Teddy/I'm Tired

I'm tired.

The rudeness, overwhelming lack of consideration, pride in stupidity, unwillingness to just shut the fuck up sometimes is making me think I'm on reality television. It seems people honestly do backhanded or inconsiderate shit just because. I can't understand that. Why go out of your way to annoy, hurt, spurn, injure someone? Why not just isolate yourself, keep it inside, scream in a field, or drink the evil away? I hope the people who moved me to want to punch a hole through their heads The Story of Ricky style are curled up in the fetal position sucking their thumbs being flogged by demons right now. That would satisfy the slightly vindictive asshole in me. Cry, BAYBEEE, CRY!!!!!!!

Okay. Enough with that sad sack shit.

Oh, wait. Teddy Pendergrass is in the ether. I ain't got nobody no more. You have no idea how many hours I spent growing up to him. My mom played "Love TKO" til the proverbial wheels fell off. Dude, losing your musical memories so often is exhausting. Peace to his family.

Damn, Tim Wise

Your Whiteness is Showing:
An Open Letter to Certain White Women
Who are Threatening to Withhold Support From Barack Obama in November

By Tim Wise

June 5, 2008

This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.

I know that it's probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you--who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator--is raw, pure and justified.

That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don't mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit.

First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter's policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton's while the former's clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and increase the odds of his winning (despite the fact that he once called his wife the c-word in public and is a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom and gender equity initiatives, such as comparable worth legislation), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama's defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama's sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

Your whiteness is showing.

When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.

If it were gender solidarity you sought, you would by definition join with your black and brown sisters come November, and do what you know good and well they are going to do, in overwhelming numbers, which is vote for Barack Obama. But no. You are threatening to vote not like other women--you know, the ones who aren't white like you and most of your friends--but rather, like white men! Needless to say it is high irony, bordering on the outright farcical, to believe that electorally bonding with white men, so as to elect McCain, is a rational strategy for promoting feminism and challenging patriarchy. You are not thinking and acting as women, but as white people. So here's the first question: What the hell is that about?

And you wonder why women of color have, for so long, thought (by and large) that white so-called feminists were phony as hell? Sister please...

Your threats are not about standing up for women. They are only about standing up for the feelings of white women, and more to the point, the aspirations of one white woman. So don't kid yourself. If you wanted to make a statement about the importance of supporting a woman, you wouldn't need to vote for John McCain, or stay home, thereby producing the same likely result--a defeat for Obama. You could always have said you were going to go out and vote for Cynthia McKinney. After all, she is a woman, running with the Green Party, and she's progressive, and she's a feminist. But that isn't your threat is it? No. You're not threatening to vote for the woman, or even the feminist woman. Rather, you are threatening to vote for the white man, and to reject not only the black man who you feel stole Clinton's birthright, but even the black woman in the race. And I wonder why? Could it be...?

See, I told you your whiteness was showing.

And now for a third question, and this is the biggie, so please take your time with it: How is it that you have managed to hold your nose all these years, just like a lot of us on the left, and vote for Democrats who we knew were horribly inadequate--Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, right on down the uninspiring line--and yet, apparently can't bring yourself to vote for Barack Obama? A man who, for all of his shortcomings (and there are several, as with all candidates put up by either of the two major corporate parties) is surely more progressive than any of those just mentioned. And how are we to understand that refusal--this sudden line in the proverbial sand--other than as a racist slap at a black man? You will vote for white men year after year after year--and are threatening to vote for another one just to make a point--but can't bring yourself to vote for a black man, whose political views come much closer to your own, in all likelihood, than do the views of any of the white men you've supported before. How, other than as an act of racism, or perhaps as evidence of political insanity, is one to interpret such a thing?

See, black folks would have sucked it up, like they've had to do forever, and voted for Clinton had it come down to that. Indeed, they were on board the Hillary train early on, convinced that Obama had no chance to win and hoping for change, any change, from the reactionary agenda that has been so prevalent for so long in this culture. They would have supported the white woman--hell, for many black folks, before Obama showed his mettle they were downright excited to do so--but you won't support the black man. And yet you have the audacity to insist that it is you who are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and the one before whom Party leaders should bow down, and whose feet must be kissed?

Your whiteness is showing.

Look, I couldn't care less about the Party personally. I left the Democrats twenty years ago when they told me that my activism in the Central America solidarity and South African anti-apartheid movements made me a security risk, and that I wouldn't be able to get clearance to be in some parade with Governor Dukakis. Yeah, seriously. But for you to act as though you are the indispensible voters, the most important, the ones whose views should be pandered to, whose every whim should be the basis for Party policy, is not only absurd, it is also racist in that it, a) ignores and treats as irrelevant the much more loyal constituency of black folks, without whom no Democrat would have won anything in the past twenty years (and indeed the racial gap favoring the Democrats among blacks is about six times larger than the gender gap favoring them among white women, relative to white men); and b) demonstrates the mentality of entitlement and superiority that has been long ingrained in us as white folks--so that we believe we have the right to dictate the terms of political engagement, and to determine the outcome, and to get our way, simply because for so long we have done just that.

But that day is done, whether you like it or not, and you are now left with two, and only two choices, so consider them carefully: the first is to stand now in solidarity with your black brothers and sisters and welcome the new day, and help to push it in a truly progressive and feminist and antiracist direction, while the second is to team up with white men to try and block the new day from dawning. Feel free to choose the latter. But if you do, please don't insult your own intelligence, or ours, by insisting that you've done so as a radical political act.

http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/WhitenessShowing.html

I was intentionally in Hyde Park yesterday. I try like hell to not be in Hyde Park, intentionally or unintentionally. True, I do have to drop my Aunt Rebekah off after our monthly shopping trips to River Oaks, but those are usually quick in and out jobs. Get in, get out.

The other day, though, the day that I finally came to terms with being creepy, I went with some co-workers to the Pancake House on 51st, the one across from Kenwood. Dude! I didn't realize that my job was so close to the Park. So, yesterday, to commemorate my last day of class (I'm graduating, bitches!), I went to The Snail, formerly my favorite Thai restaurant, to celebrate. Unlike those drives with Aunt Rebekah from the Manor, I was forced to take locals. My god, the emotion. Turning off Lake Park onto 55th, I noticed that University National Bank is no longer on the corner. I had my first banking account there. No problem, I'm a fricking rock, so I took note and kept driving. While passing the viaduct that leads to that strip of Thai restaurants on the south side of 55th, I noticed that the Kikuya is still there. I smiled and remembered the time my little brother came to visit me at my dorm and I had taken him to get sushi and then had taken the rest of the money daddy had given me to spend on him to Dr. Wax (when it was still in that basement) to buy vinyl. My how the young lad had mastered chopsticks in no time. I pulled up right in front of The Snail and walked inside, placed my order, and sat as they prepared my Pad Siew (and Pad Thai and chicken eggrolls, but this is not about my tendency to find comfort in food). The dining room was empty and looked pretty much the same it had the last time I had been there. I thought about the time I went on a date with some dude from my school and didn't eat cuz I had just eaten at BJ, so he ordered noodles and I just sat there and watched him eat. (I have this strange fascination with watching dudes eat; I'm weird.) I also remembered that time Flomas* and I had eaten that place dry as we ordered everything on the menu, yukked it up, and acted fools. I looked out the window, remembering what an unhappy, undriven excuse for an undergrad I had been, and how I'd been a constant fixture on that stretch of 55th, often walking from campus to my room at the Shoreland, hating every minute of it. I thought about my life now--unfortunately grown, with responsibilities, a fricking high school teacher for god sakes--and wished like hell I could get that four years of bullshit responsibility and free time for drinking and drugs back. Mickyfrickies just don't know how good they have it.

I guess that's why I hate Hyde Park; there are way too many memories there. My mom and I lived above the Morry's when I was born. I went to grammar school there and still remember the first book I bought from the 57th street book store. I labored through undergrad there and met too many people who I kinda miss and have subsequently lost there. Boo hoo and shit. I fricking hate that place, but I will be back for some Nicky's.

* Clearly not a real name.

Let me leave you with a song


A friend and I, one who I'd met in the good ole Park, were in my dorm room one night watching a VHS of old videos I'd taped, and this one came on. We automatically dropped everything and rhymed this entire song word for word, bobbing our heads in unison, until it went off. he was dead a few weeks later. good times i tell ya.

compensatory blackness

i was a happy, well-behaved, well (enough)-adjusted little black girl (with a helluva country accent). this was never an issue. i've read the bluest eye; i appreciate and understand the attacks on little black girls as they try to understand and accept themselves. i've read about and talked with other black women, those who once longed for lighter skin and longer or looser hair. the thing is, that that has never been me. i've never had an issue with my skin color or the texture of my hair (well...perhaps it could be thicker). i've never longed for lighter eyes or longer hair. i've never wondered what it would be like to be white.

my comfort in my black skin i'd have to attribute to my father. my daddy is dark-skinned. his brothers are dark-skinned. the majority of his sisters are dark-skinned, with the "lightest" being my color. my father and uncles and aunts did not try to dilute their blackness; they didn't strategically mate in hopes of having children with looser hair or lighter skin. unlike so many who only give public, verbal commendation to the "black is beautiful" motto, my father's family proved that they believed it by choosing partners who were reflections of themselves.

when i was a kid, my father and uncles always bought the black doll for me. my mom bought me a dukes of hazzard nightgown with bo, luke or both on it, and my father went ape shit saying, "my daughter won't prance around with some white man on her chest." he was against my getting a perm (not my decision, more the decision of my mom and my cosmetologist cousin who lived with us at the time). there was never any reason to believe being a little black girl with nappy hair was something to be ashamed of. (perhaps if i were darker i would have felt more pressure to conform. i can recall two of my cousins being repeatedly told that they were "so pretty to be dark-skinned" when the fact is they were just pretty, period. how would i have felt if i weren't middle-skinded [ha!] and neither here nor there in the crazed color spectrum? i'll never know.)

unfortunately, not everyone has had my experience. there are so many women who recount their stories of wishing to be something other than what they are. and then there are those who are what these women longed to be, but they don't feel black enough. often many of these women become victims of what i call compensatory blackness. compensatory blackness is a staunch afrocentrism that ranges from the reasonable to the cartoonishly rabid. i liken it to those promiscuous and generally dissolute individuals who wild out in their youth then find jesus and cling to him like static electrons. often, those who rejected their blackness as adolescents or those who don't feel as if they are black enough demonstrate a dogged determination to prove to themselves and anyone watching that they are indeed black--blacker than blacker than black as a matter of fact. so, out go the suburban friends of childhood and in come the militant black friends; out go the free spirited drum circles, in come the coffee shop poetry slams; out go the wispy perms, in come the locs; out goes "love has no color," in comes "the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice."

i'm not judging (really, i'm not). i'm just making an observation and writing about it. hell, i'm not above admitting that i had an extended nihilistic period of writing angry poetry, sulking in corners, kicking it with other angry, sulky poets, and aggressively decrying all things conformist. it's a part of adolescence; we all go through extreme stages trying to figure out what makes us happy. i applaud the effort as a matter of fact. the fact that people make the effort to confront their issues shows that they're thinking and understand that growth isn't an autonomous process. i'm just gonna need all those in their compensatory blackness stages to contain their enthusiasm, at least around me. i dont need your rhetoric, and i really don't need to read your current treatise on blackness. i am black, have always been black, and will remain black; i don't need the latest disassociated academic to explain to me how to go about maximizing my blackness. that doesn't mean that i don't continue to learn about my/our history. it does mean that you need to respect that our lives do not share the same trajectory, and perhaps i've already mulled over the distinction between black and Black.

cannonize me

I have really gotta get back to my former reading habits. Lately, I haven't read much outside of the stuff I've been teaching, and we all know about required high school reading--canonical, but not necessarily relevant or panoptic. So yeah, I think I'll actually finish my Octavia Butler (RIP) anthology.

I'd be interested in finding out who read what in high school and college in the way of black authors. I have this theory, but it can't be validated until I gather evidence. Myself, I recall Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, and Jamaica Kincaid--the last being a hint of cultural partiality on part of my afrophile undergrad professor. It seems to me that predominately white universities and perhaps black ones (I wouldn't know, I didn't go to an HBCU) tend to cling to those books that describe the black experience in glaringly dramatic ways. Bigger, Sethe, Lucy--all tragic figures that were representative of blackness predominately by virtue of the tragic circumstances of their lives. Now I'm sure that there is more to the black authors-worthy of-academic-study equation, but people tend to cling to very extreme depictions of black life as the most authentic, and feel as if they can finally humanize us because they've found a bit of sympathy for our downtrodden characters. (Bigger Thomas is no more the prototypical black man than Peter Keating is the prototypical white man.) I think this phenomenon is more hurtful than helpful in that whites can point to these extreme portrayals and say, "Now THAT is racism. Clearly black people do not go through these things anymore and therefore do not experience racism anymore."

The thing is, though, that these representations have never been comprehensive. One of my favorite books by Morrison, Paradise, while still dealing with racism, is much more subtle in the handling of the subject and uses it as a parenthetical remark on the lives of the book's characters. Also, because I am absolutely obsessed with gender roles, this books appeals to me for its focus on the tension between men and women when the traditional order is broken. (When are we gonna start dealing with that bullshit, huh?) I think Paradise is every bit as good as Beloved and every bit as worthy of literary consideration; and though I know I'd get a lot of argument from many, because Beloved is almost universally considered the best thing Morrison's ever written, I stand by my assessment. But it is not about Paradise or even Morrison specifically, it's about including more comprehensive representations of black life in the mainstream.

It seems as if black people always have to be struggling for there to be an emotive response from the mainstream culture. If we're not stuck in "hood movies," we're being saved from that same hood by a benevolent white with a heart of gold (hello Hilary Swank). The truth is that we laugh too, and sometimes the struggle isn't as acute as having to kill some muthaphuckas (though we should and more often), but often the struggle is how to react to an underhandedly racist comment without appearing "bitter" or when and how to express ourselves without "offending" more entitled and oblivious people with delicate sensibilities. Black people experience little dilemmas and large ones, and they are all important. There are a zillion authors who know this and deal with the many shades of us delicately and with an intimate knowledge and gift that should be supported. Check the slideshow above. All of those people knew and know that we're nasty and mean and above repute and angelic and conflicted and funny and boring and gay and straight and transgendered too. It's about time we stop allowing the media to vilify or romanticize us; we are just human after all.

Good Reads:

The Farming of Bones (or anything, really) by Edwidge Danticat

Eva's Man by Gayl Jones

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Another Country (again, almost anything) by James Baldwin

The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

If any of you would like to tell me about your school-related literary experiences, I'd be grateful. Also, if you've read any good books lately, let me know. I'm always looking for a new book.

man hater!

this is isaach de bankole. he's lovely. update: i think he and cassandra wilson have split. that's sad because i do like to see black couples "make it." on the other hand, i can now groupify myself and find his 50 year old fine ass.


i am a weirdo. for the longest time, i have had this inexpressible anger toward members of the opposite sex for what i believed were very justifiable reasons. i was fortunate to have a father who loved (and still loves) me, who was a prototypical "man" in the humanist, not stereotypical and caricatured, way and uncles who, too, were good and caring individuals that this chick could be proud of; but i didn't grow up in a vacuum. i grew up around, went to school with men who were not my brothers, father or uncles, and these men were everything the racist and biased media would have you believe they are:

i learned how to ride a bike pretty late in life. at 10 or eleven i had finally somewhat mastered the concept of pedaling continually without falling to the ground. one day, i felt especially skilled and was taking a short trip around the block when i encountered lindsey (fuck it, i won't change names). let's just say that i never rode my bike around the block again;

before my grandparents died, we (my mother, youngest brother and i) would go to alabama to visit them. these were good times, admittedly made more special by the lens of nostalgia. a huge part of the family would be there--usually all of my aunts, an uncle or two, and various cousins. my oldest brother lived in alabama so he too would be there. one day, i had the special honor of being cornered by one of his clearly older and drunk friends: "i'll only be 37 when you graduate from high school," he says. lesson learned: do not trust strange men;

on the way to the corner store (the corner store that i never before or after walked to alone because i wasn't stupid), a car of dudes passed. i suppose they thought i was cute or something. to show their appreciation, one of them threw a dollar out the car window;

walking home from school one day (i think i was a freshman) on valentine's day (how ironic), i wander into the home of one of my mother's friends. unfortunately, she wasn't home...but her nephew courtney was. teen aged boys are hilariously aggressive, often too aggressive. let's just say that his balls are still reverberating from the kicking they got that day.

why share these cheerful little episodes (i've got a million of them)? because i find it interesting that though we, black women, have these stories in common, so many of us are able to forget the lessons we should have learned from them and continue being the naive, pre-pubescent girls who didn't know better well into our adulthoods. too many of us think our salvation lies in men, and will do anything to get it from men, no matter their worth. too many of us are satisfied with being subservient and forget that there are many men (i use that term loosely) who don't have our best interests in mind; however it's better to be coupled up than to be alone-right?

i primarily watch the food network, pbs and re-runs of will & grace these days. anything else runs the risk of making me angry. that means no BET, no MTV, no VH1. i don't take public transportation anymore and rarely go out to events. this self incubation means that i have very little interaction with the world, which is good. i don't have to remember dudes yelling out their cars at me, dudes hissing at me from street corners, spurned strangers calling me creative versions of bitch. i can effectively forget that there is a whole new generation of abusers and overall useless males who will rape and abuse and generally lessen the well being of somebody else's daughters. that's fucked up too.

i don't think i'm difficult. i'm generally fun-loving. i can take a joke. however, i refuse to accept the position that others are happy with--the prone woman, adam's rib, ass and titties, walking semen receptacles, here only to satisfy the whims of men. i don't do misogyny. i don't do homophobia. i don't do stupidity. i don't turn the other cheek. i don't forgive wrongdoings that could've been avoided. i don't accept apologies. i don't trust you people.

so yeah. my issue with men is really the heart of of my perceived idiosyncrasies, why i'm an atheist, why i'm not paired up, why i'm so cold, and why i'll probably never have kids or get married. i'm still working out my issues with those other people who inhabit the earth.

oh, and i feel the need to say that i'm not a man hater. it's just that i know they can do better and i'm deeply, deeply disappointed. do better, assholes; but of course they won't until we force them to.

last note: read kola boof's stuff--Proof Magazine. sometimes, she's a little extra, but she gets it.

Death Becomes Her

I was watching September today, one of Woody Allen's more somber films. True to form it featured Dianne Wiest, and while watching I couldn't help but remark inwardly on how well she looked. I looked at the channel guide and noticed that the film was made in 1987. "1987 wasn't so long ago," I thought. Then I remembered that my little brother, who drives and has already graduated high school, who is bigger, stronger, and taller than me, who's almost 20, was born in 1987. 1987 was 20 years ago, jesus. I wondered what I'd look like in 20 years. Would I still be thin? Would my face be a roadway of lines and saggy depots? Would I even still be alive? I have these thoughts often and they don't amount to much. It's not like I resolve myself to drastically changing the course of my life after these little reveries, and that's sort of pathetic and pusillanimous.

See, I have this philosophy that life is short and you don't get another. That's pretty basic and prosaic, but I really, really believe that. I don't have faith in a God or gods who will take care of me and offer me rebirth; I don't believe in a heaven or hell or purgatory. When you die, you're dead--that's it. I'm an agnostic, would-be atheist; however, I have a friend who believes that branding oneself an atheist is too arrogant. It is like, she says, pretending to know all there is about the universe. I disagree, of course. It just means you're sure and refuse to be wishy-washy about your beliefs. Anyway, yeah. Knowing that I'll be dead soon, I should be doing a lot more than refusing to leave the house and refusing to speak to people and refusing to answer the phone, and other insular practices, but I just don't feel like it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed. I just feel that maybe I should be out there shaking it up; you know, catching venereal diseases, racing stock cars and having abortions. Oh well.

Don't Eat Swine!!!!

So it's 7:28 in the morning and I haven't slept (no reason, just haven't), and I feel somehow compelled to write about Gerald Levert's death. So...this is me writing about it. I mean, I have nothing important or radically different to say. I mean, it is fucked up cuz dude was only 40 and he seemed like good people. (Since I had no friends, I watched a lot of BET back in the day [before it became ass central] and Gerald used to stay on the Video Soul couch talking to Donnie Simpson; he always seemed like a cool dude, no pretensions or big head or anything.) It's sad. I know women over forty (and prematurely old chicks like me) everywhere are devastated. He was even working on losing weight, eating healthier and working out. He was a fantastic performer; you could always count on Gerald to show up to an event decked out in a sparkly and/or metallic outfit and to include in his performance: 1) the emphatic jumping motion to highlight a particular soulful run, 2) the two-minute r&b troubadour riff, including such phrases as BAY-BEH!, OOOOHHHH!, MMMM HMMM! and other such fantastic notes and 3) at least one roll on the stage (for good measure, of course). Dude was raw.

I guess I'm a little annoyed since my other dude Luther (who I'm listening to right now) died from some slipshod eating type dealie (stroke-Luther loved him some fried chicken, truth) too, and this shit is kinda avoidable. I mean Luther had just hit 50 (sorta, he was 54) and Gerald was 40. In this day and age, where Willie Nelson can creak ever onward towards absolute moth-eaten senescence, I'm sure heart attacks and strokes can be avoided. Some of us don't do doctor visits, but we should. More of us eat crap (I'm talking hamhocky, deep-fried in butter crap) and figure we'll be just fine. Nope, we'll die of dumb shit like hypertension and heart disease just when life gets good. Go to the doctor people; don't take the shitty drugs they give you, but at least go for check ups and shit. And don't have hamhocks for every meal. Try alternating the hamhock dinner with something a bit less risky, like fish (not fried) or something; maybe a nice fruit salad. Get your blood pressure checked. See someone if you have chest pains (I did, but of course, I went home after sitting in the ER for seven hours, but I tried). If you don't have insurance, go to those free health fairs and neighborhood events when they come up. Do something to cling to your health and happiness other than constantly shoving your mouth in a trough of fats and sugars. (Where's my soapbox? Oh, there it is.) Black women are about 70 percent more likely than white women to be diagnosed with heart disease and twice as likely to have heart attacks. Forty percent of us (meaning black folks) have some form of heart disease. We all know know people who have had debilitating or fatal strokes. In general, the whole "eat first, ask questions later" approach isn't working.

Now I can't say too much about those of you with fucked up eating habits, for I will be having a fried egg and bologna sandwich (with extra mayo) the moment I publish this entry AND I had Hot Doug's for dinner (a bacon sausage with avocado cream, lettuce, and tomatoes among other things), but I did have a granola bar for breakfast. Also, I, being the child of a hypochondriac, will go to the doctor in a heartbeat. Two Christmases ago, I just knew I was dying of cancer and visited my doctor for confirmation, luckily it was just a cyst. I've also had pap smears galore and a recent EKG. And I try my best to purchase the low sodium items when I grocery shop. And I opt for homemade meals more often than not to at least avoid some of the crazy fast food crappiness that abounds (though, I will be having a MCRib at some point before the promotion ends, but I won't be having 40 of them). See! Too much information, but I'm modelling behavior here. The point is, at least try to be healthy. Heart attacks at 40 is not a good look.

Some information/links for better health

Black men in Chicago with shitty to nonexistent health insurance
Project Brotherhood
Woodlawn Health Center
6337 S. Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
312-747-7705

Upcoming Health-Oriented Programs/Chicago


Women, Tend to Your Hearts


Also, in honor of the man who prompted this entry, let us all sing "Baby, I'm Ready" or "Casanova" in husky, soulful tones. All Hail Gerald Levert, Thane of Steppers' Sets!