Vogue is for illiterates

As I look at the three foot stack of magazines staring back at me in the reading room(you know, where I rest on the porcelain throne at 8:15am most days) I spy a headline of the wife's latest issue of Vogue that says "4 day drug detox". Though I have little interest in drug rehab, detox diets intrigue me so I decide to crack open the Yellow Pages sized magazine to check it out. That magazine is made for people who do not read! Its like when you're in a mall and all you want to do is get your underwear and some t-shirts at the gap and leave, but the up escalator and down escalator are on opposite ends of the mall so you have to walk past every shop. Well, finding a table of contents in Vogue is like finding a down escalator, you are going to put in some work to find it. The table of contents starts on around page 160 although who can tell for sure, since they arbitrarily decide when to put page numbers in there, and with all the "ads" between the ads, page numbering gets a little hinky. I never did find the article on detox. Such is life...

Club Monaco Sucks

So I'm in this store on the 3rd street promenade called Club Monaco last week. I had picked out this dress for my wife for her birthday and I'm waiting in line. It's about 7 pm the day before Valentine's Day so I know its going to take some time to get through the line. There are two people working registers, a young man and a not as young woman who had that "I'm in charge" vibe, the way she barked orders at the man. I hate seeing that. Then, a beautiful girl (17 years old at most) walked behind the counter and tells the manager that it's 7 so she's off the clock. The barker then tells her to open her purse, which the young girl dutifully does. After giving the bag a thorough looking over, she tells her she can go. Did I mention this is in a clothing store in Santa Monica. It felt more like county jail. I understand that employees steal. I get that young employees making minimum wage may steal a lot. But this should not happen in front of customers. I wonder how this girl gets treated when there is no one around to see. Maybe if the young girl was not Black, I would have felt less offended, but I doubt it. Anyway, the second this little exchange ended, I put the dress back on the rack and walked out of the store. Club Monaco will never get my money thanks to one horrible manager.

My wife liked the outfit I got instead at Anthropologie

Just Say No

It seems like the last few years has seen the major grocery stores, I suppose in some attempt to bring back that old fashioned customer service has instituted the policy of asking every person buying anything, if they need help out. To this question, just say no. There is nothing more irritating than seeing an able bodied person letting someone else schlep their stuff. Granted, there are plenty of people who genuinely need assistance, but come on. I bet that 95% of the people who do ask for help are the same ugly people who don't let you merge into their lane on the freeway(you know who you are, oh cowards who creeps your car forward without having the dignity to look me in the eye as you don't let me in)

It really boils down to personal responsibility does it not? When did it become ok to not pull one's own weight?

Confederate Flag

So it begins again.(I swiped this line from my friend Jason http://theobamanation.com/blog/). Mike Huckabee rolls out the first hate bomb of the campaign season. Advocating the Confederate flag is such a cheap pandering tactic. I get the idea of states rights. I get that many people died on both sides for all the wrong reasons. I get that most of those Confederate soldiers were not slave owners. But you just cannot deny the racist baggage it carries. On Bill Maher last week, DL Hughley said what all Black people know, that invoking the Confederate flag is code for "we hate Black folks". Trace Adkins half heartedly tried to make the case that this is not what White people in the south are about when they invoke the flag, but come on. The swastika may be some sort of positive Indian symbol in reverse but it does not negate its power to an Aushwitz survivor. The Confederate flag is equally woven into our fabric.

I hope Huckabee is ready for the explosion to come. Besides the one happening to his waistline.

Signs of the Apocalypse

So I'm at the House of Blues the other night minding my own business, taking in Reel Big Fish, when I see something for the first time in my life. A Black dude with absolutely no rhythm. He and his girlfriend danced their little hearts out singing along like there was no tomorrow and all I could think was, wow.... these are definitely the final days. But the harder they partied, the more I realized that this is actually a really good thing. We, and by we I mean Black people have come so far that some of us can't dance. We have to take progress wherever we can get it. Rock on bad dancer.