please stop falling down drunk

one day i got too damn drunk.

Bush Shoe Incident - 2 shoes thrown at President Bush during press conference in Iraq

Too damn funny.

Embracing the fat

Dear Oprah:

It was no secret you fell off the skinny wagon. I myself having attended too many AA meetings to mention, quit and decided never to go to rehab understand the struggle and comfort addiction can bring. We’re just human.

For the record, I was a really fat kid. I mean humpty dumpty fat. I mean I could’ve joined the Fat Boys rap group at age 9. My nickname was “Mikey will eat it!’ And I would eat it. Shit, I would eat three to four servings. My favorite thing as a child was a good buffet. I used to love buffets. Back in the day, it was 3.99 all you can eat. My sister and I would get dressed and stay there for like a day.

I admit weight starting falling off of me around middle school. I guess because my grandmother had the audacity to make me play a sport. I hated playing sports. I hated football, basketball, running or just having to sit on the bench. Yet, being on the team and being forced to practice did dramatically change my body. I learned that I was a great swimmer. I learned that I liked soccer more than I liked football or basketball. I also fell in love with tennis. Yet, I was never a good athlete. I never started. I often quit and made to go back. I never cared about wining first place. I guess that’s has been my calling in life. Quit when it gets too rough.

I believe some of us are good at some things. Some people love to be on a damn treadmill for hours. Some people love eating vegetables. I rather grab a bag of cookies and talk bad about those people. I used to think having a couple of shots of vodka and going to the gym was fun. I usually ended up passed out on the bicycle machine.

In college, I learned drugs and alcohol kept me thin. I’m not recommending crack, but it did work for Whitney. I mean, she hasn’t gained a pound since “Where did the crack go” back in the 1990s. Yet, I know if your business, you can’t show up high or drunk talking to child molesters like Michael Jackson or Suze Orman. What is she on?

I say embrace your fat. After my last sobering stunt, I gained twenty pounds. I forgot how good it felt to eat. It scared the shit out of me. I can’t eat. I’m gay. If I eat I will start to have to pay for sex. Fat people get no love in the gay fast love lifestyle.

Yet, I have decided to embrace my fat. I’ve embraced my round belly. It’s better than running from a drug house buck naked at seven in the morning chased by a deranged crack head. I’m not saying that has happened to me, but trust me I rather have the bag of potato chips.

I say embrace the fat. You’re fucking rich. Why starve when you can buy your own grocery store. You’re old. I thought getting old was all about letting yourself go. I hate those celebrities still trying to keep their teenage waistline at a hundred years old. I don’t need to have sex after forty. I had enough of it for several lifetimes in my twenties. There’s nothing new about it for me. All I need is porn and a good dildo. You have Gayle. She doesn’t seem to mind munching on your puffy VaJaJA.

I say since you will be leaving the Oprah show in two years, start a drinking habit. A good cocktail is a good replacement for a meal. I say start smoking cigarettes. A bad habit is always replaced with another bad habit. I say go out there and find what you want to replace food with. So many bad habits, so little time. Or just be fat. Fuck it. It's working for Tyra Banks.

My dear sir, I challenge you to a duel.

I would pick the place. Rent one YMCA boxing ring, $100 dollars. I would pick the time. A month from now. I can even buy the gloves and face mask. $100 dollars. I would set him up with a trainer. I would get him a 30 day membership at the gym. I’d hire a referee. All he has to do is show his punk ass up at the place in thirty days. Total budgeted cost of the duel: $500. The pleasure of kicking his ass in front of his friends and family, priceless.

As practiced from the 11th to 20th centuries in Western societies, a duel is an engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with their combat doctrines. The Romanticism depiction of medieval duels was based on either a pretext of defense of honor, usually accompanied by a trusted representative (who might themselves fight), often in contravention of the dueling conventions, or as a matter of challenge of the champion which developed out of the desire of one party (the challenger) to redress a perceived insult to his or her sovereign's honor. The goal of the honorable duel was often not so much to kill the opponent as to gain "satisfaction", that is, to restore one's honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it.

I think in this modern age of violence, the act of dueling should be brought back. Nobody fights fair anymore. Kids show up to school with guns and then just start shooting innocents because some girl didn’t go out on a date with him. Terrorism has taken the place of a fight with honor. It’s just murder now. I don’t think there is nothing wrong with two individuals going at it without the cheap deadly tricks. I mean an old-fashion after school beatdown. No gang fights. Let them work it in a boxing ring with witnesses and rules.

Some punk ass bitch been talking smack about me. I hate that high school cheerleader shit that goes on in the gay clubs sometimes. When I moved to DC in the beginning I was just another new face. I didn’t say much to anybody. I didn’t care about belonging to any groups. I had enough of the gay cattiness in New York, Texas and Chicago. I wasn’t about to move again.
When I first got to DC, the so call second city, or second chance city I was out of luck and broke and looking for free drinks. Somehow I got a reputation I didn’t intend. I guess because I was young, flirty, and somewhat suspicious that some people thought I was a drug dealer, prostitute or two bit hustler. They figured me trouble because I looked the part of a young black male with a cocky smile on his face. I got kicked out of a lot of clubs for that smile. A black man with too much confidence too many find a threat. Yet, at first I played the role. I liked being the bad boy. It was sexy.

I’m not a fighter. I fought too much growing up. I have 36 male cousins around my age. Everyday was a fight. I have nothing to prove. Yet, I don’t like others thinking they can just say shit about me and I not have a response.

I saw the asshole in question at the bar last Thursday. I was too drunk. The worse thing in the world is drunk fighting. I can’t win a fight if I am drunk. First, the person is unprepared. Their balance is off and emotions are running high. They can’t even use their adrenaline to steady their swings. The last time I got into a drunken bar fight, it was not good in my favor. I accidently picked a fight with a group of bastards who decided to jump me. I knew immediately there was no way I could win. When I was just kicking the one guy’s ass, I had it down but the other three fuckers decided they needed to jump in. I never believed in jumping in my friends’ fight. I feel as if that takes away their honor. I also feel it’s criminal. If my friend is getting his ass kicked, let him get his ass kicked. I once got in trouble when I was a little kid because one of my cousins decided to jump this guy who they didn’t like. The rule in my family was that if one of us got into a fight, then all of us got into that fight. I guess it worked in our favor considering there were a lot of us. It was like being attacked by a pack of wolves. I didn’t jump in that fight that day. The poor innocent guy was just being beaten to death. I was going to worsen his suffering. I wanted to stop it. I had to stop it. I guess that’s me at my heart. I don’t believe in fighting but I do believe in defending my honor.

I live in the city and people are so damn shady. They fear so damn much they are willing to do about anything to hide the fact they are cowards. They will talk about you behind your back but when confronted--they freeze up. Coward. If I say something about someone, trust me, I can say it to their face. If I stank that day, I would tell the person they need to take a bath and not giggle about it like I’m a high school cheerleader. And if I am confronted, I would probably apologize immediately because I probably been drinking and didn’t really mean it.

This guy has taken it too far. I confronted him and he would even acknowledge my existence, like I was diseased or something worse. Normally, I don’t care what other people think about me. I really don’t. What bothers me is if you said something about me, be a man and admit it. Or I will be a nigga and make a fucking scene. Yet, since turning thirty years old, I’ve consciously decided to curb my nigga moments. I’m intelligent. I am a writer. I have three college degrees. I give to charity. I give to the homeless. I don’t have the time to punch a bitch in a bar, get arrested, get a misdemeanor, have to pay bail money, have to get a lawyer and hope that’s the end of it. It usually cost around $1000-$2000 dollars. I don’t have time to end up in jail and not make it to work the next day. I hate community service. I lose money in so many directions. I think two grown men fighting in a bar is so unlady like.

So that’s why I recommend the duel. It’s more civilized. Nobody is drunk. It’s in a nice ring with proper protection. And we just beat the shit out of each other like real men. A good fight allows a person to forgive, winner or loser. A good fight says it means something. Shit I might just get my ass kicked but at least I get to defend my honor. I take back my name.

Yet, I am reminded when one of my cousins wanted to fight my best friend in high school. I feared for him. The clever best friend turned the script on my thuggish cousin. He challenged his intellect. He demanded he would only fight him if my cousin could write a thousand word paper on why they should fight. I remember the dumbfounded look on my cousin’s face. He realized he wasn't just some primitive animal and had the capability of real thought. I decided to write this blog in the same sense of my need to kick this guy’s ass. My argument is as follow:

I never liked him. I would see him out all the time but we never spoke. I just considered him part of the bar furniture. He’s one of those people you hate immediately. He has a snobbish entitled demeanor like he’s curing cancer. I don’t care. I don’t care if he has the highest IQ; I had reserved myself to no just speaking to him. But it’s hard to just ignore somebody you see every damn week. I have sometimes tried to be the bigger man and speak or smile. He usually just rolls his eyes. I try to think if I had every done anything to him. I used to drink a lot and god knows how many people I have pissed off. I didn’t want him to like me; I just wanted to know why he didn’t like me.

I heard what he said about me accidently. Funny, the irony was that I was talking smack about this other guy. This guy really did smell like pussy on fire. I couldn’t understand the smell. It wasn’t the first time he smelled that way and it was offensive. I thought it was more than him being unclean but something diseased. It’s when my bar friend turned to me and said some people have said the same thing about me. I paused. I wanted to know who would say such a thing. He pointed to the asshole in question. I decided not to care. Yet, I cared.
I was more ashamed to be honest. I immediately thought of my grandmother who would be furious I would go weeks without bathing. And then again, those were the drug years. When you are constantly high on something and drunk, time goes by so fast. I was living in a blur. I would have to be reminded by friends to bath and eat. I would go a week without eating. It was no secret to me that I often reeked of sex, weed, alcohol, and uncleanliness. I remember when I used to get on the train people immediately moved away from me. I didn’t care. I was usually high so I didn’t care about nothing.

And then I thought to myself, why I am so angry at that guy for just telling the truth. I was angrier at myself. I needed to challenge myself to a duel. I needed to kick my own ass. I was such a mess two years ago. I hate being reminded of it. I hate that my neighbors still try to get me evicted even if I haven’t done anything criminal in the last two years.

When someone pisses me off to the point I want to cause them bodily harm, I first have to pause. I have to challenge what emotion or fear in my personality was triggered. I have to deal head on with my ego and masculinity. I could kick his ass. I could really hurt the bastard. But the fight isn’t with him. The funny thing, it doesn’t matter if you get your life right, somebody is always going to remind you when you were a fuck up. It’s like people feel the need to be superior. I’m done with apologizing. I have made no amends. I was who I was because I was, that’s it.

Yet, I’m still angry. All he has to do is show up. I dare the bastard. All he has to do is say one more thing about me I don’t like. My anger may be a little misdirected, but so is he accusations. He is still a punk ass bitch.

OJ Simpson sentenced to 15 years

Life of a Male Secretary

A story from my book..."Who is SEan"


Life of a Male Secretary by MDW

How the hell did I get here? Maybe today will be the day I quit.

I hate my life. I hate my job. I considered briefly throwing my alarm clock out the window because it began to depress me. The sight of it sitting in a corner like a rabies-infected dog ready to devour me if I got too close threw off the Feng Shui in my apartment. It was never a welcoming sound, like police sirens when you had more than the drinking driving limit. The rude bitch was loud and uncouth. It agitated heartbeat. It made reality real. Every morning, just when the bed got comfortable, the blanket just right and I was having that dream where I’m a filthy rich Super-friend, the alarm would sound. Every morning I would try to ignore and refuse my eyes to open. I’d ball myself into the fetal position and rock back and forth begging for five more minutes. Finally, I would have to get up and journey barefoot across the cold wooden floor. I pressed the snooze, which meant in ten minutes I’d have to get up and press it again, and again, and so forth until I’m late for work. I never understood the alarm clock. Was it there just to annoy me? With alarm clocks, it’s always Monday, again, like some fucking cruel joke.

I am a male secretary and everyone looks at me like it’s my fault.

My day begins with a cold and raining Chicago February. Outside, the sky is a miserable sick looking gray and I hide behind dark sunglasses because it’s the perfect excuse to not make eye contact with strangers on the crowded Chicago "L". I hate public transportation. It just feels unnatural that so many people are awake and rushing towards jobs they would quit in a heartbeat if something slightly better came alone. To make things worse, on the "L," this baby starts screaming lucid shameless shrieks that claw at eardrums, refusing to be ignored. That damn baby, flings himself to the floor, tears at his clothes, bangs his head, spits and kicks everything in sight, including people. I tell myself if he kicks me, I’m going to kick it back. His disheveled mother, panicking, can’t help but feel the inches of anger directed at her. It’s eight o’clock on miserable Chicago Monday morning and nobody wants to deal with the demon child or hear his cries. Shit, we’re all crying on the inside. But the baby, doesn’t care or know silence, just raw emotion. I feel jealous. I, like the other sheep, pretend to be polite and understanding when I want to tear my Brooks Brothers uniform from my body and fling myself on the floor and scream. I want to be naked. I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want my life, but I’m too lazy and a coward to change anything. I envy the baby because I know I will never scream in public again.

I turn up the music on my MP3 player because I know I shouldn’t be thinking such thoughts. I feel nauseous, it’s the hangover, but like a good boy who eats his vegetables, I swallow the feeling of the chunky vile resentment rising to my throat. Maybe today will be the day I quit. I get to my job and it’s still there, mocking me and pretending to be indestructible. A naughty fantasy about dynamite and wrecking balls gets my dick hard, but when I push through the revolving door and walk towards the elevator, the thrill goes flaccid. I step on the elevator with the crowd and press the button for my floor. I close my eyes to savor those last few seconds of freedom before the metal doors to my hell open and I become a slave again. I don't even have to open my eyes to know that it’s my floor. I turn off my music and remove dark sunglasses. I pry my eyes open and just like a veteran Broadway star, I know the show must go on. I wait for the metal curtains to pull themselves back. Suddenly, I'm nervous and my mind goes blank. I panic in silence trying to remember my lines. I breathe in hard and out quickly. I violently pull my facial muscles to something that closely resembles a smile. I try to convince myself that if I'd just relax, don't fight it; it'll all be over with quickly. I can feel the resentment rise again and acid turn in my stomach. I put a mint in my mouth and try to awake that sparkle in my eyes. The metal doors open and I step off the cliff. I become somebody else. Everybody pretends.

I say "good morning" to the first person I see, which is the receptionist. We both don’t like our jobs, but we’re polite about it.

All the female secretaries, they don't trust me. They look at me like I walked into their immaculate, aromatic, ladies only bathroom naked and drunk, and started pissing on the floor. I'm the only male out of fifteen secretaries. They hardly make eye contact with me. They only speak with a head nod or awkward smile. It's like I make them nervous. They just can't seem to figure me out. Most of them are older and well medicated. They are grandmothers or mothers with children in high school. On their desks and computer monitors are pictures of graduations, weddings and births. They don’t seem to have a life. They are always trying to feed me sugary donuts or some bullshit they baked the night before. They’re conversation is redundant, something about a daughter in love with the wrong man or a flawless and prodigious grandson who’s coming to town. I listen with blank eyes and a rehearsed smile. The other secretaries are the silicon blondes. They wear designer short skirts and speak like sharp edges. Their fake breasts laugh at every Executive’s joke. The look in their eyes is always hungry. They want to be the wife, not the secretary. They frighten me. They remind me of National Geographic deadly predators who appear regal and refined but in a fraction of second their angry claws could rip through your flesh with intense pleasure.

My place of torment is a corporate Law firm with about 400 employees and only five of us are black: three black lawyers, one black male secretary and a part time black receptionist. It’s an observation that only minorities recognize. The day I interviewed I knew I wouldn’t get the job. I am a black male who doesn’t smile which is often mistaken as militancy. I don’t have a nurturing bone in my body and believe wholeheartily in color people’s time. I get there when I get there. I’m a rebel with no fucking cause. I was sure they would see through me. Everyone at the interview reeked of Mozart and Chopin while I was desperately trying to hide my love for gangster rap. The first thing they told me was that they were looking for someone polished. I was recovery from a two-day hangover. I couldn’t possibly believe that I would fit in. I pondered how I was going to hide my addiction for surfing for porn on the web or nightly binge drinking and strip clubs. Somehow among the frigid silicon blondes and mothering grandma’s, I fooled them. Thank god for altoids, Listerine, Visine and affirmative action.

At the office, there is always somebody’s birthday, anniversary, promotion or new pictures of somebody’s baby. The older secretaries go wild over such celebration. They reserve the conference room and order ice-cream. I hate the mandatory celebrations. We gather in the conference room and for thirty minutes I suffer through dry conversations about kids, hemorrhoids and mortgages. The agony teases me like a rusty knife and threatens to kill but instead it just annoys. Every other week, someone is passing around the picture of somebody’s toddler or selling their fucking kids cookies or some bullshit. Nobody believes in birth control anymore. I wonder how they would react if I passed around the results of my latest STD results.

My boss, I'm his first male secretary and I know he's not too comfortable with it. I try to smile and appear perky like the other grandma and blond silicon secretaries but it’s very difficult considering I’m a black male who doesn’t smile. I grew up in the ghetto with cockroaches and bullets and smiling would’ve got you bullet in the head. It just feels blasphemous.

My boss has this picture of himself on his desk in one of those silver family frames mostly used for graduations or weddings. Instead of the cliché, it is a picture of him holding a dead baby deer in a headlock while his right foot stomped down on the mother's head. There are no captions or subtitles with the picture, but I get the sickest feeling that he killed Bambi. My boss, he would never ask me to get his coffee. He rather ask one of the other female secretaries and it pisses me off. I feel jealous because I want to get that fat bastard his coffee. It’s my job. My boss is so fat he could sell shade. He also has crossed eyes. My boss sweats like a keg of beer and breathes like a diesel engine.

My boss is always asking me inappropriate questions like if I caught that basketball or football game last night. I don't know how to tell him that I don't watch sports, so I find myself studying the sports section before work or buying copies of Sports Illustrated to casually place on my desk just to keep the lie alive. My boss calls me names like "buddy" or "bud" with every sentence as if I'm his friend. I'm beginning to think that he thinks that's my name. My boss, Dan, is from Georgia where it's pronounced "jaw her!" My boss, when he calls out my name, I'm not a grown man anymore with my own apartment and drinking problem but a small child or adoring pet, all bright eyed and wagging my tail as I anxiously wait for my Master to give me a command so that I can get a treat. When I hear my name, I jump from my seat and race to his office knocking down anyone who gets in my way. I find myself giddy with nervous anticipation and I don't know why. My boss, when he's talks to me he doesn't look me in the eyes. It makes me feel as if he is embarrassed for me because I'm a man supposedly doing a woman's job. My boss tries to comfort my masculinity by hitting me in the arm or going into long rants about sports and cars or grabbing his nuts when he talks about the "hot" receptionist with the big knockers. I just nod helplessly. I'm always nodding helplessly. My boss and I, we always get to a point of complete uncomfortable silence. He’s nervous around me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m black, or a man. Maybe it’s both.

I hate my job. I hear the alarm clock going off. It’s Monday again. Everybody pretends.

The premise: “Can you survive?” --Man vs. The ghetto

Survivor: a person who continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks. A person whose will to live out shadows insurmountable or often impossible life quicksand. The nakedness of man dealing with the absurd. Existentialism.

Beyonce wrote a song about it. In the video, she and the one surviving Destiny child member and some new chick ran around in somebody’s backyard in torn seductive dress that tugged at their titties and hips like a dirty old man. They looked lost like Beyonce lost one of her good wigs and Kelly and Michelle were desperately helping her look for it before she decided to shave their heads and make her a new weave. In the song Beyonce screams that “thought I couldn’t breathe without you, I’m inhaling. Thought I couldn’t see without you, I got perfect vision.” I guess it was a slap against the other three females who came and went like “bitch I got your man or bitch I got your career.”

ABC has a show called Survivor were 12 people subject themselves to destitute places or broke budget beach resorts and have to compete and survive against one another for like six months . The winner gets one million dollars. It’s a stupid show. It’s not even entertaining. I say take away the cameras, put them in the middle of the jungle and after six months, see who survived. I say don’t vote each other off but kill each other off. That’s real survival.

I remember the book I read in elementary, Lord of the flies; an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. It discussed how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British school-boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results I remember being emotionally destroyed when the character Piggy got killed. They beat him in the head with a rock. I never looked at my friends the same again. I identified with Piggy, mostly because I was a fat kid and sensible, effeminate and artistic. It’s a fat kid’s nightmare to be trapped with the same assholes that taunted you in civilization, now have no parental guidance. I decided that life was a jungle, polite prison and I needed to learn how to fight.

I don’t believe survival is voluntary. It’s live or die. It’s a fist to the stomach that knocks the wind out of you like that silly game boys played in middle school. It’s being knocked to your feet, unable to breathe, gasping for air, and the will to breathe again so you can kick your cousin ass for breaking the rules s and catching you off guard. When I think of failed survivors, I think of Amelia Earhart whose plane disappeared somewhere Pacific Ocean. She didn’t survive. I think of that guy from “Into the Wild” who decided after reading Thoreau he wanted to go live in the forest with the trees. He was found dead like a year later. Was he an idiot? Did he volunteer for his own death for no fucking reason other than idealism? Pretty words aren’t going to feed you when you run out of food. You can’t talk a bear down with quotes from your favorite author. I think of that guy who went to go live with the Bears. Grizzly Man is a 2005 documentary film by German director Werner Herzog. It chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell. The film consists of Treadwell's own footage of his interactions with grizzly bears before he and his girlfriend were killed and partially ingested by a bear in 2003. Why would anyone want to go live with wild Bears? He wasn’t surviving. He was an idiot.
I don’t believe true survival is voluntary but reactionary. Lately I’ve become obsessed with a show called “Man vs. Wild.” The premise: “Can you survive?”

Imagine you took a dream cruise. I guess in my case one of those overtop gay cruises filled with drag queens in Rupaul high heels, butch Rosie O’Donnell dykes, old rich men, hot young drug addict whores and lots of liquor. I don’t think you are allowed to eat on a gay cruise. It’s not one of those family cruises where people go away for a week and gain like twenty pounds. A gay cruise, hitting the gym is mandatory. Now imagine suddenly the “Chlamydia and Gonherrea”cruise ship crashed against a big rock. I guess a gay titanic. During a morning hangover the ship is sinking fast and it’s up to you to stay alive. I would first have to ask myself why the hell I am on a gay cruise. I hate boats. I get sea sick something horrible. Yet, unlike most black folks I can swim but I don’t want to test my skills in the middle of somebody’s ocean.

Now imagine after you spent a horrible couple of months on somebody’s island with drag queens without their make-up, you are rescued. On the way back to what you hope is a liquor store, your helicopter crashes on a jungle island. I know that’s fucked up. First I would have to ask myself why am I in a helicopter flying over a jungle. The question is could I survive. No. I would be dead in the first ten minutes. I can barely wash my own clothes. Everything I cook burns. If there isn’t a takeout menu, I will starve to death.

The last scenario. Imagine you are in Antarctica climbing some mountain. You slip and fall and there is a snow storm. You have to survive the brutal cold. First, I would have to ask myself why the hell am I in Antarctica climbing a mountain. Did I think weed was going to be at the top?

The unimaginable or absolutely insane is the premise of the show “Man vs. Wild.” Some guy named Bear Grylls consistently tests his limits on where or what he can survived just in case. I think Bear Grylls sounds like a porn name. I find the show entertaining like watching a car crash. I keep watching to see if or when he will get himself killed. At 23 years old, Bear, climbed Mount Everest. He is obviously a thrill seeker. I can’t imagine me ever being stuck in the Sahara Dessert. I can’t imagine myself cruising a swap just for the hell of it. Bear is willing to eat anything from mosquitoes, worms and even Camel hearts. Before I eat a worm off a tree I would have to be really really hungry. I don’t even like sloppy joes. I don’t like food that doesn’t match my dishes.

I guess my frustration is that I’ve defined his adventures as useless information. I don’t ever see myself in a Jungle running away from a lion. I can’t outrun a lion. I haven’t been to the gyms in years. I watch him getting himself stuck in quicksand and I think to myself, why? There are no quicksand traps in the hood. It’s not like I’m going to be in a rush to work and suddenly fall in quicksand.

So I decided I should get my own show, Man vs. the Ghetto. I was born in the Texas projects. Every day was the question “Will I survive?” In middle school it was can I make it to ninth grade without joining a gang. Of course I watched the movie “Colors” and decided I might like getting initiated. It was a male tradition in my family. I joined the East Terrance Gangsters or “ETG.” I figured since my older cousin was one of the leaders I wouldn’t have to get my ass beat. I was wrong. Joining a gang wasn’t like my family could just buy a wing at some university. I hated being in a gang. I didn’t like the wardrobe. I just didn’t see myself wearing dickies, a wife beater and house shoes. It was a ridiculous outfit. Also, there were no medical benefits in being in a gang. If you got shot and killed, there was no burial funeral money. Somebody would poor out their beer when they get high and think of you, but who gives a fuck. I also asked about their scholarship program. There was none. There was also no democracy. We didn’t get to vote our leaders into their positions. I put in my resignation the summer I decided to go off to math camp. I broke the “don’t ask, don’t tell rule.” I said I was gay. I was quickly honorably discharged but I still had to braid Ray Ray hair for the next four years.

In the ghetto I needed to learn how to survive if I accidently stepped on some angry drug dealer white sneakers. That’s a real test. I say pretend like you are retarded. Stop speaking in tongue and glorifying God. I think it’s a rule that a gansta can’t kick your ass if you start singing a gospel song at the top of your lungs. If you step on an angry drug dealer white sneakers, don’t become confrontation. Immediately back down. Tell a joke. I once saw this kid get his ass beat for stepping on the wrong angry black male tennis shoes while they were playing basketball. Instead of the kid apologizing and pretending he was retarded he worsened the situation by being confrontational. I guess he needed his niggard moment. He got a niggard ass whipping. I don’t need to win any fights. I just need to live. Also another reason how to get out of a fight is to stump the gangster’s intelligence. It’s like giving a robot unsolvable problem that contradicts its programming. My best friend once got out of a fight with my gangster cousin by demanding him to write him a five page argument on why he wanted to fight him. Of course my cousin feeling conflicted originally set out to write the paper but not getting past more than five sentences. It was genius.

In the ghetto, the number one rule was not to stay at any house party after 1am. Because usually that’s when everybody starts getting real drunk and high and then the fights start. Especially get out before 2am because that’s usually when the drive by happens.

My life in the projects had always been about survival. I needed to not make eye contact with the wrong people. I needed not to show people into my home. My grandmother every time she bought something usually covered it in a blanket and snuck it into her house.

I think to myself, how long would so called born survivor, survive the ghetto? His gay porn name alone would get his ass kicked.

I drank the Obama Kool-aid

Growing up in the hot filthy Louisiana sun, I thought it was a good day when my grandma let me make the “kulayed” or correctly “Kool Aid.” I would run into the kitchen, grab the big glass container, and make the agonizing decision of grape or red. If it was fried chicken it was always red. If we were eating ribs or pigs feet, it was usually grape. Sometimes I mixed them together to make a dirty purple surprise. My kulayed recipe was usually 3 liters of water and 8 cups of sugar. It was like drinking diabetes. The kids loved it; the adults usually diluted it with bathtub rum or something. I guess that’s how MD 20/20 was born. I liked how the red or grape color "lipstick" the lips. After a few cups of red my lips were the shade of classy hookers in the red-light districts of New Orleans or deep black liked I smoked crack. Those were the days.

I have this friend from college. He can be somewhat of an asshole sometimes. He always mentions a person race for no reason. He calls his black friend, the black friends as if for some reason he needs to mention the disclaimer before telling the story i.e. (I’m going to Chicago to visit my black friend. You know he’s black). I often wonder does he mention me that way. I’m like if you visiting a Chicago friend, why not just say that. Why tell me he is black? I don’t give a fuck. I asked him when he is online with me does he tell everybody I’m his black Yahoo messenger buddy like I wake up in the morning say to myself what a great day to be black again. I don’t tell anybody he is Mexican. Maybe it’s because I like the element of surprise like guess who is coming to dinner. Does it even matter?

This friend in casual conversation asks me if I liked Kool Aid. I told him that I was black, of course I liked Kool Aid. I also like greens, fried chicken, and watermelon and pigs feet. I’m southern. I asked him did he like Tequila, cheap beer, fry all his food and wrap it in tortillas with beans and cheese. I asked him did he like driving in a car with twenty of his closet relatives stuffed like sweating sardines. I asked him if he was in America legally. He didn’t find my rebuttal too humorous.

A person culture can have double meaning. Fried chicken became a negative staple in black life. Fried chicken has a longer history for blacks more so than KFC or Popeye’s. It was the meat that was the cheapest and lasted the longest without being refrigerator. Its roots are deep in slavery. The slave-owners at the time didn’t feed their slaves caviar and good champagne instead slaves often had to eat what others would not eat like the insides of the pig, it’s feet, make cornbread that would last a couple of weeks. It was “eat or starve.” I can’t pick cotton on an empty stomach. It’s called soul food for a reason. If you don’t feed me right, the sole of my foot might get stuck up your ass.

A person culture can also be used against him. I liked in the book “Invisible Man” when the main character has to make peace with liking sweet potato pie. What was once a childhood delight suddenly as an adult became a racial footnote? I know the feeling. When I was a kid one 4th of July I was sitting on the porch eating my cold piece of watermelon. Sometimes in Louisiana the white tourists like to browse through the ghetto for some fucking reason. Anyways, the white couple wanted to take a picture of me eating my piece of watermelon. I like attention so of course I had no problem. It wasn’t until my grandmother came running out of the house, swinging a frying pan, snatching the camera and slamming it to the floor. I didn’t understand why she was so upset. She called them every name but a child of god. She grabbed me by the arm and made me sit in my room for the rest of the evening. I didn’t understand. I thought all the nice white couple wanted was a picture of a black kid with nappy wool hair, no shoes or shirt chewing at his watermelon like the sun melts ice. What was the harm? I understand now.

During the President election so many Fox news pundits kept referring to Obama effect as the Obama Kool-Aid. Even on the view, Elizabeth Hasselbeck would refer to the other three women as drinking the Obama Kool-aid. I felt since the term was originally phrased by Bill O’Reiley the suggestion was double negative. It was not just pointing out the fact in patronizing humor that Obama was black without saying I guess you bitches are drinking the Obama malt liquor. It was underhanded. Also, it tried to link those who supported Obama as being brainless followers. It was trying to sneakily say that voting for Obama would lead America off a cliff. They kept saying he wasn’t ready as if he still needed to reformed, one of the favorite Republican words.

The history of “Don't Drink The Kool-Aid” goes back to November of 1978 when the world was shocked by the suicide deaths of 913 members of the People's Temple cult. Jim Jones, the leader of the group, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown, Guyana, a remote community that Jones carved out of the South American jungle and named after himself. The mass suicide occurred after U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of California and a team of reporters visited the compound to investigate reports of abuse. After some members tried to leave with the congressman’s group, Jim Jones had Ryan and his entourage ambushed at the nearby airstrip. He then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide. Jonestown tragedy is the saying, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” This has come to mean, "Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side."
I find most Republicans a little on the kooky side. The past election was so corrupt and mean spirited. They called Obama every word but the child of god. At first he was a Muslim, terrorists, socialists and then communist. It was as if they were Jim Jones afraid of losing power so they tried to convince their entire base to drink their Kool-Aid.

It’s fear that leads us to the dark. I’m so happy America didn’t fall for the same ole tricks. Tricks or for kids. Voting consciously is for adults. Obama was right. Don’t boo the opponent, just vote.
Yet, for my own humor, I started thinking if Obama was a Kool-Aid what flavor would he be? I really don’t see Obama drinking Kool-aid. I see him more as a tea drinker or coffee. He is a health freak.

But if Obama was a Kool-aid these are my suggestions for General Mills:

Ashy knees Negro flavor – a mixture of grape and red, a good dirty purple.
Hawaiian Punch funkdafied – Black cherry red mixed with pineapple for his Hawaiian roots and a James Brown split of banana.
Ghetto booty mullato – Lemon flavored spiked with cherry grape.
Obama Tropicana elected – mix all the flavors together and see what color happens.

If I was a Kool Aid what flavor would I be? These are my suggestions.

Drunk – half rum, some sugar and lemon
Bacardi grape sublime – Grape Kool-Aid with bathhouse rum
Liquor – Fuck the Kool-Aid, just give me a shot.
Hare on the dog orange – Orange Kool-Aid and orange vodka.

In other words, now that I’m a grown man, I like my Kool-aid with as much liquor in it as possible vs. sugar and served with a nice fat blunt.

Afro-existentialism

Sundays are my bad television days. I mostly watch reality television (if there’s such a thing anymore). I watch everything I tivo-ed from Project Runway, Charm School, I love New York, Flava Flav and now it’s the real Desperate Housewives of Atlanta. I tried watching that Paris Hilton show “BFF” but that dizzy blonde just makes me angry like “no sex in the champagne room.” I hate when people try to become respectable.

I was watching the Desperate Housewives of Atlanta and considering the economy I felt a little jealous. They went on about spending seven thousand dollars on five pair of shoes. The first episode one of the wives bought an Escalade, all cash. It was all I’m so damn fabulous and rich. One of the ladies even donated $15,000 to her church. She said she gave every week. When I was going to church back in the day, they were lucky to even get the lent out of my pocket. My grandmother used to give us money to put in the basket but I usually put it in my pocket. I figured god would understand. Yet, with all their money and stunting, they were all still some unhappy bitches. They fought over the most ridiculous things like a name being forgotten for a party. It meant war to them. I changed the channel. I knew there were real people in the world at real war and could care less if they didn’t get into black Barbie’s party. So I started to think, what was really important to me?

Do you know what is important? It’s such a selfish delusion. When I was five years old, my light blue blanket with the yellow stars was the most important thing to me. I went everywhere with that blanket, no matter how smelly, dirty or unattractive it got. One day it came up missing. I found out years later my mother burned it. When I was thirteen years old getting an ear ring was the most important thing to me. I let a cousin stick a dirty needle through my ear and it got infected. My grandmother still beat my ass before she took me to the hospital. I remember looking in the mirror at my ear, swollen to the size of a lemon, and thinking to myself that I looked cute. When I was fifteen years old, losing my virginity became the most important thing to me. I didn’t want to die a virgin. I didn’t want aliens to come to the earth or a meteor without me ever had gotten my dick sucked or at least felt up. When I finally had the experience with Tanika it was horrible. I felt she was too aggressive. I felt I didn’t like it. I felt she was missing something like a dick. When I was seventeen years old moving away from home was important. My grandfather made me get a job my senior year in high school at the Mega Grocery store. When I graduated high school they offered me the manager position. I was already the janitor, cashier, busboy, buttboy or whatever menial job they threw at me, so I wasn’t surprised they wanted to ruin my life forever. I told my grandfather they offered me the job and he suggested that I didn’t go off to college. He said happiness in life was marrying a good Christian girl, a good job and to go to church every Sunday. I wanted to bitch slap him. I wanted to runaway to New York. I wanted to explore the world. I wanted to get as far away as possible from San Antonio, TX. I did get out of San Antonio. In the big city life was too fast. Too cold. I got caught up in too many things. Sometimes I wish I would’ve taken that Mega Grocery Manager job. I would probably own the damn store by now. Instead, I’m hiding out from my drug dealer because I owe him money.

Importance is what makes us feel safe. The war in Iraq should be important to me, but it isn’t because I don’t feel directly threatened. I should care about a lot of things that’s happening in the world. My sister calls me every other day to complain about the price of gas. I have to explain to her that I live in a metropolitan city with great public transportation. I like walking. It keeps me skinny. I would be as fat as her if I still lived in Texas. She drives to her mailbox. It’s only at the end of the driveway.

So what’s really important, make me feel safe when I lay my head down at night? I would like to say my family, but I can’t stand 99 percent of those bastards. I would like to say my friends, but they are mostly aging alcoholic drag queens that I only see at the bar, or dug addicts, or sex addicts, or born again Christians. I would like to say my job, but I’ve been chronically unemployed since the late 90s. I would like to say love but I can’t seem to make that work in my favor yet. Youth was once important to me but it betrayed me. I got old. As I approached thirty, I had to ask myself what really is important to me because I didn’t feel safe anymore in my life. I asked one of my born again Christian friend what was important to him, and he said having a close relationship with god. I laughed for a week. I remember a couple of years back, the only thing important to him was scoring a bag of Crystal Meth and fucking all weekend. Now he prays to Jesus. I try not to judge. I guess change is important to me. The opportunity to change. When I watch reality television I ask myself will those people every change. It’s sad that the most horrible representation of them is forever embedded in American culture. Can Omarosa stop being a bitch? Can New York ever just be Tiffany? Can Flava Flav stop procreating?

I think we have to allow ourselves to change. Vote Barack Obama, 2008.

Sand castle discos and wet dreams.

Last night I started packing my suitcase. I dug out the globe from the back of the closet and spun it wildly like spin the bottle, trying to see where it would land and where I should move just in case Obama loses. I feel as if I am a participate on American next top model. If I don’t win this shit, I’m fucking hitting it. I’m not going to be crying into the camera talking about maybe next time. If McCain wins I am on the first flight back to Africa. I’m sure I got relatives there.

Last night I got drunk and started looking at airplane tickets. Actually the prices weren’t that bad. I could fly to Kenya for under a thousand dollars. I can go to Cape Town for $1200 and that was round trip.

Maybe I would pack a bag and head to Japan. I like the Japanese. I could get a job teaching Ebonics.

I had a horrible dream the other day. The election is driving me crazy. Some nights I wake up screaming please Sarah Palin don’t shoot me; I’m not a fucking moose. Some days I wake up thinking John McCain touched me in my private place. Some nights I wake up thinking Joe Biden is a republican under cover. Sarah Palin may say something stupid shit but she doesn’t threatening the voters if they vote for her old man the world may come to an end. Biden is such an idiot.

And then there’s suspicious voting booths. If you press Obama it logs in McCain. I don’t want to go to jail on election day for having taken my computer monitor and thrown it through a window. And then there’s that email that tells all black people to vote on November 5th. And then there’s the Bradley effect. The Bradley effect, less commonly called the Wilder effect,[1][2] is a proposed explanation for observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some US government elections where a white candidate and a non-white candidate run against each other.[3][4][5] The effect refers to a supposed tendency on the part of some voters to tell pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, and yet, on election day, vote for his or her white opponent. It was named for Tom Bradley, an African-American who lost the 1982 California governor's race despite being ahead in voter polls going into the elections.[6]

I was thinking maybe I should just vote for McCain. Every year the person I vote for on American Idol never wins. Every year my choice for Project Runway never wins. It’s like I suck at predicting reality television. So how in the hell am I supposed to pick the right presidential candidate. It’s like I’m bad mojo. I think I will enact the niggard effect. I will tell everybody I’m voting for John McCain and change my mind once I ‘m inside the voting booths. If all the Joe Plumbers think I’m voting for McCain, maybe they will vote for Obama. It’s genius.

I am not Joe the plumber.

I am not Joe the plumber. I grew up poor. We never got a plumber. If the toilet broke we fixed it. If the sink got clogged up, we went to the public library and checked out a book on how to fix it. If the problem needed more expertise, in the ghetto we found somebody that we could pay under the table to fix it. Plumbers are expensive. I am not Joe the Plummer, Leroy the mechanic, or Pookie the dentist. Those people usually try to screw you in the end like Denise the contractor. They make it seem like the problem is worse than it is to just charge you more.

I am not Joe the plumber. I am Michael the unemployed writer former male secretary. I am Michael the student loan victim trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to pay all that money back. I am Michael with two cousins who lost their homes in foreclosure. I am Michael who needs his medical insurance and don’t want to hassle with insurance providers across the states. I thought the main reason for getting a job was because of company health insurance. I loathe big business. I live in the reality of constantly being hit with over limit fees from the bank, credit cards and just for cashing my check. I live paycheck to paycheck, so I am not Joe the plumber. Joe the plumber is not even Joe the plumber. He’s not even licensed. He doesn’t make more than forty thousand dollars a year. He wants to own a company in the future but hasn’t even taken the time to make himself a real plumber. He’s somebody’s cousin. He’s a registered republican. His name is not even Joe.

My vote is for Tim the weed dealer. Can’t we legalize marijuana already!!!!!!

Vote or I will kill you bitch.

I remember back in 2004 celebrities got out of control with the voting thing. Paris Hilton wore a t-shirt that said, “Vote or Die.” It turned out the dizzy socialite wasn’t registered and didn’t keep up her promise. She didn’t die. Instead she got herself arrested for drunk driving a couple years later.

I admit, I’ve never voted. I meant to vote back in 2000 but I figured Bush was going to win since I lived in a red state. It really didn’t matter if I voted anyway. I lived in Texas, a historical red state. They say every vote counts, but it doesn’t. If you are a democrat and live in a red state, you might as well stay home unless you feel as if you can get enough blue people to go out and vote and change the color of the state.

After the Al Gore vs. Bush crap, I vowed to never vote. I knew that every vote didn’t count. It wasn’t a popular election but some crazy crap. It was recounts and people with too much power stealing the election. I hated the 2000 election. It stressed me the fuck out and I didn’t even vote that year.

I’ve lied. I told people I voted so they would leave me the hell alone. I told people I cared because they would think I was a decent person. I’m not. I told people I voted like I tell the people when I’m selected for Jury Duty I’m mentally insane and can’t possible be of good judgment. The mental insane excuse never worked for me. They usually want papers or a Doctor’s note. I don’t like being patriotic. I didn’t like back in elementary and middle school when you were forced to stand in front of the American flag and salute it. I don’t know the pledge of allegiance. I don’t know all the words to “God bless America” or the national Anthem. I guess in Sarah Palin’s eyes that would make me anti-American. I thought the point of being American was that I didn’t need to know that crap, it’s not like we live in Nazi, Germany. It’s not like Sadam Hussein is going to shot me in the head if I don’t tap dance the national anthem on cue. It’s ridiculous. I thought being American gave me the right to not give a fuck. I thought it was in the constitution that I could not give a fuck unless I’m drafted for the army. Americans are rude when they go abroad. Americans don’t care about anybody else but Americans. We don’t care about anyone else’s religions, history, unless it’s American. But I guess 911 changed everything. It was the first time I realized I could die just simply for being American. I grew up with the notion that America was the greatest country on the planet or in the Universe. I was completely blissfully ignorant of how the rest of the world hated us.

On 911 I woke up with the worse hangover. I was living in Chicago. I went out that Monday night to a bar called Biology were drag queens performed and they served cheap drinks. I had way too many cheap drinks that night. I woke up that morning about an hour late to work. I desperately tried to come up with an excuse to call in. Before I could pick up the phone my roommate ran into the room and demanded I turn on the television. He said it was important. It was when the first plane crashed into the towers. And then thirty minutes later the second plane crashed into the towers. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. I thought it was fake. It looked fake. I couldn’t process it. I didn’t call into work that day. I just sat in front of the television and just watched. I wanted answers. I wanted to know what was happening. It seemed as if the world was coming to an end.

I never thought just living in America people would want to kill me. I thought I was safe. I thought the world loved American and worshiped our flag. As a black man I only figured I had to fear crooked cops and racist states like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. I figured if I stayed out of those states and not drove through them during the night I be safe. I knew America had racist issues, and my life could be in jeopardy because I was black, gay, if I traveled down the wrong road in America. But all that changed on 911. The terrorist I’d known my entire life, the at home terrorists, the ones that march in their KKK outfits during Martin Luther King Day, they were suddenly my terrorists. I knew those terrorists. I felt safe with those terrorists. The new terrorists, I didn’t know. The new terrorists crossed the ocean to come kill me. I didn’t know why. I thought damn as a black gay person, that’s all I needed was more people wanting to kill me. So I became American. It was pounded in my heart. It was pounded in my heart like being black and gay was pounded in my heart. It was how I was born.

I started to care about America. I guess I wanted to be safe again. It was my only home. I didn’t want to move. I had new fascination with the American flag. I always thought people who paraded the American flag were a bunch of hillbillies. I always looked at the American flag liked I looked at the Confederate flag. It had too much blood on it. It had too much of my blood on it. It had too much of my ancestors blood on it. And that’s how I look at the red states. A place drowning in my ancestors blood.

But things have changed. I look at Obama running for President and it’s nothing I ever thought could happen. I never thought he would make it passed the primaries. I always feared a black president because I knew he would be assassinated. I told my grandmother when I was five years old that I wanted to be the president of the United States when I grew up and she cried. She said they would only kill me.

I’m going to vote this year, and I mean it. I guess I’m voting because I now live in a blue state. I hate to think what the lines are going to be like on Election Day. I once waited fourteen hours to see the Star Wars movie. I don’t even like Star Wars. I guess I can stand in line to elect Obama.

I just want the election to be over with. In the meantime. I decided to stop watching television and just focus on babies, kittens, and puppies. I want to focus on things that make me happy. I just want to laugh. I also want to feel American.

Just in case you forgot.

The Star-Spangled Banner
—Francis Scott Key, 1814
O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.O say, does that star-spangled banner yet waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:'Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly sworeThat the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,A home and a country should leave us no more?Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.No refuge could save the hireling and slaveFrom the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when free-men shall standBetween their lov'd home and the war's desolation;Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued landPraise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag reads as follows:
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all."
Lastly, the negro anthem:
Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

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http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh020E532HFvevla5y

I’m too poor to be happy.

Every time I go into the Kentucky friend chicken on U Street in DC I don’t know if I’m going to get my crispy friend chicken or shot. I guess that’s most fast food restaurants in the hood. I don’t live in the hood. Actually my neighborhood is going through a gentrification: the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper- or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses.

When I first moved to DC six years ago from Texas, I lived in an okay neighborhood. I felt safe and the rent was cheap. I knew I didn’t want to live in SE DC because everyday somebody is getting shot or killed. I never ever wanted to drive through SE DC because I got enough gangsta points growing up in the wards of Houston, Texas and projects in San Antonio. I thought the entire point was getting out of the ghetto but I guess the yuppies understood a different story. Most of the buildings and houses in the ghetto aren’t owned. If they are owned, the estimates are really cheap. It’s actually a lot more expensive to live in the ghetto. Shit to have car insurance in the ghetto is like three times as higher to have insurance in 90210. But freedom in America for the poor, especially black poor has never been cheap.

My neighborhood has rapidly changed in the last six years. First, my rent has gone up a hundred dollars. When I first moved into the neighborhood the Convention Center was still in construction. Now it’s up and running and hosting events like “American Idol.” When I first moved into the neighborhood you couldn’t throw a rock down the street in any direction without hitting a crackhead or a pre-op tranny. The alcoholics hung outside the liquor store begging for change. I felt my neighbor hood was full of character. It wasn’t violent or anything. I never got robbed but I often dress like a homeless person so I knew I was safe. Besides, the rent was cheap. I knew if I wanted to score some weed at three in the morning it was like shouting for my cousin “Ray Ray” outside my window. I liked where I lived. Then the white people started showing up. It was the first sign. Six years ago when I first moved to the neighborhood I would walk through my neighborhood and not see one white person. It was strange to get off the metro and have five or six white people follow me home. I would clinch my bookbag close to me. I would wonder what the hell they wanted. Growing up in the hood the only white people were the ones with black babies or the ones who came to the ghetto to score drugs.

Yet, part of me welcomed the white people because I knew when they arrived meant business would follow. In six years, the neighborhood has gotten a grand movie theater, five new banks, three CVS stores, and six condos have risen from unpiloted grounds. Then my rent went up a hundred dollars.

In the past weeks my neighborhood has witnessed a new grocery store. It’s fucking gigantic. It has a dry cleaner, Starbucks, poet café, restaurant and cooking lessons on Tuesdays. At first I laughed when it finally opened it doors. My first thought what were they going to do with all the prostitutes who solicited just a block away. I thought what was going to happened to the homeless alcoholics pissing on themselves outside the AA building that has a liquor store right next door. It’s like having a Krespy Kreme donut shop in a gym.

When I first visited the grand grocery store, I knew the prices were going to be higher. I was used to my old grocery store. It was only a few blocks from me but it always had some type of sale. Yes, most of the cashiers are some ghetto bitches that no matter who they cursed out still kept their jobs. AT the new “promiseland” grocery story, when I walked through the doors everybody had a smile on their face. They welcomed me. I walked through the new grocery store and they had people with free sample platters. I knew at my old grocery store four blocks away that could never happen because the homeless people would think they were at home. I didn’t want any free samples. Actually I was freaked out how happy everybody was, smiling like they were happy to be at their minimum wage job. I chuckled because I knew it wouldn’t last for long.

Three weeks later, I walked to my old grocery store and I started noticing all these suspicious flyers on the telephone polls. The flyers boasted in red letters on white cardboard paper, “The selling of drugs or sexual solicitation is illegal. No selling of drugs and solicitation during the hours of 9 am to 5 am”

I laughed at the thought if buying crack in the ghetto was ever legal. I laughed at the thought of the set aside hours of illegal business. I wonder did the drug dealers and prostitute waited until 5am to start their day. Shit, the best drugs I got were usually early in the morning. Chris Rock said, anyone at an ATM at 3 in the morning taking out more than two hundred dollars wasn’t up to any good.

I also noticed in my neighborhood, the cops patrolled the streets twenty four seven. I remember growing up you never say a damn cop when the real shit was going down. A black person only saw a cop when they were getting arrested. IT felt sort of sad that a once cheap rent neighborhood never got its due. That those who lived through its worse now were outpriced and just transferred to another ghetto. It’s like ghettos are never recreated or destroyed, just transferred. If my rent goes up again this year, I am moving back to the ghetto. In this economy, I am willing to risk a bullet for cheaper rent.

Happy birthday to me

Happy Birthday is so generic. My dentist sends me a card but I know he doesn’t give a damn if I have a happy birthday. Happy Birthday is like saying good morning or not making eye contact with people on the metro train. It’s distant and insincere but we live in a Hallmark culture so people do it half-ass just to keep the peace. We need to buy cards for every damn holiday, sign our name and proclaim look motherfucker I care, sorta. I care enough to buy you a card. When I used to work, every other week somebody was sending around a card for me to sign. I hardly knew any of those people. I would just give my autograph.

Every birthday since I was born my grandmother gives me the amount I am in dollars. It’s sweet. I look forward to it like getting my tax refund. When I was a kid I used the money to boy candy or something. Now I use the money to buy weed. I got a picture taken of me to remember I was fat ass baby.

Every birthday since I was eight years old I do the same routine. I wake up and look in the mirror. I thoroughly examine my body. I look for specific changes. I check to see if my dick got bigger. It still hasn’t. I check to see if my arms are strong by doing the number of push-ups of my age. It was easier when I was twenty but now that I’m thirty something and often hung-over, not so easy. I might just throw up doing my sit-ups. I take a picture of myself.

Every birthday since I was thirteen years old I try to masturbate my age in twenty four hours. Honestly, I stopped that insanity that birthday. I couldn’t piss for two days. I thought my dick was going to fall off it hurt so bad. I take a picture of myself.

Every birthday since I was sixteen I get myself a new outfit. I get new shoes, socks, underwear, pants and shirt. I guess I wanted to feel new again. Or I was still trying to scrub that gooey pussy juice off my body from my mama. I take a picture of myself.

Every birthday since I was twenty one years old I’d get prissy drunk. I mean fall down on your ass --piss on yourself drunk. I mean I hope I make it home drunk. I’m talking angrily eating a sloppy burger like David Hasselfoff on the living room floor drunk. I take a picture of myself.

Every birthday since I was twenty two years old I find myself in AA.

Every birthday since I was twenty five years I find myself unemployed. When I light the candle on my birthday cake, I usually wish for a job.

A lot of things changed when I turned twenty seven years old. I guess I forgot the beauty of a birthday. Birthdays seemed to be arsenal for motherfuckers who weren’t doing enough for me. Those who forgot. Grandma never forgets because I still get that money. I’ve had lovers who didn’t remember until a week or even a month later. My friends because we all live in different cities now after college usually call just so that I can call them on their birthday. It’s like an unspoken agreement. My friend Sha once forgot to call me on my birthday and I never called her on her birthday again. It’s been like five years.

Birthdays for me seemed to become spiteful. I always know somehow or someway somebody is going to fuck it up for me. I know I’m going to get one of those stupid cards that I’m over the hill. I know I’m supposed to laugh but I usually feel like spitting in their face. I can still give one hell of a tantrum that could rival any two-year old or a coked up Naomi Campbell. I stopped getting laid on my birthday. I got into a committed relationship. He doesn’t like it when I drink. I don’t like it when he complains about my drinking. The night usually ends with an argument or maybe the cops.

When I turned thirty years old my sister had a baby. It was a girl. My sister changed overnight. I would’ve once petitioned for that crazy crackhead to never have kids. But when she found out she was pregnant it really changed her life. She got sober. She stayed sober. It was like she found what she had been looking for her entire life and that was to be a mother. I held my niece “Blessing” in my arms. I first thought my sister naming her child some arbitrary name was too ghetto Hollywood. I guess it was better than naming her Mercedes or Lexus like some ghetto mothers do like they are putting together a Christmas list. Or naming your child Denim. For my sister naming her child “Blessing” is what she was feeling at the moment. The child’s middle name is Natalie. I decided I would call her “big head.”

Holding blessing in my arms on the day of her birthday, I couldn’t help but understand what I meant by Happy birthday. It was a blessing. I sung her Happy Birthday, the black Steven Wonders version. I knew I meant that I was welcoming her to the world. I knew I meant I was happy she was now part of it. I knew what I told her happy birthday for the rest of her life I’d remember the day she was born and it was such a happy day. I couldn’t promise her life was going to be easy. But I did promise her that I would send her the number of dollars of her birthdays. She would probably think of me as lame or cheap. I didn’t care.

Today is my 33rd birthday. I got my money from my grandmother. The only people who wished me happy birthday were all the adult porn sites I belong too. It was precious.

It looked like Mama had got into the crack again. She was warned not to mix street drugs with her antidepressants. She got all crazy chasing kids and pissing on people’s porches. I guess she thought it was Halloween. But what was more amazing was how put together was her cow outfit. I wondered if she made it herself. I wondered if she watched a Martha Stewart episode and sewed it together. I blame Martha Stewart. I always blame Martha Stewart. I wonder if the cow suit was a rental. I mean it was suspiciously well put together. I’m sure at the nearest mental ward she would’ve won the costume contest. I also wondered if it was a rental and if she could get back her deposit.

I try to think what the hell must’ve been going through her mind. Did she check to see if the cow tits were in the right place? Did she pose in the mirror smiling at her milky exposure? Did she just decide that day she wanted to lose her mind.? I’ve had those days. But it didn’t seem like something that was spontaneous. It seemed planned for weeks. The bitch wanted to make the papers. She wanted me to write this blog about her. She wanted me to worship her for the rest of my life. I don’t know too many crazy people that would go to so much detail to prove they are damn crazy.

Mama next time calls me. You can wear your cow outfit and I will wear my purple rain assless chaps and we will party like it’s 1999.

I was here.

I find having a blog is like writing my number on a public toilet bathroom wall and hoping somebody calls me. What if nobody ever calls? Does anybody ever call those numbers? And what kind of freaky bastard will call?

Having a blog is like checking my messages to see if someone called me about a job. I questioned if someone believed my resume of lies. Will they give me money? And for how long?

Having a blog is like checking my comment page at five in the morning drunk to see if anyone likes me. It’s like Valentine’s day back in elementary. Usuallly the comments I get are like “you need to be institutionalized” or “please take you meds” or “this is Bank of America and we’re contacting you about a debt, please call us.” Those damn debt collectors are relentless. Don’t they get it by now, I’m never paying them.

So I was thinking as I posted comments on people pages I didn’t know, why people write on gas station bathroom walls in middle of Nowhere, Texas with a ballpoint pen, “I was here.” Did the person forget? And who carries the specific permanent marker for such graffiti: maybe a John Doe that’s afraid no one will miss him if he’s abducted by aliens. I think it’s because people just like to see themselves. Sometimes I comment on certain blogs just to see if that person will post it. They usually don’t.

The need to say “I was here” is as old as slavery. I was trapped on a toilet in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. I had some bad tuna and it desperately wanted out. On the toilet, I was in vertical birthing position so that my booty hole could aim correctly. And in that awkward Yoga move between explosive convulsions, my eyes wondered especially focus on the cracks of the bathroom stale hoping nobody came in like a relative or ex-lover or current lover or the newspaper or news team with cameras. As I cautiously watch the bathroom door, I couldn’t help but read the messages. Somebody was looking for a dick sucking around 5 in the evening on Sunday and left their phone number. Somebody didn’t like a certain gang. Somebody wanted to get fucked with an umbrella. And then it’s that ubiquitous, “I was here, 6-17-1997.” You suddenly feel not so alone that somebody was there in the same position. I just wanted the diarrhea to be over and try to get away with it

As I tiptoed out of the men’s bathroom hoping no one will follow me because it would dangerous. The stench I left behind like an aborted baby was strong enough that I was afraid it might be a misdemeanor. They got all kind of crazy laws in Texas.

A man walked in the bathroom right after me. He yelled at me “Man you need to get some fucking help!” I smiled coyly and said that wasn't. I ran for the nearest exit hoping to never see that bastard again.

The comeback kid

Usually I know it’s time to go back to the gym when older heterosexual women start looking at me like the witch in Hazel and Gretel. The girl at Popeye’s gives me an extra piece of chicken and biscuit as to fatten me up. The girl at the grocery store seems to hold my hand when she hands me my change because she likes the fullness in my face. I guess a fat man means safety. They assume I won’t stray. Or that I’m too fat to run without having to sit down. Why in sitcoms those really attractive women are married to really fat unattractive men? It’s a lie. It’s said the first sign that he is cheating is when he starts working out again or caring how he looks again.

It’s true. I got a Buddha booty. It’s when the stomach sticks out further than the booty. I hate starting over. And the gym never changes. I still feel like I’m in middle school. Those damn desk attendants and trainers feel like belligerent coaches judging my physical weakness. I throw like a girl. I can’t lift more than ten pounds. I don’t want one of those prison bodies. I want a Tarzan of the Jungle body like I’ve been swinging from trees. Yet, I have my father’s hips and my mama’s thighs.

Every time I go back to the gym I have to buy a new combination lock. I can’t never seem to remember the numbers, or if I should turn the knob to the right or left. So too many times because I don’t want to pay the fifty dollars it costs to have them break the damn thing, I place my ear firmly again the lock and try to see if I can break the code. I’m usually successful. I’m like some fat cat burglar.

At the gym I never feel l know what I’m doing. Everybody seems so serious about it. I’m afraid that I look like one of those chubby losers sweating like they just overdose on sugar donuts running on the treadmill. I afraid they others look at me like I should just give it up and that I’m ever going to be skinny. I chew on a king size snickers bar because it tastes better than those sports bar. I try to suck in my stomach but it makes my back hurt. Damnit I just want to be skinny. I just want to look good in a jock strap.

How do those white girls in Hollywood do it? I think I am bulimic. The problem is I can binge on the food but never throw it back up. I’m scared that like if I ate a large pizza and threw it back up I just might stick my head in the toilet bowl and try to recover that piece of pepperoni. It’s like a dog eating its own vomit. I do drink that much. I wasting food. Kids in Africa are starving.

“Don’t you know they shoot alcoholics down there?”

I was up one late night eating powder donuts and drinking tequila watching the movie “Mama Dearest” My first memory is that of wire hangers. My mama beat me with one because I took off my diaper and got shit everywhere. I was destined to be a Diva. In the movie Joan Crawford husband tells her, “When you were young and getting liquor up it was sexy. Now that you are old, you are just a drunk.” His words cut me like a knife. I just knew he was talking about me. It was mama beating me with the wire hanger all over again because I’d gotten shit all over my life. Babies and puppies are only cute when they are clean and not pissy or shitting over everything. Drunks are only cute when they are slutty easy college girls.

One of my good friends is obsessed with the A&E show “Intervention” It’s like how criminals are obsessed with the show Cops. It’s because some people are train wrecks that just need to be watched. I think he watches either to get tips of becoming a better addict or not to get caught. I just think Interventions are just rude.

Am I an alcoholic? I guess every addict asks that question. It’s like how my sister talks about girls who are more overweight than her like “she know she shouldn’t be wearing that.” In fact my sister once tried to pull off a cabwoman’s suit at size 22. She asked me if she looked fat. I replied do I drink too much. She said I didn’t. I told her she wasn’t fat. We were both happy for the time being. It’s like my life is fucked up but at least the children in Africa are still starving. Somebody is always worse. But when do you know that you’re at the end of pudding cup.

I think I watch that show Intervention because it’s like I’m not that damn gone. It’s like watching the show Cops and thinking you’re smarter than those idiots. I know not to run or hide in a dog house in the back yard when the cops are chasing me. I know I can’t outrun a police chase in a 1988 Ford Escort. Then again, I’ve never been in that situation. I’m sure it would cross my mind. \

And addicts are vain people. It’s like a sex tape. Nobody looks as good naked as those people in porn. It’s all in the lighting. It’s all faking. It’s all in the editing. It’s like why did David Hasselfhoff allow himself to be taped eating a hamburger. Did he think he was doing a Wendy’s commercial? I guess that’s why I’m an angry drunk. If I see a camera I’m breaking it like it’s the paparazzi and I’m Kanye West. I don’t want no damn evidence getting out. And I’m sure nobody wants to see my sex tapes. I’m terrible in bed.

On that show intervention, addicts, they love documenting their self destruction. It’s like a competition but nobody dies. I stopped going to AA meetings because I felt like a lightweight considering the hardcore drunks testimonies. There was one AA meeting where a man was pissing on himself in a corner. I guess the ghetto AA meeting are a little more hardcore. The gay AA meetings are more coherent have better bathrooms. It’s like the same drunks you see in a club but there’s no disco music. I never had the DT. I wasn’t hospitalized for “wet brain.” I had no desire to drink Listerine just because it had some alcohol. Some even drank shoe polish or rubbing alcohol. There was this one older man about eight five years old in a wheel chair and oxygen tank. He said he drank seventy years of his life. He said he’d been hospitalized so many times he stopped counting. I felt some comfort because I figured I had at least a good sixty years of drinking before the shit hits the fan.

Black people don’t go to rehab; they go to jail and then find Jesus. DMX is not in rehab. Tupac didn’t go to Rehab. Rick James went to jail.

The hardest fucking job

Minimum wage is a joke. They ain’t lying when they say its minimum “How do you tell this Mexican to sweep the floor. What is sweep in Spanish?” Cursed the guy making the sandwiches at Wendys. I tried to remember my college Spanish and then remembered I failed that class. The only word I remember is “maricon” which is Spanish for homosexual. My teacher pointed to me in class one day and told me I should remember that word.

The line at Wendys was frustrating because some fat bastard was holding it up. He wanted his sandwich rewrapped. The Wendys guy looked like he was about to pass out from heat exhaustion. He was dripping sweat everywhere. I felt sorry for him. He tried to give the sandwich for free to the fat bastard but the guy refused. He said just because he was fat didn’t mean he wanted to eat two double bacon cheeseburgers. The Wendys guy said he would just throw it in the trash. The fat bastard screamed that he should give it to somebody that needed it. He looked at me; he demanded the guy give me the sandwich. I was like what the fuck. I then remember my tennis shoes that I had ducktaped because they were falling apart. My psychiatrist made fun of them. She said I should care more about my presentation. I was in therapy so the last thing I was trying to do was impress that bitch. Anyways, I told the fat bastard and Wendys guy I didn’t want the sandwich. I actually did want the sandwich. The Wendys guy threw the sandwich in the trash.

As I counted the change in my pocket, I knew I had enough for two 99 cent cheeseburgers. Damn I should’ve taken the sandwich. I thought back when I was in high school I worked at Wendys in downtown San Antonio. It was the hardest job I ever had in my life. I was sure picking cotton would’ve been easier. I only lasted three hours. It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t enough that those people don’t get paid that much but they have to put up with so much attitude. It’s like there’s some sick fascination in America to kick people when they are down.

It was my turn to order from the Wendys guy. He looked a mess. He wrapped my burger as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. I tried to ignore it. For real, I don’t care if they spit in my food as long as I don’t see it or it isn’t crunchy.

You won’t understand when you get older.

I was seventeen years old. I just got off work. It was a twelve hour shift at AMC Movie Theater. I was walking to catch the last bus so I could get home and get some sleep. At the bus stop this kid walked up to me. He was about ten years old. He asked me if I had some change so he could get home. I questioned why he was out on the streets so late at night begging for change. Where were his parents? I felt sorry for him. I wanted to make sure he got home safely. I went into my pocket and pull out a dollar. He saw that I had more and demanded two dollars. I didn’t like his tone. He then said that if I didn’t give him ten dollars he was going to run to the cops and tell them I touched him. I felt my blood go cold. I looked around and saw the cop car that I hadn’t even noticed just a couple seconds before. At first I was a little impress with his con game. I wonder why I didn’t think of that when I was ten years old. I wasn’t pretty sure he had freaked out a lot of adults. I grabbed my dollar from that kid’s hand. I no longer gave a damn how he got home. I told him he shouldn’t be on the streets late at night harassing people. I walked away from that kid as fast as I could.

I don’t like kids. They don’t drink or smoke and often tell lies. Growing up, my grandmother never believed me when I said I didn’t do it. She used to tell me I went to bed to wake up to tell more lie, whatever the hell that meant. But we live in an overly protected world. Students beat up teachers. I saw this one news story where this old woman was attacked by a group of girls because she told them their outfits were smutty.
They beat the shit out of her.

Present tense, I was at a Laundromat. I was sitting down trying to read my book when this little girl came up to me. I looked around to make sure she belonged to somebody. They tell kids not to talk to strangers. I believe I shouldn’t talk to strange kids. And I just saw an episode on Oprah about child predators. I felt a grown man talking to some strange little girl couldn’t be a good thing, but her mother washing clothes seem to care less. The little girl and I started talking and she started asking me all kind of crazy questions. She wanted to know if I had a wife. She wanted to know if I had kids. She wanted to know if I believed in Jesus Christ. She wanted to know if I had a Mama. She wanted to know if I had a daddy. The questions startled me because I knew the correct answers were unsuited for some gregarious little girl. I also didn’t want to lie. I don’t like lying to children. I told her I didn’t have a wife. She asked me if I lived alone. I told her I had a roommate. She asked me if he was married. I told her no. She asked me if we stayed in the same room. I said sometimes. I really wanted to say when I get drunk. She asked me if I had a child. I told her I did. That he lived in Texas with his mother. She asked why I wasn’t married to her. I wanted to tell her that she was a lesbian who paid me ten years ago for my sperm. But I couldn’t. She asked me about my mother. I told her she was alive. I wanted to tell her I haven’t seen my mother in over ten years. She asked about my father. I told her he was dead. She asked me how. I wanted to tell her he got killed trying to rob a bank he already robbed three times before. But I didn’t. I just told her she would understand when she got older. But that was lie. It’s like telling a child that Santa Claus is real. Shit, I was older and I still didn’t understand.

Life is very complicated. Heroes aren’t often heroes. But for children the instinctual need to keep like simple and magical is more for us than them. Because birth is a miracle. It doesn’t matter if the mother is on Maury Polvich with five possible men that could be the baby’s father. It’s still a miracle. But like that first kid who tried to con me, innocent doesn’t last for long. I miss innocence. Maybe that’s why I didn’t tell that little girl the truth. She would understand when she got older.

Why I hate David Blaine?

With his latest failure to “shock” the world, David Blaine may be performing at children birthday parties as a magician. I can imagine the horror. He’d probably want to shove 500 cupcakes up his ass with the candles lit for no fucking reason. I only need to ask, WHY David Blaine, WHY!!!!

I don’t get him. What’s the difference between David Blaine and Amy Winehouse? He is supposed to be an Endurance artist which is an artistic expression through acts of physical pain, trauma, survival or deprivation. Roots can be found in religious asceticism which links physical torture to a way of spiritual transformation.[1]
Shit, I should consider myself an endurance artist. In college I once won a bet that I could drink 13 tequila shots and not die. I didn’t die but ended up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. My friends called me “pussy willow” for a year. I guess I failed my magic trick and they didn’t get to watch me die. Isn’t what the fascination of David Blaine about? We are just waiting for him to die. Every time I see Amy Winehouse, I astound by her crackhead endurance. It’s like every picture of her gets worse and worse. Nobody can understand why she is still alive considering her abuse of body and drugs. Yet people still buy her concert tickets just to see if she will pass out on stage or overdose. It’s sick. I don’t get it. But at least with Amy Winehouse, she has some talent. David Blaine is a con man.

It started with David Blaine burying himself alive. Then he put himself in a block of ice. And then he decided to stand on a thirty foot pole for 44 days. He stayed under water for like 17 hours and lastly he decided to hang upside down in central park for 60 hours. WHY David Blaine. WHY!!!!

What ever happened to the magician that cut women in half? What happened to pulling rabbits out of hats?

I don’t get today’s magicians, they are some freaky bastards. I hope David Blaine next trick is to disappear off the face of the planet, maybe land somewhere in the sun. I really hate that bastard.

The fat bastard strikes again

Sometimes I feel as if I’m a bag of Cheetos from becoming obese. My grocery store was having a sell on Cheetos for 99 cent for the big bag. The maximum amount was 12 bags. I got 12 bags. I mean, Cheetos are hardly ever on sale. I couldn’t refuse. The cashier of course looked at me like I was crazy. She asked me if I was going to a party. I normally don’t like making conversations with the cashiers. It was none of her damn business what I had planned to do. I told her I had planned to get a gallon of rum and sit in my recliner and eat all 12 bags and have a Doctor Who marathon. I didn’t know if I could eat all 12 bags in one night, but damnit I was going to try.

Gluttony in America is a tradition. Shit we have all you can eat buffets, Sam’s club and Costco. I mean, who really needs a tub of butter. I would buy it just to see if I could give myself a heart attack in a week. There was a time I wouldn’t eat anything I couldn’t deep fry.

Yet, the great thing about being a gluttonous pig is that I don’t gain that much weight. I mean after 12 bags of Cheetos, I might get really sick and shit orange diarrhea for like a week, but the weight would come off. I think my steady diet of cheap rum keeps me a normal size, even if Webmd tells me I need to lose twelve pounds. But I’m getting older. A family meal of Popeyes used to only stick to my body for a couple of days. Now it takes two weeks before my body rids itself of the excess.

That’s when I realize I’m only a bag of Cheetos from becoming Jaba the Hut. People look at really fat people and wonder how they got so out of control. It really just starts with five cheeseburgers thinking your body will shit it all off but instead it just somehow stays in your stomach. I guess I will stop eating so damn much as soon as I win the all you can eat hotdog contest. It's a childhood dream of mine.