a racist post

.
anybody old enough to remember emily litella?

one of gilda radner's best characters, she'd show up on saturday night live's "weekend update" from time to time, dimly and indignantly railing at great length about some issue or other, until her complete cluelessness [in this case, mishearing "violins on television" for "violence on television"] was pointed out to her by the anchor, at which point, she'd . . .

well, watch for yourself.




it was a great bit, made even more so by the sheer ridiculousness of its premise.  i mean, seriously--as if the half-baked views of a loon like that would ever air on a legitimate news program, right?

right?

fast-forward 34 years:  the other day i'm getting ready for work with the local LA news on in the background, a story they'd been teasing for an hour about a racist hallmark card finally comes up, and i sit down to watch:





bottom line for those of you who are click-shy: some idiot of color who'd apparently never heard of astronomy somehow got hold of a talking hallmark "happy graduation" card, pressed "play" and did an emily litella.  he/she then ran straight to the LA chapter of the NAACP screaming "racism;" said organization immediately saw an opportunity and ran straight for the cameras.

when hallmark, who had been successfully selling this astronomy-based card for the past three years, frantically tried to reassure the NAACP that the "black ho's" they thought they heard was actually "black holes"--and even sent them the script to prove it--you'd think that'd be the end of it and the NAACP would abashedly say "never mind," right?

yeah, right.

emboldened by past experience of success, the NAACP instead doubles down--now they insist they hear an "r" in there--the cartoon character is clearly saying "black whores."

and this is where we enter never-neverland, and mkf starts screaming and throwing shit at the tv.

because, once again, the instant some ignorant ethnic organization charges "racism," the news outlets rush out with their cameras and the corporate object of said charge automatically drops to its knees and begs forgiveness.

[i.e., even though there was no reason to do so, hallmark pulled its card--and the NAACP, thus further emboldened, admonished, "make sure this never happens again."]

*     *     *     *     *

i have no doubt that every time the al sharptons, jesse jacksons and NAACPs of the world up the ante on dumbass shit like this, even they are astonished at the payoff they manage to extract from the guilty white world in return.

and--funniest thing--with every such victory, they become more strident and aggrieved.

*     *     *     *     *

so tell me, who's worse--(1) the idiots at the NAACP who think shit like this actually advances the interests of people of color in america; (2) the idiots at KABC who treated this lunacy as a legitimate news story; or (3) the craven corporation that knuckled under, thus ensuring more of this shit in the future?

i honestly dunno, but one of these days some establishment organization who's finally had enough is gonna summon the cojones to stand up to one of these cretinous race-baiting grifters and very publicly tell 'em to fuck off--and find, to its surprise, that most of taxpaying america instantly rallies behind it.

then, and only then, will the tide turn.

me?  my lily-white faggot ass lives for that day.

the gulf catastrophe, and what it really means

.

first, an admission:

as any regular reader of this blog knows, i've always been an unabashedly "drill, baby, drill" kinda guy.

having (a) come from a family of somewhat successful east-texas wildcatters; and (b) an understanding of how dependent we as a nation have become on a foreign oil supply which is mostly in the hands of crazy-ass motherfuckers who could capriciously cut said supply [and thus, the balls of america] off at any moment, i naturally and readily bought the oil industry's line that, with today's sophisticated technology, offshore oil disasters such as santa barbara '69 were a thing of the past.

and besides, with the government regulators watching 'em like hawks, what could possibly go wrong?

right?


with the explosive destruction of deepwater horizon on april 20 of this year, the last shred of my illusions about the competence of our overlords was effectively destroyed.

the sad truth is, the unholy, fascistic commingling over the last twenty or so years of big government and big business has resulted in the complete and total corruption of every aspect of what was once called american free enterprise, and all the safeguards that went with it.

and even if the safeguards failed, there was once a time when we as a species were protected from the folly of man by, if nothing else, the limitations of technology.

today?  one idiot with a keyboard--whether it's in a high-rise on wall street, a bunker in chechnya, a deepwater oil rig in the gulf of mexico, or [insert nightmare scenario of your choice here]--now has the power to single-handedly fuck up the planet if he intends to.

or [and this is one of the things that drives mkf to drink alone late at night]

even if he accidentally doesn't.

more tales of the shuttle

.

[this one's for noblesavage and judi--any random just-passing-through civilians who need context, click here]


so it's late, i'm at the united terminal packing my final passengers into my orange county-bound van and thrilled to have three fares for a change, when up walks this little blond kid lugging a huge surfboard.

"dude, can you take me to dana point?"

even though it's on my way, i start to say no because the rules of my employer are clear:  no more than three stops, ever.

i then look him up and down--take in the wild sun-bleached hair, the taut, tanned body, the supplicating gray-green eyes, calculate his desperation to get home. . .

"it'll cost you a hundred bucks and you'll be the last stop--can you live with that?"

yeah, he can, so i stuff his board in sideways across the indignant laps of my legitimate passengers, put the boy up front with me, and off we go.

by the time we hit dana point, the boy and i are old friends--turns out he's a professional surfer, freshly back from hawaii, who'd dropped outta high school in order to pursue his dream.

i smile indulgently at this youthful foolishness as we roll up to the address he'd provided--a big, two-story tile-roofed mediterranean in a high-end gated community.

"so you still live with your folks, huh?"

"nah, this is my house."

turns out this adorably dumb little fuck is one of the top money-earning surfers in the world.

he invites me in and of course i accept--we recline on one of the black leather couches in the mostly-empty living room of his mostly-empty house, he smokes me out and i eventually and reluctantly leave his charmed world and head back to the airport.

*     *     *     *     *

three or so months later, i've got a van full of hollywood-bound passengers and we're heading toward the exit when i outta habit glance over to my right as we approach that last terminal and i see him standing there just like last time--little blond boy with a big board, waiting for an OC van [which that night i am anything but]--and i unhesitatingly whip across four lanes of angry traffic, jump out--his eyes alight with recognition when he sees me--and tell him

"it'll cost you a hundred bucks and we have to go in the completely opposite direction from where you live and make three stops in hollywood first--can you live with that?"

of course he can--time and money mean nothing to this boy--so once again, i cram his board in sideways across the laps of a whole bunch of annoyed people i don't wanna fuck and drag the boy up front with me.

how does this tale end?  i wish i could tell you i got into his pants that second time, but it didn't happen--god, if only i'd known then what i know now.

a brief meditation on the nature of gay pride

.

the first time i participated in kelly stern's annual pride celebration, i used the occasion to tell my coming-out-in-california story.  being new to blogging, i had no idea what i was doing and the finished product turned out to be an overly-long, rambling, disorganized mess--but i was still proud of it.


by the following year i had my shit down, and the resulting story, one that had been inside me for years looking for a reason to come out, was easily as good as anything i've written before or since.


this year?  let's cut to the chase.

*     *     *     *     *

whenever i'm driving with v and he reaches over and rubs the back of my neck, i always reflexively glance up at the rearview mirror to see if anybody's watching.

which is why i'll be featuring the above picture in my sidebar for the remainder of this and every other june in which kelly's and my blogs continue to co-exist--because gay boys and girls of the present and future should be able to live their lives without ever once having to give a fuck about who's watching.