Just a thought

My mom just left me a voicemail. She lives in Racine Wisconsin. We moved there when I was 13, from Brooklyn. I hated Racine. It was as different from Brooklyn as night and day. Being shy, I had a severe stuttering problem, and had a difficult time making friends. I had a hard enough time trying to get a girlfriend.  I hated Racine. When I graduated from high school I left the city immediately to attend a college in Tennessee. I had a speech therapist from 1st grade through 12th. Because kids could be mean, when I was away from my therapists, I spoke only when I felt it was important to speak, and since my speech therapists were Jewish women from Brooklyn,   British women, Jamaican men,  my accent is a combination of all of them. They taught me how to speak.  People I speak to, are always convinced I'm from a Carribean island ( rumor has it my birth mother is Jamaican). People have always questioned why I don't sound like my mother or sister. My mother and her husband is French Canadian, by way of Memphis Tennessee. You can hear the Memphis in her when she speaks, but you can hear the Quebecois in her when she's pissed. My sister sounds like she was born and raised in Memphis.  When I graduated from college, I  turned down a couple job offers in Knoxville Tennessee to move back to Wisconsin, living in Madison, then moved to Washington DC, and due to 9-11 the company folded and  I returned  to Wisconsin ( AGAIN), living in Milwaukee and eventually I got a job in Portland Oregon. I finally have a job I truly love. I hated Racine. I hate sub zero climates.

But I digress. My mom left me a voicemail a few minutes ago, telling me that tonight it will be minus 20 degrees, and it'll be as much as 1 degree in the morning.

I hated Racine, but after 5 years in Portland,  I would rather be there than any place else. Portlanders are a different type of people- different from the Midwesterners, New Yorkers, Californians, and Southeners to which I'm accustomed. Not all, but most Portlanders, and I'm not talking about that stupid show Portlandia- well some of that show is accurate. I've grown tired of being confronted with petty bullshit, having to tip-toe around the obvious and being discouraged from saying something outright, and lukewarm friends. The stench of bullshit here is overwhelming. I have to hold my breath until I get home everyday.  But I love my job. I feel blessed, so I'll just have to deal with it, unless a company in a warmer climate scoops me up.  

Thank God for poetry though. It's a great outlet for me. 


Just a thought


I didn't mean to rant, but there it is.

I love being first

Dark Chocolate Cake with Raspberry filling

My neighbor just stopped by my place with $285.00 cash. She can't bake, and since our first conversation about  4 yrs ago about cooking and baking, she's been asking me to bake cakes  for her to bring to work for baking contests. And she's won 1st Place for 3 consecutive years. Of course she has to pretend to have baked them herself. She agrees to pay me $35.00 for each cake I bake, and half the prize winnings.

I think my grandfather (he was a trained  chef) would be proud of me.

Chris Culliver- Asshole of the week

Just one day after several current players on the SF 49ers   responded favorably to the discovery that their former teammate Kwame Harris is gay, the Niners cornerback Chris Culliver made it clear he would not welcome any gay player on his team or in the NFL.
According to Yahoo Sports:

Shock jock Artie Lange revealed he had interviewed Culliver at media day Tuesday and aired a segment on his show that night, where the player insisted that any gay players would not be welcome on the team.

"I don't do the gay guys man," said Culliver, whose Niners play the   Baltimore Ravens   on Sunday. "I don't do that. No, we don't got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do.

"Can't be with that sweet stuff. Nah…can't be…in the locker room man. Nah."

When quizzed by Lange whether any homosexual athletes would need to keep their sexuality a secret in football, Culliver responded: "Yeah, come out 10 years later after that."

With the Super Bowl XLVII only days away, Culliver’s inflammatory remarks have many fans calling for official action from the 49ers ranging from Culliver’s suspension to a formal apology, but as of this writing there’s no confirmation the team plans to address the issue either before or after the big game on Sunday.
Do you think Culliver’s comments were irresponsible and if so, how do you feel the 49ers should handle this incident?


*UPDATE - The 49ers have responded to Culliver’s comments with the following statement:

"The San Francisco 49ers reject the comments that were made yesterday, and have addressed the matter with Chris. There is no place for discrimination within our organization at any level. We have and always will proudly support the LGBT community."


Isn't San Francisco  one of the country's gay-friendliest cities?

I

 

       


                                              Love is my mantra.

                                                          starting with myself.

                                                        (actually starting  with God, then myself)

Note to self

-Speak, Lord

LOVE this movie

Amen

--Jill Scott

(How did stars get inside the room?)

Song in my head

Question of the day

    Do you have this person in your life?  I probably have more than I know of, but two come to mind; my best friend Steve and my friend Brian who's more like a brother than a friend. I'm the Godfather to his daughter. Those are the two of whom I can say the stupidest ass shit,  and they would laugh and say or do something even worse, making me feel better. They've both have witnessed me doing something dumb or funny and are still my closest friends.

History expects you

Friday!!!

Song in my head

Thursday Flashback

The President takes it all in

"Wait y'all let me take all this in...I wanna see this one more time." President Obama said as he paused and turned around to look at the Inaugural crowd before he left, adding "I'm not gonna see this again."

Question of the Day

I smiled when I read that President Barack Obama  would use Dr. Martin Luther King’s bible to take his oath of office in the Inauguration. Considering African American history, it felt like a full circle moment. I’m certain Dr. King’s dream inspired the vision, hope, and presidency of Barack Obama. As we observed the second-term inauguration of President Barack Obama, now is a good time to ask: what does the legacy of Dr. King mean for little black boys and little black girls and our nation at large?

The President and his better half at the Inaugural Ball 2013

Beyonce pretend Sings the National Anthem at the 2013 Inauguration

President Barack Hussein Obama II, 2.0

Today, Barack Hussein Obama became the third President since Ronald Reagan to re-up for a second term. Whether he's remembered as a presidential success story will likely turn on how skillfully he contends with five challenges:
Reversing the country's slide into debt: A government shutdown or a catastrophic default on the U.S. Treasury's obligations to its creditors are only the most immediate hazards confronting the White House if it fails to reach a budget deal with the Republican House.
Achieving immigration reform: Like his immediate predecessor, Obama has so far been frustrated in his efforts to broker a compromise between those who want to curb illegal immigration and those seeking citizenship for 11 million undocumented aliens. Can he break the deadlock in his second term?
Managing revolution in the Middle East: Syrians being slaughtered by the tens of thousands; Iranians edging closer to nuclear capability; Egyptians suspended between an Islamist government and revolutionary anarchy. And those are just the appetizers.
Reducing gun violence: The stage is set for a legislative showdown between the National Rifle Association and White House. But will the result be a victory for the majority who favor tighter regulation of firearms, or the latest in a long line of presidential retreats on gun control?
Electing a successor committed to his vision: Ronald Reagan effectively extended his own tenure by greasing the skids for his hand-picked replacement. Can Obama do the same?

Five trials to test Obama's leadership

It's hard to guess how historians will grade Barack Obama's presidency without knowing what pop quizzes lurk in his second term.
A terrorist attack? An environmental disaster that begins in some nation Americans have never heard of and mushrooms into a global threat? A financial panic that freezes credit markets and halts commerce in its tracks?
Any of these could hijack Obama's own agenda for the next four years.
But barring an unforeseen crisis on the scale of 9/ll, Obama's legacy will likely rest on how skillfully he contends with five challenges awaiting him in his second term.
Here's what we hope to see in each of those policy arenas:
• Reversing the country's slide into debt:
Obama has failed in two attempts to strike a grand bargain that would stem the growth of the federal budget deficit -- once in the summer of 2011, when a tentative deal between the White House and House Speaker John Boehner collapsed for lack of support among rank-and-file Republicans, and again this month, when Obama won the fight to raise taxes on households earning more than $450,000 a year but pushed a climactic showdown over spending cuts into February.
Failure to reach a more comprehensive agreement before the current extension runs out could trigger a government shutdown or even a default on U.S. debt payments, although Obama seems to have won a tactical victory Friday when House Republicans backed away from their threat to force such a default by the end of next month.
But the more crippling costs of continued stalemate would be cumulative. Without an agreement to stem the growth of spending on defense and Medicare, those two deficit drivers will consume an ever larger share of government revenue, leaving less and less money for everything else.
Obama has tapped Republican Chuck Hagel, his contentious choice for secretary of defense, to marshal bipartisan consensus for a reduced military footprint. Voters will know negotiations are getting somewhere when the AARP is howling as loudly at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• Reducing gun violence:
The coming showdown over gun control is a battle of Obama's choosing; he vows to bring the full powers of his office to bear on behalf of an ambitious agenda that includes banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, repealing restrictions that make it harder to trace firearm sales, and expanding research into the causes of gun violence.
Obama wouldn't be the first president to be bested by the NRA. But his decision to make this fight a primary focus of his second term raises the stakes for the White House, especially if the Democratic-controlled Senate proves a major obstacle to reform.


• Achieving immigration reform: After reducing the deficit, establishing a path to citizenship for 11 million unauthorized immigrants is the most conspicuous unfinished business of Obama's first term. But Mitt Romney, who campaigned for the presidency on a pledge to increase deportations, is back home in La Jolla, and congressional Republicans are eager to build bridges to an expanding and alienated Latino constituency.
It adds up to the best chance for bipartisan progress on immigration reform since Ronald Reagan signed a bill granting legal residency to 3 million undocumented aliens -- and Republicans have an incentive to play ball before the next congressional elections in 2014.
• Managing revolution in the Middle East:
Iran's nuclear aspirations and Syria's ongoing civilian slaughter dominate the headlines, but the entire Middle East region is a powder keg. Iran, Israel and eight Arab countries in the region will conduct national elections in the next year, and advances by hardliners in any of them could make a volatile situation worse.
Obama will be hard-pressed just to stay ahead of tomorrow's news until some of the fragile governing arrangements that emerged from last year's Arab spring are more stable.
• Electing a successor committed to his vision:
The 22nd Amendment guarantees that Obama's second term will be his last. But other presidents -- Reagan is the most recent example -- have extended their influence and fought off late-inning irrelevance by anointing like-minded successors.
Obama may have neither the desire nor the opportunity to tilt the Democrats' next presidential nomination to a favored candidate in 2016. But handing the baton to a Democratic successor would further cement whatever political victories he achieves in his second term. In the American presidency, as constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar notes, "Nothing succeeds like succession."

This time I watched the festivities on television in Montreal Quebec.  For his first Inauguration, I was there, in Washington Dc. I was one of the many, freezing my ass off, standing in crowds, but it was worth it. I kept thinking, if my grandfather was alive, he'd be right here with me. 

Another Friday Flashback

yeah, I'm old!

Friday Flashback

There are times when words aren't necessary

But, DAMN!

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter

 

Wednesday Flashback

Word

Don't ask for something you can't (or won't) give.

     --author unknown.

I saw this quote on a friend's Facebook page, and most of my acquaintances came to mind.

This is a new year.

Buckwheat Unchained

After a long break, we find residents of the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes building a new wing.

 

by Jack White,

a former columnist for Time magazine.  

There was a beehive of activity when I arrived at the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes. Buckwheat and Kingfish, dressed in hard hats, were going over some blueprints while Tonto and Charlie Chan unloaded bricks from a pickup truck and the Frito Bandito adroitly maneuvered a backhoe. Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben stood on the porch, setting up trays with coffee and sandwiches for the workers.
"What are you stereotypes building now?" I inquired.
"We be adding a new wing to de place," Buckwheat replied in his characteristic high-pitched voice. "We callin' it the Quentin Tarantino Home for Instant Racial Stereotypes."
"Oh," I continued. "You must have seen Tarantino's hit movie Django Unchained and been inspired by   whay critics are calling his 'most articulate, intriguing, provoking, appalling, hilarious, exhilarating, scathing and downright entertaining film yet.' "
"Dose critics must be of de Caucasian persuasion," Kingfish chimed in. "We ain't payin' to see no movie dat disses our ancestors who suffered in slav'ry! We'll snag it on a bootleg DVD or wait 'til it come out on cable!"
"But how do you know that it insults our forebears if you haven't seen it?" I demanded.
"We just knows the same  way Spike Lee do, and he ain't seen it, either," Buckwheat snapped in an irritated squeak. "You ain't askin' him all dese kinda questions, is you?"
"Calm down," I responded. "I'm just trying to understand why you are building a new wing to honor someone whose work you find so offensive."
"It oughtta be obvious even to a nincompoop like you, bru-tha White," Kingfish interjected. "We seen enuf of Tarantino's movies to know what he's up to without seeing this one -- gratuitous violence, racial exploitation and a whole lot of MFs and n-words! Besides, we has our ears to de ground, and we hears what people who has seen the movie are sayin!"
"Go on," I encouraged.
"What dey are sayin' is dat Tarantino may be a mess, but he sure know how to make movies!" Buckwheat exclaimed. "It ain't every day you see a black character kill all kinda white folk, includin' a mousy white woman, ride off into de sunset and get white folks cheering for him!
"Dat makes Django a rare and endangered species!" Buckwheat continued. "We wants him and Broomhilda to move in here wid us. If they keep ridin' all over the antebellum South causin' mayhem, the paddy rollers are sure to catch 'em!"
"What a laudable notion," I replied in genuine admiration.  "You want to provide them with sanctuary, sort of like the Underground Railroad."
"You got it," Buckwheat continued. "It been a long time since anybody come up with a new racial stereotype like Django! He a lot more creative den dat downtrodden ghetto girl in Precious or dem dysfunctional folks in de Big Momma movies!"
"Ain't dat the truth," added Kingfish. "Don't nobody know racial stereotypes like Buckwheat, and I knows racial stereotypes! And Django is a stereotype's kinda stereotype! He belong here with de otha' truly seminal clichés like us! He and Broomhilda will be right at home!"
"Dat's right," Buckwheat chimed in. "All of us is changin' our names to help dem feel comf'table when dey gets here! From now on you can call me DBuckwheat, and dis here is DKingfish."
"Don't forget dat dee d is silent," added Kingfish. "Now, leave us alone so dat we can get back to work. You done wasted enough of our time."

The Rebirth of Fool

Instead of debating Django Unchained, we should be harsher critics of shows like Best Funeral Ever.

     It's official. Reality-television executives have lost their minds. The reality-TV shows featuring mostly black casts debuting in 2013 are setting back images of black folks in television at least 60 years.      While critics are obsessed with the controversial film Django Unchained, there is a movement taking place in reality television that has elevated black buffoonery to the highest level possible while diminishing black culture to the lowest level in recent memory. The images of blacks on TLC's reality shows Best Funeral Ever and The Sisterhood and Oxygen's All My Babies' Mamas are appalling. They are also reminiscent more of images of blacks in film at the turn of the last century than of blacks in television during the last 60 years.
     While we're spending hours upon hours debating one film on social networks and in the media, tomfoolery is raging on TLC and Oxygen in the form of reality-television programming that has little to no entertainment value and is more exploitative than any Tarantino film could ever be. As my late grandmother would say, we are "focused on the wrong thing." The images of blacks as buffoons, jezebels, coons and Aunt Jemimas are circulating through our living rooms on a daily onslaught in the form of reality-TV promos, reruns and marathons.
     As if trying to survive the damage done to our televisual images by Real Housewives of Atlanta, Basketball Wives and Love and Hip Hop franchises isn't enough to manage, here comes a slew of shows that would make the "ladies" of those shows gasp and swoon.
     In all honesty, I could barely get through the first episode of Best Funeral Ever, a reality show highlighting the Golden Gate funeral home in Dallas, where the narration proclaims, "You may be in a casket, but it can still be fantastic." The funeral home will do any funeral service one can imagine.
     In the first episode, someone who loved Christmas and "bopping" (dancing) is being laid to rest, so the relatives decide to give him a Christmas-themed funeral. Fast-forward to the funeral planners, who are in a costume shop bopping around wearing a snowman head throughout the store.
     Surprise, surprise: The funeral planners become engaged in a power struggle over the planning, which appears to be going off budget, with one planner saying that she can't be "undisciplined." Undisciplined? You're bopping around a costume shop wearing a snowman's head in preparation for a funeral, and you're worried about the budget?
     But, but, but, wait ... it gets worse (in my best Sticky Fingaz voice): The next scene is of one of the funeral home owners training a group of "professional mourners." This man is literally coaching and directing folks who attend funerals to amp up the emotional quotient, since sometimes folks "don't know how to cry." When he called for the "Tornado Roll" -- someone rolling across the floor and throwing herself against a casket -- I had to shut off the TV.
     My psyche couldn't take any more coonlike behavior, and I honestly could not figure out the entertainment value of this show other than for people who like to see black folks looking a hot mess.
     Speaking of hot messes, The Sisterhood is a TLC show about the wives of church pastors, also known as "first ladies," who live in Atlanta. This program actually has some redeeming qualities -- demonstrating the diversity of black families and the complicated role of representing Christianity publicly to others while struggling to maintain those standards in one's private life -- but fails to focus on this interesting premise.
     The possible informative and entertainment value of the show is undermined by the focus on Tara and Brian Lewis, a black-and-Jewish couple who moved to Atlanta from Los Angeles to pastor a church, only to be let go after six weeks. Tara, a fitness addict, is obsessed with speaking in Scripture, while Brian is a self-proclaimed Jew who loves Jesus.
     The problem is that they don't seem to take Christianity or Judaism seriously, focusing on giving their child a "Christian bar mitzvah" with a theme of being the first black Jewish president of the United States, a vision given to Tara by God. Did I mention that as Tara describes receiving this word from God, she seems to be reciting it and doesn't look as if she believes what she's saying herself?
     Add their inability to get along with anyone, their tendency to insult people in their homes and their need to serve as the arbiters of Christianity while engaging in un-Christlike behavior, and Houston, we have a problem. The historic trope of making fun of churchgoing black folks in television and film has reared its ugly head again in the form of this reality show.
     Finally, it pains me to even address Oxygen's All My Babies' Mamas, about Atlanta rapper Shawty Lo's 11 children by 10 women. A program like this isn't a stretch from a network that built its brand on portraying young girls as violent, promiscuous, alcoholic, drug-addicted and duplicitous in the hit series Bad Girls Club.
     What is mind-numbing is how a concept like this can be pitched and make it past the many steps it takes to get a show produced in cable or network TV. It appears that no one called flag on the play, instead creating a program that panders to the vilest stereotypes of black male and female sexual behavior -- not to mention perpetuating the false idea that traditional family structures don't exist in black communities, which is simply unconscionable.
     In a city like Atlanta -- which is rife with rich African-American culture, history and intellectual capital, reflected in the number of elite HBCUs and mainstream colleges and universities in the area -- is this the best slice of reality that Oxygen can muster: a Z-list rapper and the simple women who would procreate with him?
     Therein lies the problem with black reality-television programming. There are far too many blacks willing to humiliate themselves and far too many TV executives willing to pay them pennies on the advertising dollar for that humiliation, which is why these shows continue to be made.
     Not everyone is taking this lying down, and petitions calling for the cancellation of The Sisterhood and All My Babies' Mamas are circulating. Even Congress has gotten in on the anti-reality-TV bandwagon, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) asking MTV to reconsider airing Buckwild, a reality show following a group of friends from the foothills of West Virginia. I keep wondering if and when black TV executives or members of Congress will go on record against these shows that clearly have an agenda: to play on and perpetuate the most despicable stereotypes of blacks in this country.
     While folks are concentrating on critiquing and boycotting one film, perhaps they should turn their attention to TV, where something wicked this way comes. If not, then the rebirth of fool will continue to be the standard in reality television that features blacks.


by Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D.,  editor-at-large for The Root.

Thank you.

I have my novella projects, my poetry and my novel I'm working on, but I think blogging is a great outlet for when I need a break from the aforementioned . I love to write. When I'm not blogging about events in African American history, wtf moments regarding politicians or current events, remembering my favorite bible verses and  quotes,  remembering R&B from the 70s to the 90s ( and some current) or admiring beautiful black women (especially Janet Jackson and Halle Berry), I still want to blog, but sometimes I have writer's block.  Luckily, I come across  dumb asses and stupid assholes either in person or on facebook often, and instead of being the type who will waste  time arguing with strangers on facebook, I'll just make a blog entry, dedicating it to the dumb asses, and thanking them for giving me something to vent write about. Sometimes I might also add them as characters in my novellas. 

So, to all  the dumbasses and stupid assholes out there ( I'm sure they don't know who they are-not you, of course),  thank you.

-Amp Fiddler

Question of the week

If you possess something but you can't give it away, then you don't possess it... it possesses you.
                         --Frank Sinatra:    Tom Dreesen on the Late Show with David Letterman on March 30th 2009 said that Frank Sinatra had said this after giving his $2000 cuff links to a fan.

--wikiquote
Is there anything in your life that possesses you? 

Sunday Flashback

-I feel like a party

Thieves

Like in your home, if you let the wrong people in your life, things will come up missing. Like joy, peace, love, hope, happiness, and faith.

My 3 happiest moments

When I had my EKG  a couple days ago, I was asked to think of pleasant things. I thought of 3 situations that made me happy:

• Watching my nephew be born  via c-section (yes I was in the room)
• Being asked to be the Godfather to my friend Brian & Rita's daughter, and 
• My trip to Paris.

What would be the 3 happiest moments that would come to mind for you, if you were in a similar situation?

Saturday Flashback

WTF Moment- ‘Gun Appreciation Day’ chairman: Slavery wouldn’t have happened if slaves were armed

What if?

I had a very scary day today. For about 2 weeks I had a strange sensation in my chest. I have it right now, as I type this, though not as much as this morning. It's not an ache or a pain or a tightness. The best way to describe it is like the feeling of someone sitting on my chest. But it came and went. It never lasted more than a few minutes each time. Lately it's been lasting for about an hour or more.
Today I decided I would call my doctor. I gave the symptom to the nurse who called me back and though I had none of the other symptoms she asked me about (no shortness of breath, no sharp pain,no swelling in my legs, no pain radiating in my arms, no vomiting, etc) she told me the dr said to go to ER immediately, so I went. They ran every diagnostic test imaginable, starting with an EKG. the results were positive. I was really scared when the dr suggested getting blood work to determine if I had had a heart attack. Thank God the blood results showed that wasn't the case. I was hooked up to blood pressure monitors, blood oxygen monitors, and they even had tubes going up in my nostrils to deliver oxygen  to my lungs. They had cat scans,  ct scans exrays and chest ct scans.    And all I was thinking about/worrying about was the fact that they asked me who was the person to contact in case of emergency, and I gave my mother's contact information. She's in Wisconsin. She couldn't have afforded to fly here if I really needed her urgently. My adopted sister's baby is due to be born any day now and she needs my mom.  My best friend attends seminary school in California and though he doesn't have travel money he would find a way to get here if it got serious. The sad part is-  I have no one local that I could depend on to look after me. Over 250 facebook  'friends' and  I have no local real friend I could depend on at the very least.

The doctor said my heart and lungs were all in excellent condition, and the symptoms were probably due to work-related stress.

I had a very scary day today.

Thank God I am fine , but dear God, what if I really needed someone to do things for me that I couldn't do myself? If there's any time when I feel inspired to find my soulmate (or anyone with a heartbeat who looks in my direction) , it's now.

I had a very scary day today.

#jussayin

BE- Basement Elevation

Le Tour Eiffel

If you're going to stand for something, stand for something bigger, better, and greater than yourself. If you're going to sit for something, sit with outstretched hands holding water. Everyone falls down and everyone gets up. No one is ever truly defeated. We are all in this together.
--me

Wings

I’m growing wings

And one day  they’ll be mature enough-

                                      strong enough  to carry me high enough to see shade from the  distance

and go around it,

avoiding it before it gets a chance to cast a shadow on me. 

--alexgeorge

Wednesday Flashback

Note to self

Do what brings you love.

BE- Basement Elevation

The Champs Elysees, Paris France

It takes more than a force of good will and luck to overcome the barriers that stand before us, so plan in advance for the road ahead. Look to the future, not merely as a dreamer, but as an architect too. Know your angles well. No one can bring you down if you do.
--me

Saturday Flashback