"Just another Manic Monday" (c) The Bangles

"Wooo hoooo!" That's been my catch phrase since the kiddies have been away. Thus far, there have been no major disturbances in the Force. I have been charged with the duty of having as exciting a summer as possible by the Harlem Bon Vivant. Two and a half weeks into my summer, and here's what's been going on:

Mamba's Making That Monay!

I have made it known that my hustle is not a game. That will not be changing. It's really good to set personal goals and meet them.

Mamba's Hitting Them Streets!

Last week, my friend from work invited me for a night on the town. We hit up a local watering hole where the dj mixed current radio hits, reggae, reggaeton, and house music. Good times.

Funny Mamba story: I go to clubs for the ambience. Being a 504 girl to the bone, I just LOVE to be around people having a good time. I'm happy because they're happy, ya dig? However, that means I tend to get a little lost in the ambience and oblivious to what is going on around me. So, when the white guy standing in front of me had his hand out, I simply presumed he was the bus boy, wanting to take my Red Bull can, so I gave it to him. My friends fell out laughing, because he wasn't asking for my can; he was trying to get me to join him on the floor and shake my can. Once I saw that he had a neck tattoo, it all made sense.

Mamba's Talkin' 'Bout Music!

Last week the "Black People Awards" were on. I guess I'd like to first say that the name "Pretty Ricky" always disturbed me. Whilst gazing upon some red carpet pictures, I discovered they have faces like diseased, inverted rectums. Ugh. Fate was kind to me, and I've flicked past the channel twice when the awards show was on. Each time, it was during Al Green's performance. I don't care what channel he's on - the KKK network even - I love me some Al Green.

Rhianna gave a wannabe Beyonce performance reminiscent of when Beyonce was going through her wannabe diva extraordinaire phase. So, when you're the wannabe of the wannabe. . .? Stay in your lane and get to shakin. I'm kind of bothered by the fact that her face is shaped like a croissant.

Mamba's Talkin' 'Bout Prince!

Technically, this could have gone under the music section, but I feel the need to separate this. I'm sure I will take a lot of heat for this, however, I happen to be one of those people who do NOT see Prince as the beginning and end of music. I think he's infinitely talented. I think he can write a song like no other. I think "The Beautiful Ones" possesses the ability to make panties fly off the body and across the room. That being said, I'm kind of over the elitist, recluse thing. I appreciate artists who recognize their talent as a blessing from whatever higher power they believe in; those who use their talent to lay claim to deification, not so much.

Mamba's Going to the Movies!

One of the things I've been waiting to do is see "R" rated movies. Can't do that with the kiddies. However, nothing has piqued my interested. However, I can't WAIT until July 18, 2008. Who's gonna be seeing Bruce Wayne on an IMAX screen? THIS CHICK!

Mamba's Pondering

Why is it that whenever the 2520s are trying to appeal to the "urban" market, they're encouraging us to get some shit "on?" "Get your credit on." "Get your mortgage on." That type of shit. That's racist as all hell. Stop it.

I harbor the same resentment for those McDonald's Southern Fried Chicken sandwich commercials. It's always some negro saying, "This shole is how Big Mama useta fry my chicken." This reminiscence would only hold water if McDonalds were selling a chicken leg sandwich, where the chicken had been so heavily stewed, the bone had slide out of the leg. However, as they are marketing, not only a breast (i.e., "the big piece of chicken") but a breast FILET, I say hogwash!

Alltel spending a lot of money on marketing; however, no one has been able to name 3 friends who have Alltel as a service provider. I read that Alltel is being bought out by Verizon. Is there trickery afoot?

According to my sister, that dude I with whom I was once joined in ungodly matrimony, has cut his hair. Does this mean I can no longer call him "Press-N-Curl" or "Poop Dogg." I am currently in search of a new name. Please post suggestions in the comments box.

Thank you for your support.

The call out

Still living in a cyclone, but I'm trying to get my life in some form of organized chaos. However, I have not been so busy as to not notice the following people are missing:

A(nother) C(onspiracy T(heorist) - WHAT THE HELL! Where you been? Do I have to send Gil Grissom out for your ass? Post something!

Extra Flavory - Yeah, we talk and shit, but that doesn't matter. You have funny stories that MUST be told. POST NEGRO!

Bint Alshamsa - Okay, you post, and that's how I know you're not trapped under something heavy. CALL ME HO!

Jali - We're about to be in July homie. Are YOU trapped under something heavy? Someone heavy? You being nasty? Oooooooh I'm tellin...ok, I'm jealous.

Amadeo - You've been posting, but I just feel the need to tax you on your A.C. winnings. You ain't fooling nobody. . .

Cliff - Thank you for holding it down. Of course, 504 gotta show folks how it's done.

(I am so happy to have a free moment, I really don't know what to do with myself. I'll be posting something substantive in the near future. Smooches.)

Like Whoa!

So people, your girl has been mad busy since the kids left for the summer. I spent last weekend investing my time in my personal business venture (please note the link to the right beautiful people). In addition to that, I've put in about 24 overtime hours at my gig. MY HUSTLE IS NOT A GAME!

I promise I'll be back for those of you who love me. However, I can't go without dropping a little goodness on you. I was listening to my iPod and this song came up? Remember this? What happened to this chick? This used to be the jam!

Today

Is one of those days where I'm working through just a little bit of rigamarole emotionally. I'm not down. I'm not even going "through it." I'm just having a moment. Mary knows what I'm talking about:

Marketing for that A$$!

I swear before God... and four more white people! This is the last time!
- Gator Purify

aka "The Ghetto Can't Keep NUTHIN!"

White people and crack. Really? Rock n roll, locs and Tina Turner wasn't enough? They had to get in on this crack thing too? That's heavy. And you know the shit is about to hit the fan because it's white women who are getting strung out. You saw how they started putting the hammer down on meth production. This government will NOT sit idly by and let white folks get strung out on cheap drugs. I'm not sure of the logic behind it, I'm just citing the way things are. This can not bode well for the hood.

Here is my question: How, in 2008, are people still being convinced to smoke crack. We know what crackheads look like. I have personally been offered a big screen tv for $100.00 that a woman was selling without her husband's knowledge. (She did eventually sell it, and I was ear-witness to the subsequent beating. Life on Cindy Place was a FOOL!) With that knowledge, I KNOW crack isn't something I want any part of.

I don't consider myself any less susceptible to getting got than the next person, so I don't think it takes Festivus-worthy feats of strength to avoid the pitfalls of crack. I am a firm believer in tackling your problems, so needless to say, I find drug abuse a bit of a copout. Is their rationale, "I'm gonna keep this crack thing in check"? Do they mistakenly believe sucking dick for rocks will not be their eventuality?

And further, when was smoking a rock an acceptable excuse when grieving the death of a pet. I know Caucasians have a special affinity for canines, but word? Have they stopped making chocolate? Is there a special Hallmark card that has a small vial attached for rocks?

I swear, I don't understand this world anymore.

This Is Only For Their Own Good

You can imagine how distressed I was when I saw this last week. See, evidently, Negroes want something done about the crime in their area. And in repayment for their desire to have standard safety precautions, Cathy Lanier, the MPD Police Chief, decided the only way this could be accomplished is by instituting police-state measures.

I have said it before, I will repeat it now, and I am certain I will have occasion to say it again: whenever a zero tolerance measure is taken, its negative impact of people of color is an inevitability. It's never a matter of "if", merely WHEN. They feel somewhat justified in their tactic because there were no shootings during that time period. Um. What about other crimes? Were there rapes? Robberies? Stabbings?

I can also say that I find the MPD as a whole, to be among the most unprofessional police forces I have ever witnessed. Considering I grew up in New Orleans, that's saying something. If I had half a penny for every time I saw a member of MPD driving with one hand on the wheel and another on their cell phone, I'd be able to purchase all the tea in China and the oil in the Middle East.

I grew up in a city where you can be surrounded by mansions on one block, and crack houses on the next. Therefore, the city's paler residents are often unshielded by crime. So they have regular meetings with the police department. They build up a rapport. Sometimes they even have the cops over for coffee. They discuss plans of action, options, take feedback. If you think this same thing takes place in black neighborhoods, allow me to hand you your fool of the year trophy. IF you get a meeting, you are told what is going to happen, and that's that. See, the police have to keep you rowdy niggers in line, and your tiny brains can't comprehend a plan involving law and order. Period.

Part of the reason this is problematic is because black folks don't trust the police. Policemen participated in lynchings. Policemen turned hoses and attack dogs on non-violent civil rights marchers. For those who feel these statements are merely me living in the past, I'll catch you up. Policemen sodomized Abner Louima with a plunger, then one pranced around the police station as though he deserved a medal for doing so. Policemen shot Amadou Diallo 41 times. Policemen shot at Sean Bell's car roughly 48 times, with one of those bullets almost hitting people half a block away. My point in all this, people of color have never been made to feel at ease around the police. As they are SERVANTS, it is incumbent upon THEM to gain OUR trust. Not the other way around.

But, since people of color often don't have the financial means, it is tantamount to not having a voice. And that's beyond frightening.

"I wonder if them gates was put up to keep crime out
or keep our ass in?"
- Cee Lo of Goodie Mob

Banned Books Meme

Ripped this from Bint

This is a list of the top 110 banned books.

Bold the ones you've read completely and italicize the one's you've read at least some of. I've got work to do. . .

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 A Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

"Here's my ten cents and my two cents is free" (c) Eminem

Okay, I'm sure some folks won't necessarily like what I say, but it really needs to be said. (Please note, this is my personal opinion, and if you are sensitive and like this show/movie, you may suffer from hurt feelings.)

SEX AND THE CITY IS THE MOST BORING AND HELLACIOUS SHIT EVER! EVER, I SAID!

I cram to understand the obsession with the sex lives of four pre-menopausal Caucasian females on a show that had virtually NO consistent black representation (save when Blair Underwood was dicking down Foot Face aka Sarah Jessica Parker or when they had the "up the butt" trannies). If that weren't enough, Foot Face made a statement regarding Jennifer Hudson's addition (as an assistant, mind you), because she wanted to be responsible to the African American female viewers. Now, I know quite a few women that live in New York. Most, if not ALL of them, have professions. They are directors, executives, musicians. NONE of them are assistants. So, for the token to be a gopher, really, they could have kept that. I didn't expect her to be a friend, but hell, a professional neighbor, a boss, something?

Let me also say that I found the show itself to be boring as all hell. There were moments that I found mildly entertaining, but never enough to sustain my interest for more than 8 minutes. I've tried giving it another shot now that it comes on TBS, yet, I still combat the desire to commit seppuku when I attempt to view the show for more than ten minutes. Here's my take on it: Samatha's got "the bonus," Carrie suffers from from pediculus countenansus ("Foot Face" in Melanie's phoney baloney Latin), Charlotte is mildly retarded, and Miranda really isn't fooling anyone with that "I date men" shit. WIGGETY WIGGETY WIGGETY WACK!

At the end of the day, people like what they're going to like. That being said, what's up with dragging men to see this. One comedian said that if a dude's woman is trying to make him see this movie with him, he needs to find her some friends, because she obviously has none. Real talk. I understand wanting to do the "togetherness" thing, but really. My theory is that going to see this movie is a test for gateway activity. Don't be fooled men. If your woman gets you to go see this movie today, she's going to "gently" introduce the idea of you getting ass fucked within four weeks. MAX! I envision it something like this:

Hey baby. What's for dinner.

I appreciated you coming to see that with me so much, I made your favorite, [husband food with husband side dishes and beer and shit].

Thanks so much baby.

You know, it's great that you shared that experience with me. It shows that you truly are a progressive brother and you make an effort to appreciate the things that I enjoy. I was thinking that since you are so progressive. . .

Now, this segue will vary depending on the relationship, but it will not end before you've finished a sufficient amount of your first beer and the desired end involves having a rather uncomfortable conversation with your proctologist.

Now, I'm not here to tell you what you should watch. I'm not here to tell you what you should not watch. Simply using my blog for rumination. And warning brothers to protect not only ya neck, but potentially ya ass.