My People: or Reasons to Refer to One's Self as a Dark Skinned Eskimo

I haven't been on here for a while 'cause I’ve been working like a Hebrew slave, as my grandma would say. She also referred to herself as a dark skinned Eskimo when the children of my Southside neighborhood would dart in to the street at night in front of cars.

I love being black. I’m African- American- balls to bone. But what I’m feeling really genocidal about right now is... NIGGAS!

So I’m working on a commercial for a shack that bestows Italian pie treats to the American public. It was complicated logistically, it was emotionally harrowing and in the end... I got fucked- BY A NIGGA.

I hire production assistants. I generally hire people I know and can trust because I have to depend on them to be my eyes and ears when I’m on my cell phone at the office looking at 3 lines blinking awaiting my attention. They do pick ups and drop offs for me, they make sure the union workers have what they need, and usually they are my favorite people on set. They’re mine. I brought them here. They’re my support system.

I had one of my most trusted P.A.'s help me out with the procuring of such talent as I’m a little out of the P.A. loop being that I’m over 30 and all of the people I usually use have moved up in the ranks as I have. I used to be a P.A. and I was a damned good one... until it was time for me to move on. When that time came, you'd never met a surlier young woman in your life. I just didn't give a fuck. So I quit and became the coordinator. More money, more power, more headaches... bring it on.

So there was a P.A. I’d hired... let's call him Mr. Crazy. I’d met Mr. Crazy socially with my P.A. and he gave him a chance. Mr. Crazy is also a close friend, or so I thought, with one of my neighborhood friends... Mr. Rational, so I figured if Mr. Rational thought he was okay, that was good enough for me.

We do the job, I rarely saw him though. On my wrap day the production designer told me he couldn't stand Mr. Crazy and to keep him away from him. "Why?" I asked.

"If I ask him for a lamp he'll ask 'do you want the bookcase too?' he's trying really hard, but it's annoying and frustrating."

Copy that. Point taken, but I feel I can still work with him. Have him over for a drink. Give him some pointers. Although on this job it wasn't the case, but I’m usually 100% of the brown people on set with any power. It’s nice to have other blacks on set with me, especially commercial sets which are traditionally an old boys team. I knew he was interested in film, he's over 40 looking for some other outlet than the post office where he's worked for 20+ years (I think), and thought he'd done some projects before, so I didn't think anything of it.

My wrap was a beast. It was the most complicated wrap I’d ever done in my life. Mr. Crazy said he was gonna come in on Monday to bring me a receipt and I was gonna have him fill out an add'l timecard as I was giving him a double day for one of the really long one's he'd worked. The other P.A. that he's worked with who he refers to as "The White Boy" had already filled out a timecard so he was straight. Alas, I didn't hear from Mr. Crazy until a week after the job was wrapped. In LA, DONE.

So I go to the movies with a friend (Appaloosa was really good. I even liked Renee Zelweiger.) And come out to this text message:

"This check is insane. I busted my ass for the whole week and all you put down was 40 hours. I heard you tell the white boy I worked with on the last day that you were gonna get him more money like I did bust my ass I had a total of 60 plus hrs. This is not right!!! Holla back! ASAP!"

To which I phoned him to get a barrage of 'what the fucks' and such. As I was standing on 17th and Broadway I did what I do... I threw money at a problem. Only it was my money. I told him I’d give him $200.

That was a hasty decision. As I’m on the train I’m getting furious. "How dare he?" was all I kept saying. My friend was trying to take my mind off of it, but I was getting angrier and angrier.

I discussed it with Mr. Rational who surmised that his friend was "buggin' out" and who chided me for offering my own money. "What the fuck, grown folks gotta take care of their own shit." he is as wise as the town for which he's named.

So the next day while lounging with a friend, I call him and inform him that I’m going to give him $100 since I shouldn't have to pay for his not doing what he's supposed to do. As I’m trying to explain the situation to him and inform him that he needs to speak to me as someone who hired him not as a 'homegirl' he continues yelling into the phone various abuses and in the end "FUCK YOU! KEEP YOUR MONEY!" and hangs up on me.

Well, you could imagine my disappointment to his behavior. "Who the fuck does this nigga think he's talking to? I'm not his child. I'm his BOSS, for all intents and purposes. FUCK THIS NIGGA." is a little closer to the sentiment.

So then the games were afoot.
Mr. Crazy Text: You think you can tell me that your (sic) giving me two hundred, then tell me that your only givin' me 1oo dollars. Not once did anyone of you explain to me what I was getting paid for my work...I just knew, what you don't think I got friends in the bizz. Your (sic) not supposed to be givin' me any money. The company that paid is supposed to. But you didn't want to put the extra hours in I worked. It's ironic how you can say in my face to that white boy how you was gonna get him more money... I must be a fool. But that's alright.....Kharma (sic) is a bitch, remember that. We love to take advantage of our people. The worst thing about it is evrybody (sic) told me about you....I knew this was coming from the first day...I just wanted to see if you really was gonna play me. I'll pray for you. See you @ the top."

My response was:
"He filled out a timecard for the next week which I was homa (sic... gonna) have u do the monday you were coming 2 c me. Only 40 hours can go on non-union timecards. He did what he was supposed 2. I waited 3 days. I'm trying to fix it but I won't entertain this further through texts."

That was yesterday. Today as I’m finishing my Sedaris and moving to Notaro and laughing I get:

Mr. Crazy:
When can I come and see you?

Me:
4 what?

Mr. Crazy:
The money you said you were giving me!

Now I’m thinking, maybe he's on drugs. Didn’t he tell me to go fuck myself and keep my fucking money not 24h ago?

So I didn't respond. I read, I laugh, I smoke cigs and drink coffee. I talked to my aunt and told her what was happening to which she volunteered to call him and take care of it for me. She’s not the OG for nothing. Then as I’m cracking up to my book there's the ominous ring. Miles Davis' "So What?" never seemed so apropos.

Mr. Crazy Text:
"Since you dont' want to answer me. Let me tell you this. The conversation we had about you giving me this money was recorded. My aunt works for ( eeoc ). She has your info to your main office in la. I've recorded my conversations with two of your employees telling me how much hours I've worked. 'Wait this gets interesting'
I am also in touch wit the law office, who is responsible for over worked and under paid. This is gonna be great for you. Exposure. You asked for it now you got it. Just because you think your slick. Your company needs to know how you fuck wit there money."

While not responding I get this one:
Mr. Crazy Text: "I was suppose to been informed that I needed to fill out another time card. You let them take money I bust my ass for. I did everything in my power to work as hard as I did for , and you tell me your takin a hundred dollars from what I earned. Why fuck ya own people. Why me, I really don't understand you. I just lost my wife two yrz ago, so this is hard for me. I took off from work for a week for this. Why would you tell me you were giving me 2oo, when all you had to say 'come up and fill out a time card'. So I'm supposed to deny you what's mine. Sorry I'm not built like that.. What are we gonna do sis.....
it's that easy!!"


NOW I'M JUST PISSED!!
How dare he? And the really fucking bizarre part is that he has no idea how this works. I feel so sad for him but I also want to stick it to him in some way. But I’m gonna be the bigga nigga, cause he has a circular logic run by emotion and not intelligence and I can't argue with fools.

Me:
"The job is over. I don't work 4 them anymore. I'm freelance. I had 3 days 2 wrap. That's it. My offering MY money was a courtesy I’ve never offered anyone who didn't do what they said they would do! I was trying 2 explain that 2 u b4 u hung up on of (sic... me) & started all this. I'm sorry u feel abused & don't understand how commercials work but I’m trying 2 do the right thing and keep getting abused. B4 u hung up on me you told me 2 keep my money."

I was continuing it to say, "Which is it?" when the phone rang. It was Mr. Crazy himself.
I got a chance to explain it to him. I spoke calmly and rationally, expressed my great disappointment in his assailing my racial allegiances..."and for you to do all this talking about doing right by your people and this is how you treat me. It makes me sad and angry and hurts my feelings... but that's personal. Let’s deal with the business at hand. How much will it take for you to be satisfied? What needs to be done to fix this?"

Of course, it was just $200. That’s it. All of this over $200. I have an art director who owes me $5000- for 8 MONTHS. And I’ve given him a judgment letter. I’ve documented my correspondence and I do call from time to time to see if I can learn anything new... but to no avail. That’s ending a 10-year friendship. I could give a fuck about Mr. Crazy and $200 is a small price to pay for his satisfaction and my not having to think about him ever again.

He’s coming over later today to get the money. I should call Mr. Rational to be there just in case he really is crazy.

Two points I feel need reiteration:
1) This person is over 40 years old.
2) The money he's arguing about is not what he earned, per se. I got him a double day because there was one excessively long day worked and no other P.A.'s but him and 'the white boy' got it. It was a courtesy on my part as well. The other P.A.'s worked just as hard if not harder for me, but I was doing them a solid. But ya know what they say about acts of kindness.


I’m so sad for a lot of my people. We’ve been sorely under/ un- educated and it's now glaringly apparent when it comes to matters of business and professionalism. Our insistence in using street talk at work and a general failure to understand the systems we work in.

What really makes me sad is that I’m too tired and angry to really do anything about it. I can try to pronounce words correctly to give some one a map, but I can't make them walk down the road to grammatically correct town. Hell, I barely understand how commas work and semi colons are a mystery shrouded in subject-verb agreements. But I believe I can get a point across when I’m sober.

As Mr. Crazy's yelling into the phone how fucking professional he is, I understood that I just needed to get my point across and find a way to make this go away. I could even hear his aunt trying to chime in. she got it. Once he figured out what I was saying I could hear the acquiescence in his voice. I hope through the day he figures out not just that he was wrong, but how he was wrong. How very wrong headed and ill tempered he is to work in this industry. How stupid he really is about this whole thing.

But let's be clear. The dead wife angle is some bullshit. Only an immature asshole would pull a dead wife out for $200. What a tiny little world he lives in. but I get out of that world for $200 cash. No taxes. No withholding. Free and clear.

And isn't that what Obama would want me to do?

Pissed: or "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher"

So today is Sept. 11. That sucks. And in case you were planning on having a good productive day, well fuck you. Cause the whole city needs to be on anti-depressants. The collective energy of a city of this size mourning will crush the most Mary Poppins of spirits. Think Ghostbusters 2. So then I have to come to the den of corporate idiocy and listen to inanity from kids who don't know who Blair Underwood is.

Idiot #1: Did you know Blair Underwood got his start as Denise’s boyfriend on the Cosby show?
#2: no. (pause) wait a minute, I know who he is.
#1: He was on that lawyer show in the '80's.
#2: Night Court?

I can't make this up. They work at a TV station that specializes in classic shows. I wanted to yell “LA Law you dummies!” but since I’m freelance, I kept it to myself.

Then I have to suffer the crush of seeing my college classmates all married and successful in a way I never will be. I chose differently. And while I’m in this pit doing nothing, literally, I feel like a slacker and a loser because I could have chosen differently. The energy it takes to just make it through the day is enough to make me want to just get botulism from my salads I refuse to put in the fridge and just die.

I know this is for money and the city needs to just chill out. We’re like a bunch of kids picking a scab cause today's a day to get attention. People die everyday. We should remember them everyday. It’s sad, it sucks, we have to move on or this city's going to eat itself alive.

On the TV in the elevator, I hate it; they showed a picture of what looked like thousands of people down at Ground Zero. I understand that it was the most important day in some people's lives. I understand that it was pivotal. I understand that it's tragic beyond understanding. But life and grief is about moving on. Why go down there? Celebrate them in some positive, less photo op way. It’s like we don't know how to grieve so we just go do what we see everyone else doing.

And we haven't moved on. Not yet. We haven't moved on emotionally, spiritually or politically. This morning I got spooked cause I heard airplanes low overhead. It’s an overcast day. I hear them all the time. I was spooked. And that was before I’d really realized what today was. And then the “President” decided to make a speech, a lot of speeches- not enough silence.

We’re all fucked up. And on top of it, personally, I’m trying to be a mature person when I’m sure I’m being dissed and I’m fucking pissed. I have no real reason to be pissed except that I feel betrayed. Am I over reacting, probably, but I do so too rarely. I don't overreact nearly enough. The whole world runs on overreaction, and I’m gonna join the party today.

So besides this being one pissy little town today... let me tell you what's gonna happen tonight. Again, think Ghostbusters 2. Only add alcohol and drugs. It’s gonna either get really ugly or the alcohol will be the positive slime that got infused with the Jackie Wilson song.

I, personally, hope that people who diss people should maybe get boots put on their cars. Or scabies. Or a perpetual runny nose. See, I do have a soft side.

I’m fucking pissed.

Love- Remix

A few years ago a very disgruntled me wrote a poem about love. I was pissed. I didn't believe in it and wasn't loving myself very well at the time.

Today it might go:

Easy chairs aren't so easy when u have to drag them up 3 flights of stairs.
But do U then hate the chair? No.
The chair is soft and comfortable and U love it.
That's more how I'm feeling about love right now.
Nothing in this life's easy.
And 1/2 of our choices are chance.
So why not just make a choice and take a chance.
Even if you lose you win, because you'll learn something.
Something about yourself, about who you think you are, what U believe about yourself in your choice and expectations on a beloved.
In the selfish reality of it, it is all about you.
Because you're going to see what you want in another person and make them creations of what you believe as opposed to who or what they really are.
If you're lucky and aren't judging yourself or the world too harshly; then you can see the beauty in the flaws along with all the parts you readily accept and love.
If you're really lucky,
You get to love the flaws too. I think.
I have only recently experienced that idea (or the idea of the idea- but i'm away from my familiar and what I believe might indeed be severely flawed),
But I do believe it can happen.
Or some form of it.
But what the fuck do I know?

That's how I feel about love today.

love

I wrote this a while ago and have it on my other blog. you'll need to know it to get the next one.

Love

Soft like an easy chair-
my ass.
It's just the mood I’m in right now, I guess.
I don't write about love-
don't want to write about it because it makes
me feel like a romantic fool.
There's no room for romantic notions
in a hyper technologized world of IM.
The time to develop the intensity of feelings
and bonds of trust have become truncated into
smiley faces and empty and
quick "I love you emails" and text messages.
I say it so much that the feelings I used to have
when I felt it is gone.
The heat and swelling in my chest.
The flush of my cheeks.
My hands going numb.
Ears throbbing and mind made blank by an emotion
so intensely overwhelming there was, as
the alcoholics would say, the magnificence of God.
But I say it back to everybody that says it to me and
when I think about how much I don’t mean it-
it only adds to the emptiness I feel
about my everyday existence.
When I don’t think about it but feel how empty it is
All I want to do is drink.
Booze is no muse though.
It only magnifies the desperation of being surrounded by
I love you’s" and not feeling loved.
It does, however, temporarily hide the fact that all of
this means nothing.
Nihilism is on short order after a bottle or two of montepulciano.
And whisky knocks it down that much better.
So love-
I’m writing about love and it’s new status as an apparition.
A ghost of what was and what everybody hopes to attain
Without knowing its true nature.
With no experience base of its highs and lows.
Because sans this understanding of the heart and mind
that relegated it to the dream realm,
the nether regions,
we all believe in reality TV’s version of love.
And that’s some real bullshit.

Thank You Craigslist

I put an ad on craigslist here in Paris and got a delicious surprise.

I know, it's dangerous. Little black girl in Paris alone eliciting strange people to talk to her and perhaps make her have to do a few loads of sheets and towels in her fabulous Parisian apt.

But I did it. And I won. After my friends left I realized I hadn't "been carnal" in a little bit and I’m in Paris. The city of light and lovers. And I’d never had “the relations” on foreign soil. I decided this was the time for that to change. I’d actually decided when I bought my ticket, got the apartment and went to the ob/gyn to make sure I didn't need any shots or anything. I love her. She said, "Take your own condoms". Intrigued. "Why? Do theirs not work?" she calmly replied "different latex, different lube. Nothing ruins a trip faster than a broken pudenda."

I knew I should have gone to med school.

Anyway, I started rapping with this dude who says he went on craigslist to rent out a room in his apartment and "just happened" into the who wants to get laid portion of said list. We emailed each other all day and it was really nice. I was beat from 4 days of walking this great town and the flirtations were a welcome respite. He loved my English, I loved his English. It has a French flair that I really thought lived in French movies from the Alain Delon days.

So he came to pick me up. He was cute. He looked like the pix he'd sent, only his hair was a little thinner than I’d expected. Who cares? I have cellulite. I’d been taking baths the last few days so when he got here I’m all fresh, clean and had drank almost a bottle of wine alone and watched Mad Men and a little internet diddling (great use of my time in Paris, right?).

It was cool being in a car in Paris. I hadn't been in one I didn't have to pay for yet and we were so busy talking about hip hop (I was going to go to a concert the next night with wordsworth and masta ace... but I couldn't fathom coughing up hard earned Euros for hip hop to globally bone me) that he didn't give me the full tour. Actually, we talked a lot and he likes a lot of the same things I do. He loves the Wire and Entourage too (although I haven't watched all of the Wire yet). He lives by Bastille. I saw it. It’s a statue. No bones rattling around, no jail, a statue. Cool. Done.

We got to his flat that was as big as my apartment in Brooklyn and it's cute. He travels a lot for work and thus the list visit. He’d already told me he used to grow "greenhouse plants" in his bedroom, but now simply aided others in the relinquishing of their said plants. We partook. He rolled his funny cigarettes with Marlboro tabac. He’d said that he didn't smoke but we went through almost a pack. We drank a bottle of champagne, he made caprianias (he had that crazy rum from brazil- cachaça), we listened to some of his favorite hip-hop, and looked at some propaganda Hugo Chavez left in the VIPs lounge in the Venezuelan airport. He also talked about his masters’ thesis which sounds mad cool and we ended up talking for a couple of hours... and then the games began.

I thought I was gonna stay away from such talk in an open forum for whenever I run for president, or just so my dad doesn't have a heart attack, but this was too good not to go for.

(Besides, the whole "finding my own voice thing" this is my voice, it's vulgar and crude and mortifying to most of my family; but I can't wait for them to die to tell my stories, right?)

Anyway, the thing that made it so good was the chivalrousness of it. I asked him last night/ this morning if he's always like this? He said yes. And I’m like damn. I can't get a return phone call in Brooklyn. Now granted I usually fuck with severely fucked up individuals that I find charming until I have more than a 5 minute conversation with them. Thus the relations sans relationships. But this felt different. Sure I was probably a little drunk and a little stoned- and in Paris. But I wasn't that fucked up. And as the evening wore on and the soberer I got, the better it got. Then it happened.

Somewhere in the middle I stopped trying to do my best porn star impression and we started making love. Slow and sweet. With kisses everywhere. He literally kissed me everywhere. It was a delight, and the worm turned. I became inspired. I like wanted to cook breakfast in a French maid's costume and start washing dishes. Once I saw that he got off by getting me off I wanted to do the same.

Needless to say the sun was suddenly up. He had to be at work at 9. It was after 6a. We slept for a little bit. He took a shower, I brushed my teeth and did my first ho stroll in Paris. He was going to the country to visit his family for the weekend. Jaded me thought, "yeah, sure. Your family."

I was sure I’d never see him again, and then like clockwork, he sent me an email yesterday afternoon. I said something dirty (and wrong) in French that he said made him hot all day. I liked that. I went to dinner with a friend of a friend. We went to St. Germaine and the Latin Quarter. Listened to some jazz. I met Memphis Slim's drummer and when I saw him as he was entering and I was leaving the bathroom, he took my head in his hands and kissed me in the mouth. I apparently have a way with French men. The friend of the friend looked like he was a little in love with me too by the end of the night and was trying to kiss me in the mouth as I got out of his car. Easy boys... let a girl catch her breath.

Besides, I’d just gotten a text from my boy and wanted to get back to him as quick as I could. He said he couldn't wait to have me in his arms and I needed to get to my translator to shoot a "right back at cha" to him in French.

I came home, drank some more wine, texted the boy back and he was here in 30 min. We went to sleep at 6a again. He has all kinds of meetings he's rearranging and friends he's blowing off cause I’m here. We’re having dinner tonight. I have to wash more sheets and towels.

We said we'll tell people we met on Facebook. Friends of friends... of Craig.

Wine

Ya know, wine is the same all over the world. Some wine is better than other wine. Some wine you have to spit back in the glass and lick your tongue out a few times to get the idea of it out of you head.

But not in Paris. You can buy wine from the grocery store and it's delicious. You know how I know. Well padawan, I know cause I've done it. I've walked that line and came out ahead. I also eat seafood when everyone else is shaking their heads and threatening not to take care of airplane shrimp's vomitous return. I'm a risk taker.

But buying and drinking grocery store wine for 5 euros is not a risk. The French drink wine all the time. It would be cost prohibitive of them as a culture to make wine unaffordable. I'm an American. Our beer is cheap. That's why we all weigh almost 200lbs each. But beer is delicious and after being in Copenhagen where there's the delicious Carlsburg (and little else) I saw the detriments of beer.

1.) You don't get drunk. Unless you purposely go in on an empty stomach. Then you get really drunk, really fast and sick a second after you realize you're drunk. No Fun.

2.) All the clothes I packed shrank in my suitcase after a few nights of beer. I wasn't going to bootcamp and spin class. I was walking around one of the dullest towns I'd ever seen to go present a paper to people who were rolling around in the ground in newspaper. Then it rained and was cold and beer doesn't warm you up.

3.) And this is one I learned at home by living over a bar. Beer drunk makes me evil and sleepy.

Therefore, the world should be made out of wine. And whisky. Cause wine makes you go to sleep and whisky makes you forget all the bad things you did to your friends when you drank it.

Wine is great.

Paris 1

I love this town. I love everything about it.

Yesterday I sat at Café Flore where Baldwin finished Go Tell it on the Mountain and where he had his infamous falling out with Richard Wright. I had a glass of wine for Jimmy. Then had several more for myself. We went to Bar and had several more glasses of champagne. I talked to some locals- in French (I'm apparently fluent with a little wine in me).

Earlier in the day we'd gone to Notre Dame and Museé d'Orsay. I'm more Manet than Monet people and I can finally tell the difference. I also got to see the strokes on the Van Gogh's and he was totally dropping his basket.

We walked around St. Germaine de Pres and it's mad expensive and cool as hell though. I have to find a way to live here. I haven't done much writing, but when my traveling companions leave me tomorrow I'll have more time.

Right now they went to the Folies Bergere to do a little Josephine Baker hunting. I'm going to meet them at the Louvre in a little bit and we have a salon to attend tonight.

I love Paris.

Denmark

What a bore. I've never seen so many dry people in my life.

The cheese was good though. Christiania was amazing, but only cause there were all these stoners and people were smoking hash in the street. That was the only fly part. It's a dull little town.

Don't smell like roses

I got sunflowers for my birthday and I had them on my table/ desk to inspire me to write. Every little girl loves flowers right? Right. Only what I didn't have any idea about was that my beautiful sunflowers would start smelling like a sack of assholes.

Seriously. I was looking under my shoes, even took another shower (the inhumanity). After convincing myself that my computer wasn't farting (I've been drinking for like 2 weeks straight) went to smell the flowers.

Whew! I then told them, aloud, that they didn't smell like roses. Then I laughed the way crazy people who talk to flowers alone in their homes do.

Then I wrote this:

These sunflowers I got for my birthday smells like assholes. I just told them they don’t smell like roses, but I guess that’s an old joke to them. They didn’t laugh.

What is it about the American mind that insists that all inanimate objects must be infused with some sort of soul or personality? Have you watched that Tom and Jerry lately? It’s a horror show. It’s also my favorite, particularly during the Tex Avery era. Such exquisite violence. Watching it now makes me whence and understand where I get a ton of my violent fantasies from.


That's when I thought maybe I should ask my therapist if I might need to commit myself for a while.

The real answer is that I need more fresh flowers in my house. Despite the fact that my allergies have been a nightmare since the jack the ripper of pollen lived in my house stinking it to high hell.

Maybe I'll try daisies.

Synchronized Swimming is the shit

Man, how do these little dudes do that? Do they live inside of each other's minds? Do they have to sleep together in a cocoon like pre-butterflies? That spinning and hitting at the same time is just amazing.

But I've gotta tell you, those Canadian girls were thick as hell. I would have gone into their lockers and took their clothes if I was there. But their Canadian athletes, so I'm sure it would be all sweatpants and ugly shoes.

Oh, my favorite quote from the woman's freestyle relay was:

"And she's one of the best breaststrokers around." Tee Hee. That made me laugh out loud and wonder if they have any idea how idiotic they sound.

As for gymnastics, what can I say? That little Sacrimoni girl needs to be on suicide watch cause she didn't make one HUGE mistake that literally cost them the gold- BUT 2! She looked like she was about to lose it on camera. That's too much pressure for little girls, but we're Americans and while we like to coddle, we also like to criticize. And no they're no Dream Team. No Nadia's, No Kerry's, No Dominique's. A bunch of weird looking little dudettes who have destroyed their young bodies and will never recover from the punishment they've suffered. No boobs for you ladies. You'll never have the smoky quality of my voice unless you smoke as much as I do... but I doubt you could keep up. I have breasts... and a period. Bye- Bye period and children ladies. I hope it was worth it for a silver medal.

Olympics 1- These will continue in the coming days

I'm going to start collecting the stupid quotes from the Olympic commentators. Tonight it's men's gymnastics after the Chinese clenched the gold medal:

"There's a new China Syndrome- and it's called China Gold."

I don't even know the name of the dude who said it. The commentators are less than talking heads, they're just disconnected voices creating a narrative Americans can follow so we'll watch. Capitalizing on nationalism and creating rivalries where there are none.

What's up with the crazy lady talking to the athletes seconds after they've won. Dude, they just got Olympic Gold Medals... leave them alone. This is why we have no interiority.

34

I'm sitting, listening to All Blues and remembering the first time I was aware of it. Aware of Miles. It was my sixteenth birthday and I was with Wyatt. He's made me a tape of Kind of Blue and told me it would change my life. He was right. He's dead now. OD'd when we were still in the blush of our youth. He was really funny and quite beautiful. I hated him when he died. Thought he was a bastard, he was a bastard, but.... anyway.

It always reminds me of sex. Reminds me of an intimacy one loses with each loss. It still makes me cry sometimes, like now. I think I cried the first time I really listened to it, but then I might have been crying cause Wyatt had just gone down on me. It was a hell of a great birthday. Then I went to see the Bolshoi dance Swan Lake.

Birthdays are funny like that. I always think they're such a big deal and do some kind of reflection or spiritual thing. Going diving, swimming with sharks, having some experience I think will add authenticity to my life, but this year, this quiet birthday year I'm taking a different approach.

This year I'm grown-up. This year I've finally figured out that life is life. Really figured it out. There is no magic pill, there is no story, there is nothing but the day to day and the practice of staying alive. Or the practice of killing yourself. I'm straddling that line and there's no judgment on it.

Everyday is practice. Everything is practice. I've been practicing drinking and watching TV and I'm brilliant at both. that's authentic. admission of flaws with no judgment. I've never felt so good in my life. and so crummy at the same time. life's not good or bad, it just is. i know that's not some big secret of nimh moment, but for me it's priceless right now. i feel like I've actually become free. the freedom I've claimed all this time i finally have.

birthdays aren't so bad.

Come On Brooklyn: or, Do I Have to Tell You Babies Don't Belong in Bars?

I don't think this should be necessary to write but:

It's not cool to take a screaming baby into a bar on a Saturday afternoon and then proceed to breast feed it while drinking a beer.

I know I have an antiquated set of social mores, but last Saturday I really almost snapped. It was hot and I couldn't figure out how to set up my new home theater so I decided to go get a beer and sit in a little AC.

I walked in, said my hellos and then noticed that my skin was crawling. Nails on a chalkboard. As my teeth were sitting on edge and after I realized no one was playing The Whispers or Ashanti- I heard it. A SCREAMING baby. My shoulders hunched, my jaw was tight and as I looked around for the miniature offender I saw- a breast.

I have breasts. I've even been known in some circles as a bit of a flasher. Breasts are cool and I was breast fed. I believe the only reason women have breasts is for feeding babies. But not in the back of a bar with a beer in front of you. (Now I'm probably exaggerating about the beer. I don't know if I actually saw it, but between the screeching and the breast I might have began hallucinating a bit.)

I couldn't stay. It was so cool in there. It's so hot in my apt. The beer looked delicious. I just wanted to shout "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" Must adults be told this? I'm clear on the arguments that it's natural and all that. I honestly believe that. There is nothing more natural than a mother feeding her child. But it was a sunny summer day. There's a gi-normous park across the street. If it's the AC factor there's also a library across the street. I dig you want to be with your friends and socialize- but we can't do it all at once.

New parents want to live the same lives they did pre- progeny and I don't believe it works like that. I don't have any children for just this reason. I like being able to get shitfaced in the middle of the afternoon if I want. And I'm not begrudging a new mother a cocktail. But perhaps the two acts are mutually exclusive. The topper was one of her friends coming out of the bar telling someone on the phone "no, no dogs, but we're all here".

Like babies, dogs shouldn't be allowed in bars. Actually, if a dog is found in a bar, the bar owner could lose their liquor license. It's unclean. And really?

I know I'm not particularly dog people. I like my friends dogs to a point. Some have more agreeable personalities for me than others, but where my cocktails come from- I don't want to negotiate dog hair.

So, Come On Brooklyn. I know we've become all warm and fuzzy and suburban like, but again:

BROOKLYN IS NOT THE SUBURBS.

I love Facebook

Only in America could such absurdity exist. Sure there are people from all over the world in it, but only a culture so set on separation could create something so false about bringing people together.

I have friends in there that I haven't seen or spoken to in years. Mostly from high school and I'm lucky enough to have gone to a small school, so we really do know each other. Or at least really did. I'm glad to be able to play word games with them, but I don't know them. One of my real best friends just joined and called me saying she's overwhelmed and is just accepting invites from people she doesn't even know.

We're in our 30's now so there's a bit of nostalgia regarding our former bonds and the looking back over the years to the lives we had once. I remember flashing friends, they don't specifically recall said instances (I was a mad flasher and would raise my shirt if the wind was blowing in the right direction... so it's easy to forget). We're scanning in old letter we used to write.

Actually those are really interesting. The letters I have from my childhood are bordering on pornographic- some outright disgusting. With pix and all. My best friend who joined a "group" later in life (i'm trying not to call it a cult anymore) was a whiz at chemistry (she later went on to be pre-med from an ivy league institution before "the group") and we'd write notes about a freshman boy (we were sophomores) and just giggle. I got a C and had to go to a tutor. She got an A and joined a cult. That's what nostalgia gets you.

But back to my point, in Facebook I'm a master drug dealer, a ruthless pimp, a millionaire mobster, a rogue soldier with the need to destroy, a word genius, and I like 24 and Lost. These things bring me a weird false sense of accomplishment in times when I dont' feel like I'm doing anything with my life. I'm beating someone at something instead of getting beaten (by the man, the system, myself mostly). But that doesn't say anything about the girl who lives in NYC and is sometimes so paralyzed with anxiety she won't leave the house for days (except to go to the gym around the corner and the bar downstairs).

Or the one who is negotiating this life on its terms and would love to know how everyone else is doing it. How do I write an abstract? What do I say when I present this paper in Copenhagen? Who will I be in Paris? Can someone help me focus and edit these stories that are driving me mad? What exactly is in a book proposal?

We poke and send kisses and crazy Japanese game show clips, but nobody's really talking. It's just more distraction. I'll sit up her bored but still playing Word Twist cause I can't quite wrap my brain around what my character does after she kills her mother and how that impacts the overall story arc. It's easier to have a false sense of intimacy (the same thing I think about IM...) under the auspices of communication than actual communication and intimacy.

But that doesn't mean I don't kick ass at Word Twist.

This economy is some BS

So I'm trying to find somewhere to lay my kinky head in Paris and this Euro to dollar conversion is a heartbreaker. Aren't we the leaders of the free world?

Yesterday, the world's most corrupt real estate manager said in a press speech that the economy is still growing.

WTF? IS HE ON CRACK? Every country on the planet is doing better than us. Mexican pesos are catching up with dollars. PESOS!! So I'm trying to be all international like and as soon as I buy a $1200 tix to Copenhagen and Paris... the news says, "not the right time for a European vacation". Oh, really? Thanks for the NEWS!

But more than that, are people even aware of the isolationism happening? If Americans, who are terrible travelers, can't make their annual sojourn to Europe, will the Europeans have to stay home and enjoy summers in their native land?

NAH.

Cause Manhattan is still cheaper than Paris if you get paid in Euros. I want to get paid in Euros. I really wish I'd done this traveling when I was younger. I wouldn't care if I had bedbug bites or if I had to share a toilet down the hall with a bunch of weird Germans (i mean... they're weird- they just are). I'd have been fabulous and free and tossing Francs around willy nilly. Or even when the Euro hit the scene and it was like pesos. Ahhh, the 90's.

So I'm going to stay with two of my friends for a few days all cramped up in a tiny French apt. in the 13th (maybe 11th) and when they leave I'll be able to stretch my legs and bring home strange Frenchmen. Good Living.

But he's going to have to buy the wine.

Gentrification Blues part deux

In the bit about gentrification I kinda glossed over the fight part.

This shit is scary. I’m a little girl (well not little in the Sarah Jessica Parker sense- see other postings) but I’m a girl. These little monkeys are crazy.

It was so easy. I’m rappin' with my homey about the season finale of the most excellent show on television and how mind twisting it was; having a few cocktails and now it's time for a delicious smoky treat.
We’re headed out to smoke and walking talking. There’s this couple hemmed up in the doorway and my homey (I guess I’ll call him BC cause I’m gonna confuse the hell out of myself like that) tries to open the door and tells this little brother he can't do that here. I’m stepping right behind him and the next thing I know is that this little MF is screaming and pushing BC and yelling.
When I told my sister she asked what he was yelling. I said it was unintelligible. "I don't know. Something like 'I’m a man'; ' I got two eyes'; 'I didn't get enough love as a child'; 'peanuts make my feet stink'; 'public education has served me poorly'..." (You get the point. it actually tickled the both of us so we went on for about 5 minutes.)
That’s when BC punched the fuck out of him. I’m running out all Tyler Durden waving my arms yelling "whoa, whoa, whoa" (when he was in front of the van- favorite scene) and screaming for someone to call the police. The supreme queen bartender was on it already as were most of the patrons (the newbies. I do distinctly remember seeing a pair of eyes only peeking over the back of the bar. Like Cleavon Little was gonna come in shouting "where all the white women at?"). I moved through the crowd of ruffians that have BC jammed up against the door to the apt building and that's my turf, so I kinda snapped a little. And remember it was like the Smiths in the Matrix so like a hundred dudes dropped out of nowhere (I think it was like 10 in the end).
So I get in front of BC and put my arms out tiger style and stood in front of him yelling, "STOP!" (Think Gandalf and the dragon thing). Then it was suddenly just the skinny troublemaker woozy looking and rising up in front of me. Then I was suddenly like shit, this kid's gonna hit me. WTF? So before he could fully stand up, I kicked him in the chest. Kinda a bitch move- but I am a girl. I even had on a skirt and my Keds. Then he just staggered away. Remember when the LA cops said that Rodney King was on PCP and acting all hulk-like. Well that's what this kid was like. Just not there.
Then BC calls my attention to the white body being dragged in the street and it's another homey and that's when I started shaking. For some reason that's when it got real. And real scary. He was limp and this kid is a firecracker. These little animals were dragging him in the street. Do they even know the implications of that? I want to drop them in 1950's Mississippi and then we'll see when they drag someone in the street.
This is my home. This neighborhood is where I’ve spent my formative adult years. I’ve become an adult here. Now that's not to say that I haven't been called an ugly bitch from my door to the end of my block. And I was shocked because I’d never been called an ugly anything in my whole life. And ironically enough one of the ruffians was the grownup boy who called me out back then. He’s going to jail. And he has a baby now. Pity. But why come after people who look like you? And despite my animus for the newer residents, I also don't want them to suffer at the hands of "angry black youth" but damn man.

What would Obama do?

But not for me

I’m usually in love with love, but not today. I hate it. I hate it because nobody’s in love with me. It fucking blows. I’m listening to jazz and writing and nobody loves me in the way that would make it where we wake up together tomorrow morning. I’m going to have a house full of my best male friends here tomorrow and my loneliness is echoing to me through this house. Today at the bar there was a couple making out and I wanted to break bottles over their heads. All I can think of is the song “”They’re singing songs of love, but not for me” and I’m fucking pissed. I don’t want to think about it, but there’s no Ginsy or Kerouac to document our ennui right now. And nobody expects a little black girl from the Southside of Chicago to be that mutha fucka, but here I am. Listening to Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Eric Satie and writing a little drunk and very pissed off. Why don’t I have a boyfriend? The standard answer is that I’m too fat, but I’m not. I’m the same size as Marilyn Monroe in “Some Like it Hot” and she’s (I’m) hot as well. The whole world has been taken over by this ideal that is dedicated to making women weak. And I’m not weak or lame and I don’t weigh 100 lbs. I’d break if I did and I’m a good midwestern girl who doesn’t believe that being skinny is the way to win the world. I’m also too smart to really rally around the idea that that’s what I’m supposed to look like. I prefer Titian to Raphael and more a Titian than a Botticelli. I love the way that I look. I’m healthy and I’m strong. There’s a layer of fat over a ton of muscle and that’s okay. There’s a man out there who thinks I’m the cat’s meow. But when I open my smart mouth it generally turns the whole situation sour. I love being smart almost as I love having big strong thighs. I love pontificating on Foucault and DeBord while showing how jazz music is the equivalent of neo realist philosophy as much as the next guy. I can’t write with music that has words, so I’m infinitely a jazz chick and I’ve added some classical to the mix. But it’s only Satie that moves me in the same way as Miles and Charlie. A little Sergio Mendes is playing now. It has words that I can’t understand, but I can feel them. The beats speak to my African. They got to hold on to the drums. They got to hold on to the movements and the passion of the music. The sensuality of it all. I can’t understand what the words mean and that makes it that much sexier. It’s and ecstasy that can’t b e explained unless you hear it and feel it. It’s shoulders moving. It’s a rolling of the body that Europeans can’t understand because it doesn’t live in their bones. In their spirits. (That’s such bullshit. Even I know that’s not true.)

Take Five is on now. It’s so sexy. It’s sexy because there are all of these random moments in it that sound like they’re just hanging but they’re so on purpose. The piano, the drums, the hanging of the horn. The perfection of it all. It’s short it’s sweet and it’s jazzy without being pretentious.

Now James Ingram is singing. Fuck. What the fuck is this? It’s my favorite song. I remember reading the lyrics in Rap Pages when I was about 8. It’s the song “Never Gonna Let You Go” and it’s ruined my whole life. When you’re sixteen and have “open relationships” with the first lover you’ve ever had, it’s bound to lead to a ton of emotional problems you’re going to pay for later.

I don’t know how to have a relationship. I’m emotionally retarded. I fall in love easily and get hurt almost as easily. I live in NYC and this world is not built for people with compositions as delicate as mine. I’m living in a constant state of fear and resentment and hate. I hate people with money. I hate people who’ve found love. I hate that I’m so fat. I hate a lot of things, but the most is love. There was a couple making out at the bar tonight and then they left in a way I remember and I wished they’d get run down by a car before they got to make it home and consummate the actions they’d begun at the bar. I wanted them to die. I wanted them to die because I didn’t have anyone to love me in the same way.

Is this true?

The street was eerily quiet. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the guy standing across from the bar just standing there. Looking across the street. Peeking around the corner. Watching as the Yeminese closed their shop of wares. Watching as the little Yemeni DEVIL was playing like a true 5 year old and not as the evil little bastard cursing at women in Arabic and today pointing a cane at a man like a gun who’d gone missing a few weeks ago and I was sure that if anyone had stolen him- he’d be back in a few hours probably with some extra cash in his pocket.
But I couldn’t shake the guy across the street. He couldn’t know that I’m the bar’s protector. He would never think that the little brown girl who barely made it through her conditioning class tonight and seemed to be encased in a warm casing of creamy caramel was the one who would murk him out if he tried anything here. I’d just kicked a man in the chest of Friday and I was fully feeling my oats.

But the neighborhood’s changing so much. Any white man can stand on the corner- black men’s corners- and not get noticed. He looked like a rent boy to me. Did he even know what neighborhood he was in?

And then he came into the bar. I was wishing I’d eaten more today cause the two glasses of wine (and maybe the pot I’d smoked a little earlier) were making me a little woozy. I’d only had a few cigs in my pocket and the last one I smoked while talking to my little sister on the cell phone. It did give me the perfect diversion though, since I’d already been staring him down from the bar and when I came out for my first one.
Somewhere between my 1st and 2nd cig he’d moved across the street to sit in the doorway of the store. Looking at his cell phone. I had to know what was up. I had to know if I could go to my apartment and fall into the deep coma like sleep I so desired. But no, I had to wait. Of course I had to wait cause I’m lazy.

There were only a few of us left in the bar. We were actually laughing when the door stormed open and in walks this guy.

Gentrification Blues

I live in Brooklyn. I live in a really beautiful part of Brooklyn. It's near Prospect Park and it used to be populated with really cool people. Until Williamsburg and Lower Manhattan shook itself out into my neighborhood. Key word: NEIGHBORHOOD. I'm neighbors with the people I see and have seen everyday for the last 12 years. I nod "how do" and smile at the people walking down the street. Even if I'm in a shitty mood, I acknowledge the people I see.

Sunday I formally decided to be an urban nuisance. Let me back up. Friday at my favorite bar I kicked a young man in the chest who was going after a friend of mine. Punches in faces, brawling, dragging another friend in the street, police, nothing. The kids, the black kids, were just wildin' out. It felt like when the Smiths descended in the Matrix and there was this kind of hopelessness. Not hopeless because of the fighting situation (my friends weren't badly hurt and said it felt like a bunch of soft punches); but hopelessness over the environment that created these young men. This skinny little thing was a boy. And obviously crazy as hell to go after a man who was at least a head taller than him.

So fast-forward to that Sunday. I'm going to help another friend move back into the neighborhood and as I'm walking to the train a couple comes out of a building on Sterling. They're walking beside me (white man & Asian lady) and I'm bopping along to my walkman (okay- iPod, but walkman shows my age better). The girl starts whispering to the man as we reach a light and they're now trying to get away from me. AWAY FROM ME!!! Dude, I'm so offended. They're the ones walking side by side with me. Then they start walking really fast and I’m like “are you fucking kidding me?” So I start walking faster with them. Step in step. These assholes. Then they start walking slow, and I start walking slow. Now I’m obviously fucking with them. I’m wearing my Howard t-shirt for christssake. And I wanted to fuck with them. I know you think that just because your dumb ass is paying 3x my rent to probably live in ½ my apartment that doesn’t mean you get to be afraid of all black faces. Then these geniuses just stop. I guess they just stopped because by now I’m laughing out loud. But I’m so offended by the behavior of the people who’ve moved here in the last year, priced out the people who built this NEIGHBORHOOD and now think they own it. If you’re that goddamn important then I guess you should have stayed your white asses in Manhattan. And that’s not to be racist- it’s only whites moving here. And they call the places retaining blacks “the bad part” of the neighborhood.
So now the ugly assed glass and steel monstrosity is almost finished and they get to share my gym. This is going to be a real treat. I don’t mind the neighborhood changing, what I mind is the privileged behavior of people who can’t afford to live in Manhattan anymore, came over here cause Miranda moved here on Sex and the City, and give the current residents their asses to kiss.

And NO! It’s not okay to change your baby’s nappy IN THE WINDOW OF A BAR! NOT OKAY!

This Facebook is the devil

I can play scrabble in it. I can become a drug lord in it. I've learned that I'm an excellent warmonger. My page is so full of useless mind numbing applications it takes like 5 minutes to load. But WordTwist is the bomb!

Hillary Clinton Sucks

I started this post some time ago when she was still relevant, but now she just sucks in general. Once she pulled that "you do know he's black, right?" bullshit it was a wrap for her. And her cheating assed husband that I had the biggest crush on and made me rich for a while. Oh, well.

I hate match.com

So I just paid off some money on my credit card so I can have some mulah in Savannah and it keeps getting declined. I check it out and it's FUCKING match.com. Arghh. I never get emails and would have sworn I'd canceled months ago. That's the worst. It's over $100. That blows.
I have a friend who's the queen of match. They couldn't get enough of her and she's gotten 2 boyfriends out of it. I have another friend who hates it too and told me to go somewhere where I'm the queen. It's totally not match.com and it made me feel so bad about myself I could see why people would lie about themselves. I didn't which is why I believe no one wants to talk to me. It's like being in public high school in the suburbs. I went to private school in the city. I'm not equipped to play the reindeer games needed.

I hate match.com because:
1) I have yet to get an email from anyone other than my brother and an ex boyfriend.
2) The only people who look at me (not talk to me) have so lowered their standards I'm supposed to have done the same. AND THEY STILL DON'T WANT TO TALK TO ME!!!
3) Dude- You're totally not 37. I'm 33 and if you're 37 the severity of your life isn't something I want to share.
4) I'm an international lover. Just because I'm black don't just give me the old fat black guys and the cast off old fat white cats. It's not right. I'm a pretty girl with a good head on her shoulders.
5) I want to continue to love and respect myself. Match wasn't helping me do this. (Watch me get a boyfriend in the next few months and have to eat crow. Fantastic! I love crow.)

Now I'm determined to email anyone who's looked at me to totally screw up whatever numbers or statistics they keep.

Air-Trippin'

I’m on an airplane from San Francisco to New York with a screaming baby that’s been on 11 scream since before we lifted off. I want to drown that baby. I’m watching “Dan in Real Life” on the plane and just watching it wit no sound is terrible. Has everyone become adult teenagers? Where are the adults? Who’s supposed to teach us how to behave as mature adults?

What is a mature adult? Who are they? Is there such a thing? Everyone I know is struggling and confused. In the visuals of this film, everyone’s a teenager, except the parents who retain their parental roles to their middle aged babies.

Where are we going to get the money to give to Tanzania when we just loaned all this money from China? Right now we need to be cool on the money loan business.

False Hopes

I don't think the fashion world is going to make it. On the other hand, it might outlive the rats after Armageddon. The world needs it's illusions and photos of expensive clothes on hanger girls feeds illusions in an obese world entering a recession. Unless we change our perceptions of ourselves and the world we live in, we will continue to focus on unimportant things and continue to go to hell in a handbasket.

Urban Advertising

Has anyone heard the Burger King radio ad in which a woman exclaims " 'cause I don't like all that bread" in reference to a Big Mac? And I know those in the tri-state area have seen the Optimum Online ad for Latinos. What is really going on? Have we become so mind numbed that we can't see how these companies are using the racist stereotypes they created about us ON us? The lack of articulation in the Burger King ad was the first thing I heard one morning listening to The Steve Harvey Morning Show (i love it!!!). I'm laughing and preparing for work and this ad came on and I actually heard it. Not the glossy skim over I usually do with advertising, I heard it and was offended. I'm more and more offended nowadays at what I consider to be a general dumbing down of society, to hear that - during something that I cherish for it's blackness- made me feel complicit. More than that that I was embarrassed. In my house, my safe space preparing for my day of work- embarrassed. There's no reason for inarticulate black people to sell me burgers. It may be elitist and what do I expect from urban radio (the urban euphemism for ghetto withstanding) but Dr. King didn't die for us to wallow in mediocrity. I don't care if that's how people sound or if it's "real". We must change the reality of our lives and it can begin with telling Burger King and Optimum that it's not okay to feed us poison to get us to buy more poison.