Fan X Fan Show - CW's "The Flash" (Season 2, Episode 10)

BACK LIKE WE NEVER LEFT!  In our first new episode of the year, "The Flash" is in for a few changes.  Relationships change, dynamics change, and we face maybe the most twisted villain so far!  We pretend to know actual science as we debate the credibility of "The Turtle's" power.  Turtle Power.  T-U-R-T-L-E POWER!  Couldn't fight it, sorry.  I may have convinced Trav to use his status as the "Prominent Black (Beige) Voice in Pro Wrestling"  to take part in a cool event, and hopefully he helps us get a bunch of money for just running our mouths.  I'll tell you how time travel is stupid outside of a few instances, and how even if your mother is a crackhead that ruins your family, it's still your father's fault. All this and a few sappy ass quotes on this week's Fan X Fan! And wait - REVERSE FLASH BYKE?!?!?!?

Pudding Pops, Pusha T and Paramount Pictures - Bill Cosby? Not your Father.

I went to a Hannibal Buress show earlier this year. I knew him as an SNL writer, and a supporting character on the show 'Broad City' I rave about. Buress is my kind of comedian - he's in the know.  Well read, but not removed from urban culture. In a crowd that mostly early 30's white men and women, I was one of the few reciting the Pusha T songs that played during the pre show. You can't control your audience, but you can control what you give them. In a post Dave Chappelle world, it was nice to have a comedian that operates in a space similar to mine.


The show was really, really good. He covered a wide range of topics - music, sex, race, violence, drugs... all the things we laugh about, cry about, and stay up at night contemplating. That, coupled with the fact that we brought in a few flasks, made for a fantastic experience. Months later, Buress did what lots of comedians do - he took a very real situation, deadpanned it, and waited for the crowd to react. Bill Cosby, famous TV dad, legendary comedian and crotchety old Black guy, spent YEARS stressing that, in many cases, we as young Black people were our own worst enemies. "pull up your pants, use your suffixes, turn your hat around" the whole nine. I've had this argument with parents, kids, teachers, hell, strangers, about the validity of such a statement. I could write an entire post on the intricacies of who's at fault there, but that's for another time. Before I talk about Bill Cosby being the scum of the earth, I want to explain to you my adoration of Bill Cosby. I'm a 28 year old Black Man from the east coast with a college degree. I fucking love Bill Cosby. I love Bill Cosby for the Huxtable family. This was a Black family of Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, and dedicated students. They weren't "holier than thou" people. They made being educated seem NORMAL, like that's the way things were supposed to be. Even when light skinned Elvin decided showed up to lead Sondra astray, Elvin came from an educated family, so even if his common sense was gone, he had the tools to help people out in the world.

No funny quips here... except "jammin' on the one!"  Loved that.

Even heavier than that, 'A Different World' was, and still is, mandatory viewing for children Black, white, and in between. I've seen every single episode front to back, and they still hold up. I've never seen LIFE on screen the way Hillman was given to us. The place was alive, teeming with ideas, hunger, fear... it was what I wanted from adulthood before I even knew what adulthood was. Looking back on it as a person older than those characters now, you see the ignorance the apprehension, the desire for understanding. It was a look at life after high school, but before the world really begins, that hasn't been replicated since.

When being smart became being awesome!

So Bill Cosby, or Heathcliff Huxtable, or Debbie Allen, or Carmen Finestra, someone, was definitely a surrogate parent for me. But arrogant ass that I am, when people start talking crazy, I start separating the characters from the men behind them. BILL COSBY HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF RAPE FIFTEEN TIMES MAN. Now, I knew that, Weez and Travis probably knew that (hey guys) I'm certain Miles knew that, and Bradford and Chad knew that, because they know everything. I'm at the barbershop Wednesday, like I typically am on Wednesdays, and we started talking Cosby after the story came across the HLN ticker. I'll tell you something about Black people, if you weren't aware - we are VERY SLOW to condemn our successful individuals. Because we claim them as our own successes, it's very hard for us to throw them away. I had a spirited discussion which ended with me being called a coon because I choose not to listen to Michael Jackson anymore. Without getting into too much detail, MJ's catalogue is great, and I'd never tell anyone else they shouldn't partake... but I'm cool over here. So the first reaction from a woman in the shop was "that's a shame, someone trying to get Bill Cosby." In a very even tone I responded "this is the 15th time he's been accused of rape or sexual abuse." The two barbers nodded their heads, and that was the extent of the conversation. You damn near have to kill a Black baby while entering a white woman to have the Black community turn against you!

How Black folks treat Black celebrities with "issues".

So understand my shift in feelings if you will - Bill Cosby, who told us to "act" a certain way for years and years, had access to channels other Black actors/ artists never did, because of the wholesome image he portrayed. Here's where it gets a little dark. How does a Black man, albeit a world renowned one, get accused of rape that many times, and most folks NEVER EVEN HEARD ABOUT IT?  Because that's an image organizations work hard to maintain, because they can make a fucking MINT off that image. There are people who do bad, bad things that you'll never know about, because they mean too much to someone in power for that information to be as widespread as it should.

Hold up... YOU want ME to pull up MY pants???

Who knows what'll happen from here - maybe Bill Cosby's life finishes out in prison, maybe he goes broke paying off lawsuits, maybe he "gets away with it" and spends his remaining days in a big house on a pile of money. Just be aware that the things we grew up on, the things that shaped us, were at least in part put out there to turn a profit. Don't let Bill Cosby ruin Heathcliff Huxtable. Or 'Ghost Dad'. That guy was a Saint.

HOW WAS THIS EVEN A THING?

Bonus - Me at the Hannibal Buress Show - Gibberish Rap x Ballerinas

"I start my car... she calls me a nigger."

... you would've though he started a chainsaw for goodness sake!

First - (also, leading off with 'you people' really, really sours whatever point you want to make)

now, the video -

Mimi's Adult Film, or That Time Y'all Pretended to Care about Other People's Kids.

(With my luck, this will be the one time my mother decides to read my blog.)

Mimi Faust, one of the major figures on VH1's "Love and Hip-Hop: Atlanta", recently released a preview to her Adult Film "Mimi & Nikko - Scandal in Atlanta (The Secret Sex Tape)".

Keep it 100 - This is the healthiest relationship he's ever had.

1)  If your "sex tape" has a computer generated title screen, it's not a sex tape.

2)  If your "sex tape"  has a preview build, it's not a sex tape.

3)  If your "sex tape"  has a "Vivid" logo in the bottom right (southeast for the nerds) corner,  IT'S NOT A SEX TAPE.

If only all the blac... nvm.

 Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the internet's most prevalent reaction to the 45 second clip of Mimi and her costar Nikko (on screen love interest and alleged producer) going at it.  People are legit outraged that she would make an adult film, because "what kind of example would that set for her daughter?"  That's a load of crap if I've ever heard it, and here's why - the same people that are upset over her making a porno are the same people that watch her damn reality show!

If you haven't seen "Love and Hip-Hop", here's a very quick analysis.  Mimi has a child with Stevie J, former bad boy producer and public womanizer.  He has a relationship with his grossly untalented protege Joseline, and parades her around very publicly in front of Mimi, who he still pursues.  They've been on again, off again for over a decade because of his cheating ways, but she refuses to make a break, even going so far as to agree to a living situation with the both of them.  For the.. ahem... sake of her daughter.  The crux of the show is her yelling, and at times battering Stevie, while also placing misplaced anger toward Joseline, who owes her nothing.

Yup - this relationship was a GREAT example for the youth.

So people take issue with her having sex on camera for profit, but don't have the same issue with her being abusive and violent towards her daughter's father, and other women as well?  Hypothetical question - what would you rather explain to your child:  Why there's a video of you having sex on camera, or why for the entirety of your child's life you let her father take advantage of you physically and emotionally?  If you judge her actions on the standards of recurring problems against a single incident, it's really no contest!  But well, we also live in a society where a penis in a movie is considered more detrimental than a sword, gun, rocket launcher, lightsaber, and giant lizard monster, but I'm just talking here.

I know some of you ladies' history - if your daughters still love y'all, Mimi's gonna be good.

I'm not saying that performing in Adult Films is an ideal life choice for a mother, but it's certainly not the worst life decision she's made.  Probably not top 5.  So everyone that stepped in yesterday and played Auntie or Uncle, have fun watching her set an even worse example next season - but with her clothes on so you can qualify it.

P.S. - To each and every woman that saw that clip and said "she's not even doing anything special" you are either a liar, or making some young man very, very happy.  And asking if "Yeezy taught you."