Thursday, September 27, 2007

My Ugly Reflection

Okay:

So, I have been conducting some serious soul searching lately, trying to figure out why I seem to be attracting what I and the people in my inner circle would consider to be less than desirable women. By less-than-desirable I do not mean ugly or fat, not necessarily. I mean women who no intelligent, ambitious, emotionally mature man would ever take seriously. The most obvious answer would be that I display some of these undesirable qualities myself, and thusly I attract, and am attracted to, these women. I have been trying desperately for the past few months to discover some alternative explanation, but recently I had an experience that validated this dismal assessment.

The other day I ran into a woman I took out to dinner once. My mother would have called her a hoochie, not that she could have payed me to introduce her to my mother. I thought she was interesting though. I had never dated a woman with a tattoo on her neck before. I typically do not date women who wear cheap, greasy weaves, but I made an exception in her case.

Long story short, she had a really fat ass.

To call it a fat ass does not do it justice, however. Usually a woman with a rump this plump would also be plump in other areas, namely her middle. This is usually a concession I am willing to accept in exchange for an ample backside. As I am aging, however, I am finding this trade-off less acceptable. I would rather deal with a flat-out heavy woman than someone is who is still trying to pass for skinny. This weight-denial phenomenon often results in what my homies and I call the muffin-top effect. Not a good-look.

I digress.

Her donkey was special because it was big, round, and juicy but her waist was small and her stomach was flat as a board. You don't see that everyday. At least not it DC. The date was a disaster though. I didn't come close to getting any. At the restaurant she invited herself to order two entrees! A porterhouse steak and a salmon fillet! She ate them both right in front of me! I had to drink three scotches to stop myself from sneaking out on her while she was in the bathroom. And she was dumb as mop bucket and twice as shallow. I deleted her number as soon as she closed my car door.

So I ran into her the other day. Ass still fat. Waist still skinny. Stomach still flat as a board. We talked for a while. She asked about my daughter. I asked about her two kids. The conversation went (practically verbatim) as follows.

HER: I ain't having no more kids.
ME: Bullshit. You're young yet.
HER: Nuh uh. I'm not pushing nothing else out this coochie. Whoever get up in here next needs to know that.
ME: I see.
HER: He probably wouldn't be able to bust a good one cuz every five minutes we'd have to stop and see if the rubber's still on.
ME: I see.
HER: No siree, Bob! These here legs is staying closed!
ME: Well, if it's pregnancy you're primarily worried about there are pills and shots and implants from what I understand.
HER: I ain't trying to gain all that weight! You see this fat ass and this itty bitty waist. I ain't trying to fuck this money up.

I shit you not, ladies and gentleman. This woman is a real person and we had this conversation on a public street within earshot of passersby while the sun was still up.

How is this all relevant? I realized after this conversation was over that she is no more crass and common than I am. Were I the appropriate male counterpart for the kind of woman I want, I probably wouldn't even know this girl. Not that she's a bad person, but COME ON!

And it's not that I think I'm better than her. Quite the contrary. I think she is a reflection of me. A reflection I am hoping to change.

Thanks for reading.

Tip of the day: If you're going to have company of the romantic persuasion, check your toilet bowl before they get there. Nothing spoils a mood like a full john.

Shameless Plug:

Me and my boy Heron took over Washington DC's favorite hip hop radio show Decipher on WPFW 89.3 fm. Check out The Black Broadway Show Podcast. Subscribe. We'll be posting stuff regularly.

If you're in town...COOL CEE BROWN will be performing at The Guerrilla Lounge on Friday, September 28 at RFD (Regional Food and Drink) 810 7th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001 Doors open @ 9pm, $10, Ages 21 & over.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

My Daughter's Wisdom Reigns Supreme

Okay:

My daughter is a lot smarter than I am. This is a frightening actualization. It's sort of like that movie with Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer and Dakota Fanning, I Am Sam. Penn plays a mentally retarded man who gets stuck with a baby. There's this sequence where his daughter ages about 5 years in 2 minutes. She asks probing age appropriate questions like "Why is the sky blue?" etc. As she ages the questions become progressively more complex. He struggles to answer. She benevolently humors him.

My daughter and I are like this. I am retarded. She knows it, but she's too nice to mention it.

Once I was walking her to school in the morning. She had just started the first grade. I was in a peculiar mood. Not feeling too good about myself. I looked down at her. So naturally happy, easy to please. I was jealous.

"Honey," I asked her, "Do you think I'm a good daddy?"

Without hesitation she answered, "I think you're whatever kind of daddy you want to be."

All of a sudden I felt more like a bodyguard than a parent. She was born to give light to the world, like The Golden Child, and I'm like Eddie Murphy. I just have to make sure nothing bad happens to her in the interim.


Just a few hours ago we had finished breakfast and were trying to figure out what movie we wanted to watch. She went digging though the DVDs and found Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Season One.

"Daddy," she asked me, "How come they made it a cartoon but kids can't watch it?"

"I'm not sure, honey, but it's definitely for adults."

"But you let me watch it before."

"I know. I shouldn't have," I said, feeling parentally inadequate.

"You're the crazy one," she said, "not me."


Another time I was tucking her into bed. It had been a rough day, and, again, I wasn't feeling too good about myself. Something had happened at work or something...I don't really remember. I was just feeling shitty for some reason.

"Daddy," she said as I nestled her teddy bear in next to her, "you don't look so hot."

"I'm alright, honey," I said.

"You know," she said, with the utmost sincerity, "you're a really nice guy."

Well. I tried not to let on, but I immediately felt better. Who needs therapy?


As my regular readers know, I broke up with the woman I thought I was going to marry a little less than a year ago. I am still recovering. For some reason, a month or so ago, m daughter asked about her.

"Where's __________?" she asked.

"___________ and daddy don't hang out anymore, honey."

"Why?"

"We stopped getting along."

"I thought you two were going to get married."

"We were."

"So what happened?"

"Well, ____________ wanted to get married right away and daddy didn't want to rush things."

"Daddy," she said, as if it were exhausting her, "It's not when you get married. It's who you marry."


So. I just thought I would share that with you. Now I have to go. I promised her we could play a game of Trouble as soon as I finished. I'd love to hear about your kids if you care to post a comment.

Thanks for reading.

Tip of the day: While the idea of having sex on the beach is proverbially romantic, the logistic reality of having sex on sand is a lot less appealing and potentially dangerous.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

A Long and Funny Night with Gill

Okay:

So, Gill and I decided that we should go paint the town on Friday night. I didn't have much money on me, but I was dead-set on having a good time. It had been a long week. We went to Adam's Morgan, a strip of eccelectic bars in Northwest DC. Funny things happened.

9:30. Gill wants to stop at this variety shop to pick up a pack of clove cigarettes. I tell him I have to piss and take a walk towards the alley. The alley is no good though, there are too many people. There is a hot dog stand called M'Dawg next to the variety shop. For some reason the door is open and the lights are on, but the are no patrons and no one standing behind the counter. I dash in, use the facilities and try to make a quick exit. A short Arab man in an apron comes barrelling out of the kitchen, waving his towel and screaming at me in Pharsi. For some reason this does not alarm me, so I don't respond. I simply leave and go look for Gill.

9:40. I find Gill and ask if he got the cloves. He gives me a despondent, "No." He seems troubled.

"There's a man," he continues, "in there buying a whole bunch of porn. They've been bagging it up for the past ten minutes. I got tired of waiting in there."

For some reason I assume he's exaggerating. "Stop exaggerating," I tell him.

"You'll see," he says.

9:45. A six-foot, 300-pound, sweaty pink man in a cheap grey suit emerges from the variety shop carrying a half-dozen trash bags of porn. He steps to the curb and hails a cab. Gill and I are the only people out there who know what's going on.

"I think he's got some dildos and fake pussies in there too," says Gill.

"Why do you think he needs all that porn?" I ask.

"Whatever you do, don't laugh," says Gill.

"Why is he buying off the rack?" I ask. "Wholesale would be cheaper."

"Those DVDs are, like, $50 a pop," says Gill. "Those pussies probably aren't cheap either."

"What in the world is he gonna do with all that porn?"

9:46. A cab pulls up to the curb. The sweaty pink man pulls a handkerchief from pocket and wipes his forhead. He opens up the backseat door like he were opening it for a woman.

"He's opening the door for the porn," I say.

He places each bag in the backseat, one at a time, gentle-like, as if they were filled with explosive materials. It takes him a while. Then he climbs in behind the bags, head first so that the last things we see before the door closes is his wide ass.

9:50. I see Steve, the Sudanese refugee, from I Heart Huckabees. He looks just like he looks in the movie. Seven-feet-tall, skinny, bald head, blue-black, big white smile.

"Hey," I say. "You're that dude from I Heart Huckabees. I love that movie."

"Yes," he says, in a ridiculously thick African accent. "It is me."

10:00. We get a couple drinks and have a seat on the patio of Grand Central. We have a bird's eye view of everything.

"This is the best," says Gill. He'll repeat this several times before the night is over.

10:00-12:00. Drinking. Cat-calling. Noticing that white women, on the whole, are becoming more shapely in that way only black men can appreciate.

"They're back in style," Gill tells me. "Everything from the eighties is back in style. Especially white women."

12:05. I get a call from a woman I used to date. I wrote about her once in a blog entitled "The Greatest BJ of All Time."

"Meet us in Adam's Morgan," I say.

12:40. She arrives. She looks like she's gained a few since I saw her last.

1:00. I realize that I am officially drunk and very tired all of a sudden. As soon as I realize this, club security says it is time to remove the patio furniture. We're welcome to stay but we can no longer sit. I have trouble standing and want desparately to find a new place to sit. I suggest we go next door to The Diner for something to eat, which, luckily, sounds like a good idea to everyone.

1:30. We are eating and I have coffee. Things have improved dramatically. I am rubbing on her thighs. They are big and soft. I am looking forward to later on.

2:00. After I return from the rest room, I realize that she and Gill are having an in-depth coversation about anal sex. According to her it makes your butt bigger. I am getting really excited about later on.

"She always has a place to sit with us as far as I'm concerned," announces Gill.

2:30. I'm dropping Gill off.

2:35. "Do you want me to take you home?" I ask her.

"Yes," she says.

*sound of balloon deflating*

As I'm driving her home in relative silence she says, "You know, I called you a few weeks ago."

"I noticed that," I say.

"I wanted to take a trip down memory lane," she says.

"Sounds like fun," I say.

"But I just found out I'm pregnant," she says. "Otherwise, I'd go home with you."

I immediately start doing math in my head and quickly, thankfully, realize that there is no possible way I'm the culprit. We haven't slept together in over a year. We talk about this new development for the remainder of the ride home. She seems indifferent. I find this depressing.

3:00. I curl up in my bed and fall fast asleep. "This will make a good blog," I say to myself.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

No Happy Ending Here

Okay:

I went on a date yesterday. Nice girl. We've been on several dates before. I once took her to a hookah bar in Adam's Morgan. Each time we've gone out though, it's been at night.

When I was in junior high school, my favorite rap group was Black Sheep. They had a hot little ditty, "Strobelight Honey." It was all about this dude trying to get with this girl at a club. But when she's steps into the light, the spell is broken. He spends the rest of the night running from her. The chorus went: "I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go."

So, it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and there was a cool, autumn breeze blowing. Perfect. I picked her up from her apartment. I waited for her in the courtyard of her building, surrounded by a beautifully manicured lawn, flanked by towering elms. Birds were chirping. She came out of the lobby's glass door, smiling. She have me a hug and a light kiss on the cheek, and I almost immediately noticed, well...stubble.

Then I took a big gander at her in the light of the September sun. This woman and I have the same facial hair growth pattern!

I am not a hairy man. It's a condition. My father had a full beard by the time he was my age. The men on my mother's side all have hairy faces. I, on the other hand, have a sparse spattering of nappy tufts. I've got about thirty hairs on each cheek, scattered about like crabgrass. I've got a hundred or so on my chin and, thankfully, a decent mustache. I've also got a renegade colony in the crease of my neck. But now that I'm on the darkside of my twenties, I'm figuring I'll never get that goatee I always wanted.

I stared at her shadows and razor bumps all afternoon. I was more fascinated than anything else. I thought she might make a great candidate for that laser hair removal surgery. Then my thoughts went, as they often do, to "darker" places. If she's got all this hair on her face, where else might the little prickly bastards be bedding? Her chest? Her back? Places further south?

We went to a nice waterfront seafood restaurant in Georgetown. She had a salad, and I had stuffed shrimp. It was obscenely expensive, but you could not have imagined a better scene. We sat on the patio, a few yards away from the water. Every few minutes we'd be interrupted by someone cranking up their jet boat. The patrons were as diverse as a UN summit. It felt like we were in another country. But my eyes kept traveling back to that bumpy chin of hers; a kind of fleshy sandpaper it was.

We got juiced and went back to her apartment after sundown. By then, I couldn't see the stubble. Out of sight, out of mind. We drank wine, watched a movie (Power--starring Richard Gere, Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington, directed by Sidney Lumet--a must-see). We were in negotiations but stopped short of a merger.

This chick was crazy. She waffled back and forth more than a Democratic presidential candidate. "Give it to me!...No, we can't...Touch me...Get off me...I want you...This can't happen!" And then finally, "You have to leave."

I went home disappointed, thinking, "That was a long ass expensive date for her hairy ass to not give me no pussy."

Apology: I must apologize to my subscribers for the inconsistent posting. The beginning of the school year is always rough. I will be posting more regularly soon.

Tip of the Day: Do not fry chicken naked. Bad things will happen.

Shameless Plug: Check out this video footage of me at DC9 a year or so ago.

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=3046199

Add to My Profile More Videos


I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Bring Your Own Chicken

Okay:

So, I work at a level 5 special education school. The student body is one hundred percent black and brown. The staff is a bit more diverse, but not much. One of my white co-workers--a coffee-guzzling, marathon-running, cute little blond from Ohio--invited the entire staff to her birthday party on Friday.

The water cooler was all a-buzz: who's going to the white girl's party?

My homeboy Gill and I, adventurous progressive black men that we are, were among the first to RSVP. For the most part, we were looking for free beer and a good laugh. We got heavy doses of both.

Having worked in restaurants for five years, I had been to many a white party and felt confident that I knew what to expect. Gill, on the other hand, had had limited contact with white people up until this point and was curious to see how the other side lived. I appointed myself his unofficial tour guide and translator of all things white.

"They don't party like us," I warned. "You'll see."

The party was at her house in Arlington, minutes away from the Pentagon. She shares the house with two roommates. None of them are over thirty, but the place is clean and maturely furnished as if a real family lives there. Upon entering her living room I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, my apartment is a real shithole."

Of course there were dogs. One boxer and one Labrador. They both had beds in front of the television. "This," I whispered to Gill, "is definitely a white thing. We make our dogs sleep outside or in the basement."

Then we were led outside to the backyard, a spacious open field complete with tiki torches, a hammock, a swing and a stone fireplace. There was a table with an assortment of chips and dip, but no hot food. I remember being slightly annoyed by this. "What? No chicken?!" I thought, but was glad I hadn't said it out loud.

I wanted to though. For "some reason" I was famished.

There was a drinking game going on at another table. It combined beer shooters with some sort of physical challenge involving plastic cups. Even after our host explained the rules twice, the second time very slowly, for "some reason" I still did not understand and declined to participate. It just seemed like a very complicated way to get drunk. "Where is the keg?" I asked.

Gill and I found the keg and a private corner of the party from which to sit and observe. It was noted that we were the only black people there and that the white people there all looked healthy and happy. No one was overweight or belligerent. Everyone was getting along famously. If someone had been grossly obese, missing a limb or shouting obscenities, I think we would have felt a lot more at ease. But this group was so goddamned homogeneous and friendly. It was like an Abercrombie & Fitch photo shoot. Although there was a lot of shouting going on at the drinking game table, which we enjoyed.

Eventually some people people from work showed, but they were white too so they just kind of blended in.

"Hello, have we met?" I asked.

"We've been working together for two years."

"Oh," I said. "You look different without your glasses."

"I don't wear glasses."

"Yeah, well I'm kinda fucked up and there are just so many of you here."

There were some other interesting moments. At some point they played "Pour Some Sugar On Me" which I guess is to be expected. The police came responding to a report of loud music. There was a twenty minute conversation about eighties hair bands in which I learned that the drummer from Def Leopard lost his arm in a tour bus accident but continued to play with the band until they broke up. Other things happened, but, you know, the beer was free.

We made it back to Washington safely and the next morning the host sent me a text message thanking me. It said simply, "Thanks for coming" but I read in the subtext "Thanks for being the only black people at the job brave enough to come to my party."

I texted her back: "If u wnt mre blk ppl 2 cme nxt tme hav chkn."

Thanks for reading.

Tip of the day: Do not wear condoms made in China. Apparently, they have been using lead-based spermicidal lubricant.


Shameless Plug:

Check out the Dirty Water classic

"Eat My Breakfast Alone"

(note: All of my "love" songs, except for one, were inspired by the same woman.

This is the first song she inspired me to write.)


5000.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The Modern Dating Scene's Dirty Little Secret

Okay:

So, those of us who are single are fairly familiar with this phenomenon. Those of us who are not may shake our heads in collective dismay at this startling reality.

Herpes is really, really, really common.

Why am I writing about this? I was with a friend of mine yesterday. This friend of mine is an adult film enthusiast. According to him, one of his favorite starlets announced recently that not only does she have a scorching case of herpes, but that ninety-some-odd percent of the adult film industry is infected.

He was expecting my jaw to drop. He was expecting me to be in shock. Instead I shrugged my shoulders and offered an apathetic, "hmpf."

In disbelief he barked, "Did you hear what I said?"

"Yeah," I said. "And?"

"Are you serious?"

"Are you serious? These people have unprotected sex for a living. It stands to reason that they probably also have a lot of unprotected sex off-camera. Do you have any idea how common herpes is?"

In spite of all of those Valtrex commercials with happy people on swings in grassy meadows, giving testimonials with their uninfected lovers, he still was unaware of the epidemic that is a reality for single people. See, he has been dating the same woman for 15 years. The subject, luckily, has never come up. I have been single for most of my adult life and have come to accept the fact that lots of innocent, clean-looking people have The Bumps. I have been lucky enough to remain bump-free, but some of my friends have not been so lucky.

I learned this valuable lesson in college. I once dated a woman for a few weeks who, to her credit, told me about her condition before we slept together. Subsequently, we never slept together, but she is to commended for her forthrightness. Which brings up another interesting point.

The people I know who are infected, for the most part, continue to have casual (and sometimes unprotected) sex without letting their partners in on their little secret. Unless you're prepared to hang up your spurs on account of what amounts to a minor, rarely seen, and eventually forgettable inconvenience, what are you supposed to do? Tell every casual acquaintance about your condition? You might as well put an ad in the paper.

The flipside of that is slightly curiouser. The one friend I have who has all but quit the casual scene is always faced with the anxiety of when to tell that special someone, and how that special someone will react after being told. Surprisingly, never has anyone (and I do mean anyone) said, "It was nice getting to know you, but I don't think I can handle that."

This, I imagine, is how it spreads. But, really, what are these people to do? Join a convent or a herpes anonymous group and mate with other bumpers and make super bumps that are resilient to to the various pills, salves and ointments on the market? That might make my friend feel safe, but the reality of being single and "hooking up" in today's post-sexual revolution society is a bit darker than that.

So, for the record, I do not have The Bumps. Not that anything is wrong with that. It would be a disservice to those friends of mine to make it seem dirty when that simply isn't the case. But I guess it's like defending gay rights initiatives. The curious and simple-minded will always pose the question. These are the same people who read InTouch Weekly and watch reality television.
My friend, on the other hand, is distraught and is contemplating cleaning out his hard drive. I tried to explain to him that herpes is not that contagious, but, like I said, he's distraught.

Thanks for reading.

Correction: In my last blog, I mistakenly and ignorantly listed Jalal Talabani as the president of Iraq when I was in fact referring to Nouri al Maliki, the current prime minister. I was trying to be high-brow and made a boo-boo. I am humbled.

Tip of the day: Don't pick your nose while you're driving. You never know who might pull up next to you.

Shameless Plug:
Check out my Hurricane Katrina Second Anniversary Commemorative Single
"When The Well Runs Dry"
by Cool Cee Brown
(feat. Heron Gibran, prod. by Du)


Adios.