Friday Flashback- Shalamar, Switch, & GQ

Sideshow and Carnival Barkers

“…we’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers…”

“…we don’t have the time for this silliness…”

"Sideshow and Carnival Barkers" . I  smiled every time I heard that term.

I love my President, and I love that term he applied to  Toupee Fiasco  (also known as Donald Trump), and all the ilk that served as nothing but  distractions from the problems at hand. Like rising gas prices, the economy, the wars our soldiers are fighting, health reform,  etc etc. And now that  the side show and carnival barkers have seen his birth certificate you'd think that would suffice, but no. The release is not likely to silence critics who have tried to marginalize or delegitimize President Obama. Toupee Fiasco on Wednesday continued a new line of argument he started earlier in the week, questioning how The President got into Columbia University and Harvard University Law School after supposedly being a “very poor student” at Occidental College, which he attended for two years.

Now, Mr. Trump is goading the president to release his college transcripts, which the president declined to do during the campaign.
The attacks of “birthers” on the place where the president was born can, at best, be described as racism. And racism is hardly an “at best” situation. Such appalling claims have not been made of  any other presidents in the history of this country — not even of candidates for the presidency.
That Obama was born in the United States — specifically in Honolulu, Hawaii — is simply indisputable. The suggestion that somehow someone has forged a birth certificate or, more importantly perhaps, every past copy of the Honolulu newspapers that announced his birth in 1961, stretches the imagination.

I’m assuming, by the way, that people are fully aware that Sen. John McCain, Republican candidate for president in 2008, was in fact not born in the United States? He was born on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone. The suggestion that being born on a military base on foreign soil makes one a “natural-born” American invites us to suggest that the intention of the writers of the Constitution was far more liberal than some may have previously thought.
But more importantly, The  Presidentwas born in one of the 50 states of the United States. It’s as much a fact as the evidence that anyone claiming to be born here was, in fact, born here.
It’s so very difficult, then, to assume the attacks are fueled by anything other than racism. Maybe not, but it’s hard to find another reason.

So, America, let’s stop wasting time and energy on a ludicrous conspiracy theory and get on with more important things, like the economy. And health care. And the rising gas prices.

Fear freezes us in the moment, and the moments grow and change our lives into existence. You have heard so much - that we have so much to fear, that you can’t go beyond now, that you’d be mad to try, that we are trapped by everything those outside of our control have created. Of course , some are financially trapped, but how many of us are trapped by the thought that we might join those already there? You get so used to hearing stories of fear, that not even the inspirational feels real any more. Yet it is possible to grow, and achieve, and experiment, and live. You just have to do it, and the doing of it is the living. Just trying is the doing of it.

You have to take the bite, even if you have been filled with the fear that it is more than you are able for…because how else will you know if the warnings are true? How can you know until you just - bite.

--Alexgeorge

The Beginning and The End Of Everything

I'm glad to see my short story 'The Beginning and The End Of Everything' published on Amazon/ Kindle. If you have a Kindle, you should check it out. It's only $0.99 (the short story, not the Kindle)!

Thanks in advance!
Click here

Moving on

lost in the world

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."~Nietzsche

Friday Flashback-Aaliyah and Monica

The kid who would become president

The New York Times did a seven page feature on Stanley Ann Dunham, the mother of our current President (yep, her name was Stanley). Click here

I wonder why she won't come out of hiding?

There have been many disrespectful things and words hurled at President Obama and his family by the Republicans and the Tea Party faction, and I've always thought that they had reached a new low. This picture depicting The President as someone whose parents were apes, that I actually said to myself that I would never post, is their new lowest of the low. This is like a thousand sea levels below low.  I'm sure you have all seen this picture by now, but it was recently sent to me by my nephew. He was upset that someone is mistreating his President and he wanted to know how people can be so mean and if whoever did this could go to jail. He's 14 years old and is taking this picture personally. He was so upset about this. I'm taking it personally as well.  Unfortunately this is the world in which we are living, where people who can't accept that the leader of the free world is a black man and that they can say and do what the hell they want under the guise of freedom of speech.

And this is the woman who created it- Her name is Marilyn Davenport. She's a Southern California Tea Party activist and member of the central committee of the Orange County Republican Party. This was sent in a racist e-mail sent by her. The caption to the picture said, 'Now you know why there's no birth certificate!'
OC Republican Party chairman Scott Baugh swiftly denounced her actions, but his response did not hold any weight.  According to Baugh, his group’s bylaws state  that they cannot hold a vote to remove Davenport as an elected member just because she e-mailed the racist image to teabaggers and Republicans. Davenport made an attempt to apologize to those Orange County Republican elected officals who may have been offended by the e-mail.  Notice her apologies are for her colleagues because she feels no need to apologize to President Obama or African Americans at all.  She feels like this issue has been blown out of proportion…as they always do.  Here’s what she said about her e-mail that has the caption “Now you know why there’s no birth certificate” printed under the picture depicting the President and his parents as monkeys:
“Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black.”
“You’re not going to make a big deal about this are you?” she [told The Weekly]. “It’s just an Internet joke.”
“In no way did I even consider the fact he’s half black when I sent out the email. . . .

Marilyn Davenport has refused to come out of hiding and face her critics publicly. Hmmmm  I wonder why?
Well, Najee Ali and his Project Islamic H.O.P.E. organization has decided to take the fight and protest right to her front doorstep demanding that she resign from her office.
The protest location will be outside Davenport’s home: 1292 Miramar Dr, Fullerton, CA 92831-2066

--courtesy eurweb.com
I wish I lived nearby.

On today

1978, 

Max Robinson was the first African American broadcast network news anchor in the United States and one of the first television journalists to die of AIDS.

in 1977,     

Alex Haley receives a special Pulitzer Prize for his book Roots.

and in 1947,

                               
Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American major league baseball player.

--courtesy blackfacts.com

I couldn't keep it to myself

i went to get the mint condition cd,

I heard this, and had to get this cd also. the whole cd sounds good too.

I will follow

directly to a movie theater the day this movie is released. I just saved it to my netflix account:

the blacks?

'I have a great relationship with the blacks. I've always had a great relationship with the blacks.'

what comes to mind is the comment subtle racists hide behind to prove they're cool with black people.
'I'm not racist. I have black friends.'

"Don't speak unless you can improve the silence..."  New England Proverb

That's my polite way of saying Donald Trump needs to shut the f**k up.

Up In Flames

Dear friend:

         While I do appreciate your love for me,

          It

          has taken on

          a different

          form.

          Frustrated.

         Unrequited;

         what was once

          a

          small  sparkle in your eye

          has now

          spread

          like a fire,

          growing.

          expanding its boundaries.

          consuming  everything                   in        its path.

          nothing is left behind.

          not

          even

          me.

 --Alexgeorge

Greatdayndamornin'

I DON'T FORGIVE PEOPLE BECAUSE  I'M WEAK. I FORGIVE THEM BECAUSE I'M STRONG ENOUGH TO KNOW PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES.

Friday Flash back ...George Benson

The Aunt Jemima Syndrome

                                                                                                                                For Billie Holiday

This is not a bio about me  alone.

some of us are even college-educated;

we come to work with smiles

on our faces like buttons strategically placed.

they are removed the second we leave.

we get callouses on our hands

and carpet burns on our knees

from scrubbing floors

and scrubbing the toilets

that we are not qualified

to piss or take a shit in.

this is not a bio about me alone.

we gladly cook the nine-course meals,

serve the food and cocktails

in black tuxedos and uniforms

and smile when/if smiled at

and sit in the kitchen eagerly waiting

along with the family dog

hungry for the scraps:

                #1-pig stomach lining (hogmaw)

                #2-pig intestines or guts (chittlin’s)

                #3-pigs feet

                #4-pig tongue, tail, & ears

                #5-pig brain (head cheese)

                #6-cow’s neck (neck bones)

                #7-ox tails

                #8-the tubular passage that extends from mouth to anus and functions in digestion                       and absorption of food and elimination of residual waste in birds (gizzards)

we gladly fetch

their slippers the newspaper

the mail and drive mr  and miss daisy and her kids

to the grocery store

and we walk where we need to go

in the pouring rain the heavy winds heavy snow in shoes two sizes too small

this is not a bio about me alone.

we get pistol-whipped stomped kicked to the curb

and beaten by cops whose actions are applauded

and the issue is taken lightly

and danced around and we get frustrated

and fight gunfire with gunfire,

even amongst ourselves.

this is not a bio about me alone.

no,

this is not a bio about me alone.

this is about all of us

who don’t know our places,

and step out of line. 

 --Alexgeorge

                                                              

                                                             

(I wrote this 30 years ago after watching a documentary  about Billie Holiday. During a scene, and I cant remember what it was- I remember her saying "I aint no damn Aunt                                 Jemima!"  and this poem came to me that night)

                                                           

A Note to Donnie, the Barber

Yo Donnie wassup??

I know I said I wanted dreadlocks
this time
(last time)
and I still do.
I want’em tight & neat
crowning the top
of my nappy head with frizzes at the ends,
and I want’em growing down my back
like Bob Marley’s, but this time
I can’t do it;
I gotta establish
myself again
as an intelligent educated black man
for an upcoming interview,
and I can’t give them any extra excuses
to prejudge me that they will already use,
despite my being more than qualified for the position.
so, cut it shorter this time, man.
Yo, Donnie, cut it real short and even.


But don’t cut any of the soul away. 

-- alexgeorge

So in love- Jill Scott & Anthony Hamilton

As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears

--Rumi

songs in my head



John “Crybaby” Boehner

“Amazing that he can cry about how sad his life was, growing up, but he has no empathy for people in that position now.- Joy Behar, The View



What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

--Angela Davis

Sapiosexuality

Sapiosexual (n): a person who is sexually attracted to intelligence in others.

Sapiosexual (adj): of, or relating to, finding intellectual stimulation sexually arousing.

One who finds intelligence the most sexually attractive feature.

Me- "I want an incisive, inquisitive, insightful, irreverent mind. I want someone for whom philosophical discussion is foreplay. I want someone who sometimes makes me go ouch due to their wit and evil sense of humor. I want someone that I can reach out and touch randomly. I want someone I can cuddle with.
I decided all that means that I am sapiosexual."

I wish I said this myself, but I found it here

I went to a friend's birthday party in Madison Wisconsin the last time I was home, and his sister was there. I had seen pictures of her but I had never met her before that evening. My friend was telling me his sister goes on a lot of dates but she hadn't had a boyfriend in years, and she really hates being single. He didn't understand why she had such a hard time keeping a man because she was a really sweet girl (his words), and from the looks of her, I thought she was attractive. Correction-she was phine. I wondered why such a beautiful, sweet black woman who wants to be in a relationship-was single. It took me about 40 minutes to figure out why. I ignored her comments about desperately wanting to get married, or her telling me about a fight she recently got into when she was in a movie theater and the couple seated next to her was upset because she was narrating the movie for a friend who was home sick with the flu and she refused to hang up the phone and the ushers came and removed her and she demanded a refund since she didn't get to see the entire movie. After I asked if she'd like to go out some time, she smiled and said yes, followed by : “Look, let’s get this straight: I am not going to have vaginal or oral sex with you. I'm a virgin and I intend to die a virgin...but I’m pretty good at anal if you’re into that.” I was speechless.

Have you ever talked to someone who was a bit-off, but you kept listening because they were so beautiful to look at? When I was in my teens and early twenties and only looking for sex, I used to do that, but being relationship-oriented, I can't do that anymore. Some friends call me an intellectual snob, but I disagree. Before and after sex, I need to be able to talk to her. I need to be stimulated intellectually. I want nothing to do with a beautiful woman who was dumb. Find me a woman that can talk to me about her dreams and goals, politics, volunteerism, God, or about her favorite basketball or football team- even if they're not my favorite teams, find me a nice, sweet, kind woman  that will beat me at coming up with the most funniest sarcastic comments (without being mean or hurtful) and I am happy.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

--C. S. Lewis

left on my voicemail

click here

Caption this

I came across this picture today while looking for something else. I couldn't bypass it. It didn't have a caption .
Do you have a caption for it?

blk/rhetoric

Sonia Sanchez,  in her 1969 poem, "blk/rhetoric," invoked Baraka's language to question what might happen after the calling had been done:     

"who's gonna make all
that beautiful blk/rhetoric
mean something.
                            like
I mean
        who's gonna take
words
            blk/beautiful
and make more of it
than blk/capitalism.
                    u dig?
        i mean
                like who's gonna
take all the young/long/haired/
natural/brothers and sisters
and let them
                grow till
                        all that is
imp't is them
                selves
                        moving in straight/
revolutionary/lines/toward the enemy
(and we know who that is)
                               like.     man.
who's gonna give our young
blk people new heros

[. . . .]

( instead of quick/fucks
    in the hall/way of
                    white/america's
                                        mind)
like. this. is an S.0.S.
me. calling. . . .
                        calling. . . .
                                    some/one.
        pleasereplysoon."

                         --Sonia Sanchez

Calling black people
Calling all black people, man woman child
Wherever you are, calling you, urgent, come in
Black People, come in, wherever you are, urgent, calling
You, calling all black people
Calling all black people, come in, black people, come
on in. 

                        --Amiri Baraka

SO BEAUTIFUL

in Arabic

"Well done, my good and faithful servant." Matthew 25:21

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Friday Flashback

Happy Birthday Billy Dee Williams!

when I was 8

i had a terrible speech impediment (actually up until 12th grade). I once thought to myself  about a girl ( who I really liked) who too often made fun of my stuttering ( sometimes also in front of other girls):
' i'm not gonna cry anymore. i'll smile instead,'
and then that day she asked me 'why aren't you mad?'
i told her my mother said 'you want me to be mad so you'll keep on bothering me. i'm not mad anymore. i like when you make fun of me.'

she never did it again.

It Starts With A Question

It starts with a question

one patient
the other full of anticipation

Bated breath, and teeming desire
seeking the warmth of our love
we huddle around its fire

Just right but sometimes

too much

feeling smothered but

still longing for the touch?

So it becomes a struggle

toward the same goal

like running in a

3 leg race

we can win !!!

just keep a slow steady pace

this is us

our love

endearing

heated

tender

irritating

and affectionate

like an unborn child

waiting for the day to be truly born

having felt and heard the world thru

the womb

ready for the rest of its life

friend

lover

companions

husband and wife

the patient one

has to remind the anxious

....."we will be there love , take it easy"

--alexgeorge

Listening to...

Note to self:

listening to...

               I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

                                   -  Booker T. Washington

                                                                        HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Sign Of the Times

Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy Birthday, Maya Angelou!

I may not get there with you...

But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land...    RIP Dr  Martin Luther King Jr.

Obama 2012

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on today,

April 4, 1968,
Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. In the following week riots occurred in at least 125 places throughout the country.

i found my smile again

A while ago,

Someone took it:

My  smile.  

It took forever to get it initially

And someone took it

Took possession of it

As if it didn’t belong to anyone.

But it was mine.

It wasn’t let out for someone to snatch.

It was mine.

Inside me.

locked up.

My name was on it

 like a tattoo

It was given to me.

but I let someone have the key

someone I thought

could be trusted

and now they’re gone

and so is my smile.

Now someone is walking around with it as if it’s theirs.

Frantically,

 I looked for it

And when the search proved futile

I gave up.

But I found a new one!

This new one,

It was in someone’s pocket, 

In the appearance of something else

--Of someone else.

disassembled

in little pieces

(t

                                                           hank

                     you

for taking the time

To help me put the pieces together                    )

No one’s getting the key this time. 

--alexgeorge

Dwele says 'Watch me'

in honor of April being National Poetry month

(i will post poetry
either
of my own
or
written by others,
based
on the African American
                   experience )


I have to thank miss rintelmann, my very first speech pathologist, when i was 6. I had a really bad stuttering problem from childhood through the summer before college when it was finally alleviated. in addition to teaching me how to speak, miss rintelmann wanted me to do things that relaxed me. I told her that I liked to read. she introduced me to the poetry of langston hughes and e.e cummings. i took to their poetry like a fish to water and have been in love with poetry ever since.

on today

in 1984,  Marvin Gaye dies in his parents Los Angeles home. Marvin attacked his father for verbally abusing his mother. His father responded by shooting his son to death. Since his death, the power and reach of Marvin’s music has increased.
--courtesy, blackfacts.com

Now that love's taken over