Kloncke

via Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

via Chimaobi Amutah

via Sierra Pickett

Three humor videos with fearsome subtexts: about “throwing away” our old material (and perceptions of self — hello Buddhism); economic violence and growing up poor and Black in a food desert in the U.S.; and . . . well, while there’s nothing inherently sad or scary about being hard of hearing / deaf / Deaf / fluent in sign language, but watching it pushes me to consider how, for every hearing person who enjoys and appreciates it, there are countless events that remain stubbornly inaccessible to non-hearing folks.

Case in point: the other two videos in this post.

If I’m being honest, I feel like I don’t have time to make transcripts for the other videos. If I’m being really honest, I mostly just don’t feel like doing it.

[Fast-forward an hour of wandering the internet aimlessly, feeling background-guilty about not writing transcripts, and noticing a stream of thoughts that justify why I don’t have to do it.]

[Now starting to write transcripts. Hey, this ain’t so bad. Kinda fun, actually.  Helps that these two ppl are talented.]

Selected and /or outlined transcripts below the jump. Imperfect.

Comedian Louis C.K. honors comedian George Carlin

And the thing that blew me away about this fellow: every year there’d be a new George Carlin album, a new George Carlin album; they just kept coming, each one deeper than the next [sic], and I just thought, How can he do that? And it made me literally cry that I could *never* do that. I was telling the same jokes for fifteen years.

And they asked him, so how do you do all this, how do you produce all this material? And I’m listening [in my car] and I’m like, Mnyeahh [self-pitying crying sniffle], and I hear him and he says, “Well, I just decided every year I’d be working on that year’s special. And I’d do the special, and then I’d just chuck out the material. And I’d start again with nothing.”

And I thought, that’s crazy! How do you do that? It took me fifteen years to build this shitty hour. If I threw it away I’d have *nothin’.*

But he gave me the courage to try (and also I was desperate, what the fuck else was I gonna do?). This idea that you throw everything away and start over again. And I thought, well okay. When you’re done telling jokes about airplanes and dogs, and you throw those away, whaddayou got left? You can only dig deeper. Start talkin about you—, you know, your feelings. And who you are. And then you do those jokes and they’re *gone*; you gotta dig deeper, so then you start thinkin about your fears and your nightmares, and you do those, and then those are gone. And then you start gettin into really weird shit. Eventually you get to your balls . . .

Breakdown of Classic Hood Snacks

Yo dis ya boy Benny, I had to make this blog video, last night I had er’ybody talkin bout what they favorite hood snacks was an all’ that, so this video right here, I’m bout to show y’all the top ‘hood snacks — *and* — i’mma show y’all how to make ’em, in case you don’t know.

So all you suburban kids who grew up eatin toaster streudels, drinkin’ Ovaltine, Lunchables, shit like that: we din’ have that in the ‘hood.  Like we ate Lunchables, but that was like *rare*, like if you had a Lunchable, that was like hittin’ the lottery an shit!  Like back in the hood if you had a Lunchable you would go *outside* and eat it, just so everyone could see you had a Lunchable and shit. [smile]  But the shit I’m about to name, you ate that in the house.

Aright let’s get into it tho

But before I start, I wanna let people know that there’s a difference between, like, your classic corner store snacks, and like the *hood* snacks.  See I could sit here and name all like the peach Faygos and cream sodas and, yeahmean, Star Crunch and Little Debbies . . . you get a Honeybun and put that shit in the microwave for seven seconds, and you’re *Good.*  But that’s another video tho.

The *real* hood snacks, is when your mom or your dad or your gramma or whoever you’re living with, didn’t give you no money to go to the store and buy that shit, so you had to work with whatever you had at the crib, cuz you ain’t had no money to go to the store and buy that shit, and your bad ass ain’t feel like stealin that day.

1. Grimpo’s. Honorable mention; has to be on the list, like, no matter what.  Black people are single-handedly keeping this company open.  Like, ionneven know, like what the fuck — who even *makes* this shit?  How many white people you seen eating Grimpo’s — *ever*?  Hold on, look at the price of these joints. That shit says 69 cents.  Sixty-nine cents?  What the fuck typea coon-ass price is that? [Hot sauce interlude: “Every Black household got a drawer full of little packets.”]
2. Pickles.  Back in the day, you sometimes had to bring your own baggie to the store to get the pickles from a big-ass jar.
3. Fried Baloney. Every crib had baloney cuz it was the cheapest shit in the world to buy.  And everybody in the hood knows exactly when you’re sposed to flip the baloney.  Say it with me: when the fuckin baloney starts bubblin’ up in the middle.
4. Kool-Aid.  Before ni**as was sellin freebase at the schools, they was sellin *Kool-Aid!*  Mix in one packet with about a cup of sugar, and you are *good* — like, that shit taste like *heaven*!  And it was always a dead give-away cuz mothaf**as used to eat it outta they palms.  You look at a ni**a’s palm and that shit be all purple and red and shit and you could tell, mothaf**a been eatin that fuckin Kool-Aid all day.  Now I can’t give you any measurements cuz I know how to eyeball that shit.  See, doin this ghetto cookin is about cookin from the heart.
5. Ramen Noodles.  Whoever invented Ramen Noodles needs a Nobel Peace Prize or sum’mn.  He *has* to get one.  Ramen Noodles have saved lives.  The directions on the back of the package say to boil it in a pot.  But ni**as always be havin to cut corners, so you can also throw this shit in the microwave, in a bowl with some water for 2 minutes and you will be good. The third way you can do it, is if you’re really not tryna cook, break up the noodles inside the bag. Every real G has done this.  Pour the package of seasoned salt into the bag, and add Lawry’s seasoned salt if that’s not enough for you.  Put some hot sauce from Taco Bell in the bag, shake it up, and eat the shit like chips!  Shit is amazing!
6. Condiment Sandwiches.  [Slew of example condiments].  Regardless of what type of condiments you use, you have to toast the bread.  I don’t know what it is, but toasting the bread almost makes it like a whole different thing, almost like you should pay for the shit.