I am the founder of, and lone contributor to, a blog in which smoking weed is a primary focus (to put it lightly). It kind of goes without saying, I like to smoke marijuana.
Anyone who smokes weed often enough has been asked, usually condescendingly, some form of the following question:
Why do you smoke weed?
The other day a friend asked a similar such question. I smoke weed every day, yet it had been quite a while since the last time I reflected on the actual reasons for my continued use. Since the questioner was respectful and seemed genuinely interested in my answer, I wanted to put some thought into it. When that failed, I promised I would compose a ridiculously thorough response in the form of an article for my blog. Enjoy. Continue reading…
Some people just love being offended. I hate people like that.
I bring this up because Volkswagen posted a commercial on Youtube which is slated to run during the 2013 Super Bowl. I learned of it while watching the news. While it should have been considered newsworthy on the merits of its humor and charm, that was not the reason it was being covered by the 24-hour news cycle clusterfuck. It was being covered because there are allegedly a lot of people out there who found it very racist.
It is not racist. But before I elaborate on why, you should watch the commercial for yourself. Provided you aren’t a frigid, self-important white person, it will leave you with positive and happy feelings. Without further ado:
Solid commercial, right? You’re probably wondering, upon viewing the commercial yourself, exactly how big an object one must have up their ass in order to perceive the delightful commercial above as racist? Answer: really big. And wide.
I want to make clear, my opinion is not that this Super Bowl commercial for Volkswagen is not racist. That is an observable fact, and only my opinion insofar as, “Everything Wrong with Today’s Youth is a blog,” is my opinion. It is fact, not opinion. It is not up for debate.
Yes, that the commercial doesn’t seem to include a single black American doesn’t help its case. It makes it easier for someone to decry it as, “verbal blackface,” which is the stupidest characterization of this commercial I’ve heard so far.
My opinion on the commercial, for what it’s worth, is that it’s funny. Cute, even. But to call it racist would mean anything that ever mentions or alludes to race – a commercial, a statement, an article, a TV show, etc… – in a humorous or lighthearted manner is racist. If the 2013 Volkswagen Super Bowl commercial is racist, then what isn’t?
The most intellectually defective argument for why this commercial is so racist is that it implicitly assumes all Jamaicans are happy. It doesn’t. At most (if we must get theoretical), it posits that there is at least one happy Jamaican, the persona of whom is co-opted by people as a result of driving a Volkswagen. That’s not racist. The condescending assertion that this commercial is racist because Jamaica, with all it’s social and cultural issues, does not house a single happy Jamaican, is racist.
The thing is, no one who really matters is calling it racist. Which, being a person who doesn’t matter, is why I feel qualified to opine on it.
I finally broke down and bought a premium theme from WordPress.com. Now I can actually write (as opposed to sitting down to write only to wind up spending hours looking for a new theme, finding one I like, customizing it, only to wind up deciding I like some other theme better).
I’ve been meaning to write something about DMT again. It’s been about a year since I published DMT Experience on this blog. I have been thinking about it in big terms, foolishly. After attempting to fit a lot of information into a solid, concise article, (I wanted to document the origins of DMT’s cult following, among other things), I begrudgingly accepted the realization that I had produced nothing but textual diarrhea. I know. Nasty!
For now I want to share with my readers some other very good articles on DMT which have been written since last year. I have been steadily researching DMT ever since I tried it, so whenever something new is produced it tends to stand out amongst the other search results. Here are a couple articles which immediately strike me as noteworthy. Continue reading…
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
I like having a blog. It permits me to identify as a blogger. Which I think is pretty cool.
Blogging, however… Well, that’s a love/hate relationship. It’s been a rocky one for quite some time, as the dated entries which precede this one indicate.
Not blogging is quite easy to do, and tends to beget further inaction. I think in my case I put too much importance on producing full-fledged informative and evocative articles that I simply forgot how to blog.
Given that I find the act of blogging about blogging to be an atrocious waste of space and finger-energy, I’ll make the rest of this post short. This blog is about to undergo both a facelift and an attitude adjustment. Which is just my super awesome way of saying the theme is going to change, and I’m going to start writing more often.
…And the netizens rejoiced in their knowledge that James Kalìwæ would soon begin providing semi-entertaining bits of prose to all of the internets. Amen.
This guy is fucking amazing. Yes, free solo climbing is exactly what it sounds like. Climbing mountains by yourself and free of anything that might prevent you from going SPLAT if you happen to slip.
Do you see how in the zone this guy is when he’s up there? How can he handle the pressure of knowing any small mistake will surely kill him?
If you keep up with the news, you’re aware that the Texas Nationalist Movement, led by Daniel Miller, has collected over 80,000 signatures from Texans who support secession.
As of Tuesday evening, the petition — which asks for the peaceful withdrawal of the state of Texas from the union — had racked up more than 81,000 signatures. (Only 25,000 are needed to elicit an official response from the Obama administration.)
Please, Texas, keep up the efforts. It would be every Democrat’s dream. Every president for the next 100 years will be Democrat without their electoral votes. So, please, let Texas secede.
The following info-graphic was emailed to me by a fellow from Degreejungle.com. As you can imagine, I felt like a super important and revered blogger slash political commentator by being asked to blog my reaction to it. Yes, I’m aware they’re more interested in getting my readers to their website than any “commentary” I might produce, but it’s actually a very useful resource for prospective college students. If college is – or may be – in your future, give them a visit.
On second thought, bookmark it. I know none of you will actually use it unless you absolutely have to at this moment. But really, you’re going to wind up using a similar website eventually, and they’re legitimately better than the others. Continue reading…
My goal with this blog is to offend everyone in the world at least once with my words… so no one has a reason to have a heightened sense of themselves. We are all ignorant, we are all found wanting, we are all bad people sometimes.
