tes levres

"drive", the spot on the road- the ciggy tips the lips, taj mahal talkin' about cheatin' on you, i'm approachin' you. the truck in front of me, nasty size, i push past fast above eighty degrees, ask you please if we can stay up later. baltimore to paris, new york, back, then forth, like "come forth with everything you got, i'm yours", like a mix between the old and new sound, so it has a hot bass but fucks with some minor chords that just scream in a brazen anger, even ol' taj says "damn, give me that again". "you fit me", hit me with a reach, you could teach me so much if i had any patience or capacity to learn. if i speak one language, and you speak another, and we think in a collective language different than the first two, how can we talk? eyes are the window to the gut, but ours are the same color, so does that mean our guts are the same color? I didn't want to talk about souls. i mean that in a figurative way. i'm not talking to anyone at all, the truck is still in front of me, i tried to change lanes, but can't find space. i guess i could just go for it, and forget about the space, but i'm not one to gun it. i think i'll take my time.

C.R.E.A.M

i think the lull is because for so long this thing has just been a vent. Catch a breath of fresh air and you lose a bit of the edge on your tongue; these margins are seams thats can't hold in the view. that's not a "you'll never understand what i've seen tip." more like a - i'm having trouble understanding what i've seen. (seriously, who ever thought the quote we all grew up thinking was clever but false "fools speak cuz they have to say something, wise men speak cuz they have something to say" would ring true. I mean we get a taste and its a punch in the face. but you gotta hold your ground, and bite your tongue, let em know you're in with the times. can't blow your cover though. that blow put you in your place, you know you don't have shit to say.

but of course i'm full circle, once again wondering what everybody else has seen, and thinking maybe people are curious about me too. glad we got this little knights of the roundtable meeting ground. so guess i'll start the horseplay and splash around in this baby pool of slippery confusion.

basically just one thought of late;

im not sure of what utilitarian philosophers are proposing - that we already live in a utilitarian society, or that a just society is a utilitarian one? well either way John Rawls give a scathing critique; any conception of justice should be founded on the two independent entities of what is right and what is good, whereby what is right leads to the most good. but utilitarianism doesn't separate them, what is good is assumed to be right and thereby are one in the same. Guess that would make sense if I could explain his null hypothesis of why what is right and what is good have to be distinguished (instead of them being synonymous), but i can't. well either way...

ive just been thinking it seems like maybe we are living in a utilitarian society already. and i dont think utilitarianism is theoretically just, nor do i think our society is just. but, is capitalism naturally utilitarian, or can capitalism be responsible? can it be altruistic? sympathetic? humble enough to recognize that although we may all be rational and free thinking...we live in a society where your height can predispose you to making millions playing ball (just the tip of the iceberg)? idk guess just throwing out that when its said "assuming all other things being equal" we are just assuming. hmmill leave it at that, maybe ill go back to edit and make sense of this later, but for now...

im baaAAaack.

clean your glasses

im coming for this thing real soon

Apathy

My own mind is more interesting to me than the entire country.

Why should I feel guilty that I don’t light dollar bills up with the poor, huddled masses to illuminate the white house on a dark D.C. night?

My internal narrative is incessant and offers me no exit into the socially constructed reality
I know what is real to me and the foreman of that reality doesn’t give a fuck about anything else… Not Iraq, not inflated rats in front of my school, not Darfur, not nothing.

But then, alas, bile corrodes my soft pink throat and I know how ugly I am- I am guilty and the blood is on my hands—I am xenophobic, lazy, and too disinterested to pursue knowledge let alone materialize action.

I legitimize my games because the sun also rises, and I tell myself that I am James Joyce’s great nephew and silence, exile, and cunning will lead me through.

I’m confused now- because I do care- I care so god damn much and all I want is for things to be right, and to actualize the arsenal for change
But I am not ready- I know not even myself and my imagination is not fully developed to fictionalize a better world, one with hope, one that is different than the one in which I live.

We all want to be revolutionary, but…

This honesty is not revolutionary.
Smoking weed is not revolutionary.
Not cutting your hair is not revolutionary.
Over exposed film and incoherent plot lines not kept afloat by half-assed symbolism is not revolutionary.
Rage against the machine is revolutionary, but not when its coming through your headphones.
Cranking butts, and rubbing bleary eyes between sips of cold coffee is not revolutionary.
Having the outline of Africa on your Timberland boots is not revolutionary
The individual is not revolutionary
Hobart and William Smith Colleges is not revolutionary
A Hammer and Sickle novelty tee shirt is not revolutionary
A Che Guevera Trucker hat is not revolutionary
Cramming Marx and Engles for an exam is not revolutionary
Saying you’re a political liberal and fiscal conservative is not revolutionary
Wearing a bright red pin on your satchel book bag that reads “is it fascism yet?” is not revolutionary

These are empty shells of a revolution- the molting of a snake after he and his essence has moved forth apart. The only thing revolutionary in this day and age at Princeton Review’s 19th most politically apathetic school is ideas. As these seeds in my head grow, I want to plant them in the television and on the big screen and in a book and in a weekly column and in the soul of someone else who knows more than me.

White boy pain spilled out on the floor tonight because everyday life is getting easier and it’s making me uncomfortable. Life is good, I say and smile, because it really is and I am guilty but can’t stop smiling, and my own mind is still so much more important
and I am still an asshole
and Tuesday morning’s seat race is still a priority
and I will still never accomplish anything,
and I will still make money
and I will still drink rum at night and coffee in the morning
and life will still be good.

If however, my pugnacity shall arise from its paralysis, life will not be good, and my coffee will not be from starbucks, but my mind and body will have given back and the circle will be complete.
And my kids will respect me
and my wife will be tired but kiss me more deeply
and my head will ache but I will sleep more soundly.
and life will be good

I can’t wait to say thank you to the world for giving me this time to think, to develop my own personal narrative, to imagine what the world could be before I jump in and try and turn it into what it should be.

But for now, I am twenty years old and very happy to be confused. I wouldn’t worry about it though.

You may find yourself in a beautiful house...

...with a beautiful wife. You may ask yourself- how did I get here?

I'm driving from greenwich to newport in someone else's father's car. I am drinking rum at an expensive private beach. I act like I'm used to it, but I know I don't fit in- I can't fit in, it is not organic. But alas, I am there. These are my friends. This is not me. This is me. This is life, and to this point this is how the world has turned and this is where I am. Caught with one foot off the merry go round- whipped around weightlessly/feet planted firmly to the ground. My nose is broken after being smashed by a series of opening and closing books; and when I look up nothing makes sense because they're not words; it's life and people and water and sand and alcohol and the words mean nothing. I remember the words and sip slowly because I want it to taste good/ And it does taste good so I breathe deep and close my eyes knowing that there are more books to read. I promise myself these bullshit lies will end and I'll fucking do it, just do it- I swear I will. But god damn that chair is comfortable and those little kids are adorable in their little J Crew madras bathing suits/ and their mothers are fucking gorgeous because they don't work, but rather look good. At least I know I'm in the drivers seat/ but when you're drunk and have been sunning all day, you typically ride shotgun,..-I typically oblige.


You may ask yourself where does that highway lead to. You may ask yourself, "am I right, am I wrong?" You may say to yourself- "My God! What have I done?!"

I am the epitome of a lazy generation with too much of their parents money and subsequent low expectations. White= Advantaged. Money= Priveleged. Male= Never recieve prejudice. These blessings are daggers hanging from strings on the ornate ceiling above the throne of the Greek King I learned about in latin during my liberal arts education which is important to supposed to know. If only I were a poor mexican day laborer picking grapes in salinas, my ideas would mean something- because they would be all I have. But my American dream is one not yet constructed, for Horatio Alger and my father already lived out the one we all know.

Same as it ever was

clap back

The only thing different from a hope and a dream/Is the time you take to take it from what it is to what it means/And what it means is something that’s cracked through the seams/And you’re back in your bed again, stuck on your dreams/My dreams I try to live ‘em, dive and sort ‘em out/Half right half the time other half I’m straight out/ Of luck luckless fucked up fuckless no/Change in my state but the dollar makes a buck/ This is not reality just a blow of a frozen life/Stuck in a pattern of existence defined by what I like/Or what I know, cause I do know that I know so little/The conductor of my dreams is tricking me with these riddles/And everybody else has the keys to all these questions/And I can’t figure it out through books or freestyle sessions/Or regression into my idea of what it means to alive/So I’m stuck in my dream world, reality steps outside.

Re: Lost

Indeed we are a lost generation. A youth of speculators searching for wealth after the goldrush. Our generation is lost because in the swirling dustbowl we are strangers in a kingdom of dirt castles. Antiquated architecture to ominus to face- our knowledge that they have always been there plays into our ignorance of why, or who put them there. Despite our arsenal and its ability to bring these castles down we just talk about its weaknesses, never acting. Our pugnacity is undoubtable, but paralysis grips us all.

Our youth and education must not be in vain. Though these are weapons for progress they are for naught if not put into action. As another school year dawns, we must swear to get up, get out, and get some- on any level, so as to say thank you to the cosmos for giving us these privleges.

Lost

And with tears in my eyes... optimism as my greatest strength and weakness I begin to realize just how evil we are. My sleep has been troubled with the screams of those born into a reality that I cannot fathom and convincing myself that someway somehow I can change it, that I was meant to help fix it but why me and why not them? We can go to space but genocide in 2007. Millions killed for no good reason. We bawl at what Hitler did swearing never again... yet here it is again our answer... show me some profit and then we'll help them! The chocolate children are still ignored no different than in Alabama in 64. If it was in our backyard what would we think. The lives we've let drift away, lost ideas, lost beauties because our humanity is only as good as the petroleum in the ground or terrorist whereabouts that for all i know we probably invented. I've truly started to care less about some Rockefeller legacy... My god how will history judge us... we are capable of so much and it seems history has mastered repetition.
Are we the lost generation? What do we stand for? Our ideals contradicted daily. Equality for all... unalienable rights... responsibility towards the greater good. Raised to believe we're the good guys, we're always right and we know whats best. Our lack of involvement in mother Africa puts it all to the test. In search of my calling, something more... so when I stand before God I wasn't just another money whore. Meaning is Everything.

has it ever crossed your mind?

it's all in your mind if you haven't seen it yet. a couple of stories from the ones that would spread rumors - "i cant head back solo". i'd put my faith on the line that you could, but the more i do that the more skeptical i get. some have gotten mugged, but they were asking for it; asking for a place that wasn't like the rest. and they got mugged by some people that were asking for a place that wasn't like the rest. and then they did, they both did, they crossed the equillibrium of supply and demand. one demanded what the other supplied, the other supplied what the other demanded. but neither were economists; both were only thinking about what they knew. they weren't happy with the answer so they tried to figure out what they could know.

A Penny and the Empire State Building

Maybe I just use repitition because it sounds fly
Maybe you're fuckin with the wrong guy
Or maybe I should just calm down, right?
Maybe I just started a blog to show off
Or maybe I write on it so I don't get wrote off

I hope they see I'm tryin to get away from maybe's
But quite honestly they have the allure of a lady
So I gotta try to seduce them and slay she
Get her on my good side by date three
You see I got to flip this
Because when the maybes start comin up positive its
Leading to me being more optimistic
Then after I rock and pivot
I can take over with a mic like Scottie Pippen
I'm tryin to gain some traction so there's not a lot of slippin
Watch me move forward steadily even though all the drops are different

John's talkin about my iPod in my pocket
Puttin beats in my ears, so whether I hear cheers or jeers
Then I have to rock it, turn the music up
There's hip-hop in my heart and I can't refuse it love
Walk with a swagger where I used to strut
And that's the one thing I'm not worried about losin', but -

Maybe I won't make it in the new city
Maybe all my good moves are a little too risky
There'll be a lot of dudes with me but are a few shifty?
Maybe my grades will be later in the alphabet
I gotta wait a few months for my pals to get -
back, Until then I gotta nail the set
Or maybe wait for the scales to tip
Fuck Maybe, I'm definitely not ready for failure yet


The Alchemist Turns Basic Elements to Gold

you're blinded from the start

starfish and sea snails on the beach - an ambiguous feature of wherever you are, right next to the chain of pizza restaurants and european surf shops imported from iceland? but the constant reminder of the pier, not any pier but this pier, with the dozens of folks reppin melanin and fishing poles catching galjoen and other species remote to the sandy beaches of Durban, probably to sell in shwarmee and samosas for a few cents in the market (after they've sat warm for a few hours) to unsuspecting tourists from johannesburg and gaborone. and as much as they try to remain inconspicuous in their unimposing role, their existence is my vitality. my reminder that thousands of miles away from home im not in the same evironment; the streets do hold their own mystique, money doesn't sit in every pocket, the hand still goes straight to mouth (after the shop is closed and the street is swept with the branch of the palm tree) not after the ipod is in the pocket and italian leather wallet is in the vest.

but then walk up three blocks, and you rationalize the other way. yea there's 18 sweaty people in a van - but they're not walking 5 miles barefoot everyday. they have to have steel bars over the smallest of windows - but they're still making a living. its a table on the side of the road with sweets sprawled across its top - but the cost of living is so low that just a few sold will buy a chicken curry pie, the streets are filthy but the water is clean, most of the shantytowns at least have electricity, the white kids are racist but they must be at least aware of whose labor they're living off of, the escort services are more than escort services - but there are 'safe abortion' advertisements on every street pole ((WTF?!) the baby won't get aids but the women still will), im a foreigner but at least im not trying to exploit, i cant recycle a can but the world cup's coming - and with it international standards, she cries for a couple of rand for her child - but their are poor mothers in NY too, im guilty of privelege - but i have been for the last 19 years...

it's unnatural. you can't cope. you can observe, and analyze, and read books about what can be done, and talk to the authors that are writing them, and you can walk the streets of the neighborhood and eat your meal on the side of the road or from the fast food restaurant and you're a nuisance just the same. but as soon as you are reminded of that fact, and it doesn't leave you after a night of booze and sleep, then you are destined to have your legacy already defined...so you find a way to cope, to vent on a blog, or to think of inspirational quotes that help you to keep typing, and trying, and wondering, and hoping, and believing more and more until the future is once again yet to be defined and reality is malleable, and hope is constant. and hope is constant.

jaws is still alive

i saw him today, on the bus, out my window, in the mirror. they say he's drawn to blood. NO, not me, not I! really? Not in shower, only in the laundry, where my dirty work lays. On the plane over here where my guilt still lays. But on the roof built by - oh wait. in the pub with the music by who?

i CAN look up though, haven't done enough damage yet - strike that, the landfill with my cartons of milk from 3rd grade are orbiting. what's a mind to do? i want to bridge the gap between the where i am, what i had to be, and where i long to be.

salt water heals wounds, but not scars. this nonsense built me, not the stars.

645

up up up past the right of human history, same questions.
you told a story to me but i laughed to hard to remember it. there's a star out there, bottom of it all, i can't think straight. i am not that gullible, but you are fooling me. it's the same thing everytime, step into a room, hands to pockets, swing side to side. "hello". a step back, farther farther up up. on the roof, we talked about something vital, she studies philosophy so she's got to be thinking, spit on two three turns away from an answer that means something. it's quite cyclic, but our conversation has a beautiful essence that is young and living. my web of knowledge is limited and shaped by everything that has ever been around me, i listen to music everyday that dresses me up. swirling, she slid into my memory. DONE

big fun

timetable dreams backward hope in underdrive, souvenir, I, study tip top shape to a sage, unfathomable nothingness, think about it, lover walks ahead of you signifying nothing, it's too old, age sits in a rocking chair, in the seams, pickup, if, music doesn't speak, gamblers, taxes free blank pages better than most laws, face paint, pier, follow up question would have to be...

i saw the new day coming

my mom tells me that when i was younger, every morning when i woke up, i would walk into my parents room and proudly present myself, "Okay, I'm awake!" i thought i was God's gift to the world, telling my parents - i've done my part, now you do yours!


its the other way around now. when the buzzards, or the maids, or the heat, or the monkeys outside my window wake me up - it's as if Africa proudly presents itself, "Okay, you're awake!" God's gift to the world, telling me - i've done my part, now you do yours!


So i know why my mom got up with me every morning. when you have something as exciting as a new child at your bedside, or a new world - there's no time for lying under the covers.



(yes, i am aware that John Doyle and Africa is probably the world's most absurd analogy)

ouvre

We went to the beach in town, walking around city, city blocks, congested with small businesses with colorful posters advertising what was happening. Four of us, I could see fear in three sets of eyes- in my own eyes sans mirror/ facing self it might have been easier, dark cloud behind the coast populated street like no other city my young eyes have seen before, pulse of street in 3/4 i'm sitting in 2/2, cause my heart's beating so fast- what is this world, and for that matter, and more absurd, what is my world- a man on the sea, son balancing on his head, daughter clinging on son's back, one or two coins thrown in cup every fifteen minutes or so, doing acrobats actors would pay too much to learn, then talk about their diverse background. t.i.a. there's a light in the corner, her and i by the water, her friend is crazy, waves crashing on a river, off somewhere, group of people with erased visages, frames of her, smiling with jumping eyes- we can talk about it and see it all we want (poverty), but life is an probably always will be outside this picture, I pick up the magazine with the article about this life on these city blocks, but a la fin, il n'est pas pareil. and i could write about, and try to show everybody in my magazine-buying life what it's all about, that raw real, women screaming to nobody legs outstretched to nobody, kids hustling with whiteface (kids with shoes walking by unaffected), surfers in the sea, thousands of miles and trains and elevators with special keys away, this africa, je ne peux pas exprimer, c'est dehors de moi-meme. she bites her thumb, hair flying, new cell phone ringing new tune in morning. every single person i see. spot next great tragedy.

How Flawed I Am

The 40 or Proverbs. The profanity or the Save Darfur Campaign... if only it were that easy. These days I struggle for that balance between having a good time and hypocrisy. The fear of what I have to say falling on deaf ears is paramount. Getting on my knees to pray after having a hangover that morning. Joking about sex with the boys and still putting the highest value on it at the same time. Trying to fit in and trying to be a movement. Boppin my head to the same rap artists I criticize. Wearing Jordans and bragging about the same guy who hasn't done anything notable for the black community besides a few tax write offs on a 1040. Skimming a Maxim or checking out Time Magazine. Reading about saving Africa or reading The Jordan Rules. Making myself watch CNN and checking out the NY Times when all I want to is watch the 11 oclock sportscenter... Perfection I'll never reach but that balance I must. It's tough to find that ultimate comfort with one's skin...

"Come there is a way to be good again"

What does it mean to be a good person? A notion I've been struggling with a lot lately. It seems many think it's just about being nice, getting along with people, caring about your family, and staying out of trouble. I had a conversation during my running of the bulls weekend. I was talking with someone about why Christians believe being just a "good person" isn't good enough. My boy was trying to tell me he doesnt understand why you just can't be this good person. I told him its funny he says that since that seems to be a recurring theme among many people yet this world is definitely not in a surplus of goodness.
I think we must truly distinguish between opening the door for the old lady at the mall and what it means to truly be a good person. Does compassion for humanity come into the mix and at what level? I know what the bible teaches, we all try and fall short of the glory of god and it isn't satisfactory to just be this "good person." Aside from religion however I'm just looking for some intellectual discourse here. I mean everyone and their mother talks about being a good person but what the hell does that mean? It's like the most ambiguous thing i've ever heard.
Look I know everyone can't be going to Africa or to the hood to champion some cause but at the same time I feel like we confuse being good too often with being nice. I don't think it's enough to be a nice person and get along with most people and be liked. I'm tired of people trying to comfort themselves and sleep at night with this notion and I wonder what everyone truly thinks about the definition of goodness. Someone enlighten me... I have my spiritual beliefs but I'm interested to hear what others have to say about truly being good. I mean is our definition of good the exact opposite of what we perceive as evil... I think not. I think the reason our gandhi's and others are so rare is because we sugar coat goodness into some name brand superficial definition.
Someone help me out here....

TKO - inside is where the fight lays

my brother's pseudo-bedroom/the office for my pseudo-politicain father has found itself fighting the tides

Dull yellow walls are the ropes around this boxing ring where youth and convention face off.
ding - round 1

Left jab for Responsibility-
Bright stick-it notes are a constant reminder of the ever-pressing concerns of the constituents of the 4th ward - "Helen K., 14 Gaskin Rd. - sidewalk cracks".

grit your teeth kid.

Right hook for Youth -A paperback copy of "A Moon for the Misbegotten" on the bookshelf. The inside cover reads "Dan - Merry Christmas, will never forget the drunk caroling."

POP POP,
adulthood claps back hard-A copy of "Strunk And White - Elements of Style for the Professional", it lies underneath a sheet of "Friends of the Democratic Party" return address stickers


20's - BBC.com homepage, Robert J. Fox framed haiku "dare to have a vision firm, dare to stand alone", Little League game ball "Italian Center 2, Elks 0 6/18/93",

50's - stapler conveniently sitting on top of a box of "500 Count Extra staples", J.J. Doyle Memorial Golf Outing invitation, reading glasses, empty tumbler glass with toothpick and olive inside

muscles glisten from sweat reflected by the desk lamp

Son - Thesaurus
Pops - Concise English Handbook
2 AM pass outs - "Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker
Evelyn, set the alarm for 7:15 - "Let Peace Fill My Heart" -paxchristusa.org

-The fans around the house are lights out, the silence is deafening

idealism? - polaroid of his apartment in palestine
reality? - plastic tub of city of Poughkeepsie real-estate assessments
The future at night - Dickens "Great Expectations"
The future 9am-5pm - Steinbeck "Of Mice and Men"
OJ out of the carton - Springsteen "Born to Run"
Eddie Bauer Travel coffee mug - Van Morrison "Brown Eyed Girl"

I can barely watch.


Brother - "There's a lot more to life than belts and callars"
Dad - "4.0? Wow, you're really keeping your options open, Friendly's to celebrate?"
Brother - "You gonna use the wood bat or you be a buster and use metal?"
Dad - "I need an itinerary of your travel plans if you think i'm gonna support this."
Brother - "You're not just gonna come right home are you?"
Dad - "Mow the lawn, make sure you bag the front."
Brother - "come down on the train, crash on the couch...waffles in the morning"
Dad - "You really wanna know how work was?"
Brother - "my Urban Planning professor came to happy hour with us!"

Dad - "I don't know how to make it better...how would you? Our proposed budget already demands a 2% tax increase"
Brother - "there's a way we can make this world work and still have our hot showers and cold beers"

Dad - "I have faith, I know I'll see my parents again." shakes his head "there's good in the world John, there's goodness out there, you have to have faith in people. It's worth believing in."
Brother - "and then jimmy carter came and didn't bitch out like hillary did 6 months ago. he condemned the checkpoints."

Dad - "Hold on, let me hear this interview"
Brother - "Did you see that diving play Jeter made?"

Dad - "It seems like a lot, but I enjoy my work John, I don't feel like I'm cutting myself short"
Brother - "You can't feel guily, it ain't a sin to be glad you're alive."

Me - "I'm trying"
Me - "I'm trying"

A war with my flesh

I've been doing some thinking myself... I saw that Cornel West clip and I really have to do some dying myself. Our luxuries, our complacency, our ignorance, our belief that somehow an American baby is more valuable than that one in China, it all has to die.
I don't think your commodities are always the direct cause of the struggle but they can be a blindfold preventing us from seeing things for what they really are. It's a struggle to be balanced. Why do I watch a Hotel Rwanda and then feel sad for a bit and then go to Wendy's drink a lemonade and go on with my life? Why is my flesh so weak and sinful? I don't know. One may say it's in our nature to be selfish and not care about others. I think goodness must be strived for. Anne Frank was wrong. The difficulty of growing up in the US and truly being socially conscious and appreciating the human struggle everywhere is as tough if not tougher than growing up in the South during slavery with parents owning slaves and thinking slavery is wrong or having ur dad being an avid Nazi in the 1940s and supporting Jews, Gypsies and all that suffered. The reason Gandhi, Jesus, MLK are all considered so special is because they are anomalies of sorts. John I honestly don't know if humanity can ever come close to that kind of compassion across the board. Not to say we shouldn't reach for it, but as saddening as it sounds, I guess the torch will have to be carried by a select few once again. I mean Cornel hit the mark when he said the only time in the history of America where all Americans were scared and violated and felt like niggers was 9/11 and our response wasnt whoa lets reevaluate what our presence is in this world, but rather lets go out and kill. Saddham was evil but we love those Saudis degrading women?
I've grown up in the church and have never been religious cause i think there's a difference between religion and spirituality. Religion funded the inquisition, had a role in the holocaust, justified slavery, and has killed more than any force in our history. Religion has destroyed people and their ideas that died with them. Original ideas we will never hear about that will never exist. Me being more spiritual has helped ground and humble me. It has helped my flesh die. I think now is in the time in my life where I must learn, not to say I shouldnt be out there helping people at the same time, but Martin, Malcolm, all of them became schooled before they did the schooling. So I suggest we all pay attention, be critical at all times, be beautiful enemies to each other and never let that central air keep you so cozy that we forget we have greatness inside of us to change this world. Learn now so that when your time comes, you'll be ready. Enjoy life but don't think enjoyment should be based solely around you. I think we all have to pick what we want to contribute to. There are far too many problems to attack them all.
I'm gonna go read my bible and figure out how to be gracious, more humble and master this compassion, a mastery so rare that a select few in history have accomplished it. Shit, gotta turn up the AC.... and so the battle begins.....

most nights

my thoughts before i sleep are of the potential of social justice; uplifting of the poor, opportunity for the oppressed, solace for the grieving, empowerment for the disenfranchised, redemption for the guilty...peace for humanity. Greatness for humanity.

most mornings i wake up in my queen bed, under my tommy hilfiger comforter, with a glass of clean water at my bedside (which, I should add, is still cool from the central air).

How does one reconcile their own incongruity? Is it possible for us to support the emergence of something, when in fact we embody a force inhibiting its growth?

(somebody's gotta start a dialogue or i'm quitting the blog, i don't find the act of writing itself therapeutic - its the exchange)

see my affliction

In the Book of Job, Job pleaded with God. What he was able to vocalize in his moment of distress, more than opposable thumbs ever could, is what separates man from animal.

“I am full of confusion. See my affliction, for it increases…He destroys the wicked and the perfect. If not, where and who is he?... WHY HAST THOU BROUGHT ME FORTH OUT OF THE WOMB?”

Animals ride inside a single stroke of the painting. Blessed are us though, we can pull back and see the chaos on the canvas.

And there's the rub, for we can’t pull back far enough to see the disposition of the artist in the presence of his work. Is He pleased? A satanic charm in His eye?

Or Blinded? Strewn on the floor, drunk with regret and shame – a coward? Maybe He’s panicked. Oh! Tell me there’s compassion! Does he curse the hand that clasps the brush that created such pain?

Perhaps He's chuckling to himself, amused at our panicked uncertainty, his pleasure only in the wake of a calm that knows a truth worthy of revelling in its beauty.

Maybe he’s no help at all, his tilted head and glazed eyes stare blindly through His work trying to remember what he meant by it once upon a time.

Is He looking at all?!

Breathe. To be a trophy life, kept on display, but always uncertain of our value... our meaning.

"Every generation is lost in something,"

And mine was lost in thought. The conversation was dying with the flames but our minds were rising with the smoke. I watched the last wisps climb, climb, climb until the infinite night sky became too much to conquer. Undaunted, our physical forms decided not to graffiti their short lived proximity with exhausted jokes and priceless memories. For those few moments, seconds, maybe even minutes I watched as eyes wandered towards the stars, no doubt following the conscious, urging it upward.

Much like the woodsmoke, soon it would dissipate and our thoughts would turn to wordly matters. We would once more attempt to coax our own personal icebergs above the low water mark. The silence was comfortable, however, and I still wonder where we all went for that stitch in time. Who among us travelled to another continent, surely the allure of an instant spent with a brother in arms overseas was too much of a temptation. Who looked to the future? Were any of us able to navigate the path covered in a fog clouded with dreams and find truth? I cherished our time together, and finding the warmth that those thoughts carried I tried to touch those less fortunate. I hope my thread of smoke was enough. I was encouraged by the feeling that I wasn't alone, in body and spirit. We are often of the same mind, and again I can only wonder how often we haven't been able to sit around a table and still keep each other company by weaving a blanket of thought.

One by one we step away from the loom, shift our weight, and whet our lips. Time is much shorter when your hand is around a bottle. Let's talk while we can, keep your journeys deep inside. Who knows, soon you'll see us living up to the title of the website, and it won't be long before the smoke is blowing to another corner of the globe. Just keep in mind that if our feet are on top of different dirt, our heads are in the same sky.

The love is heavy, watch how it arches my breast.

Sevilla: mi corazón

The landing was immaculate. the lights the beauty the faces the places... so much to describe, so much on my mind. Never have I been more convinced we're not the best other people do it better... we're just the most blessed. Their passion the look in the eyes of the flamenco performers... I want it all. In the US we live to work, and here they work to live. It's not about 9 to 5's always being on the grind with mercedes in mind. Life is cool... only the essentials sippin on some sangria whisperin sweet nothings to that beautiful chica. The sun sets at 10pm thats gotta be poetic... We dance and dance and drink till 8 in the morning. I''ve never been this free... Life is beautiful the world is round... God is good... I'm so far from the hood. I'm so inspired this place has lit a fire somethin like a street car named desire. My dreams are beautiful as the Sevillana laying next to me. A season of Spain's Perfection

$5 pitchers

it'll be the funnest blog yet, don't care if its the 'most' or the 'est', pat im lost and looking for nothing too. i stepped out the bar and saw American Eagle on the curb with his hat backwards talking on his cell phone. AHH better tilt mine to the side quick, swerved left and swerved right, we'll go this way and that as long as "we's" only a few, i toasted to the few that knew. inside they mighta thought they knew what i was smiling about- if they did, i hope they tell me so i know myself. oh yea i was a kid with them once, and you could smile then, so we can smile now. funny how you gotta wait til you're 21 to be a kid again. my keys stopped drinking early for the few still growing.

dropped onto the walk with a dip in my step looked left and looked right, dont care if that eagle was looking behind me. No, really i didn't. i knew i was in poughkeepsie. and poughkeepsie's nothing.

except poughkeepsie's america, and america's something i can't pronounce, drunk or not. its sorta like a drink itself, or a few. america, america the brewery - fun tonight but we'll be hung over tomorrow, hung over in the next life, yea hurting from last night. hope i stopped in time.

let me drop my title and ill let you drop yours too. and then i can stop thinking about it everyday, so self-concious, oh how american i am

unpolished

there is a realization when i look at the date. june 11th 2007, less than two weeks in a city i've worn. when i was younger i dreamt about a perfect present. je vis mes reves. i realized that i've had to say goodbye more often than most people my age. it is a result of a youth that i have been very fortunate to have, but still it hurts somewhere real when i think of the passing moments. also, when i try to write about it, it's all cliche and the real thing is hidden. je vis mes reves. l'instant cache. i've always seen months and days in my head, i can see two years from now- the image of time to me is clear but impossible to really describe, a description would probably give the image a boundry, but it is kind of like a big calendar without marks, and a curved line that jumps over months to bring me to a future that i never thought would happen. then, when i am there, i don't realize that i have already been here. i don't even know what i am trying to say. i have nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion. i stole that line from someone older than me who is dead.

Love: A paradox at best

I love it all
I love the ups and downs, Jazz at 7am, thinking if mookie made the right choice, wondering if my existence was destined or if that's just what helps me sleep at night, recess at age 9, Saturday morning cartoons when I thought the world was mine, dreaming of greatness, sunsets filled w/uncertainty and sunrises that take determination to new heights. I love faith in the unknown, doubt in the unknown, the search for excellence and deciding what exactly excellence means, that balance between doing me and being selfless, the struggle for meaning, the power of hope, the danger of hope, the power of love, the ignorance love can bring, the search for truth, the fear of truth, the single mom saying fuck you to adversity, the kid in Africa who won't let his dream be deferred, the drug dealer that cares more about the kids than the school board.
I love dreaming of the woman that will change it all, giving my mom the key to the crib that will bring tears to us all, seeing my siblings be greater than me, leaving this world better than what I now see, and above all searching for that separate peace.

Love, the most powerful of them all.

it's gonna take the man in me to conquer this insansity

For whatever reason, surely for none at all, I get to eat robustly flavorgul foods and drink fine imported beers. I get to listen to refined and moving symphonies that put me at peace with my eyes closed, and also the life beat that drums in my soul beating out passionate emotions while my eyes stay open, quietly cutting in every direction at the world around me. My intimate moments are accompanied by the romanticism of literature and films, letting me see the beauty of a relationship that gives two people shelter from the storm, an unspoken unity as they look up at the stars knowing they're looking together.

When I make the effort of deconstructing how everything around me came to be, and I begin to try and let the world's problems stare me in the face, I get pulled into the abstract. How could I not - I don't even see, let alone live the rawness; the landfill diving for food scraps, the brutal rapes, or the RUF rebels swinging machetes through the wrists of men with despair in their eyes. That's not real to me, and I'm fearing more and more that the rhetoric really is just rhetoric. I'll never be able to empathize. Tupac's right, "I was given this world - I didn't make it". But it’s not the ONE world me and Bono would love to believe. Pac says "the world looks dreary when you have your eyes seeing clearly." So I try to live a truthful life, and see this world clearly. But I still see the light before the dark, look to the stars before the ground - so I see the hope right? the positivity? the possibility? No. I just don’t have the urgency, the selflesness to force myself to sacrifice all of the good feelings offered to me and do the necessary work to make myself become a tool. Look at me now i can't even read a book before I write about my little internal conflict. Like it even deserves the words.

But are all the laughs and smiles really slaps in the face to those suffering right now? I got a theory of salvation that might be able to save me from the guilt and shame of falling short in dedication and empathy.

In order to conquer this insanity we have to know what we're striving for. If our pleasures are of the essence of life; enjoying the fruits of the world, human potential in not just surviving but finding beauty, and embracing relationships that give us company and purpose, then they are not evil to indulge in. If we want bread and roses for others, we must remember it's because we want bread and roses for ourselves too. We just have to value these things enough to know that they are not meant for just us.

We are entitled to some - not all. Cut the excess. If we want chocolate then we may have to be willing to pay five dollars for a chocolate bar so that Ghanians are paid a fair price for exporting their cocoa. but then the demand decreases, and their once chief export become nothing more then the cause for inflation, and the black market grows to undercut these high prices because maybe I really want chocolate but I don't make enough at my blue collar job and I don't have the perspective to realize and trust that my prioritizing is for the greater, while some don’t have to prioritize at all, FUCK that I’m gonna get mine

and the world keeps spinning, and I'll shift these thoughts off the computer and back into mind my mind, even though I should probably be reading a book

The Deadliest Sin: Complacency

He got the itis. Comfortable, content, complacent. The hunger that got him where he was disappeared like Mickelson at Winged Foot. He lost his swing, got civilized, threw on some blazers, fancy shoes, and button up and thought he made it. He thought his life was set, Daddy Warbucks had cash waiting for him in a Swiss bank account once he graduated. The prestige, the name, the atmosphere... it all got to his head. He forgot the years of hard work, the blood, sweat, and tears that made him who he was. He lost that look, that swagger, that commitment to greatness. Like Dorian Gray he looked himself in the mirror ashamed of what he saw.
He thought: Greatness is hard, greatness is lonely. His mantra that helped define him... his motivation, his purpose, his dream. He's trying so hard to get it back. It's a tough road back to the top. This time the competition is better, they're gunning for him. His natural skill isn't his saving grace this time. He's gotta develop that fadeaway like Jordan in 96. This climb might have Frodo shakin. But alas he looks at this picture and hears a voice in the background shouting : MMMMMMMalcolmmmm, MMMMMMArtin and remembers his place is no coincidence. He looks to his heroes; Ali in 68, Malcolm in Mecca, Mandela in Prison, Christ after Judas's kiss. It's all so clear now...Focus

The music around you is making a statement -

It was before my time, surely before most of our times, but we've all seen the famous pictures and television clips of the Berlin Wall being torn down. Set up to devide West Germany and communist East Germany, it remains one of the outstanding symbols of the Cold War. The main thing I remember sbout the Wall in particular is that it was covered in graffiti. I'm not talking about some all city train bombing, end to end burner graffiti either. I imagine that the subcultures that existed on either side chose to express themselves through a medium that they thought would endure for a worldwide audience to see. They had to live with the physical body that represented a much more abstract notion to the rest of the world. The Iron Curtain was made of brick and mortar for those Germans. Whether their graff came in protest, was nationalist, or subversive, it was up there for a global audience to take in.

In Jonathan Kozol's book Amazing Grace he talks of the separation between the affluent and the impoverished in NYC. Page after page he writes of cabs that stop short of the expendablem neighborhoods we've created and forgotten about. He writes of people who ride mass transit unaware that the train even runs to the ghettos of Mott Haven, they've certainly never stayed on it long enough to find out. There are many examples of the extreme class division, but the point is made that a wall exists. The affluent never leave their comfort, and the poor are unable to leave their slums. One of the images that has stayed with me long after finishing the book is the story of the unoccupied apartment buildings that are visible from the highways entering NYC. The buildings are physically located in the ghettos, the location of so much heartbreaking poverty and disease. On the sides of the buildings that face the roads, all the curtains are drawn. On the backs of the curtains are paintings of flowers, drapes, lamps, basically all the trappings of the homes of the middle to upper class. These vacant buildings are on the wrong side of the wall and have been turned into billboards. The dregs of society are swept further under the rug through a different form of paint on a wall.

It has very much been at the forefront of the news recently that walls are being erected around Iraq. Much like Berlin decades ago, these physical boundaries are being built in an attempt to keep parts of Baghdad "safe" from the rampant conflict years after the war was declared a success with the US as the victor. If large, nondescript, gray walls were being built around your city to complement the rubble it would be safe to say that the aesthetics of your home would be going down the drain. That is why I was so impressed and amazed at an article recently appearing in USA Today. It was about the recent projects undertaken by Baquir al-Sheik. He is a painter who has linked up with other artists in Iraq to work to cover the walls with murals. "We can't remove these walls anytime soon. We may as well try to beautify them," al-Sheik said. He is painting landscapes and scenes from ancient Sumeria to add some beauty to his beloved city that is being torn apart and beginning to look like "the inside of a military base, not the capital of a country." While not social protest or visual misrepresentation for tourism's sake, al-Sheik is fighting his own personal war with brushes and paint. War metaphors may be as cliche as they come, but I still tip my cap to the man that sees possibility where others just see an opportunity to complain.

As a global society we have become quite adept at constructing walls, be it a border that contains ethnic groups that cannot co-exist, a wall to separate people within their own country, a fence to keep people out of a country, or a boundary known only as a street name that you don't travel past. JD said in a past entry that what borders contain you do not define you. You can take out your violin and play a sad song, but I'm still going to remid you that there are tens of thousands in New Orleans who would love some walls and a roof. My fellow man spending the night in the ironically named Mansion Square Park would take some walls. Every day a majority of the people in this country takes their walls for granted. So tear a few down, because hiding behind them does a lot more harn than good.

In the movie Coffee and Cigarettes several characters repeat that "Nikola Tesla perceived the world as a conductor of acoustical resonance." How are you going to play it?

kickin' pebbles while the stars shoot

when the planes hit, I bet most inside were still standing
if you really <3 NY, you know the jerk of each platform landing
downtown, monkey suits roll deep in Giulianni’s subwaycars
only interns rep black power and raise fists to the bars
tight rope walkers would kill for their balance
Osama Bin Laden would kill for their balance
I wonder what their accounts are paying for
I bet Allah cries at what Al Qaeda’s praying for
Killed others just to dig his own grave
you can’t find the beauty of life living in a cave
that’s why I haven’t seen him smile in a while -
he hasn’t seen the sun rise in a while,
hasn’t stood and looked out with his arms on his head
at a skyline or an ocean or the moon's lightshed

he hit us so hard we concussed.
but we came back

and now we don't have the same conversations
we don't zone out to the same playstations
we don't spark bud in the parking lot
we don't spark a convo unless it’s charting a plot
because nobody had the chance to tell him
so now we don’t sleep, we warn the others that

THE BEAUTY IS IN TRUTH
AND THE HEARTACHE IS IN DECEPTION.

if only we came back
my heart wouldn't ache in deception

The Inspiration of Hate

Hate they say, is as old as Cain and Able. I've been feelin it lately. It's after me and the fam like no tomorrow, tryin to let that beast come out. His name is anger, you know the one that gets you to make bad decisions, act irrational, and curse everyone that crosses your path. But then I had an epiphany of sorts.
This world crucified Christ, shot Gandhi, Malcolm, and Martin. If the greatest that ever lived got it, what am I crying about after all? So to the haters, I love you because Jesus did too. I stay grounded and humble and yet still inspired by those that only seek to crush my spirit. The human spirit is the most amazing of things in that its will can truly bring one to do just about anything. Hate makes my will that much stronger. My success will be a product of those that hated and I will thank them. Adversity is a prerequisite to greatness so bring it, I'm ready.

i am a hundred and forty pounds of ink, look at me

i was at this slam poetry thing last year in ol' baltimore, and a man in his thirties came up to spit, he started yelling about being a writer. his poem was driven by anger, his pauses were breathes between punches. he was a bitter angry intelligent driven depressed man. being in my youthful unindependent state with no financial responsibilities and no outside expectations to hole me in, i was free to label this man a failure. he was writing about how he lost. his metaphors and alliteration and sometimes beautiful language were all about the great game of the pen, and how he was in the process of losing this great game. the thing is, he wasn't saying he lost. he was saying that to be "a writer", you had to lose again and again, and only then are you really a writer (or an artist for that matter). only after failed manuscripts and marriages and infrequent orgasims, only when you were pitted against the wall with just your typewriter, then evidently you had what this man had, which was happiness. The type of happiness that people use to justify why they keep doing what they do, why they write, why they try to get the last word. My question in my head then, and now, is why did he have to tell me this? Why did he have to go to a coffee shop in John Hopkins and yell at me about how hard art is? He seemed very sure that the path of his life was the inevitable path of art itself- so why on earth did he have to spoil it for me, and take away my dream that art and expression and all those things don't bring you down to yelling stanzas, rather doing something beautiful? their was competition in his voice i could hear it. i knew if i responded to one of his rhetorical questions, he woudl shut me down with his bank statement and old copy of walden. he would call me a disgrace to writers everywhere, his bullet would be words that i wasn't allowed to use: writer, rent, real life, tragedy. he would call my shit dreamy and weightless and then storm out with an angry flurry of similies. he would be the other team, the better brand of gun, the expected nothing we live for.
in the car that night on the way home, we listened to music. everything was ok.

We're not The Ministry of Truth

But yes, 4 posts have been deleted. If you're desperate to read them, read the comments on this post, that's where they are now. I took them down because while they may have been good for a laugh, they were taking this blog in a direction away from what we as the creators intended it for. I'm not trying to sound pompous, or falsely modest, but we just wanted an outlet to express ourselves. If it was going to be in verse, play, fiction, non-fiction, however these words were thrown on a page...well Vast said it best "Nomads off the dome, thoughts have no home, the page is ours to roam."

All this really started because of Bmoresharps latest post, which is a double edged sword I guess, because it's also the most activity we've seen since we lifted off. I'm glad y'all are commenting; we're writing this to express ourselves, but we'd love it if it inspired everybody else. We want that inspiration to be positive, however, so if you disagree with what's being written, don't post a knee jerk insult that's horribly misguided. If you even have to do that, how about adding your initials at the end, because we'd all much rather there be a healthy discourse rather than anonymous insults.

So we got our Spring cleaning out of the way, to channel my dude JD and Hieroglyphics - Let it be bright from here `til infinity.

click your heels three times

it's 4:45 in the morning and i'm caught in this weird reality manifesting from a combination of coffee that's probably too strong for a two beer queer like me, reading grim comparative politics theories on global poverty, and looking at the same empty lobby for the past 5 hours (work-study in my dorm's lobby). i snuck out to take a couple quick drags of a cigarette from some friends that for some reason haven't had the desire to find a bed and get in it...but god damn the wind was blowing hard.

i came back in and Nas' "Blunt Ashes" came on my itunes, a song where he intro's with "i'm gonna get blazed and tell ya'll some stories"...whatever was on his mind was dope enough for me to listen to a few times over.

my mind state right now is high enough on its own, and like i said the wind was blowing hard...hard enough to carry with it a few stories i'll give to you, shit that i think about on a cold lonely night;

i stopped judging people by conventional standards when i found out the truth about the midget that lives across the street from me. she smokes weed and distributes it to 18-25 year olds. A grown ass married woman with two kids and she doesn't even have her shit together, waste of life...so wasted that when i would fundraise for school trips that all the other adults on the block knew were bullshit - she somehow knew that a trip to Hershey Park meant meant the world to me and she'd drop me a twenty and smile and say "johnny you can forget the wrapping paper or candy bars, i don't want 'em." So wasted that when she came to the ice cream shop i was scooping at she knew damn well her eight year old son didn't want anything to do with a kiddie cone and she would order him a mother fucking large and let him get as many gummy bears and reese's pieces as his fat ass pleased. So wasted that she ran a YMCA camp where all the down-trodden, abused, lonely, kids from broken homes shared cabins with priviliged kids from the suburbs and in those woods became a family tighter and more alive than any Cleaver's or Brady's. She was just so damn wasted that even though she was like 3 feet tall no amount of double takes, elevated gas pedals, or scared little kids kept her from sitting out late nights on her porch with a charming smile and eyes that saw through all the bullshit.

at the concert i went to last week Nas said, "if you're from the streets i love you." He may not know it but he loves Tim. Bravest ten year old i'll ever know - he forever holds a spot in my heart, and if there is a God that for some reason has to send messages through the pain of others, my message came from Tim. When I was six I woke up from heart surgery in a hospital room filled with family, next door neighbors, my kindergarten assistant teacher, and a few other random people I was lucky enough to be coccooned by throughout my childhood. Never mind, I'm not even going to try and make it dramatic because it is what it is - I had a million people around me showing me all the love I needed and the kid I shared a room with was a ten year old that is paralyzed to this day from a stray bullet that caught him in the spine. But "shared a room" isn't the right phrase because there was no competition, he was going it alone, no legs to walk on physically or figuratively. His eyes held a lonely and scared look at the prospect of going through his life in a wheelchair with nobody to push that i wish upon no one. FUCK.

yea that wind's blowing. Sometimes it's just a cool breeze that beckons me to daydream under the clouds. But tonight it' s cold and it's carrying stories that i'm feeling under my skin - a little shudder, cringe, squint my eyes, i feel it...i dont know where it's coming from but it's definitely somewhere very very real, the soul of this world methinks.

friday the 13th

i looked out to the view, and i tried really hard to appreciate it. i tried to thank god or whoever that i was here, here in my life, constant in this life that borders on a dream sometimes. i felt incapable of real thankfulness because i just kept looking, i didn´t get down on my kness and pray, i don´t do that i can´t but i really ought to, because this youth is a blessing, but in between guessing what´s next and assessing the responsibility of gratefulness, i had it all, with just my eyes and a quiet soundtrack parallelled by the sky. growing up might just be getting more specific, i hope that means something.

The clarity of uncertainty

I'm looking for that guy. Some say he'll be free but will he really be? Another two years of selling his soul for the sake of academia. After that, some more school listening to others tell him how to live or better yet a cubicle in Times Square where 6 figures can replace happiness? The prime of his life spent making sure others see him in a positive light gotta make sure that 401K is nice and tight. But what about the kid who wanted to go pro? Wanted to write into the night about the days of Ali, MJ, and some more of his goals. What about the guy that saw that snotty nosed kid in the hood cursin up a storm, low self-esteem without a dream and thought I gotta pay it forward.
What about the guy who was gonna get the girl colgate smile gleaming listening to Umi Says and thinking it doesn't get any better than this. What about the kid who thought eating a pbj watching sportscenter was where it was at.. or better yet in and out crossovers 11-0 games at all sport chilling wit my very own sundance kid? Are the best times over?
He's outta here this summer... going to see the foreign sun. Hopefully the coronas will give him an epiphany to solve this mystery so he doesnt succumb to the misery of that dude he sees everyday outside CVS with a cup jingling spare change in hand... only his misery is worse for he had it all yet he didn't know his path... was it predestined, was he truly alone? He wishes it was as easy as killer joe on the saxophone. He keeps telling himself madre España is where he'll get it right... he walks on the ground where Presidents, nobel laureates and so many more found there place. Will he ever get that taste, that small measure of peace we all seek? Will he be on his dead bed thinking ya did good kid? Will it all have been a waste... will he want to do it all again.

God I hope I find myself... the unknown is beautiful and so are you.
Here's to the search and all it brings.

Why Hemingway killed himself...

FOR RENT ONLY---A-Z: $.99 each, $2.50 for a sentence,$5.99 for a paragraph. All creative pieces and full stories are put on layaway and paid for in weekly installments.

Were in college and all up in arms about, Dear God! when we graduate, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? To be honest, we all need to be a lot more fucking worried about WHO WE ARE GOING TO BE.

Frank will forever just be a crank or a lever on a machine of which he is only a part. As a matter of fact, he's not even Frank, he's #345 at the bank.

I want to be a cop or a fireman- that's gonna be hard if I'm not John Heavey first. Plato says you need your arete in order to perfect your techne, and here I am knowing that only so I can put it in a paper- I'm not even a student.

Life is a dirt path 250,000 miles long- if you take that there shiny train, you'll get to the end in no time, and then enjoy the nice throne set atop the pile of quicksand. Walk with your two feet, step step step- watch out for the puddles and rocks- and you'll be dead by the time you get to the end, but would have seen and expierenced every inch of the road. The walkingman will put his cold face into the dirt at the same time trainrider #1 breathes his last breath above the quicksand. Whichdeath would you choose? How are you working your way through those miles right now?


I'm not sure it's that serious,
JH

My Pen is....

Opening up like a sunrise over the horizon, situations appear before my eyes and excite me. As if in translation from sight to mind, by mind interprets reality in a moment and when complete, gets my mind thinking where my pen is….

At these times, my pen swells in my pocket and I’m driven to take it out and allow it to spill ink all over the page. In between my finger and my thumb, my pen is tall and snug as a gun. I stare down the scene with voyeuristic eyes and squeeze my pen, waiting for the moment of enlightenment, inspiration, and stimulation.

A shift in reality and beauty disrobes herself, showing all to me- I wet the tip of my pen and, giving three quick clicks, am ready to write. Keeping my eyes on the object of my pen’s desire and concentration, I write rapidly up and down the page- up and down. I write so voraciously that my wrist begins to cramp and I notice that calluses are growing on my hands. But these minor setbacks are as in vain as the sand to the endless tide- my writing continues.

Driven like a Cadillac by an intoxicated businessman I weave over and across the avenues of the page and accelerate to higher levels of excitement. I can’t control myself, so I close my eyes, allowing my hand to freely write what my mind surely sees. By God, I’m done! I have ink on my hands and am breathing a bit heavily, finding difficulty to even open my eyes, but my pen is relaxed, waiting flaccid on my thigh for its next tour of duty.

i do not deny it.

It began by consequence of her entrance into the room. As our eyes met, my intestines were stimulated and rumbled like the titter-tattering of sticks across the slowly tightening skin of a drum. This feeling gave me cause to sit up straight and hold my breath.

Though I tried to hold in this mounting sentiment, the union of our sweaty hands added saturation to the gaseousness within me, and beads of perspiration began to roll down my brow. In my efforts of suppression, I stared and smiled and loved her, and refused to move or even cough.

Staring into my eyes, she smiled and then closed hers. Here, with her moving towards me, the aforementioned rolling drums gave way to the bombast of the brass band playing in my physiological orchestra and I suddenly pulled back to make the music of the human heart.

MOVEMENT ONE: The low rumble of the tympanis.
MOVEMENT TWO: The blare of the trumpets, tubas, and trombones.
MOVEMENT THREE: The high, gasping staccato notes squeaking forth from the flute.
THE FINALE: all the players loosed a wretched symphony of all that was simmering and growing inside of me. I could not help myself. I had nothing else to say- I sat there, foolishly, and smiled.

In giving her allowance and entrance into this concert of my body, in a sense, I showed her my heart; but alas, to no avail- she turned her nose up at me. She said she loved me, and she did- but she did not like what she had heard- it was too much for her to handle.

As the leaves ultimately give way to the bluster in early November, her hand drifted forth from mine. And as her senses computed what came forth from inside of me- dear God, tears welled up in her eyes, and she left- desperate for a breath of air away and apart from what I had released.

I was left alone to sit and fester with my wafting stench of loneliness in the stuffy den. Taking the time to give sensuous reflection to what I had purported, not even I could deal with its resonance, and alas, felt its sting.

Oh love! My lady, my love! I am so heartily sorry to have left a taste of unpleasantly in your mouth. But please do not direct your anger at me, but at God almighty himself who has cursed and filled us all with these feelings. For you know that you yourself, when alone, staring at a sparrow through an open window liberate this bubble, and, at times, cause even the meditative bird to take flight. Think about that my precious, and acknowledge that all brown eyes cry.

One quarter through life some God-ly like thing created

Monday morning I awoke with a startle, and, lazily rubbing my eyes, realized I was twenty years old. Slowly my legs transitioned from horizontal to vertical and shoes were on my feet leading me- leading me. Professors, parents and proliferators of profundity were howling at me. With faces constructed by Edward Munch, the banshees tore my clothes and hair. And I, alas- I breathed and I blinked. And subsequently, and by consequent of that blink, they were gone. I made them go away because I am twenty years old, and I can do that.
Now traveling on my own accord, I looked up- removing the sunglasses that I had bought and worn since High School, I saw the sun- it was blue set in the yellow sky. I wanted it as thus, and so it was- green clouds gathered and rained shadows around the turquoise spotlight that circum-luminated me. Teeth twenty years in the forming smiled.
To my surprise as I stepped over social constructs festering on the curbs, a tower permeated the street and rose up toward the heavens. Atop the tower, a gothic spire appeared, and as it rose, pierced the sky. Separating the clouds, the spire slashed the sky and, the blood of the cosmos fell down, pooling serenely in my furrowed brow. My forehead relaxed and the blood poured over my face and began to collect rapidly at my feet. As it elevated to my knees and waist, I started to swim- for any twenty year old can swim in the pouring blood of the universe.
Despite the congealing nature of the thin molasses drowning the workforce, but not me, I swam the backstroke with perfect form and moved on through; wondering what would happen when Mother Nature got a blood clot. And then, when her scab finally did form, I stood up and did a back flip because I’m twenty years old.
I wanted to die for an hour, so I had a beer and slept; perfectly acceptable. When I woke up, I had a plum in my pocket- I took a bite and threw the rest at a man in a grey suit trudging by with his head down and his hands in his pockets. He did not laugh when he was struck- rather he cried- and in doing so, he slowly died. He must have been twenty-five. On stilts made of red-bull cans I hopped through the rest of the afternoon. As evening stole the colors from the sky, I met with other twenty year olds- all goggle-eyed from the day. We found cause to share the events that formed the whimsical look and feel in our countenances and laughed; eating whatever the fuck we wanted for dinner.
Desert was served by a banker, but it was too sweet. I was unable to dislodge the bites getting stuck between my teeth and started to cry. The tears welled slowly and then with fleet fell furiously at my feet. The tears began to melt my shoes, socks, legs and body, and in the metallic pool accumulating beneath me, I look down and saw the reflection of what was left of my face; it was a frowning twenty-one year old. Upon my complete disintegration, the bankers walked away smiling, searching for lawyers and doctors so that they might share the story of my disintegration.
All that was left of me was the vapor of my thought. It rose to the ceiling like fog on a river and hovered for a moment, existing in and of itself for a beautiful, brief instance. Then, with a jerk, this vapor was sucked in through the end of a trader’s expensive cigar and then- pause- it was exhaled out as a meaningless cloud of smoke. I was twenty-two.

A season of hope's discontent

I gave her it all. My heart, my mind, my story my rise and my fall. It seemed she fell in love with the man that I was. I hadn't been this happy since I played dad 1 on 1. Her smile made me want to be a better man. I never felt so vulnerable and so loved all in one. I prayed at night she'd see what I saw and i wanted to tell her she was my Helen of Troy.
Life threw some curveballs and before you knew it, my secret was suppressed the key thrown away. I cried and I cried but the truth wouldn't let me close my eyes. It kept eating and eating away at the soul. I had to tell her but I knew the fate... friendship ruined, you're a brother not a mate.
Somehow I found the courage under a rock and I said hope is a good thing and the world will be shocked. I said the most dangerous/beautiful three words in human history: I love you. She started laughing she didn't see it coming. I gave her time as I was exiled to la isla negra until she summoned me with her heart. Those nights sleep lost the battle and I hoped once more that the creator wouldn't rob me of the Winnie Cooper not even the Wonder Years could equal.
She called me one day my hand trembling like Ali after all those damn fights. I tried one last attempt to explain to her my heart. I listened to her voice and I thought all was right but she dismissed what we had, said we were never that close from the start. A brother I was to be forever. I couldn't reason or argue with that. For once optimism wasn't my calling card and I finally realized hope can get a man killed...

brevity is the soul of wit

in this new morning i tried to justify myself to the sun, and she just glared at me and said "son, you got a while to go" i could just hear what the sun was saying, i couldn't look right at it, you can never look directly at the truth.

the modern Isis, honey, God, she was priceless

My friends will tell you, I stick my head out of the moonroof often when I drive. Maybe you'll try one day and see - it takes away 20 years of tv and video games from the windshield. For any of you who think I do it for show, you’re right, but only the first time. The rest were genuine…that’s where I found her.

Strangers in the countryside, the ones that daydream out windows in little forgettable towns between poughkeepsie, new york and Tom Quinn's house in connecticut, they will tell you stories. Stories about a wild seventeen year old racing down Rt 44 some nights around sunset; his head peaking out of the roof and his eyes squinted through tears, half from the wind, the other half because it’s the wind. He’d take his eyes off the road for just a second to see her smiling next to him.

His fanfare was a tribe called quest and he left a trail of sunflower seeds. With a wifebeater and a backwards Astro's hat as his tux and a virgin's smile as his corsage - he was at prom with his youth, falling in love with his high school sweetheart.

She's gotten older and she stands him up most days. But he refuses to leave her. He searches. Walking in the mall, or watching TV he knows he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. She shames him. Late nights he stays up wondering where she is, how to find her. Why won’t she come to bed?!

Sometimes he sees her smiling outside at night when it’s raining, drenched but she looks warm in the streetlight. And she sits with him when he reads old birthday cards from his grandmother and thinks about the life that came before those words. And she comforts him when he learns about how cold the world is; prisons, guns, hunger, HIV, tears. She giggles as they shiver together when he turns the hot water to cold in the shower. And she nods her head on drunken nights to beating knuckles as he freestyles with a 40 in his left and a paintbrush in his right.

But she knows when it’s fake and she knows when he’s forcing it. And she came to him a couple nights ago, told him she’s lonely - she’s packing, going far far away, where someone real can have her.

If only she knew how bad he needs her, how hard she is to find around here. He’ll fight though. Once you’ve found her, you don’t just let her leave. You search. You pack your bags, and you fly.
And you dream that when you get off that plane in that foreign city in that land you’ve only dreamed about…she’ll be waiting, smiling, giving you joy today and faith in tomorrow.

(I may have gotten too abstract with this one from the way some people have told me they interpreted it, but I meant "she" to be life - pure, true emotions, boundaries broken down, anything real)... and "you search for her"

I've missed my dreams again.

Well, I’ve missed my dreams again. I weigh the consequences of just leaving my over packed baggage right here on the platform. Somehow the cold concrete of the floor has begun to seep into the rubber on the soles of my shoes. Speaking of souls, mine is currently desperately trying to get the conductor to pull the emergency brake and let it inside the train. That’s troublesome because the broken body that has been it’s vessel for 20 years is currently walking back to the ticket counter, white knuckles crushing his one way ticket. It’s at that counter that Mrs. La-vie informs him it is only exchangeable for one of lesser value. Her name sounds French and for that I thoroughly expected a more romantic ending.

There’s not much left to do at this point but settle on where I’ll settle once more. I resign to try harder much in the fashion of the Little Engine That Could, only without Watty Piper’s conviction. “We’ll make things work,” I promise to no one in particular. Frustratingly enough, I can never ever remember my dreams when I wake up. A silent toast is offered to whoever invented luggage with wheels. A sudden fatigue overtakes me and I can think of nothing else but sound sleep. I think I’ll check one last time to see if the gift shop has a dream catcher for sale.

when it's dark and you are in a cave.

i don't know how to write about dancing. i don't know how to write about champagne and jokes that i don't get because i can't understand the language when the music is loud. i don't know how to write about the tiny tradegies of a night, reminding myself of the title of vaclav havels book, because i didn't read the fucking book, just like a chapter, maybe it was the name of the chapter i don't even know, it was called "Living in Truth" Granted, he went on to describe how he went from a playwright to the leader of the liberated Czech Republic, but the notion of living in truth, that title, in highlighted letters flashing through my mind, and i'm asked "t'es soûle?" and i say no cause its bad enough i don't know what anybody's saying, but to be drunk and young in paris and not speak enough is like walking with stilts, and i can't fuck with stilts because in fact i am drunk. i'm doing crossovers in my mind, the next question is yelling "cookies!" and taking my mind for another ride, only to be conquered by a more naive, stupid question, and finally if i just say "mais oui, je suis tres soûle soûle", ah but the new york boy must be careful, he must watch his step, hold his tongue, and when he dances he ought to not be too sporadic.

it was a cave, the fucking restaurant was a cave and i danced in that cave to music that is just absolutely ridiculous and with each graceful step (one in three), i am tagging the questions in my head with yellow paint, in big letters, "liar! salaud! bête!" and even though it's late, the stars still spell out the title of that stupid fucking book.

Burden

What's a burden?
A Burden is being forced across the Atlantic to never see your family again. A burden is being lashed in the back for trying to stay true to your heritage. A burden is being raped repeatedly by the master and hoping he keeps your family together because of it. A burden is sharecropping in the fields from sunrise to sunset. A burden is lynchings being as common as Sunday dinner. A burden is "niggers only." A burden is being best friends with the poverty line. A burden is bullets flying at you out of the gun of a man in a white hood. A burden is raising eight kids on grits and eggs. A burden is leaving the Dominican Republic to give your family a shot at that elusive American Dream. A burden is learning how to speak English as a sophmore in high school. A burden is having racial slurs thrown at you and realizing you'll never get along with the cool kids cuz ur from another world. A burden is having a child out of wedlock when you can't even read English. A burden is being disowned by your parents because you have a black baby. A burden is praying to God the projects don't get the best of your kids' minds. A burden is the smell of weed coming in through your bathroom window.
The sacrifices of my lineage, non stop papers, knee surgery, being called another affirmative action statistic, Harvard University, Poughkeepsie High school, Oldest of 7, pressure to lead the family to the promised land, clothing on my back, dreams not to be deferred, optimism as a calling card ... nah man thats a blessing.

Put it in Perspective,
Rob

Nothing gold can stay,

This is why we write, this is why we write
This is why, this is why, this is why we write
We write for your response
But y'all are stayin' quiet
Clap back at us and we'll start a cyber riot
We do this for Ballamore, we do this so you'll click keys
We doin' this from France all the way over to Poughkeepsie
Better yet for Pat, nah better yet for Paris
We got them sweet 16's like the breezies at Marist
Matter of fact, speaking of red foxes
this is iller than all the STD's combined up at that college
That means this shit is toxic, knockin' yah out the box and
If you fucks with this then you better wear a condom
we don't drop haikus, we don't mess with sonnets
The blog needed an anthem and JD got me on it
So we're why we write, but y'all are why we post
so you'll drop some knowledge and keep us on our toes
we know that you're reading, y'all peep this a lot
We could get a million clicks sayin' nothing on the blog

This is why we'll fly, this is why we'll fly
This is why, this is why, this why we'll fly
We'll fly cuz we got wings
You won't if you don't think
that is why, that is why, that is why you'll sink

whatchya, whatchya, whatchya want?

I want to eat dinner with Mark Twain, MLK jr, Jerry Seinfeld, Eleanor Roosevelt, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Barack Obama and then I want to eat dessert with the first 5 people I see on market street in PK and have just as good a time because there's nobody that much fresher than the next man

I want my professors to nervously ask me if I would mind if they wrote me a recommendation letter and then wonder if now i hate them

I want George Bush Sr. to write a book on parenting and call it "my bad"

I want maps to get all those damned liness off them, the world's been around for a billion years and only in the last few hundred has your world become theirs. Do people know your name everywhere you go? then your name isn't who you are. Do people know where you're from everywhere you go? then you're not really from there. it's the world's greatest lie it means nothing.

I want Fortune 500 CEO's to book weekend getaways to poughkeepsie and watch the sunset from the docks at waryas park with a slice of Emiliano's and a 40 from El Azteca

I want to ask that girl from Maui Fever, as she sits on the beach with her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin resting on her knees and her sun-streaked hair blows in the wind while she stares longingly through tears out into the ocean, if her thoughts are really as deep and profound as her pose suggests...because as MTV's camera slowly pulls back and the soundtrack from some emo band starts playing leaving this girl looking like the loneliest most troubled shakespearean character i hope art isn't lost.

Nah - I'm not a dealer, I'm a poet at large.

Our protagonist is in quite a sticky situation. His heels are backed up against a cliff, a sheer fall into the bottomless unknown. While he desperately seeks an escape a wall is steadily closing the distance between them. Mentally, he is distressed. Physically, he displays an air of calm over the present dilemma. His options are about as narrow as the gap between the barrier and the ledge.

The situation is not as dire as it seems. The wall is only five feet tall, in fact our would-be victim can see over it. The look in his eyes is one of a trapped animal pleading for help. The help is right there, only yards away, and they are offering him a rope. He even recognizes the faces of the saviors. They are his family, hollering “stay the course!” The escape rope is braided strands made up of consistency, conservatism, and persistence. Good qualities to be sure, but they betray the fact that there are also undertones of pessimism and fear of change.

It would be easy to grab the rope and everything it represents. It would be easy to hop over the wall and back into his comfort zone. The underdog could use a hero right about now, time is running out. The hesitation is confusing even to him. Why leave what you know? He has been taught to endure dissatisfying conditions. For his whole life he has waited for things to get better rather than going and making them better himself.

He feels an inner strength emboldening him. Suddenly that unknown doesn’t seem so daunting. If he departs from solid ground he won’t know how this will turn out. If he accepts the rope then the story is written. What he has long taken as a security blanket starts to look a lot like a cape. The wind rushing over his body lets him know that he is moving forward at last.

I wish I could tell you what was at the bottom of my leap but I’m still falling. I’m still a little scared that the end may not be was I was looking for, but at least I’m going to create it.

You're afraid of a nuclear bomb, I'm afraid for a nuclear family.

The postcard from Vegas was stuck to the fridge with the “Best Dad in the Whole World” magnet his son had gotten him for his birthday. He wasn’t feeling lucky. In fact, he was feeling very poor. He had just blown his raise in the casinos and wasn’t feeling much like lectures or workshops today. He barely had enough for postage. His children looked at the postcard every day wondering if there really was a city where people got to play games all day.

The picture of the Bloor-Yorkville Hotel is held on to the door by the “Wish You Were Here” magnet. The hotel had cost a pretty penny, but it had made the last family vacation. The children had loved the outdoor pool, and the parents loved the soft beds. The mother loved it so much, in fact, that she booked a weekend there with her lover. The children can’t wait to go back.

The youngest son’s Christmas wish list is pinned to the freezer with the “I’m Spoiled” magnet he got from his grandmother. The list is three pages long and he prides himself on his small handwriting. He didn’t include a price column. The parents think it’s because he can’t count that high.

The oldest son is featured in a newspaper clipping tacked to the fridge with a plastic clip that has a magnet on the back. The clip holds all the copies. The article is because he was in a car accident. The family’s friends have sent their prayers and acknowledgements. The parents replace the emptiness in their liquor cabinet.

The refrigerator door is running out of open space. All the pieces of a broken family conveniently cover a letter from the doctor’s office. It’s a pregnancy test. The mother hasn’t shown anybody else yet. On the back, girl’s names are scrawled and crossed out. Her lover wonders whether he needs a lawyer.

thank heaven 7-11 just dropped gas to 2.07

got Time showing me faith with Ak 47's, youth stuck in chains that 'wobble to the floor' on Hot 97, Che and his revolution died in 67, summer of sam had NYC on fire in 77, wish i was the lucky number 7, but i just popped out in 87, woke up for a second with the crash of those boeing 737's, and 67 months later im back on the couch watching 7 strangers in 07 getting drunk living like this is 777...

but im only 20 with a fake ID so for now it's actually 666. we gotta up the ante.

jd

you may say i needed time alone to rest my dome

yo then what!

life's a bitch and then you live, stand up give, something like before our time, allude to the 50's america in its prime, now it's dead liek the trucker hat and i couldn't muster that maybe we are jsut stuck don't give a fuckless fuck about what used to happen cause i sharpened up my edges, and i read you under the table, so maybe all this french i hear is just a mask for something not as charged, not as heightened as this beautiful enligh language, cause nas wasn't speaking portugese, and allen ginsberg sure didn't write howl in spanish. so i will put all my chips into my anglo pot, and boil it, and foil a plan to bless everybody with something they can buy and unwrap and put in their system or their tele or their hand, and hear it or see it or be it and expand, but not in the terribly cliche was that generation i Pod digs as "expand, expand your mind, man", not that fake ass bullshit that just wants you to expand your mind to be closer to being fully committed to everything everbody else is doing, i'm talking about the expansion of where you came from and where you are going, the I in capital letters, the I that deconstructs itself from mtV because the viewer is always wrong, the viewer can't afford the freshness, but the viewer with a tEte stands up, breathes, looks at the pictures and the sounds and the clothes and decides fuck it all, ima take my dollar, my dream, and my mother's credit card and change the fucking world, one viewer at a time.

CULTURE SHOCK + IMPRESSIONABLE YOUTH + TRUTH - AMERICA = (something you can spit to)

je me souviens

i woke up and realised i was in a new world, i went outside to men selling fruits and sat with tired eyes at the metro stop. i thought i knew how to speak this language, however those thoughts have been immediatly curbed by tempo, vocabulary, grammar, dynamics, pronunciation, verb tense, idiomatic expressions, and a lack of american rap music (rather innundated with nelly songs from eigth grade while trying to enjoy a four euro glass of orange juice). the good things about being in paris is that my kicks are top of the pops. i'll see to the rest of it.

How to Disappear Completely:

Descarte questioned if we even exist,
I am ... therefore I spit.
I'm hoping written expression
Leads to mental ascension
Ignorance prevention, and denial of convention.
Trying to be a stand out individual
Mental calisthenics are critical
It's pitiful how far complacency has gone,
bodies shrivel and minds wither too,
But what would I amount to
If I was a sheep who never got counted?
I dressed in what was hot, listened to pop
Another stalk waitin' to get chopped in the same crop.
Don't think for myself or got respect for others,
Don't question blunders. Wake up. Live. Slumber.
Never allow my conscious to wonder
About anything that's going on under
That cap, or retro faded denims
Only concerned with gettin' in `em.
Sure there are civil wars, but I'm not affected.
Sure there are continental pandemics, but I'm not infected.
My brothers are dying daily, So? I only spray disinfectant.
Look son, I'm just trying to get by, I'm spent -
Trying to achieve a vision that everybody else has dreamt.
I want to fit in like trendy breezies and skinny jeans,
Don't give a fuck the little people, I love mini-me
If cats are sufferin' and don't have a voice I'm not tryin' to speak for `em
I only care about things that are important, like
What's he wearin', who's she fuckin', what you snortin'?
Maybe everything in this world ain't how it's meant to be
But I'd rather not have my own identity -
That's how you disappear completely.

Don't change your colors ChameleonKids..

"A,B,Y - always be you"

DISCLAIMER: i don't pass judgement on anyone else that i claim to not be guilty of myself. but we gotta push ourselves.

So I'm sitting at the front desk of the illustrious Patapsco Residence Hall, doing what I do best - getting lost in thoughts about la vida loca. And it's hitting me just how much we were born into the world we live in, and what that means. We didn't create it, but we sustain it.

One thing that is mind-blowing to me is the inability that I and i think most people around me have to answer simple questions, the answers to which should be guiding our lives.

for example: What are our goals in life? Do we seek to be as happy as possible? If so, what makes us happy? Why does ice cream and a movie with Ben Stiller getting bit in the balls by a cat make us happy? Why do new clothes make us happy, or feel good about ourselves? Do our sentiments of happiness that arouse from these 'things' carry so much clout that we deserve to spend the same money that could be saving babies on them? Who are we fooling...

Tell me we're not getting lost in time and I'll ask you what has changed in the 3 hours since the scoreboard in the gym was turned on and fans filled the stands, and when it was turned off and popcorn littered the floor? Is life that sweet that we have time for playing games, or better yet watching them? Are everyone's stomachs filled enough that I can drop $15 on a 30-pack and laugh the night away?

so yo, what are we doing?? I don't know how we got to where we are. we're certainly not the brainchilds of it. But we're the children of this madness and the apples aren't falling far from the tree.

Prescription? Listen to the gods - Saul williams, mos def, common, or whoever else will be the apples that hit ya on the head screaming "ollyollyoxenfree" as they free fall from the branches that found the truth in the wind.

Elevate,

John D

Food for thought, you do the dishes.

I recently read a blog that discussed whether or not the new culture of 'gangsterism' is ruining hip-hop. This isn't so much a response to that as it is inspired by it. So read on, and discuss.

For most of the history of Hip-Hop it has been widely recognized that there are four main elements: MCing, Break Dancing, Graffiti, and DJing. These four elements sparked competition among individuals and crews in the early days of the artform. Unfortunately it seems as if today's culture is goverened by four new, subversive elements: Shooting, Robbing, Hustling, and almost as an afterthought, Rapping.

The new culture harms the urban environments and low socioeconomic populaces from which today's rappers more than likely rose from. As the other editorial read, "If a rose has grown from concrete, it's ok to rap about the garden, just don't only focus on the dirt." By glorifying crime and material possessions the vision of life outside of the `hood is tremendously warped. It severely limits the solutions for those who take rappers as role models. There are surely many ways out of the ghetto or harsh communities, but when the two most popular often end in leaving in a body bag or jail cell, something has to give. The lyrics of the current top artists give false representation to what life is really like. There are many legitimate ways to improve your socioeconomic status. Rapping is even one of them. The chances of blowing as a rapper, or making it as a professional athlete are highly unlikely. Not to discourage youth from trying to pursue something they're passionate about, but when there are rap songs that actually promote dropping out of school, promote gang life, drug selling and/or taking, that's really not helping anybody but the rapper. It feels as though rap albums are not blueprints for making it out of the hood, but rather for getting buried there.

Rap is not going to change. Hip-hop culture and commercialism is far too profitable for rappers to ever consider trying something different. Currently we are in a rut, entrenched in a game that only creates clones, one after the next. It seems as though another generation of great hip-hop is on its way out the door and ushering in cash cows that only differ in the dance that goes along with their radio single. Everywhere you look in urban America there is rap culture being mimicked. The only problem is none of it is authentic. Cheap knockoffs of everything from polos, allover print hoodies, rims, shoes, wallet chains, run rampant. Everybody seems to be benefiting from the culture except the consumers. They are a passive mass that just eats up whatever is put in front of them, be it on the radio, BET, MTV, or mixtapes. Anybody producing these products can't be expected to try and fuel change. Maybe it can come from within though.

Jay-Z, arguably the best MC of all time, has branched far outside the boundaries of rap. He has his own color for GM cars, his music video is also a commercial for Budweiser, and he is the head spokesman for the reintroduction of Cherry Coke. He also still makes music. His last album, Kingdom Come sold it's fair share of records. On it he spoke of his maturation and what life is like as one of Forbe's richest businessmen. The Grammy's, although no bastion of hip-hop culture, saw fit to nominate Lupe Fiasco, The Roots, and Ludacris for album of the year, with the latter winning it. All three are more conscious rappers who shun the popular convention of drug talk and gun play. This also doesn't try to ignore the contribution of artists like Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, and the many other well and unknown rappers willing to buck the trend in expression.

As promising as that sounds, the media is not committed to projecting more positive music. On another hip-hop awards show sponsored by and aired on by BET, awards like "Hustler of the Year" were given out. Here is a mass media outlet, dedicated to Black Entertainment and giving air time to African American perspectives often ignored by other avenues, glorifying this gangsta culture. It's original programming, with shows like "American Gangsters" serve to perpetuate the stereotype that if you want to get rich, there are limited ways to go about it. If a channel like BET was willing to ignore the bottom line and produce something more constructive, perhaps we could see a great change in a culture that seems to offer little in the way of realistic and productive inspiration.

I understand this is not a complete essay, with arguments from many sides left out, but hopefully it gets you thinking about the music you're listening to, and the culture and products you're consuming. Let me hear your side of things, comment!

history's not a griot

john mac gets the Visa for demanding from us some print, reminding us that just talking a good game is about as useless as thinking one. and you get some credit too, because "you could be anywhere else on the internet but you're here with us..."

You all better write your own shit too so I could learn about what really goes on. but for now it's my blog, so i'm about to get self-centered for a minute, don't mind me...

so who i am? I am. my mom's pancakes, my father's rough draft letters to the editor sitting on the coffee table, my brother's picnic table backlifts. oakwood blvd block parties, 2 slices of napoli's and a coke for 8 quarters, kick the can behind that ranch on santa anna, bike helmets strapped to handlebars banging forearms but sparing embarassement, lunch without a lunch card. i am PK's willie mays, shaky murph's sixth man, and hayes' cranium competition. i am kaza's fan club, tom quinn's smuggler, beehive's nemesis and ms. mauriello's greatest admirer. i am PMS's luke warm water, vassar's tea bag smokestacks, and the southside's streetsweeper. i am a fucking Cold Vein, indebted to the pain in the poetry of all the rappers who have been the soundtrack to my life. i am every friend, family member, teacher, crush, and stranger who fill the scenes of my childhood memories.

you have defined my existence.

One thing I have learned, one of the few things i know, is that there are multiple truths. For myself, life has been beautiful. and I'm convinced of this fact so don't try to tell me that life's a bitch . But my life has been in the shadow of, even at the expense of, many whose lives have been tainted. These are both realities - meaning just that - they are both real.

So I write, and seek to exist, with the hope of my reality prevailing - to let it be bright.

If there is a life after death, and a God that judges us, (which i believe there is) i think God will do just that. He will judge US. There's one life, one love, and I got a feeling we'll all be sitting in front of God together, being judged as ONE. No heroes, no scapegoats, no saved, and no damned. Just us, the world we've left, the progress we've made, the love we've showed, the justice we've found, and the humanity we've defined.

Love life. Be humbled by death. And like Tupac said,
"It's time for us as a people to start making some changes..."

The past was. The future's ours.

it's that serious,

John