humanity

jiro dreams of mastery.

house of the rising sun

the strip club.
a den of ill repute.
it has quickly become a place I appreciate. because it's the definition of 1:1. I want to see ass. and touch ass. If i have bread, I see and touch ass. the rap is icing, not cake. I talk because I want to. its not a necessity, I don't feel obligated. the whole of the transaction can be completed in silence. so the rap is unburdened. close to pure.

it is either the pinnacle or nadir of capitalism.
a middle aged square as four white man with open toed birkenstocks can get danger close conversation from a young woman whose only concern is to earn.


as long as he's spending. supply and demand. devoid of emotional currency, it is the free market.

we above I. part 1. (i wrote this awhile ago. never published)

writing is a perishable skill.

my life changed when i realized that it is always we above I. it's has to be for any semblance of living a life, and not merely drawing breath as a means of survival.

if we take the measure of the truly great heroes of our society, and any other, we see a commonality among them.

they put the needs, not the wants, of the we that surrounded them above the needs and wants of the I that was them.

i use was because in order to fully grasp the concept, the individual that they are ceased to exist, merged completely into the we.

the greatness of malcolm x. he took on the surname of x in an attempt to relieve himself of the slave name imposed upon his forefathers by their owners. however, as his life progress, i believe the x took on a unintended meaning. the x meant that he could have been anyone of us. his struggle became our's. ours became his. intertwined until all lines we're blurred to the point that we questioned the existence of the line in the first place.

as we change from I to we, everything about us changes. our mind changes, and in turn, our mouths. vocabulary is transformed, and as vocabulary is the pre-cursor to action, our actions and behaviors follow suit.

our ego is sacrificed for we realize that there is no one without two. no individuality without a community.

i used to be smart.

and then i stopped writing. words became harder to access. phrases became puerile. i lost, in some ways, my ability to communicate to the best of my ability. i stopped noticing the world through eyes that sought to not only understand, but to interpret. i chose easy, and received nothing. now, i'm choosing hard in hopes of making it easier.

can't catch a breeze. unless you airplane them arms.

i hear this a lot.

"mike, i wish i could think like you. but i'm a realist. that's why i..."

after the why comes a lot of different things.

well, big homies all across the globe. i dig.

like a shovel.

i'm a realist too.

i realize that at any given time.

any moment.

i could die.

my pops died before people thought he should. i got to read at his funeral. 56.

my homeboy ty too. the refrain was he died before his time. his momma calls us "his gilman brothers." and cries right after. 27.

my cousin little jesse the same. killed by the police. he made "chips" out of crumbled up ramen and the flavor pack. 32.

my homeboy chris joined the club. his momma asked me

"why did you let this happen to my son?" 23.

if the desire not to die kept people alive, then my pops would meet my wife, we would still be wrapping presents for jack daniels at chris's mommas house, and i would have been first in line at ty's book signing.

then i realized that you don't live as long as you want to. or other people want you to. you live as long as time you got left. nobody but god can read that meter. and no coin can get you extra time.

the best i can do listen to the voice in my heart, and go after my dreams with all i got. notice every beautiful everything this world has to offer, even the everythings that makes my heart hurt. love gut laughs. remember when they leave, but never curse the absence. love.

till god takes me off of here.

and when i meet him, hopefully he'll smile at me as i smile at him.

accept death as apart of life.

then live.

"...you want to be king, you gotta sport the crown. And that shit is solid gold all the way through."

it's not a matter of regal right, it's a matter of responsibility. not all see, but if you do, there is no comfort of a blind eye for you. no patches, glaucoma, cataracts or gouging.

you see, now you know.

if you know, all that is left is the doing.

and this only begins the toting of the freight. heavy is heavy sayeth the weight.

shoulders will drag.

back will break.

your head will be the last thing to hang. they may suppose defeat. but they don't know what you know.

they never have, never will, and were never supposed to.

still blind, even though their heads are unbowed.

you believe in yourself more than gravity. there is no quit in you. because to quit is to die. there is nothing left for you but this.

your purpose.

no subjects. no court. no kingdom.

heavy hangs the head that wears the crown.

for my homeboys.

bad or bust. and yes mr. cocker...with a little help from my friends.

generally, when i see an attractive woman, i think about her for days after because i now i love her.

and by attractive, i'm scraping up everything from boss 7's through smooth 8's all the way to The Tops, which will take you clean to The End, which is where exactly you find the elusive 10's. and this isn't all about looks. it aint half about looks.

glamour is an easy spell. it doesn't cast well on me.

this summer for instance, it has happened 4 times. love cuatro. every time. i remember their names because i've been waiting my whole life to hear them. each one.

i remember every time, and every face, and everytime i do, it brings joy. and i used joy instead happiness, because joy is big enough to hold awe and amazmement, whereas happiness wasn't built to tote that freight.

now, i gotta have that. now that i have seen it and got it's scent, i gotta have that. cause those are feelings i could have for the rest of my life and i have won. that's the goal, cause everything stems from it. family, bread...

top down, kick up chillin, you dig? nothing makes the grind worth it than a stone cold fox. nigga will lay railroad track with toothpicks and hammers if he can get one.

my homeboys will help. and i'll help them. that's the square biz.

i'm done.