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Are They Losing Their Minds or…

/ ludlumdrive / 1 Comment

Serena
Do they learn it from the teabagers and all is good? Whatever it is, what a week it was. Incivility to the max, where is the respect?

Just when we were about done with Joe Wilson’s saga, there came Michael Jordan who dissed lots of people while giving his speech to Hall of Fame crowd (it made the news just briefly), and then Serena Williams’s meltdown (c’mon give the girl a break. She was wrong, completely wrong, behind wrong but so was the lineswoman. But nothing licensed her to act foolishly; she should have controlled her emotions. She has been penalized ten thousand dollars but they are talking about making an example out of her by banning her from competing in future grand slams. Somehow John McEnroe must be telling her, you should have left that to me), and then there was another knucklehead, misbehaving.

C’mon Kanye, time to hang the scrubs. It is one thing to act like a fool and another to be a fool, and you were one on Sunday night at MTV VMAs awards, a fool.  I don’t believe you were searching for attention, not this time, as you let your striking girlfriend, no not Amber Rose – what a beautiful name but the bottle, Mrs. Hennessey do the talking; can it be? It was not your usual tirade but because there were so many, no one is willing to give you a pass this time my friend. They are hanging you by a rope for disrupting a popular upcoming country singer star, she is currently the biggest selling artist in America, on her big moment. She was getting her first moon man, how dare you?!

KanyeTay

It is expected of the VMAs; let’s face it. There hasn’t been a MTV award that has not translated into some sort of controversy. The show and its characters always gave us something to talk about; either the host makes some sort of political remark (Russell Brand pointing to the fact that health care in his country, England, is free for everyone) or spews some sort of offending remarks towards an audience member (as Russell did to the Jonas Brothers and their promise rings last year) or memorable goofy instances like (Madonna and Britney kissing and the King of Pop kissing his ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley). It is a given, nor questions asked.

We were supposed to be talking about Janet Jackson’s performance, her dance moves with Michael; or the upcoming Michael Jackson This is it concert or the double take (who wore it best) between Pink and Shakira. In case you haven’t heard, they both walked the red carpet within minutes of each other wearing the same dress (oh my God, what a sin); instead, we are talking about the victimization of Taylor Swift by Kanye West who jumped and crashed her big moment, and the sanctification of the almighty class act Beyonce. Amen to her?! I guess her parents raised her right. Just a small footnote, I am afraid and my apologies here but Kanye was right to a point. Beyonce’s video was much better than Taylor’s and she should not have won but it was not Kanye’s job to make mends. No one cared, he should not have pulled the mike from her and should have been the thirty-two years old man that he is. He is sincerely ashamed.

In all three cases, they let their emotions get the best of them; they lost their minds but what strikes me the most, is that they did not wait until tomorrow; they turned the clock instantly and apologized; they felt sorry, some more and more than others (paging Mr. Wilson who has yet and refuse to apologize to the members of Congress) but in the age of tubes, it is always going to be there forever and ever. Lessons learned from these embarrassing moments, I surely hope so. I mean really, what happened to civility?

Do You Even Know Your Neighbor?

/ ludlumdrive / 2 Comments

Phillip-GarridoGarrido sits in court with his lawyer, Susan Gellman, at the El Dorado superior court, in Placerville

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Who amongst us has not heard the case of Phillip Garrido, the California man accused of kidnapping 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard and turning her into a sex slave; we all heard it by now. What a tragedy! What an invertebrate, monster and despicable human being. I mean, there are not appropriate words to even define this individual and sing along wife.

Poor Jaycee Lee! I can just imagine what she has gone through and still is. Her life, the suffering, having been raped and giving birth to this animal’s children… the pain and the death of her innocence.

And to think that neighbor’s were oblivious to it all. They had no idea what was even occurring in their own backyard. No one said a word; no one peeked; no one found their behavior unusual; no one cared to call the police; oh well one did but what good did it do? Investigations not needed. The dude is a sex offender for Christ sake it should have risen a flag.

Back where I come from, it would have spread like H1N1 flu; your neighbor would know like yesterday. She would have it memorized like her favorite telenovela (soapopera), so would your neighbor’s mama; your neighbor’s friend’s mama; your neighbor’s mama’s best friend; your neighbor’s baby’s mama; your neighbor’s mama ‘s rival; your neighbor’s mama ‘s driver, and even your neighbor’s dead grandma would have risen up from the grave just to take a peek at all the commotion and go back down under in a jiffy. Here we are and not one neighbor cared. It is none of my business; that was the modus operandi. Who gives a coo coo?! Not in my backyard, I guess!

Having said that, how many of us can really say that we “know” our neighbors? I don’t! Not the one to the left, or the one to the right, nor the one to the front or the one to the back. I just don’t know them other than the casual “hello, how are you?” or they know me or anyone else on the block for that matter.

The one to the right, we are acquaintances; we have exchanged phone numbers and the husband helped me with my car battery the other day. So, I guess we are cool but they never came over for barbecue, and yet they felt the need to park one of their cars on my parking space until I killed their hopes. Just between us, the insurance onchos indicated that I would be liable if something happened to their car. Since I don’t have enough TVs to go around if sued, I scratched the scenario even without a semicolon. They kind frown their noses and I, life goes on.  One less thing for me to worry about; there is until the next occurrence.

The one to the back never heard of them until Wilma, the hurricane, stopped by a few years back leaving us without fences and electricity. We noticed but never addressed each other. Last thing I know, they had their generator going at 6AM waking up all the Gods and dead people around the block. I killed their feel good occasion when I walked up to them, still in my pajamas, appealing to temporary sanity. I mean, no electricity, no air-conditioning to block the noise, it is not like we were working so… what’s up? They understood and turned it back on at a “reasonable hour” if that was ever one since it was time to clean up the debris. I learned years later that they have two young kids, my bad. I just wanted to catch some sleep after “peeing” on my pants from having experienced hurricane force wind.

The one to the left, what can say, there have been a few gentiles. The owner is away and the house gets rented. The last ones, they left two weeks ago, never met them, only saw the back of their heads; and the prior one’s, they were colorful: loud music every single freaking day, literary, especially on weekends. It was a given, fiesta until the police stopped over or I banged something (whatever it was at that point) to sleep. Funny, the wife was pregnant and I only learned of it when I heard a baby crying. Then it was like, “who’s baby is it?” and then it was, “What’s up neighbor, is the baby a she or a he?” He proudly replied back, “a he”.  Congratulations, a couple. They already had a little girl and a crazy rabbit that always popped in my backyard uninvited and unannounced. I smelled a good “Caldeirada” – a Portuguese dish, so he was lucky.

The one to the front, what can I say. The kid, I believe their son or whomever he is, was infatuated with me (geez some people still is; I am impressed) to the point of “greeting me” every single day or time I came home. It was creepy as he would just popped out of the blue but I have not seen him lately so, I am hoping he is somewhere frying himself on the beach.

The others, humm, they live on the block. Lots of dogs, a few grandmas and some skinny dude who is always jogging as if he even needed it and his wife who is always sitting around on the porch, just gazing at what I have no idea!

So there, you met my neighbors!

Once upon a time I got something in the mail, someone was organizing a block party. We got all excited, we were finally ready to mingle; yeah right, it fail flat like a pancake. Not too many people signed up, I heard. Due to the complexity and the cultural mix, I can understand but not really.

The good thing is that we kind bounded momentarily during Wilma to clean up the debris. Everyone pinched in but not the ones to the left. They were novices; not one pile was lifted. Hey, they were renting; who cares? Once the street was cleared enough for the cars to go by, everyone disbursed to his or her own cubbyholes to only be seen sporadically. Life goes on. Welcome!

The Black Man Didn’t Do It!

/ ludlumdrive / 1 Comment

ADDITION Abduction Hoax
I mean who could have forgotten Charles Stuart in Massachusetts and Susan Smith in South Carolina and John McCain campaign volunteer who claimed that a 6-foot-4 black man carved a B (for Obama off course) into her cheek and as if it was not enough, now we have Bonnie Sweeten, a mother from Pennsylvania.

People when are you going to learn that the engineered pretext no longer merits any propensity. Scapegoating black men is as irrelevant as the hoax itself; it is as old as my grandmother’s underwear. (Forgive me, and one Hail Mary here, as they are both diseased.)

C’mon, we have ascended a bit, I suppose. We now have a black President; it should count for something right? And then came this goofball (a more fitting euphemism could have been used but I digress) who decided to forfeit her judgment and reinstate the stereotype once again, so to swathe her foolishness.

The worse is not the fact that she actually used it but the fact that it caused a media frenzy; the press bought it until it was pronounced as a hoax.

The clichéd view of black men as being dangerous is no longer regarded as a novel or merits any glance over. Just because she was thickheaded, it does not denote she has the carte blanche to her idiocy. She needs to understand that the exploit is no longer an open bar – now deemed a flight risk, the reason for her release on $1 million bail.

I have no idea what type of coffee she was drinking that morning; it must have been Java mixed with something else, perhaps, vodka because I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind, waking up one morning and pointing the finger at an innocent person less again, a whole class. In any case, she should have designed a more intricate plan as this one fell flat from the sky.

Perhaps, she should have been clued-in that things are changing; the wind has been blowing the other way. I mean racial boundaries are slowly dissolving, right?! Huhhh?! OK.

She should have also learned that the behavior is not your typical black man’s M.O.; she must have gotten confused with black on black crime or snitching; the standard “black crime”!

Surprisingly, her erroneous stupidity did not bring about line-ups, stopping, searching and questioning of every black man in sight by the police or Al Sharpton. So, it was all good. There was no cause for concern!

I wonder what really ticked her or does anyone really care to know? I wonder if she feels above any black man? I wonder if she is crying for having exploited innocent souls?

What an example she instills in her young daughter (children, she has two others)! I mean, how much more can the black men take? Time to end the madness!