I stand by what I said earlier about the game...

BUT THAT WAS FREAKING SWEEEEEEET!!

SAINTS 23 FALCONS 3

WHO'S YOUR DADDY VICK?

Not Feeling The Hype

Call me negative.

Call me pessimistic.

Call me the only person in New Orleans that is not excited about the game tonight.

I am all those things.

I am also a realist and unfazed by media generated inspiration.

I'm just keeping it real.

Honestly, if my friends were not going to be at my house watching, I probably wouldn't watch it. I'm a Saints fan since birth. I don't like the Falcons at all. I hope we win tonight. Everything else about this evening is bullshit. You can get wrapped up in the hoopla all you want. The fact of the matter is that if the same speed and effort put into bringing back Tom Benson's team (who he couldn't wait to move to San Antonio) was put into bringing back even decent surroundings and services for the citizens of the city life here would be so much more encouraging and inspiring than a football game. They were fixing the Superdome before people in New Orleans had hot water and streetlights. I wasn't thinking about the Saints during those cold showers.

I'm definitely happy that the Saints are 2-0 and are playing the Falcons.

I will be even more happy when I actually get a regular telephone and a drug store withing a mile of my house in case all the babies and elderly need medicine.

Go Saints!

Things I Thought About While Driving

Let me get this straight. When Nelly had the Tip Drill video on BET Uncut, sisters all over America was staging boycotts against his shows and writing BET to the point where I think they decided to go ahead and cancel the whole show. How could those sisters shaking their bodies be worse than Flavor of Love, a show that almost every black woman loves? Were those 3 or 4 minutes of video more damaging than 30 minutes every week of watching women throw themselves at Flav's ass just to be on TV? Al Sharpton protests the Boondocks and not this garbage? I need to know where the movement is to get this off the air. We won't even get into College Hill and what that has done.

I can’t believe William Jefferson is down here running for Congress again. I am tired of voting for black politicians just because they are black and Democrat. If George Bush weren’t a lying, election stealing, useless war-making president and most Republicans weren’t mindless clones that just go along with whatever they hear on TV, I would vote Republican just to make a statement. My city has had black democrats in charge for the last 30 years and shit has gotten worse. That's because we are enamored with the fact this person is smart and educated enough to actually run for office and not what they are going to actually do once they get in there. It makes total sense when you think about it. Black people are the only group in the country that values how much we can get and how far away we can move from our neighborhoods over anything else. That's our interpretation of the American dream. It’s the way we show we have “overcome”. It's only right that we would vote for inept politicians that used to live in our community even though he or she probably couldn't name three people there now. It’s style and presentation over substance every time. Nobody knows this more than black politicians and that’s why they don’t do anything. We are conditioned to vote for them. Ask Ray Nagin.

Finally, I read all the time about the crisis of black men. That is very real. There are a lot of brothers in trouble. Young cats are staying out all night, shooting, dying, fighting and selling drugs with no respect or concern for anything. It's a vicious cycle. In order for it to be a cycle, the people involved have to reproduce. So who's having all these crazy thugs' kids? I hope in our focus to find out what's wrong with the brothers we don't lose track of the fact there are allot of sisters who live the same kind of life. If they don't live it, they at least endorse it through their affection. I'm not trying to blame them. It’s all part of the same game. I'm just saying that if deep in the hood the valedictorian in school was a brother, and he had the five finest women in his class fighting over him because of how well he reads, every guy in the neighborhood would at least go to class and try to learn something. You have to attack a problem this big from all angles at the same time.

I am a die-hard Saints fan but I have to point out the following: We are going to have a football game Monday and still don't have a public hospital open in the city. I don’t know if I should be excited, sad, or embarrassed.

100 More Days and Still No Plan

I know for a fact there are some people from New Orleans that read this blog. Since some of you are not home yet I am going to start out this blog out with something positive. I can honestly say that there are signs of progress everywhere in the city. Even the Lower Ninth Ward has a few signs of life. Everyday there seems to be more people on the streets than the day before. The only problem with this is that no one in city government can take credit for any of it. Mayor Nagin presented his “100 Day Plan” review yesterday and I have to say I was very under whelmed with it. His major achievements were water pressure, trash pickup, and more plans to come up with plans. That seems to be his second favorite thing to do next to free vacations around the world. If this was his first 100 days being mayor or 100 days after the storm I would be willing to jump on that progress train with him. Unfortunately he’s been in charge the entire time so that makes this whole 100 day presentation a joke in my eyes. What’s even sadder and disheartening is that all the major players on the committee were the people running against him during the election so that means they obviously wouldn’t have done a much better job either. The time for planning to make other plans has got to stop. We need to know something. At this point, I will accept a bad idea as long as it has some details to it. How can we be mad about the lack of federal funding when we don’t even know what the hell we are going to spend it on? It might actually be more frustrating to have the money to fix certain things and still see it not done. It’s my fault for being naïve. When George Bush said he would do all he could to help rebuild the city, I thought for sure there was going to be a week long meeting by city leaders to at least come up with a blueprint and ballpark figure. It shouldn’t have been that difficult to know what to ask for. Katrina messed up allot of things but the infrastructure in New Orleans was not great to begin with. This is the city of a lot of old things. I refuse to believe that the mayor and city council didn’t already have certain things they wanted to do around here before Katrina. Now, you have the opportunity to name what you want and I haven’t heard a thing. That tells me that no one planned on doing anything before the storm and they are not equipped to handle what has taken place after it. The only thing left for me to say is that its going to be a damn shame when I move back into my house within the next two months and there is no grocery store, park, school, or pharmacy within walking distance. The inconvience alone makes you want to pack up and roll out of here but I’m not. Leaving only gives them the excuse for being incompetent.

Pac's Passing.....Ten Years Later

On September 13, 1996 Tupac Shakur died from gunshot wounds he had suffered days before in Las Vegas. I am finally ready to admit that he is dead now and not in Cuba. I never wanted to admit he actually got killed. The reason is that I couldn’t understand why a person with so much potential and talent could act so careless with his life. He was too smart for that. Imagine all the cool things he could have done in the last ten years. For my generation, the man is a legend. He is the poster child for not giving a damn about the system and keeping it real at all times. Did he really keep it real? Or, did he conform to the same ignorant ideas that have young brothers scattered in blood all over the streets of America? It’s amazing how ten years can change your perspective on life. At 22 years old Tupac helped validate my frustration. Now at 32 I have a different outlook on it. There is nothing more depressing than a thug that knows he doesn’t have to be but still does it.
I had a friend that reminded me of Tupac named Renaldo. He was murdered in 1993. While I don’t know exactly why he got killed, I do know that whatever the conflict was he went out like the fake soldier he thought he had to be. I’m not trying to put down my boy at all. If something ever happened when I was in high school he would jump in front a bullet for me. He was a brave kid just like Pac was. The fake part comes in because even though he knew he could have been a Rhodes Scholar if he applied himself, he chose to live the street life. That’s the same thing Pac did.
If you listen to songs today, you hear allot of blind ignorance and glorification of the most self destructive behavior. Most of these cats act like there is nothing better in the world than being stupid. I always figured the lyrics to these type of songs played to two crowds, the suburban kids that are fascinated with the part of town they are not allowed to go and the lost souls in the ghetto that don’t know any better and think this is the blueprint for life. That’s why Tupac the artist and the man have been presented the wrong way. If you go back and listen to all of his music from the beginning you will hear serious social commentary. Even when he got with Death Row and wanted to kill everybody he knew there was a better way. Tupac knew exactly why kids were led to act the way they do. He even knew what could turn that around. He rapped about it and talked about it. He just didn’t choose to live it. That makes his life kind of tragic. The black community should take Tupac and make him the poster child for what happens when a brother knows the way around the trap and still steps into it. It’s been ten years and all the things he said in song back then still make sense now. Sooner or later we as black men have to start telling ourselves that keeping it real and being a soldier is getting us nowhere but right next to Pac, Biggie, Renell and all the rest of the potential great men that died too soon.


Clifton

Cliff's Mix Tape # 1

Let's go back in the day....high school if you don't mind...........

Back in the day before CD's and MP3's, I spent my nights listening to Papa Smurf on WYLD FM 98 in New Orleans and his Mellow Moods show. The thing to do was stop at K&B on the way home and pick you up one of those 90 minute Maxwell tapes, sit by the radio all night and hit the pause button early enough to get the beginning of the song and stop it quick enough so Papa Smurf wouldn't talk through the end of the song like he always did and mess up your mix. Nothing killed the mood on a slow jam tape like the sound of the DJ's voice. Anyway, If I had to make me a fresh tape right now. This is what it would look like. Now remember, a tape only held about 15-18 songs so if I left something off go buy your own tape.

Side A.
1. Pretty Brown Eyes - Mint Condition
2. Baby I'm Ready - Gerald Levert
3. Oh Me Oh My(I'm a Fool) - Aretha Franklin
4. Send for Me - Atlantic Starr
5. Sparkle - Cameo
6. Where do we go from here - Enchantment
7. Say Yes - Floetry
8. Funny How Love Goes - Phyllis Hyman
9. Drop Down To My Knees - Elate (Does anyone from New Orleans know where I can find this song?)

Side B.
1. If This World Would Mine - Luther
2. I Love You - Lenny Williams
3. Insatiable - Prince
4. Right and a Wrong Way - Keith Sweat
5. Is It a Crime - Sade
7. Candlelight and You - Chante Moore and Keith Washington
8. Turn off the Lights - Teddy P.
9. 12 Play - R. Kelly



You can dub a copy if you want to...But don't pop my shit!

Where Would I Be?

I am sitting here tonight at 12:15 AM in a small apartment browsing the internet on my laptop.

I just looked over to my cousin who is staying with me for a few weeks until he can find a full time job and some affordable housing and asked him the following question....

Do you ever think where you would be and what you would be doing if that storm hadn't came?

It's Wednesday, so I would probably be at my house sitting in the den playing an album and getting ready to teach a training class at my old office in the Red Cross building.

Maybe I would be sitting outside smoking a cigar and giving bones to Sandy.

Maybe I would be playing a game of pool on my table to relax.

Who knows where I would be....

I know I wouldn't be here......

You refugees understand.

Goodbye Crocodile Man

I was listening to the radio this morning on the way to work and there was all kind of joking going on about the Crocodile Hunter. I will admit that getting stung by a stingray is not a common way to die. Steve did some crazy things with deadly animals so no one is surprised this happened. I still can't believe he sat in that boat surrounded by the hippos or lay in the tree with all the komodo dragons. Regardless of how he died, I have a large amount of envy for the Crocodile Hunter. There are three reasons why.

1. Here is a man that loved what he did to the point he was willing to risk his life to save animals that would have eaten him in a second. How many people in this world have that much passion and affection for any creature including humans?

2. Secondly, he died at 44 years of age. I plan on living pass my 44th birthday but I am pretty sure that with all the places he's seen and cool things he got to do that he has pretty much out lived half the population in a short amount of time. The man swam in the ocean with a pool of sharks with nothing but his khakis short set. There is no strip club road trip to beat that.

3. Third, he may have been a little crazy and kind of funny, but he had the biggest set of balls of any man on the planet bar none! There is nobody reading this that would have went to Africa and got spit on by a cobra or sat in a canoe surrounding by hippos. Who knows the number of times he had to jump on top of a crocodile's back. Not even my grandpa would have done that and he was the baddest SOB I ever met.

Rest in Peace Steve.

I hope there is a jungle in heaven full of dangerous animals just for you.

In Case You Need To Sit Down

The picture above is the space where my grandfather's home in the Lower Ninth Ward used to be. There are very few houses left in the area as it appears they are being demolished daily. I have accepted the fact that even if the people were coming home, the majority of these houses were going to have to be torn down regardless. I only have one question and I think I speak for the majority of residents and families from this area.

When you guys tear down these houses and memories, why in the hell do you leave the steps and porches?

There is lot after lot of nothing but dirt and steps. I know those big ass machines can break up that concrete and haul that away too. I hope you are not just fu@#ing with everybody. Take the steps too please. We don't need to be reminded where the front door was. We already know.

Thank You

It's hard to lose all of your shit and not question yourself and your existence. For the last 365 days I have thought long and hard about whether anything makes sense. I had what I like to call the "Katrina Grand Slam". I lost a loved one, my pets, my jeep, all of my possessions and my family got separated. It's amazing that I could have went to every single event for any type of loss and sat in the victim's section. I tried to find the remedy to turn the corner on my depression and feeling of low self worth. Nothing seem to do it. Then the "anniversary" came along. Between yesterday and today I have had about 50 phone calls, emails and text messages from co-workers, ex-coworkers, colleagues, friends, ex girlfriends, ex supervisors, and even some people that just read my blog from time to time. They were all worried about me and trying to see if I was ok. Some of them were people I haven't spoken with in months.

You know......

After all the stuff I experienced and lost...

My people reminded me that I ain't such a bad dude after all.

Thank You

Ray Goes Off Again

If you want to read exactly what Mayor Nagin said about The World Trade Center you can click here to read it.

I don't want anyone that normally reads this blog to get alarmed..

I am about to defend Ray Nagin....sort of.....

He shouldn't have said what he said about the "hole in the ground". That was wrong and insensitive because so many people died that day. However, I do understand the point he was trying to make. It's been 5 years since 9/11 and lots of people that were affected have yet to recover. They also haven't broken ground on any of the new plans that were made for that spot.
So why does everyone think New Orleans is supposed to look like a paradise by now? Everyone knows he wasn't trying to put down anything to do with 9/11. It's just the only thing in recent American history he could compare Katrina to. If Nagin would have paused a minute and thought about it, I think he would have said something like this.

"Look, I know we don't have a clear plan in place yet but does has nothing to do with receiving money to clean up things. That would have to be done anyway. Secondly, it's pretty hard to get certain things done because the population has been displaced to the point where we don't know the location of half of the property owners. Third, where have all you assholes been to show that we haven't got the money to do everything we need and put some pressure on the feds? You ought to be giving credit to the local citizens for making this place look half way clean because no one in Washington has sent the calvary in to help."

The question that I want someone to answer is this....Am I not a damn American? My grandfather fought in the Pacific in WWII. My dad went to Vietnam. I know for a fact that three people within blocks of the house where I grew up have died in Iraq and a guy I went to high school with has also. All of my family and friends pay taxes. Why are the people with the money taking their sweet ass time with the funding? Afterall, the feds built the levees that messed up everything anyway. We are not looking for a handout, we are looking for the government to correct their mistake just like the people in New York were looking for after the FEDS let those bastards get on the plane and crash them into the towers. As an American citizen, I have had to sit back and listen to hundreds of people discuss the faith of my city like it is no more than a pimple on the ass of American society. Some of these people have insulted our culture, our personality, our intelligence, and our families and it's been ok to do because we are just the poor coon asses sitting by the bayou. Now, our crazy mayor gets baited into making one inappropriate comment out of emotion about the mighty New York City and all of sudden everyone from New Orleans is in the Taliban.

God Bless America!!!

A Lesson From Tiger

I’ve never been a big golf fan. Mostly because in my youth I viewed it as an elitist sport that no one from my neighborhood could afford to play. Then came Tiger Woods. Every time he is playing on the weekend I watch the tournament. I don’t watch for the golf though. I watch for the message in the story. I watch for the legacy of black fathers put on display at it’s best. I watch because even though I am just a working class brother, I totally understand Tiger’s sense of responsibility. Any black man with any admiration and respect for his daddy should watch and take pride in it too. See, every single weekend in front of millions of people around the world Tiger Woods shows his love for his daddy by the way he carries himself. Earl Woods spent years with his son practicing how to hit golf balls but during that time he also got him prepared to deal with the fact that whatever he accomplished on the course could be wiped out if he didn’t conduct himself in the right way. He had to make sure that he was such a man of character that people in country clubs that wouldn’t let his daddy take him to practice as a child would have no choice but to accept him and marvel at his ability. That’s what a man like that can give you. That’s what my daddy gave me. Honestly, there aren’t too many guys from my neighborhood that could deal with the different types of people I deal with on a day to day basis. Now I know it’s a partnership between parents and I am not trying to minimize what mama does. Most mamas do everything. I give all the love and respect to mom but I have to take time and give daddy his props. Black daddies hardly ever get all the butt kissing they deserve. They were interviewing Tiger Sunday between holes during the tournament and he said something that was very true. He said that everything his daddy said turned out to be right even if he didn’t think so when he said it. There are no truer words than that. For a father/son relationship there are three stages. The first stage is when you are a little boy and think everything he does or says is the greatest thing in the world. There’s almost a superhero quality to your daddy. The second stage is your teens and early 20’s when you just want him to leave you alone and look the other way so you can get into some things you shouldn’t. This is the time your daddy usually thinks something is wrong with you. Hopefully, if things go right you can get to the third stage which is when all the stuff he says starts to happen and fall into place. Dad goes back to being a genius and you both have a respect for one another as men. If you can give your son that then you should feel pretty good as a man. Here’s to all the brothers out there that have that connection.

Not A Day For Rhetoric

This has nothing to do with all the people who tried to help evacuees after the storm. I will always remember anyone who did anything to rescue and help. This is about all the people who are about to fake the funk in the next week leading to the anniversary. I was not going to write anything about the Katrina anniversary because I didn’t feel the need to give the event that kind of power and status. However, I went to a meeting this morning and read some things that aggravated me. After this, I will not act like Katrina is something I need to mark on my calendar every year.

I don't want to sound ungrateful or bitter with what I am about to say. We are coming up on the anniversary of Katrina in 11 days. There will be all kinds of media and leaders coming here to "celebrate" the anniversary of a naturally disaster that changed the lives of thousands of people. We live in a society today where most stories are blown out of proportion or sensationalized by the media. There has never been a story like Katrina that has actually happened inside of America so the media went crazy with it. When the media takes whole of a story like this you can rest assured that two things would happen. Conservatives will try to turn the victims into the guilty to hide their own incompetence and liberals will run down and take pictures with the victims to show their compassion.This is the reason why I am asking Governor Blanco, George Bush, Jesse Jackson, Minister Farrakhan, Al Sharpton and any other member of any organization or political group that had nothing to do with or live in New Orleans before the storm. I have to explain why I feel that way. For years I have followed the news and kept up with what's going on around the country. Before Katrina, New Orleans was a forgotten place on the map except for the few days out of the year for Mardi Gras. It was almost like we were our own country. I have witnessed some of the worst disenfranchisement in the world take place in the black community here BEFORE THE STORM. I never saw any of the people that will be here next week come around to help us out of it. What you saw in the Superdome was the end result of neglect not the beginning. As my friend Sherri once told me months before the storm, New Orleans was a city that you could drive through and visibly see racism and lack of opportunity. Then came Katrina and everybody had an opinion on why we were so poor and underprivileged. We were the poster children for public education and urban flight gone wrong. Even the beloved Lower Ninth Ward where I grew up was "the den of crime and poverty" as a Dallas newspaper described it. Then the media frenzy died down and they all disappeared again. We went back to being the crazy niggas that like to fight and dance in the street. Jesse walked everybody across the Crescent City Connection so we could vote. He should have gone to Washington D.C after that to find out where the housing money is or why some people live in houses without water. No one has been here to help us speed up the rebuilding process. No one has been here to find out why these young brothers are still killing one another. No one has been here to see why FEMA is being allowed to treat people like criminals when it was there office that messed up in the first place. Now you want to come down to sing a few songs and make a speech on August 29. Keep your speeches and your songs and help us get a good plan for the future. Help us make sure that the Corp of Engineers explain why the levees broke only on the New Orleans side of the system, fixes the problem correctly and pays for what it caused. If you can't do any of that then don't come down here for one day to get in the next Ebony magazine. Many New Orleans residents are still living the storm a year later. The last thing I think we need is a bunch of empty speechless and marches by some so-called leaders who are going to go back to their own cities on August 30 and leave us stuck. I may dog Mayor Nagin sometimes, but at least he was here. That’s the only way you are allowed to come here that day and talk trash.

Please tell me if I am wrong………….

Blogging to Keep My Job

Saying it here so I don't say it out loud...............

The restroom door is directly across the hall from me. It is shared by a few of the other agencies and doctors in this building. Some guy went in there this morning and sounded like he was bombing Lebanon. Can we get this room soundproofed? And does everyone hear me when I am in there?

In every office there is the person that wants to put a smart ass sign up for something that adults should already know. Over the newly installed kitchen sink is a sign that reads "Please wash your dishes. This ain't ya Mama's house." I know I am supposed to wash my bowl jackass.

Never ever ever send me an email with bold print and things underlined like I don't understand what I need to do especially if I am not the one that made the mistake. Look, I am young, gifted, and black. I already know the damn procedures. If I didn't these people wouldn't have given me a fake title and a set of keys to the storage room. You just don't get that being dumb.

Today is the very last day that I let my one leg director tell strangers that I lost all of my shit in Katrina. I'm not the lab rat or the refugee quota filler. I was here before all of that. The next time she does it I am going to kick one of her crutches.

Every time someone buys a get well card for a co-worker, they pass it around the office for everyone to sign. For some reason I always get the card last. You know what happens when you get it last? Everyone else has already used all the common cliches for well wishes and now you have to think of some original corny shit that sounds stupid, or you can just sign your name and look like you didn't care as much as everyone else. The only thing I came up with today was "To a super dude"..............I wanted to punch myself in the face.

And just because I am a husky dude does not mean that I want to move every piece of furniture in the office. Mike is 100lbs bigger than me and the last time we moved a desk all he did was slide the damn chair out of the way. My name ain't Kunta.

Scaring my way to Support George

I don't consider myself to be the biggest patriot especially since I saw people in government looking like a deer in headlights while my New Orleans people were stuck down here in dirty water. I am an American though and I try my best to support the troops, pay taxes, work hard and all that good stuff. I have been following politics since I was about 10 years old. What's going on right now is something I have never seen before. From my viewpoint, George Bush sucks as a president. I honestly believe that his foreign policy of not acknowledging anyone that he considers to be a terrorist supporter has made the situation worse in the Middle East. When you ignore crazy people they tend to do something for you to acknowledge them. That's why N Korea, Syria and Iran talk so much trash all the time. Their egos are big and they want attention. Bill Clinton used to talk to Yassir Arafat all the time just so the Palestinians would feel they were being taken seriously and maintain some calm. We went to Iraq to free a country that shows it's gratitude by burning American Flags and setting bombs for the soldiers. They act like they miss Sadaam. We also let Israel bomb the hell out of Lebanon and kill hundreds of innocent people just to chase Hezbollah and I am not even sure they weakened them at all. I won't mention the price of gas, the unemployment rate and we still haven't caught Bin Laden.

Here is my problem. Every time we get to the point where most Americans can agree that he sucks, some group of Islamic extremists get caught planning to blow up airplanes or some buildings and you almost have to get behind Bush enough to at least make sure these assholes don't get to do anything here. You can't even catch a plane with toothpaste and Afro Sheen in your carry-on bag. Pretty soon we will have to travel buck naked. Al Queda and all the other wannabe groups have done more for the Republican Party in this country than anyone. Americans can agree that gas is too high. We all don't like the fact that we call certain "local" companies and end up talking to somebody in Bombay India but I would rather talk to some Indian guy about my computer all day than get blown up on a plane headed to my vacation. Bush might be stupid but I don't think he would blow me up? If none of the Democrats can show they can lower gas prices, plus kick a little ass when needed we are going to end up with another four years of the same shit.

No Sympathy for Maurice

The popular belief is that young black atheletes are signed to these big colleges and make millions for the institution while getting nothing in return. That might be true in some cases but it's very difficult for me to feel sorry for Maurice Clarette. Here is a young man that was so highly touted as a football player coming out of high school in Ohio. He had people all around him that were willing to help him out and take care of him. In many cases they did. He could have had that whole state at his feet for a few years after winning the championship. All he had to do was take a few classes in P.E. and hang out until he was old enough to hit the draft. What does this dummy do? He gets arrested, starts all kinds of trouble and tires to sue the mighty NFL to get into the draft early. It's been downhill since then. Even after he messed up and pissed off the league, he was drafted in the third round by the Denver Broncos. How did he take advantage of his second chance? He came in overweight and was drinking Grey Goose in the locker room before practice. Now he's been arrested for driving with guns, a machette, and wearing a vest like he's Tupac.

It's hard to get out the hood under normal circumstances. It takes hard work, discipline and a little luck. The best thing that could happen to you is that you can be born with the physical gifts to play a sport that rich people love enough to pay you for performing. Don't think for one minute that cats like Shaq, Lebron, or T.O. don't count their blessings and realize that they could have easily been on a job interview somewhere trying to get an entry level position or one of these corners playing life or death games like so many other brothers. They were born with the golden bodies to take an entire family out of poverty. That's why I have no remorse, sympathy or pity for the fools who don't have enough sense to take advantage of the oppurtunity that they were blessed to have. I'm sure Jesse Jackson will go down to Ohio and stand by his side talking about how all of this happen because the NFL wouldn't take him a few years ago. Hell, if every black man that wanted to get drafted went crazy there really wouldn't be any of us left on the street. All of this is happening because he's a dumb nigga who didn't take advantage of the numerous chances the man gave to him. Regular cats don't get as many chances to come up big. These fools get many and still don't get it right.

Keep On Blogging

This blog is dedicated to Another Conflict Theorist and anybody else who takes the time to keep blogging.

Lately I haven’t been feeling like blogging that much. I even had a friend question whether I was just doing it as a way to voice my anger from Katrina. I have not been posting that much and I have been trying my best not to dwell on New Orleans too much. After reading the last post from Conflict Theorist I realized that I am not the only one that feels a little tired with the whole process.
Back in 2004 before the storm, MySpace and Yahoo 360, I was bored at work one day and started reading Funk Digital. I don’t even remember how I found it but I started clicking on the links section and I realized that the websites I was looking at were actually created by regular people just like who felt they had something to say. Since I always thought I could express myself pretty good I decided to start one of my own. I got hooked on it. I even got a few friends to start one of their own. I used to blog about anything and everything. Sometimes I would just put up a list of songs I was feeling at the time. Lately I have been waiting around for something that inspires me enough to write a long detailed post about something deep. I figured that was the only way for people to keep reading. I thought about it and I don’t think that’s true. When you have a blog like this you can’t judge it by comments or anything because its not part of a network of people like MySpace where you just add people randomly. This site is for me to express how I feel about what’s going on around me. I can’t worry about how many hits I have or comments because the fact is that I will never get as many as some body with pictures of celebrities or big booties. That’s the reason I am taking the hits counter down and I am going back to my old template because I love it. If you write about the world from your perspective you will find that there are thousands of people out there that share the same views you do. They might not all pull up your page and make a comment but you might inspire them to share a part of their own mind and then we can learn from one another. At the least you might get a good debate out of the deal.
I have been online in one way or another for years now and to this day I have not found a commercial site that expresses what I think as a young working/middle class black man today. The only way I found anything of substance was when the blogger phenomenon took off. It’s an unedited way for our generation to talk about all the things that mainstream media won’t publish. So with that in mind, I am about to start getting back to saying how I feel about all kinds of shit. It may only be a post about how driving through these potholes in New Orleans are like a real life video game. I hope you all keep writing too.

P.S.
Yolanda needs to write something.

Devastation Cracks Me Up!

Nagin drops plans for fireworks, comedy on Katrina anniversary

11:12 AM CDT on Thursday, August 3, 2006

WWLTV.com

Mayor Nagin has dropped plans to include a fireworks display and a comedy show as part of the memorial slated for the anniversary of Katrina.

WWL-TV

Mayor Ray Nagin

The plans, which were slammed by some critics, were simply part of a total package that Nagin said would have included somber reflection and a celebration of the cityÂ’s rebirth.

“The events came through a planning session,” he said. “This is New Orleans. We mourn funerals and at the end of the funeral we have a second line.”

Full plans for the one-year anniversary are still in the works but are scheduled to include a memorial mass and some citywide bell ringing.

I don't know why everyone down here is upset about our mayor planning a comedy show and fireworks to celebrate the worst day in most of our lives. I sit around with my friends and we laugh hysterically everyday at the thought of losing everything. Personally, when I think of my grandmother dying, my family homes being destroyed along with all my possessions, and my dog...I PISS ON MYSELF WITH LAUGHTER! Maybe I should call my sister who I haven't seen this year after the state fired her and all the other teachers like low wage immigrant workers. I might call my 87 year old grandmother who has to start over after the house her husband built for her 50 years ago was blown away so she can laugh too. Our mayor and his administration are so out of touch with the average citizen. They should have sent in the troops to remove their ass. We are in trouble.

What about the Levee Board and the Corps

Turnpike chairman out after Big Dig death

The gentleman above is Mr. Matthew Amorello. He is the former chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. He stepped down today as the chairman before a hearing to remove him after one of the Big Dig Tunnels collapsed killing 39-year-old Milena Del Valle . I respect Mr. Amorello and the state of Massachusetts for at least attempting to show their citizens that they have their best interest at heart.
I live in Louisiana. Last year on August 29, 2005 over 1000 people died when the levees in the area collapse. 49 of those people have still not been identified. As of now, no one from the New Orleans Levee Board, the Corps of Engineers, or any member of the state or local government has stepped down or been run out of office. Our mayor even got re-elected. No one has even had a hearing locally about any officials. It's good to know that somewhere in this country their is accountability. It's just too bad that I happen to live in a place where there is none.

Midnight Basketball Won't Keep Brothers From Fouling Out

The city of New Orleans is about to restart the midnight basketball program for young men ages 17-21. This is an effort to reduce the number of young kids on the streets and replace their guns with basketballs. The mayor, city council, and other community leaders believe that this will be a big step in reducing the amount of young men wandering around with nothing to do.
I have been trying my best to be an optimist these days. I am sure that this new program will go a long way to helping a few kids have something to do at night. However, we had midnight basketball before and there was no reduction in crime. The program will serve 180 kids. If you subtract them from the hundreds that have no direction, you will reduce crime by about .00005%. The reason why is simple. Crime and drug abuse is so much a part of the inner city that programs like midnight basketball and nights out against crime have no effect on the overall condition of the areas where most of the crime is happening. In New Orleans, drugs and crime are popular occupations. Many families are clothed and fed based on this revenue stream. That means it's a cultural thing. The kids and adults in this sub-culture are so out of touch that they are not going to play in this league. Most of them won't even know about it. The starting age for the league is 17-21. As a community, we are losing our children from the ages of 4-12. We all know the causes so I won't get into that. I do think there is a better way to fight crime then playing basketball. Instead of spending money on basketball for young adults, we should be trying to establish the following things to effectively reduce crime.

1. Equal education opportunities for inner city youth - This includes infrastructure and teachers. Suburban school districts recruit all the qualified teachers because they can offer more money and a better environment.
2. Mentoring programs for young men ages 5-10 - Because if they get to their teens without anyone that cares about them it's really too late.
3. Alternative education programs with an emphasis on job training. - Why are we still teaching our kids like everyone is going to go to college? Let some of these young brothers learn welding or construction in high school and give him a tool to earn a living.
4. Early childhood development programs for the kids and their mothers.- If mama can't read then the baby won't either.
5. Recreational programs for all neighborhoods- It can't cost that much to make sure that every park is at least clean and the grass is cut.

Of course, I am no expert. There are people who have way more education than me making these decisions. They are probably more qualified than I am. The only thing I have to go on is living in the same community for 32 years and watching it slowly turn into a place with little emphasis on youth development, education or family values. I have watched all that neglect morph into what we have today. If that counts for anything then I guess I am qualified. I hope the league does well. I might even go to a game or two. I just hope that my beloved city leaders have something else in mind to change some of the things going on down here other than basketball and the National Guard.