I’m moving my crap; no, not the stuff where I lay my head down at night but the bits and pieces of me all over the internet. Every time you register for a site, download a program or receive a “Get to know you” email, there’s a litany of questions that are asked of you. With hopes of pulling you in, there are often links where you can tell people all about your likes and dislikes, as if you were this months Centerfold for a (gentle)men’s magazine. I used to fold like a blanket and give up the info, thinking how convenient it would be that people who know me could get to know more things about me no matter where they stumble across my mug. How wonderful….How full of horse hockey.

Now obviously I’ve caved to all that is [Facebook], but that’s it, I am done [really this time]. Slowly but surely, I will be shutting down or limiting all other information about myself anywhere else. Where possible, I’ll just drop a link on any page that I have to or should keep which points here. Then those who know me, want to know me or trip over me, can get all of their questions answered and my life can get a little more organized.

So for the sites that have recently been linked, here are the answers to your questions.

Are you in the Entertainment Industry: No

How many times do you go to the movies in a theater in a month: Used to be once or twice. Latelty..nada

How many DVDs/VHS tapes do you purchase in a month: Um…Torrent has me. It’s like the Matrix.

How many DVDs/VHS tapes do you rent in a month: Zippy (Cox On Demand ftw)

How many children are in your household: None, but if you want to hook a brother up…

Favorite drinks: Vodka Martini, Red Red Wine or Samuel Adams

Favorite Restaurants: Ruth’s Chris, Morton’s

Local Hangouts: Sweetwater Tavern, Ned Devine’s, Bonefish

Requested User Name: If available, it’s always Cyberjazz

Browser used: Google Chrome, Internet Explorer

Preferred way to pay: American Express (Membership has its privileges)

So for IMDB, Lavalife, BlackPlanet, Evite and the rest, if you want the other answers you’ll have to register for [Facebook]. Make sure you sign up through me so I’ll know how important all of my miscellaneous information is to you. If you’re lucky, I’ll even hook you with an “I’m a fan of” link.

So it’s been almost two weeks and most people have come down from their high or suicide watch over the President Elect. The sad thing is that we awaken in a country whose people (yes, I’m pointing at all of you out there) who are still caught up with what other people do in their bedrooms.

Most people are aware that Prop 8 in California passed which means that two people who are willing to swear eternal love for each other can get married…as long as they are not the same sex. To me this is just as egregious and horrible as the people who had/have issues with interracial marriages. Most people don’t even realize that the premise that is keeping same-sex marriages from being recognized is the same that keeps any person who is different than they are from this institution. Even sadder is a country who improved its standing by overturning prohibitions to equal rights in the 60′s, seems to be full of people who are willing to go backwards in removing equal rights in the 21st Century. Moreover the foundation for every argument against such rights is flawed.

Marriage and the union created by it has four points of argument and justification since it is a social, religious, spiritual, or legal union of individuals.

The elephant in the room in the anti-gay marriage argument is religion. So many religions claim ownership to marriage but it amazing how the definition changes between them. From polygamy to polyamory, what is accepted on a religious basis is vast. But herein lies the rub; your religious beliefs are not a legal argument. That is why we separate church and state.

Many people who argue against same-sex marriage contend the destruction of the family unit from a social perspective….horse hockey. All real research has shown that the familiy unit thrives or fails based on the actions of the parents and not their sexual orientation. Moreover, there is no known bad social impact on having people that are gay be in a legally binding state like heterosexuals. In fact I can argue the opposite based on actuarial tables. The research in this realm is so overwhelming that most major insurance companies will provide marriage/couples benefits regardless of sex or even generation. So not only is it not bad socially, it actually has a positive effect.

The spiritual justification is the hardest to deal with because a belief is a belief and when that belief is based on things that can’t be seen, arguments tend to run in circles. Even though someone spirituality may lead them to support the concept of same-sex only marriage, it again does not hold the mustard of a legal argument. It only explains why a proposition like Prop-8 could be passed at the percentage it was. Bringing ones spiritual bigotry into City Hall is asinine.

Lastly we come to the legal arguments. Thankfully, there are none. I can say that first because I’m a human being and understand that oppressing another human being over a right that I have better have a greater justification that how one chooses to bump ugly’s. Second, I can say that so simply because on June 12, 1967 the Supreme Court handed down Loving v. Virginia which ended the ban on interracial marriage. This decision rightly explained that the ban on these relationships for racial reasons was “held to violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.” If it wasn’t constitutional in 1967, it’s still not in 2008. Hopefully the army of lawyers working on this case can run the prop-8 outcome up the ladder to the Supreme Court with the haste of Usain Bolt.

If people want to deny a right of someone else in this country to an activity that has a 50% failure rate, they should deny most professional athletes from swinging at baseballs. Picking up a book and understanding that your emotional competence around issues like same-sex marriage is exactly why we have a republic based on laws instead of a pure majority rules democracy.

This is not about the commonality of race. And for the record, I have been as critical as anyone of Bonds. I didn’t want to see him break Hank Aaron’s record, because he’s not as dignified as Aaron was and Bonds didn’t respect his natural ability the same way Aaron respected his. But that doesn’t mean Bonds belongs in prison.

The only way to see the indictment of Bonds is as a gross, terrible injustice, a startling abuse of power and a waste of taxpayer money.

The “race card” is somewhere in my back pocket, but I’ll play that later on. For now, let’s focus on something even bigger than race — the unbelievably deep hypocrisy that has fueled the federal government’s pursuit of Bonds for four years.

The decision to indict Bonds on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, a charge I still don’t understand, considering the government didn’t need Bonds to topple BALCO, isn’t right, fair or just.

The feds have made Bonds into Al Capone, when he’s more like Pookie than Nino Brown. They’re blaming the crackhead instead of the drug dealer, the prostitute instead of the pimp, the wayward child instead of the enabling parent.

Cast aside whether Bonds signed enough autographs, the irrelevant tales about what a jerk he’s been to the media, his mistress, the rocky divorce and our general addiction to seeing towering stars fall, then digest this: Barry Bonds, who didn’t create BALCO, who didn’t distribute the performance-enhancing drugs that came out of BALCO, who was nothing more than a client of BALCO, is facing stiffer punishment and castigation than Victor Conte, the man who masterminded the entire operation.

Bonds, who wasn’t the first baseball player to take performance-enhancing drugs unknowingly or otherwise, who played in a league that, for a time, subtly encouraged Performance Enhancing Drug use, who played against players taking the same drugs as him, who isn’t even the first player to lie to the government about taking performance-enhancing drugs (see: Rafael Palmeiro), is facing prison time and will be anointed the primary culprit of an era he didn’t create.

And the universe was definitely trying to send us a message, because as the Bonds indictment continued to ripple, MLB commissioner Bud Selig announced that Major League Baseball’s revenue climbed to $6 billion this year, the highest amount in history. How much of that came from Bonds’ bat? How much of that came because of an orchestrated ignorance of steroids?

How rich of the White House to briefly ignore issues like the war in Iraq, escalating violence in this country, and poor health care to express its disappointment in Bonds. President Bush’s interest in this matter is intriguing, considering when he owned part of the Texas Rangers, he employed some of the biggest juicers in the game, Palmeiro, Jose Canseco, and a handful of others who were suspect.

The government has spent some $6 million to catch a baseball player who mostly committed a crime against himself and his legacy. They have sought Bonds for four years, a pursuit that would have been reasonable if he were a violent criminal. For what? Because they didn’t like that Bonds didn’t cower in fear while testifying during the BALCO trial? Because he’s spoiled, rich and arrogant, and they wanted to knock him down a peg or two?

Should Bonds have fessed up to whatever he did? Certainly. But $6 million seems like a hefty price to pay to crush a ballplayer’s ego and inflate a government branch’s.

I certainly don’t support lying to the government, if that’s what Bonds did. But I’m not about to pretend that Bonds’ alleged lie is the equivalent of handing over sensitive government documents to Osama bin Laden.

Step back…..SMACK. Time to play the race card. Bonds’ blackness is not the sole reason Bonds is in this mess. But it is a factor in why the fairness seems so skewed, why the vitriol seems so severe, why the pursuit was so unrelenting.

Bonds’ most egregious error is that he is not content to play the role of the grateful black man. Black athletes, particularly males, who express the kind of arrogance Bonds does are often villified more than white athletes who do the same. Brett Favre pleaded to be surrounded by talent for years, yet when Randy Moss expressed similar frustration in Oakland he was called selfish and whiny and told to shut up. Gary Sheffield, while not the most eloquent speaker, alerted us to the obvious, that MLB has a certain amount of economic control over Latino players because it plucks them from their home countries so they won’t have to pay hefty signing bonuses in the draft. Sheffield was roasted for this, but it was perfectly fine for Larry Bird to say the NBA needs more white superstars. Black athletes who refuse to kowtow get it worse, and from that perspective the race card is appropriately applicable.

For weeks, we’ve gotten reports of various baseball players purchasing human growth hormone, for obviously circumspect reasons and from obviously suspect people. Why isn’t the government knocking at the door of Rick Ankiel, forcing him to testify against his supplier? Why didn’t the government pursue the past that Mark McGwire wasn’t eager to talk about? Why does MLB seem to have only a passive interest in Paul Byrd?

What-about-them arguments are normally despicable, but to ignore that Bonds was part of an ensemble cast is foolish and lacks perspective.

Of course, no matter how this situation concludes, despite the hypocrisy and racial undertones in this case, the overall moral lesson here is integrity should be used in conjunction with talent.

If it’s true Bonds could have avoided this, had he not been jealous of Sammy Sosa and McGwire, players whose talent was never in the same stratosphere as Bonds’, then that’s the real crime. Had Bonds simply stayed the course and remained the player he was prior to the steroid era, he would have received the credit that made him seek out performance-enhancing drugs in the first place.

He’ll have to live with that forever. And that, to me, is justice.

God gave us all two eyes, two ears, two shoulders and one mouth so we can look, listen and comfort twice as much as we talk.

Here’s hoping you gets a little extra something for the holidays.

Love doesn’t last forever

If I was to tell you I knew a woman who was 42 years old and just got engaged to be married what would you say? Chances are you’d ask the typical question, “Is it her first marriage?” In a society where most marriages end in divorce it’s a reasonable question. People tend to ignore the real question you’re asking. Is this her first, second, or possibly third time she’s committing to, “love, honor, and cherish till death do us part?” The fool hardy concept that true love lasts forever forces people to belittle past relationships. “Well I must not have really loved him/her because things ended after only a year or two.” Before you jump to that conclusion, think about how much you might have loved whole milk when you where a kid. Now it’s too thick and sweet and won’t cross your lips unless it’s frothed in a Venti Mocha Frap. The truth is even love, like that milk, has an expiration date.

It takes more than love to change a person

He’s not going to put the bottle down or stop being cautious just because he loves you. She’s not going to give up her career or stop flirting with guys just because you love her. Love can’t substitute for the desire for a child, take the place of a life long dream or even get someone to believe in you. People have many desires, wants, and needs that are independent of love. Love simply isn’t enough.

Love does not conquer all

Right now a woman is in the hospital telling the police she won’t press charges against her husband or boyfriend for beating her. She won’t press charges because she thinks he loves her. People pretend she’s crazy, that he couldn’t possibly love her and do such horrible things. The truth no one wants to hear is she’s right, he does love her, but that doesn’t mean that he’s showing love or that she shouldn’t leave. She may be in love, but again love is not enough.

Contrary to what you may think after reading this, I believe in love. I was probably one of the few guys in high school who knew what girls were talking about when they said things like “I love him, but I don’t love him love him.” I’ve even carried the label of hopeful (or hopeless) romantic for years. I have truly been in love and appreciated every woman who sincerely loved me and maybe even a few who didn’t. But that did not prevent my relationships from ending and it won’t keep me from hoping. The knowledge of love’s limits do allow me to go on without holding on to every unhealthy relationship and still let me look toward the lights at the end of the tunnel…even if it turns out to be a train coming straight at me. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

The most surprising moments are the ones from children. Their verbal filters tend to be non-existent or non-functioning and the gems they lay on you carry weight often unrivaled by their adult counterparts. Your ears and heart know it can’t be a ruse because the child normally has nothing to gain from the rawness of the statement.

As midnight past the international dateline on my birthday, I was a recipient of such heartfelt statements that it changed my paradigm of who I am and my worth as a friend and influencer of the people I meet. I know that’s a heavy statement but you might be surprised how serious I am about it.

With no thoughts of herself, she reached out to me and let me know that I was important, that I was loved and that although I’ll probably never see her, that she’d always consider me a part of her life. She even gave me a title that, though I didn’t earn, I will always hold close inside.

People speak of power when on the topic of nuclear physics, solar energy or weapons creation, but that power will always pale in comparison to human being reaching out and saying/doing what’s on their mind and more importantly their heart.

Cosby’s show said it best…kids say the darndest things.

I never thought that u would be the one
After all the things that we’ve been through
You gave your body 2 another in the name of fun
I hope you had some, if not, boo hoo

Its so sad but I hate u, like a day without sunshine
Its so bad but I hate u, ‘cause you’re all that’s ever on my mind
Honey, I hate u…now everyday will be a waste of time
‘Cause I hate u

I never thought that I could feel this way
2 fall in love was a table reserved 4 fools
Say you’re sorry if u wanna, but its all in vain
I’m out the door sweet baby, like you said, were through

Its so sad but I hate u, like a day without sunshine
Its so bad but I hate u, ‘cause you’re all that’s ever on my mind
Honey, I hate u…now everyday will be a waste of time
‘Cause I hate u

[Enter Court Room]
This court is now in session…would the defendant please rise
State your name 4 the court…never mind
You’re being charged with one 2 many counts of heartbreaking in the 1st degree
I don’t give a damn about the others, my main concern is u and me

Your honor, may I call 2 the stand my one and only witness
A girl that know damn well she didn’t have no damn business
I know what u did, how u did it and uh…who u did it with
So you might as well plead guilty, ‘cause u sure can’t plead the 5th
Now raise your right hand

Do u swear 2 tell the whole truth
Not the half truth like u used 2 so help u god
Nod your head one time if u hear me, if u don’t

I’ll have 2 use the rod

Anything 2 make u see…that you’re gonna miss me
..you’re gonna miss me

If it please the court
I’d like 2 have the defendant place her hands behind her back
So I can tie her up tight

And get into the act

The act of showing her how good it used 2 be
I want it 2 be so good…she falls back in love with me

Close your eyes

I’m gonna cover your ass with this sheet
And I want you 2 pump your hips like you used 2
And, baby, you better stay on the beat
Did u do 2 your other man, the same things that u did 2 me?
Right now I hate u so much I wanna make love…until u see

That it’s killing me, baby…2 be without u
‘Cause all I ever wanted 2 do

Was 2 be with you

I hate u…because I love u
But I cant love u…because I hate u

I love u…‘cause you’re all that’s ever on my mind
I hate u…because I love u

The question seems frustratingly problematic at first but the answer is actually quite easy. All you have to do is refer to The Hypocrite’s Guide to Voting on Mark McGwire.

You knew McGwire was taking andro in 1998′s home run chase and suspected he was taking something much stronger but nonetheless repeatedly wrote stories glorifying his deeds and crediting him with "saving baseball." You now have no additional evidence other than those same old suspicions, but you are nonetheless repeatedly writing stories condemning his actions and blaming him for ruining baseball. Therefore you clearly must not vote for McGwire, because that was then and this is now.

You constantly ridicule grandstanding politicians and bureaucratic government committees in your columns but when you saw grandstanding politicians drag McGwire before a bureaucratic government committee, you were appalled that he did not show the proper respect by fully answering their questions. You feel that he greatly damaged his reputation, effectively admitted his guilt and gave the sport a black eye by saying, "I am not here to talk about the past." You also write stories claiming that the government has no right to force reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams to testify before a grand jury, and that it will cripple the First Amendment if they so much as state their names. Therefore you must not vote for McGwire because everyone knows he should have testified when he was subpoenaed while reporters should never have to do so under the well-established legal principle of "that was him, and this is us."

You firmly believe McGwire never would have gotten anywhere close to his home run marks without cheating by taking steroids. You also nod and laugh when you hear stories about how Hall of Famers Gaylord Perry and Whitey Ford cheated their way to 314 and 236 wins, respectively, by loading up their pitches with Vaseline or scuffing the baseballs with sharpened belt buckles and wedding rings. You therefore must not vote for McGwire because cheating with steroids is evil, while cheating with doctored baseballs is nothing more than good, old-school baseball.

You have known since reading "Ball Four" that a vast number of players since at least the 1960s have been taking amphetamines. You also look at the players of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s as representative of when the game was clean and level. Therefore you must not vote for McGwire, because steroids gave him a grossly unfair advantage while amphetamines are nothing more than a harmless pick-me-up.

You have gained 78 pounds since leaving college and 11 pounds just since Thanksgiving. You are certain McGwire was on steroids (and Barry Bonds as well) because they are so much bigger now than they were as rookies. You therefore must not vote for McGwire because no one gets that big without taking steroids.

You disregard McGwire’s home run totals, because he reached them with the help of steroids in an era in which offensive stats were greatly inflated. You also hold as sacred the offensive statistics compiled by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby and others during an era when black and Latino competitors were banned from the game. You therefore must not vote for McGwire, because his numbers are suspect unlike those of the players from the clean golden age.

You feel that letting steroid users into the Hall of Fame will cheapen the institution and insult the legacy of the players already enshrined. You therefore must not vote for McGwire because you must preserve the integrity of Cooperstown for such Hall of Famers/cheapskates/bigots as Ty Cobb, Charles Comiskey and Tom Yawkey.

You constantly write that baseball must strengthen its steroid testing but you yourself are able to tell whether a player was on steroids just by looking at him in the clubhouse. Therefore you must not vote for McGwire because he obviously took steroids, and you must give Cal Ripken Jr. a pass – and everyone else for whom you will eventually vote – because, duh, obviously they did not.

Is all that clear? Good. Now fill out your ballot and we’ll get back to you with another guide when Barry Bonds comes up for a vote in six or so years.

But seriously, folks …

Before you leave comments – no, I am not saying Ripken took steroids. I don’t believe either he or Tony Gwynn took any performance enhancers and every writer with half a brain should vote for them without hesitation and eagerly await their acceptance speeches for the honor both so richly deserve. But no one ever suspected Ryan Franklin or Alex Sanchez took steroids, either. The point is, we just don’t know who did and who did not take performance enhancers, other than the players who have tested positive. To withhold votes on some players we suspect because they fit a certain profile is no more valid than arresting and convicting someone of a crime because they fit a profile or me getting pulled over for DWB. Fitting a profile is not proof of guilt, just as NOT fitting a profile is not proof of innocence. As Rumsfeld (or Gin Rummy for you Boondocks fans out there) would say, “The absense of evidence, is not the evidence of absence.”

We can and should, however, legitimately view the home run totals of the steroid era as inflated, just as we raise our eyebrows at the ERA figures from the dead-ball era. Sports statistics and especially baseball statistics should be viewed within the context of when they were achieved. If offensive numbers were high in a certain era – as they were in the early 1930s and much of the 1990s – we must take that into consideration. If offensive numbers were down in a certain era, we must take that into consideration as well. We do this all the time, not just with the steroid era.

So how will they vote on McGwire? It seems clear that his chances at being a 1st ballot Hall of Famer are about as good as my chances of moving overseas now. Having said that, they should vote for him, mostly because of the point I made in the first argument of The Hypocrite’s Guide. We (fans, media, baseball officials, that deaf, dumb, blind kid who sure plays a mean pinball) all had our suspicions regarding McGwire when he was delighting us with his performance in the mid- and late ’90s. We didn’t have a problem with those suspicions then, so why should we care so damn much now? If we had such an enormous problem with his possible steroid use, the time to express our disgust was then, not now. Remember, fans voted McGwire onto the All-Century team in 1999, giving him nearly five times as many votes at first base as Willie McCovey…and remember, they named a cove after him.

How many people have we known who needed a shoulder to lean on when the guy or girl they knew cheated on them, cheated a second (or third…or 4th) time? Often it is not that egregious; it could just be as simple as using someone’s apparent kindness against them. They are or seem passive and they can’t, wouldn’t or won’t do anything to risk destroying the relationship, even if it’s obvious that you are taking advantage of said kindness and trust.

But how far does that go; or more importantly, how far should that go? Is having a mantra like that an open the door to be shat upon more often than someone who mines bat guano? What is the limit before it makes sense to sever that relationship like a gangrenous arm? Can you or should you toss someone from your life if you feel (or if you know) you’ve been wronged?

Two sets of lyrics resonate in my head when this topic rears its ugly head.

      Shame on you, shame on you;  oh what does a boy have to do for you

                                          - Nik Kershaw

      Shame on a nigga who try to run game on a nigga;  Wu buck wild with the trigger

                                          - Wu-Tang Clan

I’m kinda nice and it’s been a while since I had to really get in a fight; and since my latest Tickle IQ test says I’m more like Bill Gates than Mike Tyson, I lean towards Kershaw on the situation. But, contrary to popular belief, I am from the hood and when I could hear the chants of “Hey grandma I’m going to the corner store…cover me,” I did learn how to beat the living shit out of someone if necessary. Just ask the boy who threw cotton in my face how that ended.

So as we near Thanksgiving, I hope that I remember more and more what the origins of the holiday mean. Not the part about raping and pillaging someone’s land and almost wiping an indigenous people off the planet; the part about extending a kindness (even when the gut says “scalp the f@#$ing shit out of them”).

But beware such kindness at the risk of repetitive emotional injury. Fool me once…Nik Kershaw; fool me twice…Wu-Tang.