Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about nature goin' haywire and BDP.

"You are making a magic brew. What does it do?"

Good afternoon blog fam! Lots to get into today, plus I've got some new decorations I'd like to show off, so let's do this...

To go along with my award-winning Fivesixer's Magical Elixir found exclusively at brothernature's now-defunct Blogging Banana Bar, I've been tasked with coming up with another brew that makes men more handsome and causes women to lose their clothes. This is not as easy as it sounds.

I know it wouldn't be bitter, yet not too sweet that it goes down like liquid candy and impairs you hurriedly. Nobody needs that kind of mess. It'd be...appealing...to a wide range of victims people...no one's gonna make fun of you at a bar or a party for nippin' from a bottle of this stuff. It'd just be the universal "good time in a drinkable form"...sounds about right. It doesn't mix well with drama or haters, so if you're bringin' any of that noise with you I suggest you order a Budweiser or a Zima.

It's a drink with personality and charm...like, I swear after two or three of 'em you can see it winking at you and giving you the thumbs-up because it knows you're gonna go out of your comfort zone and ask a pretty girl to dance with you. And she'll of course say yes, because she saw that same wink/thumbs-up combo in her drink too. Why? 'Cuz it's your night! And that's the advertising tag line/slogan/whatever right there...see? Not only am I the master of a good time, but I'm also a marketing whiz! Whoooo hooooo! Somebody call the fire department, 'cuz this bloggist is on fi-yahhh!! Or, ya know...don't; it's cool.

BCF PROMPT: "What would you do if it physically rained cats and dogs? How would life be different?"

Seriously?? Ok, I know I'm bad when it comes to thinkin' up a prompt I'd like to see other people's takes on, but this? I've been through a lot of prompts in my day, and I'm still scratchin' my head over the idea that someone thought this was a good idea <gives the side-eye to Charlie ~ >. But I should probably shut up and keep typin', because who am I to say anything about someone else's prompt?

So for real, life would be mad different. You're talkin' Mother Nature droppin' animals on your head. That's just dangerous...but think of the other societal implications that could be in play here. Maybe we'd finally get a real scientist in Congress to study the effects cats and dogs falling from the sky are having on the environment. Instead of dismissing activists as bleeding-heart liberal loonies, we'd take them seriously because you know PETA would be losing its collective shit over animals being washed down storm drains (because bigger precipitation means we need bigger sewers...that's how governments work). And umbrellas? They'd be made of easily-scratchable yet sturdier materials with rawhide handles, but they'd be hella cheaper 'cuz we'd be goin' through 'em faster, possibly disrupting the world's economy in the process because how are we supposed to handle making products to protect us from god damn animals raining down on us every couple of days?

Not to mention...catch me on the wrong day when the world has smacked me in the face with a storm of puppies, and I might kill the shit outta you verbally for lookin' at me sideways. You don't wanna be around me when it's a bad day made worse by precipitated mammals.

And I can't believe that some people would think this to be a "good thing", like "Oh, it's so cute outside, raining cats and dogs!" No. Fuck that, a hundred thousand times. Those are dogs and cats that are gonna shit on my lawn and tear up the garbage, with no one responsible for cleaning up after them. There's laws, people! You own a dog and it shits on someone else's property, you gotta clean that up. No ifs, ands, or buts about that. Don't be playin' me for dumb when you think your dog is innocent because he couldn't hold his poop for someone else's yard. If animals were so damn special, they'd use a toilet like the rest of us humans with opposable thumbs and complicated thought processes. No, bad, wrong, and no.

And while I'm at it, all you people who think this would be like pennies from heaven and the greatest thing in the world that could ever happen? Piss off. I lived for a short while with animal rescuers, and it was no big deal to come home and find new puppies running all over. And to make matters worse, they didn't understand depression in people one bit..."How can anyone be depressed when looking at all these cute puppy faces?" (but imagine that being said in baby-talk...). I'll tell you what...when you're asking someone who isn't an animal person to walk them the second they get outta bed, and care for 'em and clean up after 'em, that does nothing for the depressed individual or the animals. If cute animals cured depression, that'd be fantastic...maybe if goldfish swam out of our faucets that could cure cancer, and watching monkeys doin' it at the zoo that'd be the end to AIDS. Don't tell me I don't have a reason to hate life just 'cuz you saved some puppies from being sold for profit at PetSmart or however that works, and six cats on a twin bed made for one person not much bigger than me isn't "cute"; it's a fucking inconvenience to me, them, my sleeping habits, and my allergies. I have people in my life I don't make as much of an effort for as I should, and I'm supposed to believe that puppies and kittens will make me fucking happy?? There's something very wrong with that whole scenario.

Great. Now I'm all "up here" when I need to be "down here", all because of one of the most implausible prompts I've ever come across. Hope you're happy, Charlie. Hope it rains fucking cats and dogs IRL on your house someday, and you realize just how terrible it is to actually get what you wish for. Good luck with that, good sir.

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Whew. Gotta switch up some gears and get back into the love of dead musicians. Today's choice is Scott La Rock  , the DJ for Boogie Down Productions.

Hip-hop is known for its murders...I know someone already covered Tupac, and I had an entry all written up for the Notorious B.I.G. before I scrapped it, because if we're being honest here I was never really big on either of 'em. I went with Eazy-E and ODB earlier, but they weren't as influential in my opinion as BDP was (and they also weren't murdered).

Scott La Rock though...bad place, bad time. He was a social worker who met KRS-One at a facility for homeless men, and he ultimately led Kris Parker out of the street life that would've only ended in crime and other societal ills. When another member of the BDP posse was having problems with a dude because he was dating that dude's ex, Scott, Kris, and the crew rolled up on the scene to settle things...instead, they got shot at, and Scott La Rock took a bullet to the neck. Dude was there to mediate a simple discussion between two grown men, and wound up losing his life because someone thought a gun was the better answer in a dispute. His killer(s) were acquitted, and KRS-One redirected the focus of BDP to preserving Scott's memory and railing against violence between African Americans.

I consider BDP to be hugely influential...I grew up listening to a lot of music, and gravitated toward hip-hop at a young age because there was a history being taught that I wasn't getting anywhere else. And while it was easy to fall for the bombast of NWA and other gangsta rap groups out there, real life was being addressed by Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions. It wasn't "grab your guns and let's kill people because we're poor", it was "grab your books and learn how to use your brain to overcome this shitty society". There are different ways of being militant, and this was one that spoke to me. It sounds all silly and dated now, but stopping violence isn't something that should be shoved under the carpet via trends or demographics. It's sad that even today we have to teach our youth that killing someone over stupid shit isn't the answer to anyone's problems.

"Some wish to destroy this scene called hip-hop,
but I won't drop.
Not I or Scott LaRock."
Lyrics.  

Special thanks are in order for Legerdemain , who cleaned up this slice of internet pizza with some dope new images. Become a "Blogging Circle of Friends "  "Blogger Of The Week" enough times and the closet of imagery in your head might open up for you too.

Let's not even think about cats and dogs being rained down upon us...how about what science has already provided us with now?  

So I did a stupid thing today, and I always do it when I have a li'l extra scratch to play around with...I ate me some Burger King. And of course, it was like most fast food options...sounds kick-ass because you're bombarded with ads, but it leaves you feeling less than fulfilled. Super-questioning my life choices after the debacle that is french fries and beef on rolls, because nobody in their right mind should ever eat an extra-long cheeseburger, even when you request bacon on it. It's been like five hours and this stuff still hasn't passed through my body on its way to the porcelain grave...but it could've been worse, and I suppose I should be thankful it wasn't  .

And in my mind's clouded state of bacon cheeseburger goodness, I stopped of in a Dollar General to find a Kanye West cd I didn't know I needed. I got home, prepared to drop it in my iTunes library, and realized it was the "edited" version. That's $6 I'll never see again, because why should any adult buy an edited version of anything? You already know what the cusswords are, and it's not like you can't figure out what a censored word is in context. Censorship in general is stupid...you can't tell me that if I typed "fxxx" instead of "fuck" you'd let your kid read this only because I was cute about my censoring, when we all know and refuse to admit your kid knows what "fxxx" means. Yeah, we sit there and say "these fuckin' kids...", but refuse to admit they hear the eff word a lot more than we think, or think that beeping over it or crossing it out will suddenly change their view of it. Why bother? If you're gonna say "fuck", let it be heard, because it doesn't matter anyway that you tried to cover it up...everyone knows what you meant regardless.

Super-excited, because I'm a pen nerd and I made this happen today...

Best pens ever. So smooth and clean; I think we had a convo about pens, didn't we 💙 Carly - February is here! ? Found 'em! Makes me excited to pen down a note to groovygirl, who I was assigned through Elle 's "The Snail Mail Forum" . Nice grip, smooth output...when you work in customer service and showing up with a pen is vital to your job, you grow attached to pens that aren't the garden-variety Bic joints that you can get at certain times of the year 10@$1.00. No. Quality overrides quantity...y'all are writer people, so feel me on this. I'll take five Xenos for $5 at Staples over ten Bics for a buck. Clearly the best decision I made today.

And we're done here for today. I've already apologized to Charlie ~ for my tirade regarding his prompt selection, and there's a football game I should be showing some interest in...so peace, sometimes I wear a hat, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!