Holiday Matters

As we all know, the holiday season is fast approaching. Allow me a little bit of time (really, this one will be short) to talk about two fairly recent holiday traditions that I’m not too enthused about.

Before The Rings, Here Are Some Things

Now, as y’all know; I have no plans for marriage. I’ve talked about the reasons before, so no need to re-hash (at least not right now). That said, a FB post helped me come up with this topic. There are certain things that people don’t discuss before deciding to tie the knot. Here are a few of those.

DM Etiquette

DM behavior seems to be all the rage on Twitter right now. I mentioned yesterday that I don’t partake in the exercise. Since I can’t fit the reasons in 140 characters, here we go.

A Look At Some Election Data

So, like the political nerd/junkie I am, I decided to look at this NY Times election data. If you have time, I suggest you do so too. Anyway, here are some of the more interesting findings:

The county in Florida with the highest % of voters casting a ballot for President Obama was…

Finding My Politics = Losing My Appetite

As you all know by now, I’m not a fan of big business for many reasons. Going to talk about two in particular right now. You already know which two, so let’s get to it.

My issue with the public stances taken by Papa John’s and Applebee’s isn’t their stance toward the ACA. Shoot, anyone in the country can be stupid. Half the country is plain idiotic in their political thinking. That is only a crime against intelligence (transgressions of such nature, I feel should be prosecuted…but that’s another matter). My real issue is the ‘public’ part…and I just read that Darden is on that list too.

Is it me, or are these just places I don’t really care for anyway?

The Greatest Homecoming Week Ever

(Ed. Note: I’ve noticed that I have a lot more ideas than I do actual entries...for instance, I thought up four and there’s no way I’m going to go once a week and get them all out in a timely manner. Because of that, I’ll say this: there will be at least one entry every week. If there are more, there just are. Thanks.)

So, last week might have been one of the best weeks ever. Matter of fact, I think the only real competition is my birthday week from last year – which I think I already wrote about. There were two things that made last week one to remember: everyone knows about one of them, and we all like it unless we’re Republicans.

This, of course, will be about the other thing.

FAMU’s homecoming was last week, and I decided Tuesday that I would live it up for the entire week since I fully expect to be a resident of another locale by the time next year’s festivities come around. I could do a chronological rundown, but that would be boring. Instead, I’m going to rank the days from “worst” to best.

My Post-Election Rant

Alright, this is going to be a bit more…what’s the word I’m looking for here…”ornery” than most of my offerings.

Basically, I’m just offering up general thoughts on the elections and on politics in general. 

A Great Dating Article (And My Silly Comments)

Mandy Stadtmiller is a really great writer. She’s also not a bad-looking woman. Anyway, I found out who she was through the wonderful world of Twitter maybe a year ago; and recently saw that the article I’m about to comment on getting retweeted quite a lot. If you’re a woman, you could do a lot worse things than put her in your reading rotation. I only directed that toward the ladies because she mostly writes for the ladies. This one here was an exception.

By the way, please read her whole piece here. It is far more entertaining than this will be (the link at the end of her commentary on #3 alone is worth it). I’m just listing the points (unless it’s necessary to include more, like with #2) and then saying what I think in italics.

A Perspective on Tyler Perry

Tyler Perry is a hero to parts of the black community, and the scourge of the earth to others (hello, Shorty New York). I'm going to leave my general...well, let me not say that. If I go on a rant about Tyler Perry haters - and the overlap between them and those who hate southern rap, et al - then I just do.

The one thing I'll say for now: funny how TP haters were saying "all he does is Madea: he needs to branch out" and so on...and then people found out he was playing Alex Cross and it's "he can't play Alex Cross: he needs to stick to the Madea stuff". He can't win for losing, and that says more about the haters than it does about Perry.

I haven't seen any of Perry's stage plays (actually, I saw parts of "What's Done In The Dark" at a cousin's house; but not enough to remember anything), but I have seen most of his movies. The crux of this post will be a retrospective on those films, and it will start now.

No Friend Zones Over Here

So, there’s this thing called the “friend zone”. I’ll assume that y’all know what it is. If you don’t, I’ll assume you can figure it out from the context. I have figured out within the past year or so that (with one possible exception) I will never be in the friend zone…or have one myself. I don’t want to make this too long (quiet, regular readers), but we shall see.

Favorite Songs of the Millennium (by year)

After this week, I'll get back to a weekly posting schedule. For now, though; a "music Monday" offering...

First, I'm using the actual millennium and not what most people seem to recognize. In other words, I'm starting in 2001. Second, as is mentioned in the title; this is going to go by year. Best song in one year might not have made the top 5 in another year (2001, for example, had a lot of great songs). Now that that's out of the way, let's go.

Why Twitter Is Better Than Facebook

This might be the first original thing (non-football) that I’ve written in two months. As such, let’s not have a delay.

1. People do things such as liking their own statuses (stati?) on Facebook.

May as well start with the tweet I wrote that inspired this piece. Can it get any more lame – and I don’t even say ‘lame’, which shows how lame it really is – than that? One would hope you like your own statuses and comments since you wrote them. That shouldn’t even be allowed. You can’t be your own friend on Facebook. Why should you be allowed to like your own stuff? It makes no sense. Mark Z. should have allowed for dislikes first…oddly enough, I did write about the value of a dislike button here.

2. My parents are on Facebook.

I swore this wouldn’t matter to me. Up and down: I was going to talk about everything in the same irreverent manner that I did before we became friends. Sigh. I forgot how much I used to talk about things I’d rather not discuss with them. There’s also the fact that they’ve given me reason to be wary: my mom got mad at me because I said something anti-FSU (which for me is almost natural) and my dad got mad at me for saying I was in Atlanta (the idea was that someone was going to rob me, even though only one person knows where I live and he didn’t know I was out of town until he called me the next day). I still talk about sports and politics on Facebook, but that’s it. I leave the personal stuff to Twitter, and that segues very well into #3.

3. “On Facebook, you lie to people you do know. On Twitter, you tell the truth to people you don’t know.”

One of my best friends told me this, and it’s true. Now, I’m not a liar. I tell the truth to a fault (ask my ex-girlfriends if you must). Shoot, the times I’ve “gotten in trouble” on Facebook have resulted from telling inconvenient truths. Fact of the matter is there are some truths that not everyone needs to know. Guess what? Lots of people know – and have room to judge – on Facebook. Twitter? Not so much. People respect you enough to not try you on Twitter, but they care enough to try to be helpful. Guess that leads to the next one.

4. I hardly know any of my Twitter peoples, as opposed to knowing just about everyone on my Facebook friends list.

I wish I knew more of my Twitter people, so it’s not that. It’s just that people from so many different corners of my life are Facebook friends of mine. Many of them are from stages of my life that I’ve clearly passed: high school, undergrad, even grad school to a certain extent. I’m not saying I’ve passed them by or anything close: what I am saying is that I’ve passed the stage of evolution at which they’ve seen me. I would say 90 percent of my Facebook friends see me as a person who I’m simply not anymore. It’s not their fault, but the interaction isn’t quite the same since there are different conversations going on at some level. The person they’re “talking to” is different than the person who replies. Sigh.

5. Facebook and Twitter have different functions, and I’m more interested in Twitter’s set.

This kind-of takes from #s 3 and 4, but it is what it is. Facebook helps you catch up with people you do know, and your network expands accordingly. All of my Facebook friends fit one of three descriptions: people I’ve known for five years, people who are friends with people I’ve known for five years, and people I know from College Town. That’s it. As you can see, there’s not much room for growth there. Twitter, on the other hand? Well, there are people from VSB (and connected people). There are people I know from CJ’s radio show (and connected people). There are, of course, people I knew beforehand. I also know people from talking about wrestling and the Hurricanes. Of course, Twitter also has a much more open process of network expansion.

---

Now I’m at the point where the only times I’m on Facebook are when I publish notes and to read/answer the Joe Paul questions (subscribe to Joe and read his posts: well worth it). Twitter, though? I’m there for pretty much every waking moment. I can express myself more freely, and it’s much more entertaining. There are other reasons as well, but this has been long enough.

A Bean & A Beanpole

Kevin and Kobe. Kobe and Kevin.

They’re similar in a few ways. They’re obviously both stars. They both jumped from high school to the NBA. Both have won an MVP award. Both have won championships (it’s 5-1 in favor of the Black Mamba, but whatever).

They’re a little different too. They obviously play different positions. One plays on the east coast, the other plays out west. One spent his entire playing career with one team, the other split his career between two franchises.

There’s one thing about them, though, that I think links them. They’re the last two left.

The Dirtiest Secret In Politics

Ed. note: I originally planned on waiting to release this one until closer to the election, but given last night's debate and today's VSB post it made sense to go ahead and get this out.

I'm going to let y'all in on the dirtiest little secret in American politics: something that no one will ever admit to. One political party believes this truth would subjugate it, while the other will never say it because its truth shines a light on the very problem it says doesn't exist.

By the way, I'm going to use the party names here instead of referring to the ideologies. Even though the latter would be more accurate, I'm choosing this particular method of nomenclature for application purposes. It's a pretty simple concept, really. So, here goes:

Tis Better To Have Loved And Lost...

People always talk about how hard it is to get over a relationship. You're with a person, you love them, they love you, and then it just stops.

Of course, if something like that just ends then not only is it a tragic event - it was maybe precipitated by one, which if true serves to double down on the feelings one has to get through and get over.

I'm going to propose an idea, though: that it's harder to get over people who you don't get into a relationship with than it is to get over people you do date.

Standards and Preferences

Ed. note: As you all may have noticed, I've been away for quite a while. Almost three months since I've put an entry out. Lot's happened since then. Stuff is still happening. I didn't stop writing, though. Built up a nice little queue. It'll take a couple weeks to release everything. Here's the first of those 'reserve' entries.

I think I talked about this before, but it seems to bear repeating: there is a difference between standards and preferences. This is especially true when looking for “someone”.

People seem to get these things confused for some reason. Some want to call preferences ‘standards’ when they clearly are not. Can they be called ‘personal standards’? Perhaps. Before we definitively answer that question, let’s create a base.

Thoughts and Actions

I usually don’t talk about myself, but I will say I’m well experienced in the area of thought. I have all the nice little scholastic accolades and the degrees and all that. Y’all have seen me talk about Mensa, and hopefully some of these here entries also show that I’m pretty good at this thought thing (whether you all agree with what I say is another matter altogether).

Here’s one thing I’ve noticed: thought without action means pretty much nothing.

Best Movie Ever?

I try my best to not get my hopes up when it comes to movies. I find it to be the best way to preserve my movie-watching experiences.

There are few things worse than paying 5-10 dollars for a movie ticket and then finding out that the movie is horrible, or even “less than expected”. I have a pretty good record on picking movies, so I don’t go through this often. The times I do get caught up seem to involve my people (Death At A Funeral, most of TP’s recent efforts, even Safe House to a certain extent), but that’s another matter.

I think it’s even more coincidence than comparative analysis that the movies I have lowered expectations for seem to be great.

Campaign Financing: An Alternate POV

I’m hardly an expert on federal politics. The mass majority of my “nuts and bolts” knowledge is on the state level. That said, I know the importance of campaign finances and spending.

How can I not? The president sends me emails about it every day. There is also the fact that I was in a doctoral program and spent much of my first year studying ads, but I digress.

Happy Birthday, Granny

Contrary to what most may believe, the majority of these things are not personal.

This one is.

Today would have been my paternal grandmother’s 100^th birthday. It’s not the easiest thing to talk about, but as many in my family know…talking about Granny since she passed never has been. Matter of fact, I’m going to put the over/under of “times I tear up writing this” at 3.5 - and I may only end up taking the under because I’m writing this at work. Anyway, it’s supposed to be that way. I’m supposed to feel like this. I’m supposed to feel terrible that I’m reduced to writing this note as opposed to being at home with my family. I’m supposed to feel bad that I can’t go to the northwest corner of 19^th and 31^st to put flowers on her grave.

Why am I supposed to feel this way? The reason is simple: I lost more than a grandmother on May 25, 1996. I lost something else too on that day - and so did many other people - but I didn’t realize it until later. First, a little bit on how losing a grandmother was more than enough.

I’m not going to say my grandmother was a perfect person. She certainly wasn’t the grandmother from one of these TV shows (okay, so she somewhat resembled Sophia from ‘The Golden Girls’) who did nothing but bake apple pies and never had a mean bone in her body. She would get with you if she needed to. Wouldn’t think twice about it, either. And woe be unto you if you had it coming from her, whether verbal or physical.

Here’s the thing, though: through all the whuppings - not spankings, whuppings- that she handed out, everyone loved her. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Inside or outside my family, she may be one of a handful of people that I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about. Like I said before, she wasn’t that always-smiling stereotypical grandmother…but it didn’t matter. Everyone loved Granny, and everyone respected Granny.

I haven’t seen Soul Food in a long time, but if I remember the gist of the movie it mirrors my view of my family’s life. The other thing that Granny provided - and that we lost after she passed - was her ability to hold our family together. As most people reading this know, I have a rather large extended family. Group dynamics and simple odds dictate that one large group will eventually turn into multiple smaller groups. Granny kept that from happening. Looking back, I’m not sure how she did it. It’s not like she demanded that we have huge family gatherings every holiday, but we did. She didn’t say to go to this person’s house or that person’s house, but we did. We just found a way to stay together while she was with us…and then things changed.

In full disclosure, I may be magnifying this a bit because Granny’s passing coincided with the time I left for FAMU. Even then, things didn’t quite feel the same when I came home. The family gatherings were smaller. Some people didn’t come around as much. Some relatives only visited with each other. Things just didn’t seem the same. We were a lot more segmented. This has gotten closer to how it used to be, but it’s still not the same. Now it seems that some relatives have either given up or been ex-communicated from their seats at the proverbial table because of past actions or current habits.

In a family, everyone is obviously not going to agree with everything that everyone else does. I don’t agree with a lot of things my family members have done, and I’m sure that quite a few of them don’t agree with a lot of things I’ve done. However, I can’t think of one relative I have who I wouldn’t invite to a gathering and I’d like to think that no one would dissociate with me in such a manner - or at least not be upset if I showed up somewhere with some notice. Nowhere in any definition of ‘family’ have I seen that a single accord in action and belief is a prerequisite. I’ve also never seen where inviting someone to your home is a tacit statement that you condone every single one of their life choices (if that were the case, I’d be welcome in a lot fewer homes than I am now).

That’s what Granny got. She might not have agreed with everything you did…and there was a pretty good chance that she’d voice any disagreement she had…but she didn’t shut you out. That wasn’t in her nature. You’d get talked about like a dog - and if Granny talked about you that way, you most likely deserved it - but she was always happy to have you in her life, the same way everyone was (and still is) happy to have her in theirs.

As is often the case with the younger populace, I failed to appreciate everything that Granny had to offer. I’m not talking about the dollar or two that she gave me for my birthday or Christmas: I cherished those much more than the larger monetary gifts I got from others simply because they were from her. I failed to appreciate her wisdom, her experience, her loving heart, her ability to keep the family together…until it was too late. When I got to high school and especially when I started driving, my parents would ask me to go to her house…but I didn’t go nearly often enough. Sixteen years later, I still haven’t forgiven myself for those decisions. I’m not sure I ever will.

Maybe that guilt has something to do with why I still have a TV in my apartment that hasn’t worked all that well for a year and a half (it was given to me after she passed). Maybe it’s the appreciation that I have now that leaves me almost sick with myself for being able to do nothing more than write a lousy note to commemorate what would have been her 100^th birthday. Maybe that’s why I hold on so close to the memories that I do have. Maybe that’s why I’m on occurrence #6 - first full paragraph, in case anyone forgot. Maybe it’s a big part of the reason why I want to move back home, and why money matters less with each passing day. Maybe that’s why I tell everyone I can to spend every minute possible with their grandparents and older relatives, to seize the opportunities that I didn’t.

Or maybe that last paragraph has nothing to do with guilt. Maybe I’m just someone who loves and misses his grandmother. Maybe I wish I could hear her talk about working in a pizza parlor while hating pizza. Maybe I wish I could hear her call one of my cousins by a name that no one else ever dared use. Maybe I miss the way she always made me feel better while I was sick. Maybe I miss the mango tree in her yard. Maybe I miss Libra. Maybe I just miss having the chance to say…

…happy birthday, Granny.