Kids These Days 77

I was talking to Cam a few days ago about things that were around when we were little and I thought of the vacuum. Yeah, they still make them these days but not the way they did when I was little. Probably because hundreds of children were devoured by them. My Grandmama had one that had to weigh about 40 pounds and had a spotlight on the front because...reasons. Maybe for vacuuming in the dark or under couches in which case your couch is too damned high if this could fit underneath it. If the weight was not enough you had to worry about all the different components. I also need to point out that it sounded like the apocalypse when it was on. 

Today if the vacuum is full you just take out the convenient compartment and dump it out. Groovy. Back in the day you had to throw out a bag, eat some of the dust whether you wanted to or not, and put on another bag. Simple. But not at all. After attaching the bag you would have to secure it with a black band (which after working in a porn shop realized looked exactly like cock rings) and hope you did it right. There was also a belt that made the brush turn. It was a whole thing that was not fun and I'd wait until someone else changed the bag because I liked cleaning but hated set up.

When Your Kid Won't Leave

I do not have kids. But I used to be one. And one thing that I know was that I wanted to move away from my parents as soon as I could. Did I try hard? No. I should have gotten a job in junior high and/or high school. I should have made a plan. But I didn't. I planned on vanishing after school and just wandering the planet until I landed in Japan. Thankfully when I was 18 I got a job and was able to move into my ex's home with her family and after being booted with no backup place to live I got the place I've been living in for 19 years now. But while living with my ex and her family I cleaned every day, took out trash, helped with laundry, cleaned litter boxes, walked the dog, and other things. I offered to pay rent but that was turned down. I have been super unemployed with only thirty-five cents to my name at one point in time. I'm saying all this to say that shit can get rough. I don't have a family that can throw thousands of dollars at me to dig me out of a hole and I'll be damned if I ever move back in with them.

30 year old Michael Rotondo does not feel the same way as me.

About eight years ago he lived in his own place for a year and a half and during that time he used his penis irresponsibly and helped create a human. He ended up losing his job and moved back in with his parents. Understandable. He was previously working at Best Buy but quit after refusing to work Saturdays because that is when he'd get to see his kid. He also sued for discrimination. Of course he did not win. He also went to community college to study engineering but quit when he “couldn't hack the math.” There is a term being tossed around called “failure to launch syndrome” that is running wild like Hulkamania for a number of different reasons.

Dante Vs. Nature 75

You are looking at the image of a killer named Gerald. I heard this story on a podcast and thought that they were making it up but it turns out that a damned giraffe killed a man. I have seen them fight each other but seriously thought they posed zero threat to humans. I was wrong. I even checked how many people have been killed by giraffes. Zero. I just see them chasing people or them doing that stupid fighting that they do where they throw their necks at one another. A South African director named Carlos Carvalho was killed by Gerald after being headbutted. 

His focus puller named Drikus van der Merwe said “I was standing right next to Carlos when the giraffe suddenly swung its neck and hit him on his head above his ear and sent him flying about four or five meters through the air.” That's 12 to 15 feet and a far ass distance to be launched by a headbutt. He added “It came out of nowhere and Carlos didn’t even see it coming. He wasn't aware of the danger.” Yeah. That's nature for you. 

Its strange how people and nature work. If this was a dog it would be shot and killed. If it were a whale people would find reasons why it attacked. But a giraffe? Ain't nobody trying to take out a giraffe. A spokesperson for the location where people can come and film and photograph these animals said “He was unauthorised to film. He went off on his own. He wanted to get some shots to prove a point. He was trying to excel. Gerald was not to blame and would not be put down. We are not going to shoot Gerald. He was not in the wrong. I don't consider him to be a dangerous animal.” Apparently just this past Monday a lion attacked and killed his owner and as put down because of it. “He's just a huge wild animal and the guy disobeyed safety regulations. I'm very sad for his family. But I'm not one of those people who blames the animals.” 

Click here for previous Dante Vs. Nature.

Dante's New Word Alert: Incels

I just found out something new. Incels. I had never heard this phrase or term before and decided to check it out. I thought that this was a joke or some small thing that would go away. Turns out that it has been around, like, forever, but was given the name “involuntarily celibate” by a lady from Toronto named Alana in 1993 after she came out as bisexual. She started a forum online, Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project, but shut it down because, surprise!, a bunch of angry ass men joined to rage against women that didn't want to bone down with them. She stated in 2016 interview in Elle “Like a scientist who invented something that ended up being a weapon of war, I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it.”

Urban Dictionary's top rated definition states that an Incel is “involuntarily celibate, a person (usually male) who has a horrible personality and treats women like sexual objects and thinks his lack of a sex life comes from being ugly when its really just his blatant sexism and terrible attitude. Incels have little to no self awareness; even when they see other 'ugly' men with girlfriends, they consider these men to be tricksters who have somehow beat the system and can get women despite being cursed with unattractiveness.” New York Times describe it as “Incels are misogynists who are deeply suspicious and disparaging of women, whom they blame for denying them their right to sexual intercourse.”

Grown Ass Man Tips: Periods

Periods get looked at two ways by dumb asses. You either think it is this week long time where women act crazy and over emotional. Or you can't bone down with them because they are bleeding (in which case get back to me when you become an adult). Even while looking for an image for this all of them are about guys tackling their girl because she is off her period or women crying or stuffing their faces. So what the hell is a period? First off, PMS (premenstrual syndrome) is not a period. All that shit that guys complain about regarding women during their period is the PMS part. During this time their bodies decide to attack the block in a number of ways. They get stressed out, weird cravings, crippling pains, bloating, mood swings trouble sleeping, constipation, and cramps that can range from not that bad but definitely there to wanting to rip their uterus out.

I will never pretend to know what it is like to have a period or accuse a woman of having one even jokingly. I grew up around way too many women I respected and hang out with ones to even have those kinda stupid thoughts. Not a lot of guys do and they say shit like “What's wrong? You on your period?” and wonder why they are on the ground and their lips hurt. You're probably wondering why blood is even involved. It's just the lining in their uterus shedding and it has to come out. It gets shed to possibly get ready to get pregnant. Sucks that their bodies don't ask first. So once the body is like “Another month, another not getting pregnant” it comes out. A ladies body goes through this jacked up and painful phases in preparation to possibly getting pregnant and when it doesn't it does it all over again in about a month.

Johnny Panic: We Got It From Here Part 5

Click here for previous Johnny Panic.

You ever wake up two miles in the sky wearing a hospital gown with a catheter dangling between your legs? Okay, I guess that's just me. I'm not sure exactly what happened or how long I've been in bed getting the best sleep I've ever got in my life, but shit looks super bad in the sky. The sky has a weird hue to it and everything smells like a storm is coming. I float back down to my room. I can tell its my room because the window is shattered. I head back inside and there are a bunch of nurses and doctors. I close my gown and curtsy. I'm not sure what else I am supposed to do in this situation.

“So, what I miss?” I ask this cute nurse. She is speechless. I mean, she did just see my donger so I get it, but I have shit to do. Last thing I remember was cursing and then a flash of light followed by the worse pain I've ever felt. “I see a bunch of ships in the sky so I am assuming the president did not handle this situation.”

“Uh...no” a doctor says. He looks like Vince McMahon from the 80's. “You have been here for six days.”

Kids These Days 76

There are certain news stories I see pop up and it makes me think “What, that's illegal?” or “You weren't supposed to do that with your kids?” I'm not saying that the way I was raised was properly handled. For sure I'm not saying that. I'm not even saying it was terrible. It was just different. In this Kids These Days post I am gonna talk about some concerns parents have today and how I handled them growing up. Meaning how I ended up all fucked up and weird.

Left in hot cars. When I was little I got left in hot cars all the time while my parents went shopping. It wasn't seen as a bad thing for me such as a boring thing. There ain't shit to do in a locked car but sweat and attempt to talk to a sibling. After twenty seconds of no success I'd start looking around for shit inside. But under no circumstances were we allowed to get out of the car. “Why didn't they roll the windows down?” you ask. Probably fear of someone stealing the car. I guess. Or I was being slow roasted in the worst way.

I remember vividly the smell of hot interior and sweating my ass off in the car until my parents got back. Ah, the feeling of a car door opening and fresh air coming in and the wind on my face as the car began to move...followed by the terrible car sickness I used to get when I was young. Reports say that on average 37 kids die in hot cars a year. That is a lot of hot kids in cars. When I see stories about it nowadays the cops are called and windows are bust the windows open, pulling a sweaty child out while the parent is like “Uh...I was only gone for a few minutes!” No, you wasn't! You got receipts from four places and a smoothie!

Dante Explains Shit: Stem Cells

Just what the fuck is a stem cell? Ain't it that stuff they yank out of aborted babies and men use to get their dicks working again or something? No. I used to think it was all about that first part but I was wrong. These nasty things we call bodies are made up of cells. They do different things and that is where stem cells come into play. These weird sons of bitches can become pretty much anything when introduced into the body. Decades ago they were isolated and used to help with transplants. Using cells for transplants that are from someone related is always preferable but not always available. There is a shit ton of research into stem cells and what they can do and so far they are used to treat over eighty diseases.

There are two kinds of stem cells. Embryonic ones are just blank cells. They are in the womb and don't even know what to do yet sort of like most of humanity. They are just cells and have the potential to become anything. There is controversy with this because people like babies and think all of them have the ability to possibly be a human. The other cells can be gathered from umbilical cord tissue and are known as Adult stem cells. These are more limited in what you can do with them because they are like that cousin you have that thinks he is gonna be a rapper even though his mixtape is hot garbage. They have made their decision an they're gonna stick with it. Embryonic cells on the other hand are like Multiple Man. They will break off and do whatever the fuck they want.

Bigger Than Starbucks

I am Black. Or African-American. Or Negro. Or colored. I prefer “Blacker” but for the sake of this post I'll just say that I'm Black. It doesn't matter that one of my great-great grandmother was raped by the White guy that owned her and had a bunch of kids. I'm Black. There is some Native American sprinkled in too but still, you know. Black. A while ago I wrote how being Black was about 60% good and 40% bad. That 40% is bad because it leads to death or imprisonment. I have been thinking a lot about being Black lately. Mostly a Black guy. Black women have a set of problems I'll ask one of them to write about some day. Their story is different than mine. I don't know if you've heard but some shit went down at a Philadelphia Starbucks location. I won't get into how Starbucks here in California was ordered to put labels on their products saying that they have chemicals that cause cancer (a chemical called acrylamide which is a byproduct of roasted coffee and this ruling is mostly cautionary though acrylamide irritates skin and can cause tumors on skin). Let's take a quick look at what went down in Philly.

No Bad News

Years ago after watching Bowling For Columbine I decided to stop watching the news. During a scene where they went to where the L.A Riots started and you saw how much of a regular ass street it was I thought “How much news do I watch?” This was in 2002 before the internet was useful. I did not own a computer and did not talk about the news much with people unless it was something sensational that everyone was talking about. I was working in a porn shop and had been for a few years. My brother had passed away the year prior. I was single again after a four year relationship. My apartment was still new to me. Things were weird.

I sat and thought about the news that I was watching. Mostly Fox 11 back before Fox was FOX. What a weird word fox is. I would wake up and watch an hour and a half of news. When I got home it would be on in the background and it was what I would watch late at night. I calculated that I was watching at minimum three hours of news a day which was about 21 hours a week. That is almost a damned day worth of badness. Not all of it was badness. A lot of it was just nonsense. Stories about dogs that could yo-yo. Girls who could not stop hiccuping. How good chocolate was for you around Valentine's Day. But as the war in Iraq and wherever else we felt like getting oil and shit from continued the news changed and along with it the way people behaved.

Five Things I Learned Having Siblings

A couple of days ago it was National Sibling Day. It is described as “Siblings Day (sometimes called National Siblings Day or National Sibling Day) is a holiday recognized annually in some parts of the United States on April 10, honoring the relationships of siblings. Unlike Mother's Day and Father's Day, it is not federally recognized, though the Siblings Day Foundation is working to change this.” It was started by a lady named Claudia Evart who did it in honor of her siblings that passed away young. In this Five Things I Learned Having Siblings I am going to talk about, well, the five things I learned having siblings.

For those that do not know I have four older brothers and a younger sister. I know. Shocking. Most people assume that I am an only child. I know some people are down when it is National Sibling Day but don't fret because Only Child Day is the day after and there are people with siblings that do not get along all that well.

Are You Addicted To Porn?

Are you addicted to porn? This is a question I asked myself after watching an interview and reading some articles. Spoiler alert: no. I'm not. To me porn is something I use like dental floss. I don't do it every day but when I do I feel better and ask myself why I don't do it more often. Recently the actor Terry Crews was on Dr. Phil's show with his wife Rebecca King-Crews and they discussed what happened when she found out about his porn addiction. Oh. And prostitution. They buried the lead with that one. They and other writers have talked more about his porn addiction than the fact that he was using ladies of the night while married with five children.

After telling Terry that he would be paying child support for her and her new man she added “I said to him 'you know we're done right...yes I'm gonna leave your raggedy behind and I'm gonna take your money too. You gone pay me child support for me and my new man.” After a round of applause from the audience Terry added “Guys operate on pride. And you're successful you feel like that buys you a pass. I did not go to rehab to get my wife back. I went there because I needed to be a better person.” Rebecca stated that it took close to three years before she could trust Terry again. Likely meaning give up them draws which is why a lot of guys tend to cheat on their wives. The whole lack of draws getting. It's a vicious cycle!

Just Talking With Dante Episode 28

Jasmine is back which means we have recorded a new episode! In this one we talk about our recent Fat Tour to Good Girl Dinette, drink a bunch of weird ass sodas on air and one gets referred to as Fat Bitch, discuss delicious donuts, somehow end up talking about Dante getting arrested if he went to Carnivale, and what makes someone think they or others are attractive when they ain't. Click here for previous Just Talking With Dante.

Johnny Panic: We Got It From Here Part 4

Click here for previous Johnny Panic.

“We are the Arkho. In the short amount of time that your planet has left you may refer to me as Mother Bird. A being from a lesser galaxy, even lesser than this, was destroyed by your Johnny Panic who we have recently dispatched of. We arrived in hopes of a challenge and are greatly disappointed by what this planet had to offer. In three days time we will remove it from existence.”

“And...that...uh...is the transmission the entire globe received in every language known to mankind. I...should...I have to go.” And with that Tom Rockwell ran from his news desk.

“What a way to end a news report” Zazz said as the news went to a commercial.

“It's not like anything like this has ever happened before” I say to him. Yes, this is Ronica speaking. Johnny is still unconscious. “A faceless alien shows up, beats the only person that could stop them, and we have no way to win. I don't blame Rockwell from running.”

Folks Are Getting High On Bug Spray

I always say that if there was some sorta apocalypse that humans would find a way to get high or drunk. Even if they need to mix sand and the soles of sneakers they would find a way. In Indianapolis people are on that next level shit and getting high off bug spray. That's right. Bug spray. This is not just fucking people up, but it is turning them up to levels that are being described as zombie-like. Indianapolis Fire Department Captain Chris Major said “We describe it as being like a zombie. They cannot talk to us.” I guess that's when you know it is working.

“Their movements are slow and lethargic, a lot of drooling and a loss of function. We find them with their clothes off, eating the grass, pulling dirt out of the ground and trying to put it in their mouth” he continued. Side effects of this drug known as KD are the inability to walk, breathe, vomiting, dizziness, a catatonic state, and severe headaches. Sounds like a bomb ass orgasm to me. Giggity.