I don’t mind labels. I actually like them. A label is just a sticker. It can be removed. It can be moved around. It can stay on indefinitely. Labels and categories are only measures of identification. They make things easier to sort through, to know what might occur. A label is not a scarlet letter branded into your flesh, an Auschwitz tattoo pricked into your arm. People get riled up, proclaiming, “I hate labels!” or “Don’t put me in a category.” Bro, you’re a human being, there’s no singular definition. You’re not pigeonholed or limited to just one label for the rest of your life, sister. Only time…
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disambiguation: black is a color; Black is culture, history, music
I’ve been sitting on this piece for quite some time. It’s witnessed two Black History Months pass by, actually. After the resurgence of racial upheaval and tensions (e.g. Trayvon Martin), racist ideologies and commentary spewed forth, tipped over by yesterday’s Gawker post regarding the outrage of the Hunger Games’ casting of Black folks for—get this—Black characters, a piece indicative of a large slice of mainstream America, its pop culture and racist attitudes, i figured it was about time i published this. Let’s put this out there from the jump: black is a color; Black is an embodiment of culture, of history, of music—a people. Black people: we are…
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Love to travel? Love me? Support Nomad•ness Travel Tribe Kickstarter
I love to travel. Being the ever curious one, a veritable sponge, i’ve had the bug since i was a child—always wanting to see the sites and distant lands i read about, whether fantasical or real, didn’t matter. As a kid i wasn’t presented with the opportunity to travel outside of the Tri-State often. Before i was 19 the farthest i traveled that i can recall was to DC. I believe i went once to North Carolina with my god mother, but i vaguely remember it, i may even be making it up. I didn’t get on my first plane until i was 23—i went to Lexington, Kentucky…
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marriage, oh boy; or is it, oh girl? ::shrugs::
It’s funny the way life works: growing up i learned about marriage through broken relationships, innumerable constant failed attempts—one after another—with every pairing i witnessed my family’s and friends’ of the family, and not to downplay the backdrop of the vast populace around me, or on the tube or covering magazines or spread eagle on billboards, attempts at society’s golden hallmark when it comes to courting and pairing up, procreating and rearing. The participating folks never hesitated to think about what their actions, what their example would do/still does in the eyes of the to-come or the babies growing, following footsteps laid in sand turned to concrete or…
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of muses, of lovers, friends and others
In case yet said along parchment rooftops cursive or ruled awnings bold: Women are God’s gifts laid upon Earth’s mantled soul. Born in whispers A muse is more than mere influences. Existing in a word Living off sentences Birthing paragraphs silent Raising chapters alone Destroyer of books Standing atop volumes Queen of sounds Empress of visions Goddess of gods Breaker of hearts. She is The ultimate lover. ~m.j Conceived as prose, transformed into verse, the above consciousness streamed via pen dripping sloppily jotted chicken scratch soon becoming livelihoods, usually uttered using different words over libations to best friends female—my internal love glowing in need of…
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i don’t like phone calls
What people don’t know or if they already know, don’t seem to fully get: i don’t like phone calls. Not any. Well, okay, let me explain that a little bit: i don’t like unsolicited phone calls. I prefer phone calls treated as if they were emails: i want to know the subject beforehand. I want to know what i’m getting into before i get on the phone. It’s like reading a book without glancing at the back or inside cover, watching a movie without seeing the trailer or given a blurb of what’s (or who’s! lol) about to go down. I don’t like phone calls because they tend…
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gotta gotta gotta write write write
Remembering why i blog, or really revisiting it, i’m determined to actually put my foot forward and to blog more often. This really has more to do with looking around at my peers or even strangers i stumble past on the Interwebs than it does with fulfilling some personal mantra. I see ‘em post all the time, even if a lot of it is drivel notwithstanding since it’s still being put out there for eyes other than its originator, and i (of course) compare my paltry offerings to the writing world, look aghast then cringe and berate myself (if only i had the means of self-flogging…lol…joshing, only joshing). I…
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Valentine’s Day: no, i’m not a fan
Typical, a man is not a fan of Valentine’s Day. An often heard and witnessed harangue, the woe is me charade: a man who has to spend buttloads of cash and oodles of time with a significant other or sometimes-jump-off-turned-friend-with-benefits who may very well be wifey material but you haven’t given much thought, all for the prospect of some carnal pleasure. But, more importantly, it’s truly for evading the days-, weeks-, months- or maybe year-long (because they have a mulligan once another 365 days passes) pissy mood their said woman (or multiple women for the enterprising debonair male) will surely be in if a particular ovaries-toting human does…
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Ayn Rand’s Night of January 16th
Last night i caught a showing of a play performed on campus: Ayn Rand’s The Night of January 16th. “Your life, your achievements, your happiness, your person are of paramount importance. Live up to your highest vision of yourself no matter what the circumstances you might encounter. An exalted view of self-esteem is a man’s most admirable quality.” I loved the line, “I’m an atheist—there’s no use for that [the Bible]” when Miss Karen Andre is sworn in to tell the “whole truth…” so help her God. The above was the start of a 365 Days post (day 011) from a little over a year ago. I’m really not sure how i…
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stream of consciousness #0013: all i do
For years my tears carried screams muffled by showered water, “I am not my father. I am not him.” I hated my given for years, not changing till i met poetry, spoken words from a friend familiar. Even still, i refuse to use my sur; i see little equity in it, this name more reminder of ancestral tarnish and pain, fatherly shadows, nothing to build upon. I’ve embraced a duality of innumerable voices bouncing around: pain & joy, happiness & sullen ways, morose visions holding sunshine thoughts. It’s unsettling at times if allowed to creep, spill over and to be soaked up paper towel like. All i do…
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Neither confession nor indictment
I want this to be neither confession nor indictment but more of a review, maybe a prospectus. So, 2011 was a tempest of a year for me. Fitting, I guess, that “tempest” has been used to describe me by a person whose life i may have inadvertently thrown for a loop; though it would be an echoed action since they had torn up mine, my head, lashed out and scarred my heart years prior. However, i’m not truly one for revenge, even if incidental. Anyway, after the ravaging typhoon remark, i began to think and see myself more as an innocuous plague: i understand i can wreck havoc…
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treating every encounter as if memoir material
After a recent introduction to a new clique (or maybe just a roughshod gathering of friends and friends of friends), i had a feeling, a slight tugging, that this was part of something bigger, that this Brooklyn night will end up years later across ruled parchment. Possibly the names will be changed, or, remaining intact, will only exist in a systrophic litany without fat, no delicacies for the reader to nosh upon, compelled to research each entry themselves; either way, my existence present at and involvement in said night of board games shared with a gaggle of artists, creatives, musicians, lawyers, sandmen—all of us world travelers—might be documented.…
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