the ways of white folks-langston hughes

i read this because it was recommended to horace grant by phil jackson.

sooooo.

here are my questions:

1) did phil jackson read this?
2) when did phil jackson read this?
3) what the hell prompted him to recommend this to horace grant (in the same year that he recommended a beevis and butthead title to stacey augmon)?
4) did horace grant read this?
5) did these players have questions on the correlations between them and their books?
6) were the reading assignments handed out at the beginning or the end of the season?
7) again-what the natural hell?!

and of course, the most affecting story, father and son, is the last chapter.

dang.

i have the right to destroy myself-young-ha kim

“It’s easy to have sex when you can’t really communicate.” (66)

a few months back, some friends were jealous of me because i don’t smoke enough to be blase high. especially when they always bring out new implements and shit-i can’t keep up (i know i’m west coast, but i left…) and part of me sometimes wishes that i could just fuck.

and i might be able to one day, but i gotta get there with someone that i actually like, that likes me. but then why wouldn’t i just want to be with that person?

i guess this quote means that it’s easy to have sex, but not necessarily good sex. i suppose that’s the line that i can’t really get with anymore-i don’t have any time for mediocre sex. and i can’t buy into the hype that communication doesn’t matter.

the ideal situation is tenderness and understanding and humour, but not wanting to be in a thing, but that’s complicated because not wanting to be in a thing is different from “coming from an impossible situation” or “not being over your last thing” or “emotionally impossible and/or immature/still blaming your parents for shit that happened and you’re over 30”.

(sigh).

kanye sidebar:

“There are only two ways to be a god: through creation or murder.” (10)

(because what else do you do when you’re talking about relationships while not talking about relationships but pull a quote from the book that brings us to kanye)

and, because i’m all about an abrupt ending:

“People who don’t know how to summarize have no dignity.” (6)

chance the rapper-the be encouraged tour

“my mom says in arabic that when it’s raining and sunny, rats are getting married”

chance got finer.

it started innocently enough-i noticed that the show got rescheduled to the day that my season boo was coming to my home for the first time, and casually texted her about it, though she was just coming off of seeing him at the palace of auburn hills (yes, i am sad that i’ll prolly never see the pistons play there).

we had a lovely day of making soup and working on projects, separately and together, napping and watching many monsoons from my window. we made references to going to the show all day, but we both had things to do and, well.

around 5pm, we were called by carbs, and since she’s a vegan who hasn’t yet experienced doomie‘s (propagandistic comics and all), we decided to walk between showers the two now lovely-scented parkdale streets that separate me and the resto. we paid our respects to the lovely guard dog with a fierce underbite in the bougie flower shop, and settled into one of the window booths. i did a double-take in time and space when a pianist that i knew almost a decade ago in montreal walked past and we caught up for a minute before i just accepted that my hair would be smelling like fried.

but delicious mac and cheese (with mushrooms) and deep fried oreos later, we were full and happy and ready to make our way towards a very ominous cloud to see this guy. considering that it was a reschedule, it was pretty breezy to get a ticket.

the bag check should’ve been foreshadowing, but we were high and happy and made it through lightning and humidity and the dj’s name was oreo and there numbers and signs everywhere.

and the rapper was perfect-he was sounding right and looking right and his energy is amazing, if a bit too religious in that way that american artists get that make it a bit uncomfortable to sing along to sometimes. the special effects blended right in with mother nature’s downpour, and even though we were standing in sponges (i have yet to check on the canvas shoes that i left outside, but if someone took them-good riddance), it was beauty-full to be dancing in the rain.

the subsequent push to get to bags that was longer than the concert by a duration of 1.5 x? not so fun. but i suppose this is what happens when you throw 3000+ bags onto the floor and expect people to wait in line and retrieve them when it’s been pouring rain all night.

but it was hilarious to be amongst the high school kids budging the line and that one dood who “had to tutor french at 9am” and was feeling all the feelings over it. it was extra hilarious because he butt into the line, and then was lamenting this, and figured out 25 minutes later that it was the bag line and not the line to leave.

and canadians are hella polite, yo. i’m surprised that there was no riots, especially with all those bored white people excited about a “hype” rap show ready to fight garbage cans and shit.

based on the “blessings” that came down, i’m not sure what “praises” went up, but congrats to all the rats that celebrated their nuptials yesterday-it was an honour to be in your presence.

charmie deller

“you can’t stop what’s meant to be”

one of my editors once told me that hip hop writers are too insular. that was almost a decade ago, and as much as the music and the avenues have changed, i may be closer to accepting this as truth now.

i suppose there will always be a level of missed opportunity due to a lack of listening, and tonight was no exception. i mean-i only came in for the tail end of the panel, but i don’t believe anyone made a tie to the artists that would come directly afterwards, and it was an oversight not to point out the fact that charmie is and has been on her hustle game for real. i mean, there’s no better example of someone who is true to her (he)art and puts in the hours.

it was actually quite shame-full that one of the panelists, who was admonishing people for not listening to what he had to say, not only didn’t seem to know her name or her story to introduce her, but was also then talking loudly by the stage during her set. but i’ve been biased against such “expert” for a minute, biased in a way that i think he’s wack as shit. but people seem to want to pay him, so hey-get that money.

but let’s go back to making your own lane-i’ve been seeing babygirl on different stages over the past few years, but mostly-i see her (and her drummer), on the street. no matter the weather, i see her out there-by the eaton centre, at the acc, singing her songs and shining her light. i’m floored by the actual time that she must spend singing on the street, because i don’t even go out that much, and i still manage to catch her often enough to notice.

i heard when she won the lula showcase last year, from a producer who was so amped by seeing her that he was moved to work with an artist again for the first time in a long time, so in a way, it was full circle to see her on the stage there tonight. it was also clear that all of her busking time has seasoned her for a more intimate, no-frills arena, because her most power-full moments were when she stepped away from the mic, moved closer to the crowd, sang a cappella and played her guitar.

hey-i did see bettye lavette sing without a mic at metropolis at 70+ years old, so-anything is possible.

in contrast with the headliner, who had a sick band and all the trappings of a “professional musician”, all i saw was the future for charmie, because her songwriting has only gotten better and better, her work ethic remains on point, and her spirit is undeniable.

“we support ourselves when we support each other”

thank you for acknowledging my one clap, and i see you, star.

keep singing the truth.

“new ideas need old buildings”-tile at dufferin station

i’ve already been reprimanded this week for spoiling the nba playoffs, so let me not do this to a woman’s show.

but belladonna the blest or dm st. bernard‘s sound of the beast is everything, and then eleven more everythings. do yourself a favour and go see it. please. if one of the city’s finest (the finest imo) poets can roll through (and i think he even bought a ticket because he’s not a personal friend of the inspiration’s), you can too.

ok-psa over, do what you want.

i’ve been feeling the feels since i was in montreal for a week and a half, doing everything and nothing, and with the birth of babies all around and work never ending (and still not beginning), i know it’s not an accident that i ended up in the same room as these two that i run into so randomly it’s become specific. the fact that there was a stage and words and so many ideas layered and folded into ideas that if a mille-feuille crepe cake could be a thing that could be witnessed and absorbed and spoken and felt, this would be that thing.

i’m largely not a fan of the tiles at dufferin station, especially of the two that are close together near the main entrance, one reading “blah blah blah new immigrants” and the other “occasion to turn around”, like wtf?! but i never noticed this one before, or perhaps due to its proximity to the aforementioned as well as the “lemonade living” (and i paraphrase all these tiles, except for the one that i board the train at every day on my way to work which reads “something happens here”, because, well, who has time to footnote tiles, or remember them properly and such?) i’m too busy getting to the punchline of 3/5s when it’s so meta and brilliant, when accountability happens and its calling for is further justified when the perpetrator responds by throwing her kids under the bus. when a discussion about whose lives matter is brought about without the use of those slogans so familiar that have lost their lustre, but is named nonetheless, and stories are woven so beautifully that you forget for a moment that they’re tragic but flower petals are still gentle, whether or not they’re unbreakable, and you decide, we decide-but things are complicated, and we do what we can….

(i’m writing a new piece called “poets talk in circles”….but then again, that’s been the ongoing story of life itself)

place is a thing. theatre passe-muraille is a place. it’s been one of the most reliable places that i have crossed paths with dmsb over the years, and toronto is a place-also one of the most reliable locales. it’s an old building that’s housed almost 50 seasons of new ideas, and even though it’s been fixed, i still just can’t push that door…and i’m glad that i didn’t stay away when the latest ad joined-even when she was the first person to fire me from a job at a little theatre that we both worked at in mtl-what are the chances, right?

but there are no accidents, and (the) space (between our ears) is the real place.

we gotta work on that time-bending piece, but then again-we’ve been working on that project our whole lives.

this is why i scheduled a volunteer shift on my first day back to work after a long vacation of doing everything and nothing, horny as hell but great-full for the life choices i’ve made not to have kids and a dog (though i really, really love dogs and kids). it’s nice to be able to walk in and out of that for a week, because if it was real life, i woulda had to work all day and then go home to single-mother kids and a dog.

this is why.

i live for this and i am ever great-full to this woman for reminding me to do it by doing it.

shoutout to maddie bautista-we may have only met tonight (in this life) but it’s far from over.

sacred hoops-phil jackson

this was my holiday book, my homecoming book, probably partially what led to my dad asking me about “my favourite team, the chicago bulls” and having my grade 10 picture up because he doesn’t like my bangs in my grad picture. in a lot of ways, i did feel like i was back in the tenth grade, rooting for the bulls.

i rang in the new year, in a tall chair eating a delicious meal reading this, calmly waiting to come home. i don’t know how zen phil jackson is these days, running the new york knicks organization into the ground, but to be fair-he inherited a helluva job.

(and doing oakley like that?! come on, man-if he wasn’t traded for cartwright, you would’ve coached him instead of coaching against him all those years)

“Basketball happens at such a fast pace that your mind has a tendency to race at the same speed as your pounding heart. As the pressure builds, it’s easy to start thinking too much. But if you’re always trying to figure the game out, you won’t be able to respond creatively to what’s going on.” (50)

tell me about it. this playoffs is making me feel things that i never thought i would-like teams that i never cared about-i gotta hand it to the celtics, they looked really good against the bulls last night, though the t-shirt jerseys (and rondo’s blush on blush suit) maybe had something to do with it….and the rockets? i started out just rooting against westbrook-because can you really be mvp if your team is knocked out in the first round (again?) and the utah jazz? i didn’t know a single player, but hey-they’re looking pretty solid. i never thought i would be saying that in my lifetime. but i can’t figure basketball out, i can just love it.

“Our own life is the instrument with which we experiment with the truth.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

and love it i do. like this wonder-full vacation here in the trill. although i’m mostly hiding out, guarding the hearth and taking care of the babies, i’ve found myself smiling over the simple things-like earlier on a terrace with an iced coffee writing letters and before that, air drying on the couch with the rottweiler and bojack horseman.

we never really change who we are, and here’s another example of phil’s long-standing feelings on young talented ballers:

“Everywhere he went, he was surrounded by a squadron of bodyguards and ‘a personal entourage,’ who formed a cocoon around him that was difficult to penetrate.” (19)

hmm. sounds like a posse to me.

game on, players.

get out-dir. jordan peele

“i didn’t want to say it, but i told you so.”

i can’t lie. when i went to check the game 3 score before leaving the house, i thought the internet was broken. first of all-how do you even score 41 in a quarter, let alone outscore your opponent (my team) 41-17? i’ve been riding with these guys for a minute, so i know we have to be extreme and extra and extremely extra, but bruv.

i was wondering if, in addition to playing the barney theme song, jason kidd was out there stirring tea (and spilling sodas-why was derozan slipping so much?!). shit, i can’t even merge the honey in my chaga without looking both ways.

i took a wrong turn this morning, into outrement, and it felt a bit like the opening scene, though i am thank-full that i was out in plain daylight, and at night, i have a rottweiler.

officially the highest grossing original screenplay, everyone’s got something to say about this movie, and people will continue to have things to say. hopefully, that will precipitate an actual conversation one day, and not just all this idle chatter.

it’s revolutionary just by being an american film about race that is set in the present, and not as another self-congratulatory “look how far we’ve come” pat on the back excuse to show black bodies brutalized in hd as a period piece. because it was made by a black director, and that director is jordan peele, it is a more nuanced look at racism than we’ve ever seen.

i am not a fan of the horror genre, i’ve never really been interested, but i do appreciate the homages to the tropes paid here. but the fact that the true horror is just lurking beneath the surface (and in gated communities) is the scariest of all. in fact, i would argue that the scariest person in the film is the young white woman, and the horror isn’t that she’s not aware of racism, the horror is that she’s complicit while masquerading as an ally.

the humour in the film comes from the conspiracy theory that these white folks are snatching black bodies to use as “sex slaves”, but the horror is when we discredit the grain of truth that lies in every conspiracy theory, and when we laugh off that feeling that “something isn’t quite right here”. even when the cops are all coloured, they’re still police. the institution is bigger than the faces. and the black people that are a bit “off” because their bodies have been snatched (and scientifically manipulated) by white people, and they are the proof that something’s up. perhaps that’s the silver lining-you can never fully hide your dirt, your deception will catch up to you.

and so there is the fear of white inferiority and the problems that exist in resource distribution that allow the imbalance of science, medicine, and legal impunity to just
“go and get” the bodies with the traits that you need for immortality. the issues of appropriation-“we want your skills but we don’t want you” as well as banking on the fact that all lives don’t matter, since nobody’s going to ask about the black ones that have been missing.

the point of technology as a weapon is an interesting one, as the phone is what keeps saving chris, and it’s what they tried to disarm while he was in the house. the recordings of recent police brutality and protests is a beginning to turning the tables on apathy and blowing the gates off our communities.

the lure of the white woman, which is driven home when he’s looking through the box of photos (of the “deer” that rosie has helped to eradicate), is one that is also laughed off, but the sociopath is real. this bitch is pure evil, as she’s able to show a human side from the beginning, and go through the motions of feeling the outrage that the cop that pulled them over was racist, or running away from the racist white people party and being the comfort to draw chris into a false sense of security, to transitioning fully into a dirty dancing watching single froot loop eating cog in the family racism wheel. and presumably, she got (and enjoyed) all that black dick (and possibly pussy) along the way. this was the white woman that people feared that hillary clinton may have been, and she may still be, but what’s the point in getting lost in coulda beens, when the reality is a whole next level of sinister?

it would seem that the raptors are emerging from the sunken place, as i’m halfway through watching game 5 (thanks mikey, for the league pass), and that the youngsters are starting to lose their grip on the ball.

also-what a difference norm powell makes in the game. it’s not a coincidence that when he’s starting, we win, and when he doesn’t play (which, WHY THE FUCK IS HE NOT PLAYING?!) we lose. i was starting to feel waves of deja vu to the past two years before this season when i was begging for james johnson to be traded so i could see him play somewhere (and now look at him in miami), but coach seems to have come to his senses, at least for the time being.

your lineups are still on scrutiny, though, dwayne.

get your exercise in.