Can’t we all just leave Jessica Simpson alone? Lady Lovely Locks strutted her country stuff on a stage in Florida last weekend and the crowd went wild—with whispers. Shhhh! (Is she, could she, no way … a whole size two?) The blogosphere followed up with fat jokes a plenty. People, give the girl a break. I personally appreciate the fact that Jessica stopped starving herself and started eating a few egg whites every other day. And I’m not alone: Kim Kardashian agrees. Lil’ sis Ashlee does too. So what’s our penance for being hypercritical a-holes? Look in the mirror. That’ll do.

Speaking of food, what the hell is Bruce Springsteen thinking with this Supermarket Sweep song on his new album? It’s supposed to be an ode to the lady at the checkout counter, which is sweet and all, but sorry dude—the song belongs on clearance. And the vid on YouTube is past its expiration date. Even the dumpster divers are keeping their distance. Pee-yew!

POP QUIZ! Gerber baby x 2 + superstah mom and pop – one Billy Bob + four other rugrats = The Hottie Bunch.

It’s good to know that Amy Fisher really cleaned herself up in prison. Girlfriend is now a momma of three and a porn star to boot. Hooray! (And, for the record, if you shoot someone’s wife in the head with a semiautomatic pistol, you can’t simply refer to it as “something stupid” you did in high school. Sneaking out of your bedroom after curfew to go meet your friends at Taco Bell for a 99 cent bean burrito and then getting caught  is “something stupid” you did in high school. But I must say, that bean burrito was worth it.)

The hat with nine lives. It just won’t die! Aretha Franklin got criticized for wearing a bow-rific hat to Obama’s inauguration ceremony. But hey, the hat is here to stay. Like it or not. It keeps popping up. On Facebook. On blogs. On YouTube (see below). And the bow just gets bigger every time. Love it, love it!

 

Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Word on the street is that 21-year-old Evan Rachel Wood is getting cozy with, of all things, Mickey Rourke, who is 56 going on mummification. Boyfriend nearly drugged and drank himself to the grave years ago, but has made a “comeback” and is racking up the award nominations (and wins) for his role in The Wrestler. The man may have cleaned himself up (kinda), which is sexy and admirable in some circles, but the fact that he plays Wood’s father in the film makes this relationship borderline incestuous. Call me crazy. Or don’t.

Look y’all! Winehouse made a friend! And they’re playing strip Scrabble! And Winehouse is obviously at a loss for words, cuz, uh … hmm. She’s pathetically losing. Shouldn’t the game be over by now?

The Has-Beens rallied for the Will-Be. Ashford & Simpson, the duet that produced the catchy “Solid” (as a rock) ditty back in the ’80s revamped the song and sang it for Larry King. Their vocals were a little stale, but they got one thing right: “The future looks ha-ha-ha-hawt!” (They’re not laughing. They’re just bringing st-st-st-stuttering back, ye-ah!)

THE SUPER STAR WHO TYPES LIKE A DAMN SERIAL KILLER JUST WANTED THE HATERS OF THE WORLD TO LET HIM BE GREAT AND ACKNOWLEDGE HIS GREATNESS BY NIXING THE CRITICISM AND BUYING THE UN-PRETENTIOUS LOUIE VUITTON (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) SHOES HE HELPED DESIGN (PLUG!). PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE, HE BEGGED, JUST GIVE HIM A BREAK!!! AND DON’T BOTHER TELLING HIM HOW BADASS HE WAS WHILE PERFORMING FOR OBAMA THIS WEEK. HE LOOKED DAMN GOOD IN HIS SUIT. HE KNOWS THIS ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!! PEACE OUT AND CAPS LOCK, B*TCHES!!!!!!!!!

Aretha Franklin went hat shopping, couldn’t find what she was looking for, and ended up throwing on this old thing, which kinda-sorta upstaged her performance on Tuesday. The hat already has its own Facebook fan club with over 18,000 members. Bow-yah! Move over Barack, methinks we inaugurated more than just you on Tuesday. America, make way for a new trend…

Guess who got their very own Jonas Brothers for being the most well-behaved first daughters of all time? (No, not the Bush twins. Obviously.) While Mom and Pop were making the rounds all over every dance floor in town on Tuesday, Malia and Sasha were watching High School Musical 3 with their gal pals and then embarking on a White House scavenger hunt that culminated with . . . the Jonas bros. So much for being “well-behaved.”

Speaking of the Bush twins, they got together and wrote a sweet note to the Obama girls, detailing the ins, outs, ups, and downs that come with being part of the American royal fam. Unlike their father, who also wrote a note to his successor, the Bush girls didn’t have to use “Hooked On Phonics” to get the task akomplished. Zing!

Ah, what a week. What a glorious, jam-packed, fulfilling, exciting week. Now it’s time to sit down, pat ourselves on the backs for a democratic job well done, and catch up on some much-needed shut eye while President Obama gets to work. Or…not.

Listening to this confession about one of my former favorite dishes made me smile. Especially, since I once heard a story about the Queen of Soul making a pots of chitlins in her hotel room when on tour back in the day. But, in this day in age, many health-focused Black folks have choosen to step away from funky pork parts. Truthfully, though I haven’t had chitlins in years, Ms. Franklin’s comments made me think about my late grandma’s southern cooking.

Perhaps if I had known exactly what chitlins were (or chitterlings, as some people spell it) when I was a boy, I never would have eaten them. Though the funk that wafted through the apartment when grandma stood over the sink cleaning them should have clued me in, how was I to know that my favorite meal was cooked pig intestines?

While some families only prepared chitlins during Christmas and New Year’s Eve, grandma was not a creature of ceremony. Whenever I saw the white ten-pound buckets taking-up space in the refrigerator, I knew there would be a feast by the end of the week. Raised in Virginia, grandma knew how to “put her foot” in a pot of chitlins.

Dumping the slimy swine parts into a large pan in the sink, grandma gripped the black handle of her long-bladed knife with the skill of a butcher. Wearing a flowered apron tied around her thin waist, she managed to look lady like while doing one of the nastiest chores on the planet. Holding our noses, me and baby brother rushed to the front door and went outside to play.

Boiling the chitlins in a giant silver pot of salty water seasoned with celery, onions and vinegar, the entire flat smelled like pork heaven when we returned home hours later. “Are they ready yet?” I screamed, hanging-up my coat in the foyer closet.

“Boy, stop making all that noise and go get cleaned-up.”

After washing our face and hands, we sat at the faux-wood kitchen table, and shook crimson droplets of Red Devil hot sauce on the soul food that also included potato salad, black-eyed peas and collard greens. Devouring my grub with the quickness, I sopped-up the flavorful juice with cornbread and was ready for more. “Your eyes bigger than your stomach,” grandma laughed, as she proudly put more chitlins on the plate.

One thing about grandma, though she never ate much, she got joy from watching other folks eat.

Years later, when I was a freshman at Long Island University in Brooklyn, I hung out at the college radio station and became friends with an overweight pothead named Gary. With flowing dreadlocks and a thick accent, Gary was an on-air personality (although the station only broadcast on campus) who introduced me to the music of Lee Scratch Perry, Peter Tosh and other reggae artists.

Enviably, when you get two fat guys in a room together, the conversation soon became about food. “You like what?” Gary screamed, not wanting to believe my culinary ignorance. “Man, do you know what chitins are? It’s the pig intestine; you know, what the shit goes through.”

“Get out of here…for real?” I looked at him as though he had gone rabbit hunting on Easter morning or lit the fireplace on Christmas Eve. “You’re joking, right?”

“No joke,” Gary assured me. “It’s the part of the pig that white masters used to give to the slaves, because they didn’t want it.”

For a moment, I was mute. Pondering the deepness of this history, I reflected on its meaning before finally determining that it was too late for me to turn back; blunted on surreality, I reasoned that rejection of chitlins would be a denial of my southern heritage and family roots.

“Well, they taste good to me,” I said, much to Gary’s chagrin. Indeed, it was my intention, as my favorite southern female performer Gladys Knight once sang, “To keep on keeping on.”

Ten years after that discussion with Gary, grandma moved to Baltimore to live with my mother; a few years after that, she got stomach cancer. Scared by the fact that my grandmother wouldn’t be around for very long, I kept postponing my trip to Baltimore. Everyday I’d tell my ma, “I’ll be there tomorrow. I promise.”

Finally, tired of my triflingness, mom called me on a Thursday morning and tensely said, “When are you coming down here?”

“I don’t know ma, I got something to do today and…”

Cutting me off, she screamed, “My mother is dying, and instead of lying down, she’s standing over the sink cleaning chitlins for you.” In my mind, I clearly saw grandma’s frail frame as she held tightly to the black handled knife and carefully cleaned filth from the swine.

That same afternoon, as the Greyhound bus zoomed down Route 40 towards downtown Baltimore, I thought about my grandma’s hands and the steaming pot of chitlins simmering on the stove.

This was originally published on Michael Gonzales’ blog.