Actor Gary Coleman was born February 8, 1968, in Zion, IL. Shortly after his birth, he was adopted by a man named Kensuke Miyagi, an elderly gardener and karate master. Together, they developed a new form of martial arts called knee-fu, a style of fighting built around the disabling of an opponent with powerful kicks and punches to the kneecaps. A black belt in both karate and knee-fu by the age of 10, Coleman got into acting in hopes of introducing the world to this new style of fighting.
He began filming the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes in 1978. Once the show had gained notable success, Coleman demonstrated his knee-fu prowess to the show’s producers and executives in hopes of having it worked into the script, but was instead met with a chorus of Awwwwwww!Okay, now do that kick thing again and then say, ‘Whatchu talkin’ bout, Willis??!’ Unwilling to compromise the integrity and dignity of knee-fu, he stayed on the show but vowed never to perform his art in public again.
Stonewall “Stoney” Jackson was born in Richmond, VA, in 1960. A natural on the stage, he toured Europe with the Young Shakespeareans, a highly prestigious acting troupe that admits only 5 new members worldwide every 5 years. Stoney gained whirlwind notoriety overseas as the Moore Othello by the time he was 8 years old, and to those who know, is considered one of the greatest black acting talents of all time.
His career took a turn for the worse, however, when, upon returning to the United States, he made a bold move and got a Jheri Curl, a popular hairstyle of the 80s. Despite his illustrious career history, the glistening, oily strands atop his head made it impossible for the populace to take him seriously. In 1990, after completing his run as Travis on the popular sitcom 227, Jackson founded N.A.A.J.C (National Association for the Advancement of Jheri Curls) in hopes of obtaining equal rights for those with the hairstyle. His career never recovered and he has been acting in straight-to-video movies, such as ‘4-Bidden‘ and ‘The Thief and the Stripper‘ ever since.
welcome to what will hopefully be the first of a series of exclusive interviews with some of the most prominent and influential black personalities in our community in honor of black history month. for our first installment, i had the opportunity to sit down with “musician” and reality tv “star” Brandy’s Brother Ray J over a couple of fried bologna sammiches. i wanted to discuss a few specific things: how he feels about the current state of black America, what he thinks about the job that fine ass President Obama has done so far, and what he plans to do with semi-lame ass Mz Berry, “winner” of For the Love of Brandy’s Brother Ray J season 2.
Born in 1928, Lamar David Little worked as a welder in Fort Wayne, IN. A fan of tasty snacks, he, like many black people both past and present, was a fan of eating the nutty kernels inside of sunflower seeds. Being a man of diverse taste, however, he soon tired of the lack of flavor options and quit his job to spend as much time as possible creating new flavors for the seeds. He tried to write suitable formulas for all his favorite flavors, and after his pig foot, watermelon, and malt liquor recipes didn’t work, he settled on BBQ in 1982. It remains a popular treat for black America to this day; many believe that pouring a handful and shaking the seeds around enhances the flavor.
glory be! it’s only day 3 of the black history month extravaganza and we’ve ALREADY got a head on which to place the crown of Miss Black History Month.
i give to you, ladies and gentlemen, your Queen February… whoever this is.
one of these people invented Grape Drink. guess who?
koochiechakakhan, everybody!
to supplement the longer looks we’re taking into our unknown black history via Your Nappy Ass Roots, i thought i’d act on my good buddy kenan’s suggesion and set up a little tumbler to blast some quick little known facts for everybody as we boogie on down in this black history month extravaganza. i’ve been doing it via twitter, but if you’re lame and not following me yet, you missed em!
so for your convenience, pleasure, and cultural IQ, here you go. each one teach one, brothers and sisters.
awwwww yeah! welcome to black history month, suckas! we’re gonna get this crazy train rollin with our first installment of Your Nappy Ass Roots, a segment that spotlights little known black history facts that they don’t teach you in schools.
we’ll start by taking a look at Doc Louis, Little Mac’s trainer in the popular Nintendo boxing series Punch-Out!!, and the first openly gay black video game character in Nintendo’s history.
double entendre like a motherfucker.
Formerly a heavyweight boxer, Jerome “Doc” Louis’ presence achieved fame in the United States around 1954. Decades later, Doc, now coaching the sport, has a chance encounter with a young fighter named Little Mac, who has aspirations to box professionally. Louis agrees to take charge of Mac, teaching him everything there is to know about boxing. Now, via Doc Louis’s Punch-Out!! , other players can actually train against him as part of gameplay.
Between Little Mac’s rounds, Doc can be seen in the corner offering words of encouragement and making thinly veiled sexual references via discussion of “chocolate bars,” a well known reference to black penises. Throughout the game, he makes such statements as “Don’t cry, Mac. Here, I’ll let you have some of my chocolate bar,” and “As soon as I find out how he got so big, I’m gonna have the same thing done to my chocolate bar!” No really, he says these things. He officially came out after confiding his secret to Little Mac during one of these mid-match chats.
In 1996, Doc Louis was honored by the National Association of Gay Black Nintendo Characters for his trailblazing. This pretty much meant that Doc gave the award to himself, as there are no other black Nintendo characters.
this has been Your Nappy Ass Roots. when you comb through that shit, you never know what you’ll find. harambee!
i meant to write about this a long time ago, but yeah. those new pictures of mars that nasa released about a week ago? i saw them on the huffington post and almost tossed my cookies all over the floor.
im kind of odd. certain things i can’t look at because they make my skin crawl. kind of like some people pass out at the sight of needles or blood? i want to do the same when i see close ups of germs/microorganisms (like in science books or smart people tv shows), close up shots or large groups of bugs, or clusters of holes.
what really bothers me the most of that list are the clusters of holes. that probably sounds the most ridiculous, and i recognize that, but guess what?? it’s an actual phobia with an actual name, and ive talked to lots of people who have the same aversion!
it’s called trypophobia and i shudder to even have to google it because it always turns up a bunch of disgusting pictures. it’s loosely defined as a fear of clusters of holes, but the def needs to be a bit more specific, at least for me. because like the holes in, say, the speakers on a phone receiver don’t bother me at all, nor do the holes of a honeycomb because they’re all symmetrical. what i have a problem with is a cluster of holes of differing sizes, especially if they’re randomly placed. my biggest enemy is the lotus seed pod. ordinarily i’d put up a picture for you but that would mean i’d have to look at it, and i can’t do that for you. i can give you a link to google though. look it up your dang self, and while you’re there, google ‘trypophobia’ too, cause i won’t do that either. but yeah. lotus seed pods are bad. and i heard that there’s a frog or a toad or something that somehow burrows its eggs in its back?? my stomach turns even trying to imagine what that looks like. i think my prob with stuff like this is that it reminds me of a disease. like it just looks infected, like pus and spiders are just gonna start oozing out of the holes at any minute. i dunno. it’s kind of hard to explain.
anyway.
i mention that because i get the same creepy skin-crawly feeling when i look at these mars pictures. not to the point that i can’t look at it, but i definitely don’t want to. i dunno, they make me itch.
actually, no. i cant look at em. i was gonna to put some here for you, but. i’ll just give you the link instead. this one REALLY fucks me up.
does anybody else have this reaction to stuff like this??? id LOVE to talk about it with other folk who may have it.. am i alone?!
update: against my better judgement, i googled the damn thing and got smacked in the face with a shitload of lotus seed pods. FUCK. anyway, more info can be found here, and apparently there’s even a facebook page for it.
you may have noticed that the updates have been slow here lately. if you’re a regular reader, you know that it happens here on occasion. sometimes life gets in the way and must be lived. i haven’t forgotten about yall though!
got some great things comin up here! firstly, it’s almost february. know what that means? black history month. know what THAT means?? it’s time for the BROKEY MCPOVERTY BLACK HISTORY MONTH EXTRAVAGANZA! woooooooo! if i remember correctly, we had a small scale blast last year. we’re gonna keep the party goin with the standard feature, Your Nappy Ass Roots, where we learn little known black history month facts both here and at PostBourgie. and we’ll crown another Mr. Black History Month, and maybe even have a queen this year (now taking nominations! email me!!). and we’ll throw some new fun stuff in too. maybe some interviews. maybe some long lost black music. the possibilities are endless! stay tuned!!
and also, an announcement i’m really excited to make.. i decided some time ago to start a new blog, and i’ve finally gotten off my ass and did it. well, i’m doing it; it’s not quite ready for its unveiling yet, as i’m still workin on gettin a bootleg-ass logo together (if any designers out there would like to do a little piece of work for free, holler!). i won’t say what it’s about, but if you stop by here regularly i’m sure you can guess. look for it in early feb, as part of the extravaganza!
that’s all! i gotta go back to drooling and having inappropriate thoughts about my president as he talks about politics of the deficit or the cold war or some shit. i’m not listening.
