today I’m feeling like… a little out of the box. a little outside the of the norm. Outside of everything… everybody. The news makes me scared, angry, pensive, jittery. the drama. the opinions. the pop elation. feel like if I turn it off I’ll miss something. I flip through my twitter scroll and again I am scared, angry or I laugh but then… I wonder does that person who said something funny on twitter not know that some father chopped his kids head off or that some 30 soldiers got killed in Afghanistan or some dude got shot by police or some elderly woman’s window got shot in or some guy broke in some woman’s home and raped her or some guy riding his bike got run over? I’m on the facebook and stocks is down and someone called the Pres a spook and the degrading of the dollar is happening like they said and the radicals is all up at each other and the wind is knocking over stages and the rain is opening holes in the ground and rich people cant stop telling me how rich they is and I’m wanting… and waiting… and wars are being started and information is being forced and hacked and sported. 
I just know worrying ain't good for you so I don't do it at all. so here I was at 40 yo in December 08, basically money-less, girlfriend-less, refusing to get a regular job. I told people that I was living in cardboard box under a bridge in the Bronx. made for a good story but no one believed me. kinda like when I decided to tell everyone that I was gay so I could meet girls. I decided I needed a change. I got a call from a director who wanted me to come to LA to do a workshop of Elephant Man featuring Common. They had no money to pay me but the director insisted. so much so he reached in his pocket and was willing to buy me a one-way fare. There is something about fate or God or the Universe or like... energy. my mind was clamoring for a change and here was the opportunity. I said yes, packed a bag and took 200 of my last 300 sans the phone bill, and went to the poker table. With that desperate energy on my side I walked out of that poker game with 1000 dollars at something like 4 in the morning and was on a plane to LA with nowhere to stay 7:30 am. nice. Well, I ended up killing the workshop like I usually do when I concentrate. 
For as long as I can remember, growing up in New York City, there hasn't been a summer where there wasn't some issue about race in the news from Eleanor Bumpurs to Amadou Dialllo to Michael Stewart, Yusef Hawkins, Abner Louima, Larry Davis, Bernard Goetz and Rodney King.
Oh and who can forget O.J. Simpson. I can remember wondering what would be the new controversy as the summer rolled around. Last year it was nappy-headed hoes and this year, well, it's Barack Obama.
Though the possibility of Barack Obama becoming the President of the United States is a great thing, the fact that the color of his skin is an issue at all is a distraction.
I guess- and this is from pure speculation, not any researched factual journalist whatchumacallit- humans are tribal. We are comfortable around our own kind. But the like kind is really based on social commonalities like what songs you listen to, what foods you eat, what you do for a living, etc... The color of the skin is an easy way to infer things about people. The mind searches for the simplest ways to make it's judgments. Unt viola, Stereotypes! That is why a woman walking down the street at night might hold her purse a little tighter as she is passed but some young African American men. She has learned, particularly from the news, that Black and Hispanic men make up a very high percentage of the petty crimes in the city. Do I blame her? No. She's just being cautious. I don't view that a racism.
And neither does John McWhorter, the Manhattan Institue academic who thinks Hip-Hop (all forms) is bad for the brain. His latest book "All about the Beat: Why Hip Hop Can't Save Black America" explains that even conscious Hip Hop is all part of the misconception that Hip Hop will save Black people and pull poor Black people out of the Ghetto. And Damn this guy hated 8 Mile. Do I agree with him? Hmmmm... I don't know. I do have my problems with Hip Hop. But there is still so much potential to the music form of Hip Hop all over the world that I just can't throw the baby out with the bath water. But I'll give his book a good perusal. It should be good for a few talking points.
Check out John McWhorter and Glenn Loury of Brown University debate the worth of Hip Hop and Barack Obama's Father's Day speech on Bloggingheads.TV called Higher Moral Sound. Interesting.
Anyway back to Don Imus...
The main problem is in the broad sweeping blame that happens when a woman does get punched in the face by some young shameless thug. The idea that if one Black man commits a crime, then all Black people are prone to criminal activity.
Nonsense. 
I was talking with a friend the other day about whether or not I was going to go see Neil LaBute's play Reasons to Be Pretty. I was debating going because though Mr. LaBute is a wonderful, albeit controversial, playwright, an article he penned last year in the L.A. Times called "Casting for the stage should be color-blind" made me question his sanity. In it he speaks about how today Laurence Olivier wouldn't be able to play Othello in blackface because of unfair casting making it unable for White's to play Black roles. He goes on to say, "Now this probably won't stop somebody from having the bright idea of casting Beyoncé in the role, but Liev Schreiber — as fine a Shakespearean actor as this country has at the moment — will never have a shot at the part (of Othello. he was making a joke suggesting Beyonce play Othello, I guess). For most white actors today, roles of color — from the classics to some of the sensational writing that is currently being done for the theater — are not even an option for them, and I'm not sure why."
I laughed my ass off. As if there aren't enough roles written for white men. Wow.
I spoke with another actor friend who knows LaBute personally and after reading the article she just chalked it up to his need to push societal buttons, which is his m.o.. His plays are all about making you feel very uncomfortable. So I wasn't really offended by the article until I got to this part, "I understand about slavery and all that, but that was a generally unpleasant time in our national history and it's firmly in the past. No one but a few folks who own "The Dukes of Hazzard: The Complete First Season" continue to think that slavery brought this country anything but shame and heartache. So we should all get over it, say we're sorry — I'm happy to do that to anybody who stops me at the Grove — and move on."
I f'n hate that. We should all get over it, huh? I don't go around blaming racism for every injustice done to a person of color or myself for that matter. Not even jokingly. But when people say that preachers like Rev. Wright- even though he was dead wrong- need to get over slavery because it happened a long time ago, my come back isn't in comparing slavery to the holocaust because I don't want to get into that battle of human tragedies and which were worse. I compare the African American holocaust to the homeless Vietnam Veteran who still wakes shaking from the nightmares in a cardboard box on the streets of the country he gave his life for. Now spread that across generations. Less than 50 years ago I still would have had to drink from a separate water fountain from a lot of my friends and just because some 25 year olds nowadays can't understand how that happened, don't tell me to get over it.
If triangular trade, slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era was war than the Post-traumatic Stress disorder is Nihilism. And Nihilism is the cause of all the ills that make up some of the worst stereotypes of African Americans, crime, drugs, broken families, etc...
And being called 'Black' fuels that Nihilism. To most people, regardless of their heritage or color, the terms White and Black are synonymous with Good and Bad no matter how much black pride we try to instill. It works on a subconscious level. So like my friend Julian's father who is Puerto Rican said, "there is no place called Hispania, therefore how can I be Hispanic. I am Puerto Rican." For me there is no place called Black that I am from and I realized from my recent trip to Ghana in February that the only thing African Americans have in common now with Africans is the color of skin. So therefore I'm not even African American. I am an American period. a Bronxonian, New Yorker if you need specifics. And I'm not mad at Don Imus. He's an idiot and it's not his fault. I don't think he should be fired. I believe he should be able to exercise his first amendment rights. I have faith in people. Eventually only the ignorant will listen to Imus and that will be very few. Plus he's really old, he's going to die soon anyway.
But all of this is, like I say, a distraction. the real news is they discovered water on Mars, nice.
gorealer
I guess the death of Tim Russert- moderator of Meet the Press- from a sudden heart attack, is the biggest thing to happen this past week. I felt very sad at the news of his demise. I'm a big fan of Meet to Press. It wont be the same without him. The fact that he died at such a relatively young age- 58-years old- has caused a bit of alarm within me. All year up until this point I have been thinking about the fact that I will turn 40 at the end of the year. It has been a big concern of mine. I feel I am, in essence, leaving my childhood way behind and the superman that I thought I once was at 25 is long gone. Heart disease, diabetes, and my cholesterol levels have become issues in my head. But much more than that has been the though of what I have accomplished from birth until now. I won't bore you with details but I feel a sense of urgency creeping on me. My friend Andre and I had this disucssion one nght. He turns 40 this year as well. We came to the conclusion that we only have about 40 years left, God willing, and that last 20 years should not be stressful at all. I feel when I'm 60 I should be chilling some where on a beach or a by a lake not worrying where the next dollar is going to come from. So for real I have about 20 years to make things happen, buy a house, meet a girl, start a family... the whole american dream thing. It's a little daunting when you really think about it. Oh well. I'm not going to let it stress me out. We only have one life to live as far as we know so why not go all out huh? I've made a list of the things I want to accomplish in my life and are at work making them happen. I'm already pretty proud of what I've done up until this point. No need to fret, just live until living is no more. As they say, when death smiles at you all you can do is smile back, right? We're sad about the sudden death of Tim Russert but I bet he can look down from wherever he is at and be proud of his life and that is what it's all about given what we know.
until the end, be blessed,
gorealer
It reminded me of when I heard Rapper's Delight for the first time back in 1979. I remember clearly the moment I put that record on. It spoke not just for me but in a way was speaking from me, saying the things I wanted to say and the way I had wanted to say them but hadn't known how. At the moment I- as I would realize later it was my entire generation- had a voice. I felt the exact same feeling as I watched Barack give his speech nearly 30 years later.
There is a certain complacency that comes with watching history happen right before your eyes on the TV and computer screen nowadays. I remember watching something hit one of the Twin Towers live on my TV when I thought I was turning on the Today show back in 2001 and then later that day going out to dinner with my then girlfriend and commenting on how beautiful and serene an evening it was in NYC with the bridges and tunnels closed off. I believe that one day people will look back at the first decade of this new century and know that these ten years have changed our perspective on the world. I say all this to say that I'd be lying if said tears fell from my eyes during Barack's speech. But there was a moment that I remember, clear as a sunny day, that I felt finally there is a politician/ human representative that clearly was thinking and saying what I had thought and wanted to say.
So Now that Sen. Barack Obama has won the Democratic Nomination, or more pointedly Hillary Clinton had dropped out and endorsed him, the reality of the first black President is starting to take form. This is an email conversation with a female friend regarding whether or not he'd be willing to take Hillary as his running mate:
mums-yeah it's seeming more and more like a bad idea but I just feel that he might have a hard time with a lot of people if he doesn't take her. in either case its obvious she wants it. I got really frustrated with all those people who were saying that they'd vote for anybody else other than Obama, including McCain, if Hillary doesn't get the nomination. I just think that is crazy. 18 million people did vote for her. he can't just sneeze at that. But I am convinced she is Crazy though.
FF-yeah.... i know what you mean. crazy but true: my own mother said she’d vote for mccain if obama was the democratic nominee. i was appalled. my liberal dad said he’d vote for obama but didn’t like him (and when i said obama’s the kennedy of our generation, and that kennedy was equally ‘inexperienced’ when he ran, he said there was a big difference because ‘kennedy had a lot of state government experience when he ran for president’ !!!??!)
i just worry that a lot of people dislike hillary so much that they’d be really disappointed in obama if he picks her. because, conversely, i spoke to A LOT of people (more obama supporters than hillary supporters) who said they’d refuse to vote for hillary if she was the nominee. will they then think obama’s full of shit for saying she doesn’t represent ‘change’ if he picks her as vp? i think he’d do better to choose strickland... or someone equally experienced but who doesn’t already have as big a negativity rating as clinton...
anyway, if i remember correctly the bet had to do both with obama picking her but also with my contention that she wouldn’t accept and wasn’t interested... and you said she would and was. so i think if he DOESN’T pick her but she already said she wants it, it’s a tie. what do you think?
mums-ahhh... a tie, yes... anyway I can get some Sasabune, I'll take it. :)
I watched some youtube clips from West Virginia about people saying they'd never vote for Obama. some are clearly racist but there is something else going on I think. My own black mother said she refuses to vote for him. Other than obvious racism, I think there is a thing that the older generation has against him. I've watched every speech, every debate and listened to pundit after pundit from CNN to MSNBC to the Huffington Post to Politco to the New York times and even Fox news! There aren't many who know more about what is going on in this race than me and I still cannot see what is unlikable about Barack Obama. But last week there was a string debate in the opinion section of the daily news of whether he was the anti-christ or not. I understand my mother not voting for him because she is a conservative and is Christian and pro-life. so McCain represents her issues but she was ready to vote for Hillary now it's McCain. But for any pro-choice people to switch to McCain just because they hate Obama is just ridiculous. and visa verse for Obama Supporters even though you can explain away the distaste in the mouth for Hillary Clinton a lot better. I really believe for People over 55 Obama represents Culture passing them by. I can understand it a bit. I had a brief moment where I was mad because I couldn't learn the new dances the kids were doing. silly.
By the way we had a bet about an Obama/Hillary ticket. I said she's wants the VP slot and would take it. She said that Hillary wouldn't want it and wouldn't take it if offered. The prize is a sushi dinner at Sasabune which is hands down some of the best sushi I've had in my life. It's melt in your mouth good. I think I won but It's up in the air. I think she's trying to sneak a 'tie' past me.
So now I'm inspired by the progress of Barack Obama. The reality has always been I can be anything I want to be if only I just put my mind to it. But being a Black man in this country has furnished me with a shit load of valid excuses I'm pretty dependent upon for not living up to my potential. That's right I said it. I think it can be said for a lot of us that there is a certain comfort in that dependance. "Why should I do anything, I ain't allowed to be nothing in this country no how". But now forty years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther (The, like a lot of white politicians like to mistakingly say) King, a man of African Heritage is the Democratic Nominee for President of The United States. I can do anything.
And now that I'm sure I can do anything I'm realizing that the getting up to do it is the hardest part. A good friend passed on a book to me called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Once I opened the front cover to read it I finished it that day, jogging around the block in between. I haven't jogged again since but I DO think about it everyday. Maybe I'll go in the morning.
And Barack has become the topic of conversation with all kinds of people on many different levels. I ran into my old friendThe Mighty Mos Def
He was chilling in the village out front a popular health food store drinking a smoothy, listening to some tunes, this past weekend. We spoke for a good hour, maybe more. The conversation started with the traditional, "what up man how you been? Chilln Chilln, right". But it took a sharp turn towards some sensibility once Barack was mentioned. After the, "yo son did you EVER believe we'd see it in our lifetime" wordless look we gave each other the conversation turned to the environment, health and self-worth issues in the black community, how our gifts as artists can really make a change in the world.
In some more inspired time, I found myself surfing the net. I came across this documentary about a floating Island of garbage in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas. We may have already signed our death warrant as humans. We make plastic that isn't degradable. We throw it away. It gets in the ocean. The fish ingest it, We eat the fish. hahaha... oh shit!
This the third "slip" made by people in this campaign threatening or wishing death on Barack Obama. First it was Mike Huckabee joking at an NRA event about Senator Obama being shot. Then Hillary with the infamous reference to RFK as being the reason she should stay in the race, clearly meaning, 'you never know what could happen'. Then this sad attempt at humor by journalist Liz Trotta on Fox News. All these slips appear to be quite Freudian is you ask me. Then when they do apologize, it is some broad sweeping apology to "whomever I might have been offended by what I had said" rather than a direct apology to Senator Obama and his family.
There seems to be a certain disdain for Sen. Barack Obama coming from some people in this country that is staggering. From the people who say they will switch parties and vote for McCain if Hillary doesn't get the nomination regardless of the issues to the 11 percent who still believe that Obama is a Musilm, God forbid. There are many that just don't like the man. But that is okay. Even if race is the reason, people are entitled to there own opinion. But to suggest that he be killed or to joke about it is bordering criminal. Granted this has been a long campaign and many people are not getting their proper sleep. Even Mr. Obama himself has made the occasional verbal goof but I doubt he would ever threaten Sen. Hillary Clinton's life by accident referencing Robert F. Kennedy then turn and apologize just to the Kennedy family.
I was a supporter of Hillary Clinton coming into this race. I supported her because I liked her, period. I liked that she stood her ground after the scandal with her husband. I liked her dedication to her health plan. I liked that she was going to be the first woman in office. I liked her up until she started complaining about how everyone was ganging up on her. Then the lies and the obvious "do anything, say anything to get elected" mode she is still in. I officially moved over to Barack Obama after his historic speech on race. In that speech his verbalized things that I had been thinking for a long time but wish that I had the courage to say.
So maybe I take these attacks on Sen Obama personally because I too am a black man and these attacks reming me of how we are devalued as humans by some in this country only worth being killed and tossed out with the garbage. I am quickly coming to the conclusion that this country might not deserve a man like Sen. Barack Obama to lead them which in turn just makes me sad.
