Musings from your Muse

No one has ever referred to me as their muse, save my Afro-American Lit teacher at Univ of Buffalo. Professor Powers. She remains my favorite teacher to this day -- over KRS One, but I guess slightly under the Lord and Life.

Anyways. Shame on me, right? A whole month went by. More than a month. I'm at work, right now, in the midst of a lull between articles that need my keen eye and sense of judgenment; so instead of doing some research for a story that's due in a couple days or writing some music review; I thought I'd reaquaint myself with my online diary, my weblog, my blog. Not that a nigga has too much to say. But I definitely have some ramblings. Dig (and as always, excuse the horrible spelling and choppy language, since i'm just gonna start typing)...

-- this morning I had the taste for a decadent pancake. I dont eat pancakes too often. I enjoy them immensely, but if I make breakfast, it's usually some type of egg sandwhich. And even when I go out for breakfast at a diner, I'm not the dude that orders pancakes. I'm a rye toast kind of nigga. But when I do make pancakes at the crib, it's usually on the fly. Just the pancake mix, add water, drown the skillet in butter and get in my belly. every once in a while, though, I choose to get fly with it and instead of water, add an egg, milk and melted butter into the pancake mix and then vince-it-up with some type of extra ingredient. In the past its been butterscotch chips, white chocalte chips, mangos, strawberries, blueberrys, oatmeal...well, a nigga didnt have any of those logical ingredients, so I used some rasinets. Yep. Raisinets. But dig, it was a magnificent treat. Pancakes, I've found, are very similar to cookies, in that they work well with chocolate candied ingredients. I see no reason why one wouldnt enjoy reeces pieces, or M&Ms or crumbled butterfinger in their pancakes. I get the feeling that I'm onto something here.

-- I believe that in a previous blog, I mentioned that the Bronx is a borough of Puerto Ricans and Italians and a small enclave of Jews settled at the most norther tip in Riverdale, right? I was wrong. Now, me andmy sis still make up 2/3 of the Afro population (there is only one other nigra resident in the whole borough, but technically he's not a resident, since he's homeless. Dude's name is Lester Ferns. He sleeps on Jerome, a few blocks south of Fordham. He wears clothers that stink a stank stench of funk, but he's somehow managed to get his dirty fingernails on a pair of pristine Nike Dunks (quad-color joints). Lester Ferns, yall.)...anyways, yesterday, as I was walkin to the train, I noticed that everyone that passed was Asian. This blew my mind. How did I not notice that a pack of Orientals inhabitted this aartment building right on the Fn corner of Bainbridge and Bedford. As I passed by thisintermittent sucession of yellow skin, I smiled, happy to see another ethnicity. This is good. And while I'm here, I've never seen an asian walking a dog. Not here, not in Central Park, notAt Delaware Park, not down the Mall in DC, not nowhere. This is no coincidence. I'm sure this can be exlained through some type of social science examination. I'm on this.

-- I could tell you a NYC subway story everyday. LITERALLY EVERYDAY. Here are three from the past month...

*****The new thing (or maybe not that new) for the train-beggars (dont know the city term for this kind of person) is to act like they're cut from the same cloth as the Biblical personage Stephen. He was a stoned to death for following Christ, but as he was being pelted with heavy rocks, he asked god to forgive his murderers "forgive them Father for they know what they do." That's the new sentiment for these dudes that get on the trai, relate some sob story and then ask for money. It's all a bit surreal and it never gets old. Even the most grizzled New Yorker at leasts glances at these people. My favorite beggar came courtesy of this dude that I'll call R&B. He was about my age. A good lookin fella, in the kind of way where you'd say "If he wasn't down and out and looking haggard and as if he hasn;t had health insurance for a couple years...if all of that wasn't the case, he'd be a handsome brother." No homo, but I think like that about haggard niggas, like "if he was doin better with life, would he be a normal looking dude or would he still look like the personification of a worn out dish rag? Ya know, the kind that gets hard and crusty and white is now maroon from wipin up cofee nd ketchup." Because, some niggas have seen the days of normalcy pass by, so u dont even wonder about them. These men are usually older, with fewer teeth, less hair and slacker jaws. Anyways, R&B was a beggar that was one round at the laundromat, a shower, a physical and some good news away from lookin regular. Because he was younger nigga, I chose to pause my ipod and here his pitch for help. He began by saying he had two kids, with two on the way: "One from the fine and lovely mother of my two beautiful daughters; and the other with a young woman I made a mistake to. I didn't make love to her New York City. I made a mistake to her." Yes he said this...and continued: "But I'm a man and accept my mistakes. I don't run NEw York City." At this moment he whimsically broke into his gospeldelic rendition of Mint Condition's "Pretty Brown Eyes". It blew my mind. Believe me when I tell you that if you gave me 100 chances to guess what he was going to say after "I dont run New York City", an imprmptu Mint Condition reprisal wouldve never came up.

Anyways, after singing his lungs up his esophagus and out his dirty germy mouth he put us on notice: "I aint about no bojanglin and gettin on the train and dancin and singin for money. That wasnt for yall, that was for me. Singing helps me live. But if you like what you heard, please help me out as I try to provide for my family." He walked from one end of the train to the other and got nothing but a couple coins from some jitterbug nigga in a suit that probably got at R&B about puttin together a doo-wop group. As the train was prparing to halt he hits us with his Stephen rhetoric: "I came and asked for help as a humble man. For those of you that gave out of the goodness of your heart (one man), me and God thank you. For those that werent able to give at thios time (or just chose not to), may God bless you more than he blesses me and may you get, in return, 10 times what you COULDVE given today." I obviously didnt remember that word for word, but that was a pretty accurate recap. Homeboy not only tried to play the selfless role, but he had the audacity to put everyone on Front Street, as well. Classic

---- There was a one-armed man playing the harmonica. He was Central American -- i feel you need to know that. And I rarely see a dude with LITERALLY no arm. Usually you get a nub, but my man's left sleeve was totally empty. And his harmonica game was horrid. Horrid because he couldnt play, but also horrid because he wasn;t puttin alot of effort into it. My guess is that he found the harmonica and thought he could fool everyone and turn it into a beggar's act on the train. You know when someone doesn't know the answer to a question, they'll answer in a hushed-mumble? That's how Suave was playin the harmonica, in a hushed-"es is a confuses instrument"-mumble. But that left sleeve was swingin so hard and empty that I felt compelled to drop some silver change in his Cosi's cup, which, by the way, also had a plastic spoon in it. (You needed to knwo that too).

---- Everyday I step foot on that platform at the 34th street station, i face a dilemma that truly plagues the F outta me. Do I cram on to the D train (which is an express train and cuts about 15 minutes off my commute back to the crib); or do i take a seat on the less crowded B train, but extend the commute as it tops at the gazillion stations between midtown and Fn Siberia (aka the north Bronx). On this day I chose the D train (like I usually do, but not always), because I'm impatient. There's always a chance you can snag a seat when a bunch of people exit at 42nd, but not always. And if you don't get on then, you're standing; and if youre standing, you always run the risk of getting stuck next to the wrong person. In my case, that evening's wrong person was a square-faced Mexican with arms the length of my baby cousin Zadok. So, because he couldnt reach the railing from a normal distance in this cramped train, he had to pull ALL THE WAY up to my bumper so he could grab hold with his hobbit hands. This meant that his stomach (and at maddening times) his crotch would bang into my thigh (because he was short). I spent the whole ride with him rubbing his gut on my lower body and breath his poblano breath on my elbow. The next day, I took the B train.

-- I know everyone doesnt have 50 minutes to sit in front of a compute, but this documentary on George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic is fascinating. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7yyT7K-5jg

Over the past year, PFunk has grown into my favorite ban -- ever (well, besides Wu-Tang). I wrote an essay on them here. And this documentary is a great look at their rise. I've watched it 6 times in two months.


-- My absolute, unabashed, consensus, downright favorite thing about the Summer is women and their sundresses. First off, a pretty sundress can make an ugly broad look glorious. There's something about the colors, the way the fabric falls and flows...I think it's a majestic item, the sundress. But what I love most is to walk down the street on a breezy day and see the ladies do that walk where they hold both arms stiff against each leg so their skirt doesnt fly up. I mean, that's the most wonderful stride on the planet. Eff a catwalk-walk, the sundress-on-a-breezy-day is the more cute than a catwalk-walk is sexy. I smile when I see it.

And I'm not necessarily an oggler. Unless its late and I'm out with my dudes, you probably won't see me turn around and stare at a chick's backside after she walks past me, no matter how much I want to. I'm a disrespectful dude in general, but I pick my spots. So I just let the sista walk by and be about gettin where she has to go without me stopping my day to turn around and look at her flesh, which leads to a chubby, which makes my walk uncomfortable since my man isgonna be doin the bump with my zipper for the next block. BUT, what I do love, are those rare, fleeting moments, when you're standing on a corner and an unsuspecting breeze shoots by and a honey's sundress flys up ever so quickly before she frantically corales the fabric down, but giving me just enough time to peak at her panties. That's when she drops her head a little, slumps her shoulders a little and crawls under some figurative rock with her cheeks fire engine red. i LOVE that, man. They make my summers, i'm tellin you.