Keeping It Real

As faithful readers are aware, my blog is used almost exclusively for original commentary. However, there are those rare occasions when I read an eloquent article by someone else that says what I'm thinking in words that are infinitely better than those I ever choose myself.

This article, posted on MSNBC.com, explains how Michael Vick and Pacman Jones are doing themselves and black culture (not to mention dogs) a horrible disservice by "keeping it real."

It didn’t happen overnight. It was an insidious virus that spread over the past 20 years and has flowed through every bit of our culture. What has happened is that we let the real African American culture get buried under the darkest element of a hip-hop generation that glorified and perpetuated all the worst racial stereotypes our parents, grandparents and great grandparents took their lifetimes to erase. It’s not the music that did it, okay? It’s the culture that it spawned.

It’s a culture that created a new generation of minstrels who are just as dehumanizing as Amos and Andy or Stepin Fetchit. Now they come glamorizing thug life and prison fashion, legitimizing derogatory racial insults into the mainstream, and convincing an entire generation that the only measure of true blackness is a hard-core gangsta edge, and anyone who rejects this is either hopelessly out of touch or a sad Uncle Tom. So the Pacmans and Michael Vicks just can’t pull away from the street, can’t tear themselves away from so-called friends who have rewarded them for that loyalty by escorting them to a front-row seat in a federal courtroom, then rolling on them to the authorities....

Check it out here.

Top Five Awesome WWE Gimmicks

Last time, we did gimmicks that were ridiculous. Today, we cover gimmicks that actually worked, even though they might be rather silly.

1. The Godfather
The Godfather was a pimp who came to the ring in a flamboyant feathered outfit, complete with boa, hat, and walking stick. He would always be accompanied by three or four local strippers, whom he called his "ho's." When Vince McMahon was asked by some television interviewer what sort of message it sends to kids when a wrestler came to the ring with prostitutes, Vince immediately pointed out that the WWF never said "prostitutes" but only referred to them as "ho's," since that makes it all better.

2. The Undertaker (early years)
When The Undertaker first came on the scene, he was legitimately scary. You actually thought that the lanky, ashen, wraith-like humanoid whose eyes were rolled back in his head and who was impervious to pain was actually the living dead. (Don't get me started about when they turned him into a biker.)

3. "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase
The man who came to the ring with the slogan "Everybody's Got A Price" was one of my personal favorites. He would use his vast personal fortune to humiliate people, employing tricks like telling a kid that he would give him a hundred bucks if he could bounce a ball ten times, then knocking the ball away once the kid did nine in a row. (If he was so rich, though, why would he even need to wrestle?)

4. The Berserker
He's a bulky guy with a bushy beard that wore a Viking outfit and ran around the ring yelping. For some reason, I love wrestlers that seem like they're not quite human.

5. The Mountie
About the only law enforcement officer out there that would be less threatening as a wrestler is a park ranger. Nonetheless, the WWF's Mountie had a mean streak. When he didn't get his way, the faux RCMP officer would whip out his shock stick and taser his opponent when the referee's back was turned.