dig conversations

"what are you up to tonight?" she said.

"you want the sunday school answer, or the real answer?" i replied.

"hm...a blend of the both, be creative," she said

"i can't on wednesday's. it's hump day. i spend all week just trying to get to this point. the rest of the week i can coast through. i can be creative tomorrow. thursday's are usually good for creativity," i said.

"didn't we have a conversation about that once? about how thursday's are your favorite day?" she said.

"sure did. everyone looks forward to friday, thursday is the prelude. the introduction to the end. it's the ultimate chill day. that moment just in between a deep inhale and a long exhale. when you know you can breath again," i said.

"indeed. it's also the 4th weekday. i like the number 4, it's nice and even. like the number 2. the number 2 and the number 4 are my favorite numbers. they represent a wholeness and balance that can't be found with most other numbers," she said.

"...my favorite number is 3. so put that in your blowhole," i said.

she said, "that's what she said".

"ha, i actually just saw an office episode the other day. a woman was parking her SUV and was scraping the sides of the cars next to her. she looked out the window and exclaimed "it's too tight - i have to find another spot to put it in!" i said.

"haha, hilarious, i have yet to check out the office. do you have any episodes?" she asked.

i replied, "i have to check, i might. it came on after family guy on TBS last night."

[insert 30 minute conversation on family guy]

"...but what i can't understand why American Dad would have the same format and setup as Family Guy but exclude the random flashbacks and tangents. they're taking out the very element of Family Guy, while simultaneously trying to make it just like Family Guy, it doesn't make sense," she said.

i said, "i think they're still trying to figure out their audience. it seems like a satire about post-9/11 fear-invoked patriotism in America, but still within the framework of Family Guy randomness. maybe they're playing it safe until they find their base. or maybe the show is just stupid...wait...didn't you ask me something earlier?" i said.

"..."

"..."

"...we talked about numbers..."

"...favorite days of the week?..."

"ooh...i asked you what you were doing tonight!" she exclaimed.

"oh yeah!" i said, "hm, sunday school answer - grading papers. real answer - nothing."

"...wow, we really have to work on our conversation skills," she says.

"nah," i say, "i dig our conversations."

"good," she says, "me too."

let's sell this...

i'm not sure how i feel about this. but i guess it fits in there with the daughter's beanie baby dolls, the presidential interviews during the superbowl, and being on the cover of enteraintment weekly. it's as random as it is cool. it's as shameful as it is affective. this family has become universally marketable. you put their face on it and it sells. you mention them within the fabric of anything and it grabs your attention, good or bad. Michelle's toned arms secrets, Barack's sunglasses, Malia's hair products, Sasha's missing teeth. there's something for everyone in the Obama store. on sale until 2012, or until the next big thing (my vote is American Idol's top three in the coming months, or the rising trend in edible boxershorts).

puerto rico #5 (remember to flush)

i am at a pizza place.

the food, i just successfully ordered in spanish. i even finally figured out how to get water in a glass, instead of the bottled water they bring every time by default. it should be arriving shortly.

as i wait, i pull out my laptop (janice) and proceed to read through some blogs before hopping back on the grind. and after getting engrossed in some of my favorite blogs, by some of my favorite people, i looked up. i looked up and around the room for no reason in particular. and, maybe because i saw what appeared to be black americans across the room, or maybe because my brain took longer to pull out of wild cowgirl's world than my eyes did, or maybe because this pizza place just looks vaguely familiar with no real Puerto Rican flair or ambiance, or maybe for all of those reasons - i thought i was back home.

for a split second, maybe two, i could have sworn i was in atlanta, or ny, or chicago, or boston, or any other random city i visit often in the states. i thought i was on the mainland.

this means one of two things. a) i'm starting to feel more at home in Puerto Rico, or b) i'm really growing more and more homesick. i'm going to lean towards the former, solely because i've done the homesick thing before and know that feeling when i get it. i don't think this is that. i think i am assimilating. but only to the degree of being able to cope and survive. if this is indeed assimilation, it has brought to me a very astute cognizance that i am not supposed to be here. yet, in some strange way, i am also clear that i am supposed to be here....and now i sound like a crazy person...

to put that ramble into a frame that makes sense, i realize now that puerto rico is a catalyst for me. a place that i am supposed to be, but for the purpose of moving on somewhere else. it is a pipe in my journey that i am supposed to go through, but not get stuck in. and though this may sound like a given, i find it surprising how many people get stuck in their pipes. through assimilation and routine, through obligations and responsibilities, through fear and insecurity, i think we all run the risk of getting stuck in our catalyst, prolonging the journey set ahead for us if we were to only flush on through.

i have to remind myself, i am not at home. despite conformity and/or integration into that which surrounds me, this is not my home. and though i may not know what this is until it's over and done, i know what it's not. and i have to remember where i'm supposed to be headed, and what i am supposed to do.

my pizza's here.

have a nice day.

strength...desire...

i'm still not sure how exactly this works. but this is my first go, after a while of trying to figure out how the hell to embed audio. but alas, neither here nor there, these are just some thoughts i had when i had some time on my hands one night.

hope you enjoy.

UPDATE:
ok, i was stupid. and the little audio player i had here was crap. i have learned much tonight in the world of multimedia blogging. the best way to add audio to blogspot you say? don't. turn it into a video, and upload it in blogspot directly. for my mac people, that would be to just throw it in imovie, share it as a quicktime file, and upload it here in .mov format. for my windows people, i have no idea what wmv can do these days; maybe you should just play it loud on some speakers and record it on vimeo. what's done is done. i'm now free to proceed with my life. free.

pop-counter-culture

i called my cousin franklin to put him on to a new artist i'm feeling right now. granted, he's starting to blow up a bit, being featured on MTV, a song on Madden '09, and releasing a new album last week with Mos Def and the Roots. but still, i'm bumping K'naan's 2005's freshman album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher. i haven't even heard anything from the new album, and I'm kinda afraid you. his freshman album is laced with themes of finding strength in ones self and through one's God, criticizing the hip-hop industry for losing it's message, and making ends through whatever means possible (not to mention skillful delievery and flawless signifying).



i'm afraid the new album may not relfect such themes now that he has found relative success. moreover, the first album tends to reflect my personal journey right now. not that i'm struggling on the streets of Somolia or anything, but just being able to identify with it in terms of trying to figure our God's plan, identifying my goals, and trying to dodge technical rationality to achieve my means.

but those are the reasons I like him. I've been trying to put him down with everyone else because I just think he's a cool new artist, and I like to be up on things before they get big and overly popular. Yet, whien calling cousin Franklin about him, he accepted the invitation to give him a listen out of politeness and curiosity, but then told me about a book he was reading, which was directly linked to what i was doing in my own artist recommendation.

in a nutshell, the book he was reading, "Nation of Rebels", Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter discuss how counter culture became consumer culture. how the subculture dedicated to refusing cultural trends and popular fashion as now become popular in and of itself. it discusses how the capital marketplace has not only acknowledged this subculture, but has marketed to it, catered to it, and has now made it the consumer culture right under it's own nose. take, for example, Urban Outfitters. stores of this type sell gear, clothing, accessories, and arbitrary articles solely for the purposes of completing ones rebel attire. Apple, in and of itself, was initially a rebellion against the PC world, a refusal to conform to the corporate paradigm, a subscription to that which was against the grain. artist that were once underground and of faithful, massive following, were uprooted to the mainstream to capitalize on said fans and garner more through their "underground, mainstream image"(right, TV on the Radio, N.E.R.D, T.I., etc.)

don't get me wrong, for almost all of these artist, it's their dream to make it big anyway. the book is not criticizing the artists, or the stores, or the manufacturing company. it's criticizing us. all of us that have fallen victim to captalist marking to the counter culture of non-capitalism and non-conformity. it criticizes why we're so quick to pay extra to be so different, when it's really making us a part of the very culture we are trying so hard to differentiate from. the message wasn't to not be a part of it, but to think first, and really analyze if what you're doing is truly what you're trying to do. counter culture isn't buying a pair of torn jeans from Express, it's going to the thrift store and buying jeans someone else has worn out - sending the message to pop-culture that you refuse to pay out the ass for basic clothing.

yet, somewhere, that message became popular, so the Express jeans went on sale, and now everyone is a rebel. and if everyone is a rebel, no one is. (thanks Incredibles.)

this brings me to why I'm so adamant on plugging k'naan right now. because he's not in the mainstream (yet), I find some satisfaction in playing him in my car and my guests ask, "wow, who's that?" and i reply, "yeah, no one knows about this artist yet, he's good, here, listen to track 5..." because i'm a jerk. as much a jerk as anyone else. and nowadays, we all want to be a part of something that no one else is a part of, only to turn around and get everyone else to be a part of it.

think about it. that's all i'm saying.

ps. k'naan is the truth though. i'll check out the new album soon and let you know. peace.

puerto rico #4

i'm sure i have written at least three entries about puerto rico. so let's just call this number 4, so i can keep track of them. i owe various people some pictures, descriptions, explanations, apologies, money, drinks, and general status updates (not being the random sentences on facebook I upload from my phone when watching episodes of America's Best Dance Crew and Lost). so, with taking this moment to write some things that have been happening on this Dharma-Initiative run island, allow me to play catch-up with some quick points.

#1) i noticed that i had a "blog follower". i mean, i knew i had people that read the blog. but when it pops up that one has a "blog follower", it's kinda cool. i'm not sure how that works. i should, but i don't. and i'm afraid that if i dig too deep, it won't be as cool anymore. with that said, let's move to #2...

#2) i moved from my old place, to a new place. as it turns out, my place was hella posh. i was leaving in isle verde. which is literally, come to find out, where the wealthy in puerto rico purchase their beach condos that they escape to on the weekend and rent out to college kids on random spring breaks. coming from NY, it seemed like a steal. $600 for a beach front studio; smack in the middle of great restuarants, bars, and clubs; a block away from a good 24 hours grocery store; across the street from the highway exit; and excellent, private, gated parking. then, after 3 months and actually talking to people, i learned that everyone else in puerto rico (the normal people) were paying around $300 - $400 rent, including utilities. there's to the revelation, but, long-story short, i went broke very quickly, and barely made it out of the apartment before bad things started happening. now it's "get yourself out of debt" time.

i owe my dear friend pictures of the old place. even though i know they're gonna ask for pics of the new place immediately afterwards.






that was the old. i don't have the new pics yet. i just don't. i wish i did. but there are some things i have to sacrifice. $325/month with utilities fits into the budget better. it's all relative yknow. it took a little while for me to realize that i wasn't getting paychecks from NY anymore. PR paychecks are vastly different. vastly. so, sacrificed is the beach, the restaurants, the bars, the clubs, the close highway, the 24 hour grocery store. gone is the private gated parking. gone is the rooftop view of San Juan. i was living posh. but i thought everyone lived on the beach! it's puerto rico! i thought it was normal, i really did. the $600 was already more than a 50% slash from the NY apartment!! how was i supposed to know i wasn't supposed to be paying out the ass for high speed internet in my posh studio?! how was i supposed to know i was supposed to do like everyone else and cop a squat at Starbucks, Borders, or McDonalds to get internet there?!












#3) yes, the free McDonalds internet is supposedly whats' up here. I don't know about the states, but it is here. you know why? because everything here is tricked out. whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, i don't know. but i rode a yellow school bus to a field trip a few days ago, and it was installed with a small television where the rear view mirror would normall go. around it were several high performing speakers. and just for those throughout the bus, the ceiling was spotted with smaller speakers installed throughout. we proceeded to ride through the streets of Carolina, PR bumping reggeaton, swerving with the door open and the speakers set to Xplode apparently. other examples include A) a whore house using an electronic LED scrolling marquee (similiar to those at a movie theatre), only, the message scrolling across is that which comes pre-installed on it, demonstrating examples of utilization (store discounts, millenium countdown, and current time, etc.); B) the consistency of stilletto heels to do anything whatsoever (from grocery shopping to getting the mail); and C) my car has a siren. i don't know why. but it does. along with it's chrome steering wheel and electronic gas reader that may or may not read correctly.

all of these are things that i dig, and think are odd. simultaneously. but hey, "it's puerto rico". that's all you can say. it's the only thing that makes it better. it's the only thing that makes it right.

ok, i think 3 points are enough. i have to leave...i can't remember if i locked the door back on my new apartment, and for some reason that worries me. more on that later.

have a great day.

the novelty of restoration

i think it is important to realize that people, as a whole, do not like change. the average person - maybe. however, people, the masses, are generally against change. historically speaking, people have gathered by the majority of masses against radical thought, unconventional shifts within society, and the implementation of taboo ideals. the civil rights movement which marked a turn in the middle of the 20th century, which is now honored as a great stride in American History and is considered a victory for America's ability to change and mature, was initially a time of unrest, fear, crime, rampage, and anger. on both sides of the civil rights movement, there existed a general and overwhelming amount of criticism about whether or not the movement should even take place. at the time, black-only communities were beginning to flourish, and the integration of white communities and white schools meant that these very same maturing communities would be deemed second rate, passed-over, and ultimately passed-up for more viable options in other neighborhoods. the white-only communities of the time also met this change with resistance, as it meant sharing the businesses they owned and operated with a culture they did not know, did not trust, and generally thought to be inferior to their own. now, i'm no historian, but believe that this resistance was met with government force, as the integration of communities and cultures began to make sense in terms of capitalism and gentrification. it was also supported by the powers that be after change seemed to be inevitable, a force that was picking up momentum, either in the direction of the non-violent Christan movement led by Dr. King, or in the direction of black-superiority and defensive aggression, led by the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X. with those "powers that be" considering the better of the two, Dr. King was nationally exalted for his work and cause, and it was then pushed throughout America that if one were to join this force of change, his would be the direction to go. and though history tends to be kind to positive moments of change in a given society, this push for change was a by-product of the civil unrest that the same change initially started, and was a socially painful time in which to live because of it.

i bring this up to not to attest whether or not change is necessary when it is implemented, but rather to point out that, necessary or not, history shows us that it is almost always met with civil unrest, harsh criticism, and frustration among the masses. where monumental change is seen, you will find initial resistance from the masses and overall disapproval from the people it affects. the cases stretch far and wide. Jesus introduced radical concepts that led to his publicly endorsed death for the world to witness. Lincoln introduced taboo ideals into law that led to his public downfall and assassination. Galileo was considered crazy. Einstein was a laughing stock. Marcus Garvey was deemed a "traitor and lunatic" even by fellow black idealist of the day.

change is not accepted by the masses. and is especially rejected by American culture.

and so, when considering why the campaign of Barack Obama, one that was centered on the pillar of change, was so accepted and renowned, the thought initially seems to be an anomaly. the notion that, all of a sudden, the masses support and corroborate this pledge of change in Washington, this idea of change in racial barriers, and the concept of change in our society, appears to contradict history itself by implying that masses and multitude do, in fact, welcome change where change is needed. and though this implication may seem air-tight, i choose to stand on the side of history. i propose that when analyzing the cause and and reason behind the colossal support of Obama's platform, one need not believe that people have reach some new level of maturity or courage. one need not think that history has shifted and that people as a whole now welcome change for no reason, or because it is now exceptionally needed where before it wasn't. no, i beg of you not to think that people are now, for the first time in the history of people, ready to welcome change in a way that has been undocumented since the beginning of time simply because Obama is that uplifting, that inspiring, that encouraging, or that cool. i would rather you look at this phenomenon from a different angle: that Obama's administration does not represent change at all.

on the contrary. Obama's campaign does not represent an era of change, but rather a return to the familiar. during the campaign, they likened him to figures such as JFK and King, his proposals like that of Carter and Clinton, and his swagger to that of a young Bobby Kennedy. Obama does not represent change, he represents a return to a golden era. his promises are that of fixing that which is broken, not creating something new. his speeches are of returning America back to power, not to taking a new stance in the world. Bush, if anything, represented change in American policies and practices - Obama is a return to the illusion of morality that American prides itself on. the change in which he speaks, is change from change, changing back, changing from the beast that America has become to the beast that we once were. and it is this change that the American masses support. it is this change that American masses are addicted to. even his racial identity, though seemingly a change in American prejudice, is more so a return in the American superiority complex. we raise our banners and flags to say "look what we did! look what we accomplished! America has overcome it's own history of hatred and bigotry! look countries that have ousted us from your circles of trust! we can change! we are different! we are better!"

and i, i do not fall outside of this mass of people. i am not on the outside looking in. i lift that banner to, in my own American pride, in my own cultural superiority complex. i too want to return to the way things were. i too long for the economy i grew up in, and the education programs that i was schooled. i too long for this change from change, this return from destitution, this revival of America. i long for it. i love it. i support it and the catalyst in which it has been represented - this man that has given us all hope to return the familiar and the greatness our country once was.

and though, a part of me possesses this hope of return, there is a larger part of me telling myself that it can never go back to the way it was. things have changed for real. over the last decade, things have changed so slowly, it did not receive the resistance it deserved. i do not fault Obama for selling his campaign on change, when it is really restoration, because that is simply a matter of semantics. a play on words. i simply want to keep things in perspective, respecting the history of change and what it means to be amongst it. because, though his intentions may be to restore America, his efforts to do so may really result in actual change. and history tells, that change is a hard thing for people to truly accept. i pray for the best. i prepare for the impact of what may be a defining decade for our generation, our nation, and our people as a whole.