Politics, BullShit & The Tinfoil Tirades

Less Murder More Excellence

2011-08-24T02:41:00.004-04:00

“There's a war going outside we ain't safe from...I feel the pain in my city wherever I go / 314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago.” -Kanye West

I hate doing blog post's like I did Monday because of this simple quote. "Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events and great minds discuss ideas." I consider my mind to be a great mind and I let myself be manipulated by stupid people into giving them validation by writing about them. However, I hate writing about this next topic even more. As you can tell by the picture it is a subject that we should all be sick of hearing about.

I had just finished talking to my sister in South Jersey about the Great East Coast Earthquake and I joke about it now but it did shake me up (pun intended) earlier when it happened. The ground should never move under your feet when you are standing still, but that is another post. So I poured me another drink to ease my nerves and all of a sudden shots rang out. Now while shots ranging out on Planet Baltimore is not uncommon, it has been for the past 15 years where I have lived in this city. Tonight though the shots rang out right under my second floor window. I heard three shots. I heard the first bang and then a few seconds later I heard another shot followed by a scream then another shot. Now there are a lot of kids in my neighborhood so my first reaction was that's just some kids with some firecrackers playing around, but something about the scream made me think that this was not just some kids playing around. After a few minutes after the noise quieted down I went to my window and didn't see anything so I sat back down and thought maybe it was just some kids playing around. Then here comes the sirens and a few minutes after that I hear the helicopter. I return to the window and look out and there is about 10 police officers outside my back window looking for gun casings and taping off the crime scene and also someone lying on the ground.

A few minutes ago I found out that it was two people shot the one lying on the ground 10 yards from my window was fatally shot. While the fact that this happened right outside my window really disturbs me but I am more disturbed by my own reaction. The fact that I thought no more of this than some kids playing around. That I am so used to hearing gunshots and people yelling and screaming that I have all but tuned it out says a lot about me also. Later this morning I guess the "paper is going to read murder black on black murder...again!"

Manic Mondays - My Mania Part Duex

2011-08-22T15:19:00.003-04:00

I know I haven't been here in a while but that is because I have been dealing with matters of the heart and I am not going to lie my ass been spinning out of control but I got my perspective back and I need to tell ya whats been going on lately in my little part of the world cause it is some shit straight out of Bizzaro World! Planet Baltimore Shit for sure. Okay here we go...

I am not a tough guy it is not in my nature. I am lover! As a Taurus I am gentle, even tempered, good natured, modest and slow to anger except here lately. I will normally go out of my way to avoid confrontations and ill feelings. However, if pushed I will blank-out and lose all self control and you would think you have just been hit by a Cat 5 hurricane. Again I try to avoid that at all costs. Not that I am afraid because I am a big guy, I got muscles and I don't do dumb shit meaning dealing with other peoples hang-ups and stupidity. It is not in my nature to fuck with people and I hate it when people try to fuck with me because I am me. I put the "em-fassis" on try to fuck with me because you punks can't move me for real! Now I do look good as hell most of the time especially with a fresh fade and clean shave and the ladies love me and the guys want to be like me but I rarely say anything to anyone cause I don't want to have to hurt anyone or anyone's feelings. Plus when I do say something some of you people act real stupid. I feel ya staring at me from 3-4 blocks away sometimes so by the time you get to me I am trying to figure out if you're a fan or foe. Most times it's just a garden variety hater and I love you guys because if you're hating on me just from looking at me I know I am doing something right. If you're not a hater I know sometimes it's that look on my face, a mix of confidence and caution, but I am old old school I speak when I am spoken too otherwise I keep it moving. I may on occasion flirt with the ladies but for the most part I just look at you looking at me.

I have tried numerous times to figure out what about me that makes folks wanna try me or test my resolve. Maybe its the convinced look on my face because I rarely smile unless someone is telling jokes, I am wrapped in a chord, line or verse of music or I see some stupid shit. However, here lately a lot of people have been giving me hard looks, running past me in their cars and some of these people really seem to think they have some bearing on the decisions I have been making here recently. Uh NO! YOU DON'T! So stop wasting your time! I swear sometimes my life seems like some kind of TV "Sitcomdocudrama"! I say something in the place I am staying for instance like I am going to the store and all of a sudden the people above me start acting stupid walking back and forth stomping on the floor and popping out of they houses and seemingly following me, people trying to stare me down. It's really crazy shit! Yesterday for example I start walking to the 24hr 365 liquor store to get a pack of Newports and a 12 oz Heineken and all of a sudden there is all of this activity like little Indian girls (dot variety) staring me down while walking up on me acting like they are going to walk me off the sidewalk, cars with folks inside I have seen before mean mugging me rolling up on me and real recently the police rolling up and down eyeballing me. They rolled up on me like they had solid evidence that I was going to rob the damn liquor store I went to or to try to cop some weed or dope they way they was acting. Really?!? Cut it out! The same people that more than likely called you guys was smoking like the shit was legal when I walked past a group of them. Maybe they thought that me smelling it would make me break my sobriety and go get some. Haaaa! Then to top the shit off when I came home there were 3 squad cars and one undercover car sitting out in the parking lot. Then some Indian dude (again dot variety) was walking towards me like he was going to do something. Playing chicken with me. If he had of made any moves other than to get out of my way it was going to take all of those cops to get me off that ass!! Now maybe its for my benefit, but I get that tingling in my spidey senses telling me that either someone is calling them on me because they are afraid I am about to go the fuck off or some lame ass attempt to force some kind of outcome where I go the fuck off!! More Dumb Shit! For the record I carry one weapon with me at all times and that is my beautiful mind and it is moving 10 steps ahead of any of my body parts and most of you! So if you really think you have anything to do with any of my decisions stop wasting your time cause all you are really doing is pissing me off and wasting precious time you could be using to enrich yourselves or reading my blog so that you can have this inner peace and contentment like me.

So lets all remember the 3rd & 4th Basic Law(s) of Stupidity:

3rd - A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

4th - Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

Since I am highly versed in the Laws Of Stupidity you can rest assured I will not deal with stupid or stupid acting people at all. If that is what is pissing you off about me, the fact that I won't speak or or even acknowledge your presence it is either because I think you fall into one or more of those two categories or I have already have had contact with you and are convinced you are stupid. So let's review...I don't fuck with people so I do not expect to be fucked with or fucked around, I try to avoid confrontations at all cost, I am not scared I just hate all forms of stupidity and fuckery.

Now that is out of the way here is who I really am. I enjoy art, music and culture. I have strong aesthetic tastes, meaning I love art, I am an artist and consider what I do here an art form. I love all things beautiful...Ladies...And I can find beauty in most things, although I am repulsed by all things ugly and or sordid, which includes attitudes and feelings. I love music with a passion unmatched and I have a gift for making music and I have always wanted to make music. I believe just like Bill & Ted, that I am going to be the one the writes the song that brings the world together and ushers in the new utopian society. I am a poet, rapper and writer although I get so disgusted sometimes I refuse to share my art with the human race. I know there is only one race of Man and that we are different cultures and colors we all still have the same basics needs and wants. Racism is a trick that keeps us fighting among ourselves while the elite rape and pillage the earth and justify their greed.

While I detest religion, another tool of the rich and wealthy, I do have a very spiritual belief system that does include a God just not that jealous, vindictive, cruel, unloving, uncaring god with the human emotions that the rest of the world fears. I literally cringe when I hear people say they are god-fearing when God is love and with so much pure evil that exists in the world today to be feared. Why not be devil fearing or in fear of these human demons that walk the face of the earth and commit the most horrific crimes daily? Not too mention that for the life of me I cannot understand why can't people understand that God, the kingdom of heaven joy and all of those good things are inside of us all. That WE are the most powerful beings in our world, predict our futures and change our lives. That it takes Us to want to change our lives and worlds for the better not God. Cause if it was solely up to God alone wouldn't he change everyone? I mean really what makes more sense...That some imaginary hand from the sky pushes us to be better human beings or we decide ourselves we want to be better human beings? However, this post is not about god or religion I will save that for later this is about me and my mania or lack there of so back to it...

I am a comfort creature and pleasure seeker and I like to have the best of everything especially good food and drink although I do overindulge on occasion and suffer from it later in the form of sour stomach and the occasional hangover. However, if you drink from the top shelf and leave the cheap stuff alone you rarely have to worry about hangovers even if you do have one or three drinks too many. In my case I get hangovers when I mix and match liquors or drink too many beers and have a couple of drinks together. Lately, I have been avoiding the beer altogether because it makes me feel bloated and puts on weight fast.

I can be a little bourgeoisie hence my love for material possessions and the finer things in life. I am generally a good law abiding citizen with a strong sense of right and wrong, but it is my sense of right and wrong not someone else's. I dislike people that litter especially when there is a trashcan nearby it offends my sense of beauty for nature. Planet Baltimore would be a much nicer place if the indigenous people didn't litter. I have a quick wit and tend to be more practical than intellectual however, this Taurus is very high functioning, intellectual sometimes bordering on the brilliant and excelling in the written word. It takes me a minute to understand the higher abstract concepts of math like algebra and calculus but I am determined to excel in every endeavor I indulge in.

On the darker side I can sometimes be ultra conservative and self righteous, brooding, unoriginal, rigid and hostile to change. Over the years though I have learned change is gonna come whether I like it or not. I can be judgmental, bullheaded, downright mean and unforgiving. Stuck in my opinions and fears even if it is irrational. I have a favorite saying about "it" and I do not know who said it but I think I heard it in the rooms of N/A, "If IT doesn't get better with you, you better get better with IT cause IT don't give a shit." My sponsor used to tell me that all of the time. I really try to avoid going over too or giving into the dark side and if I do give in to the darker me it is after several days of pushing from forces outside my control. I let a lot of bullshit go on a daily basis from people no where near my mental or social strata because I recognize it for what it is but after a few days of the same bullshit I will defend myself viciously and when my mind fires it leaves big gaping holes in my victims!

Now by nature I usually give people the benefit of the doubt until they do something to me and then I have to refer back to the 1st Law of Stupidity:

Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

At first, the statement sounds trivial, vague and horribly ungenerous. Closer scrutiny will however reveal its realistic veracity. No matter how high are one's estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:

a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.

b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one's activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments.

300 Million People In America, 299.9 Million Are Stupid!
Menace

Manic Mondays - My Mania

2011-08-01T16:58:00.008-04:00

I woke up this morning and I did not feel that usual dread I do most mornings because I feel all is lost and there is no sense in trying anymore. That it is going to be another day wondering if I am ever going to get a job or even a job interview because I swear I do not want to spend another day wondering if I will be able to hold my head up and act like the man I pretend to be from the shame of not being able to provide for myself and loved ones. It was also the first morning in a couple weeks that I woke up because my body got the proper amount of sleep and not because the new neighbors above me were stomping over top my head or the stress of facing another day dealing with that situation and not going up to the roof and giving them a little bit of their own medicine which would have probably felt better than the actual good nights sleep. I could bang on the ceiling and start a war of attrition but I do realize that my karma just like the United States can't afford another war and not too mention I have to realize that I have absolutely no control of what someone else does. Maybe they don't realize that what comes around goes around or they don't think about that. More than likely the latter. I know there is a simple solution to this and just about any conflict that may arise and that is to simply think about how you yourself would want to be treated and act accordingly but I guess when people are caught up in the moment they really do not think about that or rather they really don't think at all UNTIL they are on the other side of it, but today none of that mattered because they did and it was all quiet and peaceful.

When I left my house this morning I noticed the heatwave had dissipated and it was a nice breeze flowing. Seems people have recognized that global warming is not some made up liberal plot but is actually man made from cars, industrial pollution and cow farts. That they have started driving less not because of the ever increasing gas prices, but their concern for the environment and their children and their children that will inherit these problems. I heard that conservatives and teabaggers like Sarah Palin have given up on the lie that CO2, CO1, Methane and other greenhouse gases are good for humans and the environment. I always think about that absurd commercial that shows a highway with a 1001 cars on them spewing black smoke and some yo yo coming on and talking about how a pack of cigarettes are worse than that. Fill your car with automobile exhaust and smoke you die. Fill it with cigarette smoke you may get sick or smell really bad but you live.

While I was at the bus stop I actually saw a guy start to throw his trash out his car window and I guess he saw me standing there with the tear in my eye like that slot Indian dude Iron Eyes Cody from those old littering commercials and decided against it and actually pulled over and placed the trash in the trash can. I didn't really have a tear in my eye but I did shake my head with a disgusted look on my face, but I guessed it worked. Then like magic everyone else I saw today actually put the trash in the can instead of throwing it on the ground next to the can. What struck me as odd is that those same people that usually throw the trash on the ground and out their car windows are normally the very same people screaming the loudest about the big ass killer rats that roam the streets of Planet Baltimore kicking cats in the ass. I also noticed that the apartment complex where I live has started making people recycle by putting signs on the three dumpsters instead and fining people for not sorting. I mean it only makes sense after the Planet City Council spent so much money and time on a massive campaign to get everyone to recycle and save a few bucks in the process for more police protection.

I heard that the oil companies agreed to re-write a new energy bill that have them paying much more in taxes because they realize for the last ten years they have made record profits and since they have been more than just partly responsible for what is going on with the environment. I mean they let oil spew from an underwater leak for literally months and that is just here in the United States. We are not even skimming the surface (pun intended) of all the different environmental disasters and oil spills that didn't get as much press as the Valdez and the latest the Gulf Oil spill. I also read that Exxon finally paid for the Valdez oil spill with interest for all the years they held it up in court, again from the enormous profits they have made over the last two decades since the spill.

I read or heard that our leaders stopped playing politricks and passed a debt ceiling bill that taxed the rich who were paying less in taxes than people making hundreds of thousands of dollars less than them and struggling to pay their bills while working harder and longer. I heard they cut military spending and entitlements. I read that Congress gave up on massive spending cuts that only hurt the poor and working class and didn't touch Social Security or Medicare and fixed that disastrous Medicaid Prescription program. I heard the President and Congress made a reverse NAFTA type deal with Canada to allow we the people to get cheaper prescription drugs, so that my mother and elderly aunts and uncles and the rest of we the people's elderly or sick didn't have to decide which was more important month to month, eating or taking care of their health. I heard he stopped spending billions of dollars in stupid overseas wars against abstract ideas and concepts and brought our soldiers home. He eventually put those billions of dollars to use helping those soldiers get re-acclimated to life at home and rehabilitation programs and giving tax breaks to companies that created jobs here in America and not in China, India and elsewhere.

Someone told me that President Obama actually signed a bill that officially closed down Guantanamo Bay and 100's of other secret prisons, stopped renditions and torture, formally brought back habeas corpus and stopped all military tribunals saving us millions of dollars that he put back into education and fixing America's rotting infrastructure. I taped a brilliant speech by the president like the ones he made on the campaign trail urging the world to come together and stop world hunger and to cure all the treatable diseases in Africa and other third world countries where people were dying from simple diseases like malaria and complications from drinking dirty water. He urged the world's pharmaceutical companies to stop stifling promising research into real cures and not just medicating them with overpriced drugs that had more side effects than the diseases they were supposed to be helping. I remember hearing him say some things in his speech about equality and true democracy and I was happy and smiling because I finally felt that this man was actually gonna make America live up to it's promise. Instead of just talking though he actually wrote out a plan to accomplish all these things I heard him urge the world to wake up and and that resonated with me until I woke up and realized I had been sleeping and all of this had been a dream...I think it was a combination of the stomping above me, the trash that actually hit my foot from someones car and the sheer absurdity of all of this stuff happening over night!

*****UPDATE*****

I heard the president actually really caved in and gave the republicans and teabaggers 98% of what they were asking for and these assholes are still talking about this is not a deal they can vote for. I really wish that was a dream but alas it is the cold hard reality of just how determinedly destructive a few stupid people with a little bit of power can be!

Yeah I Am A Dreamer
Menace

Manic Monday's - Another One Bites The Dust!

2011-07-25T00:12:00.004-04:00

She didn't want to go to rehab she said, "No, No No"!
Karma didn't like the example she was setting
so she had to Go, Go Go!

First I gotta preface this post with a disclaimer. I loved Amy Winehouse as an artist. I think I might have even done a post where I compared her song "Tears Dry On Their Own" with Aretha Franklin's "Say A Little Prayer" both brilliant songs that were well written, well produced and well song. So this is in no way a post condemning her or any artist that had emotional and mental problems exacerbated by drugs and alcohol but more about the sadness in losing any person with the talent that she had at such a young age. I consider any one under the age of 50 still young also. But "Here We Goes"!

There is nothing cool or romantic about someone with the amount of talent Amy Winehouse had to die at 27 years of age. That old bullshit about "living fast and dying young" is just that bullshit. When I heard about Amy dying on Saturday I felt the same way did when I heard Kurt Cobain had committed suicide at age 27. Now Amy Winehouse in effect committed suicide at 27, joining Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix both of whom also died at age 27. Let's make no mistake about it they all committed suicide. The drugs and alcohol at young ages causes depression and other problems and when you add that on top of all the internal conflicts they had it is the recipe for ending your life early. Her problems with drugs were well documented so I wont repeat them here. While she wasn't going as hard on the drugs she was still binge drinking heavily and it is rumored that a "bad" ecstasy pill while drinking heavily might have led to seizures, she was suffering from, that ultimately killed her.

There is supposedly some kind of "Rock and Soul 27 Club" and it is linked to the fact that quite a few artists have died at age 27. The club now has a 35 person membership roster with the death of Winehouse which includes Jim Morrison, blues singer Robert Johnson, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. On the surface it seems to appear that there is something to it but we have to realize not all the people linked to the music industry on that list that died at 27 was due to drugs and alcohol. Mia Zapata of the punk rock band the Gits was murdered at 27 nearly 28. Robert Johnson was supposedly poisoned by a jealous husband who owned a juke joint and was married to a woman Johnson was flirting with. Brian Jones former Rolling Stones musician was later thought to be murdered also. Now while it is a pretty impressive list one could say that maybe that is the age that the body finally just gives in from long term drug and alcohol abuse especially if it goes unchecked. I was on the same path back in the 90's with cocaine and if I didn't get some help I might have ended up the same way.

I hope you finally find some peace Amy and I just wanted you to know Imma miss you and that wonderful voice and the joy it brought me!

RIP
Menace