The Slow Road to Oblivion 2005 in review Part 2

Have you ever seen something start out to be unfortunate, then it became obvious that something really heinous was on the verge of happening. In a sense we are on the verge of that on so many fronts that it depresses me.

2005 marked the beginning of the end for me.

Yes, things aren't what they used to be. As what essentially amounts to an evangelical Christian, it is my belief that we are in the last days and folk gonna act an ass until Jesus comes back. That's all well and good, since I'll be gone in the rapture before the ish REALLY hits the fan, but that doesn't prevent me from wanting to have a fairly positive time until then.

Understand, that the "last days" have been going on almost since they were identified almost 1900 years ago.

At any rate, we find ourselves at what I believe will be a watershed point in this country's history. The gulf between the have and Have-nots is widening to those who have a pot to piss in and those who get pissed on. A careful examination of the ups and downs of 05 would bear that out.

• The rising cost of gasoline paired with the fact that demand didn't go down. (How can it when public transportation is either non-existent or ineffective)
• The surreal and ongoing tragedy of Hurricane Katrina which finds the haves repositioning themselves for a unprecedented refashioning of an American city and the have nots....Having not.
• The takeover of the mainstream media by celebrity-centric news. (If someone famous did it, it's automatically news) How else do you explain how three celebrities gain Time persons of the year for charitable endeavors, something millions of people do all the time. Or Michael Jackson, Tookie Williams, Jen and Brad and Angelina, Jen and Vince, Jen and Xzibit, well you know what I mean.
• The Natalee Holloway phenomenon which proves, in case you hadn't been paying attention, that some lives in this world are worth more than others.
  

And to think, I did all that without even mentioning George W. Bush.

The Year that was...part one.

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, Happy end-of-the year to all of my readers/friends/enemies/invisible stalker folk.

I have spent the past two weeks running around furiously, getting ready for the holidays and doing everything except writing here, and for that, I apologize. Now then...

This year was a watershed for me on many fronts. Last year was a year of great transition, with me moving to Texas, hundreds of miles from anything I was familiar with and anyone who loved me. It began in my mother's basement in Pittsburgh where I had been holed out for the entirety of 2003 piecing together my life after a 2002 which found me going from married family man to absentee father.

I spent NYE, 04 in my mother's basement with my sons praying for a better 05. I got it.

I fell in love before January was over, got engaged by my birthday, found myself blogging in July, and a business owner in November. I saw my life take on a direction emblematic of what God has in store for me and I can actually see me for who I really am.

Meanwhile, the world as I know it is taking a leisurely stroll to hell.

More on that later.

Too annoyed to even come up with a title

It took me a whole extra day to weigh in on the Stanley( I ain't finna call no grown ass man Tookie) Williams execution, mostly because I have so many issues with it. In most commentary writing you pick a side, you support your side with a cogent and logical argument.

I will spare you the details, because they are mostly mute and also irrelevant to my particular issue today.


My issue isn't particular to Stanley Williams or to the death penalty. My issue is about how it takes a celebrity to bring attention to ANYTHING in this country these days.

When I worked on Capitol Hill, the big thing was getting a celebrity attached to your cause, in order to testify in front of congress and garner attention from the news media. Nothing gets the media's attention like an A-List star. This isn't a knock on the stars themselves, this is a knock on YOU. This country executes a few hundred men and women a year, EVERY year, some of them of questionable culpability. But unless a star, and I don't mean Danny Glover or one of the usual rabble rousing stars, I mean a regular star, who puts his pimp cup down just long enough to inject him/herself into a conversation on something as complicated as the death penalty and who deserves or doesn't deserve clemency, good luck getting the warming glow of the media on your doomed ass.

What made most of us uncomfortable about the Stanley Williams case wasn't so much that he was he was being executed almost 30 years later, even though he had clearly grown as a man, or even that we were so cocksure that he did the crimes that he was convicted of.

IT was the simple fact that THIS man, was responsible for the founding of one of the most notorious gangs in US History.

It isn't like the gang didn't spread like wildfire all over the US throughout the 80's and 90's. We clamor to get folk like this off the street, and the government did it. They did it as best they could, in a culture of "NO SNITCHING" and counter-productive relations between law-enforcement and the populace, they find themselves getting these folk in jail as best they can.


Frankly, I thought the energy devoted to this could have been better spent on the very kids Stanley has spent his life subsequently trying to save.

Now we find ourselves burying Stanley and wondering what happens next. What will cause the Vox Celebre to unleash their mighty power to cast light upon a topic?

In retrospect, you gotta admire the ability of Snoop Dogg, a man who rose to fame on the heights of

Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks
Lick on deez nutz and suck the dick
Get's the fuck out after you're done
And I hops in my ride to make a quick run

to be able to reform his own image to the point that he can advocate for Mr. Williams. And they say America hasn't made progress.

The King is Dead...Long Live the King...

At what used to be considered old age, Richard Pryor is dead.

After trying unintentionally we believe numerous times to kill himself with a lifestyle forged from the dangerous combination of too much of any and everything way too fast, Richard Pryor can finally be laid to rest.

The most unfortunate thing about Mr. Pryor is that as is so often the case, the advancements of our time completely diminish the man's impact.

Mr. Pryor was a revolutionary forged from the ashes of the civil rights movement. He picked up the mantle vacated by the political leaders of the day and trudged forward in the ensuing vacuum speaking truth to power in the only way power would accept it. With a punchline. With all the people standing on his shoulders, from every stand-up comedian from Robin Williamsm Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy to Chris Rock, Chris Tucker and Eddie Murphy, it is no wonder the man developed Muscular Sclerosis. I am kidding about that, of course.

I could sit here all night and outline the way EVERY SINGLE STAND-UP COMEDIAN who did stand up from 1965, whether they curse or not, takes at least ONE cue from Richard Pryor. The only possible exception would be Bill Cosby, and even Bill shares some similarities, in the story telling department.

It is impossible to overstate his impact.

• Richard Pryor had the ear of just about every person in America. We went to his movies, watched what he wrote for himself and others on television, bought records just to hear him talk, went to movies of him standing there with a microphone talking.
  

• He both gave the word nigger power, and took all the sting out of it, leading anyone, if only for a second to think they could say it.
• Essentially, 99.9994% of Black Stand-up Comedians stole their act from him, some with more success than others.
• He picked up the mantle originally brandished by Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, before and along side him, and broadened the discourse, including the desesitization of most people to profanity in everyday speech. (whether or not this was a good thing is a subject for debate for many, but the fact is he is responsible.)
• Hip-Hop has taken so many cues from him it boggles the mind, considering he was on the backslide of his career during almost the entirety of its existence.
• Hollywood started to get used to the possibility of a black male lead on the back of Mr. Pryor. without Silver Streak, there IS no 48 hours.

The world will mourn the passing of Mr. Pryor, a man who ironically enough spent much of his life trying to destroy himself with a debaucherous lifestyle only to die of natural causes at what can be classified as old age, although I am starting to believe 65 is no longer old age.

It is my hope that in the inevitable lionization of a fallen celebrity, that careful attention is paid to the context of Mr. Pryor's achievements. Many times when people do what is now commonplace for the first time, when those feats are recounted, they lose their gravitas. Hopefully all that Mr. Pryor has done will retain its significance.

Pour a little Kool-Aid out for Mr. Pryor today.

Not this time.

I almost didn't post.


But here I am.

I got stuff on my mind. Had to calm my nerves last night. I learned on my first blogging Foray (SubtleWarrior, damn I miss that name) that I cannot BWITM.

"Blogging while in the moment" is hazardous to my health. Some folk can get on the keyboard and blow it all out. I CAN do that. But I don't think I should. I know me. I can get RAW.

twisted burnt carcasses over the landscape raw.

I write on emotion. it focuses me and brings out the best in me. Sadly, I think love has made me soft. I am so happy (usually) these days that I lack the edge that defines me.

Right this minute, I am NOT happy, and I feel the swagger surrounding me.

One small problem, I can only think about WHY I am not happy.

I cannot write about that. a smidgen of that swagger is what got me in this fix in the first place.

Jack Frost needs to be dealt with. let me get on my grind ASAP.

the clock is ticking....

Once again...too much going on not enough time.


I need about 27 hours in a day.


Or not to BS around so much.


in the mean time....how funny is THIS?


BTW...She says I cannot be that funny. We will just have to see about that.

You were looking for a smoking gun??? Here is a gun.

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

Murray Waas in the National Journal


Um...If we can move for impeachment against Clinton, SURELY this should be enough, although it's a little late now.