In praise of second bananas

Hard to believe, but it has been 17 years since Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon left NBC's "The Tonight Show."

Even more difficult to fathom - at least for a kid who never fell asleep before I could hear "Heeere's Johnny!" - is the fact that they're both gone after McMahon died Tuesday morning following a struggle with a number of illnesses. He was 86.

May he rest in eternal peace.

That said, McMahon's death got me to thinking about something a colleague of mine wrote in a thoughtful obit of sorts yesterday:

In many ways, he helped Carson be a better Carson: serving as the ready butt to a joke when the action got slow and pitching products for sponsors so the host didn't have to lower himself.

For a guy willing to stand next to the brightest spotlight, it was a pretty sweet gig.

Indeed. It takes a lot of humility and self-confidence to flourish as a sidekick.

To borrow from sports for a second, most often you see rookies and young players break into the NBA with their eyes set hard on scoring lots of points and becoming a star.

And why not? Most everyone who makes it into the NBA was a high-scoring supernova on some level of hoops. It's natural for anyone who's experienced that sort of success to figure that will only continue in the League.

Of course, only a precious few can really become legends like MJ, Kobe, Hakeem, Wilt, etc. But if someone is willing to swallow their pride and work for it, they too can become an iconic sidekick in the manner of McMahon. Or Pau Gasol.

So, in honor of McMahon - and to rip an idea from the much more talented Spencer Hall, here's my salute to the best of the second bananas:

1. Scottie Pippen - Pip pretty much set the template for the successful beta male. In fact, he was such a superb sidekick that he's still generally regarded as one of the NBA's 50 best players of all-time and a future Hall of Famer. However, I'm still bitter that he only showed up on the first and final days of his basketball camp at the University of Central Arkansas - (why else would my parents have signed me up for a week in Conway, Arkansas?)

2. TC from "Magnum PI" - I can't tell you how many times TC bailed out Magnum's sorry ass with that helicopter. And really, TC handled all the rough stuff when things got a little too heated. Bonus: TC, a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot in Vietnam, never drank alcohol.

3. Phife from A Tribe Called Quest - I wouldn't go so far as to say he was the best ever "second rapper" in a hip-hop group. But he's definitely in the conversation. And his improvement from People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm to The Low End Theory really catapulted ATCQ into consideration as one of the all-time great hip-hop acts. However, it was clear that Q-Tip was running things in that group.

4. Cockroach from "The Cosby Show" - When I was in elementary school, I always wanted a homeboy like Cockroach. He was pretty much down for whatever but respectable enough to bring around the fam. A brown-skinned Eddie Haskell, I suppose. But he totally disappeared when Theo went to NYU. What was that about?

5. Mouse from "Devil in a Blue Dress" - Not only was Mouse from Houston, a loyal friend to Easy and one of the most dangerous characters ever dreamed up for a movie, but he uttered a line near the end of the film that sticks with me to this day: "If you didn't want me to kill him, why did you leave me alone with him?" Just classic.

To honor these honorable men and to validate my list, why not force a hearty chuckle over the crickets? Think of the team.

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Deep Thought

You would think, especially at this point, that any celebrity or moderately famous couple would think it's a bad idea to invite tee-vee cameras into their home. It's the kiss of death. Continue Reading »

Random Acts of YouTube

While online sleuths attempt to determine whether the following video is real or some elaborate hoax, people should refrain from challenging Aaron Shutway in a "H-O-R-S-E" contest of any real consequence. It will not end well for them.

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She's Michelle Obama, not Huxtable

After reading the second paragraph of Robin Givhan's weekend story in the Washington Post about Michelle Obama, I had to manually prevent my eyeballs from rolling into the back of my head:

So far, the first lady has chosen to be a food bank volunteer with an outsize entourage and an education activist with the largest soapbox imaginable. But Michelle Obama also fills a role that is not of her choosing but that may, in fact, be the most influential: She serves as a symbol of middle-class progress, feminist achievement, affirmative action success and individual style.

And she has done all this on the world stage . . . while being black.

Thank goodness for Bill Cosby and Co. Otherwise, I doubt any of us Negroes would have ever known how to act in public.

But really, the audience for Givhan's piece is clearly people who don't know black people or know anything about them other than what they see on TV. Because if they did, they would know that Michelle Obama is no alien, no anomaly, no actor.

Indeed, Michelle Obama could be your mom, your next-door neighbor, your elementary-school teacher, your attorney. She's an actual human being, and she didn't grow up feral on some remote island. I think it's safe to say Michelle Obama didn't "become a symbol of middle-class progress" all on her lonesome - her older brother was also an Ivy League grad, after all.

Maybe this is foreign to some people but I've known Michelle Obamas and Claire Huxtables all my life. Hundreds of them. And I didn't have to watch TV to figure that out.

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Free period

Your Monday Random Ass Roundup has been posted over at PostBourgie. Check it out.

In this week's edition of the roundup, we discuss marital fail, President Obama's struggles with LGBTQ issues, the possibility of Mayor Brad Pitt, surfing the "fatosphere," and once again revisit the Black Mamba.

Enjoy. Continue Reading »

Songs for our fathers

Consider this a feeble attempt at coming up with a list of suitable songs for Father's Day. The most important word in the previous sentence was "feeble" and the least important was "suitable." If you can do better or have some suggestions, please share with the rest of the class:

1. The Foundation by Xzibit



2. Bridging the Gap by Nas and Olu Dara.

3. Papa Was A Rolling Stone by The Temptations - this song seems a bit cliche for the list but, upon closer listen, is one of the most thoughtfully written songs that I've ever heard in my life.

4. Be a Father to Your Child by Ed O.G. & Da Bulldogs.

5. Something by Eddie and Gerald Levert. You choose.

Bonus track: 6. What U See is What U Get by Xzibit. Not the song. But the video. Continue Reading »

The big piece of chicken

In my search this morning for some songs to honor all the fathers out there on Father's Day, particularly mine, I quickly came to realize the offerings were very limited. One online list of father-centered songs turned up Will Smith's remake of "Just the Two of Us."

I mean, really?

It reminded me of Chris Rock's classic riff during his "Bigger & Blacker" comedy set in 1999 about the diminshed importance - relative to mothers, of course - of the traditional father.

[The real daddies] Make your world a better, safer place, and what does daddy get? The big piece of chicken. That's all daddy gets is the big piece of chicken.

From my perspective, it's hard to argue with him.

Even though plenty of fathers - like my own - worked hard to provide for their families, they're often ignored and taken for granted because outward displays of appreciation and affection are supposedly unimportant to dads. Real men don't need praise; they need quiet time in front of the TV with a beer and the sports section of the Sunday newspaper ... right?

Or not.

In my case, I could not possibly come up with enough ways to express gratitude for my father. I mean, where would I start?

Thanks for spending all those nights teaching me arithmetic on flash cards; thanks for teaching me how to execute a proper layup; thanks for motivating me for little-league football by promising a video game for each touchdown; thanks for boosting my confidence enough so that I summoned enough college to ask out a girl for the first time in my life; thanks for understanding when I bawled like a baby on the drive to college; thanks for encouraging me to keep running up The Hill even when my lungs were burning and my legs were wobbling; thanks for keeping all of my college newspaper stories in a clipbook; thanks for convincing me that Oklahoma City wouldn't be such a bad place to live after all; thanks for hugging me so tight when I found out I lost my job; thanks for being the first to suggest that I ask the First Lady to come join me in Tampa; thanks for being there everday, even when I was less than appreciative. Like, maybe, Tuesday or something.

A big piece of chicken isn't nearly enough. And neither is a song.

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Gone trippin

Posts will be spotty over the next couple days, as I'm leaving for a very quick trip to see a longtime friend embark upon a lifelong dream. If I reveal anymore, I literally might have to kill you.

Or he might kill me. I don't really know.

Anyway, I missed my flight this morning so I've had a chance to catch up on all my magazine reading and I pretty much thumbed through all the major daily newspapers. Have I ever told you all how much I love the airport?

That said, I see it's time to board my flight. There will be more later. Much more.

In honor of my tardiness, enjoy some Kris Kross:


Kris Kross - I Missed The Bus (Official Music Video) - Watch more funny videos here Continue Reading »

Of heritage and hate

As a native son of the South, a heretic who has argued endlessly against the lie of Confederate nobility and someone who lives only minutes from one of the largest Confederate flags in the world, budding Civil War historian Ta-Nehisi Coates did my heart some good this morning:

I imagine for a kid coming up in these times, in certain sectors of the South, it's painful to face up to Nathan Forrest, to the notion that the pomp and glamour, all the talk of honor and independence was, at the end of the day, dependent on slavery. The Lost Cause isn't just "lost," it's barely a cause.

The temptation to continue to lie, to see yourself as the victim in a grand play is formidable--consider Lindsay Graham chafing at the constraints of whiteness, while Sonia Sotamayor evidently swims in a free world of color. But I suspect that some manner of change is coming, that we are reaching point when witlessly honoring the founder of the greatest perpetrator of domestic terrorism in American history, when flying that sorry order's battle flag, becomes embarrassing. Sooner or later, I think the South will understand that the ideology of "noble victimhood" is a luxury it too can ill-afford. Some will hold out, I am sure. But sooner or later, I think most of the South will be black like me.

As someone who also worries endlessly about the future of the country, particularly in our poor and perenially underperforming Southern states, I believe this sort of crushing honesty needs to acknowledged.

Denial has been too detrimental.

I really have more to say about this but I need to think it over some more this afternoon. My thoughts about this are all over the place. I'll be revisiting this post. Continue Reading »

Memory Lane

Kick your, dopest rhyme, I'll break it up like 3rd Bass/I'm from the crew that sets it off by sprayin beer in your face:



Believe it or not, this was actually a legit Memory Lane moment. "Daaam" was the first song I ever listened to in my first car, a fire-engine red 1987 Honda Civic CRX.

Good times, people. Good times.

And for what it's worth, Tash was a criminally underrated MC. Continue Reading »

Dodging a bullet

Everyday, we - as Americans - should give endless thanks and praise that John McCain was sent back to the Senate and denied a chance to continue an eight-year U.S. commitment to cowboy foreign diplomacy.

Joe Klein explains:

For two years now, John McCain has been entirely consistent on Iran: every last statement he’s made—at least, those that I’ve seen—has been (a) fabulously uninformed and (b) dangerously bellicose. He’s still at it, apparently. There is no question that President Obama’s more prudent path is the correct one right now. There is also no question that the neoconservatives are trying to gin up this situation into an excuse for not engaging with the Iranian government in the near future—and also as a rationale for their dearest, looniest dream, war with Iran. ...

... The point is, neoconservatives like McCain and Wehner just can’t seem to quit their dangerous habit of making broad, extreme statements based on ideology rather than detailed knowledge of the situation in Iran and elsewhere. This was always the main problem with McCain’s candidacy—he would have been a trigger-happy President, just as Wehner’s old boss, George W. Bush, was. We are well out of that.

Speaking of dangerous and extreme ...



I shudder at the thought.

Again, I'm no foreign policy expert and I have only a functional understanding of what's unfolding over in Iran at the moment. But given what I know about our choices on Nov. 4, I much prefer having a steady, thoughtful, nuanced leader in the White House than McManiac.

Even better, we were spared the prospect of Vice President Sarah Palin.

pound to John Cole. (I also stole the title of this post from J.C. I really couldn't improve upon it) Continue Reading »

Beware Ahmadinejad

Jim Tressel is the revolution's real Supreme Leader.

h/t Dr. Saturday. Continue Reading »

Beyond the cutting edge

Talking Points Memo has compiled a list of the top seven conservative media/social networking fails of the year. And to think: we've got another six months to go for the "rightroots" to top themselves.

In fact, the list is so good that I had to create a couple of new blog labels: "beyond the cutting edge" and the all-encompassing "fail."

But as I'm sure Michael Steele would say, this is all strategic.

UPDATE: Steele today issued a statement concerning the GOP’s use of technologies, past, present and future. Check it out.

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Free period

Your Monday Random Ass Roundup has been posted over at PostBourgie. Check it out. All the kids are doing it.

Here's an incentive:



Or do you like your dancing almost completely devoid of rhythm?



UPDATE: The link has been fixt. Sorry for the confusion. Continue Reading »

The rise of idiots

Dinosaurs on Noah’sArk ? The peculiar spectacle of Terry Schiavo? Book bans targeted at gay authors?

Charles Pierce grew weary of this nonsense long ago, well before Sarah Palin was claiming foreign policy experience from Juneau and Glenn Beck descended into full-blown delirium. In his irreverent and smart essay for Esquire in October 2005, Pierce offered that“the rise of Idiot America today represents — for profit mainly, but also, and more cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power — the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good.”

Obviously, not much has changed. If anything, the problem was exacerbated by the revival of the Democratic Party in 2006 and the subsequent decline of the Republicans. I'll let you be the judge of who's most responsible.

Anyway, Pierce has expounded on his theory in his new book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. If you like the essay, the book should definitely hold some appeal. Then follow it up with a viewing of the cult classic, Idiocracy.

Because there was a time when reading wasn’t just for fags. (Before you get offended, watch the movie.)

(x-posted from Weekend Endorsements at PostBourgie) Continue Reading »