I knew it wouldn't be too long before it happened. Someone said that New Orleans has suffered the "Wrath of God" as punishment for being Sin City. God destroyed Southern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama as a warning to the rest of America to turn from sin. It sounds good, in theory. That is, if you believe in that type of God. However, anyone who knows me knows that I don't go for that type of spiritual mumbo jumbo. I find it hard to believe that God would punish people who have nothing just to prove a point.
The Gulf Coast is one of the loswest socio-economic areas of the country. These people live a lifestyle of poverty. And not because they're lazy, or because they're waiting on Government handouts. Its because that's the culture that they've been born into. That area's been like that for over a hundred years. There's not much industry, not much education, not much of anything that would give the average person much of an opportunity to advance from his/her current status. All most of these people have is agriculture and tourism. That's it. And now they don't have that because God wants to teach the world a lesson.
I'm sorry, I have a HARD time swallowing that. Why is it that God always has to punish the have nots in order to teach a lesson? Why couldn't God destroy Washington DC? Surely there's WAY more sin going on there than there is in New Orleans. It seems as if God has no problem with World Domination, genocide, bringing drugs into the ghetto, bombing other countries, ignoring polution of the Earth or anything like that. What God is more concerned about is gambling, prostitution and getting drunk. And if a few humdren thousand of poor people have to lose everything they have, have had or ever will have, then by golly, that;s EXACTLY what's gonna happen. But who am I to try and figure this out? I'm just a sinner myself. I guess I can expect a hurricane to hit my house anytime now.
 

�It offends my roommate that you stay with a girlfriend cuz she has such a hard time dating�
�Well...I'm sorry that my success is so disturbing�
�Well I can understand it...how do you constantly find people who want to be with you?�

This is an actual private chat conversation that I had with a friend of mine back in February. I actually had to sit back and think about this for a few months before I even addressed it in any form. Someone is actually offended that women like me? I mean, you see it there as plain as day. She�s OFFENDED. Like I stood up and told a whole slew of Pollok jokes, or said that all Jews were the spawn of Satan and deserved death or that women should be barefoot and pregnant. She�s offended. I wonder, how should the fact that I get laid is offensive to someone affect me?
Well, first thing I had to find out was why it was offensive. I found out that my friend�s roommate feels that since I don�t have a traditional job (meaning that I�m broke more often than not), that I live at home with my mom, have no car, and have serious babymamadrama, women ought to look at me as though I have a huge neon sign over my head that flashes �KEEP AWAY� continuously. Especially since, as is spelled out up there in the conversation, she has a hard time dating. I guess since she�s a nice looking woman with a job, an apartment (even though she is sharing it), a car, and no children, men ought to be beating down her door. However, this is not happening. And since I, despite all of my shortcomings, seem to be falling into pussy left and right, this is offensive. Even my friend is baffled as to why I seem to find women who�re willing to be with me romantically. Exactly why is that? Why are women willing to be with me? What special talent do I have or secret that I know that makes women flock to me like pigeons to bread crumbs?
Well, its simple if you really wanna get down to it. I�m MYSELF. I don�t put on airs. I don�t try to run game. I don�t try to be a pimp or a playa. In the words of Tupac, I don�t have to lie to kick it. I tell a woman that I meet up front any and every thing that she needs to know about me. There are plenty who can�t or are unwilling to look past my flaws. Know what I do about them? NOTHING!!!! Fuck em. I refuse to beg a woman to like me. I did that one time, and it didn�t work because the bitch just didn�t want me.
But there are women out there who actually look at me and like what they see. True, many times its just for pure physical lust and wanton desire�but hey, who am I to deny a woman what she wants? Some of these women just want their backs cracked and their toes curled a little. Its really not much more complicated than that. As for the ones who have expressed an interest in me on a deeper, non LGBNAF* way, I can only explain it like this.
They are able to see past what I don�t have and see what I do have. I have a career as a writer. Call me crazy, but I actually think I can make it at this here writing stuff and it keeps me VERY busy. I also have a job as a Community Health Advocate, trying to get black women to take better care of themselves. I�ll never get rich doing it, but at least its rewarding. So I can�t afford a nice fancy car or a dinner at an upscale restaurant all the time. So I am staying with my mom for a moment (Well, its been more than a moment, but its not like I�m planted here.). So I do have babymamadrama and I can�t afford to pay the Hit man what he was charging to take care for that for me. At least I�m fun to be around and I have a pleasant heart.
Maybe that�s what my friend and her roommate need to concentrate on. Instead of wondering why women like me, maybe they oughta figure out why they can�t keep a man. Cuz I can assure that me getting laid has absolutely NOTHING to do with that.
 

A poetry reading in a cemetery... WHAT?????? Now why in the hell would anyone want to attend a poetry reading in a cemetery? Better yet, who in the hell would even have that idea?
Well, actually, I did.
Two years ago, I went to this workshop back in 2003 about utilizing under used and under appreciated community resources. One of the most under appreciated and little used community resource is the cemetery. It�s a wide open space that can be used to organize a neighborhood walking club, they have a space that can be used to hold a community meeting, things of that nature. Well, I began to think�
What if I had a poetry reading in a cemetery? It would be something that nobody has ever done, at least that I know of. It would be inexpensive to get and I know there would be enough room. I had it all planned out except for one thing. I said to myself, �There is no way anybody would come to a poetry reading in a cemetery.� So I put my idea to ret and let it die.
Well, fast forward about 2 years and I get an email from Cherryl Floyd Miller for an event called The Language of Bones, to be held in Oakland Cemetery. It was to be a part of a week long event called Art in the Park. I damn near screamed. I was floored. I couldn�t believe it. There was going to be a poetry reading in a cemetery. And, judging from the list of participants, there was going to be a damn good one too. And let me be the first one to tell you, it was the shilznit!!!!!
I went to the open mic, hosted by Collin Kelley, then I went to the show hosted by Cherryl. It was amazing, but as I sat there, I couldn�t help but to wonder, �What would have happened if I had followed through with my idea two years ago?�
So, I say this to you, if you are reading this blog: If you have an idea, no matter how absurd, SEE IT THROUGH TO COMPLETION!!! Let the world tell you it�s a stupid idea, don�t let doubt keep you from realizing your potential.

 

Collin Kelley has been bugging me to put something up here, but the problem is , I don�t necessarily know what to put up here. I guess I�ll talk about what�s been going on in my life up till this point.
A friend of mine who works over at GA. Public TV (GPTV) called me last week with an opportunity to perform on a nationally televised broadcast with the illustrious Nikki Giovanni and Pearle Cleage. Obviously I was stoked at the opportunity, and I was asked to tell 5 of my friends about it. That provided another problem, WHICH 5 to tell?
Well, obviously, Lady was the first one I told. Then I owed Philippe a favor from back in 2002, so I had to tell him. Also, Plain Brown has given me several opportunities to perform my art, so I had to tell him as well. That left two other people to tell. First, I told Nyne Elements, but he wouldn�t be able to do it. I told Collin and Theresa next, but Theresa couldn�t do it because she was out of town and Collin had his plate so full, he couldn�t do it. So that left Bryan Petillo and this young sista named Arianna Santiago, who I met at the poetry event at Oakland Cemetery (I�ll talk about that a little later). The girl is bad. At 16, she could put a lot of grown spoken word artists to shame. The one person I didn�t tell was my man Ajari.
Don�t get me wrong, I love Ajari like a brother, but that Negro can work my nerves like nobody�s business. Personally, I don�t think he would appreciate the opportunity, and this is my reputation on the line here. It�s not totally unprecedented. When Lady came to me about doing a show back in April, Ajari was the first person she wanted to put on the show. When I asked him if he was interested, he said �Sure.� Then about two weeks later, he says that he won�t be able to do the show. When I told Lady, she said �If he changes his mind, his spot is still open but we will go on without him. � In the words of Goodie Mob: One monkey don�t stop no show.
Well, about a week before the show, he says that he changed his mind, and that he will do the show. As close as two days before the show, he came and said that he had already taken the day off of work and would be there, no doubt. Showtime came and that negro was NOWHERE to be found. He didn�t show up. That wasn�t as bad as the fact that he didn�t call. We spoke a couple of days after that and he said that he had to go to work because he needed money and that he was getting evicted and what not. That�s totally understandable, but what prevented a courtesy call? I�m sure he wasn�t on his way to the show then decided to go to work at the last minute. But at that point, it really didn�t matter. From this point on, a no call/no show is known as �Pulling an Ajari.� Taken alone as an isolated incident, that wouldn�t have been so bad, but that was just another in a LONG line of similar behavior. All I could envision was Ajari saying that he would show up at the audition, and then just wigging out. Or worse, coming to the audition, getting selected for the show then waiting till the day before they tape and moving back to Phoenix, or Houston, or wherever the hell he decides to move. I couldn�t risk it.
My friend Alana said that I was wrong for not telling him. She said that I shouldn�t have made that decision for him and I should have told him and if he doesn�t show, that�s his problem. I couldn�t disagree more. As I said before, this is my reputation on the line here, and as I mentioned in a previous blog, Reputation is EVERYTHING.
 

I would like to find the person who wrote the unwritten rule that “REAL” poets don’t read onstage. I’ve heard several terrific poets say that they are afraid to come to the open mic because they don’t want to seem like amateurs onstage with their paper. My response is, correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re ALL amateurs. The purpose of the open mic is to OPEN the microphone for any and everybody to get on stage and recite their work. Its just that simple. It doesn’t matter if you read off of paper, memorize or get up and pantomime. Its an OPEN MIC.
I was on my way to the Java Monkey one evening to meet Lady and I found her talking to this gentleman. He was saying that he had seen her at the open mic the previous day and expressed his apprehension about getting on stage and reading his poetry. He said that he thought nobody would “get” his poetry and he was intimidated because he didn’t scream and rant like the other poets. Its sad when a person is afraid to share his/her work because they’re afraid.
I think people are losing the sight of the purpose of poetry. In my own humble opinion, poetry’s purpose isn’t to make the poet rich and famous, it isn’t to intimidate and it DAMN sure isn’t to get laid. I feel that the purpose of poetry is to express the feelings, ideas and ideals of the poet, and if a person is afraid to do that, they poetry suffers. And, ultimately, if poetry suffers, then the world suffers. I know that seems a tad bit melodramatic, but I AM a poet after all.
I hear poets get up on stage and rattle off some of the most amazing, awe inspiring sets of words that anyone had ever heard. I’ve heard some of the greatest alliteration, consonance, personification, and literary brilliance ever penned by modern American writers. But the problem is, after you hear some of there poetry, you don’t know anything about them. They don’t talk about their dreams, their desires, WHO they are…nothing. I feel that if the poetry doesn’t say anything about YOU, then you shouldn’t share it. Well, I mean the poet should be more willing to open him/herself up to be exposed to the audience. We are a voyeuristic society. We want to see inside of the lives of the people we live alongside. They may be going through the EXACT same thing that we’re going through. We may be able to help them, or they may be able to help us. The point I’m trying to get at is that poets need to SHARE, whether is off of paper or from memory, as long as its REAL, its good.
 

I love being a poet. Not trying to sound arrogant and self important, but I’m good at just about everything that I do. Poetry is what I love. However, there are people in Atlanta who make it increasingly hard to enjoy doing what it is that I love to do.
Whenever I run into people I used to see all the time out on the poetry scene, I LOVE it when they ask me, “Damn, you still on the scene? I haven’t seen you in a LONG time.”
What makes it funny is because in the past year, I think there’ve been maybe 3 or 4 weeks that I haven’t been out doing poetry. So if I’ve been out more than 45 weeks over the past year and they haven’t seen me, then what does that tell you?
What I really wanna ask is, “Did you miss me? Exactly how long did it wake for you to realize that I wasn’t there? What made you realize I was gone? Did you miss my poetry or did you miss the massive amount of space I take up? Or maybe, you just realized that you haven’t seen me just now when you saw me. “
Actually, what I really want to ask is, “Do you really care?” I haven’t been in Madagascar, so its not like I’ve been particularly hard to find. Several of them have my phone number, yet my phone never rang. My email address is pretty much widely known, I haven’t gotten any email. Hell, I can’t get some of these mofos to return the email I send THEM.
I’ve expressed this to many people over the years and most of them have the same opinion: “They’re jealous of me. They’re afraid that I’m going to steal all of their glory.”
As wonderful as that sounds, I refuse to be colluded into thinking that’s the explanation. The reason is that they just don’t CARE. Its one thing to be hated on, but its another thing to be disregarded: to stand in the presence of your peers and to have them not hear a word you’ve said. This past Sunday (4/17/05), one of the poetry “big wigs” came out to Java Monkey to pass out fliers for one of their events. What? SURELY you didn’t think he came there to actually listen to poetry, did you? In the time he was there, he didn’t look up at the stage one time (At least when I glanced over at him). Every time I saw him, he was more interested in what was going on with his palm pilot that with the poetry that was going on. I could be wrong because I was actually listening to what was being said on stage. This lady named Tommie sang this really wonderful song about getting a new set of dreams. I think I’m gonna write a poem about the same subject. But I digress.
I just wish that most of these numbskulls who do all this talking about unity among poets in Atlanta would come down off of their high horses and actually begin to practice what they preach.
 

In my last blog, I talked about coming to terms with my selfishness. That was step one. The next step is to be able to discern GOOD selfishness from BAD selfishness. There is a good thing as good selfishness, because if YOU don’t look out for YOU, then who will? You know what, lemme stop stalling and get to the point. I’m pissed. I am upset. In fact, I’m downright ANGRY.
Why am I angry? I’m angry because I have to sit by and watch the EXACT same shit go on at the Java Monkey that went on at just about every other open mic that I went to that caused me to stop going to those same open mics.
It all started last year when Tommy Bottoms was the feature. Don’t get me wrong, Tommy is a straight up cat. Amongst all those self centered “I’m the hot shit” niggas on the spoken word scene in Atlanta, Tommy is the realest. I remember back in 2003 when I invited a lot of people to perform on the stage I was running at the Great Atlanta Music festival. Tommy was the ONLY one I invited to come who actually came. But with that said, he never comes to Java Monkey. But since I like Tommy, I let that pass. But then Abyss got to feature, then came Georgia Me, and then came Spinxx. Now, it’s Hiya. And THAT is what pisses me off.
Its not that these people got to feature: Its not even that they never come to Java Monkey. It’s the reason WHY they don’t come to Java. They have no respect for the venue nor for the poets who frequent. This is not something that I think, this is something I know. Java Monkey is regarded as a “white” venue. The Java Monkey poets are regarded as second rate. Neither Abyss nor Spinxx would let Collin, Jan, Lady, Rupert, Theresa, Cherryl, Brian, Prodo, or yours truly feature at their open mics. They have an “image” to uphold, and none of us fit into that mold.
I remember a story that Lady told me about her dealing with N’tellect, the Grand Poobah of The Eboni Poet’s Society. She was the first one at the venue every Saturday. She helped him rearrange furniture to get the place ready. She passed out fliers, she advertised, promoted, did everything except for sell popcorn in the bleachers. Her reward was to be passed over on the list until damn near 1AM almost every night. When she asked what she needed to do in order to feature, he told her that if she could rock the crowd three weeks in a row, then she could get to feature. Well, she did just that, getting passed over each night, waiting till 1 in the morning, getting on the mic and rockin the house. The fourth week, she goes to the spot only to have a Tweet clone on stage with her low-rising hip-hugging jeans with the belly chain reading (in Lady’s words):”Six of the lamest ‘straddle you in a chair’ poems I’ve ever heard in my life.” But such is life as a poet in Atlanta, at least on THAT particular scene. But the Java circuit was supposed to be different.
There’s this kid named “The Mysterious Poet” who REALLY gets Kodac’s goat. He commits the cardinal sin of reading his poem, then leaving. Kodac HATES that. His philosophy is “If you only want to hear yourself read, then stay at home and read to yourself in the mirror.” Yet, week after week, the Mysterious Poet does the exact same thing, and it still pisses Kodac off. But, whenever he reads the list and sees the name, he calls him and lets him read. That’s only fair. At any other open mic, he would get passed over on the list.
Java has always been fair, but it seems like that’s getting left behind. Jon Goode gets to funnel his clique buddies over to Java Monkey so they can reap the benefits of getting to feature there (Java pays its features). It may sound like I’m crying sour grapes, but I’m just concerned. I left that poetry scene because I felt like they had no respect for the art or, jut as importantly, no respect for ME. I came to Java monkey because I thought I would be able to start fresh and new with a whole new crowd of artists and get some respect, but it seems like the same dark cloud that hovered over that scene is rapidly approaching this one as well. Cliques are nothing new. The people on the Java circuit are just as, if not more so, guilty of the same thing; but at least Kodac’s been fair. However, I’ve been coming to Java FAITHFULLY for over a year, and I’ve never featured. Yet, these other “artists” who have never been to Java, and not by circumstance but by design because of total and blatant disregard, get funneled in and featured left and right. Now, how fair is that?