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"Don't wake me 'til I land where they barely understand what I speak but they nod to my beats ... they clap, they applaud. They love me, my God."
~Lupe the Fiasco
Sometimes...
... I feel like my senses are not enough. I hold at bay a sudden urge to climb into a flower and absorb this. What a wonderful world we live in!
"Pacquiao, Pacquiao! Philippines, Philippines!"
So many wonderful things about this fight. Namely the fact that Mosley actually claims he will have Pacquiao KO'd in the 1st round (how embarrassing). Also that fact that Pacquiao has plans to sing at a concert post fight (seriously). He's really gonna be up for that after (possibly) 12 rounds? Is this guy human?
For more on this...
Suspended
Sleep becomes Misfortune.
Now I lay here smiling about imagined future events. Long awaited happy days. I mean real, dream-fulfilling situations.
"This is exactly where I am supposed to be," I wake up thinking aloud in this bursting spring orchard. It's better than fireworks. Beauty that massages the scum of winter out of my brain.
Wind, sprinting over the quivering grass, pick up a petal then pick me up along with these infinitesimal specks!
Spring, precisely flowering in mysterious spirals, I want you!
$1,000 on the bridge card. Yes. I can the buy grapefruits and lemons I hope to grow one day.
It feels so good to emerge, momentarily if at all, from learning's smokey stew.
Lasers
Home girl not tryna be a ho even tho she on the pole. Can she get a second chance? _____NOOOOOO!!!______
....Be a jerk to them jerks, yeah, that'll make'em hurt!
Huh?
....Be a jerk to them jerks, yeah, that'll make'em hurt!
Huh?
Money and Art
Let's face it: even Edgar Allen was Po'. Andy Warhol was rich though, y'all. I suggest you sell out if you tryna get that cash.
WRITERS, READ THIS
WRITERS, READ THIS
Misfortune is wearing pajamas
Misfortune is wearing pajamas
a two-piece set, flannel.
Remedy this long grind
So tired.
Misfortune is shuffling around in slippers
fuzzy, indulgent.
Dim lights. Teeth-brushing lull; removing slime of laborious events, residue of the grease-for-lunch routine.
Sick feeling. Penetrating exhaustion.
But what a feat has been accomplished! Rest is required.
Long, satisfied sigh. Bed.
But before sinking in, one more effort: click off the last light.
Disable the alarm.
Sleep on, Dreamless.
This is the stuff comedies are made of. Christ 2.0
So much for the Rastafarian prophecy, right? Hear me out.
Long story short, this Jamaican dude, Marcus Garvey, says "Okay all black people need to go back to Africa, you're free now, this isn't home, go back home where you can be free for real."
Then Garvey dude says "look to the East for Christ 2.0." Then this Selassie dude comes to power in the East, Ethiopia that is, and Garvey's followers (and Garvey at first) pluck him up as the second coming. A cult is developed.
Seven years later as WWII creeps up, Garvey dude thinks he's made a mistake and writes the scathing essay posted below. But toooo late!!! The cult has also blossomed out in popularity.
Meanwhile, Garvey's hard fought "Back to Africa movement" is growing. (Google it to find out more)
Damn near thirty years after that, Bob Marley gets on the Rasta bandwagon and next thing you know the cult keeps on a'growin' and to Garvey's horror, his whole life of hard work to create a great black exodus back to Africa is smashed to pieces (in a sense) as this new "God" visits Jamaica to a bunch of bowing people and Selassie aka Ras Tafarai says, "Yo, don't listen to that Garvey guy. Don't go back to Africa, it's no piece of cake there. Find your freedom here in the west first."
Meanwhile Selassie, who claims he's a direct descendant of King Solomon, does not confirm or deny that he is the Lord Jesus kind of Kings 2.0. He does give Rasta cult "Dignitaries a gold medal (see video from earlier post)
Then Garvey moves to England amid controversy (Not Africa BTW), Selassie's the only one who really goes "Back to Africa."
Now, years later, a bunch of long haired confused people roam the earth deeming themselves "Rastafarian."
I swear I did not make this up. Real talk.
Oh the irony. Life is ridiculous. Gotta laugh sometimes.
Editorial by Marcus Garvey in the Black Man - London, March/April 1937
THE FAILURE OF HAILE SELASSIE AS EMPEROR
When the facts of history are written Haile Selassie of Abyssinia will go down as a great coward who ran away from his country to save his skin and left the millions of his countrymen to struggle through a terrible war that he brought upon them because of his political ignorance and his racial disloyalty.
It is a pity that a man of the limited intellectual calibre and weak political character like Haile Selassie became Emperor of Abyssinia at so crucial a time in the political history of the world.....
...Every Negro who is proud of his race must be ashamed of the way in which Haile Selassie surrendered himself to the white wolves of Europe. These statements may be considered very severe, and in fact, they are. We could have been otherwise apologetic and sympathetic, but that would have been only if we were dealing with a Coptic Priest or a Religious Monk and not a[n] Emperor who held and presided over the political trust of twelve million people of his own country, and the political destiny of the entire Negro race.
Damn son!!!! Get 'im!!!! The essay goes on and on but you get the point. Oh this kiills me!! My side is hurting. LOL
Haile Selassie visits Jamaica 1966
I'll refrain from spewing my opinion and just let you watch this interesting video on Haile Selassie's visit to Jamaica in 1966.
Now or never?
"Grasp your chance with resolute trust.
Take occasion by the hair
For, once involved in the affair,
You carry on because you must."
Take occasion by the hair
For, once involved in the affair,
You carry on because you must."
Self absorbed with my own self. Damn shame.
I feel ____ because I am ______. I want you to ______ so that I can ____ and then I will_____ . That's why I am _____. They ______ _______ to me and I __________________ because ______ _______. I I didn't _______ then maybe I'd _______.
I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, ME, ME, MEMEMEMEMEMEEMEME Me me meme
I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, ME, ME, MEMEMEMEMEMEEMEME Me me meme
Dream Girls -- True Hollywood Story
Few people realize that the DREAMGIRLS movie many know and love today is NOT the first time the hit Broadway play was adapted for the silver screen.
In 1994, a smaller, and ultimately ill-fated version was produced by actor/director Mario Van Peebles. This is the story of that movie...and why you've never seen it.
In 1994, a smaller, and ultimately ill-fated version was produced by actor/director Mario Van Peebles. This is the story of that movie...and why you've never seen it.
Detroit Police Chief Godbee is level-headed, versatile
I honestly didn't think I'd say this, but Detroit's newest police chief Ralph Godbee isn't the empty suit/place holder I thought he would be. In fact, from my brief experience with him at a town hall style meeting, he's quite the opposite.
At a downtown business community event Thursday evening put on by the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC) and the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) Godbee showed genuine concern. The event was a meet and greet with the chief of police held in response to a growing concern among business owners and residents operating and living on Broadway Street in Downtown Detroit.
The key concerns among loft residents and business owners in the Broadway Business District were break ins and gunshots fired after clubs let out at 2:00 am. Business owners and new residents coming to the city have been discouraged by late night gunfire and robberies.
"The good news is the economy in downtown Detroit is growing. The bad news is the economy in downtown Detroit is growing," Godbee told business owners and residents at the meeting, held in an industrial themed loft on Broadway owned by developer Mike Mercier.
Godbee was realistic, yet hopeful. "There are not enough police officers to make the city of Detroit safe," he said. "The real goal is to look at systemic issues. We're very good at what we do, but we don't know it all."
He suggested piloting a new crime-stopping technology starting downtown that can triagulate a gunshot's location in ten seconds within two square miles of an incident.
While Godbee was reluctant to say that downtown communities received more police attention than the often more violent neighborhoods, he was frank about downtown's importance to the economic health of Detroit. "You gotta be careful how you say this. We could have five shootings on the east side ... but one (shooting) downtown and it would wipe us off the map." He added, "the downtown area is the safest place in the city."
In a mixed crowd of white and black business owners, the issue of race and culture was a tense undercurrent. Clubs letting out proceeded by gunfire is happening primarily at clubs where the clientele is predominantly young black people and the few who bring a gun ruin it for the rest.
The chief of police was instated to the post last summer after a controversial firing of former police chief Warren Evans.
In person, Godbee seemed relatable, making a special effort to stay true to himself while retaining professional composure.
"I like Lil' Wayne. I do. I like Weezy. I just don't like the decibels my daughter plays him at," he said with a smile, also noting that the key to solving this problem is to be proactive, not reactionary. "We can't wait 'til the next WJLB Wax Tax n' Dre party to figure this out."
Among attendees was nightclub owner and former Detroit city council candidate Jai-Lee Dearing whose clientele briefly became a hot point in the conversation on late night gunplay. Godbee held played it cool, staying neutral and welcomed more community meetings on the topic.
"This is the first of many," he said.
Good quote:
Self-respect cannot be hunted. It cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that, knowing the good, we have done it; knowing the beautiful, we have served it; knowing the truth, we have spoken it.
Showing Love
Before I write all these words down
There are two things that I must claim:
First, through all the joy and pain
I follow love that knows no bounds.
Second, I have reclusive moods
Where I seek solace in my world:
The placid portrait of a girl
Engulfed in passing solitude.
Among the many things I wish
Is one thing I have yet to learn
Though all my love, respect you've earned
I fail to show beyond a smile
Through little jolts and ins and outs
I do admit my silence shows:
The tension on the phone line grows
Collecting clouds and dust of doubt.
Yet that will never signify
That I lost sight of what is dear
In fact, I hold you all too near
But lack the voice to show this by.
If only I could shout and sing
To all those which our love is one:
“You are the sunshine in my sun
And nights, in fact, eternal shades,
That block me from these blinding days,
Until this strange, long, race is run!”
And all the space that spans between
The point of sun and point of shade
A complex gradient is made:
Where vision hears what sound has seen.
I know now that my heart beats clear
To those whose love I know so well
Sometimes I doubt if words could tell;
And if not words then, somehow, tears.
And that is why I wrote this poem:
To write the words I do not speak
And while I know my love you keep
Just know you make my earth a home.
So, these thoughts passed from mind to pen,
And pen to paper, sheet by sheet
The mind and the conjunctions meet
Then rupture pods of thought within.
I feel I could go on and on,
A long, prolific thinking spree
This pen ignites a flame in me
Enforcing these existent bonds.
For now, it seems it's time for bed
The lights out on the street are dimmed
Even all the lights within
Are sleepy, like the light they shed.
And me, I am not one to speak
The lights are vibrant next to I,
With fuzzy hair and hollow eyes
Writing these words my pen-tip seeks
And sealing them onto the page
Not an angry rant, or rage
But something rather powerful
I use words, tiny power-tools
To craft the feelings of a fool
And fool the feelings I engage.
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