Today is What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker’s birthday, and to celebrate it, here’s me talking about the book. And also parenthood, the value of humor, Darius Lovehall, and existing while black in white America. And by “talking about the book” I mean “talking about the book and also reading one of my terrible,…

1. Watch a pierogi race at a Bucs game.

Crazy right?

In a now viral clip from an upcoming episode of LeBron James’ The Shop, the topic of financial obligations to family members is brought up, and a few of the men present—Meek Mill, 2 Chainz, and Jerrod Carmichael specifically—weigh in. Although it’s impossible to possess an accurate judgment of their true feelings…

The R. Kelly cry face—memed into oblivion after footage of his bizarre and explosive interview with Gayle King was first made public yesterday—seems poised to replace the Michael Jordan cry face as the go-to stock image for brutal and humiliating public defeat. If you believe in karma, seeing him in such conspicuous…

My parents and I would sometimes play this game where we brought up a thoroughly unattractive and/or vaguely problematic dare (i.e.: Driving to GetGo while butt-ass naked) and then attached increasing dollar amounts to it until you finally said yes. (“Would you drive to GetGo while butt naked for $10?” “No.” “50?”…

1. My sexuality (of course)

While at the “MBK! Rising” conference in Oakland, Calif., last week, a student asked Barack Obama how to change the narrative on how men of color are generally perceived. He answered in the Obama-branded way he usually does when he speaks to large groups of young black men—thoughtful, measured, sincere, witty, and…

I recently decided to buy a new brand of mouthwash. Not because of any breath odor deficiencies that I’m aware of, but because it said on the bottle that it also made teeth whiter and I’m grown and I already get salmon with my side salads so why not splurge for the nuclear mouthwash too?

I’m not going to cite the Homestead Grays or the history of the Hill District. Nor will I The Pittsburgh Courier, Homewood, Teenie Harris, Billy Eckstine, Phyllis Hyman, John Edgar Wideman, Little Haiti, The Crawford Grill, Mary Lou Williams, George Benson, Josh Gibson, Antoine Fuqua, Billy Porter, Latoya Ruby…

Even the qualifier most frequently used when describing the allegations against Justin Fairfax, the Virginia lieutenant governor accused of sexual assault, tells a story.

1. Shemar Moore

There is weather happening outside. During this weather happening period, HBO has been kind enough to air Ocean’s 8 literally every moment of every day, and I was fortunate enough to catch (at least) 57 of these viewings this week. Here are some thoughts.

There’s a bit in The Broke Diaries—Angela Nissel’s iconic and hilarious memoir about her time at the University of Pennsylvania—where the perpetually hungry Angie is probing her kitchen for something to eat, cheers when she finds a box of grits but discovers (sadly) that the box contains just one solitary grit. I have…

It’s too early to make a definitive determination, but I think my 3-year-old daughter has transitioned out of her Boss Baby stage. She no longer asks to watch Boss Baby when she returns home from preschool, she no longer hurls non sequitur quotes from it at me while she’s in her car seat, and she no longer corrects…

There comes a point after you’ve consumed enough movies to be consciously cognizant of the rhythms and cadences of them that you’re able to recognize certain cinematic tells and predict outcomes based on them. A character randomly coughs in the first 15 minutes? He has cancer—or, if it’s a Tyler Perry movie, AIDS—and…

Spoiled milk-filled boat shoe repurposed as a moat for mice with sentience Tucker Carlson is a person who exists in the world and is paid money to say things on TV. He is, also, a racist. Which is less an accusation or an insult and more just an articulation of a relatively mundane observation. He’s racist the same…

Eh, nevermind.

Although black people wanting to get away with the things that white people seem to be able to do will always leave a bitter taste, I’d get it if the black people who do/did this sort of thing were a tad more ambitious. I’d be inclined to grant their whataboutisms more sympathy if they made their requests a little…

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the organization that produces the annual Global Livability Index, Pittsburgh is America’s second most livable city. (Honolulu is first.)