MAGIC         PORK

Last weekend, my friend & I decided to stop by this club that’s partly owned by this guy we know. We’re not close friends with him, but we’ve hung out with him before because he’s the boyfriend of an ex-roommate of my ex-girlfriend, who by the way was formerly referred to as my girlfriend on this site but we recently split up. Now that that’s all clear…

The owners of the club are black and it attracts a predominately black clientele. My friend and I are white. I’m so white that my ex-girlfriend, who’s of Indian descent, would joke that I glow in the dark. So I didn’t exactly expect us to blend in with the crowd, but at least we wouldn’t stand out for being slobs. It’s an upscale club and on a previous visit, I felt embarrassed because I was wearing jeans and everyone else seemed to be impeccably dressed. This time we were both dressed pretty well. Or so I thought.

I had gray slacks and a white dress shirt on. We get in line outside the club and I see some guys wearing suits. One guy had this cool fedora on. I’m thinking man, I still look like a slob compared to some of these people. Oh well.

We get up to the bouncer and he says to me “It’s all black tonight, gentlemen. Special event.” Then looks away. I was pretty surprised to say the least. I know that the owners have no issue with white people. But then I realize, he must be making a very dry joke. So I smile and say “oh it is, huh?”

He then looks back at me, breaks his composure and says apologetically “Sorry, I mean all black attire.” I look around, and sure enough everyone is clothed entirely in black. Oh. Now I feel like a shmuck for being the one to bring attention to race. The bouncer tells the other bouncer that they might want to watch how they phrase it.

It’s a good thing I didn’t fly off the handle and make a scene (as if I would ever do that). That would have been quite embarrassing.

I was going to come up with some clever title for this post, but then went with the obvious in a blatant attempt at getting more Google traffic. But I’m sure that even so, I won’t even be on the first 100 pages.

So yes, this post is about Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards. In case you have better things to do with your life and don’t know what I’m talking about, Britney Spears did a surprise performance at the VMAs last weekend that was pretty much a train wreck. No, a train wreck would have been her falling off the stage or something so let’s say it was a 5 car pile-up. Everyone says train wreck. Let’s start a new phrase.

I knew as soon as I saw it that the Internet would be flooded with people trashing it. You can do a search yourself. She wore this slutty bikini and didn’t seem to know her dance moves or her lyrics for that matter (lip-synced). It was just embarrassing to watch. I noticed (because it’s impossible not to in that outfit) that she wasn’t quite the skinny girl she was before. Had a little padding on her. I thought that it probably wasn’t the best choice in costume and I would have went with something a little less revealing if I were her. But I really didn’t think much of it, I just thought the performance was bad.

Then I read online people making fun of her for being “fat” and it made me mad to be honest. Yes that’s right, you thought this was going to be all about Britney-bashing didn’t you? Well I like to surprise ‘ya.

I thought “I should do a post about that”, then later I saw an article on CNN.com saying pretty much what I was saying so good for them. But I’ll continue my point anyway.

People always complain about these super-skinny models and how it sets unrealistic expectations for adolescent girls. Now you have a young woman that (for whatever reason) young girls seem to look up to looking not fat but not exactly skinny - and everyone pounces on her for being fat and don’t think what adolescent girls are going to take away from that? Let’s get real people. A girl that looks like Britney Spears, at any bar in any city in the USA, would be getting hit on left and right.

That’s what made me mad. I just pictured some teenage girl hearing how “fat” Britney was and thinking “gee, I look about like that in a bikini and most of my friends say I look good - I guess I’m really fat though”.

Would I have advised Britney to wear that outfit? Most definitely not. I mean it’s just trashy regardless of her weight. But with her having a bit of a “paunch” on her (seems to be the word everyone’s using - one site said “paunch me baby one more time” which I admit made me laugh out loud), it would have been best to cover it up a little and she still could have looked hot. I read that she was advised to wear this corset thing but she wanted the bikini. So make fun of her for her fashion choices. Make fun of her for her awful performance. Make fun of her for shaving her head or whatever other nonsense she’s done recently. But don’t make fun of this mother of two for having a little tummy.

I don’t know if I’m explaining myself well so I thought of a way to summarize how I feel about heavier 2007 VMAs Britney. I think it will make things totally clear. Imagine someone punches me in the face, then throws me in a cage for a night. But they throw in Britney with me, wearing that outfit. It’s a wash. The beating and false incarceration is canceled out.

But now say they punch me repeatedly in the face, break my left arm, and set my eyebrows on fire before they throw me in. They better get themselves a time machine and throw in 2003 VMAs Britney!! Either that or Rihanna. Preferably after she’s been deprived of any sexual pleasure for two years. Which now that I think of it would also require a time machine.

There, see what I’m saying now? No? OK, nevermind.

Last weekend, I saw part of the Rochester Labor Day parade. Its route is right near my apartment so I just walked down the street and met up with my friend that also lives nearby. We watched maybe 10 minutes of it then left. I’ve never watched a Labor Day parade before and now I realize I wasn’t missing anything.

Here’s my understanding of Labor Day. It was founded by some labor union dudes who wanted to give everyone a day off to thank them for all their hard work and to celebrate all the advances labor unions had made: Eight-hour work day, no children with bleeding fingers coming home every day, things like that. That’s probably glossing over some details but that’s the gist of it.

So with that in mind, I was expecting to see a few unions in a Labor Day parade. What I was not expecting was to see union after union after union. Hey there’s a band. Union, union, union. Loud fire truck. Union… you get the idea.

First off, this was boring. I saw the carpenter’s union. I know it was the carpenter’s union because there was a banner saying so. Then there’s a bunch of people walking behind the banner. I think they may have had matching T-shirts with the union name on them. They had a wagon with their kids sitting on it. The kids were sitting on a stack of lumber or something. I just described one of the more creative groups I saw. To be honest, I didn’t even remember all of those details, it was so boring. I only remembered the kids on the wagon because I saw a snapshot of it on the Insider’s website.

Then there was the roofer’s union. Ooh these people are in big trucks. Wow.

Rochester has a sprinkler fitters union. Interesting. That’s sarcastic. It’s not at all interesting.

Come on people, if you’re going to be in a parade, put some effort into it. Now maybe I just watched for the most boring 10 minutes and there were some amazing floats. If so I’d like to hear about them. But I doubt it.

You want to show off the roofer’s union? Have them roof a frickin’ house! Now wouldn’t you like to see that? Have a parade float with a mock rooftop. You have dozens of carpenters there - they could probably build the float for you 20 minutes before the parade starts. (Too bad there’s probably some union rule that prevents them from doing that.) Then have a bunch of guys up there roofing it as it drives down the street.

Maybe you could have some poor guy lying next to it writing in pain like he had just fallen off a ladder. But luckily there’s a doctor there helping him out - because he has insurance thanks to the union. OK, I may have went too far with that last one. Probably a little too abstract for a float. But the roofing thing I’m dead serious about. I assume they must do that sort of thing in bigger cities because it was just too easy of an idea to come up with.

Carpenter’s union is easy. They have a stack of wood, just have people build something. I saw Witness. If those Amish can build a whole barn in a day, you can build an outhouse in the time it takes to finish the parade. Yes the truck would be moving but you guys do this for a living so you should be able to handle a challenge like that. Go in with the plumbing union and you can actually put a working toilet in that thing too.

OK so the parade was boring, but more than that, it depressed me. Watching the roofers go by, I thought “Man, good thing I don’t own a house because I’m clearly not going to get a good rate on a roof in Rochester”. And each union I saw walk past I had the same thought. The larger the union the worse I felt.

When I saw some smiling man or woman walking along, waving to the crowd, I didn’t think “What a hard-working person, let’s applaud him/her”. No, I thought “Yeah I’d be smiling too if I were you - you’re probably some lazy incompetent person riding the coattails of your more qualified peers, all the while shaking down your company for pay and benefits you don’t deserve”.

OK, so that was harsh and an extreme exaggeration. But that’s the fun thing about having a blog. I can say what I want. I don’t even have to do research or anything.

I hate it when people act like they “deserve” this or that. “All the other companies in upstate NY pay such-and-such. We’re being treated unfairly. Wah wah.” Then why haven’t you taken a job at one of the other companies? Could it be that it’s too long of a commute or you’d have to move and make your kids switch schools or you’d lose your seniority or they won’t hire you…? Then sounds to me like there are non-monetary benefits to your current job isn’t there? If you want to try to get more money or better benefits then fine, but just don’t act like it’s some right you have.

I realize I’m not hurting for money and I don’t have a family to support so I’m not making fun of people that are in that situation. Well okay, maybe I am but I’m making fun of the way some of them play the victim, that’s all. I have family members that are in unions and I know they’re hard-working.

I saw this guy interviewed on 60 Minutes named Richard Berman that’s pissed off labor unions with various ad campaigns he’s run (funded by corporations of course). I immediately liked him. I don’t know accurate his ads are, but they are funny and I love seeing the unions get all in a huff over this guy. This one pretty much sums up what I was saying. I probably could have just skipped the above few paragraphs and linked to it instead: DMV ad (video/mov) or DMV ad (video/wmv).

Here’s another one that’s funny: Thanks Union Bosses (YouTube).