Ok, so I lied... (aka My First Guest Post!!!)

As a neophyte blogger, I'm still learning the ropes about the blogosphere and the rules of etiquette that govern it. As a long time writer who simply took a 15-yr long hiatus from writing, I know what it means when a fellow writer asks you to bless their space with your words. It's one of the greatest honours/compliments that one writer can pay another. So when Tammy-Jade Vasquez (aka the Spotless Cussbud) asked me to do a guest post for her blog, White is too Pure for My Dirty Mouth, I was speechless. Spotty Cuss and I share one of those big brother-little sister relationships, where I feel like I could strangle her one minute, and give her a big bear hug the next. She is also the major reason why this blog is up and running today. If it wasn't for her persistence (re: nagging), this space would not exist. So thanks, cuss, for allowing me to bless your space with my words. It was an honour I will never forget, and always cherish :). (She is also a pretty talented web-graphic designer, so hopefully she will bless up my page with some art, ;))

Guest Post: The Search for Self (White is too Pure for My Dirty Mouth)

Soundtrack for a New Year.

The message is simple...

(This is also my last post for 2009. Thanks for following, and I'm wishing everyone all the best for you and yours. May 2010 bring all hearts desires, and more importantly, all your life's needs. :))

Peace of Mind

*Consider this an epilogue to my piece, “My Father’s Son”. It was finished about 3 weeks ago, but was held back while I waited for a friend to scan the images. I have to give very special thanks to my step-mother. She did not have to answer my questions; she did not have to address the situation. Hell, she did not have to accept me. But she did all of those things, unquestioningly. And in the course of a 2 hour conversation, questions were answered, some long-standing open wounds healed, and some chapters were closed. And some peace was gained, I think by both parties involved in that conversation. Thank you for showing me love and respect, when you did not have to.



I guess you’re wondering why a 30-year old man has so many hang up about his father. There are many children who are the products of single-parent homes, who also fall under the classification of “love-child”. And I am sure many of them don’t give 2 thoughts about their father, especially if he was never there. Well, as I spelled out in my previous posts, I am my father’s son. And it goes beyond my tastes. The pic below should explain it. But there is more.

Unbeknownst to me, I worked with a close friend of my father for the better part of 6 months. The man never said anything, and neither did my aunt. I just knew him from passing him in the hallways. But I will always remember the first time I met him in the corridors of this company. I was polite as usual and said my good morning (old school upbringing: always say good morning even if you don’t know them). He has yet to reply to this day. More strangely, the first time he saw me, he literally turned white (you should know how hard this is for us people of colour), and kind of stepped around me. It was as if he had seen a ghost. Our future meetings in the corridor were never as dramatic as that first one, but he would always give me a very strange look. Only much later, after giving me a ride home from work, did he let on that he knew my dad. And in a very round about way at that. Even my step-mother made the same comment when we spoke on Saturday. She literally told me that it felt like she was speaking to a ghost. The resemblance surpasses just my looks apparently, and encompasses my gestures, personality and mannerisms. But the thing that kept nagging at me the most, is the way my mother always insisted that I at least try to get to know my dad, even when I made it explicitly clear that I wanted nothing to do with him.

So on Saturday night, I picked myself up with the intention of going to pick up my dad’s jazz collection that my step-mom was giving to me (there go the similarities again). And in the course of doing that I asked her what kind of person my dad. I did not get the exact answer I was looking for, but the question that was answered for me, is worth way more than what I originally asked. I basically got the answer to why my father “abandoned” me.

I left out what now is an important part of the story in my previous posts. See for the better part of my life, I always heard that my dad was sick. And my standard reply to that was “come on, n*gga, how sick can you be?” Well, I found out. My dad had lupus. It’s an autoimmune disease. He was diagnosed in 1983. At that point, he was barely capable of taking care of himself, and only got progressively worse. Why is that date so relevant? Well if you remember my last post, the last time I remember seeing my dad, was around when I was four. I was born in 1979. I googled lupus yesterday. I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally read that it usually isn’t genetically transmittable (I know that may sound bad, but it’s the truth. I did). Lupus is so fucked up, that it is given to differential diagnosis students as a case study (House, the TV character, specializes in differential diagnosis). Why? Because it is that difficult to diagnose. It attacks everywhere, and looks like everything. So basically, I have spent my life not knowing my dad, because his immune system decided one day that it did not recognize the rest of his body. So it started attacking it.

I heard all the stories. The renal failure. The pain. His hearing phantom sounds. The list of drugs he took. How he lasted 17 years, when he was only supposed to last around 5 (yea, apparently I got my trademark stubbornness from him). And after all of that, she gave me a picture that he bought after I was born, on one of his forays out the house, that he kept in his study.

I also heard that my birth was not easy for him to deal with on a number of different levels. I figured that there was a level of shame connected to me and my mom, but I never realized what he went through. (I won’t elaborate due to the fact that I do believe that some things should stay private.) In short, I understand him better now. And I feel the need to apologise to him.

So, Dad, I am sorry. I jumped to conclusions without knowing the full story. I was too stubborn to find out truth about why you were never there, even when I was presented with the opportunity. I was content to wallow in ignorance. I never gave you a fair shake when I was forming my misguided opinions. I wish things could have been different, and I could have gotten to know you beyond tales and pictures. But I guess this is what will have to do. Thank you for the qualities you gave me, and the family you left me. I will treasure them. Love you.

Silence is Golden...

I try to promote my friends' blogs. They tend to be well thought out, witty, eclectic, and sometimes, hunger-inducing. I am pushing this one, because the concept is mad, but the structure is madder (yes, I passed primary school grammar). Like my boy says, he isn't going to be posting to it regularly, because that isn't the intent, but the potential is sick. Q, ah watching and I might hadda tief dat format sometime...

365 days of Silence

2010...

Ahhh. The New Year. Symbolic of new hope, and refreshed potential. A blank slate to be chiseled anew. The time when we discard old habits and ways and prepare to make resolutions, life promises, and take a new direction in life. This new year approaches with me feeling somewhat sad and a tinge of regret. 2009 brought me both great success and painful loss. So for 2010, the beginning of a new decade, I am expanding on my assertion from last year. I am not making any life-altering resolutions, that are going to be broken by the time February rolls around. Instead I'm taking the lessons I've learned from 2009, and carrying them forward, in a positive way into the next year. But what have I learned from the year that has passed?

I had started off 2009 in a very bullish mood. No longer was I gonna let my head hang low. The year was mine, and I was gonna live it up to fullest. Nothing was gonna hold me back. Well, that kinda drive is all well and good, if you have some kind of direction to steer it. I had none. Not one. I just knew 2009 was not gonna be like 2008 where I spent most of the year pining for a relationship that had ended the previous year, and pushing a stupid war with a life-long friend. To use the cliche, 2009 was going to be mine. I was off to a bad start.

I became benignly arrogant (if there is such a thing). I wouldn't listen to anyone. I made stupid decisions and then tried to justify them. I bought a high horse on sale and then jumped on it continuously (metaphorically speaking) as though I was some all-knowing sage. I stopped opening up to and consulting with my then girlfriend, figuring it was my decision and she would have to just accept it. I missed landmark moments in her life, and didn't even think twice about it. To quote a good friend, I formed the ass. Royally. And all this occurred before June even hit.

June came, and I started studying for my SAP consultancy certification. This was a big deal to me. See, I never finished college. I have one year left to get my International Studies degree. As it stands, I'm one of only 2 members of this generation of my family to not have their degree. I take that very personally. For all the natural talent that I have always been told I have, I have nothing to show for it. So I took passing my SAP exams very personally. I threw myself into studying at the expense of everything else. My sleeping patterns still haven't re-adjusted. I now get up religiously at 4:45 on a weekday. I am in work by 6 am, at the latest. Conversely, do not call me before midday on a weekend. You will get cussed out. I also found time to start this blog strangely enough, on the recommendation of a new friend, the Spotless Cussbud (she has quickly grown in stature to the level of treasured friend). I honestly believe it is one of my saving graces right now.

July rolled and my birthday came with it. It also brought the lowest point in my life to date. They say retrospect comes with 20/20 vision. Whoever "they" are, they did not lie. I hung out with my ex from a previous relationship. I had never dealt with my emotions from that relationship, so of course they flared up. I even posted about the experience. I was shook. I then proceeded to do the single, cruelest, most thoughtless, most classless thing I have ever done. I broke up with my girlfriend. On the day after my birthday. After she had taken me out to the most beautiful dinner I have ever gone too the night before. While in bed, after we had slept together.

(This deserves its own paragraph in parentheses. This is why, more than anything else, I am not even 75% sure I deserve another chance. When reality and sanity finally took back hold of me, and I looked at what I did, I wanted to puke. It was beyond low. None of my friends even know that is how we broke up. Why? I'm too ashamed of myself. If there is one moment in my life, I pray to God I could take back, that was it. Once again, I am so sorry for what I did, Googs. Everyone feel free to call me a prick/c*nt/asshole. I'm still doing it.)

I focused almost exclusively on my studying for August. I missed my now ex's concert, after I told her I would make it for sure. Why? Cuz I forgot. I only remembered when I saw the pics on Facebook. And I didn't call to apologise either. In my mind, she should have called to remind me. (I am telling you, I turned into an asshole this year. All I needed was my picture next to the dictionary definition.) Then, to paraphrase Kanye, it all fell down.

Since the end of August, I have suffered one misfortune after another. My PC, which was my pride and joy, got fried when my room flooded out while I was out at my friend's bachelor party. I got hit with a 2 year old bill which cost me $2000. I was using a friend's car to go to work, when a tire blew out. Total cost of repair: $1700 (Thank God the rim wasn't damaged. She has chrome rims...). I did not pass the second module of my SAP exams. Total cost to re-take: you really don't wanna know (it's in US). I had practically drained my savings in a month and a half period of time. And then this happened. Karma can be a bitch, and she was paying me back in spades. I was reeling. But a funny thing has happened since then.

I wanted to hang my head low. Hell, I did for awhile. But I have some of the best friends in the world. They refused to let me do it. One in particular kept yelling at me (literally) to raise my head and keep it up. And since then, I have been taking time to find myself again, to get back to the habits and values that made me the person I was, not the person I became this year. I have been slowly dealing with all the issues I never dealt with. I have closed the book on one relationship, and have been writing the epilogue on another. I have been finding out about my father, and the kind of person he was. I have been slowly assuming more responsibility and leadership in my house. I have even made a promise to myself to start back going to church, and to go to the gym. It's slow and painful work, but I'm committed to it.

The results have been steady. I am more confident in myself. I am able to better process those downtimes that we all go through. I don't freak out at the first sign of adversity, or emotional upheaval. I am working on being a better friend. I am able to look at my ex with her new boyfriend, and accept the fact that she has moved on. Most importantly, I am not trying to make an overnight change. I am taking the small steps needed, to make permanent change. I am working on my attitude, because the Chad Hall that ran riot in 2009, was an impostor. I took him, and his high horse, out behind the proverbial woodshed, and I did not just beat their asses (American metaphor). I shot them. I plan to take the momentum I have been carrying out of 2009, and into 2010 and beyond. That is my resolution. And not just for next year, but for the rest of my life.

I remember when I used to love her... (Pt. 2)

*I have omitted over a lot of things to keep this short. But trust me, I am understating alot in these posts...

Pt. II

And thus a new pattern was formed. Our fights now had a nasty edge. I would trying arguing using reason. She would scream and use whatever insecurities I had against me (There was a memorable one using some concerns I had about my sister’s new relationship at the time that will live forever in my mind). I would walk out the house and go for a long walk. I would walk as far as the nearby strip-mall (which was a good 20 mins away on foot, mind you), turn around and walk back home. This was when my smoking habit truly took off. I was a medium to light smoker back then. I turned into a heavy one almost over night. Then, after one particularly bad argument that left her crying and cursing (and me just confused and cursing), I took an extra-long walk. All the way to the proper mall, which was about 45 mins to an hour away. I turned around, walked back and entered my apartment, to the sight of her in the bedroom with a knife sawing away furiously at her wrist. And not a butter knife. One of the big kitchen knives. I started sleeping with the knives under my pillow whenever we fought. The straw that truly broke the camel’s back (aka my resistance) came not to long after.

It was another bad fight, but this time I started it. I had told her she needed to get professional help (who had tell me to say dat?). Eventually she went running for the knives. I told her that I could not deal anymore, and I was calling her sister to deal with her and the bullshit. She just watched me strangely, and asked what for. I told her simply because I wasn’t getting though to her and maybe her sister would. Her response was as chilling as it was calm: “Why? It’s not like she would care…” I called anyway. I laid out the entire scenario. Her sister asked to talk to her. I listen to TNO carry on a conversation with her sister that sounded relatively normal. She handed the phone back to me with a defiant, yet satisfied look on her face. Her sister then said: “She sounds fine to me…” My heart broke. In my mind, that was my last real chance to get some help from somebody else who also cared about her. Yet I was the one who was made out as looking crazy. As far as I was concerned, I was out of options.

We both moved home some months later (that conversation was a scene by itself. The short version involves me getting yelled at, and her threatening to crash the car with both of us inside, thus ending both our lives. And we were driving at the time mind you). We then broke up the month after that. The part that hurt me most about the breakup? She lied to her family, and then set me up for her mom to practically cuss me out. I went over to pick up my stuff, and the next thing I know is that I’m being yelled at by her mom, saying I was a little boy playing big man thing, and I only played with her daughter emotions, etc, etc, etc. I tried to be rational with her mom, and warn her about TNO, but she would not let me get a word in edgeways. “I know about that, it’s no longer your concern, it’s now a family matter,” was the quote. The next time I saw her mom, I knew by the look on her face, that TNO had been acting up. How did I know? Cuz for a year, I used to wear the same expression. TNO even called me and admitted she was going to therapy. I told her good for her, and wished her the best. I got harassing calls for about 3 months, then mercifully, they stopped. I have not seen her since then. She used to report on CNC3 when they first launched, but people have told me that they haven’t seen her on there in a very long time. Not that I care though, because I would walk past her straight, if I ever saw her in the street. And that’s an upgrade.

There are so many things I could say about this woman and my relationship with her, but none of it would be good. I never knew what true anger or rage was before I met TNO. I have good memories of all my relationships, except this one. I cannot pick out a single one. I have one ex-turned-very good friend, who honestly wished she had an opportunity to meet her, just so that she could kick her ass. She blames her for the marked change in my personality. It’s a taint I have yet to shake, even now. My intimacy problems (not physical, I’m perfectly fine in that respect, :p), stem from her. It is painful beyond belief to have someone who claims they love you, throw your deepest fears, regrets and insecurities back in your face, just to hurt you. Especially, when the only reason they know those fears, regrets and insecurities, is because you let them know about that side of you. I haven’t let anyone have that level of emotional access to me ever since. One person in particular has reached pretty far past my barriers, but even she met a wall of sorts. It’s a trend that has been present in all my relationships ever since.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to completely let my guard down again. That relationship took so much out of me, that even I have to admit that I have not been the same since. But I can try. And that’s the reason why I write. Not to look at my own words. But to get out pain for which, I have not found any other avenue of release. In the hope, that by setting that pain free for the world, I can heal and grow. My only problem in this case? Damn, the memory of this pain runs deep…

I remember when I used to love her... (Pt. 1)

*I apologise for the length of this post. I have been working on it for awhile, and was under the impression I would not have finished it in time to get the first part posted yesterday. I try to keep my missives short but this one got out of hand, and I did not have the time to edit it properly. Sorry folk...


It’s difficult for me to write this. That may sound strange, when you think about some of the things that I have posted in this space. However, this may count as my toughest one yet. It deals with a major reason why my recent relationships have been so dysfunctional. And while this isn’t the sole reason, it was a huge influence over how I related to the women I involved myself with. I have tried writing about this before (about 3 times). I keep clamming up. There is still a lot of residual anger left in me, even now, some 7 years later. In short, I’m going to write about her.

Who is she? My closest friends could tell you in heart beat, just from that opening paragraph. In my adult life, I have cried from despair, sorrow, sadness and a sense of loss, numerous times, but always in private. Only she has ever made me breakdown and cry out of sheer unadulterated rage (in front my best friend and his girlfriend at the time no less). My friend's girlfriend (who was also a close personal friend) even recommended that I go to therapy, because she was worried that I wasn’t dealing well my emotions. In retrospect, she didn’t know the half. I have carried baggage from that relationship with me ever since, like a faithful roadie for a touring rock band. Well, it’s time to drop that baggage by the roadside. I’ve had enough.

By the way, for the rest of this post, she is going to be referred to as TNO, aka, The Nameless One. Why TNO? A friend, who was there for the entire fiasco, has literally rechristened her “She Who Shall Not Be Named”. At first I thought it was because she was a non-entity in his mind after everything that happened. Now, I honestly believe it’s in homage to the demonic entity in “Children of the Corn”, the titled “He Who Walks Behind The Rows”. And he WILL correct you if you call her by her birth name. I kid you not, she was bad.

The sordid story started in a party. I even remember the name of the party: H-1 (H-1 is the code for student visas for entry to the US). We were both home on vacation and met through a mutual friend. While there weren’t any fireworks, there was definitely chemistry. We hung out a couple more time afterwards, and then we both headed back to school, she in Boston, me in Atlanta. And then she disappeared. I found out through our friend that she was on an 8-month field-study in South America. I shrugged, cursed my luck and moved on.

9 months later, my friend was organizing to come visit me in Atl, when 9-11 happened. And if you know my friend, that means that a snowball has a much better chance of surviving an unusually warm day in hell, than she had of stepping foot on a plane. Anyway, I’m on MSN Messenger one day, and my friend logs in to tell me that she isn’t coming. Except that it’s TNO using her account (my friend was too sick to get out of bed, so she had her use her messenger). We got back to talking and catching up, and finally she decided that (unknown to me) as she was supposed to come on the trip anyway, she would still come. The weekend was great (and no, not just the sex…). We hung out, we vibed, we drank, we partied. She got along great with my boys. Sure, she had some quirks (more on that in a paragraph or 2), but she was cool. By the end of the weekend, we were practically in a relationship. (My best friend, who was also my roommate at the time, always shakes his head at that fact). Things were great. (N.B. There is a very good reason for the adage “young, dumb and full of cum…”)

And things stayed great for awhile. We did the long distance thing for a year. She would come visit me. It was hard for me to visit her because, while she was on scholarship and living on campus, I was living off-campus and paying my way through school. We talked on the phone every other day. We e-mailed all the time. I cheated a bit. (N.B. again: while I’m not proud of this fact, in retrospect, I’m not sorry either). Once again, everything was going great. Then all hell broke loose.

I need to give some back story here, to explain the kind of person I was dealing with. She was the middle child of five kids. Her father was physically abusive to the family. The bed in my bedroom was pushed up against the corner of the room. She could not sleep on the inside, i.e. close to wall, because she had severe claustrophobia. Why? Because her father would lock her in the closet as a child as punishment. (I thought her stories about her dad were out there, until I met her elder sisters. They confirmed them) He eventually ran out on them. She had a near-rape experience in form 6, and then actually was raped while on foreign study. She reported neither. Why? She assumed people would think it was her fault and she looked for it. Or that she was just flat out lying. I mean, this girl didn’t just have issues. She had problems stemming from issues, that came from real-life tragedies. And there I was, the super-caring, ultra-loving, ever-understanding boyfriend, who stood by her side when she swore no-one else would want her or love her. And I had no idea of the monster I was creating.

I didn’t learn everything in the previous paragraph all at one. It came out slowly. But the first sign I had that something may not have been right, was when she started sleep-walking. Not talking in her sleep, mind you, but actually sleep-walking. And here’s the funny thing about sleep-walking. Forget the movies. When you see that shit for the first time, if you don’t know what to look for, you will swear that the person is awake and coherent. I promise you that. The first time it happened, she jumped up, and started screaming and crying that she couldn’t feel her legs. I freaked. I tried to go for help, but she wouldn’t let me. She kept crying for me not to leave her alone. I didn’t know what to do. Eventually, she went back to sleep. I didn’t. When she finally awoke some hours later, I asked her how she was feeling and how were her legs. And she watched me like I was from mars. She had no recollection of anything, the screaming, the crying, nothing. She just watched me like I was on something, and then continued doing what she was doing. But did I run for the hills? Noooo… Your faithful blogger did the next logical thing (logic being used VERY loosely here). I moved in with her.


The next year of my life proved to be hell on earth. Not only did she not like my friends, she actively hated them. Why? Because they had the audacity to suggest that maybe, just maybe, our moving in together was not a particularly good idea. But where I saw people voicing concern, she saw traitors who were trying to stab her in the back (yea, logic didn't run too far with her). I was God's gift to women (I wish), so suddenly all women were threats to her. And I do mean all women. The only one of my female friends that she was cool with was the curious mouth, and even that had limitations. She bought a car (more on this to come, trust me), and immediately decreed that no strange bitches (direct quote, and you should know my stance on the word "bitch") would be allowed in it. Anything became grounds for a fight. Not an argument, mind you, but a fight (not physical though). I remember watching TV and getting into an argument, because I commented that one of the contestants for a reality TV show was cute. After she asked me if she was cute. Needless to say, I soon discovered that my couch was quite comfortable to sleep on.

This continued for the next couple of months. But there was a slow escalation that was almost imperceptible to me at the point in time. I mean I can see it clearly now, but back then, not so much. Then came the two incidents that showed me that I was clearly dealing with someone who was becoming unhinged. We had just gotten through our usual nightly bullshit argument, and I had taken up my customary spot on the couch, to watch TV till I fell asleep. I heard the bedroom door open, and she walked out, naked as she was born (she slept naked), in tears. I was confused. Our argument hadn't been that bad this time. So I asked her what was wrong. "You're leaving me", came the response. Brrrr? Nowhere in our argument had I ever said I was leaving her. I asked her who told her that, and got no coherent response. She just kept repeating the same thing over and over, that I was leaving her. Then something clicked. I got up, walked closer to her and asked, “TNO, are you up?” Same response. I asked her if she was awake again. Then I looked closely at her eyes. They had that rapid, shifty movement that is associated with someone who is dreaming. Except her eyes were wide open. She was sleepwalking. Again. I eventually led her back gently to the bedroom, and calmed her down enough for her to start back sleeping normally (think of the insanity of that statement, taking into account that she never woke up throughout the entire episode). Then I promptly had a cigarette.


(N.B. I did some research on people who sleepwalk after we broke up. And what I read scared me. Basically, people have been known to hurt themselves while sleepwalking. Makes sense right? But did you know they have also been known to attack others, and in very rare instances, even kill? Why? Cuz higher brain function is still switched off. They are basically running on autopilot. Ignorance is bliss.)

The second incident came about a month later. My best friend, and biggest opponent of us moving in together, was moving home. So we had a good bye party. Of course this was not sitting well with her. We had been back and forth about it all day. She told me I could not use the car. I simply called my other liming partner to pick me up. She told me to pack my shit and get the fuck out while I was at it. I calmly picked up the clothes she threw at me and started packing them in my bags. She told me I didn’t have the balls. I put my bags by the door and sat waiting. She started to cry and beg for me not to go. I didn’t even look at her. I had reached my breaking point. My boy called me to say he was at the traffic lights outside our apartment complex, and I started moving my stuff outside the door. Then came the words that made my blood run cold. As she sat on the floor, she said in a fairly calm voice, “If you leave me, I will kill myself…” (There is a huge difference between “I’ll die if you leave me,” and “if you leave me, I will kill myself.” Especially when they stress the “will.”) This is where the chain of events begins to differ from what my friends believe I should have done:

Me: “Wha?”
TNO (slowly, yet in that same calm voice): “I will kill myself.”
Me (trying to sound mannish): “No you won’t…”
TNO: “Yes…I…will.”

And then I made mistake no. 2. I closed the door and called my boy. I explained everything that had just happened to him. He went silent. The he slowly told me to stay home, and to make sure every stayed ok. He said he would explain to my boy why I could not make it to the party. So I stayed. And that was the scariest conversation I have ever had with another human being. Her voice never changed. It stayed that same eerily calm way throughout. To this day, I get asked why I didn’t just call her bluff and leave. All I can say is, you needed to hear her when she said it. There is a common saying, no matter how much you think the person is bluffing, always take them seriously. Well, I did not think she was bluffing. Not one bit. And the death of another person is not a stain on my soul that I can live with.

To be continued...

Jazz soothes my Soul...

The two bosses collaborate on one of my favourite pieces of all time...

Therapy...

To everyone who helped me keep my head up when I wanted to drag it on the floor, thanks and I luv yall to death. You truly don't know how much in your debt I am right now :)

Therapy...

This wasn’t planned, so it may sound poorly written and thought out. I made up my mind I wouldn’t write anything, until I had something new to say. And I don’t. I have absolutely nothing of note to put here. My situation hasn’t changed much. I’m just tired of wallowing in depression and negative feelings. So this is my outlet. I’m trying to purge myself. Writing always came easy to me. It felt natural, like breathing, or swimming (I learned to swim at such a young age, that I don’t even actually remember learning), or speaking. Except that now, it feels even more natural than speaking. Concepts, ideas and emotions that I struggle to articulate, just flow when I’m putting them down on paper. I don’t have to go back and repeat myself, or struggle to explain what I really mean or feel. It just flows. I’ve re-read all my posts countless times. It’s amazing to watch your writing develop, when you did not even realize that it was ever changing.

With that being said, I now realize that writing is therapeutic for me. I don’t clam up. I don’t freeze. Maybe it’s because I’m focused on avoiding spelling and grammatical errors. Maybe it’s because when I write, I lose myself in what I’m writing about. I don’t know what it is. But I know that starting this blog has done more for me, than the four $400 sessions at that therapist ever did. Every time I bare my soul in this space, and then hit that “post blog” button, I feel lighter and freer than I did before. So with that in mind, this is my therapy session for this week. I hope to remove the negativity from my soul and replace with something else.

I won’t re-hash my blogs of this week in length. The world has seen me writhe in agony and sink to some depths that I hoped I would never see again. I finally cried too. It wasn’t an ideal place or time to cry. I could have killed myself at the point in time. (N.B. breaking down into tears while you’re driving on a busy highway does not come recommended by the Minister of Health. Especially when you’re well renowned for speeding). But I couldn’t help it at the point in time. I reached that place. The exhaustion, the pain, the guilt, the regret, the longing, the wanting, the desperation, had all reached their peak. I was talking to her on the phone (earpiece enabled for all you safety-conscious folk), and I started apologizing for everything I had done in the past. And it snuck up on me.

I didn’t bawl. But they came slowly, and then steadily. And I couldn’t stop them. I was struggling. My voice hitched. I stammered. But I didn’t stop. I pushed through. At the end of it all, I did not get the responses I wanted. But I felt a little bit better (stress on little). I got into work tidied up a little and proceeded to sulk out the day. I sent out questionable e-mails. I had people look at me and ask which family member died. I was low. Then I left work, hit my favourite watering hole, and went on what I intended to be the mother of all benders, breathalyzer be damned. But a funny thing happened in the midst of all the drowning of my sorrows. I went to the bathroom to take a leak, and on the way out, I looked in the mirror. I was appalled by what I saw. To use my favourite saying, I looked like warmed over death. I looked pitiful. That wasn’t me looking back in that mirror. It couldn’t be. So I made up my mind. Past midnight, Friday night, I was not mourning anymore. I would turn my hurt into something positive. And I have been working at that since then.

I am still hurting, a lot. My change in attitude hasn’t changed that fact. I am going to try my best to show her that I am worthy of one more chance. That hasn’t changed. I don’t know what my odds are, but I am going to give my all. There are still things that I haven’t shared with her, but I have resolved to be open and share them. These are the things that I have scared to share with anyone. Even this blog. Will it help? I don’t know. Do I have a plan? No, I don’t. But I need to look forward and stay positive. Even if I don’t succeed. Because, to go back to how I used to be, would mean that all of the lessons that I claimed to learn from all of the pain I have suffered, would have truly been lost. This just became about more than just proving to her that I am worthy. It also became about proving to me that I am worthy of her, whether I end up back by her side or not. I think, no, I believe that I am. Now the time has come to back up those words, with ways.

Run To The Sun

N.E.R.D. Nobody Ever Really Dies. They are currently one of my favourite artists. I have all 3 of their albums released to date, and I love the eclectic blend of music that each one contains. I have killed the albums to the point where two close friends actually nicknamed me “nerd”. Well, they also sang the song that I’m using as the title for this post. I currently have this song on “repeat till annoying” status. It’s about a guy making one last plea to his girl who’s leaving him, because he was too wrapped up in his own woes and his own life, to pay any real attention to her. I can relate to that. Especially now.

I think you all remember this post from a couple of months ago. Well, the back story to that post is that I was pretty much involved with someone else at that point in time. She was for all intents and purposes my girlfriend. Just we were on an extended break. I spoke to her after I posted that particular entry and explained myself. She watched me dead in the eye, and told me that it was my blog and that I was entitled to write anything I want to. This space is my venting ground, and she preferred that I have a place where I could vent, rather than bottle everything up. I could have kissed her then. So what does a song call “Run To the Sun” have to do with that blog and this post? Well, it shows that I am my own worst enemy, and that once again, no-one can truly fuck me over quite like myself.

Let me start from the beginning. When I met the heroine of this current post, I was only two months out of a relationship with the heroine of the above-mentioned post. I was a hot mess because, as usual, I fucked that relationship up too. (It was a bit more complicated than that, but that is one of my lowest points, and I’m still trying to heal from it). A mutual friend introduced us at a cooler fete. (Feel free to laugh at that tidbit). What I didn’t laugh at, was how easily we clicked. Actually, it was more than just clicking, it was like melding. The only way I can explain it, is that we had 3 pieces of conversation that night: “Hi, nice to meet you,” and “You want anything from the cooler?” (x 2). Yet we walked out of that fete holding hands, like we had been together for months. Nothing much needed to be said. It just was. And there was my problem. How could I just get out of a relationship with someone who I gave my all to, and yet just connect with someone who I had just met? What was wrong with me? Was I turning into my dad? (See this week’s posts for reference)

I was confused. I still loved my previous girlfriend. But this new woman in my life, she was like a breath of fresh air. She was beautiful, humble, funny, talented, smart and refreshingly honest. We shared tons of shit in common. Our passion for music, art, reading, the list was endless. But I was not happy. Why? Because I was happy. Or at least I was on the road to being happy. (Let me put your reaction into words for you: Whaaaaaa?????????????) Let me explain. I am a master of guilting myself, and being guilted. And let’s just say the first time my previous girlfriend saw us out together, oooooh, she was not pleased. She took every potshot imaginable for awhile. And I took it. Why? Cuz I felt guilty that I found someone who willing to work with me, to help me heal, and she was probably still hurting. That was the other thing. I didn’t lie to my new girlfriend. I laid my cards out. I told her straight up that I was damaged goods. And she worked with me on it. She was more understanding than she needed to be. To the point where I started wondering when the other shoe would drop, and I would see the flip side, the inevitable psychosis that I invariably always seem to attract. Only thing is, it never did drop. It was who she was. And I slowly started falling in love all over again. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I sabotaged the shit out of the relationship.

Over the following year, we were constantly on and off. In my mind, I harped on the few weaknesses she did have, turning them into relationship-threatening crises. As soon as we would start getting comfortable, I would say I needed a break to sort myself out. It was the truth. I did need to sort myself out, but not in the way I said I needed to. I wasn’t sorting stuff out, as much as running away from the guilt I was feeling. And I never dealt with that guilt. And I kept running and coming back, running and coming back. And everytime, she would let me go, and then take me back. Every time I told her I was not sure when I would be sorted out, and if she met someone else, don’t look back. And everytime, she waited for me, worked with me, being understanding, being loving.

Things came to a head this year. I really started to doubt myself and what I was doing with this beautiful woman. I was toying with her, mercilessly. Not purposefully, mind you, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was toying with her none-the-less. The fact that I still shared all of my emotions and feelings with her didn’t mitigate the fact either. I was being cruel and selfish under the guise of protecting myself. So I basically called it off. Crudely too. Once again, it was not one of my better moments. I honestly wish I could take that moment back. (I’m also racking up way too many of these kinds of moments.) I gave her the same spiel, taking time, don’t wait for me, yadda, yadda, yadda. Difference was, I was serious this time. I took time. I dealt with a lot of my guilt. I even hung out with my ex. I realized that I still love her, but maybe, just maybe, sometimes 2 people aren’t meant to be together. And in figuring this out, I realized I had been an ass. More precisely, I had been a c*nt. (Don’t ask me why, but c*nt registers as a nastier word than fuck for me.) But more importantly, I realized I loved the one I had just left. Unconditionally and purely. I made up my mind. I knew who I wanted to spend my life with.

I decided I wanted to make right, and live out the fairytale ending. I had heard things, but figured nah, couldn’t be. So I called her, and told her I loved her and I missed her. I got silence in response. Ok, that could be expected. I had basically disappeared for about 3 months, with the exception of her birthday. “Why now?” came the question. I stammered and stuttered my reasons. Then came the hammer blow: “I appreciate it, but I’ve met someone else. And it’s going pretty good.” Now I was the one who went silent. (Guess I should’ve listened to what I had heard.) My mouth was dry, and I was literally speechless. I can’t even remember what I said. I vaguely remember promising her I would keep in touch and not disappear again, and that I hope he truly makes her happy. Then I lay there for 10 mins, before getting up to mix the harshest rum and orange juice you have ever tasted, and promptly killing a half pack of cigarettes. I then went to “sleep” at around 2 in the morning.

I have tried to analyze how I feel. I know I told her don’t wait for me if someone else came along, but for whatever dumb/asshole reason, it never crossed my mind that it would actually happen. As though I was the only one who saw her virtues. I am hurt. I’m disappointed. I’m mad. At myself. I have managed to do it again. I ruined something promising for myself. And that’s why I keep playing “Run to The Sun” over, and over, and over again. The chorus says:

“It goes while you’re here, I wanna tell you something,
It’s that I love you, girl, and
I wish we could run, to the sun,
And never come back”

I am tired. I would cry, but I emotionally don’t have the strength. I am mourning my loss, but don’t have the energy to express it openly. I’m hurting badly, yet strangely numb, at the same time. I honestly wish her the best. I hope it works out. She deserves nothing less, and vast amounts more. I hope this guy treats her like the queen and angel that she is. I have no dislike or malice for him. I got my due in spades. I just wish it would have been me treating her like that. I guess I will have to keep wishing for that run to sun.

My Father's Son... Pt. 3

The final installment...

Pt. III


2 years later, I was back home, for good this time. I had broken up with my girlfriend who I had lived with for the past year. I was in a funk. A deep one. I turned to one of the few people who I could trust to give me bullshit free advice about how to deal with my break-up. I turned to my ex who had gotten the “lock-off” that time some years back. Her advice? Talk to my mom. So I did, with her (my ex) there. And that’s where it all started coming out. My mom just let me talk for about 2 hours, and said absolutely nothing. When I was finished, she took a breath, and asked me if I had anything else to say. I told her no, I think that was about it. She then turned to my ex and told her, “Like I said, he’s his father’s child. Don’t rush them, they will eventually open up when they are ready. But when they are ready, be prepared to just listen.” I was dumbfounded. Not at the fact that my mom knew me. What mother doesn’t know their child? What took me aback, was the fact that my mother just told someone, that she was able to take the blueprint for my father, and apply it to me. And not only did it match, it matched perfectly. So I started asking questions. What else did my dad and I share in common? The basic answer, almost everything. Without spending anytime with me, my dad was basically able to transfer the very essence of his personality to me. He loved jazz and soul, I love jazz and soul. He was an engineer who liked architecture. Like I said, I like the visual arts. He was introspective to a fault, I am introspective to fault. Hell, I just found out last night he liked to just pick up and go for drives around the island. What do I do when I need to think? I will pick up, regardless of the hour, and go for a long drive. I’ve reached as far as Siparia at 1 in the morning. In a nutshell, I’m practically a carbon-copy.

So why does this scare me so much? Basically, I have spent 20 out of my 30 years of existence, trying not to be like my dad. To me, as much as I am grateful to him for my life, he was a philandering asshole, who had no interest in being involved in my life. That may sound petty and childish, but it’s honestly how I felt/feel. I love my step-mom and my sisters to death. They have accepted me when they did not have to, because my existence is proof of the fact that my dad could not find complete contentment within the confines of their family unit. My step-mom told me to my face after my dad died, that her greatest regret was that she could not get him to spend more time with me. My mom and step-mom were even able to become friends (not best friends by any means, but you catch the drift). By all accounts, he was a classy, stand up guy, whose only real fault was that he did not know how to deal with family life. My sisters lived with him, and even they admit he was never really open with his emotions (another trait we have in common). Basically, he was everything I am. And basically, I am that which scared me most. I am him.

Am I still scared? I don’t think so. I think I’m coming to accept the fact that somehow I genetically picked up his traits. I think that no matter how I fight it, we will share more in common than I may ever completely be comfortable with. But I also realize that the sins of the father do not necessarily have to become the sins of the son. I realize that as much as we may share in common, I am also my own person, with my own strengths and weaknesses. I think I am coming to realize, that I am both my father’s son, and my own man.

My Father's Son...Pt. 2

As promised...

Pt. II

So I spent most of my socially-formative years without any real male influence in my life. I had my liming pardners, Kory and my uncles. I finished Fatima, worked for a bit and then went to Morehouse. But I realized a funny thing growing up. A lot of my tastes just didn’t mesh with my peers. I would quicker read a book, than play sports. And all the men in my family are athletically inclined. I mean, I have some natural talent when it comes to sports, but they never really interested me beyond watching on TV. I would listen to dancehall and rap, but I loved jazz, soul and classical. And I didn’t get it from mom, cuz she would quicker listen to talk radio in the car, than music stations. And we didn’t have many old records lying about. I liked visual arts, both classical and modern. And this was in secondary school. In forms 2 and 3. Which frigging 13 year old did you know listened to Beethoven and Nina Simone? I could be both out-going and withdrawn, often in a matter of hours. Then it really started getting weird.

My first real girlfriend and my mom had a special friendship. She would run to my mom for advice before she went to her mom, or even her older sister. Even after we broke up and I moved to Atlanta, she would be at my house on weekends for hours, just talking to my mother. Anyway, I came back home one Christmas, and we got into a huge fight. And true to form, rather than deal with the issue to the end, I shut down and went into my infamous “lock-off” mode. And, true to form, she went running to my mother. So, I’m overhearing their conversation, and in the middle of it, I hear my mom say:

“Child, his father is the exact same way. He got it from him.”

Wha???? Excuse me????

(Let me explain my “lock-off” mode. Other people’s “lock-off” mode entails ignoring you so that you know you may or may not know you are being ignored. Not here. I’m special. I will talk to you and address you. But that’s it. And if I think you are pushing it, I will hit you a “you still talking, dread?” Yea, I’m special like that.)

Oh yea, and I will go into my own little world where no-one, especially you, exists. Think of it as a targeted media blackout. Only now, I was finding out that it wasn’t my little quirk. I had a predecessor. And that predecessor was the one person on planet Earth who I wanted to have nothing common with. Needless to say, I was pissed. After my girlfriend left, I blew my lid at my mother. I ranted and raved about her talking to my girlfriend behind my back. I continued for a good 10 mins, and then she got the lock-off for the rest of the week. I was livid. But I wasn’t mad her. I was mad/scared of the fact that I might share more in common with my dad than just looks, tone of voice, or a possible blood type. I mean was it true? Did I share more in common with my dad that just my “mother’s milk” cheeks? It’s not like he had been around, so that I picked up his traits. But, what if it was true?

My Father's Son... Pt. 1

This one is long. So I split it up into 3 parts to make for better/easier reading. I'll post Part 1 today, and Parts 2&3 tomorrow, and Wednesday. And don't worry, unlike my other multi-parters, this one is all finished already. :p

My Father's Son...

The title of this post feels strange to me. For quite awhile now I’ve wanted to write a post on the person who I have ever held dearest to me, the person who I strive most to be like, the model I try to follow so desperately. I always figured the first post I would ever write about either of my parents, would logically be about my mother. Yet, here I find myself addressing my father. Why is this strange? Well, the simple fact is that my father and I never had any kind of relationship past roughly my turning the age of 5 (or is it 6 or 7), years old. In my mind, he simply disappeared. I had my mother. My father figure(s), were my uncles, and my mother cousins. Yet I feel compelled to write this because the more I hear about my father from my aunts, and the more I learn about him from my step-mom and my sisters, I am realizing that I am just what the title of this post says. I am his son.




Let me give a little history. To use Trini vernacular, I am a horn-chile. My father has 2 daughters with his wife, and me. I am the youngest of his children. I have very vague memories of him coming over to see my mom and me when I was very little, and even vaguer memories of being packed into the car, and my mother and I driving over to his house. But we never went inside. We would stay outside, he would come to the car to talk to my mother, he would go back inside and we would leave. I saw what seemed to be the silhouette of two young girls inside his house, but never knew who they were. Then one day, he stopped showing up, and we stopped going over. At the age of 5 you have no idea what these things mean. Even now, I don’t know what happened for him to stop seeing us, and I have never asked. All I know is that the strange man who my mother said was my “father” and who I called “Daddy” had just disappeared.



And it didn’t bother me. I had my mom, Ena (my great-aunt), Steve (my uncle), and Fitzroy and Tony (my mom’s cousins). If this concept seems strange let me explain it like this: my very good friend’s wife has a son from a previous relationship. He was about 2 when my friend started dating his mom. His mom always insisted that he called my friend by his first name. Yet when you hear him running around yelling “Nigel”, you fully understand who he is referring to, and in what capacity. In his mind he doesn’t have a daddy; he has a “Nigel”. Personally, I do not see anything wrong with that. I actually wish there was a way for him to go through life just knowing his “Nigel”, not having to deal with the reality that Nigel is not his biological dad. But I know that day will come, and I pray for them that that situation will pass smoothly. But I digress.



Anyway, my father did stay in touch for awhile. But the calls started coming with longer and longer lapses in between. He would call; I would ask when he was coming over to see me. He would promise soon. And he would not show up. The final straw was my 12th birthday. He called me. He promised me we would spend time for my birthday. We would go, us alone, pick up my gift, and spend quality time like we had not done in years. I got excited, even got dressed up. And he never showed up. Didn’t even call back. And neither did I. I wrote him off. In my mind, I did not have a father. My mom was the Virgin Mary Redux, and I was the product of immaculate conception. The only evidence that I had a living, breathing, sperm-donor, was the fact that I had 2 sisters. Other than that, fuck him (and yes I was already cussing at age 12). He didn’t care about me, so I damn sure didn’t care about him. And I continued my life like that for 10 years.

Big Day on Friday...

Retake of my MM exam. Wish me luck.

Can it really be that simple???

Now, I don't necessarily agree with this, but I thought it would be interesting food for discussion...

Nobel what???

This was supposed to be short and quick, which is why it has the intro that it currently carries. But then I realised I had a lot more to say about the topic than I first thought. So now it's a 2-parter:


So, I’m not fully up to speed with my writing yet, but it’s simply a matter of ekeing out time. I have been trying to get back up to speed with work, life and everything else that I have missed while my head was buried in a book. Combine that with the fact that I came home Sunday morning to meet my house flooded out, and my PC shorted out as a result, and you get the general picture. I’m currently typing this on a loaned laptop. I hate laptops. Anyway, I figured I would be a good and committed blogger and at least do a quick post on a topic that seems to be relatively news-worthy, if only for the reason that it was hilarious when the announcement was made. Yep, the second black president of the United States won the Nobel Peace prize.


So Barack Obama won the Nobel. Whoopee-fucking-doo. Somebody please show me to the nearest Boardwalk so that I can do a little jig in celebration. And in case you didn’t notice, there was a heavy dose of sarcasm in those last two sentences. No really, take a minute and look. Now before anyone jumps down my throat about why am I hating, really I’m not. I’m glad the man has a nice Peace Prize to put on his mantle. More power to him. Now if someone can please tell me what Barack did to deserve this prize, I will very happily shut up. Because this award reeks so much of racial patronage, that I swore I passed it on the Beetham when I was driving by sometime recently. Hell, I think I can still smell it from here. (The award, not the Beetham. The Beetham hasn’t been so bad recently).

Why do I think his being awarded the Prize is patronage? Well, let look at certain inalienable facts. Firstly, let’s look at what he won the prize for. According to the press release, he has “fostered an atmosphere of peace, and cooperation in world”. (Not an exact quote, but close enough.) Hmmm, last time I checked, the US was still stuck balls deep in Afghanistan, and Uncle Hugo still didn’t like their ass. He isn’t even that well liked in his own country. He is the most polarising president in US history. Voters in the US simply would have preferred to have been hung by their nipples and dipped in hot oil rather than deal with another 4 years of the Republicans. Don’t get me wrong, the man has charima out the ass, and he deserved to win. But the Nobel Peace Prize? Ummm…

Secondly, let’s look at the timing of his nomination. Barack was in office for only 2 weeks when the deadline for nominations closed. Two weeks. Really? He did enough in two weeks, to merit winning what some people take a lifetime to achieve? Really? He brought about an atmosphere conducive to world peace, in just 2 weeks? Damn. And I thought Santa worked fast. Then again, I guess when you compare him to Bush… Look, I’m not being a hater. I’m just asking the question of where are the tangible achievements that merited Barack winning this prize? Does anyone have the answer? Somebody? Anybody? Thought so.

This leads to my next point. The only reason Barack won the Nobel, is because he is black. To be more specific, he won it because he is the first African-American President of the United States. (Sorry, Clinton was as black as they come, he just didn’t have the skin tone, hence the differentiation between black and African-American). And I know the response that is coming: so what? What’s the big problem? We should be happy… Well, without simplify and trivialising the overall gist of my argument, here is my overall problem. Black people need to stop taking handouts. Especially handouts that serve the trivialise or make mockery of moments or accomplishments, that need no further embellishment to legitimise them. No matter how auspicious, well-respected or well-intentioned that handout may be.

I love this site...

And no cussbud, I did not get it from you, tho I see you follow it... :p

Ok, we're almost back...

Just 3 more weeks till we're back in business. Till then, I'm loving this ;)

Not much but...

So I apologise for the long abscence. Work, studying and general tiredness from trying to balance everything means I just haven't had much time to compose my thoughts. But I promise to have something up before the end of next week. Anyway, enjoy this space filler in the mean time. Is it the best ad in the world? No. Is it the most creative? No, again. I'm pretty sure they recycled or ripped off the idea from somewhere else. But it is hella funny. At least in my opinion. The sheer absurdity of the guy's excuse, combined with the imagery makes it sheer comic genius in my books. So sit back and enjoy "Chinchilla Day" (or as I call it, "Rise and Fall of the Little Rat-like Creatures...)

Soul Reasonings:.. Autobots, rollout, BITCHES!!!

*There is a very minor spoiler in this post. If you are one of the few anally-rententive people who read this post, please skip this one. Now, on to our show...*

So I had the fortune/pleasure of taking in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen on Wednesday night. It was an enjoyable flick (definitely no Star Trek), easy to follow along, nice action, funny dialogue, the works. It isn’t the best movie of the summer, but I recommend seeing it. It was $45 well spent. That being said, I have one issue with the movie. It isn’t a major issue, but it is symbolic of how some Hollywood and social stereotypes live on to this day. Quite simply, what is the real purpose of The Twins???

The Twins, in this movie, are meant to portray the original Autobot characters Skids and Mudflap (see the links for personality breakdowns). However, this is where the similarities end. The Twins are basically clownish caricatures. They are fairly animalistic in appearance (facially, looking monkey-ish), and speak with a hybrid Brooklyn/Dirty South twang and vernacular. They make heavy use of the term “bitch-ass”. One has a gold tooth! I think by now you can catch where I’m going with this. Now these facts, by themselves, don’t necessarily affect me. It’s sad that Hollywood has to resort to such obvious stereotypical moulds when it comes to character creation, and it does annoy me mildly, but I have come to expect as such. What I did not expect, was what played off ¾ of the way through the movie. A situation popped up where Skids was asked to translate some Cybertronian text. His response: “Sorry, I ain’t much into reading, but it is Decepticon…” Hold on a sec, wha??????????? You “ain’t much into” what???????? N*gga WHAT??????

I have grown sadly accustomed to Hollywood painting minority characters with broad strokes from a generalized brush. It is the nature of the beast, especially those of the “summer blockbuster” variety. It is virtually impossible to properly develop multiple characters, push the plot and choreograph the action plus keep it all within a reasonable time frame. So we get the hero/anti-hero, the damsel in distress, the comic-relief, the token minority person. Further complicating this matter in Transformers, is the fact that half of the characters, the protagonists, are largely colour-free and unencumbered from personality types. There are few ways to say “ok, this is the funny guy”, or “ok, this is the black guy” without putting some blatant race/character types in there. Therefore, I was willing to live with the vernacular, the accent, the over-the-top behaviour, even the gold tooth (ok, maybe not the gold tooth). But the “I ain’t much into reading” is pushing it way over the boundary.

The belief that black people don’t read is steeped in one of worst, and most stupid, misconceptions that continues to exist in the world today. It basically implies that all black people are ignorant, and wouldn’t know what the marked thingies on the inside of a bound volume are if they came up and bitch-slapped them. It also caters to the belief that black people have no interest in improving themselves, and raising their level of knowledge. As the saying goes, knowledge is power. And what is the best source of knowledge? Books. Well, second best after the internet (according to some people), but that is another topic for another day. So, by having one of the only two black characters (who are already shady in their make-up), assert that he “ain’t much into reading” (Lord, even the grammar of the statement is deplorable), Michael Bay is maintaining that young black people are not interested in bettering themselves. He is perpetuating and even promoting the stereotype. And for those persons who would counter that this is typical of the modern hip-hop generation, I say bullshit. I know many ambitious young black persons who, while displaying many of the preconceived characteristics of The Twins, are part of the hip-hop generation, and who also go out of their way to gain as much knowledge as they possibly can. Nope, this is a purely racist stereotype.

But the real problem lies in the fact that this isn’t the first time that Michael Bay has slipped in this kind of nuanced bias. We all know the standing joke about black people in action/horror movies. If you are a black actor in a movie, pay your respects, and get a good friend to write your eulogy from the get-go. Because, chances are, you are not seeing past the half-hour mark. Hollywood has done a pretty ok job of combating this particular problem in recent years (after much bawling and complaining from minority groups). Michael Bay seems hell-bent on making sure it doesn’t die an easy death. In the movie adaptation of Miami Vice, Tubbs goes from being a best friend and true partner to Crocket in the series, to pretty much being his lackey in the movie. In the first Transformers movie, anyone remember what happened to Jazz, ostensibly, the only black Transformer in the movie? Yep, he’s the only Autobot who died. And fairly quickly in the final battle, too. And now, this. Anyone else see a pattern emerging?

Listen, I’m not expecting perfection from Hollywood. This isn’t a perfect world, and I don’t think we’re going to see ridiculous misconceptions about minorities disappear anytime soon. At the same time, I would hate to have to skip Transformers 3, just because Skids’ dumb ass still hasn’t figured out that it’s time to pick up a friggin’ book.

Soul Sound: Common - Be

The lyrics to this week's Soul Sound, says more than I ever could:

Common - Be

I want to be as free as the spirits of those who left
I'm talking Malcom, Coltrane, my man Yusef
Through death grew conception
New breath and resurrection
For moms, new steps in her direction
In the right way
Told inside is where the fight lay
And everything a nigga do may not be what he might say
Chicago nights stay, stay on the mind
But I write many lives they lay on these lines
Wave the signs of the times
Many say the grind's on the mind
Shorties blunted-eyed and everyone wanna rhyme
Bush pushing lies, killers immortalized
We got arms but won't reach for the skies
Waiting for the Lord to rise
I looked into my daughter's eyes
And realize that I'ma learn through her
The Messiah, might even return through her
If I'ma do it, I gotta change the world through her
Furs and a Benz, gramps wantin 'em
Demons and old friends, pops they hauntin' him
The chosen one from the land of the frozen sun
When drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones
Walk like warriors, we were never told to run
Explored the world to return to where my soul begun
Never looking back or too far in front of me
The present is a gift
and I just wanna BE

Soul Reasonings: ...On Writing Pt. 2

Ok, so here is the long awaited part 2 to the "On Writing" post. This one is a little disjointed, cuz I've been busy the past days, and unable to maintain a consistent flow. I'll try to clarify and edit it in future. Sorry folk...

Pt. 2

Time passed. I finished secondary school and worked for 2 years at a certain fallen financial giant. I went to college in the Atl (shawty). I made new friends, lived thru new experiences, and basically took life for what it was. I never wrote anything, and I never ventured more about myself than I was asked. I kept my love for reading though, and picked up a profound appreciation for poetry, especially spoken word. Sometime during my sophomore, I realized though that I had either lost my aptitude for writing, or I was so turned off and (for lack of a better word) traumatized by my experience that I simply was unable to write. Anything. I mean it. Simple short stories, simple verses, hell, even essays for class. I would start to write, and somewhere after in the middle of the second paragraph, the flow of words would simply dry up. The ideas and concepts would still be there, but they never seemed to be able to make it to the paper. My professors all kept telling me the same thing every time I handed in an assignment: "We can see your ideas, but the essay isn’t flowing. It’s jumbled.” I gave them fits. In their opinion, I was extremely intelligent, but could not transfer that intelligence to a piece of paper for shit. And they couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t know why (at the time) for that matter. And then, it started coming back. Not immediately, I still would not write even a note to myself for another 3 years, but the flow started coming back. I started back making up little rhymes in my head. I started doodling random sentences in the back of my notebooks. The funny thing is that as much as a traumatic experience took away my ability to create; an equally, if not, more traumatic experience brought it right back. In short, I met her.

Now, I’m not going to get into details about her. Trust me when I say that is an entire blog post on its own (actually, maybe 3… and a half). I will offer this much, in this space right now, just to give a general idea of the impact she had. We lived together for a year. I would say that 8 out of those 12 months constituted the hardest 8 months of my life, except for the fact that when we broke up; I went thru a 2 year depression that really wasn’t a depression. I was bitter. Hell, I was angry. I developed a razor-sharp tongue. I would lash out at friends and enemies alike. My mother pretty much left me alone, and when I finally did summon up the strength to open up about what happened, she (my mother) wanted to whup her ass (and my mother is/was the most non-violent person I know). I carried issues from my relationship with her, over to my next 2 relationships. This is 7 years later, and I’m still carrying some issues. I would refuse to discuss things that were visibly affecting me, passing them off as “nothing”. I only moved from arguably spitting on her if I ever saw her again, to just acting like I don’t know her, last year. They say there is a thin line between love and hate. I didn’t cross it, I long-jumped. And I never really spoke about it. Don’t get me wrong, I have my inner circle who I confide in, but even that didn’t seem to help. There was this rage that was just there, with nowhere to go. I would breakdown crying at night, not cuz I was sad and missed her. I was just that mad at her. Think of it as being brought over to the dark side. You can never really go back. In the space of 2 years, she had introduced me to feeling of true anger, jealousy, and obsession. And though, it may not be in your nature, once those emotions touch you, you never truly remove their presence or influence. But one good thing came out of that relationship. About a month afterward, I found a little blue notebook lying around the house. And I kept. And late one night, I wrote a single line in the middle of it: “I hate you.” I breathed a little, turned and went to sleep. And I slept a little better that night. Not much, but just enough to actually sleep soundly.

I still didn’t really write much after that night. The emotion conveyed in those 3 words scared the shit out of me. I had never dealt with the emotion “hate” before. But I couldn’t deny the fact that I had derived a very small amount of relief from just putting the words down on paper. A small weight had been shifted. But the mere fact that the emotion was out there, in the world, in a space that was something other than the confines of my mind was frightening. So I stopped. Again. Before I even really re-started. And I just continued to hold stuff in, not letting any of the pain, the hurt or the anger go. Until it cost me something I really valued, and it all came pouring out. I ranted and raved. I drank to excess. I smoked to excess. I leaned heavily on my friends for support. And none of it really helped. Then one day, I sat in front of my pc, I logged onto fb (Facebook, for the uninitiated), started a new note, and I wrote. And I wrote. I wrote without any real rhyme or reason. I just let it flow out, through me, and onto the screen. When I was done, I had about 1200 words of pure emotion and mostly random thoughts. You can still read it. It’s the very first posting on this blog. And you know what? I felt free when I was done. For however long that brief period of respite lasted, my mind was at ease. I had fought my demons, and won the battle. I lived to tell another day. It was a sweet release that I had never truly felt in all the late nights I had spent on friends’ porches, in all the bottles of JWB that I had downed, in all the packs of DuMaurier I had inhaled. I love my inner circle. They are my family. I only wish I could do as good a job of being there for them, as they are there for me. But that night, I truly had found the elixir to my wounds.

Since then, I have very slowly gotten back into the flow of writing regularly. I am glossing over a lot of moments, both major and minor, that contributed to my reaching this point. But this post, combined, is already over 2000 words long (I love word count), and I think some of the things that I would write about could be food for another rant or reminisce on another day. But, that day will come, and I hope that I will still derive the same joy, piece of mind and tranquility from staining parchment, with dye, and setting words (and my emotions with them) free

Soul Reasonings: On Writing...

Ok, so I'm splitting this one into 2 posts, cuz it's that long. I'll have the second part up tomorrow...

What makes someone pick up a pen and paper and begin lay their thoughts out in ink? What makes it so imperative that we get those thoughts out of our heads, and out into the open where anyone may see? What the hell is the inspiration behind these thoughts anyway, and what madness causes us to put them out there for anyone to see and critique? I can’t speak for anyone else, but the answer to the question is very simple for me. It is too complicated for me to simply say that writing allows me to vent in a way that nothing else does. It goes beyond that. It’s difficult to explain, but I will try.

When I was young I had an affinity for reading. While regular 4 and 5-year olds were running around raising all kinds of hell, I was the one always down in a book. Or at least that is what I was told. I do remember having a ridiculous collection of books on my bookshelf by the time I turned 7, and I remember having read the vast majority of them. And I’m not talking books of bedtime stories either. I had a children’s encyclopedia, “Tell Me Why”, “More Tell Me Why”, a children’s atlas, and a book of African folk tales, amongst the usual fare of the Enid Blyton, Famous Five, and the rest. In short, my imagination was never in danger of being starved. From primary school, I hated math, but I always showed a natural affiliation for creative writing. My essays were always near the top of the class, and I took a lot of pride in those accomplishments. This continued all the way through secondary school, until I hit form 5. And then I had the rug pulled out from under me.

When I hit form 5, I got assigned to a beast of a English teacher. For these purposes (cuz I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, and yes I heard he died some years ago), he shall be referred to as Mr. R. Anyway, Mr. R. was a very “by the book” English teacher. And I mean by the book. Your essay should have a clearly defined introduction; leading up to the body, and the conclusion should tie everything up neatly. Call it “writing by the numbers”. Anyway, needless to say, your stubborn and very naïve blogger decided that “writing by the numbers”, wasn’t for me. What the hell, I could write by the numbers in my sleep. So I went out and did my own thing, still based on the framework he gave us, but with my own structure. I wrote a complex story that started at the end, and then jumped back and showed how the protagonist ended up at that point. In retrospect, even though it was my best work up to that point (even other teachers I showed it to afterwards commended me on my creativity), I don’t know what the ass I thought was gonna happen. Well, he completely destroyed it. And I do mean completely. Actually, let me be specific, he destroyed my work, AND my confidence in my work with it.

It’s tough to grasp as a 15-year old what constructive criticism is, but you generally know it if you see/hear it. You may not like it, but at least you can live with it. I have yet to hear one piece of constructive criticism from that day. I remember being called a “fantasy writer” whose work was fit for a “bullshit Mills-and-Boon novel”. And that is an exact quote. (There was a romantic element in the story, but I really didn’t develop it. Come on. It was a 500-word essay for class). I was in shock. This wasn’t getting a boof in class, for doing an assignment wrong. This was pure vitriol being spewed. A liming pardner even asked if I did the man something. I poured over that story for days afterwards. And then, quite simply, I shut down. And by shutting down, I mean I stopped writing. Completely. You could quicker get me to write an expositive essay on the shittings, rather than write another story. (I think I also may have set a new school record for detentions received due to skipped homework assignments afterwards, but I don’t have the empirical evidence to back that up). But something else also happened. I stopped expressing myself.

Now, let it be known that I have never been the most talkative person about what’s going on in the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind. No-one is really, I think. But I raised it to an art form. You would quicker get a 10-minute diatribe on the merits and values of the “N” word, than hear me say one peep about how my day went. That’s just how I was. I simply did not like to talk about myself very much. The one place I could just let myself go was through my writing. It was my release. Though, I was ok-to-good in a lot of things, my writing was the one thing I believed I truly excelled at. So I used it as my voice. And then one day, I was told quite brutally, that the one thing I thought I was really, really good at, I really wasn’t shit at it. Actually, I was bullshit. If someone tells you the voice you use to let yourself be heard is no good, you tend to take that seriously. Especially, if it's someone in a position of authority. More so, if your pee has only been frothing for like the past 2-3 years...

Soul Reasonings: Weary Words from A Weary Soul

I haven’t written in a minute, for a number of reasons. I have been studying, I have been working on an article for a friend for the longest period of time imaginable (I will post that here too, assuming it gets done this lifetime), but mainly because some things shook me to my core this week. This one isn’t going to be elegant treatise on the myriad interpretations and meanings given to language, largely held to be taboo. No, this is pure emotion, needing a release point, and possibly finding in this space. This is my venting ground.

I was put into a strange and uncomfortable situation some days ago. It wasn’t strange, in the sense that it was unfamiliar. It was strange, in the sense of “how the fuck did I end up back here.” And then it just moved from being strange, to just being downright painful. Let’s paint a very vague caricature of the scene. You go out with a group of friends. One of them holds more significance to the rest due to the fact that you were involved once. Some time has passed since then, and you believe you are fine, though secretly, you know you still hold very strong feelings for this person. Yet, out of respect for them, you have stopped trying to pursue what you once had, and have tried to move on. You have even succeeded to a certain point. It’s just going to be a fun night with good friends. Then it all goes awry. Everyone gets drunk to varying degrees. From “I’m nice, but I have to drive folk home, so let me start chugging club soda from now”, to flat out wasted. Your “special friend” is in your car, so you’re trying to be responsible. Now in all my years of drinking (to excess a lot of time), I have stumbled upon a very funny fact. Alcohol is quite an effective truth serum. If you have had sufficient quantities, in the right mix too, you will most probably act an ass, and you won’t remember the vast majority of it the next day, but I guarantee that anything that exits your mouth will be a pretty close approximation of the truth. You may get some hyperbole in there, but basically, you’re incapable of lying. And with that setting, came my pain.

My special friend was one of those sliding towards the “I’m wasted” side of the scale. On the ride home, I was subjected to a line of questioning and statements that moved from amusing, to strangely reminiscent, to downright painful. It is a truly exquisite (and not the “good” exquisite either) form of pain to have someone tell you things you want to hear, no, pined to hear, but you cannot take any of to heart. Why? Because they’re DRUNK. Remember that part about alcohol and hyperbole? In essence, you cannot hold them to anything they said. Because I’m almost certain you were never supposed to know in the first place. Let’s examine that for a second. The one thing you probably aren’t supposed to know, is the same thing that you really want to know, but you know now, yet you can’t really acknowledge that you know, because you aren’t supposed to know. And so life moves on in its own little circle. Except for me, who now has deal with old wounds that have been opened anew, and fresh pain from old sources.

I’m not blaming my friend for my issues. She is entitled to live her life without having to worry about how it affects anyone else. I’ve done a semi-ok job this week of hiding my hurt behind false smiles and excuses of being tired. I haven’t drunk like this since carnival weekend, and my smoking has hit an all time high. I have gone to sleep early and awoken the next morning feeling more tired than I was the night before. I have thrown myself into my studies, and my work, so that my mind won’t have any opportunity to wander. And in all of this, I just keep trying to push those old emotions back to where they came from. Cuz this is what I do best. I don’t deal with my shit, I rise above it, right? Right????

I guess till then, I’ll drink my sorrows away. Just don’t ask me any fucking questions if you meet me while I’m drinking.

Soul Sounds: Lupe Fiasco "Hurt Me Soul"

It’s week 2 of the Soul Sounds segment, and the spotlight is once again on the words of Wasalu Mohammed Jaco, better known as Lupe Fiasco. The song this week, “Hurt Me Soul” comes from his first album “Food & Liquor”. (I forgot to mention that last week’s song came from his second album “The Cool”). The “Food & Liquor” album, in my humble opinion” should go down as one of the most important rap albums of all time. The young man immediately placed himself alongside such noted rap luminaries as Black Thought and Chuck D. The album presents social commentary, with out directly commenting the ills that plague our society. Instead, the artist allows the stories he weaves to make their own statements. “Hurt Me Soul” is a classic example of this phenomenon. It will be interesting to see where he proceeds from here, but the future is promising. And btw, it hurts me soul AND me head, when I hit up message boards and forums, and some young, dumb buck jumps in, outta timing, with the opening salvo: “Lupe (or whoeva else) ain’t got sh*t on Soulja Boy (or Lil Wayne).” God, I hate ignant people…(HA! Thought I was gonna use the N-word, didn’t ya…)

Lupe Fiasco - Hurts Me Soul lyrics

Now I ain't tryna be the greatest
I used to hate hip-hop... yup, because the women degraded
But Too $hort made me laugh, like a hypocrite I played it
A hypocrite I stated, though I only recited half
Omittin the word "bitch," cursin I wouldn't say it
Me and dog couldn't relate, til a bitch I dated
Forgive my favorite word for hers and hers alike
But I learnt it from a song I heard and sorta liked
Yeah, for the icin, glamorized drug dealin was appealin
But the block club kept it from in front of our buildin
Gangsta rap-based filmings became the buildin blocks
For children with leakin ceilings, catchin drippins with pots
Coupled with compositions from Pac, Nas's "It Was Written"
In the mix with my realities and feelings
Living conditions, religion, ignorant wisdom and artistic vision
I began to jot, tap the world and listen, it drop

My mom can't feed me, my boyfriend beats me
I have sex for money, the hood don't love me
The cops wanna kill me, this nonsense built me
And I got no place to go
They bomb my village, they call us killers
Took me off they welfare, can't afford they health care
My teacher won't teach me, my master beats me
And it hurts me soul

I had a ghetto boy bop, a Jay-Z boycott
'Cause he said that he never prayed to God, he prayed to Gotti
I'm thinkin golly, God guard me from the ungodly
But by my 30th watchin of "Streets is Watchin"
I was back to givin props again and that was botherin
About as uncomfortable as a untouchable touchin you
The theme songs that niggas hustle to seem wrong but these songs was comin true
And it was all becoming cool
I found a condom on the ground that Johns would cum into and thought
What constitutes a prostitute is the pursuit of profit then they drop it
The homie in a suit pat her on the butt, then rock it
It seems I was seein the same scene adopted
Prevalent in different things with the witnesses indifferent to stop it
They said don't knock it, mind ya business
His business isn't mine and that nigga pimpin got it

They took my daughter, we ain't got no water
I can't get hired, they cross on fire
We all got suspended, I just got sentenced
So I got no place to go
They threw down my gang sign, I ain't got no hang time
They talk about my sneakers, poisoned our leader
My father ain't seen me, turn off my TV
'Cause it hurts me soul

So through the Grim Reaper sickle sharpening
Macintosh marketing
Oil field augering
Brazilian adolescent disarmament
Israeli occupation
Islamic martyrdom, precise
Yeah, laser guided targeting
Oil for food, water, and terrorist organization harborin
Sand camouflage army men
CCF sponsorin, world conquerin, telephone monitorin
Louis Vuitton modelin, pornographic actress honorin
String theory ponderin, bullimic vomitin
Catholic priest fondlin, pre-emptive bombin and Osama and no bombin them
They breakin in my car again, deforestation and overloggin and
Hennessy and Hypnotic swallowin, hydroponic coffin and
All the world's ills, sittin on chrome 24-inch wheels, like that

They say I'm infected, this is why I injected
I had it aborted, we got deported
My laptop got spyware, they say that I can't lie here
But I got no place to go
I can't stop eatin, my best friend's leavin
My pastor touched me, I love this country
I lost my earpiece, I hope y'all hear me
'Cause it hurts me soul

I like the ambition... Go Real...

Soul Reasonings: The N Word

Coming out of this week “Soul Sounds” is a small discussion I have been meaning to open for awhile. The Spotless Cussbud and I have engaged in a couple of heated debates over the use of the word “nigga”. Over many house limes and glasses of scotch, The Curious Mouth (of “Bring It To The Table” fame) and I have also had conversations along similar lines. They are both of the steadfast opinion that the “N” word needs to disappear (TSC more so than TCM). I hold the more moderate view that, though derogatory, it does hold a valid place in our vocabulary. (In short, I do use it, but I’m cutting back. Drastically.) This place just needs to be very carefully and clearly defined. Now, please note that I am not advocating the existence of this word in everyday vernacular. I acknowledge that it is very offensive in nature. But I also believe that the word serves to describe a very visible and real subset of society.

So, we all know where the word gets it roots from. If you don’t know, wikipedia.org will do a better job of bringing you up to date than I can. 50% of people get offended simply by its use. The other 50% could offend you with simply the sheer volume in which they use it. I don’t necessarily fall into either category, because I simply think the word is being used in the wrong syntax. If I call you a “nigga”, trust me, I am not your friend, and I am not bestowing you with compliments. I am classing you with a breed of people who do nothing other than cause me endless heartache and embarrassment: ignant black people. And I did not misspell. Trust me, I wrote this in MS Word first, and my spell-check is on. Right now, there is an angry, red, squiggly line staring at me. Ignorant means “quick to anger”, or “lacking in knowledge”. I mean ignant.

Now, let’s examine what the word “ignant” means. By doing this, you will see what I mean when I refer to “nigga” behaviour, and thus come full circle to the type of person I am referring to, when I call someone by this moniker. “Ignant”, in my opinion, is the antonym of “classy”, or even common sense. “Ignant” is sitting down in your office, around your co-workers, and discussing in a loud voice over the phone that thing your man did to you last night (be it good, bad or indifferent). “Ignant” is arguing with the cashier at Burger King for 15 minutes, that you want chicken fries as your side order, when she is explaining to you quite clearly that it is a premium item. (True story, though the cashier got so frustrated that she acquiesced. Maybe I should try that some time. But I digress). “Ignant” is crying that your daughter died a virgin, when she just got stabbed to death in a fight over a man. (That one is also just plain sad on many levels, social, emotional and common sensical. And yes, I made up sensical).

Being “ignant” (aka “nigga” behaviour) goes beyond just random acts. It’s the attitude that makes it ok for us to refer to women as hoes, sluts and bitches. It’s the belief that a college education is overrated because you either think it is a waste of time, or that you “keeping it real” (Note: I am willing to understand if you tell me college isn’t for everyone, or that shit happened, and you never got the chance. But at least try to bullshit me). It’s the belief that the guy who gets up every morning to hit his 8-4:30 (we in Trinidad, unless you have flexitime, 9-5 don’t exist), is a fool and an ass, because he is trying earn an honest day’s pay. Conversely, it is the belief that you never had the chance the first guy did, so you’re going to rob him, because you gotta live/feed yuh family. When you both went the same schools, and had the same opportunities. “Nigga” behaviour gave us Soulja Boy and the “Superman”! (Ok, end rant.) And by the way, this behaviour is not limited to only black people. It just irks me the most because black people always seem to have the most to lose, yet this type of bullshit seems to be most prevalent amongst us. And no, it isn’t our culture either.

I end with this: the word “nigga” isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. While I agree with the Spotless Cussbud and the Curious Mouth that it is offensive (to a point), I do think that it has its place. We just need to look at what that place is. And stop being niggas while we’re at it.