FIFTY SHADES OF GAY? (OR I HIT A WALL ON A TITLE)

I know people falling on both sides of the latest Washington, DC battle, which is the Supreme Court’s hearing arguments on California’s Proposition 8, which bans same sex marriage. I don’t believe all people who disagree with same sex marriage hate the gay community. Though I’ve seen a few on TV declaring gay people have an express line to a horrific afterlife, be it in a burning cavern, a TSA line or listening to Gangnam Style forever on loop. I also don’t think being gay means you can force religions to change their thousands years old practices, beliefs and sometimes questionable mandates. Can someone say no pork, shellfish and tattoos? Me thinks the entire NBA is going straight to Hell on The Surf N Turf Tattoo Express. I believe in life there are no absolutes, there is no black and white, there are only shades of grey – please no 50 Shades of Grey book jokes (they’re not tired, just not humorous). First of all, in general I believe Prop 8 and DOMA should be knocked down. Why? Because this is a human rights issue —plain and simple-- and not an issue of one type of union desecrating or killing another type of union. Because if that were the case, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Kardashian, Jerry Springer guests and numerous abusive relationships have already put the act of marriage on a life support machine. Gay couples only want the same rights that heterosexual couples already possess via marriage. When I say marriage, I mean the union, the legal contract and NOT the religious sacrament as mentioned in various religious tomes. Heaven forbid, if a gay member of the military gets killed in battle, I know their significant other would like to be immediately alerted to that fact. Presently, due to DOMA and Section 3 of Prop 8 that would not happen. Can you imagine learning, in a roundabout, secondhand manner, that the person you deeply loved, and shared a life for years, has been killed? Yeah, I thought you’d feel that way. While we are all not Christian, Jewish, Muslim or any other so-called religion but we can all claim VIP membership in the human race. When you belong to the country club you’re entitled to juice bar, sauna and tennis court privileges as everyone else. These couples are not asking to have the Christian, Jewish or Muslim faiths change their steelo for anybody. They are only asking for the rights they are entitled to as human beings. Many years ago, the thought of an African American person marrying a Caucasian person was considered perverse. As time has passed, the world has discovered that an interracial marriage is not a union created by Lucifer. Low and behold our president, of these Unite States, is the product of a union that would once be called deviant and illegal in many of this country’s southern states. I will admit as a child I had antiquated views on the gay community but with time and growth I’ve become quite the hypocrite (in a good way). This happened because my views are completely different in my understanding of the gay community, for which I now have friends. Many, may not be as I am to see the plight of the gay community through rainbow colored glasses. I now see that they want nothing more than to live a life with the people they want to love, raise a family and provide security and health benefits as most people do. Mother Teresa said once, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” And if I’ve heard anything from religion and rappers going on trial, “Only God Can Judge”. Now Follow Me! Follow Me To Freedom!

ROZAY + WEEZY(STUDIO TIME) = IGNORANCE

Rappers Rick Ross and Young Money CEO, Lil’ Wayne in recent months have respectively dropped some new verses that don’t toe the line, they run totally past it without any recognition that the line even exists. Rick Rozay AKA William Leonard Roberts AKA The Dude with Presidents Lincoln and Washington tattooed on his breasts (because that’s what they are) does a guest spot on Def Jam emcee Rocko’s, “You Don’t Even Know It”. This former corrections officer rhymes, “Put molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it/ I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain’t even know it.” This man, who took the moniker of former crack dealer Freeway Ricky Ross’ as his stage name, states that he slipped a “molly” into a woman’s drink. There’s no question here, a "molly" is a rape drug not a pain reliever a ****ing drug used to make violating women easier and big man Rick is bragging about it. If there’s any question of Ricky’s intention, he follows up with a line stating that “I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain’t even know it”. He is now bragging that he had his way with the woman and she was all the ignorant to the violation of her body due to her drugged state. Now I am not calling Mr. Roberts a rapist but he is a man, who is for sure perpetuating pure unadulterated rape to a young group of his followers, who sometimes cannot decipher between right and wrong. Then again, it’s quite obvious that Rozay Rapey cannot decipher between right and wrong either. Then there’s New Orleans lost child and ‘rapper’, Lil Wayne AKA Dwayne Michael Carter, showing his talent for hyperbole, who rhymed, on the remix of Karate Chop that he, “Beat the p**** up like Emmett Till”. He actually compared his sexual skills to the senseless beating of a 14 year old boy, whose only crime was being a black boy admiring a white girl. Since Weezy —-by his own estimation -– is the Greatest rapper… alive. I can’t comprehend what would not make him feel a tad queasy about this phrasing when the image of Emmett Till’s battered body is conjured up. Then again I shouldn’t really expect responsibility from a man, who regularly intakes codeine for sport and has four children by four different women. He can't control his penis, I can't expect the same of his mouth. I guess I have one real question, on the lyrics of Fatman & Stripe. Between the CD pressing plant, the final mix of the songs, the ad-lib pass, the 1st take, the smoking of weed and drinking of cognac at 2AM in the studio; did anyone think to say ‘Weezy you might not want to compare the thrusting of your penis to savage beating of a child’ or ‘Rozay you might not want to imply that you drugged and raped a woman’. Can hip hop get a licensed, non-partisaned lyric monitor (no coast or area affiliation) to just be brutally honest with ignorant emcees who are surrounded by a bunch of yes men? Because just because something sounds clever, doesn’t mean that it is. Now Follow Me. Follow Me to Freedom!

MARCH MEDIOCRITY OR MARCH MAGIC

What the (insert proper curse word here) is a Florida Gulf Coast University?! That was the phrase exclaimed at TV’s across the nation by casual bracketers, college basketball fans, and Vegas gamblers after the many unexpected upsets took place during the first few rounds of the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament. One of the larger upsets has to be the revered and feared, #2 seeded Georgetown Hoyas of NW Washington DC getting smashed from beginning to final buzzer by upstart college Florida Gulf Coast University (they have yet to yet to celebrate a silver anniversary) and neophyte basketball program (its 2nd year of post season eligibility). Georgetown University is 224 years old and has been a national basketball powerhouse since the early 1980’s birthed by one John Thompson, which makes it so sad, that it’s being buried by his son, John Thompson III. But let us not pull focus on the Hoyas, there were a few highly seeded programs that were upended, such as, the #12 seeded LaSalle beating Kansas State, #12 Ole Miss beating #5 Wisconsin, #1 seeded Gonzaga Zags were scared by HBCU Southern University (GO JAGS) and they were literally shocked with a loss to the #9 seeded Wichita Shockers and my personal favorite, the #14 Harvard Crimson triumphing over Lobos of the #3 seeded University of New Mexico. As I browse the many forms of media, I sense an overwhelming feeling of contempt for the parity in this year’s tournament. Which begs the “what in the hell do you want America?” This is the tournament we’ve been asking for all of our lives. Unexplainable, blue collar, ‘I ain’t scurred’, ‘little engine that could’ teams making national powers publicly cry for which we we’ve got no answer. The term “March Madness” wasn’t coined because highly seeded collegiate basketball teams demolish lower seeded teams as expected. No, it was created because of the maddening confusion in these David versus Goliath wins. That is the beauty of the race to the Final Four. The BS sports writer fueled speculation, seeding based on the regular season or conference tournament wins doesn’t matter. As long as you’re one of the 68 teams chosen, your five players, just line up against another five players for 48 minutes and whoever has more points at the final buzzer advances to the next round. We’ve seen these teams throughout the years of this fabled tournament. Matter of fact, they have their own special nickname, ‘Cinderrella’. We’ve seen them before, The Cleveland States, the Richmond Spiders, the VCU’s, the Murray States, the George Masons and presently, the mighty Eagles of Florida Gulf Coast University (est 1991). Each year we see that one Cinderella team go deep in the tourney only to have the glass slipper turn into a pumpkin soon but this year we’ve had numerous David like teams beat highly seeded Goliaths and we need to enjoy this. Matter of fact we’ve lived long enough to see a perennial, Cinderella team in Gonzaga University develop into #1 seeded program. Yet, I hear and read the complaints from fans and media, ‘it’s not the same quality of college basketball as in years past’. Two years ago, a Butler Bulldog program came within one great looking, half-court shot, of a national championship over Duke. Did we see a Duke basketball team on the decline or a Butler program on the rise? I believe we saw the playing field finally leveling off, where seeds may be nothing but a number in the future. In era of ‘one-and-done’, the 5 star blue chip athletes are going to the Dukes, the Kentuckys, the Carolinas and other national powers with no intent on staying and the players that these national powers pass on go to smaller schools with the intent on staying for more than a year. These athletes who could be playing multiple years for these national powers are playing together for years at these mid majors and raising the level of play on those campuses. National powers are annually having their team rhythm and development interrupted by the defection of a ‘one-and-done’ player to the NBA. Prior to the ‘one-and-done’ exodus we saw young talented teams grow into very formidable collegiate lineups, as we saw with Georgetown in the 80’s or Duke in the 90’s. Well now it just happens at the Butlers, the George Masons and the VCU’s are doing it. It's like we cheer for the little man to make the climb but once he gets his fingers to the top of the mountain we want to step on his hand. People have complained for years about predictability of the tourney and people are now complaining about the upsets while witnessing may be the greatest NCAA tournament in history. Call me crazy, but if Creighton, LaSalle, Miami and Florida Gulf Coast make it to the Final Four, I’m booking a flight to the ATL. Now Follow Me. Follow Me to Freedom.

MINORITY MINORITY REPORT

The new EBONY magazine is out and the cover is graced with “real housewife” of Atlanta and now sitcom star Nene Leakes. Now over the past few years I’ve accepted “reality” TV and it’s hot personality of the minute but seeing Nene on the cover of EBONY took me aback. Just last month President Obama and his wife Michelle were on the cover. I can’t help but think you went from the leader of the free world to a woman claiming to be a housewife but really isn’t. I can already hear the cries of “hater”, “let Nene get hers” and “STFU” but my issue or should I say discovery wasn’t Nene or her newfound fame. What I am discovering I am now a minority within a minority. Behavior that used to be deemed inappropriate was now the status quo in the black community. Flava Flav, Nene, Stevie J and the Basketball Wives—sidepieces—hoes—whatever they are called are controlling the narrative of black America or at least the ones that are focused on. I won’t say I don’t know these people or haven’t seen them in this life but media outlets be it TV, film or print would have you think they are the majority of black America and that’s sad. I can’t lie I cringe at Nene in the new sitcom The New Normal not because she took work from real actresses—okay I do a little, but it’s why she has the role. I recently saw her on a morning news show and she said that when she met with the show creator Ryan Murphy he said “We were looking for actresses who act sassy and do what Nene Leakes does and we thought why don’t we just get Nene Leakes and let her be herself”. Sadly, the Nene Leakes that the world knows is a paradigm of pathology of black women, which is sassy, lip pursing, neck rolling and hip holding. I couldn’t help but recall the impetus of Dave Chappelle’s exit from his titular hit Comedy Central show to the Motherland. Dave was doing a sketch called the Nigger Pixie and he noticed one of the crew who was not of color was laughing in a different manner then most people. Dave realized what he was doing may have been sending a message that he didn’t need to perpetrate. Black people don’t always have enough great images to fight the negative images as seen during a time where a black man is the leader of the free world. I can’t help but recall the film A Soldier’s Story and Adolph Ceasar in his classic role as Sgt. Waters. He had a line that will always live with me forever. He told an imprisoned soldier, CJ, whose behavior he thought to be coonish and an embarrassment to black people, “the black race can’t afford you no more C.J.”. Can you understand what that is saying? During that time period there were probably twenty million black Americans in the country and Sgt Waters felt this one man’s behavior held back the progress of a whole race. While I don’t think Nene can do that alone, she contributes to a team of all-stars that do. Now Follow Me! Follow Me To Freedom!

RETURN OF THE PHOENIX, MORE LIKE A PELICAN

There is a Democratic president, Notre Dame University is the number one football team in America and I haven’t had sex in a “minute”. Did I hitch a ride in a Delorean with Doc Brown back to the year 1992? Why no, it is the year of our Lord, 2012. I can truly say I am happy about one of my revelations but there is no need to go into further specifics on what happening has grasped on to my jocularity. Those few sentences are the pseudo-clever way I wanted to begin my first entry in months in my blog Diablo’s Bastille. I intended to Chicago two-step you with a brief jaunt back to a better times in our nation and dip you with an eighties movie reference. Pretty darn cool but so very antiquated huh? I thought so too after I typed and read it, but I’ve been planning this entry for months and I realized that you can never be too careful in planning your introduction—or re-entry into the blogosphere in this case. I kept debating myself like Obama/Romney on how to start my first blog entry back. I didn’t want to disappoint whatever lucky internet traveler who would come upon my ‘cascading discourse’ (patent pending on that phrase). You know what they say about first impressions, “first impressions are lasting”. Now I don’t know any members of this mythical, group, who seem to be some of the most, sage people on the Earth, recognized only by the pronoun “they”, but still I trust their vague and unsubstantiated opinions. So upon my journey back to “post entry” begins. When I first fell off on doing my blog, I told myself, you’ll get back to doing it next week. Next week turns into two weeks and two weeks turns into volunteer hours at your daughter’s school, a paid writing assignment, life in general and a few days trying to catch up on everything in my DVR. With the passage of time and distance between myself and my last entry the ante is now upped -- in my mind of course -- to a level that I feel my next five hundred words must read l like WAR & PEACE, THE FIRE NEXT TIME or whatever is atop the New York Times best seller list – oh God it’s one of Bill O’Reilly’s rectum created tomes. Of course I then must wring my hands over what the first subject I shall write about in my first blog entry back. I so wanted to do a piece during the presidential campaign and catch the heat of the Mitt Romney and President Obama giving us a verbal Hearns/Hagler in the daily 24 hour news cycle, but I thought my mythical public would just say “how clichéd of you ”. So I refrained and then thought my last entry was about my beloved New Orleans Saints and the infamous BountyGate scandal. The Saints have rebounded from an, 0 and 5 beginning, to get back to a present 5 and 5 record. I felt my imparting a story about this beloved underdog from my personal, POV would gain myself a click fest and a wave of comments. Who doesn’t like the underdog regaining their proverbial footing? I was beginning to think a number of people because I quickly jettisoned that idea. As my doubt seeped further and further into my thoughts I figured I’d step away from the idea and think about other infamous planned comebacks and how I could possibly model myself after them. So I began to amass a list of great comebacks. Ex-Washington, DC Mayor Marion Berry ran for mayor after a crack cocaine conviction and won. The man was good and so was his return -- almost phoenix-like, but I couldn’t mirror my first blog back to “that got damn bitch set me up”. Then I thought about Betty White’s recent resurgence but then again, I don’t want to people to read my blog for nostalgia of my better blogs, I feel I’ve got better blog entries in my future. Then I thought about the most popular comeback in history…. Jesus Christ. Love him or not the Dude knew how to make an impactful comeback. I began to wonder, as Jesus lay in the tomb for three days did He make a conscious decision to not do big theatrics and just appear? He knew Easter Sunday was his Super Bowl, He had turned water into wine and brought someone back from the dead already. Did the question of style influence Him as it has weighted so heavy on my mind in my quest to return in electronic glory on the internet? After much deliberation I came to a decision on how to return to Diablo’s Bastille based on two thoughts. The first was from comedian/actor/Fat Albert creating/Pudding Pop selling Bill Cosby who said “you can’t please everyone, so you better please yourself” and the second thought was from myself, don’t write over than 850 words. This totals 847. Now Follow Me, Follow Me To Freedom

…OF SAINTS, SINNERS and HYPOCRITES

The New Orleans Saints broke the rules, defied and lied to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. For that defiance they deserved to be punished. If my father told me specifically to not to go hanging in the French Quarter and then I ignored him and did it again. I would expect to be have all my driving privileges taken away for a month (but this isn’t about my teenage miscues). Sean Payton has been handed a season long suspension for systemic failures on his part in in this case. We all know the story of how the New Orleans Saints were running a—and I use the term loosely—“bounty program”, where non contract incentives were offered for “knock out” hits and “cart-offs” and repeatedly ignored.

As Saints fan, I am disappointed because I just don’t want my team to have any setbacks in the annual quest for “the ring”. As a football fan I respect that Goodell is commissioner and he has to police his sport, though I may beg to differ on his reasons. As a former football player, who began playing the sport at the age of 8 years old and continuing on to high school and college, I am taken aback by the media and the public’s so-called moral outrage and sudden concern for player personal safety in sports. If you haven’t realized it, football is not natural. Football is a violent sport, not high school football, not college football, not pro football—football is a violent sport. This is a sport where 22 men, who have been training their bodies for years to be fined, tuned, human catapults. These catapults then repeatedly engage in 75 to 85 violent collisions over a three hour period. As I said, “This is not natural.” For roughly 22 weeks, including pre-season and post season, 32 teams do this before filled 65,000 thousand seat stadiums and millions watching at home on TV. They all want to watch these modern day gladiators hit each other, not unlike old Roman Coliseum. The viewers at home want to watch this blood sport so badly they will pay $300 so they won’t miss a moment of all the games being televised from their modern day coliseums. The game is so loved the league at one point packaged a “Greatest Hits video of literally the most violent hits of the year. Football is so loved that a certain four letter network assembles plays to show at half time and hits are usually involved. This game is so loved, that fans have actually motioned to turn the Super Bowl day into a national holiday. But the moment a reporter kicks his Microsoft Word thesaurus into overdrive and uses a word like ”bounty” in reference of the sport. The warriors that are so celebrated are now vilified, equated with violent murderers and even considered to be brought up on criminal charges. Really, Joe Fan? The idea of incentive didn’t start in the Saints locker room. It has been going on for years across America and it starts on the playground. I can recall a coach offering $5 or a McDonald’s meal to whomever, in a room full of 8 year olds, had a big hit in the game. The rewards continue on in high school and college, where it’s even publicly celebrated with stickers on helmets. You don’t think all those stickers are for fumble recoveries do you? There’s always a reward for the violence football players perpetrate weekly, the coffers just differ in value at the different levels of play. I played football on the playground, high school and collegiate levels and I knew I was playing a violent sport. Each time I moved to another level of football I experienced an initial hit that “rang my bell” and signified to me that the level of play has yet again stepped it up, but I continue playing this violent sport. At eight years old I knew I wanted to be a part of this violent sport and I was reminded constantly in the beginning. I recall in one of my first practices as a child and I approached a tackle hesitantly with my head down and a turned shoulder. I instantly got angrily chewed out by my coach, who said “Don’t you ever let me see you make a tackle like that. If you don’t go full speed and you can get paralyzed.” My coach may have exaggerated that day but he wanted me to know is if I wasn’t going 100 miles an hour, the other player was. And while I may not get paralyzed I could get hurt. I must admit even before “bounty gate” the League concerned me with the way they want defensive players to turn their shoulders to make tackles now. They are asking people who have been taught all their lives to hit a player square and run their face mask into them. As much as wide receivers are “defenseless” now, I am more concerned about defensive backs are defenseless. Has anyone seen Calvin “Megatron” Johson? NFL Receivers are averaging 6’3, 240 nowadays. Can you imagine having to slow down to tackle him because you can only hit him with a certain part of your body? He will run across coverage and “through” a DB, who is trying to avoid hitting a defenseless receiver and not getting fined by Commissioner Goodell. The largest cry I hear from the public is how the Saints were out to hurt people and while nomenclature like “knock out” and “cart-off” have been tossed around like fish at Sea World, I think the media and league has jumped to the conclusion of malicious intent on the Saints part. Of the 6 billion people on Earth, the just over 1800 men who make up the NFL, they all know they play a violent game and are in a very, small fraternity. Yes, they all want to “hurt” each other which means, “I want you thinking about me so much, I take you out of your game and make you miss an assignment”. No one wants to end a person’s livelihood as I’ve heard so many players say. As a former a defensive player, I believe no one man would take a play off to “intentionally hurt a specific player”, if for nothing else but not miss their play assignment. In the 30 seconds before a play goes off, a defensive player is thinking “What’s the formation”, “what’s the coverage”, “how many running backs”, “is my assignment changing because of the formation”. Not “Where is the receiver I can get $1000 for hitting really hard?” If a player missed his assignment to “knock out” a player, it probably would be his last play ever for the Saints. I am not all knowing but I am quite confident that no pro football player intends to maliciously hurt another player. There’s just too much mutual respect for what the next man has done to get in this elite fraternity. If you’re still not convinced, recall Lawrence Taylor, the most feared linebacker in the game after he broke Joe Theismann’s leg on Monday Night Football. The sheer horror on Lawrence’s face as he called and beckoned for the ambulance to get to the field quickly should tell you enough of how players so respect one another. Now I know many will challenge me on the players “intent” but until you’ve run a 40 yard dash in their cleats you can’t really speak on it. And whilst my 40 time in slow, I’ve still managed to finish a few races. So my question for my outraged, PC, non-violent, pro football fans, if we proudly keep this personal safety up, when do they start playing flag football?

Now Follow me! Follow Me to Freedom!

BLACK HISTORY FACT (day 2)

Louis Eugene Wilcot was a part time calypso singer and the owner of Sweet Lou's BBQ in Harlem, when he had a chance meeting that would change him forever. While catering the wedding of one Poochie Jenkins, Louis met Poochie's cousin Elijah. Elijah told Louis, "No my brother the future is in turkey bacon and having your own religious sect." Louis took the advice of one Elijah Muhammad, changed his last name to Farrakahn and the rest is black history. This has been ablack history fact.

Now Follow Me! Follow me to Freedom!