It's on you homey.

So this blog is long over due. I was just sitting here listening to a child tell me how everything is her mother's fault. Her father cheated on her mother because her mother was mean. Her mother broke up with a man who used her because her mother was mean. Her mother could have made her father stay with him. Her father is the victim and her mother is not.

I had someone check my email once and told me she was obviously warranted because of what she found. I laughed. No that doesn't justify it. You did it because you wanted to and you just happened to find something. Don't blame everybody for your mistakes.

I remember a family member getting upset because she wasn't getting phone calls from people. In such simple brilliance, he said "if you want to talk on the phone, you'll make a phone call". In my terms, that's "get over yourself and just call the person you want to talk to".

At what point do we start to look at ourselves instead of playing the victim card? At what point do we take responsibility for our own actions. Nobody can make you do anything that you don't want to do. You made choices and have to live with the consequences. I don't blame anybody else. Maybe something did happen to me that caused me to react differently but the reality is I am responsible for how I act.

As I mentioned in a previous blog when I started meeting stalker after stalker I realized I needed to figure out what I was doing. It just took me a while to figure it all out. However if I'm figuring out what I'm doing to meet them and they're blaming me for their behavior the only person who ever gets fixed is me.

Blame doesn't matter. If I am in a relationship and we break up, who cares who dumped who? Am I 12? The result is the same. It's over!!! You get into the "he/she dumped me" role because you want someone to feel badly for you.

I don't know how many times I've heard people say to me, "why don't you call me". Well did you call me? If you wanted to talk to me, are you so full of yourself that you can't dial a damn phone? Are you so self important that you just sit there waiting for people to ring your phone? Get over yourself. My grandfather has been in the hospital and his phone goes crazy while he's in there but he also makes the time to call people he wants to talk to. It's called personal responsibility.

If I allowed someone else to dictate what I do then I am so weak minded that someone else has mind control over me(insert Friday line here). The sad truth is that people have used this way of thinking to rationalize bigotry. "My grandfather dislikes Mexican people because one day my cousin was jumped by three Mexican guys". I've actually heard someone use that line. So if the people who jumped your cousin looked like you would he hate you? I doubt it.

Look people stop playing the damn victim card. You do the shit you do because you choose to do so. You don't do it because of any reason other than that. You can only control one person in your life and that's yourself. If you're an asshole, it's because of you. If you got dumped, it's because of you. If you

It's my fight

I have written 21 blogs. Amazing. In the course of time that I've written my 21 blogs, I've covered a variety of topics. I've addressed some relatively controversial subjects. However the most interesting thing is, when I've written about myself or things that I feel, I get the biggest response. People allow their own guilt to make them project onto my blog. I've had people assume my blog was about them (many times). Considering I've said no one person will motivate a blog, people allow their guilt and ego to take over and make the assumption anyways. I've been asked if someone just pissed me off, all because of a blog. My mother is the only one person who motivated a blog. You're not on her level, so knock it off.

Seriously folks, how can you get upset with me for my blog? This could be my outlet. Everyone has one. As long as I am not projecting my outlet in a way that harms you, there should be no issue. If I am not yelling at you, hitting you, threatening you, or attacking you, leave it alone. This is the difference between someone punching a wall and punching you. This is the difference between screaming in a pillow and screaming at you. You can't tell someone how to fight their fight. Yes, it's a fight. Life is full of them. You have a fight; you win the fight; you lose the fight; and hopefully you learn from the fight.

When I was a kid, I used to live across the street from this big lot. At the time I called it a park because there was grass, but the truth is, it was a grassy lot. (For those of you in Rhody, it's the park next to the Messer st fire station.) Now that park was the stuff where legends were made. You had volleyball games where I actually saw a guy get shot at over an in out argument. You had kids being able to identify crack vials because they were everywhere...mostly red tops in that spot. However, one day I was outside and this kid decided he was going to roll up some dried leaves in toilet paper, and smoke them. He insisted you would get high off of them. I believed if people could get high from smoking fallen leaves, then people wouldn't buy drugs. Therefore, I called him stupid. He proceeded to want to fight, but instead of fighting he picked up a bottle, broke it and came at me. Now based on when I lived there I was somewhere between 9 and 12 years old. I ran...hell yeah I ran. I ran straight home, into my kitchen and grabbed a steak knife. As I went to go back outside with my steak knife my mother came out of her room, and we'll just say she gave me a stern talking to. She also proceeded to question my manhood because I was afraid of some kid chasing me with a bottle. She sent be back outside, to fight my fight my way.

Yes that was a long story but the point was that she didn't take away my fight. She didn't go outside and yell at the kid. I had changed the way I was going to fight because he had a different fighting method. She "suggested" against it. No matter what, it was still my fight.

We all have outlets. Outlets for our range of emotions. Maybe we scream when we're angry and throw pillows when we're upset. Maybe we, cry when we're happy, and cry when we're sad, and cry when we're upset. Maybe we just bitch no matter what the emotion. However maybe we write. Maybe we could write to ourselves and just get it out, but we allow other people to see our outlet because they might learn from my fights. When I don't write, I get emails asking me where's my next blog. When I do, I get emails getting mad at me for my blog. As I said before, you don't have to read it. Maybe I don't want to punch walls, scream or cry.


All you can do with someone else's fight is help. If you see them about to do something you've already done, you can offer advice. Nothing more. You can't do more because you're not the one living with the consequences. If you cold cocked someone in a situation and you advise that to me, are you going to serve my prison sentence? The answer is, unless your that dude who went to jail for Notorious BIG, no. I don't see any of my friends going to jail for me. I'm damned sure not going for you. I'm a black, yankee who lives in the south. That's as close to prison as I want to get.

This is me fighting my fight. This is not my passive aggressive cry for help. This is not my passive aggressive way to let you know I'm mad at you. This is not my passive aggressive way of letting you know I'm going to hurt you. This is me fighting my fight. I don't have time to fight your fight because I'm too busy fighting mine. If your fight doesn't keep you busy enough, that's because you're probably not fighting it.

Men get no holidays

Ok so this is long overdue. This is my note to all the wives, girlfriends, fiance's and whatever else out there.

There are lists of suspect holidays out there. If we begin in January, we first hit Valentine's day. V-day is a day for women. Aside from the fact that it's not even a real holiday it's not for us. I was also once told to never trust anything with the initials VD. It's a day with some crazy winged guy who still wears diapers and shoots people with arrows. What kind of shit is that? I get shot with an arrow to notice some woman; in the words of Biggie, "Somebody's got to die".

The next day in question is not St Paddy's day. Any day that encourages drinking is a good day. Instead we'll discuss Mother's day. No there's nothing wrong with Mother's having a holiday. The issue is that Father's get robbed on Father's day. Father's get wack gifts, forgotten about, or church speeches about deadbeat dads. I mean come on now. So yes in the duo that we'll call Parent's day, women win.

So the suspect holidays continue to Columbus day (a day celebrating stealing...I mean discovering a country that already had people living there). I'm going to walk into someone's new house, call a whole bunch of people and say I discovered the house.

Since Thanksgiving just passed I won't ignore it. Yes it's another suspect holiday. We should rename is family reunion day. The natives didn't kick it with the pilgrims arguing whether sweet potato pie is better than pumpkin. No they may have been serving, but the truth is they were probably pissed that these cats came and ran them off of their land. So if I become President Thanksgiving shall be renamed.

By now you're probably thinking I'm just bitching but no, this is going somewhere. Notice, men have no holiday. Yes, we do but it gets ignored. It occurs every Sunday for approximately 21 weeks if you include playoffs. Sunday's are for two things: God and Football. The only person who should bother me on Sunday is God. Now if God wants to talk to me, I'm probably going to miss football, unless they have plasmas in heaven, but he's exempt.

We don't ask for much. Maybe we want some hot wings, but all in all we just want to be left to scratch ourselves and not have to answer silly questions. I don't care how much you miss me on Sunday. I'm not even thinking about you. I'm thinking about how much of a freak of nature Adrian Peterson is. I'm thinking, they need to stop all these rules to protect players and let people get hit. I'm thinking I really do enjoy celebration dances. However I'm not thinking how much I'd like to be cuddled up with you. I'm not thinking "I want to go shopping" or "Who's having a great sale". Yes, you're more than welcome to sit next to me during the game, but the first time I hear how hot Mike Tomlin is, you must go somewhere else.

Sunday is our day, also Saturday, Monday night, and sometimes Thursday night. You can have the rest of the week and damnit the rest of the year. 21 weeks...that's all I ask.

Role models

While in the store today I saw a young black man who was dressed urban. He was putting on his best gangsta act but then he saw this man and pulled his pants up, shook his hand and turned into a completely different person. That made me think of me.

As a kid I hung out in the streets. I got into fights, stayed out late, got into trouble and had a few brush ups with the police. However I always stayed out of getting into major trouble. A few years ago I saw one of my old friend's mother. There were always 3 of us. Every day we would walk up and down the street, just hanging out. Both of them have spent quality time in the Rhode Island Corrections system. She looked at me and we had the "what are you up to" conversation. I told you what had happened from 1995 until now and she just looked amazed. That followed with "how the hell did you manage to stay out of the trouble they got in?" My answer was simple "I knew when to go home".

The truth is it wasn't that simple. I had a mother who even after her passing ruled me by fear. I was terrified of getting in trouble. That still wasn't it though. The truth is I was lucky enough to have male role models. I've heard people talk about how their father wasn't around and how hard they had it but the truth is that's a shitty excuse. I had 2 father's...biological and non. Both were very different and both had their influences. One was around me a bit more than the other but that's not to negate the importance of both.

My decisions were based on my non parental figures. I have uncles, a lot of them. One uncle was the guy I wanted to be. He was cool. He was a ladies man. He was smart. He was street smart and yes he was a convicted felon. My grandfather once told me you have to separate the message from the messenger. Sometimes the best lessons are learned from the worst people. I looked at him, saw him and he drove me. Even when he was away his friends would make sure to keep me out of parties and bad situations. He was too cool to let everyone know how smart he was so yes he does fall into the category of wasted talent. My uncle has taught me how to be street smart, yet be book smart. He has provided me with the street edge that separates me from many people. I was able to take the street knowledge he gave me and use it in corporate America.

I also had my cousin. My cousin was smart also but he was not as much of the trouble maker than my uncle was. Both of them are approximately 6 - 8 years older than me, so they fit more into the mold of my big brother than uncle. However my cousin showed me that it's ok to show emotion. He taught me how to treat people. He taught me to respect my family, and be a role model. He stood in front of me crying his eyes out and told me that my mother has passed just minutes before. Because of him it was ok for me to cry. My cousin was there for my prom, gave my some advice and pulled my pants up. My cousin is artistic and taught me that it's ok for a man to write, act, dance or sing.

Lastly I would like to address the collection of my uncles. I had/have 8 or so of them. All of them served their role in my life. If they saw me walking somewhere I shouldn't be they told me to get out of there. Whenever I saw them I always treated them with respect and they would have kicked my ass if I didn't. My uncles would see me and give me the last dollar from their pocket.

Your father is meant to teach you many things. Some of the things I learned outside my pop taught me. However it's often the job of the child to ignore what pop teaches me. He was too old and not cool enough to be able to tell me these things. He's the guy who took me to see Boys in the Hood and made sure I got the inner message that Trey stayed out of trouble because his father was around. He's the guy who makes the tough decisions and does the things to make you a good man some day. He makes the unpopular decisions that make you dislike him rather than the ones you like.

I want people to stop with the damn excuses. Everybody has role models. They come from all forms and they tell you the same things I've been told. Some of the things are good, some are bad, some are productive and some are useless, but we have to listen. We have to take responsibility for filtering. We can't smack a woman and say "My dad hit my mother". Grow your ass up and take personal responsibility for the things you've done.

This blog may not have the excitement of some others but these are my thoughts...get over it.

It's your clock...not mine

I would like to begin with the idea that this blog has not been prompted by any individual person.

I understand that we live in a me world. Everyone things they are important which is part of the reason why we see people walking around constantly on the phone. However the thing that I've come to realize is that we don't respect other people's clocks.

I recall one day sitting, talking to my grandfather and he was telling me about a woman who expressed that it was "imperative" that he get back to her. He voiced his annoyance to me. It may be important to her but it might not be all that important to me (I didn't quote that because he used language not appropriate for use in my blog). I often return to that thought.

Just recently I have had my own trials with life. Some obstacles to overcome but the world doesn't seem to care about those. Frankly, I don't ask the world to care, just respect that maybe they rank higher on my priority list than does your bullshit. Just because you send me a text doesn't mean I have to respond right away. Especially if in the grand scheme of things, it's not that damn important. It ranks high as hell on your clock but not on mine. If it did, then I would have responded sooner. The thing we must know is that just because they don't handle it the way you want them to doesn't mean they won't get to it. It means they will when they have time...when the other stuff sifts out and they get to where your thing ranks.

I mean shit, I was on a bicycle and got hit by a damn car not even a month ago, do you really think your shit is more important to me than that? N to the izzo.

Funny thing about the bike story is that I actually had people get mad at me for missing meetings when it happened. Damnit I missed school, do you really thing I'm not going to miss your meeting? How about I run your ass over and tell me if you respond to every outlook invitation you get? Like grandpa says, "common sense is not common" or as I like to say "I'm trying to apply logic to an illogical situation".

I had someone tell me that I could have responded to their text by telling them I'm busy. Do I need to respond to that? Just read that and tell me if that makes sense. That's like getting mad at someone who went to the ER for standing you up.

If you send a text and the person doesn't respond, you wait. Eventually they'll get back to you. That doesn't mean you keep texting. That doesn't mean you begin emailing. That doesn't mean you call. That means you wait and keep going with your life. I have a life, part of it includes you and part of it doesn't. Just because you only care about the part that includes you doesn't mean the rest doesn't exist. It means you STFU and get on with your life. I'm not holding you up. I'll be damned if I let you hold me up.

Like I said, you don't have to make someone else's clock your clock, but you should respect the fact that theirs is completely different from yours. In the words of the one hit wonder Rocko "You just do you, Imma do me".

The fact that I had to actually write this blog should be filed in the category of absolutely ri-god-damn-diculous shit that should instead be obvious.

The angry black man

I've been in the south a little over a month and most people are shocked that I haven't had more to write. However it's been a lot of smile in your face and pretend to be your buddy, so there's been nothing to express. We all know that can only last but so long before the real you comes out. Guess what folks the real you has come out. I've learned that I'm the angry black man. I've gone to two relatively highly ranked schools, who had a larger population of majority versus other. While going to these schools I've never been painted with the angry, lazy negro brush. However going along with public perception of the south the time is now.

Maybe it's me. Maybe it's the 10,000 Boston College students who never told me that's how I was looked at. Better yet, maybe it's the 500 University of Chicago GSB (it wasn't Booth when I was there so it's not Booth now) students who didn't paint me with that brush. I'm in a small southern school, where I am forced to dress the part. Yes I have to go to class dressed in business casual attire. I wore tims, white tees, air force ones, baggy jeans, north face coats, Boston oversized hats and had my headphones on but was never painted with that brush at either place. I wear argyle v necks, collared shirts, dress paints, and church shoes, but I am the angry black man.

I men a woman today who I discussed this with only to learn that she's the angry black woman. Her? Are you serious? Is that because she wraps her hair, speaks her mind and won't take your shit or is that because she's over 5'4", dark brown skin, and wraps her hair? Tell me it doesn't matter.

I was told that it's my job to fit in, speak up, and make sure I'm heard. The majority of the people reading this blog will laugh when they read that I need to speak up, or speak my mind. Some of you may even beg to meet the version of me that you've met. Maybe it's not me. Maybe it's not us.

Is the latino definitely going to stab you? Is the outspoken woman a bitch or lesbian? Is the big black man angry or lazy? The probability is actually no. The truth is that these may be true occasionally but the visual minority is what you know.

I'm a big, black, yankee, man who is living in a south that hasn't let go of the war. MF it's over. We's allowed to read now boss. Maybe I'm angry because I have to come to school and fight a fight that should be over damn it. Maybe I seem lazy because I'm 32 years old and see a bunch of millennials bickering about shit that isn't that important.

Maybe that Puerto Rican woman is just pissed that you just stared at her ass instead of listening to what she had to say. Yes before you say it, I looked at her ass, but she didn't catch me.

The point is that maybe you should actually step outside of your box, considering we step outside of ours every damn day, all day.

He tests us to make sure we are worthy

There are times in one's life when we are tested. I've looked at my life many times and I swear these tests need to stop. It seems every time there's something good coming, I get slapped in the face with something else.

I have lost my mother, my aunts, an uncle, cousins, and one of my best friends. The list seems short when put this way but it's a lot longer. I've been told that some people thought I would just grow up to be a screw up (they clearly didn't know my mama). That was never an option. With that the three people in my life I am closest to are my brother, my grandfather and his wife. Believe me, I love many other family members, but these are the ones who motivate me. I continuously try to give my brother a good role model even though he's technically grown and I try to make the other two proud of me.

This time I was getting ready to move and re-begin my grad school career. I had everything lined up to go. I was excited, my family was ready to get me out of their house and then it happened. My grandfather took ill. This had happened before but without getting into detail this time was different to me. Although I knew he would never allow me to not leave for school the thought did cross my mind. If I could have my way my grandpa would live forever. Many people say that but come on, I've lost enough, I think it's not really all that unreasonable to desire.

I spent days at the hospital. Sleeping on the couch next to him, watching him sleep, ignoring projects that needed to be done before the move. I kept my mind open that he would get out of the hospital before I left. How could I leave my grandfather in the hospital? He's done so many things to take care of me. It's my turn. He's been there to help me talk about my mother and answer questions about what she would think of me now. He's put a foot in my ass when I needed and been there to hug me after. There was no way I could feel comfortable leaving with him not himself.

The Drs came daily and every time they would be ready to let him out of the hospital, there would be some set back. This came all the way up to 2 days before I was to leave. My birthday is coming up and all I wanted was for my grandfather to be out of the hospital. Yes, this was a selfish want but it's my want. I had friends who told me to have faith. Openly I had faith but quietly I just wondered what was the point to this test. I never denied or doubted my God but I sure did wonder what I was supposed to get out of this test.

Tuesday morning came and I had come to grips with the fact that I had to leave with my grandfather still in the hospital. So, I went on and ran my final errands, packed my clothes and got things in order so I could spend the afternoon and evening at the hospital. Then I got the call. My grandfather was coming home. There's an old saying, "He may not be there when you call him, but he's always right on time". Man, if that ain't the truth.

I've known people to pray for jobs, for money, for a good grade on a test, but those prayers weren't answered. I've prayed for people to live and those prayers weren't answered. However I truly believe God knows your breaking point and will push you to that point just to make sure you are grateful. Grateful for what you do have and what you need vs what you want. He'll push you to make sure you understand what's important. He'll push you to grow your faith. He'll push you until you fall to your knees and cry out "Why have you forsaken me?"

He has hurt you to your core, so that he may strip you of all obstacles. He needs to make sure you are completely bare, so that he may heal you at your inner most point. He needs to heal you so that it will last. Now it is our responsibility to realize when this has been done and to learn from it. Many of us have thanked God for something but not learned anything from the experience. If I don't learn from the test and blessing I was given...well I don't want to think about that.

Had this story had a different result would I feel the way I do? Probably not. That doesn't make me anything but flawed. If I were perfect I'd be Christ, not Christian.