R.I.P.

why does everything I love curl up in a ball and. just. die?
(my favorite cigs, my favorite gum, ninja turtle pies...)
dont you tell me it dont, because it does
happen to stuff I so do love
I have and I hold, they pet and they pander
we exchange loving banter and googly-eyed ganders
then they begin to wither right in front of my eyes,
curl up in a ball and just die. die. die.

My favorite tv shows are dead
my favorite fashions are dead
my childhood is dead
the 90's are DEAD

Rest. In. Peace.

Vampires/*Thursday, November 05 -Twitter

TRUBLOOD has me thinking a lot about vampires lately. Like, do you think they’d be impervious to the effects of crack? What would crack do to the vampire race? Can you imagine a vampire fiend? Some of em would say “fuck buyin crack, I’m takin it!” and start killin’ off drug dealers and takin their crack. Would the drug dealers declare war on vampires, even though they probably cant win? Would they start just dealin drugs in the day time? I mean, vampires are already strong, right? Doesn’t crack/cocaine already give you a false sense of strength? Shit, looks to me like a vampire hopped up on amphetamines can do some damage. Or would it completely fuck their systems up? Since their system is something like “superior” to ours, would it do extra dextra damage to their body and psyche? You could make a show or something like that. Like merge TRUBLOOD and THE WIRE. Make it take place during the crack epidemic or something. Or not. What do yall think?

THAT WAS IT!/*Thursday, October 29th

Man...

We (Meet, Antoinette, Lex and I) went and saw Michael Jackson's "This Is It" last night. Wow. Double fucking wow. Amazing.


I'm pretty sure you're thinkin' all the talk (mine included) is hype. I invite, no, challenge you to go see that fucking movie and not be awe struck. The show this man was getting ready to put on for us was going to be specfuckingtacular. All this MJ pandemonium that occurred after he died probably would've happened anyway after this concert. I can almost guarantee it. The man was going to do a Jackson 5 era medley for christ's sake!

The shit was bad! Like Michael Jackson BAD (lol). And as good as he danced, as good as his voice sounded, as tight as the band and back up dancers/singers were, it was all just rehearsals! I'm all too sure the actual shows would've been...well, one of the greatest shows (if not, the greatest) of this new century. Mike didn't do any real concerts during the millenium, right? Yea. He was probally gonna turn it up ten nothces!

It makes his passing even sadder because he really was about to show the world why he was considered the greatsest performer of our time.

*Spoiler Warning?*
i will admit tho, the very begining, when he was rehearsing in that shiny suit jacket and orange pants, I thought he might've been wacked out of his mind. I had to catch myself from laughing, lol.

OPEN LETTER TO THE ELDERS...YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE/*Friday, September 25th

OKAY! THE CAMEL'S BACK IS BROKEN! I GOTTA SPEAK ON THIS SHIT REAL QUICK.

I say this knowing that the the main group this is directed @ wont see this so essentially this tirade is mostly in vain. Has to be said tho

OLDER GENERATION(S): STOP TRYIN TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE THE YOUNGER GENERATIONS WERE THE FIRST ONES TO USE "NIGGA" AS A TERM OF ENDEARMENT.

YOUNGER GENERATION(S): STOP TRYIN TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE USING "NIGGA" AS A TERM OF ENDEARMENT WAS YOUR IDEA

THE TRUTH IS, BLACK PEOPLE (NOT ALL, BUT IN A GENERAL SENSE) HAVE BEEN CALLING EACH OTHER "NIGGER/NIGGA" PROBABLY SINCE SLAVERY. THE REASON YOU (YOUNGER GENERATION) USE IT IS BECAUSE YOU LEARNED IT FROM SOMEWHERE; OLDER GEN.: YOUR GEN. USED IT BECAUSE THEY TOO LEARNED IT FROM SOMEWHERE. IT HAS BEEN USED BY BLACK PEOPLE AS A DEROGATORY TERM JUST AS MUCH AS A TERM OF ENDEARMENT (AT LEAST BACK THEN). OLDER GEN: STOP BLAMING US! IT DOESNT GET YOU/US ANYWHERE. MOST OF YOU BLAME HIP-HOP, LIKE HIP-HOP INVENTED THE TERM. NO. THE "HIP-HOP GENERATION" SIMPLY MADE IT POPULAR, WHICH IS LITTLE THEIR/OUR FAULT. THE WORD NIGGA HAS APPEARED IN SOME BLACK MUSIC B4 RAP. RAP JUST HAPPEND TO BE THE MOST POPULAR GENRE TO USE IT, AND IT CAME ALONG AT A TIME WHEN ALL TYPES OF CENSORSHIP WAS BEING CHALLANGED. OLDER GEN.: YOU WANT YOUNGER PEOPLE TO STOP USING THE TERM? SORRY, NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. THIS THING IS BIGGER THAN THEM/US.

WE'RE TALKING CENTURIES, YES PEOPLE HUNDREDS OF YEARS, WHERE THIS WORD WAS BEING USED THROUGHOUT AND OUTSIDE OF BLACK CULTURE! YOU CAN'T JUST ERASE CENTURIES OF INFLUENCE! IMPOSSIBLE! OLDER GEN: HOW BOUT YOU STOP PLAYING THE FUCKING BLAME GAME AND START EDUCATING PEOPLE (STARTING WITH YOURSELVES) ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE WORD AND WHY IT HAS BECOME WHAT IT IS! SEE, THAT'S THE DAMN PROBLEM! THERE'S NO COMMUNICATION! NO GIVE AND TAKE! YALL BLAME US FOR STUFF, AND WE FEEL ALIENATED AND REBEL AGAINST YOU!

THE CYCLE NEVER ENDS! IT WILL ONLY START TO IMPROVE WHEN YOU (OLDER GEN) START TRYING TO UNDERSTAND US INSTEAD OF TRYING TO MAKE US DO WHAT YOU WANT US TO DO. WE ALL CAN'T BE WHO YOU WANT US TO BE, SO WHY DONT U JUST HELP US BE THE BEST US WE CAN BE INSTEAD?

Until next time...

"Lookin' back over the years..."/*Friday July 24th

"...I guess I've shedded some tears."

Recently, I'm really starting to regret A LOT of the decisions I made during my high school years. For a long time, I made peace with those decisions and often said "I regret NOTHING I've done in my life." That was a crock of horse shit. I made that statement to kinda sound rebellious, which i now realize was foolish. Of course I didn't regret them then; I hadnt reaped the sour fruits that were to grow from a lot of moves I made. Now, I've come to see that had i done just a few things differently, I'd be in a better position now (for myself, but mostly for my daughter.). I would probably still regret some of the stuff I did if my daughter wasn't here, but having her here... fully knowing now I could've been better prepared and definitely on my way to where I wanted to be in life, it kills me. I DEEPLY regret the decisions I made in high school, and especially the main decision I made after high school...

For the 4 years after I dropped out of high school, instead of planning ahead and building toward something for myself, I just rode along. I had a steady gig (I co owned a couple of retail stores), and I was makin' pretty good money for the first half. Then when the recession started in mid 2007....that was a crucial moment that I should've seized. When the recession first hit, us small businesses got hit first, and baby did we take a blow. It didnt kill me/us yet though, and it was at that point I should've started making a real PLAN B. I made it clear to my partner that I wans't trying to do the shit anymore; we had been reducing the size of our stores, and a separate project that she had going with my twin was startin to be a liability. She was cool with the fact that I was trying to go elsewhere, but when she asked what I wanted to do/what I was going to do, I couldnt even give her an answer. At least a real answer. I gave her some bullshit ass answer, and she quickly deflated it. I just knew that I wanted...needed to get out of retail for a second. I didn't care where I went. The problem now was deciding what I was going to do next.

Until the recession hit, I had planned on riding on the stores back for a while. I mean, my life was pretty straight. (Shit, I began 07 with my first apartment by myself, my own car, a lil money saved up, and a tax refund. Shit was looking sweet. Everyone I knew kept talking about how fucking awesome 2007 was about to be. I was getting ready to turn 21 too...muh fuckas couldn't tell me shit.) While we had slow spots in the two years and some change I was running shit (and more before I was running shit and just workin there) none of those events prepared me for a full scale recession. That shit wasn't even in my vocabulary. Didn't exist. By mid 2007, we all realized something was wrong. By summer time we knew shit was fucked up, and that's when I started to back out (and not because of the recession though, it was mostly because I wasnt happy with the relationship my partner and I were having around that time). So at the time when I decided that I was done with the store (summer 07) I now had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And I had NO real idea, since my life had been wrapped up in the store since pretty much 10th grade. The store had been my plan after high school, but I didnt plan pass that. I can not stress that point enough. Right before we closed down the home store (my store) and moved everything to our second location, I was lost. I still hadn't figured out anything yet, and I was sorta depressed. I had lost hope.

I made the decision in the new year of 08 to start smoking again full time. I eventually threw caution to the wind, after regaining some confidence in my business. I stopped planning past the store once more, as my partner had me kinda gassed about running the store again. Then my wife and I got back together. We had been on and off for over a year after I left high school, and us getting back together was kind of a big deal. I was enthralled. The event completely threw me off course. Even though I hadn't been really planning my future, at the beginning of 08, she was the fuuuuurthest thing from what little plans I did have. It just sort of happened, and almost instantly she moved in. I and me became us and we rather quickly. We eventually started planning our collective get a way from all that was going on at the time. Alas, after one too many gambles of unprotected sex, she became pregnant. We actually had made the decision to start using condoms again a month before we found out she was pregnant; too little too late. Needless to say, our plans were to change...

The week we found out she was pregnant, we also found out that an ongoing dispute with our land lord had come to a head, and we discovered that he planned on locking our store up. No way Jose. Tuesday we found out she was pregnant, Friday we found out our land lords plan, Saturday we moved everything out of the store before he could lock it up. We spent 12 hours straight packing and moving. Anyhow, it was a new ball game now; it didnt matter what I (we) wanted to do anymore. It had switched to the survival game. All of this was pretty much exactly a year after I had told my partner that I didn't want to be in the business anymore. Had I made a concrete plan then, or at least started hoarding some of the money I was still making, things would've been easier. Over the course of the next 4 months our work van that we had had since 2004 had finally broke down, I was facing eviction, and we were flat broke. Oh and Antoinettes pregnancy was getting ready to be in full swing. These were dark times...

I'm going to stop this little trip down memory lane right here. The main point, which I've reiterated a bunch of times already, is this:
Lately (the past 3 months or so) I've come to regret almost every major decision I've made since my high school years. I know now that I made some big mistakes, but that doesnt mean I cant change my life. I'm still young. I still have dreams and even with a child to look after, I can still make moves to set myself up for my future. I've actually learned from these specific mistakes now (not that I never learn from any of my mistakes before, it just took a while to learn from these particular mistakes). Anyhow, I'm once again starting to see great things in my/our future. I'm actually looking too far ahead in these visions, but nonetheless, I see great things. All I/we gotta do now is PLAN...

Celebs/*Monday June 29-twitter

On the real though, clebs (whether talented or not) are real people. Real people do stupid, inappropriate, unclassy, and just plain wrong stuff from time to time. If these folks who talk so much about what celebs do, spent that same energy gettin at people they know personally who do dumb shit, then we'd be better off. These celebs are coming from places, and these places (no matter where) probably have a whole tribe of other people just like said celeb, so obviously, we need to kill it at the source. Stupid behavior of any type is part of the human condition. Now, the degree of said act dictates how you should approach the problem.

The point is pretty clear: celebs start off as real people with real people problems. Those specific problems vary according to their environment and their upbringing. When they become celebs, these problems become not only public domain, but they become compounded(most of the time) with the person's reaction to fame or augmented by it. How they handle this new found fame is the crucial part of the whole thing. For some (or most, i guess) the FAME adds new and even bigger problems. They begin to deal with these problems in front of their audience. can you imagine having hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people judge the decisions you made in high school? A peanut gallery making comments on your crazy college years? Strangers taking pics of you and your family? Commentators on your love life? People watching your marriage crumble and making light of it? Some terrible stuff man.

I'm not saying this to make an excuses for these people; some of them are just genuinely fucked in the head, ignorant, slutty, etc, etc, before they become celebs. the fact that they are ridiculed so much and commented on so much is just sad, cuz it's not ALL their fault So when you see a celebs do somethin that upsets you, and you wanna make a fuss about it, go find someone in your town or family doing something similar, and tear into 'em. they need it. If someone is doing wrong, needs guidence, or just a plain old ass kickin, we as a community( and I say that in the broadest of terms) should take it upon ourselves to try and help out.

If we start helping the people around us fix their life when they need it, then they wont make an ass outta themselves later in life and especially if they become famous, which is REAL fucking easy to become now-a-days between "reality shows" and stuff like youtube.

Fuck it, example: Souljahboy. He came out when he was 16, right? I remember hearin maaaaaad older shcool hip-hop heads gettin mad at him. Dude was still in Highschool! He's immature, and if you wanna make a big deal, go find some kids/teenagers from your area, and school em. Make sure their heads are right. You know why souljahboy's famous? His audience is made up of kids and teens (any adults over 24 that listen to him=FAIL, and that's being generous). The music wasnt made to reach YOU, it was made to reach THEM, the other not yet mature and still experiencng life as non adult audience. If you constantly complain about his antics, then you just make yourself look OLD. You dont like souljahboy, dont watch or listen to him.

The Gospel According To...Me?/*Sunday June 28-twitter

This was in response to a few tweets made by my homie Courtney:

you're right, to a certain extent. What's starting to happen is in an effort to bring a bigger audience, gospel seems to be crossing over into the rap/r&b market, but instead of on it's own terms, it's sort of cross pollinating. It's still praise music, but with a real solid hip-hop asthetic. As opposed to older gospel luminaries trying to bring in a younger, hip-hop/r&b audiance by utiliazing those genre's key elements, it's a younger, already hip-hop influenced generation, trying to find common ground between the music that's popular amoung their peers, and the message of gospel, the music they make and love. Music changes with the people and times ; you can always learn about an era' people through their music. even today's "traditional" style gospel is completely different from that of it's golden age and beyond...

on another note, gospel music has done a better job of keepin it's hands on it's artist since the 80's. That's why contemporary r&b has suffered so much since the 90's; one of the 70's 60's and even 50's popular black music's greatset strengths was the fact that a huge percentage of it's performers came up in the church, or lovers of gospel. Almost all of the GREATS came from a churhc background, let alone the "lesser" artist (for lack of a better term). Since the 80's, the church has held on to it's biggest assets, and because of that, we started dealing with a whole new generation that had been seperated from "church music" (which really says a lot about society at the time, dontcha think?). Less soul, less passion, and more emphasis on image and all the new styles that came with the huge musical technological advances and trends. I'm ramblin now, and if I dont stop, it'll never end. lol