It's funny, but it's not that inaccurate. Even today. How many people can tell me right now who Carl Douglas is? I bet if you ask a 10-year-old fan of Disney, he or she could tell you. He's the dude who is responsible for the song, "Kung Fu Fighting," which came out in 1974! That's 42 years ago! Carl Douglas is 74 years old! No more Kung Fu for him! Maybe some Egg Fu, but it have to be put into a blender first. Egg Fu Old!
In the song, a younger Carl sings, "Everybody was Kung Fu fighting." In the 70's, Bruce Lee was sweeping across North America and I remember watching his films in crowded theaters, faking with friends almost every day like we knew Kung Fu and could control our bodies like the great mythical masters. I remember a friend kicking another friend in the balls and with feigned Chinese guru wisdom instructing the young apprentice, "Don't feel pain!" True story.
There was this confusing television show too called, "Kung Fu" with a guy who was supposed to be Chinese, but wasn't. Why did they do that? I could tell David Carradine was whiter than rice!
This is Mr. Dressup, Casey and Finnegan. Casey, the non-canine puppet, was supposed to be a boy. But look at him! Unisex name, unisex look, and the voice was obviously done by a woman. Mr. Dressup was my favourite show for a few years, but it constantly left me as sexually frustrated as a 4-year-old could be. To add to the trauma, I found out later in life that Mr. Dressup was actually an American! From Maine! As if my world wasn't already upside down enough! Okay, I admit to sexual discrimination. But I was pretty young. As for the discrimination against the country of America? Yeah, friggin' Americans anyhow!
But back to Kung Fu. It WAS huge in the 70's, but, as was pointed out by a fellow Facebooker recently, "Surely not EVERYBODY was Kung Fu fighting!" You know, I bet there was some Tae Kwon Do and some Karate in there but, hey, they're all Chinese anyway, right? So how did old, (and I mean that in both senses), Carl Douglas get away with it back then, and how is he STILL getting away with this blatant amalgamation of the Asian races? Maybe because he's black!
And his song appeared in the movie, "Kung Fu Panda." When you think of a panda, they are about the least racially offensive creatures there are. Black, white AND Asian. But does that give Carl Douglas a pass? Not in MY book, Mister! Know your martial arts! If there was any talking going on during that famous musical fight, and the speaker's mouths matched the words that came out of them, it probably wasn't Kung Fu at all. But old, (geezer), Carl was too busy writing music to pay attention to what was being said during the fight.
Here's a kind of discrimination you don't hear much about: vegetation discrimination. Why is it that hemp is still frowned upon? It's nothing but discrimination. One of its family members is marijuana. Which isn't that bad anyway, but since it's, (inexplicably), illegal, hemp is too. Hemp. A plant that could do more than any one thing to fix this mess our world is in! Illegal by association. We can make fuel, houses, clothes, cars, paper, biodegradable plastic, almost anything out of hemp and it can grow anywhere! Gotta be some rich bigwigs keeping hemp on the lowdown!
Interestingly, did you know that hops, a plant that gives flavour to beer, is also in the same plant family as hemp and marijuana? Ah HA! Busted! But you don't see anyone outlawing beer do you? Well not since the 30's. I guess people who drink fight harder to keep that right. People who smoke weed are too relaxed. They'd probably throw two punches, cough a lot, then take a Doritos break anyway. Here's a thinker: Would any of those cats have been Kung Fu fighting if they could have legally hit a bong any time they wanted? You KNOW they wouldn't have been fast as lightning! Think about that. Think about it.
Which brings us around to age discrimination. What? It does! Race discrimination, plant discrimination, then age discrimination. You don't see that pattern? I do! Well, maybe I'm just old. And, yes, I admit to discriminating against old, (fart), Carl Douglas earlier in this post. It's easy to do! The old seem so helpless and harmless! Safe to dis! And I know that if I coloured my white hair and told every prospective employer that I am 39, not 49, I'd have an easier time getting work around here. But that's life. The old can't do stuff. Right? Well...
BAM! BLAM! WHU-BAM!!!
How 'bout that? First baby at 70! And dude at 79 still packin' heat! Atta boy! I bet the "chemist" would laugh at him if he bought condoms. "Well who's laughing now? Huh? Who's laughing now while trying to open a diaper pin with arthritic hands? Huh? In yer face, chemist! Who's son will be asking his friends, "Vut are deez grandparents you speak of?" Huh? Not so smug now are ya? Who is now the poster boy for the stereotype of the Kama Sutra, Bollywood dancing, singing and uncontrollably reproducing Indian? Oh Vishnu! Who will be 98 when his son starts university? Who will be a 98-year-old looking for work to PAY for that university? Gods damn it!"
Where is Russell Peters? He could do a solid half hour of comedy on this story! With a much better Indian accent than I can type! He's awesome at Chinese accents too, having lived in Hongcouver. Oh geez, was that discrimination? Well, largely, if not, totally, because of the Chinese, in Vancouver, you can buy a run down trailer with cardboard windows and no indoor plumbing for the lucky, joy, good, best money price of one million dowlah! So, they've earned a little discrimination there I reckon.
I love the way the article tries to avoid discrimination. "...our region's housing market is divorced from local incomes." Yeah, after years and years of allowing, nay encouraging Chinese real estate flipping all over the city, Canadians have been priced right the crap out of it! And you think foreigners in Korea are upset about Korean bars that don't allow foreigners? These real estate deals, not just in Vancouver, but all over Canada, usually don't allow Canadians to invest. IN CANADA! It's because Canadian investors will bog down the investment because they have all these taxes and rules of investment burdening them, but the Canadian government officials agreed to make it ridiculously easy to make money for the Chinese! They buy in for less, pay no tax at all, and take the money right on back to China. Then dump their spoiled brats back in Canada where the air is clean and they don't get busted for their ill-gotten gains. Somebody oughta take that egg prime minister, (white outside and yellow inside), who allowed things to get so bad and Kung Fu fight all over his ass!
This leads me in my way of patterning my posts, to a hideous kind of discrimination that I think is probably the worst. It makes me physically puke a little in my mouth when I think of how the rich are discriminating against the poor and how the poor are just bending over and saying, bring it on! Like when we go to the bank machine and pay up to 5 bucks to get OUR money and it tells us to cover our PIN so that we don't get robbed. Average people used to be able to buy houses in Vancouver, and I can still remember when average folks could go to professional sports. Or even Olympic sports. Not any more. Average folks make less and houses and sports tickets cost more. Who the hell can afford 1500 bucks to watch the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics? I'm not going to go through the hell it will be to purchase that ticket, to see a month's wages burnt up in fireworks, fairies, glitter, smiles and bad music. The men's hockey final is almost at the 1000 buck mark for one ticket. The crowd for that game will be talking more about house flipping than puck flipping. More about aggressive takeovers than aggressive penalty killing. They won't be talking about the Washington Capitals, they'll be talking about Washington Capitalists. I hope a lot of people get hit in the head by slap shots while they're checking the overnights on their cellphones that's all I'm sayin! Well come on! I'll probably be in the city, just a 10-minute walk from what could be the greatest sporting event I could ever see and I will just not be paying a grand to watch it. I will regret it for the rest of my life too. Why? Because I don't make enough money to afford the cost of the ticket, therefore, do not deserve to go. BBfffrrrbbttt! Sorry. I was sick a little again.
Oh well, as we the victims of discrimination tend to do, I guess I'll settle. I'll settle for the curling. It'll be fun! I actually love it! And I think I might like the women's curling just a bit more than the men's. Sexual discrimination? You bet! There are some full on hotties throwing rocks out there. I can't say the screaming adds to the attraction but if you try with all your might, you can make, "Hurry, hurry HAAAARD HAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRDDDDD!!!!" work for you!
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