When is blackface acceptable? Judging from the initial reaction to tonight’s 30 Rock episode, it can be received as entertaining and edgy when deployed ironically. Here’s the formula: place a popular white Hollywood actor in (partial) blackface and Afro wig and give him permission to talk in a stereotypical “black” accent. Make sure there is an angry black character onscreen signaling to the audience that the performers know that racism is wrong, while also giving them permission to enjoy the transgressive thrill of laughing at blackface (See also Tropic Thunder). Most important of all, set the skit in the past, so that people recognize that we are condemning a period of ugly racism in showbiz that is now safely behind us.

When is blackface unacceptable? Judging from the consensus response to Makode Linde’s “racist cake” performance, blackface is wrong when a black artist dons it, in the service of an anti-racist performance. Linde showed that blackface still has a sickening, visceral power, and that it can be used to reveal the ugliness of racism and white liberal voyeurism in the present day.

30 Rock proved to some that “blackface could be funny in 2012” only when the mostly white audience can be comforted that they themselves are not racists. Where the “ironic racism” of white Hollywood is concerned, truly nothing is beyond the pale.

In fact, another helping of Hollywood’s ironically racist cake is on its way.

Sacha Baron Kony

TAKE ONE

German woman flees partner who demanded way too much sex

BERLIN — A desperate woman in Munich fled onto a balcony and called police for protection after her insatiable companion for a one-night stand refused to let her leave his flat, police said Thursday.

The 43-year-old woman had met a man four years her senior in a bar in the southern German city on Monday and he took her back to his apartment for sex, a police spokesman said in a statement.

“There they had sexual intercourse several times,” the spokesman said.

“When the 47-year-old wanted even more, his partner said no.”

The woman then attempted to leave the apartment but the man prevented her from escaping and demanded she sleep with him again.

“Because the 43-year-old saw no other alternative, she complied with the man’s wishes another few times so she could finally leave the apartment,” the spokesman said.

“But when he continued to refuse and demanded even more sex from her, she fled to the balcony and alerted the police.”

The man “then tried to talk the dispatched officers into similar activity but was unsuccessful.”

He is now facing possible charges of sexual assault and illegal restraint.

(Original here.)

TAKE TWO

Woman Flees Man After Too Much Sex

We’ve all been there.

Agence France-Presse reports that a German woman in Munich allegedly had to flee to the police after a man demanded too much sex.

After several amicably agreed upon rolls in the hay, the woman reportedly tried to leave the man’s apartment. But he wouldn’t let her exit and instead allegedly insisted on more sex. That’s when the woman ran to the cops for help, according to authorities.

Perhaps the man in question was unaware of a study reported on by Forbes that found that, while men can, for the most part, never have too much sex, women can.

From Forbes:

“Vaginal tissues, if given too roistering or prolonged a pummeling, can sustain damage. In cases you’d just as soon not hear about, permanent damage.”

And the German woman might not be alone in her desire for a bit less sex.

Reuters reported on a study that found 12 percent of women aged 16-24 wanted sex less often. It’s not a perfect comparison though, since the German woman was 43.

(Original here.)

*It’s worth noting that the creepy stock photos accompanying these stories work better with my genderswapped narratives than they do in the original versions.

I have no idea if MoveOn.Org’s ”99% Spring” is a Democratic Party attempt to co-opt Occupy Wall Street, but three little words in this slick video sure sound familiar.

Did you hear about Tommy Jordan, the pistol packin’ badass dad who became an overnight folk hero when he plugged his daughter’s laptop full of bullets and posted the video to You Tube and Facebook. Jordan was responding to his daughter’s Facebook post in which she whined about having to fetch the old man’s coffee and other grody chores.

Since her post was only intended to be read by her friends, Dad logged on under the family dog’s Facebook profile, finding a loophole in his daughter’s privacy settings. After reading his daughter’s rant, he loaded his .45 with some hollow-point bullets, grabbed her laptop and the family camcorder and went to the backyard to make viral video history. It’s the modern day equivalent of burning her diary in front of all of her friends.

My Twitter feed today is full of commentary both pro and con. Even with the bloodbath in Syria and the death of Whitney Houston, many of us have time to argue about Jordan’s parenting style.  Meanwhile, Jordan has become something of a celebrity. He claims he’s already turned down offers for reality TV shows. Yes, the cops and Child Protective Services were both compelled to investigate, but they ended up congratulating Jordan on his old-fashioned parenting. Dad is certainly enjoying the limelight, judging from these highlights from his Facebook feed. Who knows. Maybe he’ll even run for office– he hates immigrants and wants to genocide North Korea. Look out, Santorum!

Jordan is also something of an expert in online privacy. Why, only a year ago, he wrote this awesome post about protecting your identity on Facebook. While Jordan is concerned about his own privacy, he’s particularly concerned about the privacy of his children. He writes:

Jordan goes on to explain the importance of having password access to your child’s Facebook account, and suggests that you “(d)on’t simply tell your children to update their privacy information. Do it yourself!”

This is all great advice. Now that the video in which he publicly humiliates his daughter has attracted over 15 million views, he might want to take it.

Oh hey, now that David Choe is a 1%er, I figured that I too should cash in my Facebook stock. Over a year ago, Dave Coscia and me made these nifty “Mark Zuckerberg has a posse” stickers. Perhaps you’ve seen one stuck to a skateboard or lamppost. The LA Times even wrote about them. But, damn fool that I am, I never charged money for my services.

All of that changes now. Want your very own “Mark Zuckerberg has a posse” stickers? Send money to me. Send  it to matt@mattcornell.org on Paypal. I’ll send you 5 stickers for $5 or 15 stickers for $10.

And yes, I know that the stats on the sticker are already badly out date. Zuck has lots more friends and money now. Hell, that just makes these more collectible! These were from a limited run of 4,000 stickers and most of them have already been stuck somewhere. If we do another run, they’ll have all new stats.

So, act now. Let’s all get rich on my collectible Facebook stickers, before the bubble bursts!

“The thing about being fat is that you turn into public property. You are an object, not a person, and this makes you fair game for being shredded.”

From S.E. Smith’s defense of Paula Deen.

Here’s the second installment of Shit You Say to Fat People, in which Lillian Behrendt and I steal your fries and explain the master cleanse.

Elsewhere, Paul Campos drops science on the debate about Paula Deen, diabetes and obesity.

For anyone who has ever felt like a casualty in the War on Obesity, we offer this video.

My obestie Lillian Behrendt and me cooked it up just for you. We’ll have a second helping in a few days.

Mangia!

I live right around the corner from Cafe 50s, one of those gimmicky old timey diners oozing with nostalgia for more innocent times. They’ve got tableside oldies jukeboxes and servers in silly 50s costumes. The food’s not very good, but I can recommend the Sputnik. You’ll need to ask for your fries well done, or they come out of the kitchen limp and cold.

One of my main reasons for visiting is to pick up a copy of the Cafe 50s newsletter, a four page xeroxed labor of love filled with corny jokes, trivia questions and endless pitches to return for another greasy meal. By far the oddest feature is the monthly calendar which pairs important dates in history with the daily specials. Some of these juxtapositions are truly bizarre.

February 5th: 1968 France escalates the war in Algeria. Sweet potato pancakes…YUM!

February 6th: 1953 The New Soviet Encyclopedia says Israel does not exist. Magician: Zach 11am-2pm

February 9th: 1950 Senator Joe McCarthy claims he has a list with 205 communists in Govt. Kids eat FREE w/ Adult meal.

November 4th: 1956 Soviet tanks crush popular uprising in Hungary. Fish & Chips only $8.97.

November 19th: 1950 Red Cross announces it will no longer label Blood Donations with “race of donor.” FREE MAGIC: David. FREE a la mode with all slices of cake and pie.

These odd attempts at spinning history into marketing opportunities, and their terse economy of language, remind me of some of the corporate Twitter follies we’ve witnessed in the past year. Fashion company Kenneth Cole got in trouble last February when their social media rep used the Egyptian revolution to promote their spring collection.

Microsoft was busted for shameless opportunism twice, first for using the Japanese earthquake to promote brand awareness for Bing and next for using the death of Amy Winehouse to promote sales of her music at their Zune site.

Even sex toy maker Fleshlight got in on the action, offering to send Seal Team Six a complimentary case of its male masturbation sleeves as thanks for shooting Osama bin Laden in the face.

As more companies invest in social media, I predict we’ll see many more incidents of corporate Twitter FAIL. Social media is one of the few growth industries and there are jobs aplenty for a generation who’ve cut their teeth on Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. Taking risks and capitalizing off the ephemera of the daily feed, these guerilla marketers will have a hard time detecting the line between clever piggybacking and crass opportunism. Even if they step over that line, they’re guaranteed to generate controversy for their brands, and thus more free publicity. I doubt that the Kenneth Cole marketing drone behind that Cairo tweet is going hungry.

What’s truly entertaining about the Cafe 50s calendar, by contrast, is its total ignorance of propriety in marketing around world events. Its author doesn’t even know there is a line to be crossed. What does the French war on Algeria have to do with potato pancakes? How do Kruschev and Stalin sell a fresh fish dinner in 2011? We’re already there for the strawberry shakes so why are they reminding us of the Panama Canal riots of 1959? Who knows?

In an odd way, the Cafe 50s calendar defeats the nostalgic atmosphere the restaurant tries so desperately to evoke. Rather than draw us back in time to a kitschy replica of the 50s, it confronts us with The Cold War, the Red Scare, racism, colonialism and other social ills of the era.

The well-paid charlatans of social media hijack the hashtags, hoping to distract us from history in the making so that we’ll click through to their crappy products. Meanwhile, the Cafe 50s calendar intrudes on our fantasy 50s comfort food with the blunt facts of history. It’s like a surcharge. A tax on our nostalgia.

The other night in Half Moon Bay, shitkickin’ country band Barfight got a surprise Christmas visit from an old friend. Photos courtesy of Mike Browne.

If you’re in San Francisco, check out Barfight at El Rio on January 4th.