Finals week is here and I'm in a mad panic. Lots to do, little time to play with so I thought I'd just post something I found doing ... umm... some ...umm.... research? for school. You know how it is with umm...professors. They're always ... always stressing about research and studying... and ummm...things of that nature. Soooo I hope you find it as educational as I did.
http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/index.html
I would say more but as you can see, I'm spending my time doing some serious work so I'll see you when I'll see you which will be after I'm done doing all my important work .... and research!
Peace
Lose this day loitering, 'Twill be the same story Tomorrow -- and the next more dilatory. Then indecision brings its own delays, and days are lost lamenting overdays! Are you ernest? Seize this very minute! What you can do, or dream you can - begin it! Courage has genius, power and magic in it. Only engage, and the mind grows heated. Begin it, and the work will be completed.-- Goethe
Damn you Goethe! Can't a brother get a break!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
My thoughts...
within the cacophony of vacant questions
arises the suspicion of meaning in it all
it is true the walls that have held you safe
have made you both master and slave alike
if ever you should break and set free your own
if questions find anwers and meaning is known
let life raise itself never again
walls to contain, a master and his pain.
Spook E
within the cacophony of vacant questions
arises the suspicion of meaning in it all
it is true the walls that have held you safe
have made you both master and slave alike
if ever you should break and set free your own
if questions find anwers and meaning is known
let life raise itself never again
walls to contain, a master and his pain.
Spook E
Saturday, April 14, 2007
My "-isms"
lets see... i hate looking at mirrors! no i'm not superstitious, i just really don't like to look at my face, I keep critiquing it.
I can't stand that kid in class (and theres always one, two if you're cursed) who makes it his sole purpose to answer even the most redundant questions in class. i mean lets be honest, professors sometimes ask question that have answers so obvious, our silence should resonate as a collective "well, DUH!". the kid asks questions and in the same breath, answers them and after class he practically has his lips suctioned to the professors ass. damn it, if i had a dollar for everytime i wanted to rip out his tounge and make him eat it!
I am very shy when i'm surrounded by a lot of people that i don't know. i feel like everyone is looking and pointing, like that dream where you show up to school in your birthday suit and your teachers and classmates are in hysterics. you stand there, fool that you are, wondering how in Gods name you could be in such a hurry as to forget putting clothes on - well if you haven't had that dream "mr. well-adjusted", WHATEVER!!. in situations like that, i feel like evaporating. its even affected the way i walk. i've heard that i walk as though i have something between my cheeks, that i lean forward way too much it looks like i'm about to tip over, i'm too stiff or i walk too fast. i mean at this point, i really don't know how to walk anymore. i'm constantly adjusting and correcting and checking my posture and sticking my ass in a little and proping my shoulders a little higher and ... *breathe* ... moving on
I have also been made aware (by my cousin almost a decade younger) that i have " no style sense". now i'll admit, i haven't shopped for more than 5 items of clothing in ...maybe 2 years ... give or take a couple months (damn that sounds bad). I know, i know, thats soooooo not gay but i'm trying, i bought a couple of T-shirts on my way to the barber the other day coz they were 20% off and fell well within the amount of change i happened to have in my wallet. The problem - if you want to call it that, is I just don't see the point in spending money that way. i mean my clothes are clean, they're cool ... well at least to me and if anyone disagrees..well, they don't matter anyway. I like my style and it may not be whats hot now but who the F cares about whats hot, I make my own heat!
I watched flavor of love, flavor of love 2 and I love New york.... oh man i'm embarrassed just saying it but its true, I watched and laughed and took a long shower afterwards.
To Be Continued...
I can't stand that kid in class (and theres always one, two if you're cursed) who makes it his sole purpose to answer even the most redundant questions in class. i mean lets be honest, professors sometimes ask question that have answers so obvious, our silence should resonate as a collective "well, DUH!". the kid asks questions and in the same breath, answers them and after class he practically has his lips suctioned to the professors ass. damn it, if i had a dollar for everytime i wanted to rip out his tounge and make him eat it!
I am very shy when i'm surrounded by a lot of people that i don't know. i feel like everyone is looking and pointing, like that dream where you show up to school in your birthday suit and your teachers and classmates are in hysterics. you stand there, fool that you are, wondering how in Gods name you could be in such a hurry as to forget putting clothes on - well if you haven't had that dream "mr. well-adjusted", WHATEVER!!. in situations like that, i feel like evaporating. its even affected the way i walk. i've heard that i walk as though i have something between my cheeks, that i lean forward way too much it looks like i'm about to tip over, i'm too stiff or i walk too fast. i mean at this point, i really don't know how to walk anymore. i'm constantly adjusting and correcting and checking my posture and sticking my ass in a little and proping my shoulders a little higher and ... *breathe* ... moving on
I have also been made aware (by my cousin almost a decade younger) that i have " no style sense". now i'll admit, i haven't shopped for more than 5 items of clothing in ...maybe 2 years ... give or take a couple months (damn that sounds bad). I know, i know, thats soooooo not gay but i'm trying, i bought a couple of T-shirts on my way to the barber the other day coz they were 20% off and fell well within the amount of change i happened to have in my wallet. The problem - if you want to call it that, is I just don't see the point in spending money that way. i mean my clothes are clean, they're cool ... well at least to me and if anyone disagrees..well, they don't matter anyway. I like my style and it may not be whats hot now but who the F cares about whats hot, I make my own heat!
I watched flavor of love, flavor of love 2 and I love New york.... oh man i'm embarrassed just saying it but its true, I watched and laughed and took a long shower afterwards.
To Be Continued...
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Sounding Off!
Just had to say something about the Don Imus/Rutgers womens basketball mess. I am a firm believer in free speech, I think that's the one of the most appealing things to me about America, the right to speak regardless of one's opinions but I also feel we hold a responsiblitly for whatever rolls off our tongues into listening ears. I was very angered by what Imus said particularly because I am a Rutgers student and I know first hand the pride that the womens basketball team has brought to us all in the collegiate community. These girls overcame many odds in reaching the NCAA finals and were the first team, not the first female basketball team, but the very first team in the schools history (spanning over 200 years) to play in a national championship game of any kind. Very little has been made of that over the last week, very little in my opinion in New Jersey and even more surprising, in Rutgers and I say this because not too long ago, the school was in full "scarlet fever" living and dying with every play made by the Football team who eventually managed a minor bowl berth.
As I said before, I support every individuals right to speak regardless of what is being said which is why I'm not supporting Al Sharpton's push to have Imus' microphone permanently turned off. I believe that having listeners turn away from his broadcast or advertisers cut campaigns from his program will send a clear enough message that whatever you say, in whatever context will be held to a certain standard of decency.
While we're chastizing Imus for his comments (Al Sharpton and co) what is to be said of black run magazines, black entertainment television studios, even black operated radio stations continuing to support the DMX's, Snoops, Eminems and venerate the Tu Pac's and Biggie Smalls all of whom profit from their defamatory and degrading music. Don't we have any responsibilies whatsoever for how we represent ourselves seeing that now, in the present, we do have some leverage and some power to do so. If Al Sharpton will crusade in equal measure against mysognistic and homophobic representations from the black community with as much fervor as he does against the Micheal Richards and Don Imus' of Ameica, maybe this will hit more of a nerve amongst everyone especially those who from their high thrones of power will not ... or maybe cannot understand how deep the roots of white supremacist ideology have sunk in the minds of many black and white americans.
What hurts me so much when I hear discussions of black people in america is the blatant unwillingness of many white americans (and some other minorities) to look back on a sordid history that is as much thiers as it is black america's. Weather black people or white people want to admit it or not, they have shaped each other. Without the white man, there would be no negro american, and without the negro american, america would never have become the democracy it prides itself in today. Then why is it we can't help each other look back as a way to move forward. where are the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks Baldwin spoke of, why haven't they multiplied since. How is it that many white people can look me in the face and say its no different when a white person uses the N word as opposed to when a black person uses it. There is a world of different between Don Imus calling a bunch of mostly black girls in college "nappy-headed hos" than say if Dave Chappelle said so and yes, its because one is white and the other black. I make no justification of the use of such derogatory characterizations because there is none but the difference is there and you'd see it if you only opened your eyes to the true nature of your past. If you would only see that throughout history, the image of the african america has always been fashioned for him and not by him and he (the black american) has never had the power to either resist or control these images. Thats where the hurt comes from, that why black leaders and all conscionable people of any ethnicity ought to be outraged. Lets start by seeing that much and we can begin to see why hopelessness pervades the ghettos or why black men are locked up in jail in high numbers, why many young black men find a role model in 50 cent as opposed to Obama and why black on black crime is on the rise.
I'm sorry, I didn't intend to go on this long or this far off tangent but I'm mad...a bunch of young, classy ladies who have decided to do positive things with thier lives and are doing it and doing it as well as anyone who has ever done it before them, have been subject to racist barbs dressed up as "comedy" by old men who ought to know better. I hope this sets up some dialogue within the black community that you cannot continue to scrutinize others more intensely that you do yourself without running the risk of sounding hypocritical. An even greater leap of ... hope will be that we will all examine our past in order to understand why things are ordered like they are today.
:-) Hey I can dream...chances both these things will happen is slim to nil. GO RU WOMEN"S BASKETBALL ... maybe thats all that needs to be said. Sorry for all the typos and fragmented thoughts and what-nots, all this just poured out all at once.
As I said before, I support every individuals right to speak regardless of what is being said which is why I'm not supporting Al Sharpton's push to have Imus' microphone permanently turned off. I believe that having listeners turn away from his broadcast or advertisers cut campaigns from his program will send a clear enough message that whatever you say, in whatever context will be held to a certain standard of decency.
While we're chastizing Imus for his comments (Al Sharpton and co) what is to be said of black run magazines, black entertainment television studios, even black operated radio stations continuing to support the DMX's, Snoops, Eminems and venerate the Tu Pac's and Biggie Smalls all of whom profit from their defamatory and degrading music. Don't we have any responsibilies whatsoever for how we represent ourselves seeing that now, in the present, we do have some leverage and some power to do so. If Al Sharpton will crusade in equal measure against mysognistic and homophobic representations from the black community with as much fervor as he does against the Micheal Richards and Don Imus' of Ameica, maybe this will hit more of a nerve amongst everyone especially those who from their high thrones of power will not ... or maybe cannot understand how deep the roots of white supremacist ideology have sunk in the minds of many black and white americans.
What hurts me so much when I hear discussions of black people in america is the blatant unwillingness of many white americans (and some other minorities) to look back on a sordid history that is as much thiers as it is black america's. Weather black people or white people want to admit it or not, they have shaped each other. Without the white man, there would be no negro american, and without the negro american, america would never have become the democracy it prides itself in today. Then why is it we can't help each other look back as a way to move forward. where are the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks Baldwin spoke of, why haven't they multiplied since. How is it that many white people can look me in the face and say its no different when a white person uses the N word as opposed to when a black person uses it. There is a world of different between Don Imus calling a bunch of mostly black girls in college "nappy-headed hos" than say if Dave Chappelle said so and yes, its because one is white and the other black. I make no justification of the use of such derogatory characterizations because there is none but the difference is there and you'd see it if you only opened your eyes to the true nature of your past. If you would only see that throughout history, the image of the african america has always been fashioned for him and not by him and he (the black american) has never had the power to either resist or control these images. Thats where the hurt comes from, that why black leaders and all conscionable people of any ethnicity ought to be outraged. Lets start by seeing that much and we can begin to see why hopelessness pervades the ghettos or why black men are locked up in jail in high numbers, why many young black men find a role model in 50 cent as opposed to Obama and why black on black crime is on the rise.
You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself. Jame Baldwin
I'm sorry, I didn't intend to go on this long or this far off tangent but I'm mad...a bunch of young, classy ladies who have decided to do positive things with thier lives and are doing it and doing it as well as anyone who has ever done it before them, have been subject to racist barbs dressed up as "comedy" by old men who ought to know better. I hope this sets up some dialogue within the black community that you cannot continue to scrutinize others more intensely that you do yourself without running the risk of sounding hypocritical. An even greater leap of ... hope will be that we will all examine our past in order to understand why things are ordered like they are today.
:-) Hey I can dream...chances both these things will happen is slim to nil. GO RU WOMEN"S BASKETBALL ... maybe thats all that needs to be said. Sorry for all the typos and fragmented thoughts and what-nots, all this just poured out all at once.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Daddy dearest
I don't write a lot of poetry ... I wish I did. There's a saying - all men are poets at heart, and I agree with it. I think its part of our natural arsenal for appealing to women ... its our softer side.
Today I was thinking about my relationship with my dad ... I suppose I was doing that because his birthday is coming up soon and the guy is edging closer to grandpa status, he'll be 80 in about 7 years!! My grandma was 77 when I was born so for me anyone around that age is a qualified geriatric. We have a fairly amiable relationship, he was a good father because he was a good provider, we never lacked anything. I feel all that work, all his promotions and his celebrity-like clout carved a divide between us ... he was there but certainly not in the emotional way you'd expect. We hardly spoke to each other beyond the dinner table and even there, our interactions felt mechanical, the way you might interact with your boss's boss, everything done and every word spoken carefully and deliberately within boundaries set by professional etiquette.
In many ways, I can't remember him in my childhood. We scarcely did anything together...there was that one time when he took me to the zoo and to see the ships at the dockyard. I remember feeling important in his eyes and at that time it meant the world ... then again, I had begged him for months for that trip, but that didn't matter. He'd made out time to do nothing else but take me out.
In all the years I knew my dad, I never saw him hug another man, and the only time I sensed any kind of deep emotion besides anger was the night he told me my mother passed. He cried, he wouldn't let me see it but heck I knew he did ... I heard the sniffling and I saw his shoulders tremble. There's an emotional disconnect that exists between many gay men and their fathers, I believe this because I've heard stories like mine told before ... maybe it's because we (and I mean gay men) are more intune with our softer side, we expect from our fathers a gentleness that is beyond their reason to give.
I wonder sometimes like I did when I wrote the four lines below what his reaction will be on that day when he'll be confronted with my sexuality. He'll freak out I know, but beyond that I really can't say for sure ... maybe that'll be the thing that breaks that divide into a fathomless chasm, maybe he'll come around and learn to accept me because he loves his son. I've fashioned my mind to prepare for the worst but I have a feeling nothing on heaven or earth can prepare me for that uncertain day.
To my father
If I came to you with my hallowed truth
of the love I seek from able men.
If that truth do not your dreams fulfill,
could I come to you again?
I'll write another verse again and again until I feel this poem is complete.
Today I was thinking about my relationship with my dad ... I suppose I was doing that because his birthday is coming up soon and the guy is edging closer to grandpa status, he'll be 80 in about 7 years!! My grandma was 77 when I was born so for me anyone around that age is a qualified geriatric. We have a fairly amiable relationship, he was a good father because he was a good provider, we never lacked anything. I feel all that work, all his promotions and his celebrity-like clout carved a divide between us ... he was there but certainly not in the emotional way you'd expect. We hardly spoke to each other beyond the dinner table and even there, our interactions felt mechanical, the way you might interact with your boss's boss, everything done and every word spoken carefully and deliberately within boundaries set by professional etiquette.
In many ways, I can't remember him in my childhood. We scarcely did anything together...there was that one time when he took me to the zoo and to see the ships at the dockyard. I remember feeling important in his eyes and at that time it meant the world ... then again, I had begged him for months for that trip, but that didn't matter. He'd made out time to do nothing else but take me out.
In all the years I knew my dad, I never saw him hug another man, and the only time I sensed any kind of deep emotion besides anger was the night he told me my mother passed. He cried, he wouldn't let me see it but heck I knew he did ... I heard the sniffling and I saw his shoulders tremble. There's an emotional disconnect that exists between many gay men and their fathers, I believe this because I've heard stories like mine told before ... maybe it's because we (and I mean gay men) are more intune with our softer side, we expect from our fathers a gentleness that is beyond their reason to give.
I wonder sometimes like I did when I wrote the four lines below what his reaction will be on that day when he'll be confronted with my sexuality. He'll freak out I know, but beyond that I really can't say for sure ... maybe that'll be the thing that breaks that divide into a fathomless chasm, maybe he'll come around and learn to accept me because he loves his son. I've fashioned my mind to prepare for the worst but I have a feeling nothing on heaven or earth can prepare me for that uncertain day.
To my father
If I came to you with my hallowed truth
of the love I seek from able men.
If that truth do not your dreams fulfill,
could I come to you again?
I'll write another verse again and again until I feel this poem is complete.
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