The Indisputable Divinity of Ray Allen as Jesus Shuttlesworth and His Father Denzel

I had written you, yes you, a wonderful short story for this particular post. Irreverent, sure. Blasphemous, maybe. Wonderful, most definitely. But as you can see from my italicized used of the past tense, that tale is no more. It has gone the way of my pens, my copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, my iPod, I think maybe a dog or two of mine, and it is now lost. This is the penance I pay for scribbling my short stories on whatever random piece of paper I find laying around and shoving the results into my pockets without any semblance of a thought. My organization has always been ... well, I have none, but so far, it has never brought upon a tragedy of this magnitude.

GONE! My work all gone, and all I have to show for it is this self-deprecating blog post and the pocket lint I retrieved from my pocket instead of my story notes. I could recall only the title, those words forever engrained onto my skull, and a sentence that began, "As he stared into the bear's eyes, convinced that this creature was convinced of his edibility, Jesus raised the basketball..."

The rest is fog, indiscernible and maddening.

Letter to My Black Half: A Rebuttal

Dear Colored African-American Self,

I received your letter, and it only furthers the point I've been making since 2008: Obama's election has given you an unbearable sense of pride. All of a sudden, we're listening to Outkast, we're watching Spike Lee films, we're seeking out Cornel West interviews on NPR. Where was all this black pride in high school? When you were listening to Pinkerton and crying about girls on full blast instead of Bun B and crying about girls? I apologize for the attempts on your life ... that was perhaps a little too far and unwarranted, but the ego has gotten to be a little much. Your civil rights aren't even a century old yet, and already they're being shoved in my face. Need I remind you that, without me, we wouldn't be half as employable.