The complicated context of the "N" word.

Paula Deen is a nigga, for using the word nigga, and trying squash some nigga shit with a nigga bullshit apology. Talking about it distressing her when young county niggas in her kitchens call each other niggas in conversation in front of her --which she feel gives wack ass niggas a reason to use that word nigga when they ain’t niggas. She ain’t my nigga, but I can be a nigga to her. Nigga, if you understood what I just spit, then you a real nigga and not some fake ass nigga.

I quit

Nobody quits with a two week notice anymore. It's usually an email. Here is mine for my horrendous job as a waiter for a catering service.




Date: 5/21/12

By now I am sure you are aware that I was a "no-show" for the Air and Space museum event. Ironically I did show up for the event, fully dressed in my tuxedo and then decided I couldn't do it anymore. I am too much of a nice guy and it was turning me evil. I couldn't take another six hours of being overworked with no breaks with constant yelling, confusion, unnecessary drama, berating, humiliation and treated like a third class citizen from management and not the patrons. There was such an extreme feeling of happiness walking away but also guilt. I admit, some assignments were entertaining but few in-between, but the majority were a bloody nightmare that tested latent violent tendencies. I could say, "I'm not cut out for that type of work," but the truth would be that I am “not cut” out to work for those types of people who act more like whipping guards at a slave auction than managers. The number of times I had to hold my breath, my anger, walk away depleted and divested --dramatically outnumbered any feeling of pride for my day. I know now that if a job makes you so sick in the stomach, one should just run from it. I don't think of it so much as quitting, but enlightenment. I wish you the best in your endeavors. I've dry cleaned the jackets last week and will return them tomorrow. Free at last, Michael Whitley

The haunt for Normal: The cure for the Holiday Werewolf

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, …1!!!

I opened my eyes. I was in my bed. I was sober. I heard the countdown in the background on T.V. It was the Los Angeles countdown which meant on the East coast, where I had returned to D.C., it was 3’clock in the morning. I decided to turn on my cell phone again. It was the only way I could resist the temptation of the yearly mandatory debaucheries and figured I’d reached my 30 gallon limit of Bacardi Rum. I didn’t want to start the New Year in bad debt with my alcoholism.

I felt elated and not because it was 2012 and the world was coming to an end--according to the Maya calendar. I also had found the cure for the Holiday Werewolf. And it wasn’t a silver bullet, cop sirens or a restraining order. It was guilt and the disappointment of a little girl. “See daddy, sinners got souls too!”

Three months before, I could feel the change again like a taunting full face moon to mental psych ward that’s run out of happy pills. The leaves were turning an arduous orange and falling to the ground imitating non Irish Saint Patrick Day drunks. I was ignoring it. I had no desire to rake the change of season abortions into piles and stuff into black large bags. I knew soon it would be my birthday. Next would come Halloween. But the real scary shit was that creepy nails on the chalkboard feeling also known as the Holiday Season: Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But every year, I remember that I was infected with the Holiday Werewolf when I ran away when I was 15 years old. They didn’t even come looking for me. I guess the government check for the assigned assholes --cashed. I knew I would have to somehow forced happiness to deal with my father being murdered on Christmas day and my mother’s lost to my shame of her.

In other words, I wasn’t a great party guest.

So, I avoided company Christmas parties like paying rent in the ghetto. My attitude usually turned to decades spoiled souls. I got into arguments with lovers who wanted to put up Christmas trees or invite me to their parents’ house. I wasn’t worried how they would explain their permanent same sex roommate, but where was my family. I never wanted to talk about my family. I had two older sisters, and we never talked about our family. We just tried to avoid the subject. I celebrated by calling them drunk on the assigned family appreciation holidays and cursing and crying about the past. In other words, the rage of the Holiday Werewolf. But finally at 34 years old, I’d found the cure. I was now an uncle.


Joy to the world! ‘Tis the season to be jolly! Festive music fills the air; holiday cheer abounds. Everyone is happy at holiday time — right? Wrong.

My Jamican pimp, and his gold Las Vegas chains, aka therapist asked me, “E’Mon wha de fuck is a Holiday Werewolf?”

I dialed the number and listen to the ringing like a countdown on a bomb that I was quickly trying to disfigure. I figured I get the answer machine because nobody answered my phone calls during the holidays. I was the castaways of the homeless. My anger had no my romanticism. I was finally alone, which I asked Santa since I was hungry on the streets for many years as a kid. I was alone, to deal with old pain. And those who left me alone, respected it. I was as hood cockroach.

“What?!” It was my niece, Blessing. Yes, that was her name.
“Happy Holidays?” Silence. I knew she is trying to figure out my voice. In the background I heard my sister. “Who that?”
“It’s him.” Her voice was very childlike and heavy with disappointment. If my heart had tender sweaty balls, she just kicked them in it.
“Tell him I will call him back” yelled my sister in the background. I knew she was lying. I hung up the phone. She wasn’t calling back. She never calls back anymore. They never call back.

For the last couple of years, In A.A. meetings, I’ve been standing up in front of a group of strangers and say, “Hi, my name is Michael and I am a Holiday Werewolf.” Normally, I was a simple, boring and law abiding guy, but for some reason, the last two months of the year I became that asshole who stole wreaths off people doors, keep down Christmas trees in open yards and tore down the fucking annoying lights. One morning I woke up naked in my bed with Christmas tinsel all over my body and dangling from my mouth. I had no memory of what the fuck happened.

And ever year like a fool’s full moon, I could feel the change creeping at the end of October when my trendy upper scale grocery store put up the Thanksgiving decoration. The feeling is like a taunting bully flipping at my ear until I pimp slap his punk ass. Or like a baby crying for mile and watching everyone walk by. But this year it was Justin Beiber that really drove me over the edge.

Justin Beiber. Not a name that often comes out of my mouth. I try my best to ignore that he exists but secretly love to YouTube that song “Baby.” It’s so damn catchy like letting Everybody loves Raymond’s mom, Doris Roberts, suck your dick without her teeth. It can be weirdly comforting but a dangerous gateway drug into some real kinky fucked up portal.

Justin Beiber had been on my television all morning. The young lesbian was promoting a holiday album. He sounded like the chipmunks. For three hours, he dominated the morning shows. When it was time for the “View” I decided I watch the interview because I couldn’t find the remote. I suddenly had an interest in what Barbara Walters might ask him. It was the typical questions: “How did it feel to be a teenage rapist?” “What drug will he eventually overdose on?” “And what did he think about the Super Congress Committee failure to come up with a budget?” Ye know, the deep shit. Yet, the question that really bothered me was, “How do you stay so normal.” I found my remote. It was in my hand the entire time. I turned up the volume. The Beiber responded that it was surrounding himself with people he loved like his mother and close family members. It was a Hollywood answer, very rehearsed and smug.

I felt the Holiday Werewolf in me growl. It pissed me off. And what was normal? Who the fuck is normal? And why would Barber Walters ask that question? It is a shitty fact, nobody is “normal” especially during the Holiday Season. Matter of fact, it’s when we all realize at the how abnormal we really are, and might just have a bit of drinking problem.

Hating on Justin Beiber made me remember my niece’s voice. She like any girl her age was obsessed with that freak show. She was new. She was uninfected. She was hope. I was ruining it with my bullshit. When I called, I was just doing my routine. But she was at the age where she would remember. Her disappoint in me, haunted. Was she losing her innocence? Was I the blame?

She was just a child and I couldn’t explain to her how my heart had soured. I just wanted for her what I never had. A childhood. And If I couldn’t be a good uncle, I damn sure was not going to be that Uncle that shows up drunk every holiday. So I knew I had to disappear like the dog I grew up feeling like into the woods to die alone. At least, with our children they can be kids a little long. Too late for so many of us.

And suddenly I felt the cure. I knew why parents lied to their children about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Jesus. It was to maintain the innocence as long as possible. Or to revisit that innocence within them one more time.

I was once innocent. I used to believe that I control the wind. It was 2011, the world was ending and I needed to find it again. I sent my niece a Justin Beiber gift box set. I imagined her face when she got it. It made me smile. I could feel her childlike joy slowly killing the Holiday Werewolf in me.

My sister named my niece Blessing. One day I will tell her the story how she got that name. Maybe Scrooge wasn’t a bad person, just another misunderstood Holiday Werewolf.

Sometimes the call of love heals us all.

where do you buy a playboy

I am gay. so gay! but lindsay naked, makes me want to change my mind.

Famous last words from the boy who kept crying suicide.

How to make friends in LA: Episode 1



The dark passenger was back. Sat and lingered. The type of haunting that they say don’t exist and is over medicated. It scared me. I knew I wasn’t that strong to fight it again.

Most people New year’s resolution begins January 1st. Mine began on April’s fools day. Quit that job the voice in my head said. It was perfect. I figured everyone would think I was joking. I was in grad school ready to finish a MBA in accounting. Still failing the first step of AA, holding myself accountable.

I had decided that I wanted to be a comedian. The last time I was that drunk, I wanted to be stripper. I laughed so fucking loud at the bus stop, the homeless guy in whom I was sharing a cheap bottle of corner store liquor thought I was the crazy one. I told him, I changed my mind. I wasn’t going to kill myself. And I was going to stop paying those willing prostitutes two hundred dollars a night to yell at them how much I hated my mother.

But it was clear the dark passenger was back. Sat and lingered. The last time I ended up in the hospital from a futile attempt of slashing my arms. I just liked the healing process. And I learned, the funny thing about suicide, afterwards, anything is possible. Yet, I know with suicide there is so many times you can threatened with it before no one believes you. I say don’t fail. I say bullet to the head. No notes. Just fucking do it. Make it permanent. Because I knew if I failed again, it was not going to be as easy again to say I didn’t mean it. Nobody really wants to die. I mean really die. They just want to be able to start over.

So I decided to commit a social suicide. Walk away from everything I knew. I was happy there anymore.

So I awoke on April’s fool’s day and booked a flight to Los Angeles. I figured it was better than spending another month of my life in a psych ward until they felt I was better again. It started to feel like that I was always getting better but never cured.

I called into work that April’s fool morning, told them I wasn’t coming in, that I had booked a plane to LA to become a comedian. I told them go fuck themselves. I figured they laugh. It was a joke. I called my sister, left the same message. I packed a bag, left a check for the rent for my roommate and went to the airport.

The plan, there was no plan. I figure it out.

“But you are Blanche, you are in that wheelchair.”

They say it’s your life, the first alarm. Then it goes off | like a ghetto pissed off girlfriend when I turned twenty seven years old. Disappointmen a wet Foxy Brown weave dancing |in a dry texas wenesday—neck jerking and shouting at the top of her lungs, waving her index finger in my face ending with a threatening palm against my forehead--telling me I aint shit!



Famous words to losers:

“Shit or get off the pot!”

“Move bitch, or get out the way.”

“Don’t be passive aggressive.”

“Just pull the damn trigger and shoot him in the head!”

“I am not trying to micro-mange you!

I always wondered how obese people let themselves get to looking like whales who staggered on the beach too sleep off their hangover from Vegas. I wondered if they avoided mirrors. I mean once a person gets over a hundred pound over weight an alarm must go off. But they keep eating. They eat until they are trapped in their lives. Always putting it off until tomorrow. Or maybe it was just an evil genius plans like in Comic Books. I hated superhero cartoons as a kid. I couldn’t understand why the villain could never win. They would spend the entire show plotting, get the superhero in the palm of their hands and start a monologue. My sadistic nine year old self would yell at the TV to just shoot Superman in the head. End it. Just walk up to him on a sunny day when he was dressed like Clark Kent and just shoot him in the head with a kryptonite bullet. Simple. No Sequels.
It was passive aggressiveness I understood why the villain could never win. It was passive aggressiveness why obese and addicts let their lives get so out of control. They never grabbed the bull by the horns. Or bullshit quotes like that. Passive–aggressive behavior, a personality trait, is passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to following through with expectations in interpersonal or occupational situations. It is a personality trait marked by a pervasive pattern of negative attitudes and passive, usually disavowed resistance in interpersonal or occupational situations.
It can manifest itself as learned helplessness, procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate/repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible.

I was 34 years old, my real age. I had been thinking about making an exit from my insufferable job for over a year, but I keep telling myself after the convention or annual conference meeting or when they eventually fire me for being constantly, side-eye, deliberately late. I wanted them to do the dirty work. They never did. It was like working for the government. I didn’t want to be the bad guy. Yet, I knew my life was no longer making sense. Yet, I didn’t want to complain. The world was in a recession and I was thinking about quitting my job. I had nice things and cool gadgets and was still thinking about quitting my job. I knew I was ungrateful asshole.

I was waiting and finally my Boss gave me the ammunition I needed. The task was simple. I was to mail 353 letters. It was a project in which we had several unnecessary meetings to discuss. It was one letter; just stick it in the envelope and seal. A cockroach could’ve done it. Two days later, my boss rushes towards my desk and ask me if I had mailed the letters. I smiled confidently and told I accomplished the retarded task. Her eyes bulged. She said that I didn’t show her the envelopes; she needed to see if I put the letter in correctly. I rolled my eyes. I had been working there for almost two years, have mailed thousands of letters, and couldn’t understand her psycho spasm. She then looked me in the eyes, sorta apologizing with, and “I don’t want to micromanage you.”

My immediate thought, but you are bitch, you are micromanaging. I quit that job on my lunch break. No monologue. No explanation. I just shot her in the head. No two week notice. No passive aggressiveness.

But was I ready for real life and what real decisions bring? Was that obese person ready for that first walk around the block and not eating a whole cheesecake? Was the alcoholic ready for twenty eight days of sobriety? Was I ready to get a real life?

The Second Alarm

It is important that I don’t die a fuck-up. I will redeem this empty life.—Who is Sean?


The second alarm

They say it’s your life, the first alarm. Then it goes off | like a ghetto pissed off girlfriend when I turned twenty seven years old. Disappointmen a wet Foxy Brown weave dancing |in a dry texas wenesday—neck spasming and shouting at the top of her lungs, waving her index finger in my face ending with a threatening palm against my forehead--telling me I aint shit!
Something I already knew with the overwhelming statistics. And I just hit the snooze button like blinking a thunderstorms or a child’s tantrum until nonexisgenc. Make unaccepatbale noise comaose with more liquor and weed. Figured I wake up eventually.

And For the next six years the snooze button kept going off. I just didn’t want to awake. Maybe I was lazy. Maybe I was a no good nigga drunk. My I was just an arrogant self-righteous bastard. Maybe the world needed to break me. Humble me. Then I would see. Then I would learn. My grandma would always say a hard head always made a soft ass. But the many beatings I got as a child never made me any weaker, just the opposite. I think I jus go craving for the violence. Until I woke up homeless and without a job.

Not every black male is dumb. I am just tha nigga.

Seven o’clock in the morning. I heard my sister’s voice on the answering machine. She was wishing me a happy 30th birthday. I hated her voice. I thought we weren’t speaking since I told her inssuferable existence to go to hell. She sounded like she’d been eating chedder cheese grits for days. The coarse judgement gave me a headache. She made a joke that I was probably passed out somewhere. I’d picked up the nearest thing, which was my first alarm clock and threw it at the second alarm clock. I missed. But she was wrong. They were all wrong about me. I was wrong about me. My luck was changing. It turned out I wasn’t a mental patient. I could be good. I could be just like them. I was no Linda Blair, I had learned to hold down my resistant vomit.

Getting dressed for the first day of my new life, I remember they changed the ending of The Last Laugh, a 1924 German silent film in which the doorman for a famous hotel loses his job because he’s considered too old and infirm. To avoid humiliation and rejection, he tried to conceal the fact from his friends and family, but to his shame, he was discovered. In the end, the doorman inherited a fortune and was able to dine happily at the same hotel he used to work for. The screenwriter was forced into this happy ending in order to help the film appeal to a mass audience. The intended ending, because of the cruel rejection of family and friends, the doorman hung himself after he won his fortune, leaving the family to fight like dogs over the money.

Brushing my teeth, I knew I had been once cursed with chronic unemployment, so I spent many nights watching old black and white movies. I liked the melo-drama. The night before, it was Helen Keller. I had never seen it. I found it odd like the fact I’d never seen Gone with the Wind or Casablanca. I took it as a sign. It was like I was finally catching up to the rest of the world.

I loved that movie. It was like watching my life story ignoring the fact I could see and hear, but metaphorically, given my frustration struggling to communicate or be understood. It turned out that I wasn’t a wild animal, just like Heller Keller, I was just misdiagnosed. I just needed a good consistent slapping around until my knees buckled. I just needed some stubborn teacher who wouldn’t give up on me until I communicated to the world that I understood my interpretation of water. I’d personally, would have given up on that horrible child or beaten her into a bloody pulp. But that’s life, just like Helen Keller, I just needed one person to believe in me enough to prevent my inevitable suicide. Maybe I just needed to believe the world wasn’t such a bad place of me bumpy around in its darkness and everyone around just concluding I was hopeless. I wasn’t an animal. I had hope. I could still have a happy ending.

I had been known to make a lot of mistakes, to curse out and rebel without a cause. As I washed my face, I remembered that a year ago I stared into the same mirror acting out the same scene of a young man getting ready for his interview. I wasn’t so compliant more disturbed. I remember that my first mistake that morning was having a rum and coke for breakfast. I figured it better my mood for the interview. I hated mornings. I hated interviews. It was like begging for something I didn’t want in the first place. It was my fault. A year ago, I’d waited until my back was against the wall and then I got rudely pushed off like a lynching. I was two months behind on rent and out of friends to loan me money. I’d robbed Peter so many times to pay Paul that he finally called the cops.

A year ago, I was two minutes late to the interview. I knew I wasn’t going to get the job when she commented that serious people about work usually arrived early. I wanted to give her the finger. A year ago, it seemed pointless to be polite anymore. It was obvious she was an intrasigent watchdog and I wasn’t going to win her over. Her type hated my type. I crossed my legs and the interviewer saw that I was wearing gym tube socks with penny loafers. I heard that women looked at the shoes and made judgments about men. My shoes said that I had dirty dishes in my sink, bad credit and probably a STD. I crossed my legs and immediately she wrote something down in her notes trying to look professional and not like she was wasting her time. I felt defeated. My grandmother used to call me a “Free Spirit.” I didn’t think it was a compliment. I knew she really meant that I was lazy and unemployable. She probably thought I starve and prayed I didn’t have any kids. I had no mendacity. The interviewer was obviously the OCD--Type A personality. Men look at a woman’s hair and fingernails to determine the maintenance. Her hair was designer cut from the latest magazine TV star. Her fingernails were French manicured sharp like a knife with clear polishing. It was obvious she was no fun and probably had too many rules about what she wouldn’t do in bed. The interview was short. She kept her hand over her nose the entire time like I stank of the men’s bus station bathroom. It didn’t matter that at heart I was a good guy, the type who would probably push her out the way of a bus. She only saw me as a burden, not romantic. It made me nervous and I found myself trying to discreetly sniff the air around me and remember if I put on deodorant. A year ago, I knew I wasn’t going to get the job. My luck was so bad. I’d stopped pretending like I cared but I was desperate. I was all wrong. I knew I could’ve worn a suit. I had dress socks. But I needed to rebel. I had broken all the rules of interview first impressions. The interviewer asked me why I left my old job. I told her the truth. I had originally practiced the creative differences speech, but truth was I thought I could do better. I was wrong. When the interviewer asked me if she could call my former employees for a reference, I laughed. I told her it wouldn’t be a good idea. Every job I had, I not only burned the bridge, shit I nuked the ingrates like Hiroshima where life or a kind word wouldn’t grow for at least another hundred years. I left my interview feeling like a failure. My life wasn’t a sitcom. There was no audience amused by my shenanigans. The interviewer wasn’t some paid actress. It was my pathetic life. After the interview, I was scared. I felt the bored watchdog was what wrong with the western world and probably was a Republican who voted for Bush, believed in right wing family values and watch the 700 club with Pat Roberson. She probably believed Teletubies were turning children gay. I hated her rehearsed demeanor, her thick plastic black eyeglasses to make her seem more intelligent or sophisticated, how she stressed every syllable and her frizzy bond hair. I just hated her. People like her got to rule the world. I was just a resistant slave. I wondered whom did she sell her soul. I didn’t care about impressions, materialism or making my family proud. I was comfortable with my failure. I wanted to cry after the interview but decided to get drunk instead. I knew time was running out. I was going to have to grow up fast. I worried it was too late. Sitting at the nearest bar at ten o’clock in the morning, I tried to comfort my low self-esteem by telling myself that I was going to do something special with my life one day and finally get the last laugh. I had no idea what my special thing was going to be, but the doubters like that watchdog were going to find out about it. It was going to be something big. I even expected to get my own religion and holiday.

I got the job. It was an interview with a temp agency, so I don’t know why I was so concerned because they will hire anybody.

I sat on my Ikea king size bed with the Martha Stewart comforter and polished my Banana Republic black leather lace-ups. I knew I paid a ridiculous amount of money for the shoes but I liked how women looked at me when I walked down the street like I was Michael Jackson in that Billie Jean music video. I thought about all the friends who stopped speaking to me and laughed if only they could see me now. I didn’t grow up fast enough for them. I kept borrowing money. I kept getting into trouble. I was exciting when were young and in college, but after we graduated, I suddenly became a liability. It seemed unfair. Maybe I took my role too serious. I was the “Mike, would do it. Mike would do anything.” Maybe I was too fearless, too free. I was the one for laughs. I was the one who made the memories, but I didn’t see they were just laughing at me. I thought I was the life of the party and when I was young it was sexy and suddenly after twenty five years old, I was just another drunk. I thought we be friends forever. They had other plans. Maybe I stayed at the party too long, the last to leave and got left behind. But that was a year ago, I put my on my expensive shoes and laughed if only they could see me now.

A year ago, I hated every job. I seemed to have the worse luck. I found myself a receptionist for the Minority Initiative of the Department of Education. My job was to basically answer the telephone and greet guests. The big problem was that the phone never rung and there were no guests. I was basically a seat-filler with enough silence for me to figure out how much I was wasting my life. Going to prison and being stripped naked and put in solitary confinement would’ve been better than that job because at least I would’ve known why I was being punished. I wasn’t making that much money. I calculated that I made .33 cents a second because that’s what it felt like, that I was getting paid by the second, not the hour. I thought I was going to go crazy. It felt like a waste of time, a joke. I was located at the back of a very dark hall. It was like the twilight zone.

A year ago, I kept getting fired or quitting. No surprise, I got fired from that seat-filler job. It was a slow death. At first I started coming in thirty minutes to an hour late. I started working half days. I started calling in at the last minute. I came up with every excuse in the book. In two months my apartment building supposedly burned down. My grandma died. My roommate died. I got mugged. My beloved pet dog died. I got arrested for mistaken identity. I started to look like I had the worse luck. It wasn’t until I really needed to call in that I got fired. A publisher wanted to see the first 100 pages of my book. I stayed up all night re-editing. I had to call in that day because I was just too tired. The agency wasn’t happy to hear my voice. I was stopped before I could complete my lie. I was told I had too many last minute emergencies and my help wasn’t needed anymore. I couldn’t help but laugh at the word “help” like I actually did anything helpful in the “real” world. A dead turtle could’ve done my job. I was a seat-filler. It was corporate welfare. I wasn’t surprise that I got fired. I kind of saw it coming and wondered why it took so long. I told myself I would get the last laugh when my book about a son and a father bask fishing was published and won the Nobel peace prize for saving the world and inspired the cure for cancer and AIDS. It was going to be that brilliant. Two weeks later, the publisher sent me a rejection letter. They said my words didn’t have imagination or magic. I told myself I would get the last laugh when another publisher picked up my book and it sold a trillion copies in a million countries. I was scared. I didn’t know what it was I was supposed to do with my life. All the good doors seemed closed to me. It was as if God hated me.

As I straighten my Thomas Pink tie in the mirror and then removed my gold hoop earrings, I remembered Helen Keller. I remembered the frustration of trying to fit into society. I felt cheated. It was as if I was waiting for something, something that I was promised like a FedEx package with my life in it but it’d gone missing. I wanted to be somebody, somebody cool, like be one of those people who woke up in the morning and liked their lives and not plotted suicide before lunch. I wanted to be one of those people on morning talk shows who seemed to have it all. I wanted to be a fucking Rock Star but I had no real talent. I wanted to win the lottery yet I kept forgetting to buy my ticket every week. I didn’t want to sell my soul. A year ago, I was lost.

As I gently sprayed on my Burberry cologne, I remembered that a year ago my luck was changing and I didn’t know it. I was working as a cashier at the local pharmacy because once again I had been desperate for a job I didn’t want when that watchdog from the temp agency found herself in my checkout line. Apparently she was refilling her prescription for Herpes wart crème and the pharmacist forgot to stamp the price. It was only my job to get on the intercom system and announce her full name. And when she handed me her credit card, it was my job to ask for two forms of identification and then pretend that the machine wasn’t working and that we didn’t accept checks. I made her walk to the nearest ATM machine and when she returned all sweaty and pissed, it was only my job to pretend that it was my break and she would have to find another cashier. I thought she would call the store the next day and try to have me fired. I thought she would remember me. I worked at her temp agency for almost six months. I saw in her face I was just another stranger to her in the world. She didn’t care. I was that unimportant. She didn’t even remember me.

I still got fired the next day. They were considering pressing charges. Apparently, one of the store employees squealed that I was stealing prescriptions. There was no real proof, and of course I denied it and threaten to sue them for defamation of character but when asked to take a drug test, I declined. I had to explain to my supervisor it wasn’t for the reason she thought. I had enough weed and crystal-meth in my system to set off a drug dog if we crossed paths. On the walk home after being fired from another job I never wanted in the first place, I swallowed a potpourri of anti-depressants. I told myself that when I finally checked myself into a rehab clinic and got sober and told my story of triumph on the Oprah show they would be sorry. I was going to be somebody’s hero.

I was to get the last laugh in elementary when I didn’t get the lead solo in choir because Mrs. Snowflake told me I sounded like god murdering a basket full of kittens with a toothpick. I told myself I was going to grow up and be rich and famous and she’d regret her words. I was supposed to get the last laugh when my high school sweetheart left me for my best friend. I secretly knew that he was addicted to steroids and hoped he’d get violent and beat her. I told myself I would get the last laugh when NYU rejected my college application. I told myself I would get the last laugh when my family didn’t bail me out of jail that time for my third public intoxication arrest.

A year ago, I had decided that maybe they were all right. I was a loser. I saw my future, me begging on the streets, and that watchdog from the temp agency shoving a couple of nickels in my dirty hands and me chunking them back at her because I was still waiting to get the last laugh. I was still waiting to prove the world wrong. But then a calm ease came over me when I was at McDonalds spending my last five dollars on a double quarter and fries. A homeless man walked in, took out his shame and started pissing on the floor. It was the greatest moment of my life because he just didn’t give a damn. And seeing the horrified faces of the customers, and the manager rushing from the back with a broom screaming bloody Mary, the homeless guy just laughed and then started cursing at the manger as he was forced out the door and thrown to the ground. The homeless guy just as nothing happened, pulled up his pants up, cursed some more, and walked away. I stood there jamming fries in my mouth, watching other people react to the madness and the employees fighting with each other who was going to clean up the piss.

The nonchalance made me think of my mother, how she left me in the hotel when I was eight years old to score her high. She never came back. I told myself that she would regret it. Drugs eventually took her life. It took her mind and body. It took her heart. She never got to regret her decision. I was never going to get my last laugh. I waited for the day she would come crawling back. I prayed for it. I figured she asked for my forgiveness and the world would be right again. My luck would be good again. I had been waiting for over twenty years. It turned out I wasn’t hopeless. I was a romantic. But like the homeless man who pissed on the floor, I was going to have to forgive her insanity and just clean it up. That was the real world. My mother wasn’t coming back to make the world right again. She didn’t even care and that’s what hurt me the most. My life wasn’t some Lifetime television show. Some people in the world never do the right thing. Watching that homeless man piss on the floor with no care in the world, I realized I was going to have to find my own happy ending or spend the rest of my life being misunderstood. I was Helen Keller. I finally understood water. It meant the beatings could stop. The teacher of life had taught me the lesson no matter how brutal.

A year ago, I knew my luck had finally changed when I got home and on the answer machine was the Temp agency. It was that same lady who I interviewed and fired me. I thought it was a joke. I returned the phone call. She didn’t even remember me. I set up another interview.

I wore my best suit. I bought expensive dress shoes. I brushed my teeth and cut my hair. I shaved my skin baby smooth. I got to the interview 15 minutes early. She seemed happy to see me. In the interview, we talked about college and Shakespeare. She didn’t even ask about my last employments. She flirted. She took off her rigid glasses and played with her frizzy blond hair. She promised to call me with a job. During the interview I wanted to tell her we’ve met before. I wanted to laugh in her face that she was so easy to please. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to spit in her face like she had mine once before, but I didn’t. I laughed at her jokes. I flirted. I smiled pearly white teeth. I took the job she offered with much gratitude. It was that fucking easy. I finally had words which meant I could play the game.

As I sat in the interview, I knew sometimes we think we’re mad at the world and it’s really just one person. I knew that in the art house version of my life, I would’ve kept rebelling and stumbled into a deeper and darker depression of dugs and alcohol. I would’ve gotten myself killed or committed suicide. It would’ve been sad and pointless like adolescent Goth poetry. Secretly, I had always wanted the Walt Disney happy ending. I wanted the ending where I lived happily ever after, got married, moved to the suburbs, had kids, got really fat and coached a little league team. I was thirty years old, the same age as my mother the day she abandoned me in that hotel. She wasn’t coming back. It was time for me to grow up as much as it hurt. I never felt like I had a childhood. I was wrong. I had a thirty year childhood.

I remembered a year ago, after the interview with the watchdog, Lucy that was her name. I remember that she didn’t tell me her name the first time. She walked me to the elevator. She told me that we should do lunch. I told her it would be my treat. She laughed like little girls who were still happy to see their fathers or after they kissed their first boyfriend. I couldn’t believe how ruthlessly she flirted. I had become her type. And then she farted. It wasn’t a silent fart, more like a bomb had gone off in a swamp. It sounded moist and sticky. She wasn’t finished. She did it again. Her face reddened. I could feel her clutching her butt checks together holding on for dear life. I tried to pretend like I didn’t hear or smell it. I continue the conversation until the elevator doors opened. I shook her hand and told her I would call. I never called. When the elevator doors closed it was my chance to laugh, but I didn’t. It seemed childish to laugh.

Why I could never be famous.

Eight grade. I played Martin Luther King at Martin Luther King middle school at our annual black history month play. With my squeaking voice, I yelled the “I have a dream speech” with gansta vigor. I got a stand ovation. It felt good. Everyone told me how good I was. Somehow the local news station wanted to do a piece on me. I hadn’t gotten that much attention since I burned down my grandmother’s house when I was seven years old. It was an accident. I was playing with matches and the curtain caught on fire. I agreed to the interview. That night, I got to see myself on television. I wasn’t impressed, neither was any member of my family. My family consisted of a bunch of criminals, so any attention brought to my last name usually brought cops with it.
The next day at school, Suddenly I was on everyone’s radar. I would walk down the hall and people who tell me how great I was. Two weeks later, it started to get on my nerves. It was just a damn speech.
I never liked attention until I started drinking. I always considered myself quiet, reserved, standoffish. I don’t usually make friends unless I have some type of agenda. I feel the need to control everything in my life. It makes me feel safe.
Fame today is not like it used to be. It’s not an easy turn on and turn off button. Fame today should be called stalking. It’s like a vampire looking for new blood. You don’t have to want it to get it anymore. You just have to do something stupid like get caught getting arrested for pissing in somebody’s front yard one drunken night. And suddenly you are on YouTube and some idiot’s blog. And people will write comments. Maybe you get a call from a has-been late night show.
I told my ex that I wanted to be a comedian. He laughed. That wasn’t a joke. He said I could never be around people in a large setting. He said the second someone didn’t laugh at my jokes I would probably throw my mic at the idiot.
I can never be famous. But I have a short temper. I am constantly putting my foot in my mouth. I have way too many naked pics of myself. I am not political. I don’t care.
Fame is like a parole office. You’re in prison and if you ever want to get out, you must play the game.
I loved it when Britney and Whitney Houston went crazy. When the pressure of being fed off by fame finally revealed its ugly head and we finally saw the starved souls. And once they were naked, people wanted more. They lights got brighter. It wasn’t until they realized they were in prison that they understood the game. A fifteen year old Louisiana girl once just wanted to be a pop star. She had no idea why she would wish for something so evil. Vampires are always seductively attractive. Fame, it’s just want more blood.
But some people want it so bad, but it never wants them. Funny how fame doesn’t want desperate or obvious. It wants virgin, the unsuspecting like it needs ignorance to remain young.
I tried to be an actor when I was nineteen years old. I did a few commercials but I quit. I couldn’t stop pissing myself. I would stand in front of the camera, the director would yell “Action” I would start squirting miniscule drops of piss. It wasn’t noticeable because I sometimes wear three pair of underwear. I never understood. I was never a bed wetter. It was the fame. Me looking directly in front of the camera was like looking into the soul of a monster. It made me piss myself.
So I started drinking. Problem solved. And then I realized why lots of artists become addicts. And then it suddenly hit me. I could never be famous. Yet, I could become one hell of an alcoholic.

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.

“I fucking hate everybody…”

My first awakening thought that dreadful morning. There was nothing abnormal about me refusing to open my eyes. I fantasized about sleeping myself to death-- suddenly jealous of those people who got to be comatose. I decided that I was not going to move from my bed. I was doing nothing. It was my birthday. The 34th anniversary of my bullshit existence. Life sucked. I had been just fired from a crappy temp job, my landlord abruptly informed me my lease would end at the end of the month with no chance in hell of being renewed, and I was negative broke and single.


I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to be reminded that they were heading towards death. I wasn’t a child. I knew there would be no mother trying to impress kids of mothers I never see in my adult life. I knew there would be no balloons, a cake with candles, and the forced “happy birthday” song. After, the anniversary of my birth was never really about me. It was always about everybody else but me. It was toasting to the fact I wasn’t aborted. It was about trying to impress teenagers when I was sixteen. When I was twenty one it was about alcohol poisoning. I wondered what I really celebrated everything year in October. I was no Jesus Christ. I didn’t come to save the world, probably the opposite.

My neighbor, the apartment below me hates me. She really hates me. She thinks my existence is some cruel joke to annoy her. I can’t breath without her getting upset. She thinks when I drop the remote control I do it on purpose. She thinks when I move furniture it always awakes her mid-afternoon naps. She thinks I am an alcoholic who sings really loud at inappropriate hours of the day. I give her the latter.

Funny how birthdays are not accepted by everyone. Only a certain few celebrate Hitler’s birthday but everybody gets off work on Martin Luther King’s birthday. We lie to almost every child that they are special, that their birthday is special, that is until that child grows up and proves he or she isn’t worth the placenta their casted after their birth. Life is cruel to the poor.

I didn’t realize what time it was. I had made what I thought was the adult decision not to go out. My last couple of birthdays somehow involved the cops. I thought it was safer for me to just stay home. I had had such a hard week. I’d gotten fired for no legit reason. I knew my lease was not going to be renewed. I was worried about homelessness or even worse, moving back to Texas. I just wanted to grab a bottle of rum and drink myself to sleep. I figure I pass out around midnight. I should’ve known better.

No one should drink alone. No one should drink after breakups or stock market crashes. No one should drink without bail money. It’s like asking for trouble. Life birthdays, no one gives a fuck if you got problems. All they care about is how those problems affect their own bullshit existence.

I heard talking. I heard someone yell my name followed by a knock on my door. I took my headphones off my ears. I couldn’t imagine who in the hell was calling my name. I went to the door. It was the cops. The bitch downstairs had called the cops.

“Do you know what time it is?” the police officer demanded like I was some horny teenager calling his daughter at booty call hours.
“I think it’s midnight.”
“It’s five o’clock in the morning.” I quickly looked at my hallway clock. It was five o’clock in the morning.
“Have you been drinking?” He seemed to laugh at his own question. I had been drink apparently for six hours. Time and worry had gotten away from me.
“Can I have your identification?”

I couldn’t believe that bitch from downstairs called the cops. I wondered why she didn’t come and knock on my door. She did that often. She did it when she needed a mattress carried or help with five pound bags of cat food.

“I see it’s your birthday in two days.”
“I think it is.”
“I’m not going to take you in. Just keep it down.”\
“Thank you.” I took my identification back. I suddenly felt weak in the knees. I wondered what would’ve happened if it wasn't a two days closer to my death. Going to jail on a Saturday meant horror. I wouldn’t had probably gotten out until that Tuesday. I would’ve been in jail because I existed too loud !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mr. Nice Guy

Uneventful smooth jazz Sunday, I woke mid-afternoon, dick hard and STD free, surprisely sober. The sun was annoying-- creeping into my lonely apartment reminding me I had no love, lover or money. I figured I needed to get drunk. It was a no special Sunday, really a rerun like everything on television. I wanted to venture out. I needed humans around. I needed to flirt and lie about my life or maybe get lucky and get laid. I got on my laptop and started searching for drink specials. I didn’t care about the bar. I just wanted to drink as cheap as possible. I got on Google, typed in cheap drinks, dc and Sunday. I got excited when I saw one particular bar drinks were only $2 from 5-9 p.m. It was almost six. I quickly got dressed. I knew the bar was a fucking “hole in the wall.”


"I gave you a ten dollar bill and you only gave me back five dollars!"

The bartender looked at me strategically as I held the five dollars in my hand like a piss off mother who was given the wrong baby. My face quickly contorted and looked disturbed because I felt as if I gave birth to a black baby, saw it come out my pussy and was handed some white blonde child. Something ain’t right Michael Jackson!

My first instinct was to be as nice as possible as a ghetto kid can be when someone owes him money. I figured he just made a silly mistake. I smiled to say I am nice guy. And then he replied that he had given me the right change. I didn’t understand. Was he smoking crystal meth? Queue the argument.


I looked at my watch. It was only 8:05 p.m. I knew I still had an hour. I remember I ran into the same mistake with one of the bartenders upstairs. I thought he was just dumb. I corrected him and he gave me my change back, no problem. But for some reason, the downstairs bartender decided he needed an attitude.

Back story, its DC, 2010. The bar had been around for over seventy years. It used to be segregated. The blacks always went upstairs and the whites stayed downstairs. Current day, the blacks still went upstairs because the dj played urban music and downstairs was mostly pop, country and rock. The music had separated the people. Time changed a lot of sociological issues but people still acted the same like integrated high school students who sat at table with their own kind. With any type of segregations begets prejudices. The bartenders upstairs were usually black or negophiles and the bartenders downstairs were always white or Latino. Living in DC, I thought Martin Luther King’s dream look pretty in advertisements but hearts and lust hadn’t really changed that much. Most of got along but we weren’t fucking. Maybe that’s was MLK dream, to get everyone to take off their clothes and fuck each other. The bartender upstairs who I corrected was black, no problem, the bartender downstairs was white. I was young and black. He was young and white. I’d slept with enough white men to have perfect credit. I had no subconscious issues.

I figure I correct the problem. I told the bartender the paper said rail drinks were $2 until 9 p.m. He said the paper made a mistake. I told him that wasn’t my problem. He said he could give me my money back but I could no longer order anymore drinks from him. I felt that was a little harsh. It wasn’t like I was making shit up. It wasn’t like I was trying to get over the bartending system. I was right. I was fucking right. I told the asshole, I could do him one better. I wanted all my money back. He grabbed my drink violently. Angrily poured it out like rancid piss that sat in the sun for a week. He then slithered over to his cash register, yanked out a ten dollar bill and slammed it on the bar. He said I would have to leave. I replied, “No shit, Mr. Obvious.” What was I an idiot? When I asked for my money back, I wasn’t going to order another drink like putting the quarters back in a slot machine. Obviously I had been misinformed. And if it wasn’t a Sunday and I had bail money, the conversation would've turned physcial. I gently took my money off the bar. I smiled and put it back in my pocker and gave him the middle finger. I grabbed my dick and raised deuces to the air.

I still had money to spend and there was another bar across the street. I hoped the kept their promise.

As a kid, anything someone would ask me, I’d do it. If they asked me to remove my designer sport shoes and give them to them, I would do it. Of course I was probably being robbed, but I still did it. If some stranger about to get arrested on a public bus asked me to hold on to their drugs and deliver them to such and such address, I’d do it. Of course, my aunt would find out, yell at me, tell me to give it to her, and then smoke it. I still did it. I was what my cousin growing up called a “flunkey.” I was a doormat. A natural pacifist but in the ghetto aka “punk bitch.” I never liked to fight. I often cried at a drop of a fist. It bothered me. Until one day I said “no.” I turned fifteen years old, a month away from running away from home for good. My grandmother asked me to go to the store and pick up her weekly stash of beer, cigarettes and KY jelly. She went through a lot of KY jelly. I didn’t ask questions. And I said, “No.” She slapped the shit out of me, pointed a gun towards my head, and I still said “no.” I wasn’t going to do it. The public school system told me smoking was bad and I wasn’t going to support her habit any longer. I wasn’t going to buy her beer anymore. I wasn’t going to pick up tampons for my aunt anymore. I wasn’t going to do shit. The gun pressed against my head, I just walked away. I felt the nice guy in me that day took the bullet. I watched him die. I laughed because in the end nobody ever remembers all the years he slaved to be nice and one time, it only took one time before they turned on him. And that was life.

I had gone to that bar seven years, no complaints. Always tipped. Always smiled. Followed the rules. And then some asshole came and changed the rules. I could’ve ignored it, but I said “no.”

Twenty minutes later at the bar across the street, no problem. They had the same drink special but vodka rail only. The crowd was old refugee AA runaways, but I didn’t care. The bartender wasn’t an asshole. I was walking to the bathroom when I found a wallet on the ground. I immediately picked it up. I looked through it. I And suddenly I became aware that I was black. I could’ve gone over to the bar and handed them the wallet. That would be what a nice guy would do. But I knew he probably thought I’d pick-pocketed it or something worse. I’ve been accused of that once also. I could’ve found the guy and gave it back. It would’ve meant nothing to him. He would’ve said thank you or and forgot about it. Or I knew I could just keep it. Or throw it in the trash.


I gave him the wallet back. I told him I found it on the bathroom floor. I took twenty dollars as my finder’s fee like any insurance. I watched him look in his wallet, count the money first instead of caring about his credit cards, metro pass and i.d. I smiled. I wanted him to say something like there’s twenty dollars of the 240 dollars missing. Instead, he said thank you and walked away. I snuck back in the bar across the street. Went upstairs with the unofficial segregated black area, because the white guy who just lost his entire identity was buying my next three drinks. I was still a nice guy. Everything was once again right with the world.

The art of looking busy.

Keep opening and closing a filing cabinet. Take files and walk around. Don’t do it more than four times in the morning and three times in the evening. Somebody might ask you if you’re lost. Don’t file your pencils but keep rearranging your desk. Every once in awhile click on your keyboard. Out of the blue, ask someone if they have seen your favorite pen. Make an excuse to go to the supply closet. Just keep getting out of your sit albeit bathroom or smoking breaks. Stare intensely at you computer for at least half an hour. Open blank computer document and type “I am bored” as fast as you can until you reach the end of the page and start it over again. Then type “I fucking hate my life!” The sound of a keyboard clicking makes the Boss think you are a go-getter. Make sure to always be ready to press “ctrl A” and delete, quickly, if anyone walks by.

Like most mornings, the alarm clock reminds me of a life gone terribly wrong.
Not criminal, just annoying. Some wake up and life is productive. I have no kids. I have no real responsibility. I mostly pretend to be busy or important or somebody. I am on corporate welfare. And there is always the fear they eventually going to figure out I do nothing and stop my checks.

There is an art to looking busy. It’s clever and merticoulsy crafted, mostly personality and ass kissing. It’s rehearsed politiness and hollow compliments. Bullshit can get you really far in corporate America. I wake up and I tell myself to always remember to smile. Always remember to say good morning or afternoon or evening. I tell myself to always have a rehearsed joke at my disposal that I practiced in front of a mirror. I remember co-workers birthdays. I pretend to be excited about their anniversaries and children graduations. Anything to throw them off the scent. I always remember to smile. I always remember to giggle at jokes that aren’t funny. I play my part.

The week before I stood in the food stamp line. I wore my worse tennis shoes, raggedy jeans and a suspiciously stained t-shirt. I didn’t brush my teeth, comb my hair or take a bath. I wanted to look and smell the part as much as possible. I wanted to look as if I was starving. I wanted pity. It was welfare after all. I couldn’t wear a Brooks Brother suit. It isn’t just the “need” but often the illusion of “need.” That’s why there are hardly any homeless Asians. The “fat” homeless probably get lesser donations that the homeless who look like their starving. Its human nature I guess to either be conned or discriminate. Always smile. Always say god will bless you. Always make your hand tremble when you’re begging. It’s Hollywood. We all want to feel six degrees from being somebody or better than somebody else. We always want to feel as if we are the only ones that will get into heaven.

I got to the food stamp office as early as possible. I wanted to get in and out. I stood in line for thirty minutes just to get a number to be called. I was 112 and there were only on 27. I knew it would take an entire workday with no lunch breaks. I took my sit and tried to blank my brain. I couldn’t deny I was out of money and desperately needed some sign of hope for ever eating again.

I was a receptionist once. My job was basically to say good morning and good night, 532 times each a day. It almost drove me crazy like a leaking water facet. I realized it was the silence that probably drove people crazy. It’s not that no one was around, we never connected. My job was to greet them. My job was to make them feel as if they were something special. My job basically was a distraction. They probably hated their job but if someone was paid to care, to tell them good morning or a stupid store bought joke, for a second that college was worth it. The daily annoying irony. I also attended college. It just took me a very long time to kiss ass aka “network.”

The first couple of hours at the food-stamp office weren’t so bad. I was able to surrender to a good meditation until Maria arrived with her four kids under the age of five. The oldest had to be at least seven years old. I guess she was supposed to supervise the younger siblings, a boy around age 4 and his sister around age 3. Maria nursed her infant as her kids ran wild. I was pissed and a little judgmental. I was also jealous. It was obvious she was a shoe-in for food stamps. I made a joke to the girl sitting next to me. I told her that Maria should forget about her kids going to college but instead save up bail and abortion money. The girl next to me laughed. I didn’t. Maria kids were wild. They ran up to people unattended. The fought with each other like a cat and dog. And Maria the entire time sat there and did nothing. They were already getting a reputation. But why was I being judgmental in the food stamp office. I knew I was once those kids. No real boundaries. Always in somebody’s system. I call them “system” kids be it foster care, food stamps, juvenile centers, SSI and Social Security. It seemed my entire life I somehow have been begging. Of course I would grow up to beg.

I got fired from my receptionist job. I apparently didn’t smile enough. I apparently didn’t look busy enough. One of the employees didn’t like for whatever the reason so he made sure I wouldn’t stick around. I figured, apparently I couldn’t be a good clapping monkey. It sort of hurt my feelings.

As I walked home from a job I really didn’t want in the first place, I remembered those kids. Was I just unaware how others were judging me? Was I at thirty two years old running wild with no supervision?

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.

Kitten Wearing A Tiny Hat OMG Cat

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.

Baby's Disturbing Floor Shuffle

My dick is like Tiger Woods.

“I figured if I lived to be 50 years old, I would’ve jacked off twenty five thousand times. I am 33 years old now and married. You do the math.”

Morning shower. Rushing. Ten minutes to get dress and get to work. Partner decided to stay in cuz he supposedly had a headache. I was pissed cuz it messed up my schedule. We had a thirty minute break from each other in the morning. He left at 8 and me at 8:30 a.m. I used that time to jack off to the porn I had downloaded that past Sunday for the week. It was my routine. Ten years in a relationship with him, we really only had sex on birthdays or a binge drinking weekend.

Shower jacking can be difficult keeping the mind focused and not accidently rubbing the skin off your dick. I usually have to break open the vault of memories: the kinkiest shit or let my imagination molest celebrities. Anything that would work and get me there in five minutes. Tiger Woods came to mind. Not him, cuz I don’t find him attractive at all, but I started thinking about the fairytale “Cinderella.” I was amazed how it was too damn similar to the “Bachelor” and “Flava of love.” A bunch of skunk hoes from the neighborhood show up at a mansion to fight for the rich guy’s wallet. I mean, does anyone believe that Prince Charming didn’t fuck at least twenty of those wannabe “clit” girls and a threesome with the evil step sisters. But, it’s a fairytale, so he had to marry the so called innocent blond. I can’t imagine how many rules Cinderella had. I don’t think many men jack off to Cinderella.

I got there. Very quick. Very dirty. I let the warm water wash away the sins. I was back to reality. I got ready for work in five minutes. I kissed my lover on the forehead and headed out the door. I had once less nutt to worry about that day.
Cuz. That’s what it’s about. That’s what it was all about. It was about how to keep its attention. It was about making it behave. It was about not thinking about sex for at least eight hours.

I love my dick. I love my dick more than I will ever love anyone in my life. My dick will never get married.

Once upon a time, three five year olds were taking an innocent bath. We had been doing it for years especially when my grandmother babysat. We were the same age, cousins, with parents that like the bar on weekends. One innocent Friday night, we were in the tub together, splashing each other with water, throwing around the floating toys. The phone rung and my grandmother ran to go get it. Suddenly, we were alone. It wasn’t like we hadn’t been alone before, but that night everything would change. My cousin Ray grabbed my cousin Denise in between her legs. He wanted to know where here pee-pee disappeared too. So I join in, Denise a wiling participate, eager to know if he had gone inside of her. So we started sticking our fingers down there, feeling for a string to pull to realize her penis. Or something. My grandmother walked back into the bathroom. Her face was almost as we were committing a murder. It was the yell that we immediately knew we had done something so wrong. But she wasn’t mad at the boys. She grabbed Denise and slapped her across the face. She then drag poor Denise in a room and beat her between her legs. We never took baths again together. Innocence was over. We had become aware of murder, pregnancy, marriage and divorce. We had become aware of a difference that would haunt us until the day we died. The dick. So I jack it off to tame it’s insanity.