attack of the remedial cretins.

we are suffering by lumping all women together. the good ones are suffering as a result of their numbskull brethren. i mean all women got some shit with them that is just intrinsic to women. can't take that away without also stripping them of their womanhood. Women are going to be a little manipulative, a little selfish. i can understand that. being a bit manipulative is how that woman that you never knew got you to huff that t.v. into her car, or change that tire. how she got you watch "p.s., i love you". i don't knock women for that.
no, your not going to find the woman worth her salt that's cool with you going out every weekend and not coming home, or having 17 female friends. or loves beer (even though thats changing), cause they don't love lager induced guts built for body shots.

but that doesn't mean their not good. just means:

1) they are human.
2) they are not dudes.
3) they have some sense.

but these other ones. yeah, we have to exile them. what's happening is they are ruining the definition of what a woman really is. we take all their loathsome qualities and traits and dump them into the definition, and then lie to ourselves and say it applies to all women generally. it is a transgression. now we hold women to a miserably low standard, allowing the degenerates to be no better than they are.

let me say again. there are some things that us men do not understand or like that most all women will bring to the table. can't duck that. excessive beer and the late night swine laced cheese-steak is going to make for a mess the next day. can't duck that.

but some other shit, nah champ. it aint all of them. people try to tell me that it is. shit, i hope not. maybe it's just that one sneaky tramp. or herd of sneaky trampers. maybe its just your slum broad. but i am going to tell you this:

i am tired of dumb ass women.

and it took me a long time to get to the point where i was using that benign designation for these scallywags instead the infinitely more ignorant tag i was tossing around. dumb ass women who like dumb ass shit, and do dumb ass things. how do you spend your time, you knucklehead? it can't be reading, because you never tell me of any books you read, or never put me on to anything to read. nor it eating decent food because you eat at TGI Friday's, the cheesecake factory, ruby tuesday's and any other god-awful chain restaurant like you have an endorsement deal. maybe you spend your time pursuing fashion, perusing fine catalogs filled with designer names and imported fabrics. but past bebe, all the names are pretty much foreign to you, and cotton, or polyester, as long as it's tight, short, and shows crack on your chest like you got an ass on it, you're money. maybe you travel, jaunt around the world, absorbing culture and taking in all this life has to offer. miami, vegas, cancun and black bike week must be fucking cultural hotbeds, you halfwitted numbskull.

(forreal though...who are you fooling? we know what the business is as soon as we hear the destination. sure to come back a little lighter in the soul department. )

people respect people who have worked on their bodies. gone to the gym, got in shape with a brand new build to show for it. it shows discipline and dedication. why don't people treat their minds the same way? school doesn't save you by itself. you have to work on your mind, introduce it to new ideas, try different things. read a real book, listen to real music. travel to places not normally traveled to. the things expose yourself to expand you as a person, expand the realm of things you can discuss, and broaden your interests. you become a better person. if not, how are you spending your time? malls, clubs and cancun do not have the same effect.

i can hear you now:
1) "how did you become the expert on things that are "worthy"?" "just because you don't like it, doesn't mean i can't or shouldn't."

yeah, i've heard the argument. maybe i'm not an expert, but i'm in the gym everyday trying to make this brain of mine stronger. i'm around people who do the same. and i do know the type of people who are a result of all those actions whose stupidity i alluded to above. i know that i don't want to be around these people for any extended period of time. we don't have conversations, because you don't know shit. what can you recommend to me? we can't even do something as simple as watch t.v. because the minute you get the remote, i'll be watching a non-stop stream of music videos and reality shows. thats the 2008 lobotomy.

what can i learn from you, if you aint even trying to learn?

2) "what about stupid guys? i know plenty of guys that don't read, don't know anything besides madden and bars, etc... i'm tired of stupid guys, why don't you talk about that?"

you know whose a potential mother and wife for me and my homeboys? women. you know whose not? men. so honestly, i care more about the female side. and if you want to address it, write about it.

i don't know how to talk to a woman about this without her getting pissed, or tearing her self-esteem apart. i don't mind her getting mad, but i'm not trying to down or degrade her. all i can do is to congratulate the women who are trying to get it right. trying to become better and hope you help your homegirls who are slacking like the loosest of rope.

i pray that i don't somehow have a child with one of these women, cause i've put them 10 steps behind, being into a mental prison. my pops always use to tell me "whatever you do, please marry a smart woman." now i understand why. he wasn't talking degreed-up smarts, high SAT smart. he meant a woman who was cognizant of the world around her, and asks questions about it. who tries, tries to...i don't know, who tries.

get your mind right.

you are NOT the father.

I used to be addicted to Maury. Every morning I was wake up and watch it, sometimes at the expense of being late to class. When I missed it, I would be mad for at least a hour.

Not all Maury shows are created equal, even though he doesn't change up all that much. My least favorite are the shows about the 75 lbs. 2 year olds, whose moms feed them more than I eat, and I'm a fat kid. Maybe the fact that it's just momma up there is explanation enough on why there is a toddler that eats 2 t-bones, 6 eggs and is on stage in the Bam-Bam loin cloth.

I don't like the I used to be ugly, now I'm not shows either. The women get breast implants and come dressed like strippers (or are strippers), which doesn't mean your not ugly, but just more worthy of sexual advances. Your like the perfect late night come up: down bad enough in the face to ensure that a reasonable man won't get shot down, but with enough Total Nonstop Action to justify what you just put your little man through, once the truthful sun cuts through the lying haze.

Dudes lose weight, workout, and become strippers. Which is bullshit for me because no matter what the day, an oily dude in leopard skin drawers is a sight I could go my whole life without seeing. With that dumb ass smile plastered on your face. Aint nothing to be happy about. Pops can't be proud.

But my favorite shows are the lie detector tests and the paternity tests. I could talk all day about the shit I find funny about those shows, but that is for another time and place, and for another computer that just doesn't register every 5th keystroke. All situations are not created equal however, as some situations lead only to tears, as others paths end in a heroin laced escape.

5) The woman who has brought up 3 dudes at a time to see who the dad is, for a month worth of of shows. Then they hit her like the Brady Bunch for the introduction: her picture is in the middle, the headshots of all the other dudes she brought on surrounding her. You know its bad, cause the last 5-7 dudes don't even give their real names...so she has to hear "Smoke, you are NOT the father...". Then they do the at home update, where she reports that she has given up on the search, and resigns to raising the child by herself, while the Maury audience cheers the cheer of buffoons in the background. When did just mommy become not only acceptable, but worthy of applause?

4) The man who loves his wife, been together for 5 years, has a three year old son, and she comes on the show to tell him that he might not be his, words mired in a sea of tears. It's even worse when both parents are of one race, and the kid is a octaroon riding on the back of a zebra, pops holding on to that foolish yet understandable hope that his white DNA can somehow make Tiger with no Earl. Bad, but trumped by...

3) Add two more kids, none of which are his. Pain, on this level, is unique. Many of us will never scrape this level. Those tears he shed are as real as they come. Nothing like break-up or death tears. This is like white kid, Linkin Park suburban angst, mixed with crack hands and dope arms.

2) Man, wife, married, 3 kids, youngest one is of his line, but the 2 oldest are someone else's. Enough to make you sick to your stomach when you look at her, but the one that's yours is probably enough to make you stay.

1) Your baby's pops is a carny.

Carnival folk.

The dude at the toss a ring at a milk bottle game.

What's the logistics of an at like that? Where does it go down? On the stuffed monkey I just won my niece? I worked for a prize that had carny ass on it?
Whats the motivation of smashing a carny? He's only in town for 2 weeks, tops, so it can't be the scintillating conversation. And lets face facts...you let a dude WHO WORKS AT A CARNIVAL, run in it like purple suit Eddie?


(raw?)

Yeah, thats gotta be number one. We gotta start giving a f*ck about these kids.

no more heroes.

honor, loyalty, respect. where did they go, or were they ever here? i think they were, but it was never widespread, never commonplace. you found it here, there...maybe never.

carlito brigante. the fictional anti-hero of the brian depalma classic, carlito's way. used to move heavy dope, got downed for a murder charge and hit with a football number.30 years. thanks to his lawyer, only served 5, and was back on the streets, but a changed man. no more dope. 75 large and he's off the the bahamas, straighted up, and flying right. wants to do it the right way. but.

always a but. he is who he is, and that's never going to change. for ideas that have gone the way of the high top fade, first downs and saccony's. extinct, over, through with and cashed out.

a stand up guy. i hate to use mob terms, but its the only one that fits. when everyone is kneeling, ducking, cowering, he stands. stands for what he believes in, like a tree (and i dare anyone to try and move me). Loyalty, honor, respect. When it's hardest, when it's not in your best interest to do so.

even over cash. yeah, over money.

the problem as i see it, is that people don't even check for those qualities anymore. it's no longer necessary because it's on nobody's list. you can only pick friends and the person you'll spend the rest of your life with, and if any criteria was important, i would think it would be those. those ideas that you can't really express. but you know in a situation where life's got you by the short hairs, you can look over and know. when push comes shove, and shove turns to wrestling, you look back into your corner and no ones there, because they are out there fighting with you.

i was talking to this young woman, and we were talking about a situation where this dude snitched on his homeboy. they were both doing dirt, one got caught, and gave up his man.

"shit, i don't blame him. he said they weren't that cool anyway. he's got his future to think about. i would have done the same thing."

i was speechless. not much robs me of the ability to comment. even now, trying to type a response now that accurate describes i how feel is almost impossible. what i do know is that no one truly loves a person that thinks like that. few remembers that person when they gone.

whether we know it or not, we need brigante's in our lives. we yearn for it even when we don't know it. look at the movie that won best picture this year. llewellen moss. cut from a different cloth. a man with principle. the sheriff. a man with principles. even anton chirgurrh. principles that he stuck by, no matter how warped. people are attracted to it because they need it like water, but is as scarce as beepers.

in our own lives, we talk about those people when they aren't around, thinking about them give us solace. we love them. even the people they meet in passing are forever touched and changed. their lives change in some small way because of meeting them, and for the better.

they are our heroes. make them apart of your lives if you are lucky enough to know one. spend time with them. share with them. because when they are gone, your likely not to meet another.

spend time doing what you love.

this friday, i made a run on the town. i had a plan that i formed on wednesday:

1) eat some mussels.
2) drink a good beer or 6.
3) have a scotch on the rocks.

simple plans are the best ones. all i had to do was get some people who would appreciate the plan. and lucky for me i have been blessed with friends that would not only appreciate the plan, but enjoy the spoils. come friday, it went down. it was great. man, damn.

what i like doing is spending time with the people i love, eating and drinking. thats not all i love, but i sure do loving doing all of those things, preferably together. those times i don't do those things, and do other shit like:

1) go to poetry readings. once...and that's a lie. i've been like 5 times and its all the young africans' fault.
2) go to the club.
3) go to the mall.
4) eat sushi. other than that fried soft shell crab. that is pretty good.
5) spend any amount of time around someone having level 1 conversation: the conversation you had with people when you came back to school from break, most conversation white people have with each other, or co-worker conversation.

its miserable.
it's painful.
its what's behind door number 4. and people spend so much downtime doing wack shit. i mean, maybe you like eating raw fish and hearing some dude named blacC Ra sing songing some words together. if you do, then go do it. if it's your thing, then i'm not knocking you.

(well, not alot. i'm knocking you a bit. enough to let you know i'm there, but not enough to wake you up if your sleep.)

if you don't, then why. it doesn't make you different, special or progressive. plus, even if god gives you old age, it still aint alot of time to be doing things that you really don't like to do.

(fellas, girls will jam you up heavy on some dumb shit. going to the mall for hours, eating at nasty restaurants. girl movies. sometimes you got suck it up so you win in the big game. i'm not never going to be there for you in the nighttime hours, but she might. but for the love of it all, stand up when you got to and say no. put her on to something good. behind door number 3 and the purple curtain.)

you should spend that time aside from doing what you have to, doing what you love. it only makes sense.

things that are true. added to in perpetuity.

A)
I was watching a football game one day. Giants versus somebody, and Osi Umenwhatever, the defensive end made a sack. He celebrated by jogging up field, one hand simulating a plate, and the other motioning like he was eating. Justin Tuck, the defensive tackle rushed over to him, patted him on the back, and started to mimic his celebration.

You can't do that. If the celebration isn't meant for two people (like the jumping side-shoulder bump), or not pre-planned for you and you teammate/homeboy, then you just can't celebrate beyond a hand-clap. Maybe several handclaps. But to copy the celebration makes you like like an expert pole-rider. Someone seeing you will think

"Damn. Why is he riding his nuts so hard?"

And that's no good. In fact, it's shameful. Maybe you think doing another celebration could save you. It won't. It would look stupid with two people doing two different celebrations caused by the same event. And you still look like your favorite swing set is your man's scrotum.

B)
If you say, "to be perfectly honest", the statement that follows should be savage, preferably with a curse word in it somewhere in the phrase. If you don't curse, you should. But if you don't, then don't. But don't cheapen such a necessary phrase such as "to be perfectly honest" with a pleasantry with a couple rough spots. In this world of deception and lies, passive aggressive behavior and the like, we need honesty. And "to be perfectly honest" is just the alley-oop some of us need in order to gracefully jam on someone.

Wrong: "to be quite honest, I don't believe that behavior was the smartest course of action." "to be perfectly honest, I think think that was too bright."

Right: "to be perfectly honestly with you main man, you are a fucking numskull for doing that dumb ass shit. Live near a microwave tower, become sterile and do us all a favor. Smart like a wet sack of hammers."

It seems rough. It is. But I mean, it is honest. You shouldn't do it often, jam on someone like that. But when you do, make it count. It might be the wake up shout they need.

C)
Aight, this one applies more for men. There are two different types of toilets we encounter. Toilets we try to piss in (house toilets, hopefully) and toilets we try to piss at (bar toilets).

Never shit in a piss-at toilet.

D)
This one is for the women. If you ever looked down at your feet, and thought even for a second that your feet are a little big, if your your below 5'5 and wear a 9 or above, don't look at, think about, cop or definitely wear All-white Air Force Ones or any variations of the all whites. Or Timbs. You know if your shits are big. They make you look ridiculous. Like big ass ice-cream sandwiches without that brown cake. Running around like you jammed your feet in some damn tissue boxes. . Never should someone look at your feet and think "shitkickers".

E)
Men, hear this. You can't go to the bar and order certain drinks. Straight up. I don't care if your
1) not much of a drinker 2) they taste good or 3) they get you trashed.

1a) If your not much of a drinker, then don't drink. Or drink beer. If you don't like beer, then don't drink.
2a) You shouldn't be drinking liquor because "it tastes good". No offense, but that's what women do. Unless you think liquor neat tastes good. Then by all means.
3a) All liquor is pretty much the same strength. Unless you drinking in the above/below 80 proof club, all that other shit is the same. It will get you equally tore down. This is for the long island ice tea crew. What your saying is that is gets you wet, in relation to the taste it has. I addressed taste in 2a.
What you drink, like alot of things, says alot about you to the world, whether what's being said is true or not. I went to the bar the other day, and ordered a Dewar's. The bartender commented "now that's a gentleman's drink." I didn't order it because I thought she would say that, but it didn't hurt. It's better than her thinking "me and my girlfriends love that drink!" or "I wonder if he's gay." That means no Apple Martini's. No Sex on the Beach (I mean, that should go without saying). Named drinks that don't mention the liquor in the name are borderline. I mean, there are decent drinks that fit into this category...Manhattans, Tom Collins'. But you don't drink that. You drink RedHeaded Sluts. You can't drink RedHeaded Sluts.

F)
There is no right reason for a man to have a ring in his mouth, or have a "man-bag". I had sandals on the list too, but I realize that that is a matter of preference. But the mouth ring and man-purse (otherwise known as the Shameful Murse) simply wrong. I always thought men did it for women. I heard the defense countless times that they didn't do it for women, they did it because they wanted to, which is true. They wanted to do it cause they thought women would like it. But if they was ever a wrong reason to do something, it would be to impress the herd of she-beasts who like tongue rings.

G)
Old white women waitresses are generally the best waitresses. I think its because 1) There are super motherly, and call you sweet shit like honey, baby, sweetypie, hon, and are patient and smile and all that 2) They come from a blue-collar background. Even though they may have come up in a situation where the world nigger was slung around reckless, like it or not, most black people have more in common with blue collar whites than upper-middle class or rich white and black people. She's old enough to have seen enough of this life not to care about all that. She just wants to take care of you. I think once the maternal instinct is turned on, then its no turning it off. That's why most mommas can't wait to become grandma (unless they are ducking getting old, and that something else entirely). Maybe old black women too, but I've seen more old white women waitresses.

H)
Your talking to a girl and she gets to jamming on some dude that she's dealing with. Or just talking about a dude she's dealing with. You cannot ever starting downing that man in attempts to either make yourself look better, or take that man's spot. You know you've traveled into the far country if anywhere in your conversation you have said:

1)"i would never do that to you."

2)"you deserve better than that." Cause number 1 and worse is only a phone call away.

She knows you wouldn't do that to her. And as far-fetched as it sounds, she knows she deserves better. And she's still dealing with someone else and not you. The reiteration of those facts is just redundant. And say it does work, and she deals with you because of those two things. Is that how you want your relationship to start, by saving? Cause if that's the case, then get some extra capes and tights cause your going to be saving this girl alot.
If you can't have her simply on the strength of your own merits, then it's time to cash in your hope chips buddy. Everything isn't fair in love and war. Remember, the destination is important, but so is the road you took to get there.

I)
When I hear a woman is "sexually liberated", I just think she's a freak. All the additional rap about finding your sexual identity, being emancipated from the notions conceived by men and placed on women like the shackles of slavery all sounds like bullshit, cause it is bullshit, and I take it a sign of disrespect. If you told me that you had a rough childhood, looking for love in all the wrong places, then i can understand. i really do. but to give it a slick name and ride it out?

Do I look stupid? Do I have a "Dumb Nigger: Will Fall for Anything" shirt on?

I start looking around the room at things that I have put my mouth near, and hope you didn't do the same. Then I think, "man, I hope I don't end up with something like this as a wife. Or a mother to my kids." And then I follow that up with a prayer for the same.

there there.

Every so often, I look at the obituararies in the newspaper. I always pause when i see "198x-200x". Always. I look and I stare at the notice because no matter what the X is, that person is around my age, and is no longer here. You see alot of those dates when you look at the war casualties.



I went out on a scotch adventure with one of my homeboys. We were talking about relationships, specifically his relationship with his girlfriend He told me that love is a blessing, no matter what form it comes in. When you have it, cherish it. If you think you can have it with someone, take the shot. God doesn't send you too many true chances at having it.



"With people who give a lot of themselves to the world, they need that one person who gives to them. And it’s more important than anyone realizes. I know we're supposed to get all we need from God, and I do, but it means something else when a person, as flawed, frail and weak as I am makes the sacrifice to give to me."

I wrote that to a friend of mine awhile ago, about myself. What I now realize is that everyone gives alot of themselves to the world. Everyone needs that kind of sacrifice from someone. It's the definition of love.

_______________________________________________________________________________________



I woke up this morning thinking about those three things. One after the other, over and over again. I knew they were linked, but I couldn't see how, because seeing how they were linked would make me look at myself a little differently. It would change what I once thought was a fact of life as it related to me. Those three ideas, in a distilled form look like this:



1) People die all the time, way before they or anyone else thought it was time for them to do so.
2) You don't get many chances at true love.
3) We need to be loved by someone other than a person we are related to, or God. Because it means more.

It's the truth. No matter how it sounds, it's all true. You don't have to look far for the confirmation. We all know someone whose death made us question our own mortality. We all know how elusive rocking-chair love can seem. And we all know it different it feels to have someone, for absolutely no good, logical reason give us a piece of themselves, a piece no one else has. That no matter the weather, they will never swap us out.

For a long, long time, I thought I was entitled to the last one. Number 3. Entitled to it because I tried to be a good son, brother, friend, cousin, man, person. Entitled to it because I like to write, and have a true deep appreciation for good food, music and scotch. Because I like to write. Because I was too good for the psuedo social networks of facebook and myspace. Because I'm loyal and love god. I think alot of people spend their lives thinking that number 3 is going to be there for them when they decide because they deserve it, for a number of reasons. Sure, their reasons will be different than mine, but I think we all have reasons nonetheless.

All of those things about me are true. But all it means is just that. Those things make up who I am. It makes me no more entitled to Number 3 than being named Michael Singleton.
Because of Number 1 and Number 2.

I can die whenever. There is a plan for my life, but I have no idea what it is. By getting close to the one who made me, I can know what road I should follow, but I will never have any idea of when that road will end. None of us do. God doesn't not promise you old age. God does promise you that one day, you will die.
You will not meet many people in this life that you will actually get to know. Even fewer will become your friends, even fewer still will become your friends for a lifetime. Now add the fact that this person will be of the opposite sex. And you have to be attracted to them. What are the odds of many of those coming down the pipe?

You are not entitled to true love. You may deserve it, but sad to say no matter how much you believe that, life is not listening. There is no guarantee that you will have it, even if you are blessed to enter the winter of your life. I don't say this to depress you, but to sober you up. Smelling salts of sorts. When you have a chance at it, take it. Now, this isn't to say that you throw yourself under the bus with every oppositely charged individual to whom you are attracted to and who shows reciprocal interest. I don't know with whom you should try with. But I do know that inside, you know. You know who would be worth it. Sometimes it's immediate, sometimes it takes a leap of faith. But if it all ends up at happy, does it matter how it started?

I think about the end of my life, well, the end that i want. Sitting out on the wraparound porch, rocking chair, looking out at the Singleton homestead. Thinking about the life I have led. My thoughts of my success, my loves, my cherished moments eventually lead me to my regrets, my dissapointments, my failures. I fix my stare into the distance, hoping that if I keep still, the oncoming storm won't find me. Keep my eyes still, and the flood behind my eyes will be contained.

but you can't stop what's coming. 

Only one voice can steady me during this oncoming storm. Only one touch can help me lean into the wind, stand the rain and the not fear the thunder. Only one person, by my side.

i'm here. always have, always been. it's getting dark, but i'm here.

That's worth trying for.

an outlaw and a runaway.

"there's always sombody knows where you're at knows where and why. for the most part.

are you talkin about god?

no. i'm talkin about you.

she ate. well, she said you'd be in fix if you didn't know where you was at.

i don't know. would you?

i don't know.

suppose you was someplace that you didn't know where it was. the real thing you wouldn't know was where someplace else was. or how far it was. it wouldn't change nothin about where you was at.

she thought about that. i try not to think about stuff like that, she said.

you think when you get to california you'll kind of start over.

them's my intentions.

i think maybe that's the point. there's a road goin to california and there's one comin back. but the best way would be just to show up there.

show up there.

yeah.

you mean and not know how you got there?

yeah.

i don't know how you'd do that.

i don't either.

that's the point.

She looked at him. I guess I aint sure what the point is, she said.

the point is there aint no point.

no. I mean what you said. about knowing where you are.

he looked at her. after a while he said: it's not about knowin where you are. it's about thinking you got there without takin anything with you. your notions about starting over. or anybody's. you don't start over. that's what it's about. ever step you take is forever. you can't make it go away. none of it. you understand what i'm sayin?

i think so.

i know you dont but let me try it one more time. you think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont count. but yesterday is all that does count. what else is there? your life is made out of the days its made out of. nothin else. you might think you could run away and change your name and I don't know what all. start over. and then one morning you wake up and look up at the ceilin and guess who's layin there?

She nodded.

you understand what I'm sayin?

i understand that. i been there before."

-no country for old men

that oberlin sh*t.

(i will apologize beforehand for this. i'm not doing this to put anyone outthere, hence why i didn't use any names. sorry to make you into a story. i'm lying, i'm not sorry, but know its not done with malicious intent. well, maybe some. yes i am a bastard. yes i am.)

i wrote a friend of mine an e-mail, where i asked her a question:

"are father's stronger than the childless man?". simple enough i thought. nothing much to read into, or so i thought.

the response: "define father."

okay, wasn't quite expecting that. i exhaled

(here we go)

and even though didn't want to, i started to type out my definition of father. but before i could finish, i got another e-mail.

"even before you answer my other email. i must say i dont like that question. i've pondered. i have no clue where you're going with that question but i feel as if it shouldn't matter whose stronger."

what?
see...that's that oberlin shit.

my first crack at higher education came at oberlin college. beautiful campus, hyper-intelligent students, dedicated staff. i learned a lot about a lot at that place. a lot about people. about how people take things, and themselves, far too seriously. back home, i could say something, and i know i would get a normal response.
my pops died. i told my man ronald. he replied:

"damn. that's fu*ked up."

see? see how simple that was? how something so complex didn't necessarily require a complex response. just a honest one. that's what i was used to, that's what i grew up with. that's what i respect. oh how did all that change when i went to oberlin. now everything was a debate. everything was thoroughly examined. everything was scrutinized and mulled over, everything became a damn dissertation. i walked into a extentialist nightmare's nightmare. it was like talking to a film student about magnolia, or a english major about that dumb ass poem about the red wagon.

what you mean by 'black'? when you say 'man', what are you implying? when you said that her name was 'pretty', were you making the inference that she identified as a woman?

if it wasn't that, then it was people taking offense to everything in the world. i remember one time this white girl made these flyers to promote a party she was having at little dance hall on campus. on the flyer, there was an old time drawing of a man dancing with a girl, i think. the man looked chinese to me. to everyone else, he was a minstrel. they made a big deal about that. they had a damn sit-in.

basically you couldn't say anything with either someone breaking the shit down like a lego castle, or getting indignantly pissed about it. and people were so proud to be this way. of course, nobody said it outright, but they thought of themselves as intellectuals, progressive. liberal. cognizant. people aren't supposed to be that way outright. you need balance. think about life, but don't drown life in the sea of your thoughts, realization, pondering and the like. you think your way out of enjoying what life has offered you because your thinking about being offended, or offended by your thoughts. nothing meaningful ever gets done. and i mean rocking chair meaningful. sitting in a rocking chair, knocking on heavens door, and you can think about it, and it still means something good to you. whether it be a action, or a conversation.

(you will have played the game of life and lost.)
you have taken the human element out of living. the simplicity of being human, one of the foundations being simple, normal conversation. on the inside, we love it. we need it. look at the movie that won the oscar for best picture this year. no country for old men.

simple conversation. read the book. plain talk. yeah, the characters were "complex", but so is everyone whom god gave breath.

the question i asked my friend, about stronger daddies came from me and my homeboys talking about "daddy strength". how when you get grown, you get a little stronger, esp. when you need to put the big hand on one of these young boys that will come eventually visit your future daughter. shake his hand, and let him know that your daddy out here. that was it. nothing more, nothing less. i didn't want to define father, or to be asked to define father. i didn't want my question jammed on with no explanation. i didn't want that oberlin shit. but that's what i got.

if i have been guilty of it, i am truly sorry. never again.

play your position. tragedy complete.

if you have ovaries, be a woman. testes? be a man. if not ruin and calmamity will soon follow.
the reality of it is that there are plenty of things as a man i could do. may even want to do. but cannot do. its the charge of sacrifice you make when you take the title. you should not be able to do whatever your hearts desire. it is the reason why god gave you parents. guides to help you do what you should, not want always want you want, and not definately doing everything you could do.

well, i can hear...i'm grown. i can do what i want, as long as its not hurting anyone. aight, it may not have drawn blood, maimed or disfigured, but depending on your actions, you could be hurting plenty, the ranks often filled with those whom you love.

you ever seen smokin' aces? saw that .5O cal snatching the soul out of people through the window? yeah, thats you, no army gun.

i remember talking to a young woman. she told me that she should be able to do whatever she wants sexually, as long as she's safe.
actually she said this: "when i want some dick, i get some dick."

to her i said this:

what would your daddy say? how would that make him feel? how would he look at you?

"my father is very proud of me." yeah, let me tell you something. that's bullshit. maybe if it doesn't know that you said the words "dicked down" out of your mouth. maybe. but if he knows that your out here catching penis like the plague, he is far from proud.

he feels like a failure. i know i would. his one hope is that through it all, he can love and provide you to womanhood. and no matter how you explain it, women don't carry themselves like that.

damn feeling like a failure, he has failed. and your not hurting who?

men, i would be remiss to leave you out. i saw a young man acting a savage. running through this young woman's life snatching anything that wasn't nailed down. her money, her mind, her body. and he was so proud. so proud. provider and protector turned maligner and molester. another failed father. you would hope that men see their mother in the women in their lives. that the some semblance of respect you show for the woman whom birthed you would transfer to the woman who could potentially birth the legacy of you both. guess she wasn't as lucky. 

men don't behave in that manner.

its not even that deep all of the time, you know? its also about the simple day to day actions that are being discarded. chivarly. support. nuturing. the whole nine.

inevitable oberlin question/comment:(voiced as if a black harvard professor with a white wife was speakng) "so what does it mean to 'be a man'? or to 'be a woman?', because gender roles were defined in the early creatatous period" "i think you are taking ...blah, blah who gives a shit. you know what it means to be both. you may go against it, but you know. if you don't, then nothing i am going to say is going to bring you back from the lands afar that you have traveled to. i don't have a map that detailed. no get back champ. settle up out there.

play your position. a tragedy in two parts.

You know why teams in general, are successful? Because they all have a position on the team. Everybody has a clear defined role, a role that they accept, and then they perform within the realm of that position. If they do that, then more likely than not, they are successful as a team. We've all been playing pickup ball at some point, and this 6'8 240 goofy bastard takes the inbound pass, and walks it down the court. He plays the perimeter, hoists threes, and call imaginary plays through a series of hand gestures. It's ugly, its frustrating, and more importantly, it's senseless. All in your mind your yelling "Get your big ass on the block and post something up! Punk ass nigga." He can do more on the block to help ya'll win.It's not arbitrary, he's tall. He's closer to the basket. He clogs up the lane. He deters shots. He has the skill set to be effective in the post.

In life, we all have positions to play, men and women, and problems begin when those positions are not played.

Let me say this first. Fellas, we dropped the rock. We stepped down from role of leadership and provision, and both of those abhor a vaccum. Someone has to fill the role of Captain in order for this ship to sail to the land of milk and honey. Women filled the role. I don't know when it happened, I am not a sociologist or a historian, and in this instance, I don't have to try. It happened, I do know that much. Men started thinking it was acceptable to not help raise his children, provide for his family, protect his loved ones. I mean, dudes stopped paying for meals man. Not even a pump fake to the pocket. Doors weren't opened, parents weren't met...rules weren't followed. In short, we shirked our responsibilities as men. I know. I see it even now. I speak up to it to every man I know, peer, old or young. I live my life as an example of how I was taught to be a man. I'm not perfect, but I'm trying hard, and I'm making sure every man around me is trying as well. And shit, we're lightweight succeeding. There still work to be done, but we're on the rails, going down the track.

But...women. Damn.

Men and women are created equal. I do believe that. But not equal to do every thing.

If i was sick, super down bad, and most girls who were around me who had love for singleton, their natural inclination would be to nurse me back to health. Take care of me. Nuture me. That maternal instinct. Instinct. No one has to teach you instinct, that came on your bill of sale fresh out of heaven, and out your momma's womb. It's in you, and aint no earthly person put it there. If we went out to eat, and we were walking on the street, my natural inclination is to protect you. Scan the street for threats, walk on the street side so I can get clipped by the reckless driver. Give you my jacket if its cold. It comes naturally to me. I gotta get you home in the same shape I got you, no worse for wear.

It's how we're built. If my cousin came and seen me throwing up cause my stomach was on tilt, he would look at me, shake his head, and ask can get me something. That dude would not be putting cold cloths on my forhead, and spoonfeeding me medicine. Wouldn't even occur to him. (and lets thank the sweet lord for that). You, as a woman, really aint cut out to do everything I can do. And neither am I cut out to do everything you can do. Nor do I desire to. When men do, well. You ever seen Project Runway? But because we dropped the reins, and now ya'll picked them up...ya'll are loving it.

You looked around at what men had, and chased it to have it, with no thought on whether you should have it. Playing all out of position. And us both, men and women, playing whatever position our hearts desired has gotten us here.

national geographic.

i've spent alot of time these past couple of weeks thinking about why people end up the way that they do. not what jobs they end up in, or houses they end up buying, but why do we start off so much the same, and end up so differently. i do believe that when we are born, we are more alike than we are different. genetics, how we were treated in the womb all play apart in how we initially come out, but growing up in this world is what begins to differentiate us. or so it seems. we all do seem so different, in the way we look, speak, act, and do, but that's because people don't take the time to look closer at people. i mean shit, we don't even take the time to look at our surroundings, much less the people who fill those surroundings. instead of understanding, we've filled our vocabulary with words as dissmissive as a backhanded wave. crazy, slutty, stupid. i can't even blame the words, but how we use them. we tag people with them, and then cast them off into the wilderness, with periodic check in's to see if the behavior matches the tag. it distances them and their action from us and ours, and that gives us comfort. that they are that way, but not us.

it's easy, but sure as hell not right.

but if you start off with the premise that we all pretty much come in here on a level playing field, then it has to be a reason they ended up so supposedly slutty. understand that, then you begin to understand that person. they went left, and you went right, and it was as simple as that. they aren't horrible losers or lames, weak or pathetic. they are what you could have been, or could be or...are. you bring them back from the wilderness. or you join them out there. either way, your alot closer to them than you ever thought you could be, in more ways than two.

statue of us. a story, incomplete.

We set out to change the world, and change we did. We listened to our peers telling us it couldn’t be done, and we refused to accept it as truth.

It wasn’t easy, nor was it random. It was a plan, a well thought out and conceived plan to change everything around us. Every one wants to survive, even if actually living is a fanciful tale of lore. The world was turning so that even our survival wasn’t guaranteed. The things we wanted so simply, with every passing day, was becoming less of a reality.

We had to become honorable. We had to become virtuous. Two words hard to make into reality because the definitions are so obscure. The dictionary could tell us, but you learn by being shown. And these two words were apparently ex-patriates of our country, ordered to exile. Or maybe they voluntarily left. But current day examples were few and slim, far to none. So, we had to come up with our own. Movies and history could provide the catalyst, but the definition had to come from us.

We boiled it down to two very simple tenants.
Doing whatever is hard is virtuous. The easier it is to do, the less virtuous it was.
We must give back for everything we had received. God had blessed us tremendously, so we could give back until the end of time, and still not be on this side of even. And at the end of it all, we would know because there would be a statue of us.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________


“A lot of time has passed since we first started this”

“It has. You never really know how much time has passed while it’s passing. It’s only until…”

“Yes, I know. She’s gotten huge, hasn’t she?

“And grown too. Too damn grown if you ask me. Ha. Just like her momma.”

“I mean, did you honestly expect her to be any other way?”

“No not really. Eh, well…no, not really”

“I wonder what our children would have been like.”

“A little of you, a little of me…”

“Right. All crazy.”

“Hell yes.” His laughter was quick, but trailed off slowly, as if the end was in retrospect about the beginning. “God knows there had to be a reason it never happened.”

She spoke without looking up. She spoke without knowing she was being heard.

“God knows why. I have no idea.”

“Huh?”

She looks up, with no wasted movement. Her eyes meet his, and nothing else. She has to get this right, because moments like this are fleeting.

“Why didn’t we have children?”

She expected a sigh filled with regret. With thoughts of what could have been, what should have been. She expected a comforting, protective tone. Instead, she received none of it.

“We chose not to. We chose not to do a lot of things. Virtue was the choice, remember? We were trying to save…trying to save everything. Everything from itself"
The words came from inside of him, marinated in emotion and wrapped in himself. It would have been easier to hate him if he didn’t believe in them. But he did. Hate was not a luxury to be afforded to her now.

“That didn’t leave any room for anything else.”

Her head moved back down, slightly between her shoulders, eyes looking between her feet. Searching on the floor in that small space on the floor for a feeling. She had the words. For years she had the words. Words stripped of their feeling is a tragic circumstance. She had seen enough tragedy not to want to knowingly add to it.

She found the feeling, and the words left her mouth with a desperate sense of urgency. She didn’t want to lose it. One chance to get it right. A pause. Her eyes closed slowly. A small rise in her chest. Her exhale was audible.

“Did you think it would cost us so much?”

Cost so much? He made no effort to complicate the meaning of her words. She was owed more than that. Those words settled on his chest like somber lead. He knew his answer and did not make her wait long to hear them. A hand on her shoulder, constant and steady. “There, there” is what she felt. She looked up at him.

“No.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
­­­­­­­­­

She got into it because of the children. Because of one child in particular. One child that gave her the motivation to try and change it all, a child that haunted her nights alone, when the only self, was herself.

In her attempt to give back to the world, to at the end, come on this side of even for all she had been given, she worked for a non-profit organization. It was a community center in her neighborhood, which also functioned as an outreach house for the discarded people. It never felt like work or a job when she was there, it felt like living. And this little girl, no older than 10, everyday taught her how to live.

They had conversations, but that isn’t how she learned from her. She learned by watching her be.
She approached everything with the exuberance of a ten year old child. Mainly, because she was a ten year old child. New and fresh every experience was to her. She was never afraid because everything was an adventure to her. After everything she saw, heard, smelled, tasted, accomplished- she realized that she changed. That she was, different. Started out one way, but ended up another. She relished that moment of realization. No sparks or colors, just deep rooted change. At 10, she didn't know this. Didn’t care to know. What she did know or care to know is that after spending time with her nana at Byrd's Sanctuary, helping to serve food to those layered in clothes that no more belonged together than crabs and ice cream, allowed her to view Mr. Buddy, who spent every waking moment on how to get wet and how to stay dry a little differently. She heard his words as kind, even wrapped in the slur of intoxication. These changes softened her, allowing her to bypass judgment based on appearance. The hue of skin, amount estrogen in a voice, or lack there of, meant nothing to her because she never noticed it. She saw, better yet felt, what made them, them. Goodness felt as warm and sweet as the crook of the neck of a woman loved. Sadness was thick and slow; anger, blindingly bright. A living, breathing canvas of emotional color, forever changing and remaining the same was her world, and she never wanted to leave its comforting embrace.

She saw that, and for the first time that she ever noticed, felt a twinge of what it means to be a mother. The desire to protect. Before meeting this little girl, she was content losing her place in this world. She saw it for what it was, and what it could be, but didn't know how to bridge the gap. Was it to get as much education as possible? Or maybe refraining from eating meat. Going to poetry reading was the answer for a while. Books with authors with little letter names, words infused with afrocentricity. All these things left her with temporary satisfaction, and constant confusion. Instead of feeling this way, she was content on giving up her slice of life, free of charge. Death wasn't an option, but detachment was. She was going to withdraw to find a place where she could at least feel like she belonged. But…she couldn’t.

She couldn’t shake the girl.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

”We need to talk, forreal.” She walked into his fenced backyard. The gray drab metal seemed to fit the mood. She felt that behind this 4 foot high fence, their decisions were protected from the ignorant scrutiny of the world. But her words wouldn’t be protected from him.

“About what?”

“About leaving.”

“I knew it.”

“You knew what?”

“That you weren’t serious about it. You just can’t let go, can you?”

“I can’t” For the first time in the conversation, she broke eye contact. She walked passed him with her head down. With their shoulder parallel, she paused mid-stride. I will not feel like this. The feeling trickled down her mind like cold molasses. Slowly.
I will not be ashamed. She turned her head at less than a 45 degree angle, eyes meeting his once again. “But not for the reason you think.”

“What’s the reason?” Concern laced with anger. As if a bright, thin red line was drawn though the median all of his words and thoughts. It demanded attention.

“Does it matter?” A futile shove in the face of relentlessness. He didn’t budge an inch. The protective fence now looked like a cage, and getting smaller by the minute. Her back wasn’t against the wall…yet. She knew he would not back off. She didn’t want him to either. He deserved an explanation and he would be provided with just that.

“I can’t leave, not now. Maybe not never.” She not nevered him when she wanted him to laugh. To break up the monotony of his far-too-stern-to-be-this-young face.

It worked. He smirked. “What made you change your mind?”

She immediately wanted to share the girl with him. How seeing little she made her rub her stomach as if life lived there (inside). How seeing her little hands try to keep steady as she carried unruly soup that probed the edges of the bowl, tongue unknowingly peeking out the side of her mouth, eyes crossed in concentration as she moved this meal across the room, and the smile that accompanied achievement made her realize that she couldn’t give up. To leave was to give up on her, and the hope for her world.
But something would get lost in the translation. He wouldn’t get it. A desperate concern was slowly easing over his face. More desperate the longer she waited. The anguish and guilt were ganging up on her. She had to say something.

“We can’t run.

seriously.

went to the hamptons this weekend. man oh man.

fuck PETA. forreal. and i'm boycotting the NFL for its treatment to vick.

people seriously kill me. i know what happened with my man number 7. he got rich, and put one of his man's up in a crib, looking out for his peoples. his man asked for some dough to start a kennel, and on the low, started fighting dogs. i know fighting dogs is wrong, but michael irvin smoked crack. brett favre was a damn drug addict, and chris henry caught like nine cases. but I can't buy a vick jersey anywhere?

some these same people who are damming vick are still spending money from slavery. my god.

departure.

I'm starting to finally realize it all. Why this life goes the way it does, and why people end up the way that they are. I look at this truth without frustration or anger, not even disappointment. I believe I look at it as a person looks at death when it immediate and inevitable. With understanding and sadness. Understanding that this is the way it has to be, and sadness for not being able to do more. A friend of mine told me that I will find my place, that I am seeing the world in pieces, and when I see it in its entirety, I will be at ease, for I will see how I fit into the puzzle. For a brief moment I was comforted by that thought, that I will experience that seemingly ever-elusive feeling of true peace. But I know now that for me to have peace in this world, as it stands, means in no uncertain terms, that I have compromised. That I have given up. That I have made complacency my home, and traded in my conscious for peace. Because things are not right. I don't know if things are as they should be, but I know for damn sure, things are not right. They are so unright that to make changes at the margin of the problem would be the ultimate exercise in futility if not foolishness. Or maybe both.

I can't even begin to explain what is wrong. Everything is the best way I can describe it, because, for me, it is the only way to describe it. Everything is so wrong that people can't even see what's wrong anymore, because there is no standard of what's right to judge it against. We have identified the problem. Everything.
Now, we have to try and find a solution. I take the liberty of saying we, but that is making the bold assumption that you feel the same way. You may not, which is fine, but you can still come along on the journey for a solution, even if you are a passive observer. As far as the course we are going to take, I have only plotted out the first step. We, or me, or some combination of the two, will have to draw out the rest of the journey. But all journeys begin with one step.

We have to stop buying into answers that answer nothing, leave us unsatisfied, but with enough complacency to move on. Such is life. That's the way life is. I'm only human. Eh, whatcha gonna do? These have become the answers to our most dire questions and situations. Answers that leave us not better off before we heard them, and without the dignity to at least allow us a restful nights sleep. These answers, and more infamously, the mindset that accompanies these answers, have left us unable, unwilling, and unlikely to change what is indeed wrong in the world and in our lives. We ask god for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. And if we were made in God's image, there is very little we cannot change. So many things that are detrimental has been accepted as being apart of life. I agree, these thing are apart of life, but they are not our lives. If we do not give up, then they can, and will, change.

Your life's path has not been set out for you. It is in large part what you make it. What you do, or do not do, who you are around, how you choose to spend your time, who you help, or do not help. These things determine the shape of the life you are going to live, the fullness, richness and satisfaction of your life. Or the lack thereof.

I have been asking a lot of my friends would they buy condoms for their children. An overwhelming majority of them say they would. They are going to do it anyway, and they rather them be safe. They say this knowing that in there lives, besides the climax, sex has not brought them any long lasting happiness, satisfaction or joy. They say this knowing that instead, it has brought them the opposite. Because they have brought into those horrible answers. If this is your child, the one thing God has truly given you to protect, why would you give up so easily? Why would you give up period? We have even become complacent in loving those people we're supposed to love.

There have been times that my father has been calling me to talk, and I didn't pick up the phone because I have having sex, or trying to. He's dead now. I can't go back and have that conversation that I missed. Times that I left my moms in the house, alone, watching movies, because I went to a club. A club? I could have shared that moment with her, gave her the love of her son through a conversation, and received in turn a mother's love for her son, and more insight about this world than I could ever get on my own. I can't lean on another unsatisfying answer. "Your young, your supposed to run the streets and have fun". But at what cost? The decisions we make are not inevitable. We choose to make them, everyday. And often times we turn our backs on true comfort for false satisfaction. It is so false that often times we have to abuse it just to feel something. Getting drunk. Going to 3 clubs in one night. More sexual partners than your age. 4 hours of T.V. a day. More clothes in your closet than days in the year. Abuse. "Such is life" can't save me now.

We have the power to change everything. How we live our lives. How the world lives their lives. The world we live in. Everything.

Everything happens for a reason I keep hearing. Your right, but for what reason? If the reason is horrible, does it still protect your decision? Does it still remove responsibility from you because it was "inevitable"?

If you believe that this is the best life has to offer, that all these terrible and truly unsatisfying things are just what life is supposed to mean, then you can have my piece. I don't want it anymore. I won't even charge you. Consider it my gift to you before I leave. Cause leave I will, because fight I must. I have to claw tooth and nail for change. For life.

I have it in me to get it.

So do you.

the rub.

The rub.

The rub is inevitable, often maligned, bedfellow of an action. A phrase lost in a time much more interesting than this one, where words hadn't been stripped of their meaning. It the the siamese twin of doing, it goes where the action is like the press. Goes together with making a decision like ice and cream, cigarettes and booze, hookers and the point. An example:

Your two pitchers of Irish Red, and a few Jameson and Ginger's into a relaxed evening with your homeboys. There is a break in the conversation, and out the corner of your eye you see what can only be defined as the reason God gave you sight: a beautiful woman. She walks like she wouldn't leave a footprint on the ground, and smells like hapiness. Her backside is blessed for sure, and she has The Look. The Look that if you make eye contact, time slows down like bullet-time and you freeze up, if only for an instant, because honestly, you have no idea what to do.

But here's the rub: she's got the meanest, stone cold bump on the side of her mouth. Could be a pimple. Just maybe. Could you be you running on the beach, singing "Just One More Day" popping those Valtrex pills, trying to time your flare-up's to coincide with football season.
The rub is the ultimate equalizer. It prevents people from doing whatever their twisted minds desire because there is a consequence to your action. It's as inevitable as eating too much, but as necessiary as the cool side of the pillow.

You can't duck the rub.

But we try all of the time. To live lives without consequence for the actions we undertake. We have gotten swept up in the malestrom of damn liberalism. We want casual sex without babies, man and woman whoredom and disease. We want to smoke without cancer. We want to live, and do whatever we want, and whatever feels good without any judgement from anyone. Because that judgement forces us to live a life with responsibility, that forces our hands to do things that are hard, taxing, yet essential.

The actions we make change us forever. Yep, it's that deep. For the better, or worse, we're changed. The actions we take define the people we are. Yep, it's that serious. Deal with a person knowing we shouldn't deal with, go to that place we know we shouldn't, take that pill, drink that drink, listen to that song, and we're different than we were before. Maybe we've gotten better. But most times, doing the things we know we shouldn't makes us worse. And don't cry now when shit gets thick and the world looks bleak. It's the life we chose. Now it's time man up and get better, or give up and get worse.

Consequences, responsibility and judgement is the natural system of checks and balance that should keep us ever moving towards the goal of being better than we were the day before. To being the best we can possibly be. To be the we that God intended for us to be. So everyone around us can do the same. But here's the rub:

Things will get better.

a self quote.

I wonder alot about why everyone is so miserable. Why the masses of the population just cannot seem to get it right. Why day after day, the majority of the conversation that surrounds me is mired in the quagmire of mediocrity, dissapointment, frustration, disenchantment, anger, sadness and overal malaise.

Everyday we are pushed to strive after, to achieve things that do not really matter when it comes to our overall happiness. Cars, clothes, degrees, jobs, entertainment among others have been made paramount in the lives that we are told to lead. We sacrifice a piece of ourselves in order to have them. Children are neglected, families in essence deserted, marriages relegated to a schedule to make accomodations for these things. And none of it in the least makes the slightest bit of sense.

We have seen enough movies, tabloids and personal experiences to tell us all what should be painfully obivious to us all. None of it makes you happy. Not by itself. Not without the most important piece of the puzzle. Love. This is not regulated to an intimate love between lovers, or the love shared between a parent and child. This is love in all its forms and incarnations, all incompassing in its scope. A sacrificial love. An unselfish love. A patient and kind love. A 1 Corinthians 13 love.

People focus so much on preparing the perfect side dish that they neglect the main course. The best mashed potatoes in the world will never make up for a horrible, shoe-leather steak. Never. The best car in the world will never make up for the lack of love in a person's life. Never. We work to take care of a family, but in the process neglect the family. We work to provide for a child, but the most important provision they need is you. We work to provide our significant others with the best, forgetting that when you were happiest together with all you had was each other, together.

I know its hard in the midst of bills, worry, stress, hatred, job frustration, life disspointment, smoking, having to be pretty and smart, the pressure to be thin, the pressure to be anything than what God made you, painful relationships, gas prices, pain, Darfur, the media, negative images, the quest for money to see the importance of love. In fact to see it period. All around you, the world is showing you its there, teaching you the importance. But, you have to pay attention to learn. That, in turn, means doing something difficult and hard, but all things difficult and hard are usually necessisary. You have to step outside of yourself, your own myopic mind and vision, away from your problems and your mistakes and just take a look around, and see the world away from yourself. Because your ruining it. See it for what it is, and not what you think it should be, or wish it was, or how it would be if you were doing it, and how it applies to your supposedly shitty exisistence.

I saw two men get on the bus, stumbling towards the back. Clearly intoxicated, and clearly not giving a damn. One sat down on the back bench beside me, the other on a seat on the side of the bus, near the back bench. My man sitting next to me must have had the brunt of the pint, because he was laid out like a rug, sprawled out like he was the shining example of how to make a snow angel. He was in and out of conciousness, but in those moments he was with us, he knew one thing: he was not comfortable. He took one of his legs and propped it up on his homeboy's knee. His homeboy took his legs, pulled it further on his lap, smiled, and let the breeze through the window take him away.

Love.

"You can learn something from anything, if you pay attention."

running with the bulls.

I was watching National Geographic one day. This "Discovery" special was on Bloodsports, specifically those relating to animals. The way that the special was structured was that they first did a quick overview on the sport, then had an Oxford-type comment on how barbaric the sport was, how it "fed on humans intrinsic desire to revel in pain and delight in blood, blah, blah."
(It's hillarious to me how a person can become a supposed expert in a field from learning about it mainly from a book. There is no substitute for experience. How can you know of something intimately, without being in it and at some point, being of it?). Then they speak to those who are involved on the sport on a regular basis, whether it be training roosters, or staging the dogfights.

They covered cockfighting and dog fighting, two activities that I have been exposed to at various points in my life. Then the topic moved to bullfighting.

I could never understand how a man could take pleasure in destroying an animal that, with every odd stacked against him, is destined to die. The beauty however, is the animal's desire to live.

In Spain, bullfighting is not considered a sport, much less a "bloodsport". In the newspaper, it is covered in the Arts section. Matadors are treated like top-tier movie stars, and the bulls are regarded with respect beyond that normally reserved for an animal. As they moved passed the overview, and the academic commentary, they moved to talking to those who have cut their lives around this. They interviewed an ancient matador, a bullfighter. He spoke as if knew tomorrow may never come. Words spoken deliberately as if eons had passed in their formation. Asked what would he ask a bull, if he could ask them anything as they were prepared for battle, he replied quite simply:

"Would you rather live as cattle, or die as a bull?"

As men, we are valued for being so through the masculine characteristics we display. We have an intrinsic need to provide for those around us, to be looked up to, to be admired, to protect. When two men enter the room, most of us want to be the man the people look at, because you can only look at one. Women value these characteristic in the men in their lives: they love their daddies because of it, and choose mates (hopefully) based, in part, on it. This desire to
"be a man" stretches far beyond socio-economic boundaries, and in fact is exacerbated by these boundaries that exist in every society. These boundaries give all of us a reference point by which we judge ourselves.

Very few of us in this country are subject to abject poverty, but that matters not.

Poverty in this country is a sense of lacking is those things that those in the socio-economic group we want to belong to have.

All around us, we see how the "other half" lives. We see the houses, the cars. The clothing, all of the outward signs of wealth on display for the world to see. We place importance on this, on attaining social status, on having materials.

All around us, we see the acceptable ways of acheiving this wealth: attending school, getting into college and working hard seems to be the intended path to the promised land of having. The problem is that this path is not in reality feasible for all of us in this society, but the desire to have is still as strong. For a majority of young men that live in urban areas, live in a household whose income barely reaches the poverty level, the traditional means of having isn't feasible.

We tell them to get off the corner. Stop selling drugs. Destroying our communities. Out of the same mouth we tell them to be men, provide. That having a nice car means something. Nice clothes means something. Makes you better than you were before.

No man wants to live as cattle.

These young men in these situations want what all men want, to be men. To be bulls. They want this so badly that they rather live for 15 minutes in on the stage, in the arena, than to live 15 years trolling the pasture, waiting to be slaughtered. They know that in their lives, they are seemingly destined to die, and all we offer them is the mantra of "doing right" and 6.15 a hour and a McDonalds shirt. We offer them a lifetime of mediocrity, and expect them to swallow that oh so bitter pill with a smile. We inherently tell them they are unworthy of being worthy, and wonder why they hit the streets with such vigor. To prove you wrong. We wonder why they buy 100 dollar shirts, and 24'' rims. To buy the worth that you said they couldn't have. Wasn't worth having.

Movies and the media warps our thinking into believing that all these men who hustle are sociopaths, who care about no one, even themselves, and are intent on destroying the free world as we know it. Watching too much New Jack City.

They just want what Bob, the college graduate wants. What the CEO of any corporation wants. What we all want. To have. If we want things to change, we have to offer them something better than the mediocre.

We have to offer them the legitimate chance to live as bulls.

april 27.

Today is my father's birthday. Say a prayer for my family when you read this.

Thanks.

I miss you pops.

and this is why, jenny.

I was in the process of writing a entry "what went wrong with everything", listening to a song called 4th Time Around by Bob Dylan. My man Mike Brown put me on to it. And I heard something:

"Don't forget, everybody must give something back for something they get."

It made me think of Jenny, my Jenny. So this is for you.

I know you think about why I do the things that I do. Say the things I say. Wonder if they are geniuine and true, if they come from my heart. Is it because I love, or is it for some other purpose. To get you to fall for them just to leave, or say them because the words are easy on the ear the way a sunset is easy on the eyes.
I try to explain it, but the answers end up being more sappy than the actions. One part of you, the sappy side, loves those extra-heavy-on-the-syrup answers. But the other side, the side that for a long time I knew little about isn't buying it. It knows that sugar is sweet, but you cannot live off of it. I understand that.

Over the years of knowing you, you have given me true friendship. A always ready to listen ear. Advice when I need it. Encouragement. Smiles and laughter. Tears too. You have given me a hard time, and made some things easy. Given me piece of you when it would have been easier to keep it all to yourself. Given me justification for being giving by being the same. You gave me a card, "A friend is someone who reaches for your hand, and touches your heart. The scrapbook of all scrapbooks, that made all my friends want what I have with you. You (and your moms) gave me a mini-tour of Trini food in the comfort of your living room. Gave me 30 minutes of tears with Reghan in my yard. Looks that said it all, without saying anything at all. Hugs around my neck. A ride to Bible study. Peace and Happiness. Love Brownies and Love Cookies. One big ass love cookie loaf. Someone I know that will ride with me until the end of the earth. A smart mouth and a strong will that aint scared and won't back down, from anyone including me. A sense of what a woman should be. Humbleness, if thats a word. A different viewpoint than my own. Someone I love being around, even if nothing is said. Instant sunshine on some of my darkest days.

"I love you just the way you are." So add unconditional love to the list.
I could go on. But that would be getting away from the point. I give to you what I do because you've given me so much. I will keep on giving until I have nothing more to give. Then I'll find more.

I give to you my love because honestly, it's that best thing I can give.

Now, thats something even your mind can't explain away. Something that you can sink your teeth into. Chump.
(even though being from Cedonia, you probably don't even deserve this. Damn east sider.)

you can't trust a woman that doesn't have her voice on her voicemail.

Let's get this straight. I'm not saying this in response to me trying to get at a woman who didn't have her voice on her voicemail, she doing me dirty, and me coming up with concept.
I just have realized that the women I know, who has the computer voice on their voicemail, are sneaky and pretty much untrustworthy. It has to be a reason that they chose to do this. Most women do it, and secretly like to do so. It falls in the same category with writing their names over and over on a piece of paper, or dancing extra hard when they can see themselves in a mirror. I guess it feeds some internal narcissistic quality. Hearing their own voice, and then knowing other people will hear it.
I could attribute it to laziness, or not caring. I'm lazy at times, and I super don't care about things like that, but I still took out the time to set it up.

But those who don't. Eh. Something is up.
They don't want anything concrete, like a name attached to the number. Or something else equally as sneaky. No matter how you slice it,

Don't trust them.

Also, any dude who says "I'm gettin' my grown man on" is doing nothing of the sort.
Since when did grown men announce they were going to be grown?

If a man will put a ring in his mouth, he is liable to do anything.

If your a black man, and your going to wear a wallet chain, realize this. When I was coming up, only white kids that skateboarded, wore JNCO jeans, and wore AC/DC shirts wore them . So hell yea, I'm going to look at you funny. And shake my head. And they were attached to wallets, not two belt buckles. It's called a wallet chain for a good reason.

I'm through.