The Relationship Stock Market

I think when you talk about "kids in the ghetto" and what’s missing from an inner-city education, though I didn't learn much about this in my hoity-toity schools either, is knowledge about the financial markets. They don’t teach money or business to young kids. I don’t understand that. In a capitalist society how can you not be showing flash cards of P/E ratios to your children at five years old? It’s not to say build your world around money. But it is the most powerful man made force on the planet. We should know it like the palms of our hands (which I personally know better than the back).

And I don’t think it’s about young folks not being able to handle the information. I think it began with just a simple selfish withholding of knowledge. "This info is privileged." And now that it’s not necessarily [as] privileged, it’s more muscle reflex. Our curriculums have not evolved.

If you ever reclaim the space in your brain, and file for your rebate on useless education, make sure you don't get rid of the money info.

Anyways, I’ve had some recent dialogue with friends about their relationships, and started thinking that perhaps we all buy, sell, and trade on the relationship stock market. If we look at some of our dealings from that perspective, particularly in the romantic sense, there's a lot that makes sense.

The people around you are stocks. Everyone. Male, female, and other. They are forces you can monitor, you can profile and evaluate, you can draw opinions about, you can speculate on, but you can't control. And their value to you may go high, or it may go low. But the bottom line of it all is that:

Past history is no guarantee of future results.

No slick-talking, shucking-and-jiving, TAN stock trader is going to be able to guarantee what TAN is going to do. What value it’s going to hold for you in a month, 6 months, a year, ten tears. They can project, and they can back that up with a world of data, "Look at this chart, says here, 'TAN is the future' - we can't go wrong with TAN. TAN's smart, funny, and wears a mask. His growth potential is HUGE." And they can be right 10, 20, even 30 percent of the time *say ooooohhhh*- it will mean nothing if I rob you the next day for all your jewelry.

Of course, in this world, the only real broker is you. You make all the transactions, you manage your own private fund of relationships. Perhaps you've been investing in short people and negroes for the past five years, and you're seeing no results. Just remember, you don't want to get to caught up in the moment. Have good reasons to sell. Past history is no guarantee of future results. When a movie about short black people comes out, don't be the person calling up all those old friends of yours whom you ditched because other people kept asking, "why do you keep buying in on short people and negroes? Those stock attributes haven't been a growth indicator since the days of Different Strokes and Webster." So you sell, and now you're pissed because you knew the guy from Bad Santa was going to make short negroes hot again.

Now, what was I talking about? Oh, why people and relationships are just money, errr stocks.

So, just like the financial stock market, the thing to do if you just want a good safe investment of your money/heart/time, is to get a little fund of blue chip stocks. Then buy and hold. And the biggest ingredient in terms of evaluating whether a stock is a blue chipper or not? Time.

You need time to find out if this in fact is one of the best companies on the market. Cause with blue chip stocks, you don’t care about the state of the market. Whether they did something particularly good or bad today. You only care about the company. Is it fundamentally strong? Will it grow? Is it stable? What’s the environment around it like? When you get a relationship that clicks on a lot of cylinders, you say ok, I like what’s going on here. I’m going to invest. And you just invest more and more over time. Eventually, your position might be such that you're almost like partners.

This all presumes there are no unforeseen dramatic circumstances. Like someone starts lying and telling secrets, and/or posting your insider information on their blog. Or they start shredding their clothes. Or, like, everyone in the world starts hating them and all of a sudden you look and think Kevin has turned into a bad person. There’s been some sort of shift in the company, with management, and the outlook on Kevin is not looking so bright anymore.

Because ultimately the value of a stock is only really known when you cash out. When the person dies. Or you break up/split. To know the true value of a stock, you have to get rid of lose it. Your blue chip friend of twenty years, you refer to as Disney, might decide suddenly he's into child bestiality. That stock, for most people, is likely going to nosedive. But these things happen, you never know.

Beside the blue chips, you also have penny stocks. For ladies, this is the equivalent of the bum-ass trife mofo you met out late at the club. Actually, not even the club, you met him in the McDonald's after, and you thought he went to the club, but really he was in the McDonald's all night waiting for girls to come out the club and think he was in the club. Most of those penny stocks represent penny companies. But some have potential. I often think TAN is a penny stock. Especially when I'm out on a Saturday night, in McDonald's, waiting for girls to come out the club.

Ok, where was I ...?

I'm going to have to pick this up another time...

The relationship stock market ladies and gentleman. Buy and sell wisely, carefully. Stocks have feelings too.

Copyrighting Racism

more TAN as conduit to other stories today....

Damon Wayans is trying to trademark the word Nigga "for a clothing line and retail store," according to Wired...

Wayans Wants N-Word [AlterNet]
Bamboozled! [Morphizm]
(thanks Ali. Z)


Also check out the morphizm proposal to end racism, which is summarized thusly:

The law, in its simplest form, is this: no person may marry within their own "race", "ethnicity", or "tribe" for the next 100 years.

An Immodest Proposal [Morphizm]

Please Hammer Don't Blink

nothing fresh and tasty from me today, I'm too busy crying.

But the lovely Ali Z sent me an FYI on two new bloggers of note, both assimilated negroes...

Malcolm Gladwell
http://gladwell.typepad.com

MC Hammer
http://mchammer.blogspot.com


So you can check them out instead. Be sure to let them know TAN has reached the Tipping Point and is definitely 2 legit 2 quit.

wordemup

The Battle For Racial Supremacy Begins In The Womb

It appears that if you're mixing races when doing the nasty, and planning to have children, you don't have to settle for the child that looks like you just put everything in the pot all at once and let it simmer (though those kids always look pretty), but you can also spit out just white and just black rug rats also. Granted it's a million-to-one chance, but don't tell that to Kylie (19) and her partner Remi (17):

When Kylie Hodgson gave birth to twin daughters by caesarean section, she was just relieved that they had arrived safely.

It was only when the midwife handed them over for her to hold that she noticed the difference between them.

Remee, who weighed 5lb 15oz, was blonde and fair skinned. Her sister Kian, born a minute later weighing 6lb, was black.

more ...

So a nice story for our new colorblind world. I'm sure the father was very proud once he confirmed his wife wasn't sleeping with the United Colors of Benetton (old school son). Now all those kids have to do is get over the fact that their father is seventeen, and his name is Remi, with an emphasis on the "i."

Black and white twins [The Daily Mail]
Meet my twin sister [NY Daily News]
It doesn't count if you're a test-tube baby [Dateline NBC]

The Emotional Digestive System

I’ve been crying recently, only on Sundays, for the last four to five weeks. Admittedly, I’m going through a tumultuous period of my life. One with a lot of highs and lows. I’ve made some strides professionally. Certainly this blog has been a positive development thus far. It appears I'm being well received as a new voice/writer. Yet, at the same time I've probably never felt more alone. I've never felt more distance from my family than at the current time. And it seems I've lost my close circle of friends, friends who, in many ways, represented my life until a year or so ago. These friends who've known me more than half my life are now becoming memories... and that's sad.

When I think about it, I feel like the crying is a problem. Like there must be some sort of issue with me. If I could choose to cry or not cry, I would choose not crying. But the reality is that I tend to feel better after I’ve cried. Like I just released toxins. Like I took an emotional shit, and I’m ready to shower up and go out, or to sleep, or, you know, whatever. I'm ready to move on.

This made me think about how closely we monitor our digestive system. How we take care to eat, and subsequently shit every day. Drink, and subsequently piss. And those of us who care, we try to watch what we intake.

It seems to me we also have an emotional digestive system. Interaction is how we ingest food. Stimuli is our food and drink. Then we laugh, cry, react and express. The two fundamental means of release are laughing and crying. So perhaps like shitting and peeing, we should be doing them once a day. Or at least once every couple days.

Crying is such an incredibly repressed emotion. It’s weak, vulnerable, unevolved? At the end of last year I had an interesting run where on three consecutive occasions, girls I had relations with cried. And all three occasions were, for the most part, our first physical interaction or hanging out. First time encounters.

The story made an interesting conversation-piece at parties and bars. Was I attracted to crybabies? Was I doing something that warrants crying? To cut a little deeper, was I attracted to an emotional instability? Do my pheromones contain the essence of all the mistakes women have made with regards to guys over the course of eternity?

The stories were discussed, poked and prodded. But no one ever really came to the defense of the criers. Sure, some suggested it might be my fault. We joked about me needing to stop with the punches to the kidney. Or shave. Or try deodorant. Harty har-har (I've since gotten some Axe *cue female moan*). But no one ever asked, what’s wrong with crying? Some said they've experienced dates crying, but never on a first encounter. First encounter crying was most certainly judged as taboo.

And I think in general most of us would raise eyebrows if someone cried on a first encounter.

But you don’t really raise an eyebrow if they take a piss or shit in front of you (might raise an eyebrow for #2). Which, though not desirable, per se, and might even represent a major deal-breaker for some, would be understandable, and not likely mandate a severing of ties for most people. Everyone has to piss and shit, right?

Maybe the problem is you're not supposed to emotionally relieve yourself in public. If the person can’t have the dignity to go to the bathroom, relieve themselves in private, then maybe they deserve to feel that shame. I’d certainly run away from someone who just started peeing or taking a shit on my bed. But if they excuse themselves, and come back obviously “less heavy” … might as well move on right?

Crying holds so much power over us. Crying represents our unknown. We don’t embrace it. It represents our fears. Our lack of confidence. Our lies and deceit. Our loss. Our mortality. Our humility. Our inability to overcome. Our paradox. Our confusion. We hide it. Behind closed doors and sheets of tissue paper, we bury our tears, far away from prying eyes. There's no crying in baseball. The boss can't cry. The only people who cry are overwrought bloggers trying to rationalize their gayness (no homo) via herby posts that are not so much "poignant, as they are thinly veiled attempts to bait females with some generic brand of "emotional cheese" ... etc. etc. etc.

But maybe we can get more comfortable with the crying thing. The release of toxins. What's the big deal?

"Oh Sam? He's just taking an emotional shit. We'll get this meeting underway in just a bit."

And maybe once we get comfortable with it, we can do it more. And maybe once we do it more, we'll find ourselves feeling less emotionally constipated.

Ok. I think that's the extent of the thought for now.

I'm going to go take a crap. A real one.

Please cry for me Blog-entina?

Music Pot Pourri (MP-P's)

When I was first introduced to Nina Gordon's version of Straight Outta Compton, I was bumping it constantly. And when I didn't have it on repeat, it would always play the Nina Gordon version, then the original NWA version, and then the next song was Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles. And I always got a smile out of my itunes having that combination when the songs were listed in alphabetical order. And I wondered if anyone else had the combination, and if they didn't have Compton followed by Strawberry Fields Forever, then what followed Straight Out Compton (cause obviously everyone has that song in their library)...

Since then I've looked at my iTunes library and started to look at swatches of 8-10 songs as a representative crosssection of my musical interests, and I think that should become a new element to identification. Like we ask what are your top five CD's when filling out profiles and such, but this swatch of your library would be even better. For one, you get the random-but-not-random array of artists. But for two, observers can go back to their library, and check their alphabetical order and see what matches, and what they have filling the gaps that you don't. Maybe they have Straight Outta Compton and Strawberry Fields, but also ten other bangers in between.

I think we could call these swatches of alphabetically-ordered song listings iTun Sequiturs (for the special ed TAN readers (we take/love all types here at TAN), this is a play on the term non sequitur). Or, even better, MP Pourri's (hence the title of this post).

There might be better names. But here are a couple of my swatches/iTun sEquiturs/MP-P's:

Lapdance (NERD)
Last Dayz instrumental (Onyx)
Last Freestyle (Big L)
Last Night (The Strokes)
Last Real Ni**a Alive (Nas)
Last Words (Nas)
Lately (Stevie Wonder)
Lean On Me (Bill Withers)

This next one is based around the aforementioned Straight Outta Compton sequence (Nina Simone is a recent addition):

Stolen Moments Pt. 3 (Common)
Stop! In the name of love (Diana Ross)
Straight Outta Compton (Nina Gordon)
Straight Outta Compton (NWA)
Strange Fruit (Nina Simone)
Strawberry Fields Forever (The Beatles)
Stressed Out (A Tribe Called Quest)
Stuck (Wiz)
Stumble on now (Jor-el)

This last one I thought of the song "Wise Up" by Aimee Mann, and figured whatever surrounds that would make for good contrast:

William Hung Mixtape (battle) (William Hung)
Windmills of your mind (Nina Simone)
Window (Fiona Apple)
Wise Up (Aimee Mann)
With A Child’s Heart (Michael Jackson)
With a Little Help From My Friends (The Beatles)
With Or Without You (U2)
Without Me (Eminem)

So don't you know me so much better now? Perhaps now you want to share your own musical swatches with me? Or tell me what slammin' jams I'm missing between "Window" and "Wise Up" ... or some other song combo? And FYI, yes, the William Hung battle joint is pure fire.

holla at ya boy
.

Sneaker Speakers

Sneaker manufacturer Dada is trying to shake up the industry. After debuting sneakers with spinning rims a couple years ago (they spinnin', they spinnin'!!), Dada is now set to release the "Code M." Darren Rovell on his ESPN blog reveals:

The Code M has an MP3 embedded in the tongue of the shoe. You can download up to 100 songs into the shoe through a USB port. That port also serves to recharge the battery, which has a six-hour life.

You can listen through wireless headphones, or apparently, the sneakers also have speakers.

So now there's really going to be some carnage if fools start stepping on the wrong person's sneakers.

I also like the idea of kicking someone's ass and then while they're lying on the ground, putting your sneaker next to their face with some appropriate song cued up. Like "We Are The Champions," or "Landslide" if the victim is an older lady. Or "Cat's in the Cradle" for some punk with daddy issues.

Hotness.

The Ultimate Shoe [ESPN]

Drink Up Mama, It's Good For You

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Paul Dawson Is My NI**AH - With An "H"

This is a hilarious story about a teacher getting suspended for using the N word with a student.

At this point we've heard the "white person using the n word and gets lynched" story too often to really raise an eyebrow. But you have to watch the video on this story. It's classic. Feels like an SNL sketch. The guy is so comfortable using the word, and he's the oldest whitest non-ni**a using the term ever. When he starts delineating the terms of usage, like we've seen so many black people do, it's scrumptious. When you see Paul say, "Can you loan a ni**a a pencil" then you know you've reached the delicious creamy filling in the middle.

Anyways peep the story and watch the video:
Teaching Kids The N Word

(I didn't find this story via Dragon, but she covered it also, and her content is straight butter, and always link worthy, so here she is)

The Dave Chappelle "I'm Not Crazy" Tour Continues

I'm a Chappelle fan, but I find it amusing that he's going to be on "Inside the Actor's Studio." It's not going to be long before Mr. Lipton is interviewing the black waiter guy in the Red Stripe commercials, or the AFLAC duck. But regardless Chappelle should be a good look on the show, and I believe it [re]airs Sunday, March 5, 8PM.

I found this link which downloads the first segment of the show.

UPDATE: This aired last Sunday Feb 12. Reairs March 5th.

So get your sneak peek here.

WYSIWYG: Sex On Shrooms (Epilogue / Audio)

Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 3)
Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 1)

So last we left our hero, he had been stranded in the middle of nowhere, with no means of getting home. He starts walking along a nearby road, hoping maybe to pick up a ride, and then he hears some music in the distance ...

Road To Nowhere




Road To Nowhere (lyrics)

WYSIWYG: Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 3)

Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 2)
Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 1)

So we’re driving. And I keep asking Kate how she knew I would pick up the phone, and generally telling her I can’t believe this is going on. And I don’t know what to do. And obviously we have to get married. And my whole life has changed. And our whole life has changed. And she’s sort of responding, but not really, which is probably for the best since she was driving … and tripping. Plus we had just learned we didn’t necessarily need words for us to communicate.

I didn’t know where we were going. And I didn’t really care. But next thing I knew the car stopped. It was now early evening. Maybe four to five hours since the trip started. We were in some park like area, it looked like one of those “lover’s points” where couples go to die in horror movies. But this was no horror movie. This was a romantic movie. And it was about to turn rated X.

We looked at each other, and once again no words were necessary. It was cinematic. Drug enhanced cinema, but cinematic nonetheless. We immediately flew at each other. Pawing at clothes, tongues and saliva just flying around unbridled. It seemed we were literally trying to somehow engulf and consume each other. We got out of the car, and all of a sudden she just started running. I shouted earnestly, “No, you’re not supposed to run. That’s crazy. Who wants to run right now??!?!?” Then I ran. Running was nice. It was running with a purpose.

She stopped in a grassy area, near a lamppost, and we both lied down, no hesitation, still bubbling over each other, giddy from this most intimate of connections. I thought this is going to be the Best. Sex. Ever.

We slid our pants down, but didn’t take them off completely. I mentioned condoms, and we both immediately broke out in laughter. Hahahahahaha. Condoms??!!? Who thinks of such silliness at a time like this. I suspect it occurred to both of us at the same time that we pay 25-30K a year for school specifically so that we can do drugs on the weekends, and have reckless carefree sex. They don’t let people with STD’s in to college. It’s all about drugs and disease free sex with hot, smart ladies and guys. YES!!! COLLEGE!!! WANNA GO???

I initially sat on the grass bare-assed, but then pulled up my boxers, cause damn that shit was cooooold. She then slid herself on top of me, and Oh. My. God. Every feeling seemed to have celestial implications. Obviously this was what the universe was all about. A penis, and a vagina, meeting ….together. It was like plate tectonics. It was the solution to all of the world’s problems, if only we could just see this was what it was all about.

She got off my lap and lied down on her back. She told me this was the most awesome time of her life, and asked me to take her again. Enter her once more. I looked at her, feeling primed up, but then I had to pause…

For some reason the light from the lamppost nearby caused this weird shading on her vagina. Now this was before sex and the city and girls being really particular about being manicured down there, so it was a little bushy, nothing extravagant, but with the shading it created this weird visual scene. The darkness covered half of her area, and the other half was lit, but the shrooms made it look like the shadows from the dark side were actively moving into the light. With our psychic connection, and having figured out the world’s problems vis-à-vis vaginal penetration as context, I told her that it appeared to me a battle was being waged over her vagina. A battle between good and evil. And I wouldn’t be able to continue until it was over and I saw who won.

Somehow she seemed to understand. So she lied down, while I watched the shadows and light battle over her vagina.

But then, suddenly, the light in the lamppost went out. And the whole scene was plunged into relative darkness. Noooooooooooo I screamed. Evil had won. I couldn’t believe it. I started tearing up. And then almost as suddenly as the light going out, I got sick. Kate was still lying down trying to evaluate the situation, and I think when the light went out we lost our psychic connection. Everything seemed wrong. And everything was making me sick. The shrooms, the somewhat bushy vagina, evil conquering over good, it was all too overwhelming. Next thing I knew, I threw up all over the scene. Not the park scene. The scene where the battle between good and evil was waged. Her vagina.

Kate took off her pants and ran butt naked back to the car. I didn’t chase after her. What could I do, I just threw up on my psychic soulmate’s vagina. All I could feel was shame. And besides evil had just conquered over good. Surely the world was about to end soon anyways.

Eventually I gained some composure and realized I had been stranded out in the middle of nowhere. I walked out to a nearby road and all of a sudden I heard some music playing …

This was where the story at WYSIWYG ended, but here on TAN, sans time restrictions, the saga continues in hip hop form ...

Sex On Shrooms (epilogue/road to nowhere)
Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 2)
Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 1)

WYSIWYG: Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 2)

Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 1)

Now in the other dorm, the guys and I meandered about as trippers tend to do, and we ended up in a friend’s dorm room. At this point we’re about three to four hours in, and this is when the story starts getting a little surreal.

While in the room, my mind wandered back to Kate.

So even though she’s not around, in my head, I begin extending our conversation. It feels very real, like she’s actually in my head talking. And after a while I get that same incredible panging for water again. Just like when I was with Kate, except, you know, she’s not actually there.

So I get up and head for the hallway water fountain. But once in the hallway I’m distracted from quenching my thirst by the sound of a phone ringing.

It took me a moment to ascertain which room the ringing was coming from. And as it turned out, even though I had a number of friends in the dorm, this room belonged to a stranger. Certainly under normal sober conditions that would mean you pay the phone no mind. A strange phone ringing in a strange person’s room? …just keep on moving. But this time I felt oddly compelled. It was as if the phone was calling out to me.

The door to the room was open, and once I entered I was overcome with a wave of anxiety. All of a sudden the dots were beginning to connect, and the picture that was forming scared me. I had been having a conversation, in my head, with Kate, I got thirsty, and now a stranger’s phone was ringing. No explicit connection, but I thought, what if this phone ringing was for me? What if it was all connected somehow? What if I got thirsty and came out to the hallway specifically to hear the phone ringing and answer it?

As I continued to enter the room and approach the ringing phone I desperately hoped that it was simply someone calling whoever lived in this room. I prayed the call wasn’t for me. It couldn’t be. I didn’t know the person who lived in this room, no one could have anticipated I was in this dorm, in this hallway, at this exact time, and that I would be bold enough to enter a stranger’s room and answer their phone. The only person who could possibly know, maybe, was Kate. But that was impossible. For her to know she would have to be, like, in my head. I was tripping, but that would be a little much. Visuals and good feelings are one thing. Physical concrete evidence of next shit would be a whole other ballgame. Nevertheless an ominous knowing feeling was building up. If the call was in fact for me I was going to spontaneously combust, there was no way around it. It would be too weird, too much of a coincidence. I wanted to run away, but I also had to see about this phone. It was still ringing.

I began to pick up the phone. I prayed one more time, please, please, please, just ask for the guy who lives in this room. Then I nervously put the receiver to my ear and didn’t say a word.

I didn’t need to.

The voice on the other end of the line began as soon as I put the phone to my ear, and spoke with the utmost confidence.

“TAN, I’m coming to get you.” (she didn't really say TAN) It was Kate, and that was all she said. That was all she needed to say. There was no hello. She didn’t ask who she was speaking with. She didn’t mention her name.

I screamed, dropped the phone, and as anticipated, spontaneously fractured into a million little pieces. Holy shit!!! Some friends came in and picked up the phone. I was still in shock. I couldn’t believe what had happened. I frantically tried to explain to my friends why the world as we knew it no longer existed. It was a rush of hysteria and frenetic action that seemed to last a second, and then next thing I knew Kate was in front of me. She had come to get me. Just as she told me she would over the phone.

She then escorted my shell-shocked self to a car.

Apparently while telepathically communicating with me, she had also been driving. And we were now going to drive away somewhere together...

continue Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 3)
Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 1)

WYSIWYG: Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 1)

Last night I read at WYSIWYG: Worst. Sex. Ever. It was my first time reading for a crowd. I've performed, but never read for people that actually paid money to have words read to them. So I was a little nervous. But I also felt good, because I used to read in class all the time. In fact I was a fairly dominant reader in grade school. Always had the hand up strong, confident, just thinking, "if you want the shit read right, call on this motherfucker right here. Don't call on the stupid motherfucker who might get left back over there." So anyways, I think that background helped me get through the experience in one piece. I think there will be video of the performance, and if/when I can get my hands on it, I'll post it. In the meantime, in between time, I'll post the story and the song/epilogue (that I didn't get to perform) here. Thanks to the TAN supporters that were in the house, especially whoever was yelling "Holla!" in the beginning, that always helps a negro feel at ease.

Here's the video of the reading.

I'll be posting the story in segments, since it's sort of long for one big post.

And for the record, the following is a true story based on a sort of true story.

I went with a straightforward title on this and called it, "The Time I Had Sex On Mushrooms" Or alternatively "How I Got My First Wife, But Not Really"


An underestimated part of the assimilation process is the drug culture.

It’s always been interesting to me that rappers and street thugs are stereotyped as the “drug dealers,” “drug lords,” the “proud purveyors of proscribed paraphernalia and potent, perniciously poisonous product.” But when I was growing up in the Bronx, all I ever saw was weed. That was it.

Then when I went away to boarding school (choate) and college (trinity), it was a different story. This was when I had my mind opened - pot, coke, Ritalin, qualudes, lsd, mushrooms, MDMA, and that’s just the bare essentials. Maybe I was a naïve boy, but this is when I saw real drugs. And real drug users. At home in New York City, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, sure we had crackheads. But then I’d go away to Connecticut, presumably getting away from the toxic environment, and now there’s motherfucking crackheads going to school with me. My freshman year in college, we had crackheads all over the place. Motherfuckers had money, but they were still crackheads.

Anyways, the universal pervasiveness of crackheadedry isn’t the point today, it’s just a little preamble to demonstrate I didn’t know anything about mushrooms until I went away to school.

So this particular episode started out with a big group. It was freshman year, and just one of those classic college weekends where twenty whipper-snappers get together on a Saturday afternoon and decide they’re going to get wasted. We were going to trip all day and drink all night.

There was an electricity in the air, that feeling of kids about to do a lot of wrong shit. Many of the veterans were breaking off into groups, planning different activities to do during the trip. For me, it was only my second experience with shrooms, and most of the activities sounded too advanced for someone planning to be insane for at least the next 6-8 hours. Based on my first experience, I was fine with just hanging around in the dorm staring at walls and floors. So I ended up with a group that stayed in the dorm. Three or four of us went to a room, and eventually I ended up paired off with this girl.

This girl, let’s call her Kate, was pretty. We lived in the same dorm, and saw each other around, but didn’t really know each other. So we ended up hanging out, and when you’re tripping and meeting someone it can either go horribly or swimmingly. And she and I were like effortless laps in the English Channel (this particular line was thrown in specifically for literary peeps, and because it was a "reading series," which is amusing because it's not phenomenally "literary"). We developed this trippy thing where we’d talk and then both of us would get thirsty at the same time and go to the hallway for a drink. Then we’d laugh and note our “thirst synchronicity” and start a new tangent.

After bonding for a couple hours, eventually some other friends from the group barged in on our connecting-session-for-two and announced they were going across campus to North, another dorm, and I was to join them. I wasn’t eager to leave Kate, but these were my guy friends, and I couldn’t diss my guy friends for some girl I just met while tripping. So I left Kate, and our connection, and our trips to get water, to go across campus with the fellas ...

continue Sex On Shrooms (Pt. 2)

Final WYSIWYG Update

WYSIWYG Show is tonight. I received this message from the WYSIWYG CEO:

the advance tix are sold out but you can tell them to call or stop by the box office at (212) 477-5829 (I think it's ext 301) at 4pm tomorrow -- that's when they open, and they'll have around 45 tickets available until they sell out.

Here's all the pertinent info if you missed it.


So there you have it. Fresh for 2006 you suckas.

Next Stop: TAN's Tavern

The New York Times just ran a story on Hush Tours, a company that gives tours of NYC from a hip hop perspective.

Caz is one of several hip-hop pioneers — including Kurtis Blow, Doug E. Fresh and D.J. Red Alert — who work for Hush Tours (www.hushtours.com), a Manhattan company that since June 2002 has run hip-hop-centric sightseeing tours of Harlem and the Bronx.

The success of Hush Tours is a sign that hip-hop has become part of New York's official cultural heritage — for younger visitors especially, a tourist magnet right up there with the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty.

more ...

Another link in the chain, another step on the path. While part of me feels a little bad that hip hop pioneers have to get their hustle on by doing tours, old school pioneering artists not getting to reap the rewards when their music "blows up" is far from a unique story. Just ask old jazz musicians who were living in New Orleans.

So all in all I like this NYC hip hop tour idea. And my crib in El Barrio is slated to be added to the rounds sometime circa 2008.

(and thanks for the link E)

And I Heard 'Em Say, Sex Is Never Promised Tomorrow, Today

"But we'll find a way ..."

Sex addict Kanye struggles with monogamy
(found via Leftsider)

Michelle Collins, MySpace, And Space Filler

The primary impetus for this post is I need space filler, something to move the previous pic post down a bit (haha, no link suckers). Don't like that image popping up immediately upon hitting the page. I'm also a little embarrassed after a handful of comments.

But I will grit my teeth and bear it. I'm just going to bear it further down. ASAP.

While I'm here adding distance between the top of the page and the pic post (what pic post? I don't know, he's not linking it.), I'd like to add that Michelle Collins has a lot of amusing content up right now. I also noticed she has a post addressing her MySpace situation.

I also just recently half-assedly put up a MySpace page... and I was thinking maybe ...

Hmmm, actually I can't do it. I can't request MySpace stuff. I thought Michelle did it well ... but nope, not me ...

Fcuk MySpace. I could care less.

http://www.myspace.com/theassimilatednegro

Seriously though. I don't care. This is just space filler.

Don't sweat me, cause I ain't sweating you.

http://www.myspace.com/theassimilatednegro

Who Is That Masked TAN???

Considering changing my profile pic.




This is what I wear while watching the games with my ni**as (no homo). Gotta stay young son, keep the eyes fresh!!

Dont' forget to celebrate Black History Month.

No Homo (Nullus Homosexualis)

I don't use "no homo" as often as I would like. I use it sometimes, but it isn't muscle reflex like "son," "ni**a," and "vagina."

But this article is an inspiration

via Byron Crawford (King of "No Homo /Nullus")

TAN @ WYSIWYG - Almost Sold Out!

UPDATE: SOLD OUT! -- Still some walk up tix left on the side, so you can try that, but no more advance.

Just a quick note because I got an e-mail saying the WYSIWYG Show is almost sold out. There's supposed to be about 30 tix left. So if you're hemming and hawing about seeing TAN in action, act now or forever hold your head...

Here's the post with all the links and info.

Here's the link for tix.


Slots for having horrible sex with TAN (no homo), and potentially becoming a lead character in my story are also filling up... so experience the best of both worlds before it's too late.

After V-Day I'm going celibate.

Holla!

(now back to Black History Month)

Black History Month: An Objective Perspective

On McSweeney's ...

Perhaps You Want To Run Your Fingers Through My Wooliness?

Lusty Lady, who referenced TAN and my penis letter (I'm trying to figure out another way to innocuously reference this, any suggestions???) in her column about men's obsession with size, pointed me to another column dealing with some of the same issues. Particularly as it relates to racial stereotypes.

Love Isn't Always (Color) Blind [NY Post]

It's not a long piece, but here's some teaser:

But I was less colorblind than I thought. I confess feeling particularly hip on his arm, precisely because he was black, enabling me to telegraph to the world how open-minded and sophisticated I was. I enjoying bragging rights to his accomplishments, championing how he'd overcome prejudicial hurdles to rise to the top of a world dominated by whites.

Elizabeth Hayt, columnist for the NY Post, and presumably penning her insights sometime in 1987 continues ...

Standing in the surgeon's bedroom, I was frozen with fear. It was one thing to be seen in public with him, but quite another to be naked. The darkness of his body was frighteningly exotic, so opposite my own fairness, which, by comparison, I suddenly perceived to be weak and wane. How would I touch his hair when I couldn't run my fingers through it? What if he was physically aggressive?

I guess at this point there's not much to say, RKB's friend Judy McGuire pretty much covers the response.

But after seeing her picture, and not saying she's the most stunning woman in the world, but I'm just curious if any assimilated homeys out there would still let her run her fingers through your wooly hair after reading the article.

I guess we can keep it independent of Elizabeth "when I see dark bodies I feel" Hayt. In 2006 I wonder how black guys feel about doing it up with a girl who "might be" racist. She's hot like fire, and willing, but throughout your encounter she says some questionable shit. Do you do it, or do you pass? Does the "potential" racism play a factor, or would the decision be based strictly on your interest in having sex?

Holla back before I get physically aggressive up in here ...

Sorry, We're Going To Have To Cut The TAN Nude Scene

So, I made my Post Show debut in a bit called "No Satisfaction."

This bit was actually at risk of not getting uploaded at all because there was TAN nudity that I ended up not being comfortable with. So they had to cut a major scene that may have contained the biggest laugh in the sketch, which sucks, but at least I'll be able to sleep at night without wondering if my body is making its way around the internet for too-close examination. Perhaps the scene, in its properly censored form, will make the director's cut. As is I only have a couple lines, my favorite comes at the end, "yo get the fuck out motherfucker!" - classic.

This really goes to show, however, how impressive those Post Show kids are for getting a vid up twice a week. So many little problems come up that threaten one's ability to make it happen, but they have prevailed thus far and maintained their tight schedule. I'm glad I could play a [non-nude] part.

Once again - No Satisfaction

holla!

Special Report: Canine Crime On The Rise

TAN had the short week last week, and is also still recovering a little from the Superbowl weekend. He should be back in full gear by tomorrow, Black History Month specials are on the docket. In the meantime, in between time, we received a special report over the transom from freelance journalist Janet Eartothestreets (yeah, we wonder if that's her real name as well). We found the premise of her report intriguing, so without further delay, here she is ...

Canine Crime Is On The Rise
By Janet Eartothestreets

Am I the only one who notices that our "friendly" pal Spot has been in the news a lot recently?

While folks babbled on about meaningless Super Bowl hype, there were puppies crossing borders with heroin-filled condoms in their adorable bellies.

Then there was the Pet Strangler? Apparently dogs are using scarves to murder our children in our own back yards.

And of course the notorious case of the lady who required a new brand of transplant -- they are eating our faces.

Our favorite pet is crossing the line.

What has brought on this beastie behavior in our furry friends-turned-fiends? Could it be the innocuous dog walker whispering plots in Rover's ear? Are they getting too spoiled? Perhaps these violent acts are manifestations of resentment over a cancelled appointment at the Dog Spa this week? Maybe that Burberry sweater Prince received for Christmas has a urine stain?

Maybe the old in-and-out at the dog park is no longer fulfilling?

Is it simple boredom?

Lack of exercise? Too many snausages, beggin strips, and American cheese?

Being neutered? The leash? Rebellion from the popularity of the dog whisperer?

Or is something more sinister at work? Could this be revenge from other nations?

It started out small time, a little littering of the streets with fecal matter. But now its drug trafficking, murder, disfigurement; is our biggest enemy right here at home sleeping on that fluffy pillow Aunt Emma knitted with care, waking us up with a wet nose,-demanding breakfast and walks? You heard about this disturbing trend here first. When you hear the howls and barks taking over, and a pack of rabid schnauzers charging down city streets brandishing swastikas, consider it a take over. "Schnauzers UNITE!"

What will happen if this dog crime wave takes root-- will the tables turn? Will Fido run for President and win?

He can commit crimes freely. We let him get away with murder and find him a new family of victims to enact hell upon. What is next? The bottom line is if you're cute can you get away with anything.

The puppies are now living with a rich family on Fifth Avenue with dog doors emptying on to Central Park. The strangler was sent to a cushy ranch in Montana. And the face eater gorges on treats in Tahiti, hunting for people asleep in the sand.

Like abused spouses, Americans are asleep. Dogs are taking over and they have got us wrapped around their toe pads, we do their bidding for them, while they chew on toys in the living room. They are kicking ass and taking names, while we sit idly by encouraging them with baby talk and canine massage.

In another disturbing coincidence Hamas was the name of my French poodle when I was a child. Man's best friend. This is what we call the dog. More like destroyer of social, cultural, and moral institutions.

And what does the dog do after a day of selling crack to the neighborhood? He comes right back home and lies in our lap and gazes at us for ten minutes until we are back under his spell. It's hypnotism, folks. Darwinism at its finest. The cutest will inherit the earth

TAN Does WYSIWYG: Worst. Sex. Ever.

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