Reasoning and Writing

I have not had time to write lately. Sorting things out with my apartment in Cologne. Weird year. Some of my slacking has to do with my screwed up emotions over Das Experiment. And then, there is the fact that I have too much in my head to try and sort out and try to write. I am happy about this situation, better than writer's block, but I gotta order my thoughts and my head so I can produce, and that means I have to suspend all the drama around me.

Slow in Writing:

The Reasons

1. Abortion Rights -- J's Theater
Got into a real deep discussion and I want to take the time to understand the implications of Alito and a woman's right to choose. J has introduced the realities of anti-abortion legislation and the criminalization of women that choose to have an abortion.

2. Das Experiment's Call
He called me early on Sunday morning, the 31st. He sounds sad and depressed and upset. In short, he sounds like a broken record. We talked for a little more than an hour. I was worried about him, but I don't have time to make him see certain things. He is so stubborn.

3. Portuguese Exercises
I am one fourth of the way through the little tourist book that I bought when I meet Ms. Portugal. Making progress.

4. Mom's Retirement
She is finished next week. And she is also going to physical therapy for her back. I feel like my life is changing, I am a bit worried about her well being. This age thing is a trip and time is playing a trip on me big time. What happens if something happens to her. Will I be able to travel? She will be alone.

5. Diabetes
Nervous about doctor's visit. Went. And I am tired I must say of the pills and all of it. I feel strong, I look OK, but when I visit the doctor I get a different truth. He said I must take this medicine forever. I won't recite the list. It just makes me sick.

6. Sketch for Novel
Been thinking about it more. It is stupid to try while doing so much, but damn it is in my head and I gotta work on getting it out.

7. Staying or Coming Back
Up and down. Back and Forth. Can't explain to the people over there what life is like here for me. As my roommate in Cologne, when talking about the Germans, says, "How could they ever know about what we have gone through. They will only look at us African Americans with confusion and taking for granted that the 3 weeks they have known you is the whole story of your life." It is true. It is what is so hard about being exotic. People have already made up a past for you.

And people here wonder why you have come back. People do get treated like shit here.

Pepper

For Pepper

I have a friend from Germany named Pepper.
He said he was not interested in my blog and that I should get a life.
Then I told him to read the fucking blog.
And, I said that
I was not going to fall in love with boys that make me cry anymore.
(it was a joke.)
I had this same problem in Cologne with other Germans and Americans.
Reading and University and Teaching is not a life.
Some even hate to read.
Theater people.
Imagine that.
They did not understand what I did but they are always looking for scripts.
Then there was that boy from the Far East that said that all I was good for was reading and kinky sex.
He is right.
But he said it with such contempt.
But he liked the sex.
Weird.
Such flashbacks are
starting to influence my decision to return.
Everything was great except for that one thing --
No one could see what I really do.

Or maybe I should check out Berlin.
I wonder what that place is like.
Was there once.
Like New York.
Mayor is gay.
But there is no work.
Conservatives in southern Germany don't really care.
At least the conservative I have fallen out of love with said that.
Some say Hamburg is good.
I like it there too.
Language.
Work.
Friendships.
Fun.
Hmmmm?
Uhmmmm!
Pepper.
I still like him too.
I am going to
tongue him
and
twist his tits
in front of his girlfriend when I see him again.
Whoever that is this week.

Lenny Called Me Today

My friend looks like Lenny Kravitz.

So that is going to be my code name for him. I have to admit that he's really cute and you would never guess that he is old enough to remember partying with Grace Jones, or house parties with Princess Stefanie and Prince Albert of Monaco, or seeing these strange crowns popping up around the East Village announcing the birth of Basquiat. I like him cause he usually calls my ass to remind me that I am an artist, and that I had a life over in Europe. He senses my depression I think. We get depressed by the same things, and angry about the same things, though I think we love differently. Completely different. I am the optimistic monk, sneaking a kiss in between the abbeys. He is the realist monk, devoted to his artwork and photography though his vision has not come to me yet. I wonder when it will be revealed.

I also wonder if I am going to evolve into a Lenny. Maybe I carry a little Lenny inside of me, and he a miniature Unbeached Whale, and, maybe they are both friends in some strange alternate universe that exist only between our belly buttons when we walk down Avenue of the Americas after dinner late at night.

Little does he know that my life in Europe was a very inartistic time for me and I spent my time with engineers and business people who did not have a real use for art. We are talking about large groups of people for whom language was a practical way of getting around in the world, and not meant for ornate things.

So.

He called.

I was a sleep.

I was very nervous about my doctor's visit the night before because I just did not have enough numbers on my glucometer. 4 times a day is a bit extreme, and I really don't feel like one of those perfect little cheerleader girls on the glucometer commercials. When I really want a pint of Guinness, I don't feel like apologizing for it. There is something about my self image and the disease that I have to reconcile. Not one doctor or nurse in almost 12 years has ever talked to me about that.

So, I went to sleep late, watching something on television. I think I got a total of 3 hours sleep. Lenny called about the time I was suppose to get up.

He called to tell me that 80 percent of the black folk of New Orleans can't afford to get back to the city, and that there houses will be bulldozed. . . or least the prospects of such a scenario were in play.

I kind of did not know what to do with the information. I was pissed. Lenny likes me because we see things similarly . . . but my stuff is a bit more 'round about, I am searching for some lost Creole world or where I might fit in despite prevailing notions that to be Creole is to be light skinned and have a certain last name. Lenny is a Caribbean person, displaced by his father's decision to move to this country sometime ago. His point-of-view is very pro-Black -- pro-Rasta -- play the game to get ahead -- but this shit is very unfair -- but you gotta fight not to be bitter -- but curse the Korean grocery bitch out if she keeps disrespecting you -- WBAI -- RedBlackandGreen -- calling on Zion from the Bronx and Hell's Kitchen (Harlem is only for shopping and going to the museum) -- kind of NYC politics. So, It amazes me that he is a fashion photographer. He is like most NYC intellectuals, socialist with close friends, but capitalist in practice. Lenny said that if you want to be a Socialist them move to a Socialist country, otherwise you will starve. He is self educated. He is struggling in New York cause the city he said he wanted to live and die in does not exist anymore. It has changed around him.

Lenny can ply and paste bra cups while balancing a woman on abnormally long stilettos (he calls them "fuck pumps") at the crack of the Northern light; then he can shot, edit, cut, invoice and deliver without an office. Everything is done with a mobile phone and 10 bucks.

He is a man's man with a soft side. I have seen him do his own plumbing for his own little cafe in Hell's Kitchen, back before the community's current incantation . . . The same for wiring. The same for cooking and making cocktails. The same for the tables, and the chairs. The painting. The whole thing. He is self-sufficient and a wander waiting, and waiting and waiting for the security to apply it.

Like me, he is sniffing out dry land, a safe harbor, fresh water.

So, along with New Orleans information, My Own Private Lenny Kravitz talked about NYC rents and possibilities for me to move back and get out of the hell hole of where I am. According to Lenny. Problem is, I am starting to like it here, and in a way, maybe he would too if he could get into the Country Music thing and film some of the "thangs" running around here with their Reserved Bourbon on the rock boyfriends and a Kir Royal in their charm bracelet hands. . . but who am I kidding . . . Lenny's politics and the South will only cause him to internally combust into a smoldering heap of bean pie compost. And since I pride myself on being an interpreter of Northern and Southern behavior thanks to my childhood of living in both worlds, I would probably be pained by it.

But screw it, Lenny could come and work for a couple of weeks, get an agent, and see what can happen.

Lenny said he is going to Germany and will meet a photographer in Hamburg. I want to meet this guy, he has done a couple of books. Then, there is this Fashion Show in Paris. Would love to meet him there. Don't know if I will.

We both work on a budget.

Without institutions backing us

And being skeptical to all offers

Cause we know we might get screwed in the end

We are like some sworn brotherhood of artistic autistics with one hand placed dangerously on

the hot

stone

and the other in reality.

I was there the evening of that party for the inaugural publication of "that" magazine, where "that" Korean woman did not want us to see samples of a book. She thought we were thieves. I was a working writer. He was a working photographer. We were upset. We argued with her. She argued back. We did not feel welcome. To this day I do not and will not buy "that" magazine. I am still a little bitter.

It is hard to follow my Private Lenny Kravitz's politics . . . or it was hard then.

I feel different now about it.

I just do.

Lenny.

You a crazy ass.

Red Lights and the Late Night Radio Show

I have just one simple question.

Why do I feel a sense of segregation concerning the gay male chat sites in Nashville and maybe in the South in general? Or is this common in other regions of the country?

It could be who I ask. For example, I asked the Arabian Prince for a website and he gave me Manhunt and nudedudes or dudesnude or something like that. Everything is alright. Both are mostly white. The thing that is interesting about Manhunt is that there are white guys that say that they are not interested in "fems, fats, sissies, or black" . . . or what have you.

Interesting.

And the hot white guys that I like on there are not interested in me when I send a picture. Some decline politely, other never respond.

Very Very interesting.

The guys on nudedudeseordudesnudeorwhathaveyou don't really care. Nice people.

-----

Now, my cousin told me to check adam4adam. This is all the rage in Atlanta. Go to it in Nashville and my inbox has been fucking attacked by gorgeous guys. Majority black. Some are whites that like blacks.

Interesting again.

Like is this what I am dealing with? Like if I go out with a white guy here is it that big of a deal in the gay community and is anybody talking about this in Nashville's gay community?

The clubs are the same.

I go to Tribe and I just sit and drink. No one speaks to me at all. OK, maybe 3 times in one year.

I went to Blu, the black club, once and it is like being in an episode of Cheers. I think I will go more often. But the politics are so interesting to m

-------

And, what is up with the descriptions on adam4adam, everything is written phonetically, and all the black folk call themselves: niccas, nikkas, negas, and other variations. And Sup, Wasup and Wazup, for "what's up" is very common.

What do you call this script I wonder. It is part Ebonics (hate that word but will use it) and part electronic iconography because the word represents something larger than its intended meaning. The way the letters are put together show that the one speaking is a real thug and therefore a real "man", and yes, now you can put your dick in my ass. It is like an EZpass for thug ass.

I gotta master this language, fuck French, though they got homothuggies too.

My encounters have been brief, masculine tension filled sentences that are short on content and context, fast on describing sexual acts. Talking becomes like dancing with scorpions.

I love it!

But interesting enough, I was writing to this guy online. When I sent my pic, he said I looked nice but from my vibe I was not his type. I was wondering if it had to do with me speaking "proper". He then said that he was sure I was "nice peeps . . ."

More on that later. There are some ghetto truths that I am becoming reacquainted with through my best friend. There is also that feeling that you are not wanted in the hood cause you are too smart and that you are not dealing with "reality". That double truth. That survivors guilt. That outside contempt.

But this is about sex and a little bit of language.


I think this is a great find. But I find it hard. It is enough to be exoticized by white gay culture, but to be exoticized by other blacks who are looking for a beautiful black dick is a bit hard for me to stomach at times. Though I must say I have missed all the Latino boys and Black boys from the hood in the past FOUR YEARS. If you remember Stella's or Cats in NYC then you need to send a shout out.

4 Years!
-----

Then there is the question of literacy in the community. I am afraid that this is a sign that people do not read generally that much any more. This iconography is basically the recording of inner thoughts, and those that are expressing themselves are using words the same way they do on the street or on the phone. They are not switching to proper English usage for the page.

Oral culture/Oral sex

strikes again.

The Body

"There are things that I find attractive about both sexes. The human body is where I should begin, I guess."

That was the first line of this installment, but I don't know where to go with it. You see, the sentence was sparked by a photograph I saw on the internet from a nudist beach of a woman and her boyfriend.

I saw this woman's body, and just ignored the man's. They are walking away from the sea, and the sun is shining on their salted bodies. The last time I was on a beach was with Ms. Portugal at Figuera do Foz. It is the city where her family used to vacation when she was a child. There was something about it that was so silent and small and cold and jagged. I remember we got into an argument concerning my low blood sugar. She wanted me to sit outside and I wanted to go inside immediately when we approached a resturaunt after a couple of hours on the sand. I told her that I needed sugar. She thought I was not acting in a rational manner. And I wasn't, but that is part of being diabetic, the mood swing. But I was also reacting to her need to control, and the fact that without speaking Portuguese and her constantly saying it was impossible to master that and German at the same time. In short she, always lite a ball of fire under my ass that I wanted to shout out with my tongue, so my words just came out so wrong all the time with her. Did you know that the Portuguese are among the least most confrontational people in the world? I wonder where African Americans stand on this spectrum. I suspect far, far away.

Ms. Portugal also came from a small place (and in some cases a different time), and I guess I was an oddity. A man that could cook, and take care of himself to a certain extent. And then there was my disease, the difficulty I found in talking about it. The fright she had concerning my reaction to things. She did not understand that the sun, the aerobic activity of being in the ocean, the light diet of summer time and the exertion of walking in the sand always brings my sugar down. I have noticed this with time, and I do tend to get low on a beach; but, I wonder sometimes, because that trip was about us acting like things were OK, and they simply weren't. The relationship was over and I was simply passing through to see her. I never really made the decission to be with her.

The last time I saw a couple like the one in this picture was on the beach in Figuera do Foz. They must have been British or Dutch. Everybody checks everybody out on a beach. And it was clear to me that these guys were taller than anyone else besides myself, and they were blond and light. The sun was not that strong then, and maybe this was September. I remember the drive there, and us sleeping over at Ms. M's house in Coimbra the night before. Ms. M is Ms. Portual’s dearest friend. And I remember the dinner where I mispronounced a Portuguese word, and it sounded like the a word for the female anatomy. Ms. M. giggled with her lips clamped like she broke her jaw. I did not know what she was laughing about until Ms. Portugal told me.

So, this picture, reminded me of the female body at the beach. It reminded me of Ms. Portugal’s body on a bed, though is is dark and short. It reminded me of the past. It reminded me of Portugal and the invasion of Brits and Germans on the shores of Iberia. But, it was the way this woman was shaved that really attracted me to this photography. Her bikini wax, that was simply a thin line of hair in the middle, and whoever took this photo at the beach had to have had that in mind when he looked at his camera phone later that day. The photo is not forced, nor is it pornographic. The blond woman’s hair was up in a tiny ponytail, and she lead the way, as her slacker boyfriend emerged less dramatically. He was thin, and Blink 182 like -- punk but not pyro -- just a new aged bilingual greaser.

Since I wrote that first italicized line in the morning, and in between that time I have finished the blog for Tuesday, driven out to Goodlettsville, fought traffic to get back, talked to my cousin, warmed the roasted chicken, spooned out a plate of green pea salad, and had several cups of coffee, I have lost the thread. What I originally wanted to say about that photograph is gone.

I wanted to talk about the woman's body. I wanted to mention this 25 year old woman that was topless in a German GQ magazine photograph. Dark caramel brown sista with a head wrap. She was topless. She was interviewed with other German girls, telling men what they look for in a chance encounter. This is something I have little practice with in actuality. I meet a woman like Ms. Portugal or Ms. A and it just starts. The flirting, and revelation of the body to each other is known before words. I don’t have a pick-up line. I know, she knows, we both know it will happen, like some unexplainable beckon drawing us to the same lighthouse. I don't kiss and tell. I don't brag to my friends about my conquest. Many times I have “had” far more than they could imagine (wait, that is bragging isn’t it). Some straight friends believe that I am lying about the women or find it amazing to see me with a woman, so I stopped telling many of them. And with my gay friends, if I am with a woman, they find it to be retrograde, reprobate, denial, etc . . . So, I think I have turned into a love bandit of sorts. I trust a few. Only a few know what are the right questions to ask. Some asked me about Ms. Portugal. In fact other lovers have asked about Ms. Portugal. No one asks about Ms. A. They just see pictures and say very good. They say she's hot. I just scoot about, taking the Ms. A’s conversations and the walks alone, me and this object of affection, which all relationships in the end are, and try to turn it into something that might work. I don’t know if it will. No new developments, but new feelings from us both I suspect.

The woman in this photograph was my type of woman I think. She was two steps a head of the guy, who was clearly a space cadet. She is the practical one. He is the risk taker. They emerge from the water on this nude beach of Ibiza, Malloroca, or Evora to find their blanket in the sun. And like Figuera do Foz, Jones Beach, Coney Island, the sand dunes in Queens, the beach in Phoebus Virginia, the beaches of Antigua, Venice beach and the black rocks on the Black Sea they are being checked out.

This photograph, for which I am at a loss of words, hit my screen today, and I felt like I did a while ago. 8 years ago, I sat on Jones Beach and leaped into the waves for hours. I was sick the next day from all the sun, and maybe something in the water. But I remember looking at the men and the women. Looking at the female lifeguards and their suits. The dark African girl with braids, her athletic body in the sun, the white one piece bathing suit with a thong in the back stretched over her body without shame or embarrassment. She had authority. She did not give a damn. She sat on her towel and talked to the man in the high chair. There was a couple behind us that day. A man and a woman and they were middle aged. The blond haired woman smiled at us. Me and my friend, who is dead now, smiled back. I looked at the vastness of the water, and glanced back at the husband and wife. They both watched us with different eyes. The wife wondering about us, the man wondering about us too. Italian. American. Black Speedos. Bleach Blond Hair. Sand. My friend was listening to his walkman and writing. I was trying to read, distracted by the waves. I dived into the waves, timed my motions, and moved like an Olympic swimmer. At least that is how I imagined it. I emerged on the other side, salted and tasting the green in the water, and feeling the sun on my face. I passed through the wave, the wave passed through me, and because of my ability, I stood still. I did not move. I just waited for the next.

Back on the beach, I remember, to my right was a man with a perfect body wearing those jogging shorts that double as swim trunks. He had his walkman on too. He was there just to relax and talk on the phone then go to the club. Then there was the swimmer that swam farther than me. I spoke to him in the waves, as they hit me under my neck. He swam back and said hello. He was in his 40’s and in great shape. He said hello to the lifeguards. He changed and he left. Everyone was of different colors and races and sizes. Everyone was self conscious, letting a little rise happen in their shorts because the water would shrink it. Everyone was feasting.

I wish I could say more about this photograph. It just makes me think about the human body, a relationship that sprouted but never grew and the sea that I miss. I am here with the landlocked side of the family, I am much different than them I have never seen my mother swim in my life.

The Darkness

I have been trying to type a blog entry for everyday of the week, but it is taking me sometime. Part of it is simply my writing and editing speed, the other parts is that so much is going on in my life, as usual, that I have not had enough time to figure out what I want to say.

I need a day.

So, I am two days behind.

This entry is for Tuesday night,

but I am writing it on Thursday morning.

Man!

The dark fragments of my mind,

Do absorb my time.

So, what happened on Tuesday night, on this Thursday Morning?

I saw Underworld 2, Evolution (directed by Len Wiseman).

I love this storyline. Went with WineExpertLesbo to the big IMAX theater at Opry Mills. This was the second time she saw the movie that day. She loves shit like this. This time Markus awakens to find the coven in disarray, and after doing a little research of his own, finds out what is really happening.

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and Michael (Scott Speedman) are the sexist couple on screen to date, and the fact that Michael is so unaware of his power and is vulnerable like a teenage kid ups the action and sexual attraction. The movie picks up right where it left off, and we soon see Markus in all his "goo" and gargoylish glory. I won't say more. It is dark, sexy and cool. I like the decadence of the vampires and the interwoveness of the Corvinus clan with the fate of Selene and Michael.

Now, the thing that kills me is that I was reading the reviews on rottentomatoes.com and everyone is crucifying it. Is it me? I wonder sometimes about this hyper-critical attitude towards movies. A perfect example is Star Wars III. Underworld 2 is 10 times better, and the heroine is a million times better, cause Natalie Portman really screwed up her part in the last of the prequels. Kate Beckinsale does a much better job, partly because she has a much better and juicier character with more action than fashion modeling. They had to bring Tom Stoppard in to save that freakin' anemic screenplay of George Lukas' computer graphic and lyrically taut and challenged mind, plus they couldn't get Portman to pot up the intensity. It was shitty to me, all three of them. At least the 3rd had some gravity to it. Its tragedy, erases the other two.

OK, that is baggage.

This past year I started to enter the gaming universe, and as part of the coven, I think that I am starting to have a better appreciation for fangoria, fantasies and sports. I am starting to show less appreciation for movie critics, at least in this instance. This intellectual separation that people make between art work and the critic is sad if the critic does not take the time to understanding the structure of the storyline. In this instance, Underworld 2 is written with a gamer in mind, the clues to the mystery must be fleshed out and that must happen through several trials. It is visual. It is looking for talismans. It means getting more power through the givers of the mysteries. It means battling a demon, and being defeated because you do not have that power. This was good shit, and all these bitches that are saying Kate Beckinsale's can't act are missing a point. She is suppose to be followed on the screen, not deconstructed.

OK. I will leave those ideas at that. I would like to develop them, but I have some more things I gotta work on today. Plus another doctor's appointment, tomorrow, which is Friday, because this is Thursday morning, and I am writing an entry for Tuesday night, about an event that has already happened.

I love the darkness.

--------

PS

I read the poem "A Great Day For a Lay" also known as "Platonic Blow", by W.H. Auden.

It is better than a Chi Chi La Rue film.

Trust.

I tell you,

That generation of dandies . . .

Something tragic about them.

All that booze, tweed, cigarettes, underground sex, in seedy motels on the East river, and parlors full of Americana . . .

Where was Langston in this line of dandies?

Dead?

Alive?

or

Dying?

Poor American Dandies.

Like they wanted to stay Edwardian even after the atomic bomb was detonated.

I don't know much about Auden, have to read up on him. But I do locate him in dandy time and space.

For us,

The self-pity is still here

In this new century

Even if the tight molars of New England accents

Have have long gone

Out of fashion.

They,

The dandies,

Are still

Here

In Nashville

Listening to Depeche Mode

Drinking sour apple martinis

And looking absolutely fuckin' dead.

And

I look

Wondering

If the pussy

Is any good.

The Oracle

I went to the bookstore yesterday to return two movies I watched. One was called Dona Herlinda and Her Son. Sexy movie. Sexy butts in shorts and tight pants. The second was The Einstein of Sex. Very interesting but depressing. It shows a side of German history that many do not know about.

Don Herlinda is a great film because it shows a woman that has obviously no problem with her son's sexual taste, and is willing to manipulate parts of Mexico's conservative Catholic bourgeoisie society in order to have the family that she wants. That includes a married son and a grandchild. The hand picked wife and her son's lover are woven in step by step and you are amazed at all of the characters and how their lives come to some mutual understanding. I think it is interesting. The film was made in 1986, which is part of what makes it so fun (little technological gadgets are featured, whose depiction in today's world, rivals VH-1'S I LOVE THE EIGHTIES).

The movie stars Guadalope Del Torro, Marco Antonio Trevino and Arturo Meza and is directed by Jaime Humberto Hermosillo. I will have to check Hermosillo out a bit more. He is an openly gay Mexican movie director. There was something so exact about this film. Everyone is moving in this unsaid world of the obvious. It is the actors' expression and performance of internal emotions on celluloid that leaves an impression on you. In the end, not only does Dona Herlinda get what she wants, but so does everybody else.

The other film I saw was the Einstein of Sex. It was a docu-drama about Dr. Magnus Hirshfeld. I think the title is funny, it sounds like one of those movies I used to wait up for on Cinemax when I was 10. The film itself is done in that German cinematography that makes everything look as if you are watching Masterpiece Theater on extra bright. This particular style of filming is crystal clear, almost like the cameraman has filtered out all imperfect light like a brewer of "Krystalweissen". For some films I like it, at other times I don't really. I find this optical realism makes any footage of the North Sea or the Baltic with its clear salty sky, sand dunes, shallow water and tall grass appear ab-so-fucking - lute- ly amazing. This film opens on the Baltic, so I fell in love pretty quick. The lighting was great, except for the scenes with Hirschfeld's nemesis, Adolf Brand, founder of Der Eigene. All those naked guys and Greco-Roman sculptures needed a bit more shading. Brand seemed to me to be a bit down and dirty and drunk on masculinity. Such optical clarity did a bit of a disservice to his character and the boys that played as his army of dime story lackeys. I have found the magazine Der Eigene to be great pornography but bad politics. But, don't take my word on it, read up on it yourself.

The movie is great in showing a particular German world of the "belle epoque". It reminded me of Weimar Berlin, which was notorious for its bisexual and homosexual flair. There was a CD I saw in Germany full of love songs written for men and women of the same sex, and performed by women and men. Gotta buy it when I go back.

At the end of this movie you just think "poor Herr Professor Hirshfield ", since he was Jewish, gay, and an intellectual the twine tied tight around his neck. In the end, a world tour saved his live. He just did not come back. And lucky for him, the film portrays him as a man secure in his middle-class world, and his accomplishments; therefore, he is naive about the situation. I think that could be correct, how many Jews perished because they did not notice that the water in their pot was about to boil.

Rosa von Praunheim did a great job in directing and casting the actors. I also think, since the film was done in Germany, the film has a very clinical feel that makes the subject matter of sex approachable in a way that is too charged for an American director or one with an American audience in mind. The only thing I want to take her to task for is the depiction of young Magnus's sexual awakening with coloured men dancing in the hull of a ship. There is nothing wrong with beautiful virile black men dancing to drums with 2 machetes in hand (I do it all the time), it is there empty representation because the music and ceremony are without any true cultural signs that show a real language, a real rite, or a real meaning. They are just coloured folk from all parts of the tropics dancing and chanting; and, meanwhile the 2 white boys are experiencing there desire in this hull, which smells of young Magnus's subconscious and the Eurocentrically constructed abscess of Western culture where the noble savage can descend to a Dionysian plague of lust and not be infected. Coloureds are allowed such debauchery and base pleasures, white's must rule the world.

Which reminds me, I will write about German boys later. They are not like that, but in a way they are still. A couple. I did not fuck 'em, these few. But there was something frightening in their voices and language concerning me being black or African and them being German. I think the 19th century was born between the legs of England and Germany and in many ways, maybe those countries are still between them legs. Just a thought.

Mental note.

Follow up later.

Ok . . . Einstein of Sex

Otherwise, there were some other issues concerning 19th century science and its empirical surveys of dick sizes, anal suppleness and pear shaped male bodies that bothered me. Africans were done the same way. The scientific hoax that that world of thinking was has caused so much damage for all of us in the 20th century. But I don't think Praunheim was tackling that subject, we need another movie for that.


-------------------

So, I finished the films and took them back to the bookstore after work. I talked to a friend of mine there. She lets her big afro fly and she doesn't really care about what people think and most of the time she is just doing her work and smoking her cigarettes watching people go from here to there. I will christen her The Oracle. I know it is tacky and Matrix like, but she put the law down on me in such a subtle but serious way.

We won't get into details.

You just need to know that she has a high voice, tie-dye shirt, jeans jacket, wide glasses and a manner that can seem non-threatening. Her scarves and bandannas cast her as someone that remains in her world, but she is in touch. This night, she showed me another side, like fire coming from her eyes concerning having my cake, eating it too, and where I bought it in the first place.

I just went to the back to talk to her about the movies, but we ended up talking about this guy I had a crush on and wanted to bang. The short of it and the realization of 2006 is "ASS IS A DISTRACTION!"

Thank you Oracle.

And Lawd knows I have been distracted.

THANK YOU ORACLE.

Plus, she warned me that if I do go see the Radical Faeries that I should not let them convince me not to wear deodorant. LOL


Thanks for the heads up Oracle.

You know my hardwiring bitch!


And I am grateful.

Reading Rainbow

OK. These are all of the books that I am carrying over from 2005, and that does not include required reading for my other project.


Reading List

1. Steppenwolf by Herman Heese -- A friend told me to read it. It takes place in Tübingen where I lived for a while and he said it captured that place perfectly. I am not a fan of Tuebingen personally. If I had gone before I went to NYC then it probably would have been OK. But what can I say, I found a room and some work, and got started there. You can’t just quit because other people tell you to.

2. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst -- Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for fiction. Have started. Found it intriguing, but just haven’t read that much.

3. Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais -- Bought last year. Only got through the majority of the first book.

4. Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World’s Favorite Flavor and Fragrance -- I like to cook and I like cultural histories and I found this one at a big remainder clearing house full of people who look like the author on the back. You know. Book and cat lovers and plant lovers. I can identify to a certain extent . . . if I can get a little rough and toughness, I could find a perfect mate there. Everybody in that book store was much too gentle for my taste though.

5. General Sun My Brother by Stephen Alexis -- lugged around Europe back to Tennessee. Bought in Germany, in Stuttgart.

6. Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire by Niall Ferguson -- first book that I bought as soon as I landed after reading the reviews in the NY Times at my desk in Cologne. I am wondering about Niall's style of history . . . suppose to be the historical Archangel of my generation in a way.

7. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand -- Same friend from number one tried to strangle me for borrowing it, after he said it took a while for him to read. English is not his first language but it is close enough now. I am a bit unnerved that I have not read it.

8. Black Southerners in Confederate Armies: A Collection of Historical Accounts by Segars and Barrow -- Bought from used book store on Ellingston Place. They keep directing me to the “black book section” and frowned at me when I was looking at other books. First antiquarian bookstore I went to in this country after 4 years of being away. I did not feel very welcome. Still bought this book because it is fascinating to me.

9. Mucho Macho: Seduction, Desire and the Homoerotic Lives of Latin Men by Michael Girman -- Been eyeing this book for some time, but never had the nerve to read it. Bought this summer when I got back from Deutschland. Don't care if mother sees the title on the coffee table (I am starting to feel like Norman Bates, at moments . . . )

10. The Story of the Siege of Lisbon, Jose Saramago -- Ms. Portugal gave me this. We don't talk about this anymore.

11. The Bondswoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts -- Birthday gift from mom last year.

12. The Equality of the Human Races, by Anténor Firmin -- Gotta read it. Period.

13. Ulysses by James Joyce -- Ashamed to say I have not read it, so I gotta read it!

14. The Geography of Perversion: Male to Male Sexual Behavior Outside the West and the Ethnographic Imagination. 1750-1918 by Rudi C. Bleys -- Found on a discount rack. Seems very , very interesting to me. Not for everybody though.

Leviathan

I am having a hard time today. I am depressed about New Orleans and worried about my cousins' welfare in Slidel. I have only meet a couple of them. It was the Christmas when I was 14 and my cousin Annette took me to a bunch of bars and we got drunk, then went and saw the Eddie Murphy's movie The Golden Child. I was not that tall, but I could carry myself pretty well in a room full of adults. All I needed was a cigarette, and my cousin just had a cup of white wine. She wasn't legal either. I drove home from the movie cause she was sleepy.

I am worried about my grandmother in Picayune, which is located on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain and East of New Orleans. I just don't think America cares about the Gulf, and is willing to show more optimism, support and cash to Iraq than to us.

But is that really the case? Friends of mine in Europe say that through Katrina, they see why Iraq is a disaster. This is the way we manage our wars and disasters in America, without a plan and by the seat of our pants. Sometimes it is a good idea, and sometimes you come up with craps.

New Orleans is a whole world that is falling into disarray. Its francophone remnants will be swallowed by the sea I am afraid, but time and migrating generations have already eroded much of that underlying fabric. Sometimes I wonder if the spirits have ordained it. I wonder if they are claiming it back, if their moment there of preeminence is long gone, and there is something in our lethargy towards the spirits that is causing this shake down. All this commercialism and the turning of fetishes into mere gimmicks has punched a whole in the levy. Maybe the spirits are inviting Our Lady of Guadaloupe (who is a synchronization of the Aztec Goddess Tonantzin) to take up some of the slake caused by the Anglo invasion. She is an earth goddess and I think that the marsh lands are in need of some serious sexual healing after all this erosion. . .

But what do I know. I am just babbling. For right now, I just can't get over the parallels between Gonaive in Haiti and New Orleans. Rivers. Honey. Hurricanes. Erzulie Frida. Erzulie Dantor. Neglect. Pandemonium. Poverty. Floating black bodies. Bloated black bodies. And this feeling that the Anglos never understood or cared about the creoles . . . really. That strange and Firmin feeling I got when I was growing up. People talking about us because we ate so much fish in our house. In Germany sitting with many African-Americans and listening to gospel music and talking about how "we" shall over come and what "we" want for "the people", and there being something else in the back of my mind. Something about our prosperity and a floor wash I found in my father's closet next to his shoe shine polish. Watching him pour rum and read book after book. Telling us it is time to "go make groceries" and pushing us around in the cart when we were small enough to fit. His baby blue blue jeans from Sears and the flip flops on his ashen feet that he was not ashamed of made everybody turn at Winn Dixie. He walked and carried himself with a jiggle, that I think I have inherited. Something just mud ridden and cast iron about him then as compared to now. His youth and vitality is still intact, but now expressed with an austerity that is broad and silent like his shoulders in a suit that fits and falls perfectly. He still has room to grow, but such marks of the Delta have been erased. He is and is still becoming an American cosmopolitan. It has taken me sometime to see that my father actually immigrated from the coast into mainstream culture and has not really looked back except for moments when he brought us ginger beer and sugar cane on a summer afternoon, or put molasses onto my pancakes. Red beans and okra were all right for everyday.

----

Today I read over my blogs and decided that I did not like the one about my trip to Atlanta and the party at A's house last week. Too many "cools" and repetitive sentence structures dot its progression. I have also been glancing over the blogs of other black writers and academics. It has been "cool", but sometimes I think it is a world that I somehow remember being in, but left a little while a go to get some air. And now that I am sticking my head back into the rooms of chatter and dealing with the students and administrations of various university, I, all of a sudden, remember that I could not breath in those "spaces" (and I mean that in the full cultural theorist and just plan "theorist" sense of the word).

Mind you, I did all of this Africana blog surfing while listening to the song "I Am Afraid of My Cum" by the group Pissed. Had the demo on repeat. I downloaded it from Jockohomo's blog. I was also thinking about the next time I am going to shave my head.

Not to digress, but I think that the other part of me that can't find a place to express itself in the reading groups and woman dominated classes on Caribbean literature is not so willing to disappear just yet. -- this half of myself many people find to be weird, or as Das Experiment says: "It does not match the rest of you (me)." A lot of people think that when I say I lived in NYC, that I am from NYC and that since I love hip-hop music, rap, house music, etc . . . , that I don't listen to punk or rock music. I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee that should give a couple of mofo's a major hint.

I mean I sat through the first semester of my 9th grade English class with 19-year-old white boys that smelled like Marlboros and wet hair. I learned a lot about sex from a curly red hair grease monkey who was on the wrestling team. The guys that I liked and had crushes on in physical education were a bunch of 15 -year-olds that hit puberty early and drank cokes in the parking lot only to disappear during 3rd period. I remember that they would shower and laugh and play after swim class; meanwhile, all the black guys were very modest and maybe they were scared. Conversations switched to Brass Monkey by the Beastie Boys (who no one could believe were white) when we finally all put on our underwear, before putting my underwear on my heart just pumped like a hummingbird. I was very shy. The only thing left in my head concerning those brief naked times was everybody speaking so slow. Guys calling each other "dawg" and stuff like that. The white guys did not act that way. They were still busy screaming and laughing under the shower heads.

I remember smiling at one of these "white" guys, the darkest one. He smiled back in "that" way, and I guess he knew that I like him. But he did not go any further. He seemed straight but not to care. And I think that has influenced me in a way. I had crushes on both black guys and white guys in high school, but I could only smile that way to the white guys. The black guys would simply call me faggot and with time I became an outcast until I hit puberty and grew up like a vine. Then, at seventeen, I heard less of the name calling.

But anyway, I am moving to something I have to think about more later. I could develop it into a nice essay I think, but I need to remember that world.

To sum up the post, I don't always feel comfortable with all the definitions of what it means to be black in the academe and at this point I doubt if I ever will. And just like the locker rooms of 1986, it is the boundaries built by the black guys that make me feel uncomfortable. There is a code of conduct concerning black professors and our various projects in the Western Cannon that baffles my sensibilities. If we can't talk about the spirits, drink beer, learn about the punk and ska movement, and kiss white boy grease monkeys I am not sure if I can participate. But of course, I do participate. Just in another way.

The Picture Show

I went the movies yesterday. I had been sitting in the house all day again and I had major things that I needed to get done. So, I wanted a break from sitting in front of the computer and also knowing that I had to go to another doctor today made me anxious to move about away from my sleepy little suburb.

Add $60 dollars to today's visit, plus $75 dollars for some pills I bought a couple of days ago and an insulin co-pay that I anticipate to be about 10 dollars later today when I show up with my little RX card. I will probably have to drive back home in the middle of the night and call some guys in Kansas, Missouri, or Nebraska that have been hired to do the farmed out administrative work that the powers that be have deemed fit for the poor bastards who have been unlucky enough to come down with an ailment they can't fix and who don't work for Coca Cola Inc., or Exxon, or simply choose not to work for them, etc . . . The person on the other line will be either a completely overworked cynical single mom who is my age but sounds like one of the guest actresses on E.R. (you know the one who played the Alpha female careerist who checked in with a heroin addiction, and faked one disease to get the medicine to help her kick her habit over the weekend), or the guy fresh out of college or the mosh pit working this job in the evening while he waits for the third person in his 3 party relationship to move end so he can dump this gig and concentrate on what really matters. I have had both at this RX outsourced service location. The second guy was so, so, helpful . . . I am SO for real, no sarcasm. I am sure that I asked for his name. I will call him today if things get heavy with the people in the white coats this evening. And the night staff is much nicer than the people who work during the day. That is a good thing to know when you are partically on the dole and dependent on your local pharmacy in more ways than anyone should ever know.

OK. Enough self-pity!

So, last night, I got to the movie theater. I must admit that Brokeback Mountain is number 3 on my list. First is Munich and the second is The Hostel. Unfortunately, with the opening of Underworld: Evolution on Friday, Brokeback Mountain will stay in the number 2 position for just one day. It is up for an Oscar, so that movie ain't going anywhere. Now, Munich and Underworld 2 are running neck to neck, with Underworld falling into a hair's length second place .

When I got to the ticket counter, Munich was not playing for another 45 minutes, and The Hostel was just a 20 minute wait. So I choose The Hostel. After taking a whizz, getting some Sweet and Sour Skittels (I love the way the burn the skin off the inside of my mouth) and a gigantic diet coke I went into the theater. I was the first one. Next was a mother and either her daughter or son, and their girlfriend or boyfriend. I situated myself in the center and stuck the gigantic diet coke into the holder. The super large drink is the best value at $4.50. It is only .50 cent more than the large and it comes with free refills. Wonderful when going to the movies with kids. But the cup is also hard enough to take home and re-use. It is not hard plastic like the cups you could take home from McDonald's centuries back, but when you drink something out of it without ice, you really feel the vastness of that vessel. Like your whole nose goes into it. It feels like I am looking into a parking garage.

Just before the movie starts, I started to remember what a co-worker at work was telling. me They have carded people inside the actual movie. Like people really do come and look around reading the ID's of people. I thought it can't be that bad, just some ole' Tennessee madness. The movie theater never fills up. There are a couple of thugs life coloreds that come up behind me. One ghetto fabulous couple. Some of "the children" are down on the lower level. A small blond lady about mid-forties and her giant of a man are one row down to my left. He leaned forward to look closer at the movie with an attentiveness I found disturbing. Even more astounding was that his girth in silhouette made him a breathing optical illusion. You could not tell if he was sitting upright two rows down from me, or if his leaning body was connected to the seat next to the woman. At times you could not see the woman's body. Her hair was like a long blond mop. His back was a mass of black and at moments, your could admire his limberness, the way his torso positioned itself inclined with his arms folded on the chair in front of him.

So the movie is really good. Especially if you have lived overseas for a while. It captures all the American love and lust for a European hiking tour by way of Europe's various national railroad systems. It starts out in Amsterdam, with the two young adults and one looking to be in his late thirties drinking, smoking and fucking. Oh! The bathroom sex of it!

The Hostel gives Europe a realistic skin over the overtly stereotypical depiction of fast girls, free pot and hot clubs. It also shows male bonding in a way that I think most guys (straight of gay) will enjoy. All the horse play, pranks, meeting girls in the sauna, very public sex, etc . . ., are all found in the movie. Brought back memories I must say, and on top of that, I started to realize why people would be carded in this movie. From my new found Tennessee eyes it was sheer debauchery. Forget Brokeback mountain (where were the Christian Right during My Private Idaho and Making Love by the way?), send your children to this heterosexual blood feast if you want to corrupt them.

The girls in this movie were amazing. The two sirens really were that, hot Eastern European girls, and the woman at the check-out counter was not bad either. The guys less so. Except for the Icelandic 30 something, they were cute guys, talking about soon to be contemplated dissertations, Bar exams, and some future world in tones I vaguely remember in my own life. That fake machismo manner is a hallmark of a twenty something I think. There is no way you can know so much about the world. The idea that somehow your life is going to change when you get back from this 3 or 4 week excursion through Europe is somehow very American. We never force our coming of age, in all actually, coming of age forces us.

So, I won't say anymore about the film except that it is full of gore. And is not even the right word. In all actually, the real terror was my bladder splitting open after drinking that giant coke, and me not wanting to seem like a complete pansy getting up to use the bathroom for the second time. I had gone just before the movie, in the first have of the movie and now I gotta get up during the bloodletting. I know. I know. I know already, but I had thug and thug love surrounding me, and if I learned anything in NYC working with homeless kids in Time Square, you got to wear a mask or anything will jump on you (and I mean that in the Sethe's swollen feet running from Teacher in the Oprah Windfry movie production sense of the phrase). And I must say, that reflex was still in motion despite all the intellectual gender role games and Foucault jumping jack exercises of power and representation I can recite in my mind. Well that was a moment of honesty with the audience, a quick synaptic shock confessional wave of thought that keep my ass in my chair. I must also say I didn't want to whizz for the third time that evening because the movie was so good, but the bladder pressure was adding to the intensity I must say.

The silence I heard in the audience was identical to that in the Mel Gibson The Passion of the Christ movie. And there is a touch of Bob Guccione's Caligula in the film. It is not found in the grandeur (the is none) or the decadence (there is plenty), it is in the excess. This movie is gruesome to excess. One couple got up and walked out. Everyone else simply watched, knowing that more and more of this bodily harm was going to happen. I left the movie a little light headed. I drove to that massive big chain store that is swallowing America, picked up some shaving cream and a pack of razors (there needs to be a Congressional hearing on the price of men's razor refills, but cudos to Gillette. The Mach 3 Power is really superior to the Mach 3 Turbo refills, it is well worth the extra dollar.), then missed my turn off of Charlotte Pike and had to drive through TSU to get home.

But in the morning, I felt OK. Don't even remember that scary feeling.

Just started my day.

I had big project due at 8:30 am.

Finished and arrived right on time.

In Anticipation of Torture

Woke up at 7:00. I had a 8:40 appointment with a dermatologist. I found another cyst on my head. Cost of the visit: $116. Now, I think I spent 10 minutes with this guy. He basically told me that the first cyst should just stay their because drainage may cause it to do some freaky shit. Plus hair has already grown over it. The second one is hairless and I look like I have some strange fungus in my head. The doctor said that my hair should grow back in about 6 months and since it has shrunken since the night I discovered it, dressed as a monk, drunk and passed out on my couch on Halloween night, there is no worry. So this news is priceless. I visualized lots of blood and people running around with suction machines and me asking for more shots of local anesthetic like the kidney biopsy that some Columbia doctor preformed on me a couple of years ago (at one point I confessed that I was an alien and he could find my kidneys in my elbow, and if he pinched my left pinky a little door would open up on my arm . . . they just could not find my kidneys, my lower back muscles were so thick it was moving the little wire needle); or the time last May when I had a rotten tooth and this dentist situated in my neighborhood shattered the tooth into three pieces trying to extract it, the assistant nurse had to leave the room because she got sick to the stomach, there were bits of tooth on the tip of my tongue and tons of blood; and, then there was the time I had malaria and they had to take a bone marrow sample and the resident or young doctor at the hospital in New Brunswick, NJ stuck a rod in my pelvis and then pulled the thick metal hollow tube out like he was trying to dislodge a car door and I laid immobile in my own bone marrow. I used to have a phobia to doctors, but after all the test, and prodding, and the catheter coming out of my stomach every three days now, I face the fact that I will bleed and be in pain like a victim of the inquisition. The problem I have is surrendering my body to other people that I should trust and them fuckin' up. And, to watch them try to guise the "transaction that has just transpired" in an aloft and clinical language dumbfounds me. Their faces always betray them. But many times, if it is a young doctor I feel bad for them. They have to present themselves to others and talk in a professional manner and then maybe try something they have never done before. Its humanity no? They didn't do it on purpose. That is the human part of it, they are really trying to help (except for that masochistic dentist!).

Sorry, new readers I am not so gory normally, but that was what was running through my mind this morning in the snow.

It snowed last night!

Now it is melting. But there you go, proof that it is cold in Tennessee. And before the weather got really crazy, there were real snow storms. The last one here was 2003, but they were always regular before global warming of whatever is going on. Most of my birthdays were snow days growing up.

That's all for today I guess. The post from the last couple of days took up some of my time. Now, there really is nothing else to report except that my diet is changing to Smoothies and Coffee . . . wonderful combination . . . all the nutrients that I piss out due to coffee's diuretic nature are replenished with vitamins and more water. All that nice vitamin stuff plus big bad caffeine gives me tons of energy.

Vrrrummm! Vrrrummm!

Nothing Up My Sleeve

Finally got the little bits of programming script and cutting and pasting down so that I can hook up some links to my little blog. Hopefully these are the first steps to me learning more about programming. So, I have added links to Stan and Woof on my blog. Stan is my cousin, and Woof is a porn star.

And that is about it today. It was computer day, and talking to my father day, which ended in some sort of understanding. He said: "I did not know that you felt so passionately about your work." I did not know what to say to him after that. Just an odd pause. What has he been thinking for nearly 34 years about me anyway?

I guess it is normal. I have chosen a profession that no one in the family has done -- and I am talking family reunion, hundreds of descendents of that coachman and woman servant circa. 1868 family reunion, not just in my house. Stan is in the same boat I believe too.

That is all for today. No deep thoughts, just back to the grind stone.

Crunkin' For Christ

While driving from work last Sunday night I decided to get something to eat from Wendy's. I could have eaten at the restaurant where I work, but the volume of rich food (one Brazilian co-worker says "strong food") is too much. I am gaining weight from eating that stuff. Wendy's is not the best choice I admit, but I pleased my conscious with a chicken sandwich over plates full of steak.

While in the drive-thru I heard an advertisement for a street carnival, or fair. It included a lot of community services such as job fairs and church based organizing. I don't mind, I think it is a good way to traditionally reach out to the community concerning a ton of things. And it being the eve of MLK DAY, it was an expected advertisement, but definitely not unwelcome.

Well, as I am turning the corner and concentrating on getting change I hear something like "Crunk for Christ" or "Crunk for Jesus" spoken by the announcer, and then on top of that I hear a church and a pastor's name. Well, I am tripping cause I want to turn my ear to the ad that is starting to go off, but I be darn if I have to give this guy 4 dollars and 27 cent and I like to do exact change at a drive-thru because it helps me get rid of all that extra coinage I lug around in the front seat arm rest.

So let's look at the ad and my delayed reaction.

1. Call me old fashion, but "Crunkin' for Christ" is not my idea of a worship service. Though it could be just that, me aging in a culture that is changing.

2. The bling-bling of our culture has infiltrated our churches.

3. Prosperity Preaching is not my idea of a sermon. I have sat through sermons where people say that if you just pray your bills will be paid. OK, I think that is a bit too simple. Shouldn't we be teaching a more balanced spirituality. At my church (an old fashioned one), the idea of publicly testifying to empty your heart of past fears or addictions is a true test of courage and ultimate surrender. I still find that beautiful and terrifying in my mind. Could I do that? Will I do that one day? Will I have to confess one day from a heavy heart? All are terrifying questions.

The idea that Christ helped you through something that was not right in your heart or your mind is what I am after in a sermon. Not to mention something erudite, dated with BC or AD, a narrative on the consistency of Rome, a speech about the old law verses Christ's new covenant, or a simple announcement that it is "healing time" after you had a hard week at work, etc . . .

4. And finally, ain't there something just not right about Crunkin' 4 Christ. Like does that mean we all go down to the church with a chalice of Crunk Juice 20/20 brandishing our gold plated, diamond encrusted crucifixes. To me it is a sign that the BET/MTV/VH-1 signifiers of our younger gifted and black culture are being noticed not only by the white folk that write dictionaries, but by our sacred black preachers. And maybe it is not that foreign to Moses and Obadiah, there are preachers here that are a little bit older than me, they grew up with hip-hop just as I did. But I can't help but see something short-sighted about it.

So, while I am on the subject of my MLK observations, I might as well post a couple of other things that I noticed this past "holiday season".

-- The very next morning, when I realized that my mother was off from work, I heard her laughing and clapping as Al Sharpton spoke to somebody on CNN or CNBC or what have you. Rev. Sharpton is very interesting. My mother was saying that he was telling the truth in his unmistakable hallmark cadence and candor. From his raspy voice and the timbre of his heaving and sanctified low tenor, I knew he was speaking before I got to the edge of the stairs. But there was something about what he said that tickles my cynically inclinations, a presumption concerning what MLK would say today about our youth is not welcomed on any occasion as far as I am concerned. I am not so sure any of us can say what MLK would find in our current plight of representation in the media verses the reality of our children. And honestly, I don't remember that much about what Rev. Sharpton had said, not like what I heard him say at Rosa Parks’ funeral, which was interesting to me. I was just passing through the family room that MLK Day morning. My mother grew up in Anniston Alabama where they turned over the buses and my uncles talk about the ideal world that was created by my great-grandmother and her and grandparent’s generation in a time of lynchings and slaughter in the streets. Rosa was something more to them than to me.

-- The second thing that happened on MLK Day was the fact that the Fireman called me from Hotlanta to say that tons of people were in the city. And my cousin warned me of that too. MLK is really a "holiday" where mass-o-Negroes congregate in our now spiritual home of Atlanta (not DC, sorry, you lost out). All these black butterflies drinking that peach blossom nirvana of free black culture, a good job, somewhat free sexual expression and crunk music for the love of Martin Luther is something new to me. It is a bit less than the million man march, but what became of that? It was a moment. A good one I believe. But finite for sure. Martin Luther King is a venerated Ancestor on the way to the supernatural in only 40 years. He has already got a festival. He already has a gospel. And He is already being misunderstood. In a generation we might start giving gifts.

-- Atlanta brings us to the idea of Chocolate Cities. DC lost out, but New Orleans really wants to be a big ole glass of Ovaltine. Who knew? While coming home from work on MLK night after serving food to some white folk with my Mexican, Honduran, Brazilian and El Salvadoran friends and glances at the Ultimate Fighter matches on the television, I opened the door to hear something about the mayor of Nawlins talking about the N.O. being a chocolate city and some other things that did not come out right. My mother was half sleep on the couch. She woke up, told me that people were upset about the comments but did not know why. She was looking at some pundits on Fox News or CNBC, which is rare for her, but she really wanted to see why the white folk were going crazy. I just went upstairs. As I was climbing the 4 steep steps to the kitchen I heard ". . . blah, blah, blah, (H)e repeated his imaginary conversation with Dr. King . . . blah, blah, blah . . . " or something like that from a correspondent on the tube.

I think that New Orleans has gone through a disaster and, without the pure fiscal and nakedly corporate resources of New York City, finds itself still out in the middle of the sea that just invaded it. There are many nefarious interest and forces that hunt on the poor and their property. Ray Nagin is trying to manage a city in 2006, but decides to use references to the 60's civil rights movement in order to talk about race, his constituency and the problems of class. I have not figured out exactly how I feel about it. I just know that it was politically unwise, whatever he said.

-- So, Nagin's speech reminded me of the Boondocks MLK Day episode, which I did not see in its entirety because I came in late from work again. MLK was talking to a bunch of people in a church that were busy crunkin', dancing (is that the same as crunkin’?), and fighting. He used the "N" word, which was funny to me in away. I wanted to see it from beginning to end, just to get the full context of Martin Luther King's speech in that pulpit. But I missed it. But I did think of crunk music again, and how I have been gone 4 years, but America looks so different. Maybe I have been away from Nashville's black community, the community where I grew up, for 15 years or more and the crunk thing still sits wrong with me just because I have different musical taste. I just don't see it. I know crunk comes from me and my high school chums gangster walking in the late eighties, but from that where has it gone? I was here for only that moment. 1988-'91 or '92 was just a moment.

An Ordinary Day's Thought on Haiti

There are a couple of things I wanted to mention over the last couple of days but have not had a chance. My vacation was pretty intense and I must admit that when I went to work yesterday I saw many things in a different light. Financially, I just don't need this waiting job since the pay is so low and I am feeling better. Ready to get back into the world I guess, though on this go around and after all the things that happened in Cologne, I am convinced that most people do not need writers and language. Even the business students a the school I taught at in Germany really did not need language, they just wanted vocabulary words. Plus, the business professors there switched out language instructors like used card decks in Atlantic City. To study languages and literature is a rarefied sport and unless you are moving in a community of writers and teachers most people believe that you are not working at all. Typing is not working. LOL

A List Of Things In My Brain Meant To Be Told And Savored For An Uneventful Day

1st Thing
My cousin from Atlanta read the blog. He said that he heard many different voices in my writing. I tried to explain that I like to use many different voices when I write. I like the parenthetical notation, the "on second thought", the after thought. He said that he thought it was multiple personalities and started to laugh. It reminded me of when I was talking to my stepmother about Jason's Lyric I think. I told her it was a good movie, but could have been a great movie if the plot was tweeked this way or that. She then said she did not think it was that deep. She is an accountant.

I think that through my blog, my cousin has seen a part of me that he is not sure that he likes. I am a cynic. And he is not. And now I wonder how he missed that part of me. I think that it is because with family I am a bit different as we all are. I just shut my mouth most of the time because if you mumble in a southern home there is always aunt Dorothy or Peggy asking you to repeat yourself. And sometimes they laugh and sometimes they don't. But me and Stan are always meeting in DC, LA or Atlanta outside of all that. I wonder how he missed my cynical side. I wonder if the line of demarcation is drawn by my pre-formed persona -- my performance of sorts -- or his perception of me?

2nd Thing

I

I have been reading J's Theater. His blog is like the damn New York Review of Books. It is an education unto itself on all things deep. J mentions in his January 7th post the death (apparently suicide) of the Brazilian head of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Haiti General Urano Texeira da Matta Bacellar. This is unnerving. First, I wonder what he saw and who he confided in concerning the turmoil that has hit Haiti. Second, J mentions La Tortue, who I believe has good intentions, but returned to his homeland in a power brokering position with little idea of how bad things were in terms of the everyday life of the average Haitian. I remember when the floods happened in Gonaives, the look of disbelief on his normally big and jolly African chieftain face. I remember him saying that the people of Haiti were suffering neglect. And for that split second I remember the look on my father's face when we were working in Jersey City after I got out of college. It was as if my father left his upper-middle class world for the first time and entered the inner city for work. That world was one he was very unfamiliar with, growing up on a farm and all. But, when he worked with the people and saw the dilapidation, he felt as if things had been neglected. For him, it was the same as walking out of a house in 1962 and returning in 1993 to find the wallpaper had buckled and bubbled; the ceiling's leaks vibrating outward in brown rings; and, the stray animals walking in and out of his old home seeming less than vagrants. And looking at La Tortue, I saw that glimmer in his eye. An entire mountain was moistened and slid down upon this city of Gonaives, what could he do? There is no amount of career idealism masked as administrative experience that can combat such a situation. And in the end, what good is all of the words and cultural knowledge in the shadow of such violence. Super literacy does not defeat illiteracy as much as we may like to think that it does. I have not keep up with Haiti as much as I used to in the last year since I got knocked on my ass. But the despair and senselessness of the situation is mind numbing to me.

And that is the feeling I hear in peoples voices concerning Haiti. And now, I am hearing it in the voice of people who study the Caribbean and want to champion it. It is a level of tiredness coming from the intellectual class in this aftermath of 200 years of independence. Something that looks so vainglorious in history presentations, slave conferences, linguistic studies and literary critiques, but in reality is far less. It is ashen, with black skins thrown from here to there. Running in the mud. Eating cakes made from clay and salt, baked in the sun.

One friend and researcher talked about "that being Haiti"when confronted with the severity of the situation. Another friend that bailed from the halls of a literature department into an administrative position said "things will never change" after her work there trying to empower Haitian women. And the latest came from a department head. Upon hearing my history thesis idea concerning the idea of Haiti in the late 18th/early 19th century formation of PanAfricanism (still in the air, whole project still pending, I want a real job), said: "What is wrong with Haiti? It has been 200 years. They haven't gotten it together yet." And her family is from Martinique. After testing my French (I failed in pronunciation of a certain word) I was dismissed from her office -- nicely I must add, and with good advice concerning the politics of the university. She seemed to be a real meat eater and a cynic. Good for surviving the rigorous bullshit of university posts.

So, upon hearing of this suicide I became a little depressed again. Brazil has been doing things here and there for Haiti. The Brazilian football/soccer team played in Port-au-Prince a little over a year ago. And the high profile of the Brazilian lead UN forces coupled with the newly elected Lula made me think that somehow a real PanAmerican effort to save Haiti could be forming. But now, it all seems to be a downward spiral with very little chance of a significant change. Did the UN ever get the requested number of troops for the Haitian crisis? And as long as our current political landscape stays the way it has, and as long as the United Nations is over stretched with disasters in Africa and Southeast Asia the 8.5 million castaways on "that half" of that unspecific island in the Caribbean will be stranded at sea. I wonder who notices.

II

I decided to pick up one of the few things I have been able to salvage from my life's recent tumble to middle Tennessee (Middle Earth). When I got back from Germany last year, I decided to pick up a copy of the magazine BOMB. The Winter 2004/2005 issue is dedicated to Haiti. I have not finished reading the whole thing one year later. I skipped the Stuart Hall interview with David Scott, but read the majority of the issue before shelving it. After the suicide of the UN General I decided to revisit the Evelyne Trouillot interview conducted by Edwidge Danticat.

When I read it last year I was interested because I had read Haiti, Nation Against State by Evelyen Trouillot's brother Michel-Rolph Trouillot in Germany. I checked it out of the University of Tuebingen's Political Science Library while I was working between there and Reutlingen. The book was recommended by one of my mentors in Paris and was a blessing in a world where Haiti is not even an after thought. Many Germans thought I had said Tahiti when explaining my interest and that particulars of the Haitian world. This time I re-read the article because I was looking for traces of a tangible move toward resolution and problem solving in the face of terrible tragedy, because in 2004 the fire was a flood and the interview was conducted sometime after Gonaive.

In a way, I felt that the article's questions and answers were following a sort of prefabricated idea about discussions concerning Haiti. Lately, I have started to feel a sort of phobia concerning Haiti and its workings in the North American cosmology of race, and the PanAfricanist project. This comes from the fact that I am not Haitian and I am not a first generation American, like my friends are and the way many of my professors and fellow graduate students were. This automatically put me at a certain distance, because whole conversations switch to questions concerning why I am interested in Haiti, or concerning my abilities in French or Spanish. And if those answers are not up to scratch we move on to issues of "seriousness", the ultimate dental floss thin measure of dedication and progression in the craft of intellectualism. In every conversation concerning Haiti or the Caribbean I feel the Gringo flag raised and with time it may lower, or it may just wave and waiver, tittering from side to side until my spirit leaves my comfortable upbringing in Tennessee, and my memories of ancestors on the Gulf of Mississippi (where slave ships landed) and Northern Alabama, to walk to my adopted home of New York City, full of first generations from all over, discussing identity in terms of home verses homeland. I become foreign by the end of conversations concerning C.L.R. James and Fernando Ortiz because this is my home. My identity is set. America is the metropolis, I do not gaze to Port-au-Prince, Havana, Madrid or Paris.

It was only after living in Germany that I realized that I was a foreigner in the certain circles of New York City. I would never and can never conduct a conversation concerning the Caribbean the way many colleagues can. And they will never understand me because many have not been South. Many do not know much about African Americans here. Many take for granted that the only possibility that we have is the urban mass marketed world of our North Atlantic flavelas scattered between Sugar Hill to the tip of the Bronx, from Brooklyn to the sea. New York intellectual Black folk and Latin folk have it all summed up. Being bused 45 minutes into the wilderness for my first day in the 1st grade does not come onto the screen. It is not part of the hip-hop generations master narrative, though we sung Rapper's Delight on our way there. History is scientific in those circles. Urban culture and its multiplicity is its specific code of arms. It is about taking the Western Cannon to task. It is not about feel good politics, it is not about something subtle or overheard conversations concerning your mother when she was 13, a great-uncle dead at 11 or the Klan. It is not a HBCU kind of thing.

So, in this interview, I am sensitive to the code words of that empirical world of thought. Issues of writing and memory; the purpose of the writer in his or her own time; Kreyol's rise; French's acceptability; the government's responsibility; the beauty of a Haitian landscape ; its excavation by hungry hands; Duvalier; Aristide; Dessalines; reparations; the bicentennial; and bits of Haitian literary history all swing and pirouette like phantom dancers waltzing above our heads, as Haiti bubbles and seeps its nutrient bloated river banks into the Atlantic or Caribbean sea below.

There is reassurance in Trouillot's answers. There is an optimism that the Haitian government will pull itself together and be proactive in changing the conditions of most of the people. That was published one year ago. Now, in light of this suicide, I wonder what is really happening. I wonder if her hopes have come true in her beloved Port-au-Prince. How do I know? I am just looking on the sidelines from Middle Earth.

I know that Trouillot's work is enriching, and that of her whole family is a priceless addition to the world of Haiti that one finds in books, that the West finds in this oddity of little pickaninnies defeating that little emperor. This country, the oldest Black Republic, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere does deserve better, but in a world where increasingly I see the value of letters diminishing, how does a writer/scholar enrich Haiti and its soil and those dependent on that fleeting dirt?

The interview does break the mold in the end when Trouillot talks about Haitians needing to confront certain subjects such as AIDS, the depiction and treatment of women, and creativity as an antidote. She does turn her pen to larger issues besides the revolution and the dictatorship in the hopes that people will start to talk about the sinister cocktail of circumstances that are following a free falling Haiti -- a Haiti no longer on the edge of the abyss.

I must admit that I found it hard to read the article, partly because I read it in parts. Part of it at before work, part at work and part this morning. Another reason is that I am out of my normal community of writers and historians and am stuck here, in a place where I can't talk about that world. Everyone seems too preoccupied with their own problems. And maybe that is the root of Haiti's problem. It needs an intervention. It needs a benevolent benefactor, a world philanthropist, an army of ecologists, an industrialist, a pedagogic magician and a political party with a plan. But I am afraid that we continue to waltz, conducting our Haitian conferences increasingly out of sadness, or possibly to simply tell whitey that we are different, or to tell African American how different Haitians are from that experience . . . I am just not sure anymore.

Now, it is another year of the down slide. CNN has not given much attention to Haiti since the mud slide, and the tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina have devoured our attention spans. I found out about this suicide in Haiti from a friend. I wonder what else I have missed, I do not scour the internet for bits of information the way I used too. You see, I was besieged by problems of my own in 2005. It has been too much for me to formulate an articulate answer to a question being thrown to me from the North, let alone glance down below my feet to see if Haiti is still simmering, is calm or showing signs of erupting.

3rd Thing

Still working on links. Hope to have it mapped out soon.

4th Thing
"Check on it" by Beyonce and Slim Thug is on constant repeat. I love this song. It puts me in a writing trance.

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Note: Yesterday while trying to explain what went down to co-workers in my broken mixed Spanish (and that is mixed with Mexican and El Salvadoran words for many obscenities and male and female body parts) and Portuguese I had a dual linguistic break through. I learned that cousin is Primo and not Primero. It seemed natural to me to say "first" like "first cousin" but Angela giggled and corrected me. Too late, I have named a whole post Primero.

And Angela? She learned that "parents" is just mother and father. She used "parents" like the word "family".

Just part of learning a language from the people and not a book. The people that I know that swear by the book don't hold down jobs. Meanwhile those that learn a language by working, learn just as much verbally if not more. Plus, they are paid to learn the language in a way, with promotion of linguistic skills matching a promotion in ones pay check. Tell me who is the smarter one.

I am really anti-book today.

A bit cynical.

No?

Screw it.

I am going to listen to Beyonce a little longer and cook Sunday dinner.

Doors

Vacation is over.
Working on trying to set up links on this blog.
Will read mail later today.
I have to plan this German trip.
The great reckoning is what I am calling it in my head.
There are some personal and family oriented mistakes attached to my return trip.
Will leave it at that.
Let's call that part of my non-blog life.
Plus . . .
I have to work today.
Maybe catch a movie.

I got home yesterday about 6:30 central standard time from Atlanta. I drove up to the bookstore and wished friends a happy new year. I have not seen them for a while. I was looking for one of the workers there. He had invited me out to the radical fairy retreat on Short Mountain. I have been hesistant because he asked me how I would feel being the only person of colour there. If I would find it problematic.

I wanted to say, "Let's not talk about my first publishing job in NYC, OK. That was very uncomfortable. And teaching and consulting in Germany was also pushing the envelope."

But note to anyone white reading this page. I do not speak for the rest of the race on this natually, but if you inform a black person like myself, Littlemilk, that I am going to be the only person of colour in your office, retreat, office retreat or establishment I will not be offended. But it will signal me to look out for white benevolence, and that can be demeaning because it makes it, as if, I can't do anything without a little bit of help from my white friends (whose view of me is riddled with stereotypes). It signals that I am somehow inferior. White Benevolence doen't use the front door, a liberal Foucault quoting paternalist just slips the insult in through the back. But I love my friend at the bookstore. He was just being honest.

Which brings me to this idea of doors. I was the first one in the house last night, so when my mom opened the door last night after my arrival I saw the funeral program in her hand but asked anyway, about where she had been. She said a funeral. I looked through the funeral program. It was of a childhood friend I had not seen since I was very young. We went to the same church, though I don't go to church anymore. She was 34. Just turned 34 Christmas Eve actually. She died of cancer. I remembered her face immediately. Then I saw a picture with her and her younger sister, whose name fell into my mind quickly. The younger girl is about the same age as my sister. I was very sad.

My mom talks about funerals all the time now. That is what she does. She talks about the dead and diabetes. I guess she is nervous that I am going to die before her, but that is starting to wear me out. It was at that moment that I felt my vacation was over. A little bit of time passed and soon we were laughing about other things concerning my trip and my cousin. I also had a Stout, which is a great way to cut the edge off of any situation.

Then I got ready to go to a party being thrown by the Brazilians. Ms. A. called me when I was 15 minutes outside of Nashville to say there was going to be a party. So I went. It was cool. Good music. Nice people and tons of women. It was as if I went from my cousin's house, opened the door to Nashville life, and ended the day in Brazilian exile life. All with a turn of the key.

When I got into the living room of Ms. A, there were about 9 Brazilian women there dancing in the middle of floor. It was like I left Boys Town in Atlanta and entered a sorority house in Nashville. The party was alright. There were a couple of American male members of Nadia's band their. She is Ms. A's roomate from Brazil and plays bass. And there was one guy from Peru there too. So there were a couple of guys, a lots of girls and much food. I thought it was cool. I danced with Ms. A and Nadia. The other girls I chatted with shortly but it was difficult because my Portuguese is not too good yet, and they were speaking to themselves. All of them beautiful. I liked them. Lots of smiling and glancing. Many of the chicks left shorty after I arrived. I got there about 12:00 pm. And dancing with A. is nice because she is so soft and lady like and I feel sturdy like a tree when I am with her. I keep my back straight and my hands firm and tight and we do the steps together. I am just not confident enough in salsa or samba to lead. And that is very important when with a woman. Nadia and I just jumped up and down listening to Gilberto Gil's tribute album to Bob Marley. It is a great album. It doesn't sound like him at all. Not that he sounds bad in Portuguesse, but his voice is different in English.

Then I sat with memebers of the band and we talked. Nadia did a samba in the middle of the floor, and I meet Vivi's boyfriend from Central Europe. We talked a bit in German. He appreciated my view on the advantages and disadvantages of Europe. And I appreciated hearing someone trying to deal with the cultural differences and major shock after traveling from the Old World into the New. It really is not about Germany and America in my mind. It is more about societies based on long term planning, strong national identities and structure verse the Americas with all its cultural/racial mixing, shifting internal economies (Das Experiment and many of my students think the Americas are primitive because our social and economic systems do not take care of their own citizens . . . for them that is the same as '"failure") and relative freedom in terms of finding a position in the market place.

When me and Nadia started to dance, Vivi's boyfriend said "We don't have this in Europe." I turned around in mid-step and told him, "Yes, I know". We both smiled. In short, if you want to go skinny dipping and not get any crap over it, I suggest Europe (at least central, I am not so sure about "Catholic Europe", they got a different modus operandi. Stay Central and move toward the North Sea for skinny dipping). If you want to brake dance, samba and listen to house music all in the same evening, stick to the Americas. Anywhere will do.

And that was the night. One of the musicians was busy trying to talk to Ms. A. All men do, and she has a very good way of seeming interested and disarming at the same time. I will see her today. We will talk about the car situation (her search for a 2,000 dollar car), which is a story I promised a while back, but will write later.

Nadia is brillant though. She tours with these guys as a bass player in a country band. They just got back from Japan. She then announced that country music is boring, while her two bandmates were disecting the Gilberto Gil and MPB instead of enjoying it. I should not say that . . . that could be the way they enjoy the music. One commented: "This is such happy music." The other said he got tired when he danced . . . I just looked at him. I never get tired and I am approaching middle age. Could do it all night like I was 18 . . . minus the 40 pounds.

The drummer was trying to get the beat, and the guitarist was sipping wine and listening to Gilberto Gil like he was tasting it too and Nadia was trying to explain that Gil is not a politician. He is an appointed minster. I got bored a bit, Ms. A was singing with her imaginary microphone, I started to belt out those high notes of Gil and Nadia started to dance again. We made an imperfect samba a couple of times. Then Vivi and her boyfriend said good buy. Then I found my jacket. Danced to one more song. Said good bye to the wine sipper. Kissed Ms. A on the check. Said bye to Nadia's drummer from New England. Kissed Nadia and said I would come back next week to make fish soup.

Walked out into the snow.

Started my car.

And drove to my old Nashville door.

Spring left on yesterday.

After the big rain.

And the thing that looked like a funnel cloud

Somewhere south of Chatanooga.

Bears, Firemen, Sushi and Looking for a Greener Pasture

I visited the city a bit more yesterday. Had a good time. Watched my cousin finish his site, and hung out with the Fireman. We went to a leather store. It was nice. He said that I have a nice body, I always feel like a medical experiment due to all the visits to the doctor for my diabetes, so I can't really say at all now a days. Especially since I gained about 40 pounds last year. Part of it was due to my more efficient digestion and processing of nutrients with my new insulin regime and the pump. The other part is the Southern Diet. And the last fragment of my weight game comes from not exercising.

I could get into the whole thing about always walking and riding my bick in NYC and Europe, or into better eating habits overseas, etc . . . But I won't. It just waste my time in dealing with where I am right now.

Anyway. I was looking at all the leather gadgets and I thought that some were very interesting. Others were freakin hot and I couln't wait to squeeze my fat ass into the leather and latex pants. There were also these blue jean overalls that said Pig on them. That was nice too.

The fireman seemed in the right place. Like he really wore a couple of those uniforms himself, but to save lives, not for parties. The firman is very interesting. The way he talks about medicine and the calls he has been sent out too is very interesting. And his view of Atlanta is interesting too. As I was getting into the car, I grabed a newspaper dealing with the leather scene and I realized that I have seen my body transform in the last year. Partly due to age, partly due to diet, partly due to getting a handle on my health. I am becoming more like those guys in the picture. I just need a consistant training schedule and, Bam! I will be staring at the Eagle. I asked the fireman if I was turning into a bear. He said no. But, I think age, my body and my taste (big hairy masc. male bonding straight or gay, over twink disco lights . . . though those have their place) are pushing me out. I am on the search for a new community. Running around and being the only black guy or the only non-straight one or both for 4 straight years really sewed my lips together. Like I didn't comment on all that I saw. Plus so many people thought that I could not speak German, when I could. I just did not feel like relating what I really thought because it would be belittled anyway. I soon, gravitated and made my own little small clicks. But none in the hairy man department. This is so new. It doesn't matter. I think sexual taste change all the time, and depending on what you have to deal with in life.

The fireman also said that he could see my package yesterday. I did not see it, and never pay attention to that on myself. The fireman said that it is because I am bisexual . . . I am never aware of my dick's presentation like gay men are. I chuckled. Very interesting hypothesis. Could anyone expand on that theory, class? I would like to here personal observation before moving on.

Anyway. I watched cousin do his thing yesterday with clients visiting and everything. His website is almost up and I will have to get a link together, as well as to all those other blogs that I love on the net. I have found a good number dealing with the academe, sexual identity (by normal everyday people), political issues, fashion, glam, etc . . . and I will share cause I think others may enjoy them, even if they are not all literary and political, etc . . .

So I guess I am mixing things up.

Wanted to go see what this Flex is all about. But I did not have the chance. I stayed with the cousin and then left him for a little while in the afternoon. Instead of more boys (it is vacation), I decided to have the thing that for me is far more satisfying than sex. I love Sushi (no pun intended). I know saying sushi is more satsifying than sex is very single, white and female middleclass . . .what am I suppose to say . . .BBQ Ribs? Go screw yourself if you think that way? I guess I will screw myself later. Doesn't look that hard (no pun intended). There was a guy at Swinging Richards that looked like he could do that/

I had one small Saki. 1 seaweed salad. 2 Rock and Roll rolls which were basically eel with avacado. And Ahi Poke. It is a raw Tuna salad. Very good, though I thought it was a fresh tomatoe salad at first and sat waiting for my main dish, till I realized that the waitress said Ahi Poke when setting it down. The place was trendy. Nickiemoto's is the name I believe. There were many gay couples inside. Very preppy with their blue blended shirts that had a slightly starched sheen coupled with mustard yellow tinged khakis and laser pearlie white capped teeth. Their skin was perfect, their hair gel gave them the look as if they just came back from snorkling in Mali and their small time chatter was devoid of any seriousness or pitty. Life was a party at every booth. And the women were happy too.

I was sat by a beautiful drag queen that was on her way to becoming unspookable. She had a little raspy voice. I wonder if getting your Adams apple shaved would help. I know it does cosmetically. All her mannerisms and politeness was so genuine and sincere I touched her on her should like she was a woman. The real bonified female waitress was also attractive and straight forward and we had a little tension. I think it was not so much sexual (though it was there), but from me knowing what it is like waiting a table and being very smart. Which she was. And she had some experience under her belt in life too. She was the perfect server.

The bill was $32.89. I gave a $7.11 tip for a total of $40.00. Flex would have been $35.00 not counting drinks or whatever they have in there. I made the right choice.

I have not had sushi in forever. It was perfect except for the hiziki. It was too cold and did not have enough sesame seed oil for me. The seaweed was blanched too long too.

Now. I am sure such comments about the over blanched seaweed is very faggoty behavior. It must balance out my D+ in the "package awareness" department some how.
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Otherwise the ride back to Tennessee today was very nice. You must see how Chatanooga is situated. It is in the more mountainous region of Tennessee in the southeast. After you cross Mount Eagle coming from the South, then it is more flat and starts to transform into the Tennessee valley.

For those of you that do not know, Tennessee is divided into three regions. The mountainous East, whose regional capital would be Knoxville. The Tennessee Valley in the middle, which is capped off with the city of Nashville, the actual state capital. And the western third is part very flat and fertile and very condusive to planting cotton and other crops. Its earth is feed by the Mississippi river and its regional capital is Memphis. That is why we have three stars in our flag; why you do not find many agricultural plantations in the middle and eastern part, but much livestock and horse breeders; and, why today was so nice since I have not spent much time in the mountainous part. Just around Mount Eagle. Chatanooga looks geographically very interesting. It is so massive. It is just wilderness.