Racism

"I was raised a poor black child" - S. Martin, The Jerk

In may ways I felt like this growing up. Although my neighborhood was pretty much white, my mother worked in inner city Detroit, and I was definitely in a minority for most of my early life. I learned how to walk, and to talk and to keep small so as not to get pegged by the brothers, the cops, or the crazies.

I've been shot, stabbed, and beaten bloody for simply being white on several occasions. [for those that know me, I've also had all that done for being a smart-ass, but these were separate occasions] I was pummeled by a dozen black men for making advances on a black woman and had a brick thrown at me for listening to Rap. In short, I feel that I know a little bit about racism.

As a white male, I belong to the only ethnic/sexual group of people who are still legally oppressed. We are not allowed to receive any scholastic assistance strictly based on our sex and color, all others, including white women, can. My parents both retired before I got into high school, so despite a 3.8 advanced placement record and a 150+ IQ, I had to use the army to raise funds for college. It took me 10 years.

But I digress. The crucial things are that my family never owned slaves, we did run the northern end of the underground railroad. We fought with the natives in the French-Indian war. When called to the crusades, we were strangely absent. We fought for sufferage, for black rights, women's rights, children's rights, the right to bear arms and the guillotine.

But because of the color of my skin, and the location of my birth, I got to suffer the reverse racism that some redneck who's still hunting witches deserves. And Now that I'm older, I have to suffer with a smile as black people do racist things, shut up and let them or be called a troll and a racist. WTF?

When my Columbian roommate started showing his racism, I called him on it. He shut up. I may not have made him less racist, but he's at least less verbal about it. But if I call a black man on it, I'm a troll.

For the record, racism is the belief that members of a certain race or races posess some innate characteristic or ability specific to that race, especially so as to define it as inferior or superior. Note the word "especially". That means it CAN read without that last part.

If someone want's to put together a polo legue, they can. Chances are, mostly white people will join, since it runs strongest in that cultural circle. From my perspective, that would read as "rich or pretentious" white people since no one in my "lowlife" circles ever played polo (on horses). If you say that only white people can join, you're being separatist, racist, bigoted, etc. However, if you say that it's a black polo league, it's okay... How is this NOT RACIST???

Under the Radar

Here's a mentality that I love to hate: Just stay under the radar and "the Man" won't come and get ya. Right. Here's a clear tale of what I mean:

IN ADDITION TO any other laws pertaining to liquid or gas devices:
-The DOJ in California moved its enforcement of "flamethrowers" to the state fire marshall
- It did so by pushing a bill through senate. The SFM didn't like the original and a second bill was offered and pushed through instead.
-Such enforcement means a Background check, $200-300 fees annualy; or $10,000 fine and 3 years jail time.
-The spirit of the second bill is the same, but the wording allows the fire marshal to select what is and what is NOT covered by the bill.
-The first thing he CHOSE to eliminate was propane devices since propane is a gas at room temp.
-He asked me to write up any reason I could see why firebreathers should NOT be covered under this bill.
-[He also asked the forestry department to see if their weed burners could be exempt, but they haven't figured that one out, yet]
-He's also asking for our help to REDUCE the number of devices covered under the bill by bringing forward anything that sits between a Bonefire and a military flamethrower, in the grey area of the bill.
- Many people believe that if we show him the stuff we make, they will try to make NEW LAWS about those devices to restrict or eliminate their use. These people are the "stay under the radar" contingent.
- Their logic is faulty because any device that shoots flame more than 10 feet is ALREADY COVERED by it. Bringing them forward will cost them nothing, and could mean that they don't have to get this ADDITIONAL permit to use them from the DOJ.
- So, the "stay under the radar" mentality, in at least this case, is actually causing MORE legal action against the fire community rather than less.


It is my opinion that such mindsets have caused a great deal more trouble in the past, just nothing so crystal clear in the cause-effect chain.

A belt accross the face

Finally, since the first time I was forced to wear seat belts as a child, and the mis-aligned shoulder belt cut into my face ... I have found research to back up what I've always suspected.

Check this out:
www.barvennon.com/seatbelt.html

Basically, the stuff it covers are things like:
- Yes, Seat belts may prevent injury of intert dummies in front impact collisions, the research on them does not take into account other collision types or an actively resisting occupant.
- Any legitimate research (re Volvo) done was performed in the 60's on an entirely different kind of vehicle (since about 1980, all passenger vehicles no longer have frames and roll-bars, but uni-bodies).
- Recent research has been performed mostly by governemt agencies that get funding dependant on results.
- Field results of seat belt effectivness often eliminates unfavorable statistics (like pedestrian losses)
- Often drivers are inquired about seatbelt use with punative incentives.

Basically, we're not particularly sure that seatbelts save lives, and based on Hawaii, we might assume that they are costing lives. Why are they ramping up enforcement?

Two Ghetto Birds in the hand...

So, living in Hollywood has it's problems. We get a lot more media attention than Culver City. And it seems like a nightly ritual to have a thousand choppers hovering over my house. Now, as a performer I don't mind the extra attention, but I need the occasional night off.

Tonight, I found myself unable to talk on the phone because of the choppers outside my door. I got so frustrated that I looked for any way to inconvenieince them: bottle rockets, flare guns, searchlights, lasers...

,,,lasers? Hey, I'm a raver, I bet I can dig up one of those...
Sure enough, I found an old laser and started flashing the choppers with it. One by one, they left, about 5 seconds after I started up on them. I think I'm making a red flash in the cameras which is undesireable.

So, there you go, tip of the day. Get rid of pesky news choppers with a regular red laser. (Heck try one of those big nasty green ones too).

DomiNation Gym

Just so that you know all my pre-caffeine rants aren't some incensed whiney tyrade about a global injustice, I present you with a vision that's been keeping me up at nights lately...Domination Gym.

This would be a Gym that concentrates more on geting in shape than in bulking up. And despite the gimicky looking description would be anti-trend. The theory behind it is: you have to move, you have to eat good food, and you will always look at what's painful but do what's pleasurable.

Overall look...dark. A little dungeion-y. There's a reason for this. We tend to remember the things that are well lit, so only the most pleasant areas would be fully lit. Any place where you might stress (like being whipped in the free weights room) would be darker. As you look back at your time spent, statistically the happier memories would be the ones you remember, and would thus tend to want to return.

We would have 4 types of trainers: passive, dom, stalker and fucko. The passive is just a cheerleader, really, meant to inspire you by telling you how good you're starting to look or how pumping iron turns them on. The dom is there to whip you into shape, literally. You have to sign speacial releases for the other two. The stalker, follows you around and makes sure your not cheating on your diet and such, if you look like you might, you get a creepy call from them. Also, they disturb you a lot if you miss appointments to the gym (or payments). The fucko takes a much more active roll in your life and will slap the Big Mac out of your hands and drag you out of social engagements (or work if you request) to make gym dates.

We'd have a lot of aerobically oriented movement classes like poi spinng, dancing, etc, but they'd have a rewards/punishment twist. Jogging would be done in groups, following a passive, and being followed by a dom. Perhaps poi spinning classes where lit poi are a prestige ranking (like martial arts belts) with the highest prestige looking the most dangerous (big, lit plastic spikes). Dance halls where 30 minutes of dance is mandatory.

The snack areas would be full service, it would have a wet bar, mini MacDonalds, and health food service. You would receive a metal ID bracelet that has your diet encoded on it. To order, you place your bracelet on a special reader and tell the cashier what you want. If you order something off your diet, the bracelet delivers little shocks, which stop when the cashier clears the offending item or the transaction is complete. Aversion therapy.

I'm thinking this place would only really appeal to the people who could afford it, but it might be scaled back a bit for the public. Though, I think it would be interesting to see a Bally's commercial with a little leather in it.

In the city...

I had a friend from Sf refer to his place of residence as "The City."

What is this crap? Seriously, what kind of arrogant crap reduces the world to YOUR hometown, The city, and everything else to .... welll. I guess, everything else? This is the same kind of sophist nonsense that has people calling the Atlantic Ocean "the Pond." Lemme tell ya, NOBODY who's actually crossed the ocean (rather than fly over greenland) calls it the pond. You want the right to call it the pond, swim it!

So, SF want's to be called "The City," despite being the second largest city in California, hmmm? And of course, New York wants to be called "The City" as a short form of "The city that never sleeps" (no wonder they're all cranky). When in actuality, the only city that doesn't sleep is Las Vegas...

Lemme tell ya something... if you want other countries to stop hating us and flinging planes at our buildings, you gots ta have a global view. And we can start here. "The City" is, and has been for some time, Hong Kong. Not only is it the largest city in the world (roughly the size of NY and LA combined), but it's been focal point for International trade, smuggling, culture for most of the world.

Every other city in the world is a secondary point. So, if you want to name your town, you got to get on the same wavelength as ... say Detroit: "Mo-Town" ... or Chicago: "the Loop". Now, I'm not saying that I'm all that good at making up names, but here's a few suggestions for today's losers ... LA can stay...LA, but if we need a "the" in our title, it can be "the Reel", and SF can be "the Gold", NY could be "the Apple", "the Grouch", or based on 911, "The Target". Annd if anycity doesn't like it they can be "The Whine"

Bad drivers1

Driving pet peave of the day: I hate to see the following:
-> Use the right-turn lane to cut in front of other slow-lane drivers.
-> or generally use any lane they know will be closing soon just to get ahead by a few cars.
-> Allow the above people in, thereby promoting such behaviours.
-> Leave more than enough room for people to merge in front of them during slow traffic scenarios.

All of these driving habits only serve to build stress. The people who are doing the skimming are taking risks, the people letting them in feel obliged to to so (they aren't) and the people behind the "good sams" are eating their steering wheel.

So, we can't stop human nature, some people will try to get ahead, but we CAN stop enabling these cretins. When you're in the slow lane, a car or three from the front and you see some idiot in the right turn lane waiting to jump in to your lane...DON'T LET THEM! Gun your little POS right up to the rear bumper of the legitimate car in front of you and don't let them in. If they sit stupidly in front of a gas station a few times, they'll get the message.

Same thing for highway lane closings: regular or emergency. Figure that if you can see the signs that a lane is closing, so can everyone else. anyone that doesn't turn on a turn signal to merge at that moment deserves to sit on the highway and wait for some other doormat to let them in. The worst is omethinng like the 405N to the 101 intersection....they have that lane "going to" ventura blvd which most people use to sneak ahead of the responsible drivers and cut in to the 101 lanes at the last minute. Shoot these idiots, hit them with your car, and don't let them in. Take back your streets!