“ya'll don't know what it's like
being male, middle class and white”
--Ben Folds

I was watching the MTV Movie Awards last night and listening to the gentle hiss of my intellect slowly escaping. I could actually feel myself lowering to another demographic. I had a sudden urge to watch wrestling, play video games and eat Skittles while I wore a hat all cock-eyed.

Some guy had won an award for something (lost my short-term memory right about the time Eminem hit the stage) and referred to his boyz.

Then it hit me. I don’t have any boyz. I don’t have a posse, a crew or a gang. I’ve never been in a clique, a klatch or even a crunch.

No one is helping me keep it real. I’ve never spoken to anyone on the down low and I’ve never shared my bidness with anyone. No one has even referred to me as “Yo.” Well, not as a proper name. Usually “Yo” is followed by an expletive and a beer thrown at me.

How does one get a crew? Where are my boyz? Am I keeping it real?

I could ask my male friends, but they would laugh at me and go back to watching Tech TV or listening to obscure contemporary classical music (yes, it exists but it is being suppressed by an elitist minority of music fans who resist change). In fact, if I ever have the opportunity to win an award and I thanked “ma boyz for keepin’ it real” my friends would probably ask me who the hell I was talking about.

Then they’d make fun of me for weeks by calling me “Kool Mo G” or “G-Train.” (You can thank Mr. Downing for “G-Train.”)

But it goes further than that. What would I win an award for?

I’ll certainly never make it as a musician, actor or filmmaker. Lack of talent holds me back. But I have the passion for it (perhaps that is keeping it real? Hell, no one who says “perhaps” is even allowed to have boyz, are they?)

Maybe I can make it as a writer. I’m certainly going to try. Someday. Before I die. Even then, I doubt I’ll be writing anything that will win me awards outside of the “Duluth Women’s Club Certificate of Merit”.

Who am I kidding? I wish?

Even the reviews I envision won’t be that exciting. Maybe I could crank up the heat on my views so that I can become “the voice of the disgruntled middle class stay-at-home dad and freelancer.” Or, “a rousing new voice of anger and rage hidden beneath the seamy underside of suburbia.”

No, it won’t happen. I don’t really have rage directed at anyone. I grew up in a pretty comfortable home environment. I was never abused, never a drug addict and have never been a Don Juan. I’m not gay, republican, democrat, green, libertarian or any other “ist” or “an.” I do what I do. Don’t know what exactly that is, but I think I’m good at it. In fact, I’m good at many nebulous, non-defined things. Including that one thing I do with a fork and that whatdoyacallit trick thing with the whoozie on the whatzit.

Even if I ever do write a book, my dust jacket will probably contain the words “touching”, “heart-warming”, “goofy”, “silly” and “portly”. I swear, though, if I ever see the word “cute” associated with anything I write I will personally track down that person and show him pictures of my children until he throws up. (I don’t like violence. It musses my hair so.)

Of course, it’ll never happen. All that will become of life will be the fact that I become renowned for keeping track of my slutty neighbor, whom I suspect of being a suburban hooker.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll write that. “Divine Secrets of the Who's Your Daddy Sisterhood or Twenty Minutes in the Dark for a Small Fee.”