"Every time I think I’m out they drag me back in!”
Al Pacino. Godfather 3
I had another article all ready to go. A lighthearted article about how I really loved comic books and how proud I am that I work in this industry on so many levels. I did not want to write another article on race, but thanks to Jeremiah Wright here I go again…
Some time ago I was given a gift certificate to The Burke Williams Spa. For those of you who don’t know, it’s an upscale health resort. Those who know me know that the last thing I’m about is anything “up scale.” I like simple. “Upscale” to me means a bunch of people who think they have a right to look down on other people. I know that’s a wide net to cast, but that’s how I feel. So when I got the gift certificate I was a little hesitant to go but man was I in a bad way and I really needed a massage. The gift certificate was for a massage and a milk bath…A MILK bath.
Look, I’m a MAN from the projects and a milk bath should have made me very uneasy, but truth be told it sounded so good. So I put my reservations on hold and made my way to Burke Williams. When I arrived I notice that the spa was staffed with women.
Beautiful women. Tall, shapely, sexy women.
When I checked in at the front desk I’m asked if I want a man or a women for my massage I say “woman,” thinking about all he foxes that are floating around. The receptionist looked at me strange, so much so I said “What?” I was starting to feel like this was exactly why I did not want to go to an upscale establishment. I’m a pretty simple guy. I like things simple. I hate interaction with people when my goal is to do something else. As an example when I walk into a Starbucks I just want a cup of coffee. I don’t want to buy a CD; I don’t want to hear about the new Booty juice latte, just give me my damn coffee. In fact if I walk in and there are more than two people on line, I walk out. BTW, I like my coffee the way I like my women…with soy sauce.
“What?” I said to the receptionist. “Well, a lot of men like to have a man give them a massage because they have stronger hands” I said “I want a woman.” She gave me that snob look and introduced me to my guide who was to take me to the dressing room.
I undressed, put my clothes in the locker assigned to me, put on a robe, then followed my guide to what I thought would be my massage room. Nope. He led me to a door and opened it. Sitting in a VERY dark room were four men wearing robes all now staring at me. I felt a lot like my dogs when I take them to the vet. They just stand without moving and refuse to step into the office. “Eh, what’s this?” I asked while the men all continued to stare at me. “This is the quiet room. You sit here and reflect and relax until you are called to your massage.” The guide said as the men inside chuckled at my ignorance.
The men were all seated next to each other. I spotted an empty seat (or so I thought; the only lighting was tiny floor lights that gave off just enough light for you to see a few scant feet from the source) so I headed towards it. When I sat down one of the men said “What’s he afraid of?” I’m sure he did not mean for me to hear that but there was no other sound in the room so I did.
So there I was getting a wee bit pissed. I came there for a damn massage. I did not come to sit and reflect and relax in a quiet room. Hell, where I’m from this was punishment. “Go to your room and be quiet.” Was a common forewarning to a beating when I was a kid. I noticed a light switch and turned it on. I then noticed there were magazines that I could read so I picked one up.
“Cough. Cough…COUGH!”
I assumed that coughing was meant to get my attention. or someone had better lay off the Lucky Strikes. I could care less in any case.
It was meant for me. I ignored it. I was trying to reflect and relax…
“ Are you talking to me?” I asked.
“Yes. You have a light on.”
“You don’t put a light on here.”
“Because this is the Quiet Room. No one put’s a light on here. It’s just not done.”
“Oh. This is the Quiet Room?”
“Then be QUIET Motherf…”
“Mr. Davis, your room is ready.” My guide had come to collect me. I got up left the light on and while walking pass my fellow roomies I kept my finger to my mouth indicating the need for quiet.
LOOK. I’m a simple guy. There was a light on my chair and magazines for me to read. So I cut the light on. I’m also a grown man, do not attempt to tell me what to do or not to do. Do not laugh at my ignorance at something I clearly have no knowledge of. THIS is why I do not go to upscale places like this. People tend to assume you are just not worthy. I know, I know I’m still casting a wide net and yes I have been to a many places, which can be considered upscale and have been treated well. OK how’s this there are some places (NOT ALL) where I would rather not go because SOME of these places SEEM to treat you as a second class citizen.
That better? Good, because that’s the best I can do.
My guide brings me to my room where I fully expect a lovely lady to rub my aching body. I’m told to lie on my stomach and my masseuse would be there in a moment.
“Hello. I’m Larry.” A chipper manly voice said to me. I lifted my head and saw that my girl masseuse was so ugly she looked like a man. No, it was a man. I said “I asked for a woman.” Larry was a nice enough guy but I asked for a woman. Larry went to get me a girl and I set about trying to calm down. Now I really needed to reflect and relax, perhaps now would be a good time to visit the quiet room. My head is buried face down when I heard; “ Hello Michael. I’m Amber.” Now that was a girl and judging from that voice a very pretty girl. Hey, that voice could have asked me for a credit card number right before she asked me ‘What are you wearing?’
I wondered which one of the many lovely ladies I had seen earlier this was. It was none of them. This lady was a hobbit. She was 5 feet tall if that and (how do I say this) she was wide.
Let me be clear. I have had many massages in my life. Most by ordinary looking women. When I go to get a massage I’m there because of a stressed filled life. I’m not looking for a supermodel I’m looking for a massage. That said if I go to a place where the masseuses look like supermodels then that’s what I want. If you go to a five star steak restaurant you want a five star steak and not a Big Mac. Why don’t I want a man? Well I’m not homophobic, trust me I have no fear that a guy will put his hands on me and all of a sudden I will turn gay. I just prefer women. If I have a choice between a man and a woman and who will rub oil on my ass I’m choosing the woman. Besides chicks love my witty banter.
Amber (I think that was her name) was really nice and gave me a decent massage. When it was over she led me to my milk bath. The bathtub was in a place where I could see men taking a shower and they could see me. I decided to skip the bath.
LOOK, when I take a bath I just want to take a bath. I don’t want to see any other man’s ass when I’m trying to relax and reflect. So I skipped the bath. I changed back into my clothes and went back to the receptionist to check out. There at the desk was the guy who told me “No one put’s a light on here. It’s just not done.” He was telling someone that there was an “Obvious homophobic black guy” who was in the quiet room.
By now you must be wondering what this story has to do with Jeremiah Wright. Give me just a little more time…
I stepped up and said to the guy “I’m not homophobic, I simply did not want to sit in the dark and do nothing. Also, what does me being black have to do with anything?” He thought about it for a second and realized I was right. He and I had a nice little talk and he turned out to be a decent guy. I’m not homophobic. End of story.
Now what did this have to do with Jeremiah Wright being a narcissistic fool who has a real chance of destroying the campaign of a great man’s attempt to win the presidency?
Well, very little. But I took a look at what I first wrote and realized it was REALLY harsh even for me. I thought it best to give myself some breathing room and tell a story that embodies the same points without me writing an article that would surely burn some important bridges even for me who never worries about burning bridges.
Most times there is no hidden meeting to what people say. The media would have us believe that we are so stupid that just because Jeremiah Wright is losing his mind we should attach his stupidity to Senator Obama. Now the Senator has come out and distanced himself from Wright in the strongest possible terms. But still we see Wright on TV.
I’m not homophobic. I simply want what I want. When I get a massage I want a woman. When I take a milk bath I don’t want to look at anyone’s ass. Neither of those things makes me homophobic and asking me the same question over and over and over will still not make me homophobic.
But eventually I may get upset and answer you in a way that makes it seems like I am. Asking the same question over and over will most likely result in a mistake. So what are they STILL asking the Senator? Did Obama go far enough in denouncing Wright? Is Obama a racist? Why did he wait so long to throw Wright under the bus?
This is what the media and the republicans KEEP asking Senator Obama. They do so hoping for a mistake so that will be next week’s sound bite. I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. I did not mean to say “Republicans.”
I meant homophobic Republicans.
Jeremiah Wright is trying his best get his 15 minutes of fame.
Jeremiah Wright does not speak for Senator Obama.
When I approached the guy at the receptionist desk who thought I was homophobic and we spoke it turned out OK. He understood my point of view and I understood his. That’s what adults do. They talk. Yeah, I was a bit of a dick earlier but that was because I did not (nor did he) have a decent understanding of the other’s position.
What do I think of Jeremiah Wright? Nothing. I’m smarter than that. I’m smart enough to know when the media is playing me. I do have a suggestion for Rev. Wright. He should try the quiet room at Burke Williams. Maybe there he can reflect, relax and shut up.
ComicMix columnist Michael Davis is not homophobic, but damn, a milk bath…
DC Comics April 2012 Solicitations
PREVIEW: “Jim Henson’s Tale Of Sand”
DC Comics March 2012 Solicitations
Preview: “Darkwing Duck” #18 — Like A Fenton From The Ashes!
Preview: “Daredevil” #6
Preview: Betrayal Of The Planet Of The Apes #1
MICHAEL DAVIS: David
MINDY NEWELL: Great Books! And 1 Movie!
JOHN OSTRANDER: 101 Mistakes
MARC ALAN FISHMAN: Justice League Light Vs. Justice League Dark
MARTHA THOMASES: George Lucas, Black History, and African-American Comics
Dennis O’Neil – Sick, Sick, Sick
MIKE GOLD: Stupid Logo Tricks
REVIEW: “Wally Wood: Strange Worlds of Science Fiction”, by Glenn Hauman
REVIEWS: “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan”, by Robert Greenberger
REVIEW: “In Time”, by Robert Greenberger
REVIEW: “Bloom County: The Complete Library, Volume One: 1980-1982″ by Berkley Breathed, by Andrew Wheeler
MARC ALAN FISHMAN: Justice League Light Vs. Justice League Dark, by Marc Alan Fishman
Primeval Volume Three, by Robert Greenberger
Busting, by Robert Greenberger
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Robert Greenberger
Transformers: Dark of the Moon, by Robert Greenberger
Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Next Level, by Robert Greenberger
Maybe LA is different, but in New York, spa etiquette is not so strict. If you are in the "relaxation" room (really, the waiting room), you can sit, read a gossip magazine, have some tea or water (sometimes with lemon or cucumber!). Cell phones are rude, but that's the only rule I know.
Smoke a good cigar?
It reall must be an LA thing.A friend of mine who just bought an 'upscale' spa in a wealthy suburb if Wilmington DE has all the same trappings but not to that level of pretensiousness.BTW – Her girls are hot. She has this little tiny gal who gives messages and she has hands of steel.More to your point I think that the public probably would've been more at little more satisfied had Obama said something a little stronger a little sooner about Rev. Wright. Maybe he thought he'd answered people's questions a earlier but Wright, being the egomaniac he is PUSHED him into action.You can't just walk away thinking you've done you're job while the public still has questions. I also know this confrontation had to be extremely painful a thing to do.We are talking a guy who is running for President.
Lady asks for a milk bath."Do you want the milk pasteurized?""Honey, I'll be happy if it comes up to my chest!"That didn't have anything to do with Reverend Wright either. I'll give you my opinion of why Obama finally chose to denounce Wright after weeks of standing up to the media and the Republicans by rightly and properly saying that it didn't have anything to do with him personally.Wright didn't play ball.I am wholly confident that there were very intense talks between Obama's (and the Democratic Party's) people and Reverand Wright. Talks that went along the lines of okay, Reverend, you're gonna make the media circuit for the next few days; this is your chance to explain the method to your…actions. Talk about how black ministers often use a very bombastic tone to excite the churchgoers, talk about the differences between that and the very pedestrian and inoffensive homilies you see in other (read: white) churches. In short, explain that even if you might have meant a little of what you said, you turned it up to 11, much like a pro wrestler will say crazy things to get a reaction from the crowd, and get across your message.He chose to "go for his 15 minutes." Every paper in the country chose to run the photos of him making all these crazy poses, and made him look like a wacko. So Obama had no choice to allude to the title of a Richard Pryor album (And while he could have used "Who Me? I'm Not Him." or even "Are You Serious???", that ain't the one I'm referring to.) And throw Wright under a bus.It's common practice – If you can't use the enemy's OWN words against them, use the words of their close friends and business partners, and use the power of guilt by association. Geraldine Ferraro was dropped like a sack of batteries after her "It's cause he's black" comments, and so on back through political history. These aren't new tricks; indeed, the very fact that these weapons are being used should almost be considered a compliment. Obama's enough of a threat that they have to combat him. They didn't bother to do it to Jackson or Sharpton. They knew they weren't "real" candidates….so, do they use new milk every time, or do they re-use it? I always wondered about that.
Well, I'll give you my opinion of why Obama finally chose to denounce Wright.Rev. Wright made five speeches this past week, knowing full well that every comment he made would get major teevee coverage and get nuanced to death. So all he had to do was deliver some nicely provocative sound bites that Obama could denounce in order to undue some (as much as possible) of the damage he had done.In other words, Wright did his parishioner a solid: he fell on his book contract.
Four years ago I was excited by Howard Dean's campaign. He was generating a similar kind of grass roots enthusiasm and fervor from his supporters as Obama does today. He came into the campaign a relative unknown and a Washington outsider. But, he had a good organization and was one of the first political candidates to truly tap into the power of Internet fund raising and organizing. He made two mistakes in Iowa. First, Dean brought in a LOT of ground support in the form of young, out of state, college aged kids to do volunteer work for him: door knocking, phone calls, pamphleteering. Iowa is a small state, very proud of it's position as one of the first primary states. Iowa takes this role seriously. I think many Iowans got annoyed with Howard Dean's Army of volunteers. "What are a bunch of out of state kids doing knocking on my door, telling me who to vote for!" In short, Dean overplayed his hand in Iowa. No big deal. He still made a strong showing in the caucus, even if it was a disappointing third. It was time to move on to New Hampshire.Here comes mistake number two. The fatal mistake. Dean is in a hotel lobby. There is a THRONG of volunteers that have driven hours and hours from out state to work for him, volunteer for him, campaign for him and celebrate his first victory in Iowa. Dean is facing a cheering crowd of disappointed fans. But Dean is staying up beat. He is shouting above the general noise of the room. The din of the crowd.Dean yells, "And, you know something, not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we're going to South Carolina, and Oklahoma, and Arizona, and North Dakota, and New Mexico. We're going to California, and Texas, and New York. And we're going to South Dakota, and Oregon, and Washington, and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House. Yeeaaahhhh!"That was it. That, "Yeeaaahhh," ended any hopes of Howard Dean becoming President. Why? Because he was recorded with a parabolic microphone designed to focus in on his voice and cancel out the crowd. Without the context of the crowd noise and him shouting above it, Dean doesn't sound like a man whooping up an excited crowd. He just sounds like a desperate, raving lunatic. His voice cracks, goes very high pitched for a moment and then dives into a guttural growl. That moment, that sound bite, that tid bit of video got hacked to death by every hack comic in the country. The Internet, which just a few days before was Dean's playground, his sandbox, became Dean's litter box, with ton's of remixes of the Speach and samplings and YouTube jokes.Here was a guy, a very smart guy, with great ideas. He is a Doctor, an M.D. As Governor of Vermont he instituted near universal health care for children. I'm still a fan. Dean was (in my opinion) at least deserving of the Country's serious attention and consideration. "YEEAAAHHH!"Poof.All gone.Dean had other problems. The DNC (the Democratic National Committee) was nervous about his campaign. They feared Dean might be another McGovern, a charismatic Governor from a small state with enough fan support to get the nomination, but without enough substance to carry the election. The DNC started circulating memos EARLY in the campaign looking for ways to stop Dean. It was the Washington insider machine working against the outsider. In the end, I think this kind of divisiveness, this in fighting, played a large role in the Democrats ultimate defeat in 2004. The DNC dissed Dean and his supporters. And I don't think Dean's supporters came out for Kerry with the enthusiasm they might have.So what did Dean do? How did he get his revenge on the DNC?He quietly organized his grass roots support, his little army of loyal fans, and took over the chairmanship of the DNC! When he did this, he promised not to run for President in 2008. That was the carrot. The DNC wouldn't have to worry about another Dean Presidential campaign. I think Dean's leadership of the DNC directly contributed to the Democrats big wins in the Congress in 2006. I think his leadership will directly contribute to the Democrats winning the Presidency in November. But, I do think that he and the DNC have made some mistakes. They scheduled the Democratic convention too late this year. They spread the primaries out across the calendar. The thinking was, "This will get us a lot of free publicity closer to the time people vote!' It will end up dragging out what is becoming an increasingly bitter and divisive contest. Dean and the DNC also set up rules to try to control the scramble and squabble by states trying to get earlier and earlier primaries on the calendar. They put into the rules the draconian outcomes of having a state's delegates not count in the Presidential Primary voting. They assumed this would be enough to keep states from trying to break for the head of the pack. The DNC didn't count on pig-headed and proud Michigan and Florida. Now the DNC has a mess. The Democrats were the one's, eight years ago, rallying around the battle-cry, "Every vote must count! And Florida voters are being disenfranchised!" Now the Democrats are in danger of being seen as the party where votes don't count.What does my comment end up having to do with milk baths and massages? Uhm, nothing.Does this have anything to do with Comics? No. That would be a stretch.But Dean's campaign was crushed by one sound bite for dummies. How stupid are we!"God Damn America!"I looked up the transcript of Dean's Iowa Speech today. Near the end of the speech, the audience (who obviously weren't put off at all by Dean's ranting, they are fired up and ready to go) is chanting, "Dean! Dean! Dean!"And Dean responds by chanting, "Si, se puede! Si, se puede! Si, se puede!" (Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!)It seems very familiar.
"But Dean's campaign was crushed by one sound bite for dummies. How stupid are we!"Dukakis was torpedoed by a picture of him rising in a tank. Lonesome Rhodes was done in by the turn of a potentiometer. Michael Davis (the one from Seinfeld, that is), a heckler who got under his skin. It only takes one thing for America to turn its back on you.Snapwatch. It's coming.