My boy should be back from Iraq in something over two months, and that's unsettling me.
I write more than a little about rolling, nowadays. For the first year or so of this blog I didn't mention it hardly at all. Evolution is real. I reference some of the personalities I encounter, some of the conversations I hear. Generally the more voluble will get more column space. That is the nature of things. The ones who want the attention get it. I do notice the quiet ones. But my observations and speculations will be private -- as is fitting, for quiet people. They don't cry out for the attention, and my attentions with them are only mists on still water.
Any impressions from today? Well, someone put a pornographic homosexual image into my head. Not really his fault. I asked how such and such a circumstance had come about, and was told what somebody had seen. The point is, a mere eight or so words called up the picture, and it was like a physical blow. You can't guard against something like that.
I've become much more aware of that aspect of my psyche recently. I don't know what to make of it. All the graphic gay talk hasn't helped. It really does seem to be a compulsion with a couple of these guys. Automatic. It's pretty much guaranteed that I won't be spending any off the mat time with them. I don't watch horror movies for the same reason. However skillfully made, I don't need it in my head. Too bad. I can see benefit in unstructured socializing.
A woman came into the bjj studio today when only two of us were there. Had circumstances been only slightly different, I would have asked her for her number. No lie. If this keeps up, I'll stop writing a blog.
Normally I wouldn't post this. I've got lots of rambles saved as drafts. I'm showing this just to show what I write when I'm writing just to write.
And then there's Dog. The Bounty Hunter. Don't watch the show. But he was talking on the phone with his son about the boy's girlfriend. A colored girl of low character, according to Dog. Well, he didn't exactly use the word "colored." Do we say "colored" anymore? It used to be polite. Well, Dog was definitely not polite. He used a word that only coloreds can use. A lot. He used it a lot. His son taped the conversation and sold it to the National Enquirer. Now Dog's show has been suspended. Canceled? You know, like Imus.
So what was said?
Duane "Dog" Chapman: I don't care if she's a Mexican, a whore or whatever. It's not because she's black, it's because we use the word "nigger" sometimes here. I'm not gonna take a chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for for 30 years because some fucking nigger heard us say "nigger" and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over! I'm not taking that chance at all! Never in life! Never! Never! If Lyssa [Dog's daughter] was dating a nigger, we would all say 'fuck you!' And you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home ya da da ... it's not that they're black, it's none of that. It's that we use the word "nigger". We don't mean "you fucking scum nigger without a soul". We don't mean that shit. But America would think we mean that. And we're not taking a chance on losing everything we got over a racial slur because our son goes with a girl like that. I can't do that Tucker. You can't expect Gary, Bonnie, Cecily, all them young kids to [garbled] because 'I'm in love for 7 months' -- fuck that! So, I'll help you get another job but you cannot work here unless you break up with her and she's out of your life. I can't handle that shit. I got 'em in the parking lot trying to record us. I got that girl saying she's gonna wear a recorder...
Tucker Chapman: I don't even know what to say.
First, what a stupid son. Did I ever mention my own wonderful son? I'm clearly a much better parent than Dog. He may not have known what even to say. He knew what to do, though. Sell out his father. According to Wikipedia, 23-year old Tucker "was serving a 20-month prison term on a drug charge in 2002 and was released spring 2006..." The math doesn't quite make sense there, but neither does betraying your father's empire for whatever the relative pittance young Tucker and his girlfriend got from the gossip mag. Isn't it strange that Dog refers to the young Negress of low character as wanting to tape his casual use of an obscenity to sell to the National Enquirer -- and then it happens! What are the odds?!?
Next, a coalition of racist "civil rights leaders" in Los Angeles sent the A&E network a letter demanding the show be canceled. The racists claimed Dog's conversation was not just hurtful and demeaning to black women, but that "They are a vicious attack on and call to end interracial relations, as well as an incitement to violence." Sounds like a threat, to me. They feel incited, invited, to violence. Next, Dog is a rough talker. So what? So the fuck what? You thought he was an altar boy? He was convicted of murder. He was a prison barber. He's white trash -- 11 children by five women -- who fell into something sweet. It's not that he uses foul language. You do, or did, or will. It's not that he is a racist. Maybe he is. So what? He has the right to be a racist. This is America, and we have not-so-much freedom of speech, what with the peecee puritans purging the lexicon, but we do still have freedom of thought. Would Dog be wrong to be racist? I think so. You think so. In fact, he thinks so too. "We don't mean that shit. But America would think we mean that." Indeed. Private words don't make us racist. Neither do private thoughts. Actions make us racist. I know something worse than a racist. "I got that girl saying she's gonna wear a recorder..."
Last, then, it was a private conversation, between a father and his son. Like Alec Baldwin and his daughter. Private. Not something broadcast over the radio by a highly paid and greatly experienced radio professional. Not something spoken on stage at a public venue during a free-association "comedy" bit. See the difference? It has to do with public and private conduct. Would you like your rants in your worst moments, or your butt-scratchings and nose-pickings, or your fornications and masturbations to be broadcast? However shameless you are, you must draw the line somewhere. Would you like what is on the other side of that line to be made known? Let's just see what your mother thinks of the way you talk, so often, so casually, in mixed company even. We'll find out how hard she can slap.
Dog has a right to say "nigger". Just like you say "bitch". What, it's not insulting? It's not a slur? Oh -- it's different? Yeah, you're right -- because women have never been oppressed and discriminated against. It's different because you're comfortable saying it. And it's okay for you to say it, because you don't really have a disrespect problem with women. It's just a habit you've allowed yourself, heh, and doesn't mean anything really. Yep, you're right. It's totally different than what Dog did. Thanks for helping me see that. Oh, here's your mother. She wants to slap you.
If Dog says "nigger" publicly, it is fitting that public action be called for. If he does it privately, then our own responses should be private. We disapprove, so we don't watch his show, and inform others of his rudeness so that they might not watch his show. If you have any other opinion, I put it to you that you are an egregious hypocrite, with no sense of proportion, with a double-standard that your fellow bigots would be proud of, and with an integrity level that registers as nonsubstantive.
J
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