Tokens and New Best Friends

For all of you beautiful little bitches who have had the privilege of meeting me in person have probably made the very keen observation that, for the most part I only surround myself with people who look, think, and act exactly like myself. This isn't necessarily something that I actively tried to do, but its also not something you hear me making a fuss about either. Let's be honest, I just don't have the time to approach the world through the scope of anything but a collection of stereotypes, and considering the fact that stereotypes are usually spot-on, I feel like my attitude is not only a time saver but a real price performer to boot. Regardless, how did I arrive here? I would imagine that it has something to do with the fact that I grew up in River Forest, or that I attended private Catholic schools for almost 20 years, which essentially has made it so that my closest peers will always be an unvarying group of white kids. I'm not a hate mongering hermit, all I'm sayin' is that diversity is kinda gay. Don't blame me, blame my parents, blame the khakis; shit, blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol for all I care, its just the world I exist in.
 
Now I'm not saying that I don't have non-white friends, in fact that couldn't be further from the truth. I have like 2.3 black friends as well as an Indian friend, so suck me sideways. And if we're going to keep up the stereotyping trend we might as well label them as the tokens. If you don't know what a token is you're probably either Amish or you've spent the last 12 years living in a fucking cave, either way I'm not sure how you came across my blog, but I'm glad you're here. Don't ask me where the term token came from. Do I look like Mr. Webster to you? Google that shit for yourself. My best guess is that the name has something to do with skee-ball or arcade games, but that's just a shot in the dark. Either way, since we don't have any etymology for the term token, I'll just give you Hollywood's definition. Behold, scenes from the Oscar nominated film Not Another Teen Movie...


And...

As you can probably tell, the recipe of my life only calls for one ethnic friend at a time. You may be asking yourself, "How can you justify only having one non-white friend at a time?''. The simple answer is that places like the Taste of Chicago and the NBA All-Star Game tend to make me uncomfortable, but in order to appear tolerant I will give you the cut and dry non-xenophobic answer; token friends are inherently solo in nature, and to bring another one into the mix would be doing them the injustice of stripping them of their title. In reality, being my token friend is a big responsibility because they need to be my one stop shop for all things that I have generalized about their culture, and by that I mean basketball, rap, and potential subliminal messages in Cosby Show re-runs. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

This had me thinking, could I ever be a token? I know for a fact I can fulfill a stereotype, after all, when I'm getting dressed in the morning I try and ask myself what outfit would make people think I fell out of a Kennedy family Christmas Card. I have no problem being a walking billboard for white people because deep down I know that khaki's look great on me and that Hall & Oates are a fucking dynamite duo, but being a token means more than being just a white poster boy. The real question is...to whom can I be the token? And it just so happens that I think about this opportunity all the time. By now it should be pretty evident that even though I'm a textbook definition of a white person, my life would be exponentially better in my opinion, if I could just hang out with R. Kelly. Allow me to explain...

Even though I grew up in Polos and saddle shoes, at a very early age I developed an affinity for everything Hip Hop related. I believe can be directly attributed to the jockeys over at 107.5 WGCI and the amount of R. Kelly they were playing during my formative years. Regardless, R. Kelly has fascinated me from the first time I heard "Bump & Grind". I appreciate him for his musical talents, but I adore him for his relentless quest to find a middle ground between the harmonious and the down right stupid. Dos Equis can have "The Most Interesting Man in the World", because SBB has R. Kelly, "The Most Ridiculous Man in the World".

"I don't always have sex with 17 year old girls, but when I do, I take a whiz in their fuckin' hair"

If I'm going to be anyone's token white guy, I'm going to be R. Kelly's resident cracker. I just know that every waking day would hold the promise of something spectacular yet undeniably stupid. He could be looking me straight in the eyes and sing about how he's going to make mouth babies with my sweet old Grandma, and as long as he has a microphone in his hands the only thing I'll be able to say is "Damn R. Kelly can sing". That's why I think me and Mr. Kelly would get along like 2 peas in a pod; I wouldn't just judge him for his faults, but just do my best to bring out every ounce of his diamond encrusted and incredibly melodic inner retard. Something tells me that as his token white guy I would be able to regularly bear witness to spectacles of ridiculous proportions. To think what it must be like to show up at a club with R. Kelly; I can only imagine that its pretty similar to being one of the golden ticket holders and walking in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, but Mr. Wonka is wearing an enormous white mink coat and telling his harem of girls to suck his hairy gumdrops.

I may just start out as the token white guy to him, but I honestly see a wonderful friendship blossoming from our ordeal. At first I may just be answering questions from him and his friends such as "Yo how you work this mutha fuckin' internet?", or "Ay Joe, what the fuck is tennis?". After a few months of being his white people encyclopedia I will have built enough rapport with to go out and clown at clubs with him and essentially become part of his inner circle. I wouldn't just be there to answer questions about the Anglo-American people, but I believe they would probably parade me around town and make me do white guy things, like dance funny amongst black people (2:18 into the video) or eat panini's. I will retain most of my white guy moxie, but Kells will look at me as I'm pouring champagne all over some woman's tits and he'll say "Damn Joe, we're like brothers from a different mother, like Mel Gibson and Danny Glover". Then I'd turn to him and say "Ni@@a Please!". He'd hesitate for just a second then burst out into laughter, and understand that we can do things like that with each other now that I'm not just his token, but his best friend.

C'mon and braid my hair,
SBB