Category: Writing

Beginning at the Beginning… (Or the beginning of the End, to hear the Mayans tell it)

So, you’re a philosopher?

Actually, no. I am an intermittent blogger and non-custodial father…BUT…

Yes. I think very deeply. (Paraphrased from the opening to My Philosophy, 1988)

Now that we have puttered around and disposed of the 2011 holiday season, it is Tuesday January 3, 2012. Today is the first functional day of the new year. Today is the day that you are supposed to get down to whatever the hell it is you said you were going to do differently from last year.

If you are like me (and despite my incessant desire to proclaim some kind of Singular mode of humanity…you are more like me than either of us care to admit), You made a conscious or not so conscious effort to put off whatever sea change you sought to make in your life until the day when society deemed that life return to normal.

And At the dawn…Here we are. So…what did I decide?

  1. Writers write.

    Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there. – Thomas Berger

    I realized that I spend far more time in 2011 telling people I was a writer and explaining why it was I wasn’t writing than I spent actually writing. After Last year’s pitiful performance…I don’t really deserve the title. I am officially on the writer’s hot seat. When Ed Werder is done chronicling the annual underachievement of the Dallas Cowboys he will stand next to the Wendy’s in front of my Building and discuss the tenuous status of my “writer” title.

    I say all that to say the following:

    If I cannot accomplish significant improvement in my productivity within the next week, I will stop calling myself a writer. If you know me well…I expect you to hold me to that.

  2. Writers read.

    If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write. -Stephen King

    I spend the preponderance of my time Reading. As someone who has left the driving to someone else, I spend most of my commutes and my non working time reading the thoughts, facts, and opinions of others, typically in the form of short bursts of text. The reality is, no matter how many of those short bursts of text a single person or a group of people string together, the ability to focus and follow an extended narrative suffers.

    Your experience may differ…but I can say with certainty that my ability to read is suffering.

    This is not to say your ability to read long form communication must be negatively affected by this change in societal communication, this is to say that my reading, and by extension of my writing. This too, must change.

And so…with that…I give you nominal, yet substantive change. It’s what is hot in the streets in 2012.

Mail Bonding

I wrote my 3.0 a letter last week.  It was for his 13th birthday.  Which would be cool if his birthday was in December.

His Birthday is October 14.

I was homeless on October 14, and writing a letter to my son was the exact last thing  I could do at the time. I called and we had the usual conversation on his mother’s cell phone.

“How are you How is school having fun playing football I am proud of you youre getting so big I am sorry I couldn’t make it to visit like I said I would  I am making changes to my life to be in a better place to be closer to you guys please take care of each other and look out for your cousin and your mother I love you so much. ”

Regardless of how up or down my life has been, the conversations with my sons have always been the same.

For my son’s 13th Birthday, I wrote a lot closer to what I felt.

I welcomed him to his first steps of manhood and proceeded to start apologizing for my failures.

That wasn’t smart.  Upon reading the letter, 3.0 was very distraught, feeling as though the pain I was feeling was at his hand, even as I took pains to exonerate them both  (him and his brother) from blame.

Ex#1 was very evenhanded in encouraging me to continue to write to him, but not to go so hard on myself, as it was obvious that any pain I felt hurts 3.0 just as much.

The darndest thing happened Come Monday when I called them for Christmas.

I didn’t talk to him about the letter..i just talked to him

We just talked…about whatever. Music, Gifts, Family, His favorite Basketball player (Derrick Rose) the way his Mother and Stepfather ridicule 3.1 for Picking up and putting down Football teams to support. (He is a Saints fan, largely because no one will allow him to change teams for the 4th time in 7 years)

From a painful letter…a new path was forged.  My birthday isn’t until June, But this is the best present I have gotten in years.

I ain’t got all damn day. No one Does.

I wonder how some of y’all do it.

I got idols role models in this game who bring it on the regular,  Posting regularly with insights and genius day after day.

Between my sons and the plantation and the wife, not to mention my own focus issues, I do well to get one or two real posts out a week.

It isn’t that I don’t have the time, necessarily.

but by the time I get my reading and my usual online banking and bill paying done, I am way past the time regular folk should be online.

The wife says to me that I am addicted and that something needs to change.

I don’t know that I need to start hitting meetings or anything like but something is going to have to give.

The wife has decided that I spend every non working waking hour online.

Of course, this is an exaggeration, but even Barack Obama will tell you that life is much more about what people THINK is than what actually is.

So, watch with amazement while I try to be online less and get more done online.

*sucks teeth and logs off*

Home.

One of Kanye’s best.  What possessed him to redo and recycle it with that Coldplay cat, is beyond me.

I cannot tell you how glad I am to be home.  Vacations are all well and good…but it is time to make the donuts

Got a whole lotta stuff going on I wanna write about and hopefully I can get to it before it goes stale.  Nothing worse than writing a stale post.

The boys are sleeping on the couch until I can get the beds delivered and put together.  They are excited to be here, but not nearly as much as I am excited to have them here, if only for a month.

My Resolution Will Not be Mainstream

My Resolution will not be Mainstream with props/apologies to Gil Scott-Heron


You will not be able to find opinions like this on DailyKos or RedState

YouTube is much too full of Big 10 coaches cranking that souljah boy and teenagers channeling their inner Strokers contractor

You can find my resolution with your Iphone or your sidekick, but it won’t be on anyone’s top 8 on MySpace or Facebook

Because my resolution will not be mainstream

My Resolution will not be on YouTube…unless I fall onstage or end up beefing with Cam or Fiddy or see those girls and that cup

The Resolution won’t be protested by PETA or a bunch of folk in black, although I just might end up with a noose around my neck, which is probably better than being slammed to the ground or electrocuted.

The Resolution won’t be calling one garden tools or offering discourse on hair texture, but the resolution will call a spade a spade and a nigga a nigga The Resolution will leave the real N-Word to Duane Chapman, since he likes to say it around the house. And tell Mr. O’Reilly that the resolution wants more iced tea, motherfucker.

The Resolution won’t be a six part reality show hosted by Bob Barker, who seems to have some time on his hands, and it damn sure wont be hosted by Drew Carey, who has put a great deal of effort in looking as uncomfortable as humanly possible on the Price is Right

The resolution has a wide stance but the resolution won’t be talking to strangers. The resolution is not gay, has never been gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The resolution may be straight, but it still isn’t mainstream.

The resolution isn’t about testing fate; when you skate on offing two white folk sometimes you need to let shit slide.

The resolution isn’t going out like any of the following:

Scooter Libby

Roger Clemens

Mike Nifong

Duane Chapman

Britney Spears

The Law firm of Lohan, Hilton and Richie

The resolution isn’t interested in allowing Nashua or Des Moines determine his future, although it doesnt seem to be much of a choice.

The resolution will not be mainstream

The resolution hasn’t been endorsed by Oprah or Chuck Norris and it doesn’t feature a verse by Lil Wayne or a hook by T-Pain

The resolution ain’t gonna crank dat or pop lock and drop it. The resolution does need a cape, though.

The resolution won’t star Will Smith or McLovin,

The resolution isn’t going to Bust shots in Blacksburg, Omaha, Lancaster, or Houston.

They tried to make the resolution go to rehab and it said no, no, no.

The resolution refuses to sit on the runway for 10 hours.

The resolution won’t make it rain, no matter how bad the drought is, and while the resolution got Love for Al Gore, it is only going to be so green.

The resolution will not be mainstream.

The resolution starts tomorrow.


Let us begin…

Freedom is a road seldom travelled by the multitude. -Fredrick Douglass

I am a pen with no hand attached.

A series of quotes with no attribution.

Once upon a time I ran the web with my identity in full bloom. Anyone who wanted to know about me knew all about me. I blogged and blogged to my hearts content. I talked about my family, about my friends, where I come from, where I live currently. I thought I was free. I viewed transparency as freedom.

But that would make Frederick Douglass a liar.

Freedom is speaking your heart without fear. I look back on the 25,000 words that I wrote over the past 22 months and I saw the editing. I saw a man who chose his words carefully.

I emerge from my cocoon protected by a thin veil of anonymity.

That is more for those around me than for me.

I emerge from my cocoon matured in the need and purpose of my position.

I am unafraid.

I am unencumbered.

I am free.

Today is not the first day of the rest of my life.

TODAY is the first day of my LIFE

—————-
Now playing: KRS-One – My Philosophy
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