kRIS Krankle
founder of M.I.L.D.E.W.
Men with Intimacy and Learning Disorders Experiencing Women
An interesting discussion transpired at our most recent MILDEW meeting about Will Smith and his behavior at the Oscars – one of our regulars, Rico, started the ball rolling by saying “That was a girl slap.” Rico owns an Italian meat store near our house and always gives us a discount so I listen to whatever he says.
“It was absolutely no balls the way I see it,” Rico claimed. “I mean if that’s my wife, you all know my wife Anastasia – need I say more? – and she looks over at me and gives me the stink eye, you know where she’s lookin’ at me like do I want to ever eat dinner again, I’m going up there and take the guy out, that’s what I’d do. The dude was a wimp with that slap.”
First of all, I’m pretty sure nobody in group watched the actual academy awards, unless maybe ESPN was blacked out. I assume some of them probably saw news clips or listened to conversation at lunch. Yet all of them seemed to know what happened and were determined to have an opinion, which I have to say is unusual for our group.
“I’d go further. I’d cut off his particulars.” This was Alan talking in Alan code that at five foot one and a half since he was eleven, he was a fierce warrior and he’d cut off Chris Rock’s balls. Alan was famous in group for standing up for the woman he loved even though he’s never dated.
That is when JuJu who’s been in the group for two years asked Alan, “What you gonna do with those balls? I mean, if you ever go crazy, and most of us think you already crazy Alan, you got a pair of balls, they hot, and now what you gonna do with ‘em? Believe me, I could sell ‘em in two seconds.” JuJu is an aspiring entrepreneur.
One of the quieter voices in the group, Barney, had this to say – “I don’t know … security asked Will Smith to leave after the incident, and he didn’t. What does he think, that’s he’s Putin or something?” That’s as close as we came to talking about Ukraine. Discuss the slap or Ukraine, only in America.
Everyone that night seemed to have a strong opinion. Me? What do I think? I mean Will Smith knows that Chris Rock is a comedian, right? This wasn’t malicious gossip or anything, more a comedian flirting with the edge. Isn’t that what they do? And speaking of doing something, Jaden Smith twitted “That’s the way we do it.” I’m not sure, but that doesn’t seem to come under the category of great parenting.
There were thirteen of us Wednesday night, and I’d say all in all, although there were comments about how much crapola black women have put up with, most of us leaned towards the comedian’s questionable taste and Will Smith’s undeniable guilt. There was also a point of view that no one had seemed to consider … of course, it had to be Lorenzo.
Lorenzo is gay who’s been coming to MILDEW for two months now. He’s from Waco, Texas, and to be honest I’ve always been afraid of people from Waco, Texas … for one, when I was a kid, my family loved to pronounce it Wacko, as if we were lucky not to be living there. And secondly, well, Texas appears to be a few marbles short in the human rights department.
So at the end of the group, after our therapist made each of us define the word masculinity, Lorenzo tells us before we got up to leave, “The way I see it, you have the wrong villain my friends. In my book, Chris Rock is a mere player, a minstrel perhaps, a clown, a clown in a Shakespearean drama.
“And Will Smith plays the role of the classic dupe, the husband trying to prove himself even though it’s too late. His wife already had ‘an entanglement’ as she called it with one of her son’s friends. The man has been reduced in size for a long time now. The way I see it, it was the diva who pulled the strings in this drama.”
Arnie yelled out, I love Arnie, “What the fu*k does that all mean, Lorenzo?” Lorenzo stood up and started to put on his coat.
“It means, Arnie, that the man we saw stalk the stage was simply a weak man trying to prove himself. I have a friend in Hollywood, a producer who has stories about a lot of people, especially the divas, like Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez. Apparently, Kardashian is very professional and easy to work with, Lopez walks around with a stick up her ass, but Pinkett-Smith is downright scary – cold, calculating, obsessively ambitious, and chronically dismissive.”
Lorenzo summed it up this way – “What he did, Will Smith, what he did was wrong. More than wrong, so much was wrong – not leaving when asked to leave, taking the spotlight away from so many, using his acceptance speech to try to exonerate himself, all of it. It was Trumpian.
“But whatever your opinion, my fellow Mildew men, consider that Mr. Smith is already serving his sentence. Just pause and be glad you don’t live on Planet Jada.” Lorenzo buttoned up his coat and ended with his signature smile and “Meow.”
Lorenzo may be right, but I’m a simple man and I do best with simple answers. Did Will Smith hit Chris Rock or did Jada? Would this all be a different story if Jada got up and slapped the comedian? All I know is this – it’s Hollywood, so who knows what really goes on, what’s real, what’s fake? I’m so glad I can just go home and shut the door – kRIS