Black History

"I don't think it's fair that Stew always has me do posts about sex or something else stupid.  So I decided to go behind his back and post something that has some substance.  I can't have the world thinking I'm some kind of pervert, or that I'm an idiot."

But you are pervert, and an idiot.  What is wrong with telling the truth.

"And you wonder why I am always tormenting your ass.  Just shut up and let me handle this."

Go for it. Now I get to take a nap.

"If there is one thing that Stew & I wished we studied more of, it's black history.  We know all the basic stuff like George Washington Carver's peanut, and Rosa Parks, but there are little details that we don't know that we would like to know.  Every now and again we come across a piece of information and we think 'I didn't know that, but it feels like I should have'.  Lately we have been gathering information on black history so that one day we can sit down and read it.  Hopefully we will keep these plans."

Speak for yourself, I know my black history.

"I'm sure you do Stew.  But what we are happy about is that we were alive to witness MAYBE the most important event in black history, the election of a black president.  So this got us thinking.  The most important events in black history in recent years has been the civil rights movement and President Obama's election."

What about when I was born? I feel like that was a great moment in black history.

"You are insignificant."

"If you had to choose JUST ONE of those events to be alive for and participate in, which one would you pick?  Would you choose to be a part of all the protests and marches, or would you choose to attend Obama's speeches and eventual inauguration?  Would you rather be beaten and bruised by the attack dogs, police, and fire hoses, or would you rather have to deal with the "silent" racism that comes with having a black president?"

I do not think I can choose.  They are both very significant events that changed the history of the world.

"Neither can I, but I'm interested in seeing what everyone else thinks."

±DoUgLaSs±

Best Birthday in a While

Normally I am not one to get excited about birthdays.  In my eyes there really is not much to be excited about.  When I ask people what there is to be excited about, I always get the same answer:

'You should be excited to be alive for another year.'  I would be lying if I said that I am not happy to have made another year, but as you get older the fun starts to fade.

"You just like to suck the fun out of everything.  You have reached a new low. You can not even enjoy your birthday? What the hell is wrong with you?  If there is any day for you to be psyched it should be this day.  THIS IS THE DAY YOU WERE BORN DAMMIT!!!"

This is just the way I am.  I can not help it.

"You are a sad sad man."

This year is different from other birthdays in recent memory.

"So you are excited this year? What makes this year so special?"

MY BROTHER CAME TO VISIT ME!!!

I have not talked much about my brother, but he is everything you would ever want in an older brother.  He has looked out for me my entire life and we have always been best friends.  I do not think I could ask for a better role model.  

What makes this visit special for me is that normally when I go home it is for special occasions and he is always with his daughter so we do not have much time for just us to hang out.  While he is here we will have plenty of time to hang out alone.

Well...today's my birthday and I am not going to sit here and type on this computer as the day wastes away.  

Until next time.

~sTeW~

Night Owl...Isn't that a little redundant???

"What are you still doing up?  Don't you have to teach at 10 in the morning?"

I did just get finished grading papers, but you would not know that because all you ever do is sleep.  If you are not eating, drinking or watching TV then you are sleep.  You are probably the most worthless person I know.

"This may be true, but what would you do without me?  You would never have any fun.  You would stuck in you lame ass lifestyle.  I bring excitement to your life and you know it."

Go back to sleep.

A little known fact about me...I hate sleeping.

If I could live the rest of my life and never have to sleep again I would.  I think it started when I was younger because I would never dream.  If I remember correctly all I would ever see was black, or just an assortment of colors.  As I got older I started to dream more, and I started remembering my dreams.  This is where the problems start.

I have an overactive imagination, and the best place for all of wildest fantasies to play out is in my dreams.  For example, the one thing I REALLY want to be is a superhero.  We all know that "superpowers" do not exist, but I still would love to have one...or some.  So I had a dream that I could shoot lightning from my fingertips.  I was very excited by this.  It was not until the next day that I realized that I DID NOT have superpowers and it was all just a dream.  Which brings us to my next issue with dreaming, they ALWAYS feel so real.

I do not know what it is like for other people's dreams, but if I had to guess, I would guess that my dreams feel more real than anyone else's.  I feel like I am actually thinking and making decisions in my dreams.

(Does that happen to any of you?)

Sometimes I actually wake up tired from all of the excitement of my dreams.  If I am going to wake up as tired as I was when I went to sleep, then what is the point of sleeping.

To be honest there is no real benefit to being up all night.  The one thing that I HATE the most about being up late, is that there is NEVER anyone up at the same time as me.  Here it is 4 in the morning, and I am betting that most of you are nestled tightly in your beds hugging on your significant other, or if you are single, a body pillow with the cologne/perfume of your latest escapade dancing across your nose. Those of you who are up are penetrating/getting penetrated by your significant other, or if you are single, FACE DEEP in a brand new escapade.

"Whoa whoa, hold your horses there cowboy.  Aren't you starting to go a little off subject here?  I thought you were talking about being up late, not writing a romance novel.  Get focused."

Excuse me....

Well look, all I am saying is that it sucks being up late with nothing to hold my interest.  With that being said, if you are ever up late either because you can not sleep, or you just got finished GETTING IT IN, find me.

Maybe you will tell me "how it was."

~sTeW~

Rapper Turnt Actor Turnt Crazy Person Turnt Rapping Actor

Cradle 2 the Grave...Exit Wounds...Romeo Must Die...Never Die Alone

What do these three movies have in common?

"If we don't guess will you promise not tell us?"

DMX play a big role in all of them.

"Why is that important?"

In my personal opinion, DMX is not a bad actor.  He might be one of the better acting rappers out there.  The only rappers turned actors that are better that I can think of are Common, Mos Def, and Andre 3000.  Common and Mos Def were already on a different level because "conscience rap" genre gives them a different mindset, and Andre 3000 is just a born performer. But as far as "gansta" rappers go, he is by far the best.

"That's like saying 2 is more than 1, yeah it's the truth, but does it really mean anything?"

It means a lot.  Many rappers have tried to make that transition and have not done the greatest job.  50 was ok in Get Rich or Die Trying, but did not do all that well in Righteous Kill.  Normally I like everything that Ludacris does, but his performance in Max Payne was not up to his usual standards.  LL Cool J has been in many movies, but he never really convinces me that he is the person he is supposed to be playing, I feel like he is just playing the person (though he did a really good job on the episode of House he was on).  These are just a few of the rappers that have dipped into acting, and I think DMX is better than all of them. 

On Friday night I saw Never Die Alone for the first time, and I was amazed by how good the movie was.  It solidified the fact that DMX is a really good actor and he could have had a really good career if he had not COMPLETELY nuts.

"DMX is my kinda guy.  He does what he wants when he wants regardless of what type of trouble he will get in.  How many people you know can be drunk and on drugs at an airport and still have the presence of mind to impersonate a police officer.  When I am drunk I have a hard time completing a sentence, much less trying to impersonate someone.  Even through all of his legal trouble he has still been making movie.  He will be in the Belly sequel, and he has a couple of albums coming out pretty soon.  The most interesting thing about his musical endeavors is that he will be dropping a gospel album.  This should not surprise many people since he takes time out on all of his albums to pray.  He is just a dynamic guy... troubled but dynamic."

I think I will always like DMX because It's Dark and Hell is Hot is the first rap album that I ever really paid attention to.  Before then I did not really listen to music outside of my parent's car, and all they listened to was music from the 60's 70's and 80's.  When I rode with my mom she would turn to the hip-hop station, but all she wanted to hear were R&B songs, so I was not really exposed to rap.  Only bad thing about the version of DMX that I heard is that it was edited and I had no idea.  I was going around thinking that that was the way the songs were supposed to sound.

"So you were pretty stupid even before I started coming around huh?"

If you have not seen Never Die Alone, go rent it, download it, or stream it.  Just watch it and tell me what you think.

~sTeW~

Everything Serves a Purpose

If God were to ask me:

 'Stew, if you could ask me to get rid of anything in this world what would it be?'

Without hesitation my answer would be, GNATS!!!!

"So you could not have given a more humane answer?  Like AIDS, war, or world hunger?  How about clean water for eternity?  Hell, asking him to get rid of whatever it is that make women insane would have been a better answer than gnats."

Yet again you jump in before I get to the main point.

"Please continue."

But, there is a chance that if we get rid of gnats then the world's ecosystem would be destroyed.  The fact that gnats are still living and have not gone extinct means that they serve some kind of purpose. They are a very low part of the food chain, but a part of it nonetheless.  More times than not if you mess with the food chain, humans suffer.  We can be affected directly or indirectly.

"This is not 6th grade biology, we all know about the damn food chain.  I am hoping you did not pull me out of bed to talk about the DAMN FOOD CHAIN!?!"

Lately I have been watching a lot of Fox News.  Whenever I tell someone that, the response is always the same.

'How do you watch that?'

or

'I hate Fox News.'

I do not necessarily like to watch it, but I feel like I NEED to watch it.  To me, Fox News serves a higher purpose than delivering the news for a Republican point of view.  To me, Fox News keeps me informed about how our melanin-free counterparts actually think.  The good thing about Fox News and their personalities is that they are able to say exactly what they are thinking and they do not have to worry about how it will affect their jobs or the people around them.  Of course they can say EXACTLY what they want, but they get their point across without saying the things they REALLY want to say.  You do not have to say NIGGER to call someone a NIGGER.  They do a great job reminding us that we are not that far removed from inequality, and injustice, and if we do not be careful things could go right back to the way they were.  Though all of our melanin-free counterparts do not have the same political views as those from Fox News, I think enough of them have the same social views.

Fox News should not be watched for the actual content or journalistic integrity.  They should be watched to educate yourself on how the other side of the fence REALLY feels.

Thank you Fox News for continuing to give me the inside scoop.  Please do not change how you operate, because if you do then I will have to start believing that we are in a post-racial America.

~sTeW~

Let's Recap

WOW!

Has it been a whole month since I have posted?

"That's what it's looking like."

That is really not a good look for me.  I would assume that most of my readers think that I am dead or something.

"Wouldn't that be nice."

You do understand that if I die then you cease to exist also?

"Small price to pay."

As you can see Douglass is still the asshole that he has always been, so that is one thing that has not changed.

But some things have change, and some additions have been made.  Let's go over them:

-I have decided to let my facial hair grow out.  This is pretty exciting for me because I am

 trying to see if I can fight the urge to cut it off.

-My windshield is now officially cracked.  It had a tiny crack in it for about a year and a half

 but now that tiny little crack has spread over 3/4 of the windshield.  Needless to say, I am 

 pissed, but I knew the day would come.  Damn PA winters.

-Mixtape is still coming soon.  I just need more beats.  Maybe I will drop another single 

 soon.

-I have been going to these two websites too much lately sporcle.com & mentalfloss.com.

 Both of these websites are for people who have and extensive amount of knowledge about 

 lots of stuff and want to test how much they know.  Also, if you want to learn a bunch of 

 needless stuff you can go there too.

-Looks like I am on track to get out of here in December.  Only bad thing about that is that 

 now is not the best time to be looking for a job.  The only comfort that I have is that my 

 area is highly specialized and there is a shortage of people who do what I do.

-Sadly I am WAY too invested in reality TV right now.  I Love Money, For the Love of Ray

 J, Making the Band...ect. I am very disappointed in myself right now.

-Tomorrow is my one year anniversary.  I have officially been blogging for one year.  

 Normally this would be something to celebrate, but in a year's time I have not been able to

 find 100 topics to blog about.  I need to stop taking so much time off.

-I really enjoy reading other people's blogs, but some of the people that normally read

 have disappeared (just like I did).  So I need some suggestion of some good blogs to go to.

 Someone please help me.

I think that does it.

"You are a really boring person.  You need to let me do my thing again."

From here on out...NO MORE LONG TIMES AWAY FROM BLOGGING.

We promise.

~sTeW~