Kudos And Such

I started this out as a message to those that take time out of their busy day in cubicle land to stop by and read me. I wanted to thank you for giving me some of your precious time. I also want to thank those that get a chance to read me at home. I know that the spouse, the kids and general home duties come first. How I get squeezed in is totally amazing. Let me also take the time to remind you that I am completing what will soon be my first published literary piece and it will be available late spring. I'm also coming with a spoken word joint AND a hip hop joint also bowing in early to mid 2007. If time is precious, then I know that battling for your hard earned dollar in the form of CD or lit pages will be harder, so I work feverishly on things because I believe in quality over quantity, plus I want your money but I won't beat you for it, it'll be worth every penny.

Moving on from shameless self promotion...

The rest of the year will be interesting in how I do my thing. I might stay in Chicago, I might head south to be near better publishing opportunities (both music and literary) and be near someone special. I might take up on a few opportunities that are being offered to me right now. Who knows? One thing I do know is that I like the freedom I have right now and I want to keep things the way they are as far as that is concerned. I have considered the possibility that my music might be wack as hell and I might not sell a single book, so plan B (securing security thru employment and/or entrepreneurial ventures) is in effect. That means I'll be travelling and visiting places and people in the interim that will pull me away from my blog so entries will be spotty sometimes, but I will still read and attack blogs when I get the chance.

But before I get out of here and totally stink up a few airport and hotel bathrooms I wanted to say thank you to one blogger who is just the shit in my eyes (not the aforementioned kind from the airport or hotel bathrooms either).


Nikki Indigo, I thank you.


Sister, you looked out for a friend. You even sought your bruh to give guidance and some spiritual aspect to someone involved with deceiving your friend (before you knew the whole truth) because you thought they needed it. You held your tongue while holding your nose (from finding out about the deceit and smelling the bullshit) and waited until you had burden of proof before you spoke about things. When you did my sis, you were blasted and fingered as a jealous, rambling, meddling interfering misgiver of information by those you were trying to look out for. To add insult to injury, a lot of folk that had nothing to do with the situation you were putting your neck, name and credibility on the line for pointed fingers at you and wagged them in shame, ridicule and in false accusation.

For those in the know, you know what happened so I won't bring it up out of respect of the parties involved but my girl (and yes I really mean that in every definition of the term) Divine Lavender raised a good point. Why is it when a sister does anything and the situation turns ugly no one comes to help defend, protect or add to her credibility when they know that there is truth in what she speaks but if a woman outside our community (you know who/what I'm talking about) does the same thing (or the opposite in this case) she is protected? In this case, the woman behind the deceit is melanin deficient, and even though she deceived an entire gaggle of bloggers, she is being protected by some of the ones she actually decieved via the hood code of silence.

Not even put on blast. Ain't that a bitch?

See, I realize that in some instances some folk must save face. I also realize that some folk just want to put bad situations behind them and we'll do what we can to make things normal when scandal breaks because that shit will drive you insane. But, what we had recently was a woman outside of our community that deceived a lot of people in the black blogosphere and she is still being defended for her misdeeds and inaction by the infamous 'stop snitching' campaign when the sister that was only trying to help expose this fraud of a heifer to look out for the best interest of a black man mind you is seen as a villain by some for rustling up the feathers of a few folk comfortable reading blogs in cubicleville and/or at home. I really thought that the finger pointers would put ol' girl on blast but nope, this situation has been swept under the rug as another blogger in a virtual world that just did what apparently a lot of other bloggers do. Lie.

Amazing.

I'm not going to say that Nikki did anything right or wrong or had all of the accurate info needed to bring the deception to light, and for those that know and read in the past few weeks, shit got ugly due to her even opening her mouth. But remember that it wasn't Nikki that perpetrated lies over the internet and deceived a large amount of folk that bought into what turned out to be a bunch of sophomoric bullshit, finger pointing and lost trust.

See, a lot of us have come together thru this blog shit. Scuse' my French, but there has been and will be a lot of emotion that will be exchanged because technology has brought together a bunch of folks that have a lot in common and we communicate and info share, sometimes get together in the flesh and do the damn thang and it is good. If it weren't for this medium I wouldn't have met any of y'all and I would have felt lost and without a voice. Plus I got a chance to meet a handful of y'all in the flesh (about 20 now) including Nikki, Divine Lavender and countless others and I must say, it gets no realer and more genuine that those two sisters right there. I am blessed to know some of you personally and I pray to get to know more of you as time marches on. I am glad to have shared a time, meal, phone convo and IM chats with a lot of you.

So since it didn't happen over the last handful of weeks, I will do the honors. I'm a little tiffed that after I read Lav's piece on her take of the situation, that no one, including myself did it, but I wanted to and just didn't get to it and I'm still mad that I'm the first:

Nikki, thank you for even being concerned enough to want to look out for a friend. No matter what happens I know that you did the right thing because I would have too.

Thank you for making the phone calls, web detective'ing and saving cached pages to expose that shit to us so that we could see and make judgement for ourselves.

Thanks to you for taking the hits that you did from a lot of folk that either did not believe and/or still do not believe you now. We see that the fraudulent person in question has packed up and ran, so there is some truth to what you gave to us.

Thank you for being a black woman that stood her ground. In this day and age of defeated individuals, I don't know a lot of sisters that would have sacrificed her spot in the black blogosphere to do what you did. A lot of people would have talked it up on the phone, IMed shit to friends and showed a few folk via laptop, work computer or home PC, but you compiled that shit and gave it to us to make our own decision on what happened. And you gave it in detail, according to what you did and experienced.

Thank you for wanting to protect a black man.

Thank you for being a sister that even though you knew you would probably lose friends in the process, still went ahead and did the damn thing anyway. Those folks were never your friends anyway.

Like DL said, it's always 'Towanda' and not 'Trish' that gets put on blast. Thank you for having the courage to do that. If that were 'Towanda', it would still be internet fodder right now. That shit might have made the 10 o'clock news, but because a white chick did it we have forgotten already.

Thanks to you and Divine Lavender for pointing out that once again, the house negroes are protecting massa, and the field negroes are back to picking cotton. Even some of those directly affected in the situation have clammed up and got out the dustpan. Like I said about 'Towanda'...

Thank you for sharing so much of yourself and entertaining us with your work. I know for certain that you are who you say you are and you ain't fronting. You are talented and beautiful (you too Lav) and you deserve kudos for all that you have done.

And thank you Divine Lavender for speaking on it, but you usually do and you cover a lot of other ground as well. I appreciate that like you'll never know.

I wish more sisters were as brave as you.