Dez Bryant can curse at off-duty police officers as much as he wants.

Look, the Dallas Cowboys are one of my favorite foils. I heap Texas-steer-sides of beefy condescension on that blue star and all who support it. I burn offerings to the sports gods to strike down every blue chip Dallas prospect with Fibromyalgia.
I'm no fan of the Dallas Cowboys. Nor am I a fan of Dez Bryant, who I've derided in this blog before.

So it is with a heavy heart that I bring you this news. Dez Bryant does not deserve recent criticism leveled at him by the press and Neon Deion Sanders.

Dez was shopping at some undoubtedly garish Dallas area mall this past weekend and got hit with a warning for criminal trespass. What actually happened at the mall is not entirely clear, but the consensus story so far is that Bryant was asked to pull up his low-riding pants by an off-duty police officer (or officers), and Bryant responded to the request with a profanity-laced tirade. One or both of these off-duty police officers slapped Bryant with the criminal trespass warning for "creating a scene."

Let's go over this in slow motion. Dez Bryant is sporting some saggy shorts. It's a misguided, lame, and antagonistic fashion statement. It's tacky, but not against the law. An OFF DUTY police officer tells Bryant to pull up his pants. Wait, let's pause the tape.

What the hell business is it of this off-duty police officer's how Bryant dresses? The officer is not acting in any official capacity ("off-duty"). There is no official capacity to this encounter; it's one citizen telling another citizen that he doesn't agree with a perfectly legal fashion statement.

We don't know how politely the officer asked Bryant to adjust his waistline, so we don't know how reasonable Bryant's tirade was. If I had to guess, though, I'd say that Bryant's outburst was understandable, because I'd assume:

1. That the off-duty police officer was white
2. That wearing one's pants low enough to reveal one's boxers is an urban (read: black) fashion trend
3. That the off-duty police officer was racist
4. That the off-duty police officer wanted to display authority over a wealthy young black man
5. That the off-duty police officer was abusing his power as a lawman and acting outside his capacity

In other words, the officer was fucking with Bryant, and Bryant didn't take kindly to that. This, in my scenario, led to:

1. The off-duty police officer feeling that his authority was challenged
2. The off-duty police officer re-establishing his authority by issuing a citation

And all of this culminated in a news sensation, feeding the white media's need to read stories about misbehaving young, wealthy black athletes. Because the white media are uncomfortable with wealthy young black men, and want to be reassured that rich, misbehaving black people can be put in their place.

Sound about right? It might not be. But it probably is. And, even if it isn't, it's probably close. Because there is no way that an off-duty police officer discreetly walked up to Bryant and initiated polite conversation about fashion.

Bryant could have responded differently, absolutely. But you know what? It takes two to "create a scene." And, in this case, centuries of racial discord.

Also, will someone please pass along this article about saggy shorts, written by my favorite Jazz Critic Stanley Crouch, to Dez?

****3/29 Update: ESPN is reporting that Dez Bryant is being sued for over $850,000 by two separate Jewelers who claim that Dez owes them money for jewelry, tickets to sporting events, and loans. These suits are unrelated to his altercation at the mall. I bring you this update to let you know that the Dallas Cowboys, and all their players, suck. *****

The Socialism of Flash Mobs; Or, How Glee Stole Your Freedom

Have you seen these people, the ones who get together in a public space and perform a seemingly spontaneous dance at the appropriate time? Then, after the music stops, they disband like, “What? This shit happens all the time,”?

Fuck those people. Who do you think you are breaking into song and dance like you’re goddamn Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music? I knew Julie Andrews, and you, sir, are no Julie Andrews.

As far as I can tell, the guiding principles of the flash mob are not that dissimilar to the guiding principles of Fight Club:

1. The first rule is, “Don’t talk about flash mob” – that is, you must pretend the flash mob doesn’t exist. If you watch video for these things, the people are always in different kinds of clothes. They’re just another group of subway passengers. They’re milling around, ostensibly minding their own business.
2. The second rule of flash mob seems to also be, “Don’t talk about flash mob” – after the stupid thing is over and they’ve ejaculated their pop sensibilities all over our unsuspecting faces, they AGAIN PRETEND LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED. As if to say they were the right people at the right time with the right ABBA song in their heart. This, despite the fact that they’re all winded from the effort.

Now, I’m happy to let people have whatever bullshit hobby they want to have, so long as it doesn’t interfere with my life in any way whatsoever. Build your HO-scale model trains and design your personal kitten-video websites and have your anonymous gay sex in truckstop bathrooms. Fine. That’s America. I’ll salute your doing it. But when you start gathering together to march in unison under the same anthem, belting out songs that seem to suggest everything’s fine and we can all let our guard down, I smell a commie.

Because entertaining as a flash mob might be, it – like it’s bastard cousin, the line dance – poses certain dangers to our way of life. The loss of individualism. The replacement of thought with mantra and song. The opioid effect of pageantry on the masses. Folks, I don’t want to be alarmist, but add a few thousand pre-teen Chinese boys with streamers and we’ve got the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

Recently, when I was an MFA student there, the propaganda department at Ohio State staged a flash mob to publicize the new student union that had just been completed.

A seemingly disparate group of cheerleaders, OSU employees, and band geeks got together to dance Journey’s epic rock ballad “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It was video-taped from every angle and got national news attention. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. The mind boggles, no? Here are my problems:

1. This is not a joyful explosion of youthful exuberance. It was a marketing ploy. A chance to sell the student body on the importance of working together and the beauty that can be created by putting one’s own goals second. The dance tells us to subjugate ourselves to the whole. Each gyration of the nubile young bodies seems to say, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
2. The use of the Glee version of Journey’s power pop ballad makes this flash mob – which went full-on viral, by the way – especially egregious. Glee is the national media’s version of the same ideal flash mobbing espouses on the local level. You think we’re not being controlled? Wake up. Every week, we can tune in to see foppish adolescents fighting the evils of high school through song and synchronized dance. And what is high school if not a metaphor for the free-market system of competition?
3. The Glee version of the song is soulless, stripping the last shred of our national spirit from the performance. The classic version, the one with heart and grit and America, was apparently not good enough for Ohio State. What does Broadway actor Lea Michele know about a small-town boy, born and raised in South Detroit? Nothing, I’ll tell you that.
4. See that old man at the end of the video, sashaying with Brutus the Buckeye? That’s Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee, and his appearance is where the deception behind this flash mob falls apart. We see the “mob” for what it is: not a spontaneous gathering of song-and-dance men, but rather a government-approved demonstration of control.

In the final analysis, the problem with the flash mob is that it isn’t a mob at all. There’s nothing more American than a mob: they are unruly and brash, they are reactionary. The Boston Tea Party was a mob. The Zoot Suit Riot was a mob. That’s the kind of America I love. Unreasoning. Violent. Apt to throw a fucking brick. No, the flash mob is nothing of the kind. The flash mob is all planning and timetables. It’s synchronized watches. It’s a Cold War-era military parade. But instead of high-stepping salutes to Khrushchev, we have jazz fingers. Instead of ICBMs, we have the pop and lock.

And that, my friends, is not my America at all.

A Ranking of McDonald's Slogans

For my first post to this blog, I thought long and hard about what America is. Obviously, JB believes that baseball and OTB gambling is the answer. My answer? Advertising and fast food.

To that end, and with the goal of staying within the established Noble Turkey leitmotif of listed rankings, I present the top 10 slogans in McDonald's history.

10. "McDonald's is your kind of place" (1967) - A not-so-subliminal suggestion that, as a fat American, you should be with your own kind.

9. "It's a good time for the great taste of McDonald's" (1984) - George Orwell would've been proud of this dystopian slogan:

It gets some bonus points both because it's used in the chorus of the Barenaked Ladies version of "I'm in Love with a McDonald's Girl" and because remember the McDLT?

8. and 7. "You deserve a break today" (1971 and again in 1980) - No, you don't. You're not working hard enough. In fact, if you stopped worrying about how many breaks you deserved, you wouldn't have lost the Steadman account and you would've been promoted to district manager already.

An honorable mention is 1995's "Have you had your break today?" Same idea, this time from the supervisor's point of view.

6. "Do you believe in magic?" (1993) - Thanks to this slogan (and my parents insistence that I only listen to Christian rock during my formative years), I thought McDonald's invented this song. It wasn't until American Pie and a dreamy Chris Klein acapella'd this song into theaters that I realized the error of my ways. That was 1999. I'd lived a lie for six years.

Also, can I ask what the deal is with the fry guy barbershop quartet thing? And why are the fry guys all blue and red instead of golden brown?

5. "Smile" (2002) - One of six slogans released in the first three years of the new millennium. It seems uninspired somehow. But at least they've gotten away from how good the food is. Now it's just positive affirmations.

4. "I'm Lovin' It" & "Me Encanta" (2003) - What can I say? No me gusta. I don't mind a bilingual marketing effort, but printing the Spanish version of "I'm Loving It" on Big Mac boxes in Maine seems a little like bragging how cultured you are because you just passed Senor Brillstein's Spanish 2.

3. "Food Folks & Fun" (1990) - Yes, yes, & nope.

2. "Did somebody say McDonald's?" (1997) - Yeah. You did, just now. Look, man, if you want to go to McDonald's, just say so. Stop with this passive-aggressive, "I can only suggest it if someone else does first," bullshit.

1. "It's Mac tonight" (1985) - Another case of the golden arches appropriating popular music, this time "Mac the Knife":

It's funny how advertising can ingrain itself into your childhood memories. I was six when this creepy ad, featuring a moon-faced spokescharacter orbiting the Earth, premiered, but I still remember it clearly. And while it doesn't hold up as well as I remember, there's something about a constellation of a McNugget dunking into hot mustard and Mac saying, "Big Dipper!" that still moves me on an emotional level.