This Carbon Life

2012

2008-12-31T23:25:00.000-08:00

I am now at the 2,012th reason as to why I hate living here. Coming home this morning, I was on the train eyeing three different people who I think will most likely hurl in a subway car full of other people, because, you know that's how they fucking roll here. So anyway, there was this dude sitting in the corner seat who has been coughing like crazy next to another guy who looked like Anderson Cooper. I smelled some vomit but looked at the floor and didn't see anything. Anderson Cooper gets up and walks towards the car door looking like he's trying to hold it in. Coughing Guy is now off my list because he's just slumped in the corner going to sleep. Because that's how they fucking roll here. All the while this is happening, there's this trio of a guy and two women. The guy is practically chanting, “Mexico Numero Uno” while giving one of the women high fives. The other woman – the fucking menace, is swaying to and fro, holding on the the pole. We finally get to our stop and Pole hugger lets it rip right onto the floor like it's totally ok. Because, you know, that's how they roll here.

Happy New Year.

Only Begotten Daughter

2008-12-02T01:21:00.000-08:00

Only Begotten Daughter

“Only Begotten Daughter” is a Science Fiction novel written by James Morrow. The story is about a young woman named Julie Katz who some would consider to be the second coming of the Christian Messiah despite the fact that she is a woman and is Jewish (the Christian doctrine of the Messiah dictates that the second coming will consists of Jesus Christ resurrected and coming back to Earth).
Her birth is a “virgin birth” of sorts (like Jesus) or rather she comes from a coupling consisting of one mortal parent and the parentage of a spiritual being. Her father, Murray Katz, is alone and short on money. He decides to be a sperm donor to a fertilization bank for needed cash. It turns out later that one of his “deposits” has fertilized itself somehow and the Zygote grows in an Ectogenesis tube, or artificial womb that the sperm bank happens to possess. Murray decides to steal the ectogenesis tube and he brings it home with the intention to raise his child. Murray is not a Christian and doesn’t at this point, see a connection between his child’s extraordinary conception and the conception of Jesus Christ, or any other religious connections until that is, his lesbian friend, Georgina Sparks tells him that his child just may be the new messiah and sister of Jesus Christ.
Murray immerses himself in Christian doctrines and the New Testament and although he does not wholly believe that his daughter (who is now a little girl and demonstrating abilities akin to Jesus such as walking on water, and bringing dead things to life) is the daughter of G-d and a messiah, Murray has decided that Julie must keep
her identity and abilities secret or else her enemies will crucify her as what happened
to Jesus.
The plot of the book goes on with many twists and turns and the story is funny and bitter sweet with Morrow painting images as dark and beautiful with his words. But one of the issues in the book that I immediately saw and what stuck with me was Julie’s scientific understanding of our world and the universe and seeing it as seamless with G-d’s very identity and existence.
In one of our subjects in the SF class, Professor Ugoretz presented the struggle between religion and science in Science Fiction storytelling. He posed the following questions to the class: do people ever feel a conflict between science and faith or knowledge and religion? In Morrow’s book, Julie Katz doesn’t seem to be at odds with this conflict as much as the people around her. Her father in not religious, yet could not present a single scientific explanation of his own daughter’s birth. Murray also had to fight to get to the sperm bank due to religious protesters who oppose artificial insemination knowing that those who use the bank may be either lesbians who want to raise children or parents who seek genetic selection in the breeding of their progeny instead of the natural way that G-d wills.
Here we see the religious opposing the science of humans exercising self-determinationism in the procreation of children. Also, Satan himself who has a large role in the story as Julie’s tempter and tormentor prefers the earthly ways of humans such as making money and the use of technology rather than the ways of the spiritual world. He runs a casino in Atlantic City.
But what about Julie? Besides having to hide her abilities out of respect for Murray her father, Julie is trying to understand her supreme-being of a parent who in the book is identified as Julie’s ‘mother’ and is referred to as a woman throughout the book. Julie, like most people always asks the existentialist question, who am I and why am I here?
As a messiah, she wants to heal the sick, raise the dead, and fight the evil, but most of all she seeks communication with her mother, G-d. But what I found most interesting was that Julie seems to have come to the understanding who G-d is at least despite the fact that Julie cannot talk to her. Julie’s understanding of the supreme being and creator of the universe, as the stuff of mathematic equations and physics; the stuff of science. This becomes evident upon Julie’s college years whn she meets a her second lover, Howard Lieberman who happens to be strictly a believer in the scientific faith; the world of physics and laws. All truth of the universe lies in science to him. But not to Julie. As I wrote before, Julie saw the scientific world and the mystic world as one and the same, a product of G-d and intentionally a result of physics. As Morrow writes:
What Julie found through science was not so much an atheist universe as one from which God, after the act of creation, had reluctantly but necessarily excluded herself. The universe was stuff. Energy, particles, time, gravity, electromagnetism, space: stuff all. So how could a being of spirit enter a wholly physical domain? She couldn’t. The God of physics was obliged to inhabit only the unknown, the universe beyond the universe, a place the human mind would never reach before everything expired in heat-death and whimpering hydrogen. The God of physics might smuggle an occasional egg or spermatozoan into the Milky Way, but not her incorporeal essence. She could bring forth children, but never herself (Morrow 87). 1
Here we see that unlike the world around Julie of black and white where science and faith is seen as an “either/or” dynamic, Julie is not suffering this conflict between faith and science. But I do see the answer to the question that Julie has as to why her mother’s eternal silence dogs her. Morrow describes G-d, Julie’s mother the “God of physics”; an incorporeal being lacking a physical or material nature but relating to or affecting a body. Perhaps Morrow meant that G-d’s own non-physical self cannot occupy the physical-material world she created. Therefore, no face, body, or hands, or voice that Julie can sense.
Julie as a messiah is extremely different from the messianic role of Jesus. In light of Julie’s perspective of science and religion, Julie takes a different approach to bringing G-d’s words and wisdom to the masses. As an adult, Julie Katz finally decides to preach the gospel by writing a column in a tabloid. Instead of prayers and biblical quotes, or channeling G-d’s words, Julie gives advice that is not unlike the advice of psychotherapists (a scientific practice), or a bartender. From her perspective, her advices are sound ideas just like Jesus’ sermons on the mount; practical wisdom in this practical, material world. Julie seeks to divine by way of science, she balances it with faith.
As pointed out by my Professor, Joseph Ugoretz on the conflict of religion and science:
…..Some people say that science, for much of our society, has taken the place of religion. Where we used to pray, or dance, for rain, we now look to barometers and thermometers and a meteorologist with satellite images . Instead of priests or shamans, many people see physicians to heal their bodies. Even spirits (minds and emotions) are seen to be the business of psychology, rather than theology. 2
And so in “Only Begotten Daughter”, we see Julie Katz, the messiah conceived in a sperm bank where humans use the science of artificial insemination for self determination of the genetic outcome of their offspring and the ideal of Immaculate Conception, a religious concept of spiritual conception between mortal and Supreme Being. Both concepts are intertwined to give the setting for Julie’s entrance into the world. No struggle between genetic determinationism and Immaculate Conception the two just are and co-exist.
In an online discussion on the issue of Religion and Science conflict, my classmate, Miyoshi Martell had this to say regarding the balance between the two worlds as opposed to conflict:
“…Maybe God uses science to accomplish things and help people learn about their world. Can that be the compromise, science and religion being somehow connected?
They do explore the same things. Religion is about creation and miracles. Science explores these both. You can use science to create miracles. You can heal a deathly ill person with medication or you can say it was faith. I say it is a combination of the two.”3
My other classmate, Marysabel Vargas also added:
…There is a conflict between science and faith because (at least in my religion) we think God made everything. We believe God made the universe the world, animals, us; and science has answers and theories that prove religion wrong. For example science says the universe was created by the big bang. Religion says God made it. Science says we evolved from the monkeys. Religion says God made us from his image. Who is right and who is wrong? I think there should be a balance in what we believe in…4
I have written on the subject of the faith/science conflict and I later concluded I that faith and science can coexist. Julie sees no difference between the cosmos created by God and the cosmos studied by and theorized by physicists. In other words, the universe is made up of mathematic equations that humans decipher as science, but that universe is made up of G-d itself.
Julie did not turn herself away from faith because of her love of science, but her faith in G-d’s existence is strengthened by it.
Sources

1. Morrow, James. Only Begotten Daughter New York: Harcourt publishing, Inc., 1990
2. Ugoretz, Joseph. Science and Faith: Religion in SF, [WWW Document]
3. Martell, Miyoshi, “The conflict, Faith/Religion,” Science and Faith forum (June, 29 2006) [WWW Document].
4. Vargas, Marysabel, “The conflict, Faith/Religion,” Science and Faith forum (June, 29 2006) [WWW Document]

Xtube and Relationships

2008-11-24T12:33:00.000-08:00

So I was watching Xtube (AGAIN) instead of studying and a thought crossed my mind; I'm looking at my favorites mostly consisting of couples and I can't help but wonder what happens to an Xtube couple when they break up. You see, I still feel this begrudging tug deep inside that the women in some of these voyeuristic couples may have been coerced. Maybe they did not have a problem video taping their sex, but actually putting it out there on the Internet for all eternity is whole other ball of wax. Did they do it because they they are truly voyeurs or where they more strongly encouraged by their partners because the women were in a relationship? We can guess however when some of the xtube couples do break up because we won't see the video anymore.

Anyway, my question is, if shoving a carrot up your man's ass after riding him into the ground for a creampie shot doesn't hold your relationship together, what can? How secure would one feel in their relationship to be ready to put their faces out there in a homemade porn movie and does making such films ensure you guys will stay together?

Rivka Little - Why can’t I just be happy that Obama is president?

2008-11-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, election day, we gained our first African American president. The weight of this in its historical context and what it means for our future as a country is as great for me as for everyone else. My mother marched through snow and heat and knocked on doors to register voters. My best friend’s mother saw her friend tarred and feathered in Virginia. And my step grandfather – an African American engineer who worked at a major television manufacturer – was killed when his employer asked him, with his PhD and all, to come out in the middle of the night to “clean up” a nuclear spill. I get it. Change has occurred.

But today I am experiencing a real resistance to shrieking for joy like many of friends, coworkers and my dang civil rights-era mother.

Obama’s presidency won’t, in fact, stop an NYPD officer from turning a gun on a black man and letting off 50 bullets. It won’t stop white teachers (and frankly those of other races too) from criminalizing kids of color in school and assuming that one act of bad behavior is a sign of a Hannibal Lecter to come. My guess is that at the end of Obama’s first four-year term social scientists will still be able to do the 30-year-old baby doll test and get the same results – little black girls and little white ones will reach for the white doll when asked which one is more beautiful. Doctors will still resist researching why African American men die at greater rates from medicine-resistant hypertension, stroke and heart attack.

And all of that means that my children can’t, in fact, be whatever they want to be because white people and black people alike organized to get my beloved Obama elected.

Now, I am not a complete doomsayer (yes Brucie, that word is for you. It’s the cousin of misanthrope). I believe that maybe after two Obama terms, or after a decade, the results of that baby doll test may begin to slowly shift. And it’s possible that the psychological effects of having a black president could trickle slowly into the minds of officers and teachers, doctors and employers of all kinds. But Obama stressed one word last night that so many seemed to overlook. That word was BEGINNING. This is the beginning of more change, not the end or even the middle. And while it is so much more likely that our children can be president in the future, I refuse to pull the fleece over my kid’s head that easily.

I am not one to give her or anybody an out because of race. But to tell her that things are suddenly cleared up, the road is wide open and she can fly without obstacle is unfair and undue pressure. This is the time to say to her: “This is the beginning. Take on a life of service. You can be whatever you want to be if you continue to work against the obstacles. It is your job to help Obama move and shift these obstacles. Speak out. Never remain silent. Work hard. And stay tough when these harsh realities are thrown in your face. And they will be. And I know you can be strong.”

Now, I can say hooray for two little sweet girls and their press ‘n curls in the White House.

My Needs are Small

2008-10-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning knowing exactly what I would want out of life if a genie where to grant me a list of wishes:

1. To have a job for life where I cannot get fired - this means I can body slam stupid-ass CUNY co-workers who need shit from me.

2. Immunity from jail - so I can stab mobsters in the neck, beat the fuck out of cops, kick bosses in the balls, and push Barbie look-alikes down some stairs when they flash me that fake-ass smile (you don't know me, Mary Ann and don't want to know me. So keep that fake smile to yourself).

3. Bullet proof skin - so I can stab mobsters in the neck, beat the fuck out of cops, kick bosses in the balls....

4. Have telekinesis - The power to move objects with my mind

5. To uncover every dirty truth and secret done to oppressed people of color

6. The power to raise a ghost army as my defense force- I will resurrect fallen Panthers, people who died on the trip crossing the Atlantic and everyone who died due to internalized racism. That will be a big assed army to say the least.

Do You Know the Way to Santa Fe?

2008-09-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

Never heard my generation referred to in this way or even so named, but coming across the "Generation X" wiki page, I came across this sub-category which supposedly puts me closer to the Baby Buster generation. Apparently those who were born between '58-'68 were part of a down-ward shift in the U.S. and Canadian birth rates.

The wiki goes on to say:
...Owning an early childhood flooded with televised images of protest, rapidly variegating morality, tragedy, and scandal, they have no recollection of a world in which authority was not constantly questioned but they were not old enough to affect changes like the true Boomers. By the time the Busters reached adolescence, Watergate had ended unquestioned authority; individuality was the new conformity, and hedonism the cultural ideal. Many were the first children of Boomers. They were also the first grade school students formally taught by the newly graduated Boomers from activist college campuses during the 1960s.....

This part is so true. I remember posting about my own education and how so many of my teachers were these young, hippy girls and Afro mammas straight out of college. They of course turned out to be my first crushes.....

Anyway, just wanted to share.

Kitchen Music

2008-09-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

As I read emails and brush up on my Spanish for "The Class that May Kick My Ass" this semester, I hear the lame crap that brays from the speakers of the school cafeteria behind me. Yeah, I hear the usual lame stuff of today's charts like Pink, or some American Idol winner, or whatever, but to make things worse I have to hear Phil fucking Collins circa '86 with Susudio. I came to a conclusion that all kitchen crews in order to get through the shift of slipping and sliding on greasy hole-filled mats (where the holes themselves are filled with stepped-on tater-tots - cooked or frozen or both), and yelling dumbasses waiting for their cheesy fries, they have to listen to simple minded pap.
I should know because from spring of '85 to February 1990, I worked in a sports bar/family restaurant known as Dirty's.
While I definitely had class and language privilege over the Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants who REALLY were trapped in the kitchen for survival (I seriously doubt that my mother would have thrown me out for not working after my 18th birthday as she threatened) I can at least say that I shared the need to have "Diamond" David Lee Roth blasting as white noise to get through the night.
I was 18 when my classmate Billy Perry offered to talk to his manger at Dirty's about getting the prep cook gig there after I told him I didn't have money to buy any of the music he and I used to talk about all the time that we were in class (yes, instead of doing our remedial math, we talked about Savage Dogs, the Slits, and Circle Jerks). Along with our friend Rosemary Lucero, we found some kindred thread in being people of color who liked hardcore and punk. In the back of my mind after telling Billy about my money situation, I also thought back to momma's threat that if I didn't kick-in to the bills and rent, I was out on the street. Which her stress was understandable since she really couldn't afford to support two older teens by herself with either one of us making plans to move on either to college or out of the house.
Dirty's was located on the corner of Richmond Ave. and Chimney Rock. This was the mid-eighties when the Richmond Strip of bars, restaurants, and clubs was in its infancy.
Within a week I got the gig and about a week later, Billy quit (something about wanting to smoke more weed and hang out with his then 17 y/o girlfriend more. Billy was 21 at the time).
The manager who hired me quit too as if leaving me to fend for myself in a shitty place that I swore I would quit within a month for something 'better'.
As the years wore on, with my dropping out of high school, eating anything that was fried, being a slacker full of dreams and shit, I remember the one constant was that the kitchen took on a sort of schizophrenic persona through the music that was being played on a daily basis. During the day shift it was all soul and R&B. The day kitchen which was headed up by Rose Berry, a sixty something year old black woman who could cook her ass off and was quick to share her sexual exploits with anyone who would listen, well she had the rights to the radio. All head cooks or shift leaders had the "right" or call on what radio station the rest of the kitchen had to listen to. So Rose had it on Majic 102.
At 3 when my crew came in, our shift leader (when I first started) was Ramon, and he would put it on 104, the pop/rock station at the time. Ramon wanted to listen to Los Tigres, but the Kitchen God would not allow for a clear signal. However Ramon didn't want to listen to Prince, so Diamond Dave it was. :-(.
Ramon found something better and quit (something about working at Sam's Boat on the Richmond strip which at that time was cocaine central). So I bought a small blaster with a cassette deck from Walgreens so everybody can play whatever they wanted.
After my second year, I met these two metal heads whose names escape me. They were hired as prep cooks and I was moved to fry cook. My belly still hasn't forgiven me of my trespasses during this dark period. Neither have my brain cells. You see, the two metal heads turned me on to two things; Thrash (or speed metal) and acid. Ok, they were hippyish metal heads. While I would trip in class during my last year in school before dropping out, I sat at my desk gripped with the fear of becoming a big stupid loser like all the dumbasses that hung at Dirty's bar at night; burn-outs with coked-out waitress girlfriends getting high throughout their 20s, 30s, and early 40s only to clean up just enough to become a restaurant or bar manager of Dirty's. Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting down the service industry jobs or the people that hold them, I'm talkin' 'bout the peeps who worked Dirty's and places like Dirty's.
Of course this was '86-'87. I didn't get my shit together until I became political and read Malcolm X - the radical equivalent of cleaning up to become born-again.

When I became shift leader, the two metal heads disappeared and our kitchen staff became all Latino except for me at night. The music changed slightly better in that it was no longer in English, but it didn't matter because I always had lyrics like these in my head:

Blind Man’s Penis (Peace & Love)
By John Trubee

I got high last night on LSD
My mind was beautiful, and I was free
Warts loved my nipples because they are pink
Vomit on me, baby
Yeah Yeah Yeah.

A blind man's penis is erect because he's blind
It's erect because he's blind
A blind man's penis is erect because he's blind
It's erect because he is blind

Let's make love under the stars
And watch for UFOs
And if little baby Martians
Come out of the UFOs
You can fuck them
Yeah Yeah Yeah.

The zebra spilled its plastinia on bemis
And the gelatin fingers oozed electric marbles
Ramona's titties died in hell
And the Nazis want to kill
To kill everyone.

A blind man's penis is erect because he's blind

I realized I needed to do something about myself and went to electronics school where I got my Associates. I didn't put that knowledge to use of course until way later in my life, but I knew I had some choices. I quit by reducing my hours to part-time while I spent my week days at the SHAPE Center doing political work or hawking the Militant newspaper. I finally left to work for a company that made truck beds for HL&P, Houston's old electric and Power Company.
My coworkers in the kitchen had families and went on to raise them, when Dirty's was bought out by a guy who used to run Brown's Chicken, a small chain like Church's Chicken, he "cleaned house" at Dirty's, getting rid of all the cokehead waitresses (some of them, I later found out even sold the punani for $. Too bad I did not have that knowledge at the times when I was young and under-sexed. But knowing them, they probably had "No Kitchen Help" policy when it came to their chosen clientele. I guess being Norm or Cliff Clavin of the sports bar underworld does have its own rewards and I guess even coke whores have standards.

Inside the head of Navah Little

2008-09-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

Below is a real-life letter sent to us last year:

Dear R and Bruce,

I just wanted to let you know about a concern I have about Navah in class. Last week we worked with magazines to cut out images to make our sanctuaries, and I made a concerted effort to remove all inappropriate images from them in advance. Navah seemed determined to find as many of these inappropriate images as possible and when she did find some less savory images (a model with his shirt open and a some alcohol images of a martini glass and vodka bottle), she made a point of cutting them out and placing them in her collage. When I asked her if those images belonged in a synagogue, she did mention that she thought the alcohol was wine, but I was just concerned and wanted to bring this to your attention. She did seem aware of what she was doing and made sure that myself and her classmates were aware as well. This came up after I had already submitted the report cards to the school, so I thought I should address this with you directly.

If you think I need to take any further action with Navah (besides the disappointment I expressed in class), please let me know, but otherwise, I will leave it to your discretion whether you discuss this Navah. Per their request, I am copying Kerith Braunfeld and Tirza Arad to this e-mail.

Thanks,

Susudia Suptin
Class 3B

Coiled in Houston

2008-09-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

I had a really intense dream last night about Houston.
I was there visiting with Assata. For some reason, R and Navah were not there, but I felt that they were back in NYC.
I was sitting in a vacant lot from across E’s work place. Not sure if there is a vacant lot there now, but in the dream that’s where I was at. Assata was sleeping under the 105 degree weather in a wicker basket. I pull a blanket over her face to shield her from getting sun burn (yes, my youngest gets sunburn).
I noticed a little baby snake with the skin pattern of a rattler or Boa. I was not sure what kind of snake it was, but I stood and picked up the wicker basket after seeing the baby snake swallow a rat.
I removed the the blanket and Assata was ok, but there was a big Boa coiled and maybe sleeping next to her. I picked it up and threw it on the ground. It slithered away. I remember seeing a big pile of greenish slime next to Assata like it was maybe snake poop. Not sure.
I headed over to the work place and in the front yard there was a group of young Latinas/os putting together banners and signs for an art show held at the place. I knew none of them but they wore a lot of red and black. They were friendly and really happy to see Assata once I introduced her. I took her in the place to find E. By this time she was walking around and a couple of women who I did not know just swooped all over Assata to play with her. Strangely I thought it was ok to leave her and I started walking around. The place looked a little like it did when I was doing work there, but it was definitely different. Things were moved around and I haven’t stepped foot in the place in 10 years. I headed up the stairs to find E. He was sitting in his office. I sat next to him and we started looking at the sun; commenting on its ‘coding’ as if it were a piece of software. Then this woman comes in. She was very short, dark brown, thick build, with long, jet black hair and a flat, roundish face. She had a few short, dark brown scars on her face but still very beautiful. The woman sat on my lap and stared into the sun with her black eyes. I offered her my seat or to find a seat for her other than my lap, knowing that this situation was not cool by any means. But she declined saying that she was ok where she was. I told E over the woman’s shoulder that I had to go. E said ok without looking up.
I stood up and headed back downstairs.
Looking back on my time with him neither one of us seemed happy. Not happy to see each other, or happy about anything. Just happy about the sun it seemed.
I started to panic when I couldn’t find Assata. I looked in the kitchen of the place, the lobby, looked outside to see if she was playing in the street (NYC kids don’t do things like that), but couldn’t find her. Then I heard her from under my feet. I went back in and walked down some stairs where the studio should have been. It seemed that the studio was now in the basement. Assata was ok and was playing with an old producer who I really liked named Jim. He was just raving about Assata. He asked me about myself and then my mood got real dark. I just smiled and made more bs small talk, scooped up Assata and we headed back to the Days Inn where we were staying. I looked out the storm window of our room and the sky was dark purple and violet.
When I woke I just remember dreading having to leave the motel.

When TV was in my classroom

2008-09-19T16:46:00.001-07:00

My 1st grade teacher was this cute, thick dark-skinned woman with a tiny afro and thick glasses named Caroline. Her mentor/shadow teacher was this older white woman whose name I cannot remember, but when Caroline rolled the TV into the classroom and played Sesame street and Electric Company, the older teacher would turn red as hell, ready to combust into flames.
Ah, good times, good times.

My sister's lights are back on!

2008-09-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

Ice, water, and food, schools remain ex-factors, not only for her, but many of the working class neighborhoods that still remain in the dark as I write this. The infrastructures of many o the cities in this country are failing and falling apart...but we can make bombs that can fly up somebodies ass with precision - paid for by our tax dollars. Fuck it, I'll save all that anger for my political blog. In the meantime, thank you G--...uh,..uh, science and technology!!!!!

A slight exhale of slight relief

2008-09-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

A slight exhale of slight relief,
I heard from my sister yesterday before leaving work. She said that they have enough food for the week, but no gas and no electricity. The lines for food, ice, and water where unreal thanks to FEMA's almost spontaneous appearances. Now we can only hope that she can get her lights back on in a reasonable amount of time.

The last Love and Rockets posting (at least for the next 6 months)

2008-09-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, I finished Issue 1 of Vol.3 or at least the new volume of stories over the weekend and I have to say, Gilbert owned the latest issue. The body of work that he brought to this latest issue was awesome in that it reminded me of why I love adult/alternative comix in the first place; pure free form of story lines and obscure characters. The stories were told in an unpredictable and spontaneous rhythm like a Coltrane composition. 'Beto did not play around nor did he give us familiar faces like those of Palomar. I'm not going into detail here purposely because if you're going to buy it, you just need to be told to get in the car, but I ain't providing the map or giving you directions to your destination.

Jaime didn't fail to deliver either, but somewhat gave us familiar territory. It was nice to see that Maggie hasn't slimmed down at all in her short appearance of this latest issue, and Jaime even added a second chin to her, but he still won't give Maggie a belly. I know that I've seen a hundred women Maggie's size and mostly, I've seen them with bellies - to me, it's just a slice of reality that I'm looking for that's all. But other than that, the story was cool. What Jaimie gave us was, more or less an update of one of his oldest characters Penny Century, the eccentric zillionairess who has always been obsessed with becoming a superhero or adventure. The only thing I liked about the story, was seeing Angle from Tarzana, the beautiful loser who appeared in Vol. 2 and became friends with Maggie. Jaime develops her more here, but I'm waiting to see where he will ultimately take her.

The Male Menz

In Volume 2 of Love and Rockets, Jaime and Gilbert worked more with men. Or at least it seemed that way with me. I had always been drawn heavily to Jaime's Ray Dominguez's character because I se a lot of myself in him; grew up in the 'hod, but not of it, angry at the stupid and self-destruction of internalized hatred in his community (turf battles), but not bitter and self-hating, and usually shy with the girls and always paying for it in the end. Of course there is more to him than meets the eye; especially as he gets older and that is where we meet Ray again in Vol.2. Like Maggie, he's in his late 30s/early 40s and still he's pining for her since she's the one who got away. But where he would have been still leaking blood over her from his chest cavity where his heart was, he's taken to becoming Captain Save-A-Ho for Maggie's "Friend", the Frog Mouth. You know the kind of chick who is always hooking up with the gangsters and badasses and winds up paying for it later by either winding up in prison over a piece of shit, getting beat by a piece of shit, or lying in a ditch somewhere dead over a piece of shit. Do I sound bitter?
Well, the Frog Mouth seems to function as a unhealthy distraction from Maggie, but not for long. It is the way of unrequited love I guess.

I had fun reading Ray as a narrator of Maggie's and The Frog Mouth's lives for a while there, but Mark Herrera was may more fun.

Mark Herrera was 'Beto's creation in Vol.2 who I loved reading. Mark was one of those dudes you either knew or knew someone who knew this type of guy. Mark is the guy who culd achieve whatever he went for, but somehow could not keep it. This is his general problem with career or relationships. We are introduced to Mark in Gilbert's High Soft Lisp stories featuring Fritz. Fritz is one of Gilbert's main characters and is the American half-sister of Luba. We have seen her in Gilbert's previous work in L&R as the love sick therapist who chases Scott the Hog, the lead of the L.A. punk band, Love and Rockets. Gilbert finally shows us why, (why, oh why, GHOD!)did Fritz chase such an piece of human wreckage like Scott. Since issue #5 we saw Fritz simply searching for love. This is the reason why I never believe in using the word, 'slut' to describe promiscuity. Fritz falls into one sexual situation to the next because she is propelled by her inner demons on a search for love or at least for some form of intimate comfort. Finally she meets Mark, a young, up and coming motivational speaker during the mid 80s when that shit was at its most popular. The Human Potential Movement my ass. Anyway, Mark is revealed to us as some piece of work and even provides comic relief after he and Fritz divorce. In later issues of Vol. 2, he falls hard as his star fades and Fritz's star rises as she embraces an unlikely career and fame. But Mark's fall is comical, sad, and pathetic all at the same time. My avorite story was "Dumb Solitaire", Issue 11, Vol.2 where Mark is deconstructed by his five wives and he deconstructs them - as he sees things. Ha, Ha!
Well, that's it. Just wanted to highlight some of the best aspects of the latest issue of L&R and talk about the compelling male characters of Los Hernandez Bros.

We will now return to our regular programming.

My Dangerous Love for Superwomen

2008-09-06T05:52:00.000-07:00

My psychological love for them started as soon as I laid eyes on my mother and my Great-Gradmother, Nono. But one day, I'll write about that. Right now, I wanna write about the physical manifestation of the Superwoman and my attraction to her. You see, today was the first day of class for me this semester, and as it happens on my campus, the body builders come to convene for their conference or show, or whatever the hell it is. Now what steams my eyes and gets me all sweaty like the horny geek I was back in middle school, are the female body builders. That's right, despite the fake tans that make them Oompa Loompa-orange, I got a thing for muscles mavens.

Yeah, I know, Those of you who know me are probably tripping right now and calling me a sell-out as an admirer of the thick mamis, the zaftig queens, the curvy lionesses, and the Supersized BBWs. But that's not the case - I just never expressed appreciation for women body builders - until now. But the thing is, is that I appreciate both body types (among others outside of the hetero-normative standard of feminine "beauty") as almost the same. Both body types represent for me, the physical embodiment of feminine power-to be equal to male stature, to not be small and non-threatening.

Most men will cover up their disdain for BBWs and say it's all about health. Ok, then so why not hook up with this Goddess?
Huh, what? What's wrong, why're you running away? Oh, that's right - I forgot, you want some pixie stick you can throw around the bed and feel all mannish duing sex, right? Whatever.

Anyway, I'm not gonna let this post be about those dorks and no, I'm not saying that preferences for non-big chicks or non-female bodybuilders is invalid or evil. I'm just saying that we gotta learn to question so-called 'standards' of 'beauty' and oppose the definitions of what physically embodies femininity when those definitions are defined by men (gay or straight) who don't have the balls to deal with chicks bigger than them.

Female Bodybuilder Jehina Malik

Hero: Gilbert Hernandez

2008-08-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

I know that I'm annoying all family, friends, and coworkers with my mania for Love and Rockets lately, but I can't help it. Maybe it's in light of me recently thinking about my teen years at Dirty's. I can parallel much of what I've written in my last post to the Gilbert Hernandez half of the L&R Universe. I identify mostly to his characters and love for strong, yet imperfect heroic women. Gilbert (AKA 'beto) can be deftly political and heart wrenching in his writing and art. The bastard just made me shed a tear (a MANLY tear, dammit!!) ten minutes ago.

Gilbert Hernandez reads and draws like a film. You can't pin down one particular filmmaker, but you can tell he draws from so many. I often catch Almodovar and Fellini in some panels, and maybe Alex Cox (post Sid and Nancy work) in others and if I was familiar with Mexican cinema, I'm sure I would see a lot of that in his work as well.
But despite the fact that the comic is drawn in glorious black and white, you can imagine the colors of the backgrounds, the characters, and the very words of Glibert's Palomar or Los Angeles.

His stories and plots are always steeped in social realism. For instance, in my favorite collection of his work, Poison River, besides the political violence that ebbs and flows between the pages, there is always the ugliness of human beings that raises its ugly head. We see in the beginning that the country where Luba, one of 'beto's main characters and the main character of Poison River is undergoing the dawn of a dark political time resembling that of Pinochet's Chile or the El Salvador under the Death Squad government of the 80s.
While Luba is a child, she witnesses her older cousin, Ofelia and her friends being raped and murdered by masked right-wingers because they suspected Ofelia and her friends of being leftists. To keep Luba safe from being a witness, Ofelia shows a hiding Luba her fist to threaten the child into staying under the bushes as she is being sexually assaulted. Luckily Ofelia's attacker fails in killing Ofelia. The scene alone is horrific, but at the same time, sweet, because Ofelia, unsure of her own life at the moment, fought to keep her baby cousin alive by threatening violence. Only 'beto can capture something like that.
There is another scene that I think of in Poison River as Luba is hanging with her friends and shooting up out of boredom, depression, and loneliness as gangsters' wives, one of her friends callously injects dope into a cat hanging out on the window sill. The cat dies as it writhes and vomits to death on the floor as her friend watches amused as if she were watching TV. Later in the book, Luba herself decides to shoot up while she is advanced in her pregnancy. Luba looses her first child as a result and does so as violently as the dying cat. Gilbert captures adroitly, human ugliness and the mistakes that people make. We can judge them, or just get off on the misery, but either way, 'beto don't sugar coat.

I'm now determined even more to get back to writing. The below video footage of Gilbert going off shows how passionate he is about his and his brother, Jaime's work. And that passion of Gilbert's has inspired me to get to my own creative work.

I wish the person who filmed him let Gilbert rant on some more. It must be a hell of a thing to be the master of your work, but surrounded by meat-headed dorks who just want to read superhero comics...ahh don't get me started.

Of Torn Fatigues, Late Night Howlings, Narcorridos, Beautiful Losers, and Chicken Fried Steaks

2008-08-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

When I talk to my therapist, he gets the bad memories. When I talk to my assistant, she gets the good ones. Today, I was telling her about my friend, Billy P.
Billy, myself, and Rosemary L , met in our remedial math classroom at the beginning of he new year of 1985. I was recently kicked out of my last high school because we no longer lived in the neighborhood of MacArthur HS. Why the hell I chose to commute all the way to a hick-assed High School with tobacco chawin' rednecks, country-assed black folks and Chicanos who acted like it was still the 50s is beyond me. Maybe it was the two hour trek before the sun came up, maybe it was the friends I made the year before when we still lived on Aldine Mail Route, or maybe it was the fact that I just wanted to be the cool Afropunk amongst dorks and Fundamental Christians that fueled me to put myself through the torture of getting to MacArthur every morning while at the school that I was supposed to be zoned to, Robert E Lee, had all the makings of a John Houston movie. It was a greener pasture there, with a smoking area outside the cafeteria, featuring a diverse cast of Molly Ringwold lookalikes, young brothers trying their beat-box skills at the invisible mic, skaters wearing Minor Threat t-shirts, and Proto-goth girls in Siouxsie t-shirts. Yeah, I should have saw the signs in myself then taht I was a glutton for punishment; always wanting to take the hard way out.
Anyway, one day at MacArthur after a fight between two rednecks over who was going to fuck the barnyard cow that night, our Assistant Principal looked over at me and asked me, "Where the hell do you live?" I told him across the street from the school, but he shook his head deftly. "Naw, naw, son. I see you getting off the bus late on some mornings. We need to talk."
After his going through my fake records of residency, I was told to go to the school of "wherever the hell you really live". So Christmas came and went, then I started at Robert E Lee in January of '85.

Billy had a hay-stacked mullet, was wearing a gray flannel shirt, torn jeans, and black converse. Before dudes shaped their eyebrows Billy's was naturally shaped, giving him that pretty-boy villain look like from a telanovella. I'd say he looked a little like a mix between Speedy Ortiz from Love and Rockets and Sid Vicious (without the pockmarks). But at first, I just thought he looked like a dick metal-head. I ignored him until I saw his notebook. Bands like TSOL, Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Kennedys, and Black Flag were scrawled all over. We started talking about music right then.
The next day, our trio was complete when Rosemary joined us. Actually, I can't remember if we all met on that same day or not or if I was the one who came late, but it didn't matter. Each day in class was shit-shooting sessions instead of dealing with math. We talked about movies, music, whatever. Meeting these two opened up alot of thought and ideas about people in general. I was an introvert back then and didn't have a great deal of stock in people; I just didn't know who I could sit down and talk to or relate to. Billy changed all that just by meeting him ,because after whining about never having any money, he got me a gig at Dirty's restaurant on Richmond and Chimney Rock.

I'll leave a separate post dedicated to the cast of characters of Dirty's bar, but there were no characters in Dirty's kitchen where Billy and I worked. These were people. At that time, being young, you're either blissfully happy with your surroundings, or deathly miserable. I moaned and belly-ached at the fact that I was working in a kitchen surrounded by people who spoke Spanish only and who always bitched at my slow-moving ass. Because I was new to the crew, I was stuck with prep work getting in and then for the rest of the night, I was stuck pressing chicken fried steaks.

Let me tell you, that at that time, I truly understood how vegetarians are made. Although I wasn't even about to claim myself vegan, I was fucking grossed the fuck out, by the following Chicken Fried Steak making process:

1. Take a round piece of cubed beef patty. Sometimes red (thanks to red dye # 386) or sometimes that brown-grayish color that meat gets.

2. Take round patty and dip it in a bowl of flour.

3. Press down on the patty a little, then

4. Dip it in another bowl of a buttermilk, eggs, and paprika mix.

5. Press down on the patty again, this time to press out the mushy, sodden, patty to three times its original size.

6. Dip the shit in flour again, pressing the patty until it is a discus of meat, now torn, but held together by egg and flour.

7. Throw that shit in the deep fryer. Ummm, yummy heart attack!

Did I mention that the steak had to be almost a big as the plate it was served on and smothered in this white biscuit gravy? Well, now you know.

As I said I was not a happy hippo then. But when I look back on that time of my life meeting people who risked their lives to work here for shit money, yet carved a life here nonetheless, and the waitresses I met - some of them college students, or global travelers like Elspeth, the Brit chick who worked with us for three summers all the while traveling and working in other countries when she wasn't with us, and new friends like Asela, who turned out to be one of Billy's many heart-struck casualties at Dirty's but who I would come to know as a smart, shrewed and intelligent woman - all of these people were a wealth of life experiences I wouldn't trade for anything. After my first six months at Dirty's, Billy decides to quit. I tell him I wouldn't last that long myself. Yeah, that proclamation turned into five years.

As time went on, I got bored with listening to hardcore. One of my coworkers introduced me to Tigres Del Norte and I was like, cool with listening to them with the rest of the crew from the kitchen radio. Until then, I always had my walkman on blasting D.R.I or MDC.

Then in '87, Billy came back. He finally got rid of the mullet, and then became the male whore of the both the kitchen and the bar. After work, we'd hang out at the bar where I developed my new found love for Heineken and it was always some 70's burn-out rocker chick who wanted her some piece of Billy. There was this one waitress who was married and figured her only way to get some was to just fuck Billy in the family car. After getting sick of seeing bar fly girls sneaking out of their house at nine in the morning, Billy's parents finally expressed their disgust. He was so guilty and shamed, that he felt that he should join the Navy. After seeing Oliver Stone's Platoon, I went with him to the recruiting office out of support.

For another year or so, Billy was gone. But came back unfortunately due to his mental break down over the death of his brother who was killed on the night that his child was born. It seems that he surprised robbers in his own home. Of course Billy came back to Dirty's from the Navy with a honorable discharge and a growing coke habit. But this time, he wouldn't be working in the kitchen; he was now a waiter. Asela was over him now that she had a full house with her own kids coming up from Mexico and her two sisters. Me, I was out of the door myself now trying to earn my Associates in Electronics. The last time I saw Billy was when I took my-soon-to-be-Wifey to Dirty's and he was there bartending. By this time, the rock that he and I used to listen to had found its way into million dollar studios and was being regurgitated by bands like Nirvana. It was 1994, I never saw him again after that.

Jack Tripper's affair and being human

2008-08-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was in asshole mode and took it out on a young brother in the blackospere who didn't deserve my flame post. My post is not excused in any way, I reacted to this bit of tabloidal news regarding Edwards in a negative way with no explanation of my telling this brother to "Grow-the-fuck-up".

Younger people, especially Gen-Yers, (but no different from Gen-Xers) of color have come up through the years in broken families and broken homes. Hell, most of us never even knew that divorce existed. We saw that that was what white people did on TV. For us, 'divorce' was simply just your father leaving your mother after a big fight. That was it. No courts, no checks, no lawyers. And in our communities targeted by politicians, druglords, members of Law Enforcement, etc., the dysfunctional and broken family added to hell we've seen over the past four decades after our 'liberation'.

The brother's anger or disgust towards Edwards could have been out of reaction to what we all think is the root of a broken home/society and its institutions that supposedly keep it together (marriage, church, baseball, etc.), or maybe he was just disgusted at Edwards in general, the problem is I reacted to whatever preconceived ideas I had that he may not may not have , and I was negative towards him.

Jack Tripper

I alway call Edwards Jack Tripper because he looks like Jack Tripper (duh). So Edwards had an affair. Now, I could say he was like Clinton, and be in a moral 'outrage' over him, but I'm going to leave Edwards som room for the benefit of the doubt that his affair was isolated and yes, he did it with a sick wife - because he's human.
We are frail creatures. We create these ridiculous archtypes of who we should be - moral, strong, straight-edged uber-people who, when facing difficulties will deal with the task at hand like a good little trooper and smile all the time while doing so. This is bullshit. No one has ever been that way and I no one should. Some of us will belly up top the task of dealing with a dying loved one, but may turn right-around and be total monsters to the ones closest to us who are not ill.
Some of us may deal with life's stresses not with a prayer or a visit to church as a retreat, but will head out to the boats late at night and gamble away baby-girl's college fund. So of us won't go on late night creeps for a bj from some faceless stranger, but will drink all night as a way of processing secret resentments to how their lives have turned out. Some of us will put their heart, lives, soul, and blood into loving their partner because they in turn, hate themselves.

So we don't know why Edwards did what he did. I can guess seeing your life partner dying in front of you and constantly being sick is not an easy thing if you truly are at the forefront of dealing with your partner. I might wind up looking like Jabba the fucking Hut if Wifey was on the terminal sick bed and I was taking her to chemo or whatever. What we should be as a society is build a culture that encourages people to know their limits and identify their weaknesses and strengths and be ok with that, and make sure that we better process our anger, griefs, depressions, and feelings of loneliness better. This way, we won't have to act out in ways that will impact our loved ones in negatively.

Percy

2008-08-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

As far back as I can remember, Percy was my father. Percy was from Shreveport, Louisiana and as it turns out, he would be the first Louisianan with whom I would have problems with.
He met my mother in KC when he offered her a ride to the house one day. She told me there was a hole in the floor of his car between the driver and passenger seats. All she saw as they rode was speeding street under her feet. This is the retardedness of Percy; to pick up a chick with a big-assed hole in the bottom of his car as if all was right for a player to be in flight.

Percy lived in KC because he had people there. He dropped momma off at aunt Anna's house, I believe because that's where momma and I was staying when she was still going to school. I had to at least be around 2 or 3.

When Percy met my great-grandmother, Nora, she hated him. She just thought he was stupid and she was right. But for some reason, my other relatives liked him. Anyway, my earliest memories of him where in California. After momma and Percy got married they moved to L.A. This was '71 or '72. My sister was already born but was not Percy's biological daughter. He liked to believe that she was because she was so "pretty" (read: light-skinned). Shaune was born in '69. Maybe about a year or two before momma met Percy.

In LA I just remember Percy fighting with my great-grandma a lot (she would go on to live us for many years until her death in her own apt. in '78) and he would spend a lot of time outside of the house too. Sometimes he would bring his crew home and what a riot they were. One guy, John, never bathed. Nora would just say, "Ahhh here comes that stanky nigger, that stuttering fool, and that mannish woman! Percy's crew were his truck driving coworkers. When the 70's rolled around, being a trucker was the shit. That's why by the mid 70s you saw so many trucking movies and t.v. shows. The stuttering fool was Percy's cousin, Rodney. Percy stuttered too and when they got together Nora would would just throw up her hands and yell, "It's like listening to two idiot-machine guns!" No one knew what the fuck that meant, but I did. Sort of. Nora drank too.
So anyway, in addition to Rod, you had Tony, the "Mannish Woman" my great-grandmother was referring to who was the only one of Percy's crew I liked. She was funny and a Buddhist. She had a shaved head and wore the prayer beads around her wrist. Most of the times she wore a black cowboy hat. They would all come over to the house between jobs or hauls.
Percy was a hustler too. He always tried to make money and it seemed that whatever job he was working it never paid enough for him so his other job or part-time job was to sue people.
When that didn't work, he decided to join the Army Reserve. I'm not sure how much that paid, but it could not have been that much. We had to move to back to KC and we moved into an apartment that was over Percy's sister's laundry and corner store. Irene, I had a big crush on her. She was red and thick and curvy but a workaholic.

Percy was barely home at this time and man was I happy. He was stationed in another part of Missouri and would be there for the next year or so. After that, he quit - and got a job in a plant.
We moved to this mostly white neighborhood December of '74. The new house had a fire place. We thought that was the shit. On Christmas Eve, they were trying to light up fire place. Shaune and I was playing in our room and we hear a scream. The next thing I knew, momma runs in and says we need to leave because there's a fire. Me, Shaune momma and Nora were all together and we got out through the back door. Actually momma had to bust that shit open Starsky and Hutch style which resulted in her falling on the steps and skinning her shoulder. When we came around to the front, the fire trucks were just pulling up and Percy was standing on the front lawn with the garden hose spraying water on the raging inferno that had engulfed the roof by now.
Question: How did the fire start?
Answer: Percy threw gasoline on the logs of the fire place.
I think we rented that house.

For the next few months we lived with aunt Anna again. Percy was not allowed to come to the house.
About a year later, momma finally left Percy. To this day I do not know what the breaking point was, but she woke me up in the middle of the night, grabbed Shaune and we got into a cab that took us to the bus station which took us to Santa Fe New Mexico. It would be another five years before I would see Percy again.

Houston '79

Nora died and my mother binged for a whole year. She got laid off too. She had heard where Percy was living; he was trucking again throughout the south and he was living in Houston. She talked to him on the phone and he arranged to have us move in with him until we got our own place. By this time things were totally platonic with momma and him. Percy did have a girlfriend who had three kids. She lived out in Homestead. When we first got his efficiency out in Cross Timbers, he had a Lindsey Wagner poster in his bathroom next to a straight up beaver shot 36X48 poster of a blonde. There was porn everywhere in the place. Momma got on him and he said that he was barely home, so if she didn't like it she could put away all his 'lifestyle stuff' herself. That's what she did too. Of course, I would later find all the porn and I took one of his novels, Sucking Johnny's Dong for my own 'curiosity'.

We later found our own place in Fifth Ward, then later we moved to Third Ward. Percy was pretty much out of our lives as we lived in Houston. By the time the mid 80's hit, Percy was smoking crack and he lost his rig; the one thing he always worked hard for was to have his own truck so he can be an independent contractor and move stuff. Now he smoked it all up. Momma would tell me these things when he called to borrow a 20 now and then. By the 90s he was strung out bad. He was pretty much living on the street and my mother when she got sick would hire him to do odd jobs around her place. He was diagnosed with diabetes later but never treated it. He lost his leg by '95 and tried to sell his fake one for crack, but that didn't fly. Throughout the last two decades Percy always had women. Shaune always loved him and kept up a relationship with him and even formed an extended family with Percy's ex-wives and girlfriends. But by the time he was strung out he had exhausted all trust and love from all the women in his life including Shaune. For a long time she would drive around with his prosthetic leg in the trunk of her car. Valerie, my oldest niece would say, "That's my grandpa's leg".
The last time I saw him, he was selling meat out of the trunk of his car behind the bus station downtown. He said hi to me. I just said hi back and then went on my way to work.
A year later, he died in a hospital from heart failure.
It took a lot for me to think about Percy. Shaune had just gotten rid of his leg only to replace it with momma's prosthetic in her trunk when momma died.

- b

Waiting for the sun on my face

2008-08-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

I had two very vivid dreams last night. One is sensitive in nature and has (I guess) to do with a potential (my) copyright. But the one I want to share happened earlier in the morning:

Setting:

I'm old. I know at this time, the girls are in their twenties. I'm sitting by the window waiting for the morning sun to shine on my face.

Navah: Daddy, Assata's an asshole.

Me: What happened, baby?

Navah: As you know, I threw a party last night. Assata comes over with her friends and starts being judgmental of my friends and starts telling them shit that I said.

Me: Did you say those things?

Navah: Yes, but behind their backs! Anyway, she starts telling them all kinds of shit, and I start denying it. I told her to get the fuck out!

Me: Man, that was wrong. [Drifting away, now. Looking outside the window...]

Navah: Oh, I'm sorry. Are you busy now? Should I call back later when you give a fuck?
Where's mommy?

Me: Huh? Oh, she's....

Navah: I'll call you later.

Me: [Takes a sip from my coffee cup. Getting excited about the sun about to shine on my face].

The phone rings.

Me: Hello?

Assata: Dude, your daughter is an asshole!!

Me: What happened?

Assata: She invited me to this party, right? And I'm like, I don't want to be around them fruity she-she sheep, right? So I'm like, I got some stuff to do, Nav. And she's like insisting that I need to be there because “I'm gonna add to the scene”, she says, right?

Me: Right.

Assata: So I go there with my peoples, right? And they getting' bored and the fruit loops start lookin' at us all crazy. So I'm like , “fuck y'all!” Why they got to be boojie like that?

Me: Well, some of your friends are convicted felons, sweetie.

Pause.

More Pause.

Assata: Oh, I guess you're busy. I'll call back when you feel like being an objective parent!

Me: Wait, I...

[click]

Wifey is on her phone now.

Wifey: Hold, on. Hello?

Assata: Your husband is an asshole.

Wifey: Hey, I'm talking to Navah. Don't call your father an asshole. I'm putting you on three-way.

Assata: No, I don't want to talk to...

Wifey: Hey, Nav. Satti's on too.

Navah: What? I don't want to talk to her! She's an asshole. Like daddy.

Assata: You a asshole! I ain't nothin' like him....

The sun was about to creep up on my face, then I woke up.

The tragic and ironic end.

I just got told to stop rockin'

2008-08-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

In the mood to listen to some angry crunch, I cranked Chelsea's I'm on fire to full blast on my PC. And the TV was on too.
Then somebody came in the room and said that I had to turn shit down. I'm like, "Fuck, wut am i, in a repressive nation? Where rockin' is like, illegal?"
My protest was ignored. I shrank back in 40 year old limpness and hunched over my laptop; a defeated supplicant. I put my head phones on and listened to Maze.

Oh, Shyeah!

2008-07-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

The follow-up to 2006's "Return To Cookie Mountain" by TV on the Radio is called "Dear Science," and will be released in the UK on September 22 and a day later in the US.

In Treatment II

2008-07-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well this week I had my first session with my therapist. We were comfortable with each other and so we'll proceed from there. R looked him up about a week ago and as it turns out, he's worked with some well-known black folk. I did not want to know anymore about him and I did not research further because I didn't want his background to have any influence on me. As far as I was concerned, I needed to at least start analysis and he came up on my insurance list of providers.

I talked a lot during the hour session, and if you know me, I barely say shit during the course of a day unless it's a political discussion or when I blog. I dream of a time when I won't have to utter a single word on my average day. Anyway, of course I will be writing about most of what we go through here on this blog, but only the relevant stuff or if by some remote chance, there's a breakthrough that I may want to share.

Our time is up now.

George Carlin - May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008

2008-06-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

Who will fill his footprints?

If ever asked who were the most progressive, forward thinking comedians of our time naturally I will say Richard Pryor, but co-chairing that biumvirate, would be George Carlin.

I grew up with Richard, but I didn't know of Carlin's work until I saw him on some special on TV back in '77. I didn't think he was funny then, but later realized why. In the 80s we had cable and particularly, we had HBO. My mother worked at nights around this time, so I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up at some point to Carlin at Carnegie or whatever and I thought he was funny as shit. Like Pryor, Carlin's art was shaped and reflective of the culture and politics of 60s and early 70s. While Richard may have reflected strongly on the inner cities and black people in particular, Carlin's focus was on the world and was a bit more confrontational. Carlin also gave us the world of absurdities but only as a slight exaggeration of the absurdities in real life.
If you are an inspiring comedian and you admire Carlin and Pryor, you couldn't have picked better fathers. While many try to imitate the later (and always fail miserably), most comedians of today don't even try to touch the former.

The last show I saw of Carlin's was an HBO special and he had, for the first time admitted that after 9/11, he saw himself listening to and following the "authority figures" that he never listened to in his day. In other words, after the towers went down he began to listen the President, Pentagon chiefs of Staff, and others who gave us the Color Code Watch of Fear. I was slightly disappointed in Carlin, but not surprised looking at the fact that he seemed to be the few left of his generation who still clung on to political ideas and cynicism of his day. I guess everyone has their limits. What would be mine? Anyway, the rest of the show was good as always.

I feel bad for those who are too young to know who Carlin was or what he truly represented. Now you got comedians who just do beer jokes and wave the flag. Some may think that Lewis Black can hold Carlin's flag as reflected in bulletin boards I've read this morning, but I doubt that.
Black is funny, acidic, and witty, but not exactly progressive. He may be anti-conservative, but he's only cynical when it comes to liberal politicians and figures; ultimately giving them a pass, not exactly tearing at the fabric of American politics in my view.
I guess when it comes down to it, we are not here to be replaced for imitation, but we are here to make our footprint and hopefully others will take steps to finish the path.

Interspecies Dating

2008-06-20T07:36:00.000-07:00

I admit, I'm a flawed man. I have my prejudices and I'm trying to work them out, but last night as I was procrastinating over my next Class Traitor post, I had overheard my wife's show, The D-list.
It seems that the show's starring object, loser professionale, Kathy Griffin was dating up by going out with my man, Steve Wozniak. Now, if you are not a geek, you may have never heard of the guy. If you are a poser geek, you may have at one time googled him after you saw Pirates of Silicone Valley. You would have learned that he is the inventor of home computing and the father of the Apple I, II, and grand daddy of the Macintosh.

Steve is one of those dudes that true geeks admire and want to be. If he made lots of money; cool. That meant that people found use of what he did with his hands. I'm sure farmers, artists, and inventors get that feeling that it's all about their work and people's love of that work that is the true reward and the money part was just the gravy. The thing about Steve was what he did with that money like put it into educational programs where technology found its way into schools to be a tool for learning. The concept behind why we still see Macs to this day in schools must have come from him before he decided to leave Apple after his plane accident in '81.

According to Griffin (because by now I'm paying attention to her little, shitty, 'reality' show), Woz still likes to eat at cheap dining chains like Bob's Big Boy or Denny's. Still not man who spends his money just because he has it, he supposedly emailed Griffin about his 'discovery' of the Men's Warehouse; you know, the buy one suit, get one free place? Well according to her act, he had no idea a place like this existed but he was going to 'splurge' and buy a suit so he do some red carpet bullshit with her.
Anyway, I'm shaking my head at the thought of them together. I knew he was married to some jock girl the last I read about him, I decided to hit wikipedia just to catch up on his life after the early 90s. Apparently I did not know about the divorce or last marriage after his first. Not that I really cared, but I just thought it was strange that he was dating Kathy Griffin when in my mind he seemed like the monogamous type.

So, you're asking, why do you hate Kathy so much? Well it's not so much Kathy as it is the subspecies of humans she belongs to. She is an ass-kissing social climber; one who is never satisfied with being who she is (supposedly a funny comedian), but is always looking to be a part of the in-crowd. Now you may say I'm wrong and will start pointing to her stupid stand-up which is more celebrity gossip and "tell-all" bullshit than jokes where she supposedly throws shade on the rich and famous. But Kathy reminds me of those little toadies back in high school who were tolerated just enough by the hierarchy of the student body to be allowed hang out with.
You know, these were the year book kids. Anyway, she comes off like she hates celebs, but she so wants to be them and so much so, that her entire life resembles that of those birds you see perched on a Rhinoceros's ass, pecking, living, and shitting on something that is bigger than she but only doing so because that is how she survives. She's sad, really.

Anyway, the joke was on me, as it turns out they aren't dating anymore, in fact, The "Woz" seems to be engaged to someone else, according to Griffin. Perhaps someone a little less celebrity-addicted and trite? Either way, he will be going back to living his life of anonymity but contributing to the human race in his way as he always has, and little Kathy can continue on with her social climbing and mock celebrity. Never date below your station, kids.

I Have to Right to be Bitter, I'm the Dark Lord of the Sith, Baby!

2008-06-18T07:45:00.000-07:00

1. I was born a slave

2. Although I was bought out of slavery by Qui-Gon, it was only for the good of the Jedi, so my mother was left in bondage. Later she died at the hands of a bunch of bandaged-faced zombies.

3.Qui-Gon dies, leaving me under the tutalage of Ben Kenobi, who at first, never trusted me and wanted to leave me in slavery.

4. Did I mention that I was a slave?

5. The rest of the Jedi never trusted me.

6.I had to hide my love and marriage from the world.

7. I was used by the Jedi to expose Palpatine by allowing me on the council but without status of Master.

8. Palpatine uses me to eliminate all the Jedi with the promise that I can give my loved ones immortality. Stupid lie, I know..

9. Padmé quickly flips on me as I slowly explained to her my turning to the dark side. But did she try to listen to me? Hell no! So I choked her.

10. Obi-Wan cut off my legs and my pee pee burned off. I'm kept alive by machines. The only people who have ever cared about me was Qui-Gon, Mom, Palpatine, and Luke.

So suck on that Yoda.

OMG! I'm Brenda!

2008-06-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

Sue me for doing one of the things i hate that most bloggers do, but.....

YOU ARE BRENDA!!!!!
YOU ARE WILD, CRAZY, CONFIDENT, IMPULSIVE, AND WILL
DO JUST ABOUT ANYTHING TO GO AGAINST THE GRAIN,
VERY SEXUAL

Which Character on SIX FEET UNDER Are You?(with pics)
brought to you by Quizilla

hammer. smashed. face

2008-06-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Feeling ever home sick, and also in a trolling and flame mood, I decided to post to New York Craig’s list Rant and Rave responding to a particular thread regarding people who moved to NYC, and have come to hate it.
Apparently those who are all patriotic and loyal this to petri dish of a city responded with the usual 'fuck youse' and so on. But the one response that fucked with me the most is the "Well you can't hack it here, so leave with your tail between your legs." I wrote back. That if by "hacking it" here means paying rents 5 times more than what they are worth for the privilege of living in New York, or walking past Starbucks every other block, or paying $9.00 for a sucky (and I DO mean) a sucky gourmet burrito, then I'd rather "hack it" in a forest like Grizzly fucking Adams.

The fucking arrogance of these people never cease to amaze me. They want to thumb their noses down at the dumb asses who live in Jersey or god forbid, the south where you can rent a three bedroom house for under $1,000, but hey, it's all chicken breast here in the Big Apple!

Yeah, I know. Why am I still here? Short answer, I have shit to do. School and everything else, but we'll see. I'd still want to live upstate.

In Treatment

2008-06-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm looking for a therapist and already I got two call-backs that said they were full. This is a weird process. But I feel good doing it because the alternative may destroy the important things in my life. My anger has become more out of control lately; blowing up at criticism s that aren't there, I'm now known as "The asshole that no one wants to work with at The Plantation (well, that part is ok. I hate my coworkers and colleagues with a passion, but it's no longer pleasurable to hate them. Now I've just become less creative in my assholery towards them). I need to sort this shit out and Evan Williams and 420 ain't cutting it anymore.
Oh well, they say the biggest step is the first step to wellness. Wish me luck.

Welcome!

2008-06-12T08:45:00.001-07:00

This is my new personal blog. The original one was called Black T-Shirt and was housed here, on blogspot. Later, in 2004, I decided to put Black T-Shirt on my own web host under the url, brotherkomrade.net. Mainly I wanted to see if I could configure and run a blog from a regular web host. I used Nucleus which is a fine CMS-blogging software. The thing is, I never felt at home with it. I don't know if it's the interface or but I didnt evven like logging into to it to write.
Then I came back to to blogger and created my political blog, The brobotinternationale.
Now I'll be moving everything from brotherkomrade.net to This Carbon Life, my new home for "personal" journaling.
So welcome. I hope you like it.

Arrows of Mistress Winter

2008-06-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

"Who's serving tonight?" I asked a little white man in a white dinner. Actually the dinner jacket; there was nothing white about it. It was dingy, yellowing; especially around the collar and wrists. His hair was yellowing too from the cigarettes. But I caught a whiff of Mores Regular and new the answer to my question regarding who was serving tonight. But to help me out, the little Dinner Jacket man held his hand out to Saundra Little, my mother who was standing under a blue column of spot light. She looked good with her Mores hanging out of the side of her mouth wearing a (cleaner) silver dinner jacket with a black shirt underneath open at the neck. Her hair was up in a small, tight bun and she was shaking away with her silver cocktail shaker and wearking a (fucking) diamond studded eyepatch over her left eye.
There was one of those Martini glasses in front of me with ice. I said, "You're not gonna serve me mixed drinks are you? I hate mixed drinks and cocktails and shit".
She sucked her teeth, and gave me her annoyed look that I inherited when someone said something incredibly stupid. "What do you think Whiskey and Coke is? I know you drink that." She took a step closer to the bar. I asked if that was a coke and jack and she sucked her teeth again. "Uhh, no. In a cocktail shaker?"
It was a mixed drinka nd it was green. Bathroom cleaner green. I shook my head slowly and picked up the glass. It looked like some shit one of those sad women on Sex and the City would drink (I IMAGINE!).
"spoiled boy.." she said under her breath as she passed me to deal with another customer. I knew what she was talking about. It was obvious why I was at a bar being served by my dead mother and here I was bitching about a drink....

When my mother would be deep in her drunks, she would be prophetical about her early demise. The problem was that she was right; died at 56 of heart failure. I don't have the same visions for myself, but I had felt that death's arrow was pointed at me toward the end of the year, and mainly it was my fault. You see, I contracted a bad case of walking pneumonia. My doctor almost said he was going to send me to the hospital. I said if it wasn't an order, I would be leaving his office and I took his prescription and went on my merry, coughing way. I can be a stupid ass sometimes. Ok, most times.
I Got REALLY retarded drunk at this place called "Texas B.B.Q" (yes, where the ghetto, the athletic elite, and white mamas with biracial chilluns' come to dine).I passed out on the sidewalk outside because (hold your breath) I forgot that I took my blood pressure meds not but one hour before my two VERY large margaritas. Topping the night off in emergency room with an older sister screaming at me about black survival and black male-health (I had it coming). THEN last week I got hit with a stomach flu and had a another dream I was walking naked in the winter snow upstate in fear of catching a whooping from my mama.

I thought about how spoiled I am. Spoiled because of the things I have been given and the near disasters in my life that have yet to have taken me down when others close to me may not be doing well at all.

Last night I got an email from Teresa Kirkpatrick. She is an old friend that I would have known ten years had she have lived to tomorrow, but that is not the case. The email sent to me was from her address, but I knew it was from someone in her immediate family as soon as I saw Teresa's name in the subject line.
Teresa and I met working at the Rice Branch of Kinko's. E had long been gone from that shop and I had just been transfered to Computer Services. Teresa was in production as a trainee. I guess we just hit it off as co-workers because we had the same cynical outlook on people and life, yet Teresa was more laid back about it than I was and laughed at how bad the asshole customers could get. She didn't take life seriously nor did she take work seriously either. As a matter of fact, Teresa had a long succession of jobs. Most people look down on that; especially if you are close to 40 as she was then and especially if you were a woman with no man or kids. But I admired her even more for that. She was free and lived and acted accordingly. I would joke and that she was a walking Cherly Crow song and she would laugh because Crow was her favorite artist. Like most Kinko's newbies, Teresa didn't stay at the Rice branch for too long. She wanted to move to some other branch closer to Pasadena; so she got her transfer. I was promoted to CS Manager at the U of H store, so we said our good-byes, but exchanged numbers and emails.

Over the years, we talked here and there, wrote emails, ran the Kinko's telephone bill up by just talking from our respective branch desks. I remember when her mother died, she needed someone to help move some small tables and stuff from her mom's to Teresa's place so I helped her. It dawned on me then that she really wasn't a lonely spinster. She was happy, just not happy enough. She wanted roots, but I would suspect without kids or a husband. I learned that she loved being an aunt to her sibling's kids and seemed happy with that. She was complex, like all of us, but there was always this sadness lingering behind her eyes. I don't know what it was or even if it was sadness for that matter, I just remember always being there even when she smiled.

When I moved to NY in '00, we spoke even less, but when we did, I learned that she was going to Houston Community College to learn Web Design. Then in '03, she got a "government job" that she couldn't talk about. She would leave the country for a year for some location in the Mideast. I didn't believe her at first, it was the kind of joke she would tell, but sure enough, I wouldn't hear from her in a year or so, then she would call and say she was in the U.S. for a couple of months, but was heading to Houston to visit her family. Strange. Then earlier in the fall I get an email with "No Joke" in the subject heading. In the email, she was saying that she's been ill and a doctor stateside has diagnosed her with ovarian cancer. The last time I spoke to her was maybe October. She in her hospital bed but wanted to go home. She almost begged me to talk about my life, but I had nothing to say because I knew she didn't want to talk about her pain or her condition. Then after a brief silence, she said, "Ok, at least bitch about New York, complain as you always do about your life." I lied and said that everything was cool, I was 'over' being negative and I proceeded to talk about Houston and what the fucking weather was like. But I knew she saw through my bullshit and said, "I'm getting tired, Bruce. Can I call you back later?" I said yes, and she said "Bye". But it was in the exact same tone that my mother used to call me a spoiled boy in my dream.

Goodbye

2008-06-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

40 Dogg

2007-10-03T07:10:00.000-07:00

Two months ago, I turned 40.
In my ghetto-assed school (the one I attend as a student, not the place I work), a fight broke out between a dude and a woman. yes, a man and a woman. But old girl put his ass down like wet blanket before me and another dude got up to stop the guy. Because there wasn't that much time to respond, I actually groaned getting up quickly.

What the fuck?

"Yeah", my back said, "Just because you lost a few pounds and you're hitting the elliptical and eating less shit doesn't mean I'm ready to hop-to on your fuckin' say. All that belly over the years put a lot of strain on me so we'll get up and when I'm good and got-damned ready."

My eyes widen at the surly pull to gravity. I look back expecting a cranky old man to pull at my shirt. "And just who the fuck you think you is, anyway? Jim Kelly or some shit? Sit yo' ass down, fool. Sit. yo'. ass. down."

The dude finally got up after about two minutes of laying on the floor, then left still calling the woman a bitch. The stupid security guard like all rent-a-pigs came eons after the event. I guess someone did get to pull his ass away from the front door of the building where he was no doubt leering at other women or staring into space.

I love my ghetto college.

Big Love: A Black Man and His New Feisty Fawn

2007-07-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

I got a new Inspiron 1501 with the AMD 64-bit processor. It's nice. REALLY nice.
The the first thing I did was connect the machine to our LAN and popped in a disk running Ubuntu 7.04.
After setting the CD/DVD drive to be the first bootable disk, I proceeded with the installation of Ubuntu's latest distribution designed to run off of the 64 processor.
That's right, like a red-headed illegitimate love child denied before eyes would even set upon it, I gave Windows Vista the boot without even giving it a boot.
The installation was pretty quick, like 20 minutes or so, following the usual prompts of naming the machine, getting the time zone set, all that shit. Ubuntu (sort of) recognized the wireless card, but I new that I would have to deal with compiling the card based on my research of users who installed Ubuntu on the same machine I bought.
At this point, you're probably wanting to know why I just didn't order the 1501 with Ubuntu already installed since Dell is now selling PCs with Linux on them. But I want to learn the technology and the best way to do that is to go through the processes of installations, compiling to get things working, etc. The thing is Ubuntu is embraced by a lot of Linux novices and gurus alike, because the distribution's basic nature could be compared to Window's and Mac OS's approach to the desktop environment; everything is pre-installed (almost) and is ready to run out of the box.
I played around with Fedora Core right after it became a community distro and Red Hat went on its merry corporate way, and I had to tinker to get things to work, but that was the way I learned.
However, I always gravitated back to Windows when it came to the production side of my life.
Then came Ubuntu. I first installed 6.04 on my old Clamshell G3 Mac. As it turned out, that would be the last powerpc distribution Ubuntu would make. I noticed that I felt more at home with Ubuntu than previous ditros of Linux – not to say that the other distributions are bad, or not user-friendly, it's that everything came easier to me using Ubuntu when it came to installing apps.

Anyway, needless to say, the mac's performance when it came to it's hardware and wireless connection for a model that old was no longer an option for me. I was now ready, more than ever to take the plunge and leave the Windows/Mac world altogether, but I needed a serious machine to do so.
With R writing her book, our workspace was getting crowded to say the least and I didn't care to work on my old Fedora/Window desktop machine anymore. It was time for me to go mobile now; and I was going to do it with Ubuntu Linux.

After the installation, the first task I wanted to get at was getting the wifi to work.
I found this great post on the Ubuntu forum to help me out with this part since Ubuntu's disk installation had some old or incompatible drivers that wouldn't allow the card to initialize. The thing is Dell sells and ships so many PCs, that it's very hard for OS makers of any kind to keep up with peripherals I guess, so you have to make some adjustments. Compiling device drivers or modifying kernels is still a mystery to me.
I basically research the issue I have when it comes to getting some hardware or software to work in Linux, and as always I find a solution and follow the directions.
Sometimes I have to depend on being resourceful if the directions miss details, but like I said – that's a good thing, because it's all part of the learning process. Anyway, after a restart, I was on some neighbor's wireless network in no time!

Right now, I'm still trying to get Audacity to work. The installation on my old Ubuntu machine worked fine without any problems, but like I mentioned earlier, my new machine is running the new 64-bit processor which is new for a lot of software developers out there no matter the OS.

Still, I'm in fucking love right now and I can't wait get at my creative work and school work.

Sitting on the Dock of My Pirate's Bay

2007-06-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Due to a combination of post-depression and post-semester laziness, I've decided to just say buy From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain.
Read this review and go from there.
Sorry.
Yeah, I steal via torrents, but mostly movies and TV shows I've been too busy to catch.
I have no guilt about that since corporations deserve to get every bit of their dimes, quarters, and dollars stolen from them. They whine over the 1 billion dollars in profit loss as opposed to the 15 billion they made then want to go out and arrest the one or two people they can catch downloading their "property".
Fuck 'em.

Anyway, I'm gonna try to work on the novel over the summer.
Peace.

-b

From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007)

2007-05-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

Check out the latest book by Minister Faust, It's called, From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain.
Description from Wikipedia:

From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Is the title of a science-fiction novel by Minister Faust. The novel is essentially a fictional self-help book for Superheroes written by the character Dr. Eva Brain-Silverman a.k.a. Dr. Brain, the world's leading therapist for the extraordinary abled, titled "Unmasked! When Being A Superhero Can't Save You From Yourself: Self-Help Guide for Today's Hyper Hominids". The novel follows the adventures and therapy sessions of the members the Fantastic Order of Justice, Earth's most powerful, and dysfunctional, superteam.

I finished reading the book two weeks ago and it was awesome. I'll post my take on it in a couple of days.

-b

Stomach Full of Acid

2007-04-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

The older I get, the more I hate being in crowds or being forced to participate in things I have no value for. If I do, it has more to do with the politics of personal relationships; buying silence and placating. Social contracts also hold no value for me so outside of saying 'excuse me' after a burp or fart, we've got nothing to talk about.
Birthday parties beyond your childhood years? Ok, but do I have to be invited? Do I have to speak and pretend I want to be there?
It's not that I think I'm better than anyone, it's just that I hate that nagging feeling of having to dredge up light talk with a fake smile over beers about absolutely nothing. It is actually physically taxing for me to HAVE to talk to strangers when I'd rather be lying on my bed staring at the walls or watching TV.
Am I an asshole? Maybe, but I am me. I wish some people would just stop trying to change me.

Nobody knows What it's Like to be The Bad Man...

2007-04-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

Thirty-two people died last week, tragically and senselessly.
When you read newspaper articles or watch TV news coverage of stories like the Virginia Tech killings, all you get hit with is the shock of the deaths, how it happened, who was to blame, and of course to hate the one who is to blame.
It seemed that besides selling papers and getting high ratings, the media has taken on the role of being the caretaker of our thoughts; simplifying facts and throwing analysis out of the window in order to "make sense of it all" for us poor, dumb unwashed masses who must have our fears held in check and be made to feel more secure when life becomes unpredictable.
After all, this is what "we" sheep look for when we look to leaders, right?
My point is, Seung-hui Cho murdered people who most likely did nothing to him. But instead of real psychoanalysts waiting until the smoke cleared to offer up a real profile as to who Cho really was and why he did what he did, we get criminal profilers spot diagnosing during a sound bite and the journalists, like parrots, just mimic them.
In every article I've read or news story I saw it was the same: the use of the word, "loner". Cho was described as quiet and an outcast and of course with those descriptions the names, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold follow because that's how the two killers were described during the Columbine media blitz.
I remember how Harris and Klebold were described as outcasts who wore lots of black and that they were geeks and suddenly, they snapped and decided to get back at "everyone else".
I remembered back then thinking that geeks all across the U.S. would probably get the support needed from teachers, principals, and school counselors by making sure that kids who didn't fit in would not be picked on or alienated.
That those who were alienated would be watched, encouraged to talk about the shit they are putting up with or at least school officials would try to help create a culture in the school where the social circles would agree to not cross each other's lines.
Of course, that's not the tone or the talk I heard back then.
The Columbine story had too much color, gore, angst, and opportunistic pundits wanting to make themselves look good by interpreting the killings as a result of two social misfits who were not made to be forced into fitting in with the mainstream of the student body. I heard, "They weren't part of the crowd; so this is what happens", "And let that be a lesson to anyone of you out there listening to weird music, wearing black, or writing weird stories. If you are not part of the crowd, then you have to be watched or you're going to wind up killing someone".
The bottom line is Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and Seung-hui Cho obviously suffered from a serious break in their respective psyches. In other words, they lost all touch with reality and killed people. They had real psychological problems that could not be traced easily as so many 'experts' would have us think. So these pundits scape goat stuff like the fact that these guys didn't hang out with other people or in Seung-hui Cho's case, wrote 'disturbing' plays in order to explain to us that this is why Cho killed people and that his writing was a sign of his insanity.
I found the focus of Cho's plays as an example of his insanity disturbing.
I downloaded and read the plays. And although the plays were not very good in the sense that they made no sense, they could have passed as germane in some off-off-off-Broadway avant garde theatre back in the seventies.
The reason why the focus on Cho's plays bothered me was that the message was if you write violent material, you must be crazy. Shit what's gonna happen to the next Stephen King? I guess if some kid wearing black and sitting in the back of his English class writing out a scene in chapter four were a priest gets beheaded by a possessed teenager, you can best expect that kid to get the red badge of Psycho that will haunt him forever.
It can happen and I'm sure it already has.
I am not writing this to explain away the lives that Seung-hui Cho took on Monday, nor do I want people to think I am romanticizing him, if anything I'm more concerned for my younger sisters and brothers who sit alone in the cafeterias, writing stories about chicks with machine-gun legs and just wishing the asshole in the football jersey would fuck off.
All loners are not all crazy; some of grow up, have children (finally got laid), and become the asshole in the suit and tie.

Another Reason Why I Hate the Universal Order of Life and Death

2007-04-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

Like the rest of my friends and family, I am reeling after the death of Aunt Alma.
My wife's closest friend, so close that she calls her 'cousin' had an aunt who passed away in her sleep yesterday or possibly the night before.
She was 87 and had bone cancer among other illnesses.
My wife's cousin has been a daycare provider for both of our girls since we moved to New York. She has cared for our oldest daughter from when she was two to when she started pre-school. She took on our youngest, Assata when she was newly born.
Alma will be missed. She was sweet, but she scared me the way all my elders did (and still do) in my youth when it came to her giving me orders. Because she was so close to my youngest, Assata, I remember Alma sitting in her chair in the living room almost as if making a point to wait for me when I came to pick Assata up to tell me that I needed to have her dressed in snow pants. "Don't you let my baby get sick." She said, just like the way my great-grandma used to get on my mother's case about the way I was dressed when I was little. I was my great-grandma's favorite. They were close, Assata and Alma. She gave Assata cookies; something I would have told anyone else NOT to do. But was I gonna buck-up to Alma? Fuck no.

Due to the rabid gentrification of Harlem, our cousin has not only lost an aunt, but has lost an apartment and a place of business.
To make a long story short, in order for Alma to get her medical benefits, and get rent control, she had to be the sole lease holder. No one else can be on the lease. If she would pass away, then all those living with her, children, grandchildren, or siblings, will have to move out. And in the particular building where she lived, the owners are such pigs, that they come knocking on the doors of a recently-decease household before the body is even cold, requesting copies of leases and of course, to announce that the nest needs to be emptied ASAP. There are no options offered for the surviving family members to take over these lease regardless of proof that they can continue to pay the rent even if the rent will be increased to its current market value. No, no option to buy either. Just get out.
Now do we see how people wind up homeless so easily?

I did not want to politicize my posting of a dear friend's grief, but my tendency to do so gives weight to the fact that the personal is the political no matter how you cut it.

RATM reUnite for the $

2007-01-24T09:45:00.000-08:00

WTF? Six years too late, dorks. Wonder what E thinks of this?

Oh Well...

2007-01-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

Another item that has passed me by while I was between vasectomy hell and finals hell, was that Clamor magazine has folded.
I do mourn the fact that the opportunity for a progressive independent magazine to reach an audience of potential freedom fighters will be missed, I also mourn the missed opportunity for Clamor to be the magazine that could have reached the working class, people of color, and the people of the global south.
What I did not like about Clamor was that it sought to target the white middle class; much like the rest of capitalist media. My proof? C’mon, it was distributed in Barnes and Noble! Yeah all kinds of people go to Barnes and Noble, true. But look at the majority of customers who buy books there; upwardly mobile, white folx.

Clamor seemed to impress people on the left for the same reason why some people on the left hated the mag – the editors used capitalist marketing strategies to appeal to readers. On the surface it’s not such a bad concept to win readers to radical ideas and news that winds up getting buried in corporate print. It doesn’t hurt to have skillfully done layouts or cool and sexy graphics framing well written articles about things that are important to the reader. However the question should be who are you doing all this for? For those who can afford to by subs because they have the disposable income? Or are you doing the sexy layouts and wide distribution for those who are targeted and made victims of issues such as globalization, racism, and sexism that the magazine has covered?

Race and alternative media weighed on my mind heavily back in January 2005 because of one particular issue of Clamor. It was their “Borders” issue; dealing with people crossing them and what separates people and cultures and not just land. The first article is written by a woman named AK who shares her experience of being in a relationship with a man who has chosen to live in El Norte to support his family back in Ecuador.
I love first person articles and you don’t see enough of them in alternative print or news.
But AK, who wrote the piece (as far as I know she is not a journalist which is actually a plus with me) tells us about how her man, his people, his community how they leave their native homes to come here ‘illegally’. The problem with this article for me is, why did we have to hear this from her?
The issue of borders is an issue for those who have to cross them for survival be it escaping from poverty or political persecution. And those who can globe trot due to their skin or class privilege know not of these issues.
So why didn’t Clamor allow the experience of crossing the U.S. border of the Ecuadorian man be read rather than the degreed American white woman? Wouldn’t you like to know in detail what it’s like to cross borders in search America’s gold laden streets from his perspective? I would like to know how shitty are the guy’s jobs, or how did he wind up owing so much money to the Coyote? Is this something that ‘illegals’ all have to go through?

My point is that the story was being validated only because of how it affects the white women telling the story. The same it seems, applies to Clamor’s targeted readership.
The issue of globalization and the role that borders play in the way imperialism and racism operates can only be made real to progressive whites who are the only ones capable of ‘getting it’ and therefore they can become the effective leaders of the anti-globalization movement.

I can go into more about Clamor, but why beat a defunct horse? POC can do better than Clamor if we give ourselves the chance and not ask for anyone’s handouts to do it.
We should look at the way Indymedia keeps chugging along.
Just a thought.
Peace.

broken.

2006-11-12T08:05:00.000-08:00

Disjointed are things in my life and distant are the things I want.

It seems this fall is in a perpetual state of spring. I don't like that, and yet people ask what's wrong with me all the time.

Digging in E’s Crates

2006-02-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

I have been bad and neglectful of my blog well, roughly since assata was born.
The usual bitches I go on about have become my existence, so I’m no longer inspired, but I dug in E’s past blog postings and I’ve become inspired to write today.

Well, I’m into my fourth semester of school with only ten-thousand more credits left to go. I’m thinking of looking into accelerated programs when I transfer to Hunter. We’ll see.

R, Navah, and Assata, Jodi, and I went to the Brooklyn museum Saturday night because the first Saturday of every month is family Night there. Free admission and they do a theme dance. This time around it was 80’s night. R thought they were gonna play all this 80’s reggae and old Dance hall. Even underneath my cynicism I thought they would at least play some old Hip-Hop for the 20=somethings to breakdance to, but instead we were treated to the same shit MTV played in the 80s and the shit that VH1 defines as 80s music. I was not that shocked. You get some self-indulgent DJ who s [pins at weddings and Bar-mitzvahs and you will get top 40s bullshit. But don’t get me wrong, I had a ball dancing with both of my girls and seeing this 70-year-old bespectacled professor looking dude dancing with his Asian female partner to “She Blinded Me with Science” was poetic as all hell.
Even the Williamsburg hipsters were tolerable and didn’t bring me to my usual mode of hate.

We left Brooklyn around 11 pm and got back into the city around midnight. R went into Ray’s Pizza to get us dinner and I started to think about my own childhood in moments like these.

My mother would have dragged us to one of her ‘grown-up parties’ as we put it. Me and Shaune would dance with the grown folks enroute to getting food or drinks so we can return to the host’s bedroom to watch TV. We would come home at 2 am. My sister and I would just be knocked out in the back seat while my mother would be up front with her old friend, Diana either drinking some more or eating Gate’s ribs which was located a block from our house. As I still waited for R, I was thinking how things changed, but remained the same. Normally the girls have a set bedtime, but sometime, you gotta say ‘fuck it’ and have some fun.

COINTELPRO Lives!

2006-01-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

How do you destroy the legacy of one of the most important Hip-Hop groups of all time?
Get one of their more “marketable” and easily exploited members (John Lydon would know about this), get them high and shove them in front of a camera as that person’s antics reverses and contradicts everything that that group stood for, and alas, you have Flavor of Love, the new VH1 “Celebreality” series.

The very first time I saw Public Enemy was on Soul Train. Their performance left me mesmerized. I saw for the first time, that live rap can be just as intense as live punk or metal thanks to Chuck D’s style and yes, Flavor Flav’s stage role as hype man.
They had performed Rebel Without a Pause and Don Corneleius looked like he was about to shit himself because he had to be in close physical proximity to interview them.

After It takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back dropped, the group became Hip-Hop history and it seemed that in the face of being dropped by record labels, dependamce on Internet sales, and even Prof. Griff coming back to them, PE’s legacy would remain untouched. That was until Surreal Life and Strange Love starring Flavor Flav got on the air. At first I ignored both shows because I knew it was a given; Flavor Flav was always the more recognizable and “masses friendly” member of PE. But he was always mmore of a tool for the group to reach the black masses. Put an easily recognible character on the stage while you drop science and you may reach the people. It worked. Sort of. Actually oit seems to have blown up in PE’s collective face. I remember how the Flavor solos would get more radio play, how he would get cameo roles on TV. A Frankenstein monster was born and was out of the control of its creators. When record labels and rap media outlets began to unconsciously conspire to bury conscious Hip-Hop, financial troubles loomed for Flavor and the group as a whole. But with Flavor it was known that he was on drugs and rumors of him being a crack head particularly began to float around.

From the mid to late 90’s PE reorganized and reinvented themselves. But what about Flavor? Well, we see the end result, don’t we? Really, if VH1 wanted a clown or comedic Hip-Hop persona to be in their stupid shows, then why not Biz Markie or MC Shan? I think it’s because it is the ultimate diss to use Flavor, a member of a Hip-Hop group that believed in social change and made a video about killing a governor that MTV was forced to at least play it once (so as to not appear to be the un-hip censors they really are).
Yes, using Flavor is their big “fuck-you” to rapper who dares to extend their art to the socio-political arenas.

My man Paris, who produced PE’s latest album, said, “While Flavor Flav is a grown man and responsible for his own actions, it's worthy to note that VH1 (and its sister station, MTV) have a history of not supporting message-oriented music, even though they openly embrace corporate-chosen artists who damage our communities with negative images and messages. The "Strange Love" show is little more than an attempt to indirectly discredit the one group most relevant to the Black Experience in hip-hop.”

At press time, Flavor Flav and his manager didn’t respond to inquiries by AllHipHop.com.

As for Flavor of Love, it is just sad. Such was my initial reaction to BangBus.com where I couldn’t tell if the shit really was scripted or real. The women who participate in this game are either told to act as if they truly love Flavor or the most saddest, collection of low self-esteemed having failed actresses and models in the world and this is their only last shot to fame. Either way, the shit is outrageous. After watching Boondock’s Guess Ho’s Coming to Dinner (not their best episode) I have to say that watching Flavor of Love after it was like washing down a bad dinner with gasoline.

Workers of the World, Pass out!

2005-12-30T10:16:00.000-08:00

If there is anything positive I can take with me from this strike experience is that I know I can walk from East 25th to West 85th without passing out.

There were people who walked farther out and up than I did. I even heard that some people walked from the most outer parts of the outer boroughs to get to work. Ultimately this whole exercise puts the issue of labor in perspective. Those who control the money in our society have over the past 5 decades coerced working people into thinking that we share the same interests as they do. We've been so hoodwinked into thinking that it's better to be Trump than an anonymous person who works for living. We have been told it's better to be rich than being a worker who dares to want or have wages and benefits that won't put us an hour away from the poor house if we do loose our jobs. And while we uphold the pop culture addiction of admiriring the lifestyles of the rich and famous, our basic rights are being taken away from us under our noses. Hence the reason for this strike.

To a lot of people’s minds-those of us who actually take the trains, we would see the Transit worker's proposals and their opposition to the MTA's proposal as "being picky" in the face of sleeping booth operators, rude conductors, etc. But really, none of that shit matters when the principal involved has to do with not letting your job become a McJob for those who follow behind you.

The action itself

But I'm no saint and was out there cursing like everyone else. I was not whistling 'The International' as I was walking some 60 blocks across the city. I was not thinking of solidarity when that cold-assed wind was cutting me in the face from the Hudson, no I'm no angel because I do question the very action of striking in the first place. First of all, it comes down to the TWU leadership. I will always suspect that it had more to do with ego and power than really making a point. Really, how did Bloomberg and the MTA suffer in the past 3 days? Bloomberg walked the bridge with all the other commuters, so he bought their loyalty by taking a stroll with the 'rest of us' therefore fostering albeit, a false sense of solidarity with us riders, but solidarity with the riders nonetheless. A small sacrifice in the face of turning riders against the TWU. To me the strike lacked vision, a real political message, and above all, it lacked the support of the workers who depend on mass transit in the first place. Not one time have I seen a Transit worker leaflet the stations informing us of their plight or political stance against the MTA's proposal. The TWU's actions were no different from that of the boss; fuck the little people, we have power, so we'll do what we want, when we want!

Anyway, we're glad it's over for now, but what about the contract? Transit workers went back to work without anything resolved. The 'framework' for their contract can go on tabling for the next year or so. It looks like they too are fucked like we were in the past 3 days.

Welcome to the Vomitorium

2005-11-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

Navah was sick a couple of days ago, vomiting.
She had a 24-hour stomach thing and she couldn't even keep water down. Assata was home with me too.

When I was 11 I used to stick my fingers down my throat (in the bed, vomiting gave it a real effect that I was really sick in case Moma or No-noan said I was faking. I was faking.) so I did not have to go to school. Staying at home with Nora, "No-noan" (my great-grandmother) was always the shit. She would have Pepto, Milk of Magnesia, and 7-Up on hand like like they were my private nurses.
I would be watching Pyramid, All My Children, and General Hospital with her.

Then one day, on one of my "sick days", I got too happy and asked that she change the channel from Price is Right to Lost in Space. She then narrowed her eyes at me and said, "Boy, you ain't sick..." She grabbed her switch and that was it.
No more sick days even when I was sick. I'll never forget a real sick day - I was at school.
I threw up everywhere in the class including my main enemies in the class, Gerald "Light, Bright and Alright" Jackson and his girlfriend, Nichole "Dark and Lovely" Finger.
They got it, and their desks, and school work got it too.

I remember Mrs. Mcintyre, our teacher saying, "Goddamn, it's a Vomitorium in here!"

Another Friday Night

2005-11-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

Cheap ghetto Chinese food, a dvd of a child's movie blasting from the living room,
and I'm staring at a book to be studied. Meanwhile, I'd rather be reading Bloody Money II which is sitting on some brother's lit table on 125th street right now. Urban lit is the shit.

Yet another celebrity...

2005-10-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

...lives in my neighborhood. I passed by Jon Stewart again today with his wife and kid.
The first time I saw him was about two months ago. I just thought he was visiting someone. He had his kid on his shoulders that day. He is very short and greyer than on TV. He looked worn out too. He probably stays up all hours of the night watching CNN and shit.

The Signage Manager

2005-10-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

My supervisor is one of those Signage Managers; the ones who think lots and lots of signage can somehow contribute to raising the student bodies' IQ level or better use their common sense to find things.

My lab now looks like the side of a NASCAR race car. I might as well be working in a Kinko's.

What Am I?

2005-10-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

This morning on the bus, Navah asks me what I am as far as my political identity goes.

"..Well, you're not a Democrat, you're not a Republican or Communist or anarchist, what are you, daddy?"
We were on our way to her school on the Upper Eastside and Fernando Ferrer (Mayoral candidate for the Dems) had people campaigning off of 96th and Madison (I guess he was trying to hit up the white folks before heading up two to three blocks which lands him in East Harlem).

Now I have to say here that I do not take credit for my 6 year-old knowing what a Communist or an Anarchist is and the difference between the two. That is her mother's doing from the demos we have taken Navah to in the past and R explaining everything that the child sees. Those props are due to her mother (but ask her what kind of waters Stingrays and Mantas swim in, then all praise is due to Daddy!).

Anyway, someone finally asked me the question that friends, family, my wife, and even myself had never asked me: What am I?
I came to the realization back in December that I was no longer an activist, but what are my ideals today? What do I stand for? The short answer: I have no fucking clue.
The long answer: I know what I am against - police brutality or even the very institution of law enforcement, wars that are engineered to exploit natural resources, human exploitation of any kind, class oppression, any "ism" coming from the man that pisses me off, and pop culture.

But what am I for?
Why have I stopped being politically active? Why have I not sought "greener pastures" like so many of those who were activists and radical ideologues-turned-middle classed liberals? When election time comes, I vote. I vote for the Incredible Hulk, but I vote. When big shits come to town like the RCN, or the G8, I'll come out and take pics of campus-politicized activists getting gaffled, or puppet marches, but I don't attend these actions with a passion or out of a belief that the theatre performed will change people or somehow attract the unwashed masses to fight the power(!).
And labor unions? Please. It took me a year living in the Northeast where "they represent" to know that they are just tired bureaucratic ho agencies used by the Democratic party. That was definitely the case in the south where I was politically active, but I thought there were at least some radical locals in NYC, but no dice. Oh, and they are racist too.

I basically turned from @ circles in the late 90s when I realized that they too were infested with the post-modern Foucalt-Derrida tendencies and most of them can't seem to want to embrace any structure of organization outside of a classroom environment. Apocs? Scared of other POCs. There is a student ‘union’ or organization mainly based out of Hunter College that really, I think cares more about looking like
the Neo-Soul/MTV version of what a activist should look like than actually be bothered with grassroots outreach. But you know; it’s all about being post-modern (Oh, and by the way, Hunter had Madonna come to their film class the other day. I can’t believe I picked this school to transfer to as my four-year. What the fuck does Madonna have to do with film or fucking art for that matter?).

If someone was brutally honest about me (but most importantly if I were to be honest about myself) I'd say I could be labeled as a nihilists with a civil servant job; A Nihilistic Civil Servant.
But I'm sure I'm not unique as the Sixties movements have probably turned out a whole bunch of Nihilistic Civil Servants with real shit to complain about, more beautiful scars, and better war stories.

guess what?

2005-10-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

The 2005 Apoc conference in Houston has been postponed. Wha? How'd that happen? I never would have thought that would happen!

Ok, here is one of those things that rub me the wrong way when it comes to our crunchy crispy anti-authoritarianism/anarch0-critters. They so hate it when one person decides to say 'fuck it' and organize things and try to get things done when others are just spacing out and jacking off and expressing how cool it would be if another gathering takes place,
but when someone DOES decide to say 'fuck it' and name a date, time, and place for a gathering because they are tired of seeing people twiddle their thumbs, then she/he are met with either cold silence or accusations of 'one-upmanship'. When my man left apoc (for reasons that no longer matter) I knew the shit would fall off like a badly glued toupee. Which is typical of the way things move forward today amongst the radicals; lots of talk and masturbation, but nothing getting done. Paralyzation ndue to ideological purity.
I can guarantee you that we won't see another international apoc gathering in quite some time.

A clearing

2005-10-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

We are trying to mend chasms and in that process we have found that it is where we are living that is causing our misery, not each other. We making a list of naughty or nice cities to move too. Albany looks to be the bestest candidate.

Thank you E, for the warm words on your blog about us. We are working to make this shit better.

JOBcasting

2005-09-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

Phone: Ring

Mournful Parent: Hello?

Steve: Hi there, Mournful Parent?

Mournful Parent: Yes?

Steve: This is Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. I'm sorry for your loss. I...I just want to call and tell you that I'm sorry that we have placed such a high value on our iPod product that your son was knifed to death for one. That...sucks.

Mournful Parent: Uhh...thank you.

Steve: Mournful Parent?

Mournful Parent: Yes?

Steve: Have you considered buying the iPod mini? With the $199 value I'm sure if your deceased son has any surviving siblings they would probaly just get capped in the ass at best.

click.

Melt!

2005-09-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

If you want to see a friendship and a marriage disintegrate before your eyes, just come to my house. It’s been getting worse as time goes on and I can’t see it getting better. Since Assata’s birth, we have done nothing but fight.

Last night’s thing started since she got back in the city. Been there, felt that. But no one had to know the anxiety and utter depression I felt as I had to gaze at the city’s skyline resembling upward fangs ready to eat me more. I just soldiered the fuck up and plowed through the bullshit until things changed for me by my hands.

But I have to be nurturing or else I’m an asshole. It’s not a problem for me to be nurturing, but the problem is being told when and how little I’ve been that way that pisses me off. Whatever, it’s the same guilt shit I’ve dealt with momma.
So I sat with her to understand what she was feeling thinking that was all she needed since she keeps saying that all the time. Not enough. Throughout the rest of the night she would be ok to a degree, but for the most part, it was snippy comments or complaints about me like not making enough bottles. Last week it was complaints about when I took a shower or where I stored the used wash rags. Yes, wash rags!

Anyway, I know this is pretty shitty writing this in public, there really isn’t anyone to talk to about this, namely the person I’m fighting with. When the conversation steers to what only “what they are going through” and no one else and how “only they can be victims” and no one else, then there is no more talking after that. I’m punching walls and picking fights with co-workers (who I hate anyway). I’m at my rope’s end.

waiting…..

2005-09-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

My sister has decided to stay in Houston. On one end I share her gut reaction that the storm may not be that bad and what can a single mother of 3 do with no car or money for gas? On the other end she’s my sister and I cannot be so calm knowing that I’m way up in El Norte waiting and watching helplessly and hoping for the best. But plans have been made and there will be money at the ready for wiring.

Talking to her two nights ago, she told me how ‘officials’ stated that Houstonians need not look for shelter here, but in nearby towns. This could mean a couple of things:

1. Resources used for Katrina evacuees are now tapped out, so Houstonians are shit out of luck.
2. There is no plan or system or strategy for Houston disaster recovery, Houstonians are shit out of luck.

Since Houstonians love to drive their cars EVERYWHERE, it is no surprise that we see this caravan of still death on I-45. My sister said that she would rather take her chances using the float toys she gives the girls when they’re at the beach than being stuck on a freeway either drowning, or being cooked in a car. I started thinking what it would be like trapped in that kind of situation with a three-month year old. Can’t be pretty.

I’ve been tracking the storm myself out of concern for my friends (E) and family. It seems to be moving eastwardly and possibly hitting NOLA. I feel so sick about everybody there. I haven’t called E yet because I’m thinking he could be in transport and can’t be bugged or bothered or maybe he can’t even get to a phone.

I started thinking about all of the hurricanes we lived through the 20 years I’ve in Houston. None of them where scary to us. Momma just never thought it would ever be that bad and she would really make tracking the storm into an activity. Maybe she was scared with Hurricane Alicia and others, and storm tracking was her way of trying to clam us down. We used to use the tracking maps printed on brown paper bags from the grocery store. I don’t think they do that anymore in Houston. I can’t remember the last time I saw those.

As for Katrina, the whole media thing I have mixed ideas about. First of all, the thing with people like Anderson Cooper and Soledad getting all tough in their interviews with ‘officials’, or reporters being real journalists and going where they are told not to go, impressed me for a second until I realized that this story was about people who became victims at the hands of a natural disaster and government incompetence. Well that’s pretty easy to be incensed over if you’re an anchor on network news. You’re not going to lose your job over showing your humanity by sticking it to FEMA drones the way you would if you stuck it to the president over the invasion of Iraq.

The focus on the looting still pisses me off though and the sickening feeling I get when the media focuses on the atrocities people do tend to commit with one another during times of chaos still reminds me that the media will never turn course from its classist/racist agenda.

I’ll be calling my sister tonight. With hope that everything will just be stormy and alright.

So much and So much

2005-09-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

E’s blog is carrying some great coverage on The Katrina Aftermath.
Meanwhile us Southern ex-pats, Jodi, myself, and I’m sure countless others here in the Northern wilderness look on helplessly as peoples from New Orleans filter into H-Town.
For some evacuees, Houston is a city where a lot of kin from N.O. have already moved to over the years ago, or to the now homeless New Orleanians, a city that may well be their new home. I remember how so many black folk I knew in Houston either came from Louisiana or had people there. This still hits home for me though.

I read that there are National Guard recruiters sniffing around the victims at the Astrodome.

I remember in earlier coverage of the hurricane, victims who were not evacuated were labeled as those ‘choosing not to leave’. But it became so obvious to everyone in the footage of the hurricane survivors that these people were poor before the storm came and are now going to be even worse off than before. R and I and our friends all knew that these people had no where to go or any means to leave the city in the first place.
In retro I wonder who exactly the evacuees were. Were they the middle class-suburbans, the tax payers, the voters, the 100 clubbers?
Were they the ones who were contacted first, given jelly sandwiches and a bible as they were wrapped in thick woolen blankets and skirted away as hushed tones of assurance were whispered in their ears?

Some one said that the Governess in a pre-storm press conference said that aid would not be available to those who “refused to leave” giving me the impression that one of the reasons evacuees were left to fend for themselves when the storm hit or just dumped at the Superdome was because of this executive decision not to help people because they “chose” to stay. Then it became apparent that those who refused to leave could not leave and now you got poor people fucked again because they are poor.

Houston

2005-08-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

E writes a lot about Houston. His latest blog entry is but one of his best posts about the small big town commonly labeled "Space City" or real commonly known as H-Town.
From my old blog to my new one, I have always talked about my past there. It was more of a back drop or a character if you will that helped to raise me if anything. But I have never written about the city itself and I don't think I could ever be as eloquent as E.

But I will never shut up about the city or remain silent when dumbassed North-Easterners or even worse, Middle-Americans (like from Phoenix) has some shit to say about the place.

New Yorkers love to gloat over how 'international' NYC is. Yeah, and so is a Bangkok whore house. No really, when a French business man and a Japanese Exec can high-five each other DPing a Thai sex slave, you can't get any more 'international' than that.
We Are the World indeed.

Anyway, the past two months have been very Houston like when it comes to the weather; very muggy and hot. My sinuses have been screaming since June. I haven't felt this shit since I left.

Memories of Houston:

* Seeing families ride horses along OST as the latest pimped-out rides zoom by.
(This was from 1983 to my last visit there when my mother died.)

* Sweet potato French fries

* Walking through my mother's neighborhood where it could easily be called "Little Lagos" or "Little Kingston". Take your pick.

* Being stared at like an alien when you tell a Houstonian that you'd prefer to walk to the store as opposed to driving the two blocks.

I'm currently writing about some past jobs I've had so Houston will most definitely be starring in them. Keep a look out.

E, send me your e-mail addy again. I only have it at home, but not at work.

couldn't have said it better myself

2005-08-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

R wrote this email telling of Assata's birth.....

We hope this email finds everyone in good health and spirits.

Last Tuesday (7-19) Bruce and I welcomed our new baby Asata Shifra Little into the world.

Due to this hot-as-hell summer and a total depletion of my amniotic fluid as well as other big bumps in the pregnancy -- Asata came in via c-section to a loony doctor who sang "That's Amore" as he tugged her little screaming butt out.

Bruce was in the operating room with his face perched a breath away from mine, squeezing my hand and whispering calming things in my ear. "Alright Mami, the hole they cut is really small. Nothing like that mess they made of
you Houston (referring to my first c-section)." He then followed with "You are doing so great" and then my favorite, "I see your eyebrows growing back in!" Yes it's true, I couldn¹t drag my ass for a wax at the nail shop nine months pregnant!

Navah met Asata the next day and just stared at her and touched her face for about twenty minutes before she breathed a sigh of relief-- or maybe satisfaction-- and said, "she looks like me!" She has been such a good big
sister.

As for Asata, her spirit is peaceful. She rarely cries and is already trying to smile and focus her eyes. Without fuss she took her node in the wavelength of our family like she knew exactly what she was doing.
It was like she came in, cracked open a can of breast milk and turned to her favorite channel.

As most of you already know, the baby is named for Assata Shakur. We took out the second "s" so as to save the kid a few schoolyard ass whoopins. But we hope that our Asata will have the same strength, fearlessness, wisdom and grace as Assata.

We also find it ironic and fitting that the week we named our child after Assata who was terrorized by police so many years ago cops have killed a random black man in the subway in London out of xenophobic paranoia, and we here in NY are now subject to whimsical police stop and search. And so it continues.

See pics of Navah and Asata below.

Peace and Blessings
Bruce, Rivka, Navah and Asata

odds and endz

2005-07-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

Oh, I don't doubt that Coulter may actually tear some dick up, usually hostile or angry people are pretty good in bed. I just think she's gross to look at.

Cat-Eyed Glasses Natalie M clone quit!!!
Dude, I don't know why I care or feel a bit relieved, but she's gone and I have no idea why. Some people in Systems said there was some dispute with her boss. She's really uptight and anal (her type usually are) and her boss (nice guy, but wacky as hell) was not. The joke about him was NEVER to leave a piece of paper for him with stuff to do, or it WILL get lost.

In other newz...still need to get through one more final this weekend, and you will hear more from me.

I miss China Berry trees. Never understood the purpose of that fruit since it's not edible, but I miss them the same.
I also miss....
Taquarias. There are some in Queens where a lot of Mexicans have moved to, but they're not that great. Our friend Jodi took me to one near her house last year, and while it was not rancid and expensive like the Mexican food in Manhattan, it was not to write home about. I can better Mexican food at Chi-Chi's in Houston than here!
I'm not sure where the Mexicans here are from in Mexico, but the food is just different than in Texas or California.

I think this diet is working out for me. I had my usual whole bran muffin this morning and couldn't eat it all.

Well that's it for now. Peace.

Assata Little

2005-07-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

At 2:45 pm, they dragged her serene little self out of R.
She looks just like how Navah looked when she was born.
I'm going to go to sleep now. It's only 11 pm, but I need to crash.

E, tried to call you but you didn't pick up.

still

2005-07-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

Paralyzed and bored at work. Still waiting for Assata to be born. Assata Shakur's birthday is July 16th. Wouldn't that be a fucking hoot if my Assata was born on the same day?
The creator's hand has been known to move in ironic ways, that's for sure.
Do you think R could try to hold the baby in until then? Or at least stretch the labor out until Saturday? Let's all encourage her to do so!

I'm not sure why lately, but the left and anarchist circles have really been grating on my nerves. Not on anything particularly other than dropping the ball on so much all the while chasing its own tail for self consumption.
This obsession with trying to purify itself and the "calling out people on their shit (if indeed the 'shit' in question is REAL)" has really paralyzed projects that could have brought on real community impact in these days of a losing war and mounting terrorist attacks. Now more than ever should there be campaigns to raise people's consciousness.
I guess at this point and this point forward I can only hope that things will get so desperate for my peoples they will have no other choice but to organize and do for self and I hope that in addition to the capitalist parties and their leaders, and the cops, they will tell some degreed radical to fuck themselves as well when they come sniffing around to "join" their struggles.
And that goes doubly for radicals of color.

Last night I saw Primary Colors for the hundredth time. Don't ask me why I refuse to miss a single showing of this flick every time it airs on TV. It's about a Democrat trying to become president.
I know, hardly exciting and radical as watching a Chomsky speech, but hey, that's entertainment. The movie has that charm where the characters are flawed, fucked, smart, and freaky all at once. They could have been ad campaigners for a new dog food and I would have watched the movie. The writers made had me sucked in over an overweight, blowjob hound played by Travolta. My favorite character of course, was Libby played by my girl, Kathy Bates.
Libby was an easy symbol as far as who she personified; the true believer of the messianic One who will ascend to the throne of power and set all us unwashed masses free. The One who will make all miracles happen and fight the good fights. She knew her candidate and friend, Jack (Travolta) was not exactly clean and next to godliness, but she felt that once he was given his throne, he would do right by the people.
But once Libby is really confronted with the fact that her party boss and friend really is the scum bag he was always born to be, she blows her brains out. Despite my Gen X cynicism, I have to admit that the scene where her heart gets broken and she kills herself does me in every time. Maybe it's because at one time I was a Libby too and my Jack Stantons were local Houston activists, Jew Don Boney and Ada Edwards. But unlike Libby I damn sure wasn't gonna kill myself over those people. It costs to have heroes.

Have You Ever Been to Carrascolendas?

2005-07-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

When I was a boy two of my favorite PBS shows were Villa Alegre and Carrascolendas (sp).
I'm not sure if they showed these shows in KC or Houston, but they definitely showed them in Santa Fe.
I loved them, they were bilingual education shows. Villa Alegre had the coolest theme song ever.
It blew Sesame Street's and Electric Company's theme songs all to shit.

In Carrascolendas, there was one character named Agapeto (sp) he was a 6 foot lion who liked to eat a lot with the mind of a 5 year old. I do not know who the actor was who played him, but I have to give him props for eating his pride to teach English speakers how to say apple in Spanish.

Unfortunately I cannot remember the characters of Villa Alegre but two black folk where in that and it was the first time I ever saw black Spanish speakers.
It was obvious that VA was made in either Puerto Rico
or Brazil or something.

Those shows where the shit anybody out there seen them but me?

Gender Wars on the Playground

2005-07-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

So Navah came home with a knot on her head because two older boys knocked her down at the playground. The head counselor tells R that Navah can't play with boys because they are too rough. This is not how I want to raise my daughter thinking that men are to be kinetic, tough, and she needs to be weak and submissive and go play with dolls.
On the other hand, the counselor and staff have never done anything about the way the two boys play with other smaller kids. Apparently this has been an ongoing problem for the boys at camp which both of them have been attending every summer for the past 3 years. Nobody's gotten a clue yet on how to calm them down?

Meanwhile, R and I have to consider how we are going to explain to Navah that she can still play cool games with the boys, but just not those particular boys. What I don't want is for her to think that she had done something wrong.
That it was her fault that she got hurt, and that deep down maybe the ladies at the school (who R and I believe to have a problem with Navah playing with boys) were right all along: As a girl, you can't hang with the big boys, so don't even try.

When the Baby Comes.......

2005-07-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

The baby will be coming soon. Soon. It's hard to function when the notice to run frantically to the hospital is ever present and hanging over your head. It's weird.

Women and Technology

Eleven out of the 16 techies that I've hired are women. They all started with zero hands on experience in working with technology, but I usually give them minimal instruction and leave the rest to hacking at a problem until they figure it out. Whether it's a hardware issue or how to setup up a multi-boot system for the Helpdesk crew, I want them to come out of the experience learning as much as they can and gain the confidence needed to prepare them for a field dominated by menz.

A lot of them tell me how they've always felt the desire to "just do things" in order to become proficient in IT, but they have always been afraid to "mess up" or not sure where to start or that they are just not smart enough. As a black man I totally identified with those feelings. I never saw enough black folk in tech work and always thought that I needed to go to MIT or some shit. Then I always knew that as a person of color that the opportunity to prove any skills that I could gain would be nil because of racism. So what would be the point of pursuing tech knowledge?
It really wasn't until I attended an electronics school where I learned to fix TVs and build radios on a piece of foam core that gave me a spark of confidence. I was able to handle the next challenge; learning microprocessors and how to troubleshoot them.
All you really need is the desire. I know I sound self-helpish and shit, but I really think that's the key to learning anything. I still get that negative voice saying, "Nigger, don't even try it." I but you have to fight that colonial voice inside.
I 'encourage' my male techies to share their knowledge when they come up with something cool and they start a geek cipher. Yeah, I know. I'm an asshole boss.

JOBcasting

2005-07-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

Z's famous quotes #1

2005-07-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

Suprisingly enough, we went and had some damn tasty Mexican food at La Bonita. They had really good veggie chimichangas, their salsa was really good and they had apple soda. A taste sensation at the very least. It was way better than the fucking tex-mex crap you get in Houston. (I know there are decent places in Houston, but really now, it's fucking Texas and this fusion crap doesn't work for me..) La Bonita also had vegan options like tamales. How can you beat that? A vegan friendly Mexican family owned business with kick ass food that doesn't cost an arm and a leg!!! - Z

Help me out here, but last I looked, Texas was/is Mexico. And although I'm ignorant of where the term Tex-Mex came from (Shrimp Fajitas are the leading candidate for an example), Portland, Oregon is about as genuine as Queens, New York when it comes to what's real as far as Mexican representation goes. I could be wrong, but compared to Texas, I doubt it. Tofu borritos. Now that's fucking fusion. Whatever......

itching

2005-06-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

R is still home, but is wrapped tight in anxiety over the baby. I can understand to a degree because this pregnancy has been so problematic that the level of unpredicability is very high. Is the baby going to be healthy after all this? I have no idea.

In other news....

I finally bought an mp3 player. R was given one from her brother. I tried it out, and realized that it would be better to replace my dead CD Walkman with an mp3. Always looking for the better bang for my buck I bought a Buslink. It holds 256 MB worth of music which is more than enough for me and it triples as a jump drive and digital voice recorder. Doesn't skip or anything. Not bad, eh?

dreams that come true, dreams that feel true

2005-06-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

The dream that came true was that R is back home on bed rest.
The embryonic fluids are up to a safe level again. I have so many people to thank who are helping us. Chelsea came to stay with us to pick up Navah from school, Lauren is taking her to the school picnic on Thursday, Lizzy and Sharon took Navah for the weekend. Everyone was there for us. It was wonderful.

Now all we do is wait to see what happens next. The baby could come as early as this weekend or wait until term. We'll see.....

Being in a more solid mood with R sleeping next to me, I had a dream last night about E and me.

E and I were partners selling guns and bootleg software. Don't ask me about the combo, but that's what was happening.
I remember in the dream where some kids outside a project were taking pics of us. E was throwing up a fist wearing a black t-shirt and some olive green shorts. I was wearing my fave black short sleeve button-down with a white t under it and holding a cocked street sweeper to my chest.
After that, it seemed we were in Houston (the project was here in NYC) and E and I and a cool band was on stage playing at the Reddi Room. I remember that the Reddi Room was the bar that all the leftists in Houston loved to go to to hear blues. E was jumping around the stage like a maniac with his accordion and I was just playing the harmonica like Little Lester did with Muddy. Nobody was singing we were just playing some music.
There were throngs of cops outside who wanted to arrest us for some illegal shit, but for some reason they couldn't touch us.

The next scene E was on the phone with me stressing over some article in the New York Daily News
about another crew that was supposed to take us on. I'm not sure if it was in the area of our being recording artists or gun runners, but it was cool. Then I woke up.
Cool dream.

Oh yeah, at the Reddi Room, E was wearing a crushed red velvet bowler hat and matching suit with a black silk shirt and a black tie. E was pimped the fuck out.

ofrenda

2005-06-20T07:48:00.000-07:00

Not a good weekend.
It started Friday when R called me to tell me that she was at her regular check up and that her blood pressure was very high. Her Doctor was concerned that the baby was not moving, Assata's weight was not where he was expecting it to be, and her embryonic fluid was very low. He thought the baby looked like a still born so he sent her to the hospital. The doctor felt that he may have to deliver Assata that night.

Once R got there, she calmed down and her blood pressure was normal. Assata's heartbeat was also steadying. They did another ultrasound around 5 pm and it showed that the fluid was at 5 points which is considered low since the amount should be at 10.
That's when we were told that R needed to stay overnight, but it may not be necessary to deliver the baby that night.

Saturday

Visited R in the morning. She seemed up in spirits, but I was missing her. I just felt bad that she was trapped in the hospital. I picked Navah up at Erica's house and boy did she get drama on me over the fact that the baby was not here yet. Which was strange in itself since only to days ago the child drew a huge mural-like picture depicting a giant chicken stepping on a baby with a huge caption sprawled under saying: “No Babies?"
Tyler, a school mate of hers helped with the spelling.
Now Navah was crying that Assata wasn't here yet. I do suspect however that Navah feels that once the baby is here it would take her mommy out of the hospital put her on equal footing with Assatta for her mother's attention.
I did ask Navah why she was crying since she said "No Babies!", but she said she changed her mind, she wanted the baby.

I bought Navah to the hospital because as parents we don't believe in sugar coating the truth. If the baby is coming this is where she will be born. Mommy is here too and has to be hooked up to all kinds of plugs and stuff. Needless to say Navah, didn't want to be there and she was scared as hell to see her mommy hooked up to plugs. She later left with Lizzy for a sleep over. I had made sure to bring food to the hospital because R hates hospital food (me, however, I love hospital food. I don't know why, but I do. When I go to get my balls cut off this winter I'm going to eat like a fucking King!).

They did the Ultrasound and R's fluids raised by 2 points. I actually thought they would let us go by that, but no dice. They wanted to keep R in over night again.

Sunday
Got some chores done around the house and was told that they want to keep R in the hospital over Sunday night. All night long when I got Navah home it all felt so lonely and strange with R gone. She's gone on trips before, but with health issues hanging in the balance, this just feels shitty without her here. I did a crappy job on Navah's hair (I need to learn how to braid hair), we watched tv and I sent her to bed kind of late. I didn't go to sleep myself until 1 am.

I don't know what's in store for us at this point. I get a feeling that even though R's fluid level goes up today, the doctor is going to want to keep her in the hospital for the rest of the week then decide to deliver her on the weekend. As for me, I'm being selfish. All I want to do is have her back with me. I'm being a baby, I know.

colonizers

2005-06-14T07:44:00.000-07:00

I read in You-Know-Who's blog that she attended a 'punk' show in a venue called Southmore House. Southmore House. This place is located in the outer rim of Third Ward and 'punks' gather there. Wonderful. That means middle-classed posers from Alief, Montrose, and Friendswood congragate in a neighborhood that I used to pass through to get downtown as I skipped school. Sad. What happened to the families that lived there?

As I walk through the neighborhood of my daughter's school in lower East Harlem I see the same shit and it sickens me. The first to come are the 'artists' whose money and credit is somehow better than the money and credit of the residential artists of color who are getting kicked out. Then, come the Trustafarians with mommy and daddy's money, and their iPods. What's funny about these cocksuckers is that they don't even try to fit into the neighborhoods thay colonize or try to be neighbors. They just live in the 'hood for cool status to impress their friends and pay 'cheaper' rents and wait the purge of pocs so they can have a hip 'hood in the next ten years with Starbucks on every corner.

I knew that the outer parts of 3rd Ward was already colonized by the time we left, but I knew how the real estate game in Houston ran. Usually all projects aimed at drawing in pale faces with money would fall through and pocs with no money would eventually move in. I guess I was wrong or maybe with a twist, the cheaper bidder are punks with a culture venue dream. Wonder how they finance such a project? DYI, my ass.

Any Time Any Day, You Can Hear the People Say....

2005-03-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

That my blog is the bestest!

I have so many deep thoughts regarding the direction of the anti-war movement, death to radical theory, alternative media and people of color, but I cannot for the life of me write those thoughts here.
So, to punish you for my mega triflin'ness I will post two of my favorite teenage pregnancy songs that have been looping in my head since I woke up this morning and I want to dedicate those lyrics to R.

Always and Forever - Heatwave

Each moment with you is just like a dream to me
That somehow came true
And I know tomorrow will still be the same
Cos' we've got a life of love that won't ever change

And every day love me your own special way
Melt all my heart away with a smile
Take time to tell me you really care

And feel sad tomorrow together
I'll always love you, forever, forever
There'll always be sunshine when I look at you
Something I can't explain, just the things that you do
And if you get lonely, phone me
And take a second to give to me the magic you make

Together - The Intruders (originally sang it) and Tierra (my favorite rendition)

Oh, we could be on a desert
Lost without a place to go
But we’re so in love, in love with each other
That we wouldn’t even know

(Oh...oh...oh...I) I don’t care (I don’t care)
Any place, anywhere (Anywhere, just as long as)
Just as long (We are there)
As we’re there, baby, baby

(Together) Together, baby
(Together) Together, baby
(Baby, just you and me) Baby, just you and me, girl
Whoa, how happy we’ll be, yeah...

Whoa...oh...we could be in poverty - And that shit's for real!
And no one to lean a helpin’ hand
But it’s alright (Alright), alright I know
Because you always understand

(Oh...oh...oh...I) I don’t care (I don’t care)
Any place, anywhere (Anywhere, just as long as)
Just as long (We can share)
As we share now, baby, baby

(Together) Together, baby
(Together) Together, baby
(Baby, just you and me) Baby, just you and me, girl
Whoa, how happy we’ll be, yeah...

(Oh...oh...oh...I) I don’t care (I don’t care)
Any place, anywhere (Anywhere, just as long as)
Just as long (We are there)
As we’re there, baby, baby

(Together) Together, baby
(Together) Together, baby
(Together) I wanna live my whole life with you
(Together)
(Together) ‘Cause lovin’ you, girl, was easy
(Together) Wantin’ you, girl, was easy
(Together) Lovin’ you again, lovin’ you again
(Together) Oh, I want you by my side

Girl, I want you to sit back, close your eyes
Think about all those wonderful times that we used to have, yeah
Now I know things aren’t the way they used to be right now
But they are gonna get better some day
And I know that

And I remember (I remember)
Oh...when we used to play
And shoot ‘em up (Shot ‘em up)
(Bang-bang, baby)

(Together) Together, baby
(Together) Together, baby
(Together) I wanna live, wanna live
(Together) Wanna live my life with you (Baby)
(Together) ‘Cause I want you to be
(Together) My wife, you see
(Together) And I’ll give you everything, everything

(Together, baby) Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa

(Together) Together, baby
(Together) Together, baby
(Together) Lovin’ you, girl, for all time
(Together)
(Together) Though lovin’ you, girl, was easy
(Together) And wantin’ you, girl, was easy
(Together) I let that love go, let my love go, baby
(Together)

More nostalgia via accidental Internet search

2005-01-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

So Navah wanted to know why train conductors wore black.
I wanted to know the same thing so I Googled this life mystery in order to gain more useless info for my brain. Amongst the hits, I came across the old cowpunk band, Rank and File. That shit really did bring back some memories. Cowpunk, bands like Jason and the Scorchers and such was not one of my favorite genres of music to get into, but Rank and File had a couple of songs played on KTRU that I liked. They even had one of their songs played in the background of the movie, To live and Die in L.A. As I started to track them down, the bands history and what not I came to Rhino's website where I saw that Guadalcanal Diary has two records in Rhino's catalogue. Shit. 1986 still seemed like only yesterday.

Thelma Evans on Broadway

I saw this older sister this morning on Broadway (Not the Manhattan Broadway, the Kingston Broadway) who looked like the object of my boyhood gaze, BernNadette Stanis. I know she's from Brooklyn, but I doubt she lives in Kingston. Either way I smiled broadly at her as Navah and I continued on our morning stroll to the bakery. Damn, I love this town!

Speaking of crushes.....

Maggie Chascarrillo.

When she was a skinny loca punk working on rockets back in the early eighties she was amusing at best. But as the punk identity faded (like me) and the pounds packed on (like me) drowning in the sea of her 30s desperate to find her identity (like me), well I just plain fell in love with her.

Is it possible to be in love with someone who is two-dimensional and black and white? Could I disrupt my family and leave NYC to appear at Maggie's doorstep in the fictional Hoppers, Cali?
Will she be mean to Rivka or scared of her?
Will Magpie constantly ride my ass about getting the support checks to them on time as she constantly looks over her shoulder at me wondering when will the time come when I betray her for Ororo (mohawk period, of course)?
How much hell will I have to put up with Hopey?

Ah, it costs to be a player.