Why Is The Sky So Damn Blue?!

I don't recomend driving from Greenville, NC to Atlanta late at night when you have to go to work in the morning. It's not a recipe for success. Matter of fact it will f$*# up your whole day. I guarantee it.

I opened my eyes and could not get up. Bad enough the immigrant I hired to set my alarm decided to take off and protest for today. I had to be woke up by all the ambient light coming through the blinds. (Why don't I have any damn curtains?) Nothing has been right.

The mouthwash burned my mouth more than usual, the water pressure in the shower was weaker than I remember. Why are all my socks so damn white? Who folded my shirts so nice and damn neat? What was i thinking by putting a bright ass light bulb in the closet? I have to go downstairs to fix breakfast? I reached in to get some waffles and the damn pack was unopened. So I had to open the pack of waffles and fix them.

I turn on the TV to see all the newcasters are right where they are supposed to be smiling and telling me how the world is falling apart all around me. The channel however is set to B E f#&$^!n T. BET always works my nerves. I hate BET. BET is to MTV what McDowell's was to McDonald's in Coming to America. Only its not full of colorful characters and its not anywhere near as funny. It wasn't bad enough that they unleashed argueablly to 2 worse reality shows on the world (College Hill and Countdown to Lockdown) and they had some of the worse host on any network at any given time for like the past 10 years (Ray J?!), but now it comes out that they want to be completely unoriginal and hit us with the new reality show centered around DMX and Keisha Cole. DMX AND KEISHA COLE?! Where the hell did this come from? Who out there demanded to see crazy ass DMX in a show? Who in their right mind asked for a Keisha Cole show? Keisha Cole?! What has she ever done to deserve a show? I can answer that one NOTHING!!! It makes no sense.

It really irritates me when things don't make sense. How could they tell Mary J Blige it was cool for her to rap under a different name in her song, knowing she is a wack rapper? How did Bucky make it to the final 12 on American Idol and not Gideon?

I'm not one of those guys running around screaming to the rooftops about the order of the universe, the golden ratio (1.61803398874989...), and all that jazz. Things should make sense though. Atleast a little bit of sense. Atleast for today.

Bomb Squad Gansta Clik Vol 412: Steady Bombin'

USAToday did a nice size article on the mixtape business. They profiled Clue and DJ Drama. They talked about how the record companies have shifted strategies to the point that you HAVE to put out a hot mixtape to be picked up. It's become necessary. 50 Cent set the bar when he flooded the market with tapes and kicked off his career.

This morning in USAToday they profiled the undisputed all time king of underground mixtapes. This man has used his tapes and dvd's to give him an unprecedented amount of celebrity. He has whole government all over the world devoting billions of dollars to shut down his operation. They can't stop it. He won't stop it.

*sounds of an explosion*
Training Day clip "I watched that cock sucker operate with impunity for 15 years and I got him!!"
*more explosion, army gibberish over walkies*
"This sh*t is chess, it ain't checkers!!"
*more explosions*
dj lays down some ill scratches
"king-king-k-k-k-k king kong aint got sh*t- ain't got sh*t on m- me- me"
*50 Cent clip* Them Iraq niggaz are ROWDY ROWDY!
Them Afghan niggaz are some ROWDY NIGGAZ!
Al-Qaeda is the f*&#n ROWDYIEST!
*Jay Z clip* "Niggaz kick dirt get your whole block sweeped up!!"
*army gibberish* " He's not here" "Find Osama Bin-B-B-B-Bin Bin Laden"

Every couple of months like clock work, Big Bin aka the Desert Ninja aka Mr Invisible aka Bin Mutha F#*%*n Laden has another tape on the streets. It's crazy because all the reports at one time suggested his health was failing and he had to have a dialysis machine with him. He is still spitting hate and inspiring all the up and coming terrorist to keep their heads up. It's ridiculous that he's still alive. If he did mastermind 9/11 why haven't we caught this guy? He's good. I'll give him that.

Outside of catching him, I wonder how it would work if we STOP PLAYING THE DAMN TAPES!! Stop broadcasting the damn things to the whole world. Don't give this guy anymore shine. He get 80 spins a day!!

I think America loves Bin Laden. We love him because since the fall of Communism we have not had a visible thing we could look to as an enemy. We are against global warming, against all kinds of abstract injustices, (kinda against racism) but we need someone to but on a poster or a bumper sticker with the big red x on his face, that we can hate in public without judgment. Until we get someone new to hate, be looking out for Bomb Squad Gansta Clik Vol 413: Ride and Die.

Mr. Media

Al Sharpton made a funny comment on the media on his show Sharp Talk.

He said he was talking to Jesse Jackson when he was running for president. Jesse said he was out on his boat when he saw the Pope in another boat. The Pope's boat was sinking. Jesse got out his boat and walked on the water over to the Pope. He picked him up and walked on the water back over to his boat. The next day the newspaper headline was "Jesse Jackson Can't Swim".

I'm not an Al Sharpton fan per se, but he has some good stuff to say sometimes. I thought that was pretty funny and poignant. As much as I depend on the news to keep up with what's going on in the world I have to keep reminding myself how slanted it can be. I think they call it spin. They present a story in a way that directs it to a particular audience. Boost up this fact, downplay the importance of that one. Not that I think they are making it up. More like selective editing. Nothing wrong with that.

The Duke rape case is an example. Unfortunately this case is kind of a basic everyday rape case. It happens way too often. Woman says she was raped by drunken, violent men. Men deny. Take that basic premise, add a prestigious university sports team. Make the woman black, the men white. Turn her from a black woman to a black stripper and a mother in a local historically black university. Mix with three parts public election season, two parts money for well paid, aggressive defense attorneys and one part negative DNA tests. Bake on high in a pressure cooker of racial and social implications in a city that already struggles with the same issues on a regular basis. Serve over a hot bed of various agendas and you've got the mess they have up there.

The central issue should be whether or not the woman was forced to have sex against her will. They have made it into a public trashing on both sides with sensational headlines and lots of presumptions and damnation. The media loves the underhanded comments, the leaks of information, the pandering, the whole spectacle it has become. I can't say the same.

"You Got a Little Something for Me?"

Perception is reality.

The big city is the land of milk and honey. A lot of wealth and opportunity are concentrated in the shadows of high rises and business centers. Walking down the streets of Atlanta I percieve a lot of homeless people. Barely getting by in our capitalist society. They stroll up and down the streets eeking out their livings on donations of food and "tips" from performing menial, sometimes degrading, tasks.

My friend has grown immune to them. She like most other people have walked by the street dwellers multiple times a day, everyday she goes to work. It's a shock to come from a small town and see a man not living at an acceptible level. You look at his clothes which he's probably been wearing for a while, they are filthy. Unshaved. Ungroomed. You figure he's uneducated from the way he talks. Unsocialized from the way he approaches people. When I first saw that I was put off. I asked myself what could have happened in his life to lead him here? I concocted all kinds of scenarios in my mind to explain it.

Maybe he was one of those factory workers that dropped out of middle school to refine steel when he was ten. He worked for years in the mills 12 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week. After 20 years the factory closes leaving him unemployed, unable to use the one skill he had developed in his lifetime, and suffering from years of exposure to dangerous toxin that have ravaged his body. After losing his wife and kids in a horrible accident, and lost in a world that has passed him by several times over, he turned to his best friend Jack and has been unable to recover. How could I not help my brother after everything he's been through? I give him 2 dollars and say "Stay up, brother"

The next time I see him it's the same thing. Same clothes, same smell, same knappy beard. I'm not as shocked this time. So maybe his wife and kids didn't die in a horrible accident. Maybe his wife left him after he lost his job. That's still bad. I give him a dollar and say "Be easy, man."

Remember perception is reality. Perception is warped by experience. My pops always told me you have to do for yourself and never give up. My mother showed me you have to work and do what you have to do to make it in life. My life has been struggle after struggle. Hard choices and long, harder days but I kept going to get what I have. In my perception of the world everybody should be doing the same.

Everyday I see this guy, same clothes, same breath, same ashy, dirty hands, I feel less and less sympathy. In my mind he goes from a victim of life and circumstance looking for a little relief from the storm to a lazy, drunk with no desire to do anything with his life harassing me for money...again... for the 1000th time.

It isn't right to feel like that. I should have more tolerance for people. I should open my heart to the less fortunate. but when I see dude, at the Underground, at Lennox, outside the High Museum, in Decatur, in Buckhead, he's damn everywhere! I blame him for his situation. He should spend that same energy he spends begging to get a job and do something with himself. He should have enough self respect and pride to get it together...I would.

I read once we are all the same and to see weakness in the next man is to see weakness in yourself. Until you can accept my own human short comings, you can never be truly connected to or sympathize with anyone else.

For good or bad, I haven't gotten to this magical point of oneness with humanity. The sympathy I had (or was that shock?), has been eroded away. When I see this dude (like I always do when I'm out trying to enjoy myself), same clothes, same hustle, same eyes fully of hopelessness and despair, I tell him the truth. To my own shame I say, "I ain't got it, man."

YEAH SON! ALL DAY ITS A MOVEMENT!!

F#%K THAT YO!! I'M A HIP HOP ALL F#%*&N FAN ALL DAY! I'M SO DAMN HYPE ABOUT HIP HOP I GOTTA TYPE IN ALL CAPS AND CUSS IN EVERY F*#$$N SENTENCE YO! NO F&#*%N BODY CAN TELL ME ABOUT HIP HOP! EVRYBODY THAT DON'T KNOW NOTHIN BOUT WHAT I SAY IS A BITCH STRAIGHT UP! DON'T LET MY F*#&K'D UP LANGUAGES FOOL YOU SON I'M THE TRUTH!! ATL DIP UNIT HUSTLAS ALL F*#%$N DAY! ITS A MOVEMENT FOR REAL BITCHS!!

Why can't people sit back and have simple, open discussion on hip hop? Why it got to be all that, homie?

Anyway
The big fuss on the internet is the MTV list of the top MCs. It goes like this supposedly(the dude claims that hackers got to the the list on the MTV site, the actual list is being revealed slowly this week):
1. Jay-Z
2. Tupac
3. Notorious B.I.G.
4. Rakim
5. Nas
6. KRS-One
7. Big Daddy Kane
8. Ice Cube
9. Eminem
10. LL Cool J

Immediately the furor started. Check out the comments they are making on SOHH.com. People are really upset.

One thing they say is that MTV has no right to make a "greatest (insert anything hiphop)" list. They say that MTV doesn't know anything about hiphop and never supported us before so how can they talk about it now. How dare those MTV people comment on hiphop. We need somebody with some credibility to make the list.

It's not that serious is it? People make list all the time. Top 20 love songs. Top 100 celebrities. Top this. Most that. No list means anything more than what it is.. a list. It's not like they're going to put this list as an amendment in the constitution. Its not the Ultimate Never to Be Questioned Final Definite List as Decreed By God Himself(or Herself if you like). People are allowed to put out their opinions. Why not MTV? They play music don't they? Who would they rather have..BET? The same people that gave us those great bastions of hip hop culture Uncut and Lil' Kim Countdown to Lockdown. Or would it be the shining achievment of 106 & Park that gives BET hiphop credibility. They have Rap City, but Joe Clare and Big Lez are long gone and if you think those dummies they had since then are hip hop host, then I pity you. BET(or as i call it MTV Lite) is about as hiphop as a piece of iceberg lettuce. The only reason I have it is to keep channel 320 and 322 from crashing into each other in a fiery explosion and destroying my TV.

Let them have their opinion. They can, and do, explain why they ranked the way they did. It all makes sense to me. They even have an honorable mention section with more shot outs to the greats. It's just a good conversation builder to make a greatest MC list. What really needs to happen is sometime soon we have to let go of this Tupac and Biggie infatuation in hiphop. They were great but Tupac was not the greatest lyricist in the world. Biggie was great but he only had 2 albums (those Diddy albums were trash and don't count). Jay Z has a catalouge of albums that Biggie and Pac unfortunately never got a chance to make. Jay has verse after verse, style after style, years of proven success. Does that make him better? Not necessarily. It definitely gives him more of a chance to prove his worth. Think about this, if you are rookie of the year in the NFL and break your legs your second year, do you get to go to Canton because you were good? I don't think so.

Memories get distorted. It's a big up to Jay Z, not disrespect to the memory of our fallen brothers, for him to be on top of the list. My next blog I'm going to make a case for Jay Z as #1. I think I would put him on the top of my list if I made one. I got to relisten to my cd's right quick because you got to be on point. You know how those hiphop fans get.

Children Books

I recently began to wonder about parenting. I wondered how much did my parents actually think about raising me as opposed to actually raising me. How much was raising my sisters and brothers just pure instincts and trial and error? Did they really sit down with books and read about everything that could happen? Were they worried about messing up our lives and not giving us all the tools we needed to succeed? For that matter, did they even know how to give me the tools they wanted me to have?

I came upon this train on thought this weekend at the outlet mall. I was walking around checking stuff out, when this big head baby came running towards the door. She was maybe a little past one year old. Obviously still learning how to move around in the world from her oh-so wobbly steps. Her mother jumps in front of her. "Now Ashley you have to stay with mommy. You have to stay here with me" The baby looks her mother in the face, rocks her big head side to side, does the slowest spin move ever pulled on a grown person, and takes off running. A full 1/4 mph sprint in another direction. The mother sighs and steps in front off Ashley again. I watch her do that 3 more times. I couldn't help but think she read that in a book. No one would sit back and conceive of talking to a child with the expectation of comprehension and obedience.

I've seen all these studies about child development. I once read about this doctor that said children should be encouraged to make there own decision and be self sufficient as soon as possible. Such as telling parents what they would like to eat and deciding when they should go to sleep. The doctor said children know what they need and will communicate it sufficiently. The doctor said this helps children develop a strong sense of self. All parents have to do is be there to provide those needs and talk to their children about what they suggest. Sounds like the same study that had Ashley's mother reasoning with her one year old. Sounds like a big load bullsh*t to me. Only in a book will you ever hear about giving that kind of power to a child.

I imagine parenting to be a much more fluid activity than what you read in a book. The book makes it seem so simple. "Do this when your child does this" " Do this so your child won't do this" I don't think it ever works like that. Life is never that easy.

Then I think to myself, it isn't even about the child. The book is for the parents. The book is there to give the parents a way out of the pressures and ramnifications of being the care giver and role model of another person. It's there to relieve them of the guilt they might feel later if their precious baby boy rapes a stripper from a local college that is trying to raise money for tuition. The book is a metaphor. Something akin to giving someone lost in a jungle a crooked line on a dirty hankerchief and saying its the way home. The book is hope against the uncertainty of the future.

Should she have talked to baby Ashley and let her say when she wants to go to bed? I don't know. If I was running for the door, my mama would pop me in the head and pulled me back. I would've stayed. She didn't read that in a book.

1000 Memories

Dreams are strange.

Last night it was one of those really vivid ones that got me in my mood for today. One of those dreams where you see everybody you never even remember and you end up damn near remembering your whole life. The good and the bad moment are mixed in there.

I was watching my friend Tank, on Decatur St, Richmond Va, when I was 6 and used to live round the corner from my Grandma. He would run into the street and lay down and cars would roll right over him. I remember he would be so happy when he jumped up and ran back to where we were waiting for him. Who was waiting for him? Me and my middle school friends at William R Davie. Me, Mike, Reggie, Tasha Owens, Tobias, and somebody else were all laughing about how I wrote a story about flying on a paper airplane all over the world. We got up and left but walking out the caf doors opened into Miss Virginia's house. I had walked there from Hardee's about a mile away in the hot sun because she would take me home in her little red truck. She never went over 35 in that thing. She smiled and worked in her yard. She drops me off at Devan Newman's house and I know she's going back to heaven. Devan has the high top fade and the foot long rat tail because he had just moved to NC from California. We play football with Goo Goo and Bossley and jump or our bikes to go to to American history with Mr Clark. My cousins, Stacy, Mookie, Sheeda, Redd, Zurich all walk by the classroom and tell me come on to the cook out. Brenda and Shirley are leaving and they don't wait for nobody. My little sister, when she was 3, takes my hand and I walk her and my brothers across the street to see everybody at the family reunion. I had to go back to ECU at 2 so I could make it to Black Lit(and so I can get a seat so see fine ass Ebony in her Zeta coat). I walk pass everybody from Scott Hall to get to class, even James and Keenan. Class is cancelled again. I go to Mendenhall and Shirley, Sha, June (and her baby), Tiffany, Temia, Alexis are there waiting for April and Kara. I realize everbody from White Hall is there. Corey and Dwight are going to the rec. I go over to check the Spot schedule, then I go see Jennifer before she goes to Georgia Tech. I sit with her and take her bags to her old Maxima. When she pulls off, I check my watch cause I only have 30 minutes til I go see the boys and I better have this info tight to spit. Them damn Iota don't play! Jesse Palmer walks by and tells me he thought I deserved that award for drawing and I remember thinking how this guy is the best designer I've ever seen. Dre calls me and I have my old Alltell phone. Josh and Dez are bringing chips and stuff and all the SGRhos are coming to our cookout. Then I'm at the cookout on the Park West balcony with Cynthia, Keisha, Hope, Alexis several other girls I don't quite remember but I'm sure I know them. The balcony becomes the ocean and I'm alone. The waves crash. My phone goes off. Jennifer texts me to buy some grapes on my way home. I'm missing something. I can't remember what it is. I look in the sand but its not there. Where is it? It has to be here? What is that? Is that...Joyce Latell?

It was the damn radio alarm. Now I'm up at work and I can't shake the feeling I'm missing something. I don't know what it is. I can't help thinking how much what I lost meant to me. I regret losing it, whatever it was. I hope I can find it one night, hidden amongst all the other people and things that live in my dreams.

Change the Game?

March Madness is over. The Champions are crowned. As the noise of the crowds die down for another year, I can once again hear the old debate again. The voices of activists and dreamers everywhere. Their arguement is just as simple as the vacuum world it would work in. "Pay the players!" they scream. I laugh tritely and listen to them ramble on.

The NCAA just signed a $6 billion dollar television contract, coaches make a million or more dollars a year for what they do, and nobody knows how much money the universities are making from apparel, recruiting students,etc. These young men are being worked over by a system where everybody makes money off of the things that they do. Full ride schlarships are all well and good but its nothing compared to the moeny the universities are making. They should be given a salary and then they can pay their own tuition. That would give them the opportunity to move their families out of the hood. They could afford to do other things. They deserve it for all the money the schools make off of them.

Ha ha ha. Thats funny.

I'll consider the arguement. College sports do mean big money for the university. The schools love it because a high profile sports program increase the notoriety of the school. Its not always the acadmeics that draw students to a school. Imagine the spike in enrollment after winning the tournament. Its the ultimate marketing tool. Take my alma mater East Carolina University for example. They built a new seating decks in the stadium, brand new sport medicine center, and a brand new workout facility. This was in the years that I was there. They put Petey the Pirate on everthing from frisbees to car tags, finger nail files to thongs (condoms coming soon). It all advertises the school and boosts enrollment. So yes there are huge amounts of time, effort, and money put into these programs.

To say that these players aren't paid is ridiculous. Add up the perks and free stuff they recieve. Tuition paid for, books, room & board, tutoring, clothes (not just univeristy clothes). Coaches help students get cars, apartments, and they still recieve monetary stipends. They are catered to from the day they step on campus until they leave. This goes on at ECU. Imagine the schools that actually win games!

The thing about college sports is it's an extension of the college or university. Its no different from high school sports. Its a school function. Endorsed by the university, funded by the university, for the university. If you go about paying the athletes you change the whole system from a university function to a job. They would be on the state payroll with the tenured professors and janitors. Tax payer money (most colleges are public instituions, you know) would pay them.

You make it a job and you take away every connection to the university aspect. They wouldn't necessarily have to have college students playing would they? Who would really "hire" a high school graduate with undeveloped talent to play on a team that's all about making money? It would be like a draft for every NBA/NFL/MLB reject out there. If all the students playing now were really any good they would pull a Lebron and ditch college all together. What student would still be a student if they are getting paid for real? What university would publicly spend money to fund a business venture which is essential a league in competition with the NBA or NFL? Would people go for that?

What effects would this have on the academics of these school? The money made from the powerhouse programs are not just handed out amongst a hand full of rich people sitting in an office running a slavery operation. The money funds the school itself. Dorms, dining services, professors, administrators, science labs, all this comes from that money. What happens when they start paying hired basketball employees to market the school and can no longer afford to pay the freshman psychology professor? What happens when its a choice between a new dorm and a 2 guard? Both the university and the team will suffer.

The complexities of the university system can't be summed up in the bottom line figure. College sports is not a system designed to financially benefit players. It benefits the whole university. Its the nature of the beast. You can't change it. No matter how unfair or unjust it may look.

Not Again

This Cynthia McKinney story bothers me.

As the story goes Rep. Cynthia McKinney is going to a meeting at the Captiol Building. She goes to walk by the security check in and is stopped by a police officer. He touches or grabs her shoulder to stop her and she hits him.

She holds a press conference at Howard University with Harry "Bush is a Terrorist" Belafonte and Danny "I Can't Get a Cab" Glover and the shanigans begin.

"Cynthia McKinney, like thousands of average Americans across this country, is ... a victim of the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials because of how she looks and the color of her skin," said one of McKinney's lawyers, James Myart Jr.

"The whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me — a female, black congresswoman," McKinney said at a news conference, abandoning the apologetic tone she struck earlier in the week.

McKinney spoke on the campus of predominantly black Howard University, surrounded by more than a dozen African-American children from South Georgia's Coffee County who held signs reading "Is Cynthia a Target?" and "Recognize Our Congresswoman."

Not this sh#t again. I must be getting Punk'd. This has to be some kind of sick twisted joke. The Twilight Zone or Outer Limits or something. These people can't be serious. Let me make sure I'm getting this straight. You are a representative of many years, who is well versed in all the systems set up to ensure you take full advantage of all the rights and privileges allotted to members of Congress. You don't follow the precedures (she admits to not wearing the congressional pin which is used to identify all members of Congress at check points) and when you get stopped, for not having the pin, your defense is he should have recognized you? Are you serious?! There are 535 members of Congress that change every 2 years or so, you expect every single security guard to memorize the faces of every single member. ARE YOU SERIOUS?! What has she ever done to warrant this celebrity she feels she has? Why does she feel so entitled and special that everybody should know her? I've never heard of Cynthia McKinney. I doubt if anybody outside of Georgia has. Much less recognize her. Sounds like a self esteem issue to me.

What really works my nerves is when people throw up the racism defense even when they are clearly wrong in a situation. I hate that. She knows damn well she didn't have any business hitting that officer. If you were not wearing your congressional pin and tried to go by a check point you should get stopped. In this post 9/11 world every measure has to be taken to ensure safety. Thats the whole point of the damn check point! If they just let anybody in he'd be fired! Now they are gonna make all this noise over her "incident" when she is obviously way out of pocket on this one. It takes all the fire out of claims of real racism. In new Orleans this weekend Al, Jesse and them are marching over the whole voting issue they have going on and protesting the "don't let them niggas in" incident with the cops on the bridge. That was racism! That is the stuff we need to be rallying about!

She's not the only using racism as a defense. I've seen plenty of times where my people were clearly in the wrong and threw up racism up because they had no real defense to go with. "Man, they pulled me over for cause I'm black." Man, you was doing 80 in a 45. "Man, them cops keep watching me cause I'm black." Nigga, you out here selling weed.

A few weeks ago the police kicked in the door of a house and arrested 3 black minors (a 14 year old, a 17 year old and an 18 year old) after a crowd of their white neighbors had gathered outside the house. That's racist right? The NAACP was holding press conferences, the mother was crying on TV, people were in an up roar. Well, turns out the the kids were breaking into the houses in the subdivision. They broke in while someone's 11 year daughter was home and she identified them. The house the police kicked in was full of stolen goods. The mother was selling the stuff on eBay. The cops busted in the house after the 14 and 17 year old beat another officer with sticks. Is it still racist?

Racism is out there, I'm not stupid. We need to fight racism on all fronts. I'm all for exposing the problems and fixing it so my kids won't be held back because of their skin color. We also need to fight this fake racism. We need to get to the point where we are acting in ways that doesn't give real racism anywhere to hide. We need to be able to sit back and see a situation for what it is, accept resposibility (that means you McKinney!) if we did something wrong and not throw the racism card without proper provacation. We are always looking for a reason the call a white person racist. Everything ain't racism.