Worthless Negro

On this gloomy and inclement day in Atlanta, it has just dawned on me that that I have joined the ranks of the worthless Negro. See, I do not expect everybody to understand what I mean. Some people will never know what I am experiencing now because they have never had to provide for themselves or their family or be the single care giver of a household; and may have others to shoulder their burden by protecting them from bills and the pressure of having to provide everything.

But me, there is rent/mortgages to pay, auto bills, daycare, tuition, putting clothes on my family’s back, keeping food in their stomachs and a roof over their heads with electric, phones, gas, and the water running. True, I still have lot coming in and I am a hard worker, but more is always a plus and needed.

See, I was taught that the measure of a man was how he provided and protected his family and how he takes care of his children. It is just that as a man, the only thing I was ever afraid of was not being able to adequately provide and protect my family.

Im writing this to remove the stress of the thought of not being a good provider, although homicide is a big killer of Africa American men, stress is the biggest and there is no bigger stressor than not being able to provide, this is why a loving and supporting home and family is essential.

No I am not depressed or hopeless, in fact the opposite, resolute, resilient and hopeful for the future. However, it is a fear that I have never had to face up front. I guess this would be the time one will be able to separate his real friends fro those that call themselves his friends, or a real woman from one that would call themselves your woman. Yep, this would be the time the ones who call themselves your friends will be no where to be found, and the one who calls herself your woman will leave with the kids to get back with a former lover.

But like I said, I am resolute and I have faith, its just that I feel and know what Willie Dee of the legendary Geto Boys fame meant when in the song “My mind playing tricks on Me”, what he said “I was scareder than a mother fucka”.

the adulteress

I have always wondered if it was possible for an adulteress to actually value and respect the sanctity of a monogamous relationship and or marriage? I have also wondered if an adulteress can change her ways? I have come to conclude that the answer is no, for once an adulteress always an adulteress. For she will always love that married man first above all other men or else they would have not knowingly started the relationship or be able to cut all ties completely with that man.

For an woman that sleeps with a married man will always have some kin and affection to that man and will do anything to keep ties with that person. Now I know you are saying this is not all women. And I agree, but for the woman that knowingly interacts with a married man, and if that man may have some fame or recognition to his name, I will venture to say she will never be faithful and trustworthy. She will always stay in touch with that man, and when things do not go her way in life she will look to him for a false sense of security. He may buy her things and she may ask that he buy her things when in fact she will say that she has a man or look the other way of the fact that he is married. This mean you will lie and do anything to maintain that relationship even if you know such is unhealthy and sinful. This means they will ask them for favors, and they will provide, knowing they only expct one thin from them in return-sex.

The strange thing is that this man will always be able to have her in his bed for she thinks little of herself, of her relationships with her partner and nothing at all of this man’s wife. She will even get upset at her man if he even speaks to a single woman or stay in touch with an old girlfriend. But she on the other hand sees no wrong in her actions for she is merely a whore who will open her legs for him just because he has fame. Which means in my eyes that you can’t turn a ho into a housewife. Sad thing is that she will teach her daughter if she has children that it is ok, But such a woman would likely not even know or is uncertain who the father of their child is.

So to all you men and women who continue to interact with married men and women, or who cheat on your partners and continue to interact in any form or sort with a man or woman you know is married, shame on you. For in the end, you will loose what may be of the greatest value that is right in front of your eyes. By then it is to late for you can lie to another person but you cannot lie to yourself, as if you do not know what you are doing is wrong.

Musharraf Amour

Believe it or not, having no government in Iraq at the moment means more problems for the folks we consider our allies, Especially Pakistan. Pakistan, a country that is run by a man that took over in a military Coup and still prefers to wear his military uniform as opposed to a suit and tie. What’s the problem you say? Well let me put it like this.

In a speech to the European Parliament foreign affairs committee last year, Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf blamed the United States and the West for “breeding terrorism in his country by bringing in thousands of mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and then leaving Pakistan alone a decade later to face the armed warriors,” according to an article in the Pakistan’s Daily Times published last year.

Now these same forces, once friends to the US are our enemies and we put them in place. The situation is precarious for Musharraf since they are trying to push him out of leadership the Malcolm X way – by any means possible

You would expect this given that Bush and the General are all buddy buddy now, all would be god in the home front for the General – but it is not. Although I really don’t think the General wants such to be the case, Bush has fallen hook, line and sinker for his partner in crime. For one, being in Bed with Bush is not god from his perspective. Although he says he is partner in fighting against Bin Laden, truth is al-Qaeda had found a safe haven in Pakistan and that his country is slowly becoming more assumed with radical islamic fundamentalis, that he may need to keep is military closer than the norm.

Then taking money from The US will place his grip on the People of Pakastain in a more tenous sight. Bush administration has offered $750m over the next five years in aid for the tribal agencies, including $300m to help to patrol the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Sop to make a long story short, it may not be too long before we get a news bulliten saying the general has fled in exile or has been kiled and Bin Ladden and his folks have their hands on real weapons of Mass destruction. Talk about creating your own reality.

My boy wrote a interesting post. His blog is called media2live4. Its called Beauty is only sin deep. Show him some love.

thang long

Was in San Francisco for the last five days. It was a nice reprise from the feces occurring at my former place of employment proffered by my Dean. I mean, I started cleaning out my office and found out the Dean didn’t have the gumption to forward or continue my email. The strange thing is that he as a white man says he takes offense when folks say he doesn’t look out for the interest of African American males in terms of enrollment in his institution, but then again what can one expect from a white man in charge at a HCBU.

Any who, instead of my usual places of residence like the Westin, the W, or some retro chic Boutique hotel, I stayed in a dive (not Really) on Lombard street in between the historic Pierce and Fillmore Streets and a block away from Chestnut Street. The Joint was called the Presidio. I stayed over this way because I couldn’t get a room for the aforementioned since I was there to Present to the American Psychological Association and all the good and inexpensive place to eat were in that area.

The first place I hit was a Nepalese restaurant called Taste of the Himalayas. Food was good and spicy, and the buffet was just 7$. On the way back to the Inn, I stopped at Jones Steak house for a quick shot or two- on several occasions since it was adjacent to my hotel and on the corner. Latter on, I ventured on Chestnut street and found what would be my joint of choice while there – Bistro Yoffi. It was a humble edifice, a piano and jazz bar. I had the crab cakes and a dozen raw oyster each of the 5 times I ate there. And Steven, the bartender was cool, knew hat I was having the second time I went in there and even knew my name.

I did manage to eat else where, like in them joints across from Union Square. The best without a doubt was Kletos resturant. There I had the grilled sardines (huge) and potatoes for an appetizer and an argali and spinach based salad. For my main course I had the Duck- exceptional. Total cost for two including Bombay and tonics and wine – 145$.

I also ate at Michael Mina’s restaurant. The joint was nice, too dark for my taste and the portions, let us say were microscopic. I mean Jones expected me to eat duck liver with my Kobe steak and Rabbit. And when I got a dozen oysters for my appetizer, they were 30$ when they were 1.95$ each at the Bistro and 12 for 13$ at Café Maritime (Best Crab cakes I tasted while out there). At the end of the night, including drinks and a bottle of wine cost a bedroom suit for a party of 3 (plus 650$). Thank goodness my unemployed as was being treated at the two above, but only because I dropped 126$ at Café Maritime with my colleagues who raved over the crab cakes, champagne selection and bread pudding.

I practically lived on crab cakes and oysters alone, and probably consumed more than 120 while I was there. I did grab a Philly cheese steak and some wings from this joint that was 24/7 down the street from the hotel and a meal at 4:37am at IHOP on my first night when I was trying to grab back the three hour difference.

I only regret I didn’t get the chance to eat at Thannh Long. I heard it from my colleagaue’s nice while we were eating at that lame Mina joint. When she firs said it I responded, how did you know?” She mentioned again and I asked, “Why do you keep calling my name?” The last time she said it I added, “and thick too.” She laughed, but was really speaking of this Vietnamese restaurant. I love food and next time I will hit it too, and few more joint but Café Maritime and Bistro Yoffi will be sure places to hit

The next generation

…and I am not speaking of star trek, I am talking about our own, and if we are to SAVE the aforementioned:

1] Stop smoking weed in front of your kids

2] Don’t curse around your kids or even worse curse at them.

3] Take that money from the clubs and bars and spend it on some piano or tap lessons or basketball

4] Turn them videos off and the radio on the morning and listen to NPR, sports talk, or suffer with the Disney radio (they good for teaching sentence structure and vocabulary).

5] If you are not working, do not put your children off with the baby sitter. Spend as much time with them as you can.

6] Stop fighting or beating on your woman (or man) in front of your children. They will suffer the most in the end. Violence is not the answer – least always.

7] Read to them all the time, and let the see you reading, especially newspapers each day.

8] When you can, sit at the table together and eat and talk

9] let them see honor, integrity and character by letting them see you live your life as such and by standing for what you believe and what is right.

i know im missing some, so all additional info is welcome, and thanks for the love folk. good lookn.

live free or die

Today was a bad day. It would have been a good day to come home to a hot cooked meal, some loving arms, to have a hot bath drawn and some good loving – but I don’t have such available to me. This morning when I got in my office, some grief that had been building up finally hit the fan. Yep, most of yawl know I am an associate professor at a HCBU, a medical school, and that prior to this, I was at a top ten university located in Atlanta. Today I was given a letter by my dean requesting that I be dismissed from the faculty because I select to stand for my forth amendment rights.

Yep, that’s what happened. See they, want me to sign over my loot to them and to give up my consultation practices on the side. They say that all of my time belongs to them and that I should let them pimp me as such. Seeing I aint no fuck boy, I told them to suck on these.

They say I am not allowed to make any money outside of what they pay me – albeit, I have yet to receive a raise since being employed up in this camp and I put in 50 hr weeks. The strange thing is that they actually believe this. I was taught that no man shall make any laws that infringe on individual liberties and constitutional rights – in particular, the right that I AM IN 100% OWENERSHIP OF MY OWN LABOR.

This was not a problem at my prior institution and in fact they lauded the accomplishment and promoted that faculty consult to promote their income. But not up in this camp. Now I’m going to have to Perry Mason these fools.
Yep, today was a bad day and I wish I had someone to comfort me now or at least show that they care about me. And they wonder why they can't compete with the private majority white institutions of higher learning. But I aint mad because like the motto on the state of New Hampshire License plates, I will “live free or die.” Guess folk gotta put the war paint on now. And they say they concerned about the well being of African American men – hum bug. I wonder why they don’t know about the constitution, and someone tell me, what ever happened to the 4th amendment? They say I should have asked for permission before getting the contract when I got it in 1999 and didn't start working at my current job until july 2005, aint that some.......

seduction or sincerity

Need I not remind the good folks in cyberville that it is football season. Waiting on it to start up again after the Super Bowl ended made me understand what it must feel like to be a crack head. Being as such, it means no more interest in going out on a Friday night and no more lounging around trying to figure out what to watch on the cathode ray tube. Now, I am back in heaven.

One thing about football is that it is somewhat like the barbershop for men. All we do is beverage, laugh, eat and talk, and of course, attend to our kids if they are around. This Thursday, I was surprised to see a game on and went crazy. I had some of my folks over also. Through the midst of our over zealous excitement, we struck up one of those barbershop topics.

My boy was talking about lessons learned in dating women and said, “You know the difference that I have noticed between dating younger women is one of seduction versus sincerity.” He went on to say that, younger women are attracted to seduction, that they like the chase and the game and for a man to spit that game in their ears - that they love the flash, the glitz and the glamour – the rims, the cars and the jewelry. On the other hand, he said older women lean toward sincerity. Meaning, that their desire in a man with respect to satisfaction, regards having a man that is not deceitful, a man that is genuine, honesty, open and truthful. He finished by saying that what we as men desire, is a woman that is some where in the middle.

I thought about this during half time, and it made sense. Unfortunately, I could not dwell on it long, because I had to make a beer run and be back before kick off. You tell me, what do u think?

What u need now

There are some folks in this world, folks in this world that many of us can do without. However, our home training and knowledge of being humble and caring of others may get in the way. I know many of you have folks like this in your life or may have known of such folks. You tend to only hear from them, see them or get a call from them when they want and need something.

I will not call them leeches, for such would be derogatory and mean, but I will venture to call such people helpless and selfish. For when you need or ask them for something they can’t, won’t or worse, will say they will do it but never will. I man I know people like this so when they do cal I start off by asking "what u need now?" And they have the audicity to get mad.

As for me, I do what I say and take pride in being caring, but some folks may see this as a weakness and attempt to take for granted my kind actions and generosity. The strange thing is that when you stop enabling their dependence, they turn on you and say and do foul things in an effort to get you back – when they have never done anything for you in the first place.

So I say this in jest, just to invoke in others the understanding that no mater what you do for some people, the are never satisfied and will complain and never should you respect or appreciation of being kind and generous. Do not ever stop being kind and generous, just accept and know that there are some people, that will never do anything for another, for they only care and concern themselves wit themselves.

watermelon man

Bridges aside, I have more pressing things on my mind and as usual they focus on my community. I’m not gonna say that we killing our own over peanuts, but it may turn out to be such if and when the assailants are caught. Yesterday here in the metro Atlanta area, a man was shot to death early while selling watermelons from the back of a truck in Chamblee.

Juan Morales was killed on his 39th birthday and lived in a rural area of Georgia were he served as the pastor of a church. They say this married father of one, was accosted by two men who asked about the prices of his watermelons. All it too was one shot. Police say four men in a silver Cadillac tried to rob them and that one of the men pulled out a gun and shot Morales.

I do not know about you, but over watermelons? Or over the price of watermelons? Is it that bad that folks are s lazy that they would rather rob and kill that put in a god 40 hrs a week? I feel sorry for this mans family and his friends and even more so for our community. I just hope when they find them, they are not Black and are not from New Orleans, because we have seen an unfortunate rash of criminal activity in the Atlanta area from the hands of transplanted folk from the boot- mostly African American males. Thanks Mr. President for saying you love the black folks displaced by Katrina. How can I belive thes when you spend more money rebuilding Iraq than you do for them?

whom side they own

Sometimes I wonder whom side they own, you know government and politrixters. It seems that it is not on the side of logic, the public hard work, and the community. The priority has to be elsewhere. After the collapsing of that bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota it dawned on me that the general infrastructure of this country, with the exception of a few cities like Atlanta, do not regularly work on highways, add runways, or replace water lines in the city.

Most cities I travel too in the states, including my home town of Memphis have poor highway systems and such makes me think that the rest of the infrastructure, needs serious examination too. From Raliegh, to Orlando, to DC even, the highways systms, if any indication of other systems, are on the surface delpidated and antiquated.

In Minnsota for example, two reports published since talked about "the bridge's deck truss system” having “many poor fatigue details on the main truss and the floor truss system" but that is beside th point. The point is that we as Americans, especialy the political class are more focused on the present and quick fixes and are no far thinking anymore as , let us say Africans, East Indians and the Chinesee. We fail to think long term and lean towards “if it aint broke, don’t fix it” instead of “let’s make some new main.”

Then there was before this, the c, which was lauded as an “engineering marvel”. Which opened 13 January 2006 at a staggering cost of $14.6 billion. Noted problems of this edifice included thousands of leaks in the ceiling and wall fissures and A fatal accident on July 11, 2006 where part of the ceiling collapsed connecting I-90 to the Ted Williams Tunnel.

The problem outside of the aforemention could be that these things are controlled by quasi-governmental agiences of “Authorities” or “Systems’”that are not accountable t the general public. Like the the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.

Even still, we will see a lot more problems, it was only a mater of time given that 2005 was the 50th anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Interstate Highway System. So that means it’s old as fuck, and just imagine the dams and yes, the bridges. But hat can one expect, when the folk yell vote for and place in office prefer to build shit in Iraq that are blown up after we finish, not even talk about such as a campaign issue, or worse with folks from Katrina still with nothing two years latter. Glad I know America is a republic and not a democracy and landowners make decision. Boy am I thankful for my 11-acres. Maybe something good can come of this, maybe; vast improvements to infrastructure, Prince starting a scholarshop fund for the children of victims - showing these new artist what civil responsibility is (not making it rain in a strip club).