Still hard out there...

there's been a battle since last week's anouncement of Three 6 mafia winning
the award for best song from a movie soundtrack. some have called the battle

The Talented Tenth vs. the Niggas

Some a metaphorical divide between large and small plantation owners,
an extreme and ugly look at ourselves. But what is real deal?

Possibly the fact that the award honors our worst...if we want to call it such.
What should be observed is that the academy is creating a entity
that's gonna eventually snowball. As long as they glorify the seemingly "worst"
and exagerated fetishs of black folk, they're gonna come into a box they
won't want to open. What's in the box? Who fucking knows right now...
but trouble is coming soon.

color blind typecasting don't exist and lurking in the depths of the hills,
the talented tenth is actaully pimping hollywood playing these roles.

thanks greg

But this clash now between the condos and the projects? Well, one could say
that we are angry that a cat named Crunchy Black got an award for portraying
a figure in our culture we least support. A figure that the black community
sucessfully banned and complained over. Complained so that hollywood ultimately
switched gears, discontined any film productions that had to do
with blaxploitation and placed their bets on horror flicks.

we can also say that it put a fair number of black actors on the cheese line
because now they were typecasted with the genre and out of luck.

I can also get with the idea that it ain't cool to support everything we do, to not
support those who do some really backward shit...to not defend a mofo
who fucks around with kids and gets caught on tape with the crack pipe and
a sex worker.

but in this situation where a pimp is celebrated for his flight to music
and this somewhat crappy ass song winning the award, is the argument is good one?

Aren't we all pimps in some right? Don't we all got a hustle of some degree?
We give props to folks who hustle and flow into the academia, get their papers
and pimp the system so fools can get genius awards, NEAs and homes for their own.
And in the realm of music, pop or experimental, don't a mofo gotta pimp
themselves to get on the on the chitlin curcuit, on the showcases...

ain't we pimping ourselves on myspace?

gotta my cd out...gotta get my tenure track!

don't a fair number of us get pimped out every black history month
women's month, poetry month, with the only difference being that
instead of getting zero, some of us get anywhere between 250 and 2500?

with free airfare!?

blasting one pimp out the box cause he's got the magic formula to fool a hella
lot of hollywood liberal wannabes is not very nice...is it? it's like that whole
idea that country ass pimps cling too....the idea that they can turn out a woman,
with all the perm and floss and grill and specks and dehumanizing talk.

like the way Terence Howard's character had the ability to send one of his
workers in that music store, pull a trick with the shop owner
and get him that shimmering studio microphone.

yeah...Three 6 Mafia sure figured out the formula...

mo nigglet, mo money...mo money...mo nlgglet

overall, I think the song getting the award was funny, surreal, damn right
comical. and i, to some degree, am still living in the projects, what's left of it
in gentrified harlem, and pimping what i do ain't easy worth a damn.

Missing Octavia already (1947-2006)

Many so far have written about this woman and personally, I don't know what else to add.

all i'm remembering is my best friend Jme for my 24 birthday giving me 3 books. a
rhyming dictionary, a roget's thesaurus and wild seed....

i had just started to write, to get into it for real...so badly, I entered BMCC that spring
wanting to be an english major...

I didn't become an english major but i went through wild seed in a week.
i also got a C on my paper in eng comp because i went coo coo with the thesaurus.
i later got my other girl to loan me mind of mind soon after....
finished that in the lobby of village voice...gasped over the fact Doro
had indeed been destroyed by his perfect creation...kindred shook me after....others
followed...last year I was at a lost of words sitting in a tiny room filled with black women
at Yari Yari...i was too nervous to talk to her...to tell her that her books where the only
ones back then... i did manage to tell her that...but i guess it's two heads and two worlds,
one totally transfixed with literature and one catching the bug well into her twenties...

i had really hoped to meet her again, somewhere with less folks hovering
around...just let her know how much she made me think about things...

tell her about Prince's Dolphin song...about how I'm convince that he read
wildseed...that his dolphin was in fact Anyanwu.

she's going to be missed terribly.

here's an article from New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/books/01butler.html

on the subject of MTA, I think there's a conspiracy against me being totally indie.

being financially stable and relaxed.

I got a letter from TAB, Transit Adjudication Bureau, informing me that my check
was going to be garnished due to outstanding penalties on summones and violations.

items I know nothing of. so for 3 hours, I sat in the office awaiting a brief hearing.
a ticket dating back to 1990. A ticket i know nothing of and am only hearing
of more than 15 years later.

so now i'm awaiting the judgement. NYC is getting crazy.
And as Grahm Haynes, a musician, over tea and french fries added,
you can't think here...getting out of NYC is the only time one, creative, can think.

I agree.

After MTA, I went over to a high school I had worked this fall at. A school I had not
recieved any checks from since december. And guess what?

Someone didn't do the paperwork right.

I'm wondering if working retail is really that bad after all...checks come in steady,
I write and create more frequently than I do teaching....I don't know.

Maybe I'm hitting that thirty something protion of life when things
just gotta be in order.

I paid my phone bill but my phone is cut off half way.
Verizon email service sucks.

time to just get that online phone service.

beading and prayers...that's my sanity right now.

oh how much did I want to be Anyanwu when I read Wild Seed

I wanted that power...I wanted to turn into a dolphin

you know what would be really cool right about now?

a mutha fucka paying me on time.

We all have a little Oprah in us

Ok, now you might be saying what does home slice mean by this?
Well it's this....the almighty hype machine. Today I had caught a tad
of the power pusher and she was introducing the new Oprah Book Club
selection for the month. A book called night dealing with the holocaust.

I can't get into details because I was between the kitchen and the living
room when she announced such but what I came to think about was her
overall power to sell something and convinced folks to take a gamble.

Today is my second day of changing my eating habits and cleansing.
This is the week that I'll eat light and prepare to fast for what I plan,
10 days. Coconut soup with tofu and broccoli, salad, some nuts, dried
fruit, lots of water, water with cayenne, honey, and lemon, flushes consisting
of clay and husk, salt and gallons of yes...water.

I've been in conversation with a girlfriend, a musician from Chicago
now living in Queens. When we met, my eating habits were pretty good
but over a period of 4 years, I've returned to meat and bread...

While I'm looking at it as a resolution, I know I had to get back with
the paddle to return to habit she once knew me as, 75% vegan, turning
towards raw.

This is where Oprah comes in...my girl, Matana, has been a blessing to
talk to over email. Like I said, it's my second day and she's been couching
me (I suspect she doesn't realize it) in herbs and flushes, greens and
supplements and locations and folks a poor artist can reach out to and
slowly get their health back together.

She so doesn't realize how much it means to have like a coach
supporting the cause.

So i gotta Oprah her right now...

Her name is Matana, she's a freaking dope ass saxophonist from
Chi-town (South Side!!!!!), she gigs with Burnt Sugar and her band
Sticks and Stones, she's got a solo album coming out and if she'll
forgive, she has a blog where she talks about her journey

http://www.honeyintheraw.blogspot.com

Battlestar Gallactica

I have settle down for about two three days
glued to itunes watching every episode of
Battlestar Gallactica....yeah I have no life

A pal, T. Jess is a B.G. crack head and hooked
me with the first pipe. So, now I'm kinda in
that aching, hungry mode...much like an
addict awaiting to to give up my 1.99 and
download the latest episode...it's bad...

terribly bad when I've decided to pawn my
TV and retire from the couch to actually
do something more worthwhile than
watching Fear Factor and Lost....Edwin asked
me if I could do it....I'm not sure.

for 3 days I was ok...I had unplugged the tube
and it wasn't on until my boy left my home
without the B.G season one to suck on....

this is terrible.

but like i said, it's crack, cisco and all that bad
and good stuff rolled up in a software that you can download
for free and get you fix at 1.99 with an occasional
freebe of the week.

So, is TV on it's way out. it's been stated and confirmed
that the ipod video has great resolution and you can download
and skip all those lovely commercials.

By the way, the "Time to Get The Donuts" cat has passed
as did Lou Rawls...

But can we couch monkeys live without it....is it neccessary anymore?

Netflix has my 11.99 every month for unlimited 2 a week and now
itunes?

do I love myself enough to gt rid of this box that I never
wanted in the first but my mother, a 73 year old couch
demanded I needed?

where will my inspiration come from now?

Cylons and plane wrecked hotties?

more to come...

Something I'm thinking a lot about

An old Cherokee chief is teaching his grandson about life:

"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.
"It is a fight and it is between two wolves.
One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies,
false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.

The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope,
serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy,
generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you -
and inside every other person, too."

The grandson
thought about it for a minute and then
asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old chief simply replied, "The one you feed."

so why am I posting this?
the story soon to come...

Post Xmas

i've been taking careful back tracks into the neighborhood both
west and east of lenox. everywhere the landscape changes and i'm
just barely holding on to the little memories i have of these blocks.
on 108th and broadway, the first health food store around the ways is
now gone...it's kinda sad that even on broadway in the path of columbia
and all it's yuppies and political science majors, the health food shop owned
by koreans would get hit too. across, the spanish/chinese from junior high
is vacant...inside an ad for upcoming condos

looks like columbia bought out this corner too like they 110th
and broadway.

the bodegas are disappearing. There use to be a bodega on each corner
and now, Joe is gone, the spot I would always grab a honey blunt on 110th
and Manhattan is gone and the spot around the corner from Ebony Hotel
has been shut down for over a year.

there's only 3 left...a good walk to each...one's inbetween and liquor
store and a forever organic health food shop (oddly enough, a block
up from me...a first )...I wonder

when I want some good ole peanut butter wafers for 25cents and
a hand full of peanut chews and a white owl...where will I go?

on the opposite corner of my block I've been watching workers shell
out this building. this place was so old that for about three weeks,
the workes had to protective gear because there were high levels of
asbestos and thus, all th guts had to covered tightly every night and
a huge barrier had to be created. rumor has it that it's going to be a hotel
...that the fire was a classic set up...the owner wanted these folks out
and did the classic trick...well it worked. i can't really see how but hey
we've got a condo coming up on lenox so what the fuck?!

it's shocking to see the work so far....about a year ago, a fire
out of nowhere burnt out one side of the building...an elder died
as a result, folks never moved back...it was pretty obvious that they weren't.

Tyese's grandma has lived there for years. I was actually outside
that morning when the fire happened...To see Tyese, remember
her as my little sis best friend, partners in crime breaking night and day,
getting more friendly with the boys around the way than I had ever...wow.

Tyese has three kids...my sis, two...and here's the home she was raised in
....in a blaze...creepy

Jose, the deaf guy who had a crush on me when I was rolling Toni
and Denise, had family still in the building too. He was the darker
one for sure...his mom, I think was Puerto Rican, was clearly lighter
as was his siblings...clearly Jose had a different daddy..but no one was talking

deaf...he was still cool...and cute. he always asks if I'm married yet

in sing that is...

the building was always red....deep red in paint. during the summer,
workers blasted the brick with water and somthing mixed in it...
you can't even look at this place and think it was red...

the brick now...I can't front...is beautiful. the fire escapes, they're
making bigger...perhaps more safer. One row of windows going down now
has patios constructed. In some ways, it is starting to look like a hotel.

i'm still not certain.

This is perhaps one of the few buildings in the block I spent
more time than mine.

Tyese was there of course. Then my best friend for the sake
of calling her that was Tony and her family of sisters and nieces
and boyfriends. a family of dark puerto ricans. Nappy hair and
spanglish in between dark and lovely perms and spandex.

now i ain't stereotypin...that how it was in that house.

I'd hang there and roll with them to 117th between lenox and
madison...pat, tony's sis, had a best friend named veronica in
that block who rolled with some puerto rican boys with scotters...
and so, that's what we'd do. go to 117th, hang out in mount morris
park, drink peach cisco aka liquid crack, neck...get our titties felt up

well some of us. mainly me and Tony were on this virgin manifesto...
we're going to wait...so we kinda watched.

when tnoy and her family finally moved, she had created serious
beef with my cousin Eddie and his girl Carmen. You see, Tony
was always trying to get Eddie. Problem was that Eddie was with
Carmen from 107th and Columbus and Carmen had not one but
two kids from Eddie...Daniele and Danny...being that she had Eddie's kids

...his first kids...ghetto rules apply...she's the first so fuck off.

Tony never left Eddie alone and honestly, my cousin was a hoe...
she finally got what she wanted...to be impregnanted by Eddie.

Carmen and Eddie eventually broke up. She lives out in Queens now.
Has a third son...Daniele has a child of her own now...I don't think
she's eighteen yet.

Eddie lives up in the Bronx with his younger brother, Paul
who has a child as well but my guess is he's going to be
with his girl for a while.

Perhaps it's good that me and Tony went different paths in life...

I might have ended up with her cousin Leo who lived
in Taino Towers on 2nd Ave. He joined the military....

I never saw him again...just the pitbull named Uno

But...had hung arouns, I may easily have had 3 kids myself

xmas eve on triple 1's

hum...where do we start? well...it came to mind that the end of the year
was indeed a week coming and what this means is the major clean house...
it's like a spring cleaning except you're finishing up anything you should
have done two months ago in like two days....you're putting up that curtain
that's been lying over the chair since august and you're trying to be
anti-holiday-ish but buying your mom's something cause it's really for her

...that xmas day i mean

so i got up....meditated, read some zen passages and went down
to the laundry. now since september, i've been having some serious
lower back problems...doc said yoga, physical therapist said yogam
chiropractor said yoga...

working crazy like i have equals no yoga...

what can i say? i'm not making an excuse..it's just what's going
on in my life...i stretch and take it slow...

ok, xmas eve. triple 1's and lenox...at the corner, the condo
developers have begun the scafolding.

wow....it's finally started.

you see...i live on the block of gentrification. 111th and lenox.
a block from the park...untouched land until last summer when
the topic of a twenty story condo schedule to break rock came
into the ears of folks.

i knew it was coming but how and when still pinched.

there were meetings no one knew about...there were community
board meetings i found out about later. i'll admit...i wasn't as
active as i could have been....but me and a neighborhood kept
tabs on the little info we knew and shared it. the first buisness
to leave was Joe's Bodega...

it was kinda sad too how it came to happen.

Joe, a old puerto rican from the neighborhood...I have known
since i was a kid eating spiced ham and cheese...wasn't going
to move. he was holding for some mega moola. he in fact was
the first who told me about the condo...said it was trump...
no...it's the athena group...athena say they have nothing to do
with trump...but we'll see what goes down.

but joe was like fuck you...here's the problem with that.
now joe was old school in the corner grocery sense...besides
selling groceries...he catered to other items in the neighborhood

no drugs but other things that a big time developer could
use to fuck with you. common sense would say chill that side
of the biz and get your money but what can i say?

joe is a cocky ass puerto rican who still thinks puerto rican food
is better than domincan food and you can't argur with a man
who hooks you up with a free breakfast and groceries when
you're broke as hell.

that was the beauty about joe...he could be an asshole to some...
but at the end of the day..if you needed some help in terms
of something he had at the shop...he'd let you slide.

so they got him...the cops he has relations with with could
not have his back...he caught violations and eventually
a padlock on his store.

it sucked to see it go down. it sucked to see one of the
reps from the developers...a bro who i felt was kinda cute,
to just be hard core and act like he ain't never played numbers
or was sent to the store to play them for his momma...

but that's the nature of the beast, the biz

that was a couple of months ago...at first, all the businesses
had to be out by May...but I guess there was a delay...
news got to me that the block to trying to fight it more...
I finally got to a community board meeting...that was surreal.
the condo was suppose to be on the agenda of topics....

but the community board just blew our block off...
a bunch of folks from the block was there and it was
really strange how they acted towards us...something was up
...something wasn't right...

then another developer was asking for approval for
a site on 119th and with a better plan for the community

andthis condo coming up on my corner? no leeways
no special items for the neighborhood...the parking
lot will have less room so you know who's it's going
to be for...

you're going to have be rich or flithy rich to live there

no subsidized condos what so ever.

but to witness a good number of folks from the block
at a meeting to discuss the project and witness
some mofos who are the community boars roll
thier eyes at them...strange

later a photographer who lives in the neighborhood
informed me that the community board was paid off
by the developers...is there proof?

who can say...

about two months ago i ran into one of the women
from the block. now i've known this woman since i was
a kid and honestly i know nothing about her.
I call her Miss Scott...Miss Scott is actually her mother's
name but i've never known her as any other thing than Miss Scott.

and even in 2005, the woman has yet to correct me

I went to elementary school with her son, a fucking brat
who now lives in the building where she and her mom live.
this building is one of the few buildings under the TIL program
where tenants took over and eventually were granted ownership
in the form of co-ops.

typically, not everyone buys their apartments...so i'm always
asking about possiblities...but typically the answer i get from
her is that folks who live there now are making available
vacant apartments only to thier families...

we all know the deal....but this woman i have to say i funny
community active but insulting. probably the reason why there
are so little folks involved. upon talking to her about the community
board meeting and suggesting she talk to my neihgbor, she
commented that they no longer need any help and taking him
on would be like having an injured cat...

whoa! where the fuck is this coming? i replied that's an insult..
she sayes it's a figure of speech...i add she doesn't know
the man and that's still an insult...she goes "oh well."

wow...now i know why my mom was never trying to fuck with you!

and what does this have to do with today?

several minutes after putting my whites in, i walked out to discover
3 gentlemen on their donor bikes aka motocycles in all their leather
road rider bling hanging in front of the scafold...what a surprise
to notice that one of them was the developer himself...

now the first time i met this dude, he took me out to lunch
in his audi...i had never been in an audi...i was actaully kinda silly
when i ask what type of car it was...weird right?

het, i'm not into cars...all i know is the mini cooper

they're all cars to me.

yeah...but weird. we ate. candy yams, coconut shrimp,
corn bread, rice and peas...he's not big on eating hs veggies...
never touch the greens.
talked about college and single moms, queens and harlem
and the condo...maybe he trying to figure me if i would be trouble
...probably so but to go back to Joe for a second...it really irked me
that a dude coming from what sound like urban beginnings
would become a total bastard about running numbers...

that's me i guess....

so okay...the donor bikes. this dude has like an audi,
a suv and now, i'm learning he's a biker too...a biker
with degrees from Howard and Columbia and
a successful career with company that's finalizing
the gentrification of my block...

is this how pocahontas felt?

the irony of it all was here he was today, with his donor biker
dudes standing in front of what was the Black Unicorns
headquarters. In the 80's these were the first black bikers
I ever saw...no donor bikes then...strictly harley and black leather.

I was never to enter that place...if you were caught around that
corner, your ass got a whipping from the who ever saw you
before your momma.

I only knew of one girl who dared to enter there...she became
a bartender. It's was like this mystical place for most of us.
It was were these big black men kinda cautioned you with a glance
as you passed their bikes. The club was next door to a tire shop
which was next to a hole in the wall soul food spot...

the best peach cobbler in the land...no one has blown me
over with a pech cobbler to top that...not even my mom.

Now, the wildest story I know of someone who hid in the
club one night was an bro discovering cunnilungus via
watching the only white kid from the block eat out
a line of strippers on top of the bar.

yeah...i never went in that place....

The funny thing a drug dealer name T-Bone started
a junior motorcycle club called the Bucaneers who had
their headquarters on the same block above street level.
There was a guy who use to take photographs of all
of them...I remember him taking pics of both in a couple
of Harlem day parades ending the day before sanitation
came through....

I saw him a month ago...he's either crackin
or has been institutionalized for a minute...he was right
...he didn't recognize me...
he was talking to himself...bitching at the air.

so yeah...they have no idea. I walked up...say hello
and tell him a brief story of the Black Unicorns.

They never knew.

I say I gotta take some pics...he ask for a copy of
the graffitti peice...

I kinda looked at him like..."you want a pic of a piece
you're getting ready to destroy?!"

I guess I'll give him a copy...i lost his buisness ages ago.
he's going to have contact me for a pic.

we end with happy holidays and a not so surprising note.

He has a fab time celebrating christmas with
the community board the night before...

I end with "yeah they're an interesting bunch."

the teaching artist gets no love

Of all my years hustling with life of a poet and performer, nothing compares
to teaching. Now no get all twisted yet...I enjoy teaching. I love it when my
students discover something I hadn't prior. I love it when they write incredible
stuff. When they're more excited about performing than i am and when
i am a pack of nerves watching them from afar on stage....I feel like a mommy
seeing their child in thier frist recital.

but that's the good shit.

the factor that i'm totally fatigue from is the bullshit. Where's the checks?
Oh the money is coming...when? Oh here it is! And guess what...it's short
a couple of hours...oh and the final performance...your students are now in
the dance piece...which means, you...who has been with them all semester,
convincing of the wonders of poetry though they give a shit (mind you, i'm only
talking about one class), now have no student presenting because you've
forced them to now be dancers!

oh...but wait...guess what? we're going to cancel the talent show altogether
and never call you...and you'll get on the train from Harlem and ride out to
Brooklyn to bump into the janitor on the way out of the train station, who will
tell you the event was canceled.

ever since i've been back from South America, I've been working as a substitute
on top of my weekly stint as a spoken word instructor...i've recieved calls at 6am
to come in last minute at 8am...and no one called me about the show being canceled

i feel very lovely right now....really i do

and my back hurts

and it's cold

and i'm missing Oprah

and just is clearly not for me...not for long

so you see the problem?

the other day i walked passed the mirror. i normally do check myself in the mirror
but i'm guessing it hasn't been much the case lately. but this one special day i did
and boy...i looked tired. TIRED!

i'm working 5 days a week and feeling unfulfilled

gigging is less stressful than this...there's never any clear plan when gigs comes in
but to know you're working 6 days straight and still not saving up because shit is
all late....it's not good folks

so if you think you want to be a teaching artist, think hard and long

Brand New Day

Well...for the past 3 days it's been all about my computer
After so many sudden mishaps and application randomly
shutting down and no hope to perfect my craft in blogging
because my computer is wacking out, I finally did what I thought
I would surely fuck up...I had my computer wiped at the apple
store. it came at a time between late bills, some catching up
and a decision to not purchase a digi camera. i was close!
Radioshack had a sale on a digi video cam for 99 bucks,
Staples has a Kodak starter pack with printer for 199...
and that office chair I had been checking for a year was on
sale for 119.

But hark...that laptop was calling and it was time..yes time after
some many freezes and blank documents.

Anyone who's had to do it...I relate to you. One, you have to
find an external to put your docs. Luckily, I got one about a year
ago...almost in prep for this week. Mind you, my horoscope said this was
the week...the 10th being the primo day...but basically between the 5th
and the 10th I would be cool

I could have wiped it myself but miss chicken too her behind to the
Genius bar at the apple store. The day before I coughed up 300 for software...
Tiger and MSOffice.

Big lesson...all this time with the freebe programs..Adobe, Reason, Final Cut...
darn, what else? Now..all bye bye. I'll find the loot for Reason later but
I had to get Office.

So yeah, I get the software...and then the next day, I wake up around 7am and book
my appoinment...Oh you don't know? In order to get assistance at the genius bar,
all dummies must book an appointment online (yup, no phone call, no walking in)
the day of. Now if you have cash for Procare...you get business class treatment

But we all know, most of us poor folks who got a G4 are on welfare and probably
purchased our babies from a grant and one seriously big check

but yeah, i ain't got loot like that.

so my assistance is this cat who's pretty cool. the service is free, given that i sit for an
hour while it's being cleaned....if i don't sit with my baby...it will cost
85 bucks....No Problem! I'll sit right here.

so as i'm saying bye bye to everything I forgot to list and remembered later (i lost
all my links to language sites and native stuff...all my links to journals and school
funding...all gone) we start having this convo about language

i tell him about macaronics, how finnish is related to quenya and japanese to
tsalagi..turns out he's a purist for the spanish language...he hates spanglish

i'm stunned...my man is dominican.

we talk and then it's done...my baby is fresh and clean and i'm starting over

day two...download OS X.4, MS Office, my printer drive, and ilife....that's right
after getting a surprise check i figured...79 buck ain't gonna kills me after this
so now, i'll get to play around with garage band until whenever...

today until it was time to support my student at school, i tried to retrieve my address book
for entourage...no luck so one by one, folks who passed on thier info, i typed it in....

i sent out about 250 emails to folks asking for thier information...

so far, about 50 heads

a digital cleaning house huh?

Postcard from Harlem after Sao Paulo

I have been home for 3 days now.  Leaving saturday,
arriving sunday, substituting during the day and having
my after school class since monday, my brain is still
mush when it comes to time.  it's only a 3 hour
difference but weather and back pains has a way of saying
welcome back home.

like i said, the band traveled everyday. buenos aires
to nuequen to rosario back to buenos, then montevideo,
and yeah buenos again, ending in sao paulo...

when it came time to bid later man to the band and
arrive at my first host's home, i was whipped.

every place the boys got cuter...browner....forgive me
for checking but i'm a girl in a band of 7 men who's
eyes ( minus vernon) comment every ten mintutes about
this beautiful woman here and that hot lady there...

i gotta have my eye candy too

back in buenos, there were two stage hands i wished my
spanish was better...dang i wished my spanish was
better.

but let's get to the adventure.  i am in the house of
ibejis and yansas everywhere, small altars for folks
i'm polite to edit from here...with light footed hands that
appear in the morning to make coffee and purchase the bread

yemanja in all her greatness in the living room
protecting a rescued turtle in the tank filled with
crystals and stone.

me and my host, a slender artist, handsome and close
to my party memoirs,  talk of our age, clubs that loved us
in the 90's and rio.  it was 16 years ago that i was here in
another form....groove is in the heart baby.

oh those days when yeah...um...hee hee...ah yeah...those days

my host looks like this boy from high school...rolando
lucino morales...god i can't seem to forget this boy...
but balding and flossing a 21 year old sweet boy with
bright eyes and a slick pout.

nope this is not my first (fill in space)

but our back way back into time turns off for my
second host picking me up

in the cosmos, there are these quaint connections.
she is a photographer,  i met at her a gathering in
harlem. she spoke very little english so i connected her
to someone who did. turns out she was suppose to meet
my contact's god sister

this time, host 1 has met host 2 many times before on
his computer.  he has footage of her...her dancing....
dancing for yansa...yansa in quicktime...

she's never seen herself dancing

crazy...

me and host 2 leave and i arrive in her home. it's
beautiful and simple. clay, as she's called, a hand at
the home helps me with my baggage....everyone thinks
i've completly overpacked but one suitcase is for an
oxala here...fabrics for january...maybe i'll find
another ticket to come

my little angel mission for the future...

we leave to take her son to school....diego.   dear
me...he's a heart breaker at 5...i would hate to be
one of several girls when he's 19.

he grabs my hand.  he tells his classmates that i
speak "real english" in portuguese and orders me to
speak.   i say "hello, how are you" and the kids are in
awe...they can't speak...thier eyes are wide and mouths
are open with amazement

i speak true english.

later i read a dinosaur book to diego...a book he's
had for i don't know how long but since i'm here, what
better time to get a woman who speaks true english
to read Desmond the Dinosaur to him at bed time.

i am honored

the next day i leave for rodrigo again...a party for
an art opening closing...i'm learning that sao paulo
is mainly middle class white brazilians, that the area
sumare is expensive, that licence plates with a
certain ending number on an assigned day are
restricted in and out of central sao paulo between the
hours 5 and 8pm, that the central area is mainly
american banks and that transgenetic soya beans has
been booming to the economy..the downside is that
farmers will be dependent of pruchasing the beans from
the government since the beans do not reproduce
themselves.

no one knows the side effects of these beans later
on...no one knows the health risks..the question is
does it matter now?


tonight i will learn something else about this city

umbanda is more present here than is candomble

i meet again at this home... this place so mysterious
and inviting... palms grow in the back garden and the
house itself is an altar for oxum...oxala, it's said
must be careful with the drink, the crown, the
tampering of hair...but there's brazil's drink, lime
and rum and sugar...served freely before we travel

oxala...be careful now...

we enter the party...

ever since i've been in this country, i've been caught
between being jealous and pleased by all these people
tonguing each other down...like yuck yo...can you take
that shit home?! to a freaking hostile?
somewhere...please?

okay, it's not everyone but enough to notice...and
these ain't light smooches... it's easy to grab the
drink...gloss over and watch the action .

i sit and eat my cheese crepes, smoke a cigarette
with tobacco and corn husk, drink a warm beer and
watch oxala drink more

then it happens. someone falls faint, the cold water
is passed, the hands fan my host, we leave for home.
then outside the club, while the air is loose, a female exu
decides to visit

they say...

if i spell her name wrong , forgive me...nao fala
portuguese

her hands are on the hips, her bottom lips pokes, her
eyebrows rise and diva

we are at the house now, she strolls about, the
incense is lite and moved around

fabric is found to become her dress...she wants
wine...her special glass to sip...

pomba gira...her name...in the body of oxala

(when I return on sunday, i'll learn that pomba gira
has a strange connection to oxalas who are weak...)

i can't seem to stay awake...she speaks to me in
spanish...i wish her bom noche staying awake as long
as i can...i'm uncertain of this exu coming at such a
time...in a club? outside a club?

after the drinks?

okay, i don't know everything but i don't know what to
make of this...i'll keep my cup half empty

stay tuned...

four days later...

we have traveled from buenos aires to nuequen
nuequen to rosario and back to our favorite
hotel....i got a balcony this time around...

we are all tired from the traveling...planes and cars
the sitting for hours is miserable but to say the
least...we´ve been fed lovely...the food is incredible

leon, our in house vegan has fish from the river...
i got two free peaches from the merchant by the roadside...

for 4 pesos i could have gotten a basket of peaches but
all i wanted was 2 so he offered them for nada.

it appears that with each town, the browner folks get.
Taylor is loving it...i am too.

but i gotta say I´m bored with Taylor´s preferences for
"mixed" people like himself....he tells me how one of his loves
was puerto rican and black...i´m from harlem via the bronx...

that ain´t nothing particularly special...nothing related to this
convo is either...i let him talk despite me being as I said, bored

he´s young what can i say...

the first two gigs went well. the sound on the first was odd.
yesterday a little better...i´m feeling inadequant i gotta admit.

the poet amongst a shit load of great musicians...damn i feel
terribly basic...my back is killing me from the sitting
and well, on stage it´s kinda rough when you can´t move so much
so freely and this time around, the means to warm up properly are almost
impossible...

but yes, Argentina, each town gets browner and younger and
cooler...the views and buildings and bird calls and palm trees

adn we have a show tonight...want to walk around..best to chill
and watch tv till soundcheck

beijos

La

postcard from argentina

after a ten hour flight, customs holding some of our
equipment and a serious yerba matte tea, we have
settled into our hotel rooms watching America´s Next
Top Model en espanol. Me and Taylor have taken a couple
of hours to get lost in the streets, along the river where
your see parrots on the gates and not in cages...kinda replacing
the pigeons realm in nueva york.

in search for a place to sit and have a coffee and something
sweet, Taylor falls prey to a child asking for money.
He pulls out the wallet and gives him one peso and a euro...
the kid ain´t satisfied, he follows us, then there´s about
3 more kids

we escape into a puma shop (nothing solid in comparsion
to the soho shop) and then proceed our adventure.

we find a spot, cafe con lecho with 3 medialunas crossiants.
5.50 pesos...this is cheap folks, then head back...lost and
not lost at all, we are in the ritzy parts of buenos aires,
part ancient and modern...architecture is kind to the old...
construction of newer developments not too tall...nothing
stealing the sun like what´s in nyc...the official buildings
are beautifully designed

i´m remembering a lot from art history but can´t fully reference...
yeah greco roman influence...all that mess but in pink...yup i said pink

it feels caribbean but then it doesn´t

the landscape is filled with parks and sitting areas. we come
across a thick trail of ants working several feet across from
one path to another, tree, a mix of palms, willows and one filled
with purple flowers...these ants are some strong muthas...

we keep going and there´s a protest...my spanish is slim so i can´t
say what´s it about

there´s an apparant issue high lighted both by stench and plastic
and rags. the homeless are scattered around in this area...one road
smells of human excrement and it´s pungent

we discover a statue.... cristoforo colombo...the stone work you
can´t front on...however it´s got this bright splash of red tempura
paint...someone threw this...it´s certain...the action so dang clear...
i´m loving it

you walk around and it´s like barcelona, white folks with nice tans,
boys with some serious eyes and dark features...and short

hey i got a weakness ever since i saw bernal in amores perros and
he i think is mexican...but you get what i getting at...right?

we´re below the equator...something i did not realized until i
heard about the act of sea mechants piercing thier ears for good
luck once they´ve crossed it... wow, i´m actually below the freakin equator...radical dude

and it´s spring here and i got my phrase book

manana we go to neuquen (i think i mispelled this)...10 hour road trip

For some reason...

I'm having a problem with the posting of items like me
and traveling...back home in time to watch late night Oprah...
Today..Terry M. and her ex-husband on the low...I know...
I'm terrible and horrible and what type of artist am I ?

Well, I'm the one who the curator at Studio Museum of Harlem
never remembers...the one who always get that "i don't know
who the fuck you are" smile (despite praising me for my WONDERFUL!
essay...yes, the ill lana is whinning but that did'nt spoil my evening out
to an art opening...my cousin Issac Diggs has a film and photos up
and I got hug and show some love to Ms. Bad Ass, Iona Brown.

Bumped heads with an artist, Kyra, that I met about a year ago
at a CalArts drink and meet. later that night me and greg went
to an after ching dig on 120th and lenox...this cat, Chris Burns,
who've I known but never knew what he did as a nice spot over there
and he showed us his work...dealing with shoes and the civil rights
movement...he had some serious stuff...serious mojo pieces...

dope!

That fab-oh-he's on another world tour again muthfucka was there...
I dont get the beret he's been rocking lately...I guess he's evolved
from the knit ski cap....ooooooh am I hatin!

but me guess that's the magic of self-promo...you get on mutha's
brains till they're thinking about you more than you realize

an old pal of mines, Beans, posted on friendster his nude spread
in a porn magazine for the post modern trendies...everyone is talking
about it, he's tellnig folks, folks are telling folks, everyone
has an anal sex Beans story...ride trips in length and details

presto! promo at no cost but you'r rep...

hum...

Post card from Finland (Remix)

over salmon and fried goat cheese, i learned that
Pablo Neruda and finland had a pretty interesting relationship
on part of the leftist and socialist movements, tara, your tube
of toothpaste (may be partly used...my bad), singkuu is single
in finnish and kiitos (pronounced kee-dos think cheetos) is thank you,
and there's mad white boys with locks out here, bartenders got mad
skill with collecting beer glasses and one of the cats from the bold
and the beautiful is a hottie for the ladies here, and waitresses get paid
double time for after hours, get free cab rides home...

oh yeah, desperate house wives is translated as
perfect women...

just some random stuff with red wine

manana, sauna

with love

la

I'm having an interesting week

Well...a month. I was blessed with teaching jobs this year.
A total challenge for me and yeah...terribly new. I have a range
of students. Sixth graders and then 12th graders. A range
of personalities...some blend smoothly...some don't click
at all. The biggest challenge is money which sadly is not
coming through.

Medgar is my home...I'm totally myself while I'm learning how
to be myself with the students. We're learning together....
It's wonderful. They're paying me. Shit is lovely.

Freedom is Academy is a different environment, a different focus
and so, it's taking some time for me to get into the swing, the
methodology of the school and the organization that hired me.
And yeah, I just got paid so I'm happier now.

My biggest challenge and perhaps a problem is a school in my
neighborhood. I was excited at first but now I've faded. In addtion
to some trife scheduling and yup, no money...I'm totally not feeling it.

I've worked with four students so far, I love the work I got out
them to create. And wow, it's incredible work coming from
these kids who have a dickens of time focusing...

but what can i say...

i'm not interested in turning my life around to be enslaved
by the big heads, by personages that are only concerned with
showing the green backs a song and dance. I'm not interested
in numbers or Bill Clinton or paying kids loot as an incentive
to have them sitting in my class. I want to teach poetry to
children with none of the bullshit.

But alas, I got an email today from one of the heads....
they want me on fridays but at a time that could conflict with gigs.
We had been in conversation about the days but I knew it wasn't
sitting well inside so I ask for them to look over the times again.

if it can't work....it can't work. I'll make due

what i got was a remark that was kinda insulting...kinda "well quit."

so I'm stuck here....thye haven't given me any money since I began.
i've been there for a month and change and shit is already salty...

They hired me because I am a poet however they want me to be
less of a poet to abide by them....had the nerve to get slanted
and tell me that I'm too committed to being a poet.

wow...the last I checked...my resume is all about me being
fuckin poet...that's what you hired for right?

yuk...so I'm on the hustle again...

no, i haven't quit yet...not until i get my loot at least

A gig I have coming soon

Talk Series: LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs:
Rrrrocking you! Rrrrocking you! Rrrrocking you!

Friday, 7:00pm

This presentation will explore the relationship between
verse and devices like the Yamaha Rx-1 drum machine
as vehicles that can transmit non-sensible dialects and
performance: in what ways does the Betsy Wetsy and
Turku boogaloo to Miami Bass?


The Poetry Project is located in St. Mark's church,
131 E. 10th St at the corner of 2nd Ave and 10th St
in Manhattan.

Harlem Day Parade 2005

It's hard to believe that I still reside in the block that every year,
becomes the stomping ground for the Harlem Karate School and
perhaps a marching or three. I have just returned from New Jersey
where I was baby sitting my god children. Six, four and 11 months,
and every year I reckon I was following the course of maturity....

dear me.

These kids make me old and frightenly younger.

I choose not to write about the hurricane fiasco for several reasons.
One was that I cried every so often, reading the endless storied not
told on mainstream television but on the web. Added, my course of
action was to email blast everyone I knew with the information. This
I had to say was the beauty of a terrible truth...a call of arms from the
masses less heard from and a reckoning that the least could indeed be
the greatest.

So while folks organized themselves into enclaves of good cause -
clothing drive, pamper drive, school supplies, etc., e-blasting was
active beyond any spam mess one has had. To imagine the power of
the internet creating more unity among black folks than the million
man march or the civil rights march...folks can debate all they want
on my commentary but the call to arms I feel would not have been
so wide spread without the use of the internet this time around.

I can get into the obvious problems with FEMA, with Bush, with Rice,
with our nation which, has been telling us for years, they really could
give a fuck...

but this is only a small part of my concern...

I wonder if we could ever truly live here without a total dissection of
the tenets with which this country was devised and thrives on. Yeah,
I'm talking destroy the constitution and generate a new one cause
it ain't happening, destroy all factors of the law because it's a bloody
blue moon when they function on our behalf....us meaning aniyunwiya...
people of the land

shit seriously needs to be dismantled...

So yeah, I cried tremendously. So what did it bring up? More blood
memories I sense. Items within my pathology and I'm certain others
who had somehow experienced seperation, violence and upheavel, death
and suffering...if I were to agree with Jesse Jackson, perhaps it did pull up
some recollection of the middle passage.

Still beyond this, what else is going on? Nature cleaning up what we've
been neglecting to do for a long time. The spirits before us that have
watch over us and said this place needs to be re-balanced and re-birthed.

I've had heavy thoughts about this...thinking immediantly of the
cemetaries, of Laveau, of her bones utterly tired of the endless bus tours
geared at visiting the so-called "haunted" areas of New Orleans. How must
she have re/considered the idea of washing out, cleansing so that the
maddness of tour guides and cameras could finally leave her bones alone..
for a couple of years as least.

In that manner, I can say this was a good thing....but once I heard about
the rapings and mis/information...

I start to cry again.

We're losing the meaning behind our earth doing what she does.
We're not recognizing the elements that are more powerful than
our flesh

And then I get more news. This time I'm distraught, I'm angry,
I'm kinda motionless. I'm tired of pondering over this craziness.

This week, a young girl was taken in for throwing her child
down a dumpster. The child survived but officals later uncovered
a mumified infant that was hers as well.

Two days laterm her father was taken in. The tests had shown
that he, father of this young girl, was the father of her two children.

And this is 2005. And this is where educators are required to
take courses on drug/alcohol/child abuse and where neighborhoods
go on the TV and talk about ho she was soo sweet and was always
seen with her family

yet, no one sensed anything slanted? this hurts me so deeply.
and so...what happens to her, this girl who is by every defintion,
robbed of her youth, her mystery, her mental well being?

we don't need to get into her spiritual well-being...

this is too much

And will the officals go on and make a case against her? Why?

So much work for this girl to go through now and I prayer
terribly that she is first given love. Therapy yes but there must
exist love for her to come through this functional

otherwise....I don't know.

Just a couple of weeks ago, they found the body of a woman
in a dumpster on 123rd and Lenox. What was her story?

Puerto Rican Boys in FedEx Gear and Ponytails...me likes

Yeah...odd and appauling to begin but coming home today from
a job interview, there they were. Those delicious black and purple
stripped oversized shirts, all three except for one styling a-just-got
those-cornrows-out-and-need-my-head-to-breath ponytails.

If this was 1986, they're be nicknamed Jesus.

Oh yeah, I've got it hard for those young boys.

But I ain't going there.

My August has been filled with too much cypherin'...
more than what my doc wants me to do. Mind you
I've just got into the summer swing and already....September
is in about a week.

Folks are relocating to Nueva York and my heart goes out
to them. One friend came here and did a week of craigslist
and got an apartment on his last day. My other friend is now in
mix of searching and what New York now consider apartments...

Dang yo!

Last week I was honored with participating with Composers
Collaborative again. Where the last had to do with me
working with a composer (which really didn't work out but
I came through nonethless), this time around I got to composed
my own stuff. This was a challenge cause for startes, the past
couple of years, my ideas have been nesting on the mpc
in my bedroom. SO I wasn't completly confident that they could
work outside of Apt 5re.

Earlier this summer, out of inspiration and the dare to create
a crunk track, I began a series of tracks that have nothing
to do with the formula southerns ass clap to.

Mind you, I wrote some wonderful lyrics for crunk.

Me and John have our reply to the "Whisper Song."

But let's just keep that in the lab till we perfect the mutha.

The first attempt became this gamelan cut with layers of bass drums
to create a gritty feel and my second attempt came out all yiddish
and morrocan. Hey if this is my head say go, I gotta follow.

The third, which I had done much earlier, is very simple and has
a couple of piano keys as the intro.

With these, the brain went into action for the my 15 minute set.

Gamelan became a macaronic verse of Cherokee, Hawaiian, Samoan,
two words in Spanish and English rhyme.

What I'm calling right now "Diddy's Rump Iza", is a poem I actually wrote
two years ago but was been re-vamp several times since and is now meshed
with a hook from a piece I wrote a while back for Sayidd and Priest
that never happened.

Last, "Blank Cassette" is kinda like a ballad, kinda like a mantra that was
written in Sister's Oregon surrounded by mountains, mountains, trees,
more trees, and two lakes. A place where a city kid could totally freak
out when left alone in a single person cabin.

So, um, yeah, in about a week I worked on the pieces and presented them
at this event. Outcome...myh peps loved it, the audience which appeared
tobe cabaret/theatre goers, I suspect were confused. Nonetheless,
The New York Times gave it a good review. And for me, it finally felt like
these pieces could formulate the second, if it ever happens, audio project.

Title?

Fraud

So I've said it. Aside from all other items that need attention this year,
"Fraud" has now offically, on paper, track, and webland, begun.

I still gotta do a crunk track

Red Indians from South America

nothing sweeter than the quiet, a honeywell turbo fan, a pinwheel mobile
activated by it and some bamboo shoots making melodies. Yeah,
it's peaceful like a dilly dally. last week was "fuck it week". new jersey
shore and jelly fish two days, a pal comes into town for another two,
grub at mannas on 125, Hustle and Flow saturday and M.I.A. sunday.

yosara mentioned having male energy around me for a couple of day
to balanced out. I got my wish and then some.

the finale was a sweet dinner cooked by Ebon's mom and an old friend
trying to shoot down a water bug with an amazon blow pipe. I gotta say
that weed is to be used sparingly and when the moment is right...shit,
the moment is clear and write worthy.

it's been about two weeks since returning home. colorado was hotter
than a maggot on concrete. for the first couple of days, I was a bit
nervous. our rehearsals were'nt coming together. i could see and feel
akilah's fustration with me, with other folks. I for the most part felt
my head was somewhere else...not like i didn't want to be there but....

maybe it was the altitude.

but when it came time for the show, my feelings were that Oluchi,
her son, blessed us with some energy...the stuff we all needed.

in the end, we got a standing ovation.

one of the primo highlights on this trip was meeting
Victor Hernandez Cruz and John Yau. Victor was this tall handsome
elder with silver hair and mellow aura who's been living in Puerto Rico for
the past 16 years. To make him even more interesting, he spends half of
of the year in Morrocco. He was funny and down to earth and I got a sense
that the nuyorican in him was bugging out at this
Naropa experience. shit, everybody does.

John Yau was ultra cool. Although we didn't get to
talk much, I'm really looking forward to meeting him again.

Anne Waldman was as usual this incredible being hovering around,
keeping track of things and being as encouraging as she was
when we first met.

my only heartbreak was being the space of someone I respected
who for some reason, just went cold turkey on our budding
relationship, be it mentor or friend.

for the journal peoples so don't ask.

perhaps another out take on human beings
and why we do what we do.

perhaps something to said about how we use intuition and
our guardian angels wisely or haphazardly. a red indian,
yeah there is a tribe specifically called RED, got into my ass
on the corner of 112th and Lenox last night. we must have
been there for two hours, both of us swaying cause our feet
were tired and we both on our way home when we met.

but what he said to me was amazing and beautiful
and spiritual and kind hearted. it was terribly on point too.

if it were not for the fact that I bumped heads with an native elder
just twenty minutes prior, (she had shared with me
some knowledge of wealth also) who knows...

I may not have crossed paths with him.

so what did he say?

salt and scissors. pigeons and St. Clara. ribbon and dirt.

we are always babies in the eyes of the creator.