It's All On You

I'm not going to delve into that situation. So many have eloquently given opinion and I refuse to touch it. Let's not beat a dead horse. Let it do what it do.

But you didn't think I wasn't going to chastise your ass.

Yeah, you.

Not you baby, I know we're here *points*, they know who they are.

900 billion dollars a year and you haven't realized our power? All the complaining about what other folks say and you haven't divested your own dollar from the bullshit collectives that support and promote that lifestyle, culture and language, which means you cannot complain.

It's bigger than Hip Hop.

Don't blame this on Hip Hop culture because Moms Mabley, Redd Foxx and Pigmeat Markham was doing it way before Snoop didn't love them hos. We had a place for it back in the day because I'm old enough to remember which makes me responsible for the current climate because folks my age have children that it influences which means if I'm talking about you it starts in your home.

We cannot police society as a whole but you can explain the difference between entertainment and reality. Folks are going to say and do what they want but understand that there is a difference between rap artists and radio talk show hosts. If you want the new Three 6 Mafia joint you can choose to buy it. If they don't sell enough copies, them or any artist for that matter will get dropped. See, support comes from the masses. If you speak on public airwaves then you have a responsibility to be as fair and impartial as you can because the public and other interests pay the host to speak and when one goes off on a tangent, he or she can and will be corrected.

It is what you tolerate and are not teaching your children. Forget the fact that the track is hot for one moment and think of the influence some cats have over your kids.

Exactly.

If you don't think that way about your own children, then why would you support someone that insults your intelligence and calls you a nigger or bitch while taking your money at the same time? And why would you let your kids think that was cool or respectful?

See, it all starts with you. You have that power. If you don't like how it's going down then let em know.

Keep your money in your pocket. And educate your children accordingly. Time to kick it old school cause this new stuff ain't working. Until you have control of your wallet or pocketbook and until your children have knowledge of self understand that you are not in control of anything, which means that folks can and will say or do anything...

Anything.

And when things like what happens happen and it keeps on happening, what does that make you?

Bullet Statements

" I tried to find people like me – professionals, spouses, folks who are into the support of their race and the upliftment of it. Some were listed in the directory, but I couldn’t find them. When I teleported to their location, a few other people were there, looking around, appearing disoriented like me, asking questions like, “What can I do here?” "

A portion of Frank's response to my 3/20/2007 post: 'Do You Understand The Words Coming Out Of My Mouth?'




I won't get long winded... I hope you guys read Frank's entire entry from yesterday. It was everything I wanted to say. What exactly is a blog order you ask? How do we bring this thing together? Well:

• Respect the OGs in cyberspace - There are a handful of folks that have been here for a while dropping knowledge and kicking science. Those folks should be recognized as such. One should also take plenty of notes because them old schoolers reserve the right to stop blogging at any time.

• Come together, right now - We already think alike in some manner. This is why we keep meeting here in cyberspace. I know you realize that we communicate with each other more than we do with some siblings, parents, friends and such. How come we spend so much time together without one of us covering for drinks?

• Organize, somehow - I say somehow because some of us want to remain anonymous, and that's fine, but realize that if you spend this much time with someone the bond is already there. Back in the day, our parents and grandparents met in the shadows and darkness working to get us free. Technology has brought us together to do what... Get membership cards? Have town hall type meetings? Have cyber-meetings via online chat? Hmmm.

• Realize our power, there are strength in numbers - Next year is an election year. Not all of us have the same views but have the same interests: Solidifying family/self/community. Imagine if we came together and 501 (3) (c)'d ourselves into a Political Action Committee or special interest group. How much of a fire can we light under certain folks asses, being that we live everywhere and have organized like a cyber Voltron?

• Let's meet and greet! - It has to start somewhere. I'm not saying that we rent a space and get articles of incorporation. I'm not asking that we rally around a candidate and spam folks to hell in a rabid email campaign. What I am saying is like some of the east coast and southern members of the family that we find a place to come together and just kick it.

• Structure is necessary - There needs to be some sort of protocol or precedent set as far as us dealing with each other here in cyberspace. I'm not calling for a bunch or rules to be set in stone, we know that the joy of the internet is that it is unregulated and we can come and go as we please. I recognize that blogging does make us equal in some sorts, but recognize the fact that a sister like Rose has achieved business success, charitable status, held it down and probably pioneered modern day marriage and has been thru the jungle of raising a daughter. She deserves respect and is just one person out of thousands that choose to blog doing her thing. She volunteers this info and doesn't have to be anything to anyone but her family, business associates and friends, but she fellowships with us. This is why an order should be brought forth. Respect.

There is an order in all things. There is structure in everything. I'm not asking for a bunch of strangers to come together, create alter egos, fight crime and establish a hall of justice. I am asking a few thousand folks to take baby steps in communicating more effectively. Emails, phone calls and sitting around a few tables in the upcoming months can actually help put faces, respect and credibility to folks that are, get this: A part of our lives. Maybe if we can organize in some aspect we'll be able to learn, grow and be more successful in this thing called life.

Maybe

How Hassan Got To Houston

That's right, I live here.

Lock, stock and all smoking barrels.

So how in the blue hell did I end up here? I knew something was wrong when I clocked a fever over 100 last Monday during the physical for the new job. Everything else was off too. I had what I thought was just a chest cold until that point. Although I had difficulty breathing and felt a little woozy, I never would have thought at all the climate change from Chicago to Atlanta to Houston would do me in.

It did.

So I sat there, my new coordinator pouting at the fact that I couldn't get on the road until I got clearance from a doctor, and me pouting, now knowing that within all of this movement, the packing and travelling, the flying and the wearing of the clothes (or lack thereof) damn near killed me. Funny, as a diabetic I have enhanced knowledge of some sorts of sick. This episode went right over my head. I mean, I didn't feel like I had pneumonia but I knew something was wrong.

I'm too good to wash out of the program, and the health thing was a setback only in the area of finance. I had planned on buying some new Apple branded products in the next month and without a salary, that's impossible to do. I was told to go home and recoup, to get well, bring a doctor's note and then I can have my assignment of alone. Once I healed up, I could run all over this country like a chicken with his head cut off. I agreed, then I reneged.

I have no home to go to.

I had made for damn sure that when I got back to Chicago that I would not plant roots. I broke so-called friendships and blew up bridges in an effort to not be home in that place. All I wanted when I returned back in October was to make Chicago temporary sanctuary until I got my shoulder fixed. I got medicated, rehabbed and took a small, non-impact position back in cubicle hell to keep the drinks coming. I did that, made a come-up on this new independent contractor assignment, threw away more stuff with plans on living out of bags full of portable hard drives and memory cards. I pulled the plug on being anywhere in Chicago, and for a moment in time Monday afternoon, I had to think about where I needed to go to lay my head.

Some of you may have a friend in Jesus, I have a friend in Houston.

I didn't even know if the company would pay my way here but they did, and I'm here now getting plenty of rest, breaking fevers and looking to getting back on the road. Thing is, I never expected to be here beyond a visit or eight. I never expected to like this place as far as living is concerned. I never expected to be kissed by the sun like this...

I like this place, and I can get used to being here if need be. That depends on my friend. I still have the hunger and the urge to set up shop in Atlanta, and at this point I'm sticking to my original plan. I'm just glad that I had Houston to come to. I'll get to the ATL, I might just need a moving truck when I make those plans to get there. As for the now, I'm better, most of the congestion is gone from my lungs and I actually had enough energy this weekend to go see 300. Even though I have a friend here, that friend has a life and other commitments, so a lot of stuff done so far in Houston has been done dolo. Alone. It's cool though. I need to explore things for myself anyway.

Coming Up For Air

Happy March campers!

Okay, so I took Black History Month off in order to get some things done. I had a bunch of things to do to properly secure my future as an artist and a writer. Let's see...

I quit my job
I slept and ate both in Texas and Georgia
I went back into the trucking industry
I got rid of even more stuff and now my possessions can fit into one bag

and a knapsack.

I got one step closer to getting to Africa by securing the new gig
I let a few so-called friends go and made a few new ones
I even got a 'Dear John' letter from someone I considered a friend


So February was busy as hell and I really didn't feel like blogging worth a damn. I did read and try to keep up and I see that I wasn't the only cat that decided to enhance my calm. A few folks even decided to call it quits, I can't do that.

Well not just yet.

Cool thing about the new gig, I travel and live on the road throughout the week and have weekends off, and I'm already working on making a few stops in NYC and ATL my surrogate home on those weekends. I made a hell of a lot of calls and sent a whole lot of emails as well as using standard postage getting promo materials out so I can do my thing and sell a few CDs and books. I'm almost done.

I have no clue when I'll get back to blogging on a regular basis, I'm back on the 'Hassan Cross-Country Ya Dig Tour' starting Wednesday. I'm headed out west this week and then the road back east gets travelled the week after that. I'm back in Chicago the last week of March/first week of April, so I'll try to keep up, take a lot of pics and update as much as I can.

I love busy.
Unless it's chilling with my brother
Or struggling thru that Chicago cold

Or chilling with my niece, even if it means a cleaning billOr just lamping in Houston

Humble Pie

Today was my last full day of volunteering here at the hospital.

I'm not done volunteering, but I have officially pulled myself out of the trucking game, and it has been 5 months now that I've been sitting in one place. I wrote, recorded some (still not finished and I'm a little disappointed bout' that) and redirected my focus on things that matter in getting me where I want to be.

It's not a yearly thing, but I have some goals to accomplish in 2007.

I am going to Africa. I need about $7500 to be straight comfortable for the months I'll be gone. I really need about $12k to make it work after I return. If I follow thru with my publishing thing and the CD, then seventy five hundred should be fine. I am planning a trip to Tanzania via Kenya (Kilimanjaro is the highest point on the continent of Africa = top of the world, ma!) and I should be there for about 4 to 6 months. I need to be all up in it to learn and be humbled. I also want to continue volunteering and doing some to make change.

I am releasing 2 CDs in 2007. Obviously, I still love hip hop to the point where I haven't married or had kids. CD #1 will help me spit them skills to my peoples on them streets. For all of you flavored coffee loving jazz heads, I got some heat on the poetry tip.

The book is coming, dammit! I've been harassed by two publishers all because I mentioned that I was self publishing "101 Shades Of Indigo" and was ready to go to press in about 3 months. I also get emails and subtle hints thru this here blog that I should publish my work. I hear y'all, and somebody better buy my shit other than my momma, nuff said.

I will keep blogging so I can continue to connect with y'all stank asses. Because I love you. Really, I do. I share with y'all because I stink just like the rest of you. We all have something stank to release to the universe, and if we share some of that funk we might just learn how to grow old, be happy and die with dignity and with children that actually 'get it'. I pray that I can keep reading all of you. A special shout goes to my man Keith. I got your email about a month ago and I forgot to respond. I hear you my brother and I know that whatever decisions you make will be the absolute right ones. I'm glad you're looking at everything and scrutinizing it to the fullest. I just hope we get a chance to break bread in the future and laugh at how hard we thought 'this shit' was. I'll even pick up the tab.

So, I start a new job Monday, am back on the travel board and have some big things to do to get me to do the one thing I cannot do now. Lead people. Not that I can't lead by example, but I have something amazing planned for my life after I get my training, release my work to the public and live among my cousins in the motherland, but first things first. I must get my paper together.

My motivation comes from the mother of this sister I dated back late 05. She asked me if I had my 501 3 (c) together after hearing me detail my plans to do a few things in my old neighborhood. The tone of her question and the look she gave me made me feel like she couldn't trust me to give a cripple crab a crutch. I was dating her daughter and I was still suspect. I did some suspect things like not show for Thanksgiving dinner and was late in the Christmas gift giving game after totally botching up an internet order by getting charged twice and getting the gift late. My mom and sis did not want me to give the gift based on me not knowing the sister too long, and sistergirl herself was skeptical in what I could do for her anyway so it bled over to what I was willing to give when her mom posed that question to me.

The look I got was "You ain't doing a gawt damn thang!"

She wasn't right, but I failed them in honoring their family traditions, so how could I even go through with handling a charity for those that had less than me when my follow thru was faulty in some (not all) areas?

Humble thyself.

If I am successful at living without, like I have since June of last year, then I can understand how one wants to fight just to taste one ounce of clean water by helping build a water treatment facility. I already got rid of my toys and gadgets and I had to call in many a favor since I got back to Chicago in September. What if I had no resources, who would I call? I was arrogant in my detailed plan to help the hood. I was thorough with my plan to get a Christmas gift for girlie. One thing... I forgot to be there for the family gathering and that meant the most. I gotta learn to be there more often for those that need me, so I will gather up seven G's and get my ass over to where my presence is needed the most. When I bring that back to y'all, I'll be of some use to you.

But first I gotta get this paper
And my passport
And some spending cash
And my inoculations
And a GSM phone (Yo Ep, engineering degree and MCSE+Cisco Certs... That's why I chose the iPhone - quad band AND a flash drive in Africa son!)
And a grant writer so when I get back...

Have a good weekend y'all... I'm getting boring again

Hassan Versus The Voices Pt 1

So this one time when I was grown but not a man, I was fat. I mean straight overweight. I went from eating a healthy army meal to at least 8 pieces of chicken and 3 liters of soda a day. And that was just one food group. I had a girlfriend that was miserable. I knew that she was unsatisfied with her life and my bloated ass made it no better.

Misery needs company.

Every morning I woke up, got dressed and went to work. Had big lunches and spent money on fly ass clothes. Had friends that went out with us and we ate, drank and was merry. We did everything together. It was fun, they were miserable too. Hell, they didn't even belong together.

I had bloated over 400 pounds but I carried it like I was 350. It was no problem to be me. I had friends, a woman and money so what was the fuss? There was no fuss until my main man DJ MorninMan got married to the love of his life. That's when I realized that even though I got the bomb on the in-house, this woman would never become my wife.

Did you know that she didn't even like me?

Word is born, son. This lil chica was just playing out the string, waiting for the end to come, though she never wanted to press the panic button herself, she knew that one day I would just snap... And end it all.

And then I lost my job. Okay, I quit and went somewhere else and lost the downtown hustling privileges one gets when he works with the true players in downtown Chicago. I was relocated all the way out near the airport, so no more seeing a plethora of blazing beauties on the regular.

The money was fine, but it wasn't like the money from the old job. Our friends started having problems when they were away from us. They only started hanging around more to keep from arguing with each other. We would just have fun drinking and going to karaoke. Me and the sister from the other couple used to have these heart to heart talks and thangs. We wanted to switch partners because we believed that my girl and her guy were perfect for each other seeing as we saw them as deadbeats.

The nerve.

Then that one day came. I got fed up in being in a one sided relationship, hated my position and hated egging on my girl and my homeboy in that couple that hang out with us.

We deserved more.

I didn't know how to get it.

Maybe I did, but that meant...


Yep. She had to go. They did too. Job did as well. How would I live? Where would I go? Who would love my broke ass?

Shit.

The cost of making change definitely outweighed reasons to stay. I didn't want to be lonely and struggling. I never wanted to be in a destitute situation. I didn't want to make a mistake like getting rid of the people that could help me out financially if I started down this road of doing things for self. I had already lost weight and got down to about 330. The weight got scared off because of the diabetes thing but I knew that lounging around 350 wasn't enough. I was still unhealthy and needed insulin to get by. All of a sudden, like in a split second, the relationship ended with sistergirl after damn near a decade and a half. I found a place to stay that cultivated my artistic side. I found a new job and gained a best friend out of the deal. I started dating a personal trainer and we moved in with each other. How did I do this and so quickly?

That's a secret that I'm willing to share with some, not all.

The first thing I did was change my internal dialogue. How I spoke to myself determined the course of my day, matter of fact it controls one's life. I knew that a long time ago when I said that "This is going to be a shitty day", 'shit' happened. Seriously, I would steer myself right into the biggest shitpile... You should have seen me back then. Why is it so natural to talk yourself into being surrounded with bullshit? Is there comfort in chaos? My brain functioned properly, All my chubby fingers and toes worked. I had been given and was taught how to maximize my common sense. I had faith in the Creator and knew that gifts had been placed in my path for me to succeed, but why didn't I do what was best for me? Why couldn't do right by myself?

Because I talked myself out of all of that stuff.

A mentor told me to write down all of the stuff my 'little voices' told me when I was able to hear them. Like a bad Steve Martin movie, at some point, I started to hear all of these different voices during given situations. Sometimes I was a master ventriloquist doing new voices and sabotaging my own shit. When I was shopping, one voice told me that I wasn't worthy of me spending money on me, even though I worked hard for my loot and was deserving. Other times when a sister was giving the big man some rhythm, a little voice would tell me I was too fat to even have her extend the courtesy even though she was right there... Extending courtesy.

My little voices were telling me to stay in the house, not do anything and just clam up because I wasn't shit. I was a fat, miserable lonely man incapable of making things happen because I micromanage everything and overconsume all the time. Why were my voices telling me these things? How come when I was getting ready to do the do my little voice would throw that sexual assault thing at me? Why is it when I felt bad my little voice told me to eat my problems away, even though I was insulin dependent at the time and overeating would blowuptuate my blood sugars sending me to the hospital? Why did my little voice tell me that I was ugly and not worthy to be loved every time I brushed my crooked teeth? That my eyes were too big? That taking out another student loan to go back to school was not only a waste of time but would make my big, black, Professor Klump looking ass (I shole' looked like him too) overqualified and under appreciated in whatever job I took? Why did they tell me to stop writing music?

And why when I asked my little voices why they lived to sabotage me, they blamed their reasons on shit that happened from way back when?

They told me they were scared.

Fear of the unknown is the major reason a whole bunch of isms' are prevalent in society today. Being in fear I learned, is a matter of choice. I learned this over time: If I chose to live in fear, then I'm wasting time The Creator has given me to make change and touch others. Why else would I still be here? I lived in a disfunctional black family with an alcoholic as the matriarch. I got touched as a kid. My dad drank himself into a cocaine addiction and then my mother left him, leaving my little brother and sister fatherless from the late 80's to early 90's (the time I was in the military). I survived alcoholism after I enlisted into the service during wartime. I survived growing up on the streets in one of the most violent neighborhoods in America and came out unscathed. I got a chance to travel the globe and live in other countries, not for a few months or for vacation time, but for years. I beat a few scares with growths in my body and with diabetes and reconstruction of 2 major bodyparts and after all of that, I am damn near ideal weight, off of insulin and don't even have a limp after having my knee rebuilt.

What can I be scared of now?

And why when I asked my voices that shit did they gang up on me and started to close in?

Listen To Yourself...

Do you hear that?

What in the hell did you just say?

Why do you speak to yourself like that?


If you had the chance to give yourself a pep talk each morning, you know, that time in which you're looking into the mirror right before you leave the house. You know, the self-sexy check?

Riiight.

Okay, so if you had a chance to give yourself that talk, what would you say?


(stolen from LadyLee)

*crickets*


Okay, so why does the answer to my question differ from the one you already give yourself now?

Time to change your internal dialouge, eh?



More to come on this... We gotta talk, fam.