I Think I'm Done

• Facebook closure... CHECK
• Twitter logout... CHECK
• Blog wrap-up... CHECK

I write. A LOT. I just don't think it's anything I'd like to share anymore.

I really love where my life is at the moment. I am satisfied with things, even though I keep dealing with death and sickness. The finality and destruction of things teaches me that this is a cycle. Life itself of this plane of existence s just a circle.

I remember when I started truck driving.  I didn't have an eyeglass prescription or a GPS... I started wearing glasses and bought a GPS in 2007. A couple of years after I started seriously driving cross country, I attempted to function without my specs recently... and I couldn't.

I could not see, but I remember when I did, and very well. And I remembered when I didn't use that damned GPS to get from Jersey City to Compton... On the interstate... In a truck.

I want to go back to that.

There was a time not long ago when Blogger and Facebook did exist, but I was not in it. 

There was a time not long ago when the matriarch of my family wasn't all twisted up on her left side because she didn't have a stroke.

There was a time where I didn't have to stand with doctors and discuss me signing a DNR form.

There was a time where my mother did not see her deceased mother as much, pondering her own death.

There was a time where my wife thought she understood my heavy burden dealing with life's shit, but she really only empathized.... And never really understood.

There was a time when I just went to sleep and didn't give a minute to pondering my own death.

Death and sickness is all around me. It consumes most of my time. There is no blogging, twitter time or facebook play, although other people find way too much time to dive right in enough not to ask me about my day...

Because they avoid not only the reality of social standing, politics and fake-ass religion, they avoid the reality of the time we actually have before death or sickness drops out of the sky to get their asses.

So as much as I want to take the time and share my shit, I realize that it's only that... Shit. I mean, really... I get a good amount of hits on this forum and I even have a nice handful of folk who follow or RSS this blog and I appreciate that you stop by but... I know in the reality of things that I'm just weekday cubicle fodder for most. I help you waste away the day like a whole lot of other bloggers. While I never write to entertain a mindless mass, I thought I'd share... And I have.

Know that my life is no joke. Yours isn't either.

Since I started bloging in 2004, I've shared a lot about me. I never provided names or detailed shit out of respect to girlfriends, partners in crime, classmates, co-workers even enemies because they all deserve respect, and I feel that I have given that. I even had an relationship-esque episode that I absolutely have not talked about right around mid to late 2007 because the past is the past. Even though she brought and continually brings me up. Methinks I awakened something back in December when I made reference to some folk my wife and I dealt with that caused the innernetgossipfolk to stir some shit up. 

Funny thing is, when I'm thru with bullshit (the ordeal became a he said she said) I am thru, and this is the first time I officially actually addressed shit since that time. I'm sorry if you thought I was talking about you because I wasn't. I left that shit alone in 07' I really did. You have the right to be angry at me because I cut you off while I owed you money, but I do not owe anyone, including you an explanation. My actions were my actions, you don't have to indict my wife so get offa' that shit. You and her were truly innocent in my dealings. I did notice (because I never did look back until December when folk were EMAILING old blog passages (along with my December rants) from both me and you... Imagine that?) that you painted her and another person wrong when it is me you have the beef with. I see that you're still angry and you have a right to be. Keep them energies on me, not anyone else. I have no anger or beef with anyone because I saw through all the bullshit kinfolk told me after I got back to Chicago. And for the record, I've always thought you were cute. That one line you threw in there about not being beautiful, please cut that shit out! That is SO not cute.

See, I was involved with some folks and it turned into bullshit. I feel like since this should be my last blogpost (and that's how things got started, thru blogging) I'd address thangs. I did. That's all I got.I'm done. Bullshit has happened before. Will probably happen again to someone else. Whatever man. Might happen to your ass when you get personal in your blogging and other people try to get into your shit. I just maintain that you keep it moving. Trust me. At least no one in my current or former circles faked death to evoke emotion from the Brown Blogosphere. If you don't know about that one... My name is Bennet... And I ain't in it. Ask around and do a little research on that one. Some of y'all old heads remember that foolishness.

I think because how my life is full these days that my regular blogging thing is finished. I really feel like there isn't much for me to give these days. Maybe I'm wrong, but my writing has gotten very unfocused and all over the place, well what I've delivered here and it might be time to do other things or do things in a different manner. I love the connections I've made through this forum, and I really don't want to leave... But I feel like Twitter is a better forum for me (even though I haven't tweeted in a minute) because you only have 140 characters to get that shit right. Control seems to work better for cats like me. That and it doesn't take up too much time.

I guess this would be the time for me to announce that I have a radio show in the works, huh? Oh, and none of that BlogTalkRadio stuff... I'm talking about syndicated stuff (because money from commercial sales and affiliate marketing is real nice) that'll make me visible. I don't like the concept, but I signed on last year to an idea that is finally launching in the next quarter. Obligations.

Writing and speaking commentary are two different things, huh?

I am so shameless.

But know that what I really want to do is have more time. Time to continue travelling. Time to raise babies into adults. Time to deal with life. I gotta take care of my parents now like they have me. I have to deal with siblings like adults, very unlike freeze-tag and fake wrestling. I gotta' deal with my wife, invest more time into my equitable partnership (and let her mother know that she can only be a spectator and not a player). I have to care for the sick, fallen and the ill. I have to attend more of my classmate's funerals (one last week, another next). I have to complete my Holistic Health Practitioner designation so I can better understand how to unfat and decholesterolize (I'm making words UP in here) my family and friends as well as myself.

As much as life drags me down and burns my ASS.... I wanna' live.

And that may require less blogging and more doing... Other stuff.

I think I'm done.

I think.

.

Where The Last Shall Be First

I came across this article in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday. I thought it was worth a re-print sort to speak. I never got Black History Week when I was a kid and I didn't get it when they made it into a month, so let's hear it from black history herself...

BY MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA Staff Reporter

"I have a scar on my back I got when I was a slave. . . . You got people out there with this scar on their brains. . . ." -- from the 1974 movie "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,'' now on DVD

Throughout this month, we asked Chicagoans and prominent visitors their thoughts on Black History Month. Most said it is still relevant, though many questioned relegating the celebration of a people's history to any specific period.

» Click to enlarge image

Ethel Darden is pictured in the 1930s (left), and on Saturday at Montgomery Place in Hyde Park, where she just celebrated her 110th birthday.

(Courtesy/John J. Kim~Sun-Times)

PHOTO GALLERY

Ethel Darden's 110th birthday

We close the month with 110-year-old Ethel Darden of Hyde Park, tied with another supercentenarian as Illinois' oldest resident.

Born in Dallas, Texas, on Feb. 17, 1900, to Ella Mary Allen and Charles Boswell, two schoolteachers, she is a pioneering educator who helped establish the city's first private, nonsectarian school for blacks, the Howalton Day School.

Founded in 1947 by her sister Doris Allen-Anderson and two other women, the school operated until 1986. It was responsible for educating many of Chicago's black elite, including the children of boxer Joe Louis, U.S. Rep. Ralph Metcalfe, historian Timuel Black, Judge R. Eugene Pincham and Mayor Eugene Sawyer.

In 1996, she donated the school's archives to the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library's Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection.

"There were five of us girls. The whole darn family became educators," said Darden, laughing as she smoothed out a brown ruffled dress with her long, slender rhinestone-ringed fingers.

"She's sweet as pie, always full of smiles and laughter," said her caretaker and close friend, Betty Miller. "She still has that southern genteel. Occasionally, she'll ask me, 'Honey, is he colored or white?' "

Darden outlived her siblings and husband, Lloyd Darden, a successful accountant she married in 1942 before the couple moved here. She lives at Montgomery Place, a retirement home staffed by University of Chicago Medical Center physicians.
Her doctor, William Dale, said he's in awe at the health of Darden, who occasionally enjoys a glass of wine.

"She has no diseases, takes no prescriptions and looks decades younger," he gushed. "And while her short-term memory is poor, her long-term memory is very intact." Darden attended Dallas Colored High School, graduated in 1921 from the historically black Wiley College in Marshall, Texas -- featured in the 2007 movie "The Great Debaters" -- taught 20 years in Dallas schools, then 40 years here.
Here's what she had to say:

"You know, sometimes I don't like to look back. It's hard enough to look front. When I think about the past too much, it knocks me down. "I came up with Jim Crow. But I didn't let it bother me. I was just living. We didn't have money, anyway, to go places they didn't want us. In the South, we knew where we could go and couldn't. Didn't have to hear them say it. It was written loud and clear, 'Whites Only.' 'For Colored.' "It was terrible what they did to black folks those days. Lynched them. Burned them. I don't want to talk too much about that.

"Dr. [Martin Luther] King came to our church. My twin sister and I sang a duet for him. I liked him. He wasn't afraid of anybody. Marched up to Washington. He asked our help. We collected money in jars at school. I did march. One time, we put on buttons to protest, marched right downtown and had breakfast. I wasn't scared.

"I honor all those who tried to make it good for us, so we could come downtown and have lunch if we wanted to. The Civil Rights Act was a great day because I felt free at last. That I could walk with my head up, that we were free to go to any school at last. I did feel good.

"Black president? Didn't think so soon, but I felt we'd eventually have a black everything. I don't like to say 'black' history. It's just history.

"I don't know why I lived so long. I never thought of it. Just tried to do my work and treat people the right way. There's a road you have to take, and you take it. It's been a good life. I wouldn't say a 'fine' life, just 'good.' Could have been worse.
"A white man is a white man. Let him be white. A black man is a black man. Let him be black. Just watch the way they treat you as a human being. Treat folks right, and respect them the way God would have you do. Let history take care of itself."

You Delight A Satellite

I got your favorite planet in my pocket

But it ain't the one you pay attention to.

I got the one that has the hue of a large chunk of amber

hold it to yours and you can see the frozen past

You keep staring at the ones that some deem official

while I keep the chiseled chunks of fallen stars

and once bright meteorites

I use a telescope in measured sight

you gravitate to moissanite

It's the measure of who you are

identify your fallen star

Pieces

Sometimes when you pick them up the dust crumbles thru your fingertips

and reform earth

even though they ain't from here.

Keep them watchful eyes to corner skies

to monitor the rise and fall of moonbeams and ultra violet rays

as I manage the dust

It's so hard to do that under the warming vibes of the sun

and the map yielding light of the one satellite 

you've always held dear

I have those now to watch over and guide me.

You delight a satellite

and dance within its vaunted rays

every day I make my way

by the light, your constant play

I close my eyes and feel your rays

when darkness falls you pave my way

Your light a constant warmth for me,

The only way I truly see.

2010 Hassan Ntimbanjayo (I just made that up) - Ya Dig?

When White Privilege Just Isn't Enough

Feb 20, 2010

I started this post yesterday. I never got around to finishing it due to having 'stuff' to do. I think being in the midwest, lacking twelve full hours of sunlight has a way of having a diminished sense of seeing things sometimes. I am happy with my life and how I am in it. Yeah, I've made hard choices, command decision and mistakes that affected not only myself but others along the way, and I am satisfied with every move I've made. It's my life and I refuse to be unhappy.

I also understand that being who I am, living in the era I live in has its... Limitations. I try hard every day to try to deal with the world as if I have none even though I know that every step I take, someone that has no clue as to how it is to walk in my shoes puts a tiny pebble of doubt, hate, misunderstanding or prejudice in my pocket. By the time I get home from my day's journey, I have the equivalent of a quarry by the way of my trousers.

I never asked for it. Neither did my grandfather or his grandfather, but it has been given to us and we still carry it. Never have I asked anyone who hasn't ever driven down my block to come there because I know that they cannot stomach the bullshit, but it is spoon fed there, so the expectations of men who look like me are low. Results contrived for the solutions to the world's problems are unexpected, dividends aren't even considered to be yielded unless I can score touchdowns or hit jumpshots.

But I'm 40 now and there isn't a market for me. Well, it isn't that large. Never has been, even though some of us have climbed through open windows of opportunity and have made impact. The fact remains that there are no expectations for us. It is the mark of the attitude of living with and whithin the status quo, even though we have so much to offer. 

We should be angrier. We should hold a grudge one million times more than we already have. The atrocities committed against those that look like me that has happened in MY lifetime...

And I'm not supposed to ask for reparations

I'm not supposed to bring certain conversation up

I'm not supposed to want apologies

I'm not supposed to feel the pain of all of my lost mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters

I'm supposed to just smile and take it, forgiving the sons and daughters 

And we do.

We just take it.

And we act like it never happened.

And then when the TV gets turned on to the nightly news, we see a brand new form of a very old version of an anger so horrid that it reminds me of the days where it was common place to see another me swinging from a tree.

And I believe that just the sight of our current sitting president causes such a feeling.


When White Privilege Just Isn't Enough  - 2/19/2010



I've been black my whole life.

I've been a witness to a lot of travesty.

I've had to live in a world... No, a country where folk are shunned from keeping it real. I mean it's looked down upon and for some, it's downright disrespectful to bring certain stuff up in conversation. I would have never made it growing up in the Jim Crow or Civil Rights Era.

The truth is the truth and unfair is unfair.

This country was founded on rebellion, slavery and developing stolen land from the native peoples. This country has also thrived on military might, racism and a class based system that pits the middle against the lower, leaving the upper to prosper in the brokering of the class wars. To watch the utter arrogance of the American people as we speak against the development of other nations... To watch how we police the world so no other nation can gain equal footing burns my ass when just a few days ago the men who murdered Sean Bell...

Never mind about that.

What we're all witnessing these days is not the elimination, but the decline of white privilege. The country as a whole is taking a new shape by the numbers and those who had the unspoken privileges and graces in the past are getting balanced out in more ways that one.

I cannot finish this because of how I feel right now. There is an anger that I feel coming from parts known that feel like the stuff I've seen from the horrid past. Fear, trepidation xenophobia and finger pointing because there is someone else sitting in the office of power and certain folk just can't stand it.

They are angry and upset because for a few scant hours in their lives they have almost been made to live like we have for ages. It ain't everybody but... It's enough to take notice.


You know:
None of my family ever brought guns to a health care rally.
No one I know flew an airplane into a Federal use building.
I've used the N-word before, but to my knowledge, I haven't replaced it with the word 'Socialist'

It might be high time I got on my horse to warn the folks to start clinging onto their guns and religion

incomplete 2/19

Ask Yourself

I really enjoyed my weekend.
My sister and brother in law brought the kids in from Dallas and we all gathered together to celebrate my brother's twin son's birthday by hanging out at an indoor water park. Good times were had and great, laughable stories were made this weekend. I can't wait to hang out again with my sibs this summer when we trek to Disney in Florida.

This past weekend was a pre-vacation for my other half and I. I think I mentioned that we're headed to the Bayou in a bit for a real two weeker of alligator, coffee and beignets as well as a whole bunch of etouffee. Lord, I can't wait for that. Things have been real busy around here and it would be nice to just get to a nice spot and experience a little slow and quiet. Chicago will tax your friggin' brain and overrun you with business if you let it.

I have absolutely nothing to say about Chris Matthews, Dick Cheney or John Mayer. I need folks to ask themselves a few real questions that actually matter like:

• Why are black and brown folk so damn affected by the so-called recession?

• Why are black and brown folk seemingly 'just taking' the negative results of current opinion polls as well as managing the negative outcomes of labor employment statistics?

• Is it just me or does it feel like there is some stagnant waiting period going on right now in minority communities?

• Why isn't there more reactionary activity taking place in our communities?

• Where the hell are the proactive lobbies, and why aren't they addressing congress?

• Why exactly did we wait for so-called black leadership to address the president last week when the pressing socio-economic elephant in the room has always been there?

Instead of placing blame on all things external (like calling John Mayer racist last week), where are the ideas and actions that would bring forth the necessary change to actually move people ahead? I'm seeing a lot of folk sitting on their hands right now and I don't understand why.

There seems to be a lot of folk running and hiding from the issues when it seems to be the time to asses and reassess what seats need to be filled in congress both on the federal and state levels. If folks like Senator Evan Bayh have become totally discouraged in the federal legislative process, then who should become candidate to fill that seat?

From Gary to Indianapolis to Evansville and all parts between, the state of Indiana has tons to lose in funding, jobs and farm support if the wrong person is chosen to rep there.  I mean, from the steel, iron and manufacturing personnel needed for the bridge and road repair that our president's administration got off the ground to the high speed rail project, Indiana has a lot to loose...

And there are 10 other states that can use the right candidate to get the job done with job creation and with repositioning federal dollars to provide for workforce payroll instead of unemployment benefits and the like.

We must eliminate the thought process that we must continue along with the status quo. There are a ton os 'isms' that are still in effect if we continue thinking along these lines. What is happening with the thinking process and how we're coping with them is NOT okay.

What am I talikg about? Ask Keith Olbermann and then ask yourself.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You got an answer?

Water

I thought I'd be sad or something seeing that I lost my beloved MacBook Sunday morning. I was mixing up my herbs, playing with my juicer (spirulina primarily - I gets my greens in son!) and I was adding some crushed L-Arginine to a glass of water when I tipped the liquids right on on the keyboard.

Damn!

And then I realized...

The only thing I fried was the logic board. I noticed that this was my chance to have an opportunity to upgrade to something bigger and better like a titanium MacBook Pro.

An UPGRADE!


GLORY!!!

It's a better feeling than the Saints winning on Sunday night. My water moment was funnier than the Sarah Palin comedy hour the night previous.

I mean, I think I am the only one watching this stuff? I know that I can't be. Everyone seems to be a little too pre-occupied doing other stuff to be concerned about their health and well being, and I mean 'the process' IS about our health and welfare. The marginalization of our current leadership is moving into a third phase and no one seems to care.

Enough about that. The missus and I are packing up for our NOLA trek next week but first... Indoor water park activities with the nieces and the nephews.

I guess this past and next weekend's theme is all about water.

The Long Walk Home

It's impossible to think that I walk this path alone.


I just cannot be.
It is very impossible for my mind to contemplate
But for some strange reason if this is to be

I truly understand


Even if I don't wanna.
Even if I'm headed home, being away for so long
that I can't even remember



There were times upon time itself as I traveled where when I looked around
all I saw was the endless trail of my own footsteps
And it's shameful because I've come this far

No water
No pause
uninterrupted, without a single hitch in my step

and then I realize...

A lot kinfolk and those I held dear
let me walk right past them
without even lifting their head

Acknowledgements meaningless
unfocused energies
unfettered emotion

lack of eye contact, not even giving me a simple walker's hello

Hey stranger!


never lifting an arm to wave into the distance
Offering sanctuary
extending shelter
sharing overabundant libations

or even

a drop

of kindness
So my next thought is to not even look back
as I travel over blazing sands

their worth in this moment of my extreme thirst and fatigue
is the value of a pillar or salt.

So I never lose pace


I just keep walking.

Might as well then, right?
There's more for me to indulge when I get home.

whenever that will be
if it'll ever happen
however I might try to continue

I just keep telling myself:
keep walking. I'm almost there.


2010 Hassan Olumoroti Ntimbanjayo - Ya' Dig?








I remember telling myself that things would be different when it happened back then. I just didn't know how much. It seems the trade off is a bit scathing if you ask me. Folks aren't afraid to let you know that they tolerate this as just a temporary measure, that 100,000 people have set an agenda that will topple the current political power structure.


I think that's a bunch of bullshit.




I also think that folk that say things just to get you to regurgitate it so that the other guy will believe it is an old and tired practice but we still fall for it anyway. After all of the years of struggle to get free it seems like the being free part wasn't what we really bargained for. Most folk that look like, related to and fraternize with me really wanted to be validated. It's good enough for all of us now so sleep is a necessity.


Also bullshit.




I bet you President Obama is feeling like a broke-ass Nino Brown eight now because nobody is putting in any work. With all of the unemployed folk out there right now, you'd think that folks would get constructive and start bartering and creating some sort of grass-roots economy.


Sheeeeyit. That's socialism.


Idiots!


I read about whole societies that were lazy, uninterested and unmotivated. They fell quickly.


And to think... These obstructionist bastids actually think they'll get their country back the same way they had it by doing nothing, keeping the ball away from the change guy and then doing the exact same things that got us in this rut in the first place.


And we extend a hand to them because we need to remain cordial.




The same folks that brought guns and rifles to rallies and have utter contempt for cats like me. Luckily, I still have a few field manuals and some recent range training.










And now, I go back to doing my thing.