Thank you all who have stuck with me through the years (it’s been eight, three as a “music blog”) and especially to the friends I have made through this website. It’s been great, except when it hasn’t. I’m looking forward to the next chapter…

Related posts:

1. Middle Class Rut – So Long
2. The Grays – Not Long For This World

Listen: eye.mp3

No related posts.

Listen: hero.mp3

Related posts:

1. The Verve Pipe – Generations

Listen: magicwords.mp3

No related posts.

I found myself this morning feeling and wondering about a lot of things. Namely, I wondered if that while I went out running today, in the same exact area this boy was shot in, whether or not I would be stopped by a Mexican just to get beaten and shot as well. As I ran, I passed by a Mexican wearing a baggy black t-shirt and shorts so large and baggy they might as well have been pants. He looked exactly like a gang member. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the guy who shot that kid, and whether he was going to shoot me too. I ran faster as I passed him.

Was that racist of me? In the last few years there have been several killings around my neighborhood. They have all been committed by Mexicans or blacks. Anyone who cares about their own survival would come to the same conclusion I did in my subconscious: Mexicans and blacks like to kill each other and/or other people. I should be wary of them.

Is that racist? Is it racist to take a look at the world and learn things from it? I stopped unicycling in public after a group of Mexican kids, dressed in typical gang member or “vato” attire, decided to throw rocks at me as I passed them. I learned on this day that I should be wary of all groups of Mexican kids, because they seem to pride themselves on their vicious and stupid behavior. It wasn’t white kids; I’ve never been harassed or threatened by anyone white, they were Mexicans. Is it racist for me to have learned that Mexicans will fuck with me, but white kids won’t?

This is why it’s upsetting that the Trayvon Martin killing has been reduced to a simple race issue. People want to paint George Zimmerman, who is both Mexican and white, as a racist who killed Trayvon simply because of that fact. They want you to believe that the only reason Zimmerman stopped Trayvon was because he was racist. This is the simple solution to a much deeper problem. It is easy to just declare racism and move on, without having to think about the cultural implications that caused Zimmerman and Trayvon to meet.

Geraldo Rivera had to apologize today for comments he made insinuating that wearing a hoodie automatically makes you look like you’re up to no good. I don’t think he should have had to apologize. Here’s why.

Geraldo pointed out that every time you see a security camera tape of a robbery or a crime, the perpetrator is almost always wearing a hoodie. This is a learned response: you see something happen enough times you start to accept that it is probably a fact. What Geraldo didn’t point out however was the overlying “hoodie culture” that dominates the black culture. What does the hoodie really symbolize?

You don’t have to travel far into hip-hop or rap culture to find people in hoodies rapping about killing people. What’s even worse, the majority of the people wearing hoodies and rapping about killing people and gang wars are black. Trayvon Martin, in an effort to fit in with his black peers and the culture he was into, wore a hoodie regularly and, according to latest reports, even wore a gold dental grill, a useless accessory only worn by the type of rappers who, well, rap a lot about drugs and killing people.

This isn’t to say Trayvon Martin dressed this way because he was into drugs or was into killing people, but it’s clear that he was into a certain type of culture and dressed the way that the culture encourages. On top of that, reports are coming in that he also used spray paint to tag at his school. It’s pretty clear at this point what culture Trayvon Martin applied himself to. Tagging, gold grills, hooded sweatshirts and probably baggy pants.

Trayvon Martin turned himself into a billboard for a certain kind of culture, specifically the kind of culture that glorifies murder, drug dealing, calling women bitches, spray painting public property and generally being an all-around asshole or shithead. You can’t really argue with this.

As an outside observer looking in at this culture, I don’t understand it. I don’t think there is any pride in killing, but obviously the culture that Mexican and black children buy into thinks so. Rap is especially obsessed with the idea that in order to be masculine, you have to be tough and intimidating, both concepts incredibly foreign to me as a scrawny white guy. I think it’s, to be totally honest, a culture that embraces and encourages stupidity and violence. 50 Cent, an intelligent businessman, has made millions off this fact. He’s learned that by acting as stupid as possible, he appeals to black culture, and boy does 50 Cent rap about killing people.

If you’re George Zimmerman, or if you’re me or even if you’re you, you can’t help but learn these things. If blacks and Mexicans can respond to it so favorably and embrace it, it’s easy to see how non-blacks and non-Mexicans can respond to the culture as well, and not favorably in the least. We’ve learned that this culture centers around killing, drugs, and generally not doing well, and it disgusts and scares us.

When George Zimmerman saw Trayvon Martin walking down the street, he didn’t see a 17 year old boy who was defenseless. He saw black culture. He thought of every rap song he’d ever heard that boasted about killing. He saw every rap music video with black people in them dressed the same way, again, boasting about killing and being “hard”. He didn’t even mean to think these things: it’s subconscious. These are learned responses. You see enough videos of robbers in hoodies, you begin to think that everyone isolated, alone, in a hoodie is a possible criminal. You see a black guy with a dental grill, you know what type of culture he loves and probably the kind of person he is.

This is learned behavior. It’s not racism.

The fact is that black culture, especially the rap culture that the youth buy into, promotes the idea that in order to be cool you must be threatening. You must be tough. You must have bling. You mustn’t be scared to kill if someone disrespects you, your business, or your family. The only way to get the bling is to be hard, and the only way to be hard is to scare other people.

If you don’t get it: George Zimmerman was taught by black people to fear black people dressed a certain way. The culture that black youth celebrate revolves around reinforcing the stereotype that black people are simple minded, violent, attracted to quick/illegal cash, into drugs, and tough as hell.

Trayvon Martin unfortunately learned the hard way that when you purposefully teach people to fear your race you are treated with suspicion. Based on Zimmerman’s story, Trayvon Martin learned a lot of lessons from his culture, namely that you have to act tough instead of being polite, and that if someone disrespects you, you have to get physical with them.

If what Zimmerman says is true, and we’ll never really know, then Trayvon Martin wasn’t killed by a racist, and he wasn’t even killed by a gun: he was killed by a culture that purposefully teaches other people to fear him.

Is it racist to pay attention to the world and learn from the things you witness and other people tell you? How many songs can you hear about killing cops or gang members before you get the idea that black people like to kill people? How many people have to be killed before you learn you should avoid certain parts of the neighborhood?

Is it racist to learn things about a culture, from the things that culture promotes?

No related posts.

Listen: augustine.mp3

No related posts.

I would write overly melodramatic posts, though brief, about how I longed for the “McDonald’s cashier with the 69 yin-yang tattoo on her neck below her left ear” every time I checked in–which was a lot, I was easily the mayor and ate there about three times a weak if not more–and, well, generally that was the punch line.

She had a tattoo that was, I assume, supposed to be a yin-yang symbol but the parts were clearly separate, like two sperm making a 69 shape. Eventually I progressed to using her name once I actually bothered to look at her name tag and she became, “Krista, the girl with the 69 yin-yang tattoo”.

It was all in fun. I had no intention of ever asking her out. I kept up the Buzz posts even after I became involved with my ex-girlfriend again. It was a joke between us and, well, everyone on Google Buzz. As far as I knew, the girl was just some random McDonald’s employee with a funny tattoo. I didn’t think anyone would care, and no one would have had I not gone and stuck my dick in the hornet’s nest, as Colbert would say.

One day my Mayorship on Foursquare was stolen by someone. Thanks to the feature where it has that person tweet at you about stealing your mayorship, I saw it was some Mexican guy fresh out of high school named Ernesto. He looked kind of like he wanted to be all #thuglife. Then I saw that he was tweeting “I love you” and such to someone whose twitter account began with the name “Krista”.

I nearly shat my pants with excitement. What a scoop! The “girl with the 69 yin-yang tattoo” plot thickens. Not only is my “crush” not single, but she’s with some wannabe gang-banger, the polar opposite of me. A quick browse of her tweets showed me that she was dumb as a brick, essentially a white girl wannabe chola. She even still had a MySpace, covered with glittery gifs all about how in love she is with Ernesto. All in all, pretty hilarious.

Of course, I decided to fuck with them. Who wouldn’t?

I was operating under a couple false pretenses: these people are dumber than shit; people can generally take a joke; I am completely anonymous and impossible to touch; and the worst one: what’s the worst that could possibly happen? I thought that, due to the barrier of Foursquare, despite the lack of distance between us, I could act like we existed in the realm of The Internet. You can say what you want and no one will ever really know who you are. You don’t have to think about what you’d be willing to say to someone’s face, because there’ll never be a face. I was wrong about this.

I posted a tip on the McDonald’s on Foursquare saying this: “That cashier chick Krista is totally DTF, I mean just look at the 69 tattoo on her neck!” If you don’t know, DTF means “down to fuck”, or, you know, a slut.

It didn’t take long for her boyfriend to notice. I think even before I got out of the McDonald’s there was a new tip from him that said this: “That Stuyvesant guy is a fucking faggot who deserves to have his shit kicked in, fuck you faggot asshole!”

I realized this response was way worse than I anticipated, so I deleted the tip and messaged him an apology on Twitter. I told him I was way out of line and it was only meant to be a joke. He accepted my apology and deleted his tip, he apologized as well, and I thought that was it. Well, except that I couldn’t really let that be it, I had a funny story-line going on. I mean, I didn’t mean to escalate the situation, but I didn’t want to let the joke die for the sake of the ‘audience’ on Buzz and Twitter, as if anyone really cared.

Assuming no one pertinent was paying attention, I would still occasionally tweet (Buzz was a P.O.S. ultimately) about the “girl with the 69 yin yang tattoo”, but the real mistake was when I said something to the effect of “oh, the girl with the 69 yin yang tattoo wishes she could leave her loser boyfriend for me” without realizing that her ‘loser boyfriend’ was actively monitoring my tweets.

He started tweeting at me again that he was going to find me and kick my ass. Still assuming this was “The Internet” I was dealing with I shot back at him something like if you touch me I will fucking destroy you, moron, though of course I could do no such thing because I never have and doing so seems like a strange, alien concept. I don’t believe I’ve ever thrown a punch in anger or defense. So, it was dumb of me, but still. “The Internet”. He shot me some more “I’m gonna kick your ass” tweets and I sent a few “Whatever, bro, take a joke” tweets back at him, but we only went back and forth about two times.

I stopped tweeting about McDonald’s or referencing her at all after this, I believe, hoping the problem would just go away. I didn’t really want to egg some guy on. I wasn’t really sharing the threats with anyone so there was no “audience” for this joke–the joke was me having a lame middle school crush, not me pissing off some people. Yet, having stopped coming around, I would check on their twitter accounts and I would see them tweeting about me still. Always calling me a “faggot”, or “stalker faggot”, which I thought was interesting because if I was stalking her, why would I be a faggot?

I tweeted at them explaining that it was all a big joke, and that I had no interest in stalking her and that it was all silly. I believe even Krista responded to me saying that she understood, but said I was no longer allowed to go to that McDonald’s anymore and I agreed.

I thought things were done at this point, though I still didn’t take the whole thing particularly seriously because it was still so ridiculous, so after about a month of nothing really happening I went to McDonald’s for breakfast. I sort of panicked when Krista’s voice came out of the drive thru squawk box, but I assumed it was impossible to assume someone named “Stuyvesant Parker” was a scrawny white boy. I handed her my ATM card to pay and I didn’t think so much as a hint of recognition past through her eyes.

When I got to work, though, I looked at their tweets. She tweeted something at him like, “That stalker faggot came through my work today!” and he tweeted back at her, “Yeah, I know, I know who the fuck he is now, scrawny little bitch.”

Understandably I was worried at this point. I decided to not fuck around anymore. I didn’t go to that McDonald’s anymore. I actually started driving home for lunch just so I could stop at a different McDonald’s by my house, so it’s pretty safe to say this didn’t ruin my taste for McDonald’s. I assumed as long as I stayed off their turf they would just leave me alone. I think I told them, again, through twitter, to leave me alone.

Then things got kind of strange. I was still monitoring their tweets just to make sure I wasn’t in danger. She tweeted something about how her friends thought they saw me at McDonald’s, when I hadn’t been there in at least a month. Then there was something else about how a “skinny white guy” asked for her at McDonald’s when she wasn’t working, and she tweeted something at me about how I better leave them alone. I told them I was going to go to the police if they keep harassing me.

Probably a bit after this I went to go eat lunch at the El Pollo Loco directly across the street from the McDonald’s. I didn’t think anything of it, since I wasn’t at McDonald’s. I checked in on Foursquare as I normally did about half way through my meal. I ate, threw my trash out, and headed out the door.

As I got into my car I heard a voice behind me shout, “Hey!”

I didn’t react because who would be shouting hey at me? But there was another shout, clearly directed at me: “HEY!”

So I stopped and opened my door back up and stuck my head out, to be greeted by maybe an 18-19 year old Mexican guy in a black t-shirt trying to look pretty #thuglife.

“Are you Stuy?”, he asked.

“Huh?” Not really understanding the question at first, since there was no context for it within reality.

“Are you Stuy?” he asked again.

It dawned on me what he was asking. I took his question mean, ultimately, Do you want me to punch you in the face?, so I said the only sensible thing I could think of: “No.” Which in retrospect is much less sensible than “Who?” or “What’s that?” or “Like the baby from Family Guy?” because No is basically saying, “I know who Stuy is and I am not definitely him,” and who would actually know a Stuy?

He put his hand on my shoulder, gently. “Are you sure?” he asked me.

“Look man, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I offered, obviously flustered.

He chuckled and sighed, “Alright man… Alright.” He backed away.

I closed my door and drove off, seeing him watch me the whole time in my mirrors. When I drove off down the street, I saw him run back across the street to McDonald’s.

When I got back to work there were a flurry of tweets between Krista and Ernie. Him saying he actually found me and joking about what a cowardly faggot I am, and her cheering him on about how awesome he is and how hysterical it is that I am such a faggot and that he should have kicked my ass.

I was pretty shaken at this point. That guy could have stabbed me. He could have kicked the shit out of me. Sure, the law would have gotten to him since it’s not like I don’t know everything about him, but I still would have gotten an ass beating (how deserved it would have been is debatable, but I am comfortable with the idea that other things I’ve done much worse than joke about some dumb cashier would be justification for the ass beating I deserve). Or worse, killed.

Either way, “The Internet” ceased to be a barrier. It bled into my reality and it was shocking. I couldn’t believe that these two kids, fresh out of high school, lived lives so tiny that they dedicated time and effort into finding me. They talked about me to their friends, to the point that their friends began imagining they were seeing me places, that their friends were egging them on. I could imagine them spending drunken weekends getting worked up into a machismo fury over me, the “faggot stalker”.

All this over what was maybe, say, 10 seconds out of my life every now and then. Maybe a cumulative 2 minutes of my life I spent writing joke tweets about this McDonald’s cashier, and as result I turned myself into a serious part of these people’s lives.

I started to think about how bad it could get. I thought of Lord of the Flies or the movie Bully, clear demonstrations of when the young and useless become bored in large groups they can easily turn into echo chambers where everyone suddenly approves of acts usually horrendous and unthinkable. I became worried that if I didn’t start to cover my ass, I could find myself senselessly murdered over a simple internet prank.

I learned from a prior situation, though a dissimilar one, that if the police are going to get involved, you want to be the person who calls them first. I called local the police department. I explained my situation over the phone and they sent a police officer out to my house. The only problem was that after waiting five hours for the police officer to show up, I decided to say fuck it and went to go hang out with a friend. Little did I know, twenty minutes after I left the officer showed up.

My dad explained the situation to him, and the answer was as brief as I expected: unless the guy physically harms me, or I call 911 if he finds me again, there is nothing that can be done. But I felt a bit better about there being some sort of record somewhere possibly that I knew people were stalking me so if I ended up dead justice might be served.

A day or two later they were still tweeting about me, so I shot them both a tweet saying this: “You two goddamn morons, I was never stalking anyone. I have talked to the police, they do know who you are, PLEASE leave me alone!”

I never heard from them again after this. A while later I checked their tweets, and her account was deleted, and his account was protected. That made me feel a bit better. Thinking about the situation now, I wonder who that person who asked for her was. I don’t know if McDonald’s was big into social media then, but I wonder how no one from McDonald’s ever contacted me on Twitter about my tweets saying I’m forbidden from going to McDonald’s. Maybe McDonald’s came down on them. Who knows.

What we learned: When you’re publicly checking into locations on the internet and posting photos of shit from your life, you’re not really anonymous per se, and sure you’d think this one would be obvious but imagine how kids growing up today, with Facebook’s endless pursuit of killing privacy, will face this sort of problem in the future when they’re even less aware of it than I was at the time. Even without a face or a name, people can find you.

Also: People are incredibly sensitive about stupid shit. I’ve told this story to many people. Most people agree it’s a ridiculous and unbelievable story, the type of shit that just doesn’t really happen to people or just happens in books and has a much worse ending. Then there was one friend’s girlfriend, who everyone had already established was dumb as a fucking brick prior to this, whose reaction was: “Noooo way, you can’t go do that shit! You can’t go sayin’ things like that!”

She turned to her boyfriend, who was kind of a friend of mine, and said something to the effect of “If anyone said anything like that to me I’d expect you to behave the exact same way.”

To which I said, in front of everyone, “I’m glad that you’re willing to admit to the fact that you’re a moron,” which somehow both girlfriend and boyfriend didn’t hear because she was bitching at him after he said he would not threaten to kick some guy’s ass who made a joke about her. My other friend heard though, and laughed hysterically at my gall to call this girl, a real stuck up bitch, a moron right in her face–in front of her boyfriend. Maybe I don’t learn after all.

She didn’t stop there though. She had a companion story, explaining why you can’t go sayin’ things or whatever. There’s a short version of this one: She decided one night she wanted to go dancing. So she took a straight guy she knew with her to a gay club. Apparently the dancin’ is better at a gay club, I don’t know. Either way, she’s coming out of the bathroom and some gay guy goes, “Darling, you’re so adorable! Are those titties real!?” and grabs her tits for a second and walks off.

She’s traumatized by this and goes back to the only straight guy in the whole place, the one she brought of course, and tells him that some guy just grabbed her tits and that he needs to go kick some ass or something.

At this point I can’t help but point out that 1.) Why the fuck are two straight people in a gay club? 2.) Have you never interacted with gay people in reality or, fuck, seen a movie with gay people in it, they grab tits all the time, it’s like what they do, and 3.) Seriously what the fuck, you’re offended that a gay guy grabbed your tits, what is wrong with you?

The other two males in attendance, including her boyfriend, nodded in agreement. She continues, “So like anyway the guy I’m with gets all up in the gay guy’s face about why he’s grabbing my tits and blah blah blah we get kicked out before anything happens.”

So that’s the caliber of person who generally takes the “faggot stalker” position on this situation. Stupid people. Stupid people can’t take a joke. Stupid people also find ways of thinking stupid things about situations you couldn’t even begin to imagine.

I used to wear a shirt when I was a kid, it said: “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” The shame is that a “large group” is relative. When you’re one person, just two stupid people is a much larger and more powerful group than yourself alone, because those two stupid people can echo stupid thoughts back and forth between each other until they’re so powerful they can defy reason, maybe gravity. I found this out the hard way.

I’ve never been back to that McDonald’s since, even two years later. Though I am the mayor of the one by my house. She probably doesn’t even work there anymore, but if I learned one thing from all this it’s that there is at least one solid gold life motto to live by: better safe than sorry.

No related posts.