Why white people should not be allowed to rap. Evah, yo.

[captainsblog]

A couple of weeks ago, I went out to mow the lawn with my .mp3 freshly charged. In my best stupid-sounding gangsta voice, I said, "I got my playah! I'm a playah!"

Emily just about disintegrated in embarrassment from that: "Don't say that, Dad."

I was too embarrassed myself to ask if it was something I'd inadvertently said, or just the premise of me trying to sound cool at my advanced age.  Both, it turned out.

Not only did I have no business using such language of any kind, the specific choice was a particularly bad one for a room occupied, at the time, by one wife and one child:

A male who is skilled at manipulating ("playing") others, and especially at seducing women by pretending to care about them, when in reality they are only interested in sex. Possibly derived from the phrases "play him for a fool", or "play him like a violin". The term was popularized by hip-hop culture, but was commonly recognized among urban American blacks by the 1970s.

I filed it in my own personal dictionary under "bad" and fuggotabutit- until this afternoon.

----

The Mets are on a local Time Warner channel today, their Sunday games being on a NYC over-air station, and so the usual lineups (local and cable) of commercials aren't on. Today's have entirely consisted of promos for TWC itself; commercials for Tim Horton's upcoming Camp Day and some other charity causes; and an endless repeating of a public service announcement from the US government for something called "healthyus.gov," featuring the cast of Shrek encouraging kids to get out and play.

Obama won't let me embed it, but here's the link.

There it is, on the soundtrack and even the HHSTVNetwork titling of the video: Get out, get out, get out and be a playah.

I suppose if the idea is for Health & Human Services bureaucrats to maintain the size and budget of the unwanted pregnancy and welfare programs, it makes perfect sense. Otherwise, Shrek and Donkey should probably join me in the shutting-TFU.

Also see this, which reports a protest by childrens' advocates back when Shrek 3 first came out, questioning the producers' posing as healthy-lifestyle advocates when they were otherwise whoring out their brand name to all kinds of fast food and cereal tie-ins.

Comments

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

I never fault a movie or a junk food for "whoring" out. I fault me as a parent if I give into it.

I can JUST see you telling all within earshot that you got "yo playah!" I'm sure you also got "mad skillz"!

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

hahahahahaha, i got a chuckle out of this. apparently recently i used the word "fool" in a similar context without even realizing it... to the delight of my friend who has been ribbing me about it ever since. :)