NO MO NO HOMO

I know I'm not the first to say this but it needs repeating until people actually start to listen. Can people please, please, PLEASE stop using this ridiculous "no homo" tag on everything they post these days? I don't know who started it, but really, the shit needs to stop. Yesterday. It's getting to the point where people are throwing up "no homo" after everything, not just puns that sound vaguely "gay" (and seriously, gay is now so mainstream, it's like the new straight) but even simple expressions of affection or admiration between men. For example, it's not at all uncommon to see some DUMB SHIT like this: "I love that new Ghostface album. I'm really into him (no homo)". Seriously, what the hell is that about? Have we become such a homophobic society think that because a man professes a positive opinion about another man's work that it means they want to drop to their knees and start smoking pole?

Remember when gay = lame = stupid? That was like, so 1985 and eventually, most of us grew out of that phase since, you know, we were TEN YEARS OLD THEN. But now I see grown ass men adding this "no homo" shit to everything they write and they think they're being funny but really, they're just acting like they're TEN YEARS OLD. Moreover, especially in a time where the queer community is on the verge of actually winning some long delayed social justice for the mere right to exist, love and partner with one another, to see this sudden wave of "no homo-itis" cresting over the Internet makes me think that there are too many men out there who need some intense therapy to break them out of their arrested development.

I know some folks out there are some hardcore, hard-wired homophobes who will never accept queer people as people but the sad thing is that most of the people out there using the "no homo" tag aren't rolling out to beat down gay men in parking lots but are probably well-meaning liberal types who just think it's clever and funny to throw around "no homo" like it's about to go out of style.

Seriously, grow the fuck up. "No homo" isn't funny - it's tired and asinine and only feeds into a cultural hostility towards queers. These days, men should be flattered if they're confused with being gay since gay men, in our popular media, are smart, funny, well-dressed and charming. The point is that it doesn't matter if you're a straight man or a gay man, so long as you know how to act like a real man and not some juvenile dumb ass who's a few IQ points short of double digits.

(Oh yeah, and on that note, can people also stop biting David Chapelle by deciding to throw "bitches" into everything they write? I.e. "hello bitches!". "Welcome, bitches!" "So what do you think of that, bitches?" The shit was funny when Chapelle did it, but now that grown ass white people are saying it over the water cooler, it has officially become passe, like the "whazzup!" craze of a few years back.)

---

NOW THAT THE LECTURE IS OVER...

Air Guitar battles. Wild hot.

More reasons why royalty is wack.
(credit: Funkdigital.com)

Fantasia wins. I don't care. La Toya was robbed.

By the way, another piece of "How to Write About Music" tip: look at what Nick Hornby does and then do NOT do any of that. It's becoming quite the fashion to say, "love his books, hate this criticism" and I'm riding that bandwagon right now. His middle life crisis approach to writing on music is the journalistic equivalent of Nader's current presidential run - his self-aggrandizing ego is destroying whatever credibility he's crafted elsewhere. Hornby: just shut up and leave music criticism to someone who actually likes music. Again, it's times like this that I thank my pagan gods that Sasha is the New Yorker's pop music critic and not Hornby anymore.

Reality TV gets realer. Really.
(credit: The Blueprint)