Tryna make ends meet, tryna find some money…

So, because I clearly have more of an interest in writing about Benito Mussolini and/or Spanish perception of the body in the New World, your friendly, neighborhood demigod will probably not get to update for a few days. Fear not, upon my return I’m sure I’ll have hi-jinks and other things in store to make you moist. Also for anyone who still wants to comment on the Duke Lacrosse post, know that the one on this very journal is version 1.0 and the remix with Busta Rhymes is in the archives of the Yale Daily News under The Scene link. I think the date is around April 14th or so. Peace to the playoff beard.

Penultimate Thought: Exotic Erotic was completely inappropriate on Monday. I loved it.

Final Thought: Sometimes, I miss Lupo’s.

I wanna get lost in your rock n roll…

So, this weekend, the girl that probably began my penchant for light-skinned girls in the modern era (the pioneer was Natasha Gray, circa 1990) came up from Philly to see me and the school Elihu bankrolled when he wasn’t busy slaving. The whole experience was cool, but kind of surreal. First of all, I hadn’t seen homegirl since high school. Second of all, and I only came to realize this mid-reunion, visiting someone at their school often flirts in the realms of wackness.

Now, was it wack for my friend to come? Of course not. Any time a light-skinned girl makes time in her schedule to visit you, you should be grateful. Heck, had she been a rich white girl, I’da been halfway to the altar by now, tickled pink (though considering my complexion, it might be more accurate to say I’d be tickled blue. Whatever. I’d be rich for no good reason). No, the reason visiting other people’s school is kinda wack is simple: unless there is a sporting or social event that matters going on, being on someone else’s campus is sort of boring. With regard to my academic institution, there’s only so many times you can show someone the second largest gym in the world or the government housing known as Stiles and Morse before people start looking at you as if you just told them you can’t get it up on most intimate occasions (and I should know).

Before I go any further, let me qualify what “school” means. If your school should be/would be/has or will be on any lists devoted to ranking college shenanigans quotients or videos where white girls make regrettable public decisions, you do not count. This is aimed at the schools that waste their time on crap like academics and airs of social responsibility. The schools I’m talking about generally have terrible weather, guys that tried unsuccessfully to reinvent themselves after high school and girls that willingly display unmanicured toes as they traverse the streets in sandals. Their social scenes are as good as people of this ilk can muster; it’s to easy to just call it wack out of context because, relative to the individuals making up the social arena, it is just about normal.

True story: My freshman year, I called The Last Real Niggas Alive at the end of the night (which is 2am in these parts) to say hi and see how they were doing {no I wasn’t drunk, my parents are shady actor types ergo they answer the phone at all hours of the night}. At any rate, as I got to chatting, I was asked why I was in at 2am. As I replied that this was the time the night ended in these parts, I could hear the faintest sound of eyebrows wrinkling in disgust and a reply that was somewhere in the ballpark of “you nerds are lames as shit for coming in at an hour we used to go out at.” I’ve long since resigned myself to the belief that, because I subject myself to such a system, I’m part and parcel to the problem. I believe the Greeks called it “lameness”, but I digress.

I found myself feeling bad all weekend. Granted, my friend’s school isn’t exactly Carnivale, but I still didn’t want to feel like my comrade’s hard-earned ducats were being wasted. Thankfully, the weather cooperated. And by cooperated I mean it stayed loyal to its routine of being nice during the week and completely shitting the bed en el fin de semana (word to my Chilean duns). Much of Saturday was spent quickly walking by buildings I pointed at while The Kahuna tried to wash the iniquities of the world away. You would think after four years I would have a raincoat or at least an umbrella, but the coat I always forget and as for the umbrella…let’s just say they’re for vaginas. Dry vaginas at that. And you know who likes dry vaginas? No one (though there are some cultures that prefer the harbor dry, they are backwards people who were rightly Christianized). Luckily, Yella and I got to stop at Urban Outfitters, Thom Brown and Foot Locker, which are, from what I understand, establishments unique to our fair city. Upon returning to my hovel, we changed clothes and departed to the theatre where I attempted thespianism for the third time in three days. Fast forward about four hours and we found ourselves ourselves in the amphibious den of ill-repute, a realm so incomprehensible that I’ll not review its dimensions at this time (though, if you care, I gave some words to it in about October).

Being a host is hardish work. It’s kinda like giving birth, minus the excruciating pain caused by small carry-on luggage being pushed through a computer disk drive (word to XY chromosomes). When a friend visits, you’re briefly inserting them into the social pool with little to no foreplay, hoping both friend and pool are satisfied upon extraction. To my knowledge, I don’t know of anyone’s friend coming and being a complete ass, but I do remember wanting to cudgel my friend’s boyfriend (who is short by the by) when he looked at me as if he could look me in my eyes. Boyfriends and girlfriend’s aside, there is pressure in presenting friends to circles they don’t frequent. Your friends are a reflection of you and if they’re wack, you need only do simple mathematics. To Yella’s credit, she is a rather wholesome gal who is only slightly embarrassing to herself and since I am not herself, that’s good with me.

The real struggle, besides the rain, was the inter-friends introductions which I’m terrible at by virtue of the fact that I am the single-most atrocious introducers in the Lower 48. I guess I just have this thing about introductions. I mean, if I’m talking to someone that you don’t know, why do you need to be introduced? Let’s be honest, after you’re introduced, you’ll probably go right back to bringing absolutely nothing to the conversation, so why break the flow just so someone can acknowledge your presence? Are you worried that at some crucible moment, this person you don’t know will refrain from samaritan efforts because you two haven’t been introduced? If anything, they’d probably help because you both know a mutual demigod (this guy). To clarify: I’m not talking about non-introductions over an extended period of time, I’m talking about the on the street quick hitters that keep the institution of acquaintanceship a viable entity in the post-9/11 world. I mean, when someone answers their phone in front of you, you don’t get your knickers in a knot because the two people conversing don’t acknowledge your existence (though I must admit, I find phone-conversing in someone else’s presence fairly rude and it’s something I refrain from doing. Why it doesn’t cross over to live three ways is beyond me). Still, the danger of lameness and hardship known as introductions was trammeled by an overwhelming sense of flattery. Someone who has better things to do than visit me in New Haven, Connecticut did so anyway. Though this year has time and time again taught me there is still no love in the heart of the city, there might just be some in the heart of towns in Pennsylvania. Peace to Sewickley Academy.

Penultimate Thought: Apparently, ABC wants me to have a heart attack due to airing reruns of Grey’s Anatomy.

Ultimate Thought: College for many is the pursuit of finance rather than knowledge.

I fear the battle’s just begun…

So, although I am a pithy bon mot slinger whose collegiate perspective gives completely interesting insight into the trivialities of daily life, I figured I’d show you some clever word arrangements and pawn it off as poetry. If you like it, feel free to be a patron of the arts, particulary my art so I can have running water after I unceremoniously finish school. Heads of State are preferred, but regular rich works fine too, especially if you are female and of the caucasoid persuasion. If you don’t like it, you can take comfort in the fact that your uninteresting life will probably garner you more financial stability than literary ragamuffinry. Enjoy.

Shady wait a minute that’s my girl dog…

So, while taking a break from some light writing (I figure if you can do “light reading”, you can do light writing) on those kooky Black feminists and their struggles against white ideas of feminism and the male-dominated social structure that uses capital and resources as phallic demonstrations of potence, I stumbled across an email regarding pre-frosh visitation, or Bulldog Days as the thugs call it. In said electronic mail, it states, and I quote:…”Yale’s alcohol policy is different this year; campus will be alcohol free during Bulldogs days, particuarly on old campus, in host suites, and in public spaces in the colleges and other places where prefrosh may gather or visit.” Word? I believe it was Gracchus who, while on the floor of the Senate arguing against the prohibition of prostitution, demurely adjusted his toga and said, “you gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me.”

Memo to Yale: Trust fund and affirmative action babies alike have been irresponsible with liquor for, roughly, ever. It was just yesterday that me and some pals of mine and shook our heads in amused shame and noted that, in the real world, people buy handles to last them for months. In the collegiate ranks, handles are bought for pre-game purposes. Granted, you could make the argument that, in the college environment, more people are drinking from a handle than in your common household. A truism indeed, but I would like those same people to explain how a handle disappears between five girls weighing a combine 611 pounds in the course of watching three episodes from the season 4 ‘Sex and The City’ DVD. I’m not saying college kids have a drinking problem, but I am saying I never had to fireman’s carry my old man to DUH.

Now, am I Tommy Temperance? No. Though my general laziness/ lack of interest has transitioned me from what surveys would call a “social drinker” to an “infrequent social drinker,” I have been known to go three sheets to it when the wind is right. Moreover, I have been the purveyor of spirits whose intent has been to make partygoers feel comfortable enough to have lapses in judgment in the friendly confines of a house party (Note that “friendly confines” means among guys AND gals you know. Also note that “lapses in judgement” involve keeping your pants on). If said activities should occur in front of a digital camera, even better (Sidebar 1: the digital camera is going to be the downfall of American politics/public reputation as we know it. Don’t believe me? Think about the number of regrettable Facebook pictures you’re probably tagged in). For me to say college drinking culture is irresponsible while, at the very least, tacitly accepting it is smug. More than being smug it is a revelation to pretty much no one.

Kids come to college and you hope that they have the presence of mind to not do something stupid enough to find themselves on a slab somewhere. Sure, you can impose rules and fines and penalties, but at the beginning and end of the day, Chris, Jamal, Katey and Ahmed are going to do whatever they want to do. An unfortunate reality is the things they “want” to do are often stupid. Even worse, they’re friends often don’t tell them these things are stupid because they are, concurrently, attempting to outdo their stupidity. And since being stupid in environments where alcohol is present is cool in college, there is pretty much no voice of reason. In fact, the only voice of reason is the one inside the afflicted’s head that says, “I’m never gonna do this again,” hoping the projectile vomit will all land in the garbage can rather than your pile of clothes next to it. Sad, but it’s one of the only forms of discipline that sticks; some people learn their lesson while others become campus cautionary tales. To their credit, Yale seems to understand this (that and their desire to not have doctors and senators and lawyers calling and spazzing out on them because their kid got busted by Ex Comm). Recently, they’ve started tweaking the system, hoping to refine it. Let me be the 54th person to say that it’s just not going to work.

Yale students are some of the most privileged and gifted in the only country that matters. Having said that, doesn’t the university know that such circumstances bring about righteous (read: petty) feelings of entitlement and creative indignation? Entitlement because we think we’re too smart to be told what to do and creatively indignant because we know we’re smart enough to find or create loopholes to get what we want. No drinking on a college campus because some would-be prom attendees are around? Go have sex with yourself. I’m not defending the boozehounds here; they’ll find a way to persevere. I’m more concerned with policy change, which is so disingenuous that I guffawed when I saw it. However the administration feels about alcohol, it’s a reality of the campus. People drink. Some do it responsibly and some leave a little something for the squirrels on campus. Both are realities that the school tacitly (who uses that twice in one sitting?) agrees to by virtue of the policies in place. I’m not saying the university can’t change, but the only person that can reverse field that quickly is about to me a multi-millionaire on a terrible team.

Can the university control the situation and be a little more strict for a few days? Sure. They can have people register parties or show ‘The Miracle of Life’ as a warning as to what can happen if you’re not careful with the cough medicine. I don’t know. I do know that several of these little punks are going to be confused and probably unimpressed with this display. No booze in sight in April on a college campus? That looks odd. Think: They’re 16/17/18 and they got into Yale. They feel like hot shit. We say we want them to be hot shit in the Yale toilet and what do we do? We completely misrepresent ourselves. I know the university digs that whole ‘nerdy candyass’ image and I know they’re trying to make the nerdery seem even more candyassed, but trust me when I say we’re good on that front. It ain’t exactly Madison here, but come on. These kids will have a whole four years to figure out it rains here more than it does in Seattle. Why ruin the surprise? I personally don’t care if these summumabastards go here or go bridge-jumping in Ithaca. I do however, dislike associating myself with wackness more than I need to. Peace to lux ET veritas.

Penultimate Thought: For whatever reason, some people think shooting someone is akin to punching them very hard. It’s not.

Final Thought: Warm weather means one thing: The Public Ignorance Quotient will be on the rise until September.

They remind me, renew me, give me courage…

So, while the Christians were gearing up to celebrate the resurrection of the Easter bunny, the Last Real Niggas Alive thought it would be a good idea to collect some of the ‘Piano Lesson’ ruffians and bring them back to the Ocean State to see a show the XY faction of the Lasties wrote. Not only did these little ragamuffins get to see a show, but their theatre troupe also got a plaque of recognition and a free dinner. It kinda looked like a scene where liberal whites try to get over their guilt by helping the underprivileged, only with academically entitled black kids and the gangstas that preceded them.

Anyway, it’s moments like these that really makes me appreciate the ball sac and womb I came from. Well, it’s more accurate to say I appreciate the people attached to said ball sac and womb, but you get my meaning. Though the Lasties are certifiable about 111.17% of the time, their collective gullery is enough to keep them in the Trillville Hall of Fame and make Beanie Siegel look like a little bitch (PLEASE don’t tell Beans I said that. Please). As we were riding back to the school Elihu bankrolled when he wasn’t engaging in the slave trade, I couldn’t help but feel love for the people that have bankrolled my entire life. In that moment, I was moved to get them a gift, just a little token that says, “I don’t think you guys are pricks.” I was raring to go until a thought stopped me dead in my tracks: Buying gifts for parents is slightly more difficult than licking your own elbow.

I can’t even believe that the thought crossed my mind. Buy my parents a gift? You would think after about eleven seasons of having to try to buy gifts the thought would have been burned from my memory, but no. How do you buy gifts for people that don’t seem to like anything in particular? Actually, let me rephrase. How do you buy gifts for people that collectively like thirteen things? There are only so many Grey Goose gift packs and music boxes you can purchase before you look like an inconsiderate d bag. But it’s not your fault. You have known your parents just about your whole life and that list has stayed just about the same.

It’s funny; you go into the mall and act as if you’re going to be something of a Che Guevara, breaking the bonds of tradition and beginning a new era in gift-giving. A few hours later, you look a bit like France circa 1940 after Germany put its shnitzel all in that croissant. Just defeated (Sidebar 1: Although it’s hilarious to make fun of the French because they are themselves, let us not forget that they weren’t always ninnies, and were, at one time, the most formidable army on planet Earth. Until of course they messed with that ugly guy who doesn’t give a fuck about preserving his face when you fight him, thus making you increasingly alarmed, also known as Russia). So what do you do? You go to Things Remembered and you go pick up that Grey Goose gift pack.

What’s funny is I don’t think parents care that much. I think they’re just aged enough to know that they just enjoy your company and are probably amused at the stress you’re going through. Since that first macaroni necklace or self-portrait on a paper plate, they’ve learned to love just about any gift your mind poops out (Sidebar 2: For Open House in 1st grade, we did those paper plates and it was quite amusing to watch the white parents try and discern which plate was their kid. Let’s just say it was easy pickins for ma and pop duke). You can’t really make up for the whole gift of life thing, but you you consistently hope that bottle of Brut (by Faberge) will do the trick.

Cheap cologne as a token of appreciation for DNA? Sounds good. What’s worse is you get no breaks from either end. If you don’t get a good gift for your mom, you’re little more than demon seed. If you don’t get a good gift for dad you get those pangs of disappointment because dads never ask for anything. Let’s be real: Father’s Day doesn’t hold a candle to Mother’s Day on the list of Days I Could Or Could Not Disappoint My Folks. In fact, your dad is more likely to get mad at you for not stepping up on Mother’s Day. No breaks. But here’s the thing: there is no such thing as a good gift because if it’s not one of the thirteen things they like, it doesn’t count. Think about that nifty little trinket you got at Brookstone that is gathering dust in your mom’s closet. If it ain’t one of the thirteen, don’t bother.

Then the moment of (half) truth: Gift exchange. Gift-giving is borderline awkward because they know what it is, you know they know what it is and they know that they have to react as if said gift wasn’t a foregone conclusion. The moment before they open it is kinda like the chit chat that happens before you take your pants off. Both parties know that the pipes is gonna be laid, but protocol dictates you act as if it might not. It’s just like that with gift-giving, except less wet spot and more bathrobes. Of course you might put on a bathrobe after you make a wet spot, but that shouldn’t really apply to anyone reading this because only woman having affairs with handymen can put on a bathrobe (a silk one at that) after a pipe session.

At any rate, it’s getting to the point that I might just start giving my parents money and say “thanks for the electricity and tuition.” Maybe I’ll even start them a little bank account fund like grandmas do when they get you that 1000 dollar bond that won’t mature until you’re 33 years old. Since I have no money and not enough influece to kill off one of their enemies without going to prison, I’ll have to settle for those little moments in the kitchen when my mom asks me, “What’s that name you call us? The Last Real Niggas Alive?” and then beams at the six and a half foot clown she made. Peace to Drakkar Noir.

Penultimate Thought: Crazy mufuckas come out at 3am. Always.

Final Thought: Spring in prep school was the jump-off. I said it.