“Successful black men are extinct. We’re important.”

Please. Drop the delusions of grandeur, gents. We see right through you! This paper-thin layer of unjustifiable ‘swagger’ and pseudo-confidence is simply masquerading the vulnerability and self-doubt of the modern day man. The subtext is clear… spineless men of all creeds are waving the proverbial white flag of defeat. Unable to cope with the demands of a new class of empowered, strong-willed and fiercely independent women, they’ve resorted to projecting their insecurities on those that, god forbid, expect them to live up to their potential.

Let’s be clear. This is not a race issue. It’s yet another twist on the age-old enigma that is gender relationships. Despite what you may have read, I’m a White girl that couldn’t cook to save her life, treats no man like a king and certainly doesn’t obey dictatorial male ego, even if it means my job… but I certainly can cater to deserving men who are secure enough to take on the challenge of a strong woman. We can be loud, opinionated, and rebellious, and we make no apologies for it. It’s not a Black thing, or a White thing. It’s a women thing, and trust me when I say that the sooner you men come to realize it, the better off you’ll be.

Hollow diatribes like this, reeking of machismo and senseless boasting, are nothing new. Just a transparent attempt to silence the collective female voice. It’s telling that what the author likes best about his Ivy League educated girlfriend is that she “do all the shit that I say.” She’s apparently a “smart girl, too,” but no surprise that that he ranks that trait a distant second behind obedience.

And, sidebar… What’s it mean to “stand by your man”? As far as I’ve witnessed from thinkers such as this, its simply code for wanting their women to sit idly by as they lie and cheat their way through the relationship. Please me, but don’t bitch when I’m pleasing your sister and best friend, or blatantly lying to your face about the weekend’s captivating conquests! I suppose it’s our fault for not ‘standing by you’? Forgiveness is one thing. Asking women to turn a blind eye, and “bow down,” is quite another.

No woman wants to be a man’s pawn. Relationships are meant to be a joint venture, not a form of employment if only fitting the appropriate ‘wifey’ credentials. I’d shudder to think that all men harbor the views championed by the Thug named Slim. I’m waiting for a knight in shining armor to prove me wrong, but after reading an article like this… once again, I won’t hold my breath.

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I was having lunch with an industry friend of mine today, got talking shop, and the ‘lil cabana boy discussion’ crept up. Summarized, this convo basically rests on the following idea… how can I take the guy who’s pushing pool chairs seriously? Now, I’ve always been an equal op kinda gal, never choose to fraternize with only rich or poor, just the witty and clever (traits that exist beyond money). But her parting words to our ‘cabana boy’ chat stuck in my head after lunch, “hun, I can’t get wet for under 2 mil”.

Sounds harsh I know. But not everyone is looking for romance. I know many that don’t build castles in the air over that ‘ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love’ that carrie and big found; Some over zealous souls even describe such love as an idealized social propaganda which will only leave all of us feeling like no one will ever satisfy us, ask Chuck Klosterman! As a result, my adolescent hopeless romantic brain was challenged20to wonder this thought (even in its obnoxious unpolished tone)… Should I get wet for under a mil?

Assuming your personal experience with relationships guides the majority of your ideas of love… In order to answer this question, us women have to ask ourselves ‘have the men in my past been ‘winners’?’ Easy answer… they are in the past, probably meaning you didn’t hit the jackpot. Of course there are always the guys that left you, which usually leaves you not really wanting them back for RECIPROCAL happiness, but more so wanting them back to change the ending so YOU feel happy! P.S. waste of time… if your getting power from taking back the power, you have much needed therapy to hit up cause power is a hollow thing to strive for in life. In the sea of fishies thus far, (the ones we left, the ones that left us) it’s safe to say we haven’t found Mr. Right.

Now I wonder, who’s Mr. Right? I know I could bust out my long list of dream-catchers, but like Chuck said most of those are based on my boy wonder ‘Lyod Dobler’ (from ‘Say Anything’), and has anyone REALLY ever met a man that FINISHED? Had a love where both could Say Anything? nahhhh. So letting my balloon fly into the sky, I move to my next man-exam… maybe Mr. Right loves me more than I love him. WhatE2s wrong with that? He’s good, good enough. He’ll be loyal. Play fetch with the dog. Take the kids for ice cream. Buy me tampons when I’m in bed with cramps. He’ll do. NO HE WON’T, I’m already bored! Since the love symbolisms (‘you love> me’, ‘you love < me’, ‘we love’ =) prove to be a headache, to say the least…..maybe money could simply factor into the love equation.

Dating dudes w/money vs. dating the cabana boy. My slogan thus far, ‘I’d be happy living in the gutter as long as I loved the man I was with.’ Hmmm, may have to rethink that. Love doesn’t seem as brilliant as when I was a child, and I sure do love my plush bed. Sometimes I think I love that bed more than romance itself, but I’m also a very jaded 25 year old with a line up of ex’s who’s combined egos could take on the likes of Kanye West or 20 Pack from I Love New York! Age-old notion of love without money, you start to not like the life you have with the guy you love, without money. So you date a rich man. Usually this sucks because men with money usually love power (reference line re ‘power seekers’ above), and what women really wants to bow to the likes of power for the rest of their life (certainly not me, displayed through my constant cat fights with puff)! And if you can stomach the obedience to the All Mighty, or find that rare dope dude with more than 2 mil. in their checking, can you stomach the cheating? Cause if they got 2 mil, they got more than one p*ssy. Id say for every 300k they add an additional pus. Didn’t you ever wonder why you needed to add houses (then hotels) once you bought Boardwalk and Park Place, gotta have somewhere to keep all the bitches stored.

In the end, I wonder, am I f*cked? Maybe I should just continue to be single, love my plush bed, sleep comfortably without one eye open, and MOS DEF get wet for under 2 mil. cause hey, porn only costs 12.99 on ‘On Demand’!

-Aubrey

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You know I’ve kept my myspace in tact (even through all the ‘why aren’t you on facebook, its SO much better’ antics from my friends) because it makes for great web pr. but tonight marks the end of just public pr folks, tonight brings my heart to the table. All this from an episode of the Bachelor, yes I unfortunately said ‘the Bachelor’. I cant say I’ve ever even watched it, although my brief term of endearment with that gorgeous bachelor reject sparked my interest; its this whole underworld of perfect people looking for perfect healthy relationships…it kinda made me wonder…well, mostly where the hell are they20finding these perfect people…but after that…could this really be real? Now without hashing the past, I’ve had my fair share of ‘reality’ tv…enough to know its never really reality but from the small inside insight I was able to get from my bachelor hunk, it seemed as though these people were actually just looking for love, instead of a job…easy publicity…or something better to do than drink themselves into oblivion at the local pub (that ones a shout out for the contestants on Rock of Love). So tonight I tuned in for the finale…mostly because I saw in my fav ragmag ‘US weekly’ that this entire thing is FAKE, imagine that…fake reality? Aren’t we all living that in one way or another anyway? Back to the point, I watched already knowing the ending thanks to ‘US’….thinking producers, directors, station execs, and network owners could not possibly take this (semi real stab at reality) to the point where you use a poor girl up and spit her out…I mean this is freakin’ ABC not MTV (that’s a shout out for yours truly who was obviously always the centerfold of someone’s reality game). Molly, Mary, Melissa, Megan whatever the hell her name is…I feel so bad for her. Her poor heart was used for television (‘Us weekly’ claimed it was on purpose to get higher ratings). I guess I found it more disturbing than what I experienced personally, because my reality ratings where about my job… not my heart. This was her heart on the line, and I guess we’ll never really know the truth but from what I know about leaks, insiders, and ‘us weekly’ predictions…. it seemed that someone angry wanted the truth to be known. Which is something all ex reality people usually feel because the only side of the story the audience ever gets is the ones of those that are still telling it on tv every night. But gosh, I just cried inside for her. I felt like she was such a beautiful honest woman, and I don’t not like the other girl he ends up with…but I do feel like there 30 min reunion during the rose gathering after party was a bunch of bulls.hit! Saw right through that acting job and edit. Anyway…what the f.uck have we come to, when ratings mean more to us than honest emotion? Fire me, lie about me, rumor about me, write/say all the nonsense you can…but don’t play with my heart. Love is all we have at the end of the day. We’re all so damn focused on hating on each other that we forgot. We forgot what’s important. We forgot how we should treat people…and not because we have too, but because we should. Because it’s the right way to be in life. Its what we should hope for everyday. Through all of the s.hit we should always find a way to love our environment. It’s all we have people! If I ever did a dating/love show (which I believe isn’t impossible to find love on)… I would never take advantage of peoples love in order to make those ratings. After the show…I had to go for a run, I needed to run off my anger for them making her the pawn of their ratings… and I met this 60 year old man walking his 14 yr old dog that had a broken leg… just a slow romantic walk with his dog…and of course I stopped…talked ‘dog’ for a bit…and we spoke briefly about our dogs weight gain, and I said “you know the only things not worried about weight in our society are animals….they are probably the only things fat and happy. Honestly happy.” And he said “yeah I know… look at that one girl everybody has been saying is fat, I think she looks beautiful”. THAT’S the generation gap! This hate, self hate, etc…its only developed recent enough to stop it for future generations if we try hard enough… and instead of escaping to *Due to our younger members, discussion of illegal material is prohibited* or prescription pills (which I understand are great ways to escape pain nowadays), try spreading love. My mom even said, when she was my age all people wanted to do was find things they loved… in people, in work, in life. Its so different now. She said this extreme hate, the world wide web has def. helped generate, wasn’t what it used to be about. SO I love you all…even you damn haters that keep sending me “you s.lut, you changed, your nakedness and ‘slutness’ were the cause of dk’s end, poor everyone else” come on! Sidebar…do you really think I’m gonna post that nonsense? We all know huge business ventures don’t end on account of sl.utty behavior! BUT hey, I even love you all too!

Alright I’m done…I hope this doesn’t end up resembling that infamous mission statement Tom Cruise so openly suffered from…but hey even that had a happy ending. So there it is. I’m gonna go lay in bed with my amazing, non socialized, happy, loving dog that just wants her tummy rubbed. “Lack of knowledge coupled with unconditional love, it’s the greatest!”

-Aubrey

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What did the king of all things say he wanted when he started his career? Simple. “Cocaine and p*ssy”.

Now you can’t imagine that goal leading to much more than a two hit wonder rapper that made his highest radio play off of his smash “Booty juice” (shout out to Fear of a Black Hat) but by some miraculous twist of fate and hard work that goal gave birth to a mogul that continues to inspire millions; a man living, breathing, and continually defining hip hop.

I use that intro to bring this idea to the table: Aren’t we all taking ourselves a lil’ too seriously? In the entertainment industry there is this strong pressure to be an artist that has “longevity and credibility”. Don’t get me wrong; those are amazing goals but all too often, we measure every action of an artist as to whether it will directly achieve those goals. Webster’s dictionary defines longevity as “a long continuance”. Credibility is defined as “the quality of inspiring belief”. Those definitions are subjective and therefore capable of holding different meanings depending on who you ask. Who on earth is so all knowing and and all powerful that they should be the one to define the goal or meaning for another’s life and career?

What I’ve experienced on the music end is a constant pressure to “ACT right and SPEAK right”. The industry people telling me this are not trying to instill better20behavior in order to help make me a better person or allow me to learn some valuable life lesson. They’re telling me, in their words, to be “as vague and opinionless as possible, so you don’t offend the masses, so you will sell a higher number of records”. The industry provides endless hours of media training. Yes, they actually hire people to give you the “right” answer. How inspiring is that? I’m sure there are exceptions and industry leaders that rebel against this format and for those of you involved with them… more power to you! I can only speak from my experience, and I’m sure this applies far beyond the depths of the music industry, as most jobs are usually selling something!

I know artists that are credible, helpful and “down for any cause”, that have been denied the ability to do charity work or to provide aid to a charity, based on the fact that something about them did not fit the charity’s standards of an artist who has “credibility and longevity”. How ridiculous is that? We can’t even help people any more unless we are living a common denominator life! Do our artists really have to be just like us, act like us, go to the same church, share our political views, or be role models to our children before we buy their music?

So what I love about the mogul’s less than politically correct or “wrong” answer, is maybe we all ought to lighten up and allow our artists to be what they are and say what they really feel or think instead of giving the “vague and opinionless” answer as taught to my generation of artists in order to achieve ‘credibility and longevity’ to sell more records… Maybe next time the answer should be something as simple as “cocaine and p*ssy”.

-Aubrey

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