by Leon Black
I told my man Oscar, he owns a chain of strip clubs that offers a fantastic legs ’n’ eggs brunch special. I brought him onboard, and he made a commitment to me that until he gets the QR system installed, he’s gonna build a currency exchange station at the entrance. Here patrons would be able to trade in their dirty singles for new, fresh, sanitary bills, for the benefit of every fucking one involved.
I thought it was a pretty good idea until it hit me: Clean money is sticky. People are gonna wanna lick their fingers to separate the bills, and that shit is even worse. That’s not gonna help the strippers—it’s just opening them up to germs all over again.
See that—sometimes you try to fix shit and wind up making shit worse. Just like that stripper at the club you wanna bring home and make your lady. You hook up with her and you spend all your time trying to get her to stop stripping and make an honest woman out of her but all that does is cause arguments. Man, leave that lady alone, let her do what she wants to do! You don’t own her! Then one day you come home from work and find your seventy-inch flat screen and her gone. Some shit just can’t be fixed, especially if it ain’t broke in the first place.
EDIBLE UNDERWEAR 2.0
I don’t know when I first saw some, but I do remember being on the fence about them the first time I did. I’m talking about edible underwear. Better yet, for the rest of this section, so that I don’t make myself sick, I will be referring to them as “edible panties.” See, when I think of underwear, I think of some crusty old shit-stained drawers, so the idea of something like that being edible is just plain horrible.
Since they first came out, edible panties have always been made out of gummy bear material. While I’m not a big fan of gummy candy, I understand why they were the first choice for them panties. Gummies are stretchy and durable and waterproof—perfect for some panties. But now what if you’re someone who can’t have sugar but you’re getting it on with a lady and she wants you to eat her drawers? Are you gonna push them panties away? Hell no! So there you are, chewing away on those drawers, and the next thing you know you’re waking up in a hospital four months later ’cause you’re just coming out of a sugar coma! You don’t need that kind of shit!
I think they are leaving a lot of money on the table by not making all sorts of other types of edible panties. You need vegetarian ones, sugar-free ones—you need to make them accessible to everyone. And I would stay away from candy-based drawers, especially chocolate-based candies like Milk Duds. In the summer something like that would only cause confusion, not to mention a damn mess! I’m thinking of a more food-based panty, something you would purchase in the food section at the supermarket. And go international with it: If you’re about to have sex with a Jamaican, why not get some jerked chicken drawers? Or better yet, make a meal out of it for you and your lady. For instance, you get a pair of ladies’ panties made out of pita bread, then you get your men’s chorizo underwear. Once you get into bed, you take yours off and she takes hers off, then put your chorizo into her pita. See? The two of you are about to multitask, lunching while fucking!
CRUISES—NOT THE KID
Besides having to roam around Disneyland, Mickey and Minnie gotta spend time on cruise ships too. Any other time you see mice on a fucking boat, that’s a fucking sanitation issue, and I believe the same goes here. I don’t give a shit that Mickey’s got a top coat on like he’s in a fucking orchestra conducting.
White people love cruise ships. They get all-inclusive shit so they can eat like piggies, fuck around in the galley in the middle of the night, go into the captain’s room, then go back to the fucking buffet with their soft-shell crab and tiramisu.
For black people, however, ships have rough connotations. So I’d make cruise ships designed to address these issues. The white people would be working the ship while us black people would start at the bottom of the ship and have to fight our way up. We would have weapons (like rubber bullets and shit) and we would pretend to kill everybody and get to the top and yell “FREEDOM!!!” ’Cause that’s a fucking cruise!
By the time we pulled into the port in the Bahamas, we would get out of our raggedy ass clothes and put our nice shit on. And then we would enjoy the soft-shell crab and tiramisu buffet as free people.
(NOTE: The buffet and weaponry are provided only in the all-inclusive package. If you have the cheaper package, you stay chained the fuck up around your ankles and then we see how you do.)
As free people, we can all enjoy the amenities the cruise ship has to offer, and the cruise ships have fucking everything: post office, babysitting service, screening room, pool. It’s better than most neighborhoods. They even have a casino in there.
Beware of the casino. You already spent money on the cruise, now you’re just gonna lose your money in the casino. By the time you get to the Bahamas you have no money left, so you gotta just stay in your room. That’s fucked up.
On my cruises, you’d be able to wager your room on the cruise ship too. Just like people gamble their house away. And if you lost it at the roulette table or baccarat, you’d just have to walk around for seven days and sit on the lido deck on a lounge chair or something. As a rule, people should be able to gamble anything away. They should be able to take their clothes off, dump them on the roulette table, and see what happens. There should be a surgeon on-site so people can gamble their internal organs as well. So after the game, when the players are forced to walk around the casino naked, with no kidneys or liver, people will know they lost EVERYTHING.
That’s some powerful shit.
TIME TO GET ILL
I’m a pretty damn healthy person. Growing up, the only childhood illness I ever had was the chicken pox. I was pretty damn lucky; kids get a lot of nasty, annoying shit. To be honest, your average kid stays sick, and I blame schools for that. Schools are a breeding ground for all sorts of nasty ass kid afflictions. Besides the big ones, like chicken pox, measles, and the mumps, there’s smaller nastier stuff, like pinkeye, head lice, and ringworm. Not to mention all the snot-based, runny-nose illnesses kids get. It’s a wonder any of them ever become adults.
I once knew a kid who had the Big Three (chicken pox, measles, and mumps) all at once. Can you imagine that? I don’t know if this is true, but I even heard that he also was constipated and had diarrhea at the same damn time! I’m telling you, all anyone could do was talk about that muthafucka: the students, the teachers, the damn principal—his ass was legendary! He missed the whole seventh grade, and they just let his itchy, scabby ass slide right to the eighth. I don’t know if that was legal, but I do know it was the right thing to do! Having the Big Three was like a badge of honor! For all the respect he got, that kid might as well have served in Desert Storm!
Luckily, certain illnesses like the ones I mentioned you only get once when you are young—you get them over with nice and early. That’s why they call them “childhood diseases.” You’re a little kid, you ain’t got no bills to pay, you’re in a position to lie in that bed for a few months with no worries. Your meals will be provided for, someone will rub calamine lotion and help you wash your ass—yes, all is good! Try getting one of those illnesses when you’re grown! Try calling out sick from work ’cause your nasty ass has ringworm. See what kind of sympathy you get when you have to walk into the break room with bumps all over your fucking body because you don’t have any sick time left. And don’t be calling in with a childhood affliction if you’re single! How are you gonna explain why you have head lice with no fucking kids around?!
BIGGEST LOSER
Look, what I’m about to say might not be for everybody. I know a lot of people like to diet, but I’m here to tell you diets ain’t shit! I have never in my life tried to diet; I love food too damn much! Do you realize how many delicious ass foods there are out there? Take breakfast food for example . . . I love me some damn breakfast! I know a lot of people do, but I’m just saying, I have no problem eating breakfast for dinner—on the other hand, there is also nothing wrong with eating dinner f
or breakfast. Do you know how many times Larry has caught me in the morning eating his stupid ass dinner-party leftovers—gourmet shit, you know what I mean!?!—shit with truffles in it, or some dish with nasty ass goat cheese, for breakfast!?! See, my appetite is not guided by some damn clock! I don’t even wear a watch! Although if I did wear one maybe I would eat when I was supposed to. Maybe that’s my secret. Anyway, shit like pancakes, I will eat those tasty muthafuckas anytime of the day! And the great thing about them is that you can customize them to your individual taste. Like blueberries? Throw some in. Like chocolate chips? Throw some the fuck in! Shit, have high blood pressure? Throw in your medication! Oh yeah, say you have a little, sick, stubborn ass kid who came home with a runny ass nose . . . pour some Children’s Robitussin or some shit like that in that pancake batter, then toss some bananas or something like that in there to make it look festive. Trust me, that kid will eat and enjoy the fuck out of them damn pancakes and then an hour later be knocked out and wake up later feeling better! And on top of all of that, pancakes have more than one name; I mean, you can also call them “flapjacks” and “hotcakes.” Why give one dish three names? How the fuck should I know? Why would I know some shit like that? What I do know is I enjoy each one of them like they are some separate type shit.
Now, I’m not suggesting you eat like me; you see, I have always had a high metabolism! Before you get mad and hate on my skinny ass, just know that a high metabolism is a blessing and a curse; they don’t tell you that shit. On the plus side it allows me to eat what the fuck I want, when I want. Oh yeah I can fuck up a few packs of Twinkies at the drop of a dime, I can eat a gallon of ice cream with my eyes closed; no seriously, I have fallen asleep in a tub of ice cream many times. Man, I can eat one eight-course meal, two four-course meals, or eight one-course meals and not think anything of it! But by far my favorite thing to eat is Pop-Tarts in the middle of the night. What flavor, you ask? All of them, muthafuckas, all the fruit ones, the fancy ones with designs, the frosted ones! Damn, I love the frosted ones—I’m surprised they haven’t made a frosted-filled frosted one!
All that being said, I do realize that most of you don’t have a metabolism like mine. For muthafuckas like you I’m about to give you a word that I’m pretty damn sure I know the meaning of . . . “moderation”! You easy-gaining-weight muthafuckas just need to learn that you can have all the shit you want, but unlike me, not as much as you want and not when you want it. For example, if you like cheesecake, eat all the cheesecake you want, just make sure you eat it in a steam room. That cheesecake experience will wind up being so damn awful for you that you will probably never want cheesecake again. And as for the calories, you might not lose weight but you probably won’t gain any, either. Look, you just have to know you. Be fair to yourself but be real with yourself. When a friend with body issues asks, “Do I look fat?” of course you say “no”—that’s a responsible lie. But if you ask yourself that, and you are, don’t lie to yourself. I mean, why the fuck would you lie to you? If you can’t trust you who can you trust? And even if you have an answer for that question can you trust it considering the fact that you can’t trust you? See what I mean!?!
PART-TIME VEGETARIAN/FULL-TIME CANNIBAL
These days people are all about labels to define who they are. Why do that? Why try to define yourself? Why limit yourself! I mean, people even label what kind of eater they are. I’ll tell you what kind of eater I am: whatever the fuck she is! That’s ’cause women tend to care about shit like that more than men. You tell a vegetarian woman that you eat meat, and it’s a wrap. By the way, have you ever eaten a wrap? How about a wrap inside of another wrap? That shit is fucked up. You go home, the lights are off ’cause you didn’t pay your bill or some shit, and you’re hungry and you eat the wrap, but you’re not sure if you unwrapped the right wrap, so you end up eating half the paper wrap. I didn’t realize it until I had eaten half the damn thing. Where was I? Oh yeah, whatever she eats, I eat. I don’t give a fuck what it is!
That isn’t to say I don’t have a preference. If it was left up to me, I would eat only sexy foods, shit like spaghetti. I love me some damn spaghetti! And believe me, when you’re with a lady and you want to be sexy, you make her some Italian food. Remember the great scene in Lady and the Tramp when the two dogs are sucking down spaghetti and it turns out they’re sucking the same strand? That moment blew my mind, it gave me a hard-on! Don’t judge me: Cartoon spaghetti is the best!
People ask me if I cook. Of course I do, but I cook for survival. I don’t do stupid ass dinner parties, I cook single-serve shit. I’ll count sixteen fucking spaghettis if I know that’s all I need to eat, and that’s all I make. I also make ketchup from scratch, ’cause that’s fucking impressive. Paul Newman made salad dressings and really good movies, but he didn’t make ketchup. Big mistake.
Also, I make a hell of a pot pie! Pot pies are old school shit, like stew and casseroles. Pot pies are amazing and so easy to make. You can put whatever you want in there: vegetables, rice, anything. Shit, if you’re making it for a children’s party, you could put candy and toys in there like a piñata. The key is simply this: If you’re making a chicken pot pie, just make sure you have more chicken in there than any other ingredient. Pretty simple. I mean, if you fuck around and have more rice in there, then you’ll be stuck with a rice pot pie, and trust me, nobody wants that shit.
And here’s a tip: A pot pie a day keeps the doctor away. People say an apple a day does, but an apple is not the meal that a pot pie is. An apple is just a snack. You need a whole damn meal to keep a doctor away. Not to mention, a pot pie is way more practical than a fucking apple. You can’t freeze an apple, then put it in the fucking microwave three months later. If you tried it once you defrosted that apple, it would come out brown and look terrible, and most likely if you put that shit in the microwave it would just explode.
Here’s another expression for you: “You are what you eat.” People say that dumb shit all the time. Problem is, the only people it’s true for, when you think about it, are cannibals. Everyone else just eats food. Now, I know I could never be a cannibal, but I tell you, if I was forced to be one, I would be a vegetarian cannibal. The way I see it, I grew up eating a shitload of meat. My family loves meat. When I was a kid, I didn’t ask for no ice cream for dessert, I asked for a meat dessert. I would cry for some bear pudding or a mutton pancake. In our house, we ate all kinds of wild game, wild ass turkey, rabbits and shit. Vegans find that shit hard to swallow. They don’t eat anything that blinks or cries. I forget. That way of life doesn’t leave much to survive on, so to get their vitamin intake, they eat super healthy.
If I were a cannibal, I would be a vegetarian cannibal: That is to say that I would only eat vegetarians. I mean, if you’re gonna eat someone, you want to at least make sure you’re eating someone who is healthy. If you eat someone, you’re eating everything they’ve eaten. Every last bit of food, every damn Twinkie—you eat him, you’re eating all that shit! If they’ve got high cholesterol and you eat them, guess what: You’ve got high cholesterol. Plus, just by eating a vegetarian, I’d be getting the meat and the vegetable all at once: a perfectly balanced meal.
SPOT ME
Most people go to the gym and build up the wrong parts of their bodies. I work on something called the “Get the Fuck Off Me” muscles. People worry about being offensive, like those karate muthafuckas. All the time learning shit they won’t use. Those cats just have to stand around waiting for somebody to touch them so they can fuck them up. That’s some useless bullshit.
Y’all are wasting your time with useless workouts. We are not training for the goddamn Olympics. Nobody’s gonna survive walking up a fucking StairMaster or using a fucking rowing machine. My workout emulates real-life situations. It gives you skills to survive. You follow the workout guidelines and do your fucking exercises the right way, you won’t be able to enter a baseball stadium without the entire crowd whispering, “Damn, that man is bringing the ruckus. Don�
�t fuck with him.”
With my workout, you have to enter the gym or your homemade workout area with the look of a killer. You have to clench your teeth and keep repeating the mantra “Get the fuck off me, get the fuck off me.”
Now, if you’re alone during your workout, you’ll have a harder time getting the desired benefits. It’s like doing a self-defense class where you’re attacking yourself. Kinda hard to kick yourself in the balls.
So take a buddy with you. Someone you respect but also want to fuck up. This person will personify various villains, innocent bystanders, and law enforcement who you may encounter on the street.
Some of these exercises are modifications of existing ones already in the field.
Like the Bench Press. You get your buddy to spot you, so when you’re pushing up, they’re pushing that shit down, while they’re talking shit about you to your face. Like really nasty shit that brings up childhood memories and shit. (To prep for that, you gotta take stock. Sit down at your stupid ass IKEA desk and make a list of all the shit you hate about yourself, everything you’re insecure about, every abusive word your mother or father threw at you growing up.) Your buddy hurls all this shit at you, getting you angrier and angrier, motivating you to push harder and harder against his resistance.
Now, if you’re an emotional muthafucka, this bench press can get dangerous, ’cause instead of getting angrier and pushing harder, you’re just gonna break down and cry like a baby. So if you know yourself to be sensitive and kind of a pussy, make sure the insults you put together are not too personal. Maybe they revolve around rough shit in the world, like global warming and starving kids and disappearing rain forests.