The Millennial Manifesto: How 80′s Babies Can Save the World

It is as ingrained into the fabric of the American success story as the auto industry in Detroit, free market capitalism, and baseball. Go to high school, go to college, get a good job, buy a house, live happily ever after. This, or some variation of this, has been the narrative fed to generations of young people in this country including those of us born in the 1980′s. As I look around at those closest to me, those in my everyday social circle, and those in my general peer group — despite our wholehearted acceptance of this narrative, everyone I know with a day job is unhappy. We’re all possessed by some amazing idea or goal that gives us just enough energy to get ourselves out of bed and provides just enough of a distraction to numb the pain of our nine to five’s but also leaves us perpetually disillusioned and unenthusiastic about the life we see stretching out into our future.

And then there’s the educated and unemployed. The unemployment numbers in our country are bleak. For more than two years the national rate has hovered at about 10 percent sometimes dropping down to 9 and other times jumping up above 12. When you break the numbers down further the picture only gets worse. Unemployment for men and women in my generation — between the ages of 18 and 29 — has hovered around 14 percent. And unemployment in minority communities is consistently above 15 percent sometimes jumping all the way up to 20. Tangential to the unemployment problem in our country is our country’s inability to create new jobs. As it stands now, if the numbers hold through 2013, Barack Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president since Herbert Hoover to end a term with less available jobs than when he started. As I said, the situation is bleak. We are headed into waters not chartered since the Great Depression — and like the Great Depression, it’s going to take radical, unprecedented action to see ourselves through these difficult times. But I have a plan.

This piece was written for The Huffington Post, you can read the rest of it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jermaine-spradley/a-millennial-manifesto-jobs_b_956053.html

That Certain Something “Watch The Throne” is Missing

You Are Now Watching The Throne

There’s a certain something present in the DNA of great albums that most other albums lack. It can be difficult to spot at times, but those of us who live and breathe music know it when we hear it. Jay-Z and Kanye West have made careers out of infusing their albums with those subtle, intangible qualities that draw the line between the very good and the great, the really dope, and the classic. It’s why years later we can still find newness in Reasonable Doubt and The College Dropout, it’s why The Blueprint and Graduation remain in heavy rotation and it’s why the expectations around a collaborative album from the two of them soared through the stratosphere when it was announced earlier this year. Like them or not, Jay and Kanye are who they are because of their ability to transform present circumstances into timeless music.  With “Watch The Throne,” Jay and Ye’ aimed high. They’re not idiots, they understood the lofty expectations the world would place on their shoulders and they understood that for them there’s no middle ground, it’s either a classic or it’s trash. It’s clear they went into the studio with every intention of meeting those expectations head on delivering an album that could be entered into their respective cannons as further examples of the indelible footprint they’ve placed firmly on the throat of the game. Unfortunately, Watch The Throne falls short; it is not a classic.

The piece opens up with one of it’s strongest tracks – the Frank Ocean assisted “No Church in the Wild.” I must admit, I love everything about this song. The production is ambivalently brooding, giving the listener the sense that Jay and Kanye are about to take us someplace we’ve never been. Ocean’s vocals are agnostically soulful and his chorus is thought provoking while Jay and Ye’s verses explore everything from Roman history and Greek philosophy to Christianity, lust, and 80′s era inner city drug culture- all without really trying too hard.

Inexplicably, ‘No Church’ is followed by the trite “Lift Off” which features – unsurprisingly – Beyonce. Let’s be clear, I’m not one of those people who can’t stand Beyonce. I actually like her a lot. She’s as talented as anyone out and probably the brightest star Black America’s produced since Whitney. All that doesn’t excuse the fact that she has absolutely no place on this album. The brevity of Jay and Ye’s verses combined with the cliched rocket launch countdown sequence lead me to believe this song was initially intended to act as the album’s intro but was pushed aside by the perfection that is “No Church in The Wild.” At that point – I’m guessing – neither Jay or Ye had the heart to make the difficult (given the personal relationships) but obvious choice of relegating “Lift Off” to bonus track status where it belongs.

Thankfully “Lift Off” is followed by “Niggas in Paris”. Before you can accurately judge this song, you need to hear it in either your car or a club. It’s one of those songs that takes on a whole other life when you’re riding around with the windows down or when you’re slightly twisted and having a great time. If there were a such thing as East Coast bounce, this would be it.

After “Niggas in Paris” we get the albums first official single “Otis.” “Otis” is a really good song that you listen to over and over waiting for it to magically grow into a really great song. Unfortunately, that never happens so while you enjoy it, you can’t help but also be slightly disappointed by it.

It is at this point that the album begins to lose its way.  The next three songs: “Gotta Have It,” “New Day,” and “That’s My Bitch” all have decent moments, but are all also fatally flawed. “Gotta Have It” has one of the dopest lines on the album with Jay’s “Bueller had a Muller but I switched it to a Mille cuz I’m richer (Richard), and prior(Pryor) to this shit was moving freebase.” It’s like a quadruple entendre. Ultimately though, the song tries too hard to be different which makes it really difficult to sit and let it just bump. “A New Day” seems like it was born out of a particularly fruitless brainstorming session where someone yelled out “you know what would be cool … if you guys did a song that’s like a letter do your unborn child.” Then someone else yelled “let’s get Rza on it” to make it credible. “That’s My Bitch” like “Gotta Have It” toys around a little too much with experimentation – the result is a well crafted but sonically displeasing waste of a great Hov verse. After that we get “Welcome to the Jungle” which sucks simply because the most annoying and overrated man in Hip-Hop: Swizz Beatz – is featured. I would dedicate a whole bunch of words to the exploration of how Swizz went from the guy responsible for awesome at the time, but now dated “Ruff Ryders sound” to being the most popular but dope-less producer in the game, but it’s really not worth it. Instead I’ll just say this: Alicia Keys.

Just when you’re ready to write “Watch The Throne” off as the ill conceived love child of “Kingdom Come” and “808′s and Heart Break” we get “Who Gon’ Stop Me.” This is one of the few moments on the album where the huge, extravagant sound Jay and Ye seem to be going for actually comes together perfectly.  After that we get another one of the more standout tracks in “Murder to Excellence.” This is one of the few times I’ve heard socially conscious lyrics from Jay-Z that didn’t come off like he was forcing it or mailing it in. Ye seems to dig up a couple verses from the Late Registration years with affecting references to Chicago’s murder rate and the preponderance of black on black crime. What sets this song apart from much of the rest of “The Throne” is that it actually sounds like these guys care about what they’re rapping about. Midway through, the song’s thesis abruptly shifts from a dissertation on pointless death in the black community to an inspiring couple of verses about our people’s potential – about how far we can go as individuals and as a community when that potential is realized. On this joint they effectively take us from black on black murder to black excellence and it’s very well done.

The album begins its end with another Frank Ocean assisted joint, “Made in America.”  Ocean isn’t the type of singer who’s going to blow you away with vocal dexterity; still there is melancholy contentment that permeates his sound in an affecting way and is exacerbated by his awkwardly touching tribute to the families of Martin, Malcolm and Joseph. It’s not a perfect song, but it’s a lot more human and relatable than everything else on the album.

And finally, we get the epic “Why I Love You” which features, predictably – Mr. Hudson. Another big, opulently produced track with equally big, opulent vocals from Hudson, “Why I Love You” is one of the few moments on the album where it seems like Jay really lets go and reminds us why he’s one of the greatest rappers for all time. Ye holds his own on this joint but seems content to let Jay get his Mariano on save for the abrupt Soprano styled ending which was clearly Ye’s idea.

And that’s where this ends right? Wrong. After the credits roll, those of us who purchased the deluxe version are treated to three bonus songs. This is where the album becomes frustrating. If the four experimental joints in the middle of the album were replaced by these three bonus tracks, we’d be left with a great album. “Illest MotherF*cker Alive” is the kind of braggadocios anthem every album needs, “Primetime” features some of Ye’s best rapping on the album, and Pete Rock might have found his best sample since he sampled Tom Scott for “T.R.O.Y.” with the Curtis Mayfield inspired “The Joy.” How these songs ended up on the cutting room floor in favor of “Lift Off,” “Gotta Have It,” “New Day,” “That’s My Bitch,” and “Welcome to the Jungle” I will never know.

Watch the Throne is a really good album. When you look at it song for song, there are at least four cuts that make the all time playlist, they are:  “No Church in the Wild,” “Murder to Excellence,” “Made In America,” and “The Joy.” Then there are six songs that fall short of being classic, but are still way better than your average album filler. Those are: “Niggas in Paris,” “Otis,” “Who Gon’ Stop Me,” “Why I Love You,” Illest Motherf*cker Alive,” and “Primetime.” That’s ten songs that are somewhere between good and great. For anyone else this would be more than sufficient. But not for Jay and Ye.  It’s not enough because we know what they are capable of. When properly inspired and properly motivated, these guys are capable of giving us the kind of music we plan on listening to for the rest of our lives. From them, ten great songs and five duds on an album that lacks any semblance of cohesiveness besides it’s seemingly purposeful incohesiveness is disappointing.

At the beginning of this post I talked about how classic albums have a certain je ne sais quoi that separates them from all the other music bombarding our ears. One of the things that gives an album that special something is the “why.” Why are you making this album, and why is it imperative that we hear this music? After the disappointing “808′s and Heartbreak” and the Taylor Swift fiasco, Kanye made a perfect album in “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” because he had to. With his back against the wall and the whole world vilifying him, anything other than a classic album would have left his career in tatters. When Jay saw Denzel play Frank Lucas in “American Gangster” he was so inspired that he had to go in the studio and make an album based on the emotions that movie brought up.  When No I.D. brought Kanye to Baseline Studios and let him play all those beats for Jay – the beats that eventually became the blueprint for Jay’s “Blueprint” setting us on this course that’s culminated with “Watch The Throne” – he made those songs because he had to. It was impossible not to after hearing such great music. That’s the problem with “Watch the Throne:” Because there’s no “have to” the whole thing feels inorganic. Despite the fact that it has no less than ten really good songs; despite some of the most detailed and extravagant production Hip-Hop has ever seen and despite the cumulative star power and talent of Jay-Z, Kanye West and the bevy of artists and producers they have in tow, “Watch the Throne” is just not compelling. It’s not compelling because it seems that if you were to ask them why they made this album, why they dedicated eight months of their lives to making this piece of work, the only answer they’d be able to come up with would be: “because we can.” And if the “why” is “because we can” then this whole exercise seems completely and utterly pointless.

I know this post was long – 1600 words on a single album. I appreciate you all taking the time to read it. Tomorrow I’m thinking I’m going to do a post highlighting some of my favorite references from WTT – we’ll see. Till then you know what to do:

stay low and keep firing.

My Letter to Women about Sexual Harassment.

To: Women (some, not all though)

From: The Duke

Re: Sexual Harassment

Let me tell you how my sister makes my “big brother” role pretty easy. Seldom do I wonder if another man would get the one-up on her, or approach her in an inappropriate way. My sister would not tolerate anything short of respect, and she has a cunning ability to speak her mind and take no prisoners in any debate or altercation. Of course, this does not surprise me the least, given that she remarkably takes after her father, who’s pretty much the same. This is one of the many qualities I admire about her.

But it would be unrealistic to hold such expectations about ALL women (although sometimes I do), especially with inappropriate interactions with other men that consititute sexual harassment. I understand that many of you are not like my sister, nor do you need to be. However, I struggle to understand why or how you deal with inappropriate advanced in a social setting or the
workplace.

My letter stems from many discussions I have had with female friends regarding real life sexual harassment incidents. My friends described their sexual harassment incidents at the work place, and sometimes at a party. An overwhelming majority acknowledges that the advances were inappropriate, insulting, uncomfortable, and wrong. But the do little to address the situation. Take my good friend, Brenda, for example.

Brenda, who doesn’t have a baby, was subjected to repeated advances from her supervisor that involved descriptive comments about her physique, suggestions about what she should wear, and thinly veiled propositions. Apparently, she went on fielding such advances for several years, until she reached a point where she had to tell someone. She consulted a human capital officer in confidence, who then filed a complaint against her supervisor to no consent of her own, sparking a quagmire for Brenda. Brenda was opposed to the complaint filing because she felt it wasn’t worth the “consequences” which she is now facing. She is currently being “cold-shouldered” by her staff, and isn’t working in the same capacity that she is accustomed to. However, the advances have stopped. Took two years, though.

Situations like above make me struggle to understand why there is a hesitancy to provide an early warning before the situation fester. Speaking to many of you, why do you remain quiet for so long? Do your fears paralyze you? Or do you not want to seem like the “troublemaker” at your own expense? Never are you the troublemaker in these situations, but I guess it takes more than me to convince you. By no way, do I lay fault for such situations at your feet because you can’t control peoples’ actions. But there are things you CAN control, like your actions. You shouldn’t have to tolerate anything compromising. I know you agree with me, but yet, I know what you would say. Easier said than done. I get that.

I sympathize, though, for I’m far from naive. I know you want to walk this earth without fear of comment relating to your sexuality. I know you’d like to walk the street and not hear a whistle (unless you need for affirmation, but that’s another issue). I know you want to go to the club just once and not succumb to being touched in a crowded space – a violation you would not condone elsewhere. I know many of you just restrain and say “let me just let it be, I’m sure it will pass.” Maybe the attention deceiving at first, but there is a difference between someone trying to get in to you, and someone trying to get into you. You see that, don’t you?

Perhaps, I have high expectations for you like I do for my sister. I know that’s unrealistic. I believe the first advance is the most important battle. If you lose that initial battle, then your silence will be interpreted as complicity, which translates to many more lost battles ahead. At the end of the day, I ask this. Don’t be silent. Don’t be conciliatory. If you see, feel, or hear something that you don’t like that is downright disrespectful, then let them know about it. Show strength. Show courage. I hope my letter to you is enough to propel you to address your situation (if you have one).

And remember, there are men out there that are capable of engaging you respectfully. We’re not monolithic.

That’s all I have.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The Duke

Oslo’s Mass Murderer, Anders Behring Breivik’s Anti-Hip-Hop Rant

WestSide

Apparently, Anders Behring Breivik, the guy who went on the horrible killing spree in Norway was once deeply entrenched into what he describes as “The Hip-Hop Movement.”

The son of a Diplomat, Breivik grew up in one of Oslo’s most affluent communities and by the mid 90′s was – in his own words – “One of the most notable “hip-hop’ers” from Oslo’s West Side.” Throw your dubs up to that I guess.

Below he talks at length about the influence the “movement” had on he and his friends. It’s interesting to note the impact Hip-Hop seems to have had on shaping his worldview. It seems like he hates the fact that he was into hip-hop, blames hip-hop and multiculturalism for many of the problems prevalent in Norway’s youth, but then at the same time, he seems to still have a certain affinity for the culture in it’s purest forms – break dancing and “positive genre’s  of the music.” Ultimately, he seems to think that it’s possible to ‘redefine’ hip-hop as a positive form of European youth expression instead of the negative, ghetto stereotype he believes it currently purveys.

Not sure what to make of all of this, but I found it really interesting. I guess for me it’s one of those examples of why cultures that are born out of specific experiences and circumstances aren’t always communicable to other cultures. Clearly, something was lost in translation. This guy is a nut-case and I’d like to slap whoever gave him his first Schooly D cassette.

“I personally know of more than 50 individuals who started with hashish and marijuana as a direct result of the hip-hop mentality. Many of these went from light drugs to heavier drugs such as amphetamine and even heroin. I personally know that more than 20 individuals, from my “hip-hop community”, have become severe drug addicts and some of them are probably dead today. I estimate that of the 20 000 drug addicts in Norway, approximately 30-40% have initially been significantly influenced by the hip hop mentality.

I remember my active years in the hiphop movement as a continuous and intense orgy of misconduct, manifested primarily through tagging and piecing. During my two most active years at the age of 15 and 16, I estimate that myself (Morg), Richard (Spok) and Jon Trygve (Wick) inflicted property damage (through bombing raids – “tagging”) of approximately 2 million Euro combined of which I inflicted aprox. 700 000. The three of us were the most active of a loosely distributed “tagger force” numbering approximately 1000 at the time. This was during a primary peak of Hiphop, in 1994-1995. I estimate that the numbers of taggers have been reduced substantially since then and hover at around 200 individuals today in Oslo.

As for the fate of the hiphop industry; banning it altogether is not the optimal solution as it would cause overwhelming short term outcry and it would eliminate positive aspects as well. However, I believe significant restrictions in the rights of media companies which will include censoring negative and destructive lifestyles. An alternative is to limit such marketing to future “liberal zones”. Certain positive aspects of the hiphop movement should be allowed to survive such as break dance and positive genres of the music as long as it positively influences the self confidence of European youths and only if it can be re-defined as a European tradition and not portrayed as a ghetto/ethnic/multiculturalist lifestyle.

It is beyond all doubt that the political obstacles to solving these core issues are so comprehensive and enormous that only a revolution (initiated by a military coup) would present a climate where these issues can be properly addressed and solved.”

I would end this post the way I normally do, but somehow, that doesn’t really seem appropriate. So uh… have a nice day.

Black Atheism in a Culture of Christianity: Five Questions For and From Ayanna Watson – Founder of Black Atheists of America

This year a long time friend of mine, Ayanna Watson, founded an organization called Black Atheists of America. Because religion is so deeply ingrained in the black community, black atheists often find themselves as a dual minority in the overall atheist community. BAAm hopes that its efforts will build a stronger overall atheist community by encouraging black atheists to be open about their stance on religion. A couple weeks back I went to the New York City Atheists Brunch, which was hosted by Ayanna. There she spoke about her journey from religious ambivalence, to belief, to Atheism.

One of the things that struck me most about both of our walks in and out of faith was how similar they were. Ayanna and I both grew up in the same predominantly black town and we both grew up in non-religious households. Our first major steps toward faith were both taken when we began attending Long Island Lutheran Middle and High School. We both found a certain measure of intellectual enlightenment in college and that enlightenment made us question our faith. That’s where our stories begin to part. For her, when reconciling on all she’d experienced against her new found knowledge, the concept of organized religion and belief in a God was for her, irrevocably conflicted. For me, it was the opposite. When looking back on all I’d experienced, I knew in the incomprehensible places where my own logic and reason were incapable of venturing, that something exists beyond what our eyes might perceive.

One of the most frequent criticisms of Christianity is that Christians are close minded and unwilling to respect or appreciate differing opinions. That is why I went to the NYC Atheists Brunch and that is why, in today’s post I want to offer a place for honest, respectful conversation around our varying walks in and out of the faith. To that end, I’m going to ask Ayanna five questions about being an atheist, and I’m going to answer five questions from her about being a Christian.

Who Says Christians Can't Chill With The Hell Bound ... j/k

1. What do you think is the biggest misconception about atheism, or black atheism and does your organization do anything to actively combat this misconception?

The biggest misconception is that it is inherently wrong or evil.  There
are currently thousands of religions that are practiced around the world.
Most people do not realize that they view many other religions the same
way that atheists view all religions.  They do not, however, consider
their disbelief toward these religions to be a characteristic of an
inherently evil individual.

Yes, my organization strives to rid society, particularly the black
community, of the stigma associated with the word “atheist.”  There are
many atheists in the black community who are afraid to come out because
they fear being ostracized by friends and family members who do not share
their views on religion.  Since I have started the organization, I have
met a number of people who have actually been ostracized from their family
and friends because of their lack of belief.

My organization also engages in a number of community service projects,
mainly geared toward improving education in the black community.  Many
atheists identify as humanists.  They have a passion to help build a
better society, but do not want their efforts to be associated with
religion.  My organization provides them with the opportunity to do that.

2. Does your organization, Black Atheists of America seek to convert
believers and those ambivalent toward religion to Atheism, or is it solely
a place where folks who are already settled in their non-belief can
congregate with like minded individuals?

No, I do not want to deconvert believers into non-believers.  I provide a
community where atheists can come together and discuss issues that are of
importance to them.  I, also, provide a place for individuals who are
questioning their religion or have an interest in the atheist community to
seek and obtain information. I do not recall any events where there was
not at least one theist in attendance.

Humans are social being.  People meet for many different reasons.  It is
not something that is exclusive to a church.  For instance, there are
groups that provide support for female entrepreneurs.  It allows people of
like-minds to come together and share their thoughts.

3. When discussing your path to Atheism, you spoke at great length about
the impact of your Philosophy 101 class at Brooklyn College. Tell me more
about what you learned in that class and how it pushed your toward
atheism.

In the class we discussed the works of prominent historical philosophers.
The essays that we were required to read were the blueprint for developing
critical thinking skills.  Each essay laid out the author’s claim and
provided reasoning and evidence to support the claim.  In some of the
essays, you could travel through the mind of the philosopher as they come
to their conclusion.  A great author in philosophy is honest and addresses
flaws in their argument.  I had not been introduced to this style of
writing prior to this class.  It seems simple, but this is the complete
opposite of textbook writings that I had been previously exposed to.

I was already a Deist by the time I took this course.  I applied the
approach used in these essays to every aspect of my belief system.  I was
pushed over the edge because of the obvious contradictions in the
characteristics of god(s).  For example, it is impossible for a god to be
omnipotent and omniscient.  The two cannot co-exist.  Furthermore, the two
are independently inconsistent with freewill.

When you remove god(s) from the equation, everything makes sense.  For
instance, there is starvation in the world.  Also, in every award show, a
majority of the individuals who win thank a higher power for their
success.  We could believe that there is a god that is allowing us to
destroy ourselves while granting awards to some of the most affluent
persons in society or remove god from the equation, altogether.  In my
opinion, it makes more sense that we are ultimately responsible for our
successes and the starvation of others.

4. When discussing your time in Christianity, you mentioned that you’d
spent time praying for things and seeking God’s guidance on issues you’d
been unable to reconcile on your own. In those times, did you ever feel
like you had a prayer answered? Can you remember a time where you felt like your prayers went unanswered? Did either of those impact your overall ideas
about the existence of God?

Pictures Like This Make You Question God's Existence

The main prayer that I remember as a young child asked god to feed the
starving children in Africa.  When I was younger, various organizations
use to show graphic commercials of starving children.  I use to pray and
fast at school, in an effort to make sure that they were fed.  I had
convinced myself that if I did not eat, these children would eat.  After
all of my hard work, I would come home and see the same commercial on
television.  It was extremely frustrating that god would not allow these
children to live a healthy life.

As got older, I prayed for small things, here and there.  There were times
when I felt that my prayers were answered.  There were plenty of times
when I felt that they were not answered.  Back then, I wrote it off as it
not being in “God’s will.”   The prayers that were “answered” were not
done so without an effort on my part.  Now, that I do not believe and
never pray, my outcome of things that I wish for is far greater.

I am sure that this had an affect on my deconversion.   Prior to leaving
high school, I had already converted from Christianity to Deism.  Toward
the end of my high school career, I hardly ever prayed.  I do not think my
decision not to pray had much to do with the ratio of answered prayers to
non-answered prayers.  Instead, because I believed that god was
omniscient, I did not see the purpose of prayer.

5. Since you’ve come to accept your own atheism, have you had any romantic
relationships with persons of faith? How did the differences in belief
effect the relationship? If you haven’t had a relationship with a
believer, do you think you could?

Yes, I have had romantic relationships.  I have never dated an extremely
religious guy.  I’ve had one serious relationship with a non-practicing
Christian.  Our differences in belief were never at issue.  Religion was
not important to either one of us, so it was hardly a topic that was up
for discussion.  Our relationship ended due to issues that were
independent of our religious differences.

Since I have become an activist in the atheist community, I have only
dated other atheists.  Hence, it has never been a problem.

In all likelihood, I probably would not be able to have a serious
relationship with a practicing theist.  I could, however, likely date a
Deist.  Religion is something that I will have to expose my future
children to.  I want to expose them to religion, not simply the religion
of my partner.  Instead, I would like to have them well versed in culture,
which includes a wide variety of polytheistic and monotheistic religions.
 This concept of giving equal credence to all religions is difficult for
many theists, who by nature believe that their religion is superior to
other religions.  I do not want to influence the child one way or another.
 I want to give the child the opportunity to choose whatever religion they
feel comfortable with or the lack thereof.

Questions for Most:

1. How would you label your religious affiliation?  How would you describe
your belief system?  What are the traits of your higher being? Does your
higher being have the power to intervene in individual and personal
events?

I am a Christian. First and foremost I believe in a singular God who sent his son Jesus to bridge the gap between him and I. I don’t know if I can say that I know the traits of God.  I guess I think of God the way most people think of their father. You believe you know your father, but really  all you know of him is what he decides to show. In my life I’ve known God to be present.  I believe that God has the ability to intervene in individual and personal events and have experienced it at varying times in my life. Whether his intervention has been to change the situation, or change me, I’ve felt it happen.

2.  Do you believe that there is evidence of your higher being?  If so,
what is the evidence?  If not, why are you convinced of the existence of
your higher being?  Is there any amount of evidence that could convince
you to convert to another religion or deconvert altogether?

Apologetics

I’ve never been one for apologetics. You can read stuff by guys like Keller and Strobel that’s pretty interesting and relevant but it’s never been my cup of tea. It’s not that I don’t think it’s possible to apply what is considered logic and reason to spirituality and religion, it’s just that I’ve always thought it was kind of counter productive and unnecessary.  I think the idea of having faith in an unseen, almighty, and omnipotent being who never speaks to you in an audible voice is inherently illogical and unreasonable. One of the things I’ve always been intrigued by, when it comes to Atheism, is that it seems atheists only require proof for things unseen when it comes to religion and spirituality. I think there are plenty of other unseen forces that impact our lives daily that we cannot prove exist. One example being the entire spectrum of human emotion – from love to hate. We cannot explain human emotion or prove that it as anything more than a chemical reaction taking place somewhere in our brain. My point is, trying to produce evidence for or against God’s existence, for me, would be like trying to produce evidence that love exists between my wife and I or between a mother and child. There’s nothing I can show you that proves that and there’s nothing you can show me that proves it’s not there. In many ways God, for me, is a feeling that rests somewhere down in the deepest parts of our existence in the same places where we hold things like love and hate. I don’t have to prove it’s there to know it’s there.

3.  What do you think accounts for the variety of belief systems practiced
around the world, many of which are in direct conflict with each other?

I think at the heart of every belief system is the desire to reconcile a seemingly inexplicable emotional event and translate it for those of have yet to experience it. Siddhārtha Gautama sits under a tree meditating for a month and a half until he reaches what he believes to be a higher spiritual plane – one where a greater understanding of the material world is revealed to him. He returns, reconciles what happened and when he translates that emotional event we get the four noble truths and the eightfold path which become the foundations of Buddhism.

Unhappy with big city life Muhammad decides to withdraw from society and go kick it in a cave for a while. There he fasts, meditates and reflects on all that he’s seen and experienced. After a time he begins to have visions and eventually a new and deeper understanding is revealed to him. The angel Gabriel then explains to him the basic tenants of what eventually becomes the Islamic faith.

These are just two examples but my point is, in almost all religions there is revelation through meditation and then there is translation of that revelation for those who didn’t experience it. I’m not arrogant enough to say that I know for certain what happened to Siddhartha as he sat under that tree or what happened to Muhammed in that cave or how God told Abraham to leave Canaan or what Jesus felt when John the Baptist pulled him up out of the water. I believe in each of those cases something happened – something life changing. I believe those guys spent the rest of their lives trying to explain it and subsequent events they experienced after it.  The differences in each religion, in my mind come when human desires start entering into each translation of these events. In truth, I can’t tell you which one is right or which one is wrong. Some Christians might consider that to be a weakness in my faith. All I really know is what I’ve experienced.  Like many folks, I’ve studied tons of religions, but it wasn’t until I started taking steps toward Jesus that I began to feel something. With each step I took, I felt more and more of God’s existence being revealed to me and so I’ve been walking in that direction ever since.

4.  Does your higher being desire to improve the status of humanity?
Please explain.

I think God’s desire is that we all live our earthly lives with the understanding that were our existence a beach, our time here on earth would be like a single grain of sand when compared to eternity. So, does he want to improve the status of humanity – I guess, but I think more than that, he wants us to understand that our happiness or unhappiness should not be based on what we’re experiencing here.

5.  What is your view of atheists? How many of your friends are atheists?
Of them, how many of them are minorities?  If you do not know of any
within your circle of friends, do you think it’s possible that any of them
are reluctant to express their position on religion?

When I look out at my circle of friends, I think the vast majority of them would express some sort of belief in some sort of single deity. Within that, some would be considered super religious, some would consider themselves spiritual but not religious, and some would just be too busy with living their lives to concern themselves with trying to understand any beliefs or feelings they might have. I can recall on varying occasions a friend mentioning that they were an atheist. I like to think that I’m a pretty open minded person so I don’t think any of my friends would be uncomfortable sharing their Atheism with me. I hope not at least. Of course, as a Christian I hope that everyone I know and everyone I ever meet is somehow pushed toward a better relationship with God from having known me. This would include my atheist friends. At the same time, I try to be respectful of everyone’s way of thinking and way of approaching spirituality and religion. I think a little bit of respect goes a long way in making the earth more inhabitable for those of us going to heaven and the rest of you heathens. <– that’s a joke.

That’s it folks. Hope you enjoyed this post. I definitely enjoyed writing it, reading more about Ayanna’s beliefs and sharing some of mine. Regardless of what you believe, let’s try and keep it civil in the comments section today.  Feel free to share your open and honest opinions. You can answer some of the questions I’ve asked Ayanna or some of the questions she asked me. I’m also interested in knowing how some of you came to be of faith or not of faith. What were the key moments in your life that helped you confirm or reject the existence of a God? What role has religion or spirituality played in your love life? What impact does culture have on religion or spirituality? Lastly for more information on Ayanna’s organization you can check out their website here: Black Atheists of America or email them at: blackatheists@gmail.com.

It’s Monday, it’s hot and muggy and it’s supposed to be like this all week. Best thing any of us can do is stay low and keep firing.

Debt Ceiling

If you check your local news, your national news, the weekend papers, and the oversaturated 24 hour cable news cycles, you’re bound to see the following: Debt ceiling… Debt ceiling… Debt ceiling… The political and media fervor surrounding the debt ceiling talks closely resembles the government shutdown talks earlier in the year. Same political theater, but different script. The consequences of the government shutdown were pale in comparison to the debt ceiling’s. Today’s post will discuss the debt ceiling, what does it mean to raise it, and explore what would happen if it was not raised. In addition, I’ll touch on why the vitriol in the discussions seems so rancid.

The National Debt is the Largest Credit Card…

…account in the world. That’s the easiest way to think about it. Americans believe, or are led to believe that government spending is financed solely through the nation’s debt. Further, the many within the electorate assume that not raising the debt ceiling is a surefire measure to limit Federal government spending. These assumptions are wrong. Realistically, an expert can teach an entire college course on the National Debt. I’ll try to simplify in few words.

The National Debt smoothes costs over time using debt instruments. The Federal Government finances itself by issuing bonds to acquire the revenue needed to fund day-to-day operations and expenditures. Investors “invest” in the federal government and rely on the full faith and credit of the United States. That is, investors are certain their investment will be repaid with interest. This confidence is coupled by the fact that the investment is made through the international benchmark currency – the dollar. With that said, buying US Government bonds is considered one of the most safest investments in the world. Period.
The debt ceiling provides the credit limit for the country to borrow. With the borrowed money from investors, the government makes expenditures that revenues can’t cover. So, for example, for every $100 dollars in cost, the government can pay $50 in fresh new revenues, and another $50 in borrowed money (which will be paid back in interest).

OK, So What Needs to Be Done Exactly?

America needs to increase its credit limit. Plain and simple. Both political parties know this and it would be ill-advised to play with this like a game of chicken. Economists have pondered a full range of consequences if the limit wasn’t raised: i.e. higher interests rates from private lenders, decreased credit ratings from creditors (which would exponentially increase borrowing rates and reduce confidence), less dollars flowing through the economy, and so on. The government would be relegated to paying for expenditures based on revenues only. It’s like someone shutting down your credit card, essentially. The only way you could spend is with what is in you bank account. The government would have to pick and choose who to pay and when. What will it be? Soldiers or Social Security? Investors or Government salaries? This uncertainty would send shockwaves across the homeland and abroad.

If the Effects are “Calamitous”, then Why Are Folks Stalling?

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (one of the three key men that rescued the financial sector from the brink in 2008-2009) stated that not raising the debt ceiling would be “Calamitous”. The current stalemate is occurring for several reasons. First, as mentioned before, this makes incredible political theater for each political party’s base. America’s electorate extremely polarized and is looking for “red meat”. Rather than compromise, constituents want immediate and extreme action that would, in their perception, match the tumultuous conditions our country faces. Both parties are certainly giving the “fans” what they want right now.

Second, the discussions are insidiously fueled by ideology as much as identifying an amenable policy. Lawmakers are tethering the debt ceiling decision to the direction the country will take to implement deficit and debt reduction. This is what the political hoopla is about; not whether we should raise the debt limit, but what are the conditions to do so. Many proposals encompass a mixed bag of tax increases and reduced spending has been placed on the table. Republicans can’t conceive increasing taxes in a frail economy. Democrats fear for the contraction of safety net programs (like food stamps) when they are needed most. But with both sides refusing to give up to much on their political fronts, we are where we are now.
So essentially, the idea of raising the debt ceiling is the battlefield for the political parties’ age-old ideologies. Such ideologies are the anathema to the opposing party. With that said, how these next few weeks pan out would be somewhat nerve-racking.

Increasing the debt limit was a no-brainer in recent years. Based on that precedence, I was almost convinced that lawmakers would not play with the debt ceiling like the kabuki dance that occurred with the government shutdown. But with August 2nd (the day the federal government is projected to reach the ceiling), fast approaching, I’m not sure what to think right now.

What do you think?

The Duke

We Can’t Be Friends: When Post-Breakup Friendship Isn’t Such a Good Idea

We Sooo Can't Be Friends

I’m definitely one of those people who maintains friendships with women I’ve dated long after the romantic part of the relationship has ended. Friendships born out of romantic endeavors are common for me because most of the relationships I’ve had have ended on relatively amicable terms. I realize though that many of you still have contentious relationships with your ex, and I realize it’s often hard to know how to proceed once you’re no longer “together.” In today’s post I want to outline some of the ways to tell when it’s probably not a good idea to have a post breakup friendship with an ex.

When the relationship was built on something other than friendship.

The easiest way to tell whether or not you should continue a friendship with an ex is to think back to before you guys were together. How was your relationship born? If it was the sort of relationship that was romantic from the start, where the goal of all of your early communication was to determine romantic compatibility, then you might want to think twice about keeping this person close once the relationship is over. Most times, whatever the relationship is based on from the start, is all that will be left once the relationship is over. If you guys were friends first then, as long as nothing dramatic has happened in the relationship to erode that friendship, you can usually fall back on that when it’s all over. But if the relationship was based on a romantic connection, or a sexual connection, or physical attraction, once all of those things have gone, one of two things will happen. You’ll either:

A) Find that you don’t really like that person anymore – on any level.

-or-

B) Fall into that weird post-breakup space where you’re doing a lot of things folks in relationships do, but you no longer have the title.

It's probably best that we don't speak

When there’s major drama

When there’s major drama in a relationship, it’s probably a bad idea to maintain a friendship with that person when you guys finally decide to break up. If you guys were fighting and cursing each other out all the time or cheating on each other left and right or disrespecting each other – trying to be friends is pointless. What you’ll find is that your friendship will be plagued by the same demons as your relationship. The same things that angered you about this person when you were together will anger you about them apart. When someone has said or done things to you that were disrespectful or hurtful, that disrespect and pain isn’t mitigated by the fact that you’re no longer with them. Some things you just can’t take back. Some things that happen in a relationship should totally preclude any chance a person has at being your friend when it’s over.

Ang Ain't Having It...

When one of you desires more than friendship

This one is obvious, but often overlooked. You should never be friends with an ex when you still have significant feelings for them, or when they still have significant feelings for you. We’re all human, and we know that sometimes what we know we’re supposed to do and what we actually ending up doing can be very far removed from one another. We tell ourselves we won’t let it go there, but sometimes we just can’t help it. When your relationship ends you know in your heart whether or not you still have feelings for that person. You know whether or not they’re truly reconciled about the fact that it’s over. If you’re not, or if they’re not you need to stay away from that person. Trying to make a friendship work when someone wants more is like going to the supermarket hungry – with no money in your pocket. Bad things are inevitable. Talking on the phone turns into going out for coffee. Going out for coffee turns into going out to dinner, dinner turns into ‘kickin it’ and before you know it, you’re not sure whether you’re together, apart or somewhere in between. The worst part about it is, you already know the relationship can’t work. You’ve already tried it and failed. Now all you’re doing is holding yourselves back from your next relationships and stunting any personal growth you might have been making during this time. It’s like relationship purgatory, no one wants to be there, but you don’t really know how to get out.

Uncle Phill Knew What Time It Was

When you don’t like the person you are when you’re with that person.

People are like the elements in the periodic table. We’re all unique and special in our own right and we all have our own particular characteristics but when mixed together we change in ways we can’t really help. I know that no matter how strong I am or how dominant my personality if you put me together with one person, I’m not always going to be the same as I would be were I with someone else. Sometimes, you don’t always like the person you are when mixed with a certain person. No matter how hard you try to change, no matter how many years go by without interacting with that person, no matter how much growth you think you’ve made, when you and that person come together, you turn into the person you’ve always been with them. If you don’t like who you are when you’re with someone, you can’t be friends with them because some things you just can’t control – and the chemistry between you and that person is one of them.

As I mentioned above, after most of my break ups I’ve been able to remain friends with the person in a healthy and productive way. What about you? Do you remain friends with your exes? Why or why not? How have those friendships grown or progressed over the years? Have you ever experienced any of the above scenarios? Let me know in the comments or, if you don’t feel like sharing you can always do what I do…

Stay low and keep firing.

Procrastination and Me: A Love Story

So, I was sitting here about to write this post on Adele, John Legend and Cultural Appropriation when somehow, I started thinking about procrastination. I love procrastinating. Procrastination for me has always been a talent. I’m not sure how many of you out there are like me so today, I’m going to share with you my 4 favorite examples of awesome procrastination and you can let me know yours.

The End Is Near

4. I don’t charge my phone till the battery is completely dead.

Right now, as we speak, my phone has 3% of it’s battery power remaining. My charger is two feet away, but, I’ve spent the last twenty minutes trying to summon the energy to get up out of my seat, reach across the table, grab the charger, plug it into the wall and then plug it into my phone. Sheesh, I’m tired just thinking about it. Inevitably, I’m going to need to do something on my phone in a little while, and when I click the home button, nothing’s gonna happen. I’ll be annoyed and my annoyance will spur me to action.

3. Going to the bathroom

This may border on TMI, but, sometimes I hold my water until I absolutely can’t take it anymore. It’s not because I’m watching TV and waiting for a commercial, and it’s not because I’m uber engrossed in something I’m doing on the laptop, it’s just because I simply don’t feel like getting up and walking allllll the way to the bathroom – even though I really have to go. Who does that?

The Command Center

2. Being Productive in the house by myself

On days when my wife is at work and I’m at home, when she gets home, I like to lead her to believe I’ve spent the day being productive, doing all sorts of little projects around the house. I like for her to walk in and see me slaving over the stove, getting dinner prepared. Then when she nonchalantly asks me what I did for the day, I like to run down the lists of all these little projects I worked on. Cleaned this, picked up that, washed this, fixed that. The truth is, I sat around in my boxers all day watching Law & Order: SVU and old episodes of Colombo on Netflix (RIP to the homey Peter Falk). I might have even set up “The Command Center” (pictured) so that I can watch TV, play Xbox 360 and dilly dally on the internet all at the same time. You’re judging me right now, please stop. Invariably, around 5:00 pm I start realizing I should get up, get dressed and look like I’ve done something with my life before the wife gets home. But, I usually procrastinate on that and wait till I have just enough time to do just enough stuff to seem productive. A couple times I’ve actually timed it all wrong and she’s walked in just as I’m hurriedly dismantling the command center. How embarrassing.

This is what my closet is supposed to look like...

1. The Vicious Laundry Cycle

My wife and I each have our own walk-in closets. Part of the reason this is necessary is because we both have tons of clothes. But another reason why this is necessary is because I have trouble putting away my laundry. Wait, let me backtrack, the root cause of this problem is that I don’t do laundry until I have absolutely nothing to wear. I would love to say that this is because I only want to knock it all out in one trip to the Laundromat but the truth is, I drop my laundry off and pay someone to do it for me, so, there’s no real reason to wait. Now, because I wait till I have nothing left to wear, when I drop my laundry off, it’s usually about 40 lbs worth of clothes. When I get it back, it’s just too overwhelming and I decide I’ll put it away later. Later comes and goes, the clothes still aren’t put away and, suddenly I need something to wear. Now I have to start digging all through my laundry for the perfect t-shirt and jeans combo for the day and now half of the clean clothes are in the bag, and the other half are all over the place. Then I come home later, and now, the t-shirt and jean combo I came up with are dirty, but my laundry bag is still full. Major quagmire. Obvious answer is to just buckle down and spend a couple hours putting away clothes right? Wrong. I’ll just throw the t-shirt and jeans combo in the corner till I clean out my laundry bag. My closet is all downhill from there. Before you know it, the clean clothes and dirty clothes are all mixed up, I have nothing to wear, so I have to have them all washed again. I know you’re judging me.

I’m a procrastinator. I can’t help it. I’m not trying to change because things have worked out pretty well for me. Do you procrastinate? Has it affected your life negatively? Is it something you’re actively trying to change?

Also, when you’re done with this post, please take a moment to download my novella “Secrets Discovered In Memoriam” if you haven’t already. I put a lot into it and I think you’ll enjoy it. You can check it out here:

“Secrets Discovered In Memoriam”

Download it, read it… stay low and keep firing.

People Have Guns…And A Lot of Them.

Always Strapped...

Seems like my good friend TheMost isn’t the only one that is “staying low while firing”, and I say that for good reason. I’m realizing how oblivious I am about the abundance of guns on America’s city streets. I presumed that illegal gun-toting city dwellers are probably walking around with a .22 caliber pistol, Glock 9mm’s, or your occasional revolver. Apparently, I was wrong. Dead wrong. Last month, I learned that someone handed in an Uzi machine gun at New York’s Citywide Gun buyback program in the Bronx.

Now, before I go into pondering why someone needs a high-powered instrument of death like an Uzi, allow me to explain how the simple program works. For a short period of time, NYPD props up outposts across the five boroughs of New York City. Illegal gun owners are encouraged to turn in their illegal firearms in exchange for a $200 bank card per gun. The maximum cash out is $600, although participants are encouraged to hand in more, if willing. The incentive? No questions asked.

So back to the Uzi… My first thought was “People really got artillery like that in the streets?” I thought weapons like this were only commonplace in rap songs. What army are people in the hood going up against? Then again, it donned on me: Well, it’s the Bronx. (sorry, my Bronx peoples, I had to throw that in there).

A few weeks later, I read that somebody handed in a fully loaded Tech-9 with hollow-tip point bullets in Brownsville, Brooklyn through the same program. Police seized 22 semi-automatics 31 revolvers, seven rifles and shotguns, and 10 other firearms in total– and that’s just one neighborhood. Granted, this does not mean that all these guns were circulated in the Brownsville area (although I would not be surprised). Needless to say, it’s certainly real in the field out there.

On its merits, the creative program is inefficient because it assumes that it is reducing the supply of guns on the street. But without stringent policies to complement such programs and increase the difficulty of acquiring an illegal firearm, it’s an exercise in futility. If people need/want a gun, they are going to get it. It’s not hard at all. Nonetheless, the result of the program provides a glimpse of how New York City, and perhaps many metropolises, is awash in guns.

To make matters worse, the premier federal agency responsible for the regulation of gun manufacturers and the traffic of guns –the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives — is strained to accomplish its agency mission. A prime example of this is the botched Fast and Furious operation that culminated in the death of a Border Patrol Officer. With that said, the country certainly has a dearth in gun control policy and enforcement. But still, why do people need Uzis and Tech-9’s. And why are they so accessible?

So I put it out there today. What is the real issue for the proliferation of guns in the inner city? Is it ineffective enforcement at the federal level or across the States? Or have we been served up a long and unsolvable problem because of the second amendment?

The Duke

Tupac’s Back, And For The Wrong Reasons.

Have you noticed the emergence of Tupac Shakur references lately? Lil’ Wayne covered Tupac’s Hail Mary at his MTV Unplugged recording. I haven’t heard it yet, nor do I want to in fear of hearing a tainted version. Correction Officer turned rap artist Rick Ross collaborated with lesser known artist Meek Mill for their hit single Tupac Back. Both rappers draw stretched comparisons with their lives against the slain rapper’s title songs and lyrics. And finally, an incarcerated prisoner recently confessed that he shot and robbed Tupac in the infamous 1994 Quad Studio incident at the behest of embattled music executive James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond. Rosemond now faces serious drug charges and if the allegations are true, he may be responsible for the most violent musical feud in modern history.

All of these developments transpired over the last two months. That’s a short amount of time for a musical artist that died 15 years ago. At the very least, it’s a testament to Shakur’s perpetuating impact on hip-hop music and culture. Unfortunately, does this recognition do him justice?

Tupac Shakur is one of the most complex individuals in recent history. The dichotomy of the Brooklyn born rapper and actor is hard to dissect. If you delve into his early interviews and writings, you can identify his unique sense of understanding societal issues that touch inequity, poverty, the role of government in urban areas, and (to some degree) the application of philosophy in modern times (I’m not joking). However, it’s hard to believe that a man of his intellect evolved into the brazen and harsh entertainer we saw at the height of his career. As he grew older, his lyrics became progressively darker and more malcontent as opposed to wiser and more responsible as one might expect with his conviction and incarceration as the exclamation point on his spiraling reputation. As references in today’s musical references persist, we begin to view Shakur as the self-made anti-establishment pariah. While such characterizations are deserved (A man is responsible for his actions), such reflections are not balanced.

Consider this. Today, teenagers know Shakur as an old school rapper that died before or shortly after their birth. Many of these new-generation teenagers are exposed to the Tupac that was able to extend a middle finger to onlookers while on a gurney, or George Jefferson stroll out of court. How easy is it for adolescents to find a YouTube video of Shakur spitting in a camera, or his well-known video of stomping down a person at a Las Vegas casino?

It’s unfortunate that the hip-hop industry celebrates Shakur for his many moments of ignorant bravado and lapses in judgment veiled under the guise of being revolutionary or non-conformist.  As great as he was as an artist, today’s artists and others celebrate the man for his flaws, not his intellect or gifts or heart or soul. Tupac was a tremendous actor, who could have accomplished more in that field. He was an underrated writer of poetry, as hinted by A Rose That Grew From the Concrete. He’s made positive statements in his life that should be valued, not overlooked.

I will agree that Tupac Shakur is mainly responsible for the perception of his legacy today. To me, I saw a 25-year-old black male that was confused and possibly hypocritical, but tried to make sense in his life unsuccessfully on the public stage. My main point today is that Shakur’s conflicted soul had a duality that played out in reality. Is that his fault? I’ll let you decide. We have to take the good with the bad with anyone. However, we should not glamorize his missteps without mentioning his clouded yet existent positivity.

With that said, what are your views of the controversial artist? Have they changed from when he was alive?

The Duke

Secrets Discovered In Memoriam

*Cover Art By Michael K. Wilson*

Three months ago, I was sitting in front of my computer, struggling trough a vicious bout of writer’s block, trying to come up with a blog post for the following day. Then a sentence popped into my head. That sentence turned into another and another and another. Eventually, I ended up writing what became the prologue for this work. My only problem was, I had no idea what to do with it. I didn’t know where it belonged or what it could be a part of. Overtime, I couldn’t stop editing it, tweaking it and eventually, adding to it. 101 pages later, I had a story: Secrets Discovered In Memoriam.

“In Memoriam” is a Latin phrase that directly translates to “in memory of.” You’ll often see this phrase in obituaries and on funeral programs. I thought it would be interesting to write a story without a physical antagonist, a story where there is no villain, because really, how many of us have true villains in our lives? Sure we have people who’ve hurt us, but how many of us have people who have made our demise their life’s greatest goal? Not many of us. What I’ve come to realize is that for most of us, our life’s greatest villain is our own mind. We fight against ourselves trying to suppress those parts of us we don’t want the world to know exist. We fight against the tumbling machinations of our mind, trying to sort out the things that trouble us. We fight against things we’ve done or that have been done to us that we’d like to forget. Those are our true antagonists, our true villains. As you’ll see in the story, memories and the things we do in memory of those we’ve lost play a huge roll in shaping the world the main character inhabits. You might say that his memories are a living, breathing, impacting part of his life. Keep this in mind as you travel along with him.

I guess, that’s it for now, I really hope you enjoy this work. Whether you love it or hate it, please remember to send me feedback to jermaine.spradley@gmail.com, or comment on the “Secrets Discovered In Memoriam” tab over at www.thelowerfrequency.com. And don’t wait till you’re finished reading to comment, send me stuff as you go along. Alright, no more stalling, everything you read from the next page forward is fiction. Thanks again for downloading and as always … stay low and keep firing

Secrets Discovered In Memoriam

 

STFU?: The Political Modus Operandi for Today’s Athletes?

Anarchy?

David Tyree’s latest spat against gay marriage was shocking to many for obvious reasons. To me, it was shocking because Tyree, the virtual immortalized hero of Super Bowl XLII, committed athlete taboo: speaking or involving one’s self in political discourse. Granted, Tyree is not a high caliber football player that would draw attention on regular basis. But his decision to opine on a sensitive subject reminded me of a time when athletes stood up for their beliefs and made it known by leveraging their popularity.

He never held his tongue, regardless of who his "opponent" was...

For example, Muhammad Ali, the greatest athlete of all time, made several politically charged statements throughout his career. He strongly associated with Malcolm X, a pariah in most American mainstream circles. Ali famously opposed the Vietnam War, being drafted, and racism — resulting in the revocation of his Olympic Gold Medal and his championship title. If you didn’t know, Ali made one of the most courageous statements in sports history: “Ain’t no Viet Cong called me a nigger”. His protest was principled because he knew he would not be sent into combat but he protested, nonetheless, knowing that his actions would threaten the career that enabled him to voice out his mind.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos were followed by authorities for years after this protest.

Ali was not the only one. Bill Walton spoke his mind, as well as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. By no means am I comparing David Tyree comments or stature to those other men. My attempt is to highlight a practice that many athletes employed to garner attention on a subject in the past. Fast forward today, you must ask the question: Why are athlete’s so relatively…quiet?

The 60’s and 70’s were one of the most transitional times in this country. The issues in that era touched all walks of life and the topics were discussed everywhere: the dinner table, the water cooler, the barber shop, and in colleges where most athletes then started their careers (although I do not think Ali went to college, which makes him an outlier). You have to remember that during those times, protests were an everyday occurrence that was featured on the evening news. My point is that hot topic political issues were incredibly pervasive back then, which probably inspired many athletes to voice their beliefs and make a stand for a cause.

I think a certain level of apathy has come over athletes because of the times. What are the most pervasive issues that concern us today? The answers would vary. Some would say Libya, some would say the economy, and others would mention some local issue that isn’t on the national radar. The arguments that there are too many issues or there isn’t one main issue (like the Civil Rights Movement) are both acceptable.
Such apathy is probably fueled by the realization that an activist was never part of the job description.

That’s what makes Tyree’s comment so gutsy. I do not agree with his sentiments, but I do acknowledge that it takes same gall to say what he did when he did not have to. Today’s athlete didn’t work hard in high school and college to speak against the establishment on his/her own personal bully pulpit, did s/he? I agree that speaking on a particular issue is not their immediate responsibility. But they are leaders to many, are they not?

That’s the question for today. Should athletes use their stature to make political statements? What is the root cause for today’s athlete apathy? Why are they so mum these days? Is it the money? Or are they a reflection of an ambivalent society?

The Duke

Identifying and Accepting Our Fatal Flaws

Vanity, Hubris - this dude had 'em all

Those of you who read the site daily know that this Thursday, my e-book “Secrets Discovered in Memoriam” hits the streets. I’m really hoping you all download it, read it and love it. One of the principle themes driving the plot of “Secrets” is this idea that the main character is somehow damaged or flawed. His struggle against that flaw ultimately leads to a clarity he never expected. All throughout literature we see examples of fatal flaws. Oedipus, Achilles, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Ahab, Dorian Grey – all of these characters in these classic works of literature had tragic flaws that their inability to recognize, eventually, lead them to their demise. In television and film characters like Sonny Corleone, Scarface, Superman and Stringer Bell were all tragically flawed.  But fatal flaws don’t exist exclusively in the realms of literature and fiction.  We all have that one thing about our personality, that one area of our life that is completely out of our control. For many of us, this struggle against ourselves has defined our lives. In today’s post I want to talk a little bit about some of the more common fatal flaws I’ve noticed over the years.

Kept telling you stop playin them away games

1) Hubris

Pride is one of the few character traits we see in our friends and family that can be both positive and negative. Pride can be a motivating factor, constantly pushing us, never allowing us to settle and forcing us to be the best person we can be. Pride can also be a major hinderance. When pride isn’t tempered by a healthy dose of humility, it can eventually lead to our downfall. Do you know any prideful people. Prideful to the point of hurting themselves or those around them for the sake of maintaining a particular self-image? Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who could never apologize, no matter how wrong they knew they were? Have you ever known someone who was always more comfortable cutting off their nose to spite their face rather than admit any level of incompetence. These are all examples of Hubris.

This was my joint though...

2) Low Self-Esteem

Another fatal flaw I see in a great deal of people I interact with is that of an inaccurately poor self-image. This is the other end of the spectrum relative to pride. Some people, no matter how many times you tell them they’re awesome and worthwhile, and fun, and smart – will always disagree with you. Having a poor self-image can lead to all sorts of hurt and pain. The most damaging result of an inaccurately poor self-image I see in people I know is that, in relationships, they are willing to accept less than what they deserve. It’s sad to see someone you know to be amazing suffer through unnecessary anguish at the hands of someone who feeds their self-consciousness.

You Need More People

3) Pathological Lying Some people just lie. They lie and can’t stop lying. They lie about everything including their lies. They get caught in their lies and either run, or, they tell more lies. This is one of the fatal flaws I find most difficult to deal with. Trying to have a friendship – or any sort of relationship – with someone who’s pathological in their lying is almost impossible. When they say they love you, how do you know they’re not lying? I don’t know what has to happen in someone’s life for them to become this way, I don’t know whether this flaw is innate or learned, but for me, it’s the one flaw I cannot accept. Have any of you ever known or dated a pathological liar? Have any of you ever believed the lies of a pathological liar? Tell us about that experience.

 

The Face of Death

4) Lack of Conscience Some people do not feel guilt. I know it sounds strange, but some people have the ability to recognize right and wrong but disassociate themselves from the guilt that is born out of judging something they’ve done. Folks with this flaw are an interesting breed. Some of them figure out alternate means of dealing with their lack of conscience. Some put their faith and God, and substitute his perception for their own, some use a relationship or loved one to keep them grounded, and some become serial rapists and axe murders.

 

Gator gone mom... he gone.

5) Loves too Much

If Jesus were a character in a novel, and not our Lord and Savior, we’d say that his fatal flaw was that he loved too much. Have you ever had a friend or family member who loved everybody unconditionally. Loves to the point that they’re constantly trampled over and hurt by these people who supposedly care for them? This is an example of a person who loves too much. Sometimes, you have to know when it’s time to let go.

These are just a few examples of tragic flaws we find in people we know. If you had to pick one deficient area of your personality that if left unchecked, you are certain it might lead to your demise, what would it be? What is your fatal flaw? And what are some fatal flaws you’ve recognized and noticed in the people you care about? What impact has it had on your relationship with them?

Lastly, please be excited about “Secrets Discovered In Memoriam” – it drops Thursday and I think it’s really dope.

Till tomorrow…

stay low and keep firing.

The Top 5 Black Women Who Are “Doing It”

I love black women. So I thought I’d write a post that places some sunlight on those who are really “doing it” that we don’t hear on a daily basis. My definition of “doing it” is very broad – it is a display of class, ambition, style, dedication, and leadership in their profession, but not necessarily their way of wife. We hear so much about Beyonce or First Lady Michelle Obama today whenever we think or ruminate about successful black women. But there are a handful of women that have caught my eye that are the crème de la crème in my book. So here it is: The Duke’s Top Five Black Women That Are “Doing It”.

Business – Ursula Burns, CEO, Xerox

Inspring...

Being the Chairman and CEO of a Fortune 500 is certainly nothing to sneeze at. Ms. Burns is the only African-American I know (outside of Stan O’Neal who formerly headed Merrill Lynch) to take command of a marquee American multinational firm. The beauty of Ursula Burns success is that she is a homegrown Xerox employee who came up the ranks traditionally. She definitely earned her stripes since her start as a mechanical engineering intern in 1980. It’s amazing that Xerox’s board recognized AND acknowledged her talent and skills. To top things off, she is vice chair of the President’s Export Council. Kudos to Ms. Burns for her inspring ascendancy. I wish her much success.

Entertainment – Taraji Penda Henson, Actress, Singer

Taraji is really up and coming in my eyes. I was surprised to learn that she hails from Southeast, DC. She’s definitely a diamond in the rough, in most respects. The professional maturation of Taraji Henson is impressive. She’s come a long way from the stereotypical black-woman-with-an-attitude acting on Baby Boy. Hustle and Flow was a somewhat modest improvement, but her recent Oscar nomination for Supporting Best Actress in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button should not go unnoticed. I think she dipped when she chose her role for the Karate Kid, but her momentum is still there. Her recent advocacy work with PETA has raised some interesting eyebrows for good reason. Add to the fact that she is stunningly beautiful makes me think that she can be a real contender in the unfortunately anemic world of black acting. I guess I should finally admit that I have a huge crush on her. Don’t tell my girlfriend though.

Public Service – Congresswoman Donna Edwards, House of Representatives

Planting the Seeds of Leadership...

Intelligent. Intelligent. Intelligent. Oh, did I say intelligent? Congresswomen Edwards is one of the rising stars for the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives. She represents portions of Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties in MD, a virtual enclave of diverse middle-class Americans in the Washington D.C. metro area. Congresswoman Edwards worked for Lockheed Martin before earning her law degree from the University of New Hampshire. I’ve had the opportunity to see Congresswoman Edwards in action during hearings. She is very methodical in her work and always comes prepared to any engagement. With her incumbency in a solidly democratic district, she is sure to gain Congressional seniority in years to come. Certainly, this will yield new leadership opportunities of influence on Capitol Hill. Long story, short: Look out for this future leader.

Community Service/Involvement – Malaak Compton-Rock

Dedicated...

I think we would all agree that star comedian Chris Rock “married up”. Many of you know Malaak Compton Rock from her appearance in CNN’s Black in America. Mrs. Rock is the epitome of the word “drive”. Mrs. Rock plays a role in numerous philanthropic efforts spanning from international children needs to addressing hardships faced by young Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick adolescents. Mrs. Rock was able to leverage support from major corporations to provide services for underprivileged communities. Although her career took off in the public relations and cosmetics field, it’s relieving for us to know of her transition to focus on people who need the most attention to succeed. But don’t take it from me. Please visit her website to view how expansive her efforts are. Amazing.

Head of State – President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia

Head of State. Enough said...

Harvard Educated… Current President of an African Country… And she’s a woman. As a matter of fact, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the only female Head of State on the continent of Africa. President Johnson is credited for maintaining some semblance of stability in Liberia, which once was scarred by strife and civil war. In 2006, President Johnson assumed the role to facilitate national healing and rebuild the Liberian economy after he infamous rule of Charles Taylor. Although, Liberia is not with its major problems, they are on the right track. Liberia has reduced its national debt and continues to mend frayed relations with its neighbors. Newsweek listed President Johnson as one of the top ten leaders in the world. This black woman is certainly “doing it”.

That’s my list of fantastic black woman “doing it” in the world today. What’s your list?

The Duke

Emos and Pensives: Some Thoughts on Those Who Think, and Those Feel

Pensive

One of the more interesting things I’ve noticed in my relationship is the fact that whenever MrsMost and I argue, her argument always begins with “I just feel like …” and my argument always begins with “Well, I think …” It’s a simple example of one of the more important differences between individuals on this Earth. There are the Emos (short for Emotionals) who feel. And then there are the Pensives – who think. In today’s post I want to look at both and talk about why I love being a Pensive.

Obviously, to varying extents, we all have the ability to both feel and think, but at an individuals core, I think most of us default to one or the other. Before we can truly categorize each type of person, we have to spend some time talking about the difference between an emotion and a thought. The simple way to describe the difference between an emotion and a thought is to say that emotions are of the heart and thoughts are of the mind. In reality, our hearts don’t do anything but pump blood; both emotions and thoughts, originate in our brains. The difference is an emotion is a thought that is compulsive in nature and it’s usually accompanied by a behavioral change. With that out of the way, here’s how I’d characterize those who are wired to feel, and those who are wired to think.

Emos

If you’re an Emo, your initial response to anything affecting is compulsive; you can’t help it. Emos have a deep and abiding connection with their feelings. Have you ever met someone who just felt? If they’re driving down the street and see a wedding letting out, they get a little warm inside. If their friend’s mother’s cousin’s best friend has a horrible accident and dies tragically, for a few seconds they feel it as if it happened to someone they were really close to. Emos can also be compassionate and caring. I sometimes marvel at some peoples ability to truly care about other people, their lives, their successes and their misfortune.

While all of this is great, Emos can also be really annoying. For Emos, feelings almost always trump logic. This often makes it difficult to reason with them because your reasoning does little to change whatever it is they’re feeling. When a situation requires action preceded by thought and contemplation, Emos can be utterly useless. Also, for most emos, their feelings not only trump logic, but also the feelings and emotions of others if the two are in direct contrast with each other. When two Emos get really upset with each other – friendships end! And while Emos have the ability to feel the good emotions like compassion and love, they’re also intimately familiar with the not so good ones like jealousy and hate.  The most dangerous person on Earth is an Emo scorned.

Pensives

If you’re a pensive, your initial response to anything affecting is going to be … well … pensive. You’re going to want to withdraw and think about things before charting out a course of action. One of the good things about being a pensive is that a pensive will tend to lean more on logic and reason when making important decisions. This ability to suppress your emotions is sometimes helpful when decisions require more than just instinct.

The bad part about being a Pensive is that sometimes they can be cold and uncaring. When a Pensive has spent some time thinking and come to a conclusion about something there’s a good chance they’re going to stick to it regardless of any negative impact it might have on the feelings of others. Pensives also have a tendency to devalue emotions and expect everyone to be on their page; they expect everyone to be able to not care. Sometimes, when Mrs.Most is upset, I’ll tell her, “that’s because you want to be upset” when in reality, I understand she can’t really help how she feels.

As most of you might imagine, I’m definitely a Pensive. My first reaction to anything is always to think. I like being a pensive. One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that in romantic relationships, I prefer other Emos, but in friendships, I get along best with other Pensives. How about you? Do you tend to rely more on your emotions and instincts, or more on your thoughts? What about in friendships and romantic relationships – do you find yourself more compatible with one side or the other?

By the way – Secrets Discovered In Memoriam drops one week from tomorrow … till then …

stay low and keep firing.

Is the Current Housing Market for You? Rent vs. Own

Up the creek with no paddle.

It’s been sad news since Memorial Day for policymakers, economists, investors, and businesses alike. These frenetic persons have been fretting over the latest economic indicators. Much news was made about Case-Schiller index, and economic status check that signaled that the housing market has double dipped, although not as steep as the infamous Great Recession.

What does this all mean for you and me? Well, home prices are plummeting – a credible, yet saddening sign of low demand for home ownership. The housing market is plush with inventory with the expectation that many more homes will enter the market once banks finalize painfully slow foreclosing procedures. Further, many potential homeowners are deterred to make bets on uncertain sinking investments. Any modest improvement in the housing market since 2008 was largely fueled by the first-homeowner mortgage tax credit – an incentive that lost its muster when they expired. The housing industry was a driving economic engine back in the day. If you didn’t know already, many Americans financed countless goods and services through housing wealth. Now that the engine has lost fuel and blown a gasket for kicks, and owning a home does not seem desirable right now.

With rockbottom prices across the board, is it a great time to rent or own? Pardon me, but I’m of the renting persuasion. Here is why?

1) You rarely purchase your ideal home. The home you purchase was most likely someone else’s at some point. This means that you’re subjected to any lingering problems that existed beforehand. Adding to this is the new homeowner’s task to build his/her own castle, which takes a huge amounts of capital and labor. Many of my co-workers and friends spend enormous amount of time and money fixing their newly purchased homes. This equates to weekend after weekend of toil and time. I’m not sure about you, but I’m lazy when it comes to this effort. I rather enjoy life than to continually invest in my castle – especially when the valuation may drop. This leads to my next point…

2) Is that rockbottom price really the bottom? No one is sure when the market will fully correct itself. It’s a guessing game right now. The worst feeling is paying a mortgage that is not worth your home a year from now. I’m essentially describing “underwater” mortgages. They are not easy to get out if your home is below the valuation of your property.

3) The upside of the apartment. Apartments are great, especially when you are young. You have the space that you need, and the amenities are convenient for you. Most maintenance costs and security are covered by the premium you pay in rent. How can you pass that up today?

I know these are small reasons, but in this day and age, it goes a long way towards averting the risks that many regret today. What’s your take on it? Are you seeking to own or rent? Why or why not.

The way I see it, you can’t lose if you don’t play. Think about it.

The Duke

Feedback Day on TheLowerFrequency.com

Today, June 13, 2011 is officially the Six Month Anniversary of my lil’ ole blog: TheLowerFrequency.com. If I had to use one word to describe what my relationship with the blog has been it would be – revelatory. It’s been a pretty fun experience thus far, I hope you all have enjoyed it as much as I have, and I hope you all are as excited as I am for these next six months. Shout out to my partner in crime TheDukeofRichmond for all of the awesome posts he’s rocked out.

Today, I’d Like to engage you guys directly in conversation about the blog and get some feedback, criticism and suggestions for where we should go in the future. Also, I’ll be dropping a Digital Novella (I just made that term up) next week so I want to tell you guys about that.  Let’s jump right in.

Secrets Discovered In Memoriam – Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

One of the things that’s been most exciting about writing the blog has been rediscovering how much I enjoy creating. About 3 months ago I was playing around and started typing a little story. That story has grown to be novella sized and I think it’s pretty dope. I’m currently putting on the finishing touches, and plan on releasing it for free next Thursday. Those of you who have iPads, Kindles, Nooks and all sorts of other digital readers will be able to download and read it on there. For everyone else … we’ll figure something else out. It’s called Secrets Discovered In Memoriam. As you might imagine, I’m pretty excited about it.

Statistics!

Here are some interesting statistics about thelowerfrequency.com over the first six months:

To date the 7 most popular posts on the site – based on page visits have been:

• 7. Lame Dudes Out Here Winning
• 6. The Black American/Black Immigrant Divide
• 5. Top 5 Unimportant But Important Things Women Look for in Men
• 4. Top 5 Unimportant But Important Qualities Men Look for In Women
• 3. Carmelo Anthony to the New York Knicks: My Detailed Analysis of the Trade and its Implications
• 2. Disappearing Acts – Why Some Men Sometimes Fall Off the Face of The Earth
• 1. Cornel West, Barack Obama, The Shoeshine Man and Me

And the 7 most popular posts, based on comments, have been:

• 7.  What’s So Special About the South? What Fuels the Reverse Migration of Blacks?
• 6.  Lame Dudes Out Here Winning
• 5.  The Responsibilities of The Reappearing Man
• 4.  The Black American/Black Immigrant Divide
• 3.  Disappearing Acts – Why Some Men Sometimes Fall Off the Face of The Earth
• 2.  So What Do We Think About BET’s “The Game”
• 1. Lobster, Shrimp and a Glass of … Moscato? TheLowerFrequency.com Guide to Drinking Like an Adult

So what does all of this tell me? Well a number of things really. First, not surprisingly, posts on love and interpersonal relationships seem to go over pretty well. Those post typically generate the most page views and the most comments. So, I guess that means we should try to keep bringing that sort of content right? Next, how funny is it that the post with the most comments – by far – is the post about alcohol. You guys should consider going to AA – seriously. Also, the second most popular post, by page views was a post I threw up on a random Saturday where I reflected on the Melo to NY trade. That’s really interesting. Does this mean you guys want more sports related content?

More Fun Stuff:

One of the ways you get visitors to a blog like this is through search engines like Google. People type something into Google, click search, and … well … you know what happens. Each day, I can check to see what people are  searching for in Google that leads them to this blog. Sometimes it’s hilarious. Here are some of my favorite Google searches that lead visitors here:

• “what kind of moscato do rappers drink”
• “men who dump you by disappearing”
• “madea’s big happy family movie times”
• “jedi lawyers”
• “after you break up with someone why does all men from your past reappear”
• “jerome sings dont you no no good”
• “why liars can’t disappear from this earth?”
• “tanya nicole i love your mole”

In Conclusion:

The whole point of all of this was to talk to you all, share with you what’s going on and – of course get feedback from you. Seriously, I would love it if every one of you who read this sent me something. Tell me about a post you hated, a post you loved, or a post I haven’t written that you wish I would.  What I’d most appreciate is constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement.

All that said, there are three ways we can do this: You can leave a comment in our normal comments section using your normal e-handle. You can leave an anonymous comment in the comment section at the bottom of the page. Or you can email me at thelowerfrequency@gmail.com.

As always …

stay low and keep firing.

Toast to the Douche Bags – The Curious Kinship of Kanye West and Jonathan Franzen

Now that Kanye West’s My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy and Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom have both had the pristine shine of newness wear off, I think we can look back on both pieces to accurately judge their impact and what these works say about the artists who created them.  On the surface, you couldn’t find two more starkly different contemporary artists than Jonathan Franzen and Kanye West.  Franzen writes epically boring but strangely engaging books about the everyday minutia of white, anglo-saxon protestant life in turn of the 21st century America and Kanye West makes neo-classicist, self-aggrandizing Hip-Hop infused with equal parts consciousness, materialism and sexual fantasy. But when you look closer you find these two guys are way more alike than they are different. In today’s post I want to explore both of their latest works and talk a little bit about what makes them so similar and special.

Both Frazen and West are epic douche-bags.

In recent pop culture memory the only person to have more asshole moments than Kanye West is Charlie Sheen.  West is as well known for his fits of emotional over saturation as he is for his music. From “George Bush doesn’t care about black peope,” to wigging out on SNL to “I’ma let you finish…” West carries the cross for those of us who sometimes can’t help how gifted we are at finding what we don’t like the most.  But don’t sleep on Jonathan Franzen. In the relatively quiet and peaceful world of WASP Lit, Franzen is a bit of an anomaly and definitely a douche bag worthy of toasting.  Where West is fond of making hugely generalized, self-important, douchey statements like “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” Franzen instead writes angry, unnecessarily verbose, high brow douchey op-eds in douchey magazines like The New Yorker that basically say “SUV driving miscreant low-thinkers don’t care about the plight of migratory birds!”  Where West goes on TV and bugs out because he feels like Matt Lauer is being predatory and insensitive in his questioning, Franzen turns his nose up at being selected to Oprah’s book club and declines an invitation to appear on her show.  Doesn’t seem like much of a big deal to most of us, but being selected to Oprah’s book club, as a first time novelist is damn near tantamount to receiving a McArthur Award – so saying “thanks but, no thanks” is a douche move of the highest order.

Franzen and West’s latest works both show they are probably their medium’s most important contemporary artists:

Kanye West’s Twisted Fantasy is, without a doubt his best work to date. It is his most succinct album since The College Dropout yet it still manages to be more seeking and ambitious than anything he’s ever done.  It’s more experimental than 808’s and Heartbreak, but more Hip-Hop than Late Registration. It has more pop appeal than Graduation, yet should be as endearing to the neo-backpack movement as The College Dropout. With Twisted Fantasy, West has every base covered. Where West excels most with Dark Fantasy is in melding production with lyrical content and presentation to make his music more than just an auditory experience. You listen to the album and you’re transported to this strangely depressed world, with West as your tour guide, carrying you through the full range of human emotion from self-loving to self-loathing, from social responsibility to selfish indulgence, from God fearing, to sacrilegious; this world West is bringing us though is, above all else, honest.

May the Lord forgive us
May the God’s be with us
In that magic hour I seen good Christians
make rash decisions, Oh she do it,
What happened to Religion?
Oh she lose it
She putting on her make up
She casually allure
Text message break up, the casualty of tour
How she gone wake up and not love me no more
I thought I was the ass hole, I guess it’s rubbing off
Hood phenomenon, the Lebron of rhyme
Hard to be humble when you stuntin on a jumbotron
I’m looking at her like “this what you really want it, huh?”
What we argue anyway, oh I forgot its summertime.

Franzen’s Freedom, as far as I’m concerned, was the best novel of 2010.  As a culturally and historically aware descendant of African Slaves who happens to love Hip-Hop and fried chicken, I must admit, it was tough to wrap my mind around the blithely privileged and incomprehensibly trite every day lives of the white folk Franzen builds his novels around. Freedom is the story of the Berglund family (If there’s a whiter name than “Berglund” I’m not aware of it). The thing is, despite the extreme whiteness of the Berglunds, Franzen’s writing is so good, so sharply perceptive that you somehow forget that you have absolutely nothing in common with these characters.  What makes most classic literature classic is its ability reach beyond social status, class, race, political affiliation and all the other things we use to divide ourselves and tap into those basic human emotions we all feel so that you are able to relate to the characters through their emotions if not through their surface level lives.  What makes Franzen so special, for me, is that he doesn’t do this, and still manages to keep me compelled. The Berglund’s impulses and desires are so far away from that of my own and the everyday happenings of the suburban lives they live are so far removed from what I’m living here in Brooklyn that the humanistic relative connection is never really established. I’m compelled simply because the writing is phenomenal. It’s that good. He writes the sort of sentences and paragraphs that make you  put the book down for a minute, think about what you just read, what it means to your life, the world around you, the universe, space, time and all the other unsolved mysteries of human existence.   For example:

“Her eyes weren’t blinking. There was still something almost dead in them, something very far away. She seemed to be seeing all the way through to the back of him and beyond, out into the cold space of the future in which they would both soon be dead, out into the nothingness that Lalitha and his mother and his father had already passed into, and yet she was looking straight into his eyes, and he could feel her getting warmer by the minute. And so he stopped looking at her eyes and started looking into them, returning their look before it was too late, before this connection between life and what came after life was lost, and let her see all the vileness inside him, all the hatreds of two thousand solitary nights, while the two of them were still with the void in which the sum of everything they’d ever said or done, every pain they’d inflicted, every joy they’d shared, would weigh less than the smallest feather on the wind.”

West and Franzen are both the impetus for the resurgence of previously dormant genres within genres.

Kanye West’s “The College Dropout” (2004) and Franzen’s “The Corrections” (2001) were released at points in history where their respective genres were losing relevance.  In Hip-Hop, the backpack movement hadn’t really been relevant in a mainstream sort of way since “Beats, Rhymes and Life”.  In 2003 Jay-Z retired and 50 Cent released “Get Rich or Die Trying” which seemed to solidify him as the defacto heir to the throne.  Still riding high off of “Get Rich” and the two successful subsequent G-Unit releases, 50 looked poised to take over. Going into 2004 nobody saw Kanye coming. Nobody could have predicted that 7 years later, G-Unit would be irrelevant and every new artist signed to a major label would have a certain “different-ness” that wasn’t really acceptable in Hip-Hop for a long time prior to Kanye’s arrival. In literature in 2001, with the internet bubble in full swing, the concept of the long form WASP novel about nothing was dying. The last boring novel – about the problems white folks have when they don’t really have real problems – to actually crossover and enter the general American consciousness was probably Saul Bellow’s “Humbolt’s Gift”… and that was in the 70’s.   With “The Corrections” Franzen lays claim to the genre making it relevant for a new generation of passively angry, repressed, middle American white people who like the idea of hybrid cars but instead drive SUV’s for practical reasons. Since its release, books like Empire Falls and Olive Kitteridge have dropped to much critical and commercial success while exploring – to varying degrees – these same themes of inexplicable unhappiness and discontent in middle class white America.

Kanye West and Jonathan Franzen are two of the most important artists or our time. If you haven’t listened to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or read Freedom, do yourself a favor and get up on it.  Both works are more than worthwhile, even if you’re not particularly interested in the respective genres. It’s interesting to look at the two artists and see how similar two very different artists can be. For those of you who have heard the album or read the book – or done both – please feel free to share your thoughts on both.

Stay low and keep firing.

***Admin Note***

Next Monday marks the six month anniversary of thelowerfrequency.com being live. It’s been a fun ride thus far and I’m excited for all the new material we’ll be sharing over these next six months. I really appreciate you guys support. This week, in honor of the anniversary, I’m going to be re-posting some of my favorite pieces so that those of you who got here late can get caught up, and so that those of you who’ve been here since day one can take this trip down memory lane with me.  Thanks for reading folks you have no idea how much I appreciate you!

Curious Cases of Reverse Appropriation: When White America Crosses Over

Required Listening for Progressive, Young, Black America

Minority cultures are used to cultural appropriation on the part of the majority. Of late, I’ve noticed a new phenomenon; that of reverse appropriation. Reverse appropriation is when certain arbitrary aspects of popular culture, typically ascribed to the paler nation, somehow make their way into the general consciousness of black America. In today’s post we’ll explore the resulting echoes and take a look at some examples of this intriguing phenomenon.

As the children of the civil rights generation and 80′s babies have come of age and made our way in the world, one of the worst things any burgeoning renaissance person can do is allow themselves to be perceived as the kind of black person who only likes black stuff.  What results is a sometimes dizzying race to see who can extrapolate from white America those things that are most communicable to common black folk, and also, dope enough – culturally – to be appreciated by a culture that prides itself on its ability to appreciate dopeness. All this while maintaining a sufficient enough connection to your people to not be seen as a sellout. It’s the evolution of Dubois’ duality, and I see it manifested daily on social networks. Tweets and Status updates that say things like “Just saw Black Swan, Natalie Portman was amazing!” or “Now Playing: ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ This was my jam!” or “so happy Esperanza Spaulding won best new artist, her album is great” are posted as a means of shaping ones perception. You have to pick something that penetrated deep enough into our culture to be recognized, but wasn’t quite popular enough to seem like something everybody was up on. In this game, premium is placed on being the first person to communicate to our masses these bits of whiteness deserving of our collective appreciation; and if you can do so with consistency, you can … seem really cool to your twitter followers and Facebook friends.

In this game, a certain premium is also placed on subtly proving that, for your entire life, you’ve had this sort of taste and that you’re not new to this game. I remember being at a party this past summer – the crib was filled with a bunch of young Paul Robesons and Lorraine Hansberrys. At one point, the movie “Inception” came up as a topic of conversation. While everyone was arguing about whether or not the top keeps spinning, one dude went way out of his way to name drop Christopher Nolan, saying “I think Chris Nolan is one of the most important directors of our time.” Not only did he name drop Christopher Nolan out of nowhere, while everyone was discussing something else, but he also shortened his first name from Christopher to Chris as if he knew him personally. Then, another dude was like “Yeah, Nolan is great, his first movie, “Memento” is one of my all time favorites.” I’m thinking to myself “Memento” was cool, but that’s not one of your favorite movies, you just wanted to let us all know that you were up on the awesomeness that is Christopher Nolan before Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Inception. But then, the coup de grace, that dude gets checked by a young lady who reminds us all that Memento was not Nolan’s first movie, that his first movie was an obscure joint called “Following” that opened in limited release in 1999.  Game, set, match – she wins.  Mortified, the other dude had to admit he hadn’t seen it and mumble something about checking it out on Netflix.

Here are a few examples of other things I’ve noticed to have successfully crossed over from popular white culture to black America.

Kings Of Leon -Last year, or maybe it was the year before, everybody was all about Kings of Leon.  Even Jay-Z name dropped “Only by the Night” when asked what album he was listening to most at the time.

Basquiat  and Murakami – For the past four or five years, these guys have been the go-to when one needs to name drop an artist in conversation. Prior to that, the only black folks really up on Basquiat were those who’d studied modern art history and the only black folks up on Murakami were the ones obsessed with Louis Vuitton bags. Lets retire our incessant mentioning of these two great artists before their resonance in our popular culture begins to devalue their work.

Malcolm Gladwell Books -  When the Roots named their album “The Tipping Point,” Gladwell became name drop worthy in our community and his books entered the cannon of things black folks who are about something should be up on.

Sweet Child O’ Mine – If you’re ever doing karaoke with friends, while you all are looking for Snoop’s “What’s My Name,” or Rhianna’s “Umbrella” someone will sing this Guns and Roses classic to prove they like stuff other than black music.  And you’ll sing right along. This song is to black America what “Baby Got Back” is to white America.

Look, it’s not that I don’t think black folks can sit around talking about their favorite Christopher Nolan films or 90’s rock albums, it’s that there always seems to be a peculiar sort of competitiveness permeating just below the surface of the conversation; making most of what is being said disingenuous.  That competition doesn’t seem to be there when discussing things we like that are typically associated with our own culture – like Jay-Z albums and Spike Lee movies.  There’s no need to prove you really like Jay or Spike because you’re supposed to like Jay and Spike so the conversation can proceed in honesty, without everyone worrying about increasing their social cache.  Having expansive taste in music, cinema, fine art and all other areas of culture is a good thing, I’m all for it, but as a people, we need to tone down the obtuse flaunting of the diversity of our taste a little.  Full disclosure, like most of you I’m totally guilty of playing this game, and I’m ridiculously awesome at it.  Actually, this whole post is a sneaky, backhanded sort of way of playing it and I can feel my cool points increasing exponentially.  And there you have it.

Am I bugging, or have you all noticed and participated in these sorts of games? What are some examples of things you’ve noticed black folks scrambling to be the first person up on?  And what are some things we should all be pretending we love right now? As always, let me know in the comments section.

Stay low and keep firing.

***Admin Note***

Next Monday marks the six month anniversary of thelowerfrequency.com being live. It’s been a fun ride thus far and I’m excited for all the new material we’ll be sharing over these next six months. I really appreciate you guys support. This week, in honor of the anniversary, I’m going to be re-posting some of my favorite pieces so that those of you who got here late can get caught up, and so that those of you who’ve been here since day one can take this trip down memory lane with me.  Thanks for reading folks you have no idea how much I appreciate you!

Disappearing Acts – Why Some Men Sometimes Fall Off the Face of The Earth

It was all good just a week ago...

When I was a single man, some of the most wonderful, satisfying and fun relationships I ever had ended without so much as a conversation. At some point, usually around the four month mark, I’d just fall off the face of the Earth. Yes, I was one of those. One of those guys who would disappear without warning or explanation. Ladies, on the count of 3, take a moment to sigh with deep disgust as you remember the guy who did that to you… 1…2…3… Sigh… Feel better?) I know everyone claims they like closure so I know you all will hate me for this, but, today I want to try to give the definitive explanation for why when aimlessly meandering through the world with someone you’ve been interested in, rather than tell them you’d like to go in a new direction without them, it’s sometimes better to just disappear.

Before we go any further, I want to define “Disappearing” so that we’re all working from the same definition.

Disappear – The relatively sudden decrease in the depth and frequency of communication between one person and another.

With that out of the way, let’s get started.

There aren’t too many things in this world better than the first 3 and half months you spend with a new love interest. Those months are filled with an intoxicating mix of excitement, nervousness, anticipation, hope and dread. For me, those months were most exciting because you both had years and years of each others lives to catch up on and discover. I could relive all of the most exciting things that had ever happened to me in sharing them with her while getting to know more and more of her through her responses. With trepidation, she could reveal to me those random mental machinations that occurred to her daily but somehow got filtered out of her everyday conversation, getting to know me better and better with each of my responses. The jokes each of us have told for years seem as witty as the first day we thought of them when preceding the laughter of someone new, and the laughter of someone new is like a brand new song by your favorite artist, you want to hear it over and over.

Eventually, invariably, the newness wears off and you’re forced to deal with the reality of the person you’ve been getting to know. Sometimes, the reality of who she is can pale in comparison to the blinding beauty of the infatuation you had with who she might be. One day, your phone rings, you look at it, see it’s her, and before you realize what’s happening you find yourself contemplating whether or not you feel like talking to her. One night, you’re laying together in what is usually post coital bliss and she tells that joke about that thing she always tells that joke about and instead of uncontrollable laughter, you can muster nothing more than an obligatory giggle; her laughter, which was once music to your ears, now sounds like nails on a chalkboard. In that moment, just as fast as you‘d recognized your original attraction to her, you realize, without a doubt, that the relationship has gone as far as it will ever go.

When this happens, as a man, you have a few options.

1: Tell her, with complete honesty the absolute truth about why you’ve lost interest.

2: String her along for as long as humanly possible, enjoying the sexual chemistry you’ve developed until you meet the love of your life. Then, invite her to your wedding.

3: Pick a fight, get unreasonably angry and end it on that.

4. Sleep with someone else, nonchalantly tell her and pretend you didn’t know that sleeping with other people wasn’t acceptable while subtly encouraging her to do the same.

5. Over the course of a couple weeks, decrease the frequency and depth of your communication with her eventually ending with your complete disappearance.

Ladies, raise your hand if these sound familiar. Fellas, raise your hand if you’ve pulled some these get out of dodge tactics.  I think we can all agree that even though they are oft employed, options 2 through 4 aren’t ever really ok. Those are all douche moves. The only real options are to either be honest about why you’ve gone as far as you can go, or disappear.  Of those 2 choices, most of you probably think that being honest is the better choice. You probably think that being honest gives the other person a chance for some closure and prevents them from wondering why you just fell off. The problem I have with folks desiring closure in these sorts of relationships is that, most of the time, these relationships never really had a true beginning. The level of energy, effort, thought, and communication that we put into establishing the relationship should also be put into ending the relationship. I think it’s perfectly acceptable for a person to leave the way they came. If the two of you have had discussions around the future and direction of your relationship then, if something changes on either side, another discussion needs to be had. But if they meandered into your life and those discussions were never had, then there really is no relationship and there doesn’t really need to be any conversation when that non-relationship ends.

Sometimes, being brutally honest with someone is the worst thing you can do to them. It’s one thing if the reason you’ve lost interest is simple. If you just want to be single and sow your wild oats or, if you realize the two of you are looking for two different types of relationships, it’s easy to just keep it real. But what about when you realize that there’s something about this person, at their core, that you will never, ever be able to reconcile. A character flaw or deficiency that makes them completely incapable of ever being your other half. And what if exposing to them that thing you’ve noticed has the potential to cause serious, unnecessary damage to what is otherwise a wonderful human being. I realize how arrogant it sounds to suggest that your words can have that sort of impact on a person’s life. I realize that a lot of you are reading this and feeling like you’re strong enough to get over the opinions of one person. But there are others of you who are reading this who know exactly what I’m talking about – who know what it’s like to hold in your hands the heart of another. You know what it’s like to look into a person’s eyes and know that they believe you… they believe you in a fundamental sort of way. You know what it’s like to spend a great deal of time and effort successfully convincing someone that you know them better than anyone has ever known them. They not only  accept your perception of them, but they also internalize it until they begin seeing themselves through your eyes.

If after embedding myself that deeply into the consciousness of another human being I realize that they are, for me, irrevocably flawed, I’ve often felt it better to disappear from their lives than allow them to see and internalize that which I’ve seen; I mean, what if I’m wrong?

Stay Low and Keep Firing

***Admin Note***

Next Monday marks the six month anniversary of thelowerfrequency.com being live. It’s been a fun ride thus far and I’m excited for all the new material we’ll be sharing over these next six months. I really appreciate you guys support. This week, in honor of the anniversary, I’m going to be re-posting some of my favorite pieces so that those of you who got here late can get caught up, and so that those of you who’ve been here since day one can take this trip down memory lane with me.  Thanks for reading folks you have no idea how much I appreciate you!

The Black American/Black Immigrant Divide

***Admin Note***

Next Monday marks the six month anniversary of thelowerfrequency.com being live. It’s been a fun ride thus far and I’m excited for all the new material we’ll be sharing over these next six months. I really appreciate you guys support. This week, in honor of the anniversary, I’m going to be re-posting some of my favorite pieces so that those of you who got here late can get caught up, and so that those of you who’ve been here since day one can take this trip down memory lane with me.  Thanks for reading folks you have no idea how much I appreciate you!

Somewhere down deep, I always hoped that fellow dark people from Africa and the Caribbean viewed me, a Black American, as their long lost brother. I’m beginning to see how that is not the case.

Recently, one of the most interesting social phenomenons I’ve noticed has been the tacit animosity that exists between Black Americans and first or second generation black immigrants.  Maybe I was just naïve or oblivious, but, in truth, prior to college, I never noticed whether my friends or classmates were of immediate African or West Indian descent or whether they were, like me, the descendants of southern slaves. To me, they were just black.   I didn’t notice a difference until I got to college where there was the ‘Pan-Caribbean’ club and the Haitian Students Association and many other organizations aimed at capturing, maintaining and celebrating the heritage of blacks whose parents were not from here.

Over time though, I began to notice that most, if not all of my friends who were black immigrants harbored some not so favorable views of Black Americans.  I’ve had some of my closest friends tell me that I’m an exception. The general refrain I hear goes something like this:

“{West Indians} or {Nigerians} or {Ghanaians} are much harder workers than Black Americans, look at my parents. My parents came here with nothing but the clothes on their backs and in one generation have been able to start their own business, buy a home, raise kids who value education and put them all through college… meanwhile most Black Americans are too lazy to take advantage of all the opportunities that surround them.”

It’s starting to get a little annoying.   So, this post is my attempt to open the lines of communication between Black Americans and black immigrants.

I have nothing but respect for the drive, determination and work ethic of the typical African or West Indian immigrant. Personally, I cannot fathom the courage it takes to pick up everything and travel to another land in search of greener pastures. The level of respect I have for that sort of effort makes it all the more hurtful when that respect is not reciprocated. There are 3 main points I wish black immigrants would consider when shaping their opinion of Black Americans:

1.  Location is everything. Most of the time, when a person of color migrates to the U.S. from an unfavorable situation in their home country, they are coming here with very little.  Therefore, when they get here, they are moving to lower income inner-city neighborhoods.  If you base your judgment of the black people in this country on what you’re seeing around you in Flatbush or Newark or South Philly or Oakland, it might not be so accurate.  There are plenty of African Americans with the same work ethic, same value of education and same desire to excel as you – you just haven’t met them yet.

2.  Your status as an immigrant, (or first gen) makes you special. The mere fact that you were willing to pack up everything you own and leave your loved ones and everything you’ve known behind in search of something better means that you or your parents are not average.  You’re possessed with above average ambition and desire.  You are the cream of the crop. Are there lazy, un-ambitious, people from your country – of course there are – they just stay there.  It’s a little illogical to compare yourself to the lazy, un-ambitious black Americans you happen to see around you.  And besides that, wait a few generations… till that immigrant spirit that exists in your family now begins to fade and good old American complacency begins to set in.  Your people, like some of our people post Civil Rights movement, will have to readjust, retool and plant new seeds of ambition into the hearts and minds of your children.

3.  50 or 60 years ago, you would not have come here.  This is the most overlooked point on this subject.  I think many first and second generation black immigrants overlook the fact that, for about 450 out of the 500 years this land we call America has been populated, this was not a safe place for black folk to come to.  It took all those years of slavery, and all those years of reconstruction, and all those years of Jim Crow and finally the Civil Rights Movement for us to build this into a country worth coming to for us, and for people who looked like us.  Black Americans, no different than the ones you now judge, shed blood and gave their lives to make this place safe.  Have you any idea how hard it might be to effect change in the most powerful country in the world when you are a mere 13% of the total population.  All this while the government of that country is actively trying to oppress you?  Slavery was legal, Segregation was legal, Jim Crow was legal.  CoIntelPro happened.  And I’m not just talking about stuff that happened before I was born, stuff that one might say I should just get over.   Iran-Contra happened… that was my lifetime. AIDS has happened – in my lifetime.  BET happened! (j/k)  All of these are battles Black Americans fought though to make this, truly, the land of opportunity.  We did it not just for us – but also for you – our long lost brothers and sisters – because the same people we’ve been fighting here – have also fractured your homelands into a million little irreparable pieces.

I guess my point in all of this is that, I’m hurt. Your rejection hurts. When you call us lazy (as if the last 400 years never happened), when you giggle at us describing ourselves as “African American”, when you make it clear that you think you are superior to us, it’s insulting. We are insulted. More than that, we’re hurt.

So for my Black Americans out there, have you also noticed this underlying animosity?  For my West Indian and African folks, am I bugging?  Am I making all this up?  Can we bridge the gap?  Are we brothers and sisters, or has the diaspora destroyed all semblance of family amongst the darker races of this world?  Let me know in the comments below.

Dark Knight Feelings Pt. 2: Is There a Nexus Between Power and Women?

I recently wrote a post about how our leaders ascend to positions of power, only to precipitously fall from grace through scandal. “Die and be a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain.” In retrospect, I overlooked a recurring theme that seems to haunt those in power: the mistreatment, exploitation, or sexual infidelity with/against women.

The interaction between men of power and women is an age-old phenomenon that are often permanently painted with scandal (Caesar and Cleopatra come to mind). Today’s developments challenge us to wonder why power and sex are so closely aligned? Men of stature across industries and disciplines are repeatedly finding themselves in precarious situations involving women. For instance, what was your reaction when you learned of Fmr. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s extramarital child? Although his infidelity occurred before winning the gubernatorial, the latest news will surely taint his legacy, somewhat.

Unfortunately, former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Khan’s scandal – which is slowly morphing from a one-time sexual assault incident to a nefarious history of womanizing – trumps the Governator’s woes. Straus-Khan, who is little known outside of the international finance world, is arguably one of the most influential men at the global scale. Many considered him as a potential candidate for the French presidency. Sacre Bleu!

I don’t mean to sound crass, but, what is it with these guys? One would think if you have such a high profile, you would at least do your dirt within reason (not to say that I condone it). I think these guys believe that their amount of influence in their professions translates into their social atmospheres. While many of us establish our own lines of demarcation between the two realms, we often witness how our leaders gray these lines. But perhaps, it goes beyond that. These men should have the sense to understand self-control around women and remain faithful, no?

Does power and its ability to influence others corrupt the minds of the beholder? Why is it that women are always involved? What goes through the minds of wives – who are expected to “stand by their man” at the worst of times? Or would these transgressions occur absent of the positions they hold? What’s your thoughts?

The Duke

PS Rumor has it that the victim was African-American.

My 6 Favorite Moments in Black Pop Culture History

We all know our black history. We know who Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Tubman are, we know when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the national mall and delivered the I have a dream speech and we know when Malcolm X was assassinated. This is all stuff that is engrained into the fabric of almost every educated black person in the country. That’s not the stuff I want to talk about today; today I want to go over my favorite moments in the history of black popular culture. Things that aren’t necessarily integral parts of our history, but things that were impacting and memorable none the less.

If You Ain't Danced Down One These You Ain't Black

6. The Soul Train Line

I’m not sure which episode it was, or whose idea it was, but at some point in the show’s history folks started lining up to create and aisle and then dancing their way down that aisle two at a time and the Soul Train line was born. Now, whenever there’s music, people dancing, and 4 or more black folks in the room, some variation of the soul train line is bound to make an appearance. Thank you Don Cornelius, we are forever in your debt.

Love Conquers Hate

5. Do the Right Thing

Still my favorite Spike Lee Joint of all time, Do the Right Thing was a watershed moment in black cinema. His previous films, while all great in their own right, were like warm ups when compared to this magnum opus. If not for Do the Right Thing, there’d be no President Barack Obama. I’m serious. Barack took Michelle to see Do The Right Thing on their first date. Imagine if it sucked. Michelle would have been like this dude is corny, has big ears, a funny name and took me to see a wack movie. Without Michelle to ground him in African America, Barack never fully develops the swag necessary to capture the hearts and minds of the country, Hillary wins the election, we have no national healthcare, and Osama Bin Laden is still chillin in his ghetto fabulous Abbottatod mansion. So basically what I’m saying is – Spike Lee saved the world with Do The Right Thing.

Never Meant to Cause You Any Sorrow...

4. June 7th, 1958 – Prince Rogers Nelson is Born

Prince is Black Popular culture. If I were going to be stuck on an island and could take with me the music catalogue of only one artist – it’d be Prince’s. Prince’s hits are truly innumerableBesides that, he has one of my all time favorite movies in Purple Rain and he has a certain Jes Nes Se Quois that can be neither matched or duplicated. Most importantly, Prince reminded us that Rock&Roll was ours. He reminded us that funk wasn’t dead. He took these forms of music that had been dying a slow death in the black community and reminded us that they could be soulful and worthy. There are few solo artists in the history of American music who can legitimately make the claim that they are the most important musician of all time – Prince is one of them.

3. SAMO takes Over the City

SAMO (or Same Ole’ Sh*t) was a series of graffiti tags created by the artistic team of Al Diaz, Jean Michele Basquiat and Shannon Dawson. The three began tagging walls all over the city to the point of ubiquity. Their work took bitingly satirical diggs toward the New York City art scene of the time, was hip-hop in form (graffiti), and possessed the distinctly higher talent level than much of the other typical graff around the city. A precursor to Basquiat’s later work, SAMO helped establish the voice of one of our country’s greatest artists.

I Can Dig That New Breed Baby

2. Papas Got a Brand New Bag – James Brown and the Down Beat

We remember James Brown for many things, his numerous hits, his unmistakable stage presence, his dancing, his capes – but in music circles he is remembered for changing the face of popular music by shifting the emphasis from the back beat (sometimes called the up-beat) to the down-beat. It’s a hard thing to explain in words, but think of it like this: most music is counted in 4/4 rhythm. Think 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4. The 1 and 3 are the down beats and the 2,4 are the back beats. Most people with rhythm usually clap on the 2 and 4 beats and if you listen to most music, the snare drum hits on the 2 and 4 beats. Because this is the natural rhythm of most people, in popular music prior to James Brown the musical emphasis was always on the 2 and 4 beats. James put it on the 1.

Listen to this classic joint “Cupid” by Sam Cooke. – hear how the snare drives the music? If you count “1,2,3,4″ as it plays, the most dominant part of the music is the 2 and 4.

Now check out this classic performance of “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” from 1967. Notice how he starts it out with the classic 2/4 rhythmic pattern then, at about the 20 second mark drops his new bag with the 1/3 based rhythm. Did you catch it?

Now pick any rap song you want or any popular music playing on the radio right now for that matter. Count it off the same way and hear how much the music is driven by the 1/3 beats. This is James Brown’s influence and legacy. Here’s an example from the homey Hov:

Hip-Hop, Sets Out in the Park...

1. Hip-Hop is Born

Somewhere in the mid 70′s someplace up in the Bronx, some kid who couldn’t afford and instrument started scratching on his dads turntables and Hip-Hop was born. I am a child of Hip-Hop and proud of it. Everything I do has been influenced by my relationship with Hip-Hop so it’s only right that this be my number 1 moment in black pop culture history.

So what are your favorite moments in the history of black popular culture? Anything stand out in your mind, feel free to share in the comments.

Till Tomorrow:

Stay low and keep firing.

Cornel West, Barack Obama, The Shoeshine Man and Me

This week Cornel West has been all over the news because of his heavy criticism of President Barack Obama. I’ve always been fond of Cornel West, and I’ve always been fond of Barack Obama so it pains me to see Bro. West making it a point to attack Obama so viscerally. Like many so called progressives, my first response has been to castigate West in defense of “my president” by reducing his attacks to that of someone with unresolved personal issues, issues related to unreturned phone calls, inaugural snubs, and Larry Summers. But another part of me, the part of me that has always appreciated Cornel West makes me feel like maybe he really does have legitimate reasons to be disappointed and to go on the offensive.

Let me break for a minute and tell you about the time I met Cornel West.

It was about 3:10 in the afternoon, I remember the time because I was on a pretty strict schedule during that period of my life. I was putting in 40 hours a week as an intern at Citigroup and going to school full time at Hofstra University. I would work from 7:30 till 3:00 and then take the Long Island Railroad from Manhattan to Hempstead in time to be in class by 4:05. So I’m rushing through Penn Station to catch my train, and who do I see getting his shoes shined in the shoe shine shop – Cornel West. He was sitting in one of the high chairs with an older black man working hard on his shoes and he was flanked by a huge white man who I assumed was his bodyguard. I told myself I had to speak. I was as familiar with West as any young student should be – I had read and liked “Race Matters,” had seen him on shows like Politically Incorrect and beyond all that, was his fraternal brother as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. It was this fraternal connection that spurred me to speak. So as I walked by, I did the secret fraternity thing one Alpha Brother does to another to let him know that he’s an Alpha and Bro. West responded enthusiastically. He gestured me over, got down off the high chair, and we exchanged fraternal greetings. He was ridiculously nice and down to Earth. This surprised me because when I’d seen him on TV and in interviews he always seemed lofty and prone to speechifying. He asked me what I was studying in school and having found out I was an English Major, asked what I was reading at the time (I think I was reading Sartre then). I told him that I was little embarrassed to admit that, of his books, I’d only read “Race Matters” and asked him which one I should read next. He said, “Oh man, don’t worry about my stuff, my stuff is nothing, make sure you read every word James Baldwin’s ever written before you read anymore of my stuff.” I appreciated the self-effacing humility and the suggestion.

We talked a little more about random stuff, and as the conversation winded down, he looked over at the older black dude who’d just finished shining his shoes then locked back at me and said:

“You see this gentleman right here?” Pointing to the black dude. “Stand on his shoulders.”

It was a really touching moment. I could see in the shoeshine man’s eyes the pride he felt around what Bro. West had just said. He felt like his years of toiling at the feet of those more fortunate were not in vain; that in me there was a certain measure of hope. That in the sacrifices he and his generation had made and in the opportunities my generation and I now have we were inextricably bonded in our people’s pursuit of this American dream. And for me, the moment was equally touching. It was a reminder that any success I might come to know was not just my own. That the heights that I’d see in my life would not be possible were I not standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before.

I’ve been thinking about that interaction a lot this week. In light of all Bro. West has said, and no matter how much I might disagree with him, I can’t throw him all the way under the bus. Sure, he sounds like a jilted ex-lover who clearly cared for someone more than they ever cared for him, but I don’t think that’s all this is. I think Bro. West’s anger stems from a deeper level of disappointment. I think, like many American’s, he projected onto Barack Obama a certain expectation that Obama could never really meet. He expected Obama to be the President he wanted him to be. Every speech Obama makes, every interview he gives, every piece of legislation he proposes, and every Presidential action Obama takes, Bro. West expects to be a reflection and acknowledgment of the shoulders upon which he stands. He expects Obama to actively acknowledge, in word an in action, all the sacrifices that were made by countless Civil Rights Activists, scholars, pastors, busboys and shoeshine men that laid the foundation that he walks upon today. Yeah, I know, maybe that’s a little lofty … or … maybe it’s not.

Resorts: How They Are Far from Paradise

I owe all of you a post on another group of people that perfect the Jedi Mind Trick on others, but I decided to postpone that post for the following, which I really needed to write about.

I recently went to the beautiful island of Jamaica. It was breathtaking. Many would refer to the resorts, the beaches, and the numerous activities there. Ironically, I kindly refer to the people, its gravitating culture, and the ambiance that the former two creates. Like many Caribbean countries, Jamaica’s economy is largely dependent on foreign dollars generated by tourism. People like me would pay hundreds of dollars to resorts located in the most beautiful areas of islands like Jamaica. In turn, these resorts – owned by large multinational corporations – hire droves of Jamaicans from neighboring towns and villages. I admired the Jamaicans I met for their gracefulness and kindness. Often, I engaged in discussions with the resort workers as much as possible. Besides, technically they are my brothers and sisters and were the only blacks on the resort. Most of my discussions were informative, but somber because of what I started to learn.

I slowly started to realize that the resort companies pay laborers less than sustainable wages. One hundred dollars for a 50 – 60 hour workweek is, by no means, a prevailing salary/wage. Do the math and you’ll have a yearly salary incredibly below our own poverty level. It’s hard for me to reconcile how the high cost of vacationing here trickles down to the feeble wages of the employees. Many of the employees confided in me, stating that it was barely enough to get by and support children or families. All I could say to myself is that this is not fair and it became clear to me how this was the case.

I posit that some of the most pristine resort locations are places that have resisted the physical molestation of overpopulation, commercialization, and industrialization. Before their popular status as resort hot spots, many of these locations did not have economic engines comparable to cities. Is it possible that the absence of this makes these areas ripe for offering low paying jobs to the residents of the areas – who may have challenging pathways to economic prosperity (to no fault of their own). If so, it’s my impression that such cheap labor translates to favorable profit margins for corporations that are subject to the consistent patronage from people like me. Yes, people like me. However, I disdain that association because I wasn’t like other people in a way.

There was a recurring theme throughout my time at the resort. All of the employees — the waiters and waitresses, the busboys, the housekeeping — were all black. Most of the vacationers were not. The employees consistently dealt with snobby and condescending vacationers who were ignorant as they carelessly mocked the Jamaican accent. With knowing how much they were getting paid, I seethed at being viewed in the same company as them and did everything I could to disassociate (down to finding innovative ways to sneak tips, which is prohibited). Basically, I felt like I was in the house and they were in the field. I hated this feeling.

With all this said, I find it difficult to support resorts. A part of me considers this as exploitation of a people. But then again, do resorts provide residents with jobs that would not be there otherwise? My preference would be to have closer interaction with the people of the island, but how would that be possible for visitors? Either way, the resort business seems shady. I don’t like it. And worse of all, I’m starting to hate that I’m apart of it.

Top 5 Unimportant But Important Things Women Look for in Men

Yesterday we listed 5 things men notice and appreciate (or don’t appreciate) about women they’re interested in dating. These aren’t deal breakers but more like things we consider when searching for a potential mate. Today I want to do the same thing for men. Let’s jump right in.

5. Have a Scent.

You’d be surprised at how far having a particular scent goes toward engraining yourself into the hearts and minds of the women you come to know. And we’re not talking about Axe body spray here,  pick a good cologne and wear it consistently. Where to spray cologne is always an issue. The general rule of thumb is, you only want people to be able to smell your cologne when they are really really close to you-like, hug you close. You don’t want folks to catch a whiff when you walk by. Not cool at all. My personal trick is to spray once near the chest/collar area of whatever undershirt I’m wearing for the day and then shake the undershirt out a little bit. Try to avoid spraying cologne on your actual clothes.

Don't Let It Happen To You

4. Shoes

Any discerning woman will tell you: you can always tell by the shoes. So much of who a person is comes out in what they put on their feet when they leave the house. Fellas, there are basically three aspects to making sure your shoe game is up to par.

I. The first is quality. Back in high school, and for some, even in college, we only wore suits a couple times a year so it wasn’t really necessary to buy expensive shoes. As adults, it’s imperative. I’m not saying you have to break your bank, but you need to make sure you’re buying shoes that are going to last. It’s easy to tell a pair of cheap shoes. The leather is flimsy, the laces are like cardboard, and the souls leave rubber marks all over people’s floors. Don’t be that guy.

II. The second thing to look for when buying shoes is style. I could talk a whole lot about this but, in the interest of time, just a few quick points:

a) Match your shoes to your suit. Without exception, you wear black shoes with a black suit and brown shoes with a blue suit. Navy and black don’t match – ever. Grays can kind of go either way if you pull it off right.

b) Unless you’re a pimp, like, a real one, animal prints or faux animal prints are not acceptable and patent leather is only acceptable if you’re wearing a tuxedo.

c) Laces are your friend. If you’re a shoe buying novice, stick with shoes with laces when buying shoes to go with your suit. Some fashion forward folks know how to make laceless shoes look really good with a suit, but, most folks fail miserably. You can’t go wrong with laces.

III. Finally, the last thing to be cognizant of as it relates to your shoes is their upkeep. If you’ve spent a pretty penny on some good shoes that go perfectly with your various suits, you want to keep them looking clean. Get to know the shoe shine man on your way to work let him work out any scuffs that might occur throughout the course of your day. Be careful not to let him give them an unnatural shine, but let him do his job. If the heels start to lean, but the rest of the shoe is fine, get the heels changed – it’s not expensive and it makes a huge difference. Lastly, when they’re gone they’re gone. Don’t be afraid to retire shoes.

I know I know ... but the Tom Ford Suit is nice though...

3. Know how to wear a suit.

It’s amazing to me how many men have no idea how to wear their suit. Like with shoes, the first step to wearing your suit is choosing your suit. Again, could do a whole post on this but, here are some key points:

I. Unless you’re being drafted into a professional sports league, your suit should never, ever have more than 3 buttons. If you have a suit with more than three buttons, no matter how good you think it looks on you, go throw it away.
II. Different suits for different occasions. Having one or two suits for every occasion is for teenagers, but many men don’t realize this. A good way to separate yourself from the rest of the pack is to have suits for different occasions. Stick with more traditionally cut and fit suits for work, and be a little more adventurous with your suits for going out.
III. No matter how good you think your suit fits off the rack, have it tailored. At the very least, let the tailor hem the pants and shorten the sleeves. It makes a huge difference, trust me. If you’ve bought a decent suit, you’ve probably spent more than $500.00, another $40 to $60 to have it tailored isn’t going to kill you and many department stores will do some alterations for free if you don’t know a good tailor (though it’s worth the money if you do know a decent tailor.)

If you’re not the most fashion forward guy, but still want to look like you know what you’re doing, suits are your best friend. You should buy as many good suits as you can afford for all the different occasions you might be invited to. You’ll always look good, and if you’re worried about being overdressed you can always just not wear a tie. For women, a man in a great fitting suit is the next best thing to a man in uniform.

2. Chivalry Ain’t Dead

Look, nobody is expecting you to lay your suit jacket in a puddle of water. But, women do still appreciate and notice most chivalrous acts on the part of men – mostly because so many men forget these little things. If you’re sitting in a booth at a lounge and your homegirl brings over her homegirl to meet you, make sure you stand up upon introduction. If you’re walking down the street with a woman, walk on the outside. If you’re getting into a car, open the door for her. If you guys are getting up to leave, help her with her jacket. Deep down inside, despite all the new idiosyncrasies of modern dating, most women still want to be made to feel like a woman when they’re with a man. All these little, seemingly innocuous acts go a long way toward giving her that feeling. She might not ever tell you she notices, but you better believe she does. If a woman feels her most womanly when she’s around you, she’ll want to be around you all the time. Also, don’t restrict this behavior to only the women you’re interested in. Be this way with all women – it takes very little time or effort on your part, it’s the right thing to do and it increases your general stock tremendously. Plus – you never know who’s watching, could be your soulmate.

Hitch was right, always have a plan

1. Have a plan; execute your plan.

Just as men are used to women being a little mean, women are used to men being terrible planners. If you want to show a woman that you’re different and a little better than all the rest of the dudes out there – that you care and are worth her investment, present her with a plan. Most women are riders, they are loyal and supportive and are team players. They will follow you through the gates of hell so long as you told them beforehand that y’all would be making a pit stop in hell on the way to wherever it is you’re ultimately going. This starts of course with your first date. The first time you take a woman out, have everything planned from beginning to end. Be on time – even if she’s not, know where your going, and what you’re doing. You don’t have to be anal or Nazi-ish about it, just make it clear that everything that’s happening is all part of your plan for the evening. This shows you care about the two of you having a good time while getting to know each other and she’ll appreciate you for it. Do it consistently and she’ll start to trust you … with everything.

So there you have it folks. Ladies, what are your thoughts? What are some of the things that, in your mind, separate the men from the boys? What can a man do that isn’t necessarily required but still appreciated? Fellas, what are your thoughts on the above? Disagree with any of the suggestions? Have any new ones? Let me know – steel sharpens steel (pause).

Weather sucks here in NYC … perfect week to just stay low and keep firing.

Top 5 Unimportant But Important Qualities Men Look for In Women

Let’s be honest, for most of us, a great deal of time and energy is spent trying to make ourselves attractive to the opposite sex. Sure, we are who we are, we like what we like and most times, attractiveness is born out of the chemistry created when two individual’s je nes se quoi gets a chance to meet and greet. By now I’m sure we all know the important qualities we should be looking for in potential mates so in today’s post, I want to talk about things guys notice that aren’t really that important, but are worth being aware of nonetheless. Oh and, don’t worry, tomorrow we’ll be back with the same topic from the ladies’ perspective.

5. Nails

Ummm ... No

Never in my life has one of my boys said to me: “Yo, I met this chick and I’m really feeling her, she has the best french mani/pedi I’ve ever seen.” That just doesn’t happen. On the flip side, I’ve also never had a friend lose interest in a woman because her nails were never done. Nails sit in that weird space of things dudes don’t really care about, but still appreciate. Keep your nails tight ladies. Not too long (like that chick from SWV) and not all knubby like you attack them with your teeth daily.

4. Don’t out curse your man.

If you and the dude you’re interested in both cuss like sailors – then y’all can go ahead and have a long, happy, profanity laced life together.  But if the guy you’re interested in doesn’t curse or curses very little, I’m telling you now, the sound of all sorts of non-coitus induced swear words coming out of your mouth is going to be extremely unattractive to him. If you curse a lot in regular conversation then, there’s a good chance that you’ll probably curse a lot when you’re upset – and that’s not something most guys are interested in dealing with in a long term relationship.

3. Make-Up

See The Difference?

I think it’s standard procedure for men to say that we like a woman who looks good without wearing make up. While this is true, it’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is, we like a woman who looks good without make up, but we also like that same woman to know how to enhance her look with the right kind and amount of make up applied in the right places. A good contrasting eye shadow here to bring out your eye color, and a good blush or tinted moisturizer there to remind us how strong and defined your cheek bones are goes a long way. The man you want notices these things. We also notice when you go full L-Boogie on us with the extra-colorful, caked on clown make up. Sure, those ladies in the MAC store look really hot when we’re walking through the mall and see them from afar. But up close, they look like “IT”, and that’s just scary. (shout out to the Stephen King fans)

2. Cleanliness

I know you're gonna clean that up before you leave?

Men, when left to our own devices, are a generally nasty, disgusting, uncleanly species. This is regardless of age. As adults, we still do things like pick our nose, drop food on the floor and still eat it, leave dishes in the sink for egregiously long periods of time, etc … etc. We know this stuff is wrong, we just can’t help it. Now, I understand it’s 2011, and I understand you ladies are doing your thing in the workplace. Still though, no man comes into a serious relationship expecting to be the more cleanly half. If he is, y’all are gonna have to hire help. As neanderthalish as it sounds, I like that my wife is way more clean than I am. This doesn’t mean I don’t do my part, it just means, she cleans good and I like it.  I mean, have any of you fellas ever been to an attractive woman’s place of dwelling and found it to be absolutely disgusting. When that happens, you don’t think about how disgusting your crib is too, you think… this chick is disgusting. When a woman’s place is a mess, it changes the way a man looks at her. It’s not fair, but it’s just the way it is. If we’re both comfortable in squalor then we’ll probably live in squalor and no man wants to live in squalor, despite the fact that his habits might say otherwise.

Let's hope she's ordering Chill Pills

1. Be a nice person.

You ladies would be surprised at how many of y’all are just plain mean. And don’t get it twisted, I’m not on here trying to purport the angry black woman stereotype. There’s a different between being angry, and being mean. Men have had to deal with mean women for most of our lives. Most of our mothers (bless their hearts) were our primary disciplinarians and we had mean teachers through all our years of schooling. Men are so conditioned to deal with some women’s inherent meanness that being nice is not even a requirement, it’s a bonus. Ladies, if you want to separate yourself from the respect of the pack, just be nice. If you’re getting the run around on the phone with some customer service representative in some far off land, and we’re sitting there listening, overcome them with niceness. If we’re at the restaurant and the waitress “thinks she’s cute” and doesn’t want to provide the type of service you’re accustomed to, don’t  spend the whole evening pointing out her deficiencies to us, we noticed it too, we still want to have a good time, so instead just be extra nice. This is important to us because we realize that, if you and I are together for a long time, at some point, we’re going to fall out of your immediate favor. When that happens, we wanna know that you’ll still be nice to us too as we work through whatever issues we’re having.

So there you have it. Ladies, what are some things you think you can do that aren’t really important in the grand scheme of things, but are still added bonuses for the guy you’re with? Fellas, what are the unimportant but kind of important things you look for in the women you deal with?

Again, check back tomorrow for the list of unimportant but important things women notice about men … till then …

stay low and keep firing.

Jedi Mind Tricks Part 1: Slick Methods Lawyers Use on Friends

I know what you're doing...

I adore my lawyer-friends. I really do. They are the most interesting people to have conversations with. Many times, my lawyer-friends keep my mind sharp with our verbal sparring. I feel like I can discuss anything under the sun with them. Laws. Statutes. Controversial issues. You name it – a lawyer has something for it. I find that they often provide pretty good advice to me. I assume that their high-powered expensive law school training allows to them to discuss any topic in a semi-analytical fashion.

Conversely, these reasons are why I get heartburn when they passionately take stances that I oppose. Not only will they forcefully debate their stance on an argument (as they are trained to do), but also I find they have a tendency to impose their argument on you. They used their trained skills of manipulating arguments and reason – to “sound” like they are right, leading you to agree when — in your heart of hearts – you still disagree. I call this the Jedi Lawyer Mind Trick (JLMT).

Unfortunately, Jedi Lawyer Mind Tricks are hard to describe in a vacuum, but you’ll know when they are using it. It’s like porn – you can’t describe it, but you know it when you see it. Now remember, I love my lawyer-friends. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t call them out on their BS when I use the force to sense a JLMT. And when I do, I will be quick to say “I SEE THROUGH YOUR JEDI LAWYER MIND TRICK!” Here are a few indicators.

They start speaking fast…

When I speak to my lawyer-friends, I tend to notice the speed of their speech in a discussion. Once they process their thoughts to make their argument, their brain seems to overload – anxiously desiring to dump all of their reasons, logic, and evidence to make their case. To compensate for their thoughts that are bursting through their mental seams, they start to speak fast. This gives the illusion that they are smarter than you on the subject. Don’t fall for this and err on the side of argument submission. Instead, tell them to slow down and repeat what they said. I do that all the time. It doesn’t mean that you are dumb. It means that you are really listening.

Using big words…

Lawyers speak a difference language. It’s called legalese. Your lawyer-friends will pull words out of the English alphabet that Webster would think twice about. There is a certain culture with using certain words in the legal profession. Words like “Pursuant”, “Henceforth”, or even “corroborate” can sound foreign. When I hear words like that, I sense a JLMT coming. What you have to consider is that your friends spoke normally before they went to school. Don’t be afraid to call them out on that. “DON’T PULL THAT JEDI LAWYER MIND TRICK, HOMEY. SPEAK ENGLIGH!”

Asking questions with obvious answers that they use to build their argument…

Sometimes, a slick way for someone to prove their argument is for YOU to prove it for them. They’ll ask you logical questions that result to obvious outcomes. Once these series of questions are over, this is when they will go in for the kill. For instance… You start to understand the assumptions that they are using, including the manner of deducing the result of their “case”. Yes, you can see their point, but that doesn’t mean you must agree with it. It’s just like examining a witness when they are on the stand. Witnesses can get caught up because they’ve been sucked into the mysterious JLMT. So when your lawyer-friends covertly do this to you, just say “STOP USING JEDI MIND TRICKS! I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!” It brings them down to earth all of the time. Strong-willed people are never susceptible to it. Just like the Star Wars movie.

Jedi Lawyer Mind Tricks become completely disruptive when emotions are involved. Have you ever watched two lawyers that are dating try to reason things out? I have. They hurl mind tricks against each other as if their relationship was in litigation. Usually, the female is the most emotional out of the two — reasoning why she is right to feel how they feel with the Trick. Males are not innocent, either. They probably use this for potentially bad purposes (like for instance getting out of a bind when they have been caught doing something, let say, dishonorable). Same goes for woman, though.

Perhaps I’m wrong to call out my lawyer-friends on their JLMT’s. The fact is, we all have the capability to pull a JLMT, but lawyer-friends can apply it so well. It’s like they’re on cognitive steroids, or NZT for all those who watched Limitless.

Do you have lawyer-friends that debate like they are trying to win a conviction? Does that annoy you? How have you dealt with that in your discussions?

There is another group of people that use the Jedi Mind Tricks almost as effectively as Lawyer-friends. We’ll discuss that in the next post.

The Duke

Lame Dudes Out Here Winning

King Lames

Ladies, we need to have a heart to heart. This weekend I went to a party. Now, usually when I go to parties, I spend my time mingling, trying to get to know people, getting my two step on when I hear my song – the usual. This time, I decided to lay back and watch for a while: call it a little urban sociological observation. My findings were absolutely astounding and, in many ways shocking. I don’t really know how to say this so I’m just gonna put it as bluntly succinct as I possibly can: Lame dudes is out here winning!

About two months ago, I wrote a post called “Black Love: The State of Our Union.” That post was me taking a hard look at where folks of color stand as far as love and relationships with one another are concerned. What I realized in researching that post, and what I’ve realized having talked to so many of my single lady friends is that, times are hard. If you’re a young black woman doing something for yourself who’s committed to trying to find yourself a like-minded black man … times are real hard. I get that. But when times get tough, standards should become higher not lower. And if you’re a black man who wasn’t always the coolest dude but have found your come-up because the whole hood is dead, in jail or putting from the rough, I can’t knock your hustle, but don’t get ahead of yourself.

Now you might be wondering what I mean by “lame dude.” The definition is pretty fluid so in today’s post I want to point out a few tell tale signs so that lame dudes can mitigate some of their lameness and so that you ladies out there who have trouble identifying it can see the warning signs before you wake up one morning and realize you’re engaged to Shemar Moore. Here are a few signs:

Does more than the two step in the club.

If you’re over 25 and not named Usher there’s no reason to go full ‘America’s Best Dance Crew’ in the club. Pop-Locking and battling is just not acceptable. 99.9% of your time dancing in a club, lounge or party should be spent doing the two step. Of course there are rare exceptions. If you know how to do the Cupid Shuffle while maintaining your G – that’s o.k. If the DJ drops a killer old school set, you might have to wop it out real quick, but if duke is in the club doing bits and pieces of choreography from every single video for every single song that comes on, son is lame and might be menudo.

put em up, put em up

Has never had a fight.

If I were a woman, one of the first questions I’d find a way to slip into a conversation with a new prospect would be, “Have you ever been in a fight?” If he responds “What … like … a fist fight?” Red Flags should go up and you should inquire further. Let me be clear, I’m not a thug, nor do I condone fighting. I haven’t even been in a real fist fight since college, so don’t misunderstand this point. What I’m saying is, a man doesn’t really know what kind of man he is until he’s seen how he responds when another man throws a punch his way. If a man has never been in a fist fight, it’s very possible that he’s just had a very peaceful life and has never had anyone approach him with any sort of aggression; in that case, he’s not lame, he’s a monk. Monks are rare. In reality, it’s more probable that homey avoids physical conflict. Nothing wrong with that, unless you avoid it when your woman is in danger. That’s lame.

Uses too much new slang.

Every so often, I’ll get up with my little cousin to chop it up and be on my mentor ish. He’s like 20 and thinks he’s flyest dude on Earth so, you know, he stays up on his generation’s flyest contributions to society. Every time we hang out, I pick up something to incorporate into my swag to let everybody know that I’m still ’bout that life. Point is, I take away one thing … ONE. If you meet a dude in the club and he’s 28 but talks like he’s 18 – he’s lame. If when you walk past him he says something like “Girl you be killin em!” and then does an awkward little jig … he’s lame.

So Icey

No Style

When you get to a certain point in your manhood, you need to know how to dress. No excuses. Certain fashion faux pas are just unacceptable after the age of 25. Collars outside of lapels – Lame. Leaning heals on shoes – Lame. Any haircut besides a fade, taper, caesar or neatly kept locks – Lame. Cornrows or braids – lame. Mohawk/FauxHawk – Lame. Also, at a certain point, men need to have started to grow out of being beholden to trends and have developed his own sense of style. It’s one thing to take one current trend and integrate it into your look, but if you’re wearing skinny jeans, your little sister’s pashmina, some over-sized nerdy glasses and a pair of Creative Recreations – and you’re 30 … lame. It’s also not cool to be a brand whore. There’s nothing wrong with buying nice things, but to buy something just because it’s a particular brand indicates you haven’t really developed your own sense of style, and that’s kinda lame.

Ladies, talk to me. What’s going on out there? Have you noticed this same preponderance of over-confident, successful lame dudes running around? Have you ever dated or talked to a dude even though you knew deep down inside he was little lame? Why? Fellas, are you a lame dude who’s winning right now? How does it feel? To what do you attribute your current success? If you’re not a lame dude, have you noticed all these ex Urkel’s running around like Stephon? Any thoughts or are you too busy winning to pay attention?

I know it’s hard out there for a pimp, but don’t let thirst effect your standards, instead …

stay low and keep firing.

Osama Bin Laden Dead

*Please note, I put this together pretty quick, so, I haven’t done much proofreading. Forgive any typos

May 1st, 2011 – Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. Special Forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Marking what I hope will be the beginning of the end of our war with al-Quiada, it’s hard to believe that this whole thing began nearly a decade ago, on September 11, 2001. We all remember what happened that day, and since then, capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden has always been near the top of our country’s priority list.

It’s been interesting to note the American public’s response to all of this. By and large, folks are celebrating. It’s tough to celebrate any man being killed. In my heart of hearts, I’ve always felt like violence only begets more violence and a death like this is never something worth celebrating. At the same time, it’s hard not to breathe a sigh of relief and feel a certain sense of closure with this guy dead and gone. He was a killer of innocents, he declared war on our country and he eventually reaped what he’d sewn. While it’s easy to judge folks who are rejoicing as ignorant blood thirsty war-mongers, we have to remember the level of the shock and despair that gripped the country on the morning of, and in the days following 9/11. Folks singing and chanting at Ground Zero, outside the White House and in Times Square last night may not have been the most mature or tactful response, but the response is congruent to the anger and sadness we all felt nearly ten years ago, when so many innocent lives were taken.

Speaking personally, I have mixed feelings about all this – here are some of the things I’ve felt since the news dropped.

Osama Bin Laden Been Dead!

That’s the first thing I thought. About 2 years ago, doing some random internet research I came across a great deal of information on the internet that lead me to believe that Osama Bin Laden had died of kidney failure shortly after the 9/11 attacks.  I’m not really one given to conspiracy theory, but, the information that’s out there was interesting to say the least. The theory goes, in the summer of 2001, before 9/11 reports began to circulate that Bin Laden’s kidneys had failed and he’d purchased portable dialysis units. 9/11 happened, and immediately after, Bin Laden confirmed to major news sources that he was NOT behind the attacks. It is said that he confirmed this multiple times. Then, in December 2001 he died of kidney failure and buried in an unmarked grave as is the tradition in his strict sect of fundamentalist Islam.

After his supposed death, the Bin Laden we’ve seen release videos taunting America, taking credit for 9/11 and planning future attacks is, if you subscribe to this theory, a fake. A boogey-man concocted by the American government to drum up support of our war on terror and for our President who, prior to 9/11 had the worst approval ratings of any President since Nixon. Subscribers to this theory point to differences in the shape of the ears and nose of this phony Bin Laden, and the fact that, in some of the released photos and videos, he appears to be wearing jewelry and watches, which would be against his strict religious customs. After reading all of this, I’ve been semi-convinced, and have told my wife, and a few other friends, on numerous occasions that I believe Bin Laden’s been dead for a long time. I told my wife once the following:

“Bin Laden’s been dead for years, the first secret they told Obama when he had his first intelligence brief after being sworn in as President was that Aliens really did land in Roswell, New Mexico. The second thing they told him was that Osama Bin Laden is dead. Obama, not wanting to perpetuate a lie to the American public, and wanting to keep promises he made to bring home the troops, would wait until there was a certain measure of measurable progress in Afghanistan and then we’d get word that there was some drone attack or secret mission that resulted in the death of Bin Laden, we’d never see the body, and that would be the impetus needed to bring home the troops.”

I said this two years ago. I’m tossed up on whether I still believe it. Though Obama is the homey, and I generally trust him, I still have trouble trusting our government.

Look at the Nose!

But if all of the above is false, and Bin Laden really did mastermind 9/11 and really has spent the last 10 years evading capture, then my next thought was:

Now, more than ever, I have faith in our President, Barack Obama.

If everything happened the way Obama said it happened in his speech to the nation last night, this dude is more than just a capable Commander in Chief. He’s an impressive President, in full command of all the varying intelligence agencies, armed forces and other weapons at his disposal. According to him, the intelligence that lead to last nights raid was gleaned months ago. Instead of the shoot first ask important questions later type approach President Bush was given to, Obama waited, vetted the information and when the time was right, gave the go ahead in a way that limited civilian casualties and resulted in no American lives being lost. All this planning, all these machinations were taking place and there were no leaks to the press – in today’s information age, this is impressive. Last nights speech was spot on. Obama hit every note he needed to hit. He was didn’t come off to happy, but didn’t hesitate to acknowledge that what happened was a good thing. He gave details on the information they’d received and the course of action he took once it was received, he acknowledged the families of the victims of 9/11 and he gave credit to the coordinated efforts of the intelligence community and United States special forces units. And then the walk off was mean.

Let’s not overlook the fact that Bin Laden was chillin in a Pakistani Mansion.

We have beef with Pakistan. We need to be clear on that. Maybe it’s not quite to the point of beef just yet, but, conversations are definitely being had. The main question America is asking is: How long have y’all known, and when was y’all gone tell us?” Don’t get it twisted, this wasn’t like some shack in a rural Pakistani town. This was a mansion in a suburb. I’ve read early reports that are saying this mansion is 8 times bigger than the average house in that town. So basically, son was chillin at his homeys crib. Dudes in Pakistan had to know. The question is, who knew, how long did they know and what does that say about who’s in control over there, and whether or not our two countries are allies or enemies. Conversations are being had … you better believe it.

Social Networking makes everything more memorable.

The tweets and Facebook Status updates last night were at times poignant, funny and disturbing. Here are mine from the moment the news dropped:

MrSpradley  Most

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD!!!!!!

MrSpradley  Most

I predicted this announcement like 2 years ago. Bin Laden been dead since like Winter 2001. Died of Kidney Failure.

MrSpradley  Most

 First thing Obama found out when he became President was that Bin Laden been dead. He just needed the right time to drop the news…

MrSpradley  Most

Who’s getting on Public Transportation tomorrow though? Seems like it might be a good day to work from home…

MrSpradley  Most

Obama backstage like “Look At me now… Look At Me now…”

MrSpradley  Most

Human operation. I wonder who pulled the trigger… crazy…

MrSpradley  Most

Dudes singing the National Anthem outside the White House. Obama approval ratings bout to skyrocket.

MrSpradley  Most

I wonder if they got tipped off by a civilian. If so, somebody owes that dude the 50 million dollar reward that was on Bin Ladens head…

MrSpradley  Most

Tomorrow’s Phrase that Pays: “If You See Something, Say Something.”

MrSpradley  Most

 Imagine how productive Obama could have been if he didn’t have to spend all this time cleaning up Bush’s messes…

MrSpradley  Most

But yo, who gets Osama’s spot on the FBI top 10 most wanted list… that dude is bout to have a bad day tomorrow.

MrSpradley Most

NO AMERICANS WERE HARMED!

MrSpradley Most

YO THE WALKOFF WAS CRAZY!

MrSpradley  Most

If Barack and Michele make a baby tonight in celebration, will they name it Osama?

MrSpradley  Most

Crazy that Obama said they’d been working on this for months. Remember last week when he told everybody there was more important stuff…

MrSpradley  Most

For the last 2 weeks, Obama’s been laughing to himself like, “I’m bout to kill Bin Laden and y’all asking me bout my Birth Certificate?”

MrSpradley  Most

I wonder if Bin Laden went out like Lennox in Belly…

MrSpradley Most

But yo, don’t get it twisted, we have beef with Pakistan right now. Obama was keeping it cordial for now… but Osama was chillin…

MrSpradley  Most

Sidebar: Bush would not have been able to pronounce “Abbottabad”

MrSpradley Most

Just came out, Pakistan did not know we were going in. Told you, we have beef…

Excuse Me, Miss. Is Saying Hello a Bad Thing?

It was a midsummer’s Saturday in the District. I’ve noticed that Saturdays out here are in deep contrast to what I’m used to back in NYC. When I was back home. Saturday was my sixth work day with all the errands that I had to put off during the week for this day. But not in the District. Everything seemed so slow and serene.

I arrived back to my crib after making a quick trip to the bank. After parking my car smoothly across the street, I walked to the steps of my house where I found Craig, my housemate/landlord, sitting down and enjoying the favorable weather. Realizing i had no immediate obligations, I decided to sit next to him to see what’s up.

“Hey Craig, do you know what the difference is between a DC Saturday and a NYC Saturday?” I happily asked.

“What’s that?” Craig inquired.

“Down here, you can actually relax and be at ease. I’d be running like my head’s cut off if I was up top”, I answered. Here we were. Two black men, decently dressed, discussing the comparisons and contrast of the two iconic cities on a warm and breezy day. Midway into our discussion, Craig said hello to a young white woman who was walking by with some groceries. In kind and warm fashion, the white woman responded with a genuine “Hi” and a smile. Both of us looked at each other, but said nothing and continued on.

Unbeknownst to us at first, it was the genesis of an interesting social experiment that was being conducted right before our eyes. Another woman, white, but much older walked past. Craig, again, waved and said “Hello”. Craig’s gesture was reciprocated with a warm smile and a wave. Quickly, our discussion morphed into women in the DC area and their willingness to reciprocate kind and innocent gestures. This led me to participate. An Asian woman, no more than 25 years of age walked past with a stroller. Of course, I duplicated Craig’s efforts and I received a nice response.

Craig and I did this for the next 45 minutes, watching women of many ethnicities walk past (mostly White and Latina). All responded with the same politeness that was shown. Of course, as I knew what we were both thinking, Craig dropped the inevitable bomb. “Man, Duke, I’m telling you. Now if a Sister rolled up and we said hi, do you think we’d even get the light of day? Probably not, man.” Minutes pass until coincidence reared its head. “Yo Craig, you wouldn’t believe this. I think we’re about to find out. Look over there on the corner. I got this one.” I confidently said

And there she was. It was like slow motion. Better than that, it was like a classic Redman video minus the bike or nasty crash into a parked car. A lovely black female, slim and tall with an attractive gait was walking towards our direction from the corner. This obviously pretty woman had some dark shades on, adding to her attractiveness. As she approached closer, I noticed that she was eating ice cream. (Probably from Rita’s down the block)

Here I am thinking: “Ok Sis, there is a lot riding on this. We’re below the Mason-Dixie so I have the southern hospitality homecourt. You have the chance to shut us up right now and prove us wrong. Please prove us wrong.” There she was walking closer and closer with her distinct walk. Strategically, I measured her distance and speed and confidently threw out the hook. “Hello” I called out with quick nonchalant wave.

“…..”

“Ohhhh,” Craig exhaled. “See, I told you. And we both know that she heard you. (laughing). Not even a word or a head turn. I told you Duke. All of these other girls were at least welcoming to a simple hello. But our sisters….” My landlord ended with a sigh. With a feeling like I lost money on a sure bet, I replied, “Yo, like, she didn’t even break stride. She kept eating her ice cream.”

My hopes were shot. We both discussed what went wrong. Was it our clothes? Nope, we were dressed presentably. Delivery? No, we weren’t disrespectful. Yeesh, she couldn’t even say hi? It’s not like we were trying to ask her out. We were just being gentleman. Craig and I sat there with our barbershop talk for a few more minutes. “Look at us. We’re not thugs. We don’t look like bums. And we both have careers. You know what I’m saying. I know you don’t have to say anything? But how hard is it to say ‘Hi’?” With that said, I finally understood why Craig often brought only “certain” girls to the crib.

Of course, this was all on the random. Therefore, we cannot accept this as the gold standard. However, this note does encompass the generalizations that many black men have about black women. I only attempt to bring this to a discussion. How much truth is in the assumption that African-American women are unapproachable? If you’re an African-American woman, do you take offense? For males, are stories like this familiar?

The Duke

My Five Favorite Samples in Hip-Hop History

Hip-Hop

The Sample: For those of you not in the know, a “sample” is when an artist or producer takes a portion of one song and reuses it in another song. Sampling, as a production method, goes back to Hip-Hop’s very beginnings and has always been used as a means of re-imagining beats, melodies and sounds.  At varying points in the culture’s history, sampling has been used as a tool to display an artists creativity, and as a bit of a crutch for artists who aren’t very creative. In today’s post, I want to talk about my favorite all time uses of sampling in Hip-Hop history.  Let’s jump right in.

5.  Leon Haywood’s “I Wanna Do Something Freaky to You”

This is probably my favorite Dr. Dre production of all time. It’s just so smooth. What I love about this sample is how enhanced it sounds. Dre somehow took what was already a pretty dense and layered track and still managed to add more depth and balance to it.

Here’s Leon Haywood’s original joint:

And Here’s Dr. Dre’s classic:

___________________________________________________________

4. Isaac Hayes’ “The Look of Love”

This joint is so epic. In his long and peculiar career, this is probably Irv Gotti’s greatest contribution to Hip-Hop history.  Isaac Hayes’ classic track, Hov’s unconscious string of rhymes, and the most expressive one line hook rap music has ever known makes this not only one of my favorite samples of all time, but also one of my all time favorite songs.

Here’s the Isaac Hayes Original:

Here’s Jay’s classic, “Can I live” -

___________________________________________________________

3.  Lou Reed – Walk on the Wild Side

If you know me, you know I was never really down with the whole A Tribe Called Quest/Native Tongues movement. I grew up on gangsta rap. But, this joint can’t be denied. When this drops hands go up in the air and heads start nodding.

Here’s the Lou Reed Original:

Here’s the ATCQ Classic:

___________________________________________________________

2. Ahmad Jamal – Pastures

I mentioned this joint in Wednesday’s post about things I wish I could do. This is a song that makes me wish I knew how to play the piano just so I could play it. As a sample, I love it because Ski uses such a small portion of Jamal’s original song to create the entire foundation for his beat. To me, this is a perfect example of how a sample should be used. Quick side bar story about this beat: Remember the group Camp Lo – they had a couple hits around 95/96 – their biggest being “Luchini” – Well, this beat and chorus was actually intended for them. Hov heard it and snatched it. You can kinda here the Camp Lo inspired flow on this joint too.

Here’s the original Ahmad Jamal Joint (you gotta listen for about a minute or so to catch the brief part that was sampled – trust me – it’s worth it):

And here’s how Dj Ski used it for J

___________________________________________________________

1. Tom Scott – “Today”

This is, without a doubt, my favorite sample ever used in Hip-Hop history. It’s pretty much perfect. Pete Rock takes a super small piece of a pretty obscure 1970′s hippie jazz joint and from it, creates one of Hip-Hops most loved beats. As far as I’m concerned, Pete Rock could have retired after this joint.  ‘Nuff Respect Due’

Here’s Tom Scott’s Original (Sample doesn’t come till midway through the song, but, I won’t tell you when, just listen to the whole thing, you’ll appreciate it that much more).

Here’s The Pete Rock & Cl Smooth Classic that uses it:

___________________________________________________________

***Bonus***

If any of you are fans on Aaron Macgruder’s cartoon series The Boondocks, my favorite episode of that all time is called “Riley Was Here.” In that episode, Riley is vandalizing houses in his neighborhood by spray painting huge, gangsta murals on them. Eventually, he happens to meet Bob Ross (you know, the racially ambiguous guy with the Afro that used to teach us how to paint on PBS). Bob helps Riley hone his painting skills and also helps him get in touch with the deeper seeded issues driving him to paint.  I’m mentioning it in this post because the episode ends with Bob Ross and Riley evading the police to the Tom Scott joint referenced above. When it gets to the part CL Smooth sampled, we finally see Riley’s masterpiece and understand why art was so important to him.

The episode’s pairing of 70′s hippie art icon Bob Ross with the graffiti tagging Hip-Hop generation spawned, Riley Freeman, against the backdrop of Tom Scott’s hippie sounding jazz – with Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth’s classic Hip-Hop anthem T.R.O.Y. in our minds as the reference point to bring it all together was profound and affecting.

Here are the last couple minutes of the episode that describe what I’m talking about above. Not gonna lie, I shed a tear the first time I watched this:

These are my favorite – feel free to share yours. Enjoy your weekend.

Till Monday – Stay Low and Keep Firing.

The Lost Art: Are The Days When A Guy/Girl Called the Other Long Gone?

I’ve decided to cap off my week here on the Lower Frequency with another throwback from three years ago. Not surprisingly, the topic is very applicable to today. Enjoy!

Hop in, folks! We're going back in time.

Think back to the 7th grade… (THIS IS A DRAMATIZATION)

Ok…Mission accomplished! You finally bagged that girl/guy’s number. It only took you about..hmmm..6 or 7 days to muster up the courage to do it. So what if you stuttered and broke out in a cold sweat that resembled the bubonic plague? Forget about all that. The fact is, you got the number and you can walk back to your crew with pride and new swagger, right?

Wrong.

It’s like G.I Joe revisited. Now you got the number, but getting the number is only half the battle. Remember back in the days when you had to jump through hula-hoops and clear hurdles just to make that phone call? Let’s name a few: Competing with your sibling or your controlling father for the phone; having a phone with a cord so everyone in your house was in your business because of the small proximity that you were allowed to roam. (Didn’t the cordless phone change the game?) And then there was the cardinal 48 hour rule, which lives on to this day. Guys won’t call for 48 hours for sake of pride. Girls become ambivalent by the 48th hour for not calling sooner. Nothing is ever easy.

That’s just getting to the phone. Things would get even more reckless when you were on it. Your approach had to be sophisticated and account for contingencies. Mentally, your game plan started looking like this:

Huddle! We'll run the 30 minute conversation drill. Post 718 Right. Reading the defense... Ok, I got her open. Oh wait, here comes the blitz by from your Pops! Audible! Audible!

Guys, it’s no mystery that you lost the bass in your voice when the girl’s dad answered your phone call. :Chuckle: The things we do… Didn’t you hate it when your Mom or Dad picked up the phone and started dialing in mid conversation? You know darn well that they didn’t need to talk to anybody at 10pm. Perhaps the proverbial kiss of death was when they had the audacity to get on the phone, breath hard like a backed up Darth Vader for five minutes, and then yell on it telling you to get off. How embarrassing! But don’t front. You tried to play off their nasal onslaught by continuing the conversation and hoping that they would let you live. Never that. Parents are the ultimate cockblockers. It’s in their blood.

It's true. Parents just didn't understand. Thanks Will and Jeff. Hey Will. What's up with this Scientology stuff that I have been hearing lately? C'mon, son...

Even when you had a successful “mission”, what you did to enhance it was funny at the risk of being corny. I know some of you weirdos had Soul 4 Real’s “Candy Rain” or 112’s Cupid playing in the background. (And no, that is not an indictment of me. Seriously… OK fine, maybe once). People who can “Jones” well knew that their best success rate was very late at night. Matter of fact, I used to mute my parents’ ringer so they wouldn’t hear the phone call at all. Yeah, I was slick with mine. Got’em all the time.

Fast forward today. Now it’s 2011 and boy has the game changed. We went from cordless phones and neon green beepers to Iphones and Blackberry models with those exotic names. (Bold, Torch..oh give me a break). Sadly, things are not the same. Increasingly, getting a number today is based more on formality of the moment and the thrill of the “chase” than genuine intent. (Yes ladies, I’m finally realizing how bad that was.) How do I know, at least for me? What I’m about to say is not boasting by any means. It’s more of a testament to my aforementioned theory.

Recently, I was going through my phone. I was amazed at the number of numbers I had, but never used. I couldn’t even tell you where some of them came from. Further, if I did decide to engage in conversation, I’d go straight to the text message by default. One time, I maintained a first conversation with a girl I met by text message only. Sad. For some reason, I developed an inner debate on calling a girl. Call or text? Although I knew text messaging was enormously impersonal, I regret to say that it has won handsomely as of late. Convenience and control dominated propriety and courtesy.

I think this is widespread. For instance, Rumors are swirling about New Edition’s remix. Straight fire. It goes something like..

I'm surprised that Bobby allowed himself to be in the back in this picture..

Mr. Telephone Man,
There’s nothing wrong with my line
I don’t dial my baby’s number
I just text all the time…

What makes us so averse to speaking on the phone these days? Back in day, I could go on talking until the wee hours of the morning. Now it’s about your text message prowess and Gchat game. I’m not too sure. I know I don’t like holding a phone to my ear for two hours. But then again, I’ve tried earpieces, bluetooths, and headsets to enjoy a hands free convo, but to no avail. Perhaps, it’s the person on the other line, but I’d hate to label all of them uninteresting (although I have met a few). I digress. A good friend of mine told me something that made me rethink my affinity for text messaging. I call her CSI because nothing gets passed her.

CSI: Texting is like IM’ing. It’s easy to hit up a bunch of girls at one time and make them feel special. Not me- You need to be on the phone. I want a guy’s undivided attention for at least an hour every night.

Me: Wow, that ain’t coming from me. I don’t think I could last a week on that schedule. Hmm.. I feel another post coming on.

CSI: Please write one, because this issue needs to be addressed. I think a lot of women say they don’t like talking on the phone, but that’s only because the guys are not calling anymore!!

I don’t know if I can go by CSI’ s strict schedule of at least an hour every day for every week. However, she did not specify as to what point this should happen, so I will safely assume that it would be DEEP in the relationship. CSI’s last comment gave me an “Ah ha!” moment. If you go back to my prior notes, one recurrent theme has been “Move…Counter-move”. This can be safely applied here. Basically, if the trend is to not pick up the phone anymore, be that one person that will. It may take you a long way. It’s even better when you can actually hold a conversation. It should be easy. We’re all grown now. No more hula hoops or hurdles!

It is amazing how much effort we used to commit to using the phone. Today, its abysmal, at least for me. If the last feature that you use on that precious smart phone is the phone feature itself, then you know you’re in the same boat as me. I plan to jump ship and get back to the basics, though; faster than a rich person on the Titanic. So if you’re feeling froggy…LEAP!

Look! It's touch tone

How do you think communication has evolved today. Is “calling” someone a lost art?

Until next time….

The Duke

***Fast forward now. I speak to my girlfriend at least an hour every day. Things done changed

Daydreaming: Three Talents I Wish I Had

Let me tell it, I’m probably the coolest, most well rounded and engaging person you’ll ever meet in your life. In truth, I’m not all that talented, engaging or interesting for that matter. I mean, I am possessed with a pretty random breadth of knowledge that sometimes makes for interesting conversation, timely anecdotal stories, and occasional knee slapping humor, but so are a lot of people. I like to write, obviously, and sometimes, here and there, I might come up with a sentence or two that I read and find myself really happy with, but again, the same can be said for lots of people. All in all, I don’t know that I would necessarily describe myself as “talented.”  But I do wish that I was talented. Talented people are amazing to me. Having worked in corporate America for 6 years, and having been bored many a Wednesday afternoon with the memories of the greatness of the past weekend far far away, and the prospect of new memories in the coming weekend equally distant, I’ve definitely developed a pretty active work place imagination. In today’s post I want to daydream a little bit and give in to some of my personal delusions of grandeur by sharing some of my favorite talents that I wish I happened to be blessed with.  Don’t judge me!

I Wish I Was a Mathematical Genius.

Don’t get it twisted, I’m pretty good at math. If you put a proof table in front of me I could probably knock it out. I can usually do addition in my head pretty easily, and I’m really good at estimating stuff. (Like, if you ask me what 32 percent of 4325 is, my estimate will probably be with in 75 or so.) But I wish I was a  straight up mathematical genius. Usually when I’m daydreaming about being a math genius the story (in my head) is pretty similar to Will’s story in “Good Will Hunting.” I’m the reluctant math wiz whose genius is both a blessing and a curse. I expend great amounts of energy concealing my genius unless pushed by some yuppie who happens to think he’s better than me at which point I use my genius to mathematically own him. Ultimately, I accept the social responsibility that comes with being the most important mathematician on Earth and end up doing something important with my life like curing AIDS or Cancer.

I Wish I had Prodigious Musical Talent.

I love to sing. If a song is on and I know the words to it I’m probably singing along. If I don’t know the words to it still, there’s a good chance I might be singing along. Only problem is, I can’t hold a note to save my life. I’m completely tone deaf when it comes to my own singing voice. In my mind, I sound just like the person actually singing the song, which is why it’s pretty confusing to me when people crunch their faces up upon hearing my voice. When I dream about being a prodigous musical talent, usually, I’m like a way more thorough and not soft version of “The Kid” in Purple Rain. That part of the movie where he finally listens to his bandmates tape for a couple seconds and picks up the melody and begins playing it on the spot… yeah, that’s me. I see myself at a party just chillin, being generally interesting and funny when, somehow, we happen to come across a fortuitous piano in the room. With a little coersion from friends, I slip behind the keys and go through a really dope medley of renditions of semi-obscure but recognizable songs that shows how exquisite and wide ranging my musical tastes are while still maintaing a sufficient guise of humility. I’d do cool stuff like play Ahmad Jamal’s “Pastures” and everyone would be all confused and wondering what it was until I got to the part of the song that was famously sampled by Hov – then everybody would be like “ohhhhhhhhhh!”

I Wish I was a Criminal Mastermind.

Maybe I watch too many movies like The Godfather, or listen to too much mid nineties Hip-Hop but sometimes, for some reason, I sit around thinking about how fun, exciting and cool it would be to be in charge of some sort of large scale criminal enterprise. This is a tough daydream to pull off because, I mean, I have morals and stuff, so I can’t do anything that’s too hurtful to anyone, particularly the black community, so it’d have to be some sort of victimless crime but, in my head I’m a cross between Romelo from Sugar Hill and Pinky from Pinky and the Brain. (Shout out to all of y’all who read ‘Pinky’ and thought of someone else – pause yourself) Eventually, I find away to convert my illegal money into legal enterprise, give a whole bunch of money in charitable donations to offset any bad I’ve done and then use my money and influence to build an empire for my kids to inherit and expand. Basically, I’m like Jack Kennedy.

These are probably my most common daydreams.  These are the random thoughts that run though my mind when I’m super bored with nothing to do. What random daydreams do you have? Do you have a particular delusion of grandeur you find yourself contemplating?  Feel free to share in the comments – no judgment ’round these parts.

Stay Low and Keep Firing…

The Real Decoy: An Interesting Way to Deflect a Man’s Approach

***The topic of decoy rings came up in a conversation I had recently. I decided to dig into the crates for this post, which was written three years ago. Enjoy.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice...

Last night, I met up with my peoples at a lounge in Georgetown. Pretty decent spot, I must say. And yes, plenty of women.

So here I am standing next to my boy Max (that’s not his real name, but I’ll use it for anonymity). Max and I notice three women walking past us. One of them had curly hair and immediately caught my attention, one had short hair and caught Max’s attention, the other…not worth mentioning. A few minutes later, Max puts the battery in my back and says “Yo, you should go right now and talk to the girl in the curly hair”.

“Yeah, I’m about to make that move right now” I confidently replied. In smooth fashion, I make my way for the curly haired girl and tried to dance with her. She didn’t want to, which was fine, but somehow I ended up dancing with the girl who was not worth mentioning. Whatever. Fast forward 20 minutes later, Max and I re-convene.

Max (with a smirk): What happened son?
Me: Mission Failed…
Max: Yeah, I saw you ended up with the other girl. That was your consolation prize. (laughing)
Me: Yeah..sheeeeet.

Come to find out, Max knew I was probably going to lose. Why? He knew from the jump that these girls had rings on their fingers; diamonds looking like disco balls apparently. Although Max denies it, I still think he sent me out there to see what these girls were about. (I see you Max, can’t hate!!!) You see, deep in The Duke’s Code of Honor, Rule 47, Article 3 states that talking to girls with rings is not the move. I never believed that anything positive would come out it, and at the end of the day, it may prove to be counter-productive to your swagger. Basically, this time around I slipped up. But not the next time. So…..

Fast forward another 30 minutes later. Max and I notice another girl. This woman was probably the most attractive female the club had to offer, period. First thought: I’d be damned if I don’t introduce myself to her. After the last incident, I’m certainly looking for a ring this time. And lo and behold, she had one. Man, I had to count the fingers on my hand to make sure it was the wedding finger. Neither Max or I spoke to her that night.

Later, Max and I leave the spot. As we are leaving, we see the girl. Max turns around to me and says one word: “Okie-Doke”. He didn’t have to say anything after that. I knew what happened. It turns out this girl had what every guy has to hate: the infamous disdainful decoy ring. I took a quick look at the girl’s finger again. I saw nothing but some artificial emeralds and rubies. “That’s some sh*t”, I said half-admirably.

Has it now come to this? Decoy rings? When was this cool? What part of the game is that? Like, is it ok to wear rings on that finger before you’re married? What if you do? Will you get seven years of bad luck or something like that?

I’ve noticed that this is a growing phenomenon. I know a lot of my home girls wear them and I will not front, this is a move that they tell me is very efficient in thwarting off men. However, with every move there is a counter-move.

So I ask: Fellas, is it officially open season on all female ring-bearers? Because if it isn’t, I’m fitting to declare so right now. Ladies, if you wore one of those damn decoy rings and a guy came up to you anyway, what would you think of him? Is he trife? If you’re not married, but you wore one, would you be trife?

PS. Max never spoke to the short haired girl. Chump..LMAO

The Duke

Toast to the Douche Bags – The Curious Kinship of Kanye West and Jonathan Franzen

Now that Kanye West’s My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy and Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom have both had the pristine shine of newness wear off, I think we can look back on both pieces to accurately judge their impact and what these works say about the artists who created them.  On the surface, you couldn’t find two more starkly different contemporary artists than Jonathan Franzen and Kanye West.  Franzen writes epically boring but strangely engaging books about the everyday minutia of white, anglo-saxon protestant life in turn of the 21st century America and Kanye West makes neo-classicist, self-aggrandizing Hip-Hop infused with equal parts consciousness, materialism and sexual fantasy. But when you look closer you find these two guys are way more alike than they are different. In today’s post I want to explore both of their latest works and talk a little bit about what makes them so similar and special.

Both Frazen and West are epic douche-bags.

In recent pop culture memory the only person to have more asshole moments than Kanye West is Charlie Sheen.  West is as well known for his fits of emotional over saturation as he is for his music. From “George Bush doesn’t care about black peope,” to wigging out on SNL to “I’ma let you finish…” West carries the cross for those of us who sometimes can’t help how gifted we are at finding what we don’t like the most.  But don’t sleep on Jonathan Franzen. In the relatively quiet and peaceful world of WASP Lit, Franzen is a bit of an anomaly and definitely a douche bag worthy of toasting.  Where West is fond of making hugely generalized, self-important, douchey statements like “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” Franzen instead writes angry, unnecessarily verbose, high brow douchey op-eds in douchey magazines like The New Yorker that basically say “SUV driving miscreant low-thinkers don’t care about the plight of migratory birds!”  Where West goes on TV and bugs out because he feels like Matt Lauer is being predatory and insensitive in his questioning, Franzen turns his nose up at being selected to Oprah’s book club and declines an invitation to appear on her show.  Doesn’t seem like much of a big deal to most of us, but being selected to Oprah’s book club, as a first time novelist is damn near tantamount to receiving a McArthur Award – so saying “thanks but, no thanks” is a douche move of the highest order.

Franzen and West’s latest works both show they are probably their medium’s most important contemporary artists:

Kanye West’s Twisted Fantasy is, without a doubt his best work to date. It is his most succinct album since The College Dropout yet it still manages to be more seeking and ambitious than anything he’s ever done.  It’s more experimental than 808’s and Heartbreak, but more Hip-Hop than Late Registration. It has more pop appeal than Graduation, yet should be as endearing to the neo-backpack movement as The College Dropout. With Twisted Fantasy, West has every base covered. Where West excels most with Dark Fantasy is in melding production with lyrical content and presentation to make his music more than just an auditory experience. You listen to the album and you’re transported to this strangely depressed world, with West as your tour guide, carrying you through the full range of human emotion from self-loving to self-loathing, from social responsibility to selfish indulgence, from God fearing, to sacrilegious; this world West is bringing us though is, above all else, honest.

May the Lord forgive us
May the God’s be with us
In that magic hour I seen good Christians
make rash decisions, Oh she do it,
What happened to Religion?
Oh she lose it
She putting on her make up
She casually allure
Text message break up, the casualty of tour
How she gone wake up and not love me no more
I thought I was the ass hole, I guess it’s rubbing off
Hood phenomenon, the Lebron of rhyme
Hard to be humble when you stuntin on a jumbotron
I’m looking at her like “this what you really want it, huh?”
What we argue anyway, oh I forgot its summertime.

Franzen’s Freedom, as far as I’m concerned, was the best novel of 2010.  As a culturally and historically aware descendant of African Slaves who happens to love Hip-Hop and fried chicken, I must admit, it was tough to wrap my mind around the blithely privileged and incomprehensibly trite every day lives of the white folk Franzen builds his novels around. Freedom is the story of the Berglund family (If there’s a whiter name than “Berglund” I’m not aware of it). The thing is, despite the extreme whiteness of the Berglunds, Franzen’s writing is so good, so sharply perceptive that you somehow forget that you have absolutely nothing in common with these characters.  What makes most classic literature classic is its ability reach beyond social status, class, race, political affiliation and all the other things we use to divide ourselves and tap into those basic human emotions we all feel so that you are able to relate to the characters through their emotions if not through their surface level lives.  What makes Franzen so special, for me, is that he doesn’t do this, and still manages to keep me compelled. The Berglund’s impulses and desires are so far away from that of my own and the everyday happenings of the suburban lives they live are so far removed from what I’m living here in Brooklyn that the humanistic relative connection is never really established. I’m compelled simply because the writing is phenomenal. It’s that good. He writes the sort of sentences and paragraphs that make you  put the book down for a minute, think about what you just read, what it means to your life, the world around you, the universe, space, time and all the other unsolved mysteries of human existence.   For example:

“Her eyes weren’t blinking. There was still something almost dead in them, something very far away. She seemed to be seeing all the way through to the back of him and beyond, out into the cold space of the future in which they would both soon be dead, out into the nothingness that Lalitha and his mother and his father had already passed into, and yet she was looking straight into his eyes, and he could feel her getting warmer by the minute. And so he stopped looking at her eyes and started looking into them, returning their look before it was too late, before this connection between life and what came after life was lost, and let her see all the vileness inside him, all the hatreds of two thousand solitary nights, while the two of them were still with the void in which the sum of everything they’d ever said or done, every pain they’d inflicted, every joy they’d shared, would weigh less than the smallest feather on the wind.”

West and Franzen are both the impetus for the resurgence of previously dormant genres within genres.

Kanye West’s “The College Dropout” (2004) and Franzen’s “The Corrections” (2001) were released at points in history where their respective genres were losing relevance.  In Hip-Hop, the backpack movement hadn’t really been relevant in a mainstream sort of way since “Beats, Rhymes and Life”.  In 2003 Jay-Z retired and 50 Cent released “Get Rich or Die Trying” which seemed to solidify him as the defacto heir to the throne.  Still riding high off of “Get Rich” and the two successful subsequent G-Unit releases, 50 looked poised to take over. Going into 2004 nobody saw Kanye coming. Nobody could have predicted that 7 years later, G-Unit would be irrelevant and every new artist signed to a major label would have a certain “different-ness” that wasn’t really acceptable in Hip-Hop for a long time prior to Kanye’s arrival. In literature in 2001, with the internet bubble in full swing, the concept of the long form WASP novel about nothing was dying. The last boring novel – about the problems white folks have when they don’t really have real problems – to actually crossover and enter the general American consciousness was probably Saul Bellow’s “Humbolt’s Gift”… and that was in the 70’s.   With “The Corrections” Franzen lays claim to the genre making it relevant for a new generation of passively angry, repressed, middle American white people who like the idea of hybrid cars but instead drive SUV’s for practical reasons. Since its release, books like Empire Falls and Olive Kitteridge have dropped to much critical and commercial success while exploring – to varying degrees – these same themes of inexplicable unhappiness and discontent in middle class white America.

Kanye West and Jonathan Franzen are two of the most important artists or our time. If you haven’t listened to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or read Freedom, do yourself a favor and get up on it.  Both works are more than worthwhile, even if you’re not particularly interested in the respective genres. It’s interesting to look at the two artists and see how similar two very different artists can be. For those of you who have heard the album or read the book – or done both – please feel free to share your thoughts on both.

Stay low and keep firing.

Natural MacGuyvers: How Blacks Can Be So Innovative With So Little

My personal memory lane...

My co-worker made a statement that took me off-guard. He mentioned that every subset of the population became better off in the eighties. I looked at him like he was tripping off base. Those were the Reagan years. I don’t remember all of us moving up the economic ladder. Instead, I recollect how crack as the “currency” of choice throughout my neighborhood. I responded “Not everyone, my friend”. Socially and economically, our people struggled in the eighties. Because of the crack epidemic, a swath blacks succumbed to narcotics instead of finding work to support their families. As a result, resources were stretched. Interestingly enough, my co-worker’s statement made me think of how we got by.

One of the things I love about black people is our strong penchant to create something out of nothing. Because of our general position in this society, it is hard to argue that any other subset of the American population mastered how to stretch resources like we have. Seemingly, it’s almost ingrained in us – to live in frugality out of need, not by choice. The icing on the cake is that, more times than not, we embrace it with pride and, of course, style.
Most of us can relate, while the black elite others will have no clear to what I refer to. They just haven’t lived that life, I guess. Let me know what your reactions are as I take us down what should be a familiar trip through memory lane.

Think back to the eighties (and for some of you, the seventies – yeah, you’re pretty old). We were pretty good with electronics, weren’t we? Many of us had the small TV on top of the big TV –which hadn’t worked in 5-7 years. Didn’t you hate when you had to battle with the butterfly shaped antennae everyday? Aluminum foil always did the trick, didn’t it. We stretched out battery life by putting them in the freezer. That would save us the three or four dollars to spend on something else. We also placed our Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges in the freezer, too. We never knew what it was about the freezer, but some how it magically worked. And yes, few things were better than a strong exhale on the cartridge.

I love how we did our best with food. Ketchup was the ubiquitous for meals. For some reason, it made us feel safe to eat whatever was in front of us. How many of your mothers/fathers/guardians poured a little water in the ketchup bottle when it was running low. He/she made that ketchup stretch, right? Barbeque sauce tasted well on anything we could conceive –rice, eggs, and even [fill in the blank]. During those times, we couldn’t afford all of the nicer things in life. “They” had orange juice; we had orange drink. Luckily, we would get 3 or 4 dollars from a relative. What did this mean? We were ballin’ rich! 4 dollars bought us a Yoo-hoo (do they still make those?), Wise chips or Dipsy doodles, a blow pop pause with the gum inside, and a quarter-water to save for later. Coming home to McDonalds or Chinese food from Mr. Chin (West Indians know…) meant that we were going to feast for dinner. Was this food unhealthy? Yes. But did we get the best bang for our buck? Indeed. I can go on and on…

Many Blacks across the country can relate to what I’m saying because we’ve been there. Unfortunately, families are still doing “the stretch” to get by today. Many others who haven’t lived that life will find it awfully easily to ridicule such experiences as “uncouth” or practices that were symptomatic of impoverishment. Let them criticize. However, please do not interpret my recollections in the wrong way. By no means am I saying that we should celebrate the low quality of resources. Rather, we should celebrate our willingness to maximize the utility of those resources, given our past or current situations.

Now it’s time to open up the discussion. Can you remember anything you did (or are doing now) in the past to “get by”? What were the crafty things your family did to make things work out?

Dark Knight Feelings: Are Our Leaders Always Meant to Lose?

Whenever I have thoughts of politics, I often reminisce about Charlie Rangel. I admire Charlie Rangel for who he is, and until recently, what he represented. Rangel had a unique air about him. Any New Yorker could easily appreciate his bravado. He took any issue and/or debate head on with an air of sarcasm and fearlessness that drew raves from supporters and made detractors seethe. He was something of a feudal lord in the Harlem political machine. You wanted in politically? You had to go through him or the other three cardinals of Harlem black politics. Mr. Rangel is a great legislator and a champion for his overwhelmingly loyal constituents. He was a decorated war hero, and had a near brush of death leading him to famously say “…and I haven’t had a bad day since.”

Charlie Rangel’s apex in his political career was his chairmanship to the House Ways and Means Committee. After three years in the post, Rangel was accused of a host of ethics violations, leading to the resignation of his coveted chairmanship and the most damning punishment of a Member of Congress: censure. Rangel was probably content with giving up the chairmanship he worked endlessly for, but he feared censure because he knew that it would be the death knell to his name. Charlie Rangel, the elder statesmen of New York, was now reduced to another seemingly unscrupulous elected official. Rangel’s name is obviously important to him, and I beg to wonder if his name was so important that he would have preferred to die in battle as opposed to living his last years as a disgraced congressman. Only he knows the answer to that question.

Which brings us to the title of today’s post. In the movie The Dark Knight it was mentioned: “Either you die and be a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain”. Isn’t this applicable to all memorable leaders. Let’s run through them. Bill Clinton was heralded as the most intelligent and charismatic leader of our generation. However, his legacy didn’t end up being what he wanted it to be. Early in his tenure, Bush 43 was thought to be an American patriot for his relentless pursuit of terrorists. Today, his name and administration is marred with numerous scandals, evoking much disdain in many circles. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is also suffering from a similar syndrome. If Mayor Bloomberg had stepped down after his second term, he would have left office highly respected. Today, the political winds have turned against him with his questionable management strategies, a snowstorm that exposed bad decision making, and an education policy nightmare that I will spare you from detailing. If we look abroad, once revolutionary figures like Hosni Mubarak and Robert Mugabe are widely despised by their people.

Alternatively, many leaders who lived their lives too short are cherished heroes because of the memories they have left us. In Revolutionary Suicide, Huey Newton argues that any leader of a revolution should willing expect that a he/she will die before the desired change is truly effectuated. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is tremendously esteemed among people, but what would have been the public’s reaction if the FBI tapes were released while he was alive? President John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy are two examples of great men who would have contributed greater benefits to society if they were not assassinated.

Time and time again, we have been disappointed by popular figures that we have held to a higher standard. Their precipitous fall has always caught us off guard. In the film American Gangster, there is a famous quote that comes to mind: “Quitting while you’re ahead is not the same as losing”. When placed in perspective, this is true. However, in roles of leadership power is addictive and can leave the bearer feeling invincible toward any threat against his “throne”. Perhaps this was good ol’ Charlie Rangel’s fallacy when he was eager to face his ethics investigation – thinking that he would prevail because he always had in the past.

One thing is clear though. In position of leadership, there is always a penalty. The question is whether you will pay the price sooner or later. Further, it supplants something that I have always believed: There is no such thing as winners; only that people lose less slowly than others. At the end of the day, you will lose, no matter what. I don’t mean to sound defeatist, but one never holds on to their position, title, or power forever.

Agree or disagree?

Until next time,

The Duke

The Best Stuff I’ve Ever Read: Quotes and Passages I’ll Keep Forever

Something that should come as no surprise to those of you who read this blog daily is that I like to read. Since I was a little kid reading Madeleine L’Engle and RL Stine I’ve always had an affinity for the written word. Over the years, I’ve come across some stuff that, for whatever reason, has stuck with me. In today’s post I want to share some of the funniest, most moving, thought provoking and effecting words I’ve ever read. Hope you enjoy:

I have walked across the surface of the Sun. I have witnessed events so tiny and so fast they can hardly be said to have occurred at all. But you, Adrian, you’re just a man. The world’s smartest man poses no more threat to me than does its smartest termite. – Dr. Manhattan in “The Watchmen” by Alan Moore

I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown. I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns, and, perhaps, to bloom. -Richard Wright

“And it occurs to me not to ask about the dream deferred, because almost everyone knows what it is, on some level, to fail. But what happens to a dream, and yes, a dream, not a desire or hankering or an impusle or a want, but a dream, realized? And yes, I say it again: It is a strange thing to go through life as a social experiment — to learn Latin and Greek and the assination dates of the martyrs; to toggele between Christ and Keynes, King and Turner, Robinson, Robeson, Ali, Frazier, Foreman; to have a rumbling in the jungle of your black folk soul while a rough coon, its number come up at last, shuffles up from New Orleans to be free. “And all shall be well” when champagne sprays around the home clubhouse in the Old Town, character the only currency, Love won. Kingdom Come.” – Michael Thomas – “Man Gone Down”

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing more finely percieved or more finely felt as injustice – Charles Dickens

A man’s worth can be measured in terms of his ability to evoke in the essence of a male the wish to be man, to evoke in the essence of a female the wish to be woman. – Jean Toomer

Sex contains all,
Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk;
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals,
All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth,
All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the earth,
These are contain’d in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself.
Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex – (Pause)
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.
Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me;
I see that they understand me, and do not deny me;
I see that they are worthy of me—I will be the robust husband of those women.

- Walt Whitman – A Woman Waits For Me – Leaves of Grass

You really want to know what being an X-Man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of color in a contemporary U.S. ghetto. – Junot Diaz  - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. – Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man

I’m going to resist the urge to keep going and drop passage after passage here today and encourage you all to think back to some of the books, poems and other pieces of literature that you’ve read in your life and share some of your favorite quotes. Feel free to get your google on – it’s not like I did these off the top of my dome. It’s just all stuff I remember making me feel some kind of way. Only request – please don’t drop music quotes just yet – there will be another post for that in the near future.

Wait … my bad … there is one musical quote I gotta drop on this post …

Stay low and keep firing.

The Last Frontier of the Independent Woman: Cars

I wonder what dealer she works at. I'm so there...

It’s indisputable that we are in the era of the independent woman. Today, women have access to high paying jobs, they raise children with less help in the household than in years past (for a myriad of reasons), and the generally make unilateral decisions when needed to. By all means, this should be welcomed. I have no problems with this at all. But..

There is a humorous paradox when we examine certain things in granularity. For instance, what is your impression when automobiles enter the discussion? More times than not, that independence doesn’t seem as grandiose, does it? I’ve noticed women have a lot of input on what car should be purchased (largely motivated by what benefits the household; this is their territory), but not on maintenance and repair. Ironically, such decisions are willingly exported to the male; knowing the ins and outs of their personal vehicle seem to be off limits.

I don’t blame them, though. Managing and maintaining a complex, highly computerized vehicle difficult. Please do not get me wrong. Women are more than capable at this. However, my experience is that they are too nonchalant in ceding this “territory”, leaving them susceptible to faulty advice from their two-bit crooked mechanic. I have many female friends that found themselves in the fell clutch of circumstance – where their automobile plummeted into disrepair because of their lack of experience with cars. Too many conversations have consisted of “Well, I had no idea I had to change the [insert fluid of mechanical part here]. How was I supposed to know?” Therefore, today’s focuses on some tips that our independent women should walk away with when sustaining their treasured but delicate vehicles.

Regular Maintenance

She's going in....on this car. Don't be afraid. A car is a machine. That means it can be predictable.

The easiest way to say this is that you need to check all the fluids on a regular basis. That means oil, transmission fluid, windshield wiper fluid, and brake fluid. Oil –the proverbial blood of your car- should be the most frequently checked because it is subjected to enormous conditions. Check your oil level ever month or so and look at the color pulling out the dipstick. If its black, then its time for a change. I like to run with synthetic oil because it lasts longer. Oil comes in different grades. Check your car manual or the oil cap of your car to find this out. And remember – always check the oil when the car is off and it has sat for a while. Typically, you will need an oil change ever 3,000 to 5,000 miles.

Meanwhile, check your transmission fluid once ever 5 months. Transmission fluid is much more resilient. You may need a fluid change once ever 30,000 miles, depending on use. Transmission fluid should generally be a strawberry color. If it’s black, you probably have worse problems than a change. We’ll get into that later.

When the rubber meets the road…

Ouch!

Have you ever driven down past a marooned car on a highway with their tire essentially blown off? No one would like to be in that position. I’m willing to bet that this happened because the driver did not rotate their tires as often as they should have. I find that many people seldom do this. Drivers should rotate their tires every 10,000 miles. As you drive miles and miles on end, your car will change the way it “sits” on its tires. This is of no surprise since your car weighs around 2-3 tons. The weight distribution changes on each tire, causing it to lean slightly. Rotating your tires reduces the effects of your car’s weight displacement. Every once in a while, you’ll want to get a re-alignment (to straighten out your wheels) and a wheel balance (a calibration of air and wheel position to adjust for weight displacement)

Recruit your trusty mechanic…

Good News. You just made the team..

Your mechanic should be your ace boon coon, not a cheap swindler with an itchy palm. Mechanics are your advisor. Advisors need to be trusted. I’m about to go off on a tangent here. Remember the old mobster movies where the boss would test an underling with a particular job to see if he’s trustworthy? Usually, the boss would know the outcome before the underling goes for the test. You need to be the same way with your mechanic. When looking for a mechanic, I test them out by loosening one of the plugs on my battery. Then I will bring my car to the shop and tell them that my car doesn’t start sometimes. If he’s able to tell me what the problem is and charge me reasonably, he’s on his way to being “made”.

That pesky engine light…

Not the proverbial kiss of death...yet.

Man, I hate engine lights. They seem to come on at the most inopportune times. The engine light can be incredibly ambiguous because its cause can be anything across the spectrum – from your gas cap not being tight enough to major transmission failure. The engine light simply means that the car computer is sending a code that indicates sub-optimal engine performance. I know many people that have taken their chances with that light and have driven their cars with little problems. Others…not so much. When the engine light comes on, I like to take the car to the dealership and ask if they can tell me the issue. I allow the dealer to fix the car depending on the severity of the repair. If I think it’s low priority, it goes to my mechanic. There are two major events that are “dealer worthy.”

The news that no one wants to hear…

That call from the mechanic can be a tough one...

Transmission Failure. The transmission is the stir that mixes the drink. It is the heart of your car. When you hear transmission failure, you have some tough decisions to make. Transmission replacement usually costs anywhere from $2500-3500. That’s a huge investment for any car, and it may not be worth it. You’ll have to consider your options, financial conditions, and how much your car means to you. For me, transmission replacement is like triple bypass heart surgery with a transplant on the side. If you have to be on the operating table, whose hand would you put the scalpel in: the expert or the two-bit swindler mechanic? I’m going with the big boys. Either way, your going to spend big money, so you might as well spend on the person that you have the utmost confidence in. Nothing beats the dealer. Besides, the liability is placed on the dealer if the transmission fails again. Routinely, I go to the dealer for all transmission issues like fluid changes and flushes (many believe flushes are not necessary).

I will also go to the dealer to change the timing belt and water pump. Unfortunately, there is no way to know when you need these two things replaced. They are essentially ticking time bombs. They can go at any minute, but usually at the 90,000 to 120,000 mile mark. During that window, reach out proactively to your dealer. It can cost anywhere from $450-$750 dollars. You could go to your two-bit swindler mechanic. But the work involved to replace these two parts are very delicate and laborious (essentially, your entire engine has to be lifted to make the change.

Those are the two major events that I encourage you to head for your dealer. Your “made” mechanic can easily handle any other issue.

Ladies, as you continue to own your cars, you’ll start to realize that the same things happen over and over again. For instance, there will be many times in your life that your car will not start. After a while, you’ll know that it could be the battery, alternator, or spark plug. But it takes experience. Don’t stray away from it. Hunker down, learn along the way, and embrace it. That’s true independence, so you’ll have no problem. I’m no mechanic at all. But how do I know this? Experience.

So let me ask: What do you think about women and cars? Are they routinely averse to the ins and outs of their vehicles? Why is it always the man’s job to fix these things? Do they cede this responsibility because it’s convenient? I think so, but let me know what you think.

The Duke

When Great Sexual Chemistry Isn’t Such a Great Thing

... Is Better than 12 Steps ...

 

I don’t often write about sex on the blog. For me, it’s the most personal way two people can communicate their feelings to one another and because it’s so personal, I don’t think it’s a topic that should be broached lightly. Also, MrsMost would kill me if I ever talked about our sex life on here so that too is a major deterrent (#HappyWifeHappyLife).  But as I reflect on my relationship history and how I got to this happily married state I’m in now, I can’t help but think back to times in my life where I’ve had amazing physical chemistry with someone, but, for whatever reason, the relationship didn’t work out. What I’ve come to realize is that, often times, great sexual chemistry can actually hinder a relationship from reaching its full potential. Here’s why:

Deep, Passionate, Earth Shattering sex doesn’t always equal deep, passionate, Earth shattering love.

Despite how much many of us want to believe it’s not, sex is probably the most powerful form of communication we have. It’s our God given way of expressing just how deeply we feel toward another human being. At varying points in human history and in varying societies sex’s value has been altered or diminished; on a more individual level, at varying points in most of our lives some of us may alter, devalue, or compartmentalize the importance of sharing ourselves with someone sexually, but, at our core, on the most basic human level, I think we can all agree that sex means something. Now when the sex is great… somehow we convince ourselves that it means something more.  We start believing that the more pleasurable the sex the more deeply we must care about each other. In reality, that’s not always true. Sometimes, for some strange and mysterious reason, two people who don’t really love each other and may or may not even really like each other can actually have phenomenal sexual chemistry. But because the sex is great, you forget how much you dislike that person, or how incompatible the two of you are. How many months, weeks, years… and for some folks – decades have been wasted with someone you know you’re completely incompatible with just because the sex was great?

Bad sexual chemistry doesn’t always have to be a deal breaker.

I’ve had many a conversation around a relationship ending – or never really getting started – because when relations were had – a lot was left to be desired.  It usually goes a little something like this:

Boy meets girl. Boy and girl go out on date and a good time is had by all. Boy and girl text. Boy and girl talk on the phone. More fun dates are had and eventually, boy and girl decide it’s time to have sex. Boy and girl have sex.  Sex is like the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, minus the Wondrous and wow. Boy assures girl it was a fluke. Girl believes. More dates are had but they are permeated by a strange awkwardness because both people are nervous about the impending disappointment sure to come the next time relations are had. That nervousness effects performance, sex is again terrible, relationship fizzles, both move on to the next.

The thing to realize here is, just because it was bad the first time, or the first two times, or the first 20 times, doesn’t mean it’s going to be bad forever. More importantly, what could have been a beautiful relationship ends up getting cut short because of something that, at that stage in the relationship, shouldn’t really be that important.

Great Sex will make you over look a whole lot of stuff you probably shouldn’t be overlooking.

Sometimes, when the good is that good, you lose perspective. You forget about all the things you’re looking for in a friendship, a serious relationship and a spouse. We forget about the fact that she can’t boil water or he doesn’t have a job, or she couldn’t break a 1000 on the SATs or his name is Peanut. We forget that she keyed her last boyfriend’s car because he smiled at the coat check lady or that he is as emotionally mature and stable as Chris Brown. We overlook glaring flaws – stuff that should cause us to run the other way because when the lights go down – they move from penny stock to fortune 500 blue chip.

Here’s the thing. I think, in a perfect world, everyone would wait until they got married to have sex. Think about it, if we all waited until we got married, the only sex we’d know would be the sex we were having with our spouse. There’d be no such thing as “sexual chemistry.” You and your spouse would just make it work, and you’d probably be pretty happy. That, in my mind, is how God intended it to be and I don’t think it’s ever too late for someone to decide to try out God’s plan. I also realize that not everyone believes in God, and of those who do, not all believe in waiting till marriage to have sex. For you guys, even though you’re all dangling by a thread over the gates of hell (j/k), at the very least, don’t allow yourself be fooled into thinking someone is perfect for you because the sex is perfect, and don’t give up on a relationship just because it’s not. Instead, chill out. Enjoy courting and dating for a while. Take your time, get to know the person, and when it’s right, let sex truly be the way you and the person your with tell each other you love each other.

So what do y’all think? Anyone ever pushed a relationship well beyond its breaking point because of some great boot knocking? Anyone ever ended a relationship that was otherwise great because of bad sex? And have any of you ever overlooked some glaring deal breakers because of great sexual chemistry? Feel free to over-share.

Lastly, shout out to everyone that was down in DC this past weekend. Fun times man … fun times.

It’s hump day – weekend’s coming and hopefully so is Spring… till then, stay low and keep firing.

What’s So Special About the South? What Fuels the Reverse Migration of Blacks?

Is it really all that peachy down there?

For African-Americans, the burgeoning cities of the Northeast and Midwest were the proverbial promised land. It was a bastion of opportunity and tolerance for our ancestors who have felt the pain of discrimination, racism, and subterfuge at their own expense. Hence was the spirit of the Great Migration – America’s virtual exodus of an entire people from one region to another.

That trend seems to have reversed. Metropolitan areas across the country have seen a decrease in its African-American population. Where are they moving to? Of all places, they are headed back to the South. For the past decade, highly educated and less educated Blacks (at a ratio of 1:4) have made their way to the historic Black Belt with no signs of abatement. Many Blacks have resounding reasons for taking flight to the age-old frontier of strife and generational bitter memories. Supposedly, the network of Blacks is more reliable and supportive. Entrepreneurs claim that they can market to a strong base of fellow Blacks to sustain their nascent businesses.

To see the distribution of the population between 2000 and 2010, click here.

Moreover, as I read articles and reflect on anecdotes, the common thread that I observe is that the phenomenon takes form of a rejection of inner city living, creating a misleading positive appeal (from my vantage point) of the South. In other words, the migration of blacks is symbolic voting with their feet – this is a referendum on the on the big city. And the results do not look good. Apparently, the complexities of inner city living are the impetus of their flight, not the improvements and comfort of the smaller cities with vast suburbs and developments.

I struggle to understand what is so great about the South. As a New Yorker, I approach this with unequivocal bias. Sure, the cost of living is amenable and many can achieve the house with the picket fence, three-car driveway, and backyard. But do we really need that? Though seldom discussed, the mass appeal and pursuit of that portion of the American Dream contributed to the housing bubble burst, leading to our lingering housing crisis today. But that’s another post for another day, I suppose.

What’s so repulsive about the big city? The big city serves as a nexus where people, culture, experience, are infused in a close-knit locale – accelerating the best (and at times the worst of societies). The benefits are desirable, although at a cost. Metropolitan areas account for an overwhelming portion of the country population. Studies consistently show that cities are the economic engines of their states, and with that comes the spoils – accessibility to resources, convenience, application of new technologies, and best of all – alternatives of any kind.

I can only rail on the South so much, since I’ve never lived there. So I will keep this discussion open-ended. What’s so special about the South? What are people seeing that I’m not? Would you prefer moving to the Black Belt over the cities like New York or Chicago?

A Satirical Guide for Brothers: The Types of Women Men Should Stay Away From

Caution

Our good friend Most graced us with a very good post about reappearing men in women’s lives. I didn’t want to leave my fellow brethren out, so I decided to write about the types of women we should stay clear from.

I feel like I’ll have to walk a very thin tightrope on this one, so here comes my disclaimer. My categorizations are satirical, sprinkled with some truth. Yes, I am well aware that the personalities of women are ever so complex (hence our receding hairlines as a result of us trying to understand them). Therefore, I’ll be describe certain “traits” that fellow men tend to leisurely discuss when we engage in conversations about our choices. Let me emphasize that what I write is very tongue in cheek. OK, without further adieu, lets go in.

Brothers, there are some interesting women that we encounter that we all now can be problematic. For instance, have you ever met an:

X-Women

Steer clear from the storm..

Let me provide an example. I have a co-worker that confides in me about her relationship very often. She broke up with her boyfriend for reasons that were not irreconcilable. A month after the breakup, her ex-boyfriend “reappears” in her life, claiming how he missed her and how things could be different. She leaves him on the fence for about another month as she decided whether to get back with him. It’s the typical “get back together” process. So what does the boyfriend do? Spend. Spend. Spend. The boyfriend starts purchasing all kinds of jewelry, bags, clothing, wining, dining, etc. Meanwhile, my co-worker accepts all of these gifts, but continues to keep the boyfriend on the fence. I told my co-worker that you have to make a decision but, of course, she says she’s not sure. She later tells me that she doesn’t like her ex’s spending habits, however she doesn’t mind all of the luxurious gifts that he purchases (which she receives) on a weekly basis. Telling him to stop purchasing the gifts is out of the question. Isn’t that hypocritical?

I call these women X-Women. Seemingly, they can put a spell over men with their superpowers that can make them do things that that they wouldn’t in a vacuum. The quest to rekindle an old flame is admirable under the most innocent of intentions. However, one must tread carefully if that woman becomes manipulative by making the penitent ex-boyfriend jump the hula-hoops.

BMW’s (I’m going to burn for this one)

This is "Automatic"

I’m not referencing your 335i, the crisp 525 in the auto lot, or the big body 750 that you (as men) often dreamed of. No. Rather, I am envisioning Baby Mother Women. Ideally, suitors would prefer to enter a situation with a clean slate; no issues and no concerns. This rarely happens, but hopefully these “wrinkles” are minor and tenable. Alternatively, baby mothers engender a very complex dynamic to any relationship. For starters, there will always be another man around (the baby father). More times than not, you will constantly hear his name and/or how horrible (or good) he is. The father will have an undesirable capability to affect the baby mother, where you will have to play clean up. Who wants to bear that weight? You must also consider the acclimation and adjustment of the child. Children (especially if they are older) harness a “sixth sense” and can detect when there is a “perpetrator” (that’s you) in the household. I imagine if an Oedipus complex would arise if the child were a male. Either way, this is another barrier to break through. Ask yourself. Is your BMW worth the long distance drive with all the potholes I’ve mentioned? I’ll let you figure that out.

Golddiggers

Need I say more?

Marie Antoinettes (A ruthless breed, they are).

Only the finer things in life..

Often, married men would compliment their wife by stating that they “married up”; indicating that their wife is of a better class and arguably brought more to the table than the husband. I think this is a lovely compliment, although very broad in its meaning. In the black community, a difference in socioeconomic status determines a different experience in the Black America that is two worlds apart. Hence, it’s not difficult to conceive how this could play out like the Lady and the Tramp.

Marie Antoinettes are women of high status that demand their suitors to treat and cater them as such. They are queens, She’s worn Tiffany’s all her life. Guess what you’re buying her. Tiffany’s, nothing less. She’s never taken the bus before. Ever. Guess what you’re doing. You’re driving her everywhere she wants to go. If you’re not from the same status as the Marie Antoinette, this will ultimately place enormous downward pressure on you fiscally, if not emotionally. You’ll be playing a game of economic catch up; fulfilling your “manly” responsibilities at a higher cost than necessary. Set restrictions early. Bend, but do not break. Trust me, I’ve been there before (foolishly). Luckily, I was able to say “Off with the…er..relationship.”

Attention Anonymous

It's not a want, it's a need.

Women need attention. I get it. You get it. We all do. Preferably, they will seek attention from they person that they are committed to. This is absolutely fine. Nonetheless, if they have an insatiable appetite for attention – regardless of the person who emotes it – then there is cause for concern. As the suitor/boyfriend (or whatever honorable role you are playing in a woman’s life) you should not feel like you’re in competition with the next man. Remember, attention to many on this earth is like a drug. If addicted, everything is great when one gets their fix. However, once the fix wears off, another one is needed. The key point is this. All addicts are indiscriminate of their supplier, but only value the quality of the fix. Stay away from attention addicts. They don’t like you. They only like the attention that you give them. It’s impossible for you to be there all the time to “sell” the product. If they only seek attention, then there is another seller out there who will “proceed to give them what they need”. That’s not good for you, my brother.

Amazonians

Don't worry Brother, you did the right thing. I mean, I would not have went out like that, but I see where you were coming from. Actually, I don't, but we're still cool.

Do me a favor. Relax. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes. Now imagine a female voice saying the following words: “Ninjas ain’t $#!&” That picture becomes very vivid after that, doesn’t it? Whenever I close my eyes, I see the Angela character from “Why Did I Get Married.” If a combative woman is more than ready to go toe-to-toe with you for almost any reason (frivolous or not), bail out quickly or expect a case pending. Becoming Ike Turner or Lionel Richie are positions that are not desirable at all. Avoid these traps. Don’t catch a case (or be a victim in one.

That’s the list. How much truth resides in the “types” that I have described? Women, should I be put to the stake for what I wrote? Let’s hear it

The Duke

Limitless: What Would You Do if You Knew You Couldn’t Fail

This weekend I went to see the movie Limitless which stars Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro. If you haven’t seen a preview, the premise of the movie is this: A smart guy who can’t seem to get his life together comes into possession of a stash of pills that enable him to use the full 100% of his brain’s capacity as opposed to the normal 20% most of us use. With great power comes great responsibility and mo’ money mo’ problems so villainous individuals make themselves known, action ensues and then it all gets resolved. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The Godfather it was not, but, it was an interesting take on super-hero mythology. Beyond it’s sheer entertainment value, I enjoyed the movie because it left me wondering what I would do were I limitless. In today’s post I want to explore just how much of our brain power we’re actually using and spend some time discussing some thoughts I had after watching the movie.

Steroids in athletics

I know this wasn’t what you were expecting the first thought to be. But, for some reason, the movie made me reconsider the steroid debate as it relates to professional athletes. When you say the word ‘steroid’ we all think of Mark Mcguire, Marion Jones, Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds and the dozens of other athletes who have soured their respective sports by taking performance enhancing drugs. And if you were to ask the average American if they’d take steroids were they a professional athlete, they’d probably say they wouldn’t. This movie made me consider another question. What if there were steroids for your mind? What if there was a pill you could take that would make you the smartest, most capable person at your office, or in your company, or in your industry. Would you take it? Damn right you would. Now think about Barry Bonds. Barry was a top 10 all time baseball player before steroids. Roids made him the greatest to ever do it. Can you really fault him? Had he not been caught, would it have been all worth it. What about Lance Armstrong? Just makes you think.

Do we really need a pill to be limitless?

In the movie, the limits of life are redacted by a magic pill. What makes the pill interesting is that it doesn’t alter Bradley Cooper’s character at all. What it does is allow him to access and organize every bit of information he’s ever come in contact with an apply that information as necessary. Everything he’s ever wanted to accomplish he can now accomplish. But think about that for a second – everything we need to do everything we ever wanted to do is already there, the problem is, there’s we have no means of organizing all of that information in an efficient and applicable way. That’s both frustrating and exciting if you think the same way I do.

What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail?

Imagine if you knew everything you’d ever attempt would be a success. In the movie, as long as Bradley Cooper’s character has access to his pills, he knows he can win in any situation he finds himself in. Whether he’s trying to finish a novel, trying to pick up a chick, being attacked by a bunch of thugs on the subway platform – whatever situation he finds himself in he is prepared to handle, and whatever  goal he sets for himself he can accomplish – as long as he has his pills. But then I wonder, how many times can I recall setting my mind to something and failing? I really can’t. Anytime I’ve ever failed, it’s been because I didn’t really make a full effort. Anytime I’ve ever really wanted something, and really applied myself to it, I’ve been able to find a certain measure of success at it. Does that make me Limitless -no, not in the same sense as the character in the movie, but, it does put things in perspective for me. My greatest limitations are most definitely self-imposed. Knowing this, or, believing this is both a blessing and a curse. It’s both greatly motivating and greatly hindering. If you really believe you’re capable of anything how can you possibly subject yourself to the mediocrity you might have to go through to get to the greatness you know can achieve? That is the question that has defined this first decade of adulthood.

I guess the point of this post is to make us think about how much of our limits are natural and how much we are actually limiting ourselves. Have any of you seen the movie yet? What were your thoughts on it? Did it make you consider an alternate version of your life where you are without limit, or was it just a fun 2 hours and 15 minutes? For those of you who haven’t seen it, what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

TheDuke is back tomorrow, and I’m going to close out the week on Friday. Also – for my DC readers, I’ll be down there on Saturday hosting a brunch with my SingleBlackMale.org fam – send an email to thelowerfrequency@gmail.com for the details if you’d like to attend.

Till then – stay low and keep firing.

5 Intriguing Aspects of Corporate America

Trying to make your way in corporate America can be a trying experience – especially if you don’t really consider yourself a corporate person. The corporate world has its own rules, traditions, types of people, and culture that, over time, individuals who make their careers in this arena must learn to work with and adapt to. But just because you can adapt, doesn’t mean you have to like it. In today’s post I want to explore my top 5 most intriguing idiosyncrasies and types of people I’ve come across while traversing corporate America. Let’s jump right in.

1. The ‘Blind CC’ (Also Known As Dry Snitching)

Truth be told, prior to working in corporate America, I didn’t even know there was a such thing as a “blind cc” in email applications like Microsoft Outlook. You actually have to go into your outlook settings and unhide that feature to use it. The blind CC is so not gangsta. Only your most especially slithery colleagues make consistent use of it.  The interesting thing is overtime, you begin to get a sixth sense about when someone is blind CC’ing someone else on an email they’ve sent you. You begin to notice the subtle changes in the nuances of the language they’re using. What would typically be a pretty casual, colloquial email now has all sorts of bullet points and semicolons. When these red flags go up, make sure you’re on your game when you respond. There’s a good chance the streets is watching.

2. Stupid Corporate Lingo

There really are some egregiously abhorrent variations of common English words that have somehow become part of the lexicon of corporate language. Some of my favorites (or least favorites I guess) are:

A) “Please Advise” – This is a pretty silly term because it unnecessarily replaces a question mark and I’m not quite sure if the sentence subsequently created is actually a question. For example, your boss might send you an email that states: “Please advise if the reports have been completed.”  When he could have just said, “Have the reports been completed?” See what I’m saying. What’s even more confusing is when they use both “Please Advise” and a question mark at the end. For example, “Please advise if the reports have been completed?”  What the heck does this mean? Is it a question or is it a statement that somehow requires a response? Wait, isn’t a statement that requires a response a question? Very confusing.

B) “Revert” – It’s always a little awkward when someone sends you an email and asks you to “revert” when they really just want you to respond. The next time someone sends you an email and substitutes “revert” for “respond” you should just send their same email back to them after you finish reading it.

C) “Thx” – Really though… are you that busy that you need to abbreviate a 6 letter word. How much time did you just save by shaving off 3 letters.

3. Subject Line Abusers

I once got a 3 paragraph email from a Managing Director that had absolutely nothing in the body of the email. The entire email was typed in lower case letters in the line that’s supposed to be reserved for the subject of the email. It was ridiculously annoying. I can’t tell you how tempted I was to follow suit and type my entire response in the subject line as well just to show dude how ridiculous that was.

4. “I’m really stupid and don’t know what I’m doing so I’m just gonna get by on being mean for no reason” managers.

Ever find yourself in a job with a manager who you’re quite sure you’re way smarter than? And then, to whit, they’re just mean for no reason. Makes it really hard to be motivated to get up and go to work every day doesn’t it? These people are the worst because somehow, they’ve climbed the corporate ladder and now, they’re finally in a position that’s probably a little above their talent level so, instead of surrounding themselves with smart people and encouraging or promoting them, instead, they surround themselves with smart people, work them to death, and treat them like crap. Sucks.

5. Geeks Rule the World

One of the more interesting things I’ve come to realize while working in corporate America is that Geeks rule the world. Now, before I start sounding too crazy, let me say, in my dictionary, the word geek has neither a positive or negative connotation. It’s just a word that describes a type of person. It’s funny because, you don’t realize it at first. At first everyone seems like they were probably pretty similar to you. You just assume everyone played sports in high school, partied their fair share in college and have a general idea of what to do should someone happen to throw a punch their way. You assume all this of course until you overhear you boss and his buddies discussing the ‘Magic the Gathering’ tournament they once won in high school. Or until you all meet to play some basketball after work and you realize that the kid who sits next to you not only can’t play basketball or any other sport, but barely knows how to run. It’s at that point that you realize, these dudes were all geeks. Like, Screech level geeks. Again not that there’s anything wrong with geeks. It’s just interesting to note that these are the guys who make the corporate world go round.

*Bonus*

I had to add one more because MagnetForFoolishness reminded me of one I’d forgotten. I can’t stand people who “Reply All” unnecessarily. The absolute worst are the people who reply all and say “Please Remove Me from this Distribution List.” And then you get a string of 40 or 50 emails from other people replying to all and saying different variations of “Please Remove.” Then you get the worst of the worst – the idiots who reply to all and say “PLEASE STOP REPLYING TO ALL.” Then another bright guy says “Dude, you just replied to all.” Has anyone else experienced this?

So there you have it. These are the things that annoy me, or that I find interesting and intriguing about working in corporate America. Feel free to vent about those things that bug you on your job, that annoy you or that, you just feel like talking about. Tuesday is the toughest day of the week so take advantage of this opportunity to blow off some steam as you approach hump day.

Whatever you do though, don’t let your boss see you typing your response… seriously… stay low and keep firing.

The Responsibilities of The Reappearing Man

- sometimes we just come out of the woodwork -

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had relationships that felt great, that met our needs at the time, that made us feel fulfilled and happy, but also ended so horribly that the idea of post-breakup communication was out of the question. Then, months, or years later, something happens. It’s almost inevitable.  Because we men are creatures of habit and because we can’t let you women just move on, there’s a good chance that at some point we pop up and try to reinsert ourselves into your lives.  We do damage, leave …  and then we reappear. Today’s post here on thelowerfrequecy is inspired by today’s post over at www.max-logic.com. There, my good friend Max is exploring what good and bad can come from rekindling an old flame that had once burned bright and strong only to be extinguished as epically and jarringly as one could possibly imagine.

Any good detective will tell you that criminals who are guilty can’t help but return to the scene of the crime; neither can we. When we know we’ve done wrong it’s in our nature to reappear for a number of reasons.

Sometimes we want to show you that we’ve changed, and are better people.

In this case, because we’re not trying to get back together with the woman, this is a ridiculously selfish reason to come back into her life. The guilt of what we’ve done is so affecting that we want you to know that we aren’t really that person any longer or that we never really were that person. We want you to see us for who we are and to know that we’re not the douche-bag we pretended to be when we were with you. In reality, we’re really great people – really – we are – our current girlfriends can attest – we really have changed. I’m sure that makes you guys feel great – knowing that you were the only person capable of bringing out the worst in us. Knowing that we’re not really interested in what you had to go through to heal or in knowing how you’ve moved on, all we want is to be able to sleep peacefully at night knowing that you know it wasn’t us now, it was us at that time in our lives or, it wasn’t us at all, it was you (don’t worry we forgive you). Or it wasn’t us, nor was it you, it was just the ‘we’, that brought that out. Either way, if this is why we’re reappearing, it’s probably best if we just stay gone.

Jen... is that you?

Sometimes we want to see whether or not you’ve changed.

Contrary to popular belief, we men are human. We do catch the vapors every once in awhile. The only thing better than meeting an awesome new woman is meeting an old girlfriend who now seems way more awesome than she was when you were with her. I’m sure social networking sites like facebook go a long way in exacerbating this. An old flame uploads new pictures and, voila, her phone turns into the “hey, it’s me, it’s been a minute…” hotline. When we’re interested in getting to know the new you our interest is not genuine. It’s more of a novelty. We want to prove to ourselves, and to you, that we didn’t make a mistake the first time around. That you’re not really that different, that the thing about you that always annoyed us is still there just below the glossy airbrushed surface of your new professionally taken profile pic. We want to find out whether you’ve been doing hella squats and that’s all you back there or whether that’s just an awesome camera angle. We want to know if that nonchalant confidence you exuded when you jetted off after briefly chatting with us when we bumped into you on the street was actually real confidence or the product of many-a-night spent practicing everything you’d say and do should you happen to randomly run into us somewhere. Again, if this is why we’re coming back, it’s selfish and we might as well stay gone.

Sometimes we’re just being manipulative.

Here’s a secret about some of us men I probably shouldn’t be telling. Sometimes, we just want control. Many of us went through a period in our lives where our most valuable talent was our ability to exert an unhealthy amount of control over the women we were dealing with. The thing about having that sort of control is that it makes it impossible to build any sort of lasting relationship. If we can control you, we can’t respect you. We can pretend to, but, in reality we don’t. The two things women reading this should take from this point are:

1) Never let a man have full control over you unless that man has married you.

2) If a man who once had that sort of control over you reappears, we probably just want to see if we still have it.

Be honest with yourself. If you’re unsure of whether or not you really are free, then when we come back, you need to run. Just run. Don’t be embarrassed, don’t try to prove to us that you’re free, just run the other way because you’re about to go through that same thing you went through all that time ago. I wish we weren’t this way, but sometimes, some of us are.

And Cue the PM Dawn

Sometimes, we realize what we’ve lost and are ready to be whatever we need to be to get it back.

Of all of the reasons a man might reappear, this is the most rare. Sometimes, without us really realizing, a woman can carve out a perfectly round little space in our hearts and lives. We leave her, thinking she’ll be the only one who experiences any loss, but, really, we lose too. Try as we may to fill that spot she left with the square pegs of another woman or of other women, there’s always a certain amount of emptiness that remains. And maybe one day we wake up and decide we’re going to give it another go. All we can do is reappear and hope our spot is still reserved.

Some say “all’s fair in love and war” and I agree to a certain extent, however, the fact that all is fair, doesn’t always mean all is right. As men, I think we sometimes have to take responsibility for the damage we’ve done and respect the fact that our women are entitled to rebuild themselves in whatever way they see fit.  We also have to be responsible about how we decide to return to their lives. We have to think about whether we are returning because we think we can ‘help’ them, whether we’re returning because of our own selfish motives, or whether we’re returning because we think there might be a real chance at a lasting “we” this time.

Fellas, have you ever popped back into the life of a woman you’d been with previously? How did things turn out the first time and how did things turn out the second time around? Ladies, have you experienced any of the above scenarios, or maybe one I’ve missed?  How do you approach rekindling old flames?  As always, feel free to over-share in the comments. And don’t forget to check out Max’s more personal account of the same topic at www.max-logic.com

By the way – sorry about last week folks – I was off gallivanting in Vegas. Vegas should be illegal. But I’m back now… low… and firing.

Fast Food Foolishness: Why is the Fast Food Industry Targeting Minorities?

Yes! With extra sauce!

If you haven’t noticed, the fast food industry has silently been in the crosshairs of documentaries and the educated public. Fast food conglomerates have had to engage in damage control against revealing films such as Food Inc. and Super-Size Me. The recent ascendancy of these investigative movies have provided food for thought (no pun intended). Consequentially, those who are educated or food conscious, would perceive fast food products with deep skepticism. We could easily run down the list of things that concern many of us: antibiotics and steroids; treatment of animals; complex additives used for preservatives; high fructose corn syrup; caloric intake, and so on. We’ve all heard rumors of how McDonald’s value meals will not degrade when stored at room temperature for one year or more. Need I say more?

Many concerned and informed Americans have “revolted” of sorts against what used to be (and still are, to a degree) the eating mainstays of American culture. I’m not talking about protests outside McDonald’s Headquarters out in Oak Brook, Illinois. Rather, many food-weary Americans are speaking with their wallets – attempting to make better choices and selectively purchasing healthier food products. You need not look farther than Dominos, the pizza restaurant chain to see the influence of consumer demands. They are on a campaign to address the quality of their food.

Further, it’s not happenstance that there is an increased focus on childhood obesity, diets children receive in school, and even proposed soda and sugar taxes by State Legislatures, and calorie charts on restaurant menus (New Yorkers, you know this all too well) These occurrences are the byproducts of accessible information describing the effects of what we consume. Bad news for the fast food industry, right? Think again.

Several developments are underway to re-adjust for this viral awareness of food quality. Unfortunately, as always, minorities are the ones that bare the impact. Let’s go through these factors, as they continue to compound negatively on minority communities.

The Recession and Unemployment: We started learning about the benefits of choosing organic products that are, on average, more expensive. Many people (or those who could afford it) are willing to pay the premium to have health food. However, the game changed once the recession hit. Although it’s rarely discussed, any recession that hits America hits minorities twice as hard, since they are employed in the professions that are most exposed to recession effects. For many minority families, it wasn’t question of what will be on the table tonight. It was a question of whether there will be anything on the table tonight. Enter the fast food companies. They knew many families were in a pitch, so what did they do? They posted rock bottom prices for their meals, which maximized sales. Fast food meals were cheaper than grocery items to make meals. Fast food restaurants flooded the market with coupons and certificates. This strategy was so successful; it appears as if restaurants underestimated demand.

Marketing: Fast Food Marketing has been mostly insidious in order to maximize sales from targeted and vulnerable groups. It not hard to notice the recent trend of marketing by fast food companies. First and foremost, the fast food industry introduces itself to the young intentionally. For years, they have aligned themselves with cartoons, sports, summer blockbuster hits, and even board games. Just ask yourself. When’s the last time you’ve seen Ronald McDonald or the Hamburglar grace the screen? This is no mistake at all. They still engage in targeted marketing strategy, but the targets have drastically changed. For instance, remember this commercial?. Or this one? In blatant fashion, the fast food industry flexes its muscle in its advertising campaigns to appeal to minorities through hip-hop and other mainstream cultural constructs. This is ironic, since searching for minorities in their commercials in the early nineties was like seeking out the Holy Grail, unless s/he was a prominent athlete. Embracing minorities is not a gesture of tolerance, but rather knowing who is more susceptible to purchase products, despite their health risks.

Franchise Placement: In urban areas, the placement of your neighborhood Burger King or White Castle is absolutely strategic. Companies do not select to build restaurants randomly. They perform research and evaluate who exactly will patronize their restaurants. Sadly, many minority neighborhoods are inundated with fast food restaurants. Walk down Fulton Street, Brooklyn. Take stroll down the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. You will quickly get a sense of how available fast food is. Once again, this is no mistake. This unhealthy food is ready, widely accessible and convenient for consumption. Areas like this are considered food deserts amongst policy wonks. That is, there exists a dearth of grocery stores that provide fresh produce and healthier choice products. Bodegas do not count either. Imagine the choices available for a poor mother with a child that lives in a food desert. Either she can travel to another neighborhood to purchase expensive groceries –which will take time to prepare – or walk down the street to purchase a “prepared” meal at a fraction of the cost.

All of these factors have an enormous cumulative effect. What if I were to add another variable, such as education and healthcare (or the lack thereof)? You can now appreciate how vulnerable these sub-populations are. We should all see through the pivot that these fast food chains have made.

But the questions remain. Are the fast food chains at fault for what they are doing? Are they taking advantage of the precarious situation some people are in? What can be done to break this cycle for underserved communities so that they may get the nutrition that they need and deserve?

Alright… Let’s hear it.

The Duke

Boyfriends in the Hood: Why Girlfriends Need to Give Their Men Credit

If Trey didn't get out of the car...

Some time ago, I met up with my friend George, who didn’t work too far away from me. We were rummaging through the streets in my friend’s high-powered sports car, looking for a decent happy hour with some of George’s law school friends. We finally met up at a restaurant and commenced downing beers and appetizers. It was nine of us, and I knew that six were married, two had girlfriends (including me) and one was single (George). But lo and behold, it was approaching 11PM on a weekday and we were still indulging in alcoholic gluttony. The first thought that came to me was “These cats must’ve got the night off from their wives”

One of George’s friends, spoke loudly and abruptly above the crowd. “Let’s go to Fuego!!!” This was followed by an almost uniform gesture of consensus. Apparently, Fuego was a famous (or infamous) run-of-the-mill strip club outside of the city. Here I am on a weekday about to hit a strip club past 11PM. I was excited about it, but I had to calculate whether it was worthwhile (I have a personal rule –I don’t go to strip clubs drunk, and that night I was very drunk). George noticed a look on my face and said. “Son, I know you’re not thinking about going home. So what’s good?” George basically called me out, I instantly had to let the group know I was down…at least for now. “Hell yeah, I’m going. We’re out”. I was practically lying through my teeth. I wasn’t sure, but I was hedging because I was wondering what my girlfriend’s reaction would be. Unsurprisingly, I was going through the calculus that all boyfriends go through when we precipitously decide to hang out with the boys. What do I say? How is this going to play out? Let’s do the math. Me + Strip Club + Late night + Alcohol + George, the most anti-relationship friend in my circle = Yeah, I’m going to catch some unneeded drama for this.

At that point I decided to man up. I told myself that I was going and that’s that. I’ll call her on my way there. It’s time to have my fun. Fast forward thirty minutes later, we’re in George’s car speeding down the street in a five car caravan and nearing the last train stop possible for me to go home.

Me: I’m having second thoughts.

George: Well speak now or forever hold your peace.

Me: (Five minutes later) Yo. Let me out.

George: What? You pulling a “Trey” on me? You want me to let you out right here?

Me: Yeah. I’m going home. (Left the car and proceeded to take the train home)

The “Trey” reference was appropriate. That scenario was completely reminiscent of the Boyz N’ the Hood car scene, hence today’s title. Let’s be honest. Nothing good was going to come out of my visit to Fuego in my condition. I would’ve probably blown one hundred of hard earned dollars there. The chances of me engaging in something nefarious were small, but I didn’t want to put myself in that situation, especially when I had six to seven bears flowing through me and running with a pack of “wolves”. I was having too much fun that night. There’s nothing wrong with that, however, as The Most has told me repeatedly, “When you know you’re having too much fun, you need to go home.” I made the right decision.

But here’s my beef. As faithful boyfriends, I don’t think our girlfriends give us enough credit when we make disciplined and responsible decisions. Girlfriends probably think that such rational decisions are a cakewalk, and therefore common sense. Absolutely not. If they only knew the situations men are put under – sometimes of the man’s own doing, and sometimes not. Here’s why:

Peer Pressure: It’s a hell of a drug. Subconsciously, a boyfriend tries to maximize his fun when he is out with his friends. Mainly, its because he probably doesn’t do this as often as he could. It’s almost like a release. With this playing out, it’s incredibly easy to be susceptible to the peer pressure. For instance, remember how George called me out in front of the group of married men. I will admit what I was subjected to peer pressure in making my decision, but what was a brother to do? Allegorically, a soldier needs a war to validate that he is a soldier. This is not to say that girlfriends should be leery when the “boys” go out, though. Peer pressure can be exerted without the presence of boyfriend’s friends.

Fighting the Vices: We all have our vices. No matter who you are, you will have urges to engage in something that you necessarily shouldn’t. The urge to engage in your vices is exacerbated when you see your friends engage in it, whether they are single or not (like this group). You start thinking, “Well damn, why can’t I do that?” This is the mental battle that we all go through and we start rationalizing or desensitizing the consequences of giving into your vice. You’ll start saying, “This is not that bad” or “Hey, I need to have my fun. Plus, I’m not married yet”. Thinking this way is like marijuana – it’s the gateway to something worse. At the end of the day, it’s about what we did, not what we thought. However, I would be lying to you if I didn’t think that thoughts increase the likelihood of actions. Kudos to boyfriends out there who make the “right” decisions.

Staying Out of Dodge: This is closely related to the previous point and very short. I would argue that peer pressure and succumbing to your vices automatically puts boyfriends in precarious situations. “How does he stay faithful in a room full of [expletive]? Answer: Knowledge, discipline, and an understanding of the consequences.

At the end of the day, I felt proud leaving George’s car. I fought off the peer pressure; I fended off my vices (I have an affinity for strip clubs, and have not been to one in two years – bachelor parties don’t count though), and stay out of trouble. Many of my peoples would argue that The Duke is officially p***y-whipped. Au Contraire, mon frère. I’d say I knew my limits and I made a responsible decision, given the situation (girlfriend, work, money, etc).
At the end of the night I wanted full credit for the decision I made. I proceeded to call my girlfriend, to let her know that I could have been, but decided otherwise.

Me: …yeah, so I decided not to go and took my behind home

Girlfriend: But sweetheart, I wouldn’t have cared if you went. You should have had fun with the boys. Sounds like fun.

Me: (Confused, shaking my head) Oh, okay.

Losing. (Bi-losing at that)

The Duke

Having a Baby and All it Entails

Phew! That Was Close

So, this week in the MostInterestingHouseholdInTheWorld we had a little bit of an adventure.  We took our first home pregnancy test. We didn’t really think anything would come of it, it was more for fun than anything else. But, after it was all said and done,  something happened. Something I wasn’t quite expecting. I found myself feeling a fleeting, almost undetectable but quite real sense of slight disappointment. After all of the nervousness and anticipation, when it was all said and done, I was, for a moment, sad to find out that we wouldn’t be adding to our little family. That moment quickly passed as I remembered just how selfish MrsMost and I are in our enjoyment of each other, our current household arrangements and lifestyle. Neither of us are quite ready to change all of that. Ultimately, we had to ask ourselves – do we want to have a baby, or do we want to be parents? If I’m being honest, the answer to the first question is probably “yes” and the answer to the second question is most definitely “Not yet.”  But having that little mini-scare brought up a great deal of fun and exciting thoughts of what it would be like to be parents – some of which I’m going to share with you all today.

1. Boy and girl Twins would be Awesome.

I love the idea of having boy and girl twins for a myriad of reasons. I think the Mrs. and I are pretty settled on having no more than 2 kids and ideally, we’d like to have one of each gender. To knock them both out in one shot would be great. The further apart you have your children the more consecutive years you have to deal with the not so great parts of having babies. If your kids are 1 to 2 years apart, then you have to deal with having an infant in the house for 4 consecutive years, then 2 straight years of terrible 2s, then 6 straight years of paying for college – you get the picture. I’d rather just get it all done at once. Besides that, having twins just seems like perfection. MrsMost is a twin and her and her sister are essentially inseparable and I think that would be cool.

2. The Evolution of Household Roles

If our family was a corporation, I’d be the CEO (Corporate Executive Officer) and MrsMost would be the COO (Corporate Operational Officer). The two roles are equally important and necessary to the company’s success, but have different responsibilities and functions. Essentially, the CEO is charged with planning and insuring the execution of the macro level, long term goals and the COO is charged with running the day to day functions of the business.  I make the budget and decide the long term financial plans, MrsMost writes all the checks. As parents, I feel like this dynamic would play itself out ten fold.  If LiLMost doesn’t want to clean their room, MommyMost is pulling the ‘switch’ off the tree in the backyard and going to town on LilMost’s hind parts. But if LilMost gets a bad report card he’s gonna have to go have a sit down with DaddyMost.

3. The influence of the child’s gender on our parenting dynamic.

If I have to choose, I’d rather have a girl. Growing up, in addition to my two awesome brothers, I always wanted a little sister. Eventually I realized that wasn’t going to happen so my desire for a sister has morphed into a desire for a daughter. The term “daddy’s little girl” would take on new meaning were I to have a daughter. MrsMost would have to be in charge of all the child’s disciplinary needs because I am completely disarmed and disabled by little girl cuteness. On the flip side, I’ll probably go to the opposite extreme were I to have a son as I’m sure MrsMost would. With a son, I feel like I’d be more concerned with preparing him for life in this cold, harsh world than concerned with whether or not he liked me growing up. Conversely, I think MrsMost would let way more stuff slide with a boy and would find herself overly concerned with  his feelings and emotions. Neither is probably the healthiest attitude and I’m sure we’ll work out some sort of balance when the time comes but for now, that’s what I envision.

4. We’re selfish in our love for each other.

As I alluded in the opening, the Mrs. and I are pretty selfish in our love for each other right now. Not only do we love each other, but, we also like each other a whole lot. We enjoy spending time together, hanging out, traveling, partying, coming home drunk and forgetting to take pills… you know, the usual stuff people our age like to do. A big part of me is just not ready to give all that up. I’m also not quite ready to give up the attention and affection lavished on me right now because I am my wife’s top priority. Selfish, I know. But so what. That’s why we got married.

So yeah, we’re not having kids just yet, but I do have babies on the mind and it makes for some fun thought and projecting. How do you guys picture yourselves as parents? What sort dynamic do you see between you and your spouse, future spouse (if you’re currently engaged), or imaginary spouse (if you’re a single person).  For those of you who are married with kids, how did that change the dynamic of your relationship with your spouse and do you guys have clearly defined roles in your child’s life or do your roles fluctuate from one parent to the other?

Happy Humpday (as ironic as that sounds)

Stay Low and Keep Firing (as ironic as that sounds)

Role Play: The Difficult Choice Between Friends and Personal Ambitions

Based on a true story as told to the Duke. I’m just the messenger. Special thanks to Mega for the story inspiration.

Brent couldn’t wait for his best friend Reese to arrive. Their meeting was bound to happen. Both friends went to colleges that were less than two hours away. They plan was simple. Reese, who had the car, would pick up Brent at his school, Tech. After, both good friends would make their trek back to Reese’s school, State. It would be the first time that Brent would embark on a college road trip. Definitely, good times ahead, Brent thought.

Thirty minutes into the trip to State, Brent’s excitement quickly deflated. Reese begins to tell him some issues he has had at State. “Yeah, so I need to put you on to some beef I got into at State.” Reese humbly admitted.

“Beef? What do you mean? What did you get into now? You just got there…” Brent said, knowing how Reese would react to the statement. Out of the both of them, Reese was the hothead that always had his chest out. Reese never looked for trouble, but it always seemed to follow him. Unsurprisingly, Brent couldn’t remember a confrontation that Reese ever shied away from. “Me? Why it got to be me.” Reese said defensively.

With an air of consternation, Reese explains the situation. Some guys on campus didn’t like Reese for reasons unclear from Brent’s perspective, but he assumed it was female related. Whatever it was hate or jealousy, Reese wasn’t sure. Apparently, Reese’s quandary deteriorated to the point where a group of men tried to rush Reese’s dorm room to serve him a beatdown. Luckily, Reese and his roommate Ricky, a mutual friend from their old neighborhood, were able to force the door closed against the invasion. “So yeah, that was last week. The block is hot out here.” Reese ended. “Well, at least Ricky’s with you. ” Brent replied, desperately providing some consolation. Reese gave Brent a look that was well understood. In tough binds, you need certain people in your corner. Ricky wasn’t one of them.

The two men finally arrived at State. The campus looked dreary and awfully institutional. Brent and Reese spent most of the day shooting the breeze and meeting Reese’s friends, including Ricky. “Well that’s encouraging. Reese actually made some friends out here” Brent thought. It was no surprise that they were all women. Nighttime was quickly approaching and we were planning to head for a campus party. As we got dressed, Reese mentioned, “Brent, I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. I’m not saying anything’s going to happen, but keep your eyes opened. Either way, we’re going to have fun regardless.”

Brent understood and was amazed at the situation. He thought he left all the drama and issues back home. He never thought he had to deal with such silliness at a college. However, he understood that it was foolish to dismiss the situation because it wasn’t going to just disappear. Brent knew that he had to be ready, especially since he had no idea what he was getting into. As ashamed has he felt about it, Brent decided to arm himself with a small screwdriver. Brent was certain he wouldn’t actually use it, but he felt safer having it. Reese had his pocket knife. Later that night, the two entered the party. Reese did a good job of identifying those who had a problem with him, which Brent appreciated. It was at least four to five of them present. Throughout the night, Reese enjoyed himself, but Brent felt that he had to be the eyes and ears for the night.. That meant no dancing and no alcohol. As the night progressed on, Brent thought the night would end without incident. That was, until, one of the men was in close proximity of Reese, who was distracted by dancing with a very attractive woman. Brent was on red alert instantly. He waited very closely for the first move that would be made on Reese while anxiously gripping the screwdriver in his pocket. “Here we go…” Brent thought. But strangely, no move was made and Brent was quite surprised and relieved. At the end of the party, Reese and Brent discussed what almost happened, and proudly laughed it off.

The weekend was over and Brent was glad that there was no incident. Reese drove Brent back to Tech, recapping their weekend through discussion. “Son, you need to be careful man. Just focus on school. That’s what you’re here for.” Brent pleaded. “Yeah, yeah. I know man. I got it though. It’s nothing. I’ll be alright,” Reese said. Unconvinced, Brent accepted Reese’s nonchalant response. Brent was back on campus and Reese headed back to State.
For the next two weeks, Brent focused on school and was making a push to be more involved on campus. He particularly had his eyes on an upcoming interview to become an officer for one the most popular student groups on campus. The student group had enormous clout on the campus, and it would certainly be part of the U-turn Brent wanted to make academically and socially. Brent had all intentions of making the interview this coming Sunday. That is, until he received a phone call.

It was Reese. “Yo man. I got jumped last night. These assholes caught me good man. I’m all right, but I can’t go out like this. It’s going down this weekend. I had to make the phone call. Cats are rolling up.” “Damn” Brent thought. “All right, cool.“ Brent said regrettably. The plan was set in motion from there. Reese and Brent made phone calls back home to coordinate the arrival of their friends. Brent and Reese’s entire team agreed to rendezvous at Tech (Brent’s school) on Saturday night, only to travel toward State to handle business on Sunday. However, Brent knew that he had a huge problem. His interview was on Sunday and he knew an opportunity like this would not come again. Stubbornly, Brent put off that concern. He was more concerned about Reese. Nonetheless, he knew he had to make a decision soon.

Enter Saturday night. The team arrived five cars deep to Tech. Brent and Reese updated the crew on the situation and the news surmised to one reality: Chances are , they were going to fight tomorrow. While the crew relaxed, Brent pulled Reese aside. “Yo bro, I got a problem. I’m trying to decide if I should come tomorrow. I got this thing that I need to be that’s really important, and if I miss it… I just don’t know man”. Brent confided. Reese looked dumbfounded. “What do you mean? I’m going to need you to have my back tomorrow. What’s more important that you come through?” Reese curiously wondered.

“It’s school related, man. I’ll let you know in a few minutes,” Brent said unconvincingly. “All right, let me know son. I need you though” Reese stated.

Brent was torn apart. He was as thick as thieves with Reese. They’ve known each other for nine years and had endless trials and adventures together. There was no one Brent was more loyal to, and to make matters worse, Brent knew that Reese would have his back in second – no questions asked.
However, Brent really wanted this opportunity. He could not afford to be late or to have a scratch on his face for this interview. Brent tried hard to turn around his grades this semester and become a leader on his campus. The interview was his first step to meet his ambitions for the semester, even though getting the position was not guaranteed. Brent just couldn’t decide.

Thirty minutes passed. It was time to leave for State and handle thri business. Reese approached the conflicted Brent. “Son, we’re about to roll out. You coming?”

To the readers: What does Brent do? Does he go and help his friend? Or does he stay at school for the interview?

Please post your answer with your reasons. I will reveal what Brent decided later on in the day.