Friday, February 20, 2009

The Black Community

About a month or two ago, it was a rainy day, so I put out an umbrella stand at work. One of my coworkers walked by and said something about an umbrellaellaella, which I attributed to tourette's. Someone else walked by and said the same thing, and since you can't get tourette's from sharing the same glass, I asked what they were talking about. This was my introduction to the music of Rihanna. I still haven't heard the song, and I don't care. I actually knew who she was from my daily reading of dlisted.com, where she is known as Alien Princess RiRi. So when I heard about her getting beaten by her boyfriend, all I knew was that she sang a song that would probably annoy me, and that she looks like a Caribbean "7 of 9."

ABC.COM published a story about the reaction of the "Black Community" to RiRi's incident. I can't be certain, but I don't think I ever received any membership information on joining the Black Community. I have no idea where the Black Community Centre is, and I've never been invited to any Black Community Meetings. Is there a Black Community Rep. Theater Company? How about the Black Community Credit Union? If I get a ticket, can I do Black Community Service?

I find it hard to believe that the writers at ABC news would be so obtuse as to think that all Black people share common experiences, values, morals, etcetera. If Anna Kournikova got beaten, would they ask the Russian Community about their view of domestic violence? If Skeletor- I mean Marc Anthony beat up J-Lo... if J-Lo beat up Marc Anthony, would ABC talk to leaders in the Puerto Rican Community? What about Britney Spears? If K-Fed had smacked her, would the reporters head down to the Trailer Park Community?

Beyond the fact that an all inclusive Black Community doesn't exist, who nominated nothing but raspy voiced pastors with questionable verbiage, and friends of Oprah to be the only spokespeople? If those are the leaders of the Black Community, then I'm glad I don't have a membership.


Sunday, February 1, 2009

Danzon

When I was pre-pubescent, I would watch Teletunes every Sunday morning with my brother. We spent hours over recordings of our favorite videos, learning dance moves from Malcom McLaren's "Buffalo Gals," and every move made by Prince and Michael Jackson. While other kids played kickball and four square at recess, I practiced breakdancing. I really loved dancing, and when I got older, I could be seen every Thursday at Club America, and when that closed,  I spent Sundays at Synergy, and Tuesdays at the Snake Pit. Somewhere in between, I would put on my purple Cross-Colours jeans and go raving. Everywhere I went, I owned the dance floor, and everyone I danced with owned it as well. I wouldn't go near a dance floor unless everyone there was there to own the dance floor. No drinks allowed, and if you weren't dancing, and I mean shaking your ass, you were pushed to the side.

Tonight, I went to a dance party. I don't dance much anymore, but I got an invitation, which included an open bar and free food. Global financial retardation doesn't allow me to pass up "free" much anymore, so, despite my better judgement, I went. I say "despite my better judgement," because I found out it was a hippy party. I've gotten beyond the idea of hippies being mildly retarded kids with bad hygiene and even worse fashion sense, and grown to understand that modern hippies are pretentious would be artist-types who lack common sense and refuse to see the world for what it is. There's other stuff involved in their misguided communal psyche, but that is irrelevant to this particular post.

Simple fact of the matter is- hippies can't dance. This was the 5th anniversary of some Burning Man polyester bell bottom and sparkly feather boa b.s. that should have inspired serious freakiness, yet was the same "party like it's 1969" craptasticness that pervades San Francisco. Whatever it was that passed for dancing looked more like a bunch of people that needed to pee. Everyone shifted their weight from one foot to the other in a semblance of rhythm to the umptsee-umptsee fuckery coming out the speakers. I couple of women were really trying, but they looked more like they were allowing the spirit of the goddess to inspire their limbs to undulate in a manner evocative of femininity and sexual spirit-awakening while grounded to the earth mother sensuous Gaia Venus water air thing.

I didn't care about looking cool when I was in their place; I cared about tearing up the floor. I wanted to see everyone else tearing up the floor, and we knew we had done our jobs when we didn't know if we were covered in my sweat, your sweat, or the condensation dripping off of the ceiling. Another thing- people can't dance and drink at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive. If you are really dancing, you can't hold on to a drink. If you are really drinking, you can't dance. I'm not saying dancers must be straight edge, I'm just saying drinks have no place on a dance floor- or hippies. 
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San Francrisco, CA, United States