find the beauty in the hideous

I had considered submitting an application to be considered for the post of Boston poet laureate. And then reality sunk in. I mostly do it for fun and for myself. I often quote that Kweli line when relaying the ubiquitous way that hip-hop culture can permeate everyday life. The spoken word is no different. Life is grand if you pay a little more attention to it. Hence, the title of the this article struck a chord with me.

The Boston Globe: Poet laureate sees magic in the ordinary

See the magic in the ordinary, huh? A pretty straightforward assessment of life itself. So often we get caught up; in anything and everything. Did the roses wilt before we had a chance to stop and smell them?

The city newly named poet laureate, Sam Cornish, is new to my ears. I will have to check him out now that I know of him though. From just this little bit that I have read, I am intrigued.

The power of words - both silent and spoken - have enormous implications in our everyday lives. They can motivate, inspire, humiliate, degrade, empower, or piss off. Here's to some renewed awareness and humility to let life live.

We Be Grubbin

Around The Way Restaurant Review

I was building with my peoples recently to get my mind off of other things when the conversation turned to food. And not just any old entree either. We're talking that good ish. It's no secret that I come from a family that can throw down; in the kitchen and at the table. But it is also no secret that I spent most of my time at the table. Hence, the husky jeans of my childhood. Plus, the crew that I hung with in college became notorious for getting our grub on and showing up to potlucks with a "dish." So, let's get 2008 popping off right with a quick field trip to the local spots that you probably won't catch in Boston magazine and might be hard-pressed to catch the Phantom Gourmet lurking in the shadows. Let's start with a simple of my favorite cuisines and maybe get to some more detail a little later.

Soul Food
Ray's Soul Food Kitchen, Roxbury
Poppa B's, Dorchester
Chef Lee's, Dorchester
Mrs Jones, Dorchester
Slades, Roxbury
Packys, Roxbury

West Indian Food
Irie, Dorchester
Pepper Pot, Roxbury
Flames, Mission Hill/Mattapan
Ali's Roti, Lower Roxbury
Taste of Eden, Dorchester

Breakfast Food
Ashley's, Dorchester
Poppa B's, Dorchester
Paramount, Beacon Hill
Silver Slipper, Roxbury
S&S, Somerville
Mike's Diner, South End
The Fifties, Dedham
Brothers, Mattapan

Thai
House of Siam, South End
Siam House, Quincy
Brown Sugar, Fenway
Spice N Rice, Somerville
Wonder Spice, Jamaica Plain
Thai Village, South End
Thai Spice, West Roxbury
Bamboo, Brighton

Spanish
Eddys, Roxbury
Miami, Jamaica Plain
El Oriental de Cuba, Jamaica Plain
Merengue, Roxbury
Tapeo, Newbury St
Tacos El Charro, Jamaica Plain

Why America needs Obama

Much like real life, I tend to keep my voting preferences pretty private. I still have to go through all of the candidates and give an objectives analysis of everyone's stance on issues and how those stances align with my own. However, Obama has been on frontstreet since 04 when he ripped the stage here in the bean at the DNC. Needless to say, the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries has made shT really real. The same hope you saw in people's eyes a little over a year ago when Deval Patrick ran and won is the same hope that is starting to express itself on the faces of millions of America who had given up. My man D came across this piece and it really captures that spirit and is pretty on-point in a lot of ways. Time to get my throwback low-effort-blogging-shT on...and...COPY/PASTE. Massachusetts' primary is four weeks away on Feb 5th (register by Jan 16th). Holla.

Why America needs Obama
By Deval Patrick
The Boston Globe - January 5, 2008

I AM proud to be a Democrat, but sometimes Democratic politics can be tiresome.

For years, candidates have appealed to voters by arguing how they can win or why any Democrat would be better than any Republican. They miss the fact that voters are more interested in why Democrats should win than how we will. They mistakenly believe that discontent with Republicans will assure a Democratic victory, when in truth most of us aren't buying 100 percent of what either party is selling. So, election after election, we end up with the same old debate and commentary about competing electoral tactics rather than a vision for the future.

We have a chance this time to choose a different kind of candidate, a different kind of president.

Barack Obama is the only candidate in the field who has demonstrated the ability to unite people across differences around common cause.

From his work in Chicago neighborhoods, to the Illinois Senate, to the US Senate, to his success in campaigning for other candidates in so-called red states like Missouri, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Virginia, Obama has shown an uncommon ability to work across differences and get meaningful results. Applying that talent to a vision for a better, safer, more just, and more prosperous American future could not come a moment too soon.

We face profound challenges. The Bush administration has been ineffective in foreign policy and absent in domestic policy. While our troops are performing well abroad, their mission was poorly conceived and their exit strategy nonexistent. At home, the poor are in terrible shape and the middle class are one month away from being poor. Healthcare and college costs are getting further and further out of reach, roads and bridges are in disrepair, and a lot of the people in power have spent more time denying climate change than trying to defeat it. Everyday people are anxious, and their anxiety knows no party.

America needs Obama.

He has comprehensive plans to end the war in Iraq, provide universal healthcare, lift up schools, and to save the planet. I like many of his ideas. But frankly most candidates in the race - Democrat and Republican - have a couple of good ideas. What I want, and what I sense the American people want, is more than good policy. We want great leadership.

This is where Barack Obama rises above the field. Instead of calculation or connections, he has risen on convictions. Instead of stoking partisan anger, he calls on our common aspirations. Instead of the right and the left, he is focused on right and wrong. At a time when so many of us - Democrats, Republicans, and independents - are tired of petty division and desperate for change, Obama makes a claim on all of us to join in restoring the American dream. His leadership is about articulating a vision and motivating others to reach for it.

That is why Obama consistently polls higher with independents and Republicans than any other Democrat. That is why he is greeted by crowds made up of every kind of person, from all kinds of backgrounds. That is why he won the Iowa caucuses on Thursday. That is why he has received more than 750,000 donations, mostly from small donors, and signed up a half-million supporters from all age groups, states, races, and political affiliations - many of them involved in the process for the first time. When people try to imagine the kind of leadership they want and know we need, the image that comes to many minds is Obama.

And here is where the wise guys and gals come in. The political commentators and self-appointed experts start telling us that we can't have what we want. I heard that throughout my own campaign. I ask the people of America to do now what I asked the people of Massachusetts to do: take a chance not so much on a candidate, but on your own aspirations. If we do, then Obama wins - and so do we.

Once in a generation, a candidate comes along who is committed to more than succeeding at the partisan food fight in Washington. Once in a generation, a candidate comes along who is both book smart and street smart, who is equally at ease with the meek and the mighty - and perhaps most especially with himself. Once in a generation, we get the opportunity to take a quantum leap forward in our politics. Barack Obama is that candidate and this is our opportunity. I don't care if it's not his turn, because I know in my head and in my heart that it is his time.

Deval Patrick is governor of Massachusetts.

break you down until you're not the man you used to be

The Patriots are beasts. In slang, that's a good thing. My uncle called me to ager a gentleman's bet. He lives in Jacksonville. The Patriots are going to StompdashTouttaDaJags. I declined. Oh well. Just call me mister risk averse.

I take calculated risks. On one hand, I can b a little too spontaneous and erratic in my decision-making. Waiting until the last minute doe snot alway work out. But there are other instances where I guess you could call me methodical and organized. I can't put a finer on what the split truly is, but who cares. Life is what you make it.

We risk our short-term excitement for future happiness when there's no guarantee that the sun will continue to shine come tomorrow. Some of the risks we take are well-intentioned. Others are - simply put - bone-headed and short-sighted. But just like that sun, no one is promised tomorrow. On this night, I am reminded every year of how real the words are. I already alluded to it in a previous post, so I'll save the memory lane BS.

When I speak to youth, I always find myself picturing myself in their chairs and how my words would have rung to my ears. Would my credibility be taken as a joke if I wasn't able to connect with them? Would the teacher or whoever invited me to speak blacklist me for straying from the script. Would they intimidate me they way we used to do to wack-a$$ guest speakers who seemed to need more advising themselves? Who knows. But what I do know is that I give my all and try to follow suit in all of the many facets of my life. Sometimes it works out well and sometimes, well, it just barely works, if at all. The choices of our past help to chart our future, but that future ain't doomed by default for the bad choices we made. We gotta just roll with punches, take our lumps, and stand tall on our own two. It's a life lesson that I try to frame in a variety of ways depending on the audience (1 or 1000), but it rings true nonetheless. Keep it real (and realistic) and do you. The sun will come out.

RIP Herbert Louis Frazier, Jr. and everyone else who departed this earth before their new moon arose.

hoofing it

habitually bruised and battered
my feet are the tattered remnants
of the souls of my ancestors
scraping the earth's surface
in search of purpose and poise
yet so coy with their fetish
instead we relish the punishment we get
for tepid dreams, scorned gazes, and silent screams
i dream a world of flip-flops
so we can hip-hop to life's rhythmic pulse
entranced by the heels of our fears
and enthralled by the tears of our peers
i hear twinkle toe cheers

I'm getting looser than a crackhead's hair weave

"I'm energetic, poetic, athletic, with good credit
So just move like I'm Simon and I said it"
Grand Puba, "I Like It"

I came upon this interesting article not long ago. It was about the new revision to the credit scoring system and how the changes could possibly affect consumers. It was revealing because I, for one, thought that they were planning to completely jack things up and make it really confusing, kind of like how they did with the SATs. You know how it went from 1600 being a perfect score to 2400? Well I thought they were going to seriously throw off what an 850 used to mean. But I was wrong.

FICO scores will still range from 300 to 850 -- the higher the better -- and the model will continue to look at the same factors, including consumers' level of credit indebtedness and payment histories, length of credit histories, number of recent credit openings and inquiries, and the type of credit used, to determine scores. But the new model will more finely slice and dice the information in consumers' credit files to do a better job of separating the "good risks" from the "bad risks."

I knew nothing about credit scores coming out of high school. And I didn't really catch on to those financial workshops during freshmen year either. By sophomore year, I had three credit cards. I eventually figured it out own my own, but also to my own detriment. The youngins got it easy nowadays, yo. Next thing you know they going to be doing seminars on how to tie your shoes for graduating seniors. Anyways, I was initially worried how my score would shift. But now, I am really not that concerned in the least. I believe I have fairly frugal and conservative in monitoring my credit and doing the right things to remain in good stead. But you still need to make your your credit reports are accurate. Just holla at the three-headed monster and handle that. Plus, there are all kinds of how-to guides explaining every minute detail of what to do to get your ish straight. Not enough heads really realize the long-term impact of poor financial management and credit history. I've made a serious come-up and actually followed through on a couple of resolutions from 'old' years past. Now, if we could only start pooling our resources more and really spur some economic development and philanthropy among young black professionals, then it'd be really on an popping. Only time will tell.

make the streets run red like a stop sign

"Toys for guns, I got guns for toys
Silencers bring the heat without bringing the noise"
Talib Kweli & Cocoa Brovaz, "Gun Music"

Meet Bill Willis. Bill is a black man. Bill is a police officer. Bill is a good dude.

Suffice it to say, many black men have been almost trained since an early age to be suspicious and skeptical of any humane qualities of any given cop. No matter the officer's color, we've been spoon-fed a deep sense of mistrust and hypertension when encountering the law. But not every cop is a bad cop. I have known that my entire life. Just like people in general, you cannot immediately tell the real from the fake. It involves instinct, experience, and candor to really get to know someone. Yet, as much as some would argue this point, cops are not the primary threats they are made out to be in today's hoods.

On the other side of the tracks, when the block is hot, that means stay your a$$ inside. My man GhettoUprising and I were talking one day and we both came to the conclusion that it safer to be white in the hood, than be black. White sheets have been replaced by hoodies. It's a strange twist on a former urban myth. White folks didn't go to the hoods because they feared being assaulted or shot/stabbed or whatever. But if you really think about it, a Black man is prone to being a victim just about anywhere, and especially in his own backyard. It is a sad reality.

Nobody really wants to be shot in the hood. So Officer Willis created a documentary and it is available on YouTube in 6 parts. I encourage you to check out each and every single one of the clips when you have an hour to spare because the interviews are straightforward, the conversations full or real talk, and the topics is one that is always on my mind.

My mother came up to visit for the holidays. She got to see and hear me perform my poetry for the first time. I don't recall why or how it happened, but I admitted to her the inspiration for when I first started writing. It spanned back to my first year of college. It was around the four-year anniversary of a incident that occurred on the very street we lived on. Every year, I would get the most chilling sensations in my body that would literally shake me to the core. It was a night that left an enormous impact on my life. I just so happened to be taking an Honors English course and poetry came up and I just went at it. I have no clue where that piece is now, but it is a visual and literary reminder of the road we so often have to travel to find ourselves.

I have had a fear of being shot in the hood since that night. I have awoke sweaty and panting from dreams where I found myself sprawled out on a sidewalk as a crowd began to form. I live nonchalantly because I know how precious life is and yet, even i can take some things for granted. I am still trying to find myself and will probably forever seek my comfort zone. I can only hope that when I do leave this world, I did all that I could to make a better life for my loved ones and to positively influence the direction of others like me who started on bleak paths but ended up on solid ground without sacrificing anything but their free time. I see the God in you. Do you?

And just when you thought you strayed far away, here comes gravity to save the day

RESOLVED: work smarter so you can play harder. word.

"Instead of trying to question the unquestionable
You try to claim the unknown
The unknown claim you
Gravity is what we must submit to"
-Da Bush Babees & Mos Def, "Gravity"

Background Article: Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike

I found this article pretty interesting. It's not an unusual concept, especially for us folk of color. Just replace foreign co-worker with person of color and you see how bringing a new perspective to the table transforms the dynamics of doing things the way they've always been done. It's why some companies hire senior management and top executives from outside.

When it's time to accomplish a task, those in the know get it done the way it has always been done, stifling innovation as they barrel along the well-worn path.

zero-gravity thinkers...keep creativity and innovation on track.

When experts have to slow down and go back to basics to bring an outsider up to speed, it forces them to look at their world differently and, as a result, they come up with new solutions to old problems."

Apply such mental diversity to life and this information could prove useful at work and in your extracurricular activities as well. Start thinking like a zero-gravity thinker every now and then and see if it helps you to see the world in new ways. Step back and take a minute to reflect before immediately reacting to your environment. Won't hurt to try it once. Anyways, happy new year and do you.