HOW TO KILL A COLD IN 24 HOURS

Nobody has time to get sick and take a day off anymore, espeically in this wack-ass economy. Today I had to go to traffic court in C(ount)O(n)B(eing)B(usted) County to pay a ridiculous speeding fine, race back home before noon to finish an article by deadline, pay two bills, collect one work check and return a "favor" of sorts to someone at my old job who tried to get away with something shady. I must say that even with the small financial loss, which can always be replaced, today was a 100% success as far as a daily checklist goes. And I did it all with a severely nasty allergy cold--the kind where you sneeze violently and uncontrollably out of nowhere and for no reason, with leaking eye sockets and nostrils, red corneas and pale skin. I felt like I was the color green all damn day.

I'm something of an accidental health nut, and with the exception of beer, I really don't get down with a lot of mainstream food that tends to affect one's body. The crazy thing is that it's usually by accident. For instance, I hate cheese, with the exception of mozzarella on pizza. I'll drink a milkshake every few months, but I don't dig the taste of milk. And I'll be damned if I eat anything made of cream, from mayo to ranch to alfredo sauce. Again, this is not about health; it's all taste and preference.

Either way, I still get quickie-sick for a day when the seasons start to change, every year, like clockwork. So here's how I get rid of the bug when it bites.


WATER: The Essential Ingredient


You're supposed to drink 8 glasses every day anyway, but if you really want to shake a quickie-sick cold, you've gotta flush your system and stay hydrated. Especially if you're going to have 1 or 2...


HOT TODDYS: The Fun Part


Mix hot tea, brown liquor (preferably Courvoisier, Crown Royal or Jack Daniels), honey and lemon in a big-ass coffee mug and drank that ish. Good times!


CHINESE FOOD: Tastes Good, Seems Healthy


You've gotta avoid the fried stuff and anything creamy, because like milk, it carries bacteria through your body and prolongs the recovery process. But Hot & Sour soup is always a winner. While you're at it, you might as well get a bottle of...


SAKE: The Asian Wino's Hot Toddy


Sometimes this stuff can be a bit much to bear, but when you can't breath you can't smell the vinegar, so it loses the funky stench and just tastes like sour hot wine. Which still isn't great, but it does wonders for the chest.


ACAI JUICE: Antioxidants Are Gangsta


I've always liked the term "free radical." It seems like something that I could call myself. But these FRs are not good to keep around, so stuff like pomegranate juice, blueberries, cherries, dark chocolate, green or white tea, green veggies and other "superfoods" will wash away the ugliness that may have been hiding out in your bloodstream.


JALAPENO PEPPERS: Man Up


Eucalyptus, mint and peppers are great ways to jumpstart your nasal passages and breathing patterns. I've tried those little Vicks inhalers that look like suppositories, but the look you receive when you put one in your nostril and sniff it is enough to make you ashamed of yourself when you've done nothing wrong. I rock with the vaporizing balm, although it does kinda feel like Crisco when applying it. Let your lady do the honors; you'd do the same for her, right?


MULTI VITAMINS: For Extra Kick


You don't have to go buy a bottle of Centrum or anything, but having Vitamin C and Zinc is essential to this thing. Orange Juice is great, and Vitamin Water is aiight, but a supplement in the form of a big-ass pill works wonders. Trust your homie.


CHLOR-TRIMETON: Because Drugs Can Be Good


When allergies are kicking your pale ass around the house, you need to be practical. When you've had it with snotty tissue and brain-blowing sneezes, even the most hardcore naturalist will surrender to pharmaceuticals. I can't do Benadryl for the same reason I won't drink "lean." If I want to sleep, I'll just lay down. Benadryl works and all, but the drowsy side effect takes your entire day away and renders your alarm clock useless the next day. Claritin isn't bad, but it takes forever. Which reminds me; even when you become impatient and see no immediate results...


THINK POSITIVELY: Don't Worry; Be Happy


Maybe you can't wish yourself better, but you certainly can't expect to recover when you lay around, suffering, whining and talking about how miserable you are, even if you are. My thing is to subconsciously repeat to myself, "It's almost gone." By the time I'm tired of repeating the line or just forget to remember it, I'm usually feeing better. Some Bob Marley will also help, but no smoking, if you can help it.


This life is yours, in sickness and health. There's no use in giving up 24 hours just because of a 24-hour bug. Keep your mind and spirit healthy, listen to some good Hip-Hop and follow all of my advice. You'll be better than you've ever been by the second day, or double your money back. Oh yeah, what money?

Just take the advice, fool. You don't have to do all of the above, but make sure you drink water and pick whatever other trick you think best suits your lifestyle. Exercise can't hurt either, I guess; you can just dance like the dude below. Just get healthy, and don't say I never tried to told ya something good. Think about it: if Hip-Hop is to continue to survive we've gotta live longer and better lives.




If I missed anything or you have any tips, send 'em on.

DIG THIS: DJ A.M. & TRAVIS BARKER'S FIX YOUR FACE MIXTAPE

Been heavily distracted, but dare I say it's been for good reason and not just because my man Senator Barack Obama needs to check his nuts. New developments are forthcoming, oh my brothers and sisters. Will explain later. Stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, HERE'S A LINK to the mixtape I've been spinning for the past few days, while I was wild busy--in the superlative sense--with writing deadlines and avoiding the blogosphere. I can't lie, I was starting to feel like a lot of people were being brainwashed by "Love Lockdown" and Sarah Palin, so maybe it was time to take a week off to regenerate instead of trying to fight the tide. Word to Hurricane Ike.

On some real shite, if you're a writer, or even if you're just a person that identifies his or herself as such but can't really write at all, this mixtape is pretty dope. It's a good mood piece for when you have all types of deadlines and limited time to seek outside inspiration.

DIG THIS

I just found an article on a blog called THE AFTER PARTY titled, "Hip-HopChivalry is Dead."

Wow. A blog after my own heart. Actually, The After Party has been around since December 2005, so I'm obviously late as hell. But I'm adding them to my blogroll, so everything is now right in the world.


Check out a snippet:

Yesterday I made a comment over on VSB about how it’s not trickin’ if you have it. I initially wrote it as a joke. A few minutes later, I thought about it. I do not trip when I have to spend money. I take pause and give thanks that I can afford to spend. This doesn’t mean I’m out medium pimpin’ buying things full price…Full price is for suckers. Like I said before when I wrote it first it was a joke. I even made reference to rappers.

On my long ride home I heard the line again in a rap song. I have NEVER heard a man who can afford nice things for himself AND a mate complain about spending money. I want to focus specifically on dating. The topic on VSB was about bitter men. Men who brag about not being chivalrous. The example that was tossed around was how some men refuse to pay for dates or even refuse to plan inexpensive thoughtful dates. Someone over there mentioned six chicken wings. Not a thoughtful date.

Click that link above to read the entire post. I'm off to the Bun-B show, hoe.

LINKS FOR YOUR LIFE - LIVE FROM BEIJING (not really)

[The Underwriter does not condone racial intolerance. But this is a funny picture.]


OBAMA'S ON VACATION, and to a degree, so am I. I quit my former day job last week, and it feels great to be alive. And still, no cigarettes. I feel as far away as the continent of Asia from my old life as I knew it two weeks ago.

See, I'm focusing on getting my shite right, so I quit doing a lot of things that were bad for my everlasting soul. As a result, I've been having mad, ill dreams about trailer-loads of girls and bombastic bus trips to exotic places where Amazonian women live without any male company. Sheeit, I've had some of the best sleep in years recently.

I do wish I was in Beijing in reality. Have you been watching the Olympics? Seriously, this is the only time in life that I'm really amped to watch sports all day long. There's something about the Olympics that makes sports seem innocent again. But alas, there is still turmoil afoot in the world, and death circles above us all like a skinny black vulture. No time to waste, no time to chill...

So here are a few deadly things that have been going on recently, just to keep you abreast of things and stuff. Here's what's been going down:


LINKS FOR YOUR LIFE!!!


War Games



Russia is still bombing the shite out of Georgia. I guess "cease-fire" is either not a literal term, or something must have been lost in translation. Either way, it's still war out there, and the Olympics served as nothing more than a distraction from the assault. CLICK HERE for the story.


Michael Phelps is Him



Michael Phelps, the American swimmer and the winningest Olympian of all time, listens to Lil' Wayne's classic mixtape track "I'm Me" as he prepares for nautical warfare. He recently admitted this to the media. As you should know, this dude is breaking swimming records left and right. Wayne haters, you can now drown yourself in wolf piss, or just CLICK HERE for the story.


Ozone Magazine = Hip-Hop Coloring Book



The Ozone Awards was a coon-fest of epic proportions. My homie Jacinta was in attendance, and she came back with several reports that confirm my decision to stay home and get zooted. I remember having the opportunity to interview Julia Beverly, Ozone's publisher, once, and I just changed my mind and canceled at the last minute, on some "who cares" shit. I discovered that I wasn't impressed. She just seems out of place, and under her guidance, the awards ceremony gets worse and worse every year. Oh well, she's still banking off you idiots that read Ozone, so CLICK HERE for the full unedited story, or CLICK HERE for the clean version @ Rolling Out.


Hillary Wants Some Effing Respect



Senators Obama and Clinton have reached a "compromise" that will allow Clinton's name to be placed in nomination at the Democratic convention. That means that even though Obama won the needed amount of delegates and has more pledged superdelegates than Clinton, she doesn't have the balls to tell her supporters that protesting, yelling and voting for her at the convention will be counter-productive, not cathartic. I think she's still trying to be V.P., but she doesn't know that you can't be a beeyotch about it and expect people to sympathize. Whatever. CLICK HERE for the story.


Keep R. Kelly Away from the Chinese Gymnast Team



It is being reported that Chester is not only alive and well, he might be Chinese. Team China has at least two questionable team members for the gymnastic squad. I feel like that's weird as hell, so I'm out, but you can CLICK HERE for the story.


Going to see Pineapple Express tonight with the homies. Already copped the t-shirt, because I heard the movie was funny as hell. For now, back to the games.


UPDATE: IMAGES ADDED (8/17/08).

AIDS: BACK FROM THE DEAD

Nobody wants to talk about this, but Americans and especially minorities are still getting burnt and worse from unprotected sex. And Hip-Hop needs to step up its involvement in community health awareness before rappers have to start doing shows in quarantined city neighborhoods and free health clinics. Your favorite killer disease, AIDS, has come back from the dead to destroy your mind, body and soul.

Advocacy groups say new government estimates will show at least 35 percent more Americans are infected with the AIDS virus each year than the government has been reporting.

Government officials acknowledge they are revising the estimate, which they say is not yet complete.

But advocates are pushing for the government to release the number now. They say that the delay may be partly political, and that it's hurting prevention funding.

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS/CNN

Sorry to take away from your laughter or light-heartedness while visiting, but I just wanted to send a friendly reminder that STDs are still out chea and still very deadly and contagious. Every time I ride through Birmingham, I see a big-ass downtown billboard (that should be promoting cheeseburgers or real estate or some new movie) saying that syphillis is running rampant through the area. Which means that you literally can't fuck around out there in B'Ham, or anywhere else if you want to be safe.



[I bet Photobucket deletes this image. If so, I'll put another one up by the end of the day. Damn, I hate being censored...]


See, the logic in my mind always told me that condoms are too damn thin to be taken seriously, and they do pop every now and then. This means that even if you tried to protect yourself, there's always a chance that you might end up catching herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, HPV, Hepatitis or even HIV from a one-nighter with some fool you don't know very well. Now, I'm not saying to avoid using condoms; any protection is better than none, but not even a condom can keep you from catching crabs. Those little critters don't need to get past a condom to give you the blues. I consider myself very lucky to have never experienced the crustacean movement.

Seriously, I know it's still summer, and people are still having sensual seductions. And it won't be for another month or so that people will start settling down with a significant boo in time for autumn, which is the most romantic season of the year. But you might want to go ahead and start slowing down now, just to be ahead of the curve.

Don't say I didn't try to told you. And don't act like you're blind to the pandemic. It'll only keep getting worse.

THE BUCKET LIST

The Bucket List is a list of things that need to hurry up and die, because they're killing the human race in one way or another.

For this installment, we explore ENERGY DRINKS and the geek monsters that drink them. If you haven't noticed, energy drinks are usually guilty of some of the worst and most blatantly ridiculous product names and marketing schemes in business. If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at the list:

--------------------------------


SUM POOSIE



(What every man wants)
--------------------------------


GURU



(Is Gang Starr getting check$ from this?)
--------------------------------


GO GIRL



(Sugar-Free?!)
--------------------------------


PIMP JUICE



(Did Nelly skeet in this? Nolo.)
---------------------------------


COCAINE



(The Devil is Alive... How sad is this??)
---------------------------------

Do what you will with your own fucking health. I'm not a doctor, and I'm not trying to tell you muh-fuckas what to do with your body. But just don't be a victim of your own need for extra energy and such. Because that would make you a geek monster. And I love you too much to let you go out like a sucka.

If I gotta dead you, know it's only 'cause I love you...
Talib Kweli - "Know That"

SEOUL FOOD: WHO WANTS BEEF?

Certainly not the South Koreans.

We already know that they are shook, because your homie Kim Jong Il has those nukes on lock for the lowski, and could literally help them to blow up internationally. Since he's running the North, you could assume that his higher global positioning would give him the upper hand. It's kinda like the movie Revenge of the Sith, where the person with the higher ground cuts the other down to size. Plus, I don't think that South Korea has the muscle to go at Kim Jong like that.

If only they could be like Americans; we're so thuggy that we do it the old western way. We shoot the guy from 2 stories below, and he always does the "I just got shot" dance before falling from the rooftop onto a wagon. In our dreams, we're invincible. But I don't mean movies when I say that North Korea is the Wild, Wild East, and Will Smith is not about to risk his ass to fight a lunatic dictator with atomic bombs. Not in real life. Dude is even wilding out on the U.S., old-school style, like, "If you're feeling froggy, leap!"



"Kermit - better think before you 'ribbit'/ Don't be murdered over your song before you ad-lib it." - Fabolous


But back to the point, South Korea has a much more immediate beef to settle. The cabinet of South Korean president Lee Myung-bak OFFERED TO RESIGN today over beef. Not the kind you find in rap; the kind you find at a restaurant. Apparently, somewhere between 60 and 400k people marched in Seoul, in protest of the government deciding to resume importing American beef, which the whole country is convinced will bring Mad Cow Disease into the country.

WTF?! Am I missing something? Should we, as steak and shrimp-consuming Americans, be interested in this at all? Is our meat really tainted like that? I was actually becoming more concerned about Avian Bird Flu, which is found in chicken, until this new publicity fuckfest. The cattle industry can't blame Oprah for this one. Bad news spreads on its own, like salmonella.

Which reminds me, DON'T EAT TOMATOES, EITHER. Matter of fact, don't eat anything. Food is dead, and THERE'S NOT ENOUGH TO GO AROUND anyway.





If you're smart, you'll get like me and drink white tea, praying for the drought to end soon so these American farmers can go back to planting that good shit. And pray for the sanity of our cows. I'd be mad too if humans killed all my folks, cut them up into prime ribs and rump roasts and shipped them off to Asia, only to see that people never wanted beef in the first place. Bovines of the world, you'd better step your political power up.




Viva la Vida!!!

CREATIVITY IS DEAD

Writers are mentally fucked. It’s not a theory; it’s a given. In my case, maybe you noticed that I took something like two weeks off from blogging. Let’s just say that life caught up with me recently, and there was absolutely no room for recreation. Of course, the title stays in the South, so everything’s fine and dandy now. I’m now back on my happy, creative bender.







But that brings me to this point. Why, I ask axe myself, are people like me so damn aggy sometimes? If I may speak for creative types, and I can, we’re always upset and brooding about something, and even though some great writers that I know are always cool and congenial, I can always find multiple frustrations in their eyes. And I understand; sometimes it takes a lot to be creative; other times it’s nuuuthin’. But to all things, there is a season.

This leads me to one of today's lead stories on AOL.com, which for some dumb ass reason is still the internet homepage of your homie THE UNDERWRITER. I’m looking at the normal sensational bullshit that AOL puts in it’s news headlines, and I see a link for a story on J.K. Rowling, the billionaire Harry Potter genius. Come to find out, this chick actually CONTEMPLATED SUICIDE.

Think about that. A woman who is now one of the richest in the world was convinced that her best option, during the fuckfest of life known as her “twenties”, was to say, “Fuck it,” and self-kick the proverbial bucket. Again, think about that. There would have been no Harry Potter. There would have been no billions. There would have been no famous J.K. Rowling.





That made me curious, so I Googled the phrase, “Famous+writers suicide attempts,” and was surprised at what I found. CHECK IT OUT, if you are interested in seeing how many pioneers of creative and intellectual thought actually believed themselves to be losers. For good measure, HERE'S ONE MORE. As it turns out, the best writers tend to be bipolar, like that “journalist” dewsh-tini, Michael Jordan. That dude is fucking crazy – take my word for it. But I can say with true faith that he’s never thought about committing suicide, because the idea is supremely stupid to him. At least in my opinion; not his. Jordan thinks he’s THE BEST WRITER ALIVE. I think he sucks, but at least he’s not a quitter.

But you might be surprised to find out how many of the most celebrated authors and writers of all time were mentally fucked. Is this a pattern, you ask? Does this mean that creative people are crazy? Should you hang yourself with a tampon string tonight?

Homie, I don’t have all the answers. All I can tell you is that Michael Jordan, being the moron that he is, is no fan of euthanasia, and THE UNDERWRITER is immortal. So, unfortunately, it looks like we’re stuck with each other for life. But it is somewhat comforting to know that sick minds think alike, and great minds are mostly fucked. Reassuring, to say the least.

As THE BEST WRITER ALIVE, it takes a lot of energy to extract myself from craziness as it occurs and to stay focused on this blog. The goal is to finish the book I’m writing - this year. Other goals are there, such as going back to school, leaving Atlanta (for a looong time, if not forever), becoming debt-free and moving out of my own shadow. My sincerest apologies to those who expected more from me in the recent past, especially with all this political fuckery, tornadoes in Atlanta, bullshit rap beef and even real Hip-Hop festivals going on that I could have been speaking on. But give a black man a break, for God’s sake. The business of dead shit is never over. Everybody deserves a vacation every now and then, especially when it’s your job to deliver the death toll. I like to think of it as a cycle. I can’t be too positive or negative for too long without needing to stop and smell the dead roses.

So go somewhere and get a life, you weirdo. And thanks for being a mental patient.





I’m back!!! (as if I ever left this bitch, huh baby?)

LINKS OF DEATH

I'm in a good mood today. In honor of the total lunar eclipse tonight, here are some links for you that I found while digging through the internet graveyard, combing for lost souls and free music.


To get information about how the moon will be red tonight:
CLICK RIGHT CHEA
(shout to NPR)

To see how someone spent a day of their own life to clown Angel Lola Luv on Myspace:
CLICK RIGHT CHEA
(shout to Fresh @ Crunk & Disorderly & Necole Bitchie)

To get all the free Cam'ron & Dipset music that matters in your life:
CLICK RIGHT CHEA
(shout to the SOHH forums)

To see another reason why hell is filled with false prophets profit$ and gay black reverends:
GO'N AND CLICK RIGHT CHEA
(shout to Marv & crew @ Bossip & Livesteez)

To learn why Gov. Arnold Schwarzennegger is a black plowman and white people were "niggers" first:
CLICK RIGHT CHEA
(shout to Billy Sunday @ Dallas Penn & XXL.com)

To understand why even Jimmy Iovine thinks that the music business is dead:
CLICK RIGHT CHEA
(shout to Eskay @ Nahright)


I'm heading out of town for a day. I'll be back Friday. Please don't cry.