My buddy! Where ever I go!

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

You may have heard that somewhere. It’s popular on schoolyards everywhere as future millionaires fend off the numerous taunts of usually bigger, cooler, or more assholish kids who make fun of each other during Act One of the omnipresent stage play, Life.

I know I’ve said it before to somebody. Probably to some girl who called me a name when I was six or seven. I’m guessing it was my best rebuttal. Either that or the similarly popular, “I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.” It’s funny how ridiculously ridiculous these statements are but how clear they are to children. I swear, there isn’t a kid alive who doesn’t know how to turn that statement around on another kid.

The main notion behind these statements is that words are just that, words. That they don’t necessarily hold much Oprah sometimes, and that short of being bludgeoned with a Louisville Slugger, for the most part, you can just get up and move on past something someone has just said that you don’t necessarily agree with.

Well, me…I’m calling bullsh*t, especially the older you get. I don’t know which is a bigger lie: actions speak louder than words or Kim Kardashian loved Kris Humphries.

And for the record, I do think actions speak loud. But I think that words carry just as much weight.

Now, I won’t be focusing on that “actions speak louder than words” segment, but more on how certain words really can get you in an assblender of trouble.

[Another aside: This post has nothing to do with the posts from last week. While I still have a lot to say about the fallout from my vantage, today I’m not going to address it.]

One specific word actually.

Question, question: what’s the worst word you can call a woman who’s got any sort of interest in you?

Or a man for that matter?

Buddy.

Yes. It’s buddy.

(You thought it was going to be b*tch didn’t you?)

Oh, you don’t believe me? You can case study this sh*t if you want to. Allow me to offer a situation from my own life as fodder for discussion.

Once upon a blue moon, I was a lovestruck idiot in college. I’d managed to find a woman who for whatever reason got me all in a tizzy. Now, despite my constant attempts to woo this woman, she managed to fend off my advances like she was practicing for the National DisANinja Time Trials. But she didn’t exactly want me to not continue to woo her since my woo-age was neither stalkerish nor annoying. My woo-age included flowers, poetry, and trips to cheap dinners. Basically, I had your all around being a nice guy who really likes a girl thing going on. I’d do dumb sh*t hoping she’d take notice despite the fact that she’d made it clear she wasn’t really trying to be with me, though clearly she was interested but it might have just been in the way I treated her.

Figure out if she’s worth it, then treat her like a Queen. I had that little equation backwards.

But one fine day, as we were on the phone, me in my nonchalant manner innocently said to her, “hey buddy…”

STOP.

Have you seen I’m Gonna Get You Sucka? Do you remember the part where the mother who is on her period turns into the monsterish thing who is doing back flips and sh*t when folks come into her house looking for Jack Spade? Yeah, that was this chick.

I felt like I had just shot her grandmother with a rusty barnacle. She went off on me. Now remember, this was a chick who didn’t want to be with me, but apparently she for damn sure didn’t like the connotation that comes along with being called a buddy.

“I am NOT your buddy.”

Sheesh.

I left that alone after that and had learned my lesson.

That was until the next time I used that term and the exact same thing occurred.

And you know what, I didn’t get it at first. Why would these women who seemingly don’t want to be with me get so offended at the use of the term “buddy”. Then it dawned on me.

Women f*cking HATE that word because it makes them feel less special. “No he didn’t call me his buddy. What I look like? His boy Jim that he plays ball with!!! Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit…he better had get right in his mind!”

And in some ways I can kind of understand. Maybe its unintentionally intentional, but words like “buddy” tend to pop up when people are dating and they’re in that limbo, where-are-we-going stage. Maybe we’re all just playing mind games with one another.

The dude is thinking that if he calls her buddy and he gets a reaction then he knows she’s feeling him definitely. Kind of like forcing the green light. On that stupid a** Love Jones sh*t.

I need to say this here…I f*ckin’ HATE when people try to passively aggressively bait me into stuff. I know some folks who go out of their way to force an issue by total beat-around-the bushage. I want those people to get hit by lightning.

Most people I know hate passive-agressive bastards too. It’s one thing if two dating people are passive-aggressively feeling each other out in hopes of, you know, feeling each other out later. It’s something altogether different when people say this:

“We might need to talk about something later on.”

Umm…the f*ck does that mean? What do you mean might? If we might need to talk about it later on then we probably DO need to talk about it now.

What was I talking about?

Ah yes, women hate feeling less than special. Especially if they like you. Even more especially than the past especially if questions are lingering about the direction two people are heading.

Which is why a term like “buddy” is so loaded.

In some ways I don’t even think its deeper than that. An interested woman wants to know that you feel that she’s more special than other random folks in your life, whether its true or not. Even if she’s not interested.

Which makes total sense to at least 90 percent of the women reading this right now.

Got it, buddy?

Good.

Ladies, how do you feel about being called his “buddy”? And what words send men over the edge? Fellas, what say you? You ever referred to a woman in a friendship manner only to get your head chopped off?

Talk to me.

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka MR. B.U.D.D.Y. aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

For the DC heads, its time again for another edition of REMINISCE! at Liv Nightclub this Saturday, February 4th, 2012 from 930pm til 3am. It’s all 90s everything and anybody who has been will tell you this party is a motherf*cking monster. It’s FREE BEFORE 11PM WITH RSVP ($10 after) (click the link to RSVP), OPEN BAR FROM 930-1030PM (doors open earlier b/c people keep showing up MAD early) and no dress code. Supa Qool DJ Quartermaine on the 1s and 2s. Come on out and we’ll see you on Saturday night! Peep the FB event here!

we’ve heard it before.

boy approaches girl, and girl is charmed by his subtly effeminate masculinity non-threateningly secure heterosexuality, the fact that he noticed she�s wearing seven�s jeans and his proper use of �eclecticism� and �pragmatic�. boy and girl exchange numbers, and after a month or so of coffee-house outings and a trip to banana republic, they become�friends. not lovers, not even the awkward �friends with benefits�, but friends. bff’s serving as each others de facto permanent back-up weekend companion, but never, ever, ever, ever, ever crossing that line.

sure, they�ve seen �chasing amy�, and are aware that the odds stack up against two like-aged, opposite sexed, available, un-asexual people staying strictly platonic friends even in tough economic times, but theyre different, and they prove their differentness by staying true friends, forever.

everyone has heard this story before. everyone has also heard stories about the green man, virginal latinas, and beer that actually tastes good. just like the three aforementioned inventions, truly platonic like-aged male and female close relationships do not and cannot exist…and i’ll give you six reasons why.

1. unless online or in college (two paradoxical universes where the usual rules and regulations of social discourse are thrown out of the window, like mop water and caustic midgets) men and women don’t actively seek friends of the opposite sex.

2. if given the opportunity, most men who aren’t in a committed and monogamous romantic relationship will sleep with pretty much any reasonably attractive woman.

yes.

any.

we may not actively want to, but, in the right situation, we happily would. that pesky “would” kind of has a way of always completely contradicting the whole “free from sensual desires” platonic thing.

“well, what if the guy harbors absolutely no physical attraction at all towards the woman?? a platonic friendship can occur then, right??“, i hear you asking, which leads us to�

3. no unattached man is going to willingly spend a good amount of his free time with a like-aged woman he is completely unattracted to, a fact which “fits”, especially when you consider that�

4. women (please note the lack of qualifiers) aren’t equipped to handle regular contact with a guy who finds her completely unattractive. don’t argue this. it’s science.

basically, i’ll watch an entire episode of “meet the browns” before 3 and 4 have any chance of occurring.

plus…

5. …even if you claim to be in the 0.1 percent of people where there�s absolutely no romantic feeling harbored by either side in your platonic relationship, you have to figure in “the champ�s law of averages and percentages“,

basically, if you spend more than 20% of your free time with someone of the opposite sex willingly, there�s at least a 50% chance that at least one of you will develop sexual feelings…or already has developed them but fears that they would be unrequited. the higher the percentage of free time, the higher the chance.

the equation is x(time percentage)* 2.5 = y(chance percentage).

according to that, if you spend anywhere over 40 percent of your free time with a platonic friend, then there�s anywhere from a 100 to 250 percent chance that someone wants to bed somebody. dont argue. its science and sh*t

since i�ve already established that we don�t actively seek opposite sex friends while we�re single, the only way two people in separate romantic relationships can become truly platonic friends would be if they happened to first meet each other after they both were already in the relationship, an impossibility due to the fact that�

6. �no man or woman is going to be okay with their significant other making new close friends of the opposite sex.

you know, I�ve considered the fact that maybe my platonic friend viewpoint is a bit jaded. this is most likely due to the fact that the one time I tried the very, very, very close strictly platonic friend thing, within a four year span caught feelings, nasty emails, and some very, ummm, �unplatonic� things involving a staircase, a blackout, and an empty bottle of moet eventually occurred. thing is, all that experience did for me is reinforce what millions of years of evolution has taught us�men are simple, women are nuts, and holden mcneil is a f*cking idiot.

—the champ

“how do i recognize a good dude? i mean, are there any signs and sh*t i should look out for?”

along with, “champ, how does it feel to be completely omniscient?” and “champ, is it true that you once ate an entire cake before your friends told you there was a stripper in it?“, these are probably the questions i’m asked the most frequently.

typically, these are questions young daughters are supposed to ask their fathers, but since big gay carl winslow is the closest thing to a daddy many black women have seen, knowing how to recognize a good dude is a skill that many of ya’ll (and “us” )seemingly don’t possess.

with this in mind, today the champ has decided to give you all a short list of three somewhat overlooked characteristics that all “good dudes” possess.

mind you, you won’t find pedestrian sh*t like “he loves his mama” or “he’s honest” or “he hasnt tried to bone either of my nieces“, or “he’s only had one charge, and that sh*t didnt even stick” on this list, since all of that should go without saying. no, these are three seemingly minor characteristics that are fool-proof tells…traits that all good dudes will own.

***also, please note that i said “good dude” and not “nice guy”. there is a difference. of course, being nice (at times) is good, but gary ridgway was nice to women too***

1. his close friends are also good dudes

there’s no surer sign, no more concrete indication that a man is a good dude than if his close friends are good dudes too. with no exceptions, every guy i know who i’d consider to be a “good dude” has nothing but other good dudes in their immediate circle. basically, if a guy is repeatedly telling you stories about his best friend, and this “best friend” sounds more trifin than eating food with utensils on the bus, run.

also, most good dudes have at least a few friends that they’ve known since childhood. ladies (and fellas), beware of the man whose close friends are all “new”.

you see, good dudes are good dudes because they have character, and guys who have character are usually also great judges of character in others. good dudes realize that high character friends are hard to find, which is why most good dudes will do everything they can to keep those other high character friends in their circle.

**this is also one of the reasons why men make better friends than women do, but thats another topic for another day (read: tomorrow)**

2. he actually likes women.

***please take a second to re-read this for ultimate resonance***

done yet?

ok.

this may seem a bit elementary and self-explanatory, but you’d be amazed at how many women i’ve known who were interested in and/or in relationships with men who hated their entire gender. (to be clear, by “hating women“, i’m not referring to cats who, ummmm, “pitch from the paint“, but perfectly straight heterosexual men who hold women in more contempt than pei mei)

good dudes like women. its that simple.

3. he has at least one “checker“

no, i’m not referring to a lonely ass board game, but, regardless of their age, all good dudes have at least one person who can “check” them if need be. whether its a parent, a former coach, a older cousin, a teacher, or whatever, every good dude has someone in their life that can put them in place if they ever manage to get out of pocket. vsb-er superwoman put it best:

“BEWARE of guys who have no family authority/or mentor figures they respect. If it�s not their dad, then their older brother, uncle, priest, boss, teacher, mentor – SOMEONE who can talk sense into him when he�s bugging out, or in need of guidance in difficult times�

if he is one of those people who �no one can talk to�, as is my a$$hole ex-bro-in-law, then stay far, far, far, FAR away�. a man who respects nobody will wind up disrespecting YOU.”

thats it (for now). fellas (and ladies), did i miss anything?

—the champ

being that you’re a movie buff, i wanted to ask you a simple question: out of all the movies that you’ve seen, champ, which one had the strangest, most inane plot? i’m not asking for the worst movie, just a premise that made you wonder “what the f*ck were they smoking…and where can i get some of that sh*t for myself??”

for me,it would have to be “underworld“. think about it: a bunch of underwear model slash werewolves and vampires running around with capes, diesel jeans, and doc martens, speaking in old english but with australian accents and shooting each other with assault rifles. just completely weird, but, for some reason, it kind of works.

be easy

–t.j.

thanks t.j.

as you know, the champ is an expert in myraid capacities. from how to achieve the perfect standing “o” to orbitofrontal cortex hypoactivation, i am the master of many domains, and one of said domains is obscure movie knowledge. if you haven’t seen it, you can bet that the champ has.

with that being said, after racking my brain and “teasing the midget” clearing my thoughts, one movie stands out more than anything else. one movie with a premise so absurd, so inane, so inconceivably inconceivable that…well…it just leaves you speechless.

this is a movie about an undead black former slave/serial killer who only attacks white women.

please re-read that last sentence three times, just so you fully grasp the levity of that statement.

go ahead. i’ll wait.

done yet? ok.

an undead black former slave/serial killer who was “murdered” 100 years ago by a swarm of bees that he still occasionally carries around in his throat. an undead black former slave/serial killer who they say will only appear if you say his name in a mirror five times, but somehow always finds a way to circumvent that little rule.

yes, faithful readers and concubines, i’m talking about the one and only…

…candyman,

seriously…just take a moment to think about this. a black former slave serial killer who only haunts snizzles???? how the hell did this movie even get made? who green-lighted this sh*t? and how many wangs did the producer have to hold in his mouth to get this sh*t through?

can you imagine a producer going to an executive meeting trying to pitch this premise?

producer: “so, yeah…at the end of the flick, they’re gonna have a giant bonfire in the middle of cabrini-green, and i’d really like the blonde protagonist to be butt naked, and to get all of her hair burned off. that would be perfect”

exec one whispering in exec two’s ear: “who the hell is this guy, how the hell did he get into our building, and why haven’t we called security yet??”

exec two, whispering back: “ummm…this is the security guard. remember we said we’d allow him to pitch a movie to us as long as he kept the “sticky stockings incident” under wraps.”

exec one: “dammit! wouldn’t it just be cheaper to have him murdered???”

exec two: “we’ve already killed two security guys this quarter. a third might get the cops suspicious. your ass just needs to leave those baby goats alone? let him make his flick. with any luck, one of the coloreds in cabrini-green will murder him while they’re filming anyway”

how come i’ve never heard of anybody picketing a showing of “candyman“? “friends” would get protests and angry emails during their run because they didn’t have enough black characters (save for b.a.a.t. ***bad ass aisha tyler***), but a movie about a crazy black ex slave haunting white women somehow slips through the cracks like a fart in a stiff fall wind?

and, to make matters worse, the movie was actually scary, lol. sh*t, i’m 29 years old with a nice 403b and i’ll be a great uncle soon (seriously), and you still wont catch my black ass saying “candyman” five times in front of no freakin mirror, lol. i’m not taking that chance, i’m sorry. call me a b*tch if you like, but i’m just not too keen on getting impaled and disembowed by some 6’10 former slave thirsty for some white “gotdamn”

anyway though, excessively “gasfermating” joyous people of vsb, how would you have answered that question? whats the weirdest, strangest, and most inane movie you’ve ever seen and am i the only one still scared to say candyman five times in the mirror?

—the champ

friend: “why even bother with this election sh*t? i mean, why is everybody getting so worked up about obama?

a slightly annoyed champ: “please expound”

friend: “i mean…i crack the hell up seeing everyone all worked up about hilary this and obama that and we all know that edwards is gonna win the nomination. why even bother?”

***insert extended “hmmmm” exaggerated smirk, and sarcastic slow shake of head for dramatic effect***

friend: “what? stop it. you know i’m right”

champ: “ummm…edwards dropped out today”

friend: “what?? when??”

champ: “like an hour ago”

friend: “well, it doesnt matter who’s president anyway, since the american president is just a figurehead to represent the zionist interests of the freemasons and the six jewish bankers in prague who…”

***while the champ’s friend is ranting, the champ slowly removes pistol from his waistband, and calmly shoots himself in the head. luckily, the gun is filled with paper mache bullets, but the effect remains the same***

fire-proof panties not included

those close to me know that i hate conspiracy theorists with the heat of a thousand AKA crotches. you know exactly who i’m talking about…the cat who thinks that every professional sporting event is fixed, the woman who swears that AIDS doesnt really exist and thinks that its a racket created by the government to make people pay for AIDS drugs, the idiot who swears that if you divide the mayan calender year you were born by the sixth digit of your social security number, it equals the number of cameras the illuminati secretly implanted in your rectum the last time you got your teeth cleaned, which is why he refers to dick cheney as “the dentist”.

yet, despite my utter disdain for this way of thinking, i always manage to have at least two or three friends who fit this profile, and i’m curious why. maybe it’s an unavoidable bi-product of knowing “educated” people. maybe my propensity to pretend to listen to people instead of immediately dismissing them makes me attractive to them. maybe its because conspiracy theorist chicks are notorious for being easier than bristol palin. who knows?

as i pondered this question, i began to think of other annoying ass friends to have in your circle. people who aren’t quite annoying enough to completely cut off, but just annoying enough for you to ask yourself “wait…why are we cool again? how the hell did this happen??” at least once every four months, and i thought of a few.

the exaggerated drunk (“ed” for short), aka “the perper”

not to be mistaken with the “lightweight” (a person who knows that they don’t have the highest tolerance for alcohol, but doesnt act like an horses ass about it), the ed takes one half sip of a mikes hard lemonade and turns into dudley f*cking moore. they’re so enthralled with the idea of being drunk, that they don’t even bother to actually be drunk before they start acting drunk.

the cheap bastard, aka “the cheap piece of sh*t” and “black women”

n.e.n. (no explaination needed)

the habitual cheater

seriously, there might not be anything more annoying then the friend who consistently makes you their alibi and expects you to always cover for their raggedy d*ck asses. honestly, the older i get, the more i distance myself from these people. not because of some holier than thou attitude, but, i figure if someone’s washing your dirty drawls and swallowing your kids every night and you still do them dirty like that, what type of foulness would you do to me if given the opportunity?

the fun police, aka “the wet blanket”, aka “the diamond sh*tters”

**fast-forward to 4:08 to witness what the champ fantasizes about doing to every fun police member**

ok. i know i’m forgetting a few. any suggestions?

***btw, the conspiracy theorist friend from the beginning? volunteers at an obama campaign office now. the audacity of hope strikes again and sh*t.***

—the champ

1. Unless online or in college (two paradoxical universes where the usual rules and regulations of social discourse are thrown out of the window, like mop water and caustic midgets) men and women don’t actively seek friends of the opposite sex.

2. If given the opportunity, most men who aren’t in a committed and monogamous romantic relationship will sleep with pretty much any reasonably attractive woman. Yes, any. We may not actively want to, but, in the right situation, we happily would. That pesky “would” kind of has a way of always completely contradicting the whole platonic thing.

“Well, what if the guy harbors absolutely no physical attraction at all towards the woman, and vice versa? A platonic friendship can occur then, right” I hear you asking, which leads us to�

3. No unattached man is going to willingly spend a good amount of his free time with a like-aged woman he is completely unattracted to. It will never happen, a fact which actually “fits”, especially when you consider that�

4. …A women (notice I didn’t use any qualifiers such as “most women” or “a typical woman”) would get extremely (read: EXTREMELY) frustrated and annoyed if made to interact regularly with a guy who found her completely unattractive. Don’t argue this. It’s science.

“Well�” the same imaginary anonymous questioner from before asks�
“�what if you have a man and a woman who are both already in romantic relationships? Why can’t a platonic friendship occur then?”

Since I’ve already established that we don’t actively seek opposite sex friends while we’re single, the only way two people in separate romantic relationships can become truly platonic friends would be if they happened to first meet each other after they both were already in the relationship, an impossibility due to the fact that�

5. …No man or woman is going to be okay with their significant other making new close friends of the opposite sex.

Note, I didn’t say you couldn’t have close like-aged friends of the opposite sex, but just don’t call that shit platonic. it’s not, and will never be.

Now, you may disagree with some (or all) of what I’ve said, but, to quote my favorite reptilian drug kingpin, Marlo Stanfield …. “You want it to be one way�.but it’s the other way”

**the champ finishes his snicker and slowly climbs into a ford excursion driven by a very unkempt panama, who glares ominously at the imaginary anonymous questioner as they drive away**

–the champ