InkogNegro 2.0

The first thing I observed was silence.

Deafening silence.

I have never been deluded into not acknowledging that I have a fear of silence. I have always been of the belief that background noise settles my mind and focuses it, first on whatever I am listening to and then onto whatever else I deem important enough to think about. I grew up in a home that had something on at all times. My mother had either a TV or a radio on wherever she was. After thinking about it, I realize that this was something I took from her.

I didn’t struggle with disconnecting from Television very much at all. Of all the things that I was giving up, I found television to be the one item that I was LEAST bothered about. My most enjoyable experience of the day was replacing Random TV Viewing with a morning perusal of my local Newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (a McClatchy owned Newspaper, a fact I will pontificate on at a later date). Granted, there are several Documentaries that I have been meaning to watch along with my daily diet of talking head blather, but I know very well what a timesuck television can be. I will add that the primary reason that I am starting this project so much earlier than my classmates (it is due to be turned in on Tuesday, March 24, 2009) is because I knew that I didn’t want to deal with my lack of television overlapping with any meaningful part of March Madness, the name used to denote collegiate athletic conference championships and the NCAA Basketball tournament. While I will miss a few of the minor conference championship games, I will end my Media Blackout just in time for the Big East Conference Championship, which is where my favorite team growing up, the University of Pittsburgh Panthers, will play for back-to-back conference championships. Everything else that I find myself watching can be delayed or just plain old forgotten about. I didn’t even bother to adjust my DVR to see if there was anything I needed to record while I was away.

Unplugging from the Internet will be far more difficult (I say as I blog using a technical loophole as we speak)

I was slightly late to the phenomenon of the Internet, Joining AOL on Christmas Eve, 1997. It wasn’t until 1999 that I began to use the Internet for something other than chatting with other people and exchanging emails. As broadband connectivity became available, I found the internet becoming a more and more functional part of my life. Now, There are very few parts of my life that aren’t impacted by the internet, chief among them, my online banking and billpaying.

While I have long since soured on the radio, as someone who finds himself driving an average of 1500 to 2000 miles a month, it is an invaluable source of background noise. Whether it is the entertainment masquerading as information that is Talk radio, or the information masquerading as entertainment that is public radio, or the useful idiocy of sports-talk radio, It can always feed my never ending yearn for background noise in the event My ipod and my FM modulator are not playing nicely in the car. Easily the hardest part of this experiment will be avoiding the instinctive reach for the radio dial the instant the engine roars (or in the case of MY little four cylinder, putt-putts) its approval of the Starter. Driving in silence is going to be the most painful part of this experience, by far.

The easy thing to do is to talk about how HORRRRRIBULL the New Yorker cover was.

I don’t blog to do the easy thing.

I’ll bet when Barry Blitt penned this lil ditty, he probably thought to himself…”yeah, I nailed that shit. This is off the chain.  I didn’t miss a thing. Look how complete the analysis is, down to the flag in the fireplace.  Ain’t no one seein this.  Pullitzer, here I come.”

While I am far too cheap to subscribe to the New Yorker, I read it regularly online.  It is classic Northeast Corridor insular intellectualism.  They do what they do well.  And yeah, the Cover is well done.

In a vacuum.

Out here in the real world…Blitt fucked up.

He should have talked to Spike Lee about the what happens (or what doesn’t happen) when you trot out heavy duty satire around Black folk.

Of course most folk at the New Yorker are so busy waxing geo-political and post-racial about Obama they seem to have forgotten that Barack Obama is Black man #1 right now.  What you say or do to Barack Obama, Michelle Obama or the WeeMichelles (Shouts to WAOD)

Black folk who wouldn’t know the New Yorker from a brochure for the Chrysler New Yorker have seen this cover and are…uh…Let’s just say they aren’t pleased.

On the heels of The Etherization of the Former First Black President and his Wife in the eyes of Black folk, Nuts-Gate,  and the still smoldering ashes of Tavis Smiley’s status as the King of the Black Pundits, it is becoming abundantly clear that in the eyes of many Black folk, anything that takes away from Barack Obama’s presidential aspirations is taken VERY personally.

Black folk were late to the party, remember, This time last year, Hillary Clinton was 25 points up on Obama in the polls, even amongst Black folk.  I am pretty sure that this over-protective impulse amongst Black folk is a subconscious reaction to being so late to the party.

Combine this default nuclear response to anything percieved as disrespectful of the Obama Family with the universally unmentioned fact that Obama (like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice before him) isn’t alloted a certain regal status afforded other National level Politicians.

Barack Obama carries around issues that don’t actually exist, while John McCain gets a pass on Upgrading from his disabled wife who sat by and waited for him to come home from Vietnam to a sugar daughter who could afford McCain with the economic infrastructure to parlay his admirable Military history into a national career in Politics.

That is an everyday situation for Black folk and white folk just don’t get it.

Satire doesn’t play when people actually think what’s so over-the-top satirical is true.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

and the WORST part of all this is…

The Obama article INSIDE the magazine is a a revealing insight into what makes Obama tick.

But who cares about all those words when there is a pretty picture on the front.

I should be estatic.

I am not.

The speech was magnificent and all, but I almost seem to see more self-congratulatory (look how far we have come) bullshit than anything.

I reckon I was just blindsided, so caught up in my own happiness that I forgot everyone else was just as obtuse and myopic about the REAL issues of race and class that the actual lessons of this campaign have yet to be discovered.

But the fist bump is still the greatest example of Black Love in Action to grace Prime time television in a MINUTE

So says Congressman Alcee Hastings

At the beginning of our great country’s history my ancestors were counted as only 2/3 of a person.  Until passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870, they weren’t allowed to vote. During that same time and until 1920, women could not vote.  White men who did not own property could not vote at one point in our history as well.

Um…Sir…it was actually only 3/5 of a person.  As a person whose ancestors were the same as Rep. Hastings, let me be the first to say that while it may serve Mr. Hastings’ purposes to equate slavery and non-personhood to what is happening to Florida, I am inclined to find it rather hyperbolic and wishes he would shut the fuck up.

Respectfully.

It is a LONG ass way from 2/3 3/5 of a person to being caught up in some intra-party squabble that diminishes the weight of a citizens vote in a party primary to determine the party nominee.  A punishment passed along as a result of breaking party rules.

Of course, breaking rules is something you know something about, isn’t it?

Paying the price for breaking rules?

Not so much, huh, Mr. Impeached judge turned congressman?

So…Charles Ray Fuller is at the Chase Bank in my adopted hometown of Fort Worth with a check from his girlfriend’s mother in order, he says, to start a record company.

The check was for…

360 Billion dollars.

Pray for the children, folks.

Just what are the circumstances that are involved in having wall to wall coverage of the sentencing phase of the Bobby Cutts, Jr. trial in the middle of the day?

Such that we have televising of the family of the victims testifying in regards to the punishment phase?

hmmm…

Nothing else going on today?

Does this happen a lot?

I mean, Don’t get me wrong.

If they arranged to inject Officer BabyMama & Baby Killer in between mediocre American Idol acts, I would be fairly indifferent, but my Spidey Sense is tingling.  Something isn’t adding up.

Much has been brought up about Mickey Kaus and his obsession with the Bradley Effect.

Black Bradley Effect? Noam Scheiber has speculated that black voters might tell pollsters one thing and do another in the South Carolina primary, just as (it’s theorized) white voters did in New Hampshire:

Is it possible that some black voters would tell pollsters they support Hillary (or that they’re undecided) because they don’t want to sound like they’re voting mainly out of racial solidarity, even though they actually intend to vote for Obama?

He could be right! But what if this black Bradley Effect operates in the other direction–black voters tell pollsters they are going to vote for Obama (because they feel that’s expected of them) and then vote for Hillary or Edwards? In other words, they behave exactly like the white voters in the Standard Bradley Effect. That would take some of the sting out of the implicit charge of “racism” that always lurks underneath the Bradley Effect, no? … Of the two possibilities, I’d guess the latter is more likely. Are African-Ameican voters really worried that they’ll “sound like they’re voting out of racial solidarity”?** I’d think fear of being considered a self-hater or Oreo (or practitioner of “middleclassness“!) looms larger in most black communities, unfortunately. But I don’t know. … P.S.: Of course, it’s possible neither effect will materialize, and it’s also possible they will cancel each other out. …

Mickey, if you actually TALKED to Black folk, you would know that POLLS DON’T ASK US ANYTHING.

And if they did call us, we wouldn’t answer because we all have caller ID.

Do not shit on me and tell me you brought me chocolate.

When you trotted out Billy Shaheen I was amused.

When you had Mark Penn bust the ill subliminal I was annoyed.

When you took the feed from Magic Johnson I was amused, but slightly irritated.

When you dusted off Bob Kerrey I was genuinely disturbed.

When Bill Clinton got his Auntie Anne on with Obama’s war record, I was insulted.

When you kinda sorta choked back tears (or not) I…was pretty indifferent.  Even though you seemed to stop sniffling to act like the country would implode if someone other than you took the walk down Pennsylvania Avenue for the Oath of Office on 1/20/09

When you won New Hampshire, I charged it to the game and hoped we could now get on  to a good substantive campaign.

But then Hillary “found her voice”…

and she used it turn this campaign into a farce.

a. Farce.

Don’t believe me?

Then explain the appearance of ROBERT JOHNSON at a WOMEN’S COLLEGE to introduce Hillary Clinton where he SHAMELESSLY re-invokes all manner of coded racial symbolism.

The irony.

The audacity.

The mufuggin nerve.

Finit.

I’m done.

And you mothafuggas runnnin around talking about I am imagining shit?

Fuck that.

I am finished.

I will not cast a vote for any Clinton for ANY office.  I don’t give a fuck WHO the GOP nominee is.

Huckabee?  I’d vote for him over Hillary…in a second.

McCain?  I would ponder it…

Anyone else…I will vote for some other stuff and write in Barack Obama.

I got through 8 years of Bush and I am actually better off, no thanks to HIM.

I took this personally, because you made it personal

So, to all you Clinton supporters and desperate Lefties who wanna win SOOOO bad that you turn a blind eye to this foolishness in the name of winning the White House I say this.

For your sake, I hope it was worth it.

Because I am pretty sure you will wish we didn’t know the truth about you when you see what happens next.

You must understand that the rather complicated and just plain wack Caucus system obscures the reality of what took place in Iowa.

The raw numbers are too mind boggling to ignore.

The 2008 Iowa Democratic caucus DOUBLED the 2004 turnout in what was a closely contested and bitterly fought race between even MORE viable candidates.

The true story of 2008 will emerge Tuesday night.

I can feel the desperation emerging from Camp Clinton as we speak.  It will not be a quiet weekend.

OH…and who was the genius who scheduled the Saturday Night debate opposite the NFL PLAYOFFS?

Tsk tsk tsk.

It seems Bob Kerrey has begotten Magic Johnson.

I was toiling away at the day/night job when I saw everyone’s favorite Goldwater Girl turned rabid Feminist liberal standing in front of a Black man who was clearly taller than everyone else in the room, including her husband, who is no shrinking violet himself.

Lo and Behold, Its one Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who is cruising a Des Moines Hy-Vee with the Clintons and cautioning America against entrusting it’s fate to a rookie.

During a mid-day rally in Davenport, Magic Johnson said the more he
practiced, the better he got at basketball and Johnson went on to
suggest Clinton rival Barack Obama was a “rookie” who shouldn’t be
entrusted with the presidency.

“We do not want somebody in there that is young or a rookie at
politics,” Johnson said. “We want somebody in there that knows what
they’re doing because this job is so huge.”

Magic, Magic, Magic…how SOOOOOON we forget.

YOU of all people should know about the power of an amazingly talented rookie.

Let us take a step back into the time machine, shall we?

May 16, 1980

As a matter of fact, let us allow the words of someone who is INTIMATELY familiar with that day and how it might be relative to this story.

There’s a short list of NBA names
that, when spoken, immediately evoke feelings of greatness of
near-divine proportions. For every 20 or so guys who have played in a
handful of All-Star Games in their careers, there’s one player whose
star shines brighter than the rest, a guy who fills the arenas on a
nightly basis. From the moment he stepped on the court in his first NBA
game in 1979, Earvin “Magic” Johnson was one of those players. But it
was one performance against my Philadelphia 76ers in the 1980 Finals
that forever placed Magic’s name among the true NBA legends.

Coming off his Michigan State
Spartans’ storied NCAA championship victory over Larry Bird and Indiana
State, the 6-foot-9 rookie point guard won over fans immediately with
his brilliant smile and colorful game. With the formidable Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar, who won his sixth and final Most Valuable Player trophy
that year, commanding the middle, Johnson delivered from day one,
averaging 18 points and 7.3 assists his first year. He was ultimately
eked out for Rookie of the Year by Bird, who just about single-handedly
resurrected a slumping Boston Celtics franchise.

Magic showed remarkable leadership
in steering the Los Angeles Lakers’ ship all the way to the 1980 NBA
Finals against us, a series we were slightly favored in. The world had
seen Magic perform superbly in crunch time of the NCAA tournament the
previous year. But there’s no stage like the NBA Finals, and he was
only 20 years old with two years of college and one NBA season under
his belt. Many had sensed greatness in Earvin, but a player has to
perform under the most pressure-filled conditions before he earns true
superstar status.

The series began pretty evenly,
with my personal highlight being in the fourth quarter of Game Four,
with us trailing 2-1 in the series. In what’s now become a pretty
well-documented move, I drove baseline, elevated, reached back behind
the backboard with the ball and emerged on the opposite side of the
basket to convert the layup. We ended up with a 105-102 win to tie the
series, and our confidence was riding high.

L.A. won Game Five to take a 3-2
series lead, but word dropped that Kareem wouldn’t make the trip to
Philly for Game Six, as his ankle sprain left him unable to run. We
were totally shocked to hear this news, and I remember our coach, Billy
Cunningham, saying he’d believe Kareem wasn’t playing only when the
game ended and he hadn’t seen him. But while we knew our backs were
still against the wall and that the Lakers would be tough even without
the big center, I’d be lying if I said our confidence didn’t jump a
notch or two upon hearing Kareem was out.

With
the eventual leading scorer in NBA history home in bed, we were
considerably bigger than L.A., so the Lakers were going to have to play
a different style of basketball for them to have a chance against us.
We didn’t know exactly what to expect, which made them unpredictable
and dangerous, as evidenced by the fact that Magic jumped center for
them to start out the game. I remember Earvin smiling at center court
moments before anyone else was in position, trying to decide how to
jump.

With Darryl Dawkins and Caldwell
Jones manning our inside, we might’ve been bigger than the Kareem-less
Lakers, but with Magic pushing the break flanked by Jamaal Wilkes, Norm
Nixon, Spencer Haywood and Michael Cooper, they were significantly more
athletic than us. Their up-tempo strategy paid off in the first half,
as we headed into the locker room deadlocked at 60-60, a halftime score
you don’t see too often anymore.

While we were somewhat surprised
at how the Lakers were hanging with us without Kareem in Philadelphia,
you can only imagine how we felt when L.A. opened the third quarter
with a 14-0 explosion. Aided by Wilkes’s career game of 37 points and
10 rebounds, Magic never let us back into the game, passing, rebounding
and shooting his way to 42 points, 15 boards, seven assists and three
steals–on the road, no less. The Lakers won the game, 123-107, and
thus the NBA championship.

Earvin turned in what many
consider, myself included, the best performance ever in an NBA Finals
game. While I obviously would’ve preferred winning that game and then
the championship, at least I can look back 25 years later and say that
I saw the legend of Magic Johnson born first-hand.

The Lakers would go on to win four
more NBA titles in the ’80s, none of which would have come without the
6-foot-9 point guard with the huge smile and an even bigger game.

So, um, yeah…Magic might not be the best person to preach experience over talent.

Can’t wait to see who steps up tomorrow.

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