Tuesday, May 27, 2008

One Week Since You Looked At Me

It’s been a whole week since I’ve electrifyingly concluded anything for you guys, and boy, what a week it was. I tell ya, us humans can really jam ourselves up, can’t we? I can’t call it; who knows why we do all the dumb sh-t we do that we know we’ll have to pay for later? I hope y’all been surviving and thriving. If you’ve been experiencing more of the former and less of the latter, just know that you aint alone as far as that goes. I’ll make sure that when I have my nightly glass of wine, I toast to our collective prosperity. Followed by a li’l self-assessment, proactivity, and prayer, I’m sure tomorrow will be as awesome as we deserve it to be.

Now. What’s been goin’ on? You mean besides the fact that someone in my building took my Reebok shoes? Yeah man. Folks in my building leave their wet kicks outside their doors all of the time. Me having more than a li’l hood runnin’ through my veins, I wasn’t with that for the first 9 months of residency, but then decided to start doing as the Romans do. I live in a pretty nice building on an alright block in Morris Heights, Bronx (Yeah, I know, who woulda thunk, right? I’ll tell ya who. The folks behind the new Yankee Stadium. I live about a ½ mile away. As I drive past the gigantic new mall complex being constructed, the new train stop, and all of the middle-class housing encroaching on the blocks where hip-hop began and the families who’ll soon be driven out of the some of the last affordable nabes in N.Y., I realize that gentrification has boogied on all the way uptown. Makes me think. We’re intent on buying property close by, especially since most folks are sleeping, assuming the Bronx has nothing to offer. We know that’s not true, clearing a pretty penny 3 years ago off of the sale of our previous Bronx condo. Does this makes us textbook gentrifiers? If so, aint it better we, being former low-income tenants who just a few years ago were in no position to buy anything, benefit, as opposed to, you know, whites who can’t afford to live in Manhattan, and are now realizing that Brooklyn is no longer the middle-class bargain it was thought to be? I aint hatin’ on whites here, because following certain established patterns of other races can lead to prosperity. When I saw the Williamsburg-esque artist community in Mott Haven while apartment hunting, and the crowd that frequents Bruckner Bar & Grill, I truly realized that they go where they want to go, and money will follow. This has statistically been traditionally one of the worst areas, and now there are museums, lofts, and lounges. Since most folks don’t know this, it’s still relatively cheap, by New York standards. Right by a bridge that easily connects to Manhattan. Same thing is going on in Jersey City and East Orange and all that. So wherever I start to see an abundance of headband wearing, jogging-ass, dogwalking Caucasians, I know there’s money to be made there if we get in early enough. Somebody’s gonna be making money off of the college kids, starving artists {who somehow can afford $2000 monthly rents}, and progressives. I say, let it be Mr. and Mrs. Power. But I digress.) So yeah, someone stole my kicks from right in front of my door, which makes me think the building might be nice, but the folks – maybe not so much. I haven’t left kicks in front since, but my neighbors continue to do so, making me suspect them. I mean, why haven’t they had their kicks stolen? And if they have, why would they continue to put them out front? The kicks they put in front of their door are much nicer than mine (my fresh jumpoffs stay box-bound for a considerable period of time). Mine were decently worn brown Reebok shoes. Who would want those? Not anyone who could afford the rent in the building; then again, maybe that’s why they need the shoes, lol. The rent isn’t much by Manhattan standards, but by Boogie Down standards, it’s an arm and a size-12-Reebok-adorned leg.

This movie’s coming out. You know, the one with the 4 middle aged chicks (who almost all could still get it; you guess the one who can’t) who drink cosmos, wear clothes that really don’t look that good, and have sex with guys they act like they regret having sex with. How do I know all of this? Because “Sex and The City” is in that category of shows and movies that guys with steady girlfriends or wives don’t intend to watch, but end up knowing too much about, like “Girlfriends,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Dirty Dancing,” and any number of over-dramatic reality shows. Why a movie? Does the rest of the country, and world, really care about how a very small portion of New Yorkers live? Yeah, they probably do. I mean, I used to watch a show about the people who lived in one zip code 3,000 miles across the country (and it’s spin-off about the folks who lived in one apartment complex not far away).

Electrifying conclusion: Maxim magazine did Sarah Jessica Parker dirty, calling her the un-sexiest woman alive. They called her horse-faced, and with great gayness, said they´d “rather ride Chris Noth.” Not worth my ‘pause.’ She actually has a dope body, and may not look like the templates that constantly grace Maxim’s pages, but I actually like a little character in a woman’s look. That being said, I wouldn’t watch her movie with someone else’s eyes. Side effects of going to see “Sex and The City” may include a misguided sense of fashion, a desire to order a drink that gets females way more f-cked up than the drink looks like it should (or so I’m told), and in the case of men, the possibility of spontaneous vagina growth. Unless you’ve been wanting to save $$ on a sex change, skip it.

Rapper/television star Xzibhit had a son on May 15th. Eleven days later, he buried that son due to damaged lungs that couldn’t handle oxygen on their own. My condolences brother.

Electrifying conclusion: Unfortunately, the conclusion was all too soon, and not electrifying at all. But I put this in here, because it’s an opportunity to share these words from X to the Z, which are simple, but thought-provoking, sincere, and something I hope makes us each slow down for a second and appreciate each other.

"Hold on to your kids if you have them, protect them and show them you love them everyday you wake up and see them.

"Don't take a second you get to hug them, teach them, and care for them for granted."

"You can have all the material wealth in the universe but it is nothing compared to having your family. I am thankful for all of my blessings and I'm not one to question God's perfect plan."

I’m StarPower, and I approve this message.

No comments: