1,059 Days
Posts
Playing Outside
I used to think that the border lines on the map were actually PHYSICALLY out there in the world. I was confused as fuck when we would travel and I DIDN’T see them. In the summers while mom was at work, we would walk to another neighborhood in the city with a few friends from ours and meet them to play against them in football, or basketball, or baseball… Or all THREE. Sometimes we would do it as close to the nearest city park available, so as to score free lunch at the same time. Also in the summers, when mom was home – and usually already gone off to bed – we’d have these EPIC games of hide and seek wherein the whole ass neighborhood was available as a running surface. It was nothing for a single round to last an hour and see someone running all the way from Douglas Park to MLK, through people’s yard and jumping fences and shit. We had this garage with storage space upstairs, we’d hide in the rafters and jump out the windows, on top of the neighbor’s garage and roofs
True Story©... The Big Payoff, pt II
So last month , I made about $113k on ill-but-legally-gotten coal, right? I’m on. We on, right? I SHOULD have put half of it in the bank or in some investment vehicle and made a ginormous principle payment on my house and paid off all my credit with the other half. That makes sense, right? And just so we’re all on the same page here, robbing Santa Claus is a BAD thing, children. Never mind that what was SUPPOSED to be a punishment for it has turned into a windfall for me and mine. As Santa is a scumbag dopeman anyway, we can’t FULLY consider that he might have thought of the outcomes when it came all the damn way down to it anyway. I can’t care, really, because damned if I didn’t get paid. Not only am I sitting on big bank, but I rolled out of the museum with the blessings of the manager of the place and--… WAIT!!! I need to explain something. Doctors tend to hang around other doctors, lawyers hang around other lawyers, professors do the same. You get
Black Panther; Everything I Expected
If you sat around all weekend saying “what’s the big deal?” or drawing Straw Man arguments about Blade, Spawn, Catwoman (lmao) , or whatever other black comic superhero you could pull out of your ass then you either just don’t get it or were a huge part of the problem in general. Black Panther was everything! The images were beautiful, the costumes were wonderful (and apparently contained coded messages themselves), the casting was par excellence, and the action was beyond engrossing. But see the above-displayed image I cribbed from a buddy’s FB with her permission… Black boys got to see people who looked like them as warriors and strong royal family members. Black girls got to see themselves represented as an even STRONGER group of warriors and not harlots. The young lady above took her daughter to the movie and the first thing she said was “look mommy, they have hair like mine!” Representation is SUPER important, the power of seeing yourself in something po
"Buddy"
Everyone is my buddy… Well, almost everyone is. My nephews are my buddies. YOUR nephews are my buddies. Little kids in public spaces are my buddies. Little kids in public spaces who behave like incorrigible little shits? Still my buddies. Big dogs are my buddies. Little dogs are my buddies. Old men playing chess at McDonalds at 11am are my buddies. My own granddaddy was my Buddy, and everyone called him just that. My own dog responds to “Buddy” as much as he does “Bruiser.” The last thing I say leaving my house every morning is “bye Buddy, see ya later” and his response is as priceless now at 8 years as it was when he was 8 weeks old. I randomly high-five 3 year olds in Wal Mart who elatedly grin when they hear a large black man smile and say “high five, lil buddy!” Parents love it too. I guess you could say I use the word “buddy” a lot with the people I come into contact with. And I am okay with that.
True Story©... Old Habits Die Hard
Broke… Bored… A little angry at the world in general because shit ain’t quite working out to be just what I feel like it should be. All I can do is work toward making what I want of the world, I guess. Luckily for me I glean entertainment from the world around me most of the time and I have a network of people who are full-on invited to GET mad at me, but none of them can really STAY mad at me. That said, I got a phone call… Me: “Hello?” Caller: “Phlip--… Wait, before you hang up on me man. You Still mad at me?” Me: “Why the shit would I be mad at you, Marlon?” Marlon: “Well… You went to pretty extreme lengths to get me back for that dough I costyou last time we spoke.” Me: “Well… I guess for that I could see myself still mad. BUT! I think I have exacted the lesson you needed to learn.” Marlon: “Cool, because I kinda missed coolin’ out and shit.” Me: “Whoa, Marls… You been in prison or something? I ain’t living like that. I am pretty much marrie
Fortress of Solitude
Don’t let the titling fool you… My fortress of solitude is a LOUD place. It is an isolation from everything I need a few minutes away from. The hour I spend in the car every day with enough entertainment to DJ a block party. A lunch break with the above-pictured devices. It is never enough to simply see earbuds as a deterrent of extraneous conversation. The car makes it obvious; announcing that I won’t hear you three blocks before I ever even alive. But on the ground, out in the world? That will require some closed-back cans. It needs to be obvious that I am not ignoring you (or am I?). It needs to be apparent why I just can’t be bothered right now. It creates a space where I am around people who speak my language. People who talk about shit I want to talk about. People who enjoy things that I enjoy. When I am with my music, I am in a space without the disappointment of general human interaction. I get to choose my spots, I get to explore things
True Story©... The Bakery
It seems that these days you can’t swing a cat without hitting a “bakery refuses same-sex couple” byline in the news. They ALWAYS end ugly, with the same-sex couple suing under anti-discrimination grounds and the bakery citing religious freedom and first amendment protections on their part. Sure, their first amendment protections specifically suggest “fuck your first amendment protection up the ass” (pun totally intended), but no one seems to have time to explore that element. Following my ouster over titties and my inability to get up the funding through the generosity of others more recently, I decided that I have been spending too much time trying to create a niche that did not yet exist when I could have been working more diligently at exploiting one that was right in my face. Sure, I don’t exactly bake very well and my oven in the house is only so big, but I can follow simple enough directions and I had myself an idea… … I am going to EXCLUSIVELY
Hotep Wednesdays... Life Imitates Art
It’s kind of like they sit around and think to themselves “just what bullshit can we put forth and then claim plausible deniability of?” and then proceed to insult our intelligence. We’ve seen this happen with the physical representation of Jesus, every single individual in the book of Exodus in every cinematic presentation ever, Cleopatra, Laurence Olivier as Othello… I could go on but I think you get it. Let me stop for a moment… Egypt is here: (and in case you went to public school, Africa is actually MUCH larger than that in real life) Anyway… In case you looked at the lightskinnded woman above and said “Harpo, who dis woman?” it is Today’s pseudo representation of what a reconstructed Nefertiti should have looked like. What we know is that her daughter, Ankhesenpaaten would go on to be the queen of Tutankamun, one of the most recognizable kings of the 18 th Dynasty from 1300something BC. What we can surmise is that human migration was
My 600-Lb Addiction
Two things I have noticed about TLC of late… 1 – These folks are fucking obsessed with fat people. and… 2 – I can’t seem to look the hell away as they do it. Last year, one of my wives my lady tricked me into watching an episode of My 600-Lb life and despite being initially repulsed by the concept of a human being weighing a quarter of the weight of my smaller car and not instantly exploding, I watched. I noticed, then, their response to the popularity of the show was to add more “fat people” programming. I know this is nothing new, not with prior shows like Honey Boo Boo and the whole My Big Fat Fabulous […] series. For good measure, they threw in Big and Little , a show about fat midgets overweight little people. “Phillip, how have you paid so much attention to even KNOW all of this?” you ask. I remind you to have a look at #2 above. So anyway. Caught up in the “can’t look away” angle has kept me morbidly interested in the show. Anothe
Writing about Writing, Vol 9
Today’s theme: Don’t Overthink it. As simple a concept as this may seem to be, it is DIFFICULT in a creative process that is constant to actually do. The work done toward constant improvement is more in constant practice and willing acceptance of what comes back. But that is a concept we have already dabbled in, so no need to repeat ourselves. This is more about trusting yourself and your instincts. You sat down to write, let that bitch fly! What I mean by this is that your first gut feeling is usually the best. Back over the summer, while I was in and out of vacation and away from both my home AND work computers, I was in a pinch to get things up and I kind of felt my work suffered some for it. I would never let anyone know this shit as it is happening, but as I sit and type this, I see EXACTLY why that was. I was too obsessed with things like word count and a multitude of other shit that really didn’t matter that I neglected my time-honored approach of “