Oh the Thinks You Can Think (When You're Not Working)!!!

So I'm sitting here watching HANCOCK on Starz--you know, the one that came out last year with Will Smith and Charlize Theron, with a side of Jason Bateman thrown in? I saw it the first time with my mother and her latin lover, and we all agreed it was just "meh." However, one thing struck me (SPOILER ALERT!): HANCOCK is not simply an action film with a dose of humor thrown in. It's a cautionary tale against interracial love.

Seriously, this breaks my spirit, and hits home even harder after the death of MJ, who valiantly sang "if you're thinking of being my baby, it don't matter if you're black or white...."

In the movie, Will and Charlize both have special powers, and in a huge reveal, we discover they were made "as pairs. But the closer we get to each other, the more our powers diminish." They are, in essence, made weaker by being together. Their (interracial) love can never be!!!! The climax of the film involves Will leaping through the air as Charlize lies near death on a hospital bed. Only by getting farther and farther away from her does she survive her gunshot wounds. In the end, we see her with (WHITE) Jason Bateman, having their nuclear family of Caucasian love and acceptance.

Why would Hollywood do this to me? Why would Will do this to me? Charlize maybe has some South African issues, so who knows if it was this very message that drew her to the film (jk, guys, don't freak out!).

Why didn't anyone call this out earlier? I'm going to have to bring this to the attention of my peeps at CinemaBlend. Perhaps they can post a retroactive review.




Um, I have a lot of free time. Anyone want to sit on a rooftop bar and have engaging conversation?

The Day the Pop Music Died.

Um, Michael Jackson is very likely dead as I type this.

No, no, this is real. I just double-checked with TMZ, the gossip site that apparently has contacts at every major hospital and airport in LA and always knows when someone's ill or about to skip town. Here's the sobering news.

Wait, now CNN and LA Times say he's in a coma. I don't know what to believe. One news ticker even used the past tense, saying he was the King of Pop! I don't know if I can handle this!

I don't think I can live in a world without Michael Jackson.
I don't think I can even imagine a world without Michael Jackson.


He seems to have actually gotten enough. And now I'm sitting here, emotionally melting, like hot candle wax.
I need to know that I am not alone, that you are here with me. You and I must make a pact. We must bring salvation back. Where there is MJ, I'll be there.

I'm looking at the blacktress in the mirror, I'm asking her to change her ways, cause no message besides the death of Michael Jackson, could be any clearer.

I can only hope that he's still moon walking....with the man upstairs.

Sidebar: Does anyone else feel kinda bad for Farrah Fawcett? Homegirl got about 4 hours of attention and will now be eclipsed by the death of the biggest pop star in the world.

Neutral Ground -- No Longer Neutral

I did it, guys. Friday night, at 6:30 pm, I met my tutor for my first lesson in Magic Cards. We met outside of Neutral Ground—or, as I like to call it, the Magic Kingdom—on West 37^th Street. Through the glass, one could see cards and games for sale, and a line of people, who I soon discovered were registering for a tournament.

Among them, the man who started it all. The man who inspired this post and this scorned card. It was him.

I almost had a heart attack. My tutor, who is married to a white strong black woman, offered to put his wedding ring in his pocket to help me look cool. I told him it was all right (meanwhile, I slipped my ring from my right to left hand—just, you know, so Mr. Magic would think he’d really missed the boat—or, in my case, the slave ship?). We went inside, and my nostrils were immediately assaulted with a scent that can only be described as a combination of body odor and insecurity, as young boys and a few masculine females of all ages sat at long cafeteria-style tables playing card games. Flat-screen PCs lined the walls, where high-tech kids could play various computer games. Mr. Magic was well ahead of us, but I saw him again when we went upstairs to find a place to play.

He sat, cockily swigging his cola, as some angry pale man told me and my tutor that we couldn’t sit up there because “a tourney was about to start and it’s reserved.”

TRUTHfully, I was glad we wouldn’t have to sit near magic. I knew I’d need to focus all my energies on mastering the game, and couldn’t be distracted by thoughts of vengeance.

We took a seat downstairs, and my tutor—a 27-year-old Diversity University graduate with a high-falutin’ job—began to pull out huge packages of various magic cards from his backpack.

“I was going to make you a deck at work today, but I got really busy, so we’ll have to make it now,” he said, as he sorted through the booty he’d collected over the years.

I sat, feeling about as nervous and awkward as the chubby dateless girl at a middle school dance. And although I knew I was a strong black woman, I kept glancing around to see if Mr. Magic was around.

Either that lying sack of mana (which means land, I’ve learned, and provides the strength needed to cast spells) didn’t see me, or he really is a talented—albeit UNEMPLOYED—actor, who just pretended not to see a blacktress. We never acknowledged each other’s presence, but I saw him up in there, playing a magic tournament on a damn Friday night, like he was too good for a blacktress.

Although I know I should relax, relate, and release my anger, I don’t do well with seeing old rejectors after the fact. One of the primary reasons I date people who live in outer boroughs is because I want them to disappear after the inevitable fallout. While dating a dude who lives in Sunset Park may be a pain in the ass, breaking up ain’t so hard to do. I often like to think that men who have wronged me have died in a car crash—the same one that killed Boyz II Men and the talented Michael Jackson (I miss them so much!). It’s not gruesome or violent, it’s more like their car hits a tree that then shuttles them into an alternate universe or place in time, much like the Delorean in Back to the Future. The presence of Mr. Magic, in all his magic-playing glory, still alive and kicking as though he’s better off without a blacktress almost stopped me from honing my skills as a true Magician.

So, for all of you dying to know, here’s how you play:

You shuffle your deck of cards. Each deck has a color, and with each color comes a different strategy. Oppresively enough, the black deck is the most dangerous (I’ll have to talk to someone about that), with the white deck being the simplest and most straightforward, strategy-wise. Colors can be combined to form a super-strategy deck of magical power, but I was advised not to get ahead of myself.

You and your opponent each pick 7 cards from your deck, and leave the rest to draw from (most decks have 60 cards, but as a newbie, I started off with about 30).

Lands are cards that represent just that—land. You want to lay out as many lands as possible, for the number of lands you have allows you to cast certain spells (eg: summoning a lion requires 2 lands and 1 of another other card. If you only have 1 land on the board, then you can’t summon—oh no!).

Okay, I could go on, but I’m getting kinda bored just writing it.

Basically, you want to get your opponents life points down from 20 to 0, and when you do that, you’ve won. You attack them with various spells, creatures, and hexes, and if they can’t defend themselves, the points are yours.

Playing the game, I imagined what young wizard Harry Potter must have felt when he had to cast spells at Hogwarts. My tutor was my very own Dumbledore—or, rather, Remus Lupin—who taught me to think positive thoughts and stay focused as the dementor that was Mr. Magic loomed above.

The things you can learn from this post are:

1. Magic cards is hard.
2. Spiking your cranberry juice with vodka will add a fun layer to the experience of being in Neutral Ground.
3. Only a blacktress can go to a gaming center and have Gossip-Girl style drama with one of the other dudes playing.
4. A married male friend who is willing to take off his ring to make you look cool is a true friend indeed.
5. Just because a guy doesn’t call you back doesn’t mean he’s dead. He may very well be in midtown playing in a magic card tournament.