Tag: white people

Sorry if this metaphor is extreme

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But honestly?  The overturning of Roe v. Wade and the general aftermath, kind of felt like September 11th.  Yes, that September 11th, of 2001.  No, thousands of American lives haven’t been lost (yet), but from the standpoint that it was a fairly ordinary morning until a massive metaphorical bomb went off with the breaking news that Roe v. Wade had been overturned, and all across the country there was mass shock, a panic at trying to figure out what happened, and then just, outrage.

Naturally, a lot of this is exacerbated by the existence of the internet and the rabid amplification at how fast news and opinions can travel.  Frankly, I’m (thankfully) not on Twitter or Reddit, so I can’t really see just how much rejoicing of this there is because I’m pretty sure it would drive me into a disgruntled frenzy, so all I really can see is a fairly curated ocean of anger, outrage and disappointment in the country from the outlets that I’m typically exposed to on the regular, when I actually have the time to look.  I just assume that the vast majority of those who are for this bullshit are probably just old white people, and mostly men that look like Mitch McConnell or various mutations of him.

I know comparing it to 9/11 seems like a pretty extreme metaphor, but that’s really kind of how this day as felt.  Lots of shock, confusion, anger, but mostly this feeling of defeat and disgust, disappointment and just sheer lack of faith in our country, from what feels like the first time in eons, we’re witnessing the actual removal of a human right for its population.

Obviously as a male, there’s a definitive limit to how much I can understand and be able to empathize for female America, but all I have to do is look at my wife, and see the sheer detachment from the entire day upon hearing of this news, to know that this is a really, really fucking massive major big deal.  All I have to do is look at my two daughters, my two female children offspring, and see two people who somehow will grow up with less rights than the generation before them, and I feel disheartened and disappointed and disgusted with the country in which they had the misfortune of being born into.

I’m not a political person.  I’m not very educated in the political arena or lots of historical events, but even I knew what Roe v. Wade is.  I know it’s something that’s been under fire for longer than I’ve been alive, but silly me for thinking that America had just enough common sense to keep alive, regardless of the fact that it’s been attacked endlessly for the better part of the last 50 years.

While lamenting our collective disgust, some of my friends said that this was the victory of a very long game by the Republican party, but I had to vehemently disagree.  A long game implies strategy, cunning and most importantly patience, all which most definitely this didn’t feel like.  It just felt like 50 years worth of mindless zombies gathering at the entrance to a castle gate, and finally, finally, they’ve gathered enough of their kind to where they could finally overwhelm the wall and breach their way in.  No strategy needed so much as it was just a tireless, endless constant war of attrition, where most likely tons of people in support of it have no idea what they’re even fighting for.

Unfortunately, when it comes to American politics, there is no undo function, no 7-day money back guarantee, no 55-hour annulment.  The overturning of Roe v. Wade is going to happen, has happened, and countless Americans will suffer as the result of it.  For reasons why, nobody knows why a bunch of overprivileged white men asshole motherfuckers in Washington DC needs to control what women do with their bodies beyond a primal, caveman-like need to control what they think is their property.

The political system is beyond broken, and frankly nothing short of a catastrophe that wipes out a large chunk of Congress and/or the Supreme Court, nothing is ever going to change.  Old, toxic cogs that retire or die one by one are strategically replaced by similarly toxic cogs that are slightly younger, but ensure the maintenance of the same broken status quo that will never change as long as a system like this is in place.

The bottom line is that I may not be a woman and fully understand the full spectrum of how devastatingly this day sucks, but my heart still breaks for them, and all women who will be impacted the most by it.  My wife has been on another planet since the news broke and my daughters will grow up in a society whose government sees them as second class.

I don’t feel that it really needs to be said, but I want to put it in writing all the same, because it’s important to me that my stance be very clearly known to the zero people who read my bullshit anyway.  As a male, I will not fully understand, but I still vow to be an ally and support and not judge the feelings or disappointment or any other emotion that any woman is going through on account of this fucked up development.

America fucking sucks right now, and it would be easy to say that I’d want to pluck my family out and go somewhere else, but it’s hard as shit to accomplish and frankly no other country in the world is without their own bullshit and insufferable political issues that stampede on common sense human rights.

Yes it’s that time to talk about pooping again

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the… no, it is definitively the best aspect about returning to the office, is the fact that I am able to get back to the gym, by virtue of the modest but adequate little gym inside my office’s building.  It’s free for tenants, has showers and complimentary towels, and the best part is that it’s hardly ever used.  Since I’ve been working out there, the maximum number of other people working out at the same time has me has never exceeded two people.

Knock on wood.

However, in spite of the fact that there aren’t a lot of people who work out on the regular as I do, the gym doors, are still somewhat commonly opened and entered, by people who believe the gym restrooms are the best place to poop.  Presumably they’re thinking they’re the most private, or least frequented, so that they can drop a deuce in perceived peace and cleanliness, but I don’t think any of these bozos seem to understand that I’ve already witnessed a number of people who use them that’s high enough for me to not even consider them myself if the need arises.

For those who have never had the opportunity to be mired in Office Space life, one notable behavior that most people don’t like to talk about but exists because everyone poops, is that people have a tendency to try and be discreet and do their work-time pooping on the down-low.  Either by coming in early, staying late, or in most cases with larger facilities, seeking out the bathrooms that are away from their daily peer groups, tucked away for privacy and/or sanitary reasons, or all of the above.

A Where’s Waldo of sorts, of the “best” bathrooms in the building.  I have a bathroom in the building that I think is the best bathroom for my needs.  It’s hidden behind the mailroom and based on the fact that most every time I go into it, I’m the one triggering the motion-sensing lights, which lets me know that nobody’s been there for a while, or the toilets still have the tint of green water from the last time they were disinfected.

Point is, everyone who works in an office probably has in the back of their mind, the bathrooms they like to use when they want some privacy and piece of mind.  And in my building, I’ve noticed that quite a number of people seem to feel that the gym bathroom is that bathroom for them, but unbeknownst to them, they would be sorely mistaken.

The men’s locker room has one toilet stall.  One.  Regardless of if I knew this wasn’t a good bathroom or not, I personally don’t like those odds, and wouldn’t consider it.  Presumably, the women’s locker room has two, due to the lack of need for a urinal, and make no mistake, women come into the gym to poop as frequently as men do, but at least they can hedge their bets with two toilets presumably to pick from.

Regardless, much like NASA gathers data on the all-relevant to space exploration conflicting between alligators versus sharks, solely based on the fact that it’s an interesting behavioral  anomaly that occurs near their Florida facilities, I have decided to start collating data of the pooping habits of the people in my building, who pop into the gym solely to poop, thinking it’s a nice and private bathroom for them to use.  It’ll be a fun little statistical gathering to see if any patterns or factoids emerge from it, and if anything all, just another topic I can dip into to write about in the future.

I also like to smugly meet the eyes of the people who come into the gym to poop; they know that I know what they’re doing, because they always roll in with no bags or gear, and beeline for the locker rooms.  If I weren’t masked up, they would see the facetious smirk on my face when they’re on their way out, because they think they’re being clever and pooping where it’s nice and safe, but based on the revolving door those poor toilets are, they might as well be crapping in a porta-potty during a marathon weekend.

Why I’m the only guy in the office still wearing a mask

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Both my kids are sick now.  Still possible that I caused it, but also some reason to believe it might not have been me.  Either way, strep was brought to them somehow, and obviously through basic transmission of germs.

But this is why I still mask up, even if in doing so, it’s still not foolproof at protecting my famiry.  I went all of 2020 with not even a common cold and it was glorious.  But as time progressed, people selfishly got sick of masks and arrogantly believed a vaccine made them invincible, sure as the sun rises, the common sicknesses that nobody got in 2020 were waiting around and it’s been a fucking war zone since.

Literally, a night nurse at the hospital #2 was born at got my wife and newborn baby sick, who immediately passed it onto #1 as soon as we got home.  That was real fun, dealing with a house full of sick people, among them a literal newborn.

2022 literally started with coronavirus infiltrating my house, where mythical wife got it, and although untested, myself and #1 probably had it too.  Amazingly, #2 seemed to escape unscathed.

And since then, I think it’s accurate to say that one or both of my kids have been sick every single month of this year.  Coincidentally, mask mandates are relaxing all over the country, and Georgia was full of yeah cmon hicks who already began ditching them, and shocker, fucking sicknesses are goddamn everywhere.

And when my kids get sick, I’m the one who has to eat the load and work from home and compromise my work responsibilities and often times run double duty on the girls.  I’m the only one who’s work suffers and the backlog usually ends up with me working into the evenings and/or having to rush and be at higher risk of shoddy work.

I’m just sick of my kids getting sick.  It’s by no fault of their own, they’re just kids.  I blame the fucking world around us full of arrogant and selfish assholes who can’t be bothered to wear masks in public, happily content with spreading two years worth of backlogged colds and other niggling ailments that everyone is spreading and getting all the fucking time.

I refuse to feel like the outcast in public because I choose to wear a mask still.  It may not be fool proof at preventing sicknesses but I’m doing the best I can to try to protect all my girls, even if it makes me seem like the outlier that was just barely months ago, the norm.

The Braves didn’t deserve Freddie Freeman, anyway

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In short: Braves’ Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman takes a second out of a game to share a moment of compassion and empathy for an opposing player with a hug and comforting words upon finding out that his dad had recently passed away

If people outside of Braves Country® were not that familiar with the kind of human being Freddie Freeman was, playing in big fuck you market Los Angeles will definitely help spread the word, of just how loveable and more or less perfect of a human being that he is.  It took all of what, 5-6 games into the season for Freddie Freeman to already get noticed for, being the Freddie Freeman who was the heart and face of the Atlanta Braves over the last decade?

Just like that, Freddie Freeman reminds everyone that baseball is still just a kid’s game, and that it’s okay to have fun, but also the importance of sportsmanship, humanity and just being a good person.

I haven’t followed baseball enough over the last few years, but I do know who Jose Iglesias is, primarily an elite glove guy, which at a premium position like shortstop is usually adequate to always have a job in the big leagues, but already my heart goes out to him, for hearing of the news of his father’s passing.

Freeman is no stranger to being everyone’s best friend, regardless of if they’re a teammate or not, and upon finding out about Iglesias’s dad, and his general reaction, he wasted no time in Freddie being Freddie, and offering up a hug and comfort, regardless of if it were an opponent.

This right here, is what Freddie Freeman brings to the table, regardless of his batting average, slash stats, WAR and other tangible evidence of baseball talent.  Aside from being a legitimate MVP-caliber player, he’s just a guy that gets the game of life, and that there are always things that are bigger than just baseball.

As for the Braves, they just didn’t deserve him.  Yes, I’ve read a lot of the scuttlebutt about how the whole thing transpired, and all the of the actual salt and fabricated sugar at the end of the journey.  But the reality is that the Braves really could’ve tried harder prior to free agency, but they didn’t, because they’re the Braves and everything the team does has to be fiscal this and shareholders that and it always boils down to money, in spite of the fact that baseball is a ridiculously lucrative venture that has revenues in the legitimate billions on a yearly basis.

No disrespect to Matt Olson, who is doing his job and starting his career with the Braves as the successor to Freddie Freeman pretty hot, but there’s not a single part of me that still wouldn’t wish to have Freddie Freeman on the team instead.  But the Braves couldn’t get over all the numbers swirling around Freddie, as far his age versus Olson’s age, the dollars, and the years asked for, and this is where we are as a result.  Short of winning a Roberto Clemente Award for exemplary citizenship, I can’t imagine there’s much Olson can do to replace all the intangible and little things that Freeman brought to the Braves for all his years.

I know it happens to every sports fan at some point(s) in their lives when they have to watch a beloved player go elsewhere, and sure the Braves are primed for potential success all the same, but losing Freeman, a guy I legitimately watched grow up with the team, all the way in the minor leagues, all the way to a World Series championship, that’s one that the sting is going to linger a long time.

Poor Randall Park

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Comedienne Ali Wong announces divorce, internet reports on it, repeatedly uses photos of Wong with Randall Park instead of her actual husband because arr rook same

At this point, there’s little else I could add to the fires of THAT’S RACIST because yo that shit is racist, and the rampantly white media continues to be just completely inept and incapable of differentiating between Asian people.

What I really wanted to write about is how much it must suck to be Randall Park, because no matter how much work he does, no matter how much exposure he gets, it doesn’t matter if he got into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in WandaVision, or gets to work with The Rock in Young Rock, or has spent six seasons doing Fresh Off the Boat; people just can’t seem to differentiate him from other Asian people in the public eye, be it getting mistaken for Raymond Lee or Ali Wong’s husband, neither of whom he looks anything like, but I’m also Asian and can tell my fellow yellow brethren apart better than white folks can.

Yeah, it’s got to get old and exasperating the fact that it keeps happening, and I’d bet it gets harder and harder for Park or any other minorities to constantly be expected to take the high road and say rhetoric about microaggressions and teachable moments, when all they really want to say is that white people can go fuck themselves for their hollow apologies and arrogance that they can continuously keep getting away with it.  Like Parade and MSN can go fuck themselves for either not fact checking or having white editors who are just as colorblind as the shitfucks writing these fluff pieces in the first place.

Sure, it’s easy to try and spin this as Randall Park being so famous that he’s the go-to Asian to be continuously be mistaken for, but that would be an excuse whiter than Duke’s lacrosse team.  Let’s stop saying ‘do better’ and start saying what we really want to say whenever this racist mistaken identity continues to happen: fuck you.

I’m sure this is going to go over very well

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s a popular narrative that the National Football League is basically incapable of doing anything right.  And that the financial bulldozer that they ultimately still are, is completely in spite of the general lack of ethics, competent leadership and all of the just in general inability to not keep doing stupid shit.

Players want to celebrate touchdowns and look like they’re having fun?  Those are penalties.  A player who is on injured inactive status wants to bet on some football games?  That’s an exiling.  But multiple players who were caught, have video evidence, or were found guilty of domestic violence?  2-4 game suspension.  A Muslim player kneels after a touchdown?  Penalty.  Tim Tebow kneels after scoring a touchdown?  Hero.

I mean, the list can go on for an embarrassingly long time, regardless of the fact that the NFL is a veritable money printer.  Regardless of the fact that I don’t have the time to indulge in as much sports as I used to or liked to, the NFL doesn’t exactly make itself particularly compelling or attractive to want to pay any attention to, even if I had the capacities to.

Recently, the NFL made a public amendment to what has been called the Rooney Rule, which was already basically the NFL’s version of Affirmative Action, where teams are basically PR strong-armed into having minorities somewhere on the coaching staff.  And up until this amendment, just about every person of color ends up being a defensive coordinator, which depending on the reputation of the team, might either be a really important role, or a really insignificant one.

But the amendment states basically, that a minority must be added to the offensive staff, and also now includes that women can be implemented in order to fulfill these obligated positions.

So just like that, the NFL has basically admitted that defensive coordinators are mostly patsy positions, and that they’ve been stashing all of their mandatory minorities in them.  And now they’re trying to rectify it, as well as backhand placate women, by amending the Rooney Rule, to include more minorities and/or women onto the more glamorous offensive side of coaching.

Already, the public acknowledgment of all this is embarrassing enough, but because the NFL can’t do anything right, I can already see what’s going to happen: a whole lot of bogus bullshit positions are going to magically materialize, and they’re going to immediately be filled by minorities and/or women.  Or, there will be some team that’s extra ambitious, and fill them with black women, and go for that double whammy of Rooney Requirements:

  • Head Quarterback Football Asset Return Specialist (ball boy or girl)
  • Running Backs Nutrition Management Coach (personal chef)
  • Receivers’ Public Relations Coach (social media manager)

By labeling these with specific offensive positions, they’re now parts of the offensive coaching staffs, meant to fulfill the Rooney Rule.  And make no mistake, as hyperbolic and snarky as some of these things might appear for the sake of being brog material, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if we see some surreptitiously new coaching titles start to appear on the coaching staffs of teams in the very near future.

Trolling the troll for the win

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As I was driving to my car appointment, I drove past a house that had a massive display in their front yard that went to the trouble of spelling out, of all the things in the world, Let’s Go Brandon.  Which is basically the dog whistle phrase that hardcore baked potato worshippers have latched onto like ticks to an elephant’s asshole, for how they feel about the actual president of the United States.  And I feel stupid for having to explain but ticks on an elephant’s asshole seemed too accurate and good of an analogy to pass up.

Firstly, fewer things seem more pathetic to me than anyone, right or left, who is that into politics, that they pollute their properties with propaganda that they are so wanting everyone to notice.  Like, you have absolutely nothing else in your life to be passionate about other than politics, and to a degree that you just have to make sure everyone knows where you stand?  Quite saddening.

Second, the Let’s Go Brandon thing is about the stupidest shit I’ve seen emerge from political meme-licking over the last few decades, and between the last three presidents, we’ve definitely seen some declining bullshit over time.

The thing is though, if I’m the Democratic Party, counteracting Let’s Go Brandon should be the easiest thing in the world to do; as long as we were willing to stop trying to play so high and mighty and stop worrying about the perception of sinking to their level. 

Republicans haven’t been the least bit shy or tried to hide their willingness to capitalize on unethical shit like racism, memes, Twitter and racist memes on Twitter in order to have the upper hand in the political arena.

Plus what I’m about to suggest isn’t even unethical or underhanded, it’s just capitalizing on the opportunity that was dealt to them.

If I’m the Democratic Party, across the board, I’m pushing as many elected officials I can, whose name is Brandon.  Like, legitimately. 

Brandon Affleck for Senate in California.  Brandon Jablonski for Lt. Governor in Wisconsin.  Brandon Marshall for Secretary of State in Mississippi.  Brandon Wojchehowski for Superintendent of Education in Butts County, South Dakota.

Doesn’t matter how big or small the position is, if it’s an elected official, push out a guy named Brandon.

So when the baked potato idiots are all flapping their gums about Let’s Go Brandon or driving around with their stickers on their cars, or wearing shirts or caps with the message on it, or decorating their front yards with the message… they’ll now be supporting these actual politicians named Brandon. 

Preferably Democrats.  Or fuck, even third parties should consider capitalizing on this strategy.  I’m sure a Green or Libertarian party candidate would have more success in the ballots if their name were Brandon, solely based on voters who vote entirely on name recognition alone, which last time I checked is a legitimate reason and tactic behind why some candidates go so ham on signs and campaign awareness.

And that’s basically the point of this whole strategy.  Take the power of the message away from the baked potato’s buffoon followers and it will die faster than Kentucky in this years tournament.  But until then, let all these idiots basically be free advertising for aspiring politicians around the country named Brandon, and see just how much power at the polls name recognition alone does.

I’d wager some money that there would be a laughable amount of Brandons throughout the country who would find themselves in a job after election season is over.  Sure this bones most women and minorities from taking offices, but last time I checked it wouldn’t be illegal for Elizabeth Warren to change her name to  Elizabeth Brandon or Andrew Yang to change his name to Brandon Yang.

Fuck man.  I don’t even like politics, or ever wanted to have shared so many opinions on politics on my brog, but here we are. Fixing political scenarios for free, if I had any readership at all.