This Blog Has No Title

The following opinions have been influenced by listening to Tupac's Greatest Hits....

Lately there are three things that are guaranteed to piss me off:
1. All these jackasses coming back to New Orleans and starting all this shooting and shit again. What the hell is wrong with negroes? Thank you for validating everything the other part of the community thinks about us. All of this is taking in place in one of the few dry and black neighborhoods in the city. Its funny that the Ninth Ward gets all the press for being this violent place when we all know that uptown is where the real pit bulls come from(no offense to my uptown friends, not all of you are pit bulls). When being stranded for days together in the hot New Orleans sun without food and water can’t make you come together there is no hope.
2. When someone from New Orleans wants to put down the city and brag about how much better it is where they live like they always planned on going there. I don't mind you starting over, and you should be happy. But, don't act like we weren't neighbors 7 months ago and your ass was planning to leave. You were going to die here just like me and you probably still will eventually.
3. People from other cities that keep trying to tell me how to feel or how long I am supposed to be upset about the aftermath of the storm. Let me come to your town, take all of your family and move them around. Then pump 1000 gallons of water in your house. Then, just when you get really homesick and want to come home I will make about 1000 rules not allowing you to even rebuild the house the way it was. Deal with all that and then we can talk on an even level. Until then let us deal with this.

Due to the increasing gas prices its time to make some tough choices. I have decided that until the price goes down, I will decrease my large daiquiri with a shot of rum to a medium daiquiri with no shot and my 12 inch po-boy sandwich to a 6 inch sandwich and hold the cheese. These damn republicans got the gas so high I have to cut back on sandwiches and liquor just to get to work. That's what America gets for electing two ex energy company CEO's to run the country. You know the first revolution in this country started with a tea party to protest being over taxed by the British. I'm glad the president tried to do something today to make the price a little lower. I'm afraid that going from 2.85 to 2.75 isn't really doing a damn thing for me. I need some old school prices. You know, the kind we had before pissing off all the Arabs.

R.I.P. to Proof from D-12 and the man that he shot. It is really sad a talented brother lost his life. It’s just as sad that he was killed after shooting another black man and nobody cares about him or his family because he is not famous. That’s two black men dead and their lives had equal value. That’s why the murders have been allowed to fester for so long. We only care about the ones we know or our family.

It can’t be possible that I don’t qualify for every single one of the hurricane relief programs. Am I rich and no one told me? I am going to be so pissed if one of my grandparents have a trust fund for me that I don’t know about that keeps showing up on a computer somewhere. Then again, that can’t be true because if I had one my credit wouldn’t be so bad.

Finally I have a lesson in life for everyone that reads this. Sometimes a person comes into your life and you get a bad vibe so you end the association quickly. Then years later they come back into your world through circumstances and you think to yourself “This person isn’t so bad. Maybe I was wrong”. Eventually, the person does things that make you realize why you never wanted to be around their stupid ass in the first place. The lesson is : when judging people, following your first mind is usually the right call.

Who's Gonna Be the Mayor?.....I Don't Care

The mayor's race in New Orleans has came and went and now we have Mitch Landrieu and Ray Nagin in a runoff to see who gets to run the city for the next four years. Whoever wins will either get a whole bunch of credit if the city makes strides or all the blame if it falls on its face. It's a risky job to take. I think Landrieu will win if the voter turn out for the runoff is anything like the turnout for the primary. I think I misjudged Black New Orleans' attitude about this mayor's race. I think most of us don't really care who wins. When you really break it down, there isn't a section of the American population that has been more mistreated by other Americans than black people from New Orleans. No one really wants us. We are staying in cities now that look at us as a drain and a burden. Lots of those people in these other cities are black too. Then, our own city knows this and are still dragging their asses to get some kind of progress made. That's what's on the mind of the average citizen when he or she is about to spend 100.00 worth of gas to drive from Atlanta to vote for someone who hasn't really done anything to help them come back home regardless of their color. I have been here since the end of January and I still haven't found a place under 1200.00 a month that I would like to live in. After listening to the debates and judging each candidate, I probably wouldn't have voted either if I had to drive 500 miles. We would have been better off as the third world country as they see us.

My Favorite Hip Hop Verse of All Time

Through the lights cameras and action, glamour glitters and gold
I unfold the scroll, plant seeds to stampede the globe
When I'm deceased, by then the beast arise like yeast
To conquer peace leaving savages to roam in the streets
Live on the run, police paying me to give in my gun
Trick my wisdom, with the system that imprisoned my son
Smoke a gold leaf I hold heat, nonchalantly
I'm grungy, but things I do is real it never haunts me
While, funny style niggaz roll in the pile
Rooster heads profile on a bus to riker's isle
Holdin weed inside they pussy with they minds on thePretty things in life,
props is a true thug's wife
It's like a cycle, niggaz come home, some'll go in
Do a bullet, come back, do the same shit again
From the womb to the tomb, presume the unpredictable
Guns salute life, rapidly, that's the ritual

Nas from Verbal Intercourse by Raekwon the Chef

Controlling the Media

When I was a young man living at home, me and my dad would always watch the news together. Whenever I would ask him a question about a story that didn't make sense to me as a young black man, he would always reply with the same phrase; "Son, when you control the media, you control what we see". Never has this been more apparent than this week in the news. Two women have dominated the news this week. One of them is Natalie Holloway. She is the young lady that disappeared in Aruba months ago and hasn't been found. Every single news outlet in the country has been covering this story every single day and they won't rest until someone in Aruba has been arrested for her disappearance. I used to look at this story everyday and I felt bad for her because she was young and had her life in front of her. As a matter of fact I think that Nancy Grace is on a personal crusade to have every male in Aruba brought up on charges for kidnapping. One way or another, someone in Aruba will answer for Natalie's murder and the American media will not rest until it's done.
The other story is the Duke Lacrosse team rape case. This story has also been everywhere this week but with a different twist. Every single day there is another story, picture or piece of evidence presented by the media to make this sister look like a black piece of trash who is trying to get paid by lying on these poor privilege kids at Duke. It's like they can't even imagine that she might have been raped and their asses are all covering for one another. If she was a little tipsy when she got to the party, who's to say she didn't get violated by something other than one of their little peckers. For a brief second I almost was starting to think that maybe she could have been lying. After watching the coverage of this story, it doesn't even matter if they don't have DNA evidence. I want her to stand her ground and bring these little bastards to justice if for no other reason than to see the look on the face of all the ass holes in the media on television that made her look like a drunken tramp. Do you think all those people on TV would be making negative comments if some white woman went up to a HBCU for a bachelor party full of wild Negroes. They would shut the entire system down until they found out who it was.
I love living in America. In any other country I would probably be dead already for writing some shit like this. Most Americans of all colors do the same thing every day. We go to work, try to raise our kids properly and earn enough money for some comfort in life. However, there are several cross sections of American life where the line is clearly drawn for black people. The top three are the justice system, the job interview process, and media coverage. We usually expect some sort of bullshit to go on in these three areas but when it's as blatant as the news has been this week it just pisses you off. This is what BET should be used for, some balance. They spend all their time teaching 12 year olds how to dance.

Signs of Life

Since I came back to New Orleans for my job I haven't been focused on anything. I have been here everyday and I even got a promotion. Somehow I still find myself drifting most of the day. The post Katrina stress always seems to have me down. I don't even write blogs as much because I can't think straight.
There is nothing worse than a series of meetings over a two day period to make you want to quit when you are in this state of mind. Last year I went to this same meeting with my entire staff representing our agency. I was a novice, the understudy and the low man on the totem pole. One year later, I was back as the lone representative for the entire program and had the title of coordinator behind my name. I had two choices. The first choice that came to mind was to go Tuesday and sit quietly writing down notes like I am interested then skip Wednesday's session and blame it on some housing appointment or something personal and stay home. I was all sold on the first choice and went in the conference room Tuesday surrounding by allot of smart people. That's when I had a long talk with myself. I told myself "Cliff, you are just as knowledgeable and capable as anyone in this room. Not only that, you were raised by a father that is an ego maniac and his father had the most self confidence of anyone you ever known. You have almost an obsessive pride about your name and who you are. What kind of Harris man are you to sit in here and let these people think your ass don't belong? What would grandpa say? Now open your damn mouth and show them you got skills." That's exactly what I did. I proceeded to demonstrate my training methods, articulate the merits of a closed database and totally shoot down the idea of a state system I feel is designed to have access to my local records. I felt really good. In fact, I felt so good that I went back to work and gave a three hour seminar on the mayor's race (my all Caucasian work staff thinks I should run for mayor of Chocolate City), the rebuilding of the Ninth Ward and why Kobe Bryant is the MVP of the NBA this year. It feels good when I have a day when I am 100% together after the storm. On those days people get the whole Cliff experience: charm, charisma, knowledge, humor, the ability to dominate a conversation and the biggest ego any bald, short, chubby black man has ever had. Grandpa would be proud.

Being Grown

I love being in my 30's. Other than some stamina and 75 less pounds, I don't miss being a teenager or my early 20's at all. My generation doesn't seem to be embracing this grown folk thing too well. We are holding on to our youthful ways for dear life. Holding on to your youthful mind state means holding on to your youthful expectations. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but once you turn 30 you have to be realistic about certain aspects of your plans. I'm not saying you can't do them. You just have to map out a different path. I was on 3 different paths in 2005 alone. Lately when I have conversations with all my 30-35 year old friends, we seem to talk allot about how old we are and how things have not worked out in our lives the way we want. What is our problem? How many of you have actually sat down for a few minutes and honestly thought about all the obstacles we have made it through just to get to our 30's? First of all, we are the first generation of black people that grew up in this country free of any type of legal segregation. The bar for our achievement was set so high that most of us were never going to be able to keep up with all that. We might not have had separate schools and water fountains, but the economic disparity was still there the whole time and no one did anything to deal with that before we came of age. Secondly, around the time I was 9 or 10 years old, crack took hold and held our community hostage. Lots of the things we are dealing with today are the effects of that dark time. This might be a New Orleans thing but I don't know anyone in my age range that doesn't know at least three people that are no longer here because of that drug. The bottom line is that our generation has had to survive allot of shit to get to this point. It's time we embrace our age and respect our experience. I am glad to be in my 30's. I feel like a wise man already and I can't wait until I am 50. Hell, I have already survived the crack wars, record murder rates, heroin addicts, the Galvez bus ride home in 87(you downtown people know what happened on Galvez and St. Bernard), having a girlfriend in the Calliope and the Florida projects, crack babies that are way worse than we are, excessive drinking, high blood pressure and Hurricane Katrina. It can't get much harder than it already has been.

Questions, Questions, Questions

What happened to all that money that George Bush promised the city of New Orleans?

I guess he just lied in front of millions Americans on national TV. That's not so strange for him.

Why are there 500 people running for mayor of New Orleans?

Why isn't Cynthia Willard Lewis on TV everyday fussing about something?

There are enough things in her district to have a new beef about each day. I mean, she did lose her whole constituency to the storm. She should have her own hotline set up just for the Ninth Ward.

What is Leonard Lucas doing running for councilman at large?

This is the same guy that was the district representative for the Ninth Ward and led the entire state legislature in absences. He only sponsored two bills the whole term and the Lower Ninth Ward still didn't have a grocery store before the storm. The only thing he managed to do was open up his mini-mall and a Subway. That's just the guy we need.

Why isn't Paul Morton and Darryl Brister standing next to her complaining on behalf of the thousands of people that give them all that money?

Even if they are doing something behind closed doors that's not good enough. It should be vocal and loud to combat the feelings of frustration. The Bishop should be on TV now just as much as he was when his boys weren't getting in on the contracts from City Hall. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton should have never even needed to come down here and organize that march. It should have already been done.

How do all the girls from New Orleans name Katrina feel now that their families won't speak to them?

If the hurricane would have been named Cliff instead of Katrina, how many years of therapy would it have taken to get over that guilt?

I think I need to call my cousin Katrina tonight and apologize for ignoring her. She's a really good person and no one deserves to have a storm that basically wiped out their entire family structure named after them. They shouldn't even name those storms anyway. If anyone bigger than a cat-3 ever hits, it should just be called "That Big Bitch" and followed by the date. Katrina should have been "That Big Bitch on August 29"

How come the folks that went through Hurricane Rita don't appear to be as pissed as all the Katrina victims?

You all should be making more noise. There is enough FEMA money to be squandered away for everyone.

Did it really take the mayor and city council this long to figure out that they should be spending that money on rebuilding apartments instead of trailers?

Did anyone else notice that we will have had Mardi Gras, Jazzfest, and a Saints game before we even open one public hospital in the city of New Orleans?

When the son on Black and White admitted to his parents he let the white kids say nigger around him, why didn't mom or dad slap his ass?

There is never a time when that practice is cool. I don't care how many hip hop CD's they listen to.

How much did VH1 pay those girls to go back on Flava of Love reunion?

Why is Hip Hop the only profession where a black man makes good money and still wants to be considered part of the hood?

You don't see the CEO of American Express (a black man) representing the projects by stabbing the Discover Card CEO at a meeting.

Why are all those black kids, especially the basketball players(who are basically the image of the university) still going to Duke?

If this was 1966 instead of 2006 there would be sit ins and marches every day.

Am I the only person that is totally infatuated with Cynthia Mckinney's stand against racial profiling?

I wish they had the incident on tape to prove her point.

Keep your hair style baby. I think it's fly.

Can we get her to come to New Orleans on behalf of the people?

Why do white people bring their dogs everywhere with them including the office?

You don't know if I am allergic to dogs or not.

Why do black people take stuff from work they really don't need like white out and staplers?

I never got to use the adding machine I took from my old job.

What is the proper amout of work production lost in America between instant messages and e-mail?

There are people that download their favorite IM as soon as they are alone at their desk.

Is there such a thing as a young Caucasian woman at your job that isn't a newlywed or engaged?

I mean they all have fiances and new husbands. No wonder sisters are so pissed when they come home from work. I would be too if I had to sit 8 hours and listen to all that.

Would I be wrong to snitch on the blind guy that smokes in the restroom next to my office door?
It's not that I want to get the man in trouble. It's just that when you are the only brother, you get blamed for stuff like fires.

Finally, this is an actual e-mail I received. The name has been scrambled to protect the victim:
"ya this this be %@$%@$ from 71107 wat the deal is yo main holla at ya boy cuz maybe i can getcha down here agian an we can chill an smoke dat some cake]weed[ ok holla at me ,one"

The first question.... What did the New Orleans Public School system do to him to make him look at that on paper and think anyone would understand that?

The Last question..... Is the fact that I understood exactly what he was trying to say reason enough for all us to get together and file a class action suit against the school system for improper education?

It's alright to talk ebonics sometimes in certain circles but you are never supposed to write it unless it's a Gwendolyn Brooks poem.


One Love to everyone from the Lower Ninth Ward. Peace to all people New Orleans.
Cliff.

Just Venting.....Nothing Personal

This blog was written just for me to get things off of my chest. It is not intended for everyone to agree with or to really piss anyone off even though it might. I welcome any comments you may have even if you want to cuss me.


The election march was cool. I still stand by the fact that we need to be able to vote if we choose to. However, it’s going to be funny to see all those people vote for a mayor and give him four years of power to run a city that its going to take five years to find housing in. Essentially, all these black people are going to run down and vote for Ray Nagin to drag his feet like he’s been doing.

Sometimes I wish that New Orleans was really a third world country like the rest of the world seems to look at us. That would be ok right now to me because then we could overthrow the government, lock up the mayor, sheriff, DA and city council and annex ourselves from the rest of the country. Then we could make some trade deals with other countries on our own and build our own levee system and housing and hospitals and schools and all that other stuff.

One of the strange things about the aftermath of the storm is that there are some people from New Orleans that actually think where they are from makes them more deserving of a natural disaster. If you go anywhere in the world and someone makes a comment like to you, slap them That will be the only thing that makes you feel better. If you catch yourself believing that or affirming what they said, slap yourself. You are a disgrace to your whole family.

It has to be said…….Eighteen months of free rent for people that didn’t have a job before the storm is just too long of a time. My sister is a teacher and she had to pay her emergency money back to the government. The storm was not supposed to make working people’s lives harder and shiftless people’s lives easier. When all of this is up, there will be lots of people in panic and desperate.

The next time someone makes the comment to me that “God doesn’t do anything by mistake” or “Everything happens for a reason” concerning what happened to people because of the hurricane might get cussed out.

I had a conversation with a good friend concerning her child’s father. She was hoping that eventually if they spent enough time together his dad may decide to start doing the things for him that he needs to. Look, when Gabby was born my fatherly instincts kicked in the first five seconds after her birth. If you got a man that doesn’t want to spend every minute he can with his child the minute they are born, put him on child support immediately because you got problems coming.

Why are there so many 30 year old black women that can actually say to themselves that they will always be lonely? I am tired of young sisters talking like they are 65 years old. I am going to get in trouble for this but how many of you have actually thought it was yourself that was the problem. How many women can actually say they know how to be happy or make a man happy? There are thousands of good brothers out there but they don’t have Jay Z’s money or LL’s body. Most of them work for the city fixing streets or something with beer bellies and receding hairlines. You better go look for some of those cats.

After you reach a certain age, sex without passion or feelings for your partner is just like masturbation with allot more drama.

Why would African American people support any type of law allowing illegal immigrants to work in this country without citizenship? With all the joblessness in our community, there is nothing good about millions of people willing to work for half of what we will coming in everyday. We have enough competition already.

Happy Birthday Mama

Today is my mother’s 56th birthday. Like most brothers, I have a undying devotion and love for the woman. I don’t know how to express my feelings for this woman properly. She is my mama, my guidance, my friend and maybe the biggest supporter I have in this world. My entire personality has been shaped on the fact that I never wanted to be the reason she had a bad day or a sleepless night. Thanks to Katrina, this is the first time since I was born I won’t get to see her on her birthday. I hope her whole day and everyday for the rest of her life is filled with smiles. I love you mama because without you, there would be no me.

A Mother's Love

Some say when my children
are old enough to understand the logic
that motivates a mother
I will tell them this:
I loved you enough to want to
know where you were going,
with whom, and what
time you would get home.
I loved you enough to
make you return a chocolate bar
with a bit out of it to a store
and to confess:"I stole this".
I loved you enough to stand
over you for two hours
while you cleaned your room;
a job that would have
taken me 15 minutes.
I loved you enough to
let you see anger,
disappointment, disgust
and tears in my eyes.
I loved you enough to
admit when I was wrong
and to ask for your forgiveness.
I loved you enough to
let you stumble, fall and hurt.
BUT most of all
I loved you enough to say NO
when you hated me for it
This was the hardest part of all!

Author Unknown

Politics

On yesterday I wrote a blog concerning my disgust with the process of the upcoming mayoral election in New Orleans. My aggravation is with the fact that many displaced people are not getting the opportunity to vote if they choose to. Some people read what I said and mistakenly thought I was endorsing black people to go to the polls and vote to keep a African American in the mayors office. This was not my intention. At the risk of sounding contradictory, no one has to vote for Nagin or any other black candidate if they don't want to. I wasn't going to vote for anyone. I just wanted the opportunity to vote if I chose to. Black politicians do nothing for me. All my life we have had black people running the city I live in and things have gotten progressively worse. You can be scared of Peggy Wilson or whoever else is running in the election that may appear to be the enemy. The fact of the matter is that she or anyone else can't do a worse job than the rest of them. The last time I checked, it was a black man that just told me to rebuild at my own risk. Black people have been looking at political victories as a symbol of progress but in reality the only people in this world that benefits from politics is the politicians. The same families that were in the ghetto during the civil rights movement are still there now. With the exception of a few success stories and the one or two in each family that makes it, there has not been a reversal of wealth distribution in America. Imagine what kind of statement it would make if 75% of black voters in this country voted for a white, republican candidate who was moderate enough to listen and try to work towards helping us solve some of our issues. Do you know what that would do to voice of people? You wouldn't be taken for granted anymore. It's just a damn shame that when the going gets tough, most Republicans and Democrats all revert back to the same old bullshit rhetoric to get elected. If we had more of an effect by voting maybe I wouldn't feel like a second class citizen by knowing that someone in Fallujah is getting more government assistance than I am.

One New Orleanian, One Vote

I have voted in every election since I first registered at 18 years old. Me, my parents and siblings would all go together at one time and get our vote on. One of the coolest things ever was talking with everybody in the house about who they were going to vote for and discussing it. Now, sometimes there wasn't a candidate that I liked so I just signed the register and walked in and out of the booth. As a black man from the South, I take voting seriously. This may sound like a tired cliche but people really did die for us to have that right. So whether you care about politics, or even like one of the candidates, you should at least show up and sign the register as voter.
With that being said, I am not sure if I can vote in the upcoming mayor's race or not. My voting district was destroyed. I don't live in the same place I did before Katrina. So where am I supposed to vote? What about the people who didn't vote before? What about the people way up in Utah and places like that who probably didn't know the deadline for filing absentee? I am not a fortune teller but I can predict the future of this election next month. This New Orleans election is going to make what happened in Florida look like child's play. No one is going to know the rules and people are going to be turned away. No matter who wins, someone is going to contest the results. There was a simple and fair way to handle this.....Every registered voter that lived in the city before the storm should have the opportunity to vote no matter where they are. Remote stations should have been sent to any place with more than 1000 evacuees. Parts of Texas, Jackson Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee and Atlanta, Georgia should have all had remote polling places. The evacuees in those cities should have been shown their ID and made to sign the register just like they do in New Orleans when voting. People in other places should be given 60 days to cast an absentee ballot or go to city and vote. I haven't thought too many issues or decisions were racist since the storm but this one smells like it.
Black voters in this country are always being disenfranchised by some technicality. We can look at Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 as examples. I am sure there are hundreds more on a smaller scale that we never hear about nationally. Plus, we all know a man that has paid his debt to society should not be punished for the rest of his life by not being allowed to participate in the voting process. Now, nature is going to cause thousands of people who would have had a say in the future in their city to sit back and not have a voice. It's a damn shame that I will be penalized for the direction of a hurricane and faulty federal levees. If anyone from New Orleans is not allowed to vote for any reason other than not being registered in the first place, the entire election should be challenged legally and taking all the way to the Supreme Court if possible.

Verbal Gumbo 5

I have been getting emails and messages asking me why I haven't been posting blogs the way I used to. The reason is simple. In order for me to sit here and write a nice long focused piece, I need two things. I need comfort and clear thought. Right now I don't have either so all I have to give is this quick, scattered thoughts that just pop into my head. I never wanted my blog to be a journal about my everyday life. That's not interesting and my life is pretty boring nowadays anyway. That's why I don't post something everyday. Now, let's try to come up with something.

If you are living in the city of New Orleans at the moment and you don't have a job, you are either disabled or lazy and shiftless. There is no reason for all these brothers walking around all day doing nothing.

How many races before Bill Lester (the brother racing Nascar) gets ran into a wall by one of the good old boys?

I wanted to watch it before I said something about it. Black and White is a really pointless show. A white man born into the majority in the country could spend an entire year in makeup as a black man and never fully understand. What the show doesn't explain from what I can see is that the attitude most black people have about race starts in Kindergarten and systematically gets worse as we get older. Thats why the time we are 30 we are paranoid about everything. It's the reason we are much more consumed by race than any other nationality.

The top five black shows on TV:
Grey's Anatomy (Did you know a sister created and produces this show?)
The Boondocks
Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton
Turn Up The Heat With G Garvin
Any Sanford and Son rerun.

Will Downing put on one hell of a show Saturday night.

My Final Four was Pittsburgh, Texas, UConn, and Boston College. I know Pittsburgh lost yesterday but I am a man of honor so I won't change my picks. I still have three out of four teams on my bracket so the money is still possible.

Did Dallas just sign T.O? Didn't he stand in the middle of the star and disrespect that team? Sports is all about business.

What the hell is going on with The Sopranos (if you haven't seen it, stop readin now). I became obsessed with this show for the sole reason that Tony Soprano was the coolest character on TV ever. Now, they have him in this coma with blood poisoning. I have a feeling he is not coming out of this anytime soon which means the other characters are going to carry the show. This is a big mistake just like killing Ralphie was. I don't want to see Tony sitting in the bed dreaming of being a regular dude. I want him riding around kicking ass, hustling and messing with women. This season is going to suck. If he dies I might stop watching.

New Booty by Bubba Sparks, Wait by the Ying Yang Twins, and Play by David Banner are basically the same song except the New Booty song is about 40% more horrible than the other two. How can they play this song on the radio? Shouldn't a song have to sound good to get radio play?

The decision on the New Orleans elections gets it's own blog.

Strip Clubs Are Not What They Used To Be

Ever since I was 19 years old, I have been what you might call an exotic dancer enthusiast. I have never shared the reasons why. In spite of my Lower Ninth Ward credentials, I am pretty much a nerd. I have always been on the outside looking in when it comes to most ghetto affairs. I was hanging out around the block but I never sold drugs. I have never owned a gun. I have never been arrested. I have never wanted to do any of those things either. I lived that existence through the life of my friends. The only thing about that world I was always envious of was their women. You know the ones. The ones that only talked with the Honor Society brothers when they needed a report done in school to graduate. Those kind. The kind that used to wear clothes that were two sizes small and showed all of their "assets". The kind with a tattoo covering her three stab wounds and a bullet hole in her leg. The kind that used to win the P-Popping contest at Club Rumors. Even though I secretly had a crush on this type of girl, I never had the hood status to really keep one.........That's where the strip clubs come in.
Nintey percent of the guys at a strip club are working guys that would probably never talked to one of the dancers on the street. They bridge the gap for most of us who always wanted to experience kicking with a girl like that but never had the heart. These venues always made me comfortable. The smoke, the smell of sweat and body lotion, the fact that I just spent 40 dollars on drinks, tips and a table dance on a woman that never looked in my face one time. It was beautiful. Now it's not the same. I dont know if it's guilt because I have a girlfriend or its the fact that I am now a daddy. When you have a daughter, you see things a whole lot differently. When I was 21 and went to the club, the only thing on my mind was "I wonder if she does private shows" or " I hope she just got here and isn't too sweaty". Now as a 31 year old father, I look up there and think "Does her dad know she is doing this?" or "I wonder what happened to her to make her want to dance in front of all this strange people". It has really destroyed the whole effect and I think that's great. It's great because I am a strong believer in mental progress as a man. What would that say about me if I got the exact same thrill from watching those young girls subject themselves? I hope no one reads this and thinks that I am putting down the dancers or people that go. I am not going to sit here and say I am not going again. I am just writing this because I tried to go to one the other night and it didn't do anything for me.

Big Man Discrimination

I went to the mall yesterday with my homeboy Ced to see if they had a sale or something going on for some shirts and slacks. We are moving to the corporate building soon and I need some better outfits to walk around the big wigs. We go into Dillards department store and split up. I head to the big and tall section and he goes to the regular dude section. Here is where my issue starts. The shirts in the big and tall section are clearly not as fashionable as the little guys clothes. I kept looking across the aisle and seeing things I wanted to wear in a medium only to be disappointed by the fact it was nowhere to be found in a 3X. What's up with that? How come the same Polo shirt cost twenty dollars more for me? Its not that much more fabric. I am tired of Grown Man Body Discrimination. We get to the clearance rack and all the shirts were 75% off. Most of the shirts on my rack looked like something out of a John Wayne western movie. You know those shirts you buy for your Kris Kringle gift at work. I look over at his selection and it's full of Sean John, Nautica, and Ralph Lauren. Do you know a large size Sean John shirt is almost one hundred bucks! I thought Biggie and Diddy were friends. How are you going to charge that much for a shirt in Biggie's size? I see why all the full figured sisters always stressing about their clothes. At least they have Lane Bryant and Ashley Stewart to go to from relief. Meanwhile I have to go to all this little bootleg stores full of large size outfits that you only get one wear out of because they shrink up so bad. It's like going from having on a long shirt to a halter top after one wash. Maybe I just need to get my lazy ass up and work out enough to get to the regular dude section of the store.

How long Before the Government Breaks Bread?

Corps' tests predicted levee failure 21 years ago

06:43 AM CST on Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Janet McConnaughey / Associated Press

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did a full-scale test 20 years ago on a floodwall like one that collapsed here during Hurricane Katrina, with results that predicted its failure, scientists working on an independent study of the failure said Monday.

On Friday, the Corps task force set up to investigate the failures reported that the breach at the 17th Street Canal was the result of water working its way in between the floodwall and the earthen levee into which it was set, and of soft subsurface clay. Once the levee split, the force of the high water pushed the floodwall, and the half of the levee behind it, backward on the clay, the corps task force said.

The corps called it an unforeseen combination of events that split the earthen levee and toppled the floodwall.

But Raymond B. Seed and Robert G. Bea, in charge of the National Science Foundation's Independent Levee Investigation Team, said Monday that the results should have been foreseen, given theresults of a 1985 test done near Morgan City in south-central Louisiana. The test was done at an Atchafalaya Basin levee and floodwall system built to test whether a design similar to that of the 17th Street Canal levee and floodwall would work.

The test ended when -- with water nearly 8 feet high along the test floodwall -- sheet piles supporting it inside the levee began tilting backward, "indicating that failure was imminent," the statement said.

"Not only did they have that in their repertoire of information, they failed to use it, as best we can tell," Seed said in a telephone interview from the University of California at Berkeley.

The Corps' Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, which issued its report Friday, did know about that test, Corps spokesman Wayne Stroupe said. He said he would forward Seed's and Bea's statement to a Corps scientist for a response.

Seed and Bea said the soft clay behind the levee should have been known to the corps.

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had a masterful knowledge and understanding of the complex and challenging geology of this region in the 1950s," and a 1958 report by two of its scientists "is a landmark exposition of these challenging foundation conditions," Seed and Bea wrote.

"The Corps should not claim that the weak foundation soil strata at the 17th Street canal breach site were unexpected, and that no prior publications would have disclosed this possibility," their statement said.

The lack of action after the 1985 test apparently "comes down to an internal schism within the Corps," Seed said. "The researchers doing the work were from the Waterways Experiment Station -- a think tank within the Corps where experimental research was done.

"Sometimes there's separation between the engineers in the research center and the working Joes in some of the districts. It wasn't all that surprising. It was just disappointing," he said.

Seed also said Monday that two other problems that could have caused the floodwall failure are still being studied by the NSF team, which won't describe those problems until their next report comes out in early May.

Love??

I have never given a show it's own post on my blog before but there comes a time when a moment on television has the effect on black people like Flava of Love. I started off really hating this show because of the way I felt it objected women and portrayed them as creatures that would do anything for cash and notoriety. How else could you explain those pretty young girls throwing themselves at a 46 year old hype man from Public Enemy? However, after a few weeks the contest became so fascinating that I couldn't turn away. Last night was the grand finale and he picked Hoops over New York. For years black men have been looking for solid evidence to back up any assertion that women could possibly be all about money and status. I am sure there were some unknown things here and there but never anything universal. Now, thanks to Flavor Flav and the 20 contestants on his show, whenever a man gets into a debate with a woman about certain issues, we can always throw Flava of Love out there and end the whole debate in victory. Not even the proudest, most liberated sister can defend this show. Someone might have tried to have an intelligent outlook on why this show took place but that all went out of the window when Hoops slipped on that gold grill, smiled and kissed Flav. I am now going find the nearest plantation and get my spot closest to the front of the field since this show knocked us all the way back to the Emancipation Proclamation. How all those activists could be protesting the Boondocks and let this show go on the whole season without boycotting VH1 is beyond me.

I haven't been blogging as much as I would like. The reason is that in order for me to sit down and write something that makes any kind of sense I need to be comfortable. My job has turned into a real busy place temporarily so there isn't allot of time to do it here. It is way to hot to type anything longer than an email in the office room at the house I am staying in. I have written allot about how hard it is to be down here in New Orleans by myself. However, it has provided one good thing and that is the ability to get my thoughts and emotions together without allot of interruption. I have discovered that people don't call me when I am here to talk about things that I don't want to always listen to. In a strange way, I am basically free to think and reflect on my own while I am here. I think that's what I need. I am not at the point where everything is in the past but the post Katrina stress is not so heavy. There are actually some days I go through without thinking about it too much. If it wasn't for my grandma, and my dog I probably wouldn't even cry anymore. Although I feel better, I am not on a mission to feel normal as quickly as possible. It's hard enough for most people to get over one thing in their life changing. Try getting used to everything being different in some way and keeping your sanity. Through it l I have managed to keep my sense of humor and charm intact. Those are the tools I will use to seek out my new sense of normalcy.

What Happened in the Past.......Stays in the Past.

On the way to work this morning I was listening to the Home Team Morning Show on 102.9. They were discussing Kelder Summer's decision to share her diaries and pictures with her new husband. All the men on the show were trying to tell her this was not a good idea. Since I haven't been called yet for my radio hosting spot, I only have this blog to issue my opinion.

I personally think that the worse kind of relationships are ones were the two people are friends first. Let me explain why. When a man and woman are friends, they start talking about their past allot. The closer that they get the more they share. Somewhere along the way things change and they start liking one another differently. Now, if a relationship starts from this friendship, don't think for one minute that you won't remember everything they have told you about the past. If you start dating a woman and she has already told you how she used to cook for her ex and serve him breakfast in bed, how are you going to feel when you can't even get her to pour the milk over your cereal? Ladies, if a man shows you pictures of he and his ex on vacation and doing all these fun things, you are going to be really pissed when after a few months the only place you have been is to the movies and the only trip you have taken is to the shelter when the hurricane was coming. It's human nature to compare yourself to the last cat.

That's why it's much better to meet someone that you like and start the game off from the beginning. Let everything remain a mystery. Don't give the person you want to be with a measuring stick or a symbol of insecurity from the beginning. What if your new woman doesn't think she is as "gifted" as the old one? What if your new boyfriend isn't as "blessed" as the old one? There is no need giving them the anmunition to feel this way. You are just asking for trouble.

Kirby Puckett

When I was a kid growing up and playing sports it was hard to find heroes that looked like I did. Being short and stocky, the only dude that fit the bill for me was Kirby Puckett. He's the reason I was a Minnesota Twins fan. He was the reason I watched and played baseball. Kirby died today of a stroke at the age of 45. I have never seen another athelete Kirby's side representing and might not see another. Rest in Peace Kirby.

Verbal Gumbo 4

Thoughts while making the 3 hour drive to work.....

I was watching Good Times this weekend and I now have at least one clear cut goal in life. My goal is ten years from now I want my children to watch that show and not be able to relate to any of those episodes like I can.

I owe Michael Brown an apology. For the last six months he was the image of all the people suffering after the flood and I wanted to whip his ass. It turns out that he told the president all along that he needed more resources but George was just too confident or inept to do anything about it. Sorry Mike.

After watching the video footage of George Bush before the storm and Kathleen Blanco during the storm, I feel like it would be perfectly fine for me to do like Martin Luther King on the Boondocks and go to Canada.

It's amazing how things piss you off when you get a little older. Ever noticed how some of your friends never go to work but keep buying new shit and you have been working two jobs since the age of 16 and still struggling? Is this hate? Do I have a right to be confused? The least they could do is share their secrets.

I have a confession.......I can't stop watching Flava of Love. The show is addictive even though its pushing black women back to the days before Harriet Tubman help give our people their free. Public Enemy is going to have to burn down a KKK rally or something to get the credibility back that Flav is washing away. We have got to keep this show going with new people. We just have to find someone as crazy and as washed up as Flav. I'm voting for Bushwick Bill from the Geto boys. There are two questions that have to be asked. The first one is why doesn't Al Sharpton protest this stuff instead of the Boondocks? The second question is what does Chuck D , Griff and Terminator X do when the show is on? How is this affecting them personally? Do they all get together in a dark room like the Drop Squad and make plans to kidnap Flav and lock him up until he is better? Some magazine needs to do a special issue on this.

Did the Pimp song really win an Oscar?
Was that really the Three-Six Mafia on stage accepting it?
Isn't the fact that a song about pimping won the Academy Award just like something out of Hollywood Shuffle?
Am I wrong for not being that proud of this achievement?

I am all for refinement and the mainstream look in a woman. However, the hood part of me still thinks there is something extra sexy about a pretty sister with one or two solid gold teeth in her mouth. She gets extra points if her name is Jackie or Antoinette. Doesn't everybody have a aunt named Jackie, Antoinette or Pat? Why did black people stop using these names?

Finally,
We all have someone from our past that we miss. They are thought about everyday and we wish they were still in our lives in some way.......................
Why is it that we never run into these people by accident? It's always the scibs, skanks, scrubs and scalywags that always seem to find us no matter how hard we try to get away. I'm talking about that brother who you run into after moving to the suburbs that just happens to get a job working on your neighbor's house. Were they put here for the sole reason of giving you incentive to keep moving? I mean, the entire ghetto was evacuated and they just happen to be passing in front of your job as you are walking out six months later. That's got to be destiny.