I submitted my letter...

...of resignation. Ain't that some sh!t?! So anyways, it's official, dunny. Your boy is about to step his game up to the next level on some real sh!t. Ahhh....the exhilarating feeling of being carefree for next 2 weeks with less worries. I still have to figure out how to package all that junk I have amassed in my cubicle into a neat pile that could sit at my crib. That's close to impossible right now, but where there's a will, there's a way. Not much else goin on really. Just in a state of euphoria after clinching one job and being able to let go of another. Hey...at least I'm lucky...with stability on both sides of the fence.

Brother to the Night

The show at the Lizard Lounge last night was good. I knew Reggie Gibson was ill and he really did his thing as the featured poet. The illest part is how he was performing one of his pieces and one woman asked if all of his stuff was original material. Perplexed, I said 'I would hope so." So anyways, this one particular poem sounds familiar because it actually is "Brother to the Night," the poem that Larenz Tate used in the movie Love Jones as "A Blues For Nina."

Capping the night off were hours of casual chilling in the West End (downtown Boston) with some friends, both old and new. Note to self: Never tell a group of complete strangers that your first orgasm was at a swimming pool in the Bronx when you were 10 years old. Second note to self: If MH says, "Don't step up," please don't step up. Feisty ain't the word, son.

And lastly, too bad that my man JimmyMo is leaving town so soon. I'm going to have to bring him out as much as possible during these last 3 weeks of his Boston residency. If only he linked up earlier, we could have tried t make his stay here much more enjoyable. But how fly is it that he's a dentist? That's some ill shT. And definitely a testament to his discipline. That has to be the best pick-up line ever; So what do you do for a living? "I do root canals." Classic.

Rain Sucks

No b-ball this weekend. No cookouts this weekend. Only breakfast food, back aches, and jetlag. But the Lizard Lounge should be straight. Time to get back into swing of things. But I need to find a worthy piece to read first; not to mention rummage through all my junk in the basement. Hopefully, I won't smell like moth balls and died underwear hanging from a line when I'm done. Only time will tell...

I Brought the Sun Back

Got the noggin blessed at Serious Styles. It was 80+ degrees today after near-hurricane weather for the last 2 weeks. But somehow it started raining again. Go figure. And speaking of weith sh!t, can I get a site visit, hit, or at least one muthafuqin comment. Is anyone out there. I feel like paying for advertising to get somebody to read this sh!t. El Nino is a mutha...

It's Over - My Arm/Back/Neck Hurts

Friday is here and it's the final countdown to my departure from Colorado Springs and return to the BEAN! I'm heated that my flight won't get in until after midnight. I'll be missing the graduation celebration for my man Mike "the Mayor of Roxbury" Curry. He's one of the folks responsible for Afrocentrics from back in the day.

Anyways, I'm sitting here watching Ted Koppel interview Michael Eric Dyson and Shelby Steele discussion Bill Cosby's speech on Black responsibility. Wasn't that a few months ago? Maybe this is a re-run. Still mad at myself for missing most of Dyson's speech at the NSBE National Convention in March. The image to the right should conjure up recollections of the late eighties. I know I was in 5th grade rocking several medallions, a high top fade, and Martin/Malcolm/Mandela tees. But I think I took it to a whole 'notha level. I'll be vague about it for now, but let's just say my arm is numb.

In the slow nights I've spent here, I've come across a few sites I want to bookmark, so now is the best time as any to link to 'em.

• OverHeardInNewYork: a collection of sayings that random eavesdroppers hears during the daily grind on the streets of NYC.
• Movie Pooper: There are plenty of movies that I just plain will not go to the theatre to see or may never actually see. But sometime you do just want to know how it ended. In 3 sentences, this site summarizes the last few moments and plot twisters of over a thousand movies.
• Wax Facts Press: An indie outlet with a very interesting book, Rakim Told Me, by Brian Coleman
• A Salue to Weed Carriers: another blogspot blog, this particular one tracing the Jaz-O/Jay-Z history. Great thoughts.
• Kay Konnect: A sister with a great head on her shoulders and a deep, strong love for the music and culture. Kay is the Editor in Chief of Mixtape Magazine. Here's an article on her from Urban Connects. Hopefully, that Mixtape Mag site will be launched soon enough.
  

As much as I've been jocking Common's BE lately, how about some garbage rap to bring some balance. I've heard Will Smith's latest single a few time and it's a no-go or in other words - hated it - like Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier used to do one In Living Color. Peep a brief dis review article from the Village Voice here.
And lastly, I'm somewhat stuck between elation and lament when I hear that both MOP and Mobb Deep are close to inking deals with G-Unit. Yeah...word yo.....that Gorilla Unit. I kinda felt the same way when the Roc-a-fella deal went down for MOP a few years ago. Pure skepticism. If they do get down, I wonder how it would work out. Neither group is down for backing down. The stick to their craft with a simple array of enthusiasm, consistency, and discipline that I just love. I would not like it one bit if 50's recent bitchy ways start to rub off. But I'm confident in my people. Billy Danze and Fizzy Womack (L'il Fame) don't play that shit, dun. But it would sure bring up some interesting complexities. Both groups have laced tracks with the whole LOX crew (Ya'll Don't Wanna), the same one 50 started acting shady with becase Jada did a song with Ja Rule. How gay is that? Hell...QB's finest even did it up with Benzino(Bang Ta Dis, No Parts of Us). He needs to realize that there are too many degrees of separation when you're fucking with real music. Keep it up and someone hungrier will eat him up and bruise his image just like he did to Ja. All credibility lost and he tries to salvage it with trying to bribe the streets that he's still got his ear there by bringing in ghetto heroes. It's just something really fishy about it that's not sitting right in my stomach and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Snapshot

a glimpse of Colorado...now that I'm finally about to bounce back to the Bean

Missed a Day

OH well F it. I had to take a break to really let the official version of BE sink in and marinate in my mind. The album is ridiculously hot beyond belief. My only lament is that with the seemign hype, it still didn't seem to get pub in mass media like it should've. For instace, the Boston Globe ran a revie of 50's Massacre the day it came out. But no similar service for Common. You listening, Greg Lee?

On another note, Jin is done rapping. He even wrote a song about it. Wanna hear it, here it go.

Mos Def decided to weigh in his thoughts on Assata Shakur. Conversely, he also had in interview in Time. Yeah, word, THAT Time magazine.

Nice article on 9th Wonder. He'll get his shine on.

A little snippet of an interview with Ghostface and puts shit very bluntly about radio-friendliness.

Amped

No big update here. Monday was dumb busy. But I am extremely amped for a couple of reasons. 1) I get to go home on Friday and 2) Boot Camp Clik is coming to Boston on June 11th! Gametime!

Literacy

Went to Denver and Boulder to check out the scene. The Interpreter is one damn good movie. And I can't wait to get home. Peep the list.

• Financial Literacy: A judge and the Boston Bar Association have designed a financial literacy curriculum for high schoolers.
• Economic Literacy: Real Estate Gap
• Reading Literacy: Colorado Academic Standards
• Good Music Literacy: XXL Magazine puts BE on the pedestal it so rightfully deserves.
• Computer Literacy: Old article from the 80's that is still relevant
  

Conscious brothers have sex too

My peoples at HipHopDX finally reviewed BE. The review is a bit off-base, but overall offers another interesting perspective of the sure-shot classic. I'm feelinng the interview-esque way in which it was written. Peep Common's thoguhts on the video for GO.

The first, being with a girl I’d been with before and I would have good sex with. Then another woman I was digging that was open and wanted to be with another girl and me too. What man has not wanted to live out that fantasy? I thought to myself, please let this be sexy but beautiful. I wanted it to be something my daughter could watch. I don’t want it to be something I’m not. I don’t want it to be something I can’t show my daughter and talk to her about. I can’t just put anything out there to sell records.

ON a sadder not, a moment of silence for Justo Faison, pioneer of the mixtape game, who passed away last weekend in a car accident.

We not all gangstas and we not all conscious

Check out this dope Common interview from Soundslam. Chronic Magazine provides a nice, succinct album review. Given how The Source had its origins in Boston, I'm feeling how the Chicago-based Seminal is making headway. They're giving me ideas...

Voting is as essential as washing your ass in the morning

Great to see this Hip-Hop Summit action Network doing its thing this summer with a serie sof Hip-Hop Summit of Financial Empowerment. If only they would go to Boston or Chucktown.

On another note, Chuck D dropped some serious knowledge at Laey College in California at the thir annual Malcolm X Consciousness Conference. Peep these words:

"Twenty years ago, you had gang-bangers and athletes and college students hanging out together on the corners or in barber shops in the hood and if somebody said something really ignorant - like 'the sky is purple,' or something like that - everybody would tell him to shut up. And if he got belligerent, he might even get an asswhipping. But nowadays, if someone says something ignorant on the corner, all the smart people shut up and don't challenge him, because they're afraid he might go to his car and come back with a 9 millimeter and wipe out the corner. So in the black neighborhoods, ignorance is allowed to go unchallenged, while intelligence has to keep quieter and quieter. That's one of the reasons why you're seeing so much ignorance coming out of our communities."

We got arms but won't reach for the skies

I hope there are more songs not on the bootleg circuit that will appear on the album. It is truly a phenomenal, epiphany-inducing body of art. I took the liberty of transcribing the lyrics below to the short title-track jump-off, BE. Shit is real, son.

I want to be as free as the spirits of those who left
I'm talking Malcom, Coltrane, my man Yusef
Through death through conception
New breath and resurrection
For moms, new steps in her direction
In the right way
Told inside is where the fight lay
And everything a nigga do may not be what he might say
Chicago nights stay, stay on the mind
But I write many lives and lay on these lines
Wave the signs of the times
Many say the grind's on the mind
Shorties blunted-eyed and everyone wonderin' where I'm
Bush pushing lies, killers immortalized
We got arms but won't reach for the skies
Waiting for the Lord to rise
I look into my daughter's eyes
And realize that I'ma learn through her
The Messiah, might even return through her
If I'ma do it, I gotta change the world through her
Furs and a Benz, gramps wantin 'em
Demons and old friends, pops they hauntin' him
The chosen one from the land of the frozen sun
When drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones
Walk like warriors, we were never told to run
Explored the world to return to where my soul begun
Never looking back or too far in front of me
The present is a gift
and I just wanna BE

Good Music

I'll admit to hating on Kanye's lyrical stylings, but I will fess up and profess the great deal of admiration I have for the brother to do his own thing in his own way. As I get older, my musical tasts haven't necessarily matured but rather i'm looking for more ways to connect my interest with what I do.

more random points:

• Here's a nice opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal, entitled, Heedful Hip Hop.
• The Fulton Street Fish Market on South Street in NYC may be moving to POETREE, a Chicago-based group is doing their thing and I'm feeling that. I need to startw riting and performing again.

more jacked words:

We got arms but we won't reach for the skies
Waiting for the Lord to rise
I look into my daughter's eyes
And realize that I'ma learn through her
The Messiah, might even return through her
If I'ma do it, I gotta change the world through her

And it appears that I will be staying here over the weekend and through next week. No Miami for me. May as well...I need some time to get my mind right, find some peace and relaxation, shop, and figure out the next move. And I really, really do not like the prospect of having to rent again. F that...I'm commited that it won't be for too long. I like being a homeowner.

Life's Metaphors...

Life's ironies never seem to show their face at the righ time, huh? I've been hungering for Common's latest album, BE, to drop because it's as if my life has been relived through his words. It's that real. It's odd when your illest connection to a subliminal world is through the thoughts of an artist - and stranger. I guess that's the true testament of an artform; its ability to speak to you in a toungue native to your ears and quench a thirst for things best left for others to say. It's hard to not want to live a glamarous life and still feel good at the end of day. It's as though I'm in a constant struggle of avoiding life's obstacles, when being inundated with plenty stress at the same time. You win some and you lose some, but one day it'll all make sense, right? Who knows. Plagiarism is wrong, but it's free dammit. If only I could lift verses and pen my own autobiogrpahy, I'd have a clearer sense of what my true purpose is. Or maybe my purpose is to be that soul searcher seeking truth and stumbling upon my fate as each passing day unravels. I do need to take more time for myself to just reflect on things. But then even such reflection can make you feel guilty. How can I be trying to make myself happy, when it in some way, shape, or form it will adversely affect someone else? Patience may be a virtue, but frustration is a mutha. I guess I'll just have to start jacking those lines and ghostwrite my own melodrama to try and make sense of the madness.

• Though I know to grow a nigga gotta learn to let go
• I thought y'all knew, every year I grew, I'm still growin
• Catchin the future, don't know who threw the past
• I'm hard to read like graffiti so it don't phase me
• My days be spent, behind dream's tent
• Some let the block block they mind if they could see what I see
• I don't draw with em, cause they was born to trace
• Havin a child shouldn't have to bring out the man in me
• Eventually if it was meant to be, then it would be because we related, physically and mentally

Just Landed

Missed out on keeping my streak of posts going, but got a lot of work done on Friday, drove back to Denver, flew back home, chilled, played some ball, and noe I'm back in Colorado Springs. Whew....back to work.

Going Slow

Things are moving slowly here in Colorado. The weather is decent, but definitely seems to be much more unpredictable than New England weather...believe it or not. I'm traumatized right now because it seem as though Dave Chappelle really don lost his damn mind, literally. And speaking of losing one's damn mind, it seems that the state of New Jersey is in that same boat, having named Assata Shakur as a fucking terrorist. Are you kidding me? Castro rebuked their calls for turning her over and the state troopers got real heated at that, given how much we adore Castro already. Here's an open letter from Shakur.

I Whirlwind Through Cities

No real theme for this post. That was the song on a track by Afu-Ra. Pretty decent rapper. He was on Jeru's first album. Anyways, I'm back in Colorado, but this in another city on a different project. I am in Colorado Springs providing technical support my company's Integrated Curriculum, Learning, and Instructional Management System, which is known as LearningSynergy. This is the gig where I'm likely to be here for another 2 weeks. We'll see how things go.

Thw whirlwind part comes from the fact that I was originally scheduled to fly out on Wednesday morning, but a Tuesday morning call changed all that. So I ended up flying out from Boston at 9:30 pm and arriving at Denver at midnight. Then, got in the rental whip and drove 80 miles to Colorado Springs. So basically, I went to sleep at 4am my normal local time and 2am Colorado Springs local time. I need a nap, a massage, and a big dinner. I'm beat, yo.

As for life. I stopped by the Project Hip-Hop office on Tuesday to say what up. I met some more of the youth members and went with them and Mariama over to Fenway HS to meet more of them as they had a meeting to plan the fundraising event taking place tomorrow. If only I could convince some of my crew to go in my place. Time to clean out the closet. I also ventured over to TechBoston and did the do. So hopefully I'll get some good news next Tuesday. Cross your fingers. I seriously need the change. Is that I deserve more than I'm currently getting or that I want more? Who knows. But hey seasons change and so do people. I'll let life come to me and deal with its blows. One day it'll all make sense I guess. Holla.

What was I eating?

Oh my. So basically I've always been 5'11" and 180 pounds. Ever since 9th or 10th grade, that's just how it's been. It was just a part of life. Well, I just hit the brick wall. I went to the gym on Sunday (NU's Marino Center) and played some ball and worked out afterwards. As I was leaving, I figured I hop on the scale to see what's up. It's not like I ever jump on the damn thing EVER so it was high time I make sure I was still 180, right? Wrong, MFer. DEAD WRONG! How did fCuk did I become 220 pounds?! When did this shit happen? This year is already sucking to an extreme and this shIt is not helping my MFing self-esteem right now. Fuck you, Flames. F this. Sit-up city, here I come. This shit has got to go. I'm fine with being heavier, but it's gotta be solid, nahmean? The l'il shorty is flying out in a few hours, so I'll have plenty of time to work my a$$ out i his absence. Time to get cracking. Gotta get this sihT looking right for the cruise, nahmean.

Legal Sea Foods has tech jobs

How fly would that be? Lobster, shrimp, and flow charts. Go figure. But on the real, yo. I need to get the hell out of here. TechBoston holla'd back. Holla.

Happy Mother's Day

Shout-out to all the moms' out there. Keep doing your thing. Not many updates here. The Celtics didn't make it out of the first round of the playoffs and naturally, folks will start to pop ish about how Pierce and Walker are garbage. Say what you want, but they still come through and are well-rounded players in my opinion. Somebody needs to get rid of Danny Ainge's garbage ass though. Oh well...till next year.

The Greatest Story Never Told

On eof my favorite hip-hop sites, href="http://www.hiphopdx.com>HipHopDX.com, featured a great article from former Source music editor Reginald C. Dennis on his time sat the Source and some reallt commentary about Dave Mays, the work environment, and the ongoing headache otherwise known as Benzino. I love pure hip-hop journalism.

Waiting

For Common's BE to drop. For Chemistry, 9th Wonder and Buckshot's collabortaion to drop. For Styles P's album to drop this summer.

Hip-Hop Appreciation Week is from May 15-22. Unfortunately, I may be in Colorado. Great luck, huh?

The Winds Are Blowing

Participating in the Community Enrichment Fellows Program has so far proven to be the smartest move I've made in a while. The speakers are all thorougly engaging, the content on-point, and the promise for tomorrow brighter than before the day began. Tonight, we had both Ron Homer and Frank Keith come through and share their experiences and thoughts on finance, economic development, core values, and ethics. Very ill perspectives.

A Penny's worth of thoughts

So the city of Boston settled with the Snelgrove family, another child was handcuffed, work is seemingly getting better, but the drive still sucks. The DT boards are still down, but we've had YahooGroups hold us down in the meantime. And I'm seriously considering getting a different whip with these ridiculous gas prices. The hybrid Honda Accord is looking real fly right now. I'm sure I cold smoke it out and throw my bazooka in the back for a nice, comfy feel.

Next Lifetime

When it rains, it pours. It's amazing how appropos that catch phrase can be at times. I won't even bother going into details because it's not like anyone reads this blog yet. But the irony in life of how you'r never able to get what you want until it's no longer available can really be frustrating to no end.

I wonder how some people are able to choose between a good-paying salary and trading that in for the unknown prosperity or inevitable risk of consulting or a non-profit gig? If only there were a gut-check checklist that spits out an answer like those old magic 8-ball fortune teller toys.