by Leon Black
But then I realized that’s my ego talking, not my divine spirit and self. So myself says, “Fuck that, I don’t need people following me everywhere, this God has some very un-Godly shit to do, and I damn sure don’t need nobody watching me.”
Trust me, it’s better to be a God figure that’s off the grid than to have your disciples all up in your damn scriptures.
Leonism is spreading at a phenomenal rate, and before long, I know I’m gonna get phone calls from pissed-off religious leaders all over the world. Rabbis, priests, reverends—shit, I know Oprah’s gonna call to debunk Leonism on Super Soul Sunday . . . Then the Dalai Lama’s probably gonna call me and be like, “Leon, my brother, what are you doing? I’ve been working hard without even having my own country as a base to spread the word of kindness and compassion around the world, and you’re f*#king it all up for me!”
WORD ARTIST
Here’s the thing: I like to think of myself as a word artist. Most artists stare at a blank canvas until an idea hits them, and then they create art. I like to think that the brain of the person in front of me is a blank canvas, and my job as an artist is to look into the eyes of that damn blank canvas and light that shit up! Sometimes I’m thinking more classic like a Rembrandt or a Michael Angelo, but other times I’m more like a graffiti artist! Sometimes I make museum-quality shit, and sometimes my shit is like the stuff you see on a subway car or a bathroom stall or way up on a damn billboard. You know those ones way up there, the ones you look at like, how the fuck did the guy get up there?! When you see shit up there like that, it usually says something like “Fuck Karen!” Which always makes me wonder, like, Damn, what did Karen do to make a muthafucka so mad that he would risk his damn life to climb way the fuck up there and make sure she sees it on her way to work?! Stuff like that makes you question every Karen you meet from that point on, ’cause the last thing you want to do is to get stuck with that damn Karen. Now, sometimes I go back and forth and feel bad for Karen, and all Karens, for that matter. See, the problem is muthafuckas never put the damn last name, or at least, if you’re a damn artist, draw a picture of Karen! It’s just too confusing, even for other Karens who see it and wonder to themselves Am I that damn Karen!? In turn they start calling up exes and yelling at their asses to see if they put that shit up there! See, not identifying which Karen it is is some selfish shit! What you’ve done is created a Karen virus—every Karen thinks it’s them, and everyone who dated a Karen thinks they dated the Karen. Do you understand how messed-up that is? Karens are mothers, daughters, granddaughters, teachers, nuns! There are babies who could’ve been born Karen but their mothers drove by that damn sign and now they have to second-guess themselves! Did you know that in 1965 Karen was the third-most popular name in America, but as of 2016 it’s only ranked 504th? That’s over a 500 percent drop! See what the fuck you did!
Now, what the fuck was I just talking about?
Oh yeah, I’m a word artist! Yeah, once I open my mouth, I just create. Half the time I don’t think about what I’m saying, it just comes out! And like most art, if you try to understand it before it’s finished, you would be like, “What the fuck is that?!” But by the time I’m done, you will definitely know what the fuck I’m talking about . . . unless you are dumb as shit!
Now, usually after I’m done saying something, I don’t remember it at all; this is a skill I developed called “plausible deniability.” But sometimes the thing that I said is so profound that people start quoting me and making t-shirts out of my shit to capitalize on my brilliant ass word art! By the way, Fuck Karen t-shirts will be available just in time for the holidays. I’ll keep you posted.
BRING THE RUCKUS
People think “ruckus” is causing commotion. It’s not. I myself am a “Bringer of Ruckus,” with “Bringer” being the key ass word! See, I bring it but I don’t cause it; that’s a big difference. If you cause shit, you can be liable, and liability opens you up to fines, lawsuits, and jail time.
For instance, you go to a petting zoo and start talking shit and fucking with the animals, trying to ride a mule, or worse yet a goat—you know, animals that you ain’t supposed to ride, a penguin, a snake, shit like that. You are causing a ruckus, and your ass is going to jail. But if that same goddamn billy goat followed you to a party and started tearing shit up, baa-baa-ing, shitting on the floor, stepping on the couch, putting his dirty ass hoofs in the punchbowl and randomly drop kicking muthafuckas in the chest, I mean really fucking somebody’s birthday party up and some lady screams, more than likely the birthday girl screams, “Oh my God whose goat is this!?! He’s fucking my party up! Why is he only kicking black people!?” Sure you brought that Ruckus with you, but all that shit is on the racist ass goat and the people who threw the party and decided to let him in. I bring the Ruckus, but if you get kicked in the chest, that’s on you!
GET IN THAT ASS
IT’S EASY TO GET IN THAT ASS—IT’S NOT ALWAYS EASY TO GET OUT
It is pretty damn easy to get in that ass. You get angry enough, you’ll get in that ass! Caught up defending yourself? Argument with your significant other? If you’re not careful, you will wind up in that ass! It happens. What is “getting in that ass,” you ask? It is a verbal form of ass whupping. It is a way of defending yourself or your lady. To master it is to master the art of talking a good game. And when you’re good at it, it can be more devastating than a sucker punch. Now, me? I purposely get in that ass! It is what I do! I do it out of anger or just for the fun of it! I have been in many asses! And no one is safe from an ass entering! A boss, a grandma, a police officer . . . Larry! I don’t care. Sometimes it takes people a while to get in that ass; not me, I’ll get up in that ass and start a small fire.
Getting in an ass is easy, but getting out, that’s another thing! Too many people get into an ass without an exit strategy. Let me tell you something: Don’t just run up in an ass! You might wind up like a little kid running into a forest and then looking back, like, “Where the fuck am I?” Asses are like those walk-through haunted houses: It’s easy to get in—you just buy a fuckin’ ticket—but once you’re in and you start walking around, you get distracted by monsters and goblins and shit! You’re in that haunted ass, and before you know it, you’ve insulted their mama and said some other shit that has made the owner of that haunted ass angry. Now you’re scared, shivering, and lost, so your ass opens up. All of a sudden someone is digging in your ass. You’re trying to get out of an ass while someone is all up in yours. So in a nutshell, before you go road rage and jump out of your car on someone, make sure your shit is in park.
Be aware of the type of ass you’re getting into. Old people’s asses are dangerous. Due to their years of experience, that can make it confusing. Trust me, you don’t want a piece of an old person’s ass. And last, never underestimate an ass. Like dogs’ asses sense fear and shut down on you. A shut-down ass it not a place you wanna be.
Now, let’s be clear, ’cause some of you look a bit confused. You don’t want to wake up and physically be in someone’s ass. When you go to the doctor and he puts two fingers in your ass, trust me, he doesn’t want to be there. So if you’re thinking to literally get into someone’s ass, stop yourself. The only people that literally got in someone’s ass were those fuckers in Lilliput. You know the story of that big ass giant Gulliver, right? He wandered into that town with those little people. Well, what you don’t know is he fell asleep and those little muthafuckas tied him down, cut his throat, and dug a tunnel through his ass. They called it Gulliver’s Tunnel.
They didn’t put that shit in the book. To be honest, it was partly his fault—Lilliput was a bad neighborhood, and he was too nice of a guy to be walking in that part of town. You better believe a couple of those horny ass Lilliputians not only went into his ass, they fucked each other while in there. Eventually they developed his ass, built a strip club in there, food courts, all that shit. So always know who you’re talking to, because if you’re not careful, they’ll get in you
r ass before you have a chance to get in theirs.
TOPSY-TURVY (FLIP THAT SHIT)
I rarely take the advice of others. Oh, I’ll take a lot of other stuff, like your lawn mower, your car, your eyeglasses, your cool ass top hat, your medication, your girl, my friend, my girl that I hit and quit and said you could have but now I’m gonna repo her back (that shit ain’t just for cars), your virginity, your hospitality, your identity, your baby mama, your black nanny, your heart, and your soul—shit, I’ll take your first love and your last slice of pizza. But one thing I usually never take from you is your advice.
All that said, here’s some advice a friend of mine once gave me that I wholeheartedly agree with: There are times in life when you are going to have to take back a situation and turn the right side up to serve you. Sometimes you have to topsy-turvy the situation—basically flip that shit. Sometimes we get ourselves into bullshit.
For instance, I had a very important interview to go to, and my friend told me if that interview started to go sideways, that I needed to flip that shit. That is to say, take that damn interviewer and make him the damn interviewee. You topsy-turvy that goddamn interview! Here’s what I mean: The interviewer says to you, “Tell me about your background.” You say to them, “Actually, tell me about your background.” See, now you’re the one in control.
This is especially useful when you’re courting a young woman and you gotta talk to her father for his approval. There’s always a point in the relationship when you have to go to his house to let him decide if you’re a good fit for his daughter. He’ll ask you shit like, “Tell me about your last relationship, and do you have any children?” And instead of answering, you ask him the same shit, but you gotta be blunt. You ask him, “How many asses have you tapped in your lifetime? I’m thinking you’re about sixty-five years old, let’s say four to five taps a year, add that up—have you even counted?” At this point he’s gonna smile, because he’s remembering when he was your age, tapping ass. This moment will last only a second or two, because sooner or later he will get angry at you as he realizes you pulled the old switcheroo on him, which is what his generation called flipping that shit back in the day.
YOU CAN’T PAUSE TOAST
Once you put your bread in the toaster and press ON and it starts to toast, you can’t press CANCEL, take it out, and then later on when you feel like it pop that bread back in to toast again. That shit just doesn’t work. What I’m trying to say is that you can’t go down certain roads unless you are ready to go all the way down them. You can’t half break up with somebody, you gotta full-on break up and sever that tie.
You can’t say “I love you” before you mean it, before it’s time, because once you say it, you can’t take it back and then try to say it again a month later.
The problem when someone says “I love you” is that the other person always feels fucking obligated to respond “I love you too.” That fucking “too” in there. Like a goddamn parrot. You’re either a grown ass man or a fucking parrot. Don’t say it if you’re not ready. If someone says “I love you” and you don’t feel like saying it back, you just say, “Yeah, that’s really cool.” (Alternates are listed below.)
Remember: “Love” is a big ass motherfucking word. The “love” word will get your ass in trouble. Almost as much as the words “fuck it.” See, unlike “Fuck!” which is just a reaction, FUCK IT are decision words. “Fuck” by itself is a beautiful thing, it’s amazing. But then you add the “it,” and you turn it into the opposite. Like you don’t give a fuck about fucking!
Person A: Are we gonna fuck?
Person B: Nahhh, fuck it.
Look here, I know you’re thinking you came to this chapter to read about toast and I gave you a bunch of love advice. And I can’t lie, it might have sounded like I went off the rails a bit, but really, if you understand toast and toasters, then you know the connection.
You see, a relationship is like a toaster: Two pieces go in all fresh and naïve, but when they come out they are toast, perfect and ready for the world. Sometimes, though, that toaster is broken, it has a loose wire or a short or something and it becomes unpredictable; that’s what it’s like to be in a tumultuous relationship. Always being afraid that your partner is checking your phone, going through your emails—you know, tumultuous shit! Or crazy shit like super gluing your dick to your thigh while you sleep—well, shit, definitely while you’re asleep, you let shit like that happen while you’re awake, you’ve got bigger problems than I can fix. Or, I don’t know, maybe you’ve got a broke ass dick that needed fixing. I don’t know everybody’s dick situation, and to be honest it ain’t none of my business.
So anyway, one day you’re using that tumultuous toaster, you set that damn timer and walk away and come back later to find that the toast popped out at the wrong time and it ain’t toasted right. Now you’re gonna want to push that bitch down ’cause you want that damn piece of toast, but you’ve got to think about it like this. If you left for work one day, kissed your lady on the lips, and went about your business, did all the day-to-day shit you always do, handled your grind all the while thinking about heading home to your lady, only to pull up in front of your house to find your personal shit spread every damn where, draws in the tree, neighbor’s dog chewing on your slippers, and your Jordans hanging from a telephone wire, would you just gather all that shit up and take it in the house? Well, all your shit spread everywhere, that’s the fucked up piece of toast.
Now I know people and I know tumultuous relationships, and that damn man staring at his shit everywhere, that dumb ass man’s first thought is gonna be to run back in the house and try to save his relationship. What he is about to do is push that toast back down. And to be honest, if it’s the first time he has paused that toast, he’ll be able to get it back down, but trust me, that toast has already lost its essence. He’ll apologize to his lady, promise to never do it again. Essentially he’ll fiddle with that damn wire, hoping to fix the short. And she’ll tell him she forgives him, but just know this: When a toaster has a short, you might as well just toss that shit out. See, ’cause even if she forgives, she doesn’t forget, and you’ll spend the rest of that relationship holding your breath, wondering when she’s gonna bring that shit up again . . . that’s a bad ass short.
See, you’ve pushed that toast back down, but you can’t trust the timer; it’s unpredictable. Either that shit’s gonna come out too light or it’s gonna burn the fucking house down. So now your lady starts hanging out late with her friends—she never did that before. Her new, unpredictable behavior causes you to do ridiculous things like calling her a million times when she hangs out. And that behavior causes her to not pick up and let your shit go to voicemail. Well, you’re there all night staring at that toaster wondering what’s going on, so you take a damn fork and jam it in there with it plugged in just to get that toast out! So with every desperate, embarrassing “Bitch, where you at?” call you make, you cheat as you jam that fork deeper and deeper into that damn toaster . . .
Then one day, like before, you kiss your lady and head off to work.
You do your day and handle your grind.
Five o’clock rolls around. And you head home . . .
Only to find your draws in a tree, the neighbor’s dog chewing your slippers, and your Jordans hanging from that same damn telephone wire, only this time they’re bleached and on fire. At that point, to let the world know that you’ve learned a valuable lesson I suggest you grab your phone, snap a nice picture of those damn majestic flaming Jordans—make sure it’s not backlit and shit—and post it on Instagram with the caption #YouCantPauseToast.
CHAMPAGNE-FILLED CROISSANTS
Now, I’m not trying to tell you to go out there, buy a bottle of champagne, and try to pour it into a damn croissant. That shit is messy—I know, I’ve tried it. Believe me, I’ve seen champagne poured into some crazy places, shit I’ve been around. Look, a champagne-filled croissant is a fucking figure of speech! Just like when people
say “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse,” they’re not gonna eat no damn Sea Biscuit. First of all, eating a horse is socially unacceptable, and second, that’s too much damn meat. When you hear champagne-filled croissants, it should immediately take you to a place of decadence.
I will admit that the champagne-filled croissant sounds like some French shit. I’ve been to Paris once, with Larry. I found it to be fucking amazing! It didn’t take long for me to learn a little French and start throwing some wee wee around. Now one thing about the French, they know how to have a great time. They have a certain level of class and decadence built into their culture.
Now, you don’t have to be rich to understand decadence. We’re talking bougie shit, like a Rolls-Royce made out of sorbet, some caviar cookies, or an eleven-piece pinstripe muthafuckin’ suit. Just make sure you say it right and fancy, and drop the “t.” You can’t say “hot dog” and be fancy, but saying “croissant” forces your decadent hand. Now, a champagne-filled croissant is a level of extreme decadence. If I’m living large and I’m doing something decadent, sitting on a heated toilet with my fuckin’ feet up and eating seedless grapes while an Asian lady gives me a pedicure, and if someone calls my phone, I answer it and tell them what the fuck I’m doing. I tell them I’m having a champagne-filled croissant, and that fills their head with decadence. They close their fucking eyes and they envision the fucking croissant drenched in champagne—AWWW, nice. It’s that unattainable kind of decadence, and everyone wants to do it, like opening a clam and finding an oyster inside. CF muthafuckin’ C!