FILLER ISSUE

TACTICAL

With all my self-consideration I neglected to mention that my sister who is in the Army is currently at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in training to be a Drill Sergeant!!  She got through to her twin, the sister that I walked down the aisle (either divorce or getting one... for sure they are separated and she is... je ne sais quoi) who messaged me up and passed her number on for me to call her.

I was very excited to hear her news.  I remember how her marriage stumbled around in the early years and I gave her consul, to build her resolve and to guide her through to better choices.  To her credit, she seems to have taken much of my advice and put it to work, though saying that may be a bit much.  But were I to talk about what I told her and where she is at in her life now, you would prolly see where I influenced her in some of her choices.

Whether or not she told her twin her news, I did not ask.  I could only imagine that she wanted to share her good news with me because she KNEW how happy I would be for her.  After we caught up and she told me how she and her husband plan to open a restaurant (maybe in the Emerald City) now that he is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef after her retirement, and she is nearing completion on her BA in Business Administration, I thought briefly of the grudges we’ve held against one another in adulthood and how we have fallen out of contact.  Then I wished that our Mother was here on the plane to share in her achievements.  And that is why I wondered if she told her twin or not about her achievement.

Because it was kind of surreptitious the way that she got through to me, I wondered if she SPECIFICALLY wanted me to know.  While I am sure that her sisters would feign happiness for her, she KNEW that I would be genuinely happy for her and proud as well.  Since she doesn’t have a Mother to have that super-mega parental pride for her, I guess it came down to me... and that is what I feel for her.  Whether or not she kept the advice I gave her close in her thoughts or not, I am happy for her and her family.  

BUT SINCE HER LIFE DOES REFLECT THE “WHAT IF” TO MY ADVICE BEING RIGHT FOR HER...

Who was there at the world’s beginning?  Who will be there at its end??  Ken posted a quote that mostly is given to Plato that I have always measured people by... “Be kind.  For everyone you meet is facing a hard battle.”  Being in my “life of solitude”, I don’t often come across the shared miseries of the aimless or self-centered.  Nearly everyone who I am acquainted with here in town is either striving to “be”, achieving and growing, or there and more than maintaining, to their best life (and yes, this does include ‘braska and Princess... I am humbled to be among their intimate company).  I have yet to encounter the pathologies that I found in both “the provincial town” and the Motor, which is why in spite of my affections for both towns (and Tee Jay... don’t forget her as well) that I had to leave.

I am not going to bash my hometown... my desire to be “from” Detroit is more innate than anything else, though the motivation to find a place that is not as purposely formidable than my hometown is readily understandable.  Opportunity is choked in Michigan, and that it is now a right-to-work state saddens me deeply.  From where the idea of a middle class one sprang, led by Henry Ford, who believed in paying men a decent wage for their toils, to the beginning of the “Wal-Martization” of the pay scale, Michigan has in my mind been the scale-tipper in the regression of wages.  It will be several generations, IF EVER, there will be a middle class as people in my age group and older knew it.  *sigh*Hopefully there will be a Morpheus to prophecy the necessary coming of Neo, that is, if there will ever be a free society again...

So I am in Omaha.  Having mentioned that I have created policy to allow for a possible relationship beyond the one that I had set myself on the path for, I will be “open for love” as it were, but still as discriminating and circumspect as ever.  One of the reasons is for the incredible vibe that I got from the people from the very start to this leg of my life’s race.  This is a place where people work hard and by all appearances lives hard by the “good community” creed.  Families live here, couples are free to walk starry-eyed in the public squares, and while there is a measure of foreboding here at night, it is still a far cry from something like Southeast DC!!

I don’t know how much more “social” I plan to be... one of the reasons that I wonder is that given the “trajectory of my orbit” in the Big O, I will likely go out with more White women than African-American women, should I get active when I am out.  It would not be out of preference for Euro-American women or anything like that, but in the 2-plus years I have been here I have not made the acquaintance of many in my own ethnic group.  And the lines that separate people are pretty clear and I don’t live on “our side” of town.

There are some AA’s who would say that I should make more of an effort to find love with a sister, and at one time in my life I would have agreed with them.  Sister girl’s are very put upon by the brothers, and there is an unmistakable debt that brothers collectively owe them.  Yet the social dynamic in America has incontrovertibly changed from what it once was a decade ago even, and we have gone from miscegenation to same-sex marriage in this country during my lifetime, and here in Omaha, those boundaries that still do exist are thinned to the point of transparency.  Besides, as an “apex predator”, I will hunt where the prey is plentiful...

Ooh... I shouldn’t have put it quite like that... I am done with contributing to the objectification of women, certainly on an intellectual, conscious level.  What I meant to say is that my approach is such that I vibe those who find me attractive and gauge their interest as I am comparing them to the “mental daguerreotype” of what I like in a potential partner.  I cannot help WHO I attract as neither can I change what I am attracted to!  Although there have been exceptions in the persons of Nixxie and the SFC, I like what I like..!

SPEAKING OF NIXXIE...
Talked to her this week.  Sometimes we have nice, friendly conversations, back to when we first met.  Not that they are notable, as we have almost always gotten along, but this one was more on the level of closeness like the conversations where we crossed over from “friends” to “lovers” (FYI- this brother is so not into the “with benefits” tag), and I sort of wondered what was her deal?  Not that my radar registered a “bogey” or anything, but I do know when a person is lonely.  And if this is my own ego rambling on, then as soon as someone starts to talk and call me as their friend on a regular basis...

Anywho, we chatted and I let her know that my share of KT’s prom dress will be in the mail this Friday.  No, I did not share with her the current flux in my relationship with the Princess (if I did, you think she had jokes BEFORE about me and my “big girl” affections..!) but still, she was very engaging.  I wondered, as I often do about her, if we could have raised the same KT had we stayed together... then, reality smacks me upside the head twice, for the two girls whose Mom’s were nearly the death of me!!  And even still, I wonder...

IS IT ABOUT SHADES OF GREY OR IMAGES SILHOUETTED IN BLACK AND WHITE

BEFORE I GET INTO RAMBLING

I love my life story and all the characters who've played a part. All the good guys and even the villains. I didn't do things the way most people would have done them, but I did them the right way for me. What a great life with so many great people along the way. I'm a lucky man. Tito, bring me a tissue.

That is something that I got from one of my Face Book friends, a boxing writer who I met when I was a pugilist.  I think it plays nicely with the Camus quote I used in my previous entry.  There is not one person in my life that I would have wanted to be edited out for any reason, and that includes my “wonderful” starter wife.  Now I am not going to say that I have always felt that way towards her but I can admit that I have strove to that end for my entire adulthood… the essence of this has been ever encapsulated in the phrase, “You should have done better in high school,” which I feel covers nearly all of the regrets that a person carries with them as an adult.

 Online I have met a lot of wonderful people in my life, just as the writer that I mentioned from whom I borrowed this “status update” from, and almost as amazingly, I have met people from online who are just as cool as they come across in person as they do here in the internet.  Ken, or better known as Bucko to some of you, is tops among them.  The comment that he left was touching and it has been heartfelt!!  Thanks for your kind words and I want you to know that they are very much appreciated.

COMBAT SALACIOUS REMOVAL (No, I don’t know what that means only that I think that it is “kewl”!)

The purpose behind my Face Book account has changed since I first opened it.  And now from having a specific reason behind it, it is a place where I frequently post and share racy content, interspersed with the odd salient prose or observation about current events.  When my girlfriend asked to “friend” me, I had to tell her that I post NC-17 in between the thoughtful and even insightful stuff that comes to mind, so that if she had any family, friends or work related folks who might see my ramblings and be bothered then she should not subscribe to my feed.  She said that she could hang, so I have continued with my innuendo-laced participation on Face Book.  Additionally, I explained to her that if anything, she can look at my postings as truly intimate notes to her, as I am a cat who lives on the frontier of his sexuality, which is part of my “being forward” principle to living.  Rather than bother her, it acts as a spark to see some of the things I have shared on my page, as we both have that knowledge of each other.  So it is kind of like we are linked through a fetish, which is to be exhibitionists’ online, one aggressively and the other passively.

There was a time where I would occasionally have someone leave a comment on a blog entry presupposing that I was a “nice guy for a gal” and occasionally they would even suggest that they knew someone that they would introduce to me were my travels to include their general location.  A few folks, female preferably (but if they were male I could only understand why!), even flirted with a brother.  Meeting another potential lover was never a major concern for me because I simply do not have an issue meeting someone to fill that area of my life.  Also, I would wonder what they REALLY thought would happen once they introduced a friend or theirs to me and we did grow closer, even to where we were intimate with one another.  I mean, if this prospective arranged date was to flower, how comfortable do you think you, dear reader, be with KNOWING that the sparks were getting banged out of their good friend’s bed?  And though it is only a bit of hesitation, because I do like “the game planning” that I put into a woman, I would take the date.  Then… hey, I am jus’ sayin’, coffee dates on Saturday would become a little uncomfortable with your friend, her face flushed,her hair slightly out of order and clothes a little ruffled, as each time you begin to tell her something there is a faraway look glazing her eyes… and you KNOW why she is wearing that look… because I have already told you what I am going to do with her!!

Now back to my girlfriend and me.  We already were enjoying a fulfilling intimate relationship with one another prior to the “50 Shades…” phenomenon.  But a cat like me saw a little bit more potential with her and I did not want to leave a stone unturned so I first asked her if she is a reader, and she confirmed that she did read books other than the one that her employer gave her for X-Mas (that no one on his staff had read!!).  So on confirming that she does read for pleasure, I asked her if she had read “50 Shades…” and MAN!  As amazing as her reaction was, it was nothing that I had not expected, not because of the book and its content, but from the way that our culture deals with sex.  I am the FIRST cat she had the kind of conversation about the book and her sexuality that we had IN HER LIFE!!  Vainglorious!!

Anywho, whether she had read the book or what I thought (or think now that I have read it) of the book did not matter.  What DID matter was that by asking her about the book, it allowed for us to have a frank and open dialogue about sexual expectations and desires in our partnership.  See, by letting “50 Shades…” be the topic, the discussion would have allowed me to talk about more intimate matters without the initial discomfort that our Puritanical-based culture has left us with.  So this would have worked even if she had not read any of the novels in the series, as the idea has been introduced through conversing about popular culture, not through some forbidden and angst-laden social taboo.  By asking her semi-innocuously about something that is big on the “Ellen-Oprah-The View” circuit, I think a lot of the embarrassment and reluctance had been taking from the main topic: sexuality, more specifically, OUR sexuality.

Erotica is an area where I “faked it until I made it”, and even to this day, if I was to encounter a scene that I had not experienced before, I think that I could “fake it” until I had an understanding of what I was getting myself into.  From Erica Jong's “Fear ofFlying” to Anais Nin, as a KID, my ideas about what sex would be like was very different from my pre-pubescent brothers, and it goes a long way to why I was content to wait out adolescence before I concerned myself with getting laid (though I did have a couple of teenage experience, both of which, well, I will talk about later).  I was able to deduce that between the social stigma placed on women by society, and the reinforcing rules to support those biased from chauvinistic religious guidelines, I grew up thinking that if I wanted “a freak” to be with me that I first would make her feel comfortable with being a freak!!

Going back to my teenage interest in pornography… it was a brief fascination that was over for certain by the time I was in the military.  After I would feel my hormones all rush to that one area of my body, inevitably I would begin to think about the motivations of the women in the poses, what made them consent to the acts, and I reconciled with the level of social acceptance that those acts, particularly the women who participated in them, were at.  And I sh*t you not, I would ask myself, “If these acts make me feel a certain way, and I am obvious not alone in this feeling, why are they being condemned?”

ANYWHO…

This entry is WAY over budget!  I will more than likely pick up from here, because I can!!  Until there is peace in the Middle East, later!!

FILLER ISSUE

I drug myself to the gym yesterday afternoon (!!!) and got in a fairly decent workout considering I had taken a full three weeks off while KT was in town. It felt good to finally be burning off the fat and softness that had accumulated while I spent time with my daughter. Other than trying to figure out when I am going to take Flat Ruthie out, I have not really given much thought to my personal life. There really is not much to it. The people that complicated my life are in my past and the challenges that I face now are all part of my “mission to boldly go where no closed-head injury patient has gone before!” 

 Many of the pictures that I took of KT were mostly with my phone. Getting the camera out and ready was a bit too complicated to catch the moments that I really miss, like the shot of her looking out of the window as we went to the mall. I miss just LOOKING at my daughter and having her around was the most relaxed I have been since the last time that we were together!! Speaking of Flat Ruthie, if anyone desires to host her and take her around “the provincial town that you jog ‘round”, let me know either in the comment section or my personal email, markonit@aol.com. You can send me your address and she will be on her way for an adventure in your town before you know it! Hopefully I will motivate to go to school and get my classes for next fall and start to bear down and get ready for school.


(Look, the Knockout King does NOT need an excuse to be a part of any entry of mine, after all, he is the Knockout King!!) 


 Listening to the commentary provided by the annoying Emmanuel Steward, I get what he is talking about, as he criticizes the lack of excitement as this fight unfolded. As the video starts, one of the featured boxers he speaks of, Andy Lee, got his hat handed to him in a fight he was training for, so there goes how effective his sparring was!! And I never looked at fighters who wanted to be the “gym champ” with much respect. Show me something when the bright lights are on and the little gloves are brought out. So at :42 seconds of the video you get to see Randall Bailey doing what he does best, which is punch. What makes him so unique is the nature of his ability to punch. Unlike a Hearns, or a Tyson, or even a Duran, whose blend of power and savagery made their punching power almost superfluous, Bailey is a howitzer with each and every punch he throws, but he is not as complete a boxer as those that I mentioned. He is not going to “set up” his punches or put them together in a brilliant combination. He does not need to get you to look for “this” as he loads up on “that”. You know what is coming and all you have to do is not let it happen to you.


  I can imagine that (Who?!?) Mike Jones was busy taking advantage of his skill, moving and staying clear of the range of Randall Bailey’s power, pitty-pat punching and holding and all that mess. Still, the kind of power that Bailey carries does not depend on stamina, or any of the other things that make most a feared puncher. Like Julian Jackson, his power depends only on the opportunity for it to be deployed and once that happens…


At the 2:00 minute mark and I am going to quote Jim Lampley here, who says on the replay of the knockout punch, “When you take a shot like that from an authoritative puncher like Randall Bailey, good luck on the getting up!” And it is the replay of the punch at the 3:35 mark where the crowd gets to OOH! as they get to really see what had happened to Mike Jones (Who?!?) grill is the kind of sound that I used to have crowds making when I was boxing!! 


I guess I could explain why I cut the ties to people the way that I do and how comfortable I am with living with them being severed the way that they are. For example, I received a message from my sister in Chicago asking if she can come out here for a visit. So once I stopped repeating “you have got to be sh*tting me” to myself, I calmed down and thought about all the options at my disposal through which I can decline her request. She is struggling through the first year of her marriage but hey, THAT IS NOT MY PROBLEM. Sure, she whines enough on Face Book about her issues and I glance through her status updates, just to know how bad it is for her and to ready myself for when things begin to fall apart for her. And while I am not sure if they are crumbling, what I do know is that it is not a good sign that she wants to come to Omaha. When I went to walk her down the aisle, I PROMISED MYSELF that was the last time I would extend myself for her. There were other additional storylines that were at play that made me swear to myself that “this would be it”. I have always known how selfish that my sisters can be, and though we are the closest between her and our other two sisters, she still gets no pass from me. Besides, one of the things that crystallized while my daughter was here is that my margins are still razor-thin. I cannot guess wrong, and when past performance has indicated what may lay before me in such a consideration, it is a risk that I dare not take. 


 This, I may add, is definitely not the same as being risk-adverse. My decision has nothing to do with anything that has taken place in our past as much as it has to do with the future that I am out to make for myself. Speaking of which… I have not really been contemplating the various ups and downs of my personal life as everything is generally trending upwards for me. If anything, my biggest concerns are political. Using the social safety net as I am, and with cutting that net and letting everyone fall through seemingly the goal of the right, my worries tend to be about that more than about my own day-to-day. See, I am going to keep on going on, and on, and on, until I cannot go anymore. But I guess I can examine the more intimate details of my dealings with the world… just not going to happen in this entry! What I do figure is if KT had to watch Randall Bailey go all RANDALL BAILEY on someone, that others should have the same opportunity!! Snootchie Bootches!!

AND THE CLOUDS ARE LIFTED

DARK NIGHTS

I have been up most nights this week (and the usual early morning wake ups) and it is today that the doldrums that I was going through last week has broken up and I am feeling better.  Though I have not mentioned it that often, but I reference periods like that as ‘heavy interference’ because there is so much static scratching at my brain.  This episode felt like what I would call a ‘brain cloud’ passing through, and now it has broken up.

For me the term ‘brain cloud’ referenced the feeling after being hit with a ‘particular’ punch and the effects would follow me out of the ring and stay with me for a few days.  I had envisioned the bruising that had taken place passing through the hemispheres of my brain and the blackened blood breaking up the same way a light bruise breaks up beneath the surface of the skin.  See, I KNEW the environment I was getting into and the risks that were involved.  But I don’t know what kind of life it is without some risks… I am like, ‘well, what is it that YOU want in your life?’  There is some risk involve in too much to say anything is risky.  Everyone does a value judgment and I have done and evaluated many of mine.  There are things that other people have done and continue to do that as sketchy as some of my past acts are, I am like, “…but I would never do THAT sh*t!”  This is part of the reason I suggest to people that ‘they can keep their problems to themselves because I’ve got my own’.  I am not trying to get into a contest where I am trying to top your troubles or show how much more pressure I have to cope with because I am simply going to get after what I am going to get after.

 So even with my mentioning that I was experiencing a case ofthe late-year blues and how foreign that it felt to me, it isn't always taken into consideration by others that even as they have to face and overcome dragons, that the only dragon in the world is the one that is in front of them and that no one else has any of their own to slay.  That is why when my on-line friend was able to address my inappropriatenesswith restraint but making it clear that they were upset by my words, I was able to do my part in trying to make things right.

But it is also worth noting that my friend is also of a different era and has a different set of values than most of my contemporaries.  I don’t know about any of you, but when I think of the character of those in his age group and my Mom’s, I always come back to the Mike Singletary’s press conference and that “…thinking it’s about them and not the team,” to describe how they can put off their ego and to consider for a moment what something it truly worth and to make the step to be gracious enough to provide the opportunity for forgiveness, rather than seek readdress for their impugned pride.  That is because it is ‘all about them’.  With that seeming to be a prevailing attitude, here I am, living at a time where I have to think about me a little, not because I am selfish but because thinking about pretty much ANYTHING takes effort for me.

MAINLY BECAUSE I LIKE McDONALD’S… A LOT..!

Actually I prefer Burger King, but to get the desired effect, I used Mickey D’s in my reasoning for joining the service.

See, after the abolition of the draft, the Army (as well as the other branches of service) became a de facto security apparatus for the 0.5% and their corporate interests.  Still, knowing that as well as I thought I knew at the time, I could not keep myself from volunteering for duty.  As much as I love you Mary, I am not going to volunteer for soup kitchen detail on my own, or any big coat drives.  In short, being a ‘giving’ person and connecting to all,does not register with me.  But I have said it before and will again, if I was in ‘wherever, East Coast’ with Mary and her good friend, she certainly could call on me and I will be ‘shakin’ it over’ wherever she asks me to be.

What?  What do you want of me??  A few weeks ago riding my bike to pick up my medicine I saw some ladies in the drug store parking lot changing a tire.  I stopped and with my ‘expertise’ (because I have none of that when it comes to mechanical anything), I helped them change their tire.  Though Omaha is one of the friendlier and helpful places I have ever been, no one offered to help these ladies out before I got there.  In fact, I think it was a matter of time… I just know that when I saw I could lend a hand, and that is what I did.

One of the things that I think my experience with life has been instructing me on is that when I have a good idea that I should stick with it.  Whatever changes that needs to be made will occur naturally, as the world spins and as I continue to move forward down my path (because, after all, the one not taken bent in the undergrowth and led to ‘who knows where?’.   I have spoken about it in a previous entry how my initial plan was to limit my interactions with the opposite sex to Nebraska and if that did not work out, que sera.  But upon my arrival here, I was like, ‘I think you out to think about it,’ and I have, as many of you already know.  See, while the incidentals to my initial model have evolved as the environment around me has changed, the main idea still remains unaltered. 

FINDING A HAPPY PLACE

I warn people when we first get to know one another that I know I am going to mess up and occasionally piss the off, not so I can excuse being a butt-head, but that I have to learn where the limits are from where my ‘acceptable’ crosses over to your ‘annoying’.  And believe it or not, the same thing has to take place in the reverse… forgiveness will be reciprocated because you have to get to know me.

The point of that is one of the reasons that trying to look for love in someone I already knew made sense to me, because someone like Nebraska (for INSTANCE!! Not for any other reason!!) would already know that I can be a jerk off, but that it was very likely not intentional. Not only that, they would realize all the other unmistakably positive things about me and would help me to further cultivate and refine those qualities.

I’M A GOOD GUY FOR A GAL..!                                                                      

Shee-oot!  It ain’t like a smurf ain’t had trouble finding a chick before!!  But that was when I operated much differently and I lived according to a different paradigm.

I spoke about my soldiering and apathy for volunteering to illustrate a point.  I get sacrifice and I understand that I should want to help my fellow man, I get that stuff.  But what I also want ‘you’ to get is that I don’t like getting dirty, hanging around bland, unappetizing (to me) food is nauseating for me, and I would rather stay away from tools of any kind.  But I do want to help and give to the community.  What’s a smurf to do?

My interest in the military I think is a part of my youthful precociousness.  There were influences all around me but I was pre-adolescent watching ‘The World At War’ and I did not think twice about doing Army ROTC in high school.  Maybe I won’t help clean up a vacant lot or go pick up used clothes and bring them back, but I would die for you.  There isn’t a doubt in my mind that if you needed my help and you called on me, that I would show up no matter the personal cost.  And there are people who know this about me, so I don’t sweat the small stuff like being called ‘selfish’ by people who don’t know a cat.  What that does, when you have CO2 alarm go off (which would cost me that month’s check), or to make their way to a wedding that would insure that I spent a year scraping by (not to discount those who have helped me out in crucial times, but why can’t I say this if only for effect?), say about me?  Then there are the things that ‘we know that YOU don’t know’, which I have done for people regardless of how ‘out’ the action may have ‘put me’.

If someone would be willing to ‘help me to help them’, I am pretty sure what kind of person they would get for a partner.  A little understanding and compassion is all I am talking about, and even then, not that much.  I am a pretty repentant cat so when you catch me up in a mistake, more likely than not, I am going to admit to it.  Because I know that I would do the same with you.

When I have to factor in my condition, then my desire for that understanding goes from a ‘looked for trait’, to being a requirement of my potential partner.  And if that is too steep a toll for someone to pay… all I can say is, “Oh well.”

ONE FOR THE ROAD

Okay, on my way back in from the west side of town a little white lady was sitting at the bus stop, with a case of the mopes ‘n sniffles.  I asked her what was wrong and she told me how she was threatened with eviction and how unfair it was that it was occurring now, so close to Christmas.  She now had to scrounge around for money and it was going to deprive her daughter (at 18, I don’t know what she would expect of Santa given their what’s what, but that’s not for me to say) of her gifts.  She started sniffling and what else could I do but give her a hug and let her cry on my shoulder?  After a few minutes she pulled herself together and thanked me for my understanding.

Not trying to say anything… just sayin’ and it IS my diary!

STUFF THAT I THINK THAT I THINK ABOUT

SAAVIK


Even if I did not prefer plus-sized women this would be the reason it is hard for me to believe that there is anything wrong with Kirstie Alley. When she started to make money off of her weight, I was stunned at first because she did not look anything but good to me! If I was a psychologist I would try to find out how the American people fail (what I am calling) 'the first law of operational intelligence', because as many men and women who carry around many more pounds than they should, calling out an actress as ‘fat’ because she does not fit a standard that the majority of people not only are not close to but NEVER have been in their lives, is something that astounds me!

PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE MORE WELL-KNOWN


Yup, I watch a lot of You Tube. Sometimes I sit around and listen to the songs that I hear on the music channels via my cable subscription and other times I just surf around for different songs, nothing special. But I don’t know how or why I began to follow these two young ladies, Hayley from Australia and Whitney, who as far as I can tell, is bi-costal (she flits between Portlandia and NYC, if I am right about her).


Last year, I think, Hayley got a job performing in Hong Kong. She is an amazing talent and her cover of ‘Grenade’ by Bruno Mars has so much emotion that she doesn’t cover the song as much as she own it, and whether that is whether anyone agrees with me or not!




I think that the song (actually since I like Bruno Mars, I have always thought that…) the song describes some of what I went through in my most recent relationships. Anywho that is another post! I just want to get ‘HayHay’ some more views and maybe a few more fans for her videos. She had just put out a few more songs and you can go to her channel and check out even more of her original songs as well as her covers.



Whitney (or Whit, or maybe even Witified) is a super cool young lady who combines vlogging, skits and her original songs as well as covers in her videos, harkening back to the days of Carol Burnett and all the variety shows I watched when I was young. She is a raw talent and has barely scratched the surface of her entertainment skills, IMO. But that is easy for me to say, right? There are so many different factors involved that it takes more than being able to ‘do’ something to make it big…


Anywho, this song of hers ‘to some lost friends’ echoes feelings that I have had to carry with me throughout my life. Yeah, I have a strange relationship with ‘friends’ but there are some people who I miss in the conventional way that people are meant to ‘miss’ good friends and loved ones. I miss my ‘babies’, the twins, who I took wherever I went. I did the same with all of my sibs (I can honestly say that I was not one of those kids that was bothered by having to babysit his younger brother and sisters). I remember ‘missing’ them when I came home from the service and I did not recognize my ‘little’ brother, who had shot up to a towering 6’2 in the four years I was away in OD green!


I miss my roomie from college… he was one of the few, and I mean few (the only other one that comes to mind is a trainer I had while I boxed professionally) men that I felt comfortable talking without reservations to, no matter the subject matter. He has ‘grown’ but not in the way that the twins or my darling brother did. I think that he has truly ‘evolved’ and is on a completely different plane of existence. I wish that I could see him (he does visit home in Carolina regularly) because I would love to see the difference from being a young man in search of the man he was to become, now that he has found him.


Then I miss… lessee, how do I describe the third person that I miss? It is kind of awkward to talk about them because it is one of those ‘surface contradictions’ that people who cannot fathom anything beyond the visible level would see and then they’d say, “but I thought you were so – ‘blah, blah, blah’”, and toss out critical judgments out of condemnation. But that is the refuge of the self-righteous, shooting straight past other nuanced qualities like sensitivity and understanding, instead preferring to finger-point in hypocrisy.


AnyWHO… who IS this third person that I miss? It goes without saying that I miss my ‘blood’, my girls, my Mom and my darling brother, so they are always accounted for, so I can’t actually ‘miss’ them. No, this person is someone that is made out of the ether, the wisps of thoughts that I did not know that I had, somehow pulling themselves together to form an ideal, a prototype of who I would ‘want’ (all while without my knowing that I want someone).


This person isn’t just an imaginary someone… but neither are they ‘real’, at least not in the way that ‘real’ is to most people. Often, I don’t know what they look like or what kind of person they are until I ‘see’ them, with my inner ‘third eye pysche’. I don’t know how else to describe what goes on… the two great loves of my life (remember, I was given at LEAST two of those..!) were women who appeared in my life at a time in my life that I thought ‘this’ but it wasn’t related to ‘that’ and before you know it, BOOM (goes the dynamite!), we were together.


And it worked out. So fate, destiny, they both work for me. I am willing and brave enough to that them by the hand when they reach out, when they call to me (again, my recent history would inform you as to how I react to Destiny’s calling). I don’t hesitate (otherwise I’d have found a reason to wait until I thought I was more comfortable financially and spiritually to move here) when called upon, and I ‘wait’ for my calling patiently by doing what I am supposed to do, being determined in where I’ve decided to go.

BECAUSE IF THEY ARE RIGHT...

...THEN NOTHING IS!

Stumbling around the internet I found this blog by the multimedia artistic collective that’s makes up Everything Is Terrible.  They also produce video edits similar to The Eclectic Method only their focus is on finding humor in the earnest video efforts of people and their passions.  Their song, ‘Santa Claus Ain’t Comin’’, is a song that answers the question of worrying about what it all means with another question – why wonder why?  This, along with the rest of the album is up on their website for free download but if you feel inclined to make a donation, their website is set up for that too!

But if you don’t then that’s alright, cause we ain’t here to stay!

WHO SAID THIS CAT WAS EVER FUNNY?

What… I am thinking that I first became aware of Tracy Morgan as a bit player on ‘Showtime At The Apollo’, a syndicated talent show that ran for ages (and I am sure is shown in reruns somewhere), and even then he wasn’t funny.  After his well-publicized rant in Nashville and apology, I wondered what his more liberal friends were going to do, the ones in the business who were supportive of him during his struggles (because I am thinking Tina Fey has given him a career) or those who worked with him who belonged to ‘the club’, per se, how they feel about this talentless boob now?

When it comes ‘looking to entertainment’ for role models, I think that many have it backwards.  Much like many the things we decide on as a people, we get the entertainment that we take pleasure in, and it reflects on the id of the entertained.  The outrage even cowed would-be apologists for the unfunny Morgan.  Chris Rock (who is another of the sometimey funny black guy who has made it big) thought he was defending a misunderstood brother until he started drawing fire and had to back away from his position.

His second insensitivity only verified how ignorant he is.  His lack of understanding that the wider culture he finds himself a part of, and maybe he no longer reflects an attitude that says it is okay to make fun of the least of us.  And maybe it is a sign of maturation in the black community.  There is still a lot of room for growth in the area of sensitivity to special needs but it is getting better.

MEDIA WATCH

Little did I know when I made my reference to Melissa Joan Hart that she was in a show on ABC Family with Joey Lawrence!  I don’t know if I am going to watch it but I thought it was quite a coincidence when I saw the commercial.

There are a couple of new shows on USA that I like.  One of them is ‘Suits’.  The debut show was fairly clever, the leads are watchable and I hope that it has a good run.  But one of the characters that has my attention my eye is Rachel Zane (played by Meghan Markle).  She is smokin’!!

To be honest, I am not one for setting my schedule for a television show, especially in the evening.  There is almost always something more interesting to do than watch mainstream television and now that I have my own place I get to watch what I want.  A show that has made cable worth the expense is ‘Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman’.  Even though a lot of it goes over my head, I have fun trying to grab hold and go for the ride!

Omaha is a fun town and it seems always worth it to go outside.  Even though I am a house cat, I do think that I am missing something when I stay in.  A lot of that is due to being in a constant state of 'brokeness' but other than that, I am fine.

A MAINLY RANDOM POST!

ON MY MIND AND INSPIRED BY MUSIC


I follow and enjoy Thomas’ blog. He makes entries that put me in the mind of a cynical Charles Kuralt, who is trying to find all the good things that exists in the world but without ignoring some of the ‘less than good’ about life and the world. But what drew me to his blog is the ‘itch factor’ of his journals name, ‘Living Next Door To Alice’. The familiarity kept picking at my brain. I could not remember why the phrase, ‘living next door to Alice’, was so familiar to me.


The song was released in 1976 by the band Smokie and was big, big hit. I because it coincided with my discovering Rush, the glow of the Montreal Olympics, and the Bicentennial, and that was an important year for me (exactly why, I have no idea… but it is the ONLY YEAR that stands out in my mind as important solely for positive reasons). Anywho, with so much going on at the time (hey, didn’t ‘Star Wars’ come out that year? Does anyone else remember ‘the Micronauts’? And wasn’t that around the time Chris Claremont and John Byrne begun to breathe life into the X-Men?), it makes sense that I started to veer away from the softer edged music of the 70’s and my English invasion roots.


Putzing around the Amazon.com website, I put in ‘…Alice’ and voila! Smokie’s albums popped up and I was whisked away to the back seat of either a Challenger or a Cordoba (with its ‘rich Corinthian leather seats), listening to whatever radio station that the driver, either an Aunt or my Mom, had tuned on the radio.


Smokie – Living Next Door To Alice





Listening to the song for the fist time since childhood and HEARING it prolly for the first time ever, I wonder if the interpretation of the song that I have now was the same I made as a kid. It is pretty obvious that it is about the hurt of that a boy who grows up with the ache for his ‘one and only love’ and never moves on it. He is consumed by not being able to approach ‘Alice’ and is so lost in his pain that he does not notice ‘Sally’, who possibly has been right there all along.


“NEEDLES AND PINS”





Smokie also covered this song. The video can be seen at the right of ‘Alice’ in the suggested video list. But other than by the Ramones, I don’t want to hear anyone else sing this song but Jackie!!


Hindsight informs about a lot of things. One of the things that my getting older and on my own has brought me was an understanding of why my Mother had her concerns about me and my identity. With others, when I felt compelled to answer questions about my ‘non- afrocultural interests’, I would shrug and say “I like what I like.” That was sufficient for dealing with people in their 20’s and minds were more open and less fixed on stereotypes.


 AND WHO DOESN'T WANT THIS TO BE IN THEIR LIFE?





In the last ten years there must have been a memo that I did not get. Either that or I am not as evolved as I thought I was when it comes to relationships. One of the reasons that I want to take a woman studies course is to be around women in a less emotionally charged atmosphere talking about relationships. Because there is something that I do not understand about those in my peer group that I have engaged with, and it is something that I have overheard listening in on conversations with relationships as a focus.

The movie ‘Down With Love’ has a woman writer advising women to pursue their careers and to have relationships that are disposable. Her aim is to get women to think more like men. Perhaps while I was admiring the design and the color of the sets, the part of what was in the memo I missed might have been in the lukewarm plot of the film.

If women have decided that they can do without the affection in a relationship… then what is the point? I still want to caress and hug, leave cards, notes that lets her know how much she means…


… but I guess that doesn’t mean as much as it once did. Hey, I’m jus’ sayin’..! I hope no one takes this any other way as conversational because that is how this entry is… not making a statement or anything else. Anywho, enjoy the videos!

Random Thoughts

OUTTA MY MIND ON A MID-DAY WEDNESDAY

The lightweight stuff first… both rapper/actor Curtis Jackson, a.k.a. 50 Cent and comedian/actor Gilbert Gottfried found themselves in a bit of trouble for insensitive twits, er, tweets about the natural disasters that struck Japan this weekend. Gottfried, who provided the voice of the AFLAC duck in their TV commercials, was fired by the company, who does big business in Japan.



Comments that 50 Cent made was offensive on so many different levels that I get dizzy thinking about how he half-heartedly defended himself. There was the making light of the disasters, and then there is the disrespect he had for women. Finally, he tried to say that his image is what makes it all right to make insensitive and stupid comments as he did.


“Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value. Hate it or love it. I’m cool either way 50cent.”

There has been more insensitive stuff said as well. Glen Beck opened his mouth and display his insensity as well.  Back to what 50 Cent ‘tweeted’ is the double standard represented by his comment. He defense confirms a lot of what I thought about him, that he is phony as a three dollar bill. To be an adult over 25 and in my acquaintance mentioning how much 50 Cent is admired his for his use of media and ‘talents’, they would lose half a letter grade in my book.

As I take others to task, there were some disappointing comparison about America and how we handle crisis and I don’t have to use a natural disaster for a comparison… the great New York black out in the ‘70s come to mind as a time where a lot of folks weren’t at their best. And I ain’t hating… this gaman thing that Japan has going is enviable a national ethos. BUT, there are a few things that I think is being overlooked.


First, what has taken millennia to develop, their national character and identity, is something that did not happen overnight. The United States is one of the younger cultures and nations, and the thing about ‘nationhood’; it isn’t like we aren’t like other ‘nations’ in the world. And it is a lot different enforcing a national behavior when the culture is brutally chauvinistic, misogynistic, and relies on hegemony for their sense of nationhood.  There is a reason that they had so much in common with Hitler, Mussolini and the notion of global domination.  Empire building and subjugation is a part of their national character as well.


When I think about Japan and how they treat their gaijin, the image that comes to my mind is Eddie Murphy’s study of what it is like to be white on SNL years ago. Individually, you can have your experience and it can be whatever the hell… but the saying is ‘the exception PROVES the rule’. Will someone ask the Chinese, the Korean, hell, the Siberian Russians what they historically think about the historically brutal and repressive Japanese? So let’s not go strokin’ their stiffy’s just yet. I feel for the tragedy but there is NO WAY I am going to say that what they have going makes their culture somehow superior to ours. If you don’t know why, then you prolly should get out more. No, America is not perfect but there is ALWAYS a chance for a change. In other parts of the world, change is available only not so much, and if you want an argument about the topic of how ‘America sucks’ and overseas is so much better, you know where you can find me.



UNSUBS

This is me at 238.5. Yikes!! I think I am going to post a photo every 4 to 6 weeks to see if I am making any progress. My newly wed sister updates stuff about her work out and the classes she runs on a regular basis through Facebook and recently she posted her time for her 3 mile run. It made me feel good to know that even as bloated as I am, that I am still faster that she is!

Because I go to the gym late into the evening, I see interesting things in my neighborhood. Nebraska has warned me to ‘be careful’. My neighborhood is chippy and I don’t underestimate what could go down in Omaha. In fact, last night I ran through a brewing ‘domestic situation’ between a brother and three females of undetermined ethnicity and relationship status. I don’t feel like I drew any of their attention and I definitely did not break my stride. Yet, I am not bothered by incidents such as the drama I mentioned as much as trying to recognize the potential danger going downtown.

Like the ‘land of the rising sun’, the population of the Omaha is pretty homogenous. There seem to be a potential for ANYONE to be a threat, a bunch of goober’s lingering around trucks and beater cars, looks like they gathering for a casting call for ‘Criminal Minds’ or some kind of docudrama about hate crime or abuse of women, something where violence is implied and enough for me to raise my personal ‘threat level’. And if you said that it accounted for my increased foot speed, I would say that you were right!! When I am out ‘late’ I don’t have my headphones on, so as not to be too distracted from my surroundings and not to ‘look the part’. Enough people get mugged and assaulted because they are running with personal listening equipment on. Might be good to focus on the task at hand (though the jury is still out on that) but it makes you as vulnerable to an incident as using a cell phone does to someone driving a car.

Finally, watched and episode of ‘Our America with Lisa Ling’ on OWN last night. Prolly scratch out an observation or two from it soon. With the NCAA basketball tournament and teams that I have interest in doing well playing, I am wishing for a way for there to be a ‘Final Eight’ so everyone could have their shot at an appearance in the championship game. Carolina, Michigan, OSU, State and the SFC’s son will all be dancing and I don’t think anyone other than the highly seeded Buckeyes and Tar Heels will be expected to make the second weekend. Oh, I forgot to mention that I am cheering Notre Dame and Ben Hansborough, younger brother of Tyler Hansborough, former UNC star and coming to his own as an Indiana Pacer! Mookie Dee could not STAND ‘Psycho T’… mainly because of his competitiveness was worn on his sleeve. But that is a topic for another day, if ever…

I'M JUST WRITING MY SIDE OF THE STORY

THE CONCUSSION CLOUD


I have been being careful with how I describe what I have been going through and feeling this month. Seeming whiny and pitiful is something that I am very self-conscious about and there is nothing I am going to do about that. Being vulnerable is not the same as an admission that I am vulnerable. One of the ways that I go about keeping from sounding like I am in a jam has been not to use terms too negative to define what I have been dealing with in the aftermath of being struck by a car. Let me tell you, though, for me to definitely speak about something is quite rare. So with that…


…this has been the worst recovery from a concussion ever. And since I would manage to show up for work after driving hundreds of miles after some rough fights, and still perform my duties (as it were, it was the year that I wasn’t fighting and training that my performance took a sharp decline… a lesson is in there, I think), which should say it all. Each day is similar to waking up to a spring haze that the sun never fully burns off the ground and the mist snakes around the blades of grass on the ground and between the leaves and branches of the shrubs of lawns.


My respites are but illusions of my balance returning to me. Apparently there is another ‘new normal’ for to adjust to… and that is what I am doing. But I am angry about why I have to do it. Still.


When I sat down to write this entry for a moment I thought that perhaps I should hold it until I get the picture I am going to reference in this entry loaded on my computer. What I will do is promise to have it done soon and let you guys laugh a pre-military photo of me in my boxing outfit. Should be good for a laugh or two!


MY VISION WAS OF SOMETHING LIKE THE END OF THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION




...only it would have been my sweetie and me playing in the ocean selling tacos and not Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins fixing boatsFreeman and Tim Robbins fixing boats !!


Now my first sweetie did more than take my cherry! We were in the deepest throes of teenage love, hers fueled by a desire to escape and free herself and seeming fate to fill the role of the ‘rebellious daughter’, while I was simply a walk-on part in her life! That was fine by me as I was enthralled with one of my earliest inspirations that I found in the agate-type in Ring Magazines and other boxing magazines that fostered it.


We would slide out of school on half-days and hook up at her house. It was easy, as usually her immediately older sister would be in some club stuff or working with a tutor. The usual bougie teen activities that stuck-up parents have their little precious gems involved in… and usually the youngest of her sister’s would be picked up by a Grandmother or Father and kept until the Eldest came home from work. Usually, that is.


Details really don’t matter other than this—we got caught dead to rights! Her family would hand down an edict that involved a ruling worthy of the Capulets. But during the deliberation before handing out the verdict, we hatched a typical teenage plan of escape and living by our wiles … wait for it… in MEXICO!


Now you have to first understand something… I did and do not show any of the frustrations about my family that I do here in my journal. I may have hinted at being bothered here and there but absolutely nothing that would have led anyone to believe that I hold the disdain for my youngest sisters that I do Jan (who most people keep at broom-stick length) or have the conflicting regard I have for my Mom. It was always something I kept to myself and the awareness that I had that leaving home was in my future. Getting caught like that had me thinking that the time might be now!


During the chance we had to talk before sentencing I told her about wanting to run off to Mexico and fight professionally! Don’t laugh, because it was not that far-fetched… no different from someone running to Los Angeles on a bus to be in Hollywood or someone getting off the train at Grand Central thinking they are going to light up the great white way! In boxing there are stories of such precociousness resulting in decent, even championship careers. And the ‘you never know if you don’t try’ is embedded into my D.N.A. I took French but SHE spoke Spanish quite fluently... I had a car, a license and I was working at Mickey Dee’s with a few hundred dollars in my savings account. The wheels they were a-turnin’…


DON’T YOU LOVE LITTLE SISTERS?


Not that I am remembering this exactly as all I know that something happened on her end that caused our plan to be divulged to her family. We were ‘reddy t’go’ and I had withdrawn all my loot thinking we were going to be on the road soon. For the sake of argument, let’s say her little sister overheard us making plans on the phone and there you go!


So the idea that I am here ‘out of the blue’ has always been a ludicrous to me. There has always been a germination of an idea in most everything that I have done. In fact, it seems so second nature that it is hard (but not impossible) to believe that people are as ‘spontaneous’ with their hasty decisions as they would want others to think. Or it could just be me that thinks like that? Maybe someone knows of someone who does things that seems to be whimsical, but I simply doubt that. Maybe they are still in the closet or they have gone on to do things with their lives of such note that people would not dare critique their thinking processes.


ONLY SEEN SNIPPETS BECAUSE...


I did not feel like watching the State of the Union address.  Felt like putting my head in the sand and letting it slide past me.  Did catch the snickering that came from Michelle Bachman's extra response to the President's speech.


That girl looked as high as a kite and what was she even talking about?  I don't think she even knew!  I know that I am guilty of speaking a lot of gibber-jabber but when I do it, I know what I am talking about.  Like I said, someone who could not look into the camera(or was following bad instructions... don't know which is worse) as she babbled. 


At this point it seems unlikely that there will be a strong challenger from the GOP when the President's first term ends.  The voices on the right has a lot of bombast but little substance.  Their vote to repeal the health care act did nothing but waste time and failed to make a significant bump in any public opinion polls.  When it comes to the health care act, it isn't repeal but getting it right that has must people bothered.


I don't have tinnuitus but either someone is leaning on the doorbell (I don't have one of those) or my ears as ringing because they want to.  What it does mean is that I better lay down.  Been a busy week so far.  Might get a haircut tomorrow if the weather holds.  Later, gators!

A SPORTS AS LIFE PASTICHE

DID YOU WATCH THE FOREMAN – LYLE FIGHT?


At least that is what the Pittsburgh Steelers-Baltimore Ravens football game reminded me of Saturday afternoon. It was an intense, sloppy at the same time it was well-played, violent game without any questionable calls or hits. There were sudden changes in momentum and then the game seemingly did not turn convincingly until a big play by the Steelers that finally took the air out of the Ravens a little.

One of the oddities about the rivalry between the two teams is that as closely matched as they are on the field and on paper, it is Pittsburgh who has been dominating as far as winning is concerned. I think that this was the 8th Steeler victory in their last 10 matches. Perhaps what makes this rivalry unmatched in professional sports isn’t the broad appeal of the teams or the commercial reach of the NFL but the intensity and the play of the best players in these games.



There was a bit of controversy between the teams this week because of a tee-shirt that one of the Raven’s players, Terrell Suggs, was photographed in (click link if you want to see the picture). I can’t remember how many times his name was called for making plays, but the cat walked the way he talked! It felt like every time a name was mentioned, it was either a big name (Troy Poluamu, Ray Lewis, Ben Rothlisberger or Joe Flacco) or a key player that ‘is on scholarship, too’ like Cory Redding for the Ravens and Ryan Clark of the Steelers, who showed up big in the game as well.



I think that is why I began to fall out of being a fan of pro basketball. Instead of letting the talent speak for the game, the NBA began to market personalities who were comparative carbon copies of the boring template that Michael Jordan put into play. Unlike the fiery competitive teams of the 80’s and early 90’s, what you have are boring and bland empty suits with no filler. The NBA is more about the spin and less about the substance. As dangerous as football can be, the visceral connection to the participants also allows for the content of a football players character to be displayed. Even as ‘corporate’ as the Tom Brady is, he too, can be a little chirpy and get involved in the trash-talking and let his ‘slip’ show (politically, he is a stuffed shirt and like some conservative folks, I think he is socially hypocritical), which is unlike star basketball players. Even Kobe Bryant tries to affect a front that he is something other than the indulgent and spoiled brat that he is. I can imagine that he will always have sourness to the memories of his career, even with his storied accomplishments.

ME AND THE KID

I woke up today feeling a bit ‘clearer’ than I have since I was hit by the car nearly two weeks ago. Some details are still fuzzy and I am not sure about how I am to go about receiving follow-up treatment, but I did take fairly decent notes when I met with the Progressive insurance adjuster. She gave me instructions on Friday that I am going to follow to the letter and I do have a meet-up with a lawyer to see if there are any other remedies that can be pursued. Each day my anger has not subsided in the least bit, and if the cat that drove his car into me would put on a pair of 10 oz. Reyes and step between a roped-off 20-by-20 square and go with for a scheduled 10 rounds… I would take that.

What I feel is a bit cheated. Anywho, as I ‘warm up’ to being alive, I think back about how I see my condition. Somewhere I have an article from the mid-90’s that spoke to the plasticity of the brain and how sometimes areas that no longer work can have their functions ‘re-routed’ through another area of the brain loss of certain functions can be lessened if not completely diminished. Reading about that and other pieces of information that I picked up here and there in my travels is what allowed me to keep boxing as long as I did. My thing was I was betting that I would still have enough to sustain me after I retired from a long and lucrative career… kind of missed on the ‘lucrative’ part, materially speaking. But I do think I have had a rich and fulfilling life. Each night I lay in bed and smile that I am in Nebraska and think to myself how I need to get some ‘new dreams’ because if I had a bucket list, it would be nothing but scratch outs now, because I have done pretty much everything I have wanted to do. You can question the level of success that I have had, but when it comes to wishing that I could have gone somewhere or done something, I really don’t have any wishes like that in me.

No, it isn’t going to be easy and it hasn’t been easy for me. Is it ‘easy’ for anyone? What I have told myself since I achieve independent consciousness about the drudgery of life, is that the people who find joy in what they do no matter the difficulty have a higher quality of life. Or so the Germans would have you believe…

THE SET OF REAL NUMBERS


Some of the new prime-time game shows resemble ‘The Running Man’ (or ‘The Long Walk’ take your Stephen King story of future dystopia pick) and I often find them unwatchable. But I did find myself watching ‘Minute To Win It’ the night of the Presidential address in response to the Arizona shootings and their were two contestants, Chelsea and Alia, who caught my eye. They were both dressed in outfits that would not be out of place in an aerobic class and were both equally attractive brunettes.

I could not ‘pick’ which one looked better to me and I thought about why that was. While to me they both qualified as ‘petite’, Alia, she of the cool shoulder tattoo, was taller by several inches and prolly was a 9/10 (estimate made because she was built similar to Nixxie). The true petite Chelsea was not holdin’ ‘em up either and she seemed to be at least as curvy as her partner.


Now I do think that Nebraska likes me as ‘more than a friend’. But moving here was not an end as it is a means to an end. While I mentioned that I have a lot of things ‘X’-ed of my bucket list, I still have a few particular goals and several targets that I would like to aim for that will keep me motivated me to get after things. 

I want to go to four more places and in ascendancy of difficulty they are 1) The Wisconsin Dells/game day at Camp Randall in Madison: 3) The Mall of America/ The West Edmonton Mall 3) The Valley of Fire/Mt. Rushmore: 4) Alaska/Yukon trip and one Kung-Fu mega dream, which would be to go somewhere in the South Pacific… either Australia, Fiji or New Zealand. And that would be the targets that I want to pull me through school and eventually back on the grid.


Then there are less stratospheric but maybe more urgent goals. For instance, one of the things that angers me about the accident is that I have been talking with Nixxie and Pecan Sandie about our girls and maybe I could have the two of them at one time this summer… but I have to find out if I can take care of myself much less two teenagers away from home (and I suppose that they would look to be like teenagers away from home while here… free and a little wild!).   When it comes to potential romanctic entanglements, while there is a 'right of first refusal' to be dealt with, I think that I want to explore and widen my options in that area as well.


A little bummed, that is for sure. But it is only a little. If I were to take a quarterly grade, I think I would get a failing so far and that is okay for now, for real, isn’t it Winnie?



“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -Winston Churchill

And I go on... (and I don’t stop!!)

LIKE PORRIDGE ONLY DIFFERENT

FIRST, A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE WEATHER




As many of you already know, winter is on the way and it gave the Midwest a preview this weekend. But Omaha was spared a large accumulation of snow. I am not sure what the amount was officially, but it could not have been more than 2 or 3 inches. When I went out yesterday evening for a workout, the streets were mostly clear and there was little ice. Perhaps the ‘banana belt effect’ saved us from the worst of the storm, I am not sure. It is COLD here, but like a ‘dry heat’ is not as bad as a humid one, the same stands for a dry cold. It is what I would call very brisk. I went out only in a hoodie, making sure my hands were covered.


SPORTS… AS LIFE


Even though Nixxie knows how I feel about cheerleading, having discussed that when she was playing in a softball league and I had to take her to a hospital during after she was injured in a game, but KT is still doing some kind of pom-pom sqaud in high school. I have the same kind of swirling emotions regarding football. As much as it is a game of character, it is also a device for revenue as well as a narcotic to the masses.


I’ve have spoken about the inconsistency between how football is sold to us and the inherent risks involved in participation. Even though it is called pugilistica dementia, football players mostly make up those who suffer from the condition. Now you could say that there was less known about the concussive effects of football, but I don’t think that is the case. The NFL, like many large, monolithic global corporations have swept studies on the subject of player’s health and safety for years. Not to mention the culture that surrounds the sport, the bravado and machismo that it compels men to display.


Aaron Rodgers suffered a concussion yesterday against the Lions, his SECOND for the season. I should not have to say anymore than that but again, being able to spread propaganda, the NFL has made the about brain injuries that many people see as no more significant as a knee injury (not to be pooh-pooing the joint damage football players suffer, that is an under-reported travesty as well). Years ago I remember John Madden making a comment about a player who got knocked out and returning to the game, saying that “If he was a boxer, he would be out for 30 days”, and that is pretty much true. I don’t think that Aaron Rodgers should have been in the game from his EARLIER concussion.

It gets pretty hard to reconcile things at times, doesn’t it?  Being a fan of something so brutal and callous, where they obviously think of these things as nominal hazards??


WHOA! THIS IS TOO HOT!!


Alright, my ex-wife was the wrong person at the wrong time of my life. I was in a good place so that keeps her from wining the triple crown of fail. That we kept at it until we got pregnant was either a testament to my obliviousness or lack of hormonal control.

If her violence was a by-product of her hormones and the pressure of now raising two children (she has a daughter from an earlier relationship) I couldn’t tell you. The last straw was the night I decided to take my allowance (yes boys and girls, I let her handle our money, surrendering my paycheck and letting her ‘pay me’ out of my own earnings…) and try to take Jan out for a night of pub-crawling. When Jan would drop me off at our place, my ex-went ballistic and threw my things out right then and there.

I would never look back. Now this is the first time where I will mention to anyone the level of humiliation that I felt at that moment, because of course the mini-riot that went on woke up the girls. What I remember is the look on HER daughter’s face, as if her Mom was in danger. That was one time I was glad Jan was around because she had went into the kitchen and came out with a…


…anywho, I knew from her attitude about men (charter member of the Single, lonely and loveless Mother’s Club) that she was not only fortunate to have found me to marry her, but that she’d be lonely for a long time. I think she is a crap human but hey, I did ‘put a ring on it’. She won’t cop to it, but she has obstructed the relationship that Skye and I have, talking crap about her father even after we’d have father-daughter time and not allowing me to take her to Carolina for a summer, defying the court-ordered visitation. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Hindsight is 20/20 and there were other issues that complicated that problem that I don’t think I should have to go into.

THIS ONE IS TOO COLD


Nixxie and I had decided to let the curtain fall on our ‘benefit arrangement’ and go our separate ways when I ran into Pecan Sandie. Had I heeded Bell, Biv, and DeVoe’s advice about trusting big butts and a smile, ignoring her ‘crazy eyes’ and ‘spooky girl’ qualities, things would have been different.

A couple or three months into our relationship, my boxing career began to skid, Nixxie broke her news and Sandie began pressuring me about moving to Atlanta. Oh, not to mention the standard ‘She is trying to trap you away from me,’ behavior regarding Nixxie. All I can say is that I was such a maroon.

Some of our fail may have been because she saw us as having so much in common. She took some of my non-traditional qualities as self-loathing. I think she kind of doesn’t like being black and it is the attitude that Skye’s Mom has infected her with. But because we have a relationship and her Mom did understand where I was coming from and we did go to the Atl and try out a relationship for a bit. I’d like to think that we know each other well enough to where she’d want to come for a visit as an adult (as long as she is a minor, she really doesn’t have a choice).


WHY THIS ONE IS JUST RIGHT


Both Nixxie and I went to HBCU’s and as far as I am concerned, scholarship athletes are minor league professionals. I think that to balance all the things entailing being a student-athlete is a lot of pressure. Not only that she was the only person who was that close to me that got why I trained the way that I did and understood enough about how that part of my psyche worked. So we had that in common but the only problem between us was that we only really liked each other.


It isn’t like I don’t talk to Lexxie and keep abreast of what is going on, but Nixxie has always made sure that KT and I got along. The first time that I told her I would not be able to visit (I was new at the non-profit I was working for and did not have vacay days accrued) she straight away sent her up for the summer, a routine that lasted until ’07. Not only that, she has called me to talk about our daughter and life in general.


She would also send KT to me with ‘instructions’ about conversations that a Dad should have with his daughter. It always made me feel more like a Dad, because the conversations were the foundation for the bond that we have. KT is definitely her Mother’s daughter, but she has a lot of her Dad in her. Oh, as far as when it comes for her to take HER walk down the aisle, KT who has an active step-father in her life, has came up with a solution to who does that honor.


Both of her Dads will do it! :0)

FINISHING THE DISCUSSION ON THE NEBRASKA CONCEPT

NOT AS RANDOM POST AS IT IS SEPARATED ELEMENTS THAT ARE ACTUALLY STICHTED TOGETHER BY A THREAD OF SILK


I was searching for an All-State commercial with a young black couple and the woman is giving her assumed boyfriend an earful over the accident he caused, backing his SUV over a parked car.


Now I don’t know if anyone is familiar with that particular commercial or the ad campaign, but I thought that it was pretty cute. For a brief moment, I felt a ‘twinge’ as it nearly tripped my stereotype alarm, but as broad as the campaign is, I let it go. I mean, there is one where there are three slacker guys, one of whom asks for a hot tub and another with three young women, one of whom looks the ‘Delilah’ part, asking for a ‘bad boy’. To me, the entire series is obviously aiming for middle-brow humor.


I did a web search and came upon a blog that decried the one commercial with the black couple. I read the post and some of the comments and left one of my own. I mentioned that it was not a ‘mocking’ the Sapphire-ish black woman (now that I think of it, it could have been jonesin’ on Alice Kramden-types as well), but was as general and non-offensive as it could be. You can’t look at it stand-alone as it is part of a whole and that the commercials make fun of more than one segment of people and in different areas of life. I would also point out the Farmer’s Insurance commercial series, one in particular that has an older man with his much younger woman friend getting a jet ski stuck in a tree. That commercial said a lot in a little space, as it had the appearance of a vacuous young blond being spoiled by a older, ‘sugar daddy’ who was trying so how young and vital he still was.

Sometimes, a funny gag is just a funny gag. In my mind concerning the All-State ads, it is just a funny gag.

When it comes to humor being not broad but dangerous, the E-Trade commercials come to mind. Last year, it was the one mocking Lindsay Lohan that made light of addiction and substance abuse along with infant girls sending raunchy photos via the web and talking ‘dirty’ over the phone.

The new ads have two baby boys enthralled by nature videos of animals mating. The one baby says to the other, “E-mail this to me,” or something to that effect. That the one baby was coy about what was in his browsers history, said a lot about the content of what they were watching.


Whenever you infantilize adult behavior and project prohibitive or in this case, behavior that is close to pornographic, I have BIG problems with that. Not only are you justifying that kid of stuff for children who watch that stuff, what about the target audience? It is ADULTS who abuse and are addicted to that kind of stuff and man, I know I have sent several emails complaining about the E-Trade ads. No real point to be made, I will let y’all make up your own mind. I know how I feel and that is that with that.


Watching Sports Center on ESPN this morning, there was a segment about Nancy Lieberman, who at age 52, coaches a men’s minor ( the NBA’s D- League) professional basketball team. She is considered to be among the greatest female basketball players of all time. What struck me about her isn’t not she is a woman coaching men but that she is still an attractive woman. What is notable about my finding her attractive NOW is that when she was younger, I did not think twice about her looks or sense an ‘allure’ to her.

I still look at younger girls… but they flash across my mind like shooting stars. It is women who are more ‘age appropriate’ that catch and hold my attention now, more and more in fact. Would I feel comfortable chatting up someone in the late 20’s or early 30’s..? Right now today, sure. But ‘today’ is not about gaming with women (even if honorable intentions are present, there is still some gamesmanship to be involved at the beginning of a relationship) as much as it is to re-establish my direction personally and objectively, of where I am going with my life.


I’VE TRIED THE BRAKES…




The second song that I attached to my forward vision of my life in Omaha was ‘The Heinrich Maneuver’. When I would listen to this song, I would hear the story of my ‘whatever we are going to have’ with Nebraska being played out. Still do, and with good reason.

But I don't want to take your heart

And I don't want a piece of history

No I don't want to read your thoughts any more

My God

'Cause today my heart swings

Yeah, today my heart swings

I am not going to pretend that there is anything that she is doing or not doing as much as this is about something that there are things that I want to have confirmation of before I go foward. If I hadn’t been stumbling around with an idea that I hoped would have brought me back to Tee Jay, I would adopted an approach that would have had me remaining single and loving it. The paranoia that a new relationship can induce often manifests itself in different ways in different people. If there is any uniformity to that paranoia, it is that it is usually negative and often destructive. I an quite leery, given my condition, my tendancy to be ethusiastic over what I read in my own tea leaves, of becoming involved with a person that I can't figure out to my own satisfaction.



No matter what I may think of myself and of my role in my romantic entanglements, two things stood out: My continuing to be single and a regression on the road to reaching my destiny… not ‘reaching’ but the aim changed. Seeing that correlation, I did not think I would be in the market for a partner, not for a ‘true’ measure of time.

I don’t think that the factors that play into my decision to not want to be a part of a relationship has changed since I envisioned being single ten years ago. Took my shots and missed the mark. Love, unlike horseshoes, hand grenades or ballistic missiles, needs to be on the mark if not a bull’s eye. Maybe things will improve now that distance isn’t that much of an obstacle for us, physically, that is. What I do think is the song has taken on greater significance for me and what it means as far as my outlook regarding ‘us’.


The things that I have learned by going ‘back in time’ while I was in Detroit only verified what I and many of long time followers of my journal have confirmed about me… I am a decent if flawed cat, taken a misstep or two (or three… okay, okay, more like four or five… who the heck is counting?) but some should take a chance on me, cause I ain’t so bad!!