If you find yourself trapped in the middle of the woods without electricity, running water, or a car you would likely describe that situation as a “nightmare” or “a worse case scenario like after plane crash or something.” White people refer to it as “camping.”

When white people begin talking to you about camping they will do their best to tell you that it’s very easy and it allows them to escape the pressures and troubles of the urban lifestyle for a more natural, simplified, relaxing time. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In theory camping should be a very inexpensive activity since you are literally sleeping on the ground. But as with everything in white culture, the more simple it appears the more expensive it actually is.

Camping is a multi-day, multi-step, potentially lethal activity that will cost you a large amount of both time and money. Unless you are in some sort of position where you absolutely need the friendship of a white person, you should avoid camping at all costs.

The first stage of camping always involves a trip to an outdoor equipment store like REI (or in Canada, Mountain Equipment Co-Op). These stores are well known for their abundance of white customers and their extensive inventory of things for white people to buy and only use once. If you are ever tricked into going to one of these stores, you can make white people like you by saying things like “man, this Kayak is only $1200, if I use it 35 times I’ve already saved money over renting.” Note: do not actually buy the kayak.

Next, white people will then take this new equipment and load it into an SUV or Subaru Outback with a Thule or Yakima Roof Rack. Then they will drive for an extended period of time to a national park or campsite where they will pay an entrance fee and begin their journey. It is worth noting that white people are unaware of the irony of using a gas burning car to bring them closer to nature and it is not recommended that you point this out. It will ruin their weekend.

Once in the camp area, white people will walk around for a while, set up a tent, have a horrible night of sleep, walk around some more. Then get in the car and go home. This, of course, is a best case scenario. Worst case scenarios include: getting lost, poisoned, killed by an animal, and encountering an RV. Of these outcomes, the latter is seen by white people as the worst since it involves an encounter with the wrong kind of white people.

Conversely, any camping trip that ends in death at the hands of nature or requires the use of valuable government resources for a rescue is seen as relatively positive in white culture. This is because both situations might eventually lead to a book deal or documentary film about the experience.

Ultimately the best way to escape a camping trip with white people is to say that you have allergies. Since white people and their children are allergic to almost everything, they will understand and ask no further questions. You should not say something like “looking at history, the instances of my people encountering white people in the woods have not worked out very well for us.”

Note: this works for all races!

     This is a work in progress

Movies and Plays: 1= Awful, 10= Best show ever, ever

Plays:  

August Osage County: 7-8

The Cripple of Inishmaan: 8-9

Our Town: 8

Distracted: 4

Tin Pan Alley Rag: 4

Next to Normal: 7-8

Hamlet: 9

Groundswell: 9-10

Let Me Down Easy: 6-7

The Tempest: 6

Devil Boys From Beyond: 8

Little Mermaid: 3

Mary Poppins: 8

The Understudy: 8

Movies

 Avatar: 9-10

This is a James Cameron movie, so the plot is thin, and the expectations for story are not that high.  The plot is thin, and the end is predictable, but the story has heart none the less. It is actually better written than anything he has tasked before, so I give him props for this.  Avatar is an action flick, so my expectations for real quality can only be so much, this is perhaps why I loved it so much.  Avatar absolutely blew me away.  It is GORGEOUS!  I have never seen such a beautiful film, imagery wise.  Simply phenominal.  Unbelievable.  The entire film was digitally created, everything, every flower, every tree, every rock, every waterfall, and every blue humanoid creature;  none of it looked unreal.  3 hours long and entertaining as hell.

Up: 9

Twilight - New Moon: 6

Transformers  - Revenge of the Fallen:  6

District 9: 8

The Informant: 5

An Education: 8

9: 6 

Gorgeous animation. The end.  Not special, not at all.  Voice characters are good.  blah blah blah.  WAY too much hype over this one.  Imagery is lovely.  

I just copy and pasted this from one of my Facebook notes.  I like the questions and my answers, so if any one bothers to read it they will learn quite a lot about me.  

1) What author do you own the most books by? I own many versions of the same book, The Lord of the Rings. I also have all of the books in a series, The Chronicles of Narnia. The winners are I suppose, John McPhee and James Baldwin with four individual books each.

2) What book do you own the most copies of? The Lord of the Rings

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? No. It's a style, too. However, I noticed it.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with? Phineas from A Separate Peace

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)? The Lord of the Rings, and A River Runs Through It.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old? I don't remember much from when I was ten. If I was reading Judy Blume yet, I would say Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. The Story of Ferdinand, about the bull that didn't want to fight, just sit and look at the pretty hats the ladies wear and smell their flowers. The gay bull, I always loved that story. 

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year? Well, I don't finish books I don't like. A Confederacy of Dunces was not a favorite, but I can't recall if it was this year. Atonement comes to mind, but I didn't hate it. The movie was much worse. Oh I know, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolfe. Yuck! I had a hell of a time trying to read that diatribe.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year? Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. He is rapidly becoming my favorite author

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be? The Lord of the Rings, despite the popularity of the movies, and Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature? I have no idea.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie? Pompeii and Where the Wild Things Are

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie? Watchmen. I know they already made it, and I already saw it. It took three hours out of my life, I will never get back. 

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.


14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult? Aside from all of the "Survival Guides" I don't really know, I feel like I have been an adult for a long time, but I have only started reading as an adult. My standards are pretty low, so I think I am going to keep this to myself. Pulp fiction wise, I suppose The Firm.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read? The Silmarillion.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen? King Lear. Startling isn't it? Not very obscure

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians? French, the names aren't so damn long.

18) Roth or Updike? Updike because I've never read Roth.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? Eggers, because I have never read him, and Sedaris is a comedian who writes his monologues down.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? Shakespeare on stage, Milton on the page!

21) Austen or Eliot? Austen. If that's referring to George Eliot. T.S. Eliot, if not. Right now, I would like to thank Doug Korb, for supplying a few answers for me.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading? The gaps are wide and unnavigable, give me time, I am a relatively new reader. Poetry is a serious chasm.

23) What are your favorite novels? Drakula, A River Runs Through It, and The Lord of the Rings.

24) Play? Eqqus is an old time favorite, but I also like Hamlet. This year, The Cripple of Inishmaan is very good. Go see it while you still can. August Osage County is a good show. 

25) Poem? Anything that begins with, "there once was a boy from Nantucket..." Also, I really love Walt Whitman's Oh Captain, My Captain.

26) Essay? 

27) Short story? James Thurber and F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some greats. Secret Life of Walter Mitty, really stands out.

28) Work of nonfiction? Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond and of course, Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee. 

29) Who is your favorite writer? presently James Baldwin 

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today? Bill Bryson

31) What is your desert island book? I think on a desert island I would want some visual stimulation so a solid graphic novel would be a likely pick, however, a survival guide might be my best choice.

32) And... what are you reading right now? The Brothers Karamazov 

I think a few books need honorary mentions:
Camus' The Stranger, and The Plague
Giovanni's Room, Go Tell It On The Mountain, and Another Country by James Baldwin
A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolfe
Collapse by Jared Diamond
Treasure Island
Bound for Glory by Woody Guthrie
Art of War
Memoirs of the Civil War by Walt Whitman
Anything by John Steinbeck