Blackpacker Diaries: Bend it Like Barker

Tuesday Night, 10 March 2009

I got my Arj Barker tickets, which is quite exciting. For those of you who aren’t obsessed with Flight of the Conchords, Arj plays their friend Dave, who constantly gives them bad advice and has the best deadpan ever. I hadn’t heard of him before FOTC, but I am so into him. He’s also all over the Australian scene, and every Aussie knows who he is—why hadn’t he made it onto my American comedy radar before now? Oh god--Is he Canadian???
No, not possible.
Clearly I needed to see him in the flesh so I could get some answers.

Unable to get a ticket for Arj with Justin on Sunday, I got one for the Tuesday show. One of the things I like about rolling solo is that I don’t have to check-in before making decisions, or worry about whether or not my companion wants to spend the money for such-and-such activity. It’s also really easy to get last-minute tickets to things when you only need one seat, allowing me to be all free and spontaneous and very “Eat Pray Love” about the whole thing. I ended up in the 8th row, with only 2 people seated next to me. One was a surly teen and the other was obviously his mother. While most people who’d came together were chatting it up pre-show, the three of us sat silently, with the son way too cool to talk to his mom and her way too awkward around her son’s changing body to strike up a conversation. To an outsider we probably looked like a dysfunctional family, with me playing the role of their Sudanese refugee adoptee.

It was a mixed crowd, all ages, and definitely touted as PG. Everyone from teens to 30-somethings were there, and the place was chockers. How do they all know him????? I wondered as the placed filled up. I was excited to see him do more than hilarious one-liners, and also am really into seeing solo shows, so I can take notes and figure out how to write my own one-blacktress show. Arj was hilarious. After being greeted with huge applause, he began.
“Hey guys, I’m gonna start with a riddle. Are you ready?”
More clapping.
“So, how many gold medals do you have to win in order to enjoy a relaxing bong hit at a friend’s house?”

He’s too hilarious. He then went off on Michael Phelps, and had the crowd dying. He also tackled such issues as global warming (“Have you ever wondered if it’s not the Earth’s fault, but the SUN? Maybe it’s just too hot.”), and the African pirates. My favorite line was probably, “OK, maybe I’m crazy, but I’ve always assumed that if something has been turned into a ride at Disney World, and then a movie with Johnny Depp, it is no longer a real-life threat.”



Sweet, sweet, Arj, you make so much sense to me. I can’t wait for us to make hot Afro-Middle-Eastern babies. Can you imagine how hot that’d be? That baby would be on America’s Next Top Model.

I wanted to tell him this after the show, when he was standing outside selling some CDs, but I got scared. I was intimidated by his funny and thought he’d be uninterested in me trying to talk comedy and subtly brainwash him. I should have bought an effin’ CD, which would have totes made him love me, but I had no money-cash-hos on me, so I just scurried away, consoling myself with the knowledge that we’d one day have America’s Next Top Baby.

Tomorrow I start my 6-day/5-night Groovy Grape bus tour that will take me from Adelaide, at the very bottom of South Australia, all the way to Alice Springs, at the bottom of the Northern Territory. We will travel a total of 1,600 kilometers through the red desert, visiting Coober Pedy, the opal capital of the world, Uluru (aka Ayers Rock), one of Australia’s greatest icons, and Kings Canyon and the Olgas. Apparently, I will be sleeping on the ground and expected to hike. I am really excited, but also scared that I’ll be the slow girl, slowing down the crew with my inability to move quickly.

Perhaps I should have invested in hiking boots.

Or, you know, at least developed some stamina at some point in my life.

Okay, I’m off to bed. It's only 10pm, but I think I need to rest up for this.

Black Love

One time, I was watching an episode of Being Bobby Brown (who is right up there with Flava Flav on my list of “why black people can’t have nice things”) and Bobby and Whitney were talking as someone was applying Whitney’s makeup. Clearly, unclear of the rule no. 1 of reality-television acting (do NOT play for the camera), Bobby started talking about how Whitney was unable to…um…relieve herself earlier in the day, and how he had to…um…stick his finger up her butt to “loosen things up.”

I kid you not.

Whitney, of course, was yelling at him to stop talking, but she was too cracked out to be coherent—and I’m sure being Whitney’s husband teaches you to tune out 90% of the things that are said to you. Anyway, Bobby concluded this riveting story by saying, “That’s black love.”-- and Whitney agreed.

I remember thinking to myself, “Really? Is it?”
If that’s black love, I want no part of it.
I would sooner eat a ducolax pie with flaxseed sprinkles than have someone I love stick their finger up my butt—that’s just not how I roll.

For some reason, two-plus years later, I still remember that portion of the show, and sometimes think of it when I see two possible drug addicts in love. But I also found myself thinking of it this morning, when I saw this photo on the cover of one of the free papes:


HOW GREAT IS THAT?!!!?!?!?!?!?
That is what I call black love!!!

I haven’t really been blogging about the election, because I’m certainly not the smartest political person, and there are millions doing it already, but I must say, this picture brightened my spirits—and my faith in black love. For months now, I’ve blogged about the search for winter spoons and love, and really, when it comes down to it, all I really want is to be the Michelle to someone’s Barack. I know Barack himself is taken and hard to come by, so when I say this, I mean a tall, handsome, driven man, with the smarts and the cool to make big things happen—and who can handle a strong black woman!!!

At 5’11”, the statuesque and brilliant Michelle Obama first came into Barack’s life as his boss--how gangsta is that?! Homegirl handed him his timesheets and told him to put in some OT with her! She’s been poised and confident on the campaign trail, but hasn’t been a boring fly on the wall. She dresses to thrill—this purple number with the black belt is fiercer than an America’s Next Top Model marathon—and she is my she-ro (you know, my female hero).

I can’t wait for us to have a black first lady. I just really can’t. It’s a blacktresses dream come true.

Oh yeah, and a black president. I love Barack’s international perspective and multi-racial identity. If he’s president, we won’t bomb a damn body—can you imagine?! Barack will be like, “No, we can’t drop bombs there, my cousin lives over there!”
And that’s how you stop war.

From now on, I will only pound up to those I really love—or give, as the paper called it, “the fist bump of hope.”