Sitting On My Porch Part Forty Five

Tomorrow is a historic day. I will be taking my first day off from work in 2010. I have over 800 hours of leave time. I’m not sure how much the agency is going to let me collect before they force me to stay home. I guess I need to start finding something to do for when that time comes. I don’t know how people just call in sick just for the hell of it. What do you do all day? Watch Judge Mathis? I have a good reason to be off tomorrow. I will tell you more about that later.

Today I went to Bywater for a nice lunch and order a plate of crab claws and crawfish cakes. It feels like since the oil spill I have been eating more seafood. I don’t know if I need to be doing that. It just feels like any second they are going ban all fishing in this area and I am going to be going through serious withdrawal. No one is really sure because BP and most of the politicians involved are trying to downplay the amount of oil coming out of that pipe. Thanks to Clay I am pretty up to date on the technical aspects of it but as far as how much oil is actually leaking it’s just a guessing game.

One of my main issues with my mayor and other elected officials after Katrina was that they never seemed to have the same anger and passion about what happened the way everyday people did. I kept wondering how the rest of the country could feel what we were feeling if the people elected to speak for us seem to be taking it all in stride. I’m starting to feel the same way about this oil spill.

On my way to lunch I took Claiborne Avenue downtown. Claiborne has never been so smooth to drive on. It’s wonderful. Then I had to turn down Music Street because they were fixing Franklin Avenue. When I made the right turn it felt like I was on a rollercoaster. We should have asked for money in the stimulus to fix the side streets. That would have been enough money and jobs to change our entire economy. That’s at least twenty years of work.

Raggedy streets are as much of a local tradition as po-boys and these termites that are swarming right now and flying in front of my television while I am trying to watch the game. I think the Devil sends all the crazy people from the city back as termites just to get on our nerves one more time. I know everyone knows a future termite walking around here.

I am taking off tomorrow because my brother Jerald is graduating from high school in Memphis. I’m proud of him and he’s on his way to being a southern gentleman. He’s going to be a hell of a man in a few years. Hopefully he won’t make the same mistakes his big brothers made. I think he will be just fine. I wish someone would let me speak at a graduation. I would be a hit until I gave the young brothers in the audience five rules to live by on their journey to manhood. Some of my advice might get the microphone turned off. My five simple rules would be this….

1. Always try to handle your business in a way that makes people talk about you positively even when you are not around unless you are going to move to another city every time you burn a bridge. You don’t want your resume coming across someone’s desk and the first thing that comes to their mind is “ Not that asshole!”
2. Never take a picture of yourself in a compromising position like sitting in a tub full of bubble bath and send it anyone or put it on the internet. You don’t want to be part of a chain email. If you just have to go there at least cover your face.
3. At some point in your life the amount of women you sleep with, the time you spend partying in the streets and the amount of liquor you drink or drugs you experiment with will all seem like a waste of time and resources. I can’t tell you not to have any fun. Just use your time and energy wisely and don’t waste it all trying to live fast.
4. Every situation in life can not be handled with the same action. There are a lot of young cats in prison and the cemeteries that look just like us when all they needed to do was talk to someone. Think about everything before you react.
5. If you are one of the lucky people who know what they want to do or have a passion for something at such a young age, try that experience first. The older you get, the more things you have to do. The more you have to do, the harder it is to drop everything and do what you want. When I was grinding in my first serious job and complained to my dad about the stress of it he told me “Son, leave that job before they start paying you too much to quit.” I didn’t fully understand back then but I do now. Don’t get yourself caught up in being miserable every day.

If I get pass the bubble bath advice I think it would go over pretty well. Congratulations Slick. I love you and I’m proud of you.

I’m about to update my MP3 player for a six hour drive. I’ve been slipping on my music game lately and I need to get back in stride. Before I go I want to send a shout out Citizen K. to tell him I will be posting song blogs soon and I want to send a get well to my blog sister Afromamba.

Also, you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Clifton611. Since I sold out I might as well make it good.

I am still not over Maze being left of the Essence roster. If the folks who film the Treme series want to show a good authentic New Orleans scene they will have a concert with a few hundred people doing the Bus Stop to something like this. Has anyone else noticed in that show that no one has listen to any music outside of the local scene?