Fossilitating Our History

As I'm sure you already know from your google calendar alert, July is National Dinosaur Month. Every year, we use the hottest month of the summer to celebrate the achievements, history, and struggle of these often forgotten behemoths. From PSA's featuring celebrities talking up the contributions of their favorite dinosaurs to free outdoor screenings of The Land Before Time to showcases of traditional dinosaur dancing (the "triceratop hop" is a favorite amongst young people), the month is filled with jurassic-sized learning opportunities that remind us that nothing is cooler than dinosaurs...except maybe robot dinosuars! Robo-sauruses (or is it Robo-sauri?) if you will.

As I sit here writing this, clad in my favorite sweater with a smiling stegosaurus on the chest (it reads "Dinosaur Picnic: I got the plates, you bring the cups."), I'm reminded of my childhood when these giant reptiles ruled my imagination. Other kids spent afternoons dreaming of playing in the NBA or flying to the moon, while I dreamed of becoming an actual brontosaurus. (Did you know that the brontosaurus' nostrils are located at the top of its head rather than beneath its eyes? I did.) I spent hours upon hours doing neck-stretch exercises and eating leaves off the plastic fern in our living room. I wrote emergency evacuation plans in case meteors struck the earth once again. I would tell my mom things like, "I need a bath' cuz I'm exSTINK!" I even dressed up the neighbor's dog like a T-rex and practiced running away from it.

But then, my world came crashing down like a pile of dinosaur bones at the Natural History Museum during an earthquake. In 1993, Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton made a piece of anti-dinosaur propaganda called Jurassic Park. It's like Birth of a Nation to the dinosaur community. It depicted our Cretaceous friends as violent, savage beasts that threaten humanity with sharp claws, giant fangs, and an insatiable appetite for flesh. It was one of the lowest points in history (second to a certain meteor shower), but because of the outrcry that followed this hateful, ignorant, speciesist movie, the pro-dinosaur movement was truly galvanized. The movement blossomed instantenously just like a tiny capsule submerged in hot water that suddenly turns into a dinosaur-shaped sponge.

Millions took to the streets and demanded equality for dinosaurs no matter how large they were, no matter how small their brains, no matter how dead and extinct they remained. The outpouring of support was infectious. People everywhere wore Che Guevara-like t-shirts featuring a militant Iguanadon or they wore buttons that said "Tip the SCALES of justice for DINOSAURS" and "Spielberg, you'll be dinoSORRY!" The movement was victorsaurious when in 1995 then President Bill Clinton signed a bill apologizing for past wrongdoings against dinosaurs and declared July National Dinosaur Month.

Since then, dinosaurs have been woven into the fabric of our society. "Rex" is ranked number 2 on the most common baby names list. Toronto named their professional basketball team the "Raptors." And last November, we elected our first black/apatosaurus president Barack Hussein Littlefoot Obama. And the rest, as they say, is pre-history.

Happy National Dinosaur Month! Enjoy this clip of Dinosaucers, warring factions of dinosaurs from outer space!

To Make Change-Omelettes, One Must Break Change-Eggs

At around Egg-thirty this morning, I went out and purchased a 6-holster carton of eggs from the local Chicken. As breakfast preparations are usually left to my able staff (read: my mother, who sleeps in the cupboard under the kitchen sink), I was caught off guard when I unpackaged my package of oval ova and found that instead of being their usual egg-shell white (yes, I keep color squares from Home Depot), they were the color of coffee and milk (Light Sienna #3245K). It was like the first time I saw black Barbie and I uttered to myself, "Wow, MLK, you can rest in peace now 'cuz racism is over!" From black Jesus to black Santa to black Barbie to black President and now to black eggs, our society has really come of age and we are truly post-racial. Well, I suppose the eggs weren't really black; they were light skin. But so what, our President is half-white. Nothing's perfect. But back to the topic at hand, now we as breakfast consumers have the option to raise our unwhite kids on unwhite eggs so they learn to love themselves and their colored eggs. Do you know the sound of a black egg when it's cracked open? I do. It's the sound of equality...Egguality.

But just when you thought the world had nothing more to surprise you with, there of course was one more twist on all this eggcitement. With my thumbs firmly wedged in the crack of the black egg, I broke open the shell to release its slimy contents onto the skillet. The grand unveiling of Yolk and Friends was made even more eye-opening with the startling reveal that Yolk was in fact not black or light sienna but rather it's usual sunnyside yellow and the eggwhites were still, well, eggwhites. The moral of the story? Despite our differences on the outside, we're all truly the same on the inside. Eggs are eggs and ultimately all come from the Chicken (or did the the chicken come from the egg?). So deep...and delicious! Bon eggatit! (hehe, I just wrote egg a tit, kinda like egging a house but only instead of a house....You get the idea.)

The Definitive Definition of PWNED

Dear POTUS B-HO,

Please make this guy your PWNED Czar. Maybe he can help us PWN Kim Jong-il by catapulting Dikembe Mutombo into the stratosphere so he can smack those missiles out of the air. He would then perform his obligatory finger-wag and get called for an automatic technical. That would be some massive geopolitcal PWNage.

Either that or stamp a permanent red-ink "PWNED" on Sarah Palin's face.

The end.

Sincerely,
Boogie Brown

Who Watches the Workers?

Yesterday, El Presidente hosted a live streaming online town hall forum. 'Net-heads (as opposed to net-head, i.e. a fellatious act with Vince Carter) submitted questions online that were voted on by other 'net-heads. The most popular questions were addressed by B-HO.

I really wanted to submit the AOL chatroom-inspired question "A/S/L?" Either that or "Mr. President, can you once and for all please provide the definitive definition of 'PWN'?" Unfortunately, I got sidetracked finding out my Mexican wrestler name (me llaman EL GIGOLO MISTERIO) and forgot to submit anything.

In one response to a question on public school reform, The Rock Obama recounted a conversation with Bill Gates about using video recordings of teachers to analyze their classroom performance, similar to athletes reviewing game tapes. And I thought to myself: B-HO is a total voyeur...and the most likeable Big Brother ever.

Could you imagine?? Cameras monitoring your every activity in the workplace?? And then you have to review the game tape with your supervisors???

"Wow, Jimster, two straight hours of scrabulous? That is highly unproductive, and you failed to utilize the open triple word score. FAIL."

"Meg, why did you clip your toenails at your desk and save all the clippings in your bottom desk drawer? That is highly unhygienic."

"Cornelius, watching youtube videos of people FAILing at life like that toddler getting kicked in the face by a breakdancer in Times Square is not considered research...By the way, can you forward me that link?"

"And as for you Kat, don't ever lend me one of your pens ever again. That's just down right filthy."

"Jesus, The Brian, we're not paying you to write blog entries all day! ...But perhaps somebody should. You're one talented dude. Cowabunga!"

Let's hope the new administration doesn't one up the PATRIOT ACT and start spying on us at work under the guise that it'll improve our performance. Because otherwise, we might have to actually start doing...gulp...work.

In Your Dreams!

While nodding off in my cubicle with my head knocking into the wall every 10 seconds, I suddenly came to the realization that yes, in fact, Trix really are for kids. Silly rabbit, when will you ever learn?

That lucid moment between dreaming and waking led me to a second realization, namely that for the past two nights, Barack Obama, POTUS B-HO himself, has appeared in my dreams. And no, these were not dreams of the illicit variety that leave me lying in bed wet and covered in shame. These were the typical atypical dreams that weave together many strands of consciousness, creating a new reality that is both familiar and wildly insane. Kind of like when you're high off absinthe and find yourself making out with your best friend's girlfriend, only she's later revealed to be her mother and not actually her.

In the first cameo by our President, on a Gran Torino-like lawn, he was sadly gunned down by the same Asian thugs that took down Clint. "You bastards! You killed Barry!" I yelled. I then remember my mind's eye, omniscient as it is, following Hilary Clinton as she scrambled into the house trying to find cover. Only it wasn't exactly Hilary. She looked more like Marilyn Monroe with a goldilocks afro. And even more frightening, I percieved her as the First Lady. I never felt so emotionally distraught over a Clinton before.

The next evening, again 'Bam the Man snuck into my dreamscape. This time he served as some sort of guide at what I think was a museum. Or maybe it was a church. Or a White Castle. I really don't know. In any case, his main role that night was to speak very condescendingly to my office's most condescending, know-it-all employee. He layeth the smack down on her, belittling her while explaining a map on the wall. I think my subconcious was telling me that next time I need to talk back to a co-worker and cut em down to size, just call El Presidente (translation: The Presidente) and he'll take care of it. I wonder if he's also available for family reunions.

As cool as it initially was hosting the POTUS in his guest roles as assasination victim and tour-guide asshole, I am disconcerted by the fact that this guy's face is truly ubiquitous. He shows up everywhere. On people's chests, on shirt lapels, in store windows, on magazine covers, framed on walls, on my boxer briefs, on the boobtube (the word "boobtube" is a lot awesomer than what it signifies btw; c'mon, a tube full of boobs!), and now you can see him 24-7 since he haunts your dreams too. Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, meet your match. B-HO puts the 'brother' back in Big Brother, and now he's the biggest brother on the block.

I used to be overly concerned and paranoid about the PATRIOT ACT enabling the government to look at what books I borrow from the liberry, but this is on a completely new level of surveillance. Barack Obama isn't just checking my liberry records, he's actually in my mind checking my fantasies! It's like he appointed Rick Moranis to the head of Fringe sciences and had himself shrunken down to the size of a lego. Then he crawled into my ear canal while I was sleeping, and now the sly bastard is wreaking havok in slumberland. It's only a matter of time until he starts invading my waking life consciousness and starts controlling my actions. It's like the opposite of Being John Malkovich--Barack Obama Being You!

Next thing you know I'll be talking....gasp....professorially! And I'll start giving loved ones....gasp....fist bumps! And ohmygosh I might actually start....gasp....being a productive member of society!!! The end is nigh, folks, the end is nigh...

My president is black but his house is all white

Unfortunately, my live blogging experience at the inauguration of inaugurations was unexpectedly cut short when all cell phone data service was shut down. According to an anonymous friend with connections to the Secret Service--let's call her Deeper Throat--a unique EMP ray was activated on the mall to disconnect wireless service in the fear that someone might set off a cell phone bomb, or worse, send their closest friends picture texts of the event and fire off a crass display of e-bragging. Then again, it's possible that the reason for the disruption was that all 1.8 million people there were live blogging too and as we all know here at The Get Down, too much blogging can really shut down anything: office productivity, a work day, social life, a wireless network, etc.

All in all, it was a grand, historic day. Not just because we inaugurated the nation's first black and multiracial president, but more so because it's the first I've been able to endure below freezing temperatures for over 8 hours without pissing out ice chips all over my pant leg. If I can do that, then anything is possible these days.

I have three favorite moments from the inauguration. First is the benediction from Rev. Cat in the Hat who intoned the following piece of poetic justice:

"we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right"

That's genius,
I mean this.
How profound
to rhyme in bound
during the inauguration
of the first black president of our nation.

Second was when the million or so people left on the mall waved "good bye" and "peace out muthafucka" to The Idiot George W. as he flew over our heads in a helicopter on his way to a place called Oblivion.

Watch at 5:05

And last but certainly not least was when the man himself looked up after the inaugural address and gave me a wink and the index finger pistol point as if to say "you know what i mean, pahhhtner." No, I don't mean Barack. I'm talking about Jay-Z. After which point his hat turned into a giant bear and mauled Dick Cheney's face off.


It's a new day for America.

Breaking B-HO Related News!

This just in: New York City webslinging vigilante Spider-Man is reported to be none other than First Lady Elect Michelle Obama. The evidence is conclusive. The trademark fist bump often traded between soon-to-be President Obama and his wife Michelle to channel their supernatural powers is seen here to be used with the masked arachnid guy...woman. Also note the way POTUS 44 pauses, employs ellipsis (the three periods denoting artful use of suspenseful silence), and then calls the crime-fighter "partner." Clearly, he is referring to his life-partner MO. Those aren't pectoral muscles folks, those are boobies.

Late Breaking News! Daily Bugle photographer and Queens native Peter Parker is actually a post-op transexual and transracial and now currently married to the next leader of the United States. Suddenly, the red and blue tights don't seem like an odd apparel choice at all.










"I bet I can get those Spidey senses tingling with this one finger...partner."

Public Service Announcement

i'm looking at you, white liberal women on the streets of philadelphia...

and also to the sketchy guy on the subway who felt the urge to shake my hand 'cuz I was wearing Obama pins and was peeved that I didn't have a conversation with him afterwards...I'm not here to absolve your guilt. You can get that from your priest...