Category Archives: Blogs

01.15.13
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Notes on MLK Day

 

Nothing says nostalgia like taking a day off from work and sleeping in. Adult life is all about catching up and today I find myself catching up on all the hours of sleep that I have missed stressing out over issues that I have very little control over. It’s not a Saturday morning and Garfield and Friends as well as The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show have stopped airing a long time ago but I still feel at peace. Never mind the fact that I have pick up my daughter in a few hours and the rest of my week will be crazy hectic because none of those things matter at present. I’m lying under the covers in my underwear with the blinds to my windows closed so that rays of light must fight to enter my space. I have shelter from the unusual California cold and I am writing. I said I am writing, I am doing that thing that I fell in love with decades ago. On the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. I am expressing myself in a way that would have gotten my enslaved ancestors killed. As I put these letters to this page I realize that in terms of the very foundation of this country I am committing a subversive act. I live to rebel. There is no other feeling like the rush of blood that I get from fighting back. I have always been hypnotized by the notion of going into a forbidden place and letting everyone in there know that I have arrived. To write lines from within this skin is the equivalent of being a vanguard soldier and I will be on the battlefield until I die.

YB

01.03.13
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Artistic Suicide Watch

How did I become so afraid? My manuscript is somewhere deep in my subconscious mind buried by my fear of commitment. That story that I began so many years ago hurts when I try to write it down. I don’t like stirring up old ghosts but I know it is the only way that I can truly release them. I’m scared of failure.

I have lived everyday of my life surrounded by death and violence. I have taken a natural attitude towards gunshots, HIV, and the threat of false detainment but somehow that unwritten manuscript frightens me to my core. Those many thousand words have remained trapped in my heart and they have become a burden on my soul only because I allow them to be. At some point I have to believe in my story enough to let it feel the rays of sun that are awaiting its presence here on Earth. I must somehow release the puss from the gory wounds of my life so that the youth of today may be forewarned and so that all of my peers who suffer in the same manner may be consoled knowing that they were never alone.

I run for at least three miles everyday from my past and when I am standing still I hide behind a goofy smile. I live the life of a coward standing on a bridge moments away from committing artistic suicide. Will I jump, will I continue to run, will I hide, or will I finally confront my pain and write?

What does the future hold?

YB

01.02.13
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Love Happens in a Flash….

I miss everything about that woman now that she’s gone. It’s amazing how a man can take so many good things for granted. I always lust for what I don’t have but then isn’t that the very definition of lust? I mean if we had it then would we yearn for it so uncontrollably?

She was the daughter of god and I was a young heathen. Never before had a woman made me feel so wretched and not one time since. In my mind I thought that she would wait for me but in reality she already had. Love happens in a flash and by the time I looked up she was happily involved with a better man. I had no get back. I lacked the confidence to fight for her or to attempt to woo her with my words because he was simply a better man. A better environment produced him and he believed in himself in a way that I never will.

When I happened upon this young lady I didn’t act like I was happy for her. I acted like I couldn’t see the ring glistening on her deep brown finger. I made no mention of her chubby cheeks and I willed myself not to notice her caressing her protruding abdomen. I forced myself to flirt with her just like I did in the days of old but I believe I may have smiled too hard and licked my lips one too many times to be convincing. I told her I was gone holler at her, but of course I never have.

-YB

12.31.12
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The Curious Case of Katt Williams

Have you ever taken the time to listen to a person that society has deemed “crazy” and been completely captivated? That’s how I feel when I listen to many of Katt Williams’s recent so-called rants. With that being said I would like to point out that I do not approve of any of his behavior. I am from Oakland, CA the city where he first showed that he might be at least slightly unstable when he behaved very erratically in front of a sell out crowd at the coliseum on November 16th.

But even then he said some things on stage that I thought, dare I say it, were very insightful. He spoke about other races of people being able to get together without any problems but then black people pay their money just to boo him. Then there are his recent comments about Jamie Foxx’s decision to star in Django Unchained; “F**k Jamie Foxx and the ‘Django Unchained’ check he cashed. They offered me the script and I said, ‘Any n***a that do this deserves to die. And the next thing I heard, Jamie Foxx was in makeup.” It’s wrong for Katt to question another black man’s sexuality in such a demeaning and public manner but I actually applaud him for having the heart to publicly criticize the film Django Unchained. More people should be suspicious of a story that is supposed to be that of an oppressed group but is written and directed by a member of the group that directly benefits from that groups oppression.

Katt also seems to be annoyed by black comedians always having to wear dresses on stage to be funny. He performed a freestyle in which he lambasted several prominent black actors namely Martin Lawrence, Tyler Perry, and Jamie Foxx for doing just that.

I have a lot of respect for Katt speaking up for black masculinity when black men are constantly being emasculated. Be it by the police, at job interviews, or in stereotypical movie roles. A lot of people are aware of this but none of them have had the courage to express themselves. The fear of never working in Hollywood again keeps a lot of black actors in check but Katt, for whatever reason, is immune to this fear and that’s what makes him crazy. People are labeled crazy when society has no interest in trying to figure them out or make them “normal.” To put it another way crazy is the word that a lazy society uses to describe the individuals their words aren’t suitable to describe.

http://www.tmz.com/videos/0_my3bt3ig/

I wouldn’t call Katt Williams crazy and I wouldn’t call him funny either. If I had to label Katt Williams I would refer to him as necessary. I can only pray that he can keep himself out of jail while continuing to provide for his family. I’m pulling for him in 2013.

-YB

12.23.12
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Reflections in Raindrops

The rain has more rhythm in its descent from heaven than I will ever have in my body. The sound of it keeps me asleep when it’s steady and wakes me up as its pace quickens. Rain always represented excitement to me. Imagine growing up in a place where rain is the most extreme weather possible. As a child I discovered that rain cleanses the flesh and the soil. Rain symbolizes the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Kisses in the rain are more special, dinner in the rain is more meaningful, a movie in the rain is more intimate. I love to go to my favorite creamery and eat ice cream in the rain, for hot chocolate on such a day would be too clichĂ©. Ice cream taste sweet but the rain is sweeter. I’m enamored with the concept of millions of people being wet at the same time. At rainy day recess we used to sneak outside and play anyway. We would jump in puddles and make a real mess of it. As an adult I have never regularly used an umbrella. I don’t like the idea of something coming in between me and god. I will receive every blessing that is sent down and I will let it wash over me. Maybe the rain will make me better. Maybe it will make me less fearful and more consistent. Perhaps it will give me a vision so I can see what I need to do to become whole once more.

YB

12.19.12
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SOULFUL II in Review

Last Saturday I got a chance to be the host of a phenomenal literary event entitled Soulful II: Telling Our Own Stories Our Own Way. It was an extremely powerful happening that was dedicated to raising money for Kim Glanville a youth advocate who on October 27 was shot three times in a tragic case of mistaken identity. She told her story in a manner that only she could tell it; with humor, passion, and depth.

It was clear that she had been feeding off of the energy left on the stage by the other performers. Sean King blessed the audience with a poem about love and an always-relevant story about police harassment. Rami Margron who is the curator of http://www.theshoutstorytelling.com   told a very engaging tale about an encounter with a deer, Sayre Quevedo shared a few stirring poems about what it’s like to be 20 in the year 2012, and Jezebel Delilah X straight up ripped it. And then there was the Russian literary sensation Zarina Zabrisky. I could use a thousand fancy adjectives to describe how amazing her performance was but thanks to youtube I can just let you see it for yourself.

Enjoy

12.05.12
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Notes on Jovan Belcher

 

 

It’s been less than a week since Jovan Belcher of the Kansas City Chiefs killed his girlfriend and himself with a gun and it’s been a little over a year since someone broke into my home while I wasn’t here and left the place completely disheveled. They stole my laptop, a safe (which was completely empty), and my digital camera, among several other things. In the moments right after I discovered that my home had been burglarized, I couldn’t help but to wonder what if I was at home with my gun when those cowards broke in? Would I have enough rage in my heart to shoot them all dead?
Now of course all of this is deeply hypothetical because in actuality I don’t own a gun. Unlike both of my parents I am not from the rural south and therefore I never went hunting for diner. In urban California guns represent human death. Their prevalence played a major role in the murders of several of my childhood friends. In short, I really hate guns. I believe that guns make it too easy to kill. One must ask if Belcher did not have access to a gun would he have actually carried out those gruesome murders?

 

Obviously there were multiple factors that played into Belcher’s actions. He had to be under severe emotional distress, and from listening to other people’s accounts of him it sounds like he must have suffered from multiple personality disorder as well. But now he as well as his girlfriend is gone, and the weapon used to carry out the deed was a gun.

 

About once a year I seriously contemplate buying a gun. Having a growing daughter to protect and living in a rough neighborhood are just two of the reasons that make me want to purchase a firearm. Another one is that I’m a man and men play for keeps. Meaning if I get into a physical confrontation with a guy and I come out victorious then chances are he may run to get his gun. In which case, since I don’t have a gun, I would just have to run.

 

What always keeps me out of the gun store is the other side of the equation. If I bought a gun then about a month later I woke up in the middle of the night and caught a person trying to steal my car, would I actually have what it takes to take another human beings life? Could I actually justify putting a gaping hole in the flesh of another man because he attempted to take one of my possessions? I don’t know that I could.

 


I’ve seen contorted bullet riddled bodies lying just beyond yellow caution tape on the concrete. I’ve seen a half-empty misshapen head propped up in a casket a week after a man had gotten his brains blown out. I’ve heard fatal shots, I’ve listened to horrible screams, I’ve seen the shell casings, I’ve heard mothers cry, and I’ve seen a once victimized kid stand prouder than Superman on the street corner once he got his hands on his first gun. I never wanted that.

 

I always wanted to move as far away from that world as possible, but alas, I have yet to do so. Those heartless savages kicked in my back door and stole my daughter’s piggy bank and took my camera with all of those beautiful family images that I had never gotten developed. They left boot prints on the very bed where my daughter lay and of course my neighbors saw nothing. They heard nothing. They knew nothing and in that moment that I discovered how wantonly I had been violated, so help me Jesus I felt like I could do it. I wanted to kill them all. No matter how young, how old, or how pitiable their lives were. Needless to say those feelings dissipated. At the end of the day I was grateful that I wasn’t hurt, nor was anyone in my family. I decided then, like I always do, that a gun wasn’t worth it. I don’t want to even have the option to do what Jovan Belcher did just because I’m having a hard time. I want to live freely without having a justifiable homicide on my conscious. But I also want to be prepared.

 

For there is always a time when a man must defend himself. People don’t fistfight anymore, everyone is toting steel and if I am to protect my house and my family I fear that one day I may have to adjust to the times. That day, however, is not today. Today I am thinking of another way out. Today I am still thinking about Jovan Belcher and his 22-year-old girlfriend. Today I am thinking about life.

 

-YB

11.26.12
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Growing as a Parent

Sometimes thoughts explode in my head like firecrackers packed with blinding light and other times they wash over me very slowly. This one took about three years to finally reach the shores of my conscious mind but in order for you to fully understand its significance then you must know a little bit about me.  I’ve been a parent nearly my whole adult life, and for most of those years I have been single. Therefore I have been on several dates with a car seat in the back, and I’ve invited a few women over the house on Saturday nights after my daughter has gone to sleep. Over the years I’ve hung out with women and gave them a lot of my time but almost none of them have ever met my little girl. I’ve kept the two entities separate for multiple reasons. The most important by far being that I never feel like the woman that I am dating is worthy enough to meet my daughter. I don’t look at her and see the lady that I want my daughter to be. And this is what brings me to my point.

The concept that I have just recently grasped is this: If the women who I date are not worthy of meeting my daughter then I should not be dating them.

11.12.12
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Telling OUR own Stories OUR own Way

I’m tired of being a ventriloquist dummy in the movies. We do have our own voices you know? We do have beating hearts and amorphous souls. We exist in every dimension. We exist at great distances and we exist in focus. We do not want to rape your virtuous young maidens (Birth of a Nation, 1915). We are not your ride or die servants (Gone With the Wind, 1939). We are not your wise yet shockingly docile sidekicks (Casablanca, 1942). We are not here to prostitute the innocence of your daughters (The Mack, 1973) and kill your hardworking, blue-collar, tough, rugged, but loveable fathers (Colors, 1988). Nor do we want you to make us feel good (Monster’s Ball, 2002).

We are not circus lions who only roar when cracked by the lash but are otherwise harmless creatures (Ali, 2001) and our stories don’t necessarily end happily when we finally achieve your capitalistic wet dreams (Ray, 2004 The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006).

Our stories are told in beauty shops, on front porches, and in barbershops. They’re told at bus stops, in county lines, and in the county jail. They’re told in study groups, at Baptist churches, and in hot kitchens. And our stories are told the best when you aren’t there; therefore, you really don’t know us. What you do know is essentially nothing more than a shadow. Yes this shadow is dark like us but it is not nearly as soulful. It is not nearly as dynamic. It is not complicated nor is it multifaceted. It’s not multidimensional or unique. It isn’t bodaciously shy or passionately indifferent.  See the thing is that when you tell our stories you are guessing and we know that. We also know that when you tell our stories you’re telling them to an audience of your own peers and that we really don’t matter. We know what’s real.

We can tell the difference between your voice and Big Mama’s. We know that our stories come from Arkansas and Tennessee. The Delta here and The Delta back there. Our stories were carried up the river by Pharaohs before they were carried down the river by slaves. Our stories are told with fingers in faces, knuckles slapping against hands, shoulders rolling, and tongues clicking. Our griots spit game to judges and parole officers and for the most part they never make it to Hollywood because they’ve been trapped in the hood.

Granted, sometimes when you tell our stories you get it right but you are still guessing (I suppose that some ventriloquist are better than others). And let me just say that when you do your film on Nina Simone The High Priestess of Soul, I hope that you get it right for your sake. For the time is rapidly approaching when we will be speaking for ourselves and we will leave you to your own guessing games. Yeah, imagine that? Close your eyes and try to guess how our voices sound when you are not around. Imagine a day when we control our own bodies, our own minds, our own shadows, and our own reflection, and all you can do is sit in the back of the room and listen to us speak. I can only smile at the thought of such a revolutionary exchange.

-YB

10.20.12
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Write or Run

 

 

 

It’s come down to this. My need to perfect my craft has been overcome by my urge to run away from time. My fear for the future has moved me into the past and my detachment from reality has created an unrealistic sense of nostalgia.

 

I work hard during the day and I often times bring my work home with me. I have a child who lives with me on most weekends. I have a 2nd job that isn’t quite as demanding as the first but it still requires my time. I also have to dedicate at least five hours a week to my personal crusade against obesity. For my metabolism has gone down quite considerably as my age has pushed past 30 and the last thing I want is to become a fat ass. So I run.

 

As you can see there are many things that pull me away from my writing but, alas, none of these things should be enough. In my youth I had ambitions of being the literary voice of my generation and for many years I actively tried to make that happen; but as of lately I have been immersed in a prolonged state of reflection. My production has slowed down. There are so many thoughts in my head that need to be released; I need to know what I’m feeling.

 

It has been a while since I’ve been on the literary scene. I haven’t performed at a reading since July but I think I found a new venue. I went to a place last week and the people read work that came from all angles. There were poems, essays, and declarations and there was an abundance of culture. Last week I checked it out and perhaps next week I’ll perform. Then maybe once I have an audience (that I can actually see) I will write more.

-YB