Slap Boxing...

Chris Rock and Will Smith [onstage] during the show at the 94th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 27, 2022.

Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times via GI

Image Source: Billboard.com

© March 30, 2022, the Griot Poet

 

Slap boxing,

Open hand smacking,

Not knuckling like men

Marquis of Queensberry rules lacking,

To our shock and chagrin,

The “slap heard round the world” wasn’t an act,

 

First question:

Would you have stepped up

Had the comedian been Jimmy Kimmel?

Comedians roast celebrities: that’s their shtick.

You just put a target on any comedian who makes a joke.

You were laughing until you saw Jada rolling her eyes, then you thought about it.

No one is going to practice the art wearing a Kevlar flack jacket,

 

I’m not saying NOT to defend your wife,

We didn’t have that luxury during slavery,

Or the Middle Passage,

But you’re (at the moment) A-Listed status,

A multimillionaire former rapper,

Turned formidable actor,

 

You could have taken him to the side after the ceremony

With your lawyer, and demanded a public apology,

You could have challenged him

On the most important night of your existence,

To a celebrity boxing match after accepting your Oscar.

You had the eyes of the world on YOU,

And who didn’t want to see you FINALLY win?

You took “King Richard” from Venus and Serena Williams,

You took “Summer of Soul” from Quest Love,

Will Packer, after “Oscars So White,” was head manager,

You trained for “Ali,” and you’re a good athlete.

You could have even charged Pay-Per-View,

Made a mint,

And donate the money to the other’s favorite charity.

That could have satisfied your chivalry,

All Chris would have done is get big-eyed on stage and say, “Oh, shit!”

 

We’ll never know.

It would suck if the Academy took your Oscar back.

Harvey Weinstein still has his after “me too” in prison,

The Academy of Motion Pictures is shuffling,

They’re hoping the public is attention deficit,

Their discipline appears selective.

Yeah, there was a classier way to handle disrespect to your wife.

Last night wasn’t it.

 

Second question,

Would you have made a GI Jane joke reference

Had the couple in the audience been

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds?

You’ve attained multimillionaire status,

You’re off a season of “Boardwalk Empire,”

You were Pookie in “New Jack City,”

Comedy takes intelligence,

Meanness takes psychopathy,

 

Alopecia is a disease that

Removes a woman’s “crowning glory,”

Jada Pickett-Smith,

And Representative Ayanna Pressley bravely decided to own it,

I’ll give Chris this pass: he didn’t know about it.

 

Each strand falling to the floor is a “little death” of their self-esteem,

The five stages of grief are still:

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression: acceptance,

By Elisabeth Kübler-Ross,

And not exactly in that order,

 

Both of you have mothers, grandmothers, aunties, sisters,

If you’re living, you have a woman to thank for being on the planet!

The beauty shop is the center of their universe,

Losing their hair is not a giggle,

Losing the audience is not a winner,

Jada’s not inviting you to the next Thanksgiving dinner,

Your Boston show sold out,

Ticket sales were through the roof,

The pimp slap is proving profitable,

You’re going to have the crowd pressure of escalating

The situation,

Or you’re going to have to be brave enough to squash it,

 

Enslavers pitted us

Against each other so that we wouldn’t have the strength,

Or the cunning to organize against them,

It was a human-sized cock fighting for debasement

And entertainment,

We didn’t start moving forward until we squashed the kinds of beef between us,

Building towns, colleges, Rosewood and Black Wall Street,

It was racist envy that destroyed the latter, not infighting!

We used to be running in the same direction on the Underground Railroad,

Following Harriet Tubman to freedom,

 

Don’t get “too big for your britches,”

Lawyers are salivating to strip both of you,

Of your wealth and riches,

So the only option you’ll have left,

Is moving back to your tenements in New York and Philly,

The “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” from Peacock to a peon,

“Boardwalk Empire” back to Pookie, the crackhead,

 

Slap box somebody on those streets,

We’re just recovering from the disappointment of Bill Cosby,

Now you’re both giving us 21st Century Step-n-Fetch,

If you can’t tell, I’ve lost all respect for the slap boxer and the slapped,

Admit it, Chris: this isn’t the first time towards Jada that you’ve talked smack,

Do you have a problem with the joke Will,

Or your wife’s open relationship with her lover, August Alsina? (He doesn’t look slapped)

Do you remember talking about squashing kinds of beef after Biggie and Tupac at the Grammys?

Some young people look up to both of you; whether [or not] you like it.

 

Bottom line:

Crass jokes aren’t for smart comedians,

Slap boxing isn’t for grown-ass men,

You both went from A-listers in my mind to minstrels.

Be careful with your public personas, or both of you will quickly be forgotten.

[Bro] With No Hoes...

 

What's Up With Lindsey Graham? Andrew Prokop, Vox

© March 22, 2022, the Griot Poet

 

Ms. Lindsey had a hissy fit,

During the Brett “I like beer” Kavanaugh confirmation,

Never mind,

The 4,500+ credible tips,

Or the tearful testimony by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford,

(Coming out of hiding from online death threats)

It was Clarence Thomas and Dr. Anita Hill in whiteface,

“High tech lynching” accusations to white male privilege histrionics,

All of it FBI Director Christopher Wray,

Ignored,

Because he and “Beer Brett” went to law school,

It makes you wonder if we’ve ever HAD the “rule of law” or justice?

 

So, he repeated it,

For Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s

Historic confirmation hearing,

The FIRST African American woman,

In the entire HISTORY of the Supreme Court,

And more qualified than the sitting Justices,

That includes Chief Justice John Roberts,

Playing to the dwindling demographic,

Of Fox Propaganda viewers,

Anti-vaxxers,

Flat Earthers,

Science deniers,

QANON,

And other conspiracy theorists,

(I’m looking at you, Alex Jones)

 

Lindsey thinks that’s his shtick,

Because he pushed another sexual deviant,

Onto the sullied Supreme Court,

With “Uncle Ruckus” Clarence Thomas,

Whose wife Ginny appears to be straight QANON,

Mad texting Mark Meadows about overturning an election,

Because her preferred fascist candidate,

Dumbo Gambino lost,

 

“Cancun Cruz” had a hissy fit,

Talking about something that doesn’t exist,

Theodore Raphael, a hint:

Racist babies aren’t racist babies unless they have racist parents,

It then behooves us to teach them different lessons,

But that discontinues 400 years of the superfluous grift,

Of concentrating wealth and power,

In the hands that don’t deserve it,

In the hands that didn’t build this nation with their blood and sweat,

Like Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s ancestors,

Cancun wasn’t interested in interrogating

Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s judicial record,

The only verdict he cared about,

Was whether, like a supreme narcissist, he was trending on Twitter,

And he was: hashtag - Ted Cruz is an idiot.

 

I could talk about “Toy Story Woody” fisting insurrectionist Josh Holly,

Asking if Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson would be “soft on crime,”

The sheer gall, challenged by an insurrectionist,

I could talk about the 80s “big hair” Masha Blackburn asking Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson to “rate Christianity” over other religions,

Like she’s conducting a class in kindergarten,

And not her duties in the senate,

Forgetting about that clause in The First Amendment:

 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,”

 

Or, nice guy “reasonable republican” Ben Sasse from Nebraska,

Who’s going to vote against the next Supreme Court Justice,

Following the lead of the Kentucky racist, fascist evil turtle, Moscow Mitch,

Mike Lee doesn’t even bother a mention,

 

I want to return to the enigma of Ms. Lindsey,

 

Questions:

How is a 66-year-old avowed bachelor,

Never married and still lives with his mother?

 

How did he promote to full bird colonel,

In the Air Force Reserve,

As a member of the Staff Judge Advocate,

When the main requirement is you deployed to a war zone,

Please list the conflicts where you’ve been in combat,

What’s that?

Crickets are chirping in the distance,

 

Senator Shelton Whitehouse coined this:

You’re the “bro with no hoes,”

No “little Grahams” will follow you after your earthly loss,

You’ve never had a wife or a girlfriend,

Your sister was going to be First Lady had you won the primary and presidency,

Yet you say, “I’m not gay.”

Well, are you a hermaphrodite?

Nothing’s wrong with either state,

But you seem intent on aiding fascists,

That would as soon hang you as Mike Pence,

 

You glom onto the republican “flavor of the month” when it suits your interests,

First, you were all about Ronald Reagan,

Next, you sidled up next to John McCain,

When you lost the Republican Primary to the same miscreant, who YOU said:

“He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic bigot,”

You, like Cancun and your spineless jellyfish party,

Allied yourself with Orange Julius,

Who thinks he’s Caesar,

Instead, he and the party are Russian assets,

And in spy parlance, “useful idiots,”

 

You were impeachment manager for a blow job,

“What about the children?”

The blow job saw acquittal in the democratic senate,

A generation later,

Awarding acquittal under Moscow Mitch over a [not] “perfect phone call” to the Ukrainian president,

Making mob shakedown political precedent,

Now, we’re tiptoeing an existential precipice,

Speculating about Armageddon,

Now, you’re calling for the assassination,

Of the same psychopath, your party’s alliance gave us the Manchurian Candidate,

 

Quote:

“We’re not going to have enough angry white guys in the long run,”

So you made one president,

 

I guess no one will know the sins of,

Ignoring climate catastrophe for profits,

Dark money as “free speech” accepted,

Blocking the marginalized from voting,

Failing to address a deadly pandemic,

Reducing the “party of Lincoln” to no stated platform in 2020,

(And none for the midterms, or going forward)

When we’re all reduced to radioactive ashes,

That takes CYA to another level,

Ashes won’t care whether you were in the closet,

 

Your legacy will be as a living sample of [political] silly putty,

Weather vanes have more stability,

I cannot diagnose your psychological woes,

But you are forever, “the bro with no hoes.”

LSATs...

 

Image Source: Kaplan

© March 10, 2022, the Griot Poet

 

Tucker Carlson,

Heir to the Swanson frozen foods fortune,

Trust fund baby was a CIA reject,

He should question why his parents gave him,

A first name that rhymes with “fucker?”

 

Tucker Carlson has “mommy issues,”

A Freudian slip that’s self-explanatory,

He’s the epitome of willful ignorance,

His privilege puts blinders on during Black History Month,

Throwing up racist tropes like shit,

Seeing what on the Nielsen rating wall sticks,

 

Here’s a history Tucker Carlson hopes that you missed:

 

Ketanji Onyika Brown-Jackson,

Her parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown,

Working for the Peace Corps in West Africa,

Wanted a name for their daughter to honor their ancestors,

Ketanji Onyika means “lovely one”

(And can’t be rhymed with an epithet),

Graduated Harvard College Magna Cum Laude,

Harvard Law School Cum Laude,

Was an editor of the Harvard Law Review,

Like “Cancun Cruz” and President Barack Obama,

Yet, along with Judge Brown-Jackson,

And the 44th president,

You use this racist trope

To question her qualifications,

 

Yet,

You didn’t ask for Cancun’s LSAT,

Nor January 6 “fist up” Josh Holley’s,

You didn’t ask for Neil Gorsuch’s,

You didn’t ask for Brett Kavanaugh’s over beers,

You didn’t ask for Amy Coney Barrett’s,

Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Sam Alito,

Hell, you didn’t ask for Clarence Thomas’s!

 

108 of the 115 Supreme Court Justices,

Have been exclusively white men,

Thurgood Marshall was the first African American nominated,

After “Brown vs. Board of Education,”

HIS credentials were questioned!

We can argue if Clarence Thomas is the second,

(Nobody at the family BBQ claims him)

Sandra Day O’Conner was the first woman,

Nominated by Saint Ronald Reagan,

Ronnie probably couldn’t be a Republican,

In the party’s current “Putin’s puppet” state,

I don’t recall Reagan asking for Sandra Day’s LSAT,

As a matter of fact,

He nominated her BECAUSE of her gender,

To quell the angst of Republican women,

When he turned his back on abortion rights,

 

Racists go to the trope of standardized test performance,

Because of the Stanford-Binet test,

The foundation of the SAT, GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT,

It was designed to engineer a society

Where Tucker’s tribe is ever on top,

It’s why he’s nightly calling for “tribal warfare,”

Not that “trust fund” pacifier sucker would help fight it,

 

Question:

Why did the other trust fund baby,

I gave the pejorative Orange Satan,

Sue the military academy where he played a soldier in high school,

During Vietnam discovering bone spurs,

(Which foot he can’t remember,)

As someone who has suffered them, they’re hard to forget,

Why did he sue his high school and his college,

To keep his grades and HIS SAT scores private?

 

Maybe Mango Mussolini isn’t a “stable genius?”

His attacks on a black president jealousy, and projection,

His abject stupidity needs deflection,

He needed a foreign power to steal an election,

(“Russia, if you’re listening?”)

 

Nightly, Tucker’s spouting Russian talking points,

Jonathan Karl of ABC news pointing it out,

To the point where the Russian dictator has a credible plagiarism lawsuit,

Except, like the poster child of Adult Depends,

“Useful idiots” like Tucker meets his ends,

 

November 9, 1989,

The Berlin Wall tumbled down,

After Reagan challenged Gorbachev to tear it down,

December 26, 1991,

A day after Christmas,

Saw the dissolution

Of the Soviet Union,

For a certain KGB chief,

This fall was a catastrophe,

 

Putin,

Doesn’t want to go back to before 1989,

He wants to go back to 1975,

When the United States failed in Vietnam,

The one “Bone Spurs” failed to serve and faked to avoid?

 

But,

Let’s talk about LSATs,

Knowing that you won’t block Judge Ketanji Brown’s ascent,

To Supreme Court Justice,

Just on Democratic senators,

She’s got this!

And, she’ll get a few republicans,

The reason you need to see them is,

You’re a scowl-faced white supremacist,

Just like Charlottesville Tiki torch racists,

I’m not Putin, but I said it!

Just like Dumbo Gambino,

Who wanted to see Obama’s transcript,

Simultaneously moving to hide HIS two subpar lack of effort,

Dumbo is the guy,

By the way,

Who gave us COVFEFE,

Tucker, you are

Nightly duping the rubes who watch you,

Feeding them Russian propaganda instead of news,

For the only altar of your and Rupert Murdoch’s worship:

Nielsen ratings.

 

You’re a trust fund baby with “mommy issues,”

A CIA reject,

With a cackling laugh that would make the Crypt Keeper spit,

You used to be a decent journalist,

Until grift became your nightly nourishment,

I end this takedown with this:

 

Ketanji Onyika means “lovely one,”

You can’t make that an epithet,

Her husband is Former Speaker Paul Ryan’s cousin,

Even Ryan admits she’s more than qualified for the position,

Tucker rhymes with “fucker,”

Your problem is “mommy issues.”