Don’t be yourself.

Sitting on the toilet flipping through some asinine magazine I paused at the headline “Are you the type of person who lights up the room when you enter or leave? “ I chuckled. I didn’t know. I never really thought about it. I wondered if I cared. I mean, people smiled at me politely when I entered most rooms or conversations. I had no fear of being avoided. I mean, did I really care. Fuck, I flushed what was a regretful lunch. I thought, I was most likely the latter. I was an asshole before I was an asshole, then I started drinking.

Most people say be you. I say fuck that. I say be somebody else. Be somebody cool. Be a politician. Don’t drink too much in public. Agree with everything. Be a follower. Cowards live longer. We wear clothes for a reason. Die a fucking mystery.
The day before I went off to college my eldest sister decided to give me some advice she thought would help me navigate my social life a lot smoother. It was one of those “this is what’s wrong with you” conversations that are often unsolicited and never appreciated. We were sitting on her bedroom floor, sipping banana daiquiris wine-coolers, painting our toe nails whorish red and giggling like Asian school girls when she suddenly paused and got serious. Or maybe her buzz finally kicked in. She looked me directly in my eyes and boldly demanded “don’t be you.”I laughed. I questioned if she had finally reached the limits of my non-conformed masculinity as I blew the paint on my toenails dry. She said when I got to college I should be quiet for the first couple of months. I asked her why. I hadn’t really been known to be egregious. I speak if I have something to say. She said I should try to get along as if I walk through the streets bitch slapping people. That only happened once. I felt my skin go cold. She said I was awkward and made others feel awkward. I asked her was that the reason she hit me in the head with a brick when I was seven years old.

To not be myself. To not be. Maybe that had been the problem my entire life. I wondered who I could be. I like the idea of fakeness. I did want to be one of those people who everyone invited to their parties. The life of the party, not the one who gets drunk and starts insulting people. I wanted to be the person who lit up the room and put smiles on other people faces. I wanted to be that person serial killers instantly wanted to eat their flesh.

Needless to mention, I don’t have many friends. It’s a conscious decision. I get tired of losing them every year. It’s like when I meet someone, it’s just a countdown to how long I can remain sane. Most people irk the shit out of me. I usually hold it in. I don’t tell anyone the truth. I try to avoid an actual opinion on any subject. I don’t care. I can’t be myself. I’ve learned if I am happy, everyone around me is miserable.

I walked back to my desk. I suddenly wanted to test the dim switch how I walked into rooms.

I figured the new receptionist could be my experiment. After all, she was a temp and after a couple of days, I knew I wouldn’t see that bitch again.
As I approached her, I felt like I was in some horrible 80s romantic film. I wasn’t trying to fuck her or anything. I wondered how I would break the ice.

“You have that curse. “ I smiled. I repeated, “You have that curse or maybe it’s a disease.” I thought she would get the joke. Was it a joke? I mean, a curse can sometimes be a disease or monster. She looked confused, mostly annoyed. I smiled. I questioned my motive but I waited until she decided to pursue my argument. She nodded her head. I followed with “I mean, it’s not a bad thing. I guess. I don’t have it. I personally wouldn’t want it.” I created more confusion. Her face soured into a “What the fuck are you talking about you crazy bastard!”

I get that look a lot. More than often. That, “are you okay” look. The last time I was myself, my dentist tried to put me on antipsychotics.

“Don’t be mad.” I wanted to stop the sentence or backspace and delete. I felt my light go brutally black like somebody punched it with their bare fist and the blood ran to the surface and froze to die with oxygen. I told her she had that face that was welcoming. I told her that I just read some fascinating article about people who light up rooms or some bullshit like that. I told her people not only liked to greet her but tell her all their business. Like a bartender but with no drinks. I figured it was a curse. I mean she couldn’t be happy with looking so welcoming. I didn’t want a face like hers. I didn’t want complete strangers telling me about their STDs or infidelities. I thought she laugh. She didn’t. She looked around her personal space for a security guard or pepper spray. I knew she was lingering on the word “curse.” She said she was just being herself.

I felt he light dim as I walked away. Or did it get brighter.

Interview questions and lies

I remember when interviews were about finding the best candidate, now it seems it’s about eliminating the weakest link. Any mistake in the 2010 recession is an automatic dismissal. It seems very confrontational now. I was reading something sent to me via Spam mail about the 7 worse things an interviewer can do in an interview. I thought it was mostly bullshit and needed to respond.


1. Smells: Too Much of a Good Smell Can Be Bad
Pat Riley, author of Secrets of Breaking into Pharmaceutical Sales, has a pet peeve story to relate: "Preparing for an interview is not like preparing for a date. I had one interview with a woman who doused herself with perfume (the same perfume my ex-girlfriend used to wear) right before stepping into the small interview booth. The perfume was overpowering and brought back bad memories."

The truth: any smell of his ex-girlfriend might have turned the bastard off. Maybe that’s why she dumped his trifling ass. I mean, what pervert goes around smelling women in an interview. I don’t like ppl who bath in their ailment, but smelling fresh is a good thing. And interviews are like dates. It’s an audition. You want to get that person in bed for the next year. So that advice was clearly bullshit.



2. Communication: Too Little Leaves Interviewers Exasperated
"My No. 1 interviewing pet peeve is an applicant who won't talk,” says Steve Jones, a manager of client services at a software company in Dallas. “I try to ask open-ended questions and prod them for longer answers, but no luck. I've even mentioned to a few that I need more information so I can get an idea of where they're coming from -- still no luck. I always end the interview saying, ‘Now it's your turn to ask questions,' and still no luck. They don't have any. Oh well -- next!"”
Jones advises job seekers to come prepared to answer questions and talk about you.

That is such bullshit. What they want is for you to kiss their ass. They want for you to play up a minority status in most cases. If you are a woman, a sentence less than three is talking to less cuz women like to talk. If you were black, direct answers seem militant. If you were Latino, they want to not really understand you but like your go-getter attitude.


3. Communication: Too Much Can Be Too Much
"Candidates who ramble are the ones who get to me," says Dotti Bousquet of Resource Group Staffing in West Hartford, Connecticut. “I was interviewing a candidate and asked her one question. The candidate talked and talked and talked for 45 minutes straight. I was unable to stop her. I had to say, ‘Let's wrap this up,' and I stood up while she continued to talk. I walked to the door of the office and opened it. She left, but continued to talk while walking out the door."

The lesson? “Candidates should stay focused, and answer the question asked -- in less than two to three minutes," advises Bousquet.

Funny, go back to question 2, and see how this article could confuse any monkey. In interviews, scripted answers are seen as cold or too rehearsed. It’s such a contradiction. There is no good way or wrong way to answer a question. The person either likes you or not. Too much power and personal bullshit is given to interviewers.


4. Lack of Focus: Results in Losing the Interviewer
"Typically, candidates are simply too intimidated by the process," says Mark Fulop, project director for a large nonprofit agency. "Relating the answer given to one question back with another -- and asking clarifying or follow-up questions -- shows me that the candidate is confident and thinking about the whole picture instead of enduring an interrogation.

Some interviewers are just fucking boring. I mean, it’s like talking to an ant stuck on the wall and doesn’t know it’s about to die. You want to keep it alive, but you think to yourself, what’s the point. It turns to desperation when you realize the interviewer doesn’t like you. It’s evident in the first handshake and eye roll. You can't be their baby daddy.


5. Averting Your Eyes: One Way to Avert an Offer
Incorrect nonverbal communication is a turnoff for many interviewers. People who do not make any eye contact during the entire interview irritate Gwen Sobiech, an agency recruiter in West Hartford, Connecticut. “I realize some people are shy, but to never look at me once -- they look down, around, everywhere -- but not at me for the entire interview," she says. "I find that extremely annoying. I also tend to distrust someone who will not look at me when I've asked a question."
If you are uncomfortable looking into someone's eyes, look at his third eye, just above and between the person's two eyes.

I admit, I hate looking at people. I hate looking at them cuz I’m taking them apart. I can’t focus. I am focusing on that crusted snot in their nose. Or that crust at the corner of their mouths.


6. Slang and Street Speak: Leave Them on the Street. "Poor communications skills really get to me," says Robert Fodge of Power Brokers in Dover, Delaware. "What I mean by this is not merely their language fluency, but more about the use of language. Slang words and street speak just don't have a place in most business environments. Also, candidates who say 'um,' 'like' and 'uh' between every other word lose my attention very quickly."

That just means, don’t act black. Don’t act black. Don’t act black. Don’t act black.


7. Deception: Little Lies Leave a Big Impression
One major complaint among recruiters is when a candidate is not completely truthful; small lies are all too common in the world of recruitment. This includes not being completely forthcoming with relevant information, embellishing accomplishments, hiding jobs or leading the process on with no intention of ever following through. Building trust during the interview is key to getting an offer.

I say, know your lies and know them well. Your interview should be about a short story of the lies you are about to tell. You must know that character like accepting an Oscar.

Audition

Audition


“I am going to be somebody. I am going to make it!” the lost soul screams at the camera after the harsh judges tell them they have no real talent. They curse. They disagree, vehemently. I sit at home sipping on my rum and coke laughing. I am watching American Idol season whatever and it’s so fucking entertaining to see people get their dreams crushed. I don’t know why. We all think we are special but we aren’t. It’s like none of us ever attended public schooling.

They say don’t think about it. But who is they? They say be yourself. I say bullshit. On that naked stage with the sun in a strobe light pulsating your face --you say to yourself it’s your turn. “You!” that’s the audition. You are only selling “you?” But who the fuck are you? You are standing in the sun and there is no way of hiding your flaws. God made you, now the creation must be judged.


The only person that ever discovered me was my mama when she took that pregnancy test. And there I was, piss on a stick staring back at a mortified 17 year old.
It wasn’t magic. I couldn’t sing, act or do anything but scare the shit out of her.

It seems in life we are always auditioning. Dating. Interviewing. Applying for an apartment. Trying to belong. Some call it love. Others call it peer pressure. The church people call it getting into heaven.

But what if it doesn’t want you?

I was trying to get laid. I came in tow with all my best lines. I brushed my teeth and flirted my ass off. I even bought the bitch a drink. I really wanted that piece of ass. Yet, there was nothing I could do to convince that person to come home with me. I smiled. I told cute jokes. Nothing. It wasn’t like the person was just an asshole or felt I was ugly or not good enough. I wasn’t the one.

I wasn’t the one. I wasn’t what he or she decided he or she deserved. I was just some asshole who couldn’t deal with rejection. But I did get some really great advice. The person told me, when someone likes you, you can shit on yourself and they would forgive it.

Yet, I have never been the type to take rejection well. I rather be delusional.

Flash adjacently to Steven King’s “Misery”, three o’clock in the morning after finishing a liter of Bacardi clear rum and sniffing Xanax. The world can change if it wants me or not. So Flash back to the beginning of this particular rant, “I am going to be somebody” even if I have to skin Simon Cowell and wear him as a belt.

I don’t audition. I hold hostage.

Have you seen the green frog?

“Are you okay?” I get that question more than normal. I never really understood what it meant. It is like “am I on fire motherfucker.” I guess I some days I have that look like a sexual transmitted disease. That something just ain’t right about that boy and it needs to be checked out by a certified doctor, priest and some scientists

It was a very hot July. I was working some dumb temp job for the summer. Everybody in that room were fucking losers. Some girl was getting evicted from her apartment and complained about it every day. Another barely eighteen year old high school dropout was pregnant again with her third child and couldn’t figure out how to tell her boyfriend who was about to be sentenced for aggravated assault and robbery. I told her to tell him at the trail when they have his violent ass in handcuffs. A white guy was there, no story, just liquor in his coffee cups. An older Asian lady who didn’t speak English but somehow understand the joke I made about her being a crack head. She was the most suspicious, my only evidence and argument about her hourly bathroom breaks where she went shaking but came back suddenly refresh and too much damn energy. And the second to last was the church lady. Her only concern was raising money for some new preacher she found on the internet. I consciously ignored her most cuz I didn’t want to buy her crappy cupcakes, homemade jewelry or tickets to a gospel revival. And then there was me. The good news, I was working. I had big plans for my life to turn it all around, again. I figured god gives an idiot as many chances as it takes. I was fucking retarded. We all got the job through a temp agency. It didn’t pay hooker money but enough to keep the lights on in my apartment.

Lunch break. I decided to make friends with people I knew I’d never see again after I decided I didn’t want the paycheck anymore. We decided to eat out side and that’s when I saw her. Why my life was the way it was suddenly came rushing to the forefront when I saw her. It was more like I felt her. When you have as many secrets as I do, you can feel the truth stalking you. It had to be almost 100 degrees in no shade and she was dancing. She was dancing like voodoo princesses around raging fire. She somehow managed to remove all her clothes except so very dirty pink panties and she was dancing. Her middle aged bloated body jiggled like can biscuits left out in the sun- melted and suspiciously sticky. I knew her. I had lived with her. She was a friend. I hoped like hell she didn’t notice me. I hoped like her we didn’t make eye contact and she’d charge my direction, grabbing me into her arms and making me dance with her. Crazy had found again.

Six months earlier, I had turned thirty and just got out of a mental institution. I wasn’t crazy, just desperate. My life had come apart. I was getting evicted from my apartment. It was something about running a prostitution ring from the Landry room. Sorta true, but that’s another rant. I was 2000 miles away from the nearest relative. I had no money--. Checking account was overdrawn and all my credit cards were in collections. I was fucked.

So I took a knife and carved “Help” in the middle of my chest.

I did have health insurance.

I figured I go to the hospital and let them figure my life out.

I got to the hospital after finishing half of liter of rum. I packed an overnight bag. I don’t know why I thought going to a hospital would make me feel safe. I sure as hell was going to show up at the police station. I wonder was it how homelessness started. I had failed. I was thirty years old and I couldn’t make it as an adult. The nurse when I showed her the wound bleeding from underneath a white t-shirt was horrified. I thought she saw Jesus in my blooded stain cuz she keep yelling at the shirt like she knew it. Like my blood soaked wounds had a name and she was performing an exorcism. I wanted to create drama but not have some old woman drop to her knees and beg some guy named “Holy Spirit” to save my alcoholic life. I knew I was in the right place. I had finally found someone to pity me.

It took way over 14 hours laying in the emergency room before they checked me in. I guess they wanted to see what they could do with my insurance. I didn’t know they were checking me into the Psych ward until after the fact. I figured they would give me a referral to a social worker. They said I couldn’t leave. Something called a 72 hours suicide watch which didn’t make any sense. A big security guard grabbed me. Some lady stuck a needle in my arm. When I awoke, I was handcuffed to a bed. The nurse asked me if “I had seen the green frog.” I asked what the fuck that meant.

For three days I tried to escape. I would awake not knowing the time or day and make a futile mistake for the “exit” door. It was always locked. That big security guard was never far away and the lady with the big needle. I would be out again, and every time I awaken was that same stupid question, “Have you seen the green frog?” After three days in basically a coma, I realized I wasn’t going anywhere. I had to prove to them I wasn’t crazy, just a little eccentric. They said I was depressed and a danger to myself. I had every fucking reason to be depressed. I was broke, unemployed, getting evicted, stubborn, arguably some problems with Bacardi rum but everybody was a danger to themselves, that’s why we come into the world as babies.

But for another 12 days, I would have to figure out what is crazy and to see that damn green frog so I could get out of the ghetto version of a “One who flew over the hoodrat nest.” I thought I knew crazy. I thought the homeless man pissing on himself and laughing at the rain was crazy. I have seen so many version of crackhead crazy. I seen crackhead prostitutes try to sell the button off their ragged blouse for more drugs. There is funny crazy like Tracy Morgan.

Inside that place, I realized mental illness was a fucking real deal. I mean there were people who were faking so they didn’t have to work or have a place to sleep for a couple of days. And then there were the real crazy people. There weren’t funny, drunk or depressed. They were fucking crazy. They weren’t dangerous if unprovoked but convinced of a world nobody could see or understand.

There was the scavenger; he had been looking for a key he lost since 1950. I asked him what the key unlocked, he said Keebler house. He had been looking for those cookies for decades. I told him they sold them at the grocery store. He said he wanted the elves.
He would check all the trashcans everyday.

There was Las Vegas girl I called her. She was convinced in another lifetime she was a topless dancer. Every morning meeting with the crazies where we talked about how less crazy we were that day, the same issue came up with Las Vegas to have her keep her top on. She was that crazy bitch I saw outside new job. I wondered how she got out. She predicted my future. She said I had to lose everything in order to gain a sense of balance again. She said I was meant to be a writer and I wasn’t going to get evicted from my apartment but my lover would leave me. She was right. I wrote a book that year and I didn’t get evicted from my apartment. My lover broke up with me for good.

My favorite crazy was the Doctor. He was convinced the real therapists and nurses were the patients. He would wear his white lab coat everyday and go check on the nurses and with every question they asked him, he turned it around. He was brilliant.

So, have you seen the green frog?

Who told you about this green frog?

It’s our way, to measure if your mind subconsciously remembers some form of reality.”
Reality?

I asked you the question

And why does the frog have to be green?

It’s an easier color for your mind to see when you go to sleep.

So the green frog puts you to sleep?

I will ask the questions.

Again who told you about a green frog? Are you seeing green frogs?

No.

So how do you know you’re not crazy if you ask that same stupid question every morning and night?

Funny, I never did see that damn green frog, but one morning I decided to just agree. I was freed that afternoon.

It's over!!!!!

I once got fired from a job because I kept showing up late. I’m not talking about thirty minutes or an hour late more like five or six hours late. My hours were from 9-5, and I’d show up at 2 and then go to lunch. I got away with it for like a month.

I once got fired from a job because I left a bottle of Rum on my desk. My boss asked me if I had been drinking and I offered her a sip from my coffee cup. I thought she was cool.
She wasn’t.

I once got fired from a job because I forgot to book my Boss’s flight back from London. It was a weekend trip. He called me in to his office Monday morning. He complained that he had to sleep on the airport floor for two days and it cost him almost ten thousand dollars to get back. I replied” You’re back, so what’s the problem.” Security escorted me out that afternoon.

Being fired is like saying “You’re dead to me.” How horrible. An aunt once said that to me when she caught me in bed with her boyfriend. I questioned for a second if I should call the police because she may had plans to kill me or put a hit on me. What does it mean for somebody to say, you’re dead to me when in fact I know I’m still alive and breathing. If I’m dead to them, does that make me a ghost and does that give me the right to haunt them?

I’ve also been disowned or renounced for various reason depending on how drunk I got that day. I think I got disowned for being a homosexual and renounced for practicing it. I think disownment is more emotional and renounced is the legal term as in getting kicked out of the family will. Is it truly possibly to disown anyone. I mean daddy can’t go back to that night when he got liquored up and seduced my mother. My mother can’t take back the nine months of pregnancy and 14 hours of labor. IS there paper work involved when you disown someone? I mean after a person turn eighteen years old, the law automically disowns them from their parents. If I’m disowned should I give back my birth certificate and have my next of kin removed. Is disownment like the parent/child messing divorce. Should I hire a lawyer. I mean I was use to a certain lifestyle before the disownment, daddy can take back the last name but I want the vacation house and my childhood allowance until the day I die. Let’s not forget, the faithful, “don’t ever speak to me again.” It’s been used on me often. My sister yelled it into the phone the night I called her a three in the morning blasting Michael Jackson “you wanna be starting something.” I thought she’d be amused. She called me a immature drunk. I called her a fat frigid bitch and I thought those people were supposed to be jolly. She told me to never speak to her again. I wondered if that mean if I saw a grizzly bear charging at her in the grocery store did the rule still apply?

Every time I get fired from a job or disowned, I wonder did the people still think of me? How long did it take for them to think of me as dead? How long did it take from them to wipe away my memory of me trying to bitch slap, break the windows out of their cars, yelling at the top of my lungs in the middle of the street with no clothes on?

“Happy Abandonment Day!”

“Take this nigga cuz I don’t want him no more.” The words of my mother, spoken like death and birth. I’m sure they don’t put that on any Hallmark cards. So every mother’s day I tell myself, why should I be ashamed that my mother decided not to stick around. Humanity is complicated. And if happiness in life is finally learning to love yourself, how you get to it is nobody fucking business.

I often have to be brutally honest with my memory. My mother was never a mother. In my fantasy, I want to repaint her innocent and a victim. Yet, I know I have so little to work with since I barely knew her. I don’t remember her being a mean mother. I do remember some disturbing physical attacks mostly provoked by me. I wasn’t a child that should ever be left alone. I have actually burned down people houses. I was a well known fire starter in the neighborhood. I think I made the papers.

The month of May is the national Foster Care month. It is also the month of Mother’s Day. I decided to make it my own personal “Happy Abandonment Day” to be celebrated with a warm bath, liquor, freaky masterbation and Chinese food.

I guess I was one of those kids that wished I didn’t belong to my family or some rich white people would come and adopt me. I guess it was my nappy headed ghetto kid dream.

I was never in foster care. My mother gave me to my father’s mother. I wish I had gone to foster care. I wished I would’ve gotten the option to be adopted. Yet, I had a very extensive large family. I just didn’t want them. I believe growing up in my grandmother’s house was worse than foster care. It was like being thrown to a pack of ghetto vicious wolves. I grew up with thirty five first cousins all male. It was like a juvenile detention center and me being somewhat effeminate, I had to fight to not constantly get rapped. They always worry about the girls, but effeminate boys are the real prey.

Abandonment is abandonment. It feels no different if you were giving to an orphanage or alcoholic grandmother. Over 500,000 children in the U.S. currently reside in some form of foster care. Black children make up approximately two thirds of the foster care population and remain in care longer. I remember growing up and my grandmother would always yell at us kids who she now had to take care of cuz the parents either got themselves incarcerated, were on drugs or dead that when we turn 18 we were no longer her problem. I feel as if that’s all foster care and orphans dilemma. Yet, I ran away from my grandmother’s house at age 15. I beat her to the punch.

I think the worse part of being a foster care kid is the emancipation. It’s when the kid turns 18 and in the eyes of the law an adult. It’s when that kid graduates high school and no longer has a support system. I always wondered how my grandmother was going to handle my 18th birthday. I wonder if she would wake me with a shotgun and have me pack all my shit and get the fuck out. It would be like, “Happy Homeless Day black ass nigga.”

You are emancipated to the big crazy scary world. The world I still remember when my mother abandon me when I was eight years old. I didn’t think she was for real. I remember being in that hotel and thinking to myself that she had to come back. She had to come back. And a day later she still hadn’t come back. Funny, twenty years later at some therapist's office, I was asked when I knew she wasn’t coming back. It hadn’t settled after all that time that she was never coming back. I never saw her again. I never wanted to. I never loved her. It makes me feel evil. I didn’t. I barely knew her. My father died when I was five years old and I feel as if I knew him better than my own mother.. Yet her abandonment was an extremely harsh blow to my ego. I didn’t realize I was so co-dependent on a woman I barely saw. It was like, how dare you bitch, I should have left you. Probably a reason why I usually break up with people before I give them a chance to walk out on me.

At 33 years after surviving the mental institution, somehow never been incarcerated, still healthy, and not dead, I no longer give a fuck about the mandatory greeting card bullshit. I celebrate me. Yes, I may have a functional alcohol problem, chronic unemployment, trust issues and an inability to be faithful, but I am still here. So mama, happy fucking abandonment day. I am still here.

DMX, arrested again.

“Damn, why you got to be like that?”

We stared each other down like prison gangs ready to mark our territory. She, the grocer cashier, and I, the frustrated customer with so little time before my favorite show started in twenty minutes. I firmly gripped the package of turkey meat like a brick. The argument: the sign said the meat was 2.99 not 5.99. I just wanted to correct the mistake or get some clarification. Normally, the cashier would call in a price check, but she was in a transsexual Queen Kong mood. She just needed to prove me wrong. I didn’t care, the fight was on. I wouldn’t hit a girl, but I surely would press charges. We both walk to the back like a race. I showed here where I picked up the meat. It was obvious, there were 2.99 signs everywhere. The meat I had in my hand was stacked up to the ceiling. The only meat in a five foot radius. Yet, I was wrong. Somebody had stocked the wrong meat. She looked at me with so much attitude and practically screamed, so are you going to get that or not. I pushed back with even more bravado, “where’s the fucking meat that’s 2.99.”

I hate my grocery store. In the beginning, I must admit I was a little suspicious when the new Safeway opened down the street from my apartment. It was too damn friendly. But I was excited since I had already ruined my reputation at my old grocery store. I stumbled in there one very drunk Halloween night dressed like a black cat. I got into their buffet and left trails of chicken wings bones as I frantically searched for milk. They made me pay for chicken wings and took my picture and hung it on their wall of shame. I figured with the new grocery store I could start over.

I got an invitation in the mail to the “new” Safeway grand opening. I like when things are new like babies. They have so much potential but will most likely grow up to be assholes like everybody else. My neighborhood was in the middle of gentrification. I figured in a couple of years with the newer condos springing up everywhere, it’ll probably be as white as the CW television station. My black ass would be replaced with some generic blonde.


The store was huge. It smelled like circus balloons and teeth whitener. I walked into the doors and was pretty much greeted with a blowjob and napkins. They were way too accommodating. It made me nervous. It was as if they were trying too hard for the new whites who were buying condos in the neighborhood. I told myself not to get used to it. It wasn’t going to last. Funny, I woke up that afternoon and DMX had gotten arrested again. I found it odd watching him on TV. Standing in front another judge like a one night stand, he looked so safe in his expensive suit, washed face and puppy dog eyes. I could have never imagined he get high on cocaine again and try to steal cars at an airport. Was it just an act, I told myself as I looked around the “new” Safeway at all the urban faces who just gotten their neighborhood taken over by yuppie whites. They all looked non-threatening. But the hood can’t hide hood for too long. It’s the “you can take the girl out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the girl.” It’s my struggle to not use the “n” word in 2010 and I’d been saying it my entire life.

I have a flashback to my freshman year in college. I went from a predominate black “inner city” neighborhood to an all white private university. In the beginning, I wasn’t too happy with it. However, I was prepared thanks to UPN for all the stupid white questions I was going to have to swallow like: why does you skin get ashy, why do you use that type of brush, or you an athlete, or if I was affirmative action. And I was like, look bitches, this ain’t Mississippi burning, I would kick your ass so back the fuck off. At that time, every word that came out of my mouth was a threat or motherfucker. Ironically, growing up in “inner-city” I was told I acted to white, but when I got to college I was too black. It was so Halle Berry, confusing. Yet, I quickly learned to adjust—human survival instinct. I would call it the non-threatening black persona. I lowered my voice. I bought a belt and pulled up my pants. I made sure to smile and laugh a lot. I stopped grabbing motherfuckers by their throats. I started to wear khakis and button up shirts. I think I even bought a bow tie. I figured it was too hide the fact I had attended at least three family members and six friends funerals under the age of 18. I figured it was too hide that my father died when I was five years old and my mother was a crack addict. I wanted to hide a life of fried cheese bologna sandwiches, government peanut butter, hope meals (eat and hope you get full), and ghetto poverty. I wanted to hide everything I knew to be true.

I suddenly felt sorry for the girl that I really wanted to pull out her weave. I had no idea what was going on behind all that damn attitude. She worked in an upscale neighborhood and probably took two buses back to her reality. I knew we were more alike than different but she hadn’t learned the game. Or maybe she was just a bitch. I decided to get her fired. I may have appeared non-threatening, but I was still a nigga. And niggas hate other niggas.

Rehab

“Nigga, you just pissed yourself” she said looking at me. I looked down at my pants in panic but they were dry. I turned around and noticed the man in the wheel chair. I wondered how I didn’t notice him before. I guess I got caught up deciding which gallon of poison I wanted for the weekend from Crazy Chicken liquor store. The guy in the wheel chair, I thought he was just retarded but turned out he was very drunk. Ironically next door were they the AA meetings. I wonder if he had wondered off. I looked down at his crotch, indeed he had pissed himself but that wasn’t his major concern. His mission was more liquor. He was tattered like an overdue heating bill that fell on a muddy ground and decides it doesn’t need to be paid. He looked like there was no recovery for his suffering. I laughed. It was so sad watching him struggling to count the change in his hand and gather the strength to place it on the counter. He was in a damn wheel chair. At least it was electronic. I couldn’t figure how he even managed to get himself into the store or how he will manage to get himself wherever-- if he succeeded getting more liquor. So I laughed. I watched in awe for ten minutes. I was actually rooting for him. I also wanted to see if the liquor store clerk would take his money. Then I got bored. He passed out in his chair. I decided I would drink rum that weekend. It was an oldie but goodie.
I finally reached home from another day “it pays the bills” work to find two pieces of philosophically related mail in the mailbox. I had been looking for a refund check for weeks, instead I found a jury duty notice and a large envelope with the big letters “ADDICTION.” I immediately started thinking of ways of how to get out of my social responsibility. I figured I’d keep postponing it until they arrest me or dismiss me. The envelope titled “ADDICTION” intrigued me. I looked at the other mailboxes and it wasn’t just me. Everybody got the mysterious “ADDICTION” envelope. I suspected from the strange smell that my downstairs neighbor liked the green boogey man. From the trash, I knew the guy next door really liked wine but I never saw him drunk, just dozen of bottles when he recycled. Drunks don’t recycle. I took the mail and quickly got into my apartment. My neighbors’ schedules are annoying close to mine and I do everything in my power to avoid them. I hate the friendly chatter. I rather pretend they didn’t exist.

Inside my apartment, I first make myself a cocktail. I sip it quickly, feeling as if I deserved it since it was Friday and I made it through another week without getting fired. I start removing the uniform (blazer, tie, dress shirt and pants and dress shoes.). I feel better just in my underwear and I turn on the TV to the cartoon channel and begin reading my mail. I wanted to know who was calling me an addict.
Thanks to Oprah we all now live in a rehab culture. Everybody is an addict. If you cheat on your wife you are a sex addict. If you were a child star you are an addict. If you drink too much and piss on yourself that one time at Mardi Gras you are an addict. If you have a couple of beers after work some talk show host will say you’re an addict. If you cheat on your wife, you’re an addict. Too many damn addicts and fat people in America.

I started reading the letter and it was about if I knew someone or myself that might have a problem with a bad habit. I knew plenty of people but I was no snitch. I didn’t want them straightened out. It’s like the jolly fat friend who gets skinny and suddenly becomes a mega bitch. I detest the reborn.

I attended an AA meeting for six days when my landlord and some dramatic tenants got together and scheduled a spontaneous intervention. I was told I needed document proof of “getting help” or he would have to end my lease. I felt insulted. I was never late on my rent, so what if I took it a little far some weekends. The ring leader was some old pothead lesbian. She caught me pissing in her welcoming plant in front of her door. I’d done it so many times I can’t remember but that night she caught me. Another neighbor said she was tired of my cat howling at 4 in the morning. She didn’t understand that if I was still drinking at 3 in the morning I became an alley cat. It wasn’t irrational. So to prove them wrong, I stopped drinking and went to AA.
AA was like the church of my childhood, mostly fake and a bunch of people who just like to hear themselves talk. I would listen to the stories of angry drunks who beat their wives, those who blacked out or ended up in the hospital or jail or sometimes the mental institution. They seem so far right of the spectrum. I just got caught pissing in my neighbors plants. I felt it could be worse. Feeling inadequate, I started to lie. I’d make up stories about getting so drunk and kidnapping homeless men and keeping them in my basement. I say I once drank a gallon in three hours. I just wanted to hear myself talk.

Being sober, I just needed the attention more. I guess I was addicted to irrationality.

They say people who go to jail are never rehabilitated but just learn to be better criminals and not get caught. In AA I learned how to become a better drunk. I learned we live in a rehab culture where any sign of disturbing the peace demands “get so help.” Which means, I need for you to shut the fuck up, or I need for you to stop ruining my silence. I am just trying to get out of this life

Nickel Bags

This is how it went down. Lunch break. I checked my yahoo account. Filenes Basement sent me a 20% off coupon. I figured I needed new underwear and socks cuz I only buy under garment if it’s on sale. Most of the time I wear my drawers until the bootyhole burns a hole in the cotton for fresh air. I printed out the coupon. I planned to take a long lunch cuz my boss was at an offsite meeting. It was a nice day. The sun was on fire rocking sunshades like those raisin commercials. I was in a good mood which meant I was on my third day of sobriety. I took my time. I got to the store and walked around looking at stuff I knew I couldn’t buy. I’ve never been much of a shopper. I see my clothes more as inventory and things that need to be replaced. Menswear is stagnant. You just need something to cover the ass, pair of jeans, slacks, shoes and shirt and just keep replacing that combination in same color scheme.

Ten minutes in the store I got bored and decided to check out. It turned out I wasn’t the only one who had gotten that coupon right before lunch. It was an epidemic. The line was slow. I could hear the impatient breaths but I was cool. I knew I had plenty of time.

Living in the “protest” city, most days I cleverly ignore people behind my dark sunshades. Yet, in lines I can’t help but focus what is around me just in case someone pulls out a gun and start shooting motherfuckers. I want to know who I should grab to shield me.

Funny, a line taking more than five minutes invite stranger’s banal chatter. Their existence suddenly needs affirmation that they are frustrated or late for work. I don’t care. But for some reason I focused on the cashier. I didn’t like her hair. It wasn’t just the kitchen showing but also the clogged up toilet. I wanted to offer her some lye.

As a black person from the front section of the ghetto, I still get nervous about using my credit card. I guess it’s the fear of public rejection. It’s societal. It’s a machine screaming at you, YOU SHALL NOT PASS. I like watching people whose credit cards get rejected. They suddenly have to explain. Sometimes it’s extensive stories about a runaway slave or sex change. Sometimes they become irate and want to argue their broke bank accounts. It’s never pretty. But when it happens to you when you’re black, it’s representative of the entire 12 percent. It’s like the only black kid at an all white school going up to the chalkboard to solve the calculus equation and getting it wrong. Not all blacks are dumb, just that nigga.
So I am standing in line and I’m watching the nappy headed cashier for my own personal reasons. I want to see who she is going to ask for I.D. using a credit card. I remember something stupid nickel bags.

DC has some stupid law that all grocery store bags cost a nickel. I was in a self checkout line and I needed a couple of bags and the machine prompts you for the quantity but you still have to go to some bag handler to get them. The act like they are dealing crack cocaine with their holier than thou attitudes. It’s stupid. So I told the girl I needed two bags and she had the nerve questioned me for ten cents. I had to show her my receipt. It pissed me off cuz I live in a mostly white gentrified neighborhood and I saw her give bags to at least five other whites without a problem. She didn’t interrogate them. And she was a black girl. And I was black. And it was like damn, I can’t even escape being black to other blacks. I was like do I look poor? I am.

Back to reality. So now I’m pissed rehashing memories of discrimination like the annoyance of being followed in a department store. I watch the black guy who is two people in front of me. He looks working class like UPS. He seems harmless and he is buying underwear like me. I watched the three white people in front of him hand the nappy headed girl their credit cards, she wipes and no problem. She doesn’t ask for I.D. The black guy, in his twenties, average looking, it’s his turn. She notices that he is about to use a credit card and she immediately asks him for I.D. He hands it to her and she thoroughly checks it. I watch in disgust. The next white person, again she doesn’t ask for I.D. WTF.

It’s my turn. Before she rings me up I show her my I.D. and work badge. I tell her I forgot to bring my social security card and birth certificate cuz you know we blacks must always have our papers. She looks at me annoyed. I tell her I hope that’s enough for me to pay cash. She rolls her eyes. I give her the cash, demands that she checks the twenty to see if it’s counterfeit because you can’t be too careful with us blacks. I could feel the white guy behind me uneasiness making his testicles retract. She asked me if I am done. I say, those damn grocery store bags that cost a nickel, I’m sure every black person can afford it. Also, you are a racist bitch.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

IT was odd. I had been renting an usual amount of porn, for no reason other than boredom. The sex clerk confronted me on a Tuesday afternoon. He said I left an empty bottle two weeks ago in his store. He went behind his desk and retrieved the bottle and handed it to me. He then proceeded to lecture. He asked stupid questions like, is this your bottle. It was two weeks ago but I did have a bad habit of predictability. I always mixed my "to go" drinks in a Gatorade bottle. I figured nobody would every question exercise.

I immediately thought and then accidently said out loud, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” It seemed weird that he was collecting evidence of my bad habits. I didn’t like the feeling.

I took the bottle from the rude clerk and threw it in the trash. He then grabbed my new Gatorade bottle and wanted to know what was in it. I told him it was none of his fucking business. Yet, I suddenly felt somewhat offended. I mean, why did he keep that bottle for two weeks? I became pissed off like a drunk girl who passed out a frat party and then discovered she was raped the next morning when she sat on the toilet and shitted cum. Getting fucked in the ass is one thing, but not being able to enjoy it is another.

“Are you stalking me?” I had to ask because there could be no other explanation. I had made the mistake of trying to be friendly with him once. I told him I wanted to take him to the Wendy Williams show. I was lying. I was just drunk that day. Maybe that’s where I went wrong. But that was no excuse for him to keep the bottle. And then he tried to lecture me and I wasn’t going to have it.

I wasn’t going to get a lecture from a clerk at a sex shop that overpriced their porn. We started to argue. I really wanted to know why he kept the bottle. He explained the store had a strict no alcohol rule. I explained it was a closed container. I mean, had the sex shop turned into the airport. Was I to be stripped searched every time I wanted to rent “big black guys and small blond midgets.” I wanted my membership money back. He quickly noticed I wasn’t pleased and ran to his phone to call his manager. I mean, the membership fee was only ten dollars but I wanted it back. I felt harassed. It wasn’t like I was a fall down drunk or something that didn’t happen until four in the morning. My neighbors should have voiced more complaints. On the phone with his manager, he explained that a couple of weeks ago I left a bottle that smelled like liquor was it. He then said he wasn’t for sure cuz he didn’t drink. I guess he scored one for the forty-year-old drop out. He said he called in a friend and had him smell it. I was disturbed. It seemed like a lot of work, like sex shop CSI. I wondered what type of investigating they did in those backrooms. I wondered if unsuspected government workers got cornered for leaving cum stains on the benches? I felt as if I pissed in their bathroom did they keep samples to confront me the next time cuz I missed the toilet. It was insane. It was a sex shop that sold porn where old women took it up the ass from donkeys.

Where was the line?

As I stood there waiting for my money, I heard him say to his manager that I might be “psychotic and unemployed.” The bitch had just called me homeless. I was a little psychotic but unemployed could be argued. I did have a part time job with a temp agency just to make ends meet, but I wasn’t homeless. It was like a midget screaming in a large crowd you have a small dick.

I was dumbfounded. A clerk in a very seedy sex shop had decided he was better than me. I didn’t get my money back. I kept the overdue porn I was to return and canceled my credit card linked to that store. I had to find a new hobby.

Nappy Boogers

Overnight the temperature dropped from a crisp 70 to a bitchy 40 degrees and I was hung-over and not pleased that I didn’t wear a jacket. I wasn’t in the best of moods. Eight o’clock in the morning I rushed to keep my head together and eyes awake. I took a sleeping pill that night to sleep but that morning I felt more like a placid blow up doll, enough to get a desperate bastard off-- but the body knows the plastic pussy wasn’t real. Sleep is supposed to be resetting not cheated. I couldn’t awake. I was still horny.

Arms folded and the requisite Dark sunshades on, I stood in line at the Starbucks with my eyes closed letting the line push me forward. It was my turn. I didn’t remove my sunshades. The cashier smiled at me. It made me feel uneasy. I never really liked strangers smiling at me. I ordered my coffee. I handed her my debit card. She took it seductively. I felt the pull of interest as she swiped my card. Was she flirting or was I still sleep.
The thing about flirting with me is that I am awkward. I find flirting invading my personal space or silly like office banter. I mean, is the morning ever good?
Back to my dick rising, she placed the card in the palm of my hand. Most clerks put some distance between the exchanges of transactions. Some clerks throw the card back at you. Some clerk hand it over like a dirty diaper, only with the tips of their fingers. But she placed it in my palm. I couldn’t understand her problem. She was an okay girl, but it was eight in the morning and I hated the world. Was she flirting? I suddenly got nervous. I have never been a flirt. I am more confrontational. I am more direct. I start thinking of off the wall stuff. I mean, doesn’t flirting lead to sex. It does in the movies.

I can also never tell if someone likes me. I always found it somewhat of an impossibility. It wasn’t that I was ugly, I just never considered myself on the radar. I felt as if each and every time I even considered my attractiveness I had to pause and wait for the joke. Like that time I got on the city bus and noticed everyone was staring at me. The two old ladies in the front seat were just smiling. It wasn’t until the bus driver asked me curiously, “Are you going to put that away.” I didn’t know what he meant. He then you said, “Your dick is out.” I looked down at my pants. I noticed my pants unzipped and somehow my dick managed to slither through the slit of my boxers. And there it was, naked without a care in the world. I guess it felt like flirting. I couldn’t get off that bus fast enough before I was arrested. That was me.

I touched my zipper to make sure it was intact. Those zippers are sneaky. I was now awake at Starbucks. Somebody appeared to like me and I questioned if I should flirt back. I wondered where it would lead. I didn’t have much time. The morning coffee rush was brutal. Am I supposed to tell her my name? Am I supposed to say something trite like “Would you like to meet for coffee” to the girl who works in a coffee shop. I wanted to know her criminal history. I wanted to know if her grandmother had diabetes. I wanted to know her credit score. But I kept silent, best, the second I opened my mouth it was over.

And then it happened. The joke. I heard “nappy boogers.” Somebody was calling me “nappy boogers.” I felt my anus contract. I turned around and it was some woman cutting the line rushing towards me. She looked familiar. My third grade teacher would call me “nappy boogers.” I hated that bitch. I told myself that it couldn’t be her. I was two thousand miles away from childhood. I immediately touched my nose. It was my OCD. My nose leaked constantly as a child. My third grade teacher used to say I was going to die with a head of naps and nose of full of captain crunch boggers.
“It’s me, Ms. Arkansas.” It had to be some type of joke. She hugged me. She grabbed for my nose and swiped her index figure in it like a white glove. I retracted. It was Ms. Arkansas. What the fuck? I turned to the cashier who now looked at me as if I vomited an afro of crusted mucus all over her counter. I turned away. The flirting was over. I told Ms. Arkansas she had the wrong person. Nappy boogers don’t live here anymore.

Cows vs. Ants

“Did this motherfucker just fart on my pinky finger” I wanted to say out loud but the scream cowered in my head. No one flinched, but the oxygen stopped as the smell of the obvious vibration of foul heat arrested the air. You couldn’t ignore a grown man with lactose problems. But no one spoke a word. They just guarded their borrowed place in the overly crowded metro, turned the music up on their headphones and refused to make eye contact. The red line was having problems again. The last problem killed some people. I figured I let the fart go.

Living in the “protest” city or DC, it seems that mornings are the worse. Everybody is always in such a rush or confused. The busiest metro stop in DC has to be the red line, Gallery of fools place or Gallery Place. It’s where all the major metro lines exchange its people. Spit out and spat on, they move like fireflies slamming against a lonely nightlight just because. Getting off trains, getting on trains, waiting for a train, to go only god knows where. Nobody cares. It seems everybody got to be somewhere important or not. I remember when I didn’t have a job-- and I would be coming from some club or one night stand probably smelling of liquor and bathless weeks -- and I would greet the morning ants and cows with dark sunshades and wonder if they pitied a mid twenty something year old man with no place to go but bed at 8 in the morning. Now, I am an ant. I don’t notice anything but strange farts and my metro stop.

The metro traffic of blah blah humanity is like cows and ants. The slow moving or the mass of electricity. Lights on or lights off. Everybody always seem to be rushing, get out of my way rushing or just in the way. I used to love being in the way.

The cows. The slow moving cows, confused. They graze. They seem to always be in the way of the rushing ants. The cows, often tourists or someone directionless. Cows in general seem to be on a never ending vacation or drunk. Probably why they are so easy to tip over or kill and make great burgers. The meat seems lazy. In the rush of life, cows just get pushed out the way. The stampede pushes them where it wants. And then they just start running, scared shitless from the barking of someone who thinks he or she is more important.

I like the part when the metro door opens and everyone rushes to the escalator. And then there is the swipe of the metro card for exit. No one likes the person who messes up the flow. The directionless. It’s always the cow who gets to the swipe and sometimes just looks at the machine, confused. The world suddenly stops. Traffic jam. The stampede becomes aware of itself and we are no longer-- but I who is a hour late for work-- and I who is getting a divorce-- and I who farted on that train.

I don’t mind the jam, it gives me time to think. I can finally slow down. Work can wait another second.

And then there are the ants. As a kid, I liked watching ants cuz they are also seem as if they’re rushing towards something life threatening. I’ve never witness an ant just chilling. I’ve never seen an ant on vacation. They seem to know direction. Get food and protect the queen. It was so simple.

I feel as if I am an ant. Alarm clock goes off and I wake up, rush, get dressed, watch the clock, out the house, make it to the metro, get on train, stand, get off train, work, clock out, back on train, and suddenly I am home until the alarm clock goes off again. In the morning with my uniform on: blazer, shirt, tie and dress pants, I feel as if I look like I do something important. I don’t. I pretend and hope no one finds out. I am on corporate welfare.

I feel as if all those who look like me, in the same uniform look as if we are rushing towards something. Just like ants. It’s simple. Work. Get food. Feed the Queen. Hide bad habits. But who the fuck is the Queen. And what has she done for me lately.

I barely see the world in my rush of instinctual importance until I stumbled into the cows. I was once a cow. Reincarnation is a prankster.

The cows, they just sit there, like they do when cars pass them on highways in the country. They don’t notice the rushing. Cows don’t even say raise their head to say hello. The cows, tourists, directionless. The alarm clocks goes off again. I rush. I am an ant now, dreaming about cows. I need a vacation or a burger.

How not to beg for money!!!

I saw him watching me. I quickly glanced his way but thought nothing of it until he started moving towards me. I didn’t think too much of it. His walk quickened. I questioned quickly if he was trouble. I mean, I do have an uncanny magnetism for crazy people. He rushed towards me. I felt my nerves flinch but I kept my body calmed and and squeezed my face to a confrontational frown. All I heard was “wallet.” I knew I couldn’t have been getting robbed because I was at a busy train station in broad daylight with like a five hundred witnesses. I thought nobody would be that stupid but it was D.C.. I replied” excuse me.” Which I hoped came out, “Are you fucking serious, nigga.” I had gone from non-threatening black male with his college educated eye glasses, button up shirts and corporate slacks back to that hood snotty nosed kid. I’ve always have been amazed that even the most refined black person can easily lose it all if properly pissed off. So I immediately clinched my fist, an upbringing of dealing with stupid niggas reflex. He approached again, more apologetic but yet somewhat scary. I heard of whites describing any black male as some big black male and they were usually wrong. Yet, this guy was a big black guy. He was 6’2, but thin. It was the colors. He had on all black. It was like some scene out of a SpongeBob cartoon. So I paused. He repeated, “I lost my wallet, and I need to get home.” I laughed. I guess to calm my nerves because my leg started shaking like it was about to testify in church. I told him I couldn’t help him. He pleaded again. I stopped and stared him in his face to let him know I was not pleased. I scolded him that’s not how you beg for money. You can’t just run up to people yelling at them about some damn wallet. All I heard was wallet and some angry looking motherfucker in my face. I didn’t know if he wanted my wallet or he lost a wallet. I wanted to run. Shit, I really wanted to run. The dude was huge. And he looked angry. And I wanted to run. Yet, the joke was on him. I was broke. He allowed himself to look at my discounted corporate uniform as a sign of success when I was just a broke or more broke than him. I should’ve robbed he ass for scary me.

Lie to me.

When I graduated college I joyously decided to become nobody. I figured I’d just piss my life away. I thought it would be romantic. I had no desire to be rich, have good credit, respectable or loved. I decided life was one big ass joke. I was already bored of living at twenty two years old.

I know how it sounds: sad, apathetic, lethargic, and unceremonious. Just a verbiage of words now stuck in my head with no real use because of the S.A.T. I hate to appear intelligent. I hate other people faking intelligence. I thought it was just a hustle to be smart. You pretend that you really care about art, the environment and all the boring shit like charity and people think you are a good person.

I thought I would be dead by twenty seven years old. I liked to party, drive fast cars, wanted it to all end in a blaze of young tragedy like a gone too soon moment. I was really morbid.

I figured if I died really young people would say things at my funeral like I had so much potential, that I could’ve been anything, that I had my entire life in front of me. Funny about life, it’s either in front of you like being stuck in traffic or it’s behind you like a horrific dream you can’t remember when you awake screaming but scared you shitless.

The truth, I never really had that much potential. I peaked in kindergarten with my intelligence. I told my first lie. Most don’t remember their first lie. It could be as simple like lying that you didn’t steal the cookie for the jar. My first lie was big. The first day of kindergarten the teacher made each student tell something about their parents. It made me nervous. I was already instructed to lie that I was six years old in fact I was only five years old. It’s a stupid public school rule that a child must be six when the school system begins in the Fall, therefore, if your birthday is late September-December, you are made to wait a year. In other words, if I had waited a year, I would’ve turned seven in kindergarten. It’s stupid. I was being held back before I even began, so I was instructed by my clever soberly-challenged mother to just lie.

The first day of school I was asked about my father. I lied. I didn’t tell anyone my father was dead. Instead I made up a lie about him being a big shot Doctor for the military. It was such a simple lie but it created something brilliantly deceptive. I remember the look on my teacher’s face like I was somebody. I couldn’t tell her my father was a small time drug dealer who got himself shot during a routine robbery. He was robbing the guy. Instead, I lied. It made me feel powerful. I also lied about my mother. I said she was a nurse. Actually my mother was a chronically unemployed crack addict. So I created a different family for myself the first day of kindergarten. I created the possibility that a nappy head snot nosed kid could grow up and be anything in the world. Of course the statistics were against me. 90 percent of those born in poverty stay in poverty their entire life. I had no real role models. With that lie, it seemed as if the entire world opened its arms to me.

I remember that first evil smirk the first day of kindergarten. It was like; shit life was going to be easy. All I had to do was lie.

The problem with the first lie is that it created an alternate reality in my mind that to this day I’m still trying to correct. As a kid, I couldn’t accept the world in which I inherited from my parents. I decided to check out of reality. I started to see the world as I wanted to see it and not for its brutal truth. Once a transitional lie is born, one can sometimes spend an entire life protecting it. I became very loyal to my lies. Every lie I told I was committed to its existence was like social and psychological telekinesis.

I’m lying to you right now. Change the physics of reality, now open your arms before you find out the truth.

You don't have to go home, but please get the hell out of the city.

Friday was the coldest day in DC. It was like 8 degrees but felt like it was minus 8 degrees with the wind. Of all days, around seven in the evening the power in my apartment went out. I called Pepco and was informed that power wouldn’t be restored until 3 in the morning the next day. All the people rushing to the city overloaded the power grids. I was pissed. I had to leave my apartment and go to a friend’s house for warmth.

Saturday I was at a club party and the power went out again. Somebody took that as a signed to hit some guy over the head with a beer bottle. The lights came back on and the poor guy lied on the floor with blood rushing out of his head. Needless to say, the party was over when the cops came and shut it down.

Sunday I slept.

Monday I got drunk.

Tuesday I woke up, still a little hung-over and contemplated to brave the 14 degree weather and go be amongst the millions. I looked up how I was to get there, I knew I needed to walk, but when I was watching the news the guy said that 99 percent of the people wouldn’t even see the president but will have to watch the big screen television placed all over the city. I figured I had a nice 32 inch television in my warm apartment, I could watch TV at home. So I decided to just stay home.

After the swearing in, I watched as the crowd quickly exited away from the Capitol. I figured the weather had gotten better so I could go get a little feeling of the excitement and hopefully get close to the parade.

First, my entire block was blocked off by like 400 police officers. I live like a thirty minute walk to the White House. I was going to have to walk nine blocks away from my apartment and like 10 blocks back towards Pennsylvania Ave. That took about an hour and half. It would’ve normally taken me like twenty minutes. The crowd was still massive. It was more like an out of control Obama flea market. I mean people were selling all kind of crap. I saw the dolls, t-shirts, toilet paper, books, children singing, DVDs, Cds, jeans, sweatshirts, furniture, it was crazy. I got close to the parade but because it took so long getting a good spot, I missed it. I only got to see all the crazy people. I walked home pissed. DC metro closed the stop I usually get off to go home. I had to walk like two hours to get home. I had to show ID to let the officers know I lived on my street. I was happy to finally be home.

I must admit, being in DC was amazing. It was also annoying. The millions of people in the streets so damn happy was heart warming. There was no sign of upheavals. It was very peaceful. I was like all those black people and no drama was phenomenal. I felt kindred toward my neighbors. I smiled at strangers which in DC I never do. It truly was a day of peace. And then I was over it. I was ready for all the people to go home. I was ready for the police to get off my street scaring away my weed dealer. I was ready to begin a new day with a new President. I think to myself, it’s amazing that the President of the United States is black. I mean, it’s mind blowing. I thought of my nieces and nephews who will grow up that a black in the highest office in the world is normal. It makes me want to be better. I hope the world will be better. I’m sure things will turn around. I would consider myself an extremely cautious and pessimistic person, but I truly have Hope in this country right now.

please stop falling down drunk

one day i got too damn drunk.

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.

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.

“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.