YES WE CAN.........EXPLOIT OUR PRESIDENT!!!!

I been saying since November 4th that Barack is going to stimulate this economy, one way or the other..................no sooner said, so it became.

By November 5th, I kid you not, the bootleggers were at it. I'm pretty sure anyone who takes a bus, train or lives and or works around any major metropolitan area felt the aftermath that continues to this day. While the rest of the world paraded merily through the streets, or some of us went to bed bc ppl were complaining about getting sleep......on the night our first black president was elected.....sigh.... Oh you know they were pulling an all nighter and going double time whipping those slave sweat shop laborers from the time it was announced. Oh yes, while the rest of us were popping that one bokkle of Moet you save for special occasion, zinfandels and Andre, the hustlers were hard at work. The overworked laminating machines, t-shirt screens, printing machines, and button presses have saturated every house, street and corner with Obama paraphernalia.

How does the ol' phrase go........"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone......................OUCH who hit me?"

In the subsequent 5 months and change, my father has avalanched this home with a barrage of Barack, and Obama family calendars. I have seen Sasha and Malia more than many of my own cousins. I have only fallen prey to one Barack Tshirt, but I it was hand painted acrylic, and artist to artist you gotta respect that. (I picked the one with the most visible orange, tee-hee). I ran into the artist again months later and bought 2 more....one spare and one to frame. Painters and Photoshopeez worked feverishly and laboriously to add Baracks mug into every iconic black painting made in the last 50 yrs. Accompanying the likes of Selasie, Marcus Garvey, Malcom X, Bob Marley, Martin Luther King, Mandela, GHANDI, Frederick Douglas, Lou Gossit Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman (bc those last two brothers are in everything), D.J. Cool Herc, Biggie AND TUPAC...... okay so clearly I exaggerate a tad but I shit you not on the Tupac!

Sidenote: Is it just me or is Sam Jackson or Morgan Freeman are in EVERYTHING!? Freeman is one of my favorite actors ever! Aside from being like 80 for like ......20+ years, I have yet to see him in a movie that was short of amazing. MAN can he pic a script........Jackson on the other hand........maybe something is wrong with me but for some come-found-it reason, why must the man always have some STCHUPID hairdo or wig in a movie?! Like seriously, he must ask for it in his contract. "A regular shape up??! HELL NAW MUTHAFUCKA!!! Give me grey wig, some cornrows, a jerry curl afro, or a nappy gray afro that's flaaaaaat on one side!!!!....(shout outs to BADU again. Couldnt find her version, but this is the closest I found) .........AND I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELL!!!!" Eff yall, I been making fun of Jackson waaaay before Chappelle

Sidernote: In case new readers didn't catch the sarcasm, I actually think Biggie and Tupac are two of the most overrated and over glorified entertainers ever, let alone rappers. They were really good, but in my opinion, celebrated MTV and VH1 posterchilds. I'll go toe to toe with anyone on that and dismantled your pre-packaged arguments that we've all heard a billion times on tv and magazine documentaries.

WEST SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE note: Yes I know Ghandi wasn't black, but I seen him on an Obama poster and he was the shit........although I read he didn't think very highly of black ppl....

Side, Sider, Apple Cider (cus it sweet) note: DJ Cool Herc popularized the 'loop' of the "break" aka the breakdown of most rock, jazz and funk songs, a technique that lead to the creation of "Break" dancing (someone's in the back going "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!"), rapping, and this whole little thing called hip hop. Hence the term "B-boys"........and "B-girls"

Sidest note......... I have noooooooo clue where the hell I was going with this....gimme a sec to scroll up.....oh ok.

OK!! Got it. Baracksploitation. The hype around this man has spawned a new industry. Here are some of my favorites:

• The Obama Brownie, handed out at the Inauguration for Volunteers.
• The "I was hear" Inauguration T-shirts or pins that were all over the capital that weekend...... that you subsequently can buy in Flatbush Brooklyn or southside detroit........sorry. BITCH! Im broke! My photo album is my souvenir.
• Obama beer.... which has been banned by the feds........in multiple instances
• Sasha and Malia dolls, which Michelle gave the official first lady "AAAW HELL NAW!!" to.
• Obama fries, an Obama Burger or Obama coffee from a shop in the East Village
• Obama beauty supplies (I shit you not, next time I pass it, this is why camera phones were made).
  
• And worse of all......"OBAMA FRIED CHICKEN" has been popping up like herpes sores all over Brooklyn and in some parts of Manhattan and Bronx. Is this happening in your cities too?

For my extra-hoodarians, hoods are littered with Arab owned fried chicken spots (affectionately known as "chicken" or "A-rab" spots - pronounced AY - RAB), typically serving everything from fried chicken, pizza, gyros, burgers to ice cream, and everything in between... basically every piece of junkfood, heart attack enducing element shy of horse tranquilizer under the sun. The true hilarity of this is that they actually have calories listed on the menu. Granted, its law now to display the calories....but lets be real, if you're counting calories, you have no business in these spots anyways. I must admit, "Wings n thangs" (as I like to call em) is one of my guilty pleasures that I indulge like once or twice a month. I'm terribly partial to the Raphael extra value meal, aka two thighs and cheese fries. It has served me well on my fat boy binges. Many of these A-Rab spots are re-naming themselves to Obama Fried Chicken. One can argue that no one complained when they started naming schools after him, but I dare someone to be naive.....stupid enough to buy that argument.

Sidenote: Wings n thangs came from a Trick Daddy video when he is in a high end restaurant and calls a hood chicken spot called "Wings n Thangs." A man in a giant chicken costume procedes to ride a bike cross town, out of the hood and into the rich restaurant and deliver him a bag of fried chicken. At the time, one of the funniest videos ever........set black ppl back damn near 15 yrs, but ignorant hood shit is one of my other guilty pleasures.

Sider note: I know there are actual "Wings n Things" in Long Island and other states, but for some reason they dont have em in bk, so its my generic name for all wing shop typologies that are not KFC or Popeyes, AKA bulletproof chicken spots, owned by A-Rabs. Thats all they have....wings.....and ....thangs....oh and salads now :)

I feel sorry for the real casualties of Obamamania. Not you or I who are fortunately here and therefore saved from the incroaching tomfoolery. I speak of the armada of children being born in the next 5 yrs who are condemned to a lifetime of going to the bottom of college, job, credit and loan application piles. WHY? BC as my friend Jenn so eloquently pointed out "...basically saying that in about 5 years Kindergarten classes are going to be filled with Obamaniesha's, Barackanita's, Obamina's, Barackita's, Obamalina's, LaBarack's..."
And don't forget "Barack-quan." In addition, I feel sorry for the teachers and employers who will have to look across the room with a straight face attempting to pronounce these names. I can go on about how some black ppl name thier children, mixing shit from two languages that dont go together, something that means "beautiful" in one language but "donkey" in another, but thats another conversation.

World famous Poet and one of the founders of the art we now call "Spoken Word" (a term I loathe bc the very act of classifying that which is not meant to be classified, self sabotaged and ultimately spawned its own inevitable demise), once said, "Of course America is the richest nation, because it was built for free." Ppl always joke about manhattan being sold for $20 but no one realizes it was "sold" by a ppl who had no concept of ownership, private property, let alone a man owning land. This country was built on the manipulation and explotation of ppl in less opportune circumstances. Exploitation is our Gross domestic product! We've exploited every ethnicity, blackies were just the last (look up the anti-Irish riots in ur free time). We don't talk about the Chinese and Japanese imprisonment and holocast-like practices in our own country, yeeeeeears after the abolition of slavery. We frowned upon rap music while record execs made millions of dollars and only giving naive young black performers pennies for every album they sold and forcing them into bankruptcy, poverty or worse. If someone wants to sell a tshirt, a bottle of beer or a box of wings with cheese fries, and can find enough ppl out there who want to buy em, then God bless America, LET THEM!! Obama's name and face are putting ppl's kids through college, long before any of his initiatives get pushed through the senate.

Just one favor? White people.............all ppl...........PLEASE STOP PAIRING BLACK PPL WITH CHICKEN AND OR MONKEYS (like the Obama sock puppet) AND OR WATERMELONS!!! Just take my word for it bc that warrants an entirely new SERIES of blogs. You can venture this on your own. Go into any black neighborhood to furhter your studies, but I assure you, your field results will be less than desirable and the learning curve, short n painful. Theres a bleeding history behind it, stop questioning it and let it be.

Closing Sidenote: This isn't me trying to be witty with some pneumonic wrtiting device. I LITERALLY talk like this. ....much to the annoyance to many phone conversors. Sidenotes and all.....only in text I get to exercise my Gollem-like obsession with the color Orange..........and coincidentally I've been told the sidenotes.......or rather "thangs," are a favorite part note to many. Thanks!! That should be a message to kids world wide. "Just hang in there and pull through and once you graduate you're A.D.D. will be celebrated!!"

Okay, alright, enough is enough note: What if I changed the title from "My $0.02" to "Blogs n Thangs"...........hmmmmmmm wuddyathink?....cus get it? The sidenotes are my sides....aka my "thangs.".......Yes? No? Maybe so?