Cupping is becoming popular these days.  It’s way different than spooning.  Forking and knifing will be the next crazes.

A guy asked me the other day if I had any kids. He freaked out when I told him no. Then he asked me, “How come? How did that happen?” I said, “Well, I didn’t ejaculate into a woman’s vagina.” He shut up and kept driving the damn Lyft.

The seismic popularity of active wear is shaking the foundational equilibrium of the traditional dungarees, trousers, and britches universe.

A hover board is nothing but a Segway with the handle missing.

Saw a sign for a lost pet bird.  A lost bird?  A bird?!  How the hell am I supposed to report this?  “Hello…how are you?  I calling because I saw your sign posted.  Yeah, about the bird.  Well, I saw your bird flying over First and Hill…about 1000 feet in the air…did you want me to catch it?”

One of the those Verizon commercials just came on.  I swear Thomas Middleditch said 4LGBT network instead of 4GLTE.

gentrifried chicken joint

[jen-truh-frahyd chik-uhn joint]

noun

when white folks swarm in on a fried chicken joint or any other soul food establishment (usually located in the ‘hood or an area populated mostly by minorities) that they’ve recently heard is delicious, either through rave reviews from peers or from Yelp reviews

Other related examples: tacos, pho, boba, sushi, frozen yogurt, poke, etc.

Is it just me or does the concept of fraternal twins a bit disappointing? “You mean they’re twins and they don’t look alike. Awwww man.”

Can a woman be a man-nizer?

Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. —Lao Tzu

The facade is real.
The amount of work they put in to deceive you should make you nervous.
Paved over streets hide yesterday’s mistakes.
The problem isn’t fixed, just deferred
Delayed. It’ll come back like Hailey’s.
Or herpes. Or an underdog team in the final play of the game.
No one is listening to you.
No one gives a rodent’s posterior about the inferior or superior. They pretend they care.
Fake is the game of the named, or the name of the gamed.
They smile in your face, all the time they want to take your place. Ask the O’Jays. Not OJ. Although he knows about back-stabbers.
Excessively impassive.
Aggressively passive.
It’s how they operate. It’s how their world turns. Burn it down. Fahrenheit.
They avoid eye contact with the soulful, but give eye contact to their own.
Truth sayers and soothsayers aren’t woven into the fabric, they’re detachable. How convenient to them.
It saves them time from dealing with eternity. And now.

Incomplete.
Vapid conversation.
Choosing to focus on the meaningless.
Putting all their time and attention into the frivolous and immaterial, or worse, themselves.
Blank stares reaching out for any variety of notoriety.
Completely plastic in the flesh.
The only other thing that’s somewhat real is the polyurethane coating that’s worn like armor, to shield out anything true or of substance.
Because they can’t be bothered.
Makes me wanna holler.

While they’re talking about you behind your back, they should kneel down and kiss your ass.  A caged mind leads the body to uselessness.
The Polyurethane people are all over.
Everywhere. Beware.
They stop and stare.
Look out for the glare.
Protect yourself at all times.
Someone has to care.

Dude in my standup said that he wanted to make sure that something was “repeatable, replicable, and reproducible.” It could just be me, but isn’t that incredibly repetitive?

I just want to go back in time and find the person who introduced raw onions in salads. I want to make him or her cry. I want to choke him out. Or her. Doesn’t matter. My vengeance to rectify culinary disasters knows no prejudices.

People don’t read anymore. For about 15 mins, I sat in an airport coffee shop watching people complain and bitch about how slippery a section of the floor was despite two wet floor signs posted at eye-level.

It is funny how we have stuffed teddy bears for kids, yet you really shouldn’t try to bear hug a bear in the wild.

A soccer team’s locker room should be called a sloccer/slocker room.

I want to invent a themeless theme park.

Cars depreciate as soon as you drive off the lot. Sounds ridiculous. I’d just drive the car around the car dealership for 2 weeks before driving away. Get my money’s worth.

Real conversation:
ME: How are you?
FRIEND: Sick with a migraine atm
ME: I’m sorry. Ugh.
For a second, I thought there was money in this migraine atm.

Ever talk to somebody and you see spit forming in the corners of their mouths? It’s pretty unsightly. It’s like that person has rabies and has to tell you about it. Go get your shots, weirdo! Keep your mouth moisture in your face.

I’m tired of all the inconsequential bullshit.
I’m tired of all the peace talk from the pulpit.
I’m tired of all the kumbaya and cheek turning.
We’re trying harambee now, we seek learning.

Done with Sambo, Fetchit, Mantan, and Mammy too
Sick & tired of being sick & tired, peace to Fannie Lou
Tired of seeing cops standing over black corpses & carcasses
Do the right thing like Mookie, grab a can & take part in this
Don’t trash where we live, sling it at some Neiman-Marcuses

Done with the Uncle Toms & Stephens, y’all can get the hell out
If you ain’t down for the people, you’s a fuckin’ sellout
Eat shit and die, muthafucka. We don’t need you.
Maybe your spouse can join the movement & your seed too.
Calling us sellouts ’cause we’re down for the uplifting
While you slang poison to your own, junkies out drifting
You ain’t no better than the clan in them white sheets
Join their side, bitch, we’ll fight you too as the night creeps

Our use of the word nigger is an appalling fact
Our captors invented it, so why would I call you that?
You’re from the Dogon, Kushites, builders of pyramids
You can’t really think that it’s a term of endearment.

Respect to the First Nation people, a hail of cheers
Enduring lies and brutality on the Trail of Tears
From the Sioux to Seminole to the Delaware
Suffering together guarantees you won’t fail your peers

Likewise, we rise when we fall, become what we ain’t
Take our blood, sweat, & tears & wear it as war paint
Smear it on your cheeks, make the oppressors faint
Defile all their material gods, desecrate their patron saints

Switch up the slang, so they can’t break the code
Keep the culture fluid, can’t be stuck in the same mode
The vultures watch the lion, the boardrooms watch the streets
Trying to sync their metronomes to our African heartbeats

So it’s D-E-L, the Chiwetel of Cloverdale
12 years a slave to the rhythm, to hell with infidels
Edging for police oversight, it’s way too relaxed
Been followed, harassed, detained While Walking Black

And the first thing they do is turn a blind eye
Not even a second look, sit on the sidelines
Evil like the third antichrist, the Reich, the Sith
But when the truth comes forth, they plead the fifth

I scoped the game out from the mountain peak
Send smoke signals to spirits, knowledge I seek
Pray to the elders for guidance to light these paths
On how to deal with these uncivilized psychopaths

But see we know the deal, the score we know
Grandfather clauses, 13th Amendment, Cointelpro,
Tuskegee Experiment on residents, CIA pushing coke,
Katrina, lynchings, castrations, this ain’t a fuckin’ joke
Japanese internment camps, Chinese Exclusion Act,
Orange president wanna bring the “good old days” back,
Bloody Christmas, the Transatlantic Slave Trade,
Prison industrial complex, where new slaves are made,
Massacres at Wilmington, Thibodaux, and Rosewood
Tulsa, Wounded Knee, Tonkawa, and yo’ hood
King, X, Angela Davis, victims of FBI probes
Red and Lavender Scare, fuck all you xenophobes
Chinese Massacre of 1871 in downtown LA
Pigtail Ordinance against the Han building railways,
Red Summer 1919, assassinations, civil rights setbacks,
Eisenhower deports Mexicans in Operation Wetback,
Hate groups, Raping troops, bombing faces of brown and yellow,
Manifest Destiny evicting natives, a middle finger as a hello,
Harbingers of disease & wickedness with no panacea,
The Mayflower, Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Maria,
So much injustices, too many of them to even try to name
So many, I made some of them rhyme, now ain’t that a shame?

Atrocities with ferocity at inhumanly inhumane velocities
Then there’s curiosity and pomposity when we show animosity?

Fuck you! I’m through. Can’t fool me with Jedi mind tricks,
Subterfuges, ploys and plots, and dirty sidekicks.
Put on your war paint, my people, ahead victory lingers
Never let them turn the clock back, break their goddamn fingers
Their inferiority theory of us, in it we poke holes
I got Willie Lynch and Jim Crow in illegal police choke holds
You have permission to protect yourself, use your intuition,
Even if you obey the law, they’ll fill you with ammunition,
War was declared on you hundreds of years ago,
On your ancestor on the auction block near the pier row,
On your ancestor while they were marching and boycotting,
On your ancestor in the field, breaking their back picking cotton

Take their blood, sweat, and tears, and put in a bowl
Mix it up ’till it’s thick and dash it with some soul
Spread it under your eye, like eye black on a NOLA Saint
Never ever again, take what’s yours. Wear your war paint.

To my people of color looking for motivation,
To change the injustices in this damn nation,
Look for strength in one another and inside you,
Beautiful people, resist the next time they try to deny you
Fuck them all, and fuck you if you won’t ride too.

Listen…

And I ain’t the richest guy, but I’m so damn wealthy
All these soup kitchens got me feeling so damn healthy
I may be shorter than you, but I’m a head above the rest
‘Specially when I’m stylin’ in this crushed velvet vest

I know that you’re all in love with your man
I know that you’re head over heels, I ain’t a fan
I know that you think he can’t do any wrong
I know that you think that’s where you belong

But he’s a placeholder
I don’t mean to get all up in your business
But he’s only there until you come to your senses
He’s a placeholder
He’s just holding my place, keeping my seat warm
Hold onto your hat and weather this storm

And I ain’t got a good job, but I’m my own boss
And I get my fancy threads from Marshalls and Ross
And I ain’t the best looking, but I’m handsome enough
And I ain’t the smoothest ’cause my edges are rough

I ain’t got a car, but I’m always getting chauffeured
Who needs Jordans to impress when you rock secondhand loafers
I got no house, but the roof over my head is unorthodox
You can’t hate on my Model S-4480B Gaylord Amazon box

Your dude’s a placeholder
I don’t mean to get all up in your business
But he’s only there until you come to your senses
That dude’s a placeholder
He’s just keeping my seat warm, holding my place
Until that cold, hard reality smacks you in the face

I’m uptight and upright, a straight-up savage
I don’t care and won’t spare your lame-ass marriage
I’m nearby and hereby claim you as all mine
Not gonna share and I dare anyone to block my shine

And I ain’t gonna hesitate to wreck your home
And repurpose that wood to build our own
And I ain’t a weirdo, a stalker, or a creep
Life ain’t really fair, so I’m playing for keeps

He’s a placeholder
I really do mean to get all up in your business
Your guy’s only there until you come to your senses
He’s a placeholder
He ain’t right for you and you know that you know it
You need to open your eyes and recognize his opponent

I’ma show you, once and for all, that I’ve corrected some flaws
You told me to clean up my act, so I got some new drawers
Told me that I should be nicer, so I even fixed that
Adopted some cute animals. How cool are you with rats?

You said I should smile and lighten up before I croak.
I heard your man has one testicle; how’s that for a joke?
Said I was too bland when you avoided me like a leper
So then I tried to kiss you after I ate some ghost peppers

Too recessive? Excessive and aggressive tax cuts.
Too juvenile? I stopped singing “Back Dat Ass Up.”
Too aloof? Huh, what? This has been noted, duly.
Too presumptuous? You’re gonna be with yours truly.

Cause he’s a placeholder
It’s time to get all up in your business
He’s only there until you come to your senses
He’s a placeholder
Time for him to go, I’ll help him pack his things
He’s banished from this land, it’s return of the king.

I want to get a car just so I can follow assholes who try to run me over to the grocery store, wait for them to get out of the car, and then run them over in the parking lot.

Ever notice how some waiters refill your drink while doing a “I’m a little teapot” pose? They’ll have one arm on their hip. Look next time. Sing the song if you must.

Words that sound like girls’ names to me:
Salmonella
Inertia
Academia
Lasagna
Chardonnay
Rosé
Foccaccia
Ricotta
Pita

Was walking down this familiar neighborhood one day and noticed a church on the corner for the first time. Actually caught myself saying, “Where the hell did this church come from?”

I had a dream of a movie plot one night. It was Groundhog’s Day meets Memento. The main character kept forgetting things but kept repeating stuff.

Saw a man driving near Beverly Hills with his front bumper sitting in his back seat, sticking out the back passenger-side window. And they think crazy stuff happens in the hood.

Your playlist for your shoulder workout should be called Trap Music.

If your falsetto singing voice is your real voice, then shouldn’t it be called a truesetto?

Whatchamacallits, Thingamajigs, and Doohickeys: What I’m starting to call things the older I get

My walk is so sexy; it’s a mating dance.

I work with people with wild laughs. She sounds like an old lady sitting in a rocking chair while knitting and watching Jerry Springer, and he sounds like a crazy convict who’s about to be executed on Death Row and laughs at the detectives who are asking him where he buried the rest of his victims.

Lessons recently learned:

“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.” —Robert Tew

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” —Seth Godin

Dick Wolf has now expanded his Chicago procedural franchise to four series with the newest installment, Chicago Justice. It joins its older siblings, Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire, and Chicago Med. More additions to the Chicago family are expected to roll out in the next year or so. Among the rumored series are Chicago Water and Power, Chicago Animal Control, Chicago DMV, Chicago Sanitation, Chicago Child Services, Chicago Metro, Chicago Tourism, and Chicago Public Library.

There’s a street festival east of LA called 626 Golden Streets. A 18-mile stretch of streets in 7 neighboring cities is blocked off to cars. Cyclists, walkers, skaters, runners, artists, musicians are all encouraged to enjoy the day (well, at least from 9am to 3pm). This is great and all, but upon first hearing the name, I thought they were welcoming everyone to piss in the streets.

Wilshire Blvd is probably the only street that paves itself with the constant tar bubbling up from the tar pits.

A deli isn’t a true deli unless you’re handed wet menus.

If I go to a Michelin star restaurant, I expect it to see tires at the bar.

Chivalry is dead. I held a door open for this woman once, and my woman at the time held it against me.

Chivalry is dead. Again, I held the door open for a woman, and she told me that she could get her own door and that what I did was sexist.

Chivalry is dead. I once ran and picked up this little boy out of the street because he was about to get hit by a car. His mother, who was 40 to 50 feet away, yelled and screamed at me. She thought I was trying to kidnap him.

Chivalry is dead. Gave my seat up on the bus for this disabled woman who had a service dog with her. I walked down the aisle, grabbed the bar, and then casually turned around. What did I see? She had her dog sitting in my damn seat.