R.I.B. - I've got 2 words for ya... Ok, maybe three...
Too many annoyances out there - too much crap all over the place - to promptly attend to, really... And why bother dealing with any of it in depth either? Thus, we chose to adopt the expeditive and most efficient method, permanently: blast it all to pieces piece by piece, take no prisoners, spare no one! But doing so in a less painful way, with little doses at a time! Now don't get us wrong here: in doing so, we do not hope that it will be less painful for everyone involved - at all! Au contraire, we hope it will sting, stab, bite and burn even more furiously since none of these topics (with one glaring exception now and then, really - but, to be honest, there are so few of those it makes one want to cry, really...! But that is another story.) hence, none of these stories deserved or was dignified with a full post to call its own anywhere else on the TLB Prime Network - at blogging time, that is!
So here we go again...
MORE R.I.B. - RAMBLINGS IN BRIEF!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Let's start with two words
BLACK FRIDAY.
Maybe three words will b more descriptive indeed, so here goes:
Black Friday Frenzy!
The appellation of "Black Friday" is such an odd choice for the "event" that marks, in effect, the beginning of the Holiday shopping season. Nudged in-between Thanksgiving and the entire Holiday Season month, this day is always infamous for allowing Americans to show their truly ugly side...
Anything given the adjective and color "Black" (with the possible exception of Black Label) is always adjusted so in a pejorative, negative and utterly disgraceful way it seems. Didn't we have a Black Tuesday this year - or was it Black Thursday, last year? Although with Black Friday, it was not the aim at all - it becomes so with each and every year, inexorably and irrevocably so...
For the unsightly side of American consumerism and its definition of "the most wonderful time of the year" was once again evident this year - people were shot in the parking lots of cheap bon marché discount chain stores, because they got the goods on sale at such an incredible price that they made others envious enough to pull out a gun and steal the aforementioned goods from them!
Man alive - I mean, Wal-Mart, Target an K-Mart: these places have merchandise that I would not even want if they were GIVEN AWAY FOR FREE...! And yet, some Ugly Americans are willing to shoot their fellow Americans DEAD (the first faithful customer shot in a parking lot, a man from California, is in critical condition at blogging time) in order to get their hands on said merchandise CRAP.
UNBELIEVABLE.
They even shot a woman outside a Wal-Mart in South Carolina - the robbery attempt was less successful there: she was only superficially wounded. (Which means that the creep or creeps waiting in the parking lot had poor aim on top of their poor taste.)
There was a veritable shoot-out in a MALL in Fayetteville, North Carolina - the police reported several gunshots between shoppers there. Yikes! I can imagine the crazy scene: one shopper pulls out a gun first and says to another: "hand over that rice cooker, mister - hand it over NOW!" The swift reply: "hey, I paid the lowest price EVER for it and it is MINE!" and he promptly pulls out his own gun then! Shooting commences - the shop-til-you-drop (literally) crazies take refuge behind shopping carts and in the trench between cash one and two, respectively! Another customer seizes the opportunity amidst the prevalent chaos, grabs the rice cooker and runs away with it - they start shooting at him immediately (of course) but he is not acting alone: his buddies were waiting at cash four. And bullets abound.
SWEET GOD - THIS IS LIKE A SCENE FROM ANY ONE OF QUENTIN'S MOVIES HERE!!!
And the most frightening thing, the most terrible and terrifying thing indeed is that it is NOT A MOVIE - IT IS REAL!
What's next - a mob made up of grannies without enough dough going after the housewives and single mothers gangs after the latter have ransacked the supermarket on their weekly binge?
Now THAT will be bloody...
Next!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In other black news this past week...
(And we're months removed from Black History Month - imagine that!)
Black Peter gets Sinterklaas' boot right on his, er, charcoal behind - and is OUT of the parade!
(Is this, by any chance, the Black Parade some young WHITE turks were singing about, not-too-long ago? No? Just asking...)
Black Peter, a character originating from the Dutch history books and embodying the fate of the bad kids, each and every year during the Holiday season festivities, does not cut it anymore in our P.C. era; despite some attempts at P.R. in the recent past making him out to be "no more, no less" than a Sinterklaas helper, life all the others... The fact is, he always stood out like a sore thumb...
In a sense, Black Peter suffered from the same basic handicap that has plagued the likes of Cleveland Indians' mascot, the Blackhawks of the NHL and the NFL's Pat Patriot - for his obvious resemblance with Paul Revere, of course. All are supposed to be bringing the masses together and bring some joy - but they often bring other feelings to the surface as well.
Originally named Zwarte Piet (back in the motherland, the Netherlands) the eventual Black Peter consisted of no more than blackface make-up worn by some local young turk who'd go without a job for the end of the year otherwise. This representation of the Black community reeks of silent film era shenanigans and vaudevillian tricks and it is deemed not only offensive but also absurd. It spreads onto the 21st Century racial stereotypes especially since the character was a dumb ruffian who beat children, spoke buffoonish Dutch and never rose to be more than a slave, for all his violent, abusive ways...! According to the Dutch tradition, Black Peter is responsible for carrying a book full of the names of naughty children, along with a rod and a sack to take the bad children away. He also scatters candy for children. - wow, Sinterklaas sure knows how to pick his helpers, in Dutchland! And they seemed to make quite a fine team too, over the years... For, since 1985, the Dutch Sinterklaas was always flanked by Black Peter as he made his way towards New Westminster Quay aboard a paddle wheeler boat (Oh my - we're talking archaic, indeed! I've got doodles and scrapbooks older than 1985 - but never mind that now! 1985 is ANCIENT! Organizers of this event are right: not only is "Black Peter" old and degrading - it is totally out of touch with MODERN SOCIETY! Ditch the dude already! Enough said...?) No more of that, it would seem...
The Dutch community is relieved - no more racism will be found marring the holiday spirit there! Sint Nicolaas is, at last, saintly again! The children can approach him again and play with him, sing with him, be gifted by him... There's always the risk, as with every other Santa, any given Holiday season, that the guy hired to don the suit might be a pedophile - but that is far less degrading than that Black Peter business, which was indeed a black eye on the entire organization - literally!
In other news, Black Lightning got the boot from the JLA too - they don't even want green in that outfit anymore (Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter) why would they want a guy with an afro who thinks he's a Mulato Zeus, eh?
And Black Canary is out of the Birds of Prey too - since that one made everyone chuckle the moment they stopped to just think about it for five small seconds... (A Canary - a Bird of Prey? How about inviting Tweety Bird to join the group too, then? Bwah-ha-ha.)
And no more Black Tom in the X-Men universe either - why, with all the oddball characters and weirdos with strange, queer, bizarre, all-around improbable and impossible mutations that there are there, why bother with a powerless svengali who can't do squat (but raise controversy, that is), HMM?
Oh, yeah -
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Black+Peter+gets+boot+from+Sinterklaas+parade/5772196/story.html#ixzz1eqRbDdpf
Since, for the second straight time, as we copied and pasted but a passage from the source article onto here, the basic URL came with it (out of nowhere) along with the all-important message "read more:" - pointing at the source with an exclamation mark, really. Wow - with such tactics to protect what is theirs by right, one wonders how Vancouver lost the Stanley Cup in such one-sided fashion...?
Oh yeah - it wasn't theirs, at all. They and, most of all, their inane fanbase thought that it was theirs by right, but the Cup belonged to the better team that had had such a consistent and self-assured rise to the top in the past five years: the Boston Bruins. (And as I type this, I am wearing my Bruins jersey, yeah: my customized jersey, if I may precise! But that is another story, too...)
That URL pleading to go back to the original article dispensing merely the facts - minus any witty socio-politico-commentary as you get plenty of HERE - is really biting, burning or bruising my butt though: for it needn't be so insisting, you know? And so unsightly long either... Don't they know, those neanderthals or Canuck Cromagnon back there under the Vancouver Sun, that an hyperlink fits anywhere, unlike the URL of any given link especially one of their myriad articles to appear in their rag? Sheesh... And you hope to attract the readers' sympathy to your cause?
But let's just move on already...
Next!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Well, speaking of which... And since it falls in, sits in well, with all this "black" business here...
My Boston Bruins customized jersey!
In order to purchase it, I did not follow any adage, old saying, legendary publicity the likes of "real men wear black" - because that is a total and utter lie!
Did Samson wear black?
Did Jesus?
Although I was tempted to go with the black one, for several reasons - the Boston Bruins, being the road team that night, would have, normally, worn their black road uniforms to defeat the Vancouver Canucks 4-0 and hoist the Stanley Cup - triggering the infamous riots and starting a summer-long party back in Boston; but all that is another story, of course!
The fact is, though, the Boston Bruins were wearing their WHITE uniforms on that championship, glorious night!
Now, white will get dirtier much faster than black - especially if you're bloodied or busy bloodying your opponent - we all know that! But, I am sure, it is an acceptable price to pay in order to look so damn GOOD!
The traditional 'Big Bad Bruins' image -and reputation of being nothing more than a bunch of goons or thugs on skates - comes emblemized with the black & gold colors. No other team has ever been so associated with violence than the Boston Bruins due to this - since the good guys usually wear white and the bad guys, black - it is a no-brainer for traditionalists.
But, you see nowadays, we are in the era of political correctness indeed.
Black is no longer associated with any of this hogwash - and neither should white, since it gets dirtier faster. (But that is another story here, once again, taking us where we don't want to be right now or ever! So we'll stop digressing already!)
I chose to have my customized jersey white - the HOME TEAM color.
The symbol of PURITY too - but not necessarily pertaining to the subject here or applicable to it in any way, really...!
I chose to have my own name on the back of it - not any player's name because I love the town, the team's history of hard-working, play fair collective bunch of guys - but I do not want to get attached to any potential mercenary-to-be who will sell his soul and play for the arch-nemesis (although that is extremely improbable here: I mean, the damn Habs are definitely not the money moguls that the damn Yanks are!) on the very first chance he gets to crack the bank...!
And I chose to have my year of birth as my number - what else?
Therefore I assure myself of two things:
no rival will ever get away with anything against me because the urge to use, misuse or abuse my name will overcome him the moment my team is pounding on his wretched team on any given day, in any given arena, sports bar, etc...
And secondly (and most importantly, in truth) - my luminous jersey (hey, it's white: it is luminous!) is indeed UNIQUE an there isn't any other like it IN THE WORLD.
Woooooooooo!
Go Bruins, Go!
+++
What a fine, positive ending
to such a b... er, dark ranting, eh...!
So here we go again...
MORE R.I.B. - RAMBLINGS IN BRIEF!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Let's start with two words
BLACK FRIDAY.
Maybe three words will b more descriptive indeed, so here goes:
Black Friday Frenzy!
The appellation of "Black Friday" is such an odd choice for the "event" that marks, in effect, the beginning of the Holiday shopping season. Nudged in-between Thanksgiving and the entire Holiday Season month, this day is always infamous for allowing Americans to show their truly ugly side...
Anything given the adjective and color "Black" (with the possible exception of Black Label) is always adjusted so in a pejorative, negative and utterly disgraceful way it seems. Didn't we have a Black Tuesday this year - or was it Black Thursday, last year? Although with Black Friday, it was not the aim at all - it becomes so with each and every year, inexorably and irrevocably so...
For the unsightly side of American consumerism and its definition of "the most wonderful time of the year" was once again evident this year - people were shot in the parking lots of cheap bon marché discount chain stores, because they got the goods on sale at such an incredible price that they made others envious enough to pull out a gun and steal the aforementioned goods from them!
Man alive - I mean, Wal-Mart, Target an K-Mart: these places have merchandise that I would not even want if they were GIVEN AWAY FOR FREE...! And yet, some Ugly Americans are willing to shoot their fellow Americans DEAD (the first faithful customer shot in a parking lot, a man from California, is in critical condition at blogging time) in order to get their hands on said merchandise CRAP.
UNBELIEVABLE.
They even shot a woman outside a Wal-Mart in South Carolina - the robbery attempt was less successful there: she was only superficially wounded. (Which means that the creep or creeps waiting in the parking lot had poor aim on top of their poor taste.)
There was a veritable shoot-out in a MALL in Fayetteville, North Carolina - the police reported several gunshots between shoppers there. Yikes! I can imagine the crazy scene: one shopper pulls out a gun first and says to another: "hand over that rice cooker, mister - hand it over NOW!" The swift reply: "hey, I paid the lowest price EVER for it and it is MINE!" and he promptly pulls out his own gun then! Shooting commences - the shop-til-you-drop (literally) crazies take refuge behind shopping carts and in the trench between cash one and two, respectively! Another customer seizes the opportunity amidst the prevalent chaos, grabs the rice cooker and runs away with it - they start shooting at him immediately (of course) but he is not acting alone: his buddies were waiting at cash four. And bullets abound.
SWEET GOD - THIS IS LIKE A SCENE FROM ANY ONE OF QUENTIN'S MOVIES HERE!!!
And the most frightening thing, the most terrible and terrifying thing indeed is that it is NOT A MOVIE - IT IS REAL!
What's next - a mob made up of grannies without enough dough going after the housewives and single mothers gangs after the latter have ransacked the supermarket on their weekly binge?
Now THAT will be bloody...
Next!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In other black news this past week...
(And we're months removed from Black History Month - imagine that!)
Black Peter gets Sinterklaas' boot right on his, er, charcoal behind - and is OUT of the parade!
(Is this, by any chance, the Black Parade some young WHITE turks were singing about, not-too-long ago? No? Just asking...)
Black Peter, a character originating from the Dutch history books and embodying the fate of the bad kids, each and every year during the Holiday season festivities, does not cut it anymore in our P.C. era; despite some attempts at P.R. in the recent past making him out to be "no more, no less" than a Sinterklaas helper, life all the others... The fact is, he always stood out like a sore thumb...
In a sense, Black Peter suffered from the same basic handicap that has plagued the likes of Cleveland Indians' mascot, the Blackhawks of the NHL and the NFL's Pat Patriot - for his obvious resemblance with Paul Revere, of course. All are supposed to be bringing the masses together and bring some joy - but they often bring other feelings to the surface as well.
Originally named Zwarte Piet (back in the motherland, the Netherlands) the eventual Black Peter consisted of no more than blackface make-up worn by some local young turk who'd go without a job for the end of the year otherwise. This representation of the Black community reeks of silent film era shenanigans and vaudevillian tricks and it is deemed not only offensive but also absurd. It spreads onto the 21st Century racial stereotypes especially since the character was a dumb ruffian who beat children, spoke buffoonish Dutch and never rose to be more than a slave, for all his violent, abusive ways...! According to the Dutch tradition, Black Peter is responsible for carrying a book full of the names of naughty children, along with a rod and a sack to take the bad children away. He also scatters candy for children. - wow, Sinterklaas sure knows how to pick his helpers, in Dutchland! And they seemed to make quite a fine team too, over the years... For, since 1985, the Dutch Sinterklaas was always flanked by Black Peter as he made his way towards New Westminster Quay aboard a paddle wheeler boat (Oh my - we're talking archaic, indeed! I've got doodles and scrapbooks older than 1985 - but never mind that now! 1985 is ANCIENT! Organizers of this event are right: not only is "Black Peter" old and degrading - it is totally out of touch with MODERN SOCIETY! Ditch the dude already! Enough said...?) No more of that, it would seem...
The Dutch community is relieved - no more racism will be found marring the holiday spirit there! Sint Nicolaas is, at last, saintly again! The children can approach him again and play with him, sing with him, be gifted by him... There's always the risk, as with every other Santa, any given Holiday season, that the guy hired to don the suit might be a pedophile - but that is far less degrading than that Black Peter business, which was indeed a black eye on the entire organization - literally!
In other news, Black Lightning got the boot from the JLA too - they don't even want green in that outfit anymore (Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter) why would they want a guy with an afro who thinks he's a Mulato Zeus, eh?
And Black Canary is out of the Birds of Prey too - since that one made everyone chuckle the moment they stopped to just think about it for five small seconds... (A Canary - a Bird of Prey? How about inviting Tweety Bird to join the group too, then? Bwah-ha-ha.)
And no more Black Tom in the X-Men universe either - why, with all the oddball characters and weirdos with strange, queer, bizarre, all-around improbable and impossible mutations that there are there, why bother with a powerless svengali who can't do squat (but raise controversy, that is), HMM?
Oh, yeah -
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Black+Peter+gets+boot+from+Sinterklaas+parade/5772196/story.html#ixzz1eqRbDdpf
Since, for the second straight time, as we copied and pasted but a passage from the source article onto here, the basic URL came with it (out of nowhere) along with the all-important message "read more:" - pointing at the source with an exclamation mark, really. Wow - with such tactics to protect what is theirs by right, one wonders how Vancouver lost the Stanley Cup in such one-sided fashion...?
Oh yeah - it wasn't theirs, at all. They and, most of all, their inane fanbase thought that it was theirs by right, but the Cup belonged to the better team that had had such a consistent and self-assured rise to the top in the past five years: the Boston Bruins. (And as I type this, I am wearing my Bruins jersey, yeah: my customized jersey, if I may precise! But that is another story, too...)
That URL pleading to go back to the original article dispensing merely the facts - minus any witty socio-politico-commentary as you get plenty of HERE - is really biting, burning or bruising my butt though: for it needn't be so insisting, you know? And so unsightly long either... Don't they know, those neanderthals or Canuck Cromagnon back there under the Vancouver Sun, that an hyperlink fits anywhere, unlike the URL of any given link especially one of their myriad articles to appear in their rag? Sheesh... And you hope to attract the readers' sympathy to your cause?
But let's just move on already...
Next!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Well, speaking of which... And since it falls in, sits in well, with all this "black" business here...
My Boston Bruins customized jersey!
In order to purchase it, I did not follow any adage, old saying, legendary publicity the likes of "real men wear black" - because that is a total and utter lie!
Did Samson wear black?
Did Jesus?
Although I was tempted to go with the black one, for several reasons - the Boston Bruins, being the road team that night, would have, normally, worn their black road uniforms to defeat the Vancouver Canucks 4-0 and hoist the Stanley Cup - triggering the infamous riots and starting a summer-long party back in Boston; but all that is another story, of course!
The fact is, though, the Boston Bruins were wearing their WHITE uniforms on that championship, glorious night!
Now, white will get dirtier much faster than black - especially if you're bloodied or busy bloodying your opponent - we all know that! But, I am sure, it is an acceptable price to pay in order to look so damn GOOD!
The traditional 'Big Bad Bruins' image -and reputation of being nothing more than a bunch of goons or thugs on skates - comes emblemized with the black & gold colors. No other team has ever been so associated with violence than the Boston Bruins due to this - since the good guys usually wear white and the bad guys, black - it is a no-brainer for traditionalists.
But, you see nowadays, we are in the era of political correctness indeed.
Black is no longer associated with any of this hogwash - and neither should white, since it gets dirtier faster. (But that is another story here, once again, taking us where we don't want to be right now or ever! So we'll stop digressing already!)
I chose to have my customized jersey white - the HOME TEAM color.
The symbol of PURITY too - but not necessarily pertaining to the subject here or applicable to it in any way, really...!
I chose to have my own name on the back of it - not any player's name because I love the town, the team's history of hard-working, play fair collective bunch of guys - but I do not want to get attached to any potential mercenary-to-be who will sell his soul and play for the arch-nemesis (although that is extremely improbable here: I mean, the damn Habs are definitely not the money moguls that the damn Yanks are!) on the very first chance he gets to crack the bank...!
And I chose to have my year of birth as my number - what else?
Therefore I assure myself of two things:
no rival will ever get away with anything against me because the urge to use, misuse or abuse my name will overcome him the moment my team is pounding on his wretched team on any given day, in any given arena, sports bar, etc...
And secondly (and most importantly, in truth) - my luminous jersey (hey, it's white: it is luminous!) is indeed UNIQUE an there isn't any other like it IN THE WORLD.
Woooooooooo!
Go Bruins, Go!
+++
What a fine, positive ending
to such a b... er, dark ranting, eh...!
posted by Luminous (\ô/) Luciano™ at 7:06 AM
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