Sticks & stones

point of order: lil momma woke up at 715am, so no rest for me again. food for thought after breakfast.
When I was a child, we used to say a lot of little sayings. The two I remember most are when a person wore red we would say “red, red pee in the bed, wash your face with cornbread” and “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. So I decided to post the most painful statements that I can remember ever said to me.

8 – You may never walk again and your mouth will never be the same (Dr. After I was hit by a car while walking across the street).

7 – You are to bright to believe that people will want to read stories with black male characters that are smart, talk with that kind of vocabulary and come from the streets (Publisher from major imprint)

6 – You have to sign over the 75,000 to us or loose your job. You didn’t ask us for permission (Former Employer, Morehouse School of Medicine)

5 – X has been a better father to your son than you (former wife). Funny too because he has lived with me my entire life.

4 – You have to pick me or your son. I want to kill him and I hope he dies (former paramour who once lived with me).

3 – I lost it (2.5 carat engagement ring). Just buy me another one.

2 – The baby isn’t yours, its OT’s (well know married author). Said by person who said the aforementioned)

1 – You will never amount to anything and be nothing (Former High School teacher). BTW Whenever I go home I go to her office and tell them to say Dr. Stephens is here to see you. LOL

I guess the point is that I can forgive and I forgave all. But folks should never expect you to forget what you say to them, I don’t or can’t, do you? That’s why the pic me displaying a stab wound and a laceration by a knife. As long as I see them I wont forget but break my heart, say foul things to me, just don’t break my bones or cut me.

So with that said, all yawl friends and lovers and families be safe this weekend on your adventures, romantic escapades, canoe trips and visits to grand ma – me I got a dog store to get open.

A good day to die

Preface: Good Luck to the Atlanta All-Stars 16u Baseball team (my son's traveling team). Only All African American team in the Smoltz-Grisson Wood Bat Tourney. They 18-2.

As I sit at home in my library I write this. To often, we fail to recognize via our selfish ways that each day we breathe or see the sun or rain that it is a gift. To often we miss out on accepting the beauty of the lives that we live and the bountiful blessings that we have for in our selfish ways, we think only of ourselves.

Today I have decided to live each day as my last, as if I have less than a year to live. I will get this business off the ground for the prosperity of my children. I will put in practice all involved in getting at least 5 books out before the end of the year. For I believe in creating my own reality and that time waits for no one and that if I think It I can do it – let it be written, let it be said, let it be done.

To many of us prefer to whine, cry, fuss, bicker and complain about shit that is really beyond out control. What we can control are our thoughts and as such, our dreams, which don’t mean jack if we don’t look forward and take the time to make them real. Too many of us segment our lives into years, days, months or even hours. Not folk hear, either I do it or I don’t. I won’t wait, I won wait for anything and if I want something or desire something best believe folk here will get it. We are not thankful for what we got.

I will not live my life to impress any one other than myself so when I die, I can say to myself that I was the truth. You see, I am observant, I walk around and see homeless folks pushing grocery baskets with their life belongings and I see the same folks sleeping under highways. When I go to a gas station, I may not like the high prices, but even without a job or income coming in I don’t fret. For I know I am not walking in a place where I have to worry about folk walking around with explosives tapped to their body that can take me and everybody else out. I know I am not sleeping in the rain after an earthquake because I lost my home. See I’m a realist and one living in a real world. So all I am saying is stop bitching when you don’t have if you cant acknowledge what you do have. Don’t wait or put things off, and certainly don’t make excuse, if you want something or some one get it. If you express desire show it and let nothing get in your way.

Sure voice what you believe you have earned and deserve. But when gifts are bestowed upon you, rather financial or in Idea, take advantage of the opportunity. Don’t complain or sulk. Get out and do. For if you wont do it for yourself nobody will. Not to mention when you have and don’t acknowledge such as a blessing, you become an adage – you don’t miss something until it’s gone

So this is for all yawl lame ass fakers (shit talkers) who say you want to start a business but are to scared to take your foot off of first base for you can not steal second without doing so. This is for all of you all who say or tell others you love them but don’t realize love is a verb, a corpus of actions that implicate such an expression. For those of you who say but do not place any action behind your words - true, the written word is powerful, but it is worthless without action. Don’t say you love me and send my son to war Mr. President, don’t say you love me and don’t comfort, kiss or assist me. Don’t say you want to write a book but don’t know what it takes to do such. Talk again is empty with out action. I don't care if it is a man or a woman you desire and you have one or a book you want to read. Live free or die. The present is a gift jones mane.

I know I wont. In fact I know I will. I will not ask anyone to do for me what I can do for myself. And those of us who do are merely folks that use others instead of standing on our own too feet. Especially if we only take and never give. So I will do what I print and think, for when I die, I and not others will understand I am the truth, the shit. So take this as motivation, for the way I see it, and maybe It I s the Creek Indian in me, it as any day is a good day to die.

Holy Cow

Something I will continue to do until I can get me a stable and suitable supply of throat and kitty cat (any volunteers), will be to talk about the economy and some politics. Yawl know I try to be about money. Especially being the only person in my household in a position to provide food clothing shelter, oh and don’t forget the mortgage. But I have had to step my game up. I thought I was rather astute when I came to such but nowadays, you got to be on everything, or in a position to monitor every economic indicator, even new ones that pop up that never would have been considered as such.

My favorite indicator outside of my statements from my investments is the price of oil. Oil just hit the $130.00 a barrel mark today. Now I feel that the$150.00 mark will be just around the corner, maybe by the end of the summer or best the end of the year. If I were a commodities man, I’d lunge out there and say it is a good time to go long – maybe I should call my broker. I have read that folks are even purchasing oil futures almost a decade in advance.

What is really troubling, like I said were things that I use as indicators that I never have before like copper and wheat. Copper prices are climbing fast, so fast that even the Chinese government via the China's State Reserve Bureau (SRB) is trying to bring down prices to cover fast-approaching short positions. Especially since one usd = 8.1 yuan. But that is just the short of it. Over here, although historically copper, a vital and frequently overlooked metal, from an investment perspective, to me it’s just as good or like Gold. I mean of al the metals used it ranks third.

But due to its increasingly rising cost, folks been stealing copper like it was cable. Namely because copper and scrap metal prices have soared 32 percent this year alone and because it is selling at about $2.65 per pound. Then add to the aforementioned, wheat contracts for May hit a record of $13.50 on the Chicago Board of Trade. And just like oil and copper, they are driven by global demand, a weak dollar and a shortage of supply. Which means they drilling in the regular budgets of folk like u and me.

Don’t even mention that World food supplies are shrinking while the population worldwide is increasing. And don’t sleep, they all connected because higher food prices is are correlated directly with higher energy prices. And they way this sexless mind thinks, things can and will only get worse. And places like the Ukraine and the US are stock piling wheat now.

So the next time you buy that slice of pizza, I wouldn't be suprised if you screamed "holy cow", cow refering to copper, oil and wheat.

Side Bar: BigBoi of Outkast stopped by the store today - good look folk and enjoy the book.

also interview on npr is tonight, i think, i mean i know he with kabc in los ang.

The men all pause

Ok. First, folk here cooked prime rib tonight such that the meat pulled from the bone – dang.

That said, this is for the men, even the lurkers, but I wont hate on any woman responding on behalf of her men – but not what you want, but actual behaviors evinced. So here goes.

1] How do you respond or feel when your favorite teams looses, to a rival or in a championship game like the Super Bowl (true I was reminded of Memphis – Kansas last night, guess I’m not over it)?

2] How do you live your life such to show your spiritual connection to a higher power?

3] How do you see your role as a father, and what does it mean to be a father to you?

4] If you are the single provider responsible for feeding, clothing, shelter or any other necessity or frivolous request for your family, how do you expect your woman, wife, son or/and daughter to show appreciation for such? Do you think they would reciprocate appreciation?

5] How do you define your role as a man to your family and what is the single most important aspect or act you can define in the capacity of fulfilling that role?

6] What would you not do for your wife, woman, son and/or daughter as the man of your household?

7] Is there a difference in how you express love (not sexually) to your woman or wife when compared to your son or daughter?

8] How do you describe the passion for a son’s love when compared to the passion for a daughter’s love?

9] What does it mean to be the man of the house and as being such, what appreciation and/or value to you expect to receive from your wife, woman, son and/or daughter?

10] How should your work ethic be appreciated or valued and reciprocated unto you by your wife, woman, son and/or daughter?

extra credit: How do you see and define your responsibility to your community?

Lets b honest

Homo Universalis

I have been called some things in my life. Crazy, punk, pompous, egotistical, kind, nice, mean, wild, savage, stupid, lazy, no good and the blog moniker as of recent times. I guess they were all fitting of the diverse way folk saw me. Of recent, I have been called something that flattered me and made me question myself – A renaissance man.

I mean I guess the way I see myself is a lot differently than the way others see myself. I question this because I know what they mean in a slim fashion, but the anal pore in me want to be strict and note that folk here aint no man of the renaissance or period of reformation. In my research over the past night, I have discovered that they call such folk polymaths - a person who is skilled in multiple fields or multiple disciplines, and who has a broad base of knowledge.

Not to mention, the people I consider renaissance men, I couldn’t hold toilet paper to wipe their butts. Folk like Fredrick Douglass, Voltaire, Winston Churchill, Voltaire, Ida B Wells (I know she aint no man), Chekih Anta Diop, Imhotep, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. To me they are folk like the illegitimate son of a man living in Vinci, Italy, Leonardo Da Vinci. They say his genius was very apparent by the age of 15. He was basically self taught via reading. The only thing I see that we have in common is that from “Between 1490 and 1495 he developed his habit of recording his studies in meticulously illustrated notebooks. His work covered four main themes: painting, architecture, the elements of mechanics, and human anatomy.” I just wish, as he did, that I could have met Niccolo Machiavelli, author of "The Prince."

Charles Van Doren asserted that a “Renaissance man is neither an expert nor a specialist. He or she knows more than just a little about "everything" instead of knowing "everything" about a small part of the entire spectrum of modern knowledge. The term is essentially ironic, for it is universally believed that no one really can be a Renaissance man in the true meaning of the term, since knowledge has become so complex that no human mind is capable of grasping all, or even a large part, of it.”

I just think being a hard worker and a risk taker would be more appropriate than Renaissance man. But as blog culture dictates, i'm finna ask yawl. What is a renaissance man? How do they differ from a genius? Who would you consider and do you know any folks that would fit that category in your immediate circles? And do I fit the worth of being venerated Homo Universalis?

SIDE BAR: I have been hood winked by a fellow Morehouse Alum, Kevin Ross, to be on his talk radio show, which I think airs on NPR too. The show will air next Wednesday and the topics they want me to discuss (lmbao) will include the White Morehouse valedictorian, gay marriage in light of the California Supreme Court ruling yesterday, 2008 Democratic Presidential election results, and cougars (older women hooking up with younger men - i.e. Mariah Carey). George Alexander, editor-at-large of Black Enterprise and a fellow Morehouse man, will be joining us!

I just wish we could talk about the war and the economy.

Educational profiling

SIDE BAR: My coreopsis started to bloom and they were jamming friday night on radio disney at 8pm

Profiling is a strange and tricky subject. We are all profiled in certain ways. Women are often profiled. I can only imagine what it may be like to walk in a bar or happy hour and see al these goons starring at specified apportionments of ones anatomy over ones eyes. Now don’t get me wrong. I mean I attend to observations that outline in layman terms as a phat azz azz, and that such will leave an imprint as operationalized by Konrad Lorenz and his work with Graylag Geese, but I don’t have to gawk for the eyes are even more so appropriate to gaze into as well as show value and respect.

Then there is what I am familiar with, racial profiling. I get this all the time, not just by twelve, but people also. They look at my face and proceed to think I maintain the possibility of a criminal disposition. They see my hair and are even brazen enough to ask if I sell weed or if I am a musician. Even worse, they ask if they can touch it as if they were petting a goat in the public zoo.

Believe it or not I can deal wit he later, but there is one type of profiling that slides well subaltern the radar. I have decided to call it educational profiling. As a man, a man of African descent, I have been blessed to obtain what many would consider the highest merit in Academia – a terminal degree. If I am not in one of the times when I tell them I do construction work, I sometimes say I am an infectious disease specialist, an associate professor with a PHD in the appropriate discipline.

Sometimes their look alters, but from that moment on, when a person find out I have a PHD, they start to profile me. They beginning to ask why didn’t I introduce myself as such, or say Dr. Stephens. I respond, “My momma named me Torrance, not doctor.”

They think hat the addition of three letters behind your name or two in front makes you different. In the same way it makes folks who are Islamic different in America or African American males, driving on the highway different and warranting more scrutiny. They have expectations, of being snappy, boastful and pedantic. They see them as being intellectual astute, competent, and maybe even well to do. It is a burden I don’t like. Just because I display accomplishment ex post facto hard work, discipline and patience.

The place you above what you are and where come from and act as if magically being a Dr (what ever that is) makes you automatically smarter, more important and beneficial than the average person. The answer is NO we are not. True, I got some colleagues that think they the smartest person in the world, and even with a PHD introduce themselves as Dr. They may not even be tight, or worse got their PHD when they stopped being proficient in a foreign language. That took about 65% of the folks who were in class with me. Truth is they may be actually dim, poor read and even unversed in the scientific literature or their field. Scary to me, and don’t even ask them about their research or publication record, don’t exist. Then these be the loudest ones bragging. But at any case.

Next time you meet someone or know up front but their terminal illness called a doctorate, see if you change how you see them or compare them to another standard. See if you profile folks too. Like I said, my momma aint name me doctor nor did getting one make me more smarter if I had not. And al the degrees I have worked had for, that Hamilton High School Diploma, followed by Morehouse mean the most.

when a 70 is an F

There once was a time when education, regardless of gender, race or economic status was valued more so than anything else. It was seen as the great equalizer and the one intangible that was attainable by every one.

Today seems that the value for education has diminished greatly, and that the transformation of values as such has turned for the worse. I had conversation with my folk this morning about his. As usual we saw this from different angles. He suggested that the values have not changed; it was that people tended to finish college but would still have no job, so I was not as important as it used to be in past days. My position was not based on securing jobs, but rather the value of pedagogy in general.

Although I do not remember the time when my mom and her siblings went to school, I do remember seeing pictures. First it had to be hell and high water for them to miss a day in school and second they always had books in their hands.

My grandma would always say she never went to school. She had to work and getting married at sixteen meant she placed her family first. But this was in the late 1930s – a few decades before Brown versus the Topeka Board of education.

Today, it seems to be just different. Told him that 70% of the young African American males that enter the 9th grade wont graduate or finish school with their peers. That means that only 3 out of ten graduate high school, at least on time. Because of this 70 percent, nearly 80 percent eventually drop out.

I consider this foul on two fronts. First is our disposition and concern of materialism in the form of objects versus what one produces with his mind. Add to that our inability to want to work hard and delay gratification for the attainment of easy money. The last front is governmental, being that more money is spent on subsidies for oil companies, big business and given to places like Israel and Pakistan than is spent on education with respect to our public schools and the pay of teachers and institutions of higher learning with the reduction of grants, student aid and loans for those interested in college.

Again, I’m just venting, and sad. I used to hate being one of the two or three African American male professors at Emory University. I felt like I had to represent all of the African American men in the world and could only kick it with the building and grounds crew outside of the two aforementioned professors. In my book, this 70 is not a C, but really an F.

im with dumb f**k

I hope that none of us forget that we got folk over seas battling on two fronts: Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems sometimes as if we do, myself included. Being more concerned with Nick Cannon marrying some singer or Bow Wow turning drinking age, or even a trivial personal problem or a night out at the club with our folks or a woman acting out on a train because she has not taken her medication. But too, there is nothing wrong with that for different things hold the interest of different folk.

I just want to remind folks that aint nothing has changed, except we are myopic, and maybe more interested in folks in suites (Hillary included) running for political office than the fact that folks are still returning home in plastic bags or maybe even alive, with their leg or arm lost some where on a road in a place called Kirkuk or Kabuoom or Mosul or Tikrit. I would even speculate that most of us couldn’t name five cities out side of the capitals of both countries le alone tell which of the aforementioned is not in Iraq. But our self-induced ignorance is a divagation I will save for another day.

Maybe our nescience is why we don’t notice or hear about Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden anymore. The way they talked him up, you would have though Jones was the New Dillinger or Baby Face Nelson – public Enemy number one. I don’t even see his picture up in Post Offices. Once upon a time I did.

I just wonder why? I wonder if he is even mentioned in the back rooms of the Pentagon or White House any more. All I know is that we have not found him but boasted we will. This is not a slap in the face of our military personnel. Nope we have some of the bravest, smartest and efficient service men and women in the world and will forever have such. They carry out their task with expert precision and do it with out one complaint. Yes, they are true professionals, more so that I. However, I do wish they had some help on the behalf of military intelligence. Makes me think that the combination of both words is an oxymoron.

I know some folks say all black folk look a like, maybe the same is true for Arabs and Muslims, maybe this is why they have yet to locate Osama. Then we know that Osama Jones is hiding in a remote region of Afghanistan, maybe even Pakistan. Both of which are places where we have goo-gobs of military personnel and the assistance of folk who supposed to be our allies.

Maybe I am wrong. But I don’t think so. Like I said, the folk we have fighting on our behalf are smart, very smart. But military intelligence, the question is still up for grabs to me. I mean it did take them about 5 years to find Eric Rudolph and we knew where he was plus he was state side. It also took them 11 years to find the Uni bomber. Maybe I just think too much and just need to stop and have me a shot of Tequila with hot sauce.

update on new hustle #2

Dog Store is coming along well. I wanted to be open this Friday but I still aint got merchant equipment to accept credit cards from Merill Lynch Yet.I suggest all yawl live your dream and work for yourself. The 12 to 14 hour days to get up and stacking my loot, well I have faith it will pay off. I got cable, phone and internet lines installed yesterday and still waiting on more merchandise - mainly clothes. I got dog foods from around the world made with duck and sweet potato to Bison to Phesant and wild rice.

Little moma has a chair. She put's it in front of the door and waves and says hello to all that pass. All she need is a Shot Gun (Her job description also includes sweeping and breaking merchandise - only once). It great having a family business. Lil Daddy comes from School and helps with inventory and pricing.

I put fences on the wall over peg board to display some of the items, mainly clothes. Had an Interior Decorator, but she wanted 7 stacks. Im like folk, this aint Lenox Mall, this a store for dogs.

Im gonna carry beds, cages, and got shampoo made with wine, aloe, oatmeal and flea powereds that are natural.

That taste of the wild above is made with salmon and one is made with wild game birds.

Still More Dogfood. Waiting on my clothes and my dog t-shirts and wife beaters.

My Granny and momma were here for a day Mother's day. My lil cuz raduated rom Tuskeggee

Four Generations (im just not in pic)and they all in my store at one time - priceless. I just lost one granny. She didnt get to see the store but this one and my mom did. Still got a lot of work to do but i have work ethic, and faith and Anything I think of I can do - some one has to be number one, may as well be me. 572 Edgewood, suite 117, ATL ....Back to politics, and culture and history as usual tommorow.

Check Mate

Sidebar 1: Sorry about not posting what I said I was gone post. It was based on a discussion I had with this chap while eating a BLT. He said he hated all Muslims and Arabs and called them stupid and asked if I agreed. So yawl know me, it resulted in a post for I write what I feel and think regarding what ever is on my mind.

Sidebar 2: Emory University Emergency Rooms are the shit. They got PCs in each room. And I was able to surf the web while I was there. Went last night about 9 ish. Lil momma has been recovering from a yeast infection and was scratching herself real bad. So since I promised her mother I’d take her I did. And the best thing, they gave me some free stuff to put on her for that night and this morning – no more scratching. I was scared cause they said she had t sleep with no panties and all I could imagine was a wet bed – but she didn’t. I tried to call her mother and tell her and text and left messages that were at the ER. She did not respond. So I figured her phone was dead, or she didn’t have it. But I did expect her to call, I mean wherever she was I’m sure they had a landline or cell phone. We stopped by her place around 1150pm; I wanted to leave her so I could finish pricing stuff at the shop. She wasn’t in. Maybe I expect too much.

Side Bar 3: Thanks to the folks at Pimpin Pens for the banner hey made for me.

Sidebar 4: I wonder how many of the folks in China complained about stuff and never counted their blessings, and how they feel now, if they are any of he many who have lost family members and their homes and are sitting outside in he rain after the earth quake

Saturday was an exceptional day. Although folk teeth were giving him problems and I had no loot in my pocket, I still got my shipment of this De-wormer in the mail as well as met a few more dog owners in the area. It was the weekend of the Sweet Auburn Festival and as such, I wrapped a sign around my daughters neck saying “BUY MY PAPPA’s BOOKS” and proceeded to sale 6. But it was only expected given it was the day before the day that humbles all with the effervescent spirit of mothers. Then Sunday wasn’t bad either. Got the mom’s day gifts off, bought Lil momma’s mom breakfast on behalf of her and even gave her a bottle of wine, on a Sunday on Georgia when they don’t ale liquor and I aint got none (fingers crossed). Add to that my Lil cousin graduated for Tuskegee University today and my mom, grandma, step sister and Gip came in town too.

A very needed reprise seeing that I had two days of stacking more than 900 lbs of dog food. But I did want to keep my promise, and get to the food for thought proffered by query for from Riddle me this. I asked the question to make sure I was not out of my mind. See as a man, I feel that our primary job description is to provide and as such we see the majority of our job description to our family and significant other as to provide protect and offer safety. And i dont beat women either, unless you consider slangin a woman to the flor who came after me with a knife abuse (I could have taken the knife and slit her throat but the man in me couldn't do such).

It may be foul on my behalf but that is what I believe, and that there is no reason or room for any one to complain, bitch fuss and bicker if the aforementioned is taking care of. I mean if I keep a roof over your head, keep clothes on your back, the bills paid, you with health insurance and food in your stomach and don’t beat you, there is not a mutha fiuckin reason for one to complain - woman, son or daughter - or any one living under my roof or any roof I pay for. Some may suggest this is a control issue, I say no, albeit I understand we are in America and that he who pays makes the rules.

But me, it’s a little deeper than that. Im trying to keep holding up and keep all of the real in place but most folks seem to not be in the same real world that I am in, the one where a gallon of milk is the same price as the gallon of gas. I feel for my work and proficiency, I should have someone, even if it is just my kids, have dinner cooked, the di