A dear friend sent me an e-mail this morning, inviting me to his wedding and also commenting on my situation with Filthy. I’m telling you this for a couple reasons. First, as my friend, I wanted to share this good news and my feelings with you. I hope you have some sense of how much [...]
Archive for January, 2009
Vibrate Higher
Friday, January 30th, 2009About
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009Spread Love its the Brooklyn Way
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009Streets to Suites is a film directed by Marquette Jones,a dear friend of mine. The first thing that I noticed whenwatching this short is that I felt that sense of anticipationthat typically occurs when I reading a good short story. I love that “what is going to happen next” feeling. She is currently working on [...]
Barack Obama and Shirley Chisholm
Friday, January 23rd, 2009On the evening of November 5th in Brooklyn, you would have thoughtthat Juneteenth and the Fourth of July had occurred. Cars werehonking bars were full, White Folks, Black Folks and Asian folkswere happy that their candidate won. D-boys that I had never seenon my block, who hustle behind closed doors had their big red cupsout. [...]
Now I’m Realizing that I Love Her
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009I got the call on Christmas Eve. “Ne, I made a mistake.”It was Filthy. I listened, and we decided to link up in mid January.So, he came to a meeting that I spoke at this past Saturday.I was nervous and vulnerable. But, I felt fearless and good.The speech went well.He then broke the news. he [...]
Mercury is in Retrograde and I Feel It
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009I spoke with my brother yesterday and he mentioned to me two differentinstances where people in our family, our uncle and his mother in law,indicated that they were either scared of him or felt that he had anattitude. I was pleased that he felt close enough to me to share, but Ifelt helpless with regard [...]
The Curse of Being a Black Artist
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009Ice Cube helped me in ’92 I think I have fallen in love with Camus (a dead white Algerianphilosopher who argues that the death penalty is premeditatedmurder) and Anthony Hamilton simultaneously. What does this have to do with being an artist? Everything,simply because over the last few days I have been apart ofa few conversations [...]
Black on Black Murder and Oscar Grant
Monday, January 12th, 2009It is simply impossible to have an intelligent discussion about Blackmale murder, without grounding it in political economy, history andlabor. Over the weekend, the New York Times featured a piece by TobinWarsaw on the Oakland Riots which is essentially about the waysin which the double standard that some Black people have on Black onBlack violence [...]
Bart Police Kill an Unarmed Man, Oscar Grant, on New Years Day
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009Video Oakland haunts me. Last week, I started trying to convert my essay’s on thecrack epidemic into a memoir and the above sentencecame to mind.As many of you know, on early New Years day , the BARTpolice killed an unarmed man, Oscar Grant.I felt my heart flip in my throat when I heard the woman [...]
