Mostly because when I go out alcohol is involved.
Then my phone gets drunk and I’m looking back at my pictures
like… WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

[I’m sure it’s only a coincidence* that Monica is in both of these pictures when my phone is drunk]

And then I remember: Whiskey. My phone enjoys whiskey.
Also. My subjects are uncooperative. Ahem.

[Hi, Megan!]

Luckily I have a day job.
[No you guys, this isn’t my day job either. Even though y’all be acting like it, this is just an entertaining side gig]

But THIS GUY.

[guessing prolly not a selfie]

This gentleman is Gordon Parks.
Gordon Parks purchased his first camera at the age of 25 after viewing photographs of migrant workers in a magazine.
His early fashion photographs caught the attention of Marva Louis, wife of the boxer Joe Louis, who encouraged Parks to move to a larger city. Parks and his wife relocated to Chicago in 1940.
He became interested in the low-income black neighborhoods of Chicago’s South Side. In 1941, Parks won a photography fellowship with the Farm Security Administration for his images of the inner city. Parks created some of his most enduring photographs during this fellowship, including “American Gothic, Washington, D.C.,” picturing a member of the FSA cleaning crew in front of an American flag.

After the FSA disbanded, Parks continued to take photographs for the Office of War Information and the Standard Oil Photography Project. He also became a freelance photographer for Vogue
Relocating to Harlem, Parks continued to document city images and characters while working in the fashion industry. His 1948 photographic essay on a Harlem gang leader won Parks a position as a staff photographer for LIFE magazine, the nation’s highest-circulation photographic publication.

He became the first African-American photographer for both Life and Vogue magazines.

Parks held this position at Life for 20 years, producing photographs on subjects including fashion, sports and entertainment as well as poverty and racial segregation.

[WOW. IT’S ALMOST LIKE THESE PICTURES COULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN YESTERDAY]
He was also took portraits of African-American leaders, including Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and Muhammad Ali.

[I love photos of Muhammad Ali. Really I do]

In 1969, Parks became the first African American to direct a major Hollywood movie, the film adaptation of The Learning Tree. He wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the film.
His next film, Shaft, was one of the biggest box-office hits of 1971, inspiring a genre of films known as Blaxploitation. His attempt to deviate from the Shaft series, with the 1976 Leadbelly, was unsuccessful. Following this failure, Parks continued to make films for television, but did not return to Hollywood.

He would go on to publish a number of books throughout his lifetime, including works of fiction, volumes on photographic technique, several memoirs and retrospectives as well,
including A Choice of Weapons. Which is COMPLETELY different from Weapon of Choice. Go figure.

*coincidence. As in she is probably the reason that my phone can’t even see straight.

So lemme tell y’all something. We used to live in Boston.
And one year I sprung for ridiculously expensive tickets at the Garden for a Lakers (or Celtics, I guess if you’re from BAHSTON) game.
My husband is a shit talker from a long line of shit talkers.
You guys. I was pretty sure we were gonna get jumped before the end of the game.
That the Lakers won.
BUT.
Eventually the people sitting in our section realized it was all in good fun.
Plus they respected LA fans from LA repping their home team. Whew.

ANYWAYS.
As we were wandering to the exit, we were looking at all the memorabilia on our level.
I can say a LOT of things about the Celts (but I won’t because I’m being nice for a change)
But they have HISTORY. Lots of it.

Including Bill Russell. Boston Celtic. Birthday Boy. And Kappa Man.
(Y’all. This was the fact I wanted to give y’all for their Founder’s Day, but didn’t because not only is this an awesome BHFOTD. It’s his birthmonth!)
(I coulda waited for his birthday next Friday, but I didn’t. BECAUSE I DO WHAT I WANT)

*clears throat and pushes up glasses*

Bill Russell played center for the Boston Celtics from 1956 to 1969. A five-time NBA Most Valuable Player and a twelve-time All-Star, Bill has eleven (11!)NBA championships during his thirteen-year career.
He also holds the record for the most championships won by an athlete in a North American sports league.
(This does not include the only other person who did it because 1) It’s hockey and 2) He’s white and this is not White History Month )

He was the first African American player to achieve superstar status in the NBA. He also served a three-season (1966–69) stint as player-coach for the Celtics, becoming the first African American NBA coach
For his accomplishments in the Civil Rights Movement on and off the court, Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

Russell is one of only seven players in history to win an NCAA Championship, an NBA Championship, and an Olympic Gold Medal. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
He was selected into the NBA 25th Anniversary Team in 1971 and the NBA 35th Anniversary Team in 1980, and named as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, one of only four players to receive all three honors.

In 2009, the NBA announced that the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player trophy would be named the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in honor of Russell.
The following day, during halftime of the All-Star game, Celtics captains Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen presented Russell a surprise birthday cake for his 75th birthday.(Awwwww)
Russell attended the final game of the Finals that year to present his newly christened namesake award to its winner, Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Laker.
Y’all didn’t really think I wouldn’t figure out a way to bring this back around to my home team did you?

*closes wikipedia tab*
*Being at a basketball game is less horrifying when I’m seated in a place where there is NO WAY I will run into a basketball player.
**Relatedly: A LOT OF TALL PEOPLE REALLY LOVE BASKETBALL. [screams internally]

BUT.
I and (some of) my co-workers have a terrible habit of nicknaming people at work.
And I have to say, we’re pretty good at it.

How did they get these names? WELL. LET ME TELL YOU A STORY.

SO THIS ONE TIME AT BAND CAMP WORK…
This Jackass at work called himself reprimanding me ‘cause some random patient couldn’t reach me on the phone
because apparently I’m just a robot who is not allowed to get up from my desk to go pee. Or fetch files. Or ANYTHING.
ANYWAYS. He tells this person that if he can’t reach me again to contact him and he’ll make sure I do my job.

And I did what any professional would do:
I went to my actual boss and told on him.
And because she’s awesome, she set up a meeting with me, him and HIS boss.
In this meeting, I let him know in no uncertain terms that he ain’t shit, and he ain’t never gon’ BE shit.
And if he has a problem with me he needs to TAKE IT UP WITH MY BOSS.
At which point he starts tap dancing and beat boxing because “pfft…uhhh…He would never PRESUME…”
Some of y’all don’t really know me, so take note. I am never here for the BS.
And I believe in clapping back in the most professional way possible. With a smile. At work.
Catch me in the street and please believe these hands are rated E for Everyone.

After that, whenever I was talking about him I called him Bojangles.
(related: I had no idea there was a video)
(also you should maybe not click that if you’re still at work)

He DEFINITELY was not as awesome as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. (TA-DAAAAA!!)
Bill Robinson was the best known and most highly paid African American entertainer in the first half of the twentieth century.
His long career mirrored changes in American entertainment tastes and technology, starting in the age of minstrel shows, moving to vaudeville, Broadway, the recording industry, Hollywood radio, and television.
He is best known today for his dancing with Shirley Temple in a series of films during the 1930s, and for starring in the musical Stormy Weather (1943), loosely based on Robinson’s own life, and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Robinson used his popularity to challenge and overcome numerous racial barriers, including:

• one of the first minstrel and vaudeville performers to appear without the use of blackface makeup
• one of the earliest African American performers to go solo, overcoming vaudeville’s two colored rule (One black is not enough. Three blacks is TOO GD MANY)
• a headliner in the first African-American Broadway show, Blackbirds of 1928
• the first African American to appear in a Hollywood film in an interracial dance team (with Temple in The Little Colonel)
• the first African American to headline a mixed-race Broadway production

During his lifetime and afterwards, Robinson also came under heavy criticism for his participation in and tacit acceptance of racial stereotypes of the era, with critics calling him an Uncle Tom figure. Robinson resented such criticism, and his biographers suggested that critics were at best incomplete in making such a characterization, especially given that Hollywood has a history (and a present) of only offering African Americans VERY SPECIFIC types of roles (I mean…how do you think they keep the #OscarsSoWhite?)

Also. In his public life Robinson led efforts to:
• persuade the Dallas police department to hire its first African American policemen
• lobby President Roosevelt during World War II for more equitable treatment of African American soldiers
• stage the first integrated public event in Miami, a fundraiser which was attended by both black and white city residents

Robinson is remembered for the support he gave to fellow performers, including Fred Astaire, Lena Horne, Jesse Owens, and the Nicholas brothers.
Any tap dancer worth his tap shoes credits Bill “Bojangles” Robinson as an influence.
AND! In 1989, the U.S. Congress designated May 25, Robinson’s birthday, as National Tap Dance Day.

Which is completely different that my ex-coworker Bojangles.
Who ended up getting fired for biting another co-worker on the job.
Until tomorrow!