Russian National Conception Day

Happy Russian National Conception Day! Make Russian babies!
-If you heard me on the Schachter Factor on Cringe Humor Radio today, I would like to clear something up. Brian McGuinness (who is really funny. Check him out if you have a chance) mentioned wearing a shirt that said, "It's great to be white." It had a picture of great white shark, wearing a tie. He said that people were giving him dirty looks, and suggested that there is a double-standard in the t-shirt wearing world. He explained this by saying that when someone wears a shirt that says "Black Power," he doesn't give them dirty looks. And that no one does.
My points against this double standard were: 1. Maybe some people just can't take a joke. It doesn't mean they think you're racist. 2. White people don't really need any empowerment at this point. 3. It's a blanket statement to say that people judged his shirt and didn't judge others.
I forgot to make this point on the show. And I think this is the most obvious point. People weren't necessarily judging the shirt. They were reading it. If you have a shirt that features words, you can't get upset if someone reads them. That's why they're there.
If anyone took the segment seriously, I want to be clear: Brian was joking about the whole thing. I think. I'm only mentioning it because I just realized today that of course people are going to read a shirt if it contains words.
-I mentioned police profiling a few weeks ago. I had only been pulled over by a cop a three or four times in my life before I shot Crucial Element. I was going to post the stories of the Crucial Element police encounters right after they happened. But I was lazy. Now Brandon "Jimes" Ivey keeps badgering me for the stories. And I don't know if I remember all of them. I'll try.

1. We were shooting at George Mason University around midnight. I was dressed as Ghost. My friend was in the passenger seat. We were pulled over. The police officer, the hottest police officer I've ever seen, walked over and HE (Hey-o!) was pretty nice. It was a woman. She walked over and asked if she knew why she pulled me over. I almost said, "Because I look like I commit a lot of crimes." Instead I said, "No, I don't know." She said my headlights weren't on. That's a valid reason to pull someone over. I explained that we were shooting something. I was driving a friend's car, which I assumed had automatic lights because it's 2007. Plus, the campus is so well lit, it looked like the lights were on. She told me to have a good night.
That was not an example of profiling.
2. About an hour later, still on the GMU campus, we were shooting in a vacant parking lot. Cops came up and said, "What's going on here?" We're shooting some video. "Oh, okay. That's fine. It's just that you're wearing a huge winter coat and it's 100 degrees. You look like you're up to something." I understand. "Have a good night." Bye.
Definitely profiling. But in a good way. He wasn't a dick. He just used logic.
3. Next afternoon. Diana Saez was driving Quincy's car. Quincy and I were in costume and character. We made a u-turn on a side-street. A place where everyone would make a u-turn. I do it very often and have never been pulled over for it. We were pulled over. Diana got the first ticket of her life. I'm convinced it was because Quincy and I looked like assholes.
4. About an hour later, we were shooting on the side of a four-lane road, which is legal. We didn't need a shooting permit for what we were doing. As Quincy and I crossed the street, while there was no traffic, a cop pulled over. He jumped out of his car, and while his bitch-dog was barking at us, about to jump out of the window, he yelled, "What do you think you're doing?" I thought he was going to shoot us. He definitely talked to us like we were robbing someone. We calmly told him that we were shooting video. He yelled, not said, YELLED, "NO YOU'RE NOT. YOU'RE PLAYING IN THE HIGHWAY! THAT'S A CRIME!" So, he's making up crimes and talking to us like we're criminal kids. What's the crime? Still yelling: "You can't pull onto the shoulder unless it's an emergency. Otherwise it's a crime." I knew that wasn't true, but I nodded my head. Mike, who is finishing up law school at UCONN now, pointed out that the police encourage people to pull over to make phone calls and to set their gps. Is that an emergency? He kept yelling at us for about a minute. He threatened to write tickets for all of us. Mike said, to us, not the cop, that no ticket would ever hold up in court. Then the cop said, "Your pulling off on the road is going to cause an accident." There are a lot of flaws in this logic. 1. If people would wreck a car because someone has pulled over, then they are the person who shouldn't be driving. 2. What if we were pulled over for an emergency? Is it only non-emergencies that cause accidents? 3. No.
Definite stereotyping in this case.
5. I was looking for parking in Hoboken that night. A cop pulled me over for no reason. I wasn't in my Crucial Element gear any longer. Once I stopped, the cop said through his intercom, "Keep driving." I kept driving, looked in my rear view. The cop only put his lights on in order to get a good spot in front of a bar. He turned the lights on and casually walked into the bar.

There you go, Brandon. There you go.

-Here is an interesting GQ interview with Donald Rumsfeld.
-Here is a GREAT GQ interview with Colin Powell. I think if he ran for president, he would get over 70% of the vote.
-The Onion is always great. They have a new headline that I love. "Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8"
Pitchfork is a music review site that is so pretentious it hurts. They love anything that is sounds like homogeneous bullshit . And hate anything that is complex, except for Radiohead.