed ferocity not seen in generations. Things reach a climax at the Battle of Hogwarts, where Harry defeats Voldemort once and for all. The Labour Party is put back in power and wizards and muggles alike live happily ever after. The end. Oh, and there was some subplot with these things called horcruxes or whatever, but I couldn't really follow it. I don't think it was important anyway.

The movie was pretty cool I guess. I would have liked it a lot better if I was in it. I actually landed the role of the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor because the producer was so impressed by my performance in Kazaam. J.K. Rowling herself admitted that Kazaam was the inspiration for the entire Harry Potter series. Unfortunately my scenes were cut from the final version due to time constraints. Their loss. But you lucky readers get a Heatblog exclusive! Here are some pics of me on set:


Panic on the streets of London/ Panic in the cells of Azkaban/
I wonder to myself/ could life ever be sane again?/
the Hogsmeade streets that you slip down...
Burn down the Burrow/ Hang the blessed Weasleys
 


Harry Potter and the S'mores of AzKazaam

Debt offensive

I don't know if y'all heard but apparently there's gonna be an economic apocalypse if them folks in DC don't get their shit together right quick. I haven't been following the debt ceiling debate that closely since most of my attention has been focused on the NBA lockout. I guess Stern David just couldn't deal with the thought of an NBA without Shaq Daddy so he decided to shut the whole thing down. Sorry, America. But at least y'all still got y'all's NFL to look forward to.

The possibility of a global depression coupled with the reality of an NBA lockout has forced some players to entertain offers to play overseas. My boy D-Will, who is basically the Shaq-Fu of point guards, has even signed a contract to play in some country called Turkey. Like for real y'all, there's really a country named Turkey, I'm not even playing. I looked that shit up on National Geographic and it's legit. And before being named after food they were named after furniture. I've tried playing overseas before but it's confusing because they drive on the wrong side of the lane. Plus after you convert my stats to Euros my free throw percentage is even worse. Like I'm talking negative. The other team got a point every time they fouled me. True story.

But anyway, to go back to the initial topic of this post, which was the debt ceiling debate... I don't really understand economics but I think the debt sealing is something that the gubmint does when it wants to sear the economy so as to seal in all the debty juices. People in the meejya been saying that Congress not raising the debt sealing might lead to a global depression. But I think that's a bit alarmist, don't you? It seems that the lamestream media is conjuring up the specter of a coming economic eucalyptus just to scare the Tea Party into accepting tax increases. If we close loopholes that give corporations tax breaks on their private jets, then I fear the entire corporate jet industry will collapse. Millions of people might be laid off according to my back-of-the-envelope calculations (keep in mind that I am a basketball player and rapper by trade so math is not my strong suit. Also, I'm kinda just dumb in general. Just flat-out dumb). I'm talking about air traffic controllers, pilots, baggage handlers, flight attendants, mom-and-pop jet manufacturers such as Boeing, etc. Plus, if we shut the corporate jet tax loophole down, where would Leonardo DiCaprio go to do his whole inception thing?

Do you want to live in a world where Leonardo DiCaprio and his team of dream trespassers don't have a venue where they can ply their trade? They're job creators, goddamnit, and if you take away tax loopholes they'll just outsource to China or wherever and then the Chinese will have the privilege of sitting through a barely intelligible two and a half hour movie where the big payoff is that some dude is convinced to break up his father's company into smaller subsidiaries when the same thing could've easily been accomplished by just talking to the dude. Here's some Inception fan fiction:

DOM: Hey Fischer, your dad just died and you're inheriting his company. What're you gonna do now?
FISCHER: I dunno.
DOM: How about you split the business up into smaller pieces? But don't take my word for it, listen to these two dudes who are world renowned experts.
EAMES: Breaking up your father's empire makes perfect business sense. Profits will go up eleventy jillion percent. I went to business school and have an MBA in business.
SAITO: I agree with Eames and Dom. Furthermore, I am totally impartial.
FISCHER: Well, that settles it. Great talking to you in person, in the real world. It sure is nice to base my decisions on shit that happens in the real world and not be one of those fucking idiots who wakes up after a vivid dream and takes the weird shit that happened in the dream seriously.
DOM: Yes, it sure is.
SAITO: I like talking to people in the real world, because when you talk to people in the real world you usually don't run the risk of dying or being trapped forever in some vague, woefully under-explained limbo.
DOM: Boy, this sure was a productive conversation.
FISCHER: And easy too!
DOM: I want to make sure this is what you really want to do. This is a big decision, are you absolutely sure you want to go ahead with it?
FISCHER: Whatevs. I hate business and I hated my dad. I really don't give a fuck because I'm rich forever.
EAMES: Great! What do y'all want to do now that we've got all this free time?
FISCHER: You want to take my corporate jet to L.A.? I hear there's stuff to do in L.A.
DOM: We can go to Grauman's Chinese Theater and see how our hands measure up vis-a-vis Clint Eastwood's!
SAITO: I want to go to Universal Studios!
EAMES: I want to see the Hollywood sign!
FISCHER: I want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to stimulate their local economy! I hear they're in a really tough recession right now and every little bit helps.
SAITO: Wait guys, isn't all this gonna be too expensive due to Obama's Marxist economic policies?
FISCHER: You're right. Oh well. I'm just gonna stay inside all day and play Hearts on my computer. That Pauline is such a bitch.
I forgot to mention, spoiler alert. I can't wait for Inception 2, in which Dom and the gang venture into Fischer's subconscious to convince him of the merits of using foreign subsidiaries to finance the sale of products overseas, thus deferring U.S. taxes on income earned abroad. It'll save the company hundreds of millions! That movie would probably gross hundreds of millions too.
 

 
This is a metaphor for our plummeting economy.















This is a metaphor for the debt ceiling debate

Marriage is gay

Oh man y'all heard of this state called NEW YORK?? Their governor is such a Cuomo that he just signed a bill making gay marriage legal. It's a remarkable development, one that will most likely lead to further gains in the battle for gay civil rights. Predictably, many conservatives around the country are complaining about it, claiming that by acquiescing to the immoral Homo-sexual Lobby, America has doomed itself to a swift and inevitable collapse. 

Conservatives are always silly and usually evil, so it may be difficult to take anything they say seriously, but they may actually have a point here. After all, Al Qaeda attacked the Twin Towers solely because they looked like two gigantic erections that were perilously close to touching. Only in a decadent, morally bankrupt society could such blatantly homosexual architecture be allowed to exist. America let teh Homo-sexual Lobby take control of our urban planning, and we paid the price. So surely we'd be safer by restricting gay rights rather than expanding them? If we turn ourselves into a mirror image of the Taliban, terrorists wouldn't think of attacking us again, right? This line of thinking may have its merits, but I think good ol' Ben Franklin had it right when he famously said, "those who would give up essential homosexuality to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither homosexuality nor safety."

The truth is that gay rights make America safer. Obama repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell and a few months later, boom, we killed bin Laden. There's no way this was just a coincidence. I don't believe in coincidences. I also don't believe in dinosaurs, eskimos, or vaccination. Fundamentalist Islamists hate gay people, so Osama must've been terrified to hear that the U.S. was coming after him with a military full of TEH GAZE. I very much doubt we would have been able to kill bin Laden if Seal Team 6 wasn't made up exclusively of homosexuals.

With all that being said, I guess I do sympathize with the feeble-minded haters who want gay marriage to remain illegal. I mean, they're right that Obama is completely in thrall to the Homo-sexual Lobby, which is a problem because it's keeping him from devoting enough of his energy to the pharmaceutical, banking, oil, and defense lobbies. It's not like the Teabaggers' demands are irrational or excessive. They're just against Obama's huge radical agenda being rammed down America's throat. I mean, why does he have to ram it down our throat? Why can't he just gently and lovingly dip his wrinkled agenda repeatedly into America's mouth? Is that too much to ask? Maybe conservatives are right when they say that at this criticial juncture in America's history, we should be curtailing civil rights, not increasing them. After all, the Ancient Greeks were all about gay sex, and just look at Greece's economy now. Zeus created Paris and Helen, not Paris and Hellen. Wokka wokka. I know that's bad, but it's the best I can do off the top of my head. I'm sure there's a Uranus and Gaia joke out there somewhere, but I'm too lazy to dig for it.

Shortly after the bill passed, King Kong and his gay lover laid waste to New York City.

Scripps Don't Lie

Aww shit y'all heard the big news??? It's the end of an era. SHAQ DADDY DONE RETIRED Y'ALL!!! It's been a good 19 years, but I just felt the time was right for me to retire now. I'm an old-ass man, and it just isn't feasible for me to continually run up and down the court while having to support 400 pounds of body weight (pure muscle though it may be). My body was breaking down, and I wanted to get out while I still had some measure of good health. Plus I wanted to retire while my free throw percentage was still above 50. Also, and I can't emphasize this enough, fuck Kobe. The NBA should do just fine without me, as I've passed the torch to those two young whippersnappers Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd.

Even though I've retired from basketball, I still feel that competitive fire within me. I wanted to find a sport that's just as cutthroat and intense as basketball, but slightly less physical. So my boy Jacques Bailly told me that competitive spelling is the way to go. I think I'll try to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee next year. I've already began training. Did y'all know that there's this NBA team called the "Knicks" and it's got a silent K? "Womb" and "bomb" are spelled similarly, but "tomb" and "boom" aren't, even though if you put a bomb in someone's womb and it goes boom, everyone involved will wind up in a tomb. Or a cemetary or a morg, neither of which I know how to spell. This spelling shit is way harder than it looks. At least I'm a better speller than Kobe. He couldn't spell "NBA" if you spotted him the N and the A. He never even went to college, you know.

My experience with competitive spelling goes way back to when I recorded the official song for the 2006 bee with Shakira. It was a flop, but then Wyclef Jean retooled it a bit and it really took off. Wyclef, if you're reading this, where are my royalties? You make a man want to sue your ass.


So be wise/ and keep on/ reading the dictionary
Oh boy I can see your fingers move/
you're writing the word on your forearm

Uncommon Pallor*

The internets are fuming, and rightly so, over the White House invitation Michelle Obama extended to Chicago-based poet Common. I'm not familiar with this "Common" (that CAN'T be his real name?), but my sources say he apparently raps hip-hop and writes poetry in the urban vernacular. I feel like I vaguely remember him from somewhere, but I can't quite place it. Oh well. Hopefully it'll come to me later, right now I gotta go hop in my Lincoln Navigator and take a quick trip down to the Gap.

Commongate may seem ridiculously ignorant and even a little racist by some, but I actually agree with Sarah Palin et al on this one. Rhyming is an abomination. If God had intended for words to rhyme, he would have created Steve and Eve, not Adam and Eve. These intemperate "poets" and their libertine "poetry" are to blame for America's decline. Back in my day everyone was illiterate and our entire vocabulary consisted of just 5 verbs and 7 nouns, none of which rhymed, and by gum we liked it that way! This was before the war, mind you, and before all them Yankee carpetbaggers done come round these parts with their fancy book-larnin', corrupting us with their elitist diction and Ivy League indoor plumbing. WHAT I LACK IN VOCABULARY I MAKE UP FOR IN VOLUME!!!

Some liberals are saying that this whole toot about Common is yet another manifestation of white Conservatives' constant but usually concealed anxiety with all things urban (except for Keith Urban). But honestly, so what if Conservatives are afraid of black people? So what if every time they hear the word "rap" they immediately go into a Pavlovian fit, clutching their purses, flooring their SUVs, and fleeing to the sterile safety and empty opulence of their gated, McMansioned communities? I mean, I'm afraid of the dark, does that make me a racist? Sometimes it's just common (ha!) sense to be afraid of things that are dangerous. And Common, being as gangster as they come, is obviously dangerous. You might even say he's a menace to society. I've even seen pictures of him wearing a do-rag and jewelry. Can you imagine that? A grown man wearing jewelry? My word! Having poets visit the White House sends the wrong message to kids. Dancing outside the White House like bloodthirsty buffoons to celebrate shooting someone in the face, however...

*cf.